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Kris Law
Inspector
Username: Kris
Post Number: 463
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 9:37 am: | 
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Since every other dead celebrity got a send off in Pub Thread I thought it was only suitable that the originator (and possibly only member) of the Gonzo school of journalism should get a mention.
It saddens me that this man's work will now be postscripted with the fact that he took his own life, and what he wrote might be smirked at and disregarded the way Abbie Hoffman is now.
I hope not.
-K
I'll see you in time . . .
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John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1210
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 10:19 am: |
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Hunter S. Thompson, AKA Raoul Duke, AKA Uncle Duke, was one of the most unique and interesting literary voices of the age.
He changed forever what many of assumed we knew about what a journalist could be and what journalism was. His book on the 1972 Presidential campaign is still a remarkable moment in the history of American political reporting. And every time I assign Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in my literature classes, my students leave at the end of the semester with well-worn copies in hand still talking about their favorite passages and with their own unexamined assumptions about what it means to get and tell the story completely blown away.
Trust me, Dr. Thompson would have loved the sick and twisted madness of Diary World here. Now that I think of it, with a head full of blotter acid and a trunk full of grapefruits and with the bats circling overhead, this place might actually make some sort of weird and terrible sense.
In his last piece of writing (his most recent column for ESPN.com, where he was a regular contributor during the past five years), he leaves us with his latest invention. Shotgun golf. You can find his description of it in the archives here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/archive?columnist=hunter_s._thompson&root=page2
It is now the official sport of Diary World.
Meanwhile, do yourself a favor. Crack open one of the good doctor's books. Start at the first page. And hold on for the ride of your life.
Just before Hunter Thompson's close friend Warren Zevon died, he sang to us, "Keep me in your heart for awhile."
His devoted readers will no doubt always have a place in their hearts and minds for this extraordinarily talented and strange man. And fortunately his work remains, offering us that most precious of gifts, a chance for a brief moment of real joy.
Sometimes, when I'm reading and writing over on the Diary threads just for the sort of perverse pleasure that only acting clinically insane in public can produce, I think of a sentence near the end of The Great Shark Hunt.
"Ah...mother of raving God! What are we into? How did we get down in this hole! And how can we get out?"
Farewell, Doctor.
Res Ipsa Loquitur.
--John
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Alan Sharp
Chief Inspector
Username: Ash
Post Number: 783
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 9:13 pm: |
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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.
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
If there is, in fact, a Heaven and a Hell, all we know for sure is that Hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix.
Cover a war in a place where you can't drink beer or talk to a woman? Hell no!
In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward mobile.
A cap of good acid costs five dollars and for that you can hear the Universal Symphony with God singing solo and the Holy Ghost on drums.
The man was a one off. I just hope the afterlife is weird enough for him!
"All I know of morality, I learned from football" - Albert Camus
Visit my website - http://www.ashbooks.co.uk/
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John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1212
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 1:34 pm: |
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Yes.
And the Doctor himself loved a good quote. One of his favorites was from Dr. Johnson.
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
Planning a course on Lit. of the American Dream and putting F&L in Las Vegas on the book list now,
--John
"The only thing that really worried me was the ether." |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1986
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 30, 2005 - 7:03 pm: |
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Agreed.A really splendid joyous man. |
Lindsey Millar
Inspector
Username: Lindsey
Post Number: 422
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - 5:14 pm: |
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I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
You will always be remembered, Dr Thompson.
May the afterlife be everything you imagined it would be.
In appreciation,
Lyn
"When a man grows tired of London, he grows tired of life" (or summat like that)
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David O'Flaherty
Chief Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 998
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 21, 2005 - 7:34 pm: |
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Well, Johnny Depp bought Dr. Thompson his cannon and they finally shot his ashes out of it. |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 2329
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 22, 2005 - 4:07 am: |
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Thanks for that David.Its always good to know Johnny is on the right side![...and Sean et al]
Natalie |
amber moody
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 1:12 am: |
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he always said it could never get weird enough for him and it didnt and i thank him for that. the weirder it got for him the more interesting the ride became for us. we were all on that journey with him and he loved it. take the ticket, go for the ride. and what a ride it was. i had fun did u? |
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