Farewell to Hunter S. Thompson, a Good Friend
Author’s Note: the first draft of this work began the night of February 5, 2005. I was living in an attic apartment not far from the University. Years later, in 2011, I think, Me and my Wife at the time were moving to a better apartment in Missoula, MT. We just found out we were pregnant, and we need a better place to live. I found a printed version of this while trying to organize boxes and boxes of papers and journals and files. I reworked it that day, messing it up terribly. Sometimes being under the influence can really mess things up. And now, once again, years later, I worked some more on it. Maybe it is finally finished?
A great deal went on Sunday nights my third year (third college, as well) at the University of Akron. It was the night before beginning classes and the work week – a week’s worth of goals and expectations, nagging thoughts, wishing for Friday. (Not a good thing to be wishing for.) Monday is only an hour away.
I was trying to focus on a Social Psychology study printed in one of those academic journals only found in University libraries, or the mailboxes of Academics.
Needing a rest – that class and those readings brought needing a lot of rests and aids to maintain my ‘A’ grade – I walked away from the table cluttered with texts and notebooks. I went into the other room. My girlfriend at the time had a little office setup in the second bedroom of her apartment.
I sat at the computer to check my email.
Bringing Yahoo’s homepage to the screen, it hit! For the first time, a headline on a computer monitor struck me so hard – so terrible and REAL – my chest tightened, almost forcing me to choke. Or fall off the swivel office chair out.
I was in a panic. Breathing was difficult.
I was trying to get oxygen into my lungs. Sharp pains were acknowledged, an automated survival feature most blood and brain beasts possess, letting us know we are still alive.
Like a disturbingly loud crash after silence surfaces over a room, my nerves tightened, my eyelids in concentrating slits attempting greater focus on the computer screen, and desperation for a safe place worked through my system.
In a manner to adjust my thoughts, which felt as scattered as birdshot from a cutback barrel, I read the AP article.
I let out a long breath and dropped my head. I’m not certain how long before I looked back up at the screen and soaked in the AP report’s details. Summoning more concentration, I reread the exposition, seeing the brutal details:
Fatally shot himself…
67…
Body found by son.
When family members pass-on, as they always have and will do, our comprehensible rationalizing of age, health, and situation deals your hand of grief. It is proper etiquette to try and remain in control and not let your emotions get the best of you. Try being aware of those around you, and that they are feeling it, too. Others you feel might need to see a strong face, an understanding face, that might have answers to many of the questions a Departing arises.
You know people must die, especially those you grew close to during hard, confusing moments when something – even if you think it is wrong later – had to be said right to you, right at that moment to trigger whatever it is anyone needs to rationalize and get passed difficulties: a friend providing your mind and soul with a face-guard and munitions bunker.
However, when a hero dies – someone you never personally knew or met – a different side of the world feels even the more hollow, and the actions and arrangements you have made in your life influenced by that inspirational character, feel vulnerable. Soon you are ushering in the defensive tactics in attempts to preserve elements essential to who you have become. How you lead your life, and what has been brought to your attention as values and actions vital to an existence exemplifying Personal Freedom and Courage.
Life, at that bitter moment, after reading that headline, felt… odd, for lack of a better term. Not in any good way, either. Knowing someone so great (by my estimation) will no longer share something new with you in a book, a CD, a painting…an interview is crushing.
At the time, there was no thought about what actions towards Preservation might happen. That twenty years down the line something NEW could emerge – something that could resurrect the good feelings and good memories.
Social Scientists have preached that a person, especially a young, impressionable person, is better at shaping their own personal structures and goals when an idol is there to provide evidence of their attainability.
We read biographies, press write-ups – anything available – planning out and judging our future moves, based on the situations your Admired One faced. You are mentally configuring how you might have handled it better.
Or in your own way. Teachings from a hero are a priceless gift. A gift that will guide the young and admiring.
I wonder if they know this about their lives. I wonder if they knew how important they will remain, their teaching enduring the progression of time.
For me, the world is less grand…Hunter S. Thompson died tonight: February 20, 2005.
I miss him, already.
He was one of the few writers I admire greatly that had been alive.
Never have I seen, nor will I ever see, on the “Soon To Come” billboard at Walden Books, an upcoming John O’Hara novel, or new selections of poetry by Richard Brautigan.
But I do remember seeing on that billboard Dr. Thompson’s Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century. That was back in 2003. I remember the feeling of excitement – of awe. He was still going with the Gonzo surge to keep producing. Later on, in 2004, Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness was released, a selection of 83 articles written for ESPN.com’s Page 2. It would be the last book published while Dr. Thompson was still with us.
How is the flame still burning?
Well, more interest in Hunter S. Thompson – not only as the comic strip, psychotic drug abuser – as the major literary influence and voice of his generation is becoming more noticed by academics and literary elite alike. Several biographies have emerged since his passing, a weekend festival in Louisville, KY (Dr. Thompson’s hometown), titled GonzoFest, honors their controversial son, acknowledging his importance.
This year, GonzoFest Presents Gonzoween: Trip or Treat, October 29th, 2022, from 2:00 p.m. to midnight. I’ll be participating/volunteering/covering this year’s GonzoFest.
It’s one way to keep The Good Doc going, as he was a king of the word and action: GO! GO! GO! GO!
Personally, a gift that has been given to me are the Gonzo Family members I have gained. Biographers, scholars, personal friends of Hunter’s, and poets. I have messages and letters and signed copies of their works in my collection. Hell, Beat Poet Laureate, Ron Whitehead, has agreed to sit down with me for an interview. Mr. Whitehead was a good friend of Doc’s. He was even present at his cannon blast-off funeral.
Point being, as long as the written word is still alive in America, Hunter S. Thompson’s guttural, forceful voice will be heard.
