Two years before Hunter S. Thompson took his own life in 2005 his Woody Creek, Colorado neighbor Wayne Ewing edited together years of video and film footage into a days-in-the-life-style documentary that captured HST drunk, drunk on stage, drugged, in trouble with the cops, visiting his home state of Kentucky, and trying to get Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas made into a film. Here’s Swampland with the word…

Breakfast With Hunter contains classic footage from Thompson’s Woody Creek, Colorado, ranch he calls Owl Farm. Guest appearances include Johnny Depp, Benecio Del Toro, Harry Dean Stanton, Terry Gilliam, Laila Nabulsi, John Cusack, and the late Warren Zevon.
Scenes with English artist Ralph Steadman whose paintings accompany many of Thompson’s writings prove interesting. Another scene details Thompson ambushing Rolling Stone mogul Jann Wenner with a fire extinguisher in his posh New York City office. Other footage features HST day in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky (also Depp’s hometown), as well as a stage appearance at Depp’s Viper Room.

The film chronicles the 25th Anniversary of Thompson’s classic book, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, including early stages for production, filming, and the premiere of the 1998 movie. A confrontation in Thompson’s kitchen erupts with a British writer over the Fear & Loathing script, which personifies Thompson’s spirit.

Here’s Breakfast with Hunter…

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Here’s another post celebrating The Clash at 30: Viva Joe Strummer – The Clash and Beyond documents the British rocker’s childhood as as diplomat’s son, his rock ‘n’ roll initiation with The 101ers, his storied history with The Clash to Strummer’s overlooked later career music which was cut short by his untimely death in 2002. Here’s the word from Open Culture…

Viva Joe Strummer gives us loads of concert footage and interviews with band members and close friends like the Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock. The focus remains on Strummer, a frontman with tremendous charisma but also, paradoxically, with a tremendous amount of humility. One reviewer of the film says as much:

Joe Strummer always projected himself as a humble man. Even at the height of The Clash‘s megalomania, when he fired guitarist Mick Jones, Strummer came across like a better read, more worldly Bruce Springsteen. The everyman image has made eulogizing the singer difficult.

This suggests that Strummer’s everyman persona may have been part of his showmanship, but even so, he was respected and admired by nearly everyone who knew him. And his proletarian politics were genuine. As one interviewee says above, “he always had a corner to fight in. He always had someone to stick up for.”

Here’s Viva Joe Strummer…

Stay Awake!

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