Fear and Loathing in America Read online

  Yes indeed, I’m beginning to hear the music. Did you ever see the Walter Jenkins,7 Dean Rusk,8 drugs and leather cults section that I had, at one point, in the H.A. [Hell’s Angels] manuscript? I don’t think I ever sent it in. Some of the best parts of the H.A. book never made it past the first-draft because they wandered too far afield. (The Case of the Naked Colonel … did you ever see that? A fantastic story, and absolutely true …a Pentagon colonel found naked in his car, passed out on the steering wheel with a pistol in each hand…no explanation.)

  The music, yes. I hear the sound of drums now … an interview with Richard Nixon, who calls me at my Chicago hotel, during the course of my research, and offers me $20,000 for my information … then a meeting with Nixon and his advisors, they want to exploit the freak-out … but an argument erupts when one of Nixon’s aides makes a crude remark about his daughter—undertones of drugs and nymphomania, Julie caught on the 14th green at Palm Springs with a negro caddy at midnight, the caddy now in prison, framed on a buggery count.

  Well, I guess you have the drift by now. Sort of a “Report from Iron Mountain,” as rewritten by Paul Krassner.9 I see it as a ding-dong seller, given adequate promotion, at least until the convention. But I’m not sure what kind of staying power it would have unless we could come up with a longevity gimmick. The key, I think, would be pre-convention publicity—the existence of this frightful report by the well-respected, hard-digging author of Hell’s Angels, a known confidant of all undergrounds, a man with his ear to the sewer at all times. But if we couldn’t promote it fast and fat enough to sell 100,000 copies, I’m not sure I could work up the superhead of steam that I’d need to get the thing done. The idea of writing against a fiendish deadline, with $10,000 at stake, gets me high and wild just thinking about it. I hear gongs and drums and whistles all around me … not even the Green Bay Packers roll that high. The SuperBowl stake is only $7,500 per man.

  What do you think? Any ideas for keeping the book alive beyond the convention? Needless to say, most of the fantasy content would be based on fact … and for that I’ll need the 1964 Theodore White book, Nixon’s Crises10 bullshit, and the Iron Mountain thing that I asked for quite a while ago. The more I think about this, the more I think in terms of fictitious interviews and bogus secret meetings with the principals. What about lawsuits there? If it rings any bells at all, let’s ponder it on the phone … or if this idea kicks off any others in your head, let’s talk about those too. Send word, make contact, etc. …

  Ciao,

  Hunter

  TO ROBERT CRAIG:

  Thompson rented his house in Woody Creek, ten miles outside Aspen, from a good-humored friend—fortunately for both.

  January 13, 1968

  Woody Creek, CO

  Bob …

  I came by the house twice last week and called tonight, so I assume you’re off somewhere, and for god knows how long.

  Anyway, in lieu of rent money, I’m sending another mean bitch about foul-smelling water backing up in the basement. This isn’t directed at you, but I figure you can use my complaint as reason for refusing to pay those incompetent fucks a penny until they finish the job they agreed to do. I was going to call Holub tonight, but he disregards everything I tell him until you vouch for it, so I don’t see any sense in calling him a lying pigfucker for nothing. In any case, this goddamn water scene is going to have to be cured eventually—no matter who is, or isn’t, living in the house. I’ve been waiting for months to make something out of that big room in the basement, but with all of Springer’s gear in the way, and a flood of shit-water every night, it’s impossible to do any work down there. Even the lumber I bought is getting wet and warped (the lumber for building in the room).

  All this brings me to ponder a much longer view—which includes the fact that I’m due, sometime this spring, for a fat royalty on the paperback Hell’s Angels sales and I intend to spend it on some kind of real estate. So if you’re at all inclined to think about selling either this property or the (east) mesa or any combination, we should probably talk seriously about it sometime soon. Because I’ve never been known to hang onto money—and this next check will be no exception. So let’s get together, when you get back, for a serious rumble about money, acreage, etc. And water rights. Which brings to mind that you still owe me a bottle of Old Fitz. But I might let you off the hook for some blue-chip ski instruction. I suspect we can work out a deal. Which leads me to the point of the whole rude note, to wit: give a ring when you get back; among other things, I have a Lord Buckley11 record for you.

  Ciao …

  Hunter

  TO JIM SILBERMAN, RANDOM HOUSE:

  Silberman had edited Hell’s Angels for Random House, and would continue to provide Thompson with editorial guidance.

  January 13, 1968

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Jim …

  A late-rising thought: What happened to my Hell’s Angels manuscript? I asked Margaret [Harrell] about it several times last spring, but it was always “somewhere else.” I just read where D. H. Lawrence traded the ms. of Sons and Lovers for a ranch in Taos, so I’m naturally concerned about mine. I’m land-hungry right now, and maybe the ms. will come in handy if I want to buy a ranch from a dirty old rich woman. Which I might. Half the land around Aspen is owned by dirty old rich women who are also cousins of Paul Nitze12—and friends of McNamara. I suspect that my probing of the Joint Chiefs will reveal that one of them is the real owner of the house I live in. Anyway, send word on my manuscript—or, better still, send the manuscript.

  Thanx …

  Hunter

  TO KELLY VARNER:

  In its first year in print, Hell’s Angels sold nearly half a million copies and generated a torrent of fan mail. Thompson occasionally replied to the most thoughtful letters.

  January 15, 1968

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Kelly …

  I just got back from New York and found your letter … and for a moment I was going to throw it in the fire because I found it depressing, but on second thought I decided to answer it.

  First, thanks for the good words on the book. One of the best things about writing for publication is getting letters from people who read what you tried to put down …I think the shrinks call it “communication.” Anyway, it’s a good feeling to know that somebody in Herrin, Ill. is hearing my music, however weird or warped it might sound at that range.

  But I’ll be flat goddamned if I can understand how a guy like you, who sounds pretty bright and on top of things, can take the Angels seriously enough to want to go to all that trouble to Join Them. What the fuck would you want to do that for? You sound like you have enough going for you, as an individual, so that you wouldn’t need some kind of bogus identity like a H.A. jacket. Do you really need Sonny Barger’s O.K. to do what you feel like doing? If so, here’s the last address I have for him, which is at least a year old: 9847 Stanley, Oakland Calif. I doubt that he still lives there, but he might. You can try.

  As far as I know, Sonny is still pres. of the Oakland chapter, but I haven’t followed that scene for a long time. As for the rest of your questions, Sonny could answer them better than I could … especially since I view your whole notion of getting “approval” from the Angels as a bad joke. I’m not trying to put you down here; if that was the idea, I wouldn’t have bothered to answer your letter, so don’t take it that way.

  The thing is that you sound like you have more sense than any six Angels I can think of, and I can’t quite understand why you want to defer to them. But that’s obviously none of my business, and that’s why I’m sending the only address I have for Sonny. But I’m also sending my own ideas on the subject—which you didn’t ask for, but which you can’t keep me from laying on you anyway—and the main one is, “Play your own game, be your own man, and don’t ask anybody for a stamp of approval.” For the past two years the Angels have been creatures of their own publicity; I wouldn’t get fucked up with them any more than I would wit
h the FBI or the Lyndon Johnson Fan Club. To hell with organizations. There’s a lot of things wrong with this country, but one of the few things still right with it is that a man can steer clear of the organized bullshit if he really wants to. It’s a goddamn luxury, and if I were you, I’d take advantage of it while you can.

  Ciao,

  Hunter S. Thompson

  TO GERALD WALKER, THE NEW YORK TIMES:

  Walker had been pressuring Thompson to revise his article on the Nevada state prison system.

  January 15, 1968

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Gerald …

  Here’s a better response to your telegram. I sent a rude card earlier tonight, but it didn’t say much. Anyway, I’m struggling now with the goddamn new lead … and fighting the overwhelming temptation to write a new article. I don’t want to, and in truth I don’t think I should. What I probably didn’t make clear in NY is my feeling, based on your suggested revisions, that you’re asking me to write the kind of article that you should have assigned to [Amherst College historian] Henry Steele Commager or some of that ilk. If I wanted to write in the wire-service or Five W’s style, I’d have sent in my original manuscript with an application for a job on The NY Times. …

  … and maybe that sounds worse than I mean it to sound; the point is that I don’t really have any heart for changing the article (except for the obviously necessary new lead), and especially not in terms of putting it into a “cool, straightforward chronology.” In those terms, you’re asking for an account of something that didn’t happen. The conference was chaotic; the participants destroyed the planned chronology on the second day; nobody knew, from one day to the next, if the whole thing might be cancelled to prevent a riot … and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to try to pass it off as a 1, 2, 3, 4 … sort of a thing. If anything, it was 3, 2, 4, 1 … and that’s the way I tried to write it, because that’s the way I saw it.

  On the other hand, I’ll admit that my lead—as it stands now—is perhaps a bit dull and confusing. Or at least confusing. But I can’t get over the feeling that you’re asking me for an article that you never should have assigned me to in the first place … some sort of legally logical exercise in straight-grey journalism, which is what I’m trying to do right now, if for no other reason than a deadweight sense of obligation all around. Frankly, I wish I’d never heard of the goddamn article, or the conference, or anything connected with it. OK for now; I just thought I’d get that off my head … and thanks for the good lunch.

  Ciao,

  Hunter

  TO CAREY MCWILLIAMS, THE NATION:

  McWilliams, editor of the left-leaning Nation, had “discovered” Thompson in 1964 after reading his articles on South America in The National Observer. They became friends, and the next year Thompson wrote two notable pieces for McWilliams’s magazine: “Motorcycle Gangs: Losers and Outsiders” (May 17, 1965) and “Nonstudent Left” (September 27, 1965).

  January 20, 1968

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Carey …

  It’s always good to hear from you, so no sense commenting on your note of Jan. 11. As it happens, I left NYC on Jan. 10, after a short, very intense, whirl on the contract/lawsuit circuit. I’m being sued on both coasts—for $5.5 million in Calif. and for 10% of my total earnings in NY. The catch is that the bastards have to come to Colorado to get me into court … so I spent my time in NY slinking around like a weasel.

  You asked about the Joint Chiefs book … which is what all the contract talk was about. Scott Meredith apparently had me in a legal limbo until Dec. 15 of last year, but I didn’t find that out until I got there. I now have a lawyer, instead of an agent. Leon Friedman, by name. He seems ok and I left all my dealing in his hands. As far as I can tell, I’ve settled with Random and Ballantine for a book that I still call the “Joint Chiefs,” but which they refer to as 1) “Hunter Thompson’s America,” and/or 2) “The Death of the American Dream.” Which is all the same thing, I guess … but it’s hard to adjust to the idea that somebody wants to pay me for writing an epitaph for three generations. Or maybe five. I don’t know yet. The only thing certain about the book is that it’s going to kick off with a gaggle of profiles, or sketches, of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That’s the first chapter … but after that, I’m open. And, frankly, I don’t have the vaguest idea as to what kind of narrative thread I’ll use to hang the whole thing together.

  What I’ll really be writing, I think, is a sort of Prosecutor’s Brief, demanding a fitting penalty for the killers of the “American Dream.” Whatever that is, or was, or might have been. I suspect I could have found an easier book to write … especially since I’ve come to see myself as a sort of hoodlum-writer. I’m not sure how I feel about taking on the whole Establishment in one swack. But that’s what I’ve agreed to do, and—as I’ve said in the past—if you have any good article leads for me, I’ll be more than happy to work on them. The catch—as I’ve also noted in the past—is that I’ve never had a saleable article idea of my own, and at this stage of the game I don’t expect to. In other words, don’t expect me to sell you anything in embryo. And I say this to you in particular, because our whole editor-writer history has been a monument to the notion. You’ve rejected every idea I’ve sent, and the two articles I did on your specific request are among the best things I’ve ever done.

  But I guess that doesn’t take into account your ideas for a book, which in fact are very much at the root of the Joint Chiefs thing. So if you feel like adding anything specific to a prosecution brief, by all means let me know. Ideally, I’d like to use some article-assignments as springboards for this book project … and you’re the best idea-man I know.

  My entire output for 1967, by the way, consisted of three articles—all three on hippies and all written last spring … for a total of less than $1500. It was, as they say, a bad year. In any case, I’m sorry I didn’t get by to see you in NY, but after three weeks in Florida and Kentucky, I was in no mood to socialize when I got to the Big Money Graveyard on the Hudson. I just wanted to get my legal bullshit straight, and get out. Or, more specifically, back here to Woody Creek. I’m beginning to wonder how in hell anybody can live in New York and still consider himself human. It’s the meanest goddamn place in the world, and I think it’s a damn good thing that they have the Sullivan Law.13 Without it, half the population of the island would be killed overnight. And maybe that’s the answer.

  But not for me. I’m sitting out here waiting for contracts to arrive in the mail and wondering what I’m going to write after I sign them. If you have any ideas, be my guest.

  Ciao …

  Hunter

  TO JIM SILBERMAN, RANDOM HOUSE:

  Thompson’s memo on his book tracing “The Death of the American Dream” follows the letter.

  January 29, 1968

  Woody Creek, CO

  Jim …

  The enclosed is something I ripped off just before dawn on Sunday … and a few hours later I had a scene in my front yard that scared even me. Gun freaks; it looked like a Minuteman meeting. And weird conversation. Birchers.14 I think I told you once that these private army people were a bunch of “demented gas station attendants,” but the first two on the scene were far from that: the assistant D.A. and the local dentist; then came a pilot and a ski patrolman and a reporter for one of the papers. There was another guy who looked so wild and evil that I couldn’t bring myself to inquire about his line of work. All these people arrived just as my stone-hippy Montana friends were leaving, gathering their water-pipes and acid for the trip north. My world is becoming a zoo.

  Anyway, I hope the enclosed is coherent. If any one thing seems unclear, as I wrote it, I think it’s my own idea of how to create the “bone-structure.” So let’s try again: I want to take all those things you mentioned in your letter, along with several others, and illustrate them. Maybe I’ll want to go to a pro football game with a ranking Marine general, and then talk about the Super Bowl mentality in terms of the Pen
tagon … but letting the general talk, thus making him a character in the narrative.

  During that talk I may find out that he’s been married four times, so that would lead to another phase … maybe a talk with one of his ex-wives, now married to a “peace freak.” That’s unlikely, considering the very special nature of military wives, but it points up to the fact that I want to have people in this book, and I want to make them real. The editorializing will come in my choice of people, and how I treat them in print. I want them to introduce themselves, as it were… instead of being introduced by the author, as archetypes.

  The bone-structure, then, will be made up of existing individuals—not necessarily named—whose lives, words, actions, fears, hatreds, etc. best illuminate the various keys we need to show how and why the American Dream is dead. Consider, for instance, a self-educated, multi-millionaire businessman who is now, at the age of 50, a Democratic National Committeeman, a power in both state and national politics. What kind of power is he exercising, and how does it relate, for that matter, to Abe Lincoln? What does he say about him? And what does he say about Eichmann?15

  Maybe this should clarify what I mean about “bone-structure.” I want to search out specific people to illustrate specific points, and on this score I’ll welcome any help or suggestions I can get. Billy Graham,16 for instance; how does he fit in the American Dream? Is he a rose or a thorn? And what is he really saying?