Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Last Sunday, Hunter S. Thompson, the inventor of gonzo journalism, killed himself. Matthew Hahn, a freelance writer from Richmond, Virginia, arrived at Thompson's home in Colorado on the evening of 15 July 1997 and began an interview that extended into the early hours of 16 July. "A glass of Wild Turkey and ice was placed in front of me — for elocution purposes, of course," wrote Hahn. In "Writing on the Wall: An Interview With Hunter S. Thompson", which appeared in The Atlantic (subscription required), we learn that Thompson foresaw the blogging phenomenon:

Hahn: The Internet has been touted as a new mode of journalism — some even go so far as to say it might democratize journalism. Do you see a future for the Internet as a journalistic medium?

Thompson: Well, I don't know. There is a line somewhere between democratizing journalism and every man a journalist. You can't really believe what you read in the papers anyway, but there is at least some spectrum of reliability. Maybe it's becoming like the TV talk shows or the tabloids where anything's acceptable as long as it's interesting...

...You can get on [the Internet] and all of a sudden you can write a story about me, or you can put it on top of my name. You can have your picture on there too. I don't know the percentage of the Internet that's valid, do you? Jesus, it's scary. I don't surf the Internet. I did for a while. I thought I'd have a little fun and learn something. I have an e-mail address. No one knows it. But I wouldn't check it anyway, because it's just too fucking much. You know, it's the volume. The Internet is probably the first wave of people who have figured out a different way to catch up with TV — if you can't be on TV, well at least you can reach 45 million people [on the Internet]."

"He did not give 'a flying fuck' what he smoked, or ingested, or did, but there was a thoughtful side," writes the The Economist in its Thompsonesque obituary. Thompson's hero was Hemingway, and in 1964 he had made the long journey to Ketchum, Idaho, to the writer's grave to "understand why Hemingway had killed himself in his cabin in the woods, and concluded that he had lost his sense of control in a changing world." His crystal clear conclusion:

"It is not just a writer's crisis, but they are the most obvious victims because the function of art is supposedly to bring order out of chaos, a tall order even when the chaos is static, and a superhuman task when chaos is multiplying... So finally, and for what he must have thought the best of reasons, he ended it with a shotgun."

The Hemingway connection featured prominently in David Carr's appreciation in the New York Times. "The Thompson Style: A Sense of Self, and Outrage". Carr ends thus:

"And his suicide had its own terrible logic. A man who was so intent on generating a remarkable voice that he retyped Hemingway's novels just to understand how it was done, gave a final bit of dramatic tribute in turning a gun on himself."

Hunter S. Thompson's masterpiece is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which follows the writer, using the pseudonym Raoul Duke, and his psychopathic Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, as they travel to cover a bike race in the Nevada desert. In the trunk of their Bronco, they have "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.... A quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls," which they consume during their trip. When he arrives at the race, Thompson sees that there is no way that it can be covered in any conventional journalistic sense due to the drugs, the heat, the dust and the insane nature of the event itself. Realizing this, he writes:

"It was time, I felt, for an Agonizing Reappraisal of the whole scene. The race was definitely under way. I had witnessed the start; I was sure of that much. But what now? Rent a helicopter? Get back in that stinking Bronco? Wander out on that goddamn desert and watch these fools race past the checkpoints? One every thirteen minutes...?"

This is the journalism that made Thompson unique: facts and rhetorical questions. The reader has to imagine answers and images. At its best, it was original and intoxicating and to preserve the narrative, he purposely submitted his copy long after deadline to prevent too much editing. In his prime, the multiplying chaos was an asset. In the end, we should remember him in his prime.