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Great eulogy, Reid, but sad news. And so mawkishly Hemingwayesque of HST.

Well said. After pulling up the news last night about 1 am, I was saddened, had trouble sleeping. Woke up this morning and the news was still there. In every respect, he was “one of us”.

I’m about halfway through “Kingdom of Fear”, and over the past months and years, as grim as things get, I could always slide over to Page 2
for a much needed laugh.

If he can’t take it, what’re the rest of us supposed to do?

I’ve always understood “selah” to be akin to “so be it,” at least in the biblical context where I encountered it. In the modern vernacular, I think the flavor is captured by “whatever.”

I’m glad I didn’t find this out before bedtime, or I, too, would have had trouble sleeping. I might have dug out my much abused copy of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (is that a bong water stain?) and spent the night reading through it, wondering why nothing in today’s media world approaches its truth.

Selah, indeed.

“If he can’t take it, what’re the rest of us supposed to do?”

Carry on, with the knowledge that you can burn too brightly. Be more satisfied with our 99.8% creations (which we sometimes amusingly call “failures”), knowing what 100% can bring. Know that as we age, the fire is almost always going to look dimmer than it once did, but it’s still well worth tending.

“is that a bong water stain?”

Yes, it is. And if Hunter saw it, he’d blast you for smoking dirtweed that would leave such a weak stain … “Let’s smoke something we can all get off on.”

The news disturbed me last night, and that’s why I stayed up to write this. Today, it disturbs me even more. And not just because there will be no more quotes from The Good Doctor. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s a sense that the creative universe, which is supposed to be limitless, just found a new boundary.

I liked Dr. Thompson’s writing as well. I suppose his work was always suffused with a lack of concern for death. And I have long understood that one’s life is lived most enjoyably if one does not fetishize its continuance.

But mocking death is categorically different from inviting it in for milk and cookies. I can’t bring myself to give the final huzzahs in the face of a suicide.

Way back when, in my younger (read: stupider) days, I thought HST was pretty damn cool. I read pretty much all of his earlier work, and thought like the current crop of eulogists do- that he was some kind of genius, breaking new ground.

Man, was I wrong. With the experience of years, it’s become painfully obvious that there isn’t a thing funny about substance abuse, be it alcohol, pot, mescaline, or methamphetamines. What used to be a gag to a college-age me is now laid bare as a truth- it’s an epidemic in our country, getting worse by the day, specifically as regards the meth labs. My business is affected, as we now have to place high security on the anhydrous ammonia in the refrigeration systems. My county has record numbers of children who are beaten, neglected, sexually abused, or worse due to people doing just what Thompson said was cool- getting wasted, and going wild.

As for his writing, I can’t say I’m entertained now. Not just the repugnant message, but the style- just toss together some words that surely haven’t been put together before, dance around it some, call it prose, and cash the checks. He is to literature what Jackson Pollack is to art- someone spilling paint and selling it to the pretentious. He’s not the only one who has done this (though arguably he may have been one of the first)- Gallagher, the comedian was a master of it, and Dave Barry surely does a better job of it. The only real difference between Dave Barry and HST is that one is (was) meaner.

While I mourn the passing of anyone, I can’t say HST’s surprises me. If nothing else, it should serve as proof that the lifestyle he so espoused is only one thing- a dead end.

Well, I know what you’re saying, but I don’t think you can blame HST for the meth labs in your ‘hood. That’s a larger societal issue. And I would point out that I read Fear and Loathing at the age of 17, and didn’t go off the deep end. Nor did most. If you are susceptible to substance abuse problems, you’ll find your own trigger. Even if HST had never published a word.

But to the larger point, a “dead end” lifestyle, it’s not like he invented it. How long is the list of highly talented people whose “creativity” spilled over into a fast lane lifestyle of excess eventually leading to a sad death? Hemingway, Hendrix, Joplin, Belushi … the list is endless, and now Thompson is on it.

And that’s the reason I brought up Eugene Smith. He’s always been an example for me, that creative people can easily get unbalanced, and that great work can be far outweighed by the toll it takes on their lives. And each time I see a new example of it, I wonder why it has to be that way. Without the mania that brought death, would the work have sung the same?

And if not, does it matter?

Todd H. wrote:

“As for his writing, I can’t say I’m entertained now. Not just the repugnant message, but the style- just toss together some words that surely haven’t been put together before, dance around it some, call it prose, and cash the checks. He is to literature what Jackson Pollack is to art- someone spilling paint and selling it to the pretentious. He’s not the only one who has done this (though arguably he may have been one of the first)- Gallagher, the comedian was a master of it, and Dave Barry surely does a better job of it. The only real difference between Dave Barry and HST is that one is (was) meaner.”

It doesn’t sound like you ever really read his stuff, or maybe you just didn’t comprehend it. I can see how you (and a lot of people) can be offended by drugs, but how can you focus on that and miss his passionate writing defending the 1st, 2nd and 4th Amendments? I don’t know, maybe you find that stuff repugnant too. How about the ESPN stuff? I thought the last article about a new sport combining golf and skeet shooting was pretty good.

I found at least one quote from him that’s very anti-drug. I mean, what kid would find anything attractive about od-ing on alcohol and coke and having to be dragged out of a hotel bathtub?

This is from an interview with Tim Grieve posted on Salon. The context is George Bush showing up at a Thompson party with a coke dealer at a 1974 Superbowl party:

“He knew who I was, at that time, because I had a reputation as a writer,” Thompson said. “I knew he was part of the Bush dynasty. But he was nothing, he offered nothing, and he promised nothing. He had no humor. He was insignificant in every way and consequently I didn’t pay much attention to him. But when he passed out in my bathtub, then I noticed him. I’d been in another room, talking to the bright people. I had to have him taken away.”

Reid:

Very nice eulogy, the best of the sympathetic ones I’ve seen, to include Tom Wolfe’s in the WSJ. Your comparison to another creative guy is apt perpspective. Well done.

I do agree with emcee fleshy about huzzahs being out place (did you see Jay Bookman in the AJC declaring HST’s end “perfect”?—yikes) My first thought upon hearing this news was: “Chicken.”

As for the story quoted by rturner, I have no doubt that something like could have happened, given contemporaneous reports on young Bush. Yet having read (starting at 17 or 18) FL Vegas, FL Campaign Trail, Gen of Swine, Songs of the Doomed, Great Shark Hunt, and Curse of Lono (never finished—ugh), somehow I am less likely to believe the story because it comes from HST.

And hey, rturner, you and I may be smarter than the Prez, HST may have been smarter than the Prez—but GWB’s job today requires judgment and will and I am happy with what he has shown of both, irrespective of the bathtubs of youth.

Last note, “Selah” may be in the Bible but aren’t Atlantans required to give a hat tip to Furman Bisher when we use it?!

Thanks for your website, pictures, and thoughts Reid. Sure enjoy ‘em.

rturner wrote:

“It doesn’t sound like you ever really read his stuff, or maybe you just didn’t comprehend it. I can see how you (and a lot of people) can be offended by drugs, but how can you focus on that and miss his passionate writing defending the 1st, 2nd and 4th Amendments? I don’t know, maybe you find that stuff repugnant too. How about the ESPN stuff? I thought the last article about a new sport combining golf and skeet shooting was pretty good.”

Actually, you’d be wrong there – I read a LOT of HST’s stuff, up to the point where it got to be the same old stichk over and over- “blah blah Bastard blah blah weasels ripped my balls blah blah more Wild Turkey blah blah.”

Really though I’m disappointed that the best you managed in your disagreement was to attack me, rather than come up with a reason to dispute my opinion. Implying that I “don’t comprehend it” was pretty low, but making out like I’m against several Constitutional amendments was weak, severely. Fact is, on a very personal level, I found HST to be one of the worst friends the 2nd amendment ever had, and as y’all probably know, that amendment is one of my favorites.

As for the article about golf and skeet you mentioned, I finally found it –
Shotgun Golf

I guess when you’re famous, you get to make claims like this, but I’ve got a little clue for the masses- he didn’t even come CLOSE to ‘inventing’ this- I was doing it in 1991. I watched a trick shooter do a show at Cherokee Rose down south of Atlanta, where he’d have folks throw golf balls out and he’d shoot them. Afterward, a friend bet me that I couldn’t shoot his ball as he hit it with a driver.. I took him up on it, standing about 10 feet to the side, and never missed- a straightaway is an insanely easy shot to make. As for HST’s claim that birdshot is too small, and that he had to go to ‘double-ought’, that’s a load of horsepuckey. There are twelve pellets in a 2-3/4 inch size #00 12 gauge shell, each is .33 cal. There are about 700 much smaller pellets in a 2-3/4 inch #7 1/2 shell, which is a common birdshot size. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that you’re much more likely to make contact with the ball with the smaller shot size, and it doesn’t take much of a punch to zing the ball off at a wierd angle. I speak from experience.

In any case, having re-reviewed a few of his more recent items, I have to stand by my opinion. He was nothing special as a writer- there are few published writers who you couldn’t dig up some good quotes from, including Reid Stott. His lifestyle was repugnant, and in the end, it wasn’t stylish or ‘cool’ to off himself, it was just simple proof of failure.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that you’re much more likely to make contact with the ball with the smaller shot size, and it doesn’t take much of a punch to zing the ball off at a wierd angle. I speak from experience.”

Ah, it feels like Old Times: Assholes fighting about politics and guns (note: “Assholes” when capitalized is a hard earned term of respect given to few, not an insult). If I could restyle this comment thread to look like the output of Agent, it would be just like mindspring.discussion.general, circa summer 1996.

Paul, Richard, Todd, Reid … where’s the Chief and Wally?

Todd, first off, I’m really sorry about not providing a link to the Shotgun Golf article. I’m bad about that, sorry you had to dig.

I honestly couldn’t figure out your objection to HST. But again, honestly speaking, if your entire objection to his work is that you regard it as one long pro-drug message, I don’t think you got it. I figured you had some objection to his political stuff, but you don’t mention any, except a vague “repugnant message”.

You said, “He is to literature what Jackson Pollack is to art- someone spilling paint and selling it to the pretentious”. Now that’s just a flatout shallow interpretation. Let me say that I know nothing about Jackson Pollack; I didn’t even watch the movie. But my hunch tells me that he didn’t become famous by “spilling paint and selling it to the pretentious.” I’ve been to parties in homes where they have some fairly important art hanging on the walls. Since art fascinates me, even though I’m fairly ignorant, I’d ask the homeowners about various paintings and sculptures, just to learn something.

Invariably, they’d talk about the work as if it was a family member. They’d point out subtleties that I didn’t understand, how the work communicated to them, how it touched them. It was a learning experience for me. If these friends of mine are at all typical, they don’t buy art to be pretentious. They buy it because it touches them.

It’s the same with HST. Every artist has various forms of craftsmanship. You could call them gimmicks. But in the end, is their work just the gimmick, as you imply of Thompson’s work? Sorry, but I think that’s a shallow interpretation. I wasn’t attacking you.

Someone recently paid nearly $600,000 for the original of dogs sitting around playing cards. Seriously, I’m not making that up. The point being that various forms of creative output, be it painting, music, or writing, are viewed with great variance. One man’s trash is another man’s Velvet Elvis.

I wonder if Poe was vilified when he died for writing dark stuff and being an addict…

Let’s see if I can explain it better..

First of all, anyone who can find any subtleties in Jackson Pollack’s work is lying to themselves. I always think of the picture I’ve seen of him standing on a ladder with a sponge and a bucket of paint, dripping splashes on a canvas that’s on the floor six feet below. To some people that may be art, but then to some people a crucifix immersed in urine was art, too. Neither required real talent, only either timing or shock value.

I didn’t say Thompson’s stuff was just an advertisement for drugs, though I suppose to some it may have been. I said the theme was repugnant. That’s a side issue. The problem I had with his work was the same problem I have with actors like Pauly Shore and Rob Schieder- they are very entertaining, for about 10 minutes. After that, you’ve heard on too many “GIRL..Friend..” jokes, it’s the same old grind, same joke over.. and over… and over.. and over.. and over.. and.. over.

Thompson’s style, which I’ve already said has been co-opted and improved on by Dave Barry, is to put very opposing and unexpected terms together in a comedic way. Fine, no sweat, but it gets boring after a while. Even I can’t read a Dave Barry book, and I think he’s a riot. I like Barry because he’s not in it for the shock value, he tried to connect with folks. HST was the same song- crazy terms tossed together, but with a side of Howard Stern- get nasty to get the shock value, and get the sale.

It was funny, yah.. Once, maybe twice. After a life of it, it was lame. Punctuating it with a suicide didn’t make it better, either.

“First of all, anyone who can find any subtleties in Jackson Pollack’s work is lying to themselves.”

Your final arbitration of art is pretty harsh, don’t you think? Is it possible that for you Pollack’s work had no subtlety, yet also possible someone else might see something in it you miss? Or are you the only one who has ever seen something that someone else missed? Are there things that you appreciate that others seem to not even notice? It works the other way, too.

Art is like beauty, Todd. It is in the eye of the beholder. I’d go ever further and say it is in the eye of the creator, but no need to get deep.

“Thompson’s style, which I’ve already said has been co-opted and improved on by Dave Barry”

Then I guess I need to read either more Thompson or more Barry (and I thought I’d read a good bit of both), because I see no similarity in their styles at all … other than they wrote things that sometimes made people laugh. I mean, Dave Barry’s life was turned into a sitcom (briefly), and focused mainly on his family, his dogs, his life, and odd things like exploding toilets and flaming Pop Tarts. Maybe it’s that “eye of the beholder” thing…

“Punctuating it with a suicide didn’t make it better, either.”

There, I’d probably have to agree with you. Maybe not so much the act itself, but the manner, with a house full of loved ones. Seems particularly cruel to those left behind.