Althouse: "Hunter S. Thompson was an idol of mine. I believe he has a very famous quote that says I don't condone the use of drugs or alcohol to anyone..."

July 7, 2020

"Hunter S. Thompson was an idol of mine. I believe he has a very famous quote that says I don't condone the use of drugs or alcohol to anyone..."

"... but they've always worked for me... Keith Richards has been a role model for me. He's one of my favourite guitarists and a great role model... I have always been interested in the counter-culture and many literary heroes of mine, including Chaucer, who was an opium addict, and Thomas De Quincey, author of 'Confessions of an English Opium Eater', were into this subject."

Said Johnny Depp, quoted in "I decided to divorce Amber Heard when she defecated in our bed: Johnny Depp calls his ex-wife a 'narcissistic sociopath' who attacked HIM and denies ever hitting her at blockbuster libel court showdown" (Daily Mail).

Was Chaucer an opium addict? That's my first question. You?

48 comments:

sprx said...: Expect he meant Coleridge; 7/7/20, 1:08 PM
LA_Bob said...: My first question was, Keith Richards, a role model? Really?

The Chaucer question came next. Then I saw it was Johnny Depp talking. Oh, well...; 7/7/20, 1:10 PM
tim maguire said...: My first question is, how are you not sure of the existence of a famous quote from an idol of yours who you played in a movie!?; 7/7/20, 1:15 PM
tim in vermont said...: Pretty thin gruel on Chaucer to deduce that he was an opium addict from one mention of the drug,

To bedde goth Alyn and also John
Ther nas na moore – hem nedede no dwale[opium].

Maybe there is more, I don’t really care if this is what they lead with. It’s not impossible that he used it from time to time I guess. He seems to know a *lot* about Medieval theories of medicine, almost like he was trained as a doctor. IDK, I just read the stories.

I have been reading Chaucer lately, and it is still so fresh, if you can get past the Middle English.; 7/7/20, 1:16 PM
readering said...: Depp slanders Chaucer. He merely uses it for a plot point in the Knight's tale: Palamon escapes prison by drugging his jailor with wine and "Opie of Thebes".; 7/7/20, 1:19 PM
rhhardin said...: The De Quincey is a good read. The prose is the point.; 7/7/20, 1:20 PM
Paul Snively said...: My first question: "Is there a credible claim Amber Heard is not a narcissistic sociopath?"; 7/7/20, 1:22 PM
Michael W. Towns, Sr. said...: Oh yeah. When the chick defecates in the bed, that's always the line for me.; 7/7/20, 1:31 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Nah, Chaucer just had a sick mother and a father that worked 20 hour days 7 days a week at the winery. He was probably a sociopath.; 7/7/20, 1:32 PM
Ambrose said...: Yes, Chaucer jumped out at me. Opium in 15th century England?; 7/7/20, 1:46 PM
Ken B said...: That's a good question. I don’t think he was and I don’t recall it mentioned in Ackroyd,s biography of Chaucer. So I assume he has another poet in mind. I can believe that William Blake might have been. Wasn’t Coleridge rather openly one? Surely there are others.; 7/7/20, 1:53 PM
Eleanor said...: If Chaucer was an opium addict, he was a very high-functioning one. He held many prestigious positions in the government while he was producing literary works that have survived humdreds of years. Will anyone remember Johnny Depp for even a hundred?; 7/7/20, 1:57 PM
narciso said...: depp is kind of a high functioning sociopath, he and heard deserve each others,; 7/7/20, 1:58 PM
Joe Smith said...: Not so sure about Chaucer, but I guarantee you Balzac was up to no good (at least according to Eulalie Mackechnie Shinn).; 7/7/20, 2:04 PM
Static Ping said...: The idea that Chaucer and opium were related in any way had not struck me as a thing until right now.

A quick Internet search indicates that opium was available in England when Chaucer was alive and Chaucer knew of doctors that prescribed it. I suppose it is possible.; 7/7/20, 2:11 PM
Lloyd W. Robertson said...: I actually read Keith's book fairly recently. I found it quite impressive. Keith knows everyone makes assumptions about his drug use. He presents himself as fairly clear-sighted compared to many of the people around him. He loved drugs partly for the way they allowed him to focus on music--long recording sessions, etc. The music in a way always came first. Until he was getting pretty old, relationships had to fit around the music and touring. This seems to have worked OK with Anita, but then their baby died when Anita was the responsible adult. Probably a result of her drug use more than his, but I gather it hit him fairly hard. After going cold turkey several times, he resolved to to it once and for all, and assumed Anita would join him. Not only did she refuse, but it turned out that she had faked "keeping him company" all the other times--she had kept on using. Getting to know Patti was a pretty serious thing--presumably Keith was older and wiser.

I think he wrote the book to make sure guitar players could find out about the G tuning (don't ask me) and as with most memoirs, to deliver some revenge here and there. He gives the impression Brian Jones was pretty hopeless, Mick never took the music seriously enough, etc.; 7/7/20, 2:12 PM
henge2243 said...: What kind of dimwit has idols when they're over the age of 20?; 7/7/20, 2:20 PM
madAsHell said...: I'm so old, I remember when "eating crackers in bed" was a low standard.; 7/7/20, 2:31 PM
Mary Beth said...: That was my first question too. I've studied Chaucer and this was news to me. It's possible, he did know about it, but he also had a generous wine allowance, so that might have been enough for the every day sort of relaxation he needed. I doubt he would have been hired for the government work he did if he was an addict. No one wants their diplomat nodding off.; 7/7/20, 2:37 PM
Narr said...: That fact about De Quincey was in a school textbook of ours back in the 1960s!

It might have been English class, and the line was --

Thomas De Quincey, author of de Profundis, was an opium eater.

Narr
Junior high!; 7/7/20, 2:42 PM
Joe Smith said...: "Oh yeah. When the chick defecates in the bed, that's always the line for me."

In San Francisco, some people pay extra for that...; 7/7/20, 2:44 PM
JaimeRoberto said...: Scheisseporn. Yuck.; 7/7/20, 2:54 PM
Kay said...: I’m not an opium addict.; 7/7/20, 2:57 PM
boatbuilder said...: My first question was: "Who cares?"; 7/7/20, 2:57 PM
narciso said...: David Morrell, has a whole series of de quincey, as detective,; 7/7/20, 3:04 PM
Mr. O. Possum said...: A very straight looking Hunter Thompson was on "To Tell the Truth in 1967.; 7/7/20, 3:14 PM
Mr. O. Possum said...: A very straight looking Hunter Thompson was on "To Tell the Truth in 1967.; 7/7/20, 3:14 PM
walter said...: It might have been a dare..; 7/7/20, 3:15 PM
bagoh20 said...: Well, she is a wafflecrapper.; 7/7/20, 3:27 PM
Anthony said...: I dunno, she's wicked hot, bi, and likes guns. That makes up for an awful lot. . . . .just sayin'.......; 7/7/20, 3:28 PM
bagoh20 said...: I don't have idols. That's just asking for disappointment. I have a hard time even admiring people with talent. I envy having any talent, but unless they worked really hard to go far beyond their natural born abilities, I'm underwhelmed.

Paraplegics that do anything get my admiration. I basically admire effort, and while I appreciate results, effort is the admirable thing to me.; 7/7/20, 3:34 PM
Readering said...: De Profundus by Wilde. He probably tried it. Research on Dorian Gray?; 7/7/20, 4:09 PM
Wince said...: I decided to divorce Amber Heard when she defecated in our bed

You're probably not going to believe this, but...

I have the secret video to prove it.; 7/7/20, 4:23 PM
eddie willers said...: I am currently reading the second of three books of murder mysteries written by David Morrell (Rambo author) which uses Thomas De Quincey and his liberated (she wears bloomers!) daughter solving crimes in 1855 London.

Not bad.; 7/7/20, 4:24 PM
effinayright said...: Static Ping said...
The idea that Chaucer and opium were related in any way had not struck me as a thing until right now.

A quick Internet search indicates that opium was available in England when Chaucer was alive and Chaucer knew of doctors that prescribed it. I suppose it is possible.
***********

Citation, please.; 7/7/20, 4:28 PM
rcocean said...: I thought Chaucer dropped acid.; 7/7/20, 4:28 PM
rcocean said...: In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.; 7/7/20, 4:37 PM
rcocean said...: If Hunter Thompson is you idol, you need to have higher standards.; 7/7/20, 4:38 PM
Narr said...: HST. Hunter S. Thompson. Harry S Truman . . . have you ever seen a picture of them together?

The Intertube indicates that Berlioz probably and Chopin possibly used opium; Beethoven drank too much wine; Stravinsky and Bernstein abused pills; Schumann had mercury poisoning, and Mozart drank and smoked (baccy) too much.

There were two German classical composers named Cannabich.

Narr
I hope they enjoyed a bowl!; 7/7/20, 5:24 PM
Gordon Scott said...: Hunter Thompson used to stomp around the country behaving fairly badly, and he got away with it, mostly, because he could write well. He never drank or used drugs as heavily as he bragged. I can see how Depp, who was always in search of the next great buzz, would look up to Thompson.

But Thompson was an enormous asswipe. His unreliability wore on people around him. And doing a final "So there!" by shooting yourself in the head while talking to your wife on the phone, with your kids in the next room is the ultimate in stupid.

Honestly, with Depp and Heard, how can one root for either side?; 7/7/20, 6:08 PM
Dan said...: HST: If you can't stand the heat, stay... right where you are. Unless... unless you are somewhere hot.; 7/7/20, 6:34 PM
Lucien said...: rcocean:
Chaucer didn't technically drop acid, but he had a thing for moldy rye.; 7/7/20, 7:26 PM
Temujin said...: No- my first question was how an adult could view Hunter S. Thompson as his hero.; 7/7/20, 7:36 PM
rcocean said...: As a Teenager I liked HST and thought he was a "rebel" a "wild and crazy guy". Went back in the early 2000s and reread some of this stuff and frankly it stinks. He really was a one-note johnny and his political writings were awful. They made Mailer's Left-wing ramblings sound fresh and interesting. I'd suggest anyone who wants to read him go with "hell's angels" or "Fear and Loathing at Las Vegas" and leave it at that. He basically repeated himself after that for next 30 years.; 7/7/20, 7:39 PM
AZ Bob said...: Reading the linked article was exhausting. I can't imagine what it would be like to live that life.; 7/7/20, 7:45 PM
Zach said...: Dwale isn't opium!

It's an old English anaesthetic, of which opium is one of three active ingredients:

“How to make a drink that men call dwale to make
a man sleep whilst men cut him: take three spoonfuls
of the gall [bile] of a barrow swine [boar] for a man, and for a woman of a gilt [sow], three spoonfuls of hemlock juice, three spoonfuls of wild neep [bryony], three spoonfuls of lettuce, three spoonfuls of pape [opium], three spoonfuls of henbane, and three spoonfuls of eysyl [vinegar], and mix them all together and boil them a little and put them in a glass vessel well stopped and put thereof three spoonfuls into a potel of good wine and mix it well together.
“When it is needed, let him that shall be cut sit
against a good fire and make him drink thereof until he fall asleep and then you may safely cut him, and when you have done your cure and will have him awake, take vinegar and salt and wash well his temples and his cheekbones and he shall awake immediately.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1127089/pdf/1623.pdf

It was used to knock patients out for surgery. It fell out of use because anaesthetics that rely on natural products are difficult to dose correctly, and frequently kill people.

If you just want to get high, I'd recommend dropping the hemlock and henbane.; 7/7/20, 9:26 PM
stephen cooper said...: My first question is, what kind of guy says "she defecated in my bed"? I mean, leaving the defecation aside for a moment, shouldn't the little guy have said "our bed"?

Personal background - I might come across as a very unusual person, in my comments, and I might not seem, from my enthusiasms for the truth, to be the sort of person women are easily attracted to, but actually (dread word!) women like me a lot, and one of the reasons is this, every woman who has ever known me knows that

if any woman shares a bed of mine it immediately becomes "our bed". (The Book of Proverbs has been my lodestar for many years - and yes, only a wife would share my bed. Sheesh, why did I have to explain that?).

Some women go for boyband little hottentots like Depp, other women like real men.; 7/7/20, 10:10 PM
phantommut said...: Hunter S. Thompson may have been a shitty human but he was also a great writer. Honor that much at least.; 7/7/20, 10:11 PM