The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson

“

A journalist dealing with heads (Hippies) is caught in a strange dilemma. The only way to write honestly about the scene is to be part of it. If there is one quick truism, about psychedelic drugs, it is that anyone who tires to write about them without firsthand experience is a fool and a fraud.

Yet to write from experience is an admission of felonious guilt; it is also a potential betrayal of people whose only crime is the smoking of a weed that grows wild all over the world but the possession of which, in California, carries a minimum sentence of two years in prison for a second offense and a minimum of five years for a third. So, despite the face that the whole journalism industry is full of unregenerate heads just as many journalists were hard drinkers during Prohibition it is not very likely that the frank, documented truth about the psychedelic underworld, for good or ill, will be illuminated at any time soon in the public prints.

- Hunter S. Thompson
Originally published in: The New York Times Magazine, May 14, 1967

”

I just read this in an article published in Hunters book “The Great Shark Hunt. Gonzo Papers, Volume 1” entitled “The Hashbury Is The Capital Of The Hippies.” Great read.

(via shelterfromthespoon)

“It was a nice place to be lost, a silent forest of tall elm trees and moonlight and finely manicured grounds. I rolled down the windows and stepped out of the car. The sky was full of stars, and the air smelled sweet. I felt giddy. In the distance I could see a dense bright glow in the sky that was probably Manhattan, only eighteen miles away. But I felt a sense of great distance from it, like I’d wandered off the turnpike and gone straight through the Looking Glass and into a different time. I felt like Jay Gatsby, lost in some primitive forest on the fresh green breast of the New World.” Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone:
“Polo is my Life: Fear and Loathing in Horse Country” (via work-and-love)

(Source: shitty-schiffke)

“In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone.” Hunter S. Thompson: “Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘76: Third-Rate Romance, Low-Rent Rendezvous” (via furabo)

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Young people of America, awake from your slumber of indolence and hark-en the call of the future! Do you realise you are rapidly becoming a doomed generation? Do you realise that the fate of the world and of generations to come rests on your shoulders? Do you realise that at any time you may be called on to protect your country and the freedom of the world from the creeping scourge of communism? How can you possibly laugh in the face of the disasters which face us all from all sides? Oh ignorant youth, the world is not a joyous place. The time has come for you to dispense with the frivolous pleasures of childhood and get down to honest toil until you are sixty-five. Then and only then can you relax and collect your social security and live happily until the time of your death. Also your insolent attitude disturbs me greatly. You have the nerve to say that you have never known what it is like to live in a secure and peaceful world; you say that the present generation has balled things up to the extent that we now face a war so terrible that the very thought of it makes hardened veterans shudder; you say it is our fault that World War ll was fought in vein; you say that it is impossible to lay plans for the future until you are sure you have a future. I say Nonsense! None of these things matter. If you expect a future you must carve it out in the face of these things. You also say that you must wait until after you have served your time with the service to settle down. Ridiculous! It is a man’s duty to pull up stakes and serve his country at any time, then settle down again.

I say there is no excuse for a feeling of insecurity on your part;there is no excuse for juvenile delinquency; there is no excuse for your attitude except that you are rotten and lazy! I was never like that! I worked hard; I saved; I didn’t run around and stay out late at night; I carved out my own future through hard work and virtuous living, and look at me now: a respectful and successful man.

I warn you, if you don’t start now it will be too late, and the blame for the end of the world will be laid at your feet. Heed my warning, oh depraved and profligate youth; I say awake, awake, awake!

Fearfully and disgustedly yours,

” John J. Righteous-Hypocrite. (via myviewfromawindow)

“The story of Joe Louis is an old one; the story of the star which has out-lived its light; the soaring meteor which failed to explode in mid-air at the height of its climb, but plummeted down to the same earth with the millions who, moments before, had stared wide-eyed at its beauty.
The world likes to look up at its stars. A meteor which falls out of the skies not only is dead when it hits, but digs its own grave by the force of its fall. Just as the crowd stares curiously at a fallen meteor and then wanders off, the crowd is beginning to thin around Joe Louis. He stands painfully bewildered in a world which he never took the trouble to understand. The applause of the worshipping thousands has died into the whispering of the curious few. The end is inevitable.” Hunter S. Thompson, “Fame is a One-Way Ticket,” Command Courier, December 17, 1956 (via streamingc)

(via streamingc-deactivated20130405)

“The Implant industry is cranking up for a record-setting year & the Santa Claus factory will look a lot different next Christmas than it ever has in the past.” Hunter S. Thompson, ESPN.com, “Watch the economy shrink while”

(Source: ESPN)

“The lid is on. Loose Lips Sink Ships. Don’t say anything that might give aid to The Enemy.” Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing in America” (via batcountryword)

“It is all well and good for children and acid freaks to still believe in Santa Claus — but it is still a profoundly morbid day for us working professionals. It is unsettling to know that one out of every twenty people you meet on Xmas will be dead this time next year… Some people can accept this, and some can’t. That is why God made whiskey, and also why Wild Turkey comes in $300 shaped canisters during most of the Christmas season.” Hunter S. Thompson. “Fear and Loathing in Elko” Rolling Stone (23 January 1992)

(Source: darling-nicky)

“The file also contains details on Thompson’s unsuccessful run for sheriff in Aspen, including something incredibly rare: a copy Thompson’s “Aspen Wallposter #6,” designed by artist Tom W. Benton and printed in Canada, but seized at the border and never released in the U.S. It featured President Richard Nixon’s face with vampire fangs and a hidden Nazi swastika in place of the “x” in his name, which only appeared when held up to a light. Thompson’s open hatred of Nixon is the stuff of journalistic lore, so it’s probably not surprising that the only president to resign his office to avoid impeachment would have sent agents digging for dirt on one of his loudest critics. “Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives,” Thompson explains in Nixon’s obituary, published by Rolling Stone in 1994. “My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together.”

FBI destroyed part of Hunter S. Thompson’s file | The Raw Story

Hunter’s FBI file on Scribd

(via sarkos)

(via sarkos)

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) admitted this week that portions of a detailed file on legendary outlaw journalist Hunter S. Thompson were destroyed during the Clinton administration.”

FBI destroyed part of Hunter S. Thompson’s file | The Raw Story (via oswaldofguadalupe)

Holy. Fuck.

(via oswaldofguadalupe)