The Gonzo Papers Anthology
Just came across this while browsing on Amazon. It is due to be released by Picador on October 2nd 2009 and it appears to be The Gonzo Papers Vol 1, 2 ,3 & 4 all within the one cover. It will be a paperback and a whopping 1248 pages.
What do you think? Not sure about the cover myself, kind of drab. (Maybe it is the tan colour that is putting me off – oh well minor complaint)
Ron Mexico
To discuss this post in the forums click here
THE famous illustrator of Hunter S Thompson’s work had a precious personal letter from the gonzo journalist stolen when he gave a talk to fans in north London.
Ralph Steadman, 72, spoke at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn about the late American writer, after a screening of the new film on his life Gonzo: The Life And Works Of Dr Hunter S Thompson.
While Mr Steadman talked to fans and signed books afterwards, someone stole an original fax which was among the artist’s possessions.
Mr Steadman, who illustrated Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas as well as much more of Thompson’s work, said: “It was a fax he sent me on Christmas day in 1988. It started Merry Christmas! HO! HO! HO! And was handwritten – six pages long.
“I took it along to read out and I just never thought to make a copy of it. I left it on stage while I talked to people and while I was doing that someone just lifted it.
“It is a rotten thing to do. A dirty little trick. I would have been happy to make a copy for the person who took it and I would have signed it for them, done a drawing – anything they wanted.
“I didn’t think that someone would steal it. That is not gonzo it’s bad gonzo – it’s bonzo.”
Mr Steadman is known for his work on Punch, Private Eye and New Statesman, as well as being the long established partner in crime to the writer.
The pair met in Kentucky when Mr Steadman was sent to cover a race meeting for a magazine.
After a week’s drinking they became friends for more than 35 years and started the partnership which is now world-famous.
Mr Steadman was the man who organised the funeral Thompson had been planning for years, after he shot himself in 2005. His ashes were launched into the air with a cannon.
“I’ve got lots of stuff but that’s not the point,” Mr Steadman continued.
“It is part of the gonzo collection. It was a letter in what he would have called his gibberish. It was about an animal he killed – some kind of dog – because it was threatening his peacocks.
“I don’t steal things from people so why should they steal from me?
“I don’t know why people have to be like that but I think that’s the way we are now – we’ve gone down that terrible road of meanness.
“I don’t think people were ever as mean as they are now.”
Mr Steadman travelled from his home in Kent for the talk and has offered to send a signed copy to anyone who returns the original letter.
The theatre is calling on anyone with information to come forward. Tricycle artistic director Nicolas Kent said: “Ralph very generously gave up his time to come and do the Q&A at the Tricycle. I’m very sad that somebody came and took away his treasured possession.
“Maybe they thought it was not important, but I know that it is and I know that he would like it back.
Ok somebody out there knows where this is so please come forward if you have any information. Feel free to email us at totallygonzo@gmail.com and we will pass on any helpful details to Ralph. Nobody is interested in getting anyone in trouble, it was probably unintentional, so just help get this fax back to Ralph where it belongs.
Cheers,
Ron Mexico
Sorry for the gap in updates everybody I have been extremely busy over the past month and I also landed myself a rotten bout of illness just for good measure. So to make up for the silence I have just uploaded a rare article by Hunter – Nights In The Rustic – that first appeared in Cavalier Magazine back in August 1967. Just scroll down a bit in the rare articles section and you should find it.
Thats all for today folks but I will be updating again over the coming days on the various Gonzo releases on the horizon – some really cool stuff on the way.
All the best and thanks for your patience!
Ron Mexico
To discuss this post in the forums click here
Just spotted this new title on Amazon – Hunter S. Thompson: The Glory Years by Jay Cowan. Here is the blurb on Amazon about this release:
“From military sportswriter to roving correspondent for the National Observer, from quasi Hell’s Angel to counterculture author and gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompson led a life of legend. Hunter S. Thompson: The Glory Years tells the remarkable insider’s story.
Jay Cowan, who was caretaker on Thompson’s ranch and a trusted friend, paints a sensitive portrait of a man who redefined participatory journalism, who captured the decadence and depravity of an era, and generally consumed more drugs and alcohol than any other living creature on the planet. A self-professed “lazy hillbilly,” Hunter Thompson would immerse himself researching a story, then write it all in a multi-day frenzy of drugs and sleeplessness. In his role as America’s “rock star author,” he was invited to the White House (where he claimed to have snorted coke with presidential aides) and rubbed elbows with the marquee celebrities of his time. Featuring previously unpublished color photos, this book provides the most compelling and readable portrait to date of one of America’s most extraordinary personalities. ”
The book is due for release on March 17th 2009. Perfect for St. Patricks Day hehe.
Edit: Just came across this article on Sheriff Bob Braudis by Jay Cowan.
Ok for now,
Ron Mexico
To discuss this post in the forums click here
It was just after dawn in Woody Creek, Colo., 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.
Even ESPN was broadcasting war news. It was the worst disaster in the history of the United States, including Pearl Harbor, the San Francisco earthquake and probably the Battle of Antietam in 1862, when 23,000 were slaughtered in one day.
The Battle of the World Trade Center lasted about 99 minutes and cost 20,000 lives in two hours (according to unofficial estimates as of midnight Tuesday). The final numbers, including those from the supposedly impregnable Pentagon, across the Potomac River from Washington, likely will be higher. Anything that kills 300 trained firefighters in two hours is a world-class disaster.
And it was not even Bombs that caused this massive damage. No nuclear missiles were launched from any foreign soil, no enemy bombers flew over New York and Washington to rain death on innocent Americans. No. It was four commercial jetliners.
They were the first flights of the day from American and United Airlines, piloted by skilled and loyal U.S. citizens, and there was nothing suspicious about them when they took off from Newark, N.J., and Dulles in D.C. and Logan in Boston on routine cross-country flights to the West Coast with fully-loaded fuel tanks — which would soon explode on impact and utterly destroy the world-famous Twin Towers of downtown Manhattan’s World Trade Center. Boom! Boom! Just like that.
The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now — with somebody — and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.
It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy. Osama bin Laden may be a primitive “figurehead” — or even dead, for all we know — but whoever put those All-American jet planes loaded with All-American fuel into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon did it with chilling precision and accuracy. The second one was a dead-on bullseye. Straight into the middle of the skyscraper.
Nothing — even George Bush’s $350 billion “Star Wars” missile defense system — could have prevented Tuesday’s attack, and it cost next to nothing to pull off. Fewer than 20 unarmed Suicide soldiers from some apparently primitive country somewhere on the other side of the world took out the World Trade Center and half the Pentagon with three quick and costless strikes on one day. The efficiency of it was terrifying.
We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for WAR seem to know who did it or where to look for them.
This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed — for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now. He will declare a National Security Emergency and clamp down Hard on Everybody, no matter where they live or why. If the guilty won’t hold up their hands and confess, he and the Generals will ferret them out by force.
Good luck. He is in for a profoundly difficult job — armed as he is with no credible Military Intelligence, no witnesses and only the ghost of Bin Laden to blame for the tragedy.
OK. It is 24 hours later now, and we are not getting much information about the Five Ws of this thing.
The numbers out of the Pentagon are baffling, as if Military Censorship has already been imposed on the media. It is ominous. The only news on TV comes from weeping victims and ignorant speculators.
The lid is on. Loose Lips Sink Ships. Don’t say anything that might give aid to The Enemy.
– Hunter S. Thompson
To discuss this post in the forums click here
“Algren has never been accused of being “sexually confused,” and he doesn’t wear his hair particularly long. Nor do I, for that matter, but I have a fine collection of women’s hats. I cultivated this taste in the Air Force, as a reaction to the ugly bus driver’s caps that found favor with General LeMay. Unfortunately, he retired before I had a chance to confront him at a command inspection. I had a feathered bonnet, at the time, that would have stunned his eyeballs and ruined his mind.”
Hunter S. Thompson – When Boys Will Be Girls (Pageant Magazine Aug. 1967)
I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of Pageant Magazine recently after a furious bidding war on ebay (sorry Tom), and inside the covers this fabulous story from the Good Doctor graced several pages. It is the only place that I have seen it to date and it makes for a really interesting read. You can check it out in full over in our rare articles section.
In other news it appears that Alex Gibney’s Gonzo will be available to purchase on Amazon from November 18th. You can place pre-orders and reserve a copy now.
Thats all for now,
Ron Mexico
To discuss this post in the forums click here
“I knew Colonel Depp was carrying a mixed bag of personal presents, including bottles of Absinth and night-vision binoculars and frozen shirts and Nazi SS jewelry. He also had rare medicines from Europe and oriental hand fans and many thousands of dollars and perfumes and cameras and pornography and sophisticated tattoo paraphernalia. He looked like an international Pimp with no respect for the law. If his luggage was searched he was doomed.”
Hunter S. Thompson – Ambassador to Cuba
Johnny Depp has recently purchased Hunter’s archive – consisting of approx. 800 boxes of letters, unpublished material, artefacts etc etc. Colonel Depp is now officially the custodian and owner of the majority of Hunter S. Thompson’s papers. Once his team has sorted through the extensive material he has indicated that it will go to a University so that grubby scholars like myself can root through it like savages.
In case you are wondering what kind of stuff is in there why not check out our rare articles section. It will give you an idea what Hunters earlier work was like. There is many many more articles and short stories that have yet to see the light of day. Hopefully Colonel Depp can now start the process of getting this work onto the bookshelves.
Also Anita has now started her own column over at Huffingtonpost. Check it out!
Thats it for now,
Ron Mexico
To discuss this post in the forums click here
A few weeks ago here at Totally Gonzo, I brought up the seemingly forever delayed Who Killed Hunter S. Thompson? by Warren Hinckle and appealed for any information regarding the hold up. Well thanks to the power of the internet I can now bring you some good news. I have been in touch with Warren Hinkle himself and he brought me up to speed with the project. After the book was announced over two years ago a great amount of new ‘Hunter treasures’ have been unearthed and as a result the book has doubled in size from the original 200 or so pages to approximately 400 or so. Warren also had this to say about the book –‘there’s a fascinating amount of undiscovered Thompson lore and art in there…’
Providing everything runs smoothly Warren said that he hopes the book will be out around November. As soon as there is a definite release date I will post it here at Totally Gonzo. I also came across a blog entry by Peter Richardson who ran into Warren at the recent Book Expo America in L.A. Warren was there to promote Who Killed Hunter S. Thompson? so it seems that we will have this book in our hands sooner rather than later. Speeking of books Peter Richardson is the author of American Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams who as you all know suggested to Hunter that he cover The Hells Angels for a story. Peter also teaches a class on California culture at San Francisco State University. One of the books studied in that class is Hells Angels. Check out his blog, it is well worth a visit.
Another blog worth checking out is The Farm Report by William McKeen which is regularly updated as he travels across America promoting his excellent new book Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson.
Thats about it for now,
Ron Mexico
PS: Totally Gonzo was recently mentioned in the papers here in Ireland. You can read the articles here. Reporter Olaf Tyaransen frequently writes about Hunter in both The Herald and Hotpress Magazine. Thanks for the mention Olaf! Also the Gonzostore is now back online.
To discuss this post in the forums click here
“My eyes are glued together. Feet blistered. What have I done? At least I’m not in jail. Lay a bit to get the latitude and longitude. I’ll never do this again. Seems I had something to do with cattle. And with drink. And with several parties. And pints of cider. Claws the brain apart. I don’t like this when I don’t even know what month it is.”
J.P. Donleavy – The Ginger Man
Ah yes Mr. Donleavy, I know the feeling and I don’t like it either, although in my case it was largely due to pints of Guinness and some women from Eastern Europe. Stumbling across a signpost on Dublin’s Grafton Street that informed me of a Literary Pub Crawl didn’t help matters either. After a near four hour bus journey to Dublin I had developed a raging thirst, the kind that could only be extinguished with a few pints of the black stuff. Followed by many, many more. Given that there is a bar on literally ever corner, a bar crawl in Dublin can quickly become a decadent orgy of unimaginable magnitude. Eventually my literary pub tour brought me to the fine establishment known as The Ginger Man. Located near the back of Trinity College it serves a fine pint of Guinness, which I gladly helped myself to before I eagerly set off towards Temple Bar in search of The Project Arts Centre where Mr. Donleavy was going to be making a rare appearance.
Typically however, I got hopelessly lost. Whoever is responsible for the signposts in Dublin should be strung up with barbed wire and left for the crows. Of course I had no trouble finding bars, but when it came to my main destination relying on the signposts was like asking a blind woman for directions on a foggy night. Beyond useless! I also had a sneaking suspicion that some bastard had turned certain signs in the wrong direction just for his own perverse amusement. If I had found him I would have strangled the prick in the middle of O’Connell St. with my shoelaces.
After much frustration and loud outbursts of guttural swearing I managed to find the damn spot. About 60 yards from my hotel no less. Oh Lord you mock me in the cruellest fashion! I quickly collected my tickets and bounded upstairs where I was faced with yet another bar. A man could never die of thirst in this fine city. A pint of the black stuff later I found myself sitting about five yards from the stage, no doubt stinking the front aisles to the rafters with the smell of Guinness. Soon the lights dipped and our host from the national broadcaster RTE introduced the man of the hour – J.P. Donleavy.
Mr Donleavy ambled out from the shadows of the stage, dressed like a country gent in tweed and sporting a distinguished silver beard. After a warm welcome from the audience he started discussing a variety of topics, from the banning of The Ginger Man to his hopes of a film version starring Johnny Depp and the notorious hellraiser Shane McGowan. I don’t want to spoil it all for you, as you can listen to the entire event here.
Afterwards Mr. Donleavy took some questions from the audience and then started signing books for the audience. I eagerly jumped in line to get my copy of The Ginger Man autographed by the man himself. The line to meet him was huge but I eventually got to the top and met the infamous old git. As he was signing my book I asked him if he ever accepted Hunter’s offer to drop by his shack in Big Sur back in the early 60’s. On hearing the Good Doctors name he looked up and smiled with a glint in his eye – “Oh yes” he muttered in his distinct mournful voice and then he paused, considering the question a bit – “No, no…pity, pity” before chuckling to himself a bit. He seemed rather pleased with the question, if a little surprised. Then I was off into the Dublin night where I roamed around Temple Bar for a bit, before challenging three Polish women to a drinking contest in a bar whose name I forget. Never underestimate a Polish woman’s tolerance for vodka, it could be the death of you…
Ok for now,
Ron Mexico
To discuss this post in the forums click here
“Well, Lionel, a chap named Donleavy has just written a book. He never made it to Beverly Glen, or even Esquire, but he can write the balls off of every punk who did – including me.”
Hunter S. Thompson – The Proud Highway
Tomorrow I am off to Dublin to hopefully get a chance to have a word with JP Donleavy, infamous author of The Ginger Man and famed recluse. Mr. Donleavy is giving a reading as part of the Dublin Writers Festival and will also be discussing the upcoming movie adaption of his wicked novel. It is also heavily rumoured that Colonel Depp will be there, as he is hotly tipped to play the lead role – that of Sebastian Dangerfield. The Colonel and Mr. Donleavy are good friends and have been discussing this movie for a while now. Shane McGowan is also supposed to make a cameo appearence in the film playing the equally boisterous Brendan Behan. Speaking of the Colonel, it was his birthday this week so hopefully he had a good one! Here is a clip from the Extended DVD of his appearence on Inside the Actors Studio. He is talking about what it was like to live with The Good Doctor.
Oh yeah before I go, if you want to read a letter that Hunter sent to JP Donleavy then click here and last, but certainly by no means least, for those of you who are interested in collecting the work of Dr. Thompson check out HST Books run by our very own Lono, it is a fantastic site with great information on collecting First Editions, Limited Editions, Rare Magazines and basically everything to do with Gonzo.
Good luck,
Ron Mexico
To discuss this post in the forums click here
Totally Gonzo 