Hunter S. Thompson Launched & Roasted: Ultimate Gonzo Exit

The remarkable life of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson will be celebrated by an invitation-only crowd of his closest friends on Saturday at Owl Farm, Thompson’s 42-acre property in Woody Creek, Colorado, near Aspen. In keeping with the final farewell Thompson requested in a BBC interview, his cremated remains have been sealed with fireworks into mortar tubes that will be shot from a 153-foot-tall fiberglass replica of the author’s famous Gonzo fist. The world-renowned Zambelli Fireworks company is in charge of the launching the ashes. Company spokeswoman Marcy Zambelli told CBS News that the fireworks will fly at sunset, and will explode 300 feet in the air "with a white flourish." Then Thompson’s ashes will fall to rest on the farm he loved and called his "psychic anchor." Matt Moseley, spokesman for Owl Farm, promises that the launching of Hunter’s ashes from the giant Gonzo fist "with the full moon rising over Woody Creek, [. . .] will be the most fantastic celebration happening on the planet."

Johnny Depp, who played Hunter Thompson in the film adaptation of Thompson’s classic FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, is paying the tab for his dear friend’s sendoff. Costs of the memorial, including the construction of the temporary Gonzo fist monument which is two feet taller than the Statue of Liberty, are now estimated to top $2 million. Matt Moseley told Jeff Kass of the Rocky Mountain News that, in addition to the Gonzo Fist cannon, workers are also constructing a bar to comfortably accommodate up to 400 mourners. "Think of Hunter’s favorite place where he would love to entertain all his very best friends," Moseley explained, adding that the wooden bar will have chandeliers, Thompson memorabilia, and a "lounge atmosphere." Lyle Lovett and former Nitty Gritty Dirt Band singer/guitarist Jimmy Ibbotson will perform at the memorial. Anita Thompson, Hunter’ widow, will be presenting copies of her husband’s books as gifts to attendees.

Although there is tremendous public interest in the event, the Thompson family stresses that the memorial is private. "Please respect that this is a private event for people who were close to Hunter and his family," Moseley told Troy Hooper of the Aspen Daily News. Moseley believes that the late journalist would "be damn proud" of Saturday’s memorial. "There’s a lot of love going around with the people who are involved with this. It really brings out how much people respected him and his substantive contributions to America, which were in literature, justice and friendship."

The Johnny Depp Zone will honor Dr. Hunter S. Thompson all day Saturday with tribute threads on the Porch and a special celebration on ONBC. The Zone’s book club is preparing to read Thompson’s FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS next month; Liz and DeppintheHeartofTexas invite all of Hunter’s admirers to join the Noodlemantras on a "savage journey into the heart of the American dream." There is no better way to honor Hunter S. Thompson’s memory than by reading his work, and we thank Liz and DITHOT for helping the Zone to give a proper farewell salute to the good doctor. We also thank emma and Reemi for posting articles about Hunter’s memorial on the News & Views forum.
/ / August 17, 2005

Friends and admirers of the gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson have been gathering in Aspen, Colorado for his final send-off - in a cannon shot. The writer’s ashes are to be fired from a cannon on his Owl Farm home, exactly six months after he shot himself.

Johnny Depp, who played Thompson in the film of his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, paid for the cannon.

The writer’s friend Matt Moseley told the BBC the funeral would be "the grandest celebration you can imagine".

"It’s going to be the grandest celebration happening on the planet anywhere," Mr Moseley told Radio 4’s Today programme.

He said there had already been spontaneous tributes to the writer as people gathered in Aspen, including readings and musical performances.

His ashes are to be fired from a 150ft tower topped by a red fist with two thumbs - the symbol of Thompson’s free-wheeling, first-person gonzo journalism.

Mr Moseley said the sound would be equivalent to 34 mortar shells going off simultaneously.

Friends have been instructed to remember him afterwards with the clink of ice in whiskey.

The cult author committed suicide at his home in February.

Thompson, who was 67, had said on several occasions that he would like his ashes to be fired from a cannon after his death.

The event will be private.

Friends gather to see Hunter S Thompson’s ashes fired into sky

Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Saturday August 20, 2005
The Guardian

He lived by the gun and he died by the gun. Now the late writer Hunter S Thompson, who shot himself in February, is to be blasted from a cannon from the back garden of his home in the hills of Aspen, Colorado.

Thompson’s ashes have been packed into firework casings and will be dispersed today from 34 different shells fired from a gun barrel mounted on top of a 150-foot high monument.

The monument, in the form of a clenched fist made symmetrical by the addition of a second thumb, is modelled on Thompson’s gonzo logo.

"We have never had a request such as this one in our company’s history," Marcy Zambelli of Zambelli Fireworks told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "But we respect the request of the family and have actually custom engineered an aerial shell specifically designed to carry out his final wish."

A close friend of Thompson’s, Michael Cleverly, said: "They’ve taken him out and had him pulverised into a consistency that is optimum for the blast, and it’ll go straight up. It’ll just be taken by the wind and drift around Woody Creek, a place that he loved."

Thompson’s widow, 32-year-old Anita Thompson, told the Associated Press that there would be "no crying, no tears, only celebration" at the event, which has been dubbed Hunterpalooza.

"He wanted people to celebrate," she said. "He envisioned it to be a beautiful party. The most amazing people would be there. His friends would celebrate his life. And he was even specific that there would be clinking of ice and whisky."

Thompson, 67, killed himself six months ago with a shot to the head with a pistol. His body was found in a chair by his kitchen table, on which a typewriter had been placed and a page of writing paper had been lined up with the word "counselor" (sic) typed at its centre.

It was a typically enigmatic final word from the inventor of gonzo journalism, the stream-of-consciousness style of writing that was a chief ingredient in the new journalism of the 1960s and 70s.

The age of gonzo officially began with Thompson’s account of a drug-fuelled visit to Las Vegas, published in two issues of Rolling Stone, and then released, to great acclaim, as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Much of today’s ceremony and the Gonzo monument has been financed by the actor Johnny Depp, a friend of Thompson’s who portrayed the writer in the film version of Fear and Loathing.

The actor, it seems, has drawn an idea from his most recent role as Willy Wonka, the chocolate magnate in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for today’s ceremony.

In the story, six children who find a ticket inside the wrapper of a Wonka chocolate bar are invited to visit his factory. For the funeral the procedure is remarkably similar.

Brian Harvey of Boise, Idaho, found a secret ticket hidden inside the label on a bottle of the Flying Dog Brewery’s Gonzo Imperial Porter.

The ticket grants Mr Harvey and a friend entry to the party, as well as transport and accommodation, according to the company’s website.

Gonzo Imperial Porter, with a label designed by another close friend of Thompson’s, British artist Ralph Steadman, has a hefty price tag and a worthy cause. Bottles of the beer sell for $95 (£53). Only 1,500 numbered bottles have been made, and proceeds from the sale go to raise money for the Gonzo Memorial Fund. The fund, says the company’s website, was "set up initially to raise funds for a permanent memorial to Hunter so future generations can ponder the life of one of the world’s great mavericks".

But all is not sweetness and light in Woody Creek, the hamlet Thompson made his home. Some residents are emulating the writer’s curmudgeonly ways.

Jimmy Ibbotson, another close friend of Thompson’s and a musician with one of the acts performing at tomorrow’s ceremony, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, fired a shotgun at a photographer hoping to take a picture of the cannon from his land.

"He was in no danger," Ibbotson told the Aspen Times. "But he won’t come back, you can be sure of that. I wasn’t aiming at him, I just wanted to scare his ass. I don’t want him coming back here during the event. If you want to print the fact that neighbours are shooting at paparazzi, please do. It might save us a little hassle on the day of the event."

Asked if police had been in touch with him about the incident Mr Ibbotson said they had not. "But I don’t answer the phone very much," he added.

After the ceremony, Anita Thompson will attend to her role as protector of her late husband’s legacy.

"I’ll be working for Hunter the rest of my life," she said. "I know that. I made that commitment, and I’m honoured that I can."

Publication is planned of a third volume of the writer’s letters, a collection of short stories and an unfinished novel, Polo is My Life. Anita Thompson also plans "a small book of wisdom" based on the late writer’s utterances.

· In April 1997, the ashes of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, were launched into orbit with those of 23 other people. The ashes were part of the payload of Spain’s first satellite, launched from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.

· A fan of the BBC series Dr Who, Tim Haws, from West Sussex, was buried in a replica Tardis made by his brother-in-law when he died last year of cancer.

· Joanna Booth, the wife of a Sotheby’s gun specialist, organised a day’s shooting for close friends, using cartridges loaded with her husband’s ashes. The memorial took place last year at Brucklay Estate in Aberdeenshire and ended with guests bagging several game birds.

· Viking enthusiast Alan Smith insisted his friends send him off in in true Norse style. In 1997, the former Cornish docker’s remains were put on to a replica of a Viking longboat which was then set alight before drifting out to sea.

· In 2001, the River Clyde in Scotland was chosen for an unusual mass funeral service when the ashes of 50 people who died 35 years before were scattered in a joint ceremony carried out by Catholic and Presbyterian priests. The remains were of those who had laid forgotten for decades in the storage rooms of Glaswegian undertakers.

The funeral of eccentric journalist and writer Hunter S. Thompson will be a star-studded party and will be the way the author himself wished it to be.

According to Internet Movie Database, the lavish party will be attended by actors Sean Penn, Johnny Depp and around 250 other guests.

There will be readings from the author’s writings and musical performances. The ceremony will also include the cremated remains of the author being shot into the air over his home Woody Creek in Colorado.

Actor Johnny Depp is paying for this unusual send off and has also been busy constructing a special cannon so he can blast his late friend’s ashes into the sky. Thompson’s widow Anita insists the unusual party instead of a funeral is perfect for the unconventional star.