Far Gonzo

"We just threw a gallon of Wild Turkey in the back and headed west," said Kevin Coy of Chester, W.Va., who drove more than 1,500 miles with a friend in hopes of seeing Dr. Hunter S. Thompson blast off posthumously. The news that a fist-shaped cannon shot the good doctor's ashes into the heavens has prompted many flashbacks, including this one from Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's former campaign manager. Trippi writes that Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail showed how important and ridiculous politics was. Trippi soon worked for his first candidate, an African American women eying San Jose's city council in 1976.

Trippi had semi-seriously planned to watch the celestial cremation in Colorado, which was attended by Johnny Depp, Bill Murray and various lunatics. "Joe Costello and I were going to grab Pat Caddell, a towable cannon, and a gallon of whiskey and head to Aspen listening to Warren Zevon's "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" on the last great gonzo road trip."

My own memory is hazy - sitting at the front of a packed college auditorium waiting for the wild man to show. My friend had booked him, then drove to the airport to collect him. Some time later they arrived, buzzing on a cocktail of Wild Turkey ether. I remember Thompson's first comment as being one of the most insanely funny things I'd ever heard. I promptly forgot it, and it remains lost in the Seventies. What I could never get out of my head, however, during my three years in Louisville, was his description of how to spot a Kentucky Colonel at Churchill Downs, a tip that turned out useful for a reporter new to the Courier-Journal. From The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved:

"Steadman wanted to see some Kentucky Colonels, but he wasn't sure what they looked like. I told him to go back to the clubhouse men's rooms and look for men in white linen suits vomitting in the urinals. "They'll usually have large brown whiskey stains on the front of their suits," I said. "But watch the shoes, that's the tip-off. Most of them manage to avoid vomitting on their own clothes, but they never miss their shoes."