The Doctor Has Left The Building

The lights are dim in Snort Towers these nights. The flags are at half-mast. And so, for that matter, are my trousers.

Excess all areas – that's our mantra now more than ever. And so it should be, because my man Hunter S. Thompson has been bugled to Jesus.
Except that the good Doctor had no time for the man Christ, and even less for his self-proclaimed followers, as he made clear in 'The So-called Jesus Freak Scare', a memo from his alter ego Raoul Duke at the Rolling Stone sports desk.
It was penned back in 1971 and still reads today like it was written first thing this morning. Or, at least, last thing last night... And in these times of scary neo-fundamentalism and all manner of lame-brained, alternative spirituality, it ought to be read today and every day, kept beside the bed as a shot of sanity, a little book of righteous indignation.
Here is Doctor Thompson's diagnosis of Jesus Freakery and its adherents' attempts to infiltrate the magazine at a time when the Stone could still boast the style and attitude of this here hotpress at its best: "It is the view of the Sports Desk that a generation of failed dingbats and closet-junkies should under no circumstances be allowed to foul our lines of communication at a time when anybody with access to a thinking/nationwide has an almost desperate obligation to speak coherently. This is not the year for a mass reversion to atavistic bullshit." And the reason we should be on our guard then and now? "Entire civilisations have been done in by vengeful monsters claiming a special relationship with 'God'." Amen, o brother, amen.

King-hell Crank

Needless to say, myself and Dr Gonzo go back a long way. From him, I don't mind telling you, I learned a lot about king-hell crank, Wild Turkey binges, the lurid side of politics and sport, ballistic missiles and the porn industry. From me, he learned about Foghat, but he never seemed to hold that against me. But most of all, I learned from the Doc about the value of words as weapons and how prose could have all the electricity, volume and transformative power of the best rock'n'roll. On the domestic jukebox as I write, is an album compiled by Thompson called Where Were You When The Fun Stopped?, a personal selection featuring such splendid cuts as Howlin' Wolf's 'I Smell A Rat', Robert Mitchum's 'The Ballad Of Thunder Road', The Band's ' The Weight', Warren Zevon's 'The Hula Hula Boys' and Jimmy Buffet's version of the 'Lady In Red' romantic ballad, 'Why Don' t We Get Drunk (And Screw)'. Clearly, the Doc had exquisite taste.
As a bonus, you get a sleeve notes penned by Thompson, supercharged reflections on fuel, madness and music. "Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel," he wrote, on a December night in Owl Farm.
"Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is fuel.
"I have always needed fuel. I am a serious consumer. One some nights I still believe that a car can run about fifty miles more if you have the right music very loud on the radio.
"Once you heard the music done right you could pack it into your brain & take it anywhere, forever."
Since the news of Thompson's demise at his own hand broke, some of us have grown old and weary listening to self-styled critics and teachers of journalism waffling on the radio about how Gonzo was a juvenile taste and charging that the Doc had been spinning his wheels since about 1975. There are many here among us who think that these lifers are but a joke, and feel strongly that now is not the time to nitpick about some of his more recent recycled stuff. Rather we should be celebrating the enduring classic status of Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, The Great Shark Hunt and the more conventional but still stunning Hell' s Angels – The Strange and Terrible Saga Of An Outlaw Motorcycle Gang.
For the record, Sam would also like to point out that, writing in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Thompson was one of very few commentators to see that this terrorist horror could plunge the US into a new era of security hysteria and unloosed neo-conservatism, with all the alarming implications for his own country and the wider world, which have since born fruit. And, again for the record, as anyone who checked out his on-line sports column can attest, he was still capable of being witheringly funny right up to the final full-stop.

Petrified Tit

Not that his reputation needs any defending from me. Thompson nailed his critics a long time ago, and left them bleeding from every extremity. Maybe they just can' t quite forgive him. In a sideswipe at college journalism lecturers in 1974, he wrote about their pet subjects – circulation, distribution, headline counting and the classical pyramid lead. "Jesus, let's not forget that one. Mastery of the pyramid lead has sustained more lame yoyos than either Congress or the peacetime army. Five generations of American journalists have clung to that petrified tit, and when the deal went down in 1972 their ranks were so solid that seventy-one per cent of the newspapers in this country endorsed Richard Nixon for a second term in the White House."
Sadly, we're left with the yoyos now. No, the Doc did not go gently into that good night. And a lot of us will remember exactly where we were when the fun stopped.