George Stranahan wrote a beautiful piece in his new book Phlogs. There are dozens of gorgeous stories to go with the photographs in the book, and I wanted to post a quote from one of his entries with a photo beside the tree farm across the street from Owl Farm.

Fall in the mountains comes as a surprise and never announces how long she will be staying around. She's stunningly beautiful, and uncannily fickle, vanishing with the first serious cold front. The long winder of dark, cold and snow cannot be kept away and will stay through March.  Winter has its own splendors, but life is lived as if underground.

As the fall sun moves lower in the sky there are many backlit moments like this. Halos appear where there were none before. These trees across the street from Hunter's house; they're what he'd see today, if only...

Knowing that Hunter is gone is like facing an endless winter, cold and dark, and part of me forever underground.

 -- George Stranahan.

As winter has its beautiful days, we will cherish those beautiful days in Hunter's posthumous life 

I'm off to shove some ice blocks off the roof and make a fire and spend the day with my animals and peace and quiet.

all the best to you,

Anita Thompson

This is Peter B in the Owl Farm Kitchen, getting ready for New Years sipping on champagne with Anita and company.  Currently we're watching Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin reporting from Times Square on CNN, pondering a) what the official term for this decade is (the UK calls it the "noughties", but I have not heard many Americans use that term) b) if we should hop on a quick flight to a certain town instead our planned festivities tonight and  c)since Hunter always said that the end of the American Century was December 1999, where are we now?

Ah, the deep quandaries that come up at Owl Farm!

 The Woody Creeker Online is up for launch soon (with me here, it will happen!), stay tuned!

 We hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year, and look forward to 2010!

“So what if the score is against me? I’ve been on the battlefield for a long time. I suppose I always will be--just my nature.”  -- Hunter S. Thompson

These are the words of Hunter S. Thompson which close Ancient Gonzo Wisdom, and I’m reminded of them as I’m standing in the corner of an art gallery, fresh from an argument. There are places and times for things, and though I may not be particularly tactful at times, I don’t belabor points. I’ve never been able to shuffle things beneath the surface, and I’m terrible at cards. This fact has been repeated to me during the row, even though I’ve never played the person opposite at any game. Of anything.

This book of wisdom that I’ve spent this last few weeks of my life with is a collection of The Good Doctor’s interviews with various journalists, as well as groups of students, throughout his career. “He was the same on stage as he was in the kitchen, which was something I loved about him,” said Anita Thompson, who edited the book. “He was a teenage girl trapped in the body of an elderly dope fiend. whether he was by his typewriter or in front of 3,000 people.” With many turns as well as consistencies, the book provides a look at the man behind the typewriter.

http://www.sinninginla.com/articles/looking-ancient-gonzo-wisdom-sparks-and-fireworks

The site is full of great stuff and I look forward to seeing more from Alex and his crew. all the best to you guys.

Cheers,

Anita Thompson

Anyway, before we settle down to watch our beloved Colts do their thing today, I wanted to thank John Oates for a fabulous Belly Up show last night Steve Goldberg, Michael Goldberg, Gayle Golding, Jackie Friedman made a great holiday night.  And Aimee (Oates) where were you?  okay, Here's a link to my write-up for Huffington Post.

Next, we'll settle down with George STranahan's journey to the heart of the human predicament, and also ponder why Bill Ritter is taking money away from children in K-12 schools. 

Cheerio! Anita Thompson

Along with the much needed snow, came a link to a LA Times article from my darling neighbor Ann Owsley : Adam Tschorn wrote an elegant description of Hunter's gonzo symbol worn by Johnny Depp. Adam, whoever you are, thank you. You'll be getting a box from the Gonzo Santa!

To add to the Yuletide spirit, I received the most beautiful book by our beloved George Stranahan. I've been reading the gorgeous stories by the fire and will be posting a review on Huffpo along with Chip Comins Copenhagen updates. Forces are at work all over the world to make it a better place. Thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you.

And more birthday news: along with Jackie Friedman, Hal Haddon last week, my mom's birthday yesterday and Kevin McGreevy's today. Now that's a sparkling Sagittarius family.

Your friend, sitting by the fire,

Anita Thompson

-- chapter 49, Great Expectations

No, I'm hardly turning into Ms. Havisham. No no no! But I'm feeling feverish and achy and melancholic today, so I thought I'd  wallow a bit after a friend sent me a beautiful tribute (that I've seen several times) and share some of the love with you.

It was freezing last night at Owl Farm -- actually it was about 12 degrees below freezing. I had to replace the attic insulation last month due to the fact that Owl Farm sits in a 150 million year-old mountain valley where wildlife is the norm. Usually a blessing, with Elk, deer, bald eagles, red tailed hawks and mountain lions. But with the wild, come the wild rodents -- field mice. Their parties were getting so out of control at night that I finally had to declare war and remove all their nests and replace attic insulation and block all their little entrance holes... but the new stuff ain't (sp?) the same as the old, rodent nest-clad insulation of 1975. ah well.  Owl Farm is now filled with plug-in heaters awaiting an eco-friendly foam, I've had the peacock's heaters on round-the-clock and I wore Hunter's sweater to bed last night with both cats and Athena sleeping in close by. 

It reminded me of one day that Hunter was on the set of "meet the Press" with Tim Russert. It was just about as cold in his studio. I guess it keeps guests and host, if not shivering, sharp and fresh.

So, here is one of the many beautiful video tributes that someone who goes by the name "lostcause845" did for Hunter a few years ago that has some footage of Hunter and the late Tim Russert. I've seen it several times and it's always moved me.

He wrote, in the intro:

In Memory of the late Hunter S. Thompson. Who never backed down, and who could wrestle with the greatest of evils and prevail.

http://www.youtube.com/user/lostcause845

And also, a huge Happy Birthday to Jackie Friedman -- a good friend to me and Hunter. A group of us will be celebrating her 29th birthday at the Belly Up in Aspen for a Movember tribute. I'll be loading up on theraflu, and rhinestone hospital mask and neon colored hoop earrings to see Jackie win the eighties best 80s costume!

Your friend in Woody Creek,

Anita Thompson

p.s. The first frames are from a note that Hunter wrote to me in his notebook titled "football season is over." It was not his actual suicide note, but it was reported as such. This is a lovely tribute nonetheless. His genuine suicide note was beautiful and remains unpublished. But the football note is genuine, so please thank lostcause854 for posting his tribute.

There are several other beautiful tributes that have been posted on Youtube and elsewhere -- most are lovely. if you have one that you'd like me to post, please email me (link on sidebar)

Also, check out Michael Moore's excellent post on Obama's hideous decision on Afghanistan. George McGovern has also urged the president to stop the bloodshed -- both men reminding President Obama that the Soviet Union became a past-tense name in part because of Afghanistan, the British empire hemorrhaged there, and one can even go back to history books to see that Genghis Khan lost in what is now Afghanistan. Good lord, what is going on in Washington -- very sad day.

Anita Thompson

One year ago, Sarah Palin burst onto the National Political stage like a locomotive until she became the Campaign's most successful train-wreck. Her new memoir Going Rouge is dominating the media this week with an implied threat that she might come back for seconds in 2012....

Here is a new link to the rest of the post on Huffington Post.

Cheers,

Anita Thompson

Here at Owl Farm, the leaves are changing colors, the mountaintops are dusted with snow and I just crawled, ceremoniously, into the fireplace to light the season's first fire. Hunter's archives are being organized, brilliants Johnny Depp and Graham King have The Rum Diary film in Post-Production and the attic & basement are calming down after some rattling restoration work. The ceiling is so fragile, that one of the workers fell through into the office.  He laughed at my pale-white face and panicked eyes after he came crashing through the water-stained tile. Good god, it could have been disastrous. But thankfully, Mr. Maldonado ended up with nothing but a scratch on his hand that we cleaned and bandaged within minutes, by the sink, as he giggled at worried condition. At least SOMEBODY was laughing... So in general, life is good.

We winterized, cleaned and stocked the peacock pens & guest cabin yesterday and I'm putting the Red Shark into storage for the winter.  The Gonzo Foundation is off the ground thanks to the glorious work of Ken Ransford and the generous contributions of Flying Dog Brewery and Ralph Steadman's memorial prints signed by him and others such as good friends Doug Brinkley, Bill Murray, Johnny Depp, Benecio Del Toro, Sean Penn, George Stranahan and Sheriff Bob Braudis and the late Ed Bradley. And yes, we're organizing the Writing Contest parameters and judges now -- update TK.

I'm now opening the War Room for in-house private lectures. The first is to be taught by Dr. Stranahan, and since it is the War Room, the lecture topics, attendees and the goings on are, for now, a secret. But the Woody Creeker online is set to be launched by Halloween and all gonzowear and OFB members will be notified. Sweet  Bill Murray is visiting darling Ralph Steadman in Kent, and the UK hardback of Ancient Gonzo Wisdom is being published next month. So much going on after a year of quiet on the Farm...

Arianna and her editing team,  Katharine Zaleski & Ethan Axelrod have launched a Denver section of the Huffintonpost. I-know-I-know, I'm late in posting but will soon make a deadline...

Carline Hartrich added a noon Bikram class in the Aspen studio -- now I don't have to set my alarm to be out by 8am. Hooray! Aren't the sweet details of life just swell?

I'm staying a couple of nights a week at our dear friend Jerri Merritt's house in Denver to take a much needed LSAT prep course. Otherwise, I'm home, settled in and working on the next two books. Oh, and my snowboard is being waxed... Life IS good.

Yep, life is good despite all the fear -- fear of economy, "big government", Muslim terror plots and sex offenders moving in next door, (even the fear of the Chinese deciding if Obama will meet with HH the Dalai Lama despite yearly visits since 1991) But well, Hunter reminded us of it in Kingdom of Fear and in all his books before and after. So today's wisdom comes from his intro to Kingdom of Fear:

I like this book, and I especially like the title, which pretty well sums up the foul nature of life in the U.S.A. in these first few bloody yearsof the post-American century. Only a fool or a whore would call it anything else. 

It would be easy to say that we owe it to the Bush family from Texas, but that would be too simplistic. They are only errand boys fro the vengeful, bloodthirsty cartel of raving Jesus-freaks and super-rich money mongers who have ruled this country for at least the last 20 years, and arguably for the past 200. They take orders well, and they don't ask too many questions. 

The real power in America is held by a fast-emerging new Oligarchy of pimps and preachers who see no need for Democracy or fairness or even trees, except maybe the ones in their own yards, and they don't mind admitting it.  They worship money and power and death.  Their ideal solution to all the nation's problems would be another 100 Year War. 

Coming of age in a fascist police state will not be a barrel of fun for anybody, much less for people like me, who are not inclined to suffer Nazis gladly and feel only contempt for the cowardly flag-suckers who would gladly give up their outdated freedom to live for the mess of pottage they have been conned into believing will be freedom from fear.

Ho ho ho. Let's not get carried away here. Freedom was yesterday in this country. Its value has been discounted. The only freedom we truly crave today is freedom from Dumbness. Nothing else matters.

--Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear, 2002

Yes indeed! Before I sign off, I'd like to  say that life is indeed good even when we are sad. Last week, as inspirational life passed away. Our neighbor, Jessica Hobby Catto, noted conservationist, writer, magazine publisher and philanthropist, died Wednesday at her home surrounded by her loving family. She was exactly 6 months younger than Hunter. The country will miss her deeply and celebrate the work that she has done over the course of her life. The family is blessed to have been able to spend those last months and weeks and final days with her and under the divine beauty of the colors of the Rocky Mountains that day. It was extraordinarily beautiful as was Jessica, and as is Isa and Henry and the family. We send our love to the Cattos.

Okay, that's it for now. I'm off to tend the fire.

Cheers form Woody Creek,

Anita Thompson

~from everyone at Owl Farm, GonzoStore and beyond!

Hunter had finished his column in the pre-dawn morning, and I had finished the transcription and attached it to the ESPN email as normal. Then the second plane hit.

I woke Hunter, who had already gone to bed after an all night column-writing session. I crawled up next to him, "Hunter, wake up. CNN is showing images of a second plane hitting the World Trade Center. It looks like we're being attacked or something. None of the networks have any information."

Hunter rolled over and looked at the TV, at the image of the smoke rolling out of the towers. He paused for some time then said. "Somebody sure doesn't like those towers." 

He was right. I had forgotten that one had already been attacked in 1993.  He rolled over and didn't say anything else. Being terrified, I crawled under the covers without shutting off the lights. We both lay there listening to the "news." He didn't say anything. His eyes were closed, but he was not asleep. He was listening Very closely to all the so-called reports. 

What gave me the greatest sense of security was the moment Hunter got up from bed, despite a late work night before, and turned on his typewriter. He was ready to start. 

 And my god, he was right. What you will read below, if you haven't already, is what Hunter wrote as it was all unfolding that morning and following evening. His prescience is chilling, his anger is subtle, and his ability to make sense out of the chaos is what has cause millions of readers around the world to pick up one of his books when in need of some courage...

It was just after dawn in Woody Creek, Colo., when the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City on Tuesday morning, and as usual I was writing about sports. But not for long. Football suddenly seemed irrelevant, compared to the scenes of destruction and utter devastation coming out of New York on TV.

Even ESPN was broadcasting war news. It was the worst disaster in the history of the United States, including Pearl Harbor, the San Francisco earthquake and probably the Battle of Antietam in 1862, when 23,000 were slaughtered in one day.

The Battle of the World Trade Center lasted about 99 minutes and cost 20,000 lives in two hours (according to unofficial estimates as of midnight Tuesday). The final numbers, including those from the supposedly impregnable Pentagon, across the Potomac River from Washington, likely will be higher. Anything that kills 300 trained firefighters in two hours is a world-class disaster.

And it was not even Bombs that caused this massive damage. No nuclear missiles were launched from any foreign soil, no enemy bombers flew over New York and Washington to rain death on innocent Americans. No. It was four commercial jetliners.

They were the first flights of the day from American and United Airlines, piloted by skilled and loyal U.S. citizens, and there was nothing suspicious about them when they took off from Newark, N.J., and Dulles in D.C. and Logan in Boston on routine cross-country flights to the West Coast with fully-loaded fuel tanks -- which would soon explode on impact and utterly destroy the world-famous Twin Towers of downtown Manhattan's World Trade Center. Boom! Boom! Just like that.

The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now -- with somebody -- and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.

It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy. Osama bin Laden may be a primitive "figurehead" -- or even dead, for all we know -- but whoever put those All-American jet planes loaded with All-American fuel into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon did it with chilling precision and accuracy. The second one was a dead-on bullseye. Straight into the middle of the skyscraper.

Nothing -- even George Bush's $350 billion "Star Wars" missile defense system -- could have prevented Tuesday's attack, and it cost next to nothing to pull off. Fewer than 20 unarmed Suicide soldiers from some apparently primitive country somewhere on the other side of the world took out the World Trade Center and half the Pentagon with three quick and costless strikes on one day. The efficiency of it was terrifying.

We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for WAR seem to know who did it or where to look for them.

This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed -- for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now. He will declare a National Security Emergency and clamp down Hard on Everybody, no matter where they live or why. If the guilty won't hold up their hands and confess, he and the Generals will ferret them out by force.

Good luck. He is in for a profoundly difficult job -- armed as he is with no credible Military Intelligence, no witnesses and only the ghost of Bin Laden to blame for the tragedy.

OK. It is 24 hours later now, and we are not getting much information about the Five Ws of this thing. The numbers out of the Pentagon are baffling, as if Military Censorship has already been imposed on the media. It is ominous. The only news on TV comes from weeping victims and ignorant speculators.

The lid is on. Loose Lips Sink Ships. Don't say anything that might give aid to The Enemy.

-- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson 

Hunter, wherever you are. We miss your strength and wisdom.

love, 

Anita

We send our love and condolences to the Dunne and Kennedy families.

Below are a few words from Teddy's most famous speech which was in memory of Bobby, whose speech is quoted in Teddy's below:

Senator Edward M. Kennedy
St. Patrick's Cathedral
New York City
June 8, 1968:

A few years back, Robert Kennedy wrote some words about his own father and they expressed the way we in his family feel about him. He said of what his father meant to him: "What it really all adds up to is love - not love as it is described with such facility in popular magazines, but the kind of love that is affection and respect, order, encouragement, and support. Our awareness of this was an incalculable source of strength, and because real love is something unselfish and involves sacrifice and giving, we could not help but profit from it.

"Beneath it all, he has tried to engender a social conscience. There were wrongs which needed attention. There were people who were poor and who needed help. And we have a responsibility to them and to this country. Through no virtues and accomplishments of our own, we have been fortunate enough to be born in the United States under the most comfortable conditions. We, therefore, have a responsibility to others who are less well off."

This is what Robert Kennedy was given. What he leaves us is what he said, what he did and what he stood for. A speech he made to the young people of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation in 1966 sums it up the best, and I would read it now:

"There is a discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich; and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere.

"These are differing evils, but they are common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows.

"But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a tirne - that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek - as we do - nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

"Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

"Our answer is to rely on youth - not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress. It is a revolutionary world we live in; and this generation at home and around the world, has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.

"Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the thirty-two-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal.

"These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

"Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe.

"For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves, on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that effort.

"The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.

"Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live."

This is the way he lived. My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.

As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:

Again, we send all our love to the family and friends of Teddy Kennedy

Anita Thompson

Photo Courtesy of Gene Kirkland

Gonzo logo apparel has been showing up everywhere lately: at the House of Blues worn by Slash; a couple times on the small screen on The Discovery Channel's Mythbusters worn by "Gonzo Engineer" Adam Savage; all over the globe worn by the Colonel Depp; as well as on the big screen worn by Jimmy Buffet in the recent kid's film Hoot:

Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema and Walden Media.

If you've spotted the Gonzo logo being sported by a celebrity, let us know email@owlfarmblog.com!

-Pete B
Gonzo Web Guy
& proud brother of a Columbia Grad!

Photo Courtesy of Gene Kirkland

Gonzo logo apparel has been showing up everywhere lately: at the House of Blues worn by Slash; a couple times on the small screen on The Discovery Channel's Mythbusters worn by "Gonzo Engineer" Adam Savage; all over the globe worn by the Colonel Depp; as well as on the big screen worn by Jimmy Buffet in the recent kid's film Hoot:

Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema and Walden Media.

If you've spotted the Gonzo logo being sported by a celebrity, let us know email@owlfarmblog.com!

-Pete B
Gonzo Web Guy
& proud brother of a Columbia Grad!