Running With the Wolves
Goodmorning! Thank you so much for bday message Peter, and those of you who sent messages. Aw, shucks…. I must admit, today is bright sunshiny day. I just woke at 8am at my mom’s house on the foothills which sits on Lake Sherwood, overlooking the Rocky Mountains (coming home to Owl Farm later). I woke up every morning as a teenager looking at those mountains across this glassy lake, not realizing that one day I’d actually be living in them, and that a guy by the name of Hunter would sweep me off my feet and make me fall in love with him and my country and my community more than I ever thought possible. Why am I being so nostalgic? Well, it’s because I am officially 35 years old. All my mentors and great women that I respect in my life all tell me this is it, honey: 35 is when it all starts. So, I woke up with a universal mandate to run with the wolves now. I am officially a woman!!
It is bitter sweet only in the sense that when Hunter and I would talk about this day, we were to have been celebrating it with our children. But since life has thrown us a curve ball, we will roll with it. And roll with style. I have our books to work on and a LOT of work to do for school this and next semester that will keep me busy for quite a while, with our sweet spirit guide by our side. The Woody Creek Caucus meeting tonight, after a fundraiser for KDNK this aftoon, and cake with my friends and family…. This is a good one.
Today’s HST wisdom comes from Campaign trail. I picked this passsage because one night, Hunter figured out that he wrote this passage during the hours that I was being born (which is about 2 miles from where I am sitting here on the lake right now… ) He was always very proud of that fact, so here it is. It’s actually about the press, and Nixon’s dislike of it, which is fitting. Hunter didn’t just teach me about the press, he taught me, and the rest of us, to value and cherish the sparkling Fourth Estate and the journalists who are on the front lines doing the work everyday.
Nixon has never made any secret of his feelings about the press. They are still the same gang of “biased bastards” and “cynical sons of bitches” that he called them, backstage, on election day I California ten years ago when he made his now-legendary concession statement after losing the 1962 governor’s race to Pat Brown. His aides tried to restrain him, but Nixon would have none of it. Trembling with rage, he confronted a hotel ballroom full of political reporters and snarled: "This is my last press conference! You won’t have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore!"
He failed to honor that pledge, but the anger that caused him to utter it still burns in his breast. He rarely hold press conferences, and his personal relationshiops with the working press is almost nonexistant. In the White House and on the road, he "communicates" with the press corps through his mouthpiece, press secretary Ron Ziegler — an arrogant 33-year-old-punk who trained for his current job by working as a PR for Disneyland, and who treats the White House press corps like a gang of troublesome winos who will only be tolerated as long as they keep out of the boss’s hair.
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear And Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72
Until next time, your (running) friend,
Anita Thompson
p.s. I just got an email from Holly from Louisville reminding me about some things I forgot to mention: 1)Yes, I will be going through Louisville for my book tour soon. Will post asap. 2) I did not see Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak. I was not on campus that day (I took my seminars off that day and spent it in Colorado between Woody Creek, the Doctor, and Fort Collins). It was a madhouse on campus. protestors and police everywhere. I like what Holly said" I guess Iran is the only place on the planet without homosexuals, then of course that can happen when they all get executed…" (I also have a good comment from one of my new journalist friends who has to remain anonymous, who said we should just take him straight to Guantanamo to save the Iranian people from the same fate as Iraq!) 3) Hunter is indeed on the cover of Rolling Stone. It is a wonderful sample of interviews based on the early years of Hunter’s life. Yes, I decided not to have any association with the book. I’ll explain later. I want to keep today positive. That particular excerpt in Rolling Stone is positive and I recommend it highly!!
