Original artwork from @Sonja_Tierney on Instagram. Follow her, or the Editor-in-Chief will eat his fucking dog.
Each day I wake.
Not because an alarm has gone off, or because the sun is filtering through the dusty windows of my modest casita, but because after only two or three hours of sleep, my heart beats at a thousand miles an hour, and a sensation of invincibility courses through my veins, carried from limb to limb by beer brewed with nature’s choicest products.
I rise and grab my laptop with one hand and my crotch with the other. The force contained within each is almost overwhelming.
I am powerful.
I am inevitable.
I am Pabst Blue Ribbon.
It hasn’t always been this way though.
Not long ago, I was cold and alone. A colicky child, hiding from the sun, depriving myself of vitamin D, spiraling in and out of intense battles with self-doubt and fear of the outside world.
I didn’t know where to turn. I couldn’t fathom a way out. I was terrified of all that lay beyond the comfort of four walls and paralyzed with fear of the blank page.
If I was to become the literary juggernaut I was born to be, if I was ever to paddle Earth’s most pristine stretches of whitewater, to ski the gnarliest of lines in the most stunning of mountain ranges, I had to find some way out of the dark hole I’d fallen into.
I thought back to my happiest times—on the river, in the mountains, beside campfires and in the company of good friends.
What had brought about such joy in those days? What had really painted a smile on my face?
And it dawned on me. Always, in all those instances, there had been dozens of adorable little cans, trimmed with silver, red, white and blue; emblazoned cross the center with that unforgettable blue ribbon.
In my greatest hours, my most jovial of times, Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer had been at my side.
I scrambled out of my desk chair and into the front seat of my truck, peeling out of the driveway and making a beeline for the closest liquor store. I ripped a twelve-pack out of the cooler, threw a wad of money at the cashier and hurried home.
Beneath a waning sun, I carefully peeled back a flap of cardboard, not wanting to startle the aluminum angels inside.
Delicately, with just two fingers, I slide one out and held her before my eyes.
Such beauty. Such grace. Such grandeur. All at an almost offensively reasonable price point.
As I pulled on the tab, that familiar pop and hiss set my soul at ease. I breathed in her essence, and the scent of Earth’s finest hops and grains sashayed into my nasal cavity, seducing my olfactory system.
For a moment, there was quiet, there was peace, and there may have been half an erection.
But the calm only lasted so long. In its place came ferocious passion, brought on by the liquid ecstasy gliding over my tongue.
Ugh, that sweet angel, so spectacular and splendid— twelve glorious liquid ounces.
I burrowed my lips into hers. The can caressed me and I caressed her, like two preteen lovers necking in a movie theater.
And then she was gone. Though I mourned the loss of such a delectable lover, there were still eleven of her sisters left, and after a single can, I was alive again.
A force I couldn’t recognize pulled me to my desk, to the keyboard, and to the remainder of the twelve-pack. I had feared empty word documents for so long, but after just one can of PBR, I was ready to write.
Suddenly the words danced across the page, painting a flawless and sensual ballet of delicious verbiage, sumptuous adjectives and masterful narratives. I sipped on one can after another (responsibly of course) and the stories, the descriptions, the tantalizing tales—they poured out of me as easily as I made the beers disappear.
When it was over, I stepped away and caught my breath. The empty cans lay strewn about my office, like tired lovers, curled up and slumbering post-coitus. My muscles swelled and burst through my sleeves. Upon my screen were the words that would eventually accompany the launch of this website.
The power of Pabst was made apparent to me.
I cursed myself for not realizing earlier what laid within the brew that had been named America’s best in 1893. Of course Pabst was power. It always had been.
PBR had been there for it all.
When I paddled my first Class V section of whitewater in Colorado.
When I climbed my first 5.12 route in Moab.
When I built out the bed in my van with help from an ex-con in Montana.
After I saved the woman who drove her snowmobile into a Vermont aspen at 50 miles an hour, and on the cross-country road trip with those two crazy lesbians in the matching wigs and stilettos.
The answer had always been Pabst.
In the weeks that followed, I worked Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer into my daily routine. I found tall boys, twelve-ounce bottles, and 40-ounces too! A sip here, a sip there, and more literary delights fired out of my fingertips. The result has been all of the printed perfection you’ve enjoyed so far on this site.
And then I discovered everything else the masterful beverage crafters at Pabst are producing.
Hard Coffee! Hard Tea! Stronger Seltzer! Pabst Blue Ribbon Extra! Pabst Blue Ribbon Easy! An 80-proof, no-nonsense white whiskey.
I consumed it all. In the time since, my body and mind have evolved at a rapid pace. Granite-like abdominals have started to form, I’m getting those grooves chicks really like right where my femurs meet my pelvis, and I just finished an organic chemistry course online, acing every exam with a perfect score. My physical and intellectual power has grown limitless.
In the mornings, I like to crack open a PBR Hard Coffee and bend pieces of rebar with my bare hands, just to limber up before I start typing the next story for The Dirt Lot.
When I take breaks from the keyboard, I drink a bit of PBR Extra, then do pull-ups with one hand and study ancient Sanskrit texts in the other.
After a few PBR Stronger Seltzers in the afternoon, I like to place a salt shaker between my newly flawless pecs. I flex and shatter the shaker (just for fun) then spend an hour working on a solution to the Hodge conjecture. I’m likely a week away from having it figured it out. Feel free to email the Clay Mathematics Institute and let them know I’m close. I won’t take credit though. PBR is responsible.
It seems that Pabst is favored by the gods as well. Since making their products such a prominent part of my life, cosmic forces have made their presence apparent to me.
The Dirt Lot has only existed for a month and a half. But just a week ago, a business owner contacted me out of the blue about advertising with us. Within a few hours, the deal was sealed, and I’m now being paid to write.
Yesterday, I hurried out of the house, as I was late to pick up an order of falafel and chicken shawarma. My truck sputtered and died when I turned the key. I remembered I’d parked on a decline the night before with the gas needle close to E and cursed myself.
I began to stalk back home, when a hippie materialized out of thin air. He was drinking canned coconut water and leaning on the truck parked behind me.
“Need a hand?” the foul-smelling vagabond asked.
“No,” I said “just forgot to fill up the tank. Gonna grab a gas can and walk to the station down the road.”
“Hang tight, man.”
Like a good Samaritan sent from on high, he reached into the bed of his Ford Ranger, and retrieved a gallon of gasoline. Speechless, I took the can from his grubby hands, filled up the tank and fired up the truck.
How could I thank this man? Nay, this angel. The answer was clear.
I had $240 worth of PBR in my fridge.
I asked him to wait and sprinted back to the house. Upon returning, I thanked him profusely, handed over a six pack, and insisted he toss the coconut water in the sewer.
Best of all, a woman has entered my life seemingly out of nowhere. After more than a decade of philandering and meaningless trysts, I now find myself in an exclusive relationship. I am stimulated by her in every way.
Her hips are preposterous, her backside devious, her bosoms bountiful and her mind sharp as a Hattori Hanzo-forged sword.
I am often caught in conversation with her until the wee hours of the morning, hanging on every word, running my hand over every curve, nursing a PBR, and taking interest in all she says and does.
We’ve spent a lot of time together and I’m overjoyed that a human being of her caliber is interested in an individual such as myself. But, she’s not here for my devilish charm, for my literary prowess, for my rippling bicep veins, or even for the force with which my hips deliver such fiendish pleasure each time we’re intimate.
She’s here for the sweet aftertaste of PBR that’s always on my tongue and lips.
I can see it in her eyes each time she pulls away from a kiss, breathless, her heart thumping in her chest, her hands trembling.
“You’ve been drinking Pabst,” she whispers, and pulls me in deeper, clawing at the back of my bald head, nibbling the taste of nature’s choicest products from my lips.
She’s one of thirteen muses responsible for all that The Dirt Lot has done so far. I keep the other twelve cold in the fridge.
Is the sudden appearance of these remarkable human beings just coincidence? No, sir or madam. Not coincidence.
This has been divine intervention from celestial beings with discerning taste and appreciation for excellent alcoholic beverages. Beer drinking deities are clearly pulling the strings of my life, all thanks to my commitment to drinking PBR, and only PBR.
With a cold Pabst product in my hand, my dreams are no longer dreams. Their attainment, and my success, is inevitable.
I intend to compete in next year’s Tour de France, riding no-hands the whole way.
Though I’m only a few chapters into the first draft of my book, I’ve preemptively emailed the Pulitzer Prize Committee to assure them that I’m fine accepting my honor over zoom, in the event that Covid still prevents us from gathering in person when I win.
Jimmy Chin has already skied Everest, but I’ll be doing it on one foot within the next few months.
Come September, I’ll be rafting the Upper Gauley without a paddle, and perhaps BASE jumping for the first time without any prior practice. Don’t fret over my safety, Dear Readers. With a bellyful of PBR, I am buoyant, and I am indestructible.
Power and perfection now ooze out of me.
My eyes burn with the fury of a thousand angry suns.
My fingers compose symphonies cross the keyboard every evening.
My woman craves the taste of my tongue in the middle of the night.
Oh, and I did, like, four hundred push-ups yesterday.
Get up Dear Readers. Grab yourself a sixer, a twelve-pack or better yet, a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. Find your own power. Tag @TheDirtLot on Instagram when you have a cold one in hand.
Together, we will erase the failures of past generations. We’ll dredge up the wreckage of the old world, of dreams never realized, and pave new roads, lining the Earth with cans that glint at their silver edges, and beam with red, white and blue magnificence.
The past is the past. The future will be built with Pabst.
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