Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas: The Board Game
The trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers . . . and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls . . . Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked 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.
-Hunter S. Thompson from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The late, great Thompson’s masterpiece, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has been a favorite of mine ever since my father gave me his battered, paperback copy to read in high school. All these years later its magical lunacy is still just as powerful as when I first found Duke and his attorney in the desert.
No surprise then that I am enamored of Jonathan Baldwin’s Rauol inspired, narcotics themed board game. A worthy display piece for anyone with a yen for H.S.T.’s particular brand of mayhem.
[via jwz]
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:29 pm
“Dosage scale and glass pipe NOT included for legal issues.” HAH.
I wish the Challenge Cards weren’t so difficult to read! Here are the few that I could make out from the site:
“Go bowling and get at least one strike.”
“Program a DVD or VCR player.”
“Speak only in third person for 20 minutes.”
“Replace a lightbulb.”
“Walk on your hands for at least 6 feet.”
“While one person flicks the light switch on and off repeatedly, you try to catch 3 soft objects thrown at you. You only have to catch 2 out of 3.”
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Should make Family Game night a tad more interesting.
There should be an activity card to play Ralph Steadman pictionary, where you only play with black ink and broken paintbrushes.
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I’m not quite certain I want to be around when one of the other players starts hallucinating bats.
“And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about 100 miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”
Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about,” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.”
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Hey Nadya when are we playing this? :P
@Infamous Amos…that’s actually a pretty damned good idea. I’d play that…sober even.
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Did anyone else hear Johnny Depp’s voice while reading this?
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:24 am
Nice. We’ll have to discuss this post over dinner sometime. :)
May 24th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Yeah Jaye totally :D
May 24th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
“I wish the Challenge Cards weren’t so difficult to read!”
If you are seriously having problems reading http://www.jrbaldwin.com/picture/challnegecards.jpg?pictureId=2300086
Thank may I suggest a visit to an optician.
May 24th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Uhoo, that URL is invalid.
May 25th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Yeah, if you’re trying to school someone make sure your URL is valid.
That being said, I’m not familiar with some of the items in that case, but couldn’t most of that stuff be legally obtained?
May 25th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Ooops, thought Nadya wrote this.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
While an interesting idea, I feel like creating and capitalizing on a Fear and Loathing board game is sort of the antithesis to a lot of the things that Thompson stood for/was trying to say with his writing – particularly in this novel. Even though well-executed, the idea just seems extremely contrived. Associating a board game with Hunter S. just feels…well, icky and wrong.
May 25th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
@ Erin I don’t think that the artist made this with the intention to make profit. It’s not really designed to be manufactured/bought on a mass scale. I think it’s an art piece, an homage. Thompson would’ve loved it.
May 26th, 2009 at 8:12 am
@Elise…True enough, plus it’s not like Thompson was some sort of underground artist. As a journalist his work was meant to be read by as many people as possible. Board games may no longer have the hold they did in the pre-PC and video game age but it’s a pretty strong tradition in some families. A mass market version of the above piece would actually be somewhat subversive to that I’d think.
Side note: Anyone else a fan of the 1996 “spoken word” version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? It’s more like an old radio show production of it.
May 26th, 2009 at 9:43 am
@Tequila… If you’re refering to the one where Jim Jarmusch plays Duke, hell yes I’m a fan. He has that perfect combo of exhaustion and psychosis in his voice that ties the whole thing together.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:22 am
@Infamous Amos
Indeed. He really nailed the role of Duke and the whole cast really was impressive. In some ways I prefer this version over the film at times…just has a more visceral insanity to it.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
You can check out my video interview with the artist, Jonathan Baldwin, here:
http://lifeonblast.com/?p=893
Hope you enjoy it!
xo
July 25th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
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