The 42nd Wonder of the World...

The great works of Joe IV have been completed. Many pilgrims from arround the country have began making their way to SoFla for a viewing.

I finished and turned in my damn papers, all of them. So, ha, to the people who said I wouldn't. They were kinda late (I had to get a storm extension for power loss,) but I finished them none the less. It is nice to have that giant simian of my back. Now I can try to get caught up in all the classes that started two weeks ago, woot! I have two papers do the Monday after Labor Day... well, they are really short, I think if I call them essays or something I might be able to finish them. Oh, and there is a ten page paper somewhere in the future, that scares me, ten is a lot of pages, what the hell am I gonna say for that much space? I guess I will get it done.

I thought maybe some sick psycho would want to read my work on Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thomson. It was written a while back in the early morning, and isn't so my best ever, but it's ok. I would super highly recommend the book to anyone with an interest in Thompson or politics. It's very good (and very wierd, and very funny, and very informative, and very bind-blowing.)



Hunter S. Thompson’s “Gonzo” style of journalism lends a peculiar personalization to his subjects, and his look at the 1972 campaign cycle, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, is entertaining, insightful, and certainly worthwhile. Thompson has been criticized for a lack of serious literary contribution, possibly due to heavy drug use, radical issues, and a tendency to wander off topic. However Gonzo Journalism seems to be perfectly matched with political coverage; the product is pure magic. The idea of the style is to combine a sort of stream of consciousness writing without fear of interjecting the author into the story. There also seems to be a tendency for “stretching” the truth. What the audience ends up with is something similar to what it might be like to take an average person (with a talent for writing) and put them in charge of reporting on the campaign. Thompson isn’t afraid of loosing his job or scaring away sources, he attempts to portray the candidates as real people and illuminates the behind the scenes machinations that we otherwise wouldn’t observe. There are constant drug metaphors throughout the book, showing Thompson’s intense addiction to politics. The self described “political junkie” combines his interest with a supernatural ability to be in the right place (or perhaps to convincingly lie about being there) for a political insight that is uniquely Hunter S. Thompson.

Hunter Stockton Thompson was born on July 18, 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky. His father died when Hunter was 15, and his mother was an alcoholic. He had a rough childhood and problems with the law; he eventually ended up in the armed service, where he began his first writing assignments as a sports journalist. After leaving the Air Force Thompson spent some years traveling and working freelance. He also composed two novels which were not published at the time. His first nationally recognized article was about his year with the Hell’s Angel motorcycle gang, which was eventually turned into a book. Thompson then began his long relationship with Rolling Stone magazine, which saw the birth of both Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 among various other projects.

The Campaign Trail ’72 story is as much about Thompson as it is about politics. Most of the interviews are really just conversations (including the famed bathroom interview with George McGovern and the long car ride with Richard Nixon where they shared football stories.) It is Thompson’s presence that makes many of the scenes memorable. He also had a personal relationship with many of McGovern’s staffers, which provided a great deal of insight into the inner workings of the campaign effort, particularly in Ohio and Nebraska.

The piece begins in December 1971, with the author’s arrival to Washington, D.C., a town he never seems to particularly care for. Thompson takes some time to reflect on the importance of the youth vote and the invisible disenfranchised, who were drummed into action in the 60s through efforts by the Kennedy’s and others. This “freak” vote plays an important role in the early days of the McGovern campaign. In February Thompson heads to the New Hampshire primaries and continues to trail different candidates throughout the year. In March he attends the whistle-stop campaign of “Big” Ed Muskie through Florida. Thompson contends that Muskie was taking stimulants (Ibogaine,) which may have lead to his loss of situational control while being heckled at the last train stop by a strange, recently released from jail, man who just happened to be in possession of Hunter Thompson’s press pass (which was pretty much the end of Thompson’s close coverage of the Muskie campaign, but it was also pretty much the end of the Muskie campaign anyways.) Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace also make appearances, and Thompson doesn’t try to hard to cover his contempt for either, particularly Humphrey whom he blames for a lot of the ills of the 1968 Democratic campaign. The bizarre returns from Cleveland in May really wake the reader up to the darkness inherent in politics, the implication is that in certain places votes mean almost nothing as the results can be modified or even entirely made up. Another aspect of this duplicity is displayed in the June Rolling Stone, when Hunter details his discovery that the Humphrey campaign has access to shady campaign funds from Mafia controlled Las Vegas. Even more shocking is that the McGovern staff is already aware of that fact; they had a spy in the Humphrey organization.

The July issue details the events at the Democratic National Convention. The McGovern group conducts it delegates like a bizarre orchestra, and one ups the last minute efforts of all the other possible candidates, none of which seem to want McGovern to be the candidate. Shortly after the convention news breaks concerning McGovern’s vice-presidential nominee, Thomas Eagleton, who apparently received several rounds of electro-shock therapy to correct what appears to be a serious and reoccurring mental illness. This news travels through the press and is later credited as being one of the major components of McGovern’s later loss.

In great contrast to the vibrant Miami DNC, the August Republican National Convention is artificial and much rehearsed. Two of the best scenes occur during this article. The first is Hunter’s involvement in the “spontaneously” well-organized rally of what the author lovingly refers to as “Nixon Youth.” Though their concern for Thompson’s health after learning that acid had been slipped into his drink is comforting, it is the excellent narrative that paints a visual image of Hunter S. Thompson surrounded by screaming young Republicans wearing a plastic hat and holding a Nixon sign as he enthusiastically berates anchor man John Chancellor as the juveniles shout “Four more years” that will stick with in the audience’s minds. The other event that showcases Thompson’s narrative ability is the march of the somber Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a shocking tale of the peaceful protesters who marched to the doors of the convention hotel and must have really worried a lot of conservatives and public safety officials when they symbolically demanded entrance.

The last several articles (other than the hardly believable descriptions of the McGovern press plane, a wild and sordid affair) focus on the eminent defeat of George McGovern. Thompson ask several people the reason for the landslide defeat (McGovern only carried one state) and came to three conclusions: 1) The campaign was reeling from the Eagleton revelations, and was not able to quickly repair the damage or garner the needed focus for the last stages of the campaign; 2) McGovern’s switch from the left in the primaries to the center for the main election disenfranchised youth and minority voters, without gaining a lot of support from moderate Democrats and Republicans as hoped; and 3) letting Nixon win a second term was assumed to be better for many Democrats who were sure Agnew wouldn’t win in 1976 but knew they wouldn’t be likely to win the party’s nomination if the incumbent president was a Democrat.

The shift away from the “new” politics by McGovern after the convention seemed to cool Thompson on McGovern. It must have been a disappointment when the black sheep candidate, who represented the same “revolutionaries” and protestors that the author himself was a part of, turned out to be just another Beltway insider. The themes of youth apathy are relevant today, and were much discussed in the 2004 elections. It still remains to be seen if the group will ever really be so distressed that it can show up at the polls in force.

Dr. Thompson (who received his doctorate from a mail order church) inserts himself into the 1972 campaign. We are privileged by this to see the sheer despicable acts and the shining moments of candid honesty and actual attempts to make the U.S. a better place. While often the events are dirty, on the whole the novel encourages the reader to become more knowledgably and involved, if only to watch the car crash that is politics more closely. It is difficult at times to separate the fact from the fiction in Thompson’s writings. Certainly he created from scratch many of the events. He certainly was not largely attached to the “reporters of objective fact” model of the media. However, these fictional accounts represent the spirit of what occurred, if not the letter. His lies give a human connection to what occurred, and the audience is better for it. As the old paradigm goes, “The truth is often stranger than fiction.”