cuba gooding jr., david, jane fanned fonda and vanessa red grave. a pretty special movie came out in 2013. i think you can safely say it sort of took america by storm. it was an mace ab amazing hart felt story of a gentleman i tracked down who worked for eight american presidents. his name was eugene allen, and he had quite a life. he started in the white house wore harry truman and went up to president reagan he had quite an epic life. >> host: author wil haygood, thank you for your time. ...

>> good evening. welcome to politics and prose. i just want to take a few notes. we ask you to silence your cell phones. you don't want to be the person his phone rings in the middle of the broadcast. with a life --dash make a line stretching towards the front of the store. and one last note. before. today's guest is the brighter timothy denevi his book "freak

kingdom" just came out today. he creates the necessarily fast paced. he process or tapes the look of his political thought. please help me welcome timothy denevi. [applause]. speemac hi everyone. thank you so much for coming out. i am very excited to be able to be here to talk about the book. i'm just in a read for about 20 minutes. always read for less time than allotted.

in the years spinning the perception. the power and end to additional justice. additional justice. in the fantastic possibilities flaws of the american system of government. about 20 minutes total. thompson went out to write about it. he have gotten a press pass. and so he was on hand for much of the violence that would erupt throughout the convention. there is a police riot in front of the hilton hotel.

he is there among them. he had been billy clubbed in the stomach. he said what do you think it is. he is ready with this the sort of experience he just head. the violence erupts again which it is about to. i'm going to read a passage that is about a year later. on the evening of wednesday august 28. working on the second book was standing at the corner of michigan and balboa.

around him 7,000 protesters have pinned their way into the four-way intersection. from across the city it was coming on. a late summer highlight. they have taken up a position during the ground level restaurant. he and other journalists stood alongside a number of a democratic the democratic staffers who would come down from the room. the onside commander. received words that additional reinforcements have begun to arise. and for the authors.

the chicago police approached from both ends. in tight military formation. then they broke into a full run. they'd taken off the badges and name plates. in order to attack. it had been delayed. there could be no doubt that the representative of the highest authorities. in the burning fog. the panicked footsteps in the screams. new wave of a cops arrived. as they approached the intersection. the protesters tried to flee. goddamn they have took them

over. and was tossing them into one of the paddy wagons. now this cop turned to attack him. a dr. in a white coat. they kept beating him. they were playing closed tops, white shirted cops. others were long black jackets. for 15 unbelievable minutes -- minutes. the entire time he was standing behind the yellow barricade with the back to the hilton ground restaurant. i had been have been the safest spot. they had been chance that the whole world is watching. but now they are silent.

the cops taking control and the newest assault. the exact spot where thompson and the others were standing. now the officers charged. they came in fast behind the wet foggy bursts. they were forced against the hilton. if you try to break through the line. they were quickly separated and beaten. they were pinned against the windows. they reached frantically. he slipped it out just as the cops got to him. they have it down on the motorcycle helmet. they have contacted a skull

and brain. unlike the other concussed men and women around him. they could still register with all of the faculties intact. the civic authorities have the opposition. it could be completely and and a quickly discarded. and they could do anything. now they have that. it loudly shattered. men and women told helplessly down into the restaurant. the cops shoved past. where they down there now on the ruthless floor of the haymarket.

the shot exploding in his chest before he even got its report. there is nothing he could do. i have never been caught in an earthquake about this moment. i'm sure the file would be just about the same. something was coming in that we couldn't see. he was overcome and the terror and what it means to be hit as if it a nightmare go down. it was a sort of fear bobby kennedy had been made to feel. could still ask if everyone else was okay. the helpless to do anything but watch it go. were talking about the saddest moment in all. we are beyond everyone else's reach. he was slumped against the wall. the cops beat them anyway. beating the diners who have

been in the haymarket also. clear the floor one of them shouted. the intersection was secure. they sawn opening. and through the remaining crowd of police. he sprinted to the black skirt about 60 feet away. i live here goddamnit. i'm paying $50 a day. in his room he locked and chained his doors. his gut ached. he was unharmed. he what a cloth and held it carefully to his face. then he sat on the bed his entire body was shaking he could not write none of it made sense the whole week the police had known he was a member of the press. the men and women they had forced through the haymarket window. a number of the nonviolent young protesters worked as campaign status is. years later looking back on

the moment. these bassford's new my position. and they wanted to beat me anyway. the police armed the united states government. with the vengeful thugs. the violence he just witnessed was clearly state sanctioned. i had originated with the court electoral process. the primaries is now threatened. we were the authors in performers and intended audiences. all of this the violence had been with us. a song for america. it was just after 9:00 p.m. it was about to begin. they still have the press pass. it had been around his neck the entire time and he planned to put it to use now for something other than an invitation to a beating.

>> and so, thompson goes to the democratic national convention. he is in the press apron and is screaming at the georgia delegation. they are trying to nominate a bowl carter. and eventually he got kicked out. this is right about the time when he was on stage and said if we didn't have these tactics going on in the streets of chicago he said something we can't repeat here. and he slurred them. he said that to abe river cough. the senator of connecticut.

how hard it is to accept the truth. and he could see him and hear him say that. when you can see in up in that moment and on the floor. a little bit of context now. this is from nixon's inauguration. one thing i will say about this is that he was really a turned to how much you begin to change after chicago. there may have been some writing by the protesters but it was a nonviolent protest. thompson left questioning how can you protest against injustice and still make sure that the people who are perpetrating this are part of it. and listen to what you have to say and change. how is that degrading everything else going on. that police riot that i just read. got nixon elected. they were watching that

event. he said he knew right then that nixon had won the election. how could herbert humphrey ever show that he could control the country. and so the only other thing you need to know. if you've seen the vietnam war documentary and read the book on nixon. committed treason right before he was elected president. he interfered with the vietnam war and the piece discussions. i would never do that. we both know you did it. but johnson didn't have any cachet with the american public anymore.

as soon as he took office. he was deeply compromised. then he had been locked into this form of injustice. he done something so terrible. a part of the dirty tricks that you would see later trying to break into the brookings institution. was to make sure that the story of his treason never came out. this is just thompson going to the inauguration and being horrified. this will be the final section that we read. and we will do some questions. and monday, january 20, 1969.

the greatest honor they can bestow is his honor of peacemaker. when we listen to the battle -- the better --dash the better angels of our nature. such is goodness, as goodness, decency love and kindness. he meant made the trip east. the peace we seek is not victory over any other people but the peace that comes with healing in its wings nixon said. as our eyes catch the dimness of the first rays of the don let us not curse the remaining dark. he recognized the source. the rebranding effort. america so desperately needed. but this point he had been writing about nixon for nearly a decade.

us a sinister talent for deception. ambition and now in victory he proved to be anything for its part at the end of the address. the government will listen. and then he got into his enormous lincoln limousine and kicked up the inaugural parade. it would take them within a little stone's throw of the thousands of protesters who headlined of the city's winter streets. they were able to stake out a prime spot at the end of the parade route. cross from the largest in bleachers.

it was early afternoon. the wind have come down from the northeast. the motorcade advance directly with the long angled corridor. it cap connected one to see of american power to another. secret service agents trotted alongside. they posted up along the parade route. they had been gathering for what was being called the counter inaugural multi- day event organized by the same activist. including david dollinger. who were facing a five-year five-year prison sentences in illinois. after chicago the general mood

had soured. violence and confrontation are the themes now. vicious a desistance desistance is a style as they approached the intersection of h and pennsylvania in the clocktower the first a small group was waiting. as well as an additional unarmed contingent from the 82nd airborne division. not that mattered. as soon as the lemonade -- limousine appeared. they struggle to bat down the projectiles. that and it's arc. appeared to be going directly towards that vehicle. the largest have gathered at 14h street and the theater. the parade route's whitest spots.

four more years of death. and lf is going to win. organized to smash the state. we don't want your war. and that became a new brush. they are rolling underneath. the national guard men's surged against the crowd reaching for the assailants but the assailants grabbed it and beat anyone from law enforcement. one cop after charging into the crowd have been nearly stripped naked. they threw stones and bottles. they threw table forks as a spoon. and through them as hard as

they could in the general direction of the new president. it was 2:45 p.m. he was still in his spot at pennsylvania and 15th street across the avenue in the white plank bleachers where the leaders and in legitimately purchased within me. and nixon is the one. the number one war criminal. someone threw a half gallon jug of wine. i news caster announce into the microphone here comes the president. from around the corner of the limousine appeared a huge hollowed out cannibal. a very nasty looking armored car. it had been a year of assassination. into feats that have led for hunter thompson to the most unthinkable outcome of all. the whole concept died at the democratic national convention.

up until a chicago there had been the assumption that the politicians running the country were capable of receiving the mass demonstration on the war in vietnam within the context of the reality. we are willing to play by the same set of guidelines. even if they disagree. thompson would write years later. the shocking decision to recognize the failure in vietnam. that is why in the current reality felt so devastating. with nixon coming into power there was simply no point in yelling at the men. they were born deaf and stupid.

he watched it turned from 15th street to the white house. the temperature was dropping. the sky thickened and dim. they rode by on horseback. the wind did with the long ribbon up debris. an enormous helicopter beat the air. i can dust in freezing rain and shallow stagnant water. around him the white sand statues revealed themselves haphazardly like relics. the meanings suddenly assumed. mister nixon city. a monument to the office he have finally won to him. [applause]. >> thank you everyone. this is awkward there is one

more page i dislike it when people clap a lot. i will just read the last two paragraphs. a shout out to our nova nights. that knights. that should break the tension right now. the last two paragraphs for thompson. across the great river. he lays close in a coffin. both of them forced to endure and in death. bobby kennedy had said.

he would hold it deer for the rest of his life. only after the best of us are driven in silence. and suddenly he felt disgusted and disillusioned at a loss. whoever have the sky was about to break. what a fantastic monument he later writes. i went well. not awkward. hi, i lived through all of this. talk a little more about hunter thompson.

i wasn't really aware of him then even though when i got to law school in 1969 there was a moratorium what was his background. i was a different from the more familiar. he started on a normal journalistic group. he was a correspondent throughout north america. there were short little articles that were not nearly voiced in the same way. really extreme issues. there is one about british ambassador hitting golf balls

into the poor slums beneath. he had have friends when he was 18 they were accused of a robbery he did admit -- didn't commit. that was in the mid-to-late 50s. he ended up going to west because he felt like the cultural movement would originate there. he was present when the 12,000 person march tried to break through. he was at the center of all of that. it is about a really angry

motorcycle gang. but it's also about the west. it's about the limitations on the promises of the counterculture. he was always pushing to move beyond the standard journalistic attempt. it was a fan. the political experience of america at a time. one thing he did really will was there as it was view of his campaign book. it compares him to theater right. he would follow that. and would know that everybody was chummy with everybody.

he would come in for a week or two and write these songs for america. thompson was in the middle. he was writing about something larger that was happening. that dual experience of spending every day there. and also striving to articulate something bigger. .. .. after 1972 or 1968 what happened to her? >> he went home and he cried for two weeks, after he was hit in the head he cried for two weeks. he didn't leave his room.

he was terrifying to see that. it was james alter the fiction writer that rhoda mira containing aspect, and he also ran for sheriff in aspen. it was after he ran for sure, it was a really serious platform. he also was an nra member, he also was an individualist. he was an liberalists. long story short, he was reenergized by that run by in relation to work within. in the book of law his attorney in los angeles, it was a different situation, please for killing him and his friends and he didn't have the same position that thompson did. thompson after that went back on the campaign trail went to national parks again.

you're welcome. >> i am wondering what do you think of the portrayal of thompson that way that we know him is sort of a cookie unstable, genius? >> thank you carrie, i think that we need to be careful that we don't become characters of ourselves. that is the same thing happened to thompson. this book focuses on who he was before that. because there's some negative aspects of that character. there are some things that don't hold up well. one thing that doug briefly says is that for this decade thompson was taking dexedrine, which is a

stimulant to work, and later that he would take drugs to escape work. during this decade he was so overwhelmed that he was so intent on trying to report on the american condition that he was much busier than he ever dramatized himself being on the page. so the dramatized version that we now get, or if it's somebody just of halloween is him, we get that masculine characteristic. that is a kind of persona he created on the page that he would argue later in his life, and his own experience. when he was creating a persona page. that was the moment at the typewriter that he was trying to show himself from the past self, or from two or 30s earlier. he traumatized the wilderness. well and i was past him. the last line of the book is that the worst day of all of

this is a eulogy that you never get to write, which is for yourself. the narrative that you create will be out of your heads or that you become a character of it. i find that version especially today to be compelling as a serious artist and journalists. i don't have a journalistic background, i have done a lot of journal of journalism since i was 18, thompson was a journalist and understood everything that he was doing and understood the rules as he was breaking in. he understood how to write, and then he chose to deviate from that formally. it is a start at that deviation, experimental and formal place. we gotta remember that he spent a lot of years in new york and having them cut in half just trying to get money out of them.

thank you carrie,. >> ryan, last question, don't be shy,. >> can you talk about the research that you did in the process of research and how you took into writing into the many years? >> that is a very good question, ryan is also another excellent writer. i wanted this book to be true and i wanted everything to be accounted for. the book is about certain pages of narrative that i want any reader to read but that adds another hundred pages or 50000 words of notes, those notes account for every site small,

sound, hope that happens and there was also a space to have me on the page. so if i say that san francisco smelt like that near big bay machine oil. i would say i grew up going to the spa of san francisco and i knew this five san francisco and i want the reader to see where i started the narrative. as soon as we apply or put into these of the world, put them into a narrative we are moving away from what jeff dupuis half. that being said, i wanted the reader to know what form words of the story is looking at and why thought that what i accessed was true. so all of the notes are filled with where the information came from in the building up of that are filled with me thinking in a

sense with the reader and about why these choices will be made. as a final note, any time you write about another writer or another speaker you can't sound like them in your prose. it would never ever work. it can be like a magnet and i wanted to make sure that none of my sentences ever sounded like his writing. i was reading certain writers that were magnet in a different direction, and so i will put if i have an image or shadow, i will have lines in a block off and the grandfather takes the teeth out of the mouth and there is a lying. i guess in nonfiction with serious surgery can use yours with value line you can use paragraphs, and paragraph and put in the back. if you look at the notes that i want to conduct their just paragraphs of several writers.

ryan was in class when i would walk larry i in-and-out as if in a fog, because i-4 hours of sleep. during 14 hours of research for six hours of writing, it is not something that i will do again. it was worth it, i guess. why not. i read this book at night, the deadline was approaching so rapidly that i would get up before 5:00 p.m. to stay up all night about 10:00 p.m. and sleep during the day, so there was no e-mail, no news, no errands to run, so i was able to spend time with my family in the morning but i was gone from the world, the media of the world, which was the only way to live in this past to write this. >> thank you very much. are you inspired to write this because you saw the relevance of

portable situations, did you start before and change the book when he saw what was happening on a political scale? >> all of us, on whatever side of the aisle that we are on, whatever politically that we are. since 2016 whatever is happening sense. no matter where we start from it's hard to see people busted down. thompson wasn't killed during a police riot in chicago. after then to try to get a sense of what thompson's were experiences where i went -- the 2016 national convention in

cleveland in philadelphia. after on election night been at the trump hotel at 9:00 p.m., where i get a text from my wife, it shows the image on new york times probability little measurement about 90% hillary to temper salary. i was watching on tv that everybody was there to celebrate trump and erupts into a credible event and cheer. and then looking back at kennedy assassination and how thompson was affected by that. in looking back at the 1964 democratic national convention where extreme is an in defense of liberty is a no device and thompson was on the floor and bribed a guard to get down there. thompson looks around and everybody is hanging their chairs and screaming and he feels a swarm of political violence. he feels that any moment that

this could become not political enthusiasm for political violence. yes to answer your question, it is impossible not to look back at all those events. the story is always telling about the present. we're never gonna be objective. that person is going to be. what is happening now and i do believe what he has to say about now in the room at located justice in extreme and of some of both sides. thanks. >> hi, thanks for your presentation. i have two questions but you can only answer one of them. the first one is, which of his books was your favorite and why? the second one is, do you see him sort of as a continuation of writers and so of what context?

>> this is a 20000 word narrative account for he goes to east los angeles and reports on abuse within the lapd. he is disliked by members of the brown parade movement and it is a good cause because they don't know they can trust them. the cops are going to ask questions about how they killed the journalist. he has a character in that, he plays sort of a backseat role to the drama that is going on and i think that is a nice place that is more dramatized and i love the campaign of 72. in the same question the whole generation is how it works. cassidy who is a member of the beat. i know cassidy is in this book and they were friends of

thompson and he understood their aesthetics and the promises and limitations, they deeply affected his allusion met with the antiwar movement. his allusion with consciousness is going to make everything better. wisdom is how you get everything better, living and learning is how you approve your perspective. suddenly a see-through time and space and everybody will get along. that is thompson's perspective that you earn. his relationship with the beats in the honda and san francisco on the hate wearing his perspective. sports questions? >> i am just curious what were the last things you took out in

writing this book in terms of crafts? >> that is an excellent question. writing is never fun, is basically thompson's comment. at that you don't realize you're doing it. that is a question, it's like money in the bank. those eight hours, six hours, ten hours, the pages are created and occurring. it's not a solitary act as we tend to think, my.is i was so close to my deadline, it just like editing my chapters before other chapters were done. giving fantastic edits, like stain in the past tense, you don't need to go into the present tense here, that's right chronologically, let's traumatize, let's move around,

and the chicago subpoena going to the hilton in all the politicians that are watching it. you can do whatever you want. he was very, very helpful and i don't think without that i could've got it done and put the same amount of pressure on it that i wanted to. the idea of collaboration and the idea of perseverance in the bank air key. maybe next time i want research so heavily. maybe i'll do another sorter project. thank you eric. >> i have some questions about -- can you tell us about the climate of espn in his say on 911. >> thompson was dashed he was problematic later on in his

life. i think his body and his mind suffered from how hard he pushed himself and how much he was an alcoholic earlier in his life. i am not research that specifically yet, a great book is the book growing up with hunter thompson. his dark about being very hard when they were young and then it becomes beautiful because they got close to the end and hundred thompson's wife became very close friends. thompson started as a sports writer and he got out and joined the air force and was on edwin interval air brace. he just wrote support our growth. he was a great sports journalist. he he always writes sports and needs at the stores and to describe a tackle in a different way that he also an

understanding sport in the american culture in the 60s and 70s. nixon's relationship with football was sort of an understanding of what was going on. the only time thompson ever got to spend time with nixon one-on-one was in 1968 where they succumb here, they say get in the back of the car, thompson does, nixon is in the back of the car and they have to drive for 30 minutes to the national airport. thompson as knowing what to ask, asked him about football. nixon just opens up, 0 the guy about miami. he read about this many times in his life. he read a pageant article about it and it was the only time in his life that he knew richard nixon wasn't lying.

and when he talked about the super bowl two. how are we doing on time? any other questions? >> was there anything missing that you found in your research whether it was about hunter s. thompson or the political atmosphere the 70s that really surprised you? >> that's an outstanding question. a lot of what i just read today was drawn from multiple sources, there is an investigation by lbj into it that accrued an enormous amount of personal testimony. there is a book, chicago 68, by farber that goes through all of the scenes that i was describing

and it doesn't dramatized in that way but it gives it sources for all of them. i was shocked by the level of violence in these cultural moments that i had known about historically going about. in that inauguration, i had no idea there was paint filled christmas organ minutes at that. how much is old video and you see this rolling to the car and there is an incredibly tense moment of them speeding up and running in anger. i was in shock, i found it terrifyingly and fascinating. i think thompson was very good at sabotaging the left as he did the right. he was a target on lbj as he was on nixon. tina was about justice. he was hard on ed muskie. as he was on certain republican.

i know is important when i see moments like nixon iraqi ration when i see how the right was acting. i get a better sense of that i don't know that today we have often it's hard to do injustice is different. >> too that point i am curious, how do you think hunter s. thompson would've fit into the media, like twitter? >> i think it would've been terrible. i think instead of writing he would bid on twitter. that is a really good question. i think that he would've pushed back the news aspect of talking heads and being a celebrity and having accrued through articulating the most extreme.

the culture of looking like a newscaster or looking like an expert instead of actually being an expert. i think he will push back against extremism that we are 16 now. honestly we know that's not true we've always known that. i think he would've pushed back against in a way that this specific administration tries to manipulate the press and the way that the press cannot follow their own. this is an extreme comment, in the terrible aspects of the trip of initiation, they are doing up they don't need to. their ability to use the press to lie to the american public and overwhelm the press. that's why think michelle wolf, white house correspondent, where she made at a bully deeply uncomfortable by calling chapter races.

they called out press when they think they can have access to these extremely powerful figures who are deeply interest in america. in the same time writing clear and just wait. that is not working right now and you have to give up access for correctness. yet to give up access for being just a right. i think he was willing to give up access and was not dependent on access. even somebody who is on the campaign and would've stayed true to his perspective of the justice. there a lot of writers today that are more cultural critics but, thompson was on the campaign trail every day. he was with writers that were filing information that was happening. you saw that nixon manipulated reality and not letting any of the raters near nixon. basically allowed nixon to get off of the american public, the version that nixon wanted.

he had the space to do it so he dramatized all of the reporters having to go independence. he dramatizes terrible public relations staff. ron zigler, he would put them on the page and show how awful they were. it takes so much effort to dramatize the way the information is being given to you. it was you down. it was a journalist down. in it were him down being on the campaign trail and going through. i think that's what he would've said. >> all right, one more question maybe? spieth what is the title company? >> the title comes from three quotes. thompson had been trying to get training oscar but he is under naval surveillance.

this is from the lapd. the special operations for conspiracy, that with the title limit. people trained civil rights groups to attack police so police can use deadly force against the civil rights group. we need to get a convertible, we need to go to las vegas, because they can't be bugged when you're in a convertible in las vegas. so they go, and oscar takes a plate home and leaves thompson with a giant gun and attentive marijuana which is deeply illegal at the time, it's 20 years in prison. thompson has to drive it back to l.a. and thompson begins to panic. he does want to get back to los angeles so badly and he describes be back in los angeles as safety, security to be on the hollywood freeway to be another freak in the freak kingdom.

he asked again if you're not in las vegas, which was a very conservative town as he says, sinatra's town. it was richard nixon's chinatown. the second quote is from thompson is throwing a muskie campaign and ed muskie had been a democratic politician. thompson meets at 3:00 a.m. and is very large and very drunk man who had known everybody thompson had no in san francisco. there is peter shipman and they go at drinking and he is just out of jail and a two miami, he says come with me and take my trespass. he put his press has an elevator and since elevator down in the sky gets it and thompson says let me read on it. they don't wake thompson up.

he sleeps in the campaign -- he drinks 50 martinis and runs up and down of the whole trip and then when he gives a big speech at the end he grabbed his leg as he is giving a speech at the ed and jerry rubin is screaming. thompson describes sheridan in the freak kingdom in a no i'm the first time he saw him. there are those two but where it comes from is the shares to be 1968 -- 1970 he says it's upper graft in this book and the paraphrase, i'm not insulted by the word freak. to deviate from the norms in our society today and then just government is over asked to do. i find this an honor and distinction. and that's where the free parking from. thank you everyone for coming

out. [applause] [inaudible] >> over the past 20 years tb has covered thousands of author events. here's a portion of the reset program. >> a change my mind about the value ability of trauma, one is meeting him in person. he is a winner. i remember walking into that room and thought this guy is has

a good chance of winning, he is a winning attitude, he is very personable. the most politicians are wonderful people in public and jerks in private. he can be a jerk and public but he is actually a very wonderful person when you meet him personally. that can-do spirit. the other thing that really turned me on to trump was of tending his rallies. i started to go to two or three of them, something was going on and i didn't know what it was. there is 15 republicans running for president. not a lot trump was one that i never met. i went to tour the of these events and i was really struck by the people who were there. the first thing i said to john trump i met him in the meeting was donald, i don't know if i love you but i sure love your

boaters. >> you can watch us in any of our programs in their entirety booktv.org. type the authors name in their search bar at the top of the page. you're watching booktv on teaspoon to television for serious readers. here coming up a port surprise jack miles discusses islam the world's second-largest religion. the manhattan institute cast takes a critical look on labor and economic policies and ways to improve them. in our book to be "after words" program we examine the growth of the illegal trade in technologies. at ten john prendergast, fidel and ryan gosling talk about the republic of congo in the u.s. and other global powers and over the past 500 years.

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