Anyway, it’s a nice idea—a fatback feature on the American Gun problem. This piece of mine could be the wild card in an otherwise traditionally-stacked deck. That photo I sent you earlier of some freak shooting at a J. E. Hoover target would make an eye-catching cover … and if that’s too tame, well, I’ll check around for something heavier.
Meanwhile, I want to get this thing out of my head and failing hair. So, unless I hear from you in the next few days—like before Aug 11—I’ll send you my new version, based more or less on the notions we’ve (now) talked about. Maybe I can work the “Sherrill section” in by way of dismissing it …or maybe not. If the rewrite fails, let’s raincheck the whole business until I write this Gun Section into The Book, now titled “The Whipsong.” Or, “The Reluctant Education of” … yes … Me. I see no way to avoid taking responsibility for it, so it will have to bear my name.
What I’m getting at here is that I’d rather not sweat through a series of rewrites of an article that will definitely be part of a book, anyway. So if what I send you soonest doesn’t work, I urge you to wait around for a look at the final draft. It might be fun—or maybe a terrible disaster. We’ll see. …
Meanwhile, you might want to wrap some rose-colored glass around your eyes and scan a long piece on Jean-Claude Killy (more or less) that I just sent to Lynn. It’s a vicious thing, with a short but violent history—a tale I leave to Lynn.
So, for now … thanks for the good effort that went into condensing the NRA piece. I even appreciated Sherrill’s memo, for good or ill. It’s at least something to grapple with, and a man with my kind of problem is nearly always plagued by grapplehunger … like a beast with itching teeth, whatever’s hard will serve. Even petrified wisdom.
OK for now. Keep the faith, whatever it is … and be sure to let me know if you find yourself on the bellygun market.
Beware,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO ELIZABETH RAY:
Thompson’s maternal aunt, Elizabeth “Lee” Ray, had always been particularly fond of her wayward nephew Hunter.
August 8, 1969
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Aunt Lee …
Thanks for the birthday present and the nice note to Sandy—which won’t be answered, since I’ve told her to forget any references or replies to that situation. She appreciated your note, but under the circumstances I think she’ll be better off forgetting about the whole thing. Thanks for your kind thoughts—and, as always, for the cheque.
Things are worse than normal here: too many visitors and too little work. Just a few minutes ago, at 4:40 a.m., two musicians from Los Angeles wandered in, wanting to hear their latest record on my hi-fi set. We listened for a while with the earphones, made a few collective criticisms to be sent back to the producer in Hollywood, then they wandered off with one of my extra mattresses. At the moment they are bedding down next door, I think, in the guest house on this property I’m trying to buy.
Otherwise, life here continues chaotic. My book was due in July, but I’m not even half-finished. I keep saying I’ll get back to Louisville for a quick visit, but I can’t find time to get away from here. From now until Christmas, I mean to work exclusively on the book—a crash program, as it were. It has to be done.
Love ….
Hunter
FROM OSCAR ACOSTA:
Acosta had sent Thompson yet another of his literary efforts between legal cases and bizarre outbursts, this time a screenplay. Acosta got back the usual harsh honesty.
August 15, 1969
Los Angeles, CA
Hunter:
I am temporarily staying in an apartment in Hollywood, and looking for a house in East L.A. So, my permanent address will be—until I’m fired or quit—the office on this bullshit letterhead.
So my movie script is racist? Why, cause the “hero” happens to be a Mexican? Do you assume that whenever a guy writes about persons other than anglos that he’s racist? In fact, the story is about the Garden of Eden, the creation, etc. … The end of the world as seen through the eyes of a Chicano living in 1969. … And, as every good Baptist knows, there weren’t very many of us in Eden. I’ve worked on the cosmology, the philosophy, the characters, the blahblah, for over two months, and all I get from a guilt-ridden, candied-ass, anglo hack is that it’s racist … or is it that your [sic] pissed cause Harold Trader gets it in the end? That it? You want to be the hero? … Anyway, an agent’s got it now, wants me to start working on the script, but I’ve been at it seven days per for the past two months so I don’t know when I’ll get to it.
The letters I’m sending between [Sirhan attorney] Cooper and me are, I think, very funny. What I don’t have, is a copy of the newspaper article, five inch headlines, saying COOPER INDICTED … for theft of a grand jury brief on a different case …I didn’t know until that day, the day before my last letter to him, why he was being so uptight. Any decent reporter and certainly the Feds would love to have copies of these letters … same issue: misuse of a brief related to a Grand Jury Indictment. You think I should?
ZETA
TO JIM SILBERMAN, RANDOM HOUSE:
Lacking a focus for his book, a dejected Thompson works out his frustrations with his Random House editor.
August 30, 1969
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Jim …
It’s 5:45 a.m. Labor Day here and I’m just finishing a book section telling how me and Raoul Duke delivered a new Pontiac from the Bronx to Seattle in 1960 and then became politicalized while hitch-hiking down to San Francisco. Like everything else I’ve written for “the book,” it makes no sense at all in terms of continuity or focus. I still have no idea what I’m supposed to be writing about—in terms of titles, chapters, jacket blurbs and that sort of thing. I see a lot of connections in my head that I can’t make on paper, and consequently I have no real image of what I’m doing. That “American Dream” notion becomes increasingly meaningless—mainly because it fits everything I write, and most of what I read. You might as well have told me to write a book about Truth and Wisdom. The slower I come to the necessity of linking Nixon, Chicago & the NRA, the more I wonder why—and if—anybody should waste their time reading this kind of bullshit. It seems useless and contrived, particularly since neither you nor Shir-Cliff have ever hinted at what you think I’m writing about … beyond that American Dream bullshit, and I think we should stop hiding behind that, particularly if anybody expects to get a book out of this nightmare. Faulkner had it right when he talked about seeing “the world in a grain of sand”—which is the absolute opposite of what I seem to be doing. I don’t even have a beach to write about, much less that crucial “grain.”
OK for now. Let me know on the money items, and particularly if you have any ideas about this book I’m writing. At the moment it amounts to about 400 pages of useless swill. My need for a focus is beyond critical; it borders on paralysis and desperation. I am running off in every direction, writing fiction one night and straight journalism the next. No doubt there is light at the end of the tunnel—but which one of these fucking tunnels are we dealing with? Send word. …
HST
TO S. LEVY, DELL DISTRIBUTING CO.:
At last, the tables were turned: Thompson had been asked to provide a credit reference for his paperback publishing company.
September 6, 1969
Woody Creek, CO
S. Levy
Credit Dept.
Dell Distributing Co.
750 Third Ave NYC 10017
Dear Mr. Levy:
I am, of course, quite flattered to receive your “second request” for information inre: my Credit Experience vis-à-vis Ballantine Books Inc. Perhaps by now you have received my answer to your “first request.” My tardiness was due to the considerable time and effort expended in compiling the information you requested.
All I can do now, on this second run, is to amplify and re-emphasize the gist of my initial comments, to wit: The risks of extending a credit line to Ballanti
ne Books involve far more than certain financial loss; it is a question of your physical and mental well-being—indeed, your survival. Once you commence dealing with junkies and deranged thieves you are forced to deal on their terms … which are savage in every way. Do you realize what goes on at Ballantine? … What sort of people work in that place? Didn’t you read about poor Silberman at Random House, who had to have his leg amputated? And that’s only one case.
Take my word for it: You do not want to get involved in a vicious underworld of drugs and violence. Trying to collect a debt from Ballantine is like trying to steal a chunk of meat from a pack of wolverines. They will come right in your yard and take it over if you let them. And the next day they’ll be right on your porch barefoot, weighing one hundred and thirty pounds. But if you say to them, “Hold on, wait just a minute,” they’ll know they’re dealing with someone who’ll stand up. Your only hope, at this point, is to get up on your hind legs and screech at them, “No! No!” Then, before they retaliate, you’ll quickly hire some thugs to go over to 101 Fifth avenue and beat the living shit out of somebody—maybe three or four people, whatever you decide.
Let me know how it turns out—and also if you need credit information on anyone else.
Sincerely …
Hunter S. Thompson
TO OSCAR ACOSTA:
Thompson had been working on his own initiative on an article about the Atomic Energy Commission’s nuclear weapons tests in the western United States.
September 24, 1969
Woody Creek, CO
Oscar …
I am sitting here working on a long article on the AEC and the oil companies and these fucking death bombs they are setting off in Colo, Nev, etc. … and I don’t have the vaguest fucking idea where to send it. Look around you and see what has happened, in the past few years, to the handful of national magazines that used to print mean shit about the fatbellies. This fucking polarization has made it impossible to sell anything except hired bullshit or savage propaganda. I write the same way I always did, but for the past two years my stuff has been either brutally edited or rejected, outright, as the work of a crazed extremist. Once-“radical” editors have been deposed, bought off or emasculated. Go to any magazine rack and see how many articles you want to read. Nobody is confident enough, these days, to attack anything except cripples—The Mafia, junk dealers, black hoods, etc. … all the people without real public leverage. I had no problem when I talked about the Hell’s Angels, but it’s a different thing to hit on GM36 and the Oil Industry. At least in magazines; books are still a bit looser, but I’m not sure how much. Hopefully, I’ll find out soon.
In short, I don’t even know where to send my own stuff, much less yours. I have no decent contacts, my agent is a computer and most NY editors think I’m crazy. I don’t know about McWilliams; maybe I’ll send this current thing to him, and find out.
I dug your thing in Con Safos, but knowing you made it different for me. As for general criticism, I’m not about to start knocking the work of people who figure I’m a gaubaucho (sp?)37 pig to begin with. It’s like me telling musicians what I think about their work and/or their bands—even when they ask. It’s always a fucking nightmare, “Now waitaminnit, what the fuck do you know about music. … Whatdoyou mean, Noisy bullshit? You think you know more than our producer?”
None of that for now. I’d sooner write a long critique of Black Panther poetry than step into the quicksand you’re offering. What you have to understand is that good writing isn’t necessarily saleable, and a lot of people get rich writing awful bullshit. Editors are nearly always dim assholes and the American press, in general, is a pile of hired shit. You think you have trouble relating to McGarr … well he’s a fucking soul-brother, compared to the others. Remember Jim Bellows? He’s considered a secret radical/freak by the NY axis. And McWilliams is seen as a goddamn screaming Red.
Frankly, I don’t think writing is where it’s at these days. Neither the fatbel-lies nor the crazies believe anything they read anyway, and most of the others are too stoned to even talk, much less read. This book I’m supposed to have been working on for 2 years strikes me as the most monstrous waste of time I’ve ever got bogged down in. Even if I manage to finish the goddamn thing, I can’t see any reason why anybody should read it, even for free. The only thing I’ve enjoyed writing in the past year is the enclosed clip on Aspen politics; it has stirred up a neo-streetfighting scene. The final wild irony is that John Wendt is going to have to defend the lawsuits; he’s the News’ lawyer & he begged them not to print it. Not for legal reasons, which are hazy, but because of the social nightmares involved.
I think it’s about time I began to wail seriously on these people. I am going crazy out here; life is too easy and I’m getting nothing done. Hopefully I can settle this land deal by early 1970, then flee and rent the house for enough to make the payments. I am into the final stages of that deal, but unfortunately I no longer have the down payment—a flat 10K. So I’m into a bullshit juggling act, playing for time and hoping I can hit for 10 sometime soon, on something. It would be a bitch to come so close to nailing down 2 houses and 25 acres—and then blow it at the wire.
Looking at your 8/27 letter again, I don’t see all those questions you mentioned this afternoon … except that broad question about Con Safos. It’s not your egos I’m worried about, but all the mean bullshit that erupts every time I express mine. I can’t even get along with SDS these days, much less the Brown Berets. All that really interests me, for now, is getting hold of somebody who can make me an expert in the use of dynamite. Or anything better. Maybe when we get down there you can put me in touch with somebody who’s into that action. Meanwhile, let’s postpone this haggling until I get to LA, which should be around 10/15 or so … depending on what happens in Chicago. I’ll let you know.
HST
TO JOE BENTI, CBS NEWS:
Having won his latest bout with KREX-TV, Thompson had his CBS Morning News back—and immediately turned on anchor Joseph Benti for the program’s growing “soft news” focus and for its failure to air Hughes Rudd’s story on the troubles building in Aspen.
October 2, 1969
Woody Creek, CO
Joe Benti
CBS News
524 W. 57th
NYC 10019
Dear Mr. Benti …
I thought you’d like to know that KREX-TV in Grand Junction, Colo. is again carrying the Morning News—at 6:00 a.m., about 70 minutes from now … and, according to the station manager, they are carrying it just for me. Nobody else watches it, he says. Only me. And I’m 120 miles away, no hope for the advertisers (local) … and of course that makes for a fine, tightly-knit news show: no commercials at all. If you did anything on your end to compel this concession, consider this a note of thanks. If not, well …You’re welcome.
Which is not really the point. I thought I should register a formal complaint regarding the back-stairs politics that erupted in the wake of Hughes Rudd’s Aspen story last summer. The technical merits of the piece strike me as powerfully secondary to the fact that the word in Aspen, as it were, has it that friendly connections between CBS and the Aspen Institute got the story killed. The calls to Salant38—from Bob Craig, Wm. Stevenson39 & his creature Merrill Ford at the Institute—are not only a matter of record, but a matter of heavy speculation in local taverns. The initial reaction (locally) was anger at CBS for coming here to film the problem in the first place, but after a month or so the reaction changed to contempt for a national network without the balls to even back up one of its cameramen who had his nose smashed by a local drunk. And it burns the shit out of me, personally, to know that one of the most thoroughly honest men working for any network (Rudd) should have his action edited and buried by a gang of fatbacks whose only claim to distinction is that they still get Christmas cards from Mayor Daley.
Aspen is full of walking corpses who keep telling each other, “I was for Stevenson, but Joe McCarthy scared me to death.”40 Their
cemetery is the Institute, with a board of directors including McNamara, Reuther, Justice Brennan and ex-cabinet (Navy) guru Paul Nitze (sp?), majority stockholder in the Aspen Ski Corporation. It’s a goddamned evil shame that a gang of aging bunglers like this should have enough leverage—via Salant—to kill any story that CBS News wants to air. Stanton41 was out here in June, a featured speaker at the annual Design Conference, and he made a fool of himself by delivering a gaggle of hoary platitudes that not even Dwight McDonald could stomach.
Which is more or less extraneous, except as a context/indicator for CBS’s credulity-rating in Aspen. Later in the summer Dan Schorr was here and offered a comment or so, in private, regarding the size and specific gravity of the corporate balls. (Naturally, he was full of praise for everything CBS stood and still stands for; and so was Rudd, in the rude course of his own visit. These gentlemen are nothing if not loyal, which is understandable. …)
But I don’t have any particular loyalty to CBS, so I might as well say that this whole matter of the CBS/Aspen gig—against the continuing background of the CBS/Chicago ’68 coverage—leaves me completely convinced that Nicholas Johnson42 is right … that you people are in fact a gang of cowardly, self-censoring swine; and that CBS finally found its own level with the purchase of the NY Yankees.
I watched Nicholas Johnson chew the fat, as it were, with Wallace and Herman43 and that waterhead from Time … and as far as I was concerned it was one of TV’s finest moments in 1969. Maybe Wallace thinks he won, but he probably thinks he won that round with Daniel Cohn-Bendit,44 too—on 60 Minutes, a while back. Wallace is yapping at the heels of that lecherous old geek, [Eric] Sevareid, while romance with Eric Hoffer is so cheap and ugly as to mock any rational comment.