Among the Intellectualoids/Bad Time for Gonzo
Marin, Rick
AMONG THE INTELLECTUALOIDS BAD TIME FOR GONZO Washington, D.C. When it's announced that there'll be a "slight delay" in Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's arrival time, the packed George Washington...
...Thompson talks until eleven o'clock,when Caddell brusquely terminates the proceedings...
...One of the poli-sci nerds jumps up...
...Hunter S. Thompson emerges into the light and a standing ovation...
...by Rick Marin with this...
...Caddell, hack Democrat to the end, refuses to recognize the guy: "Oh, please," he spits vindictively...
...a Gonzo Geek bellows...
...He's an old friend of mine...
...10533 backs, poli-sci nerds, crazed conspiracy theorists—this frenzied rally is irrefutable evidence of an alarming new subculture: Gonzo Geeks...
...LSD: louder clapping, cheers...
...This is the only guy who at the end of the night goes up to shake Pat Caddell's hand...
...flare up—desperate attempts to connect with the narcotic madman who inhabits the dog-eared copies of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which many of these brain-dead acolytes are clutching like Bibles...
...Mobbed for autographs afterwards, he dutifully signs books while the mob shouts more moronic, fist-inthe-air slogans of party-animal solidarity...
...They want the god of Gonzo journalism to be late, to abuse their time and patience...
...He's carrying a bullhorn...
...The microphone doesn't work...
...14.95 paperback VISA and MasterCard orders accepted...
...P J. O'Rourke...
...Stereo cables are hanging around his neck...
...Slurred cries of "Duke...
...Our generation will not be remembered kindly in the history books," decrees the prophet of doom in a moment of lucidity...
...At least they voted," he concludes, praising Duke for being an astute politician...
...A crimson St...
...against unreasonablesearches and seizures...
...A disturbed conspiracy freak wants to know if Thompson has heard about the "King Alfred Plan," a "widely documented" plot devised in 1962 calling for all minorities in America to be rounded up so the U.S...
...Even Thompson, the patron saint of substance abuse, calls crack "evil...
...Then the nut questions start...
...Thompson halts his paranoid ranting about the erosion of justice in America long enough to take a spontaneous drug poll...
...Ludwig von Mises ECONOMIC FREEDOM AND INTERVENTIONISM New...
...Tie-dyed 1960s throwRick Marin is the television critic of the Washington Times...
...We will chop off their fingers and gnaw on their skulls and feed their flesh to our animals...
...an ear-splitting fraternity-dude voice has been chantingall night, getting no comment on the Gonzo Republican who is to this generation of Rolling Stone readers what Thompson was to his...
...Hunter S. Thompson's arrival time, the packed George Washington University auditorium bursts into applause and laughter...
...Thompson responds by inviting her on stage, seating her in his chair--f`Watch your left breast...
...All around the world, long-time advocates of economic planning are being forced to admit that their policies have failed...
...Thompson does not look up...
...A collection of 47 of the pre-eminent Austrian economist's shorter pieces, selected and edited by Bettina Bien Greaves...
...He walks like a puppet, a crippled jock in a white polo shirt, chinos, and white basketball shoes...
...A rube sitting next to me leans over and confides, "He's always late," shaking his head appreciatively...
...Then a buzz starts...
...He's suing the Aspen D.A.'s office for $22 million...
...We will PUNISH them...
...Caddell reads a passage from Thompson's recently published Songs of the Doomed' that calls for vengeance against the "thugs, liars, crooks" and "lazy human scum" who brought the charges against him: "Not now...
...Caddell, silenced, moves on to the next question...
...He's here...
...the Doonesbury caricature of himself Thompson despises) and "What are you drinking...
...Irclixles Mises' original evaluations of F. A. Hayek's The Constitution d Liberty Murray Rothterd's Man,Economy and State, and Israel Kirzner's The Economic Point of View...
...The charges were dismissed...
...The awestruck fan is instantly hustled away by grim, uniformed campus security, who muscle him out the door like he'd just tried to shoot the President...
...In a worst case scenario, he could turn into Lenny Bruce, who spent the last years of his life reading from court transcripts to bored audiences...
...On her way offstage, he kisses her...
...Someone yells out David Duke's name, trying to elicit abuse of the Louisiana "white trash" who gave the ex-Klansman their vote...
...Doctorrr...
...This is a massive fan event, a cross between a Star Trek convention and a Grateful Dead concert...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1990 43...
...He gravely warns the audience that their Fourth Amendment rights will be similarly abused unless they act now...
...Andrews golf course hat hides his hairless pate...
...We oughtta be down the street in a bar talkin' to him...
...Thompson mutters impatiently...
...I don't make speeches," Thompson barks, sitting at a small table with Caddell, once the Democrats' backroom Wunderkind, now potbellied with a graying beard...
...Ufirst, the Persian Gulf: Thompson suggests beheading the "degenerate" Kuwaiti Emir as a solution acceptable to all parties...
...Marijuana: moderate clapping...
...But Thompson refuses to malign Duke or his following...
...The mike is quickly revived but his mumbled staccato renders half of what he says unintelligible...
...An outsized event organizer mounts the stage to deliver an introduction...
...The only drug to get no applause and catcalls: cocaine...
...He wants to talk about the Fourth Amendment, "the right of the people...
...On a warrant from the D.A.'s office the deputies seized about a line's worth of cocaine (.09 gram), thirty-nine hits of LSD, some drug paraphernalia, an antique gun, and four sticks of dynamite...
...263 pages, indexed $29.95 cloth...
...Not today but soon...
...Jesse Helms, takes the form of a speech that requires him to quote Benjamin Franklin...
...This book sets forth, with inescapable logic and clarity, the reasons why...
...He is booed away from the lectern...
...See ya on the bus, Dr...
...Thompson uses the bullhorn...
...A tie-dyed youth whose valley-guy vowels sound exactly like Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High alludes to the wide availability of crack in the District of Columbia and wants to know if it would be "morally plausible" to behead William Bennett...
...Irvington, N.Y...
...Another speechified question comes from a cute feminist chick (oops) who complains, "I don't see how we can talk about participatory democracy when all the women in this room are too intimidated to ask a question...
...An epitaph for the 1980s if ever there was one...
...He hasn't...
...Deafening cries of "Awriiight...
...Thompson was charged with five felonies and three misdemeanors—up to fifty years in prison if convicted...
...Caddell, sporting a black T-shirt emblazoned with a "Gonzo" dagger logo, announces his role as "master of ceremonies...
...is what he wants, berating the assembled generation for "bitching and not doing anything about it...
...The floor is opened to questions...
...Thompson's brain is febrile but not completely fried...
...Caddell names a drug and the 42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1990 crowd rates it on the applause meter...
...The crowd doesn't know how to deal 'Subtitled More Notes From the Death of the American Dream: Gonzo Papers Volume III (Summit Books, $21.95...
...CALL (914) 591-7230 or FAX (914) 591-8910 The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc...
...Duke...
...The crowd has thinned, some having fled the endless invocations of the Fourth Amendment and the case of Hunter S. Thompson v. The Aspen D.A...
...He is, in fact, obsessed with the Fourth Amendment, specifically its relation to the events of November 26, 1989, when his cabin in Woody Creek, Colorado, was searched for eleven hours by sheriff's deputies on the basis of a complaint by a woman acquainted with the X-rated film industry who said Thompson had, among other things, twisted her left breast after she refused to join him in his hot tub...
...My new friend lets out a dim chuckle and I realize this is no ordinary mob of half-wit undergraduates shirking their anthropology homework...
...Heroin: noise from one respondent who is either a junkie or a liar...
...a heckler cracks—and crouching nearby while she discusses "women's bodies," "people of color," and the Exxon Corporation...
...Wild applause...
...Not without more fire exits...
...Finally, Thompson intervenes...
...Participatory democracy...
...They expect it...
...His question, the usual attack on Sen...
...As it gets closer to nine—Thompson was due at eight—the mood begins to turn ugly, the hostility directed not at "the Doctor" but at the authorities failing to deliver him...
...He doesn't want to talk about the Persian Gulf or the War on Drugs...
...He has Pat Caddell in tow...
...I never want to be in a room with them again...
...I like P. J. . . . P. J.'s good...
...government could "commit genocide on them...
...About midway through the two-hour performance, a member of the long-haired tie-dyed tribe shimmies down the edge of the stage curtain behind Thompson and hands him half a grapefruit, a votive offering inspired by the pages of Fear and Loathing...
...This widely publicized brush with law enforcement has obviously energized Thompson, recharged the adrenal paranoia that drove him during the Nixon years and ran dry under Reagan...
Vol. 23 • December 1990 • No. 12
