The belly of the beast

"Anonymous" (and you know who you are) is right, the blogosphere does owe a huge debt to H.S. Thompson.

But the comparison is an unfortunate one for bloggers. I sit at home, imbibing the substances necessary for me to stomach the evil swill we're forced to swallow each day just by reading the newspaper. I do have terrifying visions ("cut 8-inches," anyone?). But Dr. Thompson consumed prodigious quantities and then leapt into the belly of the beast, whether sharing a car and talking football with Richard Nixon in '68, attending a sheriff's convention in Las Vegas in '71, or riding the Muskie campaign train (the "Sunshine Express") in'72, he put himself bodily into the story.

More lamentations, this time from Digby.

And, via Billmon, one of the good doctor's greatest moments.

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 nobody really understands at the time -- and which never explain, in retrospect, what's 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 a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eye you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Selah.