nude highway driving

This photo pretty much sums up this week in journalism — I either had to adopt the stress-coping tricks of Japan’s salarymen or become the disheveled homeless guy in the video for UNKLE’s “Rabbit in your Headlights,” walking down a crowded tunnel talking to myself as multiple cars smash into me. I couldn’t find the cool jacket from the video (which is key), so I took the less-painful route.
After a rough day Tuesday, I went to Family Mart, got a tasty bento and grabbed a tall can of Kirin. On Wednesday I bought four, which I finished right as the “surprise” plot twist in “The Village” was being revealed. (Note: Only two things kept me from flying to Hollywood to stab M. Night Shyamalan in the eye with a fork for being so obvious: First, I was still laughing about the chicken farmer in “Napoleon Dynamite” who talks about the arrowheads he found in the creek. Second, “Smokey and the Bandit” was on TV, and I had to make sure Bandit and Snowman got away from Sheriff Buford T. Justice, then go download “Convoy” just cause I was in that 70s open-road mood, which never was personified better than in third grade when my friends and I lined up our desks in convoy fashion and used our bottles of Elmer’s Glue as CBs as we navigated the cop-infested confines of our classroom.)

Speaking of journalism, law enforcement, alcohol and glue, I saw tonight on BoingBoing that Doonesbury.com has put up the original comics that introduce Uncle Duke, the character based on our old friend Hunter. Only a couple hours earlier, I read that there already are conspiracy theories about his death. Earlier in the morning, my former managing editor Jim — though I prefer “Lou Grant on Acid” — shared his Hunter-encounter story on this site.
He and I both saw Hunter “perform” in Boulder in ‘97 or ‘98 at the Fox Theatre. Hunter was two or three hours late because he was busy violating the three-margarita limit at Rio Grande. When the show finally got started, Lou Grant on Acid was hovering around the room smoking a cigar and drinking Scotch (usually not a good sign) and I was giving a footrub to a hairdresser I’d just met. The exhausted crowd hushed as Hunter sat down with a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of Chivas and a microphone. He was completely fucking incomprehensible. He kept trying to make some deep political points, but the cat had his tongue, and by “cat” I mean “enough tequila to kill a couple pygmies.” Just when I was about to give up someone tossed a flask onstage. Hunter’s eyebrows went up and he reached over to grab the offering. He opened the top, took a sniff, then cracked into a smile as he said “Ahhh, ether; thank you” and proceeded to inhale deeply.
The scary part? He was totally lucid from that moment on — launching into tirades about this and that, answering questions without hesitation; jumping from thought to thought as if everything he said was written down. He entertained us for a good hour and a half or two, then left to take a break. He never came back. When the club staff came onstage to announce the show was over (about 40 minutes after the break started), anarchy seeped into the chemical-infested audience, both angry at Hunter for being unreliable and inspired by his chaos. As I was being pushed out the door I saw my boss leap onstage, grab the Chivas, take a swig and jump off as a bouncer lunged toward him. Outside the club I got a phone number.
We later found out that Hunter had a small freakout in his dressing room during his “intermission.” He decided that all the bouncers walking around were out to get him, so he started yelling at them. When they tried to calm him down, he grabbed a fire extinguisher and opened fire. People got pissed. Police were called. Absurdity embraced.

Lou Grant on Acid is right — if more journalists today had a smidgeon of gonzo, we’d all be better off. In fact, if everyone had just a smidgeon of gonzo we’d all be better off. Or at least have more fun, celebrating some good ol’ Madness & Joy rather than retreating into the woods to dig up decayed puritanical living and act out an utterly predictable scenario that bores the living fuck out of everyone. Shed some fear. Embrace absurdity. Listen to more Happy Flowers.

Don’t end up in the tunnel talking to yourself. It sucks.