The Kitchen Readings (22 page)

It really was a big tent. There were an awful lot of people already there when we arrived, and it still seemed cavernous. Everything from the bar in the center to the furniture was draped in dark fabric: blues, purples, and black. Draped to the point that you couldn't really tell what was underneath. You couldn't tell that the bar was a bar or the couches and chairs were couches and chairs.

I was told that the guest list was the same as for the Jerome event, plus. The plus turned out to be mostly big-name Holly
wood and Washington types who couldn't make that first service because of the short notice, and a few regular locals whose names had just slipped people's minds when the Jerome list was created. It was an impressive cast of characters. Since the bar was completely draped with mourning cloth, waiters and waitresses roamed around with mint juleps and bottled water. The drinks stopped being served when the speeches started. The oratory was a bit more lucid than at the Jerome affair. A lot of the same people spoke: family, Steadman, Doug Brinkley, and others, plus some really heavy-hitters like George McGovern. John Kerry was in attendance but didn't speak. The speechifying did go on, but it was impossible to get impatient when you considered the lineup.

As soon as the speeches were over people came out of nowhere and pulled off all the drapery to reveal what was essentially a huge set designed to look like Hunter's kitchen and living room. There were skulls, bats, stuffed animals, weapons, exact duplicates of the furniture and floor covering, even refrigerators like Hunter's, full of the beer and stuff Hunter's refrigerator was always full of. It was great. I heard it was the weasel event planner's idea, and I'll cheerfully give him credit if that's the case.

 

The entertainment was a mixed bag. A Japanese
taiko
drum band was playing from the time people started to arrive, and intermittently throughout the course of the evening. They had created a special piece in Hunter's honor. It was something, walking up the path to the tent with the exotic percussion echoing all around. I'd never heard anything like it before. Old Thompson friend jazz flutist David Aram played. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band alumnus and neighbor Jimmy Ibbotson played. Lyle Lovett got up on the stage with no introduction whatsoever and
played a solo set. The stage for the music had its own tent just across from the front of the main tent.

Hunter becomes one with the zephyrs.

The
taiko
band was the only music leading up to the blastoff. When the speeches ended and the drapery came off the furnishings, the bar opened and the drums started again. Waiters and waitresses came around with trays and made sure that everyone had a glass of champagne. It was clear that “it” was about to happen. The band stopped and “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum came on the loudspeakers. My friend George and I were sitting at a table toward the entrance side of the tent, the back of the tent as it faced the monument. Instead of shouldering our way through the crowd that was gathering toward the front, we went out the entrance and walked around. A couple of steps up and we were at the very front, standing next to Johnny Depp,
the best spot in the house. The music was loud and then louder. As it swelled, the drapery began to move and slowly rise up. It was actually being sucked down into a tube at the back of the fist. The whole scene was full Hollywood drama. Then the fist was completely revealed. Huge spotlights illuminated it, and the peyote button lit up, began to spin, and change colors. “Spirit in the Sky” boomed. This went on long enough for the entire effect to be absorbed.

And then the fireworks, which contained Hunter.

Apparently when one is cremated, the end product isn't that sandy stuff we see on TV. The result of real cremation is, for lack of a better term, a lot chunkier. For this reason, Hunter's remains had to be pulverized before they could be packed into the explosive canisters. This was done. Then a certain percentage of them was given to Juan and Jennifer, an equal amount to Anita, and the rest was shipped to the fireworks people in Florida. Doc was such a big guy that they had to use more charges than they had initially planned. The fireworks with Hunter imbedded in them traveled from Florida to Woody Creek in an armored car.

Johnny Depp's tribute to his friend.

So the peyote button spun and blinked and changed color, the music echoed across the valley, and what would have been Hunter's favorite part, the explosions, began. Shooting straight upward from the ground on both
sides of the monument, and far higher, great colored streams of flame and light delivered what remained of Hunter S. Thompson into the ether above Woody Creek. I turned to George, “This is pretty swell, being here tonight, like this, but wouldn't we both trade it for one more night in the kitchen with Doc?” As George was agreeing, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was one of the monument team guys. Standing directly behind us, he had tears rolling down his cheeks and he was nodding. All of those guys would have killed to have met Hunter just once.

The pyrotechnics ended and the party shifted into high gear, with the massive spotlights pointed at the monument creating three beautiful intersecting “gonzo fist” shadows on the low clouds that created a ceiling over Woody Creek. I thought of Hunter's last year, and his pain, and I thought that perhaps when we age and our senses become less acute, our vision and hearing dim, it's so that when we finally leave this world, we won't miss it so much.

—Michael Cleverly

In Hunter's books his acknowledgments came in the form of an Honor Roll, and to honor him we're going to continue that tradition. Hunter would never mention exactly what kind of contribution the honoree was being credited for; we expect that he did this to protect the guilty. Most of the people who have shared their memories and personal photographs with us are not included on the Honor Roll, as their contributions are enormous and obvious and can be seen throughout the text of the book, either as the subjects of their own chapters or with photograph credits. There are a few exceptions in which an individual's participation went beyond the sharing of stories and pictures.

HONOR ROLL

Andy Stone

Linda Lafferty

Randi Bolton

DeDe Brinkman

Deb Fuller

Heidi Mitchell

Stephanie Wells

Eleanor Takahashi

Kuni Takahashi

Oliver Takahashi

Cass Zajicek

John Zajicek

Hayden Cleverly

Tamara Tormohlen

Juan Thompson

Jennifer Thompson

William Thompson

Carol Craig

Simon Beriro

Tina Beriro

Jeff Hanna and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Ed Hoban

Mary Harris

Shep Harris

Terry Helsing

Joe Fredricks

Paul Bresnick

Jeremy Cesarec

George Sells

Ziska Childs