Fear and Blogging, an Ode to Hunter Thompson

“We are living in dangerously weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they’re dazed and confused.” ~~ Hunter S. Thompson, November 19,2000



The Lantern did a fantastic job by sacking up and printing my opinion column on Hunter Thompson, so thanks to the ed. team for that.

Here’s a link to that article, so go read it and send some love to the editors while you’re there:

http://www.thelantern.com/news/874115.html

Some people from other schools didn’t get to read it, however, so here is the original, ‘long’ version. The feedback from the article has been numerous and generally Positive, so I’m grateful for everyone who responded. Enjoy.



Everyone has their favorite Dr. Hunter S. Thompson story. One they’ve heard from a friend or read about in his writings (or others) or witnessed first hand. Thompson was a cunning and reckless writer, a Journalist of the highest esteem. The man also created his own persona, living outside and above the law, reveling in drugs and sex. He became both the rock star and the tortured, brilliant songwriter, and those two lifestyles clashed far too often for the comfort of even his closest friends, and perhaps, in the end, for the good doctor himself.

My own favorite Hunter Thompson story isn’t really about Hunter Thompson at all (I suspect this is true in many cases), but instead about his impact on other journalists. I first read HST in a journalism class at Ohio State, taught by Dr. Joe McKerns (now deceased). McKerns was one of the finest teachers I had at that school, a man with a thoughtfully solemn face that failed to hide his love for his students. He shared Thompson’s passion for Truth, as well as the understanding that Truth is often best uncovered first-hand. Part of our reading requirement was Thompson’s masterpiece, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. During our discussion, McKerns read aloud one of his favorite sections:

“There was no point in fighting – on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

With these last words, I watched a man as hardened as any I’ve known begin to cry. Within a moment, he’d composed himself, but his voice was still strained. McKerns explained to us that this passage transcended the realm of journalism. Thompson was no longer writing about a specific place or time or event. This was the discovery of the hopes and dreams of the 60s youth culture, which had beached itself somewhere in that harsh landscape between Vegas and L.A. This was a News Update about an entire generation, an almost Biblical epic about people who had fled from the oppressive tyranny of an Imperial nation, but lost their way in the desert and never made it out. And Thompson summed it all up in a single paragraph. How’s that for short and poignant journalism?

It was as intense and emotional a moment as I ever experienced in a classroom at Ohio State. But that was in the glory days, when Journalism still clung to the back of the educational bureaucracy. When the University still tentatively regarded Journalism as an honorable profession for its students to pursue, instead of something to be … well, feared and loathed.

And that has become my own fear since the passing of the Great Gonzo. Thompson may be dead, but Fear and Loathing lives on. It is our Fear that other nations harbor weapons of mass destruction. It fuels our willingness to support a war based on the beautiful oxymoron of faulty intelligence. It is the Loathing of those who do not accept Capitalism as the only political and economical foundation for a society. Or the Loathing of homosexuals, who dare ask for equality in our legal system. It is the paranoia of any presidential administration, the Fear to tell the American people the Truth – a plague that has lasted more than 40 years, at least in Thompson’s eyes. It is the Administration replacing the dated word “communist” with the vague and incendiary term “evildoer.” It can be found in a society where political correctness has become such an epidemic that journalists are afraid to write a sentence without a quote to back it – and are thus reduced to regurgitating the words of untrustworthy politicians. Our sources are Them, and Their sources are Anonymous. And when the Anonymous become the Unreliable, well, nobody is to blame.

Thompson spent his life defying this trend. His source was Himself, and he relied on his own observations to tell his story. The final result may have been warped, or exaggerated, or (gasp!) slanted, but we knew where he came from. We knew he had seen and witnessed events First Hand, which surpasses most attempts to tell a story in the world of Journalism. In fact, he was not afraid to TELL the story, with all the humor or irony or sadness or drama that entails. This was the basis for his seemingly omniscient knowledge of politics, or sports, or Hell’s Angels, or any other subject he cared to tackle.

This is what Thompson, and the less significant gonzo journalists, brought to our field. And its presence – a demented safeguard against the failures of both politics and journalism – was a necessity.

Take this example:

When I was in Australia, President Bush came to address their Parliament. Amidst a flurry of protests, one particular story struck me as terrifying. A woman showed up, demanding to know the fate of her husband, who had been whisked off by American troops in the dead of the night months before. He was incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, which Thompson refers to as “the largest and most permanent prison colony in the history of the world.” The Bush Administration grappled desperately to spin the story, but relatives and neighbors supported the woman’s claim. They finally coughed up an explanation: he was being held for “suspected terrorist activity.” The woman has yet to hear from him.

U.S. soldiers kidnapping foreign citizens and throwing them into “a spacious concentration camp for the U.S.A.” (Thompson again) for no substantial reason was enough to raise alarm in the Press the world over. But to my knowledge, not a single news source in the United States carried the story.

This is the status of modern American journalism. This is the paranoia of the citizens of the world. This is the State of our Union. This is our Kingdom of Fear.

Hunter Thompson is dead. And who among us – the journalists, the writers, the American public – will now dare to find and speak the Truth?



Peace and love,
Nas-T

My Favorite Horror Film: The Blog

"I'm not growing up
I'm just burning out
And I stepped in line
To walk amongst the dead"

~~ Green Day, Burnout



So I never, ever remember my dreams, but this morning, I remembered a single line from my dream.

A guy and a girl are talking to one another. He totally thinks he’s smooth, (no, it wasn’t me) and the girl is really not into him at all (still wasn’t me, I swear):

Dude: I feel like I’m a volcano about to erupt.

Girl: Hope it can work its way through all the layers of crust.



How randomly awesome is that? At some point, nearly everyone I know has asked me where my jokes come from, and I always answer, ‘I have no idea.’ Only, I always suspected they burbled out of my twisted subconscious.

Now I know for sure.



Anyway, the only reason I remember any portion my dream at all is that I was rudely awakened by a call from the dead.

Seriously, it was like, white noise or something equally creepy (I won’t say terrifying because I’m sure that, even in my less-than-athletic physical condition, I could still outrun a zombie).

It was 1 p.m., and I was slumbering peacefully along, possibly laughing hysterically at the film being played in my head, when:

*BEEP BEEP*

My phone beeped crazy loud, like I had a message.

Which was weird, because it didn’t ring at all. Just the beep.

In a sort of mid-afternoon wake-up stupor, I grabbed the phone and flipped it open. It said I had a voicemail. So I clicked, ‘listen,’ and the politely monotone female voice at the other said, ‘You have no messages in your mailbox.’

Isn’t that scary? Like, someone was trying to communicate with me, and it wouldn’t come through.

I ran over to my computer to consult with Lee, who was thankfully at the ready.

Sketch: I got a message from the dead!

Lee: Like White Noise! The ghosts are out to get you.

(See why he’s perfect for such a consultation?)

Sketch: I know! What do you think they were trying to say?

Lee: That our voicemail systems are less than perfect?



Maybe. The irony is appealing. But I have a different theory.

I think the message was satirical in nature. I think the spirit at the other end was trying to tell me something by saying nothing at all. Something like:

The messages of the living don’t really say anything, either. I mean, we call each other, and leave messages, but what are we REALLY saying? Nothing. Our messages are blank and empty, just like the message from the dead. Here, in the palm of our hand, we have this amazing power to communicate. We can talk to one another anywhere, anytime. But we pick up our phones and say random bullshit into a machine, which our friends listen to later and forget. I don’t remember a single message anyone has ever left on my voicemail. Why? Because it’s empty. Dead air. We are all zombies, walking around without anything to say. And if movies have taught me anything, it’s this: better to be dead, than be a zombie.

Or maybe that’s just me.

What do you think?



Peace and love,

Nas-T

Going For A Morning Blog

Quote montage:


“They never rent quality flicks. They always pick the most intellectually devoid movies on the rack.”

“This job would be great if it wasn't for the fucking customers.”

“Bunch of savages in this town.”

~~ Jeff Anderson, ‘Clerks.’



“Loyal Americans
who love their collars colored 40 hours
A spade is still a spade,
a collar’s still a collar.
Whether it be blue or white
it’s still around your neck,
the silk leash nice and tight
your wife helped pick it out .
The irony is that you worked 3 hours for it
you wish you could ignore it ...
You’re a hooker!” ~~ NOFX, ‘Pimps And Hookers’



"The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over” ~~ Dr. Hunter S. Thompson



“A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have.” ~~ Roger Rabbit



Okay, I just threw that last one in because it’s my favorite movie quote of all time. And if it made you laugh or giggle or chuckle or even smirk, then I have no regrets.



Anyway, I’m free! Cut loose from the shackles of corporate oppression. And damn the man.

I’ve quit my job at the video store. As fun as it was having no responsibility whatsoever, it was NOT fun working crappy hours and getting yelled at by moronic customers and being pressured to SELL SELL SELL. And my jaw is sore from sucking corporate cock.

So, I’m no longer a video store tool, which means Alysia can stop calling me a pussy.

On the other hand, I’m also unemployed.

Which is more impressive to women? Working, even if I’m a part-time clerk at a video store, or being unemployed in general?

Of course, I could point out that I co-founded a non-profit organization, and that the future of said organization looks quite sunny. But non-profit doesn’t pay the (dinner) bills, so it probably wont’ get me much farther than an above-average interest in what I do.

Of course, the punk side of me wants to lash out and say, “Damn the man, and damn greedy women.”

But that won’t get me laid. So pretty much, I’m gonna make shit up on the spot and act confident.



As for my actual quitting, it wasn’t a spectacle. Which is a shame. Quitting any sort of minimum-wage job (I made slightly more, but you know what I mean) should never be easy for the management. As of now, I’m going to fade away. A trained professional vanishes, but that’s ok, there’ll be plenty more to piss away in the future.

If you want to be remembered, be a legend, a legacy, an outlaw, a superhero that gives children someone to look up to, you need to do something grand. And the latter rules out shooting obnoxious customers. So I’ve been seeking something more creative. Less a crime statistic and more of a, ‘Damn, that was awesome” sort of thing.



I had this very discussion with my friend Colin, who had a fantastic story about quitting a job:

Colin: Uh, so I got another job, modelling tube socks.

Dubious Employer: No you didn’t.

Colin: Well, I know it isn’t much, but at least I’ve got my foot in the door.



Ah, how I love clever puns. And that would do it. If the manager ever GOT the joke, I’m sure he’s told it to a thousand people (I know I have).

But, I’m not as witty as Colin. And much more of a showman. So I decided to hatch my own plan, one with fervent panache. With Duffman’s help, here’s what I came up with:



Duff and his cronies screech into the Family Video parking lot in an unmarked van.

They dash into the video store carrying baseball bats, a crow bar and a boombox blaring, “Guns of Brixton” by The Clash.

Duff: TREVOR! You fucker. You dicked us over HARD on that deal. Now you gonna PAY!

Trevor (terrified): How did you find me?

One of his cronies clubs me over the head, and drags my limp body out of the store. Duff looks to my manager.

Duff: He quits, bitch.


Then the van screeches away, and the video store never hears from me again.




We could even lace it with movie references. The cronies could be wearing Richard Nixon masks. Duff could scream, “WHAT DOES MARSELLUS WALLACE LOOK LIKE? DOES HE LOOK LIKE A BITCH?” I could try explaining that I used their plutonium for my time machine, and gave them a case made of used pinball machine parts in return.

Of course, none of our customers are savvy enough to get any of those references, so maybe not.



Anyway, I went without too much of a struggle, but I am indeed free.

And besides, the scenarios above would be awesome in a movie …



Peace and love,
Nas-T