Hunter S. Thompson: What kind of reporter are you anyway, in the bar?
JA
July 27
Hunter S. Thompson, needless to say, has a huge cult following for his wild, exaggerated and hyperactive Gonzo-style journalism, as well as his books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. Perhaps it was all the hype, but I found Fear and Loathing grew a little wearisome towards the end, with seemingly repetitive rampage of drugs and fuel and overflowing American ire. I did however love the opening lines: We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold...
A new book Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews With Hunter S. Thompson was published earlier this month. It’s been edited by his widow, Anita Bejmuk (Thompson tragically shot himself at his Colorado compound in 2005), and contains some very entertaining conversations from the doctor himself. Paper Cuts has profiled some colourful extracts – a few are also below:
INTERVIEW WITH PLAYBOY
Playboy: Do you think a smarter politician could have found a man to cover it up after the original break-in? Could Lyndon Johnson have handled it, say?
Hunter S. Thompson: Lyndon Johnson would have burned the tapes. He would have burned everything. There would have been this huge wreck out on his ranch somewhere - killing, oddly enough, all his tape technicians, the only two Secret Servicemen who knew about it, his executive flunky and the presidential tapemeisters. He would have had a van go over a cliff at high speed, burst into flames, and they’d find all these bodies, this weird collection of people who’d never had any real reason to be together, lying in a heap of melted celluloid at the bottom of the cliff. Then Johnson would have wept – all of his trusted assistants – ‘Goddamn it, how could they have been in the same van at the same time? I warned them about that.’ …You know, I was actually in the Watergate the night the bastards broke in. Of course, I missed the whole thing, but I was there. It still haunts me.
Playboy: What part of the Watergate were you in?
H.S.T.: I was in the bar.
Playboy: What kind of a reporter are you, anyway, in the bar?
H.S.T.: I’m not a reporter, I’m a writer.
INTERVIEW WITH ROLLING STONE
P. J. O’Rourke: Recently you told a college audience at Marquette University, ‘George Bush should be killed. He should be stomped to death, and I’ll join in.’
H.S.T.: O.K., that’s two federal crimes of five years each.
O’Rourke: Will you get indicted now, because we put that on tape?
H.S.T.: No, no. I explained it all to the Secret Service. See, I know about guilt, and I know about politics, and as I told the students, the guiltiest man in politics today is George Bush. He’s at the root of this whole Iran-contra thing.
O’Rourke: How did the students react?
H.S.T.: Hey, they cheered! Then I called for a voice vote. It was two-thirds to stomp him. Meanwhile some … maniac recorded it and took it to The Milwaukee Journal. And the U.S. attorney in Milwaukee was about to indict me on two felony charges: five years for threatening the vice president and another five for inciting others to do it. I was on my way to cover the Iran-contra hearings for The San Francisco Examiner, and I started getting calls from the Secret Service.
O’Rourke: Did you answer any of those calls?
H.S.T.: Not at first, because I thought they were cranks. If it was important, they’d leave a message. And then the Secret Service showed up at The Examiner and at my lecture agency. I realized they were serious. So I called the Secret Service guy in Denver, Larry Hoppe. And he was very nice. And I said, ‘What’s going on here, man?’ And Hoppe said, ‘Dr. Thompson, let me tell you one thing: I would advise you not to go to Washington without talking to me first.’ So I said, ‘Come on over. What the hell.’
Well, we talked for a while, and by that time Hoppe knew it was a joke. I said, ‘Have times changed? I’ve threatened to drag people around Washington by their [expletive] behind Oldsmobiles at a hundred miles an hour. I’ve advocated the slaughter of all politicians. What are the guidelines now?’
He had a pretty good sense of humour. He said, ‘Well, you can’t say that he should be strung up. If you say that to people, whap! Ten years. You can say he should be tarred and feathered.’ And I said, ‘Wait a minute. I don’t grasp it. I would almost rather be strung up than tarred and feathered. What’s the difference?’ And Hoppe said, ‘I don’t know. That’s the way it is. Don’t go out anymore and threaten to string George Bush up or stomp him to death.’
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