One Hand Jerking (49 page)

Lane later became General Manager of both hotels and is now serving his second term as president of the Chamber of Commerce, but before all that, he gave my first album,
We Have Ways of Making You Laugh
, to the hotel's event organizer, and she arranged for me to perform at the Desert Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce officers and board of directors installation dinner.

According to the alternative paper, the
Desert Post Weekly
(which, strangely enough, is published by the mainstream daily, the
Desert Sun
), “In the extraordinary case of Desert Hot Springs, there is a convergence of five energy vortexes meeting in one place. In general, people are drawn to energy vortexes and power spots in search of enlightmenment and inner peace; they are attracted by the invisible force and its therapeutic effects.”

The paradox of my own peculiar spiritual path is that I'm an unbeliever who engages in constant dialogue with the deity I don't believe in. As a stand-up comic, I always say, “Please, God, help me do a good show,” and then I always hear the voice of God boom out, “Shut up, you superstitious fool!”

Desert Hot Springs had changed its official slogan from “People, Pride and Progress”—no, it wasn't a multiple choice question—to “Clearly Above the Rest,” and so it came to pass that the theme of the installation dinner would be Heaven. The waiters and waitresses would be dressed as angels. The stage would be overlain with a cottony white cloud, enhanced by a fog machine. There would be a blond angel playing the harp.

At 7 p.m., the salad would be served. At precisely 7:15, a clatter of pots and pans would be heard, and then I would be thrown out of the kitchen, directly into that heavenly scene. Oh, yes, and I would be dressed as the devil, who had been kicked
out
of heaven. (The devil is not merely a metaphor. A recent poll indicates that one out of every four Americans believes in the existence of the devil. Literally.)

I had rented a devil's costume—red pants, shirt, bowtie, jacket, cape, tail and horns, with a golden three-prong pitchfork—all of which I donned in a bathroom for the staffers behind the banquet hall at Miracle Springs. I looked in the mirror, pulled my hair into a point on my forehead and said—to the image of Satan—“Please, God, help me do a good show.” I may have been the personification of evil, but for an instant it felt like God and the devil were in perfect harmony, until I heard the voice of God boom out, “You must be kidding!”

Then, while pacing nervously in the corridor, I overheard a woman say to her
companion, “Right now, I would sell my soul for a massage.” I surrendered to the impulse, walked behind her, tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Just sign right here.”

I had never played a character before, but now I was really getting into the role. I proceeded to conduct a one-devil roast of various local leaders in the audience whose eternal souls I had previously purchased, revealing how I kept my part of each deal. I admitted my function in getting the president of the Chamber of Commerce re-elected and confessed that I had secured a green card for the police chief's undocumented Mexican nanny.

A court decision had required the city to pay $3 million plus legal fees to real-estate developers who unsuccessfully attempted a low-income housing project, but I disclosed that, in order to raise the money, I had set up a meth lab for the mayor. Actually, in order to keep from going broke by paying the judgment, the city would later declare bankruptcy. However, the new slogan would
not
be changed to “Clearly Above the Credit Limit.”

While living in Desert Hot Springs, I've had two collectiions published, without leaving home. Also, two comedy albums have been released, though to prepare for those I've gone on tour, performing in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and New York. (Palm Springs has the only airport in the country with a putting green, but it's now closed for security reasons because golf clubs can be used as weapons.) The protagonist in my novel is a controversial comic, and in those segments where he's onstage,
he
performs what
I've
developed onstage. I'm just schizophrenic enough to resent this nonexistent comedian for stealing my material.

Nancy advised me not to mention how much I missed living in Venice, but in the very process of writing about Desert Hot Springs, I realize that I've somehow become attached to living here. I remember sitting in the passenger seat of a car being driven by a photographer for
111
magazine, named after the highway which runs through all the desert cities except Desert Hot Springs. I had rented that devil's costume again and I was wearing it for a photo shoot. At a red light, a van from a Christian church pulled up alongside us, and I waved at the driver. The light turned green, and we continued on our way. The church van caught up to us, and now the driver held up a Bible, while the kids in the back of the van were laughing and waving to me. It was a unique and precious moment, worthy of being preserved in amber for posterity.

High Times
founder Tom Forcade and gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson were both dedicated dopers and enthusiastic adventurers. One time, Forcade phoned me on behalf of Thompson to invite me on board a rented yacht from which he wanted to cover the America's Cup yacht race in Rhode Island. I had to turn down the invitation because I was in the middle of preparing an issue of
The Realist
.

Forcade called again, and said, “Hunter is really pissed.”

“Well, tell him just because he doesn't believe in deadlines, I still do.”

I first met Hunter in 1965 on the Berkeley campus at a Vietnam Day Teach-In which I emceed. When his first book,
Hells Angels
, was published in 1967, I assigned him to write a behind-the-scenes article about his promotional tour. He was having financial problems, so I paid him $200 in advance. Later, I had to extend his deadline, and I offered to send him some LSD if it would help.

“Good,” he wrote back. “I've blown every deadline I've had for the past two months. All at once I got evicted, my wife went into a lingering two-month miscarriage and my lawyer came out from San Francisco and flipped out so badly that two sheriff 's deputies took him one Saturday night 200 miles across mountains to the state loony bin. . . . As for acid, thanks but I'm suddenly OK.”

Soon after, another letter arrived, asking, “Can I get any leeway on the July 1 delivery date? . . . In the meantime, you can send me some acid to help me level out. And I'll send you a dozen just-born marijuana weeds. You can plant them in Central Park.”

As it turned out, he bungled his book tour by appearing as either a blathering drunk or an insane mumbler. He walked off his first TV show when the interviewer said, “Tell me, Hunter, what do you think of the Hells Angels?” Who could blame him?

But at least he was honorable with me. In October, he wrote, “There's no avoiding the fact that I blew this one completely. I'm sending you $200 of the $1,900 I now show as book-profit on the hardcover edition. . . . With [Lyndon] Johnson as president, I feel on the verge of a serious freakout but if I ever get over that hump I'll write a good article for you. In the meantime, we're at least even on the money. This check is good. I've sworn off money articles a/o December,
so maybe I'll level it out then. If not, I might run for the Senate or send off for a Carcano [the rifle ostensibly used to kill President Kennedy].”

Instead, 38 years later, Hunter pointed a handgun at himself.

San Francisco Chronicle
editor Phil Bronstein had wanted him to cover the O.J. Simpson trial for the
San Francisco Examiner
which he then edited. He told me, “I thought Hunter would be the perfect person to write about the trial.” They met at a waterfront restaurant. “Hunter's face was all banged up,” Bronstein recalled. “He claimed he had gone night-diving and scraped his face on a rock. The waiter had some glandular problem, causing his eyes to bug out, but Hunter accused him of staring. Then he started telling me about these rumors he heard from friends in the L.A. coroner's office about nasty activities with dead bodies, including the infamous bodies involved in the Simpson case. Teeth marks on the butt and things like that. He said that he would cover the trial if we put him up at the Chateau Marmont in a suite with three satellite dishes, four fax machines and several assistants.”

That particular assigment was withdrawn because Hunter was such a flaky prima donna.

When Lee Quarnstrom was executive editor at
Hustler
, he wanted to interview Thompson. “Hunter wanted $5,000 for the interview,” he told me. “He said, ‘Get Larry Flynt to kick in some of his money.' I said, ‘Well, we don't pay for Q&As.' So he called me back and he said, ‘OK, I'll do the interview for nothing, if
Hustler
will fly us both to Bora Bora and you can conduct the interview on a veranda as we sip mai-tais and watch the sun set into the Pacific.'”

And Art Kunkin, publisher of the
L.A. Free Press
, told me, “Hunter wanted me to put him up at the Chateau Marmont, and I wouldn't do it, and he threatened to kill me. He was pissed at me for not having the kind of budget to do that.”

In 1970, I assigned three stoners who were running for sheriff—Stew Albert in Berkeley; George Kimball in Lawrence, Kansas; and Hunter Thompson in Aspen, Colorado—to write about their experiences and observations during those election campaigns. Albert and Kimball came through, but I kept hearing nothing from Thompson. I sent him a follow-up note, and he finally replied: “Yeah, your letter got thru & found me in the middle of writing almost exactly the piece you asked for—but I've already agreed to give it to
Rolling Stone
. [Jann] Wenner asked about a month ago. . . .”

As a writer, I could understand. As an editor, I was frustrated. Like other editors, though, I was willing to tolerate Hunter's irresponsbility in the hope of presenting his talent.

Several years ago, at a memorial for Allen Ginsberg, Hunter was supposed to make an appearance but he didn't show up; Johnny Depp, who played him in the movie version of
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
, did. I told the audience I was disappointed because I was hoping to present Depp, Thompson and Bill Murray (who played him in
Where the Buffalo Roam
) all together, and then I would say, “Will the real Hunter Thompson please fall down.”

There are, of course, conspiracy theories that Hunter Thompson was actually murdered, just as there had been about another friend who also committed suicide, Abbie Hoffman. A week after Abbie's death, the autopsy report was released, and his picture was on the left side of the front page of the
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
. On the right side was a photo of Lucille Ball, who was about to undergo serious surgery.

That evening, I had dinner at a Hollywood restaurant with Steve Allen. CNN's entertainment reporter had made an appointment to meet Steve at the restaurant, and he interviewed him outside—
twice
—once for if Lucille Ball survived the operation, and once for if she didn't. Although I could understand the practicality of such foresight, I was somehow offended by it.

Sure enough, the next day, there was Steve Allen on CNN, standing outside the restaurant and saying, “We all hope Lucy will pull through. There have been many success stories in the history of television, and yet the affection that millions of Americans hold for Lucille Ball is unique.” A week later she died, and sure enough, there was Steve Allen on CNN again, standing outside the restaurant and saying, “Lucy will be greatly missed. There have been many success stories. . . .” Then George Burns came on and said, “I had a lot of fun with Lucy,” but I couldn't tell whether he had taped that before or after she was dead.

I learned of Hunter's death when a reporter for Associated Press phoned to ask what my reaction was. As he would write: “‘I'm stunned,' said Krassner, who was nearly speechless for several minutes after hearing the news. ‘It's hard to believe I'm referring to him in the past tense.'”

Bear in mind that this was on a Sunday evening in the middle of a three-day Presidents Day holiday weekend. I don't know who else or how many others that reporter called before or after me, but apparently I was the only one who happened to be accessible at the time. As a result, after the AP report was dispatched,
I was deluged with interview requests from print, radio and TV correspondents. Each time I found myself uttering some new observation, if only to keep myself from getting jaded.

During one call, I said, “Hunter was larger than life, sort of like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade float.” On the next call, I added, “Except that it was filled with nitrous oxide.”

Among the interviews was NPR's
All Things Considered
. After it was broadcast, I learned that I was considered “big enough now” to merit the preparation of an advance obituary for NPR. I don't take it personally. This is a purely pragmatic process. I'll be right up there with Charlie Manson, who is certainly a high achiever in his own field of endeavor. My personal definition of success is simply trying to do the appropriate thing every moment. As Ken Kesey once told me, “My energy is what I do. My image is what other people think I do.”

My friend, radio journalist Jon Kalish, was given the assignment to put me “in the can.” He is allowing me the rare opportunity of fact-checking my own obituary. I asked him if it would be possible to include my Web site.

When I was a kid—this was before television—the radio was my best friend. Lionel Barrymore—brother of fellow actors John and Ethel, granduncle of Drew—was confined to a wheelchair and played the crippled Dr. Gillespie in the original
Dr. Kildare
movies. He also had a radio program where he would spout maxims and dispense homilies. In his authoritative, quavering voice, he once said, “Happiness is not a station you'll arrive at, it's the train you're traveling on.” That single sentence immediately became my entire philosophy of life.