The American Dream

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold,”(3). So begins Hunter S. Thompson’s epic quest to the center of the American Dream, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Raoul Duke and his Samoan attorney, Doctor Gonzo, are sent to Las Vegas to cover the Mint 400, an annual race. Upon hearing of his assignment, Duke uses the $300 expense account he had been given by his employer to rent a red convertible and load it up with every type of drug he could get his hands on. Raoul and his attorney are perpetually high, even while driving. Raoul hallucinates, at various times, that he is being attacked by bats and that giant lizards have gone on a bloody rampage in the hotel lobby. But it is not yet clear why Raoul and his attorney use drugs so heavily. Is it an escape from harsh realities? Are they addicts? Time will tell.

It is also unclear just how Thompson will go about exploring the American Dream. Duke appears to be rather sure that his covering the Mint 400 has some obvious relation to the American Dream, but it does not appear to be a connection that is obvious to…normal people, at least not yet. According to Duke, the story he will write is, “Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas,”(12). But Duke’s conception of the American Dream seems so different from its common perception, that is, prosperity and the ability to improve oneself, that it is hard for me to understand. His American Dream seems to have something to do with driving fast in a convertible and doing loads of drugs. Perhaps, then, freedom is Duke’s American Dream—freedom from authority and the normal bounds of human thought. It will be interesting to see how Thompson accentuates this over the course of the book.

In Conclusion

The Angels were a group of people left behind by society. They were losers, people with no skills and no drive to be successful. Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society had left them behind. The Angels had no place in this new world and instead of trying to work within the system and trying to change things so that they could succeed, they decided to leave society all together, to form their own societies outside of American Culture where they could be free. They are like urban Vikings who frighten normal elements of society and pillage their towns, just looking for thrills and self-centered satisfaction.

But loyalty is also a tremendous part of life for the Angels. They despise the two-facedness of people in everyday society, so they formed a clan of brothers with a strict social code which makes two-facedness impossible: either one is at peace with the Angels and respects the Angel way of life, or he is at war against it and insults it. The latter case inevitably results in a savage beating from the Angels. This was the fate that befell Hunter S. Thompson. The Angels became convinced that he was writing his book without giving fair tribute to the Angels—that he was using them. Perceiving this as an insult to the clan, one Angel suddenly and without warning punched Thompson, triggering a mass attack involving at least five Angels. Thompson suffered a broken rib and never returned to outlaw motorcycling.

Next week, I’m starting Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Thompson’s most famous work.

Drugs

The Angels had always been very heavily involved in drugs. “They gobble drugs like victims of famine turned loose on a rare smorgasbord. They use anything available,”(203). Thompson claims that they are so drugged all the time that many have built up a resistance to marijuana, which now only serves to calm them down. The Angel’s use of drugs isn’t so much to “expand the mind” or anything like that. They just want to relax or get high. It’s simply another dimension of their self-gratifying way of life. It makes them feel good, so they do it. An Angel’s drug diet consisted of Benzedrine, marijuana, Amytal, Nembutal, Seconal, and Tuinal, all in the highest quantity possible.

However, in the early 60’s, LSD usage was rare in the Angels. They didn’t have a source for it and it really hadn’t been made a popular drug yet. But that all changed once the Angels came into contact with Ken Kesey and the hippies. Kesey and his group of Merry Pranksters became actively involved in spreading the new drug throughout the nation. At the parties in La Honda, LSD was readily available and Angels had few qualms about taking up the new drug, which was just as good a cure for boredom, or better, than any other drug they had tried. The Angels would take acid without any concern about dosage, sometimes taking up to 1,000 micrograms in half a day.

The Angel’s involvement with drugs is just another sign of their non-conformist culture. Of course they knew scientists and doctors were advising against unrestrained drug usage, but that had never stopped them from taking sharp turns at full speed in their bikes or from having wild orgies, so why should it stop them now? The Angels simply did what felt right at the time and they weren’t about to let any squares tell them to stop.

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.