for new readers, that doesn’t mean that’s all I read. When I’m all geeked out and ready to get my feet back on the ground, I read Hunter Thompson. The most badass author of all time.
He isn’t my absolute favorite author, but he’s the best pound for pound writer I’ve ever read. His command on the English language is beautiful. It’s like reading R-rated poetry. The only thing that’s crazier than the stories he tells is the actual life he lived.
The best place to start, is at the beginning. Or close enough to it. Although his intelligence is evident in his writing, Hunter Thompson never graduated high school. On graduation day he traded the gown for an orange jumpsuit. While his classmates walked down the aisle, Hunter was holed up in a jail cell for accessory to a robbery. At the time he had already been arrested for buying alcohol underage and suspected of robbing a gas station. At his sentencing he was given the option of prison or military, so Thompson decided to join the Air Force. He was honorably discharged in 1958. His commanding officer who recommended his release stated, “This airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy.”
Hunter Thompson jumped around a lot from there. He spent time as a sports writer, writing for Time, The Rolling Stone, Daily Record, New York Herald, local papers, and a stint for El Sportivo in San Juan, Puerto Rico. But what put Thompson on the map was his article for Scanlan’s Monthly titled, “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent And Depraved.”
After having all expenses paid to cover the Kentucky Derby, Thompson had no story for his editor. Panicking to meet his deadline, he began numbering the pages in his notebooks and faxing them to his employer. The incoherent scribbles barely mentioned the race. Instead it told of Hunter Thompsen’s drunken weekend of blacking out, threatening to mace the Governor, getting into bar fights, gambling, stealing passes into the Derby, and starting rumors of a Black Panther protest to scare old white men with antiquated views on the world. This story outlined Hunter’s future works from a subjective view to his own insane perspective.
Hunter went on to write “Hell’s Angels”, where he followed and lived with the infamous Motorcycle Club for two years. It ended abruptly when he was beaten to within an inch of his life for trying to stop a member from assaulting his wife and dog. “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas” is Thompson’s most well known work thanks to the Johnny Depp cult classic. What was supposed to be the covering of a police shooting, turned into a drug induced (LSD, cocaine, ether, mescaline, adrenochrome, marijuana) trip to Las Vegas, hallucinating the death of the American Dream while on the verge of a psychotic break.
Hunter Thompson had a knack for reporting a major event while still making himself the subject. He was absolutely a narcissist, as I suspect most geniuses are. This form of writing led to the birth of Gonzo Journalism. A genre of his own creation. A style that combined social scrutiny, self sabotage, a rejection of objectivity, and a first-person narrator that you both pity and root for. This led to a wave of young, sad, white alcoholics who thought that writing consisted only of telling people how you went to Puerto Rico and convinced a rich housewife to have an affair with you. But none of them did it like Hunter Thompson.
The man was a walking contradiction. Thompson was a self proclaimed hippy who was a member of the NRA. He hated both Nixon and Clinton vehemently. On more than one occasion he told law enforcement to fuck themselves and then shaved his head and ran for Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado. He was a great man, but like most great men, he had a hint of madness to him.
For example. Thompson once nailed a boar’s head on the door of his religious fanatic neighbors’ house to get them to move out. Told a cartoonist he’d light him on fire for using his likeness. While trying to interview a diva Keith Richards who locked himself in a room, he blasted a recording of pigs being slaughtered until he came out. Legally became a doctor. Accidentally shot his assistant while trying to scare off a bear. Almost killed Bill Murray, pranking him by duct taping him to a chair and throwing him in a pool. Stole property from Ernest Hemingway after he committed suicide. And got the cops called on him by Jack Nicholson for firing shots off in his backyard while playing animal screams as a “birthday prank”.
No one was allowed to tell Hunter Thompson how to live, it was only fitting that death would follow suit. After a weekend of family partying at his request, Hunter Thompsen called his wife Anita and took his own life as she was hanging up. He left a sucide note titled “Football Season Is Over”, it read “No more games. No more bombs. No more walking. No more fun. No more swimming. 67. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun- for anybody. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax-this won’t hurt.”
Hunter Thompsen’s funeral was atteneded by movie stars, famous authors, senators, and rock bands alike. His final wishes were carried out by Johnny Depp. His ashes were fired out of a cannon that was on top of a 150 foot tower, while fireworks went off and Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” played in the background.
He was America’s last true outlaw.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Hunter Thompson quotes. I recite it whenever I’m requested to make a toast:
“Let’s us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives…and to the ‘good life’, whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.”
