Like a Rolling Stone

I've had enough Maltese pop for now. Time to turn back to the rest of the spectrum. Ironically I'm doing this with quite a downer. I've just found out that the great gonzo shot himself in the head at his Owl Creek farm near Aspen, Colorado, last Sunday. Hunter S. Thompson is dead. He was 67.

I can't say I'm surprised. By his own admission, he was "an avid reader, a relentless drinker and a fine hand with a .44 Magnum." If anything, I'm surprised he didn't do this earlier. He's been a gun enthusiast for four decades or more. Still, this was unexpected, because some of us thought that old age had mellowed him. It obviously hadn't mellowed him enough.

Reading his adrenaline-packed narrative Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in my 20s, I was amazed to see how he turned his drug and alcohol-fueled clashes with authority into the best beat novel since Kerouac's On the Road. Thompson was a hero (or is that anti-hero?) for anyone who believed in challenging the quieter norms of established journalism.

For a generation that has taken to moving images rather than literature, Thompson's alter-ego, Raoul Duke, is beautifully captured by Johnny Depp in the 1998 film version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Reading some of his obituaries this morning I see that Rolling Stone magazine is seen by some as his best pedestal. That may be so, however, it can also be argued that he was essential for Rolling Stone to acquire its status in the early years. Rolling Stone held gonzo's stance for a very long time, even though it has lost much of it in recent years. In 1994, when I first arrived in America for my own savage journey to the heart of the American dream, I remember reading Thompson's obituary for former President Richard Nixon in Rolling Stone. Most other commentators offered a re-assessment of Nixon's legacy, as is most often done when someone dies. King gonzo eulogized Nixon as "a liar, a quitter and a bastard. A cheap crook and a merciless war criminal."

His utter contempt for power and his unique writing style makes him one of the top writers in my list of all-time greats. I will forever treasure his quip for people like me: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."