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One other funny story about him is that he was sent to cover the historical "Rumble in the Jungle" Muhammad Ali vs Frasier fight but he "chose to float in his hotel pool, a bottle of hooch in hand, while the great fight took place, and he was unable to file anything."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rumble_in_the_Jungle#React...

Having spent a lot of my youth in Louisville, I admire both men. For those that don't know, both Hunter and Ali come from Louisville. Both men had troubled youth, but that's about where the similarities end.

Hunter was forced into the military to avoid jail time and, after that, went to Columbia (TIL, apparently, he only audited classes), and to write Hell's Angels, etc.

Ali (Cassius Clay) was several years younger than Hunter, and grew up half a city away (https://goo.gl/maps/f76SJ). But, under similar, difficult circumstances. Found boxing at 12yo because he wanted to beat up a kid for stealing his bike.

I know that Hunter S. Thompson was a big fan of boxing (and football), and that he had stated Ali as a hero of his. But, I feel that it's sad and unfortunate to read something like this. It seems that Hunter spent a lot of his middle years floating in a pool. It really wasn't until they made the movie Fear and Loathing that he had a resurgence.

I can only look backwards through documentaries and commentary, but I find it quite surprising that the two only met once for an interview. Hunter was embarrassed that Ali didn't know who he was; http://bloguin.com/queensberryrules/2014-articles/when-hunte.... It just seems odd that these two people that were hugely influential (Ali more-so) during the 60s and 70s for civil rights and similar political beliefs, that they never actually met one another.

As an aside, can someone explain the appeal of Hunter S. Thompson. I'm sure he was an amazing writer but was that it? Because, from my understanding, he was an otherwise terrible person.
He's a phenomenal writer.

Do you need more than that? Plenty of fantastic authors were people who were severely unpleasant to be around.

Beyond that, though, Hunter S. Thompson led an incredibly interesting life.

You have to admire the chutzpah of somebody who runs for sheriff on the "Freak Power" ticket, and shaves his head so that he can spend the entire race referring to his conservative, crew-cut wearing opponent as "my long-haired opponent".

Why do you understand him to be an otherwise terrible person?

Who'd he hurt? Who did he cause harm?

I saw a documentary on him--can't recall the title--which seemed to generally have a positive take on him but I came away thinking he was just awful.

He hurt his ex-wife and child by basically being a deadbeat father. And then dictated in his will that money be spent on a giant fist monument on his property. Money that could have, in my opinion, been put to better use by his family.

He apparently lied about candidates during the (I think?) 1972 Presidential campaign simply because he didn't like them. And by lies I mean he reported them as facts in the publication he was writing for. (come to think of it, I'm surprised that publication didn't fact-check him) Lies which affected the candidates negatively that might not have otherwise had his reporting been accurate.

In general he just seems to have a cult of personality where so many people like him simply because others do, because its the cool thing to do, much like they do with Che Guevara, without acknowledging the many flawed aspects of his character.

To those down-voting me, fine, I'll take your down-votes. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly stand corrected. But at least answer my original question instead of down-voting because you disagree with me. What is it you like about him?

I'll give you an up vote because it's a fair question. (And, I don't see any reason why someone would down vote.) I don't want to spin my appreciation for Hunter, but I'll provide you some articles. If you want some interesting reads, his most influential books are (pre-gonzo) 'Hell's Angels', 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas', 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72', and, much later, 'Kingdom of Fear'.

'Campaign Trail 72' is about the antics at the 72 Democratic Convention to get George McGovern the party's nomination. He was a longshot, but many young writers (including Hunter) started a movement to get him nominated; which succeeded. A lot of people thought that Nixon was undefeatable that year, but things got interesting after the youth movement behind McGovern. Unfortunately, his campaign failed miserably after his running mate, Thomas Eagleton, revealed that he underwent electric shock therapy years earlier. I think that many people would qualify McGovern as the first progressive democrat to be nominated, but, TBH, I don't know much about him, or his campaign, other than what I've already told you.

The other books don't need any introduction, from me, because you can easily find out a lot about them.

Articles by Hunter (personally selected):

"The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Deprived", notable for his first meeting with Ralph Steadman. [1]: http://grantland.com/features/looking-back-hunter-s-thompson...

"He was a Crook" Obituary to Richard Nixon [2]: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/07/he-was-a...

... Somewhere there is an article about Hunter talking about his only conversation with Nixon. They talked about football. Both men hated each other, but Nixon had no idea who he was talking to at the time. Those events are fictionalized in the movie 'Where the Buffalo Roam' starring Bill Murray as Hunter.

"Fear and Loathing in America" - Published September 12th, 2001 [3]: http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1250751

"Don't you dare cancel football" - [4]: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=thompson/040...

"Shotgun Golf with Bill Murray" - His last article, submitted hours before his suicide. [5]: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1992213

'Hey Rube, Page 2' Archive [6]: http://totallygonzo.org/gonzowriting/hst-hey-rube-espn-page-...

Edit: As for the documentary that you watched, it was likely 'Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson' which was produced by his son, Juan, and narrated by Johnny Depp. As far as his family life, he raised his son, and remained friends with his first wife. I don't know the facts behind the abuse claims, but he was certainly a chaotic person. So, I would imagine he was a difficult person to be around.

Edit2: Fixed the documentary mentioned in the first edit, I had stated it was 'Buy the ticket, take the ride'.

“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

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. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

--

He was certainly a flawed character; I sincerely doubt that I would be friends with him if I had had the opportunity to interact with him in person. But at the same time, I don't need to personally like somebody to think they're a fantastic author. Hunter S. Thompson had a way with words, with writing, with voice. Kids in college and high school like him because they think they're getting away with something naughty when they watch a movie that starts out with somebody inventorying a drug collection that looks like a pokemon collection, but don't let that stand in the way of reading some incredible American literature.

Well, he shot himself in the head, committing suicide. He annoyed a lot of people, mostly the button-down set.
So, he antagonized authority figures and went out on his own terms. Sounds like a life well-lived. :)
Well, Nixon was pretty annoyed with him. But that makes him the exact opposite of a terrible person.