As time goes by...
Each year I struggle with an internal obligation to write something meaningful and new about HST’s passing. As I edited some pages for the first time since 2008 this year, I knew a site history would be meaningful and new. It’s rare for a website, even in a state of arrested decay, to exist 30 years later.
The easiest, if cliched, way to describe TGTH’s genesis is being in the right place at the right time. However, the road to the moment I hit save in fall of 1996 was paved years before the graphical Internet was available.
Unsurprisingly, when creating my Geocities account, I picked reading. I could not stop reading as a child. In Grade 4 I was reading at Grade 9 level and spent most of my time in libraries, seeking knowledge. Fonts of potentially useless/useful information are born, not made, let me assure you. I also loved current events and clipped newspaper articles before I knew vertical files existed.
Fortunately, at the time, the public library didn’t separate children’s non-fiction and adult non-fiction. Meaning, for example, adult and children’s animal books were shelved together. I love this barrier-free approach which lets anyone access information at their reading level.
I love loved biographies. Maybe too much Paul Harvey on the radio inspired me, or the smallness of my world. We didn’t own a VCR until 1994, just a big-ass '70s-era TV with basic cable. That’s three Canadian channels, three American channels, CBC French, PBS, a Canadian educational channel, and two that broadcast static. The life of anyone else seemed far more exciting than mine.
Eventually, we got a new TV and pay cable—wow! Pay cable was my colour TV moment. CNN, Much Music, A&E...suddenly there was a whole new world to explore and consume. Watching world events in real time was jaw-droppingly amazing. No need to wait for today's news tomorrow. The ‘60s were a big deal in the ‘90s with Woodstock’s anniversary and old rockers returning to the stage and releasing new music. ‘60s nostalgia was everywhere—neon colours, smiley faces, hippie fonts, tie-dyed everything and more. My attention turned towards the ‘60s and the library had no shortage of ‘60s books written in the 1960s. Like rings on a tree stump, a collection's age marks major library funding periods.
Rolling Stone magazine in the 1990s still carried enough counterculture cachet to garner frowny faces from parents—and a very different fan site would have emerged if the graphical Internet existed in the early 90s. Somehow, I persisted as a massive Beatles fan when popular culture told me I should fangirl over one of the New Kids.
So, I spent many afternoons paging through the library’s piles of ratty Rolling Stones searching for mentions of Paul McCartney. The poor magazines were heavily vandalized—this was a time when Joe Camel cigarette ads were cool, collectible, and controversial.
I remember reading Mike Sager’s “The Trial of Hunter S. Thompson” article in 1992 and thought, “Wow, this HST guy is wild! And he wrote a book in the ‘60s!” I looked up Hells Angels in the microfiche catalogue and put a hold on it. The original, hardcover volume was rebound with a bright red patterned cover and the title carefully re-written on the spine in white correction pen. I still remember how the book grabbed me, utterly fascinating me. I was hooked.
It's silly how much of our lives we owe to luck and circumstance. If I never haunted libraries, if we’d never gotten a new TV, if the '60s revival never happened, and if I’d never imprinted on Paul McCartney—my life would have probably gone down a much different path. Yet, that’s not quite the rest of the story either.
The easiest, if cliched, way to describe TGTH’s genesis is being in the right place at the right time. However, the road to the moment I hit save in fall of 1996 was paved years before the graphical Internet was available.
Unsurprisingly, when creating my Geocities account, I picked reading. I could not stop reading as a child. In Grade 4 I was reading at Grade 9 level and spent most of my time in libraries, seeking knowledge. Fonts of potentially useless/useful information are born, not made, let me assure you. I also loved current events and clipped newspaper articles before I knew vertical files existed.
Fortunately, at the time, the public library didn’t separate children’s non-fiction and adult non-fiction. Meaning, for example, adult and children’s animal books were shelved together. I love this barrier-free approach which lets anyone access information at their reading level.
I love loved biographies. Maybe too much Paul Harvey on the radio inspired me, or the smallness of my world. We didn’t own a VCR until 1994, just a big-ass '70s-era TV with basic cable. That’s three Canadian channels, three American channels, CBC French, PBS, a Canadian educational channel, and two that broadcast static. The life of anyone else seemed far more exciting than mine.
Eventually, we got a new TV and pay cable—wow! Pay cable was my colour TV moment. CNN, Much Music, A&E...suddenly there was a whole new world to explore and consume. Watching world events in real time was jaw-droppingly amazing. No need to wait for today's news tomorrow. The ‘60s were a big deal in the ‘90s with Woodstock’s anniversary and old rockers returning to the stage and releasing new music. ‘60s nostalgia was everywhere—neon colours, smiley faces, hippie fonts, tie-dyed everything and more. My attention turned towards the ‘60s and the library had no shortage of ‘60s books written in the 1960s. Like rings on a tree stump, a collection's age marks major library funding periods.
Rolling Stone magazine in the 1990s still carried enough counterculture cachet to garner frowny faces from parents—and a very different fan site would have emerged if the graphical Internet existed in the early 90s. Somehow, I persisted as a massive Beatles fan when popular culture told me I should fangirl over one of the New Kids.
So, I spent many afternoons paging through the library’s piles of ratty Rolling Stones searching for mentions of Paul McCartney. The poor magazines were heavily vandalized—this was a time when Joe Camel cigarette ads were cool, collectible, and controversial.
I remember reading Mike Sager’s “The Trial of Hunter S. Thompson” article in 1992 and thought, “Wow, this HST guy is wild! And he wrote a book in the ‘60s!” I looked up Hells Angels in the microfiche catalogue and put a hold on it. The original, hardcover volume was rebound with a bright red patterned cover and the title carefully re-written on the spine in white correction pen. I still remember how the book grabbed me, utterly fascinating me. I was hooked.
It's silly how much of our lives we owe to luck and circumstance. If I never haunted libraries, if we’d never gotten a new TV, if the '60s revival never happened, and if I’d never imprinted on Paul McCartney—my life would have probably gone down a much different path. Yet, that’s not quite the rest of the story either.
