Brian Nova presents … spotlight on … Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (1971)

 

We all know it doesn’t get any hotter than a gorgeous rebel Kentucky boy. This day is dedicated to Hunter S. Thompson, sports writer, Rolling Stone columnist, counter-culture icon, journalist, writer, madman, dope-fiend, Dr. of Journalism, an American original.

For those of you who by some unfortunate stroke of luck are not familiar with HST’s work, hold on to your hats, Bubba. For those of you who have heard of him, but not read his works, I insist you read one of the most powerful, possessed, critical, clear, truthful, and peculiar talents of late 20th century/early 21st century journalism and literature. His first book “Hells Angels” is one of the most interesting and frightening journalistic accomplishments imaginable. Hunter Thompson was a self-confessed “Political Junky”; writing endless letters and articles on the subject, and several very fine books. No potato salad recipes here: grit and bone.

His book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a counter-culture classic and an essential of freedom-literature. Hunter Thompson is a legend.

“It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.”

I remember first reading Hunter Thompson. I was fifteen, a young man with many interests, but quickly becoming a Burroughsian nightmare. One of my good friends suggested I check out this insanely depraved writer. I was walking around the old bookstore, there was music then, so long ago. Hungry for knowledge, experience, and fun! Searching for the weekend fix. What was the name of that author? Think machine-guns, I said to myself. Thompson! Something, Thompson. Politics? And there on a low-shelf, behold! The gloved enigmatic smile of a drunken Buddha. “BETTER THAN SEX”?! What is this craziness? This would surely require some acid. So, that night I went on to roll and laugh my way through the beginning pages of a literary obsession. Hunter Thompson, the man, the myth, the GONZO! The doctor will see you now. Enjoy!

 

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Further

Guide to the classics: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
How Las Vegas Locals Really Feel About “Fear and Loathing”
“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” still bites, 50 years on
Fear and Loathing At 50: What Does It Mean To Las Vegas?
The True Story Behind ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’
What “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” Owes to Oscar Acosta
Why’s This So Good? Hunter S. Thompson and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”
Digested classics: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson
Was Hunter S Thompson really as bizarre and unhinged as he is portrayed in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?
Fifty Years of Fear and Loathing
FACT AND FICTION IN FEAR AND LOATHING
Mind-Melting Drugs Of Fear and Loathing

 

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Extras

Hunter S. Thompson Interview on Gonzo Journalism (April 16, 1975)

Hunter S. Thompson interview (1997)

Tim Russert interviews Hunter (11 september 2001)

Hunter S. Thompson: The Final 24 (The Story of His Final 24 Hours)

 

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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: the movie

Terry Gilliam has claimed Hunter S. Thompson was a “pain in the ass” on the set of ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’. The late journalist made a cameo as himself in the 1998 cult film, which stars Johnny Depp as Hunter and is based on the writer’s novel of the same name. And the ‘Monty Python’ star, who helmed the movie, recalled how Hunter – who took his own life in February 2005 – threw bread rolls during his brief appearance and also “refused to go on set” after being told to “sit down”.

When asked if he was on set much, Terry told HeyUGuys.com: “Thankfully no. Just the one day, and we hoped never again. “It was the day we did the ‘Matrix’ club scene. Hunter comes in and it’s suddenly not about making the film anymore. It’s about him. Hunter had to be the centre of attention and he was being an a**hole; throwing bread rolls everywhere while we were filming. After being told to sit down for his cameo, he started saying ‘I wouldn’t sit there, I’m a journalist. I’d be out there!’ I said, ‘We need you there! Because the camera’s there!’ Then he refused to go on set.”

The 79-year-old star – whose previous credits include ’12 Monkeys’ – also revealed that the crew tried to use “the best looking female extra” in a bid to persuade Hunter to film the scene. Terry explained: “The producer, Johnny and I were like three dogs trying to get this recalcitrant sheep into the coral. In the end I had to get the best looking female extra and sit her on the table where Hunter was supposed to go. On the first take he didn’t even look up when he was supposed to because he was too busy talking to her. He was such a f***ing pain in the ass, but we got there in the end. That’s the price you pay when dealing with Hunter Thompson.”

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Interview
from The Atlantic

 

Matthew Hahn: The Internet has been touted as a new mode of journalism — some even go so far as to say it might democratize journalism. Do you see a future for the Internet as a journalistic medium?

Hunter S Thompson: Well, I don’t know. There is a line somewhere between democratizing journalism and every man a journalist. You can’t really believe what you read in the papers anyway, but there is at least some spectrum of reliability. Maybe it’s becoming like the TV talk shows or the tabloids where anything’s acceptable as long as it’s interesting.

I believe that the major operating ethic in American society right now, the most universal want and need is to be on TV. I’ve been on TV. I could be on TV all the time if I wanted to. But most people will never get on TV. It has to be a real breakthrough for them. And trouble is, people will do almost anything to get on it. You know, confess to crimes they haven’t committed. You don’t exist unless you’re on TV. Yeah, it’s a validation process. Faulkner said that American troops wrote “Kilroy was here” on the walls of Europe in World War II in order to prove that somebody had been there — “I was here” — and that the whole history of man is just an effort by people, writers, to just write your name on the great wall.

You can get on [the Internet] and all of a sudden you can write a story about me, or you can put it on top of my name. You can have your picture on there too. I don’t know the percentage of the Internet that’s valid, do you? Jesus, it’s scary. I don’t surf the Internet. I did for a while. I thought I’d have a little fun and learn something. I have an e-mail address. No one knows it. But I wouldn’t check it anyway, because it’s just too fucking much. You know, it’s the volume. The Internet is probably the first wave of people who have figured out a different way to catch up with TV — if you can’t be on TV, well at least you can reach 45 million people [on the Internet].

MH: Let’s talk about your inclusion in the Modern Library. You are now sandwiched in between Thackeray and Tolstoy. What does that mean to you? Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, twenty-five years after it was published, is in the Modern Library.

HST: That’s a little faster than you’d normally think it could occur. You know, most of those people in [the Modern Library] are dead. No, I’m not surprised to be there. I guess it’s a little surprising to be here still walking around and shaking people’s hands.

It tells me the Modern Library’s catching up. But everything has sped up now. Instant communication. Instant news.

MH: When you were starting out, when you were eighteen and you started writing these letters in The Proud Highway, did you think your work would ever be considered classic?

HST: I never sat down and thought about it and stared at it. Obviously, if you read The Proud Highway, I was thinking somewhere along those lines. I never lobbied the Modern Library to include more living writers. I’ve always assumed it was for dead writers. But what I did assume at that time, early on and, shit, every year forever after that, was that I would be dead very soon. The fact that I’m not dead is sort of puzzling to me. It’s sort of an awkward thing to deal with.

MH: You wrote in 1977, in the introduction to The Great Shark Hunt [a collection of HST’s journalism], “I have already lived and finished the life I planned to live — (13 years longer, in fact)….” Thirteen years earlier would have been around the time you wrote Hell’s Angels. Now it’s twenty years since you wrote that introduction. Do you still feel the same way? What was behind writing that?

HST: Oh, sitting alone in an office in New York, the day before Christmas Eve, editing my own life’s work — the selection, the order — because I couldn’t get anybody else to edit it. Somebody pulled out because he wouldn’t publish that poem, “Collect Telegram from a Mad Dog.” I guess he was using that as an excuse. So I ended up having to do it myself. It was a little depressing, sitting up there having to do it myself. One of the advantages of being dead, I guess, is that somebody else can edit all this.

For quite a while there I had to assume that I would never be in anything, much less the Modern Library.

MH: How is your health? How are you feeling now?

HST: I haven’t started any savings accounts…. I tell you, you’d act differently if you thought you were going to die at noon tomorrow. You probably wouldn’t be here doing this. I just figured, “Bye, bye, Miss American Pie, good old boys drinkin’ whiskey and rye, singin’ this’ll be the day that I die.” Yeah, I just felt that all along.

MH: Live every day like your last, because you don’t know what tomorrow’s going to be like?

HST: Well, there’s no plan for it. It’s like going into the 27th inning in a baseball game. You’re like, what the fuck am I doing here, man?

MH: There’s a lot happening for you these days: Fear and Loathing, the movie; the Modern Library; twenty-five years of Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail. Can you compare this time with anything prior — the excitement, maybe, of running for sheriff, or covering Nixon — now that you are sitting here looking back on it all?

HST: I got more of a kick out of running Nixon out of office than I have with these author parties.

You know, Gonzo Journalism is a term that I’ve come to dislike because of the way it’s been cast: inaccurate, crazy. And in a way it might sound like, What am I complaining about? But there’s a big difference. What I called Nixon is true — just a little harsh.

MH: If you were doing it again today, do you think you would go at it the way you did?

HST: Would I do it again, is that what you mean? I’m talking about the word “gonzo.” Yeah, I’d do it again. And that’s the test of everything in life. You know, the way you look back on it. I use this a lot, a great measuring stick. I’d like a good war, a good fight. I get lazy when there’s not one.

In journalism, one of the reasons I think I get the pleasure I do is the political factor. It’s the effect you can have, with journalism. It’s like writing a poem in the woods … you know that old thing about if a tree falls in the woods —

MH: If nobody heard it, did it happen?

HST: Yeah. Technically, no, there’s no sound unless it’s heard. [With journalism,] it’s the effect, it’s the sound, you know, when it’s heard.

MH: It’s the effect? And in that context you would call yourself —

HST: Successful. I don’t need any prizes or parties to shore up my self esteem. When I see Nixon getting on a plane, then I’m there. And he’s headed west and I’m not.

MH: So that was it? Nixon getting on the plane?

HST: Yeah. That might have been the peak of effectiveness.

MH: What were you doing that day? Do you remember?

HST: Absolutely, man. I was in the White House Rose Garden. I was at the end of a red carpet that stretched from the stairs to the helicopter which landed on the lawn. There were some Marines to my left, but I was the last human being in the line. Annie Liebowitz was right beside me. And yeah, just being there and watching him get on, it was — not total victory, but it gave me a sense of being very much a part of not just my reality but everybody else’s. There’s a big difference between railing against some oppressor for twenty years and then ending up in the Bastille, or fighting a twenty-year war and watching the enemy vanquished.

MH: What were your thoughts when you saw him getting on the helicopter?

HST: I felt sorry for him. He hit his head. Right after he did this thing [makes the v-for-victory sign] at the helicopter door, he turned and lashed his head on the top of the rounded door, staggered sideways, and he was so — in some jurisdictions we might have called it “luded out” — he was tranquilized. There’s a civilized word for it: sedated. He was almost led up the stairs. Yeah, I felt sorry for him. Can you imagine that ride west? Jesus Christ, they flew to Andrews Air Force Base, I guess, on the helicopter, and then they had like a six-hour flight to San Clemente. Whew. That must have been a really dark flight.

MH: Did you have a relationship or correspondence with him after that?

HST: No. I was urged to, and I thought about it, but no, I didn’t. I guess that’s a political technique: the war’s over, the game’s over. I don’t want to make it into a game, although I guess it is in the same sense that getting elected President can be seen as a game. It’s a deadly serious game. It’s a very mean thing.

I don’t know why people think that the Mafia is merciless and badder than you know — and yet they don’t assume that the President of the United States is in a position of such power, and that of course he’s going to use the same fucking tools as the Mafia.

MH: The last we heard from you on politics was in Better Than Sex, and that was a couple years back. What do you think about the state of politics today?

HST: I would say that I am more into politics now than I was in ’92. Yeah, I was mesmerized a little bit by the access [Clinton] offered me — like total access. “Come on down,” you know? “Go out drinkin’ with Hillary.” Yeah, they did a good job on me. But I was set on beating Bush. I thought we were going to beat Bush at the Iran-Contra hearings, and I worked overtime. He was guilty as fifteen hyenas, and he got off, and it really bothered me. So I would have been for anybody in ’92, just to beat Bush. And that’s a dangerous trap to fall into — you know, the lesser of two evils.

MH: There’s a lot of apathy today. People don’t want to go out and vote.

HST: And why should they? I felt that way, and I didn’t vote for Clinton in ’96. I voted for Ralph Nader. There’s a terrible danger in voting for the lesser of two evils because the parties can set it up that way.

MH: What do you think about the current two-party system here?

HST: I don’t think it is a two-party system. And I think the reason Clinton was re-elected is that he understands the same thing. He took the crime issue away from the Republicans, and now he’s taking the tax issue away. He’s proposing a lower capital-gains tax than the Republicans already had. So now the Democrats are champions of big business. He’s an extremely skilled fucking politician.

The Clinton people all had e-mail, beepers …

MH: They were wired in.

HST: Yeah, as opposed to the [Bush] White House. [The Clintons] moved into the White House, and it was like they moved into a cave. [A good friend] called me — a photographer, very close to the Clintons — telling me, ye gods, we move in here, and they still have a phone system that Abraham Lincoln would have appreciated.

MH: Clinton had wanted to be JFK. That’s who he talked about in his campaigns.

HST: You tell Mr. Bill there’s a reason that Jack Kennedy was shot, and he hasn’t been. There’s a very good reason that Jack Kennedy was shot, and Clinton hasn’t been.

MH: What’s that?

HST: There’s no reason to shoot Clinton. They didn’t hesitate when Kennedy seemed to be going against them. They shot him. And they shot Bobby.

MH: They?

HST: They. If you are going to shoot the President of the United States, plan it and do it, you must be extremely well-connected and smart and organized. Anybody who can organize a three-position, triangulated shooting at the President of the United States is very good.

MH: Your theory on the JFK assassination is what?

HST: That it was carried out by the Mob but organized and effectuated by J. Edgar Hoover.

MH: If popular culture holds up JFK as something good that could have been — and Nixon is seen as the opposite extreme — where does Clinton fall on the spectrum between JFK and Nixon?

HST: Well, Clinton will be lucky if he rates above Ulysses Grant or Warren Harding on the great scale. And he will, as long as the economy’s good. Carville was right — it’s the economy, stupid. And Clinton finally took that to heart. I think there are only three occasions in the history of American presidential elections when people have not voted obviously with their wallets.

MH: What are those?

HST: Oh, boy. I walked into that one, didn’t I? I believe one was the JFK election, in ’60. I can’t scan it back that fast now. But in every case there was — Woodrow Wilson may have been one — there was an instant, passionate issue. How the fuck Kennedy ever made Nixon a bad guy in 1960 is beyond me. That was real politics. A crazed Catholic playboy from Massachusetts, rich father supported the Nazis in 1940 — I was against [JFK] at first.

MH: The Proud Highway contains some letters you wrote on November 22, 1963 [the day JFK was shot], to your friends Paul Semonin and William Kennedy. In the one to Kennedy you wrote, “There is no human being within 500 miles to whom I can communicate anything — much less the fear and loathing that is on me after today’s murder…. No matter what, today is the end of an era. No more fair play. From now on it is dirty pool and judo in the clinches. The savage nuts have shattered the great myth of American decency.” According to the book it was the first time you wrote the words “fear and loathing.”

HST: I was amazed that it went back that far. I was not aware that I was accused of stealing it from Kierkegaard. People accused me of stealing “fear and loathing” — fuck no, that came straight out of what I felt. If I had seen it, I probably would have stolen it. Yeah, I just remember thinking about Kennedy, that this is so bad I need new words for it. And “fear and loathing” — yeah, it defines a certain state, an attitude.

MH: Clinton had a vision for a Great Society when he was elected. What do you think has happened since then?

HST: Well, the things that Clinton has been accused of are prima facie worse than what Nixon was run out of office for. Nixon was never even accused of things like Clinton is being accused of now. Bringing the Chinese into the political process, selling out to the Indonesians, selling the Lincoln bedroom at night, dropping his pants, trying to hustle little girls in Little Rock. God, what a degenerate town that is. Phew.

MH: How will history remember Bill Clinton?

HST: I don’t know about history. I don’t get any satisfaction out of the old traditional journalist’s view — “I just covered the story. I just gave it a balanced view.” Objective journalism is one of the main reasons American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long. You can’t be objective about Nixon. How can you be objective about Clinton?

MH: Objective journalism is why politics have been corrupt for so long?

HST: If you consider the great journalists in history, you don’t see too many objective journalists on that list. H. L. Mencken was not objective. Mike Royko, who just died. I. F. Stone was not objective. Mark Twain was not objective. I don’t quite understand this worship of objectivity in journalism. Now, just flat-out lying is different from being subjective.

MH: If you found yourself teaching a journalism course — Dr. Thompson’s Journalism 101 — what would you tell students who were looking to go about covering stories?

HST: You offering me a job? Shit. Well, I wouldn’t do it, I guess. It’s not important to me that I teach journalism classes.

MH: But if you did, what would your reading list be?

HST: Oh, I’d start off with Henry Fielding. I would read writers. You know, I would read Conrad, Hemingway, people who use words. That’s really what it’s about. It’s about using words to achieve an end. And the Book of Revelation. I still read the Book of Revelation when I need to get cranked up about language. I would teach Harrison Salisbury of The New York Times. All the journalists who are known, really, have been that way because they were subjective.

I think the trick is that you have to use words well enough so that these nickle-and-dimers who come around bitching about being objective or the advertisers don’t like it are rendered helpless by the fact that it’s good. That’s the way people have triumphed over conventional wisdom in journalism.

MH: Who’s writing that way today?

HST: Oh, boy. Let’s just say, who’s been arrested recently? That’s usually the way. Like in the sixties you look for Paul Krassner, I. F. Stone. I don’t think that my kind of journalism has ever been universally popular. It’s lonely out here.

A lot of times I recognize quality in the enemy. I have, from the very beginning, admired Pat Buchanan, who’s not even a writer. He knows how to use words. I read something the other day, and I totally disagreed with him. But you know, I was about to send him a note saying, “Good!”

MH: If you were going to start a paper, and you were editor, who would you hire on? Who’d be on your writing staff? Living or dead.

HST: Whew! That would be fun. We’re thinking of starting a paper here. These are not abstract questions.

If I were to surround myself with experts, I’d hire P. J. [O’Rourke], Tom Wolfe, Tim Ferris. I’d hire Jann Wenner, put him to work.

MH: For this publication you’re thinking about putting together now, what would be your mission?

HST: I can’t think in terms of journalism without thinking in terms of political ends. Unless there’s been a reaction, there’s been no journalism. It’s cause and effect.

[A bottle of Wild Turkey is introduced.]

HST: Aw, man. I drank this like some sort of sacrament for — I mean, constantly — for I think fifteen years. No wonder people looked at me funny. No offense. This is what I drank, and I insisted on it and I drank it constantly and I liked it. Jesus. I laid off it for six months and went back to it — an accident one night, in a bar — and it almost knocked me off the stool. It’s like drinking gasoline. I thought, what the fuck…?

 

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Book

Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Vintage

‘Heralded as the “best book on the dope decade” by the New York Times Book Review, Hunter S. Thompson’s documented drug orgy through Las Vegas would no doubt leave Nancy Reagan blushing and D.A.R.E. founders rethinking their motto. Under the pseudonym of Raoul Duke, Thompson travels with his Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in a souped-up convertible dubbed the “Great Red Shark.” In its trunk, they stow “two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…. A quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls,” which they manage to consume during their short tour.

‘On assignment from a sports magazine to cover “the fabulous Mint 400”–a free-for-all biker’s race in the heart of the Nevada desert–the drug-a-delic duo stumbles through Vegas in hallucinatory hopes of finding the American dream (two truck-stop waitresses tell them it’s nearby, but can’t remember if it’s on the right or the left). They of course never get the story, but they do commit the only sins in Vegas: “burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help.” For Thompson to remember and pen his experiences with such clarity and wit is nothing short of a miracle; an impressive feat no matter how one feels about the subject matter. A first-rate sensibility twinger, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a pop-culture classic, an icon of an era past, and a nugget of pure comedic genius.’ — Rebekah Warren

Excerpt

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. …” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about 100 miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

It was almost noon, and we still had more than 100 miles to go. They would be tough miles. Very soon, I knew, we would both be completely twisted. But there was no going back, and no time to rest. We would have to ride it out. Press registration for the fabulous Mint 400 was already underway, and we had to get there by four to claim our soundproof suite. A fashionable sporting magazine in New York had taken care of the reservations, along with this huge red Chevy convertible we’d just rented off a lot on the Sunset Strip … and I was, after all, a professional journalist; so I had an obligation to cover the story, for good or ill.

The sporting editors had also given me $300 in cash, most of which was already spent on extremely dangerous drugs. The trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. We had two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers … and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.

All this had been rounded up the night before, in a frenzy of high-speed driving all over Los Angeles County – from Topanga to Watts, we picked up everything we could get our hands on. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station. We had sampled almost everything else, and now – yes, it was time for a long snort of ether. And then do the next 100 miles in a horrible, slobbering sort of spastic stupor. The only way to keep alert on ether is to do up a lot of amyls – not all at once, but steadily, just enough to maintain the focus at 90 miles an hour through Barstow.

“Man, this is the way to travel,” said my attorney. He leaned over to turn the volume up on the radio, humming along with the rhythm section and kind of moaning the words: “One toke over the line … Sweet Jesus … One toke over the line …”

One toke? You poor fool! Wait till you see those goddamn bats. I could barely hear the radio … slumped over on the far side of the seat, grappling with a tape recorder turned all the way up on “Sympathy for the Devil.” That was the only tape we had, so we played it constantly, over and over, as a kind of demented counterpoint to the radio. And also to maintain our rhythm on the road. A constant speed is good for gas mileage – and for some reason that seemed important at the time. Indeed. On a trip like this one must be careful about gas consumption. Avoid those quick bursts of acceleration that drag blood to the back of the brain.

My attorney saw the hitchhiker long before I did. “Let’s give this boy a lift,” he said, and before I could mount any argument he was stopped and this poor Okie kid was running up to the car with a big grin on his face, saying, “Hot damn! I never rode in a convertible before!”

“Is that right?” I said. “Well, I guess you’re about ready, eh?”

The kid nodded eagerly as we roared off.

“We’re your friends,” said my attorney. “We’re not like the others.”
O Christ, I thought, he’s gone around the bend. “No more of that talk,” I said sharply. “Or I’ll put the leeches on you.” He grinned, seeming to understand. Luckily, the noise in the car was so awful – between the wind and the radio and the tape machine – that the kid in the back seat couldn’t hear a word we were saying. Or could he?

How long can we maintain? I wondered. How long before one of us starts raving and jabbering at this boy? What will he think then? This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family. Will he make that grim connection when my attorney starts screaming about bats and huge manta rays coming down on the car? If so – well, we’ll just have to cut his head off and bury him somewhere. Because it goes without saying that we can’t turn him loose. He’ll report us at once to some kind of outback nazi law enforcement agency, and they’ll run us down like dogs.

Jesus! Did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me? I glanced over at my attorney, but he seemed oblivious – watching the road, driving our Great Red Shark along at a hundred and ten or so. There was no sound from the back seat.

Maybe I’d better have a chat with this boy, I thought. Perhaps if I explain things, he’ll rest easy.

Of course. I leaned around in the seat and gave him a fine big smile … admiring the shape of his skull.

“By the way,” I said. “There’s one thing you should probably understand.”

He stared at me, not blinking. Was he gritting his teeth?

“Can you hear me?” I yelled.

He nodded.

“That’s good,” I said. “Because I want you to know that we’re on our way to Las Vegas to find the American Dream.” I smiled. “That’s why we rented this car. It was the only way to do it. Can you grasp that?”

He nodded again, but his eyes were nervous.

“I want you to have all the background,” I said. “Because this is a very ominous assignment – with overtones of extreme personal danger. … Hell, I forgot all about this beer; you want one?”

He shook his head.

“How about some ether?” I said.

“What?”

“Never mind. Let’s get right to the heart of this thing. You see, about 24 hours ago we were sitting in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel – in the patio section, of course – and we were just sitting there under this palm tree when this uniformed dwarf came up to me with a pink telephone and said, ‘This must be the call you’ve been waiting for all this time, sir.’”

I laughed and ripped open a beer can that foamed all over the back seat while I kept talking. “And you know? He was right! I’d been expecting that call, but I didn’t know who it would come from. Do you follow me?”

The boy’s face was a mask of pure fear and bewilderment.

I blundered on: “I want you to understand that this man at the wheel is my attorney! He’s not just some dingbat I found on the Strip. Shit, look at him! He doesn’t look like you or me, right? That’s because he’s a foreigner. I think he’s probably Samoan. But it doesn’t matter, does it? Are you prejudiced?”

“Oh, hell no!” he blurted.

“I didn’t think so,” I said. “Because in spite of his race, this man is extremely valuable to me.” I glanced over at my attorney, but his mind was somewhere else.

I whacked the back of the driver’s seat with my fist. “This is important, goddamnit! This is a true story!” The car swerved sickeningly, then straightened out. “Keep your hands off my fucking neck!” my attorney screamed. The kid in the back looked like he was ready to jump right out of the car and take his chances.

Our vibrations were getting nasty – but why? I was puzzled, frustrated. Was there no communication in this car? Had we deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts?

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** A blog reader named Brian Nova asked to turn the blog’s spotlight on Hunter Thompson’s classic novel, and I was happy to let him control the beam. Please give the results your usual studious attention, and thanks, and thank you, Brian! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Interesting about Cammell, thanks. Everyone, if you haven’t yet found it in your heart and pocket to contribute a little to the fund supporting the great David Ehrenstein amidst a very tough time for him, please help him out if you can via the GoFundMe account here. Thank you very much! ** Jack Skelley, Hey, hey, Jackeroony! How was the Boon gig? I guess I can ask you on Saturday. Thanks about the interview, man. ‘Much to report!’ Sweet! Take care until soon, buddy boy. xo, D. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Yes, I mean, obviously, suicide has played a vast part in my life and my work. Fascinating and very hard to think and feel about. Hence, we do. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Yeah, Facebook’s bot scanned the title of the post and deemed it against their anti-suicide referencing standards. Not a thoughtful, attentive bot. ** Bill, H, B. Oh, interesting about the Sator award. Seems like a must-get, I guess. I wonder how Ken is. He left social media and it’s like he just disappeared. I miss him. ** Dominik, Hi!!! My great pleasure, as always. Oh, because I’m so greedy, my pick for the pastry transformation was the largest book  on my bookshelves, which turned out to be ‘The Art of Walt Disney’, which also seems like it might just taste really good if possibly a  little too sugary. No, no cockroaches. I don’t think cockroaches are a huge problem in Paris? Mice and rats. Mosquitos! Bring on mosquito genocide! Sorry, but … I liked the idea of the TikTokers having to talk very carefully lest they end up as toothless hags. That great John Wieners poem! I love John Wieners to death. Thank you. Love zonked on tons of acid while driving a car across the California desert, which I have done, btw, and which one of my all-time favorite things to do, G. ** Florian-AF, Hi, Florian. Thanks, pal. No, I haven’t had the time/headspace to listen to your album yet just because I am in a completely overwhelmed by too much work at the moment, maximum output with ultra-little input, but I will as soon my brain isn’t toast. Hugs, my friend. ** _, Hi. Welcome. And thank you so much. Everyone, A blog visitor named – adds to yesterday’s suicide  show with this list/array of suicide-centric movies, and you’ll benefit from heading over there. ** Bernard, Well, well, welt! Mr. Welt! Lovely to see you, Bernard, needless to say but said anyway. You went to AWP. Wait, I did see that on Facebook now that my caffeine is kicking in. One of these years I’m going to check that shit out. 11:11 rules! God, poets like that even at AWP? I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I was thinking it was more artistically top drawer, but why would I have assumed that? Strange. Dude, you’re coming to the big P! Well, awesome. Zac and I are basically certainly going to LA for a while starting sometime in May to cast and stuff our new film, but I will be here for at least the early part of your visit and the latter part too to some degree. Fantastic! The Recollects is really happening right now. I have two friends/collaborators living there these days. We’re quite wide open here, Covid-wise, and I don’t see that changing even though a lot of people have mild forms of Covid at the moment. Not me. Obviously your friend Jim’s book greatly interests me. I must meet him. And read him too. I saw you getting it on with Smokey. Let me know your arrival and schedule stuff, man! Love, me. ** Ryanasaur to Dennisidoclas, Ha ha. I’m good, just very swamped. Great news about your show/set! Obviously record the fuck out of it. Yeah, that sounds really amazing! Huge congrats and every finger crossed. Did you see your track/video in my gig here the other day? As for me, just a huge of figuring stuff out for the film, facing difficulties galore and trying to solve them, and writing a theater piece and doing promo for my novel at the same time. Much too much, but I’m grateful for it. Love from over this way and me specifically. ** Nick Harte, Hi, Nick. Welcome! Thank you so much! As you probably know by now, Bresson and Blanchot are my two all-time most favorite/important artists, so … mind meld. I’ll go check out Shocking Pinks. And I’d love to know your work and more about it. Goes without saying that it’d be great if you want too hang out and talk anytime. Please feel very free. Again, thank you, that’s so great to hear, and take good care! ** Right. Please dig Mr. Thompson and Brian’s attentiveness to him, and I’ll see you tomorrow.