Fear and Loathing in America
Page 50
But what the hell? They speak a dead language, anyway … and the whole point of this election was to Win on our Own Terms, with no compromise. And this, I think, was the key to the massive vote we turned out, both for and against us. The town was plunged into total hysteria for more than a month—and in the end, the opposition (the GOP & the Democrats) turned out every possible vote; they brought people on stretchers down from the hospital, they wheeled in 90-year-old vegetables, they did everything possible and still lost all the city precincts.
Which wasn’t enough to win a County election for us … but I’m convinced that what we proved here will sooner or later be crucial in national politics. This is especially true, I think, in light of the fantastic national (& even international) press coverage we got. (This was a serious problem for us, as it turned out—we simply couldn’t handle the bastards; especially the 8-man film crew from London with their light-banks & color-cameras that followed us everywhere for the final two weeks of the campaign.)
But there’s no point rambling on about all this at the moment—although it occurred to me that the concept might interest you. Or maybe it might interest [George] McGovern—whose only conceivable chance seems to be a successful appeal to precisely the same vote we managed to tap here in Aspen. ([Edmund] Muskie has already blown it & [Edward] Kennedy … well … that’s hazy, for now, but the haze won’t matter if McGovern can somehow manage to tap the national equivalent of Freak Power….)
Which is interesting—right? And all I meant to do here was answer your letter of 8/24. Which I seem to have done, for good or ill. So … all I can say for now is Hang On. You seem to be doing OK, & it’s nice to know that there’s at least one straight voice in that twisted arena.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO SIDNEY ZION, SCANLAN’S MONTHLY:
Thompson would make good on his threat “that the name Sidney Zion is going to stink for a long, long time” by dragging it through the mud and worse in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
February 5, 1971
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Sidney …
You worthless lying bastard. I just talked to the IRS man in Grand Junction (Colo.) and he read me a letter from some goddamn lawyer of yours (to the IRS), saying Scanlan’s didn’t owe me any money at all and that you refused to honor the $3400-plus Assignment to me of funds owed Scanlan’s from Select Magazines Inc.
The truth, of course, is that Scanlan’s does owe me money & that the figure actually represents a compromise arranged after long haggling with Warren Hinckle—who signed the document (Assignment) in his capacity as Vice-President and Editor of Scanlan’s Monthly. This debt was affirmed by Warren, in good faith, and it strikes me as absolutely incredible that you should have anything whatsoever to say about it. In fact I’m astounded to find you speaking for Scanlan’s in any way at all—especially to a writer. You never showed anything but total contempt and disinterest in writers up until now …but now that American Express has seized my credit card for Scanlan’s-incurred debts and the IRS is threatening to seize my personal belongings & put them up for public auction … now you have the stupid, greedy gall to say the magazine doesn’t owe me any money.
What the fuck would you know about Scanlan’s dealings with writers, financial or otherwise? The only interest you ever showed in the magazine, as I recall, was that useless, atavistic series on “dirty kitchens” that was a constant embarrassment to everybody connected with the magazine. Beyond that, it never occurred to me that you had any interest or connection with the editorial side. As far as I or the other writers were concerned, Hinckle was the editor & you were some kind of two-legged nightmare to be avoided at all costs. Which was easy, because not many of the writers spent time in Sardi’s or Gallaghers.
My only clear memory of you in the office was the time you roared in & began yelling at Don Goddard (then the Managing Editor) about some useless trivia when he & I were trying to put a long-overdue lead article together for the June issue. That was my Kentucky Derby piece, which Hinckle was waiting for at the printer’s in San Francisco. And then, while Goddard tore his hair, you tried to get me to accompany you to Gallaghers “for a drink.” Later, after you’d gone off in a sulk, I asked Goddard if that was your normal behavior at deadline time, and he said it was usually much worse—so bad, in fact, that he could hardly wait to flee Scanlan’s employ just as soon as that issue was out. I later heard he was “fired,” but the truth is that he was driven out by your constant tirades and total lack of concern for the editorial side of the magazine.
But to hell with all that. I only mention it to show why I’m shocked to find that you now claim to know what Scanlan’s may or may not owe me. You never knew anything, Sidney. You were humored. You were a fucking drag on everybody … and now you want to act like an editor. Bullshit! You wanted to hold up publication of the “Guerrilla Warfare” issue last September, in order to establish damages in some lawsuit you were planning at that time. I heard you suggest that to Hinckle in Sardi’s, and I recall being shocked at the notion that your only interest in publication had to do with winning or losing a lawsuit. Once again, the editorial side of the magazine meant nothing to you.
As Harvey Cohen5 said to you one night in Elaine’s: “You’re a pig, Sidney. You are the enemy!”
So now you’re proving it, with me. To deny that Scanlan’s owes me any money is such a goddamn rotten lie that I’m surprised even you would try to carry it off. You’ve caused me a tremendous amount of trouble: 1) First the loss of my American Express card, which as you know is a crucial loss for a freelance writer (especially for $1100 or so—or about half of the expenses Scanlan’s owes me), and 2) This crisis with the IRS, a debt I’d planned to pay off with the rest of the money Scanlan’s owes me.
These are not small items, Sidney, and you can goddamn well be sure you haven’t heard the last of them. Hinckle has at least tried to square that debt, but you—you lying bastard—have just told me to fuck off. As far as I’m concerned you should drag your treacherous ass off to some cheap gig selling used cars in Hoboken, which is where you belong. In ten years of dealing with all kinds of editors I can safely say I’ve never met a scumsucker like you. You’re a disgrace to the goddamn business and the only good thing likely to come of this rotten disaster is that the name Sidney Zion is going to stink for a long, long time.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
cc: Lynn Nesbit
Warren Hinckle
IRS
& others
TO JANN WENNER, ROLLING STONE:
Thompson had been working on an article commissioned by Warren Hinckle on the police murder of Chicano L.A. Times writer Ruben Salazar when the bottom fell out at Scanlan’s Monthly.
February 8, 1971
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Jann …
Too many loose ends for tying in one letter—so here are Two, for the moment.
1) Xerox bill for that Aspen stuff (at your request) and also bill for two phone calls to Oscar Acosta inre: LA/Chicano piece. Total—$20.85. Thanx …
2) Large item is a half-edited galley of that Salazar LA/Chicano/murder piece I did for Scanlan’s but which got lost somewhere between layout & press-time 4 months later. Understandably, no doubt. I guess. Maybe because it was written while the coroner’s jury was still out … but it’s in now, & the verdict supports my thesis about 85%. Which is weird. It was sort of a hung coroner’s jury.
Anyway, I’ve been talking to Acosta off & on for the past few days & he’s told me a hell of a lot about what’s going on down there (savage polarization, revolution in the revolution, etc….) but the sum total of what he’s told me sounds more like a novel than an article. It sounds like a perfect nightmare of a story—even for somebody with long-time blood/drug/madness ties to the radical Chicano vortex. Despite my near-total access to the craziest & meanest corners of that East LA militant scene, I still can’t find that special happy peg to
keep the story moving in the context of any given narrative situation. The whole story is too open, too sprawling & contradictory to fit in the “article” framework …
… which is why I’m enclosing this Salazar piece. Because it offers a natural framework & a good narrative. And besides that it embodies a hell of a lot of painful research & detail that would take about two weeks to duplicate. This could provide the nut of a new, up-dated piece on the same scene—beginning now, flashing back to the Salazar murder for a focal point & narrative, then finishing with post-Salazar developments up to now again.
So … consider it. And let me know ASAP. I just (today) got over a terrible crisis-hump with the IRS by coming up with an instant Grand at the last moment, about 2 hrs before the seizure deadline. The fuckers were poised to tow my car off, impound my bike, seize my turntable & amp—the whole gig. And they were serious—which I didn’t really believe until this morning at about 9:00 a.m.
Anyway, the pressure is off for the first time since the election. I now have two more months until the next & final ($1300) deadline. But right now 2 months seems like a lifetime—considering that they must leave me alone for that long. And that’s time enough, I think.
So … given a choice between Vietnam & LA, I still prefer Vietnam. That’s one of the best stories of the past five years, a natural setup … while the Chicano thing is a natural bummer & in fact I wouldn’t consider it except for the existence of this Salazar thing, which would give me a running start.
***
The political scene out here remains grim. It’s beginning to look like we not only peaked but shattered in that last election. Rather than go into detail on that, right now, I’ll enclose a chunk of rambling stuff that I’ve had around for a few days, ready to send but without any real reason to. Except that now some of the stuff I’ve marked with red bracket-lines (see left border) might fit into any “Aspen letter” you plan to run.
Jesus … these crippled attempts to put “the Aspen story” together are driving me deeper & deeper into permanent freakiness. But for whatever it’s worth, here’s more. I’ll eventually get it together for the book, but what the hell? I don’t see much point in editing this stuff; just use what you want & fuck the rest.
As for Rock [a major investor in Rolling Stone], I definitely think he should be arrested. The fucker is floating around like some kind of un-programmed energy-bomb, adrift in the sea-lanes of a reality he can’t seem to mesh with. And I suspect he’s capable of raising serious hell if he ever gets focused. Maybe we should run him for Mayor of Aspen this spring. What Arthur needs is some Responsibility, something to settle him down & get him anchored. It makes me nervous to know that people like that are running around loose, with all that static lightning stored up in them….
… hell, maybe we should run him for President in ’72, on a national Freak Power ticket. Wait until the Convention & then launch him out of nowhere with a special 2 million Rolling Stone press run & thousands of hysterical halfnaked groupies swarming into the floor of the convention … chanting “Rock!” “Rock!” “Rock!”
Christ, it can’t miss. I’ll plant the seed next time he comes out. He’s sure to go for it. Why not?
Indeed, why not? … Anyway, let me know on the Chicano gig. Right now I need some sleep; to curb this manic euphoria that comes with shucking the Taxman for a while. OK for now …
HST
TO MAX PALEVSKY:
Three years after Rolling Stone premiered, Jann Wenner’s fledgling empire verged on financial collapse. Thanks to some gutsy dealmaking that would look even shrewder later, his company was bailed out of near-bankruptcy on January 8, 1971—Wenner’s twenty-fifth birthday—by the arrival of a $200,000 check from high-living self-made computer mogul and cutting-edge wannabe Max Palevsky, who insured his investment by severely tightening Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc.’s business operations.
February 8, 1971
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Max …
Enclosed are two specimens of what purports to be the finest Chicano mescaline—straight from East L.A. I haven’t analyzed it yet, but the source has always been reliable in the past. I understand that your interest in these matters is entirely rooted in the same socio/political/research that I naturally share—since we’re both In Journalism, as it were, and also into Politics. Which makes us both political scientists, and on that basis I feel it’s entirely fitting that I make this evidence available to a fellow scientist. Selah.
And so much for all that. It’s entirely possible that I’ll be in LA sometime soon. Jann is muttering about a piece on the Chicano/Pig war in East L.A. & I’ll check with him in a day or so to find out. If I get down there maybe we can get together for a beer, or a beaker or two of tequila. In the meantime I suggest you speak to that dingbat who calls himself “Arthur Rock.” I suspect he’s looking for trouble out here in the peaceful Rockies … and by god if there’s one thing we won’t tolerate out here it’s a dingbat looking for trouble.
OK for now. Sincerely …
Hunter S. Thompson
TO JANN WENNER, ROLLING STONE:
“Strange Rumblings in Aztlan”—Thompson’s investigative piece on the August 29, 1970, murder of journalist Ruben Salazar by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy—appeared in the April 29, 1971, issue of Rolling Stone. Thompson left open whether Salazar “couldn’t possibly have been the victim of a conscious, high-level cop conspiracy to get rid of him by staging an ‘accidental death.’ The incredible tale of half-mad stupidity and dangerous incompetence on every level of the law enforcement establishment was perhaps the most valuable thing to come out of the inquest.”
February 10, 1971
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Jann …
Christ, I just read that Salazar piece from start to finish—for the first time—and discovered a terrible jumbling in the lead. I don’t know who edited the thing; I just turned it in on my way from SF to Newport for the America’s Cup story, but my version ran chronologically from the time I heard about Salazar’s death in Portland, Ore & then on to LA, meeting Oscar at the airport, etc. & then into the investigation.
In this version, something drastic happened to that chronology. It doesn’t make any real sense until around Galley #3. Which is neither here nor there, for now, but it bothers me to see how scrambled it reads up front. Also, my section breakers are missing: verbatim quotes from the Calif. Penal Code, Sec. 187, the legal definition of “murder.”
Anyway, it don’t matter none … but it bugs me just the same. (Oh, yeah, there are some photos—in rough sequence—of the murder action. I got the originals from Joe Razo at La Raza & I assume he still has them; I returned the photos to him after Hinckle used them for the Scanlan’s layout….) Selah.
Which reminds me; you mentioned Clancy had called about selling Scanlan’s to RS—which strikes me as an interesting idea, in the abstract, & that’s all it was, as I recall, when Clancy first mentioned the idea of talking to Palevsky a month or so ago … but even now it strikes me as a fetching sort of idea. What comes to mind, right off, is some kind of 1970s version of a Time/Life empire; two entirely different publications locked into the same nexus … real freak power … but keep in mind that I’m talking just about the concept, the general idea; beyond that, I think I’ll pass for now … but if you want to talk about it, hell, give a ring. I’m always good for talk about empire-building.
And so much for all that. I began this letter about 40 hours ago, but most of the time since then I’ve spent ram-rodding this goddamn effort to change the election date. The troops are not into it. And I guess that’s part of the story, too. Like I said, the question now is not so much whether we can put our act back together again—but whether it’s worth the effort. In the long run…or even the short, for that matter. If Aspen had a best-seller list, the United Farm Catalog would be #1 right now. An alarming number of our people are ready to abandon ship, rather than face another futile shutdown. Which leaves me i
n the awkward role of playing Keeper of the Flame—or maybe just “main hustler” instead of Main Pig.
Anyway, that’s why I’m late finishing this letter. And the main point, as I recall, was to get you a quick outline of the upcoming Aspen piece … so here’s that: very much off the top of my head & subject to massive change, but fairly reliable in terms of length, thrust, theme, etc….
To wit: Well … this was supposed to be the outline, but I began & kept going 5–6 pages with a quick-opening scene with me & Vare6 hunkered down in this cabin & debating the wisdom of making another full-scale assault on the fatbacks in May … and this led to the same kind of speculation I mentioned on the phone the other day: The future of freak power (?) in Aspen or anywhere else … and whether or not we might all be better off not wasting our time with this bullshit & bugging off for somewhere else. Which led, of course, to the question of where. And after a long & torturous talk we got back to the notion that in fact we had no choice but to hang on here … because if we’re going to have to stand & fight somewhere (& I think that’s painfully obvious, whether we like it or not) we both saw the heavy advantage of working in a scene where we already have a proven power base … a town that last November voted not only for Vare (for County Commissioner) but also for a sheriff whose only compromise on the “drug question” was to say he would not eat mescaline on duty.
Given a bit of rest & perspective, this has the appearance of a very heavy reality … and all the more so when you lump it with the fact that the local Democrats & Republicans only beat us by collapsing into a last-minute desperation coalition (with each party agreeing to sacrifice a main candidate) that avoided the three-way vote split we were counting on. Which was crucial, and which we probably would have had if I hadn’t written the bastards a perfect blueprint for beating us with that Battle of Aspen article in RS. …