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A granddad of gonzo journalism
GUY DIXON
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Where's Ralph Steadman, you can imagine Hunter S. Thompson asking in his
bullet-point snarl, swear words not far behind. Where's that "illiterate
bastard," that "filthy twisted pervert," as he called his gonzo
co-conspirator in letters reprinted in Steadman's new memoir, The Joke's
Over, about the two of them. Thompson would have said this with his usual
mix of bullying and affection, which still brings a laugh from Steadman to
this day.
"Don't write, Ralph. You'll bring shame on your family," is another
Thompson
quote Steadman is fond of.
But where indeed is Steadman these days, that co-creator of early 1970s
drug- and booze-drenched gonzo journalism as the artist who sketched
Watergate-Middle America grotesqueries to accompany Thompson's words, and
who decades later helped to shoot Thompson's ashes out of a 150-foot
cannon?
Where's Steadman when we need his satire the most?
Comfortably at home in England, thank you. "I was playing with my
grandson,
and you came and interrupted it," says Steadman, who is now 70, over the
phone. "And now they are going! Goddamn, I can't deal with this! Ah, bless
your heart! What is this, The Globe and whatever?"
Almost two years after Thompson killed himself with a shotgun in February,
2005, Steadman continues to reflect on the whole gonzo experience.
Chronicling his artistic partner****p with Thompson, The Joke's Over opens
with their first assignment together in 1970, in which Steadman drew and
Thompson wrote their now legendary, free-form article, The Kentucky Derby
Is
Decadent and Depraved, for the little-known, short-lived magazine
Scanlan's
Monthly. Today, Steadman's own writing continues in the same tradition,
snubbing objective journalism as being a lie and viewing the good, the bad
and the ugly old U.S. of A. as if through the eyes of Weimar
Expressionists.
But at the core of the book is the hilarious, stumbling, intellectual
machismo of two artists discovering the same aesthetic together: "Gonzo is
what Hunter responded to. And I went with it wholeheartedly and realized I
had found what I had been looking for 15 years since I left school until I
met him in 1970. It was an extraordinary experience, and I think we bonded
on that basis," Steadman says. "When it happened, we melded, bonded, made
sense of it - or made nonsense of it, which is even better. The whole
thing
is nonsense. Gonzo is nonsense, wonderful articulate nonsense."
Many in those early days, maybe many still today, probably see it as a
product of the counterculture. Remember, Thompson ran for sheriff of
Aspen,
Colo., with a "freak-power" platform, while Steadman had a prematurely
white, Andy Warhol outcrop atop his stocky, British bloke's frame. But for
all the intellectualizing that can be applied to gonzo today, as being
part
of a continuum running through Norman Mailer-style new journalism and
perhaps even back to the Beats or the Lost Generation, Steadman sees it
much
more personally.
"I think it was about being a bit of a slob actually. We both decided to
be
slobs. But unfortunately, we had minds to think, and we realized that
slobbishness was not going to go very far without something that pitted
itself against that slobbishness, which was thought."
Bear with his logic here, for what better way to talk about satire than
with
a satiric-sounding answer? "The thinking was the thing that made gonzo
really happen. It was putting muscle into slobs, if you like."
In the book, Steadman comes off as an innocent abroad, at least in his
early
encounters with Thompson during Richard Nixon-era America. The problem is
that the drugs and the jet lag seemed to get the better of him, even
making
Thompson's idea of scrawling a profanity on the side of a high-performance
sailboat at the America's Cup seem sane. (They were scared off before they
could get away with it.) Thompson was the organizer and deal-maker,
especially during the Fear and Loathing years when Rolling Stone magazine
was eager for Thompson's and Steadman's work. Steadman was the
culture-shocked illustrator. Just don't use the word illustrator around
him.
"I've always thought, **** you - well, not you, but generally - with your
idea that a cartoon is just a cheap nothing! It's very im****tant," he
says.
In fact, Steadman has written a wonderful treatise, which has yet to
appear
in print, but which he might read during his appearance in Toronto at the
International Festival of Authors this afternoon, about the power of
drawings in satire, and the way the word "illustration" instead connotes a
kind of cheap enticement to read an article.
"To illustrate is to simply attach pictures which say exactly what it
might
say in the text. I didn't do that. I never did that. I always just simply
responded to the text - or even before the text, because sometimes I did
the
drawings before the text was written. That's not illustration, that's
something else."
And his relation****p with Thompson was never to function solely as an
illustrator. "We met each other at a time when I think we both were
feeling
a sense that change was coming, but we didn't know what the change was.
And
we were completely different, like chalk and cheese." (Steadman takes a
moment here to decide who was the chalk and who was the cheese.) "But
emotionally and psychologically, there was a huge attraction. He wanted to
know what was going on in my mind and I wanted to know what was going on
in
his. I was so desperate to know that. At the same time, I thought I would
produce drawings that would completely floor his ideas."
Much of their relation****p was based on verbal sparring, Thompson playing
tough and Steadman playing both the co-conspirator and sometimes the
object
of Thompson's greatest rants. "You know he did say to me, [when] I wanted
to
be an American citizen" - now Steadman breaks into Thompson's low, clipped
speaking style over the phone - "'You know, Ralph, as long as I am here, I
will never allow you to become a human - no, what was it? - an American
citizen. You are Welsh, Ralph, and that's it! You cannot become American.
It's impossible, because we learned democracy before you even learned to
take a bath.'" He breaks into laughter. "It's so poignant," he says. "Part
of him was serious, dead serious. But there was a point I had to say,
'Hunter, come on. Give us a break. You're full o' ****.' We did that to
each
other. It went on for 35 years, and it was pretty damn good, because it
was
like jousting words against words."
Steadman has continued his close association with writers working in a
similar vein. For example, he provides drawings for the gonzo-esque
British
novelist Will Self's regular column for The Independent: "Meeting these
goddamn writers, these filthy goddamn writers, who actually think they are
the best ... [inaudible grumbles] ... I have resentment, but also love for
them . . . [more grumbles]."
Despite the fact that Steadman is now in granddad mode, while continuing
his
regular output of writings and drawings, this doesn't mean he's any less
accepting of the world's "greed, treachery, stupidity, cupidity, the
positive power of lying" (to use Thompson's words about former U.S.
president Nixon).
"I went, 'Yeah, man, I'll go for that. I did drawings for that cause. It
was
not necessarily Hunter's cause, but it was the goddamn cause that gonzo
was
about. It was about sorting out the wimps from the cheats and the filth
and
the unnecessarily awfulness that human beings were becoming. I mean, I'm
getting emotional now, for Chrissakes, thinking about it."
Ralph Steadman is interviewed by Ben McNally at Toronto's Premiere Dance
Theatre, Harbourfront Centre, today at 1 p.m.
http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2006/10/29/sunday_am/doc453febe806656050895878.txt
L. Kent Wolgamott: Gonzo with the wind
Sunday, Oct 29, 2006 - 12:14:17 am CDT
Ralph Steadman is, very likely, the most famous living illustrator, due in
large part to his much-reproduced work done in collaboration with Hunter
S.
Thompson.
Beginning with a trip to Louisville, Ky., to document the 1970 Kentucky
Derby, Steadman created grotesque, funny images that became as much a part
of gonzo journalism as Thompson's writing.
Their collaboration and decades long friend****p are at the heart of "The
Joke's Over," Steadman's memoir of his relation****p with Thompson and of
his
own career.
Something of Steadman's approach to his art comes through in this passage
he
writes about turning around to watch the Derby crowd rather than looking
at
the track to see the horses run:
"Who would have thought I was after the gristle, the blood throbbing
veins,
poisoned exquisitely by endless self-indulgence, mint juleps and bourbon?
Hide anyway, behind the dark shades, you predatory piece of raw blubber.
Is
that your wife by your side or a cake of wrinkled makeup, waiting for its
owner to return? It was moving with heaving animation, glowing with
rouge. ."
But there's another key to the sla****ng lines and hideous depictions that
are contained in his account. Steadman, you see, had left his inks and
watercolors in a taxi and, pressed for some kind of art material before
flying from New York to Kentucky, was given a bunch of makeup samples by a
friend's wife, who worked for Revlon.
"They were the ultimate in assimilated flesh colour and, bizarrely, those
Revlon samples were the birth of Gonzo art."
That's just the beginning of a story that runs nearly 400 pages and
provides
insight into Thompson's personality and way of work and even more of a
glimpse into how Steadman has put together his distinctive, twisted art,
much of which is reproduced in black and white throughout the book.
If you're remotely interested in Steadman's work, which can be seen in all
its brightly colored glory in the book "Gonzo - The Art," you need to read
"The Joke's Over." And if you're a Thompson fan, this memoir is required
reading to understand how gonzo really worked.
Western Art at
Great Plains Museum
Fans of Western art should go to the Great Plains Art Museum to see "Art
of
the Plains: American Plains Artists 22nd Annual Juried Exhibition."
Founded in 1982, American Plains Artists is a group dedicated to
traditional, representational views of the plains and its history. That is
obvious in the show, which contains landscapes, historic scenes and
bronzes.
This is the first time the exhibition has been shown in Nebraska.
I've stopped by the museum a couple of times and have been impressed with
the work and have heard nothing but compliments from the Western art fans
there.
Weaver book a must
for Nebraskans
I've had the book "John Robert Weaver: American Artist" for several
months,
but haven't had a chance to write about it until now.
Produced as part of the 2005 exhibition of the same title that was split
between the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney and at the Sheldon Memorial
Art Gallery, the hardcover book is filled with reproductions of Weaver's
paintings and drawings arranged by subject matter and medium.
By necessity, those images are much smaller than the originals, but the
dynamism of Weaver's art comes through even in small scale and the
comprehensiveness of the catalog makes it an invaluable survey of the work
of one of Nebraska's best artists.
The book also includes an introduction by former Sheldon director Norman
Geske and essays by former Sheldon director George Neubert, who served as
the exhibition's guest curator, and former MONA curator Josephine Martins.
'My Friend, Norman' premieres at Ross
Speaking of Geske, Laurie Richards' documentary "My Friend Norman: The Man
From Aberdeen" premiered last night at the Ross Media Arts Center.
No local screenings of the film are set for the near future, but it's a
movie that those who are part of the Nebraska arts community should see
whenever they can as it traces Geske's central role in the creation of
Sheldon, the Ross and MONA - three of the primary arts/cultural
institutions
in the state.
Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or at kwolgamott@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
REQUIRED READING
By WILLIAM GEORGIADES
October 29, 2006 -- ROALD Dahl is renowned for a wide range of wonderful
work, from his famous children's tales ("Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory")
to his very funny and silly adult books ("Uncle Oswald") and even movies
("You Only Live Twice," "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang").
But it was his short stories that always seized the imagination and gave
readers an intense blast of his peculiar world view. He gave his macabre
cruel streak full rein in these short, entertaining and always fascinating
snippets. Everyman's Library this week publishes in hardback a full,
chronologically arranged, "Collected Stories" ($30).
Some 48 stories are here, from the very nasty "Skin" (concerning a great
artist, a tattoo and the seedier side of the art world), to the very funny
"Lamb to the Slaughter" (where a mistreated wife cooks up a tidy revenge).
Each is a delight unto itself, but to see Dahl's life unfold, from his
early
stories, eager to make an impression, to the older, friendly giant of the
'80s, is to witness something akin to the emergence of greatness. Or just
that utter rarity these days - a natural born storyteller, who wrote short
fiction with a view to entertain.
Stephen King arrives this week with a book his publishers insist is his
most
literary to date. "Lisey's Story" (Simon & Schuster, $28) has a few
familiar
details: It's set in rural Maine and concerns the widow of an
award-winning
writer. She delves into his past and discovers things that are, to put it
mildly, disturbing. In other words, a deeply felt love story, King style -
with bonuses that include a nutty fan, a deranged relative and revelations
both ghastly and life-affirming.
Hunter Thompson's marvelously deranged illustrator, Ralph Steadman, gives
us
a terrific memoir with "The Joke's Over - Bruised Memories: Gonzo, Hunter
S.
Thompson and Me" (Harcourt, $26). It is fairly amazing that these two
could
get away with having so much fun, on expense accounts no less, in the name
of journalism. A low-key Welshman, Steadman was a calm foil to his wilder
writer friend, and his testament to Thompson, light on hyperbole, is both
fitting and touching.
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