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Hunter Thompson

We went to a lecture Hunter Thompson gave some years ago...on stage only him, a table, a chair, a pretty assistant, a glass and a bottle of Chivas Regal. The assistant didn't have much function that I could tell, but she was a cute, preppy looking girl.

Anyway, we had expected madman mode, but instead he just talked, seriously but with a dry wit, about politics, the culture, the way the country was headed. He was very good, but we were a little disappointed to find that he was ultra-rational. We had expected a bit more of a show. The audience was almost all male...and we noticed that some of the couples left quite early, probably at the instigation of the women...his language was pretty raw, but jeez, who did they think was speaking, Billy Graham?

I do have to say, however, that I finally quit reading his books after Generation of Swine. It seemed he kept making uglier and uglier allusions and I decided that much as I liked his politics, I didn't need all that swill in my head. The specific thing that made me stop reading him was some story involving a woman, some men, and a case of beer. Nuff said. And no, I never did read his book about Hell's Angels, although it's on our shelves somewhere. I only read his political books.

So why the mourning for Hunter Thompson? Because he, almost single-handedly, brought cool to politics and journalism and to the journalism done about politics. For that alone, he deserves a monument somewhere.

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