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The death of
iconoclastic writer Hunter S. Thompson last week at the age
of 67 spawned an expected avalanche of written tributes from writers
across the country. Unfortunately, the majority of them focused
primarily on his odd personality, drug usage and other excesses of
behavior. The “tributes” can be broken down by category. There
was the predictable batch of “I remember when I was 17-years-old
and first read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” essays,
reminiscences in which the authors quote a few lines of dialogue
from the best-selling book and explain how this inspired them to
“become journalists” or led them down some strange path of
adventures.
Other pieces have
speculated on what particular demons were chasing Thompson around in
the dark recesses of his mind. When a cultural icon -- albeit one
who’s time in the limelight had long since passed -- kills himself
suddenly and violently, it’s bound to trigger ruminations on
topics like the nature of drug addiction, fame, aging and
self-indulgence, and perhaps rightly so. But amateur psychobabble on
someone’s alleged state of mind falls far short of offering any
true understanding of why someone would put a loaded .45 caliber
handgun in their mouths and pull the trigger. Moreover, one final
violent act does not define the man’s life.
The comparisons to
writer Ernest Hemingway’s own suicide in 1961 are also overly
simplistic. Granted, there are some obvious similarities. They were
both talented writers with allegedly difficult personalities,
outsiders who became, we presume, despondent over fading notoriety
and the inevitable deteriorations of old age. We don’t really know
for certain why either man killed himself, but perhaps a key
connection between the two suicides, if any connections exist at
all, is that both Thompson and Hemingway took their lives with guns.
This speaks less to the romantic, “Hemingwayesque” fate than it
does to yet another underlying problem in American society -- the
ready availability of guns and a fascination with them.
Unfortunately, in
our typically American style, the lasting impression of Thompson
appears to be with THE FLASH -- the over-the-top adventures and
superficial craziness of drugs and wild tales about “five sheets
of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker full of cocaine, and a
whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers
… ” No surprise, perhaps, when the writer engages in such
stylistic, hyperbolic prose. The marketing of Thompson’s books
highlighted these elements of content, and the film version of Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), starring Johnny Depp, does little
to dispel these notions.
However
entertaining, the images of the oddball caricature on a drugged-out
road trip to Las Vegas fail to illustrate the complete picture of
Hunter S. Thompson. Many eccentric writers and fringe celebrities
have engaged in bad behavior; it’s not what made Thompson unique.
POLITICAL
OUTRAGE IN THE KINGDOM OF FEAR
If Thompson’s
most lasting legacy is to have turned a generation of young writers
into thrill seekers looking for “Fear and Loathing” type
adventures, that’s a shame. Not because there isn’t often some
inherent value to be found in adventure, beyond pure hedonism --
although it is tricky to avoid simply falling into dissipation
rather than finding some creative spark or deeper meaning. But the
ever-present use of drugs and outrageous dialogue in Thompson’s
books were only the hook to lure the reader in, and to make larger
points about America and American society.
It was Thompson’s willingness to expose hypocrisy,
challenge convention, and knock stuffed shirts from their
self-righteous perches that ought to stand out the most. His sense
of outrage and his wickedly clever skewering of the “fat greed
heads” running our country should be remembered long after the
laughs and the anecdotes about drug trips and crazy drunken exploits
have faded.
Even in Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), with its highly entertaining drug
madness and bizarre, seemingly random behavior, Thompson doesn’t
fritter away his outrage and he never loses sight of his goal --
exposing ignorant hypocrisy and needling the powers that be. In Fear
and Loathing, this comes out in the bigoted, narrow-minded sheriffs
he meets at a National District Attorney’s Drug Conference in Las
Vegas.
Thompson’s
hyperbolic writing ability may have gotten stale in later books, but
his outrage never left him or failed him. Kingdom of Fear (2003)
found Thompson in true form, as pissed off as ever and right on the
money in his take on our current national predicament:
“The most
disastrous day in American history was November 7th,
2000,” he wrote. “That was when the takeover happened., when the
generals and cops and right-wing Jesus freaks seized control of the
white house, the U.S. Treasury and our law enforcement machinery. So
long to all that eh? ‘Nothing will ever be the same again,’ the
whorish new president said at the time, ‘As we are now in the grip
of a national security emergency that will last the rest of our
lives.’
“There are no
jobs in America; the job market collapsed in 2001 AD; along with the
stock market and all ENRON pension funds. All markets collapsed
about 3 days after GW Bush moved into the White House . . . . Yeah,
it was that fast. BOOM, presto, welcome to bombs and poverty. You
are about to start paying for the sins of your fathers and
forefathers, even if they were innocent. ...We are in bad trouble
over here, Simon. The deal is going down all over the once-proud
U.S.A. We are down to our last cannonball(s). Stand back! Those
Pentagon swine are frantic to kick some ass, and many job
opportunities are opening up in the Armaments, Surveillance, and the
New Age Security industries.”
To be remembered
for wild, outlandish prose that drunken college kids sit around and
chuckle over for decades to come is not a bad coda, but we’ve lost
much more than an American eccentric. We’ve lost an important
voice against the hypocrisy, pretzel logic and propaganda of our
times. Thompson’s was a voice we need now more than ever.
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