Hunter S. Thompson Commits Suicide

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Anyone watch the Dylan documentary on PBS this past Monday and Tuesday? It was pretty good.

Yeah. I watched them both. They were good. I never saw much of Bob Dylan before. Mostly just photos and listened to his music.

Seeing the old film footage of him was interesting. He is a strange chap. The interview with today's Joan Baez was great! I left the documentary just loving her. She is so smart and has such a wonderful perspective on him and the whole 60s scene. I loved her story about how she stole a song he had just written while he was passed out and his reaction when he heard it on the radio a while later. Good stuff.

[Tonchi]

Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust", written about the end of her relationship with Dylan. Check it out, it's hauntingly beautiful, and you'll see where some of the melody lines from Granddaddy's song about the "Beautiful Ground" came from.

"Diamonds and Rust" - now there was a great album. Hadn't thought of it in years. I was up in Telluride a couple of years back, snooping around in the over-priced tourist shops there. One place was all about incredibly expensive shoes and boots. The proprietor proudly showed me a length of turquoise dyed alligator skin that he said was going to be made into a pair of smoke jumper boots for THE Bob Dylan!

I flashed on the deaths of 14 kids from a small town in California who had been smoke jumpers and died fighting a forest fire outside Glenwood Springs some years back. The Forest Service doesn't provide smoke jumper boots for its seasonal employees which is what these kids were. They had to go out and buy their own White's brand smoke jumper boots which back in the day used to run around $140.00 a pair. Don't know what they cost now. The kids bought those boots out of their seasonal's pay and died in them.

For some reason, those alligator skin smoke jumper boots seemed faintly obscene to me.

[shoot]

Suicide outranks homicide as cause of death in most regions of the globe. Depression(usually undiagnosed and or untreated) being one of if not the leading cause of suicide. If this was the reason for Mr Thompsons unfortunate demise than it really was'nt a concious(sis out) decision that he made. Leaving depression untreated is a very bad decision, suicide though I really cant say.

[shoot]

suicide actually happens more after treatment. Once they begin on an antidepressant, then they have more energy and therefore are more likely to kill themselves.

[gonzo_4_life15]

HST was an expert on the ups and downs of drugs. Ive been reading Fear and Loathing in America and if i could remember some of the phrases i underlined im sure i could come up with something a little more worthy but if he did kill himself i think it must have been to prove some kind of gonzo point to his real fans, Maybe he was depressed but who isnt depressed almost half the time these days anyways, I am sure he wouldnt kill himself cause he was crying himself to sleep, After all hes gone through hes not one to kill himself cause he was paranoid and couldnt take it anymore. all anymore, He definitley lived his life to its full extent. He could write genius letters off the top of his head drunk and stoned at 5 in the morning better then any hyped up coffee journalist with 3 editors could in a day. Maybe he was dealing with health issues and maybe they were because of all his drug use but i can gurantee you he did not kill himself like a scared crying baby who wants everyone to feel sorry for him, His mindset was more real then any TV show or movie character and if you are young enough to realize the mentallity of this generation you should go buy one of his books right now and better yourself and your knowledge of the real political/social and paranoid animosity you are going to deal with in your lifetime.

[xoxoxoBruce]

He could write genius letters off the top of his head drunk and stoned at 5 in the morning.....

Who can't?

Kid, anyone who's jacked up on drugs is gonna adore "fear and loathing. "35 - half way there." Yeah, well wrong again old Gonzo Guy. I wasn't 35 yet when I read that and I doubt if you'd even been born. Punk, you don't even have the TIME to throw more paranoid social/political animosity at me than I've ever seen in my lifetime.

Frankly, who gives a damn what Hunter S Thompson's state of mind was when he died? He's still dead.

It takes guts to be an old person and take on the young gang bangers. You wanna make a hero out of someone who took the easy way out, be my guest. But don't expect me to lay awake nights wondering what the wussie-boys in your generation might be up to. I'm old and need my sleep.

[gonzo_4_life15]

nice easy answer bruce, maybe you should read and understand why hes famous and then ask yourself that
lady, well thanks for proving my point punkbia who are you angry at, I admit i probably havent done nearly half as hard or as much drugs as you in my lifetime, but we probably both take things personaly very much alike. All i think you can take from hst is his humor his political understanding and most importantly the way he went about his business from day to day, im sure your quite educated on the subject of the elderly in urban enviroments and who knows maybe your late husband was run down on the streets by a mob of angry black rappers who thought he must of been obviously racist at least at one time, as for us wussieboys we could care less of what you think about at night in your classic pretty nightgown as you fade into rem and subcontiously dream about the good old days when we all thought what we were doing was right and deal with the muddy water you took advantage of back in those good old days of woodstock and lsd and living for the moment.

[xoxoxoBruce]

nice easy answer bruce, maybe you should read and understand why hes famous and then ask yourself that

gonzo, HST and I are of the same generation. I've been aware of the man's writings and career from the Hell's Angels days.
I've always admired his ability to make his point on paper, clearly and succinctly, but that doesn't mean I always agreed with him.....It may have depended on whether I was more or less, stoned and drunk, when I read it than he was when he wrote it.
I've had a number of friends that worshipped him, as you clearly do, but I'm not in that camp. Respect is the best I can muster for a human..... at least a male human being.

[Trilby]

for my two cents-I don't think HST was a genius. He was good in his way, but let's reserve the term genius for those who really are. Sylvia Plath, now there was a genius. AND! For added interest, she, too, offed herself! What's with all this offing of ones self? And why do so many talented people do it? Personally, I'd be scared to do it. I mean, what if the Catholic's ARE right and you DO go to hell for it? That would kinda ruin the whole reason why you did it.

Lots of incompetant jerks off themselves, too, Brianna. They just aren't featured on the 5:00 news. Frankly, I'm not too worried about a Catholic God. If that's who is running the show, I'm going to hell, anyhow. I stick around in the laughable hope that someday things may get better and because I'm a masochist.

[gonzo_4_life15]

its 6:12am and i just threw up and got another beer, I never read the hells angels book or the rum diaries but i am sure there greatly educatonial. Although his methods and lifestyle are frowned upon by many his individulaismn was of the highest quality compared to pretty much anywhere at anytime.

[Trilby]

gonzo-even *I* would quit drinking after I puked. Puking is a sign, dude, a sign to quit.

I wish you luck. You're going to need it.

Gonzo, the writings of Hunter S. Thompson are not a free pass to be an alcoholic. I'll grant that Hunter was a gifted writer who struck a chord with his times. The success of his books and the fact that he was still able to write in a drug and alcohol induced haze allowed him to run with his addictions far long than most people would have been able to. But he was the exception, not the rule. You're young yet. Get into AA while you still have a life left to save.