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About the author:
Descended from old English money, Vidicon was raised by spiny echidnas in the mountainous rainforests of the North American Southeast. Lured back to society by time-traveling gray/reptiloid alien hybrids posing as renegade Jesuits, he has managed to maintain his outsider's perspective and an appetite for crunchy insects. Today, Vidicon is a world-class synchronicity surfer and an unlicensed quantum mechanic. He has a fourth-degree black belt in weird.
About his bi-weekly column:
Tales from the Third Lobe are the unfocused meanderings of the World's Smartest Moron. Topics range widely over the sciences, religion, philosophy, technology, modern culture, mysticism, Vidicon's personal history and viewpoints, and whatever pissed him off in the media last week.
View all articles by Laszlo Q. V. St-J. "Vidicon" Xalieri, 2HC Columnist...
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Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Still Dead
It's a shame Dr. Thompson isn't a Marvel® superhero character. Having died a violent and grisly death, he should be expected back any issue now.
But Thompson was never a Marvel Comics character. Garry Trudeau ran him as Duke in the Doonesbury comic strip, and he was (a large component of) the nearly superheroic Spider Jerusalem in Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson.
Now that I think of it, he did spend some time dead in Doonesbury, but later recovered.
Though I've never shot myself in the head or been pickled in experimental drugs and/or cursed by Haitian sorcerors, I think I know what it's like to have been dead for a while.
I'm not talking career-wise. My career is barely alive. Having ruled that out, though, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
Sometimes I'm dead for years.
You know I'm speaking metaphorically. Socially isolated, that's what I'm saying. That's the reality of it. Stagnated. Useless to others and myself. Slowly self-destructing. Stuck in a small box, smelling bad, riddled with maggots and deliquescing.
That reminds me. Dinner is late. Where's my bottle opener?
Rumor has it that it wasn't just impatience with his perpetual illness that drove Thompson to suicide. An acquaintance of mine who was one of many occasionally wakened by his two AM phone calls is willing to blame the recent developments in US and world politics as being at least one of the factors. It certainly fits with his general unwillingness to stick around while quality of life degenerates. Enduring poor health is like being slowly suffocated by an ape sitting on your chest. If the ape wants to sit there, there's very little you can do about it. Having heard a few words from Thompson's own mouth about Bush's political regime and the collapse of the United States's standing in the eyes of the world, well, I can just picture that ape turning around and shitting on Dr. Thompson's face. And giggling.
Being overwhelmed by noxious circumstances beyond one's control is often lethal. I understand. I've climbed into that casket myself and made punch for the party. I don't know whether I've forgiven him for cashing in his chips and leaving the table yet, but at least I understand.
What worries me is that he hasn't come back from the dead yet. He's been out of the picture for more than a year. That's a long time to let your audience down.
I've plugged in the Ouija board and let the tubes warm up. The glass is in the middle right-side-up and I've tried whiskey and bourbon and tequila and vodka and eight kinds of rum and even some goddamn Spanish absinthe, but the glass hasn't moved a twitch.
Not a whisper, not a peep, not even a whiff of ether or a suspicious rapping. Still dead.
The last time I was dead it took a visit to the hospital to snap me out of it. What sent me there wasn't serious, but it did prove the necessary point. It was only a matter of time on the course I was on for the casket lid to close. I had climbed in and was just waiting.
I guess I lost my nerve.
I'm alive now, though. At least fair to middlin'. I came back.
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson? Still dead.
It's not like I could stand in for him. I don't care at all about football. I don't have the liver to filter out the constant stream of toxins he exposed himself to. One cigar a night is pretty much my limit. My bile is weaker stuff.
I'm not old enough to feel the weight of the ape on my chest, but I can sure smell his nearby ass, and it doesn't make me happy.
I've drunk about half of my supper, but he still hasn't touched his glass.
Doctor Thompson, you're a no-good cowardly shit, and not even you would argue with that. I trust you've gone wherever Richard M. Nixon went and you're hanging from his testicles by your teeth. Whatever. You're both dead, so that's not doing anybody any good.
If you're not back here by midnight, I'm drinking whatever's in your glass.
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Vidicon's not a Marvel Comics character either. |
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