But then there’s no sense in rambling on about all this; I merely meant to show you what sort of effect you had on me. Right now I’m sort of suspended between two diverging courses of action. I shall have to think.
Love, Hunter
TO ANN FRICK:
Almost every month Thompson would have a breakdown of sorts and fire off letters exuding his angst over the modern condition. Usually these missives were the result of a drunken bender triggered by the burden of debt.
September 5, 1958
Time & Life Building
Rockefeller Center
New York
Dear Ann,
I’ve been trying to finish this letter for days. I am heading for an alcoholic breakdown. Everyone I’ve ever known has burst in on me during the past week. Two of my best friends got in a drunken fight in Davenport, Iowa—and now one of them is dead and the other is ready to stand trial for murder (or possibly manslaughter). A gun takes one life, a prison takes the other—what the hell is the difference? Give me the gut-ripping pain of a bullet anytime.
The phone company is ready to take out my phone and the light company is ready to cut off my gas and electricity. I cashed a check for my bond in Florida and it bounced. Tomorrow one of my brothers will poison the other and my mother will confess to having been a Communist spy for fifteen years. I paid half my rent with a check and it will bounce. In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
“It kills the very brave and the very good and the very gentle indiscriminately. If you are none of these, it will kill you too. But there will be no special hurry.”
—Ernest Hemingway—
I have no desire to do anything. I am afraid of nothing and I want nothing, I wait like a psychopath in a game of dodge-ball: breathing quickly while the fools decide which one will throw at me next, and jumping aside for no reason except that I like being in the middle. And there is really no reason for being in the middle. Why not quit altogether and lie down outside the circle?
I have no idea what to say, I don’t know when I’ll see you again and I don’t believe in anything beyond the next ten minutes. People keep calling me and telling me what a great friend I am. Everybody is looking for someone who can stand up in the wind. It is lonely standing up and crowded lying down. I refuse to be an anchor for other people’s dreams—but then I refuse to anchor mine to anyone else. So I have no choice but to stand up and piss into the wind. Pardon my vulgarity.
But this is all a little foolish and I’m dragging up words that mean little or nothing. Thank Verna and Lee15 again for the hospitality, accept my apologies for the telegrams, and try to keep from being killed or twisted or beaten beyond recognition. The old glue-mask doesn’t serve much of a purpose, but it does help to deaden the pain of the blows!
Until I get fooled again by some optimistic sign, I remain,
ready to lash out …
Hunty
TO PAUL SEMONIN:
A self-styled Marxist from Louisville’s upper middle class, Semonin had been one grade ahead of Thompson in high school. At this point he was a Marine stationed on Parris Island, South Carolina.
September 26, 1958
57 Perry Street
New York City
Dear Paul,
You’ll be happy to know that your letters are getting through to the outside world. It is surprising, though, to find that those swine are letting mail get in. […]
I know exactly what you mean when you say that your stay at P.I. is an “educational experiment” with the lowest form of human life: and I know from experience that it can be a revelation of sorts. Ah yes. But when you realize, my man, that what you are seeing is a cross-section of “the world we live in,” rather than an invasion of flotsam from some distant land, it is then that the novelty of your experience will begin to curdle. You will soon see that intellectual myopia is not a disease limited to dolts and mental defectives. Grey matter thrives on exercise and atrophies without it. Myopia is every bit as crippling whether it be voluntary or congenital.
So try placing your khaki-colored boys in the context of contemporary history; step back and view the USMC as merely one facet of what is sometimes called the “American Culture.” You are not “on loan” to the USMC on an amusing vacation from another world, but on a lower rung of the same wobbling ladder. And you know what happens to the people on top when a ladder rots in the middle.
As for me, I have no hope for any of us: if Khrushchev and Mao don’t get us from the outside, either the Arthur Schlesinger—Walter Reuther faction or the William Buckley—Gerald L.K. Smith faction will paralyze us internally.16 The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot—and it’s only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear. Is it any wonder that Billy Graham is so popular? Oh God, give us anything but reality!
As for your question on Formosa, here is the Thompson outlook: Red China has declared that “no force on earth can prevent us from taking Quemoy and Matsu.”17 The islands have been under continuous bombardment for weeks and in spite of the fact that the Nationalists are getting through from Formosa with supplies, the islands will not last much longer. Chiang [Kaishek] wants to send his air force to attack the Red shore batteries—[Secretary of State John Foster] Dulles says no. If that happens, there is little doubt that Red planes will retaliate against Taiwan. The U.S. is pledged to defend Taiwan and Dulles has said repeatedly that we will do so if and when it becomes necessary. Red China, at the Warsaw cease-fire talks, has demanded the immediate removal of U.S. forces from the Taiwan area. If they are not removed voluntarily, they say, then they will be removed by force. Russia says that it will back Mao to the limit in the face of U.S. “aggression.” Washington cannot decide whether the Mao-Kremlin team is bluffing or not. As for precedents, it turned out that Russia was bluffing in the case of the Berlin airlift, but that Red China was not bluffing when they threatened to intervene in Korea. The vicious tone of the Red diplomatic line is thoroughly unprecedented. In short, this is the biggest and most threatening bluff yet, and no one on the U.S. side of the fence knows whether to call it or not. We cannot afford to back down and we cannot afford war: jesus help us all if it is not a bluff. If the Reds have decided that the time has come for war I’ll either reenlist or escape to Mexico. Hopefully, it will all blow over. Only time will tell.
Hunter
TO JACK SCOTT, VANCOUVER SUN:
Clearly not the way for an aspiring journalist to get a newspaper job, this letter, Thompson claimed, was “written in a frenzy of drink.”
October 1, 1958
57 Perry Street
New York City
Sir,
I got a hell of a kick out of reading the piece Time magazine did this week on the Sun. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I’d also like to offer my services.
Since I haven’t seen a copy of the “new” Sun yet, I’ll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a paper I didn’t know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I’m not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley. By the time you get this letter, I’ll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of the Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I’ll let my offer stand.
And don’t think that my arrogance is unintentional: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I started working for you. I didn’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham. The man despised me, of course, and I had nothing but contempt for him and everything he stood for. If you asked him, he’d tell you that I’m “not very likeable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.) Nothing beats having good references.
Of course if you asked some of the other people I’ve
worked for, you’d get a different set of answers. If you’re interested enough to answer this letter, I’ll be glad to furnish you with a list of references—including the lad I work for now.
The enclosed clippings should give you a rough idea of who I am. It’s a year old, however, and I’ve changed a bit since it was written. I’ve taken some writing courses from Columbia in my spare time, learned a hell of a lot about the newspaper business, and developed a healthy contempt for journalism as a profession. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hagridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. If this is what you’re trying to get the Sun away from, then I think I’d like to work for you.
Most of my experience has been in sportswriting, but I can write everything from warmongering propaganda to learned book reviews. I can work twenty-five hours a day if necessary, live on any reasonable salary, and don’t give a black damn for job security, office politics, or adverse public relations. I would rather be on the dole than work for a paper I was ashamed of.
It’s a long way from here to British Columbia, but I think I’d enjoy the trip. If you think you can use me, drop me a line. If not, good luck anyway.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO SUSAN HASELDEN:
Haselden had written Thompson from Boston, enthralled with the works of Jack Kerouac and other members of the Beat Generation. Thompson enjoyed On the Road but found Kerouac’s other books weak. More to the point, he was always disparaging of beatnik wannabes—a malady he feared Haselden was suffering from.
November 12, 1958
57 Perry Street
New York City
Dear Susan,
You must be going absolutely crazy and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I think you’d better get back to Louisville and marry some good and steady type. And keep away from that goddamn San Francisco!
And certainly I’ve read The Subterraneans: all of his crap for that matter. The man is an ass, a mystic boob with intellectual myopia. The Dharma thing was not quite as bad as The Subterraneans and they’re both withered appendages to On the Road—which isn’t even a novel in the first place. As the Siamese say, “Pea rattles loud in empty head.” And so much for Mr. K—who found a way out of it all. Bully for him … and all his lemmings. If somebody doesn’t kill that fool soon, we’re all going to be labeled “The Generation of the Third Sex.”
But I seem to be excited … and that is nowhere … for to be excited is to be square … and to be square is to be hung up … and that is nowhere either. It is difficult to know just what to do … or which label to adopt … and we must all be labeled … for there is no identity without solidarity … and identity is important … I think?
You and your friends can stay with me when you come down for Thanksgiving. I haven’t had a real ripping orgy in quite a while. It will be weird. Be sure to call. WA9-xxxx. Anytime. I work only 2½ days a week, and I am POVERTY-STRICKEN. Bring food.
I want to get to Boston before I have to flee the country and that will be soon. I will have to stay at your place of course, but I will wear a chastity belt and there will be no trouble. I don’t know when I’ll have the money to get up there. Probably never—so I’ll have to come without money. Ah well, I’ll bring my rucksack and my string of juju beads … and a few odes by Han Shan. You will be happy. […]
Life is weird here and I’m currently trying to set up a job for myself in Europe. It is not easy. But I will go anyway … and throw myself on the mercy of the Embassy if I can’t get a job.
Drop me a line. And keep away from San Francisco.
Suspiciously:
Hunter
TO KRAIG JUENGER:
Juenger’s mother had been diagnosed with cancer; Thompson’s father had died when Hunter was only fourteen.
November 22, 1958
Time & Life Building
Rockefeller Center
New York
Dear Kraig,
Your letter was quite a jolt and it seems a little silly for me to say that I’m sorry to hear about your mother because expressions like that seem to be out of place except on printed “sympathy cards.” But you know that I’m sorry as hell and I hope it’s not as serious as you seem to think. It seems incredible to me that this sort of thing always happens to the people I like best—I simply can’t understand why the useless ones aren’t struck down first. But I guess Hemingway was right: “It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave indiscriminately. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.”
Be sure to let me know how things turn out and rest assured that I do understand. My father is no longer with us, you know.
I don’t want to sound disappointed over the prospect of your not being able to come to New York during the holidays, but you know damned well that the idea doesn’t make me any too happy. But by all means do whatever you feel you should do and let me know what you decide.
Very little is happening here and I sort of talked myself out in the letter I wrote last week. When you calm down a little more be sure to drop me a line. And don’t let your imagination run away with you because a hell of a lot of people have had tumors removed without the operations proving fatal. So until I hear from you, stay calm and don’t jump until you’re sure you’ve been hit.
Love, Hunter
TO EDITOR & PUBLISHER:
Thompson fired off this response to a column claiming that young people weren’t interested in journalism careers because its pay scale was so low.
December 7, 1958
57 Perry Street
New York City
Jerome H. Walker
Editor & Publisher
1700 Times Tower
New York City
Dear Sir,
When I read your column of November 29th (“Pay’s Good, Come on In”) I fell into a fit of despair and decided to go out the very next day and sign up for unemployment insurance. Since I haven’t lost all of my self-respect yet I finally decided against it, but I’ve been boiling about that damned column all week.
So you’re worried that journalism isn’t getting its share of young talent and you think its because a bunch of embittered old men have spread the rumor that it’s a “poor pay game.” If nothing else, your column makes you a red-hot candidate for The Thompson Trophy for the Most Myopic Analysis of the Year, a dubious honor at best. You and all the rest of the “serious thinkers” on journalism’s great wailing wall remind me of a leper standing in a bar, waving a huge sack of money and yelling, “What’s wrong with you people? Why don’t you want to drink with me? I have enough money, see!”
The leper may not want to admit it but I think he knows why he’s no popularity king—it’s just as obvious as the sores on his back. And I think the reason for journalism’s shortage of young talent is just as obvious as the fact that most of the newspapers in the country today are overcrowded rest homes for inept hacks. Burial grounds do not attract talent.
In a nutshell, journalism has lost its primary selling points, the very things which used to make salary a secondary factor. The best American journalists have invariably been respected, envied, and often emulated. Traditionally, they’ve not only held onto their individuality but capitalized on it, not only maintained their self-respect but commanded the respect of others. Why do you think the New York Yankees generally get their pick of the country’s young baseball talent? It’s not just because they hand out good paychecks.
How many newspapers are there in the country today that actually command the respect of anyone who knows a damned thing about journalism? I’d have a hard time counting ten. And there’s where we come to the pith and substance of the whole problem: since journalism has lost its ability to command respect as a profession, it has sunk to the level of “just another job.” Wher
e salary used to be secondary it is now primary. Whereas journalism formerly attracted top talent in spite of a generally low salary scale it has now reduced itself to a level where it has to compete with related fields (PR, Advertising, TV, etc.) on their terms. And the terms, of course, are almost always monetary, and let’s not kid ourselves about the salaries in the top brackets of journalism as compared to comparable ones in advertising, TV, and PR.
So there you have it: journalism, for my money, has nearly tumbled head over heels in its hurry to toss away its integrity and compromise with the public taste, the mass intellect, and the self-sighted demands of profit-hungry advertisers. Now how in the hell do you expect to keep on attracting top talent? Sacrificing good men to journalism is like sending William Faulkner to work for Time magazine.
Motto: “If you’re given a choice between cheap and cheaper, why not learn how to write ad copy and then put yourself on the grey-flannel auction block? There is no god but MONEY!”
As far as I’m concerned, what I’ve said so far is a pretty thorough condemnation, but incredibly enough there’s more. I contend that newspapers, especially in New York, have become so institutionalized, so complacent, and so blind to their own needs that they think they can afford to play “hard to get” with the young talent they can still attract. I’m speaking out of my own experience here because I’ve spent about six months looking for a decent newspaper job and I’m about to give up the ghost. And when I say “decent job” I mean one I can be proud of with a paper I respect. There is plenty of money in the world but there are damn few jobs an intelligent man can do without compromising himself intolerably. Everywhere you turn people seem to be warning each other about “the dangerous trend towards standardization” but I have yet to see signs of anyone doing anything about it. I’ll bet that if I went to Fortune magazine and asked William Whyte18 himself for a job he’d have me take one of those abominable personality tests he went to so much trouble to warn us about.
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