Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
Page 68
Anyway, Ballantine thinks this is going to go. My guarantee is just for the paperback; hardcover, movie and TV rights are yet to be negotiated. I think you should get hustling at once on the TV rights. Did you get a copy of my piece from The Nation? I put you on the list, but if you didn’t get one, say so and I’ll send a copy. (Or it’s the May 17 issue if you have one on hand.) For the next few months I’ll be booming around California on a cycle, talking to as many vicious thugs as I can find. I trust you noticed where my men got blamed for that New Hampshire riot last weekend. They trained in Mexico, under Red cadres. Sho nuff. The Guvnah said so. This could make a hell of a feature film, as I think I explained in a long-ago letter.
That Nation piece drew all sorts of action from publishers, but none so lucrative as this one. I would rather have got a fat advance on my novel, but this broke first and I couldn’t let it slide. If nothing else, it should give me good leverage for the novel. I have a feeling of general leverage right now. My agent [Theron Raines], who dumped on me two months ago, just sent me $400 to get my phone turned on. I don’t know what kind of phone he expects me to get, but I paid the deposit today and it will be listed under the name of Sebastian Owl—FYI.
Send word, or come out and take a cycle spin with me. I’d hate to think you were getting too old for this kind of a story. There is plenty of zing in it. And these guys aren’t half as dangerous as they sound—you know how the mass media does these things, eh? OK for now; come out of your ivory tower and write.
Sincerely,
Hunter
TO THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION:
Thompson took pride in the eclecticism of writing for The Nation while belonging to the NRA.
June 26, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
National Rifle Association
1600 Rhode Island Ave., NW
Washington 6, D.C.
Gentlemen:
I let my NRA membership lapse when I went to South America two years or so ago, and now I’d like to renew it. Enclosed is my check for $5, which I assume is still the initiation fee. If not, please bill me for anything above $5.
Since I have no application form at hand, I’m not sure what benefits I’ll get from this, but I assume I’ll be put on a subscription list for the American Rifleman, and, beyond that, receive all other benefits of a regular member.
I would like to go on record here—since we seem to be coming to very peculiar times in this country—that my application for membership is in no way indicative of any political views on my part. Nobody has ever called me a Conservative and as a matter of fact I am a writer for the Liberal press, but I’m concerned about the possible passage of illogical firearms laws and I’m glad to hear you people have taken what strikes me as a reasonable position on this question.
That’s why I’d like to re-activate my membership. I assure you that if the NRA’s overall viewpoint ever seems unreasonable to me, I’ll terminate my membership at once. In the meantime, count on me for any help you feel I can give.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO ANGUS CAMERON, ALFRED E. KNOPF:
June 28, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
Ah, Mr. Cameron … here I am with a dead letter and a mad poem and then a letter and a book from you and some weird inclination to wrap it all well and make the whole thing dance. What I am really doing is sitting here at 4:18 a.m., awash in good Napa Valley burgundy, and pondering the meaning of it all. For good or ill—the cats are screaming outside my high window, the coons must be in the garbage and the cats have the fear. Believe it or not these coons that raise such hell below my window can lift up a big garbage can and dash it against a wall to break the seal, A terrific racket. Now and then I crack off a 12-gauge blast at them, but nothing ever comes of it.
And so much for all that. This man Christopher Lasch. I see you published his book so I dare not knock it from an ignorant stance; it just came the day before yesterday and I’ve been trying for two days to buy a good portable tape recorder. Since your last letter, and mine (which I include, FYI), I signed a contract with Ballantine to do a cycle gang book, which I trust will make my fortune. A man in my fringe condition can’t turn down that kind of money, especially for a book that could be a big roller. This cycle stuff is not just a part of the fringe, it is the furthest extension of something comparable to whatever the Beat Generation might have been in 1952. This is the stupid vanguard of the Fourth Reich, and all I can say is that it’s nice and colorful and I admire the foresight of a man who is willing to pay for a book on it.
Of course I can say a lot more than that, and certainly intend to, But that is another story.
As for your ideas on “Losers and Outsiders.” I see it occurred to you at the end of your letter that we were talking in terms of the Ultimate Book. Non-Fiction won’t handle a subject that big. Honest journalism is enough to addle the sanest man, and if I’ve learned nothing else in five years of writing articles I think I’ve learned that. And that’s why I want to get this cycle book out of the way and get back on my novel—or novels, because The Rum Diary is becoming two books. Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can’t reach. Facts are lies when they’re added up, and the only kind of journalism I can pay much attention to is something like Down and Out in Paris and London. The title story in Tom Wolfe’s new book19 is a hell of a fine thing, I think, and so is the one on Junior Johnson [“The Last American Hero”]. But in order to write that kind of punch-out stuff you have to add up the facts in your own fuzzy way, and to hell with the hired swine who use adding machines.
Well, I see I’m running on here, and I suppose it’s a bad thing. A man should not run on. But I’m looking at the cover of Lasch’s book about two feet behind my typewriter and I wonder what in the hell was in his mind when he undertook such a thing. I haven’t opened it yet so I can’t possibly know, but I look at the title and the time-span and I wonder. You paraphrased the title as “The Intellectual as a Loser,” and from the reviews I’ve read I’m sure that’s pretty apt. But what could be more obvious? People who write books like these strike me as profit-oriented sado-masochists, and needless to say, compulsive losers. Think of the time and mental effort he spent on such a vast subject, and what a waste! I do, of course, have peculiar opinions on these subjects, and the last thing I can do is cite good reasons for them—it is all instinct, and you’ll have to take it like that. Perhaps the book is a soaring wonder of pungent truth, but I doubt it. I suspect it is just another bundle of facts that would be as hard to argue with as they would be to accept in any way that’s meaningful.
I wonder what you think of The Great Gatsby. If you have a moment I’d like to know. To my mind it’s the great american novel, and in some immensely strange way Lee Oswald wrote the ending. If History professors in this country had any sense they would tout the book as a capsule cram course in the American Dream. I think it is the most American novel ever written, I remember coming across it in a bookstore in Rio de Janeiro; the title in Portuguese was O Grande Gatsby, and it was a fantastic thing to read it in that weird language and know that futility of the translation. If Fitzgerald had been a Brazilian he’d have had that country dancing to words instead of music; the Brazilian personality is that same double-faced, two-hearted thing that makes Gatsby a classic. If he had lived in Rio they’d have made him an emperor. Dom Scott I, the man with that strange horn that played everything off-key except the high white note.
And that’s a bundle of stolen words and phrases for you, eh? And why not? For all I know you’re one of these people who think the great american novel will be written by John Updike or even Terry Southern. Well, where were we? I was talking about your idea for a book, which you wisely despaired of in your P.S. You say it’s “too much for one book,” but I flatly disagree with you unless you insist that a “book” also means a Novel. I don’t think so, and if this goddamn grey sky weren’t com
ing up on me here I’d have time to tell you why. The dawn is killing me off, the fog is on the windows, the coons have robbed the cans, and down in Rio it is 8 a.m. and the whores who missed last night are already out on the beach in their fine little bikinis and if I could get my hands on just one of them I would be God’s happiest man. But that’s not likely tonight, so I’ll get some sleep and wake up tomorrow with a fix on the Hell’s Angels.
Sometime soon I will send you a report on Lasch’s book. I appreciate your sending it and if you come across one with a high, white sound, by all means send that along too.
Sincerely—
Hunter S. Thompson
TO JIM RIDGEWAY, THE NEW REPUBLIC:
After his “motorcycle gang” piece had appeared in The Nation, Thompson pitched an article to Ridgeway, an editor at The New Republic. Ridgeway wrote back asking Thompson to write on teenage fruit-pickers in California.
June 28, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
Dear Jim:
Finally got back on the ieen-bracero thing today and here’s what it looks like, according to Jack Rucker, who handles the program (for the California Employment Office) for the northern part of the state.
818 teen-types came in from out of state two weeks before the California high schools got out for summer. 52 of those are still here. The others left for a variety of reasons, low pay being paramount. The growers contend (and Rucker seems to agree) that the promised wage of $1.40 an hour proved wholly uneconomical in most cases because the lads were simply too slow. A crate of strawberries that would sell for no more than $2.25 was costing $2.80 to get off the vines. So the strawberry pay rate was adjusted somewhat drastically to $1.00 a crate, and this brought on a labor mutiny when it became apparent that many of the lads could earn no more than $2 or $3 a day. The situation now is mixed. Strawberry picking is over the hump and the next big stoop crop in the Salinas area is lettuce, which is heavier and tougher than strawberries. If the (market) price of lettuce drops, as Rucker implied it would, the pro pickers are expected to move north to Santa Clara and Alameda for apricots, a tree-crop which is easier to pick. That will leave lettuce for the teen-braceros, and there will be a lot of hernias.
As of now the “teeners” are guaranteed pay (at varying rates) for 64 hours in a two-week period. That’s $89.60 for each two weeks, and the minute that looks uneconomical the growers will do something about it. And even that $89.60 is the top estimate. What happens is that they hire on in a sort of blanket agreement, with different pay rates for different crops. Pay rates also vary from grower to grower. A kid might be picking strawberries in the morning at $1.00 a crate, and carrots in the afternoon at $1.40 an hour. A professional picker in the same field as a kid might earn twice or three times as much, depending on how they’re paid.
What it boils down to is that for any kind of real story I’d have to go down to the Salinas valley, clamp onto Ben Lopez (the growers’ labor honcho) and zero in on one specific situation. The kids are obviously being exploited to the hilt, but in order to explore the growers’ point of view I’d have to go down there and get a real handle. There are two sides to the story but that doesn’t mean it’s evenly balanced. Tom Pitts from the AFL-CIO takes a harder line than the State Employment people, but the truth is that this labor is so ill-paid that the union fatbellies can only see it in terms of principle, not people. Have you ever heard Woody Guthrie’s song about “Deportees”? It fits here.
The nut of it is the situation is too in flux for any quick piece from the desk. And needless to say I can’t go to Salinas for a weekend and then sell a short piece for $30. For that you need a dilettante of some kind, and I ain’t he. Maybe Paul Jacobs is loose enough right now for that stuff, but I doubt it.
The reason I’ve been tardy in replying is that I’ve been dealing hard and fast for the past two weeks on a book contract, which I finally signed Saturday. For the next few months I’ll be doing a book on Motorcycle Gangs, but in the process I’ll be moving around the state quite a bit and might be able to get some stuff for you that I couldn’t reach otherwise. (Hell, I see here where I’ve sold you badly short at “$30 for a short piece.” At eight cents a word, 750 comes out to $60, which is slightly better. Now if you wanted 2000 words … yeah, the old story, eh?)
The view right now from my end is that I’d like to do a piece or two for you and I’ll do what I can, but since I have a deadline on the book I can’t afford to spend much time on anything extra unless I get decently paid for it. I can’t guarantee you that three days in Salinas will produce a good Fuck the Growers story, but I suspect something like that would come out of it. As a matter of fact I happen to know a lettuce grower in Salinas and he’s a Fascist lunatic, but we’d need a few details before I’d be willing to sign my name to any such testimony. At a rough guess I’d say the story I have in mind would be worth a minimum of 1500 words, which comes to $120 by your count, since I figure it would cost me no less than $25 a day for three days and that’s scrimping. On the other hand I’ve always prided myself on being christian, so I’ll do it for $175—of which $75 will go toward expenses.
This is really pretty cheap dialogue, eh? I don’t mind haggling about $7500, but going to the mat for $75 is pure ugly. I leave you to ponder the meaning of it, and—in looking back over this note—I see upstairs that I appear to be calling Paul Jacobs a “dilettante.” Not so; that was a jab that didn’t come off, but what the hell.
Anyway, send word. And what became of my “Grounds for Eviction” poem? I expected to see it on this week’s cover.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO TOM WOLFE:
When the National Observer refused to run Thompson’s review of The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, he forever severed his ties with the magazine. He did, however, send Wolfe the carbon of his review along with this letter.
July 6, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
Dear Mr. Wolfe:
I owe the National Observer in Washington a bit of money for stories paid and never written while I was working for them out here, and the way we decided I’d work it off was book reviews, of my own choosing. Yours was one; they sent it to me and I wrote this review, which they won’t print. I called the editor (the kulture editor) the other day from the middle of a Hell’s Angels rally at Bass Lake and he said he was sorry and he agreed with me etc. but that there was a “feeling” around the office about giving you a good review. I doubt this failure will do you much harm, but it pisses me off in addition to costing me $75, so I figured the least I could do would be to send the carbon along to you, for good or ill. Unfortunately, I wrote it with the Observer format in mind and my normal comments would be a bit louder in all directions. But I understand you used to work for the Post so I figure you know that score.
Anyway, here’s the review, and if it does you any good in the head to know that it caused the final severance of relations between myself and the Observer, then at least it will do somebody some good. As for myself I am joining the Hell’s Angels and figure I should have done it six years ago.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO TOM WOLFE:
At Wolfe’s request Thompson sent him a copy of his Hell’s Angels article.
July 14, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
Dear Tom—
Here’s the Nation piece. A guy named Whitworth did something on them for the Trib a few Sundays back; that’s probably where you heard about mine. If and when you have no use for this copy, please ship it back. I’m writing a book on the Hell’s Angels & other cycle gangs for Ballantine, and copies of this piece are in big demand among the troopers. It is my big In.
In the same mail with yours today came a wild fang job from the Observer, calling me every kind of sneaky shithead for sending you that carbon. They seem to fear some kind of action from you. I suspect th
eir revenge will be to cut me out of the upcoming Observer anthology. The guy who compiled it told me I had seven pieces in it, more than any staffer. And that—after this episode—will never do. Hopefully, my cheque is already vouchered; I will cash it at once with the Dow-Jones office out here, thereby coming back at them like a scorpion.
Definitely look forward to seeing you out here and will lay in some John Powers Irish for the drink-out. When do you plan to be in San Francisco? At some point in August I’ll be down in LA, check on that end of the cycle action. But my schedule is loose, so give me an idea of yours and I’ll plan to be here. You’re welcome to the extra bed in my writing room if you feel up to the drinking that would inevitably ensue. My number here is 664-xxxx, listed under “Owl,” not Thompson. OK for now, and thanks for the good letter.
HST
TO CAREY MCWILLIAMS, THE NATION:
Thompson prepared to head to Los Angeles to write on the motorcycle clubs there.
July 20, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
Dear Carey:
In my letter of April 25 I made an error which I would now like to correct. I said that “by June, all the FSM [Free Speech Movement] leaders will be either in jail or the army, and Don Silverthorne will be Chancellor [of the University of California at Berkeley].” I should have set a September deadline on both predictions. Sentencing began this week for the Sproul Hall sit-ins and I suppose you saw the results. Steve DeCanio, who figures in my non-student story, drew 60 days, not suspended. He was over here at the apartment Sunday night and didn’t seem worried at all. I tried to reach Silverthorne today, hoping for a comment on rumors of his pending appointment, but he can’t be reached. […]