#1264 - Timothy Denevi

March 13, 2019

Timothy Denevi is a professor in the MFA program at George Mason University and he is the author of "Freak Kingdom: Hunter S. Thompson's Manic Ten-Year Crusade Against American Fascism."

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and this book is all about one of my favorite all-time authors the Great and Powerful Hunter S Thompson and I think you did a fantastic job of explaining his adoration for the man and his work please give it up for Timothy Denevi.

The Joe Rogan Experience

relied what's up man how are you thanks for doing this my pleasure sorry for the false starts then having issues with our equipment

good see that man it's up here and talk on Thompson my my pleasure so your book free Kingdom

you know you live in interesting times right now it's kind of a kind of a shitshow at every if there's no moment about a fist from your face pull that sucker think this one would it what is all this you got a lot of writing a book I wanted to make sure my son says never sounded like Thompson sentence is it this morning before coming on I went and got some of my favorite quotes and just for not longhand to get a sense of what is a what is respected was more than once again didn't he do that with the Great Gatsby and he like typed it out I love that idea he was trying to find like the rhythm of the words that such a fascinating notion because comedians do that in the early days of Comedy like a lot a guys in like before they ever start going onstage themselves they imitate their favorite comedians bits like they'll do a Richard Pryor bed and they'll do to their friends and they'll get

get a sense of the Rhythm in the timing and get those laughs from doing the Richard Pryor bit to their friends and then they get that bag it's like part of what infects them I mean that's the hardest thing to steal or not plagiarizing but we're trying to understand what decisions they made a beautiful work but it is it's so unfortunate when when someone does you know when it's when you have someone with a hunter Richard Pryor anyone is just got a truly exceptional and unique mind or someone who doesn't like our president and decided when he ran in 2016 to plagiarize Richard Nixon's 1968 convention speech directly inspiration I'm sorry his bration Nixon is the one to the right about crime and a barbarian at the gate crime Law & Order those were all from Nixon's shity but successful 1968 Miami convention speech and Thompson knew how effective at that was yeah I wonder if he

did that on purpose because he was so good the one thing that Trump is so good at he's so good at getting the media to talk about him and like one of the best way to get the me to talk about I'm let's give them something to be angry about the no one else is going to give a fuck about Melania plagiarize but I plagiarize much better for the next to Melania took some lines from Michelle Obama's wedding back at Thompson's career and then try to write like a novel to dramatize all of the experiences he went through that are today so out the oldest and then to show his respect

I'm there. It's Donald Trump convention but the inspiration Nixon I was like you're running on Nixon what are some parallels you know I mean do you remember when when Hunter got together with Bill Murray and Bill's brother and they did that thing where they were trying to get people to Nixa got a bad deal we got to bring them back and people are going along with it now yeah there's a lot of parallels with Trump in that regard my favorite quotes by on Thompson like I'm Richard Nixon is with his Barbie doll family and his Barbie doll life is like America's answer to you know it's America's dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde like you know he is the werewolf he speaks to the werewolf in us and chose to hide that werewolf until it finally came out cuz you wasn't saying with our Trump ran on the werewolf he's like that's who I am

how to use to try to get elected in Lake George Wallace did like other politicians did it hot residents and it happened with Trump because of our media environment because of the place we live in now to amplify I'm all the way to the most powerful position in the world which isn't saying it would be really fast and to see if Hunter was alive and is prime now how he would I think his take on a very similar to Matt Taibbi Matt Taibbi in my opinion our more reasonable more put together version of Hunter Thompson because he's more to stain discipline a long career there's a bunch of cops are all the time like I'm sure you've heard the recently uncovered recording of Hunter calling into some company that install the DVD player is fucking screaming and yelling at 7:15 to get Slauson if it doesn't work

how are you manipulating the way we see you later version of you out and tell you he looks at the way the media gets played he looks the way that Administration manipulates the media and he dramatizes that goes back to Thompson with Nixon Thompson headspace when he worked for Lordstown you can read about how Nixon made everybody watch his speeches the Press on the closed-circuit television and they made the Press just like Trump off in the corner when the plane arrive camping berated by everybody is very similar to what is going on now and again we see people getting hot takes are we see people doing opposite don't see people dramatizing how many people live in these corrupt administration's are in war and Thompson definitely was Nixon being berated by the Press is that why you chose to have them investigate them like he was a crook with San Clemente like his loans with the Eurozone all that is correctly use the IRS to investigate his enemies music when you tried to break into the Brookings

mission to destroy bomb evidence like he didn't want the Press around him because he is very serious crimes that I think that's what we see now I mean as president no digging into their life specifically because it's you don't want show me that's with journalists but they both knew they had so much to hide that they actually have a journalist like Hunter Thompson who was a good investigative journalist that having a second baby around that's dangerous pretendo go to jail with Nixon should have it well who knows what's going to happen how did you how'd you get involved with the writings book I've always loved.

Bellarmine college preparatory up in San Jose and I'm going to Counter Culture writing class and so I wrestled in there and then a friend had an audiobook of Fear and Loathing and so I just remember the first time hearing that old audiobook of Fear and Loathing them were somewhere around Barstow to the desert none of my twenties I really got in this strange Rumblings in a salon with spout a conspiracy within the Los Angeles Police Department regarding the death of Ruben Salazar I'm a prominent member that I'm like oh my god dude this isn't somebody that's just dancing on stage or if I performing a road narrative investigative journalists to go into the most powerful people

starting things they don't want us to see any more sense risking his life to do so because he says in strange Rumblings a nozzle on which is rolling stone in 1970 says that they're willing to kill Ruben Salazar who was the most prominent journalist in Los Angeles You could argue at the time what the fuck is to stop them from killing me how to talk set for asking these questions why I think that's what a lot of people are saying today with Jamal khashoggi you know Jamal khashoggi's death has got a lot of journalists really freaking out like what you know what am I doing if I'm criticizing world leaders and talk to you about International politics if this could happen to me little violence is effective because it's used to silence either opposition or journalist and so for me writing this book and I tried to jump like a novel it's quick it's like only 220 to a hundred pages of notes so excited every sight smell her sound so that somebody that knows Thompson really well give you like where the fuck did you get this and somebody else can if they have questions to the book

was in Chicago 1968 where Hunter Thompson had a press pass he went to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday nightmare daily give this order to clear the intersection of Balbo and Michigan because it was a protest going on five ten thousand people standing next to the Haymarket in which is on the ground floor level is a plate-glass window he was sitting with delegates from the Democratic National Convention are what in the cop charged they did like a double pinch of formation like Hannibal in like tomorrow in like fucking 100 BC and they split the protesters not beat everybody hit Thompson over the head he got his motorcycle, not just in time so as not to cuss you can see everything is going on the entire plate glass window behind it shatters everybody falls in cup jump in or beating everybody and he's looking around and he sure that snipers on the roof are going to open fire at any moment so he runs to the Blackstone where he's staying across the way shows his room key gets beat up by the cops because I live here God dammit

let me my fucking around and he barely gets it and he just sits on his bed afterwards he says they knew I was pressed this summer they hit me because I was pressed political opponents a journalist are being clubbed to keep silent and to not respond then this is nothing Marcus to window yeah his ex-wife talked about that is being one of the only moments where she saw him cry for 2 weeks. The time is very similar in a lot of ways to what's going on today just today there's just so much more information and so much more people so much more of an ability to communicate yeah I think it's almost easier to coordinate violence I was just talking to the head of the proud boys you know Gavin McInnes is a group I'm Enrique tarrio and he's like you know he's at

you saying he's using the language of the left you like I'm a victim I can't buy groceries that taking my bank accounts my plan for him when he talks about violence he's like who the fuck are you and he felt like I'm you know you're a hundred twenty pounds of like we have Civil War you're going to lose and I was sitting next to the podcast and that's what I said was hit by sniper fire from the proof you're not going to be a good idea on the right that we can push towards violence we can get very close to it with our rhetoric or with our actions but that it won't spread like a conflagration won't keep going I don't know if that's the right I mean I was in tape on the left two and that's why I love Thompson was hard on the left as he was on the right when he wrote and I was so important for his intelligence as a rider but I think just even the left and the right in general for a lot of these people is just an identity and the Gang they belong to and I don't think they're really understand violence you know you want to talk about violence talk to a military guy if you don't talk to someone who really understands what violence actually is and they don't have

is empty rhetoric like these fools do that is a lot of these people that are calling for violence like no you should be calling for camaraderie you should be calling for communication we should be calling for some way we can all work this out where the civilians the the civilization that we live in that we aren't we all can get along together and most people don't want to impede you from living your life and doing what you want to do most people believed in working within the system but you can still run for Sheriff has been any violence that means the conversation has stopped at this figures you so we cried for two weeks I was the most surprising thing for me research it was spoken ready was the see how much the violence affected him that he experienced at Chicago you can speak to someone who's done punched in the face as hard as somebody can punch you most Americans and that changes your ability to articulate something back in that moment means you if that's political if it's a police officer or a political opponent that uses violence

instead of an argument to respond to you we've left the round that we recognize and we're not going to be able to communicate even though limited way they were treated kidding right now Thompson do that that's why after Chicago love and went back to Aspen because it was his way to controlled environment knowing that he's not listening to his non-violent protests is not listening to his non-violent protest Thompson needed to find another Avenue to try to work within the American system to make things happen in a great contrast is his good friend Oscar Zeta Acosta there's a wonderful PBS documentary it rise and fall of the brown Buffalo by on Phillip Rodrigues right direction it cost his life that's who dr. Gonzo is based on a lie. Was eventually set up by that and for him working within the system he ran for Sheriff wasn't an option to the cob set him up for a high-speed bust you know that the cops had the cops had an undercover Agents from Suffolk

special operations for conspiracy Department in the LAPD at the time and they were trying to use those provocateurs to incite violence against the plainclothes please so that or the chemicals please so that lethal violence could be used to silence a civil rights movement brown bread so they use agent provocateurs to make it look like they're part of the protest appraisal Rights Movement cuz the most effective weapon in silencing civil rights is lethal force and you can do that in another country is the u.s. is done but you must can't use tactics like my lilac pumps in the US unless you have a provocative reason this Friday that's undercover attacks a cop and so the cops then like what happened on August 29th 1978 during the moratorium Riot it just flood in East LA

yeah those are darker days when couldn't communicate as well and I think that's one of the reasons why Hunter decided to run for sheriff in Aspen is that he felt like he could control that area like it would have a direct impact on his life the local politics have a real impact in your day-to-day existence where is what's going on in Washington for the most part signed affecting you if you live in Woody Creek there were people that had Nixon's point of view in Aspen who are like let's develop this Valley beyond what it can hold an intimate environment let's imprison hippies because they are going to take away from our tourist economy you know that's not how or not accurate to normal like civil rights laws is a Thompson you know enough participatory democracy on the tip of Sonia democracy way ran for Sheriff by emphasizing personal agency and most of all trying to get up at youth felt like people who had left the political system but we're living in Aspen lot of people who like hippies who'd fled the cities in the late 1960s and we're living in the Westin he got them

well then they should have won the mayor mayoral campaign with a Joe Edwards. Thompson was the director of that and they want by like 6 but when I ran for Sheriff it got really bad and he talks about this in fear and loathing on the campaign Trail later is that a few nights before both parties the Democrats and the Republicans freaked out and so the Democrats said all right what kind of throw our weight behind you the Republican sheriff and then you Republicans will throw your weight for a County Manager behind our candidate is a Thompson Blue Sea by like two or three hundred boats and sew in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on the campaign Trail 1972 he's at the Nixon campaign Nixon's getting his acceptance speech at the convention Thompson's with the Nixon youth we're about to do a demonstration and he says like you know I'm not a journalist you can't kick me out if you ever run for office and then Dixon guy is like know if you ever Thompson's like sheriff and I would have won but the liberal stuck it to me

but I like to have it comes like a thief used it once in ten years maybe you don't need it we could try not having it you know when his gun rights Peters Rec-Plex and changed after Bobby Kennedy's death but he was so intelligent on stage when the sheriff was like I just want this job real bad like gulping like couldn't serrated by Thompson it's it's a really interesting the documentary that follows the campaign and when you get to see him in a heart fell on when he loses in you got a sense of what did that there is real hope back then like that if these guys could do that and what's interesting now is you know back in the 70s they really did have a free community in Aspen that shit's gone now I don't know what happened to replace the millionaires

people like it's one of the rare places where people still wear fur coats you know fake but real fur fur fur coat but if you did you might get fucked up but most likely nothing's going to happen but there's a possible chance which is really weird cuz if you wear a leather jacket you have no problem it's weird you know because a lot of that Thompson's friends like Lauren Jenkins a great journalist on the move down to Basalt that's a down Valley with his on his son one Thompson is a fantastic writer he wrote a book called on I'm stories I tell myself about his relationship with his father he seems like a good dude and you seem like a really good dude in the Gonzo documentary as well yeah I'm a big fan of went to

who was the The Tavern in Woody Creek when I wasn't felt like if I'm here just as a year ago you're an avid or people on bicycles just riding their bikes by the whole time at Thomas Beach bike route now as cold as fuck it was the winter how can we were there for ski trip so what did you think of it was just cool you know it's like there's places you go to where you just you just kind of you know I was with my family didn't give a fuck my kids have no idea who is the children listen to know who he is to me

you know represented a big part of who he you know this is like this is home base he cannot tarry San Francisco and there's a picture of me there I think there's a picture of me there on my Instagram was a special place from when he was in San Francisco is like being on the central nerve he was there from 64 to 67 and 66 and Esau the first Jefferson Airplane concert right next to the Matrix you went out every night till like 5 a.m. is what the Hell's Angels that's awesome how to respect his life up look the fool ya the sheriff's campaign in a simple bit he had you see it in his eyes on you see when you repeat what you said in his letters and space again and be in the city was hard for him because he write beautifully about the Hell's Angels about the countercultural saying he was at War protests in the Free Speech movement Mario Savio

there it was burning him up you know it was using him up and I think when he went to Woody Creek he learned that alright I can take a plane to Chicago get my ass kicked but I can come back and if I don't have a drink I can go to that Tavern or I can go to the Jerome Hotel yeah that's a good space and I think that was a good place for him I think that's a a probably a very intelligent move on his behalf and a lot of us I think that are involved in day-to-day chaos would probably benefit from something somewhere for his effort you know one thing I found when writing the book I interviewed any Bob Geiger who fear and loathing is dedicated to and who was the doctor that I was a friend of his in Sonoma a geiger initially was the one who prescribe them dexedrine and so people think Thompson was just doing acid and writing or whatever and maybe later is a caricature whoever he became that might have been part of his persona but when he was ready from the book Esperanza Kennedy's assassination to Nixon's resignation he was working so fucking hard like he was working harder than we can ever imagine the presidential

who does his on literacy talks about Thompson wasn't as fun as he seems during that time he took a right and he had a drinking problem that's cut differently with salt so it's a little bit like you go a little higher and when it comes down it's a little hard it will add her I was ovitrol which was an old diet drug known as repurposing like 96 that is a little bit smoother in that sense but it's very similar to what to what Thompson took he has a great editor named Margaret harrill and was his head around Hells Angels she didn't know she was 27 when he was putting any thought you liked 55 cuz there was talk on the phone every day to edit the book and he sent her she still has the letter I've been sending a bunch of their she still has the actual letter he sent her a 5 milligram dexedrine he's like hey it's going to be hard the last 10 pages to edit take this if she still has it this orange pill 5 mg dexedrine for 40-50 years documentary

really fantastic it's probably one of the best introductions that anybody could have to try to get a grip on why after all these years Hunter resonates with so many people I mean I think that they give me documentary is currently in perfectly done I think the Thompson mean something different with Donald Trump as president of the United States to me give me stop before other like a brilliant writer shop before Tybee did but when Donald Trump became president of the United States it was a lens on to the past I felt like I was just liberal like I was fucking upset and so one of the ways I dealt with it was to just remove myself to 1968 1967 1969 I took the emotion I hadn't present for people that baby don't know I'm only know I'm through Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Terry gilliam's phone I would like freaking do to be a lens that now if they read that they could then read his work and perhaps you know what his time

this will come through with it more it was an attempt to focus that time assassin that would help was the fucking Terror of our present you can see the definitely see the parallels and in his work you know who also Rings true like that is a lot of Bill Hicks stuff on the first Gulf War and no end and Bush as a president and you know which obviously people today would probably be dying. Bush as president of the original yeah well that's our discourse today to were there couldn't be anything said reasonably about him when he passed away or you know that isn't right and I think it's not he's not very favorable right now but one of them to Thompson's main influences was Norman mailer I don't think I'm going to write swell about women and I think that's I think Thompson wrote better about women Thompson didn't just what is Rider that says it's like he's watching the Knicks and Nets

get off the next airplane he's like there were thirty-three redheads like five had long legs like this like to it's like male you didn't need to write that fucking passage you're writing about power and people more stream the new siding nailer it's beautifully about men that have more power than am so stressed about 1968 Chicago or Thompson didn't cuz Thompson was beat up that he writes about that moment of Thompson's been beat up I'm confused what is a criticism of the way he's writing about women just describing them physically that he stabbed his wife in 14 days he did a psychiatrist psychiatric evaluation instead of going to jail

so I would say that better about 1 because you understood that running with it with more power than you was really important and when the other rights about people with more power than them. Muir daily beating the shit out of everybody he writes really beautiful and that somebody that's resonating right now with what Trump is doing with the violence that were saying on the right then on the left for me that was sitting with about Pat Buchanan who was Nixon's on Main Aid in during that moment in Chicago in the Haymarket in shattered and everybody would be up and they're looking down from the 17th floor and mailers thinking like well this is what happens if police take over society and you write beautifully about how the police came and split pretentious cuz he's so high up running and then gorgeous in Buchanan would write later like I knew that Nixon was going to be president of the United States because it's fucking Hubert Humphrey that gutless old Ward heeler can't control his own convention and his own party how is he going to be able to run the country and sosuna Chicago violence

the Nixon campaign do they won the election

happy tanning it's really interesting because even though Hunter would sit on him happy Canada's actually if and they are like they sit there and went deep like all night but he definitely Hunter definitely shit on them but we should have a heart that became the ship back on him hard. The first night they met was at the Nixon I'm at the at the Holiday Inn in 1968 in New Hampshire during Nixon's come back campaign and Thompson what's it in Petco chemicals who's this damn guy with the damn ski jacket walking through a goddamn Lobby and talks like I have a press pass like I'm here to do this and so they like have this big moment and then later on that night time to go to a party with campaign people and with Cannon and he brings a big bottle of wild turkey and so we can is a young journalist of the timing worked at the st. Louis on put the special Key condos Columbia journalism school is working for next to message mean policy guy and he looks at on Seaside cast the fucking Mesquite

no more in Thompson no talk about how it disfigures us to be there for more than unjust and destroys our democratic ideals to be doing that and became was like containment nuclear war we're trying to get out of it and they would see each other till dawn but that first night that they meant now what was your idea behind writing this book what what compelled you I think we mistaken Thompson I think that we seem more like a Doonesbury care I hate people who know I'm really well don't but I think that most people through whatever cultural forces that we had expenses a voice cuz a lot of people don't know the comparison in the 80s or 70s 80s 90s cartoon Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau if he came there was a character on a call to uncle Duke and Uncle Duke was based on Hunter Thompson and he was kind of an exaggerated version of hundred something with a cartoonish version of Hunter S Thompson and I think Terry Gilliam did it wonderful and kind of altruist job on a job on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but that's also an exact

Hunter Thompson we forget today the amount of work on a Thompson did the effort you put out we forget that he was a straight journalist or he did the freelance assignments he wrote the straight articles for years to make my family and it wasn't until he had his breakthrough with Hells Angels that he could develop a style that we identify with today and so it tells me that we identify him more as a clown or it like you know more as a cartoonish figure as opposed to a very serious political thinker activist and serious writer who can give us insight into the fucking shit show experience every moment today but I think the the perception of him is fairly new honest I don't think that everybody thinks of me as a cartoon character although particular later on this life he was relegated to that because you really didn't speak well you know later on his life and he was just the drugs had taken over his son writes about the alcohol alcoholism

I mean when he was deep into his sixties is why I was so hard to even understand him there's a awful piece that he did Conan O'Brien or Conan went to Woody Creek and shotguns off the back porch with them and you could barely understand the fucking world Hunter saying that's why I tried to end it with Nixon leaving because it was really sad when Nixon resigned Hunter Thompson was at the Connecticut Hilton which is a hotel right by the White House Annie Leibovitz the photographer with rolling stone was calling him and saying we need to get to the White House Nixon is leaving but he's going to get on the helicopter and Thompson just laid in the grass and he didn't go you know and that was heartbreaking you need to end up writing the eight-page spread that he needed to instead of became Annie Leibovitz is photography which was a famous and in retrospect like huge mood for her career but I think that pain right there of thinking that he'd spent 10 years since the Checkers speech

for Eisenhower he didn't listen since 1962 when Nixon lost the California governor on ship and set you in a press you've been giving me the shaft for so long like you don't have dick Nixon to kick around anymore Thompson have seen that Nixon was somebody who said I'm just a poor son of a butcher I'm just this like very hard-working American that represents all of us I not like he was a politically no ravenous monster who was anti-communist to go to any extent to win and Thompson saw that and Thompson knew that other people saw it and in 1964 the Barry Goldwater convention in San Francisco my favorite Lee named Arena of all time the Cow Palace Barry Goldwater was going to speak and what happened was Nixon was introducing it was an excellent way back from the Wilderness Thompson was a few rows back the first time, so I think was that close to see my life and this is like a son of a butcher don't think about me

speak about Barry Goldwater mr. conservative will become mr. president in Thompson was like fuck everybody here knows he's lying but they think that that active line is a skill and we're used car salesman who make a lot of money off it for a decade for a lot of years and when Nixon left I think he felt spent and so I try not to focus on the later I ended then and 74 cuz I think it's some beautiful things he was still a green had some moments where he decided to not do the assignment that he was supposed to do and it was kind of sad like the Ali Foreman fight funny floated in the pool float in the pool with a Nixon mask on football the way to Africa from the greatest sports moments it was like being sick of you know you know that Boston Red Sox versus the Reds I think Hollywood

something different to people than I think it's I don't think we have someone like that today so it's very difficult for us to understand people today look at all leading to go out he was a heavyweight boxing champion he was way more than that he was a cultural figure that represented the resistance to the Vietnam War and represented it with the biggest loss that any public figure it ever shown and willingly gave up three years of his career in his prime from is 27 of 30 from 1967 from the Cleveland Big Cat Williams fight he didn't fight again for three years he didn't trade and do anything they kept him from his career when he was in his prime when he was the best heavyweight of all time and he spoke publicly and often and in whose fucking hate it all over the country but he represented something different like my parents were hippies and when I was a little kid he lost to Leah

Spanx and the rematch was on television my parents never watch TV and they definitely never watch Boxing and they've date they sign from that TV to watch the I remember thinking I can't believe my parents want to watch a boxing match like this is crazy and I was probably like I don't know maybe 8 or 9 years old or something at the time and I just remember thinking I don't I can't believe my parents want to watch the boxing match and that's why I really would have sunk into me at a really early age that this guy was not just this heavyweight boxer he was he was a cultural icon he was a historical figure he meant he meant a lot into Hunter he meant a lot he meant something something much bigger than just just a boxer and so Hunter thought he was going to a death sentence George Foreman dead Crush Joe Frazier he crushed everybody mean he was so powerful George Foreman to this day is one of the all-time scariest heavyweights of all time

without a doubt he he could hit so fucking hard and literally pick guys off their feet he hit Joe Frazier and lifted him off his feet with a punch and everybody was convinced that that was going to happen to Ali Ali have been past prime and look just look what George Foreman had done to Joe Frazier what is he going to do to Muhammad Ali and I'll leave you sore rope-a-dope them until he got tired and fucked him up in front of the whole world that's one of the greatest athletic moments we forget that athletes like Curt flood they risked American baseball player who challenged the reserve Clause has a baseball you weren't allowed to get free agency for another team in kirkfield was this great player and he was like I'm going to sit out and I'm going to wait at least I Colin Kaepernick they've sacrificed occur if it's not the same with Muhammad Ali who was like Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds in like everybody combined at that one moment but he was risking is the opposite of trump used his celebrity

become this even more mangled version of himself and get more power to speak for his virtue in his value in his beliefs and shut Thompson was really good at understanding what people sacrifice people have to give up the wager you know between what that act will be what the results will be there maybe later but he knew that and so his respect for all of you for giving up those years of his prime you know what was enduring you keep Thompson came back from that fight and he gave his son on 1 boxing gloves that we're at Ali's boxing gloves very very unfortunate that you miss that fight because it would been fascinating to hear his take on a me I'm sure you would have been so moved when he saw Ali win it wasn't I mean that's a good point was indicative of I take the stress and pressure that the last decade cover Nixon had taken out from him what is a little bit of that but let's be honest he was also kind of a fuck up I mean when he was running for Rolling Stones and they gave him that that early fax machine

that thing I do. Plug-in plug it back in he would do it just so he could go to the bar and say this thing doesn't work but that was the end I think it is our Christmas still on point you still playing the role of a serious journalist that you would use that Persona as a fuck up and there's Letters by Young winner being like you cannot turn in your articles 3 hours before we go to press I know you made it this doesn't fucking work and so he was beginning to break down then it was also on the tail end of his decorative being a journalist to admit every deadline so that's good fucking feed his family and he could afford out for like there were moments where we went before he got the contract for Hells Angels in 1965 he was ready to be like a longshoreman he was going and looking for work in the mornings in San Francisco you know what to try to support his family was willing to give up writing instead that article blew up and he for all these beautiful letters begin arrive at 319 Parnassus what he looked at on that the top of the hate Ashbury Inn on San Francisco and you know that opened up his chance to continue being a writer but money was the main motivating factor

so I think once a money like unfurled once alcohol is my thing to its toll and once he couldn't walk around anymore out of political campaign convention without people just like grabbing a shoulder and say your Hunter Thompson quotes that happened I think things began to change yeah that's one of the things you talked about that I thought was really interesting that he became a part of the story it wasn't just that he was covering stories couldn't be anonymous anymore he was in many cases more famous in the people that he was covering you know like when he would go to meet Nixon all Nick Nixon Secret Service agents wanted to meet them and they wanted to get an autograph from him and shake his hand and it was just too weird everything I got and then there's the alcoholism that alcoholism look at it it's a depressant and if you read me and Greg Fitzsimmons on a podcast once read off that one journalist who is detailed Hunters daily routine and so we we read the daily routine and they put a techno

U2 it's fucking hilarious I was a bad that's a setup so it's so funny because those seem funny like I mean that that daily routine that was the the biography of Hunter it was in that and it's just it's heartbreaking I mean we could remember that the dedication to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was he who makes a beast of himself gets for the pain from a man and I think it was painful for the people to see powerful people abused the week now and like take what they wanted brazenly without being held the cowboy editors who cut half your fucking essay on Nixon her have her story and made it into something that had nothing to do with the effort that you put out to pay your bills and you know live the way that she wanted to live and I think a lot of that gets undermined I just want people to realize how much effort she put out especially during those years where he was like all right I want to be a great journalist I want to have a voice in our society I want to participate or national conversation my only passwords that is to work harder than everybody else

beat places when things happen when they matter he sacrificed a lot for that but he was there and he's a voice in a light that we cannot In This Moment which is another troubling moment in American history was very unique to in that he decided to combine Fiction with nonfiction in a very weird blurry way so we just dramatizing is Morocco a rich doctor said there was this is about Ed Muskie campaign I said there was a rumor that he did it again I started that that's what he says but I think Matt Taibbi on the show talked about it well where is that must be was already out of the campaign when that came out must get already lost and so it must have been a fucking monster and a terrible person on that campaign and so Thompson use that version of muskie

and wrote as to be sitting very straight way that it began started and so if you had a sense of irony you kind of knew like you're not really thinking that this is a guy who did Abel game so I think there's cues in there for a listening audience but what I think is even more I think he dramatize the way other people didn't he would say I look left I look up I see he came down to me and then he said people didn't write like that in journalism they didn't step by step and he did and I was really important what I think is more important in the story so the front-runner for the Democratic Primary in 1972 he fucked up his campaign afterwards Thompson talked about how he'd heard that there are there was a rumor that this candidate was doing it again which is like Ayahuasca or a different song of hallucinatory to self exam ettore but he said they brought in a Brazilian witch doctor

Africa is this what I think people don't remember his before that in this effect of the election in February of 1972 Thompson was in Florida he was on something called the Sunshine special it was a Whistle Stop tour that must be the front-runner how to get a chance to beat Nixon poll numbers wise was going all the way down to Florida Peninsula on to try to win the Florida primary and Thompson was like this is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen I could ever stop must give you the same shit speech it's like somebody should be a president named Lee me and it was repeated the reporters for life of this is terrible must give us to conclude in the back of the car he didn't interact with anybody they had his political operatives cannot make everybody likes sing the song like about like must be like sunshine in his hands Whole World in His Hands was terrible and so that night Thompson pulled into a Florida town and was the second last stop and he in this young political reporter named Monte chitty

I'm going to get a drink at 2 a.m. and this guy walks into the lobby he's like 66250 Peter Sheridan and he and he walks in and he he says he's like the most you can pay and all these things he ends up going out with some Hunter Thompson for a drink and Hunter Thompson finds out that Peter Sheridan had been a good friend of Jerry Garcia had angels in California had a Honda where can he see was and was actually a pretty smart guy who is out of his mind in his mid-twenties they stayed out and drink all night at the end of the night Thompson's like so what you doing where are we going

picture and was like why I'm going to Miami and functions like we are to you don't have to hitchhike fuck that so there's a really good journalist on Outlaw it's cold out a journalist spy on Bill McKee in the biography facts about Thomson took his something to express pass put it into the elevator press the button send a press pass down to the ground floor Peter Sheridan got it so Peter shared he could ride free on the Sunshine Express downtown Miami the next day so Thompson oversleeps because I fucking must be campaign doesn't like him anyways instead Peter Sheridan gets on the Sunshine Express with a Hunter Thompson Prescott and Sheridan goes on to order 12 martinis and he goes to give me like a triple chin bucks hold the buck and he runs up and down the car and you know musky it's been a really shity candidate at this point he's not engaging people he got in this weird fight time with his wife at a on a campaign event where they like put shaking each others face if it's been really weird if you are reporting on it like other reporters aren't saying he's unstable and some

skip the end of this week. He spent all his campaign money to go up and down and try to do this. Liked or give the speech at the Caboose and Jerry Rubin the anti-war activists who was one of the Chicago 7 and was it it has come to a column is in the crowd and he's singing musky so why did you support the Vietnam War 1968 like who do you think you are and so muscular get you a room but he's had a young man keep your mouth shut but needs must be reaching up from the bottom that Caboose Peter Sheridan is holding a gin bottle and grabbing at muskies leg as much as he tries to give the speech and then must be falls back in the whole thing ends that the whole press conference is over like women's wear daily reported this and it came out that Hunter Thompson that had 13 martinis and run up and down the train and had interfered with it and must be campaign really believed that Thompson was working with Donald segretti & Nixon's creep Watergate

2 fukkit muskies campaign and that actually change the course it like Thompson help expose how fucked-up musky was as a candidate at that time and Tom said never forgiven musky for being on a pro Vietnam War platform at the 1968 convention and so we talked about it the effect of changing the campaign but that report and the way that disseminated through media way with pick up by other newspapers really did help change the perception of Ed Muskie at Big Ed Muskie as Angels he hadn't really totally formulated that sort of Gonzo style journalism but he did have a little bit of fiction mixed in with that and that sort of ran him afoul of the hell 8 Hell's Angels they were very upset by that right lucky he did write some things in there that they claim or not accurate I think that when it came to Hells Angels

what Thompson did really well that's what Joan Didion did really well he took the way the media was betraying somebody and he strip that off and said this is who they actually are this is what they're actually doing Joan Didion when she writes about Jim Morrison The White Album she's like Jim Morrison was like sex and death in his leather pants was the best thing ever everybody loves Jim Morrison and then in the scene in The White Album Joan Didion write about how they sit at a recording studio for 2 hours nobody says anything they eat eggs out of a paper bag into fucking nightmare Thompson knew that the media sensationalizing the Hell's Angels he went to them on a cold night in San Francisco down by the Waterfront you said hey here's a Newsweek article here's a Time article here's how everybody's running about you all I want to do is write the truth about who you are and he did and he ended up riding with them and explain some of them I don't think they got as mad at him about the way he portray them I think they got mad that he began to make money for that she became famous Hells Angels 05

a hundred thousand paperback copies that is almost impossible to imagine today about that they felt I owed him more money or owed him something for that Dick Cheney the troll did he give them any money he said that

he said the Thompson was doing a subjective version of us but it was at least closer than the shity Newsweek and time versions and so Thompson at the end of a finish the book barely made the deadline had to go down to a hotel in Monterey lock himself instead for a hundred hours straight and write it in March of us at 7 to finish it so turns it in makes his Advanced deadline in September they're like here's our author photo and it's shity he's like fuck that so he just goes to hell Angels rally he doesn't know anybody cuz he hasn't been with him for six or seven months he's taking pictures that's when he got beat up crying about the Hell's Angel and heat tiny his friend who later committed suicide after Altamonte after being involved in the Altamonte security situation like Marion Marion another one Lindsey

some guys with Lindsay give me one is normal in the future men are named Susan I know it's a girl's name in your last letter that poor guy was the Thompson was there in tiny grab him after he was beat up there's a guy holding a rock to drop it on Thompson with the Hell's Angels and Tiny was like I know him I know the rest of you don't and he grabbed them out and Tiny was this like enormous Hell's Angel who had been you know Thompson was very good at empathetically understanding their flaws and their perspectives he never I think me excuses for me said that their inherent perspective is fascistic the rights that you know he says they use violence to respond to where they were in society their idea of total retaliation

any effects like looking at you funny or being like to drink could be met with everybody beating you up cuz they got to terminate they got the Hell's Angels got to determine if that's like that was fascism in Europe beautifully about the Reliance on violence cuz he they felt Hells Angels they've been left behind by are moderated Society like ours technology is all these new jobs if you came back from the war 1950 you had a chance in Oakland to have a middle-class life in a beautiful house and work the rest of your days and have a family that will then go on but by 1965 longer an option and the Angels were a violent response that very similar to what we're saying now it's the way he wrote about the Hell's Angel very similar to the way that we see violence within groups that are supporting Trump you know it would smell it in the right did he ever wind up resolving his differences with the Hell's Angels I think so Sonny Barger rightly so that those were you know I should like a mob Mafia group people went to jail Sonny Barger went to jail

say at the end of appreciated his representation of them because it was better than any other again I guess the Thompsons effort you ride for six months with somebody and you're an honest like we have your hands you're not trying to fit what you see into a thesis you're doing the opposite trying to look at the reality house in front of you and then form an argument out of that get beat up taking those photographs. That's why he left like it the fuck out of San Francisco bracelets amazing like it's a fire that you're putting your hand on to how did he was coming down it was the Mayor of Richmond he was coming down a slick Road and they had hit on something was wet or an oil thing and it went out the back tire was fine but his friends knee hit railroad tracks

translate broke really badly and it was the Mayor of Richmond and that's continued riding motorcycles though yeah he did he was he was pretty careful like so I love that scene and how they know that I know if readers or listeners know this but the edge you know not to major part of the book where Thompson's fighting with his wife Thompson's finish this book but he's breaking down because you work so hard to do it and so he takes his BSA out and he goes if you know San Francisco he goes out to the park he hits the Coast Highway and he comes down it and he's like I'm so overwhelmed pretty so fucking terrible he's going as fast as he can and he talks about how his eyes begin to lose moisture you know the scene like that this is beautiful sheet sand pits in a sand pit near the fucking. I think it's all the way to Rockaway Beach which is like halfway down to Santa Cruz he turns around and he talks about is when he's at a hundred miles per hour and I think he was near death like you could really overwhelmed he says

now the edge the only people that know it by the people that have gone over the rest the living don't have any understanding of it and all we can do is approach it in the end is coming out of the Coast Highway it was until judgement, you know I'm beautiful but comes back and he sits at his desk until he had a view of the Bay Bridge you can see it's two flashing lights in both time and he had broken window in a terrible fight with his wife like three weeks earlier and so it's it's the broken window and he writes out that seem right away with his eyes still scoured stuff wasn't a broken window when she wouldn't give him a gun. Seuss on acid me through a shoot through the window there's three there's three versions she wrote I Really respect Sandy look deeply she wrote at the a few years ago she said I'm done giving interviews with about something that was my life that was then given so many interviews up to this point

but that exists and so I wanted to respect that more than anything and here's the best version I could make dramatized look like throw do this bitch talk to Anita I need to be great I had talked a little bit about the book ended so early that I there's a beautiful our need is a second wife she runs out Farm she runs kind of his legacy she does a Facebook page she was a wonderful job what is our form today does she still live up there and she's going to make it into weather for writers Retreat House Retreat and also a on the museum has taken a while but sit on his legacy as yet but since she didn't leave until the 90s I wanted to focus on the time that I was in and so I think talking about Geiger you know his friend then was was real I was really lucky in this paid 80s

he's able to go through like cuz I believe a few interview somebody you need to read everything that exists already read everything they've already said you don't want to ask them questions that what would I do it every for research that they've already supplied answers to see the holes or things I didn't know and I was able to sit with him talk about throwing a football who's obsessed with football and it's one thing that he shared in common with Nixon and so when they went one time they were going to the airport and he hitched a ride with Nixon and Nixon wanted to talk to him about football and said was just not talk about politics when we talk about football and Suite on my favorite the whole ride it was it was a 1968 Pat Buchanan had helped set it up. That we could become friends and so they come to Thompson like alright the boss is going to take a plane to Florida you can come talk to him and I just so crazy and so late

I was just really awkward like this fucking guy they're both in the back bench of a Mercury and Solace before Secret Service was just a cop driving and it's like Pappy canon in the front is Thompson and mix it in the right here next to each other it sounds like we're not really on the night you said that you know the Oakland Raiders have a good shot to beat the Packers in Super Bowl II to talk about that and he was like this is like my good friend Vince Lombardi and told me to watch out for the NFL cuz they pass they can be very effective and so Thompson then like remember is that guy I had been a professional quarterback he was first football game in Thompson set NFL is better than the AFL and guys like shut the fuck up a scooter Raiders game and they went and 65 in the Raiders won on this beautiful Pastor Tom Flores beautiful golden path and Nixon was saying the same thing and so then at that moment at that moment Thompson's like oh yeah it was the Miami guy Mueller Mueller who caught the pass and Lisa Gus Thompson on the knee and guess you're right and goes off

beautiful moment in tops it's like what the fuck is going on so mix and apparently they did they were talking about like college draft picks and all kinds of crazy shit like Nixon was deep into it was the only moment Thompson said that he knew Nixon wasn't lying when they could talk about football night in that instant it's fascinating that people opposed to each other but they find common ground and I never lost it today I mean you have to listen to the other side to if you if you politically want to beat somebody like fat puppy Cannon if you want it defeat his tactics if you wanted to feed him you need to know how is thinking about Thomson knew that bikini was listening to the left to defeat them as a Thompson listen to beginning what led him to move to Colorado I mean but how do you choose Colorado so

is a great story and like the early sixties Thompson had had a chance to drive a cargo I got friends car out to Colorado on his way to San Francisco in 1960 he lived in a road trip up and down San Francisco after you pass through Colorado but he stopped in Colorado because he had to drop off a friend's car and there is a woman there piggy Clifford who was a journalist and was his good friend at the hospital until the times and she was older she saw him like after driving 20 hours in my house hang out she lives right now so that in 1963 after Sandy was pregnant Thompson came back from South America where he was a reporter and did a wonderful job like reporting on how democracies were falling apart on their him and Sandy wanted to move why because the national Observer was the newspaper Thompson work for they wanted to give Thompson position to be a western reporter he was thinking of going to Timber Cisco but instead he chose to stop

for Peggy Clifford was stopped in Aspen and Woody Creek and so he was living in Aspen Woody Creek from August of 1963 to February of 1963 and she was there this is where it begins he was there when John F Kennedy was assassinated and he's sitting in his like living room it's no 10 a.m. 11 a.m. Pacific time to get to knock on the door and it's this Rancher named Wayne Bogner which is an old Aspen family and that ranchers like the president's been shot what's more he's he's been murdered East at Thompson just like let's have a job and you can wear any fucking calms down and it goes downtown I'm Woody Creek because Aspen and he just gets notes from people with their responses are and so when he then went to San Francisco to become a course or I put the magazine was looking for

she was having a tough time he was already wanting to flee because he got Hells Angels he was able to stay in San Francisco longer write report on them hoes like this is not a good place for me is a great quote about like what would have happened if he stayed in San Francisco from 67th and of Aspen which was so different thing than it is now and that was a place that he decided to move in rent for a little while at first but then because of the success of Hell's Angels he was able to buy out form Aspen's were different but Woody Creek is not that much different Woody Creek is still pretty describe the song There's a great reading at it and like a lot of cops and spend with her some like I'm some fucking young like I didn't know Thompson like I'm an interloper you know I'm like I'm out there and it was really great to talk to everybody that knew him and to go through it that's why I

Facebook almost killed me cuz I did a note for every sound smell or sight or comment if I wrote and then at the moment Thompson felt with a fucking my doing here I had the quote where he said I looked around then and I felt what the fuck am I doing here and I had that in the notes so people could see it and it was because I'm one of those people that knew him well and respect him and trusted him to not think that I was in any way trying anything but to make that art is life and we was trying to respond to my fucking view of trump right now and my love of his work in this moment he say it almost killed you

it's not possible to write a narrative and then also site every detail of a narrative so each day I would spend nine hours researching outlining with citations I want to read like a novel want to be like you know and at that moment I felt like I didn't I see the machine oil from the bay was coming off I wanted to read it vividly I knew that I had to support all of that and so I won't spend eight or nine hours every day just on the picture Arrangement and research and then the next six or seven hours or 8 hours I would write the narrative and that sleep 5 or 6 hours you know when I get up and I would do it again I did this for for 5 months but you know after I was deeply into it and I I don't think that's sustainable I think it's better in retrospect to go report somewhere you know to like going to be in the middle of Congress and take notes but to try to write something with a dramatizing should I take Thompson right well and having microsub nothing like his guy one of my posts on nothing like the way he wrote but then to also have almost as me

pages of notes showing my work you know it's showing the math that went behind so if I'm wrong I'm wrong but at least you can see it was morally correct but I think it was too much because you were trying to do in a short. Of time did you have a crazy deadlines or something yes but I also had a year and so I want to have a family and I had it like I just I'd never when it came to writing had to do both those things which was to try to write it in a novel The Stick way but then to also make sure that any question the reader would have but like why did you think that the dinner was at 5 p.m. you know or like you know why why did you think the sun was coming up in this way at the moment to make sure cuz out of respect cuz Thompson talk about people making money off my tooth fairy like that's what he talked about was trying to make money and didn't he have a lawsuit against Garry Trudeau

if I don't make it over today. He became that guy unfortunately that's what's really weird what sounds like a caricature of ourselves it's really scary do you know well if it's with weird about it is that he kind of knew that it was happening like there's that famous interview where he's talking to that British guy who did a documentary about him on the grass somewhere with that Las Vegas visor on and needs to know talking about how he's really become this caricature and it would be actually be better if he wasn't alive anymore you know that then is breaking up with his wife during that wasn't even that where you hide where he's at like a parking lot he didn't want people to see him and he's standing against the wall and people that come on we got to go he's like I just don't want nobody to see me right now is really sad and I

take that tragedy two and Hiro great thing. She was a great friend of people after I run Whitehead this wonderful poet from Louisville was a dear friend of his was like all through his life but the tragedy of how much effort you put out to we want to write about Trump if you want to go after like play Beat it about the financial institution the way Thompson did it was too kind of wager time later for time now and he talks about that he's a chemical speed he says doing dexedrine being an alcoholic stem changing his life in his rhythms he said I'm wagering time later for time now I'm using up energy or things that I might have eye burning the candle so brightly at this instant cuz I believe I need to go after this moment and I later I'm not going to have it but I'm making that Campbell I'm putting the car down right now and I think that's terrifying and I also think that he gave us bring it writing over one of the most remarkable spans in American history because of it that's a weird tradition in journalism right to destroy your body while creating your art and I think there's a according to my friend to a journalist

big problem with adderal today and there's a lot of people that are using it to write and it's fucking speed and you know you get addicted makes everything in front of you closer have you done it was called hyper history of ADHD stop being medicated as a child you were medicated I had a suicidal moment in like 6 years old why it's the first time you were six you want to commit suicide I don't remember it but yeah I kind of remember it but yeah it was on Ritalin which I've taken now as an adult and I always feel startled when I'm on it if I ever take Ritalin now why did you let you know now and I I take it to her everyday and she looks pretty milligrams a day really and I take it to a ticket to go into a library and this is what David wallace-wells was talking about I think you like today is it going to show us

really shity academic articles were you need the information from them I'm not good at that I'm not going to even make you like a car reservation know what the car rental reservation and so this world going to be painful no matter what is a functionality that Adderall allows and it's always a wager what Thompson writes about his whenever something is given something else has lost you never get anything for free in this world better than anybody so I'm not going to go into that but dexedrine Mike Geiger was like yo you're breaking down like you're 26 have a wife a very small child you're writing right now you want to have your career go forward and not doing well and I was like I'm a doctor I had gone through med school you know I did it I I've been overwhelmed like you ran every morning if you know he did he did other things but he took texturing so I gave it to Thompson and for that small. Of time it helped I mean for me it's like I'm not a good researcher

and maybe I would be now but the only way I can write about something I can respond so I didn't know him have no experience with him is to read everything that he's ever written or been written about him and then go out and interview people and so effort is my only path forward and whatever else for me is to take the pain away of that effort but doesn't take away shifts at around especially the parts of life and I think Thompson when he wrote he who makes a beast of himself escapes to pay her get through the pain of being a man we don't listen to that like he was like this effort as hard as like I'm struggling with this effort I'm trying to make these people think I was think of James Salter fiction writer Aspen resident wrote beautiful novels he wrote his whole life to he was 90 his last novel was at 8702 Memoir at 76 about being a fighter pilot among other things in the Korean War lyric literary he did his whole life he didn't he didn't burn out for small. Of time he's the antonym

to Thompson I think it comes to effort and literary work right did you just take it for work yeah I mean you don't have like an issue that you need to take it for him I might mean what we were I think that whenever we have something like chemical speed whenever we have something like alcohol whenever we have something that's not like marijuana or at least marijuana Cuts your Mania you know like whenever you have something else like alcohol or

are all weed

need ask question is it it is taking the pain away and being productive through those actually hastening your own too and I think alcohol is very clear it is at all if you do I'm out of time release you can make it work how many Americans do that out of the percent that are prescribed Pino I don't know 10% 20% like it's dangerous how often do you take time off

I'd say maybe one or two weeks of a 3-4 months and when you do that to feel weird I just watch movies if you guys don't do anything but doesn't I don't have any part tivity I don't I don't want so the only way you produce is on speed the way I want to right now I didn't start taking it till on 2010 it's crazy that we're talking about this because there's so many people like you it's it's so, how much of the work that we enjoy today especially literary work is written by people journalistic work is written by people to run speed test. New I mean that's what Thomson and Burrows and Southern believe that our American society the situation I'm in I have created a situation where I have too much work and it's my fault I should not be trying to be a professor and also go report it, message and also at George Mason in the creative writing program you know and also then be hosting like people coming out and also then like

trying to research something that might be my next thing that's too much in the way Thompson saw dexedrine was that he could make reality matches effort so there was no longer the limit it was the American dream idea that's why I think he's so brilliantly understood the toxicity of the American dream is that the effort is what destroys you have a path with the effort to be rich to be successful that doesn't mean that's a good thing actually dismantle you is putting it out and I think we forget that do you one of the things about Hunter that's really intoxicating is that his sort of self-destructive path becomes romantic when you read it and you get involved in his work and you kind of mimic it you know it's up that's the greatest fallacy I think I think what he was trying to say with self-destruction that this wasn't a credible threat to American democracy I mean I mean his his

what is work was fantastic I mean when it was it was fantastic till it was it was in the film sequences of that pinching than he did with in the success of the bingeing I mean I think that's what we missed about him is romanticism self-destruction towards the end he definitely lost his productivity and Ian Warner talked about that in the Alex Gibney documentary or did he just Sticky Fingers was a great the document are the new book on the new book on John winter has great moments of Thompson the seventies just being kind of lost yeah I think I think we got to remember that

we have an incredible times in American history we have times that are going to burn brightly and it's up to each Rider decide how they like to burn next to it and yeah I know burn brightly they may not have other times and that's I think an American thing where you can wager that bright flame which means you may have nothing like that for its but Thompson knew that he may have to live in that kind of want one Thompson writes about it so beautifully there's some some footage of him when he was writing for I forget what newspaper some what was it somewhere in the Pacific Northwest what when was your writing for who's the author of playing off the rail Google playing off the rail is there's a guy who was a journalist but you're employed Hunter for a while when David was

I forget what publication he was working for petition footage of them communicate communicate together and then I was trying to get Hunter I said it was younger I mean he wasn't even that old. He was just wrecked he just couldn't communicate couldn't talk and you know he makes a beast of you escape the pain of articulation you escape the pain of saying this is what's wrong with American Society for him to say the way he did when was Greatest Hits From 1964. Going to Hemingway's Ketchum Idaho own grave and Hemingway's house and it's gorgeous because it talks about Hemingway was a good writer one of the best writers when he was writing about an hour. He understood the 1940s 1930s when there was a firmness to the reality that he could articulate one of the writers goals is to give a pattern to chaos this is an articulation test but what happened in the 1960s when the chaos is multiplying repeatedly somebody like Hemingway becomes a literal Relic like his

narrative no longer fits in the depressant. He's in and Thompson saw Hemingway's to climb and he wrote about Hemingway's suicide idea of what America was a what a man should be fit perfectly with what I think the twenties to the forties when we experience but I think in the early 1960s with our social upheaval of civil rights of on no political upheaval anyway it was confusing to him it didn't it didn't fit anymore like his way of operating no longer articulated the present and so Hemingway's last Act was to take away his ability to say anything at all I was his only loss think we might never said was the say I'm not going to say anything anymore was a suicide It Anyway committed some Road about that gorgeously you know when when when he want to kill himself it was almost

unsurprising you know when when I read that he had died remember gone man

well I guess you know you know man I mean it's like you knew that he was deteriorating rapidly you knew that he had really bad hips hit at hip replacement surgery the Ralph Steadman Ralph Steadman to draw on this very crazy image of him with the artificial hip and it look like pain in all mean but I think that it's not my place to even deal with that because one Thompson's book right about that moment where was on it was in the house and that's that's that's his in one right shoe to flee about the stakes of it okay to put watch the people that loved him everything about it and how that even if that's a logical outcome that that's not so it's interesting that would say read stories I tell myself that moment is so honestly and brilliantly written by want and I'm sure both bomb of all I was getting at is that

at the time of his death you know he was in a sort of a

he was deteriorating so badly he can bring diapers his entire cuz of his alcoholism his ability to control spider was gone and so one gave this wonderful speech at George Mason we came out he's like how do you write honestly like a father and he asked a question like should I include this detail and he's like my father was alive I couldn't include that but that's why I chose incest to write my book with my father instead because I think my father would want me to write honestly but I also don't want me to believe that if he was still alive and so included that detail we talked about that the struggle to include that detail which I think William the articulate what you're saying which is the Tribulation in the sadness of it and I mean we have finite amount of energy or effort we really do we have to take care of ourselves if we don't we will pay that price at some point going to pay it anyway we're all headed to the same place we want to or not you know and so many punters delete terrifying a beautiful example of one wager of chips that were made for

1960s and 1970s and I think the best way to honor that is too you know apply the Brilliance that he forged and carved to the situation we have right now with corruption Donald Trump going to talk on American democracy to American democracy is basically it's like literally on says the Walker she's a trained and we arrived at the station would be off like a physical use the ladder to get the attic and Trump's pulling up the ladder someone understand that really really well and I think reading him now whether you know him or not helps you and that's why I look freaking them was so that it can be a lens on his his work on back or just on this present right now regardless of trump I think what he really represents is a brilliant historical time capsule and he sort of captures that time. That up TiVo pre-internet with the world is in chaos like no one else he he he encapsulated this very strange moment in history which I don't think is nearly as strange as the moment

how to write now I think this is probably the most range won't whatever but he he nailed it and he nailed it in a very very unique way that still today I mean to old version of they want to ask you about what why did Hammond Tom Wolf like Tom Wolfe got some of his tapes from some of the wizard lahonda the Hell's Angels Hells Angels parties and some crazy orgy that was going on and he gave him the tapes to this like what was all that about so many times was covering the Hell's Angels

they believed the counterculture at the left in the 1960 65 66 or talk about Ken Kesey we talked about the anti-war movement the Free Speech cover with Mario Savio they believe the Hell's Angels were on their side their fellow counterculture list that are also outside of the Ballgame and so

Kizi and Thompson were having a drink after being on the KQED are like some local TV show in San Francisco on a dairy farm come down to Stamford to write for what is now the singer Fellowship but back then was a graduate from Stanford he'd moved up to lahonta on the success of his first book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in it just written another beautiful book on and sew Thompson was like you already what the Hell's Angels Kizi was like yo I like to meet them was like okay and so Thompson knew how dangerous is where I think you will either romanticize them or exaggerated it's like okay I'll set them up and meet me I contacted the chapter with Keys Easter on August 7th I think of 1965 like the Hell's Angels Came to the Honda Ginsburg was there with keys he was there you know who all of the all the Stanford intellectual over there and they made a huge Banner that says

the merry pranksters welcome the Hell's Angels and Thompson rolled up with this isn't this isn't give me documentary Thompson rolled up with his family one was a child baby back seat in the front seat and he pulled up in what Thompson saw was Ken Kesey getting acid in Red Cups like red K-Cups to the Hell's Angels sounds like we're getting out of here and so he grabs his wife in the sun they go to San Clemente which is on the other side they have like a big picnic and on the way back there like let's just check it out let's see what it's like and they try to pull and he's driving his old like Roadster they pull in and everybody's watching her giant trampoline screen take the 5-Hour stream-of-consciousness footage from the merry pranksters trip across the cross the US which is what time will for about an comes like all right and you need other skulls like we can hang out a little bit so they hung out and it was interesting how acid pacify the Angels instead of made them violent and that's what I said you know course that's what it is but they say

the night hanging out there Thompson was writing so he's like I'm not going to do drugs cuz I have a few drinks he's taking notes for his his book later on tonight him and Allen Ginsberg and this is when I cut out of the book or like let's go get some beer it's the cops are staking out the property and Ginsberg and Thompson get pulled over by the cops Thompson stubborn he's talking to Cops he gets a ticket because his red lens for his back on tail light is cracked inside come on in a box like a journalist cops are like why are you writing about them and they're talking about life you will be taken with a jail and kids Burgos what's in what's the what's the Redwood City man comes and goes it's called a jail Allen and that goes back to talking to the cops and all of this and I was friends with cancer and so they go back into the party

Thompson realizes that Neal Cassady is blackout drunk who is Dean Moriarty and on the road by Jack Kerouac that's the character who it was based his two or three girlfriends one of them is having an orgy with the Hell's Angels at this cabin off to the side and Tom sees it and he described it to Waze when he writes about it but he did audio notes so we did audio notes of step-by-step and he described as like just horrific where she's barely awake but she's she's catatonic and they bringing your Cassidy to hook up up there to it's horrific and he articulates horror I had a friend is a good feminist writer late is dear to me she's like to know where to buy fucking white guy like whatever she like you did most of it right she's like you excused Thompson in that moment you should have just let it stand in about it instead of trying to talk about how upset he was saying it was really upset so I hope it doesn't make any sense because I think she thought that I was

you making the experience less authentic by trying to qualify for a current times but why would that be the case when you were just explain explain why don't I just a little time to say no to let him stand more instead of showing or amplifying his emotion too much but do you sing this based on her criticism or Carla personal opinion but I think him being really upset as secondary but whatever she was experiencing right but you're writing about him yes so I can't buy it like I thought about that but I wrote it and I stand by it but it was what is her criticism Again by amplifying his upsetness by like showing how upset he was but that's too much damn excuse for him to just write it with what did she think he should have done stepped in and stopped and I know nothing like that she was on point. I shouldn't she thought the effort on my part to try to explain his upsetness instead of just having it be upset with one sentence and then go on she thought it was over writing

out of respect for this where I overrode it but long story short Thompson those back and he goes to Kizi any goes this is one of the worst things I've ever seen this isn't a documentary be that you were over writing it doesn't seem like you're over wrote it I always worry I'm overriding one of my great fear someone see something like that I think it's important that you accurately relay the emotions of the experience when they're watching a horrific event me he did describe it as horrific but how much of it is my cultural perception of this moment that I'm giving too much Thompson and how much it was what do you accurately experience we talked about so I think just giving his words instead of a saying a little bit you know going okay I don't know what you said and so no I don't think they're actual recordings no I don't I think that is wrong. I know that's what one of the documentary said Tom Wolfe said he gave me the note

show me the notes of what happened and Tom Wolfe I know what those notes argues those notes okay to recreate that scene in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and so this is why we talk about truth later in life Thompson some biographies when he said that he actually recorded the event he didn't he went back and he took these long audio notes of like Shadow and light and a song that's what I'm saying you know it's the recording he made the record I didn't think they're terrifying but it's about like violence and Shadow and light and horror note to her riffic to horrific scene that says pumps is really into that age he couldn't an audio and get the fucking images and details that he needs to express that the nature of that instant and so Tom Wolfe use those to create it himself but then Thompson recreated it to Arc brought about it

in-house Angels ya been more distant why they moved it which is crazy because he was actually there was the first time because he was so horrific what I saw fuck it had friends that have told him that he's a personality or if he did acid to go to the bottom of the well for him you know this would be a really horrific thing and so he's like I don't care anymore and instead he just walked around in like was at peace when it's always funny When someone tells you how you're going to react to a drug relax right was it like for you when you finally finish this when you when you put the last page down and knew you were done I know that you like me share we have an adoration for this guy that's a m he's one of my for sure personal Heroes the last image I wrote was the most people take Thompson talks and writes this

he didn't actually see was with Nixon's helicopter assault on on TV left the White House lawn what happens is that young giant helicopter with a white top and the blue its Wheels lose the pressure so the wheels are the flattened at the bottom but as the rotors begin to bring it up they become elongated wheels that still talks to Grant Thompson wrote that image and I've always loved that image so I was writing that in a sense when I was at CPAC 2018 last year and I was walking out just after I wrote that and Pence's helicopter was on the lawn right there it was lifting off and I saw the wheels elongate just like that and I had so much respect for his ability as we talked about fiction as a narrative writer detail that instant you know into detail the way that that elongated as we have that be the emotion of Nixon finally departing and so I felt

you know I felt

I forgive it cuz I could have many pictures as I could I threw for as long as I can you know and I hope that everybody knows it's my version of Thompson and then it's a version of Thompson written to the lens of Donald Trump but hopefully that it's through the effort and through the detail a version that might bring more people to Thompson while also at the same time for Thompson fans you know I'm something that they can respect in the gauge well thank you for writing it thank you for just highlighting who this guy was and thanks for all your work man I appreciate it thanks for being a good fan in it for highlighting who's were to your beautiful poster we didn't even talk about it the aspenwall poster that you have right in here is just so gorgeous at 2 I got a hunter shit all over the place it's fantastic. I'm a die-hard

for sure listen to thank you brother I appreciate you very much thank you thanks doing this tell everybody the book where to get it how to get it free Kingdom Hunter Thompson's 10-year State against American fascism it's available anywhere on Amazon I'm at Tim dnevni on Twitter and you should check out the Gonzo voice Twitter hashtag which has Thompson quotes all the time which is great and it was a great guy on Instagram to there's a couple of them ugly jack stands out lyrics Gonzo and the Jackalope he's another guy who's got a bunch of corn and Nita Thompson to the great job on Facebook in fewer interest Thompson you don't know I'm I hope you read free Kingdom and that's a lens on his work you know to organize it and if you love Thompson I hope you read free Kingdom to it because that's the way that I gave him again beautiful thank you everybody by Joe

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