I had a very off feeling today when I realized that most of the people I’ve done stories on recently are headed for jail—and I haven’t been writing crime stories. On my list to call when I woke up this morning were DeCanio, Ken Kesey, and Sonny Barger, president of the Oakland Hell’s Angels. DeCanio was sentenced yesterday,20 Kesey is out on some sort of complicated appeal, and Barger goes on trial August 18 for attempted murder.21 I think there has to be some sort of a story in this—perhaps a reflective, opinionated creed of some kind, or a nervous warning that the front lines are getting closer every day. For instance, I counted myself lucky that some FBI types didn’t check by my place prior to Johnson’s visit and ask how I’d like to take a ride up to a swimming camp on the Russian River for a few days, congenial company guaranteed and all meals free. I say this because about a month ago I wrote Johnson a pretty wild-eyed letter, canceling my application for the governorship of American Samoa, a post I’ve coveted for some time. Larry O’Brien was carrying the ball for me until he quit. Then I figured Johnson wouldn’t have the imagination to appoint me on his own, so I bowed out with a great skirting of anti-administration rhetoric.
Well, my point in writing this letter has nothing to do with the above. I merely wanted to know how I might get hold of Laslo Benedek.22 I’m going down to L.A. sometime soon to check that end of the cycle action and I thought it might be nice to check with Benedek, Brando and Lee Marvin for some motorcycle gangs. For they had quite a bit to do with publicizing the cult and I think their ideas might make interesting reading. But I have no idea how to reach any of them and I recall you saying you knew Benedek. Send me an address if you can.
I’ll also check on the hot-rod action in L.A. That is the capital. As for Non-Student, I am holding the galleys as long as possible because I know I’m going to have to do some rewriting and I don’t want to do it too far prior to publication. Send a line when you can.
Thanks—HST
TO MURRAY FISHER, PLAYBOY:
Thompson had been commissioned by Playboy to write on Ken Kesey and the Hell’s Angels.
August 9, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
Dear Mr. Fisher:
Here are a few notes, questions, etc. on the Hell’s Angels action:
How about fotos? The Angels themselves keep a vast scrapbook and they’d be more than willing to submit a selection, but the Post is ahead of us on this (unfortunately I gave the Post man a hell of a lot of help—but not realizing I’d soon be competing with him) and we’d have to wait until we see which ones they use, if any. I know a lad in L.A. who has some pretty good stuff, but some of that went to the Post, too. The papers here have some decent crime-type photos; the Chronicle, in particular, has one very good set, and I know the police reporter who helped them get it. I might even try some myself. I’m good, but spotty. Anyway, let me know.
Also, I’d like to have an official-looking letter from you, saying I’m doing the story for Playboy. Last night I was grabbed by the gendarmes at Ken Kesey’s loony bin in La Honda. (I introduced him to the San Francisco Angels last week and he decided to have a party for them; the locals flipped and the road in front of Kesey’s house was swarming with cop cars.) They stopped everybody either coming or going and went over the cars for possible violations. My tail-light lenses were cracked, so they cited me, and would have taken both me and Allen Ginsberg to jail, I think, if I hadn’t been sporting a tape recorder. Ginsberg was so enraged by the harassment that he might want to write an ode about it. If it interests you, I’ll ask him. Anyway, neither my woodsy garb nor Ginsberg’s foot-long beard made the right sort of impression, and a letter from you might have saved me $25—which I think in all fairness should go down as an expense item, since the incident will go into the article.
On the subject of expenses, how much would you people be willing to go for towards rental of a big bike? I think I should ride with these boys for a few weeks, to get the feel of it, but as it stands now I won’t be able to afford it until I get my second hunk of money from Ballantine, which won’t be for several months. So far I haven’t found a place that rents big stuff, so I might have to buy one—a junker of some kind, but good enough to hold up for a month or so. If it comes to that, would you be willing to contribute, in the form of expenses, toward the purchase? And how much? Let me know on all this stuff ASAP. Thanks,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO WILLIAM J. KENNEDY:
August 10, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
Dear Willie:
It’s raining like hell here and I’m seized with one of those 3:00 a.m. desires to get back to my roots, etc. My desk is a mountain of shit and I just found the letter you sent from Puerto Rico, pinned to my wall, blank side out, with the address of a wrecking yard on the back. I have no idea why.
Anyway, it seems like a hell of a while since I’ve heard from you. The last I heard, you were sitting in the Cafe Riviera, waiting for some loony to rush in and hurl a sack of lime in the place. I’d like to have been there. What the hell are you doing? I see your name in the Observer even less frequently than mine, which is to say, nada. I had a bad wrangle with them on a Tom Wolfe review, and we said a mutual fuck you, with me about $500 ahead. I should have got off that dead man’s train two years ago, but I was too lazy.
As I think I told you, this Hell’s Angels thing has just exploded for real on me. In addition to the book contract, I just got an assignment from Playboy—turning down a Cavalier offer in the meantime—and now even the Stanford Literary Review wants a Hell’s Angels piece. Yesterday a producer from the Merv Griffin show called me, asking if they could do a half-hour on the Angels. I said probably not, and turned him over to some crazed monster with a full beard and shoulder-length hair who was at that time sitting in my living room, jabbering into a tape recorder. After a few minutes the man hung up, but I’m sure he’ll call again. My luck on this is that the Angels dug my Nation piece, and now consider me the only straight press type they know. So I’m in a position to deal with other people more or less savagely. The one exception was a guy from the Saturday Evening Post, here last week for a cycle story, whom I helped way too much for my own good. But in any case, he’s a very decent guy and if you ever get to Princeton, look up a man named Bill Murray. You’d get along.
Also, before I forget, Pageant finally ran my Big Sur piece in the current (September) issue. Pick it up and comment. I may be approaching the point where I think everything I write is great, just because it’s published.
My action here consists now of dealing exclusively with motorcycle thugs—almost to the point of becoming one myself. As a matter of fact I am now pressing Playboy to pay for a bike, so I can ride with these guys and get the feel of it. Ballantine, as far as I can tell, expects me to take the expenses out of the $6000. All I’ve done for them so far is sign a contract and cash their check for the advance, which leaves me at the moment with $22. I haven’t even sent them an outline.
As things stand now, I have a (to be revised) piece due at The Nation by September 1, also a book review for them on the same date. Also a 5000-word piece to Playboy by then, and a short but pithy thing for Stanford Literary Review. The first half of the book is due September 15, and so far I haven’t written a word. This is in fact a kind of showdown for me; the Playboy piece, for instance, carries a $300 guarantee, and they’re not the sort to overlook a failure on that level. Nor would Ballantine be happy to write off $1500. In short, if I blow the action, I’m done, And I never even asked for it. All I wanted was a $1500 advance on the novel, with no guarantee at all. The moral here, I think, is never knock The Nation just because they pay $100. All that stuff I wrote for the Observer apparently died on the vine, but this one job for The Nation paid off in real gold. If you get any kind of socio-political story out of Albany, call Carey McWilliams and say I sent you. He’s a hell of a decent editor; for $100 each, he has to be.
In all, my life ha
s gone into a very strange groove. The other night I was arrested with Allen Ginsberg, as we left Ken Kesey’s party for the Hell’s Angels. My rent is paid two months in advance, which is perhaps the most unusual thing I can say at this time. And my home is full, night and day, of heinous thugs. On Friday one of them is bringing over some cubes of LSD and we are going to lock ourselves in. Sandy is terrified of it all, and Juan cries at the sight of these monsters, but the phone keeps ringing and people keep talking about money. I hope to be finished for good with this thing by Christmas, then go to either Brazil, Mexico or Chile. By then I should be able to get an advance on either The Rum Diary or some other novel, so I’m feeling pretty tough on that score.
Otherwise, life here continues along the same lines. What about yours? What general plans? I would again suspect a try at Cavalier; they apparently start at $750, at least that’s what they offered me, which is half the Playboy figure, but a much easier and more human bunch to deal with. I plan to pursue that one later. Hell, I plan to pursue a lot of things later, but it’s still raining here and I’m a long way from whatever I wanted to say when I began. You’ll have to pardon the manic tone of this letter; this recent action has jangled my concepts. All this money-talk, plus living with the Hell’s Angels, is changing my brain. Send a word to clear the air, and say what’s happening there. I think there’s a good chance we’ll see you around Christmas, en route to somewhere. Hello to Dana; Sandy and Juan are both asleep, but I’m sure they’d say something decent if they knew I was writing you right now. Juan has become a dangerous bomb. Shit, I’m tired. It’s 4:17. For christ’s sake, write.
Precipitously,
HST
TO EDITOR, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE:
Thompson, not wanting his friends at the newspaper to know he was the letter writer, used the pseudonym Dawn Thompson. (Dawn was Sandy’s middle name.)
September 17, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
Sir:
From the wilds of Colorado I followed your campaign against the dehumanization of phone numbers. Some of San Francisco’s “best minds” were in the vanguard, I’m told, yet it all came to naught. Out there in the frozen Rockies I toasted the lost cause, and sympathized. There go the foundations, I said to myself; from now on it’s just a matter of time.
Now, many months later, I find myself living in San Francisco. Today the phone company sent a man to hook up my phone—and, sure as hell, I had a seven-number digit that neither man nor beast could ever get straight in his head. The prefix was 891, followed by four others. A monster, and a senseless one, for sure, when you consider that New York City, with some 10 million residents, still manages to find word prefixes for all the phone exchanges.
I stared at my number, 891. Six letters to play with, and quite a few possible words. In the end I created my own exchange, “Otter 1.” Why not? There’s no forgetting it, and the system allows for a much higher degree of personalization than the old standards. Consider the possibilities—a virtual riot of individuality.
The only sad thing about it is that nobody thought—while the phone company was being so ugly and arbitrary—of beating them at their own game. The inevitable defeat of the anti-digit-dialing boys was just another example of the San Francisco syndrome at work—digging in the heels, looking desperately backward, and finally being whipped into line by corporate entities with neither the wit nor the will to understand what the diehards were talking about in the first place.
Why not try the “Otter 1” approach for a change? Try a little offense, instead of defensive heel-dragging all the time. The Opposition ain’t that tough. Sincerely,
Dawn Thompson
TO WILLIAM J. KENNEDY:
September 18, 1965
San Francisco
Dear Willie—
I was just about to ship off another postcard, but I figured it would piss you off, so I’ll try a short letter.
I’ve just sent a postcard to Cooke, trying to straighten him out on what I at least meant to say—and think I said, for that matter—when I called him on whatever night it was. The idea that “nobody cares” has never occurred to me, especially since I feel a long way from “making it.” What I tried to do was convey to Cooke the wisdom that “nobody knows.” In other words, I had just realized the hopelessness of seeking or even tolerating advice on what or how to write, and since Cooke was at the time trying to put things on paper, I thought he might benefit from my wisdom.
Behind that feeling was the realization, which came in a rush, that if I hadn’t got fucked up with the Observer I might still be turning out one or two pieces a month for them, and fighting to scrape up enough here and there for a bottle of booze. The seemingly incredible reaction to that Nation piece made me realize how sadly I’ve been wasting my time for two years. I’ve written better pieces for the Observer, but nobody read them. For that matter, I’ve even clipped them and sent samples around, but clue to the ingrown timidity and insecurity of the Establishment, it seems you need certain stamps and endorsements before you can be real. And The Nation is apparently one of those stamps. Anyway, it pissed me off to think we are dealing with a gang of punks who don’t have the vaguest idea what’s good or bad until somebody puts the stamp on it. Like the novel. I think it’s awful, you think it’s awful, and Random House just bought hardcover rights on the unwritten cycle book in order to get an option on the novel.23 The woman at Pantheon loves it; she’s afraid my rewrite will fuck it up. Christ, what am I to think? I don’t have the crazy balls to say, “No, I’ll refuse to let you publish it.” And besides, I’m broke.
Anyway, I don’t give a flying fuck who cares or doesn’t care about my status situation, and primarily because it ain’t even real enough to make me halfway comfortable. The whole thing is based on a book I haven’t even started; two publishers have bought it without seeing more than the Nation piece and an outline I did wild drunk in less than an hour. At the moment I’m taking time out from a long-overdue Playboy piece, which is giving me rottenass trouble, and which could make the difference between solvency and sadness for the next two months, while I wrestle with the cycle book. A bounce will put me in a terrible hole. The trouble is I know so much I can’t begin to fit the whole thing into 5000 words—which was easy for The Nation, because I didn’t know anything at all. My research on that was one afternoon at the Chronicle, going through clips, and one night at the apartment with five drunken Angels. But now I have six months of massive research to distill, and it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier for the book than it is for an article. In a nut, this whole thing gives me the fear. If all I had to do was work a few months on the novel, with guaranteed publication, I’d be a happy man, but the way it stands now is a fucking nightmare. Besides that I’ve already been nailed to the floor on the contract and the money for it all is shamefully small. That sluggish motherfucking Raines24 really set me up for a raping. I am now trying to get rid of him, but it’s not easy.
Your comments on the Pageant thing were apt, but what the hell? I bought only one copy of the magazine and couldn’t care less. There’s another one coming out in December; don’t bother to comment. I should also have one in the September 27 issue of The Nation, which might be decent. It was written last spring, though, and I’ve forgotten what I said.
As for LSD, I highly recommend it. We had a fine, wild weekend and no trouble at all. The feeling it produces is hard to describe. “Intensity” is a fair word for it. Try half a cube at first, just sit in the living room and turn on the music—after the kids have gone to bed. But never take it in uncomfortable or socially tense situations. And don’t have anybody around whom you don’t like. […]
You sound happier with your “insolvency” that I am in my panic. I feel like I’ve been hoisted toward the sun on the end of a very sharp sword, and the first wrong move will do me in for real. In the meantime, don’t rejoice at my “success.” I’m a long way from home, and I’m scared. Why don’t you just wri
te me a long happy letter about how great I am. As it is, my status in the neighborhood derives entirely from the basketball court, and that’s not much help on these long nights.
At the moment, Sandy and Juan are down in Monterey for the Jazz Festival, and I’m supposed to be here whipping the Playboy thing. Yeah.
HST
TO JIM THOMPSON:
After hearing the Jefferson Airplane play, Thompson was so impressed that he telephoned Ralph Gleason, cultural critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, and brought him down to the club. Thompson also hurried to tell his brother Jim, then fifteen, about his discovery.
September 25, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
Dear Jim—
As it happens, your letter came the morning after I saw Lightnin’ Hopkins at a club here called The Matrix.25 I know one of the owners and go there pretty often. If you’re looking around for some action on the folk-rock scene, get set for a group called the Jefferson Airplane, which also works out of The Matrix. They will lift the top of your head right off. A really wild sound. It won’t be out for a while; they just went to L.A. to record last week, but when it comes out it’s going to go like Zaannnggg!!! They make those silly goddamn Beatles sound like choirboys.
In the meantime, be careful what you tell your friends about my fame and fortune. We could both end up looking pretty silly. At the moment I’ve sold two books—one of which is lousy, and the other isn’t even written. So take it easy. It looks like things are happening, but these things happen real slow as far as fame and fortune are concerned. And a lot of damn good people aren’t making a dime.
Speaking of that, I have another article in this week’s Nation (September 27), and I guess the December Pageant will have another one. They’re both old things and I barely remember what I wrote, but if you see them send a line and say what you think. I’d really like to know how my style strikes you on various pieces. Also tell Mom that Dow-Jones is putting out something called The Observer’s World in November, and they tell me I have a few pieces in it. I think it’s a good book. Anyway, look for it.
Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 Page 69