Hey Rube

by Hunter S. Thompson

  But they keep coming back for more, like pimps & real estate agents, & on days like this I run out of patience.… I have explained many times that I am, by Profession, a Gambler—not some jock-sniffing nerd or a hired human squawk box with the brain of a one-celled animal. No. That would be your average career sportswriter—and, more specifically, a full-time Baseball writer.

  Okay, how’s that for Rudeness? I can Play in this league. I don’t like it, but when my own editors at ESPN start asking me to get outraged about the Huge Salaries being paid these days to Baseball Pitchers—instead of the truly Insane high-stakes Gambling that is going on right now in our national Political Arena—I know how Thomas Jefferson felt when he said, “I fear for the fate of my country when I reflect that God is Just.”

  As for Pitchers, they are as useless as tits on a boar hog & should all be put to sleep. Baseball’s only hope for survival is the elimination of the “pitcher” position completely. See below.

  The cure for White House Disease is not so simple. It is like a combination of Blue balls & malaria, an interminable Fever that is always Incurable & often Fatal. The symptoms are blindness, freezing, sweating, weeping, & delusions of suffering beyond Death.

  Let’s face it: The only true Blood Sport in this country is high-end Politics. You can dabble in Sports or the Stock Markets, but when you start lusting after the White House, The Joke is Over. These are the real Gamblers, & there is nothing they won’t do to win.

  Nothing involving jockstraps or sports bras will ever come close to it for drama, violence, savagery, & overweaning lust for the spoils of victory.… The Presidency of the United States is the richest & most powerful prize in the history of the World. The difference between winning the Super Bowl & winning the White House is the difference between a Goldfish & a vault full of Gold bars.

  The very heart of the American electoral system now seems to be cracking.… This is like a Super Bowl that goes into 99 scoreless overtimes, or a night when the sun never sets. Even Congress is preparing for Trench Warfare: the GOP leadership is now daring Clinton to try to pass a Spending Bill before the year ends. Blocking the bill would paralyze the Nation & prevent all payments for anything by the Federal Government. The moment is reminiscent of Political events that occurred just before the start of the Civil War.… Beware. There may be no Super Bowl this year.

  It is no accident that this vicious mess has come to a head in Florida. I know the state well. Florida has been very good to me in many wild & beautiful ways that still make my whole body hum when I think about them.… I know Tallahassee & I know Palm Beach. I have run amok in Naples & suffered terrible boat crashes in the waters off Miami & the treacherous channels of Key West.… I have run aground at midnight on sandbars far out in the ocean; I have lost control of my boat in many posh marinas & been rescued at sea by the Coast Guard so often that they came to recognize my voice on the shortwave radio. I have known great happiness in Florida & I still have a certain love for it.

  But I also know it to be the most corrupt & profoundly degenerate state in the Union. So many of its elected officials are so openly For Sale that politics in Florida is more like an auction than a democratic process. Its Congressmen have been jailed for Felony Fraud, & its Senators have routinely committed more heinous crimes than Richard Nixon was ever accused of.… More murders & rapes go unreported in Florida each year than in Corsica & Sicily combined. The state has no Income Tax & essentially no Law. Its cities are ruled by Depraved sots and its Universities are snake pits of cheating & random sex in Public. The libraries are filled with Beer Drunkards looking for Skull sessions & beautiful girls who are proud & Eager to oblige them. Oral sex is more common on the streets of Miami in the daylight hours than anywhere else in America.

  Rude people will now & then ask me why I think I know so much about Politics & I tell them it’s because I’m Smart.… But that is a lie: the real reason is that I’m an incurable Gambling addict.

  The gambling habit is no different from any other acquired addiction (Crack, Nicotine, Flogging, Lying, etc.) in that there are always two (2) very different types of addicts: the User & the Binger. The binge gambler is doomed from the start & so is a binge Flogger, like the infamous Marquis de Sade.… The Marquis was a Multi-Addict, & he took his flogging vice too far.

  It was not the Vice but the Binge that destroyed him. The history of the Time suggests that if de Sade had learned Moderation—if he could have kept his brutal Floggings down to one or two a week, even three—the cops might have left him alone. But no, the Marquis wouldn’t listen, so his legacy was to go down as the most Vicious Pervert in history.

  Al Gore will not be so lucky. At least people are still interested in de Sade’s crazed excesses, but nobody will ever care about the fate of Al Gore. He will forever be known as “the Loser” of the doomed 2000 Election. He was Wrong from the Start, & he will be happy to get out of Electoral politics, & Bush is an Unhappy winner. He will be beaten like a rat in a wastebasket & he will age 14 years in the next Four.

  The Bush family has already Corrupted the Presidency & the U.S. Supreme Court. Millions of Americans will never again be Confident that their vote will be counted in any election.

  It is not just the state of Florida & its whole voting Process that got exposed as Corrupt & Fraudulent in the past 30 days. The ugly truth is that this same horrible mess could have happened in any other place, from Bangor to Honolulu—and the result would have been the same.… All we need now is the squalid Spectacle of Jeb Bush on TV, saying, “I am Not a Crook.”

  —December 2, 2000

  New Rules for Baseball

  Hi, folks. My name is Thompson, and I don’t have much space for this high-speed presentation, so let’s get started and see how tight we can make it. … My job is to devise a whole new set of rules and concepts to shorten the time it takes to play a game of Major League Baseball, or any other kind.

  This is a major responsibility and I am keenly aware of the angst and bitter squabbling that will erupt when somebody tries to screw with the National Pastime.… But it must be done, and if I don’t do it, somebody else will. So here’s the plan.

  Eliminate the Pitcher: This will knock at least one hour off the length of a game, which is now up to 3:42. One World Series Game took five hours and twenty minutes, which is unacceptable to everybody except the Pitchers. Yes.…

  So we will ELIMINATE THE PITCHER, and he won’t be missed. Pitchers, as a group, are pampered little swine with too much money and no real effect on the game except to drag it out and interrupt the action.

  Limit All Games to Three (3) Hours: Like football and basketball and hockey, the Baseball game will end at a fixed time. THE SCORE, at that moment, WILL BE FINAL, based on an accumulation of TOTAL BASES gained in 3 hours.

  All Base Runners May Run to Any Base (but not backwards): First to Third, Second to Home, etc. And with NO PITCHER in the game, this frantic scrambling across the infield will be Feasible and tempting.

  ALL “PITCHING,” by the way, will be done by a fine-tuned PITCHING MACHINE that pops up out of the mound, delivers a remote-controlled “pitch” at the batter, and then drops back out of sight to free up the whole infield for running.… If a batter hits a home run with the bases loaded, for instance, his team will score 16 total bases (or 16 points). But, if it’s 3 up and 3 down in an inning, that team will score Zero points.

  Think of 22–5, perhaps, or 88–55. Yes sir, we will have Huge scores and constant speedy action for 3 straight hours.

  The heroes of the game will be the CATCHERS, not Pitchers. The CATCHER will dominate the game and be the highest-paid player.…With no Pitcher and no Mound to disrupt the flow, runners on base will be moving at the crack of the bat, and it will be the CATCHER’S job to shut them down or pick them off whenever possible. Foot speed and a bazooka throwing arm will be paramount.… There will be no more of this bullshit about Bull pens and Managers scratching their heads on TV for hours on end, no more lame pickoff thro
ws to first, no more waving of signs and agonized close-ups while pop fouls bounce off the roof.…

  No, there will be no such thing as a base on balls. Each batter will get five “pitches” from the robot—only FIVE (5)—and if he doesn’t get a hit by then, he is Out.… And the CATCHER will control the kind of drop or curve or speed he wants the machine to throw. And it will obey. Those goddamn pitching machines can put a Slider past you at 98 miles an hour five times in a row, with no problem. They can throw hideous wavering knuckleballs and half-moon curves—all depending on and according to what the CATCHER wants to dial up on his remote control unit. He can even order that the batter be whacked in the ribs by a 102 mph fastball, although that will cost his team two (2) bases, instead of one. And you won’t want to have some poor Cuban drilled in the ribs when you’re nursing a 31–30 lead.

  Okay, folks, that’s it for now. I am already late and I have written too many words—but the Concept is sound, I think, and there is a clear and desperate Need for it.…

  Everybody agrees that Baseball games Must be shortened, but nobody is really Working on it. … And meanwhile, the games get longer and longer. The good old “meat in the seats” argument won’t work after midnight, when the seats are mainly Empty, and TV networks get nasty when they start having to refund money to advertisers when the ratings sink lower and lower. Pro wrestling and golf are bigger draws than baseball games.…I have not been to a live baseball game in 20 years, and I hope I Never see another one. Not even the New Rules would drag me back to the Ballpark—but I am a Doctor of Wisdom, a professional man, and some of my friends in the Business have asked me to have a look at this problem, which I have, and this is my solution, for good or ill.

  Next spring ESPN will put my theories to the test by sponsoring a series of “New Rules” baseball games in New York, Chicago, Omaha, and Seattle, among others.…Tickets will be sold and big-time sports talent will be employed. The success or failure of these Games will determine the fate of Baseball in America.

  Purists will bitch and whine, but so what? Purists will Always bitch and whine. That is their function. Res Ipsa Loquitur.

  —November 6, 2000

  Get Ready for Sainthood

  Okay. That horrible farce is Over now. We can Relax and get back to sports. So let’s get back to Al Gore for a minute. He says he “will spend some time in Tennessee, mending fences” in his home state, where his neighbors didn’t vote for him.… Ho ho. I would feel very nervous if I lived down the road from the Old Gore place in Carthage right now.

  When hill people start talking about “mending fences” just after suffering a brutal public beating, they are not thinking about pounding nails into wooden posts. They are already cooking up a hell broth of vengeance and punishment down there tonight.

  When the Boss gets home for the holidays, it will be more savage than the Hatfields & McCoys. Some of his neighbors are already Doomed, and others will flee the state in a long caravan going south to Florida for Xmas. Many will have dead animals stuffed down their chimneys or get burned out by mysterious fires. Thousands of government jobs will be terminated & fancy farms will go on the block for a dime on the dollar.… That is how big-time Politics works, in Tennessee or anywhere else. When you Cross a still-powerful Loser, you’d better run when you see him coming.

  The Xmas season is always a good time to say you’re leaving town, then change your mind and sneak back home like a burglar.

  Yes sir, it’s time for the NFL play-offs & a frenzy of football action.… No more of that rotten Politics. We can afford to turn our backs on these swine for a moment. They will be too busy Looting & Bribing their new Connections in Washington to have time for stabbing people in the back. They love the Christmas spirit & they don’t want to ruin it. The stabbing will start in January, when it will become like the Night of the Long Knives.

  Meanwhile, I have a Serious problem with the Play-offs. My Boys have Failed miserably—the 49ers were beaten like chickens right in front of our eyes all year long.… It was humiliating.… I have been addicted to the 49ers for 25 years, through thick & thin. I sat through hailstorms on the wet planks of Kezar Stadium when John Brodie was getting sacked & stomped like a bird every Sunday.

  I drank beer with Dave Wilcox* at the Stadium Bar & Grill on Stanyan Street, right across from the Park & the Police station. I would chain my red motorcycle to a standpipe at Kezar during games or at night after Antiwar rallies.

  So when the Good Years came, I figured we deserved them. I was Proud to live & die with the 49ers. I had tasted the sour wine of Defeat, so when Joe Montana showed up, & then Ronnie Lott & Jerry Rice, I saw it as a triumph of Good Karma. My friends agreed. When our Boys finally beat Dallas, we felt we were part of a New Master Race, & we behaved accordingly. We were winners. All roads led to San Francisco. And why not? It was the Cradle of Civilization. To be a Winner in San Francisco was to be a winner all over the World.

  Ah—but that is another story & we don’t have time for it now. The real story is about how the Fate of some greedy half-bright Sports Team can drastically affect the Fate(s) of its Loyal lifetime Fans, including You.

  And me. And Jack Nicholson.… Fred Exley got mixed up with Frank Gifford, & look what happened to him. In Jack’s case, it was the Lakers who made him what he is today. In my case, it was the Forty-Niners & San Francisco that determined my Fate in life. I might have become a shepherd, or Night Manager of the famous O’Farrell Theatre, if not for Joe Montana & Bill Walsh—just as Jack might be an aging pimp in Nevada today if not for Magic Johnson.

  And so much for all that. I still need a team for the Playoffs.… As a gambler, I’m better off without one, but as an Addict I must have a team—so I have chosen the New Orleans Saints. Why not? They are 16–1 long shots to win the Super Bowl, and they still have to beat St. Louis to win the NFC West.… Unless Tampa Bay beats the Rams tonight, which I am betting will not happen. So the Saints game on Xmas Eve should be a humdinger. I make it New Orleans by 3 or 4.

  Ed. Note: These are only the Doctor’s predictions. He is not taking bets on the World Wide Web.

  Why am I betting that St. Louis will beat Tampa tonight & thus remain tied with NO atop the NFC West?

  Because Kurt Warner will not throw four interceptions against the Bucs’ defense—which is what Miami’s Jay Fiedler did when Miami lost by three points to TB last week in a monsoon rain that slowed all movement by about 50 percent.

  Only a 200-foot Tsunami in the Gulf of Florida will prevent the Rams’ racehorse-fast receivers from getting open against Tampa Bay, and Warner will hit them in the hands nine times out of 10—which means that the Bucs’ only chance here will be if Warren Sapp cripples Warner early in the game.

  Meanwhile, the games will go on like always. The Rams will lose the Xmas Eve showdown in New Orleans. They will be sent off to play on the road & get croaked in the snow by some goofy team like the Giants.

  I tried to ignore him & so did the players—but when the lawyer finally intruded too far into Wilcox’s Personal Space, the linebacker turned quickly on his stool, seized the lawyer by his striped necktie, & jerked his head straight down in a way that caused the lawyer’s Chin to smack down on the bar with a terrible noise that still makes me shudder when I remember it.… The bar-room fell silent & so did the lawyer, who staggered outside & spit little chips of bloody teeth all over the sidewalk. He could barely talk because he had bitten off a piece of his own tongue, which he picked up & took with him to the Emergency Room.… The incident made me so nervous that I never went into the Stadium Club again, but I still admire Dave Wilcox, & the lawyer still talks with a Lisp.

  —December 18, 2000

  The Xmas Vice

  Gambling is a dangerous vice, but millions of people are hooked on it and many will suffer grievously before this holiday season is over. The traditional “Christmas spirit” runs completely against the grain of the natural laws of Gambling, which have nothing to do with silly human weaknesses like Gene
rosity or Kindness or Carelessness.

  If Santa Claus had a gambling habit, he would have been dead a long time ago.… There are a lot of criminal psychos between here & the North Pole, and they would show no mercy on a goofy old man who gets loaded one night a year and drives around through strange neighborhoods with a truckload of jewelry & furs & gold Rolex watches.

  What if the Hell’s Angels got their hands on him? They would set him on fire & stuff him headfirst down a smoking chimney.… Which is not much different from how Professional gamblers treat their victims at Xmas time—which is also the end of the football season & the start of the Playoff frenzy that will build & grow & throb like a Shark’s heart for 33 more days until Super Bowl Sunday.

  Yes sir, this is Harvest time for the Bookies, and Fleecing time for Rubes. When a gambler looks down on a hotel lobby crowded with whooping football Fans, he sees a flock of bleating Sheep—dumb beasts, ready for fleecing & slaughtering. It makes him crazy with hunger. He throws back his head & howls like a Jackal in heat.

  There are thousands of wild whores on the streets of Nashville tonight, and not all of them are women. Many are politicians working the crowd out of habit—or pansexual pimps in high drag.… A huge football crowd has swarmed into town for the Tennessee-Dallas game & the downtown hotels are booked wall to wall with gamblers, wild rubes, and whores who dearly love Football—Especially the hometown Titans, who may soon be the champions of the World.

  They are on their way to the Super Bowl & so are the gamblers & the whores & the mass of foul scum they bring with them.… A Winning Team on the road to the Super Bowl is like a traveling circus that picks up more & more fleas at every stop along the way & finally deposits the whole load on an innocent city like Tampa.

  Hell, what’s a few million diseased fleas, compared to the Billion dollars or so that will pour into the local economy along with the Big Game? Any big city in America would cough up many millions to get the NFL to even consider putting the Super Bowl in their town, and never mind the fleas.