final credits - hunter s. thompson
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
Outrageous, self-destructive, pioneering ... it would be difficult to describe Thompson's life in conventional terms. Not only did he push the envelope, he often left the planet. And he also defined "fictional journalism," where the writer placed himself inside the story he was covering, giving up any pretense of objectivity. Gonzo journalism was a style suited to Thompson's worldview, and it was a style suited to the times he reported. Thompson died February 20, 2005 at age 67 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Much of the work of this acerbic counterculture writer first work appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, often in serialised form.¹ Readers were spellbound as Thompson chronicled his 1972 drug-hazed visit to the capital of Nevada in a report known as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." That book, perhaps Thompson's most famous, begins with the line: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
He also wrote "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72," covering the Nixon-McGovern presidential race. The central character in those wild, sprawling satires was "Dr. Thompson," a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant.
The works made Thompson a counterculture icon at the height of the Watergate era, and Richard Nixon once said that Hunter represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character." High praise indeed. Thompson's style of journalism could be summed up as well armed, well drugged and wildly iconoclastic. Thompson also once rode with a motorcycle club for a year, and his adventures resulted in "Hell's Angels," a detailed inside look at the famed California biker organisation.
Two attempts were made to turn Thompson's books into films, and both were artistic and financial failures. Bill Murray played the writer in 1980's "Where the Buffalo Roam." Thompson served as executive consultant on that film. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was filmed by Terry Gilliam² in 1998 and starred Johnny Depp. The movies join David Cronenberg's "Naked Lunch" (based on the work of William S. Burroughs) among flawed attempts to reduce the world of drug-fueled writing to the screen.
Thompson was the inspiration of Garry Trudeau's "Doonsebury" character, the balding "Uncle Duke," and his appearance in the strip allowed a spot in the mainstream newspapers that would never dare print his profanity-laced essays.
Thompson lived in Woody Creek, about eight miles outside of Aspen, Colorado, on a property he called 'The Compound.' The compound was surrounded by signs which went from "Keep Out" and "Danger Zone" to "Guns in Constant Use". He liked the open space that gave him easy opportunity for 'target practice' and, upon occasion, detonating jeeps. Thompson used the grounds to play Shotgun Golf, which combined traditional putting and chipping with shooting the ball if required. He also raised peacocks there.
His neighbhours included TV actor Don Johnson, and John Oates of the singing duo Hall and Oates. Thompson co-wrote the pilot film for the TV series "Nash Bridges" with Johnson. Once at the compound, he accidentally shot and slightly wounded his assistant, Deborah Fuller, while trying to chase a bear off his property.
Troy Hooper, associate editor of the Aspen Daily News, was a longtime friend of the writer. He said Thompson had been in pain from back surgery and an artificial hip. And he had broken his leg on a recent trip to Hawaii. "He said he was executing a hairpin turn at the minibar when he broke it." Thompson simply carried on, treating the injury with duct tape.
Mike Cleverly, a longtime friend, spent an evening watching a basketball game on TV with Thompson shortly before his death. He said Thompson was clearly hobbled by the broken leg. "He's the last person in the world I would have expected to kill himself. I would have been less surprised if he had shot me."
"I believe he wanted to be shot out of a cannon," Troy Hooper later told news services. "I understand it's in his will. That's Hunter's style. That's how he would want it. He was a big fan of bonfires and explosions and anything that went bang and I'm sure he'd like to go bang as well."
Thompson saw life in America as decadent and depraved, and those themes prevail in works such as "Generation of Swine," "The Great Shark Hunt," "Hell's Angels," "The Proud Highway" and "Songs of the Doomed." His first-ever novel, "The Rum Diary," written in 1959, was first published in 1998. His most recent work was "Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness."
Hunter Stockton Thompson was born July 18, 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky. His father, Jack, was an insurance agent who died when Hunter was 14. At the age of 17, Hunter was sentenced to 60 days in the Louisville children's centre for his participation in an armed robbery. While in prison Thompson took a writing course. As a result of his detention, he was refused permission to take final examinations and thus did not graduate from high school. Upon release, he bought a case of beer and threw one bottle at a time through the window of the school superintendent who had blocked his return to school.
In 1963, Hunter married Sandra Dawn, the mother of his son Juan. He served two years in the Air Force in Florida, where he was a newspaper sports editor. He was the Caribbean correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, and worked as a South American correspondent for the New York-based National Observer from 1961 to 1963. Writing to a friend in November 1963, he used the phrase "fear and loathing" to describe how he felt about the assassination of President John F Kennedy. Nuances of its meaning - paranoia, self-absorption, anxiety, rage - made it Thompson's trademark.
As a young man, Thompson was heavily influenced by Jack Kerouac and wholeheartedly followed an approach in which the writer revels in his struggles with writing. Thompson was the antithesis of American novelist Tom Wolfe. Both became brand names in a literary journalism movement that captured the strife and youthful boldness of the 1960s. Thompson embraced chaos, while Wolfe portrayed the detached neutral observer.
"I hate to advocate weird chemicals, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone ... but they've always worked for me," Thompson once said.
It was in the heat of deadline that gonzo journalism was born while writing a story about the Kentucky Derby for Scanlan's magazine. "I'd blown my mind, couldn't work. So finally I just started jerking pages out of my notebook and numbering them and sending them to the printer. I was sure it was the last article I was ever going to do for anybody." Instead, the story drew critical acclaim and he was inundated with letters and phone calls from people calling it "a breakthrough in journalism." Thompson likened the experience to "falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool of mermaids."
Thompson ended his own weird trip in the most enigmatic way possible, dying by his own hand. It appears his stories had finally run out of endings. He was on the phone with his wife when he put the receiver down and placed a .45 calibre gun inside his mouth. Thompson's son, daughter-in-law and 6-year-old grandson were in the house when the shooting occurred. Anita Thompson, 32, said her husband had discussed killing himself in recent months and had been issuing verbal and written directives about what he wanted done with his body, his unpublished works and his assets.
Rolling Stone Magazine has posted Remembering Hunter, a page of conversations with, and articles by, the good Doctor.
Late in the evening of August 20th, 2005, Hunter S. Thompson was blowed-up real good by friends and relatives carrying out the gonzo journalist's last wishes. Thompson had said on several occasions that after he died, he wanted his ashes fired from a cannon.
Red, white, blue and green fireworks lit up the sky over Thompson's mountain home in Woody Creek near Aspen, Colorado, and his ashes erupted from a 15-story tower that was modelled after his personal logo: a clenched fist rising from the hilt of a dagger.
The quietly-held (at least until the pyrotechnics started) celebration by 350 invitation-only guests included Senator John Kerry, former Senator George McGovern, Lyle Lovett, CBS reporter Ed Bradley, actors Bill Murray and Johnny Depp, rock bands, blow-up dolls and plenty of liquor.
The Zambelli fireworks company of Pennsylvania encased Thompson's remains along with fireworks in mortar shells which were delivered the Colorado property in an armoured car. The monument, taller than the Statue of Liberty, violated local building codes and would have to come down within two weeks.
As Norman Greenbaum's 1969 anthem "Spirit in the Sky" rose from the sound system, a bang described as being just below the level of a sonic boom blew the good doctor into the atmosphere. Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" accompanied 34 lines of fireworks that streamed from the ground.
Thompson's wife, Anita, was planning to build a pond to serve as a permanent sanctuary. As Thompson was an Air Force veteran, a government-issued tombstone will be erected, bearing the inscription "It never got weird enough for me."
¹ The Rolling Stone publication of Hunter S. Thompson's work was often accompanied by the illustrations of Ralph Steadman. Steadman's pen work suggested that he drew with ink contaminated by blood clots. At left is an undated portrait of the Doctor as seen through Steadman's hand. Thompson's hallucinogenic writing style was an easy subject for Steadman, and their work was inseparable for over three decades.
² The film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" had been a project once considered by Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone. The movie's original director was Alex Cox, who had just completed the successful "Sid & Nancy." Cox was fired and replaced by Terry Gilliam. Taking over a film already underway, Gilliam defends his vision in a 1998 interview with Flix Magazine. Also detailed is his feud with the Writers Guild of America over screen credit.