Fear And Loathing In Aspen Work Guide

They have no fear because they have never known true danger. They have no loathing because they have never loved anything that wasn’t an investment. They are playing a game they don't even know is rigged, buying $20 million condos with a shrug, their souls as hollow and polished as the marble floors of their foyers.

Standing at the base of Aspen Mountain, looking up at the slopes dotted with brightly colored ants in perfect, expensive gear, you realize the truth. Hunter S. Thompson didn’t lose the battle for Aspen. The battle never ended. It just got bought out. The fear is the understanding that the barbarians are not at the gate; they own the gate. And the loathing is the unavoidable, heartbreaking realization that the American West, the final frontier of the imagination, is now just another zip code in the portfolio of the damned. The only thing to do is buy a ticket on the next flight out, back down to the flatlands, back to the real, ugly, beautiful chaos. Because in this perfect, sterile, million-dollar morgue, a man cannot breathe. He can only choke on the thin, sweet air of victory. fear and loathing in aspen

The saddest sight in Aspen is not the empty bottle of Château Margaux left on a park bench. It is the ghost of the Gonzo past. You can almost see him, a fat, sweating ghost in a Hawaiian shirt, lurking at the edge of the Jerome Bar. He is watching the young heirs and heiresses snort perfect, pharmaceutical-grade lines off their Breitling watches. They are performing a hollow pantomime of rebellion, mistaking a high credit limit for high spirit. They are the "Wave" generation—not the Third Wave of utopian anarchy, but the final, pathetic wave of a late-capitalist society cresting over a bowl of overpriced chili. They have no fear because they have never known true danger