Hunter S. Thompson
Thursday June 17, 2010 at 8:00PM
Hunter S. Thompson, or Dr. Thompson as he often called himself; was many things. A renaissance man, a revolutionary, a doctor of journalism, a democratic political affiliate, an insubordinate member of the U.S. Army, an honorary hells angel, a fire arms enthusiast, an open drug taker (especially alcohol and hallucinogens) and “one ornery sonofabitch”, says long time friend, and financier of Thompson’s funeral Johnny Depp. Thompson was “Too rare to live, too strange to die” as Depp’s character Raoul Duke proclaims in the final scene of the 1998 film of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”. Throughout Thompson’s tumultuous career, he published many of his own books, and wrote extensively for Rolling Stone magazine. At Rolling Stone, he was instrumental in expanding the magazine’s focus past just music criticism, opening it more widely to countercultures and lifestyles of the weird, the rich, the famous, the abstract, and the bizarre. Even to date, Thompson is still the only staff writer never to contribute a piece focused on music to the magazine. Thompson is credited as being the creator of “Gonzo journalism”, a style of writing that sensationally blurs the distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. The first use of the word Gonzo to describe Thompson’s work is credited to the journalist and then editor of the Boston Globe, Bill Cardoso. Cardoso had first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso wrote to Thompson praising a piece he wrote about the Kentucky Derby as a literary and journalistic breakthrough: “This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling.” Thompson took to the word right away, and according to long time friend and illustrator of all things Thompson Ralph Steadman, Thompson said, "Okay, that’s what I do. Gonzo.” His writing style often catapults himself onto the front lines of the story on which he is reporting, and gives himself a seemingly meaningless but somehow crucial role in the story’s development. His alter ego in many of these stories; whether it was Raoul Duke, Jefferson Rank, Gene Skinner, or Sebastian Owl was almost always under the influence of alcohol and a wide variety of psychedelic and psychotropic drugs.
The book for which Thompson gained most of his post and present day fame had its genesis during an exposé he was writing for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the LA Sheriff’s Department during the National Chicano Moratorium march against the Vietnam War. Thompson’s most important source for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense and violent atmosphere of LA, Thompson and Acosta headed for Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment from Sports Illustrated to write a 250 word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there. Little did they know that what would ensue would become one of the great American tales for generations to come. What was intended to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted a 2,500 word manuscript which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected.” The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by journalist Raoul Duke (Thomspon) on a trip to Las Vegas with his attorney Dr. Gonzo (Acosta), to cover a narcotics officers’ convention and the Mint 400 race. During the trip, Duke and Gonzo become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, accompanied by “…two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers. Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.”The concept of coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement was the novel’s major theme. “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including receiving praise from the New York Times as “by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope.” “The Vegas Book”, as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to the masses. With the 1998 release of the movie, Hunter S. Thompson’s work has been taken on by an entirely new generation of fans with an entirely different appreciation of what it all meant. Unfortunately, Thompson took his own life on his fortified compound he called “Owl Farm” in Woody Creek, Colorado- a short and beautiful bicycle ride from Aspen Village. Thompson’s suicide note written just 4 days before his suicide was later published in Rolling Stone magazine titled “Football Season is Over.” 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.”
“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.”
—The Great Shark Hunt, 1979