The Dudeism Forum

No greater example of dudeness ever existed. This man did it right.

Yeah he was way cool.
Not sure I'd call him Dude.
A lot of Walter in there.
He wasn't about chill.
He was about pushing to beyond the limit.
But certainly way cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkWupnH8Uvs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSWZTsLGcVU

Quotes

"Buy the ticket, take the ride."

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

- Hunter S. Thompson

"The Wave" has always been my favorite HST quote.

"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."


? Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUgs2O7Okqc

Dammit. Writing like this, whenever it's written, convinces me that I've missed a very special time in this world. I wasn't around in the 60s, but I wonder if it wasn't our last, best, chance to turn back the tide and retake the world. Or, maybe, that's just projection on my part. It could have been just as fucked then as now. I dunno.

Quote from: jgiffin on July 24, 2018, 12:27:00 AM
Dammit. Writing like this, whenever it's written, convinces me that I've missed a very special time in this world. I wasn't around in the 60s, but I wonder if it wasn't our last, best, chance to turn back the tide and retake the world. Or, maybe, that's just projection on my part. It could have been just as fucked then as now. I dunno.

And what is the most demoralizing is how it's been misinterpreted and co-opted for some progressive bullshit "movement".
The wave was great but today I feel myself saying "get a job sir"!

This is just like my opinion, man; I think Hunter S. Thompson embodies both elements the Dude and Walter.

Thoughts, dudes?

Quote from: DigitalBuddha on July 27, 2018, 12:29:28 AM
This is just like my opinion, man; I think Hunter S. Thompson embodies both elements the Dude and Walter.

Thoughts, dudes?

I'm with you Dude.
He was a non-conformist in the extreme.
He loathed authority figures like Nixon.
But he was extreme in his way of expressing his beliefs.
And he famously worshiped guns.
He was very much both extremes.
Which I take as a valuable lesson in relation to the Dude / Walter / Donnie holy trinity.
The individual is meant to find their place on the scale.
Not be a pure expression of Dudeness of Walterness.
But that's just like my opinion man.
HST did a good job of taking the pure essence of the Dude nature (at least the "this will not stand" part) and bolstering it with a good amount of Walter.

Imagine placing HST in the place of the Dude in the same story line.
I'm thinking that the rug pissers might have had a rougher experience.
HST certainly would have been packing.
He always did.

"Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio."

? Hunter S. Thompson

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!"
? Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

"We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness."
? Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

"A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance."
? Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

It depends, in my opinion.

Hunter in-person is crazy like hell, I've heard stories that tend to bizarre, his new style of journalism is way fucking cool.

If you say Hunter played by that other guy from Secret Window and Jack Sparrow I can't remember the name in the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, that can be a dude-like figure; in most moments.

Quote from: EsmagaSapos on August 13, 2018, 05:20:06 PM
It depends, in my opinion.

Hunter in-person is crazy like hell, I've heard stories that tend to bizarre, his new style of journalism is way fucking cool.

If you say Hunter played by that other guy from Secret Window and Jack Sparrow I can't remember the name in the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, that can be a dude-like figure; in most moments.

Well I take your point if you are speaking of the Rum Diary. Which was a semi autobiographical novel.
Paul Kemp is a fairly well intentioned character.
But his other works were works of "gonzo journalism".
The Raoul Duke character more closely resembles the actual HST in real life.
It's just that HST has been associated with wild behavior primarily for so long that it's difficult to imagine him doing a lot of Abiding.
But yeah there is a bit of a gray area.
Taken from Wikipedia
"I'm never sure which one people want me to be [Thompson or Duke], and sometimes they conflict... I am living a normal life, but beside me is this myth, growing larger and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to Universities to speak, I'm not sure who they're inviting, Duke or Thompson... I suppose that my plans are to figure out some new identity, kill off one life and start another."

But even his normal life is fraught with a lot of gun play and wild behavior.
Shot up his neighbor's house.
Covering the America's cup yacht race he spray painted "Fuck the Pope" on one of the boats and set several others on fire with a flare gun.
That was HST and not Duke.