Ten years ago today, the infamous gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson took his own life. Many volumes have been written since then theorizing why Hunter chose to deprive the world of his twisted tales of the Death of the American Dream. Did the drugs finally get to him? Had the muse deserted him? I didn’t know him other than a few brief encounters, but I believe that age and abuse had taken its toll. He had been largely confined to a wheelchair after hip surgery. How could that ever compare to careening through the Nevada desert in The Great Red Shark, pursued by deadly poisonous flying manta rays?
The following story chronicles one of those encounters. It’s all true. I swear…
Hunter’s ghost still haunts the Colorado mountain town of Aspen… http://www.smh.com.au/world/hunter-s-thompsons-freakish-legacy-lives-on-in-aspen-20150220-13k56l.html
Christ, has it been 10 years since Hunter decided to pack it in??? I can recall being shocked – but not at all surprised – at the news. A close friend of mine, and a fellow HST aficionado, exchanged emails with me in the wake of Hunter’s demise, and my friend characterized his suicide as “the longest trigger pull in the world.”
R.I.P., Dr. Thompson. The world is a far less interesting place without you…
The Woody Creek Tavern has become a shrine to the late doctor of gonzo… http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-hunter-thompson-bar-20150529-story.html