Hunter S. Thompson’s Daily Routine

Chris Higgins

In her book HUNTER: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson, biographer E. Jean Carroll starts the first chapter with a detailed account of the excess of her subject. It’s completely insane. Here’s what Carroll reports as a sample daily routine for the gonzo journalist (note that it begins at 3pm):

3:00 p.m. rise
3:05 Chivas Regal with the morning papers, Dunhills
3:45 cocaine
3:50 another glass of Chivas, Dunhill
4:05 first cup of coffee, Dunhill
4:15 cocaine
4:16 orange juice, Dunhill
4:30 cocaine
4:54 cocaine
5:05 cocaine
5:11 coffee, Dunhills
5:30 more ice in the Chivas
5:45 cocaine, etc., etc.
6:00 grass to take the edge off the day
7:05 Woody Creek Tavern for lunch-Heineken, two margatoes, coleslaw, a taco salad, a double order of fried onion rings, carrot cake, ice cream, a bean fritter, Dunhills, another Heineken, cocaine, and for the ride home, a snow cone (a glass of shredded ice over which is poured three or four jig­gers of Chivas)
9:00 starts snorting cocaine seriously
10:00 drops acid
11:00 Chartreuse, cocaine, grass
11:30 cocaine, etc, etc.
12:00 midnight, Hunter S. Thompson is ready to write
12:05-6:00 a.m. Chartreuse, cocaine, grass, Chivas, coffee, Heineken, clove cigarettes, grapefruit, Dunhills, orange juice, gin, continuous pornographic movies.
6:00 the hot tub-champagne, Dove Bars, fettuccine Alfredo
8:00 Halcyon
8:20 sleep

Source: Carroll, E. Jean (2011-10-04). HUNTER: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson (Kindle Locations 196-221).

In an appropriately weird twist, this biography is actually only partially available to purchase on the Kindle (where I grabbed the text above). You download the book for two bucks, start reading, and then, I kid you not, the book ends after the first chapter, saying: “The author is too lazy to go on converting HUNTER into an e-book. To read the rest of the book FREE—yes, free—go to www.HunterBio.com.” And indeed, going there does yield both PDF and RTF versions of the book, both of which are riddled with formatting errors. As Thompson said, “Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.”

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