Tribute to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: The Patron Saint of Sin City

by Leah Bailly | Feb 8 2008

His fear and loathing, binge drinking and hatred of Richard Nixon made him famous. His frenetic writing, the renegade coverage of politicians, hippies, sports stars and activists, made his stories. And his death made him – gonzo. And Feb. 21 marks the second anniversary of the death of Hunter S. Thompson, since the night he shot himself in the head with a pistol. When he died, he was revered as the most valuable and chaotic influence on modern journalism. And during his life, Thompson drew more attention to Las Vegas than any writer to date.

But why all this attention to a drunken, gun-toting libertarian? Was it just because Thompson did drugs (copiously) and wrote about it? True, his groundbreaking novel, released in two parts in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone, put a dive town like Vegas on the stoner map. The hallucinatory novel turned cult classic, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, recounts the story of Thompson's alter ego, Raoul Duke, and his 300-pound Samoan attorney on a writer's trip to Sin City. Plagued by paranoia after ingesting "a galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers," their mission turns perpetually sideways. Between flooded hotel rooms, narcotics officers, LSD induced Vietnam-motorcycle flashbacks and Circus Circus on ether, you felt stoned just reading.

But more importantly, he put himself in the story. First person. Like some terrible magnet for all that is violent and beautiful, Thompson was the story. A balding eccentric, he was a pair of red eyes behind aviator glasses, never without his smoldering cigarette. His persona, Duke, did most of the talking. Personified by such Hollywood heavies as Johnny Depp and Bill Murray, Thompson's Fear and Loathing character claimed legendary status. Thompson admitted that throughout his life he was in constant battle with his public alter-ego, his rarified self. But this was the definition of "gonzo journalism," when fiction and non-fiction are indistinguishable.

He started young. With a choice between the Air Force and jail (accessory for robbery, guilty as charged), he signed up and started writing sports for the football team. He spent a few years in Puerto Rico, where he wrote for a paper, worked as a model and had a girl. The novel he penned at the time, The Rum Diaries, languished in the drunken volatility of 1950s journalism. After San Juan, he hitchhiked to Big Sur, Calif., where he wrote about and reveled in 1960s American bohemia. He started a good gig with the National Observer and lived a short time in Brazil.

And then he got noticed. His first published novel was a candid chronicle of the most feared crime organization in history, the Hell's Angels. He followed them around for all of 1965, researching the inside details on the drugs, intimidation and relationships between bikers. Then Thompson got "stomped." He took pictures of his face smashed after a beating by the Angels and published the account to critical acclaim. Then he ran for sheriff of Aspen, Colo., and wrote about it. He wrote about it all.

But along the way, Dr. Thompson blew shit up. He fired shotgun shells into propane tanks. He charged hotel rooms to his editors and sent in pages from his journal to be published. He scandalized Nixon. As the political correspondent for Rolling Stone, he wrote scathing criticism of the campaign trail and the "idiot candidates" vying to get elected. According to Thompson, "Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism." His account of Bill Clinton's campaign, titled Better than Sex, and his fearsome Generation of Swine held no punches in its critique of American pop culture.

Beyond politics, his first love was writing sports. According to Thompson, "The sports box scores were the only part of a newspaper you could trust." Because there were "too many witnesses" to dispute the final score. A frequent contributor to Sports Illustrated and ESPN online, Thompson liked motorcycles. He took pictures of boxing matches and naked women. He trusted the underbelly of a town like Vegas, the seedy poker games and oddball characters hummed at perfect pitch for his live-fast-write-hard approach.

And then, after 67 years in his "compound" in Colorado with his family in the next room, Thompson took a pistol shot to the head. And now, we’re left with nothing but a legacy. His gonzo papers are published. Depp paid for his remains to be shot from a cannon, accompanied by fireworks and several hundred spectators. Everything, down to the giant peyote-clutching fist atop his funeral tower, even the moment of his demise, was all according to Thompson's plan. And now, we are left with his absence.

During the two years since his death, who fills his crocodile-skinned boots? Who is out on the screaming desert, shooting a 44 Magnum into the mean old sunset? Who is chasing down the biker gangs or running for sheriff on a pro-drug (Say Yes to Mescaline) policy? Who is teasing this year's batch of Presidential candidates with his sardonic drug references? 

With no contemporary, instead, we turn to his few published photographs and his words: the remaining fragments of his "stream of confidence." He is indeed the patron saint of Las Vegas, of bullshit and bravado journalists, of strippers and junkies. Since the untimely demise of Thompson two years ago, we follow his novels like a map and his political commentary like a new crude bible. And he was right, perhaps a little too right, when he said, "Some may never live, but the crazy never die."

Play Bodog's sleek online Blackjack with no download required.  Play online Blackjack now!