Chamblee54

PG was reading “Outlaw Journalist”. The subtitle was “The life and times of Hunter S. Thompson”. The book  belonged to the Dekalb County Public Library. The receipt from the previous reader was still in the plastic slipcover. In addition to “Outlaw Journalist”, library user **********3518 had borrowed “Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader”.
PG is using a receipt from the Cost Plus World Market as a bookmark. There is a CPWM facility on Piedmont Road in Buckhead, on the site formerly occupied by Limelight. The receipt is from store #126 Perimeter, which is not next door to disco Kroger.
If the story is to be believed, HST was where history was being made several times. A fubar Forrest Gump, which is not half an oxymoron. He was a guest on “Who do you trust”, a daytime game show hosted by Johnny Carson. He was a caretaker on an estate at Big Sur, which was being transformed into the Esalen Institute. He lived in San Francisco in the early sixties, and introduced Ken Kesey to the Hells Angels. The first time he took LSD was at a party Mr. Kesey invited the bikers to. And so it goes. Kurt Vonnegut is not in the index.
There is a story on page 229 that inspired PG to write this post. HST had gone to Zaire to cover a boxing match. The match had been postponed, and HST and other celebrities spent six drunken weeks waiting for the main event. Finally, the fight was finally going to happen. HST decided not to attend. He took a pound and a half bag of marijuana and dumped it in the hotel swimming pool. He then dived in, and floated in the slick green residue.
The next day George Plimpton asked HST if the experience had a kick to it. “It’s not the best way to obtain a high, but a very luxurious feeling nonetheless”
Spell Check suggestions for this feature:
fubar- subaru, Mubarak, rhubarb, unbar
Gump- ump, rump, lump, dump,grump, gimp,
Esalen- salesmen, wholesale
Plimpton- Simpleton, Compton, Hampton, Lipton