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Whew. FINISHED!

I don’t know why it took me so long to finish this book, I guess I just have too much to do, and not enough time to sit and give my brain something to chew on for a while.

I’ve seen the movie about four times, and I have to say, Terry Gilliam has a way in all of his films to make you feel a little nauseous. I suppose that has to do with the very dreamy, ethereal nature of most of them, stuffed with characters that are garishly colorful, that you slowly begin to loose your grip on reality. Fear And Loathing was one such film, absolutely impossible to not turn your stomach. But this is about the book.

The book is not as stream-of-consciousness as I thought it would be. After trying to conduct my own experiments in ’gonzo journalism,’ I wanted to see from the master how it’s supposed to be done. Unfortunately, Hunter S. Thompson considered his book to be a “failed experiment in gonzo journalism.” In the jacket copy of Fear and Loathing (which in some ways, is even more compelling than the book itself), he explains:

True Gonzo reporting needs the talents of a master journalist, the eye of an artist/photographer and the heavy balls of an actor. Because the writer must be a participant in the scene, while he’s writing it-or at least taping it, or even sketching it. Or all three.

Which is why, he continues on to say, that Tom Wolfe (who wrote The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) is not a Gonzo Journalist. He is not ‘a participant in the scene.’ He sees some crazy shit go down, but he is merely a fly on the wall.

I love steam-of-consciousness, uninterrupted, torrents of literature. It is the best way to write. It is so honest. It is expelling, without a filter, everything in your brain. Is it the most reliable method of journalism? I have yet to really figure that out. Journalism is dry, unbiased, and not incredibly passionate. Gonzo Journalism is the exact opposite.

I do think that Gonzo is an important experiment for all journalists to conduct, when they get the chance. Maybe not on the reporting scene, but in a random scene in life (when hanging out with repugnant people, when in a casino, or completely intoxicated at a party). This is an exercise in keeping whatever storytelling spark you have within your soul alive.

Also, can you believe that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was written on a typewriter? That blows my mind more than anything else.

And for a brief time, there was also a board game. Craziness.