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

“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

Fortunately, I had just gone fully digital the summer of 1996, buying the first Sony prosumer mini-digital video recorder, the DCR VX1000. What a beast! Almost impossible to focus, especially while zooming, but it produced images that I hoped might be good enough to blow up to 35mm one day. In 2003, I did just that to qualify Breakfast with Hunter for the Academy Awards, and the movie looked surprisingly sharp.

The fall of 1996 was a rock and roll style Fear & Loathing tour: first, the Viper Room appearance with Johnny Depp; then, the Lotus Club in New York with George Plimpton, P.J. O’Rourke, and hundreds of other literati and stars. That Manhattan night ended with Hunter splayed out, fully clothed in the bathtub of his suite at the Four Seasons Hotel, overwhelmed by adulation. For me the high point was feeding Kate Moss french fries in Hunter’s crowded bedroom (one at a time, very slowly) while Johnny watched suspiciously from across the room.

But, the return of Billy the Kid to Louisville in December, 1996 for “A Tribute to Hunter S. Thompson” at the Memorial Auditorium was the true climax of the tour. Returning to Louisville as a hero after leaving in disgrace was Hunter’s revenge on all those who doubted his youthful certainty that he would write the great American novel.

I flew into Louisville a day early to advance the event. Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis brought Hunter in the next day, flying commercially via Chicago, and I met them at the gate at the Louisville airport. This was my first gig with Sheriff Bob, and he seemed relieved to see a radio in my hand.

“He’s got the shits,” remarked Bob. “He could barely get out of the bathroom in Chicago. You got a car?”

“Right here,” I said, raising the van driver at the curb outside on the radio.

“Nice,” observed Bob, as Hunter lumbered up the ramp from the plane.

That radio link to the van cemented my relationship with the Sheriff. Every once and awhile, when things get really rough in the indie film making world I think of taking him up on his jesting offer after Louisville to become a Deputy Sheriff. That’s how artist Tom Benton survived some of the last of his years, as a jailer for Bob. But, then I think about having to show up everyday, even if it’s a powder day.

The van took Hunter and Bob to the classic Brown Hotel downtown, while I returned to the Memorial Auditorium to finish lighting the stage and see if the dozen fire extinguishers I had ordered for Hunter had been delivered yet. Most importantly, they had to be the CO2 type, not the dry chemical type. CO2 just tickles you a bit, and might even freeze your skin if exposed at a close distance, but the dry chemical type makes your tongue dry up like beef jerky, and breathing almost impossible. Back in New York, Hunter had used the dry chemical type on Jann Wenner (as you can see here), who swore that it cost $10,000 to clean the fine, white powder out of his office after wards.

The fire extinguishers were on stage when I arrived at the Memorial Auditorium, a classic Louisville venue with a façade of Doric columns. A local sound company was setting mikes, and I tried to make the only four lights available illuminate the whole scene. Daylight flooded the stage annoyingly as the back door opened and Warren Zevon entered, wearing the oddest wig I have ever seen in rock & roll. Trying to ignore the hair piece, I introduced myself as Hunter’s Road Manager & Filmmaker. Zevon seemed to care little who I was. Too many years on the road, the last few essentially alone, had left him gruff and even more cynical than his lyrics. Years later, when we did the “Free Lisl” rally in Denver we would become friends, but today in Louisville he was cold and mistrusting.

We worked on the mix for a bit, Zevon hitting the first chords of “Lawyers, Guns & Money” repeatedly until he got the sound where he wanted it. “I think it should be beastly,” he commanded. A good excuse for a rough audio system, I thought.

Then Hunter arrived, taking over the stage and the rehearsal with his charismatic presence. I barely got a sound check from him. Hunter was more intent on playing with the fire extinguishers lined up on stage than jabbering into a mike for an empty auditorium. I worried how the show was going to go, with no script that I could discern, except for crumpled sheets of typed and illegible handwritten pages that Douglas Brinkley carried.

A film making comrade, Mark Muheim, arrived to operate my new, second Sony DCR VX1000. We were now a crew of two – a far cry from my last concert production filming the Eagles return to the Rose Bowl for 80,000 fans. There I directed four film cameras remotely from beneath the stage. At least here, I hoped security wouldn’t be an issue.

After doing all I could to make sure the set was ready for the show I went back to The Brown Hotel. Hunter’s son Juan was sitting in the lobby of the Brown with his laptop writing intently. I wondered what he was up to, and found out later that night when he delivered one of the most insightful and elegant appraisals of his iconic father that has ever been written. Juan’s speech appears throughout Breakfast with Hunter, and this is how it and the film ends.

The Louisville show went far better than most Hunter Thompson stage events which usually involved rambling question & answer sessions with the answers mostly indecipherable. But, on this triumphal night returning to the scene of his youthful crimes, Hunter was remarkably well behaved, also perhaps because his Mother was there. I found her before the show sitting in a wheelchair in the Green Room backstage, a cigarette in one hand and a gin and tonic in the other. Then in her nineties, she was still imposing, and cowed me when I introduced myself, the DCR VX1000 in hand, by warning, “If you point that camera at me, I’ll break it!” I never got a shot of her, unfortunately.

The show also went well due to the supporting cast, many of whom are in Breakfast with Hunter and more to be seen in the just released Animals, Whores, & Dialogue. However, the event ended, as only a Hunter event could, with a heavy dose of weirdness and a dash of violence.

I was on stage shooting as the band, lead by David Amram and accompanied by Johnny Depp on slide guitar, finished playing “My Old Kentucky Home.” Hunter grabbed me around the neck and whispered in my ear that we had to flee. There was someone only a few feet away that he feared meant to attack him. Mark Muheim captured these moments on video while I inadvertently recorded audio on the camera in my hand, forgetting in the weirdness of the moment that it was even rolling. The combination of Mark and my footage became the credit sequence for Animals, Whores & Dialogue:

The potential assailant was stage left so we went stage right into the wings. I tried to raise Sheriff Bob on the radio for backup, but got no response.

“You’ll be arrested,” Hunter shouted over his shoulder as we left the stage.

I looked back but had no idea who the assailant might be, but I knew this was Hunter’s greatest fear, to be shot down by a freak out to prove he was the weirdest of all. Given John Lennon, you couldn’t consider it simply paranoia on Hunter’s part.

We found a room backstage and locked ourselves inside. Finally, I got Sheriff Bob on the radio and asked him to bring the limo around behind the auditorium where a door from our refuge opened onto the street. When the Sheriff confirmed that he was in position with the limo, I unlocked the backdoor and we started for the car. Then, a weirdo jumped out of the bushes coming our way. I screamed at him to get back.

“You’ll be arrested,” Hunter growled and the weirdo from the bushes fled down the street.

“Was that him?” I asked.

“No. It was (let’s call him “Joe”) on the stage,” he said, getting into the limo.

It took me awhile to figure out who “Joe” was. Hunter pointed him out to me in a crowd shot when we were viewing the footage back at Owl Farm. “Joe” was the boyhood friend who, according to Hunter, he went to jail for, after his friend threatened to rape a girl if she didn’t give him a cigarette one late night on a lover’s lane in Louisville. Talk about your past coming back to haunt you!

Now that Hunter was safely out of the venue, I went back inside to wrap my equipment. In our absence, chaos had erupted on stage with a huge, ugly crowd surrounding Johnny Depp who was signing autographs. Hunter always advised against starting to sign for fans, since once it started, you could never satisfy them all. The few event volunteers left behind were overwhelmed, so I started kicking people off the stage to relieve Depp.

The crowd got even nastier, and a few went into the wings and then into the green room where they set fire to an overstuffed chair. I grabbed a fire extinguisher to douse the flames, but it was empty, as was every other red canister nearby. The crowd had used them up on each other, imitating Hunter’s earlier antics.

“Someone better call 911,” I said, but being kitchen trained, I knew it would not be me who made the call. (see my vodcast “Never Call 911.”)

I gathered up my cameras and friend Mark, and we walked out the back stage door as the fire engines rolled up.

“Hunter’s probably off on some adventure. Let’s go have a beer, and maybe catch a strip show,” I suggested as we headed back to the Brown Hotel.

To Be Continued

Copyright 2010 by Wayne Ewing