06/12/2022
California Writers Part 2
A conversation with Scott Thomas Anderson, writer and producer of the documentary podcast series “Drinkers with Writing Problems”. Season 2 of Scott's podcast premiered on January 20, 2022. Songs played in this episode: “Moby Dick” by Glass Wave “Fat Angel” by Jefferson Airplane
| 00:00:00.000 |
Okay, now you still want to get your name in magazines you want 500 dollars a month
|
| 00:00:04.640 |
What is it come from we work one gig this month?
|
| 00:00:07.120 |
And now so what do we get?
|
| 00:00:08.480 |
$200 for this gig up here if we're lucky if we're lucky we'll get 200 and it'll be two weeks before we get it
|
| 00:00:14.300 |
Probably I mean after all
|
| 00:00:17.400 |
What is all this shit in the newspaper?
|
| 00:00:20.080 |
We've got such a big name. How come we're a good starving man?
|
| 00:00:23.880 |
This we're a good fan of starving
|
| 00:00:26.040 |
They've been best starving for three years. I realize it takes a long time
|
| 00:00:30.200 |
But goddamn does it take another five ten years from now?
|
| 00:00:32.880 |
There's some months when you're not gonna work as much as other months
|
| 00:00:36.160 |
There's some months when you're gonna make a lot of money and if you average it out
|
| 00:00:39.560 |
You do make more than two hundred dollars a month
|
| 00:00:41.960 |
Expenses sure I do
|
| 00:00:45.640 |
We'd all been living in California. It would have been different. It's all been living in California
|
| 00:00:49.760 |
You wouldn't work at all. That's true. Well, we're not working in now anyway
|
| 00:00:54.840 |
Well, we're one gig this month Frank
|
| 00:00:56.840 |
What's wrong with getting two months in the role of this good money?
|
| 00:01:00.680 |
Are three months in the role then we can afford to take three or four months off and everybody can
|
| 00:01:04.840 |
After the first month I can get just enough ahead
|
| 00:01:08.040 |
But if I had two more months, man, I'll get ahead
|
| 00:01:10.040 |
Because I'm not living very extravagant. I'll tell you for sure
|
| 00:01:14.040 |
This is KZSU
|
| 00:01:20.040 |
Santa at the Western edge of the Western world where the sun goes under and things are different
|
| 00:01:26.680 |
If we'd all been living in California working for Frank Zappa, we'd all be starving
|
| 00:01:43.480 |
If you average it out it comes to more than two hundred dollars a month
|
| 00:01:49.160 |
Come on Frank you can do better than that
|
| 00:01:51.160 |
Starvation wages not withstanding
|
| 00:01:54.520 |
I'll take the mothers of invention over the gluttonous silicon valley any day
|
| 00:01:59.480 |
Better uncle meat than the Facebook boys or our California musketeers
|
| 00:02:05.240 |
Did I say our California musketeers? I meant our Tesla Souserans
|
| 00:02:10.680 |
[Music]
|
| 00:02:12.680 |
8-2-Cool
|
| 00:02:21.400 |
[Music]
|
| 00:02:29.400 |
To all you members of the lean brigade welcome back to entitled opinions no starving ban members here
|
| 00:02:40.600 |
But an ongoing feast
|
| 00:02:42.120 |
Today I'm back in the studio of KZSU with writer and journalist Scott Thomas Anderson
|
| 00:02:48.360 |
Three months ago on January 18th to be exact we aired a show with Scott on California writers
|
| 00:02:55.880 |
Where we focused on a few 19th century figures among them Ambrose Beers John Raulin Ridge and A. May Crocker
|
| 00:03:07.000 |
We promised to follow that show up with California writers part two and here we are ready to go
|
| 00:03:12.040 |
Before we get started a quick reminder that Scott Anderson has been writing and producing a documentary podcast series called
|
| 00:03:20.200 |
Drinkers with writing problems
|
| 00:03:22.520 |
Which explores the connection between drinking cultures and creative literary legacies
|
| 00:03:27.640 |
Season one includes episodes written and recorded in Ireland, Scotland, Spain, New Orleans and Hollywood
|
| 00:03:36.520 |
Season two premiered this past January and featured some California writers
|
| 00:03:41.160 |
The documentary series is available on most podcast platforms
|
| 00:03:45.720 |
Really great stuff well worth tuning into Scott Thomas Anderson welcome back to entitled opinions
|
| 00:03:52.280 |
To be back
|
| 00:03:54.760 |
So in my introduction to our previous show I mentioned in passing Frank Zappa's line about if we'd all been living in California
|
| 00:04:02.440 |
And a few listeners wrote in wanting to know where the quote came from
|
| 00:04:06.520 |
So I thought I would start today by playing that clip
|
| 00:04:09.560 |
It's actually an exchange between Zappa and one of his band members that by chance was caught on tape in the recording studio
|
| 00:04:16.360 |
And typical Frank Zappa Zappa included it on his album uncle meat anyway. Thanks for bearing with me there
|
| 00:04:25.320 |
Multum in pyrovo there is much in little that Latin phrase applies to our show today because instead of talking about a slew of 20th century
|
| 00:04:34.920 |
California writers which we could have done
|
| 00:04:36.920 |
We've decided like last time to limit ourselves to three maybe four of them
|
| 00:04:42.520 |
And they're not the most well-known names by any means
|
| 00:04:45.880 |
We're gonna start with the poet Robinson Jeffers then move on to the novelist Oakley Hall
|
| 00:04:52.360 |
And then on to the Gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson
|
| 00:04:55.480 |
They're very interesting writers and characters and you've written profiles of all three of them for the San Francisco Chronicle
|
| 00:05:02.360 |
So let's get going with Robinson Jeffers
|
| 00:05:05.400 |
Many if not most of our listeners have probably never heard of him
|
| 00:05:09.960 |
So could you tell us who Jeffers was and why in your entitled opinion? He is such a significant literary figure
|
| 00:05:17.640 |
I think Jeffers
|
| 00:05:21.160 |
He is a poet who died in 1960 who seems to
|
| 00:05:25.640 |
He seems to be made for the moment we're in right now in terms of
|
| 00:05:31.400 |
This prophetic view he had of where we were going with the natural world and the kind of
|
| 00:05:38.440 |
Jeopardy and danger we would ultimately end up in through
|
| 00:05:43.080 |
The kind of hubris that's that's natural to our species I guess and so Jeffers was
|
| 00:05:50.040 |
He was born in Pennsylvania in 1887
|
| 00:05:52.040 |
He'd come out to California just after the turn of the century
|
| 00:05:57.000 |
to study
|
| 00:05:59.160 |
medicine and forestry and I think that's very
|
| 00:06:02.120 |
significant in how he
|
| 00:06:03.880 |
Ultimately developed creatively and his approach to nature writing
|
| 00:06:07.400 |
Because he becomes arguably
|
| 00:06:10.280 |
one of the most important nature writers in the history of the American west coast if not the if not the nation
|
| 00:06:18.200 |
in around 1918
|
| 00:06:20.200 |
He wrote about the time he had decided he really didn't want to do forestry full-time
|
| 00:06:24.840 |
He didn't want to also didn't want to be a doctor these were careers that he had thought long and hard about and had a lot of training for
|
| 00:06:30.840 |
But he ultimately felt the call of poetry and literature and so in 1918 he moved to Carmel
|
| 00:06:38.440 |
California and for your listeners that don't know in 1918 it was just a tiny hamlet along the big sir coastline
|
| 00:06:47.960 |
It's not a terribly bigger today, but it's certainly certainly more developed and more people living there
|
| 00:06:52.760 |
It is a very small town when he moved there in 1918
|
| 00:06:55.560 |
And he bought a piece of property with his wife, Una, on on a bluff overlooking the Pacific coast and
|
| 00:07:03.800 |
This sort of bluff that overlooked the waves crashing against the rocks below very majestic view that he had and he
|
| 00:07:11.640 |
Over time started
|
| 00:07:14.200 |
both writing poetry about
|
| 00:07:16.840 |
The landscape and the wilderness that he observed all around him in the in the big sir
|
| 00:07:21.320 |
area of the coastline
|
| 00:07:24.120 |
And also he was at the same time he was slowly by hand building a house and a tower out of stones
|
| 00:07:30.360 |
And ultimately he built
|
| 00:07:33.160 |
This this place today we call tor house and hawk tower and I
|
| 00:07:37.880 |
It's very difficult to describe to someone who hasn't seen it. It's this very evocative
|
| 00:07:43.880 |
Strange-looking house and tower that's built out of rocks and stones that
|
| 00:07:48.040 |
That came from all over the world people who would visit him and bring him stones from all over the globe a lot of obviously a lot of the rocks and stones came from the
|
| 00:07:56.920 |
Natural landscape where he was living
|
| 00:07:59.000 |
And he started writing poems
|
| 00:08:01.720 |
That we would essentially call nature poems
|
| 00:08:04.760 |
It's been argued by writers like Dana Joya that
|
| 00:08:07.880 |
Jeffers is the most important
|
| 00:08:11.640 |
Nature writer in American history
|
| 00:08:13.640 |
You know more so than people like Robert Frost because he could channel
|
| 00:08:20.040 |
His observations and experience into his lines in a very powerful way without making himself
|
| 00:08:28.040 |
making the poet making
|
| 00:08:31.000 |
humanity
|
| 00:08:33.880 |
The center of what was happening in the poem
|
| 00:08:35.880 |
And so it's a much more
|
| 00:08:38.840 |
Pure raw connection to the natural experience. It's not
|
| 00:08:43.560 |
It's striving to not project the the human lens on it so much and
|
| 00:08:49.080 |
Understand it for what it is
|
| 00:08:52.280 |
So he established a pretty wide audience and became very well known
|
| 00:08:58.440 |
but then
|
| 00:09:00.840 |
Sort of in his middle the middle period of his life
|
| 00:09:03.400 |
He he had two sons. He was very close to and that were young men when World War II
|
| 00:09:08.840 |
started and in Jeffers was very much against the war
|
| 00:09:11.800 |
and he wrote a poetry collection called the double axe
|
| 00:09:16.040 |
that really really hurt his reputation and in terms of
|
| 00:09:20.680 |
there was a
|
| 00:09:22.680 |
Sort of a patriotic fervor going on in the country at the time and the double axe was
|
| 00:09:26.520 |
very much against the war
|
| 00:09:28.760 |
Some people read into it that it was somehow dismissive or apologetic for
|
| 00:09:33.960 |
What the what fascist forces were doing in other parts of the world
|
| 00:09:38.600 |
But it was more it was more just an anti-war
|
| 00:09:41.880 |
Piece of literature and with a lot of concerns about
|
| 00:09:45.960 |
Maybe the benefits of isolation from world conflict
|
| 00:09:50.120 |
But in the moment it did not go over very well and it absolutely sort of destroyed his
|
| 00:09:56.840 |
professional reputation for
|
| 00:09:58.840 |
years if not decades
|
| 00:10:00.840 |
The other reason people may not have heard of Jeffers is there's been kind of a
|
| 00:10:06.120 |
In some corners of critical circles in academia there's been sort of a concerted effort to dismiss and forget him
|
| 00:10:12.760 |
He's there he's certainly never been popular with certain quarters of the critical establishment and the academic establishment
|
| 00:10:20.680 |
Because he takes such a different tact
|
| 00:10:23.720 |
on
|
| 00:10:25.400 |
nature writing then
|
| 00:10:27.400 |
Virtually almost any other nature
|
| 00:10:29.880 |
Writer or poet or novelist that you would think of so there's the problem of how you fit him into
|
| 00:10:36.440 |
canonical thinking and then there's also the problem of what for you know group think in terms of what's good and if you have one writer who's just
|
| 00:10:44.920 |
so far off course and charting his own path to that degree then then maybe he doesn't get the attention
|
| 00:10:51.880 |
One would think he would get
|
| 00:10:53.880 |
But he became an incredible influence on a lot of important writers
|
| 00:10:58.920 |
So even though his name
|
| 00:11:01.160 |
began to fade a bit after the 1940s he would have been a very well-known writer between the 1920s and the 1940s
|
| 00:11:08.760 |
And then after the because of what happened in World War II and the fallout from that his his name did start to recede
|
| 00:11:15.240 |
He did get a lot less attention for himself and his work
|
| 00:11:19.080 |
But at that same time he was becoming profoundly influential on
|
| 00:11:23.160 |
a whole host of important people
|
| 00:11:27.400 |
To start with the famous mythologist Joseph Campbell was a big fan of Jeffers work
|
| 00:11:32.600 |
John Steinbeck was living just down the road from him when he was a young writer starting out John Steinbeck
|
| 00:11:39.560 |
was living over in
|
| 00:11:42.840 |
Pacific Grove not far from where Jeffers wasn't Carmel and discovered his work and really admired it
|
| 00:11:48.680 |
I believe he went and visited him once but was that sort of
|
| 00:11:53.240 |
Kind of admiring from a from a close distance he but he thought he was amazing and so did Steinbeck's famous
|
| 00:11:59.400 |
Biologist friend Doc Rickets they both thought Jeffers writing was incredible and they loved his
|
| 00:12:04.360 |
His approach to nature and the wilderness and the wild and the sea
|
| 00:12:09.320 |
The groundbreaking photographer Ansel Adams was in a sense a disciple of Jeffers
|
| 00:12:14.600 |
He he often said he was trying to do with photography what what Jeffers did with poetry
|
| 00:12:19.080 |
later down down the road
|
| 00:12:22.440 |
Jeffers influenced
|
| 00:12:24.040 |
More contemporary writers that your listeners would know today some of whom they might guess like the poet
|
| 00:12:29.400 |
Gary Schneider or the poet Dana Joya these are
|
| 00:12:32.040 |
Hugely influenced by Jeffers
|
| 00:12:35.000 |
But also Charles Bekowski I would always say Jeffers was one of his favorite writers when that was a surprise to me
|
| 00:12:40.120 |
I wouldn't have assumed that connection
|
| 00:12:42.120 |
so his creative atoms are sort of
|
| 00:12:44.680 |
Spread out everywhere
|
| 00:12:47.320 |
And the other thing I think is just absolutely fascinating about him is in 1960 before he died
|
| 00:12:52.120 |
He wrote one of his last poems was a vision of the polar ice caps melting and swallowing all the coastal cities
|
| 00:12:59.240 |
And and sort of entombing them in mausoleums of ocean life again
|
| 00:13:02.920 |
And the reason that's interesting to me is the term global warming didn't exist in 1960 one part of the popular neck
|
| 00:13:09.720 |
Lexicon until the mid 80s climate change was not well understood in 1960s and yet Jeffers connection to
|
| 00:13:16.200 |
nature seems to have been so
|
| 00:13:20.200 |
In so mysterious and profound and ways that are hard to understand that he could he could see it before
|
| 00:13:26.040 |
Definitely before other writers. He could see it all all ahead of them. Yeah, so in terms of his style
|
| 00:13:33.560 |
I can understand I mean understand is the wrong word, but I can see why
|
| 00:13:39.560 |
He was never a popular academic
|
| 00:13:42.440 |
poet I mean a poet for the
|
| 00:13:45.240 |
Academic because he's not a modernist in any classical sense of modernist poetry as you said, you know the whole realm of subjectivity is
|
| 00:13:53.800 |
Taken out as much as he could
|
| 00:13:57.240 |
From the poems and yet there is nothing conservative about the verse that you read he is
|
| 00:14:03.720 |
The idiom is distinctly modern it's not sentimentalizing poetry at all and it's very hard to categorize and this
|
| 00:14:14.920 |
Attempt to allow the object to become the center of you know the poetry is
|
| 00:14:19.800 |
Sometimes there's not a lot academics can do with this kind of poetry because it doesn't lend itself to elaborate explanations and
|
| 00:14:27.880 |
Let me show you how
|
| 00:14:30.360 |
What you haven't seen in this poem all those things that are hidden and that the professor ends up looking very brilliant when he
|
| 00:14:37.160 |
first she
|
| 00:14:39.960 |
illuminates all the
|
| 00:14:43.000 |
Subtexts and invocations and metaphor anyway, would you consider him a
|
| 00:14:48.120 |
Did he have a mystical temperament because if he did it doesn't really come through in his poetry in the at least the typical genre of
|
| 00:14:58.440 |
mysticism where you have this
|
| 00:15:00.600 |
Very palpable longing for the infinite or the the transcendent my impression and I have read Jeffers
|
| 00:15:11.640 |
A couple of his books of poetry my impression is that he is very much attuned to the specific
|
| 00:15:17.240 |
Surroundings in which he finds himself. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think whatever
|
| 00:15:21.400 |
Mystical wonders exist in the universe for Jeffers are right in front of you if you're if your eyes are open and if you're listening and if you're your senses or
|
| 00:15:30.040 |
Sort of alive to what's around you one thing I would I would ask you about from the academic perspective is do you think the overarching themes of his
|
| 00:15:38.440 |
poems are part of why he's
|
| 00:15:41.320 |
not of interest because I you know he a couple times in his career
|
| 00:15:45.760 |
I believe I believe he referred to himself this way
|
| 00:15:49.120 |
Definitely the term cropped up around him whether it started with him or not
|
| 00:15:52.840 |
But I think it started with him was he called himself an anti-humanist and
|
| 00:15:56.600 |
By that he meant that he just did not think humanity had to be at the center of not only the universe
|
| 00:16:03.440 |
But but the natural cycles of the world and and if you have any friends that are you know
|
| 00:16:09.120 |
Biologists or physicists. I mean that's that's just a given and but within the humanities it's
|
| 00:16:14.120 |
So again, it's it's hard for
|
| 00:16:17.560 |
the academic humanities to have a lot of work to do with with someone for whom
|
| 00:16:23.480 |
Humanity is not at the center of the story
|
| 00:16:26.000 |
He that view of his also led him to be accused by some critics as being a mis and trope. There's a line in hurt
|
| 00:16:33.200 |
Hawks where
|
| 00:16:34.640 |
He says I would sooner kill a man than a hawk and
|
| 00:16:38.560 |
Lines like that have
|
| 00:16:40.560 |
caused some to
|
| 00:16:42.560 |
very much like Mark Twain in his later years
|
| 00:16:44.560 |
This this idea has
|
| 00:16:46.560 |
has grown up that that Jeffers was a bit of a mis and throw and
|
| 00:16:50.640 |
Actually think the arguments holds more water with Twain in his later years than Jeffers
|
| 00:16:55.360 |
But I don't agree that either of them work. I just don't personally believe anybody would go through all the
|
| 00:17:00.560 |
Emotional and psychic labor of writing if they were truly a mis and throw what what would be the point
|
| 00:17:06.040 |
What are your thoughts on that well my thoughts are that it's very difficult for nature poets
|
| 00:17:10.400 |
genuine nature poets to it get a
|
| 00:17:14.000 |
Much of a hearing in academic humanities for some reason
|
| 00:17:17.720 |
The Academy is it's almost you feel like people have distance themselves and put nature as far away from you know
|
| 00:17:26.040 |
The horizon of consciousness. I've done a show on the poet AR Ammons
|
| 00:17:31.280 |
Who is the in my view you know if Jeffers is the great nature poet of the pre-war period?
|
| 00:17:38.480 |
I think ammons is the great American nature poet of the post-war period and
|
| 00:17:43.160 |
very modern very you know
|
| 00:17:46.520 |
Brilliant politically and yet it's hard for
|
| 00:17:50.120 |
Him to get any kind of traction among academics because academics are much more at home in the urban world and with urban the urban psyche
|
| 00:18:01.160 |
and
|
| 00:18:02.840 |
So it's a hard sell and it doesn't necessarily have to do with
|
| 00:18:06.880 |
Jeffers being a mis and throw or perceived as a mis and throw, but I just think
|
| 00:18:12.040 |
And it's surprising because eco criticism is a huge sector of the literary humanities nowadays
|
| 00:18:19.320 |
not only literary and you would think that Jeffers would be rediscovered big-time, but I
|
| 00:18:24.880 |
don't know maybe
|
| 00:18:28.640 |
You would know better than me whether there was a perception of his political leanings that might play into
|
| 00:18:35.520 |
You know, he was I think he was viewed as a political contrarian
|
| 00:18:39.920 |
For the most part, but it's a very simplistic way to look at him
|
| 00:18:44.120 |
But I do think that's the treatment he got at the time as a as being a
|
| 00:18:48.160 |
an out-of-touch political contrarian not understanding the threat that the axis powers posed to the freedom of the world and
|
| 00:18:55.840 |
I understand that entirely why that would be perplexing at the time giving what was happening
|
| 00:19:00.720 |
But it was just his it was just his view in prison that
|
| 00:19:04.280 |
No country should be contributing to the conflict
|
| 00:19:07.320 |
and that
|
| 00:19:08.880 |
That would just lead to more death and destruction and possibly the end of the planet and of course now we're all thinking about those questions again this year
|
| 00:19:16.440 |
But he's a he's a very interesting writer and he's very attuned to
|
| 00:19:22.080 |
Some writers who came before him such as words were he's he's also very similar to some writers who came just after him or had a little crossover with him
|
| 00:19:32.320 |
but
|
| 00:19:33.760 |
yeah, he when you talk to
|
| 00:19:35.760 |
Some of our great poets that are in California today such as Dana Joya or Gary Snyder
|
| 00:19:42.000 |
I mean, it's it's his influence is just incredible. So we want to
|
| 00:19:45.720 |
move on because we have another two writers to cover in our in our show and and
|
| 00:19:51.800 |
We're just gonna have to encourage our listeners to go and read Jeffers on their own and see what they make of him
|
| 00:19:58.060 |
Is there one particular volume or a title or or things that you would recommend I would just go to poetry dot org
|
| 00:20:06.480 |
And they have a lot of his his very straightforward
|
| 00:20:09.940 |
But beautiful and intriguing nature poems are on there. So hurt hawk
|
| 00:20:15.880 |
Carmel point these are they're not long poems either that you can
|
| 00:20:21.160 |
read them very quickly
|
| 00:20:23.160 |
but
|
| 00:20:25.000 |
You know and definitely the flavor of California that that coast they
|
| 00:20:28.720 |
For your listeners who have not been to the Monterey
|
| 00:20:32.120 |
Carmel area, you know, it enjoyed that particular area enjoyed two incredible writers between Jeffers and John Steinbeck both being based there and
|
| 00:20:41.280 |
between Jeffers poetry, which is
|
| 00:20:44.120 |
so
|
| 00:20:45.520 |
Sort of intensely focused on the landscape and the wildlife and then Steinbeck which is sort of how to
|
| 00:20:51.340 |
communities in that area of an all-social strata interact with that
|
| 00:20:56.020 |
Those landscapes and wildlife that Jeffers is writing about between the two writers you you can get a sense of just one an
|
| 00:21:03.400 |
incredibly beautiful
|
| 00:21:05.040 |
part of the world that it is
|
| 00:21:07.040 |
So that's a kind of bio regional dimension that we
|
| 00:21:10.320 |
Keep in mind
|
| 00:21:12.440 |
Now we're staying within the same general bio regional area when we move on to Oakley Hall who
|
| 00:21:19.060 |
Was a more of a San Francisco based eventually
|
| 00:21:23.400 |
Not a poet a novelist as well as an essayist and
|
| 00:21:28.800 |
Why did you choose Oakley Hall in this reduced canon of our three three writers?
|
| 00:21:37.480 |
To start with full disclosure. He's one of my favorite novelists
|
| 00:21:41.840 |
But also because some of our greatest known
|
| 00:21:45.160 |
Novelists working today in California the the novelists we have that are that have readers all over the world
|
| 00:21:51.440 |
sort of agree that he is
|
| 00:21:54.120 |
Vasley under appreciated and that he is like Jeffers a massive influence on on the California literary voice of the second half of the 20th century
|
| 00:22:05.680 |
so Oakley Hall was a
|
| 00:22:08.960 |
actually directly a teacher of
|
| 00:22:10.960 |
Michael Cheban
|
| 00:22:13.680 |
Louis B. Jones
|
| 00:22:15.680 |
Amy Tan
|
| 00:22:17.040 |
Richard Ford so
|
| 00:22:19.040 |
very well-known and highly esteemed California writers actually
|
| 00:22:22.760 |
Oakley Hall taught them and they all seemed to have walked away with
|
| 00:22:28.000 |
Believing that that was critical and pivotal to their development as writers so there there's this influence to start with
|
| 00:22:36.600 |
But I probably would focus just more on the fact that he was a great novelist
|
| 00:22:42.840 |
so he's born in southern California in the San Diego area and
|
| 00:22:47.360 |
You know, I believe in the 20s so
|
| 00:22:50.480 |
By the time World War two happened he was a teenager and he you know like almost all young men his age
|
| 00:22:57.960 |
He went into the war and he served in the war as soon as the war was over
|
| 00:23:02.160 |
He got married and he moved to San Francisco and he started working towards his career as a novelist his first couple novels were sort of
|
| 00:23:10.040 |
contemporary fictions pretty straightforward
|
| 00:23:12.880 |
But very well written books just about sort of life and development in life
|
| 00:23:17.720 |
But then he began trying his hand in different forms of genre writing and this is another interesting thing that might be
|
| 00:23:24.640 |
We're talking about like it is there is a question with some of his pupils his students his disciples about whether
|
| 00:23:31.560 |
That is why he's not better remembered or better appreciated by the critical establishment is because so much of his great accomplishments as a writer
|
| 00:23:39.480 |
We're in genre fiction western westerns and crime novels
|
| 00:23:43.800 |
He's I mean for my money. He's one of the best western
|
| 00:23:48.920 |
Novelists ever along with the Cormac McCarthy
|
| 00:23:52.080 |
So to those are my who I think are the two best that I've read
|
| 00:23:56.040 |
I know there's some other good ones
|
| 00:23:57.320 |
But I mean I think those the two of them are sort of at the top of that heap
|
| 00:24:00.640 |
But he wrote yeah, he wrote crime stories. He wrote Westerns
|
| 00:24:05.360 |
He wrote historical fiction everything from sort of story sent me in the Aztec Empire to you know
|
| 00:24:13.760 |
The conquistadors he he just tried imagining stories and a lot of different types of settings
|
| 00:24:20.600 |
But he was very invested in
|
| 00:24:23.440 |
solid well-functioning plots
|
| 00:24:27.200 |
And that's where
|
| 00:24:28.760 |
So like Michael shape on who's one of the peeled surprise and the various steam writer and Sanford in the Bay Area right now
|
| 00:24:35.840 |
I mean he told me in an interview that that's what that was the main thing he learned from Oakley Hall
|
| 00:24:41.080 |
And he learned it in the first couple weeks. He was being taught by him was the value of plot and
|
| 00:24:45.200 |
If you look at the book Michael shape on wrote that one of the Pulitzer the amazing adventures of Cavalier and Clay that book has a
|
| 00:24:52.640 |
Phenomenal plot to it so you know those things are related
|
| 00:24:57.040 |
In a sense because shape on told me before before he really studied under Oakley Hall
|
| 00:25:02.100 |
He was just much more invested in an entirely character driven stories
|
| 00:25:06.140 |
I think he was it just you know young writer just sort of being influenced by whatever he picked up
|
| 00:25:10.940 |
But it wasn't until he was taught by Oakley Hall like what an amazing device a plot can be to get readers invested in a story
|
| 00:25:18.480 |
Louis B. Jones told me that Oakley's writing style his fine prose style was you know something that always stayed with him
|
| 00:25:26.320 |
Amy Tan has written some essays about what Oakley sort of the way he built her confidence up and gave her the fortitude to believe
|
| 00:25:34.280 |
She could do it and so you'll hear these all these great writers have their own little thing they took from encountering him
|
| 00:25:40.720 |
But yeah, so in 1959 and novel he wrote called warlock was a finalist for the Pulitzer and it didn't win
|
| 00:25:48.800 |
I can't remember
|
| 00:25:51.240 |
What won that year, but it's hard for me to wrap my mind around because that's probably one of my favorite novels of all time
|
| 00:25:57.640 |
Warlock in fact, it's I think they the year after it was published. It was a pretty well-known movie that came out with Richard
|
| 00:26:07.680 |
Windmark and some other Henry Fonda. I don't yeah, so a lot of people know warlock when
|
| 00:26:13.640 |
The older generation from from the movie he was a mentor to a
|
| 00:26:19.800 |
bunch of young students you mentioned some of them, but he also had a community of writers that they would meet once a month
|
| 00:26:27.000 |
They was it was it that I want every few times a season up in
|
| 00:26:31.260 |
Olympic Valley up in the Sierra's and so he founded the he was the co-founder of the community of writers
|
| 00:26:37.520 |
Which is a right to the exist to this day. It's a very influential
|
| 00:26:41.000 |
Writers retreat that happens up in the high Sierra mountains between California, Nevada in the in the Olympic Valley also known to squad Valley
|
| 00:26:49.560 |
the other thing
|
| 00:26:51.560 |
To be mentioned maybe is because we spoke about Ambrose Ambrose beers in our first show is that he was very taken with
|
| 00:27:00.440 |
Ambrose beer himself and he wrote a few books that were kind of fictional accounts of real events and
|
| 00:27:07.520 |
and and like
|
| 00:27:10.040 |
beers he was extremely
|
| 00:27:12.040 |
committed to the denunciation of corruption and
|
| 00:27:16.600 |
You know the robber barons and and all that kind of
|
| 00:27:19.600 |
You know that wild west story of of power
|
| 00:27:24.600 |
imposing itself on the powerless, no yeah
|
| 00:27:28.040 |
one reason I was able to write such an
|
| 00:27:31.480 |
Sort of in-depth profile of Oakley Hallford and San Francisco Chronicle was because
|
| 00:27:36.840 |
so many people in his circle are still with us
|
| 00:27:42.040 |
And but also because Oakley's house where he wrote all these amazing works of literature a
|
| 00:27:47.280 |
beautiful old Victorian that survived the Great earthquake one of the only buildings that survived the Great earthquake on
|
| 00:27:54.280 |
on on that particular
|
| 00:27:56.680 |
Hill in San Francisco and and pieces of Ambrose beer says world that Oakley could see and walk through when he lived in San Francisco
|
| 00:28:04.440 |
Or still there so there was this was an interesting story to write for the Chronicle because not only did I have access to Oakley's
|
| 00:28:12.060 |
entire family and all of his famous students, but I could go to this
|
| 00:28:16.740 |
amazing house on Mcondrey Lane where he created all these magical books and
|
| 00:28:21.340 |
I could see from his deck the vantage point of all these amazing
|
| 00:28:27.420 |
historical structures and from San Francisco's
|
| 00:28:30.080 |
Bygone era that that he could see from his deck and that he looked at every morning as he was writing and that's very important
|
| 00:28:36.980 |
When we get to that series of books he wrote about Ambrose beers
|
| 00:28:40.980 |
So Oakley Hall towards it was in the much it was in the later part of his career, but he began writing a mystery a historical
|
| 00:28:48.860 |
fiction
|
| 00:28:50.880 |
Mystery series in which his lead detective was Ambrose beers
|
| 00:28:55.020 |
Ambrose beer is the investigative reporter slash newspaper man and he
|
| 00:29:00.060 |
Oakley used a bunch of historical things that had happened in San Francisco at the time
|
| 00:29:05.420 |
For his plots things that had happened around beer as a journalist and he would then use the character of beer as a journalist to sort of unravel
|
| 00:29:13.540 |
These mysteries the way a mystery works of not only did he write crime genre and in Western genre
|
| 00:29:19.140 |
But towards end of his life he got very skillful at the mystery genre and that was through these Ambrose beer snawls
|
| 00:29:24.620 |
there
|
| 00:29:25.500 |
especially the first two are
|
| 00:29:27.500 |
brilliantly written
|
| 00:29:29.420 |
There are a lot of fun to read and the research that he did was so meticulous and both his daughter said I'm
|
| 00:29:36.780 |
Even some of his students said he had the he built the most incredible
|
| 00:29:41.380 |
Home library for California history one could imagine and he just really at that point in his life loved doing the research
|
| 00:29:49.580 |
He was just obsessed with California history so the research was very fun to him too as he was writing these books
|
| 00:29:56.460 |
So apart from warlock you would you recommend in this number two slot maybe one of the
|
| 00:30:02.080 |
Beer's novels no in the number two slot. I would recommend the work the Western he wrote immediately after a warlock or not long after a warlock called
|
| 00:30:10.780 |
The Badlands Badlands is goddamn fantastic and
|
| 00:30:15.060 |
It's just like warlock. I it's
|
| 00:30:18.380 |
It's unbelievable that it's not better known and more red and that it's so under appreciated
|
| 00:30:24.460 |
But I mean I see warlock as a masterpiece and I see Badlands as a near masterpiece. They're both so good and but I do recommend
|
| 00:30:33.420 |
If people want some shorter novels that are faster to read if you know if they want something that's a little
|
| 00:30:39.900 |
Funner and upbeat then yeah, I would say the the first two or three Ambrose beer snawls are all like a lot of fun to read
|
| 00:30:46.220 |
I don't know what to make of the fact that you know Jerry Garcia
|
| 00:30:51.040 |
The first name of the Grateful Dead was warlocks, you know before I don't know if it was inspired by Oakley Hall
|
| 00:30:57.320 |
I always assumed that it was but we do you know there was a western rock band that named themselves Oakley Hall
|
| 00:31:03.680 |
Oh, no, I didn't know yes and and
|
| 00:31:06.640 |
Believe in the 90s is when they were playing all over the country and they they called themselves Oakley Hall
|
| 00:31:12.280 |
Because they loved warlock so much. Yeah, I believe I believe they he did he met them
|
| 00:31:20.200 |
They when they played in San Francisco and he was invited to their show and he and some family members went and got to meet them and
|
| 00:31:27.720 |
I wanted his daughters told me it was kind of funny because it was
|
| 00:31:31.680 |
He he listened to like classical music and opera and jazz. So this was
|
| 00:31:36.080 |
Musically it was not his scene, but he did really appreciate
|
| 00:31:39.920 |
The nod to him that they done by naming themselves. So I think he did have a pretty good time when he went and met them
|
| 00:31:46.240 |
I'm sure well, I don't know if if the warlocks for
|
| 00:31:50.280 |
If the dead were inspired by Oakley Hall, they probably would have had contact with them and it would be on record
|
| 00:31:56.040 |
So I don't know what to make that I'm not sure about that but certainly they were in San Francisco in the same time. Yes, for sure
|
| 00:32:03.000 |
So Scott we we want to talk about
|
| 00:32:07.320 |
Hunter S Thompson as well because he's a fascinating character now. We're moving in a bit
|
| 00:32:17.200 |
closer to our time I guess and
|
| 00:32:19.200 |
Thompson's well known as being
|
| 00:32:23.120 |
the originator of this so-called Gonzo journalism
|
| 00:32:26.520 |
first
|
| 00:32:29.160 |
How would you define Gonzo journalism and then we will talk about Thompson himself. I would define it as a
|
| 00:32:36.180 |
very
|
| 00:32:39.960 |
extreme
|
| 00:32:41.760 |
unorthodox
|
| 00:32:44.080 |
uncontained form of journalism that
|
| 00:32:46.800 |
requires one putting themselves
|
| 00:32:50.320 |
in the dead center of the action
|
| 00:32:53.440 |
typically not very faithful to
|
| 00:32:56.560 |
factual reporting or
|
| 00:32:59.440 |
Or a well-sourced details not like your journalism another right well
|
| 00:33:06.080 |
You know
|
| 00:33:08.160 |
the one
|
| 00:33:09.360 |
Reason people gravitated towards Gonzo journalism or we'll say hunters style of Gonzo journalism is because
|
| 00:33:18.520 |
even though it's
|
| 00:33:21.200 |
Using a lot of invention even though it's it's this
|
| 00:33:23.360 |
You know oftentimes there's sort of no proof at all that parts of the narrative happened if someone were to try to fact-check it or
|
| 00:33:30.560 |
Sometimes there's a bit of a trolling effect on purpose to it or you know
|
| 00:33:36.080 |
Kind of intentionally gaslighting the reader for fun now Thompson's not the first
|
| 00:33:40.960 |
Writer to come through California to do those things that would have been the young Mark Twain did all those things as a journalist
|
| 00:33:48.480 |
But back when Twain did it, you know, this is the time when
|
| 00:33:52.880 |
There's just no way to fact-check anything or know what's true
|
| 00:33:56.880 |
What's not true that you're reading and it was just a lot easier to write something that totally off the wall and crazy that has a lot of
|
| 00:34:03.120 |
Invention mixed in with a lot of fact and just get away with it a particularly if it's the whole point of the thing is to play an elaborate
|
| 00:34:10.240 |
prank on a community, which is what Twain like doing so
|
| 00:34:13.760 |
But but the Tom Thompson's around it's a whole different world, but I
|
| 00:34:18.000 |
Think the reason his form of Gonzo journalism resonated so well at the time and has continued to have a deep abiding
|
| 00:34:25.760 |
Fan base is because for all the invention for all that for all the sort of Jedi
|
| 00:34:31.200 |
Mind tricks that are involved in it. There's an it often gets at an essential truth
|
| 00:34:35.840 |
In a way that standard mainstream codified writing at the moment is not doing
|
| 00:34:42.080 |
So you would call him primarily a journalist I
|
| 00:34:45.520 |
Would call
|
| 00:34:48.560 |
There's one of his biographers called him an outlaw journalist. I think that's maybe a handy term. I would say he was a
|
| 00:34:56.560 |
literary journalist who took a
|
| 00:35:00.560 |
Great deal of license in it while carrying out that work very well known for two books in particular. Yeah
|
| 00:35:07.360 |
the first one being his
|
| 00:35:09.920 |
book on the Hells Angels
|
| 00:35:12.640 |
Yeah, well, let me just get the let me probably get in full disclosure for your listeners
|
| 00:35:17.520 |
I'm in the middle of doing a podcast documentary on Hunter S. Thompson's time in the California Bay area
|
| 00:35:23.600 |
And so I'm interviewing a bunch of people right now who knew him and encountered him and some
|
| 00:35:29.200 |
very immersed in Hunter's life in
|
| 00:35:31.520 |
Sort of
|
| 00:35:33.200 |
between San Francisco and Berkeley
|
| 00:35:35.200 |
between
|
| 00:35:36.880 |
1965 and
|
| 00:35:38.080 |
1974 is what I'm really focused on right now and fortunately there's a lot of people around who
|
| 00:35:44.640 |
Had encounters with him or who worked with him that are still living in the area and then have you know pretty vivid memories of all that
|
| 00:35:51.040 |
So Hunter got to San Francisco around
|
| 00:35:54.720 |
1965
|
| 00:35:55.760 |
He was a regular freelance reporter for a newspaper at the time called the National Review
|
| 00:36:01.040 |
Excuse me the National Observer so and he was a really at that time
|
| 00:36:07.040 |
He was a young journalist. He was a really talented skillful writer
|
| 00:36:10.880 |
He pretty much wrote in a mainstream fashion with literary flourishes and it's it's very good work
|
| 00:36:16.080 |
It's very solid and it's very readable today
|
| 00:36:19.040 |
So when he arrived in San Francisco
|
| 00:36:22.400 |
He was because of the student protests that have started happening in a Berkeley and because of the counterculture movement that was beginning in San Francisco
|
| 00:36:29.680 |
He just thought it was a ideal place to be positioned as a freelance reporter to sell stories to national magazines
|
| 00:36:36.520 |
He just he thought this was one of the places where the action was so he wanted to be on the ground
|
| 00:36:41.640 |
So he could get the best stories if anyone has ever tried to make their living as a freelance journalist
|
| 00:36:46.880 |
It's it's all about constantly trying to sell ideas to different editors
|
| 00:36:50.240 |
So he just that's what originally brought him here
|
| 00:36:53.120 |
Wasn't going terribly well at first and then
|
| 00:36:56.160 |
The nation which was pretty new at the time the nation magazine asked him to do
|
| 00:37:01.280 |
Profile of the Hells Angels motorcycle club
|
| 00:37:04.400 |
now
|
| 00:37:06.880 |
The California Attorney General's office that year had released
|
| 00:37:11.360 |
A report called the Lynch report
|
| 00:37:15.200 |
That was portraying the Hells Angels as public enemy number one in the state of California
|
| 00:37:20.560 |
It accused them of a slew of terrible crimes all up and down the state
|
| 00:37:26.240 |
Without signing a lot of details or evidence to back it up by the way
|
| 00:37:29.440 |
But this damning report had been issued the Lynch report about the Hells Angels
|
| 00:37:34.720 |
And so that got the media's attention
|
| 00:37:36.720 |
Couple national newspaper sent reporters down but those reporters couldn't get anywhere near the Hells Angels
|
| 00:37:43.280 |
So they just what they ended up writing was not very interesting. It was regurgitation essentially of the Lynch report
|
| 00:37:49.200 |
The nation asked Hunter
|
| 00:37:51.680 |
Knowing that he
|
| 00:37:53.520 |
How desperate he was to make you know a living and and I think probably knew by that time
|
| 00:37:59.120 |
I'd heard from the national observer that Hunter was
|
| 00:38:01.920 |
Had a little bit of craziness to him in terms of his fear factor
|
| 00:38:05.680 |
They asked him to try to write a profile of the Hells Angels
|
| 00:38:10.240 |
At the time the San Francisco Chronicle had a police reporter named Bernie Jarvis who had been a member of the Hells Angels
|
| 00:38:16.720 |
So Hunter knew Bernie Jarvis
|
| 00:38:19.120 |
Bernie Jarvis helped Hunter actually track the Hells Angels the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels down
|
| 00:38:25.360 |
And he ended up meeting them one night at a place called the DePah Hotel which
|
| 00:38:29.920 |
Best I can tell in all my research was somewhere around the central industrial waterfront near Hunter's point
|
| 00:38:35.120 |
And it doesn't exist anymore
|
| 00:38:37.200 |
But he spent an entire night drinking with the Hells Angels
|
| 00:38:41.600 |
He told them he was going to write a story about them no matter what so and he basically said you have nothing to lose
|
| 00:38:46.800 |
By cooperating with me because if you don't cooperate
|
| 00:38:50.800 |
Me my story will be just as mediocre as the last two that came out
|
| 00:38:54.320 |
But if you cooperate with me, I'll I'll be fair and I'll try to you know
|
| 00:38:59.280 |
I'm gonna write what I'm gonna write but I'll I'll try to come at it for more fair perspective
|
| 00:39:04.240 |
So I think it was simply the fact that he was he could drink so much that impressed them
|
| 00:39:10.160 |
They just spent some hours and hours drinking cheap beer and wine together
|
| 00:39:14.720 |
And at one point Hunter took five of them back to his apartment where his new wife and baby were and was showing them
|
| 00:39:23.040 |
His guns Hunter was already a gun not at the time which might have endeared him a little more to them
|
| 00:39:29.040 |
And they could see he was not at what they would call the square
|
| 00:39:32.240 |
He was not someone like them but he was also not a square
|
| 00:39:35.520 |
He was something to them that was just different. He was just kind of his own thing
|
| 00:39:39.600 |
He wrote that piece for the nation. It got a lot of attention
|
| 00:39:43.520 |
All over the country got a big readership and he was immediately offered a book deal to do a nonfiction
|
| 00:39:50.320 |
journalistic book about the Hells Angels
|
| 00:39:52.800 |
What the actual agreement was initially with them is really been disputed over the years
|
| 00:39:59.600 |
But some kind of agreement was reached where Hunter could be for lack of a better term embedded with them for about a year
|
| 00:40:06.160 |
So a lot of the time he was following them in a rambler like as they'd go on these rides all over the up and down
|
| 00:40:13.280 |
California, but he eventually got his own hardly too and would ride alongside them
|
| 00:40:17.440 |
He followed them for roughly a year and then he wrote his book about them
|
| 00:40:22.080 |
The book was a blockbuster hit
|
| 00:40:25.440 |
Really really well received critically
|
| 00:40:28.880 |
So I think today like
|
| 00:40:30.880 |
The critical establishment doesn't consider it a hundred percent Gonzo so to speak, but it really showed
|
| 00:40:36.960 |
the most
|
| 00:40:39.360 |
Sort of flamboyant over the top but well executed style of riding Hunter was capable of
|
| 00:40:44.560 |
I think it's probably better written in a lot of respects than what would later be called Gonzo
|
| 00:40:49.840 |
Because he still had a foot in that other world of he had one foot in the world of sort of mainstream writing and the one foot in the world of
|
| 00:40:58.080 |
Rebel outlaw writing for lack of a better word when it came to literary journalism. So that book is a nice
|
| 00:41:03.440 |
A amalgam of those two things
|
| 00:41:06.320 |
So that was his first big hit
|
| 00:41:08.320 |
The Hells Angels didn't like the book so much and he had tensions and problems with them for several years after that
|
| 00:41:15.840 |
But it did
|
| 00:41:18.000 |
did serve its purpose in making him a national you know and writer. Yeah
|
| 00:41:21.360 |
Amazing chapter of his life in writing
|
| 00:41:26.800 |
And of course the title that he's probably even better known for is fear and loathing in Las Vegas
|
| 00:41:32.960 |
Yeah, that he was kind of away from the Bay Area when he wrote that book
|
| 00:41:38.240 |
But that book got the attention and was published by Rolling Stones
|
| 00:41:42.560 |
Rolling Stones that had not been around very long. They just started a book division
|
| 00:41:47.120 |
So they published his man. They'd read Hells Angels
|
| 00:41:51.920 |
Young winners and and his team had read Hells Angels really loved that book
|
| 00:41:56.400 |
So they ended up publishing fear and loathing in Las Vegas
|
| 00:41:59.920 |
Then in serial form
|
| 00:42:02.640 |
And then they got this idea
|
| 00:42:05.200 |
To have Hunter be their political reporter for the upcoming presidential campaign
|
| 00:42:10.880 |
And that's a I would see that book
|
| 00:42:13.760 |
Which ultimately came became known as fear and loathing on the campaign trail is of a book that's in even though he
|
| 00:42:20.480 |
Travel all over the country to write it and was in Washington DC a lot
|
| 00:42:23.600 |
It's a book that's intimately tied to the California Bay Area because he was working for Rolling Stones
|
| 00:42:27.840 |
He was checking in with Rolling Stones constantly in San Francisco
|
| 00:42:30.960 |
And then he finished writing the book in the city of San Francisco while he was staying at the seal rock
|
| 00:42:36.320 |
over by Sutton's point
|
| 00:42:38.400 |
and so
|
| 00:42:40.560 |
In fact, it's a really interesting story. He did not know how to finish the book and he just ended up going on a long
|
| 00:42:47.840 |
isolated drinking binge at the seal rock in and was not
|
| 00:42:51.200 |
Delivering the manuscript to Rolling Stones and they were coming up against their deadline to publish the book
|
| 00:42:56.400 |
Ultimately, their book editor Alan Rinsler had to go over to the seal rock
|
| 00:43:00.720 |
And risk Hunter beating him up basically and just talk him into and help him finish the book and Alan actually played a huge role in that book
|
| 00:43:10.000 |
Getting the final chapter finished and getting the publication
|
| 00:43:14.080 |
I
|
| 00:43:17.680 |
Will confess that I've not read him. I haven't read the Hells Angels book nor the fear and loading but
|
| 00:43:23.440 |
If I had to start with one or the other which one would you recommend
|
| 00:43:28.960 |
Somewhat depend on how interested you interested you are in crime or politics because the Hells Angels book isn't so much about crime
|
| 00:43:39.200 |
It's about social ideas about crime
|
| 00:43:44.080 |
And what constitutes social threats
|
| 00:43:46.880 |
So it's it's someone in the crime genre
|
| 00:43:50.400 |
Even though there's not a lot of actual crime reported in it
|
| 00:43:54.480 |
It's but it's very much about who the public views as criminals and whether whether or why they do that so it's very interesting
|
| 00:44:01.840 |
It's sociological kind of study in a lot of ways. I think in my Chronicle piece. I called it outlaw ethnography
|
| 00:44:08.880 |
So that's one way to think about Hells Angels
|
| 00:44:12.240 |
Where if you're somebody who is really into politics or political history then fear and loading in the campaign trail might be
|
| 00:44:17.920 |
More interesting that has some of his famous most famous passages he ever wrote are in fear and loading in the campaign trail
|
| 00:44:24.320 |
He has this passage where he has a dream a nightmare
|
| 00:44:28.880 |
Of Richard Nixon turning into a werewolf and it's one of them
|
| 00:44:32.960 |
It's probably the most brilliant passage he ever wrote another interesting thing about that is
|
| 00:44:38.880 |
Hunter first and counter Richard Nixon in San Francisco at the Republican National Convention when Barry Goldwater was the nominee
|
| 00:44:46.560 |
Hunter was assigned to cover that convention for the National Observer
|
| 00:44:50.480 |
So when Barry Goldwater got up on stage and gave his famous speech about
|
| 00:44:55.440 |
extremism in the defense of liberty
|
| 00:44:58.400 |
Hunter was right there on the floor in front of him and Richard Nixon was on the stage behind Goldwater and when the crowd erupted
|
| 00:45:06.400 |
Wildly it and when Goldwater said that hunter had a
|
| 00:45:09.440 |
Premonition about a lot of
|
| 00:45:12.560 |
Sort of terrible things that were going to happen in the country in the near future which he turned out to be right about
|
| 00:45:19.280 |
So he would definitely fit the category of a drinker with a writing problem, right? Yeah, I actually hesitated in season one
|
| 00:45:27.600 |
I had access to a lot of these same folks and some of my
|
| 00:45:32.240 |
journalist friends were perplexed that I didn't ultimately end up doing an episode on hunter in season one because I had
|
| 00:45:38.400 |
access to
|
| 00:45:40.880 |
A lot of people who knew him and worked with him
|
| 00:45:42.960 |
I had some conflict on it because he's such an extreme example of a
|
| 00:45:48.320 |
Drinker with a writing problem and alcohol alcohol absolutely
|
| 00:45:52.320 |
Absolutely destroyed his writing ability and his life in the long run
|
| 00:45:56.560 |
But that is also true of Brendan Dean who I did my very first episode on
|
| 00:46:01.440 |
I just I guess I didn't want more than one figure like that in one season. That's maybe what it came down to I
|
| 00:46:07.520 |
So Brendan I already had Brendan B. N. In season one who a very similar story is Hunter in terms of
|
| 00:46:13.120 |
The alcoholism got so out of control that first it took his writing in his talent and then it took his life and that's true of hunters too
|
| 00:46:20.800 |
well
|
| 00:46:22.880 |
I should point out for reader your listeners. He don't know hunter took his own life
|
| 00:46:27.760 |
But the the alcohol took his talent and took his writing ability and took him to a place where
|
| 00:46:34.720 |
That sort of thing might happen similar to similar to his idol or earnest Hemingway
|
| 00:46:40.720 |
I mean that was one of that was one of hunter's great idols and
|
| 00:46:44.320 |
Hunter chose to go out the exact same way
|
| 00:46:47.840 |
A drinker obsessed with guns as well
|
| 00:46:52.080 |
Both of them Hemingway and Thompson, but you know it's it's not so much a parallel and
|
| 00:46:57.680 |
It's more of a hunter modeled himself after Hemingway in a lot of ways
|
| 00:47:01.600 |
You know, so it's not that I don't think it's independent of each other
|
| 00:47:04.960 |
It's I think it I don't think it's a coincidence that hunter had modeled himself on Hemingway so much that
|
| 00:47:10.480 |
That he thought you know he decided to end the last chapter the same way
|
| 00:47:14.960 |
Well, that's great Scott. We
|
| 00:47:18.720 |
Got through our part two of the California writers
|
| 00:47:21.840 |
Thank you for coming on to entitled opinions again
|
| 00:47:25.840 |
and if I
|
| 00:47:27.840 |
Was trying to encourage you to think about doing something down the line on Malcolm Lowry and under the volcano and and his
|
| 00:47:35.520 |
Story that down in Mexico and talk about a you know drinker with a writing problem
|
| 00:47:41.040 |
That's Malcolm Lowry and if you go in that direction you got to let me know
|
| 00:47:45.200 |
Well, I think if there is a season three of drinkers with writing problems
|
| 00:47:48.560 |
I'm just right in the middle of season two if there ends up being a season three then Mexico's almost certainly
|
| 00:47:53.760 |
Gonna be part of it so that that's one of the reasons I would do a season three is I really want to do an episode on Mexico
|
| 00:48:00.080 |
But it did not work out for a whole lot of reasons because of the pandemic and a lot of logistical issues that came up with the pandemic
|
| 00:48:07.280 |
So well you do one on Mexico and you will have you back here at KZSU. All right title opinions. Okay
|
| 00:48:13.440 |
Thanks again. We've been speaking with Scott Thomas Anderson
|
| 00:48:18.400 |
Ryder and journalist here in California, and I remind you that he has a documentary series
|
| 00:48:23.680 |
Into the second season now called drinkers with writing problems and it's available on all the podcast platform
|
| 00:48:30.720 |
So tune into that so thanks again Scott will be in touch soon. Okay. Thanks. Bye-bye
|
| 00:48:36.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:48:56.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:49:24.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:49:52.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:50:20.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:50:44.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:51:12.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:51:40.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:52:08.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:52:36.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:53:04.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:53:32.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:54:00.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:54:28.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:54:56.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:55:24.720 |
[Music]
|
| 00:55:52.720 |
(upbeat music)
|
| 00:55:55.300 |
[BLANK_AUDIO]
|