Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/70972
[ Circuit ] Poster boy at last? T By Roger Riddell Illustration by Ralph Steadman he memories of when I started thinking about this still linger fresh in my mind. Brisk autumn mornings in 2009 when the sun, if it hung in the sky at all, was outshone by the radiant smile of ABC's Diane Sawyer greeting me — a Lou Mag intern at the time — from the Starks Building a few blocks west as I crossed the small parking lot behind the magazine's headquarters. It was on these mornings, three days a week, that I wondered why the late writer Hunter S. Tompson wasn't among the Louisvillians hon- ored with a Hometown Heroes banner — now numbering 20 with the recent addition of Denny Crum — or at least the subject of an equally visible tribute. Tompson was, after all, a native son who, in 1996, received a key to the city from then-Mayor Harvey Sloane at a sold-out ceremony. As creator of the exaggerated, stream-of-consciousness "Gonzo" journalism, his words romanced stir-crazy kids, myself included, into the business of facts and words. Sure, he had some personal issues, but we overlook those sorts of things in public figures all the time. At some point, and especially on the eve of Tompson's 75th birthday, which would have been this July 18, all of this pondering becomes a bit much. A man needs answers, dammit. As is often the case, the quickest way to get to the bottom of any- thing is to go to the top. Te Hometown Heroes banners are a prod- uct of the Greater Louisville Pride Foundation, formed in 2001 by Mike Sheehy, who serves as the group's president. Originally created as a means to get a Muhammad Ali banner, the idea took off and the results (Louis Brandeis, Darrell Griffith) can be seen on build- ings across the city. "A lot of people wonder about Hunter and other folks that aren't up," says Sheehy, who receives about two or three Tompson-related questions a year. "With Hunter specifically, our committee looks at everybody as somebody we would want to ex- emplify the city. Hunter is a celebrity from Louisville, but there are some issues with his life that didn't really qualify for the banners." Of course, Sheehy is referring to Tompson's well-document- ed drug use and 2005 suicide. It also probably doesn't help that Tompson essentially trashed Kentucky and the South in his famous story "Te Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved." While Sheehy insists that he himself has no problem with the idea of a banner honoring Tompson, there are members of the GLPF's com- mittee who do and remain unconvinced that his merits outweigh his lifestyle and cause of death. Additionally, there has never been, according to Sheehy, a formal proposal justifying a Tompson banner. "I haven't had anybody real- ly step up and say, 'We have the funding, we have the wall, and here are the reasons why Hunter S. Tompson should be in this group of hometown folks that we feel exemplify those characters,'" Sheehy says. (Many of the banners are corporately sponsored, as with ABC and Good Morning America for Diane Sawyer.) Looking for some sort of rebuttal, and perhaps subconsciously hoping to kick-start such a proposal, I reached out to Tompson's family and friends. Phone calls and emails to Tompson's widow, Anita, and representatives of Rolling Stone founder and publisher Jann Wenner and actor and Tompson friend Johnny Depp went without response or hit dead ends. I finally received an email from Sadie Williams, director of the Ralph Steadman Art Collection. Steadman, a British illustrator who frequently worked with Tomp- son, said he would consider my questions — but only after I in- jected them with more Gonzo. Te original questions, I was told, would, quite frankly, frustrate him. Channeling my collected years of establishment frustrations and dark sense of humor into a better [14] LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 7.12 set of questions (basically profane mini-rants), I was more than sat- isfied with Steadman's impassioned response demanding his friend be honored. "Who in all of Louisville is blameless that they should throw the first stone?" it began. "Is there such a person in all the world who can claim such an awesome distinction? C'mon, good folks! Own up and celebrate the life of a man who wasn't afraid to call a spade a spade." (Indeed, Tompson was calling Richard Nixon a crook long before Watergate tarnished the president's legacy.) Continuing for the length of a page, Steadman praised his friend's dedication to telling the truth as he saw it, which led to his trademark brand of journalism. "I believe that the citizens of Louisville should feel real proud to call 'HST,' one of their favorite sons, a true Kentucky pioneer!" (It's worth mentioning: Tis Hunter Stockton Tompson, iconoclastic anti-establishment poster boy, wouldn't exactly seek out an award based on the approval of a committee.) Several more phone calls and emails turned up a surprising devel- opment. Rebecca Matheny, a Downtown Development Co. project manager and a Hometown Heroes board member herself, is cur- rently hammering out the details on a banner independent of the committee. "It's almost more authentic to Hunter's way of doing things," says Matheny, a Tompson fan who grew up a few houses down from the writer's childhood home on Ransdell Avenue in the Highlands. At press time, Matheny was still negotiating a location and getting the permission of Tompson's family to use his image. But a lasting tribute to Gonzo has never felt closer — especially since a statue mentioned during 2010's "Gonzo Fest" never materialized. For now, Gonzophiles will have to continue settling for the Monkey Wrench's mural. Ralph Steadman is a registered trademark. Copyright Ralph Steadman 2012. All rights reserved worldwide.