RIP Duke

[cj001f]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40737-2005Feb20_2.html

[Alpinfox]

A book review w/ some great HST quotes

 

Excerpts:

"There is an eerie sense of Panic in the air, a silent Fear and uncertainty that comes with once-reliable faiths and truths and solid Institutions that are no longer safe to believe in," he writes in his column of Nov. 20, 2000. "There is a Presidential election, right on schedule, but somehow there is no President."

 

Once there is an outcome, he labels George W. Bush "the goofy child-President" and Al Gore "the Hapless, worm-eaten Dunce who fumbled the White House away."

 

The day after the terrorist attacks, he presciently warns "that we are At War now — with somebody — and we will stay At War with that strange and mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives."

 

As time passes, Thompson's frustration heightens, and he begins to sound like Fahrenheit 9/11 director Michael Moore. "We will all be even sicker tomorrow if this wretched half-bright swine of a president gets re-elected in November," he writes.

 

Thompson's classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was billed as a savage journey to the heart of the American Dream. By the end of Hey Rube, he sounds truly fearful for what he calls the squandering of that dream. "I am surprised and embarrassed," he writes in a column in July 2003, "to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it."

 

 

[Winter]

That sucks. I'll get wasted in his honor for sure.

[Alpinfox]

"San Fransisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run... There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

 

-HST

[barkernews]

"The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason."

 

RIP

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

"You can't stop here! This is bat country!"

[Alpinfox]

 

"We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel. "

[bootsy]

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

[olyclimber]

There are a million and great qoutes from him. "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

 

Rest in Peace.

[Off_White]

On the last election:

 

"We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world--a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us...No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you.

 

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid rich kids like George Bush?

 

They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us--they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.

 

And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them."

 

I think HST would prefer that we not rest peacefully.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

There are a million and great qoutes from him. "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

 

Yeah, they worked so well for him that he blew his brains out.

[Alpinfox]

Eulogy

 

Final paragraph:

"May the kindly trickster gods collect you, Hunter Thompson, and drive you to where the buffalo roam, where your mind can unspool itself forever and your spirit can go on groping unsuspecting tits and trashing hotel rooms. You have earned it, Golden and Immortal Son of Classic Letters. Rest in Whatever You Would Prefer to Peace. We, the filthy and leaderless children who cherish your legacy, salute you, and will honor you with every bullet fired out of our car windows toward the unmarked desert sky. "

[olyclimber]

There are a million and great qoutes from him. "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

 

 

 

Yeah, they worked so well for him that he blew his brains out.

 

Or maybe it just helped him get that far. Tell us all about your perfection KaskadskyjKozak.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

There are a million and great qoutes from him. "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

 

 

 

Yeah, they worked so well for him that he blew his brains out.

 

Or maybe it just helped him get that far. Tell us all about your perfection KaskadskyjKozak.

 

If that's what it took for him to "get by" and make his life worth living than he's a pathetic sack of shit. A far cry from "perfection". The average person seems to be able to find something to live for. I guess that's not edgy or sophistic ated enough for all the self-absorbed, nihilistic, narcissists of the world. And if you take my criticism of him as an insult to you, then that says more about you than me.

[RobBob]

Look, HST was a funny, articulate guy who made a lot of us laugh in college in the 70s and 80s. I remember reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in the backyard of a rented apartment in Austin, TX in 1983. I starting laughing so damn hard that the girl next door came around to make sure I was okay. Not many books are so entertaining that you can so clearly recollect reading them.

 

Everybody probably should have seen this coming eventually. In a preface to one of his books ( The Great Shark Hunt, I think), he wrote that he wanted to commit suicide right at that moment, but 'didn't have the guts.'

 

Unfortunately, suicide is a gift that keeps on giving. I feel sorry for family and for his closest friends. It appears he's been a difficult person for those closest to him, and this puts a sad close on the story of his life.

[crazyjizzy]

I think his best stuff was almost thirty years ago, although I do remember reading a great editorial about Ed Meese in the PI in 1988. HST was so spot on, the PI never carried him again. He was the perfect carrier of the anger that many of us feel towards the political system.

 

I have also read one or two biographies of HST, and saddly, he seemed to be a drunken shell of himself, a caricature of his past. There were pretty clear alligations of domestic violence, and his literary skills had diminished.

 

I think alot of the talk of his comingling drugs and writing early in his career was just hyperbole, his writing was too clear to come out of 30 hits of acid, but he eventually started acting out his own false personna.

[AlpineK]

If that's what it took for him to "get by" and make his life worth living than he's a pathetic sack of shit. A far cry from "perfection". The average person seems to be able to find something to live for. I guess that's not edgy or sophistic ated enough for all the self-absorbed, nihilistic, narcissists of the world. And if you take my criticism of him as an insult to you, then that says more about you than me.

 

I think the, "average person," probably wouldn't be able to contribute to American literature like Hunter Thompson did. I've read a bunch of his books and like RobBob said they are very funny. If you take a look at writers/artists through history you will find a lot of examples of people with depression or other mental problems. It may be that his lifestyle was a symptom not a cause.

 

In any case I heard an interview with a friend of his who points out that if he had done everything he said he had he would have died in the 70s. He may have done a bunch of what he describes himself doing in his books, but there's a lot of exageration that he used as a literary device.

 

You don't have to like him as a person, but you should respect the fact that he'll probably have a greater impact on culture than you, I, or any other average person will.

 

Hunter T

[olyclimber]

He definitely had a gift of entertaining hyberbole, regardless of his personal life. The qoutes attributed to him reflect that, and are not necessarily a "guidebook for living".

 

Anyway....

[markinore]

He saw into the evil soul of Richard Nixon well before the truth of Watergate became known. One of my favorite passages is from the Nixon obituary he wrote for the Rolling Stone in 1994:

 

"Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man--evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him--except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship."

 

For those of us who came of age in the '60s and '70s, an era when it was common to say, "Well, you might disagree with him BUT YOU HAVE TO SHOW SOME RESPECT FOR THE PRESIDENT," Thompson cut like a chain saw through the hypocrisy.

[catbirdseat]

You don't have to like him as a person, but you should respect the fact that he'll probably have a greater impact on culture than you, I, or any other average person will.

 

Hunter T

Well said.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

If you take a look at writers/artists through history you will find a lot of examples of people with depression or other mental problems. It may be that his lifestyle was a symptom not a cause.

 

OK, I'll concede that point. I've always wondered why this is so and whether it is a necessary condition to that level of creativity.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

He saw into the evil soul of Richard Nixon well before the truth of Watergate became known...

 

I don't think Nixon was evil, and think that type of hyperbole does a lot of harm, blurring the distinctions between good and true evil. I'll stop with that to avoid thread-drift, and only add that reading these types of statements makes me not have much desire to read more of what this guy has to offer.

[Alpinfox]

reading these types of statements makes me not have much desire to read more of what this guy has to offer.

 

I feel the same way about you after reading your rude and venomous attack on someone in a memorial thread. Fuck you.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

I feel the same way about you after reading your rude and venomous attack on someone in a memorial thread. Fuck you.

 

I laugh at your hypocrisy and at you.

[Alpinfox]

 

"Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of ''the rat race'' is not yet final."