Okay, I just read the article about Hunter Thompson’s suicide.
Apparently, when he shot himself, his wife and son were not at home, having stepped out earlier that morning, probably to run some errands or something. Now all I can think about is, why did he choose that particular moment to do the deed? Had he been planning it for a long time, but for some reason was unable to get 2 minutes alone until that very moment?
“Hunter! What are you doing in there? There are other people here who have to use the bathroom too, you know!! “
OR:
“Hunter! Come downstairs! ‘8 mile’ is due back at the video store by tomorrow, so if we don’t watch it tonight we will have late fees!!!”
Or maybe that morning he and the wife were planning to go to the grocery store to buy food for the week, and they decided to sit down together and compile a list of what they needed. And he just wanted to get some beer & frozen pizzas ‘n shit, but SHE wanted to plan all these elaborate meals, one for each day of the week, and make everything from scratch and have salads & stuff because it’s healthier, even though he knew damn well that every time they tried to do that, all of the fresh fruits and vegetables and chicken breasts and salmon filets just sat in the damn fridge until they went bad, because let’s get real, at the end of a long day, who the hell wants to spend 2 hours making fucking dinner anyway. So they got into a huge fight, and she said “Fine! I’ll go to the store by myself! But I’m not getting you any of that fatty junk food so you can kill yourself with it!!!” And then she stormed out, hopped into the SUV, and drove into town. And then Hunter, still seething, ran through the house, systematically doing all of the things that drove his wife crazy. Flinging dirty underwear across the bedroom floor, leaving the toilet seat up, using her $80-a-bottle moisturizer instead of the $1.99 suave hand lotion, setting a pepsi on the mahogany coffee table without a coaster, and finally smashing her entire collection of Hummel figurines. Breathless, he realized he had crossed the line with that last act; she loved those damn figurines. There was only one way out of this pickle…….
Okay, there's a difference between cursing a dead man, and gallows humor (and for the record, I was not cursing in that previous comment. If you want to hear me curse a dead man, just ask me about Ronald "burn in hell" Reagan). I happen to be a big fan of Hunter S. Thompson, but when someone whose work you admire chooses to take their own life, sometimes the only way to make sense of it is through jocularity. Also, did you KNOW Hunter S. Thompson personally? I didnt. From his writings we get a glimpse of the man, and can make assumptions about his personality, and admire his astute observations and shout "hell yeah, this country with all of its conservative right-wingers is totally fucked", but we never actually hung out with him. Only his friends and family KNOW him....only they know both his good and bad qualities, the soup of emotional joys AND flaws that make up each human animal. I mourn the loss of Hunter S. Thompson for what his words and actions inspired in people, but I don't profess to know his precise motivations for killing himself. They could just as easily be as trivial and impulsive as the little rambling blurb I posted previously, fueled by lifelong battles with personal and pharmaceutical demons. But that is all conjecture on my part. Hunter S. Thompson was a fellow human being, not a god. And his reasons for choosing to leave this world are his own.
4 comments:
Stupid dummy self-killing dummy head. Can't say I'm surprised, though.
Okay, I just read the article about Hunter Thompson’s suicide.
Apparently, when he shot himself, his wife and son were not at home, having stepped out earlier that morning, probably to run some errands or something. Now all I can think about is, why did he choose that particular moment to do the deed? Had he been planning it for a long time, but for some reason was unable to get 2 minutes alone until that very moment?
“Hunter! What are you doing in there? There are other people here who have to use the bathroom too, you know!! “
OR:
“Hunter! Come downstairs! ‘8 mile’ is due back at the video store by tomorrow, so if we don’t watch it tonight we will have late fees!!!”
Or maybe that morning he and the wife were planning to go to the grocery store to buy food for the week, and they decided to sit down together and compile a list of what they needed. And he just wanted to get some beer & frozen pizzas ‘n shit, but SHE wanted to plan all these elaborate meals, one for each day of the week, and make everything from scratch and have salads & stuff because it’s healthier, even though he knew damn well that every time they tried to do that, all of the fresh fruits and vegetables and chicken breasts and salmon filets just sat in the damn fridge until they went bad, because let’s get real, at the end of a long day, who the hell wants to spend 2 hours making fucking dinner anyway. So they got into a huge fight, and she said “Fine! I’ll go to the store by myself! But I’m not getting you any of that fatty junk food so you can kill yourself with it!!!” And then she stormed out, hopped into the SUV, and drove into town.
And then Hunter, still seething, ran through the house, systematically doing all of the things that drove his wife crazy. Flinging dirty underwear across the bedroom floor, leaving the toilet seat up, using her $80-a-bottle moisturizer instead of the $1.99 suave hand lotion, setting a pepsi on the mahogany coffee table without a coaster, and finally smashing her entire collection of Hummel figurines. Breathless, he realized he had crossed the line with that last act; she loved those damn figurines. There was only one way out of this pickle…….
Okay, there's a difference between cursing a dead man, and gallows humor (and for the record, I was not cursing in that previous comment. If you want to hear me curse a dead man, just ask me about Ronald "burn in hell" Reagan).
I happen to be a big fan of Hunter S. Thompson, but when someone whose work you admire chooses to take their own life, sometimes the only way to make sense of it is through jocularity.
Also, did you KNOW Hunter S. Thompson personally? I didnt. From his writings we get a glimpse of the man, and can make assumptions about his personality, and admire his astute observations and shout "hell yeah, this country with all of its conservative right-wingers is totally fucked", but we never actually hung out with him. Only his friends and family KNOW him....only they know both his good and bad qualities, the soup of emotional joys AND flaws that make up each human animal.
I mourn the loss of Hunter S. Thompson for what his words and actions inspired in people, but I don't profess to know his precise motivations for killing himself. They could just as easily be as trivial and impulsive as the little rambling blurb I posted previously, fueled by lifelong battles with personal and pharmaceutical demons. But that is all conjecture on my part. Hunter S. Thompson was a fellow human being, not a god. And his reasons for choosing to leave this world are his own.
right on, jege!
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