Four years ago today Hunter S. Thompson stuck a gun barrel in his mouth, sucked out the air and pulled the trigger. And with that one of the most important journalists of our generation checked out from planet earth.

It seems in recent years that writers cut their teeth on dismissing the Good Doctor’s work as the deluded ranting of a violent junkie and yet when the twin towers fell, and the news channels were feverishly looping the attack footage, a disease-riddled, wheelchair-bound elderly man wrote;

We are going to punish someone for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say.  Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once.  Who knows?  Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for WAR seem to know who did it or where to look for them.

This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed – for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush.  All he knows is that his father started a war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now.  He will declare a National Security Emergency and clamp down Hard on Everyone, no matter where they live or why.  If the guilty won’t hold up their hands and confess, he and the Generals will ferret them out by force.

Good luck.  He is in for a profoundly difficult job – armed as he is with no credible Military Intelligence, no witnesses, and only the ghost of Bin Laden to blame for the tragedy.

September 11, 2001

Happy Birthday Jack Nicholson, Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter’s writing was not only insightful, it was sharp, dark and funny as hell.  Not only was what he wrote unique but what he did was unique too; no other journalists rode with the Hell’s Angels, no other writer thought to stay on the campaign trail for a year and no war correspondent, before or after him, has ever donned Bermuda shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and accessorised with a cooler of beer before getting to work.

Reading his work made me realise that you could report what was happening in the world in a way that would still capture people’s imagination years after the events had taken place.

His writing is what got me on a journalism degree and one of the many things that got me thrown off (if it’s a choice between doing coursework and reading Gonzo Papers volumes one, two and three I would recommend you pick the former).  Maybe I should invest in a doctorate in divinity like he did.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

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