Tragic, eh? No. In fact it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. I believe very strongly that George Bush can and shall be beaten like a gong in next year’s extremely important election, where he won’t be the only jackass politician running for his life.
Who gave George Bush permission to preempt and butt into NFL football games and turn pregame ceremonies into some half-bright rave about rebuilding a nation that we just bombed back into the Stone Age? What kind of cowardly swine would freely give $25,000,000 worth of commercial time to any political candidate in a presidential election year?
How about the greed-blind Commissioner of the National Football League? Does that sound right? You bet it does, Bubba. It was Paul Tagliabue who let the egg-sucking weasel from Texas into the henhouse, because he thought it was necessary at the time.
* * *
My darkest fear right now is that we will be seeing George W. Bush on NFL TV every Sunday for the rest of this year and far into the winter and maybe all year long next year until election day rolls around, constantly jabbering about how his jackass war on a nation of Muslims is joined at the hip with the nature of football in America and especially the NFL. If you love to watch anything that looks like professional American football, you will also love the brutal culture of War and all the murderous violence that goes right along with it. Right. In war you do 200 push-ups a day, and in pro football you do about 50. In war you carry a nine-pound full-auto assault rifle at all times, and in football you carry a pointed leather ball.
They are both profoundly violent and cruel and utterly unforgiving, and they both require public brutality by people wearing elaborate uniforms. I have tried them both for long periods of time, and I frankly see no basic similarity at all, beyond the powerful desire to hurt people.
—September 8, 2003
Boxing Sucks
The time has come, the suckfish said, to get rid of professional Boxing in America. It has been a horrible traveling hoax since Muhammad Ali’s retirement, and now it has turned itself into a bag of Poison scum. Those crooked bastards have finally gone too far. The U.S. Congress should immediately pass a special Criminal Fraud law to permanently Banish professional boxing spectacles like Saturday night’s Moseley–De La Hoya fight from all public airwaves in America. There is some shit we won’t eat.
That is strong language, in some circles, but when you start talking about the ugly, evil nature of boxing today, no language is strong enough. Like “Wait a minute, whoreface! That’s my airspace that your hired swine are stealing and using up there! That space belongs to me. That is public property, and I am part of the public. You’re trespassing! You are a brazen shit-eating criminal, and it is legal for me to kill people like you!”
You want to be vaguely careful when you start screaming about killing people. It can be a touchy subject. Never threaten to kill people in front of witnesses. Take my word for it.
Ah, but never mind that. Let’s get back to some pure sport, like professional football in the USA. It may be fixed, but at least it is Artfully fixed, compared to the out-front, in-your-face, screw-you kind of cheap-ass shuck that boxing is.
I can say that with a straight face because I have a special knowledge of boxing that comes with growing up with Muhammad Ali as our champion—which is sort of like living in a time when toys like Acid and Marijuana were legal. It was a very different time.
Indeed, and so much for that craziness. The Denver Broncos looked tough in a whole new way on Sunday, as “new” quarterback Jake the Snake Plummer finally came to life. It was a nice surprise to see him throwing and diving for first downs, in the style of John Elway. If Plummer has finally meshed with his Offensive line, Denver could ambush a few people later in the season. Clinton Portis is a major new running back, and second-year wide receiver Ashley Lelie will go to many Pro Bowls. I watched him when he played college ball in Hawaii. I never cease to be amazed at Coach Shanahan’s eye for raw talent. Denver keeps rolling along.
Hell, I am full of sports news and judgmental opinions today. Boxing sucks, the Raiders look maybe a full step slower this season, George Bush is looking weaker, Wes Clark looks Interesting, and it looks from up here that Washington and Indianapolis will meet in the Super Bowl next year.
How’s that for looking ahead? Why not? It is always safe to say the Yankees will win the World Series. Big money works wonders in America … but apparently not in Iraq, where we are spending 2 billion dollars a week just to keep from being humiliated in the eyes of the world, which is no longer all in our corner.
Which reminds me somehow of the Philadelphia Eagles, who have lost more than just a step since last season. One of the most basic factors in sports is that Winning becomes a Habit and Losing is the same way. When Failure starts to feel Normal in your life or your work or even your darkest vices, you won’t have to go looking for trouble, because trouble will find You. Count on it.
Our dangerously goofy child-president from Texas is a squalid example of trouble coming home to roost. He is like a half-bright football coach who goes into a big game without a Game Plan. BOOM! Shame and failure will follow you for all the days of your life. Selah.
The Bush family reeks of fraud and bad karma. But even worse than our wretched gibbling president are the cowardly whores in Hollywood who are currently smearing film stars and music people like Johnny Depp by calling them unpatriotic Americans for righteously questioning the wisdom of invading a whole nation of Muslims—which is a dangerously stupid idea. Disagreeing with Donald Rumsfeld about bombing anybody who gets in our way is not a crime in this country. It is a wise and honorable idea that George Washington and Benjamin Franklin risked their lives for.
These thieves in the White House are so crazy with greed and power, and they are causing so much drastic damage to the world we live in, that they are the ones who should be put on trial for treason.
Okay. I am getting a little excited here, so I think I’ll wrap this up quick, before I spiral out and burst into flames. I am widely known as a bedrock, natural-born patriot and a lover of what this country used to stand for. The Statue of Liberty wasn’t out there for nothing. Beware of Warmongers. They don’t give a hoot in hell if you live or die. They are in this racket strictly for themselves. Mahalo.
—September 15, 2003
George Plimpton
Earth receive an honored guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest:
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,
Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honors at their feet.
Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.
—W. H. AUDEN, FROM
“IN MEMORY OF W. B. YEATS”
George Plimpton was an elegant man. He was an aristocrat of the spirit and one of my finest friends. Being a friend of his carried a special responsibility for behaving in a style that he would be proud of. You didn’t want to let him down, and George had extremely high standards. Every moment of being in his company was part of my Education. It was a proud moment when I first introduced my son Juan to “my friend George Plimpton.” There was no need to explain anything extra about George: you didn’t have to know him to realize that he was genuine American Royalty and that it was a privilege to be in the same room with him.
I loved George, and he has been a gigantic influence in my life. When I think of him, I see a tall, loose-walking man strolling through the lobby of the Carlyle Hotel with an armload of fresh Calla Lilies.
George Plimpton was about as good a friend as a man can have in this world. He lived his life like a work of fine art. George
Plimpton was a winner. He was comfortable with everything, from reading Plato in the original Greek to sparring with Muhammad Ali and courting Jackie Kennedy. He was an athlete and a scholar. He played touch football with Bobby Kennedy on the lawn of Hickory Hill and built some of the most dangerous and colossal firebombs ever seen in the American Century. He was absolutely fearless.
There are so many wild and beautiful stories I could tell you about being with George, having savage and unnatural adventures all over the world, that I am feeling dumb and paralyzed when I try to write them down. He was the highest and truest authority on American literature of his time, a genuine Man of Letters.
George Plimpton kicked ass. He was a champion in everything he did. He was the finest advertisement for Harvard University since LSD-25, and he loved Calla Lilies, along with beautiful women and Bob Dylan and the finest Afghani hashish.
Whoops. Enough of that mushy stuff. My real reason for writing tonight is that I think the friends of George Plimpton should and must create a permanent white monument to him.
It should be built in the little plaza next to his home and the offices of the elegant Paris Review, at the end of 72nd Street in Manhattan, overlooking the East River. I don’t know much about building or creating monuments to people in any neighborhood, but I have a powerful feeling that this one is the right idea at the right time and is absolutely doable immediately.
Okay. This is just a start, so let’s get rolling on it. Who knows what it will look like? Not me, but I have some suave and aggressive ideas. Give me a ring. Thanks.
HUNTER
—September 29, 2003
Victory
Monday was another bad night for watching football. We had rain, violence, fraud, and scenes of miserable failure. If I had to pick a Super Bowl winner right now, it would have to be Kansas City. The Chiefs have that smart, speedy kind of confidence that has always been the mark of Dick Vermeil’s best teams.
Now he has the Chiefs, looking big and fast and cool. If it is true that speed kills, then Kansas City will win the whole thing. Priest Holmes will kill you all by himself. He follows his blockers better than any other running back in the League, and Dante Hall is so quick that he barely needs blockers.
Even a retread like quarterback Trent Green can look great in Vermeil’s Gotcha! offense, which is way too smart to be a failure in this Here today, Gone tomorrow, free agent league where nobody hangs around long enough to become a legend. My wicked old friend Max McGee wouldn’t last three weeks in the NFL today. He didn’t have enough respect for the Rules.
And so much for that, eh? The time has come to move beyond simple football predictions. What the hell? Let’s try Baseball. That looks easy. So why not predict that the musty Chicago Cubs will win the World Series this year? They are long overdue, and the times are right for it.
George W. Bush is a baseball man, so I wonder about who he’ll choose to win the Series this year, if only to know who to stay away from.
I have never had much faith in our embattled child-president’s decision-making powers. He comes from a long line of Losers.… I know that is not what you want to hear/read at this time, especially if you happen to be serving in the doomsday mess that is currently the U.S. Army.
I take no pleasure in being Right in my dark predictions about the fate of our military intervention in the heart of the Muslim world. It is immensely depressing to me. Nobody likes to be betting against the Home team, no matter how hopeless they are.
I have done that, from time to time, and it never fails to leave me feeling guilty and confused, even if I win. Winning is vitally important in the gambling business, but it is better not to publicize your most shameful and predatory bets. How many red-blooded Americans really want to go down in history having voted for George Bush and Military disaster in 2000?
Not me, Bubba—but I feel the pain anyway. Any failure of this magnitude is a shared experience, like it or not. Not every passenger on the good ship Titanic voted to hit that iceberg. Of course not; it was the Captain’s decision—and the Captain went down with it, just like his father.
It is up to the rest of us to make sure this fool of a President doesn’t take us all down with him.… WHACK! And that’s it for realpolitik, eh? That evil crap can take all the fun out of Football.
But I have learned, in my life and work as a sportswriter, that big-time Sports and big-time Politics are not so far apart in America. They are both a means to the same end, which is Victory.… And why not? Victory is good for you and don’t let anybody tell you different.
—October 13, 2003
“POLITICS IS THE ART OF CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT”
BYHST
That is one of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it the hard way. Anybody who thinks that “it doesn’t matter who’s President” has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World—or been beaten and gassed by Police for trespassing on public property—or been hounded by the 1RS for purely political reasons—or locked up in the Cook County Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower. That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That is when you will wish you had voted.
Honor Roll
Honor Roll
Muhammad Ali
David Amram
Jeff Armstrong
Lisl Auman
Tracy Avedisian
Doc Barahal
Bob Beattie
Sandy Berger
Steve Bornstein
Ed Bradley
Sheriff Bob Braudis
Doug Brinkley
Lucy Brown
Kobe Bryant
George W. Bush
Senator Byrd
Tyrone Calico
Sue Carrolan
Graydon Carter
Fidel Castro
Dick Cheney
Rick Clark
Michael Cleverly
Donald Corenman
Alice Cotton
Louisa Davidson
Al Davis
Morris Dees
Johnny Depp
Evan Dobelle
Bob Dylan
Tara Eggert
Wayne Ewing
Tim Ferris
Flor Flores
Deborah Fuller
Gerald Goldstein, Esq.
Al Gore
Stacey Hadash
Hal Haddon, Esq.
Dante Hall
Marvin Harrison
Josh Hartnett
Hugh Hefner
Abe Hutt
Jim Irsay
Kevin Jackson
Doris Kearns
Senator John Kerry
Michael Knisley
Emily Laroque
Wayne Lawson
Gerald Lefcourt, Esq.
Kathleen Lord
Bob Love
Lyle Lovett
Jay Lovinger
Marilyn Manson
Michael Moore
Norm Mueller, Esq.
Laila Nabulsi
Damon Oliver
Prince Omar
Princess Omin
Dolly Parton
Sean Penn
Alison Petterson
Ed Podolak
Marysue Rucci
Christina Santiago
Mark Seal
Chloe Sells
George Sells
Daniel Snyder
Ralph Steadman
Michael Stepanian, Esq.
George & Patti Stranahan
Jennifer Stroup
Anita Thompson
Davison Thompson
Juan & Jennifer Thompson
Robin Thompson
George Tobia
Dita Von Teese
Dick Vermeil
John Walsh
Jane Wenner
John Wilbur
With special thanks to:
Stacey Ha
dash
Michael Moore
Curtis Robinson
About the Author
HUNTER S. THOMPSON was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. His books include Hell’s Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72, The Curse of Lono, Songs of the Doomed, Better Than Sex, The Proud Highway, The Rum Diary, and Fear and Loathing in America. He died in February 2005.
* Dave Wilcox is not a Hall of Fame linebacker for nothing. He played like a wolverine on speed & had the full-field vision of a Human fly. But off the field he was a quiet man who wore Levi’s & Pendleton shirts & enjoyed a cool beer now & then. He was a farm boy from Oregon & he had little patience with pushy strangers.… I lived a few blocks from Kezar at the time, and I often ran into Dave & other 49er players in our neighborhood bar. It was called the Stadium Club, as I recall, and one rainy afternoon I was in there with a friend of mine, an Ivy League lawyer who had just scored some Acid in Golden Gate Park. He was also a rabid 49er fan, so when he saw Wilcox at the bar, he eagerly sat down & started babbling at him about Football & Jesus & how “God put us here on this earth for purely Experimental reasons.”