Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter Stockton Thompson (born Louisville, Kentucky July 18, 1937) is an American journalist and author.

Hunter S. Thompson is often portrayed in popular culture as a dangerously absurd, drug-crazed journalist bent on comic self-destruction. While this portrayal is certainly not completely inaccurate, he is also considered by many to be one of the most important American writers of the 20th century.

Thompson is known for an explosive writing style that employs what he calls “action verbs” to comically spin outlandish tales that are completely unbelievable, yet providing a unique viewpoint to accurately describe the underling reality at hand. Thompson almost always writes in the first person narrative, and his stories become so colorfully contrived that they easily slip into the realm of fiction, however the basic framework of the story he is telling is often very true. Thompson’s writing style exploits this void between the realms of fiction and non-fiction, and it has become known as Gonzo Journalism.

Early Years

Thompson began his career in 1956 as a sports journalist, writing for the base paper at Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, where he was enlisted. After the Air Force, Thompson worked briefly as a copyboy for Time Magazine while living a beat-inspired lifestyle in New York City.

Thompson began vacationing extensively in the Caribbean Islands and South America, using his unique locale to freelance articles to a number of daily newspapers stateside. He befriended the journalist William Kennedy while in Puerto Rico, who would later win the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Ironweed. Thompson eventually became a somewhat celebrated South American correspondent for a Dow Jones owned weekly magazine called The Observer.

A modification of one of Thompson's original Gonzo flyers during his bid for sherriff of Aspen, Colorado.

In the meantime, Thompson wrote two serious novels (Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary) and copious amounts of short stories, none of which were published despite relentless submissions to publishers. Kennedy later remarked that he and Thompson were cohorts in the fact that they were, at the time, failed novelists who had turned to journalism in order to make a living.

Thompson got his big break when he pitched a story to Harper's Magazine about his relationship with the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, known erroneously at the time for exploits in murder and gang-rape. After the article was published, numerous book offers on the subject were awarded his way.

Middle Years to Present

He later worked for Rolling Stone magazine, where his next two books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail 1972 were first serialized.

Published in 1971, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a first-person account by a journalist of a trip to Las Vegas with his "300-pound Samoan" attorney to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400" motorcycle race. During the trip, the journalist and his lawyer become sidetracked by a search for the American dream, with the aid of heroic amounts of LSD, ether, adrenochrome, ibogaine and numerous other drugs. The journalist and the attorney are never named, but they are obviously thinly-disguised versions of Thompson himself, and his friend and lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta.

Thompson frequently refers to himself as "Raoul Duke" or "Dr. Gonzo." He received his 'doctorate' from a mail-order church in the sixties.

Some of Thompson's other books include Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, a collection of Rolling Stone articles he wrote while covering the campaigns of President Richard M. Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern.

In 1970, Thompson made an unsuccessful bid for Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. He ran on a platform promoting decriminalization of drugs and the sale thereof, and renaming Aspen, Colorado as "Fat City." The Republican sheriff against whom he ran had a crew cut, prompting Thompson to shave his head bald and refer to his opposition as "my long haired opponent."

Thompson has identified the death of the American Dream as his “reporter’s beat”, and has covered the subject in one fashion or another throughout his writing. During an interview with salon.com, however, Thompson was asked whether he was not, in fact, the living embodiment of the classic American Dream. He answered the question by first screaming a string of frustrated obscenities and then admitting that, in actuality, he probably was.

A slogan of Thompson's, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro," appears as a chapter heading in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He has also been quoted as saying "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

His latest book, Kingdom of Fear, is an angry commentary on the passing of the American Century. Thompson currently writes a Web column, "Hey Rube," for ESPN. He has at times also toured on the lecture circuit, once with John Belushi. Another modern appearance is through cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who based his Doonesbury character Uncle Duke on Thompson, to loud protests from Thompson himself. Similarly, Spider Jerusalem, the gonzo journalist protagonist of Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan, is (more lovingly) based on Thompson.

Thompson is an admitted fan of firearms and is known to keep a keg of gunpowder in his basement.

Movies

The film Where The Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts Thompson's attempts at writing stories for both the Super Bowl and the 1972 Presidential Election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Acosta, refered to in the movie as Carl Laslow, Esq.

The film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas : A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, based on the book was released in 1998, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro as the journalist and the attorney, respectively. The film, directed by Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam, has achieved something of a cult following.

Also, a new film is currently (2005) in production, based upon Thompson's novel The Rum Diary. Both Depp and Del Toro will be starring in this new Thompson film. Del Toro was supposed to have directed, but he withdraw in January of 2004. The director is yet to be announced.

Bibliography

• The Rum Diary: The Long Lost Novel (1959)
• Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (New York, Random House, 1966)
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Other American Stories (New York, Random House, 1971)
• Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 (San Francisco, Straight Arrow Books, 1973)
• Gonzo Papers, Vol. 1: The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (New York, Summit Books, 1979)
• The Curse of Lono, illustrated by Ralph Steadman (Bantam Books, 1983)
• Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (New York, Summit Books, 1988)
• Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (New York, Summit Books, 1990)
• Screwjack and Other Stories. (Santa Barbara, Neville Press, 1991)
• Gonzo Papers, Vol. 4: Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie Trapped Like a Rat in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood (New York, Random House, 1994)
• The Fear and Loathing Letters, Volume I -- The Proud Highway -- Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman 1955 - 1967 (New York, Random House, 1997)
• Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist 1968-1976 (Collection of Papers first appeared in Time magazine, 1997)
• Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century (Simon & Schuster; 1st Simon edition, November 1, 2003)
• --Hey Rube : Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness Modern History from the Sports Desk (Simon & Schuster, August 11, 2004)

External link

• The Great Thompson Hunt (http://www.gonzo.org)
• Thompson's ESPN column (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/archive?columnist=hunter_s._thompson&root=page2)
• IMDB site for Where the Buffalo Roam (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081748/)
• IMDB site for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120669/)
• IMDB site for The Rum Diary (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376136/)