Mon. February 21, 2005
Gonzo is Dead
Last night Hunter Thompson, author of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas ("A savage journey to the heart of the American dream"), preeeminent practitioner of self-styled "gonzo" journalism and the inspiration for this blog, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his ranch in Woody Creek (Aspen), Colorado. Hunter S. Thompson Takes His Last Trip, Echoing Hemingway [MercuryNews.com]. Amid all the obituaries, many ask how a man who lived so hard could commit suicide, without even leaving a note.
That's not a quandry; it's perfectly in character. Given his exccessive consumption of drugs and alcohol for 30+ years, it's a wonder the man made it to 65 at all. And it seems that Thompson planned it himself, spending an intimate weekend with his kids and shooting himself in the kitchen while his wife was working out at her health club. Once the fun was over, Thompson often made clear, he wasn't going to stick around and watch the janitors sweep up.
Suicide is painless. It only hurts those left behind. Yet as Albert Camus wrote in The Myth of Sisyphus in 1942, "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide." Indeed, it may be the only rational way to exit this insane world of ours.
Goodbye, Hunter. You died like you lived. Gonzo is dead; long live gonzo.
Update: Like Markos of The Daily Kos, there's only two authors for whom I have gone out of my way to read everything they've written -- Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Actually, there are five for me, since I've also read everything by Michael Chrichton, Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum.) Oh well, serendipity is all we've got folks. Enjoy life while it lasts.
Posted by glenn at Mon. November 1, 2004
Blaming the Officials
It's appropriate that the Washington Post column by Mike Wise reporting on Sunday's loss by the Redskins -- now with a paltry 2-5 record seven games after the return of of legendary coach Joe Gibbs -- is named after this blog. Fear and Loathing in Landover [washingtonpost.com]. That's because I simply cannot stand the whining, mercurial fans that populate FedEx Field, with their constant booing of quarterbacks, fervent conviction that the Skins are cheated out of winning only by the officials, The Washington Redskins have been a bad football team for the last 10 years! The gonzo faithful who battle through the interminable traffic to take in the games cannot admit that because it would make their whole religious infatuation with this team transparently quixotic.
Mike Wilbon remarks that:
That's not right. This city has thrown more all-star QBs out of town than any other place in the NFL, at last three of which -- Stan Humphries, Brad Johnson and Trent Green -- have proven their worth by leading teams elsewhere to glory (and twice to the SuperBowl itsellf). In the just over 10-year season period starting with Norv Turner's 1994 coaching debut, the Redskins have used 16 different starting quarterbacks (actually, 23 in total, counting mid-season substitutions and roster reversals) playing for five different head coaches. Read 'em and weep:
- John Friesz
- Heath Shuler
- Gus Frerottte
- Jeff Hostetler
- Trent Green
- Brad Johnson
- Rodney Peete
- Jeff George
- Tony Banks
- Kent Graham
- Shane Matthews
- Danny Wuerffel
- Patrick Ramsay
- Tim Hasselback
- Mark Brunnell
Oh, and in the game itself this weekend, Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers played masterfully in the first half, softly dropping two long passes -- a skinny post and a go route -- into the arms of his sprinting wideouts right in front of our seats at the 20 yard line. In his first, and perhaps only appearance in DC, Brett showed why he is a lock for the Hall of Fame.
Sat. September 27, 2003
Osama bin Terror
Martin Amis of The Guardian Unlimited wrote one week after the September 11 attacks on the United States that "It will be horribly difficult and painful for Americans to absorb the fact that they are hated, and hated intelligibly." He titled his essay -- fittingly for this category -- Fear and Loathing. So if loathing begets fear, fear begets hatred and hatred begets terror, what is the solution?
In the relatively more innocent days of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, The Beatles sang "All You Need Is Love." What is needed now is hard love, discipline and just a touch of compassion. But if the United States does not recognize that its is our own long support of dictators, repression and oligarchs over the decades that has led to despondency and terror, we will have made no progress at all.
Wed. April 9, 2003
Fear & Loathing in Cyberspace
In my continuing search for interesting usages of Hunter Thompson's phrase, the first entry is Fear & Loathing in Cyberspace, an essay by BYU Professor Michael Bush. He concludes that Microsoft's commitment to so-called "open" systems belies claims that Bill Gates has improperly dominated the PC industry.
Personally, I agree with a quote the author attributes to Apple Computer's Steve Jobs:
That was 1996, before the iMac, before digital hubs and before the MP3 revolution. Steve was wrong, but so is Bush. To say that Microsoft supports "open" systems is absurd.