This was a guy who got in there and lived the stories he covered,often becoming part of the story. Like when Hunter rode with Hell's Angels for 6 months to research his book. He was a fearless visionary who always pushed the envelope.
i wonder if the suicide was brought on by some kind of terminal illness like cancer. wouldnt suprise me. ill be re-reading hells angels soon!
"Things haven't changed all that much where George W. Bush comes from. Houston is a cruel and crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It's a shabby sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West -- which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch. " http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/6562575?rnd=1098818372056&has-player=false
From James Lileks: http://www.lileks.com/bleats/ HST killed himself. He never would have “turned his life around” – that’s a hard thing to try when the room’s been spinning for 40 years. Depression? Wouldn’t be surprising. A bad verdict from the doc? Wouldn’t be surprising. A great writer in his prime, but the DVD of his career would have the last two decades on the disc reserved for outtakes and bloopers. It was all bile and spittle at the end, and it was hard to read the work without smelling the dank sweat of someone consumed by confusion, anger, sudden drunken certainties and the horrible fear that when he sat down to write, he could only muster a pale parody of someone else’s satirical version of his infamous middle period. I feel sorry for him, but I’ve felt sorry for him for years. File under Capote, Truman – meaning, whatever you thought of the latter-day persona, don’t forget that there was a reason he had a reputation. Read "Hell's Angels." That was a man who could hit the keys right.
The main problem I have with suicide is that it is very short-sighted. I've had suicidal thoughts before. I'm sure everyone has. I really thought about it a couple of times during my divorce. I'm extremely happy I chose not to. Suicide is selfish, and dumb. I freaking guarantee you that if someone who commits suicide had stuck around, they would have come to the conclusion that whatever it was that they were down about was silly. Hell, when you think about it, everything is.
I think your post is a little short-sighted. I agree...there are trivial or short-sighted reasons and reasoning involved with why people commit suicide. But, that general logic doesn't apply to all people who commit suicide. One thing for sure...it's all in the eye of the beholder and anyone looking in from the outside would never be able to put themselves in that person's shoes and understand what their thought process was. They can just sit back and say "oh...he's a selfish idiot" or whatever. That doesn't make you right in all cases.
Lives change. People change. Life's an f'ing roller coaster. All I know is, I wouldn't let my 25 year old ass make my decisions. I realize he was 67. The fact is his 68 year old ass would kick his butt, if it could.
Well said. I think it is sad that he is gone, but I will not pay respect to someone that destroys the lives of those around them, because of his own personally needs. I would have felt better that he just have disappeared, that way it could have added some myth to his story, but to give up and kill your self is not right. I've had cousins that have committed suicide and I feel anger towards them for how deeply saddened those around them were, because of so many unanswered questions. The grieving people have no choice, but to move on and that is not always an easy thing to do. IMO suicide is the ultimate choice in giving up, because there is no turning back. It's final
My opinion is you have to at least be a grown-up to make such a decision. I think people who are younger who commit suicide are just giving up cause they don't want to deal with life when they really haven't experienced life. In that regard, I don't forgive them for giving up and throwing in the towel cause things were hard. Young people do tend to kill or attempt to kill themselves over stupid reasons. But, if you have been living in the real world for a while, having to support yourself, dealing with the real pressures of life, etc. and then you experience something traumatic, then whether a split second decision or a long, thought out decision...I could see someone choosing to end it. Granted, life is not easy and everyone usually experiences the real pressures of life...some more than others. Each person has a stack of bricks on their shoulders and those bricks can come crashing down. Some stacks of bricks are higher than other stacks depending on the person. I believe that, no matter what your intentions were, there is a breaking point for everyone. I'm sure a lot of people would say they would never, ever do it but, when the bricks come crashing down, then they would still do it. Some people may have no family left at all to worry about sparing the blow on while others are parents with kids. There are common situations out there where a parent with young kids kills himself because he feels he is an inadequate parent. Maybe he/she lost their job, cannot pay the bills, cannot find another job, etc. . That crap happens all the time. I would say the more common scenario is the divorce scenario with a suicide or murder-suicide. I think everyone has a breaking point they may not even be aware of. Then, they can't really say what they would do because they never really reached that point. To say you would never do it because you want to spare your family/friends the heart ache or whatever...I think whatever your problem is that has you thinking about suicide can overwhelm all other issues out there. If everyone was worried about sparing their friends and family their death, then there wouldn't be so many suicides. The fact is...when it comes down to it...a person on the brink is not likely to be having rational thought like that in the first place because they are in complete despair and pain in their minds. Their not going to spare everyone else who has their own lives when they cannot stand to be alive themselves. They have to live with and within themselves. Only they can make the decision to continue to exist or not. Surf
"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." -- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
It's just sad that, after being such a celebrated person with such clever and unique things to say, he still had to go and end it this way. As human beings, I think we need to take care of each other. This means respecting and nurturing life within our fellow human beings. It is natural to want to live and to want to grow and survive and succeed. That's part of nature, for humans and other creatures. Something must be really wrong for someone to turn on himself like that. I wonder if he was depressed. If anyone knew about it. We may never know the backstory. Sometimes people who are famous and celebrated live in a lonely bubble with no one understanding how they feel. Did the drugs mess things up? (I know this is un-PC to say lately, but psychoactive substances are just that... use at your own risk. They could very well mess with your brain chemistry.) Was he ill or in pain with a bleak prognosis? Even then, I can't understand why you wouldn't want to go out fighting. It's just sad that our society lets people get to the point where they're so depressed they don't nurture their own life. Will anyone step in and make these people feel like their life is worth continuing, instead of just saying to go ahead and kill themselves if they feel like it? I know there are some people who do it no matter what, and who will stop and nothing until they succeed. Well, they don't have to have any help in that from the rest of us. They can do it themselves. IMO, we as a society don't need to condone it. (and this is as D&D-ish as I like to get... I hate arguments. Just wondering what was going on in this poor guy's life to get him to that point. And how much other creativity and cleverness that was left in him that we'll never get to see now.)
Word is starting to leak that Thompson was likely "Deep Throat", via information given by unlikely buddy Pat Buchanan. Incredible if true.
I see suicide as an easy way out, but to each their own. In my couple experiences with suicide (a good friends father and a guy I knew in college) it seems like it effects so many people for a extended period (obviously in some cases their entire life), it's almost like the person who commited suicide passes on their problems to multiple loved ones. Hopefully he left a note or some communication to those folks as to why so they won't have to be personally tormented on why. Hopefully his loved ones can find peace. I didn't agree with Hunter on all his views but he was a tremendous writer.
This guy should get the a-hole of the year award. How could you possibly do this to your wife or anyone else over the phone? http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2005-02-25-thompson-phone_x.htm Widow: Thompson shot himself on phone ASPEN, Colo. (AP) — The widow of journalist Hunter S. Thompson said her husband killed himself while the two were talking on the phone. "I was on the phone with him, he set the receiver down and he did it. I heard the clicking of the gun," Anita Thompson told the Aspen Daily News in Friday's editions. She said her husband had asked her to come home from a health club so they could work on his weekly ESPN column — but instead of saying goodbye, he set the telephone down and shot himself. Thompson said she heard a loud, muffled noise, but didn't know what had happened. "I was waiting for him to get back on the phone," she said. Hunter Thompson, famous for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and other works of New Journalism, shot himself in the head Sunday in the kitchen of his Aspen-area home. He was 67. His son, daughter-in-law and 6-year-old grandson were in the house when the shooting occurred. Anita Thompson, 32, said her husband had discussed killing himself in recent months and had been issuing verbal and written directives about what he wanted done with his body, his unpublished works and his assets. His suicidal talk put a strain on their relationship, she said. "He wanted to leave on top of his game. I wish I could have been more supportive of his decision," she said. "It was a problem for us."
