The entry in the "Who I'd like to meet" section is an article Hunter wrote in 1955, originally printed in The Spectator. Watching Marlon Brando in The Wild One inspired Thompson to become a "Lousville outlaw" with no use for anyone who chose security over adventure.
Security....what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for nut? Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosiac man. But is he a man? Has he any self respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishement, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacraficed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better. What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes? Turn back the pages of history and see the men who lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be diffrent and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must be laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a tread-mill, cursing their existance, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown reguardless of the consequences. As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?.................................................... ......... width="425" height="350" ....
"The music business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where theives and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason." -Dr. HST
Where the Buffalo Roam.. width="425" height="350" ....Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Breakfast With Hunter.......Comming soon, The Rum Diaries.
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Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (1966) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A savage Journey to the heart of the American Deam (1971) Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 (1973) The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (Gonzo Papers, Vol.1)(1979) The Curse of Lono (1983) Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (Gonzo Papers, Vol.2)(1988) Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (Gonzo Papers, Vol.3)(1990) Screwjack (1991) Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie: Trapped Like a Rat in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood (Gonzo Papers, Vol.4)(1994) The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman 1955-1967 (The Fear and Loathing Letters, Vol.1)(1997) The Rum Diary (1999) Screwjack and Other Stories (2000) Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist 1968-1976 (The Fear and Loathing Letters, Vol.2)(2000) Kingdom of Fear (2003) Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness Modern History from the Sports Desk (2004)
Make your own history.