Totally Gonzo - Rory Feehan [6] - Football Season's Over

Then of course came that fateful night of February 20th 2005 when Hunter decided to check out for good. A weird thing happened the night before in the same bar where I had watched the election results. I was drinking there with a friend who was also a big fan of Thompson and we ended up talking about him. The two of us and another friend had actually tried to visit Aspen in October 2004 but we never made it up there. We turned back about half-ways there after nearly freezing to death at the side of a mountain in a blizzard. We were planning on dropping by Owl Farm and leaving a bottle of absinthe at the gates for Hunter as a gift. We had no intention of setting foot on the property though. We had heard the stories about what happened to uninvited guests and none of us had an appetite for that craziness. Anyway we never made it that far but we had plans to return there when the weather was a bit more hospitable. As far as I am concerned I have an undelivered bottle of absinthe for one Hunter S. Thompson, to be delivered in due course. Before that night in February though, when we were talking about Hunter, my friend made a throwaway remark, I think in relation to four more years of the Bush regime, something along the lines of him being surprised that Hunter hadn’t shot himself already in disgust. You can imagine our reaction the next day when we heard the news. I was immensely saddened and I have no doubt that Bush winning a second term had proven to be the catalyst for Hunter’s decision. He was in ill-health but I think a Kerry victory would have reinvigorated the old bastard. Plus the prospect of kicking Bush while he was down would have been an endless source of entertainment, for us all. Instead we got what Hunter called The Big Darkness. 

When I returned from America I finished my degree and my final dissertation could have been on nobody else but Hunter S. Thompson. A little later I began a PhD focused on his creation of The Hunterfigure and Gonzo Journalism. I think, and I hope I illustrated it here, that you can draw a line of connection between that day 20 odd years ago when I first heard Jimi Hendrix to where I am today, with a few deviations along the way. It has been an interesting trip to say the least.