Fear and Loathing at Yuletide

9:00 P.M. A HUNTER S. THOMPSON FAMILY CHRISTMAS. Friends old and new gather at the Thompson freehold to celebrate the season — and the end of all things. 

 

EXT, THOMPSON RANCH — TWILIGHT 

Drifts of white powder almost covering the walkway to the enormous double entrance doors . The camera tracks up to the doors — which magically open! We enter ... 

INT, THOMPSON RANCH 

... a vast open space with roaring fireplace and enormous Christmas tree wherein HUNTER S. THOMPSON celebrates with a festive crowd of friends and hallucinations. These include JESUS, BUDDHA, the WHORE OF BABYLON, BOB MARLEY and the BURL IVES SNOWMAN, who's patrolling with a shotgun, vigilante-style. 

SAMOAN LAWYER: (blinking, pointing) Goddamn — that angel on the top of the tree? There's fucking blood coming out, man. Jesus Christ! 

JESUS: What? 

LAWYER: Forget it. (to THOMPSON) So whaddya want for Christmas? 

THOMPSON: Nothing... 

BUDDHA smiles. 

THOMPSON: I already had my fucking Christmas present.

VIGILANTE SNOWMAN: (Burle Ives-ish) Which was...?

THOMPSON: The death of John Denver. Gift to myself, kinda.

The stoners look at him with blinking uncomprehension.

THOMPSON: I killed John Denver, get it?

BOB MARLEY: I shot the Sheriff. 

WHORE OF BABYLON: So, how'd you ...

THOMPSON: Witchcraft. Scientific witchcraft. 

MARLEY: But I did not shoot no Deputy.

JESUS: Who said you did ...? 

THOMPSON: I'll fucking shoot you if you ...

VIGILANTE SNOWMAN cocks shotgun.

THOMPSON: Kidding Bob. Just kidding. Where the fuck was I?

SAMOAN LAWYER: (holding up reel tape recorder) Confessing to premeditated murder, esse.

THOMPSON: Yeah, right. So anyway. Fucker's up in his little, fag ultralight. He's in the sky. Me? I'm down to earth. I'm riding my scooter ... bringing him down. With magic and shit.

WHORE OF BABYLON: Just like Damien?

THOMPSON: Yeah. Exactly like Damien. Just got on my little Big Chief scooter and went round and round and round in circles — widdershins — counterclockwise, for the uninitiated, turning time back against itself like that little devil did.

WHORE OF BABYLON: Like when Damien killed his mom.

THOMPSON: Exactly, babe, with one key difference. The Man Upstairs ordered this hit. Murder isn't murder, as Maggot pointed out...

TELLY SEVALAS: (sucking Tootsie Pop) Who loves ya, babe? 

THOMPSON: ...when you're an instrument of the Lord's vengeance on that unaborted, pink-ass, baby-faced, moonpie, shitsucking, countryboy, fake-fucking, est-hole WINDOW into the direct cognition of emptiness before sunyatta, the void. Got that torque going ... Coriolis effect. I created a vortex, see? 

BOB MARLEY: An antitime vortext.

THOMPSON: Yeah, you want to get technical. A shearing factor. Fucker went down. He brought me down... he went down. Into the void. A mathematical expression of karma worthy of Dante on a six-day windowpane binge. Get it?

VIGILANTE SNOWMAN: Partially. You've explained the how with your peculiar clarity. But not the why.

THOMPSON: Why what?

VIGILANTE SNOWMAN: Why'd you kill John Denver? 

THOMPSON: God told me to.

VIGILANTE: And why did He do that?

THOMPSON: Because John Denver is a toad. That's in the Bible, right after the Book of Revelations — the pages the fucking Gideons ripped out where they print all the answers in the back of the book. Those fuckers didn't get my copy. Who's the Toad of Babylon? Answer: John Denver. Forbidden knowledge, dig? And that's how God spoke to me. Once I knew, I had to act. And do what? Obviously, kill that "country road" fucker and lick the back of his head and see what that did to me. The logic is ineluctable.

MARLEY: Makes perfect sense to me. 

Thompson holds up JOHN DENVER'S severed head.

 

THOMPSON: Well, here goes nothing. (He licks the severed head — and doesn't get high at all) Nothing. 

The revelers are disappointed.

MARLEY: Nothing for you, fool. Some righteous tolerance you got. Those wasted years were not so wasted. The rest of us might enjoy, huh? Toss the head is what I'm saying.

THOMPSON fires the head to MARLEY. He grabs it like a pro, then licks it. And melts into a psychedelic puddle.

MARLEY: Wow. I finally understand quantum physics!

The revelers' eyes light up.

WHORE OF BABYLON: Me some too! 

She grabs the head. Licks it. 

MARLEY: Don't bogart the head!

 

BOGART: I won't. 

 

They pass the head around... 

 

VIGILANTE SNOWMAN: What's say we sing a song? 

EVERYBODY: Let's do! 

The VIGILANTE SNOWMAN wobbles about the room on his spherical fundament. He sings — and the wasted revelers all join in. To the tune of "When Christmas Time is Here" from the "Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer Christmas" special ...  

SNOWMAN... 

Some acid for Molly, 

A hashpipe for Sue. 

A-dren-e-chrome cocktail ...

Well how-do-you-do? 

When Christmastime is here... 

We'll get fucked for the rest of the year! 

VARIOUS DECADENT PARTYGOERS... 

I like to smoke reefer.

I like to sniff glue. 

I do lots of coke... 

And then I just screw! 

When Christmastime is here... 

We'll get fucked for the rest of the year! 

The eyes on JOHN DENVER's head open. He begins merrily singing, too, as the song fades out and the VIGILANTE SNOWMAN rolls up to us... 

VIGILANTE SNOWMAN: (putting on top hat as he begins to roll away from the celebration) Well, this charming ditty continues through a fairly comprehensive catalog of illicit substances, too numerous to get into at this time. Hunter S. Thompson is now in possession of an automatic weapon, by which he holds off the gate-crashing skeleton army as the Whore of Babylon goes down on him and the partygoers get up a lively game of soccer with John Denver's head. Sad to say, I must leave these revelers for now — as I'm off to fight corporate crime in the gritty streets of a degenerate, post-Apocalyptic America! But remember this, kids... (eyes twinkling) The party's only over when you stop... 

He rolls away. The camera pulls back from the ranch. Bright, bright powder falls. Wolves howl. Eternal night begins.

Chickenshit Disclaimer: The above deranged rant is for parodic, comedic and emetic purposes only. You might even call it a "satire." Specifically, a satire of Hunter S. Thompson's overheated gonzo prose and those creepy Rankin/Bass stop-motion animation Christmas specials. (Like, two great comedy tastes that go great together, dig?) Heck. "Satire's" just a fancy way of saying I don't mean one damn word of this. See, I'm just pretending to be an psycho for laughs. Ha! Truth is, I'm a really nice guy! And I have nothing against John Denver. Or Christmas. Or drugs. Do I? No, no, no, I do! Yeah! I really hate drugs! Drugs are bad, kids. Just say no, OK? But for the record: If you lick the back of John Denver's severed head, you will get seriously high. Just joshing, heh. Merry Christmas, you little bastards!