thompson
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.



  1. Seth says:

    Nineteen years old and my roomate Keith in Paterson, tells me to follow up Kerouac with The Good Doctor. Life wasn’t right until that day and its sure not today, but tomorrow will be alright because he’s even stronger now, smiling at us from heaven.

  2. Volglory says:

    Many of you who have posted have already articulated my personal feelings on this tragic, genuine loss, far better than I can. As an ex-drinker I cannot toast this great man with a tumbler of Chivas – but if there were ever a time when I really wanted to now is the time.

    I feel as if yet another part of my youth has been taken away from me. At 17 seeing “Where the Buffalo Roam” and then reading “Fear and Loathing…” can be an incredibly impressive event. I had found a hero, a fearless man who grabbed the “ticket’ with both hands a rolled with the Ride – and wrote about it so that we who also Understood the pain of being a man (or woman) could ride along. And what a ride!

    I’m still in shock about this. The world just seemed more tolerable knowing Dr. Thompson was in it. Now he’s gone, and there is a huge void, a living piece of history whose process has been severed in time. He’d better have had a damn good reason for leaving us yesterday. But since I have had time to digest this to some degree, I see now he could not have gone out like most of us will…old and frail and lingering. Hunter S. Thompson – like in life – was damn well going to chose his own path toward the Light in his own chosen time. So this really should not surprise me; but it definitely saddens me.

    There is one bumper sticker on my old beat-up Geo Metro convertible: “The Crazy Never Die – HST”. Well, apparently they do. Yet in another sense a whole new chapter in his Being will begin, and he will indeed live on through his writings and the writings of others about him. Others may try to emulate him, but none will equal him. He was an original and THE original. And personally, Life as I know it and the world around me will never be quite the same from now on.

    Vaya Con Dios, Dr. Thompson.

  3. b.cathey says:

    HST-R.I.P.
    you heartless selfish SWINE!! not you! why?!WHY!?why???your great GIFT is still needed today! how could you succumb to whatever darkness overcame you?? yeah, i’m being selfish! because the REAL originals who opened my mind, eyes, heart….. are disappearing,and i,WE… i forgive you,thanks for the great ride i’m sorry we were not there for you.

  4. BDK says:

    Courage all — courage to have an opinion and to express it as he did, To have an opinion is risky, we risk being exposed to correction and being responsible for debate. Lets all take a lesson and sharpen our wit and check our grammer.

  5. Mara Banian says:

    Tell us, Doctor . . . who were you writing about now . . . and where were they Sunday?

  6. Joshua Fleetwood says:

    🙁
    “Panic, it crept up my spine like the first vibes of an acid frenzy…All of these horrible realities began to dawn on me…”
    The Great Dr.Gonzo is dead.
    Now He Will Let Me Get Away With Calling Him the greatest american writer.
    You will be missed
    We can all now contemplate the location of “the high water mark” of american writing. who will step up?

    Adios, Say hi to Jack.

  7. Tony R says:

    Somewhere in a box around here there’s a dusty bottle of Chivas that needs attention.

    I was stunned to read Christine’s email to the list early this morning, stunned to see mention on a CNN crawl shortly thereafter. I’ve gone from being stunned to feeling a bit of emptiness; for better or for worse, the Doc’s works were a pretty heavy influence growing up.

    See you on the other side, Doc.

  8. Emma Ryan says:

    I am shocked and sad. He was Great, an inspiration to a generation of dissidents SO every drink and cigarette I ever have again will be in honour of the Master of Owl Farm. Thanks Doc. RIP>

  9. Ron K. says:

    HST’s last line from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”…
    “We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60’s. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling “consciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously… All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create… a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody… or at least some force is tending the light at the end of the tunnel. “….
    What a strange trip its been, I am going to miss that “atavistic SOB”!

  10. J Sowell says:

    …someone else has already coin-it …but it seems so fitting, so perfect for you Hunter…
    …GONZO BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN!…

  11. unclemike says:

    Pour a drink, and then chant…

    I am Lono, I am Lono,

    A brilliant mind, there must havebeen a reason to push it out the side of his head.

  12. Chad Leatherwood says:

    “He who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man”………Dr. Johnson

  13. Richard N. says:

    limes? what limes?
    as i awoke to the news of my favourite author killing himself. i had a sudden rush of anger. the man the myth the legend is dead. at that instant of understanding it was if clubber lang himself delivered a destructive blow to my stomach. my anger then subsided and only 2 words came to mind, thank you.
    Thankyou HST for showing me that there is a core to every apple.
    its amazing to me how you never stopped for gas.
    Vancouver misses u

    cheers Thompson

  14. Andrew says:

    Not the type of person one would expect to be a fan of the good doctor. As an upper-middle class, white, ultra-conservative (redneck) I never once agreed with the opinion this man wrote. But his passing brought me deep sadness. Having read most of this fine man’s published word, and disagreed with most of it his impact on me was still unquestionable. His ability to preach the word as he saw it was amazing, the way he never pulled on bunch, never relented, “kicked him like a manged dog when he was down” as he wrote of Nixon, and wrote as he saw left me spellbound by his style. He was an original and the world is a poorer place without him. His eulogy of Nixon (one of my favorite politicians) remains one of the finest pieces of literature penned in our lifetimes. And just as people of my party disagreed when Hunter claimed Nixon has gone home to hell, I will disagree with the members of my party here who believe HST has gone home to hell. Bet he and old “Tricky Dick” are somewhere in the promised land, drinking good scotch and discussing obscure football references just as they did on that fateful night in Manchester, NH when HST first found his love of Gonzo journalism. The irony would be the type only Hunter could appreciate. My deepest sympathies to the family of the Good Doctor. He bought the ticket, we took the ride. We are better for it.

  15. dannyr says:

    “With the right kind of eyes, you can almost see the high-water mark – the place where the wave broke and rolled back.”

    That “place” has moved west to Woody Creek. We’ll miss you.

  16. Tob says:

    Some of this souls most pecious memories revolve around these books from this man( and friends that shared them with me)…Great Red Sharks (with fins made from miller boxes), marriages in Vegas(honeymoon at the Circus Circus,F@3k the bellagio),Bad Craziness,and that first time rolling into VEGAS after all those years, finally seeing the city appear with a million flashing lights out of the vast darkness of the desert night..A glimpse back into times before I was born and into things I was suffering through in a long painful 7 years in Kentucky..A look back to a time when anything seemed possible (before I was born.) Somehow this reminds me of a quote from a fellow head at the 1996 FURTHER festival… I was admiring the Ken Kesey Merry Prankster Tour Shirt that was for sale (circa 1966). While the reading the tour dates on the back (with the wind beginning to blow through the sunset,if you know what I mean) I said” Well I shouldnt buy this, I wasnt there”. The kind ole hippie vendor turned towards me and tilted her head down. She peered over her dark sunglasses and wrly said” You were’nt???” and suddenly I realized I was. If not in the physical sense, certainly in a SPIRITUAL one. This was the gift Hunter S. Thompson gave to me. A feeling of connectedness to a poingant time in our history. I’d like to thank Bill Ruoff (Rest in Peace) for introducing me to Hunter. (I still have your copy of Curse of Lono your Mom gave me! I will stop by and see her for Kool-aid)

    “Kill the body and the head will die”
    or
    “Kill the head, and the body will LIVE!” …at least the body of work

  17. Andrew Ristow says:

    Fitting end and I toast to the Good Doctor

    Farewell HST, your presence is still felt and will continue to shake our foundations. My regards go out to his family and friends, we all know it is a time of grievance.

    The biggest surprise was news of his death; the manner was on the top of my list of possibilities. After reading about his death last night I felt I had to toast a cigarette and glass of rum to his existence on this planet and in the Afterlife. I wished I would have met him and was going to try this summer.

    A true visionary and genius is gone but not forgotten.

    In death his status in the cosmos will only be Amplified.

    This quote seems fitting:
    No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily error if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master. -Hunter S. Thompson

  18. Ryan says:

    He’s gone, I’m gone, we’re all gone. At least we’re all happy… still.

  19. David MacFarlane says:

    About nine years ago, my expecting wife and I were trying to decide what the baby’s name should be. I suggested “Hunter”. We both thought it was a lovely name and gave it to our daughter. As it turns out, our daughter is very smart and very independent. She marches to her own drummer and makes no bones about it! Dealing with her can often test the limits of patience and understanding yet she always manages to surprises us with her insight and kindness. I think Hunter turned out to be a very fitting name. Though I don’t know who Hunter S. Thompson ‘really’ was (I only know him from his work and what others have said), I can’t help but think of him as brilliant, rebellious, independent, but also kind-hearted.

    Understanding his decision to end his life has been difficult for me. It’s hard for me to think that the last thing he did was to “give up”. But then I remembered something he wrote:

    “Some may say that slow is good–and they may be right on some days — but I am here to tell you that fast is better… It will always be better to be shot out of a cannon than squeezed out of a tube…”

    Thanks Doc, I owe you -because my mind is larger and my motorcycle is fast.

  20. Nathan F.G says:

    The world is missing a great mind and a great man…. I cannot begin to explain how HST has affected my life with his writing and his legend, I have been in love with his work since I have been old enough to connect with it…..cheers to you Doc, the dream still lives on, and you are always going to be a part of it…

    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.
    Hunter S. Thompson

  21. TCK says:

    A sad wind blows through the pines at Owl Creek. A shot heard round the world scared the peacocks and left us bereft of the voice of the masses. (You know who you are). The first amendment just won’t seem the same. Hunter Thompsen said what he felt, be it a drug induced appreciation of the absurdity of staying straight, or straightening out the general public when it came to all night rants about Sports, Politics, or the American Dream. No one was safe. And I felt safer, knowing some one was paying attention. The Doctor
    shoved his hands into the guts of the steamy underbelly of society, like Jack London’s character disemboweled his dog. Maybe he finally saw that high water mark out on the Vegas desert hills as a bathtub ring, and that’s why he pulled the plug. It’s all conjecture at this point. And when they cut him open
    on the autopsy table don’t be surprised if they find a heart that beat like yours…

  22. Kyle says:

    Stanley…
    The “denizen” you spoke of (Todd) was my brother. He loved egging the good doctor on the old HST BB. My brother has sinced passed away from sirohciss. I can’t tell you how happy he was that he was able to illicate a response from him. They were both very much alike. They both “stomped terra” and left lasting footprints behind.

    Mahalo for remembering my brother’s comments! He and HST had a knack for making strong impressions.
    -Kyle

  23. Lono fan says:

    Leaving on his own raft. With only a threat of returning.
    Not much more a person can do in his own lifetime.
    past the drugs, depression, or mental whatever.
    I say, GOOD SHOW old boy!
    way to take it to the swine!!!

  24. I enjoyed Hunter’s antics, he gave kids like me hope. It is nice to know that someone else out there understood the insanity of the society we are surrounded by. His writing actually helped me lighten up and understand my own impulsive alcohol and drug induced actions. My eyes are open life is fun again. Thanks Hunter.

  25. robbie says:

    If he was terminally ill, I understand. BUT, if he found out something is about to take place and didnt want to stick around to see the outcome of survivors, God Help Us who are unaware.
    Good bye to the last real Truth Teller.

  26. claude cattoire says:

    I’m french, and I wish my english was better, cause I can’t possibly say how much the news of HST grieves me. I only got to read The great Shark Hunt, Fear and loathing in Las Vegas, The rhum diary, and Hell’s angels, since they are the only Thompson’s books to be available (hardly, since you really have to look for them in the stores) in french. however, I was a great fan of HST, and I’m therefore deeply sorry to learn about his passing. Now is a dark hour, and I will miss this man, this character ; most of all, the world will miss him, since in these trouble times, we deeply need more men like him. So long Doc, and say hello to this attorney of yours when you meet him.
    claude Cattoire

  27. Ryan Bjorgaard says:

    All the booze in the world could not hide the pain from loosing the good Doctor… I wish I had something witty to say, but right now I am dulled and saddened beyond words… All I can say is I wish his familly the best… This is the first time that I wished there was a God and a heaven… Farewell Dr. Gonzo…

  28. E. Delver says:

    As our attorney i will say keep it rolling and see you later mate.

  29. clubmäti says:

    that chapter of fear and loathing quoted earlier on this page by dylan miles remains one of the most well written pieces i´ve read to this day.. rest in peace hunter.. say hi to corso and ginsberg from me.. and to ashley o´dell ignore the critic i enjoyed your writing!!

  30. Søren Clement says:

    The last respect for Dr. Duke

    I am one of the many danish fans of Hunter S. Thompson.
    When I heard of the death of HST I was shoked, and i cant stop thinking of it as a wierd coincidence that I had just begun to fear and loathing again, for the sixth time, last week… and then he decides to commit scuicide…
    I want to send my deepest regards to his family, friends, other gonzo- readers, fans and fanatics.
    Hunter S. Thompson was a man of his time, an icon and now he has become a legend.
    Rest in peace, honour to your memory, and you will live forever in your litterature and in the hearts of those who read it.

    Søren M Clement (denmark)


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