Oscar Acosta was immortalized by the quote "Too weird to live, too rare to die."
His writing could carry a similar epithet. The Chicano rights activist, brilliant attorney and lunatic caricature of the Mexican-American that is most famous for his role as the fat lawyer in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" created wars in the courtroom, legends in the civil rights movement and art out of his vomit. All those aspects of the complex and sometimes foul Acosta are portrayed in his two epic yet light-spirited (and sometimes fictionalized) autobiographies. In total, the two books are no more than 450 pages, so they are quick reads by any definition, and when his perversion doesn't entertain, his amazing role in the Mexican-American Civil Rights movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s educates.
Like the work of his closest friend, Hunter Thompson, Acosta's work manages to be at the same time irreverent and informative, debauchery with reason. Acosta was a man having Too Much Fun while the world burned around him.
His two books, "Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo" and "Revolt of the Cockroach People," are two of the best examples of a genre that quickly degenerated into Chicano Lit—tales of the Mexican-American's struggle in a time when discrimination was widespread. But they succeed where their followers fail. These are no cliche tales of cooking tortillas with your grandmother. They are legitimate pieces of literature that analyze the human condition even as it analyzes the Chicano problem.
Acosta was a troubled man. His books don't lie about that. He portrays himself as a man who views his own growing beer gut as disgusting, who can't always take the pressure of his work with the East Legal Aid Society for unceasing masses of brown faces caught up in the criminal justice system, a man who believes in his ideals to the point of stomach ulcers. He was the man who once passed out on Ernest Hemingway's grave. He was also the man who blocked up the entire Los Angeles judicial system in the early 1970s just to prove a point. Acosta portrays both these men in his vibrant, fast-paced autobiographies.
His books are for anyone who is serious about the history of the Mexican-American. Despite all the carnage he would later become famous for, Acosta was a lawyer of considerable skill, who understood the workings of the same system that he complained about. But the brevity of his writing, his fast-paced life and references to the 1970s youth culture mean his work can also speak to a younger audience. His vibrant, colorful style and mixture of serious issues and quirky, often-hysterical melodrama between crazy hippies always keeps his work entertaining.
I purchased my copies of his autobiographies at Barnes and Noble many years ago, but his books can be found online at places such as www.amazon.com.
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