Goodbye Gonzo
(Note to Mom...Don't read this, you're not gonna like it...Or maybe?)
I spent the long weekend in Ruidoso and surrounding areas and was all set to write about my blissful retreat. Then I find out Hunter S. Thompson blew his brains out while I was eating a vegi-burger with a full load of fries at the Western Cafe in Cloudcroft, New Mexico. What??? Leon (Jan's pard) told us after we drove up to her house to unload. What??? HST took the easy way out, so it seems...Or was it?
The good/bad Doctor of gonzo journalism who took to the campaign trail hunting Tricky Dicks and Hump Humphries. I read all about it in the Rolling Stone with Ralph Steadmans' art spattered across the pages like a bad suicide. HST as we call him, as if we knew him, was my first foray into politics. I couldn't hardly wait for the next issue, next episode in this slice and dice literary voice of reason or unreason. It was the season of Patty Hearst and the SLA, marches in the streets about a war over there that had no meaning. The tube was filled with dead bodies, boys that could barely shave fighting for who knows what. HST was on, dead on. He was a madman with a pen, over the top, excess, excessively.
"They" say he waited until his wife left the house. O goody...That was nice of him. "They" say he was in chronic pain, every day, pain. O yeah? Well, I and a few that I love dearly are in pain, every day, pain and yet we hang on...Stay here. Yeah, I know, we all gotta die of something but taking your life? What??? I'd like to go out like Dale Earnhardt, doing what I love as fast as I can on the last lap of the Daytona 500. I mean, to me gun control is knowing where you are aiming...
What can I say, what more can I say? I loved the way he wrote. I have read him and admired him greatly for his abilities, his cutting to the quick style. But I think he is a chickenshit for leaving his body parts scattered about and his loved ones to pick up his pieces. His son found his body...Now isn't that sweet?
"Presidential politics is a vicious business, even for rich white men, and anybody who gets into it should be prepared to grapple with the meanest of the mean. The White House has never been seized by timid warriors. There are no rules, and the roadside is littered with wreckage. That is why they call it the passing lane. Just ask any candidate who ever ran against George Bush -- Al Gore, Ann Richards, John McCain -- all of them ambushed and vanquished by lies and dirty tricks. And all of them still whining about it." Hunter S. Thompson, 2004
Geez, I'm mad at you Hunter. Not for the 'fringy' way you wrote, not for the drugs, not for the silly fool you were but...for...taking the easy way out. He wrote that piece above last year, he could still write, he could still write! Damn.
I hope you rest in peace (finally) Hunter and say hello to Tricky Dicky for me...
SooZen
I spent the long weekend in Ruidoso and surrounding areas and was all set to write about my blissful retreat. Then I find out Hunter S. Thompson blew his brains out while I was eating a vegi-burger with a full load of fries at the Western Cafe in Cloudcroft, New Mexico. What??? Leon (Jan's pard) told us after we drove up to her house to unload. What??? HST took the easy way out, so it seems...Or was it?
The good/bad Doctor of gonzo journalism who took to the campaign trail hunting Tricky Dicks and Hump Humphries. I read all about it in the Rolling Stone with Ralph Steadmans' art spattered across the pages like a bad suicide. HST as we call him, as if we knew him, was my first foray into politics. I couldn't hardly wait for the next issue, next episode in this slice and dice literary voice of reason or unreason. It was the season of Patty Hearst and the SLA, marches in the streets about a war over there that had no meaning. The tube was filled with dead bodies, boys that could barely shave fighting for who knows what. HST was on, dead on. He was a madman with a pen, over the top, excess, excessively.
"They" say he waited until his wife left the house. O goody...That was nice of him. "They" say he was in chronic pain, every day, pain. O yeah? Well, I and a few that I love dearly are in pain, every day, pain and yet we hang on...Stay here. Yeah, I know, we all gotta die of something but taking your life? What??? I'd like to go out like Dale Earnhardt, doing what I love as fast as I can on the last lap of the Daytona 500. I mean, to me gun control is knowing where you are aiming...
What can I say, what more can I say? I loved the way he wrote. I have read him and admired him greatly for his abilities, his cutting to the quick style. But I think he is a chickenshit for leaving his body parts scattered about and his loved ones to pick up his pieces. His son found his body...Now isn't that sweet?
"Presidential politics is a vicious business, even for rich white men, and anybody who gets into it should be prepared to grapple with the meanest of the mean. The White House has never been seized by timid warriors. There are no rules, and the roadside is littered with wreckage. That is why they call it the passing lane. Just ask any candidate who ever ran against George Bush -- Al Gore, Ann Richards, John McCain -- all of them ambushed and vanquished by lies and dirty tricks. And all of them still whining about it." Hunter S. Thompson, 2004
Geez, I'm mad at you Hunter. Not for the 'fringy' way you wrote, not for the drugs, not for the silly fool you were but...for...taking the easy way out. He wrote that piece above last year, he could still write, he could still write! Damn.
I hope you rest in peace (finally) Hunter and say hello to Tricky Dicky for me...
SooZen
posted by SooZen | 6:27 AM
2 Comments:
heh heh heh
hunter laughs at us
still moving along in the traffic
moving along
moving along
he rests his soul at ease
you din't know what it was like
to never rest
to never let your mind settle
...down...
into a darkness that is needed
darkness when i close my eyes
but the mind won't shut off
have you ever been there?
maybe you have
and maybe you are better than me
but i sleep now
truly for the first time
it's a damn shame
i'm gone
but
ahhh the darkness
is folding me in
and it feels so good
to finally
rest
and sleep
truly for the first time
*******************************
i'm pissed off too. a literary genius gone and bit off more than he can chew. but i've never chewed on the end of a gun before. never wanted to. perhaps the urge was too overwhelming. perhaps he was fucked up high and didn't realize what he was doing? who knows. let's just take this lesson and be thankful that we aren't the type to chew on the end of a gun. peace. ~j
He had such sweet children. I hear they did not mind cleaning up the mess. If one more person quotes "once penetrated blah blah bullshit" one more time I will scream.
Rest in peace doc.
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