Una de las figuras más influyentes de la escritura del siglo XX es Hunter S. Thompson nacido un 18 de julio de 1937 y muerto un 20 de febrero de 2005. Este autor norteamericano fracturó las nociones establecidas de lo que se consideraba, y se considera, el periodismo, al grado de que para entender su obra es necesario hablar de Periodismo Gonzo, género que inicia y basicamente termina con Thompson.
Las anécdotas sobre su vida son interminables, y la realidad parece inseparable de la ficción. Si quieren clavarse un poco más con el autor, pues el siguiente documental es la pieza a atender.
Ahora, si los chismes y las anécdotas simpáticas no les bastan. Les proponemos otro ejercicio: leer. Así es, el famoso Gonzo es famoso e importante por su escritura, que atraviesa sin reparos los terrenos de la política, la crónica, el ensayo, y demás charcos en los que pudiera meterse sin remordimientos.
De Hunter S. Thompson hay mucho que leer, pero aquí les pasamos 8 textos indispensables y que en gran medida volvieron al autor lo que es hoy en día. Regálense una tarde y enfrenten al que fue uno de los últimos salvajes de los EEUU. No se van a arrepentir, y quién sabe, tal vez ustedes mismo empiecen a escribir con la libertad loca que se merecen.
The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved
I got off the plane around midnight and no one spoke as I crossed the dark runway to the terminal. The air was thick and hot, like wandering into a steam bath. Inside, people hugged each other and shook hands … big grins and a whoop here and there: “By God! You old bastard! Good to see you, boy! Damn good … and I mean it!”
The Hippies
The best year to be a hippie was 1965, but then there was not much to write about, because not much was happening in public and most of what was happening in private was illegal. The real year of the hippie was 1966, despite the lack of publicity, which in 1967 gave way to a nationwide avalanche in Look, Life, Time, Newsweek, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Saturday Evening Post, and even the Aspen Illustrated News, which did a special issue on hippies in August of 1967 and made a record sale of all but 6 copies of a 3,500-copy press run.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. …” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about 100 miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”
Doomed Love At The Taco Stand
Going to Hollywood is a dangerous high-pressure gig for most people, under any circumstances. It is like pumping hot steam into thousands of different-size boilers. The laws of physics mandate that some will explode before others–although all of them will explode sooner or later unless somebody cuts off the steam.
The Motorcycle Gangs
Last Labor Day weekend newspapers all over California gave front-page reports of a heinous gang rape in the moonlit sand dunes near the town of Seaside on the Monterey Peninsula. Two girls, aged 14 and 15, were allegedly taken from their dates by a gang of filthy, frenzied, boozed-up motorcycle hoodlums called “Hell’s Angels,” and dragged off to be “repeatedly assaulted.”
Prisoner of Denver
The case of Lisl Auman, who first wrote me from prison three years ago, is so rotten and wrong and shameful that I feel dirty just for knowing about it, and so should you. The Colorado Supreme Court is preparing to hand down its fateful decision on an appeal in the case this summer, which should scare the living shit out of your whole family if the judges decide to keep this young woman in a filthy state prison for the rest of her life, when each one of them has to know—in their hearts and their minds—that she is innocent.
Fear and Loathing in America
It was just after dawn in Woody Creek, Colo., when the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City on Tuesday morning, and as usual I was writing about sports. But not for long. Football suddenly seemed irrelevant, compared to the scenes of destruction and utter devastation coming out of New York on TV.
Song of the Sausage Creature
There are some things nobody needs in this world, and a bright-red, hunch-back, warp-speed 900cc cafe racer is one of them – but I want one anyway, and on some days I actually believe I need one. That is why they are dangerous.