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

An amanuensis is a scribe or writer’s assistant “employed by an individual to write from his or her dictation or to copy manuscripts” (from Encarta World English Dictionary) – exactly what I came to be with my camera for Dr. Hunter S. Thompson over a very long period of time. Writing was never easy for Hunter. I don’t think it is for anyone, no matter how successful they are. But, Hunter took the task to extreme levels of frustration and exasperation, as you can see in my latest film Animals, Whores & Dialogue.

When the going got too tough to actually get the words directly from his brain onto a piece of paper, Hunter would fall back on a device he discovered early in his career – a tape recorder. Perhaps that’s why he described a Gonzo journalist as having the “eye and mind of a camera.” If you could just record events and your interaction with them, then there would be no need for the pain of writing.

When we were working on Kingdom of Fear, the pain and frustration levels were extremely high. Hunter would recall, almost proudly, how blocked he became trying to finish Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972. Holed up in San Francisco’s Seal Rock Inn after the campaign, Hunter simply could not write the conclusion to his bi-weekly reports from the Presidential race that had been serialized in Rolling Stone. In desperation, his editor recorded his conversations with Hunter and then transcribed and edited them into their final form.

Those who might think less of Hunter as a writer for relying on this method, might consider the case of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain, who often worked in exactly the same way, especially towards the end of his life. In a review of the Autobiography of Mark Twain, the first volume of which is coming out this November, Larry Rohter reported in The New York Times that

Twain dictated most of it to a stenographer in the four years before his death at 74 on April 21, 1910. He argued that speaking his recollections and opinions, rather than writing them down, allowed him to adopt a more natural, colloquial and frank tone, and Twain scholars who have seen the manuscript agree.

Kingdom of Fear was as close to an autobiography as anything Hunter ever wrote, even though much of it was pulled together out of the basement from existing published and unpublished material. Given the eclectic nature of those pieces, we were desperate for some sort of thread to tie the book together, just as I use the scene of Hunter writing a column for ESPN over one long night as the glue that holds together Animals, Whores & Dialogue.

The original connective tissue for Kingdom of Fear was to be the story of “The Witness” – the 99 day saga of the early nineties when Hunter made the mistake of letting a woman who prided herself on producing pornography into Owl Farm. As a result, Hunter was busted for sexual assault and a litany of drug charges, and fought a winning battle for 99 days to stay out of the system.

Hunter wrote the first installment of The Witness which appears on pages 19 through 28 in Kingdom of Fear in early 2002. Those nine pages are some of the most concise and hysterically wonderful words he ever wrote. Take for example his description of the porn film produced by The Witness called Nazi Penetration:

Nazi Penetration has always been one of my favorite films of the sex genre. It is a story of shipwreck, sadism, and absolutely hopeless female victims confined on a tiny tropical island with only a Nazi war criminal and two cruel Japanese nymphomaniacs to keep them company. The naked white girls are innocent prisoners of some long-forgotten war that is never mentioned in the movie except by way of the frayed and often bottomless military uniforms worn by the demented villains….

And, Hunter’s description of his role in the sex business as the Night Manager of the O’Farrell Theater (where we first met as you can read in The O’Farrell herein) is classic Gonzo:

The Night Manager gig was only a cover for my real responsibility, which was to keep them [the Mitchell Brothers) out of jail, which was not easy. The backstairs politics of San Francisco has always been a Byzantine snake pit of treachery and overweening bribery-driven corruption so perverse as to stagger the best minds of any generation.

We used to howl in the kitchen when those first nine pages were read and re-read, but unfortunately that went on for many months without any more new material being written. Hunter was desperate to finish the book; he needed the money naturally. And, I was desperate as well. I wanted to finish my film -Breakfast with Hunter – and release it at the same time as the book.

Thus, we came to fall back on the tried and true method of extracting truth, wisdom, and a good laugh out of the Doctor – recordings, but now video as well as audio – ‘cause I figured if I was going to devote a year or so of my life to the book, I should at least get something for my movie in return.

I suggested we have Sheriff Bob Braudis come to the kitchen and interview Hunter about The Witness, since he had been intimately involved on the law enforcement side when Hunter was busted. The Sheriff agreed and spent two long afternoons interviewing Hunter. I filmed the scene with two cameras – one that I would leave running on its own on Hunter and the other handheld moving around on Bob. I then took that footage and transcribed the audio, and Hunter and I and Anita and Jennifer Stroup – another long-suffering, amanuensis; but young, blonde and far better looking than I – edited and massaged those transcripts into what became the second Witness section in the book (pages 116 – 142).

In the end we finished the book, Hunter got paid, and I captured a very poignant moment with the two big men. When I filmed the scene, I never even saw the gun in Hunter’s hands since I was framing the Sheriff at that moment. Years after he shot himself sitting in the same spot in the kitchen, I discovered the footage while editing Animals, Whores & Dialogue. It’s still not easy for me to watch, but that pain is lessened by the look in the Sheriff’s eyes as he listens to his best friend sum up the meaning of his life.

Copyright 2010 by Wayne Ewing

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!

“This is better than I thought. I’m pleasantly surprised,” hollered Hunter, as the credits rolled and the Stones played “Sympathy for the Devil. ”

“It is ugly,” Hunter then added, a bit begrudgingly.

“It’s your life. What do you expect?” Heidi countered.

“Like a drug survival trip,” Hunter admitted.

“We survived,” the Sheriff concluded.

But, surviving the actual premiere in New York was another matter. For some reason Terry Gilliam seemed intent on insulting Hunter while publicizing the film, and Ralph Steadman joined him. The two of them sat down for two and a half hours together to talk about the film and Hunter. Ralph taped their session, and then gave the tape to The New York Times. Amidst what is actually an interesting conversation about film making and Gilliam’s career, they went out of their way to disparage Hunter:

GILLIAM. He is an outrageous romanticist, a huge romantic about America, and a hugely self-absorbed person as well. That’s why he thinks he’s the Messiah in a strange way. He’s God, he’s God.

GILLIAM. And they come to the mountain all the time, and he’s stuck in there. I think that’s a sad side of Hunter’s: he’s stuck in time. I keep saying the guy died around 1974, and the guy that’s here is this mummified version of him. He has to keep living a life, and being here.

The ending of The New York Times piece was particularly offensive to Hunter:

GILLIAM. When I first met Hunter, there was a bottle of Chivas, a bottle of wine, a can of beer, I think. There was a tin of coke. He had his hash — what else did he have?

STEADMAN. He snorts whiskey, too. Have you seen him clean his nose with whiskey?

In a FAX to Depp on the day the piece was published Hunter wrote, “Well, Mr. Gilliam has done his version of Pearl Harbor on me in the NY Times (May 3, ’98)…Chatting intimately about his Personal Access to me puts him on the same level as a Police Informant, like some crab-ridden slut on the street who sells tips to cops and mendacious gossip to Tabloids – some kind of failed whore who turns in her customers.” At the premiere in New York, a confrontation with Gilliam seemed inevitable, and could easily result in real violence.

The Carlyle Hotel at 76th and Madison was one of Hunter’s favorites, and mine as well. The staff at the Carlyle was discrete and understanding of their guests’ needs. Once, after being nominated for an Emmy Award and then losing at the awards dinner, I returned to the Carlyle with my girlfriend and in despair we drank every bottle in the mini-bar. Upon checkout I discovered a $445 dollar charge for the binge on my bill, and complained that it must be in error.

“How could anyone drink the entire mini-bar in one night?” I protested to the cashier.

“Of course, you’re right, Sir. I’ll remove the charge completely,” said the cashier with a look that still shames me today to remember. The man knew I was lying, but was too polite to argue. Just the kind of slack Hunter would require when he checked in under the name “Omar Gray” switching from his first choice of “Victor Suave” at the last minute since it had been used before. I see from my notes that Depp was checked in at the Four Seasons under the name “Mr. Stench.”

A taxi strike was in the offing, but that worried me more than it did Hunter who would hardly settle for anything less than a stretch limo. A mere town car could be a source of immense dissatisfaction (the Beast did have long legs and a bad back), and I made sure a stretch would be there courtesy of Universal to get us to the premiere. We charged Hunter’s rental tux to Omar Gray’s account at the Carlyle so that Universal would also end up paying for the monkey suit along with thousands of dollars in room service.

The night before the premiere Ed Bradley dropped by the Carlyle for a visit. Hunter was highly agitated, wondering what to say to the press about the movie. Ed had a good answer which I wrote down in my notebook and would repeat for Hunter over the next 24 hours like a mantra:

“I hope people who have read the book will see the movie, and I hope people who have seen the movie will read the book.”

I was staying at the New York Hilton courtesy of my sister Kathleen who had connections there for a rate far less than the Carlyle. Even though I worked as the Road Manager off and on for years, I usually paid my own expenses. Making my self “useful,” as Hunter put it, enabled me to make my film along the way. Kathleen and her assistant Sara Lyons came up from Washington, DC to help me wrangle the Beast through the city. But that meant I had to take taxis (provided they weren’t on strike) which could take a half hour from the Hilton to the Carlyle. So I moved my dress clothes into a large closet off of the living room of Hunter’s suite at the Carlyle to change for the premiere.

When I emerged from the closet in my coat and tie, George Plimpton was standing in the middle of the living room making notes while Hunter dressed in the bedroom. Plimpton was everything you expected him to be and more – quite the gentlemen with a wry sense of humor and great patience and respect for Hunter. He later wrote that “Everyone seemed involved in getting Hunter ready for his premiere like preparing a somewhat balky float for a parade.” Later, Hunter complimented Plimpton that the writing was a “good lick” just as he would have said to Keith Richards about his guitar playing.

George Plimpton was a wise, soothing companion for Hunter on the way to the premiere, first in the elevator of the Carlyle and then in the stretch going downtown, as you can see in Breakfast with Hunter.

Plimpton’s line, “How is any filmmaker going to get into your head? It’s impossible,” is a keen observation about both Hunter and the film, even though George hadn’t seen the movie yet; the interior, drug-fueled monologues throughout FLLV are what made it so hard to translate to the screen.

Always caught between my dual role as filmmaker and Road Manager, I neglected the latter when we arrived at the theater. Hunter wanted a plan before we got out of the car so I said “let’s jump” like paratroopers. Kathleen and Sara were waiting at the curb, and they led Hunter quickly inside, rushing by the mob of mostly amateur paparazzi behind the barriers and into the theater too quickly. For some stupid reason I thought Hunter wanted to avoid the mob, forgetting that the press, even if it was a mob, is the whole purpose of a premiere. Naturally, we were booed heavily by the photogs behind the barricades for running by so quickly, leading to bitter complaints from Hunter. Once Plimpton was by his side, Hunter calmed down like a nervous thoroughbred with his favorite stable mate.

Hunter lumbered down the red carpet and then onto the escalator to the lobby of the theater below, leaving the gauntlet of A-list press upstairs also unsatisfied, even though they had gotten Hunter to stand still for a few shots, unlike those outside. Perhaps Hunter and I thought there was more press downstairs in the theater lobby, but once we got down the escalator he refused to go back up the stairs.

Jann Wenner joined Laila Nabulsi in pestering Hunter to go back up for more photos. They seemed to think he was being a diva, and then Hunter sadly whispered in my ear, “My legs are giving out. I can’t walk back up the steps.”

I pulled Plimpton aside and told him the real problem Hunter was too embarrassed to admit. George instantly thought of a solution. “We’ll make the escalator go up rather than down,” George declared and hurried to find the manager to reverse the escalator.

Unfortunately, no one could find the key for the escalator control so we stayed in the lower lobby where Hunter began to get even more agitated. I spied a door off to the side with a combination lock on it and got the manager to give me the code. Now we had a more private place to retreat. Fortuitously, that was where they stored the popcorn in tall, clear plastic bags. When Hunter saw the popcorn, his eyes brightened in the same way they would at the sight of a fire extinguisher. A prank was in the making.

Johnny stopped by to hang with Hunter who gave him the calla lilies he had been carrying since leaving the Carlyle. Universal’s publicists also came to his hideout off the lobby, saying that they had brought the press into the downstairs lobby. But Hunter could see that Gilliam was now posing with Depp and Benicio del Toro and refused to have his picture taken with Gilliam. Hunter waited until Gilliam was pulled away by a savvy publicist and then pounced with the popcorn.

The rest of the evening was a blast, and I concentrated on enjoying it while still taking care of the Beast and shooting a bit along the way. The official premiere party was at the China Club where Hunter contrarily insisted he wanted to watch basketball on television. I found a television set in the manager’s office, which became Hunter’s headquarters and the new VIP room of the China Club for the night. All the right people stopped by to knock on the door and see if we would let them in.

The next event was even more discreet – a dinner hosted by Depp at Jezebel’s, a fancy, lace-curtained restaurant without a sign outside, but inside there was to be NO SMOKING in the days when this was not a law but rather a rarity in New York. I think Johnny must have pleaded Hunter’s case to Jezebel since she grudgingly allowed Hunter, and only Hunter, to smoke. Years later, one of the reasons Hunter rarely ventured from the kitchen at Owl Farm was the escalation of the war against smoking. Even the Woody Creek Tavern became a No Smoking Zone, and he rarely went there and then only after closing time.

I wrote about my experience with Jimmy Buffett that night leaving Jezebel’s earlier in my vodcast “The Gonzo Pilot” so I won’t repeat the story here except to say moments like that justified the difficulties of life on the road with Hunter.

The night ended with George Plimpton about 3am at Elaine’s – the fashionable writers’ watering hole on the East Side often identified with George. While we guzzled a bottle of Cristal Champagne compliments of Hunter’s old friend and lawyer John Clancy (look for a fascinating piece by John Clancy in Warren Hinckle’s soon-to-be-released book Who Killed Hunter S. Thompson), I eyed the two NYPD cruisers parked directly in front of Elaine’s window, the two cops sitting together in the front car, just staring back at me through the window. Paranoia started to creep up my spine, and I thought about how many possible missteps it was from the front door of Elaine’s to our limo sitting a few yards in front of the cops. Fortunately, Hunter behaved himself on the sidewalk as we left; he could see the obvious danger as well as I. He hated cops, and though he had no fear, he would never taunt them.

Back at the Carlyle I gathered up my dirty clothes from the closet and packed up my camera. Hunter was as pleased as I ever saw him in twenty years, and spontaneously inscribed a blad of The Rum Diary to me. Blads are pre-publication sales tools for books that usually have only a chapter or two. They are often considered highly collectible, especially if signed by the author, but I would never part with mine in a million years.

On the street outside the Carlyle at 4am I wandered helplessly, clutching my dirty clothes and the blad, searching for a taxi. “Did they strike,” I wondered. It certainly seemed so that morning in Manhattan. But, I didn’t care; we had shot the gap.

Copyright 2010 By Wayne Ewing

“This is going to look terrible in the local papers,” I thought, certainly overshadowing the key to the city Hunter had received upon his return to the scene of so many boyhood crimes. But, I wasn’t surprised; after the crowd had gone crazy and set the Green Room on fire at the Memorial Auditorium, the dead student seemed not only possible, but likely. I felt a rush of guilt – a sensation Hunter rarely, if ever, experienced – and knew I shouldn’t have left the venue so quickly.

“Jesus! When did they find the body?” I asked.

“This morning,” Hunter replied with a bit of hesitation, giving me hope.

“What killed him?”

“Nothing! Just kidding. But after you pissed that mob off it could have happened,” confessed the inventor of Gonzo Journalism, employing one of the central devices of his genre: if it “could have” happened in a dramatic fashion, then why not say it actually did if it makes your point? And, if the hyperbole is funny, you must use it.

After the dead student trick, I almost didn’t give the Beast the good news, but I couldn’t help myself.

“I met a woman last night who wants you to autograph her ass. Seriously!”

“Interesting. Tell me more about this woman,” said Hunter.

Raven was her name, at least her stage name. She was a stripper that I met in a club down the street from the Brown Hotel. After the Tribute event my friend Mark and I caught up with Hunter and his sea of admirers in a bar for a couple of drinks, and then parted ways. Hunter left with Sheriff Bob to take a local poetess home, a drive the Sheriff later described fearfully: Hunter made Bob sit in the back while he squired the poetess, driving to her front door at high speed on a narrow sidewalk between stately elm trees and a rock wall

At the same time, Mark and I were admiring the view of Raven on the other side of town. She came over and had a drink with us after her performance and asked what we were doing in town. I explained we were filming an event over at the Memorial Auditorium, a tribute to Louisville anti-hero Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

Raven brightened at the mention of the name. “I love Hunter Thompson,” she cooed. “He’s my favorite author. I’ve always had this fantasy of having his autograph tattooed on my ass. It would be quite something to see when I’m on stage, don’t ya think?”

“I don’t know if Hunter has the patience, or the skill, to do a tattoo,” I ventured, “But you’re talking to the right guy. I’m his Road Manager.” I could see this girl was quite serious about the tattoo, and had thought about this before, given her quick answer.

“All he has to do is sign my butt with a Sharpie, you know, those indelible markers, and then I’ll have a real tattoo person trace over it with the needle,” she countered brightly.

“Call me at the Brown Hotel before noon, and there’s a chance you’ll get your autograph,” I suggested.

The next morning, not long after Hunter’s dead student wake up, Raven called my room. I told her to be in the lobby at 1pm. Hunter planned to visit his Mother in the rest home and said the stripper could ride in the car. He’d do the autograph on her ass along the way.

Raven was in the lobby promptly, clutching a half dozen medium and fine point black and red Sharpies in her hand. Funny how in the light of day, most strippers lose some of their allure. Yet, Raven was still quite attractive, just a bit more zaftig than I remembered. She certainly had a good, broad canvas for the Gonzo autograph.

Sheriff Bob showed up first in the lobby to drive Hunter to see his Mom. I explained Raven’s presence, and while we waited Bob, told me about his dinner bonding with Warren Zevon the night before. They were now the best of friends. Bob would eventually make Warren an honorary Deputy Sheriff after we did the Free Lisl Auman rally in Denver in 2001. You can see the rally in my film Free Llsl: Fear & Loathing in Denver.

“Zevon’s really pissed off about getting old. He’s losing his hair, and he can’t get laid so easy on the road anymore,” Bob reported sympathetically.

“That explains the wig,” I thought. Interestingly, Zevon only wore the odd wig in rehearsal (see Louisville – Part One herein), not for the performance. Perhaps he took a good look at himself in the mirror.

Sheriff Bob related his fearful story of Hunter driving the poetess home the night before, and concluded, “Today, I’m driving!”

Hunter eventually lurched into the lobby. I introduced him to Raven, and loaded them into the car, the Sheriff behind the wheel in the front and Hunter in the back with Raven, her handful of Sharpies at the ready.

“Done deal,” I thought, as they pulled away. Getting Hunter to give autographs, or sign a book, was always problematic. But, with the Beast stuck in the back seat with a girl who wanted to bare her butt for his penmanship, I figured it a sure thing for Raven.

Sheriff Bob told me what happened on that Kentucky drive on the long journey back to Aspen the next day. Rather than going directly to see Hunter’s Mom in the rest home, Hunter first had a secret mission in mind: he wanted to visit an old girl friend many miles away on the Indiana border. After hours of driving to Indiana and back, Bob, Hunter and Raven finally made it to the rest home where Bob sat with Raven in the car trading backgrounds for an hour or so while Hunter visited his Mom. In the end, Raven never got him to autograph her ass, despite riding in the car with him for the whole afternoon and into the evening.

Perhaps Hunter thought he was doing her a favor, not leaving her with the Gonzo Brand to explain to potential suitors for the rest of her life. More likely, he found Sheriff Bob’s presence in the car inhibiting, or he simply enjoyed her company – Hunter always needed a pretty girl at his side – and feared that once he gave the autograph she would be gone.

In Louisville I learned that you find Gonzo fans in the oddest places, and the Gonzo Brand or HST quotes tattooed on more people than you might imagine. I’m just sorry that Raven didn’t get hers. Or maybe she did, and Bob and Hunter, being the gentlemen they are, never told me the truth.

Perhaps we might find out about Raven’s tattoo and certainly discover just how creatively Hunter’s fans have decorated their own bodies with his brand in one form or another, if readers start posting pictures of their Gonzo tattoos in the Gonzo Room here at HunterThompsonFilms.com. I’ve started a new thread in the “HST Influence” Forum labeled “Gonzo Tattoos.”

Should be quite a gallery of Gonzo body art before long, and perhaps we’ll see if Raven finally got here wish in one form or another.

Copyright 2010 by Wayne Ewing