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Tuesday, October 23, 2001
Foul balls and rash predictions

By Hunter S. Thompson
Page 2 columnist

Two teams that will not play in the Super Bowl for another eight years are the Denver Broncos and the screwy Indianapolis Colts. That much is clear beyond doubt. They are Losers, doomed like blind pigs in a jungle of snakes and hyenas. The Colts are chicken crap, and the Broncos won't even make the playoffs. They have humiliated me for the last time.

Aside from that, I feel juiced up and ready to make a few rash statements and irresponsible predictions about this week's games. So stand back and prepare to be enlightened. The fat is in the fire.

San Francisco and Cleveland will meet in the Super Bowl, and the Browns will be stomped like cheap grapes. The Yankees will lose the World Series and R.J. will throw two no-hitters, then overdose on tobacco and announce his retirement from the game.

Are we cooking yet? If not, let's blurt out some more. I see the Rams losing to New Orleans by one point, Oakland whipping the Eagles by 10, and the 49ers beating the snot out of the phony Chicago Bears in a blinding fog-storm. Dallas will win big over Arizona, New England will beat Denver by 15, and UCLA will embarrass Stanford.

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These are only a few of the many far-reaching visions I've endured in the past two days. I have been working around the clock to finish the first 88 pages of my long-awaited Memoir, titled "Sex and Justice in the Kingdom of Fear," which will be in bookstores next year.

Last week was extremely busy. I spent most of it doing top-secret surveillance work on some of my neighbors who are obviously up to no good and need to be watched closely. I have always hated Evil-doers, and now that the President has given us a green light to crush them by any means necessary, I see my duty clearly. Dangerous creeps are everywhere, and our only hope is to neutralize them with extreme prejudice. These freaks have taken their shot(s), and now it is our turn.

		Last week was extremely busy. I spent most of it doing top-secret surveillance work on some of my neighbors who are obviously up to no good and need to be watched closely. I have always hated Evil-doers, and now that the President has given us a green light to crush them by any means necessary, I see my duty clearly. Dangerous creeps are everywhere, and our only hope is to neutralize them with extreme prejudice. These freaks have taken their shot(s), and now it is our turn.

The first thing I did was beef up my guest-list for the weekend football games. Running full-time surveillance on unsuspecting people is extremely taxing work for quasi-professional operatives with no funding, but I am blessed with deep background experience in the spook business, and I know a few top-secret shortcuts that simplify the process enormously.

One of them is to always act normal and calm in situations of extreme danger. If your job is to surveil and record every moment in the life of a Foul Ball who might be growing Anthrax spores in his basement, for instance, you will learn far more about his brain patterns by inviting him into your home for a nine-hour marathon of disturbing football games on TV than you will ever learn by surveiling him through a telescope from a frozen creek-bed in a pasture near his hideout. With luck, you might catch him in the act of fondling a foreign flag, or prancing around his parlor wearing nothing but a turban and a black jockstrap -- but that will not be enough, in the way of hard evidence, to justify terminating him with extreme prejudice. There is a big difference between croaking a harmless pervert and callously murdering a close relative of the Saudi Ambassador.

Any Evil-doer with the brains to plot lethal damage against our national infrastructure will also be degenerate enough to protect his Evil cover by faking great enthusiasm for watching and gambling on American football games.

He will not want to talk about his job, but ask him anyway. "How is it going at work, Omar? Are you cool with it? Are you meeting enough girls? Are you a gambling man? Do you have any extra hashish? Why are you looking at me that way? What's eating you?" It is better to load him up with booze and goofy chatter than to make him suspicious by staring at his hands and constantly taking notes.

Whoops! I think I see him jogging out there on the road, right in from of my gate. Why not go out and offer him some hot water? Yes, of course, do it now. Remember to watch your back. I'm out of here.

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's books include Hell's Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, The Proud Highway, Better Than Sex and The Rum Diary. His new book, Fear and Loathing in America, has just been released. A regular contributor to various national and international publications, Thompson now lives in a fortified compound near Aspen, Colo. His column, "Hey, Rube," appears each Monday on Page 2.