The Cold Sober War On Objectivity (TCSWOO): The State Of Gonzo 2005

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The Cold Sober War On Objectivity (TCSWOO): The State Of Gonzo 2005

“Me and Mike, ve vork in mine, /Holy shit, ve have good time. /Vunce a veek ve get our pay, /Holy shit, no vork next day.”

From Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, (1969)

"Burn 'em, tear 'em, nip 'em with hot pincers, drown 'em, hang 'em, spit 'em at the bunghole, pelt 'em, paut 'em, bruise 'em, beat 'em, cripple 'em, dismember 'em, cut 'em, gut 'em, bowel 'em, paunch 'em, thrash 'em, slash 'em, gash 'em, chop 'em, slice 'em, slit 'em, carve 'em, saw 'em, bethwack 'em, pare 'em, hack 'em, hew 'em, mince 'em, flay 'em, boil 'em, broil 'em, roast 'em, toast 'em, bake 'em, fry 'em, crucify 'em, crush 'em, squeeze 'em, grind 'em, batter 'em, burst 'em, quarter 'em, unlimb 'em, behump 'em, bethump 'em, belam 'em, belabour 'em, pepper 'em, spitchcock 'em, and carbonade 'em on gridirons, these wicked heretics! decretalifuges, decretalicides, worse than homicides, worse than patricides, decretalictones of the devil of hell."

From Le Quart Livre by Rabelais. (1552)

“ Morality is temporary, wisdom is permanent.”

Hunter Stockton Thompson

“Anyone who has studied psychology, sociology, anthropology, or any of the other wacko-and-wog disciplines knows the three great rules of the social sciences: Folks do lots of things. We don’t know why. Test on Friday.”

Patrick Jake O’Rourke

This essay is about the great penis enhancer/boob-job of reportage. But, in 2005, perspective gained, Gonzo isn’t just hilarious distortion, fun as it is. The most quoted living gonzo practitioner P.J. O’Rourke, (born Nov.14th, 1947), said: “Some people are worried about the difference between right and wrong. I’m worried about the difference between wrong and fun.” But 21st century gonzo is not satisfied by that stylish if psychotic fear and loathing induced by an Iraq style Humveeload or a Vietvet-copterful of mind alteration. We now know subjective for what it is. It is a cold sober human desire to tear sterile objectivity to shreds and do worse to the naked truth. And we also know that Gonzoism applies as much to politics, love, history and mystery as it does to music and the military.

But before we all go down to the steam baths for a serious and sensuous wallow let’s first dispense with the niceties: the term Gonzo comes from the Italian word for absurdities - gonzagas. In reporting terms it’s putting subjective, objective, fact, fiction and political POV in the blender and giving it a good couple of minutes.

Gonzo let’s you get away with a lot. It’s used in lowbrow Commedia dell’Arte, its origins lost in the mists of time, and modern-day revivals have bald-faced Mussolini in his mightiness letting masked puppets take the piss outofhim! In Germany, the anti-authoritarian Norwegian playwright Ibsen’s plays were used to mock the Nazis with them sitting right there. In America, Tennessee Williams-tortured, alcoholic, homosexual, Pulitzer Prize winner, used gonzo to mock yards of things - marriage, success, truth, happiness, insanity, mostly insanity - and that was fine too! Maybe intellectuals and small audiences are just too far-gone to make waves anyhow. But, now that we’re in the day-and-night Information Age, whoever calls the masses dumb is just a loser aka a lost intellectual.

Gonzo in films - there are plenty of examples but here’s one- remember when Italian actor Roberto Benigni acted-in, directed & produced the 1998 released film Life is Beautiful? Hollywood gave it a standing ovation and 3 Oscars including best actor. Beautiful was pie-in-face, banana-peel slapstick with Benigni’s real-life wife playing female lead. But 50 minutes into the fun and games, it turns into sublime father-protects-son from those unfunny chaps in jackboots drama. This is typical of gonzo- playing the fool to make a deep point, preferably with a political angle.

In Mark Twain’s time, when there was nothing to watch except the Mississippi over the rim of a Mint Julep, gonzo had to be quotable and the guy has left us oodles to choose from. Mark Twain is always affable, a sort of Gonzo Lite: “I haven’t a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices,” he said. Before him, there was 16th century monk Rabelais, pursued all his life for alleged heresy, who advocates, for instance, using a live goose as a very satisfying arse-wipe (in his comic novel Gargantua -1534). The funny part was that Rabelais saw himself as a reformer.

The moral centre is often hard to find in gonzo but most of its practitioners couldn’t care less. Oscar Wilde, another clubber, said: “Illusion is the first of all pleasures.” The Gonzo Club recognises Bob Dylan who has just topped a poll conducted by Uncut Magazine to find the 100 songs, movies, TV shows and books that “changed the world” in the opinion of musicians, actors and industry experts. He did it with his anthem “Like a Rolling Stone”. Then there’s the aforementioned O’Rourke. Other notables include Kurt Vonnegut and Hunter S Thompson. Hunter screwed it up at the end, but that may just be a writer thing, by putting a bullet through his head this February past.

The work itself is always evocative, fuelled by conviction. Vonnegut says: “Belief is nearly the whole of the Universe, whether based on truth or not.” Gonzo almost always is, like a whore with a heart of gold, based on truth. Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut’s most famous book, has elements of time-travel, science fiction and the ever present funnies but it’s really about a POW situation, based on when he was in Dresden during its WWII bombing and watched the barbecuing of an estimated 300,000 people.

What gonzo is, if you want to see it clearly, is a dancing clown Cri de Coeur but it needs to be done right. Lost causes work; bad judgment doesn’t. And sometimes Gonzo’s biggest stars lose the plot. Thompson (God rest his soul), kept up his tirade against Bush, right through his first term, likening him to Hitler, while backing Kerry in 2004. But of course, he got smacked right in the gob when the results broke out. John Kerry didn’t win. Even his supporters said they didn’t understand what he was saying. Similarly, Michael Moore, the shambling fellow with the Fahrenheit 9/11 film, the stubble, the cap and the Oscar also fails the gonzo-winner test despite his factoid driven, one-sided provocation.

Nobody has problems figuring out Dubya, (so they think). A majority of Americans do not hold his Bush dynasty privileges or his Yale-bred Bushisms against him. That’s because he’s got the true gonzo going for him and not Hunter as it turns out. Dubya knows it’s a War on Terror (WOT), and not some watered down Harvard euphemism full of boltholes. He knows, because the last one he thought up - Weapons of Mass Destruction (WOMD), was pure theatre! So good it was that nobody even thought of trusting but verifying and if anyone looked doubtful, one or two of the UN inspectors did, why, they simply didn’t get their contracts renewed.

(1,203 words)

Title: The Cold Sober War On Objectivity (TCSWOO): The State of Gonzo 2005
By Ghatotkach
Wednesday, 10th August, 2005


This and all original essays on GHATOTKACHSERIES are copyright 2005 by Gautam Mukherjee. All Rights Reserved.