Hell's Angels A Strange and Terrible Saga (Modern Library)

it wasn't until he had his breakthrough with hell's angels that he could develop the style that we identify with today

how does angel sold five hundred thousand paperback copies that is almost impossible to imagine today five hundred thousand paperback copies of a literary book

and he wrote all these beautiful letters began to arrive at 319 par nassas we lived at um at the hot atop of the hate ashberry and i'm san francisco

when he wrote hell's angels he hadn't really totally formulated that sort of gonzo style of journalism but he did have a little bit of fiction mixed in with that

those books, fucking Hell's Angels and, you know, Fear and Loathing is some of the best writing.

He'd already written Hell's Angels in 1968. He made a name for himself...

He was actually kind of introduced to the magazine world. He'd already written Hell's Angels in 1968.

Hunter S. Thompson wrote all about it in Hells Angels, a great book.

In 2005, the celebrated author of Hell's Angels reportedly shot and killed himself.

He had written a book called The Hell's Angels.

it's fun and ridiculous and excess and it's also this profound sadness and indictment ultimately of the same culture just the tragedy of he gets hooked on the stuff you can't get out

I think there's all this criticism now about the the new Michael Lewis book about San Bank and Fried it's like he full lays this dude he present there's a quote in the book where he goes I don't think I have a soul right you know like Lewis's job as the journalist is to present the story as it happens if he's going this dude sucks fuck this dude you don't read the book it's the work of the book is how do you get someone to read from start to finish about an unlikable person and capture attention along the way and like it's funny with my stuff on ancient philosophy you know people go oh this is just self-help and I go yes that's the point like if writing about ancient philosophy was enough to get people to read ancient philosophy I wouldn't have to do it like the ancient philosophers did ancient philosophy the problem is we now exist in a world where the vast majority people can't read ancient philosophy or have no interest in ancient philosophy so by taking self-help which people pick up and they walk through the airport or somebody buys for someone who's going through something and I use it as an entry point into ancient philosophy I'm doing that precisely that kind of jiu-jitsu and people people don't like that because they want to speak only to people like them which is this sort of 1% sliver who really likes the original stuff or could could take the full factual break down and that's not where most people are and that's not where opinions are changed and worlds are opened up it's much more like if you just wrote a book about Richard Nixon for instance and corrupt politics in the middle of the 20th century you know that's going to sell less copies than doing that through a lens of Hunter S. Thompson who has a different reputation right and and so that the art of it is is they think you're doing one thing and really you're doing another thing and that's what the ancients were doing too yeah and I don't know why we don't think that to make art they were dealing with the same wagers and stakes you know when it every move even more so than we are and you know and had to not just like that idea of um you know um getting the reader to do work or that metaphor of jiu-jitsu you're exactly right but that you know if they made one more mention than they did yeah their lives are over you know that they're they're no longer and we've talked a lot in the 20th and 21st century about this in a kind of global way but I it always blows my mind that the historical conversation or when we talk about it in the historical sense that gets left off