Worth reading once. I have friends that swear he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. None of them have real jobs, responsibilities or direction though.
I've always enjoyed Thompson's work - 'Hell's Angels', 'Fear And Loathing In Ls Vegas' andparts of 'The Great White Shark Hunt'. But then, he was an iconoclast and I warm to people like that..... He could actually write, at his best....his tragedy was that in later years, the public image overtook the writer and it's hard to find decent quality in his later books - he was too busy 'living up to the image'. How sad and ironic that his career in this way resembled that of Hemingway, as of course did his ending......
Some folk can't relate to HS Thompson. When he was good, he was great. But, you burn a candle at both ends- life is short. This girl lived the HST assistant process, and has an interesting story: http://www.smithmag.net/memoirville/2007/12/01/gonzo-girl/
I read some of the Las Vegas book. The man could write, and he could be insightful and very amusing. Take a look, by all means. You might very well enjoy his writing. As for myself, I had no interest in his later stuff and his personality and legend repelled me. He was a drunk, a drug user, a gun nut, and a political hater, but he rang so many of the right political and cultural bells of his time that people like Warren Zevon, Johhny Depp, Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Garry Trudeau, and Terry Gilliam all came to burn incense at his feet. As so often happens, it is difficult to separate Thompson's celebrity and personality from his work. However, personality and celebrity were supposed to be part of the work of the New Journalism school to which Thompson belonged. But go read him and judge for yourself.
Ha...Have already read /heard most of it. I'm 50, and fairly well read in pop culture. Not sure why you think I'm not. Wonder who your literary /music hero's are. Most artists use altering substances in order to tap into their creative juices. Name a popular artist who did not use some kind of substance, I'll name two who did.
Hell's Angels made him as a journalist and writer and is good reading even today. The odd thing is that even though by the end of the book he dispels the "counter-culture hero" myth of the Angels, he went right on in life to embrace that myth in himself. He did other great work on the 72 (?) political campaign, but before long he was writing more about himself than the world. He became a "celebrity" and his most celebrated idiosyncrasy was massive drug and alcohol intake, and that became the subject of his work. He became a parody of himself.
I never questioned or criticized your knowledge, I was simply expressing my opinion of Thompson as both a writer and a cultural figure. From what I have read of the Vegas book, he was a talented writer at that stage of his career. Since you raise the matter, though, I must add that the common notion of substances and/or madness as the neccessary fuel for art is romantic nonsense. On this point, see Those Drinking Days by Donald Newlove, whose argument I agree with completely.
I identify very strongly with the pterodactyl fear, and his Samoan lawyer insisting the radio is thrown into the bath remains a documentary of a friend's life and style. Those and other Thompson nuggets still make me smile... I don't think self-parody really quite covers his later approach. I suspect you have to try and grasp the sheer levels of ennui that an... Unusual... mind like that can reach when increasingly lacking the feeling that anything is really new at all.
Yep. Hunter lost it, due to his excess... He was also already a little insane in the membrane. A lot of great artists are/were some kind of cuckoo. For the average individual, sometimes a little dram might encourage discussion, or unblock a passage. Some could consider ww2f as a virtual bar. Don't have to drink and drive, mostly friendly peeps around...hey, wait a second, where are all the chicks? ...Looks like a sausage party going on.
We all knew this would be true about country tunes. Alchohol, tears, Mom, trains and prison. http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2009/11/1-in-5-country-music-songs-refers-to-alcohol/
HST, Mexico- Reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/3ffnu1/hunter_s_thompson_mexico_1974/?ref=search_posts
Laughed out loud 2-3 times. That was what Hunter was so good at, as well as delivering information in an entertaining way. Freezerbox Magazine, Adam Bulger /04 - http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.php?id=287
Hadn't seen this video in years. Cheers to the CBC. It is shocking in some ways, brutally honest about some mens opinions of women. Hunter had wrote about the Hells Angels, and eventually caught a beating. ..During this CBC interview- Hunter was scared, and it showed. Thinking that was one of the reasons he got so heavily into guns and dynamite, although it made tragically good reading. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccyu44rsaZo
