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RAOUL DUKE You can turn your back on a person, but, never turn your back on a drug. Especially when it's waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eye. --- [Watching Dr. Gonzo leave.] There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die. --- Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a main era---the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. --- There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. --- And that, I think, was the handle---that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting---on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark---the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. --- History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time---and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened. --- With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he'll never know. --- [At a bizarre circus-themed casino] Bazooko's Circus is what the world would be doing every Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. --- Look, there's two women fucking a polar bear! --- If the pigs were gathering in Vegas, I felt the drug culture should be represented as well. And there was a certain bent appeal in the notion of running a savage burn in one Las Vegas hotel, and then just wheeling across town and checking into another. Me and a thousand ranking cops from all over America. Why not? Move confidently into their midst. --- A drug person can learn to handle such things as seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth. But no one should be asked to deal with this trip. --- Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a highway traffic cop. Your normal speeder will panic and immediately pull over to the side. This is wrong. It arouses contempt in the cop-heart. Make the bastard chase you. He will follow. --- Let's get down to brass tacks. How much for the ape? --- You better take care of me, Lord. If you don't you're gonna have me on your hands. --- [Tripping on acid]: Wait! We can't stop here! This is bat country! --- We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. But the only thing that worried me was the ether. There is nothing more irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we would be getting into that rotten stuff sooner or later. --- Order some golf shoes, otherwise we'll never get outta this place alive... --- How long could we maintain? I wondered. How long until one of us starts raving and jabbering at this boy? What will he think then? This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family; will he make that grim connection when my attorney starts screaming about bats and huge manta rays coming down on the car? If so, well, we'll just have to cut his head off and bury him somewhere, 'cause it goes without saying that we can't turn him loose. He'd report us at once to some kind of outback Nazi law enforcement agency and they'll run us down like dogs. Jesus, did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me? | ||
DR. GONZO You drive. You drive. I think there's something wrong with me. --- Did you see what God just did to us, man? --- It's okay. He's just admiring the shape of your skull. --- We've gotta get out of here. I have The Fear. | |||
| HUNTER S. THOMPSON (real life quote) Buy the ticket, take the ride! --- When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. --- I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me. | |||
SHORT DIALOGUES Narrator: We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like: Raoul Duke: I feel a bit lightheaded. Maybe you should drive. Narrator: Suddenly, there was a terrible roar all around us, and the sky was full with what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, and a voice was screaming: Raoul Duke: Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?! Acosta: Did you say something? Raoul Duke: Hm? Nevermind. It's your turn to drive. Narrator: No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastard will see them soon enough. --- Hitchhiker: Hot damn! I never rode in a convertible before! Raoul Duke: Is that right? Well... I guess you're about ready, then, aren't you? Acosta: We're your friends. We're not like the others, man, really. Raoul Duke: No more of that talk or I'll put the fucking leeches on you, understand? Acosta: Heh heh heh... Raoul Duke: Get in! --- Raoul Duke: I want you to understand that this man at the wheel is my attorney. He's not just some dingbat I found on the strip, man. He's a foreigner. I think he's probably Samoan. But that doesn't matter, though, does it? Are you prejudiced? Hitchhiker: Hell no. Raoul Duke: I didn't think so. Because in spite of his race, this man is very valuable to me. Oh, shit. I forgot about the beer. You want one? Hitchhiker: No. Raoul Duke: How 'bout some ether? Hitchhiker: What? Raoul Duke: Never mind. --- [Gonzo and Duke among the DA's at the convention] Acosta: I saw these bastards in Easy Rider, but I didn't believe they were real. Not like this, man, not hundreds of them. Raoul Duke: They're actually pretty nice people once you get to know them. Acosta: Know them? I know these people in my damn blood. Raoul Duke: Don't say that word around here. You'll get them excited. | |||