One of the Places where it all Began

That was then:

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like, "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . ."And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about 100 miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?"

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. "What the hell are you yelling about," he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. "Never mind," I said. "It's your turn to drive." I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough. --Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson

This is Now:

Saturday noon. Recollection of the last 24 hours is excruciatingly difficult; I have taken every remaining pill in my kit bag, and yet somehow, despite the presence of enough chemicals in my system to transform me into the Joker, I have developed a raging cold. My throat is nearly sealed shut, which may work to my advantage since I’m reaching the point at which the rude answers which bubble up in my skull every time someone speaks to me are threatening to spill over into actual vocalization. Ever since Wednesday I have been asking myself in re my pharmacopia: how many is too many? Crashing into every sharp corner in my hotel room, I know the answer: however many I took when I woke up this morning.

Last night was the Ronald Reagan Banquet, a dinner which was for and unfortunately not of Ronald Reagan. Eating a dehydrated teriyaki jerky chunk of the old fraud might have given me some of his strength. I’ve heard the words “Ronald Reagan” and “tax cuts” so many times now they’re beginning to lose whatever meaning they might have once had, and Will, that payola-stuffed bloviator of manifest destiny, will say them another three dozen times while I tuck into my mashed potatoes. After the ghouls-gone-wild reception given to Ann Coulter a few hours ago, the crowd receives him politely and respectfully, and even considering the fact that this is an older crowd, made up largely of the parents of the rich kids hooting and snarling at Ann’s anti-McCain jeremiad, it still has the tone of someone forced to hear their grandpa read cowboy poetry just after they’ve come back from yelling “SHOW US YOUR TITS!” to drunken frat girls. Will himself is perfunctory at best, showing his chipper cheerleader side only when discussing Old Mother Reagan; the rest of the time, he’s just there to pick up a check. He even senses the hostility in the room when called upon to mention the Supplicant McCain: urging the crowd to be “happy warriors” for the default candidate, he sounds like a bored Sunday school teacher leading his tenth consecutive round of “I’ve Got the Joy” for a group of sugared-up fourth-graders.--Mister Leonard Pierce, The Beast is Red, Chapter 12: Show Us Your Twits, from Sadly, No.