I was trying to think of a witty line to describe how much I liked this man. I couldn’t come up with anything. Sometimes words fail to capture a moment you won’t forget , a time, a place or an individual that you hold in the highest of regards. I remember the first time I read Hunter S Thompson and I don’t think I’ve been the same since.
Hunter S Thompson was born on July 18, 1937 and died in 2005. Everyone knows the story of how he died. Like Hemingway before him it was by his own choice. I happen to think this is the best way to go out, on your own terms, but something tells me we might have had the same point of view on a few things.
Hunter was what I refer to as the last of the great dinosaurs that roamed the earth. Beautiful and frightening. A ferocious beast, in the best way possible. He lived a life that couldn’t be replicated if you tried. That’s a good thing, could you imagine the United States chock full of little HS Thompson’s? It would be mayhem and chaos in the streets. I might enjoy it myself but I think the average everyday citizen would be a little frightened, locked tight behind their blockaded front doors.
So much of what is currently going on in the world mystifies me, we live in a nation of post 9/11 fear . It’s just the way it is, as times and politics change. Unless you choose to say, “Fuck the rules, fuck the status quo – I’ll make my own rules ” and Mr Thompson did indeed do that.
I could wax poetic about this for hours on end so I’ll just give you a little of what made him so great and why I think this man was the coolest.
Truth in words.
Imagine such a concept? In today’s shallow pool of silly journalism and Fox 11 news he wrote a slightly exaggerated , eternally entertaining interpretation of the goings on around him Not like the silly tabloid journalism that infiltrates the news and magazines on the stands. He took a piece of American life and revealed it for it’s absurdity. For better or for worse.
“If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people – including me – would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism”
“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”
FEAR is not an option.
Yes, he wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. A fantastic read but there is so much more to be learned from the man. So go out, find those things called a bookstore and buy some of his others works. I can tell you without a doubt they are just as entertaining, just as fearless and just as Hunter as the most popular book that everyone knows.
“The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over”
Don’t be afraid to live and make mistakes.
Hunter was a gentleman from the south .Chivalrous, unruly, brilliant and human. Humans make mistakes, they place their feet in places that sometimes they should not go. But – there is something to be said for those steps. So take them and make them. In the end, it’s still the end.
“For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled”
“No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.”
In honor of Hunter, in the month of his birth, get out from behind your computers, your television, your X-box & live your life. Take a chance & make your own way, whichever way it may be. This life is over before you even know what hit you – so make it good.
I’ll leave you with my two favorite lines from the good Doctor himself:
“Buy the ticket, take the ride” and “I feel the same way about Disco as I do about herpes.”
Check out Gonzo in your bookstores!
And while you’re at it, pick yourself up some Hemingway – Hunter would like that!
Ms. Amanda Jones
