<\/p>\n
I have an affinity for freedom that I believe is deeper than most. I don\u2019t like to be tied down. I get goose bumps thinking about some of the things I have done, including hitchhiking across the country, and when I hear about guys like Hunter Thompson, who thumbed his nose at convention, I get bigger goose bumps.<\/p>\n
Treedom means free, free as a bird, but there will be no shooting myself out of a cannonhere is something deep inside of me \u2013 maybe my soul \u2013 that hungers to escape, to roam free. Maybe it\u2019s my childhood in New York State where I used to take off in summer mornings barefooted and go up the dike in back of our house along the Allegheny River, walk across the Steam Valley Bridge and head up into the football hills of the Alleghenies, roaming in solitude along old dugout roads, veer off into some ridge and sit among the oak and maple trees listening to the sounds of the forest.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s amazing the peace and tranquility one can find along among the best of nature, watching as chipmunks and squirrels dance across fallen leaves and broken branches, darting up a tree trunk, stopping to look around.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know why I have always liked that solitude. As a kid we don\u2019t have many cares, at least I didn\u2019t back then. In these days with the informational age bringing all the terrible news right to the fingertips of our young, it\u2019s harder to escape into solitude without taking with you some of that.<\/p>\n
When I wrote the book about Marv Harshman I made sure that I had some thing about being free in it somewhere. So I devised a logo that had figures of birds flying free. Free, free to roam, to fly wherever.<\/p>\n
Hunter S. Thompson was an odd duck. A tremendous writer of counter culture, Thompson veered off like I did into a hidden ridge, seeking solace into the things mainstreet sees as strange.<\/p>\n
I certainly am not advocating I want to be Hunter Thompson, but there is a side to him that I like, the ability to tweak the nose of authority and to stand up and be counted when everybody else stays seated. That particularly is true of his extreme dislike of Richard Nixon, which provoked him into writing \u201cFear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail \u201972.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thompson may have been the first to see Nixon for whom he really was, a fact that has taken me decades to see.<\/p>\n
But Thompson was heavily into alcohol and drugs and committed suicide when he was 67, so that is not good. But there is something about Thompson the rebel that appeals to me.<\/p>\n
Historian and author Douglas Brinkley talked about Thompson on American Routes, the online music program out of Louisiana I listen to daily while researching and writing. I\u2019ve listened to this segment over and over again and I continue to get those goose bumps of freedom when hear Brinkley explain the last part of Thompson\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
Brinkley would take his writing students to see Thompson at his home in Colorado and they would bring his book, \u201cFear and Loathing in Las Vegas\u201d for him to sign and Brinkley says Thompson would pull out a pistol and shoot holes through them. The students would grab up the small pieces of pages and put them in zip-lock bags to preserve them.<\/p>\n
Thompson wanted Bob Dylan\u2019s Mr. Tambourine Man to be played at his funeral, and so it was.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey!\u00a0 Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0I\u2019m not sleepy and there is no place I\u2019m going to<\/i><\/p>\n
Hey ! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me<\/i><\/p>\n
In the jingle jangle morning I\u2019ll come following\u2019 you<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling\u2019 ship<\/i><\/p>\n
My senses have been stripped, my hands can\u2019t feel to grip<\/i><\/p>\n
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels<\/i><\/p>\nTo be wanderin\u2019<\/h1>\n
I\u2019m ready to go anywhere, I\u2019m ready for to fade<\/i><\/p>\n
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way<\/i><\/p>\n
I promise to under it.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cHey!\u00a0 Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0I\u2019m not sleepy and there is no place I\u2019m going to<\/i><\/p>\n
Hey ! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me<\/i><\/p>\n
In the jingle jangle morning I\u2019ll come following you\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Brinkley said that they took Thompson\u2019s ashes and blew them out of a cannon into the great Rockey Mountain sky while a Japanese Drum Band and other musicians, including Lyle Lovett, played Mr. Tambourine Man.<\/p>\n
Actor Johnny Depp, a great friend, spent $2 million on the elaborate ceremony that was attended by, among others, Jack Nicholson and Senator John Kerry, who now is our Secretary of State.<\/p>\n
What a way to go. Free, free, as a bird.<\/p>\n
This is a new and free beginning for me in my writing career. I\u2019m free from the chains of corporate and now I can fly, fly free. It\u2019s also a scary time because with freedom comes risk. But, oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.<\/p>\n
As I said above, I never have liked to be tied down to anything, but as we all know to make it in this sometimes tough and rough world you have to comprise who you are in order to survive and raise a family. It\u2019s sad that there are not more of us like Hunter Thompson \u2013 and again I\u2019m not condoning the things he did as in terms of drugs and alcohol \u2013 that aren\u2019t afraid to stand for the rights and justice of others even in the face of powerful forces that are arrayed against us.<\/p>\n
No one can know for sure what we will do if somebody puts a loaded pistol to our head and demands our wallet, but I would like to think I would say no. And when I see something that is wrong, I would like to think I will stand up and say don\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n
We will see if I can back up those words.<\/p>\n
All I know is that I will try to be me, whatever that means, as I wrote the stories you want to read, and write the things that I want to write even if they are not popular or mainstream.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s on, the new face of The Sports Paper. If I fail, it\u2019s because I failed, as Frank Sinatra used to sing, \u201cDoing It My Way.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think, however, that I will shoot myself out of a cannon.<\/p>\n
That I will always reserve for Hunter S. Thompson.<\/p>\n
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