Not Dark Yet, But It's Getting There

There have been 2 occasions where I was upset with the death of someone I didn’t know. The first was Sinatra in May of 1998. I’d really become a big fan in short period of time...you know, the way art finds you, and not you it. The second occasion was yesterday when Hunter S. Thompson died.

Like most other people, I’d heard of him and of his work and never cared one way or the other. It wasn’t time. I started reading his first volume of letters in 2003 when I was spending more time in airports. I thought a book called "The Proud Highway" was remarkably appropriate. I was taken with the idea that there was something important out there for me to read I knew it was going to be by an American, and I knew it was probably going to be a Southerner. The final thing I needed was for it to be utterly modern and utterly relevant. How the hell do you go to the bookstore with THAT description and possibly get something you really want?

You don’t. The books pick you, my friend.

So I buy the book. As Hunter would say (about life), "Buy the ticket, take the ride". I knew I was onto something because of the way it FELT in my hand as I walked through the store. I was buying THIS book and some how it was a big damn deal. I better get two.

2003 fell into 2004 and I entered into perhaps one of the worst years of my life. At the same time, spirits were kept afloat by the Good Doctor. I couldn’t get my hands on enough HST books. Often reading them in and out of order. Often simultaneously, 3 at a time. For a man who’s writing is both fractured and inspired, I think I found this method indispensable. A HST book is rarely a story about "A" who does "B" and the resolution of that is the story. Its more like sitting for a spell in his head. I couldn’t decide if his work was reporting, editorial, or fiction. The answer is "Yes, it is". It’s being inside of someone’s head rummaging through the impulses, twists, and lies we all give ourselves. He just put his on paper, in a continual stream for his whole life. Books, articles, letters, thoughts...DAILY. He couldn’t get enough of it out of his head. I won’t tell you he’s influenced my writing. That’d be a lie. I know very well the difference between influence and ape.

I found something in his work because he wrote like I think. I’d never seen something show me myself so well. All the wonderful urgency and all the lurid wandering we allow ourselves when no one else can listen in on us. Sometimes the words seemed so remarkably honest that you’d be left thinking "no one would actually TELL you these things if they thought or DID them. Right?"

In 2004, HST was one of my lifelines to the world. It was my new discovery, and this was someone that still walked the earth. A tactile presence. I could meet him. I swear I could. I won’t.

One of Hunter’s favorite songs was "Ballad of a Thin Man" by Bob Dylan. I think of Hunter when I hear the words. They’re more his than Dylan’s to me.

"Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is...
Do you, Mr. Jones?"
–Bob Dylan

I'm grateful Doc. Mahalo.