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| Hilltop Bar - scene of Bush Victory |
It was shortly after this that I was presented with the opportunity to study abroad as part of my degree. Naturally my one and only choice was to study in America. I went to the placement office to see what my options were and was handed a map with the various participating universities on it. I looked straight to California and to my disappointment there wasn’t a single option there, so I traced my hand across the map to the nearest university, which turned out to be in Thompson’s backyard, in Denver, Colorado. I told them that I wanted to go there. They were kind of taken aback that I didn’t enquire about all the options before making my decision. I had no interest. I’d made up my mind, it was Denver or nowhere. I still don’t know what the other options were, nor do I care for that matter.
I arrived in Denver in August of 2004 and studied there for a year, before heading straight to San Francisco for the summer of 2005. On the way home I stopped in New York for a week. It was a fantastic year. In Denver I witnessed first hand the sheer mind numbing insanity of a U.S. Presidential Election, I was reading Fear and Loathing: On The Campaign Trail ’72 and Hunter’s regular dispatches on his ESPN Page 2 column…the whole thing was a real eye opener. Everything Hunter wrote about in ’72 was as relevant as ever, as was his opinion of what a Bush victory would mean for the world. The university in Denver was overwhelmingly pro-Dubya and I got great pleasure out of ridiculing him at every available opportunity. I couldn’t believe the animosity displayed on campus between the rival camps. Students even spitting at other students because they had a John Kerry for President badge on their backpack or coat. I had a Kerry campaign poster on my dorm room door that was ripped down every night of the week. I always put it back up even though it was falling apart. I remember watching the results come in as it became clear that Kerry was in serious trouble. I was sitting in a dive bar near the campus and the mood was very sombre, depressing as hell. I remember they switched off the TV towards the end and the country music started up on the jukebox but there was very little talk in the bar. Of course all the Dubya supporters on campus were whooping it up like Baboons in heat. I couldn’t believe the monstrous stupidity of that election. I knew exactly how Thompson had felt when he wrote in the aftermath of Nixon winning in ’72 about walking down La Cienega Boulevard to the Losers’ Club.
