Raoul Duke: You can turn your back on a person, but, never turn your back on a drug. Especially when it's waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eye.
Watching Dr. Gonzo leave.
Raoul Duke: There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
Raoul Duke: One toke, you fool.
Acosta: You drive. You drive. I think there's something wrong with me.
Raoul Duke: You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands.
Acosta: We've gotta get out of here. I think I'm getting the fear man.
Raoul Duke: Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a main era---the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.
Raoul Duke: There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.
Raoul Duke: And that, I think, was the handle---that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting---on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark---the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
Raoul Duke: History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of 'history' it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time---and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
Raoul Duke: With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he'll never know.
at a bizarre circus-themed casino
Raoul Duke: Bazooko's Circus is what the world would be doing every Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war.
Raoul Duke: Look, there's two women fucking a polar bear!
Raoul Duke: If the pigs were gathering in Vegas, I felt the drug culture should be represented as well. And there was a certain bent appeal in the notion of running a savage burn in one Las Vegas, and then just wheeling across town and checking into another. Me and a thousand ranking cops from all over America. Why not? Move confidently into their midst.
Raoul Duke: Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?
Raoul Duke: A drug person can learn to handle such things as seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth. But no one should be asked to deal with this trip.
Raoul Duke: Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a highway traffic cop. Your normal speeder will panic and immediately pull over to the side. This is wrong. It arouses contempt in the cop-heart. Make the bastard chase you. He will follow.
Clerk at Flamingo Hotel: Can I call you a cab?
Police Chief: Sure, and I'll call you a cocksucker!
Narrator: We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like:
Raoul Duke: I feel a bit lightheaded. Maybe you should drive.
Narrator: Suddenly, there was a terrible roar all around us, and the sky was full with what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, and a voice was screaming:
Raoul Duke: Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?!
Acosta: Did you say something?
Raoul Duke: Hm? Never mind. It's your turn to drive.
Narrator: No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastard will see them soon enough.
Narrator: We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.
singing
Raoul Duke: What? No! We can't stop here! This is bat country!
Hitchhiker: Hot damn! I never rode in a convertible before!
Raoul Duke: Is that right? Well... I guess you're about ready, then, aren't you?
Acosta: We're your friends. We're not like the others, man, really.
Raoul Duke: No more of that talk or I'll put the fucking leeches on you, understand?
Acosta: Heh heh heh...
Raoul Duke: Get in!
Narrator: How long could we maintain? I wondered. How long until one of us starts raving and jabbering at this boy? What will he think then? This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family; will he make that grim connection when my attorney starts screaming about bats and huge manta rays coming down on the car? If so, well, we'll just have to cut his head off and bury him somewhere, 'cause it goes without saying that we can't turn him loose. He'd report us at once to some kind of outback Nazi law enforcement agency and they'll run us down like dogs. Jesus, did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?
Acosta: It's okay. He's just admiring the shape of your skull.
Narrator: Perhaps, if I explained things, he'd rest easy.
Raoul Duke: I want you to understand that this man at the wheel is my attorney. He's not just some dingbat I found on the strip, man. He's a foreigner. I think he's probably Samoan. But that doesn't matter, though, does it? Are you prejudiced?
Hitchhiker: Hell no.
Raoul Duke: I didn't think so. Because in spite of his race, this man is very valuable to me. Oh, shit. I forgot about the beer. You want one?
Hitchhiker: No.
Raoul Duke: How 'bout some ether?
Hitchhiker: What?
Raoul Duke: Never mind.
Raoul Duke: Let's get down to brass tacks. How much for the ape?
Raoul Duke: You drive. You drive. I think there's something wrong with me.
Raoul Duke: You better take care of me, Lord. If you don't you're gonna have me on your hands.
Raoul Duke: Soon we would both be completely twisted. But there was no going back - We would have to ride it out.
Acosta: Let's take the elevator, man.
Raoul Duke: No, that's just what they want us to do. Cram us into a little metal box and drag us down to the basement.
Narrator: Those of us that had been up all night were in no mood for coffee and donuts, we wanted strong drink. We were, after all, the absolute cream of the national sporting press.
Acosta: As your attorney, I advise you to take a hit out of the little brown flask in my shaving kit.
Narrator: Know your dope fiend! Your life may depend on it! You won't be able to see his eyes from tea shades, and his knuckles will be white from inner-tension, and, his pants will be crusted with semen from constantly jacking-off when he can't find a rape victim.
Raoul Duke: Don't fuck with me now, man, I am Ahab.
Raoul Duke: The last thing I'd need is you wandering around with a head full of acid, ready to cut me up with that god damned knife.
Acosta: Who said anything about cutting you up, man. I just want to cut a little Z in your forehead!'
Raoul Duke: Panic. It crept up my spine like first rising vibes of an acid frenzy. There I was. Alone in Las Vegas, completely twisted on drugs, no cash, no story for the magazine, and on top of everything else, a gigantic god damned hotel bill to deal with. How would Horatio Alger handle this situation?
Acosta: Lucy, is an artist. Lucy paints pictures of Barbara Streisand.
Raoul Duke: Don't take any guff from these fucking swine!
to hitchhiker
Raoul Duke: Last name? I'd rather not say. My brother's in politics.
On acid while brandishing knife
Acosta: Who said anything about carving you up, man? I just wanted to carve numbers into your forehead.
Raoul is imagining himself in court
Lucy: Yes, their the men that gave me the L.S.D
the court gasps
Lucy: And then they done something to me, and I can't remember what it was, but I remember that it wasn't very nice.
the court breaks out into an angry roar
Judge: Castration! Double castration!
Raoul Duke: You've gone all sideways, man!
Raoul Duke: What kind of rat bastard psychotic would play that song right now, at this moment?
to Acosta
Raoul Duke: Ah, devil ether. It makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel. Total loss of all basic motor function. Blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue. The mind recoils in horror, unable to communicate with the spinal column. Which is interesting because you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can't control it.
Raoul Duke: Our vibrations were getting nasty. But why? Was there no communication in this car? Had we deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts?
Acosta: Sounds like big trouble. You're going to need plenty of legal advice before this thing is over. As your attorney, I advise you to rent a very fast car with no top. And you'll need the cocaine. Tape recorder for special messages. Acapulco shirts. Get the hell out of L.A. for at least 48 hours.
Acosta: Are you ready for that? Checking into a Las Vegas hotel under a phony name with intent to commit capital fraud on a head full of acid? I sure hope so.
Raoul Duke: What was I doing here? What was the meaning of this trip? Was I just roaming around in a drug frenzy of some kind? Or had I really come out here to Las Vegas to work on a story? Who are these people, these faces? Where do they come from? They look like caricatures of used car dealers from Dallas, and sweet Jesus, there were a hell of a lot of them at 4:30 on a Sunday morning, still humping the American dream, that vision of the big winner somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino.
Dr. Gonzo: Music! Music! Put that tape on.
Raoul Duke: What tape?
Dr. Gonzo: White Rabbit...White Rabbit White Rabbit!! When the rabbit hits that fantastic note, I want you to throw it into the tub with me.
Raoul Duke: So, you want me to throw this in the tub when White Rabbit peaks, is that it?
Dr. Gonzo: Yeah...
Raoul Duke: That'll blast you through the wall, you'll be stone dead in ten seconds. They'll make me explain things, shit.
Raoul Duke: The possibility of physical and mental breakdown is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride
------------------------------------------------------------------------------'I am now a moderator... and all I had to do was suck harveys cock' -Ductapeboy
