February 22, 2005

BY RICHARD ROEPER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

I licked ESPN on around 2 a.m. Monday and saw the news scrolling across the bottom of the screen: "Hunter S. Thompson, author and ESPN Page 2 columnist dead at 67. ..." Other news accounts would say he was 65. In any case, Thompson's suicide was getting equal billing with the stat summaries from the NBA All-Star Game. He probably would have laughed at that.

The column that follows first ran on Dec. 11, 1989 in slightly longer form. (Joan Rivers is mentioned in the column because she had inked a big-bucks deal to pen a sequel to her best-selling book, while Thompson's selling power had dimmed.) It was hardly a love letter, but a few days later I got a fax from Thompson, complimenting me on the piece.

Hunter S. Thompson was a man of excess, possessed by demons. But he did things with words that Eric Clapton does with a guitar.

***

Not only are we willing to pay to read what talkers write, we'll also pay to hear what writers have to say, and that's why Joan Rivers writes best sellers while Hunter S. Thompson lectures for huge fees.

The Cabaret Metro, 3730 N. Clark, is jammed solid on a Friday night with disciples of Thompson, the teeth-rattling gonzo-genius prophet of doom who has been chronicling our twisted times for more than two decades.

Most of them male and white and wearing black, they have come to drink to excess, to bark like wild dogs and to shout questions to the man who has written one of the best books (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and has been the subject of one of the worst movies ("Where the Buffalo Roam") of the last quarter-century.

You are there for all those reasons and also because there's a chance you'll get to hang with Hunter later on. Your friend has a friend, a man who knows Thompson so well that sometimes Thompson remembers his name.

The lecture was scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m., but at 9 the audience is still bathed in darkness; the only lighting emanates from the stage, which is equipped with a long table, a couple of folding chairs, a flashlight and a bottle of Chivas Regal. A cheer goes up when someone swipes the Chivas, and another cheer follows when the bottle is replaced.

By the time Thompson walks on stage at 9:20, his fans have consumed enough beer and whiskey to cover most of his reported $7,500 fee. It's as if the 500 rowdiest Bears fans in Chicago had been incarcerated, forced to read all of Thompson's works and then been let loose at the Metro.

"There is no security here, is there?" Thompson mumbles more than once; he also observes, "This place is worse than Korea."

Paper airplanes sail onstage, and empty bottles bounce off the floor. Thompson smokes Dunhills and drinks Heineken and the Chivas, and he roams the stage like a televangelist gone mad, knocking the mike against his head and breaking a flashlight by slamming it on the stage. He speaks in a sideways mumble, as if his jaw has been paralyzed by Novocaine or cocaine.

There is no lecture. Questions are fired from all points:

Do you have faith in the two-party system? Who do you think will win the World Cup? What do you think of Altamont? What do you think of Nicaragua? What do you think of Mike Ditka? What do you think of Garry Trudeau? Do you remember signing a plaque at a bar in Woody Creek, Colo., in 1987? Is the resurgence in popularity of Richard Nixon proof that nothing this evil ever dies?

This is accentuated by random calls for "Freebird!" and pleas for Thompson to "Speak up!" and "Speak English!"

Thompson's answers rarely have anything to do with the questions. Clad in trademark baseball cap and sunglasses, rambling on about Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon and the Hell's Angels, threatening more than once to leave the stage, he's like an actor playing himself in some off-Loop theater. After an hour, at least a third of the crowd has exited.

Waiting in line for the bathroom, you meet a guy named Trotter who has a copy of Generations of Swine (Thompson's latest book) under his arm.

"My question for Hunter is, 'What does it feel like to be dead?'" Trotter says.

By 11 p.m., Thompson's incoherent raps have become so much white noise. He hands the microphone to a guy who says, "That's it," and the show is over.

On the main floor, tables and chairs are cleared. Workers with huge mops sweep away an amazing collection of empty bottles and cups, leaving the floor with a sticky, glossy alcohol shine.

Dozens of fanatics crowd the stage, demanding autographs and pictures. Thompson tells them, "F - - - you," and he is gone.

Four hours later, the phone rings at your friend's house; it's the Colorado connection, claiming that Thompson will be joining him at any minute, and if you come right down you'll get the chance to meet him.

You tell your friend to tell the connection thanks, no. You don't want to talk to Hunter S. Thompson, not any more than you want to read anything written by Joan Rivers.