The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love,1967- Hunter S.Thompson-The "Gonzo" King Near The End
BOOK REVIEW
Kingdom of Fear, Hunter S. Thompson, Penguin, New York, 2004
Make no mistake the late, lamented Hunter Thompson was always something of a muse for me going way back to the early 1970's when I first read his seminal work on outlaw bikers, The Hell's Angels. Since then I have devoured, and re-devoured virtually everything that he has written. I have reviewed many of those efforts elsewhere in this space. As I noted recently in reviewing his 2004 work Hey, Rube, a screed on the misadventures of a gambling freak (himself), not all his efforts have been equally compelling. That was the case in my panning of Hey, Rube but here we are back on much more solid `gonzo' style from the old days. Maybe it is because this work is in the form of a memoir and thus intentionally places the good Doc's actions in the center of the writing that puts this effort in the mold of his better compilations like the Great Shark Hunt and Songs of the Doomed.
Thompson uses his patented stream of consciousness trope to create amusing stories starting from the then present (early 2000's) and his then current doings and splices them together, in some segments randomly, to events as far back as his childhood in Louisville, Kentucky. Along the way we find him at age nine in trouble with the FBI, and none the worst for the confrontation. Later, it is down and dirty in Rio with the crazies. Throughout, we find him incessantly testing his beloved guns and various ‘hot’ motorcycles at various and sundry appropriate and inappropriate times.
Additionally, we have some compelling and insightful stories as this radical journalist tours the news breaking global spots, taking trips to places like Vietnam just before the fall, Cuba, Grenada just after the invasion and elsewhere wherever the journalistic action might be and a story, in the Thompson style, might develop. Needless to say there is plenty of ink about sex, drugs and rock and rock including his deeply affecting and traumatic tangle with the law in Aspen the early 1990's. That, my friends, was a close call.
And throughout, as usual, there are pithy political comments about the various idiots-in-chiefs, their henchmen and hangers-on that he spent his life hammering. Maybe not hammering your way, definitely not my way, but his way. His fateful run for Sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket in 1970 probably accurately set the tone as a lifelong description of his politics. For those who have read other works by Thompson some of the signature language may be old hat as he meanders along in this volume. For others it is a chance to learn the lingo. Damn, especially this election year, I miss him. Read on.
Zack James’ comment June, 2017:
Maybe it says something about the times we live in, or maybe in this instance happenstance or, hell maybe something in the water but certain things sort of dovetail every now and again. I initially started this commentary segment after having written a longest piece for my brother and his friends as part of a small tribute booklet they were putting together about my and their takes on the Summer of Love, 1967. That event that my brother, Alex, had been knee deep in had always interested me from afar since I was way too young to have appreciated what was happening in San Francisco in those Wild West days. What got him motivated to do the booklet had been an exhibit at the de Young Art Museum in Golden Gate Park where they were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the events of that summer with a look at the music, fashion, photography and exquisite poster art which was created then just as vivid advertising for concerts and “happenings” but which now is legitimate artful expression.
That project subsequently got me started thinking about the late Hunter Thompson, Doctor Gonzo, the driving force behind a new way of looking at and presenting journalism which was really much closer to the nub of what real reporting was about. Initially I was interested in some of Thompson’s reportage on what was what in San Francisco as he touched the elbows of those times having spent a fair amount of time working on his seminal book on the Hell’s Angels while all hell was breaking out in Frisco town. Delved into with all hands and legs the high points and the low, the ebb which he located somewhere between the Chicago Democratic Convention fiasco of the summer of 1968 and the hellish Rollins Stones Altamont concert of 1969.
Here is what is important today though, about how the dots get connected out of seemingly random occurrences. Hunter Thompson also made his mark as a searing no holds barred mano y mano reporter of the rise and fall, of the worthy demise of one Richard Milhous Nixon at one time President of the United States and a common low-life criminal of ill-repute. Needless to say today, the summer of 2107, in the age of one Donald Trump, another President of the United States and common low-life criminal begs the obvious question of what the sorely missed Doctor Gonzo would have made of the whole process of the self-destruction of another American presidency, or a damn good run at self-destruction. So today and maybe occasionally in the future there will be some intertwining of commentary about events fifty years ago and today. Below to catch readers up to speed is the most recent “homage” to Hunter Thompson. And you too I hope will ask the pertinent question. Hunter where are you when we need, desperately need, you.
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Zack James comment, Summer of 2017
You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. (Walking with the king not about walking with any king or Doctor King but being so high on drugs, your choice, that commin clay experiences fall by the way side. In the times of this 50th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place, where many walked with the king, if you prefer, and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh no, no that is not done in proper society, in high art society these days) at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period showing until August 20th of this year.
Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. He would have gone crazy seeing all the crew deserting the sinking U.S.S. Trump with guys like fired FBI Director Comey going to Capitol Hill and saying out loud the emperor has no clothes and would not know the truth if it grabbed him by the throat. Every day would be a feast day. But perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and assorted other bullshit would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized” times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs who like their forbears would stop at nothing he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now
BOOK REVIEW
Kingdom of Fear, Hunter S. Thompson, Penguin, New York, 2004
Make no mistake the late, lamented Hunter Thompson was always something of a muse for me going way back to the early 1970's when I first read his seminal work on outlaw bikers, The Hell's Angels. Since then I have devoured, and re-devoured virtually everything that he has written. I have reviewed many of those efforts elsewhere in this space. As I noted recently in reviewing his 2004 work Hey, Rube, a screed on the misadventures of a gambling freak (himself), not all his efforts have been equally compelling. That was the case in my panning of Hey, Rube but here we are back on much more solid `gonzo' style from the old days. Maybe it is because this work is in the form of a memoir and thus intentionally places the good Doc's actions in the center of the writing that puts this effort in the mold of his better compilations like the Great Shark Hunt and Songs of the Doomed.
Thompson uses his patented stream of consciousness trope to create amusing stories starting from the then present (early 2000's) and his then current doings and splices them together, in some segments randomly, to events as far back as his childhood in Louisville, Kentucky. Along the way we find him at age nine in trouble with the FBI, and none the worst for the confrontation. Later, it is down and dirty in Rio with the crazies. Throughout, we find him incessantly testing his beloved guns and various ‘hot’ motorcycles at various and sundry appropriate and inappropriate times.
Additionally, we have some compelling and insightful stories as this radical journalist tours the news breaking global spots, taking trips to places like Vietnam just before the fall, Cuba, Grenada just after the invasion and elsewhere wherever the journalistic action might be and a story, in the Thompson style, might develop. Needless to say there is plenty of ink about sex, drugs and rock and rock including his deeply affecting and traumatic tangle with the law in Aspen the early 1990's. That, my friends, was a close call.
And throughout, as usual, there are pithy political comments about the various idiots-in-chiefs, their henchmen and hangers-on that he spent his life hammering. Maybe not hammering your way, definitely not my way, but his way. His fateful run for Sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket in 1970 probably accurately set the tone as a lifelong description of his politics. For those who have read other works by Thompson some of the signature language may be old hat as he meanders along in this volume. For others it is a chance to learn the lingo. Damn, especially this election year, I miss him. Read on.
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