Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Gonzo Memory No. 2

In memory of the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, memory/commentary No. 2:

As for a replacement for HST, I am the rare bird who says that HST journalistically was never that strong, since he so fancied himself as a fiction writer (his make-believe crap never had the zest of his Gonzo reports).

The guy doing Rolling Stone political commentary/reporting now, Matt Taibbi, is hellaciously funny and likely decidedly more reliable than HST (keep in mind Wenner and company had to rewrite a drunken Hunter's primitively faxed notes to cover many a deadline, or rely on Hunter's girlfriends to rewrite the notes themselves.

Truly, that's where many of the San Francisco Examiner's columns came from. Those essays have been repackaged in several of Hunter's compendia, likely never emanating from his own fingers).

Two quality Exam editors, David McCumber and Jay Johnson, are targeted in "Songs of the Doomed." HST would structure his columns so that they could never be tampered with; any slight modification (Hunter seldom ever misspelled anything, so routine fixes were never an issue) would wreck an entire passage and draw fire-breathing wrath from HST, who would immediately (no exceptions) jet straight out from Aspen to SFO and blast everyone rather wickedly and in person (replete with cigarette holder).

I felt sorry for McCumber and Johnson; I worked with them on many a project and they were quality lads. Weekends were miserable for them as they awaited HST's column. It would never get there until just before midnight Sunday (the drop-dead deadline), and then it had to be rushed onto the floor for pasteup.

Often, then-publisher Will Hearst III himself would weigh in on a Hunter column at around 4 a.m. before the Exam's first edition wafted off the floor en route to unsuspecting commuters on BART.

Oh those were the days.

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