Monday, February 21, 2005

 

Hunter S. Thompson, father of "gonzo journalism" dead at age 67

Why it is Marketwatch carried these two stories, I don't know...

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Hunter S. Thompson dead at 67

By MarketWatch
Last Update: 5:41 AM ET Feb. 21, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Hunter S. Thompson, author of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Hell's Angels," and an inspirational figure for writers and political activists, fatally shot himself Sunday night at his home near Aspen, Colo., according to media reports. He was 67.

"Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," Juan Thompson, the author's son, said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News.

The Associated Press reported that Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, a personal friend of Thompson, confirmed the death to the News. Juan Thompson found his father's body. Thompson's wife, Anita, was not home at the time, the AP said. It was not known late Sunday if the shooting was intentional.

In addition to the 1972 classic "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," he is credited with pioneering "gonzo journalism," a type of subjective reporting filled with the author's opinions and an exaggerated rhetorical style.

"Hunter was the most amazing writer I ever edited," said Larry Kramer, former Chairman and CEO of MarketWatch, now an executive for Dow Jones. "He was a true genius ... and a cult hero for a generation of writers, journalists and political activists."

Kramer recalled how, as executive editor at the San Francisco Examiner during the 1980s, he and Thompson, then a weekly columnist for the paper, would have "hour-long debates over the phone about a sentence or a paragraph ... mostly because he'd be constantly pushing to see if he was saying exactly what he wanted to say. We would fight him for every paragraph, hours after deadline, but when he would finally file, it was better than perfect."

Kramer said Thompson "had a better sense of politics and campaigns than anyone I've worked with. He could handicap 50 congressional races and be right on 49."

Kramer also said he remembered, vividly, several incidents working with Thompson.

"One time we got a call from a San Francisco hotel shortly after he had stayed there on a visit to see us," Kramer said. "They wanted us to pay $2,400 for his three nights. When we pressed for a detailed bill, there was a $2,000 item called 'miscellaneous damage' ... something to do with an ice machine that had been shot through with a gun."

The second, Kramer said, "involved a call from a hospital where he had been taken for an emergency appendectomy. They told us they couldn't perform the operation until they had spent a couple days giving him a full blood wash ... apparently his bloodstream was polluted with alcohol and several interesting drugs ... and they were afraid of side effects."

Thompson's other books include "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" and "The Proud Highway." His most recent effort was "Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and The Downward Spiral of Dumbness."

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Wonderfully outrageous

MarketWatch founder remembers Hunter S. Thomson

By Larry Kramer, MarketWatch
Last Update: 5:38 AM ET Feb. 21, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- There just is no way to tell a story about Hunter S. Thompson without it sounding totally outrageous.

That's what he was... wonderfully outrageous. He left a wake everywhere he went. No one who touched him, even briefly, came away with anything less than a bagful of colorful anecdotes.

How many people have had a cartoon caricature of themselves in the most popular comic strip in the country? As out there as the caricature was, however, it was tame next to the real thing.

I knew him as his editor, for a bit. When I became Executive Editor of the San Francisco Examiner in 1986, I inherited Hunter as our lead political columnist, once a week. He had been hired by my predecessor Dave Burgin, and had already worn out his welcome with several line editors, who almost killed themselves trying to get his column into the paper. I found the same problem, and every once in a while, when all the usual suspects had quietly slipped out of town, I would take the Sunday night duty of cajoling Hunter to get his Monday column to the desk, and would often have to edit it right on deadline, which was about 4 a.m. Monday morning.

I had heard thousands of stories about what a wild character he was and every time we met in person, he never failed to live up to his billing. The first time we met, he arrived an hour late for a dinner we had planned in a suburban Marin County restaurant. He showed up with a gym bag that had a bright pink Day-Glo tag which read "Firearms." He had flown to San Francisco with special permission to carry a bag loaded with weapons, including a knife and gun. (This was pre-9/11, of course). He immediately set off for the bathroom for a long period of time. When he returned and sat down he ordered two large scotches... 16 ounce glasses filled with some pretty old stuff. He downed them both in seconds. The dinner had just begun. He then proceeded to captivate all of us around the table with his predictions for the upcoming elections.

Sometime later I had the occasion to visit him in Woody Creek, Colorado. We agreed to meet for dinner at the Snowmass Resort Clubhouse, not far from his home. He was about an hour late for this one, too. But that didn't slow him down. He showed up with his newest assistant, a stunning 19-year-old Russian lit major from Princeton, I think, who had taken a semester off to live and work with Hunter in Woody Creek. They drove up in the biggest Cadillac I'd ever seen, and he proceeded to plop down at the table and order two bottles of Dom Perignon Champagne - despite the fact that I already ordered a couple bottles of very expensive Chardonnay. Silly me.

He had several appetizers and at least two main courses, and when the desert tray rolled by, he glanced at the dozen or so deserts being offered and with a theatrical wave of his hand said: "I'll take one of each....wrap 'em up." Then he left for the bathroom. Half an hour later his assistant said maybe we should try to find him. After a quick pass at the men's room, I found him at the bar singing with a bunch of visiting German sailors. I have no idea what they were singing, and I'm quite confident that neither did Hunter.

The only time I ever heard him humbled was one Sunday night after midnight. He was returning my call. I had been trying to reach him to get his column in. Unfortunately, my wife Myla answered the phone from bed before I could get to it. She lit into him like no one ever had, calling him a prima donna who didn't care about anyone but himself. While I listened with my mouth open to the floor, she hung up before I could grab the phone. Half an hour later the column arrived on my fax. It was terrific as always, but two or three hours earlier than he usually got it in. I learned later from someone who was with him at the time that he was stunned by her diatribe and quietly went back to his typewriter and banged the column out.

The fact is, this guy could write. No matter how long it took to get his column in, when it came, it was poetry. He could do more damage to a politician with half a dozen words than most columnists could in a full column. He wrote like he lived, with bold strokes and outrageous statements that always stopped people in their tracks and made them think. No matter what anyone thought of his style, they all respected his intellect.

I don't want to play down the problems he had - the celebrated massive drug and alcohol abuse. They were real and probably contributed to a life cut short too soon. They were terrible habits that probably kept him from taking his place as a true giant in the literary world. His famous bouts with "writers' block" probably had more to do with outside influences than any mental blocks. The amazing depictions of Hunter by Bill Murray and Johnny Depp were eerily on.

All that didn't matter when he did write. He was clever, informed, intelligent, witty and insightful - often all in one sentence. And I loved him for it. I was proud of the fact that we had gotten his column into the paper every Monday for a couple of years. And I was flattered to have been his editor, even for the few times it happened. Despite all of the hassles, I always felt like I was editing something that was so good it mattered. And despite the pain in the neck he often was, I would have given a lot to still be working with him.

I'll miss him....all of him.

Hunter S. Thompson died Sunday in apparent self-inflicted shooting. He was 67.

Larry Kramer was Chairman, CEO and founder of MarketWatch. He is now an executive at Dow Jones

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Well, there it is. I used to read his column a long time ago when I used to live in San Francisco.

Posted by: Rowlfe - at: 2/21/2005 04:30:00 AM

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