RIP - Hunter S. Thompson
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..."
Posted on 02/21/2005 5:21:10 AM PST by Texian First
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 .....
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
RIP
He was a big time drugie.
RIP
Agreed, fwiw.
This is rather off topic, but I've got to get it off my chest. I do not relish telling hubby (when he awakes) that HST is dead. He is already shook up about Sandra Dee dying, not to mention John Raitt. And this is all just today.
On Friday we went to the funeral of the sr. partner of the firm I work for, two weeks ago it was the wake for hubby's cousin, who was only about 32 and dead of cancer, healthy in June, 2004, dead in Jan, 2005.
Just a little too much death for us, lately.
Sorry for the mini-rant, thanks for letting me vent.
P.J. O'Rourke's inevitable obituary of HST will be interesting as they were close friends.
-Eric
Existentialism is what fuels contemporary liberalism, and when one finally fully commits to it, one is confronted with being conscious for a few short years in a frigid and otherwise overwhelmingly meaningless and lifeless universe. At first one feels heroic, continuing to live in those circumstances, but eventually that gloss fades to black.
If one is rescued by the Truth, prideful heroism becomes joyful humility, and embrace of Jesus obtains hope and light. If one rejects all invitations to the Truth, remaining obstinate in self-absorption, the alternative becomes increasingly seductive.
RIP, indeed.
I will assume, right or wrong, that the re-election of President Bush drove him to his end.
Adios ...
I fully agree. HST lived in a world of meaninglessness and the absurd. One, by the way, he created for himself. As a counter-balance, I believe many of them manufacture and inhabit the mythical kingdom of social utopianism. HST, was the court jester there.
Whatever else HST was, it is his iconic status in the counter-culture Left that will be his longterm footnote in history - not his writing. Because he wrote of pop culture and did so with an existentialist's rebel wit, his 'work' will be locked in this era with Boomer fans for all time. Outside of this time and this place, he will have no meaning for generations to come.
Like most Boomer ideas and fashions, icons like HST are relevant only to that g-g-generation and once the shared is lost (like a private joke) the 'greatness' will fade like cheap paint. Even today, what is arguably the most important Boomer contribution to American culture - rock music - is eroding into jingles to sell Buicks and hamburgers. Hunter Thompson was funny, I'll give him that, but he will live on only so long as Boomers live.
What will be supremely ironic is the mad rush to 'own' a piece of this 'legend.' Like the good 'experience' seeking hedonists they were raised to be, Boomers will seek fragments of his life to hang on a wall or use as a watch fob. Sotheby, Christie's and other auction houses will soon be hawking the debris of his life that the family didn't want. This is probably why he used a firearm to take off his head - so it wouldn't end up on some Dentist's wall in Hoboken, NJ.
RIP.
You should read some of his many books. He was for America in a way that America needs.
he had pat buchanan pegged from the early senevties as
"the biggest closet liberal i know"
his book about the '72 campaign is really one of the better political books i've read
But for the msm to try to make this zoned out stream of concious writer into some sort of literary icon is stomach churning.
and this article is just one indication of the shallowness of this guy.
"He was for America in a way that America needs."
What "way" would that be?
If you came of age in the 60s and 70s, you'd have remembered him.
That's ok, I had mine a few weeks ago. Will pray for your husband and your comfort as many did here for me.
"Existentialism is what fuels contemporary liberalism, and when one finally fully commits to it, one is confronted with being conscious for a few short years in a frigid and otherwise overwhelmingly meaningless and lifeless universe."
Agreed.
Sartre defined much of the thought of the post modern lefty including the embrace of suicide. It brings to mind many late nite college bull sessions.
A logical course to take in the face of such nothingness is to kill one's self. Instead, lefties insist on hanging around making life miserable by assuming that life is miserable and if you are not miserable, then you are just too stupid.
Unfortunately, too few of the devout believers of this line of "thinking" will follow it to its ultimate conclusion.
Nor will I.
HST was a spiteful, drug-addled, boozed-up, tortured wannabe journalist, whose writings evoked visions of spiteful, drug-addled, boozed-up and tortured persons wishing they were not spiteful, drug-addled, boozed-up tortured wannabe journalists.
Some will praise him for his pro-2nd Amendment stance, but HST was like every other stinking dim-lib, in that what was good for him ain't necessarily good for you.
His ultimate display of weakness in taking his own life rather than to continue to face the ravages of it, is typical of the tortured and twisted personalities that are of the dim-lib mindset.
I do not celebrate the death of a human being, but there are those deaths that have more impact on me on that others.
The death of HST has no impact on me and I do not care.
I stopped caring about him when I read "Hells Angels" and realized just how much of a milksop crybaby he was and still find myself wondering why he could not see that he never actually got inside the Hell Angel minds, as he truly thought that he had.
His writings had nothing to do with fact, they had everything to do with the "Hey, I'm Hunter S. Thompson and I've got something to say and it's damn good!" style of writing.
The fact that he got away with his senseless self-aggrandizement in the guise of his writings says more about the gullibility of us, the public, than it does about the fact the he was simply a zero with a typewriter who was given a platform to spew his crap from.
I can truthfully state that HST never made a cent off me.
I never purchased any of his writings, preferring instead to borrow them from others and I never read "Rolling Stone" and I never saw any of his credited movies.
And even though it would not have benefited him, I never, never read more than one or two of the simply stupid "Doonesbury" comics, wherein he was supposed to have been a featured character.
Even though I feel nothing but contempt for you, HST, I wish you RIP.
And may you fade away in the obscurity you richly deserve quickly.
I leave you with a quote from his book, Hell's Angels, the last three sentences from chapter 21:
The Angels don't like being called losers, but they have learned to live with it. "Yeah, I guess I am," said one. "But you're looking at one loser who's going to make a hell of a scene on the way out."
Somehow I really don't think that was a quote from an Angel, but sprang from the mind of HST and accurately reflects his thoughts.
Another PEST related death (hurl). I seriously believe that were it not for the neurotic and psychotic, both the left-wing and their religion of psychiatry would fall apart.
Don't go to writers for politics, go for their writing.
HELL'S ANGELS and FEAR AND LOATHING are incredible works. Something else has dies with HST.
RIP - Hunter S. Thompson
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..."
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