i will stay right behind these black gaetz. >> president recordings. find them on the c-span now mobile apps or wherever you get the podcasts. >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store. ..tonight we are celebrating te master of gonzo >> tonight we arent celebrating the life of hunter s thompson as the launchk of a new book by peter richardson. it's titled "savage journey: hunter s. thompson and the weird road to gonzo." it's published by friends at university of california press focusing on hunter thompson'' influence development and use

unique model of authorship. mr. richardson argues thompson's literary formation was largely a san francisco story and indeed those of us that city lights -- pass through the bay area can test this. thompson was a regular at the café just across the street from city lights. his life was intertwined with northeast culture and you would also seen walking down the street with warren hinkel or jeanette, so peter richardson has done a stellar job piecing together the trace elements of thompson's literary influence in a really compelling read. peter richardson has written critically acclaimed books aboud the iconic band grateful dead, rampart magazine, and carey mcwilliams the radical author journalist editor of the "nation" magazine. he will be joined tonight by none other than david talbot. i can't think of anyone better to be doing the honors.

david is the author of four popular history books and the founder and rijo editor and chief of salon magazine. from a senior editor "mother jones" magazine, he is a journalist, a columnist, is written for the new yorker, thes times, rolling stone, the guardian, much, much more. of course he's legendary san francisco best seller for many years. his most recent book is titled by the light of burning dreams try out and tragedies of the second american revolution co-authored with his sister margaret talbert said david is a neighbor of ours here city lights. you can easily say it is all in the family tonight. please join us now and getting a warm welcome to our evening guests peter richardson, david talbot. it is a great pleasure to have you both gracing our virtual halls. welcome to city lights applied. >> thank you, peter. many peters tonight. with peter richardson, peter

maravelis some city lights and it's a great honor for me to be here with the author of "savage journey" peter richardson. i'm very pleased to be here tonight. i've been a big fan of peters for some time now. i've read with great interest is history of "ramparts" magazine r thompson did too i have to say i first read hunter thompson when i was a student at santa cruz you see santa cruz back in the early 1970s and his fear and loathing in las vegas and then later his coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign had a huge impact on me as a young journalist, so i read with great interests new book about honor. i knew hunter a little bit myself later on as editor of the san francisco. diameter i actually have the great pleasure of editing a couple columns by hunter thompson that was late in his

career, of course, but you know to me he was an icon still is an icon. i had a huge impact on me and many at many other young writers and journalists in america, so i'm delighted to be here tonight with peter. i will jump in with a few questions and then we're gonna open up i think and take questions from some of you peter maverick mirabellas will help out there, but peter good to see you. where are you look like you're in woody creek, colorado. where are you? i'm actually in glen allen, which is not far from from where you are, but it is another spot where hunter thompson live briefly before he decamped for, colorado. actually before he moved to san francisco, so peter, let's talk about hunters san francisco roots, and since we're being sponsored tonight by the iconic city lights bookstore in north beach, let's talk about what

drew hunter back to san francisco back and they what the late six in the early 60s late 50s. what what period are we talking about? right he arrives for the first time in san francisco in 1960 and he had hitchhike to cry. well he had driven a rental car. are driven a car and cross country and dropped it off and then hitchhiked from seattle down to san francisco. and what drew him here frankly was was a place like city lights books. he was very into what the beats were doing. he didn't idolize the beats, but he really respected. especially what jack kerouac could do in terms of getting a new kind of writing. not only published by a major publisher, but you know to become a kind of publishing phenomenon. so he was very strongly attracted to san francisco. wanted to learn more about it by this time. he was out of the air force and had written for some newspapers. and when he arrived in san francisco, he applied for work

at the at the san francisco chronicle francisco examiner fruitlessly. and he almost immediately decamped to a big sur, which was another kind of beat outpost and was also the home of henry miller who was one of one of his real heroes, but but the original poll i think was was the kind of impulse which was hadn't quite crested yet, but was was starting to give way already. neil cassidy would go to san quentin and and karawak would move back east and and alan ginsburg would would move away as well, but what they accomplished while they were in san francisco was very important to hunter thompson. and since you did write a great book about ramparts the legendary and very important magazine added by warren hinkle and bob shearer two great beer the area journalistic figures

heroes of mine, and your book was fascinating about ramparts, you know, that was also a very important magazine from hunters development in those years wasn't early on. yeah, it was i mean really more after he had written right around the time. he published tells angels that that was in a very important magazine for him and that was a very important kind of social nexus for him. he never published anything in ramparts, but he felt very strongly connected. i actually heard from bob shear today and it's worth noting that he worked at city lights books for three years. right around the time that he was starting with with ramparts. so ramparts was still finding its feet. it had not even begun. really when when hunter thompson arrived in san francisco. it began as a catholic literary quarterly in 1962. it's really only when warren hinkle takes over as editor and brings the magazine to san

francisco. that it becomes the legendary san francisco muckraker that that we know today. yeah, but that hunter could have really developed the way he did as a journalist anywhere else in the country or was this something about northern california in particular in those years in the 1960s? there was more open to his style of writing. yeah, i don't think there's any doubt, you know that he he i don't think he could have done it in new york. he certainly could have done in louisville or aspen or or chicago or boston. i think not only that. i don't think he could have done it in san francisco 10 years before or 10 years later. i think he needed to be in san francisco right when he was in san francisco, and he acknowledged that too much later in life even first in fear and loathing in las vegas. he talks about his san francisco period as a peak era. and then later on in life, of

course, he comes back and works in san francisco in the 1980s, but even much later than that looking back. he said that those were my people. you know mid-1960s in san francisco. that it was really formative for him. and that's one of the arguments that i want to make in the book. is that even though he lives in in woody creek colorado for four decades after that i think in in many ways, he's best seen as a as a a bay area, right? well, he did live in the heat astrophy for some time. talk about hunter doing that period what does he absorbing? what does he learning? how is he growing as a writer during that period he was living in the heat, right? so he had he had moved down he he went from big sur up to here where i am glen ellyn not far from here. that didn't work out very well, and he moved to 318 parnassus avenue in san francisco near uc, san francisco.

and he wasn't really cut out for urban living. he really wrapped. he would really rather live in these kind of bucolic places like big sur glen ellyn or or aspen. but i think it was really important that he did come into the city during that time. he was still writing for the national observer, which was a wall street journal or you know, dow jones publication at the time, but he wasn't really thriving there. he he attended the 1964 gop convention in san francisco. but and you know learn learn some things there. i think that was a kind of you know an important lesson for him about the modern conservative movement, but he wasn't really into politics at that time. he was really in short order. he was really trying to do what tom wolfe was doing. back east which is take these kind of exotic west coast subcultures and turn them into

stories for big national magazines. and i'm like tom wolfe. i'd say tom wolfe to me is i i you know, someone who got a lot of credit for very little he was more of a dandy. i think hunter was really got involved with what he wrote about. he got stumped by the hell's angels for god's right? yeah. yeah, that's really important. so, but he didn't generate that story. he he left national observer kind of, you know, sort of broke off his relationship with them. he was always a freelancer, but that was his main outlet. so he needed new outlets and so he he wrote a query letter really importuning carrie mcwilliams at the nation and they only paid $100 for an article. they barely pay more than that now, but i mean, you know, he was trying to make a living as a freelancer. and he said i'll you know take

whatever you have and carry mcwilliam said why don't you write about the motorcycle gangs because the california state attorney general had just issued a report on them as a threat to plan order. and thompson said great and you're right. he was he went straight to. one of their meetings he had he had a kind of buffer bernie jarvis who worked for it was a crime reporter for the san francisco chronicle and a the hell's angels. so he had a kind of entree and then and then he he did it was all participatory reporting. and not very many people could do that. i don't think tom wolfe could do that. i don't think john didian could do that. i mean riding with the hell's angels i think took a kind of physical courage that not very many reporters had any and hunter dined out on that for the rest of his career in a way. he got the kind of respect that that you know sort of war correspondence get because he rode with the angels first for a

couple weeks he wrote the article for the nation magazine. then he parlayed that into a book deal and it became his first bestseller and then he rode with them for another year. and that and at the end of that year is when he got stomped by some of the hell's angels in a kind of dispute which remains a little bit fuzzy, but it probably had had to do with the fact that they thought they were going to benefit directly from his story. they said he promised him a keg a beer and he didn't pay up and he had another story but the point is that was how the book ended with his with his stomping. participatory journalism to the max let's talk a little bit about the legendary bay area editors warren hinkle again. rampart slayer scanlon's magazine the brief, but but very important scanlons and rolling stone. there could be no hunter

thompson, of course without yan wen or the young editor of rolling stone and without warn ankle right you write about how important those, you know editors were to him encouraging the kind of enterprise thing kind of slash buckling journalism later becomes gonzo journalism. yeah, that's a really really important time for him. so so yes, he has his first bestseller. he moves to colorado even before that book comes out. and but he maintains a san francisco connections and continues by this time. he's matt warren at who was presiding over a lot of success really at rampart's magazine not financial success, but in terms of impact and circulation and you know, there's a famous story about them going out to lunch and and when they came back the the cappuccine monkey that that warren kept in the office had

gotten into into hunters dexedrine and was tearing around the office. so they were friends they met. okay, peter. tell us a little bit warren. what a character he was. so they hit it off. immediately and and even though he who i never got him to write for ramparts. they remain friends and then um, and then frankly hunter began to struggle a little bit. you know, he signed he signed some contracts. but he was having trouble with his second book. he couldn't finish it. and that log jam didn't really break until another rider novelist james salter. at a dinner party gave him the idea to go and write about the kentucky derby. he pitched that story to warren and you know, if you don't know who warren was you know, he could match hunter thompson in terms of you know, the size and force of his personality and his stamina as well and he had he

had a really great feeling. for you know high kind of conceptual stories, and he realized that this could be a really great way to work together now scanlons was just starting. you know, that was the first issue of scanlons. and that and so he was recruiting people actively and even though he couldn't get more i couldn't get thompson into ramparts. he did get him into the debut issue of scanlands and and again thompson thought the story was an adject failure. he thought it was going to kill his career. he was ashamed of this story. and weren't that once he saw i was ashamed peter. oh, he just didn't feel like he finished the story. he he claimed that he began ripping notes out of his. out of his notebook pages out of his notebook and just faxing them in he couldn't he couldn't couldn't write the story couldn't fill in the patches in the story. it just felt like just a mess

that he sent to warren and warren sort of put the pieces together and polish it up. and warren said that he knew as soon as he saw ralph steadman's illustrations, and it was warren who introduced those two. they had never worked together before. they've never met. so once warren puts those two together, you know, i think it takes a little while but people begin to realize this is a franchise. so one midwifing it was kind of the midwife of gonzo journalism in a way he by pairing him with with ralph saidman, and then publishing and then scales now i misspoke. the first issue of scanlands ran the hunters jean-claude khali piece that didn't have ralph steadman's illustrations, and it's not usually regarded as an example of gonzo journalism, but once you put stedman and thompson together you know so

thompson thought he had failed. but then everybody was saying this was a big breakthrough in journalism. and you know, he described that feeling as falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids. you know, the thing that he thought was a failure turned out to be a huge success. and he immediately went back to warren and said this is it. it's going to be the thompson stedman report. we're going to go around, you know to america's cup and the super bowl and the masters tournament and the mardi gras. and you know, this is going to be a franchise and we're going to turn and we're going to take those stories and and put them into book form. so he really thought he had something that the only problem was that scanlons. was already going under and there would never be you know, i think i think they published their last issue in january of 1971. and then, you know, unfortunately because you know, i think warren deserves a lot of

credit for not just pairing those two but kind of conceiving and and birthing gonzo journalism. thompson would eventually have to find another outlet. for for that kind of work. so in some ways yon wen or who's the young editor who started rolling stone and had god has started ramparts under warren hinkle young went a really benefited inherited gonza journalism and hunter thompson from warren hinkle at rolling stone. yeah, that's that's absolutely true. and you know, i think i think john ended up getting a lot of the credit and i think warren was very aware of that. that you know the the conception of gonzo journalism was really a scandalous thing. but you know, he really didn't have i mean nobody had any choices here. it wasn't obvious that. that thompson was going to be a great match with rolling stone, which was still a fledgling rock magazine, you know thompson was

older than most of the people who wrote for rolling stone. he wasn't a college graduate. he was an air force veteran, you know, there are a lot of ways that he didn't quite fit the mold. that rolling stone, but yon really? saw that his stuff might click with rolling stones readers. and he encouraged him. actually. the first contact came. when hunter wrote to john after the ultimate coverage came out in rolling stone. he just said that was fine was the concert that some people say was the death of the 1960s where the hell's angels pounced on a young african-american concert going and stabbed into death. right? right. and of course the hell's angels were there and and they they were responsible for life. what's that so-called providing security at the cost? exactly so, you know thompson thompson followed that story with some interest because you know, of course after having

written about and ridden with the hell's angels, he was very very tuned in to that story and he really thought rolling stone did a fantastic job with it. they won their first national magazine award. so rolling stone was coming along very quickly, and i think you know hunter as a freelancer was always on the lookout for new outlets. he began to see that rolling stone could be one now the first couple of pieces that he wrote for rolling stone were not gonzo type gonzo-style pieces. but and you know, there's a whole story about how how gonzo much like the i was gonna ask you so peter, let's let's talk about fear and loathing in las vegas, which to me was the piece that introduced me as a young reader 200 thompson darrell said steadman illustrations again were of course, you know leaped off the page, but i that was a collector's item that issue of

rolling stone in which hunter thompson really gave birth to ganza journalists as we know it. so my first question about that is for you to define gun so journalism for those who may not know what gonzo means what is exactly gone so journalism. yeah, it sounds like it sounds like a genre like the new journalism, but it's not really a genre. it's really just to kind of description. i think of hunter thompson's a strain of hunter thompson's work after 1970. the label was wasn't really a label at the time but his friend from the boston globe bill cardozo after he read the kentucky derby piece said man, that piece was totally gonzo. yeah and hunter had heard him use that term when they were both covering a primary in 1968 in new hampshire. any thought oh, well, you know, let's let's call what i'm doing gonzo journalism. so it was very successful as a

kind of branding. exercise it wasn't really the name. i don't think of a of a genre. but it was it was a super important step and once again and but it was never it was never sort of the predictable result of a conscious project, you know, he was in la to cover a different story and he was working with oscar acosta the chicano activist attorney. in the middle of that research you got an offer to cover a road race in in the last in the las vegas desert outside of outside of las vegas. so he and it cost to go. he comes back writes up the story submits it to sports illustrated. they reject. so, you know a lot of people would say, you know, okay on to the next thing. but he is furious. he actually doubles down expands. the story was already 10 times longer than what sports illustrator wanted.

and he sent it to rolling stone who he's already written two pieces for and as soon as he does, you know the people in the office of rolling stone just say, this is magic. you know again, it's participatory journalism hunter put itself himself in the in the story as well as oscar. he took a lot of drugs he fueled this kind of insane coverage of las vegas high often. he made no bones about that. he just the kind of a heightened realism to ganza journalism kind of absurdity seeing the absurdity where other people's may not other reporters who are more objective may not see it how yeah, i'm heading on some of the things. you know, that that entertain me when i read fearing clothing, but what are some other aspects have gone so journalism, you think well, i mean, you know first it's sort of taking the

new journalism out to it's logical conclusion by putting the writer at the very center the experience and in this case the writer is not just a character but the entire all kind of reveals its meaning through his sensibility in a way. right, so so he's the indispensable part of the story. it's all about him and oscar and their invention now i would go back to some one of the points you made there and they didn't have a lot of drugs actually in that car when they went to las vegas. they had some alcohol. they had some benzedrine which oscar liked and they had some dexedrine which hunter liked and that was about it. yes, no. oh, that's one of the reasons and of course, they don't go as oscar and hunter they go as dr. gonzo and raul duke. and i think there's good reason to see this as a kind of. if not, a traditional novel some

sort of hybrid. you know fictional form, you know, we see sort of working the crease between journalism and fiction. and i think it considering you know, this drug cache which he outlines at the very beginning of the book raul duke that is in the trunk. none of that. was there almost none of it was there. and so i think we have to start we need to think about it more as fiction than as as journalism though, of course the label remains to this day gonzo journalism and um, it's still it's still shelved. it's still classified as nonfiction if you go to a bookstore, which you should by the way. you do have you do have a way to buy books on your on your zoom. link so think a little bit about that but yeah, so it was it was a brand new thing for sure, but i'm not sure it fits comfortably either in us as a form of journalism or as a traditional

form of fiction. well, i want to drill down on this point because i think this is the essence of hunter thompson and this whole hybrid style of writing. today i think journalism is pretty drab and you know, it could be there's no voice to it very little voice to it. it's been taken out largely in magazine writing in online. maybe his last repository. some writers have a voice some bloggers, but certainly in mainstream journalism. you don't come across voice writing the way that hunter thompson really pioneered so it could he i don't think he could succeed in today's marketplace. he had a difficult enough time as you write and savage journey as a journalist in those days. he has run in the 1970s, but you know, it got increasingly

difficult for a writer like hunter but there's something about it peter and we were talking about this beforehand that something that has writing that god the inner truth about it. america and particularly in those years when he is writing and in the so-called lunacy of gonzo journalism. there was the kind of heightened realism a kind of truth that other journalism can't get at talk some about that as coverage particularly of the 1972 presidential campaign when nixon was running for real election and you know share with us your insights into that which you go in the book. right, so just i mean the first point to make about his coverage in 1972 then i want to trail back and see and talk a little bit about how he got that assignment, which i think is really important. but by the time he had collected his dispatches from the campaign trail and put them into the book

which became a critical and and commercial success triumph. he had decided during loathing on the campaign trail during loathing on the campaign trail 72, right, right, so he had decided to to take this assignment. later, his work was described as the least factual and most accurate description of the campaign. and there i think you have the paradox. least factual that is he got a lot of things wrong. he didn't even try to get it right it was there was a lot of satire. there was a lot of invective. there was a lot of exaggeration. you know, there was a lot of hallucination even so you're right. there's a kind of heightened realism there and and you know, he was trying to get at some truths that he realized his colleagues on the campaign trail. either didn't see or couldn't

express in the kind of hard news stories that their editors demanded. so he decided to to try a different way of covering the story now. in some ways he had to come up with a different way to do it because he had no advantages in the traditional way to do it. he surrounded by very seasoned reporters from major news organizations who had a lot of support who had resources who had connections who had readerships and you know, they had everything they needed. he was at the bottom of that totem pole so we had to think hard about how he could make his mark and he did that by saying i'm not going to try to do any of the stuff that they're doing. he took his own weakness and turned it into a kind of strength because he had no intention of coming back to the campaign trail. he didn't he could burn all of his sources if he decided to didn't matter.

and so the fact that he represented a you know this kind of fledgling rock magazine from san francisco. that should have been a disadvantage, but he managed to turn it to advantage. by just telling the unvarnished true as he understood it not only about the campaign and the politicians we went after viciously. democrats as well as one republican richard nixon who he hated open. openly detested and he made no bones about his his preference for george mcgovern. so you weren't getting anything like objective journalism. he dispensed with all of those conventions instead he gave you the unvarnished truth as he understood it not only about the campaign but about the other media outlets. and i think that's super important about his work is that he's always working. he's always looking rather both ways. he's looking at the thing that he's writing about and then he's looking at the way other people are covering it. so every time you read something

by a hundred thompson, you got a good laugh. some crazy ideas and also, you know you learn something because he showed you what was behind the curtain. you he had radical vision? i think that's what i took from his writing as a young journalist. and as you point out in the book here, he is rockrib, republican, kentucky. and kind of a libertarian has politics were very diffused and yet he saw america a wash and greed and violence and war addiction to war. and frankly the country hasn't changed all that much in the last several decades. yeah, but i think there was a kind of insane insight into what america was all about in his writing. yeah. no, i think that's right. and i think that's why so much of it is held up over the years, right? i mean, you know some of it as has an age well, you know, i don't think he's going to get a

lot of plotteds for the way. he handles a race or women feminism or homophobia. you know if you reread him now, you're gonna you're gonna see that very quickly, especially if you read as letters, which i think is probably his best work. you really see that that's his that's his voice, but you're quite right about his politics. i mean, he only really becomes interested in american politics after he goes to the democratic national convention in chicago in 1968. and he is traumatized by what he witnesses by the police riot that he witnesses there and it's only been that he pivots away from the kind of tom wolfe new journalism stuff. and starts taking a direct. a bead on on american politicians like hubert humphrey like edmund muskie like richard nixon like mayor daley in

chicago. so really it's it's a kind of it's it is a kind of journey in a way a multi-step journey and then some you know, some more serendipitous things happen as well to shape. his body of work but let me ask you a question david. i mean you mentioned. his affinity for warren hinkle. i don't think warren's politics were really worked out cleanly, i think he was also a kind of rebel and iconic classes. i mean would you put them both and in a similar category in that way? i think warren is more productive san francisco. he grew up here. i think he kind of along with the water. he drank drank in the kind of ethos the liberal progressive ethos of san francisco. so i would put him to the left politically of a hunter thompson. i think consciously left but they are both mavericks and they

both like their drink and they both like to have a good time and that was very much a part of the spirit of the 60s and 70s when they were operating at their best. there was something that linked the two i think the kind of journalism the key out of the bay area in those years ramparts the early days rolling stone before it moved to new york and even my salon back in the, you know, during the.com era. we're all examples of a beer journalism that i couldn't exist anywhere else, and i'm proud of that and you know even reading some of the the obits about joan diddy and that went online about it. what iconic and great figure she was you know, she obviously produced you as a great writer who produced a lot of great writing, but i think again and again, california is not given it's due and that's why peter. i'm so you know grateful for the work you've done over the years

on ramparts and karen mc williams and now hunter thompson because i think the left coast doesn't get it to do from the new york media mandarins till to this very day. yeah, you know, i'm glad to see you give hunter thompson the dude that he deserves. yeah that that's that's very much in my mind when i sit down to do this work, but i think the funniest version of feeling that you're expressing. i was at the san francisco public library when the ramparts book came. warren was there and some of his family members and other other people who contributed. and the person who organized the event for the san francisco public library listen carefully to the presentation and conversation. and he stood up from the floor and ask a question said seems to me that. if ramparts had been published in new york city there would have been a broadway musical about it 20 years ago, and i think there's some real truth to

that because you know in a way it was in a way it was a it was an advantage to be in san francisco. because you could try new things. without fear of immediate failure. i mean there was a kind of nurturing. culture underneath it. that was more experimental and innovative and do it yourself and collaborative and you know, so i think all those things helped i mean, you know, google sturmer at ramparts magazine was helping out rolling stone on all their early issues the art directly. all that and then all the guys that left ramparts and went on to start mother jones. i think that was the real synergy though. yeah, absolutely. well, look i want to talk about your process about the archives and how you get one about your research on this book and then open it up. i think peter marivellis will be very in about five minutes to open up to questions from the audience, which we're very anxious to hear.

but let's talk peter a little bit about your process as a writer. i know you are frustrated by the the blocks to that you faced in, you know, trying to access hunter thompson's archives many researchers run in a similar similar blocks when they're doing their own work, but tell something about that and andy and hope for the future. is it gonna are these archives gonna be open to the public at some point? right? well the good news. is that hunter kept everything you know, he had there's something like 800 bucks as of stuff mostly correspondent. he correspondence he kept copies of his correspondence going back to his teenage years, maybe even before that. so it's just an enormous treasure and we've seen two great edited volumes come out of that both edited by douglas, brinkley, and if you haven't read it, and if you love tom's

and i highly recommend that again, i think it's some of his best stuff not on deadline his voice not edited, you know, not written for money. just hit him expressing himself in the direct and colorful way. and then you also see what a great literary networker was and and maybe that's why he kept everything the way he did. i think it was inspired from some by some other people like henry miller who posted up in big sur and used his correspondence to to keep his literary network alive, you know, that's what you have to do if you're going to live in these remote places and so his model of authorship this thompson. i mean his model of authorship was so unique. that you know, he had to he had to do things a little bit differently and one of them was write letters like crazy. so the letters are a great source, but except for the ones that were published in those books by brinkley. unavailable to everyone

including his son. i think one even i think is only seeing the archives wants, you know when he was riding his mom who's the archives? why why who is responsible for it being so shut so close all the to a consortium the family or thompson sold it to a consortium that includes johnny depp. and there has been some talk about, you know trying to do something with it, but he probably know that depth finances are and personal life are a little messy right now. and so i don't think these letters are really at the top of the list of things, you know, he's going to get to in the short term. and also, i think they may be trying to sell them, you know to to a different place. i understand they have librarians research librarians working on them. you know processing them. and so on they're supposed to be in a storage facility in los angeles right now. they make they may be made available. who knows but right now and go about your research then for the

book. yeah. so what what do you have then you you can go out and talk to people who worked with them, which i did at that as much as i could of course covid put the kibosh on a lot of those face-to-face interviews, but as you probably inferred i spent a lot of time thinking about how he worked with his editors and i think they were very important. but the only more important person in his career was probably stedman in terms of the success that he achieved the artist. yeah, i think that was really, you know, it's easy to overlook his contribution to to that franchise. of course. he didn't go to las vegas, you know oscar did. so but he still came up with that fantastic those fantastic illustrations that gave a kind of that gave gonzo. it's iconography really so it's very distinctive iconography. so you couldn't go to oscars archive, which is at ucsb. same thing shut down because of covid. but i did talk to as many of his

editors as i could and just tried to tease out what it was like to work with him and in a word it was excruciating, you know as the 70s wore on. he wasn't doing any new drafts any second drafts third drafts, which he always did when he was younger. no first drafts after fear and loathing in las vegas, and he begins to live into his into his persona. more and more so i you know, i wasn't that interested in the celebrity. i think his biographies have covered as celebrity adequately. i really wanted to get at what made him distinctive as a writer and that's right focused my research and and my assessment, you know, i was just trying to read it and and and then situated using the correspondence and some of the oral histories that have been done. so we can figure out his decision making during this time. it was not a smooth.

you know frictionless process for him it was it was haphazard uneven, you know the stuff that made him famous. it took him years to figure out that those things were his most important literary assets. you know, but when he finally figured that out he stuck with it. in fact probably for a little too long, you know, i think he was getting diminishing literary returns, and i'd like to ask you about that because when you worked with him in the 1980s obviously most of his best work was was behind him. and yet, you know and then talking to the editors about how they work with them then turned out to be very eliminated. so, what did you see david when you saw hunter thompson in san francisco in the 1980s? well, i was in editor it wilhurst san francisco examiner the hearst corporation out runs the chronicle but back in the day will was very interesting as an editor about bringing in

people like warren hinkle and and hunter thompson and other unique voices and dave mccumber was the newsroom editor who usually edited hunter his columns and dave and he had a unique relationship and i think you talked to dave didn't you for the i couldn't get him to to go on the record. he said he would and then that happened a couple of times >> i couldn't get him to go on the record. he said he would and then that happened a couple of times. i think these interactions with hunter thompson are so valuable that i think writers are tempted to kind of keep them to themselves, although we never said that. >> i told youer this story i knw from the book, and it's my one great memory of working with hunter. he did come into the newsroom. my colleague steve chapple who's a great writer -- >> we are going to break away from this booktv program recently for a pro forma session of the u.s. senate after the recent senate session we will return to booktv.