Retype It

I’ve been reading Jann Wenner’s “oral biography” of Hunter S. Thompson’s life, Gonzo, which Little, Brown put out in 2007. While not drawing much on the Rolling Stone founder’s intimate experience of the Hurricane Hunter from their many years working together (perhaps he couldn’t remember many details given the … ahh … chemistry between the two), the book does contain some interesting anecdotes and reflections from people who knew the Gonzo journalist – going all the way back to his youthful days haunting Louisville’s Cherokee Park.

One of the remembrances that particularly struck me was from Porter Bibb (gotta love these old Southern names), a teenage friend of Thompson’s who recalled how the aspiring writer would methodically retype prose selections from F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. While Bibb thought this was silly and pretentious, Thompson reasoned that it was a good way to get a sense of how it felt to write those sublime words.

Now that’s not something that I ever considered doing as a writer, but it makes sense to me. It seems like an effective exercise to get a feel for the particular nuance and flow of a master’s writing – from the writer’s perspective, as opposed to the reader’s. There is something to be said for the forced deceleration of writing out each word, rather than just reading it – seeing those words reveal themselves on the page as a result of the action of your fingers. It’s analogous to a musician tirelessly practicing the riffs of a favorite record – and, in so doing, honing skills and absorbing a style that, ultimately, are transmuted into something more personal and original.

And H.S.T. was certainly an original – in both prose and personality. That said, you can readily see the influences of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his writing – particularly the more (ironically) lucid writing of his heyday.

Now That Would’ve Been Something!

In my reading about the state of the media industry (critical perspectives on how we got where we are today and myriad hypotheses on how we might find our way to a new sustainable model), I came across this interesting Market Watch column on The Wall Street Journal’s site. In it writer Jon Friedman discusses the state of the newspaper business and interviews San Francisco Chronicle and Hearst Newspaper Co. editor-at-large Phil Bronstein.

While there are some interesting, if not entirely new, points raised through the course of the column, what I found most interesting was Bronstein’s tale of how in 1994, as the executive editor of the San Francisco Examiner, he attempted to hire renowned gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson to cover the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

Imagine that! Thompson would’ve had an absolute field day with that one. He had gone to town covering the Pulitzer divorce trial that rocked Palm Beach in the early 1980s for Rolling Stone (lots of skeletons shakin’ out of socialites’ closets in that one). One can only begin to imagine the scathing wit and satire Dr. Gonzo could’ve applied to the O.J. debacle – the camera-hungry attorneys, the L.A. police dept., the Brentwood celebrity crowd, the delusionally-egotistical-and-not-so-smart former athlete ... the whole lot! HST was a master of social commentary, after all; the more twisted the better.

Bronstein had somewhat of an “in” to hook the good doctor for the assignment because Thompson had recently been writing a regular (well ... frequent, not much regular about HST) column for the Examiner.

During the negotiations between writer and editor, HST had the cojones to demand a satellite dish, two suites at the Chateau Marmont (long L.A.’s notoriously decadent playground to wanton stars of all pursuits and persuasions), and, last but not least, an unlimited expense account! Alas, the poor (literally) Examiner didn’t stand a chance. Thompson wouldn’t cave. He didn’t need the gig and he had nothing more to prove to anybody.

Maybe it’s better that it didn’t happen. By the 1990s HST had, for the most part, become a parody of himself. Like many great talents and artists, he failed to rise above his own best clichés ... instead resorting to simply replaying them with different names and places. I prefer to remember him fearing and loathing what he saw in Las Vegas and haranguing Nixon until he left D.C. with his tail between his legs.

Res ispa loquitur.