| February 21st, 2005 12:17 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Author Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself
ASPEN, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of fictional journalism in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself Sunday night at his home, his son said. He was 67.
"Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," Juan Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News.
Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, a personal friend of Thompson, confirmed the death to the News. Sheriff's officials did not return calls to The Associated Press late Sunday.
Juan Thompson found his father's body. Thompson's wife, Anita, was not home at the time.
Besides the 1972 drug-hazed classic about Thompson's time in Las Vegas, he is credited with pioneering New Journalism — or "gonzo journalism" — in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story.
An acute observer of the decadence and depravity in American life, Thompson wrote such books as "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" in 1973 and the collections "Generation of Swine" and "Songs of the Doomed." His first ever novel, "The Rum Diary," written in 1959, was first published in 1998.
Other books include "Hell's Angels" and "The Proud Highway." His most recent effort was "Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and The Downward Spiral of Dumbness."
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
| February 21st, 2005 12:23 AM |
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| Mr Hess |
Sad news indeed!
HST will be missed! |
| February 21st, 2005 12:36 AM |
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| prism |
He and Keith were friends. He visited Keith often. |
| February 21st, 2005 12:40 AM |
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| stonedinaustralia |
fuck man - i just heard this myself - i'm stunned beyond belief
WTF!!
the greatest american writer of the 20th Century (outside Fitzgerald's "gatsby")IMO
along with keith the most influential male "role model" in my life (and yes that includes my real life old man)
a sad sad day
why??????
shades of hemmingway
[Edited by stonedinaustralia] |
| February 21st, 2005 12:49 AM |
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| beer |
terrible news
I think of HST on the same level as Keef.
in the sorta outlaw mythical status. the stuff of legends
imo
- |
| February 21st, 2005 01:02 AM |
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| stonedinaustralia |
hey beer - thought of you as soon as i read it
agreed - hst keith's only real peer in the outlaw stakes
how are they so sure it's suicide - i only have very brief detials
i mean he was always fooling around qith guns and explosives and (according to the legend) he's constantly out of it to some degree
so how come accident has so quickly been ruled out
a bit disaapointed in that i've always admired hst greatly but suicide is such non-admirable course of action
and what could have got to him to make him do it - a man who had fame and wealth and had reached the top in his calling - a new wife - perhaps the sense of loss he felt for his country finally got too much - but suicide - that solves nothing!!
i sure hope that they finish the movie of "the rum diary" now - i'm sure johnny depp will want to see it completed in his honour and memory
[Edited by stonedinaustralia] |
| February 21st, 2005 01:09 AM |
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| time is on my side |
SHOCKING NEWS!!!! I always pictured him enjoying life so much (a drink in one hand and a joint in the other) that he would never have time for such nonsense. Enjoyed his books and he will be greatly missed. Sad news. |
| February 21st, 2005 01:13 AM |
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| beer |
Hi SIA, I first read it on the net about an hour or so ago, then just saw it on the 11:00 news about 2 minutes ago. They showed about 20 seconds of footage of Hunter, all of it shooting guns.
it said he died of a gunshot to the chest.
I'm shocked and pissed at the same time. after everything he went through, he ended it like this?
I'm guessing there's more to the story. maybe he was sick.
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| February 21st, 2005 01:19 AM |
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| stonedinaustralia |
yeah you're right
hopefully something resembling the truth will evetually surface
now he's dead, of course, he will be cannonized and loinized by all those who dismissed him as a drug crazed lunatic in his life-time
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| February 21st, 2005 01:20 AM |
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| beer |
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| February 21st, 2005 01:22 AM |
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| beer |
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| February 21st, 2005 01:23 AM |
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| exile |
I just found out myself
and like you all I am stunned!!!!
wow! also my favourite author I cant believe it
he was always fooling with guns and pretty avid user of cocaine .....how come an accident has been ruled out.
anyway..... Rest in Peace Hunter |
| February 21st, 2005 01:26 AM |
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| beer |
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| February 21st, 2005 01:29 AM |
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| stonedinaustralia |
beer - if you've never read this hit the link - it's an extract of a short story published in a magazine pre fame days called "burial at sea" - it's classic HST
http://www.gonzo.org//books/other/roguedec.html
props to "the great thompson hunt" site
[Edited by stonedinaustralia] |
| February 21st, 2005 02:46 AM |
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| beer |
geez, i'm upset about this. i couldn't even sleep. i guess i just thought of him as one of the last great links to the ol' american literary scene. fuck, he was writing in the 1950's. i first read his stuff when i was a child. my mom had his books and gave them to me.
he always seemed to portray some heroic air, like the way he wrote about the angels and taking an outlaw angle on just being a journalist. like an anti-hero i guess. all in the pursuit of fun.
i'm bummed he chose this route to leave. incredibly bummed.
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| February 21st, 2005 02:51 AM |
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| Poplar |
a legend lost. very sad. almost makes it hard to celebrate the writing, etc.
---------------------------
"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."
- Hunter S. Thompson, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
[Edited by Poplar] |
| February 21st, 2005 03:00 AM |
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| Bloozehound |
wow, shocking
pretty unexpected event
my first thought was that maybe he was suffering the big C or emphysema and decided to rid his family and self of the suffering, guess we'll wait to find out
gunshot to the chest, ooof!
That'd takes some gonzo-sized cojones to pull off fer sures
[Edited by Bloozehound] |
| February 21st, 2005 03:33 AM |
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| Blind Dog McGhee |
this song came to mind...
"Wave Goodbye"
"Well that's a sorry piece of news That's a sorry ass piece ass of news When I heard about you Couldn't believe it was you Cause I love when someone wins And I hate it when someone packs it in We should live it up Never give it up Cause that's sorry piece of news..."
(Jon Dee Graham) |
| February 21st, 2005 06:47 AM |
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| Phog |
Fucking hell. Very sad. RIP HST. |
| February 21st, 2005 07:49 AM |
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| lotsajizz |
devastating.....a giant of culture has passed...Cazart!!! |
| February 21st, 2005 08:56 AM |
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| Nasty Habits |
I think we should all rent giant red convertables, dig up the most noxious chemicals our local police-paid off penthouse-living drug Kang has to peddle to us (skipping of course the club drug scene with its maxed-out effect being little more than a case of puppy love with a hard-on, smiles and happiness, but silly isn't crazy, dammit) and drive at top speed to Las Vegas, all blasting Sympathy for the Devil out of our in-dash CD players (because who's got time to go find a "tape machine" in '05) and meet on the strip. Then we can drive up and down one street all night, or for weeks if the fuel holds out, blocking it and jamming it with giant red sharks from the Cretaceous, cruising and hunting, waiting for something to give us a cue, and then the feeding frenzy can begin. Three thousand freaked out crying drug damaged internet mourners desceding on Vegas in vehicles so gas sucking they make SUV's look like Escorts, and we'll all have escorts too, dammit. All playing Sympathy, some from Ya Ya's, some from Beggars', all out of synch with one another, blasting out the tops of our sharks heads like steam from Behemoth, filling modern Las Vegas with bad, negative energy and ugly electricity. Who knows. Maybe we can even race. Of course we'd be branded as terrorists and shot by military eager to get some practice for Iran, but we wouldn't be the only ones with wounds to our chest.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro, but when pro is all there is, the weird gotta go.
or
There was no bigger kook than Raoul Duke.
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| February 21st, 2005 09:46 AM |
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| Jaxx |
the discussion on morning radio stated that it was unclear whether it was suicide or an accidental death. he had a habit of playing with his loaded weapons after he'd been partying heavily. |
| February 21st, 2005 09:57 AM |
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| Martha |
Was Hunter an alcoholic? I'm asking because as I read this thread I'm learning that he was a good friend of Keef's. And if he was afflicted with that particular disease I know many many alcoholics get to a point where they want (and sometimes succeed) to committ suicide. Suicide is very common in terms of that disease.
Of course, he might have known he was termnially ill like someone here has suggested and didn't want to go through that. But we just don't know and may never know.
The subject matter he wrote about and dealt with is certainly another reason he may have succumbed to this level of depression, if that's what happened.
Hunter knows how bad things really are and are getting everyday. That is the unfortunate "gift" that comes alongside of being able to see through the bullshit in this culture. It's a burden to bear and that can take a toll.
"Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there."
RIP Hunter RIP
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| February 21st, 2005 10:12 AM |
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| Martha |
Headline from Democracy Now! website.
Journalist Hunter S. Thompson Commits Suicide
And author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson has died at the age of 67. Police say Thompson shot himself on Sunday night at his home in Woody Creek Colorado.
He became one of the country's best known young journalists in the late 1960s and early 1970s while working for Rolling Stone where his drug-induced books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail were first serialized.
Thompson once said, "I hate to advocate weird chemicals, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone ... but they've always worked for me."
Thompson identified the death of the American Dream as his reporter's beat. He called his style of writing "gonzo" journalism. He said, "Objective journalism is one of the main reasons that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long."
In 1994 he wrote an obituary for President Nixon in Rolling Stone and titled it "Notes on the Passing Of An American Monster." While covering Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign Thompson wrote, "It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise." |
| February 21st, 2005 10:17 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
Martha wrote:
The subject matter he wrote about and dealt with is certainly another reason he may have succumbed to this level of depression, if that's what happened.
Hunter knows how bad things really are and are getting everyday. That is the unfortunate "gift" that comes alongside of being able to see through the bullshit in this culture. It's a burden to bear and that can take a toll.
"Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there."
RIP Hunter RIP
As long as we're speculating... Well, HST stepped on some aweful big toes over the course of his career. It might have been a "national security" hit. Those guys have long memories.
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| February 21st, 2005 10:24 AM |
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| Jaxx |
quote:
Ten Thousand Motels wrote:
As long as we're speculating... Well, HST stepped on some aweful big toes over the course of his career. It might have been a "national security" hit. Those guys have long memories.
HA! i love a conspiracy theory too--but not this time. i know the media is stating suicide, but like i said, the guy had a reputation for screwing around with his loaded weapons, playing russian roulette.
he had more than alcohol problems. he was heavily into drug abuse. aspen is a cradle for that kind of activity...or back in my younger days, it sure was. it snows year round in them there hills. |
| February 21st, 2005 10:36 AM |
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| Bloozehound |
quote:
Jaxx wrote:
it snows year round in them there hills.
ya think the Dr. caught a dose of the cabin fever? |
| February 21st, 2005 10:40 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
Jaxx wrote:
HA! i love a conspiracy theory too--but not this time.
I don't believe in conspiracies or theories....just the facts. But never rule ANYTHING out. Just the facts. |
| February 21st, 2005 10:48 AM |
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| Jaxx |
quote:
Bloozehound wrote:
ya think the Dr. caught a dose of the cabin fever?
i know he was known to be dosing the ancedote for cabin fever.
and i hear ya, ten thou, just the faxx, jaxx. |
| February 21st, 2005 10:49 AM |
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| Cocaine Eyes |
Too sad for words right now. |
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