As far as whatever stage you’re in, and whatever you think about your destiny, I sure as hell wouldn’t worry about it. When I was your age my future was nothing less then grim—and I suppose it still is, to some god-fearing people—but since then I’ve managed to get around a bit and do just about what I intended to do in the first place. All you need to do is figure out what your action is and hang on, no matter what they tell you. And even if you never make it, you’ll feel better trying instead of giving up and going along with the noise crowd. But right now you don’t have to worry about what you’re going to do. The important tiling is to follow your instincts about what you aren’t going to do. Most people wind up going against their instincts, and it makes them miserable for the rest of their lives. It’ll be five more years before you really begin to get the drift of what you should be doing. So, in the meantime, keep loose and listen to Dylan. And write me again. You write damn good letters. I was 20 before I could write a decent postcard.
Love, Hunter
TO CAREY MCWILLIAMS, THE NATION:
Thompson thought the following sidebar should accompany his article on the nonstudent left in The Nation.
September 30, 1965
San Francisco
Dear Carey:
You may or may not want to run this as a box. I think it’s the nut of the issue, perhaps even deserving of another article, which I can’t possibly do right now. Anyway, here is a short commentary.
HST
This article was written last spring, but it missed a June deadline and consequently had to be updated. Since then, more than time has passed. The political climate has changed. In June it appeared from the student (and non-student) viewpoint, that the University administration—and hence, the “Establishment”—was actively seeking a new view, a meeting of the minds, a thaw in the guerrilla warfare between two massively disparate generations.
But the long lull of summer gave the Governor, the Regents, the University administration and other hired technicians a chance to re-group, and now they are no longer on the defensive. In June, for instance, the new and legal definition of a “student” was liberal enough to include such recent drop-outs—and prospective re-entries—as Mario Savio and the bulk of the FSM leadership. But the new directives, issued by Pres. Clark Kerr on July 1, drew a very heavy line between the official definitions of a “student” and a “non-student.” Previously, it had been realistically vague. The reason for the re-definition is the new law on “outsiders,” which makes it a misdemeanor for any non-student to enter the campus for the purpose of disturbing whatever peace may or may not exist, according to the University authorities. As the law stands now, Mario Savio could be arrested on sight, anywhere on the campus, on the assumption that he was there to stir up trouble.
Such was not the case at the end of last semester, when there was much ado in the press about the “new look” at Berkeley. The impression given then was that a new clique of “progressive” Regents had seized control from the “Old Guard.” The facts of the matter were so finely suppressed that I—living in San Francisco and daily clipping all three papers for my files—had no idea of the change in this critical weight distribution until I made a routine phone check with the University’s General Counsel in the course of updating this article.
The moral of this story, I suppose, is “Never Lose Your Momentum.” But it is more specific than that. If this increasingly “illegal” tumult in Berkeley and the rest of the Bay Area proves nothing else, it should at least explode the myth of California as a “progressive, enlightened state.” The truth is that there is a new and very resilient Conservatism booming here. The news value of a radical minority crowds political reality out of the headlines, and gives a false impression that dies all the harder on election day. The only reason Richard Nixon is not Governor of this state today is that he never learned the new Establishment vocabulary. But the saddest truth of all is that even if Nixon were Governor, hardly anyone would know the difference.
—Hunter S. Thompson
“COLLECT TELEGRAM FROM A MAD DOG”
Spider magazine,
October 13, 1965
Not being a poet, and drunk as well,
leaning into the diner and dawn
and hearing a juke box mockery of some better
human sound
I wanted rhetoric
but could only howl the rotten truth
Norman Luboff
should have his nuts ripped off with a plastic fork.
Then howled around like a man with the
final angst,
not knowing what I wanted there
Probably the waitress, bend her double
like a safety pin,
Deposit the mad seed before they
tie off my tubes or run me down with Dingo dogs
for not voting
at all.
Suddenly a man with wild eyes rushed
out from the wooden toilet
Specifically Luboff and the big mongers,
the slumfeeders, the perverts
and the pious.
The legal man agreed
We had a case and indeed a duty to
Right these Wrongs, as it were
The Price would be four thousand in front and
ten for the nut.
I wrote him a check on the Sawtooth
National Bank,
but he hooted at it
While rubbing a special oil on
his palms
To keep the chancres from itching
beyond endurance
On this Sabbath,
McConn broke his face with a running
Cambodian chop, then we
drank his gin, ate his blintzes
But failed to find anyone
to rape
and went back to the Mariners’ Tavern
to drink in the sun.
Later, from jail
I sent a brace of telegrams
to the right people,
explaining my position.
TO SARA BLACKBURN, PANTHEON BOOKS:
Working around the clock on Hell’s Angels, Thompson touched base with Blackburn about “The Rum Diary.” With the $1,500 he’d received on signing the contract for the Ballantine paperback edition of Hell’s Angels, he purchased a red BS A 650 Lightning—the fastest bike available—so he could ride with the Hell’s Angels.
October 22, 1965
Dear Sara—
The bike has not actually blown up, but three mechanics say it’s going to any minute—for three different reasons—so I took it back with a minor tuneup and am now driving the hell out of it, and damn the consequences. If I was done out of a grand I’m going to get some kicks, if nothing else.
For the time being you should do whatever you want with The Rum Diary manuscript. Everybody except my lawyer says Ballantine owns it, so I guess they do. I have now retired on pills and cheap whiskey, not to emerge again until this godrotten Hell’s Angels thing is whipped, which might be quite a while. Until then there is no possibility of my writing a cheerful letter to you or anyone else. The only time I feel human is when I’m booming out on the motorcycle, which I think I’ll do now, a quick run on the Coast Highway to clear my brain.
Sincerely,
Curt Testy
TO NORMAN MAILER:
Curious as to what Mailer thought about the Hell’s Angels, Thompson sought a quote from him to use in his book.
November 4, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
Norman Mailer
c/o G.P. Putnam’s Sons
200 Madison Ave.
NYC 16
Dear Norman:
Somewhere in late 1961 or so I sent you a grey, paperbound copy of Henry Miller’s The World of Sex, one of 1000 copies printed “for friends of Henry Miller,” in 1941. You never acknowledged it, which didn’t show much in the way of what California people call “class,” but which was understandable in that I recall
issuing some physical threats along with the presentation of what they now tell me is a collector’s item. I had no intention of “flogging you into a coma,” of course, but if memory serves your sense of humor at that stage of the game was not what it might have been and I can see where there was not much point in your visiting a potential flip-out, in Big Sur or anywhere else.
And so be it. I hope you have the book and are guarding it closely. In your old age you can sell it for whatever currency is in use at the time.
In the meantime, I think you owe me a favor—and if you don’t come through with it I’ll have to put you clown as a paunchy cocktail punk or maybe a noisy ape still trying to imitate his betters. Which reminds me of something I read somewhere, in the old days.
Anyway, by December 1, 1965 I’m supposed to have 80,000 words on the Hell’s Angels to Ballantine—which they, in turn, have sold to Random House for April publication, and so far I have spent $4500 on booze, LSD and one giant bike for myself in the course of six months’ research, while turning out a total of 34 first-draft pages. So I now have 25 days to come up with a massive jolt of words and wisdom—if for no other reason than that the fate of my already-written novel seems to ride on the commercial fortunes of this pre-sold, unwritten jumble of rape and violence.
The favor I’m asking is that you send me whatever bundle of words you can muster on the subject of the Hell’s Angels. I’m assuming you know what I’m talking about here. If not, well … I guess it was bound to happen. (I maybe should add here that for the past eight months I’ve spent nearly all of my time with the Angels and I have plenty of stuff—but it occurred to me that you might have some original ideas on the thing, an odd comment or two that could add some zang to my text.)
Or maybe I should just say that I’m interested in your views on the thing, and leave it at that. I wouldn’t want you to think that the book depends on you in any way, for I know you’re a busy man and of course I understand. But if you have any comments on the Angels I’d be happy to include them in my text if they seem at all interesting. The book is a grab-bag of word-photos, libel, straight narrative, and occasional wisdom. Anything you might send would fit in the format I’m using—whether it actually has to do with the Hell’s Angels, the psychic roots of the motorcycle syndrome, sex as a long-haired vision on two wheels, or anything else with even a slim pertinence. Needless to say, I would use your stuff however you wanted it used, or not at all. My own idea would be to come on with something like: “Norman Mailer, a would-be Hell’s Angel for many years, put it all in a big plastic bag, to wit … etc.”
Anyway, send what you can, but only if you feel up to it. I tend to assume an interest you might not have—or maybe you got over it. But even the reasons for that would be worth a look, and probably worth printing. My gimmick on this book is that I’m already so far into them on the money score that they can’t quarrel much with what I send. Especially since they want a book on the Angels and I’m the only one who knows anything real about them. I say this to assure you that whatever you might send would definitely be for print.
So do what you will, and thanks for anything that helps.
Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
TO R. A. ABERNATHY, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN MOTORS CORP.:
Thompson was fed up with his 1959 Rambler Custom, which kept breaking down.
December 1, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco
R. A. Abernathy, Pres.
American Motors Corp.
14250 Plymouth Rd.
Detroit 32, Mich.
Dear Mr. Abernathy:
I see in a recent Standard & Poor notation that your Ramblers are not selling as well as they might, and it occurred to me that I might be able to give you at least one small reason why. On the same very minor scale I can also suggest a remedy, to wit:
It happens that I own and drive a 1959 Rambler Custom that is literally falling to pieces. Today some sort of crucial seal blew out in the transmission, spewing fluid all over the engine. I solved this by jamming a large cork in the filler pipe, but I suspect the transmission is on its last legs anyway. On the other hand I have felt the whole car was on its last leg for at least six months, and for that reason I long since abandoned any idea of paying for repairs.
To release the emergency brake (in place of the handle, which broke off) I use a tack hammer. To counter the absence of a parking gear (which broke off in my hand one foggy afternoon) I use a large wooden chock under a front or a back wheel, depending on which way I’m facing on these steep San Francisco hills. The prospect of the car breaking loose from its feeble moorings is not a pleasant one. The car, on its own, is easily capable of causing severe damage or even death. I have insurance against this sort of thing, but no amount of insurance could prevent the ugly scene that would certainly transpire if the car ran amok in downtown San Francisco.
These are the only serious safety hazards in the car’s make-up right now … unless we could include a teeth-rattling front-end shimmy that I have paid to have corrected twice in three years and am not about to pay for again. At 55, the car shakes like it has just been broadsided by a bazooka shell, and anywhere between 40 and 70 it is a real effort to keep the thing in a lane. Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, for instance, is such a nightmare that I only make that trip when absolutely necessary. Another safety hazard, now that I think on it, has to do with the fact that all four door latches have apparently frozen in the open position. The two back doors are tied shut by a large rope across the back seat, making it impossible for them to be opened under any circumstances. I did this to make the back seat safe for my young son. But the front doors are a different matter: anyone getting in on either side has to pull the door closed and then reach out with a sort of putty knife—which I keep on the dashboard—and pry the outside latch in such a way that it will engage and thus keep the door from swinging open on turns.
Other, less serious safety problems include inoperative turn signals, broken tail-light lenses (clue to the lights being in a position to be broken by any car maneuvering into a parking space behind me), unreliable windshield wipers and dead shock absorbers which allow the car to lean dangerously on curves. I don’t want to write a monster letter so I’ll merely sketch the rest of the problems:
1.) A loud rod knock, despite a new crankshaft 3 years ago and a complete lower-end overhaul less than two years later. 2.) An almost entirely rebuilt—piece by piece—electrical system, including both a new starter and generator. 3.) New brake cylinders and shoes on both rear wheels—installed after I lost my brakes entirely one day in the middle of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. 4.) The defroster has jammed and the windshield washer has failed. 5.) The heater fills the car with such a stench that I can no longer use it. 6.) The driver’s seat has deteriorated completely, making the car extremely uncomfortable to drive.
I could carry on with this wretched indictment, but there would be no point in it. The fact is that I am driving one of the worst advertisements on the road, and until very recently I was driving the car all over the Western United States. In 1963 I was a West Coast correspondent for the National Observer, driving all over California and making trips now and then as far as Butte, Montana, Denver and Las Vegas. In 1963 I put about 35,000 miles on the car; in 1964 it was about 20,000 and this year I have spent most of my time working on a book, which cut my travel to less than 10,000 miles in all. I mention my travels because I have lost count of the times I have had to stop in service stations for minor repairs, and sometimes for major repairs—which can be damned expensive when some outback mechanic has you entirely at his mercy. In the course of these tribulations I have cursed the car savagely in service stations all over the West—not with any intention of queering the Rambler image, but usually in a fit of anger that finally became a ritual as the car failed me more and more often.
The obvious solution to my problem would of course be to get rid of the car by trading it in on some newer and more
dependable model … and there is the catch, and the reason I’m writing this letter. Since leaving my position as correspondent for the Observer I have been making a living as a free-lance writer, and in that capacity I can’t get a dime’s worth of credit. The irony of the thing is that I’m making more money now than I did on a regular income: just last month, for instance, I paid cash for a brand new $1375 motorcycle, which has taken the burden of driving this rotten car off my own shoulders and placed it on those of my wife, who is scared to death of it.
Perhaps I might have been wiser to put that motorcycle money into a car, thus getting rid of this junker. But I thought I’d be better off with a new, warrantied motorcycle than I would with another second-hand, four-wheeled liability … and I still think so, even though my wife is still cursing me.
In any case—referring back to my opening paragraph—I’m certain that this horrible failure of a car that I’m forced to drive and display is a more effective advertisement for Rambler than any half-dozen TV spots or magazine ads you are laying out quite a bit of money for. When you consider the impression that this wreck—along with my raving about it—has made on probably 150 service station attendants in the course of two years, there can be no doubt in your mind that this thing is a serious liability and a threat to the Rambler image.
My suggestion, therefore, is that you supply me with a new and dependable Rambler that I won’t have to curse about and apologize for at least once a day. I don’t mean to suggest in any way that you owe me a new car, but I think it would be mutually beneficial for you to supply me with one. I have, after all, supported this erratic offspring of yours for nearly three years, with considerable mental anguish for both myself and my wife. But then we both understand that ours is a free market economy and the devil takes the hindmost. Mr. Barnum described it pretty well with his classic line about a sucker being born every minute.