24 Second Interview with Hunter S. Thompson

Animation by Chris Tokunaga
Interview by H. W. Moss

The occasion was a book party at the Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre, at the time a porn theatre in San Francisco. It was May, 1985, and I was working for the San Francisco Review of Books. At that same party I met, spoke with and took pictures of Dan O’Neill, Warren Hinckle and his basset hound, Zippy the Pinhead and his creator Bill Griffith, Herb Caen and Colleen McCullough who wrote “The Thorn Birds.”

Hunter S Thompson in Mitchell Brothers Office May 1985Hunter S Thompson May 1985

Years later someone told me Thompson was night manager at the Mitchell Brothers Theatre. Here we have him saying that.

Transcription of the interview:

HW: Hi. Well, I just wonder what you’re working on right now? Any new projects?

Hunter S. Thompson: I’m the night manager here. I’m uh, I’m tryin’ ta manage people. Who are you?

HW: Harry is my name. I’m with the Review of Books. San Francisco Review of Books.

HT: Harry. Yah. How nice.

HW: So I just thought I’d say, you know, anything coming out in the near future? New books?

HT: Uh, yah. I would say there’s probably um, oh, yah, soon we’ll have this idiot’s uh — I shouldn’t tell you any of this stuff.

HW: Well, all right.

HT (yelling): “San Francisco Review of Books? Bogus!”

(Thompson chased me out of the billiard room brandishing a pool cue.)

(Tape is turned off. Then it starts up without any of the background noise.)

HW: Hunter, if you come off looking anywhere good in an article I write, it’ll be by accident!

(The MP3 has me saying that at the end. However, Chris Tokunaga cut that line when he made the animation.)

Animator: ctokunaga@yahoo.com
Audio Technician: john@bacus.com
Interviewer: harryo@netnovels.com