Gonzo | Poetry | Two Thumbs Up

I got to the Hunter S. Thompson party too late. By the time I discovered who he was, I was about nineteen and the narcotic-dabblers, goths and pseuds had already claimed him for their own. Hands off, Phil.

It’s a shame though, I really think I would have got on with him. In fact there were times when I thought it was going to work out. His writing on the Hell’s Angels is some of the finest journalism I have ever read. His political savvy and unfaltering outsider-ness were (and are) astounding. The 2008 documentary of his life paints one of the finest portraits of a writer I could imagine.

It is too late though. Sorry Hunter… I’ve had too many of the most heinous human beings on the planet tell me that “ya know, I’m only doing this while I’m putting my book together, I’m working on some kinda Hunter S. Thompson shit, ya know?” Sadly, yes I do know.

(ed. I am not saying that all Thompsonites are horrible people… I know at least three Hunter fans who are out and out thoroughly good sorts.)

The main thing that stayed with me when finding out about HST however, is the bizarre arrangements he made for his own funeral. The affair was apparently bankrolled by one Johnny Depp and involved some very particular preparations, but the salient facts are that his ashes were shot out of a cannon and there was a giant two-thumbed fist erected in honour of the event. I don’t know which hymns he chose.

So, with all this thinking about a suicidal, drug-abusing genius (the main demographic we seem to write about on this site) and his intricate funeral plans, I got to thinking about what sort of public send off I’d have if I was being bankrolled by a quirky A-List actor. Uplifting stuff, right?

Go on then, have a poem. You’ve earned it.

Last Orders

Let my grave be three-feet square and twelve deep

and rest my cadaver on its head so that in the months

following my fleeting my brain can finally absorb

everything I was at my end.

Let those I have offended worst in life be first

to toss gloating soil at my upturned feet

and let my past pupils pour gallons of red ink

over the hands that marked their juvenilia.

Advertise my send-off as a facebook event

and send malicious messages

laced with expletives

to those aloof hundreds who RSVP as ‘Maybe’.

Sit my ex-girlfriends together in a row

and let them all (even that one!) get on famously

before eventually arguing over which of them

is being snidely swiped at in this poem.

Set up a ‘lost-property’ stall by my tombstone

filled with the myriad items I’ve borrowed,

let Lewis take back his snooker cue and give

Emily the magazines I’ve no right to cling to

Hold the service on a 213 bus

for this has been my place of prayer

and silent introspection for over half

my sleepless life.

Arrange for no music, but provide a stereo

and invite my hipster friends to make mix-CD’s

watch them fight over which obscure B-Side

will best provide the funeral frisson.

Finally, mould my grip around my wife,

twist my hard arms around her waist

and let the suitors queue up to try

prising her from my cold, dead hands.

Phil Brown

Poetry Editor

Gonzo | Introduction | The Legend of Gonzo

Week 17 | Gonzo | Contents

Tuesday | Poetry | Two Thumbs Up

Wednesday | Fiction | The Professor and I 

Thursday | Music | The Great Gonzo's Guide to Musical Theatre

Friday | Chapbook | Material Questions, by Gary Beck

Woman Found in Hunter Thompson’s Cesspool

“Miss Snap, wearing only a pair of men’s boxer shorts and a polka-dotted purple kerchief tied around her chest, told reports who had gathered at the scene that Dr. Thompson held her captive in the cesspool, a dry cement pit measuring 15 x 8 feet, and after repeatedly “indulging his perverted appetites,” had forced Miss Snap to write his biography.
“He made me compose this revolting record of human calamity,” said the red-haired pavologist, who is 5 feet, 3 inches tall, 106 pounds, and a former Miss Indiana. “It’s all here,” she said, removing a thick manuscript from a broken leather case, “the history of the biggest degenerate of the 20th century.”
Miss Snap, who said she has not slept in many days because of “seal bombs being dropped in the cesspool,” declared that she was giving the manuscript to James Harringman, an acquaintance of Dr. Thompson, to be edited, and added: “And then the world will fairly call him a hog.”

“Dr Thompson, the inspiration for Uncle Duke in the “Doonesbury” comic strip, told reporters that “Miss Tishy Snap is an inebriated nymphomaniac.” (1)

The Life of Hunter Stockton Thompson

Comprehending
an Account of His Miraculous Existence
From the Time of his Birth to the Present in
Chronological Order

Including
The Seduction and Torture
Of His Own Biographer

The Whole Exhibiting a View of Debauchery
And Felony Never Seen in a Literary Man
Since
The Marquis de Sade

by
Laetitia Snap

3:00 p.m. rise
3:05 Chivas Regal with the morning papers, Dunhills
3:45 cocaine
3:50 another glass of Chivas, Dunhill
4:05 first cup of coffee, Dunhill
etc.


Did you hear about the time Hunter Thompson ran for sherrif of Placcid Aspen?

His manifesto consisted of the following three principles.

1.    Sod the street at once
2.    Change the name ‘Aspen’ by public referenced to ‘Fat City.’
3.    …Intall on the courthouse lawn, a bastinado platform and a set of stocks – in order to punish dishonest dope deals in a proper public fashion….
-The Aspen Times, political ad, September 17,1970

A victory would have been a landmark on the political landscape. He claimed to represent freedom, but his demographic spread to the weird, wasted and wonderful – a campaign so strange that it might just win.

His main contender to the badge was a man named Carol Whitmer. Whitmer was the old-school crew-cut kind of guy. Preceding a series of scheduled debates between Thomspon and Whitmer, HST shaved off all his hair so he could refer to Whittmire as “my long-haired apponent”.

Marks, certainly, for style.

The man who ran the bar where Hunter ran his campaign from named Michael Solheim, was later quoted to say “It was very clse. And we would have won it if we had taken the thing a drop more seriously”.

ELECTION RESULTS

SHERIFF
Glen Ricks…………..….171
Carol Whitmire………...1533
Hunter Thompson……..1065

CORONER
Dr. Charles Williams….1836
William Noonan……….910

-The Aspen Times, Novemeber 5, 1970

Aspen Rejects Bid of Hippy Candidate For Sheriff’s Office
“If we can’t win Aspen, we can’t win anywhere”
- Hunter Thompson, quoted in the New York Times, Novemver 5, 1970

I suppose it is somewhat like green party winning a seat at Brighton, if it was going to happen, it would have happened there, the only difference is, the green party actually won.

No doubt he was a great writer, but what always troubles me with the legend of Hunter S. Thompson is he lived his own myth. He had a hat made from unborn wolf – reportedly an entire litter.


So we shall let the reader answer the question for himself. Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived, or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?
-Hunter Thompson (written at age 16)

'counselor'
-Hunter Thompson (written at age 67)

(1) Miss Laetitia Snap actually gave the manuscript to Jean E Caroll, this is the introduction to the subsequent book. Well worth a read.



James Harringman
Editor-in-chief