This is only tangentially related to the post, but it may be my only chance to proudly note that my great uncle, actor George Coulouris (that’s the old Mercury Theater ensemble member in the upper left) played a Greek tycoon dying if brain cancer who reanimates the head of Nostradamus so he can get a transplant. The film is called “The Man Without a Body,” and consists of long scenes with Uncle George arguing with a rubber head.
This is going to cause me to reconsider a lot of assumptions.
Hunter Thompson is fading from cultural relevance now, and when he was alive, I would have said, “Good.” He was a classic product of the Sixties, contemptuous of American and the political system, relentlessly negative and cynical, habitually stoned and proud of it. He was also a very funny, witty, skilled writer, if you could stand being bombarded by Abie Hoffman/M*A*S*H/ drug glamorizing political propaganda, which cleverly satirical as it often was, I could not. Thompson was bitter, angry and nihilistic; I would label his a largely wasted life. It was no surprise to me that he committee suicide. I was surprised he didn’t do it sooner, but then, he had been killing himself slowly with drugs and alcohol for decades. Thompson’s legacy is preserved to some extent in the person of the gun-toting, drugged out, corrupt Uncle Duke character in Doonesbury.
Thompson’s observations in his two most famous books, “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72” and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” seemed like typical criticism from the “drop-out, turn-on” set then. It never occurred to me that he had access to a crystal ball. In a thorough and wise analysis of today’s political upheaval deftly titled “Has Everyone Lost Their Freakin’ Minds?” (I cannot recommend it more highly), Tyler Durden begins with a series of Thompson’s quotes. Here they are… Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 