Some people read this and tell me that it is not gonzo journalism while others tell me it is a perfect example. The best definition of Gonzo Journalism to be found is ‘Gonzo journalism is a style of journalism which is written subjectively, often including the reporter as part of the story via a first person narrative’. The given definition of Gonzo being ‘Gonzo is a style of media presentation in which the presenter is enmeshed with the subject’. Now I am hesitant making any claims or statements here because being only 19 years old and relatively inexperienced in the field of writing I am terrified of making an ignorant faux pas. This being said I believe that this is indeed a piece of gonzo journalism, maybe not a good one but one nonetheless. I was thinking of writing an explanation of everything in the piece at one stage, for instance the ‘gazelles’ mentioned were partly the people hosting the party and the druggies in the crowd who seemed to think that having a good time merely consisted of them smoking a lot of weed while everyone else wandered around feeling a little uncomfortable.
Journalism / Gazelles, Gonzo Journalism (Analysis)
gazelles, before I realised it I was surrounded by them. screaming in their crazy foreign lingo at me, preacher feathers and selling sticks with chestnuts.
but not to the surprise of the crowd, no, they were expecting it unlike us poor bastards, they knew the rules, they just felt it absolutely necessary not to inform us about the strange local dance.
meanwhile the major trip was still forming, as the back rooms were filled with the mists of the dazed and the swarms of innocently confused ran amok amongst the lost and the fallen.
but the real test only came after the first wave, through the haze one could almost spot the difference in the masses of people standing in the smoky badly lit room.
after the gazelles had hypnotized us and released the gases into the room to take control of our minds the doors burst with the pressure of the crowd, we burst through into the night and were released upon the world like a hungry pack of rhinos on speed; the journey of the night had just begun.
me and my pointman fought our way to the front of the stampede, pure abandon took hold of the people behind us and we were forced into the open street, the people behind us were obscure in the background and so therefore irrelevant, it was us that the street full of passersby were staring at, the first mind blown beasts to start to rove the streets, we were the poster boys of the Friday night trip, illuminated by the street sign and music which had finally breached the gazelles layer of defence.
the nights wanderings had began with a moment of uncertainty, the look of utter shock on the night patrons faces as two glaringly obvious drunks stumbled out onto the street that had hereto been a place of quiet sanctity, which was now filled with the smell of hash and barely consumed doritoes.
now that might have been the end of me and my pointman, a fine fellow by the name of John, somebody whom I met in a club some time in months past and haven’t been able to shake since, indeed it might have been the end of us for who knows to what lengths normally peaceful folk will go to in order to keep their quiet safe streets free of spilt beer, cigarette butts and randomly lost shoes, fortunately for the two of us a surge in the crowd behind us forced a few more hapless party go-ers out onto the street, realising that they were outnumbered, the townsfolk receded.
now at this stage it became apparent to me that the gazelles in charge of the party were unwilling to leave the confines of the building, noting their reluctance to bother stopping the crowd of tripping drunks from leaving, a small group of us made the momentous decision to go find an open pub, now as it was only 11 o’clock you wouldn’t have thought that there was any trouble in this, until you take into account the enormity of the task, trying to make 15 or so people with no motor skills or greater coordination at all to walk in the same direction, needless to say we lost 7 or so in those first moments, we would miss them dearly.
now as we stumbled up the street in belgrave, we noticed that not only were there multiple clubs open, but that very few of us had any form of identification and even less were real.
counting our misfortunes, we retreated to a safe distance, the belgrave station railway.
strangely enough we were met there by another group of party-goers/ of course they may not have been from the same party, but at a certain stage you come to respect the shared experience of the nights trip and share a bond of extremely breakable friendship with all others in the same state as you are, after initial attempts at contact with members of the same train station, we decided to cut our losses and head for home, by this time our number had reduced to 5, me, my pointman and three other hopefuls who thought we were headed back to the party.
by the time we got home a couple of hours later, after the walk from belgrave through the forest to Mobil in the dark we realised our major problem, we were hungry and we were heading out of things to drink, we reached my place a while ago and are now trying painfully to barbeque sausages and meat roundy thingys on the barbeque. ive been trying to eat paper for the past 10 minutes, ive gotten through half a sheet of a4 printer paper and im on my 5ith glass of shiraz while writing this, with several interruptions and corrections from the 2 people behind me, I don’t know their names or where they live, but im sure that we can sort that out in the morning, there are 2 nice girls and one very talkative guy: my pointman and one of the female shaped ones are arguing over how to burn sausages while the two sitting next to me are poking me terribly, they seem to think that they have some kind of input on how this is written, but if this is gonzo journalism then im the journalist here and my friend john is my pointman, so no one else had any say on what we write.
well this trip had been scary, I don’t remember much of the party but the trip afterwards was pretty eventful.
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I did see “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and I am very familiar with Hunter Thompson. But I haven’t read a piece of Gonzo journalism in a while. I am not used to the lack of capitals, but be your goal to create a mad rant, you succeeded. Not really the best imagery. What I see here is a rush to the finish line done in an entertaining way. I tried reading the book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” during my wild days, but nothing come of it. This is certainly odd, which I think was your goal. I wish you luck with it. Thanks for letting me read this entertaining romp.
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Cool story. Very Thompson-esque in terms of writing style. If you like experimental styles like that, try this thing called the cut-up engine. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, but it’s based on the way william s. burroughs would write: he’d take complete sentences and cut the words out, mixing phrases and words randomly. It’s fun to try out, check out the website that does it for you:
http://www.godsrudewireless.co.uk/cutup/cutup.htm
hi there, i do know what gonzo journalism is by the way, hunter.s.thomson is god. anyway, i really do like this piece, it reads as if this actually happened, which sounds pretty interesting, it is very hunter.s.thomsony and rathre trippy, which makes it more interesting than if it where straight forward. i really like youre descriptive words and the fact this this reads like a story, so your unsure if it is real or some wierd acid trip.good luck and keep writing, we need more gonzo journalism, especially since hunter is no longer here.R.I.P
Dude, what drugs are you on?! Acid, peyote, ecstacy? I read this a few times and never got the significance of ‘the gazelles’ unless they were just the random drunks piling out from the bars.
I’ve read quite a bit of HST and am familiar with his style of writing. This isn’t Gonzo Journalism though I agree with you that it is surreal. Very fucking surreal.
I think what you’re trying to convey is a crazy night out on the streets of Belgrave. Something I know nothing about, though I have been privy to many a college town party nights.
Wait, wait… You are tripping on acid right? And this is ‘field report’ of it?
What I think made Hunter unique is that he injected the unsual into to the unusual. This reads to me (albeit with a certain style) a night on the town under the influence of heavy drugs.
Gonzo journalism and good ol’ Hunter … interesting. You have raw talent, I will give you that, and you kept me reading inspite of the lack of basic punctuation and grammatics. If you strive to be avante garde, remember, two thirds of the readers are old school. Compromise does not destroy creativity if you have talent, it merely adds a little structure to hold onto while the writer/artist whips you around. My advice is either clean it up yourself or let someone you trust edit. This is worth the effort.
OK that was an insanely fun read. I had to give you high points for the flow and odd angles and turns and yes this is good stuff.
I was with you the whole way. I have read pieces that were serious and yet confused me horribly. I wasn’t confused here in the least.
You are sort of a young adults Dr. Seuss. I applaud you for having the guts to submit this unusually extraordinary piece.
Yes… I did see places that needed assistance, I will presume that this will later be polished up just a bit..
Thank you for the smiles,and for being so very real, in such an unusual sort of a way.
I am curious about your work now, I will be taking a peek now and then to see what you have done.
You likened yourself to Dali, you warned the reader, you played fair.
When I saw the title of your piece I was like, ‘HOT DAMN!’ Someone finally bring in a little gonzo, now that the master of it has past on… Thompson, being what he was to modern literature, is a hard act to follow, but I do think you are on a decent track to follow. I get the how and when that this was written, but if this is a literary track that you want to follow, I would suggest taking a pass at it once the tabs have dissipated. A sober look through just to tweak, and use capitalization (it goes a long way, even in gonzo journalism). I like that you are keeping Hunter’s spirit alive, as Fear and Loathing was one of the most prolific books I’ve read, ever. Keep it going man, and if you see the bats flying before your pointman does, just warn him…
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