HST: He's deceptively mild in public, although every once in a while he'll run amok. He behaved pretty well at the Derby, even though he was drunk the whole time.

ED.: Drunk?

Gonzo 1 - The Great Shark Hunt

HST: He's constantly drunk, in public --

ED.: Does he draw on the spot?

HST: Well he sketches on the spot, he takes a lot of photographs. He uses a little sort of Minox-type camera. I didn't see him taking that many photos in Miami and Washington. He used to do more of that in the old days. Now he sketches on the spot, but then he goes back to the hotel and has the whole assignment finished that same night.

ED.: So he's very fast?

HST: Yes, it's shocking to work with him. Just about the time I'm starting to sit down and get to work, he's finished. It's depressing. It took me three weeks to write that Kentucky Derby story, but Steadman did his drawings in three days. He's not really a serious boozer, you know, but when he comes over here and gets involved in these horrible scenes, it causes him to drink heavily.

ED.: What happened at America's Cup?

HST: Well we met in New York, flew to Newport, and on the way I. . . uh. . . I had a whole bunch of these little purple pills somebody had given me. I knew it was going to be a beastly goddamn assignment and I had definite plans for keeping it as unhinged as possible. . . kind of off-balance, off-center. I had no intention of getting a serious story out of it. Our idea was to drive this boat we'd chartered right into the race, right into the course. It was a 50-foot sloop -- not a racing boat, but a pretty big sailing yacht. Unfortunately, the weather was so horrible that the bastards only raced one day out of three and the scene was still going on when we had to leave. . . for a very specific reason.