Owl Farm Blog

 I can’t believe it’s already Thursday! I’ve been working on a paper for the last 3 days on two styles of presidential governing.  One is a prerogative style of executive power, described by a political scientist named Dick Pious.  It is a style based solely on the rights given to the president under the constitution, which sometimes can fail miserably.  An example of this style is Nixon’s insistance on executive privilege,  which in the end, kicked him out of office.

The other kind, described by a famous political scientist named Richard Neustadt, who says that the framers of the constitution didn’t give the presidency enough power under the constitution to live up to the demands of the office, (ya know, they fought so hard to rid themselves of the control of a king, and they didn’t want another one).  This forces the president to use charm and persuasive techniques to work deals with Congress and department heads.  The point of my assignment was to advise Bush on which style he should use during his last two years in office.  Since the bully tactic didn’t work for Nixon (who faced a democratic Congress finally) it probably won’t work for W. Bush either – that he would be wise to listen to and make deals with the democratic leaders, such has Nancy Pelosi, who has a prerogative style  of governing herself, and might he a Major force to recon with.  We shall see. 

Anwyway, that’s what I’ve been up to.  These sort of assignments is one reason I love Columbia. But I’ve been waiting all week to be able to sit down with my tattered copy of Shark Hunt to pick a quote for you..  In this passage, Hunter was in Cozumel to cover a great fishing expedition, and was at a bar thinking back to Colorado:

     From somewhere deep in my memory, I heard a snatch of some half-remembered  conversation between a construction worker and a bartender at a bar in Colorado.  The construction man was explaining why he shouldn’t have another drink: “You can’t wallow with the pigs at night and then soar with the eagles in the morning,” he said.
     I thought briefly on this, then shrugged it off.  My own situation was totally different, I felt.  In about three hours, I was supposed to be down on the docks with my camera and tape recorder to spend another day on one of those goddamn boats.

     No, I thought, that geek in Colorado had it all wrong.  The real problem is how to wallow with the eagles at night and then soar with the pigs in the morning.

–Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt

 That is a style of humor that you don’t see from Hunter’s writing that often, which makes it even better.

Until next time, your friend,

Anita Thompson   

Posted by Anita Thompson at 04:56 PM | Permalink

I guess today is "Cyber Monday".  Office production goes down all over the country as employees spend time ordering Xmas presents online — more than any other day of the year. In the spirit of capitalism, no doubt some people should go to gonzostore.com.

If you order from the store, you can type an HST quote (in the comments box during checkout) and the girls gift-wrapping the order will include that quote in the box in addition to a poem that Hunter wrote to Johnny Depp about Santa Claus. You can also mention that I said to include some free stickers or something.

I’ll be posting some of the quotes here, and you don’t have to buy anything to send in your HST quote — just type it in a customer service email at Gonzostore.

Remember,  gonzostore is a very small operation but I like it because it helps pay some of the bills at Owl Farm.

Okay. I’ll be posting from Shark Hunt tomorrow.

Your friend,

Anita Thompson 

p.s. to respond to those of you who have asked about the blog I posted at 3:30 this morning titled "Oh-So-Black-Monday-ish", I changed the title and a bit of the content when my web guy (my little brother) called me and said "Duh!! Anita!  It’s not Black Monday, it’s Cyber Monday.  You’re confusing it with Black Fiday! Comprende?  Hello!!!!  Duh!!!"   So I changed it hoping that not too many people would notice how "retarded" I am.   

p.p.s.  I’m exagerating Peter’s words, he’s actually the nicest brother any girl could have.

Posted by Anita Thompson at 12:47 AM | Permalink

Goodmorning. Hope you had a nice thanksgiving. Mine turned out to be stressfree here at home at Owl Farm. I had the usual Woody Creek contingent (minus the Stranahans who are in L.A.,) and also as usual, I ate tofu turkey, while the others ate a real bird.

  One of Hunter’s favorite dishes was turkey dinner. I made it for him on a regular basis all year long and he just couldn’t get enough, particularly when I would set it down in front of him with steam rising. We would order these huge smoked turkeys from Kentucky, and I’d carve off a hunk just the size for one serving at a time. Sometimes I’d make the meal with asparagus, sometimes spinach, greenbeans, or snowpeas — served with potatoes, sometimes baked but usually mashed with butter and milk. Once in a while I’d subsitute the potatoes with Wild Rice, or Risotto.  He liked his Cranberries with or without walnuts, (I made the stuffing for him ALWAYS with equal amount celery to walnuts) and the gravy, he loved the gravy on everything but the veggies. He ate those with butter and lemon. He loved vegetables – always ate them first. 

  Besides watching him at his typewriter, maybe it is watching him enjoy his food that I miss the most. By the end of my first year living with Hunter, he had gained almost 20 pounds! So, it was a pleasure to cook again this Thanksgiving. 

  This was the second thanksgiving without Hunter. Was it easier? I’m not sure. But I’m so happy to be home with my friends and family and my permanent entourage of 2 purring cats and 1 happy dog following me in every room in my sweet Hunter’s home. Yes, it’s so good to be home. 

  I visited one of my favorite people in the whole world last night and somehow mentioned a poem that Hunter turned me on to. Every since, it’s been swimming around my mind — over and over — all night long and this morning. Hunter loved for me to read it to him, over and over. I liked Edgar Allan Poe, but hadn’t read Anabel Lee until I met Hunter.  So, why not post it for you. It’s simply beautiful. Enjoy: 
 
Annabelle Lee 

By Edgar Allan Poe 
 
It was many and many a year ago, 
In a kingdom by the sea, 
That a maiden there lived whom you may know 
By the name of Annabel Lee; 
And this maiden she lived with no other thought 
Than to love and be loved by me. 
 
I was a child and she was a child, 
In this kingdom by the sea; 
But we loved with a love that was more than love- 
I and my Annabel Lee; 
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 
Coveted her and me. 
And this was the reason that, long ago, 
In this kingdom by the sea, 
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 
My beautiful Annabel Lee; 
So that her highborn kinsman came 
And bore her away from me, 
To shut her up in a sepulcher 
In this kingdom by the sea. 
The angels, not half so happy in heaven, 
Went envying her and me 
Yes! that was the reason 
as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) 
That the wind came out of the cloud by night, 
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 
 
But our love it was stronger by far than the love 
Of those who were older than we 
Of many far wiser than we 
And neither the angels in heaven above, 
Nor the demons down under the sea, 
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. 
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams 
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes 
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, 
In the sepulcher there by the sea, 
In her tomb by the sounding sea. 
 
–the end— 
 
Until next time, your melancholy friend, 
Anita Thompson 

p.s. Edgar Allan Poe wrote Annabel Lee about his young wife who had died the previous year at their home in the Bronx. Of course, in the early 19th century, there were no buildings yet, just gentle rolling hills that lead into the sea. Today, from the cottage where he wrote the poem, the only thing that resembles the natural environment of that kingdom he speaks of, is the green lawn that is fenced in around the little house, then surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of NYC Bronx buildings. Regardless, I highly recommend a visit.  

P.P.S. Ed’s service was beautiful. Fantastic music, good speeches by good people, and lots of laughs and lots of tears. It brought up some thoughts I’ve had about Hunter’s memorial and Hunter’s legacy, that I’ll address sometime in the near future.

Posted by Anita Thompson at 10:16 AM | Permalink

We all have our talents in this world, one of mine is procrastinating.  I’m in the black-belt league.   It was already an hour past my scheduled time to start a twelve page paper which is due on Monday, when I found myself feverishly typing an email to a friend of the top 10 "Most Influential Americans in History" according to this month’s Atlantic Monthly.   It seemed very important at the time.

Several historians including Doris Kerns Goodwin, Walter McDougal, & D. Kennedy came up with their own list of the top 100, and The Atlantic meshed them together. Enjoy.  I need to get back to sharpening all my pencils. I wonder if any of these guys ever procrastinated?

1. Abraham Lincoln: He saved the Union, freed the slaves, and presided over America’s second founding. 
2. George Washington: He made the United States possible — not only by defeating a king, but by declining to become one himself. 
3. Thomas Jefferson: The author of the five most important wordds in American history: "All men are created equal."
 4. Franklin Delano Rooselvelt: He said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and then he proved it.
 5. Alexander Hamilton: Soldier, banker, and political scientist, he set in motion an agrarian nation’s’ transformation into an industrial power.
 6. Benjamin Franklin: The Founder-of-all-trades — scientist, printer, writer, diplomat, inventor, and more; like his country, he contained multitudes.  
7. John Marshall: The defining chief justice, he established the Supreme Court as the equal of teh other two federal branches. 
8. Martin Luther King: His dream of racial equality is still elusive, but no one did more to make it real. 
9. Thomas Edison: It wasn’t just the lightbulb; the Wizard of Menlo Park was the most prolific inventor in American history. 
10. Woodrow Wilson: He made the world safe for U.S. interventionism, if not for democracy.
 
the list goes on with JD Rockefeller, Ulysses S. Grant, James Madison, Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, MArk Twain, Ronald Reagan, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Paine, Andrew Carnegie… 

That’s the short version.  More later.  Soon, Lisl will be ready to tell the story from her perspective. I can’t wait.

I’ll find the note that somebody read on my behalf and try to post it later tonight or tomorrow with the appropriate websites including the Pendulum Foudnation.

Until next time, your friend, getting back to work,

Anita Thompson

Posted by Anita Thompson at 09:15 PM | Permalink

Hi.  I’m sleepy and going to bed early tonight.  It’s been a long week already.  But I had an urge first to leave you with some HST Vegas Wisdom from The DA’s convention. 

The motto on the invitations for the National DA’s Convention in Las Vegas, April 25-29, 1971 was

If You Don’t Know, Come to Learn… If You Know, Come to Teach. 
 

The conference was designed to teach the professional law enforcement community the nature and details of street drugs.  Hunter and Oscar sat through the first two hours, immediately knowing they were not going to learn Anything, and equally clear that they’d be crazy to try and Teach anything to the DAs and called the whole thing irrelevant gibberish.

…These poor bastards didn’t know mescaline from macaroni. 
I suspect we could have done the whole thing on acid…except for some of the people; there were faces and bodies in that group who would have been absolutely unendurable on acid.  The sight of a 344-pound police chief from Waco, Texas, necking openly with his 290-pound wife (or whatever woman he had with him) when the lights were turned off for a Dope Film was just barely tolerable on mescaline – which is mainly a sensual/surface drug that exaggerates reality, instead of altering it — but with a head full of acid, the sight of two fantastically obese human beings far gone in a public grope while a thousand cops all around them watched a movie about the "dangers of Marijuana" would not be emotionally acceptable.  The brain would reject it….

MAybe that’s not the happiest image to go to bed with, oh well, I’m sleepy enough tonight  that it might even bring me comfort.

Until next time, your friend, who came to learn,

Anita Thompson

Posted by Anita Thompson at 10:50 PM | Permalink

In response to the emails, I just want to say thank you and that I’m doing okay.  Yes, Ed is a painful loss and I miss him very much. His wife Patricia Blanchet is a strong and elegant woman and is handling affairs beautifully. In the coming year she is going to learn so much about herself, about a new kind of strength she didn’t even know she had. 

Anyway,  I’ll be posting in a few hours when I get back from the library — something that Hunter wrote about Ed.  

And for your amusement, a bit of what one of my favorite writers said about the father and son.

Talk soon, your friend, Anita Thompson 

10am: HI, I got back really late last night and decided to just sleep. but here we go: 

Fleeced by Ed Bradley:

I remember one monumentally rotten experience when Ed Bradley strolled into
my parlor on a Saturday afternoon and beat me out of $4,000 green dollars right
in front of my own eyes, in my own kitchen, with all the others watching like
greedy barnyard animals.  He flogged me on something like 22 straight side bets
in the course of yet another painful loss to Arizona.  It was one of the ugliest
days of my life.
    -Hunter S. Thompson, March 11, 2003, ESPN, Hey Rube

(March 11, 2006 is the day Ed did an interview about Hunter coming soon)
    

Alas, a passage from Maureen Dowd, one of my favorite living writers (Hunter and I shared a crush on her becuase she’s so sharp, funny and good-looking):

Two trusted members of the Bush 41 war council, Mr. Baker and Robert Gates, have been dispatched to discipline the delinquent juvenile and extricate him from the mother of all messes. Mr. Gates, already on Mr. Baker’s “How Do We Get Sonny Out of Deep Doo Doo in Iraq?” study group, left his job protecting 41’s papers at Texas A&M to return to Washington and pry the fingers of Poppy’s old nemesis, Rummy, off the Pentagon.

"They had to bring in someone from the old gang,” said someone from the old gang. “That has to make Junior uneasy. With Bob, the door is opened again to 41 and Baker and Brent.”

W. had no choice but to make an Oedipal U-turn. He couldn’t let Nancy Pelosi subpoena the cranky Rummy for hearings on Iraq.

—Maureen Dowd, NYTIMES

 

 

 

 

Posted by Anita Thompson at 05:49 PM | Permalink

It is true that Ed Bradley did join Hunter this morning. He died of Leukemia at Mount Sinai Hospital, here in NY, surrounded by loved ones.  All I can manage to say right now is that Ed was a very good friend to me and an important ally when I needed him most.  His wife Patricia is in our thoughts and we will support her with the same love and spirit in which they supported me. It is hard to lose a hero, and we will remember the massive contribution he made to American Journalism and to the communities he lived in, and the decades long friendship with Hunter that changed the way many people view the world.  We love you Ed.

Your friend,

Anita Thompson

8:30 pm: I’d like to do something special, and add a quote from our friend Atticus Finch. It’s about a skill Ed mastered long ago, and used it to help us understand the world by taking us inside the story. 

"if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view-until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

–Atticus Finch, in To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

I’ll try to post some of the beautiful and hilarious things that Hunter wrote about Ed in the coming days, and the interview that Hal Haddon did with Ed for the Woody Creeker. 

Posted by Anita Thompson at 12:49 PM | Permalink

 

"We is the most important word in Politics."

–Hunter S. Thompson 

 

Getting on the plane last night for New York, none of the poll results were in yet, but I knew they’d be flooding in by the time I landed. A five hour flight was all it took.

I arrived in New York during the November Monsoon with news from the Laguardia TV monitors that we did indeed win the House.  There was no thunder, just sheets and sheets of beautiful, welcomed rain.  It poured all night and all day today. The students at Columbia were dancing in the halls with sopping wet shoes and dripping jeans. News of the Democratic wins of Governorships all around the country was a delight to see on their drenched smiling faces.   

By late morning, there were special teams of workers in place, pumping water from the tunnels that was threatening a shutdown of the long-established subway system.  As Rumsfeld was axed by noon, our beloved sheriff Bob Braudis was endorsed hands down, by the well-informed voting base of Pitkin County, Colorado.  In Denver, Amendment 44 was passed, to the chagrin of the Denver district attorney establishment who liked to lock kids up for years at a time for smoking marijuana.

At 7pm tonight, the rain was still coming down, giving the city the best washing I’ve seen since I’ve lived here, when the news came in about Virginia. Hallelujah.  We won back the Senate too.

And then, of course, what a sight to see, the spotlight on the monstrous man whom Hunter called “the goofy child president,” exposed and idiotic. One interesting thing you see here when the rain really floods the city, is that the rats get washed out of their safe dens. They live among us, and in dry weather, when they go unchecked, they multiply under the streets and even infiltrate the foundations of these huge city buildings, until, days like this, when a hard rain falls.
.  

But soon, when the sun comes out and the streets dry up, the carcasses of these rats will be an indication to us as to just how many there were, and what they were up to.

Oh Hunter, I know you are happy today.  We are too!!  And we love you.

Until next time, your friend,

Anita Thompson

 

 

Posted by Anita Thompson at 10:47 PM | Permalink

Happy Election Day.  It’s looking good for us to get some subpoena power today in the house.  My friend Curtis Robinson, of Washington DC told me today that the rumors are that many Republican congressmen are on the market for apartments and such in the far corners of Europe and the handful of countries where they won’t be extradited as easily.

VOTING WISDOM

Who can a trusting human being vote for?  Who is old enough and who is wise enough, who is so devious and cunning that they can perceive our darkest unspoken desires?  Who can outwit the barbarous hordes beyond the boundaries of a place we call home and who can give our trembling soul the sense of security we only ever knew at our mother’s breast?

     How can we vote for the noblest and best when we want the most manipulative, the most ruthless, the most sadistic?  Who is man or woman enough to fulfill our widest and most elastic desires?  Who dares step forward to represent and quench our appetites?

     Only an effigy will suffice — a graven image we can imbue with heat seeking instincts, computerized, unanswerable and indelible — a pervert."

—Ralph STEADman, © copyright  2006

 

Posted by Anita Thompson at 03:44 PM | Permalink

One member of the tribe is 75 years old today.  Happy Birthday George Stranahan!  We know him as the founder of Woody Creek, and a friendship with Hunter spanning 40 years.  We love him dearly along with his art, flying dog beer, and Stranahan Whiskey too. 

Posted by Anita Thompson at 03:26 PM | Permalink

"When you learn something, is just as important as what you learn." 

–Hunter S. Thompson, 3-10-02.

        Good Morning! I’m back at Owl Farm, and just finished an early morning hike with my German Shepherd, Athena.  Through the morning dew, we hiked up to the back hills under leafless trees and clear skies.  The air is cold and crisp and speaks of winter right around the corner.  I Love it.

            At the top, we sat on a soft pile of gold/brown leaves, overlooking the Rocky Mountains, who’s peaks are already dusted with snow that will remain there until spring. Sitting in the high silence of these mountains, I thought about Hunter, and the horrible time I had Thursday, traveling in from New York City under stress and pressure in the midst of a family squabble with stupid regurgitated feelings of abandonment and fear etc.  We all have bad days, right.

            But it only took a moment on the Owl Farm Vista  to come to my senses again to remember that A) We are not without those loved ones who have passed on, and B) We can’t be bitchy with those living friends who need to move on to the next chapter of life either.  Jesus. Friends are supposed to support the transcendence, not be a source of sticky attachment that refuses to let go.

            Yup. That’s what I thought about this morning staring at the Mountains that surround Owl Farm, Hunter’s fortified home where he lived a life of creativity, craziness, and passionate love for over 30 years.  One thing present inside those walls that enabled him to live that way was – his privacy.  Which brings me so conveniently to today’s amendment.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Some of you may know that Hunter did establish The Fourth Amendment Foundation with Hal Haddon, Gerry Goldstein, Abe Hutt and others which is, in what I’ll call the “infancy stage”.  One day, it will probably be a valuable and dynamic force that will be very much useful as these rights are chipped away. Or as things like the Patriot Act, don’t chip away, but take a systematic demolition approach.  Tues is indeed a very important day.
 

Until next time, your friend,
Anita Thompson

Posted by Anita Thompson at 10:09 AM | Permalink

 Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Your friend, Anita Thompson

Posted by Anita Thompson at 10:31 AM | Permalink

 Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

As promised, one amendment from the Bill of Rights each day until election. For the hst wisdom today, here is something he said many times, but I can’t remember if he wrote it anywhere.  If somebody knows, please email it to me. Thanks.

"My view of guns is not very democratic.  I believe I should have guns, but I don’t think every kid on the street who wants one should be able to get their hands on one." 

–Hunter S. Thompson, in various interviews and conversations. (in more or less those words)

Until next time, your friend,

Anita Tompson. 

P.S. Henry was gone this morning.  Oh well. 

Posted by Anita Thompson at 11:46 PM | Permalink