The Wave Speech

If you've read or watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or if you know about Hunter S. Thompson, you should know something about this. He personally described it as probably the best thing he's ever written and if you've ever read anything from him, that's saying a lot.

"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era — the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights — or very early mornings — when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

i was born too late, in a world too civilized

(though i am glad for the internet)

I think this book is grandly misinterpreted.
People tend to think of it as a justification of drug culture up to modern day, and a celebration of the 60's hippie movement. They use it to say that somehow their own drug use has some sort of meaning. Pretty common for "scene" kids these days.
Really, it was a book that could only be written in the 70's by someone who lived through the 60's. Like in this speech, he seems to be saying that for anyone who didn't experience it directly, the hippie movement was meaningless. It FELT like it was making a difference, but it never did.
And the main theme of the book can be somewhat epitomized in the quote in the beginning, "He who makes a beast of himself removed the pain of being a man." In the disparity in the 70's, for these former hippies, there isn't any "mind expansion" in the use of these drugs, he's getting ripped for the express reason of denying humanity.
I don't know, maybe I'm the asshole here, I just don't think most kids who read it give enough thought to it, and just think, "right on, get fucked."

i wouldnt be so quick to dismiss the enduring changes that the hippy movement brought along. since everything has a historical foundation the world as we know it would be different if it were for even the most slightest of changes sometime in the past. although you are right of course in that it is meaningless. at least from a cosmological perspective, then again, to that greater scheme of things, pretty much (if not) everything is.
if we value meaning as entirely human or subjective value then it is as meaningful or -less as we consider it to be.

The hippie movement, though it did change some things, was basically just doing drugs. And no matter how hard the hippies fought against whatever, they still got old, and they still lived in a world full of people abusing nature and worshiping money.

Well, philosophically speaking, everything and nothing are equally as significant. But my point was that, to them, it felt meaningful, and it seemed meaningful, but it really didn't amount to much of anything. Hippies thought they could make a difference with their thoughts and things like "positive energy." They just did drugs and silly things like try to levitate the pentagon.

you mean just the way like to you whatever it is you do feels meaningful and think you can somehow make a difference. its a pretty common delusion, you know?

There's a big difference between trying to life the Pentagon up with your mind and donating money to a charity to try to help out the world.

so tell me about this big difference.

Trying to lift the Pentagon with your mind is stupid. It's not going to happen, and it's just a waste of time. In order for it to happen, the laws of nature would have to be broken. All in all, it is nothing but a shallow way of making a shallow point.

Donating money to a charity, on the other hand, can actually do some good. If a person donates fifty dollars to a charity that helps feed families at Christmas time, then that's fifty more dollars that helps the hungry families. That could feed a family of four, give them a nice dinner.

So, you see, one makes no difference at all. The other give a family something to eat. It may not be a big difference, but it is a difference.

trying to bring peace to the world is just stupid. its not going to happen and its just a waste of time. in order for that to happen the laws of human nature would have to be broken. all in all its nothing but a fruitless attempt on making the world a "better" place.



the result is that appearantly it is sitll remembered today, its about making a statement.
one that i actually favour of lets say, them trying to blow up the pentagon...(even though i consider myself a pragmatist, and this would have had the greater effect)