Hunter S. Thompson -- A Tribute (Sort of)

I learned that Hunter S. Thompson, one of my journalistic idols, died today, and I haven't shed one tear. If Thompson were to have objectively reviewed his own work over the past 20 years -- and given the drugs and alcohol he purported to abuse, I have little doubt he might not have recognized it as his own, he would have savaged it with the same zeal he did usually reserves for Republicans and government thugs who might seek to take away his firearms.

Hunter Thompson's work was like a revelation to me when I started reading it in college. I was taking a course load of five journalism classes, and perhaps was getting a bit burned out of doing things "by the book."

I picked up "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" and was just stunned. I can't put my finger on a sample of what I liked so much because I lent my copy of the book to a co-worker two jobs and eight years ago, but I remember being knocked out by the passion with which Thompson covered politics. He zoned in on the desperation involved, which seemed to humanize the combatants.

Unfortunately, he was going through the motions for a long, long time. I was chatting about HST with my friend Steve today, and he pointed out that Thompson literally was phoning -- or faxing -- it in for the past decade or so. Rather than getting in the middle of the action, he was more likely to be seated on the couch in his Owl Creek home, watching CNN and dashing off faxes to James Carville or whoever. Making himself part of the story was a good twist in the 70s, but now he was the whole story. And it was as interesting as you could expect a story about an alcoholic who periodically brandished his guns and vented about knowing more than anyone else about politics.

Like other paranoid addicts, he jumped at every shadow on the page, with every bit player under suspicion for being a vicious goon or member of the KGB.

And where were the women? Thompson was always boozing and drugging, but rarely seemed interested in women in his stories, except to point fingers and call them depraved whores or whatever. A little odd?

So what would Hunter Thompson have to say about Hunter Thompson if he picked up any of his own books from the past 20 years or so? He'd tear him apart, loading his literary shotgun with buckshot and spraying it at a bloated fool who had grown rich repeatedly selling the movie rights to his most popular book that was finally made into a movie with a former teen heart-throb playing the author, pimping multiple volumes of his own letters, and raking in the dollars while rambling like a drunken fool.

I don't know if Thompson composed a suicide note, or ever took a stab at his own obituary. But I'd wager that it would be something about a wasted man who wasted his talent.