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On Feb.20, 2005 outlaw journalist Hunter S. Thompson chose to end his life. 14 years on, his body of work, and approach to life is as relevant as it was then.
When Hunter S. Thompson pulled the trigger of his .357 revolver on himself one brisk Sunday morning at his fortified compound, Owl Farm, in Woody Creek, Aspen, Colorado – the chance to provide leftists all over the globe with an outlet – a role model to look upto, to fight George W. Bush and his so-called ‘War on Terror,’ was also blown to smithereens.
Feb.20, 2005 was Hunter S. Thompson’s last stand. Rather than riding off into the sunset, he chose to go out like his idol, Ernest Hemingway. One shot, instant. “Relax – this won’t hurt,” he wrote, in what many argue, was a suicide note, but was actually written four days earlier for his regular ESPN column.
Thompson simply had enough of fighting, and was going out on his terms. No longer a slave to, who he called, “the goofy, child-president.” Gone was the ‘outlaw journalist’ whose obituary of Richard Nixon in Rolling Stone magazine comprised of calling him a “swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president,” while suggesting the disgraced president’s casked be “launched into one of those open-sewage Canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles.”
His death at 67 was far too young for those who howled with delight when reading Thompson’s wild observations (coined “Gonzo Journalism”) in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (1972), incinuating candidate Edmund Muskie’s erratic behavior during the presidential campaign was down to a healthy dose of the African hallucinogen, Ibogaine. “The root, which is meant to be consumed by hunters, allowing them to remain completely still for days on end, was the only way to explain Muskie’s stupor and his terrible performance on the trail,” he mused. “It was hard to take seriously, until I heard about the appearance of a mysterious Brazilian doctor. That was the key.”
One can only wonder what a cranky, 81 year-old Thompson would say about current U.S. President Donald Trump “in this foul year of our Lord, two thousand and nineteen.” Especially with the current situation revolving around the U.S. and Venezuela.
What’s interesting to note is - despite Thompson’s penchant for guns, and apparent fondness for Ayn Rand’s arch-libertarianism, Thompson was actually more socialist than he’d have us believe.
During a foray into South America in the early 1960’s, he began compiling notes for his 1979 classic, The Great Shark Hunt. According to the article, Gonzo Journalism, author Arvind Dilawar cited Thompson’s topics ranging from U.S. imperialism, to the oppression of indigenous rights – topics that are as prevalent in 2019 than they were in 1962.
Furthermore, the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and The Rum Diary (both of which were made into major motion pictures), was so enamored with Marxism that he claimed he’d need not read anything from Marx, “because I already agree with him.”
Dilawar also states that Thompson was a fan of Fidel Castro, who he bragged, “was a man with enough balls to try and whip things around to a decent position.”
In the end, his one foray into politics led to a failed, albeit-ballsy run for Sheriff of Aspen in 1970, under the banner of “Freak Power,” in which the gangly writer shaved his head and referred to his rival candidate as, “my long-haired opponent.”
Even though Hunter Stockton Thompson passed away 14 years ago, his legacy, his fearless attitude, and his ability to draw the reader into the story, will live on for a long-while yet.
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