In Memory of The Good Doctor

 Ok, so I have been crazy busy with photo shoots, websites, and promo. So busy that I missed an important day. February 20th, 2005, one of the greatest men to walk the earth, took his own life. A lot of people would disagree that he is a great man, so let me try and change your mind. He was a genius, and a beautiful writer, and even created his own writing style. So take a minute to read about a very interesting character. I will warn you, that this is not for the faint. This man was a fucking maniac. So I'm going to take some info from Wikipedia, write my own opinion, post some quotes and articles, and then finally post his "suicide note", which was later published by Rolling Stone magazine.

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. The others – the living – are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still out there.

Hunter S. Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005)

 You are probably gonna say, Oh ya! The guy from Fear and Loathing!  Well, Hunter S. Thompson is my idol, and he goes much farther than Fear and Loathing. He is a man that was just too god damned insane for this world, and I hold high respect for him, not because he simply committed suicide, but because he wasn't a coward. Most people would say he's a coward for committing suicide in the first place, but those people are scared of death. How can you say living is better, when you don't know what else is out there. I'm not saying there's anything, but nobody knows. Now please do not think I am telling you in any way that that is a good idea to end your life. Life is still good, and you ALWAYS have the chance to make it better. I'm just saying you shouldn't waste your life worrying about death, when you don't actually know what it is. 

Just try to enjoy yourself while your here and that's all you can really do. Wasting all that time? Now that's fucking scary. Hunter was just tired and unhappy. At that point in life, especially after the full life he lead, shouldn't you get a choice? As someone who suffers severe chronic pain, kinda like Hunter, I can totally relate. When is enough, enough? Don't worry I'm not suicidal. I happen to love my life. It's totally worth the pain.

                                 "Some may never live, but the crazy never die”

"In 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. Although it was not widely read at the time, the article is the first of Thompson's to use techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style he would later employ in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook. Ralph Steadman, who would later collaborate with Thompson on several projects, contributed expressionist pen-and-ink illustrations."-Taken from Wikipedia

 This is taken from "A Pair of Deviant Bookends", an article Johnny Depp wrote in memory of Hunter. He describes his time with Hunter, while he was training to play him in Fear and Loathing.

"One night I was sitting on my bed having a smoke and going through some of Hunter's notes from the Vegas days and brilliant scenes that, for some reason, were edited out of the book. I placed my cigarette in the ashtray that was sitting on the nightstand. For some reason, I began to examine the nightstand, a barrel of sorts -- wooden slats, steel bands, the whole bit. As I scrutinized it a bit more, a wave of fear hit me, the likes of which I'd never experienced. My nightstand was a keg of gunpowder. Sprinting up the stairs as fast as a cheetah, I located Hunter sitting at command central. "Hunter . . . you've gotta come with me . . . I need to know if . . . come on, come downstairs!" He looked confused but humored me and walked down to my room. 

"What's gotten into you, Colonel? Is it those filthy little brown recluses again?" "No. It's that thing!" I pointed to the offending object and begged him to tell me if it was actually full and active. A look of recognition came across his face. "Oh, God, that's where it is! I've always wondered what happened to it."

"YIKES! Is it full?" I was flipping.

"Fuck, yes, it's full! Holy shit, that goddamn thing could've blown us all off the map, especially with you smoking near it! Ye gods, man. What's wrong with you?" He giggled for weeks, even years about that. So did I. I'm still giggling.

 For days and nights on end, we would sit in that command center, and talk about anything and everything from politics to weapons, our home state, lipstick, music, Hitler's paintings, literature, sports. Always sports. We were talking one night about which ones he preferred and didn't. We were watching plenty of basketball and loads of football, so I asked him if he was ever a baseball fan, to which he replied flatly, "No. Baseball is like watching a bunch of angry Jews arguing on the porch." Once, a year later, we'd made a bet on the World Cup soccer tournament, France vs. Brazil. He was positive that Brazil was going to cream France. I took that bet, one thousand dollars. We teased and prodded each other for weeks leading up to the match. The outcome bent in my favor; he promptly wrote me a check and sent it with this letter:

 

WELL, COLONEL, I TOLD YOU THE FUCKING GAME WAS FIXED. I just didn't think those prissy quadroon boys would go totally into the tank. They acted like stupid animals. They shit all over themselves and disgraced a whole nation of gutless whores in the eyes of the world. And it taught me another good lesson in WHY amateurs shouldn't fuck around with gambling on games they know nothing about.

   Anyway, here's a check for $1,000.
   Thank you very much for yr. business. I'll be back.
   Okay,
   Doc

You can read the full article here 

  Here is my favorite piece by him, taken from the end of the eighth chapter in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. 

"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era — the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights — or very early mornings — when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

Some critics and readers believe The High Water Mark was Thompson's favourite passage in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the writing of which he was most proud. Thompson often cited it during interviews, choosing it when asked to read aloud from the novel. So, that's all I'm gonna post for now. If you are still interested in learning more about this strange creature, then please visit the complete Wikipedia page. Hunter S. Thompson. 

Thompson died at his self-described "fortified compound" known as "Owl Farm" in Woody Creek, Colorado, at 5:42 p.m. on February 20, 2005, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Thompson's son (Juan), daughter-in-law (Jennifer Winkel Thompson) and grandson (Will Thompson) were visiting for the weekend at the time of his suicide. Will and Jennifer were in the adjacent room when they heard the gunshot. Mistaking the shot for the sound of a book falling, they continued with their activities for a few minutes before checking on him. The police report concerning his death stated that in a typewriter in front of Thompson, they found "a piece of paper carrying the date 'Feb 22 '05' and the single word 'counselor'."

 They reported to the press that they do not believe his suicide was out of desperation, but was a well-thought out act resulting from Thompson's many painful and chronic medical conditions. Thompson's wife, Anita, who was at a gym at the time of her husband's death, was on the phone with him when he ended his life.

What family and police describe as a suicide note was written by Thompson four days before his death, and left for his wife. It was later published by Rolling Stone. Titled "Football Season Is Over", it read:

"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."

Artist and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:

"...He told me 25 years ago that he would feel real trapped if he didn't know that he could commit suicide at any moment. I don't know if that is brave or stupid or what, but it was inevitable. I think that the truth of what rings through all his writing is that he meant what he said. If that is entertainment to you, well, that's OK. If you think that it enlightened you, well, that's even better. If you wonder if he's gone to Heaven or Hell, rest assured he will check out them both, find out which one Richard Milhous Nixon went to — and go there. He could never stand being bored. But there must be Football too — and Peacocks..." -taken from Wikipedia