It’s Monday here in New Zealand and that means it’s time for Clippings Mondays, as I promote my new book of collected journalism and scribblings all through March! If you haven’t yet, now’s your chance to nab a copy, now available on Amazon as a paperback for a mere US$14.99, or as an e-book download for just US$2.99!
This here essay is one of the oldest collected, from way back in 1994 and my days writing a column for The Daily Mississippian in my final year at university. I was still learning how to write columns that weren’t just rants or jokes, but were observations about the world around. Writing a good column is sometimes about just paying attention to what’s happening around you, in all its weird details. A chance meeting with one of my favourite writers, even if he wasn’t at his best, prompted this one:
Fear and Loathing in New Orleans
The Daily Mississippian, May 2, 1994
Well, I finally made it down to the Big Easy weekend before last. And what a wonderful town it was. Went down there with Melanie for the dreaded “meet-the-parents” ritual (which came off very well, thanks for asking).
We went to Jazzfest ‘94, an annual musical extravaganza at the New Orleans fairgrounds — tons of music, people, beer and booths hawking everything from dashikis to handmade jewelry to exotic knives. There was aural candy for any taste, from Boz Scaggs to Dr. John to Jimmy Buffett.
While wandering around the booths, Melanie and I found a little book tent. Exploring the place, I found a notice announcing some of the authors who’d be doing book signings at the tent that day. Among the names was the familiar one of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
The Doctor! Father of the esoteric, reviled and idolized field of Gonzo Journalism! One of my personal literary idols and a true crazy man to boot. I. convinced Melanie that it’d be a nifty thing to let me go and meet him, to get the Doc to sign a just-repurchased copy of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. I’ve always been a fan of Thompson’s bizarre anything-including-the- kitchen-sink style of reporting, the coverage of events ranging from the history of the Hell’s Angels to the 1972 presidential campaign — his style so out there that half the time you lose sight of the line between fact and fiction.
So we went to the booth about 2:45 or so for the 3 o’clock signing. There was already a sizeable line for this unpublicized event. Melanie took my camera and got a good spot in the shade while I met a burly gent named Gil who proclaimed that Thompson was “the king of all things Gonzo!”
Melanie enjoyed the shade and met some Canadians while I listened to Gil hold an impromptu belching contest and slowly watched the sun burn me a nice shade of obsidian. Thompson finally showed around 4:30, large bandage wrapped around his left hand and a beer in his right. Enormous beetle-like sunglasses obscured his eyes completely. I crumbled into a pile of charcoal under the sun’s onslaught and the line inched forwards.
At this point, the Jimmy Buffett show was about to kick off. Thompson signed books at an agonizingly slow pace — rumor had it he was deeply distraught over Richard Nixon’s death that Friday. It seemed odd, that a man who once compared Nixon to Adolf Hitler should be so broken up over his death. His “periodic medical breaks” over his hand — treated by the administration of several strange vials of liquids — slowed things down even more.
There was the wit in line who called out, “Dr. Thompson! How do you feel about Nixon?”
Thompson answered in his trademark indecipherable mumble, “I loved the man.” And that was all he had to say on the subject.
I finally made it to the front of the line, several shades darker than I’d been at the start, and handed over my book for him to sign. In my best fanboy mode, I stammered out to him how much I enjoyed his work.
Thompson shook his head a bit spastically, and muttered something about “bats” and “gummo wedder t’day nahw eh?” He scribbled “to Nick [sic] – HST” with a ballpoint pen, and then immediately afterwards took another extended medical break. The smell of that joint was nearly overpowering.
There’s nothing quite like meeting your idols – if only to discover that they’re just as screwed up as the rest of us. I’m not saying I regretted meeting HST — in fact, I got a rather masochistic joy out of it, sunburn and all.
And Melanie, bless her, wasn’t terribly irate about spending two hours indulging her companion’s whims.
This sunburned piece and much more can be found in my new book Clippings: Collected Journalism 1994-2024
Nik Dirga 