Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

COLUMN: Norm!

Writer Thompson says Bryant's legal wranglings to top O.J. case

"You thought O.J. (Simpson) was bad? Wait until we get a taste of (this) scandal." HUNTER S. THOMPSON WEEKLY COLUMN FOR ESPN.COM

Hunter S. Thompson, writing for the first time since his dazed and hazy Honeymoon in Las Vegas, is going gonzo over the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case.

He predicts the legal circus is about to take America to "a new low."

"You thought O.J. (Simpson) was bad? Wait until we get a taste of (this) scandal," wrote Thompson, whose weekly column for ESPN.com has been absent from the Website since June 10.

"It will be like a feeding frenzy and a long parade of cannibals," he wrote, adding, "The more I learn about this case, the more I understand that this is not about rape at all. It is about money, pure money and nothing else. Nobody is going to jail in this case, but some people are going to pay."

Thompson revealed that he had started an alloy spine replacement when he made his ballyhooed return to Las Vegas, more than 30 years after his drug-addled visit when he authored the counter-culture classic "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

If he was indeed fresh from surgery, as he suggests, he took an odd approach to rehabilitation. When he surfaced at a poolside party at the Palms, after angering CineVegas Film Festival organizers for not showing up at an art panel discussion that afternoon, he was sitting on his haunches, Buddha-like, atop a portable refrigerator. He was mostly incoherent, alternately yipping and grunting, while meeting admirers.

His surgery was done at Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Vail, Colo., he said, noting that's where Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers star, had knee surgery the day after the incident with a 19-year-old hotel employee is alleged to have occurred.

Thompson renewed his bashing of the Bush administration, saying, "They somehow managed to blow it all, like a gang of kids on a looting spree.

"It is genuinely incredible. The U.S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap war in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of corrupt Brits despises us. We are losers, and that is the one unforgivable sin in America.

"Big darkness, soon come. Take my word for it."

It's a Wrap

Talk about art imitating life.

Dick Van Patten, best-known for "Eight is Enough," shared a classic Hollywood tale Tuesday for Johnson & Tofte, morning deejays at KSFN-AM, 1140.

Van Patten said that while playing an usher in the 1973 film "Soylent Green" he led Edwin G. Robinson's character into a peaceful death chamber used to recycle humans.

It was one of Van Patten's greatest thrills, and everything went well, he said.

But not so well for Robinson, famous for his tough-guy gangster roles.

The very next day, leading man Charlton Heston, called the cast together and announced that Robinson had died during his sleep the night before, recalled Van Patten.

The Scene and Heard

With Mariah Carey performing Saturday, and Gloria Estefan arriving in October, Kate Maddox, KLAS-TV, Channel 8 entertainment reporter and Channel 14, UPN anchor, wonders when the Colosseum, home of Celine Dion, is going to be renamed "the diva dome."...

Siegfried & Roy are in Florida today and Thursday, their off days, celebrating the successful debut of protege Darren Romeo's engagement at Busch Gardens.

Sightings

University of Memphis basketball coach John Calipari, dining at Piero's Italian Cuisine for a second night in a row Tuesday with a table full of coaches in town to scout the Big Time Tournament. ... Film legend Tony Curtis, having his car checked out at Pat Clark Pontiac on Monday.

The Punch Line

"It's not true that (we) are no longer speaking. I saw his last show. At least I hope it was his last show." -- Broadway lyricist Tim Rice, on composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Norm Clarke can be reached at 383-0244 or norm@reviewjournal.com.