Today marks the anniversary of the passing of the founder of Gonzo journalism and all-round nut job, Hunter Stockton Thompson, who was freed of his mortal coils on the 20th February, 2005.
Hunter was born in Kentucky on the 18th July 1932, his name bestowed upon him in homage to an ancestor on his mother's side, a Scottish surgeon named Nigel John Hunter, a man credited for performing the first ever human artificial insemination. One of three children, Hunter hit hard times early on with the death of his father when he was 14, which meant for much of his teenage years he had very little parental supervision, given that his mother had to take on as much work as she could find to single-handedly provide for the household. This lack of supervision perhaps then goes to some lengths to explain the trouble Hunter often found himself in whilst growing up, of which the first notable incident was his arrest on the charge of an accessory to robbery, a consequence of which meant he never graduated from high school - a pretty bogus turn of events given Hunter's only link to the crime was that he just happened to be in a vehicle with the actor robber when the police pulled them over, and he was just days away from graduating anyway, but there you go.
Hunter's arrest also resulted in a 60 days stint in prison, which he only served 31 days for after coming to an agreement that he would enlist himself for the United States Airforce, a lesser of two evils really if you consider how Hunter would fare finding a job with no high school diploma and prison time to his name. During his time with the airforce he only ever completed basic training and never became an aviator, in fact his application to get into the air was rejected, but during his time spent at an Florida air base he took up night classes and landed a very important job - a journalist gig as a sports news editor, which he bagged by lying about his work experience, naturally. He had to publish his work under false names during this time as the airforce forbade any outside employment to their own, however in 1957 he was honourably discharged and could now pursue a career in journalism. Just a final little tidbit in regards to Hunter's time in the airforce, his commanding officer summarised his decision to offer him early discharge by stating, "sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
Thompson continued to work stints as a sport editor at a couple of different small-time papers, before moving to New York and landing a job with Time Magazine, though just as a copy boy. Within a couple of years however, he was fired for "insubordination", and so he retreated to work for a newspaper in Middletown, where he was again fired, though this time for damaging a vending machine. Thompson then packed up and relocated himself once more in pursuit of work, this time ending up in Puerto Rico for a sports paper, a paper which went under almost immediately after he'd arrived there. So after a few years in Puerto Rico trying to make things work, Thompson relocated AGAIN to the states, where he hitchhiked along Highway 40 partaking in odd jobs to make ends meet, though during this time he did score his first ever national magazine publication, and wrote two novels, one of which would be published in 1998 as The Rum Diaries.
Thompson's travels across the America continued well into the mid-sixties, seeing him travel as far as South America, following which on his return to North America he married his first wife Sandra Conklin and had his first child, Juan. The same year his son was born, Thompson wrote a couple of articles for the National Observer, one of which looked into the recent suicide of Ernest Hemingway - Thompson visited Hemingway's cabin whilst working on the piece, and for his troubles decided to steal a pair of elk antlers that hung over the doorway. Thompson then had a falling out with the Observer on non-theft related issues, and following that he did the most Hunter S Thompson thing to do - he relocated once again, and settled in San Francisco just in time to partake in the hippy and drug culture beginning to blossom there.
That same year, Hunter was hired to write an article on the Hell's Angels Club in California for the national magazine The Nation. His article was published on the 17th May 1965, and with it came offers of book deals for him, resulting in Thompson to have the brilliant plan to spend a year riding around with the Hell's Angels to gather enough content for his 1966 book, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. You'd think someone like Hunter, a renowned rebel for all of his life, would have got on swimmingly with a bunch of biker dudes who live and die by rebellion, however you'd be very wrong, as proven by the fact Hunter was subjected to what the Hell's Angels refer to as a "stomping", though you and I might refer to as a "savage beating". Tensions were already high between the gang and Thompson leading up to the beating, as the gang felt they were being exploited by him for personal gain and had demanded a cut of the profits, however things truly came to a head when Thompson stood up to a particularly aggressive member of the gang named Junkie George upon witnessing him beating his girlfriend and her dog. His heroism resulted in not just Junkie beating him but other members of the club too, which pretty much put an end to their relationship. The spat between Thompson and the gang was so well documented that CBC even brought Hunter and a member of the Hell's Angels into a studio together to discuss their time together, which went as well as you'd expect.
The remainder of the 60s were very fruitful for Hunter following his Hell's Angels book, including work with New York Times and Esquire (and plenty of drug abuse) but it was the 70s that would prove to be the most important decade of his legacy. He kicked off the year by running for sheriff in Aspen, as part of a group of folk running for various offices that year under the "Freak Power" banner. Some of Thompson's pledges should he gain a place of power within Aspen ranged from the decriminalisation of drugs (though for use and without profit to be made), ripping up roads to be replaced by grassy pedestrian-only zones, disarming the police force, banning buildings large enough to obscure the mountain views, and renaming Aspen to "Fat City". Thompson also infamously shaved all his hair off so that he could refer to his crew-cut adorned opposing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent". Unsurprisingly Thompson lost the election, however surprisingly it was only by a narrow margin that he did so, obtaining 44% of the votes in what was a two-candidate run by the end, meaning Fat City was very nearly a feasible reality.
The same year as his defeat for sheriffdom however, there was a far more significant event in Hunter's life - the publication of his article "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved". This article would become the first instance of a writing style created by Hunter himself, named Gonzo Journalism, an often manic style of journalism written from the first-person perspective and often with the writer becoming a part of the events within the article. Thompson would later claim this method of writing was less a stylistic choice and more of a byproduct of his frantic attempts to finish the piece before he hit his ever looming deadline, however upon receiving the feedback it did, Hunter looked to recreate the style for future publications. The Kentucky Derby article also saw Thompson team up with illustrator Ralph Steadman for the first time, who would regularly work with Thompson on future projects, most notably a publication that would come two years later.
In 1971, Thompson set out to write an exposé for Rolling Stone magazine, looking into the killing of a Mexican-American journalist by the US police force during a march protesting the Vietnam War in 1970. This led him to make contact with a man named Oscar Zeta Acosta, another Mexican-American who was both an attorney and a political activist. Acosta was willing to talk to Thompson though was weary of racial tensions in Los Angeles, his current location and the site of the aforementioned incident, and so Thompson suggested they take advantage of another job he had been given by Sports Illustrated to cover the Mint 400 race, which would take them well away from LA and to the venue of the race - Las Vegas. The antics of both men during this time would of course lead to the publication of Thompson's most infamous publication, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which was published in two parts for Rolling Stone magazine in November 1971, before coming together as one whole book publication in 1972.
It is a bummer to say however, that following the huge success of Fear and Loathing, Thompson's talents and acclaim seemed to fall further and further away from his 1972 peak. The first signs of trouble came when he was unable to cover "The Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match in Africa in 1974, a match which he entirely missed due to being stuck in his hotel room too fucked up to leave, and without witnessing the match, he had no article to submit. There were plans for him to cover what was becoming the end of the Vietnam War and the presidential campaign of 1976 that ran alongside it for a book publication, however the plugged was swiftly pulled when Thompson arrived in Vietnam for the Fall of Saigon and and other journalists were packing up to leave, with everything needing to be seen already being seen. There was hope Thompson had returned to form during the early 80s, however still nothing that could ever rival the acclaim and quality of Fear and Loathing, and around this time he also divorced from his wife, remaining a single man until the marriage of his second with Anita Bejmuk in 2003. Towards the end of his journalist career in the 00s, Thompson went full circle and returned to covering sports, which he did for ESPN's website.
So what else did Hunter have going on during these dark times? Well he essentially became a recluse and holed himself up for a long period of time in his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, California, a home he had made for himself that could have easily supplied a small militia. See, Hunter loved guns. He really fucking loved guns. And explosives. But you know what he hated? Neighbours. In fact he hated them so much that on more than one occasion he had actual fucking shoot-outs with them or left pig heads nailed to their doors, or shot up their homes with the help of locals. I mean he always had (in his mind at least) justified reasons for his actions, and never shot to kill or injure, only spook and terrify, but yeah, let's just say the dude wouldn't have been anyone's first choice of neighbour. Or second. Or third.
The drug abuse, chain-smoking, heavy drinking, shoot-outs, and hell-raising days of Hunter S Thompson sadly however came to a close in 2005, when at 5:42 pm he took himself out of this mortal realm with a gunshot to the head. His wife had been on the phone to him as he cocked the gun though unaware of the situation as she hung up shortly after, and his son Juan was the first to discover the body, and upon doing so went outside and fired off three blasts of a shotgun to mark the passing of his father. In a typewriter near Thompson was a piece of paper that simply said "Feb. 22 '05 counselor". Rolling Stone magazine would later published what was claimed to be Thompson's suicide note written to his wife, entitled "Football Season is Over", which read:
"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your age. Relax — This won't hurt."
Months later, on the 20th August, Hunter's funeral was finally a held, a private affair attended by such stars as Jack Nicholson, John Cusak, Sean Penn, and Johnny Deep, the latter of whom picked up the bill for this $3 million funeral. Why was it so expensive you ask? Well it was Hunter's dying wish to have his ashes fired out of a canon, which is exactly what he got, from a canon atop an almost 50ft high tower in the shape of his trademark symbol designed when he ran for sheriff back in 1970, as red, white, blue, and green fireworks accompanied the firing.
So there you have it folks, the life and times of the absolutely bat-shit Hunter S Thompson. Sure it sucks how it all ended, but we can take solace in the fact it was the most Hunter S Thompson way to go, and shit, what a life he had up until that point. He had travelled the world, lived a very comfortable though often hectic life provided by his own brand of erratic and insane journalism that he alone is credited for conceiving, and he did all of this whilst on an awe-inspiring amount of drugs and alcohol at certain points of his life. Despite life dealing him a bad hand early on in his life, a hand that would have seen most folk left behind in the dust to toil and suffer until their time was up, Hunter fought back against life and took exactly what he wanted from it - he wanted to live the American Dream, his own vision of the American Dream, and you can question how authentic that vision was compared to that of others, but you can't deny that he lived his own vision to the maximum.
So rest well, Hunter S Thompson, and thank you for the crazy legend you have left behind.
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