Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone (13 page)

“Sure they do,” he said quickly. “But all that information is confidential.”

__ __ __ __

By the summer of 1971, Hunter’s relationship with the magazine was humming; he was an infrequent, if notorious, presence around the office and began to see himself as integrally involved in
Rolling Stone’
s operations; to that effect, he initiated the first in an occasional and long-running series of “Memos from the Sports Desk”—short diatribes and mini manifestos covering issues of the day ranging from office politics to international conspiracies. The first such memo—on the emerging born-again menace infiltrating the local culture—featured the first
Rolling Stone
byline of Hunter’s most infamous alter ego, Raoul Duke.

Letter from HST to JSW

June 8 ’71

Jann . . .

This (enc.) thing began as a one-graf note—sort of a quick edit joke. I’m not sure what it is now. Apparently I was more into it than I thought.

Which is true. This Jesus trip will tie us all in knots for at least the next year, unless we deal with it quick. I’ve seen what the Zen/Macro influence can do to Realpolitik—and this Jesus bullshit is simply a new twist in the old Big Answer game. These simple bastards refuse to accept the notion that they have to
do
something. They keep waiting for The Answer to turn up on some fucking scroll—or maybe a Tarot card.

Anyway, here’s a Memo for you. I hesitate to even suggest what might be done with it. As the Sports Editor, I feel entitled
to a certain modicum of craziness, but—even so—I’m not sure I’d like to see this in print with an italicized “editors note” saying “here’s what crazy Hunter wrote this week.” That last thing about the human drug-testing apparatus was all I need for this season.

OK for now.

HST

September 2, 1971

A recent emergency survey of our field-sources indicates a firestorm of lunacy brewing on the neo-religious front. Failure to prepare for this madness could tax our resources severely—perhaps to the breaking point. During the next few months we will almost certainly be inundated, even swamped, by a nightmare-blizzard of schlock, gibberish, swill, & pseudo-religious bullshit of every type and description. We can expect no relief until after Christmas. This problem will manifest itself in many treacherous forms—and we will have to deal with them all. To wit:

1) The mailroom will be paralyzed by wave after wave of pamphlets, records, warnings and half-mad screeds from Persons and/or Commercial Organizations attempting to cash in on this grisly shuck. So we have already made arrangements to establish an alternative mailroom, to handle our serious business.

2) We expect the main elevators to be jammed up, day and night, by a never-ending swarm of crazies attempting to drag huge wooden crosses and other over-sized gimcracks into the building. To circumvent this, we are even now in the process of installing a powerful glass/cube electric lift on the
exterior
of the building for employee/business & general editorial use. The ingress/egress door will be cut in the east wall, behind Dave Felton’s cubicle. The ground-floor door will be disguised as a huge packing crate in the parking lot. An armed guard will be on duty at all times.

3) We expect the phone lines to be tied up almost constantly by hired and/or rabid
Jesus Freaks
attempting to get things like “Today’s Prayer Message,” etc., into our editorial columns. Our policy will be
not
to reject
these things: no, we will
accept
them. They will all be switched to a special automated phone extension in the basement of the building. Yail Bloor, the eminent theologist, has prepared a series of recorded replies for calls of this nature. Any callers who resist automation can leave their names & numbers, so Inspector Bloor can return their calls and deal with them personally between the hours of 2:00 and 6:00 AM.

These are only a few of the specific horrors that we will have to come to grips with between now and September. There will, of course, be others—less tangible and far more sensitive—such as Subversion of Key Personnel. As always, there will be a few brainless scumbags going under—succumbing, as it were—to the lure of this latest cult. We expect this, and when these organizational blow-holes appear, they will be
plugged
with extreme speed & savagery.

It is the view of the Sports Desk that a generation of failed dingbats and closet-junkies should under no circumstances be allowed to foul our lines of communication at a time when anybody with access to a thinking/nationwide audience has an almost desperate obligation to speak
coherently
. This is not the year for a mass reversion to atavistic bullshit—and particularly not in the pages of
Rolling Stone
.

We expect the pressure to mount in geometric progressions from now until December, & then to peak around Christmas. Meanwhile, it is well to remember the words of Dr. Heem, one of the few modern-day wizards who has never been wrong. Dr. Heem was cursed by Eisenhower, mocked by Kennedy, jeered by Tim Leary, and threatened by Eldridge Cleaver. But he is still on the stump ... still hustling.

“The future of Christianity is far too fragile,” he said recently, “to be left in the hands of the Christians—especially
pros
.”

The Sports Desk feels very strongly about this. Further warnings will issue, as special problems arise. Which they will. We are absolutely certain of this, if nothing else. What we are faced with today is the same old Rising Tide that’s been coming for the past five years or more ... the same old evil, menacing, frog-eyed trip of a whole generation run amok from too many failures.

Which is fine. It was long overdue. And once again in the words of Dr. Heem, “Sometimes the old walls are so cock-eyed that you can’t even fit a new window.” But the trouble with the
Jesus Freak
outburst is that it
is less a window than a gigantic ingrown hair. Horrible things have been done in the name of “Christianity”: the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the Rape of the Congo, and the Conquest of the Incas, the Mayans, and the Aztecs. Entire civilizations have been done in by vengeful monsters claiming a special relationship with “God.”

What we are dealing with now is nothing less than another Empire on the brink of collapse—more than likely of its own bad weight & twisted priorities. This process is already well underway. Everything Nixon stands for is doomed, now or later.

But it will sure as hell be
later
if the best alternative we can mount is a generation of loonies who’ve given up on everything except a revival of the same old primitive bullshit that caused all our troubles from the start. What a
horror
to think that all the fine, high action of the Sixties would somehow come down—ten years later—to a gross & mindless echo of Billy Sunday.

This is why the Sports Desk insists that these waterheads must be kept out of the building at all costs. We have serious business to deal with, and these fuckers will only be in the way.

Sincerely,

Raoul Duke

Handwritten Note Concerning Hunter’s Invitation to National District Attorneys Conference

3/4

Jann

This just came—& I think it’s a
must
.

I
insist
on doing this one. After all, I’ve been
invited
.

Right?

HST

__ __ __ __

Hunter’s invitation to the National District Attorneys Association’s institute on narcotics and dangerous drugs wasn’t quite as impossible as it might seem on the surface; having nearly been elected sheriff of Aspen not long earlier, Hunter made sure his name was on various political and law enforcement mailing lists. When the invitation did show up, though, he wasted little time in seizing the moment. What eventually followed, of course, was Hunter’s most sustained and compelling sui generis piece ever, begun in between stints working on the Salazar story.

“Working with Hunter was already a major hand-holding job,” said Wenner. “It meant a minimum of two, maybe three people assigned to the task, including me. It was too much for any one person to handle, even that early on, because of the hours and the time Hunter took. He liked having a team of people working on his stuff. He liked the company, and he liked the crisis atmosphere. I could never change that pattern.

“But ‘Vegas’ was completely different. He did that on his own. It took him several months to write it. He’d send me pages. I’d change a word here or suggest a little thing there, but it was already completely formed. I’d ask him to write transitions to make the narrative more complete, but he politely and firmly refused. It was his pure fantasy, coming directly out of his own mind. There was no real reporting involved, except when he wanted to go back and do the District Attorneys Conference, which was hysterical and had pure gonzo potential.”

Letter from HST to JSW

June 15 ’71

Owl Farm

Woody Creek, Colorado

Dear Jann . . .

I’m sending today, under sep. cover, an accidental classic of a photo to go with the Vegas thing. As I noted in the margin, Acosta’s name should
not
be mentioned without his permission. He’s not opposed to use of the photo, but as of now he’s concerned about seeing his name etched permanently in the caption. I understand this, and agreed that he would only be identified as “my attorney.”

My own caption-ID is
personally
immaterial to me. The Raoul Duke byline, however, might not be entirely viable if Random House decides to use Vegas II in the American Dream book—by HST. This is an option that [Random House editor in chief James] Silberman bought—very cheap, I think—when he paid the Expense tab for both Vegas pieces (less $500 that was paid out in cash & remains un-reimbursed). What he paid was the Carte Blanche bill, but not in time to beat the computer that took my card. The swine cut me off last week—no warning at all, just a massive cut-off & a vicious letter from the Harbour Detective Agency, saying I should cut my card in half & send it back. I refused, of course, but that doesn’t alter the fact that my number is now on the “to be arrested at once” list that circulates among CB dealers.

The fact that I blame you for this is probably unjust in the long run—but of course there was never any real question of “the long run.” All I wanted to do was pay off my card, and talk about “Fiscal Responsibility” later.

Which is neither here nor there, for now. The deed is done. I am now naked of credit. And this ugly fact is going to put a bad crimp in my working-style for a long time to come. Selah . . .

As for Vegas, it’s coming along very slowly. Silberman thinks it should go in the AmDream book, but I disagree. The Vegas stuff is too twisted, I think, to anchor a serious book. But what will probably happen, now, is that I’ll have to pursuede [
sic
] Silberman of that and then trade him book rights on “The Battle of Aspen—An Epitaph for Freak Power?” for the entirety of Vegas. And this dealing will be subject in a lot of ways to The Schedule—my planned departure for Siagon [
sic
] on Sept 1.

So we’ll have at least this to ponder when you get here. Sandy says you called Sunday & then today. I was far into madness on Sunday—[Hunter’s friend and writer] Lucian Truscott showed up with a huge bag of mescaline—and today I was too cosmically pissed off to talk about anything. Especially money—which you seem to have indicated would be the subject under discussion. I had a terrible scene with the dentist earlier today: One of the side-horrors of Vegas II was that I bit down on something that cracked three of my teeth—a problem I was unaware of until I went in a few days ago for my routine 6-month cleaning.

Shit, I’ll call you tomorrow. I’m vaguely concerned, among other things, about that “Jesus Freak memo” from the Sports Desk ... if there’s any possibility that it might be published, I want to talk about it first. (Meanwhile, I’ve prepared Sports Desk Memo #2—On the subject of “drug Lyrics in Rock Music.”) The very nature of this format makes the writing a bit heavy. #1 began as a joke—and perhaps it ended that way. I can’t be sure. Whenever I belch out my bias that strongly, it takes on an element of craziness ... and I want to be careful of this. In the past two weeks I’ve received copies of two different books that used “selections” from “Hell’s Angels,” and in both cases I was shocked at what happens to my stuff when it’s printed out of context. All it takes is a few cuts on the Humor to make the rest seem like the ravings of a dangerous lunatic.

Anyway, we can deal with these things when you get here. It’s possible that Noonan will be gone, and if he is you can stay in his house—which would probably be preferable, from your end,
to using the guest room here. Which is definitely available—complete with White Sound. But I’ll talk to you tomorrow, before you get this, and get a fix on your travel dates.