“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone but they’ve always worked for me”.

In the world of journalism, very few figures have gained a reputation such as Hunter S Thompson.  Thompson became one of leading figures in the New Journalism movement as well being founder of the off-kilter movement of Gonzo Journalism. 

His innovation in the field of Journalism, his renegade attitude and tales of excess have made him a cult figure in recent years.  Known for his infamous catch phrases such as “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro” and “Buy the ticket, take the ride” Thompson shook up the industry and produced some of the genre bending articles in a time of cultural revolution.     

After a career in the US Air Force where contributed to his bases’ own newspaper as

a sports editor; Thompson attended the Columbia University’s School of General Studies studying part time in writing classes.

Thompson eventually moved San Juan, Puerto Rico, to work for the newspaper El Sportivo which eventually folded.  Soon after the paper’s demise, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune covering Caribbean issues.  Thompson would work further a field in Brazil working for the Dow Jones owned National Observer as a South American correspondent and later working for the Brazil Herald.   

Thompson’s experiences in Puerto Rico were fictionalized in the novel The Rum Diary which was not published until 1998.  Although not quite Gonzo Journalism, the novel depicted the excessive lifestyle of journalists in foreign countries.

Thompson was considered to be part of a movement known as New Journalism which was founded established journalist and writer Tom Wolfe.  The New Journalism movement opted to use a variety of innovative literary techniques within journalism and writing.  The movement was more present in magazines such as The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and Esquire Magazine.    

Thompson would contribute to Rolling Stone for many years as a National Affairs correspondent.  He was known as one of the very few writers in the magazine that did not contribute musically which Rolling Stone was most notable for.

Thompson was asked to contribute to the anthology The New Journalism by Wolfe in 1975.  Thompson’s contributions came from Hell’s Angels and The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved.  It was due to the The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved that the term “Gonzo” was coined.  The piece which was published in 1970 in Scanlan Monthly.  When Bill Cardoso, editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, read the article, he wrote to Thompson praising him saying “This is it, this is pure Gonzo.  If this is a start, keep rolling”. 

Thompson’s writing style would often be in first person and subjective.  As seen in Hell’s Angels it could be bizarre and almost vulgar in places.  “… like Genghis Khan on an iron horse, a monster steed with fiery anus, flat out through the eye of a beer can and up your daughter’s leg with no quarter asked and none given”. 

Fellow Gonzo Journalist contemporary Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson’s writing style as “part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention, and wilder rhetoric inspired by the bizarre exuberance of a young civilization.”    

Thompson would adopt an alter ego known as Rauol Duke which appeared in many of his writings including Fear And Loathing Las Vegas.  In an interview with the BBC, Thompson said he used Duke as “a vehicle for quotations that no one else would say.  That was me really talking.  Those were my quotes”.  The method of Gonzo journalism would involve almost participation within the story.  Later in his career, Thompson recognised that he had become “part of the story”.  He recognised that he almost became a victim of his own success. “I used to be to stand in the back, observe stories and absorb them.  I can’t do that any more.  When I appear in a story I become part of it”   

Considered by many as Thompson’s first gonzo piece of writing, Hells Angels was published in 1966.  Thompson spent many months living and riding with the notorious motorcycle gang at a time when they were considerable notoriety in the press for their hell raising antics in West Coast America.  Thompson was aware of the media’s campaign against the Hell’s Angels commenting that they were cast as the “American bogeymen”.       

Perhaps considered as Thompson’s most critically acclaimed novel, Fear And Loathing Las Vegas was published in 1972 after being serialised in Rolling Stone the previous year.  The novel is written from a first person perspective with Thompson adopting the Raoul Duke persona as used in other writings in his other writings.  

Fear And Loathing Las Vegas was conceived when Thompson and lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta took a trip to Las Vegas as part of  Strange Rumblings In Aztlan, a an expose story in Rolling Stone about the death of Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar in a Anti-Vietnam War demonstration.  Thompson and Acosta used an assignment for Sports Illustrated covering the Mint 400 motorcycle race to escape a racially tense Los Angeles.  What happened on that trip became fictionalised and encapsulated in Fear And Loathing Las Vegas. 

The novel takes in to context the drug culture of the 1970’s.  Most notably within the first chapter with the mind boggling list of narcotics acquired by the Dr Gonzo and Raoul Duke.  “We had two bags of grass, seventy five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-coloured uppers, downers, screamers, laughers… and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.” 

Thompson uses the means medium of Gonzo journalism to vividly describe the various drug experiences in the novel.  Thompson describes the effects of ether as making you “behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel… total loss of all basic motor skills: blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue – severance of all connection between the body”.    

Drugs had long been a key influence many writers work.  Williams S Burroughs wrote about his experiences with heroin in the semi-autobiographical Junkie in 1953 as well as other numerous books.  What set Thompson apart from these others writers was the way brought drugs into mainstream literature and so candidly.  

Thompson’s next novel Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail 72 was published in 1973 and followed Thompson on the 1972 US Presidential Election campaign trail.  This was also serialised in Rolling Stone throughout 1972 alongside the campaign.  Thompson was a staunch critic of Nixon.  Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail 72 shook up the political reporting in the USA.  As Thompson mentioned in the introduction to the novel, he had the advantage of “being able to burn all my bridges behind me” due to him only being Washington for only a year.

The attitude of Gonzo Journalism is significantly shown in Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail 72 .  Thompson saw himself as wanting “… to learn as much as possible about the mechanics and realities of a presidential campaign and … to write about it the same way I’d write about anything else as close to the bones as I could get, and to hell with the consequences”.

Thompson was set to cover the closing of the Vietnam War in 1975 for Rolling Stone and arrived in Saigon just as the United States were beginning to evacuate.  Unfortunately Thompson discovered that Rolling Stone’s editor Jan Wenner had aborted the story and was stranded in Vietnam without health insurance or any financial support    

Thompson’s career would take a reflux to audiences when Fear And Loathing Las Vegas was made into a film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro and directed by Terry Gilliam which was received with critical success. 

This was not the first film to be based on Hunter S Thompson’s works.  Where The Buffalo Roam which was released in 1980 was loosely based on Thompson’s works in the 1970’s with Bill Murray portraying Thompson on screen.  Thompson had a large role as the film’s creative consultant.  Despite this the film was poorly received by critics.

Towards the end of his career, Thompson gravitated back to the world of sports journalism by writing for ESPN.com’s Page 2 with his own column titled Hey Rube.  This ran up to his death in 2005.  The last column being titled Shotgun Golf with Bill Murray. 

Thompson, like many was intensely opposed into the war in Iraq.  In an interview Tim Russert for CNBC in 2003, Thompson described fellow Republican Richard Nixon as “a liberal compared to Bush” and claimed America “would be bogged in the war for a generation”.  In a Rolling Stone article in 2004, Thompson called Bush “a treacherous little freak”  

Thompson was not alone in the movement of Gonzo Journalism.  Other such as Lester Bangs, a writer who contributed to Rolling Stone and more notably Creem adopted the critical and confrontational style of Gonzo Journalism.  Bangs was more influenced the writers of the Beat Generation like Jack Kerouac and more notably William S Burroughs as well the influence of drugs. 

The method of Gonzo Journalism has managed to migrate to the medium of television.  In recent years journalists such as Louis Theroux have adopted the ethos of Gonzo Journalism and explored sub-cultures of American society like with the same participation ethic as Thompson with his series Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends.

Even more recently actor-turned-presenter Ross Kemp has adopted the Gonzo format with the series Ross Kemp On Gangs and Ross Kemp In Afghanistan by involving himself in danger zones with notorious gangs and fighting with the British Army in Afghanistan.

Despite Gonzo Journalism being a male dominated forum, female journalists such as Dawn Porter are exploring attitudes to lesbianism, dieting, nudity, pregnancy and childbirth using the participant aspect of Gonzo Journalism.

It would difficult to imagine the world of journalism without the presence of Hunter S Thompson.  He shook up the industry and brought new attitudes to the profession of being a journalist.  He prided himself as a professional and considered himself a “doctor in Journalism”. He had many imitators and but was the only one true innovator of Gonzo Journalism.  

Bibliography

Thompson, Hunter S      Fear And Loathing Las Vegas

Thompson, Hunter S      Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail 72

Thompson, Hunter S      Hells Angels

Thompson, Hunter S      The Rum Diary

Webography

Anson, Robert    http://www.gonzo.org/hst/interviews.asp?ID=7     accessed 07/05/08

Sullivan, James  http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7045227/hunter_s_thompson_dies accessed 06/05/08

Wolfe, Tom        http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110006325             accessed 06/05/08

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r31hV_BPFf0 accessed 06/05/08

YouTube interview Hunter S Thompson being interviewed by Tim Russert for CNBC recorded 02/06/03 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJxRE7LNadI&feature=related accessed 06/05/08

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S_Thompson accessed 06/05/08

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kentucky_Derby_Is_Decadent_and_Depraved 06/05/08

The queue for the gig is what I expected full of teenagers most of them sporting InMe merchandise and rather surprisingly asymmetrical fringes.  Yes I am using a euphemism for an emo.

I manage to blag a free ticket of a guy named Jason who’s buddy didn’t show up.  I find out he comes from the same area as me as knows a lot of the same people in the Basingstoke music scene as me including one of my best mates.

Upon entering the SU, I realise that this is a perfect venue for gigs.  The layout is perfect and the space is just about right too.  Almost similar to the Pyramids Centre in Portsmouth.  Its a shame more gigs don’t go on here.  More people have turned up than I have imagined.

The first band on are called The Row.  One look makes reminds me of the school bands that you want to forget.  One of their guitarists look ten years old and a Lil Chris wannabe.  Its slightly painful listening.  They are all talented musicians don’t get me wrong but they just don’t gel at all.  They all seem on completely different pages and they look nervous.  Really really nervous.  The use of a synth/keyboard as a substitute for a bass doesn’t work at all.  When the acoustic guitar comes out I cringe even more. Give another ten years and they’ll be rockstars as opposed to living out the rock star fantasies.

The in-between DJing lifts the atmosphere.  Its crowd-pleasing but thats what needed for tonight it gets people singing along and dancing.  Its old school and brings a smile to this writers face.

Sion fare a lot better.  I’d heard of them before as they are local lads from Andover and have been going for quite a while even though they are still quite young.   They have the Killers-style dress code but have a slick progressive sound with tinges of Placebo, newer material Incubus and even some Radiohead thrown in.  I hear later on that they’ve supported bands like  Oceansize, which is good on them as they deserve the exposure.  These guys look like they’ll go far.

Tonight has been overdue for a decent band to grace the SU’s stage.  Some may argue that a Joy Divison tribute band and The Holloways count as decent live music though I am one to disagree somehow.  InMe deliver the goods-simple as.  They’re tight knit and have a sharp sound.  The obvious pit starts to get going though tonight I decline to get involve that far despite my gonzo leanings.  Most of their material goes striaght over my head unfortunately apart from the last song Underdose which whips the crowd into a frenzy.  Hopefully tonight will be sign that this will be the first of many live music based nights. 

It seems to me that if you’re in the profession of journalism then the name Hunter S. Thompson seems to be mandatory reading.  I was already a fan of Fear And Loathing Las Vegas before joining uni so I knew the doctor of Journalism carried a lot of weight even more so with his passing.  This semester I digested more of his works.  Hell Angels – a book that deals with one of the many acclaimed deviant subculutres of Sixities America , Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail 72 – a novel that negoiates the minefield of US politics and The Rum Diairy which explores Thompson’s origins as a sports journalist in Puerto Rico through fiction even thoug it isn’t quite gonzo it still has the life of excess around it.

I wonder to myself if Thompson’s ways would still be deemed acceptable in this day and age.  His excessive drug consumption (and his obsession of firearms) probably would be frowned upon by today’s ever so politcally correct society.

With the ever competitive market of journalism becoming more and more cut throat it begs to be questioned whether radical, innovative loose cannons like Thompson have had their time. 

Indeed if you looked at acclaimed journalist/writer  Wil Self, he got shown the door when he decided to shoot up on the PM’s plane in 1995.  If you were an editor at paper would you want a writer that is a constant liability?  Probably not.

In context to Thompson’s time – the 60′s and the 70′s, it was all about the drugs – LSD, mescaline and marijuana.  To my knowlegde I can’t think of anyone in this day and age that can rival Thompson in the journalism world in terms of excess.

Although I’m want to talk considering I’m not looking into being a stereotypical journalist but I’m thinking that the loose cannon image surrounding the era of New Journalism seems to have its day.  Saying that the reputation of journalist being notorious drinkers still seems to carry weight.  I’m not trying to immitate Thompson as a student.  I just find his antics extraordinary and want to find my own way like Thompson.  I suppose I consider him a hero.  If there are new schools of journalists like Thompson and Tom Wolfe where in their time then hopefully they will break the mould and into mainstream and gain new audiences to inspire.

True, some journalists continually airing celebrities laundry in the tabloids is an annoyance but it sells the papers and pays the journos wages.  However when you have the potential to bring a corrupt official which happened in the case of Bernstein and Woodward and the Watergate affair then you can see the signifcance of waht power the journalist can wield.  In one repsect the press is what can hold the government into account but when you have a powerful media mogul owning your respective paper and is chums with those politicians you want to bring down it makes the job harder.

One thing I have found is the amount of celebrities turing to journalism most notably in the tabloids.  Take Ulrika Johnsson or Jeremy Clarkson who get paid to write a weekly column and rant about various issues that grind their gears.  With Clarkson there seems to be no limit to what can piss him off.  Like wise with people like Janet Street Porter or Piers Morgan becoming TV personalities after turning their back on the newspaper game or in Morgan’s case getting frogmarched out of it.

This blurring of the lines makes me wonder if journalists are going to turn into celebrities when the market becomes too unstable and likewise when a celebrity’s career dries up whether they will come running to the nearest rag to give them a quick buck or two to get them out of bankruptcy. 

The optimist in me tells that it won’t get that extreme but in the light of cyber-journalism, e-journalism or whatever-you-want-to-call journalism the prospect seems more likely.  I am one to talk considering my journalistic heroes are Hunter S Thompson and Lester Bangs who gained cult clebrity status in their time but there is a point where I think the celebrites are starting to cross and invade the realms of hard working credible journalist.  The day I consider Lorraine Kelly a credible journalist is when hell freezes over.

Thanks for listening to this rant,

Peace Out. 

I eventually began to write for the school’s column in the local paper the Basingstoke Gazzette who eventually did work experience for.  I began to realise early on that I wanted work in this field.  Even more so when after the work experience it opened my eyes to local newspaper journalism.

Then when I saw the film Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical film about music journalism and life on the road I felt (as cliched as it sounded)  like I found my calling. 

 My own experiences with music journalism were extended further when I reached sixth form college and began to work for the college’s own magazine/newspaper.  I began to emerse myself in the local music scene of Basingstoke and became friends with many of the bands.  I also began to work for the music website Room Thirteen.com as a CD and gig reviewer.   The first gig I got to review was Motorhead  & Sepultura at Southampton Guildhall.  Cd reviewing has it pros and cons, sometimes you get the latest releases for free - however the amount the crap you have to dredge in is hilarious.  I lost count how many cheesy European power metal albums I had to review. 

As competitive as the music journalism industry is my dream job is working for a publication like Kerrang or Metal Hammer just because I grew up reading them avidly a slightly mad dream but its dreams that keep us going I suppose.

Thanks for reading

Peace Out 

 My main passion is music; Listening to it, watching it live, playing instruments ,writing about it and even promoting it .  My taste is ecletic and I listen to a wide range of genres and always lookin out for new bands and artists.  Obviously asking who is my favourite band is a hard question.  Though writers I admire are the likes of Hunter S Thompson, Brett Easton Ellis and Lester Bangs.  I could go on forever but that would be boring. 

Expect to hear more soon. 

Peace out.