The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love- BETTER THAN SEX-NOT! Hunter Thompson Toward The End
BOOK REVIEW
BETTER THAN SEX, HUNTER S. THOMPSON, BALLANTINE BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1994
Know this. The late Hunter Thompson, Doctor Gonzo, was something of a muse for me although our politics, in the final analysis, were light years apart. In the end he never found a Democratic Party presidential candidate that he, even if grudgingly, could not support. I have read everything of his that I could get my hands on. During many a troubled time when I got down on the seemingly hopeless struggle in the fight for socialism his savage humor aimed at the inanities of bourgeois politics and politicians carried me through. That said, the book under review Better Than Sex about the trials and tribulations of covering the ill-starred 1992 presidential campaign eventually ‘won’ by Bill Clinton is not one of his better efforts and even with his vast journalistic skills must have been a chore rather than something to really dig into. I will tell you my take on the matter.
Hunter Thompson started making a name for himself as a political journalist in his first efforts at trying to understand presidential campaigns during the ill-fated Democratic campaign of George McGovern against one Richard M. Nixon in 1972. His Fear and Loathing on Campaign Trail 1972 stands as a classic of ‘alternative’ journalism on the issue. He stated then that a political junkie, and by any definition he was one, could only really stand in the vortex of one such campaign before burning out. Nevertheless he pressed his luck. Unfortunately, Thompson found himself in the place where Teddy White found himself after his seminal ‘straight’ reporting on the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign, The Making of President. White too, went on to write more such books and not to his benefit. In short, pigeon-holed. Take that lesson for what it is worth.
The problem with Better Than Sex is that Thompson had written it all before, and to better effect. The writing seems frantic and tired, very tired. It did not help that his cast of main characters- one President George H. W. Bush, William Jefferson Clinton and the genuine dingo bat Ross Perot- would make even a political junkie get him or herself to the nearest rehabilitation center. The book reflects that hollowness in many ways not the least is the extraordinary amount of filler (literally with ‘draft’ notes, letters, etc.) that clutters the book. If these reasons do not convince you then a three star rating on a genuine five star journalistic hero of mine tells the tale. Still, there is more than enough savagely funny analysis and humor for a real Thompson junkie to get by on during those lonely political nights. Enough said.
Zack James’ comment June, 2017:
Sometimes you just have to follow the bouncing ball like in
those old time sing along cartoons they used to have back in say the 1950s,the
time I remember them from, on Saturday afternoon matinees at the old now long
gone Stand Theater in my growing up town of North Adamsville. Follow me for a
minute here I won’t be long. Earlier this spring my oldest brother, Alex, took
attended a conference in San Francisco which he has done periodically for
years. While there he noticed an advertisement on a bus for something called
the Summer of Love Experience at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. That
ad immediately caught his attention he had been out there that year and had
participated in those events at the urging of his friend Peter Paul Markin who
was something of a holy goof (a Jack Kerouac term of art), a low rent prophet,
and a street criminal all in one. When Alex got back to the East after having
attended the exhibition he got in contact with me to help him, and the still
standing corner boys who also had gone out West at Markin’s urging to put
together a tribute booklet honoring Markin and the whole experience.
After completing that project, or maybe while completing it
I kept on thinking about the late Hunter S. Thompson who at one time was the
driving force behind gonzo journalism and had before his suicide about a decade
ago been something of a muse to me. At first my thoughts were about how
Thompson would have taken the exhibition at the de Young since a lot of what he
wrote about in the 1960s and 1970s was where the various counter-cultural
trends were, or were not, going. But then as the current national political
situation in America in the Trump Age has turned to crap, to craziness and
straight out weirdness I began to think about how Thompson would have handled
the 24/7/365 craziness these days since he had been an unremitting searing
critic of another President of the United States who also had low-life
instincts, one Richard Milhous Nixon.
The intertwining of the two stands came to head recently
over the fired FBI director James Comey hearings where he essentially said that
the emperor had no clothes. So I have been inserting various Thompson-like
comments in an occasional series I am running in various on-line publications-Even The President Of The United States
Sometimes Must Have To Stand Naked-Tales From The White House Bunker. And will
continue to overlap the two-Summer of Love and Age of Trump for as long as it seems
relevant. So there you are caught up. Ifs not then I have included hopefully
for the last time the latest cross-over Thompson idea.
************
Zack James comment, Summer of 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.
*******
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
BETTER THAN SEX, HUNTER S. THOMPSON, BALLANTINE BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1994
Know this. The late Hunter Thompson, Doctor Gonzo, was something of a muse for me although our politics, in the final analysis, were light years apart. In the end he never found a Democratic Party presidential candidate that he, even if grudgingly, could not support. I have read everything of his that I could get my hands on. During many a troubled time when I got down on the seemingly hopeless struggle in the fight for socialism his savage humor aimed at the inanities of bourgeois politics and politicians carried me through. That said, the book under review Better Than Sex about the trials and tribulations of covering the ill-starred 1992 presidential campaign eventually ‘won’ by Bill Clinton is not one of his better efforts and even with his vast journalistic skills must have been a chore rather than something to really dig into. I will tell you my take on the matter.
Hunter Thompson started making a name for himself as a political journalist in his first efforts at trying to understand presidential campaigns during the ill-fated Democratic campaign of George McGovern against one Richard M. Nixon in 1972. His Fear and Loathing on Campaign Trail 1972 stands as a classic of ‘alternative’ journalism on the issue. He stated then that a political junkie, and by any definition he was one, could only really stand in the vortex of one such campaign before burning out. Nevertheless he pressed his luck. Unfortunately, Thompson found himself in the place where Teddy White found himself after his seminal ‘straight’ reporting on the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign, The Making of President. White too, went on to write more such books and not to his benefit. In short, pigeon-holed. Take that lesson for what it is worth.
The problem with Better Than Sex is that Thompson had written it all before, and to better effect. The writing seems frantic and tired, very tired. It did not help that his cast of main characters- one President George H. W. Bush, William Jefferson Clinton and the genuine dingo bat Ross Perot- would make even a political junkie get him or herself to the nearest rehabilitation center. The book reflects that hollowness in many ways not the least is the extraordinary amount of filler (literally with ‘draft’ notes, letters, etc.) that clutters the book. If these reasons do not convince you then a three star rating on a genuine five star journalistic hero of mine tells the tale. Still, there is more than enough savagely funny analysis and humor for a real Thompson junkie to get by on during those lonely political nights. Enough said.
