Gonzo @ The Derby
Forty-six years after Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman first joined forces with "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved," a piece for the now out-of-print Scanlan's Monthly, their first meeting and exploits are headed to the silver screen. ESPN will premiere a 13-minute 30-for-30 short entitled "Gonzo @ The Derby," May 3 at 10 am on the world wide web at espn.com/30for30/shorts. The video will also air during the 6 pm edition of SportsCenter on May 6. If you like to read the book before the movie comes out, we highly recommend it, you can do so here.
As the story goes, Thompson was looking for a special kind of face that Steadman would sketch for the lead drawing, "I saw it, in my head, as the mask of the whiskey gentry — a pretentious mix of booze, failed dreams and a terminal identity crisis; the inevitable result of too much inbreeding in a closed and ignorant culture." Steadman said later on, “We were the face of the crowd we’d gone there to find.”
This origin story, a favorite bedtime tale among our tribe, has the whole brewery abuzz. We hope you're also allowed a few desk beers for emergency situations, and we would consider the viewing of this short to be one of them. We'll be enjoying the greatest two minutes in sports with a Mint Julep Ale in hand but we're keeping the Gonzo nearby for dessert. Tune in and travel down the rabbit hole, we'll see you on the other side.