Angels & Hippies

In the 1960’s The Angels were brought into contact with a new group, the Hippies. Though these two groups were radically different in terms of their beliefs, society associated them together because of their non-conformist images. The hippies were known for their drug usage, parties, and resistance to authority and the Hell’s Angels were associated with those same things. So even though the anarchist, violent Hell’s Angels had a very different worldview than the communist, peaceful hippies, they were sometimes grouped together in an odd confederation which even the Angels believed in for a time.

The Hell’s Angels’ association with the hippies started in the mid-60’s when a group of Angels was invited to LSD enthusiast Ken Kesey’s remote property in La Honda, California. For a time, La Honda was like heaven for the Angels: a place where they could party and drink and do drugs any time they wanted without having to worry about the police kicking them out. However, the Angels were not entirely comfortable with the hippies they came into contact with there. The two groups were simply too different; they spoke different languages. This is perfectly exemplified by Allen Ginsburg’s speech to the Angels which consisted of a long free-verse poem about peace and cooperation against the oppressive government, and thus the war. Ginsburg’s words, however poetic, did not appeal to the Angels who weren’t exactly sure what to make of him.

Instead, the Angels turned on the Hippies over the issue of the Vietnam War. The Angels didn’t entirely understand the politics behind the war, but did understand that the Hippies were speaking out against a war. “The Angels… are rigidly anti-Communist. Their political views are limited to the same kind of retrograde patriotism that motivates…the American Nazi Party,”(237) Thompson writes. The Angels are essentially fascists. The effeminate free love philosophy of the Hippies was incompatible with the Angels’ fascist thoughts and the Angels soon became actively opposed to the Hippies, fighting student protestors in the street and even offered to be a kind of S.S. for Lyndon B. Johnson in his fight against the counterculture’s resistance to war. By the later part of the 1960’s, the Angels and Hippies were staunch enemies.

Angels and Women

A few posts ago, I mentioned that a lot of the Hell’s Angels were actually surprisingly normal and had normal wives and families. This is true for some but, as Thompson reveals, not for others. According to Thompson, most women who had relationships with the Angels were either “Old Ladies” or “Mamas”. There is a very important distinction between these two types of women. Old Ladies are women in serious relationships with an Angel—either a wife or a girlfriend. Mamas are considered common property amongst the Angels. They entirely committed to serving the sexual needs of any male Angel whenever the mood strikes him. The gang is, unsurprisingly, a group in which the men dominate their women. The men sometimes have their Mamas tattooed, or “branded” to show that they are the “property” of a certain gang. This is a practice which the Angels claim, “gives the girls a sense of security and belonging,” (162). However, the actual reason likely has more to do with the Angels’ need for power and control over the women.

The gang members certainly never concern themselves with being chivalrous with women. Mamas never have much choice when it comes to sex. Old Ladies are generally respected, but only to avoid a fight with the Angel to whom she is committed. Women outside the gang have a stranger relationship. The Hells Angels were infamous at the time for raping women. However, Thompson points out, the majority of rape charges filed against the Angels are dropped for two reasons: first, many women who accuse the Angels of rape receive threats from the Mamas and Old Ladies and second, some of the cases are not actually rapes. On the subject of rape, on Angle commented that he had, “…never yet heard a girl yell rape until it was all over and she got to thinking about it,”(182). The truthfulness of this is in some doubt, but it is likely true to an extent. Many of the women found themselves drawn to the rebellious, tough-guy image of the Angels soon found that they were not prepared for what sex with an Angel entailed. What may begin as a drunken consensual experience with one Angel in an empty room at a party could suddenly balloon into a full on orgy, one which the girl had not expected or wanted. But once a girl has willful sex with one Angel, there’s really not much hope in stopping the others from joining in. What started as consensual sex can become rape. This is what gave the Angels their bad reputation on rape—their concept of consensual sex is radically different from society’s conception of it. If a strange woman makes an advance with one Angel, the Angels take it to mean that she is making an advance towards all of them. It is a mob mentality. When the Angels are drunk and partying, there is really no concept of compassion.

Thompson and the Angels

Thompson’s assignment to describe the actions of the Hell’s Angels for this book forced him into a strange coexistence with the outlaw gangs. Normally, the gangs hate reporters. “ ‘I don’t mind [the newspapers] calling us punks and that kind of stuff, but…Even when we pull off some really bad shit, they still get it wrong. When I read those things I don’t even recognize myself. Hell, we should probably kick your ass just for being a reporter,’”(168), one outlaw told Thompson in an interview. So why do the outlaws tolerate his presence? Thompson claims that, “…they were eager to get the ear of any journalist who might give them a boost up the status ladder,”(168). The gangs definitely want their exploits to be publicized as a means of proving their toughness, but at the same time, they don’t want to be distorted. A journalist has power over his subjects because he can twist a story any way he pleases and make his subjects appear as he wants them to. The Angels resent the very concept that a non-Angel could have this sort of power over them and that is why they hate journalists, but still are forced to tolerate journalists like Thompson who, they must assume, will paint an accurate picture of the gang.

Even more interesting is the direct relationship between Thompson and the gangs while on-location at a wild party in Bass Lake, California. This was a massive party which 200 motorcyclists planned to attend and which had the police up in arms. The locals of the area were understandably upset that the gang had chosen their region to have a wild, violent party. In this context, Thompson became useful to the Angels not only for publicity, but because he was a normal person. When the Angels needed to buy beer, they sent Thompson to the nearest store to buy it. Locals, they figured, would not react as harshly to Thompson as they would to a smelly, gruff-looking outlaw with swastikas and crosses tattooed all over him. Besides which, Thompson had a car to carry the beer. No Angel would be caught dead driving a car. This is interesting because it shows how difficult it is for the Angels to interact with normal society. They need to use intermediates, like Thompson, who are members of society but are also friendly to the Angels in order to get the supplies they need from normal society. They hate what Thompson stands for, and yet they could not have had their wild party without him.

The Angels

Hell’s Angels is a factual account of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang just as they were gaining fame in the 1960’s. Thompson rode with the gang for several years as he put together the book and became friends with many of the members. He describes them as violent, lawless men who are increasingly conflicted between the benefits of their growing fame and the non-conformist nature which makes them who they are.
Though the gang had existed long beforehand, the Hell’s Angels came to national prominence in the 60’s after a group of Angels allegedly gang-raped two young women. What followed for the Angels was a media circus which left the Angels bewildered and unsure of what should come next. Thompson describes how the Angels, previously a band of outlaws who only concerned themselves with drinking, fighting, and riding, “…developed a prima-donna complex, demanding cash contributions…in return for photos and interviews,”(39). It almost appears as if the gang was turning its back on all of its old values.
However, Thompson also stresses that these men were not only the tough, violent men people commonly envision when they think of a Hell’s Angel. Many of these men had steady jobs and supported families; they joined a motorcycle gang just as a higher-class person might join the Masons or the Kiwanis. One member, Tommy, was, “blond, clean-shaven, with a wife and two children, making $180 a week as a construction worker,”(10). Plainly, these were not men with a grudge against humanity, as is commonly believed, but men who just want to live normal lives on the weekdays and have fun and ride their motorcycles with their friends in their free time. That is why the Angels were so ready to cash in on their newfound fame, even if it meant selling out their image. They want success, just like any normal person does.
The book is going to move more towards a first-hand account of Thompson’s travels in the coming chapters, I think. It will be interesting to see how his unique outlook on life affects his relations with the gang.

Lorem

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The Kentucky Derby

Sorry, I haven’t started to read my next book yet. It just arrived at the library today and I didn’t have time to pick it up. But I did read one of Thompson’s articles, The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved (Scanlan’s Monthly, June 1970). The article was the earliest example of Thompson’s “Gonzo” journalism.

The story starts when Scanlan’s assigns Thompson to write a story covering the Kentucky Derby. One would assume that this would entail interviewing trainers and jockeys and paying careful attention to the race itself. However, Thompson had different ideas. He wanted, “to watch the real beasts perform”; that is, he is more interested in the people watching the race than the race itself. Along with his British illustrator, Steadman, Thompson attempts to strike at the very core of what makes the Kentucky Derby so despicable—“a pretentious mix of booze, failed dreams and a terminal identity crisis,” as Thompson puts it. Thompson describes the people he saw, criticizing each group heavily, and what he did that day in an effort to get the story. This includes a brief description of the race itself (Thompson devotes a full 5 sentences to it). The article ends with Thompson waking up the day after the race, looking in the mirror at his own desperate and drunken face, and realizing that he embodies everything he hates about the Derby.

This terrible revelation likely reflects the depression and hopelessness Thompson was experiencing at the time. Thompson, as we have seen various times in The Rum Diary, is often haunted by a feeling that his life is being wasted. When Thompson criticized those, “Failed dreams” of the Kentucky Derby, he was really criticizing his own inability to make his dreams reality. Thompson was also likely suffering from a “terminal identity crisis” at the time. He was not sure whether or not his life was on the right track, just as Kemp wasn’t sure if selling out by working with the developers was a move in the right direction.

It was really interesting to read this early example of Thompson’s journalism. I’ll read a load more when I get to Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, which should be an adventure.

Biography

Hunter S. Thompson’s career in journalism started while he was in the US Air Force in 1956. Thompson became the sports editor of The Command Courier, the newspaper of the Eglin Air Force Base. After leaving the Air Force (he resented the lack of freedom), Thompson began migrating from city to city and newspaper to newspaper for several years. During this time, he accepted a job in Pennsylvania, and then moved to New York where he worked for Time Magazine and a small New York newspaper. He was fired from both jobs for insubordination. He then moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico where he wrote for several English-Language newspapers. His experiences there were the inspiration for The Rum Diary. Like Thompson, Kemp is a nomadic journalist whose exploits and independent mindset often led to trouble. After that, he moved to Brazil, then to San Francisco. During this time, he married Sandra Conklin and became a part of the hippie counter-culture of the 1960s.

Thompson had his first literary success with the novel, Hell’s Angels, in 1966. He had been living with the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang for several years leading up to the publishing of the book. Hell’s Angels was a success and brought Thompson’s writing to a wider audience. By the late 1960’s, Thompson’s articles were being published in high-profile newspapers and magazines.

By the 1970’s, Thompson had become disenchanted with the increasing lack of political resolve of the hippies and became increasingly pessimistic about the American dream. Thomson moved to Aspen, Colorado where he ran for sheriff in 1970. Among his campaign promises were the legalization of drugs, outlawing the construction of all buildings tall enough to block the view of the Rocky Mountains, and destroying all the streets in Aspen to be replaced by grassy parks. Thompson narrowly lost the election, but used the experience to gain a job writing for Rolling Stone magazine, a job which lasted him much of his life.

While on assignment in to write a magazine article about a motorcycle race in Las Vegas, Nevada, Thompson began writing the novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a book which paralleled Thompson’s own life in much the same way The Rum Diary had. The book was published in a series of Rolling Stone magazines in 1972. The book focused on the failure of the 1960’s hippie counter-culture and the death of the American Dream. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was representative of Thompson’s new form of journalism: Gonzo Journalism. Gonzo Journalism is intentionally subjective and focuses as much on the process of getting a story as it does on the story itself. For example, a 1970 article about the Kentucky Derby did not focus on the races themselves, but on the corruption of the people attending the event and on Thompson’s actions that day.

Thompson continued to employ this style as he wrote a series of articles for Rolling Stone which described the 1972 presidential campaign of Senator George McGovern. McGovern ultimately won the Democratic nomination, only to lose the presidential election to Richard Nixon. Thompson was a sharp critic of Nixon, seeing him as the embodiment of everything that was wrong with America. These articles were later published in the collection, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 1972.

That’s essentially everything you need to know to follow the books I will be covering in this blog. If I have time after finishing Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 1972, I’ll explain Thompson’s later career.

BTW: Yep, that's an ad. I've sold out.