“Dear Ralph…Prepare yourself; I suspect we have struck a very weird & maybe-rich vein…but instead of laboring over details I’ll just enc. a copy (see below) of a suggestion I sent about 2 wks ago to Warren Hinckle …to wit: “…I thought I’d pass on a suggestion that one of my enemies laid on me today: “Why don’t you just travel around the country and shit on everything?” he shouted. “Just go from New York to California and write your venomous bullshit about everything that people respect!” Which sounds like a nice idea…”

Hunter S. Thompson – Fear and Loathing in America

Hehe you have to be careful about what you suggest to certain people and you always have to be prepared that a dare will be accepted, especially when you are dealing with a Gonzo Journalist and their friends. We all know how instrumental Ralph was to Gonzo but I often wonder does Warren Hinckle get the recognition he rightly deserves for being perhaps the most important editor that Hunter ever had. I was thinking about this after stumbling across this great interview with Warren earlier today.

I must be getting forgetful these days because I never mentioned the question that I managed to ask Ralph a few weeks back courtesy of The New York Times website. So here is what I asked and also Ralph’s response.

Q: In Wayne Ewing’s documentary, Breakfast with Hunter, you stated that, in your opinion, readers of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas believed the artist and author to be one and the same. You also stated that without your drawings nobody would have noticed the story. Do you believe this or were you just trying to get a rise out of Hunter?

A: I would say anything to upset Hunter because he used to goad me ferociously and it became a game between us. I believe we treated our friendship as a kind of game, but a mutual admiration for what we both did separately kept alive a kind of delicious disdain. We could use the insult as an expression of love. I believe Wayne used some of my own footage in that film. Was I credited???

I always thought Hunter meant whatever he said. If he was insulting me I think he enjoyed it.

Thanks for that Ralph!

Rory

UPDATE: Check out this interview – Charlie Rose with Jann Wenner & Alex Gibney.

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