Fear and Loathing in the Fortified Compound

This is a tremendously important blog, ol' chums, and I just want you to know how long it took me to write it and still not give it the proper attention it deserves ... VERY FUCKING LONG!!

But, as you all know, there are two monumental bits of news that need addressing this time. Strange, considering there is usually nothing and I'm left to my own devices - horrifying moments when I spend hours sitting at my desk writing a bunch of crazy shit and wondering "Will they like this? Will they hate it? Will they think its great stuff, or will they think I'm insane? What if they think neither, and they just think I'm a weirdo? Oh shit! That IS probably what they think! Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" followed by a pathetic attempt at "Well, who gives a shit. I don't. Let them think whatever they want. Fuck 'em." before returning to "Oh god ... maybe I AM a weirdo!"

See, I've already wasted my time. And yours. Why do you keep reading this shit?

Anyways, first the news that angers me:

Wednesday of last week was the third sign alluded to in Revalation that the End of Days is at hand (the first two were U2's ascension to the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame and, more recently, "The Son of the Mask"). The passage, I believe, goes something like this: "And looking, I beheld a darkened little troll coming to stand before the expectant hordes. He spoke, his voice at once wicked with the suffering of millions, and femenin with the taint of many male assholes licked. His words marked the ending of an era, and I saw the gnashing of teeth and the weeping of the virtuous as skating rinks fell into shadow and the world's greatest sporting event grew silent under the sword of the troll, who was beloved of The Beast and called himself Bettman."

Not in the Bible, you say? No, of course not. I wasn't talking about the Bible. I was talking about Revalation as it appears in "The Overwhelming Michael Book" written every night in my dreams and remembered mentally. Its available on Amazon if you're interested.

At any rate ... the anti-Christ of hockey finally completed the final stage of his decade-long plan to destroy the NHL. It's absolutely staggering when you look at the man's record. One could only have fucked up so badly if A.) one is so severely retarted that one averages about one thought per month and is in vegetable-mode the rest of the time, or B.) one is wicked right down to one's maggot-birthing core and has made it one's mission to destroy the NHL. Either way ... ONE MUST BE DESTROYED FOR WHAT ONE HAS DONE!!!

Consider ... the NHL was the third biggest of major U.S. sports in the early 90's. It had grown steadily through the eighties, and had reached a new high with the dawning of the new decade and its young, emerging starts. These were the days when the large majority of Sports Fans had an interest in the NHL, had their favorite team, their favorite player, and had a vested interest in what happened. People watched the games on TV, read about the games in papers and magazines, and it seemingly was on a continual pace onwards and upwards. Then, in 1992-93, Gary Bettman, having been chased out of the NBA, was brought in to become the NHL's new Commissioner. Previous to this, Brett Hull had averaged 76 goals over the course of 3 seasons. In 92-93 itself, Mogilny and Sellane tied for league-lead with 76 goals. That same year, LaFontaine scored 148 points and DID NOT win the Art Ross trophy for most points. Lemiuex did ... with 160 points in 60 GAMES. Yes, that 2.5 pts. per game. Without going into great season-by-season depth, I'll just quickly demonstrate the massive skid the game has taken under Bettman's leadership. Last year, the leading goal-scorers were Jarome Iginla and Ilya Kovalchuk with 41 GOALS, and the Art Ross trophy went to Martin St. Louis with 94 POINTS. Whereas a 30-goal-scorer was once a "solid offensive contributer," in this league, he has now become "one of the great offensive threats in the league." If someone pitches in a paltry 15-20 goals, he is a first-liner, second at worst.

The trap, I know. Clutching and grabbing, I know. Bigger goalie pads, I know. But as NHL commissioner, its your fucking job to take care of those things. Yes, obviously the game didn't take a massive downhill plunge simply because Bettman said "I want there to be a shitload less scoring, and I want the game to slow down three times over from the end-to-end pace it has now." The point isn't that Bettman literally took the ice himself and did everything he could to destroy its integrity. The point is that he didn't do what needed to be done to fix his ailing sport. Problems crop up in the NFL, the MLB ... they are taken care of for the good of the game and its sports. Under Bettman however, the league would periodically pass down edicts ordering Rob Ray to tape down his pads, or disallowing Hasek to drop his stick and cover the puck with his blocker - pointless, interfering little commands from an NHL front office that was not only inept ... it clearly had NO FUCKING IDEA what the hell it was doing. Tape down your pads???? The fuck, Gary! Haven't you noticed that this game no longer flows from one end to the next like it did through the first 7 and a half decades of its existence!!?? Haven't you noticed that the skill players are getting mauled and practically tackled (sometimes literally)? Haven't you noticed that hockey is not a sport that can support "defense-first" philosophies like the TRAP, and allow its goalies to dress like they're stopping bullets instead of pucks, and still keep its fan base? Have you EVEN WATCHED A GAME FROM THE 70'S, 80'S, OR EARLY 90'S BETTMAN? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT REAL HOCKEY LOOKS LIKE? In short ... ARE YOU EVEN AWARE THAT THERE'S A FUCKING PROBLEM??

And of course expansion. I'm not even getting into that. Why Miami needs a fucking hockey team is beyond me, but that's fucking Bettman for you. Not paying any attention whatsoever to the product on the ice, just wondering how he can squeeze a few more bucks out of another U.S. city.

So now you have all these people ... "its the players being selfish, man. They need to accept a salary cap." Yes, they do. But that's not the point. The point is they never would have even gotten to this point if it hadn't been for Bettman and his goons driving the sport face first into a brick wall time after time. They've dried it up, financially, product-wise, and philosophy-wise. They've ruined it, not the players. And even when the players cave ... even when they say its bullshit we have to do this, but fine, lets save the fucking game and get a cap ... Bettman can't fucking budge off of his 42.5 mil (yes, thats the early word, even from the late Saturday meeting - the NHL would not meet the players half-way). He says "if every team spends 45 million..." what a crock of shit. Only a handful of teams spend that much WITHOUT a fucking cap, why would all teams automatically be spending that much with one? In fact, several owners have already come out and said they wouldn't be spending near that much no matter what the cap was.

So fuck Bettman. And fuck all the assholes on ESPN who are getting their kicks off of laughing on national television and saying "hockey's done with, but who cares. Nobody cares." Maybe the death of the NHL doesn't mean as much to sports fans as the death of the NFL or MLB would mean, but that doesn't mean nobody cares. Hockey has as many (if not more) die-hards around the world as any major sport, and they are being killed by this lockout bullshit (though in truth, the knife has been being turned slowly in our backs for years and years just because of the reduction of the product and the recession of hockey as a national interest). But for all those out there who love the game, whose life is largely defined by the game, it is a fucking slap in the face for our national sports network to laugh it off and say nobody cares. Fuck you.

And is hockey dead now? No. THe NHL is dead. Hockey is alive and thriving. It remains one of the greatest-growing youth sports in the entire country, despite the NHL's suffering and horrifying death. It remains a hugely popular sport around the world, even if Bettman has all but ended it as a national professional sport of interest.

So, in summation ... fuck Bettman, he is THE BEAST. Fuck the anchors on ESPN for slapping so many people in the face with their smug fucking sarcasm. And ... BRING ON THE WHA!!!

~ End Sports ~

And now for today's truly startling (and saddening) news.

(CNN) -- Journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, who unleashed the concept of "gonzo journalism" in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself in the head Sunday at his home near Aspen, Colorado, police and his family said.

Our thoughts here at "Dominion of Cool"? This is a personal tragedy for fans, friends, and family, but this should not be mistaken as an ARTISTIC tragedy. Hunter made it obvious long ago that his early promise would never be allowed to fully blossom. He exploded onto the scene with three early works of thrilling (and very different) style and voice (I.E. "Hell's Angels" in '66, "F&L in Las Vegas" in '71, and "F&L on the Campaign Trail" in '73). He gave a name to (though I would hardly say he invented, as many are apt to say) hard-drinking, hardly-objective, "rebel"-journalism - GONZO JOURNALISM. His since of humor, his social observation, his unique and unmatched style of word choice (though, unfortunately, very imitatable), and his larger-than-life image made him a favorite of psuedo-artistic and psuedo-anti-artistic writers, journalists, academics, and hippies everywhere. But while other hard-living journalists of the 70's (e.g. Tosches, Meltzer, Kent) managed to "grow up" (in art, if not in lifestyle), Thompson refused (or was incapable of?) moving beyond his early writing. Nor did he have the sense to bow-out with the excuse that the lifestyle killed him (i.e. Lester Bangs). He rapidly became a figure of imitation, of parody, and a symbol for everyone that wanted to appear "with-it" on the literary scene without actually having to read a lot of books. His later works (i.e. "Generation of Swine," "The Great Shark-Hunt," and, most recently, "Hey Rube,") have all been repetitive collections of journalistic papers commenting on sports and politics, sometimes both, none of them even approaching the freshness of his earliest works (let alone moving beyond it). So, again ... this is a personal tragedy, not an artistic one.

That said, however ... wasn't Hunter S. Thompson fucking great? Nobody ... I mean nobody could put words together the way his mind did. Not even the best of imitators would be capable of slapping the following paragraph on paper -

"I couldn't remember, Lacerda? The name rang a bell, but I couldn't concentrate. Terrible things were happening all around us. Right next to me a huge reptile was gnawing on a woman's neck, the carpet was a blood-soaked sponge - impossible to walk on it, no footing at all. "Order some golf shoes," I whispered. "Otherwise, we'll never get out of this place alive. You notice lizards don't have any trouble moving around this muck - that's because they have claws on their feet."

And yes, as you might expect, I opened "Fear and Loathing" to a random page, pointed to a random paragraph, and typed that above. That is how different, and how consistent the man was.

Recently, I shared an interesting story in this blog, which I will now repeat. Several years ago, the student's union at UB invited Hunter to come speak and read at the school. It was, as my professor described it, "a total disaster." Hunter showed up completely drunk, stumbled out in front of the massive crowd with a drink in his hand, and basically pissed everyone off for an hour or so. Moreover, the student union had dished out $10,000 to the writer for his appearance. Again, I will repeat for the thousandth time - I WANT HUNTER'S LIFE!!

If any good can come from his suicide, it is this:

1. He will cement his place among the 20th Century's brightest writers. There seems to be a simple connection to make - if you're a writer in the 1900's, live hard and die young (or by suicide if old) and you will go down as a legend. Witness, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Kerouac, among others. Hemingway, by the way, was also in his 60's, and also went by shooting himself in the head (and was also a journalist). But Hunter, despite these similarities, was never in the same league as Hemingway.

2. "The Rum Diary," Hunter's only work of fiction (though they all are to some degree), long rumored to be in production and starring Johnny Depp and Benecio Del Toro, may actually come to fruition now.

And now - as a tribute to the hours of fun Hunter has provided me with in the past couple of years - I give you my favorite Hunter S. Thompson quotes:

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." - Opening sentence to "F&L in Las Vegas"

"Our trip was different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country - but only for those with true grit. And we were chock full of that." - "Fear and Loathing"

"You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug - especially when it's waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eyes." - "Fear and Loathing"

"Officers said she was apparently hysterical and shouted, "You'll never take me alive." But officers handcuffed the woman and she apparently was not injured." - "Fear and Loathing"

"The day had been ugly and my heart was full of hate for everything human." - "Generation of Swine"

"You want to be on your toes when your dog is getting his eyeball chewed out," said one ex-handler. "This is a very serious business." - ""Generation of Swine"

"Children are like TV sets. When they start acting weird, whack them across the eyes with a big rubber basketball shoe." - "Generation of Swine"

"I felt somehow that my instincts were right." - "The Rum Diary"

"The night was hot and the waterfront was alive with rats." - "The Rum Diary"

"I felt a tremendous distance between me and everything real." - "The Rum Diary"

"For Sale - One Soul, no less." - "The Rum Diary"

"Tell me, Mister Kemp, just what is your profession?" I'd say, "Well, you see, I swim around in murky waters until I find something big enough to clamp onto - a good provider, as it were, something with big teeth and a small belly." - "The Rum Diary"

"... hang on until dusk and banish the ghosts with rum." - "The Rum Diary"

"Sounds of life and movement, people getting ready and people giving up, the sound of hope and the sound of hanging on, and behind them all, the quiet, deadly ticking of a thousand hungry clocks, the lonely sound of time passing in the long Caribbean night." - "The Rum Diary"


- If you skipped the quotes, GO BACK AND READ THEM NOW!!!

and RIP HUNTER S. THOMPSON (1937-2005).

(The weekly "Controversial Argument of the Week" is on hiatus this week - check back next blog)

(Besides, I gave you plenty to argue about with the Bettman section, and the "not an artistic tragedy" section, so form an opinion quickly)

I suggest that you leave comments with your favorite Hunter quotes - its a good way to appreciate the man's talent for language and humor/satire while they prepare to stick his headless gonzo corpse into the ground somewhere.

A Presto

Mike

PS - a final thought on Bettman and Thompson. How ironic (and disappointing) that the man whose life is a total failure, and who is rightfully despised by millions should go on arrogantly holding his round head up high and thinking himself a regular old hero, while a literary light, a genius, and a man beloved of millions should sit alone in his home (which he referred to as "a fortified compound") and shoot himself in the head. Fuck you Bettman ... that shoulda been you.