Friday, January 07, 2011

Bonzo Gonzo

Doing an Opus Here Boss
Edited down from 400 pages

As recently as 1960, or even 1964, a coalition of party heavies, state conventions, and big-city bosses had chosen the candidate in relatively unviolated privacy, and then presented him to the press to report on.
Now the press screened the candidates, usurping the party’s old function. By reporting a man’s political strengths, they made him a front runner; by mentioning his weaknesses and liabilities, they cut him down. [...] The press was no longer simply guessing who might run and who might win; the press was in some way determining these things.
[...]
But as I walked away from the press trailer that night, slightly shaken, it occurred to me that the networks regarded themselves as omnipotent and sacred institutions, roughly like the Presidency.

Maybe the correspondents didn’t, but the corporate heavies did. Later in the year, I would come across the same mammoth PR operation, the same desire to classify the most trivial and worthless information, the same arrogance, and the same mindless lickspittle respect for any higher executive—at the White House, of course
. [Boys on the Bus]

It will be interesting (for me) to see how this plays out.  In my head it's about 400 pages of delightful insight, but of course I seldom have the discipline, or even the ability to do anything longer than 300 words before miasma sets it.  Where was I?  Oh, right, Fear and loathing and NPR.  I've spent the last two three hours (so far) using Mark Judge's essay as a springboard into reflections of something  personal.

  Okay, I just got coffee and realized I'm petering out so I have to do this stream of consciousness stopping only for periods and spell checks.

Thompson seemed just the man to establish a truly “adversary” relationship with the Presidential candidates. In December 1971, he was dispatched to Washington to open a Rolling Stone office and to turn his violent, satirical, epithet-studded style on the men in the Democratic primaries. I also worked for Rolling Stone, and they sent me out to write the serious backup pieces, keep Thompson out of trouble, and carry the bail bond money. [...]
    Thompson had loaned his press card to a freak, who had run amuck aboard Muskie’s whistle-stop train, insulting reporters and heckling the candidate when he tried to speak at the final stop in Miami. Many of the reporters, seeing only the badge on the freak’s lapel, had taken him for Hunter S. Thompson of Rolling Stone. In the article, Thompson explained the mistake but revelled in its consequences. The piece was a big hit with the press corps, and they soon began to read him regularly. [Boys on the Bus Notes]

The quotes from Boys on the Bus (1968) have more to do with Hunter S. Thompson than with author Timothy Crouse because I remembered Hunter as being the author when he in fact only wrote the forward..  I realized, perhaps not for the first time,  that this book (Bus) had more influence on me than any book after Theodore White's Making of the President 1960.   The bullet observation being that, after watching White become rich and famous by dissecting the 1960 election, while they stuck with the five W's, these journalists he traveled with  had stopped being journalists and were now explainers.
[Clip]

 Along with Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Thompson's Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga. are the two best investigative books ever written.  I don't have a copy to quote from, but from memory the essence of liberal America was captured in his account of a  soirée held by Manhattan liberals, with the Angels brought in like some exotic furniture.  Here, an Angel, possibly Sonny Barger, wearing his piss, booze and sweat soaked vest, is drinking beer from a long-neck, conversing with a middle aged woman draped in a silk gown and sipping Chablis.  Barger listens politely while she prattles on about the the cause this shindig is nominally being held to support, before finally interrupting her:

Do you know what you need?
Startled matron: What?
Someone to eat your pussy! [ ...  the woman later contacted him]
 
[397 pages clipped here]

But the real epiphany came from understanding what "Gonzo journalism," means.  I never really knew.

Gonzo journalism tends to favor style over accuracy and often uses personal experiences and emotions to provide context for the topic or event being covered. It disregards the 'polished' edited product favored by newspaper media and strives for a more gritty approach. Use of quotations, sarcasm, humor, exaggeration, and profanity is common.

" style over accuracy"  HFS, I'm a Gonzo Blogger!  I just need to start drinking earlier.


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I just need to start drinking earlier."

With all due respect, that's your first mistake, Your Highness. You should never stop drinking. It makes the idiocy of our world much easier to tolerate.
--Jack

Wabano said...

I love reading shit about the Hell's.

There, in Quebec city, a priest in
his cadillac burn a red light while a cavalcade of Hell's is thundering
on, killing a dozen and crippling
about twenty...followed by a series of
pics of hunchbacks of Notre Dame look alike...(what was left of them).

Rodger the Real King of France said...

Jack - normally that's my motto, but after the Christmas binge that took 5-6 days to "heal," oye. It's be 3-4 months before I can forget that one.

Anonymous said...

Drink to forget.

Sparrowhawk of Gont

James Hooker, Nipple Whisperer said...

Hunter was a big Amazing Rhythm Aces fan. Go figure. I, sans said band, stayed at his house in Woody Creek outside Aspen in the late 70´s when we played the local theater. He insisted his house was saner than the hotel - I was an idiot. Had a ball. Walked through his front door and 2(two)loaded M-16s were propped in the corner of the open doorway. Two dishes were on the counter, both filled with white powder. ¨If you´re tired, snort that - if you´re wired,snort this.

The next morning he woke me up shaking me by the shoulder ¨James, wake up - the bastards are at it again!¨ He took me to the front porch and pointed across the road to a telephone pole with one of those barrel looking transformers fastened to it. Two things were wrong with it: There were no wires going in or out AND there was a camera lens sticking out pointed straight at Hunters front porch.. We spent the better part of an hour blowing the hell out of it with Hunters Model 29. Fun.

That night, he caled Jimmy Carters personal phone in the White House at 3:AM Washington time, just to see whats up. Don´t remember the conversation (I forgot which bowl to use, I guess)...I do remember Roslyn answered the phone and said ¨Oh, hello Hunter¨ and handed it to the Rocket Scientest. This was after a night of firing tracer rounds from the M-16´s into gallon jugs of gasoline. More fun. After a week, I fled.

JMcD said...

Hunter and I it appears, have something in common. I too am an Amazing Rhythm Aces fan.

Anonymous said...

WooHoo! Who isn't!

Great story Hooker, it's harder than hell to find decent NATO standard tracer these days.

Casca

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