Word: gonzo
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Dates: during 1973-1973
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With time on his hands, Thompson, alias Raoul Duke, turns self-appointed investigator of the American Dream, as its garish trappings unfold before him in Vegas' nightclubs, casinos, and neonlit car-gorged strips. To assault this scene in a fitting manner, Thompson employs a personal brand of "gonzo journalism," opposed to professional journalism and characterized by the need for "intense, demented involvement" with the subject. Although it requires a much greater degree of personal involvement, gonzo journalism is akin to Tom Wolfe's style of reporting -- which evolved in one instance into "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" after Wolfe...
...role, he rode with the motorcycle gang, getting full exposure to the broken home life, intense love of fast choppers, wild orgies and drunken brawls, even suffering a brutal stomping at the end of his relationship with them. Although the means tended toward violence, the end result of this gonzo journalistic venture was a full and objective portrayal of the life style that Thompson compiled in "Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs...
APPLIED TO THE SCENE at Las Vegas, gonzo journalism yields no explicit moral evaluations. It gives, rather, a detailed description of the desperate mood and frantic action epitomized by crowds surrounding the crap tables, "still humping the American Dream, that vision of the Big Winner somehow emerging from the last-minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino...
...articles on the Republican and Democratic Conventions in Miami and on pro-football for Rolling Stone. These are more satisfying and pertinent than "Fear and Loathing" because they contend with bastions of the American Dream that will remain until Thompson's predicted collapse of evil forces. Thompson retains his gonzo journalistic stance but tempers it with political analysis. He acknowledges implicitly that one can deal with present reality, however twisted it appears. As brilliant and funny as it is, "Fear and Loathing" requires nothing but hysterical laughter and self-indulgence while biding time before the apocalypse. And as Thompson admits...
...that his neighbor can feel his stomach gurgle. A Harvard alum runs the place--hopefully the fact that the place is jammed does not come out of any cultivation of the connection, be it conscious or unconscious. Rugby shirts are standard wear, and George Kimball, The Boston Phoenix's Gonzo sportswriter, loves the place. The Club Zircon (298 Beacon St.) has live rock--as well as Jack's--but a cover charge to boot...