Chamblee54

A lady called Jaimes has a local blog, and today she decided to write something uplifting. She chose as a subject a photo essay by Life magazine about “Life with Mother“. The Life feature she almost wrote about was “Famous Literary Drunks and Addicts“. PG thinks there is too much uplift in the world already, and decided to write about the literary boozers. The links shown above no longer work. Some of the details in this piece cannot be verified.
Writing can be a lonely affair, with long nights spent wringing words out of the soul. Of course, the more social arts of theatre and music produce a lot of people who cannot control their substances. (Is there anything like the phrase “controlled substances”?) Getting back to the wordsmith, writing and getting high have always gone together, and not always for the better.
There are 43 names on this list. To peruse the Life feature, you have to click once for every new name, which is a lot of work. You get to see a picture of each one, but, with a few exceptions, these guys are fugly. Alcohol, heroin, indoor desk work, and the inevitable cigarettes do not lead to pretty faces. Anne Sexton was a model before a suicide poet, and F. Scott Fitzgerald did photograph well. To some, Charles Bukowski is a sex symbol. If you feel like working the mouse and seeing all the people, that is your choice. If you can find a cached copy of the post, please leave a link in the comments.
Many of the names on this list are obvious. Ernest Hemingway, Tennesee Williams, and F. Scott Fitzgerald are noted fans of altered consciousness. Dashiell Hammet lived for 30 plus years with Lillian Hellman, which might be a good reason to drink. And Truman Capote, among other things, did not suffer false modesty. “I’m an alcoholic. I’m a drug addict. I’m homosexual. I’m a genius.”
The beatnik/hippie/punk continuum is well represented. William S. Burroughs gave lie to the saying that there are no old junkies. (A surprising number here lived to a ripe old age.) Richard Brautigan and Hunter S. Thompson just would not be themselves in a twelve step program. And Jack Kerouac was staying with Neal Cassidy, and wife, while working on his early novels. Cassidy thought Kerouac smoked too much marijuana.
The list is weighted heavily towards white males. Only six women made the list, and James Baldwin is the only person of color. Ayn Rand was a bit of a surprise…the lady, who allegedly copped her pen name from a typewriter, was a speed fan. Another surprise was Stephen King. The horror meister is a cocaine fan, and is one of the few authors that can afford a hobby like that.
Perhaps the best comment comes from Edna St. Vincent Millay .”My candle burns at both ends / It will not last the night / But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends / It gives a lovely light!” This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress.

@JonathanLKrohn “This is quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever read. The person who wrote this should be barred from ever writing again. If you could burn emails, I would recommend burning this one with a blow-torch, and scattering the ashes deep in the heart of the Atlantic Ocean.” This got PG’s attention on a boring Saturday. It actually was value added comment to a re-tweet.
“The PR email for Meghan Trainor’s new album is absolutely insane” was the seminal offering. @WizzKhaleesi had a screen shot of the special text. “”hot newlywed sex Meghan and Daryl Sa-BAE-ra are having (did you see what we did there?). Which is why you’ll love the banging’ single “All The Ways.” Billboard was wet for “All The Ways,” calling it “another fun, danceable track to fall in love with.” And would Billboard lie to you, girl?
But perhaps the piece de resistance (that’s French for “Wig Snatch”) is “Marry Me,” a romantic acoustic guitar and ukulele-tinged Awww Fest which delivers all the feels (and then more feels). Meghan wrote the song thirty days after meeting Daryl, and it was so good that she walked down the aisle to it. We know, it’s a little bit #Vomworthy, but also, am I chopping onions right now or are those tears rolling down my face?”
PG saw this purple prose, and felt the need to make a statement. The result was a blackout poem. “But Wig Snatch all the feels We know chopping onions.” As a wise man once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Who is Meghan Trainor? Why Is This Meghan Trainor Press Release So Horny? has the text of the PR sensation. The first sentence will live forever. “Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and whether you’re planning on smashing bae’s junk to smithereens or making out with a pint of Phish Food, you need some fresh Valentine’s Day bops to get you in the mood for L♡VE.”
Help, This Meghan Trainor Press Release Is Haunting My Nightmares piles on with glee. “This happened with Thinx underwear’s deranged series of press releases, which used phrases like “Hey squirrelfran” and “astronaughty booty” in an effort to sell period underwear.”
Caroline Goldfarb claims to have written the Trainor train wreck. (Don’t let your mouse hover over the background of that page.) @hairoline A lot of people absolutely HATE the press release I wrote for Meghan Trainor and claim it seems like “a horny 12 year old with no writing experience” must have written it. Jokes on them because I’m actually a horny 28 year old with *some* writing experience @hairoline Trivia: The original draft had a line about Meghan buying sex toys with the ginger from Spy Kids but they took it out @hairoline I just had to block someone who said I deserved the electric chair for writing the horny Meghan Trainor press release, but jokes on them, cause I’m the one who got paid to say “smash bae’s junk to smithereens”
Jonathan L. Krohn had fifteen minutes of fame before he was fifteen years old. He is a journalist now, living in “Iraq and ATL, mostly.” Pictures for this post are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the pictures in April, 1941. “Singing “Trying to Make a Hundred, Ninety-Nine and a Half Won’t Do” during the collection at Negro church in Heard County, Georgia”