Hunter S. Thompson's Remains to be Shot Out of Cannon

[Rambuchan]

The popular American writer Hunter S. Thompson, who died February 20, 2005, may have his ashes shot out of cannon. The writer of such hits as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, "Hey Rube" and "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" committed suicide in his home outside of Aspen, Colorado. He apparently shot himself while speaking with his wife on the phone. His family is not surprised by his suicide, citing that Hunter had been in a lot of pain recently due to several injuries. He was 67 at the time of his death.

Keeping with his quirky character, he requested to be cremated and to have his ashes shot out of a cannon. Family and friends are aware of his final wishes and are seeking to seethat it happens. The search is on for the cannon that may be used to skyrocket Hunter to the great beyond. The Aspen Daily News is accepting 100-word essays from the public on “Why you want Hunter Thompson shot out of your cannon”. The writer’s family will read the essays and decide a winner. The chosen winner will bring their cannon to Colorado where it will be used to shoot the ashes of the legendary journalist and writer into the air in a final memorial.

I don't know how many Hunter S. Thompson fans there are here but I am certainly one of them. I find my admiration for such a man strange though.

To me he wrote some of the best journalism that I have ever read - inquiring, demanding, decadent, mischievious, down right honest, insightful, audacious, hilarious and simply bloody good entertainment. I quietly mourned the lose of this man when I heard he had blown his head off with his own handgun. The world is a worse off place without people like HST challenging and mocking 'the system' and there are fewer and fewer of his kind around these days.

However, the more and more I get to know of the man's character the more I believe I would have been repulsed by him. He had a dangerous love of guns, was violently alcoholic, flew right off the handle at the flick of a switch, probably an acid or ketamine switch, was abusive to strangers and did many other generally unpleasant things including commiting suicide.

I guess this makes him an anti-hero. So how can one square support for his arguments, as laid out in his journalism, with this revolting personality? And what are your opinions of HST?

Long live Gonzo!

 

[stormbind]

I don't know anything about him beyond that which you have posted, but I feel people should be judged by their character above all else. Not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth, yet everyone is equal!

This does not bode well for my judgement of HST, but as a Christian I should try harder to reserve judgement and now seems as good a time as any.

 

[cgannon64]

I haven't read anything by him. I have seen Fear and Loathing, but I was less able to focus on the later scenes, and am now less able to recall them.

Nevertheless, it made me want to read him, and I will once I finish the current crop of books I am reading.

 

[Yom]

What a way to go!

 

[Rambuchan]

May I recommend 'The Great Shark Hunt' which is a collection of his journalistic work for a variety of newspapers and magazines, including many of the most respected broadsheets in America.

 

[stormbind]

I don't have time for fiction. This probably explains why I am such a bore

Maybe it would help if I knew what HST wrote about before making erroneous posts such as this. Can you share with us your favourite HST article?

 

[cgannon64]

I'm probably just gonna go with the obvious choice and read Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas, and if I like that I'll look up more.

The one exercept I've heard is the famous one, the one I think - I'm not sure - closes the movie..."If you look West on a certain hill in Nevada, you can almost see the high water mark, the point where the wave broke and fell back..." or something like that.

 

[downwithgravity]

He was an amazing journalist, and Fear and Loathing is one of my favorite movies ever. The world needs more Hunter Thompsons.

 

[Rambuchan]

He was an amazing journalist, and Fear and Loathing is one of my favorite movies ever. The world needs more Hunter Thompsons.

You are truly enlightened my friend

Here's the man himself:

 

[CruddyLeper]

Typical - the winner has to supply their own cannon.

You'd think with his sales figures he'd have made provision for his final resting place, ie, bought his own artillery for the job.

It's not like he was averse to buying guns.

 

[Rambuchan]

A leading political journalist, he was also considered one of the most important US authors of the 20th century. Known for his cutting and explosive writing style, Thompson's renegade reporter attitude was a revelation in 1960s America. His pioneering "gonzo" journalism - which throws objectivity out of the window and engages the writer's personal views - became his signature style. But it was the publication of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in 1972 that confirmed Thompson's cult status.

At the time he claimed the drug-fuelled account of a weekend in the Nevada desert gambling hub was an accurate example of gonzo journalism. Thompson later admitted that some of the hedonistic events he described never took place, but his reputation as a wild-living, hard-drinking, LSD-crazed writer bent on self-destruction was sealed.

Thompson was born Hunter Stockton Thompson on 18 July 1937, in the southern US state of Kentucky. His rebellious streak emerged at a young age and meant he often found himself on the wrong side of the law for drinking and vandalism. In 1956 he was enlisted in the US Air Force and was assigned as a sports writer for the air base newspaper at Eglin Air Proving Ground in Florida. But the rigours of military routine meant the young Thompson quickly became dissatisfied and he was honourably discharged after only a year. Stints as a sports reporter at various newspapers in Puerto Rico and South America followed, before he hit the big time in 1966 with his first book, Hell's Angels. Presidential campaign. It was the story of his infiltration of the then-feared Hell's Angels motorcycle gang - an experience during which he was savagely beaten. His other works include The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time, The Curse of Lono and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 - a collection of articles he wrote for Rolling Stone magazine while covering the re-election campaign of then-president Richard Nixon.

He wrote of Nixon that he represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". More recent works by Thompson include The Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century (2003) and Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness (2004). Thompson was married to his first wife, Sandy Conklin, for 18 years. They had one son, Juan. Thompson is survived by his second wife, Anita Beymunk, who he married two years ago, his son and a grandson.

This is from a BBC obituary of the guy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4283349.stm

 

[punkbass2000]

I'm probably just gonna go with the obvious choice and read Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas, and if I like that I'll look up more.

The one exercept I've heard is the famous one, the one I think - I'm not sure - closes the movie..."If you look West on a certain hill in Nevada, you can almost see the high water mark, the point where the wave broke and fell back..." or something like that.

No, not the end, but a nice quote. I think it was a little more abstract than the impression one might get from here, though.

 

[cgannon64]

What do you mean?

 

[punkbass2000]

It's difficult to explain. Well, the first part isn't. It's just not at the end of the book/movie. As for the abstraction, well, it's more about the spirit of the Californian drug culture breaking than any actual water-mark. Not saying you don't know that, just that someone (like our friend stormbind here) who hasn't read/see Thompson might not quite catch the reference.

 

[cgannon64]

Yes, I knew that, but I guess you're right, some might not.

 

[jonatas]

I don't know how many Hunter S. Thompson fans there are here but I am certainly one of them.

However, the more and more I get to know of the man's character the more I believe I would have been repulsed by him......

I guess this makes him an anti-hero. So how can one square support for his arguments, as laid out in his journalism, with this revolting personality? And what are your opinions of HST?

Long live Gonzo!

I'm a fan too at least of Fear and Loathing... I find it really hard to sit down and read fiction (though in this case I guess some of it wasn't fiction ). Personally I found his anti-heroism refreshing. A nice counter to all the usual BS. The man had a real sense of adventure, and that's what I loved above everything else. Fear and Loathing really was a crazy adventure, kind of reminding me in a way of Petronius Arbiter's "Satyricon" with the two main characters wandering through ancient cities and having these crazy decadent adventures (check out Fellini's "Satyricon" for a far out film be warned it's pretty strange though)

Hunter did awesome sports columns for ESPN too, and I always loved reading them. ESPN had another really good writer doing columns also, Ralph Wiley R.I.P. who died of heart attack at the age of 50 or something like 8 months ago.... I really loved reading these guys' columns. They really weren't your average sportswriters

It's difficult to explain. Well, the first part isn't. It's just not at the end of the book/movie. As for the abstraction, well, it's more about the spirit of the Californian drug culture breaking than any actual water-mark. Not saying you don't know that, just that someone (like our friend stormbind here) who hasn't read/see Thompson might not quite catch the reference.

yeah, he talks about how there was a split within that spirit of counter-culture, something between the tough working class Bikers and the middle class hippies which broke the potential unity of the counterculture, or something like that... it's a real philosophical moment in the book

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Wonderful, he's just as obnoxious in death as he was in life

 

[Rambuchan]

Personally I found his anti-heroism refreshing. A nice counter to all the usual BS.

...reminding me in a way of Petronius Arbiter's "Satyricon" with the two main characters wandering through ancient cities and having these crazy decadent adventures (check out Fellini's "Satyricon" for a far out film be warned it's pretty strange though)

I'm a big Fellini fan, never seen this one though. And thanks for the tip.

Other off shoots of an interest in HST is the work of a brilliantly mad illustrator who also helped to coin the Gonzo style of reportage: Ralph Steadman.

http://www.ralphsteadman.com/01gonzo.asp

And here are two of my favourite reviews of HST and his works:

"Hunter S. Thompson elicits the same kind of admiration one would feel for a streaker at Queen Victoria's funeral".

[William F. Buckley, New York Times Book Review.]

"No other reporter reveals how much we have to fear and loathe, yet does it so hilariously. Now that the dust of the sixties has settled, his hallucinated vision strikes us as having been the sanest".

[Nelson Algren]

 

[downtown]

well, thats the gonzo way to go I guess. I liked Hunter. he was a real free thinker.

 

[Elrohir]

If he wants his ashes to be blown out of a cannon, then who am I to stand in his way?

Whatever floats 'yer boat.