{"id":1199,"date":"2005-08-19T10:42:21","date_gmt":"2005-08-19T17:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2005\/08\/here_we_go_round_the_mulberry\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T11:51:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T15:51:14","slug":"here_we_go_round_the_mulberry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2005\/08\/here_we_go_round_the_mulberry.html","title":{"rendered":"HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"artKUNKIN.gif\"<\/a> A revitalized version of the L.A. Free Press? Uh, Art Kunkin says so.<\/font> You remember him, founding publisher-editor of the old Free Press back in the day? Kunkin, right, wants to re-connect with all these folks<\/font> (scroll down) — they’re mostly famous and mostly from the ’60s — for celebrity testimonials. Sounds to us like the old counterculture redux, not revitalized<\/font>, while there’s a new countercu<\/font>lture<\/font><\/a> shaping up in Crawford<\/font>, Texas.
Meantime, Gig LeCarp won’t be attending tomorrow’s $2-million fireworks memorial for Hunter S. Thompson, where the late writer’s bagged-up ashes will be shot 300 feet into the air from a red Fiberglass “fist” canon<\/font>. “Not that I begrudge the good Doctor his booming sayonara,” LeCarp writes in a faux memo<\/font> to Jann Wenner, adding:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Whatever private anguish or defective pharmaceutical prompted him to cash in his chips, at 67 and in failing health — well, no player can tell another when it’s time to quit the table. And if his loved ones want to tamp his ashes into a howitzer and blast them across the bar at the Jerome, that’s their business.
\nBut to join the pack of media hyenas slavering at the gates…all those gizmo-saddled, gonzo-worshiping curs…swilling Wild Turkey, snorting ether, waving cigarette holders and craning their wattled necks for a glimpse of Johnny Depp [who’s paying for the farewell party] …sorry, but I’ll pass. The plan to erect a giant fist clutching a peyote button is a nice touch, but it’s a bit anachronistic; these days what matters is who’s doing the fisting.
\nFeature this, Mr. Wenner: This depraved cult of press jackanapery is what took the punch out of gonzo a long time ago. Hunter was our tragic clown, but he used to be much more than that, before the bitch
\nCelebrity got him. We should be celebrating the seat-of-the-pants outlaw who savaged despots and wrote like Fitzgerald on liquid nitrogen, not guzzling Cristal with the rest of the press corps in Aspen — a nest of rabid greedheads that would have been renamed Fat City if the Doctor had won the sheriff’s race back in 1970.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That stuff was too good not to quote, and it’s just the tip of the memo. Go read the whole thing, Art.
\n— Tireless Staff of Thousands<\/i>
\n\"BULLSHITTER-in-CHIEF<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A revitalized version of the L.A. Free Press? Uh, Art Kunkin says so. You remember him, founding publisher-editor of the old Free Press back in the day? Kunkin, right, wants to re-connect with all these folks (scroll down) — they’re mostly famous and mostly from the ’60s — for celebrity testimonials. Sounds to us like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-main","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-jl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77496,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions\/77496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}