Puerto Rico was a backwater and the Daily News was staffed mainly by
ill-tempered wandering rabble. They moved erratically, on the winds of
rumor and opportunity, all over Europe, Latin America and the Far East
-- wherever there were English-language newspapers, jumping from one to
another, looking always for the big break, the crucial assignment, the
rich heiress or the fat job at the far end of the next plane ticket.
In a sense I was one of them -- more competent than some and more stable
than others -- and in the years that I carried that ragged banner I was
seldom unemployed. Sometimes I worked for three newspapers at once.
I wrote ad copy for new casinos and bowling alleys. I was a consultant
for the cockfighting syndicate, an utterly corrupt high-end restaurant
critic, a yachting photographer and a routine victim of police brutality.
It was a greedy life and I was good at it. I made some interesting friends,
had enough money to get around, and learned a lot about the world that
I could never have learned in any other way.
Hunter Stockton Thompson, "The Rum Diary", 1998
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