IVIV (14): North Las Vegas

[Robin Landseadel]

On Nov 9, 2009, at 8:31 AM, rich wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 6:23 PM, Robin Landseadel
> <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> The notion of the northern end of Las Vegas being the avenue of  
>> dashed
>> dreams has a famous literary source:
>>
>>        About thirty minutes after our brush with Okies we pulled  
>> into an
>>        all-night diner on the Tonopah highway, on the outskirts of a
>>        mean/scag ghetto called "North Las Vegas." Which is actually
>>        outside the city limits of Vegas proper. North Vegas is where
>>        you go when you've fucked up once too often on the Strip, and
>>        when you've not even welcome in the cut-rate downtown places
>>        around Casino Center.
>>        Hunter S. Thompson: "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
>>
>> If there is a touchstone for the Las Vegas episodes, it would be  
>> Hunter S.
>> Thompson's best known work. There are echos of "F 'n L" throughout  
>> Inherent
>> Vice, particularly "Stoned" as a 24/7 activity and the dashing of  
>> the dreams
>> of "Freak Power."
> _____
> building upon the musings of Puck's murder and the jarring quality of
> same, the above now reminds me of the behavior of Dr Gonzo with the
> waitress at that sleazy diner in North Las Vegas--there's lots of
> goofball antics by these guys which are funny but the hovering hint of
> murderous violence (which is very well depicted in the F&L movie, too)
> by this Doc is very clear and very unsettling. or so it seems to me
>
> rich

Exactly—that was one of my main points.

F 'n L de-mythologized the notion of of peaceful, pacified hippies and  
their sweet little subculture, turning that "Peace & Love is Here to  
Stay" fantasy into something both more critical and more accurate.