Gone-zo

Or

Fear and Loathing and Ballistics in Aspen

Or

Looks like his loathing finally overcame his fear

(stiffs.com)

The Hunter became the hunted, as lunatic writer and journalist Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide rather than continue a telephone conversation with his wife. Thompson’s prose was fueled by random rage and enough narcotics to stun a brace of oxen, and he used profanity-laced tirades to bring readers inside his stories as Rolling Stones’ “gonzo” journalist. Ideally timed to appeal to a generation growing cynical by assassinations and the war in Vietnam, Thompson hit the peak of his fame as Rolling Stones national political correspondent covering the primaries and the presidential campaign of 1972 in a style unseen before in the staid, conservative world of political journalism. That year also saw the publication of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” chronicling his coked-up drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Such an outlandish figure seemed almost cartoonish, especially to Garry Trudeau, who based the character Uncle Duke on Thompson, prompting Thompson to say that if he ever met Trudeau, he would set him on fire. Other people Thompson hated included Hubert Humphrey, "a hopelessly dishonest old hack who campaigned like a rat in heat,” Bill Clinton, "It's almost embarrassing to talk about Clinton as if he were important. I'd almost prefer Nixon. I'd say Clinton is every bit as corrupt as Nixon, but a lot smoother," and Richard Nixon, to whom he offered the epitaph: "If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin." As befits a man of his caliber, Thompson’s ashes will be fired out of a cannon on his Aspen ranch.