Whole Life Times: In the Throes of the Apocalypse

March 2005

In the Throes of the Apocalypse

Smart as he was, Hunter Thompson may have left our struggling planet just a little too soon.

by David Thomas

Hunter S. Thompson influenced generations of us to drink our weight in grain alcohol, ingest all manner of illicit substances, flip off The Man and then boot him in the grapes. His accomplishments in the field of drug-fiendishness were unparalleled, and it’s astonishing that his liver didn’t revolt 30 years ago.

But Hunter was far more than just gonzo hedonist extraordinaire. He brayed about the savagery and stupidity of life on this planet, but for Hunter, this was a part of his very own strain of spirituality. He saw how great things could be, if not for the way we puny humans kept royally fucking it up with greed, arrogance, idiocy and power-grubbing. This rattled him to his marrow and explains the massive intake of booze and drugs. He had a gaping hole in his soul that he attempted to suture with analgesics—substances, guns, adventure, sex and writing. All this was a perfectly reasonable response to the horrors he saw around him. A bullet in the brain also must have seemed logical, and who is to say it wasn’t? The good doctor decided his Ride Was Here and he got in the car.

There’s something admirable—even brave—about that. Like an aged Eskimo, he took the iceberg express. He’d finally had enough, so he toddled off to a new adventure. There is, of course, no death; Hunter right now is in the depths of an ether binge or something much grander, maybe with his old bud Warren Zevon, both happily slurring the words to Warren’s “Mr. Bad Example.”

Hunter was keen-eyed and brain-smart, but he missed one thing. Yes, as he continually pointed out, planet Earth is in deep shit, most of the world mired in a belief system that promotes might is right, business over grace and money trumping everything. Hunter had all that right and he hated it.

But he failed to see the big picture: We are pecking ourselves out of the eggshell of fear and being born into something better. We are in the throes of a difficult labor, a birth of, yes, a new age. Hunter got out at just the wrong time.

Things are just beginning to get really interesting here on the orb, and are poised to become absolutely apocalyptic… but in a good way. The cool breezes of change are blowing the webs from the dusty holes in this worm-eaten world and setting the course for us to begin anew, to become more heart-based.

Hunter was a man for his time, laser-pointing at the greedheads, fools and charlatans. He deserves kudos for that, and for flat-out entertaining us with his crazed exploits and brilliant prose. As we were trudging to work on a Monday morning, Hunter was capping off a long night of Bacchanalia by dropping acid, swigging Chivas and driving 100 miles an hour to the Woody Creek Tavern after not having slept all night. And that gave us romantic solace. We may have had to be at a stultifying office in 10 minutes, but at least Hunter was out there Living for us.

Hunter was a projection of our teenage selves, a necessary archetype, but one that ages poorly. Deep down a spiritual man, in the end, Hunter just couldn’t cope. We’ve all had days (years?) like that and most of us find ways to muddle through. The cocktails and coke might work for a while, but all that drink and drug holds a person in suspended animation, like ants in amber. It’s difficult for soul growth when you are always hammered or sleeping one off. The lampshade, at some point, has to come off one’s head.

Most of us manage to slowly slough off the dead skin of adolescence and dip our toes, however furtively, into the fetid water of adulthood. In our own flawed and sometimes weird ways, we tried to grow up spiritually. Hunter never really did.

Hunter focused too much on the Dark and ignored the Light. He traveled farther than many of us were willing to go, returning now and again with incredible tales and exotic artifacts. But some of us are not as pessimistic as he was. Like him, we’ve done the drugs and drink, but we’re stumbling out of that dark wood. Thunderheads threaten, lighting flashes and the sky is still ominously cloud-blanketed, but the sun is up there somewhere, and we’re quite sure the clouds will split.

Cheers, Hunter. Enjoy your new adventures even more, if possible, than you did your earthly ones. We still on terra will keep plugging away and, fuck all, heed your advice:

“Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas… with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.” — Hunter S. Thompson (1939-2005), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

David Thomas is a Los Angeles-based screenwriter. You can e-mail him.

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