So now, six months later, the ugly bastard is finished. And I like it -- despite the fact that I failed at what I was trying to do. As true Gonzo Journalism, this doesn't work at all -- and even if it did, I couldn't possibly admit it. Only a goddamn lunatic would write a thing like this and then claim it was true. The week the first section of Fear & Loathing appeared in Rolling Stone I found myself applying for White House press credentials -- a plastic pass that would give me the run of the White House, along with at least theoretical access to the big oval room where Nixon hangs out, pacing back & forth on those fine thick taxpayers' carpets and pondering Sunday's pointspread. (Nixon is a serious pro football freak. He and I are old buddies on this front: We once spent a long night together on the Thruway from Boston to Manchester, disecting the pro & con strategy of the Oakland-Green Bay Super Bowl game. It was the only time I've ever seen the bugger relaxed -- laughing, whacking me on the knee as he recalled Max McGee's one-handed catch for the back-breaking touchdown. I was impressed. It was like talking to Owsley about Acid.)

The trouble with Nixon is that he's a serious politics junkie. He's totally hooked. . . and like any other junkie, he's a bummer to have around: Especially as President.

And so much for all that. . . I have all of 1972 to fuck around with Nixon, so why hassle it here?

Anyway, the main point I want to make about Fear & Loathing is that although it's not what I meant it to be, it's still so complex in its failure that I feel I can take the risk of defending it as a first, gimped effort in a direction that what Tom Wolfe calls “The New Journalism” has been flirting with for almost a decade.