The Ultimate Storyteller

(This here is a re-write of the essay I published earlier under the same name, here for your perusal)

Hunter S. Thompson was a freak, and proud of it. In post-World-War-Two America, Thompson was a born rebel who sided with nobody and everybody at the same time. As one of the founding writers for Rolling Stone magazine, he developed a method of reporting called “Gonzo Journalism”, which he described as “a style of "reporting" based on William Faulkner's idea that the best fiction is far more true than any kind of Journalism (24).” Using this style, Thompson’s articles switched freely between the first-, second- and third-person perspectives, writing in an informal manner that established an intimate rapport with his readers. His subject matter ranged from politics to sports to the art scene, always favoring people who were underrepresented in society. Relentlessly fighting for what he dubbed ‘freak power’, he combined fact with fiction in elaborate stories that, while they told uncomfortable truths, had the brevity to win over his audience. Thompson’s synergistic blending of journalism and narrative was so powerful, so far-reaching in its effects, that he became the ultimate storyteller. 

   

One of Thompson’s truths was that freak power had a real voice in America, even if it was rarely used. In his essay Freak Power In the Rockies, he retells his experience participating in a political campaign for the mayor of Aspen, Colorado. Candidate Joe Edwards, a 29-year-old lawyer, bike-racer and user of amphetamines, ran on the platform that freaks should have the run of the town. Upon hearing about Edwards’ candidacy, the retiring mayor had broadcasted stern warnings over the radio that there would be “phalanxes of poll-watchers for any strange or freaky-looking scum who might dare show up at the polls.” (74) To demonstrate their power, the “scum” retaliated in kind:

We had mustered a half-dozen of the scurviest looking legal voters we could find - and when the Mayor arrived at the polls these freaks were waiting to vote. Behind them, lounging around a coffee-dispenser in an old VW van, were at least a dozen others, most of them large and bearded, and several so eager for violence that they had spent the whole night making chain-whips and loading up on speed to stay crazy (75).

Freak power asserts itself when threatened. Just as the hippies did during the summer of love in 1969, which incidentally was the same year of this campaign, the druggies, dropouts and barroom brawlers of Aspen had gathered to show their strength. This strength came from their numbers, since the mayor deployed no phalanxes of poll-watchers other than himself and his office staff, and in their ferocity towards the establishment that sought to marginalize them. Although Joe Edwards lost the race, he lost by an incredibly slim margin (77). The narrowness of that margin, totalling a mere six votes, vindicated the campaign by proving that the power of a minority group is not to be underestimated - no matter how small.
 
     In addition to proving the existence of freak power, Thompson also gave evidence as to why this power exists in society. In his essay Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, Thompson recounts the murder of Ruben Salazar, a prominent journalist who was covering a series of demonstrations against police brutality, by a policeman in 1970. Salazar became a sort of martyr for the Chicano community, both because he had alerted the mainstream media to its plight, and because his reporting was directly responsible for his death. Upon investigating the incident, Thompson discovered that although Salazar’s death was not a police conspiracy, it was no accident.  

Maybe so. Maybe Ruben Salazar’s death can be legally dismissed as a “police accident” or as the result of “official negligence.” Most middle-class, white-dominated juries would probably accept the idea. Why, after all, would a clean-cut young police officer deliberately kill an innocent bystander? Not even Ruben Salazar - ten seconds before his death - could believe that he was about to have his head blown off by a cop for no reason at all. When Gustavo Garcia warned him that the cops outside were about to shoot, Salazar said, “That’s impossible; we’re not doing anything.” Then he stood up and caught a tear gas bomb in his left temple (103).

Salazar’s death was premeditated. Worse; it was covered up by the Sheriff’s office who attempted to pass it off as a “police accident”, and without reporters like Hunter S. Thompson to sift through the mountains of newspaper coverage surrounding the incident, the truth may have never been made public. The murder of Ruben Salazar provoked a massive backlash against police brutality towards the Chicano community, the echoes of which are remembered today with the phrase, “viva la raza.”  Without this public backlash, the policeman who killed Ruben Salazar, would never have been held accountable for his actions. The Chicano community’s forcing of Wilson’s accountability was a demonstration of why freak power is so important; it enabled them to resist marginalization so well that their plight was brought to the attention of the state governor, Ronald Reagan (106).

Writing so extensively about Freak Power, be it in Aspen, Colorado or East Los Angeles, it’s almost as if Thompson is trying to justify his own freak power; his writing style, his subject matter and his deep-seated mistrust of authority. It’s as if he was toeing the lines to see exactly how far he could go. We see evidence for this struggle in The Ultimate Freelancer, an essay he wrote for the magazine The Distant Drummer in 1967. The essay is a memoir of the death of his friend and fellow freelancer, Lionel Olay, who, like, Thompson, had a deep-seated mistrust of authority. Olay’s death signified for Thompson that while the questioning of authority is good, an outright rejection of authority is not. "More than anything else, it came as a harsh confirmation of the ethic that Lionel had always lived but never talked about... The dead end loneliness of a man who makes his own rules." (55) Lionel was the type of person who listened to nobody but himself. While this might sound like a positive trait in theory, it caused Lionel to lead a rather solitary existence, for a man who only marches to the beat of his own drum is not a popular fellow. Thompson recognized this, and although he was an independent spirit, and a freelancer to boot, he knew that there were forms of authority worth listening to. 

It is also apparent that the authorities Thompson recognized, as rare as they were, were the kind of people who practiced what they preached. When he wrote about football in Fear and Loathing at the Super Bowl, he had many choice words to say about advertisers, the NFL, and his fellow sportswriters. However, he also gave Al Davis, the owner of the Oakland Raiders, credit where it was due - even though the relationship between the two men could at best be described as strained. 

This is my last real memory of Al Davis: It was getting dark in Oakland, the rest of the team had already gone into the showers, the coach was inside speaking sagely with a gaggle of local sports writers, somewhere beyond the field-fence a big jet was cranking up its afterburners on the airport runway... and here was the owner of the flakiest team in pro football, running around on a half-dark practice field like a king-hell speed freak with his quarterback and two other key players, insisting that they run the same goddamn play over and over again until they had it right (128).

As bizarre to Thompson as Al Davis’ behavior was, his willingness to get onto the field and drill his players personally earned him a measure of respect in the journalist’s eyes. That isn’t to say that Davis got anything more than due respect; his team was still “the flakiest team in pro football”, and Davis himself was still both a “bastard” and a man who acted “like a king-hell speed freak” (128). Here, the style of Thompson’s writing tells us something about the journalist; he was anti-authority through and through, but he was also a dedicated storyteller and a man who believed what he wrote. Both of these qualities are rare enough these days, but there is another component to them: that Thompson didn’t shy away from all authorities, rather, he only listened to those who earned their right to be leaders.

    Given the political atmosphere in America during the 1960’s and ‘70’s, Thompson had every right to be that skeptical. 1973 was the year that the Watergate scandal broke, and Thompson weighed in with his opinion of the matter in Fear and Loathing in the Bunker. Richard Nixon, with his army of lackeys, thugs and fixers, was not a man who had earned his right to lead. Because he had managed to swindle his way into office, and because he had successfully covered up the affair for so long, Hunter S. Thompson was forced to ask the question; “Is the democracy worth all the risks and problems that go with it? Or, would we all be happier by admitting that the whole thing was a lark from the start and now that it hasn’t worked out, to hell with it ” (15). Admittedly, the question is rhetorical in nature; both Thompson and the American people were having major trust issues with the concept of democracy, and they wanted reassurance that the ideals that gave birth to this country hadn’t been totally forgotten.

    Thompson is doing more than just questioning authority for the sake of argument; he is attempting to establish who or what are the legitimate leaders in this country. This is a big job, albeit a thankless one; for every Al Davis in America, there are ten incompetents who hang on to their leadership by a thread, and it is Thompson’s role as an investigative journalist to separate the one from the other in the public view. That way, eventually, America can begin to trust its leaders again, for it will be certain that there are people like Thompson to watch the watchmen.