-
blew his brains out.

I guess -

I guess he couldn't drink himself to death. I recall a passage from one of the many biographies, this one -"The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson" (a poorly written, smoke-up-the-ass masterpiece of fawning blandishment), the words which were said to be from his personal physician - that his liver seemed to "regenerate", no matter how many handles of Jack he poured in or how many lines of trucker speed or psychedelic baboon gallstones or whatever the fuck went up his nose. Drinking wasn't going to kill him so..

So, blew his fucking brains out - all over the wall I assume, or not, or maybe all over some drunkenly contrived assortment of American flags and seals of the CIA, DIA, DEA, OHS, FBI, FOX (news), NSA, OSP, Republican Party, Rotary Club, and pictures of Bush and Nixon and Reagan and Einsenhower or some other lich (think DnD lich) that he famously hated on; I remember, damn, that picture of Hunter's boy, smiling with a shotgun in front of a bullet hole ridden picture of Hoover himself, god damn, what a hardass thing to have pulled off in 1960, your baby boy shooting up a black and white of the head of the secret police - - but what a horribly trite seeming thing now, just like all of the things, the 60s things, the peace and drugs crap, that shit-myth looming over us still.. poured down our throats by the graying hippie English teachers, the once-i-did-mescaline college professors who don't know a damn thing about any of it, the people who decided to add the "60s" theme to Windows 95, 98, and XE.

God, you could write, but whats the damn point

"

July 18, 1970
Woody Creek, CO

Dear Ralph [Steadman];
I suspect that we have struck a very wierd and maybe-rich vein . . . but instead of laboring over details I'll just enc. a copy (see below) of a suggestion that I sent about two wks ago to Warren Hinkcle [then-editor of Scanlan's Monthly] . . . to wit:

'. . . I thought I'd pass on a suggestion that one of my enemies laid on me today: 'Why don't you just travel around the country and shit on EVERYTHING?' he shouted. 'Just go from New York to California and write your venemous bullshit about everything that people respect!" Which sounds like a nice idea - a series of KY. Derby style articles on things like the Super Bowl, Times Square on New Year's Eve, Mardi Gras. . .Christmas Day with the Chicago Police, Grand National Rodeo in Denver . . . rape them all, systematically, and then we could sell it as a book: 'Amerikan Dreams'.

. . .

I think this Rape-Series is a king-bitch dog-fucker of an idea. We could go almost anywhere and turn out a series of articles so wierd and frightful as to stagger every mind in journalism. . . can you grasp the lunatic possibilities of such an assignment? . . . We could travel with courtesans and bearers. . .

OK for now. And, again, it was good talking to you. Let's focus very hard and nicely on this thing - like Zen masters, or NY pawnbrokers. I can have my agent arrange the finances for both of us if that suites you. . . I really don't give a fuck. It looks like excellent fun, and with the things going as they are, I suspect that we'll be needing some of that.

Ciao
Hunter

"

I remember reading "Hells Angels" for the first time, expecting something totally different from what I got. What I expected was heavy, weirded-out tripe in the same vein as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". What I got was something new to me - a fantastic story, a real story, right down to the dirty fingernails, lumpy women, warm beer, fear, and ackward silences. It was fascinating, real, ugly. The book, a beautiful browned 2nd edition late 60s paperback that I had borrowed from the floor of a friend's sloppy room in college, changed the way I saw writing. It was fucking brilliant. It wasn't by someone who hated America, or hated anything for that matter - just someone who saw everything.


"
November 18, 1968
Woody Creek CO

Dear Ralph,

You' re right, somehow, about me and the perverse hibernation syndrome. Ever since I got back from Chicago I've been a ball of fangs, ready to tackle anything except this goddamn long range and never-ending book on the American Dream - which I am coming to NY in a few weeks to discuss, etc.

...

HST


Before the war in Iraq:

"
We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the
whole world--a nation of bullies and bastards who
would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not
just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with
hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and
that is how history will judge us...No redeeming
social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or
we'll kill you.

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who
among us can be happy and proud of having this
innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine?
These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and
fooled by stupid rich kids like George Bush?

They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali
locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for
all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the
American character. They are the racists and hate
mongers among us--they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss
down the throats of these Nazis.

And I am too old to worry about whether they like it
or not. Fuck them.

-Hunter S. Thompson

"

Ah, Hunter. With you were here to skewer these bleating fucking ninnies, those preening rich-boy road-to-hellers from your generation, we couldnt do a damn thing. These fuckers are bigger, smarter, more cocksure more organized than the old men you waved your dick at.

They are the sons of the assholes that you railed against. And while you and the 60s squad were busy gargling Ayahuasca and -talking- about the man, still, while Lou Reed ordered his 3000th bottle of Bordeaux with his fat heroin paws somewhere in lower Manhattan, still, while the punks in the 80s and 90s bitched about their parents really - -they sat quietly in their antholes, gathering terrific force and doing what they have always done: praying to their god - handing down their power to their sons.


"Self-inflicted gunshot to the head."


God, god damn.