Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

gonzo

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity
to anyone … but they’ve always worked for me.”

Hunter S. Thompson is dead.

Thompson was a wildly eccentric writer with a gift for vividly colorful storytelling, and is credited as the originator (and embodiment) of “gonzo journalism,” a genre that eschews objectivity and looks for truth somewhere between fact and fiction.

My favorite Thompson book was Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, a mad, drug-fueled chronicle of the 1972 presidential election written for Rolling Stone magazine. He also was a columnist for ESPN.com’s Page Two section; his final column was about a 3 a.m. phone call with Bill Murray about a crazy new game combining golf and skeet shooting. (Page Two put on a huge HST tribute; on an ironic note, at the bottom, the context-specific text ads at the bottom advertise florists.) He was the inspiration for one of my favorite comic book characters: renegade journalist Spider Jerusalem of Transmetropolitan, a character I generally describe to other people as “Hunter S. Thompson in a Neuromancer future, with better drugs.” “Uncle Duke” in Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury also was inspired by Thompson.

I’m more surprised by the manner of his death than the fact of it. Thompson died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, something I find unfathomable, unless he was suffering from some kind of terminal illness. As one blogger wrote,

We all knew Hunter could go any day. What I expected was a headline like this “Gonzo journalist shot by police after consuming hundreds of hits of LSD and attempting to paint murals on Aspen police cars” or something cool and strange like that. I guess I wanted an Easy Rider type ending… a martyr who fought to the end.

A sampling of obituaries:

• ESPN Page 2: “Celebrated author had style all his own”
• New York Times: “Hunter S. Thompson, 67, Author, Commits Suicide” (02/21/05) | “The Thompson Style: A Sense of Self, and Outrage (02/22/05)
• Salon.com: “The Duke of Hazard” | “Gonzo gone” (02/21/05)
• Washington Post: “Hunter S. Thompson Dies at 67” (02/21/05)
• Achenblog: “An Appreciation of Hunter S. Thompson” (02/21/05)