![]() ![]() So the idea would be that Zaire was like an imitation of the Western countries run by whites that Thompson and his ilk would be used to, except even more inefficient and corrupt, so not a very good imitation.) And then the day of the fight itself, he reportedly “covered” the event by dumping a massive quantity of marijuana into his hotel pool and floating around in it while the fight took place miles away. I still remember the accounts of Thompson stumbling around Kinshasa, Zaire muttering “Bad Genet! Bad Genet!” (I know virtually nothing about playwright Jean Genet, but I think he was known for the gimmick of casting black actors for white parts. ![]() An impression that turned out to be true in all its particulars by the way. What Mailer had to say about Thompson-and I think I came across one or more other references to Thompson around that same time in writings by other people-painted the picture of a bizarrely comic, intelligent, perpetually drunk or stoned writer, given to unpredictable, anti-social antics. ![]() In my late teens I had gotten into Norman Mailer and read several of his books, starting with The Fight about the Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire in 1974. The first Hunter Thompson book I ever read was Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, but I had at least some awareness of him even before then. ![]()
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