Editing for the Gonzo Journalist

I never drank with Hunter, nor did I do drugs with him, but I was his editor on about a dozen pieces over three decades and with three magazines. Some of these were short and pointed, like the obloquy for Richard Nixon on the occasion of his death or his review of Kitty Kelley’s loathsome book on Nancy Reagan. Two were lengthy gonzo creations for Rolling Stone. The first, “Fear and Loathing in Elko,” took the reader on a fanciful night ride through Nevada, where Hunter ran into Clarence Thomas driving two surly hookers through sheep country. “Polo Is My Life, Part I” followed the Aspen polo team to the U.S. Open at the Meadowbrook Club on Long Island, and included a long bar chat with the ghost of Averell Harriman.
In the twenty-three years that we worked together, it was usually from different time zones: he was on the road, in a hotel, or writing in Woody Creek in the dead of night. I was always in New York, as steady as a pyramid, as Hunter liked to say. Our collaboration was by telephone and fax, except for the earliest days, when we relied on the so-called Mojo Wire.