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"happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing i know."
- hemingway
2005-02-21
today, america is a darker and colder place. dr. hunter s. thompson, one of the greatest american writers ever, arguably one of the greatest americans ever, full stop, and one of my greatest heroes, has died, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
"true original," "cultural icon," "renaissance man," "legend in his own time" - it's hard to write about him without resorting to hackneyed-sounding superlatives, because he really was that great.
he singlehandedly created and popularized a school of journalism (indeed, of writing) dubbed "gonzo." its hallmarks are brutally frank language; vertiginous shifts in mindset which obscure the boundary between reality and fantasy or even psychosis; the liberal use of allegory and metaphor, including depictions of substance abuse, sex of all descriptions, violence, and all manner of taboo; and, most significantly, the involvement of the reporter in the story, which transforms traditional objective journalism into a highly subjective form.
his style has strongly influenced writers who have come after him, indeed all of american popular culture and, yes, you, whether you realize it or not. "gonzo," "fear and loathing," "where the buffalo roam," "when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" - all these classics of the pop lexicon are pure thompson, and there's a lot more where that came from, that you didn't even realize came from him.
he moved with equal facility among washington's elite and the hell's angels; he held public office as the sheriff of woody creek, colorado, where he lived; during his life, he both served in the military and as the manager of a strip club; "doonesbury's" "duke" is based on one of his characters (who is in turn based on thompson himself), and he was portrayed in movies by bill murray ("where the buffalo roam") and johnny depp ("fear and loathing in las vegas").
his death, and the way it came, is shocking, but not surprising. he lived as he wrote; very close to the edge. that was half the reason his stuff was so compelling; we lived vicariously through him in territory most of us aren't cut out for ourselves. the other half was his ruthless, unflinching honesty. he didn't fuck around, and he didn't take shit from anyone unless he thought he had something to learn from it. he was one of the most fiercely principled figures in the journalism and politics of the 20th century, and that integrity held over into the rest of his life.
a true patriot, he hated the powerlust and hypocrisy of politics, and wrote about them constantly. we can't know for certain why he chose to check out early; it's known that he wasn't happy that he was aging (he was 67), and there can be no doubt that his full-throttle lifestyle must have taken its toll on him over the years... my guess, though, is that he saw exactly how things are going in america, and just couldn't take it any more. he tried to teach us, he warned us; time and again he sounded the clarion alarm of truth and shone light where the corrupt and evil didn't want it - but despite all his efforts, he saw his country slide ever more quickly into a morass of corruption, greed, and stupidity. i've felt despair over the ever-worsening state of america, and i imagine that thompson, with his much keener perception and understanding of it all, must have felt the same thing all the more. i don't know. all i know is that there will never be another like him, and that the place will never be the same without him.
so long, doc.
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