Posted on 09/08/2005 2:17:45 PM PDT by Mike Bates
Renegade author Hunter S. Thompson lamented the onset of old age and his physical limits, then concluded, "Relax -- This won't hurt," in an apparent suicide note published on Thursday by Rolling Stone magazine, his literary springboard.
The scrawled words -- perhaps the last he ever committed to paper -- were written on February 16, four days before the self-described "gonzo" journalist shot himself to death at his secluded home near Aspen, Colorado, the magazine said.
Thompson was 67, and at the time friends and family said he had been in pain from hip replacement surgery, back surgery and a recently broken leg. Those close to him said Thompson had contemplated suicide for years.
The content of the note was first revealed by Thompson's biographer and literary executor, Douglas Brinkley, in a Rolling Stone article recounting the August 20 memorial service in which Thompson's cremated remains were blasted out of a cannon.
Brinkley said Thompson had left the farewell note for his wife, Anita, but "Hunter was really talking to himself" as he sank into the despair of what was for him gloomiest time of year -- the month of February.
The brief message, scrawled in black marker and titled "Football Season Is Over" (an apparent reference to the end of the NFL season he avidly followed as fan), reads as follows:
"No More Games. No More bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt."
At the bottom of the page, Brinkley said, Thompson drew a "happy heart," the kind found on Valentine's Day cards.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What, no smiley face?
Wow, what a brilliant mind the world lost.
This is great stuff! Wish he'd written it a lot sooner.
Wow, that was cold. Love it!
I thought it would say "Hey, Watch this..."
beginning carousel
The meaning of life: The NFL.
I've never seen anything so amazingly stupid and banal at the same time.
Another HERO of the LEFT, thankfully thinning out the gene pool.
Or, "For my next trick, ladies and gentlemen. . . "
Drugs have a way of doing that.
I guess he couldn't get 'high on life.'
Like about 40 years ago?
Getting high didn't present a problem for him, apparently.
Timothy Leary's last words were better, and even his weren't that impressive.
Was that supposedly "question authority" or something like that? Sounds like an urban myth to me.
What was So...Great (if that word even applies) about anything Hunter S. Thompson did or wrote???
What a sad pathetic man and life.
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