Copyright © 2007 by Wenner Media, LLC Introduction copyright © 2007 by Johnny Depp William Kennedy interview copyright © 2006 by William Kennedy All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Little, Brown and Company Hachette Book Group 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com The Little, Brown and Company name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc. First eBook Edition: October 2007 ISBN: 978-0-316-02638-3 Contents Copyright Editor’s Note Foreword Introduction Chapter One: Coming of Age in Louisville Chapter Two: An Itinerant Professional Chapter Three: San Francisco, Hells Angels, and Merry Pranksters Chapter Four: Freak Power in the Rockies Chapter Five: The Golden Age of Gonzo Chapter Six: A New Voice on the Campaign Trail Chapter Seven: Failed Deadlines and a Failed Marriage Chapter Eight: Wreckage in the Fast Lane Chapter Nine: Circling the Wagons at Owl Farm Chapter Ten: A Writer Resurgent Chapter Eleven: Vegas Goes to Hollywood Chapter Twelve: Where Were You When the Fun Stopped? Chapter Thirteen: The End of the Road Cast Of Voices Acknowledgments About The Authors No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. . . . But I know none, and therefore am no beast. — WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Richard the Third EDITOR’S NOTE This oral history began with the memorial issue published by Rolling Stone immediately after Hunter S. Thompson’s suicide on Sunday, February 20, 2005. The idea of creating tributes through the eyes and ears of contemporaries began early in our magazine’s history. We’ve done it often, reaching people by phone or in person to capture their memories of the subject, and it’s become a kind of ritual that starts up automatically when a hero of ours or a musical or literary giant passes. With Hunter it was this and more. We went all out. There were a lot of people who knew and loved him, and they spoke so vividly (many of them, of course, were professional word slingers) and so fully that it was clear from the beginning (Hunter actually, for the first time, left us with a not unreasonable deadline) that we had a lot on our hands. The team effort consisted of two principal features editors, an occasional designated hitter, myself doing a final edit on everything, and the interviews and research done by two former Rolling Stone editorial assistants, both of whom had been tasked to Hunter on separate occasions (you’ll read about that amazing perspective shortly). I did find it amusing that once again—though for the last time—-everyone at the magazine and some far-flung others were being pressed into one final, consuming deadline struggle on behalf of Dr. Thompson. It was like the old days in a curious and sweet way. We were still working for Hunter. Corey Seymour and Tobias Perse, who were the former assistants who came in to do the grunt work, were deep in the trenches more than a decade ago, when they were each assigned at one point to be Hunter’s aide-de-camp/slave when he was doing major features for the magazine. Their own stories in this volume are both eye-opening and hair-raising. In any case, they came in to show their love one last time; and Corey, because of his special devotion and doggedness, stayed on to expand that special issue fiftyfold, traveling the country and going back in person to many of the principals, visiting childhood friends, chasing down the stars, and collecting transcripts that when they were first roughly assembled came to some 500,000 words, about three times the length of this book. For Corey, it was a labor of love, as much as anything; I feel the same. Also, from the memorial issue, we have included as prefatory essays here my own open eulogy for a man who had been one of my closest friends and a lifelong partner in crime, as well as a tribute/memoir/love letter written, on deadline, by Johnny Depp. Johnny and Hunter were both bad boys from Kentucky, and they admired and loved each other deeply. I saw with my own eyes how special Johnny had become to Hunter, and likewise how devoted and worshipful Johnny had been toward him. Hunter knew an amazing number of people; he was open and friendly to most strangers; he was charismatic and compelling—to a fault, truly—and he attracted and held sway with more good, close friends than most of us have, admirers, neighbors, worshippers, politicians, groupies, fellow writers, bartenders, nut jobs, hard cases, women, and thrill seekers of all stripes. Many people who knew Hunter well over many years spoke to us but, alas, were edited out for reasons of space and duplication. Stories of Hunter’s wild escapades and deadline frenzies are legendary and numerous, but after a while they can become a tedious read. Lack of inclusion here is no denial that strong and real friendships and relationships existed with many good and kind people. I’m also sorry that Hunter’s second wife, Anita, would not allow her quotes to be used, but she was fully cooperative with the reporting and was forthcoming in all other aspects. In editing this book, I learned quite a bit about Hunter that I didn’t know, and I did think I nearly knew it all. He was a man of many interests, moods, quirks, and passions; more than one hundred voices start to reveal all that here. And there is the common theme of how much everyone loved him, how singular and powerful a presence he was in people’s lives. To write someone’s biography—or to edit an oral history—is to sift and choose among all kinds of nuances, shadowings, points of view, and points of fact. To print any given fact is to endorse it and to give it validity; to choose any particular individual’s insight or memory is to give it a historical importance. I was glad to take on the responsibility of making those choices; it felt right, and I ask only for the reader’s understanding and faith when it comes to how I portrayed my own role in Hunter’s life and work. In my own mind, those decisions had to be able to stand the tests of time and a skeptical examination. For my part, I want to thank Corey for his devotion and hard work, then and now; Paul Scanlon, a man with a fine eye and a fine pen; Lynn Nesbit, Hunter’s longtime agent, and our mutual friend, who suggested and sold this book; Colonel Depp, a comrade in arms; Doug Brinkley, Juan Thompson, Sondi (Sandy always to me) Thompson, Laila Nabulsi, and Deborah Fuller, who have been friends and allies and family through many years; and Jane Wenner, “queen of the underground,” whose photo was next to Hunter’s phone until the day he died. — J.S.W. Martha’s Vineyard August 2007 FOREWORD My Brother in Arms by Jann S. Wenner Hunter S. Thompson was part of the DNA of Rolling Stone, one of those twisting strands of chemicals around which a new life is formed. He was such a big part of my life, and I loved him deeply. He was a man of energy, physical presence, utter charm, genius talent, and genius humor. It was very hard to have to give him up and say good-bye. When I was a young man, twenty-four years old, in the summer of 1970, I had the great fortune of meeting Hunter. He came to my office, then in San Francisco, to settle the details of writing an article about his campaign for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado. He was thirty-three, stood six-three, shaved bald, dark glasses, smoking, carrying two six-packs of beer; he sat down, slowly unpacked a leather satchel full of “travel necessities” onto my desk—mainly hardware, like flashlights, a siren, knives, boxes of cigarettes and filters, whiskey, corkscrews, flares—and didn’t leave for three hours. He was hypnotic, and by the end I was deep into his campaign. The record indicates that in 1970 we published “The Battle of Aspen”; in 1971, he wrote about the stirrings of Mexican unrest in East Los Angeles, based in part on a fiery lawyer named Oscar Zeta Acosta, who later that year emerged as Dr. Gonzo in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” In 1972, we began nonstop coverage of the Nixon-McGovern presidential campaign. Hunter took over my life then—and for many years after that, when he was reporting (long nocturnal telephone calls and frequent all-night strategy sessions) and especially when he was writing. After “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” everything else he wrote was a full- out siege. Setting up the assignment was easy—Hunter was pretty much welcome everywhere and had the skills and instincts to run a presidential campaign if he had wanted. But then came the travel arrangements: hotels, tickets, researchers, rental cars. Then, later in the process, finding a place for him to hunker down and write—the Seal Rock Inn, Key West, Owl Farm, preferably somewhere isolated and with a good bar. Flying in IBM Selectric typewriters with the right typeface; booze and drugs (usually he had this part already done); arranging for a handler-assistant at his end; and then, back at Rolling Stone, I had to be available to read and edit copy as it came in eight-to-ten-page bursts—via the Xerox telecopier (“the mojo wire”), a primitive fax that had a stylus that printed onto treated paper (at a rate of seven minutes per page) and smelled. I had to talk to Hunter for hours, then track and organize the various scenes and sections. He usually began writing in the middle, then would back up or skip around to write what he felt good about at that moment, reporting scenes that might fit somewhere later, or spinning out total fantasies (“Insert ZZ” or “midnight screed”) that would also find a place—parts that were flights of genius. Generally the lede was easy, describing the invariably dramatic weather wherever he was writing from. Then a flurry of headlines and chapter headings and the transitions he had to produce on demand to create the flow and logic, and always, sooner or later, the conclusion, which we always called “the Wisdom.” He liked to work against a crisis, and if there wasn’t a legitimate one, he made one. We never had a fight about the editing. I never tried to change him or “improve” him, but since I had a pretty deep understanding of his style and his motives, I could tell where he was going and sit at his side and read the map to him. If I didn’t personally supervise everything he wrote for Rolling Stone, he wouldn’t finish. It was a bit like being the cornerman for Ali. Editing Hunter required stamina, but I was young, and this was once in a lifetime, and we were both clear on that. Hunter’s office visits and debriefings were always an event. The late arrival, the slow, long, ambling walk down the hall, the gathering commotion, and finally some kind of loud noise or shriek or siren blast as he got to my office. We had an ice-making machine installed at his insistence. He was a Pied Piper, and everyone realized how extraordinary he was—charming, flirtatious, insanely funny. And smart. Life with Hunter was so much fun—he used to stay at my house, but that got to be a little too much. Car rides—headlights off—at three a.m. on moonless