Gonzo Literature

Scholarships to Gonzo Journalism Workshop with Douglas Brinkley

/ Rory / 8 Comments

Hi Everybody,

 

I have exciting news here regarding the opportunity this coming June to participate in a Gonzo Journalism workshop with Douglas Brinkley at The Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony based in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The workshop takes place from June 12, 2011 – Sunday, June 19, 2011. Full details below:

 

The Hunter S. Thompson workshop will engage with the essence of Gonzo journalism. Assigned texts include Fear & Loathing, The Proud Highway, The Great Shark Hunt, and Generation of Swine. Further information on the workshop and our application form can be found at: http://nmwcolony.org/workshops/course_details/2/31/22. The application asks for a sample of your own journalistic writing.

 

The instructor Dr. Douglas Brinkley is the literary executor of the Hunter S. Thompson estate. Dr. Brinkley is a Professor of History at Rice University.  Since 1989 he has taught at the U.S. Naval Academy, Princeton University and Tulane University.  Six of his biographies have been chosen as New York Times books of the year. Brinkley is also a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and American Heritage, as well as a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly.

 

The Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony is an educational nonprofit dedicated to supporting and celebrating literary voices which challenge the norm and surprise their audiences. We promote a vision of the writer as an actor in public debate.

We hope to bring together a community of Thompson enthusiasts and great writers for this week in June!

Best,

Jessica Zlotnicki

Program Manager

Norman Mailer Center &

Writers Colony


Well what can I say guys, that is quite the opportunity – please let me know if you intend on applying and of course should you be one of the lucky few who gets a scholarship!

All the best,

 

Rory

6 Years – Unpublished Hunter S. Thompson Interview Surfaces

/ Rory / 3 Comments

 

The folks over at The Quietus really gifted the Gonzo world a rare treat this week by unearthing this great interview with Hunter from 1998. It is fairly lengthy and covers some very interesting topics – from Bill Clinton to The Rum Diary. I’m not going to jabber on about this too much, it is just great to read new words (old words?)  from the man, particularly in relation to his thoughts on Paul Kemp and Yeamon – check it out here.

In keeping with the whole Rum Diary focus, long time Gonzo devotee Robert Chalmers checks in over at The Independent with a great interview with Bruce Robinson – in which the director of The Rum Diary discussing everything from how he thought he was going to die in a plane crash with Johnny Depp to why writing The Rum Diary screenplay dredged up some old demons. Read the entire piece here.

Also Ralph Steadman is now a contributor over at Kotori Magazine. Check out his thoughts on smoking and not to mention his poetry!  Thanks to Jake McGee for the heads up!

Ok for now – time to raise a toast to The Good Doctor,

 

Rory

 

 

Outlaw Poet: A documentary on Ron Whitehead

/ Rory / 1 Comment

“I have long admired Ron Whitehead. He is crazy as nine loons, and his poetry is a dazzling mix of folk wisdom and pure mathematics” – Hunter S. Thompson

 

Hey guys,

 

Delighted to bring this excellent project to your attention. Storm Generation Films are currently working on making a feature length documentary on Kentucky Beat Poet Ron Whitehead.  Below is a detailed description of the project from  producer/director Nick Storm:

“The cinema verite story of Outlaw Poet and king of the underground Ron Whitehead. This feature length documentary film will be a journey through Ron’s life; from driving 60-miles an hour at 3 a.m. through the streets of Louisville, in reverse, with Hunter S. Thompson, to his relationships with Beat Generation juggernauts, complete with an introspective look at his childhood growing up on a farm in rural Ohio County western Kentucky where Bill Monroe birthed Bluegrass Music, Ron & Johnny Depp both birthed in Owensboro Kentucky.

Through images, interviews, and Ron’s own words, the story of Ron Whitehead will be documented as he travels to Iceland to share his latest book The Storm Generation Manifesto and on parting, the wilderness poems (produced by Gill Scott Holland’s Holland Brown Books(www.hollandbrownbooks.com). He’ll read “The Viking Mountain” and “The Storm Generation Manifesto” atop The Viking Mountain plus readings from San Francisco crossing the USA to New York City to Ireland and Scotland and England and The Netherlands and Belgium and Italy and Germany and India and Nicaragua and Argentina and Beyond.

The film will include interviews & appearances from: Anita Thompson, Douglas Brinkley, Frank Messina, Birgitta Jonsdottir, Michael Dean Odin Pollock, Olafur Gunnarson (Iceland’s leading novelist), David Amram, Black Pig Liberation Front and many more. Plus music from the Nappy Roots and other (big surprises abound) major bands/musicians.

Whitehead scorches the earth with his own brand of poetry, prose, and ancient wisdom. The visionary icon has lived life on his own terms. Leaving his family farm at the vulnerable age of 17, Ron struck out to discover the world – his world, his way. Through his inventive gifted hard-earned use of poemed verse, prose, and fire-breathing talks/readings performances and his unique raw indigenous force of nature lightninged spirit, Ron Whitehead’s journey through life has become a road map for the rest of us. As Ron enters his sixth decade of the journey, he seeks to continually perpetually eternally relentlessly uplift and inspire all he comes in contact with to comfort and heal all who suffer to awaken all and everything to the awareness that ultimately essentially forgiveness is amazing grace that peace love and understanding and fearlessly being our dream whatever our dreams might be and that regardless of the odds of the circumstances that ultimately life is a terribly beautifully gifted adventure an opportunity to grow our souls. Via his spectrum of creative works which include the spectrum all genres of the arts in his world travels he encourages everyone to come out of whatever closet(s) they’re fearfully hiding in and to find and be their dreams.”

At the moment Storm Generation Films are in the process of raising funds to get this thing going – this is where it gets really interesting, particularly if you want to get involved in all of this. They have set up a kickstarter page to organise funding and are offering some great rewards for anyone kind enough to donate money – from signed posters, DVD’s and your name in the credits of the film to becoming an associate producer, getting an invite to the wrap party or even joining the crew in the field and being part of the filmmaking process.

Anyway I could keep writing all night as to why this project kicks ass and why you would want to be insane not to be a part of it. For now check out the official websites below. I’ll be updating the blog with further developments as they happen.

Official Site: Storm Generation Films

Ron Whitehead: Official Site

Kickstarter Fundraising Page

 

Ok for now,

Rory

 

 

X-mas in Woody Creek – Hunter S. Thompson

/ Rory / 2 Comments

I set a trap in the chimney for

Santa Claus last night, but

all I caught was a huge skunk

with rabies.

 

It taught me a harsh lesson

about God & the way he works:

Never use hooks on dry land.

 

They don’t call those dumb

bastards “fish” for nothing, &

skunks can’t live under water.

 

It also taught me, once again,

that Santa Claus is a liar. He

skips many houses & he cheats

a lot of children. He never said

he didn’t have a few cruel Jokes

in his bag – but putting a skunk

down my chimney was over the

line. That was crazy.

 

Hunter S. Thompson – December 25, 2000

 

Merry Christmas Everybody & All The Best For 2011,

 

Rory

The Launch of Hunter S. Thompson’s ESPN Column

/ Rory / Leave a comment

Just came across an article by Kevin Jackson over at ESPN, in which he remembers the pressure of waiting for Hunter to meet his deadline and submit his first Hey Rube column piece. Here is a quick excerpt:

” I will never forget the staredown with that evil, lifeless FAX machine.

For more than seven hours, I locked eyes with it from across the room, hoping to see a light come on, hear a magical beep or two, or — please, dear God — start to see some paper spit out of that stingy bastard.

It was the night of Sunday, Nov. 5, 2000, the hours before the dawn of a new ESPN.com section called Page 2 — an initiative that I was becoming more and more convinced was going to be a failure.

“He will definitely file by 6. We’ll just FAX it over,” Hunter S. Thompson’s assistant had assured me around noon that day, calling in just a few minutes before the NFL action kicked off. “We’re just putting the finishing touches on the final draft.”

Read the full article here.

 

Fear and Loathing in America – Hunter S. Thompson on 9/11

/ Rory / 7 Comments

Hey folks,

 

Just thought I’d post this as it is by far the most sought after article by Hunter, with many people contacting me on a regular basis about it. While this may be Hunter’s immediate take on 9/11, I would recommend that you also read the rest of Hunter’s ESPN column as it regularly addresses the War on Terror as it unfolded in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in America. Looking back on the events now, Hunter’s column makes for chilling reading.

Fear and Loathing in America

It was just after dawn in Woody Creek, Colorado, when the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City on Tuesday morning, and as usual I was writing about sports. But not for long. Football suddenly seemed irrelevant, compared to the scenes of destruction and utter devastation coming out of New York on TV. Continue reading →

Hey Rube: Hunter S. Thompson’s ESPN Column now online!

/ Rory / 5 Comments

Hey folks,

In case you missed it, the entire archive of Hunter’s ESPN column is now available via Totally Gonzo. The archive has been available through the ESPN website but many of the links were broken, with entire columns vanishing, not to mention the haphazard navigation that made the entire archive virtually impossible to browse through. Well – no more. After much work I have the entire archive indexed and arranged in chronological order and I managed to track down the many missing columns that were in broken link limbo!

So here you go – Hey Rube Archive

Enjoy,

Rory

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The Rum Diary Screenplay? (Updated)

/ Rory / 1 Comment

Hey folks,

So I was just browsing Amazon.co.uk and I came across this – The Rum Diary: Based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson. The author is listed as Bruce Robinson and it is 160 pages in length, due to be published by Vintage on September 1st 2011. What really caught my eye though is the synopsis:

It’s 1960. In a highrise hotel not far from the beaches of San Juan, a man is recovering from an animal of a hangover. Paul Kemp is an alcoholic journalist who’s barely seen better days, arriving at the only job he can get: writing horoscopes for failing rag El News. His fellow hacks are mostly crazy drunks on the verge of quitting, so Kemp fits in perfectly. But then he meets the impossibly gorgeous Chenault and her flashy boyfriend Sanderson. Kemp soon finds himself in way over his head, party to shady business deals, caught up in car chases with enraged Puerto Ricans, and experimenting with a hitherto unknown hallucinogen, which will eventually transform Kemp into the kind of journalist known to the world as Gonzo.

Two things – you can pretty much take the above as the plot of the film and having read a 2006 draft of the script it matches it perfectly. Secondly I noticed that this was put up last week on Amazon with a release date of next October. It was then pulled, before reappearing with this new release date. Sources have also indicated that the Dutch release date for the move, Nov. 2010, has now been put back to 2011. The Russian release date also appears to have been put back until 2011.

Damn, damn, damn.

R

UPDATE: The movie tie-in of The Rum Diary is still listed as having a September 2010 release. The UK release date for the movie is still slated as being September 2010. Not sure what to make of all this now to be honest. Amazon have been proven in the past to be incorrect with release dates. I guess we will have to be patient and see what happens.

Is there a CIA or FBI file on Hunter S. Thompson?

/ Rory / 5 Comments

An enterprising blogger has decided to investigate for himself using the freedom of information act. You can check out the official reply regarding the CIA here.

The FBI have yet to reply to the blogger.

Maybe they are still upset over the mailbox incident 🙂

Amused,

R

Interview with Warren Hinckle

/ Rory / Leave a comment

Hey there,

Thanks to Sean @ Babylonfalling for sharing the following:

On one of our last days in town my wife and I met up with the legendary publisher and award winning journalist Warren Hinckle at the Double Play Bar & Grill in the Mission district of San Francisco.


I was there to share my collection of Ramparts and Scanlan’s to see if there was anything he wanted to scan for his book, the perennially delayed Who Killed Hunter S. Thompson: The story of the birth of Gonzo.

As he thumbed through the magazines and showed us proofs of the book we talked about his friendship with Hunter; the roots of Gonzo journalism and the culture that spawned it; his tenure at the groundbreaking radical slick, Ramparts magazine, in the ‘60s; working with Hunter at his short-lived, but highly influential, muckraking monthly Scanlan’s; the Kennedy assassination; San Francisco’s favorite merchants of porn, The O’Farrell brothers; and much more.

Because there is nothing that would indicate that the Who Killed Hunter S. Thompson book will be released anytime soon, I figured I’d put this out in honor of Hunter’s birthday (July 18).

I hope you enjoy it.

Peace

-Sean

Check out the fantastic interview here – Babylonfalling: Interview with Warren Hinckle

Cheers,

R