Do NOT read

This loathsome work of fiction is a dream of sorts...
Showing posts with label gonzo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gonzo. Show all posts

Saturday, 21 January 2017

Should I carry this around with me just for the sake of better #writing?

When one enters again, the kingdom of inventory, one realises the conundrum dilemma before you...

Do I carry all this around,
For the sake of better writing?
Do I lie, on the spinning wheel,
Until split into two?
Getting my heart back,
I can feel my sharp edges,
The points and the blades,
That will cut you in two.
So think of your life now,
And all, that you hope for,
I'd try to start running,
That's, if-I were you.

Saturday, 16 July 2016

Gonzo

I think the beauty of #gonzo is that the prey at the centre of the piece has to cry:

"It was me that begged to be violated by that football team, in return for money, because I'm not afraid to confess: I'm a dirty, shameless whore, who only looks out for myself, at the expense of decent, hardworking people."

That's another reason, I never write about real people, only the sickest, foulest, "thank the Lord that these fucking scumbags don't really exist" - type fictional characters.

Thank goodness for the freedom of the innermost imagination of the "without-any-context-whatsoever" fiction-writer, characters.

Tuesday, 12 July 2016

Lying here

So I lie here,
just pouring out,
In the falling-out midst,
of the in-crowd,
Talking about the zone's tones,
And the mellow charge,
Of the breaking hearts,
On a route to the slide,
Of deriding guides,
Who know the scores.
Much time has been wasted,
Trying to reach a people,
That spend to acquire,
But, don't seek.
Costs of desperation,
Fighting for survival,
Is the revival, of hope.
Before we can move,
We need to rid our being,
Of the thin, small people,
And the brittle limitation,
Of the rational plaintiff,
Of the ways of this world.
Throw down your conscience,
Test it in the wind,
That its rightful condescension,
Will omit, its special thing,
As the fashion of redemption,
Cling to the pretty things,
But the test is in the darkness,
As the hollow reaches outward,
Out of outlaws' syndication,
We just work to keep the lights on,
Onward, staining as we go,
The dust, beneath our feet.

Saturday, 2 August 2014

The problem seems to be...

"The problem seems to be that the only minds equipped by society with the education, voice and social etiquette to be listened to by those with any power to do anything about this mess, also appear to be hook, line & sinker part of the whole fkkking thing, if only subconsciously!"

This is a class address by top, fictional educator, Professor Charles Gonzo. It's from the forthcoming Novel entitled #KillTheDean

ProfCharlesGonzo is star, and anchor of the new @Outlaw_Academic series of books by @GonzoLecture

These are a fantastic range of fanciful, fictional accounts of various points of view about education, fkkking, money, Tories, partners of large city firms, buggery, politics, comments about the coalition "government", Obama's America, anarchy, the British monarchy, business, events, media, Jimmy Savile, staff disciplinaries, employment law & ethics, queefing, and of course, - what's that thing when guys suck another guy's semen from another guy's anal cavity with a straw?

It's all about the truth, in other words. The socially constructed, currently invalidated, subjective, independent, unapproved, unofficial "truths" untested and completely fictional conjecturing by characters in a novel.

"How exciting!" I hear some of you cry.

"Oh crikey, how terrifying. Get the lawyers!" I hear another, imagination-devoid, human-skull-like creature cry from the darkness.

"But Master," I hear still yet another, grovelling, teflon henchmen reply, "he escaped our cleverly laid trap we waited a whole year to spring the last time, when we realised that we didn't have legal powers to dictate his social media conduct. They are too clever for us, beautiful yet horrifying Master. This is something they call Gonzo. It's fiction. The only way we can even recognise the expressions of our own, evil injustices, oh Great One is to unfortunately confess to them. Hideous though you are."

Like you say Mongo, if you got nothing to hide, then you got nothing to worry about.

Now stop reading this blog and get back to beating down on hardworking folk who are simply trying not to lose their souls completely while they go out to work to feed their families.

It'll be lunchtime soon & it'll be time again to talk about sucking that little willy of yours... You know what they say about people who talk about things & don't do them. Hope you're both well.

Saturday, 26 April 2014

Jagged teeth

Held my breath, just for 10 minutes, 
Closed out the sound, then tried to live it, 
Don't try to spell, just try to sing it,
And we can hear ourselves... 

Wonder on, myself and life, 
Wonder why, some words got high,
Spent all night, wondering why? 
But it brought me to my self... 

Feeling like myself's displaced, 
Blown in the wind to the human race, 
With all the souls in that empty space, 
Until I'm rescued from myself. 

I pump out the next, vicious poem,
Hoping I'll end how my heartbeat's going,
We'll all sit around with a look of knowing,
And we'll have found ourselves.

[written for Ralph Steadman & Johnny Depp who are starring currently in a movie about Ron, #HunterSThompson and Gonzo called #ForNoGoodReason which premieres tonight in New York -  break a leg, fellas... CG]

Thursday, 27 February 2014

Sanctity of personalised experience

If we are to be self realising individuals, allowing others to be the same, we're going to behave differently regarding the value of personal (and personalised) experience.

One thing we all possess is the faculty through the senses to personalise our own experience. The weapon to resist overbearing social conditioning from our environment is the validation of our personal experience. 

The formation of personalised truth, as discussed in the previous post, comes from a comparison between what we're told and what we know. We will anyway. We must also know that to "let people be" needs to be out practice, to avoid in anyway that we become the controllers. 

The ethics of avoiding learner dependence of those we are mentoring and perfecting is a commonsense & well established principle. In practice we see those teaching others often inadvertently using power against those they seek to serve, either through threat, or "love" to impair them. 

Even as I'm writing, I'm cautious of manifesting a sort of sanctimonious Norman Vincent Peale, or Charles Spurgeon type tone that would cause my critics to recoil with the sentiment I'm trying to create some sort of blueprint for self improved personal behaviours. That wasn't the way of #HunterSThompson not is it mine, nor should it be any of those who seek to develop a better way for us and our fellows. 

Comment below. 

Sunday, 15 December 2013

Silence

It breaks the awkward silence, 
The hollow thud of meat & bone, 
Against piss - stained porcelain.  
Coiffure-do immersed, 
In shitty, bright-red, blood-water. 
Streaming down from broken nose-hole, 
Into toothless gaping mouth. 
Shock hit so hard, 
No action left, 
But desperate, quivering reflex. 
Rationality disappears, 
Reduced to basic functions. 
Gasping, blurry sight, 
Streams of tears & gushing matter. 
The end of life. Not even a cry. 
Barely conscious. 
This is not your world. 
Reduced to zero. 
Everything you ever experienced, 
Won't help you here. 
Your party tricks, 
Considerations, no use. 
Just survive. 
This is what awaits you. 

©GONZOLECTURE 

Wednesday, 11 September 2013

Gonzo & da inquisition


"kindlespaniard : #Ihaveaquestion...What if it also amuses his audience? Refer: the Gonzo journalist"

GONZO: raw, truthful, subjective 1st person point of view run wild may be often funny, It may also be horrifying,  dark, sexy, sweet, & stimulate all the other "honest" "real " emotions in the audience that we all experience as we live life - perhaps two or more of these at the same time ...?

It'd be great if the gonzo community might now jump in,  if it still bothers reading this crap?

Charisma Theadora Rory,  marty, Ralph?  Anybody?

Sunday, 8 September 2013

Things I can't do

Well I've been watching pocahontas (which is not in the fucking Samsung predictive text back btw) for about who's or 3 whatever it is because I can't get up because my legs won't work and I can't reach the sky remote... 

Do your novels begin with such an immersing thought for your reader to get hold of and engage with rest of your book, indie author? Lol... 

Lesson 1 to all aspiring gonzo writers : have a point,but don't perhaps have much more - apart from a clear thought of the bizarre nature of your prey and perhaps the accompanying scene. 

Before you all cry "I don't fucking Adam n eve it! He's gone n fucking done it again that gonzo bloke Charles by getting me to buy in to the idea that he's got something really good and Maidenhead my over feeling am the time just to eventually get me to help him to sell out just to cash in on everything we've built together.. 

I hope you're taking notes, because I'm probably not going to go into any of this site for you again. 

You decide your own level of involvement... 

And also big gonzo shootout, sorry shoutout to my musos ...  Gogirls GoGonzo... 

Sent from Samsung tablet

Friday, 23 August 2013

Catchup - dedicated to @Head_HandPress

I just feel like I need to catch up with you all a little bit. I've been having a break - my 1st proper one in 3 years since landed, sorry...I mean *was* landed in a management position at my university. This occurred due to the speedy departure of a colleague who was a fellow author and generally not unlike myself actually in many ways, and different in others. He wore a tie, for example. I think I wore a tie 3 times, and one of those was a graduation, another a programme review final and the last, erm...yes, my interview for the initial post.

As I mentioned, this colleague was a "co-author" - I say that because with my best-selling business text,  I wasn't doing the work for the money, so I cut it fairly each way and I have to say 2 of the guys - regular readers of this vile discourse I might add - were sterling in their contribution and went the extra mile, or at least their respective quarters of it... Hope you're getting all this... I've reverted to my blackberry so I'm not making too many mistakes. I'm typing into whatsapp™ & sending it to my android tablet which I use for corrections before sending to my desktop and then pasting all this shit into word files, etc...well that's what I've been doing all day... For one thing or another....

The first is, I've been trying to write some papers for a professional thing I've been doing - a course, as such, that's full of assessments. I started this course, which has these 2 years of high level assessments, in 2008. This was the impetus that got me thinking about research again. I always said after I left Switzerland that I wish I'd done more research, before joining the "priesthood", etc, which iu haven't gotten into yet with most of you guys. Anyway, suffice to say that my meeting with the incarnated Jesus at this place led me to thinking that there was God's Move on the earth, but there was a whole slew of other stuff going on which didn't look or sound like The Good Shepherd, but you couldn't quite just lay it at the devil's feet entirely, him not being omnipotent or anything. I heard an old friend of mine once tell a joke where the devil was sitting outside a pentacostal church crying so the man stopped and said:
"What's up dude?" 
So the devil replied in a thick, Spanish accent: "those guys in there, they blame me for everything!"

However, Satan's not in our natures, but he's surely in us somehow. That's what I saw. I saw the mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh. But in these generally good, fine, even sometimes godly, folk before me was power being exercised. This was different from the throne of authority they represented. In God's image, exercising His dominion a lot of the time. And a lot, not of the time. I mean and not, a lot of the time...

Because of this, I identify with Foucault in particular, but also Thompson, the good Dr...

So this guy, the coauthor on the book had writer's block of a kind, mixed together with a whole heap of denial. Consequently, he not only couldn't or didn't write anything, but he wasn't telling himself the truth about it. My Editor later told me that there apparently are these kind of characters in WritingLand™ and I think he said something like "you need, at all costs, to avoid those fuckers, I tell you..."

Well, I hadn't avoided our non-writing partner, who at his leaving party confessed he'd been binge-drinking for the last fortnight. I explained that was probably the reason I'd felt during that period that my urgent emails were somehow not getting through to him. He confessed he'd deleted them all.
"You've deleted them all?" I asked surprised.
"Yes I did!" He grinned.
I landed forward and grabbed his tie in my fist, briskly yanking him towards me. "You're off the book," I grimaced at him, nodding slowly. "And don't ever tell people we worked together...or call yourself a writer in front of anybody ...again." I slammed my huge, tie - gripping fist into his chest, pushing his back against the wall. I threw him a final, menacing glance, before I turning to walk away. 
"Just give me one more week," he pleaded. I didn't look round at him. 

That was the last time I ever saw him...

Most days, these days, I'm a better writer than he. At least, most days I write.

Just not today...

Well,  I have written something now, at least...evenif it  is total fiction about that imaginary character of ours,  Prof Charles Gonzo... 

Hope you all have a great weekend 

Thank you for reading the ₢ønZø~L℮¢TÙя℮™ http://t.co/hTsuw1aM -  the writing staff 

(the previous post, ddedicated to @Head_HandPress  was an excerpt from the upcoming novel "Outlaw Academic". Follow our live twitter feed at @AcademicOutlaw) 

Saturday, 16 March 2013

Sympathy

So Mr Aziz Spindle approached me in front of the King George Faculty Watch Shop, hands out towards me and talking 100 words a minute. He's a Marketing Madman, full of ambition, spikey, blonde hair springing in the wind.
An MM drone approached me about him a few weeks ago. Seems something's kicking off in the political-undercurrent department. Movements against movements. Those whose names are always mentioned in relation to a must-have role in the organisation better watch out this year. The story the MM was spinning went: "he's right up there - he knows what he wants - he can give us what we want - come join us.
I did what I usually do: I agreed. I'll refer you now to my previous lecture - many moons ago - entitled "Givers, Takers and Talkers." Until it happens, I'll agree with you, because placating you is all I can do until I can see the evidence that you're not completely wasting my time.
It did occur to me that the MM might not have previously been a true and faithful pal to yours truly. In fact the opposite. So fuck-you until I'm sure you've changed (you can fool me twice, well you just can't do that- GB).
So there we were - me, the next potential sure thing in the organisation - and his fan-base. Everybody happily sucking each-others proverbial knobs. Sweet, sweet joy. And me getting nowhere.
Well the reason Mr Aziz ran towards me was to proclaim his utmost, collegial sympathies and hollow offers of support regarding my recent Facebook-faux-pas.
Faithful readers will recall in my recent post "invasion," that I'd inadvertently managed to tell the whole of my university department and the "line-management" to "sod-off" if they thought that invading my Facebook Inbox privacy was just okay by me. My anarchistic tendencies came uncontrollably to the fore. Of course it was meant to be light-hearted, blah-blah, well that's my story behind the whole thing, etc.
Well Mr Aziz wanted to make it clear that I'd been treated harshly and that he offered his support by keeping out of it so he didn't get dragged into this whole, latest, debacle.
So I said "thanks a fucking lot Mr Aziz for your total and collegial support, that you've stood by your academic colleague in the midst of dark and isolated times, blah-blah, etc."
Just as one of us was clearly about to squat and begin gobbling the other's swollen member, etc., I ran away. It was getting far-too, far-too "bon-amis" for my liking.
It reminded me of the time I'd been a visiting Professor at an institute on the outskirts of Berlin, when I wandered into an emporium of porn with a sign which read "Sodomie Geschlechtsverkehr mit Tieren sind Uns". I imagined I'd kill some time there with the other, red blooded academic anarchists who were also waiting for their evening lecturing hour to come round.
Instead, there were all these guys, with huge moustaches and tinted spectacles hanging around the aisles and at one end I saw a huge flatscreen with an image on it that I'll likely never exorcise from my memory. I've never forgotten it - swimcaps, hairless and shiny nutsacks, male mouths everywhere etc.
It was the "gayest" thing I'd ever seen. That was until Mr Aziz and I had our mutual appreciation thing going on.
Good Lord. A think I might have put a tad too much coffee in that last latte. I'm going into anaphylactic shock.
Anyway, happy Saturday night from all of us here at Gonzo Towers, where we're just finishing up the final format for our Sunday Edition, before we go to press.
We'll certainly be rocking after that, til the morning-light cometh.
The headline currently reads "Professor threatens to give university open-day lacky a deadleg in front of a lecture hall full of prospective student applicants." Currently, it's not as catchy as we'd like.
In fact chaps and muses, I'm almost tempted to go with the "Prominent, lecturer sticks nasty note on unauthorised disabled parking space occupant after Sunday afternoon ether-binge" story instead. Again, that title needs a good trimming.
It's going to be a long night.
What are you up to?
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Sunday, 10 March 2013

Rejection

So there was a bit of a fracas the other day in the faculty common room, as a visiting dignatory from a local "school of practical education" was receiving a showround of our new premises by one of the middle management "Head-Boys" as they've recently been relabelled.

Professor Menschenchowder was apparently perusing the faculty herb garden, which has been under the care Dr Wheedon since the unveiling of our new conservatory, when the dastardly incident occured.

The herb area is part of our new winter garden complex, established for the entertainment of our esteemed, retired or disabled faculty professors.

Using this facility, originally sponsored by the Depends Foundation for retired academics, we're able to spend our spare time between classes visiting those upon whose shoulders we stand, to learn everything we can from them, in order that our pedagogy might be the best it can be. Incidentally, please substitute the commoner expression "teaching" for "pedagogy" if that word in any way threatens you.


Professor Menschenchowder, a fine gentleman of good standing in our community was apparently in the throes of cramming one of Dr Wheedon's fabulous "Moon-face Brownies" into his fizzog when another of our once-esteemed colleagues ran into glasshouse number 7. We first assumed that this junior academic, Dr Free had come to collegially greet our visitor, but things turned very nasty, very quickly.

Before we knew it, Dr Free appeared to be kneeling on
Professor Menschenchowder's chest and had his hands clasped at his throat. According to our later review of the establishment's CCTV records, Dr Free trembled shouting "you fucking, conniving, power-hungry, hypocritical, pseudo-marxist jerk!"

At the time, Professor Menschenchowder seemed to be mostly gasping for air, clearly shocked by the sudden actions of his young assailant.
"I'm going to fucking kill you!" Dr Free continued, as Professor Clash and I grabbed him and began pulling him off as the orderlies arrived with the chemical cosh.

"No!" I gestured to the orderlies to stand back. "We must first find out what has happened here!"

To be continued...
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Friday, 9 November 2012

The Situation

It's got quite bad lately. I overheard a colleague at a recent graduation tell a couple he was going to "smoke weed and watch TV" when they asked him what his plans were for the summer.

Another colleague apparently told a disciplinary panel that he sat down with a group of female students before remarking, old-fashionedly "so you've got to be really hot to join this group then..."

The following came from my investigations for my research into the early event dresscodes of the Kurgon peoples of the Ural Steps. It involves a discussion of the proper market orientation for service providers.

Apparently, this lecturer suggested that the attitude of many service providers mirrors that "of a badge I once had, which read 'Do you want a fuck?...' Quiet laughter ensued, so he continued 'if not, would you mind lying down while I have one?'

Little laughter was the response. Hardly worth the inevitable trip to the Dean's office.
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Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Totally Gonzo - Rory Feehan [12] My own writing

In terms of my own writing I’d love to write a book about Hunter, I could easily do that, taking my thesis as the basis for it. I really want to expand the discourse of academic research relating to Hunter S. Thompson & Gonzo Journalism, the potential there is huge and it is an area that has been criminally neglected to date. Aside from that I also have plans to write some fiction, I actually have two books already in mind, possibly more, but certainly two very concrete ideas that I want to work on. The first is based on my experiences living in America and the second relates to my life in Ireland. I am actually very excited about tackling those two subjects; I have a lot of material€ already down on paper - some unbelievable stuff in there. In particular I want to write a book about Ireland that will make Angela’s Ashes read like a fairytale. We haven’t had a really vicious book out of here in a while now, you know, one that really upsets everybody. There was an ancient Chinese saying that Hunter was fond of quoting – “May you live in interesting times” which would certainly apply to the material. There is a reason why that quote is also known as a curse, yeah you certainly don’t want that one hanging over your head, mark my words.       

post 1

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Totally Gonzo - Rory Feehan [11] Abroad

I’m seriously thinking of heading to Asia to find work. I have a few contacts out there, in South Korea and China and that is where I see the action right now. I’d quite like to find a position out there as an Assistant Lecturer in 20thC American Literature, but I also have experience teaching Romantic and Gothic Literature. Ideally I’d love the opportunity to design my own course, something along the lines of The Sixties from the Outlaw Perspective – Music, Film, Politics & Literature. I had a similar class in Regis University in Denver, Colorado, when I studied abroad on an exchange program – A Study of Spectacle in the 20th Century through History, Politics and Philosophy. That was one hell of a class, three professors all discussing a given topic, together, in the same sitting. Brilliant. In fact I wouldn’t mind a return to Denver or San Francisco to work at some stage, hell I’d love it but the economy there is heading only one way right now and that isn’t up. Despite the waffle you hear in the press.  

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Totally Gonzo - Rory Feehan [10] What Next?


So anyway, the whole what is next question – well I am almost certainly going to be emigrating from Ireland in order to find work. Ireland is a disaster right now, we are not just in a recession, we are in a full blown depression. It is a subject that I have very strong feelings about, of which I couldn’t possibly do justice to here. That is a story for another day. In short though, it is a very scary situation for a lot of people in this country right now, people’s lives have been ruined by the actions of a despicably corrupt political and banking cabal that raped this country for their own benefit, leaving behind an empty wreck, battered and bruised. It is a national emergency, the nation is going through a collective nervous breakdown and it is hard to see what kind of a country is going to emerge from all of this. I think in terms of leadership we are a failed state. Every pillar of society has collapsed from its own corruption. From my own point of view I have absolutely no future here. Ireland - No country for young men. 

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Totally Gonzo - Rory Feehan [9] Current work

TGL: What are you currently working on, and how do you see the future unfolding?
RF: Well my main priority as of now is to finish my PhD thesis on Hunter. I’m nearly there but I’d be a liar if I didn’t say that it has been one tough road along the way. I had a major set-back halfway through when I tore the cornea in my right eye. I couldn’t do any writing for almost a year because of that. It was a bloody nightmare. I remember it was a pretty dark day when that happened, I thought I was finished regarding the PhD. Then I took some time to calm down and think about my options and the one thing that kept me going was a little advice from the man himself, kind of a “what would Hunter do?” moment if you like. The line that kept coming to me was – “it is the recovery that matters” – so I looked upon the whole thing as a test of my will and decided to just pick myself up and plough on in sheer determination. It was tough at first, I was working as a tutor for the Department of English Language & Literature at Mary Immaculate College, where I’m doing my PhD, and had I bailed out on that I’d have given up a major opportunity to get some good experience teaching at university level, not to mention the scholarship fund I was receiving. Plus I felt that I had a duty to finish what I had started, not just to myself but also to the students whom I was a tutor to, I couldn’t just walk out on them in the middle of the semester. Thankfully my supervisor and colleagues were very understanding and supportive, as were the students in my classes. At first it felt a bit daunting to stand in front of a class of 20-30 students with a right eye that was blood red and a field of vision was all over the place, but after a few jokes at my expense (something about resembling the Terminator) everything was fine. I think a lot of that is also down to the friendly atmosphere in a small college where everyone knows your name. You just don’t get that same feeling in a huge university, it can be a very isolating experience.

Wednesday, 19 September 2012

Totally Gonzo - Rory Feehan [8] - Outlaws of the counterculture


Hunter wasn’t the only writer, or indeed creative artist, to do this and he recognised that same quality in a host of his contemporaries – people like Ken Kesey, Kurt Vonnegut, Allen Ginsberg, Keith Richards, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady – they all had that same outlaw ethic, they were the Outlaws of the Counterculture, the doomed romantic outsiders living outside of the law on their own terms. Which was much more potent quality than any association he had with the New Journalism movement, Hunter was bigger than that, and he went beyond being just a journalist and a writer. I think he explained it best himself when he said – ‘Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of “the rat race” is not yet final.’ Hunter’s own life exemplified the meaning in that very quote. This is why in the long run I believe that Hunter S. Thompson will be recognised as the most unique writer amongst those of the New Journalism movement. I think his contribution will stand as far greater than the likes of Wolfe, Talese, Didion and even Capote.

So to get back to the question, I think that Gonzo, when taken in terms of Hunter’s life and work, is very much relevant as a present day philosophy. Look at how Hunter lived his life, there is a myriad of lessons there, articulated through his actions and through his writing that would serve anyone well should they choose to pay attention. The latter is of course crucial, which is why so many miss the point of what Hunter S. Thompson stood for. Too many people just choose to see it as an excuse to run amok in a drug induced frenzy. Those that actually read the words and pay attention to what Hunter was actually saying are ultimately rewarded with a treasure trove of wisdom on what it means to be an individual in a society doing its best to strip you of any semblance of our inherent uniqueness. We are living in a 24/7 orgy of consumer culture blandness and groupthink mediocrity, what Hunter asks us is to not only reject this, but to challenge it at every available opportunity. The status quo is a terminal disease that traps you before you know it. The Gonzo way recognises this and can help you avoid that trap, that awful white picket fence 2.5 children world that is sold to us from every magazine stand and daytime soap opera, no wonder so many people end up drugged to their gills on the latest pharmaceutical candy, they think that if they haven’t achieved this packaged vision by their early thirties that they are a failure at life. Horrible, horrible…

Ok that was a morbid kind of tangent I went off on there so let’s get to the next question.

Wednesday, 12 September 2012

Totally Gonzo - Rory Feehan [7] - Gonzo Philosophy

TGL: Can you summarise how you see "gonzo" as a present-day philosophy?
RF: There are people who claim that Gonzo died with Hunter S. Thompson but I would have to disagree wholeheartedly with that assertion. In fact the term Gonzo has become something of an obstacle to understanding both the man and what exactly it is that he achieved as a writer. It is just a catchword to describe his work, give it that extra flavour of distinction from the New Journalism movement. Hunter knew this of course and in terms of the New Journalism movement Hunter actually preferred the term Impressionistic Journalism. He understood that there was actually nothing new about the New Journalism; it has a long history that goes back to the likes of Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce. 
So in that sense you could say that Gonzo, or at least a form of it, was alive before Hunter and certainly survives his passing. It all really boils down to a certain distinction and perception of what it is he actually achieved as a writer. Most people will say that his greatest achievement is the creation of Gonzo Journalism. I would say that to make that assertion is to miss the point entirely. I would be more of the opinion put forward by historian Douglas Brinkley, who is of course also the literary executor of Hunter’s estate, that Hunter’s great art isn’t a single book; it is the collective work and the fact that he created the Hunter Figure as a literary persona. That is where the genius lies and of course Gonzo Journalism is merely a vehicle to allow that persona take shape and develop. Hunter himself knew the power of this creation, he recognized that the persona had become a myth in his own lifetime, as he acknowledged in the foreword to The Great Shark Hunt. It was all very deliberate of course, Hunter worked tirelessly to develop that mythology surrounding his name, the seeds go right back to his childhood when he was obsessed with the heroes of the Wild West, larger than life figures like Billy the Kid and Jesse James. Even back then he saw himself as Billy the Kid of Louisville. His identification with the Outlaw Myth carried straight through to his writing and given his ingrained narcissism it was inevitable that he would use his creative powers to fashion and promote his own self-image, as that of a radically self-reliant individual, standing alone outside of any system of control, always ready to thwart the powers that threaten freedom and liberty. Which really goes back to the West and the birth of America itself, Hunter wrapped himself with the very tenets of what it means to be American, Jeffersonian concepts really but not to be confused with what Hunter would call the “flag suckers”. He was a patriot but he was also very aware of the dangers of blind faith in anything, institutional or otherwise. The scourge of unruly power of any kind was a danger that he always warned of, in particular when it involved being brought “within the system”. Hunter was all too aware that politicians and figures of authority could, and would, abuse their position given half the chance. To Hunter this was a grave threat to freedom and the principles upon which America was founded. To that end he always used his writing to highlight such abuses and to challenge the status quo, so often used as a means to legitimise wrongdoing.