Honolulu Lite
You only hurt the
heroes you loveI think of myself as a real sweet guy, but sometimes my insensitivity really amazes me.
For instance, I hurt Hunter S. Thompson's feelings. At least one of his buddies felt like my column yesterday describing Hunter's current physical condition would hurt his feelings.
You would think that it is hard to hurt the feelings of a writer who has created a public persona as a hard-drinking, drug-taking outlaw who's called U.S. presidents "swine" and called just about everybody else "swine," for that matter.
In fact, the lead in one of his recent reports for ESPN.com on the Honolulu Marathon began, "I was deeply engrossed in the Tampa-New Orleans game on Sunday night when my phone began ringing urgently and repeatedly, until I finally had to answer it. 'What is it?' I shouted. 'Speak up, you swine. I thought I told you never to call here in the middle of a god (blanked) football game.'"
The article went on to talk about the war on terror, legendary sportswriters and why he was coming to Hawaii, but peculiarly never explained who it was who called him on the phone.
I asked him about that when we met for a few drinks at the Kahala Mandarin Hotel, and he was a little impressed that I had picked up that detail of the column but vague on whether the non-identification of the caller was a mental burp or a clever "to be continued" writing mechanism.
The meeting had been set up by John Wilbur, a longtime friend, confidant and self-described "co-conspirator" of Hunter's because Wilbur knew that Hunter was a hero of mine and I'd like to meet him.
I documented the get-together in yesterday's column, mentioning that Hunter was pretty much like his public persona: an aggressive consumer of liquor, acerbic and weird. As Hunter has repeatedly written in his "Fear and Loathing" tomes, "When the going gets weird, the weird gets professional," or something like that. I also mentioned that his gonzo lifestyle, which he admits has included the ingestion of more chemicals than those hidden in an Iraqi dual-use laboratory, seems to have taken a physical toll on him. When I met him he was whatever the opposite of "spry" is.
Wilbur thought discussing the physical condition of a writing legend was unfair, but I felt that because Hunter has made intentional substance abuse a major public aspect of his persona, I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't report what I saw. Maybe Wilbur's right. And because of the tyranny of column space, I might have emphasized Hunter's physical condition too heavily.
But if I simply wrote that Hunter was in Hawaii to cover the Honolulu Marathon for the umpteenth time and that he looked great for a guy who, at the time I met him, was drinking scotch, gin, champagne and coffee all at the same time, and that he has sold the screen rights to his 1980 Hawaii-themed book "The Curse of Lono," and that he has a brand new book coming out in January called the "Kingdom of Evil," which is already getting great reviews, and he is to be the guest of honor at a dinner hosted by University of Hawaii President Evan Dobelle and, well, I'd feel like nothing more than a rank flack and PR pimp. All those things are true, by the way. But so is the other thing, about how he's no Jack La Lanne.
Hunter's never coddled the subjects of his writing over the decades, and I'd like to think he wouldn't expect any of us who consider him an inspiration to do so either. So, Hunter, if I hurt your feelings, I'm really, deeply sorry, you swine.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com