I'm not getting over the loss of Hunter S. Thompson

No celebrity death has ever affected me this way. I keep feeling worse and worse, and I think it's because he was the exact thing the US needs--fearless, insightful fuck-you's to the powerful. I have this horrible feeling that his death, his opting out, is a symbol for another death, a sign that something like real freedom has been snuffed out here forever, that all our efforts are just cold ashes, distant glimpses of a time long gone.

as ours. Hunter S Thompson was a great & gifted writer, and he will be missed immensely by me...However, just like it's your life to live, it was his life too, and none of us can say what he should or should not have done. He owned us nothing. It was his own personal life, you nor I were living that life, so we can't justify anything...Just appreciate what he gave us, and wish him eternal happiness.

"The widow of journalist Hunter S. Thompson said her husband killed himself while the two were talking on the phone.

I was on the phone with him, he set the receiver down and he did it. I heard the clicking of the gun," Anita Thompson told the Aspen Daily News in Friday's editions.

She said her husband had asked her to come home from a health club so they could work on his weekly ESPN column — but instead of saying goodbye, he set the telephone down and shot himself.

Thompson said she heard a loud, muffled noise, but didn't know what had happened. "I was waiting for him to get back on the phone," she said.

Hunter Thompson, famous for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and other works of New Journalism, shot himself in the head Sunday in the kitchen of his Aspen-area home. He was 67.

His son, daughter-in-law and 6-year-old grandson were in the house when the shooting occurred.

Anita Thompson, 32, said her husband had discussed killing himself in recent months and had been issuing verbal and written directives about what he wanted done with his body, his unpublished works and his assets.

His suicidal talk put a strain on their relationship, she said.

"He wanted to leave on top of his game. I wish I could have been more supportive of his decision," she said. "It was a problem for us."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/02/25/national/a073333S19.DTL

i can't even imagine what must've been going through her head

long live hunter s. thompson

that his taking of his life was not a statement of current state of affairs (although he did have the correct line of the Rethugs in power) but a personal decision. A couple of years ago I had a good friend of mine realize
that because of a declining neurological condition he was going to be spending the rest of his life in a nursing home or assisted living. He had always lived his life on his own terms and decided to take his own life while he still was physically capable to do it. We were all very sad ( he was only 53) and missed him but understood his choice. I think the situation with HST was similar-he saw his physical condition deteriorating to the point where he could not live his life as his life.
I was surprised to see posts here on DU from those who did not know who HST was. Hopefully we can help inform about what he was about and
a little about history from Nixon to Bush. HST represented a time of social visionaries- a time unique in our current history. This is a fact that has been
distorted and ridiculed by the current media. For those of us who have lived through that period it does seems like we are reverting back to an attitude that preceded the open mindedness of the 60's and 70's.
HST wasn't a quitter, though, and I think the last thing he would want is for people to look on his death as a "giving up" to the current Nazi's in power.

Few have the stamina that he did. Far fewer have the talent.

But it's up to the (relatively) young & strong to carry on.

That's what he'd tell you. Find the revolution inside yourself, not from others, particularly not from the dead.

Thanks for the good advice. Life will surely be much easier for me from now on.

Don't idolize people like Hunter, particularly writers. They're only ever people, as flawed as you or I. Love the work, but don't expect anything from the individual behind it. Otherwise, get ready to be heartbroken.

who has been dead for about 800 years? Accident? Or in his honor?

Actually, I do feel really bad about Hunter Thompson being gone, but it's more than just some personal thing. I think it's a sympbol of something deeper--not the cause--just a kind of sign, something we will be able to point to in future years and say "that's the close of that chapter of history." And I'm not talking about the 60's but rebellion itself, and without rebellion, there's, well, not much.

If you take one man and make him representative of an entire spirit - that can only cause you great trouble.

I took my name from the punk band, btw.

England--one of the Richards killed him.

Thanks! :toast:

get over it. Nor do I want to. It's just that time moves on, I miss him dearly and he was, and he will always be with me in my heart and mind.

:P Sorry, I'm picking on you for misspelling.

Hopefully, though, his absence in this would will only emphasize what he brought to the table here. Perhaps in his death, he will inspire a bevy of new Hunter Thompsons, even more furious and hell bent on exposing the system for what it is...a collection of dumbness taking orders from vile animals...a nation showered in fear of the expression of their own freedom...and a bunch of internet intellectuals confused as to why there seems to be no one tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

It feels like the "death of more" than just Hunter as you put it. It seems like that "wave" that Hunter described in Fear and Loathing receeded just a little bit more.

But, I feel there is another wave swelling behind it and I think all of us here at DU and within similar circles are riding on it. The only question is: When will it come in sight of land?

I found a great excerpt from one of Hunter's writings...I think he would have wanted all of us to follow his advice:
-----

Security ... what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut?

Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? Has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that be has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better. What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes?

Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.

As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

-Hunter S. Thompson

We have to go back far into history to find comparable talents. Mark Twain--our generation's Twain.

Kesey was another one that hit hard. It was good to know there were freaks out there now there are just Nazi's everywhere!