WORDS CHANGE US: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

WORDS CHANGE US

I submitted my memoir to agents. The book’s working title is: Shiva Blues: A Seeker’s Journey.
It’s about travel, kicking an addiction to strong pharmaceuticals, and trying to live against the grain of American Big Alpha toxic masculinity…but, primarily, the book is about personal transformation.
Is transformation possible? If so, how do we do it?

To that end, I’m starting a new miniblog on social media called, WORDS CHANGE US.

When I first read tonight’s passage, I was in 9th grade, and I’d never taken drugs. But these words practically leaped off the page, swirled around my bedroom bestrewn with famous sports figures, and then bore into my little teenage skull.

I knew…. I just knew…that…

1. there must be more to the world than Kansas.
2. I wanted to use my imagination and be a writer when I grew up.
3. I wanted my life to be an adventure.

Here goes (and it doesn’t get much better than this for opening passages):

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like ‘I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive….” 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 a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: ‘Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?” –Hunter S. Thompson

What words changed you???

search post

post tags

post archive

Archives

post Author

Brad Wetzler

Brad Wetzler is an author, journalist, editor, book writing instructor, memoir coach and mentor, and yoga instructor. His articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, GQ, National Geographic, Newsweek, Wired, Men's Journal, Travel + Leisure, George, Best American Travel Writing, and Outside, where he was a senior editor and contributing editor. His book, Real Mosquitoes Don't Eat Meat, was a collection of columns he wrote for Outside.Brad writes, teaches, coaches, and mentors from his home in Austin, Texas. His memoir, Into the Soul of the World, will be published in spring 2023.