Hunter S. Thompson

The recent issue of Rolling Stone that covers the life of Hunter S. Thompson is a must read for all and, through the many tributes to his life and wild antics revealed, paints a picture of another lost generation. Here is a short snippet from Semmes Luckett, whose job it was to mind the good Doctor for a stretch (good luck!):

"It was the mid-seventies, sometime after "Rolling Stone" had just moved to New York, and Hunter had been up for five days. He had a deadline, and it just wasn't working. There wasn't anything happening. We need to shut it down. So I composed a very reasonable telegram to send to Jann. We are professionals, after all. It listed the various reasons why the piece would be late. At the end of the telegram, I told the lady to put in: "On top of everything else, there's a raging blizzard outside. Yours, Semmes." I don't know if they still do telegrams like this, but you did this over the phone, and they'd send you a copy later. I didn't open it for a day or two and, of course, it listed everything, just as I had said it - until the last line where it said, "On top of everything else, there's a raging lizard outside."

And Rolling Stone accepted that -- to them it was reasonable. There was a "raging lizard outside" and they understood."

Sometimes there is a raging lizard outside, but you got to just keep going on!