In which the Omphaloskeptic Concludes the Ramblings Embarked Upon in the Previous Installment

[Note: Originally I thought I would post this over the course of three days.  Instead it's turned out that this second post will contain the remainder of the piece.  I know there are some real Kerouac and Thompson fans out there.  Any comments, objections or shrieks of incredulity would be gratefully accepted.  Also, I'm having fits trying to get my footnotes to work properly when I import sections of the original document.  Yesterday, despite my best efforts, it was impossible to click on a note to jump to the citation and vice versa.  The same holds true for today with the added difficulty that for some reason my footnoting has reset and the notes appear after my Works Cited and Works consulted lists.  It's Friday, there's a cold beer in my fridge and I'm not going screw around with footnotes and formatting any longer.  If that bothers you then you are even more pedantic than I am and that's no good thing, trust me.  You do, however, have my admiration.]

The possibility that Dean is somehow too American, that he has an all-consuming faith in core American values signified by the myths he is associated with emerges as key to any proper understanding of his holy idiocy on its own and as a critique of a wider American community. While it is true that, in the eyes of the law and many of his fellow citizens Dean is a criminal he cannot be dismissed as merely a malicious thief with a taste fast cars, tea and Benzedrine. Instead readers are told that “his ‘criminality’ was not something that sulked and sneered; it was a wild yea-saying overburst of American joy; it was Western, the west wind, an ode from the Plains, something new, long prophesied, long a-coming (he only stole cars for joy rides).”¹ Paradoxically Dean’s long awaited embodiment of American joy, his exercise of personal freedom, is precisely what renders him a criminal, it is the key to both his saintliness and his clownish imbecility. In other words Dean is simply too American for most other Americans to be comfortable with.

It is precisely this paradox that is key to the scene from which I have taken the title of this paper and the label I wish to apply to both Moriarty and Duke. Just as Dean and Sal are about to set off on a manic night of kicks in San Francisco before travelling east Sal describes a scene in which Galatea Dunkle criticises Dean for his selfish behaviour. The narrator never denies that Dean is guilty, at this point he is essentially abandoning his pregnant wife, but he reveals that “I suddenly realized that Dean, by virtue of his enormous series of sins, was becoming the Idiot, the Imbecile, the Saint of the lot” adding a short while later “That’s what Dean was, the HOLY GOOF.”² In his refusal to take life too seriously, through his selfish, illegal and often misogynist pursuit of his own freedoms and desires Dean has expanded on the same paradox whereby his exuberant faith in American values rendered him a criminal to the point where it has elevated him to the position of a saint. At this point Dean may have a severely infected thumb, no money or home, and quickly be alienating his former friends but is also at this point that he achieves his full status as the patron saint of the Beat generation appearing and acting in the words of Sal “as though tremendous revelations were pouring into him all the time now, and I am convinced they were, and the others suspected as much and were frightened. He was BEAT – the root, the soul of Beatific.”³ Not only does this passage make clear that Dean’s ragged imbecility and his saintly status combine to render him a Holy Goof possessed of some powerful vision, but it also emphasises the fact that those arrayed against Dean recognise and fear the revelations he may be able to provide them.

While Kerouac’s narrative takes great pains to establish Dean’s credentials as a holy American idiot, Raoul Duke’s similar role in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas may not be as quickly apparent. John Hellman notes of Thompson’s narrative persona in general that “Like a mad seer or a holy fool, this persona can reveal aspects of events not readily apparent to those with normal perception” suggesting the existence of some parallel between the two characters under discussion.⁴ As it turns out, Duke, like Dean emerges as a clownish American saint whose excesses and criminality are inseperable from his belief in and pursuit of certain core values and beliefs. Perhaps due to the first-person narration of Thompson’s book, however, Duke’s status as a Holy Goof does not emerge with the same dramatic force as Dean’s.

Central to any recognition of Duke as a Holy Goof is a scene that occurs in Wild Bill’s Café on the outskirts of Las Vegas as Duke contemplates fleeing town after the Mint 500 motorcycle race and before the Association of District Attorneys drug convention. In what Hellman describes as “a reversal of the traditional Christian revelation and conversion” Duke makes clear that he too occupies a position characterized by paradox.⁵ Contemplating his outrageous behaviour leads Duke to declare his own guilt “Jesus Creeping God! Is there a priest in this tavern? I want to confess! I’m a fucking sinner! Venal, mortal, carnal, major, minor—however you want to call it, Lord . . . I’m guilty.”⁶ Clearly Duke possesses a strong, if paranoid, awareness of his own failings making clear that he has committed a sin from each of five general categories, however he does not stop with this admission. He goes on to ask for God’s intervention to allow him the time he needs to make good his escape commenting: “Which is not really a hell of a lot to ask, Lord, because the final incredible truth is that I am not guilty. All I did was take your gibberish seriously . . . and you see where it got me? My primitive Christian instincts have made me a criminal.”⁷ By insisting on his innocence immediately after acknowledging his guilt Duke makes clear that like Moriarty he occupies a position characterised by paradox. He has done wrong, but only as a result of taking certain precepts and values too seriously in pursuit of what he calls his “primitive Christian instincts.”

Additionally, the absurdist humour of the scene helps to illustrate that Duke’s tricksterish antics are also part and parcel of his status as a holy goof. Just in case the incongruity of looking for a priest in a Vegas bar is too subtle Duke’s final address to the Lord demonstrates the inseparability of his status as both clown and prophet ending as it does in a half-jest: “You better take care of me, Lord . . . because if you don’t you’re going to have me on your hands.”⁸ Given that he threatens God, albeit in partial jest, Duke’s particular saintliness does finally emerge as more menacing than Moriarty’s W.C. Fields virtue, a difference that I suggest is more of degree than of kind. In the eyes of the law and many other Americans neither of these men can be viewed as innocents. Both take their behaviours to such extremes that at one level they render themselves not only foolish but agents who actively invite ridicule and persecution if not prosecution. Meanwhile both narratives, insist that their criminality, clownishness and idiocy renders them special and that they attain the status of Holy Goofs because all their sins stem, paradoxically, from the purist of motives.

As a means of drawing my comments to a close I’d like to offer some suggestion of how, perhaps even why, Dean Moriarty and Raoul Duke were created, even remain, as more than loveable rogues. It is significant that both characters embrace the role of Holy Goof; rushing around they actively court trouble and rarely demonstrate any desire or ability to remain inconspicuous let alone what the majority of Americans would call respectable. This is due partly to an impulse that can be traced back to the fools for Christ’s sake that were motivated by thought stemming from Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians arguing that the only way to reveal the folly of the mundane world is to revel in a version of the divine folly that is its superior. As I said at the outset, however, neither Moriarty nor Duke are trying to institute a more thoroughly Christian order in the United States. This does not disqualify them as American versions of the divine seer or Holy Goof however. In fact, given that both are closely associated with certain defining American myths and that both of them court the trouble they do because of a devout faith in what should be the possibilities of life in the United States they emerges as even stronger candidates for the position of Holy American Idiot. By acting as they do both Dean and Duke provide some insight into the greed, superficial uniformity and complacency of the American societies they are both part of and apart from. In this respect it is no accident that both fetishise, and destroy, automobiles. American readers may not be meant to follow either character into the realms of excess through which they move, but in an increasingly materialistic and modernised American world both of these Holy Goofs impulsively pursue their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in a manner that questions who the idiots actually are.

Works Cited

Heller, Dana. “Holy Fools, Secular Saints, and Illiterate Saviours in American Literature and Popular Culture.” CLCWeb: Comparitive Literature and Culture. Ed. Benton Jay Komin 5.3 (2003).<http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol5/iss3> Accessed 24 Nov. 2008.

Hellman, John. Fables of Fact: The New Journalism and New Fiction. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981.

Jack Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. [1957] Penguin Modern Classics. Intro. Ann Charters London: Penguin Books, 2000.

- – -. On the Road:The Original Scroll. Penguin Modern Classics. Ed. Howard Cunnell. London: Penguin Books, 2008.

Llano, Stephen. “The Clown as Social Critic: Kerouac’s Vision.” Clowns, Fools and Picaros: Popular Forms in Theatre, Fiction and Film. Ed David Robb. Amsterdam-New York, 2007.

Saward, John. Perfect Fools: Folly for Christ’s Sake in Catholic and Orthodox Spirituality.

Oxford: OUP, 1980.

Thompson, Hunter S. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. [1971] Flamingo Modern Classics. London: Flamingo.

Works Consulted

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Helene Iswolsky [1965] Bloomington: Indiania UP, 1984.

Billington, Sandra. A Social History of the Fool. Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1984

Cresswell, Tim. “Mobility as Resistance: A Geographical Reading of Kerouac’s ‘On the Road.’” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 18.2 (1993) 249-262. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/622366> Accessed 23 Apr. 2009.

McDowell, Linda. “Off the Road: Alternative Views of Rebellion, Resistance and ‘The Beats’.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 21.2 (1996)412-419. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/622491> Accessed 23 Apr 2009.

Paton, Fiona. “Beyond Bakhtin: Towards a Cultural Stylistics.” College English.63.2 (2000) 166 -193. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/379039> Accessed:23 Apr.2009.

Rycroft, Simon. “Changing Lanes: Textuality off and on the Road” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 21.2 (1996) 425-428. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/622493> Accessed: 23 Apr. 2009.

Seelye, John D. “The American Tramp: A Version of the Picaresque” AmericanQuarterly. 15.4 (1963) 535-553. >http://www.jstor.org/stable/2710972>Accessed 23 Apr. 2009.

Stanford, Raney. “The Return of Trickster: When a Not-A-Hero Is a Hero.” Journal of Popular Culture. 1:3 (1967) 228-242.

Welsford, Enid. The Fool: His Social and Literary History. [1934]. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber and Faber, 1968.

Williams, Paul V.A. ed. The Fool and the Trickster: Studies in Honour of Enid Welsford. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer Ltd., 1979.

1 Kerouac, 2000, 9.

2 Kerouac, 2000, 176.

3 Kerouac, 2000, 177.

4 John, Hellman, Fables of Fact: The New Journalism and New Fiction, (Urban: University of Illinois Press, 1981) 69.

5 Hellman, 80.

6 Thompson, 86.

7 Thomspon, 86-7.

8 Thompson, 87.

Mr. O'brien

I’m in the mood for ambitious fiction. Earlier this year I was blessed with a run of incredible reads,  topped off by Yvegeny Zamiatin’s masterpiece, We.

Mr. Zamiatin

Since then I’ve taken on more projects that inevitably have eaten into my reading time, and I am becoming more zealous in my quest for inspired reads. Ambition is the only flavor my literary palate wants to taste right now. I’m hungry for books that make me break out the booksdarts and re-read for pure pleasure. I want prose and plots that cause reactions, page turners that remind me how lucky I am to know how to read.

I’m compiling a list (in no particular order) of ambitiously written books and additions are requested in the comments section! I’d love suggestions for a 2010 reading list…

Mr. Baldwin

The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

The Inferno by Dante

Morvagine by Blaise Cendrars

Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller

Candide by Voltaire

The Electric Koolaid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

Black Boy by Richard Wright

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf? by Edward Albee

Bowl of Cherries by Milliard Kauffman

The Whapshot Chronicle by John Cheever (as well as many of his shorter works)

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

The Iliad by Homer

If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

Her by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

The Twits by Roald Dahl

Lolita by Vladamir Nabakov

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Monkeywrench Gang by Edward Abbey

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Peanuts by Charles Schultz

Mr. Abbey

more:

Bluebeard/Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

The Aeneid by Virgil

The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

His Dark Materials Series by Phillip Pullman

At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’brien

White Noise by Don Delillo

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

The Watchmen by Alan Moore

More..?

I will provide specific examples of various social and political commentaries from Hunter Thompson’s article “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.” I will examine Thompson’s place and importance within the culture he was critiquing as well as within the realm of journalism itself. Although he was most often under the influence of one or a variety of substances his words and insight have influenced many who knew or read him. He dedicated himself, compulsions and all, to the craft of journalism. He has personally been one of my favorite writers since I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas several summers ago. What drew me to Thompson was his ability to make the ordinary remarkable. I feel his style is reflective of the subjectivity that has seeped into our culture, beginning with the rise of New Journalism, a style that had many similarities to Gonzo Journalism.

Thompson’s article is immersive due to its exploration of the surroundings and the writer’s obsessive practice of the continual, unquestioned traditions and indulgences in question. Steadman calls this going “native,” which they do, becoming the “real beasts” they have come to see perform. Many of Thompson’s generation sought to expand their minds, they often achieved this by pushing their bodies to extremes while the upright citizens of the day deplored their degrading behaviors. Thompson was perhaps speaking out in opposition to some acts of depravity but lived his life according to his own moral code. I identify with his tactics and works because I too notice a trend of alienation, of increasing anti-social tendencies and isolation. Thompson spoke for his generation because while he felt his views were important he felt equally responsible to point out any biases he had as a journalist. Thompson achieved this with his over-the-top style.

Thompson’s judgments are meant to be humorous at first glance however; they contain relevant cultural critiques and provide readers insight of the times and of the widely different levels of experience that were available within a famous southern tradition. One of the most intriguing aspects of the article was the attempt of the journalist and illustrator to find a proper caricature, a representative face of the entire culture: “He had done a few good sketches, but so far we hadn’t seen that special kind of face that I felt we would need for a lead drawing. It was a face I’d seen a thousand times at every Derby I’d ever been to. I saw it, in my head, as the mask of whiskey gentry–a pretentious mix of booze, failed dreams and a terminal identity crisis; the inevitable result of too much inbreeding in a closed and ignorant culture” (Thompson 5). Thompson and Steadman were seeking more than just an illustration for the piece; Thompson wanted a symbol “of the whole doomed atavistic culture that makes the Kentucky Derby what it is” (Thompson 5). In the end, journalist and illustrator hit the bottom of the barrel but somehow make it out alive. Thompson wakes after consuming mass amounts of alcohol, admirable by even Derby standards and doesn’t even recognize himself in the mirror at first, he has transformed into the caricature he was seeking.

The piece is also littered with Nixon references. Nixon, a caricature of everything Thompson stood against, seemed to serve as the reason and bane of his existence simultaneously. Even if the piece isn’t about Nixon or war or any of the freedoms Thompson cherished those themes would creep in, serving as a backdrop for whatever scene Thompson felt like making. Everyone has a streak of rebellion within and Thompson let his run its full course. He was always against the power, fighting even when losing is inevitable.

Thompson was always able to fin something about any situation that held a special significance to him or to the culture at large. He focused on his own experience and interpretation of things, giving us not only a snap shot of the culture or the event itself but sharing himself as well. We get a whole new level with Thompson, a level that is intentionally missing from Capote and Hersey’s work, (each for different reasons) the element of psychology. Readers are fascinated with Thompson’s bizarre and demented psychology, especially when it starts making sense to them.

Critics of Thompson are quick to jump on this strong, subjective voice that seems harsh and judgmental at times as well as his lack of conventional research. Thompson does these things intentionally and I admire his sense of humor and honesty because in the end he is even willing to turn his words on himself: “For a confused instant I thought Ralph had brought somebody with him–a model for that one special face we’d been looking for. There he was, by God–a puffy, drink-ravaged, disease-ridden caricature…like an awful cartoon version of an old snapshot in come one-proud mother’s family photo album. It was the face we’d been looking for–and it was, of course, my own. Horrible, horrible…” (Thompson 9). Thompson writes highly stylized prose that is funny at times while still managing to be poetic. I am a poet myself and I enjoy fiction that borrows from the poetic tradition. Similarly, I have been able to connect with nonfiction that borrows these techniques. Gonzo Journalism is highly idealistic, like its creator but there is something beautiful in its mission to tear down the artifice of government, uncover the deceit of war and end the suppression of freedoms in favor of false securities in a society of increasing unrest.

Happy Thanksgiving to all you navel gazers out there, American and non-American alike.  I’ve been thinking about a vague promise I made sometime ago to post something on roads and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really have anything terribly interesting to say on that subject at this point in time.  I have come up with a somewhat experimental and, I hope, satisfactory alternative.  Earlier this year I gave a conference paper on the characters Dean Moriarty and Raoul Duke as American versions of the divine idiot.  Both were characters who spent lots of time on the road and the product of real-life minds who themselves were rather well-travelled.  Over the next few days I’m going to post the text that I spoke from.  Questions, rants and objections in response to my thoughts are welcome.  Do keep in mind that this represents me just beginning to flesh out an idea that could potentially be much larger.  It could also be nonsense.  Enjoy.  (n.b. I’ve done my best to include my footnotes in this posting in a way that will enable readers to navigate from the text to the citation if they wish to do so.  My works cited and works consulted lists will make up part of the final posting)

Holy Goofs: Dean Moriarty and Raoul Duke, Two Holy American Idiots

Jack Kerouac’s depiction of Neal Cassady as Dean Moriarty and Hunter S. Thompson’s autobiographical alter ego, Raoul Duke have aroused interest and debate since they first greeted readers from the pages of On the Road (1957) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971). While part of their continuing popularity lies, at least among undergraduates and adolescents, in their rebellious indulgence of excessive appetites and extreme exercise of personal freedom, Moriarty and Duke are more than drug- and drink-fuelled iconoclasts driving at high speed across the American landscape. Instead, closer consideration of Duke and Moriarty on their own and as a pair reveals that they are in fact two American examples of the holy fool, divine idiot or, as Dean is branded in Kerouac’s book, “the HOLY GOOF.”¹

In an insightful 2003 article entitled “Holy Fools, Secular Saints, and Illiterate Saviours in American Literature and Popular Culture” Dana Heller argues “that the divine idiot in American cultural history is an overlooked site of contestation and meaning production in our myths of nation, a chiasmatic figure who occupies the in-between spaces where U.S. cultural authority is fought over, negotiated, and renegotiated.”² By offering an examination of the pair as holy fools whose actions and behaviour question core American values and myths my comments seek to redress a small portion of the oversight Heller identifies. Though both Dean and Duke have a strong basis in the biographical realities of the men on which they were modelled they remain the fictionalised creations of their authors. As a result, their alignment with defining American myths and assumption of the fool’s role begins to emerges as a potentially powerful a means of exploring and critiquing the United States through which they move.

That Dean Moriarty and Raoul Duke are consciously aligned with totemic American figures and myths is, perhaps, more rapidly apparent, than their status as holy fools of an American stripe. Recounting his first impressions of Dean, Sal Paradise the narrator of On the Road, reveals “My first impression of Dean was of a young Gene Autry – trim, thin-hipped, blue-eyed, with a real Oklahoma accent – a sideburned hero of the snowy west.”³ Though readers may rightly question how much of a hero this former “jailkid” may actually be, the comparison with Gene Autry and his description as a western hero firmly aligns Dean with that archetypal hero of the American west and rugged individual freedom, the cowboy.⁴ Not only does the fact that Dean has actually spent time working as a cowhand further cement his position at a crossroads between American myths and realities, but a brief look at this same description in the infamous scroll version of the novel which omits the phrase “a sideburned hero of the west” suggests that in addition to substituting the name Dean Moriarty for Neal Cassady Kerouac sought a greater emphasis of Dean’s mythical standing.⁵ While later events and Dean’s propensity to what might be considered stunning selfishness may reveal the character as an ambivalent hero at best, his alignment with mythical American figures remains uncontested during his peregrinations with Sal Paradise. In fact, it is only by recognising Dean’s status as a holy fool that the continuing valorisation of Dean can be reconciled with Sal’s candid admission that Dean “was a con-man. . . .”⁶

Like Dean, Hunter S. Thompson’s Raoul Duke quickly emerges as a figure aligned in some way with defining American myths. Not only is the subtitle of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to Heart of the American Dream heavily suggestive of the possibility that in Duke readers encounter a figure standing at a point of intersection between American myths and realities but, like Dean, he is quickly connected to a particular figure or trope in the form of the rags-to-riches individual of the Alger mythos. As Duke tries to explain to readers and himself why, at the book’s outset, he is speeding toward Las Vegas with a car full of drugs he asks: “But what was the story? Nobody had bothered to say. So we would have to drum it up on our own. Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas.”⁷ Where Moriarty’s status as an ambivalent American hero emerges alongside the insistence that he embodies the cowboy archetype, Duke’s association with the nation’s defining myths in the form of the American Dream and Horatio Alger are destabilised from the outset. That being said, though Duke does confound reader expectations of what it means to be a Horatio Alger in search of the American Dream achieving massive inebriation rather than impressive wealth and social achievement, at the narrative’s close Duke can still insist “I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger . . . A Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.”⁸ As with Dean Moriarty, in order to reconcile Duke’s status as what Heller describes as a “chiasmatic figure,” one standing between more conventional American myths and values with his extreme, even criminal behaviour it is necessary to consider his role as an American type of the holy fool.

While it is not possible in an argument of such brevity to adequately survey the historical, social and literary evolutions of fools, divine or otherwise, it is worth mentioning that the tradition of such figures is both widespread and of significant longevity. Though Dean and Duke are not divine madmen seeking to reconcile the temporal world with a spiritual Christian order there is good reason to view them as American outgrowths of a tradition that stretches at least as far back as Paul’s commentary on divine foolishness in 1 Corinthians 1:25 where it is written “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” John Saward helps to sum up nicely the long story of divine foolishness that includes this verse with his assessment that “The holy fool is a commonly encountered figure in the folklore of many cultures and religions. In Jewish-Christian tradition perhaps the earliest example of a religious form of folly is the ‘symbolic action’ of the prophet, the strange, sometimes quite outrageous form of behaviour imposed upon him by the Lord to shock the people into perceiving the truth of their situation.”⁹ Moriarty and Duke may not be called upon to behave as they do by the Lord, but I would like to suggest that just as their more devout forebears they do have the capability to startle others into new channels of perception.

Significantly it is possible to view both of these characters as clownish versions of the fool rather than simple madmen; agents who pursue their desires and adhere to certain values with such intensity that, in the final estimation, their apparent recklessness and idiocy undermines the assumed good-sense of more conventional behaviours. Not only does “holy lightning” flash from Dean who is elsewhere described as “having the energy of a new kind of American Saint” but, at one point we are informed that in its most mature form Dean’s role of as a fool assumes the form of a “W.C. Fields saintliness.”¹⁰ Descriptions such as these emphasise the inseparability of Dean’s Beat saintliness from his role as a ragged clown. As a holy goof he may play a serious role, but it is not one of measured restraint or even careful argument being characterised instead by an intense spiritual energy and clownish kineticism. Nor does Dean achieve the status he does because he rejects the values of the nation and generation he plays jester to. Stephen Llano aptly describes what motivates Moriarty and what kind of figure he becomes with the words “Dean, through his desire to fully enact American values, tries to push them beyond their own logical extreme. Dean is trying to be too American and in doing so he becomes a clown and presents a powerful critique of capitalist society.”¹¹

1Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Penguin Modern Classics, intro. Ann Charters (London: Penguin Books, 2000) 176.

2 Dana Heller, “Holy Fools, Secular Saints, and Illiterate Saviours in American Literature and Popular Culture,” CLCWeb: Comparitive Literature and Culture, ed. Benton Jay Komin 5.3 (2003), 24 Nov. 2008 , <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol5/iss3> .

3 Kerouac, 2000, 4.

4 Kerouac, 2000, 3.

5 Jack Kerouac, On the Road:The Original Scroll, Penguin Modern Classics, ed. Howard Cunnell (London: Penguin Books, 2008) 110.

6Kerouac, 2000, 6.

7 Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Flamingo Modern Classics (London: Flamingon, 1993) 12.

8 Thompson, 204.

9 John Saward, Perfect Fools: Folly for Christ’s Sake in Catholic and Orthodox Spirituality (Oxford: OUP, 1980) 1.

10 Kerouac, 2000, 6, 35, 109.

11 Stephen Llano, “The Clown as Social Critic: Kerouac’s Vision,” Clowns, Fools and Picaros: Popular Forms in Theatre, Fiction and Film, ed David Robb (Amsterdam-New York, 2007) 202.

I don’t know about anyone else but a story that was probably started in someones head on the internet has been saturated beyond belief now. I get Google Alerts all day everyday if a story about Johnny pops up and the last 3 days OMG! It has been a non stop deluge of stories about sex scenes or should I say “possible” sex scenes that “may” happen between Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie IF the rumors are true about them both doing the movie The Tourist which apparently has had serious issues with getting off the ground. So really the likelihood of this actually being true…. probably “slim and none”.

First of all Johnny has so many projects lined up squeezing another in is almost impossible.. Second… I may be in the minority but I just can’t see and don’t really want to see a pairing of Johnny and Jolie. Johnny being one of the most non public people (meaning he doesn’t like the attention would rather be just treated like everyone else) thinking about doing a film with someone that seems to want to be the center of attention and drags her children in it too is just weird… I think..
The news wire on the internet is like a huge regurgitating monster!! I think anyone can start anything.. rumor wise and within a 5 hour period it will start to multiply worse then rabbits and pretty soon it’s all you can hear about someone!! 2 days ago a small “rumor” started about Jolie and Depp signing up for this movie… today.. it’s the only google alert out there!!! So far I have not read anything that denies or confirms by Depp’s camp.. I for one.. no matter that I am always happy to see him on the big screen… don’t want this to come to fruition… at least not with Angelina Jolie…. Maybe Vanessa could do it… ?? Just a thought……………….
Most amazing thing.. I just saw on MSN.com that they too are buying into what is up to this point.. still a rumor.. Nothing has been verified by the Depp camp. The she said he said mentality just doesn’t fly if you are supposed to be reporting the “news”.

This is the first book I read by Hunter S. Thompson, but if they are all this good I can’t wait until I get my hands on another. The story is seemingly simplistic but the characters breathe life into it in a way that I didn’t think possible. It covers topics of poverty, boredom, corruption and a myriad of other things, all with a lot of alcohol poured on top. I look forward to reading more from him.

Some artists ––– oh, say, Leonardo Da Vinci —— are known for their discipline and concentration. Consider the number of sketches he made for a horse statue that was never completed. Others, however, have taken the tack that to be an artist or an intellectual, you must somehow be undisciplined, clueless, and/or completely self-absorbed. THOSE are the kind Hollywood likes. After you’ve been awed by Leonardo at the High’s Hand of the Genius exhibition at our 12-hour artfest Go All Night, why not visit with some of his lesser brethren?

Eleanor Ringel Cater’s picks:

Barton Fink

Barton Fink (1991)

Leave it to the brothers Coen to come up with something as hilariously berserk and mind-teasingly perverse as this surreal black comedy about (of all things) writer’s block. A High-minded New York playwright, Barton Fink (John Turturro) is lured to 1941 Hollywood to give “that Barton Fink feeling” to a Wallace Beery wrestling movie. On one level, the film is about Fink’s Day-of-the-Locust encounters with moguls, producers and washed-up self-loathing Southern writers who’ve sold out to the flicks. But then there’s also the Earle, the hotel where Barton is holed up to write his masterpiece. A hotel worthy of The Shining, it’s also home to genial traveling salesman, John Goodman, who’s got stories to tell. LOTS of ‘em. The picture is a brainy goof, fleshed out by the brilliant performances, the rich production design and the Coen’s ever-clever camera. It’s as bleakly funny and tantalizingly obtuse as a Beckett on-act. I’ll give you the life of the mind…..

Naked Lunch (1991)

It will eat you alive if you’re not well-versed in the coded cool of Beat junkie icon, William S. Burroughs, or the insect-infected visions of director David Cronenberg (The Fly). And even if you are, this mercilessly exacting black comedy will leave its teeth marks on you.

Part biography, part literary adaptation, the film is less a literal rendering of the writer’s scandalous 1959 novel than a jazz-riff interpretation. Turning down the role of Robocop 3 (!), Peter Weller is the Burroughs surrogate who travels from 1953 New York to the Interzone — a kind of surreal Tangiers of the mind, populated by sweaty addicts, decadent ex-patriots and typewriters that mutate into giant talking bugs. However, those less than enthralled with Burroughs’ masturbatory self-infatuation may find this daring demanding picture something of a Pyrrhic victory. That is, more worthily done, perhaps, than worth doing.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Too much is never enough for fabled gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and director Terry Gilliam. You could almost say they are a match made in excess heaven (or hell). This is Hollywood’s second attempt to translate Thompson’s 1971 book about his drug-drenched trip to Vegas, the first being the rather abysmal Where the Buffalo Roam, starring a game Bill Murray.

Here, it’s the ever-unpredictable Johnny Depp who takes on the role of Raoul Duke (Thompson’s alter-ego) and a chunked-up pre-Oscar Benicio Del Toro plays Dr. Gonzo, Duke’s lawyer/companion-in-chaos. The assignment — as if it matters — is a dirt-bike race. Their true quest is to ingest every kind of “uppers, downers, screamers, laughers” they can find. Plus several oceans of booze. However, like most drug experiences, the film has a downside, too. Barely making it out of Vegas alive the first time, they’re dragged back in (like Pacino in Godfather III) for another round of the same thing.

Still, Depp is astonishing, Joe Coker by way of John Belushi and pure pandemonium on the prowl. The movie isn’t exactly a success, but it’s the most glorious kind of failure: Imaginative, uncompromising and true to itself. A tip: if hearing Debbie Reynolds tell a Vegas crowd, “Let’s rock and roll!” doesn’t crack you up, you don’t want any part of this movie. Not even the good parts.

Linda Dubler’s picks:

A Bucket of Blood

A Bucket of Blood (1959)

With its lurid title and down at the heels production values, A Bucket of Blood is a sterling example of legendary B-movie producer/director Roger Corman’s talent for entertaining, inspired schlock. The film’s central character, Walter Paisley (Dick Miller), is a bus boy at a beatnik coffee house who is so inept he makes Maynard G. Krebs look like Jackson Pollock.

Poor, talentless Walter longs for the limelight, so when his landlady’s cat dies accidentally, he covers the stiff feline in plaster, a la George Segal, and presents the critter as a work of art. The hipsters are wowed, and soon the would-be-genius is trolling for additional bodies to receive the Paisley treatment. The lively script was written by Charles Griffith, screenwriter for The Little Shop of Horrors. Corman mentored Scorsese, Coppola, and Jonathan Demme among others, so even if you’re not a B-movie fan, consider taking a look.

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

The grass is always greener – even for those who’ve successfully made it to the other side. Such is the case for Sullivan, a sought-after Hollywood director known for hits like Ants in Your Pants of 1939. Yearning for the gravity and respect that genius endows, this would be Steinbeck declares he’s finished with fluff and ready to undertake his masterpiece, a gritty, relevant opus called Oh Brother Where Art Thou? But before he can write about the common man, it would help to meet a few.

Sullivan and his fetching, hold-the-hooey secretary (Veronica Lake, famous for her peek-a-boo wave) take to the road in a luxuriously appointed Airstream in search of America. Preston Sturges, a treasure of American cinema and the writer/director behind The Palm Beach Story and The Lady Eve, mixes comedy with melodrama in this delicious satire of self-importance and fame.

The Lady Eve (1941) , Ball of Fire (1941) , and Bringing Up Baby (1938)

The movies are full of evil geniuses (Dr. Frankenstein and his many peers), troubled geniuses (viz. any standard issue artist bio pic, from Lust for Life to Basquiat), even idiotic geniuses (e.g. Austin Powers), but my favorite variety are the clueless intellectuals, beloved by the makes of classic screwball comedies. Invariably men, these champions of book learnin’ are short on smarts and easy marks for women who either thing or two about the world, or are so ditzy they defy comprehension.

In The Lady Eve, Henry Fonda is a herpetologist (a snake specialist to be precise) who makes an appetizing victim for slithery card-sharp Barbara Stanwyck. Stanwyck shows up again in Ball of Fire as Sugarpuss O’Shea, a nightclub singer who knows her way around a colloquialism, who ends up hiding out in a house full of lexographers, among them sexy language specialist Prof. Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper). And in what’s probably my favorite American comedy, Katherine Hepburn is as untamed as the titular leopard Baby, driving poor paleontologist Cary Grant around the bend and into her waiting arms. After a lousy day or a lousy week, any one of these gems will help to chase away the blues.

This is a strange one folks and I can’t help but wonder what Jean- Paul Sartre would have thought of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The full story appears over at The Times Online but you can read the bones of it below:

“As one of the great European thinkers of the 20th century, Jean-Paul Sartre popularised existentialism, became a working-class hero — and was chased down the Champs Elysées by a pack of imaginary lobsters.

A previously unpublished account of the late French philosopher’s improbable drug-induced crustacean visions has surfaced in New York, where a new book of conversations between Sartre and an old family friend will be published later this month.

John Gerassi, a New York professor of political science whose parents were close friends of Sartre, talked at length to the philosopher in the 1970s about his experiments with mescaline, a powerful hallucinogenic drug derived from a Mexican cactus.

Although it has long been known that Sartre experienced visions of lobsters — which he sometimes referred to as crabs — Gerassi’s account offers startling new details of the philosopher’s descent into near-madness as he battled to make sense of what he had come to regard as the intellectual absurdity of his life.

“Yeah, after I took mescaline I started seeing crabs around me all the time,” he says in Gerassi’s new book, Talking With Sartre. “They followed me in the streets, into class … I would wake up in the morning and say, ‘Good morning, my little ones, how did you sleep?’ I would say, ‘Okay guys, we’re going into class now . . . ’ and they would be there, around my desk, absolutely still, until the bell rang.”

Like numerous other free-thinking writers from Aldous Huxley to Hunter S Thompson, Sartre was intrigued by the mind-expanding properties of the peyote cactus. His mescaline experiments started in 1935 and affected his thinking for more than a year.

They proved a big influence in the writing of his 1938 novel, Nausea — now regarded as a manifesto of existentialism. Shellfish visions also featured in his 1959 play, The Condemned of Altona, in which a race of crabs sits in judgment on humanity.

In between, Sartre told Gerassi, “I began to think I was going crazy.”

He consulted a young psychiatrist named Jacques Lacan — who later became another of France’s foremost intellectuals — and they attributed Sartre’s crab-infested depression to his fear that he was being pigeon-holed as a teacher.

“That was the worst part, to have to be serious about life,” said Sartre. “The crabs stayed with me until the day I simply decided that they bored me and I wouldn’t pay attention to them.” By then it was the 1940s, France was occupied and Sartre had other things to worry about.”

Read the entire article here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6926971.ece

I’m headed to Vegas with the wife today.

We’re going to get (re)married by Elvis for our ten year anniversary.

Personally, I hope it’s by a fat, jumpsuit wearing Elvis, but any Elvis will do.

It makes sense.

I love the Rat Pack, she loves Elvis—The movie Swingers was somehow a strange cornerstone of our budding romance so many years ago, it’s soundtrack becoming our own.

Quite frankly, I’m still somewhat amazed we didn’t run off to Vegas the first time around, when we were young and impetuous.

As we stroll down the busy streets, stare in wonderment at the bright lights surrounding us and watch the fountains of the Bellagio dance, I’m going to squint my eyes really hard and try to see the old Vegas—Sinatra’s Vegas.

The martini swinging, mob run Vegas.

Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the new Vegas—quite frankly I’m excited to see that one, too; the lights, the roller coasters, the fountains…all of it.

But…

I just want to catch a glimpse of the old Vegas—the original Vegas, no matter how dusty and dirty it may be.

Though I hear that Vegas is merely a ghost now, hovering over the new, family friendly version, laid to rest in the wake of the Sands.

I’m going to do my best to chronicle my first Vegas experience, from the Elvis wedding, to cocktails in Old Town, to my first attempt at gambling…but I can’t make any promises. I don’t even know if I’ll have wifi where I’m staying.

For you, however, I shall try my hardest.

Though, don’t expect a madcap tale of hallucinogens in the desert and imaginary bats swarming around us.

Maybe a few cocktails, but there is nothing gonzo about this trip.

Aside, perhaps, from vacationing while unemployed.

My pet weekend peeve – because it happens every weekend – is journos including themselves in celebrity interviews. Particularly those who do it in the first sentence. You’re interviewing them, you’ve described what they’re wearing, and I’m smart enough to figure out that you’re probably there. That You Met A Famous Person. Good for you.

In yesterday’s Good Weekend Janet Hawley interviewed John Safran. First sentence:

Heading into the night after spending a long, confusing, ultimately illuminating first day with John Safran, the image that remains for me is overwhelmingly of the lonely comedian.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the “for me” to be there.

Third sentence:

It’s on “the Jewiest street in Melbourne’s Jewtown – 3183″, Safran had told me with a grin as we wove our way past yarmulke-wearing bearded men ambling into kosher delis.

That’s just taking the piss. The story is about Safran, not Hawley. And as much as she’d like to think so, she is no Hunter S Thompson or Tom Wolfe or Truman Capote or any number of great writers who are/were also journalists. The next sentence – the fourth, for fuck’s sake – starts with “I’d” and on it goes.

In Sunday Life, Claire Black interviewed Maggie Gyllenhaal. First paragraph:

“What does it matter? What do you mean by genuine?” I’ve annoyed Maggie Gyllenhaal, although I didn’t mean to. We were talking about celebrities who get involved with “causes”, and I made the point that it can be hard to swallow when there’s a suspicion that it’s a publicity stunt rather than a real commitment.

Again, absolutely no reason why “I” should be there. It’s just lazy, self-important writing. And fucking annoying.

* Yes, I know there’s one in celebrity, but that would ruin my headline

First off I want to thank William McKeen for the mention on one of his sites The Farm Report

Next up is Wayne Ewing’s addition to his Vodcast. Its called The Eulogy and as usual has great HST related reading and a video thrown in for good measure.

Poundland The Novel is one book I’ll be watching for. It is by one Rodney Munch (maybe not someone who you’d like to bring home to meet your folks.)  Go to the site for more information.

An good friend of mine here at hstbooks is Kevin Ring of Beat Scene Magazine this magazine is a must for fans of the Beat Generation.

Korean Rum Diary One of David Wills’ many sites always has some caustic words to share.

Ed Smith Books has loads of interesting stuff for the book lover and collector. Ed has some nice Steadman and HST stuff amongst his extensive catalog.

Padfoot and Prongs are ploughing along with their very successful book site. They have great reviews and a ton of other stuff there.

Writer Simon J. James has a great site packed full of interesting articles.

Stay in touch with Noel Davila for updates on his writing and coming articles.

“Hunter S Thompson is the bad ass intellectual friend your parents don’t want you to hang out with.”

              Have you ever had a friend your parents or peers don’t much care for? I think we have all been there, even politicians and authority figures have had a friend or acquaintance like that. Someone whose lifestyle doesn’t quite measure up to everyone else’s expectations of the social type you should be cavorting with. Well for the certain generation of the rich, famous and powerful that friend happened to be the gonzo journalist, Hunter S Thompson, bubba. (Bubba a reference to Bill Clinton, who’s nickname, as funny as it happens to be is, bubba. In addition, these side notes, like this one, happen to be everywhere in his books. So there’s another little inside joke for your enjoyment.) What I am trying to say is that everyone at some point or another has made friends with someone who is nothing like you but somehow they have a lot in common with you. This special kind of bad ass friend influences you to ditch out on your responsibilities to go behind a dumpster, per say, and smoke cigarettes for a while and discuss current issues; politics, sex, conspiracies and other dumpster talk.  For the politicians in the 1970’s to mid 1990s that friend was Hunter S Thompson. (For me that friend isn’t so much a friend but family, my brother. For the record, he talks about sex and I continuously tell him, I am his sister and don’t care to know about his sick fantasies besides… I’ve had better.)

                Aside, from Hunter Thompson being a total bad ass, he was an incredible writer, he wrote for The Rolling Stone and has at least 10 books published on various subjects. He is the Godfather of a writing style similar to dirty realism, a style known world wide as gonzo. (It is not titled after the puppet created by Jim Henson, that came after his time.) The saying goes, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro”. That was Mr. Thompson’s trade mark saying for his gonzo journalism, you can find it referenced in some of his works and it is on the cover of almost every one of gonzo journals.  He also refers to himself as a “political junkie”, a term which sounds derogatory but actually it is negated as a positive term. Essentially it means having an addiction to politics, every waking and breathing moment is devoted to the study and analyses of modern politics. (It’s an insult to real politicians, unlike bloggers who whine about the injustices done to the green party and vegetarian animal loving Liberals’ and baby boomers that were and are hippies.)  

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” – Hunter S Thompson

                I was assigned to read a book by Thompson and the one that really caught my eye was, Better than sex: confessions of a political junkie. This book was one of his later gonzo journals. It basically fallows the election race of 1992, candidates Bill Clinton and George Bush. At this time Thompson had (allegedly) given up the former life of being a political groupie, who moved from place to place with the candidate he was interested in but this election caught his attention and he gave his best efforts not to get involved. (He was so interested due to his burning hate for George Bush and basically his entire family and anyone in cahoots with him. As well as, the fact that he felt it was his main purpose in life to literally shit on the Republican Party and cause as much upset amongst the political parties and the American government as possible, from what I gather at least.)  However, on some occasions he was simply in the wrong place at the right time and got wrapped up in his former mistakes, past articles and publications connected with The Rolling Stone magazine. It was an inevitable situation that he would be a slave to politics for the rest of his life, weather he liked it or not. Once you’re in there is no getting out, that saying goes for any politician or aspiring politician, you have been warned, bubba.

                Mr. Thompson did much more than just follow political scandals and publically criticize the Republican Party. He was a pioneer for the counter culture of the American dream, Here you have the American dream a mythical life where everyone is happy with two kids a house, a healthy relationship with a spouse and the world turns round. WHHOOOPPIIEEE! Hunter Thompson introduced a generation to the darker or opposite side of that dream. This is the underground world of drug addictions, swingers and free living with no responsibility (financially and morally). Here you have a man rubbing elbows with societies finest, who embody and lobby for the progression of the very dream that the guy next to them (Thompson) doesn’t believe in, participate in or generally speaking doesn’t give a fuck about, that’s irony bubba.

“My Beat is the death of the American dream.” – Hunter S Thompson

                So far I haven’t really drawn any finally conclusions from his book but I am getting there. In the light of recent events I have drawn a few conclusions about politics in general, curious aren’t you. I’ll cut straight to the chase and let you ridicule and criticize me, so we can just get that over and done with, because I know that’s the main reason your reading this now. (We all know it, so I’ll put that out there. Besides, if I wasn’t grammatically outrageous and didn’t write exactly what I am thinking at this very moment, I’d end up letting you down and we don’t want that now, do we?)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

 Politics, economics and communication, three things high school student struggle to understand. However, I’ve learned a very valuable trick to help me better understand complicated subjects such as politics. What you have to do is find a similar system that can correspond with the system or subject you are studying. For example, the United Nations resembles to a typical high school, the main powers (China, Russia, England and America) are the popular kids who run the show. Then you have the bad ass kids (Cuba, Venezuela and ominous African Countries) on Sprague Avenue in a back alley talking trash about the popular kids and those countries tend to be communist run or dictatorships. It’s my belief that if you can understand the basic social workings of an average American high school then you should be able to comprehend politics at a very elementary level at least.

Do you remember ever playing a game called, Telephone? This comparison matches the game of telephone and communication between major powers in the world today. Telephone is a game in which a message must be passed from one end of a line to another without changing. Sadly, there is no possible chance of winning because even if your team is determined, there is always one funny guy a real class clown (Media) who thinks it will be funny to purposely change the message to something usually inappropriate. Today, a giant game of telephone is being played right in front of your eyes. From country to country, however, the message is changed viscously from place to place by news networks, radios talk shows, world leaders, and celebrities (Angelina Jolie, Bono and other hippie celebrities, looking for their 15minutes of fame because the acting/movie business has dried up and no one wants to hear their empty words and broken promises to change the world one song/film at a time.) ect. These are vigorous little lessons you can learn from an accesses of TV, paranoia, conspiracies and Hunter S Thompson. 

“Life is about balance, you can only achieve the American dream to a certain extent in this day and age.”

These are just some brief thoughts, which I found entertaining enough to jot down and share with you. All politics are, are vicious rumors, misunderstandings and poor communication.  The time has come again to rap up this rant and move on to a duller topic that has to be completed. If you can learn anything from Hunter Thompson I would say it has to be that life is about balance. You can achieve the American dream to a certain extent, as well as, living free with no responsibilities and swinging from partner to partner. In the end it all comes down to you and the choices you make everyday but if you ask me each life is fulfilling, I grew up in the light of the American dream, I made it through Clinton, Bush and  even the regime of the satanic Christine Gregoire. I have no doubt in my mind I will someday, find where I belong and I know I will be happy no matter where I end up.

Yesterday’s quote for the day: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time… like tears in rain… Time to die.”

So, yesterday was a movie night and for some reason I’m writing this at goddamn ten in the morning, which is hurting my eyes and my fingers are slow and clumsy. Last night we watched Blade Runner, The Matrix and Gonzo, which is the documentary on Hunter. I had forgotten how amazing Blade Runner is, really stunning in pretty much every way. The Matrix is still amazing, the acting could use some work but the philosophy, style, etc. is all awesome.

And I really really enjoyed Gonzo. You guys are probably sick of hearing “Hunter S Thompson this, Hunter S Thompson that” from me, but yeah. I’d really not seen a lot of footage of him outside of interviews, where he was mostly behaving himself, so this was a lot of fun to watch. I think it might have been better for me to have finished reading the book of letters first; now I have a broad idea of what goes on and I won’t be surprised/have my own ideas about it, but it was still worth watching. The music was great, of course. Johnny Depp did the narration, as Depp, not Duke, and he was, as usual, great.

Anyway, enough on that. Today I’m catching up with a friend to hang out then apparently there is a pub crawl later. I’m not sure if I’ll go; I’m supposed to be saving up for a better graphics card, but I can tell that I’ll most likely go drinking and waste all my money anyway. Mm, shall see.

Mornings are a terrible time of the day, unless you’re still awake.

Anyway, since that one up there is for yesterday, here is today’s quote: “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

I need some breakfast, so, arrivederci,

Your moustachioed android,

TDE

Procrastination. It’s completely normal. Almost like human nature. Almost, not quite yet. People become preoccupied with a hundred different things at once or something called laziness takes over and what needs to get done won’t be finished ’til the last-minute. Sadly, I have succumb to dreaded procrastination more than once, but for some reason I think that streak of surrendering is somehow coming to an end.

I’ll be completely honest: I’m not a big fan of research papers. The first research paper I had to do was last school year, and it wasn’t that fun. Being a new school year now, I have to do another required paper. Thankfully, this paper is easier and not due at the end of the year, as with the latter. There is a topic, not a thesis. An author, not an issue that we agree or disagree with.

Needless to say, this year’s research paper is on an author of our choosing or one that we were reading. Chosen by the student, nonetheless. It seemed like most people picked the first author that came to their head, like they didn’t really think about. Their brains just said ‘write down this name and pass the paper to the next person.’ I had no idea what author I would do a paper on. I had about five lined up, with obviously one being the victor. Unsure which author should be cut from my list, I chose two. Yeah, that probably sounds like a hassle or that I’m being a ‘teacher’s pet’ or something, but that’s not it at all. I thought the only way to get some kind of point across would be to do two papers on two completely different authors.

I have to admit, I was kind of surprised by the reactions I got when I was asked by fellow students what author I was doing my paper on. It’s not like the answer was different each time, it was the same every time. Dante Alighieri and Hunter S. Thompson. I got this bleak, almost dumbfounded look each and every time. Granted, I didn’t fully know about Dante until I saw something on the History Channel. I knew that he wrote Inferno, but didn’t know THAT much about him. As with Thompson, I didn’t know he wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas until I saw the movie starring the beloved Johnny Depp. I did a little research after seeing the movie, thus finding even more about him. So, I guess I can’t really say that I’m surprised, but it sort of just shows that either I read too much or other people don’t read at all.

If anything really surprised me, though, it would have to be the fact that I’ve already gotten the majority of the information on my idols. Which isn’t something I usually do. For my previous research paper, I procrastinated and I felt like it wasn’t the best I could write, or write and research. I just flat-out wasn’t very happy with it, and I actually want to be happy with the things I write. Whether it be recreational creativity or not.  The entire reason why I’m starting this paper a month early. Call it me breaking the curse of procrastination or not, but my motivation is probably at its best right now. I can’t say the same thing for volleyball, though. My motivation for that is still up in the air. 

My motivation for writing definitely doesn’t lack foundation and the breakdown.

Sometimes, I confess, I buy the paper and I forget to actually read it. It will probably be the Guardian and I’ll buy it – promising myself that I will consume it lovingly cover to cover and that it will somehow make me a better person, raising my mind from thoughts of X Factor and lasagne. Such good intentions…

The next day I will see my paper on the sideboard. I will consider reading it but by now it looks deflated - its stories less enticing. I turn on the radio – the next episode of life and death is already happening somewhere out there. What is the point of paper pulp that only screams the breaking news of yesterday? So my paper ends up discarded and my money-waster guilt lives on. 

The characters in Thompson’s novel also face the question of the precise literary value and meaning of journalism. Well, I say face. They are journalists so they encounter the problem of writing reality but never fully discuss this issue in so many words and then, in most scenes, they get really drunk and sleep with other people or each other.

But Thompson’s narrator Paul Kemp carries around The Times like ‘a precious bundle of wisdom, a weighty assurance that [you're] not yet cut off from that part of the world that was real.’ Maybe, his character suggests, literature could learn some new tricks from the field of the hack. Get a bit more real. The alcoholic 60s cohort of ‘New Journalists’, including Thompson and his characters, try out a range of narrative and journalistic modes of writing in order to test out this theory.

Thompson, most famous for writing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, paints a pretty debauched picture of Puerto Rico, its coin slots, fiestas, hotel parties and printing houses. Paul Kemp is portrayed as painfully aware he has only one drunken mind in a thousand with which to write reality. The Rum Diary stands as a record of a journalist-persona who writes reality ‘badly’ and offers us the job of doing better.

4/5 stars

Next I’m reading…Norman Mailer’s The Deer Park

“Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish—a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.”

“Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.”

“You won’t find reasonable men on the tops of tall mountains.”

“There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live and too rare to die.”

“I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. “

“The highways are crowded with people who drive as if their sole purpose in getting behind the wheel is to avenge every wrong done them by man, beast or fate.”

“I’ve always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it’s a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don’t do much giggling.”

“At the top of the mountain we are all snow leopards.”

“Its better to be shot out a cannon then squeezed out of a tube”

- My Rock’n'Roll Nietzsche,

Dr. Hunter S Thompson

“Fear and Loathing” sketched by artist Jay E. Fife at the Pittsburgh Comicon.

That’s what I’m talking about. You know? It’s like this guy is in my head. Wild.

Quote of the Day:

“The screaming of the lambs.”

You might be able to work out from the title/quote that I watched The Silence of the Lambs today. This is one of my favourite movies and one of my favourite books. I’d say I prefer the books, but the acting in the movies is so brilliant. I also noticed for the first time how good the filming is in “Lambs,” it’s very intense and overwhelming, a lot of extreme close-ups and the actors look directly at the camera a lot. It’s intimidating, which fits in perfectly in a world so filled with highly intelligent, dangerous characters who are always watching, not missing a thing.

Meanwhile, I’m listening to Virgin Black, an amazing Australian band, from Adelaide I think. Don’t mind the wank, they really are amazing, they just like to dress up and give themselves silly names, etc. I saw them live last time Opeth came down, they sounded very good but I didn’t like their performance, if that makes sense. Regardless, I recommend them, they’re very powerful, crushing, they use the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and choirs to back up the amazing operatic lead vocalist who also growls very well. So, take a listen some time.

I haven’t watched any more Californication yet tonight, I doubt I will. What day is it? Saturday. Sunday morning, to be more specific, but whatever. I’ll likely watch Hannibal tomorrow, then Red Dragon the day after. I won’t watch Hannibal Rising since it’s a shit of a film and I don’t care for the book at all either. I’m of the opinion that Hannibal and Hannibal Rising delved way way way too deeply into Hannibal’s character and history and removed all of the strength and mystery from the character. (spoilers) Maybe I’m being immature or something, but I don’t want to see  Hannibal dropping to his knees and being breastfed by Clarice; not that the image is something I reject for itself, it just seems like a complete simplification of the character. He has always been set up as something that cannot be defined, a mind that cannot be cracked, he was called a monster because no other name would fit. But no, turns out his mummy didn’t breastfeed him as a child or something. All the stuff with his sister is interesting, the warcrimes and everything intrigue me greatly, but I don’t want to know why Hannibal is how he is, he is supposed to be uncrackable, this unnattainable mind, but we are told everything and all mystery is gone. (end of spoilers)

Anyway, it is still an amazingly written, complex, clever, powerful series that has influenced me a great deal.

Speaking of influences, I picked up a copy of Hell’s Angels and Kingdom of Fear, both by Hunter S Thompson. I won’t read them until after Christmas, as I’m still getting through Fear and Loathing in America and I’d also like something to read when I go away to the USA for a few months after Boxing Day some time. I’ll be staying with a friend of mine over there, which should be good. He lives in Colorado somewhere, I’m not great with geography, but he has a nice little place out in the woods for a hangout. It’s generally a relaxing time, I went there last time and there was a lot of sitting, talking, bike riding, shooting, smoking, drinking, reading, sleeping, the good things in life.

Second quote of the day: “I felt like a fatter, uglier and less talented Mariah Carey.”

Anyway, goodnight,

Your screaming lamb

TDE

Wayne Ewing at Hunter S. Thompson Films has a recent post on his Vodcast page. Its titled Fear and Loathing in Hollywood. Wayne tells us about Hunter’s time on the set of the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas movie. It is great reading and has some great videos of Hunter and Co on the set. You can get it here. http://hunterthompsonfilms.com/vodcast/

While you are there check out The O’Farrell Theater, Chateau Marmont, The night we shot Keith Richards, The Gonzo Pilot, McGovern’s birthday, and Never call 911. All great and interesting HST related stuff.

It was so nice outside today. Pity I was stuck inside.

Plowed through one book and a couple of research papers today. My brain is feeling fried. Again, lack of sleep, realization of deadlines (school & work), this weird feeling in my stomach when I eat (and no, it isn’t being full) and everything else going on in the Press World (read: personal life) is all contributing to my delusional state of mind.

In moments when the mind is bubbling and wilting from lack of sunlight and oxygen, mine shuts off and begins to search for distractions. I figured that a search of clips from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas would cheer me up. I lent out my copy of the movie, but after talking about the film last night with someone who watched it for the first time, I was pining for ride on the existential highway as a reality break. I was going to post a scene or two here, for your amusement (and, of course, critical analysis), but instead I came across this interview clip of Hunter S. Thompson, who wrote the book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

Two things struck me: One, how easily Thompson, a journalist, can see through a terrible interview and politely cut up the reporter sitting across from him, and, two, how a character he created through the medium of print (and subsequently in film) supplanted his true self in the real world. The audience negotiated a new identity for Thompson, one that he could no longer separate and one that he could not renegotiate with his audience. Here is a case where media are not only acting on the audience and changing perceptions, but the audience is acting on the producer of that media to create a new representation of reality.

I think that logic makes sense in some universe.

Okay, let me try that one more time: Thompson created media and representations of reality. His audience negotiated the meaning within those media representations of their reality. The meaning the audience negotiated created a representation of Thompson’s reality that he came to adopt. That meaning “feedback” from the audience put Thompson onto a path of trying to negotiate his own meaning from that imposed persona. Media in this case is not a one-way street with the author/producer feeding the audience, but an active conversation/negotiation that the audience ultimately won. I wonder what would have happened if the audience had become critical thinkers about the use of Raoul Duke and been able to separate the character from the man?

Whoa.

My brain is feeling a lot better, but I shouldn’t stay here too long: It’s bat country.

I’ve been on a Hunter S Thompson kick today. It started with reading “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved”, a fantastic piece of writing often attributed as the birth of Gonzo journalism. From there I watched numerous interviews and biographical videos on Thompson. Most are familiar with his drugy odyssey, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but most of his work is truly interesting and stylistically unique. Since he was a prolific writer in his lifetime, I assumed he wrote something germane to music. From a google search I found the following quote, credited to Thompson:

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.

Sounds like Thompson, right? Wrong.

A bit of poking around the internet lead me to this article , which dispells the myth that Thompson said and/or wrote that quote. Searching for the origins of this quote, the author had the following to say:

It seemed a safe bet that Thompson was the guilty party, but where and when did he say it? I was beginning to despair that I’d have to pore over Thompson’s entire oeuvre page by page when I received a response to one of the queries I’d sent out to various Webmasters requesting a citation. It pointed me to Hunter S. Thompson’s book called Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the ’80s (New York: Summit Books, 1988). There, on page 43, I hit paydirt. He had written:

The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.
 

I’m glad to clear up this misquotation, but I’m still on the look out for material written by Thompson on music. Anyone know any?