![]() It is not until 1972, after working several years on his next novel, under the working title of "the American Dream", Thompson finds gold. After spending time with the Hell's Angels for a year, he finally makes his breakthrough with the novel Hell's Angels - a book that gives him great recognition, but, due to bad negotiating skills, fails to earn him much money. His experience in San Juan becomes the backbone of the novel the Rum Diary, which, after numerous rewritings, fails to publish until 1999 - becoming in fact his final novel. First as a free-lancer in journalism, then as a full time writer. Inspired by contemporary writers such as Faulkner, Norman Mailer and especially Tom Wolfe, Thompson works 25 hours a day trying to make his breakthrough. Many of Thompson's stories involves excessive behavior, drinking and use of drugs - often tied closely together - and the three become an effective tool in Thompson's working etiquette. "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me", he once wrote in Rolling Stone. Personal memoirs are everywhere - in everything. On top of them lies paperclips, pictures, articles, documents and magazines, such as Scanlan's Monthly, Rampants, Esquire and, the one he is best known for, Rolling Stone. Scott Fitzgerald - as well as different editions of his own masterpieces: Hell's Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Rum Diary. On the other side of his kitchen working bench, on Hunter's right, the bookshelves are packed with books from well known authors and personal favorites: Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and F. After years of travelling and searching for meaning, love and fame, his search for a place to call "home" leads Hunter, and his first wife Sandy, to Woody Creek 8000 feet high, in the mountains of Aspen, Colorado. In the capital San Juan, he develops a bad taste for capitalist Americans, which he later portrays in many a uncomplimentary way in books such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Generation of Swine. Having difficulties holding onto jobs, constantly letting personal views and extreme behaviors making trouble for himself, he flees USA for Puerto Rico, where he lands a job in a small local newspaper. Sex, drugs and rock n'roll is his favorite pastime, making love and crime go hand-in-hand.Īlthough curiosity might have killed the cat, it could not harm Hunter, who, via the Army, discovers an unknown creative talent - and becomes sports editor for the Command Courier, on the Eglin Air Force base. This boundary-free and rebellious lifestyle soon gets him into confrontations with gangs, police and authorities. ![]() Being a curious and idealistic young man, he wastes little time diving head first into life's big and small mysteries. Hunter Stockton Thompson was born on 18 July 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky. On his right wrist, the wedding gift from actor Bill Murray - a Tiffany clock - that needs to be wound up every day. Matched by his favorite fruit colored Hawaiian shirt - preferably used when others followed standard dress code - he is, even at 67, still being the demonstrative rebel going left where others would go right. On his head, covering his thin hair, the famous fishing hat, and his fighting pilot sunglasses. On this Sunday he is wearing slippers, sweatpants, glasses and a red and black striped shirt. On a stool in the kitchen, squeezed in the middle of a desk and a stove, sits Hunter in his usual concentrating, slightly irritated, pose.Īround him, on the inside of the Owl Farm - his fortified compound - multiple proofs of one man's 67 years-long battle against authorities, stereotypes, boredom, poverty, meaning and his own great expectations are dominating the interior. ![]() Thompson.Īlthough the official address is 1278 Woody Creek Road, Pitkin County, Colorado, the proprietor prefers to call it the Owl Farm - as does everybody else. Just after the final hairpin turn, up the hill onto Woody Creek Road, two upper-case lettered "DO NOT ENTER"-signs, covered by heavy snow, are hardly visible - doing little to warn trespassers not to enter the premises of Hunter S. The rotten snow of yesterday shows no interest in melting into early expectations of spring. (WOODY CREEK, ASPEN, COLORADO): Glooming blue light of dusk is mingling with the pitch-black notion of nothing.
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