108 Gonzo Troubadour transcript (Hunter S Thompson)

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Michael: [00:00:00] Famous and gravy listeners, Michael Osborne here. I've got two things to say before we start today's episode. First, we could really use your help growing the show and there's a very simple thing you can do. Leave a review for Famous and Gravy on Apple Podcasts. If you're listening on Apple, you just scroll down on our show page, tap the Stars, and write a few words.

These reviews help feed Apple's algorithm and help new listeners to find our show. The second thing is, if you yourself are interested in starting your own podcast and you wanna learn about how we built Famous and Gravy, we would love to have a conversation. Our email, as always, is hello@famousenggravy.com.

So two things. Please write a review, and if you're fantasizing about your own show, please reach out. That's it. Thanks again. Let's get to it.

Devin: This is Famous Eng Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousenggravy.com. Now here's the quiz to [00:01:00] reveal today's dead celebrity.

Michael: This person died 2005, age 67. At his peak, he reached out in his writing to a generation made cynical by the Vietnam War and Watergate, and that was prepared to respond to his visceral honesty.

Friend: Wow. Okay. So sounds like a writer. No idea. Not

Michael: Norman Mailer. Not Norman Mailer. Good guess. All right. His early work presaged some of the fundamental changes that rocked journalism today.

His approach mirrors the style of modern day bloggers and social commentators who blend news opinion and personal experience on internet postings.

Friend: Okay. Sounds like a journalist. I don't know that I know a lot of these, uh, that one's throwing me off too. All I can think of is Woodward or Bernstein.

Michael: Neither but Woodward nor Bernstein. I think they're actually boast still with us. Yeah. Which I think as of this recording, yeah. Okay. In a 2003 interview with the [00:02:00] Associated Press, he said, fiction is based on reality. Unless you're a fairytale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere.

You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it.

Friend: And I'm a reader. I mean, this is a writer, so obviously I should know who this is, and I feel like I don't. No idea. In terms of who was alive or dead, like I would say Salinger,

Michael: not JD Salinger, but good guess. In 1970, he ran for sheriff in Pickton County of Colorado.

It seemed a joke and another outlandish act until the votes were counted and he came close to winning.

Friend: Oh wow. That has totally thrown me off. Uh oh. I don't, I don't know. I have no idea. No idea.

Michael: Okay. His 1972 book cemented him as a singular presence in American journalism. The book was called Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Friend: Oh, of course, of course. Uh, hunter s Thompson. Hunter Thompson.

Michael: Hunter s Thompson. Today's dead celebrity is Hunter s Thompson. [00:03:00]

Archival: Reading back through all the things that are, not all the things, but an awful lot of the things that you've written and then a lot of things that have been written about you, whether sometimes you weren't a little bit like the, the CIA agents that you, you lived your cover.

I'll give you that one. Yeah. Yeah. Not all the time, but that's not all the time. But I have to, you get a lot of fun out of it, don't you? Oh, if I didn't, I wouldn't do it.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne. And I'm Devin Fromm. And on this show, we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?

Hunter s Thompson died 2005, age 67. Today I am thrilled to be joined by my dear friend Devin Fromm, who is an associate professor at Occidental College. Devin and I go [00:04:00] way back and I have a question for you. Do you remember when you first read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?

Devin: I remember when it came on my radar.

I heard buzz about it like people are, 'cause in school, you know, people in those days got hit. A Hunter Thompson really early and loved him as a, like an image of youthful teery and yeah, and just acting out really, for lack of a better word. And he was a, I guess I could say he was a character in my life before I'd read any of his work.

Michael: That alone says something.

Devin: Yeah. And then I was in the summer after my junior year of high school, I was sort of doing the thing and I was bumming around out west hitchhiking. And I had mentioned to someone I was traveling with at one time that like in reference to this kind of lifestyle, hunter Thompson, and he had said, Ooh, no, that's, that's the joke version of it.

And so then that, I already had that as a counterpoint to the character before I started actually reading his work on my own.

Michael: I mean, I guess that's kind of why I asked the question because I feel like for a certain kind of person, he is a central text at a certain phase of life, somewhere around high school or college.

Devin: Yeah. [00:05:00] Someone our age or older.

Michael: Yeah. But also someone our age prone to a certain amount of mischief or trouble or altered states for that matter. Right. Like he is introduced as a romanticized character. And that book is usually the entry point, which is why I asked the question

Devin: is seminal line. Buy the ticket.

Take the ride, yeah. Speaks very loudly to So anyone of a certain disposition in youth.

Michael: Well, and I mean, the thing I'm really excited to talk about with you, since you are. You're a lot of things, but among other things, literary, dashing, charismatic.

Devin: Go on, let's into that minute.

Michael: I was gonna say, I was gonna say a reader, you know, somebody who reads a lot and is a scholar.

I mean, I, I I think the question of is I did do my

Devin: research for this episode. I'll have you nine. Yeah. I can tell

Michael: people can't see it, but you've got five Hunter s Thompson books.

Devin: Yeah.

Michael: Well, I think the kind of question that I'm interested to get into is, is he important? And I think that there's a question of is he the romanticized figure important?

Which is separate from, is his work important, which I'm, I am very glad to have you to help me sort through that question. I think that is the [00:06:00] ambition of this episode. So

Devin: yeah, thanks. I will say, before I get into that, it's funny that to anyone who might know me or what I do, you inviting me on this podcast made a lot more sense when you said it was about Umberto Echo.

Michael: Yeah.

Devin: I will make up for it by shooting myself out of a cannon at the end of the podcast.

Michael: Thanks. Thanks for playing ball. One last thing before we get started. I do think this episode needs a trigger warning because there's some pretty heavy stuff around him. So if you're with kids or not available to go into deep, dark territory, then maybe this isn't the episode for you.

Let's get right into it. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary, hunter. S Thompson, the Anger driven, drug fueled writer for Rolling Stone Magazine, whose obscenity laced prose broke down the wall between reader and writer, writer and subject shot and killed himself On Sunday at his home in Woody Creek, Colorado.

He was 67. They never do this where they say he shot and killed himself e [00:07:00] every other time there's a death of despair. It is almost usually glossed over, like they'll just say, died at his home. They usually don't call it out like this. This is a shockingly violent way in the first line of the obituary.

And it's kind of the first thing I wanna start with because I, I read into it in keeping with Hunter s Thompson as a violent in your face figure.

Devin: It's funny, it completely blew past me, I guess. 'cause I knew the story and as you say, it's so on brand for him it's almost. Caricature. Right. And so for anyone who doesn't know, one of the most famous images of Hunter Thompson of all time is standing over his typewriter in his front yard firing up 45 into it.

And so the idea that he chose that ending for himself, I just skimmed past it. It doesn't, yeah.

Michael: I mean, he talked about suicide for most of his adult life, and he is a gun nut. This is in some ways the least surprising conclusion to his life, but it is still like to read it this way, shot and killed himself.

Like it was like, wow. But all right, so let's back up and look at the rest of this anger [00:08:00] driven. Is that fair?

Devin: I do think that's fair. Yeah, absolutely.

Michael: Drug fueled, I mean, that was necessary. Absolutely. That is like what we know him for. It's his drugs that, right, right. Would you have put it somewhere differently?

Uh,

Devin: well, it gets complic, so maybe I'll just jump forward and say, I, I landed on eight for this. Is it too early to get in? Because

Michael: No, it's a, it's a little early, but I'm fine with that. Let's hear out your eight and then I'll tell you where I land.

Devin: So my, I landed at eight because I think this does capture for the general public.

This would reflect back to them who they saw as Hunter Thompson,

Michael: anger driven, drug fuel, anger driven,

Devin: drug fueled mag, all this stuff down the line.

Michael: Obscenity laced. There's a lot of hyphens in this. Yeah.

Devin: Guns, you know, like that. Yeah. It's all there. They're painting a picture.

Michael: Totally. You can picture a Ra Ralph Steadman image in your mind as you're reading this.

Devin: It's also funny, this happens with times, well, whoever wrote this couldn't help but try to parody Thompson's writing in the production of it. I kind of like that they do that. So shot and killed. I'd expect it in parentheses. Be like, you sick bastard. Yeah. So all that makes complete sense to me. But I agree that you might wanna start there.

Rage is the predominant. Feature [00:09:00] or righteous indignation, you could call, if you wanna say be a little more generous with the term. He is not just angry at the world, he's angry about specific things for specific reasons. But then I start to lose fervor as we go down the line. So that's when I get to drug fueled.

I, I grant the accuracy of it. But I wonder if leaning into that, we're starting to put the cart before the horse and miss what is important, which would lead back into what my, when the said, well, that's the cartoony character of it. That is only if we see the drugs and alcohol and the madness as the point, which so many high school kids do.

Michael: I did. Well, that's what I, how I came to 'em. Yeah.

Devin: Right. And that's how it was pitched me. But if you, if when I finally read it for myself, it's not really that the drugs are mixed up in it, so it'd be silly not to mention them. But if you say that he's a drugged, crazed, lunatic. I don't think that's what he is or what he started out as, or why he should be famous.

Michael: I don't know. I mean that passage from the first page of fear and Loathing about the suitcase full of drugs,

Archival: we had two bags of grass, 75 pellets of masculine, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, [00:10:00] a salt shaker, half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.

Also a quarter tequila, quarter rum, taste of beer pint, raw ether, two dozen evil. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendencies to push it as far as you can.

Michael: That and the daily

Archival: routine thing about all the drugs he takes throughout the day.

3:00 PM rise, 3 0 5, Shivas regal with morning papers, smokes, Dunhill 3 45 cocaine three 50, another glass of Shivas, another Dunhill 4 0 5. Pm By the way, first cup of coffee in a Dunhill, four 15 cocaine, four 16 orange juice, and another Dunhill four 30 cocaine. 4 54 cocaine, 5 0 5 cocaine, five 11 coffee, Dunhill five 30, get more ice in the Shivas Cocaine at 5 45, 6 o'clock smoking grass.

Take the [00:11:00] edge off the day. 7:00 PM the day, three hours into

Michael: it. Which some of it is a joke, but it is a primary association with

Devin: him. Association, yeah, exactly.

Michael: Character, not work. That's the point you're making.

Devin: Right. And the daily routine is something else because that's, we can get into how serious he's being or how performative,

Michael: so is this where you started to deduct points?

Because I, there's two other things I really want to talk about in this first line of the oed.

Devin: Well, that's where I started to deduct points. I don't object to it. We're drifting off topic is where I, when I got to drug fueled as the second hyphenate, obscenity la, I started to get annoyed. Oh, really? I love his use of obscenity.

Yes, agreed. But we've already hit anger driven and the obscenity is a subset of the anger.

Michael: Mm.

Devin: And so when you say anger driven, and then again another hyphenate, obscenity laced in the same run on sentence, you're doubling down on that. And then we're missing the point because the obscenity was a function of the anger.

And if we're adding it as if its own separate category, we're drifting off what he was doing. The obscenity was a way to communicate the anger that was about [00:12:00] other things.

Michael: Well, okay, I wanna get to this. The last piece of this though, broke down the wall between reader and writer. Writer and subject. What do you come down on that piece of things?

'cause I'm not even sure I understand what they're trying to say.

Devin: Yeah, no. I wrote down here parody of licr nonsense. Okay. And I think at that point the sentence is totally lost me.

Michael: Well, what do you think they are trying? Well, I can't believe you were so generous as to give it a B. You're an easy A how?

What did what? Like what? Well, I said, '

Devin: cause this would communicate in a nutshell who this person is. But if the idea of breaking barriers, changing things. Altering the experience. If that's what you wanna communicate, fine. But exactly is what you're saying. Like what do you think that means? I think nothing

Michael: should they have used the term journalist in here.

That was the other thing. They just say, writer for Rolling Stone, which that sort of implied, but would've thought that his primary professional identity, even if it's Tom Wolf's new journalism or whatever else you call it, I feel like that's actually missing here. He is a figure who needs to be understood.

As a journalist, I sort of wrestle with it because he's so singular and weird that way.

Devin: A lot of his writing later is commentary, [00:13:00] which isn't journalism necessarily.

Michael: All right. I'll give you another omission. The word gonzo's, not in here. It feels like that almost is glaring oversight.

Devin: Drug field writer for Rolling Stone and pioneer of Gonzo journalism.

You're right that that is missing. I think that should have been there. I actually would've liked that more than obscenity, lace prose.

Michael: Alright, are you sticking with your eight?

Devin: It does what it's supposed to do, but I quibble with, it's the points I made.

Michael: All right. Well I'm giving it a six. I really think Gonzo should be in here.

I think that could have gone a different direction. So I'm, I'm doing six on behalf of you so that we land at a, at a solid sea. They pass, but just barely. All right. Category two, five things I love about you here. Devin and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was and how they lived.

I'm dying to hear you lead off here. I feel like you got stuff to say.

Devin: Yeah, sure. So this will allow me to pick off exactly where I left off. 'cause the first thing I had was subtle stylist that I think he's a really good writer and so like I want to, you know, drop the needle there first. That I really like his writing as writing.

If you leave out the profanity and the drug fueled madness and all [00:14:00] the things he's famous for, I think you can just read his writing aloud as good writing in a particular sort of way. He said in a, of all things, in a letter he wrote to a provisional member of the Vietnamese government after the fall of Saigon, he wrote, I'm not an especially good typist, but I am one of the best writers currently using the English language as both a musical instrument and a political weapon.

And I, I love that combination of musical instrument and political weapon I think is really. Apt and the way that works, like the specific cocktail that creates is really special and powerful and worth paying attention to. Especially for what he was trying to do. He, he's such, he's famous to anyone who cares as the sort of bridge writer.

And this, I think came up in the obit as well, coming out of the heyday of the sixties into the cynicism of the seventies or whatever, that he was, he lived in that bridge.

Michael: Yes. He bridged

Devin: between the two, struggling to sort them out and whatever. And

Michael: the, the famous passage in fear and loathing about the wave cresting kind of captures, yeah,

Devin: that's where I'm going.

And that's one of the, I was trying to think of what passage would best exemplify why I think he's a good writer and that most famous of all is a good one. Yeah. But [00:15:00] I think it's specifically, he said elsewhere that part of the problem by the hippie movement fizzled out is it moved forward into the seventies with neither the artistry and aesthetic endeavor of the beat generation.

And without adopting the radical politics of the new left. So you got this vapid middle ground that was neither artistic nor political. And so his attempt to develop a style of writing that is a musical instrument and political weapon exemplifies where that middle ground might have been, what the, like what should have been.

It's both the high and the low point. If you're in loathing in Las Vegas when he is all messed up in his hotel room, looking out at like, how did we get here? We had all the momentum.

Archival: We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west.

And with the right kind of eyes, you can almost see the high watermark, that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Devin: And that beautiful prose has neither [00:16:00] profanity nor drug inducement or any of that stuff, but I think it has the lyrical beats with the political angst and energy and urgency.

That he thinks we needed to inject it into the writing going outta that generation.

Michael: There is this sort of romanticism of the youth movement in the 1960s, this period of hyper idealism that does crash. And if you wanna understand the sentiment and of, of American history and what was happening at the time, he's as good a figure as any.

So what is your thing, number one, exactly.

Devin: Subtle stylist. Not that he's subtle exactly, but that he's not known as being a stylist. And if you go back to his work and think, like, check him out on that level. Like just grab a passage of one of his books at random and don't even worry about what he's writing about.

Just read it aloud. Mm. You'll find some very, very fine writing.

Michael: Well, let's keep going. Let's return to this. All right. I wonder if you'll sign off on this based on what I'm hearing. My thing number two, I said human Guinea pig. This is in a few ways, but the stuff about the drugs in the suitcase, this is more about him as a character than him as a writer.

This is somebody who seems [00:17:00] to test the boundary of what it means to quote unquote handle your drugs or handle your shit. And I find that character very exciting because it almost seems like he's trying to choose the exact right drug for the exact perfect occasion in every waking minute of his life.

And that's cartoonish. It's not real, but I'd like that somebody is trying that experiment. One thing that in the, in the book Gonzo, which it's a biography, but it's passages of oth other people talking about him, it comes up a lot. People are like, it feels absurd to say it, but moderation of his drug use.

I also think I wanted to introduce the word Guinea pig, because pig is gonna come up again.

Devin: His, he just got me there with the pig. This famous at the end of the Kentucky Derby and a in a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile.

Michael: Is that the line? Is that the last line of that? That's great.

Devin: That's the jacket copy he wrote for Fear and Loathing when he sort of explained,

Michael: okay. What do I mean? What do you make of the character? I think that this is how I want to describe him, human Guinea pig. He is somebody who's sort of like experimenting on himself and using his [00:18:00] body and his brain and his mind.

It creates this character that we do have a primary association with all kinds of drugs, and there is a humor to it all that he becomes synonymous with a certain kind of drug user, but not exactly a junkie or addict. It's more like somebody who is right at the edge of somebody who can handle their shit.

You know what I mean?

Devin: Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. I, I do see what you're saying and I guess I do in large part agree because that character is funny to follow around Las Vegas. Yeah. Like when he and his lawyer can't get off the, the carousel bar. Right. Because he won't stop.

Michael: So be clear. Hunter s Thompson is a prick.

I think, I mean, I think that, that he's funny, but I get the sense, especially testimonials from the family and the women in his life. Like this guy's an an asshole in a lot of ways. I think he's also a lot of fun to be around and a partier. Did you not come away from the research with like, he's kind of a dick?

Devin: I have no idea. I I, I've, I know some of the stories you're referring to and of course we, you know, he was accused of assault, which is needs to be noted.

Michael: Yeah,

Devin: it does. Although by a lot of public [00:19:00] standards now in the Post Me Too movement, his, the accusation is mild compared to what other, you know, that he is alleged to have assaulted someone as in like grabbed someone in anger, not in sexuality.

Michael: Right, right, right. But

Devin: so I, I know those stories about him not being

Michael: a gentleman,

Devin: but I would say the one thing I'd add to that, if you read his letters, like his correspondence to his friends, like there's no dickish ness in that.

Michael: I agree with that. There is love and affection and even his son says. I didn't understand it as love and affection until, you know, got older and came to understand my father in a different way.

So I, I want to be careful. I'm not calling him a prick in my thing number two, I'm calling him a human Guinea pig.

Devin: Yeah. So that too, if I can, I don't know, we lost the thread here a little bit. Yeah, a little.

Michael: Let's move on. What do you have for thing number three?

Devin: I, uh, I have a whole bunch of these so I have to decide 'cause there's so many funny, quirky Hunter Thompson, if you can.

Yeah. But I, I, I have outlet rise to the top Al Alpine Peacock Rancher. Okay.

Michael: Okay. Yeah, it's okay. Say more. This is about his, uh, Al Ranch and Aspen Al

Devin: Farm. Al Farm. Thank, he bought after when he, [00:20:00] as soon as he got money for, I think, I guess after the Vegas book probably. But anyway, so he somewhere, I guess, yes, after he took whatever money he had and it was enough to make a down payment on this land.

So he bought a hundred plus acres of ranch land outside of Aspen, downhill from Aspen.

Michael: Before Aspen was Aspen, I mean, when it was a, a more affordable place, it sounds like.

Devin: Yeah. It was really much more rural. Even if Aspen had some sheen to it, as soon as you left there, there wouldn't have been any. And so it was pretty remote and he set up shop there in a little cabin and liked to live the mountain lifestyle.

But rather than having livestock, he raised a lot of peacocks. Yeah. And so you'll hear a lot of stories of him sitting on the front porch, hanging out, watching the peacocks mill around in the yard. I, I, you know, we've come from the mountain west in a way, and imagining sitting on the front porch of a ranch house looking at the rolling hills with a bunch of peacocks fluttering around while you get weird with your friends.

I mean, I can dig it. I'm, I'm, I'm there for that. Yeah. That's a

Michael: nice image. That's a nice image. That's

Devin: what he would go home to when he would leave the madness of whatever he was reported to. Like, yeah, I'm home. Peacocks would be

Michael: who [00:21:00] with full plumage out like, and welcome Hunter. Yeah, that's great. Yes,

Devin: exactly Daddy.

Michael: It's just you gonna,

Devin: you can only imagine. So I just love that I. It's a nice counterpoint to a lot of the other stuff that, that was home to him.

Michael: Yeah. All right. Well, let me go for thing number four. This is kind of personal with you and me. Letter writer. I love his letters. His letters are awesome. You and I, when we left college, we were like, we need to keep up with letters.

Yeah. Which we have completely fucking dropped the ball. Yeah. Before the internet

Devin: ruined everything.

Michael: Yeah. But I, I've got 'em in a box somewhere. You and I actually had some great letter exchanges and I was actually, I'm bringing this up because we kind of need to start doing that again. All I'd like to entertain the idea because there is an art to writing a great letter.

The one that's really famous that he sent to Tom Wolf. I thought I might read a couple excerpts from this. Dear Tom, you worthless, scum, sucking bastard. I just got off your letter from Fairbury 25th from Laraine Hotel in Roma, you swine. Here you are running around fucking Italy in that filthy white suit at a thousand bucks a day laying all kinds of stone gibberish and honky bullshit [00:22:00] on those poor Italians.

He doesn't say Italian, he uses it. Sorry, uh, who can, uh, who can't tell the difference while I'm out here in the middle of these goddamn frozen mountains in a death battle with a tax man and nursing cheap wine while my dogs go hungry and my cars explode, and Allegion of Nazi lawyers makes my life a goddamn wobbly nightmare.

That's the first paragraph. Second paragraph, your decadent pig. And then I'll skip ahead a little bit and then, because he does have this. The reason I came across this is I knew Tom Wolf had said some stuff about Hunter s Thompson as part of his new journalism, and Hunter s Thompson took issue with that.

I'll have your goddamn femurs grounded to bone splinters. If you ever mention my name again in connection with that horrible new journalism shuck, you're promoting, ah, the greed. This malignancy, where will it end? What filthy weight in your soul has made you sink so low? Dr. Bloor was right. Hyenas are taking over the world.

Oh, Jesus. What else can I say? Except to warn you once again that the hammer of justice looms and that your filthy white suit will become a flaming shroud. Sincerely hunter. I mean like I, if I'm Tom Wolf. I'm [00:23:00] delighted to get that letter in the mail. Right. It's, yeah, I'm sure he was. And they, they're friends, right?

Yeah. And that's the thing is that Tom Wolf has stories about like, hunter s Thompsons showing up at dinner with an air horn and like clearing the place out

Devin: there is is him at his most performative. That is, that is a, like a one man show,

Michael: but letters are a good place for that if performative stuff. Yeah,

Devin: totally.

And I, so yeah, I absolutely agree. And I, I'll just say it as a personal note here, going back to, I remember getting a letter from you once that said, I began this with both a beer and a cup of coffee in the table in front of me. 'cause I did, wasn't sure what kind of letter I wanted to write.

Michael: I, I might have been trying to channel somebody in that way.

That was a great,

Devin: yeah, a great, great way to read on

Michael: so, so where are we going with this? Yeah. But strapping in, well I do think that as a thing to love and to. Do this sort of famous and gravy thing and turn it back on us, that there is something that you can express in a letter you cannot express in an email or in a conversation or in a podcast or any other form or modality.

That is fantastic. Sometimes, and even the phrase fear and loathing comes out of a letter that he wrote to, I forget what it was, but [00:24:00] it's when F Kennedy dies. He has this line about there's no human being within 500 miles who I can communicate anything much less the fear and loathing that is on me after today's murder.

That's my number four letter writer.

Devin: Yeah, that's a great one. I, I really like that. Especially going back in the research, reading the letters is some of the most enjoyable stuff to dip back into and it's just seeing his private correspondence.

Michael: Exactly. That's, that's kind of what sparked this. He had a

Devin: long-term friendship with former Colorado Senator Gary Hart, who then, you know, one time presidential candidate Gary Hart was really mad about Hunter Thompson's coverage of the 72 campaign.

And had objected to that book. Thompson writes him a, like a heckling letter at one point asking if he hired his lawyers yet or whatever. Right. And his correspondence turns into being friends because Hunter Thompson was also his constituent as his resident of Colorado. Yeah. And so then there letters go into asking very intricate questions about policy and things like that, and then morph into later friendship and support.

And it's very an interesting arc to read through.

Michael: I saw a documentary that had Jimmy [00:25:00] Carter and Pat Buchanan and McGovern, like very prominent politicians all wanting to weigh in on him. This is not some guy who's to the side. He is a central figure in the politics of the seventies as a journalist, but as a commentator, I think to your bridging point, like he's a more important figure than is maybe remembered and not just a drug adult obscenity laced guy.

Devin: Exactly.

Michael: All right. So what do you got for number five?

Devin: I guess I'll go back to the academics and I really like how he performed or popularized what we now know as the academic discipline of cultural studies. I. Which to put it dryly the idea if you're not familiar with the academic discipline or couldn't define it.

The idea of cultural studies is sort of the, the study of how structures of power operate through social phenomenon.

Michael: Yeah.

Devin: How power and politics function inside the social activities we otherwise take for granted. That grew up through the seventies and became an established discipline. It's now under great attack, of course.

Right. This is where things like critical race theory would come from. But, uh, he was an early public version of that sort of thinking, and I think there's no better example than the Kentucky Derby [00:26:00] piece. You know, he, he conceived at the end, he didn't see the race and says midway through it that we didn't give a hoot in hell about what was happening on the track.

We had come to watch the Real Beasts perform and that idea that this is a social phenomenon that happens every year, but why it happens, how it happens, who these people are, what it all means against the backdrop of the country at this moment. That's the story. He's talking about the audience. He's not talking about the event.

Yeah. If it wasn't clear, the real beasts were right. The Southern gentry who come out for this.

Michael: Right.

Devin: And that is, you know, what we might see, see in academic articles or something like that, this happens every year. Mardi Gras happens, the derby happens, and we do these things, these public rituals, but what do they mean?

What do they come from? What norms do they prop up this sort of critique? It's very useful, very important, emerge as a very necessary part of academic work, and it's typical for Hunter Thompson. He not only is bridge figure, I should say typical for the bridge figure, he was, he not only saw and understood this, he found a way to perform it that met a public appetite rather than being a dry academic article.

He found a way to do this sort of work in a way that was publicly consumable.

Michael: It's entertaining.

Devin: Yeah. And that's another moment where that you could see him [00:27:00] presaging, the modern blogosphere and all the people with vid video or podcast.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Like

Devin: I will get into this and break it down and you'll want to hear it, even though I'm making real points and you know, an urgent topics.

Michael: I mean, that's so interesting. 'cause I had a couple other things here about his origins as a sports writer and a doctor without a degree because he, he never finishes college. I mean, he goes, that was a

Devin: correspondence degree from something like Philosophical Institute or something like

Michael: that. Something like that.

He goes to Florida State for a little bit, but he just becomes a writer. Right. But to your point about laying down the groundwork for an academic discipline, whether or not it was identified at that time or not, there's also a real famous and gravy theme in there of making sense of pop culture. Mm-hmm.

The Kentucky Derby is pop culture. Yeah. And it's significant not because of. The race, it's significant because of what are people rallying around for and why, what does it allow a group to express that ultimately needs to be understood is how does that relate to other power structures across society?

That's what I hear in, in your description. Yeah. Which is, yeah, and that,

Devin: if you remember at the, at the end of that, it's really sobering how it, you [00:28:00] know, it's a funny word to use in his, uh, context of Hunter

Michael: s Thompson.

Devin: Yeah. It says the end, the penultimate piece where the piece really ends is he is driving away with Steadman and he says, you know, I've been thinking about this as Steadman said, we came down here to see this terrible scene.

People all pissed outta their minds and vomiting on themselves and all that. And now you know what? It's us instead of saying like, we are the spectacle. But then it, then it, the paragraph break in huge Pontiac Ballbuster blowing through traffic to the expressway. A radio news bulletin says the National Guard is mastering students at Kent State and Nixon is still bombing Cambodia.

This performance of southern decadence is happening in the middle of a world that is also going forward. Yeah. On fire and its horror show and fear and loathing.

Michael: Yeah.

Devin: And that that sort of making sense of both the power flows and the, uh, absence of responsibility for these kind of things was the real message he drives home, which is a, an interesting place to end up at.

Again, what gets unfortunately popularly processed is a, is a obscenity lace, drug fueled rampage.

Michael: Yeah. There is something much more significant being said, and we're distracted by the personality and the [00:29:00] caricature of the guy who curses a lot and is doing a bunch of drugs.

Devin: Yeah. Especially the way it, it.

Passes through the membrane of popular consumption because if you read it, the piece doesn't let you miss that. When it lands on that, when it ends like snapping back into coherent, almost reporter speak about this is what's happening right now. This is the big picture. This is what's outside the snow globe of this drunken mess.

It leaves you there. So even if you've participated in the binge, you're left holding a book, you know, thinking like, ugh.

Michael: Yeah,

Devin: like massacring students in bombing Cambodia. The writing itself doesn't let you go with that, but, but, but only when people start to talk about it and say, I only remember the drunken hijinks.

Yeah. Do we get that caricature?

Michael: Let's recap five things. So number one, you said subtle stylist. Number two, I went with human Guinea pig. Uh, number three you said alpine? Peacock rancher. Number four. I went with letter writer and number five, public cultural studies.

Devin: Can I add a, uh, honorable mention? You can.

I'll probably cut it out, but Sure. Yeah, that's fine. I was hugely tickled and it's morbid, but that he titled his suicide note. Football season is over. I [00:30:00] just, just, just think as someone who also goes into a subtle ver of mourning, you know, in late winter. I know I be, that's just really, really great. Well, there's nothing left to live for.

Just

Michael: so good. Wow. Okay, let's take a break. Category three, one love. In this category, we will each choose one word or phrase that characterizes this person's loving relationships. First, we will review their family life data. So there are two marriages, one does, and in 1963, hunter was 26. One son Juan Fitzgerald, born in sixty four, one hundred was 27.

The couple divorced in 1980 when Hunter was 43, and he got married again in 2003 to Anita. He was 66 at the time. Remained married to her until his death at 2005. At age 67. So just a year and some change. No kids with Anita. What do you got here? Did you come up with something?

Devin: I went away from that side of it.

Something you mentioned. Okay.

Michael: As we were talking before the recording, I said, you know, you can talk about friendships. Is that where you [00:31:00] went? It is

Devin: where I went. All right, so where'd you go? The one word and I, I, I cheated in the tradition of the New York Times obit and to use the hyphenate. So I said deliverable hang.

Michael: Oh, all right. Because I think he

Devin: showed up reading his letters and accounts. He showed up for his friends and hangers on. Yeah, as the person he was supposed to be.

Michael: Yeah.

Devin: Too often. Unfortunately, it was the Gonzo maniac if you showed up at the farm looking for that. He would give it to you. But more interestingly, like when Gary Hart writes to him in despair after his sex scandals derailed his political campaign, you get very different kind of letters or George McGovern getting through that campaign, or when he offers his services to Jimmy Carter to help get him elected.

He's seems to very carefully show up as the friend that's needed or wanted. That's what I most see in his personal relationships.

Michael: I'm good with that. I did make a quick list of other famous friends, Johnny Dapp, obviously, uh, Jack Nicholson, bill Murray, Don Johnson, Warrens Yon, Tom Wolf, and of course Jimmy Buffet.

Tom Wolf and Jimmy Buffet. Famous and Gravy episodes that people can check [00:32:00] out in

Devin: the archives. Buffet also lived in Aspen for a while, so they were a real, I think Tony Nicholson.

Michael: I think a lot of these people did actually. Awesome. Okay, well, I'll give you my one word. I did go into this marriage, family of life.

I wrote confined pigsty. I want to get back to the pig thing here because I, he uses the word swine. I feel like we need to revive that word. I don't call people swine often enough. It comes up a lot. It's an insult. He flings around.

Devin: Yeah. To the point that it becomes a. Affected. I'm afraid.

Michael: Well, maybe I don't I, but do you hear that word thrown around?

Maybe just enough. I'm saying. I'm saying that it's a great insult and I wish we had it. I do think it is an awfully messy home. I think that when it comes to his relationships with women, he is something of a pig. He's also very smart. Pigs are very smart animals. And, 'cause I'm trying to draw out the metaphor.

I went into some of the behavioral challenges that arise when pigs are in confinement. You're a vegetarian these days in part because of the kind of animal welfare qualities of it. And you've gotten on my case before for eating bacon

Devin: [00:33:00] appropriately.

Michael: Yeah. Okay. In confined settings such as commercial farms, swine there, it's starting now.

Yeah. Right. In confined settings such as commercial farms, pigs may display increased aggression, especially when unfamiliar individuals are mixed. This can lead to stress and tail biting. Pigs are also, for what it's worth to your point about friendship, they're very loyal animals. They form strong bonds with their pig companions and, and often their caregivers.

They seek comfort from, uh, familiar individuals when stressed and have been known to exhibit protective behaviors towards members of their social group.

Devin: Yeah. Have you never befriended a pig? Or swine, if you will.

Michael: I think I am honestly, uh, right, right now. But no, I mean

Devin: point take. I'm taking that as a compliment.

Michael: Alright, so confined Pty. Let's move on. Category four, net worth. In this category, Devin and I are each gonna write down our numbers ahead of time. Then we will talk a little [00:34:00] bit about our reasoning, and we will finally look up the net worth number in real time to see who's closest. Lastly, we'll place this person on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard.

His commercial peak and the bestselling books like Fear and Loathing is the number one. And I think while he is still profitable in his publishing, his work deteriorates after the seventies and into the eighties and nineties. So I steer towards a lower number.

Devin: I steer towards a very low number. Right.

All

Michael: right, well, Devin Fromm wrote down $0. Michael Osborne wrote down 2 million. All right. The actual net worth is $5 million. I think that's probably mostly the value of the Colorado property. You went with zero. You thought he died with nothing. Did you wanna speak to it more?

Devin: Yeah, I mean, I'm not totally confident or the zero, I'm giving that as a more of a performative number.

Yeah. But I would think for a lot of the reasons you said he was not a, a high output guy. He did famous stuff and then really crashed and burned. He must have made some money out of the two major studio movies as he worked. I [00:35:00] think

Michael: he's very involved. And I also did wonder if there were speaking fees.

You know, I don't know that he, but he wasn't doing

Devin: in late later years. He didn't do a lot of that.

Michael: No. And even his interviews are hard to listen to. He always mumbled, but like it gets pretty bad, you know, after 1980, he's not an easy voice to hear out.

Devin: And I would think, 'cause he, he lived kind of wildly.

And he had, you know, an, an expensive property to keep up. I mean, it's worth a lot of money. You're quite right about that. But he, yeah, they don't maintain themselves. And so I could see him as someone who's in debt or highly leveraged. And so the point is, whatever he had is, has gotta be offset by obligations, commitments, et cetera.

Michael: I agree. But I do think that he's also on people's case about money too, he doesn't, like money is not an afterthought to him. He will hound people for cash. You know,

Devin: one of his letters that in the shows of the collector where he is one, he included when he returned a sleeping bag to a mail order company saying it was not as good a value as he could find at the sports store in Aspen.

Right.

Michael: All right. Before we move on, let's put him on the famous and gravy net worth leaderboard.

Devin: You see that his funeral costs $3 million. [00:36:00]

Michael: Yeah. And actually we should speak to the funeral. He did actually fire his ashes out of a cannon.

Devin: Yeah,

Michael: right. I said that at

Devin: the top. I was not coming from nowhere. I won't actually be doing that, I don't think.

Michael: Alright, so at $5 million, he is in the 98th percentile. This is the bottom of the barrel for a famous Eng Gravy, other famous Eng Gravy alums with $5 million. This is a good list. He is in the company with Yogi Berra. Fred Willard. Joan Didion, another new journalist, Paul Rubins, Peewee Herman, and finally Oliver Sachs.

Huh? That's a dinner table I wanna sit at. Yeah, yeah. No, I like

Devin: that better than, yeah, definitely I would. I would hang, uh,

Michael: yes. Are you kidding? That's the fun table. Peewee and Oliver Sacks and Hunter Thompson. And Joe Didion Hilton and Fred Willard. Yeah. And I mean, and Yogi Berra for as far as basically, yeah.

Yeah, right. Yogi Ber. Yeah.

Devin: When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Michael: Yeah. That's a great,

Devin: that's my favorite Yogi Berra.

Michael: That's really good. All right, let's move on. Category five, little Lebowski Urban Achievers.

Devin: They're the Little

Friend: Lebowski urban achievers. Shit. Yeah. The [00:37:00] achievers, yes. And proud. We are, of all of them.

Michael: In this category, we choose an a trophy, an award, a cameo, an impersonation, or some other form of hat tip that shows a different side of this person. I'll tell you what I went. There's a a Conan O'Brien episode where Conan goes to the owl farm and there are firing automatic weapons together. One, it's kind of like unsettling to see Conan with automatic weapons.

He just doesn't look comfortable with them, but they're firing at a teddy bear and a cutout of Bill Buckner, which is also an episode of Famous and Gravy.

Archival: I can cut Bill Buckner down with this machine gun. We're gonna go in close for that. That's, these are the strangest conversations I believe I've had in a while.

Whoa. Good shot, man. Excellent. I gotta get that. Bear the bear. Go for it. Get the bear. Very good. I like the safety guy just said, move your whiskey before you start shooting.

Michael: I'm not a firearms guy. I definitely have friends who are like Hunter s Thompson, [00:38:00] where their politics is in one place, but their relationship to guns and firearms is in a surprisingly different place.

I kind of like the idea of going to the farm and I like seeing Conan with Hunter. So that's my little,

Devin: yeah, that sounds cool. And I, I hear like as someone who. Yeah. Has politics different from some of the places I've lived. I have fired many a weapon on many a ranch property. Alright, where'd you go? Here?

I went, uh, yeah, slightly different direction in the Almost Meta and I went with also a shout out to fellow Occidental alum, Terry Gilliad.

Michael: Oh, nice. Director of Fear and Loathing and, and the one American on the Mon Python team

Devin: and directed many other things. He was also the writer of the Fear and Loathing movie and did a lot of work on that film and it really grasped and packaged Hunter Thompson almost better than Thompson himself.

I think he really, almost everything we've. Covered, and we've talked out and found a way to get to as we've been doing this today is in that movie because Gim completely got it already.

Michael: So it, I mean, should people go back and watch that movie? I actually, you know, I only watched clips and getting ready for this.

Like, is it a [00:39:00] text that captures what is important? That monologue we were talking about earlier about the wave cresting. I do remember that vividly in the movie. The other memory I have of that movie is that it captures the experience of being on psychedelics better than any other movie I've ever seen.

Devin: Yeah. Before I answer your question, part of where I'm going with it, it captures so much nicely because you're right, like the wave scene, Gillian understands Thompson's work well enough to let it speak for itself or necessary. So in that moment when the wave scene comes up. Johnny Depp literally reads it aloud, whereas there are other times when lines we associate with Hunter Thompson's work are just written by Gillian himself into the script.

And there's one I I quoted all the time and did not realize was not Thompson himself until I reread the book for this. When he is in the movie, when saying goodbye to his lawyer and said,

Archival: there he goes. One of God's own prototypes, a high powered mutant of some kind, never even considered for mass production.

Too weird to live and too rare to die.

Devin: That is not in the novel.

Michael: Is that right? I [00:40:00] always thought it was.

Devin: I did too. And if you ask the internet, you'll get that as a Thompson quote, but it is not. Gillian wrote that in the screenplay. Well, I'll be damned. Things that capture what he was doing, even when Thompson didn't write the words himself and then other times captures sort of the horror and the despair of it in a way that doesn't, to quote Thompson himself with the right kind of eyes.

You can see it in the writing. Yeah. But like the nadir of the diner scene where the Ra Duke's character takes a, a piece of pie and slinks out and just how like sad and off the rails that's all gotten and everything that's gone wrong with the sixties. It's there in the text, but it's not amplified and given color the way that Terry Gilliam does.

So he gets the whole package so perfectly. Like Yeah, the ultimate meta hat tip that like I see you. And I can double down on it and, and, and broadcast out what it is. But going back, whether we should go, I, the movie is sort of dangerous again, because if you don't have the right kind of eyes, if you're not paying attention, you might just see the drug escapade.

A certain kind of younger person appreciates that for that. But if you only get it as that, I think we're back to the times obituary, you're not seeing what's [00:41:00] really there.

Michael: One of the things that I think you're pointing out that you're right, like if you wanna understand Hunter s Thompson, don't watch him in a movie.

Don't watch him in an interview. Don't listen to a podcast about him. Read him. Like really read him like he needs to be read. And to your first line of the obit point, we need to draw him out more as writer, author, journalist, what whatever points people to the text. Because in as much as there's a contribution and a legacy, that's where you're gonna find it.

Not in the caricature, not in the Ralph Steadman pictures, not in the performances, in the movie. I mean, is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Okay. You could say you're welcome if you need to. Yeah, yeah.

Devin: We, we, we'll work up to it. Yeah. I think with reading then the movie comes alive and right. I'd be curious to know.

Understanding the primary

Michael: text is, is that, that, that's all. I mean, it's not to say those other things are not valuable, but that if you don't have that as your foundation in bedrock, then you're missing critical elements here.

Devin: Yeah, that's right. I'll try this sometime and assign students to watch it and tell me what they think, like what do you see if you [00:42:00] come with nothing.

Michael: Do a little a b testing and see Yeah. To the,

Devin: yeah, yeah. Some of you watch this, some of you watch a blank wall and we'll discuss, you know, placebo

Michael: or take or take five dried grams and see where we go. All right. Let's take one more break. Okay. Category six words to Live by. In this category, Devin and I will each choose a quote.

These are either words that came out of this person's mouth or was said about them. We've brought up a lot of his quotes and text. What did you go with here?

Devin: Yeah, so I went with some of his writing that I actually do use in my classes all the time when I'm finding out that no one knows who this person is and contin doubling down on the theme as a writer because I think he's not only a good writer, he understands writing and is very useful as an object lesson of how writing works, how a writer operates, where tho writes about the process of writing and he begins, one of the few ways I can almost be certain I'll understand something is by sitting down and writing about it.

Because by forcing yourself to write about it and putting it down in words, you can't avoid having your say on the subject. You might be wrong, but you have to think about it very intensely to [00:43:00] write about it. I find that by putting things in writing, I can understand them and see them a little more objectively.

For words are merely tools, and if you use the right ones, you can actually put even your life in order if you don't lie to yourself or use the wrong words. Jesus, Stephen. That's really good. Yeah, that's great. Well, thank you. Yeah.

Michael: You clearly care more about this category than the net worth category, but yeah.

Yes, that's

Devin: accurate. But yeah, I think as a single statement, that's very well said about what writing is ultimately for. And as someone who teaches a lot of writing, I find you try to get past one that this is some task, like learning multiplication tables or something you wanna pick up that really writing is conduit for understanding and projecting.

Michael: No, I, I, I didn't introduce you as Dr. Fromm, and of course you didn't introduce me as Dr. Osborne. Doctor. Doctor, doctor. Glad I'm not

Devin: sick.

Michael: Uh, right. Not those kinds of doctors. But I, I don't know if I ever told you, I had a committee member who, uh, you know, was writing my dissertation and he told me to write the first draft of my dissertation longhand.

He said, there's something about the magic [00:44:00] to pen, to paper that forces you to slow down your thinking and organize your thoughts. And I. I hated doing it and I didn't do it for the whole thing, but for the introduction I did. And the first draft is strong. For that reason. I had to get into my PhD before I was ever introduced to this idea of writing to think, not writing to complete a task or writing to publish or to get attention or whatever, but actually as a mental exercise to sort out my own thoughts.

It's interesting that words in my head exist in an invisible way. They're not actually real until they exist on a page somewhere and until they're brought into the physical universe. And there is something, you know, magic about that. And that's what I hear in that quote.

Devin: Yeah, totally. 'cause then when you write them down, they exist in relation to one another rather than in the ephemeral stream of your messy consciousness.

Well put, then you start seeing the relationships and internalizing that. So, and I asked it as an exercise. Just read something, look at something and write down what it is.

Michael: Yeah, and

Devin: forcing yourself to describe it. You make decisions you process in that. [00:45:00] So I really like that as the digestion. And then the second half of that is the outgoing part about, you can even put your life in order.

This idea that if you learn to write well, like if you develop yourself as a writer, really what you are doing, I should say, is taking on the responsibility of telling your own story.

Michael: Sense. Making, yes, an autobiography.

Devin: So you wanna digest going in, but you also wanna organize going out. And so you can tell your own story, don't leave your story to someone else.

You put the right words in the right order and tell it in your own way. And that's what writing is ultimately for. And Thompson is very clear about it in a way that, you know, again, the drug, adult profanity, lid, riddled of maniac. It's not that. And I also think that that's a side bit. I also, what I was attempting when I first started bringing 'em up to students is this idea of explaining what writing is and marrying that to individual personality.

And so you can be who you are and still write for you, write well, but write for you, not for some imaginary, bland, academic ideal. That writing is a toolbox, it's a craft. And so even someone like Hunter Thompson, who's famous for being a wreck and a maniac. I actually had to sit down and write clearly so that you could have that picture of him as such.

Yeah, it's an important irony. [00:46:00]

Michael: Yeah, it is. Well, and especially one that all, but leaves him in the later stages of his life. But it's, but yeah, nevertheless, words to live by. Yeah. What do

Devin: you have?

Michael: Politics is the art of controlling your environment and that's it. Politics is the art of controlling your environment.

This is associated with the 1973 book, fear and Loathing on the campaign Trail 72. What I hear in that is one, he is, I, I think that something that's interesting about him, I mean, he is addicted to political coverage in the seventies. I mean, he really enjoys the experience of being a political journalist, the art of controlling your environment.

I had never thought of it. That way before, if you are able to manipulate the story and the environmental context in which a story is told that you can get away with a lot. And I think we see that in a lot of different places. I think it's just a, a helpful framing of how politics works. And we haven't talked at all about his run for sheriff in 1970 in Aspen, but I think that that was an instructive experience for him and he gained [00:47:00] close to winning.

And I, I had always understood that as a prank and the more I looked at that campaign, I think that there was an element of seriousness to it.

Devin: Oh yeah. I had that as a candidate on my, things I like about you. Some of his thoughts on civic administration. Totally like his. Wanted to replace streets with grass walking malls and pass a local ordinance that you couldn't build higher than would obscure the mountain line

Michael: rename Aspen into fat cities to gear off the real estate investors.

Devin: Yeah. Somebody tried that here in LA when, uh, developers priced all the artists outta the arts district. Someone petitioned to have it renamed douche bag alley, which I really was one reminds me of that. And two, I would wish would happen 'cause that would just be great.

Michael: Where do you live? I'm in douchebag alley.

God, that'd be rough. That's right. That's remind me. Yeah, totally.

Devin: It's on the map. I'm not kidding.

Michael: Shout out to Brent. Anyway, so, yeah. Uh, okay, let's move on. Category seven, man in the Mirror. Fairly simple. Did this person like their reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of [00:48:00] self-confidence, first, self-judgment.

I suspect you are out of your comfort zone on this one. So I'll let you start.

Devin: Yeah. I am entirely outta my, you said it's fairly simple and I don't, you don't find this simple

Michael: at all. Yeah.

Devin: I think what makes it hard for him, as he appears to us to have lived his life in two distinct. Chapters like the coming up and the going down, coming up part.

I think the answer is there clearly. Yes. He's incredibly self-confident and he believes in himself. I mean, to a ridiculous extent that his flagrant disregard for authority through his whole life. He was discharged from the army saying he was unresponsive to authority or something like that. From the Navy?

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh no, I'm sorry. Air Force. Yeah,

Devin: air Force, right. Yeah. So there's that. And, and the index of this I find most compelling is he started keeping carbon copies of every letter he wrote when he was like 20 long before he was famous. So he was quite confident that he would be famous and people would want his letters later.

Totally.

Michael: Yeah.

Devin: And this sort, so there, that person was in love with their reflection and not in a narcissistic way, but the person he saw in the mirror was a world historical figure of. Import and respect. But in the later half of his life, I think that changes and we see that as he [00:49:00] becomes a caricature of himself, he gets very displeased with the caricature he sees in the mirror, and he is on the record about that.

It comes up in the obituary how he didn't like being cartooned in dunes berry, and so that person he didn't like looking at in the mirror, but couldn't get away from it either. So. So

Michael: you,

Devin: I don't know, how did you answer

Michael: this? I I, I'm actually very much on the fence. I see your point. I think that there is a, a sort of like unusual level of self-confidence and self-assuredness when people on interviews ask the question, is there a waste of talent?

Or did you do too many drugs and should you have been something more? It's like not even a consideration in, in a way. And so some of how I'm looking at this question is through that prism. His wife calls him a narcissist. I think we throw around that word a little too easily these days, but I wonder about it.

One thing that feels like a lot of people say about him is that he almost becomes trapped by this character. He himself sort of alludes to that. That's kind weird to me that you create a character that you can't get away from. Like, I'm sure there's other examples of that. Even Peewee Herman Paul Rubins, and this is the way celebrity operates a lot, is that if [00:50:00] you're on a TV show where there you become associated with a singular character, litter Des Mo and Spock, or Jason Alexander and George Castanza or whatever, I mean, you could increase the list at infinitum.

I think that if you feel trapped by that. Particular kind of character, how does that play out in this question? Overall, how would what? What did I come to? 'cause I want to give an answer so we can move on in this category. It's really quite simple. I think let's talk about

Devin: for 20 minutes and not get an answer.

Michael: I wonder about his capacity for shame and self-reflection and I guess I default to, no, he doesn't like his reflection because he's a little too smart to not be aware of some of the damage he's causing and that to not glimpse his own inner darkness in a way that leaves him unsettled. I also think, frankly, it is evident in somebody who fantasizes and then the suicide is a telltale sign.

Not that I just wanna slap on this label because anybody who dies of death of despair, I'm gonna go that direction. But I think on balance, the [00:51:00] preponderance of evidence to me suggests no, he does not like his reflection in the mirror. He embodies an inner conflict that we're using here as an exercise to understand ourselves.

Devin: Yeah, and I think that makes sense If, if you say. You know, when he pulls that trigger, the answer is no. Yeah. But like when he set for that interview in 1975, does he like what he's seeing on the screen? I think the answer there would be yes.

Michael: Last thought on this, I do think it's in kind of incredible that he made it to 67.

He thinks it's incredible. He made it to 67. Yeah. He

Devin: said, I've lived 17 more years than I wanted.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. Take him at his word there. All right, let's move on. Category eight, cocktail coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most wanna do with our dead celebrity.

Devin: Yeah. Well, this is dead easy for me and not even that interesting.

It's cocktail for me, particularly beer, I mean for all the, you know, the drug out, but all that stuff, all that character we're talking about. The thing that comes up the most often is having beers on his porch in his letters constantly. He even ends the jacket copy of introducing fear and loathing that like, I've had enough of this.

I'm gonna go sit naked on the front porch for a while, and [00:52:00] entertaining friends, whether in the nude or not, you know, as peacocks wander around and he talks about the sun setting high above the mountain behind him. And just like that, I, I want in on that. In a letter to Gary Hardt, he says, well, I actually wrote this quote down.

He said, save all that talk about no more heroes until we have more time. Like 16 straight hours on my porch with a case of beer. And for all the madness of his work. That slow unfolding of conversation. And in the moment time, yeah, up in the mountains of Al Farm. I went in on that.

Michael: I basically went the exact same direction.

I went for something a little bit harder. I was thinking tequila. 'cause I want to get in some fucking trouble here. I wanna do something stupid. You

Devin: know? And, and I, I, well, 16 hours of drinking beer, I mean, give us credit in this imagin scenario. I think we could,

Michael: it just sounds exhausting to me now. I need a nap.

Are you kidding me? I mean, so that's why I'm sort of like, let's get some rocket fuel here. That's tequila I always got in trouble with. And I, I do like the idea of having a, on the way down

Devin: here this morning, I, anyway,

Michael: I like the idea of having a. Hunter s Thompson's story, uh, for all of the darkness that I see in him and for [00:53:00] all of the degeneration as he ages, there is a part of me that is still attracted to the Hunter s Thompson lifestyle.

Yeah. As it's caricatured like that still looks fun on some level, and I think I wanna be taken to the edge so that I can discover myself, you know? Yeah. And, and I mean, I feel like he is interested in the edge of madness and of darkness.

Devin: Yeah. That quote to fear of loathing is a quote from Dr. Johnson Is, Hugh makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.

And that's an interesting to like what losing it and going to the edge and what we're actually talking about when we do that. Yeah. Which think in a way unites our two things. I hear what you're saying about buy the ticket, take the ride Right. At the same time. And for all of that, and I do, I, I agree with what you just said.

I'm still drawn to that in my later years that you feel madness of, you know, no such thing as too much.

Michael: All right. I think we've arrived. The final category, the VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said in varsity blues, I don't want your life in that varsity blue scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on just a few characteristics.[00:54:00]

So here, Devon and I. Will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how Hunter s Thompson lived. It's become customary to start with a counter argument for why you do not want this life. I do think that there is some pain in the interpersonal relationships and why we don't have all the information. I think that it took some real work for the people who were close to him to make peace.

I think there's damage done. The other thing I would say is I hadn't thought about it until you and I sat down to talk about it. There is a kind of unfortunate consequence of the caricature created. That is the thing that's more remembered than the literary contribution, than the intellect. We sort of more remembered the obscene lace drug adult figure than we do the mine and, and that, and that's unfortunate.

Devin: Yeah, to totally agree. And I think you, you could have added sort of physical degradation too. Like he ran down his body. What reason why one might not take this path? Through life. There's other famous line, I would never recommend drugs, alcohol, and insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me [00:55:00]

Michael: to a point.

Yeah.

Devin: So all those things, but I think the last thing you said was, is the most important there that he got so trapped inside this caricature I. That it not only personally wounded him, but it compromised his work. I would've really liked to have seen how his work would function if he'd survived to be a more composed elder statesman.

Talking about what it was all about.

Michael: Yeah. What

Devin: it was for, like William Burroughs made it to this last chapter of life in a really interesting way To see a suit and tie wearing old man like grandfatherly looking burrows talk about his earlier writing was really a useful way to close the loop. And I'm sorry we didn't get that from

Michael: Yeah, I mean, at times on Famous Eng, gravely have talked about an upward staircase journey, and I don't see an upward staircase journey here.

I see a degradation in a petering out. It would've been nice to see a different chapter. Okay. Those are the counter arguments. So let's mount the argument. Why would you want this life? What is the case for

Devin: Yeah. I just first wanted, because we, we talked about this a little when you were walking me through what we're gonna do, I wanna make.

Just clear that I'm speaking from the perspective [00:56:00] of why I want this life in our world. I'm not saying why I'd wanna adopt this life as my own.

Michael: Well, that's fine. The way to think about this category is that we are court appointed public offenders here to present a good faith argument for why there is desirability inside or out.

So I can understand why you want this life in the world and why we want this figure to have existed, but, you know, go a little bit more inside if you can.

Devin: I mean, I do wanna live at a a hundred acre spread in the mountains with my peacocks

Michael: that, I mean, I, well, I, I think you could pile on, I think the lifestyle ain't all bad.

I mean, I, I think the idea that you have this place in the mountains with scenic beauty and that you have interesting friends and late night conversations and, you know,

Devin: yeah. It's essentially like a hillbilly salon where people totally just come by and rap about stuff,

Michael: but an intellectually interesting one.

Devin: Well, that's what salon means. In the old fashioned sense. I don't mean a hairdresser.

Michael: That's what I was thinking. Sorry, I got a little tied up on that. As a bald man, I haven't been to a salon in a long time. Um, so and neither sense of

Devin: the word,

Michael: apparently. Well, I, [00:57:00] okay, okay. Moving on. So, no, I, I do think that drugs are, no drugs, Coke or no coke, booze or no booze.

Whatever the hell else he's got on offer. Yeah. This would be an interesting hang. I mean, it's sort of to your thing about

Devin: deliverable hang,

Michael: deliverable, hang. I mean, I, that, that's reason I want to have fun. I want to have dialogue. I want to have conversation. I want to do it in a cool place and you, yeah.

You know, I wanna show up for

Devin: my friends.

Michael: Exactly. I wanna show up for my friends. So that's thing number one. I'll go thing number two, symbol of freedom. Whatever else you make of Hunter s Thompson. There is a self-determined life here, like at an extreme. Yes, at some point he may becomes somewhat imprisoned or entrapped by this persona that he creates.

But to have even created in the first place is a statement about what is possible in terms of being the author of your own destiny in your own life. And I think that he does it as an interesting bridge character who emerges at a moment where the question of what is freedom is very much under consideration.

Devin: Yeah. And I'll double, I wrote that down model for channeling [00:58:00] youthful energy in both its destructive and constructive elements. 'cause another thing I was, I would say, and I have to be careful with this, is sociopolitical disruptor to disrupt. Our sense of things and maybe make normal strange to the point where we look at it as not normal or taken for granted.

I think that sort of work is really useful and should be done more often. It's kinda your point number five

Michael: of, of, yeah,

Devin: yeah. Mystifying, demystifying or making strange, unsettling the norms to the point where we can question them and work on them. I think that sort of work is important and urgently necessary.

Michael: I think we just need a different word for the same idea. 'cause I completely agree. We need somebody to knock us off a certain pattern or way of thinking and to question through some introduction of disorder.

Devin: Yeah, it's, and that's a lot of, I said at one point he was a political surrealist that when he goes in this strange, this performing, this visualization of a certain problem or certain ways of being, and the constructive element of that is to make us look at the way we live.

To say that sort of what we're doing now, should we be living like this, which is not done as a mean-spirited thing. And I think [00:59:00] this is, we'll get into contrast in with someone like. Joan Didion, who you guys mentioned in your part about it as a bubble popper. Yeah. I always thought there's one reason I don't like her work is she, and she pops the bubble and then snes.

Whereas I think Hunter Thompson is always trying to say if this is wrong, the Kentucky Derby, like what should we be doing instead? What makes it wrong? And if we identify the problem, then can we move to a solution, not just say, yeah, look, you guys are idiots. They're like, no. Like maybe this is wrong. But that admission allows us to steer elsewhere.

Michael: It it points to to reconstruction. Reconstruction

Devin: and seeing the wave break it, roll back. It does not mean the wave was stupid. It means we want to think about where did we go wrong? How can we salvage or rediscover it at all? The what made it feel right in the first place.

Michael: I'm not used to you being such an optimist.

I like, I like that. I think that's important. Okay. Let's recap the arguments for why you would want this life. Number one, the lifestyle, especially the setting, but the salon.

Devin: Nice

Michael: two. Number two, I said, uh, symbol of freedom in a self-determined life. And number three, we went back to the point you made earlier about a kind of cultural critic.

And then [01:00:00] number four, message of hope and an opportunity to take apart in question so that we can reconstruct and build something more.

Devin: Yeah, never ending self-improvement as a society.

Michael: So with that, James VanDerBeek, I am Hunter s Thompson, and you want my life?

Before we end, if you enjoyed this episode of Famous Eng Gravy and you've got your phone in your hand, send it to a friend. Share it with somebody who you think might enjoy this interpretation of Hunter s Thompson's life. All right, Devin plugs for past shows. If people enjoyed this episode of Hunter s Thompson, what else might they enjoy from our archives?

Devin: Yeah, this is, this just jumped off for me, the Joan Didion episode. I think for, for a variety of reasons. One, it is a natural pair with this. Yeah. Uh, I also say on a personal level, I really enjoyed that show. I thought that was really Oh, thank you. Pleasant to listen to. Yeah. And it's higher praise than you might realize.

'cause I don't like Joan Diddy or work, I don't mean it. Like, I had never enjoyed reading her work. Yeah. That being said, I, I enjoyed hearing you [01:01:00] guys talk about it to the point that it actually made me go back and like, look at some of her work again, pull it off the shelf and reread some of it because yeah, your talk about it was more interesting than any experience I'd had with it on my own.

So

Michael: I love it. All right. Well, thanks. All right. Episode 1 0 2, magical Thinker, Joan Didion. I'm gonna pull one that has nothing to do with, uh, hunter s Thompson at all. Fred Willard number, uh, episode 58. Best in Show. He's just, he's such like at our low rent dinner

Devin: party,

Michael: at our low rent dinner party, there's a, a voice of humor that I think that he is sort of more omnipresent and more legacy and impact than I think people remember.

So, episode 58, best in Show. Fred Willer. Here is little preview for the next episode of Famous and Gravy. She once said, quote, it's hard to make anyone understand what it's like to have your name on something to be given credit for things you haven't done. I've been at meetings where someone turned and thanked me and I hugged the person and said, don't thank me.

Thank yourself. You're the one who did it with God's help. End quote. I love the quote, but I have no idea. Famous and Gravy [01:02:00] listeners, we'd love hearing from you. If you wanna reach out with a comment question or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels.

Famous and Gravy is created and co-hosted by Amma Kippur and me, Michael Osborne. Thank you so much to Dr. Devin Rom for stepping in this episode. It was produced by Evan Scherer, with Production Assistant by Jacob Weiss. Original music by Kevin Strang. Thanks and see you next time.