While enduring this bleak reality, a twenty-two year old Hunter Thompson began writing The Rum Diary. Thirty-eight years later, he finished the novel in the summer of 1998, as you can witness here in Episode Three of The Rum Diary Back-Story.

Hunter’s 1960 letter pleading for help continues:

“I can’t even get to people. I don’t know where they are. I am 13 miles from San Juan in a negro community and not a goat-sucking soul speaks English. I must have FOOD. The swine seems to think that I am above eating. Jesus ate – why can’t I? Oh God give me the strength to dump in their eyes.”

Hunter had hope for more than starvation in Puerto Rico. In 1959, he saw an ad in Editor & Publisher for a sports editor position at the San Juan Star – an English language daily somewhat like that depicted in The Rum Diary. But, his cheeky letter applying for the job was rejected by the editor – William Kennedy, who would later win the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Ironweed. Hunter’s reply to Kennedy was classic Gonzo:

“your letter was cute my friend, and your interpretation of my letter was beautifully typical of the cretin-intellect responsible for the dry-rot of the American press. But don’t think that an invitation from you will keep me from getting down that way, and when I do remind me to first kick your teeth out and then jam a bronze plaque far into your small intestine.” HST letter to William Kennedy, August 30, 1959

After being rejected by the San Juan Star, Hunter applied for a job at the Puerto Rico Bowling News and was rejected. Determined to get to Puerto Rico, he applied to a new English language weekly bowling publication – El Sportivo – and was accepted. Only a few months after he arrived in Puerto Rico, El Sportivo folded, leaving Hunter with no pay and no food.

Hunter had an amazing ability to insult people into deep, long-lasting friendships, and that odd talent somehow affected Kennedy since they became lifetime friends following their series of acidic letters in 1959.

This unusual talent to berate people into friendship comes into play in later episodes of The Rum Diary Back-Story as Hunter battles to have his novel turned into a movie.

To be continued.

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“He taught me how to gamble,” I replied, without even thinking about it.

Those were expensive lessons in the beginning. One Sunday, Hunter got me going worse than Harvey Keitel in The Bad Lieutenant who cineastes will remember kept doubling down on successive games in the World Series on his way to death. For me, a mild losing streak on the early games that Sunday, turned into a total disaster as I kept doubling down and losing every bet. By the end of the evening game my debt to Hunter was $800. It never occurred to me that I would not pay. I just didn’t have the money. Fortunately, my brother bailed me out.

Hunter had closely studied the habits of amateur gamblers, as he wrote in his “Hey Rube” column for ESPN.com in December, 2001 called “Skunks Like Me.”

The Holiday season is always a bad time of year for amateur gambling addicts. They are weak people, as a rule, and they are not built for grueling long-distance work….Gambling losses that seemed harmless in October have swollen out of control when Christmas rolls around. The math is working against you and Doom and Disaster have taken on a personal meaning….I know these things from many years of close personal association, to put it gently, with the Debt Collection business.

Hunter told me that one football season, when he had little money, he got so deeply in debt to a Bookie that he saw no way out.

The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of brutal things; of broken legs and shattered dreams, of bleeding eyes and whores….(also from “Skunks like me” and note the usual reference to “whores” as in my latest film about Hunter Animals, Whores & Dialogue)

But the Bookie had a backup plan for Hunter. They always do. The Bookie explained that he and his “friends” had scheduled Hunter on a lecture tour (one of the ways Hunter supported himself in the 70′s and 80′s, as did Mark Twain). All Hunter had to do was get up in time for the show and the Bookie and his friends would take care of everything else: food, lodging, limos and, most importantly, the lecture fees which they kept. Hunter said it was the most well organized tour he ever did and the only one where he showed up on time for every lecture.

While gambling was the fuel that drove the scene during football games at Owl Farm, the experience transcended money. The betting made you pay attention to the game and created an atmosphere of fun – the same kind of fun that kids were looking for, as Hunter’s Mother reported, when they hung on his front porch in Louisville for hours, waiting for him to come out and play when he was just six years old.

The usual game bet was twenty bucks with point spreads negotiated with individual bettors by Hunter. You had to beware of divulging the spread he gave you when a new rube came in the room, or suffer serious abuse. Side bets provided the real action and they could be on anything and in any amount. And, the “action” was the real attraction for us all, not the money.

The basic pre-game bets are more like the price of admission to the back room of a very exclusive fight club than a casual invitation to “watch the game at a friendly neighbor’s house.

The side bet action is modeled roughly on the rules that apply in any cockfighting arena. Wagers are offered out loud to all parties, and accepted with a nod of the head or a recognizable hand signal by anyone in the room with cash.from “Skunks like Me”

The only house advantage for Hunter was that he won all “pushes” where the bet came out even between the two parties. We all figured that was more than fair, since he provided a well-stocked venue with an endless supply of beer in the refrigerator and bottles of every imaginable whiskey on top.

Given all the filming I did in the kitchen of Owl Farm over the years, it’s surprising that I only shot one football game, but I guess I was just having too much fun. Super Bowl Sunday in 2002 appears in Breakfast with Hunter. Hunter’s lawyer friends were invited, and he put signs on all the good chairs saying “Bettors Only.” He let me film for a few minutes, and then asked me to quit. Football and betting were more important than possibly squirreling the mood with my two cameras. Nevertheless the short scene does give you a feel for the room.

Ironically, at half-time Hunter started lobbying the lawyers to help him free Lisl Auman from a life sentence without parole (see my film Free Lisl: Fear & Loathing in Denver). Invitations to Owl Farm during football season were highly coveted, especially by lawyers. It was truly a symbiotic relationship. They all loved to imagine they might be the new Dr. Gonzo – lawyer Oscar Acosta in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas – and Hunter was a connoisseur of the trade due to his lifestyle. It was always a matter of when he would need a lawyer, not whether or not he might need one. I still have a laminated card in the back of my wallet that Anita made up for emergencies with the bedside numbers of every lawyer in this scene.

But the lawyers were not the best bettors, certainly not on a level with my brother Drew who Hunter truly loved. Drew is a paraplegic and when he would come to visit me for Christmas he would bring a foldout metal ramp in the back of his pickup that we would install for the season on Hunter’s front steps. That way if I couldn’t make it, Drew could always get into the kitchen on his own to gamble with Hunter. We appear first as characters in “Skunks Like Me.”

My winnings on the first two games were so gratifying that I swelled up with hubris and disregarded my own rules and fell into boozing and babbling. Two brothers from South Carolina lured me into getting so greedy that I went against my previous bets on the Baltimore game by doubling up on both teams at different point spreads.

That is called a Middle, and it is very risky business.

We beat him that Sunday night and “pranced around like Peacocks” in the first draft of the column (which was true), but by the time it went to press we had made him “the butt of degrading jokes.” (which was not true)

But not for long. Ho ho. Those same two evil bastards came back Monday night for the Rams- Saints game, and I beat them like gongs. They lost everything and I loved it. So let this be a lesson to weaklings who cave in to their Gambling jones. Do Not Double Up. That is all ye know and all ye need to know.

That is what I learned from Hunter – how to gamble, and more importantly, how to have fun with your friends while watching twenty-two men wage warfare over a pigskin. The last couple of years I probably broke even, and might even have made a bit of money betting on football with Hunter. The last time my brother and I spent an evening with Hunter was during the playoffs in 2005 a little more than a month before he killed himself.

The suicide note that Hunter left open in his spiral notebook on the counter had the heading “Football Season is Over.” Unfortunately, he was right for the short play, but terribly wrong at long yardage. There will always be another Football Season.

This Monday night it’s Green Bay minus 3 at Chicago. I’m taking Green Bay, Hunter.

In Hunter’s case, his claim on New Year’s Day as his birthday was part of an interesting strategy of denial at the passage of years which he picked up from his Mother. He would often say that not only was he born on January 1st but that his Mother was as well. They were both thoroughbreds in his mind, immune to time.

So for many years we purposely ignored Hunter’s birthday until his 50th came around in 1987. We could not resist celebrating his half century and assumed he would be pleased if we had a bit of a surprise party for him. About a dozen of us gathered at the Woody Creek Tavern at the corner table by the front window under the buffalo head and waited for Sheriff Bob to deliver him with the excuse of just stopping by the tavern for a drink.

When they came through the front door, we all screamed “Happy Birthday!”

Hunter yelled “Fuck You!” turned on his heels and went back to the car, followed by the Sheriff. They sat out there talking while we waited under the buffalo head. After twenty minutes, they drove off. I always wondered what they talked about. Getting old, I imagine.

“Who do you think you are? Peter Pan?” Hunter would often exclaim. I have a feeling that he wished that he was, like we all do.

However, towards the end of his life, Hunter began to acknowledge and enjoy his birthdays. He actually encouraged Deborah and Anita to have parties for him on July 18th . They were wonderful summer time affairs with gin watermelons and fireworks. We brought him gifts without fear. He particularly liked things that exploded unexpectedly, and we all had great fun.

So I think Hunter would appreciate the present I have for him this July 18th . Animals, Whores & Dialogue is the sequel to Breakfast with Hunter and somewhere on the edge of the desert in Utah right now they are pressing the DVDs that we will begin shipping early next week to those who want to spend some more time with Hunter.
Here’s a preview:

I’m hoping more than a few will have a Gonzo birthday party and gather their friends to watch the new film and celebrate Hunter’s life and work. We will be shipping via First Class Mail on Tuesday, July 13. So, if you’re in the continental US you should receive the film in time for a screening on the 18th . We’re also offering all four of the films together at a discount with Priority Mail shipping.

“It’s not art unless it sells,” Hunter often said, so I feel little shame in pitching. His Estate also benefits directly from the DVD sales; Hunter was a shrewd business partner.

When my Producer Jennifer Erskine looked at the first cut of Animals, Whores & Dialogue she said with a tear in her eye, “Now he’ll live for ever.”

A lot of us have a hard time watching the film with dry eyes, but there’s much fun to be found there too, not unlike those afternoons in July with watermelons filled with gin, exploding ketchup bottles, and a twinkle in Hunter’s eyes.

Happy Birthday, Hunter!