Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and Jimmy Buffett

A few days ago, one of the greatest calamities of my life transpired. It was an event that was so horrible, so unbelievably and inconceivably bad, that the surrealistic nightmare of it all is nearly too much for my fragile psyche to bear. I feel that at any instant I will collapse as I am consumed by burning, radioactive waves of fear and staggering rage that will clash together like the pulses of exploding stars, and my eternal soul will be lost in outer space where I will wander cold and alone forever.
What could make me feel so very, very incredibly awful? Awful like Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 when the bomb goes off and her very skeleton is set on fire? Awful so that it seems, as the doctor said, "the possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real,"? What could cause me to write with such incredible hyperbole?
Only this:
I have just discovered that Hunter S. Thompson was close friends with Jimmy Buffett.


FUCK!!!!!!!

This is exactly like being a kid and finding out that, before he was the Devil, Lucifer had been an angel. So you're eight and you're like, "God and the Devil used to be friends? Well now I don't know what to believe..."

Only this is like a thousand times worse. And here's why.

I have hero-worshiped Thompson since I first saw Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when I was fifteen. As a teenager, I was fascinated by his unbelievable need and ability to rebel. To do everything that was forbidden by cultural norms and always come out on top. His life, lived on the edge, and passion for irresponsibility was such an inspiration to me at the time. I felt surrounded by the normalcy of suburban life and of school, and here was this side to reality that I had never really seen or thought of before. It is no exaggeration to say that Thompson literally changed the course of my life. Without him, and others like him, I might have caved to societal pressures and chosen a safe and practical career like dentistry or accounting. Thompson is a standing testimony to living and dying by what you believe in, and made me realize that safety-nets and compromises are for weak-willed villainous scum.
As an adult, I continue to admire Thompson for different reasons. While he is immediately attractive to all males between the ages of 14 and 25 for his balls-out craziness and whiskey-drinking, acid-dropping make-your-own-luck approach to life, he was also a visionary. Thompson, above all, just wanted to do something. He wanted to make a difference. He wanted to be important. He wanted to find the American Dream, he wanted to find an honest politician, he wanted to become Sheriff of Aspen and change the town for the better. Thompson is a towering monument of living life to the fullest and on the edge, but also to slamming your fists against the brick wall of the establishment even though you know you're not going to get anywhere. He was a dreamer and a brilliant writer and a genius and his life-story is enough to give one hope of extraordinary things in the dismal and soulless world we live in.

And then, there's Jimmy Buffett.
Jimmy Buffett is, in my eyes, everything that is wrong with the human species. He is a talentless, gutless, money-hungry, sham of an artist. This is a guy that, after being mistakenly shot at by Jamaican police when leaving the country, wrote a song called "Jamaica Mistaica." Doesn't that just make your blood fucking curdle? What a hack. This is a guy that I have so much personal distaste for that I actually started a hate group for him on facebook, and it's going strong.
The reason I hate Buffett so much is that he's exactly everything Thompson is not. His music is easy and soulless. There is no pain or suffering or sacrifice in his songs. He doesn't live and die by his songs like all the great musicians of our time and of all other times. He has risked nothing and therefore he produces nothing. He plays an acoustic guitar with a great big smile and a flower shirt and a lei and that stupid little wrist band of his, and I just want to watch him die. He is more than a crap musician and a shitty novelist and a smiling idiot who spends too much time in the sun. He is a symbol for all that is disgusting and vile in the world of art. He is my nemesis.

So, watching these two conflicting ideologies come together in friendship... it's really just more than I can handle. What can I do? Do I think less of Thompson? Do I think more of Buffett? Each is equally impossible. I feel betrayed. I keep imagining them together. Hanging out in the Caribbean drinking rum, swimming, driving around on Buffett's boat, laughing it up and having a good time. It makes my skin crawl. This must be what Oedipus felt like. A sinking in the pit of your stomach like a rock dropped into a well, because you know something horrible has happened and there is no way to ever correct it.