Hunter S. Thompson
Fear and Loating was a real interesting book, but there really isn’t much that I have to say about it. The book is just sort of enthralling, disgusting, but also amazing. The things that go on are so played down by the characters, are done in such an anti-dramatic fashion.
All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could but Peach and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create… a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody – or at least some force – is tending that light at the end of the tunnel. 178
God, the President, The pope… Who is there really to tend that light these days?
...Why bother with newspapers, if this is all they offer? Agnew was right. The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfis – a false doorway to the naclsode pf ;ofe, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to cirl ip from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo cage. 200
Funny what he says about journalism. Here is where you can really get an idea of what and why gonzo journalism is, from Thompson’s perspective. Moreso then just seeing it as fictionalized reporting, at least.
Also, its fitting that I can practically get high by flipping the pages of the book in front of my face, everyone must have smoked (a lot) while they read.