Posted: 3/5/2008 3:40:48 PM EDT
I am just curious as to what the general consensus is regarding HST. I'm sure many of you despise him on the grounds of him being a 'liberal' (even though he has repeatedly said he is not a liberal and dislikes liberals). On the other hand, he was an extreme gun enthusiast and good friend of individuals like Pat Buchanan. Anyways, I'm interested to hear what all you have to say. 
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Either Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream or Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga |
Didn't he call one of them out for smacking around his woman? It's been awhile but I think that's what lead to the beating. Regardless, good guy in my book. |
Been a while for me too, but I'm 90% sure the beating was a result of Hell's Angels wanting a cut on book profits. They got real pissed at the idea of HST making money from writing about them with them never seeing a penny. |
| I thought of him as a barely mediocre writer, a loser, and an absurdly and inexplicably conceited cockbite. Certainly he did things his own way, but his way seems to have involved an appalling lack of respect for other people, their safety, their property, et c. |
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The Doctor was an "interesting" character... to say the least. The man grabbed life by the throat and kicked its ass. Although I started reading his work for the humor aspect, I definitely caught the politics bug from him... and it's lasted my entire adult life. (Funny thing is, although I rarely agreed with him on political issues, I always looked forward to reading his take on things.) The man was also the quintessential "fun hog". From what I've read, hanging out with him could be insane at times. There were times I was reduced to tears of laughter while reading something he'd wrote. I still can't read "The Great Shark Hunt" (from the book of the same name) without losing it. As he got older, he kind of crossed the line from iconoclast to whiny lib, at least in his writing. Not sure I'd want to be him... but I do miss him. Weird thing is, I was sitting on the beach in Hawaii, reading "The Curse of Lono", the day he checked out. |
Then, in the collection 'The Great Shark Hunt' read the stories 'Fear and Loathing at the Super Bowl' then 'The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved' and the title story. 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail' is pretty good too. |
I was stunned at how well that movie turned out. I would have thought that book impossible to put on the big screen. I've never been happier to be wrong. |