-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">eLerts It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free! </FONT><A HREF="http://click.egroups.com/1/9699/0/_/1406/_/975501284/"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Please send as far and wide as possible. Thanks, Robert Sterling Editor, The Konformist http://www.konformist.com Robalini's Note: Leave it to Hunter S. Thompson, in an article that allegedly is supposed to involve covering sports, to say more truths about our current Presidential mess than any other korporate talking head. I for one want to start a movement: demand that Monday Night Football dump Dennis Miller's ass and hire Thompson. If they're going to have someone who's never played in the NFL babbling about politics, better it to be a real man like Thompson than that yuppified wuss whom Dan Fouts can barely conceal he despises. Miller, hit the showers and go back to co-starring in flicks with Corey Feldman!!! Anyway, here are Hunter's last two columns for ESPN. http://espn.go.com/page2/s/thompson/001127.html The fix is in By Hunter S. Thompson Page 2 columnist "(This is) not the work of a wise man, but only a player and a scribe with a dangerous gambling habit. ... That is a risky mix that will sooner or later lead you to cross the wrong wires and get shocked, or even burned to a cinder. On some days you will be lucky and only break your fingers and make a fool of yourself. But luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it. I have never believed much in luck, and my sense of humor has tended to walk on the dark side. Muhammad Ali, one of my very few heroes, once took the time to explain to me that "there are no jokes. The truth is the funniest joke of all." Ho ho. It takes a special kind of mindset to believe that and still have smart people call you Funny. I have never quite understood it. -- Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in America This eerie Presidential election has been a painful experience for Gamblers. Almost everybody Lost. Even if you were crazy or dumb enough to bet on a dead-even Tie, you Lost, because it was 537 votes short of it. The many Losers don't feel the pain yet, because they are still in Shock & Denial. There are rumors in Washington that Gore's most trusted advisors have sealed him off so completely that he still firmly believes he Won. ... Which is True, on some scorecards, but so what? Those cards don't count. ... George W. Bush is our President now, and you better start getting used to it. He didn't actually steal the White House from Al Gore, he just brutally wrestled it away from him in the darkness of one swampy Florida night. He got mugged, and the local Cops don't give a damn. Where did he think he was -- in some friendly Civics class? Hell no, he was in Florida, arguably the most Vicious & Corrupt state in the Union. ... Not only that, but he was brazenly invading Florida, trying to steal it from right under the noses of the whole Bush family. It was a bold move & brilliantly done, in some ways -- but then so was Lee's decision to invade the North & attack Gettysburg. Gore was Doomed in Florida, and he knew it about halfway through Election night. The TV wizards had already given the state & its 25 precious Electoral Votes to Gore, which gave him an early lead and caused wild rejoicing in Democratic headquarters all over the country. My own immediate reaction was bafflement & surprise, and I think I almost believed it. ... But not really. The more I brooded on it, the more I was troubled by waves of Queasiness & shudders of Gnawing Doubt. I felt nervous & vaguely confused, as if I had just heard a dog speak perfect English for 30 or 40 seconds. That will get your attention, for sure. ... Some people get permanently de-stabilized by it: Nothing they see with their own eyes will ever look quite the same to them again. As in "I know that the object I'm looking at is an Egg -- but I also know that if it talks to me like a person, it is not an Egg." There was one exact moment, in fact, when I knew for sure that Al Gore would Never be President of the United States, no matter what the experts were saying -- and that was when the whole Bush family suddenly appeared on TV and openly scoffed at the idea of Gore winning Florida. It was Nonsense, said the Candidate, Utter nonsense. ... Anybody who believed Bush had lost Florida was a Fool. The Media, all of them, were Liars & Dunces or treacherous whores trying to sabotage his victory. They were strong words and people said he was Bluffing. But I knew better. Of course Bush would win Florida. Losing was out of the question. Here was the whole bloody Family laughing & hooting & sneering at the dumbness of the whole world on National TV. The old man was the real tip-off. The leer on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in its mouth. The sheep's fate was sealed, and so was Al Gore's. ... Everything since then has been political flotsam & Gibberish. The whole Presidential election, in fact, was rigged and fixed from the start. It was a gigantic Media Event, scripted & staged for TV. It happens every four years, at an ever-increasing cost & 90 percent of the money always goes for TV commercials. Of course, nobody would give a damn except politics is beginning to smell like professional football, Dank & Nasty. And that's a problem that could haunt America a lot longer than four years, folks. I am watching more NFL football this year, but enjoying it less and less. There is something wrong with the game, something vital is missing, but I can't quite say what it is. No weekend goes by without at least one wild & exciting game, plus one or two shocking upsets -- but somehow they all seem vaguely meaningless, like watered down wine or weak whiskey. I thought I had solved all my problems when I found a way to watch every game, every Sunday, all at once or separately. I had everything, right at my fingertips. I missed nothing. My friends called me "toggle-boy," because of my expertise with the channel switcher. They dropped by every Sunday to drink & mooch & gamble. It was like an impossible dream come true. Fred Exley would have loved it. But still there was something wrong. Even reading the Sports section began to give me a Queasy feeling. I came to secretly dread the coming of Sunday, although I never admitted that to anybody. It was too weird. Only after long brooding & extended medical analysis did I discover the obvious answer. It is the dangerous thinning of the NFL talent pool, a problem not totally unknown to the world of presidential politics. There are too many teams and not enough quality players. The League is destroying quarterbacks faster than the colleges can churn them out. Every pro team must have two quarterbacks, because one of them is certain to get crippled or mashed by some steroid-crazed monster who weighs 388 pounds and runs faster than Deion Sanders and is desperate to hurt people. He will lose his job if he doesn't, and his obvious target is the Quarterback. Isn't there one patriotic football coach out there brave enough to point him in the direction of Dubya? That might be enough to restore my faith in luck, if not pro football. There may be Parity in the NFL these days, but it is the same kind of parity that you find at bush-league Racetracks and Arena Football League games. The next MVP of the Super Bowl is just as likely to have been a full-time grocery store bagger last year as a Heisman Trophy winner. The teams change names & locations every year. Even winning coaches go crazy with angst or get fired on the whim of a new owner. Players come & go like substitute teachers or half-bright fashion models. They took to beating their wives in public & and getting arrested for Murder. But the games go on like clockwork and the money keeps pouring in. ... Most stadiums are sold out every Sunday. But only rich people can afford to attend the games in person. It's not much different from getting involved in National Politics. ***** http://espn.go.com/page2/s/thompson/001120.html Prepare for the Weirdness By Hunter S. Thompson Page 2 columnist "Something is happening here, But you don't know what it is, Do you, Mr. Jones?" -- Bob Dylan No sir, not a chance. Mr. Jones does not even pretend to know what's happening in America right now, and neither does anyone else. We have seen Weird Times in this country before, but the year 2000 is beginning to look super weird. This time, there really is nobody flying the plane. ... We are living in dangerously weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they're dazed and confused. The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic. The Autumn months are never a calm time in America. Back to Work, Back to School, Back to Football Practice, etc. ... Autumn is a very Traditional period, a time of strong Rituals and the celebrating of strange annual holidays like Halloween and Satanism and the fateful Harvest Moon, which can have ominous implications for some people. Most of these things are obviously Wrong and Evil and Ugly -- but at least they are Traditional. They will happen. Your driveway will ice up, your furnace will blow up and you will be rammed in traffic by an uninsured driver in a stolen car. Autumn is always a time of Fear and Greed and Hoarding for the winter coming on. Debt collectors are active on old people and fleece the weak and helpless. They want to lay in enough cash to weather the known horrors of January and February. There is always a rash of kidnapping and abductions of school children in the football months. Pre-teens of both sexes are traditionally seized and grabbed off the streets by gangs of organized Perverts. Most of these things are obviously Wrong and Evil and Ugly -- but at least they are Traditional. They will happen. Your driveway will ice up, your furnace will blow up and you will be rammed in traffic by an uninsured driver in a stolen car. But what the hell. That's why we have Insurance, eh? And the Inevitability of these nightmares is what makes them so reassuring. Life will go on, for good or ill. The structure might be a little Crooked, but the foundations are still Strong and Unshakable. Ho, ho. Think again, buster. Look around you. There is an eerie sense of Panic in the air, a silent Fear and Uncertainty that comes with once-reliable faiths and truths and solid Institutions that are no longer safe to believe in. ... There is a Presidential Election, right on schedule, but somehow there is no President. A new Congress is elected, like always, but somehow there is no real Congress at all -- not as we knew it, anyway, and whatever passes for Congress will be as helpless and weak as Whoever has to pass for the "New President." If this were the world of sports, it would be like playing a Super Bowl that goes into 19 scoreless Overtimes and never actually Ends. ... or four L.A. Lakers stars being murdered in different places on the same day. Guaranteed Fear and Loathing. Abandon all hope. Prepare for the Weirdness. Get familiar with Cannibalism. Good luck, Doc. ***** Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's books include Hell's Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, The Proud Highway, Better Than Sex and The Rum Diary. His new book, Fear and Loathing in America, has just been released. A regular contributor to various national and international publications, Thompson now lives in a fortified compound near Aspen, Colo. His column, "Hey, Rube," will appear each Monday on Page 2 If you are interested in a free subscription to The Konformist Newswire, please visit http://www.eGroups.com/list/konformist/ and sign up. Or, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject: "I NEED 2 KONFORM!!!" (Okay, you can use something else, but it's a kool catch phrase.) Visit the Klub Konformist at Yahoo!: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/klubkonformist
