It was a brave act for a self-proclaimed “elderly dope fiend” to call out the pigs in the Denver Police and challenge them to a street fight. But, as the Road Manager on this trip down from Woody Creek, I saw nothing but trouble, even though our entourage included Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, and famed criminal defense lawyer Gerald Goldstein. The Sheriff was actually a liability since he had no authority in Denver and his public stance against drug enforcement made him an additional attractive target for the cops. Goldstein, on the other hand, would at least make our bail.

I figured my video camera was our best defense. If nothing else when we got busted, I’d have an interesting scene for my work-in-progress – Breakfast with Hunter – and interesting evidence for the inevitable trial later on. Ultimately, my footage from that trip became the heart of my third film about Hunter – Free Lisl: Fear & Loathing in Denver.

The last week in Woody Creek preparing for the Free Lisl Rally had been intense. Hunter’s son and daughter-in-law – Juan and Jennifer Thompson – were working with a Denver public relations person – Matt Moseley – on the details of the rally which Hunter was both hosting and funding. Endless phone calls about the mechanics of the event – security, the sound system, the order of appearances, etc. – keep Hunter on edge…exactly where he liked to be. The rally was set for Monday, May 14, 2001, and Monday was also the day when Hunter’s weekly “Hey Rube” column had to be filed for ESPN.com.

Hunter was eager to write about the Free Lisl rally for the column, but since his was ostensibly a sports column, getting this subject accepted by ESPN was far from certain. The editors at ESPN had allowed Hunter once before to write a bit about the case of Lisl Auman – a 21 year old convicted of a cop killing that someone she had just met committed while she was handcuffed in the back of a police car. The response on the web was overwhelming – ESPN claimed 100,000 clicks on his piece – and now Hunter hoped to write a complete column just about Lisl’s case and Monday’s rally to be published the day of the rally.

For Hunter writing was never easy. To witness this excruciating process was like watching gooey paint dry with odd moments of humor and ill temper thrown into the mix. You can see for yourself in my last film- Animals, Whores & Dialogue – which revolves around a long night of trying to write a column.

The rhythm of writing the column usually entailed getting a lead down by midnight Sunday followed by at least another 1000 words to be written and filed by the time Hunter went to bed on Monday morning. I’d usually stay around until the lead got written and then Anita would somehow miraculously finish the piece with Hunter by dawn. Given the rally on Monday in Denver, this one would have to find its way onto paper much earlier.

Hunter was a professional in this case, given his dedication to freeing Lisl. By Saturday he had over half the column written, and by Sunday it was done, and sent off to ESPN in time for us to get on a chartered plane to Denver, courtesy of Gerry Goldstein.

Hunter put us all up at his favorite hotel in Denver – The Brown Palace – footing the bill for at least a half dozen rooms, including the Sheriff, journalist Curtis Robinson, historian Douglas Brinkley, and songwriter Warren Zevon. The bar at the Brown Palace – The Ship’s Tavern – became our new headquarters, just as the bar at the Jerome Hotel in Aspen was Hunter’s de facto campaign headquarters when he ran for Sheriff of Pitkin County.

If nothing else, Hunter was a superb politician. How else can you explain the fact that he almost became Sheriff in 1970 on a campaign of Freak Power? Now, thirty years later, Hunter’s acute political instincts were aided by years of successfully manipulating the media and turning himself into an icon with his own Gonzo brand. His effort to free Lisl Auman was his last and most successful political campaign, and his most significant achievement in the last years of his life.

Lisl’s lawyers were fearful that Hunter would create a back lash. Her first appeal was scheduled to be filed the day of the Free Lisl Rally.

Hunter’s boss at ESPN, John Walsh woke me up on Monday morning with a phone call to my room at The Brown Palace. I was ready to hear that ESPN had rejected the column entirely, but Mr. Walsh seemed relatively unperturbed and said that they had done some editing and were faxing a copy of the approved column to me to give to Hunter.

Looking back now at the original version and comparing it to what ESPN finally published, it’s notable what they left out – an amazing riff and against police brutality and treachery. Some edits for other columns were restored for the book of his ESPN columns, also called Hey Rube, but these words were left behind:

Police atrocities are common in cities like Denver, Cincinnati and New Orleans. Police in L.A. and Long Island have recently admitted making women they pull over for speeding strip naked and perform oral sex on them. That happens everywhere, all the time. It is standard practice in Texas and Florida.

A bit of Gonzo reporting – exaggerated, yet true – but over the top for ESPN. Fortunately, ESPN did keep a central passage about standing up for what’s right:

It is very Important to learn early in life, that you CAN beat City Hall, and that You Can change the System. You might be beaten and gassed by Police a few times before you succeed – but that stuff goes with the territory. And you will be proud of it later, just as you will make smart friends who will stand with you all your life.

Hunter was so relieved that the Free Lisl column would be published that he did not fight for the deleted screed against police brutality. In the end, his main bitch with ESPN was how they changed his title for the piece from his words:

THE MOST DANGEROUS SPORT OF ALL

To theirs:

GOING TO WAR FOR JUSTICE

If nothing else, Hunter’s title was meant to justify the piece as a “sports” column.

We stayed in Denver for one more night after the rally, hanging out in Hunter’s suite at the Brown Palace and in the Ship’s Tavern, celebrating our success. Personally, I would have preferred to leave straight from the Capitol for Woody Creek. Why the cops hadn’t already busted us at this point for just being in Denver was a mystery to me.

My paranoia level went even higher when I learned that the Doorman at the Brown Palace was the son of the former Denver Police Chief. Shortly after getting this vital piece of intel, I went to retrieve our rental car for the ride back to Aspen. The police chief’s son, dressed like some Queen’s Beefeater, said that he had “lost” our car keys, but was hopeful that he might find them “soon” so we could leave.

I immediately ran to the rental agency and rented two cars, and then, drove back to the Brown in one car with a rental guy driving the other. I parked them both in front of the main entrance, locked the doors, and took the keys, despite the Doorman’s protest. Upstairs I collected Hunter and Anita, all our bags, and most importantly, my video camera.

As we emerged from the front door of the Brown, the Doorman led us to our cars, eyeing the video camera that I held up with it’s red light on so everyone could see I was recording. Thus, a Sony DCR VX-1000 had become our only means of protection during the Escape from Denver.

I asked Anita to drive Hunter’s car while I followed in my rental, openly videotaping our progress with the raised camera, hoping this might give some pause to a mass of pissed off Denver cops I was convinced were waiting to swarm us before we reached the city limits. The first few blocks went smoothly, except the emergency lights were flashing on Hunter’s car. Suddenly, Anita pulled over in a No Standing area on W. Colfax. I couldn’t believe that we were now sitting ducks, giving the cops the pretext they needed to swoop down. I pulled up behind them, got out and ran up to the car as Anita emerged.

“What’s wrong.” I implored.

“He wants to drive,” she said with resignation.

And, so he did, driving like a maniac to the edge of town and beyond. I shadowed him as best I could until he pulled off the freeway at the exit for Buffalo Bill’s Grave at Lookout Mountain. “Perfect,” I thought as I continued on up the road to Woody Creek.

Anita reported later that it was the most terrifying ride of her live. She huddled under a blanket on the floor in the back of the car most of the way home.

As for Lisl Auman, almost four years later and a few weeks after Hunter’s suicide, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in her favor, reversing her conviction and remanding for a new trial. A plea bargain set her free, although she remains on probation for many years to come.

Copyright 2011 By Wayne Ewing

“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!