| February 23rd, 2005 01:16 PM |
|
|
| Factory Girl |
Hi Martha!! 
KOL this Saturday!!! |
| February 23rd, 2005 01:20 PM |
|
|
| Jaxx |
quote:
Factory Girl wrote:
I think suicide is hardest on those left behind.
yes. that's what makes it such a selfish act--tho incredibly brave IMO. my girlfriend's mom committed suicide when were teenagers. another's friend's husband committed suicide leaving behind my friend and her daughter. a coworker's teenage son. tho all these circumstances have been different, the aftermath is always the same: 1. why?, 2. what could i/we have done to prevent it.
i heard a psychic once, maybe it was sylvia brown(?) state that those who commit suicide get boomaranged right back to this world destined to a worse life than they chose to end. i know i was taught in religious education that it was a mortal sin to take your own life, with the premise that man should not take over the job that is supposed to be in G**'s hands... even though we are given the free will to do so.
then the twist: terminally ill and consumed with pain due to cancer or some other horrible disease. suicide or euthanasia? |
| February 23rd, 2005 01:32 PM |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
quote:
Factory Girl wrote:
I remember when a friend's friend committed suicide. He must have only been 19 or 20. She was having a rough time with his death, and I suggested that she speak to a pastor to try & make sense of her friend's demise.
The pastor told her that The friend used a permanent solution to solve a temporary problem.
I think suicide is hardest on those left behind.
Ah, the Pastor must've been using "1001 Snappy Quotes Guaranteed To Reduce Difficult and Complex Issues To Brief Nearly Meaningless Cliches". That's a book which is never far from my bedstead.
As I said above, I generally frown on suicide, especially if the person considering it or committing it is 19 or 20. There should be an age limit on it. Like a drinking age.
Hunter S. Thompson had definitely reached the age where he could decide for himself what he wanted the balance of his life to be: a decade or two of steady decline, constant pain, shaking hands, incontinence, finally a hospital bed with catheters and tubes and a morphine drip that wouldn't even register with a man of herculean tastes like the doctor; or a split second roar and the taste of gunmetal.
A guy like Hunter S. Thompson cannot be judged with the same set of standards as mere mortals. Like Hemingway before him, he had every right to make the grand exit. He'd lived life on his own terms and had earned the right to die on his own terms. AND like Hemingway it sounds like he had the decency to do it on a tile floor so it was easier to clean up.
It's not suicide that's hard on those left behind, in this case - we didn't KNOW Hunter S. Thompson, there won't be an empty seat at our dinner table - it's LIFE that's hard on those left behind. |
| February 23rd, 2005 01:45 PM |
|
|
| Factory Girl |
HT's suicide will be hardest on those HE left-his family and friends. But, no death, however monumental, has ever stopped the world.
Suicide is a selfish act-at 19 or 67. Dying is easy, living is hard.
My former neighbor was murdered recently, she was 15 and she ran away from home. I saw her mother crying on TV. She had a younger brother (now 10) who will be a huge mess the rest of his life because of this. He wasn't very stable to begin with. |
| February 23rd, 2005 02:31 PM |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
quote:
Factory Girl wrote:
HT's suicide will be hardest on those HE left-his family and friends. But, no death, however monumental, has ever stopped the world.
stable to begin with.
By all accounts his family understood - hell _I_ understand it and I'm not in the family - and were cool with it. Latest stuff out says he was in constant pain from hip replacement, spinal surgery, broken leg, and at 67 there isn't a lot of room to bounce back.
quote:
Factory Girl wrote:
Suicide is a selfish act-at 19 or 67. Dying is easy, living is hard.
Wanting to see him miserable and alive, as opposed to dead and true to himself and his life, would be the selfish act, imho. His family seem to be a particularly unselfish lot.
quote:
Factory Girl wrote:
My former neighbor was murdered recently, she was 15 and she ran away from home. I saw her mother crying on TV. She had a younger brother (now 10) who will be a huge mess the rest of his life because of this. He wasn't very stable to begin with.
Sad story. And the point is....? That the mother shouldn't commit suicide? I agree! HST's son is an adult, not a messed-up ten year old. If HST was MY old man I'd be proud as hell that he took that way out, and would gladly yank the lanyard on the cannon when they fire his ashes to kingdom come. |
| February 23rd, 2005 02:50 PM |
|
|
| Factory Girl |
FPM, you're leaping to a lot of conclusions about HT's family-not all of them correct.
You say that his family is cool with his suicide. How do you know? Are you in contact with them??
They may or may not be stoic-but HT's untimely death cannot be an easy time for them. Even if they accept it on an intellectual level.
You also say that b/c his son was an adult, he won't be bothered by his father's death. Adult children feel loss and pain also, and it might be especially acute b/c of the way HT chose to die. |
| February 23rd, 2005 03:12 PM |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
Yes, I am leaping to conclusions. And projecting a bit. And taking what I read at face value. Maybe, even though every statement to the press his son has made has spoken proudly of HST "stomping the terra", maybe he actually DID want his old man to degenerate into a shell of his former self (even more than he already had), and to continue the downward spiral for as many years as possible before he finally died peacefully with a friggin' tube up his nose and another one for him to pee through. And as far as firing the ashes out of a cannon, well that's just CRAZY. Yeah, why should a great man's last wishes be honored? Someone's feelings might be hurt!
Everything you say is right if we're talking about a state worker or an insurance salesman. But this was Hunter S. Thompson, fer crissakes!! If his son was proud of his life, he should be proud of his death too.
At least I would be. I guess that's all I'm saying. |
| February 23rd, 2005 03:20 PM |
|
|
| Factory Girl |
We're all "stompin' on the terra" in our own way. The life of "every man" is as valuable as a life of a "great man".
HT may have been in pain and depressed, now those HE left behind are in pain.
I'll say this: "HT passed it on." |
| February 23rd, 2005 04:04 PM |
|
|
| MrPleasant |
You two have perfectly valid viewpoints. Here are my thoughts:
I believe that freedom comes with responsibility. Freedom to take drugs, if you're aware of their consequences; freedom to pick a career, if you're willing to do a full job; freedom to collect tons of lovers, if you're willing to put your reputation on hold; etc. The dangers of freedom are the result of people making unwanted decisions for others; that's cruel.
To what extent does Thompson's death damage the lives of his relatives? That's impossible for others to know. As an outsider, I have to say it impressed me. I do feel sad, but I understand how one could intellectualize the action as the ultimate in self-critizing.
Maybe he knew what he was doing; maybe he was suffering from acute depression. Maybe both. Anyhow, and as much as I respect and "understand" his decision, being the character that he was, I hope it was mostly the former. Even when hope is such an overused word. |
| February 23rd, 2005 04:23 PM |
|
|
| lotsajizz |
quote:
Factory Girl wrote:
FPM, you're leaping to a lot of conclusions about HT's family-not all of them correct.
plenty of links to follow to confirm this...no leaping, he speaks the truth |
| February 23rd, 2005 06:33 PM |
|
|
| kath |
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=525851
way to go, gonzo!!! |
| February 24th, 2005 12:48 PM |
|
|
| Martha |
quote:
Factory Girl wrote:
HT may have been in pain and depressed, now those HE left behind are in pain.
I'll say this: "HT passed it on."
I somewhat disagree with you here FG. I understand where you are coming from, yet I don't think we can literally pass on our pain to our loved ones, our pain is our own. It is what separates us from one another at our core.
And in part, what Hunter dealt with at the end of his life is not just about emotional pain. He was not doing well and obviously in the decline of his life. Physical pain is VERY debilitating, I know this from experience. I have pain in my hip, leg and back everyday. Living with daily pain takes a huge toll and changes ones' life forever especially when it is chronic, untreatable and uncureable, as it was in Hunter's case.
I don't think one can measure another person's experience of pain no matter where it stems from as our pain is personal to each of us. I also do not think we owe one another our very lives, no matter what, ultimately. I just do not believe in that way of thinking, overall anyway. But this is a deep subject and I am open to looking at it from all points of view. I learn a lot from other's experiences. I thank you for sharing yours. :-) |
| February 24th, 2005 12:54 PM |
|
|
| Martha |
For those intersted here's the Link:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/23/164218
to this interview:
Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) on the Iraq War & the Bush Presidency |
| February 24th, 2005 01:35 PM |
|
|
| Factory Girl |
Martha,
Thanks for sharing your views. I'm very sorry to hear that you have to live with pain. Yes, chronic pain does color one's existence.
|
| February 24th, 2005 03:40 PM |
|
|
| kath |
as a person who lives with relentless, oppressive, exquisite pain 24/7, i can completely understand a suicide. it's almost a certainty for me, ultimately. there are two people on the earth who would care, and they know about it and accept it as a distinct possibility. if hunter s. thompson thought it was time for him to get while the gettin' was good, more power to him. and i hope they let his family shoot him outta a cannon like he wanted.
sail on, duke. we'll miss you.
[Edited by kath] |
| February 24th, 2005 06:05 PM |
|
|
| Martha |
quote:
kath wrote:
as a person who lives with relentless, oppressive, exquisite pain 24/7, i can completely understand a suicide. it's almost a certainty for me, ultimately. there are two people on the earth who would care, and they know about it and accept it as a distinct possibility. if hunter s. thompson thought it was time for him to get while the gettin' was good, more power to him. and i hope they let his family shoot him outta a cannon like he wanted.
sail on, duke. we'll miss you.
[Edited by kath]
Count me on your list of someone who, though we may never meet (but I hope we do along the Stones tour somewhere), does care and respects how you feel about this subject kath. I'm very sorry to learn you have pain 24/7. Very sorry indeed.
I understand and respect your feelings on this subject.
May you be blessed each and every day.
with love,
Martha |
| February 24th, 2005 07:53 PM |
|
|
| kath |
it's been really hard for my husband for a long time. for a while he was afraid to come home for fear of what he'd find.
things are a little better now that i detoxed of the dilauded and morphine they had me on, both of which have the opposite desired effect on me. so i was wired to the gills for days on end, and ended up being a good subject for sleep deprivation....(it was a teaching hospital).
but oh yeah, there's no question about it. when it gets to the point that i cannot eek out at least 2 reasonable good days in 1 week, i'm outta here. this is overwhelmingly oppressive,EXQUISITE pain. i can only describe it by asking that you imagine that all your nerve endings in your spine (your whole spine) have been pulled out and exposed. so now they are "raw nerve endings". ok? got that? NOW, attach little hemostats (aka roach clips) along those nerve endings...how does that feel, huh? |
| February 24th, 2005 09:19 PM |
|
|
| Martha |
I had no idea you were ill and in such awful pain kath. I'm so sorry to hear that. You provide so much humor to the board with your quick wit and frankness, which I find delightful. I'm sending you prayers and hugs.
peace,
Martha |
| February 24th, 2005 09:43 PM |
|
|
| kath |
multiple issues...RSD, fibromyalgia and hepatitis C. had failed spinal cord stimulator placement at OHSU, and two really nasty infections, the worst after the C 6-7 ganglionectomy. i'm on SSD, totally disabled. i am slowly losing the use of my arms, which will be a relief i'm sure to some of our gang! maybe i'm just trying to get it all in while i can!!
anyway, it is very bad. and i took another fall on friday night, a rather bad one. slammed forehead first onto the floor like a tree! really fucked my neck up, but this time on the left side. everything before had been on the right side. it feels like i'm balancing my head on a broken neck.
i couldn't use a gun like duke did...but i've managed to stash away a lot of pain meds they were pouring down my throat. someday it will be just too much to bear any longer. |
| February 25th, 2005 08:46 AM |
|
|
| Taptrick |
I'd say he left the family a lot to think about they have yet to acknowledge...and a nice mess on the kitchen floor to clean up. There are more graceful options out there but then again they wouldn't have generated the same amount of press and family reaction:
Wife details family gathering with Thompson dead in chair
By Jeff Kass, © 2005, Rocky Mountain News
February 25, 2005
ASPEN — Hunter S. Thompson heard the ice clinking.
The literary champ was sitting in his command post kitchen chair, a piece of blank paper in his favorite typewriter, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot through the mouth hours earlier.
But a small circle of family and friends gathered around with stories, as he wished, with glasses full of his favored elixir — Chivas Regal on ice.
"It was very loving. It was not a panic, or ugly, or freaky," Thompson's wife, Anita Thompson, said Thursday night in her first spoken comments since the icon's death Sunday. "It was just like Hunter wanted. He was in control here."
Anita Thompson also echoes the comments that have been made by Hunter Thompson's son and daughter-in-law: That her husband's suicide did not come from the bottom of the well, but was a gesture of strength and ultimate control made as his life was at a high-water mark.
"This is a triumph of his, not a desperate, tragic failure," Anita Thompson said by phone, recounting that she was sitting in her husband's chair he called his catbird seat in the Rockies.
She added: "He lived a beautiful life and he lived it on his own terms, all the way from the very beginning to the very end."
Anita Thompson, like her husband's other close relatives, understood how Hunter Thompson wanted to make his ultimate exit.
"I always knew that Hunter was going to die before me," Anita Thompson, 32, said of her 67-year-old husband. "I'd accepted that. I just did not know it was going to be like this. I would rather have him back."
Yet Anita Thompson quickly came to embrace Hunter Thompson's gesture with a .45-caliber handgun.
She was at the gym when her husband took his life. And when family friend and Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis confirmed the news, her mind raced. "I have enough will power," she thought. "I can turn back time. No, no, no. This is not right. This can't happen."
But upon seeing Hunter Thompson's body, she embraced him. "Since he'd done this, I did not want to make it difficult for his spirit," she said. "I wanted to make it loving."
Anita Thompson believes she will stay on at the expansive property and famous house that was an ever-changing archive of political, literary and name-your-category items. And she will continue to help administer Hunter Thompson's works.
"I'm going to keep on working for Hunter," she said. "He wanted this. He made sure that I was in place to continue on. I'll just do my job until I can be with him again."
She adds, citing the property's nickname: "It will remain Owl Farm. It will remain Hunter Thompson's Owl Farm."
The last book they had read out loud together was parts of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a dense classic that explores the fragility of civilization by one of Hunter Thompson's favorite authors. Yet, said Anita Thompson, "He thinks Conrad is funny."
Anita Thompson and her husband had a small tiff that afternoon. Hunter Thompson told her to leave the kitchen that was known across the world as his funky and sacred work space. A weird look came across his face.
"I don't know why he wanted me to leave the room," she said. "It's all speculation. He'd never asked me to leave the room before."
But Anita Thompson did not go to the office with Hunter Thompson's son, as he had requested. Instead, she left the house.
"I'm going to get my gym bag. I'm going," she recalled. "He said, 'I don't want you to leave the house.'"
But she went to the gym. At 5:16 p.m., according to her cell-phone display, she called and spoke with Hunter Thompson for 10 minutes and 22 seconds.
Hunter Thompson put almost everyone on speakerphone. But he picked up the handset to speak with his wife.
"I knew it was odd, first of all, that he picked up with the handset ... I thought, 'That's sweet,'" she said.
The talk was good.
"He said, 'I want you to come home after you work out. Come home and we'll work on a column,'" she recalled.
The conversation, however, never really ended. Before formal goodbyes, Anita Thompson heard a clicking sound. She thought Hunter Thompson might have put down the handset and was typing. Or maybe it was the television. She waited. Maybe a minute passed.
"He did not say anything about killing himself," she said.
The official time of death is 5:42 p.m.
But did Hunter Thompson shoot himself while on the phone with his wife?
"I did not hear any bang," she says, noting that Hunter Thompson's son, who was in the house at the time, believed that a book had fallen when he heard the shot.
Anita Thompson can imagine what was going
|
| February 25th, 2005 11:20 AM |
|
|
| Martha |
quote:
kath wrote:
multiple issues...RSD, fibromyalgia and hepatitis C. had failed spinal cord stimulator placement at OHSU, and two really nasty infections, the worst after the C 6-7 ganglionectomy. i'm on SSD, totally disabled. i am slowly losing the use of my arms, which will be a relief i'm sure to some of our gang! maybe i'm just trying to get it all in while i can!!
anyway, it is very bad. and i took another fall on friday night, a rather bad one. slammed forehead first onto the floor like a tree! really fucked my neck up, but this time on the left side. everything before had been on the right side. it feels like i'm balancing my head on a broken neck.
i couldn't use a gun like duke did...but i've managed to stash away a lot of pain meds they were pouring down my throat. someday it will be just too much to bear any longer.
I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry you are going through this kath. What meds help you? I can't take narcotics either...they make me sicker than a damn dog....so do many other pain meds. I am a the lightest weight amongest light weights.
Do they have you on marinol perchance? I've used those pills for nausea, which I have almost daily....smoking grass helps with that the most though. Even my Doc knows grass is the best medication out there for assuaging nausea and helping gain back an appetite. :-)
Take good care of yourself darlin'.
Now...what musical goodies can I gift you with? PM me your addy (if that's cool with yout) and I'll put a package together for you asap! Music is the second drug of choice for me. Listening to good music helps me to transcend all sorts of pain. :-)
Peace to you,
Martha |
| February 25th, 2005 12:51 PM |
|
|
| kath |
they had me on marinol, which of course, did nothing. i smoke pot when i can get my hands on it, getting my card on monday. that doesn't get me pot, it just says i can have it if i can find it!!
i didn't post that to get anything, sweet martha. just to say that people don't know what suicides are thinking or feeling or going through, and they shouldn't judge them so harshly. |
| February 25th, 2005 01:10 PM |
|
|
| Martha |
quote:
kath wrote:
they had me on marinol, which of course, did nothing. i smoke pot when i can get my hands on it, getting my card on monday. that doesn't get me pot, it just says i can have it if i can find it!!
i didn't post that to get anything, sweet martha. just to say that people don't know what suicides are thinking or feeling or going through, and they shouldn't judge them so harshly.
I know that.....I got what prompted you to share so openly about your personal life. And I greatly appreciate hearing about your experience. I learn more from people's experiences than from hearsay, opinions, gossip and rhetoric. I pay close attention when people speak from their personal experience/hearts. That's why, in part I so love music. The artists I love the most write about their experiences and feelings....and I need to hear them and often, especially nowadays. :-)
And....I send music to people all the time, can't stop myself....and you are now on my send this out to....list. Remember what they say about a gift horse! :-)
You can't find any grass where you live? Yikes! I go get mine once or twice a year from a never to be named source, to tie me over. Otherwise, looking for it is too much of a risk and hassle. I'm way too old for that silly sort of lifestyle, anyway...LOL I hope you find some soon.
Marinol is very mild (unless you take a lot) in comparison, I agree. As a lightweight though, this is about all I can handle. Otherwise, I am a puker! Ugh...
Now...what music is your most fav.....I know..I know the Stones, but who else besides our boys, do you dig on?
Peace out,
Martha Mellencamp
I'm lettin' the cat out of the cage, I'm keepin' a low profile.....
|
| February 25th, 2005 02:54 PM |
|
|
| kath |
blues. clapton. stuff like that. |
| February 25th, 2005 05:14 PM |
|
|
| Martha |
quote:
kath wrote:
blues. clapton. stuff like that.
That's right down my alley......
heheheh......
stay tuned.....
:-) |
| February 25th, 2005 07:01 PM |
|
|
| Taptrick |
Kath - do you already have a lot of Taj Mahal? |
| February 25th, 2005 07:32 PM |
|
|
| time is on my side |
Kath- shocking news- you have been one of my favorite posters the short time I've been here at Rocks Off and always enjoy your post and ideas. My prayers are with you.
I take two distinct points of view when it comes to suicide. People have what is called emotional pain and then there is physical pain. When it comes to emotional pain, life has it share of up and downs. I've had times, especially when I was young, when I thought why bother with this??? What's the point??? In reflection this was only a temporary situation. I was experiencing one of the valleys of life that most, if not all, people will experience from time to time. As time went on, my life and outlook on life improved dramatically. I've experienced a number of peaks since notwithstanding the occasional valley that does reappear from time to time. Suicide caused by this kind of pain, in my view, is always wrong. Especially in the young.
The other type is unbearable, constant physical pain. If there is no cure and it's constant, to me it's up to that individual and that individual alone to decide when enough is enough. How can anyone pass judgements in that type of situation is beyond me???? Who knows what choice anyone will make when confronted with such options???? If the quality of life has disappeared and life becomes a nightmare with no hope, then the choice should rest soley with the individual involved. Who will be left with a deeply personal decision.
[Edited by time is on my side] |
| February 25th, 2005 07:40 PM |
|
|
| exile |
This is what his old buddy Ralph Steadman had to say on the subject of Hunters death
http://www.ralphsteadman.com/ |
| February 25th, 2005 08:12 PM |
|
|
| kath |
no, i don't have any taj. seriously lacking taj....
well, i think your point about two kinds of pain is well taken. and i agree that suicide is a very selfish thing to do. but you can reach a point when you don't care about that. it's not that you don't love your family and friends, you do. but you are the quality person you were or the one that they've always known. and you can't take it anymore. and you don't want them to have to take care of you. |
| February 25th, 2005 09:34 PM |
|
|
| exile |
Gonzo writer on phone to wife when he pulled the trigger
Aspen, Colorado: The widow of journalist Hunter S Thompson said her husband killed himself while the two were talking on the phone.
"I was on the phone with him, he set the receiver down and he did it. I heard the clicking of the gun," Anita Thompson told the Aspen Daily News.
She said her husband had asked her to come home from a health club so they could work on his weekly ESPN column - but instead of saying goodbye, he set the telephone down and shot himself.
Thompson said she heard a loud, muffled noise, but didn't know what had happened. "I was waiting for him to get back on the phone," she said.
The writer of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, who coined the term "gonzo journalism", shot himself in the head on Sunday in the kitchen of his Aspen-area home. He was 67.
His son, daughter-in-law and six-year-old grandson were in the house when the shooting occurred.
Anita Thompson, 32, said her husband had discussed killing himself in recent months and had been issuing verbal and written directives about what he wanted done with his body, his unpublished works and his assets.
His suicidal talk put a strain on their relationship, she said.
"He wanted to leave on top of his game. I wish I could have been more supportive of his decision," she said. "It was a problem for us."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Books/Gonzo-on-phone-to-wife-when-he-pulled-the-trigger/2005/02/26/1109180122115.html?oneclick=true |
|
CHAT
ROOM aka THE FUN HOUSE] [
RESTROOMS]