R.I.P. Dr. Thompson

[Bill Bove]

Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide over the weekend. I wouldn't recommend him as a role model but he did crack me up. Remember when he ran for sherriff of Aspen Colorado?

[Climb01742]

if there is a god, he'd better get ready for handful. :rolleyes:

[Tom]

There's an anthology of his work 'The Great Shark Hunt' which has many of his early magazine articles. I used to look at Picasso in his later years and not really understand the art, all eyes on one side of the head like a flounder fish, but then I saw some of his early stuff and realized tht he broke the rules and made new ones not because he didn't know what the old ones were but because they constrained him too much. Same thing with Hunter S Thompson. He was a brilliant thinker and writer, it's too bad all you hear about now is what we have caricaturized him as: 'the drug-hazed account of his visit to Las Vegas' (NPR), for example. The account of sitting at a rooftop bar in Peru watching a man drive golf balls out into the city, or the host at the restaurant pulling the drapes so the diners don't have to see the beggars staring in the windows will never leave my thinking.

[Ray]

Yeah, and his long rambling analysis of the '72 presidential campaign was as insightful as they get, in addition to being hilarious. He hasn't done much work of note in recent years, so I can't say I'll 'miss' him in any real sense, but this is one to mourn. I doubt we'll see his likes again anytime soon. Can you imagine him trying to get some of his early work published as a young writer in today's climate?

-Ray

[jerk]

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[Kevan]

"Fear and Loathing..." is a terrific book. "Shark Hunt" was also good.

Still, I wouldn't have wanted him as my next door neighbor.

This was Hunter's answer to riding the final ice floe.

[csb]

the times (ny) spared no expense documenting
his lead induced death

[bulliedawg]

I met him while I was at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Pretty intense guy. He was famous for doing readings with a bottle of Crown Royal sitting on the podium with him. When the bottle was done, the reading was over.

[dirtdigger88]

mr. thompson died- I haven't gotten my new stem from him yet- what now :confused:

Jason

[dnovo]

Hunter Thompson AND Sandra Dee. God, it was a bad weekend for me.

Say what you will about Hunter, but the world is lacking in 'originals' and he was surely that. Sex, drugs, and booze may have been the way he made it through life, but he entertained many of us along the way and did no harm to anyone other than himself in the process.

I will miss him. Dave N.

[Climb01742]

I met him while I was at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

bullie, are you a writer? teacher? both? to be at the workshop, you can't be no slouch. :rolleyes:

[bags27]

I agree with Dave N., and perhaps more so. Thompson was nuts, but he was writing about and against a world that was nuts, and so he said a lot of sane things. He could be brutal and even cruel, but he never lacked humanity, which is a lot more than can be said about many of whom he wrote.

[bulliedawg]

bullie, are you a writer? teacher? both? to be at the workshop, you can't be no slouch. :rolleyes:

Writer.

[medici]

I agree with Dave N., and perhaps more so. Thompson was nuts, but he was writing about and against a world that was nuts, and so he said a lot of sane things. He could be brutal and even cruel, but he never lacked humanity, which is a lot more than can be said about many of whom he wrote.

Well put, bags. And nice to see some appreciation and perspective from the forum. His passing reminds me of Edward Abbey's death a few years back. You won't see their like anytime soon.

Pete

[keno]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110006325

[Vancouverdave]

I re-read "Campaign Trail" every presidential election year, it's a good caution to let you know what you're voting for. Just surprising he didn't die from a directly booze-related cause.

[Jeff N.]

"I never wanted to advocate violence, drugs or alcohol, but they worked for me." -Hunter S. Thompson

My guess is he's probably been trying to kill himself for years with drugs and booze, but never succeeded. But the .45 worked. Jeff N.

[Richard]

Another loss to the zeitgeist was Spalding Grey (Gray?). Often times throughout the past decades (how frightening), my mind will make a connection to what they wrote or said about our culture. They managed to put into words the simultaneous angst and banality that is around us.

[Too Tall]

This weekend I vow to sit on my front porch in a Hawiian shirt, dark shades and clean my guns while swilling Kentucky Burbon.

Very sad indeed.