From Vegas we drove nearly 1,000 miles northeast through the desert of Nevada and Utah to Pitkin County, in the mountains of Colorado.
Along the way the views are great: vast panoramas of desert fringed by the distant Rockies.
We stopped for lunch at a Mexican Taco restaurant in Green River, an old railroad town located in the parched wilderness of central Utah. It was eerily quiet, the main street little to speak of, just a few boarded-up stores, a garage and two restaurants. A beaten-up wooden shack near the freeway advertises “the best melons in America” for sale.
Pitkin County is where Thompson lived for most of his adult life in a ranch near Woody Creek, a sleepy hamlet a few miles down the valley from the ski resort of Aspen.
Thompson ran for sheriff in Pitkin County in 1970. Disillusioned with covering an election campaign that had brought Richard Nixon to power in 1968, he styled himself the “pro-hippie, anti-development” candidate, even shaving himself bald for a televised debate so he could refer to the opposition Republican candidate (who had a crew cut) as “my long-haired opponent.”
He ran on a ticket he dubbed “Freak Power,” saying he planned to mobilize the county’s small hardcore of hippies and odd balls. It was only a last minute face-saving deal between Democrats and Republicans that denied him victory.
Aspen today is awash with ski money, filled with boutique stores and high-end restaurants. On the main drag is the office of the “Aspen Times”, where the father of Gonzo once took out a full page ad promoting his run for office.John Colson, a reporter of two decades for the paper says that in spite of the writer’s best efforts to halt the developers, they won the day: “Money talks and bullshit walks. That’s the sad reality here,” he said.
Along the way the views are great: vast panoramas of desert fringed by the distant Rockies.
We stopped for lunch at a Mexican Taco restaurant in Green River, an old railroad town located in the parched wilderness of central Utah. It was eerily quiet, the main street little to speak of, just a few boarded-up stores, a garage and two restaurants. A beaten-up wooden shack near the freeway advertises “the best melons in America” for sale.
Pitkin County is where Thompson lived for most of his adult life in a ranch near Woody Creek, a sleepy hamlet a few miles down the valley from the ski resort of Aspen.
Thompson ran for sheriff in Pitkin County in 1970. Disillusioned with covering an election campaign that had brought Richard Nixon to power in 1968, he styled himself the “pro-hippie, anti-development” candidate, even shaving himself bald for a televised debate so he could refer to the opposition Republican candidate (who had a crew cut) as “my long-haired opponent.”
He ran on a ticket he dubbed “Freak Power,” saying he planned to mobilize the county’s small hardcore of hippies and odd balls. It was only a last minute face-saving deal between Democrats and Republicans that denied him victory.
Aspen today is awash with ski money, filled with boutique stores and high-end restaurants. On the main drag is the office of the “Aspen Times”, where the father of Gonzo once took out a full page ad promoting his run for office.John Colson, a reporter of two decades for the paper says that in spite of the writer’s best efforts to halt the developers, they won the day: “Money talks and bullshit walks. That’s the sad reality here,” he said.
To counter this reality and WAKE THE PEOPLE UP some Whoregyna got together a bunch of leaflets carrying the original campaign manifesto Thompson placed in the "Aspen Times". We handed it out on the street, Whoregyna's black-gloved fist punching the paper into outstretched palms. The polished faces of the Aspenites were creased in confusion as they drank in Thompson's words and finally, they understood.
Here's some of that original ad:
"(In) 1970 Amerika a lot of people are beginning to understand that to be a freak is an honorable way to go. This is the real point: that we are not really freaks at all - not in the literal sense -- but the twisted realities of the world we are trying to live in have somehow combined to make us feel like freaks. We argue, we protest, we petition -- but nothing changes. So now, with the rest of the nation erupting in a firestorm of bombings and political killings, a handful of "freaks" are running a final, perhaps atavistic experiment with the idea of forcing change by voting..."
