Fear and Loathing in America

by Hunter S. Thompson

  There is no question but that “Laos” must be finished at once: It is going to cover a hell of a lot of ground—from Saigon to Beirut and Angola, to Manchester and Orlando. …A sort of “hello again” piece, with tangents all over the globe. The impression I got from both Felton & Erica is that you want to pay my expenses to come out to SF for 3 or 4 days, to finish it off with Felton, but before we do that I think we should at least talk about the bastard on the phone, so we all understand where we’re heading on it. The opinions are pretty broad: We can either do a relatively terse, retrospective piece on the Last Days of American Empire in Indochina … or we can do a long and speedy re-cap of the whole year, from Kinshasa to Plains, Georgia to Saigon, Laos, Bali, Hong Kong, and also a bit of Washington and a kick-off look at the primaries….

  But this matter of focus is something we should get straight before we start a blitzkrieg with Felton; because without a focus, we’ll all go mad trying to force it all together.

  2 hours later:

  And so much for all that; I think we just dealt with almost everything pertinent in the course of the (just-completed) Saturday morning phone call. I’ll proceed along the lines we discussed inre: Laos—Part One in the form of a long, rambling up-date Memo from the NA desk, and then to Part Two as Travelogue from Indochina (along with some notes & comparisons on & from Africa, using Zaire as a route to some brooding on Angola & the CIA) … and then when we have the first two parts at least roughly finished, I’ll do Part Three from either New Hampshire or Florida.

  All of this is likely to get a bit complicated on the money front, and sooner or later we’ll have to cope with that angle. I dread it, but there’s too much cash in the balance to ignore, and right now I’m extremely cash-poor and I’m laboring very strongly under the impression that I’m writing this thing for money. If we’re heading for another hassle or even a “failure of communication” on this score, I think we’d be doing ourselves a favor by getting the entire money situation straight immediately, so we don’t wind up nursing a boil that might eventually have to be lanced. Writing for a living is hard enough, but arguing for a living is un-acceptable. I don’t know about your time, but mine is way too short for any more of the kind of cheap, ingrown bullshit we’ve been wallowing in for most of the past year … so let’s confront the money situation up front & get it settled. I’m still under the impression that a normal HST-style piece based on the Saigon trip will net me $5K, plus reimbursement of all legitimate expenses above the $3K you advanced. Our original agreement, you’ll recall, had it $5K plus expenses for anything I wrote if I went beyond Hawaii … but rather than hark back to old wounds, let’s just agree on what kind of money we’re talking about now. I’ve more or less adjusted to the shock of a massive income-loss for the year, and I’d frankly prefer to forget the whole thing, rather than get into another money-hassle.

  Jesus, I feel a pall of depression coming down on me just mentioning this stuff—but under the circumstances I think it’s necessary, just to make sure it won’t fester and blow up on us later. The next hassle will be the last one.

  And on that ominous-sounding note, I’ll close and get back to whatever comes next. The cash-crunch here is very real: not so much a crisis as hellish inconvenience…. Having given up the notion that even a “famous” writer can make a decent living by means of journalism, I tend to view it now as a kind of morbid self-indulgence that—with a lot of luck and constant skilled management—should more or less pay for itself. [The New York Times’s] Harrison Salisbury might be onto something, but I don’t get the feeling it’s going to do me any good.

  There may be some kind of mid-range salvation in writing books, but I’m not sure of that either. Crime, I think, is the long-term answer … but in the meantime I’m heavy into the buying and selling of strange gimcracks. For $1000, for instance, you can have a full-bore stereo cassette of the classic “Goodwin’s Breakdown,” a guaranteed, money-back ball-breaker when played at the proper volume on suitable machinery…. For another $1000, for instance, you can have a bronze plaque from the door of the Global Affairs Suite in Saigon … and for another $1000 each you can have both of [Mike] Solheim’s thumbs….

  Human thumbs, incidentally, are among my fastest-moving items. I just closed a contract for one of Bob Arum’s1 thumbs for $3000 cash in advance, and Arum himself is about to close a $10K deal for a Jack Nicholson thumb…. The fee for tattooing (or “engraving,” as it were) the name of the former owner on each thumb is a mere $100 extra, but serious collectors are turning more and more to the thumb-necklace concept, and for this the tattoos are a must.

  So let me know well ahead of your expected delivery date. And mum’s the word, of course; once these buggers get wind of what’s happening, they become extremely hostile to strangers, or even friends. When the going gets savage, The Savage buy bolt-cutters … right?

  Right,

  Hunter

  TO RICHARD N. GOODWIN:

  Thompson had attended the recent wedding of his friends and fellow Elko conferees Richard Goodwin and Doris Kearns.

  January 2, 1976

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dick …

  I’ve been talking to Arum & Pierre2 on a strangely regular basis since the wedding (jesus, only a madman would have brought that kind of weird human chemistry together—and under the roof of the Colonial Inn, at that) …but anyway, the A/P axis says you & Doris are back, that the book situation is favorably settled, and that life in general is at least momentarily calm…. Which is all we can reasonably ask for, in these wretched downhill times.

  And which brings me to a brace of items that must be dealt with at once: 1) Sheehan3 needs $150 for his PPK, and since I paid you by check for both pistols at once, I guess you owe Neil the money. Let me know about this, so we can finally get that situation behind us…. 2) I need that TEAC tape deck at once, or at least as soon as you can arrange a trade for the Uher. I have some potential buyers out here for $300-plus, but since the machine is there and so is your TEAC dealer, I’d prefer to go with the same deal we discussed when I was there for the wedding; which, as I recall, left me paying between $200 and $250 for the trade…. Jesus, this leaves me taking a bad beating on the Uher, but under the circumstances I figure I need the TEAC now more than I need a good deal later: So tell your man to ship it at once & I’ll pay his bill when I get the machine. OK? Okay …

  Strange note here: I just talked to a guy named Dick Parker, who owns a store called the Racquet Shop in Concord (it’s a tennis & ski-wear shop, I think) and he has your cane—the one I think I recall stealing from your house. Anyway, he did us a huge favor by giving us a ride to Logan Airport when there were no cabs available, and I left your cane in his car. He’s holding it for you at the shop in Concord, so stop by and pick it up.

  On other fronts, what are we going to do this year? My own situation is flux to the point of madness: Immense wealth hovers just beyond my grasp, but legal & contractual confusion is driving me to the brink of suicide…. On Xmas Eve the United Parcel truck rolled into my driveway with two packages: One contained three sets of monogrammed (red, black & gold) satin sheets, and the other box contained a brand new xerox telecopier (mojo wire) from Wenner…. And we both know what a “Christmas present” like that means: Nobody gives a mojo wire as a present, right?

  In the meantime, I can’t even pay my bar bill at the Jerome. My decision to take the month of December off, at any cost, has had the obvious repercussions—especially in the ledger of a free-lance writer who effectively took the whole year (’75) off, for reasons of foreign travel, rare drugs, and random tangents into exotic and always expensive styles of sensuality that can only be supported by a bottomless pit of wealth.

  Within two weeks, however, I’ll have necessarily signed to do either a novel, a film-script, or monthly coverage of the ’76 campaign. This is going to have to be a working year, for good or ill. Do you have any money-fat ideas in this area?

  Jesus goddamn sweating christ!
I see the sun coming up and I know that means I have to deal with a plethora of strange situations in the next 12 hours. Bobby & David are here, along with R. Reagan’s son & numerous other human wild-cards … but what the hell?

  I also have to finish the Indochina piece for Jann, then cover the Super Bowl for Playboy …. So I ain’t resting.

  How about you? Let me know ASAP inre: the PPK & the TEAC, so I can get those out of the way … and before I forget, let me tip my hat, or whatever, once again, to the finely muted style and precision of the wedding. It was a work of art from start to finish, and thanks for inviting us. Your wedding present is still at the taxidermist’s down in Rifle, but it should reach you around Feb 15 or so.

  OK for now. I have to work, before the deluge hits me once again …and since I’m on the subject of wedding presents, let me remind you once again that the honeymoon outfit I found in the airport was a two-part, sort of interim, gift: The top was for Doris and the pants were for you. I wasn’t sure that split was entirely understood in the confusion of the wedding. (If you get a chance, send me a shot of you wearing your half—I’ll mount it on the wall.)

  Cazart,

  Hunter

  P.S. Visit here anytime—give warning, etc.

  TO LOREN JENKINS, NEWSWEEK:

  In the process of dubbing some audiocassettes he had made in Southeast Asia, Thompson found himself in need of the typewriter that he left in Hong Kong. He also lamented to Jenkins, who was now stationed in Rome, that Aspen was becoming too much of a tourist trap.

  January 15, 1976

  Woody Creek, CO

  Loren …

  I’m sitting here listening to you and Tuohy4 whooping it up in the Continental garden; for some odd reason, you and Bill and Nick [Profitt] tend to dominate my tape-record of the last days of The War … and consequently about half my tapes sound like they were made at a New Year’s Eve party in the alcoholic ward of a sort of international insane asylum. Your raving (telephone) gig with the Newsweek photo editor is a definite classic … and, yes, now that I look back at your recent letter I see a possible trade-off, to wit:

  I’m now in the process of dubbing all my Indochina cassettes on big reel-to-reel tapes, for the ages … and from these reels I can make high-quality cassette copies of any tape you might want for yourself, and then mail them to you in Rome.

  Which brings us to the matter of that goddamn Olivetti electric typewriter, and also the nasty fact that there is no way I can effect delivery of the thing from Hong Kong to here…. But with all the massive & world-wide logistical machinery at your command, you should be able to get it to me somehow, or maybe sell it to somebody in HK by putting a notice on the bulletin board at the Fgn. Corresp. Club. I’m still offering a 10% commission to Jeannie or whoever sells it for anything over $150. If memory serves, I paid slightly more than $200 for the brute.

  In any case, there’s damn little I can do about it on this end, so I’m leaving the problem in your hands, for good or ill. I’d naturally be more inclined to get these tape-copies to you in conjunction with a satisfactory solution of the typewriter problem, but of course I’m not making it conditional on that … and if the hellish truth be known, once you get the thing to Rome I’ll be happy enough to give it to Nancy as a tool for her own use at home, provided she’ll let me use it whenever I get there. That way, I’d always be sure of having my own typewriter when I arrive to cover the Fall of Rome—which is bound to happen sometime soon, given the current fate of Beirut & other one-time outposts of empire.

  The only aspect of the typewriter gig that bothers me is the idea of just leaving the bastard in HK as a total loss. If you can get Ron to bring it to Rome, just hang onto the bugger and consider it a down-payment for the inevitable hospitality you’ll have to extend when I get stranded there, myself.

  My travel plans at the moment are vague, but I have a feeling I’ll get to Angola or maybe S. Africa sometime soon … although in the next few months I won’t be going much further than Florida, Texas or L.A. I’ve been trying to get a contract for a novel or a screenplay this year, but in the meantime I’ve been roped back into covering another goddamn campaign, mainly because I’m stone fucking broke. I’m leaving for Florida next week, if only to get away from my creditors and this rotten snow.

  Aspen no longer seems salvageable. At one point during the recent Xmas rush, the local CC [Chamber of Commerce] figured there were 30,000 tourists in town. Thirty thousand, including a whole new element from Hollywood café society: Diana Ross, Warren Beatty, Truman Capote & all of John Denver’s5 friends…. Jesus, I’m beginning to think seriously about putting the Owl Farm on the market and looking around for another base. The multiple costs of living here are getting almost too high to pay—particularly for somebody who hates cold weather as much as I do.

  We had a bit of excitement last weekend, however, when Tom Benton & Billy Noonan maced a whole restaurant full of people, including the mayor and the city manager & their wives. They were detained & held just long enough to have a good alibi for the moment, about 2 hrs. later, when some lunatic fired a marine emergency “parachute flare” in the front door of the Jerome, just as two cherry bombs went off inside the back door … and in the ensuing uproar, a visiting skier was shot in the back with a 50,000 volt electric dart gun called a “Taser.” Clarence Kelley, that geek who runs the FBI,6 has been telling anybody who’ll listen that 1976 will be “a year of violence” in this country; he hasn’t said why yet, or where he’s getting his tips, but if Aspen during the first week of January was part of the pattern, I suspect Kelley might be onto something—and maybe I won’t have to travel, after all.

  Speaking of violence, how is Phil Caputo?7 I heard he was wounded a while back in Beirut. Is Nick Profitt still there? And what about Tony & Claire? We got a letter from them on St. George’s Hotel stationery, but it got here six months late and by then the hotel was no more. … I assume Tuohy managed to avoid the violence, as usual, by stealing bits & pieces of “eyewitness accounts” from anybody crazy enough to drink with him after midnight.

  (Before I forget, I’m reading a book on War Correspondents called The First Casualty by Phillip Knightley. You should definitely have it, so if you can’t get a copy over there, let me know and I’ll send one.)

  Jesus, it’s getting light here & I have to get some sleep. But before I quit, I think a word of congratulations is in order with regard to your new duty station. That’s worth about five Niemans, I’d say—and it also establishes you as one of the few master craftsmen in your field. I’ll visit ASAP, but in the meantime Sandy & Juan say hello.

  Salud,

  Hunter

  TO TED SOLOTAROFF, THE AMERICAN REVIEW:

  Thompson passed on reviewing Tom Robbins’s new novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.

  February 3, 1976

  Woody Creek, CO

  Dear Mr. Solotaroff …

  I’ve spent about three hours trying to write you a letter to say why I can’t send the kind of “words of welcome” I suspect you want in re: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. But everything I’ve written so far would almost certainly sound rude and cynical & arrogant on your end, so I figure it’s best to just junk all the earlier drafts and tell you, in this one, that I spent a few years as a part-time book reviewer and almost ten years, now, reading reviews of my own books … and on the basis of all that evidence, I think I’ll pass on the chance to render any judgement on other people’s books.

  There are, of course, exceptions: When I first read Dog Soldiers,8 for instance, I recommended it to friends with the assurance that I’d reimburse them for the price of the hardcover if they didn’t like it … and on the other end of the scale, where rancid bullshit lives, I am forced from time to time to comment on the Works of “Werner Erhard.”9

  In any case, I wish to hell you’d never sent me the galleys or proofs or whatever of Cowgirls—but since you did & I tend to trust yr. judgement for a variety of reasons that would take too long to list or even t
hink about here, I’m inclined to lend you the use of my name (since I assume that’s why you sent me this goddamn thing in the first place) to say—and to reproduce in any & all forms—any combination of English-language words amounting in total to less than 20, to say anything you deem fitting with regard to the merits of Cowgirls. You can say, for instance: “A weird & stunning work,” or “Sooner or later a book like this was bound to be written.” And sign my name to anything you compose.

  I just got back home from 3 wks. in Miami & LA, and I’m not in the mood to read a book that begins with an apology by the author for his use “throughout this book” [of] “third person pronouns and collective nouns in the masculine gender”—or any other gender, for that matter…. And I also opened the book, as is my wont with unknown manuscripts, to a page somewhere in the middle: and in this case I hit on pages 160 and 161, where I found the style & tone or whatever of the writing to be not in my taste … which doesn’t mean this is anything but a wonderful book; but that’s your business, since I assume you’re somehow involved as an editor, and because of that and what I’ve heard about you I figure you’re in a far better position to judge this book than I am … and for that reason I’ll trust your judgement (in twenty (20) words or less) to say anything you want about the book, and to use whatever you want to say in my name for any purpose you think is right; I can’t imagine that anything I’d say would make the slightest difference in any way, but if you think it might, seize this opportunity & kick out the jams. For any & all legal, promotional & esthetic purposes, I hereby appoint you my spokesman for any combination of up to 19 words you can lash together.

  For good or ill;

  & Good luck,