Hunter.S.Thompson was a hero of mine.
Yeah, ok, just for the record: He hadn't written a good book in thirty years, had done too many drugs and become a crank.
But he could still bang out a tidy article and will always be highly regarded by me despite his faults.
Eerily, at what must have been about the time he offed himself I was watching a documentary in which he was talking about The Great Gatsby. He hadn't been well for some time and didn't look so sharp; "How long's he got?" I wondered.
UPDATE: There don't seem to be too many great headlines out there. I'd thought of THE HEMINGWAY OUT, but figured that redirected the sentiment. My other option, OW! FARM, seemed a little severe; although, I'm sure Thompson would have approved. I still might change it. Anyway, has anyone spotted a corker? I haven't seen anything in The Sun, for instance.
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?"
Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. "What the hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. "Never mind," I said. "It's your turn to drive." I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.
Food for thought: When Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas was released Thompson was seven years younger than I am now.
Fuck.
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 February 2005 at 22:21
We've wasted our lives already Tony, ironically by not being as wasted as our heroes - Withnail and Hunter.
A sad start to the day logging on to find news of Hunter's death splashed across the papers.
Posted by: e staines | 21 February 2005 at 22:25
An unsettling thought, Ed. But true.
Although it must be said, I spent about ten years trying to emulate them.
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 February 2005 at 22:28
Oh, and I think we should add hungbunny to that list. His catchphrase "off my chops on ketamine" haunts me to this day.
Posted by: e staines | 21 February 2005 at 22:30
When Hung writes "off my chops on ketamine" I can't help but think of figging. Then again, when Hung writes about chocolate covered bananas, books, baby Jesus butt plugs or the Pope I think about figging. When I think about figging I think about figging.
He's a figging type of guy, I suppose.
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 February 2005 at 22:35
Over here it was all over the place before the 11 o'clock news, even. (By "the place" I mean the local blogs.)
HST was someone I read when I was but a wee young whippersnapper--not lately. He's in the company of Kerouac and Edward Abbey. Don't really have the luxury of that stuff anymore. Anyway, this is still sort of burnt on my brain:
Posted by: vague | 21 February 2005 at 22:37
"When Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas was released Thompson was seven years younger than I am now."
The book, I assume, not the film?
Posted by: vague | 21 February 2005 at 22:38
That bar scene is masterful, vague. As is the rest of the book. I read it three times within the first week of buying it. (1983) I then proceded to misbehave for about a decade. Certainly the next six years were, shall we say, blurry.
For me the big book prior to F&L was Cuckoo's Nest, but the early eighties was a very fertile time for me book-wise. I lived in a place with only one TV station and bugger all in the way of other mental stimulation. Still, though, when I look around the blogs I see I'm extremely poorly read by comparison.
And yes, it was the book release, not the film*. I'd settle for some kind of time-shift, though; if only for another chance at things.
* Not that awful Where The Buffalo Roam with Bill Murray.
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 February 2005 at 22:48
I await hung's first opus: Figs and Figging in Las Vegas.
"He'll see those figs soon enough"
Posted by: e staines | 21 February 2005 at 22:49
I had to go google the word "figging." Learn something new every day, I tell you what.
And (as making fun of Americans is in style again), no I don't feel bad being clueless about these things. It is my station in this world and I must accept it.
Posted by: vague | 21 February 2005 at 22:51
Fear and loathing, one flew over the cuckoo's nest and on the road are three of the best things to have come out of America since 1945.
Posted by: e staines | 21 February 2005 at 22:51
vague, when you googled 'figging', did google direct you to hungbunny's blog? He is rapidly becoming the wikipedia for the internet deviant.
Posted by: e staines | 21 February 2005 at 22:52
Ed, in Hung's version of things Duke chucked a giant fig into that bath; not a grapefruit.
I'm happy to have known nothing about figging, vague. I don't think we were really missing out on much.
Don't forget the ... err ... plugs, Ed.
"The Vincent Black Plug"
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 February 2005 at 23:02
Actually it didn't (don't tell him; he might be sad). But I googled "figging british slang."
Apparently this comments section is the hip place to be this time of day.
This comment is incredibly dull, though. If Noreen were here she'd 86 it, no question.
-----------------------------
ACTUALLY, vague, I've ACTUALLY seen less dull comments, but I've ACTUALLY seen many, many, many more duller ones. As you do.
Edited By Siteowner
Posted by: vague | 21 February 2005 at 23:03
Like that, vague? Just getting in the spirit of things, edit-wise.
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 February 2005 at 23:11
Must admit I've had a twenty year on-and-off fear and loathing routine going; the old sod carked it before my Great White Whale turned up- I'll have to cruise the strip of Bris Vegas and abuse tourists in memory.
Posted by: Habib | 21 February 2005 at 23:12
I abuse tourists for fun. For the love of the game.
PS: A kid at school today told me Habib ACTUALLY means "darling". Is this true? Are you ACTUALLY a lovable curmudgeon.
PPS: I hate the word "curmudgeon".
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 February 2005 at 23:16
You might have been a troublemaker but driving a Great White Shark up and down the main drag in Vegas with a headful of drugs is not the same as driving your Vincent Yellow Ford Ute into a carport wall with a guts full of stubbies.
Posted by: DJ | 21 February 2005 at 23:21
That carport wall and the Vincent Yellow Ford Ute might have been better off had a certain passenger not poured beer in my lap.
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 February 2005 at 23:25
Ahahaha! A "Ute".
A word I learned from the trusty tutelage of Joe Mangel.
Posted by: e staines | 21 February 2005 at 23:30
Who's Joe Mangel? You don't mean Joe Angel, do you. The cricketer?
He's Western Australian, so he probably has a ute. A very big one. With spotties, a roo bar and fat tyres.
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 February 2005 at 23:33
He was a long-running character on the Australian docu-soap 'Neighbours'. He introduced a generation of young Brits to Australian culture.
Posted by: e staines | 21 February 2005 at 23:34
Ohh, Neighbours. You know, I've never seen it. I suspect I'm not missing much. Lleyton Hewitt's girlfriend was in Neighbours. Speaks volumes, that.
It's odd how so many of you guys want to live like us. All big yards, blue skies and utes. While so many of us blokes want to live like you. Grey skies, crowded tubes and terrace houses.
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 February 2005 at 23:39
"One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."
- "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
Posted by: Nabakov | 21 February 2005 at 23:40
An almost perfect description of Joe Mangel, Nabakov.
Posted by: e staines | 21 February 2005 at 23:41
Ed, for some reason I thought Joe was an old guy. Dunno why. Just did.
I just noticed "docu-soap". Very good.
Nab, I feel cheated I can't post the whole book here. Too, too, too may great lines.
------------------------------------------------------
"What's the entry fee?" I asked the desk-man.
"Two fifty," he said.
"What if I told you I had a Vincent Black Shadow?"
He stared up at me, saying nothing, not friendly. I noticed he was wearing a .38 revolver on his belt. "Forget it," I said. "My driver's sick anyway."
His eyes narrowed. "Your driver ain't the only one sick around here, buddy."
"He has a bone in his throat," I said.
"What?"
The man was getting ugly, but suddenly his eyes switched away. He was staring at something else . . .
My attorney; no longer wearing his Danish sunglasses, no longer wearing his Acapulco shirt . . . a very crazy looking person, half-naked and breathing heavily.
"What's the trouble here?" he croaked. "This man is my client. Are you prepared to go to court?"
I grabbed his shoulder and gently spun him around. "Never mind," I said. "It's the Black Shadow -- they won't accept it."
"Wait a minute!" he shouted. "What do you mean, they won't accept it? Have you made a deal with these pigs?"
"Certainly not," I said, pushing him along toward the gate. "But you notice they're all armed. We're the only people here without guns. Can't you hear that shooting over there?"
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 February 2005 at 23:49
"So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast, I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head . . . but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz . . . not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all night diner down around Rockaway Beach.
There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip.
Then into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out . . . thirty-five, forty-five . . . then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals, but only about some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out, too slowly, to start his own run. Not many of these . . . and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost anything . . . then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-five and the beginning of a windscream in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a high board.
Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping and wavering in the wind. Taillights far up ahead coming closer, faster, and suddenly -- zaaapppp -- going past and leaning down for a curve near the zoo, where the road swings out to the sea.
The dunes are flatter here, and on windy days sand blows across the highway, piling up thick drifts as deadly as any oil-slick . . . instant loss of control, a crashing, cartwheeling slide and maybe one of those two-inch notices in the paper the next day: "An unidentified motorcyclist was killed last night when he failed to negotiate a turn on Highway I."
Indeed . . . but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and now there's no sound except wind. Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and wind burned eyeballs strain to see down the centerline, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes.
But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right . . . and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are the wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it . . . howling though a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica . . . letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge . . .
The Edge . . . There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones that have gone over. The others -- the living -- are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later."
-- Hunter S. Thompson
"Hell's Angels" - 1966
Posted by: Nabakov | 21 February 2005 at 23:59
I think Lileks summed it up the best:
"File under Capote, Truman – meaning, whatever you thought of the latter-day persona, don’t forget that there was a reason he had a reputation. Read "Hell's Angels." That was a man who could hit the keys right."
Posted by: Dave | 22 February 2005 at 08:52
I spent a night out in the desert near Barstow in about 1989, I think. Lots of bats flying around that night. Would have been much more fitting had I been high, but I was stone sober... just didn't have the same effect.
Posted by: Rob de Santos | 22 February 2005 at 10:04
I saw that, Dave. Lileks writes pretty well, himself. Not as well as Mr Duke, though.
Rob, you weren't on your way through Kingman and San Bernardino, too?
Barstow was built on Borax, you know. Didn't know they mined it.
Posted by: Tony.T | 22 February 2005 at 19:23
No, Tony, I wasn't even on my way to Vegas. They still have some massive borax mines out there near Barstow, too. I lived in the area, on the other side of Edwards AFB for seven years.
Posted by: Rob de Santos | 23 February 2005 at 01:21
Edwards, Rob? You ever bump into Chuck Yeager?
Posted by: Tony.T | 23 February 2005 at 09:10
Never up close and personal. Did see Pete Knight (he was the local mayor during those years), Scott Crossfield (had a great auto plate: MACH2), and other contemporaries of Yeager all the time.
Posted by: Rob de Santos | 23 February 2005 at 12:16
Usually, Rob, I detest personalised plates, but for MACH2 I'll make an exception; Crossfield being one of the supersonic flight guns, and all. He can call his plates whatever he likes. Afterall, he DID break MACH2. Unlike the idiot down the street from me who certainly isn't MEBEST.
I am.
Yeager is still alive and kicking, I believe. Haven't heard he's shuffled off, anyway.
Right Stuff = Great movie.
Posted by: Tony.T | 23 February 2005 at 12:26