1937 - 2005
It takes some balls to call this Modern Gonzo. Balls the size of planets. Balls the size of Hunter S. Thompson. For this little exercise is not, as many would believe, a tribute to the raisin-faced Muppet Gonzo. Rather, it is dedicated to the crackpot journalist who blurred the lines between news, opinion, fact, fun and ribaldry. Hunter S.Thompson, a.k.a. Dr. Gonzo, a.k.a. Raoul Duke, created a new genre of journalism atop the gung-ho shoulders of beat writers like Kerouac and Kesey. Commentators called it "Gonzo", after the Irish slang for "batshit crazy", which aptly describes anyone who would attack a news story, wired up on substance, with themselves as the focus of it.
For example, the simple line of: "The blue car crashed into the red car downtown", once Gonzofied, becomes: "I was downtown drinking with a semi-illiterate ex-con, recalling the hell our world has become, when a skunked-up waitress dropped her pen and, bending over, showed us her meaning in life. We stumbled out into the bright day, puked against a white billboard selling its soul, and witnessed a blue tin can smashing into a red wagon, creating a blue, white and red daze symbolic of America itself."
Something like that. Nothing like that.
Relishing his notoriety as Rolling Stone's resident political loony-genius, Dr Thompson reveled in his role, describing Gonzo journalism as thus:
"[Gonzo journalism] is a style of reporting based on William Faulkner's idea that the best fiction is far more true than any kind of journalism - and the best journalists have always known this. Which is not to say that fiction is necessarily more true than journalism - or vice versa - but that both 'fiction' and 'journalism' are artificial categories, and that both forms, at their best, are only two different means to the same end. True Gonzo reporting needs the talent of a master journalist, the eye of an artist/photographer, and the heavy balls of an actor. Because the writer must be a participant in the scene while he's writing it - or at least taping it, or even sketching it. Or all three. Probably the closest analogy to the ideal would be a film director/producer who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work, and somehow manages to find himself in action, as the protagonist or at least the main character."
With wit and fervor, he proved the pen is mightier than the sword, but not, alas, mightier than his shotgun. On the very week of my departure for a journey I called Modern Gonzo - excessive, huge, over the top, subjective, nuts - Dr. Thompson blew his head off. Never the most stable of individuals, prone to bouts of despair, it proved too much to be a staunch libertarian in the age of Bush. He lived three decades more than he thought he would, and went out with a bang, first at his own hand, and then in a massive Gonzo Fist cannon that exploded his ashes all over the countryside (costing an estimated $2 million dollars, footed by his actor friend, Johnny Depp). The end of an era, but the Gonzo lives on.
Of course, it would be ridiculous, not to mention downright dim, to imagine I'm the new HST. God, I don't have a quarter of the man's liver, and he's fertilizing fields right now. I don't have his style, his physicality, his reputation, his talent, or his well-connected friends and admirers. I have yet to earn the respect of wanted criminals, drug addicted civil rights lawyers, movie stars, and corrupt Presidents. Nevertheless, I'm joining many others to ensure the Gonzo continues. Perfecting the hustle, placing myself with characters and in situations I'd normally run a mile from. Playing hard, travelling hard, writing hard. The star of my own movie, a warrior of truth, a penchant for bullshit.
Yes, it's brave to call this Modern Gonzo. And it takes balls to leave everything behind and embrace a big, unknown world, writing for thousands of people as you do so. It's a crazy, literary adventure. But when you think about it, calling my journey Modern Gonzo sounds about right after all.
Keep watching over me Dr. Gonzo. Rest in peace.
