are celebrating the master of gonzo journalism hunter s thompson at the launch of a new book by peter richardson. it's titled savage journey hunter s thompson and the weird

road to gonzo. it's published by our friends at university of california, press focusing on honduras thompson's influences development and his unique model of authorship mr. richardson archughes that thompson's literary formation was largely a san francisco story and indeed those of us at city lights across paths within whilst. he passed through the bay area kenneth test to this thompson was a regular atasca cafe just across the street from city lights. so we'd see him on a pretty regular basis. his life was intertwined with north beach culture and awesome. see him walking down the street either warren hinkle from editor of ramparts or jeanette etheridge former owner of tosca. so peter richardson is not a stellar job. he seem together the trace elements of thompson's literary influences and a really compelling. it so we're thrilled. he can grace our halls peter richardson has written critically acclaimed books about the iconic rock band the grateful dead also ramparts magazine legendary muckraking magazine and carrie mcwilliams

the radical author journalist and editor of the nation magazine. he's going to be joined tonight by none other than david talbot. i actually can't think of anybody better to be doing the honors. david is the esteemed author of four popular history books and the founder and original editor and chief of salon magazine former senior editor of mother jones magazine. he is a journalist a columnist. he's written for the new yorker for time for rolling stone the guardian much much more is book the season of the witch, of course his legendary san francisco chronicle best seller for many years his most recent book as titled by the light of burning dreams the triumphs and tragedies the second american revolution. it was co-authored to the sister margaret talbot. so david is a neighbor of ours here at city lights is offices are just down the street from us so you can easily say all in the family tonight, so please join us now in giving a warm welcome to our evening's guests peter richardson david talbot it is a great pleasure to have you both gracing our virtual halls welcome. to city lights live well, thank

you here. many peters tonight. we have peter richardson peter maravillas from city lights, and it's a great honor for me to be here with the author of savage journey peter richardson. i'm very pleased to be here tonight. i've been a big fan peters for some time now i read with great interest his history of ramparts magazine, which played a big role in my development as a young journalist and hunter thompson did too i have to say i first read hunter thompson when i was a student at santa cruz you see santa cruz back in the early 1970s and his fear and loathing in las vegas and then later his coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign had a huge impact on me as a young journalist, so i read with great interests new book about honor. i knew hunter a little bit

myself later on as editor of the san francisco. diameter i actually have the great pleasure of editing a couple columns by hunter thompson that was late in his career, of course, but you know to me he was an icon still is an icon. i had a huge impact on me and many at many other young writers and journalists in america, so i'm delighted to be here tonight with peter. i will jump in with a few questions and then we're gonna open up i think and take questions from some of you peter maverick mirabellas will help out there, but peter good to see you. where are you look like you're in woody creek, colorado. where are you? i'm actually in glen allen, which is not far from from where you are, but it is another spot where hunter thompson live briefly before he decamped for, colorado. actually before he moved to san francisco, so peter, let's talk

about hunters san francisco roots, and since we're being sponsored tonight by the iconic city lights bookstore in north beach, let's talk about what drew hunter back to san francisco back and they what the late six in the early 60s late 50s. what what period are we talking about? right he arrives for the first time in san francisco in 1960 and he had hitchhike to cry. well he had driven a rental car. are driven a car and cross country and dropped it off and then hitchhiked from seattle down to san francisco. and what drew him here frankly was was a place like city lights books. he was very into what the beats were doing. he didn't idolize the beats, but he really respected. especially what jack kerouac could do in terms of getting a new kind of writing. not only published by a major publisher, but you know to become a kind of publishing phenomenon. so he was very strongly

attracted to san francisco. wanted to learn more about it by this time. he was out of the air force and had written for some newspapers. and when he arrived in san francisco, he applied for work at the at the san francisco chronicle francisco examiner fruitlessly. and he almost immediately decamped to a big sur, which was another kind of beat outpost and was also the home of henry miller who was one of one of his real heroes, but but the original poll i think was was the kind of impulse which was hadn't quite crested yet, but was was starting to give way already. neil cassidy would go to san quentin and and karawak would move back east and and alan ginsburg would would move away as well, but what they accomplished while they were in san francisco was very important to hunter thompson. and since you did write a great

book about ramparts the legendary and very important magazine added by warren hinkle and bob shearer two great beer the area journalistic figures heroes of mine, and your book was fascinating about ramparts, you know, that was also a very important magazine from hunters development in those years wasn't early on. yeah, it was i mean really more after he had written right around the time. he published tells angels that that was in a very important magazine for him and that was a very important kind of social nexus for him. he never published anything in ramparts, but he felt very strongly connected. i actually heard from bob shear today and it's worth noting that he worked at city lights books for three years. right around the time that he was starting with with ramparts. so ramparts was still finding its feet. it had not even begun. really when when hunter thompson

arrived in san francisco. it began as a catholic literary quarterly in 1962. it's really only when warren hinkle takes over as editor and brings the magazine to san francisco. that it becomes the legendary san francisco muckraker that that we know today. yeah, but that hunter could have really developed the way he did as a journalist anywhere else in the country or was this something about northern california in particular in those years in the 1960s? there was more open to his style of writing. yeah, i don't think there's any doubt, you know that he he i don't think he could have done it in new york. he certainly could have done in louisville or aspen or or chicago or boston. i think not only that. i don't think he could have done it in san francisco 10 years before or 10 years later. i think he needed to be in san francisco right when he was in san francisco, and he

acknowledged that too much later in life even first in fear and loathing in las vegas. he talks about his san francisco period as a peak era. and then later on in life, of course, he comes back and works in san francisco in the 1980s, but even much later than that looking back. he said that those were my people. you know mid-1960s in san francisco. that it was really formative for him. and that's one of the arguments that i want to make in the book. is that even though he lives in in woody creek colorado for four decades after that i think in in many ways, he's best seen as a as a a bay area, right? well, he did live in the heat astrophy for some time. talk about hunter doing that period what does he absorbing? what does he learning? how is he growing as a writer during that period he was living in the heat, right? so he had he had moved down he he went from big sur up to here

where i am glen ellyn not far from here. that didn't work out very well, and he moved to 318 parnassus avenue in san francisco near uc, san francisco. and he wasn't really cut out for urban living. he really wrapped. he would really rather live in these kind of bucolic places like big sur glen ellyn or or aspen. but i think it was really important that he did come into the city during that time. he was still writing for the national observer, which was a wall street journal or you know, dow jones publication at the time, but he wasn't really thriving there. he he attended the 1964 gop convention in san francisco. but and you know learn learn some things there. i think that was a kind of you know an important lesson for him about the modern conservative movement, but he wasn't really into politics at that time.

he was really in short order. he was really trying to do what tom wolfe was doing. back east which is take these kind of exotic west coast subcultures and turn them into stories for big national magazines. and i'm like tom wolfe. i'd say tom wolfe to me is i i you know, someone who got a lot of credit for very little he was more of a dandy. i think hunter was really got involved with what he wrote about. he got stumped by the hell's angels for god's right? yeah. yeah, that's really important. so, but he didn't generate that story. he he left national observer kind of, you know, sort of broke off his relationship with them. he was always a freelancer, but that was his main outlet. so he needed new outlets and so he he wrote a query letter really importuning carrie mcwilliams at the nation and they only paid $100 for an

article. they barely pay more than that now, but i mean, you know, he was trying to make a living as a freelancer. and he said i'll you know take whatever you have and carry mcwilliam said why don't you write about the motorcycle gangs because the california state attorney general had just issued a report on them as a threat to plan order. and thompson said great and you're right. he was he went straight to. one of their meetings he had he had a kind of buffer bernie jarvis who worked for it was a crime reporter for the san francisco chronicle and a the hell's angels. so he had a kind of entree and then and then he he did it was all participatory reporting. and not very many people could do that. i don't think tom wolfe could do that. i don't think john didian could do that. i mean riding with the hell's angels i think took a kind of physical courage that not very many reporters had any and

hunter dined out on that for the rest of his career in a way. he got the kind of respect that that you know sort of war correspondence get because he rode with the angels first for a couple weeks he wrote the article for the nation magazine. then he parlayed that into a book deal and it became his first bestseller and then he rode with them for another year. and that and at the end of that year is when he got stomped by some of the hell's angels in a kind of dispute which remains a little bit fuzzy, but it probably had had to do with the fact that they thought they were going to benefit directly from his story. they said he promised him a keg a beer and he didn't pay up and he had another story but the point is that was how the book ended with his with his stomping. participatory journalism to the max let's talk a little bit

about the legendary bay area editors warren hinkle again. rampart slayer scanlon's magazine the brief, but but very important scanlons and rolling stone. there could be no hunter thompson, of course without yan wen or the young editor of rolling stone and without warn ankle right you write about how important those, you know editors were to him encouraging the kind of enterprise thing kind of slash buckling journalism later becomes gonzo journalism. yeah, that's a really really important time for him. so so yes, he has his first bestseller. he moves to colorado even before that book comes out. and but he maintains a san francisco connections and continues by this time. he's matt warren at who was presiding over a lot of success really at rampart's magazine not financial success, but in terms of impact and circulation and you know, there's a famous story

about them going out to lunch and and when they came back the the cappuccine monkey that that warren kept in the office had gotten into into hunters dexedrine and was tearing around the office. so they were friends they met. okay, peter. tell us a little bit warren. what a character he was. so they hit it off. immediately and and even though he who i never got him to write for ramparts. they remain friends and then um, and then frankly hunter began to struggle a little bit. you know, he signed he signed some contracts. but he was having trouble with his second book. he couldn't finish it. and that log jam didn't really break until another rider novelist james salter. at a dinner party gave him the idea to go and write about the kentucky derby. he pitched that story to warren

and you know, if you don't know who warren was you know, he could match hunter thompson in terms of you know, the size and force of his personality and his stamina as well and he had he had a really great feeling. for you know high kind of conceptual stories, and he realized that this could be a really great way to work together now scanlons was just starting. you know, that was the first issue of scanlons. and that and so he was recruiting people actively and even though he couldn't get more i couldn't get thompson into ramparts. he did get him into the debut issue of scanlands and and again thompson thought the story was an adject failure. he thought it was going to kill his career. he was ashamed of this story. and weren't that once he saw i was ashamed peter. oh, he just didn't feel like he finished the story. he he claimed that he began ripping notes out of his.

out of his notebook pages out of his notebook and just faxing them in he couldn't he couldn't couldn't write the story couldn't fill in the patches in the story. it just felt like just a mess that he sent to warren and warren sort of put the pieces together and polish it up. and warren said that he knew as soon as he saw ralph steadman's illustrations, and it was warren who introduced those two. they had never worked together before. they've never met. so once warren puts those two together, you know, i think it takes a little while but people begin to realize this is a franchise. so one midwifing it was kind of the midwife of gonzo journalism in a way he by pairing him with with ralph saidman, and then publishing and then scales now i misspoke. the first issue of scanlands ran

the hunters jean-claude khali piece that didn't have ralph steadman's illustrations, and it's not usually regarded as an example of gonzo journalism, but once you put stedman and thompson together you know so thompson thought he had failed. but then everybody was saying this was a big breakthrough in journalism. and you know, he described that feeling as falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids. you know, the thing that he thought was a failure turned out to be a huge success. and he immediately went back to warren and said this is it. it's going to be the thompson stedman report. we're going to go around, you know to america's cup and the super bowl and the masters tournament and the mardi gras. and you know, this is going to be a franchise and we're going to turn and we're going to take those stories and and put them into book form. so he really thought he had something that the only problem was that scanlons. was already going under and

there would never be you know, i think i think they published their last issue in january of 1971. and then, you know, unfortunately because you know, i think warren deserves a lot of credit for not just pairing those two but kind of conceiving and and birthing gonzo journalism. thompson would eventually have to find another outlet. for for that kind of work. so in some ways yon wen or who's the young editor who started rolling stone and had god has started ramparts under warren hinkle young went a really benefited inherited gonza journalism and hunter thompson from warren hinkle at rolling stone. yeah, that's that's absolutely true. and you know, i think i think john ended up getting a lot of the credit and i think warren was very aware of that. that you know the the conception of gonzo journalism was really a scandalous thing. but you know, he really didn't

have i mean nobody had any choices here. it wasn't obvious that. that thompson was going to be a great match with rolling stone, which was still a fledgling rock magazine, you know thompson was older than most of the people who wrote for rolling stone. he wasn't a college graduate. he was an air force veteran, you know, there are a lot of ways that he didn't quite fit the mold. that rolling stone, but yon really? saw that his stuff might click with rolling stones readers. and he encouraged him. actually. the first contact came. when hunter wrote to john after the ultimate coverage came out in rolling stone. he just said that was fine was the concert that some people say was the death of the 1960s where the hell's angels pounced on a young african-american concert going and stabbed into death. right? right. and of course the hell's angels were there and and they they were responsible for life.

what's that so-called providing security at the cost? exactly so, you know thompson thompson followed that story with some interest because you know, of course after having written about and ridden with the hell's angels, he was very very tuned in to that story and he really thought rolling stone did a fantastic job with it. they won their first national magazine award. so rolling stone was coming along very quickly, and i think you know hunter as a freelancer was always on the lookout for new outlets. he began to see that rolling stone could be one now the first couple of pieces that he wrote for rolling stone were not gonzo type gonzo-style pieces. but and you know, there's a whole story about how how gonzo much like the i was gonna ask you so peter, let's let's talk about fear and loathing in las vegas, which to me was the piece that introduced me as a young

reader 200 thompson darrell said steadman illustrations again were of course, you know leaped off the page, but i that was a collector's item that issue of rolling stone in which hunter thompson really gave birth to ganza journalists as we know it. so my first question about that is for you to define gun so journalism for those who may not know what gonzo means what is exactly gone so journalism. yeah, it sounds like it sounds like a genre like the new journalism, but it's not really a genre. it's really just to kind of description. i think of hunter thompson's a strain of hunter thompson's work after 1970. the label was wasn't really a label at the time but his friend from the boston globe bill cardozo after he read the kentucky derby piece said man, that piece was totally gonzo. yeah and hunter had heard him

use that term when they were both covering a primary in 1968 in new hampshire. any thought oh, well, you know, let's let's call what i'm doing gonzo journalism. so it was very successful as a kind of branding. exercise it wasn't really the name. i don't think of a of a genre. but it was it was a super important step and once again and but it was never it was never sort of the predictable result of a conscious project, you know, he was in la to cover a different story and he was working with oscar acosta the chicano activist attorney. in the middle of that research you got an offer to cover a road race in in the last in the las vegas desert outside of outside of las vegas. so he and it cost to go. he comes back writes up the story submits it to sports illustrated. they reject. so, you know a lot of people would say, you know, okay on to

the next thing. but he is furious. he actually doubles down expands. the story was already 10 times longer than what sports illustrator wanted. and he sent it to rolling stone who he's already written two pieces for and as soon as he does, you know the people in the office of rolling stone just say, this is magic. you know again, it's participatory journalism hunter put itself himself in the in the story as well as oscar. he took a lot of drugs he fueled this kind of insane coverage of las vegas high often. he made no bones about that. he just the kind of a heightened realism to ganza journalism kind of absurdity seeing the absurdity where other people's may not other reporters who are more objective may not see it how yeah, i'm heading on some of

the things. you know, that that entertain me when i read fearing clothing, but what are some other aspects have gone so journalism, you think well, i mean, you know first it's sort of taking the new journalism out to it's logical conclusion by putting the writer at the very center the experience and in this case the writer is not just a character but the entire all kind of reveals its meaning through his sensibility in a way. right, so so he's the indispensable part of the story. it's all about him and oscar and their invention now i would go back to some one of the points you made there and they didn't have a lot of drugs actually in that car when they went to las vegas. they had some alcohol. they had some benzedrine which oscar liked and they had some dexedrine which hunter liked and that was about it. yes, no. oh, that's one of the reasons and of course, they don't go as

oscar and hunter they go as dr. gonzo and raul duke. and i think there's good reason to see this as a kind of. if not, a traditional novel some sort of hybrid. you know fictional form, you know, we see sort of working the crease between journalism and fiction. and i think it considering you know, this drug cache which he outlines at the very beginning of the book raul duke that is in the trunk. none of that. was there almost none of it was there. and so i think we have to start we need to think about it more as fiction than as as journalism though, of course the label remains to this day gonzo journalism and um, it's still it's still shelved. it's still classified as nonfiction if you go to a bookstore, which you should by the way. you do have you do have a way to buy books on your on your zoom. link so think a little bit about

that but yeah, so it was it was a brand new thing for sure, but i'm not sure it fits comfortably either in us as a form of journalism or as a traditional form of fiction. well, i want to drill down on this point because i think this is the essence of hunter thompson and this whole hybrid style of writing. today i think journalism is pretty drab and you know, it could be there's no voice to it very little voice to it. it's been taken out largely in magazine writing in online. maybe his last repository. some writers have a voice some bloggers, but certainly in mainstream journalism. you don't come across voice writing the way that hunter thompson really pioneered so it could he i don't think he could

succeed in today's marketplace. he had a difficult enough time as you write and savage journey as a journalist in those days. he has run in the 1970s, but you know, it got increasingly difficult for a writer like hunter but there's something about it peter and we were talking about this beforehand that something that has writing that god the inner truth about it. america and particularly in those years when he is writing and in the so-called lunacy of gonzo journalism. there was the kind of heightened realism a kind of truth that other journalism can't get at talk some about that as coverage particularly of the 1972 presidential campaign when nixon was running for real election and you know share with us your insights into that which you go in the book. right, so just i mean the first point to make about his coverage

in 1972 then i want to trail back and see and talk a little bit about how he got that assignment, which i think is really important. but by the time he had collected his dispatches from the campaign trail and put them into the book which became a critical and and commercial success triumph. he had decided during loathing on the campaign trail during loathing on the campaign trail 72, right, right, so he had decided to to take this assignment. later, his work was described as the least factual and most accurate description of the campaign. and there i think you have the paradox. least factual that is he got a lot of things wrong. he didn't even try to get it right it was there was a lot of satire. there was a lot of invective. there was a lot of exaggeration. you know, there was a lot of hallucination even so you're

right. there's a kind of heightened realism there and and you know, he was trying to get at some truths that he realized his colleagues on the campaign trail. either didn't see or couldn't express in the kind of hard news stories that their editors demanded. so he decided to to try a different way of covering the story now. in some ways he had to come up with a different way to do it because he had no advantages in the traditional way to do it. he surrounded by very seasoned reporters from major news organizations who had a lot of support who had resources who had connections who had readerships and you know, they had everything they needed. he was at the bottom of that totem pole so we had to think hard about how he could make his mark and he did that by saying i'm not going to try to do any of the stuff that they're doing. he took his own weakness and turned it into a kind of

strength because he had no intention of coming back to the campaign trail. he didn't he could burn all of his sources if he decided to didn't matter. and so the fact that he represented a you know this kind of fledgling rock magazine from san francisco. that should have been a disadvantage, but he managed to turn it to advantage. by just telling the unvarnished true as he understood it not only about the campaign and the politicians we went after viciously. democrats as well as one republican richard nixon who he hated open. openly detested and he made no bones about his his preference for george mcgovern. so you weren't getting anything like objective journalism. he dispensed with all of those conventions instead he gave you the unvarnished truth as he understood it not only about the campaign but about the other media outlets. and i think that's super

important about his work is that he's always working. he's always looking rather both ways. he's looking at the thing that he's writing about and then he's looking at the way other people are covering it. so every time you read something by a hundred thompson, you got a good laugh. some crazy ideas and also, you know you learn something because he showed you what was behind the curtain. you he had radical vision? i think that's what i took from his writing as a young journalist. and as you point out in the book here, he is rockrib, republican, kentucky. and kind of a libertarian has politics were very diffused and yet he saw america a wash and greed and violence and war addiction to war. and frankly the country hasn't changed all that much in the last several decades. yeah, but i think there was a kind of insane insight into what

america was all about in his writing. yeah. no, i think that's right. and i think that's why so much of it is held up over the years, right? i mean, you know some of it as has an age well, you know, i don't think he's going to get a lot of plotteds for the way. he handles a race or women feminism or homophobia. you know if you reread him now, you're gonna you're gonna see that very quickly, especially if you read as letters, which i think is probably his best work. you really see that that's his that's his voice, but you're quite right about his politics. i mean, he only really becomes interested in american politics after he goes to the democratic national convention in chicago in 1968. and he is traumatized by what he witnesses by the police riot that he witnesses there and it's only been that he pivots away from the kind of tom wolfe new journalism stuff. and starts taking a direct.

a bead on on american politicians like hubert humphrey like edmund muskie like richard nixon like mayor daley in chicago. so really it's it's a kind of it's it is a kind of journey in a way a multi-step journey and then some you know, some more serendipitous things happen as well to shape. his body of work but let me ask you a question david. i mean you mentioned. his affinity for warren hinkle. i don't think warren's politics were really worked out cleanly, i think he was also a kind of rebel and iconic classes. i mean would you put them both and in a similar category in that way? i think warren is more productive san francisco. he grew up here. i think he kind of along with the water. he drank drank in the kind of ethos the liberal progressive

ethos of san francisco. so i would put him to the left politically of a hunter thompson. i think consciously left but they are both mavericks and they both like their drink and they both like to have a good time and that was very much a part of the spirit of the 60s and 70s when they were operating at their best. there was something that linked the two i think the kind of journalism the key out of the bay area in those years ramparts the early days rolling stone before it moved to new york and even my salon back in the, you know, during the.com era. we're all examples of a beer journalism that i couldn't exist anywhere else, and i'm proud of that and you know even reading some of the the obits about joan diddy and that went online about it. what iconic and great figure she was you know, she obviously produced you as a great writer

who produced a lot of great writing, but i think again and again, california is not given it's due and that's why peter. i'm so you know grateful for the work you've done over the years on ramparts and karen mc williams and now hunter thompson because i think the left coast doesn't get it to do from the new york media mandarins till to this very day. yeah, you know, i'm glad to see you give hunter thompson the dude that he deserves. yeah that that's that's very much in my mind when i sit down to do this work, but i think the funniest version of feeling that you're expressing. i was at the san francisco public library when the ramparts book came. warren was there and some of his family members and other other people who contributed. and the person who organized the event for the san francisco public library listen carefully to the presentation and conversation. and he stood up from the floor

and ask a question said seems to me that. if ramparts had been published in new york city there would have been a broadway musical about it 20 years ago, and i think there's some real truth to that because you know in a way it was in a way it was a it was an advantage to be in san francisco. because you could try new things. without fear of immediate failure. i mean there was a kind of nurturing. culture underneath it. that was more experimental and innovative and do it yourself and collaborative and you know, so i think all those things helped i mean, you know, google sturmer at ramparts magazine was helping out rolling stone on all their early issues the art directly. all that and then all the guys that left ramparts and went on to start mother jones. i think that was the real synergy though. yeah, absolutely. well, look i want to talk about your process about the archives and how you get one about your research on this book and then

open it up. i think peter marivellis will be very in about five minutes to open up to questions from the audience, which we're very anxious to hear. but let's talk peter a little bit about your process as a writer. i know you are frustrated by the the blocks to that you faced in, you know, trying to access hunter thompson's archives many researchers run in a similar similar blocks when they're doing their own work, but tell something about that and andy and hope for the future. is it gonna are these archives gonna be open to the public at some point? right? well the good news. is that hunter kept everything you know, he had there's something like 800 bucks as of stuff mostly correspondent. he correspondence he kept copies of his correspondence going back to his teenage years, maybe even before that. so it's just an enormous

treasure and we've seen two great edited volumes come out of that both edited by douglas, brinkley, and if you haven't read it, and if you love tom's and i highly recommend that again, i think it's some of his best stuff not on deadline his voice not edited, you know, not written for money. just hit him expressing himself in the direct and colorful way. and then you also see what a great literary networker was and and maybe that's why he kept everything the way he did. i think it was inspired from some by some other people like henry miller who posted up in big sur and used his correspondence to to keep his literary network alive, you know, that's what you have to do if you're going to live in these remote places and so his model of authorship this thompson. i mean his model of authorship was so unique. that you know, he had to he had to do things a little bit

differently and one of them was write letters like crazy. so the letters are a great source, but except for the ones that were published in those books by brinkley. unavailable to everyone including his son. i think one even i think is only seeing the archives wants, you know when he was riding his mom who's the archives? why why who is responsible for it being so shut so close all the to a consortium the family or thompson sold it to a consortium that includes johnny depp. and there has been some talk about, you know trying to do something with it, but he probably know that depth finances are and personal life are a little messy right now. and so i don't think these letters are really at the top of the list of things, you know, he's going to get to in the short term. and also, i think they may be trying to sell them, you know to to a different place. i understand they have librarians research librarians working on them. you know processing them. and so on they're supposed to be

in a storage facility in los angeles right now. they make they may be made available. who knows but right now and go about your research then for the book. yeah. so what what do you have then you you can go out and talk to people who worked with them, which i did at that as much as i could of course covid put the kibosh on a lot of those face-to-face interviews, but as you probably inferred i spent a lot of time thinking about how he worked with his editors and i think they were very important. but the only more important person in his career was probably stedman in terms of the success that he achieved the artist. yeah, i think that was really, you know, it's easy to overlook his contribution to to that franchise. of course. he didn't go to las vegas, you know oscar did. so but he still came up with that fantastic those fantastic illustrations that gave a kind of that gave gonzo.

it's iconography really so it's very distinctive iconography. so you couldn't go to oscars archive, which is at ucsb. same thing shut down because of covid. but i did talk to as many of his editors as i could and just tried to tease out what it was like to work with him and in a word it was excruciating, you know as the 70s wore on. he wasn't doing any new drafts any second drafts third drafts, which he always did when he was younger. no first drafts after fear and loathing in las vegas, and he begins to live into his into his persona. more and more so i you know, i wasn't that interested in the celebrity. i think his biographies have covered as celebrity adequately. i really wanted to get at what made him distinctive as a writer and that's right focused my research and and my assessment, you know, i was just trying to read it and and and then

situated using the correspondence and some of the oral histories that have been done. so we can figure out his decision making during this time. it was not a smooth. you know frictionless process for him it was it was haphazard uneven, you know the stuff that made him famous. it took him years to figure out that those things were his most important literary assets. you know, but when he finally figured that out he stuck with it. in fact probably for a little too long, you know, i think he was getting diminishing literary returns, and i'd like to ask you about that because when you worked with him in the 1980s obviously most of his best work was was behind him. and yet, you know and then talking to the editors about how they work with them then turned out to be very eliminated. so, what did you see david when you saw hunter thompson in san francisco in the 1980s? well, i was in editor it

wilhurst san francisco examiner the hearst corporation out runs the chronicle but back in the day will was very interesting as an editor about bringing in people like warren hinkle and and hunter thompson and other unique voices and dave mccumber was the newsroom editor who usually edited hunter his columns and dave and he had a unique relationship and i think you talked to dave didn't you for the i couldn't get him to to go on the record. he said he would and then that happened a couple of times i think you know, i think these interactions with with hunter thompson are so valuable that i think writers are tempted to kind of keep them to themselves. although he never said that intimate. i told you this story. i know peter for the book and you know, it's my one great memory of working with hunter. he did come into the newsroom my colleagues steve chapel. who's a great later, i described

him as walk walking like an upright praying mantis. he had a kind of turkey jerky movement his lanky frame. that was really funny and interesting to watch as he made his way across the newsroom, but i did work with them on a couple columns from the cumber i think was out. he was sick or his on vacation and i always remember rewriting the great hunter thompson to me was like repainting michelangelo, you know, and i was in that position because we are on deadline and he hadn't filed and he filed something that was on printable. and so i actually rewrite the great hunter thompson. he i read it to him back over the phone. he wasn't in the newsroom that day. i think he was up in woody creek. sorry that to him. there's a silence over the phone. i'm going. oh my god, this is terrible. he's gonna hate what i've done. he said, hey, it's not bad. he changed one or two words and they're brilliant. what he actually recommended i

too be more hunter thompson like so, you know by then he had one brain cell and probably left or two brain cells, but god bless him. he's still had enough. i think self-respect to change my writing back here and there to you know, make it more a hundred thompson original, but but you certainly literally funny it in by then this would have been i don't know the late 1980s i guess and it wasn't the hunter towns and i grown up with right so this thing but hey speaking of the marketplace just the fact that he was able to break through and even those days in 1960s and 70s with a unique way of writing. i'm reading the book now the novel from the victorian era by george guesting a novel. long forgotten called new grub

street about how difficult it was for writers back in that day the same thing to make a living as a writer in victorian england. that's where the book is set written by i think a writers are saying in george kissing and a devotes the the great hardships and ridiculous kind of travails that writers have to go through again and again just to get published and yet published for very little money. so for someone like hunter thompson to not only breaks through all that difficulty and to establish of voice as a writer and to establish a life long career. it didn't end well for him, but god bless him. he still to me as a blazing light and i'm glad that you were able to write the book you did and and to acknowledge his great contribution. yeah. let me say one more thing about the marketplace and maybe we open it up after that. um if it's time, maybe peter can guide us on that.

but you know toward the end in the 1980s for example, and he's riding for will hurst. it's interesting to me. not just because it's a bay area thing. but of course he went after the hearst newspapers viciously when he was younger. i mean he they were a real target for him and his kind of on the on the fly media criticism some of his funny some of his funny as cracks were at the examiner's expense. really and and then there he is working for the examiner and then you know, he had the books going during that time, too. but at the end of his career, he's writing for espn. he comes full circle. he starts as an as a sports writer and ends as a as a sort of sports writer. but don't forget espn a quarter of espn was owned by the hurst corporation. and the people that were his editors there he knew from rolling stone and you know, he and he met will hurst and you

know through through rolling stone as well. so, you know those those networks and those connections, you know, kind of turned out to be very helpful for him. and you know, when is when his literary productivity was was declining. you know there there were there were these old friends and i think will hearst and and espn were two of his best friends toward the end. yeah. great. well peter manvelas, i think we should open it up. take questions from our wonderful audience. yes, indeed and we do have some joseph asks. can you talk a little about hunters first novel prince jellyfish, although a short acts of appears in his book the songs of the doomed it still not ever been released. is there more to it? no, i don't think so. i'm not looking for that the person i've looked to on that is william mckean his biographer.

um, you just don't know that much about it, and i'm not i don't think it's coming out. haven't heard that. and you know, i don't think he was a great fiction writer. that's the funny thing and if you've read the wrong diary, you can see why it took so long to come out. it's pretty traditional, you know, as journalism is so, you know energetic and and powerful and precise and funny and you know over the top with all at the same time. the fiction is pretty traditional by comparison and and if prince jellyfish was not as good as the ram diary then you know. i know he pitched it to angus cameron. who who was? an editor at randomized he had been blacklisted in the 1950s. he was kerry mcwilliams's editor actually a little brown and very successful, but he had been blacklisted arthur slezinger jr. led that charge and anyway, you

know, they they he and cameron struck up a correspondence which turned out to be, you know, super instructive and interesting. but prince jellyfish never made it over the top. if anyone else is on on here that knows something else. i welcome that. so we have a question from stuart. would hunter consider nixon as a lightweight now that we've had the donald can you imagine what he would have said about the country today? yeah, well a couple things about that i mean i write in the book that i don't think donald trump or is supporters or the media reaction to them would have surprised hunter thompson. he had been trying to warn us about people like this for a long time. and at the time, you know when he wrote that stuff in the 70s, for example, it seemed hyperbolic, right?

but hybrid hyperbole has its place. and over time, you know, it seemed more prophetic than hyperbolic. i think all the things that he was imagining about nixon who of course he despised. and i think nixon as bill i mentioned bill mckean the biographer. he said about he said about hunter that nixon was his muse in a way. that nixon really brought out. hunters best work in a way because he hated him was this white hot intensity. that that it's sort of pushed his it pushed his pose to a kind of new register. anyway, don't forget that after nixon is reelected in a landslide. thompson writes enrolling stone stone a few days later comparing him nixon to a werewolf. haha. the problem there is once you compare nixon to a werewolf. what do you say about reagan,

you know or much less trump? so i think that that's one the downside of hyperbole as well is that you have less running room once you've you know gone over the top in in that in that particular way. but i do think that thompson was got lucky with nixon in a way. that that you know when nixon's presidency goes down in flames. service thompson kind of you know, i mean most of his best work comes out before nixon resigns. david asks, can you tell us about how the friendship between honduras thompson and ed bradley came to be? great question. i'm not sure what the answers are. i do know. that thompson befriended charles corral who was cbs news guy very early on like in latin america in the early 60s. and they remain friends for a long time. so any who sort of he had a ton of friends, i'm sure there are

many of them on on this call right now. and and many girlfriends, you know, many of them have contacted me. you know with with their stories and and and it's all interesting believe me, but i'm not sure quite sure how he and and ed bradley crossed baz. now, of course he was doing a lot of political reporting. so it's it's not wouldn't be uncommon for him to run across. anybody that did that kind of political coverage? along the way but it's true that they had a a close friendship and and bradley would come to woody creek or to owl farm. and watch football with hunter. and you know that there was a there was a real kind of social network there. that was very important hunter ran a kind of a little shadow. there was a lot of bedding, but it wasn't really about the betting the bedding kind of brought them closer together in a way. and hunter bat with the political journalists, too. i mean if you read fear and

loading on the campaign trail, you'll see that hunter was very proud of his record. betting on the primaries betting against experts the other journalists. you know, but but he didn't do it just to win or to just play his expertise. i think he also did it to bring bring him closer together with his colleagues and he needed that he wasn't part of that group. when you join the campaign, press corp. so the force of his personality and then these other little mechanisms to kind of is kind of ingratiate himself and even stand out. in that press car was one of the many things that he was very good at. kurthymer asks if we now see fear and loathing in las vegas as a work of fiction a novel then what distinguishes it from kerouac's on the road. great question, you know, i think i think that was one of that's the thing that hunter really admired about kerouac. was that he was taking his

lightly fictionalized experiences and turning them into fiction. yeah, i mean, you know his own experiences lightly fictionalizing them and and selling them as fiction through major publishers. and it included, you know stuff about taking drugs, which was very important to hunter in the 1950s. you know his other you know, his other is other favorite novel is the ginger man right by jr. dunlavy and it's the same sort of transgression and you know, there's this kind of rogue kind of at the center of the story. and of course that was that was sold through an imprint that was known mostly for its erotica. you know for many years so all of that was catnip for a hundred thompson. same thing with henry miller. now the fact that his stuff had been banned. i think for for someone like

thompson was very important. he took he took henry miller's the world of sex. and sent it to norman mailer, they'd never met this was his introduction to norman miller. and you know, it's a really interesting letter. it's a sort of announcement to mailer that there's this young kind of viral. fiction writer on the rise that's how he presented himself as the person who was writing the great puerto rican novel that i get the question. bill asks your recent nation piece referenced hunter s thompson comment to angus cameron facts are lies when they're added up. can you elaborate on what you think he meant by this? i think he meant that there are certain kinds of truths that fiction can get at that nonfiction can't get out

certainly journalism, you know traditional journalism. objective journalism you know, they're gonna miss some plain truths and great example is nixon, you know. nixon knew how to play the game. he knew the rules of ejected journalism. and so he knew how to manipulate the press corps so did his his campaign staffers? and thompson saw that and realized that that you would you would better get out him and his essence. by fictionalizing it not worrying about the facts. and go for the truth of him in a way that you know fiction lends itself to in a way that traditional journalism didn't and another way to put it i mean you can get more theoretical about it. i don't think that was hunters interest in it, but you know later historiographers would say just getting the facts tray is not always going to get you to the truth. you know that every every list

of facts is a theory in the weak sense. so, you know they you know, that's that's at theoretical concern, but i think hunter came at it from the point of view that fiction was better at getting at this stuff. than than traditional journalism, and i think that's what he meant. and certainly his critique and tim krause's critique. of campaign journalism suggested that you know, these guys are missing the real story. the real story is about nixon and and impress wrote for rolling stone. also, he wrote the boys on the bus. right, right. so, you know, i think what you know what they added and of course they end up writing the most memorable accounts of the 1972 campaign. again least factual and most accurate. i think tim krause's was probably more accurate. it was a more sustained look at the media and at shortcomings and blind spots. you know hunter was a little bit more intuitive about that i

think but i thought he was an astute media critic. i think we have time for a couple more questions rm asks. what surprised you the most while writing this book? yeah to i guess two things one is you know, i the letters just at the end of the day, you know, i just think it's that his best stuff. you know, i i didn't expect to reach that conclusion. the other thing i've already alluded to you like to peter. what's that? he wrote the letters to what to editors to friends too? oh, you know he would ride him to llb, you know complaining about their latest product, but i mean it just took it to a level of art that um, oh he would write to the television station and grand junction, colorado. tell them about the garbage that they are airing and you know hilarious really, you know letters to sonny barger, you

know letters to phil graham the washington post. i mean, it's just incredible how many people he wrote to and and came to know but the letters themselves are incredible so that that's one thing. i mean, i'd read the ladders but after you sit with them for a while you realize yeah this spot. i think he knew that too. he said it a couple times these letters might be my desktop. so that was one thing the other thing is and i had to sit with this a while too is he didn't know what he had. you know, some of the stuff was almost. accidental some of the success that he had. you know, these were fleeting opportunities and very serendipitous just pursuing this and then even after being successfully didn't always realize that that was his future. you know that the gonzo franchise was going to be it. here's an example. i don't think i mentioned this i should. his editor wanted him his editor

and his age. wanted him to include the las vegas material in a second book that he was supposed to give to to random house. and he said no, i don't want that stuff. printed with my other stuff my serious stuff. it will ruin me. it'll make a fool adam. i don't want you know, that's why they that's why they called it nonfiction because he had a contract to write a book in one fiction. and that's why i came out separate. you know, and of course it became the most important thing maybe arguably that he ever wrote. but he thought you know, he thought if it wasn't handled just right that i would ruin him and he thought the same thing about the kentucky derby piece. i think that's really interesting. you know that a sharp guy who knew the business. you know an experienced. season freelancer you know didn't see that path. even as it was opening up and once he saw it, of course he

couldn't walk away from it, and we i talked about that a little in the book as well. probably should have he was encouraged to you know kind of shed the guns out thing and and start writing in another mode. but you know he it just was really hard for him having worked so hard to achieve that success. and even though the celebrity was kind of a mixed bag in many ways. you know, he couldn't he couldn't let that go. and we have time for maybe one more question anika asks, are there any future projects you hope to tackle that developed out of the work that you did for this book? uh, you know the one word version one word answer. yes. i think i had another idea but the more i think about it, and i'm getting advice including some from david that i might want to keep turning on this a little bit. and because in many ways, you

know, i realized again after i'd finished this whole thing that the last three books on ramparts grateful dead and a hundred thompson in our kind of informal trilogy about the san francisco counterculture of course if you if you add in the carrie mcwilliams, you know, it's he's not a countercultural figure. it's more about the you know left of center political journalism. but some advice that i've been getting from very knowledgeable people is maybe there aren't enough books about san francisco. i mean, there's certainly a lot of good ones and david's written one of the best. seasons of the witch but i think there's still some more here. and i think you know the fact that people have responded positively to it. not just mine, but david's and others. is a sign that you know. there's still some story to stories to tell not just for us but for for broader audiences as well.

well, we look forward to that next book and the thing i regret the most about these virtual events. you can't go out for drinks out. yeah, so a rain check is due to you both david peter. thank you so much a lot of familiar faces here. i don't have time to acknowledge all of them plus a lot of new ones and and