Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone (14 page)

OK for now . . .

HST

Letter from HST to JSW, July 30, 1971

7/30

Owl Farm

Woody Creek, Colorado

Jann/

Vegas is emerging from a bad case of stomach flu, combined with a water war that went a lot closer to the edge than I planned on.

It took me 2 days to bring the fucker under control—which included the croaking, tonight, of a “takeover bid” on the Owl Farm by M. Burns. (with [producer Bob] Rafelson)

Plenty of action out here—about 40 defecations a day & 20 vomitings, along with all the rest.

I feel very weak.

Ciao/

H

Undated letter from HST to JSW

Jann . . .

Vegas Two took a great leap forward yesterday; it finally developed a plotline. Only one big chunk still needs to be done—the Drug Conference itself. (Oh yeah—& there’s also the
ending.) Last week was totally consumed by the Water War. I won, but it cost me six full days of time & energy.

I figure Vegas will take another week, but let me know if you smell any deadlines I haven’t been told about. October is a long way off, but I want to finish the fucker and get done with The Battle of Aspen.

I also want to decide, very soon, about this Washington gig—mainly because I have to know whether or not my house will be for rent this winter. I’d like to stay here as long as possible, but October 1 would probably be the deadline for getting it rented. In other words, I’d probably have to be
out
by then. There’s a chance I could stretch that until Xmas by putting the tenant/family in the Iguana house, temporarily, but I haven’t checked this out. Ideally, the Washington thing should be a one-year contract of sorts, from November to November. That would be the most convenient for a house/hq. lease in DC, and also from most other aspects. (Hell, I see where this kind of thing presents infinite complications, so I’ll leave it alone for now) ... but if you give it any thought in the meantime, keep in mind that my main considerations are:

1) Having enough money to move freely—not only in Washington, but also around the primaries (which means a fairly heavy airline/hotel tab for an extended period of time)

2) Being able to rent these houses, out here, so I won’t have to worry about this end.

3) Having a certain amount of autonomy, inre: paying for information & that sort of thing. Dan Greene could provide a vast amount of sub rosa help, for instance, but not for very long unless we paid. (That Randy Agnew contact was a pure accident, resulting from my request that he track down the eyeball man, and he told me about it more on a gossip basis than a story lead.)

Anyway, I’m having dinner with [
New York Times
journalist] Max Frankel Tuesday night, and I’ll warn him that I plan to be baying at his heels throughout the whole campaign. Actually—given the two-week deadline and some money to put people like Greene and maybe Bob Sherrill on a quiet-stringer basis, I think
we could make the “Washington page” (or whatever) a sort of infamous press classic for the length of the whole campaign—not
competing
with the Fat City press, but riding herd on them; playing the Wolverine, as it were. A sort of Nader trip, focusing on the traditional & inevitable incest that seems to be the basis of the press/power relationship in Washington. Like a self-appointed ombudsman, hassling
everybody
—not just Nixon & Muskie—in the interest of that New/Dropout vote bloc we’ve talked about. The idea would be to approach the thing more as a lobby-interest than a straight observer—opening a news bureau with the undeclared option of using it, if necessary, as a de facto campaign headquarters. Which it would probably become, anyway, if we can put this Essalen [
sic
] idea together & come up with a platform.

Ciao,

H

Undated letter from HST to JSW

Saturday

Owl Farm

Woody Creek, Colorado

Jann . . .

Right after I hung up last night I realized you said the award was for “unstapled” journalism—but the word I got was
unstable
. Which made me wonder why you seemed so pleased. Or maybe I just felt guilty—one of those Freudian misunderstandings. Since I was working on the Las Vegas piece at the time, it figured. “Unstable,” indeed! Those swine. Next year we should demand a Gonzo category—or maybe
RS
should give it. Of course. “The First Annual
Rolling Stone
Award for the Year’s Finest Example of Pure Gonzo Journalism.” First Prize: a gallon
of raw ether. Second: a Pepper-Fogger, donated by the ELA Sheriff’s Dept. Third: A free trip to the 1972 Mint 400 in Las Vegas to anybody with the balls to go out there and apply for “
Rolling Stone
” press credentials.

Ciao,

Hunter

Letter from HST to JSW

Monday Aug ’71

Owl Farm

Woody Creek, Colorado

Jann . . .

Here’s the
tentatively
-finished draft of Vegas II, Section One. I’m not sure it moves fast enough; maybe I need something rude & heavy injected up front ... but right now I can’t make that kind of judgement, so I might as well send this part off and wait a week or so before trying to read it objectively.

This is about 11,000 words, I think. I have maybe 10K more already written & waiting to be typed & chronologically fitted. My guess is that the whole of Vegas Two will run between 25 and 30K words. And that’s plenty. Perhaps too much. The effectiveness of the story depends on its hi-speed pace. We can afford to slow it down a bit once we get to the book stage, but we can’t afford anything slow or sluggish in the
RS
version . . . or readers will “take a break” & never come back.

You should read the first section with this in mind ... keeping in mind, of course, that it’s actually the middle (in book terms), so the crucial thing in this part is to build to a Climax, which should come at the end of Section Two ... and then use Sec 3 at the Ending. I have a fairly clear notion of where I’m going ... so what you should be thinking about right now is
putting Alan on the phone with [Hunter’s agent] Lynn [Nesbit] & Silberman, to work out the book-arrangements. That money is my down payment on the Owl Farm—120 acres & both houses, a deal that we just settled tonight.

OK for now . . .

HST

Undated 1971 letter from HST to JSW

Owl Farm

Woody Creek, Colorado

Jann/

Here’s the rest of Vegas—minus a few graphs, but let’s get it sorted out & cut before I start adding graphs. Otherwise, it will just keep growing.

Great rush & chaos here—the cops have a bench warrant for me—Sandy is vomiting all over the house—
seven
Dobermans underfoot, no sleep,
snowing
outside.

Send the $500 at once. I’m down to zero.

Thanx/

H

Letter from HST to JSW, September 14, 1971

9/14—Tues

Jann/

I’m making these final correx (galleys) on the plane to NY—going over it all again & finding typos I missed the first time.

No doubt I’ll miss some on this round, too. All writers tend
to read over their own mistakes. So you should definitely have somebody look at this for typos, missing words, etc.

One thing I want to add, up front, in Vegas I is a set of directions on
how
to read it ... what music to play at top volume, what drugs to eat, (“read only between 2 & 6 a.m.,” etc.)—Just a box, about 250 words, at the start. Do I have time to get this in?

Letter from HST to JSW

10/15/71

Owl Farm

Woody Creek, Colorado

Jann/

My mail today contained a wholly unreadable Xerox of the galleys for Vegas II. Totally worthless—& also totally unnecessary. I can’t even read the fuckers, much less correct them. What’s so fucking difficult about sending me some
galleys
? And whoever initialed these grey-hazy things should be fired. On G-45, I notice the word “teach”—in big black caps—spelled “TETCH.” Uncorrected & apparently un-noticed . . . which makes me wonder what kind of typo-horrors might be lurking in that fog of grey shit I can’t even begin to read or even see. (Jesus! I see another gross error just one inch down from “TETCH.”

Fuck it—I refuse to search for any more. Only 2 of the 14 “galleys” are even initialed—it looks like even the proofreader gave up. (The “TETCH” pg. is
not
initialed). Jesus, what a mess. I’d appreciate another set of veloxes ... along with some
galleys
I can read & work on.

Thanx

HST

M
EMO FROM THE
S
PORTS
D
ESK
(U
NDATED
)

To all employees without exception

Why is the staff so fucking lazy? It’s getting so I can’t even walk fast through the hallways any more without stumbling over some freak on the nod.

Is it drugs? Has it come to that?

If so, by God, we’re going to clean it up pretty damn fast. My attorney has worked out a series of disciplinary measures that will zap this thing where it lives.

Henceforth, anyone caught with narcotics, crazy pills, or other stupor inducing agents, will be dragged down to the basement and have his scrotum torn off ... and, conversely, any offender
without
a scrotum will have one permanently attached to her.

We feel such measures are necessary, even vital, to the health of this organization. This is the unanimous opinion of the Sports Staff, & as editor, I mean to enforce it.

We will play no favorites. Beginning on the day after Christmas, any employee caught nodding out, jacking off, or otherwise squandering company time will pay the penalty.

This is a business—not a goddamn dude ranch, and any salaried person who feels he/she cannot abide by these new regulations had better get out
now
.

There will be no second warning. Copies of this notice will be posted in every corridor and they
shall not be defaced
.

Sincerely,

Raoul Duke

Sports Editor

Letter from HST to JSW, August 23, 1971

82371

Jann:

This thing is so fucking strange (to me) that I’m afraid to comment on it. I showed it to [Hunter’s son] Juan, who’s right in the middle of what Officer Bill says is the “impressionable age” ... and he just smiled and tossed it aside after a quick scan. I got the feeling he thought I was putting him on. Anyway, don’t lose the thing; I may need it later on. It was, by the way, part of Officer Bill’s anti-drug package that I got in Vegas ... and it strikes me as a good sample of the super-shrewd cop wisdom they were handing out there.

OK for now. Send it back if you don’t see any place for it in the Vegas art stuff.

HST

Undated letter from National District Attorneys Association

National District Attorneys Association

211 East Chicago Avenue, Suite 1204

Chicago, Illinois 60611

T
O
: All Las Vegas Drug Conference Attendees

F
ROM
: Patrick F. Healy, Executive Director

It is my sincere pleasure to enclose your certificate of achievement in connection with your attendance at the Las Vegas Drug Conference.

If the NDAA can ever be of assistance to you, please feel free to call upon us.

Hunter writes to Jann as he nears completion of “Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Part II.”

Jann . . .

The hole between our talk with the Georgia lawyer and “Back Door Beauty” should be properly and quite adequately filled by Steadman’s art.

The hole between Back Door Beauty and “my attorney left at dawn” could use a slice of art, too ... following the tape transcription.

The central problem here is that you’re working overtime to treat this thing as Straight or at least Responsible journalism ... whereas in truth we are dealing with a classic of irresponsible gibberish. You’d be better off trying to make objective, chronological sense of “Highway 61,”
The Ginger Man
, “Mr. Tambourine Man,” or even
Naked Lunch
.

Despite these onerous comparisons, I suspect the point still stands. And the real nut of the problem is that I seem to resent any attempts to tell me how I should write my Gonzo Journalism. I realize that this stance is rude & irrational, but I guess I tend to operate that way now and then.

This gibberish is no more “journalism” than Steadman’s art is “illustration.” Charlie [Perry,
RS
associate editor] was lamenting the fact—and I agreed—that one of Ralph’s drawings would have been nicer if he’d included a herd of bats. But he didn’t—so I offered to draw them in myself, with an ink pencil. Charlie was horrified. Which was exactly the right reaction. I wouldn’t
touch
one of Ralph’s drawings—and for the same reason, I can’t work up much enthusiasm for treating “Fear & Loathing” like a news story. No doubt the holes and kinks
should
be filled, but for some reason I just can’t work up much zeal for the job. Maybe after 12 or 20 hours of sleep I might think differently, but I wouldn’t count on it. Let’s keep in mind that this was never a commissioned work of journalism; it was a strange neo-fictional outburst that was deemed so rotten and wasteful, journalistically,
that neither
RS
nor
Spts. Illustrated
would even reimburse me for my expenses. So I’m not in much of a mood, right now, to act grateful for any editorial direction. (No doubt I’m wrong and bullheaded on this score, but the way this thing developed has made me feel sort of personal about it; irrationally possessive, as it were—and at this stage of the action I’m not real hungry for advice about how the thing should be handled. It’s been an instinct trip from the start, and I suspect it’s going to stay that way—for good or ill.

Anyway, I’ve worked myself into such a stupor of crazed fatigue that I can’t even sleep—and when I went into the office today Hank [Torgrimson,
RS
accountant] was ready to have me arrested for Stealing this typewriter. Things seem to be breaking down—after a long run of Good Work. So I think it’s time to go home. I’ll call you on Monday or Tuesday and see how things look then. But my general feeling is that you have a hell of a lot more important things to concern yourself with than perfecting the chronology of Vegas/Fear & Loathing. I have the feeling that it’s a pretty fair piece of writing, as it stands, and I’ve developed a certain affection for it . . .