Haruka, Stepping Razor, and HST fans:

[Sugar Smack]

WHY are you so attached to Doctor Gonzo? I would love to know, because he helped me through my college years & I feel attached to him too. He taught me how to:

Cuss
Fight
Drink rum
Write
Love
Hate
Eat well
Correspond with others by mail

And his buddy Ralph Steadman taught me how to paint & enjoy wine.
:loveya: both.

[Downtown Hound]

1. For the same reasons you are

He had more guts and passion in his left little pinky than most of us do in our whole bodies. A great man.

[Sugar Smack]

2. I FREAKING LOVE PASSION.

I love HST for that.

[Richardo]

3. He always made massive drug use sound so FUN...

...I was always too chicken to try, so he was my vicarious druggie.

"We were driving on the edge of the desert through Barstow when the drugs began to take effect..."

[Richardo]

5. BTW, Sugie: Steadman has a new memoir of HST out...'The Jokes Over'

I paged though it the other day and it looks pretty good :hi: :pals:

[Sugar Smack]

6. Same HERE!

Why in the fuckety-fuck would I inhale a bunch of multicolored tablets with no expiration date on them? The doctor did it for us, my honey. :pals:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

8. Ah, the drug speech...

"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salteshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we need all that for the trip, but once you got into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. the only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon."

[Richardo]

11. .

:rofl:

I LOVE that passage!!

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

4. Pretty much the same here...

I mean, come on...

"I'd hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone. But they've always worked for me."

That's a damn good motto, right there.

And his "Ode to Jack (Kerouac)"...

"...Now I want to tell you about Jack. (mumbling) Jack had a great influence on me. Now I want read my poem to Jack. This is my ode to Jack. He remains one of my heroes. Ah, how about this? This is called...ah...let's see. Maybe Ode to Jack. Yeah, Ode to Jack. Alright. Four dogs went to the wildnerness. Only three came back. Two dogs died from guinea worm. The other died from you. Jack Kerouac. No Jack was not innocent. He ran over dogs. Just think of it. Man. Nevermind. Okay, that's well enough for now. Thank you very much. Jack was an artist in everyway. I admire the dog thing most of all."

[Sugar Smack]

9. I just love you, Haruka.

Also, remind me to never get on your bad side. GAWD, you're yummy!!!!:bounce: :toast: :grouphug:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

12. Haha...yeah, I'm a pretty bad person to deal with once I'm pissed off.

You're pretty yummy yourself.

:toast:

:loveya:

[SteppingRazor]

7. Politically, he's about as close to my views as they come...

Despite our overall liberal tendencies, the doctor and I share a distinct libertarian, anarchic streak.

And while I started writing for newspapers before I ever heard of the man, and had even started using some of the "New Journalism" devices in my writing, it was Thompson that convinced me to dive into this industry full bore. So, in many ways, I owe him what I am today, both in terms of my career and parts of the style and voice of my writing. After all, to quote Isaac Newton, "If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."

As for the drugs and the demon rum and the penchant for firearms, I wouldn't say Thompson influenced me in that regard. Instead, I sort of fell into certain vices, and Thompson made me realize that I could be who I wanted to be and still be taken seriously among a certain segment of the population.

It's funny you mentioned love and hate. One other thing I learned from Hunter Thompson is that subjective journalism is not only good, but necessary when covering men whose entire purpose appears to be greedy means to powerful ends. Another thing I learned -- a valuable lesson for any caring, decent liberal who wants to wade into the political arena -- is that hate is not intrinsically bad. To quote Thompson's obituary of Richard Nixon:

"I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with him. I have already been there with that bastard, and I am a better person for it. Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together.
Nixon laughed when I told him this. "Don't worry," he said. "I, too, am a family man, and we feel the same way about you."

Hunter Thompson taught me that righteous hatred of evil men is nothing to be ashamed of or to doubt.

Overall, in terms of my career, my writing, my politics, my muse ... hell, even my life as a whole, the doctor's influence is incalculable. To use one of his common lines, He stomped the terra, and marched on a road of bones. And for good or ill, a lot of us have marched behind. I certainly don't want to be seriously compared to the man -- anyone who ever saw him speak or met him will tell you that he quite lived up to his legend, and not necessarily in a good way. But the idea of the man -- the idea that someone can cut right into the heart of law and power and still live entirely by his own rules -- is one that I will always treasure.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

10. Wow, you just summed it up beautifully right there.

I also have that libertarian, anarchistic streak.

[SteppingRazor]

14. Thanks, haruka!

Y'know, I've said it a lot more succinctly before: "If Hunter Thompson had never lived, we would have to invent him."

Thank God truth is stranger than fiction, eh?

[Sugar Smack]

18. He hated "power" so much.

You wrote it so beautifully-"It's funny you mentioned love and hate. One other thing I learned from Hunter Thompson is that subjective journalism is not only good, but necessary when covering men whose entire purpose appears to be greedy means to powerful ends. Another thing I learned -- a valuable lesson for any caring, decent liberal who wants to wade into the political arena -- is that hate is not intrinsically bad." He taught me that I can do this and keep my dignity. :loveya:

[LoZoccolo]

13. I used to think it was because he was an old guy who was still fun...

...but then he shot himself, citing his age and lack of fun. :cry:

[Sugar Smack]

19. He's my hero. I wish I'd seen him shot out of a cannon.

:hug: :cry: :pals:

[LoZoccolo]

15. Oh wait, did you really mean Dr. Gonzo, or HST?

Because Dr. Gonzo is the other guy (Oscar Zeta Acosta).

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

16. HST is also referred to as "The Good Doctor" or "Doctor". nt

[jus_the_facts]

17. Because.......

....I've been to *the edge* and back...and his words always resonated with me...be it about drugs...politics...sports...he was one in a trillion all the way around! :hi:

[Sugar Smack]

20. YES HE WAS!

:pals: :yourock: :hi: I miss him every day I look at my bookshelf. Which is every day.

[jus_the_facts]

23. As I do my sig line..and why I have a little tribute to him on my journal

....I'da given my overies to have been able to attend the memorial service he planned and his family and friends made it happen in his memory....what a TRIP that woulda been inDEED! :hug: :loveya:

Here's a bookmark where I posted about the event...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=2872401

[Mike03]

21. Me too

I wonder if we are the same age, because I could have written this post. I even remember the day that I and some buddies first went to store to buy Wild Turkey. But even before that, I remember a long, horrible summer alone in a dormatory in Los Angeles, and the only thing I felt I was hanging onto was "The Great Shark Hunt." I could relate to that insanity, even though it had been written a long time ago. It meant so much to find a writer who was okay being in a state of complete chaos. It made all the difference. Later in my life, I began collecting first editions of his work. I wept at work the day he died, and, well, I don't know how to finish this sentence.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

[spacelady]

24. I had the worst birthday of my life on Feb 20th & then the next day

I found out HST had killed himself the day before. Coincidence?
I think not. I was in awe of him.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

25. February 20th is my b-day too..

It was horrible...in every way.

[Mike03]

22. Man, this thread is sad

I think I somehow managed to pretend he was still alive or something. Time to face that he's gone. It's hard. He would have understood this time and the complicated emotions they engender more than most people.

My dad knows somebody who has a great HST story about him attempting to place a wire in a hotel. But he told it to me the day HST died, and I was only half-listening, and I don't want to get it wrong. But the point of the story was, he really was the real thing.