![]() ![]() ![]() Thompson recounted that adventure in a piece he sent to Rolling Stone, the upstart rock magazine cofounded by Jann Wenner. The following year, Thompson spent a riotous weekend in Las Vegas with Chicano attorney Oscar Acosta. “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved” was heralded as a journalistic breakthrough, and Thompson’s friend at the Boston Globe, Bill Cardoso, first applied the term Gonzo to it. In 1970, Thompson queried Warren Hinckle at Scanlan’s Monthly: would he be interested in a piece about the Kentucky Derby? Hinckle paired Thompson with Ralph Steadman, whose grotesque illustrations complemented Thompson’s scathing portrait of Louisville society. ![]() ![]() Now, five decades after Rolling Stone published “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” Gonzo journalism is due for a fresh review. Thompson’s work, signature style, and the most distinctive American voice in the second half of the 20th century. By that time, however, Gonzo was shorthand for Hunter S. It began as an accident, peaked with several works of startling power and originality, and eventually consumed its creator. Gonzo journalism was an attitude, an experiment, and a withering critique of hypocrisy and mendacity. ![]()
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