Guest Book

R.I.P. Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) For anyone who still believes in the Tooth Fairy, John Wayne's America, or George W. Bush's view of the world, they are in for a rude awakening if they ever stumble upon the work of Hunter S. Thompson. Most of them have no idea who he was and probably don't understand the snowball of media coverage that has been rolling and growing bigger since Thompson died Sunday. It's their loss. (denverpost.com a good source of info.) Someone laid a copy of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" on me back in the day and said, "Here, you've gotta read this." So I did. It's the kind of book that caused me to laugh out loud, even though I was by myself. Laugh till tears rolled down my cheeks, till my stomach hurt. So I went on to read some of his other works, including "Hells Angels," "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972" and "The Great Shark Hunt." Fine books, all; if you haven't read them, give 'em a try. The kind of people who get what Thompson wrote about, who laughed or sometimes were left with the profound and sinking feeling that something is wrong in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, are the kind of people who like the Grateful Dead and/or the Allman Brothers. The kind of people who refuse to accept the status quo and what is spoon-fed them by "the authorities." The kind of people who stayed up all night with a twinkle in their eyes, having fun with their friends ... laughing so hard that the next morning, their stomachs hurt as if they had done a hundred sit-ups the day before. You know what I'm talking about. People like you and me. One of my college professors figured out that I am one of those people. So he assigned me Thompson as a topic for a term paper. I tore into it and got an 'A'. It was a cool piece, though spelling is not my strong point and there were a lot of typos. Too bad there were no spell-checkers back then. I'm going to dig out that term paper from my archives and read it again for a few laughs -- over what Thompson wrote and what I did. Then I'm going to go to the bookcase in my mother's basement and dust off "Fear and Loathing ... ", read it again, and laugh my butt off. Then some warm night this spring, with a full moon out, after this cruel winter has finally broken, I'm going to burn a phat one in memory of Hunter S. Thompson. - Tommy S