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Mescalito

Hi. Last time, I posted Hunter’s observations about the Outlaw Mystique.  Hunter had a keener eye than anyone I know, along with Ralph Steadman.  Hunter’s ability to not only observe what was really going on, but his ability to describe what he saw is of course, one thing we love about him. As Ed Abbey put it, Hunter was “a seer – one who sees.” 

He also had the uncanny ability to describe the thought process not just of a criminal mind, but his own mind on drugs. Most people don’t realize that “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” was not written under the influence. He wrote it here in the Owl Farm war room, after the trip to Vegas, relatively sober. He used his skills to remember what it was like.  Hunter often talked about the misconception that he wrote on acid or other heavy drugs.

 Today however, I decided to post something Hunter did write while he was stoned out of his mind — ripped to the tits… on Mescaline.  He wrote in a hotel in Los Angeles in 1969:

 
 

Jesus, 6:45 now and the pill has taken hold real.  The metal on the typewriter has turned from dull green to a sort of high-gloss blue, the keys sparkle, glitter with highlights…I sort of levitated to the chair, hovering in front of the typewriter, not sitting.  Fantastic brightness on everything, polished and waxed with special lighting…and the physical end of the thing is like the first half-hour on acid, a sort of buzzing all over, a sense of being gripped by something, vibrating internally but with no outward sign or movement.  I’m amazed that I can keep typing.  I feel like both me and the typewriter have become weightless; it floats in front of me like a bright toy.  Weird, I can still spell…but I had to think about that last one…”Weird.”  Christ, I wonder how much worse this is going to get.  It’s seven now, and I have to check out in an hour or so.  If this is the beginning of an acid-style trip I might as well give up the idea of flying anywhere.  Taking off in an airplane right now would be an unbearable experience, it would blow the top right off my head.  The physical sensations of lifting off the ground would be unbearable I this condition; I feel like I could step off the balcony right now and float gently down tot he sidewalk.  Yes, and getting worse, a s muscle in my thigh is seized by spasms, quivering like something disembodied…I can watch it, feel it, but not be connected.  There is not much connection between my head and my body…but I can still type and very fast too, much faster than normal. Yes, the goddamn drug is definitely taking hold, very much like acid, as sense of very pleasant physical paralysis (wow, that spelling) while the brain copes with something never coped with before. The brain is doing all the work right now, adjusting to this new stimulus like an old soldier ambushed and panicked for the moment, getting a grip but not in command, hanging on, waiting for a break but expecting something worse…and yes, it’s coming on.

 

–Hunter S. Thompson,  Screwjack. (Mescalito)

 

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

 

Until next time, your friend, standing firmly on the ground,

Anita Thompson
 
 
 
 

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