Fear and Loathing in America

by Hunter S. Thompson

  So I called Joe Edwards one Saturday at midnight & said “My man, you don’t know me and I don’t know you, but three weeks from now you’re going to be the Mayor of Aspen.” In less than 10 days we registered about 300 street-loonies who never even thought about voting. …Freak Power was the theme, and it worked. We beat the buggers stupid. The day before the election the Mayor went on the radio and said that within 24 hours he was going to have at least 150 hair-freaks in jail for perjury and false swearing … and beyond that, they’d have the living shit kicked out of them if they showed up at the polls. We tried to have the mayor arrested for “intimidating voters,” but the bastard hires & fires all the cops, including the chief … and when I called the DA he said he couldn’t get involved … we would have to do our own “policing.”

  Which we did, with numerous bearded poll-watchers and full complement of auxiliaries just outside the 100-foot limit. Even our sympathizers complained about the hair-cordon all around the polling place. But it worked; we disqualified all but two voter-challenges, whip-lashing the poll-judges with all the fine points of Colorado election law….

  And so much for all that, too. This is not my night for coherence. Since losing the election we have declared total war on the Fatbacks—on two levels: Like, tonight I spent about five hours on the phone, gathering evidence to bust the County Attorney. There are three Wards in the city; the county is a Fourth Ward … and we are Ward Five. On the public level we are dealing now with the City Atty—mainly to keep sharp—and gearing down for next year’s election when the Sheriff comes up, along with one of the 3 Cty Commissioners. Ward 5’s candidate for the CC slot is a man with a beard down to his sternum … and our man for Sheriff is … well, shucks …I hate to sound uppity, but I may as well admit that it’s me. Right: Sheriff Thompson …

  Which is only a rumor, but the mere possibility has made a lot of people physically sick. Three weeks before the Mayoral election Joe Edwards didn’t even know he was running, and Freak Power was a bad hippie joke. But now, in the wake of that 6-vote loss, we are clearly capable of almost anything; we are sitting on the largest Bloc Vote in the county … and even the pig-people realize it. I tell you this politics gig is a wild and heavy trip; I got about as high on that election, for 21 straight days, as I’ve ever been on acid … and I can see, now, why people get addicted to this thing. Like Mailer & his hopeless dream of the White House …or, failing that, Gracie Mansion54 … Super-Freak Goes to the Supermart.

  So the password in Aspen these days is BEWARE. Ward 5 is gearing down for a serious Takeover Bid … and meanwhile, on that other level, we’re into a fire and dynamite trip. Make the fatbacks understand how vulnerable they are—not only at the polls, but every hour of every wretched day. Agnew can’t help them out here. The fat is in the Fire. …

  & OK for now; it’s dawn & I’m tired. One of these days I’ll send Random House a 100 lb. bag of my letters … or maybe a half-mad wolverine in a cardboard cage. Why not?

  Indeed …

  Hunter

  TO DON ERICKSON, ESQUIRE:

  Thompson made a last-minute attempt to get his NRA article published.

  December 9, 1969

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Don …

  Astounding to hear from you. I sort of assumed the gun piece had died on the vine—or the cutting-room floor, as it were. I’m a trifle paranoid about the politics end of this writing business; I can’t handle it. At almost the same time that I was fuming out here with Sherrill’s memo I was putting the finishing touches on a piece that ultimately got me black-balled with Playboy. They asked for a profile of J.-C. Killy and cursed me savagely for the thing I gave them. That episode, along with the Gun Piece hassle, left me wondering if it was possible for me to communicate any longer with anyone east of the Rockies.

  I still wonder, for that matter … but if you’re still interested in the gun piece, I’ll send a new version. Since my last effort I went hunting for the first time in four years and—with the help of a little mescaline—got locked into a trauma that found me spending 48 hours alone in the badlands, chasing antelope by day and scribbling crazily all night in the back of my Volvo wagon, by Coleman-lantern light … wondering what the fuck I was doing out there.

  On top of that a man came out the other day and tried to sell me a machine-gun. He wanted $200 so he could pay a speed-freak to break a man’s arm in town. I couldn’t afford the gun, but it was wonderful fun to shoot. Which reminds me of the enc. clip from the current Rolling Stone; things are even worse than I said in the original article; every dope-freak I’ve talked to in the past year is on a violence trip. Maybe Woodstock55 is the wave of the future, but I doubt it. Haight St. was peaceful when I lived there, but that was 3 yrs ago.

  Actually, I haven’t written anything in about 2 months, due to a sudden, total involvement in local politics. We launched a Takeover Bid that came within 6 votes of installing a 29-yr-old bike-racer as Mayor of Aspen. I promised to run for Sheriff if he won, and I may still do it. Freak Power is out in the open here. One man, one vote … Beware the rising tide.

  OK for now. I’ll get back on the piece and send a new version ASAP.

  Ciao …

  Hunter

  TO STEVE GELLER:

  After the loss of the Aspen mayoral election and Sandy’s painful miscarriage, the Thompsons went to Los Angeles for a two-week vacation of sorts.

  December 10, 1969

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Steve …

  Your letter was here when I got back from LA. After the Aspen election I was so wound up that I had to get out of town for a while, so I sent my son to Florida, seized my wife and fled to the Continental Hotel for about 2 weeks. She was still in a slump after losing the last kid, and I was lingering along in a killing rage after losing the Aspen mayor’s race by 6 votes …so we decided to sacrifice the Diners Club card for 2 crazed weeks in Hollywood, face to face with the drug culture in a huge rented Pontiac, Chicano dealers and Brown Power freaks lurking around the roof-top hotel pool at noon—mescaline politics far up in the smog, 12 floors higher than the Strip … looking down on all that wild crap, buying honeydew melons at the Farmers Market and hurling the rinds off the balcony at passing cars …a very debilitating trip in all, and I’m sorry I missed you.

  It never occurred to me, of course, that you were actually living nearby. In my mind you exist as a small & wiry bugger, lurking intensely on a midnight street-corner beside some shoe-factory in Troy—making notes, notes, notes—compiling some awful indictment that nobody understands.

  Jesus, I guess that sounds bad, but I don’t mean it that way. If somebody asked me tonight whose book (new) I most looked forward to reading sometime soon, I think I’d say yours. As I told Shir-Cliff—and you, too, I think—I dug Pit Bull on a level that I don’t spend much time on these days. Hard to explain, but it’s there. Try another one of Bernard’s offerings called Nog, or the one from a different house titled A Fan’s Notes. A man called Exley wrote the latter … no reason to like it, except that it’s nice to read something straight, now and then.

  Anyway, I certainly would have called if I’d had any idea you were there. Your money/writing schedule makes me tired, just looking at it. I spent a whole day while I was there out at UCLA, experimenting with video-tape scenes in the J-dept. I’m fascinated by the notion of being able to make your own film & then play it back instantly on the tube. Dennis Murphy (The Sergeant) & I went out there and worked out on the machine long enough to see the future… which is not bound-books, as I see it. If Nixon fails in his efforts to destroy the economy, I think we’re into a decade of wild experiments—mainly with film; that whole medium seems on the verge of falling into the hands of people who can use it.

  All of which reminds me that I’m many months overdue with that wonderful Random House offering called “The Death of the American Dream.” I hate to spend 3 yrs writing a pile of worthless shit, but that’s what I’m into—a sophomore jinx on all fr
onts. I’ve done everything I can to put it off, but now—stone broke again—I don’t see any way out. Just write the fucker and clear the decks … take the beating and play counter-puncher. Fuck them. I hope your agent is better than mine; who is it? This is really a stinking way to have to make a living. I got into politics recently and ran amok with energy I haven’t been able to tap in years. We made a takeover bid here, and came within 6 votes of doing it. I think maybe Hollywood is the last place in America where a writer can still ignore Agnew in good conscience; he’ll never matter there, either way. I spent most of election day ’68 at an outdoor pub on the Strip, called Alfies—with time off, now and then, to visit various polling places around the city—and my central memory about Hollywood on that day is that nobody either knew or gave a fuck about anything … like “Nixon who?”

  So maybe I half-understand your mention of “missing New Haven terribly.” Or maybe not. My focus here has come down—quite unexpectedly—to the hard and vicious realities of how my world works … like I spent most of today gathering evidence inre: Conflict of Interest in the County Attorney’s Office. This filthy bastard has spent 20 years beating us all like a set of silly gongs. He has run this county like a private fief, and made himself a millionaire in the process. His brother represents LBJ’s oil interest, two counties away—which now comes down to how many nuclear blasts the oil companies need to fuck us all.

  Anyway, that’s my scene for the moment, I’m trying to finish off that pile of crap for RH, and meanwhile going hard & fast about 20 hrs a day with reality. These greedy screws are selling the very earth I live on, and—for good or ill—I think the time has come to say “No More.”

  The time has also come to get off this letter-writing gig, grind out a few words for money. So I guess I’ll do that. As for the “Handwriting” you mentioned, look back on what I’ve said for what I see—the only hope, for now, is to get down on the killing floor with those evil fucks, and beat them in public. Agnew is the final flower of the “Fuck it” syndrome. Right … Let Adolf do it. That’s where we’re headed, and when they have the War Crimes trials for this era, I don’t want to have to say I wasn’t involved.

  Which brings me back to your line about the crabs and “real bullshit.” That’s a beautiful line and maybe I’ll use it sometime (with proper credit, of course), but don’t let your eagerness to get it off (later) make you blind to the weird & volatile realities of the scene you’re waiting to comment on (later). Remember Hubert Humphrey; he sold his ass for a tomorrow he’ll never see—not even in his memoirs. And so much for all that.

  Hunter

  TO BERNARD SHIR-CLIFF, BALLANTINE BOOKS:

  December 12, 1969

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Bernard …

  It strikes me as possible and even probable that the passing of a year has yielded up a few royalty-dollars inre: the Hell’s Angels sales. I certainly hope so—because I need funds in a very definite way. And not for Xmas presents, either.

  So if my account shows anything on the fat side, I hope and pray you’ll send a cheque at once. Selah.

  On other fronts, I’m still laboring with that foul bummer of a book about the American Dream, or some such bullshit. It is the bane of my fucking existence, and has been for longer than I care to remember. Just recently I had to take a few months off to run a political campaign, which resulted in such an incredible outburst of energy (on my part) that I suddenly understood what a terrible hole I bargained myself into, with regard to that pigfucking book. Actually, I have about 400 pages stacked here beside me, and it’s all bullshit. There are so many things worth dealing with that I can’t understand how I trapped myself on a shit-kicker. In this era of assholes, all I want to do is smite them hip and thigh. That Aspen/politics article I sent you led to a mayoral campaign that ripped this town asunder. We ran a 29-year-old bike racer for mayor and lost by six votes. There was no end to the madness and crazed action; I didn’t sleep for three weeks. We took on the Aspen Ski Corp.—with directors like [Robert] McNamara and Paul Nitze and a whole gaggle of power freaks—and beat them stupid with flying squads of bearded hustlers and street people. Freak Power was the theme, & in three weeks’ time we organized a flat-out takeover bid that came within 6 votes (out of 1200) of seizing control of the town.

  And so much for all that. The only hope for this evil book I’m trying to rake together is that I might be able to work the Aspen campaign into it. That would lend it a hint of the energy that I haven’t been able to find for it up to now.

  Anyway, please take a look at my account and see if there’s any cash on hand. And if there is, please send it along. Contrary to NY rumors, I’m not dead or drug-stupored. My only problem, of late, has been a creeping suspicion that I’ve forgotten how to speak whatever language is currently in use east of the Rockies. I no longer have any faith in my ability to communicate with you folks back there in Cocktailville.

  All I want to do, right now, is get this fucking millstone of a book off my neck and get on to things that matter. You can help by sending along a check for whatever royalties I have coming. Thanks …

  Hunter

  TO HUGHES RUDD, CBS NEWS:

  Thompson wrote Rudd about his escapades in Los Angeles with Sandy and his confidence in the rising “Freak Power” prospects in the coming election.

  December 13, 1969

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Hughes …

  Christ, it seems incredible that I still haven’t answered your letter of 10/1. Time has gotten wholly out of hand here, beyond my control … and the more I think about your comments on my general life-style here, the more I tend to agree. One of these bright mornings I’m going to wake up and find that 10 years have gone by, and that I haven’t done a fucking thing. So the program now is to get this stinking book done, for good or ill—and at the same time try to make some arrangement for buying this house—then rent the house for enough to make mortgage payments and bug off, for a while, to somewhere else. I can’t say where. Maybe even land a job of some kind, just to get myself re-oriented in the Real World. At the moment I would far rather be working on a film of some kind, instead of this rotten journalism … but there’s no hope of ducking this thing without getting myself totally blacklisted. So I guess I’ll be here all winter. After that, I can’t say…. On other fronts, Sandy & I just got back from a 10-day freakout in LA, dedicated to the total destruction of my credit, by means of running up huge, unpayable bills on the Diners Club card. We ran completely amok & accomplished nothing, but we had a wonderful time. One of my central memories recalls an evening of mescaline and a load of honeydew melons I bought at the Farmers Market. Then, with a room full of rum and music and freaks, we had a melon-eating orgy on the (hotel) balcony overlooking the Strip, and afterwards hurled the rinds down on passing cars. There was also a vast amount of high-speed driving on the freeways, mainly late at night in a million-horsepower Pontiac, full of mescaline. In all, it was a wretched and debilitating scene … and soon they’ll want me to pay for it.

  And again to other fronts: I got a decent long letter from Joe Benti—after also receiving a nerve-rattling early morning phone call from him and the producer (Lewis, I think)—all concerning your Aspen piece, Nazis in high places, network censorship and all that bullshit. The Aspen hassle was clearly getting out of hand, so I told him I’d never mention it again unless he did—which seems fair. It also seems that you people have enough to cope with at the moment: with Agnew on one flank & Nicholas Johnson on the other, that battle seems out of my hands.

  You’ll be happy to know, however, that my latest effort on the home front resulted in the total political destruction of the Mayor and the city council. We launched a serious takeover bid and came within 6 votes of electing a 29-year-old dope-smoking bike-racer as Mayor of Aspen. The old guard candidate, the current mayor’s creature, was whipped to jelly. A silly old bitch won; she was backed by people like Leon Uris & that real estate geek who rented the house to yo
u—along with Dunaway & the Times,56 the Contractors Assn and the whole cocktail set, plus a heavy chunk of the failed liberal establishment who said they dug our program but couldn’t tolerate our people. On election day we staffed all three polling places—one of which was Guido’s—with teams of heavily bearded poll-watchers. The mayor had threatened to sic goons on our freaks if they showed up to vote & the police chief refused to guarantee access, so we organized our own goons, armed with tape recorders and reams of legal documents, among other things—and beat them stupid on all counts. We actually won the “love” vote by five, but we lost the absentee ballots by eleven—primarily because of skullduggery in City Hall. I ran the campaign for all practical purposes, and now I have hundreds of new enemies. It feels wonderful. …

  Anyway, that was what caused me to flip out for LA. The campaign kept me awake for three weeks & I thought I was going down there for a rest, but it didn’t work. So I slept for about 2 weeks when I got back here, and now, in the press of sudden poverty, I have to get back to work.

  Which reminds me that it’s late—and letters don’t pay. One of the things that emerged from the mayoral campaign was a fine sense of a rising tide. We registered about 300 loonies in the city and now we have another rich lode in the county. So the next project is to bust the County Attorney, the kingpin Cty Commissioner and the Sheriff. Next autumn should be a hummer out here. Total confrontation.

  I’m beginning to think that Agnew doesn’t realize what he’s up against. The real Silent Majority is the Rising Tide. If a serious freak ran for President in 1972—and if he could muster enough money & talent to get himself launched—I think he could come very close to winning … but this is a long and twisted subject, and like I have said I have to do some money writing.