Three Years Without The Doctor

My car was in the shop all afternoon having the catalytic converter welded and plugged enough for it to pass inspection, and since today was my unofficial Saturday, I had the whole day anything I wanted, so long as driving wasn’t a factor. I decided, then, to spend the day in Burlington and try to do something that I have never done before, and that I would have long thought impossible for me to accomplish: to sit and read an entire book in one day. I’ve never even come close to finishing a book in a day, or even a week, and anything over 35 pages in a single day is a lot of reading. I come from the Nintendo Generation, so one can only expect so much.

After dropping my car off at Duncan’s on St. Paul, I walked in the bitter cold towards Church Street, and spent the next six hours bouncing from coffee houses to bars to tea rooms, loading up on as much Yerba Mate and coffee and beer and pizza as it took to get me through the 273 page book; my attention span needs all the help it can get, and caffeine and alcohol seem to help a lot. I had actually gotten a head start, and read the first sixty pages the night before, and read the other 213 today in 60-page intervals, which timed nicely with two drinks per establishment.

I started out at Muddys for Mate and a multiberry scone, sitting at my favorite table near the counter, and by the time Duncan’s called six hours later to say that my car was again legal, I was holed up in a corner at the Daily Planet, sipping on a Scotch with less than 40 pages to go. I had also hit up the Church Street Tavern for a chicken wrap and a beer and Mr. Mikes for a couple slices and a beer, and in between I went to Uncommon Grounds for free Peaberry and a couple solid hours. After UG I went to Dobra for more mate, but I was out of cash and headed over to the Planet instead, hoping that my friend Minkus would be around. Minkus is my old whiskey buddy from The Valley, and he’s also The Chef who runs the entire kitchen. He apparently has Wednesdays off, though, so I sat alone, reading and drinking moderately. Contently.

It was the first time I had let whiskey touch my lip in many months, and I was essentially breaking a New Years Resolution. Due to the book that I was reading, though, and the nature of the day—specifically, the date, and the faux-holiday that I had created around it—I felt that a Chivas on the rocks with a tall glass of water was not only acceptable, but somehow warranted; it was, after all, Hunter S. Thompson Day, and good god, that Chivas tasted good.

It wasn’t a coincidence that I was drinking Chivas, or that I chose today to read The Kitchen Readings: Untold Stories of Hunter S. Thompson, written by Thompson’s close friends and neighbors Mike Cleverly and Bob Braudis, the latter of whom was also Thompson’s Sheriff. Three years ago today, on February 20, 2005, a wheelchair-bound and agony-stricken Hunter Stockton Thompson wrapped his mouth around the business end of a revolver, and repainted the walls in his kitchen with blood, brain, and little chunks of skull. It no doubt resembled the “shotgun art” that he made and sold (he would hang vials of paint in front of certain “targets,” and then blast them both with number six birdshot), and I’m sure that that is exactly how he wanted to go. On His terms, of course, and with His finger on the trigger, but with a nice report and display.

The Doctor sure picked a rough time to check out, though. I understand that a broken leg and wheelchair immobilized him to the point of insanity, and that his body had given out long before his brain, but I’m still not sure why he picked the 20th of February, and a lot has happened since 2005. By the way, Fidel Castro officially resigned yesterday; kinda big. You missed that one, Doc. Same with the Independence of Kosovo and all the bullshit in Pakistan, not to mention this little presidential race going on here in The States (Obama won Wisconsin and Hawaii, by the way, for ten straight). It's all gotten kinda big, Doc. You’d of loved it, and I sure hope that you’re still watching it all unfold from somewhere, because this is as good as it gets.

I was sipping Chivas at The Planet when Duncan’s called, and they said that my car was once again legal, and that I owed them eighty-five dollars. Fair enough, I though. Fair enough. I walked over and paid in full, and then drove off. I came home and started drinking PBR and finished the book, and then fought with my internet connection and smoked and wrote about it all, taking a break in between to go outside for the last lunar eclipse in almost 3 years. It was too cloudy to see anything, though, so I shrugged it off and came back in to drink, smoke and write, and now I’m going to go pass out and get some much needed sleep. Cheers, goodnight, and happy Hunter S. Thompson Day.

"It never got weird enough for me."
-Dr. Hunter S. Thompson