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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Radboud Repository PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/151333 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2017-12-05 and may be subject to change. RIDING THE STRANGE TORPEDO HUNTER S. THOMPSON AND THE INVENTION OF GONZO JOURNALISM Mark Vitullo RIDING THE STRANGE TORPEDO HUNTER S. THOMPSON AND THE INVENTION OF GONZO JOURNALISM MARK VITULLO 2016 RIDING THE STRANGE TORPEDO HUNTER S. THOMPSON AND THE INVENTION OF GONZO JOURNALISM PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus, volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op dinsdag 19 januari 2016 om 16:30 precies door Mark Vitullo geboren op 31 januari 1965 te Chicago (Verenigde Staten) Promotor: Prof. dr. J.T.J. Bak Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. dr. F. Mehring (voorzitter) Prof. dr. J.W. Bertens, Universiteit Utrecht Dr. M. L. M. Janssen ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Professor Hans Bak, for his enthusiastic support of this project and for his help and sage advice throughout the process of completing this work. Special thanks are extended to Dr. Jaap van der Bent and Prof. Astrid Böger, who read portions of an early draft and gave invaluable advice on how to improve the text. Dr. Suzanne Peraino and Dr. Elke van Cassel, colleagues and friends, read and helped me improve portions of a later draft. My thanks to both of them. I wish to thank Dr. Kees van Rees for taking the time to discuss Bourdieu with me and for the useful material he gave me. I would like to thank Professor William McKeen for the wonderful afternoon we spent discussing Hunter Thompson at his office in Gainesville, Florida, and for giving me a prepublication galley of his book Hunter S. Thompson, which proved to be a valuable resource. I am grateful to the Dutch National Science Organization for providing me with a grant which allowed me to take a leave from my post at Tilburg University to work on the project full time for one academic year. I also wish to thank Tilburg University for allowing me to take this leave. The gift of time was greatly appreciated. Special thanks are extended to Professor Richard Davison and Dr. Milena Davison, who understand the importance of proper resources in research, for the first editions and other primary resource materials they gave me. I am grateful for these gifts and for their friendship and support. I would like to thank my father for the many ways he supported me throughout this process and, indeed, for everything he did to bring me to this point in my life. I want to thank my mother, first of all, for handing me a copy of a Thompson book when I was in high school and telling me it was something I would like. I did. I also appreciate the discussions we had about this project and her editorial help. Last, but certainly not least, I owe an immeasurable debt to my wife, Elly, and my son, Daniel. They both wholeheartedly supported this endeavor which was largely done on weekends and in vacation periods, thereby requiring many sacrifices on their part. I thank them both for their love, encouragement, and humor throughout. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 0.1 The Purpose of the Study 2 0.2 The Framework and Strategy of the Present Study: McLuhan, Postman, and Bourdieu 4 0.2.1 McLuhan 4 0.2.2 Postman 5 0.2.3 Bourdieu 5 0.2.4 The Author as an Individual 6 0.2.5 Gonzo as a Product of Individual Input and External Forces 7 0.2.6 Gonzo Defined 7 0.3 The Research Context of the Study: Extant Works on Thompson’s Life and Writing 9 0.4 The Economic Context of the Study: The History of the Market for Periodicals and the Invisible Hand of the Market of Periodicals (1870-1970) 11 0.4.1 The Nineteenth Century Magazine: The Advent of the Modern Periodical 12 0.4.2 The Periodical in the Early Twentieth Century: The Professionalization of the Journalist and the Rise of the Muckraker Novelist 16 0.4.3 Short Fiction Stars of the Glossy Stage: Hemingway and Fitzgerald and the Short Fiction of the Mass Market Periodicals 20 0.4.4 The Rise of Television and the Demise of the Mass Market General Interest Periodicals 24 0.4.5 Writing in the Age of Television: Seeking Other Venues 27 0.5 The Subject in the Literary Context: Thompson and the Advent of New Journalism in America 30 0.5.1 New Journalism Defined 31 0.5.2 A Variety of Practitioners, A Singularity of Results: Avatars of and Contributors to the New Journalism Revolution 32 0.5.2.1 Capote and Mailer and the Non-Fiction Novel 33 0.5.2.2 Plimpton the Participant 36 0.5.2.3 John Sack: Subjective Journalist 37 0.5.3 Thompson and the New Journalists 38 0.6 The Focus and Method of the Present Study 41 CHAPTER I: LIFE ON THE PROUD HIGHWAY 1.1 Origins of a Writer 48 1.1.1 Hunter Thompson’s Early Years in Border State America 48 1.1.2 A Precocious Young Writer in a Booming Market 50 1.1.3 Life in the Status-driven South 51 1.1.4 Models to Live By: The Role of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Donleavy in Thompson’s Development as a Writing Professional 54 1.1.5 A Sudden Break in the Narrative: Thompson’s Incarceration in Louisville and His Forced Induction into the Military 60 1.2 Airborne: Thompson as an Apprentice Journalist at the Eglin Air Force Base Command Courier 62 1.2.1 Genre Bender: “Voodoo at the Orange Bowl” and Thompson’s Attitude towards Sports Writing as Métier 64 1.2.2 The Eglin Command Courier 68 1.2.3 A Sensibility Made for Television 69 1.3 Journeyman Journalist: Navigating the Dynamic Border Between Fact and Fiction in the Late 1950s and Early 1960s 73 1.3.1 The Rum Diary, Etc.: Thompson’s Failed Attempts to Move into Fiction (1959-1962) 74 1.3.1.1 A First Attempt at Long-form Fiction: Prince Jellyfish 74 1.3.1.2 A More Mature Effort: The Rum Diary 76 1.3.2 A Shift in the Market for Stories from the Perspective of a Single Author 81 1.3.3 The Proud Highwayman: At the National Observer Abroad and in the U.S, 1962-1964 84 1.4 The Devil’s Advocate: Hunter Thompson and the Hell’s Angels 89 1.4.1 A Book for Ian Ballantine: Hell’s Angels as Muckraking Narrative and Bestselling Product 90 1.4.2 Gutter Talk as a Commodity: Thompson’s Use of Language in Hell’s Angels and the Changing Sensibilities with Respect to Obscenity 94 1.4.3 Facts versus Truth 97 1.5 Summary of Chapter I 98 CHAPTER II: RIDING THE STRANGE TORPEDO 2.1 The Temptations of Hunter S. Thompson: Commercialism and Sports in the Late Sixties 102 2.1.1 Finding Killy: Securing a Celebrity Commodity for Playboy Magazine 103 2.1.1.1 Narrating a Social Phenomenon: “The Temptations of Jean-Claude Killy” as Fictionally Structured Exposition 105 2.1.1.2 A Pass by Playboy: Why an Ambitious Periodical Refused an Innovative Piece of Journalism 108 2.1.2 Nixon Hunter 110 2.1.2.1 “A Plastic Man in a Plastic Bag”: Hunter Thompson and the Nixon Interview 111 2.1.2.2 The Medium Is the Story: The Nixon Doll as a Product of Television 112 2.1.2.3 Expect to Find a Braying Ass: Subjectivity as a Legitimate Form of Journalism 115 2.1.3 Freak Power Surge: Thompson Runs for Political Office 117 2.1.3.1 The Freak Power Party and the Mythology of Hunter Thompson 120 2.1.3.2 Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine 123 2.2 A Day at the Races: The Debut of Gonzo Journalism 125 2.2.1 The Origin of the Species: Thompson, Scanlan’s Monthly, and the Prelude to the Derby 126 2.2.2 The Search for the Derby Face: Subjective Journalism, Exposition, and the Quest for the Truth behind the Facts 128 2.3 The Anatomy of the Gonzo Feature Article 132 2.3.1 An Overtly Subjective Approach on the Part of the Writer 134 2.3.2 Meta-journalism 136 2.3.3 Application of the Non-fiction Story Method/Feature Writing 137 2.3.4 Fictional Conceits in the Story 138 2.3.5 A Focus on Experience as Opposed to Event 140 2.3.6 Writer Participation in the Story 141 2.3.7 Exposure of Structure 142 2.4 Gonzo as a New Sensibility in the Face of a Paradigm Shift 143 2.5 Summary of Chapter II 146 CHAPTER III: THE WEIRD TURN PRO 3.1 Making Gonzo Pay: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and “Strange Rumblings in Aztlan” 150 3.1.1 The Death of the American Dream and the Birth of “Fear and Loathing” 151 3.1.2 Escape from L.A.: Covering the Mint 400 for Sports Illustrated 153 3.1.3 Creative Latitude in a Changing Market: How “Mint 400” became Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 155 3.1.4 “Aztlan” as an Alternative to Gonzo: Shifting between Modes in an Unstable Market Environment 158 3.1.4.1 A Fellow Traveler on the Proud Highway: Oscar Zeta Acosta 159 3.1.5 Assumed Identities: Alter Egos to Reflect and Explain the Times 164 3.1.6 Finish Lines: Completing Vegas and “Aztlan” 166 3.1.6.1 The Definitive “Aztlan” 173 3.1.7 1971: Thompson Ascendant 178 3.2.