GonzoDead-4WEB — Artwork by Joey Feldman

The Ending

Cold.

Gonzo is dead.

I can hear the dirt falling onto its coffin, tumbling from a spade.

Thud – thud – thud – scrape – thud – thwack

I don’t feel anything.

Gonzo died for me eight years ago. It died as I hid out in a little hovel, curses and threats filling my eyes and ears, the wretched scream of a journal in its death throes. We’d been riding the stock rails of a legacy laid by Hunter S. and his crew of rabid, loving misfits: Ralph Steadman, Juan (Hunter’s son), Jen Winkel (his daughter-in-law), Stephanie Carlota Acosta (Oscar Zeta’s niece). They added spice and life to the backdrop memories of the Hells Angels, the gunshots and hoopla from Owl Farm, the ghosts of the California deserts, and the eternal clacking of Hunter’s typewriter we could hear behind it all, intermingled with whisky and cigarettes and hallucinatory dreams.

For a couple years, we chugged along. And then – trouble. Pieces worked loose from the cars. Wheels broke down and the tracks began to warp. The engine ran out of steam – a couple times. Then we missed a slip switch. And the entire train jumped the tracks.

FUCK!

That was the only word that, when screamed once and heartily into the night, conveyed the utter disappointment as yours truly understood the futility of steering a hunk of derailed, twisted, smoking black metal. Gonzo had held my first professional adult accomplishments as a writer, had opened doors to a realm where I didn’t have to hold back, and had allowed me to fall in love. Not with a person but with a project. With literary and immersive journalism; with something bigger than myself.

Literary journalism: you like that? That is our Editor-in-Chief, Kidman’s, favorite term. At least, I think it’s one of them. Kidman J. Williams is the first to remind anyone that Hunter Thompson didn’t pioneer literary journalism, only the Gonzo subelement of it. He doesn’t even really like calling himself a “Gonzo” journalist half the time.

“You know who really pioneered this whole thing?” he says, inhaling cigarette smoke and doing that deep chuckle that rings out in the darkness of the Florida nights. We video call at night, and it always looks like he lives in the middle of a jungle. It’s probably just a sandy backyard with a couple of trees, but it’s better for the imagination if our EIC hides from cougars each night up in tree hammocks and hacks down coconuts with a machete, cigarette glowing all the while.

“Who?” I ask when he says this. Because, I don’t know.

“Nellie Bly,” he says out of the side of his mouth. “Look ‘er up.”

Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, pen-name Nellie Bly. Known for her record-breaking 72-day trip around the world emulating Phileas Fogg, and for feigning insanity to gain enough access to write an expose on brutality and neglect at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum. Hey, she also went on to interview female serial killers, went undercover to expose abysmal factory conditions, and was eventually reassigned as a foreign correspondent where she accused Mexican czar Porfirio Diaz of tyranny via suppression of his people and controlling the press. Every bit as badass – arguably even more badass – than the antics of Hunter S. Bly, known as the original muckraker, ushered in “stunt girl journalism” and was blacklisted nearly everywhere for doing it. At least, for a while.

By the time she went around the world in 72 days, Bly’s reputation was sealed with lucrative writing jobs and, eventually, a millionaire husband. Not that she couldn’t provide for herself by that time; I suppose she liked the guy. Badass Gonzo women always get results. I’d like to think Mrs. Nellie Bly/Seaman would be gracious enough to accept our honorary title – but – oh.

Gonzo is dead.

I forgot.

I know Gonzo is dead because someone told me. Former Gonzo and Investigative Journalist, Chad Nance, got on my social media page and told me so.

The New Beginning

Back in the early Fall of this year 2025, Trump had all but crowned himself king and my nerves couldn’t take it anymore. I found out that Gonzo Today (GT) was back on track and had been for a while – but its engine was close to out of steam again. Kidman was working with publisher, Kyle K. Mann, with an occasional contribution from Doc ‘Jeffurious’ Higgason. A friend and supporter I didn’t know we had, Amber Woodall, wrote me and communicated her distress at the lack of coverage from GT at the burning of our world from the torching of our democracy. I said I’d look into it.

Upon investigation, it seemed the old guard had gone mad and fled – and I did the only sensible thing. I asked Kidman how he’d feel about working together again. One or two people weren’t enough to carry the GT banner. It’s far too amorphous, heavy, and unruly for that.

Crowing with excitement at Kidman’s exuberant “Yes,” I took to social media to talk about how there never was a time when Gonzo journalism was needed more than rightnow. I expected excitement.

Enter Nance.

“Gonzo journalism is dead,” he wrote in my comments, going on to explain that the world was already so over the top that shock journalism like Gonzo was over and done.

“Of all the dickwad, dumb, and insensitive ideas and things to say …” my inner Moe Howard sputtered before a horrible thought punched its way into my angry reality. It was the apprehension that Nance might be right. So I did what any truth-lover would do and dove in further. Was Nance, former Gonzo Journalist who now makes documentaries and narrative films, willing to say more? I mean. Let our readers decide, I say.

The Waiting

While awaiting for Nance’s next missive, I learned about a plethora of deletions from our website archives of what felt like at least half the history of Gonzo Today: poems, interviews, articles, art, music reviews. The old guard hadn’t just fled; he’d smashed the halls to bits on his way out. My first – and best poem – gone. My interview with Clayton Patterson. Scores of articles on news, happenings, serial killers. Sure, I have copies of it. I have copies of lots of things. But it will never again be part of the Gonzo hall of history, with the brilliant art above it, and it leaves all sorts of ethical questions in its wake that plague a writer. Most important being: “is my work still considered published if it’s fucking deleted from the original journal?” Am I allowed to submit my hard work elsewhere now, and maintain my reputation?

Ok. I must stop writing about this topic before I drag the man to court on grounds of vandalism and/or criminal mischief.

How could the shit pile of circa 2016 have gotten even worse than it was back then? I mean, we had staff members threatening the literal lives of other staff members. Some people had clearly forgotten that, while Hunter had imbibed drink and taken substances on the job, gonzo was not code for endless drug free-for-alls and dangerous behavior without a cause.

Fuck it. If Gonzo was dead – along with 3/4^th of my personal portfolio and lots of the work of the boys, then.

Then.

Then by god, we’d rebuild it.

We can’t help ourselves, see? We bought the ticket. We’re taking the ride.

The Characters

As though it were fated, Joey Feldman, our brilliant and prolific contributing artist (and student of Ralph Steadman), also mysteriously got in touch with me around this time.

“Let me know if you need any art,” he said. We hadn’t spoken in nearly a decade. Joey has a studio out in L.A., and he can turn concepts into art in 3.5 seconds. Well, not really, but not being a visual artist myself, it sure seems like a quick turnaround. He and his wife have built a solid reputation in the art world. With Joey on board, we had an even better chance.

You know about Kidman. But there is also Doc. We hadn’t spoken in some while. Ours was a mending of bridges compromised largely by my own actions at bad time of life, and I remember the day we exchanged virtually the same apology, at the same time, over a message.

For a dead genre, things sure were working out weirdly well.

Doc has a jovial, sweet, John Candy aura of energy with threads of cynicism necessary to maintain sanity in Illinois. He’s got a great wife and kids out there, a knack for a well-placed joke and turn of phrase, and a love of music. Turned out, Doc was on board to step up as Senior Editor with us.

And we must mention Kyle. Way out from where I sit in Kentucky is Kyle, in Portland.

“Can’t talk much longer,” were the last words I heard from Kyle. “Band’s about to start.” Kyle is a music man, and is famous in my head for once giving a wild ride to Janis Joplin, but this is not his only claim to fame. Kyle has kept the GT fires burning and website going and, when so moved, writes a piece here and there.

Shoot, that’s us. In a nutshell. The most trusty ones who survived the wreckage and lived to tell the tale. There are more from our history, they’re listed on the staff page. David Pratt is somewhere around here. And Ron Whitehead. As I searched for old names the way that Hunter probably looked for cigarettes, the question still bugged me, though. Are we dead?

The Smell of Death

“Gonzo- as originally conceived and executed by Hunter S. Thompson is as dead as he is,” wrote Nance, in response. “While literary journalism (New Journalism) is still possible and could one day be vital again, Hunter’s original thesis has crumbled in the face of performative fascism that has co-opted Hunter’s insult comic meets doomed and drug addled style. Hunter saw the hypocrisy and the socially acceptable depravity of the Kentucky Derby and responded with his own depraved energy with the knobs turned up to 10. That sort of response is impossible when the people you are responding to are willing to be so openly degenerate it’s hard to get out in front of them with satire.”

I know what he means. I think to me, Gonzo isn’t all about satire, though, or being over the top. It’s also about heart. Tons of genuine heart, authenticity, and reclusive surrealism.

Nance went on: “Accusing a politician of gobbling Ibogaine is quaint when the opposing politicians are accusing each other of pedophilia, child murder and treason on a daily basis. What is needed now isn’t more madness it’s stability and reason. We’re past that point though. Now we’re in the ‘Make the best of dystopia mode’ and hanging on for dear life in a whirlwind of daily atrocity and genuine horse shit.”

I keep coming back to stability, too. But for me, stability happens through truth. Relentless truth. And this is where Gonzo goes that no other genre does. It doesn’t just tell the truth, it howls it, hugs it, spits it, and cries it. It occasionally punches it, like a punk rock kid with no option to stay sane in the moment of expression except to mosh. We don’t wanna hurt anyone, we just have to get it out. And others inevitably respect that genuine display of hearts on sleeves. They recognize its power, anyway.

There’s more than just Gonzo as deep truth, in the world of journalism. Investigative journalism sits with the owner of the busted up bar and listens to how he wishes he caught the thieves. Gonzo sits and drinks with the owner if they need it, shoes crunching on top of the shattered glass. Immersive journalism goes undercover as a bartender there after the rebuild, listening to patrons for clues as to who might’ve had a vendetta. And New Gonzo … what does it do?

A story gets written any way you slice it.

And a dead genre ain’t got no one reading it. And that’s usually because it ain’t no one writing it. Or, writing it well. A real writer writes what they love. Nance and I don’t necessarily agree where Gonzo is primarily just the style of Hunter S. Thompson. I got my greatest compliment once from Hunter’s daughter-in-law, Jen Winkel, for “writing Gonzo your own way. Ace hated copycats.” Personally, I think where Nance and I agree most is on New Journalism which is what I call New Gonzo. And what we at GT all love about Gonzo at all is the passion of it, the way it can’t be totally pinned down. The “first-draft” feel of it all, so you know it hasn’t been edited to death by a corporate slob.

I love its honesty. Its authenticity. I love that I can write it stone cold sober, slightly tipsy, or hallucinating three weeks to Wednesday. That we will never be told “We can’t write that – we wouldn’t want to piss off our sponsors,” or “that’s too personal” or “that’s too raw.” It’s heart – I love that it has heart. I love that I can be myself, and that in the end it’s the support of the team that makes this all work.

The Future

If Hunter were here with us still, he’d support this journal. He’d support our rise from the ashes. He’d definitely support us getting paid, making our way, and staying independent – which is what we promise to do. The original iteration of GT had his family’s support from Day 1. Hunter would probably say something like “I don’t know what you’re doing – just keep doing it.” For him, as I understood it, work was All. Drinking, drugging, party or not, Hunter was always working. And Nellie Bly was always pissing off all the right kinds of people and putting herself on the literal line to do so. Not to be a badass, but so that her life meant something in this world.

So far, the furthest I’ve gone undercover for Gonzo is the time I went to the Trump rally in rural NC for Trump 1.0. A man was punched directly in front of me, the crowd got flocked together and we nearly all got teargassed, and I won 1^st runner up for the story I typed in full that same night in the 2016 Gonzo International Literary Journalism contest (that’s still on the website if you want to look it up by my first name).

This brings us to you, dear reader. Do you think Gonzo is dead? If it isn’t, I’ve just written a false obituary. If it is, then. Maybe we are just birthing some new genre of Gonzo. New Gonzo – is that a thing? I tell people I write New Gonzo when I tell them I write sober. I think we are alive and well. But let’s see what history calls us. Personally, I’m shocked and dismayed that stunt girl journalism never took off as a term.

Hats off to you, Nellie Bly.

Let’s see what our Gonzo future holds.