Talks about his father journalist Hunter Thompson and then from George Carlin and house from his daughter. Later we talk about becoming a conservative praise in the south bronx after that the plight of undocumented immigrants in the country. And now to austin, texas. Spee5 good evening banks for coming out tonight we love to put on the events than we can without your support. We are pleased to have with us mr. Thompson here to discuss his book stories i tell myself where hes there shares the stories of his father bought over the course of 41 years. Thompson is a in conversation with douglas brinkley. His books are on our shelves now. Please help to welcome our guest. [applause] we want to welcome you to austin a long time friend. Where is he . He has family here in town so his kinfolk live here and he will do some of reading but i am here because i edited Hunter Thompson letters and Rolling Stone when he died and i constantly try to promote hunter as one of the great novelist so we will get to talk about some of those but but i wanted to begin by asking t9 if he wanted to read a letter that he suggested . Would like to get it started that way . Guest shirt and i would add your asa very good friend of hunters for many years. I will read that province which sums up if i was trying to do and not trying to do then a couple of letters that hunter wrote to me and what i wrote to him going to college. This is a memoir a highly subjective the mark of how my father and i got to know each other over 41 years until his suicide in 2005. There are still exaggerations in the statements. It contains a lot of truth about my father and falsehoods. If i deceive you, i deceive myself most of all. All i have is memory and that is treacherous. Double crossing hispanic the various models in all gallic candid drug fiend obvious sometimes dangerous unpredictable and irresponsible a sensitive man with a deep and powerful sense of justice. But most important no son can escape that relationship. Good or bad week or strong lorelei for dead our fathers are with us. This is the story become a father and i went far away from each other and then found our way back. When i was 18 for the first time in my life it went surprisingly well. Pdf okay you are off. Dean seemed generally and dark control one year and use them to open your own bank account and should keep you solid. Also called me tonight to confirm your safe arrival dont forget to do this tonight. Back the sheepskin jacket boston is cold in the winter. Did say they are stopping by sometime soon did not get there can he help you straighten out the confusion . That is a basic tool of journalism and so much for advice and logistics a one to know what is happening lets talk on the phone as often as you feel especially the first few weeks or maybe not but to hell with them the lending fee cannot handle it is a sense of humor. All you have to do is write the first two i will handle it after that take my word for it to. You just need a typewriter be go out. Of the one belsen dollars ios you he says he has a job next summer but so do i. I will see a recklessness and hopefully sooner keep this in mind and plan for it behalf of ways to go before react quite good friends before we know why did means bill be doing very well considering the small amount of time. Below are a good person and i love you for that. Because you are about to be rich but laugh with my wisdom and your talent by 1984 we will make 34,000 a month sometimes those objects encapsulate and this letter is one of what is most remarkable i forgot about this until one is doing research for the book. The promise of the 90 gauge bother to promising venture in talks of getting together soon now had a father rick and. How could i have forgotten . However we move too fast and that could not exist be hunter, yes, how babbling is this . The rebirth is devious this time. Thankfully he doesnt show his form but i know he is there. We walk side by side so close i can smell the hopelessness he shows me memories that is deadly and very painful and never lets me forget he is there. It is true i am not like the others. What can i say . I am sure there are. They are invisible as i am. Nauseating and artificial i have no doubt the majority of the people are interested the problem lies with socializing people talk a certain way and acting certain way that is the finance socially responsible that is the way one makes friends and a true friendship exist. Pdf so we take debt alternative in retreat i tried to call you tonight. You are right about the sins of humor. Unfortunately it seems so far away. In the east is not a place for me but nevertheless to make a fair judgment in the archive found be yes they are all day like me why wont they admit that . Can sandy take me back to court if i dont pay quick he will be an adult by than bedded few weeks later he will be a letter of the last time he reseed such such a letter that he was a cooling to new york city with his people. Not because of his hostility but social circles. Bob there is dave noddy intensity only by obscurity none of my doctors give me with him in areas like this something more than college john year mind. I had written to long letters to explain all leave and happy and was his reaction is that i was not clear to state the real problem i would ask my father who had been so supportive unwelcoming for help and understanding in fact, brought up an uncomfortable question did he think i was gay apex he wanted to believe we have that type of relationship and he wanted to start over. My letters exploded that illusion and how to handle this type of appeal. To give practical and vice getting a car, interview, article in that paper. [applause] one year than 19 back. So it is now ubiquitous and hunter is the person and made that popular. What does that mean . Guest during journalism what i dont think or pervert not to paint is the character is the crazy man drinking too much. But what i think he met bill was he tried to get at the essential truth through exaggerations and to engage stores as long as the rage and the hyperbole but what he tries to do it wasnt for entertainment. Ultimately pdf he was trying to make a point. And that is the net. Is there at piece of journalism that you would recommend people read that they find numerous and insightful . And that is included but did it this evening and vicious piece of writing. Hunter started to write that is new orleans and i was at the university and Steven Ambrose had written three volume biography is. There was an amazing thing i had to introduce from the university of new orleans then nixon suddenly died but there was a an obituary of volume Jennings Bryan and hunter felt that pressure after going after nixon but he felt sad because he lost his enemy that really is new we always knew the corrupt but he was going around. He died with the masses level of but he truly have a lot of pressure bat circulates with money and humorous with somebody that you dont like to dump the body into the canal. Did it is funny and vicious. So lets ask about louisville kentucky what is that connection plaques. By the city is starting to embrace gamble they are heros obvious and dont think hunter felt the same way bay he was glad to leave in that he was just not welcome. And he appreciated the recognition and he got in the mid90s to organize a tribute. But i dont think he felt they will mean for home. He wanted freedom. He didnt feel a tie 82 kentucky. But there were many others they gave him the key to the city they said dont give him the key to anything. And then to end up writing which is the Kentucky Derby what about his literary work . Then there was the article before and after. Of raw power he didnt know that he had. Been at was a desperation instead of rejecting netball and it is a sporting event and wanted to be a sports writer. Some of them. Football, basketball, be that was a big part of his life and constantly betting on large sums of money. But there is a reading unbacked i will be a sports writer. River member better than i do that style love sports righty and that is formulaic pdf and growing up to tell us about hunter is mother and above was virginia like wax will dash . Evacuate. Hunters dad died when he was about 17. A middleclass family. To yogurt brothers and his dad died suddenly. And had to go back to work in began drinking rather heavily. And over seven years that was very difficult. For hunter. Then does the results been of the rest to be thrown under the bus his mom was brought them tough been a survivor. Cement and his mother in is the librarian. End always to babysit but hearing it is of the cover with a cigarette and the glasses. I see alcohol and drugs and talkedabout added is with their light even now is hard to sort out hunter or drugs in an alcohol. I do know he was a difficult person. I did not want to be like him. With 11 or 12413. He was a bar t10 i did not want to be liked him with the unpredictability or the rage. Did it make you less inclined . Yes. It seemed up part of his character for was to see how far it could go be. And i totally ejected that. I did not want to be that person with a life of chaos. Where he would smoke and drink at 14 or 15 not quite straight edge be. Control. So i got through my experimentation. Q avifauna wonderful stories of wellknown people at have interacted with. So was it is your recollection . What is that relationship with hunter . Payment i dont know how they met but before they became really popular one night he just released an album that was going to go sailing. Take t9 with you and i was 13. So i learned sailing for a month. Been a listening to and it was wonderful, and friendly was a surrogate it and he lived in key west and help to discover drugs Rolling Stone the founder of Rolling Stones would is their relationship like wax that they said it was the worlds worst employee working for the worlds worst boss. He would not be an employee. But was very fruitful. We being done of the hunters success at that time there was an opening that Rolling Stone was a magazine. Yes. We are waiting for this. And it turned out to be a Great Partnership for the book. His dad was around to write about write about donald trott bopper donald trumps. I dont know if he could handle that. He would be enraged with l. Full. [null] and process. What is your take on that . T6 was cast he decided to bid with hunter and they went everywhere together. And they had a lot of fun and win hunter died johnny came and they ended up paying for it the entire fuel. He wanted to be in the background by could not watch the old thing. The voice, the mannerisms, it was creepy civic even bill murray played the part steven a guy was a lot younger. We it was strange and he was very friendly. He had time for me. Where others to say i dont have time for that. But really just interesting and unusual. Me. What about Jack Nicholson they were great friends spellman enrollee net 10 a couple of times but they were quite close after he committed suicide bell was a nice little piece that he did. What about ralph, the illustrator who was then lost vegas most famously . What is he like . I first met him in the early 70s and a brilliant and kind beeper. He has such a a big part of part probing heart. He is 80 years old with a long and interesting life. Before of that generosity of the heart. To have a very bumpy friendship. With the constant bickering was that jealousy quick. Because they were drawn as a cartoon character just like the doonesbury comic strip. What do you feel about quick spin that he hated it. They use my name in the wifes name he did fear and loathing in las vegas when did you notice was writing classic books . Those that are celebrated this benny decades later. And with hunters that move dash death, and the l. Pouring and the fact that so many people talk about how hunter change their lives and some way and add it wasnt the drugs or alcohol but it was his right bastard. In how the inspiring not only his generation or others but the a thirdgeneration to pass down. This is their wonderful thing to see. Finally you have a son who is getting ready to go to say john is in santa fe. An Incredible Program and school. Did you learn . What is that like for you to be a bother . Has it given you more sympathy . Yes. Yes. And trying to find some of my that i cant see the same type of issue with my son be our lot alike. That is how all fathers and sons deal with. Once you move beyond with the whole market and the bedtime now is just to people by this tremendous amount of experience with so much in common view are two very different people in it has been helpful as part of being a father. Not just tv to hunter and i. Lets start in the front. Talking about monica and the stabbing and he said she can only give what she has to get. That is a quotation that has resonated so does that resonate with your father correct so that resonates about my father. Borer eagan only give what he needed himself. It is not resonating. But what comes to mind is that hunter was trying to connect with me. Born in 1936. To figure he would be a handson dad. That was the important. Guest did to make a connection with me. It was very important the leach kept trying me and that would be eventually when i realized it will not be the way i would like that to be. And so we found another way. That was good. He will not be the new age dash and does not have to be. We have a different type of connection. Will the rest of your life only be about your father . I hope not. Are you aware every day dedicated your father . There is the eclectic blob that is dedicated. I would like to check that out cement he is very popular and he is beloved there. Peabody was your fathers personal philosophy . And the idea is that something separate . A mantra . If big those weird then you go professional there is a ton of them but i dont know if i could boil it down to one. These are not his words but tell the truth his own unique way. Nobody elses recipe. Tell us authors that you like. Conrad l. Leavitt orwell those that our more classic i was in english major. First of all i noticed you spoken a quiet oasis when you would mediate so my question is what did you call your parents . You get your client for a spread of your mother quick . I called them hunter and cindy people have asked about that and why. I really think i think that this was a hunter wanted to be called when you are a parent talking to your child is daddy parco but you tell them what your name is then i think he decided it would be hunter. I think part of that was partially hidden and the kinds. The tines of the late 60s and 70s it was the time of the counterculture to reject everything that their parents believed or raising them to believe. Everything. That very much is about parenting as well. Win i was in my 20s i tried calling him dad one time and that did not feel right. I n interested in the riding of the book were there any surprises . Or of yourself . One of the surprising gains were the letters that i found. The letter that i read i just cannot believe i forgot about that letter. It is quite the letter. There are others i found where he talks about how he will try to pay for my College Tuition but did not want me to know about it because of the stress he was under. And that was surprising and touching. But surprises for myself with i would say that writing is something that i want to continue to do it has been difficult to a knowledge because who wants to compete . Who wants to be judged compared to a parent . And that is something that i avoided but it turns out that i do. My father was a bastard n day a colic to of the bastard alcoholic father those moments are rare file is curious if you have one particular moment where he really did something with the alcoholics call it a moment of clarity . Was there one that was helpful . What you say is so true that like my relationship with my son that was hunter the whole time there were thousands of individual moments dozens. That is what the relationship is built on the realized that breaking the book it is in the basque trove of memories there really were not that many. But what i craved for a long time and never got was one of the meaningful fatherson sitdown discussions. Let me tell you what you need to know. Led by the expected this will not happen, if im going to have the connection i want with my father it will be from just spending time. Politics. Whenever. The time spent together that mattered. When you ask that question what comes to mind after christmas just before he killed himself in an wallaces rare for no one to be there just him and i. We ended up watching a movie and just sharing that time together to appreciate. The aspects of that movie. That was a very meaningful time but yet youre just watching with your dad what is the big deal . One last question. Maybe based did he ever impart the words of wisdom