“Hunter S Thompson is the bad ass intellectual friend your parents don’t want you to hang out with.”

              Have you ever had a friend your parents or peers don’t much care for? I think we have all been there, even politicians and authority figures have had a friend or acquaintance like that. Someone whose lifestyle doesn’t quite measure up to everyone else’s expectations of the social type you should be cavorting with. Well for the certain generation of the rich, famous and powerful that friend happened to be the gonzo journalist, Hunter S Thompson, bubba. (Bubba a reference to Bill Clinton, who’s nickname, as funny as it happens to be is, bubba. In addition, these side notes, like this one, happen to be everywhere in his books. So there’s another little inside joke for your enjoyment.) What I am trying to say is that everyone at some point or another has made friends with someone who is nothing like you but somehow they have a lot in common with you. This special kind of bad ass friend influences you to ditch out on your responsibilities to go behind a dumpster, per say, and smoke cigarettes for a while and discuss current issues; politics, sex, conspiracies and other dumpster talk.  For the politicians in the 1970’s to mid 1990s that friend was Hunter S Thompson. (For me that friend isn’t so much a friend but family, my brother. For the record, he talks about sex and I continuously tell him, I am his sister and don’t care to know about his sick fantasies besides… I’ve had better.)

                Aside, from Hunter Thompson being a total bad ass, he was an incredible writer, he wrote for The Rolling Stone and has at least 10 books published on various subjects. He is the Godfather of a writing style similar to dirty realism, a style known world wide as gonzo. (It is not titled after the puppet created by Jim Henson, that came after his time.) The saying goes, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro”. That was Mr. Thompson’s trade mark saying for his gonzo journalism, you can find it referenced in some of his works and it is on the cover of almost every one of gonzo journals.  He also refers to himself as a “political junkie”, a term which sounds derogatory but actually it is negated as a positive term. Essentially it means having an addiction to politics, every waking and breathing moment is devoted to the study and analyses of modern politics. (It’s an insult to real politicians, unlike bloggers who whine about the injustices done to the green party and vegetarian animal loving Liberals’ and baby boomers that were and are hippies.)  

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” – Hunter S Thompson

                I was assigned to read a book by Thompson and the one that really caught my eye was, Better than sex: confessions of a political junkie. This book was one of his later gonzo journals. It basically fallows the election race of 1992, candidates Bill Clinton and George Bush. At this time Thompson had (allegedly) given up the former life of being a political groupie, who moved from place to place with the candidate he was interested in but this election caught his attention and he gave his best efforts not to get involved. (He was so interested due to his burning hate for George Bush and basically his entire family and anyone in cahoots with him. As well as, the fact that he felt it was his main purpose in life to literally shit on the Republican Party and cause as much upset amongst the political parties and the American government as possible, from what I gather at least.)  However, on some occasions he was simply in the wrong place at the right time and got wrapped up in his former mistakes, past articles and publications connected with The Rolling Stone magazine. It was an inevitable situation that he would be a slave to politics for the rest of his life, weather he liked it or not. Once you’re in there is no getting out, that saying goes for any politician or aspiring politician, you have been warned, bubba.

                Mr. Thompson did much more than just follow political scandals and publically criticize the Republican Party. He was a pioneer for the counter culture of the American dream, Here you have the American dream a mythical life where everyone is happy with two kids a house, a healthy relationship with a spouse and the world turns round. WHHOOOPPIIEEE! Hunter Thompson introduced a generation to the darker or opposite side of that dream. This is the underground world of drug addictions, swingers and free living with no responsibility (financially and morally). Here you have a man rubbing elbows with societies finest, who embody and lobby for the progression of the very dream that the guy next to them (Thompson) doesn’t believe in, participate in or generally speaking doesn’t give a fuck about, that’s irony bubba.

“My Beat is the death of the American dream.” – Hunter S Thompson

                So far I haven’t really drawn any finally conclusions from his book but I am getting there. In the light of recent events I have drawn a few conclusions about politics in general, curious aren’t you. I’ll cut straight to the chase and let you ridicule and criticize me, so we can just get that over and done with, because I know that’s the main reason your reading this now. (We all know it, so I’ll put that out there. Besides, if I wasn’t grammatically outrageous and didn’t write exactly what I am thinking at this very moment, I’d end up letting you down and we don’t want that now, do we?)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

 Politics, economics and communication, three things high school student struggle to understand. However, I’ve learned a very valuable trick to help me better understand complicated subjects such as politics. What you have to do is find a similar system that can correspond with the system or subject you are studying. For example, the United Nations resembles to a typical high school, the main powers (China, Russia, England and America) are the popular kids who run the show. Then you have the bad ass kids (Cuba, Venezuela and ominous African Countries) on Sprague Avenue in a back alley talking trash about the popular kids and those countries tend to be communist run or dictatorships. It’s my belief that if you can understand the basic social workings of an average American high school then you should be able to comprehend politics at a very elementary level at least.

Do you remember ever playing a game called, Telephone? This comparison matches the game of telephone and communication between major powers in the world today. Telephone is a game in which a message must be passed from one end of a line to another without changing. Sadly, there is no possible chance of winning because even if your team is determined, there is always one funny guy a real class clown (Media) who thinks it will be funny to purposely change the message to something usually inappropriate. Today, a giant game of telephone is being played right in front of your eyes. From country to country, however, the message is changed viscously from place to place by news networks, radios talk shows, world leaders, and celebrities (Angelina Jolie, Bono and other hippie celebrities, looking for their 15minutes of fame because the acting/movie business has dried up and no one wants to hear their empty words and broken promises to change the world one song/film at a time.) ect. These are vigorous little lessons you can learn from an accesses of TV, paranoia, conspiracies and Hunter S Thompson. 

“Life is about balance, you can only achieve the American dream to a certain extent in this day and age.”

These are just some brief thoughts, which I found entertaining enough to jot down and share with you. All politics are, are vicious rumors, misunderstandings and poor communication.  The time has come again to rap up this rant and move on to a duller topic that has to be completed. If you can learn anything from Hunter Thompson I would say it has to be that life is about balance. You can achieve the American dream to a certain extent, as well as, living free with no responsibilities and swinging from partner to partner. In the end it all comes down to you and the choices you make everyday but if you ask me each life is fulfilling, I grew up in the light of the American dream, I made it through Clinton, Bush and  even the regime of the satanic Christine Gregoire. I have no doubt in my mind I will someday, find where I belong and I know I will be happy no matter where I end up.

Sometimes, I confess, I buy the paper and I forget to actually read it. It will probably be the Guardian and I’ll buy it – promising myself that I will consume it lovingly cover to cover and that it will somehow make me a better person, raising my mind from thoughts of X Factor and lasagne. Such good intentions…

The next day I will see my paper on the sideboard. I will consider reading it but by now it looks deflated - its stories less enticing. I turn on the radio – the next episode of life and death is already happening somewhere out there. What is the point of paper pulp that only screams the breaking news of yesterday? So my paper ends up discarded and my money-waster guilt lives on. 

The characters in Thompson’s novel also face the question of the precise literary value and meaning of journalism. Well, I say face. They are journalists so they encounter the problem of writing reality but never fully discuss this issue in so many words and then, in most scenes, they get really drunk and sleep with other people or each other.

But Thompson’s narrator Paul Kemp carries around The Times like ‘a precious bundle of wisdom, a weighty assurance that [you're] not yet cut off from that part of the world that was real.’ Maybe, his character suggests, literature could learn some new tricks from the field of the hack. Get a bit more real. The alcoholic 60s cohort of ‘New Journalists’, including Thompson and his characters, try out a range of narrative and journalistic modes of writing in order to test out this theory.

Thompson, most famous for writing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, paints a pretty debauched picture of Puerto Rico, its coin slots, fiestas, hotel parties and printing houses. Paul Kemp is portrayed as painfully aware he has only one drunken mind in a thousand with which to write reality. The Rum Diary stands as a record of a journalist-persona who writes reality ‘badly’ and offers us the job of doing better.

4/5 stars

Next I’m reading…Norman Mailer’s The Deer Park

After spending some days in the shelter in Kamloops, busking for money in front of liquor stores and supermarkets, I befriended some fellow shelter stayers and we decided to head to Merritt to help out with the forest fires (2003).  The good fight.  Helpin out the people in need.  Money.  It had it all.

Of everyone talking about going only Brian actually did and that was cool ’cause he reminded me of Hunter Thompson.  He had just gotten out of jail for pushing his sister’s asshole boyfriend down some stairs.

We had a sign made from 5 pieces of cardboard strung together the said Merritt Going TO FightFires Please.  A lady picked us up after a long uphill hike out of town and asked if she could take our picture.  She was a journalist in Kamloops and was working on stories about the FireFighters.  So she drove us to around Logan Lake and took our picture from a couple of angles.  So maybe we got our pictures in the paper..

hunter thompson as hunter thompson.

here he is in puerto rico, writing the rum diary. he was 22.

loved this vanity fair shot of johnny depp, on location in puerto rico. he will play hunter t. in “the rum diary” – i can’t wait to see it.

what Hunter S. Thompson was to the Nixon administration.

I see a glimmer of Thompson in what Miller wrote here for the Washington Examiner. I predict Miller will write his own Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail for the 2012 election.

“It never got weird enough for me.” ~Hunter Thompson

My friend, guitar pickin, band ownin, song writing  journalist and fellow Hunter Thompson freak Noel Davila has unveiled his new website here. Be sure to check it out. Noel is also busy finishing his piece for our HST For Beginners bit so be sure to check back for that. OK, go to his site now and buy his album.

The ever-prolific Google has just released a new product, called Google Wave. The best way to describe Google Wave is that it is email, the way that email would be if it was invented in 2009, instead of in 1971. It’s more communicative: you can send a ‘wave’ to as many recipients as you like, and each one can edit it, reply to it, etc., and have changes visible to the entire group. It’s much more immediate, like a phone call, rather than an answer-at-your-leisure email. It’s more dynamic: you can include pictures, sound files, and even invitations complete with checklists for ‘yes’ and ‘no’s into each ‘wave’. Time magazine is calling it “the future of communication” and a “possible email takeover.”

Communication really has exploded in the past ten years. Blogs, Twitter, texting, and portable telephones that can essentially park your car for you – these days, anything seems possible. Which troubles me. Because here’s something I’ve learned: every wave breaks, and every mounting force comes to an end. What we’re left with afterwards is uncertainty and a need for forceful simplicity.
Sometimes this can go terribly wrong. When Germany’s economy was in ruins during the aftermath of the first World War, there was no solution in sight – things kept getting worse and worse. The situation spiraled out of control. Finally, someone with force and simplicity stepped up and dug Germany out of its staggering financial difficulties. Afterwards? He lost control of his power and became a horror to the world.

Every wave breaks. When will enough be enough for us? Are we greedy to a fault? Absolutely. Will we ever see our priorities set straight? Let’s hope so.

Last year, my school watched the film “The Wave”. Based on the book by , “The Wave” details a high school teacher’s experiment with mass obedience and conformity, and discovers the startling extent to which his students will go in order to follow the rules he lays down. Eventually, he has become a dictator, and is only able to open his students’ eyes to what they have become by comparing them to the Nazis, and himself to Hitler.

What will it take to set us straight?

Hunter S. Thompson writes, in his immortal Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, about how during his years in San Francisco there was a sense of right in the air, a sense that there was madness in any direction, in every direction; a sense that things were getting more and more frantic with every passing moment. It was a magical time, he writes, a time of great gain and loss all at once. We all rode a great and glorious wave, and could only dare to hold on as we rode towards finality. If you look carefully from Las Vegas out to San Francisco, with the right eye, Thompson writes, you can almost see for yourself where the wave broke and rolled back.

Every wave breaks. Where will the wave that is our rapidly accelerating pace of communication, break? Where will something cause us as a nation under the spell of technology to break free from our hypnotized state and realize what we have become?
I pray it is soon. Until then, I’m not doing this wave.

It’s derivative…

“…we, the loudmouths who so cloyingly espouse the unshackling of one’s ideas about work and life…”

“If you don’t want anyone to know about your existence, you might as well kill yourself…   You will die, and when you die, you will know a profound lack of dignity.”

There’s been an ongoing dispute over Dave Eggers.   His initial novel, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, came out in 2000 (hardbound) and 2001 (trade paperback).   Some viewed him as a genius – “like a young Bob Dylan” in the words of the Washington Post – while others just found his writing style to be clever.   After reading this book, I tend to concur with the latter group.   Eggers is clearly funny and he has an obvious knack for writing humor but content-wise there’s not much here.   Heartbreaking is a bit like Seinfeld, which was a TV show about nothing.

Here Eggers fictionalizes his own life, when both of his parents die while he’s in his early twenties and he moves from Lake Forest, Illinois to Berkeley.   Oh, and he also takes care of his nine-year-old brother while his sister studies law at Bolt Hall.   That’s about it for the plot except for Eggers’s work in starting a magazine and auditioning for The Real World, MTV’s so-called reality show.   (Eggers, of course, is not selected to live in the fun house in San Francisco.)

Eggers seems to be at his best when telling shaggy dog stories.   For example, he tells a story of when he and a date were jumped on a San Francisco beach by a group of Hispanics.   He blames them for stealing his late father’s wallet but the reader figures out halfway through the lark that Eggers left the wallet at home in Berkeley.   Not so clever or funny.

Eggers looks back more than once at the 70’s.   But this book is actually a throw back to the 60’s, and this is the biggest flaw with Eggers’s not-so-unique style.   While the style is entertaining, it’s a blatant return to the Gonzo rock journalism practiced back then by Lester Bangs, Ben Fong-Torres (who appears as himself in the novel The Year of Fog) and others too obvious to mention.  

Reading this “work of fiction” in which all the events are said to “have actually happened,” is like hearing a newly formed rock band that sounds like the Beatles and Badfinger.   One would be tempted to say, “Good work but we’ve already been there, done that.”   Next.

Note:   This book was purchased by the reviewer at Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon.

I wake up at 2 a.m. with razorblades in my throat. The cold my older daughter had two days ago invaded me and I hear a faint strum of a guitar. I walk downstairs and there’s Harry Chapin singing his magnum opus:

Cat’s in the Cradle and the Silver Spoon
Little Boy Blue and the Man on the Moon
When you’re coming home Dad
I don’t know when
But we’ll get together –

CRASH! BOOM! SMASH! His guitar neck in my hand, pieces of it all over the stairs, I glare at him and say, “Sorry.” I hand it back.

“Hey! You copied me!” says John Belushi at the end of the stairs.

“I learn from the best.” I take a shot of NyQuil and go back to bed.

Later that morning, I’m up, still in a purple NyQuil haze, making a peanut butter and banana sandwich for my daughter’s lunch. I set it on the table and a hand with a ring on every finger reaches for it. I slap his wrist.

“I…I…I…I’m sorry ma’am. It’s just that I don’t get too many peanut butter and banana sandwiches in heaven.”

“That’s okay, Elvis. But it’s for my daughter’s lunch.”

“I understand, Ma’am.”

“Elvis, you know I love you honey. And you know I don’t mind you calling me ma’am. In fact, the only time I like to be called ma’am is if it’s attached to a Southern accent, which you undoubtedly have. But you need to find yourself a good chef up there.”

“None of them know how to cook hillbilly.”

“Yeah, that could be a problem. Tell ya what. I’ll put in a good word to my grandma, I heard she was a fantastic chef.”

“She know how to cook collard greens?”

“You bet!”

“Later, Tater.”

I turn on the radio and as usual, the procession begins. Robert Palmer and his ladies with slicked back hair, white faces and red lipstick set up their instruments, not that they know how to play them anyways. He starts singing,

The lights are on and you’re not home
Your will is not your own.

“Mr. Palmer! You know I got a bad case of loving you but your music is not conducive to a preschooler’s learning environment. She needs to concentrate.”

He’s dejected, but I’ve told him so many times before. Only Mozart in the morning. He’s more than welcome in the afternoon when I’m doing dishes. Wolfgang rolls in his harpsichord leaving talcum powder prints from his wig on the floor. He sits down and wails out “Rondo Alla Turca”.

I turn to put dishes in my sink and Hunter Thompson is rummaging through my medicine cabinet next to the fridge. “Hunter, you know I kicked Vicodin a long time ago.”

“Yeah, just thought you might have a few left.”

“Ha! You know as well as I do that’s not possible! Besides you won’t find anything stronger than cold medicine.”

“What about this?”

“That’s for my under-active thyroid.”

“And THIS?”

“High blood pressure. Now off you go.”

Hunter shuts the cabinet door. “Whatever happened to housewives and their ’secret’ medications?”

“Number one, we’re called stay at-home moms. Number two, thanks to Saint Erma, we don’t have to hide the fact that our jobs are sometimes crappy.”

“Oh yeah, Saint Erma.”

Just then a choir of angels sing, and Erma Bombeck appears with a glowing aura of light. I have no choice but to genuflect.

to be continued…

Self Portrait, On the Road to Tijuana

Self Portrait, Puerto Rico

Self Portrait, Passed Out

Self Portrait, After Beating by Hell’s Angels

Self Portrait, with Bulletin Board

Self Portrait, with Grill, Big Sur

Please observe:

What do these two commercials have in common?

…yes, they both shill Bud Light.

You know what else, though? They were both nominated for EMMYS. Yes, that Emmy, the highest honor given by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Emmy. BOTH of them, two years in a row for Bud and their agency, DDB Chicago.

You know what else they have in common? They, along with another classic beer spot for cousin Bud Light Lime from DDB, just got shit on by trade mag Advertising Age.

In the words of a great man know by many as Crowe AKA Crowe-bot AKA Crowe, Crowe, Crowe your fuckin BOAT, I have to say: reeeeeeeeeallly? reeeeeeeeAAAAAAALLLLlyyyyy??

JUVENILE? We’re talking about BEER ADS here, folks. The ugly, inbred progeny of the most lowbrow form of alcoholic beverage and his cousin: the most lowbrow form of entertainment. Since when do we have such lofty aspirations for BEER ADS? A commercial for beer is the most satisfyingly American thing on television and it is commercials like these that are proudly carrying on this most important American tradition. It’s a time-proven formula DDB is working with here and only a fucking imbecile would tamper with it.

Case in point: their most recent super bowl ad…

Drinkability…. Really sticks…

Who gives a fuck about snowboarders drawing imaginary shapes in the sky. I WANT GOD DAMN RACIAL STEREOTYPES, PORN, EX-GIRLFRIENDS, #*&$ING FOUR-LETTER WORDS, AND STINGING HUMILIATION THAT WILL LAST WITH ME UNTIL I DRAG MY SORRY ASS TO THE LIQUOR STORE TO BUY MORE BUD LIGHT.

As proof of their potency in an industry that is currently eating jisms from a prison guard’s asshole, Swear Jar has over 5 million hits on YouTube alone and the newcomer, Magazine Buyer, more than 300,000. Drinkability? oh yeah, you know… barely 15,000

Still… artificially-flavored Lime beer?

I’ll take a PBR

“I order hamburgers at vegetarian restaurants and when I’m in Europe, I dress like a heterosexual. What can I say? I’m a contradiction.”

-Hunter S. Thompson

“The essence of the gentleman pure is the ease of his wardrobe; he objects to marked ins and outs, and he also objects to looking inspired.”

-George Elliot

“America is all about speed; hot, nasty speed.”

-Eleanor Roosevelt

“For every one hundred men you send us, ten should not even be here. Eighty are nothing but targets. Nine are real fighters. We are lucky to have them… they the battle make. Ah, but the one. One of them is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.”

-Heraclitus

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”

-Benjamin Franklin

“To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

-George Mason

"Words to live by."

Super sunday. Dawn. My recollections of the last twelve hours are very dim. All that I know for certain is that shortly after I checked in, two third-world drug abusers dressed as hotel employees forced their way into my room, ransacked it, drank all my liquor, did all my drugs, stole my dinner. If security precautions aren’t beefed up at this hotel I’m looking for safer accomodations. It’s a sad state of affairs when this reporter has to go heavily armed to breakfast.

Hunter S. Thompson (R.I.P.)

The morning sun is creeping over the hills and firing a barrage of bright rays through thousands of slanted window blinds in Silicon Valley, California. Time to get out of bed. Many residents awake to garbage trucks making their steady, boisterous advance. A siren wails in the distance, stirring another wave of the populace out of their slumber. The sweet aroma of brewing coffee permeates the cool air in many homes, waking those more sensitive to smell than sound–a pleasant experience often met with a wide and eager grin. But then there are those who are shaken by the piercing and unforgiving concerto of the alarm clock.

The sudden shriek and subsequent silence of alarms sounding and snoozing can be heard every morning on any residential block. The bad noise sparks a frenetic scurrying to begin the respective ceremonies of preparing for another day on the job. Hair must be tamed, teeth brushed, cosmetics garnished, proper attire donned, and breakfast on-the-go while walking out the door.

Those who are fortunate enough to command our own vehicle will muscle for rank on the highway and hurl lewd insults at fellow motorists in a caffeine-induced frenzy to nab an ideal parking space. Others will board public transit and suffer the frustration of stop-and-go travel, bumping elbows with a variety of passengers: the Vietnamese woman in her conical hat making great efforts to avoid eye contact; the burly homeless man reeking of sweat and filth; the pregnant Hispanic woman struggling to control her five children; the paranoid schizophrenic holding two conversations and four arguments with himself; and the ever-present brood of criminals, perverts, drunkards, hopheads, and other degenerates. Needless to say, riding the bus or train is always eventful.

On the job, the worker faces a plethora of constant frustrations. Those of us who deal with customers on a daily basis must remain chipper when some angry customer decides they’ve had enough with the way things are going in their life and chooses to target the manager of the nearest store to vent some steam. Or: the one machine in the office that prints, copies, faxes, and makes cappuccinos is on the fritz and your I.T. guy is on vacation, forcing you to pay a repairman. Or: the worker has just been passed up for a promotion and some schmuck who drinks on the job and has head lice is his new supervisor. These are just a few example of the misfortunes we experience on the job.

Some of us will join our coworkers and fellow patrons at the usual watering hole for drinks after work, some of us will have errands to run before going home, and some of us will drive like a bat out of hell to get there in time for the evening news. Most will have families to tend to, but a few will have the luxury of solitude after work. Whatever the evening routine may be, odd are that most will carve out a few hours each night to plop on the sofa and watch some television. Those who are fortunate enough can afford premium cable and a DVR recorder, but for those not living the Life of Riley there’s the usual: the local news (followed by the national news), Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, and then some kind of movie. Usually, there isn’t anything very stimulating during these hours, and a lot of time is spent worrying about the following day at work. The bad sleep well while the rest of us toss and turn.

In the end, everyone finds themself back at ground zero: bed. The sounds of settling can’t very well be heard from the streets, but the collective sounds of televisions, stereos, kitchen appliances, and conversations tend to dwindle down to a weak and steady drone by midnight. Some sleep soundly, some don’t. Some are prodded throughout the night by partners, some are awakened throughout the night by babies and small children. Indeed, some even get little to no sleep whatsoever. Regardless, the dreadful and inevitable hour of the alarm lies in wait, and before long we’re back on the fast-track.

Yes, this title is another example of my endless wit.

This series was aired on TV here with daily re-runs, 12 episodes, each about 26 minutes. It’s a drama that you shouldn’t watch unless you’re ready for vulgarities and a lot of naked.

Californication (IMDB, Wikipedia), follows writer Hank Moody, who’s falling into pussy. It’s not addressed as much, but from the way he’s drinking and how early it is, I’d hazard a guess that the character is also an alcoholic.

Hank is a writer. Hank used to write. Hank does not write any more.
Hank used to live with the woman he loves, with whom he has a daughter, who doesn’t live with him.
Hank used to live in NYC, but now he lives in California, which he loathes, though it is not entirely clear why.

Hank hates his life. Hank is not on a road of self-destruction, when we meet Hank, he’s already at the end. He tries to get back with Karen, but this obviously comes only after she gets engaged.

This show runs for about 26 minutes of episode material, and is a drama. This is something I’m not used to, short-form drama. Sure, there are moments I laugh at in most episodes, but I wouldn’t call it a comedy. I laugh because something is funny, not because the series is a comedy. And there’s some difference I’m having trouble formulating in words.

The series does not have that much characterization, the characters stay more or less the same, and what changes is their relationships, very slowly, or the scenery, such as the women Hank beds, like an assembly line of fucking and self-loathing. Heck, I did get some vibes of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas from the series, if not from the series itself, then Hank did have some Hunter S. Thompson poured into him, or Hemmingway, or another of those old drunk, miserable, coots.

Hank’s daughter, Becca, speaks in a dead-pan voice, and she fulfills the role of the greek choir (such as in Sophocles’ play, Antigone) at moments in the series. Narrating to us how Hank is doing, what his nature is, etc. This is somewhat touching and sad, as she is also his daughter, about 12 years old, and knows of how flawed her father is.
As sometimes happens in such a series, you’re left unsure who’s the parent. Good thing Becca lives with Karen.

Hank: Who said you have to be realistic?
Becka: Mom
Hank: Oh.

Some other short points:
- The fake male orgasm never sounded or felt more fake. Seriously. No need to grunt when (fake) masturbating for the sake of the camera.
- This is not a story about redemption. This is not a story about falling. This is a story about the wallowing you do when you’re at the bottom.
- Episode 10 is fucked up. It’s written and feels as if everyone involved was high. The writers, the characters, us hapless watchers. It was weird.
Good acting by Madeline Zima, as a girl pining over an older man, whom Hank calls “Sociopath in training”.

I’m not really sure how to classify this series, or how to describe my feelings towards it. I’ve enjoyed watching it, overall. But it was kind of a morbid fascination watch. It’s somewhat well-made, and has some rough edges that I think are intentional.

Worth a watch. I will not try to grade this one, y’all.
Second season begins its daily re-runs tonight. Will share thoughts in 3 weeks or so, when it’s over.

Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson

Gonzo is an oral biography following the journey of journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson from birth to death. His story is told by family, friends, and others who knew him personally and sheds light on the man behind the myth. Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour from Rolling Stone–Where Thompson worked for many years–are credited with compiling and commenting in this great book which serves as a tribute to the great American writer.

The book chronicles Thompson’s journey from Louisville, Kentucky, to Owl Creek, his “heavily fortified compound” outside of Aspen, Colorado. Those close to Hunter take us behind the curtain and share intimate insights into the events which shaped the Good Doctor’s life, including his romps in New York, Puerto Rico, Europe, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Colorado.

If you’re a HST fan—or just curious as to just how much truth lies behind the legend—this book is highly recommended and will not disappoint. So: “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

The Great Shark Hunt: Gonzo Papers, Vol. I: Strange Tales from a Strange Time

Hunter Thompson (R.I.P.) is a legend in his own right, and any biography or documentary on the man will support that claim. As a writer, Thompson is arguably considered the best American author since Mark Twain. His uncompromising literary journey from Edwards Air Force Base, where he began his writing career as a sports editor, to Scanlan’s Monthly, where he pioneered his famous “gonzo” style of journalism with The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, to Rolling Stone and his legendary coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, onward and upward to the bestseller’s list with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, and The Proud Highway.

The Great Shark Hunt captures an era of madness, mystique, corruption in high places, crazed drug frenzies, and the unescapable notion that the American Dream is no longer attainable.