It was announced this week that Rolling Stone Magazine is up for sale. At the same time, I have been watching Ken Burns’ documentary on Viet Nam…you know, that feeling when you found out about the invasion of Laos. Oddly connected, I think about the two parts of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that was published in Rolling Stone. Cynicism about human nature, suspicious of other people’s motives, this kind of misanthropy even extends to myself. Noble ideals, actions and words are often hypocritical—searching for the American Dream, Thompson, like most of us from there are covered with a healthy sense of irony–but we’re still struggling to figure out how to personally embody the beatific ideas we so easily espouse….below are a few snippets from Thompson’s ride [WARNING: OFFENSIVE ADULT LANGUAGE AND PROFANITY IN THE TEXT]:
Bad waves of paranoia, madness, fear and loathing, intolerable vibrations in this place. Get out! The weasels were closing in. I could smell the ugly brutes.
No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.
Good people drink good beer. [Read more…]