So long.
ESPN.com: Page 2 : Shotgun Golf with Bill Murray — This may be the last published piece by Hunter Thompson who apparently killed himself this last weekend. I can’t say I was pals with Thompson, but I knew him and chatted with him a lot when he was writing for the SF Examiner. Among other things I helped move him off the typewriter to computer assisted writing in the 1980’s. “OK, so computers are our friends then?” he once said to me. I think this was after he shot one.
Another comment I recall was that his primary literary influence was Faulkner. I don’t know who, if anyone, ever reported that. But once he told me I could see it in his writing.
He was an interesting fellow obviously tormented by all sorts of inner demons. Most remarkable, to me, was his attentiveness when you’d discuss your take on his writing. He seemed fascinated by anyone who didn’t seem to think his material was crummy. I get the suspician that this was because of editors. I used to hear them moan about his inability to meet deadlines and his style. Thus, over the years, he ended up at ESPN online instead of the New Yorker. Now he’ll be praised as a genius. But nobody will explain why, if he was such a genius, THEY never hired him.
Both Johnny Depp and Bill Murray played Thompson in movies and both were pretty near close to Thompson’s weird mumbling style of communication. Depp was probably closer. According to the local writers in San Francisco, Hunter was the great hope of the fiction community. The next stage after Hemingway kind of thing. Drugs and alcohol were blamed for this never happening. But that never stopped Hemingway or others before him. Thompson, along the way, just wasn’t interested enough to take his own importance seriously.
As an aside he used to hang out with all sorts of Washinton types and always claimed that G. Gordon Liddy was “Deepthroat.”
If you liked him I’m sure toasting with a tumbler of Chivas 12 would be appropriate.
related link:
The original HST Homepage. Hopefully it will remain intact for a while.
Excellent interview with HST in Salon.
I will miss him … BIG HUG for Juan, Jen, Willam and Anita… who never be able to fill the hole left in there lives by the man in spite of the myth and legend attached to his life.
Mr Dvorak, the page you list above is not the original HST homepage. It is the most excellent and thorough tribute site maintained by Christine Othitis Bennett.
The original HST board emanated from Woody Creek, Co, and was maintained for the man himself by what was then http://www.aspenonline.com and its staunch and long-suffering webmaster Gunnar.
It featured a bulletin board wherein the good Doctor himself made one or two fleeting appearances before, apparently, losing interest.
I met my wife on that bulletin board. We sent Dr Thompson a cordial invitation to officiate at our wedding in Australia 7 years ago, seeing as his “lonely hearts club and matchmaking service” was to blame for it all — but, alas, we received no reply.
One of the denizens on the HST BB was a guy named Todd, who kept baying at Doc to send him a sliver of his apparently superhuman liver. After some weeks, Thompson was drawn to comment along these lines: “TODD: Go to New York City, phone this number xxx-xxx-xxx and ask to speak to Mr Keith Richards. Be very polite and avoid the police. DOC.”
… Hunter is dead.
The seed of self-destruction is a burning scar that everyone who considers it carries with them. There are those of us who are destined to kill themselves, and there are those who submit themselves to the mercy of the world. When someone like Hunter S. Thompson can not stand to go on living, it makes us wonder what we bother continuing on for. We wonder how long we are for this earth.
Somehow the thread of Bob Dylan, little Robert Zimmerman, connects the suicides in my life. Thompson dedicated his most prized novel to him, for Mister Tambourine Man. In a tape of mine, my first boyfriend Edison, in front of a crowd, professes his love for Dylan I don’t know where Bob Dylan is tonight, or what he’s doing. The last time I saw him was in Colorado, the state where Hunter made his home, and I was sitting up on a grassy hill in Telluride, watching him from far away, for free. I watched him sing “All Along the Watchtower,” and thought at that moment that I could die a happy girl. I saw him, from my mountain perch, get in his tourbus and drive away while the crowd still screamed with one voice for an encore. How long till Bob’s taken from us? How long till we forget everything before George W. Bush and Britney Spears and Micheal Jackson and his sister’s tit?
What the fuck would it have taken to save him?
There are so many of us who are dead, and yet we keep on breathing. So when I think that he is dead and I will most likely go to sleep and wake up tomorrow and keep living my boring little life, I wonder what for. I wonder how long it will be till I succumb to the same fate as him. And, yes, maybe this whole thing is just selfish. Maybe it’s just acknowledging that someone who must have had that seed of destruction in him from the very first sign of self-consciousness succumbed to it. Maybe it says, jeez, if he couldn’t have resisted it, then how the hell do you think you’re going to? Maybe it’s just a sad reminder of what so many of us are destined for.
I wish I was still in Brooklyn, where I could grab a subway to Canal Street, walk down Church street, and hook my fingers like Ivy in the fences surrounding Ground Zero. I wish I could hold Sophie and Alex there at the hole in the ground and ackowedge that we’re not so bad off after all.
Since I found out, thirty minutes ago, I have killed two Guinneses a bottle of Pinot Noir, the wine that was trendiest the day Thompson died. My movements, my thoughts, my brain processes are already getting to that level that one in mourning needs to get to – and I remember drinking amaretto and tequila after Edison died and being able to feel numb, normal, forgetful. Here in Kentucky, where Hunter S. Thompson began his life, my heart is a black hole and the thunder is rumbling like the world’s hungry stomach. Fucking kill Denis Leary, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney while you’re at it. The Beach Boys are playing softly, and the rain is pounding on the aluminum air conditioner in the window. I am thoroughly drunk, I am as thoroughly dead as he is now.
Full of fear and loathing and – an odd combination – determination and the desire to combust with the power of the sun – I am walking outside, to the cold concrete, where at least the sky is crying with me.
Truly a sad day… words fail me.
A very decent obituary, i’ve been personally very shocked by the HST’s death. It’s terrible that he shot himself but anyone who has read much by or about him won’t be overtly shocked by the abrupt nature of his death. Interesting how you mention him as the next hope after Hemingway, a man who also took his own life.
I think there are many people across the world who will be saddened by this news, regards.
p.s. At least he outlasted Nixon.
Dear Mr. Dvorak, I have been a reader of your columns here and there, and have always liked what I read. Your memorial to HST is nice to see, it’s good that so many people still have a fondness for him 🙂
As Stanley mentioned, AspenOnline was a great gathering place for gonzo fans “back in the day”. I miss it dearly. My website was not the first gonzo fan site. There were actually very many fan pages out there, but mine seems to be the longest lasting. It was due to my good friends on AspenOnline that supported me with their encouragement and wisdom that I was able to keep the site going. Although I don’t update as often anymore (adulthood has gotten in the way), I’ll definitely keep it around as long as I can. Hopefully I can roll out the last and final page template this year.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
Apperently a poet called Keats said this many years ago, like me he came from the other side of the pond, like HST the immortality or the words transcended the time and the place.
The last word goes to the man himself
“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.”
Has anyone reported on whether Hunter was in the middle of a late life clinical depression? or had doctors recently told him he had some terminal illness? one doesn’t off oneself for no reason. there must be some reason why he did it this weekend. friends who had dinner with just fRIDAY said he was fine. Dish. What happened between Friday night and death time>?
Mistah Thompson He Dead–A very sad day…glad to see the memorial–a fitting tribute to an influential writer. Like Ernest Hemingway and Jack Kerouac before him, Hunter will go down in the history of American literature as one of kind, a sage, and a true influence to a generation…
Thompson Safe In Heaven Dead
John
With a lump in my throat and a heavy heart I toast Hunter and his work. Wherever he is now is much better than this place, for this I am sure. He was an insperation to many, and will always be in our hearts. Cheers and Thank You Hunter.
…so this is the way the world ends…
HST didn’t burn out or fade away…he is radiating…like a classic black jag with a two thumbed steering wheel…in the thoughts and very souls of those lucky enough to drunkenly stumble upon his genius…of course we all triped (sic) and fell head over hells on that high white noise and rumbled and tumbled down rocky crags with the inertia of a ominous angel’s run…but who could help it..he was that damned perfect in his pickled inperfections…selah
catch you on the new speedway (boogie’in) HST…until then i remain…
grateful
I grew up outside Louisville. In the early-mid 1970’s, my first apartment was at 928 Cherokee Road in the Cherokee Triangle. HST’s mother still lived a couple blocks away on Willow Ave. Whenever he would come to town to visit her, he would stop by the apartment house next to mine to visit his old schoolmate Dick Sheridan. Dick was an old alcoholic beat-nik of the finest order (and a character in FALOTCT). Also living in Louisville at the same time was the recently late, much lamented (Vaughn) Abbot Meader. More than once I stepped over his and Dick’s and HST’s, et al, bodies laid out on my front porch at dawn’s early light. Heady stuff for a 19 year old, and I soaked it all in. Talk about a party! My condolences to HST’s family and family of friends, especially those in Louisville who shared those days. I know I shouldn’t be, but I really feel bummed out. See you Hunter. Thanks for the lessons. Johnny
My own memorial to HST:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/docgonzo19/
“A good friend of mine died the other day, I don’t even know where he is buried. But it’s not where he died that counts it’s where he lived”- HST Exact quote may be a little off but these words have helped me through many hard time. Rest in Peace Dr.
I guess it’s not really fair to talk about a person in certain ways once they’re dead and can’t defend themselves, but I’m going to in this case. I never read Hunter S. Thompson, nor do I really care for him or his opinions for that matter. I’ve always viewed many people of the so-called counter-culture as hypocrites, and I’d have to say Thompson among them. People like him attacked Western culture for its “decadence and depravity” and were intent on bringing about big changes. To a certain extent, there was some justification for this; but on the other hand, here they are either becoming drug-freaks, alcoholics, hedonists, new age freaks, cultists, etc. or complete and total sell-outs. Aside from being hypocrites, I think many of these counter-culture people were and in some cases are still lost people trying to delude themselves and others into believing that their supposedly non-conformist lifestyles have legitimacy. Sadly, this is not the case. And the fact that he was cowardly enough to go and shoot himself only emphasizes this fact. A man who possess dignity and self-love, who values human life and respects himself as well as others, does not commit suicide. So many people revere him, his writings, evidently, are influential. But his final act shows that it is not deserved.
The death of Dr. Thompson is shocking, devistating, and cruel. I believe the the Doc had his reasons, for which his fans may only guess. Hunter’s writings which described his real, or version of reality will live on. They can be confusing, but to me and many they were refreshing. Though fear and loathing were common themes, Hunter had the courage and audacity to challenge the media establishment, and in doing so inspire the rest of us to look critically at the same. I belive Hunter was a patriot, because although to some he spoke in riddles, to all he spoke the truth. No matter how ugly it was, when sadly the truth is always the first casualty. I remember just a short time ago raising a glass and welcoming in “the foul year of lord 2005”. Never could I imagine what a shocking, mirky and lonely place it would be without our good doctor. Where ever he is going, I hope he remembers to write
Mahalo,
Goodbye
Thsi is the worst news I ever heard! I think every Hunter fan felt this coming I sure did. So if it is true that Hunter killed himself, which I’m sure everyone else is as surprised as I. Then I won’t except that it was for some inane, clique reason; that he was afraid of life thats bullshit! and everyone who’s a fan of his knows that. There was a brillant strategy behind this for Hunter. what exactly I have no fucken clue I’m just rambling to a computer right know cause I can’t do anything, else then sit here in disbelief. The man was a genius and geniuses don’t do meaningless things.
Back in the bad old days when it was not unusual for certain persons to wolf down half a sheet of acid and then run through fields of cabbage in the dead of night, uprooting them and lobbing them into the dark sky in the general direction other similarly addled persons, we knew of this man Thompson. His exploits made ours seem somewhat smaller. Alright, they made ours seem like a casual trip to the grocery store for some smokes and a six-pack. He inspired us. Not to go out and do insanely stupid things while under the influence of insanely potent drugs. (no, we needed no help in that department), but to write. To read. To devour the news and understand it. To take an active interest in the things going on around us. Hunter seemed to have an uncanny ability to recognize when the shit was about to hit the fan and then to duck at the last possible second. As the week progresses and the story becomes known it may be that he felt he was ducking something this time, too. For a man who made his own way as often as possible, Hunter’s decision to leave in this manner is not surprising. That being said, it’s a sad day when we learn that the giants who walked among us have been laid to rest. Sleep well, Hunter.
To whom it may concern,
I was deeply disturbed this morning, February 21 2005, when I punched in http://www.rollingstone.com and found nothing……NOTHING about Hunter S. Thompson and his tragic death. Don’t you feel obligated in some way to at least mention him on your site? I realize that you have a format that must be followed to turn out such a fine magazine, but to not break stride and at least put a picture of the great doctor with a sincere “You Will Be Missed, Hunter.” is just foul and unforgivable. Hunter did a lot for your/our magazine. His keen wit and skewed wisdom were manna from heaven that will be eaten by many for ages to come. Does he not deserve the respect of The Rolling Stone upper crust? I’m sure there will be the obligatory article in the pages of your magazine in the following weeks because it helps to sell product, but I have a hunch that this final spread will be too little too late in the eyes of any true Thompson fan. I’m a subscriber to your rag and when my subscription runs out you will never see me on your mailing list again. EVER! You have not only lost one of the finest contributing writer’s to ever bless your magazine, but you’ve lost me as a die hard fan and free mouth piece……… ” I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” — Upton Sinclair
Sincerely,
Leif D. Anderson
(sent to Jann S. Wenner and Larry Carlat at Rolling Stone)
Random Reflections on What It All Meant.
It is the great irony of someone living a private life in a public arena that we; who have vicariously stared into the fish-bowl for so long, should wring our hands and ask Why?
Dr. Thompson was a wordsmith, an artist who used print to paint evocative images. But more, he was performance art personified. He challanged himself, and in doing so challanged everyone who came in contact with him or his work.
True art comes from a deeply personal place. What we as spectators see is a mere shadow. And in the end, it is this “mystery” that gives meaning to his creations. We were all the more fortunate for having glimpsed Hunter’s rare, mad genius.
I’m sure wherever he his today he is whacking the hell out of a bucket of balls with his one-iron.
R.I.P.
I was devestated when I heard the news. I have read all of this man’s works. I have an autographed copy of Fear and Loathing in America. I have always had a great deal of respect for Hunter Thompson. He was never afraid to give the first amendment a run for its money. I personally will be toasting the good doctor with a liter of Wild Turkey 101…
As a fan I am saddened by his death but not at all surprised by how it happened.
It is totally “Gonzo” for him to have gone out with a bang. A conventional death would have been too, too pedestrian for Hunter S. Thompson.
The world has lost a true master. I lay awake last night after learning of the great Dr.’s passing, contemplating my own mortality. Hunter was a voice to the youth, the disillusioned, the angst-filled freethinkers fed up with red tape and cheap well liquor. His words will sit upon my bookshelf, in my mind and in my heart for this lifetime, the next generation and beyond. A toast to you Dr. Gonzo, I tip my glass and thank you for all you gave us. May you fly as an owl, unchallenged and free at last through the pines of Aspen and forever…
-A-
Suicide is bad form, even with Hunter. May we all find the peace he searched for with his tools of excess and desperation, and maybe take a lesson from him and the other victims of suicide. Let us be happy and not lose sight of the beauty of being here alive. Miserable or not.
my cell phone kept ringing. Jack. Beer. yelling. Tourists. I looked around at the huge room full of strangers in my little ski town. More jack. Later, I checked my messages at 5am with a bonghit- Hey, man, just called to tell you that Hunter is gone. I was shocked. HST taught me that my life of insanity and instability is not so bad, but in fact, beautiful. So long Doctor Thompson. Much of Colorado will be drinking to you tonight.
Hunter was and still is one of my all-time favorite writers. His death was the first thing in my awareness as I woke up this morning – my brother had text messaged me at 1:30 am sunday with the news and monday morning, as I was turning my alarm off, this greeted me.
Hunter taught me so much. He gave me perspective on a lot of things that happened before I was born: the anti-war movement, nixon, watergate, jimmy carter…
Then starting with 1980, my birth year, I learned about his take on Reagen (who, from family upbringing, already had a negative image for me), I learned about Iran-contra, Ollie North, the implausability of the Bush I election from an Iran-Contra perspective… all things I was too young to understand while they were happening. I loved “better than sex,” especially the story about the saxophone mouth piece that he gave to clinton that he houled over.
my list could go on and on.
Foremost in my mind however is the fact that I felt that his opinion was coming from a p.o.v. that was not really partisan. he just saw the bullshit for what it was.
Of course I also enjoyed his more entertaining works… f and l, the rum diaries, etc. but for me Hunter was always more meaty when he was writing under the strongest duress, about dirty, sleazy people in a world that he knew was already useless and depraved.
I wish I had written him some sort of letter… I would of course have addressed it to the good Doctor.
Hunter, I will miss you.
with love,
Hannah
Goodbye Hunter…
Thanks for sharing your time with us.
I’ll never forget you or your work.
You took the ticket, and I hope you enjoyed the ride.
Farewell Hunter. I did not know you, and you could have had little idea of the impact you have, and will continue to have on people around the world. But thankyou anyway. I hope you’re enjoying one heck of a party with Oscar wherever you are.
My thoughts go out to the Thompson family.
I will never cease to wonder why… Was it truly the pain of being a man?
I wasnt gonna write something but the disrespect submitted by Ashley O’Dell compelled me to comment on her ridiculous melodromatic rant on life. This is a page to comment on the death of an extroardinary and pioneering writer, not to create your own peom and whine that you cant find anything to grasp onto in this world.
I’m sorry I have no idea who this guy was. Where can I find a good biography online?