The Origins of Raoul Duke

I made a roadside pilgrimage to the Woody Creek Tavern on a motorcycle trip across the US just a few years ago. Not a Thompson scholar if such a thing could exist, but certainly a fan. My impression was he realized that if you had a puppet, you could get away with saying anything you wanted, and Raoul was his puppet. Journalism was constrained by the bourgois consensus of sources and fact checking, and fiction was limited like an official court jester by the pretense that it wasn't true, especially when it was. Gonzo was the hybrid freak that used puppets and misdirection to tell you the truth like you had never heard it before. "Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death."

I miss two people in the world today, Christopher Hitchens, and Hunter S. Thompson.

This feels like an origin story for me. I borrowed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas from the library on a sleepy Air Force base in Texas. It still amazes me they had the book: the librarian was either celebrating the literature of ex-Air Force draftees or was some sort of subversive.

I was about 6 months into a 4 year hitch in the military and profoundly depressed at the prospect of another 3.5 years before getting out. Fear and Loathing along with Papillon were high points of the summer. It's still one of my favorite books of all time.

It's always better if you don't explain it.

Now Raoul Duke will never again be accompanied by a sense of mystery for me.

A former landlord and friend lived in Aspen when Thompson would ride around on his harly, with a beer in his hand. My friend explained, this was quite impressive, your hands have a lot to do on a motorcycle, throttle, breaks, clutch and steering. Thompson would type The Great Gatsby, (and possibly other stuff) as finger exercises, to really get in the flow of writing. I believe (but don't know) he also worked at writing every day. He had strong feelings about professionalism and his trade.

I dunno, I imagine someone could strip away Raoul Duke from the stories Thompson told, but I'd imagine those spaces would get filled in by Thompson's on weirdness (or unusualness) in a different, but no less interesting way.

I'd encourage anyone who has read or watched Fear and Loathing to go and read Thompson's earlier work Hell's Angels. It's a great look into the beginnings of the outlaw club, and is written in what feels like the beginnings of his gonzo style, albeit more reporter than Duke. It's like watching Thompson get a taste for the first time of the outlandish and exaggerated. A fantastic book.