Can Gonzo Surf?
Radiation seeps from the computer screen, shooting veins across my eyes. Bullet-sweat lands in great inverted craters on the keyboard as I divine the future of Gonzo from a glorified television – this Literary Journalism which clings like gum to the sole of my soul. What becomes of this, bastion of high-energy prosodic reportage – this heritage which lurks around history’s corner, flecking good old Washoe newsman Samuel Clemens on the lapel as to say Thank you? This narrative investigation was embraced by Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and now spirals haphazardly into the future on the backs of Eric Schlosser, David Foster Wallace and Adrian LeBlanc. The cursor slaps at my bilious eyes – where does New Journalism go from here? To a vast, figurative spider web, whose silky electronic strands caress our shimmering blue orb; to citizens who hunch – much like me – over their keyboard; to reporters clutching for a life-preserver of historical relevance in an oceanic deluge of information – these places may well be Gonzo’s new home.
Now, now, I see your question mark-emblazoned retinas – mostly “what in the hell is he yammering on about?” From any pair of lips – Literary Journalism, New Journalism, New New Journalism, Gonzo, etc. – all sound relatively homophonic. It’s all about stuffing news through a literary meat grinder – “mixing the content of reporting …with the ‘objective reality of journalism’ and the ‘subjective reality of the novel’” (Campbell, Martin & Fabos, 2010, p. 259). Like they say, New Journalism takes the naked truth of the “news” and wraps it in a stylish narrative ensemble – making sure to pull its sociopolitical underwear on first. You see, standard journalistic procedure doesn’t much cotton to invectives such as this. While many correspondents craft sparkling, stripped-down reports in a daily paper variety – they get fenced in “by a rigorous information imperative… which…leaves other levels of meaning unexplored. [Literary Journalism] call[s] on more complex language and forms” (Abrahamson, 1991). This kind of limit – prescribed by the VIPs of journalistic integrity – sometimes leaves a reader huddled for warmth under a threadbare tarp of impersonal data. Literary Journalism combats this by dismantling that stubborn-old inverted pyramid, and rebuilding it as a shimmering landscape.
So how did this boulder begin its downhill rampage? Literary Journalism was first coddled in the prescient brain-pans of Augustus Baldwin, Henry David Thoreau and Steven Crane (Hartsock, 1951). With the US audience lusting for adventure, it was Samuel Clemens, via one Mark Twain, who really set literary journalism on fire. “Clemens sought to move his reader [away] from decadent romanticism to realism” (Steinbrink, n.d.). Much like today, his audience sopped up “rough and tumble” adventures from an untamed country. Mr. Clemens felt that more pressing issues attended denizens of these young states, but knew all too well that a writer sans audience is better known as a hobo. Splicing his literate wit to his journalistic moxy and creating one Mark Twain – a roving southern reporter at large, he sought to satirize the ever-living hell out of relevant issues. “Twain confronted the problems of slavery, war and deadbeat parenting without ever preaching to his devoted readers” (Hart, 2006). He understood that by dazzling your average peruser with romantic situations and littering symbolism, metaphor and irony throughout his articles – by the time they realized they were questioning the status quo they were far too amused to care. Between Twain, Dickens and Upton Sinclair – the whole world feasted on Literary Journalism for a time. But like any popular style, periods of disinterest plagued the form.
The turbulence of the 60s instigated Literary Journalism’s come-back du jour. It hadn’t exactly vanished like a poltergeist into history’s ether, but it looked a little vacant around the eyes. Hemingway and others tossed accelerants into creative journalism’s fire from time to time. But it took the 60s bursting through the 50s repressive chains to stoke it properly. The creatively named New Journalists popped up in droves –the likes of Truman Capote, Jane Didion and Tom Wolfe – wrote stylish nonfiction in inky torrents. From these New Journalists (christened from an anthology of the same name, edited by Tom Wolfe) arose a kinetic style – a “hyper reality where exaggeration serves to underscore rather than obscure the terms by which we live” (Steinbrink, n.d.). Hunter S. Thompson’s Gonzo reportage overran the lethargic media sheepdogs, as they bayed pastorally at history’s passing cars, while supposedly tending flock. Gonzo Journalism’s hyperbole and exuberant excess characterizes Thompson’s headfirst dive into the murky recesses of American culture. “[Gonzo Journalism] carries the tenets of New Journalism to – and then beyond their logical limits. It’s aggressively subjective, intensely imaginative, determinedly iconoclastic…unremittingly ‘literary’” (Steinbrink, n.d.). It flouts customary journalism’s ideas of objective truth and constraints of ‘who, what, where, when, and why’ – firing erratically into our society’s broadside for the ‘how come’ angle. Gonzo’s context is life – it eats, sleeps and breathes the news.
This brings us back to my chair, my desk and my increasingly furrowed brow – as I hunch over my computer, wishing I could wipe that smug look from my monitor’s sparkling interface. What time is it? Where was I going with all this hogwash? Ah, yes – the next phase. Surging ahead on time’s unyielding river, we moor our stalwart vessel in the early 90s, the dawn of the (also imaginatively nicknamed) New New Journalists. New2 draws a whisper-thin line between New Journalists and themselves, the ‘Whose afraid of Thomas Wolfe’ school – lauded by acolytes of John McPhree and Robert Boynton. Their journalism is based on osmosis. . For her book “Random Family” Adrian LeBlanc immersed herself in the lives of a convicted drug lord and his extended family from the South Bronx. “She [LeBlanc] was present for prison visits, welfare appointments, and parent teacher conferences. She attended a master’s program in law at Yale…to understand her subject’s trials and sentencing” (Cohen, 2003). She didn’t just write the story, she became it – to help us flesh-bags better understand one another. New2 Journalism eschews Gonzo’s more grandiose elements in favor of a realistic approach. They may not tear ass around Nevada in a red convertible, but they certainly sacrifice themselves to the intense deity of highly detail-oriented reporting. “The New New Journalists draw on their predecessors’ literary innovations but tend more toward…stories of the ‘disenfranchised’ and chronicle ‘ordinary experience’ instead of chasing ‘outlandish scenarios’” (Jack, 2005). They sift through the details, shaking out iniquitous fool’s gold for overriding truths. Right on brothers and sisters!
But you know what? That already happened, and is happening right now. We need premonition here – a glimpse down the dusky road of Literary Journalism and I’m not calling some jabbering psychic hotline. All we need for foreshadowing is the screen in front of us. New Journalism’s future is strewn across cyberspace (does anyone call it cyberspace anymore?) – a writhing Jackson Pollack canvas with citizens and writers for paint spatters. One unique challenge confronting Literary Journalists is subjectivity. Sometimes you want to scream: ‘don’t take my word for it. If you don’t trust me there are other sources.’ The internet offers a trail of links as further, more objective breadcrumbs.
Links to biographical information or other works by the author can show a pattern of concern or bias toward a certain issue and can enlighten on the expertise of the writer. The Web offers…access to information that can allow…an informed decision as to that vision. (Royal, 2000)
Crosschecking via similar articles, we the loyal reader gain context – essentially meaning that an author doesn’t erroneously entitle us to the Golden Gate Bridge – literarily speaking. The nature of this marvelous, binary spider web allows us to refute Jane Nonfiction’s work instantaneously – thrusting the reader into the very subtext of journalism. As the web spreads its glittering tendrils, users across the globe are free to wriggle creatively, giving data-thirsty spiders the ability to absorb communal nutrients. “The Weblog community adds depth, analysis, alternative perspectives, foreign views, and occasionally first-person accounts that contravene reports in the mainstream press.” (Lasica, 2003, p. 74). Free blog sites let anyone from a hobo in a public library to a cellphone-clad Malay upload an irate exploration of public restroom shortages or footage of a tornado ousting an apartment complex. Sure, some of these reports might lack on the journalistic, or the vocabulary side – but let’s face it, free sites offer no paychecks. It’s a labor of love. Gonzo seethes forth, its words bleeding from life itself. What better creative landscape is there than the vibrant, thrumming backyard of several billion neighbors? There’s room for everything from an hourly tweet to a colossal manifesto the blissful summer rolls at the restaurant down the street. The best part is that we can ingest any or all of these stories whenever we choose – with no cost to arboreal life. But Gonzo, as life, is not transfixed inside a computer. We must combine our flesh and blood lives with data in the proper order – life to computer to life – to evolve Literary Journalism.
So listen up: My eyes burn from all this supposition – ogling a computer screen all day doesn’t help either. As the codger down the street says ‘you dig?’ New Journalism examines the news further and deeper than your average claptrap newspapers have wiggle room for. Its pedigree belongs with literary greatness – Twain, Crane, Bierce and the lot of them. Norman Mailer and his ilk held the door open, essentially writing novels about news. Hunter S Thompson’s tore the hinges clean off reporting – blending life and fiction into his Gonzo stew. Those crazy New News followed, spending years of their lives, supping on every conceivable angle – regurgitating the important aspects of our lives. And now, in our digital era we globetrot through cerebra, making our lives accessible through tendrils of internet; melding news with our expressions and impressions of this big ball of blue-green wonder. Don’t that just beat all!
References
Abrahamson, D. (1991). Teaching Journalism as Literature and Possibilities of Artistic Growth. Journalism Educator, 46(2), 54-60. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.
Campbell, R., Martin, C., & Fabos, B. (2010) Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Cohen, S. (2003). Bronx Story. Atlantic Unbound. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/past/unbound/interviews/int2003-04-24.htm
Hart, M. (2006). Make 'em laugh. Writer, 119(3), 48-50. Retrieved from Humanities International Complete database.
Hartsock, J. (1951). The History of American Literary Journalism: The Emergence of a Modern Narrative Form. Sheridan Books. Chelsea, MI.
Jack, S. (2005). Gonzos for the 21st Century. New York Times Book Review, 22. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.
Lasica, J.D. (2003). Blogs and Journalism Need Each Other. Nieman Reports. Retrieved from http://socialmediaclub.pbworks.com/f/blog_and_journalism.pdf
Royal, C. (2000). The Future of Literary Journalism on the Internet. Retrieved from http://cindyroyal.com/litjour_croyal.doc
Steinbrink, J (n.d.). Mark Twain and Hunter Thompson: Countinuity and Change in American “Outlaw Journalism.” Retrieved from http://www.compedit.com/mark_twain_and_hunter_thompson.htm
