Requiem For A Heavyweight

As I like to remember him

Writer Christopher Hitchens passed away this week, and with his passing a void has been left in the lives of those he inspired, as well as those he antagonized.

He was the 'Atheist Messiah', a leader to the many followers who've devoted their lives to the 'Church of Argument', an 'anointed one' for those who worship at the alter of his 'cult of personality'. 

He so very much enjoyed using and abusing his great gift as a 'scathing polemicist'. He was so very skilled at eviscerating and nullifying the objects of his contempt, whilst maintaining his trademark 'matter of fact' disposition, poured over an icy glass of deadpan dismissive indifference, polished off with a strategic cough, sip of his drink or playful chuckle.

God I hated his pompous diatribes against God, and his attempts to pry open that rusty 'can o-worms' for profit, and his crusade to enlighten the unwashed masses to the evils of Religion and 'Islamo-Fascism', whilst invoking the resurrection of the most boring question in Philosophy since "is the glass half full or half empty".

He took pleasure in saying what had not yet been said, often ambushing us with his mercenary wit. And If he's 'moved on' to a better place, let's hope for his sake it resembles the 'Twilight Zone' than heaven forbid, Heaven… a place which he once referred to as a 'Celestial North Korea'!  

Isn't it only fitting how Kim Jong Il passed away just a few short days later? Perhaps God, Rod Serling or both, called on the only leader known who could restore any semblance of order after a weekend of Hitchens running amok. 

"Here's to your health"

Oh, and I would be remiss if I neglected to mention what an asshole he could be, and an alcoholic, addicted to a smorgasbord of substances ranging from nicotine to argument induced endorphins.

Despite my spite, I must acknowledge we have all become poorer without him. Oh, and speaking of 'poorer', he once had the audacity to call out that sacred cow Mother Theresa... only Hitchens, or an ass-wipe of the highest order, would dare criticize such a virtuous example of selfless compassion.

Now after a brief battle with cancer, we are left with a gaping hole in human discourse. There is one thing we can be grateful for though, and that's the fact we won't have Christopher Hitchens to push us around anymore.

Dirty CT   December 2011