OPEN LETTER
San Francisco October 25, 1960
San Francisco, Fillmore st., the bay a few blocks to my left, warm sun in the streets, sitting at a breakfast table two floors above the street, drinking ale, listening to the marvelous vitality of the Kingston trio- three rummies lucky enough to laugh at the whole world for a half-million dollars a year. No wonder they laugh.
City of hills and fog and water, bankers and boobs- Republican all. City of no jobs - "sorry, we have no openings here; be glad to talk to you though.") - city of no money except what you find at the General Delivery window, and somehow it's always enough-city, like all cities, of lonely women, lost souls, and people slowly going under. City of newspapers for Nixon ("careful now, don't want to upset the balance of terror"), of neon bars and apartments full of people who can't pay rent or phone bills or even face the newspaper delivery boy when he comes around to collect. City of music and longshoremen and just enough sunshine to make you appreciate it. City of Alcatraz, where human beings rot in unimaginable isolation, a loneliness so complete and terrifying that only a man who has been in jail can know it, Alcatraz so close that you know they can hear the clang of the cable-car bell on a clear day, Alcatraz where men rot and die while the city dances across the bay.
San Francisco, edge of the western world, where you can drink all night and jump off the bridge to beat a hangover, where you can sell encyclopedias because no their job is available, where you refuse to sell encyclopedias because you have better things to do, because you were born queer and cannot be a salesman like all your american brothers- where you talk with editors and news directors and creative directors and hear over an over again how easy and necessary it is to sell out, where you find sympathy and now work ("it's hard, I know its hard; I tried it myself, but with a wife and kids......") and countless cups of weak coffee with the want ads and sunday mornings with a quart of ale and a girl on the phone who says "come over for breakfast; we live on Telegraph Hill, you know, and nobody goes hungry over here except when we want something you can't buy and don' t know how to look for anymore- but we don't talk about that except when we're drunk, and then we lie down and open our mouths wide and cry when nothing falls in.
Say "no" to San Francisco and be rich- spend your last dollar on brandy and swack reality across the cheek. "No, I will not sell, I will not give you the best hours of my day and let you use my blood to grease the wheels and cogs of a hundred banking machines, sorry , Jack, but I will take your time and your cigarettes and laugh at you quietly for the questions you ask and know all the time that your guts have dried up and your spine is rubber and you measure me against your contempt for the human race and find disturbing disparity- how so, prince jellyfish? Will you endorse this check for me? many thanks; now I can work against you for another week. And when the money runs out, maybe I will beg then, maybe then you can crack me and pinch my smile, but I will never get to work on time, only take your money and laugh again- and you who cannot afford to laugh anymore, you will crack one day too, and that will be the end- for you cannot bounce,
and I can.
-Hunter S.Thompson
timmy:
People still use encyclopedias?