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The late Hunter Thompson's quote on radio

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daveinlargo

Did you ever see this quote? I found it amusing and thought I would post it...

"The radio business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.

There's also a negative side"

-Hunter S. Thompson
 
Actually, no. The quote has been attributed to everything from the real estate business to the music business, but it's from Thompson's book, Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s, published by Summit Books in 1988, and the exact passage is:

"The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason."

The part about "also a negative side" does not appear in the book. The line comes from a promo for Duckman, a no-longer-produced half-hour cartoon for grownups that appeared on the USA Network in the mid- to late-1990s. The promo quotes Thompson and then, for comedic effect, adds the "negative side" as a punchline.

No shame in getting it wrong ... if you Google the phrase "shallow money trench," you'll see numerous references to the radio business, the furniture business, the auto sales business, etc.

Cheers!
 
Sure thing. And, no, I don't get outside much.

About 15 years ago, a coworker announced, "Hey, did you ever see what Thompson wrote about (our very narrow, esoteric industry)?" and then read the quote. Familiar with HST's work but not this particular passage, I said, "There's no way he said that about (our very narrow, esoteric industry). He wouldn't even bother writing about (our very narrow, esoteric industry)," and then proceeded to do some digging. It was fun telling him he was wrong.

I remembered the "Duckman" thing because I happened to see the commercial in question and had flashbacks to the previous conversation with the coworker. To the commercial's credit, the last part of the quote was correctly attributed to the cartoon duck.

"The TV business, etc. ..."
-- Hunter S. Thompson

"There's also a negative side."
-- Duckman

I wish I knew useful stuff, like how to start a campfire with sticks and flint, or how to fly an airplane.
 
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