Nixon Never Let Me Down- Hunter Thompson

The purest definition of the term "lunatic" might just be the outlaw journalist, Hunter Thompson. I have always loved his writing. Often I would laugh like a hyena at some of the stuff he wrote.

So I cherry picked some of his most insightful ramblings- and I pasted them here. I think you'll like them.

I have a term I use while motorcycle riding called the "suicide deer." I desperately look for them. My closest call was just outside Forsyth, Montana. This is Thompson on jackrabbits:

“People who claim to know jackrabbits will tell you they are primarily motivated by Fear, Stupidity, and Craziness. But I have spent enough time in jack rabbit country to know that most of them lead pretty dull lives; they are bored with their daily routines: eat, fuck, sleep, hop around a bush now and then....No wonder some of them drift over the line into cheap thrills once in a while; there has to be a powerful adrenalin rush in crouching by the side of a road, waiting for the next set of headlights to come along, then streaking out of the bushes with split-second timing and making it across to the other side just inches in front of the speeding front wheels” 
 Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Hunter Thompson was a complete alcoholic nutjob from start to finish. In the end, Thompson killed himself and had his ashes fired out of a cannon. He was 67. Johnny Depp and Jack Nicholson attended the funeral.

“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” 

He had lived 17 years too long he said.

“Some people will tell you that slow is good – but I’m here to tell you that fast is better. I’ve always believed this, in spite of the trouble it’s caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba…” 
 Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

I loved Hunter Thompson because Thompson wasn't afraid to say the things that we were all thinking. While not totally true, often we saw the grains that were. That's what made him special.

“I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time.” 
 Hunter S. Thompson

In America.

“Sane is rich and powerful. Insane is wrong and poor and weak. The rich are free, the poor are put in cages. Res Ipsa Loquitur, amen. Mahalo.” 
 Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

“In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely.” 
 Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time

On Hell.

“Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get...” 
 Hunter S. Thompson, Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80's


President Nixon was the antagonist of Hunter Thompson. Thompson hated Nixon. In the preface to one of his books, Thompson dedicated it to Richard M Nixon, "he never let me down." When Nixon died, Thompson said this:

“If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.” 
 Hunter S. Thompson, Where Were You When the Fun Stopped

On life.

“You can't hoard fun. It has no shelf life.” 
― Hunter S. ThompsonKingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

Because this was my first read of his and my most memorable. On the drug crazed Vegas trip.

“I agreed. By this time the drink was beginning to cut the acid and my hallucinations were down to a tolerable level. The room service waiter had a vaguely reptilian cast to his features, but I was no longer seeing huge pterodactyls lumbering around the corridors in pools of fresh blood. The only problem now was a gigantic neon sign outside the window, blocking our view of the mountains -- millions of colored balls running around a very complicated track, strange symbols & filigree, giving off a loud hum....

"Look outside," I said.

"Why?"

"There's a big ... machine in the sky, ... some kind of electric snake ... coming straight at us."

"Shoot it," said my attorney.

"Not yet," I said. "I want to study its habits.”
― Hunter S. ThompsonFear and Loathing in Las Vegas


The wrap.

“I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking — which is fun only for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling. Nothing is fun when you have to do it — over and over, again and again... ”
― Hunter S. ThompsonThe Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time







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