Life According to Jason™

The Rum Diary was Hunter Thompson’s first work of fiction, written in his early 20s while at work for a small paper in Puerto Rico.  The writing is punchy and fantastic the way you expect.  But not quite honed in, either.  Rawness persists in the prose.  Traces of the grandiose spill out between the lines – this a result of an admiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald.  As a work of literature, The Rum Diary is flawed, and it is brilliant.  But that’s Hunter for you.

In 1997, friends of Hunter’s put on an event in Louisville, KY to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  This is the novel that most people know, and it is the darkest portrayal of Gonzo journalism in the canon.  Loads of substance abuse and psychedelic hallucinations.  Chock full of drug-addled ramblings.  Visions of rats in convention attire.  A claustrophobic romp including an endless stay in a hotel room with an abused minor and a homicidal Mexican lawyer.  Terry Gilliam’s film adaptation starring Johnny Depp as Hunter should have been a disaster, but instead expertly captured The Crazy and the Truth of this way of life Hunter perpetuated.  And so 20 years later, the man and the book were still alive, and Hunter was from Louisville, so they were celebrating the occasion there among friends and a public audience.

At the time, I wasn’t into Hunter Thompson.  I knew who he was.  Hated the Vegas book, but hadn’t read anything else.  Ron Whitehead, a poet, was the organizer of the event, and knew my mother.  “You should go,” she told me.  “Ron’s going to be there, and you should give him some of your poetry.”  I had two VIP tickets to sit three rows from the stage in an old auditorium.  I took my Grandmother.

Over the course of the night, much happened that I failed to appreciate.  Little did I know I was experiencing a moment in history, because 7 years later, Hunter would kill himself, and friends would recount this event as one of his clearer moments.

Hunter sat on the stage beside Johnny Depp.  Douglas Brinkley read from Hunter’s work.  Ron recited a poem inspired by Hunter.  Warren Zevon performed Werewolves of London (he, too, would be dead within 7 years).  In the crowd that night, likely two seats beside me, was Hunter’s mother, and he was so proud for her to be there.

I was a junior in high school, and I had not developed an appreciation for Hunter or his work.  I didn’t see a legend.  I saw Johnny Depp and thought THAT was pretty cool, but Hunter just looked like an old guy who mumbled too much.  Midway through the opening performances, my grandmother turned to me and said, “I think he’s HIGH.”  And amid heckling and the streaking and general weirdness mounting as the night progressed, we decided to take leave.  What was THAT all about?  The two of us agreed the night was a bust, and that Hunter Thompson was nuts.

In the years that followed, something clicked in me – I gave Thompson another try.  I read The Rum Diary, and loved it.  I read his book on the Hell’s Angels, and could not stop thinking about it for months.  I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas again – this time finding it controlled and masterful.  Wild, but masterful.  A budding writer, studying the craft with Howard Norman at the University of Maryland, I started to see and notice the WORDS.  The poetry and the art.  Hunter was a master of the English language.  The more technical my knowledge of writing became, the more expert I realized were his abilities.  And while Hunter did not write fiction, really, his narrative style borrowed many of those sensibilities.  One thing was certain: no one was writing like Hunter.  Not in my lifetime, not in his.

When Hunter committed suicide in 2004, it stung.  I’d really jumped into his work and letters with just appreciation.  I figured at some point in my career I would meet him.  Hunter, who was/is the largest living literary legend of our times, and I had every intention of seeing him and shaking his hand and saying thanks.  Thanks above all for proving literature is not dead.  Proof that the American Dream is not dead.  But when the news of his suicide broke, I thought instantly of that night in 1997, knowing my chance had passed.  And I just hadn’t known then.  Or appreciated it then.

Hunter dedicated his life to the pursuit of the American Dream.  He was a patriot who believed in our nation, who loved the United States.  A major political writer breaking headlines in Rolling Stone and forging a new name in journalism, Hunter explored the dark side of American politics.  His search for the American Dream became a search for one honest politician.  And the deeper he burrowed into that search, the more he realized the system is flawed.  Nixon beat McGovern in the 1972 election.  The Vietnam War was waging, and McGovern wanted to end it, immediately; with Nixon, it meant more war.  Hunter hated Nixon, called him a greedhead and a crook.  And we were getting four more years of him.

Alex Gibney, documentarian, artist of the story collage, has created in his film Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson a rare accomplishment.  Johnny Depp narrates a story compiled by Gibney, working from a script by Gibney, based on Hunter’s words.  Friends and acquaintances recount stories of Hunter, telling his story in collective homage.  Combine this with exceptionally rare footage of Hunter (and even rarer footage of Oscar Zeta Acosta, Hunter’s Chicano lawyer friend – Benicio del Toro plays him in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas).

What Gibney has accomplished is a balanced mix of psychedelic storytelling that captures the essence of Gonzo, and an honest portrait of a man who was passionate, often tender, and who always stood for something.  That something was a great love for the United States, a belief in our nation as a higher moral power, and a belief that a great nation and a great people deserve great leaders.

I am hopeful.

I wish Hunter could have been around to see us now, struggling sure, but hopeful.  Because I wonder if we will ever arrive at that moment where we are great again, led by a great leader, unified under a concept of an American Dream.  And still I think how we are in need of a Bob Dylan.  A Martin Luther King, Jr.  A Bobby Kennedy.  A Hunter Thompson.  Somebody has to keep the crooks and the greedheads in check.  Maybe it’s our job now.