Vinson’s Variety: Thompson not afraid to write what he felt
Sources indicate the term was born when Thompson did a feature story on world-class snow skier, ladies’ man extraordinaire Jean-Claude Killy, for Playboy magazine. A fellow writer felt Thompson’s story on Killy was really out there, far removed from the mainstream, terming it gonzo, and indeed Playboy turned down the story.
However, Warren Hinckle, a fellow maverick, did publish the story, which gave Thompson a degree of the literary freedom he’d been searching for. His realization that he could “get away with” such an outrageous writing style convinced him to stop trying to write “like The New York Times. It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids,” Thompson said.
The first Hunter S. Thompson work I read was his book “Hell’s Angels,” published in 1966, arguably his breakthrough into public recognition. Concerning that book, Thompson grew his hair and beard, traded in his sports jacket and tie for denim, leather, and boots, hopped astride a steel horse, got the motor running, and headed on down the highway with Hell’s Angels president Sonny Barger, living the outlaw biker lifestyle, sex, drugs, booze, violence, to the fullest. In fact, Thompson, himself, got a taste of Hell’s Angels’ violence when they administered to him a thorough butt-stomping. Legend has it the reason the Hell’s Angels beat Thompson was he had promised to buy them a couple kegs of beer and never delivered.
However, Thompson’s true venture into “gonzo journalism” may have come in 1970, when he covered the Kentucky Derby. During that assignment, he met British artist Ralph Steadman, hired to illustrate the Kentucky Derby. Considered by some to be dark and chaotic in theme, Steadman’s drawings, nonetheless, illuminated a reality that thus far had evaded Thompson.
From that time onward, it appears Hunter S. Thompson never again deemed it necessary to alter what he truly felt needed to be voiced for the sakes of personal favor and political correctness. Running on the “Freak Power Party” ticket, Thompson almost was elected sheriff of Aspen in 1970. He was quoted as saying “Politics was a blood sport, and American politicians, so prone to corruption, were only too deserving of contempt.” If not on any other issue, I’m confident a majority of Americans would agree with Thompson on that particular stance.
Over the years, Thompson garnered substantial recognition for many other literary accomplishments: “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail 2,” “The Great White Shark Hunt,” “Rum Diaries,” “Kingdom of Fear,” and frequent contributions to Rolling Stone magazine, among them. Actor Johnny Depp portrayed Thompson in the movie “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” and comedian Bill Murray played him in “Where the Buffalo Roam.” A friend informed me that Thompson also was the inspiration for the Uncle Duke character in Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic strip.
Although he forever will be linked to a well-known circle of beat poets and gonzo/rebel writers — Allen Ginsberg, Tom Wolfe, Ken Kesey, Jack Kerouac, etc. — I found it oddly intriguing that, toward the end, Thompson became an acquaintance of, and often conversed with highly intelligent gender bender rocker Marilyn Manson.
Thank you, Hunter S. Thompson, for being your own man, someone who courageously exercised First Amendment rights to the fullest. And shame on you for checking out way too early. You still possessed greatness that could have been shared.
Mike Vinson is a local columnist who can be reached by e-mail at vinsonmike_b_@hotmail.com.