Oscar Zeta Acosta
- "Oscar Acosta" redirects here. For the Major League Baseball pitching coach, see Oscar Carlos Acosta
| Oscar Zeta Acosta | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
April 8, 1935 El Paso, Texas, United States |
| Died |
Disappeared 1974 Mexico |
| Occupation | Attorney, author |
| Literary movement | Chicano Movement |
| Notable work(s) | Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo |
Oscar Zeta Acosta (April 8, 1935 – disappeared 1974) was an American attorney, politician, novelist and Chicano Movement activist, perhaps best known for his friendship with the American author Hunter S. Thompson, who characterized him as his Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in his acclaimed novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Life and career
Acosta was born in El Paso, Texas, and raised in the small San Joaquin Valley rural community of Riverbank, California, near Modesto. Acosta's father was drafted during World War II, so he had to take care of the family.
After finishing high school, Acosta joined the U.S. Air Force. Following his discharge, Acosta worked his way through Modesto Junior College;[1] becoming the first member of his family to get a college education. He attended night classes at San Francisco Law School and passed the California Bar exam in 1966.[2] In 1967, Acosta began working as an antipoverty attorney for the East Legal Aid Society in Oakland, California.
In 1968 Acosta moved to East Los Angeles and joined the Chicano Movement as an activist attorney, defending Chicano groups and activists, such as the S.O.S., Brown Berets member Carlos Filafasofa, and other underserved members of the East L.A. barrio. His controversial defense earned him the ire of the LAPD, who often followed and harassed him.
In 1970, Acosta ran for sheriff of Los Angeles County against Peter J. Pitchess, and received more than 100,000 votes. During the campaign, he spent a couple of days in jail for contempt of court, and vowed that if he were elected, he would do away with the Sheriff's Department as it was then constituted. Acosta, known for loud ties and a flowered attaché case with a Chicano Power sticker, didn't come close to Pitchess' 1,300,000 votes, but did beat Everett Holladay, Monterey Park Chief of Police.
His first novel, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, was published in 1972, followed in 1973 by The Revolt of the Cockroach People, a fictionalized version of the 1970 Chicano Moratorium.
In the summer of 1967 Acosta met Hunter S. Thompson, who would in 1971 write an article on Acosta and the injustice in the barrios of East L.A. for Rolling Stone titled "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan". This article also discusses the murder of Los Angeles Times columnist Rubén Salazar. When working on the article, Thompson and Acosta decided a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada was in order, so that they could discuss Salazar and racial injustice in L.A. openly. A write-up of the trip has now been immortalized by the novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
As Hunter Thompson wrote in "The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat", the legal department of the publishers of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas stated that they could not publish the book unless clearance were given by Acosta, due to the obvious references to the attorney. When written for permission, Acosta refused – on the grounds that he did not want to be referred to as a "300-pound Samoan". He did, however, understand that having this reference substituted by his name would mean the book could not be published on time, so he promised clearance provided that his name and picture would appear on the dustjacket.
Disappearance
In 1974, Acosta disappeared while traveling in Mexico. His son, Marco Acosta, believes that he was the last person to talk to his father. In May 1974, Acosta telephoned his son, telling him that he was "about to board a boat full of white snow." Marco is later quoted in reference to his father's disappearance: "The body was never found, but we surmise that probably, knowing the people he was involved with, he ended up mouthing off, getting into a fight, and getting killed."[3]
According to Thompson's obituary of Acosta, titled "Fear and Loathing in the Graveyard of the Weird: The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat," Acosta was a powerful attorney and preacher but suffered from an addiction to amphetamines, and had a predilection for LSD. The article was Thompson's response to rumors that Acosta was alive somewhere around Miami.
Quotes about Acosta
Oscar was not into serious street-fighting, but he was hell on wheels in a bar brawl. Any combination of a 250 lb Mexican and LSD-25 is a potentially terminal menace for anything it can reach – but when the alleged Mexican is in fact a profoundly angry Chicano lawyer with no fear at all of anything that walks on less than three legs and a de facto suicidal conviction that he will die at the age of 33 – just like Jesus Christ – you have a serious piece of work on your hands. Especially if the bastard is already 33½ years old with a head full of Sandoz acid, a loaded .357 Magnum in his belt, a hatchet-wielding Chicano bodyguard on his elbow at all times, and a disconcerting habit of projectile vomiting geysers of pure blood off the front porch every 30 or 40 minutes, or whenever his malignant ulcer can't handle any more raw tequila.
Every century there are a few individuals who are destined to lead the weak, to hold unpopular beliefs and, most important, who are willing to die for their cause. My father's whole life was given to the fight for "the people".—Marco Acosta
One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.—Hunter S. Thompson, Rolling Stone December 15, 1977, eventually part of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Motion pictures
Acosta has been twice portrayed in major motion pictures:
The 1980 film Where the Buffalo Roam loosely depicts Acosta's life and his relationship with Hunter S. Thompson, and takes its name from Thompson's obituary to Acosta "The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat", which in turn is a reference to Acosta's book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo. Peter Boyle portrayed Acosta, who is referred to in the film as "Carl Lazlo, Esquire."[4] Bill Murray portrayed Thompson.
The 1998 film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is an adaptation of Thompson's novel of the same name, which is an account of Thompson and Acosta's trip to Las Vegas in 1971. Benicio del Toro portrays Acosta,[5] referred to in the film and novel as "Dr. Gonzo", while Johnny Depp portrayed Thompson (under the alias of Raoul Duke).
References
- ↑ http://www.popsubculture.com/pop/bio_project/oscar_zeta_acosta.html
- ↑ CA State Bar Records
- ↑ "Shermakaye Bass". Retrieved 2009-01-18.
- ↑ Moorhead, Jim (April 28, 1980). "It Gets Rather Messy 'Where Buffalo Roam'". The Evening Independent.
- ↑ Olsen, Mark (December 11, 2008). "A rebel force". Los Angeles Times.
Further reading
- Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), ISBN 0-679-72213-0 (Random House)
- The Revolt of the Cockroach People (1973), ISBN 0-679-72212-2 (Knopf)
- Oscar "Zeta" Acosta: the uncollected works. Ilan Stavans, editor. (1996) (Arte Público Press)
- Hospitable Imaginations: Contemporary Latino/a Literature and the Pursuit of a Readership, a dissertation on Oscar “Zeta” Acosta within the context of Gloria Anzaldúa, Piri Thomas, Giannina Braschi, Sandra Cisneros, Junot Díaz, and Gilbert Hernandez. Christopher Thomas Gonzalez (2012), OhioLink.
- "Thompson's and Acosta's Collaborative Creation of the Gonzo Narrative
Style", Shimberlee Jirón-King. Comparative Literature and Culture, Vol 10, Issue 1, Purdue University, 2008.
- The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time. Hunter S. Thompson (1979), Ballantine Books, ISBN 0-345-37482-7
External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Oscar Zeta Acosta |
- "Guide to the Acosta Papers" at the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives
- "Oscar Zeta Acosta reading 'La Cucaracha'" on YouTube
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