The first piece of gonzo journalism, annotated.

“There are some things nobody needs in this world, and a bright-red, hunch-back, warp-speed 900cc cafe racer is one of them—but I want one anyway, and on some days I actually believe I need one. That is why they are dangerous.”

“One afternoon about three days ago the Editorial Enforcement Detail from the Rolling Stone office showed up at my door, with no warning, and loaded about 40 pounds of supplies into the room: two cases of Mexican beer, four quarts of gin, a dozen grapefruits, and enough speed to alter the outcome of six Super Bowls. There was also a big Selectric typewriter, two reams of paper, a face-cord of oak firewood and three tape recorders – in case the situation got so desperate that I might finally have to resort to verbal composition.”

“The case of Lisl Auman, who first wrote me from prison three years ago, is so rotten and wrong and shameful that I feel dirty just for knowing about it, and so should you.”

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”

An obituary for Richard Nixon.

A trip to Hawaii to cover a marathon.

A profile of the Hell’s Angels following “front-page reports of a heinous gang rape in the moonlit sand dunes near the town of Seaside on the Monterey Peninsula.”

In 1998, a reporter called up Thompson to discuss the Clinton scandal and film adaptations, among other topics. The complete, previously unpublished transcript of their conversation.