I recently read GONZO:The Life of Hunter S.Thompson (Jann Wenner & Corey Seymore). It’s no rarity to have a facination like myself, with the huge mother of a force that was Hunter S.Thompson. He’s a myth, a legend, a pop culture icon and loved by most, especially the hedonistic kind…for his original and genius writing to his reckless nature, wacky fashion getup, even his grunty mumbled spoken word. He was icy cool at rejecting societies normal ways.
But after reading this I realised HE wasn’t really the myth of himself, that wasn’t real…the sad truth was he was an addict like any other addict, except he was enabled by his myth to live as an addict. He was violent, and mean. And probably underneath it rattled with demons. But like a lot of those types with abit of madness: Freud, Hemingway, Kerouak: his work was genius.
I still like him even though he had a dark side. Most people have one. But I feel sorry for the women in his life! To me he epitomises individuality and hedonism, intelligence and recklessness. Being alive and doing whatever you want. I respect his ability to live that way, because I couldn’t handle it myself. It wasn’t the easy path. The recklessness caused extreme pain to him and his family that wasn’t carried over to the publics myth of him. To me his suicide was the inevitable end to a life lived to extreme excess. And when his first wife Sandy asked him later on if things turned out how he’d wanted, his reply was “Well, of course not… but it’s been glamorous”. I think that says it all.
