Gaga for Gonzo

By Joe Prebich, 5-10-05

As a writer, and as a college student, we all really just want to be cool. You know the cool that comes from the longing looks of the cubicites that spend all day wishing they were cool, writing, yeah man that's where it’s at. As a writer you want to be that cool.

But it is true that most of us, sigh, will never meet the coolness that we had once hoped for, because we lack that certain something to push when we should retreat. I am talking about suicide folks, living dangerously, on the edge, as the new saying goes, living Gonzo. Even though suicide may be stupid, narcicistic and the ultimate selfish act, hey it's cool!

And so it is that we journalists look at Hunter S. Thompson and shake our heads, as he made the ultimate sacrifice. He died for his art, that bastard, and he did it by his own hand. By far cooler than me.

And of course, this makes him automatically cooler than all writers that merely died of old age, or disease, or in their sleep, and instead thrusts him up to the likes of Hemingway, Socrates, and Saul.

Hard drinking, hard living, being cool is hard. But, Hunter did it, and in doing so boosted his fame. I have been stepping in and out of the Bird’s Nest used books to see if they have any Hunter Thompson, but nope, flying off the shelves, they say, ever since he offed himself. Other book shops too, Hunter S. Thompson, all sold out!

Is this the beginning of the kitsch Hunter S. His years of antiestablishment and anarchism has ended with his writings in the throes of the mainstream. Just the other weekend I saw a group of snowboarders with the Gonzo Fist stenciled on their boards. And why not? To be able to nod in a public discussion about his works is sure to impress somebody, so we read the book now, not because we were there from the start, but because it is cool to know who he is now. And even if “Fear and Loathing� rests only on the coffee table, hey, I’ll be impressed.

But as the political climate in this country staggers and swagers like a drunken Texan, will the days of Gonzo Journalism be resurected by a new generation of writers searching the truth? You know what they say, buy the ticket, take the ride. [End of article]