Which is suddenly far more complicated—in my own mind & in light of our talk in the Waldorf—than it was just a few weeks ago. The complications arise from the addition of a new and perhaps ulterior motive to my local political action. I’ve only been back here a few days, but even in that short time I’ve run sharply afoul of the mixed/motive problem … and I have, of course, dealt with it just as sharply; with all the harsh decisiveness of a man not quite sure of his motives.
Rather than bore you with the details, let’s focus on the two main problems—which are really only one: Nobody—not even my friends & henchmen—really believes I’m going to run for Sheriff. We’ve all agreed, thus far, that it’s a wonderful fear-joke to keep the greedheads off balance, but I’m not sure what kind of terrible shock-tremors it might send through our “organization” when they realize I’m serious.
It will drive the old liberals into a catatonic funk, and perhaps derail our County Commissioner campaign entirely—because the idea of my running for Sheriff is so incredibly outrageous that it won’t go down easily with some of our pragmatic young radicals. But the fatbacks are setting it up for me: A careful spy/monitoring of the Demo & GOP caucuses this week shows that the only two candidates in Nov. are likely to be the incumbent Sheriff and the ex–Chief of Police. And I think I can deal with a 3-way race—forcing the other two dingbats to cannibalize each other’s power base.
We’ll see. When the fuckers realize I’m serious it will drive them wild. Even my closest allies will hate the idea. It’s a lot further down the road than they ever thought I’d try to take them—and they’ll do everything possible to keep me from doing it.
But fuck all that. It has to be done. Not because I want to be Sheriff, but because that seems like the best and most dramatic way to destroy the local power structure: Make them understand that Agnew is right, that their worst and most awful fears are about to be confirmed—like a Nigger Mayor in Mississippi, and in fact I’d probably try to get an endorsement from Charles Evers, who strikes me as one of the better human beings walking around these days.21
And so much for all that. I’ll try to keep abreast of events with a daily diary of sorts—in the interest of history—but in the meantime my hand is being forced, to some extent, by events such as these:
1) I have tentatively agreed with Jann Wenner, editor of Rolling Stone, to write a long piece for the RS July issue on “Freak Power in Aspen,” using my sheriff’s campaign as a focus for all the rest. This will tip my hand a little earlier than I’d prefer to have it tipped, and even if I can put the piece off until August it will still put me out on the public hustings too early … although I might be able, through artful rhetoric, to dull the shock of my candidacy by means of strange humor and confusion. Ideally, I’d prefer to jump into the race at the very last moment, capping a tidal wave of rumor and speculation that will sweep me into office before my opponents have time to recover from the shock.
2) And this one isn’t crucial right now, although it may be as soon as it happens: I’ve told Hughes Rudd at CBS about the chance of my running for sheriff, & he’s already planning to do a news/film thing on it … and once that happens it will blow the thing wide open. Hughes was out here last summer, and did a piece (which CBS killed) that got his cameraman beaten and his whole crew seized … but I think I told you about it. In any case, I suspect he’ll come back for his second shot like Attila the Hun on a vengeance trip …and once his thing hits the airwaves it will polarize the town completely.
3) But what the hell? #3 is a minor thing; it’s tied up with that left-over Esquire article on “Gun Control” that I did last year and which Erickson sent back for a rewrite that I never gave them. But now, as it happens, I think I can work a completely new version of that piece into the first section of the Freak Power ms. Because, by a piece of weird luck, I took a weekend out of last fall’s Mayoral campaign to go north and spend a few days on a fine, mescaline flavored antelope hunt—deliberately bugging the wardens and other hunters by driving into their midst with a huge red Peace symbol on my car and behaving in a most unorthodox manner for the duration of the hunt (which I attended by means of a special permit, gained in a lottery of the most limited & esoteric nature; only the cream of the crop could even have qualified for that hunt, and when dawn came up on the great Kill-Day I was able to mingle, as it were, with Colorado’s special hunting elite. A gang of cheap pigs who were not at all charmed by my style …
But that hardly matters, for now. We did well up there; many antelope steaks, and more bent minds than we could righteously handle. Which seems maybe frivolous, but in some small way it made the point that we’re also trying to make here in Aspen: That the Rising Tide is a far bigger thing than any ephemeral argument about Peace or Drugs or Hair. We are going to deal with the buggers, head-on & on their own turf, as it were—and beat them. Because they’re not smart enough—and besides that, they’re Wrong. And I think they know it. Their desperation shows in the madness that caused the killings [of four unarmed antiwar demonstrators] at Kent State—and in the political bottom-feeding that made Agnew vice president.
So it seems only right & reasonable to push the fuckers until they go completely crazy.
Hunter
TO LYNN NESBIT:
The Kentucky Derby story came out so well Thompson told his agent to try to sell it in Hollywood.
May 21, 1970
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Lynn …
Here’s a ragged copy of the KyDerby piece I did for Scanlan’s. No clean copy exists—due to circumstances beyond my control at the time. I was locked in that stinking hotel room with a head full of pills & no sleep for 6 days, working at top speed & messengers grabbing each page out of the typewriter just as soon as I finished it. No carbon, no rewrite, no time to even look back on what I’d written earlier.
But what the hell? My main concern now is to get paid for the rotten ordeal. Because I have no money. And by my count Hinckle owes me (or us, as it were) a total of $1977.27. This would cure most of my really urgent problems—like rent, phone, food bills, etc. I can’t imagine Hinckle refusing to pay the tab, so unless you foresee real problems you might consider just sending me a cheque as soon as possible. Like maybe today. Or yesterday. In any case, please let me know on this score. Thanx. …
And meanwhile, here’s an odd notion that stuck in my head after Carol—far gone in a fit of levity during our phone talk—mentioned something about selling this Derby ordeal as a film of some sort. Which strikes me now as a notion of exceptional merit. No question about it at all: What we have here is a classic of the narrative art—The strange and heart-warming story of a wild-haired English artist and a crazed expatriate Southern journalist hurled into the maw of the heinous Kentucky Derby spectacle. Indeed. Their hopes, their fears, and their final dissolution—against this awful background. I see it as a combination of Dr. Strangelove and Gone With the Wind.22 And on that basis I urge you to sell it at once. …
The narrative framework is all here, in the article. And much of the rest exists in chunks of background color, social comment and tangent fantasies that had to be cut from the final (Scanlan’s) version. A film treatment would be no problem, and we could do all the camera work at next year’s Derby—if the buggers will let me in. But of course I have wigs for that kind of rude action. …
Anyway, I think it’s a fine idea. But of course you’ll have to read the bare bones ms. (enc.) to see what I mean. No doubt the final (film) product will gross about $30 million—particularly in the midst of a Depression movie-boom. Let me know what you think, and how the offer stacks up. Meanwhile, I’ll be waiting—in a maelstrom of debt & anguish—for a check for the Scanlan’s article. I realize you have certain logistics problems, but with that massive organization at your command I have every faith in your ability to find somebody to cope with this thing.
Thanks,
Hunter
TO JUAN DE ONIS, THE NEW YORK TIMES:
Thomps
on and fellow reporter Juan De Onis had spent a good bit of time together at the Press Club in Rio de Janeiro when both worked in Brazil in 1962–63.
May 21, 1970
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Juan …
Sitting here in the foul dawn light of my burning bush & hearing the radio belch out a sound that I finally recognize as “Bossa Nova” … with the sun coming up over Woody Creek & Aspen it occurs to me that I’ve drifted a long, long way from that time when my worst worry in the world was being cut off the tab at Mr. Money or missing out on the invite-list to a Leonel Brizola23 press conference.
And the reason I mention all that now is the odd notion that you might be able to steer me onto a place where life is still that simple: Maybe Angola, or the south of Chile? Who is the Times’ stringer in Sardinia?
At the moment I am locked into local politics—to the extent that I am, quite logically, the Alternative Candidate for Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado … and also the half-publisher of a Wallposter that may or may not be the leading edge for a whole new kind of journalism. For good or ill, I have become the Carmine DeSapio24 of Aspen—using that awful image more for the fact of my day/night Rio-style shades than for any implied corruption. …
In fact I’ve found that booming into politics with a Great White Hammer makes it almost impossible to deal gracefully with Corruption. The cocksuckers don’t even want to know my price … and in truth I suspect they’re counting on Agnew and the McCarran Act25 to finish me off before I finish them. And they may be right … my stomach for protracted conflict is not quite as strong as it used to be, and I’m beginning to wonder just how strong it really was in the first place. The fucking years flip by like pages off a cheap calendar, and sometimes it’s hard to understand how all this savage death-screaming can really amount to much.
Particularly when I think of Joao Goulart & his wife & all those fine ideas he had—& all the time we spent trying to get next to him just long enough for a real quote. But that was in another country, right? And things are different now. Do you have an address for J. Goulart today? I think I’d like to send him a letter.
Or Lou Stein?26 Weird memories in these morning hours. Let me know if you hear of any salaried post where a man can live on the beach and wear a white Palm Beach suit to work now & then in some warm, hump-happy outpost where the booze is still cheap and the new is still nice and Black & White like it was, for sure, back there in the good old days. Indeed …
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO THOMAS E. ROSETTI, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT:
Thompson had lost his wallet in a Third Avenue bar while in New York to finish his Kentucky Derby article for Scanlan’s.
May 23, 1970
Woody Creek, CO
Thomas E. Rosetti
Property Clerk
Police Dept.
City of New York
New York 13, NY
Dear Mr. Rosetti:
Thanks very much for your notice of May 20 (File No. 70M19236). I trust this refers to my wallet, which I reported “Lost or Stolen” in a phone call from the Royalton Hotel to the desk officer at the (NYC) 18th Precinct at approximately 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 10. The wallet actually disappeared a few hours earlier that evening, while I was trying to watch the Knicks-Lakers game on TV in a bar on Third Ave. That’s when I noticed it, anyway. But I don’t suppose those details matter much at this stage.
So here is the description you asked for. The wallet is small, black leather with a card holder & a money clip, about the size of a pack of king-size cigarettes. It contains—or contained when it disappeared—between $15 to $25 in cash & an American Express card #69 043 670 898 and a Carte Blanche card, Number unknown, but containing my signature. There was a Colorado driver’s license with my photo on it, a Blue Cross card, Overseas Richfield (Sinclair) credit card and, if I remember correctly, a second Colo driver’s license not containing my photo. There were also some business cards (National Observer) and several other items including a PBA press badge & a stockholder’s card from Irving Lundborg & Co. in San Francisco. And my auto registrations: For a ’64 Volvo wagon and a ’57 Chevy sedan.
That should do it, I think. And if you can put yourself in my position for a moment, I’m sure you’ll understand how much I appreciate getting your notice. Getting out of NY & back to Colorado with no ID & no credit cards was a real bastard of a trip. Please send the wallet COD by the quickest & safest method—and if you have a moment I’d appreciate a word about how you found it. Thanks again for your efforts.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO DON GODDARD, SCANLAN’S MONTHLY:
Scanlan’s managing editor Donald Goddard had announced he was leaving the magazine after only four issues.
May 27, 1970
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Don …
Thanx for the note. I checked with the Bank of Aspen & they said it’s OK for you to keep the lighter. You’ll also be happy to hear that I got a note from the NYPolice dept., saying they’d busted a junkie with my wallet in his possession. The remains will be sent to me, they say, upon proper identification—of whatever the freak didn’t consume in his short-lived frenzy.
Well … so be it. That was one of the worst trips of my life, anyway, so what the hell?
My Sheriff’s campaign has gone to the back burner—temporarily—due to heavy pressures on me to run against Wayne Aspinal for his 11-term seat in Congress. Hell, why not? Run the old buggers to earth & rip out their bowels. This may be the year of the Rising Tide—and I’d hate to miss it.
Either way, my next five or six months look like a strung-out replay of my last five or six days in NY. I limped back home & slept for about a week, then leaped out of bed like a cougar & began hounding the postmaster for money/cheques from Scanlan’s. The expense cheque arrived a few days ago, & I spent most of it on a clutch of transplant Bristlecone Pines for the front yard. Since that junkie stole my American Express card & ran up frightful bills in strange places like Louisville, Ky., I don’t have to worry about paying those things off. Thank god for that.
On the other hand, Warren hasn’t sent me any copies of the magazine, so I can’t be sure my Derby piece even got printed. This would cause me certain difficulties in local financial circles, and to avoid this kind of problem I have set the International Famous Agency on Sidney [Zion], with instructions to snap his femurs if he hesitates for even a moment in the matter of fee-payment. I can’t look back on that effort with anything but shame & horror, but under the circumstances, I insist on full payment.
Which is neither here nor there, for now. I suppose you’re off for London & a new life selling tacos. God only knows how Scanlan’s NY office will hold together now. I was quite depressed by the deranged & un-focused chaos of the place—& I told Warren that I saw your departure as a very ugly & ominous event. I hope he can pull that goddamn monster together very soon, but in truth I don’t see much hope. I keep having visions of Sidney being borne off toward “the Garden” in that grey Cadillac with that evil-looking bodyguard at the wheel. Awful … awful …
Anyway, thanks again for the very human help that kept me from running totally amok during that hideous scene—and it seems even more hideous now, because I never managed to write that thing the way I wanted to … so the whole effort begins to look, in retrospect, like a horrible joke of some kind. Maybe Ralph’s drawings will pull the thing out. I hope so, because the writing is lame bullshit.
Dealing with Ralph made the whole rotten trip worthwhile for me, in some kind of odd sense. I liked the bastard immensely, and his awkward sensitivity made me see, once again, some of the rot in this country that I’ve been living with for so long that I could only see it, now, through somebody else’s fresh eye.
In all, it was not a bad trip. Although it was a hell of a lot more than I bargained for, in too many ways. But again, what the hell? I wish you whatever luck you need back in the olde country, a
nd when I flee across the water—probably this fall—I’ll make an effort to track you down & buy you a Guinness under better conditions than we had in NY. Send me an address when you get one. And in the meantime I’ll be after Ralph to draw us a cover for the Aspen Wallposter. Maybe he’d like a job in Washington. Hell, every new Congressman should have a personal artist on his staff.
OK for now. I have to get back to my politics. Ciao …
Hunter
TO HUGHES RUDD, CBS NEWS:
Deep into his campaign for sheriff, Thompson pondered running for the U.S. Congress.
May 27, 1970
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Hughes …
The madness is on us for real, I think. Between now & November the deal will go down on all fronts. Let me give you a taste of how weird things really are: Tonight, in the midst of plotting my campaign for Sheriff, I got a call from my local political nerve-center with the word that I should abandon the Sheriff’s campaign and tackle Wayne Aspinal for Congress. And it’s not such a bad idea in these twisted times—although in truth I’d prefer to be Sheriff. But in the course of the next 2 wks I’ll be checking with the Colo. Vote-power people, & we’ll see how it looks. Frankly, I’d prefer the Senate—but 2 yrs in the lower house might hone my instincts a bit for ’72. Selah.
The harsh truth of the matter, as I see it, is that the local liberals have suddenly understood that I’m serious about running for Sheriff—& that I’ll probably win. So I told them I’d seriously consider running against Aspinal, too—without withdrawing from the Sheriff’s race. This will send a lot of people back to the law-books, but Colorado law is so weird that my chances of running for both offices at the same time are about 50–50. And I see no reason why I shouldn’t whipsaw the buggers if the law allows it.