No fear or loathing; just adoration of native son
Hunter Thompson is dead. Long live Hunter Thompson.
That's the theme of Louisville's inaugural Gonzo Fest, a hometown upgrade of last year's Maryland-based celebration of the same name.
It's being organized here at The Monkey Wrench, 1025 Barret Ave., Saturday by Thompson acolyte Ron Whitehead.
“I love bad-asses and smart-asses, one of the reasons me and Hunter got along so well,” said Whitehead, a poet and scholar who in 1996 produced a sold-out, standing-room-only Thompson tribute at Memorial Auditorium in Louisville, attended by the writer; his mother, Virginia; actor Johnny Depp; Roxanne Pulitzer; musicians Warren Zevon and David Amram; and Douglas Brinkley, the historian who would become Thompson's literary executor.
Then-Gov. Paul Patton named Whitehead and the guests Kentucky Colonels and Harvey Sloane, then-mayor of Louisville, presented Thompson a key to the city.
A stellar lineup of musical entertainment is on tap Saturday, including Kelly Render Wilkinson, Susi Wood, Justin Lewis, Brett Eugene Ralph with Jamie Daniels, Tyrone Cotton, Lotus Blake, Jak Son Renfro and Serpent Wisdom, Your News Vehicles, The Fervor, The Workers, Scott Carney, Galoots with Shannon Lawson and many others.
There will also be a Thompson lookalike contest and readings by author Ed McClanahan, Whitehead and poets Vanessa Blakeslee, Dean McClain, William Sovem, Danny O'Bryan, Eric Sutherland and Nancy Bruner Wilson, among others.
“I think it's fantastic,” said his widow, Anita Thompson, a special guest of the festival who will read from her books, “Ancient Gonzo Wisdom” and “The Gonzo Way.”
“I'm so proud and honored to be part of it, to see Hunter's hometown honoring him in this way. I've never been to Louisville, so I look forward to seeing his home, Cherokee Park, Male High School and the jail he was in there. I'm so excited!”
Author of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72,” perhaps the best known of his books, Thompson joined the literary pantheon as creator of gonzo journalism, a raw, self-absorbed, first-person reporting eloquently crafted to shock, and bordering on fiction.
One of his first big breaks was an assignment from The Nation magazine to hang out with the Hells Angels and write about the club, which resulted in the book, “Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs,” published by Random House to critical acclaim.
Other details of his biography are almost common knowledge: his unsuccessful electoral bid for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colo., where he lived; long-time association with Rolling Stone magazine and also illustrator Ralph Steadman; Raoul Duke, Thompson's pen name writing the “Las Vegas” book, which became the “Doonesbury” cartoon character Duke; his suicide in 2005 on his compound, Owl Farm, in Woody Creek, Colo.; the elaborate funeral, financed by Depp and attended by Charlie Rose, Jack Nicholson, Bill Murray, Sens. John Kerry and George McGovern, among others, at which Thompson's ashes were shot from a cannon atop a 153-foot tower that he had designed.
Whitehead's obituary, posted online afterward, reads in part, “I have heard more than once that Hunter S. Thompson is a madman. That ‘Oh, look at what he could have done if he lived a more sane life …' He lived on his own terms. He died on his own terms.”
Whitehead was drafted into organizing Gonzo Fest. He is a highly regarded homegrown literary figure, the author of several poetry volumes including “The Storm Generation Manifesto, and on parting, the wilderness poems,” and a lecturer at Bellarmine, Spalding, U of L and universities in Ireland, Portugal and the Netherlands.
Dennie Humphrey, owner of The Monkey Wrench, months ago had considered putting a park on the property, but said the restaurant's chef, Joe Wendling, suggested something to honor Thompson instead.
The festival will feature two main stages and a VIP lounge. A giant mural of Thompson will be unveiled.
Whitehead said, “We're turning The Monkey Wrench into Gonzo Hangoutology Headquarters. And this is the first of what will be an annual event. We've already commissioned an artist to do a life-size sculpture of Hunter that we're going to unveil next year. I'm totally knee-buckling honored to be involve with Louisville's first ever Gonzo festival and can't even begin to say thank you enough.”
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