Archive for February, 2005

Gone is the Gonzo journalist

Monday, February 21st, 2005

I just found out this afternoon that one of my literary heros is gone. Hunter S. Thompson took his own life:

Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counter-culture author of books such as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” fatally shot himself Sunday night at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.

“Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family,” Juan Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News.

If I think too much on this I may shed tears over this. I spent a good chunk of this past summer with a copy of his correspondences stuck under my arm. The world he dealt with fascinated me. He pushed limits like no man and reading of his exploits put all kinds of new and wonderful ideas into my head. You don’t just read that intimately of someone’s interactions with the world and not feel some kind of connection.

Time to go commiserate the bad news with some friends. R.I.P. Hunter, you crazy bastard. Selah.

Batteries running dry…

Friday, February 11th, 2005

Yup. Still busy as all hell. Still burning myself out in the attempts to keep the office happy. That will mean also working this weekend, but I do plan to take my rest as well. Maybe a trip out to Central Park to check out The Gates is in order?

In other news, my retirement funds are slightly happier today as I got news that those 5 Apple share I bought some months ago are going splitsville, doubling my holdings. Get those shares before February 18th if you want in on the goodness.

Well, a little under two hours to go before I can head home to my bed and end my fourth 30-plus hour day in two weeks. Can I survive? I sure hope so. I’d like to think that all this hard work would have a better reward than me just keeling over in the streets of Manhattan somewhere.

Barely outside of the framework of sanity

Tuesday, February 1st, 2005

I really got nothing to write about at the moment, but what the hell — that’s never stopped me from writing before. Dull, boring, mindless and cold out. Dull, stale and hot indoors. Nope, no getting to the middle ground for me today.

Could I be somewhere else? Temperate yet scorching sunlight burning my pale skin in moderate comfort while I toss my head back, whooping and hollering? Yeah, that would be nice. But I can’t — I’m here, and for the near future here is where I’ll stay.

Better than the here now I’m in would be the here there I will be in a few hours. Wether this amalgamated paper mutt follows me home is up to my ambition levels. At least he’d have something to play with, since there’s another more ominous collection of papers to deal with back there there – the money sucking kind with sharp fangs and red ink.

Then again when all else fails I can just look back upon my ever-growing collection of happy thoughts and soak in the reflected radiance. Forever and ever, and forever couldn’t be too far.

By the way, don’t read into any of this. I’m just rambling for the sake of it. Yeah, it’s been that kind of a day for me. If you want to see me making sense then you might want to go read up on things over at Andonymous.