Delta f and the Vicissitudes of Life in Windsor

I don't know if this is good news or bad news,
For me, for the most part, this is bad news. As you might have heard by now, the father of Gonzo Journalism, Hunter S. Thompson killed himself last Saturday night. They say that he shot himself in the head. How fitting. Thompson had been an inspiration to me since I have been able to analyze what I read. His scathing satire of everything from American politics to the superbowl led me more often than not to want to do more drugs, but at the very best his writing taught me to live for the moment and not take any shit from the Man! Thompson's contribution to the advent of Delta f can not go over looked - I had been reading quite a bit of his stuff back then in rez when I came up with this crazy idea. I've secretly (maybe not so secretly) been trying to use his style when I write about what we often do, which is get loaded, ostensibly under the guise of an anti fraternity. In that context, he will be missed.




On the other hand, as mentioned above, I had been reading a lot of Thompson's writing lately. The classics have to be mentioned: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which began as a column covering a motorcycle race is by far the best. The movie stays true aswell, possibly being one of the best adaptations out there. Johnny Depp does a spot on Thompson. The Rum Diaries is good aswell, but not in the same style. Thompson was in his early twenties at the time he wrote it, and obviously hadn't had enough time to ingest the heroic quantities of alcohol it took to write his later works.
Ah yes, but then we get to his more recent material. ESPN has a good compilation of his recent columns that I've been plugging through for the past little while. The Bush and Kerry material is not that bad, I must say. I'll post it under Links. Unfortunately, his recent novels prove him to have turned into an old crank with a typewriter. You know that friend of your mother's that has a bit too much to drink when they come over and gets all glassy-eyed and yells at anyone in the room? He'd moved into a fortified compound, for Christ's sake. Fear and Loathing in America reads like a novel by that guy that had declared himself Emperor of the United States at the turn of the century.
Yeah, that's what Thompson had turned into: the old man that you show to the door when they pull out their hash joint.
It pains me to say these things, but I just had to get them out. I hope that wherever Thompson is, he's having a good time.

Here's a link I've had for a while to an article by a guy who's probably not that surprised anymore.