Too Wierd to Live, Too Rare to Die: a Hunter S. Thompson memorial thread

[shereads]

February is Hunter S. Thompson Memorial Month here at the decaying jungle compound. I will post some of the good doctor's random wisdom; so may you.

This article from ESPN.com would have been particularly timely a week ago. So sue me.

Posted Jan. 2003:

Wartime Super Bowls are always dismal and lame -- if they happen at all -- due to "tragic National Security disasters that we cannot, of course, disclose to you at this time, because of etc, etc, etc."…. Alas, I know that story well. It happens every time you find a huge police agency seizing control of all sporting events, in this country or any other.

Indeed. But that is what happens in War-time, eh? Yes sir, the War Machine comes in and takes whatever measures are Necessary to make sure our boys have plenty of bombs, wherever they happen to be. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice ... Hot damn, there's a war on, bubba. That's for sure -- but at least it won't happen until the day after the Super Bowl -- and that is when the shades will come down. Beyond that, Nobody knows. It will all be up in the air.

So we should all take a nice long look at the Big Game on Sunday in San Diego -- because it may be the last one we'll see for a while, at least until the War ends ... Ho ho. That is a nasty thought, as thoughts go, but it is the melancholy truth. Certainly it will be the last peacetime Super Bowl for another five years, maybe more ... But by then we will all be wearing uniforms, of one kind or another, and only the "Trusted Travelers" among us will be allowed to come and go as we please -- within reasonable military limits, of course, as long as we don't make waves and never gather in groups of more than three, and don't spit.

Whoops! Why are we drifting into negativity here in this hour, with the final game of the season about to happen and the war about to start? Nevermind that morbid gibberish about --

"You know what?" the Sheriff interrupted. "The last place in the world I'd want to be this weekend is San Diego. It will be like hell on earth."

"Not for the Oakland Raiders," I said. "They will be on top of the world, such as it is."

"That's what I mean," he said. "The Raiders will have fun. All the others will suffer. They will all be detained, or locked up for military crimes. Military crimes. Military police, military tribunals. Military justice -- get used to it. That is the Military way."

I agreed, and quickly changed the subject. "How many draft picks did the Raiders get for Jon Gruden?" I wondered aloud.

"Many," said a voice from behind me. "They also got enough money to pay off many signing bonuses. Al Davis will rule forever."


Which may be true. The Raiders dynasty is already a fact, whether they win or lose on Sunday, and the dynasty is moving in full harvest mode. Stand back. Prepare to salute and pay tribute ... That is how Davis and his people are seeing it, anyway, and I think I agree with them. This is a serious football team, folks.

Which is not to say that Tampa Bay is not. No sir. But the Oakland Raiders are serious in a different way. They're deadly serious, and you can take that for whatever it seems to mean. They are assassins, in a word, and they have everything they need in their arsenal: extreme speed, beautiful talent, smart coaching, preternaturally fine chemistry, and a rare level of individual intelligence among players ... This is a high-class unit, exactly the kind of team you would buy for yourself if you wanted to win a Super Bowl. Tampa Bay's chances of winning the game on Sunday are about one in 500. You're welcome.

I might be wrong, of course. I might be wrong. Hell, that's always possible. Nobody can win all the time. That would be fishy. It would mean that something is wrong with the system. Why bet on a fixed game? That is nonsense, of course. The Super Bowl can never be fixed -- not in Peacetime, anyway ... and even if it was, I would never offer to bet on the Raiders and give 500-1 odds. Not on the internet. That would be illegal and probably insane. Think of the trouble I would have in collecting on my bets, eh? Or pay off. Wow. That would be horrible, truly horrible, like a plague of lizards and leeches fighting, all around you on the ground. These rodents are always in heat.

Whoops. Strike that. Leeches are not rodents. They are blood-sucking members of the Hirudinea family, a sub-species of the hermaphroditic sucker-worm that is frequently applied to headache-victims and other human wounds. Leeches used in human treatment range in size from three inches to 13 inches when fully bloated. They have two ugly mouths, one on each end, filled with tiny, razor-sharp teeth by which they attach themselves firmly to the flesh, prior to sucking. The leech has many eyes.

The Oakland Raiders are the only team in football that still routinely uses leeches for treatment of serious injuries. It is an old-timey medicine, deriving no doubt from the team's Bay Area roots, with its powerful Italian community and its many neighborhood grocery stores and exotic foreign delicacies, along with sausage, fresh fish and leeches ... I have many fond memories of hanging out in North Beach at elegant Italian restaurants with Raiders players in the good old days of yesteryear, when the silver-and-black dynasty was just getting started, long before they turned into the gigantic, high-powered winning machine that they are today.

Things were different in those years, but they were never dull. Every game was a terrifying adventure, win or lose, and the Raiders of the '70s usually won -- except in Pittsburgh, where cruel things happened and many dreams died horribly. You could see the early beginnings of what would evolve into the massive Raider Nation, which is beyond doubt the sleaziest and rudest and most sinister mob of thugs and whackos ever assembled in such numbers under a single "roof," so to speak, anywhere in the English-speaking world. No doubt there are other profoundly disagreeable cults that meet from time to time in most of the 50 states ...

But so what? There is nothing more to say. I have obviously made my decision about the Raiders. They are simply a better football team than the Buccaneers, and they will win. A realistic line for this game would be 10 or 11, but right now it is hovering around 5 or 6.

In the end it won't matter. It will be like a track meet for tall people. Good luck, and remember this: If the Raiders lose, I will appear on national TV with big leeches all over my head and a formal apology to read. I will be ashamed of myself for being such an ass.

Indeed. But that is the nature of gambling, eh? That is why we do it. Ho ho. That is why we call it fun.

The Raiders lost. I looked it up.

 

[trysail]

" 'They'll never let us back in that place- not after your scene at the press table.'

'What scene?'

'You bastard,' he said. 'I left you all alone for three minutes! You scared the shit out of those people! Waving that goddamn marlin spike around and yelling about reptiles. You're lucky I came back in time. They were ready to call the cops. I said you were drunk and that I was taking you up to your room for a cold shower. Hell, the only reason they gave us the press passes was to get you out of there.'

He was pacing around nervously. 'Jesus, that scene straightened me right out! I must have some drugs. What have you done with the mescaline?'

'The kit bag,' I said.

He opened the bag and ate two pellets while I got the tape machine going. 'Maybe you should only eat one of those,' he said. 'That acid's still working on you.'

I agreed. 'We have to go out to the track before dark,' I said. 'But we have time to watch the TV news. Let's carve up this grapefruit and make a fine rum punch, maybe toss in a blotter... where's the car?'

'We gave it to somebody in the parking lot,' he said. 'I have the ticket in my briefcase.'

'What's the number? I'll call down and have them wash the bastard, get rid of that dust and grime.'

'Good idea,' he said. But he couldn't find the ticket.

'Well, we're fucked,' I said. 'We'll never convince them to give us that car without proof.'

He thought for a moment, then picked up the phone and asked for the garage. 'This is Doctor Gonzo in eight-fifty,' he said. 'I seem to have lost my parking stub for that red convertible I left with you, but I want the car washed and ready to go in thirty minutes. Can you send up a duplicate stub? ... What... Oh?... Well, that's fine.' He hung up and reached for the hash pipe. 'No problem,' he said. 'That man remembers my face.'

'That's good,' I said. 'They'll probably have a big net ready for us when we show up.'

He shook his head. 'As your attorney, I advise you not to worry about me.' "

-Hunter S. Thompson
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and Other American Stories
New York, 1996


Page 28 (of The Modern Library edition)- I promise! The inimitable inventor of Gonzo Journalism did it like nobody else. As we all know, when Hunter S. Thompson died, he went out with a bang. The illustrations by Ralph Steadman are priceless.

"If you remember the '60s, you weren't there."
-R. Crumb

If Fear and Loathing doesn't make you crack a smile, check to see if you've got a pulse.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Actually, it shows what a whacko this guy was. The Raiders did lose, and they haven't even made the playoffs since, let alone become a dynasty.

The Superbowl has been played every year since its inception in peace or war. The Olympics, on the other hand, are not played in time of major conflict.

ETA: Whatinell does North Beach have to do with the Raiders? that's in SF, not Oakland.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

I wish I had read his stuff and knew of him before his death. The way you revere him makes me feel like I was missing something worth while.


But I really just stopped in here to say hi to you and let you know how much I've missed you.

 

[shereads]

Actually, it shows what a whacko this guy was. The Raiders did lose, and they haven't even made the playoffs since, let alone become a dynasty.

"If you're going to be crazy, you have to be paid for it or you'll be locked up."

 

[shereads]

I wish I had read his stuff and knew of him before his death. The way you revere him makes me feel like I was missing something worth while.


But I really just stopped in here to say hi to you and let you know how much I've missed you.

Hi there!

How are things in Crawford? Are they planning a big homecoming bash for Monkey-Boy?



"A good gift for the President would be a chocolate revolver. The problem is, you'd have to shove your way through the crowd and hand it to him really fast, or they wouldn't let you give it to him in person."

~ Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy

 

[shereads]

"Call on God, but row away from the rocks."

 

[shereads]

“Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of the rat race is not yet final."

 

[shereads]

"We march on a road of bones."

 

[shereads]

"Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream."

 

[shereads]

"Nixon was so crooked, he needed servants to screw his pants on everyday."

 

[Boxlicker101]

"Nixon was so crooked, he needed servants to screw his pants on everyday."

No question Nixon was a crook, but he operated in a crooked milieu. JFK and LBJ were no less crooked. JFK got a pass because he was liked by the news media and because of the way he died, but he was no less a crook.

 

[shereads]

No question Nixon was a crook, but he operated in a crooked milieu. JFK and LBJ were no less crooked. JFK got a pass because he was liked by the news media and because of the way he died, but he was no less a crook.

You're the life of every party, Box.

 

[shereads]

"Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism — which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful."

 

[trysail]

JFK and LBJ were no less crooked. JFK got a pass because he was liked by the news media and because of the way he died, but he was no less a crook.

For Lyndon Johnson, determination had to include belief.

He understood that all his life- as is shown by the fact that as a small boy "he was always repeating" the salesman's creed that "You've got to believe in what you're selling," and that decades later, in his retirement, he would say: "What convinces is conviction. You simply have to believe in the argument you are advancing: if you don't, you're as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn't there..." And Lyndon Johnson could make himself believe in an argument even if he had never believed in it before, even if he had believed in an opposite argument- and even if the argument did not accord with the facts. A devotee like Joseph Califano would write that Johnson "would quickly come to believe what he was saying even if it was clearly not true."

When Lyndon Johnson came to believe in something, moreover, he came to believe in it totally, with absolute conviction, regardless of previous beliefs or of the facts in the matter, came to believe in it so absolutely that, George Reedy says, "I believe that he acted out of pure motives regardless of their origins. He had a remarkable capacity to convince himself that he held the principles he should hold at any given time, and there was something charming about the air of injured innocence with which he would treat anyone who brought forth evidence that he had held other views in the past. It was not an act... He had a fantastic capacity to persuade himself that the 'truth' which was convenient for the present was the truth and anything that conflicted with it was the prevarication of his enemies. He literally willed what was in his mind to become reality." Califano, listening to Johnson tell a story which Califano knew was not true, and which Califano knew that Johnson himself knew, or at least had known at one time, was not true, writes of "the authentic increase in the President's conviction each time he recited it." The phrase used to describe the process by long time Texas associates like Ed Clark- the "revving up" or the "working up"- was homier, but it was the same process: "He could start talking about something and convince himself it was right, and get all worked up, all worked up and emotional, and work all day and all night, and sacrifice, and say, 'Follow me for the cause! - let's do this because it's right." And, Clark says, Johnson would believe it was right- no matter what he had believed before.​

-Robert A. Caro
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of The Senate.
New York, 2002.


As best I can tell, Lyndon Johnson was a congenital liar and cheat. He never won a fair election in his life, going all the way back to his third-rate college where he rigged his election as student body president. He cheated in virtually every election when he stood for public office. The most notorious was his 1948 election to the U.S. Senate where upwards of 10,000 ballots fraudulently submitted in Duval and Bexar Counties enabled his statewide victory margin of 87 votes.

 

[shereads]

"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 music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

 

[Boxlicker101]

For Lyndon Johnson, determination had to include belief.

New York, 2002.​

​

As best I can tell, Lyndon Johnson was a congenital liar and cheat. He never won a fair election in his life, going all the way back to his third-rate college where he rigged his election as student body president. He cheated in virtually every election when he stood for public office. The most notorious was his 1948 election to the U.S. Senate where upwards of 10,000 ballots fraudulently submitted in Duval and Bexar Counties enabled his statewide victory margin of 87 votes.


​

​

Without defending LBJ, I think he won the 1964 presidential election fair and square. The Reps nominated Goldwater, a good man but a guareed loser. This was one of several exames of a major party shooting itself in the foot.​

 

[shereads]

"We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer."

 

[shereads]

"There are times when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation."

 

[shereads]

"It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top."

 

[keeblercrumb]

Shreads, I want to thank you for this thread.....

About a month ago, I read "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972" (whatever)..... It was laugh out loud funny, insightful, a trip down memory lane and a must read during this quadri-annual (is that the word?) political carnival.......

While always aware of THE Gonzo writer.... I had never actually read a book of his before...

But tonight I will raise a glass once more to the good Doctor...

-KC

 

[shereads]

His final column (ESPN Online)

Shotgun Golf with Bill Murray

The death of professional hockey in AMERICA is a nasty omen for people with heavy investments in NHL teams. But to me, it meant little or nothing -- and that's why I called Bill Murray with an idea that would change both our lives forever.

It was 3:30 on a dark Tuesday morning when I heard the phone ring on his personal line in New Jersey. "Good thinking," I said to myself as I fired up a thin Cohiba. "He's bound to be wide awake and crackling at this time of day, or at least I can leave a very excited message."

My eerie hunch was right. The crazy bugger picked up on the fourth ring, and I felt my heart racing. "Hot damn!" I thought. "This is how empires are built." Late? I know not late.

Genius round the world stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.

Herman Melville said that in the winter of 1914, and Murray is keenly aware of it. Only a madman would call a legend of Bill Murray's stature at 3:33 a.m. for no good reason at all. It would be a career-ending move, and also profoundly rude.

But my reason was better than good ...

* * * * *

BILL: "Hello?"

HST: "Hi, Bill, it's Hunter."

BILL: "Hi, Hunter."

HST: "Are you ready for a powerful idea? I want to ask you about golf in Japan. I understand they're building vertical driving ranges on top of each other."

BILL (sounding strangely alert): "Yes, they have them outdoors, under roofs ..."

HST: "I've seen pictures. I thought they looked like bowling alleys stacked on top of each other."

BILL: (Laughs.)

HST: "I'm working on a profoundly goofy story here. It's wonderful. I've invented a new sport. It's called Shotgun Golf. We will rule the world with this thing."

BILL: "Mmhmm."

HST: "I've called you for some consulting advice on how to launch it. We've actually already launched it. Last spring, the Sheriff and I played a game outside in the yard here. He had my Ping Beryllium 9-iron, and I had his shotgun, and about 100 yards away, we had a linoleum green and a flag set up. He was pitching toward the green. And I was standing about 10 feet away from him, with the alley-sweeper. And my objective was to blow his ball off course, like a clay pigeon."

BILL: (Laughs.)

HST: "It didn't work at first. The birdshot I was using was too small. But double-aught buck finally worked for sure. And it was fun."

BILL: (Chuckles.)

HST: "OK, I didn't want to wake you up, but I knew you'd want to be in on the ground floor of this thing."

BILL: (Silence.)

HST: "Do you want to discuss this tomorrow?"

BILL: "Sure."

HST: "Excellent."

BILL: "I think I might have a queer dream about it now, but ..." (Laughs.)

HST: "This sport has a HUGE future. Golf in America will soon come to this."

BILL: "It will bring a whole new meaning to the words 'Driving Range'."

HST: "Especially when you stack them on top of each other. I've seen it in Japan."

BILL: "They definitely have multi-level driving ranges. Yes."

HST: (Laughs.) "How does that work? Do they have extremely high ceilings?"

BILL: "No. The roof above your tee only projects out about 10 feet, and they have another range right above you. It's like they took the façade off a building. People would be hanging out of their offices."

HST: "I see. It's like one of those original Hyatt Regency Hotels. Like an atrium. In the middle of the building you could jump straight down into the lobby?"
BILL: "Exactly like that!"

HST: "It's like people driving balls from one balcony to the next."

BILL: (Laughs.) "Yes, they could."

HST: "I could be on the eighth floor and you on the sixth? Or on the fifteenth. And we'd be driving across a lake."

BILL: "They have flags out every 150 yards, every 200 yards, every 250 yards. It's just whether you are hitting it at ground level, or from five stories up."

HST: "I want to find out more about this. This definitely has a future to it."

BILL: "They have one here in the city -- down at Chelsea Pier."

HST: "You must have played a lot of golf in Japan."

BILL: "Not much; I just had one really great day of golf. I worked most of the time. But I did play one beautiful golf course. They have seasonal greens, two different types of grass. It's really beautiful."

HST: "Well, I'm writing a column for ESPN.com and I want to know if you like my new golf idea. A two-man team."

BILL: "Well, with all safety in mind, yes. Two-man team? Yeah! That sounds great. I think it would create a whole new look. It would create a whole new clothing line."

HST: "Absolutely. You'll need a whole new wardrobe for this game."

BILL: "Shooting glasses and everything."

HST: "We'll obviously have to make a movie. This will mushroom or mutate -- either way -- into a real craze. And given the mood of this country, being that a lot of people in the mood to play golf are also in the mood to shoot something, I think it would take off like a gigantic fad."

BILL: "I think the two-man team idea would be wonderful competition and is something the Ryder Cup would pick up on."

HST: "I was talking with the Sheriff about it earlier. But in one-man competition, I'd have to compete against you, say, in both of the arts -- the shooting AND the golfing. But if you do the Ryder Cup, you'd have to have the clothing line first. I'm going to write about this for ESPN tonight. I'm naming you and the Sheriff as the founding consultants."

BILL: "Sounds good."

HST: "OK, I'll call you tomorrow. And by the way, I'll see if I can twist some arms and get you an Oscar. But I want a Nobel Prize in return."

BILL: "Well, we can work together on this. This is definitely a team challenge." (Laughing.)

HST: "OK. We'll talk tomorrow."

BILL: "Good night."

So there it is. Shotgun Golf will soon take America by storm. I see it as the first truly violent leisure sport. Millions will crave it.

* * * * *

Shotgun Golf was invented in the ominous summer of 2004 AD, right here at the Owl Farm in Woody Creek, Colo. The first game was played between me and Sheriff Bob Braudis, on the ancient Bomb & Shooting Range of the Woody Creek Rod & Gun Club. It was witnessed by many members and other invited guests, and filmed for historical purposes by Dr. Thompson on Super-Beta videotape.

The game consists of one golfer, one shooter and a field judge. The purpose of the game is to shoot your opponent's high-flying golf ball out of the air with a finely-tuned 12-gauge shotgun, thus preventing him (your opponent) from lofting a 9-iron approach shot onto a distant "green" and making a "hole in one." Points are scored by blasting your opponent's shiny new Titleist out of the air and causing his shot to fail miserably. That earns you two points.

But if you miss and your enemy holes out, he (or she) wins two points when his ball hits and stays on the green.

And after that, you trade places and equipment, and move on to round 2.

My patent is pending, and the train is leaving the station, and Murray is a Founding Consultant, along with the Sheriff, and Keith Richards, etc., etc. Invest now or forever hold your peace.

* * * * *

As for Bill's triumphant finish at Pebble Beach, I am almost insanely proud of him. He is an elegant athlete in the finest Murray tradition. Bill is a dangerous brute with the fastest reflexes in Hollywood, but he is suave, and that is why I trust him even more than I trust all his brothers. Yes, I say Hallelujah, praise Jesus. Where is Brian? I will need him for this golf project, if only to offset Bill's bitchiness. We will march on a road of bones.

OK. Back to business. It was Bill Murray who taught me how to mortify your opponents in any sporting contest, honest or otherwise. He taught me my humiliating PGA fadeaway shot, which has earned me a lot of money ... after that, I taught him how to swim, and then I introduced him to the shooting arts, and now he wins everything he touches.

Welcome to the future of America. Welcome to Shotgun Golf.

So long and Mahalo.

Hunter.

 

[shereads]

Sept. 12 2001:

“The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now -- with somebody -- and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.

"It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy…

"We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows?"

 

[shereads]

On Muhammad Ali:

"He came, he saw, and if he didn't entirely conquer - he came as close as anybody we are likely to see in the lifetime of this doomed generation."

 

[shereads]

"A lot of people in the mood to play golf are also in the mood to shoot something."