Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (108 page)

That review was more rotten than anything ever conceived of by
Time
magazine. The whole concept of an “underground press” is based on a sense of trust between the papers and the people who support them … and you betray that trust by publishing outright lies. The “underground press” has only one basic advantage over the “establishment press” … that's the freedom to publish whatever the editors consider true and important, and fuck the consequences.

The basic function of the underground is to croak the establishment's bullshit. But when the “underground” starts publishing slanted venom so obvious that it would embarrass a cub reporter in Omaha … what then? Probably I could give you a long-winded answer, but I don't feel up to it right now and, beyond that, the question pretty well answers itself.

I said, at one point, that I'd written you an article on the poison problem that comes with mixing old beatniks with young hippies. This would focus on Lipton and his creature Chester Anderson, that witless jackal who signed the book review. Maybe I'll write that one a little later. Right now it doesn't seem important enough to spend a lot of time on … especially since I have
no assurance that Lipton won't be given a chance to “edit” it (I don't really think you'd do that, but then I didn't think you'd publish a bundle of vicious garbage in the guise of a book review either, so I'll wait and see what you do with this thing I'm writing now before I send anything else.)

In the meantime—since I've accused you of publishing “lies and bullshit”—I'll try and be more specific. I appreciate your admission that the review was “gratuitous character assassination,” which it was. But that aspect of it never occurred to me until I got your letter. The possibility that Chester Anderson might not like me doesn't really stand my hair out on end. But now that I look back over the review I see where he says it's “a lucky thing for him (Thompson, the tax man) that he didn't try and write a book about hippies.” The obvious implication is that my head would have been brutally twisted if I'd ever had the gall to sneak into Anderson's fief in the Haight-Ashbury, for the purpose of gathering gossip.

Jesus! I can see those words right here on the desk in front of me, but I can't quite believe them. Some weird, mentally-stunted creep named Chester is warning me to keep away from the “hippies” and, in effect, to stay out of the neighborhood where I lived for two years until people like him made a commercial sideshow out of it. As a matter of fact I spent two weeks on Haight-Ashbury Street just recently, in mid-April—writing an article on the hippies for
The New York Times Magazine
—and if I'd known Chester was gunning for me I'd have stopped by to say hello. As it was, I didn't think he was important enough to include in any article on “hippies,” so I didn't bother checking with him. Next time I won't be so negligent.

Anyway … back to the “lies and bullshit.” Anderson's review was typical of most screeds turned out by cheap hacks, in that he used a lot of words and bilious raving to say almost nothing specific. It's hard to deal with bullshit like that except on its own level, which is down around zip guns and switch-blades.

He accuses me, for instance, of betraying Ken Kesey's secret hideout in South America after Kesey had jumped bail and disappeared. Here's how Anderson tells it: “(Thompson) gave away (page 233) Ken Kesey's Paraguay address at a time when that was fairly private knowledge.”

Yeah, I did it. I blew Kesey's cover because I thought he belonged in jail. He was a degenerate, pure and simple, and I wanted him locked up. That's the reason I wrote what I did: this is the way it appears on page 233 of my book: “On January 31, 1966, Kesey jumped bail and disappeared. A suicide note was found in his abandoned bus on the Northern California coast, but not even the police believed he was dead. Results of my own investigation are very hazy, although I managed—after many months of digging—to locate his forwarding address: c/o Agricultural Attaché—U.S. Embassy—Asunción, Paraguay.”

How about that, Chester?
You fucking
waterhead. How dense does a person have to be to actually believe that Kesey jumped bail on a felony charge in the U.S. and sought out asylum at the American Embassy in Paraguay?

Chester believes it. And if he ever gets busted and decides to jump bail he'll make tracks for Paraguay and apply for a fugitive/marijuana scholarship. It's common knowledge that they're available at any embassy; all you need to qualify is a negative IQ.

I wish Chester had cited more examples like that. I could have a lot of mean fun with them. But that's the only one he wanted to mention—the terrible betrayal of poor Kesey in Paraguay.

And so much for all that bad noise—except maybe to note that at the time I wrote that joke about Paraguay it was common knowledge, not only among local heads but even to
San Francisco Chronicle
reporters, that Kesey was in Mexico. Everybody knew—except Chester, and he didn't even catch on when Kesey came back and held a press conference to tell where he'd been, Huge articles appeared in the
Chronicle
about “Kesey's adventures in Mexico.” Even the
New York World-Journal-Tribune
published a story. But Chester still thinks Kesey went to Paraguay and holed up at the U.S. Embassy … or at least he still thought so when he wrote his book review, which was nearly a year after Kesey returned.

The only other specific charge Anderson makes in his review goes like this: “(Thompson) spied on the Angels. He violated their privacy for money. He wormed his way into their company, even their friendship & confidence, & learned more facts about them than they knew themselves—solely in order to sell them out, sell all his gooey information to the highest bidder.”

Well, that's such evil bullshit that it's not even worth arguing with. It's just as ignorant as the Paraguay thing. The whole history of my gig with the Angels appears in considerable detail, in the book itself. They knew from the very beginning that I was writing a book on them, and they liked the idea. They spent hours in my apartment reading the slowly-building manuscript aloud to each other. They went out of their way to explain things to my always-visible tape recorder … and to pose for photos that weren't used because their inclusion would have made the book too expensive. A higher price would have also increased the tax, and everybody at Random House knew this would bug Chester Anderson. His opinion of the book was probably our chief concern; it was important that he not only like it, but LOVE it.

That's about all I feel like saying right now. All further inquiries will be referred, by me, to either Sonny Barger, president of the Hell's Angels Oakland chapter, or to Chester Anderson at his summer home in Paraguay.

As a sort of closing note, let me remind you again that—although I appreciate your accurate comments on the review—I have to keep in mind that the
Free Press
gave a fat block of space to a venomous, lying hatchet-job on a book that deserved at least a truthful appraisal. If it had been no more than a “gratuitous character assassination” I wouldn't have bothered to write this kind of reply. But the fact that the
Free Press
published a bag of vicious lies carries ugly implications. And there's also the dirty little fact that Chester Anderson considers himself a “spokesman” for the hippie community. Those poor bastards deserve something better than a mouth-piece like Anderson, and for that matter they deserve better than lies in a newspaper they support.

If I were an editor of an “underground paper” I'd think a long time before I published a bag of lies, by accident or any other reason. Because when you do that you're giving up the only real weapon you have. A stupid lie, regardless of who writes it or tries to justify it, is still a stupid lie … even when it's wrapped up in flowers.

Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson

Thompson responded promptly to the fourteen-year-old who'd written to say how great
Hell's Angels
was
.

July 6, 1967
Woody Creek, Colorado

Dear Dale.…

Thanks for your good letter. I got it this morning. And thought I should send a line before you get too caught up in the Hell's Angels gig. I appreciate the good things you said about the book, but I never in hell intended it to be a propaganda job for the Angels or any other cult. You could do a lot better than getting lost in that kind of action. Not necessarily because it's
bad
, or ugly, or any other word like that … but because you sound bright enough to make something happen on your own, instead of looking around for something to join. You say it'll be two years before you get your driver's license, so I guess that makes you about 14.

When I was 14 I was a wild, half-wit punk who caused a lot of trouble and wanted to tear the world in half if for no other reason than it didn't seem to fit me too well. Now, looking back on it, I don't think I'd change much of what I did in those days … but I've also learned at least one crucially important thing since then. And that's the idea of making your own
pattern, not falling into grooves that other people made. Remember that if you can do
one thing
better than anybody it'll make life a hell of a lot easier for you in this world—which is a pretty mean world, when you get to know it, and a lot of people in it can ride big Harleys … especially in California. The best of the Angels—the guys you might want to sit down and talk to—have almost all played that game for a while and then quit for something better. The ones who are left are almost all the kind who can't do anything else, and they're not much fun to talk to. They're not smart, or funny, or brave, or even original. They're just Old Punks, and that's a lot worse than being a Young Punk. They're not even happy; most of them hate the lives they lead, but they can't afford to admit it because they don't know where else to go, or what else to do. That's what makes them mean … and it also makes them useless, because there's already a big oversupply of mean bastards in this world. And I don't see any sense in you wanting to go out to California and get in on a game that's a dead end. If you're bright enough to write me a good letter at your age, you're also bright enough to avoid putting yourself down the tube.

I'm sure you didn't expect this kind of letter and I don't mean to sound like some kind of water-headed “guidance counselor,” or anybody else like the kind of people I've had trouble with all my life. That includes teachers in school, sergeants in the Air Force, and cops on the highways. But people like that can screw you up pretty badly if you argue with them on their own turf, and that's the mistake most Angels have made. They're not bright enough to create their own scene … which is pretty easy once you know what you're doing.

Like right now I'm a
writer
, not a motorcycle freak, so I can do a lot of things I couldn't get away with if all I knew how to do was ride bikes. As a matter of fact I just bought a new bike shop with the money from the book. My rent gets paid with no hassle and I have a lot of time to hunt, get drunk, and raise as much hell as I want to. But I couldn't do any of this if all I did was boom around on a bike and get in arguments with cops. It's amazing how much you can get away with if you don't go out of your way to cause trouble … which the Angels do, for their own reasons, but their reasons don't make much sense for anybody who isn't stuck with them. And you aren't.

So remember this letter when you think about going out to California to ride with the Angels. And even that might be a kick if you can do it without getting caught in it. But the secret of not getting caught in it is to have something of your own … some kind of skill or talent or action that other people have to respect. That way, you can ride when you want, and back off when you want. Believe me, it's a hell of a lot better way to go. It's the difference between being your own man, and a sheep in the herd. Maybe
you don't consider that real important now, but I can say from experience that it is.

OK for all that noise. I just don't want you blaming
me
, 10 years from now, for giving you a bad lead. All I'm really saying is, right, be an outlaw … but do it your own way, for your own reasons, and for christ's sake don't blow it as badly as the Angels have. Sincerely,

Hunter S. Thompson

After reading
Hell's Angels,
Ginzburg thought Thompson should write a story about the explosion of religious fringe groups in America
.

July 7, 1967
Woody Creek, Colorado

Ralph.…

What the fuck are you trying to do to me? Yesterday I got a letter from some fuck-freak who told me he was screwing about five different people with a new typewriter and pretty soon they'd be out here to visit with me. One of them, in fact, was already en route.

I'm deadly serious when I say I have all the goddamn problems I need out here. The town is overrun with refugees from the Haight-Ashbury: they're all heads, they're all weird looking, and they all claim connection with me. The sheriff has already taken one of my friends to the state loony bin (after booking him for possession), and right now I'm probably the hottest man on the western slope. I came out here to get away from all that shit and the last thing I want on my hands right now is a religious nut with a portable harem.
¹⁹
If part of this religion is bugging people who want no part of it, I'm the last person in the world he should come to for publicity. I hate preachers. All of them. Anyway, the only way I'll touch that article is on my own terms—and they don't include bread and board for a sex freak. If I see the bastard at all it'll be on his turf, not mine. I'm capable of writing some pretty rude shit, but I can't think of anything that would bug me more than some breast-beater rolling in here to foul my air with a lot of noise about his sex action. He should talk to a priest; that's what they're for.