Proud Highway
Page 53
The enclosed, by the way, is something off of a Big Sur beach that I’ve had since then.20 Tonight I added the leather and thought it was okay. Stare at it long enough and it develops all manner of meaning. At least it does for me. Hang it on a peg somewhere, or get it wet and hold it in the sun. Worthless as it is, it ain’t a bad thing to have.
Conventionally,
HST
TO CLIFFORD RIDLEY, NATIONAL OBSERVER:
November 5, 1963
Woody Creek
Cliff—
How about a short (5 or 6 takes) essay-type thing on the difference between hunting with shotguns and rifles? Not technical. This may sound like nothing to you, but among hunters it is a deep-seated controversy. Rifle hunters, for the most part, are a meaner, tougher breed, and they scorn shotgunners as dilettantes or drugstore cowboys.
Shotgunners, on the other hand, claim a great subtlety in bird-hunting, a vague aesthetic that no coarse meat-hunter can ever know. The shotgun man is likely to think of himself as a country squire—if only for the moment. Shotgunning is definitely the status side of the fence, but I suspect it is that way because the image-makers know that rifle hunting is doomed east of the Mississippi. That’s quite a few people who would rather hunt with shotguns than not hunt at all—and only a small percentage of them can afford long, expensive hunting trips to the West.
Needless to say, I mean to give the needle to the shotgun tribe. The other day I read where 10 million of them are now taking the field for the annual kill. That’s a lot of potential controversy. A good-natured needle should stir up several good replies. Of the Observer readers who hunt, I’d say 49 out of 50 are shotgunners.
My point, with tongue halfway in cheek, is that shotgunning is a hunting surrogate for tired old men and flabby young ones. Maybe you have somebody on the staff who cares to join the argument & thus give both sides in print. (And I can supply a foto of myself with a wild boar; my antagonist, by firing some 200 pellets at once, can maybe bring down a duck or a rabbit to show.) Anyway, I’m going to do the thing, either for you or one of the sporting mags. Let me know if you want it; if so, I’ll keep it mild. If not, I’ll step up the velocity and aim at one of the hunting books.
The Vance Bourjaily21 review will be in the mail tomorrow. The Colorado hunting madness piece will come next week. Let me know if you’ve changed your mind about wanting it.
Regards,
HST
TO PAUL SEMONIN:
Semonin, now a self-proclaimed Marxist, was enrolled in graduate school in Accra, Ghana.
November 6, 1963
Woody Creek
Paul—
I think this [“Nkrumah Hailed as Messiah” AP clip] bears out Joseph Conrad’s contention that “we live amid romantic ruins pervaded by rats.” Or another, by Doctor Bloor: “You can’t dupe all the people all the time—except when they’re niggers.” (Dear Mail Inspector: I am just quoting; don’t put no trouble on Mister Semonin; he’s harmless.)
My mind is addling here. Absolute lack of contact has driven me to whiskey frenzies, characterized by top-volume monologues and midnight shooting. I think Aspen is for people who can’t make it in San Francisco & who have enough cash to fail gracefully.
As soon as possible I mean to move on. Without contact of some type I will turn yellow and die. Maybe LA. God knows, it is just about the only place I haven’t tried. Right now I am too broke to do anything. My Donleavy review came out today, thus guaranteeing the rent for last month if the check ever comes. I require cash only for stamps and wine; everything else I charge. But now I don’t have a dime.
The fucking Reds are putting the pressure on me. The word is out. I have reliable information that the Denver branch of the IJC [International Jewish Conspiracy] is behind this harassment. Those communist shits! I used to blame the Wall Street warlords for my troubles, but now I know better. If it keeps up I’m going to bust up a few marriages and finish my tormentors with a pig instrument.
Your English friend sounds like somebody with pimples who never made the rugby team and masturbated till his brain went soft and he decided to be a socialist Himmler. The fucking English should be kept out of politics; they’ve caused enough trouble already. A watery gang of punks with body odor and double-breasted suits.
I now have a vie and pegs on which to hang my callers. The latter include: Durwood Fink, the leading Subud22 thinker and a man who could do me some good in the movement if I could tolerate his bullshit; Virgil Blackmonster, the leading Subud economist (after his illegitimate brother, Hayes Blackmonster, who is neo-Subud I think & therefore not quite respectable); Garcia y Vega, a Canadian invert who is giving Subud a try because his friends like it; and Maury D.P.F. Millard, a Swede from New York U who owes us all because he has more Subud spirit than nearly anybody. Maury gets my chair when he comes, and also the coldest beer. He’s the neatest guy you ever saw and I even switched to Paxtons because he smokes them.
Well, that about wraps you up, I think. And Himmler, too, for that matter. I believe he’s out of his league in this scramble. He should stick with the books, and maybe join the Young Pioneers.
Put in a good word for me with The Messiah. Tell him I’ll chant just about anything if there’s money and power in it. And you might add that I “do no wrong” either. That would give us something in common, so we could talk easily.
I am rewriting The Rum Diary around the concept of The Rage. Which harks back to my earlier concept of The Nigger.23 (Let me know if the word preceding these brackets is XXXXX (whoops)… ah … deleted by the Censor.) Next time I’ll brush up on my euphemisms.
I am thinking of dropping in on you. Ponder that until you get the next volley.
Mister Magnum
TO EDITOR, DENVER POST:
The Denver Post had refused to publish Thompson’s September 14 letter to the editor, so he tried again under a pseudonym.
November 14, 1963
Aspen, Colorado
Editor:
Bring knives and whips. Get the Bastards. If this price-fixing law goes through, Congress should be abolished. And they want more pay. Vote on nothing all year but a pay raise for themselves and higher prices for everybody else. No tax cut, no civil rights, no foreign aid. They should get the minimum wage. Send them back where they came from with no pay. What good are they? Violence! And that damn zip code. I sic my dogs on the postman. This whole country is going mad.
Helmut Deejen
Aspen, Colorado
TO JO HUDSON:
Low on funds, Thompson saw to it that the venison was plentiful on his dining table.
November 18, 1963
Woody Creek, Colorado
Jo:
You ain’t pickin’ up the meat like I am, Joko. I got so much I need new excuses to go hunting. Like exercise, walking the dog, looking for badger pelts, and that sort of thing. My toolshed is so full of hanging meat that I can’t open the door. Today I got caught in a goddamn blizzard about two miles from the house. I couldn’t see shit and was stumbling along half dead from cold. Agar was out ahead and apparently ran into a deer hotel. They scattered like ants from an anthill and one stupid fawn tried to run me down with Agar24 after it. I couldn’t see the sights at all but got him solid with a point-shot. I’ve been practicing with my 12-gauge meatmaster. It was too dark to gut him so I had to carry the bastard all the way to the house and do him on the porch. The blood froze into the snow and I guess it will be there until spring. It adds color to the porch. While I was climbing a fence to get the dead one, a spike buck trotted up to the body, sniffed and trotted off. Agar chased another one so far I thought he was lost, but after a half-hour or so he came back.
But so far, no elk. Getting a bull elk here is like getting a big boar there—or maybe harder, since they seem to be getting thicker than they were when I was around. Before I finish I’ll get a good rack for you. About a week ago we saw two huge bulls (elk) from the road about two miles up on a ridge. Racks with a seven-foot spread and 1
000 pounds each. Fucking monsters. The next day we climbed straight up from noon until sundown, getting there about the right time—but nothing. Or at least no elk. I passed up a buck about 300 pounds on the hoof with a rack that would knock your eyes out. But it was early then, and I didn’t want to spook the elk. An hour later, just before it got too dark to shoot, I gave up on the elk and shot another 300-lb. buck, but with a medium rack. I shot it off of his head with the .44, took the backstrap, and fled. A shitty thing to do, but I barely made it back as it was. It was like coming down from the Ridge Road after dark. And these Rockies make the Santa Lucias look like a public park.
Deer are big as hell around here. A lot of does are around 200. And elk are fantastic. You can’t drag them a foot without a horse, and it takes five men to hang a medium-sized cow. I had to work with one that a guy up the road shot. It took all afternoon with a horse, 3 men and a jeep to get back to the ranch, and another hour to hang it. And it wasn’t big, as they run.
Even so, I’d rather hunt boar. It’s a gutsier game, and not so much work when you get one. I was going to trade the .264 in on a Weatherby .300, but the damn thing is too efficient to get rid of. No matter where I hit, the bastards fall. The other day, after I’d gone out at 4 in the morning and climbed until 9 to get an elk—and failed—I was so pissed off that I took a 600- or 700-yard shot at a buck. He was so far away that I could barely see his rack—a big one—even with 7-power glasses. Anyway, I sat down, braced the gun on a wire fence, guessed at the elevation, and gave it the business. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the bastard sat down like his legs had been chopped off. I waited a while, keeping an eye on him, then started the horrible climb. It took me an hour to get there, straight up as always in this goddamn country, and I was no more than 10 yards away when the bastard jumped off and crashed off through the brush, straight downhill. I never saw him, but I guess it was a muscle hit and he’ll recover. But what a fantastic shot; I wish to hell I could have finished him, just for the souvenir.
I think what I’ll do is put a custom stock on the .264 and a 2 to 8 power B … L [Bausch & Lomb] variable scope. That should give me a hot bomb for both deer and varmints—and boar, elk and anything else smaller than a grizzly. I just sold a long article to The Reporter, a real prestige sale, and when the check comes I can probably afford the scope. I’ll also try to get down to Big Sur in a few weeks. It looks like I’ll zip over to that place above San Francisco and see about the house I might rent. If so, I’ll make it on down for some pig-poking. Sometime between now and Xmas. My financial condition is horribly up and down. For the past four weeks I haven’t had a dime. Charged everything at the General Store—gas, food, cigs, bullets, etc. Now, if there’s anything left after paying debts, I can probably afford to travel at least as far as California. The snow here is ungodly. I have to buy chains. Last year it went to 40 below. I can’t stand that.
Got a buck last week with the .44. Disintegrated his shoulder and blasted both lungs. About 60 yards. It’s a boar-buster, for sure. Especially when I get the scope mounted again. It’s all I need for a brush-gun.
I keep hearing terrible things about your dog situation. First I heard that you finished off the other two, and now that you can’t have any at Marion’s. What the hell is going on? Have you taken up cats? Are you turning queer? I have a hell of a fine Doberman, but he’ll never be worth a shit for road-running without good competition. I have him chasing rabbits and deer, but I know he’d never hit one except by accident. Get a decent animal and we’ll do some work. Mine already knows to watch out the front window for the action, and he moves out of the car fairly well, but I need something like a whippet to make him go hard. He thinks it’s a game. Maybe I’ll get a whippet. I think road-running beats hell out of regular hunting. It’s a white man’s sport, like falconry. I’m thinking of buying some falcons. […]
Write:
H
TO LAURIE HOSFORD:
November 19, 1963
Box 7
Woody Creek, Colorado
Dear Laurie:
I was watching the Bears-Packers game in an Aspen bar today and was reminded of you and Tallahassee when I saw my old, Eglin Bratkowski-McGee combination at work for the Packers in a losing cause. Sorry I haven’t written, but constant movement and desperate money-writing is hard on leisurely correspondence. Every time I sit down to write letters I remember an article that’s overdue and have to postpone the letters.
Last week I made a big jump by selling one on Louisville to The Reporter. It should be out soon, maybe this week. Try and pick it up. As far as I’m concerned, The Reporter is about the best magazine in the country; it’s the only one I really respect and as big-league as they come. I’m still doing stuff for the Observer, mostly book reviews, but now and then an article. Without traveling, it’s hard to live off of one market. I’m also sending out short stories and undertaking a rewrite of my novel, The Rum Diary. All in all, I’m busy as hell. And broke as hell, to boot. I can’t understand it. The more I make, the more broke I become. And god knows what’s going to happen when taxes come due. I’ll have to go to Mexico.
Sandy is pregnant as hell, and the dog is huge. I don’t know how I’m going to feed all these mouths. Winter is on us here, and the snow is terrible. I am trying to move to California, but will have to go over there first and check on the situation. I am also planning a trip to New York sometime soon, but nothing can be definite until I get checks.
Your talk of growing old, combined with the Tallahassee viewpoint, made a lot of sense. I seriously think you should get going on the fiction. Try markets like Playboy, Cavalier, Nugget, Rogue, and that sort of thing. They don’t get much good fiction and pay well when they accept something. In recent months I’ve seen a lot of stuff by armed forces people. Man, if I had $900 a month and time to write, I wouldn’t look around for a better deal. And a good kind of experience to draw on, too. You can get some damn good stuff out of the AF. Start hustling.
There is an unusual photo of Sandy on pg. 20 of the December Argosy. Shirley might enjoy it. But don’t believe I wrote that stupid letter; the bastards just signed my name to it. I’m currently trying to beat money out of them. Don’t ever send those bastards anything. They’ll steal it.
Did you see Ann [Frick] in Tallahassee? I’d really like to know what she’s doing. If you see her, tell her to write me a note. To hell with her husband. And keep me posted on your doings. […] Write.
HST
TO AL PODELL, ARGOSY:
Argosy had printed a photo Thompson had taken of Sandy without his permission. The magazine eventually paid him $150 rather than go to court.
November 19, 1963
Box 7
Woody Creek, Colorado
Dear Mr. Podell:
Be advised that my bill (enclosed) for the photo of my wife that you used without either permission or payment on page 20 of the December issue of Argosy is $100, which I deem an entirely reasonable fee, considering the circumstances.
Since I am not aware of the exact letter of the law in these matters, I have asked the advice of Mr. Leon Daniel at PIX, who now handles my photos. I have also advised Mr. Daniel, in a letter written tonight, that—failing monetary satisfaction—I have every intention of stomping the shit out of you, either in your office or wherever we happen to meet.
The simple use of the photo would not have bothered me excessively, but the outright forgery of that stinking letter was too much. You should have had better sense than to sign my name to it. Try to find a Hunter S. Thompson in Boulder, Colo.—especially one who has the rest of the transparencies from that roll from which you used one print.
What the hell kind of an operation are you people running, anyway? Or don’t you figure you need free-lancers? Fortunately, I have enough work with the Observer and The Reporter. I don’t make big money, but I make quite enough to visit New York now and then, and I stay in good enough shape to be able to raise hell when I get there. There’s nothing I’ll lik
e better—both as a healthy exercise and as good material for my biographers—than to gather some of my ham-fisted friends from McSorley’s25 and clean out your whole damn office.
You may or may not have the decency to give me some reply. Failing that—and a check—plan on seeing me in either late December or early January. If I happen to be delayed, I’ll let you know.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
BILL.… Payable, within 30 days, to Hunter S. Thompson, same address as above:
$100 … for unauthorized use of photo of Mrs. Hunter S. Thompson on page 20 of December Argosy. Used, without either notification or payment, in connection with letter titled “Almost Less,” to which my name was blatantly forged. Above-mentioned photo was not submitted for publication (see accompanying letter, dated September 11, of which I have a true carbon). Nor have I been in Boulder since 1957 and can see no reason why the letter to which my name was forged should have been datelined from such place.
Note … acceptable in lieu of payment in cash ($100), twice that amount in the form of suitable action on such court as the home team may prefer.
Yours, sincerely, in reaction to
larceny and insult,
Hunter S. Thompson
cc: 1) Al Podell, Photo Editor, Argosy, 205 E. 42nd St., New York City
1) Henry Steeger, Editor, Argosy, same address
2) two other, necessarily unnamed, gentlemen of sporting blood, c/o McSorley’s, East 7th St., New York.
Further note: Too many people in this gutless world have come under the impression that writers are a race of finks, queers and candy asses to be bilked, cheated and mocked as a form of commercial sport. It should be noted, therefore, in the public interest, that some writers possess .44 Magnums and can puncture beer cans with 240-grain slugs from that weapon at a distance of 150 yards. Other writers, it is said, tend to enjoy violence for its own sake, and feel that a good fight, with the inevitable destruction of all nearby equipment and furniture, is nearly as fine for the nerves as a quart of John Powers Irish [whiskey].