Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
I seem to be drifting … but after all these goddamn pages, why not? I think most of the serious points are made, and despite any gibberish I might get into now, in closing, everything I said about those numerous negotiation gigs with Rolling Stone is absolutely serious. Beyond that, the March 15 deadline ignores the definite likelihood that I’ll be talking to Jann on the phone between now & then—about all kinds of small things & details, but since I’ve already agreed to sell him all these goddamn articles & to go to Vietnam & also to become a Contributing Editor in principle—which I can’t really explain except that I’ve said Yes to all these things without mentioning money except for the $1000 shot for the Aspen piece—well, it looks from this end like you might, as they say, “have your work cut out for you.”
If nothing else, we’re talking about the sale of a few articles for a grand or so each … but beyond that we’re talking about a long term relationship that could (& should, I think) involve a decent amount of money—not only in terms of article fees but also book rights & other money options that would naturally come with any contractual association with an aggressive & ambitious little bugger like Wenner & a “magazine” that’s obviously looking to expand in every conceivable direction. In this sense, it’s a bit different from the same sort of gig with, say, Esquire—because Esquire is more or less static, for good or ill, while RS is very definitely kinetic, also for good or ill.
Maybe there’s no basic difference in signing on as a contributing editor for either one. But the point is that I don’t know. I have no point of reference, and I suspect I’ll need one soon. Tomorrow I’ll make a serious effort to locate Sack down in Georgia—not only to find out what Esquire gives him for first refusal rights on everything he does, but also to find out about expenses, etc. in Vietnam. In the meantime, I’m counting on you to make sense of all this gibberish and come up with some kind of arrangement that will allow me to become not only rich & famous, but also safe from the Taxman. My feeling, for now, is that I have nothing to lose by hiring on with Rolling Stone …but what I need to know is what it’s worth, in terms of straight dollars—particularly when it has to be laid out on 3 levels (salary, draw & expenses) & also considering book rights, options & other future expenses.
OK. Maybe the best thing to do, once you’ve digested this letter, might be a phone talk … very soon, right? Indeed …
FROM TOM WOLFE:
February 25, 1971
Le Grande Hotel
Rome, Italy
Dear Hunter,
I’ve been in Italy on a LECTURE TOUR, which has been pretty funny stuff. My audiences look at me as if I were a new Oldsmobile, nothing more and nothing less. I tell them about you and the ANGELS from time to time, and they seem to think you’re crazy. That’s just the point, I tell them. No writer in Italy would think of such an excursion, because it would be UNPROFESSORIAL—that’s the going frame of mind among writers here, journalists included.
My new JOURNALISM book I expect to wrap up, finally, in March. I have a section of the ANGELS slated, but I am tempted to use one of your superb Scanlan’s pieces (too uproarious for words, man).
Followed your SHERIFF fight with great relish…. You accomplished more by NOT winning, just coming close, I think.
Keep ’em flying!
Tom Wolfe
TO JANN WENNER, ROLLING STONE:
Bitter from his dealings with Sidney Zion, Thompson tossed around the idea of writing a scorching exposé on the now bankrupt Scanlan’s Monthly.
February 28, 1971
Woody Creek, CO
Jann …
Here’s a real hummer for you: “Farewell to Scanlan’s.” Give it some thought—forced visits with Hinckle & Zion, along with word-photos of earlier, happier visits in the old days. Before the money ran out.
Yeah … and this is a mean trip, for sure. And in truth I’m not sure I’m mean enough to do it—but it is an idea. And the truth is that while Scanlan’s had money, it was a good idea. Hinckle was the only editor in America you could call at 3:00 a.m. with a sorry idea & feel generally confident that by the time you hung up you’d have a $1500 story in your craw, plus massive expenses & whatever else you needed to get the thing done … but it was hard to know, even then, if the thing would ever see print; because the final gamut was yet to be run. Indeed … there was Sidney Zion, the Money Man, who spent his days in Sardi’s & his nights in Gallaghers & Elaine’s, Holding Forth … then reeling back to the office to fuck over the editorial people … the writers (like me) and the artists (like Ralph Steadman) & even the staff editors like Harvey Cohen & that poor straight British bastard Don Goddard… and god knows how many others.
Anyway, it’s a terrible vicious idea. But it still burns the shit out of me that those pigs bought their own public stock at 5 cents on the dollar & now that they’re going bankrupt they’re going to pay off their creditors & stockholders (including themselves) at 8 cents. So even in bankruptcy the editors come out ahead … right? Or maybe wrong? I haven’t investigated this well enough to be sure, but the figures are clear enough. So here we have the great muckraking journalism experiment as a stinking rip-off: everybody gets fucked except the (2) people who bought their stock at 5 cents on the dollar.
Anyway, this is a shot we should probably give some thought to … because even though the bastards deserve it & also that a story like this would clear the decks of a whole legion of bad shuck-hustlers … yeah, even then, there is still the question of how a final shot like this would serve the Greater Good. And I think that’s the question we should weigh. Frankly, I’m inclined to do it—or at least to pursue the initial interviews & scare the mortal shit out of both of those bastards—but in the final analysis I think it’s a thing we should talk about quietly. (An example that occurs to me is the Toronto Peace Festival thing—which burned Brower & that crowd,13 but which established a larger truth that in the end was worth the effort.) It was right to fuck Brower …& as far as I’m concerned it’s not only right but necessary to fuck Zion. But I wonder about Hinckle. Although the piece could be done in a way that would spare him, more or less … but, well … give it some thought & we’ll talk it over when I get there on March 15.
Ciao …
Hunter
TO TOM WOLFE:
Thompson may have had a point: Wolfe’s white suits and jet-setting probably wouldn’t have gone over well with Ella Reeve “Mother” Bloor, the radical pro-temperance suffragette who cofounded the U.S. Communist Party in 1919.
March 3, 1971
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Tom …
You worthless scumsucking bastard. I just got your letter of Feb 25 from Le Grande Hotel in Roma, you swine! Here you are running around fucking Italy in that filthy white suit at a thousand bucks a day laying all kinds of stone gibberish & honky bullshit on those poor wops who can’t tell the difference … while I’m out here in the middle of these goddamn frozen mountains in a death-battle with the taxman & nursing cheap wine while my dogs go hungry & my cars explode and a legion of nazi lawyers makes my life a goddamn Wobbly nightmare….
You decadent pig. Where the fuck do you get the nerve to go around telling those wops that I’m crazy? You worthless cocksucker. My Italian tour is already arranged for next spring & I’m going to do the whole goddamn trip wearing a bright red field marshal’s uniform & accompanied by six speed-freak bodyguards bristling with Mace bombs & when I start talking about American writers & the name Tom Wolfe comes up, by god, you’re going to wish you were born a fucking iguana!
OK for that, you thieving pile of albino warts. You better settle your goddamn affairs because your deal is about to go down. “Unprofessorial,” indeed! You scurvy wop! I’ll have your goddamn femurs ground into bone splinters if you ever mention my name again in connection with that horrible “new journalism” shuck you’re promoting.
Ah, this greed, this malignancy! Where will it end? What filthy weight in your soul has made you sink so low? Doctor Bloor was right!
Sincerely,
Hunter
TO VIRGINIA THOMPSON:
March 3, 1971
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Mom …
As always, the same old reasons for not writing. Your last letter came at a time when I had to borrow $1000 at midnight on Sunday—to keep the Taxman from towing my car away at dawn on Monday. Scanlan’s went bankrupt owing me $5260—which plunged me into serious trouble with the IRS & also caused American Express to seize my card & take me to court. So, ever since the election I’ve spent most of my waking hours screaming at lawyers in SF, LA & NY (& also at IRS men in Denver & Aspen) … but all to no avail. In the end I got no money out of Scanlan’s & neither the IRS nor AmExp altered their forced-payment schedules. So at the moment I owe the IRS another (& final) $1300 on April 7, and I owe AmExp about $1200 yesterday.
Anyway … to hell with all that. I’m getting that end of things under control, more or less, by hiring on as a roving editor of sorts for Rolling Stone in San Francisco. This means that most of what I write for the next few months (or longer, if the deal works out) will appear in Rolling Stone—which Jim gets, as I recall. My problem now is to get on an even keel again from that disaster with Scanlan’s.
Meanwhile, I find myself infamous & stone broke. Aspen is full of journalists demanding to interview me. Today it was James Reston Jr. from the NY Times … and the May issue of Esquire will apparently include me in some kind of horrible photo-spread (in gibberish …). There is also talk—among West Coast political-financiers—of my running for the U.S. Senate from Colorado in ’72. Which is fine, but meanwhile I’m about 4 months behind on the rent & the Taxman is even talking about auctioning off my Dobermans. Horrible, horrible … but what the hell?
Enclosed are some weird memos of the campaign that you might like. Bill Noonan’s full-pg. newspaper ad in the Aspen Times (in his losing race for Coroner) just won the state Press Assn. Award for the best ad of 1970. I’d send a copy if I had one, but by now they’re all collector’s items. Inre: your letter of 2/1 …Yes, I’d definitely like to have the London Fog coat & the white pants. My wardrobe is like that of some Yukon trapper. Send them at once, and thanks.
At the moment I’m trying to finish a huge Aspen-election aftermath article for Rolling Stone. I have to take it over there on Mar 15, then immediately go to LA to finish off a piece on the Mexican-American vs. police scene down there. At the same time, I have to come up with a film-script to show some producer in LA and also decide how I can finish the Random House book in time to go to Vietnam for Rolling Stone.
In other words, everything is coming to a head at once. As usual. The RH book is so long overdue that it has to be done by this summer … so the options for autumn are either making a film or going to Vietnam for a few months. All this will have to be decided by the end of March … but right now it’s all very hazy.
I’ve had no word from Davison or Jim since our phone-talk. Did Jim ever get that belt we sent? I didn’t want to punch the hole in it because I wasn’t sure what size he wears, but the idea was that he should get the hole punched.
How are things going there, in general? Better than here, I hope. Sandy is a volunteer teacher at the new experimental school, headed by Sylvia Ashton-Warner. Constant problems on that end … in addition to a constant crisis-atmosphere in local politics. I seem to spend most of my time during the day playing political boss, and I’m getting goddamn tired of it. Hopefully, we’ll be able to lease this house next winter & live somewhere else. Maybe Saigon or Hong Kong. Right now it doesn’t make much difference.
OK. That’s about it from here. Send word from that end.
Love,
H
TO TOM WOLFE:
On assignment to cover Nevada’s Mint 400 motorcycle race for Sports Illustrated, Thompson had spent most of the past six weeks enduring and writing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his groundbreaking Gonzo chronicle of “a savage journey to the heart of the American dream.” Wolfe would pronounce the resulting book “a scorching, epochal sensation.”
April 20, 1971
Woody Creek, CO
Tom …
Here’s the final version (of Part One) of that Raoul Duke in Las Vegas thing. Jann said he gave you an earlier, now obsolete version—although in some ways I like the early shot better, because it moves faster. I’ve found that it’s almost impossible to sustain that kind of speedy madness for 10,000 words. I’m still working on Part Two, but it’s not working out so well. This is the kind of thing that has to be done in a straight run, I think, and all in one place. The first draft of Part One, for instance, was written by hand on Mint Hotel stationery during an all-night drunk/drug frenzy while I waited for dawn to come up so I could flee without paying. I typed the section you have in a motel in Pasadena, but changed hardly anything from the original crazed draft. Then I left it alone for about 10 days while I worked on that Chicano thing … and when I tried to get back on top of it, out here, I found my mind locking up every time I tried to write.
This happens every time I leave the scene of a piece—physically and mentally—before actually writing it. So in terms of Gonzo Journalism (pure), Part One is the only chunk that qualifies—although even the final version is slightly bastardized. What I was trying to get at in this was [the] mind-warp/photo technique of instant journalism: One draft, written on the spot at top speed and basically un-revised, edited, chopped, larded, etc. for publication. Ideally, I’d like to walk away from a scene and mail my notebook to the editor, who will then carry it, un-touched, to the printer.
But I think that will take a while to hash out.
Anyway, you can do whatever you want to with this. I just wanted you to see that Raoul Duke is pushing the frontiers of “new journalism” a lot further than anything you’ll find in Hell’s Angels. I think the main thing is to find some sort of academic-type justification for the Photo/Mind-Warp approach. Otherwise, the grey little cocksuckers who run things will keep drawing that line between Journalism and Fiction.
But fuck them. It’s their problem, anyway. I told some creep from Sports Illustrated that I had this weird account of the thing they sent me out to cover, but they didn’t even want to look at it. Just send us a 500 word text block, they said … because we need something, after all, to explain these incredible bills you ran up. So I’ll send them their caption after I finish the main gig, which should be today or tomorrow.
Sorry we didn’t have more time to talk in SF. Maybe you can arrange for me to come to NY & address the Columbia journalism faculty. Otherwise, I’ll be locked in out here all summer, finishing that gibberish for Random House. Let me know if you feel like coming out for a few days. Plenty of room here.
OK …
Hunter
enc. “Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas,” by Raoul Duke (for Rolling Stone).
TO TOM VANDERSCHMIDT, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED:
Tom Vanderschmidt had “aggressively rejected” the fifteen-thousand-word masterwork Thompson submitted in place of the fifteen-hundred-word motorcycle-race coverage asked for and expected by subeditor Pat Ryan, who would go on to become editor of People magazine.
April 22, 1971
Woody Creek, CO
Tom…
Sooner or later you’ll see what your call (to me) set in motion—a fantastic mushroom. Tomorrow I’m going back to Las Vegas for another bout with the swine. Very heavy duty.
Meanwhile, tell whoever Pat Ryan is that I’m right on the verge of sending her those 500 words she wants. I offered her the true Gonzo interpretation, but she insisted on a small mess of pottage. People like that should be sent back to answering flip-buzzers.
Anyway, your instinct was right. The Lord works in wondrous ways. Your call was the key to a massive freak-out. The result is still up in the air, and still c
Okay, and thanks again for calling.
Sincerely,
Hunter
TO LYNN NESBIT:
Thompson spelled out his thoughts on the final direction of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his Vietnam project, and his presidential aspirations.
April 23, 1971
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Lynn …
Here’s the $20 I owe you from the Polo Lounge. Actually, I’m just trying out this stationery I stole, and since I couldn’t think of anybody else to write … well shucks …
Anyway, I called Silberman today and sold him a book for a massive price. It’s called “Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, by Raoul Duke—Doctor of Journalism” … or something along those lines. The first half is already done: 15,000 words of mean gibberish that is already sold to RS. The second half will be done when—and if—I survive the National District Attorneys’ Conference on Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs, which begins Monday April 26 in Las Vegas. I plan to attend—accompanied, of course, by My Attorney. Mr. Acosta will meet me there with the tools of our hellish trade.
If you want to chat about this—and I think we probably should—you can call me at the Hotel Flamingo until Thursday, when I’ll probably stop thru San Francisco to edit the original Vegas Piece and put my initials on the final draft of the Rolling Stone/Random House Merger.
The book idea is based on my notion that the original 15,000 words that Sports Illustrated rejected—plus another long narrative based on the Drug Conference—equals two articles for RS and one short book for Random House. Silberman offered me 100K for it; maybe you can ease him up to 110 or so.