The characters portrayed in this great film represent the very epitome of the 1960s baby-boomer mindset, along with the spirit of the masses who used the Vietnam War as an excuse to be bums.  The progeny of the folks who won World War II, these young boomer-drifters were aimless and lazy; the film opens with two of these bums equipping themselves with money via an illegal heroin deal (trashing, no doubt, the lives of the drug users and their families, not to mention the folks they had to rip off in order to fund their addictions).  We then watch this pair, one a sedated pot-head and the other a lunatic pot-head, drift toward New Orleans for a big drunk party, picking up along the way another equally purposeless bum (the great Jack, in a stunning role!).  The plot plays out in an appropriate fashion for people who live their lives in this repulsive manner.