HST Rips Anthony Burgess A New One

Rarely do you get to see the great ones interact. It happens, sure, just not as often as it should. Like Stanley Kubrick directing Peter Sellers, or Elvis meeting Dick Nixon, or Robert Smith appearing on South Park. These moments are few and far between.

Even rarer still, and all the more satisfying, is that monumental occurrence when such great men go at each other, in the real world. A clash, if you will, of titans.

Well, I happened upon one of these moments a few years back, much to my delight. I'd just purchased Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in America, his complete correspondence from 1968-1976. And, mere moments after settling in and cracking it, I came across this letter to Anthony Burgess:

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August 17, 1973
Woody Creek, CO

Dear Mr. Burgess,

Herr Wenner has forwarded your useless letter from Rome to the National Affairs Desk for my examination and/or reply.

Unfortunately, we have no International Gibberish Desk, or it would have ended up there.

What kind of lame, half mad bullshit are you trying to sneak over on us? When Rolling Stone asks for "a thinkpiece," goddamnit, we want a fucking thinkpiece... and don't try to weasel out with any of your limey bullshit about a "50,000 word novella about the condition humaine, etc..."

Do you take us for a gang of brainless lizards? Rich hoodlums? Dilettante thugs?

You lazy cocksucker. I want that Thinkpiece on my desk by Labor Day. And I want it ready for press. The time has come & gone when cheapjack scum like you can get away with the kind of scams you got rich from in the past.

Get your worthless ass out of the piazza and back to the typewriter. Your type is a dime a dozen around here, Burgess, and I'm fucked if I'm going to stand for it any longer.

Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson
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Who else could get away with such a expletive-laden, hate-filled letter to one of the 20th Century's greatest writers? No one. I just wish I could read the "thinkpiece" that drew such ire from HST. And find out if Mr. Burgess actually took his advice and drug his "worthless ass out of the piazza and back to the typewriter."