Hunter Thompson's Ancient Gonzo Wisdom

Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S. Thompson (Picador, 2009) doesn't stand on its own like, say, David Barsamian's interviews with Noam Chomsky, but it does make a fun addendum to the books and articles the good doctor (of chemotherapy, divinity, and journalism) left us. One of the principles of Gonzo Journalism is spontaneity, but most of these interviews, edited by Thompson's widow Anita, suggest he was much more interesting seated behind a Selectric than behind a microphone. This could be the fault of the interviewers, who ask a lot of the same unthoughtful questions (about drugs, Nixon, getting beaten up by Hell's Angels, etc.), to which Thompson gives a lot of different answers. "I've always considered myself basically an anarchist," he told High Times in 1977, "but every once in a while you have to come out of the closet and deal with reality." It would have been interesting if someone had asked Thompson (whose ever-present aviator sunglasses and cigarette holder are to vaguely-defined rebellion as silhouetted mouse ears are to talking-animal themed amusements) if he ever considered the "reality" of the material and human wreckage his lifestyle created. For an "anarchist", Thompson had a striking disregard for the working people he collided with as he staggered through his adventures: the waitress terrorized by attorney Oscar Acosta in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; the maids who had to deal with his spectacularly demolished hotel rooms; or anyone who happened to be on the road when he was enjoying his "favorite drug experience": "big motorcycle, head full of acid...going 120 miles an hour." Ancient Gonzo Wisdom opens with some lines by W.H. Auden: "Time...Worships language and forgives/Everyone by whom it lives..." which isn't true, or shouldn't be, because celebrity priviledge isn't much better than class priviledge, even for celebrities who wrote remarkably true, funny, and powerful things about rotten and powerful people. Nick Holt's website is gritsandroses.org