Tag Archives: gonzo

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thomspon

Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney is responsible for a new film about my favorite American literature icon. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson looks like a must-see, it’s just hit the cinemas so I can’t comment about the film just yet but I am excited to see a feature-length doc on one of freelance writing’s most notorious names. 

As a freelancer, Thompson was a fascinating character. He often cracked under pressure, blowing so many high-profile gigs that it’s hard to believe he ever got an editor to take him seriously. His most famous work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, came as the result of a failed freelance assignment. He was fired from Time magazine, had an ongoing tempestuous love/hate relationship with Rolling Stone, and spent his final years writing an often-late, slightly on-topic column for Sports Illustrated. It was the Thompson way, love it or hate it. Somehow, he managed to make it all work in the end.

The movie is tantalizing, as it features many of the people who figured largely in Thompson’s writing and those infamous collections of letters, The Proud Highway and Fear and Loathing in America. Jimmy Carter, Pat Buchanan, George McGovern, Johnny Depp, and Thompson’s first wife Sandi Wright are just a few of the people highlighted.

When Hunter Stockton Thompson shot himself on February 20, 2005, the western world of literature lost one of its most unique voices. There won’t be another like him, which is probably one of the reasons the documentary was made. Just who was this amazing, mad writer? If you don’t know much about the man or his work, this film is an excellent place to begin–after reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, of course.

You can catch this interview with Gonzo director Alex Gibney which will more than whet your appetite for the documentary. It was shot at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, and features Plum host Jeb Berrier. I’ll file a report on the film after the holiday.

Hunter Thompson’s Last Book

hey-rube-hunter-thompson.jpg Hunter Thompson may be gone, but he is definitely not forgotten. His final book, Hey Rube, is a collection of essays from his ESPN column, but don’t be fooled into thinking this is a book strictly about sports. He used his column as a springboard into a great many topics including his political views, ideas on sex, and the creation of the infamous sport “Shotgun Golf”.

Thompson is best known as an author, but digging deeper into his body of work you’ll find that he was a freelancer with major credits–The Nation, Rolling Stone, and a big variety of others. Thompson is what many would consider to be a unreliable flake, an unemployable liability to any editor unfortunate enough to have hired him. Thompson frequently blew deadlines for nation-wide magazines and missed the point of his assignments. His most important book–Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, was the result of a horribly botched freelance gig for a major sports publication. Thompson was assigned to bring back some captions on a race and turned in literally thousands of words in commentary instead. Incidents like these did not keep him from getting work. Amazingly, he kept getting high-paying assignments. Thompson was damn near bulletproof.

He was a force of nature, a contradictory whirlwind of massive hubris and self-doubt. As a survivor in the biz, he is a true hero–he somehow managed to overcome every career-ending disaster and bounce back with even larger assignments. There will be more books by Hunter Thompson to be sure–his estate promises several more collections of unpublished material– but this is the final one he put together under his own steam with intent to publish.

Buy Hey Rube! for $11.20