The Good Doctor Checks Out

by Andrew Lau

On the last full night of his life, February 19, 2005, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson sat comfortably in his "highly fortified compound" on Owl Farm in Woody Creek, Colorado and watched The Maltese Falcon. With him were his wife of two years, Anita, his 40-year-old son Juan, his wife Jennifer and their six month old, Will. A rather quiet night at home for a man known world wide for his thirst for whiskey, high powered explosives, drugs, extremely fast motorized vehicles, smokes, guns and of course, the written word. Sometimes all of these at once.

But forget about the tales of debauchery and long running days of substance-fuelled lunacy for a minute. While it's true that he never backed down from illicit substances or drink, he once remarked to the ultra saccharine USA Today in 1990: "Obviously, my drug use is exaggerated or I would be long since dead."

What needs to be highlighted here is that Thompson was first and foremost a writer of the highest order. He absorbed elements from those he admired  --Hemmingway's stern exterior, Twain's satire, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's demented lifestyle, Henry Miller's sympathetic eye, H.L. Mencken's political lighting bolts, Kerouac's love of country and adventure-and then added to that his own brand of sardonic wit. Extremely gifted, Thompson utilized his pinpoint descriptions and fantastic use of vocabulary that was hilarious as they were right. He was the funniest and most daring journalist of his day, our day.

From the onset he aimed his writing against a single enemy, a concept actually, and kept at it throughout his long career. He described the target of his scorn to an interviewer in 1978: "Greed, treachery, stupidity, cupidity, the positive power of lying, total contempt for any sort of human constructive political instinct. Everything that is wrong with America, everything that this country has demonstrated as a national trait: the power grab, the dumbness, the insensitivity." Contrary to what the Washington Post's Joel Achenbach has recently written, Thompson was never trapped inside his own created persona. To some varying degrees, he was like that from day one: always looking to settle a score, always in some crazed situation. He was even taken out of his prestigious southern high school one day in hand cuffs. In June of 1955 while his classmates were attending their graduation, Hunter sat in jail. Although the charge was robbery, it was really an accumulation of four years of top-notch hell raising with friends that brought him there. Had he never become a writer or a worldwide hell raiser, it's more than likely Thompson would've been the same exact person. Either way, he was always ready for adventure, always writing, creating, pushing, fighting, fighting, fighting and laughing up his sleeve at it all. The Hunter Thompson that the public knows may be an inflated version, but it isn't fictitious.

Proof of this is in the two volumes of his collected letters: The Proud Highway (1955-1967) and Fear & Loathing In America (1968 - 1975). Here is the writer without the creative shield of Gonzo Journalism dealing with day-to-day realism. Letters to would be editors, employers, and publishers. Letters to Charles Kuralt, to Tom Wolf, to his landlady after she evicted he and his wife from their home after he wrote an expose about their Big Sur community. Letters to friends about his career; letters to his mother and brother regarding news from back home in Louisville, Kentucky. He was a consummate pen pal and dealt out the same from-the-hip verbiage as he did in his books.

At the same time the Rolling Stones were on their infamous 1972 "Tour Of The Americas" promoting Exile On Main Street, Thompson was himself on the road covering a presidential campaign. From that experience came one of his best books, Fear & Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72. With it he made it abundantly clear that politics was no longer for the old folks; in fact, politics could be f-u-n: FUN! He treated it as if it were a rock tour and wrote about it with a zeal not usually associated with such endeavors. Compare Robert Greenfield's book about that Stones tour, STP, with Campaign Trail '72 and you'll notice a stunning resemblance: excesses, indulgences, breakdowns, paranoia.it's in both books. Speaking of which, even the 1980's seem interesting in Generation Of Swine, while in Songs Of The Doomed the 1990's appear a little more dangerous than they probably were.

Anyway, The Maltese Falcon. Based on Dashiel Hammett's 1930 novel, the protagonist is Sam Spade, a no nonsense private eye, always on the make and ready with a quip or two. Hammett described his character as "a hard and shifty fellow" and in the Encyclopedia Mysteriosa, William DeAndrea almost describes Thompson himself by suggesting that Spade has "his own private, unorthodox, but absolutely inviolable code of ethics."

What Hammett was to early 20th Century American noir, Thompson was to the late 20th Century fire and brimstone journalism. Both writers worked hard at crafting their alter egos (Hammett's "Spade" to Thompson's "Raoul Duke") and both radiated dark undertones. With that trademark cigarette holder and distinctive mumble-speak, Thompson was our Sam Spade: constantly on the look out for the "bad guy" who could be anyone from over indulgent, wealthy Kentucky Derby fans to the President of these United States; it didn't matter. If he thought they stood for greed and treachery, then he found what made them tick and exposed it for all that it was worth. If it was weird (the Roxanne Pulitzer trials, shark hunting, managing a strip club), or anything sports related ("shotgun golf"!), Thompson was always on top of it for good or ill.

But he is gone now. Ashes. Over the years, some have tried to duplicate his spirit, but it's really unnecessary, almost insulting. Too good to be repeated. His caliber of originality comes only once in a lifetime and the written legacy he leaves behind is to remind us that Hunter Stockton Thompson (one of the greatest names ever) actually walked this earth.

In a statement following his death, his family used the Latin term for "earth" when saying that he "stomped terra". It's true. I know this because on one inexplicable night some fourteen years ago, this reporter witnessed Dr. Hunter Thompson stomp terra first hand. To be in his presence was unbelievable, exhilarating even. To live in a world no longer inhabited by Thompson's sardonic wit will be that much more uninteresting.

Selah. Mahalo.