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Hunter S. Thompson was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. His books include Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72, Screwjack, Kingdom of Fear, The Great Shark Hunt, Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone, Hell’s Angels, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He died in February 2005.

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Hey Rube

Simon & Schuster

From Part One

The New Dumb

Something is happening here

But you don't know what it is

Do you, Mister Jones?

-- Bob Dylan

No sir, not a chance. Mr. Jones does not even pretend to know what's happening in America Right now, and neither does anyone else.

We have seen weird Times in this country before, but the year 2000 is beginning to look super weird. This time there really is nobody flying the plane....We are living in dangerously weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they're dazed and confused. The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic.

The autumn months are never a calm time in America. Back to Work, Back to Football Practice, etc....Autumn is a very Traditional period, a time of strong Rituals and the celebrating of strange annual holidays like Halloween and Satanism and the fateful Harvest Moon, which can have ominous implications for some people.

Autumn is always a time of Fear and Greed and Hoarding for the winter coming on. Debt collectors are active on old people and fleece the weak and helpless. They want to lay in enough cash to weather the known horrors of January and February. There is always a rash of kidnapping and abductions of schoolchildren in the football months. Preteens of both sexes are traditionally seized and grabbed off the streets by gangs of organized perverts who traditionally give them as Christmas gifts to each other to be personal sex slaves and playthings.

Most of these things are obviously Wrong and Evil and Ugly -- but at least they are Traditional. They will happen. Your driveway will ice over, your furnace will blow up, and you will be rammed in traffic by an uninsured driver in a stolen car.

But what the hell? That's why we have Insurance, eh? And the Inevitability of these nightmares is what makes them so reassuring. Life will go on, for good or ill. But some things are forever, right? The structure may be a little Crooked, but the foundations are still strong and unshakable.

Ho ho. Think again, buster. Look around you. There is an eerie sense of Panic in the air, a silent Fear and uncertainty that comes with once-reliable faiths and truths and solid Institutions that are no longer safe to believe in....There is a Presidential Election, right on schedule, but somehow there is no President. A new Congress is elected, like always, but somehow there is no real Congress at all -- not as we knew it, anyway, and whatever passes for Congress will be as helpless and weak as whoever has to pass for the "New President."

In the world of sports, it is like playing a Super Bowl that goes into 19 scoreless Overtimes and never actually Ends...or four LA Lakers stars being murdered in different cities on the same day. Guaranteed Fear and Loathing. Abandon all hope. Prepare for the Weirdness. Get familiar with Cannibalism.

Good luck,

DOC

-- November 20, 2000

The Fix Is In

Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.

I have never believed much in luck, and my sense of humor has tended to walk on the dark side. Muhammad Ali, one of my very few heroes, once took the time to explain to me that "there are no jokes. The truth is the funniest joke of all."

Ho ho. It takes a special kind of mind-set to believe that & still have smart people call you Funny. I have never quite understood it.

-- Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in America

This eerie Presidential election has been a painful experience for Gamblers. Almost everybody Lost. The many, many Losers don't feel the pain yet, because they are still in Shock & Denial. There are rumors in Washington that Gore's most trusted advisors have sealed him off so completely that he still firmly believes he Won....Which is True, on some scorecards, but so what? Those cards don't count....George Bush is our President now, and you better start getting used to it. He didn't actually steal the White House from Al Gore, he just brutally Wrested it away from him in the darkness of one swampy Florida night. Gore got mugged, and the local Cops don't give a damn.

Ho ho ho. Where the fuck did he think he was -- in some friendly Civics class? Hell no, he was in Florida, arguably the most vicious & corrupt state in the Union....Not only that, but he was brazenly invading Florida, trying to steal it from right under the noses of the whole Bush family. It was a bold move & brilliantly done, in some ways -- but then so was Lee's brave decision to invade the North & attack Gettysburg.

Gore was Doomed in Florida, and he knew it about halfway through Election Night. The TV wizards had already given the state & its 25 precious Electoral Votes to Gore, which gave him an early lead & caused wild rejoicing in Democratic headquarters all over the country.

My own immediate reaction was bafflement & surprise, and I think I almost believed it....But not really. The more I brooded on it, the more I was troubled by waves of Queasiness & shudders of gnawing doubt. I felt nervous & vaguely confused, as if I had just heard a dog speak perfect English for 30 or 40 seconds. That will get your attention, for sure....Some people get permanently destabilized by it: Nothing they see with their own eyes will ever look quite the same to them again. As in "I know that the object I'm looking at is an Egg -- but I also know that if it talks to me like a person, it is not an Egg."

There was an exact moment, in fact, when I knew Al Gore would Never be President of the United States, no matter what the TV networks said -- and that moment was when the whole Bush family suddenly appeared on TV and openly scoffed at the idea of Gore's winning Florida. It was Nonsense, said the Candidate, Utter nonsense....Anybody who believed he'd lost Florida was a Fool. The Media, all of them, were Liars & Dunces or treacherous whores trying to sabotage his victory. They were strong words and people said he was Bluffing. But I knew better. Of course Bush would win Florida. Losing was out of the question. Here was the whole bloody Family laughing & hooting & sneering at the dumbness of the whole world on National TV.

The old man was the real tip-off. The leer on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in its mouth. The sheep's fate was sealed, and so was Al Gore's....Everything since then has been political flotsam & gibberish.

The whole Presidential election, in fact, was rigged and fixed from the start. It was a gigantic Media Event, scripted & staged for TV. It happens every four years, at an ever-increasing cost, & 90 percent of the money always goes for TV commercials. Of course, nobody would give a damn except politics is beginning to smell like professional football, Dank & Nasty. And that's a problem that could haunt America a lot longer than four years, folks.

I am watching more NFL football this year but enjoying it less and less. There is something wrong with the game, something vital is missing, but I can't quite say what it is. No weekend goes by without at least one wild & exciting game, plus one or two shocking upsets -- but somehow they all seem vaguely meaningless, like...