Goodbye Dr. Gonzo, Hunter Thompson Commits Suicide

I was more than surprised to see the Dr. Gonzo tribute on a side bar at a movie site. I had no idea he died. He committed suicide! That is a real shock to me. Some people say I should not be surprised at all. He lived a life full of heavy drugs, alcohol fueled with hard rushes of adrenaline with a lot of help from other substances most people never heard of. This takes him way over any line.


Maybe he has been trying to commit suicide for years and he continued to miraculously survive every writing assignment and book. He is a Rasputin like figure but seems nicer somehow. He was always trying to show us what was wrong with a lot of things rather than actually do wrong. If all those drugs did not kill him (If you read his books, he takes so much stuff all at once on some days, medically, he is long much more than gone.) I hear from certain sources that is true and he has been spoken of as having the constitution of a bull.


Who would have ever guessed he was suicidal? I would like my own compound. He seems to have something to live for. I am sometimes wrong about people and how amazingly well they can hide their sadness. I suppose a compound helps one accomplish this task.


Some critics said his last column story, "Death in the Afternoon," seemed to have an air of prediction of this event about it:


The violent death of Dale Earnhardt hit the sport of professional auto racing harder than anything in memory since the assassination of John Kennedy. People who'd never even watched a NASCAR race were deeply disturbed by it, for reasons they couldn't quite explain. It seemed to send a message, an urgent warning signal that something with a meaning beyond the sum of its parts had gone Wrong & would go Wrong again if something big wasn't cured -- not just in racing, but in the machinery of the American nation. (Excerpt from the link.)


Thompson had a cutting edge in writing that really stripped the meat right off the bone. Here is his, now ironic, obituary of Nixon that did more than bury him:


Richard Nixon is gone now and I am poorer for it. He was the real thing -- a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that "I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned 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. (Excerpt from this link)

(That is a special for all of you who do not like the tradition of sentimentalizing the dead too much.)

So a lot of people say I should not be surprised about this really sad death. Although his talents came through some really hard and unconventional ways, not to mention illegal methods, I am very sorry for the loss of Dr. Hunter Thompson. His works have filled my mind with ponderings, and disbelief that work their way towards amazement. He surprised me again but this is a tragedy in many more ways than one.

Goodbye Hunter S. Thompson. I hope you find your way home to wherever people like you come from.