The Doctor is Out

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

I woke up this morning to find my world covered in a thin layer of snow, and to discover that Dr. Hunter S. Thompson has died. None of the breakfast news shows seemed to be covering this story. I found the news in my e-mail Inbox.

I’m really not sure what to say.

It’s true to say that if it weren’t for Hunter, I never would have become a writer. At the very least, not the writer I have become.

I first stumbled upon the words of the good Doctor in my early teens, when I bought a copy of The Great Shark Hunt. I loved it. It blew my mind. I can’t claim that I understood all of it, steeped in Americana my young mind was unfamiliar with, but his snappy, unique prose grabbed me by the throat and hasn’t let go since.

Whilst my peers were covering their bedroom walls with pictures of pop groups or football teams, I had sneakily cut a photo of Hunter out of a library book and framed it. Taken by Annie Leibovitz for Rolling Stone magazine, it was a black and white photo of a hotel room, littered with overflowing ashtrays, empty whisky bottles, discarded papers and a battered old typewriter. Hidden in the middle of the photo was a comatose Hunter asleep in his bed.

Underneath the picture, I had typed: “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me. – H.S.T.”

I used to look at that photo every day for years.

I used to think “Yeah. I’m going to be a writer one day.”

Reading Hunter’s words reminds me how far I still have to go.

Part of me still thinks that this is yet another classic Hunter prank, and that any minute now the news sites will be retracting the stories of his death.

The other part of me knows that that probably isn’t going to happen.

Double Secret Probation

Dammit.

John Vernon was one of my favourite character actors of all time. He has just died at the age of 72. I won’t eulogise him at length here, as no doubt better writers than I will do that admirably in other places. All I have to say was that his distinctive voice and gravitas made him one of the most recognisable faces in Seventies cinema, and one of the all time great movie heavies. His C.V. is a list of some of the best movies ever made: Point Blank, Dirty Harry, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Charley Varrick, and, of course, Animal House.

They say there are no second acts in American lives. Now, that ain’t true. In the Sixties, and again in the Nineties, Vernon lent his gravely tones to a variety of Marvel cartoons, as the voice of Doctor Strange, Dr. Doom, the Sub-Mariner, Iron Man, and tireless Hulk-hunter General “Thunderbolt” Ross.

I just want to remember him here for some of his greatest lines. Take it away, John:

(Dirty Harry, starring John Vernon as The Mayor!)

Harry Callahan: Well, when an adult male is chasing a female with intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard. That's my policy.
The Mayor: Intent? How did you establish that?
Harry Callahan: When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher's knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn't out collecting for the Red Cross!
The Mayor: He's got a point.

(The Outlaw Josey Wales, starring John Vernon as Fletcher!)

Senator: There's a saying, Fletcher: To the victor belongs the spoils.
Fletcher: There's another saying, Senator: Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

(National Lampoon’s Animal House, starring John Vernon as Dean Vernon Wormer!)

Dean Vernon Wormer: The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me.

And his most immortal line ever:

Dean Vernon Wormer: Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

He’s got a point. Rest well, John, you’ve earned it.