just found out about this a minute ago:

Author Hunter S. Thompson dies at 67
Associated Press
February 21, 2005 THOMPSON0221

ASPEN, Colo. -- Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of journalism in books like ``Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,'' fatally shot himself Sunday night at his Aspen-area 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.

NO!

RIP Uncle Duke



I will miss you.

NO!

wow terrible thing: he has been responsible for many great articles from Rolling Stones to ESPN. His thoughts were always refreshing to read about and it's a disapointment to see. RIP Hunter

The inspiration for one of my all-time favorite comic strip characters...




Peace to you, Hunter...

I was talking to my best friend when I saw the news article saying this...

I'm really in shock. Hunter was my hero. Seriously. How serious am I? I have his logo of gonzo journalism tattooed on my back. THAT'S serious.

Hunter made me want to go into journalism. His writing style was just the most incredible and colorful mastery of the English language since the glory years of Runyon or Burroughs. He made me fall in love with the act of creating stories. Inventing new ways of saying old statements and cliches.

I'm incredibly upset by this...Hunter---WHY?????

That's a damn shame.

I guess his demons finally caught up to him.

FU UUUUU UUUU UUUUUCK!

I'm thinking he had a terminal disease or something.

I'm just surprised he lived this long with the amount of drugs he pumped into his body.

RIP

NO

WTF

one of my favorite authors!!! it sucks that he went out like that.... it almost makes me wonder if..... nevermind I won't even go there... R.I.P.

Why is it always the ones we appreciate? The ones we need? People everyone hates almost never go out like that...

Hunter was an inspiration to me (check my avatar) - a warrior and a champion of humor in age of victims, cowards and fear - who for some reason opted for the coward's way out in the end. My first reaction when I read this was "he didn't seem like the type". He seemed too fearless and passionate.

It saddens and angers me greatly to know that someone I admired so much when out in such a selfish way.

He was needed now more than ever, and they long ago lost the blueprint to create more like him.

I will miss him and his work terribly.

Selah.

Hunter S. and Sandra Dee both have their deaths reported on the same day. Could you have two more different American icons?

RIP

r.i.p mr. thompson. i enjoyed your works

Hunter S. Thompson dead at 67

'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' author takes own life

(CNN) -- Journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, who unleashed the concept of "gonzo journalism" in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself in the head Sunday at his home near Aspen, Colorado, police and his family said.

"On February 20, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson took his life with a gunshot to the head at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colorado," said a statement issued by Thompson's son, Juan Thompson, to the Aspen Daily News as reported by the Denver Post.

"The family will shortly provide more information about memorial service and media contacts. Hunter prized his privacy, and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family."

A dispatcher for the Pitkin County Sheriff's Department confirmed Thompson's death.

Thompson, 67, was associated with the "New Journalism" movement of the 1960s, in which writers -- most notably Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese -- took a more novelistic and personal approach to their subjects.

Thompson, who freely dropped cynical opinions and references to his drug and alcohol use into his stories, termed his style "gonzo journalism."

His account of a drug-fueled trip to cover a district attorneys' anti-drug conference as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine was the seed of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," perhaps his best-known work.

Subtitled "A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream," the 1971 book included his lament on the passing of the 1960s and its "sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil."

"There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs," he wrote. "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 -- the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

In "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72," he described the campaign leading to Richard Nixon's re-election as president with terms like "brutal" and "depraved"; puckishly speculated that Democratic Sen. Ed Muskie -- the early front-runner, whose poor showing in the New Hampshire primary doomed his candidacy -- was under the influence of a psychoactive drug, Ibogaine; routinely mocked candidate and senator Hubert H. Humphrey ("the Hump"); and bemoaned Nixon's looming victory by proclaiming, "Jesus, where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to become president?"

Taking risks
Other works included "The Great Shark Hunt," a collection of Watergate-era essays; "Generation of Swine," his lament on the youth of the 1980s; and his account of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential win, "Better than Sex." His lone novel, "The Rum Diaries," was written in 1959 and published in 1998, while a collection of letters, "The Proud Highway: The Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman," came out in 1997.

Hunter Stockton Thompson was born July 18, 1937, in Louisville, Kentucky. He served in the Air Force and was a newspaper sports editor. In 1966, he published "Hell's Angels," a fairly straightforward chronicle about the motorcycle gang, which Thompson had followed around for a year.

In 1970, he ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, on a Freak Power Party platform of decriminalizing drugs. He lost in a tight race.

The peak of his fame came in the 1970s, when he contributed stories to a number of magazines.

His most notable client was Rolling Stone, where the dispatches that became "Campaign Trail" originally appeared. His battles with Rolling Stone founder Jann S. Wenner were legendary; his stories occasionally arrived on odd media, such as rolls of teletype paper, and Thompson's expense accounts were often challenged by the magazine. (Examples of Thompson's Rolling Stone work have been on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.)

"He may have died relatively young but he made up for it in quality if not quantity of years," Paul Krassner, the veteran radical journalist and one of Thompson's former editors, told The Associated Press by phone from his Southern California home.

"It was hard to say sometimes whether he was being provocative for its own sake or if he was just being drunk and stoned and irresponsible," quipped Krassner, founder of the leftist publication The Realist and co-founder of the Youth International (YIPPIE) party.

"But every editor that I know, myself included, was willing to accept a certain prima donna journalism in the demands he would make to cover a particular story," he said. "They were willing to risk all of his irresponsible behavior in order to share his talent with their readers."

'Shock and dismay'
In recent years, Thompson wrote a column for the sports network ESPN's Web site. In his most recent piece, posted February 15, he describes shooting at golf balls like skeet with a friend near his longtime home -- he called it "a fortified compound" -- outside Aspen.

"The general reaction here is shock and dismay, because he was such a figure in town," Aspen resident John Hoag told CNN.

Still, Hoag said, Thompson remained a private person. "The most news we heard from him was when a pack of dogs killed his peacock, Attila, and he broke his leg in Hawaii last year."

Thompson also was the model for the character of "Uncle Duke" in the "Doonesbury" comic strip. But Thompson strongly disliked the characterization, once telling an interviewer that he would set "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau on fire if the two ever met.

In later years, however, Thompson said he had made peace with the "Uncle Duke" portrayal.

"I got used to it a long time ago," he told Freezerbox magazine in 2003. "I used to be a little perturbed by it. It was a lot more personal ... It no longer bothers me."

In 1980, actor Bill Murray portrayed Thompson in the film "Where the Buffalo Roam." And in 1998, the film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was released, based on Thompson's book and starring Johnny Depp as the journalist. A new film reportedly is in production based on Thompson's novel "The Rum Diaries."

The writer himself, Hoag said, will be missed. "There's no one in the world these days who writes the truth ... as he seems to, to me," he said. "He spoke to the world and said what people were afraid to say."








Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/S...index.html

FUCK!


We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?"

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. "What the hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. "Never mind," I said. "It's your turn to drive." I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

from
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"

...I hope the pain has stopped, Hunter.

herb4 said:

I was just going to say that. Why didn't he know that? I can't believe he didn't have the presence of mind to know that the world is more fucked-up than ever and anyone who can shine a light on any part of the truth is desperately needed. Why didn't that keep him going? Why didn't that keep him here?
This is a HUGE loss...and I'm going back and forth between being sad, feeling empathy for the huge amount of pain that he was in (the guy did carry the weight of the world on his shoulders) and being so pissed off at him. I guess the fact that he was smart enough to know better only illustrates how much pain he must have been in.
What an asshole.

applekisses said:

I love that part too! I've only seen the movie though, not read the book. My ex is really into HST, and I grew to appreciate Hunter and his work. I saw many similarities between them. Before we broke up he bought the dvd "Breakfast With Hunter" and we watched it a few times.

Rest In Peace, Hunter.

applekisses said:

Maybe he was severly intoxicated... like more than usual.

sad news, but ya can't say the man didn't live his life to the fullest and then some.

RIP

total bummer. i blow kisses to the sky.

EvilWhiteMale said:

Doctors write prescriptions so the sick can do the same. We'll just say Hunter cut out the middle man.

I had this in my profile a while back. Hunter wrote this essay in High school, this shows you how insightful and eloquent he was at a young age. Everyone should read this!!


Security ... what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut?

Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial arid personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that be has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-band. Life his by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes?

Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world he if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now- familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.

As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

WOAH...the birth of GONZO! BRILLIANT!

Awww....fuck.