“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”
This slogan, often accredited to the wonderful godfather of Gonzo journalism, Mr Hunter S Thompson, is emblazoned across the urinals in the boys bogs in King Tuts Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow. Much as I agree with the sentiment, I’m not a fan of the misquote – not at all.
Thompson - awesome
The fact that King Tuts Wah Wah Hut is a money-grabbing, fuck-all-good-doing arm of DFConcerts (who are also a championed powerhouse of the Scottish music industry for some reason) is bad enough but misquoting a guy who was knocking the TV industry as knocking the music industry is at once confusing, sly, deeply contradictory yet unfortunately predictable. King Tut’s being the anti-hero and damning the industry they exist in is as believable as Avril Lavigne’s punk get-up. When I read that quote as I happilly piss all over it all I read is, “Hey Waz, you’re thick, you’re fucking stupid, HAHA! King Tut’s is so subversive and against the grain, or so everyone thinks, but that’s only because they’re fucking stupid too! MWA HAHA! PS would you like to play for us? but if you don’t sell lots of tickets you’re not welcome back.”
Tut's - rubbish
My rage continues unfettered and for reasons I’m not making clear here, I understand this blog may seem harsh and unfair, but let’s not get caught up in that crazy world, I’m jaded, we are here to discuss Hunter.
So, here, for your education, is the real Hunter S Thompson passage from his book Generation of Swine (apt, ahem, Tut’s):
“The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.
Which is more or less true. For the most part, they are dirty little animals with huge brains and no pulse. Every once in a while, they will toss up a token human like Ed Bradley or Edwin Newman or Hughes Rudd… and there are others, no doubt, like Studs Terkel in Chicago and the twisted Rev. Gene Scott, who works like a sleepless ferret in the maniac bowels of Southern California….
But these are only the exceptions that prove the hideous rule. Mainly we are dealing with a profoundly degenerate world, a living web of foulness, greed and treachery… which is also the biggest real business around and impossible to ignore. You can’t get away from TV. It is everywhere. The hog is in the tunnel.”
Thompson, Hunter. S., Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the ’80s (New York: Summit Books, 1988).
Tags: King Tut's
