EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,002 words- 0:00 – 15:00
... five. You get…
- JRJoe Rogan
... five. You get less enthusiastic with-
- NANarrator
I don't know, maybe.
- JRJoe Rogan
... after it's been a few times.
- TDTimothy Denevi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You're like, you're not really... We're live? Alright, we're live. What's up, man? How are you?
- TDTimothy Denevi
(laughs) Good.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thanks for doing this.
- TDTimothy Denevi
Thanks for having me.
- JRJoe Rogan
My pleasure. Uh, sorry for the false starts. We've been having issues with our equipment. Good to see you though, man. What's up?
- TDTimothy Denevi
Good to be here and talk Hunter Thompson.
- JRJoe Rogan
My, my pleasure. Um, so your book, Freak Kingdom.
- TDTimothy Denevi
You know, we live in, uh, interesting times right now. It's kind of a, kind of a shit show at every single moment.
- JRJoe Rogan
Keep this about a fist from your face. Pull that sucker-
- TDTimothy Denevi
Do I-
- JRJoe Rogan
There you go. Perfect.
- TDTimothy Denevi
What should I do with my hands? Should I put 'em up just like that?
- JRJoe Rogan
You can do whatever you want with your hands, man.
- TDTimothy Denevi
But I shoot with this one. (laughs) Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
What is, what is all this, uh, you got a lot of writing.
- TDTimothy Denevi
Well, when I... When I wrote the book, I wanted to make sure my sentences never sounded like Thompson's sentences.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, right, right.
- TDTimothy Denevi
But when... So I didn't write out a lot of his sentences, but this morning before coming on, I went and got some of my favorite quotes and just wrote 'em out longhand to get a sense of what his, uh, what his perspective was and rhythm was again.
- JRJoe Rogan
Didn't he do that with The Great Gatsby? He-
- TDTimothy Denevi
He did it like a few times.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- TDTimothy Denevi
He did it by hand, he like typed it out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. I love that idea that he was trying to find like the rhythm of the words. That's such a fascinating notion because comedians do that. In the early days of comedy, like a lot of guys, um, in, like before they ever start going on stage themselves, they'll imitate their favorite comedian's bits. Like they'll do a Richard Pryor bit, and they'll do it to their friends and they'll get, get a sense of the rhythm and the timing and get those laughs from doing a Richard Pryor bit to their friends, and then they get that bug. It's like part of what infects them.
- TDTimothy Denevi
I mean, that's the hardest thing to steal. We're not plagiarizing, but we're trying to understand what decisions they made-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... to create beautiful work.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Mm-hmm. …
- TDTimothy Denevi
our tourist, um, you know, economy." You know, "Let's, um, you know, not have or not adhere to normal, like, civil rights laws." And so Thompson, you know, in a participatory democracy, almost a Jeffersonian democracy, um, way, ran for sheriff by emphasizing personal agency and, most of all, trying to get out the youth vote, like people who had left the political system but were living in Aspen, a lot of people wh- like hippies, who had fled the cities in the late 1960s and were living, you know, in the, in the West. And he got them involved, and they should have won the mayor- mayoral campaign with, uh, Joe Edwards then.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
Thompson was the director of that. And they lost by like six votes. Then when he ran for sheriff, it got really bad. And he talks about this in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail later, is that a few nights before, both parties, the Democrats and the Republicans freaked out. And so the Democrats said, "All right, we'll kind of throw our weight behind you, the Republican sheriff, and then you Republicans will throw your weight for county manager behind our candidate." And so Thompson ended up losing by like 200 or 300 votes. And so in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: On the Campaign Trail in 1972, he's, um, at the Nixon campaign. Um, Nixon's giving his acceptance speech at the convention. Thompson's with the Nixon youth, who are about to do a demonstration. And he says like, you know, "I'm not a journalist. You can't kick me out. Like, I'm a political observer." He's like, "Have you ever run for office?" And the Nixon guy is like, "No, have you?" And Thompson's like, "Sheriff, and I would have won, but the liberals stuck it to me."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- TDTimothy Denevi
And he was right. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I love how he shaved his head, too-
- TDTimothy Denevi
It's great.
- JRJoe Rogan
... so he could refer to his long-haired opponent. (laughs)
- TDTimothy Denevi
My long... I mean, that was a great... That debate... Like, so in the book, I at- I recreate that debate a lot, like, 'cause-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... there's transcripts of it. That debate is brilliant.
- JRJoe Rogan
It is brilliant.
- TDTimothy Denevi
To- Thompson is amazing at that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- TDTimothy Denevi
The guy's like, "I've only used my gun once in 10 years, but I'd like to have it." And Thompson's like, "Well, if you've used it once in 10 years, maybe you don't need it. We could try not having it." You know, and his-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... his gun rights, um, views were very complex and changed after Bobby Kennedy's death. But he was so intelligent on stage-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... with this sheriff who's like, "I just want this job real bad," and like gulping, like, you know, it couldn't-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... he just was eviscerated by Thompson.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. You know, i- it's, uh, it's a really interesting... The, the documentary, uh, that follows the campaign and when you get to see him, you know, heartfelt and... when he loses. And you got a sense of what... that there was real hope back then-
- TDTimothy Denevi
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... like, that if these guys could do that... And what's interesting now is, um, you know, back in the '70s, they really did have a freak community in Aspen. That shit's gone now. I don't know what happened.
- TDTimothy Denevi
The billionaires have replaced the millionaires, is what I was told-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- TDTimothy Denevi
... when I went out to do research.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a weird place, man. You go to Aspen, you see these, like, $20 million houses, and people, like... It's one of the rare places where people still wear fur coats, you know? (laughs)
- TDTimothy Denevi
(laughs) Not ironically or fake, but real fur coats.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, if you wear a fur coat in LA, first of all, it's never cold enough for a fur coat.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Mm-hmm. …
- TDTimothy Denevi
years... I mean, he'd hated Nixon since the Checkers speech, you know, when, um, Nixon was VP for Eisenhower. He'd hated Nixon since 1962 when Nixon lost the, um, California, um, uh, uh, governor, um, ship and said, "You and the press, you've been giving me the shaft for so long, like, you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
Like, Thompson had seen that Nixon was somebody who said, "I'm just the poor son of a butcher. I'm just this, like, very hardworking, you know, d- American that represents all of us." Where behind that, like, he was a politically, um, you know, ravenous monster who was anti-communist, who would go to any extent to win. And Thompson saw that, and Thompson knew that other people saw it. And in 1964 at the Barry Goldwater Convention in San Francisco, my favoritely named arena of all time-... the Cow Palace. Um, Barry Goldwater was gonna speak to accept the nomination and what happened was Nixon was introducing him. It was Nixon's way back from the wilderness. Thompson was a few rows back. It was the first time Thompson, I think, was that close to see him live. And Nixon's like, "You know, I'm a poor son of a butcher. Don't think about me. Just think about Barry Goldwater, Mr. Conservative, who will become Mr. President." And Thompson was like, "Fuck. Everybody here knows he's lying, but they think that that act of lying is a skill." In the way a used car salesman who lies-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... but can make a lot of money off it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... is skillful. The way that Trump, by selling steaks to people and then they go bankrupt and he gets rich. That's an American skill. And Thompson sensed that from the start with Nixon. And so I think he battled against Nixon for a decade, for a lot of years. And when Nixon left, I think he felt spent. And so I tried not to focus on the later... You know, I ended then, in '74, 'cause I think it- it's- it... He wrote some beautiful things afterwards. He was still a great-
- JRJoe Rogan
He definitely, he definitely had some moments where he decided to not do the assignment that he was supposed to do, and it was kinda sad. Like, um, the Ali-Foreman fight, I think.
- TDTimothy Denevi
He fucking floated in the pool.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, he floated in the pool with a Nixon mask on, flew all the way to Africa.
- TDTimothy Denevi
And it's one of the greatest sports moments.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- TDTimothy Denevi
It was like game six of, um, you know, um, you know, the Boston Red Sox versus the Reds.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I think Ali was something different to people than I think it's... Uh, I don't think we have someone like that today, so it's very difficult for, for us to understand. People today look at Ali and they go, "Oh, he was a heavyweight boxing champion." He was way more than that. He was a, a cultural figure that represented the resistance to the Vietnam War, and re- represented it with the biggest loss that any public figure had ever shown, and willingly.
- TDTimothy Denevi
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Gave up three years of his career-
- TDTimothy Denevi
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in his prime from age 27 to 30, from 1967 from the Cleveland Big Cat Williams fight. He didn't fight again for, uh, three years. He didn't train. He didn't do anything. They kept him from his career, while... when he was in his prime, when he was the best heavyweight of all time. And he spoke publicly and often, and, and he was fucking hated all over the country, but he represented something different. Like, uh, my parents were hippies and when I was a little kid, he lost to Leon Spinks and the rematch was on television. My parents never watched TV-
- TDTimothy Denevi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... and they definitely never watched boxing, and they- they- they sat in front of that TV to watch that. I'm ne- I remember thinking, "I can't believe my parents wanna watch a boxing match." Like, "This is crazy." And I was probably, like, I don't know, maybe eight or nine years old or something at the time. And I just remember thinking, "I d- I can't believe my parents wanna watch a boxing match." And that's really when it sunk into me at a really early age that this guy was not just this heavyweight boxer. He was, he was a, a cultural icon. He was a historical figure. He meant, he meant a lot. And to Hunter, he meant a lot. He meant something, something much bigger than just, just a boxer. And so Hunter thought he was going to a death sentence. George Foreman had crushed Joe Frazier. He crushed everybody. I mean, he was so powerful. George Foreman, to this day, is one of the all-time scariest heavyweights of all time, with- without a doubt. He, he could hit so fucking hard and literally pick guys off their feet. He hit Joe Frazier and lifted him off his feet with a punch.
- TDTimothy Denevi
I remember.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, e- everybody was convinced that that was gonna happen to Ali, that Ali had been past his prime. And look, just look at what George Foreman had done to Joe Frazier. What is he gonna do to Muhammad Ali? And Ali just rope-a-doped him until he got tired and then fucked him up in front of the whole world.
- TDTimothy Denevi
That's one of the greatest athletic moments. I mean, we forget that athletes, athletes like Curt Flood, you know, they, they risked in a way-
- JRJoe Rogan
Who was that?
- TDTimothy Denevi
Curt Flood was the, um, American baseball player who challenged the reserve clause, 'cause in baseball, you weren't allowed to, um, get free agency for another team, and Curt Flood was this great player, and he was like, "I'm gonna sit out and I'm gonna wait." Athletes like Colin Kaepernick, they've sacrificed their career. It's not the same with Muhammad Ali, who was like Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... and, like, everybody combined at that one moment.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- TDTimothy Denevi
And, but he was risking... It's the opposite of Trump. Trump used his celebrity to become this even more mangled version of himself and get more power.
- JRJoe Rogan
But he-
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Mm-hmm. …
- TDTimothy Denevi
through media, the way it was picked up by other newspapers, really did help change the people's perception of Ed Muskie, E- Big Ed Muskie-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... as, uh, Thompson called him at the time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, he, when he wrote Hell's Angels, he hadn't really totally formulated that sort of gonzo style of journalism, but he did have a little bit of fiction mixed in with that, and that sort of ran him afoul of the Hel- Hells Angels. They were very upset by that, right? Like he, he did write some things in there that they claim were not accurate.
- TDTimothy Denevi
I think that when it came to Hells Angels, um, what Thompson did really well is what Joan Didion did really well. He took the way the media was portraying somebody and he stripped that off and said, "This is who they actually are. This is what they're actually doing." Joan Didion, when she writes about Jim Morrison in The White Album, she's like, "Jim Morrison was like sex and death in his leather pants. It was the best thing ever. Everybody loves Jim Morrison." And then in the scene in The White Album, Joan Didion writes about how they sit at a recording studio for two hours and nobody says anything and they eat eggs out of a paper bag and it's a fucking nightmare. Thompson knew that the media was sensationalizing the Hells Angels. He went to them, um, on a cold night in San Francisco, um, down by the, um, waterfront, and he said, "Hey, here's a Newsweek article, here's a Time article. Here's how everybody's writing about you. All I wanna do is write the truth about who you are." And he did, and he ended up writing with them, um, and he ended up spending time with them. I don't think they got as mad at him about the way he portrayed them. I think they got mad that he began to make money or that he became famous. Hells Angels sold 500,000 paperback copies. That is almost impossible to imagine today. 500,000 paperback copies of a literary book, and the Angels were pissed off about that. They felt Thompson owed him more money or owed him something for that. When it came to the truth of it all-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did he pay them at all? Did he give them any money?
- TDTimothy Denevi
Well, Sonny Barger, Sonny Barger's so ridiculous. Sonny Barger said he owed us a keg and he didn't give us a keg.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's it?
- TDTimothy Denevi
You know, and the, the famous story at the end of it is that, that i- I mean, really, like when they go through it, it w- He said that, he said that Thompson was doing a subjective version of us-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... but it was at least closer than the shitty Newsweek and Time versions.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- TDTimothy Denevi
And so Thompson, at the end of, he'd finished the book, barely made the deadline. Had to go down to a hotel in Monterey, lock himself in, stay up for 100, um, hours straight and write it in March of, uh, '67 to finish it. So he turns it in, makes his, um, advance deadline. In September, they're like, "Here's our author photo." And it's shitty. And he's like, "Fuck this." So he goes to a Hells Angels rally. He doesn't know anybody 'cause he hasn't been with them for six or seven months. He's taking pictures. That's when he got beat up-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... for writing about the Hells Angels. And he, Tiny, his friend, who later committed suicide after Altamont, after being involved in the Altamont security situation, Ti-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the Rolling Stone one where the guy got stabbed?
- TDTimothy Denevi
Yes, yes. Where Meredith Hunter was stabbed. But Tiny-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ma- It was a woman that got stabbed?
- TDTimothy Denevi
Man. Meredith Hunter.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- TDTimothy Denevi
Um (laughs) , it was a man named Meredith. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
That was back in the day when you can name your kids Meredith, right? Like-
- TDTimothy Denevi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... Marian. Marian's another one.
- TDTimothy Denevi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Right?
- TDTimothy Denevi
Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Lindsey.
- TDTimothy Denevi
Lindsey?
- JRJoe Rogan
Some guys are Lindsey. I got no one to speak. Give me one. Jamie. Oh, yeah. (laughs) But Jamie's normal.
- 1:00:00 – 1:04:41
Mm-hmm. …
- TDTimothy Denevi
so people could see it. And it was because I wanted those people that knew him well and respected him and trusted him to not think that I was in any way trying anything but to make good art off-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... of his life and who he was, trying to respond to my fucking view of Trump right now and my love of his work in this moment.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, why, why do you say it almost killed you?
- TDTimothy Denevi
Uh, it's not possible to write a narrative and then also cite every detail of the narrative. So each day, I would spend nine hours researching and outlining with citations. Every... I wanted to write it like a novel.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
I wanted to be like, you know... "And at that moment, I felt like I, and I s-... The machine oil from the bay was coming off." I wanted to write it vividly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
I knew that I had to support all of that. And so I would spend eight or nine hours every day just on the pure, um, arrangement and research. And then for the next six or seven hours or eight hours, I would write the narrative, and then I'd sleep for five or six hours, you know, and get up, and I would do it again. And I did this for four or five months, you know, after I was deeply into it. And I, I don't think that's sustainable. I think it's better (laughs) in retrospect to go and report somewhere-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... you know, to, like, go and be at the middle of Congress and take notes. But to try to write something with a dramatized nature that I think Thompson wrote well and having my prose sound nothing like his... You know, I wanted my prose to sound nothing like the way he wrote. But then to also have almost as many pages of notes showing my work, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
Like, showing the math that went behind it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- TDTimothy Denevi
So if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but at least you can see it. I think that was morally correct, but I think that was too much effort (laughs) when it comes to taking a book-
- JRJoe Rogan
Was it just because you were trying to do it in a short period of time? Did you have a crazy deadline or something?
- TDTimothy Denevi
Yes, but I also, I had a year. And so... You know, and I had a family, and I had a, uh, I'm a professor. Like, I, I just, I'd never, when it came to writing, had to do both those things, which was to try to write it in a, in a, um, novelistic way, but then to also make sure that any question the reader would have... "But, like, why did you think that the dinner was at 5:00 PM?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- TDTimothy Denevi
You know? Or, like, you know, "Why, why did you think the sun was coming up in this way at this moment?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- TDTimothy Denevi
... to make sure, 'cause out of respect, 'cause what Thomson talked about was people making money off him, like Doonesbury.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- TDTimothy Denevi
You know? Like, that's what he talked about, was people trying to make money off him. And if I was gonna write this book, it couldn't have, it couldn't be in that space.
- JRJoe Rogan
Didn't he have a lawsuit against Gary Trudeau?
- TDTimothy Denevi
He thought about it, I think.
- JRJoe Rogan
He thought about it?
- TDTimothy Denevi
I don't think he ever did it. He talked about it publicly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- TDTimothy Denevi
I, I think it was just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, th- he became that guy, unfortunately. That's what's really weird. It's almost like-
Episode duration: 1:28:13
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode wfJUdYp-TPg
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome