Blog 10

From my understanding, Gonzo journalism can be defined by taking all of the rules we have learned in our classes, and doing the exact opposite, while still keeping a clever and informative writing style. Objectivity, accuracy, not interjecting, and courtesy are irrelevant. Hell, you can even admit to being hammered-drunk and on multiple drugs during your story.

I guess it’s only appropriate to start with the true Gonzo journalist, the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Hunter S. Thomson. Thomson often gives a drug and alcohol induced account of the underbelly of American culture. Whether it’s a motorcycle race, a gang of violent bikers, or a political catastrophe, Thomson sheds light on the corrupt and the insane nature of the different cultures he documents. Thomson is ultimately immersed in the story and in times IS the story. He is always present in his story; his actions make up the structure of the writing.

His stories follow his convoluted stream of consciousness into the dark nature of his subjects and their downfall of logical thinking. His language is crude and at times offensive. He uses sarcastically cynical language to describe these scenes. His technique is not outrage (like Taibbi) but a smirk at the ugly side of the American Dream.    

Taibbi is similar to Hunter S. in a lot of ways. His writings are a blatant attack on the aristocracy of American’s culture. His stories go to expose the wrongdoings of the higher-ups in control. He is not at all objective, and sets out to expose the ugly truth and only that. There is no doubt in my mind Taibbi has been sued for Slander. His revelations about supply and demand control are almost unbelievable. It sheds light on a messed up situation and makes the democratic system look like it is in shambles. His motive is to expose the corrupt market manipulations by bank and government authorities and his means is a rant of outrage, very knowledabe, well-written, well-researched outrage. For example, in the “The Great American Bubble Machine”, Taibbi said,

“The bank's unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pump-and-dump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere — high gas prices, rising consumer credit rates, half-eaten pension funds, mass layoffs, future taxes to pay off bailouts. All that money that you're losing, it's going somewhere, and in both a literal and a figurative sense, Goldman Sachs is where it's going: The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful, most wasteful and insoluble substance on Earth — pure profit for rich individuals.”

This is a crude and blatant outrage on Goldman Sachs. There is no other side to the story and this “I don’t give a damn” sort of attitude is shown throughout the rest of the piece. Although Taibbi does interject his opinions, he does not interject himself and his actions as we see with Hunter S.

Ron Rosenbaum, on the other hand, does not seek to expose a corrupt American, but instead seems to write to satisfy his personal curiosities. He interjects himself immensely, but not to the point where the story becomes about him more than it does about the subject. Rosenbaum seems to be investigating puzzling situations, or something that may be misconceived. The reader follows his stream of consciousness from an anecdote, to a personal story, to what sparked his curiosity and then his quest. For example, in the Photo Scandal article this anecdote starts the story,

“ONE AFTERNOON IN THE LATE 1970's, deep in the labyrinthine interior of a massive Gothic tower in New Haven, an unsuspecting employee of Yale University opened a long-locked room in the Payne Whitney Gymnasium and stumbled upon something shocking and disturbing.

Shocking, because what he found was an enormous cache of nude photographs, thousands and thousands of photographs of young men in front, side and rear poses. Disturbing, because on closer inspection the photos looked like the record of a bizarre body-piercing ritual: sticking out from the spine of each and every body was a row of sharp metal pins.”

We then get into his personal interjection and reason for writing the article,

“One fall afternoon in the mid-60's, shortly after I arrived in New Haven to begin my freshman year at Yale, I was summoned to that sooty Gothic shrine to muscular virtue known as Payne Whitney Gym. I reported to a windowless room on an upper floor, where men dressed in crisp white garments instructed me to remove all of my clothes.”

 His quest involves a series of clues, dead-ends, and revelations until we finally get the big picture. By the end of the story we know quite a bit about Rosenbaum and get a sense of his curious nature, and investigative skills as a reporter.

In the Skull and Bones article, Rosenbaum does not simply seek out the secrets of the secret society but gives a deeper meaning behind the ritualistic cult. He exposes the meaning as sense of security, belonging, reminder of talent, and self-preservation. And although he leaves the reader saying, “What are the secrets”, the article achieves a different purpose than what you would expect. He chose not to write an article on the “supposed secret” from “secret sources” that may or may not be telling the truth, but he takes it in a different direction, which I found very interesting.