A work in progress

A Tribute Speech to Hunter Stockton Thompson - A work in progress

Good evening everyone,

Today I'd like to honor a passed hero, not a hero in the traditional sense, but one who fought tyranny with a typewriter instead of a rifle. An American journalist and author whose enduring style of writing came straight out of left field. Known for being “unruly” at best, and authoring a novel about the failures of the hippie subculture, titled “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream,” a book, which has since been adapted into the Hollywood films, alongside a few of his other works. This man was a real life anti-hero in the world political journalism. I am talking about none other than the late and great Hunter Stockton Thompson. How many journalists can you think of, would even imagine mingling with the Hell's Angels biker gang for a day for an article? Let alone spending whole year with them and coming out of it with a book's worth of grim and gritty experiences, and only a single savage beating? He was a seasoned political observer with an intense disdain for authoritarianism, one who firmly held a well known hatred for Richard Nixon. In many of his writings, Hunter was well known to inject his own personal flare into his works, a style which was later referred to as “gonzo journalism.” This was his personal contribution to the journalistic field. His unique style was known for the use of hyperbolic and satirical literary devices colored with unapologetic allusions to recreational drugs use and alcohol abuse within very loose contexts. In other words, the man wrote what he saw, did, and felt. He told it like it was, leaving the pleasantries at the title page.

still to be added:

-wrote the Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Rum Diary, -Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in '72
-International Traveller (from Kentucky to Puerto Rico, to Brazil, to finally Aspen, Colorado)
-Ran for sheriff of Aspen, Colorado on a platform of narcotic decriminalization
-Referred to himself as “Just a hill billy from kentucky”
-A man who's best known works were found at bedrock of human decency and made palatable by his