Author Hunter S. Thompson Commits Suicide

ASPEN, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counter-culture author of books such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself Sunday night at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.

"Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," Juan Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=4&u=/ap/20050221/ap_on_re_us/obit_thompson

Some jerks are voting it down-

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050221/ap_on_re_us/obit_thompson

Also, scroll down to where it says "Post/Read Messages" and share your feelings. People are spewing poisonous shit about him.

their message boards have some entertainment value if you can be thick skinned, but don't think for one second that there is any serious discourse going on there.

There are people on their trashing him, hundreds of them.

i think as long as you have him in your thoughts, that's what's most important. the people saying hurtful things about hst are probably looking for a fight, and chances are, a.) know nothing about him and b.) are not about to change their mind.
i totally know where you're coming from, its immensely frustrating---but as hst in 'where the buffalo roam' stated: "fuck those people bronco." (and that could have been totally misquoted, before anybody jumps down my throat! but it's the meaninggg that counts, ja?)

and mostly, hunter wouldn't have been doing his job properly if he hadn't pissed off a gazillion people, i don't think we could love him as much otherwise.

Sheriff deputies and an ambulance responded to a call around 6 p.m. for a self-inflicted gunshot wound at Thompson's residence, a neighbor said. By 6:30 p.m., Thompson's home at 1278 Woody Creek Road was sealed off by a sheriff's van.

Shortly thereafter, a counselor with Aspen Counseling Center, a local organization that provides support for victims at crime scenes, arrived at the residence. An unidentified man leaving the property said "there are a lot of hurt family members up [at the house]."

More here.

Larry Kramer, former Chairman and CEO of MarketWatch, now an executive for Dow Jones... said Thompson "had a better sense of politics and campaigns than anyone I've worked with. He could handicap 50 congressional races and be right on 49."

Kramer also said he remembered, vividly, several incidents working with Thompson.

"One time we got a call from a San Francisco hotel shortly after he had stayed there on a visit to see us," Kramer said. "They wanted us to pay $2,400 for his three nights. When we pressed for a detailed bill, there was a $2,00 item called 'miscellaneous damage' ... something to do with an ice machine that had been shot through with a gun."

The second, Kramer said, "involved a call from a hospital where he had been taken for an emergency appendectomy. They told us they couldn't perform the operation until they had spent a couple days giving him a full blood wash ... apparently his bloodstream was polluted with alcohol and several interesting drugs ... and they were afraid of side effects."

Full article here.

x(

n/

NO! NO! NO! Can't be, say it ain't so!

RIP dear fellow. But why?

He can shower us with angelic stash;)

unlike most people.

I've never heard of him.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 is one of the best books ever.

Also a long time reporter for Rolling Stone

:shrug:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I guess you know everything,and know everybody,don't you? I can't help it because I've never heard of this man. But that doesn't make me an "ignorant" person,either. You've just been put on ignore.

reporting. Great stuff.

and The Great Shark Hunt are both great books. I've read all but the newest book that he wrote. Very opinionated but very intelligent. Luckily for me, his opinions are close to mine politically so I loved his books. I'm sorry to hear of his passing.

Mr Duke in Doonesbury. His real name was Raul Duke. He was an original.

Come to think of it, he lived longer than I thought he would.

:tinfoilhat:

He came out a lot more lately with his interviewing multiple times in the past year including with High Times, even going so far as to say he was on a personal mission still, which suggests to me that he was suicided, not knowing him personally though I cannot say for sure one way or the other.

used to have peacocks, love politics and guns, hate the right wing and war, and love a few other things he did too. I am truly sad he died, and I just have a hard time seeing him killing himself. I wish there was something I could have done. It makes me sad so many of my heros when I was a kid have died in the last few years, Kesey, Jerry, Ginsburg, Burroughs, and now Thompson. All old style democrats, men of the people with a strong libertarian streak.

me=stupid:(

You=not stupid :)

It would have been made public long ago.

This is what he said about them in 2003, "Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads?" he writes, referring to the people currently occupying the White House. "They are the racists and hate mongers among us -- they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis."

Hated them. Sorta like we all do here.

When the news turned bad in early November, I couldn't get him out of my mind. He'd written this great article in "Rolling Stone" expounding on how great Kerry was - they knew each other - and how much he was looking forward to a Kerry presidency. He said he was eager to wake up the morning after the election, to the news that Kerry had won and that America had awoken from its stupor, and he was firmly expecting it. I wondered, when bush "won," how he felt, and how he'd cope. I guess we know now.

SHIT.

It's not unlike when John Lennon died - on the eve of the Reagan administration. I felt so awful, knowing that we'd desperately need his voice and his perspective and now wouldn't have it. I have similar feelings now.

We have so few!

His article in Rolling Stone was the most uplifting of any that I'd read regarding the '04 election. He said that he knew that John was a brave man with a good heart. I really wondered how he must have felt when it was over.

Of course, this only compounds the damage to me. I'll always associate this wretched election with the demise of HST.

he was very vocal about his hatred of the BFEE.

I hate to think it would be possible but this crowd in the White House have shown they will sink to any level to get what they want.

Does anyone know maybe if he was ill, i mean terminally?

If he was terminally ill, he'd kill himself before he allowed himself to die a long, miserable, lingering death.

Either way, it's a terrible shame.

RIP HST.

I need to reread "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas."

That just totally ruined my day.

Mine too. I am in shock. What a loss. Gonzo gone.

I have to say, though, I am not really surprised by this sad news. He spent his life dancing pretty damn close to the flames.

He always seemed like a somewhat tortured soul to me. But it's still a great loss. He was truly original.

What a great writer he was. He will be missed.

We were jsut discussing him in another thread - this unf***ing-real!:cry:

A unique voice silenced.

You will be missed Hunter S. :(

What a mad genius he was. He exposed the sordid nature of his time and place like few authors ever do.

RIP.

He wouldn't shoot himself. If he was going to take himself out, he would have taken himself out in a way that would have been a trip. I mean, he would have just expanded his mind until he became part of the universe. I can't imagine that he would have wanted it over in a flash like that.

It just doesn't fit.

RIP Hunter.

It seems that TMI leads to depression and suicide. I know I've been more depressed lately.

-Hoot

pretty sparse.

He was a tortured soul. RIP Hunter.

Agh, is this some joke?

I can't even click on the link. ahghghghghghhg.

damn damn damn damn damn...

it makes me think about what he wrote re: Hemmingway...

gawd, but he was still writing, just got married...

damn damn damn...

he was making loud pig noises to Tim Russert only last year! whos
gonna do that now, Howard Fineman?

what a loss!

NOW I'LL NEVER GET TO READ 'POLO IS MY LIFE'!

RIP, Doc - you were one of the good guys.

.... at times most vital, Hunter Thompson, wherever you are.

shit.

Damn his hide for suicide!

Shit .. too. Goodnight Dr. Gonzo. Forever.

Mac

(I am a bummed-out fucker now)

wonder if it was voluntary suicide or not....

Maybe he's going after Nixon's ghost. Maybe I should go get wasted and shoot some inanimate object.



btw - what kind of scooter do you ride? '81 Vespa P125 (now a 177) here. Maybe I am assuming too much?

Wouuldn't that be a fucking laugh?

As to scooters, I was, until recently a British Bike freak, Triumphs, Nortons, BSA... scooters is their term for them.

I am now a full-fledged convert to Japanese bikes. They don't leak oil, they start when you want them to, they need minimal maintanence, parts are available most anywhere, mechanics too, they are smooth riding and reliable.

This is hilarious because I've been searching for information and found this site on the first Google page, only to find that people were joking. Well this may be a joke but I'm interested anyway.

This is what's on Wikipedia--

Strange rumors following the death of journalist Hunter S. Thompson in February of 2005 suggested Thompson's possibly possessing knowledge of, or a connection to, Deep Throat. The story likely involves Thompson's 70's era friendship with Nixon staffer Patrick J. Buchanan and circulated in emails leaked February 22, 2005, from a Virginia newsroom. In part, the forwarded memo addressed "speculation regarding identity" and "Thompson's relationship with a prominent Virginian." Recent speculation as to Deep Throat's poor health were also noted. Reports suggest that Thompson was not terminally ill, although his lawyer has stated that he believes the author planned his suicide for some time. Thompson suffered severe pain caused by recent back surgery and an artificial hip



Some days it's wonderful to be a Deep Throat buff, a Thompson fan, and an amateur conspiracy theorist. Well, not wonderful. RIP Duke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat_(Watergate)

I was getting so into the possibilities......damn.

I'd hop off the wagon for this one.

Geez.

Redstone

:cry::cry::cry:

:grouphug:

....shades of mysterious microbiologist slayings, a warning to all writers and journalists that free thinking and writing will not be tolerated any longer!

What a terrible loss. RIP Doc.

TYY:(

Does anyone know if he was writing a book about Shrubco? He's done it for everyone else and this group was particularly distasteful to him if I understand things correctly.

:tinfoilhat:

Just hard to believe he would end it this way.

What a tremendous loss. A fabulous writer and a brilliant mind.

..is very likely to go quietly in his sleep. I think Thompson always wanted to be Hemingway. Therefore, this is strangely fitting.

I'm sad that nothing more will be coming from him, but it seems he's been on borrowed time for twenty-five years.

Maholo.

Oops

"sniff - well, he was going downhill anyway."

if only the corpse could talk. he'd probably say, "it's Mahalo, not Maholo. Man, I only said it four hundred times."

You could just tell something was not right with him over...Christ...the last decade at least.

I'm a huge fan and like a lot of aspiring writers, a lot of the stuff I wrote in college sounded more like Thompson than my own voice. Like I said, I'm sad but not shocked.

And I have a feeling the Doctor would rip anyone who got sentimental about him.

Not only is what you wrote true - Hunter would have agreed. He lived life on his own terms and oviously chose to end it on his own terms.

i will miss him slamming the bush crime family

peace

The man just loved guns and drugs a teeney bit too much. His Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas changed my life, though.

Does this mean there's hope for * to follow Gonzo???!

ooohhhhhh I'm baaaaaaad.:evilgrin:

Are you referring to Thompson? He was William Burroughs' meaner self. The significant difference, Hunter might have said, "Fuck you!", while Bill would surely have said, "Fuck yea, man!"

there's just too much of this. I wonder if it's the anti-depressents that are causing this? Thompson was unique and had his share of mad genius but it's still shocking. :-(

Pure. God I'll miss him. There are no replacements.

I just turned 60, and I think most of the world sucks. If I didn't have this one person who loves me, depends on me, I'd take Hunter's way out gladly. Only Pollyannas can survive the madness.

and he knew it immediately.

Fear & Loathing in America
September 12 2001

by Hunter S. Thompson

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/thompson/010912.html

<snip>

And it was not even Bombs that caused this massive damage. No nuclear missiles were launched from any foreign soil, no enemy bombers flew over New York and Washington to rain death on innocent Americans. No. It was four commercial jetliners.


They were the first flights of the day from American and United Airlines, piloted by skilled and loyal U.S. citizens, and there was nothing suspicious about them when they took off from Newark, N.J., and Dulles in D.C. and Logan in Boston on routine cross-country flights to the West Coast with fully-loaded fuel tanks -- which would soon explode on impact and utterly destroy the world-famous Twin Towers of downtown Manhattan's World Trade Center. Boom! Boom! Just like that.

The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now -- with somebody -- and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.

It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy. Osama bin Laden may be a primitive "figurehead" -- or even dead, for all we know -- but whoever put those All-American jet planes loaded with All-American fuel into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon did it with chilling precision and accuracy. The second one was a dead-on bullseye. Straight into the middle of the skyscraper.

Nothing -- even George Bush's $350 billion "Star Wars" missile defense system -- could have prevented Tuesday's attack, and it cost next to nothing to pull off. Fewer than 20 unarmed Suicide soldiers from some apparently primitive country somewhere on the other side of the world took out the World Trade Center and half the Pentagon with three quick and costless strikes on one day. The efficiency of it was terrifying.

We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for WAR seem to know who did it or where to look for them.

This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed -- for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now. He will declare a National Security Emergency and clamp down Hard on Everybody, no matter where they live or why. If the guilty won't hold up their hands and confess, he and the Generals will ferret them out by force.

<snip>

R.I.P. Hunter

:cry:

He really saw how it would be

This is the latest article I could find from him

http://throwawayyourtv.blogspot.com/2005/02/hunter-s-thompson-commits-suicide.html">Golfing will Bill Murray

By Hunter S. ThompsonPage 2

/snip

The death of professional hockey in
AMERICA is a nasty omen for people with heavy investments in NHL teams. But to
me, it meant little or nothing -- and that's why I called Bill Murray with an
idea that would change both our lives forever.
It was 3:30 on a dark Tuesday
morning when I heard the phone ring on his personal line in New Jersey. "Good
thinking," I said to myself as I fired up a thin Cohiba. "He's bound to be wide
awake and crackling at this time of day, or at least I can leave a very excited
message."
My eerie hunch was right. The crazy bugger picked up on the fourth
ring, and I felt my heart racing. "Hot damn!" I thought. "This is how empires are built."

And for all the right reasons.


RIP HST

Give 'em hell where ever you are HST

But better off for his having been here!

A gun? That's unbelievable.

Safe and peaceful journey, Hunter.

Unbelievable! It makes you wonder why, why.

:cry:

Shit. Fuck. Fuck, shit, fuck!

This is a strangely fitting way for Thompson to go. God, I loved the two "Fear and Loathing" books. But it was pretty obvious his skills were in big-time decline and his personal life seemed as crazy as ever.

I bet the story of his last days is a helluva ride, eh?

He really got into the HST character in FALILV.

Fragile life, fragile world.

The only way to remember him.

really. My first subconscious thought when reading the news, though, is that he was murdered.

R.I.P Gonzo :cry:

We are truly doomed.

The weasels finally closed in.

Rep Ipsa Loquitor

From The Great Shark Hunt:

"...So much, then, for The Road - and for the last possibilities of running amok in Las Vegas & living to tell the tale. But maybe we won't really miss it. Maybe Law & Order is really the best way to go, after all.

Yeah... maybe so, and if that's the way it happens ... well, at least I'll know I was there, neck deep in the madness, before the deal went down, and I got so high and wild that I felt like a two-ton Manta Ray jumping all the way across the Bay of Bengal.

It was a good way to go, and I recommend it highly - at least for those who can stand the trip. And for those who can't, or won't, there is not much else to say. Not now, and certainly not by me, or Raoul Duke either. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas marks the end of an era...and now, on this fantastic Indian summer morning in the Rockies, I want to leave this noisy black machine and sit naked on my porch for a while, in the sun."

What a perfect quotation at this time.

b+b

I am in shock. A world without Hunter S. Thompson. It simply cannot be.

:toast: for a life well-lived.

Remember all the good times.

In his prime, I would be on the floor laughing with his writings.

In the last four years of Hell his writings on the coming Bush Fascism were painful, and oh so true.

Coming soon, Fear and Loathing in Heaven.

I hope they are ready.

If not, it might as well be ...

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world--a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us...No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you.

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid rich kids like George Bush?

They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us--they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.

And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.

It's up to us to rage now - and by God, I'll go down swinging if I have to.

But for tonight, I've got some Jack at my bar and I'll do a shot for the man.

And wake up tomorrow and kick some shit around.

tia :hi:

peace

We have lost another voice of truth on our side.

Why is it that Republicans never committ suicide? Just wondering.

shocked.

The last thing I read of his was his Rolling Stone article prior to the election, about the election. Great article. Sounded like he had high hopes for Kerry.

Sad sad sad.

in the most recent pictures. Do you suppose he found out he was sick, and didn't want to linger like Warren Zevon?

He will be remembered. Can any of us ask for anything more?

Redstone

OMFG-- I don't know what to say. Oh shit, not Hunter Thompson. Oh no.

I didn't know the man personally. Never talked to him. Never met him in real life. But I read his words, his books, his thoughts and he captivated me. This man had more insight into humanity and all of its faults than any of us could ever possess. Another great dies before his time.

Fuck....fuck!

the irony is i was JUST thinking about him less than half an hour ago (the movie) before seeing this thread...the world just became a much less interesting place.

and as funny as it may sound, HST was one of those people i didn't think would ever die...rightly or wrongly, I considered him indestructible in a sense...

You were one of a kind and your own man, from birth to death.

No one knows what makes a man.

No one knows what makes a man do what he does.

I am sorry for his family and glad Dr. Duke shared his talent with us.

His suicide does not diminish his work or de-legitimize the perspectives on life he shared in his writings.

I don't think I'm wrong on this, but maybe I am. If I'm not, that's just plain pathethic, or perhaps an attempt to slag the newly-dead who held unseemly beliefs.

Yahoo has this: "Thompson was a counterculture icon at the height of the Watergate era, and Richard Nixon once said he represented 'that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character.'"

The quote as I know it is from "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, '72": "It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise."

Am I wrong? It reads (due to "Nixon himself") as if Nixon could have said the quote as Yahoo has it, and then Thompson turned it back on him, but this is the first I've heard of it. Any enlightenment, folks?

Nixon didn't have that kind of articulation. But I'm up in the wilds of NorCal at the moment, still trying to come to grips with this shitty terrible news...

fuck...

"Thompson was a counterculture icon at the height of the Watergate era, and once said Richard Nixon represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character."

I bet they fixed it after someone pointed out how stupid that was.

Probably intentionally. Bastards. The mainstream media had to give one final kick at the corpse. They knew he knew what they really are.

R.I.P. HST. You taught me a lot about politics and the pursuit of power. Also, you were one hell of a great writer.

I am sad for the loss of his era, an era that produced the likes of Ken Kesey ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") and the Merry Pranksters, Andy Warhol, Tom Wolfe (who's still alive and publishing), predecessor Kerouac...I came of age reading their ridiculous and thoroughly enthralling prose. I love their irreverance, their fuck the system stories and let's-learn-the-rules-so-we can-break-them writing styles. Thompson found his own crazy voice and made it work. again and again. It's too bad he never truly grew up like so many of us finally do. It's too bad he couldn't face the pain any longer.

If you really think about it, his was a voice of sanity in an insane world.

You will be missed, Mr. Thompson.

And he's turned into PJ O'Rourke in a Truman Capote costume.

Shit.

On the last one, the picture taken from last year's election, HST looks gaunt and very sick. I have to wonder if a terminal illness was involved in his decision.

as in terminally ill, prompting the suicide.

Anyway, it's a drag. :-(

Hunter S. Thompson is one of the reasons that I am a liberal. If anyone can provide the quote where Thompson describes the evolution of America in the 60s with the changing of tides, I would greatly appreciate it.

It appears in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." I'm at work and don't have it handy.

The screen treatment, with Johnny Depp's voiceover, really nailed the passage, too. It was a beautiful moment in that film.

Very sad:



http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050221/ap_en_ot/obit_thompson_4

This shit is unreal

earlier tonight

He said the things about Nixon that some of us thought. Could not have survived Nixon without the Rolling Stone. He said the things about Reagan and Bush I that most of us thought in Generation of Swine. I can't remember a significant time in my life when his voice was not there.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

"The Bush family must be very proud of themselves today, but I am not. Big Darkness, soon come. Take my word for it." July 22, 2003
http://truthout.org/docs_03/072703H.shtml

Had he published anything else since then?

I am sad for the loss of his era, an era that produced the likes of Ken Kesey ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") and the Merry Pranksters, Andy Warhol, Tom Wolfe (who's still alive and publishing), predecessor Kerouac...I came of age reading their ridiculous and thoroughly enthralling prose. I love their irreverance, their fuck the system stories and let's-learn-the-rules-so-we can-break-them writing styles. Thompson found his own crazy voice and made it work. again and again. It's too bad he never truly grew up like so many of us finally do. It's too bad he couldn't face the pain any longer.

If you really think about it, his was a voice of sanity in an insane world.

You will be missed, Mr. Thompson.

I actually discovered your blog, rigorousintution, recently. i like it.

Very sad.

Completely bummed.


We will always miss you HST.

The dude with the scythe worked overtime this weekend.

RIP, HST.

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning...

And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting - on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

RIP Mr. Thompson

sad to hear this-
RIP

Oh hell. Another one dead.

RIP HST

It's weird that this happened, because I had just saw "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" on my shelf this morning and thought that it's sort of amazing that Thompson had made it this far.

He was a giant, but you just can't live like a vampire, subsisting on booze and cocaine for thirty years and not have it catch up at some point. His work and personal life appeared to be in decline for years. The ESPN columns were almost unreadable at times.

If I had to guess, I would think some kind of marital discord was at the route of this. Didn't he get married again just a year ago?

Anyway. Maholo, Doctor.

.

Thompson will be missed. How awful if Juan (his son) had to find him. As others have said, one cannot be too surprised as Dr. Thompson lived life at all times on his own terms. It only seems fitting that he died on his own terms in Aspen, a place he loved more than life itself. RIP, Mr. Gonzo. A rebel to the end!

Suicided most likely. How terrible.

TYY:(

This is terrible news.

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He was horribly fucked up (drunk or something worse.) Somebody had to help him out onto the set. I think there was also a rather funny piece that Conan did with him that involved shooting guns.

That's all I know about the fellow.

Hunter S. Thompson
The godfather of gonzo says 9/11 caused a "nationwide nervous breakdown" -- and let the Bush crowd loot the country and savage American democracy.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By John Glassie



Feb. 3, 2003 | He calls himself "an elderly dope fiend living out in the wilderness," but Hunter S. Thompson will also be found this week on the New York Times bestseller list with a new memoir, "Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century."

Listening to his ragged voice, there is some sense that Thompson, now 65, has reined in his outlaw ways, gotten a little softer, perhaps a little more gracious now that he's reached retirement age. "I've found you can deal with the system a lot easier if you use their rules," he says. "I talk to a lot of lawyers."


But do not be deceived. In "Kingdom of Fear" and in a telephone interview with Salon from his compound in Aspen, Colo., Thompson did what he's always done: speak the truth about American society as he sees it, without worrying much about decorum. "Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads?" he writes, referring to the people currently occupying the White House. "They are the racists and hate mongers among us -- they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis."

That's his enduring attitude in this new age of darkness: a lot more loathing than fear.

The godfather of gonzo believes America has suffered a "nationwide nervous breakdown" since 9/11, and as a result is compromising civil liberties for what he calls "the illusion of security." The compromise, he says, is "a disaster of unthinkable proportions" and "part of the downward spiral of dumbness" he believes is plaguing the country.

While the country's spinning out of control, Thompson says his own lifestyle has been a model of consistency. He still does whatever the hell he wants. In fact, his new book was supposed to be a "definitive memoir of his life," a long look back by the man who rode with the Hell's Angels, who experienced the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention, and who has smoked more cigarettes, driven more fast cars, fired more weapons and done more drugs than most living people, let alone most living authors. But the book is much more than memoir.


..cont'd

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/02/03/thompson/

I would love to see it!!!

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Maybe someone will say the same of you when you die....

thanks for outing yourself in public, creep :hi:

peace

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"And he was a genius why?"

thanks for reinforcing my point :toast:

peace

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but of course that is all subjective. Some of us mourned the loss of Kurt Cobain, too, as a great songwriter, but others didn't see him as talented.

I read most of what Thompson wrote, and I found his writing to be entertaining, poignant and often dead-on brilliant. He could tell a great story, and he wrote about drug experiences, particularly psychadelics, in a very unique way.

Many of us also loved him because he turned his venom so actuely on the neocons.

If you didn't care for his writing, or his persona, so what? You don't have to get it, and your opinion of him is not particularly relevant to his death. Just as my opinion of the talents of say, Michael Bolton, would not be relevant upon his passing. And it's awfully insensitive of you to jump into this thread and bash the guy on the day of his death.

Don't forget the Ignore button option

This one is for us who loved the man and his writing.

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!!!!!

as always, the good guys cop it, while the bad live to be 100. :(
i really enjoyed reading "fear and loathing..."
rest in peace hunter.

so sad...

I'll miss your work.

Goodbye.

Damn Hunter, I can't handle the chimpster either, but it didn't have to come to this. :cry:

He shaped my political thinking. I just finished his newest book. He will be greatly missed.


"When the going gets weird the weird turn pro"

Terrible.

Kind of angers me, in a way. Now the dark side will call him crazy. RIP, gonzo.

www.cafepress.com/showtheworld

:cry:

Sheriff deputies and an ambulance responded to a call around 6 p.m. for a self-inflicted gunshot wound at Thompson's residence, a neighbor said. By 6:30 p.m., Thompson's home at 1278 Woody Creek Road was sealed off by a sheriff's van.

Shortly thereafter, a counselor with Aspen Counseling Center, a local organization that provides support for victims at crime scenes, arrived at the residence. An unidentified man leaving the property said "there are a lot of hurt family members up [at the house]."

More here.

Just asking.

Lets face it, the guy devoted every bit of his creative talent and most of his adult life to ensuring that our democracy would never turn into something far worse than the grotesque charicature of it he painted for satirical effect. And it has.

Sure the drugs probably didn't help, the fact that his writing has been steadily deteriorating over the last few years didn't help--but ultimately I think it was a clear sense that with chimp's "reelection" those old enemies--the nixons, the mccarthies, all of them--have finally won.

;-)

I'm assuming no pun intended?

this sucks

Larry Kramer, former Chairman and CEO of MarketWatch, now an executive for Dow Jones... said Thompson "had a better sense of politics and campaigns than anyone I've worked with. He could handicap 50 congressional races and be right on 49."

Kramer also said he remembered, vividly, several incidents working with Thompson.

"One time we got a call from a San Francisco hotel shortly after he had stayed there on a visit to see us," Kramer said. "They wanted us to pay $2,400 for his three nights. When we pressed for a detailed bill, there was a $2,00 item called 'miscellaneous damage' ... something to do with an ice machine that had been shot through with a gun."

The second, Kramer said, "involved a call from a hospital where he had been taken for an emergency appendectomy. They told us they couldn't perform the operation until they had spent a couple days giving him a full blood wash ... apparently his bloodstream was polluted with alcohol and several interesting drugs ... and they were afraid of side effects."

Full article here.

:cry:

Author Hunter S. Thompson, who penned ``Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,'' commits suicide
Sunday February 20, 2005

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of journalism in books like ``Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,'' fatally shot himself Sunday night at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.

``Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family,'' Juan Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News.

Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, a personal friend of Thompson, confirmed the death to the News. Sheriff's officials did not return calls to The Associated Press late Sunday.

http://wcbs880.com/national/Obit-Thompson-aa/resources_news_html

arguing with immature neocons until he got frustrated with their stupidity and narrowmindedness.

Maybe he said "fuck it. I don't want nothing else to do with this world." after Bush got elected. I wonder if he left a note. I wonder if it said anything about Bush.

eager to wake up Wednesday morning to hear that John Kerry was our next president, I always wondered how he'd cope when that hope faded.

Damn. There goes another one.

we needed him.

but i don't really blame him.

he will really be missed.

Hunter..you were an inspiration for my 30th birthday.

bong hit in mourning.We'll miss you.

May he find a better place, wherever the journey now takes him.

But meanwhile, that's one less ally for us still fighting the good fight on this plane.

My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

total whack jobs if the times demand it.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/archive?columnist=hunter_s._thompson

The latest was posted on the 15th.

Life on your own terms, or not at all.

RIP, HST

/getting drunk as we speak

What a loss.

That was my first thought when i heard the news on the radio..Then came the shock and sadness. Hunter S Thomson was one of the great American writers in History..Not just the 20th..And its my own 2 cents here but I think he was one the best writers in the world. We lost a beacon and a fighter for not just our side but America and freedom and I feel we lost one our MVPs. I will never forget reading his works and will always tresure them. Rest in Peace you crazy bastard...

:cry: He is a cornerstone of my pantheon. A profound influence, and I really can't add much more than that right now...

Goddammit to shit.

:cry:

He made countless people of all ages, even youngsters like me, feel like being weird wasn't so bad, and even could be rather profitable. Freak Power!

I was looking forward to his insight over the next four years. I understand it, though, as I think about it. No doubt he wanted to exit dramatically, rather than continue to fade away.

:cry:

And to think I was just reading some of "Fear and Loathing" tonight... :cry:

EOM