"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."
-Raoul Duke re: Hunter S Thompson
Son of a bitch.
And yes, never did a quote so fit someone so well.
Sometimes you see things and you think, yeah, that was going to happen. It still doesn't change that when they do, you still can't get over the loss of it all.
A confession is in order.
I never smoked pot, took acid, coke, crank, mezcaline, peyote or speed. The amount of alcohol I have imbibed could probably fill a keg and still have some space left.
As such, I am highly unqualified to talk about the experiences of a man who lived more or less permanently stoned about his ever loving mind as a matter of principle.
That's fine, you don't need to be stoned to appreciate Thompsons work any more than one would need to be a pedophile, to like the work of Townsend and The Who. It might help to explain Michael Jackson, but that's another issue.
Shit like Michael doesn't need to fit into this, but that was Hunter. He'd work in the current with the obscure, with his own perspective of the world from his compound in Aspen. A walking, talking, drinking, dropping Paul Bunyan, telling tall tales laced with equal parts truth and anger. Part of the story, but it was never about him. I remember as a kid reading an article about a drinking buddy in Aspen, whom he nearly cracked the neck of if he had been stronger, who praised Reagan.
241 dead Marines in October 83, by a bomber who was from a group that was financed by the US government that traded arms for hostages. We killed our own, by being the almighty bastards that we were destined to be. By God, this was America.
"Semper FI! Semper Fi! 241 dead marines in Lebanon! And who killed them?"
That thought, that image was the first time that I questioned our nation and its infallibility. Such a great nation couldn't fuck up that much, could we?
Oh, but boy can we ever, as I would learn over time.
Some people called him nothing but a wasted loser, spewing shit. A waste of humanity. To those, I say, as I am sure he would agree, go fuck yourself. The thing lost on some who focus on the drugs and the antics is that, in spite of it all, or perhaps because of it, he had a point. It's a point that a lot of people have who are on the outside now, looking in on today's America. This land is a great land, the best in the world. Freedom is a wonderful gift, and a treasure. But as for a lot of the people in this land? A load of douchebags, pig fuckers and crazed razor bladed freaks, waiting to cut you to sell your blood for their next rock of crack.
"Pearls before swine" he dubbed it. And that was the genius. Simple. Profound. Eloquent in its harshness. Gonzo journalism may live on in the heart of some bitter hazed blogger, but it will never be the same.
Thompson wrote about "the edge", that no one can relate to what it is like to be on the edge until you are at it or just past it. Some have said perhaps this was his reaching the edge, or that maybe he was sick. The fact is we'll never know. No note, no real knowledge of what was in his head (apart from the bullet) when he killed himself. And that, for a person who was as fiercely private as he was outspoken, is exactly the way that I would figure he would leave us. Frankly, it's not our goddamned business.
Rest well, old man. At least you don't have sit through the show anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment