Fear and Loathing in America
Page 72
Well … nevermind. It’s been a weird night and I’ve been dealing with a head full of something rumored to be LSD-25 for the past six hours, but on the evidence I suspect it was mainly that PCP animal tranq, laced with enough speed to KEEP the arms & legs moving. The brain is another question, I think, but I keep hoping we’ll have it under control before long … along with this goddamn rotten typewriter.
Anyway … I just woke Sandy up to ask if we have any copies of the Campaign book in the house; after a long struggle I finally got them to send me a Box (18 copies) and the only others that got sent out went to names on the various presidential campaign press lists, the press rosters I stole off ALL those hq. hotel bulletin boards. Consequently, things like the Mountain Gazette and the Topeka Daily Screed got maybe two review copies each—and you got none. I hope to remedy this situation very soon, but not until I can get at least another box of 18 for myself. And that’ll take another two wks, at least.
Wups … Sandy emerges from the darkness with a book in her hand, cursing me for a worthless dope addict as she hurls it my way, then spins on her naked heels & disappears back toward the bedroom …Yes, here it is. Guard it with your fucking life.
OK, I’ll be in Washington sometime soon to fuck around with the Watergate team & Other Strange Thugs. With luck I should get wrapped up here and make it east by July 4 or so.
OK for now …
HST
TO DAVID BUTLER, PLAYBOY:
“The Great Shark Hunt,” Thompson’s article about covering an international deep-sea fishing tournament off Cozumel, Mexico, in April 1973, appeared in the December 1974 issue of Playboy.
June 22, 1973
Woody Creek, CO
David …
Shit …I was just sitting down today to start a tentative second draft that might lash together the 30/40 rough pages I’ve already croaked up inre: Cozumel. …Indeed, ready to get right into it, no more fucking around (and also with the jangled euphoria from an unexpected handful of righteous blotter acid last night in the Jerome bar) … yes: make some sense of the fucking thing …
But just as I was finally shaking off the last of the acid horrors about ten this morning, Sandy came back with the mail, which included, along with your $700+ expense check, a copy of Wolfe’s New Journalism book9 … which didn’t tell me a hell of a lot except that I used to be a lot more coherent writer than I seem to be now. Or maybe just hungrier. Or more vengeful. Who can say for sure?
Anyway, it’s now 3:11 p.m. & I’m sitting on the porch under a blazing goddamn sun with the Allman Brothers on the portable Sony speakers just like they were, down there in Cozumel (for the vibes, the gut rhythms, etc.) …and I just got off the phone with Lynn Nesbit, who called to say that Acosta rang her up yesterday afternoon to announce that he was suing me for gross fraud, massive damages & obstruction of justice or some such bullshit inre: The sale of the Vegas book for a film … which won’t faze the film rights, because I have a xerox of Oscar’s release of all claims, etc. tacked inside on the kitchen wall, but in the short run it will undoubtedly croak any hope of immediate delivery on the $7500 option-money: film mongers are not normally eager to acquire properties even vaguely rumored to be in litigation. (One half-mad letter from Oscar’s “attorney” very nearly caused Random House to suspend publication of the Vegas book….)
All of which might or might not explain why I’m writing you this letter, at this time, instead of sending the revised first half of the first draft, etc. that I thought I’d be finished with today … but I thought I should write & let you know that I haven’t just disappeared on you. I’ve been working on the goddamn thing as steadily as my psychic circumstances allow(ed) for the past few weeks, and although I still don’t see the main skeleton in it, I’ve finally begun to see where it’s heading—not necessarily going; just heading.
To this end, in fact, I might zip into town pretty soon and xerox a disconnected clump of enough pages to give you some idea what’s happening…. (Jesus, I should have known better than to try to work out here in the open on this goddamn porch. About six people have come & gone for a variety of odd reasons since I got into this letter. In one case, the Co-Op gas truck came into the driveway & I thought hot damn, here’s 300 gallons of gas for my big red farmers’ tank—but what I got out of the truck was an 18-yr-old girl hitch-hiker from Takoma Park, Md. (read, D.C.) who’s still here, fencing a bit delicately with my wife, and chasing the peacock around in the field while I try to get this letter finished…. But no gas for my empty tank.)
Then, just a moment ago, after spending half the afternoon on the phone with Lynn Nesbit about the unexplored option for madness & violence in the up-coming book-contract negotiations, and then talking to my new attorney in SF about attaching $506.01 of Acosta’s book royalties … when all that was ended, the goddamn phone rang again and after 22 minutes of brainless jabbering I found that I’d agreed to define the word “corruption” for Harper’s, in 500 words or less within 48 hrs and for $100.
Why not? I should be able to go right to the mat with that one—no trouble at all. Just dash the fucker off.
And … yes … It’s now 5:38 & I just had to tell Sandy to cancel my flying lesson at 6:00. My only hope for physical survival now lies in fleeing this peaceful wooded hideout and rushing into town for a swim in the Jerome pool. Ten lazy laps in cool water is all that stands between me & hysterical disintegration at this point.
… although between now and then I’ll try to jerk out a few pages of the Cozumel first-draft for your perusal—or really just because I’m beginning to feel guilty about not sending you anything heavy, incisive, etc. after so long a time. Don’t view the shit as anything except loosely-constructed notes; but even in that form you might get some idea what kind of a spineless-saga I’m grappling with. I have the usual amount of ultimate faith in it—along with the usual sense(s) of futility, hatred and despair … and the trick, as always, is in refusing to even read the accumulated pages until they’re ready (or at least typed cleanly) for mailing.
Right … and that’s one of the main real values of the Mojo Wire: Once you feed a page into that bastard it’s gone forever—no frenzied editing or anal-compulsive rewrites.
Which is neither here nor there, right? I’ll lash a few pages together & send them along under separate cover tonight. Probably we should talk about this thing pretty soon, just to keep me honest & not lose whatever thin dose of ersatz momentum we might have going here…. Okay for now:
Hunter
—Thanx for the quick action inre: expense check.
TO KURT VONNEGUT:
Renowned author Kurt Vonnegut’s partly autobiographical 1969 novel about the World War II bombing of Dresden—Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children’s Crusade—had been made into a big-budget movie directed by George Roy Hill in 1972.
June 28, 1973
Woody Creek, CO
Kurt …
I’ve been meaning to send you a note about your review (in Harper’s) of my Campaign ’72 book ever since Russ Barnard10 told me about it on the phone about 3 months ago. As you’ve doubtless seen, Straight Arrow has used your words mercilessly ever since—and I suppose I should apologize for that, because it seems a bit greedy & grasping. For good or ill … although in retrospect the “ill-factor” seems negligible.
Only the intent, eh? Like Nixon.
Anyway, I thought I should tell you that I have about 500 reviews of my books lying around the house, here (most of them astoundingly positive, for all the wrong reasons), but if I had to pick an epitaph, right now, out of all that gibberish—the one paragraph that cuts through it all & comes closest to what I’d like to think I was saying was your closing graph in the Harper’s review—inre: “Hunter Thompson’s Disease.”
No point jabbering any further about it, except to emphasize the good, high feeling that came on me when I read it.
I was planning on having a drink with you in Miami, but things got weird. Maybe we can make a human co
nnection when I come east in mid-July to have a look at the Watergate situation. I’ll be mainly in Washington, but my hustlers tell me I have to come up to New York for a few days, on the breaks. If you’ll be in town around then, maybe you could call Kirstin White at Quick Fox (the distribution arm for Straight Arrow) and leave a phone number where I can reach you. She’ll have a vague fix on my movements….
Okay for now. In closing, let me assure you that my health—at least for the moment—is extremely good, on paper. I just went through a total physical examination, and the doc was baffled at the lack of ominous signs, symptoms, etc. The findings seem to insult everything he spent 12 years learning …
… Which gives me a boot, of sorts, but as a Doctor I know better. He just hasn’t found the right combination of tests, yet. The D. Gray syndrome is not in his books.
Which gives me a bit more time, if nothing else. If you drift west, let me know in time to invite you to pass some time out here on the Owl Farm. Meanwhile, thanx again for the good eye & good instinct.
Hunter S. Thompson
TO U.S. SENATOR GEORGE McGOVERN:
George McGovern had returned to his seat in the U.S. Senate after losing the 1972 presidential election.
June 29, 1973
Woody Creek, CO
Dear George …
Thanks for the good words (about my Campaign ’72 book) and the fine lift you gave Sandy when you called out here the other day. She was stuck in Washington throughout the campaign, and your call almost made up for it …Not quite, of course, but the Watergate hearings on TV are rapidly covering the rest. My personal projection for the end of the summer is definitely up. (As a matter of fact I recently made a $1000 bet in L.A. that Nixon will offer his resignation by Labor Day.)
Bad craziness, eh? But remember—they laughed at Thomas Edison. And also keep in mind that David Broder11 wound up owing me $500 after the ’72 primaries … Selah.
Anyway, whatever instinct prompted you to pick up the phone & make the call yourself was exactly what caused me to vote for you last November—the first time I’d voted for a major party presidential candidate since 1960. And it was perfect that you talked to Sandy instead of me. She had a crush on you from the start, and—as the local (Aspen) campaign manager for our ex-Democrat county commissioner candidate last fall, she was one of the prime architects of the jangled coalition that won Pitkin County (Colo.) for you and our local “extremist candidates.”
If you recall our conversation on the Monday night before election day—aboard the Dakota Queen II, en route from Long Beach to Sioux Falls—you asked how it looked in Colorado and I said I couldn’t speak for the state but you were safe in my district; which proved out to be true—Pitkin was the only county you won in Colorado. (No, there are rumors of another (rural Chicano) county in the SE corner of the state that went for you, but nobody can name it for me … and you know how us Objective Journalists treat rumors.)
Anyway, thanx again for the call. I thought about returning it, but—as both Frank & Gary can attest—I’m not at my best on the telephone. So I figured I’d wait and drop in on you personally when I get to Washington around July 9 or so. I want to be there for [former Nixon attorney general John] Mitchell’s appearance, and Frank will know how to reach me. I’ll call him & check in, just as soon as I get to town.
Sandy may be with me, and—if you have a loose hour or so, some evening—maybe we can have a drink or some dinner. The only restaurant in Washington I can tolerate is a Mexican place at 17th & R, as I recall … but what the hell? After 10 months on the campaign trail, I can eat anywhere.
In any case, I’ll call you at the office when I get there. Despite all the foul things I had to say about your pragmatism, I look back on your campaign as one of the high points in my life and one of the most honest & honorable efforts in the history of politics, including my own, I might add … and that’s rarified air to be fixed in.
Ok for now. See you in 10 days or so.
Cazart …
Hunter S. Thompson
TO PATRICK J. BUCHANAN, THE WHITE HOUSE:
Future syndicated columnist, TV pundit, and perennial conservative presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan remained at his post as a White House speechwriter and Nixon stalwart all the way through Watergate until his president’s resignation in August 1974. Thompson arranged for Buchanan to receive a complimentary subscription to Rolling Stone at the White House.
July 9, 1973
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Pat …
I’m sure you’ve heard rumors, by now, of my plans to retire from journalism & seek a career in politics. But I’m having a bit of trouble deciding whether to jump in on the electoral or appointive levels, and that’s why I’m writing you.
As you know, I’ve long been interested in the Governorship of American Samoa. Larry O’Brien, in fact, once led me to believe I was all set for that part—but for reasons never adequately explained, he failed to follow through.
I mention this to you because I plan to be in Washington very soon (probably by the time you get this letter) and it occurred to me that you might like to discuss the situation. Maybe some night over a half-gallon of Wild Turkey in that dungeon where Stearns lives. One of my prime reasons for coming to Washington is to hire Rick for my Senate campaign in Colorado, in case this Samoan gig looks lifeless.
In any case, I’d like to have a drink with you and maybe some talk—on whatever terms you want. My feelings about The Boss haven’t changed any since we talked that night in Boston 5 years ago and I doubt if yours have, either … which reminds me that I never thanked you for your help in setting up that interview in ’68, or for whatever aid you might have rendered in clearing the way for my brief & predictably unfriendly excursion with the Nixon campaign last fall. I appreciated the mixed feelings I knew you had in both cases. You’d be hell on wheels if you had good (political) sense to match your good instincts—but Rick says there’s no hope for that, so why nag at it? We spent a lot of time talking last year, and if anybody on the McGovern staff had overheard the things he said about you, he’d have been banished to Butte, Montana.
Which is neither here nor there, for right now—but it gives me a sense of real optimism about the ultimate health of the political system in this country to know that people like you and Rick can beat each other like gongs in public, then sit down at night as friends and human beings.
Jesus! I seem to have wandered far off the point here. All I meant to do—behind all the filigree—was to warn you that I’ll be back in Washington for most of late July & probably August, and to say I’d enjoy a human talk with you, if things work out.
If not … well, I won’t take it personally. It strikes me that your schedule might be a bit tight at the moment. I can offer my condolences—but not much else—at least not in public. Can you imagine what it would do to my image if I were seen chuckling in a pub with you?
Anyway, say hello to [fellow Nixon speechwriter] Ray Price for me when you see him. He deserved a better fate than this bummer. But so did we all, I think—and that’s the real tragedy.
Sincerely …
Hunter S. Thompson
TO DAVID BUTLER, PLAYBOY:
Thompson assured Butler that he would focus on the Cozumel article now that he was back from Washington.
August 16, 1973
Woody Creek, CO
David …
Here’s another chunk—probably the last big one. What I have to do now is lace the shit together and try to cut it down to size. In any case, we now have at least the raw material (with the tapes and this END section) for the “middle and the end” that were missing.
I’m feeling increasingly guilty about the long delay on this thing—but there’s been no way to avoid my ever-deepening involvement in the Watergate story. It’s just too damn big and critical to keep anything but a total fix on. I’ve spent 5 of the past 6 weeks in Washington, and despite my best intentions I haven’t done much of anything on thi
s Cozumel story.
Now—after stumbling off the plane & sleeping for 48 hours—I think I can get this thing under control in a week or so. Jesus, I have to. Because I have a 10,000 word Watergate wrap-up due by the end of August.
The main problem here was my original/disastrous decision to try to do anything in tandem with Watergate. It’s been like trying to write both the Vegas & the Campaign ’72 books at the same time—not only 2 different things, but 2 different sets of mind. It’s damn near impossible to go out to dinner with Dick Tuck, Adam Walinsky12 & Wisconsin congressman Les Aspin for a long argument about impeaching Nixon, and then come back half-drunk to work on a story about drug-madness in Cozumel.
But I’m trying, David …trying.
And in my spare time, as it were, I’m dealing with a federal drug blitz on Aspen that has already subpoenaed 10 or 12 of my friends for a Grand Jury gig in Denver—and which is likely to reel me in at any moment, on general principles; or maybe just on the basis of the Vegas book. Now I know what Pat Buchanan meant last week when he told me—sitting at a table beside the Watergate pool—that working in the White House was like living from moment to moment in “The Bunker.”
But fuck all that. None of it excuses my failure to get this goddamn thing done. I’m amenable to any crisis solutions you deem necessary, but I think I’ll wait until we’re definitely into a crisis before I suggest any….
Christ … here I am trying to write this letter and watch the CBS Morning News at the same time; the same kind of split/vision focus that’s been driving me nuts all along.
Anyway, take a look at this stuff, then see how it fits with the rest and tell me what you think.
As for Mailer, I think Sandy told you I couldn’t find him in Washington and I don’t have a home phone number for him. Beyond that, I haven’t been able to crank up a hell of a lot of enthusiasm for the idea of a mano a mano gig with Norman … and Lynn Nesbit’s reaction to the idea was that Mailer should write a piece about me. (That was her idea, not mine.)