“Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all poor gibberish – a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found out a way to live out there where the real winds blow – to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whiskey and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . .
“Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.”
Those lines are at the end of the editor’s note from Hunter S. Thompson’s “Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the ’80s.”
So goes the story of perhaps the most fabled writer since Ernest Hemingway. The final chapter in the life of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson was written on Feb. 20. His son, Juan, found him dead around 6 p.m. of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
While many will mourn the loss of a man many people thought would never die, others will regret that there will not be another “gonzo writer” – at least not like Thompson. Even those who contest Thompson’s credibility as a journalist cannot deny the contribution to American literature made by this unlikely hero.
Hunter Stockton Thompson was born July 18, 1937, in Louisville, Ky. After a crime-filled youth, he enlisted in the Air Force as part of his parole. At Eglin Air Force Base in Fla., he worked as sports editor for the base paper.
Following his discharge, he worked at various writing jobs, most of which proved fruitless. He spent some time in the late ’50s and early ’60s writing newspaper articles in South America for American papers.
When Thompson returned to the states, he set up his home on Owl Farm in Woody Creek, Colo. although he was continuously on the road.
He gained fame for his first book, “Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga,” which describes the year he lived and rode with the motorcycle gang until a disagreement caused gang members to stomp him and break his nose.
In 1970, he ran for sheriff of Pitkin County on the Freak Power ticket and narrowly lost to the incumbent. But he is most famous for his brand of super subjective journalism called “Gonzo” – a wild extension of Truman Capote’s and Tom Wolfe’s “new journalism” concept.
Thompson, a man of strange and bewitching charisma, stood 6 feet 2 inches,and with one leg longer than the other he tended to bob about like a freakish marionette. He was always thirsty. His favorite drinks were Wild Turkey and Chivas Regal.
He is survived by one son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson. His first wife was Sandra Dawn Conklin. About 18 months ago he married Anita Bejmuk, his longtime assistant.
In addition to being a writer and a failed politician, Thompson collected peacocks and guns, was an ex-night manager of the O’Farrell Theatre in San Francisco and founder of the Fourth Amendment Foundation.
A responsible Woody Creek resident, Thompson’s “doctoral” certification came from a mail-order church in the ’60s while he was in San Francisco.
There have been many media renditions of Thompson. The most recognizable is the “Uncle Duke” character in “Doonesbury” by Garry Trudeau, which Thompson reportedly hated because of his general disdain for cartoons. Later a cult movie, “Where the Buffalo Roam,” starring Bill Murray and Peter Boyle gave further illustrations of his character.
A “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” spoken word CD was released about the same time as the movie version. Released May 22, 1998, the movie starred Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro, and was directed by Terry Gilliam.
His last book, “Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century,” was published in January 2003.
A collection of his ESPN.com contributions was released last year, titled “Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness -Modern History from the Sports Desk.”
The November 1997 issue of Time magazine featured “Doomed Love at the Taco Stand” in which Thompson wrote: “They are extremely uncomfortable with the idea that I am a teenage-girl trapped in the body of a 60-year old career criminal who has already died 16 times. . .”
Regardless of how people like their art, the good doctor will be missed. We have truly lost one of the last great, original minds.
Hunter Thompson is dead, and an “American Dream” may have died with him.