Hunter S. Thompson calls customer service

This is allegedly a recording of a voicemail that Hunter S. Thompson left for the AV company that wrongly installed his home theater system.

If your setup is still here tomorrow night, I’m gonna destroy it and write about it. Yeah, I write a column, several, I write about a lot of things, you might of heard of the rest of my name somewhere, I write books, I write things that get out and people read! I’ll ruin your fucking name! You goddamn idiots, you fuck up my system!!

We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Perhaps with fewer illicit substances in our systems, but still. (via @davidgrann)

Update: Here’s an interview with someone who worked at the AV company at the time of the call.

The Design Audio/Video team got back to Thompson and fixed the problem which, it turned out, they hadn’t actually caused. The items had actually been sold to the author by another local dealer, which McCorkle knows but would not name.

“It turns out, we didn’t sell him the stuff, but we ended up fixing it for him,” McCorkle said. “In true Hunter style, he never apologized for it, but he was grateful.”

(via @StephenSilver)

• audio
• Hunter S. Thompson
• video

Macintosh ad with Hunter S. Thompson

What the what?! Hunter S. Thompson was in an Apple Macintosh commercial? Check it out:

)

(via @brillhart)

• advertising
• Apple
• Hunter S. Thompson
• Macintosh
• video

Hunter S. Thompson’s unusual job request

In 1958, Hunter S. Thompson sent a job request to the editor of the Vancouver Sun. Like much of Thompson’s writing, it was unconventional.

By the time you get this letter, I’ll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I’ll let my offer stand. And don’t think that my arrogance is unintentional: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I started working for you.

I didn’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham. The man despised me, of course, and I had nothing but contempt for him and everything he stood for. If you asked him, he’d tell you that I’m “not very likable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.)

Nothing beats having good references.

• Hunter S. Thompson
• working