Hunter S. Thompson dead at 67
by Troy Hooper/Aspen Daily News Staff Writer  

Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who personified "gonzo journalism," died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Woody Creek on Sunday night. He was 67.
Regarded as one of the most legendary writers of the 20th Century, Thompson is best known for the 1972 classic "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." He is credited with pioneering gonzo journalism - a style of writing that breaks traditional rules of news reporting and is purposefully slanted.

Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, who is a close personal friend of Thompson, confirmed the death. Thompson's son, Juan, discovered his body on Sunday evening. Thompson's wife, Anita Thompson, 32, was not at home when the shooting occurred.

"On Feb. 20, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson took his life with a gunshot to the head at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colorado. The family will provide more information about memorial service and media contacts shortly. Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," Juan and Anita Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News. "He stomped terra."

A small group of friends and family members mourned the loss of Thompson at Owl Farm, where sheriff's deputies were investigating and processing the death.
"Details and interviews may be forthcoming when the family has had the time to recover from the trauma of the tragedy," Braudis said in a phone interview from Owl Farm, the rural Woody Creek home Thompson moved into in the 1960s.

Thompson grew up in Kentucky. He is survived by his wife, Anita Thompson of Woody Creek, son Juan of Denver, daughter-in-law Jennifer and grandson William.
"Hunter was not only a national treasure, but the conscience of this little village," said Gerry Goldstein, a prominent Aspen attorney who is a dear friend of the Thompson family. "He kept us all honest. It didn't matter who you were, whether you were his friend or someone he didn't even know. He didn't mind grading your paper. He was righteous. He was part of a literary nobility."

Pitkin County Commissioner Dorothea Farris, who moved to Carbondale in the late 1980s after living in Woody Creek, called Thompson a fine neighbor despite the fact it was common for her to hear gunfire from his property. As much as he was a defender of the First Amendment, he was also a champion of the Fourth Amendment. Firearms were abundant at Owl Farm, where he had his own shooting range.

"He was a good neighbor," Farris said. "He slept during the day and wrote at night. This is sad."
Thompson's larger-than-life persona was evident in his stories of drug-depraved adventures in books such as "Hell's Angels" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which was brought to life on the big screen by actor and friend Johnny Depp. He stayed in close contact with Depp and a number of world luminaries including actor Sean Penn, presidential historian Douglass Brinkley and former Sen. George McGovern, whose presidential bid he chronicled in the book "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72."

"We regarded him as our honorary national editor," said Dave Danforth, founder of the Aspen Daily News, where Thompson was a guest editor in the 1990s. "I did a paper on him in school. Any aspiring writer studied Hunter S. Thompson in both the pre- and post gonzo eras."
Thompson was born in Louisville, Ky., on July 18, 1937. He joined the U.S. Air Force after high school in 1956, and was sports editor for a military newspaper in Florida when he received an honorable discharge about a year later. His work first became famous in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. For the last several years, he wrote a sports column for ESPN.com.
His books include "The Proud Highway" and his most recent effort, "Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and The Downward Spiral of Dumbness."

oh shame on you ...you could at least pretend to care. hey, THIS MAN wrote and lived "Fear and loathing in las vegas" !!!

so? why is he more special than the next person? so so many people died on the 21st, im not gonna say i care for him just cause he died, not quite the effort is it

Gun shot to the head, doesn’t surprise me. He lived the way he died, by his own terms. He was one of the most creative journalists of his generation. RIP

my hubby loved this movie. sad

..I don't really know him, sorry 7cut.

Quote:

Originally posted by Jette so? why is he more special than the next person? so so many people died on the 21st, im not gonna say i care for him just cause he died, not quite the effort is it

Fear and Loathing was one bad movie.. Don't really know or care for any of his other stuff.. Suicide is one selfish way to go..

[Edited on 23-2-2005 by DylerPlummer]

I'm sure if most people who kill themselves had a second chance, they wouldn't do it.

i often hear that, how suicide is selfish. but then i think, why live for other people?

all I have to say is I found this news sad.

I'm a bit busy in my own world to morno or ...

My favorite book of Hunter's is "Hell's Angels", a fascinating account of the year he spent riding with the Oakland chapter of the infamous biker gang.

Meh, one less person in this world, didn't know him, didn't see the movie, the world is over populated anywho.

Will you niggas quit with the movie business? Hunter was a journalist, essayist, novelist, and chemical dependant. Not a filmmaker. If you didn't like the movie, talk to Terry Gilliam.

Well, no one made any mention that he didn't make the movie. So I didn't know.

[Edited on 2/24/2005 by minimandy14]

Quote:

Fear and Loathing was one bad movie..

yeah, but one good book. the movie was directed by Terry Gilliam ..who is gifted but overdoing things at times. i didn´t think it´s a bad movie though, just a bit long-winded.....gilliam should have gotten rid of the last 30 minutes.

hunter sort of invented gonzo journalism ...i just didn´t like him to be (that) political at times...



Memorable Quotes from
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Raoul Duke: You can turn your back on a person, but, never turn your back on a drug. Especially when it's waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eye.
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[Watching Dr. Gonzo leave]
Raoul Duke: There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
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Raoul Duke: [Commenting on the song "One Toke Over the Line" playing on the radio] One toke, you fool!
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Dr. Gonzo: You drive. You drive. I think there's something wrong with me.
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Raoul Duke: You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands.
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Dr. Gonzo: We've gotta get out of here. I think I'm getting the fear man.
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Raoul Duke: Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a main era - -the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raoul Duke: There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raoul Duke: And that, I think, was the handle - -that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. 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.
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Raoul Duke: History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time - and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raoul Duke: With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he'll never know.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[at a bizarre circus-themed casino]
Raoul Duke: Bazooko's Circus is what the world would be doing every Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This was the Sixth Reich.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raoul Duke: Look, there's two women fucking a polar bear.
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Raoul Duke: If the pigs were gathering in Vegas, I felt the drug culture should be represented as well. And there was a certain bent appeal in the notion of running a savage burn in one Las Vegas, and then just wheeling across town and checking into another. Me and a thousand ranking cops from all over America. Why not? Move confidently into their midst.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raoul Duke: Holy Jesus. What are these goddamn animals?
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Raoul Duke: A drug person can learn to handle such things as seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth. But no one should be asked to deal with this trip.
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Raoul Duke: Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a highway traffic cop. Your normal speeder will panic and immediately pull over to the side. This is wrong. It arouses contempt in the cop-heart. Make the bastard chase you. He will follow.
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Clerk at Flamingo Hotel: Can I call you a cab?
Police Chief: [screaming] Sure, and I'll call you a cocksucker!
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Raoul Duke: We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like:
Raoul Duke: I feel a bit lightheaded. Maybe you should drive.
Raoul Duke: Suddenly, there was a terrible roar all around us, and the sky was full with what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, and a voice was screaming:
Raoul Duke: Holy Jesus. What are these goddamn animals?
Dr. Gonzo: Did you say something?
Raoul Duke: Hm? Never mind. It's your turn to drive.
Raoul Duke: No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastard will see them soon enough.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raoul Duke: We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Gonzo: [singing] Let's give the boy a lift.
Raoul Duke: What? No. We can't stop here. This is bat country.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hitchhiker: Hot damn. I never rode in a convertible before.
Raoul Duke: Is that right? Well... I guess you're about ready, then, aren't you?
Dr. Gonzo: We're your friends. We're not like the others, man, really.
Raoul Duke: No more of that talk or I'll put the fucking leeches on you, understand?
Dr. Gonzo: Heh heh heh...
Raoul Duke: [as the Hitchhiker stares at them nervously] Get in.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raoul Duke: How long could we maintain? I wondered. How long until one of us starts raving and jabbering at this boy? What will he think then? This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family; will he make that grim connection when my attorney starts screaming about bats and huge manta rays coming down on the car? If so, well, we'll just have to cut his head off and bury him somewhere, 'cause it goes without saying that we can't turn him loose. He'd report us at once to some kind of outback Nazi law enforcement agency and they'll run us down like dogs. Jesus, did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Gonzo: It's okay. He's just admiring the shape of your skull.
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Raoul Duke: Perhaps, if I explained things, he'd rest easy.
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Raoul Duke: I want you to understand that this man at the wheel is my attorney. He's not just some dingbat I found on the strip, man. He's a foreigner. I think he's probably Samoan. But that doesn't matter, though, does it? Are you prejudiced?
Hitchhiker: Hell no.
Raoul Duke: I didn't think so. Because in spite of his race, this man is very valuable to me. Oh, shit. I forgot about the beer. You want one?
Hitchhiker: No.
Raoul Duke: How 'bout some ether?
Hitchhiker: What?
Raoul Duke: Never mind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raoul Duke: Let's get down to brass tacks. How much for the ape?
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Raoul Duke: You better take care of me, Lord. If you don't you're gonna have me on your hands.
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Raoul Duke: Soon we would both be completely twisted. But there was no going back - We would have to ride it out.
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Dr. Gonzo: Let's take the elevator, man.
Raoul Duke: No, that's just what they want us to do. Cram us into a little metal box and drag us down to the basement.
Raoul Duke: Those of us that had been up all night were in no mood for coffee and donuts, we wanted strong drink. We were, after all, the absolute cream of the national sporting press.
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Dr. Gonzo: As your attorney, I advise you to take a hit out of the little brown flask in my shaving kit.
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Voice on Drug Film: Know your dope fiend. You will not be able to see his eyes because of tea shades, but his knuckles will be white from inner tension and his pants will be crusted with semen from jacking off when he can't find a rape victim.
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[to clerk at the Mint 400 while on acid]
Raoul Duke: My name... is, uh, Raoul Duke. I'm on the list, that's for sure. I have my attorney with me and I realize of course that his name is not on that list, but we must have that suite! You see, this man is actually my driver. Just check the list and you'll see. What's the score here? What's next?
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Raoul Duke: Our vibrations were getting nasty. But why? I was puzzled, frustrated. Was there no communication in this car? Had we deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts?
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Raoul Duke: Don't fuck with me now, man, I am Ahab.
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Raoul Duke: I wouldn't dare go to sleep with you wandering around with a head full of acid, wanting to slice me up with that goddamn knife.
Dr. Gonzo: Who said anything about slicing you up, man. I just wanted to cut a little Z in your forehead."
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Raoul Duke: Panic. It crept up my spine like first rising vibes of an acid frenzy. There I was. Alone in Las Vegas, completely twisted on drugs, no cash, no story for the magazine, and on top of everything else, a gigantic god damned hotel bill to deal with. How would Horatio Alger handle this situation?
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Raoul Duke: [passing the real Hunter S. Thompson as an extra at the Jefferson Airplane party] There I was... Mother of God, there I am!
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Raoul Duke: Look... in the sky
Raoul Duke: Some kind of electric snake coming straight for us.
Dr. Gonzo: Shoot it
Raoul Duke: No, i want to study its habits.
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Raoul Duke: Well? What are your plans?
Dr. Gonzo: Plans?
Raoul Duke: Lucy.
Dr. Gonzo: Shit. I met her on the plane and I had all that acid. You know, those little blue barrels. I gave her a cap before I realized... she's a religious freak... Jesus, she's never even had a drink.
Raoul Duke: Well... It'll probably work out. We can keep her loaded and peddle her ass at the drug convention. Listen, she's running away from home for something like the fifth time in six months. It's terrible. She's perfect for this gig. These cops will go fifty bucks a head to beat her into submission and then gang fuck her. We can set her up in one of these back street motels, hang pictures of Jesus all over the room, then turn these pigs loose on her... Hell she's strong; she'll hold her own.
Dr. Gonzo: Jesus Christ. I knew you were sick but I never expected to hear you actually say that kind of stuff.
Raoul Duke: It's straight economics. This girl is a god-send. Shit, she can make us a grand a day.
Dr. Gonzo: No! Stop talking like that.
Raoul Duke: I figure she can do about four at a time. Christ, if we keep her full of acid that's more like two grand a day. Maybe three.
Dr. Gonzo: You filthy bastard. I should cave your fucking head in.
Raoul Duke: In a few hours, she'll probably be sane enough to work herself into a towering Jesus-based rage at the hazy recollection of being seduced by some kind of cruel Samoan who fed her liquor and LSD, dragged her to a Vegas hotel room and savagely penetrated every orifice in her body with his throbbing, uncircumcised member.
Dr. Gonzo: No! I felt sorry for the girl, I wanted to help her!
Raoul Duke: You'll go straight to the gas chamber. And even if you manage to beat that, they'll send you back to Nevada for Rape and Consensual Sodomy. She's got to go.
Dr. Gonzo: Shit, it doesn't pay to try to help somebody these days.
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Dr. Gonzo: Lucy, is an artist. Lucy paints pictures of Barbara Streisand.
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Raoul Duke: Don't take any guff from these fucking swine.
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Raoul Duke: But our trip was different. It was to be a classic affirmation of everything right and true in the national character. A gross physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country. But only for those with true grit.
[to hitchhiker]
Raoul Duke: And we are chock full of that, man.
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Raoul Duke: Last name? I'd rather not say. My brother's in politics.
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[Raoul is imagining himself in court]
Lucy: Those two men in the dock they gave me the LSD and they took me to the hotel. I don't know what they done to me, but I remember it was horrible.
[Duke Groans]
Judge: They gave you what?
Lucy: L.S.D.
Judge: Castration! Double castration!
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Raoul Duke: You've gone all sideways, man.
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Raoul Duke: What kind of rat bastard psychotic would play that song right now, at this moment?
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Raoul Duke: [to Acosta] PLEASE. Tell me you got the fucking golf shoes.
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Raoul Duke: Ah, devil ether. It makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel. Total loss of all basic motor function. Blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue. The mind recoils in horror, unable to communicate with the spinal column. Which is interesting because you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can't control it.
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Raoul Duke: Our vibrations were getting nasty. But why? Was there no communication in this car? Had we deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts?
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Dr. Gonzo: Sounds like big trouble. You're going to need plenty of legal advice before this thing is over. As your attorney, I advise you to rent a very fast car with no top. And you'll need the cocaine. Tape recorder for special messages. Acapulco shirts. Get the hell out of L.A. for at least 48 hours.
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Dr. Gonzo: Are you ready for that? Checking into a Las Vegas hotel under a phony name with intent to commit capital fraud on a head full of acid? I sure hope so.
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Raoul Duke: What was I doing here? What was the meaning of this trip? Was I just roaming around in a drug frenzy of some kind? Or had I really come out here to Las Vegas to work on a story? Who are these people, these faces? Where do they come from? They look like caricatures of used car dealers from Dallas, and sweet Jesus, there were a hell of a lot of them at 4:30 on a Sunday morning, still humping the American dream, that vision of the big winner somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino.
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Raoul Duke: Who are these people? These faces? Where did they come from? They look like characters of used car dealers from Dallas, and sweet Jesus there are a hell of a lot of them at 4:30 on a Sunday morning still humping the American dream.
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Raoul Duke: I was right in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo, and somebody was giving booze to these goddamn things. Won't be long now before they tear us to shreds.
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Dr. Gonzo: Music. Turn it up. Put that tape on.
Raoul Duke: What tape?
Dr. Gonzo: Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit". I want a rising sound.
Raoul Duke: You're doomed. I'm leaving here in two hours and then they're going to come up here and beat the mortal shit out of you with big saps. Right there in that tub.
Dr. Gonzo: I dig my own graves. Green water and the White Rabbit. Put it on.
Raoul Duke: OK. But do me one last favor, will you. Can you give me two hours? That's all I ask - just two hours to sleep before tomorrow. I suspect it's going to be a very difficult day.
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Raoul Duke: The possibility of physical and mental breakdown is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.
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Raoul Duke: Jesus, bad waves of paranoia, madness, fear and loathing - intolerable vibrations in this place. Get out. The weasels were closing in. I could smell the ugly brutes. Flee.
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Parking Attendant: You can't park your car here.
Raoul Duke: Why not? Is this not a reasonable place to park?
Parking Attendant: Park? You're on the middle of the sidewalk.
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Raoul Duke: [after pulling his car up onto the sidewalk] Is this not a reasonable place to park?
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Raoul Duke: We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.
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Raoul Duke: Dogs fucked the Pope... no fault of mine.
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[on acid while brandishing knife]
Dr. Gonzo: Who said anything about carving you up, man? I just wanted to carve a Z into your forehead.
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Raoul Duke: We're going to be killed for fuck's sake.
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Raoul Duke: That bastard isn't gonna get away with this. I mean, what is going on in this country when a scumsucker like that can get away with sandbagging a doctor of journalism?
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Raoul Duke: Fuck 'im... I'm gonna miss 'im.
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Raoul Duke: In some circles, the Mint 400 is a far far better thing than the superbowl, the Kentucky Derby, and the lower Oakland roller derby finals all rolled into one.
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Raoul Duke: You people voted for Hubert Humphrey, and you killed Jesus.
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Dr. Gonzo: Did you see the look on his face? He was lying to us! I could see it in his eyes.
Raoul Duke: Eyes?
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Raoul Duke: Quick, like a bunny.
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[last lines]
Raoul Duke: What Leary took down with him was the central illlusion of a whole lifestyle that he helped create. A generation of permanant cripples who never understood the mystic fallacy of the acid culture a desperate assumption that somebody or at least some force, was tending the light at the end of the tunnel. There was only one road back to L.A. - Route 15. Then onto the Hollywood Freeway, into obscurity. Just another freak, in the freak kingdom.
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it was really shitty that he died. i mean, i didnt know him but he was an amazing writer and i mean, just cos you dont know someone doesnt mean you cant be sad. rip.

Yea, but if you think that way, then you are going to be sad for your whole life cause someone dies every minute of every second and what not you know.