Fear and Loathing in America
Page 44
Meanwhile, you could do me a tremendous favor by putting your research dept. to work on what will surely be a simple problem from a vantage-point in NY, but which looks like a bastard for me. To wit: I want to know the name (& current address, if possible) of the man who quit the Justice Dept. and became the Chief Cop at Woodstock. He is credited, in underground circles, with keeping that scene under control—and I think I could use his wisdom out here, inre: the Sheriff’s campaign. I also plan to check with Charles Evers for a quote about how it feels to be a Nigger Mayor in Mississippi. He (Evers) is the only politician in the nation I can really identify with right now….
On other fronts, I called you about 2 wks ago—just before taking off to “cover” the Kentucky Derby for Scanlan’s Monthly. But they said you were out of the country. And for all I know you might be long gone, by now, to some O. Henry27 kind of post in Panama City. I hope not—because if even half of the horrors now shaping up here actually come true, I’ll need some human coverage. The idea of challenging Aspinal in a Farm/Ranch district is so awful that I hate to even think about it—and I wouldn’t, under normal circumstances, but with the way things are going I suspect this may be the last election we’ll have in this county for a while. And I’d hate to think I let the chance go by. Probably the wisest course would be to seize the Sheriff’s ring here, for now, then put my act together for a Congress challenge in ’72. But I sense a frenzy building—a Rising Tide, as it were, and if this looks like the time to sweep the Old Fuckers out of the saddle, well … why wait? But the chances of anyone beating Aspinal in Western Colorado are about on par with Charles Evers’ chances of beating Stennis in Mississippi.28
In any case, it would make a weird book; and in the midst of a quick & brutal swing through NY last week I had a few ales at the Waldorf bar with Jim Silberman, and he seemed to feel that I should focus my long-delayed book on my own political scene, rather than keep on suffering with the useless, abstract bullshit that has hung me up for the past two years.
But I guess, in the end—with a depression coming on—I could get by a bit easier on a Congressman’s $42.5K nut than I could on the Sheriff’s $8000. And with the stakes that much higher, combined with the sight of Aspinal’s soft underbelly, well … at least it’s worth checking out.
Meanwhile, however, I hope you can check that Woodstock (ex–Justice Dept.) cop for me. I’d like to talk with the man & get some working ideas—just in case I can’t beat Aspinal & have to settle for Sheriff. OK for now … and thanx:
Hunter
TO PAT OLIPHANT, THE DENVER POST:
May 27, 1970
Woody Creek, CO Dear Pat …
Just thought you’d like to know the Kentucky Derby action was a nightmare of such massive & horrible proportions that even now, at a safe distance, I find myself loath to even think about it. But the “story” got done—at fantastic cost to Scanlan’s—and the English illustrator they sent, Ralph Steadman, was absolutely first-class. If you haven’t seen his stuff you definitely should (Private Eye, London Times, etc.)—he’s better than almost anybody currently working in the U.S. In fact there’s nothing like his style over here. His work makes people like Searle & Levine29 seem like old eunuchs. The NY Times offered him a job, but wouldn’t use any of his work. A fine fellow. We spent 5 days in Louisville and barely escaped with our psychic lives. Sorry you couldn’t make it, but in retrospect I’d ask you again. That was definitely your kind of scene. And that kind of graphic journalism is a completely un-tapped vein in Amerika. All we need is somebody to pay for it. Yeah …
Anyway, I’ll be over there around June 4–5–6, to put our next issue of the Aspen Wallposter together at the new print shop in Boulder. We’ve doubled our size, tripled our costs, taken on ads, and decided to go full bore against the grain in this time of despair & recession. I think we are about to clear the decks in this crippled, death-haunted country, and for precisely that reason I’m having a hard time deciding whether to run for Sheriff of Aspen (which I think I can win fairly easily) or kicking out all the jams and running for Aspinal’s seat in Congress.
So when I get over to Denver next weekend I think I should talk to a few people like Craig Barnes30 & Gebhart & Maytag—just to see how they’re thinking. And I’d definitely like to have a beer with you, if you have a loose hour or so. So if you get a weird Emergency call from the Owl Farm, don’t worry. It’s only me. It took about 2 hours to get your phone number last time, and now I’ve lost it—but what the hell? See you when I get over there.
Hunter
TO MIKE MOORE, SKIERS’ GAZETTE:
Skiers’ Gazette’s Mike Moore helped Thompson put together advertisements for the Aspen Wallposters.
May 30, 1970
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Mike …
Tom’s in the hospital & this fuckawful notion of putting an ad together has driven me wild. I tried seriously for a while—witness the enclosed sheep foto with attached excerpts—but that looks like shit so I thought I’d just send it along with the word to do whatever you think is right. All this sales/advertising bullshit that goes along with being a “publisher” is driving me crazy. One of the few really fine things about being a writer is that you put your product in a fucking envelope & send it off and maybe the check comes back & sometime later you may or may not read the swill. But by then it hardly matters. Fuck them. We’re a nation of pigs & we get what we deserve—Hee-Haw, Salems & Wide Track Pontiacs.
I was thinking about doing a page or so of copy for the Wallposter ads, but probably you should just run this letter instead—with whatever layout fits.
So why should anybody send us $25 to get 12 issues of the Aspen Wall-poster in 12 fine mailing tubes? Well … because that’s what it costs us, more or less, to make the bastard exist. We—Tom Benton and I—are using the thing about half & half for political/journalism purposes. If we can sell enough copies to make the Wallposter pay for itself we can give enough away to create some kind of working unity on Aspen’s political front. This Valley is full of people who came here for reasons other than to turn the whole place back into a nazi-thinking condominium-complex & make it a safe & saleable resort for the Texas Cavaliers & the Atlanta Ski Club. There is a hell of a huge difference between skiing as a sport—or even as a lifestyle—and skiing as an industry, a boom-time fad like golf or bowling. Or beating up Peace Freaks on your lunch hour.
But fuck skiing. All it is, in Aspen, is a swollen sugar-tit for a gang of aging nazis who are not the local establishment. The Wallposter is the voice of Aspen’s counter-culture—the people who last fall came within six (6) votes of electing a 29-year-old bike racing head/lawyer as Mayor (The ’69 Joe Edwards campaign). And before 1970 is out they may—or may not—seize control of the town & the whole valley, or at least enough control to short-circuit the greedheads & land-rapers who’ve descended on the place like a plague of water rats. The conflict has already degenerated into dynamitings, street-violence and a sense of almost constant political crisis that never lets up, not even in the off-seasons. On one side are the cops and the Mayor and the County Commissioners, along with local realtors and corporate land developers from Chicago & LA & Texas—and even NY & Boston. These people see Aspen as a resort, and they want to sell it. And they are. Indeed—for the past 20 years they’ve been selling harder than New Orleans street-pimps.
The other side is a weird mix of locals, liberals, freaks, dropouts, ranchers, heads, geeks & other less commercially oriented types who see Aspen as a place to live—not to sell—a refuge, of sorts, from the same kind of rotten urban madness that these scum-sucking developers are trying to sell here in Aspen. The town is already faced with horrors like smog, parking-problems & sewage in the drinking water. The Aspen Ski Corp. has threatened to put a limit on lift-tickets—raising the specter of $100 a day ski-tourists standing in the lift-lines from dawn until noon, then being turned away “because of the quota.”
The summer looks more and more like Coney Island
. A Holiday Inn is already here—right next to the route of the new 4-lane highway in town—and there’s also a Minnie Pearl Chicken Palace going up, just across the street from Stein Erickson’s ski shop. Selah.
That’s about it. I see I’ve already run too long. And in truth I’d prefer to run Wallposter excerpts for ad purposes—instead of this watery bullshit that reads, in retrospect, like a cheap imitation of even the most left-handed gibberish in any of the three Wallposter issues we’ve done so far. Probably I should describe them, but right now I’m not up to it. Today, after all, is Memorial Day (dawn is just coming up) and Sheriff [Earl] Whitmire has told the city fathers that he & nine others are going to be killed before the clock strikes midnight—by a gang of motorcycle huns from Ely, Nevada, a drug-crazed swarm of Hell’s Angels types called the Savage Explorers. Whitmire—my opponent in the fall election—says they’re going to blow up the courthouse, the bank & Guido’s restaurant, then kill all the local police & their civic soul-brothers. And after that, rape the Priest’s daughter …
Wonderful. Who could ask for a better show on this fine American Holiday? I think I’ll load up on mescaline & drive into town for the action—lock into a ringside seat by a window in the Jerome Hotel tavern and watch the annual police riot. Like last July 4—curfews, posses, jeeps full of drunken cowboys with shotguns, local realtors & sheepherders wearing Notre Dame football jackets ganging up on young longhairs, huge dynamite blasts on Little Nell & hand-grenades in the Woodlander bar …
Why not? Get it on while there’s still time. Because when I’m sheriff of this county we’re not going to stand for this nonsense. No more of these atavistic spectacles. Memorial Day will be a different scene next year: My deputies will be supervising the planting of sugar cane in all the high pastures above Hunter Creek, Owl Creek, Woody Creek, & all those lush acres now held by Aspen-Wildcat. Then a record fall harvest—by teams of trained Weathermen. The contract is fixed. History will prove me out, or at least absolve me.
And the Aspen Wallposter will provide a very fine and vivid historical record of the events between now and then. Indeed. Today’s Pig is Tomorrow’s Bacon. (Or maybe today’s—so let’s end this wretched advertisement and get into town for the Butchery.)
OK for now. And don’t forget, folks—Wallposter #4 is due on June 10: A massive, double-size issue, jam-packed with obscenity, treachery, dementia and horrible news of every description—all of it true, which makes it even worse. In closing, I remain yours for Creative Law Enforcement …
Hunter S. Thompson
TO RALPH STEADMAN:
“The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved” launched a remarkable correspondence as well as a brilliant collaboration over three decades and beyond.
June 2, 1970
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Ralph …
You filthy twisted pervert I’ll beat your ass like a gong for that drawing you did of me. You bastard … stay out of Kentucky from now on. And Colorado too. … Fuck you!
And so much for that. I just saw the June Scanlan’s. The article is useless, except for the flashes of style & tone it captures—but I suspect you & I are the only ones who can really appreciate it. The drawings were fine, although I think they fucked up the layout—as usual—quite badly. They also cut about one-third of the article, in addition to the 4000 or so words that Don & I cut in NY. In all, a bad show, & I’m sorry it wasn’t better. Maybe next time. I’d like nothing better than to work with you on one of these strange binges again, & to that end I’ll tell my agent to bill us as a package—for good or ill. Nothing binding, but certainly a notion worth trying. The only saving grace of that Derby scene was having you around to keep me on my rails. What are you up to now? How did NY pan out? What next?
In a week or so I’ll send you some photos of our main LBJ-style antagonist in the fall election. Also my opponents for sheriff. With fotos and some text, maybe you can rush up some drawings for the Aspen Wallposter. In fact we’d use either one of those Nixon drawings right now—if not as a cover, then as a big inside drawing. Issue #4, now going to press, is double-size & folded—4 pgs, in other words; a cover, a back & 2 inside pages. We need good art. Pat Oliphant from The Denver Post has said he’ll do a cover for us. I’ll see him this weekend in Denver, at a formation-meeting for the Radical Journalists Union, or some such. He said he was looking for you in London that same weekend when you were in Louisville with me. Strange Irony—since he was the first artist I called to work with me on the story. He said you were one of the few artists in England he wanted to meet. …
OK for now. I’ll send you the fotos & other data for the drawings I mentioned—but in the meantime, send us anything you can’t sell. Or for that matter, anything you feel would be a good sort of interior advertisement for you inre: the U.S. press. We’re constantly sending Wallposters to editors in NY, SF, LA, etc. So a heavy weird drawing in the Wallposter might get you a good assignment somewhere. Or maybe not. I can’t say for sure. Why not get Private Eye or the Times to send you over here to cover my Sheriff’s campaign—a Steadman-eye view of small town politics in the American Rockies? In fact that sounds good enough to send to my agent. If you haven’t picked up anybody to represent you, let me know & I’ll see if Lynn Nesbit from IFA wants to handle your act. She’s about as good as they come, I’m told. She has Tom Wolfe & that sort of thing. Even me. So let me know—on all fronts.
Ciao,
Hunter
TO HERB CAEN, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE:
The San Francisco Chronicle’s venerable Herb Caen had coined the term “beatnik” in his column of April 2, 1958.
June 19, 1970
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Herb …
Here’s a sample of what, as far as I know, is a totally new form of journalism. At least in terms of graphics—and in terms of content, too, if you consider that we’ve decided to completely ignore all libel statutes and beat the bastards like gongs at every turn. The Meat Possum Press is judgement-proof—and exists, in fact, as a vehicle for new forms of local political action—including my campaign for Sheriff this fall. I expect to be elected without much trouble. On a platform of “Creative Law Enforcement.” (And as a matter of fact if you have an address for Sgt. Sunshine—Richard Burgess, I think—I’d like to check & see if he has any ideas.) Otherwise, I hope to get some wisdom from Wes Pomeroy, the main cop at Woodstock—and others of the same ilk.
But in truth the Wallposter is more fun than politics. But in a fairly serious vein I think the #4 Wallposter is a completely new form of journalism. Numbers 1, 2 & 3 were derivative, in a sense—from all kinds of sources, but most recently & specifically from the “Ramparts Wallposter” that Hinckle & his crew put out at the ’68 Demo Convention in Chicago. So Warren is really “the Father of the Modern Wallposter.” Selah.
And so much for credits—for whatever they’re worth in these rotten times. No point in explaining the details of this queer experiment; a quick scan of the first four issues, in order, will show you how we’ve coped with the problems. Or failed to cope with them. After #3 we were banished from Aspen’s only job printing shop—which is owned by the Aspen Times, oddly enough—and we moved our printing-action to Boulder, where the union-shop prices were so high that we had to sell ads to make the nut. And if you look very closely at the top of WP #4, on the cover, you’ll see how the printers (or the pressmen) sabotaged us inre: the “Impeach Nixon” line above the target. At first they refused to print it, but the union business agent in Denver said they had to—because it was legal—so they went back and censored us, in their own subtle way, at the last moment. The owner of the printing house said he was sorry, & explained that the pressmen thought “Impeach” meant “Assassinate,” & they botched it because they felt it was wrong and “unpatriotic.” Which says quite a bit, I think, about Freedom of the Press in middle amerika … and organized Labor, too. Particularly since all it said was “Impeach Nixon.”
Anyway, I thought I’d send thi
s along—for good or ill. To prove, if nothing else, that journalism is still at least half-alive in the great American Outback. For four issues, anyway. I can’t guarantee #5—not even if we have to print in San Francisco. Which may happen. Maybe at the Chronicle plant, eh? Check it out & let me know.
Thanks …
Hunter S. Thompson
TO GEORGE MADSEN, ASPEN TIMES:
Local radio deejay and Aspen Times reporter George Madsen had sent Thompson a letter riddled with spelling errors questioning how he earned a living and implying that he must be selling drugs.
June 23, 1970
Woody Creek, CO
Dear George …
Gee willikers, you sure are curious. Do you really “wonter” (sic) where I get my “bread”? Well, George, I wonter too, sometimes … and maybe we can talk about it one of these days on your Ratio Progrim (sic). You bring your questions & I’ll bring mine, and we can hold hands while we hash things out. You interest me, George. I wonter about your mind … and I’d particularly like to ask you about what you do with that photo of “Jilly” that you say you “keep hidden until after the kids go to bed.” God damn, George, I bet you’re just a king-hell bundle of fun after midnight.
Maybe I couldn’t tell you too much on the ratio … but I could sure as hell teach you how to spell “establishement” (sic). People tell me I have a talent for teaching old hacks and shitkickers how to spell … but I doubt if I could be much help to you on the subject of how I make my “bread.” Because that’s a world you’ll never know, George … never in hell. I could show you a mirror; or some samples of your own fine prose … or maybe some Jimson Weed. I get the feeling that maybe your head’s a little tense. Perhaps we could do up some acid and get heavy on your Ratio Progrm (sic). Thank about it, George, and let me know.