Fear and Loathing

I originally started doing character sketches of Thompson and his attorney after seeing the film around the later half of '99. I gave it a rest for some time, but after having read the actual "Fear and Loathing" recently, I felt the need to represent what I saw, outside of Thompson's eyes, of his situation.

Literary-wise, Thompson has a style that I can click with. His creative mix of word images and the hectic pace for which alot of it is laid down is very interesting. He is witty, and has some genuinely funny moments. His insights into things can, at times, be a window into the pathos of America at the time; indeed, of the "American Dream" that he keeps referring to time and again throughout the narrative. That nebulous “on the road” independence, of finding one’s way by one’s own shoes, indeed, by one’s own wheels. This seems to have been the undercurrent of the 50’s, which lead into the following decades, and Thompson studies this a bit in his own disjointed yet cohesive way (otherwise known as "Gonzo Journalism").

However, Thompson strikes me as a conundrum of sorts. He goes on for some length about how the world of Vegas is essentially a cannibalistic sideshow of opportunism and hedonism, revolting at it's sights and sounds time and again. This is the portion that comes into the "loathing" aspect, and indeed the "Fear" as well, from which you can sense that he finds the whole atmosphere of Vegas highrolling repulsive, stating that this "is what the whole hep world would be doing on Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This is the Sixth Reich." {p.46}

Yet, at the same time, he himself partakes of the hedonism rampant in this atmosphere, ingesting larger amounts of drugs than one could imagine humanly tolerable. He and his attorney constantly scheme, taking advantage of the casino hotels that they stay at during the entire trip. In fact, his obtaining of the drugs, of the transportation (the "Great Red Shark" convertible), of the hotel arrangements, even of the tape recorder, was all done using the same methods as what the "Sixth Reich" uses to bait fresh meat into the casinos; all of it is opportunistic and without a care for anything or anyone. Double minded to a degree.

Some may state that the drugs were a predominant factor in his disposition; I figure that it only magnified what was already there in him to begin with: The paranoia, the loathing, the Fear. Whatever he grinds between his teeth, he hated beforehand; and inversely, whatever he partakes of during the course of the book, he embraced long before, I suspect. He hates and despises what he embraces; the thing that relentlessly tears at him is the very thing that he finds recourse in, so as to justify his actions .... somewhat like how Darwin did.

In any case, what struck me about the whole ordeal, the whole book, is how Thompson seems like he's some sort of deranged ethnographer, wandering about a lit and concreted jungle, delirious from the heat; on a safari of sorts amidst the backdrop of a twisted and deranged Americana. He may be one of the truly American writers who chronicles the underbelly of our culture, and critiques it, while at the same time walking hand in hand with it towards its fate. Hence, I tried to capture that here in this picture.

A second title that I could have given this piece was "Participant and Spectator".

{Note: After writing the above, I just got to Part II, Ch.3. Thompson speaks about going to a massive Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs conference, held by the National District Attorney, with a hotel full of cops and narcs, and completely bombed out of his mind to boot. He states: "It was going to be quite a different thing from the Mint 400 (race). That had been an *observer* gig, but this would need *participation*...." (p.109)