BBC program Omnibus features Nigel Finch’s 50-minute 1978 documentary of Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman titled “Fear And Loathing In Gonzovision” at the beginning and “Fear And Loathing On The Road To Hollywood With Dr. Hunter S. Thompson And Ralph Steadman” at the end.
Sorry, Deutschland, you can’t watch it, I guess. Due to the song at the end. Blame the corporate moguls and their swarms of lawyers.
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I own no rights or make any profit from this video,as it’s only for educational purposes and to make people aware of Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman.
The Great Shark Hunt’ is great. It’s in the same vein as the Las Vegas book, or ‘The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved’- not a political or cultural article, but more of a gonzo-style (i.e. heavily ‘flavoured’, or semi-fictionalised) story about what he and a friend got up to during their coverage of an island yacht race (or fishing competition, I forget which). The best part is when they leave the island and have to reenter the US- rather than ditch all their drugs, they decide to eat all of them on the plane, which creates chaos. Very funny.
Back in the early 90’s we booked him to speak at our university. It was the job of my roommate & myself to meet him at a restaurant and get him to the hall where he was going to speak.
Over an hour late he come screeching up in a Camaro, glass of whisky between his legs and his assistant in the passenger seat. I was a big fan of the “Fear & Loathing” movie that Bill Murray did. Hunter in real life was exactly as portrayed by Murray (I heard somewhere that Murray lived with him for a while to get his mannerisms down).
Anyway, immediately after getting into the dressing room, he goes to the bathroom to do some lines. He was just so delightfully unhinged, you never knew if he was going to go off.
He had 2 rules in his contract rider:
No Podium, just a table with 2 mics
A bottle of Chivas, ice and a glass on the table.
Well, my stupid Stage Manager somehow didn’t get the memo. Also, since it was a University we weren’t allow to supply liquor “officially”, so one of the security folks was going to bring it out in a pitcher.
Hunter goes on stage, sees the podium and slams it (very hard). Pissed off, he turns back to the dressing room and sees the dude with this god-awful pitcher full of Chivas, he slams into him, spilling Chivas all over the Security guy and storms into the dressing room.
We were eventually able to straighten things out and get him to agree to go on stage - had to get a second bottle of Chivas. I still remember to this day that dented aluminum pitcher….ugh.
