For No Good Reason Page #3

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At that moment,

I'm thinking of nothing

but how hopeless and impossible

this thing is to achieve.

Suddenly there comes something

which your instinct seizes on

as being for

a moment the thing

by which it could

begin to develop.

What that is,

in fact, is stop-out.

If I blow more color

over that, then I rub it,

and it pulls this stuff

off with the color

and leaves the paper

still where it was.

So I'll just do this.

But also I'm worried about

going too far with that

and completely

losing it, you know.

Sure.

I'd like to leave it

for a bit, I think.

The most, uh, enigmatic

and inquiring artist

that ever lived

would be Rembrandt,

who took it upon

himself to do

self-portrait

after self-portrait

in the process

of getting older.

It was the most

undecorative idea,

taking yourself

and watching

yourself grow old,

and give us an animation

of his aging

in beautiful paintings,

great self-portraits.

It was the most scintillating

intellectual exercise

that one could imagine.

Now what I'm gonna do is,

'cause on there, there's all

this lovely masking fluid,

and this is the only thing

that will take it off,

- which is masking fluid gone solid.

- Mmm.

Ooh, what's

underneath there?

And this coming out now.

You're watching this?

Some sort of

substantial sort of...

Wow.

...place exists

beyond the skyline.

I find this funny, because even

amongst all the great details,

there's precision

in your work,

but you're still very,

very playful.

Well, it's 'cause I'm

not very professional.

Ah.

I don't go out of

my way to be professional.

I go out of my way to

try and make something

that, uh, is as unexpected to me

as it is to anyone else, you know?

That's perfect.

I think,

most importantly,

Picasso has been the

biggest influence of all,

because of his continuing

persistent creative daily life.

The way he made his life into the

reason for his living every day.

And it gave me a purpose, too,

in a strange kind of way,

and a sense of, "God, is there

anything on that piece of paper?"

"Anything can be there."

And Picasso proved it day after

day after day after day.

He convinced me that

the thing I can do is

simply start a drawing

and it will come out

the other end somehow.

And I won't know how it's

going to come out completely,

but that's the fascination.

That makes it

a worthwhile pursuit.

If I knew what was going to

happen before I started,

what would be

the point of doing it?

If you surprise

yourself still,

you really could

have a good trip.

Well, the phone rang.

"Ralph, this is Hunter."

"So they seem to have liked

the Kentucky Derby piece

"and they want us to do

something else, you know.

"They want us

to go to Zaire

"and cover

the Ali/Foreman fight,

"the Rumble

in the Jungle."

So I said, "Yes, Hunter, I think

that would be very nice."

Wow.

I flew from London

and I arrived in Zaire,

and the first thing I noticed

when I got off the plane

was the blanket of heat.

The first thing Hunter did

was to go out

and buy himself

a massive bag of grass.

And I thought to myself,

"I'm not gonna enjoy this."

The phone rang

and it was Hunter.

"Ralph,

got a great story.

"Cover the America's Cup

in Rhode island."

And I said, "Well, I don't

really like boats."

So when we got there,

the weather was so bad,

the race was off.

I got a call from him.

"Ralph, this is Hunter here."

"How do you feel about

doing another story?"

Sorry.

"Dr. Hunter S. Thompson,

"care of General Delivery,

Woody Creek, Colorado,

"it was May 23, 1980."

"Dear Hunter,

"we would like you to cover

the Honolulu Marathon."

"We will pay all expenses

and an excellent fee."

"Think about it. This is a

good chance for a vacation."

Hmm, feels nice.

And the idea was

Hunter and I would

come out of the chocks,

"shoulder to shoulder,"

as he put it, you know,

and run as fast as hell,

obviously leaving people behind.

And a truck would pick us up and take

us the rest of the way, you see.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
George

Foreman, I will bruise him up.

If I don't knock him out,

I will cut him all up.

Nicks and cuts

all over his face.

On the eighth floor

of the intercontinental,

George Foreman would go

walking with the dog.

I came up

with another idea.

Why don't we go in

amongst the two boats,

the Gretel

and the Intrepid,

and I write something,

with a spray can,

on the side of

one of the boats?

He said, "What are

you gonna write, Ralph?"

I said, "Well, I thought of

writing 'F*** the Pope."'

And we waited for the people who

were by this time knackered.

Then we'd be

there to jeer.

"Run, you bastard, run!"

we would shout.

They went, "You filthy buggers!

No sportsmanship in you."

We'd gone there to

screw the race up.

It's an awful thing

to do.

I mean, this is the

mean face of Gonzo.

Hunter said, "Are you ready

for this?" I said, "Yes."

And you know when you take a

spray can, you have to shake it.

And there's a little ball,

so you've got this,

"Click, click, click..."

I heard somebody say, "What are

you guys doing down there?"

And Hunter said,

"God, pigs."

"We've failed.

We must flee."

And he brought

out Leary flares,

which you only use in times of

distress in the middle of an ocean,

which he set off

in the harbor,

and some of them fell onto

boats and that caused mayhem.

I said to Hunter, "When are

we going to the fight?"

"We're not, Ralph. I sold

the tickets." "What?"

He went down to the pool,

threw the grass into the pool

and dived straight into it.

We couldn't go

and see the fight.

The only way I could go

and see it was on television,

which I did in the bar.

The moment

the fight was over,

everybody just wanted

to get out of Zaire.

"We must get out of here.

We must flee."

It's a good way to do stuff,

for no good reason.

Another

of Hunter's phrases.

"Why are we doing this, Hunter?"

"For no good reason, Ralph."

What I seem to have become

is a kind of visual chronicler

of a part of Hunter.

I had personified him.

That was like

a comic character.

He'd got a cigarette holder. Had to

have it. It was part of the outfit.

And he had all those things

and I gave them all to him.

'Cause he didn't

like the idea

that anyone was going

to outwit him in any way,

you know,

that he would...

He's in charge. He's the writer.

I'm just an artist.

I'm Edward.

He has a bird called Edward,

such a marvelous character...

I think Hunter

tormented it,

but I think there was

a kind of two-way affection

or something going on.

Edward, talk to me. No?

Hunter would use it, I

think, to bounce off, you know.

He'd use it as a kind

of victim, you know,

something to

bring into the story

and how he was

feeling about it,

who was the bird.

I suppose at some point I, in a

way, became the bird, you know.

Now.

Now we're going

to talk, Edward.

Speak to me. Yes.

I feel like Edward

sometimes, in a situation,

I feel absolutely

taken apart,

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