a b c "Born to raise Hell". BBC News. August 14, 2000. Archived from the original on April 7, 2009 . Retrieved February 1, 2013. Edwards, Peter (June 27, 2018). "Outlaw bikers say they're loyal to Harley-Davidson, even as Trump's trade policies push the company to look overseas". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on July 1, 2023 . Retrieved July 1, 2023. In a contemporary New York Times review of the book, Thompson relates how he "drank at their bars, exchanged home visits, recorded their brutalities, viewed their sexual caprices, became converted to their motorcycle mystique, and was so intrigued, as he puts it, that 'I was no longer sure whether I was doing research on the Hell's Angels or being slowly absorbed by them.' " [10] Douglas Brinkley, Terry McDonell (Fall 2000). "Hunter S. Thompson, The Art of Journalism No. 1". The Paris Review. Fall 2000 (156).

Hell's Angels began as the article "The Motorcycle Gangs: Losers and Outsiders" written by Thompson for the May 17, 1965 issue of The Nation. [ citation needed] In March 1965, The Nation editor Carey McWilliams wrote to Thompson and offered to pay the journalist for an article on the subject of motorcycle gangs, and the Hells Angels in particular. Thompson took the job, and the article, published about a month later, prompted book offers from several publishers interested in the topic. [ citation needed] Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right." Gangs: A Journey into the heart of the British Underworld, Tony Thompson, (2004) ISBN 0-340-83053-0 Rolling Stone". June 5, 2009. Archived from the original on September 16, 2016 . Retrieved August 11, 2016. Giuseppe Valiante. "Sun News: Bust shows connections in criminal underworld in Canada". Sunnewsnetwork.ca. Archived from the original on November 3, 2012 . Retrieved June 18, 2013.

TRENDING

Biker gangs in Canada". Cbc.ca. July 13, 2011. Archived from the original on April 29, 2014 . Retrieved November 30, 2014. Lemons, Stephen. "Chico Mora Led the Dirty Dozen Into the Hells Angels' Camp, Claiming Arizona for the Red and White". Phoenix New Times. Archived from the original on July 7, 2022 . Retrieved August 17, 2021. In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. [24] In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Rio de Janeiro-based Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (subsequently Sondi Wright) joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born in March 1964. [25] [8] During the summer of that same year, Hunter began taking Dexedrine, which is what he would predominantly use for writing up until around 1974 when he began to write mostly under the influence of cocaine. [26] Wills, David S. (2022). High White Notes: The Rise and Fall of Gonzo Journalism. Scotland: Beatdom Books. p.11. ISBN 978-0-9934099-8-1.

Schwederski, KHK Frank. "Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs" (PDF). gdp.de (in German). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 27, 2022 . Retrieved October 15, 2022.

Select a format:

William Marsden; Julian Sher (2010). Angels of Death: Inside the Bikers' Empire of Crime. Knopf Canada. ISBN 978-0-307-37032-7. While he wrote Hell's Angels, Thompson resided in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. [30] Ray Conlogue (March 2, 2002). "Bilingual on bikes". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on November 27, 2020 . Retrieved July 18, 2020. If you're a TV show and the Hells Angels are considering a court injunction to stop you from being broadcast, then that's what you'll be famous for. Fremont-Smith, Eliot (February 23, 1967), "Books of The Times; Motorcycle Misfits—Fiction and Fact." The New York Times, p. 33. Some of the HAMC's early history is not clear, and accounts differ. The club's first official charter was reportedly drawn up in Fontana in 1950. [22] Various autonomous Hells Angels chapters were formed throughout California in the decade following the club's foundation, by nomadic members who moved from one city to another. [27] The San Francisco ("Frisco") chapter was reportedly founded by former members of the Market Street Commandos in 1954. A North Sacramento chapter was established in 1956, followed by another chapter in Sacramento the following year, which was formed by two brothers, James "Mother" Miles and Pat Miles, who were former members of the Hell Bent for Glory biker club. [28] The Sacramento charter later disbanded and relocated to Richmond as a Nomads chapter in 1965. [29] According to Ralph "Sonny" Barger, founder of the Oakland charter in 1957, other early charters of the club were founded in Gardena, and elsewhere, with the members usually unaware that there were other clubs. One of the lesser-known clubs was in North Chino/South Pomona in the late 1960s. Barger has been credited with helping to unify these various disparate chapters under common club bylaws. [30] [31] [32]

Enter Hunter S. Thompson, the master of counter-culture journalism who alone had the ability and stature to ride with the Angels on their terms. In this brilliant and hair-raising expose, he journeys with the last outlaws of the American frontier. Appleby, Timothy (July 17, 2004). "Part II". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on August 28, 2023 . Retrieved August 17, 2021. Bishop, Cliff T. (1986). Fortresses of the Big Triangle First, East Anglia Books. ISBN 1-869987-00-4, pp.160, 236.Richardson, Peter, Savage Journey: Hunter S. Thompson and the Weird Road to Gonzo. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2022. ISBN 9780520304925 Eblen, Tom. "For sale: Hunter S. Thompson's childhood home – bullet holes, Gates of Hell not included". The Bluegrass and Beyond. Archived from the original on March 25, 2012 . Retrieved August 3, 2012. a b Litwak, Leo E. (January 29, 1967), "Hell's Angels", The New York Times , retrieved February 15, 2012 Hunter S. Thompson: 'Proud Highway' (audio)". NPR. August 7, 1997. Archived from the original on October 4, 2013 . Retrieved August 3, 2012. Thompson's output declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame, and complained that he could no longer merely report on events, as he was too easily recognized. After several high-profile stories were quashed by the upper management of Rolling Stone, he found it increasingly difficult to get his work into mainstream outlets. He did continue to write for alternative newspapers, working as a columnist for the mainstream San Francisco Examiner for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write sporadically for various outlets, including Rolling Stone, Playboy, Esquire and ESPN.com until the end of his life.