Hunter S Thompson, RIP

[Ace42]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4282865.stm

Offed by Bush A la Dr Kelly.

In the words of a friend of mine:

"WTF?!? For real?! Alas the great Lono unforeseenably ran out of credit... Res ipsa loqitur. Selah."

[abdulmohammad]

Went out like the bitch he was.

[phinkasaurus]

man, I wonder what he was on when he pulled the trigger...
it surprises me he would commit suicide... sort of. I guess it also makes sense in some ways.

[cookiepuss]

Went out like the bitch he was.
fuck you. have a nice day.

[cookiepuss]

I'm not sure who wrote this, a friend just sent it to me by email. it pretty much sums it up for me. I loved thompson, he was my hero.

EDIT: I think this is the author The Proverbial 'Live Boy'
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 22 February 2005

"The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with
either a dead girl or a live boy." - Edwin W. Edwards

In the same month the planet gets to know the 'journalist'
James/Jeff Guckert/Gannon, Hunter S. Thompson decides to make The Big
Bit-Spit and eject from the planet. This could be sacrilege, and I hope
his family will forgive me, but there is something wretchedly fitting
in the confluence.

Hunter was a drunk and a drug-sucker. He would go to cover an event
and slather himself with LSD. He went to the '72 GOP convention as a
wild-eyed liberal and elbowed his way into the activist bullpen,
grabbing a sign reading 'Garbage Men Demand Equal Pay' before charging
the floor with the Nixon-shouters to howl “Four More Years!” at John
Chancellor. He wanted to write about motorcycle gangs, so he went out
and joined the worst of them, and got his ass stomped in. And wrote
about it.

Hunter Thompson is the reason I write politics. Period. He was the
most honest man in the business. Everyone else had and has an angle, a
reputation, or a source to protect. Hunter stripped it down to the raw
throbbing nerve and let it fly. How is this for prose:

"How many more of these goddam elections are we going to have to
write off as lame but 'regrettably necessary' holding actions? And how
many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go
through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together
some kind of national election that will give me at the at least 20
million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something,
instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the
lesser of two evils? I understand, along with a lot of other people,
that the big thing, this year, is Beating Nixon. But that was also the
big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 - and as far as I can
tell, we've gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the
outlook is for more of the same."

Or this:

"It is a nervous thing to consider: Not just four more years of
Nixon, but Nixon's last four years in politics - completely unshackled,
for the first time in his life, from any need to worry about who might
or might not vote for him the next time around. If he wins in November,
he will finally be free to do whatever he wants...or maybe 'wants' is
too strong a word for right now. It conjures up images of Papa Doc,
Batista, Somoza; jails full of bewildered 'political prisoners' and the
constant cold-sweat fear of jackboots suddenly kicking your door off
its hinges at four A.M."

Or this:

"The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are
generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage & whup their
supporters into an orgiastic frenzy - then go back to the office & sell
every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.
Probably the rarest form of life in American politics is the man who
can turn on a crowd & still keep his head straight - assuming it was
straight in the first place."

That's the stuff. Rip it down, Bubba, and let the fur fly. For the
record, the aforementioned is from 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign
Trail 1972,' possibly the most purely excellent book on politics to be
found anywhere.

Amusing, then, that Hunter decides to cash his check in the same
week we learn about James or Jeff Gannon or Guckert or whatever. What
would Thompson have made of this feeble wretch? Of a man who reports on
the White House with a fake name? Who was so clearly the go-to guy for
McClellan or Bush when the questions got too hot? Who copied and pasted
his 'news reports' from boilerplate GOP press releases? Who somehow got
within 20 feet of the President of the United States using a false name
while peddling his wares online as a male prostitute for $200 an hour?

Hunter once wrote in 'The Great Shark Hunt' about walking in on two
Secret Service agents sharing a joint back and forth in a hotel room.
Maybe that's how Gannon/Guckert/Whoever got within pistol range of the
leader of the free world. No other explanation seems to satisfy.

It comes down to this. The Bush crew has been caught in bed with
the proverbial 'live boy.' Someone in that White House either eased
Gannon/Guckert/Whoever through the 'hard pass' application process,
which requires a thorough background check, or else smoothed the way
for him to get day pass after day pass after day pass. Some complain
that Gannon/Guckert/Whoever is being victimized for his political
views. This misses the point. Someone let a working, advertising whore
into the White House, and then was stupid enough to let him walk around
alive and free after he blew his own cover. That's the point.

My hero died tonight. He was a flawed man, a maniac, in so many
ways the antithesis of what a journalist is supposed to be. Worst of
all, he told the truth. There is now one less warrior on this planet
filled with Guckert clones, drones who get fed shit and regurgitate it
wholesale for the masses because that is what we are trained to eat.

Rest in peace, Hunter. Thank you for everything. We're going to
deal with this Gannon/Guckert/Whoever person, and then move down the
line and deal with the rest of the whores. You died on the eve of the
birth of a new journalism, populist in nature, beholden to the truth
and thanking the Google gods every step of the way. I wish you had
stuck around to see it, but I'll tell you all about it when we meet at
that clearing at the end of the path. Until then...

[LIMERICKFILE]

man, I wonder what he was on when he pulled the trigger...
it surprises me he would commit suicide... sort of. I guess it also makes sense in some ways.

I don't claim to have the clear answer, but I'm hoping he wasn't on anything when he killed himself. Think of the turmoil his life has been, the burden placed upon his own shoulders to live up to his legend of past writings. I'm guessing he exercised control over his own fate instead of rotting away, letting others rip him apart as his physical and mental stabilities crumble.

I wonder if HST watched "Pauly Shore is Dead"? Going out as a genius seems to appeal more than fading away.

[ericg]

GONZO
I wrote him a letter some years ago. Actually it was my gestation of a book...relating to the war, government, shit... Thought I'd be sure to hear back but didn't. Maybe the publisher never got it to him... Anyway, he was a simple man, and better for it. But live on the edge and you're bound to fall..., I guess. Much respect and peace to him!!! He was a true American in that he was soley dedicated to freedom of the spirit... and there won't be another just like him. Wish he'd held on and set a pace to work it all out, he had the wherewithal I would think, but who knows and can really tell what happened exactly. ... What can happen when you form a strong relationship with weapons like he did having no return on his investment... I don't know. I miss him.

[infidel]

"In a nation of frightened dullards there is a shortage of outlaws."
HST, 1967

I can only speculate but it's quite possible Hunter had a chronic disease and decided on a shortcut

[Ace42]

That thought crossed my mind.

[cookiepuss]

I don't need a reason. I mean there are a hundred and one reasons to kill yourself.

it only matters that he is gone. :(

[infidel]

Thompson said not one to die in hospital

ROBERT WELLER

Associated Press

ASPEN, Colo. - While Hunter S. Thompson's suicide shocked many in his out-of-the-way neighborhood, one of his closest friends said Monday the writer had been in a lot of pain after a broken leg and hip surgery.

"I wasn't surprised," said George Stranahan, a former owner of the Woody Creek Tavern, one of Thompson's favorite hangouts. "I never expected Hunter to die in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of him."



Neighbors in Thompson's Woody Creek neighborhood said a broken leg had kept him from getting out as often as in the past, including to the tavern.



Mike Cleverly, a neighbor and longtime friend, spent Friday night watching a basketball game on TV with Thompson. He said Thompson was clearly hobbled by the broken leg. "Medically speaking, he's had a rotten year," he said.

complete story:
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/10956503.htm

[yeahwho]

HST's end of life hit's hard, fucking hard.

HST was the most effective voice for moral outrage in his, and my, generation. He was not afraid to say that the emperor had no clothes, and to make fun of the pimples on his ass while he was at it. He could enrage you, recruit you, and make you laugh all at the same time. He was a uniquely 20th century figure.

What we have lost is the sense of outrage.

His political writing was the BEST FUCKING EVER. for instance,

On Hubert Humphrey: "There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack Hubert Humphrey is until you've followed him around for a while."

or

In an essay written as an obituary for Nixon, at a time when other commentators were offering more generous reassessments of his legacy, Thompson called him: "A liar, a quitter and a bastard. A cheap crook and a merciless war criminal."

Try selling gonzo to the Bush generation. Arrrrgh.

Hopefully he'll find Warren Zevon where ever he's going and the two of them can sit down and enjoy a sandwich.

Hunter took a lot of the fun with him when he left.

[DroppinScience]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4282865.stm

Offed by Bush A la Dr Kelly.

Doubtful. Apparently, he's attempted to take his life several times before.

[Ali]

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!

I've read and enjoyed everything HST has ever written, even though he tended to run out of steam on anything which took longer than one frenzied night of writing.

A very astute political observer, he harried the GOP since hitting the Campaign Trail with Nixon in 1972 and seldom held back when he sensed the Greedheads were trying to fuck us all again.

I'm not sure he really wanted to kill himself, but all the years of drug and alcohol abuse must have been beginning to take their toll by now.

With a lifestyle like that, one could probably say he died of natural causes!

I'm gonna miss him.

[Ali]

Went out like the bitch he was.fuck you, retard.

[Whois]

fuck you, retard.

If you ignore the troll, AND DON'T QUOTE IT...it will get tired and go away.

"America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the werewolf in us". - Hunter S. Thompson on Richard M. Nixon

[infidel]

HST on GW Bush
Jesus Hated Bald Pussy
http://www.hempfarm.org/Papers/Kingdom_of_Fear.html

[Ali]

HST on GW Bush
Jesus Hated Bald Pussy
http://www.hempfarm.org/Papers/Kingdom_of_Fear.htmlTo say this goofy child president is looking more and more like Richard Nixon in the summer of 1974 would be a flagrant insult to Nixon.Hahahahahahahahaahahahahahaaaaaaa!!!

What a LEGEND!

Whoops! Did I say that? Is it even vaguely possible that some New Age Republican whore-beast of a false president could actually make Richard Nixon look like a Liberal?

The capacity of these vicious assholes we elected to be in charge of our lives for four years to commit terminal damage to our lives and our souls and our loved ones is far beyond Nixon's. Shit! Nixon was the creator of many of the once-proud historical landmarks that these dumb bastards are savagely destroying now: the Clean Air Act of 1970; Campaign Finance Reform; the endangered species act; a Real-Politik dialogue with China; and on and on.

Nixon believed, as he said many times, that if the president of the United States does it, it can't be illegal. But Nixon never understood the much higher and meaner truth of Bob Dylan's warning that "To live outside the law you must be honest."

The difference between an outlaw and a war criminal is the difference between a pedophile and a Pederast: The pedophile is a person who thinks about sexual behavior with children, and the Pederast does these things. He lays hands on innocent children, he penetrates them and changes their lives forever.

Being the object of a pedophile's warped affections is a Routine feature of growing up in America, and being a victim of a Pederast's crazed "love" is part of dying. Innocence is no longer an option. Once penetrated, the child becomes a Queer in his own mind, and that is not much different than murder.

Richard Nixon crossed the line when he began murdering foreigners in the name of "family values"- and George Bush crossed it when he sneaked into office and began killing brown skinned children in the name of Jesus and the American people.Thanks infidel, thanks for reminding us what an awesome dude the Dr really was!!!