Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
Page 17
And now, as I contemplate the myriad confusions and pointless haste of New York, I feel a little sad that Kraig is a memory instead of a reality. I wander in hectic loneliness between the Time & Life building and Columbia University, finding a home in neither place and thinking in terms of such places as Italy, San Francisco, Mexico, Tahiti, and a million other places. Perhaps I shall even get to St. Louis sometime soon: but then, as always, it will be too late.
So now I leave you, wishing you the best of everything (in this best of all possible worlds) and hoping that you are a little happier than you were when I saw you last. If you get to New York anytime soon (and don’t have Irv with you), I hope you’ll give me a ring. Maybe I can provide you with a few moments of stimulating nostalgia, coupled with very proper democratic conversation.
But perhaps I’ve bored you with this lengthy elegy, so I’ll reach into the past for the proper closing comment: I think it’s …
… cheerio.
Hunter
TO DOWN BEAT MAGAZINE:
Thompson never paid for the two issues of down beat discussed here. The magazine never hired him, either.
March 31, 1958
562 West 113th
Apartment 5E5
New York City
down beat
2001 Calumet Ave.
Chicago, Illinois
Gentlemen,
Please cancel my subscription to down beat IMMEDIATELY! If that thing on Bob “Moneybags” Higgins is a sampling of the kind of swill I’m paying to read, then Metronome,11 here I come!
I thought, after reading that “miscarriage” on W. C. Handy in the last issue, that I’d seen the absolute nadir of informative, perceptual reportage: but this thing on Higgins was a new low.
Who are these hacks that spew out these articles, anyway? Don’t you people have enough self-respect to hire a few good WRITERS? Christ on a crutch, man: if you people are as hard up for writers as you appear to be, then you need help in the worst way!
Seriously now, if you really can’t FIND any competent writers, then the very least I can do is to offer my assistance. I certainly don’t claim to be a music critic, but I could write a better story on Handy from newspaper clippings than that “thing” you published in your last issue. When any magazine gets to the point where it pays a DUNCE to write a cover story, then it should give up the ghost and stop publishing.
But be that as it may, the publishing future of down beat is none of my concern. Bill me for the two issues I’ve received and by all means feel free to call on me if you need competent help.
Most cordially,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO SALLY WILLIAMS:
Thompson had crafted a lunatic form letter designed to get creditors off his back; it worked about half the time.
April 2, 1958
562 West 113th
Apartment 5E5
New York City.
Dear Sally,
Mail this when you get a chance, will you? If this one doesn’t scare the bastards off, then nothing will. I think I should send a copy of this letter to the AMA [American Medical Association] as a sample of a schizophrenic mind at work: it’s a real whopper. Anyone who would try to collect any money from the author of this letter would have to be an out-and-out fool.
If they come looking for me with nets, tell them I left several weeks ago to go over to Gainesville, Florida to apply for a job as a religion editor on a paper there. Just as long as they never discover that I’m in New York, I’m all right.
Thanks,
Hunter
“DEBT LETTER”
April 2, 1958
Say man, what is all this? I just got back from New Orleans and the first thing I find is a threat from you people—some wild yap about jail and court and lawyers and such: what do you think I am—some kind of moneybag? Here I am trying to sell my short story trilogy, and you people hound me at every turn—howling and moaning about some idiotic debts! Who are you anyway? I never bought a damn thing from you people. What kind of rotten business are you in—that you have to hound people all over the country? I get a bunch of mail about every two or three months, and every damn time I get some, I find a threat from you!
What the hell are you trying to do, anyway? Don’t you realize that I can’t work with all this war coming on us? This atomic fallout is God’s WRATH! With the end of the world right on top of us, I can’t afford to work. If I don’t get my work published now, I may never get it published! Haven’t you ever heard of serving God and Mammon? With all this sex going on and people forgetting about God, how can you hound me like this? We’re taking whiskey into our bodies all the time and drink God’s BLOOD! I can’t hold a job—I get worried all the time and feel half crazy … what are you doing with all this money? I don’t want your damn money … we all have a home in Heaven … what’s all this trouble?
You don’t understand the strain I’m under: I’m not the same man I was a year ago. Worrying about my work and money and jobs all the time is driving me crazy! I have to get my work published! Why don’t you talk to some of these publishers you know and get me an advance so I can write a novel? Then I’ll have money … then I’ll have it … I won’t get these threats! I got a disease of some kind over in New Orleans and I can’t even go to a doctor! Everybody thinks it’s funny, but I have to get a job. I might be the assistant religion editor of the Gainesville Sun pretty soon … I’m going over there next week to see about a job. I had a car but somebody took it in St. Louis. Oh God, what’s happening all the time? Everybody wants to steal and drink and sex and take everybody’s money away from people who don’t even sell anything and there’s atomic fallout everywhere and war coming on. The whole world is going crazy and I don’t even have a job. You’ve got to stop threatening me! I’m not well—I have a blister on my leg and that damn disease all over my stomach. I can’t even think what I want to say anymore … this worry is driving me crazy.
I tried to work in New Orleans and they made me quit. If I get this thing in Gainesville I’ll be a religion editor and publish my own book in the paper. After that I’ll have a job and get well.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO SUSAN HASELDEN:
At last, Thompson moved to his own “bachelor pad,” a tiny basement apartment with black walls in Greenwich Village. However, he still spent most of his free time wandering around Columbia University.
April 13, 1958
57 Perry Street
New York City
Dear Susan,
What the hell do you mean, saying “you’d probably get us both killed”? Judging from my wandering during the past three years, I could probably go from here to Cape Town wearing nothing but a loincloth, without a smidgen of trouble. And as for the Congo, I feel quite sure that I could take an entire harem safely from one end of it to the other. As a matter of fact, I’d feel pretty safe taking almost anyone or anything except a group of giggling virgins.
Your letters, though—however virginal and full of giggles—never fail to cheer me up a bit. And, oddly enough, right now when things are going even better than expected, I seem to feel the need for foreign cheer of some kind. I think the reason for this is that I’ve just realized that I’m going to be a resident of New York for a relatively goodly length of time. It’s not that I’ve committed myself for any specific length of months, but that I merely see the need to remain here for a while. New York is at once an education, an initiation, and a stimulant. It gives one a perspective, I think, that would be impossible to get anywhere else in the world. But god have mercy on those who can live with this perspective.
Seriously, this damned place is like an early William Saroyan story: the lonely, wilted little daisies from Hattiesburg, Mississippi; frustrated, hymnsinging Chinese girls; frenzied interracialists from all over the damned world; the girl next door from Dayton, Ohio; timid neo-intellectuals from Parsons, Kansas (reminds me a little of you); and god only knows what else. To para
phrase someone, “I have just begun to see!” Mid-town Manhattan is an unbelievable circus, Harlem is hell on earth, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn are all tombs, and this goddamned Village is enough to frighten any honest beachcomber to death. Do you realize that sunlight NEVER ENTERS MY APARTMENT? Can you understand what this means—what kind of effect this perpetual darkness can have on a man? Do you realize that I know people who LIVE in bars—get their mail there? There are people here who are so lonely that I can’t stand to talk to them. God, what a tragic paradox.
But I have the answer now—a very general one, of course, but nonetheless an answer. I am either very fortunate or very crazy to have settled on it at this early age, but at any rate, I have it. I shall explain it to you when I have more time.
This apartment, by the way, is something straight out of a “low bohemia” movie. I got it from an unemployed songwriter who’s all but dead from lack of sunlight. The lease belongs to a dope addict who left town two and a half years ago, and who may return at any time to claim it—Christ only knows what will happen then. Maybe I shall go to live in the Owl Creek swimming pool. Money troubles—debt as usual.
That’s about it for now. You didn’t say when you’d be up, by the way, so keep that in mind next time.
Until then,
Hunter
TO HUME LOGAN:
Thompson had just been delving into the existential tracts of Jean-Paul Sartre when Logan, a Louisville friend and fellow Athenaeum Literary Association cohort, wrote asking for some career advice.
April 22, 1958
57 Perry Street
New York City
Dear Hume,
You ask advice: ah, what a very human and very dangerous thing to do! For to give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal—to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction—is something only a fool would take upon himself.
I am not a fool, but I respect your sincerity in asking my advice. I ask you though, in listening to what I say, to remember that all advice can only be a product of the ma who gives it. What is truth to one may be disaster to another. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine. If I were to attempt to give you specific advice, it would be too much like the blind leading the blind.
“To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles.…”
(Shakespeare)
And indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. It is a choice we must all make—consciously or unconsciously—at one time in our lives. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you’ve ever made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don’t see how it could have been anything but a choice—however indirect—between the two things I’ve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.
But why not float if you have no goal? That is another question. It is unquestionably better to enjoy the floating than to swim in uncertainty. So how does a man find a goal? Not a castle in the stars, but a real and tangible thing. How can a man be sure he’s not after the “big rock candy mountain,” the enticing sugar-candy goal that has little taste and no substance?
The answer—and, in a sense, the tragedy of life—is that we seek to understand the goal and not the man. We set up a goal which demands of us certain things: and we do these things. We adjust to the demands of a concept which CANNOT be valid. When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective has changed. It’s not the fireman who has changed, but you. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.
So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?
The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all, or not with tangible goals, anyway. It would take reams of paper to develop this subject to fulfillment. God only knows how many books have been written on “the meaning of man” and that sort of thing, and god only knows how many people have pondered the subject. (I use the term “god only knows” purely as an expression.) There’s very little sense in my trying to give it up to you in the proverbial nutshell, because I’m the first to admit my absolute lack of qualifications for reducing the meaning of life to one or two paragraphs.
I’m going to steer clear of the word “existentialism,” but you might keep it in mind as a key of sorts. You might also try something called Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre, and another little thing called Existentialism: From Dostoyevsky to Sartre.12 These are merely suggestions. If you’re genuinely satisfied with what you are and what you’re doing, then give those books a wide berth. (Let sleeping dogs lie.)
But back to the answer. As I said, to put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES.
But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors—but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal. In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires—including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to BE something; he has to matter.
As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES. In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal) he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on his self-development), and he avoids the terror of seeing his goal wilt or lose its charm as he draws closer to it (rather than bending himself to meet the demands of that which he seeks, he has bent his goal to conform to his own abilities and desires).
In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important. And it seems almost ridiculous to say that a man MUST function in a pattern of his own choosing; for to let another man define your own goals is to give up one of the most meaningful aspects of life—the definitive act of will which makes a man an individual.
Let’s assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course). And let’s assume that you can’t see any real purpose in any of the eight. THEN—and here is the essence of all I’ve said-you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH.
Naturally, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’ve lived a relatively narrow life, a vertical rather than a horizontal existence. So it isn’t any too difficult to understand why you seem to feel the way you do. But a man who procrastinates in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.
So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.
But you say, “I don’t know where to look; I don’t know what to look for.” And there’s the crux. Is it worth giving up what I have to look for something better? I don’t know—is it? Who can make that decision but you? But even by DECIDING TO LOOK, you go a long way toward making the choice.
If I don’t call this to a ha
lt, I’m going to find myself writing a book. I hope it’s not as confusing as it looks at first glance. Keep in mind, of course, that this is MY WAY of looking at things. I happen to think that it’s pretty generally applicable, but you may not. Each of us has to create our own credo—this merely happens to be mine.
If any part of it doesn’t seem to make sense, by all means call it to my attention. I’m not trying to send you out “on the road” in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that—no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company.
And that’s it for now. Until I hear from you again, I remain,
your friend …
Hunter
TO THE NEW YORK TIMES:
Thompson’s reply to a blind New York Times want ad for a reporter failed to get him an interview.
April 29, 1958
57 Perry Street
New York City
Box Z8726
NY TIMES
Gentlemen,
After debating for several days as to the advisability of answering your ad in last Sunday’s Times, I’ve decided to take the proverbial shot in the dark. If I get a reply from something like Family Fun, Garden Specialties, or Weird Confessions, I’ll know my first hunch was right.
For it is my own special shame, gentlemen, to have to admit that I am UNABLE to write for such worthy periodicals. Somewhere along the line I went wrong. Somewhere there is a great warp in my training, rendering me unfit to compose eulogies on “togetherness,” exposés on prostitution rings, or heart-warming revelations on the private life of blind folk.