Hunter S. Thompson's Last Words

Update: I was a day late and a dollar short with this post. If you want to see the full perspective, check out this story from the 2005 Washington Post.

Maybe you already knew about the suicide note that Hunter S. Thompson left behind. I did not. Seeing what it said in print today was pretty shocking. This is what Thompson chose as his final written legacy:

"No more walking, no more swimming, no more fun. Sixty-seven. That’s 17 years past 50, 17 more than I wanted or needed. I’m always grumpy, all the time. No fun for anybody. Relax. This won’t hurt much."

This hit the news today because Nick Nolte, who's going to narrate an upcoming Starz documentary about Thompson, quoted it from memory to a gathering of journalists here in Los Angeles for the Television Critics Association summer gathering. Nolte said he mostly knew Thompson from late-night telephone calls. He described that note as "powerful," saying that "it read like a poem."

I guess we shouldn't expect anything else from Thompson. Here's how Nolte described his friend's take on death itself.

"He was beyond me. It’s that capacity that I admired. He had no fear of it. He just went into it. And that’s what inspired me a lot about him."

I remember first reading "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" in college and wondering how anybody could write like that while being drunk and stoned at the same time. But as a journalism student at the University of Oregon, I have to tell you that we all thought he was damned interesting. Talk about a choice in role models: Bob Woodward on one hand and Hunter S. Thompson on the other.

The name of the documentary that Nolte's going to narrate is “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film,” which grew out of the memorial for the founder of gonzo writing in which Thompson, who committed suicide, also got his wish to have his remains shot into the skies. The man definitely had a theatrical streak...

I really like artist Bob Staake's take on Hunter S. Thompson that you see above right. That's how we should probably remember Thompson. Not as the man in failing health who turned into a grump and shot himself, but as a journalistic icon who could turn a phrase and spoke with passion and conviction.

That's how I see it... for what it's worth... "Take the Ride" will air in November.

Comments

[jesanah]

Juan Thompson and the Aspen Institute hosted a symposium on July 21, 2007 on the work of the late writer Hunter S. Thompson who created his own genre of writing with Gonzo Journalism and changed American political reporting forever with his book Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.

Thirty-five years later journalists Carl Bernstein, Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, Loren Jenkins of NPR, John Nichols of The Nation and others came together in a symposium moderated by Professor Douglas Brinkley to discuss the effect of Hunter's work on political reporting and American politics.

The hour and half event is exclusively available at www.HunterThompsonFilms.com in nineteen clips of free, streaming video produced by Wayne Ewing.

Jennifer Erskine

Associate Producer

[thecommentationalreviewer]

Ironically, the first I learned of Hunter S. Thompson was in the special edition of Rolling Stone Magazine printed in his honour after his death. When I read all those stories written by his friends and colleages and heard about all of the things he'd done in his life I realised just how interesting a person he was. I have yet to read the entirety of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, but what I have read so far has already changed by view of the world dramatically. I can't wait to see the documentary and understand (if it's really possible to understand such a complex man) more about his life and ideas.

[Paul McEnany]

I can't wait to see this...

I don't think he could have died any other way. All he did was add another layer to his legacy. He made his death more of just a crazy story rather than some grim tragedy. Not many people can pull that off and still retain their dignity.

Paul