/lit/ - Literature

Do most copies have the drawings in them?

>>6604627
The mass produced ones do.
I picked up a dirt cheap one at a wholesale clearance and was pleasantly surprised.

Ralph Steadman is a cool guy.

The latter. He was something special.

Why has there been no movement to practice writing like he did? Gonzo died with him it seems, I started writing a short story about tripping acid in Washington DC spending the day in an art museum and then wandering through Northeast trying to find a concert. I take a lot of inspiration from Hunter but worry I might just come across as a hack imitating one of the greats. Based on a real experience of course.

what was he a doctor of?

post-19th century you cannot be both sober and insightful.

>>6604726
google

Drugs weren't even that big a part of his writing.
His persona just ended up being shaped that way.

>>6604515
>both


George McGovern called him "The most accurate least factual"

as a fanboy i agree with him

>>6604726
ph.d journalism from Columbia

>>6604729
That's a good observation.

>>6604732
They were a big part of his life though, even if just for the persona he told stories through, he felt the weight and obligation to fulfill that persona his whole life.

>>6604750
But I'm not talking about his life. I'm talking about his writing.

>>6604712
National Portrait Gallery? Man that third floor modern art exhibit really is something else when you're tripping.

>>6604767
That's fair, I guess I've just always been of the persuasion that a man and his words are two parts of a whole.

>>6604777
Smithsonian American Art Museum, you ever realized museums are just places for people to gawk at things, I saw the electronic superhighway or whatever it's called during the peak of the trip and was thoroughly stupefied. The story is coming along really well actually too, started like last week and have knocked out a few pages I'm really happy with.

>>6604712

>Why has there been no movement to practice writing like he did

He was part of the New Journalism. There are plenty of writers like him. Check out the anthology of that title by Thomas Wolfe. Main authors are Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Thomas Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, Gay Talse, George Plimpton, John Hersey.

>>6604821
Yeah, now that I actually think about it, there's no one just like Hunter but I suppose that's just the nature of art. I have a lot of those guys on my back log of reading. Thanks for the list.

>>6604846

Try Terry Southern's collection Red Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes, then proceed to Candy and his novels. He's a minor figure, but he has a similar sense of humor to Thompson, but most of his output was pure fiction. That collection, Red Dirt, is one of my favorites. It's a mix of non-fiction and fiction.

If you want an idea of what his humor is like, he's best known for writing Dr. Strangelove.

I really like Hunter S. Thompson but the reason there hasn't been anyone else like him is because those that try are basically just poorly aping his style.

I think Gonzo Journalism has a lot of potential as a continuing movement but first it needs to get past the fact 99% of people who subscribe to it are just trying to BE Thompson

>>6604867
Gonzo is just another way of describing New Journalism. See >>6604821

>>6604863
Sounds like a plan. Thanks, man. Dr. Strangelove is great.

>>6604892
I despise him, but you may also like Norman Mailer. Try Armies of the Night.

>>6604931
Threw it on the list for this summer.

He seems like a uniquely American genius. I wonder what folks in other countries think of him.

I'd love to read Fear and Loathing on the Capaign Trail alongside Buchanan's book on Nixon's Comeback. Apparently they were friends.

>>6605034
>Fear and Loathing on the Capaign Trail
it's alright, do get it.

>>6605034

Have you read The Great Shark Hunt or Hell's Angels?

>>6605034

Have you read The Great Shark Hunt or Hell's Angels? I'd read either first, unless there is something esp. alluring about the tall grass of the '72 campaign.

What is it about Thompson that brings out the worst in people? I've talked with a large variety of people about him, and it seems like every drug using deadbeat is convinced they're going to be the next Thompson. They act like them going to drug festivals and doing all manners of hard drugs is the way life should be, and I don't get it.. Dude was an intelligent writer who did drugs, not this revolutionary drug-addled superhero these people make him out to be.

>>6605491
He's the king of the weird and they all know it. For what it's worth though, drugs are pretty great.

Is trying to have Thompson's style just impossible

>>6605858
Aping his style seems pointless even if it was possible because you would just be in his shadow as a writer.

>>6604515
good lad but too memed up by himself and the plebs

>>6604712
there were and are plenty imitators, they just aren't as funny or interesting.

Is there anything even important to write about anymore as he did?
I mean, while he was writing there was the flower-child movement in the late 60's (which he was at the epicenter of in San Francisco), the Vietnam war, numerous scandals and whatnot.
If there was a brilliant, young journalist up and coming what could he even write about? No one wants to fight against anything anymore (nothing that doesn't infiltrate the precious interwebs), but that's also because there's nothing to rebel against.
The world is the most peaceful it's been in most of human history, the occupation in the middle east isn't much of a war, nor is it a war to rebel against since its a voluntary war, not drafted.

I'm reading Nausea by Sartre now and there are times that I find myself reading in HST's voice. Anyone else pick up that he got some of his style from Sartre?

>>6605048
I got halfway through and spent more time on the wikis of politicians of the era trying to get the references. I have it sitting on my "to-read" pile still

>>6605932
There's war all over the world. Fascist and pseudo-communist regimes crushing the populous under them. There's a ton of shit. Vice is shit, but they cover good topics. For example, African warlords who fight bare-ass naked with machine guns and eat the raw hearts of other generals they kill, Bogotan death squads who practice "class cleansing" and firebomb the homeless, the Ukrainian decline and fight against the state and then the ethnic russian rebels being bankrolled and supported by the Russian military, IS's pure ideology and even their jihad against the Taliban, etc. Those are all live wire topics. Anyone worth their salt could turn those into amazing stories.

>>6606000
Most of those would fall under combat journalism though, I'm talking mainly domestic journalism. I was just thinking the kind of stories you could get by freelancing in the horn f africa or whatever, but is there anything interesting to cover in the states anymore?

>>6605932
>>6606000

VICE is turning into this.

Continuing on the subject of psychedelic writers, what does /lit/ think of Terrence McKenna and his works? Namely "Food of the Gods"

His stoned ape theory seems batshit insane. I've been listening to a lot of his public talks on YouTube, and I'm not sure whether he's enlightening or brainwashing me.

Is he a crazed hippy trying to justify mushrooms and make a quick buck? Or is he something altogether more serious?

>>6604729
What changed?

>>6606032
He's entertaining, pretty resourceful as far as history of psychedelic drug use goes. Just don't take his conclusions too seriously.

>>6606014
America has become disinterested as a people and our government has turned into a pseudo fascist corporate amusement park where only the rich and famous have express passes. People seem to think the things they read in history books only exist on paper and it's made a generation who are solely bred for the rat race. I think honestly the young should just say fuck that and build our own industries and organizations, maybe we would ache and suffer in the short term but I would rather die next to people that labored to make their world better than die boxed into a cubicle slaving away at a sprawling machine so my children can get eaten by it too.

>>6606014
the waning political interest is itself an interesting story. Also with the death of the middle class, trends towards homogenous communities, Capitalism eclipsing democracy, and a polarization of morality on the "extreme right and extreme left" I think there are still interesting stories.

>>6606032
He's one of those genius idiot types. Food of the Gods was a great/fun read.

>>6606055
Now see, this in itself - while not exactly journalism - is the kind of stuff a modern Thompson would write about, what he'd critique. Not just a blatant, "This generation is a bunch of pussies" or whatever

>>6606037
numbing

>>6606080
It's actually a part of the final sentiments and page of the short story I'm writing I mentioned earlier.

>>6606085
I'd like to read that actually

>>6606130
I don't have much now but I think I might post a thread about it once I've finished the first bit of it in a few weeks, it's called Acid Trip Number Six.

>>6606152
I'd like to see that thread

>>6604515
I think he might get wrongfully dismissed because of the drug stuff (not by young people /lit/ types though)

I think he was great

>>6606032
I love listening to his talks
Check out his one on Finnegans Wake
As far as his ideas go, he has a few nice ones while some are just insane. Some are both.

bump

>>6606028
???

>>6607585

>>6606032
complete shit

>>6606028
No, Vice started out poorly aping new journalism/counter cultural stuff, now it's just another click-bait based advertorial

>>6606055
this is exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to write about, but I'm too diminutive and scared of seeming pretentious/the bad kind of edgy

>think Thompson is pretty good
>have never done drugs
>no friends or contacts

I just wanna know what it feels like.

>>6604515
Drug-addled lunatic who had plenty of insight on drug-addled lunacy.

>>6604747
I always thought the "doctor of journalism" thing was a joke. I feel stupid now

>>6604515
Great writer on American culture. Too little regard for hard facts to be taken seriously as a journalist. Very much so a 'meme author', held up by drug users as a hero. Still a great and monumental American author.

>>6610101

you ever see an orange sky, burning off the coast of the nevada desert?
you ever seen a man cough up half a lung and leave it there before posting his vote?
you aint seen nuthin

>>6608179
Even Thompson is accused of that. Fuck the critics. Unless of course they all criticize you for the same specific thing, in which case they're probably right.

>>6610240
what makes something pretentious/edgy and apt social commentary/critique or good story telling

what's the line?

>>6606080
Is it entirely true that its a pussy generation though. Everyones too scared to actually fight The Man so they fight battles that were already won in the 60's/70's and pat themselves on the back for it.

>>6610307
Funny thing is, I don't know if I could answer that without sounding pretentious/edgy, but here goes. I think it has something to do with having experience and keeping a moderately open mind. To avoid sounding pretentious/edgy, you've got to not only know what the hell you're writing about, you've got to go into it with an open mind. You've got to really pay attention to your subject, and accept that your preconceived notions may, in fact, be all wrong. Too many assholes who think they've got something to say wind up bending the truth to fit their narrative. Fuck those guys. To make apt social commentary, again you need to really observe society, understand the way it functions, try to see it through a different lens by stepping outside of your comfort zone. As far as being a good storyteller, that just takes practice.

>>6610401
This
Also, dont make the mistake of copying all your opinions from some political viewpoint. Thompson never pigeonholed himself like that but alotta Thompson wanna-bes do.
Source: I went to uni with a bunch of marxist Thompson wanna-bes

>>6610410
>>6610401

I feel like it's harder to do that now.
I feel like society is much more insular, you can't really just wander around as much.
An anon mentioned earlier that, from a domestic American standpoint, there is little to discuss that hasn't already been tackled by generations before us.
Many of the things we'd say are wrong with society now were still a problem back in Thompson's heyday, only they're more muted and exist heavily in the invisible space we call the internet.
I don't know, this is just a hermit's two cents. I'm finally going back to school in the fall. Maybe I'll meet people and have the "experience" and be proven completely wrong.

>>6610448
There's plenty to discuss, it's just not being discussed because the American media is in a real sorry place right now. Most of what you get in the mainstream is bipartisan bullshit and even "underground" media outlets are filled with nonissues that the twin extremes of Tumblr and 4chan keep perpetuating. There's a depressing amount of half-truths, exaggerations, and occasional blatant lies that all sides use to frame their narrative. We could use another Thompson right about now.

>>6610505
momma?

>>6605932
A really cutting and insightful Thompson style book about Occupy would have been outstanding.

>>6611332
Or even something about all this buzz about police brutality becoming more and more apparent.

>>6611332
That would have been so great. Ugh, why'd he have to die?

>we will never get a book by thompson about the racial injustices black people have to suffer due to a white police state in America

god damn shame

>>6611627
If black people ever got to work on time, maybe they'd have good jobs like the police.

>>6611640

>black people not getting to work on time is the reason cops are murdering them

fuck off back to /pol/

>>6611701
lmao

The best of his work is astonishing, entertaining, and educational. A superficial reading of his writing misses everything but the entertainment. Thompson shares a trait with Orwell that comes out from time to time. It's a self-aware naivete. Part of his genius was finding and engaging the people who could explain a story or event, allowing him to pass that analysis on to the readers who themselves did not understand - and would never have a chance to otherwise.

For all his wild and whimsy it is these parts - that solid and coherent analysis - which leaves modern professionals to whisper his name among themselves, while the wannabes play at the image and party it up.

Journalism today is sales and marketing, pushing the product presented at face value. A comfortable racket for those who play ball, and Thompson himself said so.

He also had a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time so often that he occasionally hit the jackpot. This is known in the trade as Hard Work, something else people seem to miss when discussing him.

His book on the Hells Angels is an example. This is not his best work, it got stuck being and remaining an outsiders view; something Thompson admitted to. We now have far greater works on outlaw motorcycle gangs, and some insiderly ones, but Thompson's was the first and it helped make his name. People who want to follow the good doctor's path need to get out there and be somewhere different, and work-work-work.

>>6611627
>First article in Great Shark Hunt

>>6608210
Deep web. Follow a guide. It's possible.

bump

I'm def an HST fan, but i don't being it up much because for some baffling reason people don't think he's a good writer or credible or whatever.

I like him because he wrote engaging material about subjects i otherwise wouldn't give a shit about. Definitely out there but he had a pretty astute outsider's perspective on a lot of the events of his time. I also love him for his lifestyle, i feel liked he died as all great writers did, too early to get real shitty

>>6611937
I really need to read Great Shark Hunt.

>>6604867
If you want to be more like a person, you don't try to directly copy them. You immerse yourself in the things that influenced them.

New Journalist fans should start here.

>>6612256
Throwing it on the summer list.

>>6604712
Nobody cares about your experiences on drugs, if that's what you think is appealing about Thompson's work, then you really just don't understand his message.

>>6612301
I don't, I was just saying that's what my short story was about because a big part of it is the drug culture.

>>6604515
Thompson's career was on a curve. He started out as a much more conventional writer and slowly addled his brain with drugs where at one point his writing talent intersected with just enough craziness to be brilliant. Fear and loathing on the campaign trail, fear and loathing in las vegas were great works. Then he kept declining and went more and more drug addled until you get to his work in the 90s which is just stream of drug addled thought.

>>6604712
There are thousands of people like you who are hack imitators who try to write just like thompson and take drugs. It isn't unique and you aren't special.

There are lots of writers who write in Thompson's style, they just don't try to write exactly like him like hack imitators like you.

>>6604750
The quality of his writing drastically decreased when he started trying to fulfill the 'hunter thompson persona' once he got famous, he was way better before that.

>>6612322
You haven't even read my shit, bro, yeah the post is kinda fucked and worded poorly but c'mon man at least reserve some judgement.

>>6605932
This is the opinion of suburban twats with no grasp of what's going on in the world because the only news they get is the occasional fluff pieces on the news.

Russia is still fighting a guerilla war with ukraine, a couple weeks ago they captured 3 soldiers, tortured them to death and a lot of fighting broke out.

There are 4 wars going on in the middle east, there is no occupation at the moment (are you really so fucking unaware that you didn't know we stopped occupying iraq/afghanistan?) The syrian civil war, The rebellion in yemen, ISIS vs shiite iraqi military, Civil war in somalia the list goes on.

The world isn't peaceful at the moment by any means, the middle east is going through one of the most violent periods it's gone through in the past 500 years.

>>6606055
This sounds really childish, anyone can start a business. Also these notions about being a 'cubicle slave' are rapidly dying because most of those jobs are disappearing with the advent of the computer age. It kinda sounds like you're 14 and just read fight club.

I mean build our own industries and organizations? what just for young people? So you'll hire people based on age not on merit? good luck being competitive. It doesn't sound like you understand the world at all.

>>6612342
Don't forget Israel!

>>6612335
I can tell already you're a hack imitator because I was in the same mindset and doing the same things in the height of my thompson fandom. I think most Thompson fans go through a brief hack imitator phase where we do a lot of acid and try to write like he did. Looking back though I can tell I was a hack imitator and when you look back at what you wrote in a year or two you'll realize the same.

he started out insightful but then the drugs took over
did you know he went to Zaire to cover the Ali/Foreman fight?
No you didn't because you never read the article, right?
Because the article was never written.
Because he never left the hotel he was so high and drunk passed out beside the swimming pool.
Sometime after Campaign Trail the booze and drugs and the _persona_ took over and took priority.

>>6612352
>computers
>ending slavery

yeah just like the cotton gin did

idiot

>>6612357
I'm gonna have to reassess this whole short story now.

>>6612365
You're clearly a moron. First off working a cubicle isn't 'slavery' no one is forcing you to do it dumb fuck. Secondly, the majority of those jobs were entering raw data and breaking it down, jobs that computers do easily.

Tell me more about your brilliant 'we build organizations and industries just for young people' plan retard. You sound like a 14 year old suburban white kid with no grasp on reality.

>>6612374
I remember writing a story during that time about my youth in florida about the 'war on drugs', the 'legal' pharmaceutical thugs who kept house wives addicted to synthetic coke and heroinnes and the prison complex at the time. I thought it was really good stuff but I ended up trying to write exactly like Thompson, I didn't realize how much of an imitating hack I was until I was looking through erowid and saw how many people were trying to do 'gonzo' drug experiences and how bad the thompson imitations came off.

>>6612382
I think what I was trying to say at the time, it still is under a lot of construction as far as choice of words and sentiments go, is that rather than spend my own life inheriting the conventions and ideals of those before me it would be more fulfilling to set out and find what gives me peace on my own terms, an new addition that isn't expressed in the draft posted here is that it's possible that all these paranoias and ideals are something only I feel and that the big uproar I make about them could be totally private and that ultimately it would be more understanding and powerful to try and reach out to understand first rather than teach. Also the cotton gin guy is not me.

>>6612394
I'm still developing my own style and although Thompson is very much an influence I spend most of my editing time going back and revising and changing my voice to reflect my own thoughts rather than contorting them to evoke something else, which is interesting because that's kind of the whole point of the story. Something I'm kind of realizing just now.

>>6612382
>Tell me more about your brilliant 'we build organizations and industries just for young people' plan retard

I am not that anon but I think you misunderstood his argument.

Anyway I'll defend myself cuz why not.

>working a cubicle isn't 'slavery' no one is forcing you to do it

No matter where political theories fall on the spectrum it's sort of an agreement among intellectuals that the term 'sales associate' (instead of 'wage slave') is probably the penultimate ideology of the West. I worked in engineering for a couple years at a fortune 500 co and while I liked my job there were certainly "engineers" there who were slaves to their career path.

>the majority of those jobs were entering raw data and breaking it down, jobs that computers do easily

I mentioned the cotton gin before. The same argument was used then by its proponents. Slavery is necessary because the cotton industry requires lots of labor. Cotton gin cuts the number of people needed to tend to the industry in half, so half the slaves will be freed of their work.

But with the invention of the gin the cotton industry grew 100x and suddenly the reduced labor couldn't compare to the growth of the industry as a whole.

Needless to say as computers replace the pen-and-paper bureaucratic jobs they're replaced by programmers who spend the same 40 hours a week building software. The only difference is now they are forced to work with frustrating electronic tedium.

>>6612382
heads up that >>6612409 is not me.
I am 6612413.

>>6612382
>You sound like a 14 year old suburban white kid with no grasp on reality.
ad hominem

>>6612413
The difference is that where before you would hire 100 raw data entries, now you pay one IT guy and buy one piece of expensive software. The people who design the software and the guy who maintains it both get paid better than those who entered data.

There are certainly those who work tedious jobs but to call it slavery is a little absurd and dramatic.

>>6612438
>The difference is that where before you would hire 100 raw data entries, now you pay one IT guy and buy one piece of expensive software

Where before you hired 100 slaves now you pay one slave and buy one cotton gin.

I see no difference here sir. Who's making the cotton gin? What happens when there are 100x the number of cotton field there were before?

>The people who design the software and the guy who maintains it both get paid better than those who entered data

Unfortunately this is false in the long run. They do ~now~ because it's a new skill. What happens when more and more people get CompSci degrees every year for the next few decades? Capitalism has this funny way of taking all that value derived from the newfound efficiency and centralizing it in the hands of whoever got there first decades after the efficienct procedures are made.

Think about it. We've been making exponentially more efficient technology for the past 50 years and everyone STILL works 40 hours and a week and more people work minimum wage than ever (in the US).

The reality is that you're claiming there's some sort of efficiency but the pay-off doesn't go to the workers. It never did and you have to be a fool to think it will in the near future or that computers are "different."

>to call it slavery is a little absurd and dramatic

I'm sure that it sounds absurd and dramatic to most people (though not my old coworkers, however, who'd agree with me; even the right-leaning ones). In my mind it sounds absurd due to ideology, as I have said.

A simple exercise: think of "sales associate" as being to "renting" or "leasing" as "slavery" is to "buying" or "selling."

I think if you realize this it doesn't sound so absurd of a claim.

>>6610395
There is a very active effort to end the war on drugs, which is a very significant battle. Occupy Wall street and protests against the Iraq war were huge events but they didn't get the deserved coverage in mainstream media. People are fighting for things all the time, even though you can't see it in mainstream culture.

>>6612382
>>6612382
>You're clearly a moron. First off working a cubicle isn't 'slavery' no one is forcing you to do it dumb fuck
our current individualist, capitalist, market driven societies are clearly not creating fulfilled human beings. Considering the material wealth we have we are doing an awful job at creating harmonic and happy human beings. All attempts at alternative thinking should obviously be encouraged

http://pastebin.com/v80hz3g8
Still very rough and very changing, it's come up a couple times that I might be just aping thompson's style and I thought I'd just post a good highlight from it for anyone interested.

bump

>>6612342

Nobody said this anon
you are making up your own argument

>>6604712
his late stuff is pretty much a hacky impersonation of his earlier better stuff
ultimately he made the right decision
he wasn't contributing anything of value anymore
just adding more shit to the shitpile

>>6613100
fuck off

>>6613100
wrong

>>6604712
How was that btw?

Ive visited DC a few times and loved it, always wanted to fly over and stay in a hostel for a week spending 10hrs+ a day wandering around all the free museums by myself

sounds pretty fantastic

>>6614347
>>6616088
"Before we get to The Work, as it were, I want to make sure I know how to cope with this elegant typewriter -- (and, yes, it appears that I do) -- so why not make this quick list of my life's work and then get the hell out of town on the 11:05 to Denver? Indeed. Why not?

But for just a moment I'd like to say, for the permanent record, that it is a very strange feeling to be a 40-year-old American writer in this century and sitting alone in this huge building on Fifth Avenue in New York at one o'clock in the morning on the night before Christmas Eve, 2000 miles from home, and compiling a table of contents for a book of my own Collected Works in an office with a tall glass door that leads out to a big terrace looking down on The Plaza Fountain.
Very strange.

I feel like I might as well be sitting up here carving the words for my own tombstone. . . and when I finish, the only fitting exit will be right straight off this fucking terrace and into The Fountain, 28 stories below and at least 200 yards out in the air and across Fifth Avenue.

Nobody could follow that act. Not even me. . . and in fact the only way I can deal with this eerie situation at all is to make a conscious decision that I have already lived and finished the life I planned to live -- (13 years longer, in fact) -- and everything from now on will be A New Life, a different thing, a gig that ends tonight and starts tomorrow morning.

So if I decided to leap for The Fountain when I finish this memo, I want to make one thing perfectly clear -- I would genuinely love to make that leap, and if I don't I will always consider it a mistake and a failed opportunity, one of the very few serious mistakes of my life.

But what the hell? I probably won't do it (for all the wrong reasons), and I'll probably finish this table of contents and go home for Christmas and then have to live for 100 more years with all the goddamn gibberish I lash together now.

But, Jesus, it would be a wonderful way to go out."

--HST

>>6616300
The museums and such are cool if you like that sort of thing, Northeast is not a good neighborhood though. Not bad necessarily but certainly not vacation material. I'm a hick living near the ends of the metros though and I've never had the proper taste for cities.