Build Date: Mon Oct 5 15:33:23 2026 UTC
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.
-- HST
Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
2024-08-14 01:43:29
This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Here's its famous paragraph on getting drunk...
“And always, if he had a little money, a man could get drunk. The hard edges gone, and the warmth. Then there was no loneliness, for a man could people his brain with friends, and he could find his enemies and destroy them. Sitting in a ditch, the earth grew soft under him. Failures dulled and the future was no threat. And hunger did not skulk about, but the world was soft and easy, and a man could reach the place he started for.
"The stars came down wonderfully close and the sky was soft. Death was a friend, and sleep was death's brother. The old times came back -- dear and warm... But warm here. And the stars down so close, and sadness and pleasure so close together, really the same thing. Like to stay drunk all the time. Who says it's bad? Who dares to say it's bad? Preachers -- but they got their own kinda drunkenness... Reformers -- but they don't bite deep enough into living to know. No -- the stars rae close and dear and I have joined the brotherhood of the worlds. And everything's holy -- everything, even me."
-- John Steinbeck. The Grapes of Wrath.
Pulitzer Prize (1940). Nobel Prize (1962)
See also: Pigdog's coverage of William Faulkner waxing philosophical about liquor.
T O P S T O R I E S
John Dvorak has passed. I’m of mixed emotions. First off I’m more positive about his contribution to the overall technology journalism of the early PC days through the 90s, despite how many things he got wrong. He was a firebrand and commanded attention. (More...)
America's National Recording Registry Inducts Culturally Significant Artist - Weezer!
America's Library of Congress calls them "defining sounds of history and culture" and "audio treasures worthy of preservation for all time based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage." Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Weezer! (More...)
The Crossroads are real and The Blues is a place; The enduring myth of Robert Johnson (More...)
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
On the Implementation of a Grocery Bag And Overforestation Initiative
Patient Joab and his evil cohort, Patient Steve, develop a proposal for the plastic-v.-paper problem that EVERYONE can be happy with. An EXCLUSIVE from Spock Mountain Research Labs! (More...)
Skunk School -- Learn Why Not To Keep Skunks As Pets
There is an alarming trend in pet purchasing habits this fall. People inspired by the WWII film, "Life is Beautiful" -- the one with that annoying Italian guy -- are buying descented skunks by the millions. (More...)
Experimenter is a film released in 2015 starring Peter Sarsgaard. It tells the story of Dr. Stanley Milgram's life, including the infamous Milgram electric shock experiment, tests on crowds, and his work developing a theory on the mechanics of social networks. It currently streams on Netflix. (More...)
Naked Australian Redhead -- Missing!
She posed naked on the web, fought for pornography online, and even kept an online "Diary of a Virtual Girlfriend." But after earning a place in internet history, Bernadette Taylor vanished without a trace. (More...)
Another Spocktail from the beverage researchers at SMRL: Home of The Deathwave Bar & Grill! (More...)
