Hunter Thompson Research Paper
My favorite journalist is Hunter S. Thompson because of his ridiculous stories and how interesting his life is. Hunter S. Thompson was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on July 18, 1937. His father, a veteran and insurance agent, died while Hunter was in high school. This left him with an alcoholic, destitute mother and two younger brothers. This left him free to seek trouble throughout his life, starting with the people he would scour the neighborhood with in his teenage years. In the midst of his trouble, he was honing his talent and passion of writing. His talent got him into the Athenaeum Literary Association, despite the organization being comprised of well-off families. However, he quickly proved that he was not the average writer, and most
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He worked on his own personal gold mine through this time, The Rum Diary which was spurned by all publishers until much later in 1998. He quickly became respected as a brave and unorthodox journalist, which almost killed him. In 1965 he was assigned to write an article about a motorcycle club called “Hell’s Angels”. Close to the end of his year-long research, the club tried to kill him. He lived through it, and wrote the book Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs which became a hit after it was published in 1967, as it was rare to see a first person account of such an event. The book earned him a lot of money, which he used to buy a large home outside of Aspen Colorado with his wife, married in 1963, and their son, born in 1964. Thompson did not take to the family life, as he continued travelling for his stories. He covered the Vietnam War, the 1968 presidential campaigns, and the hippie movement, all in his own satirical style. One of the most renowned pieces was “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” which talked about how the derby was …show more content…
When he didn’t have a story, he made his own, as proven by his campaign for the sheriff position at Pitkin County, Colorado. He ran under the “Freak power” ticket, wanting to rename aspen and replace asphalt with sod. He was barely defeated by his opponent, but he wrote a story about his campaign called “The Battle of Aspen” that was put into the Rolling Stone that October. He became a go-to writer for the Rolling Stone magazine until 1999. After his defeat at aspen, his life continued to go downhill with his drug abuse, as he would not write some stories or completely disregarded the intended subject. His wife divorced him in 1980. Hunter S. Thompson continued with his drug and alcohol addiction, obsession with firearms, and general bad habits until February 20, 2005. Hunter had become old and resentful of the world around him, and his health problems involving his actions hadn’t made anything better. He committed suicide in his home. In August of that year, a private ceremony was attended by all of his friends and fans. They loaded his ashes into a canon and shot them out to the tune of “Mr. Tambourine
He worked on his own personal gold mine through this time, The Rum Diary which was spurned by all publishers until much later in 1998. He quickly became respected as a brave and unorthodox journalist, which almost killed him. In 1965 he was assigned to write an article about a motorcycle club called “Hell’s Angels”. Close to the end of his year-long research, the club tried to kill him. He lived through it, and wrote the book Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs which became a hit after it was published in 1967, as it was rare to see a first person account of such an event. The book earned him a lot of money, which he used to buy a large home outside of Aspen Colorado with his wife, married in 1963, and their son, born in 1964. Thompson did not take to the family life, as he continued travelling for his stories. He covered the Vietnam War, the 1968 presidential campaigns, and the hippie movement, all in his own satirical style. One of the most renowned pieces was “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” which talked about how the derby was …show more content…
When he didn’t have a story, he made his own, as proven by his campaign for the sheriff position at Pitkin County, Colorado. He ran under the “Freak power” ticket, wanting to rename aspen and replace asphalt with sod. He was barely defeated by his opponent, but he wrote a story about his campaign called “The Battle of Aspen” that was put into the Rolling Stone that October. He became a go-to writer for the Rolling Stone magazine until 1999. After his defeat at aspen, his life continued to go downhill with his drug abuse, as he would not write some stories or completely disregarded the intended subject. His wife divorced him in 1980. Hunter S. Thompson continued with his drug and alcohol addiction, obsession with firearms, and general bad habits until February 20, 2005. Hunter had become old and resentful of the world around him, and his health problems involving his actions hadn’t made anything better. He committed suicide in his home. In August of that year, a private ceremony was attended by all of his friends and fans. They loaded his ashes into a canon and shot them out to the tune of “Mr. Tambourine