Growing Up Gonzo: Excerpts From the Oral History of Hunter S. Thompson

Gene McGarr (lived and worked with Hunter in New York after Hunter was discharged from the Air Force): Gene McGarr (lived and worked with Hunter in New York after Hunter was discharged from the Air Force): "The last thing he did, in November 1957, was to write up a press release describing a riot that took place at Elgin when the enlisted men attacked the women's quarters and the officer's mess — stole all the booze, got drunk as shit, attacked the women, beat up two officers. It was a very funny and colorful story — completely fictional, of course — and he sent a copy of it to the AP and to UPI, left a copy on his captain's desk, then drove like a son of a bitch for the gate."

William Kennedy (the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Ironweed," was the managing editor of the "San Juan Star" in 1959) : "For Hunter it was a career and lifestyle breakthrough. His life was professionally itinerant after he went to South America for the National Observer. He went anyplace and wrote whetever moved him in his own way — up to a point. It was heavily edited, and there were limitations on what he could say. But it established his name, modestly, and he managed to distinguish himself through subject matter and attitude."

Paul Semonin (was a boyhood friend of Hunter):

Paul Semonin (was a boyhood friend of Hunter): "Hunter spoke about the Hells Angels in a strange kind of way. There was an identification with the Angels as outcasts — downtrodden outcasts and victims, if you will. He saw them as a kind of emblem of honor and rebellion. It wasn't only Hunter but people like Ken Kesey as well who somehow thought that an alliance between the Hells Angels and the peace movement was going to make or break the whole struggle."

Paul Scanlon (was the managing editor of Rolling Stone):"One day Hunter came in, and I'm standing there with Charlie Perry and another editor, Grover Lewis, and he pulls out a sheaf of manuscript, legal size and all neatly stapled together, and he handed one to me and one to Charlie and one to Grover and then stomped out. It was the first chapter of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I went into my office to read it, and I started howling when the bats started coming out of the sky, and by the time I finished reading it I was pounding on my desk and I couldn't stop laughing. I wandered into Grover's office and he was hunched over his desk, wheezing. I thought, 'Shit, he's having a seizure!' And he turned around, and there were tears in his eyes and he couldn't stop laughing. We spent the next hour just reading lines back and forth to each other. Everybody was really flat knocked out. Nobody expected it."