my next guest is one of the most controversial writers in america and the inventor of gonzo
journalism we're delighted that he could be with us tonight welcome please dr hunter thompson
nice to see you sir
how are you oh i am terrible what's the matter you don't
i've been going to court every morning for uh two weeks at seven o'clock yeah and uh for me
to go anywhere at seven o'clock is real hard so i uh i tend to stay up all night
yeah so i've never stayed up all night for two weeks that makes it sure you don't sleep at all
do you that's about the 188th hour yeah so i i want to prove something you know i uh i don't even
i'm not sure what but you feel like you're now in the middle of a mission and you will have proven
something uh i probably will have yeah before this is over yeah all right well that's good
that wasn't well i came here but yeah i remember something i couldn't i couldn't talk this morning
at all my voice was gone when i called to say i can't make it i couldn't say anything
also originally you call you called you called here to cancel yeah do you have a microphone on
or is this something a sandbag trip or you have a microphone and i don't that's right i'm the only
one in the building with a mic on nobody hears anything against chicago oops chicago politics
uh now when you're not miked at all right no no really you've taken everything under this
thing oh i'd say okay they're hearing every word you say paranoia yeah uh
so you're uh
uh dr hunter thompson can i ask you what that what the the wait i thought we read not to
discuss these you don't want to discuss the doctor i could discuss your childhood and you know your
teeth and stuff like that but uh really i i i just really i'm we're not into a uh an academic
uh credential thing well no i didn't i i just assumed that if i insist on the use of the term
doctor yeah at certain times but uh in fact i'm a doctor of chemotherapy of journalism and of uh
comes to me what's that word
divinity yes stupidity divinity sure well i would have guessed that
let me ask you about uh what's embarrassing i've had many doctorates it's like being rich
yeah well no i mean if you went to school and there you shouldn't be embarrassed by it i bet
i've worked all my life for these things yeah wealth and doctorates why shouldn't
i be a little sensitive about displaying them in some kind of sleazy you know tv
i just want to have a little fun i know i know and you're just that's what we're doing here
trying to have a little fun uh now tell me about the the goings-on in palm beach let's talk about
something else for a second here what you brought your uh you brought is this a gift hunter or is
this innocence yeah that's a gift uh-huh that's a bomb uh-huh we have here uh two or three thousand
firecrackers huh well no uh not that many really it's a it's a light thing i earlier i brought it
out to set it off no you're not gonna be setting these off in here would you well yeah no no we'll
just maybe do the same thing maybe later at the buffet upstairs well we'll set those up
go put it back over here no no you get it you get it close to that cigarette
i know that would happen i said don't worry let's go out there and put it down in front of him
tell me about you your correspondence with the american express company but what did you have
in mind for those folks i got offended frankly that the american express was offering the uh
the gold card uh to the rebel uh yeah and what i considered a fairly uh a loose-minded sort of
greedy kind of way and you have a goal card no i know say that's what i mean that's the uh
but uh it's being offered in a way i consider the greater the gold card do
you have one yeah yeah now what is that what is that supposed to represent if you
have one of those what does that mean it tells me that i can go anywhere i want and get money
yeah i can well there are limits to this and there are certain dark aspects of that uh that contract
but basically if i uh like i i left the red chrysler convertibles all over
palm beach and hotels and beach houses i can just you know it's like for you the card that's right
and i had it i didn't even have to register in the hotel just wave the card they call me doctor
yeah they call you whatever you want really with the old car but i didn't feel she'd be offered
uh to uh do the masses yeah this is a poem i've been trying to i've been uh educating myself to
think like the palm beach life and uh i've come to surprise some surprising life stances in this i've
taken a driving up and down the beach and i read chrysler convertible with lesbians at night and uh
naked people and the drugs this is the power of the gold card that's what you have to do
but i i thought that i uh palm beat i mean uh the american express image was kind of sully
by the idea that anyone could uh wander around like this
can rent convertibles buy lesbians all that trumpets with a gold card
so uh i wrote them a letter saying that look i think i have a better idea
and uh what that is is that i should do your ads from now on for the gold cards not the green cards
and i put it down in a very uh forceful and i think persuasive style and it was uh
rejected by the swine that i wrote it to his name was johnson no no
it would be an effective campaign i think you are for the american express card yeah yeah whatever
uh yeah that's what that's that's i'm sure you have people here can work on that yeah oh sure we
do we have a full staff of folks who are looking to get you commercial work that's all they do
in the morning i i really work in the courthouses and stuff yeah i'm a reporter
yeah let me uh now speaking of reporters is it true that you one time were a
bowling reporter for a puerto rican newspaper oh that's a logo yeah all the things i've done
to bring that fellow is that the truth though it is true yeah uh how does one get that position
i was writing a novel uh at the time about san juan and i decided that uh no actually
reverse it i went to san juan and decided to write a novel about it
and uh what i wanted to do was work on this uh new english language paper the same one star and
uh i presented my credentials and got immediately just horribly rejected all my several friends of
mine were hired so i wrote the editor a letter saying uh you're a a swine a fool and a uh and a
doomed man pretty much the same letter you wrote to the american express guy no that was worse
and i said i'm gonna find somebody to come in here and get your boots and lo and behold and the uh
like way back in the personals they had you know columns of the new york times on a sunday
was a like a three-line ad that said uh famous international puerto rican sports magazine seeks a
chic editor you know something like that i thought well i'll call that and it was some
uh swine really that's what it comes down to who was starting a uh what do you call the the
sports illustrated of the caribbean that sounded real good and plus it gave me a
i'm into vengeance i like to i like to settle these scores uh to the best of my ability
when you live this this life yeah you want to settle the scores
yeah people will get sloppy otherwise so i went down there uh
to work on this magazine which i really thought was going to be a slick sportsman turned out to
be a bowling sheet a horrible thing where uh i had to hang around bullying allies at night
and report the scores of the like the federal league yeah you know uh harold's uh real estate
sales and uh hernandez uh construction how long did you was that fun for you no ensued the man
pseudo good good as long as you got the vengeance yeah yeah yeah yeah it's still going on listen
uh i want to ask you if you can come back and see us again uh i'm sorry that we're running short on
time i'd like to continue this discussion and there's no i don't think that you don't think
you'd be back okay well that saves us making phone calls tomorrow yeah all right uh thank you
very much hunter pleasure to meet you dr hunter thompson we'll be right back with marjorie gross
you