http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050908/ap_en_ot/people_thompson
I think if he knew it would be published he’d have done it differently. But here’s part of the last communique we have from the gonzo journalist.
As free form poetry, not bad.
And now, twenty years later:
Strange.
Hmm the link is not working for me. What does the note say?
ETA: never mind, the link is twenty years old
IIRC. he shot himself while on the phone with his wife. And in front of him was his typewriter with those notes.
Unless it’s something about insurance indemnity or other property ownership, I see no there there.
Football Season Is Over
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 old age.
Relax — This won’t hurt.
At the bottom of the page, it is said, he drew a happy heart.
Does anyone really doubt this is a suicide note?
I mean, his wife apparently. But come on.
We could use a man like him today.
And at his funeral his ashes got shot out of a cannon. Talk about going out with a bang.
My favorite “interview” with Hunter is from the movie Anthem: An American Road Story, where fledgling documentarians Shainee Gabel and Kristin Hahn pay him an impromptu visit.
Wrong thread.
I always loved this segment where Hunter interviewed Keith Richards for ABC. When he gets to Keith’s hotel room door, Hunter plays an audio recording of pigs being castrated, and Keith opens the door with some kind of stungun in hand.
If you like that, check out the companion book that covers a lot of interaction that didn’t get filmed.
Anyway, HST was good friends with Warren Zevon, who died of cancer in 2003. And there’s a quiet but persistent rumor about that. Some say that when WZ had had enough, he final-exited himself. HST had visited several times during WZ’s illness, and the story has it that HST left a break-glass-in-emergency packet of heroin (some accounts say morphine), and after his album was released and his grandsons were born, WZ calmly and deliberately rang down the curtain and joined the tour invisible. Again, rumor, so don’t go repeating it as fact. But I’ve heard it more than once, and it is plausible.
I read the book when it first came out. I just recently bought a used copy and was delighted to see it was autographed (“Esther --Take a ride! Love, Shainee & Kristin”). The people they meet have a lot of optimism and hope for the future of America…reading it today is a somewhat bittersweet experience.
Aye aye aye,