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Hunter S. Thompson dead

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Necessary_Truths

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Has anyone else see this news article yet?  Apparently, Thompson committed suicide about 12 hours ago, by shooting himself; the logical end to someone who hated life so much.

Hunter S. Thompson Dead

From the Tucson Weekly, March 1, 2002:

"In the first volume of Thompson's letters, Proud Highway, which covered the years 1955-67, Thompson was revealed as an inveterate iconoclast with a healthy distrust of authority and a passion for guns, booze, H.L Mencken and Ayn Rand (his trademark Fear and Loathing is lifted from Atlas Shrugged)."

Great Gonzo

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I enjoyed his writing--in several works he displayed some great ability.

As for drugs and alcohol...and his 40+ years of his use of them...I am quite sure he knew where it would end. I think he wanted it that way. For him, it was just one way for him to individualize himself--he had a fear, from what I've read, of "merely existing." Meaning that he didn't want an office-bound career or a family.

I think his psychological fallacy was in failing to recognize that having an office job and a family was not necessarily a loss of individuality--even on the grounds that "everyone else was doing it." The alcohol and drugs were all the rebellion against the "traditional" American lifestyle of the 20th century--predicated on, in Thompson's own words, "a lame [epsitemological-ethical] fuck-around."

Edited by Rainer
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I don't think he promoted the mindless drug scene...unless you have a quote where he does so.

:)

Fear in Loathing in Las Vegas was about his week long drug binge in Vegas.

Hell's Angels was about drinking and doing drugs with bikers.

The Rum Diary was just that, a diary of drinking rum in Costa Rica.

If anyone promoted the drug scene, it was Hunter S. Thompson.

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I think that very easily qualifies as the understatement of the month.  B)

ha!

Fear in Loathing in Las Vegas was about his week long drug binge in Vegas.

Hell's Angels was about drinking and doing drugs with bikers.

The Rum Diary was just that, a diary of drinking rum in Costa Rica.

If anyone promoted the drug scene, it was Hunter S. Thompson.

But here is the thing--he wrote about them. He never reccomend doing drugs or alcohol.

I suppose you could say that he was glorifying drug use--but that is hard to say. Fear and Loathing is, in part, an idictment of guilt on part of the new left of the 60's druggie counterculture.

Edited by Rainer
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I suppose you could say that he was glorifying drug use--but that is hard to say. Fear and Loathing is, in part, an idictment of guilt on part of the new left of the 60's druggie counterculture.

You could also say bands like Skrewdriver don't promote hate, they just sing about life as a skinhead. Maybe not the best example but I think it's pretty close.

I must say that he did have a great line in Fear and Loathing about standing on the precipice of the 60's and looking into the future which cast aside the ideals of the 60's or something like that. He had a very floral way of saying the hippies were dead. My reaction was of course "good" whereas his was a lament.

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You could also say bands like Skrewdriver don't promote hate, they just sing about life as a skinhead. Maybe not the best example but I think it's pretty close.

Skrewdriver...can't say I've heard of them. So I won't coment.

And his line in the hotel room...forgot how it went...how the hippies really didn't think things through and set into motion their doom. From what I've gathered, he vehemently hated the beatniks as well--hippies were just another object of his disgust with the world. It was a pretty sweet (Napoleon Dynamite voice) moment of insight on his part.

Edited by Rainer
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