Gonzo In The Making
In telling the story of Hunter S Thompson it’s impossible to separate the crazy from the man nor the genius. He was something of an eccentric (to put it nicely) who had, say an offbeat way of doing things. As he has put it, he was ‘one of God’s own prototypes, a crazy, wild, high powered deviant, that was never considered for mass production. An oddity, who couldn’t fit into anything normal. Who was too weird to live and too rare to die.’ He was always the crazy one in the room, who comes up with the craziest of all ideas and was insane enough to pull it off. A true genius in the making with a dash of madness and wild bursts of pure passion. He had no care for the society and its people he just wanted to have all the kicks for himself. He embraced all his madness and flaunted it as he owned it. Taking life for a joy ride, enjoying every minute of it to the fullest.
America in the ’60s and ’70s was living its interesting times, with the rise of many subcultures, movements, protests, and lots and lots of booze, drugs and rock n roll. One cannot say for sure whether it was the good of times or the bad but hell for sure was weird. And in times of weirdness, the weird turn pro. And Hunter S Thompson had taken the center stage in the strangest of times. Hunter by profession was a journalist and an author not one of the run-of-the-mill journalists, a pioneer in a new kind of journalism. He was one among the forefathers of the new age of journalism movement and founder of ‘Gonzo journalism’. The word ‘Gonzo’ means crazy or bizarre and is believed to have been used in the 1970’s to describe an article written by Hunter, bringing the style of journalism into vogue. The style comprises of a first-person narrative with the reporter as part of the story. What made this style so popular was the way it was written. Hunter wrote the stories from his personal experience, with all the real emotions and passion intact that the readers could experience themselves. The intensity and excitement from reading the articles were so overwhelming that people loved it more than the traditional boring — all facts none the flavor journalism.
Born on July 18, 1937, as the first son of Virginia Ray Davison and Jack Robert Thompson, Hunter grew up in a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky. His life as a writer officially started at the age of 15 when he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, where he contributed articles to produce the club’s yearbook. But all that came to an end in 1955 when he was arrested for robbery. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail and was denied the permission to take his high-school final examination, therefore he never graduated high school. After his release from prison, he joined the United States Air Force. All the while he was in the Air force he continued his literary pursuits, taking writing jobs in newspapers. After leaving the Air Force behind, he bagged a series of reporter jobs for many newspapers and landed on freelancing jobs in Puerto Rico and South America.
The breakthrough in his life and career came as an offer, one he couldn’t refuse. An opportunity of all opportunities. To write a story about the ‘Hells Angels’ motorcycle club. When the editor of The Nation, Carey McWilliams, in 1965 hired Hunter to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California he would have never thought it could start a revolution in journalism. That it would change the whole of journalism and every aspect of it. As crazy as he was, Hunter wasn’t going to make it another boring story. He had other plans for the Hell’s Angels; to take the story to the subject.
Ok, let’s take a moment to analyze the situation, Hunter had taken the offer to write the story about the Hell’s Angels and he wanted it to be real and mind-blowing. That’s admirable. In this situation, what a normal journalist would have done was, do some research on the subject, gather all information and write the story. No problems there right. Mind you, that Hunter was many things but normal. So, what he did was he just went ahead and joined the club, getting his hands dirty and becoming a part of the story. Hunter almost became an honorary member of the club spending almost a year with the club. And wrote one of the finest works in journalism and a book that was praised by many, launching his career as a writer. Hunter created his style of writing, a highly personal one in which he was not just an observer rather he was another character. The New York Times described his book as “a world most of us never dare encounter.”
People used to write him off as crazy, but what they couldn’t do was ignore the genius in him. You can call him whatever names you want, but when it comes to writing great stories he was hands down the best. He had his own way of doing things and never changed it to the day he died. And for all those sticklers who have a problem with his way of living, he has a question for you: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed? You only get one life to live, don’t take it for granted. Buy the ticket, take the ride, fall down, get up, freak out, be cool, make love, get high, kick-ass do whatever you want to do to live a good life. So let the good times roll.
