Glad that the first half of this effort, Brian's half, hs been so well recieved, I just never can tell how these things are going to play out. Anyway. glad it's been popular, as Brian stated, explaining who the man was is redundant, HOWEVER, if you have not read much of his material, or heard him speak, that post, and hopefully this one, will be helpful to you.
The centerpiece of THIS effort is the five CD set, "The Gonzo Tapes: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S Thompson".....these are taken from his personal cassette and reel-to-rell tapes (Thompson recorded EVERYTHING), and were trasferred to digital by Don Fleming. The short version: Disc One deals with the masterful "Hell's Angels", including a snipet of Thompson and Allen Ginserg being pulled over by law enforcement after partying with the Angels......Disc 2 & 3 are both filled with stuff from the "Fear and Loathing In
Las Vegas" era, perhaps his best known work, Disc 4 ("Gonzo Gridlock"), is stuacked with stuff from 1972 while he was working on "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" and include his breakdowns of Freud's "Cocaine papers"; and finally Disc 5, "Fear and Loathing In Saigon", which is just what it sounds like, his dispatches regarding the Vietnam War. You know already if this stuff is going to be of interest to you, going into detail would be a waste of our times.
These, combined with all the audio good stuff in part 1, should cover all of your audio needs for ra while, but I thought it would be good also to include a batch of PDF files that you can actually read, my preferred method, what I managed to come up with, from my own hard drive and The Pirate bay are:
"Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas", "Hell's Angels", The Gonzo
Letters Volumes 1 & 2, encompassing "Proud Highway" and "Fear and Loathing in America", "Screwjack", "The Great Shark Hunt", and "The Rum Diary".......all of these are in one handy RAR file, just check the link for PDF and you'll get them all......one precaution, often times downloaded PDF files are rife with errors, I THINK I've checked all these pretty thoroughly (I had to disinclude a handful for that reason, but if I missed one, sorry).....
Also, I am not about to type out the names of all the tracks here, nor am I tagging them, if you open the "Track Lists" file, there are photos of the backs of the CD case, blow them up, voila, track lists.
I sure did enjoy putting this one together, or, to be more accurate, helping Brian to do so (his idea), hope you all like this, I think the audio stuff is REALLY great, somewhat hard to locate, and 1000% worthwhile, while thte actual literature is nothing short of essential.
Again, let me know what you think of this type of post.......any other authors you'd like to see profiled (although Thompson is easier to capture in audio form since he was such an audiophile), I was thinking of seeing how much Vonnegut is available in e-book format, don't worry, I won't get TOTALLY literary on ya right now, I'd wait a few months for that.....I'm hoping to get an ENORMOUS Throbbing Gristle thing ready for the next couple days, which will include the "24 Hours" cassette set and more, and of course my infertile mind probably has another project or two cooking, so I hope you all enjoy this one, like it or don't, ya GOTTA admit this isn't the stuff you see on ALL the blogs, right?Seems like a good time to remind everyone that NOTHING
makes me happier than people contributing interesting shit here, and it DOES NOT have to be music, it can be ANYTHING.....I love literature, comics, photo collections, ANYTHING you might have that you wish to share with others.
And PLEASE if you are going to ask for anything to be re-upped: In general I do not do them......I simply get too many requests and could never get to them all.....I WILL, however, personally send you a new link for what you are requesting IF FIRST YOU contribute something for the overall good of the blog. Thank you.
I have told Brian that this may turn out to be one of my favorite posts ever, and should any of you have any additional audio OR E-Book (pdf or otherwise), send them along (REALLY wish I could have found a text version of "Hey Rube" but couldn't find one)......let us make this as comprehensive as possible.....long ago I did a post on so of my personal favorite dystopian fiction, and recieved quite a favorable response, including some fine contributions that were new to me......I don't really want to move this blog TOTALLY to a literary thing, but as I stress ANYTHING (almost) GOES here, as LONG AS IT IS INTERESTING (and who is the judge of THAT?, you may ask.....it's in the ye of the beholder of course, but in this case we'll just simplify it and say "me".)
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There is also a folder containing all Hunter's articles for the National Observer in the early 60's. He was their South American corespondent, and that was a particularly hot spot of the world back then: communist insurgents, American expansionism, despotic rulers, etc. These articles definitely show that he could do straight journalism as well, while making it readable and to the point. And for a kind of context, this is the work he was doing that was the basis for what would later be The Rum Diary.
And lastly, I've got a link for something cool you need to read. When Nixon died in 1994, Hunter . I remember reading it in excerpted form in Rolling Stone at the time. I was in high school, and it was the first writing of Hunter's that ever drew me in. It was just a savage, hilarious indictment of this motherfucker of an ex President, and I had to find out more about HST. It's a great read, and one of my favorite works of his - wrote this obituary/essay/screed for him
Hope you guys have been enjoying the Thompson Treasure Trove. Now you gotta study....
(ALL links for audio AND written work are in the comments section, hopefully clearly defined.)