Hunter Thompson

[Lazaro Vega]

FROM HUNTER S THOMPSON;

Fear & Loathing in 2004

Oct 19, 2004

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Presidential politics is a vicious business, even for rich white men, and

anybody who gets into it should be prepared to grapple with the meanest of

the mean. The White House has never been seized by timid warriors. There are

no rules, and the roadside is littered with wreckage. That is why they call

it the passing lane. Just ask any candidate who ever ran against George

Bush -- Al Gore, Ann Richards, John McCain -- all of them ambushed and

vanquished by lies and dirty tricks. And all of them still whining about it.

That is why George W. Bush is President of the United States, and Al Gore is

not. Bush simply wanted it more, and he was willing to demolish anything

that got in his way, including the U.S. Supreme Court. It is not by accident

that the Bush White House (read: Dick Cheney & Halliburton Inc.) controls

all three branches of our federal government today. They are powerful thugs

who would far rather die than lose the election in November.

The Republican establishment is haunted by painful memories of what happened

to Old Man Bush in 1992. He peaked too early, and he had no response to

"It's the economy, stupid."

Which has always been the case. Every GOP administration since 1952 has let

the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into

debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. Richard Nixon comes

quickly to mind, along with Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous "trickle-down"

theory of U.S. economic policy. If the Rich get Richer, the theory goes,

before long their pots will overflow and somehow "trickle down" to the poor,

who would rather eat scraps off the Bush family plates than eat nothing at

all. Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never will. It

goes back to preindustrial America, when only white male property owners

could vote.

Things haven't changed all that much where George W. Bush comes from.

Houston is a cruel and crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no

zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It's a shabby

sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich

pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West -- which can mean just

about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch.

Houston is also the unnatural home of two out of the last three presidents

of the United States of America, for good or ill. The other one was a

handsome, sex-crazed boy from next-door Arkansas, which has no laws against

oral sex or any other deviant practice not specifically forbidden in the New

Testament, including anal incest and public cunnilingus with farm animals.

Back in 1948, during his first race for the U.S. Senate, Lyndon Johnson was

running about ten points behind, with only nine days to go. He was sunk in

despair. He was desperate. And it was just before noon on a Monday, they

say, when he called his equally depressed campaign manager and instructed

him to call a press conference for just before lunch on a slow news day and

accuse his high-riding opponent, a pig farmer, of having routine carnal

knowledge of his barnyard sows, despite the pleas of his wife and children.

His campaign manager was shocked. "We can't say that, Lyndon," he supposedly

said. "You know it's not true."

"Of course it's not true!" Johnson barked at him. "But let's make the

bastard deny it!"

Johnson -- a Democrat, like Bill Clinton -- won that election by fewer than

a hundred votes, and after that he was home free. He went on to rule Texas

and the U.S. Senate for twenty years and to be the most powerful vice

president in the history of the United States. Until now.

The genetically vicious nature of presidential campaigns in America is too

obvious to argue with, but some people call it fun, and I am one of them.

Election Day -- especially a presidential election -- is always a wild and

terrifying time for politics junkies, and I am one of those, too. We look

forward to major election days like sex addicts look forward to orgies. We

are slaves to it.

Which is not a bad thing, all in all, for the winners. They are not the ones

who bitch and whine about slavery when the votes are finally counted and the

losers are forced to get down on their knees. No. The slaves who emerge

victorious from these drastic public decisions go crazy with joy and plunge

each other into deep tubs of chilled Cristal champagne with naked strangers

who want to be close to a winner.

That is how it works in the victory business. You see it every time. The

Weak will suck up to the Strong, for fear of losing their jobs and their

money and all the fickle power they wielded only twenty-four hours ago. It

is like suddenly losing your wife and your home in a vagrant poker game,

then having to go on the road with whoremongers and beg for your dinner in

public.

Nobody wants to hire a loser. Right? They stink of doom and defeat.

"What is that horrible smell in the office, Tex? It's making me sick."

"That is the smell of a Loser, Senator. He came in to apply for a job, but

we tossed him out immediately. Sgt. Sloat took him down to the parking lot

and taught him a lesson he will never forget."

"Good work, Tex. And how are you coming with my new Enemies List? I want

them all locked up. They are scum."

"We will punish them brutally. They are terrorist sympathizers, and most of

them voted against you anyway. I hate those bastards."

"Thank you, Sloat. You are a faithful servant. Come over here and kneel

down. I want to reward you."

That is the nature of high-risk politics. Veni Vidi Vici, especially among

Republicans. It's like the ancient Bedouin saying: As the camel falls to its

knees, more knives are drawn.

Indeed. the numbers are weird today, and so is this dangerous election. The

time has come to rumble, to inject a bit of fun into politics. That's

exactly what the debates did. John Kerry looked like a winner, and it

energized his troops. Voting for Kerry is beginning to look like very

serious fun for everybody except poor George, who now suddenly looks like a

loser.

That is fatal in a presidential election.

I look at elections with the cool and dispassionate gaze of a professional

gambler, especially when I'm betting real money on the outcome. Contrary to

most conventional wisdom, I see Kerry with five points as a recommended

risk. Kerry will win this election, if it happens, by a bigger margin than

Bush finally gouged out of Florida in 2000. That was about forty-six

percent, plus five points for owning the U.S. Supreme Court -- which seemed

to equal fifty-one percent. Nobody really believed that, but George W. Bush

moved into the White House anyway.

It was the most brutal seizure of power since Hitler burned the German

Reichstag in 1933 and declared himself the new Boss of Germany. Karl Rove is

no stranger to Nazi strategy, if only because it worked, for a while, and it

was sure as hell fun for Hitler. But not for long. He ran out of oil, the

whole world hated him, and he liked to gobble pure crystal biphetamine and

stay awake for eight or nine days in a row with his maps & his bombers & his

dope-addled general staff.

They all loved the whiff. It is the perfect drug for War -- as long as you

are winning -- and Hitler thought he was King of the Hill forever. He had

created a new master race, and every one of them worshipped him. The new

Hitler youth loved to march and sing songs in unison and dance naked at

night for the generals. They were fanatics.

That was sixty-six years ago, far back in ancient history, and things are

not much different today. We still love War.

George Bush certainly does. In four short years he has turned our country

from a prosperous nation at peace into a desperately indebted nation at war.

But so what? He is the President of the United States, and you're not. Love

it or leave it.

War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for the

future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between peace and

war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded beyond our

capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond our

ability to bridge them. . . .

Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a

practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the

profit out of war.

--RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983)

Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like

George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?

If Nixon were running for president today, he would be seen as a "liberal"

candidate, and he would probably win. He was a crook and a bungler, but what

the hell? Nixon was a barrel of laughs compared to this gang of thugs from

the Halliburton petroleum organization who are running the White House

today -- and who will be running it this time next year, if we (the

once-proud, once-loved and widely respected "American people") don't rise up

like wounded warriors and whack those lying petroleum pimps out of the White

House on November 2nd.

Nixon hated running for president during football season, but he did it

anyway. Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he

stood for -- but if he were running for president this year against the evil

Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him.

You bet. Richard Nixon would be my Man. He was a crook and a creep and a

gin-sot, but on some nights, when he would get hammered and wander around in

the streets, he was fun to hang out with. He would wear a silk sweat suit

and pull a stocking down over his face so nobody could recognize him. Then

we would get in a cab and cruise down to the Watergate Hotel, just for

laughs.

Even the Fun-hog vote has started to swing for John Kerry, and that is a

hard bloc to move. Only a fool would try to run for president without the

enthusiastic support of the Fun-hog vote. It is huge, and always available,

but they will never be lured into a voting booth unless voting carries a

promise of Fun.

At least thirty-three percent of all eligible voters in this country are

confessed Fun-hogs, who will cave into any temptation they stumble on. They

have always hated George Bush, but until now they had never made the

connection between hating George Bush and voting for John Kerry.

The Fun-hogs are starving for anything they can laugh with, instead of at.

But George Bush is not funny. Nobody except fellow members of the Petroleum

Club in Houston will laugh at his silly barnyard jokes unless it's for

money.

When young Bush was at Yale in the Sixties, he told the same joke over and

over again for two years, according to some of his classmates. One of them

still remembers it:

There was a young man named Green

Who invented a jack-off machine

On the twenty-third stroke

The damn thing broke

And churned his nuts into cream.

"It was horrible to hear him tell it," said the classmate, who spoke only on

condition of anonymity. He lifted his shirt and showed me a scar on his back

put there by young George. "He burned this into my flesh with a red-hot

poker," he said solemnly, "and I have hated him ever since. That jackass was

born cruel. He burned me in the back while I was blindfolded. This scar will

be with me forever."

There is nothing new or secret about that story. It ran on the front page of

the Yale Daily News and caused a nasty scandal for a few weeks, but nobody

was ever expelled for it. George did his first cover-up job. And he liked

it.

I watch three or four frantic network-news bulletins about Iraq every day,

and it is all just fraudulent Pentagon propaganda, the absolute opposite of

what it says: u.s. transfers sovereignty to iraqi interim "government." Hot

damn! Iraq is finally Free, and just in time for the election! It is a

deliberate cowardly lie. We are no more giving power back to the Iraqi

people than we are about to stop killing them.

Your neighbor's grandchildren will be fighting this stupid, greed-crazed

Bush-family "war" against the whole Islamic world for the rest of their

lives, if John Kerry is not elected to be the new President of the United

States in November.

The question this year is not whether President Bush is acting more and more

like the head of a fascist government but if the American people want it

that way. That is what this election is all about. We are down to

nut-cutting time, and millions of people are angry. They want a Regime

Change.

Some people say that George Bush should be run down and sacrificed to the

Rat gods. But not me. No. I say it would be a lot easier to just vote the

bastard out of office on November 2nd.

BULLETIN

KERRY WINS GONZO ENDORSMENT; DR. THOMPSON JOINS DEMOCRAT IN CALLING BUSH

"THE SYPHILLIS PRESIDENT"

"Four more years of George Bush will be like four more years of syphilis,"

the famed author said yesterday at a hastily called press conference near

his home in Woody Creek, Colorado. "Only a fool or a sucker would vote for a

dangerous loser like Bush," Dr. Thompson warned. "He hates everything we

stand for, and he knows we will vote against him in November."

Thompson, long known for the eerie accuracy of his political instincts, went

on to denounce Ralph Nader as "a worthless Judas Goat with no moral

compass."

"I endorsed John Kerry a long time ago," he said, "and I will do everything

in my power, short of roaming the streets with a meat hammer, to help him be

the next President of the United States."

Which is true. I said all those things, and I will say them again. Of course

I will vote for John Kerry. I have known him for thirty years as a good man

with a brave heart -- which is more than even the president's friends will

tell you about George W. Bush, who is also an old acquaintance from the

white-knuckle days of yesteryear. He is hated all over the world, including

large parts of Texas, and he is taking us all down with him.

Bush is a natural-born loser with a filthy-rich daddy who pimped his son out

to rich oil-mongers. He hates music, football and sex, in no particular

order, and he is no fun at all.

I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, but I will not make that mistake again. The

joke is over for Nader. He was funny once, but now he belongs to the dead.

There is nothing funny about helping George Bush win Florida again. Nader is

a fool, and so is anybody who votes for him in November -- with the obvious

exception of professional Republicans who have paid big money to turn poor

Ralph into a world-famous Judas Goat.

Nader has become so desperate and crazed that he's stooped to paying

homeless people to gather signatures to get him on the ballot. In

Pennsylvania, the petitions he submitted contained tens of thousands of

phony signatures, including Fred Flintstone, Mickey Mouse and John Kerry. A

judge dumped Ralph from the ballot there, saying the forms were "rife with

forgeries" and calling it "the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever

perpetrated upon this court."

But they will keep his name on the ballot in the long-suffering Hurricane

State, which is ruled by the President's younger brother, Jeb, who also

wants to be the next President of the United States. In 2000, when they sent

Jim Baker down to Florida, I knew it was all over. The fix was in. In that

election, 97,488 people voted for Nader in Florida, and Gore lost the state

by 537 votes. You don't have to be from Texas to understand the moral of

that story. It's like being out-coached in the Super Bowl. There are no

rules in the passing lane. Only losers play fair, and all winners have blood

on their hands.

Back in June, when John Kerry was beginning to feel like a winner, I had a

quick little rendezvous with him on a rain-soaked runway in Aspen, Colorado,

where he was scheduled to meet with a harem of wealthy campaign

contributors. As we rode to the event, I told him that Bush's vicious goons

in the White House are perfectly capable of assassinating Nader and blaming

it on him. His staff laughed, but the Secret Service men didn't. Kerry

quickly suggested that I might make a good running mate, and we reminisced

about trying to end the Vietnam War in 1972.

That was the year I first met him, at a riot on that elegant little street

in front of the White House. He was yelling into a bullhorn and I was trying

to throw a dead, bleeding rat over a black-spike fence and onto the

president's lawn.

We were angry and righteous in those days, and there were millions of us. We

kicked two chief executives out of the White House because they were stupid

warmongers. We conquered Lyndon Johnson and we stomped on Richard Nixon --

which wise people said was impossible, but so what? It was fun. We were

warriors then, and our tribe was strong like a river.

That river is still running. All we have to do is get out and vote, while

it's still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White

House.

[ghost of miles]

Maybe Hunter just couldn't take four more years of W.

Clem, F & Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 is a great read and too often overlooked in the shadows of LAS VEGAS, IMO.

[Lazaro Vega]

Clem -- I must interject! The majority of my news comes from www.thenation.com or its paper incarnation. Read a book? I barely have time to skim a mag these days, though Dan Morgenstern, Kart and the Blue Note biography are sitting about and I grab at their words like candy in so many finger bowls.

Good for the digestion (of music on the radio).

[brownie]

Taschen is to release next month a reissue of 'The Curse of Lono' by Thompson and Ralph Steadman. A limited edition of 1,000 copies signed by Thompson and Steadman. Bet they will be going fast!

http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/...facts/01360.htm

[Jazzmoose]

Gonzo Imperial Porter

[Quincy]

Gonzo Imperial Porter

←

And one out of every 12 bottles is dosed!

Several months ago I greatly enjoyed their pale ale. If they do as good of a job on the darker stuff they'll do right by Hunter.

[7/4]

August 21, 2005

Gonzo Writer Thompson's Ashes Blast Off

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 9:47 a.m. ET

WOODY CREEK, Colo. (AP) -- With a deafening boom, the ashes of Hunter S. Thompson were blown into the sky amid fireworks late Saturday as relatives and a star-studded crowd bid an irreverent farewell to the founder of ''gonzo journalism.''

As the ashes erupted from a tower, red, white, blue and green fireworks lit up the sky over Thompson's home near Aspen.

''I'll always remember where I was when Hunter was blown into the heavens,'' said Thompson's neighbor, Rita Sherman, who watched the spectacle from the deck of her house.

The 15-story tower was modeled after Thompson's logo: a clenched fist, made symmetrical with two thumbs, rising from the hilt of a dagger. It was built between his home and a tree-covered canyon wall, not far from a tent filled with merrymakers.

''He loved explosions,'' explained his wife, Anita Thompson.

The private celebration included actors Bill Murray and Johnny Depp, rock bands, blowup dolls and plenty of liquor to honor Thompson, who killed himself six months ago at the age of 67.

Security guards kept reporters and the public away from the compound as the 250 invited guests arrived, but Thompson's fans scouted the surrounding hills for the best view of the celebration.

''We just threw a gallon of Wild Turkey in the back and headed west,'' said Kevin Coy of Chester, W.Va., who drove more than 1,500 miles with a friend in hopes of seeing the celebration. ''We came to pay our respects.''

Thompson fatally shot himself in his kitchen Feb. 20, apparently despondent over his declining health. The memorial, however, was planned as a party, with readings and scheduled performances by both Lyle Lovett and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

The author's longtime illustrator, Ralph Steadman, and actor Sean Penn were on the invitation list, along with Depp, who portrayed Thompson in the 1998 movie version of ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream,'' perhaps the writer's best-known work.

''Over the last few months I've learned that he really touched people more deeply than I had realized,'' said Thompson's son, Juan.

Thompson's longtime friend George Stranahan lamented the Hollywood-style production. ''I am pretty sure it isn't how Hunter would have done it,'' he said. ''But when your friends make a mistake you support them.''

Anita Thompson said Depp funded much of the celebration.

''We had talked a couple of times about his last wishes to be shot out of a cannon of his own design,'' Depp told The Associated Press last month. ''All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out.''

Thompson is credited along with Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese with helping pioneer New Journalism -- he dubbed his version ''gonzo journalism'' -- in which the writer was an essential component of the story.

He often portrayed himself as wildly intoxicated as he reported on figures such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. At the height of the Watergate era, he said Richard Nixon represented ''that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character.''

Besides the 1972 classic about Thompson's visit to Las Vegas -- in which the central character was a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant -- he also wrote an expose on the Hell's Angels and ''Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72.''

The Kentucky-born writer also was the model for Garry Trudeau's balding ''Uncle Duke'' in the comic strip ''Doonesbury.''

In now-chic Aspen, Thompson was an eccentricity: He proudly fired his guns whenever he wanted, let peacocks have the run of the land and ran for sheriff in 1970 under the Freak Power Party banner.

Composer David Amram, a friend of Thompson since the early 1960s, said Thompson had never expected to be successful taking on President Nixon during the Watergate era. ''He thought he would be banned or put on an enemies' list,'' he said.

Thompson made himself the centerpiece of his stories ''to show that a regular person could be in the midst of the craziness of the time,'' Amram said. ''He was our historian.''

After his suicide, one close acquaintance suggested Thompson did not want old age to dictate the circumstances of his death. Anita Thompson said no suicide note was left.

[Soul Stream]

My friend and my organ trio guitarist, Denny Freeman, played solo guitar behind the speakers at the "funderal/cannon shoot". He played a happy hour with me Friday and left early Sat. for the "gig." No doubt, that will go down in history as one of the strangest gigs he'll ever play! Hunter S. RIP.

[Johnny E]

There will never be another Hunter S.

I hope he comes back to earth leading a pack of wild Iraqi War dead spirit berserkers to haunt the miserable remaining days of George W. Bush.

[7/4]

August 22, 2005

Ashes-to-Fireworks Send-Off for an 'Outlaw' Writer

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

WOODY CREEK, Colo., Aug. 21 - Hunter S. Thompson indulged in numerous hallucinogenic fantasies over the years, but this weekend, one of them morphed into reality: his ashes were blasted into the sky over his farm here, carried by red, blue and silver fireworks in front of a 153-foot monument that Mr. Thompson, the writer and avatar of "gonzo" journalism, designed himself almost 30 years ago.

Former Senator George McGovern, the protagonist of Mr. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72," was among the 350 invitation-only guests who paid him tribute before liftoff.

"I'm not quite sure where he's going," Mr. McGovern, 83, mused in his flat South Dakota prairie voice during two hours of alcohol-free tributes. "But I salute you and wish you a happy journey in that land of mystery."

Mr. Thompson's family and friends - including Senator John Kerry, Lyle Lovett, Bill Murray, the musician David Amram, Ed Bradley and locals like Bob Braudis, the sheriff of Pitkin County, Colo. - watched Saturday night as his ashes exploded with fireworks, lingered in great puffs of milky smoke, then vanished.

"When the going gets weird," Mr. Thompson once wrote, "the weird turn pro."

Thus, six months to the day after Mr. Thompson shot himself to death at age 67 at his home here, did his family and friends produce a highly professional show, staged and choreographed by Hollywood and underwritten by his friend the actor Johnny Depp for more than $2 million.

"It's nice to be able to give a little something back," Mr. Depp, who played Mr. Thompson in the film version of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," told the crowd as the ceremony began solemnly about 6:30 Saturday night. "Hunter, this is for you."

What unfolded here in the Rockies just outside of Aspen was the complete canonization of Mr. Thompson.

At the entry to what could only be called the set, his portrait was hung at the center of his personal literary solar system, surrounded by the planets of Samuel T. Coleridge, Joseph Conrad, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, John Steinbeck and Mark Twain.

Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone, whose early history was entwined with Mr. Thompson's emerging career, said that Mr. Thompson was "the DNA of Rolling Stone" and called him "one of the greatest writers of the 20th century."

Douglas Brinkley, the historian and Mr. Thompson's literary executor, said that beyond Mr. Thompson's persona as an outlaw journalist, "Hunter wanted to be remembered as a writer." He called him "the Billy the Kid of American literature."

Throughout the tributes, the monument, sheathed Christo-like in a silky red fabric, loomed in the gloaming, becoming ever more prominent as the natural light faded and spotlights illuminated it against a backdrop of darkening cliffs.

The service was private and laced with what was called "Academy Award-level" security. Mr. Thompson's fans were kept at bay, as were most of the news media, and guests were barred from bringing cellphones, cameras and recording devices. Orange cones marking a tow-away zone extended for three miles beyond Mr. Thompson's home off a narrow strip of rural roadway. Black-clad security guards, aided by a dozen county sheriff's deputies, patrolled the 40-acre property, which Mr. Thompson bought in 1968 for $50,000 and is now worth millions.

By nightfall, scores of fans had gathered at the nearby Woody Creek Tavern and outside the gate to the property. Sheriff's deputies said that "numerous people" tried to crash the scene but were escorted away.

The pavilion for guests, constructed in the last several weeks, was a vast stage set under a glass ceiling. To set a somber tone, everything, including the bar, was initially draped in black velvet. After the service, the black was lifted to reveal couches and Thompson memorabilia like stuffed peacocks and a gong. Above the bar were chandeliers and swatches of red velvet, evoking a frontier bordello.

His widow spoke first.

"We've been through a lot together," Anita Thompson, 32, told the guests. She sobbed her way through Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," which she said was Mr. Thompson's favorite poem.

Earlier in the day, Mrs. Thompson took a brief ride, accompanied by a reporter, high over the property in a crane used to construct the monument. She had flown with his ashes the week before to Pennsylvania, where she delivered them to the Zambelli fireworks company. Technicians encased the remains with the fireworks in mortar shells, which were driven back to Colorado in an armored car.

"Hunter just wants to come home," she said, gazing out on the sharp peaks surrounding the valley.

At the ceremony, Mr. Bradley of the CBS program "60 Minutes" described first learning of Mr. Thompson through his writings in 1972 and thinking of him as an "off-the-wall madman"; eventually Mr. Thompson became one of his closest friends. Like others, he spoke of his grief at losing Mr. Thompson, saying he thought he had finished his crying until he started writing his tribute.

Mr. Wenner recalled his drug-crazed exploits with Mr. Thompson but spoke of his feelings as well, saying at one point that he had been jealous of how close Mr. Depp had become to Mr. Thompson.

"Now those days are gone," Mr. Wenner said. "Once I had Hunter all to myself, and now I don't have him at all. And none of us do."

Mr. Thompson's son, Juan Thompson, 41, closed the tributes, a reminder that the ceremony was not only about a counterculture legend but also a father. He said he was not seeking "closure," dismissing that as "a Dr. Phil word."

"I don't want closure; I want to remember him," he said. "Missing him is a way of loving him."

As Champagne was served, Juan Thompson declared: "The king is dead. Long live the king."

His father then appeared on screen from a 1978 BBC documentary, describing how he wanted his ashes dispersed. He drew up plans that looked remarkably like the steel monument a few hundred feet away.

Norman Greenbaum's 1969 anthem "Spirit in the Sky" then rose from the sound system, with the lyrics: "When they lay me down to die/ Going on up to the spirit in the sky."

The silky red dressing around the monument slowly unpeeled itself, revealing a rocket-like structure embedded with a dagger. It was crowned by Mr. Thompson's logo, a two-and-a-half-ton red fist with two thumbs and a psychedelic peyote button pulsating at its center, a Day-Glo sight visible for miles around.

The final send-off began with Japanese ceremonial drummers and Buddhist readings in Tibetan. Then, with a bang that Matt Wood, a Zambelli fireworks designer and producer, described as just below the level of a sonic boom, 34 lines of fireworks streamed from the ground. The whole display lasted less than a minute, after which a recording of Bob Dylan wailed with "Mr. Tambourine Man" ("I'm ready for to fade/Into my own parade"). The partying then commenced, with jam sessions into the wee hours.

The monument, taller than the Statue of Liberty, is temporary because it violates local ordinances. Mrs. Thompson said she hoped to keep it up for two weeks, then would build a pond nearby as a permanent sanctuary, with a government-issued tombstone. (Mr. Thompson was an Air Force veteran.) She plans to inscribe it with a Thompson saying: "It never got weird enough for me."

[7/4]

August 22, 2005

Some Decry Glitz of Thompson Blastoff

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 8:05 a.m. ET

WOODY CREEK, Colo. (AP) -- Hunter S. Thompson's grand finale went off as planned: His ashes were blasted into the night sky in an explosion friends and fans agreed he would have loved. But some said the gonzo journalist would have sneered at the Hollywood trappings -- champagne toasts by movie stars and former presidential candidates.

Filmmaker Nancy Cohen tried to organize a group of 100 fans outside the gates of Thompson's farm to crash the Saturday night party.

''That's what Hunter would have done,'' she said.

''This looks more like a fancy dress ball than a memorial for a counterculture icon,'' said Cohen, of New York, producer of ''My Dinner With Abbie,'' a film about 1960s radical activist Abbie Hoffman.

Crashing the party would have been difficult with the dozens of black-clad security guards who lined the roads leading to the farm.

''It looks like the neighborhood has been invaded by the Viet Cong,'' friend and neighbor Mike Cleverly said of the guards.

''I am pretty sure it isn't how Hunter would have done it,'' said longtime friend George Stranahan.

The writer's ashes were fired from atop a 15-story tower modeled after Thompson's logo: a clenched fist, holding a peyote button, rising from the hilt of a dagger. It was built between his home and a tree-covered canyon wall.

The guests gathered in a pavilion next to the platform. Inside were blow up sex dolls and a mask of Thompson's arch enemy, late President Richard Nixon. With drums beating in the background, trays of champagne circulated before Thompson's remains flew.

Thompson shot himself in his kitchen Feb. 20, apparently despondent over his declining health.

The national and most local media were barred from the tribute to the groundbreaking writer who was credited, along with Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese, with helping pioneer New Journalism -- he dubbed his version ''gonzo journalism'' -- in which the writer was an essential component of the story.

His only son, Juan Thompson, said the hundreds of celebrities, including actors Johnny Depp and Bill Murray, musician Lyle Lovett and former Democratic presidential nominees George McGovern and Sen. John Kerry, wouldn't have felt comfortable with the press around.

Depp, who played Thompson in the 1998 film adaptation of ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,'' paid for the $2.5 million extravaganza. Depp and Juan Thompson embraced as the ashes fell to the ground.

Juan Thompson told the Aspen Daily News that the ceremony not only fulfilled the vision his father outlined in a 1978 BBC video, but it ''was bigger than he ever imagined.''

Ralph Steadman, who illustrated many of Thompson's works, had a different take on the extravaganza.

''He'd probably say it wasn't quite big enough,'' said Steadman. ''We want him back. (Saturday night) was a kind of pleading for him to come back. All is forgiven.''

[7/4]

September 8, 2005

Rolling Stone to Publish Thompson Note

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 11:31 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- Rolling Stone, the magazine that was home for years to Hunter S. Thompson, will publish a note written by the gonzo journalist days before he committed suicide in February.

Douglas Brinkley, the presidential historian who is also Thompson's official biographer, writes that a Feb. 16 note may be Thompson's final written words. It reads:

''No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt.''

Hunter left the note for his wife, Anita. He shot himself four days later at his home in Aspen, Colo., after weeks of pain from a host of physical problems that included a broken leg and a hip replacement.

Written in black marker, the note was titled, ''Football Season Is Over.''

Brinkley writes in the magazine, on newsstands Friday, ''February was always the cruelest month for Hunter S. Thompson. An avid NFL fan, Hunter traditionally embraced the Super Bowl in January as the high-water mark of his year. February, by contrast, was doldrums time.''

Most of Thompson's early writings appeared in Rolling Stone. In pieces of great length, he often portrayed himself as a wildly intoxicated observer and participant.

The writer's ashes were blown into the sky in Woody Creek, Colo., amid fireworks on Aug. 20.

[7/4]

Happy Birthday you crazy fuck.

July 18, 1937

[alocispepraluger102]

an alov fav, and a way to pay tribute:

http://flyingdogales.com/cut-gonzo.asp

this flying dog gonzo imperial porter is awesome

Brewers Toast Hunter Thompson

Posted by William Brand on May 24th, 2005

Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s death at 67 by his own hand on Feb. 20, 2005, has inspired two of America’s more adventuresome breweries to make beers in his honor. Lagunitas Brewing, of Petaluma, CA. has just released Gonzo, a high-powered,ale that looks like it may have the legs for a couple of years aging.

Meanwhile, Flying Dog Brewery in Denver is just now bottling an Imperial Porter, in his memory.

Flying Dog, of course, has a close connection with Thompson. The stories change along with the years that it happened from time to time. But there are a couple of things that are certain. Hunter and Flying Dog co-founder George Stranahan and artist-illustrator Ralph Steadman (well, maybe he was there), were drinking beer at the Woody Creek Tavern in Woody Creek, a hamlet near Aspen, where they lived.

Either they got the idea for a Flying Dog or the idea for Road Dog Porter at that time. Here’s is the version e-mailed to us today:

“Gonzo energy has been racing around the Flying Dog brewery like a three-legged dog on acid for over a decade now. Brewery founder and fellow renegade, George Stranahan, was Hunter�s friend and neighbor in Aspen, Colorado. The duo met up with gonzo artist Ralph Steadman in 1991 at the Woody Creek Tavern in what the brewery infamously refers to as, �the meeting of minds�.

“No one knows exactly what transpired that night but the result was Road Dog Porter and the first, authentic, gonzo beer label illustrated by Ralph Steadman and Hunter�s quote, �Good People Drink Good Beer�.”

Gonzo Imperial Porter was brewed with black, chocolate and crystal malts, hopped with Millennium and Cascades. “We tried to make everything about this beer Gonzo, which explains why we�ve already had one run in with the authorities,” brewery president Eric Warner said in a statement.

“The Tax and Trade Bureau took issue with a quote from Hunter that we put on the label, which says, �I hate to advocate, drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity but they�ve always worked for me�. Seems innocuous to me but the TTB didn�t see it that way�.

The brewery’s press release adds: “Gonzo Imperial Porter has been brewed with black, chocolate and crystal malts and hopped with Millennium and Cascades. Like Hunter this beer is intense and complex and at (9.5% ABV) it�ll bite back if you don�t give it the proper respect. Would Hunter have approved? Well we�ll never know for sure, however, a swarm of bats was seen hovering over the brewery the other day, so the folks at Flying Dog are taking that as a thumbs up.

Tony Magee, founder of Lagunitas Brewing here in the Bay Area, can’t claim such a close connection. But, he says, “it’s good to have heroes.” And Hunter Thompson was one to Tony and to a lot of us. Most of us never made it to Las Vegas in 1972 to the Republican National Convention and covered it, reportedly, stoned on super acid. But we could read along and we did.

Here’s Tony’s own homage below the Gonzo label:

About the beer: It’s nearly as big as Hunter Thompson was. It’s 8.5 percent ABV with a huge, malty taste. There may be hops, it’s probably massively hoppy. But it’s so malty, it may take a year of aging before the beer finds its hop-malt balance. So, buy one for the shelf, one to drink and one to save and savor later.

Dropping back to the dog…, I place Flying Dog’s best efforts in the same category as Lagunitas and a handful of other fine American Breweries.

I’ve always loved Flying Dog’s beer. Their 10th anniversary (in Denver) special: Wild Dog Double Pale Alewild , released during the GABF in 2004 was easily one of the best America beers I’ve had the good fortune to sample in many a year. If only, I had had the sense to buy two bottles and keep one for aging. Drat. Here are my tasting notes from October, 2004:

This is extreme pale ale, in honor of Flying Dog’s 10th anniversary ale. It’s enough to drive conservative Brits wild. This is hallucinogenic stuff — Cascade hops pour out of the glass and circle the brain. It’s hugely hoppy at 85 International Bitterness Units (Bud has 11 IBU), but at 9.5 percent alcohol by volume, there’s enough malt to balance the hops. Well, almost.

Haven’t tried Imperial Porter yet, but, needless to say, I have great expectations. This comes from Flying Dog:

If your state is not on our (beer distribution) list call your senator and demand justice, or just give Artic Liquors a call in Colorado and they’ll ship you out as many four-packs as you can handle. The cost of two four-packs including shipping is around $28. To order please call Arctic Liquors at 1-877 817-9463.

The collectors edition bottles (750ml) signed by Ralph Steadman will be available from our tasting room on Fri, June 17 (Fathers Day) at 12 noon.

These will be priced at $30 per bottle and sold on a first come, first served basis. An unsigned version of the 750ml bottles will also be available from the tasting room for $15 per bottle.

The brewery adds that Porter sale proceeds will help fund the Gonzo Memorial Fist on Hunter’s Owl Farm Estate in Woody Creek, Colorado. “The huge stone column is reputed to reach a height of 150 feet and will be crowned with a giant red fist.”

Unveiling will be at a memorial in August with several hundred (thousand) of Hunter’s close friends, including Johnny Depp and Jack Nicholson. Sonny Barger’s not invited. If you don’t get that, check out “The Hells Angels,” the book about the Oakland, CA Hell’s Angels, published in 1966, and one of his best.

Proceeds from the sale of both the four-packs and the 750’s will go towards

building the Gonzo Memorial Fist in Aspen.

Don’t forget the T-shirt, design by Steadman, portion of the proceeds goes to the fist.

Edited July 18, 2007 by alocispepraluger102

[Alexander]

Happy Birthday you crazy fuck.

July 18, 1937

By sheer coincidence, I just finished re-reading "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Must've been some sort of cosmic thing...

[7/4]

Wife says hard work, not wild living, made Hunter Thompson a success

DENVER - It wasn't a reckless obsession with liquor, drugs and gunplay that made the late Hunter S. Thompson the undisputed king of Gonzo journalism, his wife says.

Instead, it was old-fashioned principles such as working hard and telling the truth, enlivened by the glee Thompson took from learning and from being right.

"I don't deny his lifestyle, because his lifestyle was pretty extreme," Anita Thompson told The Associated Press, but that lifestyle was made possible by his success as a reporter and writer, not the other way around.

In her new book, "The Gonzo Way: A Celebration of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," Thompson says her husband built his career with a tireless dedication to the craft of reporting, a keen awareness of his own shortcomings and his personal blend of patriotism - loving his country while mistrusting authority.

And, in a wide-ranging interview, she spoke about a rift between her and Hunter Thompson's son and the agonizing doubts that dogged her in the days after her husband's suicide.

Thompson shot himself in the kitchen of his home outside Aspen in February 2005 at age 67.

He had established himself as an original and riveting voice with "Hells Angels," published in 1966, and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" in 1972. It was Gonzo journalism - irreverent, outlandish and unapologetically personal. The image it projected, coupled with his undisguised love of guns and explosions, gave Thompson a reputation as an unbridled outlaw surfing on a wave of drugs and excess.

After his death, Anita Thompson said, she got stacks of e-mails and letters from young people who thought they could duplicate his success by mimicking his infamous consumption.

"They wrote me these letters about drinking bottles of Wild Turkey and doing grams of cocaine," said Thompson, a tall, outgoing, slender woman with shoulder-length dirty blond hair and a ready smile, who munched on a salad during an interview at a Denver hotel. "And I realized, OK, I need to correct that."

Her book, published by Fulcrum Publishing, depicts the man who used the pseudonym Raoul Duke in his famous "Fear and Loathing," as a relentless researcher and a voracious reader. He viewed politics as both worthy and necessary to get things done, the book says, and he believed nothing could be accomplished without friends and allies.

"The Hunter I want people to understand is hardworking, righteous and a patriot - a bedrock patriot and loyal to his country and loyal to his friends," Anita Thompson said. Even his most savage political commentary was written in hopes of inspiring change: "He believed we were better than what we were electing."

Thompson also knew his faults and either compensated for them or harnessed them, his widow said. He thought he was lazy, so he worked hard. He could be angry and violent, so he poured that energy onto the page.

But not all of it ended up there.

"Sometimes, it felt like the walls of the cabin would come down when we would get into our big fights," she said. "Things would fly, grapefruits and a lamp would fly - a lot of shouting."

Their marriage worked, she said, because she fought back, and he was never physically violent toward her.

"To me he was a great husband. He could be scary at times . . . but so could I," she said, laughing.

The 35-year age difference between them - she was 32 when he died - enriched their relationship. Thompson described Hunter as her teacher, boss and best friend, while she sometimes played the role of designated grown-up.

"He was such a child at heart that I was often the adult between the two of us," she said.

Anita Thompson was born in Fort Collins, about 210 kilometres northeast of Aspen. She attended the University of California at Los Angeles but got so heavily involved with environmental groups on the campus that she burned out. She moved to Aspen in 1994 for what she thought would be a one-semester break but it stretched into years.

She went snowboarding every day during ski season and was working as a nanny and a ski shop bookkeeper when a friend introduced her to Hunter. They became friends and he asked her to go to work as his editorial assistant on a book of his letters.

They fell in love. She moved in with him in late 1999 and they married in April 2003.

Writing "The Gonzo Way" has helped her heal from his suicide, she said, but the path has been uneven. The first few weeks were especially dark, complicated by a split with Juan Thompson, Hunter's son from a previous marriage.

Twice before the suicide, Juan and his wife had asked Anita to leave Hunter, said Thompson, who does not know why and refused to consider it.

"I had no intention of leaving him," she said. "He was the love of my life and he was sick at the time." Hunter Thompson had undergone a hip replacement and back surgery, and had suffered a broken leg.

After the suicide, Juan told her his father had wanted to end the marriage and that a paper found near his body was a divorce document, she said. She didn't believe it, but then recalled a note her husband wrote two weeks earlier saying, "I love you enough to set you free." She had asked what he meant but he didn't want to talk about it.

"So when Juan said that 'My dad wanted a divorce,' I thought maybe Hunter did want me to go," she said. "I had to requestion everything - my place there, if my being there maybe caused Hunter to do it."

Relief came three weeks later, she said, when she got a photograph taken by investigators that showed the paper found near Thompson's body was not a divorce document but an amendment to his will.

"I know Hunter didn't want a divorce. I know that," she said.

Anita Thompson said Juan won't discuss the document with her.

Juan Thompson declined to discuss the assertions, saying they involved "very personal issues."

"If we're going to talk about Hunter, I think we should talk about Hunter's accomplishments and writing rather than his personal life," he said.

Like many others who knew the writer, Anita Thompson said she was not surprised that he committed suicide, because he had spoken more than once about ending his life on his own terms, when he thought it was time to go.

"I have accepted his decision with an open heart. But I do feel it was a mistake. I believe he did it too soon," she said.

Now 35, Thompson said she is doing her best to move on. She is finishing her undergraduate degree in American studies at Columbia University in New York and is considering graduate school.

She may pursue a career in public education, but, she said, "I will always work for Hunter, or at least for the things he thought were important, because they're important to me, too." One of those causes is working with a marijuana-law reform group.

Her family sometimes worries that she is "still orbiting around Hunter." But that's all right with Thompson.

"It's like Venus - doesn't want to lose the sun. One day you wake up and the sun is gone. What do you do?" she said with a laugh.

[7/4]

June 29, 2008

Film

Fear and Loathing on a Documentary Screen

By DAVID CARR, NYT

HUNTER S. THOMPSON, who has been lionized in two feature films, served as the model for a running character in “Doonesbury” and is the subject of enough doctoral dissertations to build a bonfire, now has a documentary devoted to him, “Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson,” by Alex Gibney. Thompson, who always seemed to keep one drug-crazed eye on posterity behind his ever-present shades, would surely be pleased but not surprised.

But how to freshly document the life of a man who was his own Boswell, whose books and articles slavishly documented his own every tic, whoop and hallucination? A journalist who announced his arrival in American letters by riding with the Hells Angels and in the end choreographed a memorial from the grave that made the Burning Man bacchanal seem chaste?

Few writers have commodified narcissism so completely — his participatory style of journalism became its own genre and gives the film its title — but still we are invited to sit in the dark of the theater and have a flashback about his flashbacks. When the film opens on July 4, why will people, as Thompson would say, buy the ticket, take the ride?

The documentary by Mr. Gibney, who also made “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and “Taxi to the Dark Side,” does not attempt to work around Thompson’s endless self-consciousness but uses it as leverage instead. Produced by Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, and narrated by the actor Johnny Depp, “Gonzo” mirrors the subjectivity and immersion of the journalism Thompson and his trusty arsenal of psychoactive agents perpetrated in Rolling Stone and elsewhere. Mr. Gibney eschews narrative conventions and switches point of view on a dime, creating a prism of interviews and episodes that gradually assembles into a compelling portrait.

In his long-running fever dream about America and its abundant pathologies, the bald man, with the tumbler of whiskey and head full of Schedule 1 narcotics, captured not only a mood — your government is not your friend — but many realities of civic life, most notably that if candidates were willing to do what it takes to get elected, they would probably arrive in office corrupted beyond hope.

Thompson, whose defects of character could occupy a separate ZIP code, was not just an original, he was also a patriot and a romantic. Working from the far reaches of the culture and often lucidity, Thompson, who died in 2005 at 67, changed the way that much of America thought about itself, in part because his version of journalism threw a grenade at the bland convention of formal balance and straight reporting.

“I would argue that Hunter and Tom Wolfe are the two most original voices to come out of journalism in the last century, and it’s no coincidence that they both worked for Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone,” Mr. Carter said. “No one else was willing to push it that way, to take those risks.” Mr. Gibney’s documentary plays appropriate tribute by restricting its gaze to the nascent Thompson of the ’60s and early ’70s. By the time most of America knew who Thompson was, he was pretty much washed up, having gradually been overtaken by his own legend, with steady assists from the bottle, the drugs and his coven of enablers.

August men line up to pay their respects in the documentary — Patrick J. Buchanan, George McGovern, Jimmy Buffett, Gary Hart and Timothy Crouse, the author of the campaign memoir “The Boys on the Bus” — as do the women he loved. Both his first wife, Sandy, and second wife, Anita, testify to his courage and courtliness, in between pointing out that he could be mean as a snake and far less predictable. He broke through by covering a biker gang from the inside — he “rode with the Angels,” as Mr. Wolfe puts it in the film — and took a serious beat-down on the way out. Journalism, as practiced by Thompson, was not something for sissies.

It’s clear in the documentary that what became a sort of pillar of the so-called New Journalism — nonfiction writing that borrowed from the techniques of fiction writing — began at the Kentucky Derby, when Mr. Thompson ignored the race he was there to cover. “We had come to see the real beasts perform,” those in the stands, Mr. Depp says, reading an article over Ralph Steadman’s illustrations.

In 1971 Thompson went looking for the American dream while on assignment, and rather presciently he did what many tourists do today: He went to Las Vegas. “Gonzo” borrows a lot of footage from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” the 1998 film that stars Mr. Depp as Raoul Duke, the nom de persona of Thompson in the book of the same name.

Mr. Depp developed a lasting affiliation with his subject, and narrates much of Mr. Gibney’s documentary — in one instance while holding a six-shooter at the ready — with a bit of the rumble that made Thompson’s speaking voice distinctive as well. (The film also uses some scenes from “Where the Buffalo Roam,” the biopic starring Bill Murray.)

Stylistically the documentary combs the extensive archive of tapes, both audio and video, some made by Thompson familiars who spent time with him in his bunker at Woody Creek, Colo. The rest of the film uses standard talking heads and narration drawn mostly from Mr. Thompson’s two most celebrated books, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.”

“I wanted to have some fun in the film, because nobody really appreciated me trying to put laughs in ‘Taxi,’ ” Mr. Gibney said over breakfast this month at the Peninsula Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. “It was too dark.”

Mr. Gibney said he thought of “Gonzo” as a bit of comic relief from “Taxi,” this year’s Oscar-winning documentary, which tells the story of an Afghan taxi driver who was beaten to death by American soldiers while in extrajudicial detention at Bagram Air Base. But Mr. Gibney and Thompson are both known for driving big dump trucks of truth toward power.

“As a journalist Hunter never seemed to get trapped or hoodwinked into the phony balance,” said Mr. Gibney, who agreed to the documentary after being approached by Mr. Carter even though Mr. Gibney never met Thompson. As read by Mr. Depp in the film, Thompson suggests that objectivity was for suckers, a way to allow evil to triumph: “It was the built-in blind spots of the objective rule and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place.”

Sometimes that subjectivity could slip into something less benign. In 1972, when he took it upon himself to attempt to drive the presidential candidate Edmund S. Muskie slowly insane, he suggested that Muskie was hooked on Ibogaine, an obscure Brazilian drug. Thompson had made it up and seemed surprised when others took the bait. Frank Mankiewicz, the political director of the McGovern presidential campaign, is seen in the film saying that that Mr. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing” book about the 1972 race, a collection of his articles for Rolling Stone, was “the least accurate and most truthful” account of the campaign.

That campaign proved to be the high-water mark of his career. Although Mr. Gibney is quick to say that Thompson wrote as he did in spite of the drugs and alcohol, the substances — hallucinogens for the vision, amphetamines to get it on the page, booze to take the edge off both — didn’t just beckon the muse, they were stamped into everything that eventually popped out. Always far past deadline of course. “Hunter could manufacture a crisis out of almost anything,” said Mr. Wenner, his friend and longtime editor at Rolling Stone. “He did amazing, amazing work, but it got to the point where it was hard for Hunter to travel, because of all the stuff he would need to take with him.”

There are extensive segments with Mr. Steadman, the long-suffering British illustrator and accomplice who could chronicle the internal and external demons Mr. Thompson spied everywhere. The poles of love and hate that characterize many great collaborations are clearly visible in the film.

As the documentary demonstrates, the bottom for the pair came when Mr. Thompson was assigned to cover the Rumble in the Jungle, the fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire in 1974. Mr. Steadman explains in the film that in an act of enormous cocaine-assisted hubris (or perhaps fear that Mr. Ali, one of his heroes, was about to take a huge beating), Thompson gave away his tickets to the fight and went for a swim in the hotel pool. In doing so, he missed one of the greatest upsets in boxing history and, more important for a journalist, did not get the story.

By the accounts of many Thompson never recovered from that episode, gradually morphing into the character of Uncle Duke that Garry Trudeau introduced in “Doonesbury,” a cartoon figure who fired automatic weapons from his sun deck at apparitions and enemies that only he could see. He became the sum of his trademarks — the sunglasses, cigarette holder and inchoate rage — and ended up imprisoned by them.

“He was the master persona maker,” said Douglas Brinkley, the historian and friend of Thompson’s who serves as executor of the estate. “If Ernest Hemingway was going to go big-game hunting in Africa, Hunter wanted to use a submachine gun to hunt wild boar in Big Sur, Calif. He was dangerous, like handling nitroglycerin, and he liked to keep it that way.”

In the end everyone wanted to be around Thompson except Thompson. And on a bright winter day in Woody Creek, with his son in the house — Juan Thompson sardonically terms it a “warm family moment” in the film — he called his own bluff and blew his brains out.

He was infirm at the time, spending time in a wheelchair. Given his fundamental allergy to institutions like hospitals, his decision to set the terms of his exit is unsurprising.

“Hunter was very much one to share the pain when things went wrong, but he would share the glory as well,” said Anita Thompson, who married him in 2003. “He was a generous person, but he ended up surrounded by leeches and hanger-on-ers. It is the curse of fame.”

It is a curse that he embraced and held dear. The theatricality of his end, followed by a huge memorial in which his ashes were shot out of a cannon while people partied below, suggested that he understood his life as a kind of performance that required one final, deadly act. Throughout the film he speaks with such specificity about his legacy and its discontents that he seems to know he is speaking from the grave.

“I’m really in the way as a person,” he said. “The myth has taken over. I find myself an appendage. I’m no longer necessary. I’m in the way. It would be much better if I died. Then people could take the myth and make films.”

[7/4]

Documentary tells full story of Hunter S. Thompson

The filmmaker drew from a stash of recordings made by the man himself.

By Mark Olsen, LAT

July 3, 2008

OF COURSE, there were the drugs. And the drinking. And guns. And more drugs. Given his notorious lifestyle, it can be hard to keep in mind that Hunter S. Thompson was first and foremost a writer, a frontline chronicler of the promise and adventure of the 1960s and the burnout and aftermath of the 1970s.

The revitalization of Thompson's literary and cultural legacy is at the center of "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," the new documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney. When he was drafted onto the project by producer Graydon Carter, Gibney says he was passingly familiar with Thompson's work but had never actually met the man himself, who took his own life in 2005.

"I wasn't going to be able to be the insider," Gibney recalls. "I was the outsider. But one of the things I could do that was valuable was to remind people how good the writing was. I think Hunter the character had overwhelmed Hunter the writer. Everybody knew him as this wild and crazy guy who just did lots of drugs, and had forgotten why they paid attention to him in the first place."

To create his portrait of the writer, Gibney drew from a wealth of sources, including Thompson's unpublished manuscripts, personal letters and photographs; interviews with his contemporaries and family members; and chunks of a 1978 BBC documentary -- which some might recognize as an extra on the DVD for the film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

But to those steeped in Thompsonalia, the film's biggest get may be the audiotapes that came from Thompson's ever-present recorder. They include an excerpt from the recording of an out-of-control mid-'60s party at the Northern California ranch of writer Ken Kesey that was chronicled in Thompson's book "Hell's Angels" and Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

The stash of Thompson's vintage audio recordings was excavated by archivist Don Fleming, hired by Gibney to comb through the boxes and boxes of material Thompson had carefully organized before his death. (And yes, for those of a certain age, Don Fleming is the one and same who has been a member of such stalwart indie-rock outfits as the Velvet Monkeys.)

Thompson's archive "just totally blew our minds," Fleming says. "We were hoping to get a few tapes with him on it, but this was a whole different level than what we expected.

"Basically he recorded everything from '64 until he died. He never stopped. And they were all dated, they all had titles. It's not just random tapes, it's very deliberate. He certainly made a lot of written notes as well, there's a bunch of journals, but he really did use the cassette deck as a tool for the way he created his work. A lot of it shows up verbatim in the text of his books."

For Gibney, the challenge in focusing on Thompson, who is somehow both overexposed and underappreciated, was to create a film both for fans and neophytes, as well as a cleareyed tribute to that which will last. The words come before the myth.

"It's a story about an artist, a writer," Gibney says. "The lesson is there's a benefit to following your path and finding your own voice and being fearless. The other lesson is it gets very hard, when you have some success, to have any perspective on yourself. That's more a life lesson, but the artist lessons are don't be precious, think about the way the world works and find your own way through it."

[BruceH]

Maybe Hunter just couldn't take four more years of W.

Clem, F & Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 is a great read and too often overlooked in the shadows of LAS VEGAS, IMO.

Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 was the first Hunter Thompson book I ever read, in high school, before even Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (which I didn't get around to until college.) For ages it was my favorite Thompson, though I'm not certain how I'd like it now. But I agree, it is a bit overlooked.

[7/4]

I read it again a few years ago....strange book.

..