Hunter S. T. R.I.P.

turtles

in the sea
yeah i'm totally cut up on this. guy was a genius

though i'm appreciating the major news networks being forced to talk about drug-fueled depravity and counter culture. a pleasant switch from the latest baby elephant news or whatever.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
bipedaldave said:
though i'm appreciating the major news networks being forced to talk about drug-fueled depravity and counter culture. a pleasant switch from the latest baby elephant news or whatever.

i couldnt help but wonder whether he thought hed go out with a bang.
 

Gerard

Well-known member
Freak Power

Given his twin obsessions with firearms and mind altering, a BANG would seem the way to go.

My fave HST piece (aside from car boot inventory in Fear and Loathing, naturally) is Freak Power in the Rockies, wherein our hero , with the support of local freak population, narrowly avoids election to local government. Putting his money where his mouth was.
 

jenks

thread death
yeah, so long HST.
he was a real obsession of mine for a number of years and seeing he's made it to page 150 of ceefax yeasterday was areal blow. i hadn't read anything of his recent output but everything of his from 65-95 was worth aread. i think in many ways he wanted to be fitzgerald and there are times when he gets there -whilst there is all the obvious bile and violence i think what he was reall motivatedby was a romanticism and like many romantics betrayed by the shittiness of the world he had a violent reaction. also all the hedonistic thrill seeking is pretty much straight out of the coleridge handbook.
 

MBM

Well-known member
Have mixed feelings about HST. It's not him so much as his fans.

"He writes about drurgs. He, he. He's rilly kewl cuz he writes about drurgs."

The number of f***ed-up idiots who have told me me how great Fearing & Loathing in LV is thru a veil of drool is truly depressing.

Steven "Wanker" Wells wrote a great piece in the NME (possibly the only thing he ever wrote that I agreed with) eviscerating those who employed gonzo's hedonism without any of HST's conscience or heart (c.f. PJ O'Rourke).
 
O

Omaar

Guest
I listened to an interesting interview with him, done in 2002, here

"...wherein he expounds on the likelihood 9/11 was an inside job."


Are there any conspiracy theories going around about his death, or was it definitely absolutely suicide. Just asking, as in the interview he considers that his life may in danger cos of his views on 9/11.
 

MBM

Well-known member
Omaar - may be I'm being woefully naive, but that just sounds like paranoid self-aggrandisement on his part.

Whatever his beliefs, he was simply not important enough to assassinate.
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
Big, big fan here.

I don't think it's a tragedy. He'd had both hips replaced and he'd broken an ankle that was never really going to heal. He was pretty much bed-bound. I can understand the decision. I just don't think it was fair on his family to let them discover his corpse and deal with the aftermath. Then again, you get over it.

I'm just glad he was never overcome by drink and drugs.

Fave pieces: the diving bell scene near the end of Fear on Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72 (his best book IMO), the Nixon rants on the run up to Watergate, the police convention scenes in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas...

I only ever saw a few bits of the Fear and Loathing movie, but the Where the Buffallo Roam movie with Bill Murray was fantastic. I never saw in on video but I'd love to have it.
 
O

Omaar

Guest
yeah that extra info woul def make suicide much much more likely. Still, maybe he'd managed to find out the truth about JFK or 9/11, and had to be eliminated ;) Neverthless, that intreview was very interesting, I had him categorised as being libertarian gun nut in my mind, will have to check out some more of his writing.
 

craner

Beast of Burden

kooky

Banned
one of those Oliver Stone type's really though. that love of america, and that love of wanting to appear radical about how bad america is - purely for the excitement.
 

kooky

Banned
just pointing out his very strange politics Luka. yes, his first book was very funny. doesn't mean he was particularly important as a journalist. s'pose the reason a lot of people like him is because he celebrates the similarities of self indulgent hippies and rampant capitalists. cool.
 

rewch

Well-known member
his first book was actually a fairly straight-forward but very interesting analysis of the rise of biker culture after the second world war: hell's angels... i suspect that this is not the work you were referring to... if you read his political jornalism you will find that he had a very fine sense of the issues involved and was highly respected - if feared... the great shark hunt would be a good place to start & as 2stepfan says fear & loathing on the campaign trail... his contribution to modern letters - see tom wolfe's collection the new journalism - cannot be underestimated
 

robin

Well-known member
did anyone see his letter to anthony burgess in the collected letters,written in his capacity as rolling stone employee after burgess sent a sub-par story or something?
it was hilarious
 
Top