Hell's Angels by Thompson; Hunter S

Author:Thompson; Hunter S
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES, Personal Memoirs, Journalism
ISBN: 9780141045566
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2009-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

By late summer of 1965 the Angels had become a factor to be reckoned with in the social, intellectual and political life of northern California. They were quoted almost daily in the press, and no half-bohemian party made the grade unless there were strong rumors -- circulated by the host -- that the Hell's Angels would also attend. I was vaguely afflicted by this syndrome, since my name was becoming associated with the Angels and there was a feeling in the air that I could produce them whenever I felt like it. This was never true, though I did what I could to put the out­laws onto as much free booze and action as seemed advisable. At the same time I was loath to be responsible for their behavior. Their pre-eminence on so many guest lists made it inevitable that a certain amount of looting, assault and rapine would occur if they took the social whirl at full gallop. I recall one party at which I was badgered by children and young mothers because the Angels didn't show up. Most of the guests were respectable Berkeley intellectuals, whose idea of motorcycle outlaws was not consistent with reality. I told the Angels about the party and gave them the address, a quiet residential street in the East Bay, but I hoped they wouldn't come. The setting was guaranteed trouble: heaping tubs of beer, wild music and several dozen young girls looking for excitement while their husbands and varied escorts wanted to talk about alienation and a generation in revolt. Even a half dozen Angels would have quickly reduced the scene to an intolerable common denominator: Who will get fucked?

It was Bass Lake all over again, but with a different breed of voyeur: this time it was the Bay Area's hip establishment, who adopted the Angels just as eagerly as any crowd of tourists at a scraggy Sierra beer market.* The outlaws were very much the rage. They were big, dirty and titillating. . . unlike the Beatles, who were small, clean and much too popular to be fashionable. As the Beatles drifted Out, they created a vacuum that sucked the Hell's Angels In. And right behind the outlaws came Roth saying, They're the last American heroes we have, man. Roth was so interested in the Angels that he began producing icons to com­memorate their existence -- plastic replicas of Nazi helmets with swinging slogans, Christ was a Hype and Iron Crosses, which he sold on the teen-age market from coast to coast.

* It reminded me of a cartoon in The Realist showing the World's Fair Poverty Pavilion.

The only problem with the Angels' new image was that the outlaws themselves didn't understand it. It puzzled them to be treated as symbolic heroes by people with whom they had almost nothing in common. Yet they were gaining access to a whole reservoir of women, booze, drugs and new action -- which they were eager to get their hands on, and symbolism be damned.

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