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Writer Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself

Thread ID: 16869 | Posts: 44 | Started: 2005-02-21

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Petr [OP]

2005-02-21 11:11 | User Profile

[I][B]A rather natural ending for an overrated, degenerate, anti-Christian pagan...[/B][/I]

[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050221/ap_on_re_us/obit_thompson[/url]

[SIZE=4]Writer Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself [/SIZE]

1 hour, 11 minutes ago U.S. National - AP

By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer

ASPEN, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," has committed suicide.

Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff's officials said. He was 67. Thompson's wife, Anita, had gone out before the shooting and was not home at the time.

Besides the 1972 classic about Thompson's visit to Las Vegas, he also wrote "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72." The central character in those wild, sprawling satires was "Dr. Thompson," a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant.

Thompson is credited alongside Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese with helping pioneer New Journalism — or, as he dubbed it, "gonzo journalism" — in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story.

Thompson, whose early writings mostly appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, often portrayed himself as wildly intoxicated as he reported on such historic figures as Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton (news - web sites).

"Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist," Thompson told The Associated Press in 2003. "You have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it."

Thompson also wrote such collections as "Generation of Swine" and "Songs of the Doomed." His first ever novel, "The Rum Diary," written in 1959, was first published in 1998.

Thompson was a counterculture icon at the height of the Watergate era, and once said Richard Nixon represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character."

Thompson also was the model for Garry Trudeau's balding "Uncle Duke" in the comic strip "Doonesbury" and was portrayed on screen by Johnny Depp in a film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

That book, perhaps Thompson's most famous, begins: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

Other books include "The Great Shark Hunt," "Hell's Angels" and "The Proud Highway." His most recent effort was "Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness."

"He may have died relatively young but he made up for it in quality if not quantity of years," Paul Krassner, the veteran radical journalist and one of Thompson's former editors, told The Associated Press by phone from his Southern California home.

"It was hard to say sometimes whether he was being provocative for its own sake or if he was just being drunk and stoned and irresponsible," quipped Krassner, founder of the leftist publication The Realist and co-founder of the Youth International (YIPPIE) party.

"But every editor that I know, myself included, was willing to accept a certain prima donna journalism in the demands he would make to cover a particular story," he said. "They were willing to risk all of his irresponsible behavior in order to share his talent with their readers."

The writer's compound in Woody Creek, not far from Aspen, was almost as legendary as Thompson. He prized peacocks and weapons; in 2000, he accidentally shot and slightly wounded his assistant trying to chase a bear off his property.

He also is survived by his son, Juan Thompson.

Born July 18, 1937, in Kentucky, Hunter Stocton Thompson served two years in the Air Force, where he was a newspaper sports editor. He later became a proud member of the National Rifle Association and almost was elected sheriff in Aspen in 1970 under the Freak Power Party banner.

Thompson's heyday came in the 1970s, when his larger-than-life persona was gobbled up by magazines. His pieces were of legendary length and so was his appetite for adventure and trouble; his purported fights with Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner were rumored in many cases to hinge on expense accounts for stories that didn't materialize.

It was the content that raised eyebrows and tempers. His book on the 1972 presidential campaign involving, among others, Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey and Nixon was famous for its scathing opinion.

Working for Muskie, Thompson wrote, "was something like being locked in a rolling box car with a vicious 200-pound water rat." Nixon and his "Barbie doll" family were "America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the werewolf in us."

Humphrey? Of him, Thompson wrote: "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."

The approach won him praise among the masses as well as critical acclaim. Writing in The New York Times in 1973, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt worried Thompson might someday "lapse into good taste."

"That would be a shame, for while he doesn't see America as Grandma Moses depicted it, or the way they painted it for us in civics class, he does in his own mad way betray a profound democratic concern for the polity," he wrote. "And in its own mad way, it's damned refreshing."

Associated Press writer John Rogers in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

RowdyRoddyPiper

2005-02-21 12:07 | User Profile

Why post news of his death just so you can gloat over it?

I think this is a sad end to a noteworthy and interesting life, even if the man is not altogether role-model material. I agree that he's somewhat overrated given that he's constantly touted as being genre-defining and revolutionary, but "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is a still a pretty entertaining read, including some rather un-PC racial humour, such as the bit with the Jewish bartender, and the references to his Samoan lawyer's "racial handicap".

albion

2005-02-21 12:51 | User Profile

Associated Press late Sunday. [SIZE=3][COLOR=DarkRed][B]Writer Hunter S. Thompson dead at 67[/B][/COLOR][/SIZE] [B]Son says counterculture writer shot himself[/B] [url="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7005168/?GT1=6190"]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7005168/?GT1=6190[/url] Juan Thompson found his father’s body. Thompson’s wife, Anita, was not home at the time.

Besides the 1972 drug-hazed classic about Thompson’s visit to Las Vegas, he also wrote “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72.” The central character in those wild, sprawling satires was “Dr. Thompson,” a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant.

Thompson is credited with pioneering New Journalism — or, as he dubbed it, “gonzo journalism” — in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story. Much of his earliest work appeared in Rolling Stone magazine.

“Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairy-tale artist,” Thompson told the AP in 2003. “You have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you’re writing about before you alter it.”

An acute observer of the decadence and depravity in American life, Thompson also wrote such collections “Generation of Swine” and “Songs of the Doomed.” His first ever novel, “The Rum Diary,” written in 1959, was first published in 1998.

A counterculture icon Thompson was a counterculture icon at the height of the Watergate era, and Richard Nixon once said he represented “that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character.”

Thompson also was the model for Gary Trudeau’s balding “Uncle Duke” in the comic strip “Doonesbury” and was portrayed on screen by Johnny Depp in a film adaptation of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

Other books include “The Great Shark Hunt,” “Hell’s Angels” and “The Proud Highway.” His most recent effort was “Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.”

His compound in Woody Creek, not far from Aspen, was almost as legendary as Thompson. He prized peacocks and weapons; in 2000, he accidentally shot and slightly wounded his assistant, Deborah Fuller, trying to chase a bear off his property.

[img]http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/050220/050220_hunter_thompson_hmed.hmedium.jpg[/img]

Sertorius

2005-02-21 13:26 | User Profile

It will be interesting to contrast the treatment Thompson's death receives in comparison to that accorded to Dr. Francis. RIP

albion

2005-02-21 14:05 | User Profile

... Indeed. The relationship between Hunter Thompson, sex, and strong chemicals is so intertwined that, at this late stage in his life, the triumvirate becomes impossible to separate. He is a man fond of forming oblique associations, having spent his formative years writing about "an unholy trinity of God, Nixon, and the National Football League"--a bizarre combination which produced such Gonzo classics as Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72; and Fear and Loathing: At the Superbowl. But Thompson, Rolling Stone's erstwhile National Affairs Desk editor, packed up and left politics for the good life around 1976. No more cardiac arrhythmia in Washington press briefings; hello O'Farrell Theatre.

The Night Manager

Hunter Thompson took up residence in San Francisco's Chinatown, in a suite "with wrap-around balconies and a deep Ginzu bathtub...where the management brings me eggrolls every day." He became friends with the notorious Mitchell brothers, who took the journalist/hedonist on as Night Manager of the O'Farrell Theatre, the Carnegie Hall of Public Sex in America. Thompson became a friend to the lap-dancers, to the suppliers of dildos and ben-wa balls, cavorting at night with a head full of amyl nitrate and a heart full of hate for everything traditional under the Republican sun.

[url="http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2260"]http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2260[/url]

il ragno

2005-02-21 19:38 | User Profile

[QUOTE]A rather natural ending for an overrated, degenerate, anti-Christian pagan...[/QUOTE]

Why I hate coming here at times. Everything, but [B]everything[/B], viewed (and judged) through Almighty-colored glasses by God's personal press liason, Petr.

Zealots do not [I]get [/I] any more annoying than this guy.

albion

2005-02-21 19:44 | User Profile

Just put Petr on "ignore" il ragno, and read my posts instead.

[size=4]HUNTER S. THOMPSON: 1937-2005 ** Original gonzo journalist kills self at age 67 ** 'Fear and Loathing' author, ex-columnist for S.F. Examiner dies of gunshot wound[/size]

[size=1][color=#0000ff][url="http://by101fd.bay101.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/compose?mailto=1&msg=F9821BEA-2F46-4BE1-A8EC-B5EFECDA7FDB&start=0&len=72282&src=&type=x&to=tschevitz@sfchronicle.com&cc=&bcc=&subject=&body=&curmbox=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&a=1e9ef41863fad0df98280873fd807c6b"]Tanya Schevitz, Chronicle Staff Writer[/url][/color][/size]

[size=1]Monday, February 21, 2005[/size][size=2] [/size][size=2] Hunter S. Thompson, the counterculture writer credited with creating a new form of journalism in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," was found dead Sunday from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in his Aspen- area home, authorities said.

Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, a friend of Thompson, and Thompson's son, Juan, who reportedly found his father's body, confirmed the death of the 67-year-old writer to the Aspen Daily News.

"Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," Juan Thompson said in a statement to the newspaper, according to the Associated Press.

Thompson's wife, Anita, was not home at the time of his death.

San Francisco writer Ben Fong-Torres, a former colleague of Thompson's at Rolling Stone magazine, said he was surprised and saddened to hear about Thompson's apparent suicide.

"He was one of the great pioneers of new journalism and his own invention: gonzo journalism, in which he immersed himself in the story," Fong-Torres said. "He presented it in a way that nobody else, as hard as they tried, could imitate. He was singular and will not be matched anytime soon."

Fong-Torres said Thompson leaves a legacy in the field of journalism.

"It doesn't matter that he was a guy who was capable of doing anything and known to live on-and-beyond the edge," he said in a phone interview Sunday night. "It's a tremendous loss, no matter where he was, at what stage he was, how ill he had gotten -- he was still capable of humorous insights."

Chronicle Executive Vice President and Editor Phil Bronstein spent a few nights last summer with Thompson and his wife in Colorado. He said that Thompson was recovering from spinal surgery and a broken leg from a fall but that there were no signs that the eccentric Thompson was depressed.

They watched the Republican Convention and hours of footage for a documentary that was being made about Thompson. He showed off a new neon shooting target he had, and he held court at the local Woody Creek Tavern, Bronstein said.

"He was exercised about what was going on in the world as he always was," Bronstein said. "He seemed, as always, bizarre and interesting and fascinating and was a remarkably charming and friendly host."

Thompson, who wrote for the Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner in the mid-to-late 1980s, lived the legend he created with his writing.

David McCumber, a former editor at the Examiner and now managing editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, edited Thompson's columns at the Examiner in the mid-1980s.

"Everything was legitimate about the man's reputation," he said. "The surprise was as I got to know him ... everything was real ... and that could be scary sometimes."

He said that one day he was on a three-way call with Thompson and Gary Hart's campaign manager when the campaign manager learned that the Miami Herald had the story about Hart's relationship with Donna Rice.

Thompson was at his home in Woody Creek outside Aspen and remembered that his neighbor singer/songwriter Don Henley knew Rice. He went to Henley's house, rifled his drawers, and found a picture for the Examiner, making it the first news organization to have a picture of Rice.

"We always had a very active time. It was never dull," McCumber said. "One of the joys of editing Hunter was you never knew if you were going to get hallucinatory prose or trenchant analysis," he said.

Jeanette Etheredge, another close friend of Thompson and owner of the North Beach fixture, Tosca, said he knew where every ice machine was at every motel in San Francisco.

One night when they were out driving around, he stopped abruptly in front of the Seal Rock Inn and jumped out.

"When he came back, he had a bucket of ice for his bottle," she said.

Chronicle Executive News Editor Jay Johnson, who also edited Thompson's columns when he wrote for the Examiner, said Thompson could not dictate over the phone, so he filed his stories page by page over the fax, sending multiple revisions as the two spent many hours throughout the night and into the morning "wrestling the column to the ground."

"Nobody was as much his editor as his sounding board. He needed to talk it out and get reaction to it. It was not the average creative process," Johnson said.

One morning as deadline neared and they were still working it out, Thompson, who was known to have an affinity for controlled substances, told Johnson, "Our real drug of choice is adrenaline."

Johnson said Thompson was easiest to work with when he was covering a presidential campaign. But he was often just "riffing," Johnson said.

He fondly recalled one night when Thompson told him how he had tried to cheer up a friend who was scheduled to go in for back surgery. He took a bunch of explosives out to the backyard and stuffed them into his Jeep. As the hood flew into the air and the Jeep exploded into pieces, the two friends realized what they had projected into the sky would soon come back down.

"They are like dancing around with this shrapnel coming down," Johnson said.

Johnson told him to write it down and that became Thompson's next column.

Johnson said it seemed that part of the reason Thompson enjoyed writing his column for the Examiner was that he had a burning desire to be plugged in. In the days before the Internet, Thompson turned to Johnson to give him the latest news.

"By calling in, he could ask what was on the wires. He would ask me to read him stuff. That way he could be involved in the business," Johnson said.

When he was in San Francisco, Thompson was a regular at Tosca, even running the bar once when owner Etheredge was out getting a root canal.

He broke his ankle once doing a pirouette off the bar, she said, and then refused medical help, instead taping his broken ankle with electrical tape.

She said he was always a gentleman. One time after hanging out at his hotel all night and into the morning, she told him that she had to go home. It was about 5 a.m. and he insisted on escorting her in a taxi.

But when they were walking through the hotel lobby to get into a cab, she noticed he was wearing just underwear. And when they reached her house, she had to give him money to get back to the hotel.

Sunday night, she was shocked by the death of someone who was so vibrant.

"I spoke to him a few weeks ago and he sounded good," she said. "The one person I would never think would do something like that goes and does it."

Thompson was born in Louisville, Ky., on July 18, 1937, His father, Jack, was an insurance agent. Thompson got his start in newspaper writing while he was serving in the Air Force in the late 1950s.

An acute observer of the decadence and depravity in American life, Thompson wrote such books as "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" in 1973 and the collections "Generation of Swine" and "Songs of the Doomed." His first- ever novel, "The Rum Diary," written in 1959, was first published in 1998.

"The Rum Diary" came out of Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico. Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Kennedy, who had been friends with Thompson since he rejected the then-young writer for a job at the San Juan Star in Puerto Rico, described Thompson as a trailblazer.

"Hunter found a way to be new in the world. His attitude, his language, his subject matter, his take on history, his plunge into booze and drugs -- all these were singular," Kennedy said. "Maybe other people behaved this way, but nobody ever wrote about it with such spectacular originality. He was all by himself."

Thompson's other books include "Hell's Angels" and "The Proud Highway." His most recent effort was "Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and The Downward Spiral of Dumbness." "Hunter was a gifted writer, political observer and sportsman with a huge appetite for life in every dimension," said William R. Hearst III, a director of the Hearst Corp. "Like Mark Twain before him he occasionally wrote for this newspaper and neither of them tolerated fools gleefully. We will miss his words and collect his letters."

see also: [url="http://www.rense.com/general63/hunt.htm"]http://www.rense.com/general63/hunt.htm[/url]

[/size]

AntiYuppie

2005-02-21 19:45 | User Profile

[QUOTE=il ragno]Why I hate coming here at times. Everything, but [B]everything[/B], viewed (and judged) through Almighty-colored glasses by God's personal press liason, Petr.

Zealots do not [I]get [/I] any more annoying than this guy.[/QUOTE]

True, but Petr's heart is usually in the right place.

For example, I like Hunter Thompson, but I agree with Petr that Phil Roth is the most loathsome creature ever to make a literary career. I wish it were Roth who had eaten lead today instead.

albion

2005-02-21 19:50 | User Profile

[font=Arial][size=5]'Truth is weirder than any fiction I've seen ... '[/size][/font]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]Hunter S Thompson's death has left a gaping hole in the ranks of American counter-culture. Thompson fan Kate Taylor reflects on the events of his singular life, and his ongoing influence on writers today[/size][/font]

[font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif][size=2]Monday February 21, 2005

[/size][/font]

On hearing that Hunter S Thompson, the maverick voice of American counterculture, had been found dead at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colorado, friend and fellow-author Martin A Lee described his death as "sad" but "not surprising".

The mood among commentators following the announcement of his death this morning was equally resigned: the subtext to the many radio and television reports of his apparent suicide was that such an act was a fitting, if tragic, end to a remarkably singular life. And Thompson's life was nothing if not surprising. He famously and fully embraced an unconventional lifestyle, summing up his attitude to fast living with the iconic phrase: "I do not advocate the use of dangerous drugs, wild amounts of alcohol and violence and weirdness - but they've always worked for me." His house was most famously home to a collection of peacocks, but he allegedly also kept a keg of gunpowder in his basement, and on one occasion accidentally shot an assistant. His major foray into public life occurred in 1970, when he decided that "there might be some serious fun in politics" and duly stood for Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado on a platform of drug decriminalisation. The Republican candidate sported a crew cut, which prompted the contrary author to shave his head entirely and refer to his rival as "my long-haired opponent" throughout the campaign. He lost by a handful of votes.

Thompson began his career in journalism in 1956, working as a sports reporter for the base paper at Eglin air force base in Florida. By all accounts, the strictures of army life did not suit the man who once described himself as "a dangerous drunken screwball", but after his (honourable) discharge he stuck with journalism. While writing for various magazines, he produced two serious novels (Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary) and numerous short stories, none of which were published until his break came in 1966 when he pitched an article to Harper's Magazine about his time with the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, then associated with lurid rumours of murder and gang-rape. After that he had little trouble persuading Rolling Stone magazine to serialise what became his best known work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The novel, subsequently made into a film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro, is the first-person account of a trip to Las Vegas. In a skewed take on the road trip genre, the narrator-journalist and his companion aim to cover a narcotics convention and a motorcycle race, but are sidetracked by a search for the American dream, assisted by a colourful palette of substances (LSD, ether, adrenochrome and ibogaine to name a few). This powerful, absurd tale of self-destruction soon became a psychedelic classic and delivered Thompson a cult following, as well as founding his reputation as one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. It also epitomised the way in which Thompson's life and writing were intertwined. His conviction that: "truth is weirder than any fiction I've seen" lead him to invent a style of journalism to which he gave the soubriquet 'gonzo': a vivid, outlandish blend of fact and fiction in which the writer features prominently. In Fear and Loathing, the narrator and his "300 pound Samoan" attorney companion are barely-disguised versions of Thompson himself and his friend and lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta.

Following the publication of Fear and Loathing, Dr Thompson (the doctorate apparently arrived by mail order at some point during the 60s) has remained embedded in America's cultural consciousness, his prose and lifestyle both condemned and celebrated by ensuing generations. A self-styled political and social commentator, he described his journalist's "beat" as the death of the American dream. His follow-up to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, a savage and subversive account of the US presidential electoral process in which he preempted the verdict of the Watergate scandal saying that "Nixon represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise". His latest book, Hey Rube: Blood Sport, The Bush Doctrineand the Downward Spiral of Dumbness (2004) is equally forthright about the current administration. When asked in an interview about the modern impact of fear, the commodity inevitably linked to his name, he replied: "This country has been having a nationwide nervous breakdown since 9/11 ... But I don't think fear is a very effective way of dealing with things, of responding to reality. Fear is just another word for ignorance."

Hunter S Thompson thoroughly adhered to his own belief that "Freedom is something that dies unless it's used". In 2003 he was asked if, in spite of regularly proclaiming its demise, he hadn't in some sense lived the American Dream itself. "Goddammit!" he replied, dismayed. "I haven't thought about it that way. I suppose you could say that in a certain way I have."

Thompson saw himself in the tradition of great American iconoclasts - Hemmingway, Twain, Mailer, Kerouac - even naming his son after F Scott Fitzgerald. For many, the 'new journalism' movement of the 1960s, a forthright style associated with writers such as Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese, reached its peak in his searing, snearing prose. His nihilistic energy skewered the unique insanity of the 1960s, and while some felt that he lost his focus in later years, his influence is undeniable. PJ O'Rourke and Timothy Edwards Jones are acknowledged descendants, but his arrogant poetry resurfaces today in everything from Will Self's novels to Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends. The crazed journalist at the heart of his own investigation is now a commonplace - some might say too commonplace - but what gave Thompson such lasting appeal was his whole-heartedness, the conviction behind all the posturing which still feels genuinely revolutionary. When asked in a recent interview if he had any regrets, his response was dimissive. "Those I have are so minor. Would I leave my Keith Richards hat with the silver skull on it in the coffee shop at LaGuardia? I wouldn't do that again. But overall, no. I don't have any regrets."

[font=Arial]Guardian Unlimited Books [/font][font=Arial][color=#800080]More about Hunter S. Thompson[/color][/font] [url="http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,5917,-130,00.html"]http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,5917,-130,00.html[/url][/size][/font]

Gabrielle

2005-02-21 20:37 | User Profile

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

albion

2005-02-21 20:57 | User Profile

The Salon Interview [img]http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40849000/jpg/_40849155_huntercloser_ap203b.jpg[/img] [url="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/02/03/thompson/"]http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/02/03/thompson/[/url]

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=2]Feb. 3, 2003 | [/size][/font][font=times new roman, times, serif][size=3]He calls himself "an elderly dope fiend living out in the wilderness," but [color=darkred]Hunter S. Thompson [/color]will also be found this week on the New York Times bestseller list with a new memoir, "Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century." [/size][/font]

Petr

2005-02-21 22:09 | User Profile

[COLOR=Indigo][B][I] - "Zealots do not get any more annoying than this guy."[/I][/B][/COLOR]

You can really tell that vice has been [I]mainstreamed[/I] in your society when you cannot even express not-too-sympathetic thoughts (on a conservative forum!) about the demise of some [B]decadent dirtbag[/B] like Thompson without being accused of closed-mindedness and zealotry.

(And yes, AntiYuppie, I agree that world would be a better place without Philip Roth as well)

Petr

skemper

2005-02-21 22:58 | User Profile

Ilragno,

So you are proudly an "overrated, degenerate, anti-Christian pagan"?

Oh, I would have never known..... :yawn:

madrussian

2005-02-21 23:41 | User Profile

[QUOTE=AntiYuppie]True, but Petr's heart is usually in the right place. [/QUOTE] :whstl:

Using the criterion of how much discord is sowed by that kind of people, it's probably up there with the much hated Linder.

RowdyRoddyPiper

2005-02-22 00:51 | User Profile

Well, it's been almost 24 hours and I'm still down in the dumps about this news. This sucks.

Gabrielle

2005-02-22 12:25 | User Profile

[QUOTE=RowdyRoddyPiper]Well, it's been almost 24 hours and I'm still down in the dumps about this news. This sucks.[/QUOTE]

Why? The guy was a filthy pervert! It was people like him who were destroying America and the white race. This scumbag hated Nixon… one of America's greatest presidents.

RowdyRoddyPiper

2005-02-22 12:52 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Gabrielle]Why? The guy was a filthy pervert! It was people like him who were destroying America and the white race. This scumbag hated Nixon… one of America's greatest presidents.[/QUOTE]

Good writing crosses political boundaries, and in my opinion he was more of a general misanthrope than a hater or destroyer of the white race in particular.

Sertorius

2005-02-22 15:51 | User Profile

[QUOTE]This scumbag hated Nixon… one of America's greatest presidents.[/QUOTE]

Nixon wasn't any sort of conservative, contrary to popular belief.

AntiYuppie

2005-02-22 17:15 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Sertorius]Nixon wasn't any sort of conservative, contrary to popular belief.[/QUOTE]

Gabby's worldview in a nutshell: Republican good, Democrat baaad. Republican good, Democrat baaad.

Ever notice how her two favorite Presidents, Nixon and George W. Bush are also the two most fanatically pro-Israel Presidents and the favorites of the neocons? Nixon was probably the man most responsible for Israel's victory in the Yom Kippur War [url]http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0798/twersky1.asp[/url] , while George W. Bush takes his Mideast foreign policy marching orders straight from Ariel Sharon and Paul Wolfowitz. That Nixon made "anti-Semitic" comments in private only demonstrates his cowardice when compared with his actions.

arkady

2005-02-22 18:14 | User Profile

While I have no great axe to grind over Hunter Thompson, I can't honestly say that his death leaves any great void in my life. Years ago I enjoyed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Hell's Angels, but I can't think of anything he wrote afterward that wasn't overpraised self-indulgence.

AntiYuppie

2005-02-22 19:43 | User Profile

[QUOTE=arkady]While I have no great axe to grind over Hunter Thompson, I can't honestly say that his death leaves any great void in my life. Years ago I enjoyed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Hell's Angels, but I can't think of anything he wrote afterward that wasn't overpraised self-indulgence.[/QUOTE]

Look, I don't think Thompson is a literary giant, I just find him quite funny. To his credit, he doesn't take himself seriously as a literary figure and had a genuine sense of humor, a breath a fresh air compared to truly talentless swindlers like Phil Roth who are legends in their own mind.

I also think there's something wrong with the picture when we have people who think that Hunter Thompson is a great evil while admiring truly depraved individuals like George W. Bush. Did Hunter Thompson dance to Likkud Party puppet strings, or serve as a hired shill of the Haliburton Corporation? That, not drug use, is true depravity and betrayal of country.

Howard Campbell, Jr.

2005-02-22 20:04 | User Profile

When one compares HST's essays to the dross the passes for "humorous" writing by cruddy neo-cons like Jonah Goldberg and Ann Coulter he strode as a Brobdignagian among Lilliputians.

Hunter doped less than Coleridge; boozed less than Fitzgerald and scorned the Regime gods less than Mencken. He was fun--and will be missed...

Faust

2005-02-22 20:05 | User Profile

AntiYuppie and Sertorius,

Poor Gabrielle she is such a nice girl, but she thinks like Dr. Pangloss sometimes.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum, unless you have good reason.

Gabrielle

2005-02-22 23:09 | User Profile

I don't believe you guys! You stand up for and weep for the enemies of the white race. :wallbash:

il ragno

2005-02-22 23:27 | User Profile

Dead men can't hurt you, Gabby.

You shoulda begun crucifying Hunter S [I]while he was still alive [/I] (and imperiling Whitey) if you wanted to be taken seriously on this.

AntiYuppie

2005-02-22 23:39 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Gabrielle]I don't believe you guys! You stand up for and weep for the enemies of the white race. :wallbash:[/QUOTE]

Let me get this straight. Some eccentric journalist who writes accounts of his drug-induced escapades is an enemy of the white race, while a President who supports amnesty for Mexican aliens, approves the sending of billions of dollars in aid to negroes in Zimbabwe and South Africa (many of whom have killed or evicted whites from their homes and farms), and has a Mideast policy that corresponds almost to the letter with Ariel Sharon's is the Great White Hope. I'll keept that in mind next time.

albion

2005-02-23 00:27 | User Profile

[font=Verdana][size=-1]Considering Hunter's obsession with guns, his Hemingway-esque suicide is no surprise. And considering Thompson's obsession with his place in history, I wonder if he thought people would look to Papa for answers. I would have preferred to see Thompson meet his end like Huxley, eating mushrooms on his deathbed.[/size][/font]

[font=Verdana][size=-1]Once, Thompson's confrontation with the life-or-death question was hilarious. In Fear and Loathing, the good doctor, tripping out in a hotel, begs his Samoan attorney to electrocute him by throwing the radio into the bathtub when Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" peaks. The attorney pelts the bathtub with citrus fruit instead.[/size][/font]

[font=Verdana][size=-1]I'm sad that Thompson fed his head with lead. It makes Bush's America that much more difficult to deal with. As I try to soldier on, I know one of my heroes determined the act of writing political commentary was meaningless in the face of a depraved would-be dictator.[/size][/font]

[url="http://www.counterpunch.org/krayeske02222005.html"]http://www.counterpunch.org/krayeske02222005.html[/url] Ken Krayeske[font=Verdana][size=-1] has written for the Harfort Advocate, High Times and Poynter.org. Visit his website: [url="http://www.the40yearplan.com/"][color=#0000ff]the40yearplan.com[/color][/url]. [/size][/font]

Bardamu

2005-02-23 02:09 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Gabrielle]I don't believe you guys! You stand up for and weep for the enemies of the white race. :wallbash:[/QUOTE]

Yet you are a fan of Bush?

Bardamu

2005-02-23 02:12 | User Profile

[QUOTE=albion] I'm sad that Thompson fed his head with lead. It makes Bush's America that much more difficult to deal with. [/QUOTE]

Elderly people have the right to take their lives, imo. When and if I come down with dementia that's what I'm going to do. No tied to the chair old age homes not knowing my loved ones for this cowboy.

SCRIPTURESEZ

2005-02-23 03:36 | User Profile

We don't know what Jesus looked like, but considering from what part of the world he was from, he was not blond haired or blue eyed, but was a from the Tribe of Judah, a Hebrew nation, a JEW. Dark haired dark eyes olive skin? We don't know but we are told there was nothing in his physical appearance to attract us to him. So like God to instruct us in everything thing.

But we do not know what he looks like, and your statement brings up another good reason not make graven images. Who is that image you see of Jesus painted all over and on the cross? That is not Jesus but imaginations of men.

Is it Dangerous to look at jesus pictures?. Absolutely, we are told that an image will be set up in the Temple in the last days, and many would be fooled and would fall down and worship it!

I see a lot of fear in these statements regarding race and so on. God does not give you a spirit of fear, but of a sound mind. The spirit of fear comes from the little god of this age, satan who is the father of lies and is a murderer and was so from the beginning.

Besides, our battle belongs to the Lord, and is not with flesh and blood but with spiritual wickedness in high places. Eph 6:12

We are told not to hate our enemies, but to pray for them and love them and forgive forgive forgive.

That is the command from the Lion of Judah to which all men will be held in account. You want to get a better picture of who Jesus is? See Revelations.

Remember we are all one with Christ Jesus, with God, Grafted In. Romans 11

[QUOTE=Gabrielle]I don't believe you guys! You stand up for and weep for the enemies of the white race. :wallbash:[/QUOTE]

Petr

2005-02-23 08:25 | User Profile

Shut up Raina.

Petr

arkady

2005-02-23 13:48 | User Profile

[QUOTE=AntiYuppie]Look, I don't think Thompson is a literary giant, I just find him quite funny. To his credit, he doesn't take himself seriously as a literary figure and had a genuine sense of humor, a breath a fresh air compared to truly talentless swindlers like Phil Roth who are legends in their own mind.

I also think there's something wrong with the picture when we have people who think that Hunter Thompson is a great evil while admiring truly depraved individuals like George W. Bush. Did Hunter Thompson dance to Likkud Party puppet strings, or serve as a hired shill of the Haliburton Corporation? That, not drug use, is true depravity and betrayal of country.[/QUOTE]

Uh... maybe so, but since I didn't state or even imply a shred of these things, what made you decide to attach this vent as a reply to my posting?

Gabrielle

2005-02-23 13:52 | User Profile

LOL. Children can’t play in a real playground anymore, but they can learn about homosexuals and having sex in first grade. Once again, Faust, you posted another thought provoking thread. Thanks!

SCRIPTURESEZ

2005-02-23 18:42 | User Profile

We all have a choice on whom we will serve, God or the little god of this age.

Either you beleive or you don't, you were predestined or you weren't.

Only God knows that. And there are those as it is written:

Isaiah 6:9 ¶And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

xmetalhead

2005-02-23 20:16 | User Profile

What I found most disheartening about Hunter Thompson's death is that it's just one less radical [U]free-thinker[/U] in America today. Those types are needed to keep the government, in some sense of the word, honest. There's less and less free-thinking radicals and more and more conformist and shill "radicals", like that despicable Ann Coulter.

Who would you rather have a drink with?

Gabrielle

2005-02-23 22:27 | User Profile

[QUOTE=xmetalhead]What I found most disheartening about Hunter Thompson's death is that it's just one less radical [U]free-thinker[/U] in America today. Those types are needed to keep the government, in some sense of the word, honest. There's less and less free-thinking radicals and more and more conformist and shill "radicals", like that despicable Ann Coulter.

Who would you rather have a drink with?[/QUOTE]

This thread reminds of a Charles Dickens novel. :wallbash:

Gabrielle

2005-02-23 22:32 | User Profile

[QUOTE=il ragno]Dead men can't hurt you, Gabby.

You shoulda begun crucifying Hunter S [I]while he was still alive [/I] (and imperiling Whitey) if you wanted to be taken seriously on this.[/QUOTE]

I could ask the same question of your guru, Linder, concerning Mr.Francis.

albion

2005-02-24 07:06 | User Profile

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