hunter thompson fear and loathing in las vegas

The casino’s bar is on a spinning carousel, and Duke and Gonzo go around and around as they sip their beers. Trapeze acts fly high above their heads and the gaming floor is littered with colorful attractions as well. When they get to the casino, it’s a complete zoo. They take some mescaline and inhale some ether, and then head to Circus-Circus. Duke takes a press vehicle around the track and sees very little, except for a large group of menacing nationalists with a machine-gun, so he decides to return to the bar and “drink heavily.”ĭuke and Gonzo decide to go the Desert Inn to see the Debbie Reynolds/Harry James show but are quickly kicked out because of their rowdy behavior. After Duke and Gonzo kill time in the bar, the racers begin to take off however, after two hundred bikes race into the desert, visibility quickly becomes poor. They spend the night out in the casinos and return to the club early the next morning. “We’re the only people here without guns,” Duke says to Gonzo as they make a hasty retreat. Duke looks around and realizes that several spectators are carrying guns, and he begins to grow nervous. Duke approaches the registration table and is met by a humorless man with a gun. The race doesn’t begin until the morning but plenty of spectators are already milling about the grounds. The Gun Club has not cancelled target practice on account of the race and countless shots ring out as the racers gather to register. Once Duke’s hallucinations calm, Gonzo and Duke head to the Mint Gun Club, the site of the Mint 400, to do some early research and look around. They arrive at their hotel in the grips of a full-blown acid trip, where Duke is barely able to check in amidst the reptilian people and blood-soaked carpet. Duke and Gonzo begin to sample their stash of drugs, including “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 multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers,” long before they arrive in Vegas, and by the time they reach Barstow, California, they are already hallucinating. Duke and Gonzo plan to “ relax, as it were, in the womb of the desert sun,” and search for the American Dream along the way. Gonzo, a huge Chevy convertible called the Great Red Shark, and a massive bag of drugs, and heads out to Las Vegas. After journalist Raoul Duke is hired by Sports Illustrated to cover the Mint 400, “the richest off-the-road race for motorcycles and dune-buggies in the history of organized sport,” he gathers his attorney, Dr.

Hunter thompson fear and loathing in las vegas