The great seeker, author and journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, 67, was found dead in his home in Woody Creek, Colo., Sunday night of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His body has been cremated and arrangements are being made to have his ashes shot from a cannon.
The timing of his death is a shock to most, especially his family. He had a few upcoming writing projects and a rumored movie in the works based on his novel, "The Rum Diary."
The method of his departure, however, was not startling. Anyone who has studied or followed his career knew he was a man who took destiny and his life into his own hands.
It is easiest to say Thompson was the most prolific of the "new journalists," who tended to bend or break the rules of conventional journalism for something less banal and more real. Hunter especially advocated subjective journalism over the rules of objectivism.
This opinion and his liberal use of drugs and alcohol gave him the most interesting journalistic perspective of the 1970s.
He was begot of the baby boomer generation that was so optimistic in the '60s but slowly sold out to the stale and stagnant '70s. To him, they were a "generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers." Hunter, though a part of the culture, followed his own psuedo-'60s credo and lived it truly and unconditionally his entire life.
He once said of the '60s that "we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave ..." and that "you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
That was the moment the '70s started and when he really gained his notoriety. He worked for Rolling Stone in its early days and first published his masterpiece, "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas," in those same pages. He later went on to be their Washington correspondent and covered the '72 presidential campaign.
Some writers are said to use words like a knife, jabbing them between the third and fourth ribs and then twisting. Others use them like a blunt object to the temple. If one were to apply a similar analogy to Thompson, it could be said he used words like a tank, unrelentingly assaulting his enemies with a conflagration of hyperbole and slew. He was a behemoth watchdog -- the size of a rottweiler on steroids.
If he caught the scent of something fishy, he would tear the face off it and expose just how much there was to fear and loathe. Hunter was absolutely fearless when it came to exposing corruption and abuses of power, irrespective of his own personal safety.
But he managed to do it while keeping us all laughing. That combination of seriousness, rock 'n' roll and wit gave him a very strong connection with his readers. He was his own main character in every piece he wrote and was master of telling his own story.
Hunter S. Thompson was a true original: outlandish, irreverent and completely honest. He was no saint, but his lifestyle may be more indicative of our culture than we are ready to admit.
His public persona was only mirrored by the society that entertained it, and perhaps he stands as a grim reminder of how decadent and depraved we've allowed ourselves to become.
I know Hunter was not a religious man, and neither am I. But if there were some sort of an afterlife or if his consciousness were still out there, I'd imagine him sitting in the Great Red Shark, staring down the road of infinity as he drove straight into the maw of the abyss.
Maholo, Doc.
Chase B. Johnson is a journalism senior. Reach him at chase.johnson@asu.edu.
