Editor’s Note: The following is a verbatim reproduction of an article appearing in The Chronicle, Duke University’s student daily on October 23, 1974. Page Auditorium is on Duke’s West campus.
Thompson, Audience Clash in Page Chaos
By Dan Hull
“Is there any coherence in this thing? I feel like I’m in a fucking slaughterhouse in Chicago early in the morning.”
DURHAM, N.C.–In a pathetic attempt to slide something coherent through his staccato mumble, Gonzo journalist Dr. Hunter S. Thompson was met last night at Page Auditorium with a bevy of jeers, curses, and a request by the Duke University Union to leave the stage.
According to Union spokespersons, it was expected that the slightly inebriated Thompson would drive away the audience if his talk turned out particularly monotonous.
Frustrated by the dialogue between the disjointed speaker and the belligerent audience, some did leave while others, many of whom were as well-oiled as Thompson, remained until the journalist was escorted off the stage.
Beer cans and joints
Beer cans and an occasional joint passed among the rows of the auditorium as Thompson, forty minutes late and looking more like a lanky tourist than a radical journalist, poked across the stage to the podium.
Slouching there, Thompson began: “I have no speech, nothing to say. I feel like a piece of meat,” referring to his marketing by his lecture agency.
Having tossed aside the index cards on which were written questions from the audience, Thompson received few serious oral questions from the audience.
“What I’d really like to be in is an argument” he said.
When a baby cried Thompson mumbled, “That’s the most coherent fucking thing I’ve heard all night.”
In most cases, serious questions, and Thompson’s responses to them were inaudible or incoherent.
Visibly put off by the belligerent Duke audience whom he repeatedly referred to as “beer hippies,” Thompson was most relaxed and clear when talking about Richard Nixon.
Photos: The Chronicle.