The King is dead: long live the King etc.

A guy I affectionately refer to as Ass-Computer, a pal in Finland, paged me earlier in soulseek saying "have you seen this?" and passed me a link which ended with "obit_thompson.html".

My heart sank and a heavy grief overwhelmed me.

"Fuck!" shouts I. "Mayo Thompson is dead".

Of course, it quickly turned out that it was Hunter S. Thompson, erstwhile Doctor of Journalism, a.k.a. Raoul Duke, who was in fact deceased.

A weird mixture of relief and frustration and fulfillment replaced the grief. In a sense I'd been expecting it. I mean, the guy's been dicing it; lining up to bite the big one for a well over forty years. It's not exactly unexpected, that he would go on a crazed acid binge after gnawing for several hours on the pineal glands of kidnapped Amazonian tribesmen, and shoot hisself in the head as he battled to fight off the giant man-eating reptiles.

Or something.

So I guess the bats finally caught up with him in this world; now he's barrelling down the highways of the next, in the midst of a depraved ether and qualude bender, furiously shooting off his six-gun while they're screeching overhead, dive-bombing the car and snatching at his aviators. Probably with the devil riding shotgun, "as your Lord of Darkness, I advise you to use the flame-thrower." etc.

R.I.P. Duke, and take care, you mad mother-fucker.

Short tribute. HST has had arguably the greatest influence on my life in terms of how I view the world, how I think about states of existence, the managed consumption and abuse of intoxicants and narcotics and the beauty and potential of the written word. For that I'm incalculably grateful.

PS. Oh yeah, and if you're the bastard that's got my copy of Songs of the Doomed (yeah, I know I lent it to ya but I've forgotten who you are) get it back to me, would ya?

PPS: Non-deceased Musical maverick Mayo Thompson has recorded and released an astonishing amount of incredible music under the project name The Red [CK]rayola since approximately 1966.