Nobody should go through life without reading a few Hunter Thompson books. In his prime, before the drugs and booze ravaged his brain, the man was a literary giant who combined a razor-sharp wit with an unmatched ability to describe twisted and bizarre events. He was also a bald, badass icon, which is why I’m profiling him here for Hair Loss Daily.
Hell’s Angels put him on the literary map in 1967. He embedded himself with the notorious gang for a year, drank what they drank, accompanied them on their various and often violent excursions, and even viewed their sexual conquests. His experiment didn’t end well, and he was ultimately beaten mercilessly by the gang for no good reason. He supposedly tried to stop one of the members from beating his wife. They took offense and taught him a lesson.
Thomson loved guns, drinking, and drugs. His libertine lifestyle worked for him for a decade or two, but his productivity and abilities diminished as he got older. His hair began thinning in his early 20s, I believe, but if you think he let his baldness thwart any of his wild antics or good times, think again. He rocked the cul-de-sac look in style — and so can you.
“Is this not a reasonable place to park?” Thompson famously asked in his seminal 1972 book, Fear and Loathing and Las Vegas.
He was stoned, naturally, in the car with his obese Samoan attorney who had previously advised him to “rent a very fast car with no top.” Additionally, his wise and wasted lawyer states, “we will need to arm ourselves, to the teeth.”
Turns out Hunter parked on the sidewalk. So no, he had not parked in a reasonable spot after all!
It was depicted like this in the ’97 movie with Johnny Depp, which is also a classic that I admonish you to see if you haven’t already.
Other Accomplishments
- Gonzo Inventor – Thomson was the primary innovator responsible for Gonzo journalism, an exciting form of journalism that combined old-school reporting with the real-life experiences of the writer.
- Counterculture Icon – He’s celebrated by stoners of every generation, unemployed English majors, and even by literary critics. The New York Times cited Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as “by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope.”
- Political Commentator – His legendary grievances and all-around disgust with Richard Nixon were outlined in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. Thomson also was critical of the Bush and Reagan administrations, and of our corrupt political system as a whole.
Hunter Thompson Quotes
“Freedom is something that dies unless it’s used.”
“One of the most basic factors in sports is that winning becomes a habit, and losing is the same way. When failure starts to feel normal in your life or your work or even your darkest vices, you won’t have to go looking for trouble, because trouble will find you. Count on it.”
“You better take care of me Lord, if you don’t you’re gonna have me on your hands.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
“We can’t stop here, this is bat country!”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
“There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
“The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
On Nixon:
“He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close.”
―Hunter S. Thompson
Takeaways for Balding Readers
Hair can get in the way if you’re looking to ride with the Hell’s angels, get high and drive through bat country, or even if you’re just heading out for a run-of-the-mill adventure. You don’t need hair to have a long, strange, incredible trip in this lifetime.
As far as the drugs go, a little probably fine but keep in mind: Hunter was a 6’3 bull of a man from Mars. Your brain will short circuit quickly if you’re using mescaline, cocaine, heroin, ether, etc. all on a regular basis. I’ll pass on all those. Okay, maybe just a hit of the mescaline, once per year.
Next Halloween, if you’re losing your hair and consider shaving it all off, try going as Hunter Thompson! I can’t think of a cooler costume than that, with the cigarette holder, Acapulco shirt, drink in hand, visor, and the horseshoe-pattern hairstyle. You’ll win the contest, if there is one, hands down, due to your commitment alone.
Perhaps I should include Hunter in my bald hall of fame? No, I definitely should do that, don’t you agree? Any other thoughts? Where does he rank on your list of all-time great bald men? Leave a comment and we’ll compare notes.
Robert Price is a writer, consumer advocate, and hair loss researcher with thousands of hours of experience in the field. His goal is to keep you out of the hair loss rabbit hole, underworld, or whatever you want to call it. He founded Hair Loss Daily, the unbiased hair loss blog, in 2016. You can learn more about Robert in the my story section of this website.