Hunter S. Thompson didn't choose the most respectable way to go.

[Tenar]

@smiling bandit

I’ve sure I heard the name some where, but I didn’t know anything about him and don’t really care. He wasn’t a great man. He wasn’t even much of a man.

I won’t argue that Thompson was a “great man,” because that title requires a whole lot more than just talent, in my book. But the implication that your personal awareness or lack of awareness of a person’s existence is the final arbiter of greatness makes you seem a bit short sighted. Where did great people come from before you were born? How will we know them after you die?

H.S.T. was brilliant, sometimes. Hells Angels was a great book, as was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. (Speaking only for myself here, I found some of his subsequent writings a little hard to get through.) He was also an asshole, a freak show, a dancing bear, and, judging from the manner of his death, either a completely selfish bastard or a man in the grips of a severe depression. (Or both, obviously.) That does not detract from his occasional brilliance as a writer. I was a fan of his writing.

I was also witness, however to an appearance of his at the Beacon Theater in NYC on election night once (I think it was for the first GHW Bush election, but I could be wrong) when he arrived more than an hour late, was basically dragged in, muttered incoherently for what seemed like about 15 minutes and staggered off. Granted, it was probably stupid of me to have hoped for anything else, but I really didn’t need to pay that much money to watch someone demonstrate that drugs and alcohol render one stupid (or, to take a kindlier view, that enough years of drugs and alcohol take their toll no matter who you are.)

Does anyone remember Jim Morrison? Talented and an asshole. Elvis Presley? Janis Joplin? Yes, I am aware that none of them are believed to be intentional suicides, but they were certainly fucked up campers who behaved revoltingly and are accorded greatness by some.

There is no denying Thompson’s talents and no denying that he died like a selfish old bastard. People who take vast quantities of drugs frequently do act like selfish bastards. It doesn’t have to be an either-or proposition, and it doesn’t mean that the people who love them necessarily love them any less.

I was, for some years of my life, an emotional hostage to a person who was in the habit of ingesting vast quantities of alcohol and painkillers and then calling me for help in the wee hours of the morning. Like an idiot, I generally responded and spent many hours playing “hide the razor blades.” I loved that person and I hated them desperately and if they had died in the grips of their madness I would have mourned them unconsolably. That doesn’t mean that that person wasn’t acting like an asshole or that I wasn’t a clueless, drama-seeking moron for letting myself get involved in the whole thing.

I wish Thompson’s family all the best, and hope that, if nothing else, they are able to take consolation in their newfound peace and quiet and freedom from the anxiety of wondering what will happen next.

[BubbaDog]

Ironically tacky web trick of the day: I clicked on CynicalGabe’s link and it took me to the article. The sidebar add for the site was flashing an ad for a hotel chain…the picture showed a guy sitting on a bed, smiling and talking to somebody on the phone.

[FinnAgain]

@Hamlet

You know, I heard this kind of bullshit quite a bit on college about Hunter. I read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. I read some of his Rolling Stone pieces. I went to hear him speak at our campus. Know what? He’s one of the most overrated writers and complete assholes ever.

Again, proof that you’re not an artist. If you think he didn’t have massive talent, you have no idea what goes into writing. No idea.

@Hamlet

He was an inane, gibbering, drug addled blogger before there were bloggers. While he may, indeed, be influential, he was, in my opinion, an egomanical, incoherent jagoff.

He was brilliant, insightful, and singlehandedly created New Journalism. Moreoever, he was one of the ‘tightest’ and most elegant writers in the last 100 years. Proof, again, that you’re not an artist.

@Hamlet

How about you hold yourself to that standard and shut the fuck up?

Beause there are different standards for loudmouth assholes who disparage what they could never hope to build, and those who have reverance for masters of their craft?
Schmuck.

@beagledave

Proof that you’re an arrogant asshole.

No, you shit eating virus.

I don’t have to be arrogant to recognize that those people who don’t understand Hunter’s impact are neither artists nor kindred souls. This is just a fact. Try to take the training wheels off your brain and take it for a spin, you’d be surprised what thinking feels like.

[Cisco]

@Inigo Montoya

before we roast the asshole

Mmmm . . . roasted asshole.

[Hamlet]

Oh FinnAgain, your just so cute when you’re a condescending asshole. I just want to shrink you up and put you in my pocket.

[FinnAgain]

@Hamlet

Oh FinnAgain, your just so cute when you’re a condescending asshole.

And you’re obnoxious and tedious when you attempt to slander one of the greatest American literary talents of the last century.

You deserve all the scorn I can heap on you, and probably some more.

You’re the utter tool who had the unmitigated gall to call one of the most influential and important writers of the 20’th century “overrated.”

Just because you’re an idiot with no understanding of the craft of writing doesn’t mean I have to be silent about it and not call you out. Schmuck.

[mhendo]

@FinnAgain

And you’re obnoxious and tedious when you attempt to slander one of the greatest American literary talents of the last century.

You deserve all the scorn I can heap on you, and probably some more.

You’re the utter tool who had the unmitigated gall to call one of the most influential and important writers of the 20’th century “overrated.”

Just because you’re an idiot with no understanding of the craft of writing doesn’t mean I have to be silent about it and not call you out. Schmuck.

Jesus, settle down will ya?

In what world is it impermissible for people to have different points of view on the relative merits of artists and literary figures? Personally, i like Thompson’s work, although i think his earlier stuff was far better than his later stuff. And i appreciate his contribution to the craft of journalism and to American culture more generally.

But who cares if someone else thinks he’s overrated? Surely these sorts of judgements are at the very heart of what makes us human, of what makes us creatures of culture. I know it’s a cliche, but it really would be a pretty dull world if we all liked the same thing.

[FinnAgain]

True enough, I’m not saying he doesn’t have the right to hold his opinion. Simply if he voices it, I’m allowed to call him an unartistic clod who doesn’t deserve to be casting aspersions on the memory of Hunter.

[Slithy_Tove]

Authors:
Hunter S. Thompson
Douglas Adams
Kurt Vonnegut
Tom Robbins

Politicians:
Ronald Reagan

Film makers:
George Lucas, pre-1997

Musicians:
Too numerous to list, esp. the Beatles

These and other individuals have had the gift of clutching the hearts of those at a time of their lives when they themselves were immune/unresponsive (a.k.a “19-years old”) to criticism and so these named seem to be ranked above criticism.

Re: these “Fuck you! Hunter S. Thompson was God” threads: in the words of Mark Twain (who, in the afterlife is now exchanging cigars with blunts with HST in the great beyond, with Ambrose Bierce and H.L. Menken in attendance) “Sir, you’re an ass!” Nobody, bar nobody is immune from critical analysis on the Straight Dope Message Board.

“Jesus of Nazareth made a fatal error in cleasing the temple, cutting his life short and thereby leaving his ministry open to misinterpretation”

“The Buddha died on the road puking his guts out from gorging on tainted food at a banquet. What does that say about 'the middle path” of moderation?"

If anything redeeming above all can be said about Hunter S. Thompson can be said, it is this; if any of you syncophants had ingratiated yourselves into his home on a winter’s night with your demonstarted attitudes, you may have started the evening as drinking buddies, but would have ended it as target practice.

[FinnAgain]

@Slithy Tove

Nobody, bar nobody is immune from critical analysis on the Straight Dope Message Board.

To which I would reply, as (someone) must have said “Get you facts straight.”

I’ve not seen a single critical examination of Hunter’s work from Dopers who don’t like him. All of them touch on two points 1) He used drugs 2) He was an asshole to a lot of people.

I’ve seen not one single person even attempt to analyze his writing style. And, simply for the record, if you were arguing that Hunter wasn’t a literary genius, you’ve got a lot of ground to make up. Hunter was a literary god, and all the criticism in the world won’t change that fact.

@Slithy Tove

If anything redeeming above all can be said about Hunter S. Thompson can be said, it is this; if any of you syncophants had ingratiated yourselves into his home on a winter’s night with your demonstarted attitudes, you may have started the evening as drinking buddies, but would have ended it as target practice.

Two things, first, look up sycophant. It doesn’t mean what you either think it means, or you’re using it to mean.

Second, having watched film footage of Hunter’s gatherings with his friends, I have to say you’re 100% full of shit.

[SPOOFE]

I’m just amazed by how many people can’t see past the man’s drug use. Addled? His writings were more sobering than those of just about any of his sober contemporaries.

[mhendo]

@FinnAgain

True enough, I’m not saying he doesn’t have the right to hold his opinion. Simply if he voices it, I’m allowed to call him an unartistic clod who doesn’t deserve to be casting aspersions on the memory of Hunter.

Interesting.

So, does anyone who disagrees with any of your artistic judgements qualify as an “artistic clod”? And are all of your preferred artists also sacred cows, or are some immune to criticism while others are not? I’m just trying to get a picture here of how you envision the world of artistic and literary criticism, and the extent to which you believe that artistic and literary merit are objectively or merely subjectively measurable.

I mean, you keep asserting the “unartistic” nature of those who disagree with you. This suggests to me that you have some sort of handle on what artistic and literary criticism is, and how the merit of artistic and literary works should be evaluated. But most people i know who really understand these things also tend to believe that, just because someone disagrees with you about a particular artist does not make that person an “artistic clod.”

@SPOOFE

I'm just amazed by how many people can't see past the man's drug use. Addled? His writings were more sobering than those of just about any of his sober contemporaries.

I agree with you. But this thread is about what an asshole you have to be to shoot yourself while on the phone with your wife. For me, that question is one that has no bearing on what i think of Thompson’s work. And as for his drug use, i couldn’t care less.

[Typo_Negative]

@FinnAgain

Hunter was a literary god, and all the criticism in the world won’t change that fact.

You have an intersting habit of stating opinion as if it were fact.

Well known? Certainly. Influential? Absolutely. Literary God? A matter of opinion.

[RTA]

This thread is like a Ralph Steadman drawing.

A drawing of a flock of second-guessing vultures, eagerly ripping the flesh from Thompson’s bones, but complaining about the taste.

[unclviny]

To all the folks questioning HST’s impact on the world I know my opinion doesn’t mean much to you. How about Tom Wolfes opinion http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110006325. HST lived and died by his own rules and never apologized to anybody for anything, feel free to like him or not. The two people who affected me most (hopefully in a positive manner) were HST and FRANK ZAPPA because they played by thier own rules period.

Unclviny

[Slithy_Tove]

@FinnAgain

Two things, first, look up sycophant. It doesn’t mean what you either think it means, or you’re using it to mean.

Second, having watched film footage of Hunter’s gatherings with his friends, I have to say you’re 100% full of shit.

Websters 1913 Dictionary Definition:
\Syc"o*phant, n. [L. sycophanta a slanderer,
deceiver, parasite, Gr. ? a false accuser, false adviser,
literally, a fig shower; ? a fig + ? to show: cf. F.
sycophante. The reason for the name is not certainly known.
See {Phenomenon}.]

1. An informer; a talebearer. [Obs.] ``Accusing sycophants,
   of all men, did best sort to his nature.’’ --Sir P.
   Sidney.

2. A base parasite; a mean or servile flatterer; especially,
   a flatterer of princes and great men.

     A sycophant will everything admire: Each verse, each
     sentence, sets his soul on fire.      --Dryden.
   

And so I have looked up “syncophant,” and lo, like many other words it has several meanings, besides that with which it would serve your purpose to discredit my argument. I’ve chosen definition # 2 (aimed at you, certainly not at Thompson), illustrated by John Dryden (a contemporary of John Locke, another writer overlooked by Rolling Stone magazine but who, as an observer of political reality nonetheless had the last word on the musings of such Rolling Stone luminaries as Hunter S. Thompson and P.J O’Rourke 350 years before their first experience of pussy was its being stretched around their necks).

Yes, Hunter S. Thompson was quite a colorful fellow. I’m so impressed with your having viewed "footage’ of him. Having viewed this, truly you are a bearer of the true cross. So let’s review: Hunter S. Thompson hated Nixon, a corupt politician who was driven form office by…other journalists.

Compare/contrast with Emile Zola, who brought down not one politician but an entire government. Thompson died (under circumstances upon which I will pass no judgement whatsoever) in ASPEN FUCKING COLARADO, where lesser beings such as electricians and nurses cannot hope to buy their own homes. Emile Zola died in a simple Paris apartment after his chimney was stopped-up at night by political enemies. I might be proved wrong, but I don’t anticipate a wreath from PEN at Thompson’s funeral.

Or we could bring up other subversive authors who really paid the price and made a difference such as Rabelais, Francois Villon or Thomas Moore, but you stopped-up reading at whatever was trendy when you were at your peak of self-satisfaction, so a wider esteem of journalism and literature beyond Hunter S. Thompson seems nonexistant.

True, I may be 100% full of shit, but it is shit purely of my own ingestion. You, however, are 100% full of Kool-Aide, and have become as equally annoying as a former poster ovewroughtly enamored of the works of Paul Verhoeven.

I don’t fault Thompson for his manner of death, or his substance abuse. I fault him as, ultimately, a self-indulgent failure. And I fault you syncophants(2) for limiting your scholarship to his works to the exclusion of such writers as Naguib Mahfouz. Thompson thought Nixon was a bad guy? Google what happens when you write a bad word about Allah.

[uglybeech]

@FinnAgain

Two things, first, look up sycophant. It doesn’t mean what you either think it means, or you’re using it to mean.

Just curious. I’ve only heard the meaning slithy used (basically a flatterer). What meaning were you thinking of?

[Sampiro]

Credentials: I’ve read a lot (not all) of Thompson’s work and I think that at his best he was one of a kind in his perspective and his ability to express it. I totally understand why some people don’t like him, I don’t consider people who haven’t read him to be ignorant, and I don’t think I would ever have wanted to know him unless I was being besieged by Janet Reno and he had his arsenal. That said:

Agreed, this was an asshole way to go. And, to those who have criticized his wife for not committing him and for going about her routine:

1- Committing a person who is suicidal is one of the most NOT easy things you can do. You have two options-
a) convince them to commit themselves (and if they don’t want to do it there’s not one hell of a lot you can do to make them, and HST was notoriously stubborn and well armed) and even if they do commit themself then it’s a voluntary commission and they can leave anytime they decide “fuck this shit”, which with HST would have been the moment he couldn’t have a scotch, a quaalude, and an AK47 to shoot the rabbit running through the hospital yard, plus it’s not a sure thing at all that they’ll decide not to kill themselves during therapy.
b) you can have them forcibly committed, which in addition to being extremely difficult (you have to show just cause) would in this case be considerably hampered by the fact that HST was famously well armed and lived in a fortified compound

As far as going about her own life, I can speak as somebody who has lived with a suicidal loved one. It may sound like a selfish asshole thing to say, but I’d wager anybody who has lived through this situation can relate: there comes a point when you just have to say “Fuck it, fuck them… if they want to die there’s not a hell of a lot I can do to stop them, but I want to live and I am not going to let them destroy me in the process.” (There’s also no such thing really as a suicidal type: some people will threaten suicide for 50 years and die very old of natural causes, others will absolutely never mention it then one day calmly light a cigarette, make a grocery list and blow their brains out almost as an afterthought. There is no predicting which way they’ll go.

Short point: I’m not inclined to judge his widow, and I hope that his grandson will not be too traumatized by his total asshole of a grandfather (would it have been too much to wait til the kid was away?)

Bye HST: you’ll be missed and remembered, you crazy selfish bastard.

[FinnAgain]

@uglybeech

Just curious. I’ve only heard the meaning slithy used (basically a flatterer). What meaning were you thinking of?

That is indeed how the word is generally used, however, in the circumstance I pointed out, sycophant is hardly the operative word. ‘Fan’ or ‘admirer’ would be much closer to the truth without being needlessly inflamatory.

@Slithy Tove

And so I have looked up “syncophant,” and lo, like many other words it has several meanings, besides that with which it would serve your purpose to discredit my argument. I’ve chosen definition # 2 (aimed at you, certainly not at Thompson), illustrated by John Dryden (a contemporary of John Locke, another writer overlooked by Rolling Stone magazine but who, as an observer of political reality nonetheless had the last word on the musings of such Rolling Stone luminaries as Hunter S. Thompson and P.J O’Rourke 350 years before their first experience of pussy was its being stretched around their necks).

~yawn~
Yes, I was aware that you were calling me a sycophant, and the point is you’re using the word absolutely incorrectly. None of the definitions you posted have a damn thing to do with someone who recognizes and appreciates superlative writing. Sorry.

@Slithy Tove

Yes, Hunter S. Thompson was quite a colorful fellow. I’m so impressed with your having viewed "footage’ of him.

It wasn’t meant to impress you, it was mean to prove that you’ve got a bad case of verbal diarrhea and don’t know when to shut up. Or are you going to have a shred of intellectual honesty and admit that you were, at best, mistaken and at worst, lying through your teeth?

@Slithy Tove

Having viewed this, truly you are a bearer of the true cross.

No, I just have enough information to know that you’re talking out your ass when you speak to his relationship with his friends.

@Slithy Tove

True, I may be 100% full of shit, but it is shit purely of my own ingestion. You, however, are 100% full of Kool-Aide, and have become as equally annoying as a former poster ovewroughtly enamored of the works of Paul Verhoeven.

No, you’re 100% full of shit when you talk about how Hunter interacted with his friends, and you’re dead wrong. Got a retraction yet on your bullshit? No? You’re just gonna keep spewing it? Go figure…

Where, exactly, have I drunk any coolaid? Because I recognize that Hunter was the greatest living American writer? Because, as a writer, I know exactly how hard his style is to imitate? Because I know just how powerful he was as a writer? Mmm… personally, I’ll pit my four years of literary theory and a degree with honors against your bullshit claims, any day of the week.

Oh, and, just in case you’re confused and not being a fucking moron, where an artist lives has nothing to do with the quality of their writing. How many government officials they bring down, has nothing to do with the degree of craft that they possess. Nice try though.

So, you may want to call me a sycophant because I ~gasp!~ realize great writing when I see it. But, be trutful, doesn’t your intellectual dishonesty and bullshit rhetoric get to you sometimes?

[Scissorjack]

@mhendo

Jesus, settle down will ya?

In what world is it impermissible for people to have different points of view on the relative merits of artists and literary figures? Personally, i like Thompson’s work, although i think his earlier stuff was far better than his later stuff. And i appreciate his contribution to the craft of journalism and to American culture more generally.

But who cares if someone else thinks he’s overrated? Surely these sorts of judgements are at the very heart of what makes us human, of what makes us creatures of culture. I know it’s a cliche, but it really would be a pretty dull world if we all liked the same thing.

mhendo, this is the Pit. Kindly desist from dragging your tolerance and reason in here. Consider yourself warned.