Build Date: Wed Sep 30 18:40:31 2026 UTC
I wonder if every city press club has an adjoining whiskey-soaked flophouse?
-- Mr. Bad
French gonzo wannabes -- and a clown
2001-11-14 02:10:24
"We are the French revival of Gonzo Journalism !" their self-promoting email read. "Would you agree on a link exchange ?"
Actually, their email began with the words "Hello. Guess who ?" That must be some coy French joke. I'm picturing a pouty maid named Babbette in one of those frilly black-and-white outfits. "Hello. Guess who ?" she burbles, as she covers my eyes with her immaculate fingers....
Er, okay, 95 percent of my knowledge of France is limited to Inspector Closeau movies. And the cartoon version where the cabs never stopped for the Inspector, and he'd end up complaining to "Inspector Doo Doo." And that time Alvin and the Chipmunks sang a Maurice Chevalier song. But even so, I'm having a hard time picturing the "French revival of Gonzo journalism." Aren't all French people laughably preening and effete? By definition?
I'd tell you more about their web site, but NeoGonzo.com gives this message when you click on its link for an English version. "Who the fuck do you think you are ? I had to learn your fucking language to go and watch your god damn movies, so if you wanna read my words, go to school motha fucka, and learn French." Well, okay, but there's a difference between being gonzo and being an asshole. Not that the French would know. Especially mincing Frenchmen who open their email to strangers by saying "Hello! Guess who?"
So that's about all I have to report -- except that their web page has a picture of "NeoGonzo Le Clown." (Which, according to Babelfish, translates to "NeoGonzo, the clown.") It's designed to look like Hunter S. Thompson, but with a cute bulbous red nose. Apparently it corresponds to an article on the site which Babelfish translates as " 'The largest caberet of the world': the truth is elsewhere." I'm assuming it must be about the dark tortured genius of Marcel Marceau.
So at this point, I'd have to conclude that being gonzo takes more than sending an email to someone in which you call yourself gonzo. And more than tucking the word "gonzo" into the name of your clown mascot. It's customary at Pigdog Journal to end each article with a link where readers can check things out themselves, but in this case I'm sticking with the crazed neo-disciples that I'm already familiar with. So the link below leads to my best example of some true bad-ass French gonzo entertainment.
T O P S T O R I E S
John Dvorak has passed. I’m of mixed emotions. First off I’m more positive about his contribution to the overall technology journalism of the early PC days through the 90s, despite how many things he got wrong. He was a firebrand and commanded attention. (More...)
America's National Recording Registry Inducts Culturally Significant Artist - Weezer!
America's Library of Congress calls them "defining sounds of history and culture" and "audio treasures worthy of preservation for all time based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage." Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Weezer! (More...)
The Crossroads are real and The Blues is a place; The enduring myth of Robert Johnson (More...)
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
A Treatise Prepared for the Gallup Organization on the Symbolism of the Scarab
Well dahlings, the response to my new tarot column has been quite overwhelming. I got three whole pieces of mail requesting my arcane insight. One asked why blogs suck so much, and one was a completely incomprehensible tale of bears shitting random numbers in the woods — I am fairly certain it was a cryptographic allegory. Howsomever, only ONE of the inquiries was accompanied by a crisp ten-dollar bill, and so it's the Gallup Organization that will this week reap the benefit of my wicked pack of cards. (More...)
We here at Spock Mountain Research Labs (SMRL - world leaders in beverage research and leisure technology) have been noting some complaints about a few of the last Spocktails recipes we’ve released to the general public. Some complaints received to barfback and pigdog-l have centered around the opinion that no one in their right minds would make the drink in question much less consume it. (More...)
The quest for knowledge never ends at the super top secret Spock Mountain Laboratory, although it is frequently interrupted by beverage breaks. Recently, a team of crack ethnomixologists returned from a dangerous expedition to the frozen expanse of Canada with the much sought recipe for a Spocktail that is destined to replace blunt force head trauma as the major cause of brain damage in the civilized world. (More...)
The Walken / Country Bear Conspiracy
As has been recently reported in the PDJ, Christopher Walken, evil s00per villain extraordinaire, will be appearing next month in Disney's newest release, The Country Bear Movie. Always playing some wicked and very disturbed badass in movies like Sleepy Hollow, Illuminata, The Prophecy I, II, III, Pulp Fiction, Batman Returns, The Milagro Beanfield War, A View to a Kill, The Dogs of War, Heaven's Gate, and The Deer Hunter, Walken is unsuprisingly a big favorite in the PDJ news room. (More...)
A Day in the Life of a Beverotologist
It was starting to look like a very boring Saturday, trapped as I was in the suburban wastelands of the outer Bay Area, so I called my Able Assistant (AA) and proposed that we perform some Spocktail field tests. For some time I've been working on creating the quintessential cinematic beverage and even tho' SMRL does most of its testing during nocturnal hours, this seemed an opportune time to roll up the sleeves of our labcoats and get some science done. While the beverotology creation tested this day (The Neurotoxin) must be deemed a success, this article focuses more the journey of the experimenters, rather then the science of beverotology. (More...)
Spock Went, Spock Wrote, Spock Kicked Ass
Every Labor Day weekend a large portion of the PDJ staff joins 30,000 other freaks at one of the biggest and strangest art festivals in the world - Burning Man - somewhere on the edge of the Black Rock Desert. Our base of operations is always the ultra swank Spock Mountain Research Labs - the World Leaders in Beverage Science and Leisure Technology. This year, we hauled up our computers, printers and a massive digital duplicator, determined to become Black Rock City's third daily newspaper. Even Spock was surprised by our success - news will never be viewed the same on the playa. Read all seven issues of the 2002 Spock Science Monitor for yourself and see why. (More...)
