Goodbye Gonzo

A Tribute
by Duke Crevanator

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they realize that the status quo has suddenly ceased to exist. I have recently gone through that transformation. For years the fearsome foursome of myself (yes the irrepressible Duke Crevanator), Mad Dog, The Swede, and Birdie have ravaged the countryside of New Hampshire with the booze flowing, blunts burning, and guns smoking. Terrified hippies, impressed punks and drunken farmers have all been left in our dust. Yet in the last few months, it all came to an end.

Birdie was the first to go. He had become burned out on New Hampshire and his original home of Seattle beckoned to him. “Oh well” we had thought, “we’ll still have the three of us.” So instead of getting down, we got up and rocketed to the bar where the Swede was bartender. At 9 P.M. we locked the doors and raided the bar, drinking everything in sight while sucking down blunts. Finally, at about 2 A.M. we stumbled out the back door, leaving behind a carnage of broken bottles and whipped cream cans emptied of their nitrous. The next day, Birdie was gone.

Everything flowed fairly smoothly for a while, although Birdie’s contribution to the madness was sorely missed. Then came the next blow; Mad Dog was offered a job on a yacht that was sailing around the world on a five year cruise. Despite my obvious envy, I encouraged him to take the job and he did. By making this decision, however, he had given himself only a day before he had to depart. Plans for a celebration had to be made quickly and I raced to the Bowery. I arrived at 3 P.M. with Bernie, the Mighty Perzan, and Wane Shax. Since we all were on acid and had plenty of cash, I figured I could last until Mad Dog and the Swede arrived that night. Well, time progressed and I began tripping harder than I had planned, and my cash flow was draining rapidly. The thought of being at a strip joint with no booze money threw me into a major funk. Luckily, the beautiful Babyfreak came through with the booze and butt moolah. Mad Dog arrived and the madness really started rolling. We kept taking acid until the girls were leaving so many tracers that, unfortunately, no one body part was clearly visible. At that point, it didn’t really matter anymore because the Master Plan had been achieved and it was only an added bonus when the Queers were played over the booming stereo system, even though Joe Queer himself had blown us off. The night ended with myself being completely deranged and in a rage, as usual. We ended up at the Swede’s house where I calmed myself by blasting off a clip from the Taurus 9 mm into the metal frame of Route 1 Bypass bridge. Then we lurched back, passed out, and the next day, Mad Dog was on a flight to Florida.

At this point, me and the Swede knew things were looking grim. With only two of us left, the capacity of bringing our addiction to depravity to new heights was severely limited. We had discussed many times, over whiskey sours at Benjamin’s (the favorite local bar), the possibility of creating new plans to keep us excited. That’s when the final bomb came; The Swede accepted a job offer as a journalist in some shit bag town in Southern New Mexico and was leaving in two days. To top it all off, I was informed of his decision moments before I entered the courthouse for a pre-trial hearing I knew was not going to go well. Anyway, the hearing went terribly, with the conclusion that my going to the Big House for a little while was a near certainty. Needless to say, I was not in the best of moods, but I was hardly going to leave the Swede on a bad note. We immediately headed to the nearest bar and sat down to some serious boozing. After a few Scotch on the rocks and whiskey sours, I was beginning to lighten up. At five, we headed down to the Swede’s bar, where he was going to bartend for the last time. In honor of Birdie and Mad Dog we closed the bar at 9 again and began drinking heavily. In my drunken state, I was insistent on going to the Bowery, but the Swede and the guys in the kitchen bribed me with pot and the promise of girls at another bar. We rolled on in and immediately did some lines of crystal meth in the bathroom cuz I was starting to slide into total oblivion. With a new edge, I returned to the bar and proceeded to get my ass kicked at pool. That’s when I realized that this place was doing Karoake.

If there is one thing I have consistently sworn I’d never do, it is Karoake. In my drugged out haze, though, I gave in to the urge. Before I was quite sure of what was going on, me and the Swede were up on stage singing the Beach Boys (my choice). Suddenly we were swarmed by a group of girls who wanted to join in. There were no complaints from us cuz they were all hot. Half way through “Surfin’ U.S.A.” the owner of the bar joined us on stage with a couple of free whiskey sours. We ended up doing every Beach Boys song they had, with girls all around us joining in. With yells of “Tesco Vee” where we didn’t know the words, we gave the Beach Boys a definite punk flavor.

When the bar closed, we traveled to a friend’s house cuz he “had something to show us.” We got to his pad and I fucked around with his 9 foot python, trying to piss it off, which I did, much to my chagrin. It’s not a comfortable sight to see a monster like that flying at you, even if there is thick glass. Then we toyed around with his tank full of pirhana by throwing in gold fish and a mouse or two. The best part of the night, however, was when he suddenly appeared with a thick wooden box that he cracked open. Inside lay two, shiny AK-47’s fully loaded and ready to rock-n-roll. I was up for heading to some deserted parking lot and opening up on a dumpster or something, but was talked out of it. In either case, we smoked a few bones and passed out in crumpled heaps on the floor. And, again, two days later the Swede was enroute to New Mexico.

So now I’m sittin here at Benjamin’s, scribbling these thoughts down on a series of napkins, drinkin’ Pabst Blue Ribbon, and wonderin’ what’s gonna come next. We had four years of rockin’ gruesome depravity, and now it’s over. And I guess my entire point in telling you this story is that Duke Crevanator and everyone else out there should never allow themselves to be beaten down. They can lock me up for awhile, but once I’m out, new challenges in the realm of alcoholic, dope fiendish, disgusting and violent actions await. And when me and Tesco Vee roll into yer burg you’ll all “be cringing one way or another.”