Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone(22)
1) Having enough money to move freely—not only in Washington, but also around the primaries (which means a fairly heavy airline/hotel tab for an extended period of time)
2) Being able to rent these houses, out here, so I won’t have to worry about this end.
3) Having a certain amount of autonomy, inre: paying for information & that sort of thing. Dan Greene could provide a vast amount of sub rosa help, for instance, but not for very long unless we paid. (That Randy Agnew contact was a pure accident, resulting from my request that he track down the eyeball man, and he told me about it more on a gossip basis than a story lead.)
Anyway, I’m having dinner with [New York Times journalist] Max Frankel Tuesday night, and I’ll warn him that I plan to be baying at his heels throughout the whole campaign. Actually—given the two-week deadline and some money to put people like Greene and maybe Bob Sherrill on a quiet-stringer basis, I think we could make the “Washington page” (or whatever) a sort of infamous press classic for the length of the whole campaign—not competing with the Fat City press, but riding herd on them; playing the Wolverine, as it were. A sort of Nader trip, focusing on the traditional & inevitable incest that seems to be the basis of the press/power relationship in Washington. Like a self-appointed ombudsman, hassling everybody—not just Nixon & Muskie—in the interest of that New/Dropout vote bloc we’ve talked about. The idea would be to approach the thing more as a lobby-interest than a straight observer—opening a news bureau with the undeclared option of using it, if necessary, as a de facto campaign headquarters. Which it would probably become, anyway, if we can put this Essalen [sic] idea together & come up with a platform.
Ciao,
H
Undated letter from HST to JSW
Saturday
Owl Farm
Woody Creek, Colorado
Jann . . .
Right after I hung up last night I realized you said the award was for “unstapled” journalism—but the word I got was unstable. Which made me wonder why you seemed so pleased. Or maybe I just felt guilty—one of those Freudian misunderstandings. Since I was working on the Las Vegas piece at the time, it figured. “Unstable,” indeed! Those swine. Next year we should demand a Gonzo category—or maybe RS should give it. Of course. “The First Annual Rolling Stone Award for the Year’s Finest Example of Pure Gonzo Journalism.” First Prize: a gallon of raw ether. Second: a Pepper-Fogger, donated by the ELA Sheriff’s Dept. Third: A free trip to the 1972 Mint 400 in Las Vegas to anybody with the balls to go out there and apply for “Rolling Stone” press credentials.
Ciao,
Hunter
Letter from HST to JSW
Monday Aug ’71
Owl Farm
Woody Creek, Colorado
Jann . . .
Here’s the tentatively-finished draft of Vegas II, Section One. I’m not sure it moves fast enough; maybe I need something rude & heavy injected up front ... but right now I can’t make that kind of judgement, so I might as well send this part off and wait a week or so before trying to read it objectively.
This is about 11,000 words, I think. I have maybe 10K more already written & waiting to be typed & chronologically fitted. My guess is that the whole of Vegas Two will run between 25 and 30K words. And that’s plenty. Perhaps too much. The effectiveness of the story depends on its hi-speed pace. We can afford to slow it down a bit once we get to the book stage, but we can’t afford anything slow or sluggish in the RS version . . . or readers will “take a break” & never come back.
You should read the first section with this in mind ... keeping in mind, of course, that it’s actually the middle (in book terms), so the crucial thing in this part is to build to a Climax, which should come at the end of Section Two ... and then use Sec 3 at the Ending. I have a fairly clear notion of where I’m going ... so what you should be thinking about right now is putting Alan on the phone with [Hunter’s agent] Lynn [Nesbit] & Silberman, to work out the book-arrangements. That money is my down payment on the Owl Farm—120 acres & both houses, a deal that we just settled tonight.
OK for now . . .
HST
Undated 1971 letter from HST to JSW
Owl Farm
Woody Creek, Colorado
Jann/
Here’s the rest of Vegas—minus a few graphs, but let’s get it sorted out & cut before I start adding graphs. Otherwise, it will just keep growing.
Great rush & chaos here—the cops have a bench warrant for me—Sandy is vomiting all over the house—seven Dobermans underfoot, no sleep, snowing outside.
Send the $500 at once. I’m down to zero.
Thanx/
H
Letter from HST to JSW, September 14, 1971
9/14—Tues