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February 28, 2007

Month-From-Hell

        

    I arrived back to NY last night.  It has been a month from hell so I thought I would give February one last kick here on the blog before it finally ends. Since it is the month that we lost Hunter, of course I have a natural hatred for it. But there are many rooms in the mansion, as he liked to say, and there are many reasons why, a few weeks ago, I was forced to officially declared war on the month of February. 

           Starting at the beginning of the month, a nasty virus infected my throat & chest and confined me to my apartment where my friend Sue had to bring me soup and medicine all week long. Trying to get to Colorado to have the bonfire for Hunter, my flights were delayed first b/c of my own fever, then b/c of snowstorms and incompetent airlines leaving me stuck in filthy crowded airports and stinky planes with nothing but my back pack, a crumpled box of kleenex and a dead cell phone.

            I did Finally make it home to have the bonfire, which was indeed beautiful, and good to be with friends. But it was short and I had to turn around and fly back, to avoid missing the entire week of classes.  I barely caught up on my missed school work on the million connecting flights back to New York. The blog would have remained completely neglected had it not been for Peter, who at least took care of the photos. (He will be posting the photos every few days, along with the message board). Because of my pitiful, empty bank account, I was forced to delay the 5th issue of the Woody Creeker  for a few weeks, which will bring a slew of emails from angry subscribers.

          When I finally managed to get back to my apartment there was a gaping hole the size of a bathtup in my bathroom floor, exposing the scary black steel support frames of my pre-war apartment building. It was caused by a boken ceiling pipe in the apartement below me that the management had been trying to fix by tearing up my vintage blue tile floor.

             But within 24 hours of being back in NY, a family crisis involving my beautiful 16 year-old niece struck and I was back on more dilapidated public planes headed back to Colorado. By the time I got there, my throat was so raw and bloody that I sounded more like a Canadian Goose than a loving Aunt. I sat in waiting rooms with my laptop, talking to family members on one hand, and finishing up late mid term essays on the other. At one point, I thought about Pope Gregory XIII (who designed and implemented the Gregorian Calendar, which we use today) and thanked his spirit for at least making February the shortest month of them all.  Too bad he didn’t eliminate it completely.  No, we are stuck with February for 28 or 29 days a year. Those people with February birthdays must have an innate ability to handle the dark forces of the month – like Lords of the Underworld.  You’re lucky.

             Anyway, I’m back in my apartment, where I was woken up at 8am sharp by jackhammers under my 8th floor window tearing up the street below. The 100-year-old underground pipes just couldn’t take another February, and decided to seize up right in front of my building. Looking down now, I see about 7 workmen in the cold dank hole they’ve been digging all day, and, well, I just don’t feel like describing the gory details of the NYC plumbing system.  It is Ominous indeed.

            So, here I am, still coughing up bits of my lung and trying to make sense of the last 27 days: February is cruel to many people. It beat me down to a bloody, phlegmy mess, just to show that I am no exception and neither is my niece, and perhaps you’ve also been struck down by this god-awful month. If so, I have good news and bad news for you.  The bad news is that in 337 days, we will be faced with another February. The good news is that March is only ONE day away. 

 

Today’s HST wisdom comes from one of my favorite pieces, the introduction to Generation of Swine.  

             

It is always bad business to try to explain yourself on paper – at least not all at once – but when you work as a journalist and sign your name in black ink on white paper above everything you write, that is the business you’re in, good or bad.  Buy the ticket, take the ride.  I have said that before and I have found, to my horror, that it’s true.  It is one of those half-bright axioms that can haunt you for the rest of your life – like the famous line Joe Louis uttered on the eve of his fight with Billy Conn:  He can run, but he can’t hide.”


That is a thing you want to remember if you work in either journalism or politics – or both,­ like I do – and there is no way to duck it. You will be flogged for being right and flogged for being wrong, and it hurts both ways – but it doesn’t hurt as much when you’re right.

— Hunter S. Thompson, Generation of Swine.

 

Until next time, your friend, at war,

Anita Thompson

February 24, 2007

Fire and Snow

Hello, Peter B here again, 

I have uploaded a few more photos to the photo page.  One of them is by legendary Rock N’ Roll photographer (who was at Owl Farm)  Lynn Goldsmith . Here’s a great shot she snapped of the bonfire.

Bonfire pic by Lynn Goldsmith photo © Lynn Goldsmith

A number of readers have written that they have their photos of their firelight reading developed but don’t know how to email them to the blog.   Your best bet is to either scan the developed prints onto a CD by taking them to a library or service bureau (a place that photocopies documents) and asking the people behind the desk to help you scan some photos, or to have the film developed (or the negatives redone) at a photo place that has the option to give you a "Photo CD" so the images are all saved onto a CD.  This way, you can then email the photos you want by selecting the picture files off the CD and emailing them to us as an attachment.

-Your friend while Anita repeatedly flies over the Central time zone,

Peter B the webmaster. 

February 22, 2007

Photos

Hello, Peter B the OFB/Gonzostore webmaster here.  Anita’s email box is flooded with emails with photos of the syncronized firelight reading.  I’ve set up a web page with a few of the photos for everyone to view.  Have a look at them here.  I’ll be adding to the photos every couple days..

A few of the photos we received are of new Gonzo tattoos.  Anyone with a pic of a Gonzo tattoo (old or new) go ahead and send them to the OFB email, and we’ll set up a page for tattoo pics.  Be sure to include your name and location so you can get credit for your ink.

-Your friend while Anita ping-pongs back and forth between Colorado and New York,
Peter B

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February 20, 2007

Earth Receive an Honored Guest

 

 

 

We Love You Hunter S. Thompson

July 18, 1937  — February 20th, 2005 

 

At 6pm Mountain  Standard Time today, I wll be lighting a quiet bonfire here at Owl Farm with friends and family to honor Hunter. I invite you join us from your own home by lighting a candle or fire at the same time and read your favorite HST work.  Thousands of Hunter readers will be joining in. One of Hunter’s favorite Auden poems is posted  here  for him.

Thank you.

 Your friend,

Anita Thompson

 

Some HST readers  from around the country (and globe) will be taking photos of themselves with candles or fireplace to be posted on the blog by Peter in the coming days. You can email it to the blog email.

 

 

 

 

February 09, 2007

Walter Cronkite and His White-Slavery Racket

Hi. The cold in this city is unbearable and landed me in bed for the last 30 hours with some sort of flu, fever and severe chest congestion coupled with extreme depression. I’m miserable and thought you should know. I haven’t forgotten about you — the  comments section is coming soon. promise.
Thanks. 
Today’s HST wisdom is from a 1974 playboy interview:


PLAYBOY: Well, you certainly say some outrageous things in your book on the 1972 Presidential campaign; for instance, that Edmund Muskie was taking Ibogaine, an exotic form of South American speed or psychedelic, or both. That wasn’t true, was it?

 

HST: Not that I know of, but if you read what I wrote carefully, I didn’t say he was taking it. I said there was a rumor around his headquarters in Milwaukee that a famous Brazilian doctor had flown in with an emergency packet of Ibogaine for him. Who would believe that shit?

 


PLAYBOY: A lot of people did believe it.

 

HST: Obviously, but I didn’t realize that until about halfway through the campaign — and it horrified me. Even some of the reporters who’d been covering Muskie for three or four months took it seriously. That’s because they don’t know anything about drugs. Jesus, nobody running for President would dare touch a thing like Ibogaine. Maybe I would, but no normal politician. It would turn his brains to jelly. He’d have to be locked up.

 

PLAYBOY: You also said that John Chancellor took heavy hits of black acid.

 

HST: Hell, that was such an obvious heavy-handed joke that I still can’t understand how anybody in his right mind could have taken it seriously. I’d infiltrated a Nixon youth rally at the Republican Convention and I thought I’d have a little fun with them by telling all the grisly details of the time that John Chancellor tried to kill me by putting acid in my drink. I also wrote that if I’d had more time, I would have told these poor yo-yos the story about Walter Cronkite and his white-slavery racket with Vietnamese orphan girls — importing them through a ranch in Quebec and then selling them into brothels up and down the East Coast…which is true, of course; Collier’s magazine has a big story on it this month, with plenty of photos to prove it…. What? You don’t believe that? Why not? All those other waterheads did. Christ, writing about politics would paralyze my brain if I couldn’t have a slash of weird humor now and then. And, actually, I’m pretty careful about that sort of thing. If I weren’t, I would have been sued long ago. It’s one of the hazards of Gonzo Journalism.

from Playboy Magazine, Nov 1974 issue

Until next time, your sick friend,

Anita Thompson

p.s.

 Here is a link to NPR story that someone sent me about a new band who loves Hunter.(New Heathens) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7219850
I have no idea if they’re any good, but will check them out.

 

February 04, 2007

YES!!

Congratulations to our Boys! Hot Damn.

 

 

Comparing this year to last year’s super bowl, I think Hunter’s spirit grows stronger and stronger in the hearts of his readers as the football seasons go by! 

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Many Rooms in the Mansion

My dad, Alex,  called me from his home in Kiev (yes, the home of the friendly Orange Revolution) this morning, and asked me who I’m betting on. I said, "The Colts Of course!"  He was pleased. This is a big day. Let the game begin!! 

Indeed. There are many cruel Rooms in the mansion, and many deep holes in the Road. Keep alert or be stabbed. Of all the shocks and pains that every football season brings, the worst of all is the ending of it. And that is what we face now — this coming Sunday night, in fact, before the midnight bell. There will be no appeal, no extension, no replay. That will be the end of the football season, no matter who complains.

A few geeks will, of course. A few swine always do. No barrel is utterly clean. That would be atmospherically impossible, eh? And rest assured that nothing on this Earth is 100 percent clean. Nothing…. Are you one of these people who honestly believes that Cats are clean? I hope not, because you are riding for a serious fall. Cats are filthy, and they don’t mind passing it around. The smell of a large cat (as in Lion or Tiger) at room temperature in a sea-level house is so powerful and so disorienting as to derail the human brain. The odor of a mountain lion in the wild is far more terrifying than the sight of the beast, even on a frozen night in the snow. It will literally "take your breath away" at 10 or even 20 yards. Your whole nervous system will seize up and be paralyzed, even your lungs. So stay away from all animals that are bigger than you are, especially at night when they are nervous. A brown bear will eat your whole body in 24 hours. Beware.

— Hunter S. Thompson, Hey Rube (espn.com Jan 29th, 2002)

Yes! They will beware and the beat the bears today.  Hot Damn! I know in my heart (but will bet on them with my brain, of course) that the Colts will win this beautiful game.  Hunter turned me on to the Colts a long time ago and I’ve been a fan ever since.  I’ll be watching the game not at home, but here in New York. This is the first time in 9 years that I have not spend this day at Owl Farm with friends. But, the fact that the Colts are playing takes some of the sting off.

Oh Hunter! I know he is happy as a clam today. Whooping and cheering for our boys. 

Until next time, your friend,

Anita Thompson

 

 

 

 p.s. the following is a GREAT EMAIL from Malcolm — will cheer anyone up — a very good writer indeed.  Thanks man!

What a time Gonzo friends.  What a mood, a rapturous climax of all things with force bearing down on the hearty fans of the National Football League and sporting mania of all kinds.  As a humble fan and mutating student of Dr. Thompson’s work and views I find, as some of you must, this time of year to be one of the easiest to connect with his energy and essence.  Football, and his love of it as an American institution and canvas for human grit were themes omnipresent in Hunter’s writing.  The obvious depression that comes with the end of the season will greet us again without remorse, so for now….excess and celebration for the Super Bowl, for Hunter.  
Gearing up for what will most certainly be the greatest Super Bowl matchup of my life, I find myself missing more than is explainable, a man I never met.  I will chronicle the BIG GAME the way I feel it should be done…in glorified and unyielding GONZO fashion.  The breakfast will be grand and unforgiving.  The booze will be a rare top-shelf experience, the back room bottles horded for moments of cosmic triumph or soul shattering loss.  The group of people gathered will be pure friends with high circuited brains and earnest appreciation for the spectacle laid out before them.  I wish you all the same and more.  Below is a quote I found this morning and sums up where we fans and students may be now —
"By Sunday my nerves had gone all to pieces, along with my attitude, and I was sorely in need of a football orgy.  The time had come to laugh out loud at something, anything, even a frenzy of subhuman violence like pro football."HST Hey Rube
P.S.  I love the message board idea,
Malcolm
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February 01, 2007

The Great Magnet

Oh My God it’s cold here in NYC.  The campus brick sidewalks are slick and ominous.  Humid Cold is hard to get used to for a Colorado native like me, but the Alma Mater Statue, despite her gown and sandals still looks majestic as ever looking over the scurring students who generally don’t stop to look back at her at this time of year for fear of the cold wind blowing down their necks.

I just stopped by the computer lounge to drink some hot chocolate before I head back to my apartment for the night after turning in a paper on the the current president’s use of religious rhetoric to get us into war.  The title is "If George Bush Were and Atheist, We Would Not Be At War."  It was an interesting paper to write, (particulary after writing one a few days ago about the Reconstruction period in America and thinking about what, as a country, we’ve done with our power) I used an article by Chistopher Hitchen’s as a point of departure which I highly recommend.

 I talked to Peter today who set up the comments board and emailed me detailed instructions on how to maintain the thing.  I will try to launch it within a week.  I’m juggling several balls and need to focus the rest of this week on other business. But, will stay in touch.

Why not post the last two emails. I think I’m going to like this comments board! It will save me a lot of time, and the gonzo family can communicate through Hunter quotes and strenghten the ties in the process. A great member of the gonzo tribe named Christine Othitis has been doing a good job of that for a long time.  I really like the website that she hosts for my husband http://gonzo.org/ .

Let’s get to today’s wisdom:

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet."

–Hunter S. Thompson, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.

(email from scott) You never see this quote posted anywhere, and I love it.  I might seem 
like some kind of cliche’ hippy when I say this, but that quote is 
best understood by those who’ve experienced LSD.

–Scott


 

anita, congrats on settling the thing.
did i see you at sundance? the atmosphere in park city reminded me of
aspen in the seventies. hope you are fine and enjoying columbia.

sterling greenwood
aspen free press

 

 

Until next time, your friend who was not at sundance,

Anita Thompson

 

 

 


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