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Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2008 - 13:33:17 |
Anita Thompson made the trek from Owl Farm in Woody Creek, Colo., to a rainy downtown Denver Aug. 1 and 2, appearing at The Tattered Cover and the Denver Press Club, respectively, to promote her new book, The Gonzo Way.
The book is a guideline of sorts on how to live life the Gonzo Way, insomuch as it is loosely based on the lifestyle and motivations of her husband, the wildly acclaimed journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Hunter committed suicide in his Woody Creek home in February 2005.
Aside from signing and promoting her book, Anita reveled audiences of 100 or more both nights with stories about Hunter's antics, his many friends and seemingly crazy career, as well as more personal moments that separated the man from the myth.
"Ever since he was a child, I think all Hunter wanted was nothing more than freedom," she said. "If he had it, everything else in life - fun, love and nourishment - would fall into place."
The book and her recent reflections certainly beget closure, but they also continue the legacy of a respected writer and American, a lover to some and a friend to many.
"I always have Hunter on my mind," Anita said. "I can't shake him, and I don't want to shake him right now, because that's what brings me comfort."
The Gonzo Student
In the preface of The Gonzo Way, Anita Thompson writes, "(Hunter) turned out to be my best friend, my boss and my teacher, all in one."
Hunter and Anita Bejmuk met in 1999, and she soon became his assistant, helping him edit piles of copy and faxing jumbled pages to publishing companies. Soon after, they fell in love, and were married in April 2003.
In the foreword, Hunter's literary executor and friend Douglas Brinkley wrote, "Thus did Hunter and Anita become One. ...They lived in a state of perpetual honeymoon, holing up for long, blissful stays at hotels such as the Carlyle in New York and the Kahala Mandarin Oriental in Honolulu. Back home, Owl Farm took on a more frenetic, productive and happy-go-lucky work rhythm."
The result of their work together was Hunter's best-selling memoir Kingdom of Fear.
"I had never been with a writer before and I didn't know much about his work ... all I knew was he was a writer," Anita said. "Then I started reading more of his work, and I realized how important he was."
Hunter may have been Anita's elder by 35 years, but he taught her a lot about life, love, freedom, writing and, of course, the Gonzo Way.
"All of us have...a sense of freedom, and if you're not careful that can be dulled down, that can be repressed," Anita said. "And Hunter wouldn't let that happen. I think he inspired (a sense of freedom) in all of us. He reminded us that we're all young at heart."
According to Anita, Hunter was a great promoter of the nation's youth, and he believed that the next generation would be responsible for changes in political movement and civil rights and liberties.
"Young people have the vitality and the courage you tend to lose when you get older," Anita said. "Young people have bounce."
The Gonzo Teacher
If The Gonzo Way reads as a guideline, a book of rules if you will, it is because that is precisely what Anita had in mind. The book is based on an idea that Anita and Hunter penned during the last years of his life. The original title of the book was to be "Dr. Gonzo's Guide to Physical Fitness."
"I'm honored to be Hunter S. Thompson's wife, but I don't fancy myself a writer," Anita said. "I feel like I'm still married to (Hunter) and still doing my job. He knew he wasn't going to live forever, and he wanted somebody to carry on the work."
And she has done just that. While attending Columbia University in New York, she also oversees the Owl Farm Blog and publishes The Woody Creeker, a magazine focusing on the betterment of the mountain community that Hunter lived in and loved for nearly 40 years. Anita also maintains the Owl Creek Estate and mentors summer interns at the legendary farm.
"It brings me great joy to think about him every day, and think about what Hunter would do and how I can benefit his legacy," Anita said. "That was always my job and that's what he expected. I take that very seriously."
While The Gonzo Way may never stack up in literary prowess to the man for whom it is written, it is certainly a portrait of a sensitive and private man about whom the public is not accustomed to reading.
As Anita reminds us, "There is a difference between Hunter's works on your bookshelf and his true lifestyle."
The Man, The Myth, The Gonzo Master
When asked what it was like living with Hunter, Anita responds with his own self-description: "It was like living with a teenage girl trapped in the body of an elderly dope fiend."
While The Gonzo Way is peppered with the author's commentary on her late husband, the book also includes various excerpts of letters written to Anita from several of Thompson's friends (including Brinkley, Hunter's recently deceased friend and neighbor, 60 Minutes anchor Ed Bradley, and former South Dakota Sen. George McGovern) that prove Hunter's life to be far more textured and complicated than guns, drugs, recklessness and booze.
And although Hunter once said, "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me," at the Tattered Cover, Anita addressed her husband's renegade style and put the record straight.
"Hunter used drugs as a tool, and I think he used his body as a mixing vessel," she said. "But he didn't tolerate a drunk. He didn't like drunks because they were boring."
Instead, she said that Hunter surrounded himself with the elite, or "snow leopards," as she put it. The phrase referred to those creatures that dominate the top of the mountain.
"That's one of the beautiful things about Hunter's career over 40 years, is that he developed a lot of great friendships," Anita said. "When you look at the group of friends he had, even when he was a child, they were usually at the top of their profession or the top of their life path."
The Gonzo Way
The first time I met Anita was during a Ralph Steadman slideshow on Nov. 6 at the Denver News Agency. Steadman, Hunter's longtime friend and illustrator, was in town promoting his book The Joke's Over, also about Thompson's life and work.
I was there as both a reporter and photographer, but I was having a hard time getting a shot as the woman in front of me had ants in her pants. She just wouldn't sit still, and she appeared to be drunk. Several of my photos came out with her slim shoulders and blond hair in the frame.
After Steadman's presentation, I learned that the fidgety, seemingly intoxicated woman sitting in front of me was the widow of the late Hunter S. Thompson.
Sure, she was drinking Flying Dog beers (whose logos are also illustrated by Steadman) and having a good time, but everyone around her, friends and family of all ages, had the same celebratory energy that I soon realized couldn't be justified simply by booze. Instead, they were all drunk on an energy created by the spirit of Hunter. They were living the way Hunter had taught them all to live, with spontaneity and vigor, free and in the moment, without regret and without remorse.
As Anita writes, "In other words, do whatever works to live your life in the freedom that comes with confronting your fear by beating it senseless and into submission."
That's the Gonzo Way.
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