

hunter

Originally uploaded by Originally uploaded by TheCowstalker

An unusual warm wind blows over the Rockies this morning, perhaps blowback from global warming and the lecherous bastards behind the engines that run the mouse that spins the wheel, or perhaps something else. Somewhere in a dark valley, on a bed of Kentucky bluegrass, a banjo plucks for a fallen son. A hillbilly without regard for diversions of the mind-over-matter, instead focusing on the matters to keep in mind.How does one eulogize Hunter S. Thompson? Certainly not with the written word. None could match his beat. It was his beat that drove the writing; the jaded rants that slid off the page like bebop and bluegrass and the clinking of mason jars full of hooch. Finger pointing at the finer folk and their treachery, their naivete, their obvious foolishness when walking the hallowed halls of power. The hillbilly beat that showed the shit along the walls and the stench of corruption; the depths of the casm between the doomed and the greedheads. No, the written will do no good.The action might, instead, suffice. Grabbing the bull's horns and teabagging the bastard into certain submission and humiliation. Holding the mirror of history to the faces of the reptiles who disrespect the future and piss on the present. The certain uncertainty that at any moment, the most normal of sheep can strip down to a pair of conventionally uneducated overalls, sit at a typewriter and pull the wool from the wolves. Let the good times roll...gnaw on their skulls...No, Hunter led by example, as his upbringing surely exposed. And his example is where his true strength lives on, well after the ring of a .45 (or a silenced assassin's weapon, who is to say). At once when this author was mired in juvenile delinquency and a future of hate, Hunter was there to provide a path or recovery. Not in person, but in word and tone and obvious counsel that it was ok to be wild and free, as long as you fought for the rights of others to be wild and free. It was Hunter who saved this author from a life of pointless watching, providing instead a silent encouragement to walk the hallowed and shit-lined halls of journalism as an education, career, and ultimately, a pathway to a certain freedom of the soul. Words will never do, but actions might.Nevermind the critics, so loud and vocal now that the man is gone. They eat shit sandwiches for a living, cashing checks written on the backs of their rubbery spines. Given riches for lies or starving for truth, I'll take the latter. Granted, I'm just another hillbilly, treading softly in a world of greedheads and their smarmy, witless offspring. Common sense evades these people in spades. So be it.If the mad doctor left one legacy to burn in the corner of the fireplace, it is this: Do not let the carnival go by without pausing now and then to piss in the mouth of the clown. The clowns, hidden behind their agenda of painted smiles and hidden hate, cannot stand the taste of hillbilly piss. It rankles their souls, ruins the taste of their fine cigars, and washes away the thin layer of bile that hides their lies. Piss away ye followers of the rocky road, confessers of love for a hillbilly not soon forgotten, and ride the flood that follows until the dam breaks. Let the good times roll.