Good-bye Hunter S.

I was just breaking into a semi-cognitive waking state this morning when the news hit me: Hunter S. shot himself at his home in Aspen. The news was in French but the feeling was very American, the feeling that one more symbol of excellence, of freedom, of revolt, of life/liberty/happy pursuit of craziness had just gone dark. Hunter, how could you? You'll be missed.

The big question for me is still looming: at what age do I tell my son and daughter that I adore his books? Can I explain this to them? I know that my folks couldn't understand it. Is this part of my schizophrenia, of my role-playing?

So many things that Hunter stood for were reprehensible: he certainly wouldn't make a very good neighbour. Just imagine shotgun golf in the backyard next door!

Yet Hunter knew how to put into vivid words the angst, the fear and loathing that the established order inspires in *everyone* -- 'cept that *everyone* has been conditioned to ignore the fear and loathing. Hunter shocked us out of the conditioning, shocked us into seeing truth and sometimes beauty in the struggle against the established hypocrisy. He made us feel of the power of the individual. A modern-day Thoreau, a hip-hop Kerouac, Hunter S. made us feel the trends of the day and put them into the repugnant perspective that they deserved.

The Gannongate story shows us just how much today's press has become a whipping-boy to corporate and political greed. The text of the story reads like a Hunter S. screed: imagine the gay-prostitute-ridden presidential press corps gone amuck with a list of CIA undercover operatives for political gain! Even Hunter couldn't have imagined such a twisted story at the highest levels of the US government. Maybe that's what did Hunter in: the truth had gotten even crazy than Hunter's embellishments and yet nobody cared! (I sure the hell left the US for the same reasons: for me, it was either get out or scream bloody murder reading the NY Times every morning.)

Hunter's demise seems to steepen that slippery-slope down a soapy plank into totalitarian everyday life. Have a nice big-brother day!