Joe Rogan on Hunter S. Thompson "He Was a Political Troll"

joke out of it or yeah. Well I know you're a Hunter S. Thompson fan so you're probably aware of what Hunter did to Ed Muskey. Oh yeah the Ibbo Gain thing. Yeah yeah absolutely. He went crazy. Yeah literally went crazy. Hunter it was what was it on the Dick Cavett show that he talked about it? Well there was a rumor that he had taken Ibbo Gain and I knew about that rumor because I started it. And he drove that guy crazy to the point where you see I think it was in New Hampshire. He was giving political campaign speech and he broke down. Yeah oh yeah he cried. Yeah yeah yeah well he so Hunter did this great thing he he he wrote about it it was it was kind of a spoof of campaign coverage because he he he did this whole campaign diary and then he just kind of went into this deadpan recitation of what sounded like a breaking news story about him discovering Muskey's secret relationship with a witch doctor who was providing him with Ibbo Gain and then then he dug up some file photo of Muskey that looked like this it was like all right and he they put you know Mus- Ed Muskey in the grips of an Ibbo Gain frenzy right was the caption and it was completely deadpan he never said he was kidding never never said it was you know not like that it was fiction and and Muskey couldn't handle it I mean he was that was probably the first real political trolling that went on but uh and a brilliant one too because Ibbo Gain is not even in that kind of a drug it's a drug that helps people get off drugs right yeah it's like oddly enough illegal right yeah in America in America it's legal in a lot of places but it's really great for people getting off opiates huh it's just a ferociously introspective drug that rewires the way your brain deals with addictions it literally rewires the connections alleviates addictions on a physical and psychological level what's the um what does it feel like I don't know I haven't done that one but I know quite a few people that have that have had pill problems and have gone to Mexico and taken my friend Ed Clay who has an actual center down there now he started it uh after he had gone down there for treatment he had a back injury I believe it was and got hooked on pills and I was like Jesus I gotta figure out a way to get off these fucking things and did Ibbo Gain and then cleared it right up wow and he realized like wow like this is this is crazy that this is illegal yeah so the one drug that Hunter chose right was actually a drug that gets people off drugs it's just even more ironic it just had a great name yeah oh yeah Brazilian doctor brought in Ibbo Gain treatment it's fucking awesome so that really was the original political troll yeah yeah it might have had a giant effect in the election probably did oh yeah absolutely um and I don't think it was an accident that Hunter's coverage was you know that that he chose that year to do these diaries and I remember my father telling me about how every reporter would would wait for Rolling Stone to come out that week so they could you know read the coverage of the election but you know Hunter kind of uh took this unknown govern you know unknown senator uh from the Dakotas George McGovern and made him into this because this like Christ figure basically I don't I don't think that McGovern would have won the nomination without without that sort of relentless hyping that he gave him because he probably would have won the presidency if it wasn't for the vice president having that issue with right he had gone through electroshock therapy Eagleton right yeah yeah yeah that was uh that was terrible but uh but fascinating you know I mean I got to write the uh the introduction to the to the last last version of that book and that's one of my favorite books of all time it's a great fucking book yeah I mean it's just like it's such a crazy comic epic you know yeah but he was a big influence uh yeah you know I um definitely I mean I think the the great thing about hunter thompson um first of all he just he was so incredibly funny in a way that was completely rare I mean you you can't just train to be that way you either are born with that ability verbally or not and he just had this completely strange four-dimensional way of looking at things and uh you know he would he would watch a completely boring uh campaign speech and when he got done writing it up it was like you know a psychedelic wrestling match or something like that I mean it was it was so much more interesting and bizarre and weird and he saw all these great details and um and he was just I I think it was a great approach to journalism but you know sadly there aren't that many people who can pull it off because it just required um you know surpassing literary talent and that's that's that's incredibly rare what was a unique combination of fiction writing along with like an actual understanding analysis yeah that was that was his his great because he because you're right he he he would bring you in and uh the uh the reader would would kind of surf along this incredibly uh charged fast-paced uh narrative that read like you know the the fastest most engrossing fiction right uh but he would intersperse it with any and stop and pull back uh and do uh what we call it we're only some we call them wisdoms right where you know you just sort of stop and say you know here's my take on this and those were amazing I mean he just he just had this ability to sort of cut through the bullshit and see see things from an angle that nobody else saw and that was a a rare technique back then the idea of the kind of individualized um take on things nobody was doing that and reporting back then I mean it was no nobody even thought of it as a form that you could really experiment with I mean there were a few people back then like Terry Southern and Tom Wolf who were who were doing some things like that but but Thompson was completely unique uh and there hasn't been anybody like him you know since since then I think I think uh it's it's not an accident that nobody's been able to pull that off again