Eighteen hours to Denver

By: Nick Storm

Wake up at three am in Louisville. Pitch black sky. Pulling out of driveway with camera, tripod and sleeping bag in tow. I’ve been on this journey before.
Orange barrels. Yellow lines. The drum beat of the open road.
Heading west to Denver, Colorado with Ron Whitehead the Outlaw Poet, and Clayton Luce head honcho at Gonzo Today.
Five years. Countless journeys. Thousands of miles. Hundreds of hours.
Always, camera rolling.

Producing the feature length documentary on Whitehead over the past five years has been, and continues to be its own strange adventure.

Just two weeks before heading west to pow-wow with Juan, Jennifer and Will Thompson I stand inside Whitehead’s Cherokee Road hermitage, another adventure being discussed.
Last minute details arranged for the spur of the moment trek.
72 hours. Straight shot to Denver and back to Louisville. The open road is calling again.

Nearly two decades earlier, December 1996, downtown Louisville.

Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Juan Thompson, David Amram, Douglas Brinkley, Ron Whitehead and others gather together in Memorial Auditorium.
Standing room only at the tribute at the Dec. 12, 1996 tribute to the author.
Thompson, the Juvenile delinquent, returns home with body guard and Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis in tow, to receive The Key to The City and be named a Kentucky Colonel.
Whitehead organized, produced and is still paying off the debt from that fateful December night in ‘Possibility City.’
The event will be fondly remembered by Thompson throughout his life. Vindication after being run out of town decades before.

Virginia, Thompson’s mother and a librarian at the downtown Louisville Free Public Library, sits in the front row. Juan, Thompson’s son, steps up to the microphone and delivers a tear jerking speech about the writer who went toe-to-toe with President Nixon, reported on Muhammad Ali, Vietnam, and delivered a profound work of fiction known affectionately by the family as the “Vegas book,” and keep tabs on culture for decades.
In Louisville, Thompson steps on stage to douse Juan with a fire extinguisher. Family bonding.
Behind the scenes Whitehead has delivered $10,000 in a brown paper sack to Thompson to ensure the author would participate in the event.

Easter 2011, at Owl Farm — Thompson’s fortified compound where he took his own life in 2005 — Braudis recounts the night in an interview for the documentary on Whitehead.
As a passenger driving with Thompson in Louisville’s Highlands, in the middle of the night, Braudis recounts — Hunter with tumbler of Chivas Regal between his thighs, car on a sidewalk, inches on either side separating a retaining wall and mature oak trees on either side. One of many stories that follow Thompson throughout his life. The character. The persona.

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life”― Jack Kerouac, ‘On the Road.’

October 10, 2015. Sitting with Jennifer, and Will, Hunter’s grandson, at the Thompson’s dining room table after dinner — sipping Kentucky bourbon exchanging stories as Juan and noted presidential historian and editor of Hunter’s letter’s books, Douglas Brinkley walks though the front door.
Again, camera rolling.

This is the first reunion for Whitehead and Brinkley since 2005. The two came face-to-face at Hunter’s “blastoff” his ashes scattered from a 153 foot Gonzo Fist cannon on his property near Aspen, Colorado.
Whitehead outside the gates as the song “Mr. Tambourine Man” plays and the canon fires.
Brinkley and Whitehead have past history. New Orleans, New York, Louisville —producing events together in the mid ’90s.

Now, time stands still. Everything happening at the same time — string theory in action — stories exchanged. Back to 1996 and Brinkley recounts fans rushing the stage in Louisville. Men in overalls confront Depp. A chair is set on fire in the green room — Whitehead will foot the bill.
Hunter and crew rushed away with whoops and cries into a series of black Lincoln’s behind the auditorium.

Back in Denver and Brinkley is back on the road to his hotel room. We’ve been awake for thirty hours. Louisville, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver.
We’ll be back on the road in 24 hours boomeranging back across the country. Another footnote for a book yet to be written.

That’s been the past five years. Amazing journeys. Pain. Triumph. Disappointment. Always a new journey and adventure.

It seems in time we’re always moving forward, but constantly interacting with the past — It’s there, not to be feared but remembered. Which is what we should do with Hunter. Remember his work.

Same with Whitehead. His light crosses many paths: Thompson, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs to name just a few.

Five years is an amazingly small amount of time, yet 90 minutes is even shorter.

Still hundreds of recorded hours. Thousands of shared hours of experience — struggle, joy and excitement. Five years later, and I’m searching for the perfect 90 minutes to share with you.

It’s always been worth it, and soon I hope you’ll agree.

Nick Storm