Hey Rube : Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness Modern History from the Sports Desk

Rating:
Summary: Hack writing from a dying mind
Review: "The Downward Spiral of Dumbness"? He must have meant his own. Stick a fork in him, he's done.

Rating:
Summary: More Guts Than Glory
Review: HST is still kickin' butt as an American journalist. That's the good news. His keen perspective and rabid style leaves no one in his sights unsplattered.

I just don't know what it signifies that ol' HST's once-so-flamboyant approach today seems so -- well, routine is probably the word. Maybe I've gotten used to all the sex and violence and other recreational abuses in his writing. What seemed so outlandish in the 70s just doesn't rev my emotional engines these days.

Can it be that HST is no longer the far left of news reporting and that Gonzo has become the yardstick by which journalism is now simply measured? He's less an engine than a baromter.

Still well worth the time to read and think, a new HST book is like running into an old girlfriend. You're sure glad to see her again but soon wonder what it was that made you fall in love with her all those years ago. . .



Rating:
Summary: A Must-Read
Review: Hunter S. Thompson is still the heavyweight of American alternative journalism, the original Gonzo. . . . HEY RUBE, a collection of his sports articles for ESPN.com, may have nothing new in terms of Thompson's unflinching insight and humor, but that is, after all, why we read Thompson. The book contains some significant articles -- "Stadium Living in a New Age" and "Will Sports Survive Bin Laden?," for two, put to words (when few will) our collective sense of dread over the direction our country is headed. There are also pieces of refreshing levity, such as "The Tragedy of Naked Bowling," Thompson's own fantastical solution to the war news tyrannizing our TV channels. What is frightening about HEY RUBE is that Thompson's "Gonzo" approach -- a melding of fact and fiction -- isn't so fictitious anymore: sports may survive bin Laden, but it may well go the way of the Patriot Act's no-more-fun club, which makes rubes of us all indeed.

Rating:
Summary: The Doctor Succeeds Once Again
Review: Hunter S. Thompson's newest work Hey Rube, a collection of his columns published on Page 2 of ESPN.com, is further proof that there is simply no other American writer like Thompson today. His bold, hysterical, and sometimes downright shocking commentary on all things sports (specifically professional football and basketball) and all things politics are conveyed with an intelligence and irreverence that only the good doctor could achieve. I bought the book recently and have flown through the columns, oftentimes laughing out loud. I have given the book as a gift to everyone from my conservative mother to my sports-fanatic male friends, and all have loved it. I highly recommend Hey Rube for anyone who has is a fan of Thompson, loves sports, is politically minded, or simply has a sense of humor.

Rating:
Summary: A shell of his former self - but read his earlier books
Review: Reading this book is like watching a once-great boxer try combinations that worked when he was in his prime. I love Hunter's writing, but, "Hey Rube" and "Kingdom of Fear" have little new to say. Catch-phrases such as "Mahalo," "buy the ticket, take the ride," and so forth are substituted for entire thoughts. In general, I found this to be slapped-together, half-assed and generally worth reading for free on the Internet, but not worth purchasing.

I did find his comparison of life under Nixon to life under "W" very interesting, and I agree.

Kurt Vonnegut (in his review of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72) said that "today, I'm not suffering from Hunter Thompson's disease." I fear that the Good Doctor has a terminal case. I believe Hunter is now incapable of overcoming his despair of popular culture, and is tossing out one-handed mediocrities as his comment on it.

Read the ESPN.com columns and then go pick up "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail"," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "Hells Angels," "The Great Shark Hunt" or the first "Proud Highway" book. Any of those books showcase Hunter at his awesome best.

Rating:
Summary: Hey Rube and The Man.
Review: Review of Hunter S. Thompson's new book "Hey Rube."


"Hey Rube" lacks the magic that kept Hunter in the tower of literary song for so long. Where he once shone bright as a welding torch in the junkyard, somebody or something has been tinkering with the fuel knobs lately and his famous glow has diminished. Other gonzo authors no doubt feel comfortable with this, believing his greatness is now approachable, even achievable. But hell, not even the universal genius of Einstein shone as bright in the twilight years of his life, and only a fool would think it somehow moved the goal posts closer. Hunter's new book is a natural easing back on the pedal, a law of nature that even he can't defy - despite the number of other natural laws he's broken by living this long on a diet of toxins so horrible that he must surely struggle to find honest medical insurance.

Hunter S. Thompson, father of Gonzo Journalism and author of over a dozen books on topics from The Hells Angels, Las Vegas & The American Dream, to Politics and Sports, now at the luminous age of 67, is still carving his initials ever deeper into the laureate's desk. To me, Hunter stands across the years as a writer of genius; an author of nerve, talent, insight and creativity - and this latest work is yet another step up the ladder, another rung ahead of the rest. Sure, not as large a stride he has taken with previous work - where he could bound four or five leaps ahead of the pack with a single essay - but it's a step none-the-less; a step in an infinite series that seems to keep Hunter one pace ahead of his peers on any subject he ponders.

Yet "Hey Rube," essentially a collection of his sports column writings on ESPN's website, is lacking. There is no great eye in the sky view, little of Hunter's famous and intelligent insights on the human condition. It is like killing and skinning the beast only to find that somehow the heart is missing. How could it be? Did the editors snatch the work first - stealing the manuscript from his desk late in the night, before he'd instilled the life giving ink, the literary blood into the skeleton?

Possibly. Hunter is a man with a view that the Bush family will understand but not appreciate. Their growing sphere of influence is as encompassing and clueless as Charlotte's web; they would've seen this book coming from a long way off, and fixed it, like only they can do.

And it's a shame, an opportunity lost not only for Hunter fans, but for all of us. There has never been a more opportune time, a more urgent need for a loud and clear trumpet call to the rank and file citizen, a firing of the imagination and passion of man, than there is today. Traditionally Hunter has been the piper many of us followed, but in handing the instrument across the generations, somewhere the brass was lost - like that one ring that ruled them all - and now standing in the doorway, staring at the horizon all he can offer us is a distant mutter..."Hey Rube, look at the sunset."

Well, it's not over, he's not dead. As long as we show a flicker of humanity we can hole-up, wait for further musings, news - and god bless us - wait for direction. I refuse to believe this is the end, with even the man himself going out on a whimper. I may have closed the book, but I refuse to shelve Hunter and all he means to so many.


Rating:
Summary: S. K. Lail's liberal stupidity
Review: S. K. - Thanks for vindicating everything C. Keffer alluded to (and that we have all known for years to be true) about liberal socialist Dem views: that anyone not a liberal can possibly be intelligent, the use of personal attacks on one's opponent when actual use of intellect fails, and denegrating people who live in rural areas as, well, rubes.
You are an absolute and utter idiot.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not up to his usual standard.
Review: The biggest shame of this book is how little work has been put into it. Hunter is still a lot of fun to read, and for what it is Hey Rube is an excellent read. It is NOT Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, or F&L at the Watergate. It's a collection of short ESPN columns that are usually half about sports, and half about politics. There is little room for development of either, but he's usually fairly interesting to read in both cases throughout Hey Rube.

One problem is how much Hunter has been copied over the years, and how it really weakens his delivery. When you compare Hey Rube to the Great Shark Hunt articles, very little has changed. He hasn't resorted to catch phrases more than before, nor has he become brain dead. Its just now more and more people have begun stealing from his style, and he's just published so much that it seems redundant.

But having said that I had more fun reading Hey Rube than I had reading The Proud Highway or Generation of Swine, since Thompson is very much in his element with the ESPN articles. They are quickly done, and mostly what is on his mind at the time. There's little revision, its very raw, but an absolutely needless release seeing how little NEW content there is in there that you can't just read for free. Even something on the 2004 election would be a nice addition to make it a real book, or small pieces to link articles together as he did in Songs of the Doomed.

Rating:
Summary: Still going after all these years
Review: This review is written mainly in response to the crude comments by C. Keffer concerning the most recent Hunter S. Thompson book. Perhaps Mr. Keffer is unable to intellectually appreciate the prose of the good doctor or he may just be a proxy for the Bush family or a slave to the christian right trying to sink his vicious claws into one of the last pure bastions of the far left that is not scared to speak his mind. The good doctor may have lost just a little but he is still the standard by which gonzo journalism is measured. Perhaps C. Keffer, and we will leave it up to the imagination what the C. stands for, should just sit back in his backwoods WV home and not dally in the world of freaks, the consequences may be severe for the amateur. The good doctor will always walk on a road of bones!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Pathetic
Review: Thompson's turn at the liberal media trough is one of disappointment, poor writing and zero journalistic skills. Why he used the device of fiction to tell his liberal lies, is beyond me. Everyone else in the media simply lies and then calls it non-fiction... until after the election when history will reclassify this garbage as no better than the Nazi Propaganda of WWII. Desperation is not a pretty trait, especially when demonstrated by washed up has-been hacks like Thompson. Has he burned through EVERY brain cell in the cavernous husk he calls his head?

Avoid this trash like the plague.