Hunter S. Thompson, the prime progenitor of "gonzo journalism" killed himself last week in Aspen. His suicide prompted me to post what I wrote for another blog. Give it a read but then you've got to check out the follow-up story from the Rocky Mountain News about what's happened since with his widow, his "legacy," and the weird wake at which Thompson's physical shell played guest of honor. That story connects to this link. Anyhow, here's my post along with the link to Stephen Schwartz' commentary...
Having been in the midst of moving the last couple of days, I've just gone back to the old apartment where the computer is still hooked up so I could get online and find out if the world is still here. It is. But I see too that Hunter S. Thompson is no longer in it.
Either under the influence of one of Thompson's many "recreational" drugs or, as seems more likely, simply to escape the challenges of advancing age, the father of "gonzo journalism" has shot himself. This particular suicide probably doesn't mean much to most Americans but to those who yet remember (even if they no longer identify with) "beat generation" icons such as Kerouac, Kesey and Thompson, the significance is profound for it underscores the spiritual bankruptcy of the whole movement.
Like most rebels, the Beats concerned themselves with playing counter-culture rather than producing a counter-culture. To be sure, they had talent and personality and, oh yes, rage...but they completely lacked the things most basic to life, be it social or individual. They had no transcendent morality; no valid criterion for establishing truth; no power to live beyond the physical appetites. They grew hoarse from shouting but to no avail. The revolution fizzled and the would-be revolutionaries drifted away, many, like Thompson, turning to the escapism of personal pleasure. But, it doesn't take much to discover that the season of that pleasure is very, very short. Hunter S. Thompson experienced the tri-fold anguish of being, as described in the New Testament, "without hope, without God, in the world." And so he turned to escapism again, this time to what he believed (wrongfully) was the ultimate escape; namely, the oblivion of the person.
Stephen Schwartz has a revealing column in the Daily Standard on the impotence of the "beat" movement. Read it here.
