Groing up Gonzo.

Hunter S. Thompson blew my mind, not because I thought drug references were "totally trippy" but because when I read his work, it consumed me, swept me up from the paperback pages in to a world of Gonzo; where reality was no longer a constant, everything was to be questioned, analyzed, and dissected, only to discover that there is no answer, only the burnt remains of what might have been one. The estranged, twisted, and passionate lenses that I view the world through are a product of Bad Brains, Hunter S. Thompson, Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I flip through Rolling Stone's exclusive preview of the book: Growing Up Gonzo: Excerpts Form the Oral History Of Hunter S. Thompson; and I am drawn back to a jumbled pile of books, some tattered from traveling others left without a single page turned, I find the first few of Hunter's books I spot and start to read back. I find certain pages violently underlined, notes crammed angrily into tiny margins, my unprocessed blue scrawl across the page seems so desperate juxtaposed with the tight aerial font text. What exactly was going on I wonder? But as I read starting with a paragraph, it all comes rushing back with the force of a freight train and the unstoppable, disorienting, yet painfully sharp intensity of a long line of crank. But what created this both terrifying and beautiful creature? Hopefully this new book will give some insight in to both "Raul Duke" and Thompson himself, we'll see.