It Never Did Get Weird Enough

Julian Sanchez | September 8, 2005

Boing Boing links to news that Rolling Stone will publish Hunter Thompson's last written words, which in the context of his suicide, seem especially sad:

No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt.

Matt Welch's obit of the late doctor is here.

Comments

|9.8.05 @ 4:50PM|#

Wow.

|9.8.05 @ 6:29PM|#

I don't find it sad at all.
He died on his own terms, just like he lived.

|9.8.05 @ 6:31PM|#

Sounds like he might have been a victim of the youth cult, considering himself old at 67.

Not good.

|9.8.05 @ 7:48PM|#

Is Hunter Thompson the most over-rated writer in US history?

I mean, half of his writing is a haze, the other half pure scaremonger.

He made a life because he was stoned in Vegas for a week and a bunch of other stoner's loved it.

|9.8.05 @ 8:25PM|#

Sounds like he might have been a victim of the youth cult, considering himself old at 67.

I'm 30, and I consider myself old.

|9.8.05 @ 8:43PM|#

Thomas Paine's Goiter-

I'd be really interested to know how much of his work you've actually read. It doesn't sound to me like much.

Chris|9.8.05 @ 9:52PM|#

What TPG said.

|9.8.05 @ 10:27PM|#

Tom Wolfe on Hunter Thompson:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms/printThis.html?id=110006325

|9.9.05 @ 1:26AM|#

I've read a TON of his stuff. I, like all kids, got caught up in the "coolness" of Thompson at one point. Then I got older and realized that it's crap.

|9.9.05 @ 3:54AM|#

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas is a genuinely great novel, for reasons mostly different from those that make 18-year-olds think it's cool; Hell's Angels is a classic of journalistic sociology. His later stuff is indeed largely crap. But for much of his earlier stuff, I think there's a kind of tri-level, Jello-mold style thing happening: The gut sense that it's cool, the reflective sense that it's overrated, and the on-second-thought reflective recognition that it's actually damn good on better grounds than the ones on which it initially appealed.

|9.9.05 @ 10:12AM|#

Akira,

Based on the personal sexual history you shared with us I feel safe to say that you are not only young, but you are also low-mileage. Attack life, girl! You got a lot of tread left on your tires.

Back to H.S. Thompson - He was a true beacon for freedom and independent thought. I admire his hatred of authority and mindless conformity. I do not think he is the most overrated writer in American History. For this dubious honor I would nominate Tom Clancy and Steven King.

|9.9.05 @ 11:44AM|#

Attack life, girl!

Um, Akira's a man, Crushinator. :)

|9.9.05 @ 12:26PM|#

I won't say that Thompson was one of the best American writers, but I think (though I'm not particularly well-read) that he was one of the more original ones.

He obviously believed he had nothing left to live for, and while that thought saddens me, it was ultimately his call to make, wasn't it?

|9.9.05 @ 1:25PM|#

"I'm 30, and I consider myself old."

I bet you're only happy when it rains, too. Mr. "I see through all our society's bullshit" MacKenzie seems to have bought right into our culture's youth obsession, where 30 is "old." Chin up, boy, you'll know old soon enough.

|9.9.05 @ 2:44PM|#

Akira,

Sorry about the gender confusion. Smacky set me straight.

I suppose libertarians should be "gender blind" as well as "color blind".

Nevertheless, 30 is a damn fine age to be. It is far from old. I admire your sense of urgency, as life is way too short.