Here's Part II of the three-part series on Hunter S. Thompson, as it appeared in the November 1974 "The Playboy Interview," written by Craig Vetter.

The Playboy Interview

November 1974

HUNTER THOMPSON
"I've never believed in that guru trip about drugs. You know, God, nirvana, that bullshit. I just like to gobble the stuff right out in the street and see what happens, just stomp on my own accelerator."

PLAYBOY: You didn't beg to be scourged and whipped?

THOMPSON: No...and I didn't scourge anybody else, either, and when I was finished, I thought, "Jesus, you're not so crazy, after all; you're not a basically violent or vicious person like they said." Before that, I had this dark fear that if I lost control, all these horrible psychic worms and rats would come out. But I went to the bottom of the well and found out there's nothing down there I have to worry about, no secret ugly things waiting for a chance to erupt.

PLAYBOY: You drink a little, too, don't you?

THOMPSON: Yeah...obviously, but I drink this stuff like I smoke cigarettes; I don't even notice it. You know -- a bird flies, a fish swims, I drink. But you notice I very rarely sit down and say, "Now I'm going to get wasted." I never eat a tremendous amount of any one thing. I rarely get drunk and I use drugs pretty much the same way.

PLAYBOY: Do you like marijuana?

THOMPSON: Not much. It doesn't mix well with alcohol. I don't like to get stoned and stupid.

PLAYBOY: What would you estimate you spend on drugs in a year?

THOMPSON: Oh, Jesus....

PLAYBOY: What the average American family spends on an automobile, say?

THOMPSON: Yeah, at least that much. I don't know what the total is; I don't even want to know. It's frightening, but I'll tell you that on a story I just did, one of the sections took me 17 days of research and $1400 worth of cocaine. And that's just what I spent. On one section of one story.

PLAYBOY: What do you think the drugs are doing to your body?

THOMPSON: Well, I just had a physical, the first one in my life. People got worried about my health, so I went to a very serious doctor and told him I wanted every fucking test known to man: EEG, heart, everything. And he asked me questions for three hours to start with, and I thought, "What the hell, tell the truth, that's why you're here". So I told him exactly what I'd been doing for the past 10 years. He couldn't believe it. He said, "Jesus, Hunter, you're a goddamn mess" -- that's an exact quote. Then he ran all the tests and found I was in perfect health. He called it a "genetic miracle."

PLAYBOY: What about your mind?

THOMPSON: I think it's pretty healthy. I think I'm looser than I was before I started to take drugs. I'm more comfortable with myself. Does it look like it's fucked me up? I'm sitting here on a beautiful beach in Mexico; I've written three books; I've got a fine 100-acre fortress in Colorado. On that evidence, I'd have to advise the use of drugs.... But of course I wouldn't, never in hell -- or at least not all drugs for all people. There are some people who should never be allowed to take acid, for instance. You can spot them after about 10 minutes: people with all kinds of bad psychic baggage, stuff they haven't cleaned out yet, weird hostilities, repressed shit -- the same kind of people who turn into mean drunks.

PLAYBOY: Do you believe religious things about drugs?

THOMPSON: No, I never have. That's my main argument with the drug culture. I've never believed in that guru trip; you know, God, nirvana, that kind of oppressive, hipper-than-thou bullshit. I like to just gobble the stuff right out in the street and see what happens, take my chances, just stomp on my own accelerator. It's like getting on a racing bike and all of a sudden you're doing 120 miles per hour into a curve that has sand all over it and you think, "Holy Jesus, here we go," and you lay it over till the pegs hit the street and metal starts to spark. If you're good enough, you can pull it out, but sometimes you end up in the emergency room with some bastard in a white suit sewing your scalp back on.

PLAYBOY: Is that what you call "edge work"?

THOMPSON: Well, that's one aspect of it, I guess -- in that you have to be good when you take nasty risks, or you'll lose it, and then you're in serious trouble.

PLAYBOY: Why are you smiling?

THOMPSON: Am I smiling? Yeah, I guess I am...well, it's fun to lose it sometimes.

PLAYBOY: What kind of flack do you get for being so honest about the drugs you use?

THOMPSON: I'm not too careful about what I say. But I'm careful in other ways. I never sell any drugs, for instance; I never get involved in the traffic or the marketing end of the drug business. I make a point of not even knowing about it. I'm very sensitive about maintaining my deniability, you know -- like Nixon. I never deal. Simple use is one thing -- like booze in the Twenties -- but selling is something else: They come after you for that. I wouldn't sell drugs to my mother, for any reason...no, the only person I'd sell drugs to would be Richard Nixon. I'd sell him whatever the fucker wanted...but he'd pay heavy for it and damn well remember the day he tried it.

PLAYBOY: Are you the only journalist in America who's ridden with both Richard Nixon and the Hell's Angels?

THOMPSON: I must be. Who else would claim a thing like that? Hell, who else would admit it?

PLAYBOY: Which was more frightening?

THOMPSON: The Angels. Nobody can throw a gut-level, king-hell scare into you like a Hell's Angel with a pair of pliers hanging from his belt that he uses to pull out people's teeth in midnight diners. Some of them wear the teeth on their belts, too.

PLAYBOY: Why did you decide to do a book on the Hell's Angels?

THOMPSON: Money. I'd just quit and been fired almost at the same time by The National Observer. They wouldn't let me cover the Free Speech thing at Berkeley and I sensed it was one of the biggest stories I'd ever stumbled onto. So I decided, "Fuck journalism," and I went back to writing novels. I tried driving a cab in San Francisco, I tried every kind of thing. I used to go down at five o'clock every morning and line up with the winos on Mission Street, looking for work handing out grocery-store circulars and shit like that. I was the youngest and healthiest person down there, but nobody would ever select me. I tried to get weird and rotten-looking; you know -- an old Army field jacket, scraggly beard, tried to look like a bad wino. But even then, I never got picked out of the line-up.

PLAYBOY: You couldn't even get wino's work?

THOMPSON: No, and at that point I was stone-broke, writing fiction, living in a really fine little apartment in San Francisco -- looking down on Golden Gate Park, just above Haight Street. The rent was only $100 a month -- this was 1965, about a year before the Haight-Ashbury madness started -- and I got a letter from Carey McWilliams, the editor of The Nation, and it said, "Can you do an article on the Hell's Angels for us for $100?" That was the rent, and I was about ready to get back into journalism, so I said, "Of course. I'll do anything for $100."

PLAYBOY: How long did the article take?

THOMPSON: I worked about a month on it, put about $3000 worth of effort into it, got no expenses -- and about six weeks after the fucker came out, my mailbox piled up with book offers. My phone had been cut off by then. I couldn't believe it: editors, publishers, people I'd never heard of. One of them offered me $1500 just to sign a thing saying that if I decided to write the book, I'd do it for them. Shit, at that point I would have written the definitive text on hammer-head sharks for the money -- and spent a year in the water with them.

PLAYBOY: How did you first meet the Angels?

THOMPSON: I just went out there and said, "Look, you guys don't know me, I don't know you, I heard some bad things about you, are they true?" I was wearing a fucking madras coat and wing tips, that kind of thing, but I think they sensed I was a little strange -- if only because I was the first writer who'd ever come out to see them and talk to them on their own turf. Until then, all the Hell's Angels stories had come from the cops. They seemed a little stunned at the idea that some straight-looking writer for a New York literary magazine would actually track them down to some obscure transmission shop in the industrial slums of south San Francisco. They were a bit off balance at first, but after about 50 or 60 beers, we found a common ground, as it were.... Crazies always recognize each other. I think Melville said it, in a slightly different context: "Genius all over the world stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round." Of course, we're not talking about genius here, we're talking about crazies -- but it's essentially the same thing. They knew me, they saw right through all my clothes and there was that instant karmic flash. They seemed to sense what they had on their hands.

PLAYBOY: Had you been into motorcycles before that?

THOMPSON: A little bit, not much. But when I got the advance on the book, I went out and bought the fastest bike ever tested by Hot Rod magazine: a BSA 650 Lightning. I thought, "If I'm gonna ride with these fuckers, I want the fastest bike known to man."

PLAYBOY: They all rode Harley-Davidsons, right?

THOMPSON: Yeah, and they didn't like it that I was riding a BSA. They kept offering to get me hot bikes. You know -- a brand-new Harley Sportster for $400, stuff like that. No papers, of course, no engine numbers -- so I said no. I had enough trouble as it was. I was always getting pulled over. Jesus, they canceled my car insurance because of that goddamn bike. They almost took my driver's license away. I never had any trouble with my car. I drove it full bore all over San Francisco all the time, just wide open. It was a good car, too, a little English Ford. When it finally developed a crack in one of the four cylinders, I took it down to a cliff in Big Sur and soaked the whole interior with ten gallons of gasoline, then executed the fucker with six shots from a .44 magnum in the engine block at point-blank range. After that, we rolled it off the cliff -- the radio going, lights on, everything going -- and at the last minute, we threw a burning towel in. The explosion was ungodly; it almost blew us into the ocean. I had no idea what ten gallons of gas in an English Ford could do. The car was a mass of twisted, flaming metal. It bounced about six times on the way down -- pure movie-stunt shit, you know. A sight like that was worth the car: it was beautiful.

PLAYBOY: It seems pretty clear you had something in common with the Angels. How long did you ride with them?

THOMPSON: About a year.

PLAYBOY: Did they ever ask you to join?

THOMPSON: Some of them did, but there was a very fine line I had to maintain there. Like when I went on runs with them, I didn't go dressed as an Angel. I'd wear Levis and boots but always a little different from theirs; a tan leather jacket instead of a black one, little things like that. I told them right away I was a writer, I was doing a book and that was it. If I'd joined, I wouldn't have been able to write about them honestly, because they have this "brothers" thing....

PLAYBOY: Were there moments in that year when you wondered how you ever came to be riding with the meanest motorcycle outlaws in the world?

THOMPSON: Well, I figured it was a hard dollar -- maybe the hardest -- but actually, when I got into it, I started to like it. My wife, Sandy, was horrified at first. There were five or six from the Oakland and Frisco chapters that I got to know pretty well, and it got to the point that they'd just come over to my apartment any time of the day or night -- bring their friends, three cases of stolen beer, a bunch of downers, some bennies. But I got to like it; it was my life, it wasn't just working.

PLAYBOY: Was that a problem when you actually started to write?

THOMPSON: Not really. When you write for a living and you can't do anything else, you know that sooner or later that the deadline is going to come screaming down on you like a goddamn banshee. There's no avoiding it -- not even when you have a fine full-bore story like the Angels that's still running...so one day you just don't appear at the El Adobe bar anymore; you shut the door, paint the windows black, rent an electric typewriter and become the monster you always were -- the writer. I'd warned them about that. I'd said, "It's going to come, I'm not here for the fun of it, it's gonna happen." And when the time came, I just did it. Every now and then, somebody like Frenchy or Terry would drop by at night with some girls or some of the others, but even when I'd let them read a few pages of what I'd written they didn't really believe I was actually writing a book.

PLAYBOY: How long did it take?

THOMPSON: About six months. Actually it took six months to write the first half of the book and then four days to write the second half. I got terrified about the deadline; I actually thought they were going to cancel the contract if I didn't finish the book exactly on time. I was in despair over the thing, so I took the electric typewriter and about four quarts of Wild Turkey and just drove north on 101 until I found a motel that looked peaceful, checked in and stayed there for four days. Didn't sleep, ate a lot of speed, went out every morning and got a hamburger at McDonald's and just wrote straight through for four days -- and that turned out to be the best part of the book.

PLAYBOY: In one of the last chapters, you described the scene where the Angels finally stomped you, but you described it rather quickly. How did it happen?

THOMPSON: Pretty quickly.... I'd been away from their action for about six months, I'd finished most of the writing and the publisher sent me a copy of the proposed book cover and I said, "This sucks. It's the worst fucking cover I've seen on any book" -- so I told them I'd shoot another cover if they'd just pay the expenses. So I called Sonny Barger, who was the head Angel, and said, "I want to go on the Labor Day run with you guys; I've finished the book, but now I want to shoot a book cover." I got some bad vibes over the phone from him. I knew something was not right, but by this time I was getting careless.

PLAYBOY: Was the Labor Day run a big one?

THOMPSON: Shit, yes. This was one of these horrible things that scare the piss out of everybody -- 200 bikes. A mass Hell's Angels run is one of the most terrifying things you'll ever hope to see. When those bastards come by you on the road, that's heavy. And being a part of it, you get this tremendous feeling of humor and madness. You see the terror and shock and fear all around you and you're laughing all the time. It's like being in some kind of horror movie where you know that sooner or later the actors are going to leap out of the screen and burn the theater down.

PLAYBOY: Did the Angels have a sense of humor about it?

THOMPSON: Some of them did. They were running a trip on everybody. I mean, you don't carry pliers and pull people's teeth out and then wear them on your belt without knowing you're running a trip on somebody. But on that Labor Day, we went up to some beach near Mendocino and I violated all my rules: First, never get stoned with them. Second, never get really drunk with them. Third, never argue with them when you're stoned and drunk. And fourth, when they start beating on each other, leave. I'd followed those rules for a year. But they started to pound on each other and I was just standing there talking to somebody and I said my bike was faster than his, which it was -- another bad mistake -- and all of a sudden, I got it right in the face, a terrific whack; I didn't even see where it came from, had no idea. When I grabbed the guy, he was small enough so that I could turn him around, pin his arms and just hold him. And I turned to the guy I'd been talking to and said something like, "Jesus Christ, look at this nut, he just hit me in the fucking face, get him away from here," and the guy I was holding began to scream in this high wild voice because I had him helpless, and instead of telling him to calm down, the other guy cracked me in the side of the head -- and then I knew I was in trouble. That's the Angels' motto: One on all, all on one.

PLAYBOY: Were there police around or other help?

THOMPSON: No, I was the only nonbiker there. The cops had said, "All right, at midnight we seal this place off and anybody who's not a part of this crowd get the hell out or God's mercy on him." So here I was, suddenly rolling around on the rocks of that Godforsaken beach in a swarm of stoned, crazy-drunk bikers. I had this guy who'd hit me in a death grip by now, and there were people kicking me in the chest and one of the bastards was trying to bash my head in with a tremendous rock...but I had this screaming Angel's head right next to mine, and so he had to be a little careful. I don't know how long it went on, but just about the time I knew I was going to die, Tiny suddenly showed up and said. "That's it, stop it," and they stopped as fast as they started, for no reason.

PLAYBOY: Who was Tiny?

THOMPSON: He was the sergeant at arms and he was also one of the guys who I knew pretty well. I didn't know the bastards I was fighting with. All the Angels I might have counted on for help -- the ones I'd come to think of as friends by that time -- had long since retired to the bushes with their old ladies.

PLAYBOY: How badly were you hurt?

THOMPSON: They did a pretty good job on my face. I went to the police station and they said, "Get the fuck out of here -- you're bleeding in the bathroom." I was wasted, pouring blood, and I had to drive 60 miles like that to Santa Rosa, where I knew a doctor. I called him, but he was in Arizona and his partner answered the phone and said something like, "Spit on it and run a lap"; you know, that old football-coach thing. I'll never forgive him for that. So then I went to the emergency room at the Santa Rosa hospital and it was one of the worst fucking scenes I'd ever seen in my life. A bike gang called the Gypsy Jokers had been going north on Labor Day and had intersected with this horrible train of Angels somewhere around Santa Rosa and these fuckers were all over the emergency room. People screaming and moaning, picking up pieces of jawbones, trying to fit them back in, blood everywhere, girls yelling, "He's dying, please help us! Doctor, doctor! I can't stop the bleeding!" It was like a bomb had just hit.

PLAYBOY: Did you get treatment?

THOMPSON: No. I felt guilty even being there. I had only been stomped. These other bastards had been cranked out with pipes, run over, pinned against walls with bikes -- mangled, just mangled. So I left, tried to drive in that condition, but finally I just pulled over to the side of the road and thought, "I'd better set this fucking nose, because tomorrow it's going to be hard." It felt like a beanbag. I could hear the bone chips grinding. So I sat there and drank a beer and did my own surgery, using the dome light and the rearview mirror, trying to remember what my nose had looked like. I couldn't breathe for about a year, and people thought I was a coke freak before I actually was, but I think I did a pretty good job.

PLAYBOY: Who are the Hell's Angels, what kind of people?

THOMPSON: They're rejects, losers -- but losers who turned mean and vengeful instead of just giving up, and there are more Hell's Angels than anybody can count. But most of them don't wear any colors. They're people who got moved out -- you know, musical chairs -- and they lost. Some people just lie down when they lose; these fuckers come back and tear up the whole game. I was a Hell's Angel in my head for a long time. I was a failed writer for 10 years and I was always in fights. I'd do things like go into a bar with a 50-pound sack of lime, turn the whole place white and then just take on anyone who came at me. I always got stomped, never won a fight. But I'm not into that anymore. I lost a lot of my physical aggressiveness when I started to sell what I wrote. I didn't need that trip anymore.

PLAYBOY: Some people would say you didn't lose all your aggressiveness, that you come on like journalism's own Hell's Angel.

THOMPSON: Well, I don't see myself as particularly aggressive or dangerous. I tend to act weird now and then, which makes people nervous if they don't know me -- but I think that's sort of a stylistic hangover from the old days . . . and I suppose I get a private smile or two out of making people's eyes bulge once in a while. You might call that a Hell's Angels trait -- but otherwise, the comparison is ugly and ominous. I reject it -- although I definitely feel myself somewhat apart. Not an outlaw, but more like a natural freak . . . which doesn't bother me at all. When I ran for sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket, that was the point. In the rotten fascist context of what was happening to America in 1969, being a freak was an honorable way to go.

See Part I

See Part III