Hunter S Thompson's death to be reviewed more than 20 years later | Hacker News Reader

Hunter S Thompson's death to be reviewed more than 20 years later

theguardian.com

32 pointsc42030 comments

This seems kind of weird. As the article says he was on the phone with his wife and left a suicide note. His son by a previous marriage was in the house with him when he died, which makes me think this is some sort of inheritance dispute between his widow and son.

might be life insurance as well

I checked out the Pitkin County Assessors site, big notice to all residents IN RED A 80% raise in property taxes for 2025. I looked up the Thompson house-its listed under the Owl Farm Trust with her name- roughly from $3,400.00 per year to $35,000. But they have 42 acres 10 minutes from Aspen....so its not going to be cheap! But I don't know anything...maybe he was miserable. He was working on the Lisl Auman case helping her get an appeal, why would he just kill himself, she got her appeal in 2005. He would have seen it happen but he off himself while his grandson at the house???? Now property taxes go up? oki.....

It does make sense with a wider context. In short, he was miserable, and he always planned to go out on his own terms when he felt he'd reached the end of the path (I imagine influenced by seeing his father die painfully through disease as a young man). He documented both well. Having his family in the house at the time, and to be on the phone to his wife, was likely to let them know the nature of it, a kind of act of transparency and trust. It makes sense in the context of his beliefs and nature. Also, he would have always been in the middle of something, work wise.

I was just thinking yesterday that we could use a new Hunter S Thompson, cataloguing the absurd times we live in.

What would a new HST look like? Gonzo style journalism kinda already peaked in the 2010s with the wave of blogging and new media like Vice magazine.

HST was revolutionary because he broke the norms of journalism at the time while still making a coherent point. Nowadays journalism is plain broken, the norms are in tatters and the people that would be exposed don't give a shit and feel no shame for the awful things they do. No wonder HST offed himself.

It looks like Andrew Callaghan & Channel 5.

He was my initial thought too, but I feel like it's very similar to what Vice was doing 20 years ago

Everyone wanted to be gritty in the 2010s and now no one is gritty because of it. I want the opposite now, and have a source with a coherent, reliable voice which I sort of get with the Economist.

Yes, that's exactly it. If people want to see what breaking the norms is today, it would be, I don't know because I wasn't alive then, Walter Cronkite?

Jim Lehrer was more recent and an excellent voice on a national scale in North America.

Ontario has Steve Paikin who, until very recently, hosted a current affairs show on public television. He is easily in the top 0.0001% of people who can make sense of anything that comes up in the news.

I'd argue part of the reason the times are so absurd is that there's a whole ecosystem of gonzo journalists from Hasan Piker to Adin Ross to that one famous guy recently that got shot

I'm not familiar with the first two but Kirk was a propagandist, not a gonzo journalist.

Hasan Piker & Adin Ross are gonzo journalists?? Since when?

I recall thinking the same about Harlan Ellison after reading a sampling of his magazine articles.

A solid contender is this writer, who I follow on Twitter. This was the first article I read of his (which directly references Thompson) and I was absolutely sold.

https://thehuntfortomclancy.substack.com/p/fear-and-self-loa...

Reads like he's absolutely channeling/mimicking Thompson. I don't think it's coincidental, at all.

Seems to do a fairly good job of it, but I'm not sure that I would read him, myself. It just feels different, to me.

This is frankly morbid, but there was a good younger writer, Kaleb Horton, who I feel channeled the spirit of HST effectively, without the sense of direct mimicry. He died a few days ago, at a far-too-young age, but his work was excellent:

https://kalebhorton.ghost.io/death-is-just-a-change/

https://archive.is/RrjPI#selection-323.18-323.43

There will be plenty of others who carry the same torch, I'm sure – HST was one of a kind, though. Always the way with great writers.

In 2025 a "tripping balls at ..." feels derivative of even the HST derivatives of the 2010s...

Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan is essentially the evolution of gonzo journalism.

"All Gas, No Brakes" was truly a perfect name for what Callaghan does (and what Dr. Gonzo did before that).

Robert Evans (iwriteok on bluesky) is similar. He's certainly more to the left than HST was and works in different media, but he's got the tall, authoritarian-hating druggie gun lover bit down pat.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '24

By Hunter S. Thompson

Gonzo has been out-jerked by reality. Abandon ship.

Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray by Hunter S. Thompson

https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?id=1992213

Gonzo journalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzo_journalism

The Battle of Aspen > Thompson's campaign for sheriff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Aspen :

  Freak Power in the Rockies

Dynomite!

The last thing he typed has always sat deeply with me:

"Football Season Is Over

No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt”

Four out of five stars

Hunter S Thompson --> David Foster Wallace --> Caity Weaver / Others?

I miss all the writers from Gawker

"It was awesome"

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