Nothing Left to Lose is a picaresque sixties memoir that describes the misadventures of two recent college graduates’ (the author and Rick) and their friends’ attempts to live up to the advice of Timothy Leary to “tune in, turn on, and drop out” while, at the same time, dodging the draft, finding romance, and a commune. They search the Rocky Mountains for suitable land for a commune, but end up in a crash pad in Denver. The women from their college who plan to join the grads decide to move elsewhere when they see what slobs they are. The two grads sans friends move to Boulder, find jobs, move to a motel in Nederland when they can no longer afford Boulder rents, hitchhike back and forth across the country even though they have a car (they can’t afford gas), rub shoulders with various malcontents including luminaries such as Wavy Gravy and Allen Ginsberg. Along the way they discover Buddhism, Mr. Natural, Purple Haze, Fat Freddie’s cat, unrequited love, near death experiences, rock and roll, nude bathing, sex, and the anti-war movement, but not what they seem to be searching for – how to live a meaningful life.