A cold rueful look at Hunter S. Thompson

The American Thinker ^ | Feb. 22, 2005 | A.M. Mora y Leon

[Kitten Festival]

There's been a lot of spilled ink and wasted pixels on the complicated effort to eulogize the suicide of "new journalism" writer Hunter S. Thompson, with most of it coming out insincere, overwrought, or just not quite getting it. Steve H., the immensely talented blogger at Hog on Ice, is another matter altogether. Writing as someone who was influenced by Thompson, he takes a rueful, almost bitter, but straight look at Thompson and hits the target. He writes the first realistic assessment of what the man amounted to before he met his end. It's a cold hard look at Thompson and why he's found wanting.

[Kitten Festival]

A hard look at this writer who wasted his talent. Extremely good reading. Be sure to click on the essay you will not be disappointed.

[Mr. Mojo]

"Hunter Thompson running around Las Vegas with a huge Samoan, high on pineal gland extract and peyote and acid--that's funny. Hunter Thompson lying alone on a sweat-soaked mattress, making up self-aggrandizing fables while real journalists are out talking to people--that's pathetic."

"He was brilliant, so he had to be aware that he had sold himself cheap. ...... I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Thompson killed himself out of sheer disgust. Maybe by creating and living a ridiculous persona, he painted himself into a corner and kept painting and painting until there was no corner left; only paint."

Sums him up perfectly.

[Congressman Billybob]

I agree, this is very well written, and cuts like a scalpel. I prefer the kinder obituary by Tom Wolfe. And I tend to agree with Wolfe's conclusion that Wolfe was a comic genius with a sardonic twist. Though I would not hang my hat on the parallel with Mark Twain that Wolfe asserts.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, Confessions of a "Salivating Moron"

[ARCADIA]

Thanks for posting, I followed the click-trail. I didn't know who Hunter Thompson was before he killed himself. But, reading all the eulogies about him the last few days, glamorizing some very self-destructive behavior, I said to myself "Wonder what the Freepers think?"

Glad I checked it out.

[headsonpikes]

Ditto! ;^)

[mercy]

One of the great triumphs of evil in our age has been our acceptance of the belief that there is no black nor white ... only shades of gray. One must be a sold wholesale to this intellectual parlour trick not to see Hunter Thompson for the disgusting fraud he was.

A man who leads others to distruction must be seen for what he is. Satan's tool.

[NHResident]

I think this view is exactly right. Thompson was so afraid of his talent that he spent his life destroying himself rather than develop it.

If you read Tom Wolf's paen to Thompson - it reads like he himself is trying to build up credits so some one will write nice things about him when he dies. Wolf doesn't need to demean himself and his talent like that. Thompson's self-destruction took too long and took too many down with him. The lucky ones realize his destructive and juvenile seduction and grew up; the rest still haven't seen through his shtick.

I am not surprised Boston's Howie Carr holds Thompson as a hero. Carr can be very, very good but all too often he panders to the lowest common denominator and is just a watered down Stern imitation, which is hard enough to take in the 'original'.