Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (57 page)

Anyway, I will finish the book and let you see it again, although I am not real optimistic about your feeling for it. But I liked your letter and feel that your quarrel is more with me and my convictions than my way of expressing them. Perhaps not, and maybe that's what you meant by distinction. But
I am not about to erect any housing projects or tickle any desperate wishbones. There is a man named [Herman] Wouk who does that sort of thing, and another called [Eric] Linklater, whose heart, they say, is as big as all outdoors. I have a suspicion that it would drop very cleanly down the barrel of a BB gun, but I guess that makes me sound even meaner than before.

Further, I could cite a lot of fine books that didn't build any houses.
Lie Down in Darkness
comes quickly to mind, and no American has written a better book in 20 years. But when Styron tried to build a house, it didn't ring true. It sold, of course, and maybe there was form beneath the fuzz, but I couldn't see it.

Well, I see I am arguing and I didn't mean to when I sat down to write this thing. Thanks for reading what I gave you and for writing a good note; you will hear from me again when I finish the blueprint.

Bittahly,
Hunter S. Thompson

Thompson first met free-lance journalist Olay in Big Sur when they were both broke and grubbing for rent money. Olay published two novels and wrote for various magazines and contributed a weekly column to the
Monterey Herald.

February 16, 1962
531 E. 81 Street
New York City

Well, Lionel, I've been meaning to write you for quite a while, but I thought I'd wait until I had something to say. Now, if nothing else, I can give you a rough outline of the immediate future.

Well, Ok—first, you better be careful about your boxing syndrome. Mailer has broken his ass and his nose and all his rabbit ears trying to prove how much a better man and boxer he is than Hemingway, and all it has done is make him look silly. He will never be a better man and probably not a better boxer, because Mailer is a punk and it sticks out all over except when he writes his rare good stuff—which he should have been doing all along because it is the only way he'll ever get within shouting distance of Hemingway's ghost. So much for boxing. I dig a smooth mauler, but there are other ways to keep in shape for the big business.

Also, you cast me as a tyro Sugar Ray [Robinson] and match me with your man, Chambrun.
⁶
Oddly enough, I had a letter from him in
Louisville, a few days before I got yours, saying he had seen my story in
Rogue
and wondered if I had an agent. It was written on yellow stationery and I quickly dealt him off as a quack. Then came your letter and a reappraisal of Chambrun, so when I got here I went to see him and ran into the foggiest, most offensive secretary I have ever come across. After four tries at seeing Chambrun—to whom I had replied, and who had written back, asking to see my novel—I finally wrote him a very hardnose letter at his home, saying his secretary was a fucking idiot and had put me in the mood to crack skulls and bend thumbs. First his, then all the others in all the rotten offices in this rotten town. Direct quotes. Needless to say, I got a quick reply from Jacques, saying that “due to previous commitments he was not taking on any more clients at the present time.” Also, needless to say, a man with previous commitments does not scour magazines like
Rogue
in search of authors. So much for Chambrun. I found a new man named Volkening, who says my book is “mean and bitter,” but if I can resolve it in some decent way he would like to see it when it's ready to go. Well, my book is not mean and bitter and nor am I, for that matter, but his analysis gave me the pissed-off zip I needed to ram through to the finish. Contrary to your approach, I am “playing fast and loose” with it now, fairly confident that I have a good thing on my hands and giving it all the play it needs to romp and stomp. I figure 3 or 4 more weeks and that's it. I am tired of the thing and have better books to write. It has been on my ass for 18 months and that's enough. (I know, Joyce spent 10 years on
Portrait of
…) And Joyce was a poor sick fucker who probably died with his balls somewhere up around his navel. None of that for me, thanks. If it proves to be that long and tough I will figure that, like Joyce, I do not lack talent, but contacts, and I am not yet sure which is more important. But I have other talents and other contacts, and I can always write, so fuck them. But I will pass a good list on to my biographers. I have recently read two books where some people's memories took some pretty bad floggings—with reference to Hemingway and [Hart] Crane. But who gives a damn, anyway? Like how many people know or care who the KC A's have sold or traded to the Yankees in the past five years? So what? Who knows who to blame? Fuck it.

Anyway, what I meant to say in all that is that you mis-cast me. Footwork is one thing, and New York manners are another. I prefer to deal head-on, because for one thing I'm big enough in a lot of ways to run over people that way; and for another, it gives me a chance to see who I'm after. This peek-a-boo shit is for midgets.

As for my last letter, it must have been gloomier than I remember. Or maybe it was that Ohio Valley climate. Anyway, I am very much on the offensive now and will definitely leave for South America before April 1.
Hopefully, by March 15. Depends entirely on the book. I have enough papers to give me an illusion of an income and that's all I need to go anywhere. If it all works out, I will make enough money to keep going. If not, I will settle wherever I have to and do what has to be done. Sandy is not taking the initial plunge. She will stay here for a month, then ship to Trinidad and await developments. I have a lot of deals going now and they will probably all fall through, but I will go anyway. One thing that looks good is free transportation, in exchange for guaranteed published articles. The last time I tried a thing like that the people who sponsored me wound up yelling for my skin to be tacked up on their wall. Probably it will happen again, and so be it. There are possibilities in journalism, and not the least among them is the fact that it's short and quick and just about as constant as you want to make it. I have enough papers now to afford me a decent income unless they do me in with delays and petty bitching, which they undoubtedly will. On the other hand, I have sold a few photos recently and am now buying a $200 camera from Hong Kong, plus another $200 worth of lenses. So I will have another weapon and if I can make it work it will take a real badass to get me. And if nothing else works, I still have a .357 Magnum.

So I feel relatively confident and expect a fit of euphoria when I finally finish this stinking book. You will probably not like it, but I have worked hard enough on it so I won't care what anyone thinks. It is a decent chronicle of a meaningful time, and if somebody else can do it better, I am about ready to step aside anyway.

As for your plan to return to this rotten town, I cannot do much smiling. I don't doubt there's money here, but you will dig in shit to find it. I have never seen a place so jammed with absolute pricks. Perhaps Chicago is worse, but I doubt it. Of course there's LA, but that's too much for an honest man to face or even question. My only faith in this country is rooted in such places as Colorado and Idaho and maybe Big Sur as it was before the war. The cities are greasepits and not worth blowing off the map. I can't understand why you want to come here except to swoop in and grab what you can and be off again. There is no other way to deal with this place. Beware. On this, if on nothing else, I think I speak truth. And on top of everything else I think it would drive Beverly
⁷
nuts. It is already cracking Sandy, and she grew up on Long Island.

Well, that's about the story from this end. I am drunk now and it's just about 5 am. 14 pages tonight, not a bad pitch. I have another bad week of major re-writing, then I can coast. God damn, it will be good to have it off my hands, regardless of where it goes or why. I don't care anymore. I just
want to finish. And now I'm running out of space and I don't feel up to another sheet, so—send word. HST

Thompson made a pitch to
Pop Photo
for an article on the virtues of American photography
.

February 26, 1962
531 E. 81 Street
New York City

James Zanutto
Features Ed.
Pop Photo
One Park Ave., New York

Dear Mr. Zanutto:

After reading Hattersley's “Good & Bad Pictures”
⁸
in your most recent issue, I mentioned what I thought was an article possibility to Bob Bone
⁹
and he suggested I see what you thought of it.

Its title might be something like “The Case for the Chronic Snapshooter.” This derives from Hattersley's statement that snapshooting is not, by definition, a low and ignorant art. He cites Weegee and Cartier-Bresson as examples.

I enjoyed seeing this in print. Because after being in New York for a while, reading
Pop Photo
and mingling here and there with photographers, I was beginning to feel that no man should ever punch a shutter release without many years of instruction and at least $500 worth of the finest equipment. As a free-lance writer, I've been taking pictures for several years, often just for the hell of it, and often to illustrate my articles. I've had a good time at it, and sold enough pictures to cover my lab expenses and the initial cost of my equipment several times over. My “equipment” consists of a Yashica-Mat, a cheap light meter, and a yellow filter.

When I got to New York, however, I was given to understand that I might just as well be shooting with a Brownie Hawkeye. My only salvation lay in a Hasselblad, a Nikon and quick enrollment in a photographers' school. I pondered this for a while and soon found myself running in circles, going from one camera store to the next, promising them all that I'd come back the next day and buy a complete outfit. Meanwhile, I zipped
my camera into a suitcase and stopped taking pictures altogether. They were bound to be terrible, and besides that, I was embarrassed to be seen on the street with my ratty equipment.

Then I read Hattersley's piece. After that I got out some of my prints and decided that not all of them were worthless. As a matter of fact there were some that gave me pleasure. And I had sold a good many, I'd enjoyed taking them, and some had even given other people pleasure.

That's my idea in a nutshell. When photography gets so technical as to intimidate people, the element of simple enjoyment is bound to suffer. Any man who can see what he wants to get on film will usually find some way to get it; and a man who thinks his equipment is going to see for him is not going to get much of anything.

The moral here is that anyone who wants to take pictures can afford adequate equipment and can, with very little effort, learn how to use it. Then, when the pictures he gets start resembling the ones he saw in his mind's eye, he can start thinking in terms of those added improvements that he may or may not need.

For instance: there are damn few things you can't shoot at a 500th of a second, so why get an inferiority complex if your camera doesn't go up to 1000th? Anybody who can afford that extra nickel for Tri-X can shoot indoors at night with any camera that has a 3.5 lens and shutter speed down to 50 or 25. Why give up because you can't afford a camera with a 1.8 or 1.4 lens? First push 3.5 to its absolute limit, and if it still bugs you, you'll find some way to buy that other camera. If not, you don't need it anyway.

I'm enclosing some prints to demonstrate my thesis. There is something technically wrong with every one of them, but I have sold enough of these and others to make my snapshooting habit pay its own way. Some of these were taken at a time when I didn't even know that some films were faster than others. Then, when I discovered Tri-X, I moved indoors and, with little tricks like tilting lampshades, etc., I have usually managed to get pretty close to what I wanted. And I have never found a situation that caused me to slink off in shame because I couldn't shoot a 1000th.

It may be that my thesis will rub some of your high-priced advertisers the wrong way, but I doubt it. After all, the best way to appreciate fine equipment is to shoot with some that isn't so fine, and then move up. But no man will learn an inferiority complex quicker than he who starts out with a Leica and consistently gets poorer stuff than his buddy with an Olympus Pen. And the man who starts out with an inexpensive but adequate camera will soon learn its limitations, and he'll appreciate his Leica when he gets it.

That's about it. This letter is a rough sketch of the proposed article, so you should have a good idea what I'm driving at. If it doesn't interest you,
give the prints to Bone instead of mailing them back to me. My mailman has a bad habit of jamming photos into my mailbox and I'd rather not have that happen to these.

Cordially,
Hunter S. Thompson

Struggling with debt, piles, and “The Rum Diary,” Thompson took a break to needle McGarr, who was trying to write a novel in Spain
.

February 28, 1962
531 E. 81 Street
New York City

Dear zero-grinning …

There
are
no brochures on the Mato Grosso, McGarr, which is one of the reasons land is selling there for $4 an acre. I have no idea what it's like except that it's god-forsaken and full of jaguars. Also wild boar and mahogany. A friend of mine here has bought 50 acres for $200, but has never seen it. Beyond this, you will have to wait for my reports. It is a rumor, you know—like GOLD or WHISKEY! In this case it's CHEAP LAND! But just how much it is worth is another question. In South America, however, there is the consolation of knowing that if you don't like the first 1000-mile tract, there are a good many others to choose from.