The Benzedrine had a side effect of paranoia, which got worse when Acosta left him in Las Vegas to fly home. In reality, Acosta brought a significant quantity of cannabis, and despite Thompson’s claims that they used excessive hallucinogens, they drank a lot of alcohol and Thompson took a lot of Benzedrine, an amphetamine he used to stay awake as he wrote feverishly. and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.” He also claimed that they used excessive hallucinogens throughout the trip.
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS ART RALPH STEADMAN FULL
In Fear and Loathing, Thompson wrote that they brought “two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers. The Second Trip, This Time To A Narcotics Conference These writings were the inception of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, which he later typed up in an apartment in Pasadena California. At the end of the trip, Thompson spent 36 hours alone in the hotel room writing about his experiences. Acosta went home early, leaving Thompson with Acosta’s weed and gun, which, in part, caused Thompson to panic and led him to formulate the thesis of his ideas about the modern American Dream. Thompson wrote the captions for Sports Illustrated, but his writing became a lengthy analysis of gambling, excess, and the origins of Sin City within the framework of the Mint 400 race he submitted text that was ten times the length of what was expected, and the story was rejected. He stayed in a hotel with Acosta and they could talk freely. It's a dark book - but also a funny one - that addressed a dark time.īecause Thompson needed a more comfortable place to discuss the story with Acosta, and because they were concerned that people would not talk to Acosta if they saw him talking to a white reporter, Thompson accepted an offer from Sports Illustrated to write photo captions for the annual Mint 400 desert race, which was being held in Las Vegas from March 21-23, 1971. Fear And Loathing isn't "about" any of those events, but it was written in their aftermath. In the 18 months since the Woodstock festival, America had witnessed the Manson family's Tate-Labianca murders, violence at the Altamont festival, reports of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and the shootings of students by National Guard troops on the campus of Kent State University. The mood of the country had turned very quickly with a string of events and news that decimated the optimism of the late '60s.
Gonzo are not hippies they're disillusioned ex-hippies, and the changes they once hoped to enact have failed to happen.
Published in 1971, Fear And Loathing promised us "A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" - what it delivered was a state of the nation, a snapshot of America leaving the '60s behind. Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, depicting a pair of misfits on a drug-fueled lost weekend, is an essential book of the '70s.