Summer Readin' IV

Hells Angels - Hunter S. Thompson

I've always been a massive fan of Thompson, ever since I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for the first time. I've since read it maybe twenty times. I have read a few of his other books, but I've never read anything by him that was actually considered 'journalism', other than a few pieces he wrote for ESPN.com before his death. This book finally gave me the insight of what a great journalist he was, and his ability to cover a story or topic so well. I absolutely love his style, as he becomes a part of the story that he is covering.

The story at hand is him chronicling the year he spent roaming around with the notorious biker gang the Hells Angels, in and around California during the mid-1960s. He covers them from when they were a little-known gang of outlaws, to achieving over-night fame and suddenly becoming regularly mentioned by the media. Thompson goes to their parties, witnesses gang fights, assaults, orgies, their clashes with the hippie movement, Ken Kesey, and gets a sense of the kind of lives that these men, along with their 'mamas' lead. True 'gonzo' journalism.

Hunter's description of simply riding a motorcycle at night is enough to keep me coming back for more.

(from page 322):

'There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. Into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out...thirty-five, forty-five...then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals, but only some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out, too slowly, to start his own run. Then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-five and the beginning of a windscream in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a high board. Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping and wavering in the wind. Into fourth, and now there's no sound except the wind. Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and wind-burned eyeballs strain to see down the center line, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes.

That's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it....howling through a turn to the right, the to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica...letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge...The Edge...There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others - the living - are those who pushed their control as far as they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.

But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.'



Currently reading: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk