“I was never trying, necessarily, to be an outlaw. It was just the place in which I found myself.” -HST Paris Review, 2000
Dave was born a Kentucky boy. Some happenstance had transferred his father to the bluegrass state for a short time in the early 1970s, which coincided with Dave’s birth in the land of the trailblazers, rebellion, bourbon and grass.
In his teenage years, he discovered among the Beats and underdogs one Hunter S. Thompson, whose work came to redirect David’s career choices; inspiring laughter and fueling his own madness. Working through college and day jobs, Dave’s dreams of becoming an outlaw writer living on the fringe somehow got washed over in the tides of the corporatist journalism and all of those lifestyle trappings of his own making; those soul-sucking endeavors encouraged whole-heartedly by the majority of parents and society.
While traveling in search of our farm, we like to revisit those things that made us happy and sparked inspiration early on in our lives. We chuck whatever doesn’t work anymore, but honor those that still do.
Hunter, take the wheel…
The Good Doctor was put upon the shelf of literary ideals, a treasure of Dave’s past, nearly forgotten amid mortgage payments, home repairs and an endless diet from the mass media vending machine of car crashes and kittens-in-trees-news that consumed what was left of his gonzo-journalistic aspirations.
Like the Karass from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, a cosmically-linked group made up of the friends, family, and fans of HST guide us toward Gonzoville, Kentucky where we will join them in honoring the Good Doctor at GonzoFest.
Now we find ourselves in burgeoning spring, this second leg of our Free Range Quest tour sees the trail a little less dusty. Clarity comes when we follow our true will and get rid of all the other shit. Today we leave the skunk-eyed stares of Eastern Oregon to slog through the snowy mountains of Montana, trading our usual rock rotation for speakers blaring the prose from Hunter Thompson’s Kingdom of Fear — We are now encircled by what fuels us. Headed East on The Road to Gonzoville…
…More to come…
-David & Kristina-
____________
For more from our Free Range Quest, subscribe to this blog or visit us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Free Range Quest 