The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat
Below is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared in RS 254, from Dec. 15, 1977.
And in at least momentary fairness to the Management, we should note that the term “star-crossed” is Dr. Thompson’s — as are all other harsh judgments he was finally compelled to submit. …
“We work in the dark, we do what we can.” Some poet who never met Werner Erhard said that, but so what?
What began as a sort of riptide commentary on “the meaning of the Sixties” soon turned into a wild and hydra-headed screed on Truth, Vengeance, Journalism and the meaning, such as it is, of Jimmy Carter.
But none of these things could be made to fit in the space we had available — so we were finally forced to compromise with The Doc and his people, who had all along favored a long, dangerous and very costly piece titled: “The Search for the Brown Buffalo.”
It was Dr. Thompson’s idea to have Rolling Stone finance this open-ended search for one of his friends who disappeared under mean and mysterious circumstances in the late months of 1974, or perhaps the early months of 1975. The Brown Buffalo was the nom de plume of the Chicano attorney from East Los Angeles who gained international notoriety as the brutal and relentless “300-pound Samoan attorney” in Thompson’s book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. — The Editors