Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (110 page)

August 28, 1967
Woody Creek, Colorado

Dear Mr. Caen.…

Perhaps you can put me in touch with a maker of bumper stickers. I want a thousand copies of one saying: HUBERT HUMPHREY IS MARTIN BORMANN IN DRAG. Actually, I'll pay for 50,000 of these, if we can find a reputable distributor. I have just placed that phrase as a classified ad in the
Aspen Times
for the next four weeks. My “Bormann Letter” (see enclosed) ran in both the (liberal)
Times
and the (nazi)
Illustrated News
last week … and the
News
actually ran it on the editorial page, although it's a patent mockery of their editorial, one week earlier, which said [Secretary of Defense Robert] McNamara shouldn't have been harassed here by the likes of Bishop Pike and his hippie followers—which he was—because Aspen should be nice to its tourists. The
News
, owned and published by Harold Pabst of the brewing Pabsts, claimed that old Bob should have been left in peace, if only to lick his wounds. (McNamara is buying a house here; maybe he knows something about fallout drift.) But his recent visit was not peaceful; Pike led a march of the local heads on his house, and the
News
was incensed.

Thus, my letter—which puts the words of Pabst's editorial in a somewhat different context. The only trouble was that only a handful of people in the town knew who Martin Bormann was. They thought he was just another one of my flipped-out lawyer friends from San Francisco—like the one who came out earlier this summer and terrified half the town by smoking grass in public for three weeks before they finally busted him for chasing a girl with a chain … when the sheriff arrived, he (the San Francisco lawyer) was smoking his inevitable pipe and when the sheriff asked, “Do you have any more of that?” he replied with fine dignity: “Not with me, but if you want to run over to the Alps, there's a plastic bag on the bar.” And there was. The sheriff picked it up … but the lawyer was never charged with possession because his prior behavior had been so weird that he was adjudged “temporarily insane.” You might pass this on, for whatever it's worth. Although maybe the insanity statutes are different in California.

In any case, I can tell you this because I'm leaving the country in about ten days … for a variety of reasons: foremost among them being Lyndon's bloodlust and a $5,500,000 lawsuit filed against me and
Cavalier
magazine by the greedy lunatic Chester Womack, who runs the Rustic Inn in Glen Ellen. I remember that right after I wrote the article he kept saying,
“When's it coming out, Hunter? When can I read it?” And when
Cavalier
finally ran the goddamn thing, Chester sued for $5.5 million. Never trust a bartender.

Anyway, I'm getting over the border and leaving all you poor sheep to your respective and ill-deserved fates. Whatever that means. But I've retained a high-powered New York lawyer to watch over my various lawsuits. The Rustic Inn action is of course the main jewel in my tiara—but the other one I mean to pursue is a libel action against the
Los Angeles Free Press
, based on a vicious and fraudulent review of my Hell's Angels book. I was accused, among other things, of betraying Ken Kesey's address in Paraguay, after he jumped bail and left the country. The address I gave in a footnote was c/o Agricultural Attaché, U.S. Embassy, Asunción, Paraguay. Down there with Martin Bormann. But this freak who wrote the
Free Press
review took it seriously, and claimed that I blew poor Kesey's cover. Which I guess I did, except that everybody including
Chronicle
reporters knew Kesey was never within 5,000 miles of … well, what the hell? The point of all this is to say that Henry Luce has no monopoly on malicious bullshit and careless editing. Time Inc. has always had a good appetite for rebels, and the word right now is that this current crop from the Underground Press is the best in a long while. Anyway, I'm suing the
Free Press
for 400 motorcycle tires, to be given at
FP
distribution points on the Sunset Strip. I plan to distribute them myself, in drag.

Anyway, it's been a fairly active summer here in the Rockies. The town has been swamped by refugees from the Haight-Ashbury, and this caused a general freak-out among local merchants who fear for the tourist trade. “Hippies ain't good for business,” they say, and maybe they're right. But Martin Bormann is presumably OK, Tonight, taking off on my letter, an ex-KJAZ staffer named Les Hansen ran a half-hour interview on the local radio station (KSNO) with a middle-aged German just recently arrived from Argentina and dismayed with the “flabby attitude” of local youth. Christ, I guess I'm getting old. I was just interviewed on that station about six months ago.

And all I meant to do, when I started this letter, was to send a short note, to explain my “Martin Bormann letter” and ask about possible printers for the Humphrey/Bormann bumper sticker … yeah, maybe that's the way it should read: Just-HUMPHREY/BORMANN IN 1969. Why not?

Why not, indeed? And be sure to check with me if you ever have to run the border in haste. I can, of course, be reached c/o Random House. And if you have any religious preferences, write me c/o Cardinal Spellman … he's just across the courtyard. […] That should do it.

Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson

Grabree was the feature editor at
Playboy.
After reading
Hell's Angels,
he wanted to commission stories from Thompson
.

September 4, 1967
Woody Creek, Colorado

Dear John.…

I'm off to the coast in about two days and, now, in the midst of all this chaotic action prior to takeoff, I've just had a decent idea. This had nothing to do with your “Werewolves, Vampires and Ghouls” action, which I can't even evaluate until I get the fruits of your research. I have, however, discovered a book titled
Man into Wolf
, which purports to be a case study (or two separate studies) of men who actually turned into “wolves.” The only copy now extant (unless you have one) is in Ketchum, Idaho … although it will shortly be in Woody Creek. Anyway, I'll be working sort of loosely on that until I get your research package; then I'll see what we have.

This other idea has to do with about two hours of a taped interview that I've been sitting on for 3 or 4 months. I got the stuff in the course of my research for that
New York Times Magazine
article on the Haight-Ashbury, but after listening to what I had on tape, I decided to keep it for a separate article. It's a very long talk with Ed Denson, manager of Country Joe and the Fish. We started off talking about hippies, but the focus got pretty fuzzy and we drifted into everything from the Beat Generation to Dope to Goldwater and the difference between East and West Coast rock music, Flower Power, civil rights, the FSM … the whole thing. So what occurs to me now is a chance of turning this interview with Denson into the nexus of a piece titled something like, “A profile of a rock band that
made it
.” That's not a title, just a working idea. Denson is an immensely articulate guy; he can explain, in 3 or 4 dimensions, why the rock bands and the hippies suddenly emerged as a cultural force in 1966, instead of, say, 1961. He understands the context, as it were, of his own action. And as far as I'm concerned, it's a goddamn interesting subject.

Anyway, I just got a letter from Denson (in reply to one of mine, regarding the tapes), saying he'll be in San Francisco when I get over there around September 20. I mentioned the tapes as a vague article possibility—perhaps for
The Nation
, since I've owed them a piece for over a year—but tonight, with greed creeping in, I decided to look for a framework worth more than $100, And naturally, you came to mind.

The idea, in a nut, is a detailed background piece on a big-name rock band. There was a time when I could have done one, from the very beginning, on the Jefferson Airplane, but my friend who began as their manager
got sacked when his wife—the lead singer on their first album—was replaced with Grace Slick, who was part of a worthless group called the Great Society in that year when all the West Coast rock bands were premiering at The Matrix, a cheap club in San Francisco's Marina district. I recall the Airplane's debut at The Matrix, and afterwards calling Ralph Gleason to give him the word.

Maybe we could weave the Airplane's rise to fame into the cerebral stuff I have on tape. Denson and Country Joe (McDonald) are flaming intellectuals, compared to Marty Balin, who heads the Airplane, and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. But the contrast is interesting and I see a good article in a detailed look at the past, present & future of the acid rock bands. Like, “What made it happen?” and “What now?” And “Why?”

But this is all talk off the top of my head. If the idea sparks in your area, let me know quick. I'll be in Lake Tahoe, California from September 8 to 17 (you can reach me c/o Judge Laurence Hyde at the Univ. of Nevada … (702) 784-xxxx. Ask for Señor Thompson of
The New York Times
; that's my employer for the week.
²¹
After the 17th, and until the 22nd, you can reach me via Peter Collier at
Ramparts
, in San Francisco. I'll probably be talking to Denson during that week, so if you like the idea for the piece, I'd just as soon talk about it while I'm loose in San Francisco, and sitting on top of the subject, as I would on some grey afternoon here in Woody Creek. So do whatever's right.…

Ciao,
Hunter

Thompson had met Hinckle, executive editor and associate publisher of
Ramparts,
in early 1967. They became fast friends, and Hinckle, who went on to found
Scanlan's Monthly
in 1969, would play a pivotal role in the development of Thompson's gonzo journalism
.

October 2, 1967
Woody Creek, Colorado

Dear Warren.…

A good visit but totally disruptive. That fucking monkey
²²
should be killed—or at least arrested—on general principles. Anyway, I came by Monday—or maybe Tuesday—and found you in some kind of drunken
limbo, Stermer in Kansas, and Collier gone off with a priest. I finally got to Berkeley on Tuesday, after pointing off in that direction on Friday night.

Big Sur was a terrifying experience. I think we have a good article idea in something like “The New Quackery: Or, The Transmogrification of Big Sur.” Probably I'll run that down in the first handful of columns. So far, I've run up a list of 30 or 40 instant-necessary subjects. Collier agreed to pay me $1500 a month for the column; I think that's about right—fair and equitable, etc.

We did, by the way, manage to get together with Pierce, the mayor of Richmond.
²³
He tried to cop out, fearing a treacherous belly-shot from
Ramparts
, but it worked out pretty well. There's a hell of a wretched, fucking story there, but you have to keep in mind that Pierce is worried—and not without reason—about what you might do with whatever he tells you. Collier will have to catch him about three in the morning with a head full of gin to hear the real gospel. That's when he forgets who he's supposed to be protecting.

As for me, I'm trying to wrap up the
New York Times
(Tahoe judges' conference) piece and that other thing for Krassner before zapping off to deal with the Texas Rangers. I'll get it to you on or about November 15 … but keep in mind that I have a funny sense of time. Anyway, I'm focused on the TexRanger thing, so make some kind of room for it.

I have a head full of other possibilities, but right now I don't have any time to work on them. That
National Observer
thing—which you asked about very quickly—makes me a little bit uncomfortable. They treated me pretty decently, for a freak, and I'd rather not comment on them—at least until they publish something that seizes me … but when that happens, it's every man for himself. (Our final split, for instance, came when they refused to publish my favorable review of Tom Wolfe's book … so I sent a copy of the review to Wolfe, along with a letter, and a copy of the (Wolfe) letter to the
Observer
. The problem was that somebody on the
Observer
—in a reject position—had worked with Wolfe on The
Washington Post
and hated the air he breathed. One of the editors explained this to me as part of his “yes, but” rejection of my review and then flipped out when I passed the word to Wolfe.) But that's pretty personal shit, and not worth much without a bigger handle. I was pissed off because it was the first thing of mine they'd bounced in more than two years—they even published my letters, begging for money in Quito, Rio, La Paz, etc.—so I can't work up much of an appetite for zapping them.

Or maybe—it just occurs to me—you didn't really intend to zap them. In that case, we might make a good piece of it. They try, but they have certain structural defects … and they don't hire people who can't ignore them. Hell, it might be a good piece … but not as a fang job, at least not
for me. They published some of the best things I've done—and they still do some first-rate things (see current piece on Western Union, for example), so we might whip up something decent about the possibilities of journalism in a nation of hoodlums. But to hell with all that, right now. It's getting light outside and I need sleep.
The Times
is hassling me for that Tahoe piece, so that's the project for the next few days.

Again … it was a good show over there, and my advice to you is to give up all forms of booze and book-keepers for the duration of the crisis. Moderation in all things. When you turn up a freak on the staff, don't just fire him/her—pursue him into the very bowels of the economy and queer his act for all time. And get that nigger off the premises. You've got to get a grip on yourself. Otherwise … they'll cut your throat.