Hunter S. Thompson - 1939
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San Pedro High School in San Pedro, California
I. Biography
With the making of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, much attention was paid toward the book it was based on and the author, Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson is best known for his style of writing known as "Gonzo" journalism which he created while writing for Rolling Stone in the early sixties. What many don't know, is that even when in school, Thompson had a gift of revealing the world in its twisted and almost surreal realities. This is his tale of drugs, corruption and politics in all its beautifully horrifying truth.
On July 18, 1939, Hunter Stockton Thompson was brought into the world by his father, Jack, and mother Virginia in Louisville, Kentucky. Jack was a 42 year old insurance salesman. Virginia was a 29 year old housewife. This, needless to say, meant that baby Thompson was not exactly born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
In 1953, Thompson became a member of the Athenaeum Club which was a literary club for the rich children, but Thompson's ability to comprehend literature far surpassed that of his peers. He felt that F. Scott Fitzgerald was the voice of his generation. He socialized with the rich even though he had no money of his own which lead to frustrations based on his social situation. It is believed that these frustrations led to the behavior of years to come. It was through the Athenaeum Club that Thompson was able to channel his anger towards something constructive.
In fall of 1954 Thompson's father died.
In June, 1956, Thompson and two friends were arrested for robbery. One friend was acquitted, and the other fined, and left Thompson alone to do the time. The judge sent Thompson to Juvenile Hall for sixty days and forced him to enlist in the army after reading of young Thompson's record of underage drinking and vandalism. Also, unlike his friends, he had no real social standing to sway the judge's ruling. Due to this, Thompson was kicked out from the Athenaeum Club and was unable to graduate. Unlike his friends who were going off to Ivy League universities, Thompson was enlisting in the army by court order. This event made Thompson extremely resentful.
In fall of 1956, Thompson entered the Airforce. After basic training and a short term as an electronics technician trainee, Thompson became sports editor for the Elgin Air Force Base in Florida. Also, under the pen name, Thorne Stockton, he wrote for a local off-base paper. November 8, 1957, Thompson was honorably discharged from the army due to his lack of wanting to be there, the fact that his attitude was rubbing off on other men in the Airforce, his writing for the off-base paper, among other things.
In 1958, Hunter S. Thompson set out for the big city. He first worked for a few weeks at the Jersey Shore Times until he destroyed a co-worker's car which caused him to flee to New York City. In the city, Thompson worked as copy boy for the Times while he took classes at Columbia. It was here, that he started attending readings and became interested in beat (a form of poetry). During this time, Thompson became influenced by the novel, The Gingerbread Man written by J.P. Donleavy.
In 1959, Thompson bought a cabin in the Catskill Mountains to work on a novel loosely based on his own life which was never published, but excerpts of it can be found in various issues of Rolling Stone. Thompson then moved back to the city where he met his future wife, Sandy Dawn.
Shortly after their meeting, Thompson moved again. This time he settled in Puerto Rico and worked for Sportivo, a bowling magazine. Sandy soon followed her beloved and lived with him. While living in a small village outside San Juan, Thompson started writing for the New York Herald along with writing for the San Juan Star. While in between jobs, Hunter started writing another novel entitled, The Rum Diary, which also was based loosely on his life. Like his first novel, The Rum Diary was never published, but appears in Songs of the Doomed.
In 1960, Thompson (along with Sandy) moved back to New York where he stayed for about a month. He then decided that he and his friend, Paul Semonian, should travel across the country. They eventually end up in California. Thompson then decided to take up residence in Big Sur, a place where the soul was allowed to run free (ex: lots of drugs, hippies and guns). While there, Thompson tried to get his work published with no luck. Sandy joined him in Big Sur and Thompson started hunting wild boar.
July 2, 1961, Hemingway committed suicide. This event was more devastating to Thompson than any other event that has ever occurred throughout his life.
In late 1961, Thompson, practically broke, moved back to Louisville. Sandy went along. Thompson got his first big break when he was published in the Chicago Tribune in February of 1962.
In 1962, Thompson became correspondent for National Observer. He mimicked Hemingway's form of writing when giving an account of life in South America. He wrote approximately twenty articles about Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador. During his time in South America, he was unable to drink alcohol due to medication. This led him to try other substances.
In late 1962, Thompson moved back to the U.S. and closer to Sandy.
On May 19, 1963, Thompson finally married Sandy. They then moved back to New York for a short period of time and then they moved to Northern California. During this time, Thompson spent a few weeks in Aspen as he continued to write for the National Observer. He then met his wife in San Francisco where they decided to settle and have a family.
In July of 1964, Hunter covered his first convention. Impersonating a security guard for better coverage, Thompson covered the 28th Republican National Convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.
During the same year, after 44 articles, Thompson decided to leave the National Observer. After leaving, his son, Juan Fitzgerald, is born. Shortly after his birth, Thompson decided to look up a group of beast-like men known as "Hell's Angels." They are a motorcycle gang deemed evil by California Attorney General, Thomas Lynch. Thompson, unlike the rest of the media he decided not to make them out to be the anti-Christ and instead, started to hang out with them and get their point of views. His article, "Motorcycle Gangs: Losers & Outsiders," is published in Nation on May 17th. With this article, book contractors were at Thompson's feet begging for him to sign. He decided to sign with Bantam books.
Thompson started to ride with the Angels for material for his new book. On July 22, 1965, Thompson took the Angels to Ken Kessey's ranch which inspires an Allen Ginsberg poem. In October of 1965, while Thompson was riding with the Angels, they came upon a protest against the Vietnam War. The Angels, feeling patriotic, decided to break up the protest by beating up the protesters in which a cop had his leg broken. And, our Mr. Thompson was there to cover it. In 1967, Thompson published Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. with Bantam Books.
In the summer of 1967 Thompson moved to Aspen Colorado, deciding to stop there when he and Sandy decided to move back to New York. They felt that their area in Northern California had become overpopulated and overexposed. Thompson describes Aspen as "a Mecca for freaks, heads, fun-hogs, and weird Night people of every description."
Thompson made a breakthrough with his interview of Nixon. The soon to be President allowed Thompson to interview him as long as they talked about nothing except football. This was during the '68 primary elections as a freelance writer. His interview and election commentary were published in the July 1968 Pageant article entitled, "Presenting: the Richard Nixon Doll."
In 1969, Hunter becomes involved in local politics by supporting a mayoral candidate, Joe Edwards, whom had a platform for anti-development. His most extreme plans were that of replacing the paved roads with sod to slow down development. Edwards lost by only six votes.
However, the election inspired Thompson to run for Sheriff. He led on the same campaign as Edwards, but also adds law enforcement to those who "rape" the land. He and Edwards created a new party known as Freak Power. Opposition of Thompson tried to scare him by having a federal agent impersonate a "Hell's Angel" who threatened to blow up Thompson's house. The "Angel" was brought in by his opponent, Sheriff Whitmire. Thompson lost the election by about 500 votes. And, much like Nixon when he ran for Governor of California, Thompson held a press conference and made a statement much like Nixon's with a Thompson twist. The statement was, "You won't have Hunter Thompson to kick around anymore, pig f**kers." The account of his narrow defeat is published in the October 1, 1970 edition of Rolling Stone . It is entitled, "The Battle of Aspen."
II. More Literary Works by Thompson
In June of 1970, Thompson publishes The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved which is his first collaboration with illustrator, Ralph Steadman. With that Gonzo was born.
Early 1971, while Hunter was covering an article about East Los Angeles and police brutality in the Chicano ghettos ("Strange Rumblings in Aztlan" in Rolling Stone), Thompson met Oscar Zeta Acosta. He was the only man that could keep up with Thompson's lifestyle. Acosta is a Los Angeles attorney who eventually traveled with Thompson to Las Vegas. Thompson was asked to cover the Mint 400 for Sports Illustrated. Their events are documented in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. With that book, Gonzo Journalism was formed.
In 1973, Thompson published Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 after covering the election for Rolling Stone.
In the summer of 1974, Thompson started to pay less attention to his work and failed to produce an article for Nixon's resignation. Rolling Stone was forced to put out a collage to document the events. This helped to boost the recognition of photographer, Annie Leibovitz.
In 1974, Uncle Duke appeared in the comic strip "Doonsebury." Uncle Duke is based on Thompson in which his response was a threat to "rip Trudeau's lungs out." Later, once he had claimed he made the statement that "no kid wants to grow up to be a cartoon character."
In March of the same year, Thompson goes to Saigon as war correspondent for Rolling Stone. He later found out that the magazine took out a large life insurance policy on his life. In May of 1965, Thompson published Fear and Loathing in Saigon: Interdicted Dispatch from the Global Affairs Desk.
In the fall of 1974, Thompson and Steadman traveled to Zaire to cover the Ali-Foreman fight. They never made it to the fight due to searching for Nazis in the Jungle. As the fight was going on, Thompson lay in a pool, turning it green with the last of the marijuana he bought while in Africa.
In the fall of 1975, Thompson left Rolling Stone, but agrees to cover the '76 campaign for them.
In December of 1977, Thompson published an article about his lawyer friend, Acosta after many fans of Thompson's writing demanded to find out what happened to Acosta. Thompson published The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat, a eulogy for Acosta. It was believed that Acosta died in 1972 although much like Elvis, people claimed to see him throughout the U.S. and Mexico.
In 1979, after years of drug abuse and Thompson never being around, Sandy left him and took their son. The same year The Great Shark Hunt is published.
In 1980, Hunter wrote the novel, The Silk Road which also wasn't published. However, parts of it can be found in Songs of the Doomed . In spring of the same year, Thompson and Steadman are sent to Hawaii to cover the Honolulu Marathon for a running magazine in Oregon. After the race, the editor of the magazine stayed with Thompson in a hotel room for five days straight to ensure that the paper was written. In early 1981, the piece was published as The Charge of the Weird Brigade: A Rude Visitor's Guide to the Honolulu Marathon & Other Hawaiian Nightmares: Run Fast, Dive Deep and Die for No reason at All on the Kona Coast.
In 1981, a movie director decided to turn one of Thompson's books into a movie. It was called, Where the Buffalo Roam. It was based on the article of Acosta ("The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat"). Bill Murray played Thompson and Peter Boyle plays Acosta. The movie bombed and a critic for Rolling Stone dismissed it as "hogwash absent of plot."
Late in 1981, Bantam Books offered a contract for Thompson to turn his running article into a novel with Steadman as illustrator. He agreed, and traveled with Steadman to Honolulu and Washington, DC as he tried to figure out the answer to the question "why do they lie to us?" Once returning to his abode in Aspen, he started to write the novel and shortly after became sidetracked with such visitors as John Belushi. Steadman appears to "inspire" Thompson and two years later (1983) the book is published. It's titled The Curse of Lono.
In 1985 William Randolph Hearst III asked Thompson to become a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner in which Thompson agreed. A collection of his articles were turned into a novel in 1988; A Generation of Swine.
In 1990, Thompson published a book of earlier works, random thoughts, and crazed acid trips that he entitled Songs of the Doomed: More Notes from the American Dream. In it is his life story in the form of poetry and drunken rambling.
On April 6, of 1990, Thompson was charged with sexual assault and possession of controlled substances. The story is that a pornographic film producer appeared at Thompson's door late one night and he grabbed her breast. She told a friend who then contacted Aspen's Police Department and our friend Thompson was arrested. The arresting officers searched his home in which they found cocaine, 39 hits of acid, marijuana, blasting caps, and dynamite. The charges were later dropped and Hunter filed a $22 million civil suit against Aspen DA along with plans of writing a book; 99 days: Hunter S. Thompson on Trial. Thompson didn't write the book.
In 1991 Thompson wrote for Esquire for what was supposed to be a year. He was to write a monthly article on the magazine's last page entitled "The Year of the Wolf." Thompson only lasted until April.
The following year, Thompson wrote for Rolling Stone who asked him to cover the 1992 presidential elections. In 1994, Thompson published the novel, Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie. From then on, he worked as a freelance writer. Every once in a while he wrote for Rolling Stone or another magazine.
Hunter S. Thompson is neither the perfect role model nor the genius writer. He is just a man who looks at the world through the perception of a child. It's probably the drugs that did it, but he seems to be okay. At sixty years of age, he still acts and writes as if he were twenty. He is the founder of Gonzo journalism which is a form of fiction that is so far from the truth that it is a correct account of everything. Thompson is a symbol of what not to become, but still he inspires people to take the different road. His life is wild and his mind is deranged, but that makes him a great writer.
III. LIterary Works
*Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie
*The Curse of Lono
*Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
*Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72
*The Proud Highway
*Generation of Swine
*The Great Shark Hunt
*Hell's Angels: A Terrible Saga of the Motorcycle Gang
*Screw Jack
*Songs of the Doomed
This essay was submitted by a student of Kathy Honda Stein, a teacher at San Pedro High School in California.