Hunter S. Thompson - Legend And The Man

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro"

Hunter S Thompson the man, the myth, the legend. His life was a strangely long and fulfilled one, given all his indulgences. He married twice and has one son from his first marriage. Five other pregnancies resulted in 3 miscarries and 2 who died soon after birth.

From the streets of Kentucky to the isolation of the Owl Farm in Woody Creek Colorado, the life and times of Dr. Thompson were varied, inspired, and inspirational. The well documented use of drugs and alcohol fueling some of the most creative writing to ever be put down on paper. The oft quoted phrase included in the photo above speaks volumes to that fact. He would tell people there were much better reporters then he because he almost never tried to "reconstruct a story". Inserting himself into the mix and flavoring it with metaphors and twisted facts and fiction...the final creation was, in the words of Tom Wolfe, "part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric."

Hunter ran for Sheriff in 1970 in Pitkin County, CO. The ticket was the Freak Power Party and several other offices were being contested by this hastily created "alternative" party. In the end, Thompson was such a threat to win that the Republican candidate withdrew to consolidate the voters on the Democratic side and the Dems withdrew their candidate for count commissioner.  The fix was in so to speak.

He was an avid member of the NRA and an early supporter of NORML, serving on the group's advisory board for over 30 years up until the time he died.

He kept numerous weapons on his Owl Farm "fortified compound" and fired them regularly on his property. A self-proclaimed weapons expert.

Thompson's books, as I have mentioned in previous posts, are a joy to read. The action and verbiage mixing fact and fiction just pull you right along like a magic carpet ride. The list of his works can be found by clicking the link on his name at the beginning of the post. Along with a better detailed chronology of his life than I could give time to here.

In the end, he went out as he wanted...on his own terms. The only spooky part is, he had called his wife who happened to be in town at the time, and asked her to come home and help him finish his ESPN2 column for the night. He actually cocked the shotgun while laying the phone down on the table. She mistook the cocking sound for keys being typed on his typewriter so she hung up...just as he pulled the trigger. His son and family were visiting and in the next room. At first his son thought some books had fallen off the shelves when he heard the shot, and didn't come in for a few minutes.

After calling the police, Juan (Hunter's son) went outside and fired 3 shotgun blasts into the air to "honor his father".

Johnny Depp funded the funeral that went exactly to Hunter's specification (see my E post). Many celebrities attended the blasting of Thompson's ashes into the sky. Among them, Jack Nicholson, Sen. John Kerry, George McGovern, Bill Murray, and of course, Depp himself.

I have included 3 brief videos below. The first is a long clip from the 4 part session Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride videography of Hunter's life told by the people who knew him (very good, save it- listen later. The 10:50 mark starts great stuff on Where The Buffalo Roam), the second is a stirring reading of Hunter's suicide note by Nick Nolte, and lastly is the trailer from Where The Buffalo Roam. I am still struck by how EXACT Murray's voice and inflections are to Thompsons.
 













~Res Ipsa Loquitor~



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