Hunter S. Thompson: The Death of an American Legend
Thursday February 24th, 2005, by
"That was the year I first met him, at a riot on that elegant little street in front of the White House. Hewas yelling into a bullhorn and I was trying to throw
a dead, bleeding rat over a black-spike fence and onto
the president’s lawn.
We were angry and righteous in those days, and there were millions of us. We kicked two chief executivesout of the White House because they were stupid
warmongers. We conquered Lyndon Johnson and we stomped
on Richard Nixon — which wise people said was
impossible, but so what? It was fun. We were warriors
then, and our tribe was strong like a river.
That river is still running. All we have to do is get out and vote, while it’s still legal, and we will washthose crooked warmongers out of the White House."
— Hunter S. Thompson on John Kerry in one his last writings on the campaign trail in 2004 for RollingStone.
The whole world now knows that Hunter S. Thompson put
a bullet in his head a few days ago. He was
suffering from recent health issues including a hip
replacement and a broken leg.
But he sure went out with a bang.
Apparently he’s put in his
will that he wants his ashes shot out of a cannon.
It would be a fitting end to the fucked up life of a
crazy man.
When I first read "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and
Depraved" originally published in Scanlan’s, it was
wild-eyed and freaky, like I was reading the words of
an insane man shot up with booze and drugs on a wild
weekend with his British cartoonist pal. He had
essentially suffered a breakdown and the piece was
designed to be his kiss off to journalism and his
editors in general. Instead, it became one of his
signature pieces which helped build his reputation as
one of the authentic voices of the American
counterculture.
It was beautiful. It was original. There was no
artifice or formality to it. Even now, it still
dances off the page like a sucker punch as one of the
first pieces of
gonzo journalism ever written.
Hunter S. Thompson was to journalism what Muhammad Ali
was to boxing.
Hunter S. Thompson put himself into the story and made
himself the central character in the narrative. In
that way he was different than the other founders of
New Journalism like Tom Wolfe who preferred to be a
wallflower, a detailed observer. They were both
groundbreaking but in different ways. No one skewered
the sell out of the 60’s hippie generation quite like
Thompson.
As the mass media has become more concentrated, our
public realm has suffered at the hands of ’objective
journalism.’
Hunter S. Thompson was an original ground breaking
anarchist who told people to "walk tall, kick ass,
learn to speak Arabic, love music and never forget
that you come from a long line of truth seekers,
lovers and warriors."
He was an outspoken crank in Aspen and once ran for
sheriff of Pitkin County on the "Freak Politics"
ticket on a promise to change Aspen’s name to Fat
City.
He hung out with the Hells Angels for a year and then
they beat him up after he wrote about it. After
writing for a military paper, Thompson was given an
honorable discharge and later went on to write for a
bowling magazine in Puerto Rico before sending in wire
stories from South America. His early classics like
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and
Loathing on the Campaign Trail" added to his later
works which were characterized by his brutal critique
of the downfall of the American dream. He was widely
known for his writing and editing for Rolling Stone
Magazine.
Hunter S. Thompson was the kind of writer that makes
you want to buy a hand gun and shoot it in to the sky.
That means something in this decadent, deprived age.
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