Cheers And Beers Quotes

You know the law, Dresden." "He who kills the cheer springs for beer," chanted the rest of the table.

The people are immensely likable— cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted, and unfailingly obliging. Their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water. They have a society that is prosperous, well ordered, and instinctively egalitarian. The food is excellent. The beer is cold. The sun nearly always shines. There is coffee on every corner. Life doesn't get much better than this.

I’d learned so much from traveling to familiar places that I figured I’d learn twice as much by going to a place I knew nothing about.

With a hand full of beer and a heart full of cheer, I’m as Irish as I can get, but add good times and some quick funny lines… and gold I make leprechauns sh!t. Sláinte! - Jess

Athletics had, indeed, arrived! “It was time to cheer, and cheer they did.

This party is lame!" Braeden said loudly. "WOLVES, party at my dorm!" he yelled. People cheered. "Dude, how the fuck are you gonna fit all these people in your tiny-ass room?" He grinned. "Sure as hell will be fun to try." Out in front of the Omega house, there was hardly anyone around; they were all too busy in the back, checking out the drama. We were silent a moment. Then Braeden said, "You don't need them. You got more than enough talent to bring in the NFL on your own." "Fuck," I muttered. "When did everything get so damn complicated?" "When your life became about more than just football." "You sound like Yoda." I grinned. "It's the beer." - Braeden & Romeo

If you didn't already know, we're expecting in about four and a half months." Elliott beamed. The guests raised glasses with congratulations in the air. "He slipped one past a goalie!" Ryan cheered. The beer I just sipped came out through my nose. Mia was choking on her water. Serena turned from Ryan to Elliott, smacking him on the chest. Mortification painted her red face. "Did you teach him that?" Elliott shrugged with a mischievous grin.

In other words, after Winthrop has acquired all his butter firkins, food stirrers, and beer along with six dozen candles, twenty thousand biscuits, and twenty-nine sides of beef, he goes through the Bible and writes down a bunch of verses commanding him to be willing to cheerfully give all that stuff away. My firkin is your firkin being one of Christianity's primary creeds.

Be a scribe! Your body will be sleek—your hand will be soft . . . you are one who sits grandly in your house; your servants answer speedily; beer is poured copiously; all whose you rejoice in good cheer. Happy is the heart of him who writes; he is young each day.

And so we went. And so it went. And, slowly, I began to learn: speaking in the same language does not equal communication, especially when there is a cultural divide.

I even put the check inside a card shaped like a mug of beer—Cheers to You!—and Nick just gave a flat begrudging thanks. I don’t know what to do. I’m trying.

I’m here and I’m there, couldn’t see past the end of my beer, at what was getting near or the silence after the cheers.

While you were worried about me I fucked your friend from cheer She gave me a BJ and a beer I still hate you, make no mistake And would love nothing more than to see your pretty neck break.

She brought forth a piece of wood into which she had burned a French saying which our friend Franz had used to cheer us, in Osterburg: La vie est belle, et elle commence demain. “Life is beautiful, and it begins tomorrow.

The uncle ignored Gracie's father. 'In any event,' he went on, 'when brewers combine hops with yeast and grain and water, and allow the mixture to ferment -- to rot -- it magically produces an elixir so gassy with blue-collar cheer, so regal with glints of gold, so titillating with potential mischief, so triumphantly refreshing, that it seizes the soul and thrusts it toward that ethereal plateau where, to paraphrase Baudelaire, all human whimsies float and merge.

The soldiers had uncovered the cargo of a second wagon—which was composed entirely of beer and mead. “Kurt! You’re on duty!” Friedrich shouted over the happy cheers when the soldiers caught sight of them. “That’s the thing, sir,” Gustav, who was standing with Kurt and a freshly poured pint. “None of us are. We’re all here off duty—we wanted to see how this would turn out.” Friedrich blinked. “Kurt! You said General Harbach sent you—” “We lied,” Kurt said. “Cheers,

Nick and I, we sometimes laugh, laugh out loud, at the horrible things women make their husbands do to prove their love. The pointless tasks, the myriad sacrifices, the endless small surrenders. We call these men the dancing monkeys. Nick will come home, sweaty and salty and beer-loose from a day at the ballpark,and I’ll curl up in his lap, ask him about the game, ask him if his friend Jack had a good time, and he’ll say, ‘Oh, he came down with a case of the dancing monkeys – poor Jennifer was having a “real stressful week” and really needed him at home.’ Or his buddy at work, who can’t go out for drinks because his girlfriend really needs him to stop by some bistro where she is having dinner with a friend from out of town. So they can finally meet. And so she can show how obedient her monkey is: He comes when I call, and look how well groomed! Wear this, don’t wear that. Do this chore now and do this chore when you get a chance and by that I mean now. And definitely, definitely, give up the things you love for me, so I will have proof that you love me best. It’s the female pissing contest – as we swan around our book clubs and our cocktail hours, there are few things women love more than being able to detail the sacrifices our men make for us. A call-and-response, the response being: ‘Ohhh, that’s so sweet.’ I am happy not to be in that club. I don’t partake, I don’t get off on emotional coercion, on forcing Nick to play some happy-hubby role – the shrugging, cheerful, dutiful taking out the trash, honey! role. Every wife’s dream man, the counterpoint to every man’s fantasy of the sweet, hot, laid-back woman who loves sex and a stiff drink. I like to think I am confident and secure and mature enough to know Nick loves me without him constantly proving it. I don’t need pathetic dancing-monkey scenarios to repeat to my friends, I am content with letting him be himself. I don’t know why women find that so hard.

I took a big draft of my beer, warmed by my reminiscences, and quietly delighted at the thought that my schooldays were forever behind me, that never again for as long as I lived would I have to bevel an edge or elucidate the principles of the Volstead Act in not less than 250 words or give even a mouse-sized shit about which far-flung countries produce jute and what they do with it. It is a thought that never fails to cheer me. In

They go to work, attend a meeting Write an equation, have a beer, Hail colleagues with a cheerful greeting, Are conscientious, sane and sincere, Rational, able and fastidious. Through hardened casing no invidious Tapeworm of doubt, no guilt, no qualm, Pierces to Sabotage their claim. When something's technically attractive, You follow the conception through, That's all. What if you leave a slew Of living dead, of radioactive "Collateral damage" in its wake? It's just a job, for heaven's sake.

My master, sooner or later, will die of his dyspepsia. Old man Goldfield is already doomed by his greed. The autumn leaves have mostly fallen. All that has life must lose it. Since there seems so little point in living, perhaps those who die young are the only creatures wise. If one heeds the sages who assembled here today, mankind has already sentenced itself to extinction by suicide. If we don't watch out, even cats may find their individualities developing along the lethal crushing pattern forecast for these two-legged loons. It's an appalling prospect. Depression weighs upon me. Perhaps a sip of Sampei's beer would cheer me up.

Jack coughed slightly and offered his hand. “Hi, uh. I’m Jack.” Kim took it. “Jack what?” “Huh?” “Your last name, silly.” “Jackson.” She blinked at him. “Your name is Jack Jackson?” He blushed. “No, uh, my first name’s Rhett, but I hate it, so…” He gestured to the chair and she sat. Her dress rode up several inches, exposing pleasing long lines of creamy skin. “Well, Jack, what’s your field of study?” “Biological Engineering, Genetics, and Microbiology. Post-doc. I’m working on a research project at the institute.” “Really? Oh, uh, my apple martini’s getting a little low.” “I’ve got that, one second.” He scurried to the bar and bought her a fresh one. She sipped and managed to make it look not only seductive but graceful as well. “What do you want to do after you’re done with the project?” Kim continued. “Depends on what I find.” She sent him a simmering smile. “What are you looking for?” Immediately, Jack’s eyes lit up and his posture straightened. “I started the project with the intention of learning how to increase the reproduction of certain endangered species. I had interest in the idea of cloning, but it proved too difficult based on the research I compiled, so I went into animal genetics and cellular biology. It turns out the animals with the best potential to combine genes were reptiles because their ability to lay eggs was a smoother transition into combining the cells to create a new species, or one with a similar ancestry that could hopefully lead to rebuilding extinct animals via surrogate birth or in-vitro fertilization. We’re on the edge of breaking that code, and if we do, it would mean that we could engineer all kinds of life and reverse what damage we’ve done to the planet’s ecosystem.” Kim stared. “Right. Would you excuse me for a second?” She wiggled off back to her pack of friends by the bar. Judging by the sniggering and the disgusted glances he was getting, she wasn’t coming back. Jack sighed and finished off his beer, massaging his forehead. “Yes, brilliant move. You blinded her with science. Genius, Jack.” He ordered a second one and finished it before he felt smallish hands on his shoulders and a pair of soft lips on his cheek. He turned to find Kamala had returned, her smile unnaturally bright in the black lights glowing over the room. “So…how did it go with Kim?” He shot her a flat look. “You notice the chair is empty.” Kamala groaned. “You talked about the research project, didn’t you?” “No!” She glared at him. “…maybe…” “You’re so useless, Jack.” She paused and then tousled his hair a bit. “Cheer up. The night’s still young. I’m not giving up on you.” He smiled in spite of himself. “Yet.” Her brown eyes flashed. “Never.

It was in Oklahoma, within a month of her arrival, that they established the Fuck Yorick School of Forensics. This was not just a principle of necessary levity but the name of their bowling team. Wherever she worked, first in Oklahoma, then in Arizona, her cohorts ended the evenings with beer in one hand, a cheese taco in the other, cheering or insulting teams and scuffing along the edges of the bowling alleys in their shoes from the planet Andromeda. She had loved the Southwest, missed being one of the boys, and was now light-years beyond the character she had been in London. They would go through a heavy day’s work load, then drive to the wild suburban bars and clubs on the outskirts of Tulsa or Norman, with Sam Cooke in their hearts. In the greenroom a list was tacked up of every bowling alley in Oklahoma with a liquor license. They ignored job offers that came from dry counties. They snuffed out death with music and craziness. The warnings of carpe diem were on gurneys in the hall. They heard the rhetoric of death over the intercom; ‘vaporization’ or ‘microfragmentation’ meant the customer in question had been blown to bits. They couldn’t miss death, it was in every texture and cell around them. No one changed the radio dial in a morgue without a glove on.

[Description of the behind-the-scenes situation of the Beer Hall Putsch] The crowd began to grow so sullen that Goering felt it necessary to step to the rostrum and quiet them. “There is nothing to fear,” he cried. “We have the friendliest intentions. For that matter, you’ve no cause to grumble, you’ve got your beer!” And he informed them that in the next room a new government was being formed. It was, at the point of Adolf Hitler’s revolver. Once he had herded his prisoners into the adjoining room, Hitler told them, “No one leaves this room alive without my permission.” He then informed them they would all have key jobs either in the Bavarian government or in the Reich government which he was forming with Ludendorff. With Ludendorff? Earlier in the evening Hitler had dispatched “Scheubner-Richter to Lud-wigshoehe to fetch the renowned General, who knew nothing of the Nazi conspiracy, to the beerhouse at once. The three prisoners at first refused even to speak to Hitler. He continued to harangue them. Each of them must join him in proclaiming the revolution and the new governments; each must take the post he, Hitler, assigned them, or “he has no right to exist.” Kahr was to be the Regent of Bavaria; Lossow, Minister of the National Army; Seisser, Minister of the Reich Police. None of the three was impressed at the prospect of such high office. They did not answer. Their continued silence unnerved Hitler. Finally he waved his gun at them. “I have four shots in my pistol! Three for my collaborators, if they abandon me. The last bullet for myself!” Pointing the weapon to his forehead, he cried, “If I am not victorious by tomorrow afternoon, I shall be a dead man!” (...) Not one of the three men who held the power of the Bavarian state in their hands agreed to join him, even at pistol point. The putsch wasn’t going according to plan. Then Hitler acted on a sudden impulse. Without a further word, he dashed back into the hall, mounted the tribune, faced the sullen crowd and announced that the members of the triumvirate in the next room had joined him in forming a new national government. “The Bavarian Ministry,” he shouted, “is removed…. The government of the November criminals and the Reich President are declared to be removed. A new national government will be named this very day here in Munich. Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, Hitler had told a masterful lie, and it worked. When the gathering heard that Kahr, General von Lossow and Police Chief von Seisser had joined Hitler its mood abruptly changed. There were loud cheers, and the sound of them impressed the three men still locked up in the little side room. (...) He led the others back to the platform, where each made a brief speech and swore loyalty to each other and to the new regime. The crowd leaped on chairs and tables in a delirium of enthusiasm. Hitler beamed with joy.

And the wraith on the heart monitor looks pensively down at Gately from upside-down and asks does Gately remember the myriad thespian extras on for example his beloved ‘Cheers!,’ not the center-stage Sam and Carla and Nom, but the nameless patrons always at tables, filling out the bar’s crowd, concessions to realism, always relegated to back- and foreground; and always having utterly silent conversations: their faces would animate and mouths would move realistically, but without sound; only the name-stars at the bar itself could audibilize. The wraith says these fractional actors, human scenery, could be seen (but not heard) in most pieces of filmed entertainment. And Gately remembers them, the extras in all public scenes, especially like bar and restaurant scenes, or rather remembers how he doesn’t quite remember them, how it never struck his addled mind as in fact surreal that their mouths moved but nothing emerged, and what a miserable fucking bottom-rung job that must be for an actor, to be sort of human furniture, figurants the wraith says they’re called, these surreally mute background presences whose presence really revealed that the camera, like any eye, has a perceptual corner, a triage of who’s important enough to be seen and heard v. just seen. A term from ballet, originally, figurant, the wraith explains. The wraith pushes his glasses up in the vaguely sniveling way of a kid that’s just got slapped around on the playground and says he personally spent the vast bulk of his own former animate life as pretty much a figurant, furniture at the periphery of the very eyes closest to him, it turned out, and that it’s one heck of a crummy way to try to live. Gately, whose increasing self-pity leaves little room or patience for anybody else’s self-pity, tries to lift his left hand and wiggle his pinkie to indicate the world’s smallest viola playing the theme from The Sorrow and the Pity, but even moving his left arm makes him almost faint. And either the wraith is saying or Gately is realizing that you can’t appreciate the dramatic pathos of a figurant until you realize how completely trapped and encaged he is in his mute peripheral status, because like say for example if one of ‘Cheers!’’s bar’s figurants suddenly decided he couldn’t take it any more and stood up and started shouting and gesturing around wildly in a bid for attention and nonperipheral status on the show, Gately realizes, all that would happen is that one of the audibilizing ‘name’ stars of the show would bolt over from stage-center and apply restraints or the Heineken Maneuver or CPR, figuring the silent gesturing figurant was choking on a beer-nut or something, and that then the whole rest of that episode of ‘Cheers!’ would be about jokes about the name star’s life-saving heroics, or else his fuck-up in applying the Heineken Maneuver to somebody who wasn’t choking on a nut. No way for a figurant to win. No possible voice or focus for the encaged figurant.

I looked out again at the rising moon and I let the weight of my day, my week, lift away with the rushing wind as I was blown into the depths of myself.

There were signs everywhere but none that I could read or even hope to decipher. These multi-lined symbols unhinged my familiar world.

As the silence returned, I sat back and felt the tension ease away; I hadn’t even known I was tense. A few moments passed and once again the cycling fan laced in with the clanging chains and mixed with the rumbling mower and the buzzing insects.

I’m not a big fan of football. Gladiators of the twenty-first century, wrecking each other for our amusement while we drink beer and eat hot dogs and cheer when a guy gets wiped out. You’d think we would have gotten beyond that. I guess there’s too much money in it.

Dominic is the first to enter and the bodies around us roar with cheers. “He won,” Alicia lifts her beer toward him in salute. “Of course he did.

the barkeep carrying two beers in heavy glass mugs. He slammed the steins down so that waves of beer sloshed onto the table. Without a word he turned and trudged back to the bar. The outlaw hoisted his mug. “Cheers,” he said

Alxine carved them all portions, serving them elegantly on beds of thin oat porridge flavoured with rotten onion. It tasted debatably worse than the beer. ‘Gods, imagine living out here, drinking donkey piss and eating rancid goat’s dick every day of your life,’ he said cheerfully. ‘At least we’ve got violent death to look forward to in a few days’ time.

Luke lay on the floor of my apartment in a baby gym, a floor quilt with two crossed arches featuring rattling beads, spinning birds and butterflies, crinkly leaves, and cheerful electronic music. He loved it nearly as much as I loved watching him. At two months, he laughed, smiled, made noises, and was able to raise his head and chest. Jack lay on the floor beside him, lazily reaching up to flick the toys or to push a button for new music. “I wish I had one of these,” he said. “Strung with beer cans, Cohíbas, and those little black panties you wore Saturday night.” I paused in the midst of putting away dishes in the kitchen. “I didn’t think you noticed them, you took them off me so fast.” “I’d just spent a two-hour dinner looking at you in that low-cut dress. You’re lucky I didn’t jump you in the parking garage again.

She went to Kildare, where she became the abbess of one of Ireland’s first convents. She wrote a reputedly strict rule and continued to witness to God’s abundant love. Hers were the miracles of the multiplication of butter, beer, and bacon—always for the succor of the poor. She restored cows and sheep and blessed the marriage bed. Hers was the vision of heaven as endless feast, according to the ancient poem: “I should like a lake of ale for the King of Kings/ I should like the household of heaven to be there drinking it for eternity…/ I should like cheerfulness to be in their drinking/ I should like Jesus here also.

Cool. I know an awesome spot called Henry’s. They have the absolute best beer selections and the wings are great. They also have darts and pool.” Furi stopped talking when he noticed Syn looking a little pale. “Hey, what’s up?” “Uh, nothing.” They were in Syn’s old faithful truck and Furi sat silently watching the man next to him. “We going or what?” Furi narrowed his eyes, staring at the side of Syn’s face. His jaw was clenched and his neck was flushed. What the hell? “Yeah. Let’s go.” “Okay.” Syn thought he was going to be sick. It was just his goddamn luck that Furi would suggest the one place where half the department liked to hang out. Hell, even his Lieutenants frequented this place. It would be cruel to subject Furi to Day’s inappropriateness so soon. Syn wasn’t necessarily afraid of being with a man; he just wasn’t the type to make his personal life public. Or am I scared? Fuck. Syn didn’t think Furi would go for keeping them a secret. The man had made that quite clear when they were in the alley. Syn gripped the steering wheel and willed his foot to press the accelerator. Maybe … just maybe, there wouldn’t be anyone familiar there. Syn drove under the speed limit and felt Furious’ probing eyes on the side of his face. He tried to smile and keep his jaw from showing his nervous tick. Despite his efforts, they got there in what felt like record time. Furious got out and waited for Syn to slowly make his way toward the entrance. “Are you sure everything is alright?” Furious asked, annoyed. “I’m good. Really. Good. Perfect,” Syn said, mentally kicking himself for sounding like an idiot. Furi took his hand in his and it took every ounce of Syn's willpower not to pull his hand back. Of course he’d be into PDA. Furious pulled open the door and walked in as if he hadn’t a care in the world. It was almost nine p.m. and the though it wasn’t packed, there were quite a few people there. Syn tried not to look around, keeping his eyes on the back of Furious’ head as he led them to a booth; thankfully located in the back of the bar, where it was a little bit darker. Syn made sure to sit so he was facing the door while Furi sat opposite of him. Furi didn’t speak. He picked up one of the menus and started to look through it. “First time out with a man?” Syn's head snapped his up from hiding behind his menu. “Uh. Yeah, but ya know.” “No, I don’t know,” Furi answered quickly. “If you didn’t want to come out, why didn’t you just say so? You look like you're about to pull a disguise out of your coat. Or do you plan to just stay hidden behind your menu all fucking evening?” “Furious.” “Although that’s going to make eating really difficult. Should I be prepared for you to fake a stomach ache?” “Enough,” Syn barked, Furious’ dark eyes widening at his tone. “Look, cut me some slack alright? I am not new to dating men. I’m new to dating: period. Just about all of my adult life I’ve focused on being a cop, a damn good cop. I had little time for anything else in my life including dates. Dating takes time and patience, two things I didn't have. I was prepared to accept being alone the rest of my life until I saw you. I wanted you, and I was more than willing to take the time and effort to be with you. So forgive me if I don’t do everything exactly right on our first date.” “I’m not expecting you to. I haven’t dated in years myself. But one thing I’m not concerned about is being ashamed.” Furi looked Syn dead in the eye. Syn didn’t have a chance to respond, the waitress came to set a pail of peanuts on the table. Speaking in a cheerful voice: “What can I get you guys to drink?

You don’t suppose they’re really expecting figgy pudding and a cup of good cheer,” I muttered. “I thought your history professor friend said that historically accurate wassail would be mulled beer.” “I’ll put on the coffee,” Michael said, heading downstairs. “I rather think that would be the suitable Southern Baptist equivalent.

My professional life had started and here I was at a professional dinner full of uninhibited drinking.

Somehow, we were passing the boundaries of language and finding clarity in shared thought, even if we were just talking about beer!

The Budweiser ad in figure 5 illustrates how the beer company uses the motivator of social cohesion by displaying three “buds,” cheering for their national team. Although beer is not directly related to social acceptance, the ad reinforces the association that the brand goes together with good friends and good times.

He put his hands on her waist. “Kiss me,” he said. “No,” she said. “Come on. Haven’t I been perfect? Haven’t I followed all your rules? How can you be so selfish? There’s no one around—they’re busy drinking.” “I think you should go back to your reunion,” she said, but she laughed at him again. Boldly, he picked her up under her arms and lifted her high, holding her above him, slowly lowering her mouth to his. “You’re shameless,” she told him. “Kiss me,” he begged. “Come on. Gimme a little taste.” It was simply irresistible. He was irresistible. She grabbed his head in her hands and met his lips. She opened hers, moving over his mouth. When he did this to her, she thought of nothing but the kiss. It consumed her deliciously. She allowed his tongue, he allowed hers, and she reached that moment when she wanted it to never end. It was so easy to become lost in his tenderness, his strength. And then, inevitably, it had to end. They were standing in the street, after all, though it was almost dark. “Thank you,” he said. He put her on her feet and behind them, a raucous cheer erupted. There, on the porch at Jack’s, stood eight marines and Rick, their tankards raised, shouting, cheering, whistling, cat-calling. “Oh, brother,” she said. “I’m going to kill them.” “Is this some kind of marine tradition?” she asked him. “I’m going to kill them,” he said again, but he kept his arm around her shoulders. “You realize what this means,” she said. “These little kisses are no longer our little secret.” He looked down into her eyes. The shouts had subsided into a low rumble of laughter. “Mel, they are not little. And since it’s leaked,” he said, grabbing her up in his arms, lifting her up to him again, her feet clear of the ground, and planted another one on her, to the excited shouts of the old 192nd. Even with that riot in the background, she found herself responding. She was growing addicted to the perfect flavor of his mouth. When it was done she said, “I knew it was a mistake to let you get to first base.” “Ha, I haven’t even thrown out the first pitch yet. You’re invited to go fishing with us, if you like.” “Thanks, but I have things to do. I’ll see you tomorrow night for a beer. And I’ll get myself to my car. I’m not going to make out in front of them for the next week.” *

Let me begin by saying that no, I am not crazy. I had no intention of initiating this little trauma with one child while giving birth to another. In fact, I was thinking middle school was probably a good target for the whole process. But he, apparently, had other plans. "I go potty!" he said. We were standing at the sink brushing our teeth. "What?" I asked, looking around to see if there was someone else in the room. "I go potty!" he said again. He got down from his little stepstool and stood adamantly before the toilet. "Well, OK, little guy," I replied, hesitantly, "I mean, sure, if that's what you want to do . . . " I certainly couldn't discourage him without being the focus of therapy for years to come. And besides, what kind of mother says, "No, honey, I'd really rather you stayed in diapers until you're old enough to date"? I dutifully took off his diaper and pants, popped in his little potty seat, and lifted him up. "All done!" he squealed with delight. "What?" I practically screamed. "What do you mean, all done? You haven't been up there ten seconds!" "All done!" he said again, and started to hop down. He stood there in the middle of the bathroom, looking very proud of himself, and proceeded to pee on the floor. OK, I said to myself. It's just going to take some time. "Good job, honey! Nice try! We'll get 'em next time!" I said cheerfully. I then put a clean diaper on him, put his pants back on, cleaned up the floor, and started down the stairs. "I go potty!" he called after me. "I go potty again!

Forget the stiff punches, or the hardcore bloodlettings, or the shoot interviews: This is the ne plus ultra of reality in wrestling. The enlightened wrestling fan has likely spent significant amounts of time explaining to nonviewers that even though wrestling is staged, it’s not fake—that no amount of planning, no amount of scripting, no amount of physical trickery or assisted landing, no amount of ring elasticity or floor mat cushion can remotely assuage the physical assault of an average wrestling match. Every night on the road ends with ice bags or painkillers or just plain old pain, the unrelenting kind, the “you sit down in your rental car and electric voltage shoots up your spine” kind of pain, and so what, you get in your car anyway and drive to the next town and work another match tomorrow night and the fans cheer but they don’t know. And you get two or three days off after tomorrow or the next day, and let’s hope to God that’s enough to get you right, because then it starts all over again. And then again next week, and then for months, and if you’re lucky—imagine that word, here of all places—if you’re lucky it’ll keep going for years. And there’s no off-season, no prolonged downtime unless, God forbid, you’re seriously injured. That’s reality. Fans will try to explain this to people, but wrestlers themselves are, for the most part, too proud—or too committed to the facade—to explain it to anyone, and it’s this kind of pride, this commitment, that leads to a functional code of silence, even within the locker room, even among friends, and so to painkiller abuse, to alcohol abuse to take the edge off, to illicit drug use to get you going afterward, out of the fog of painkillers and beer. This is reality. Wrestling fans can explain this, but who can put into words the pain of working a wrestling match in which you’re in so much pain that you don’t want to be touched but you’re too proud not to go through with it? When your livelihood is your body and your body is betraying you? Best-case scenario, working a match in that shape is a cry for help.

Beer, if drunk in moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit, and promotes health.” Jefferson

The players on the flat screen above the hard liquor skated in reverse as the bartender rewound the game. Again. Piss-drunk fans crowded around the bar cheered as though watching the winning goal live and thrust their empty glass mugs out for refills. Tap beer was on the house whenever the home team won. First time in a while the generous policy would cost the Red Claw’s owner a dime.

There were about 20 pikeys surrounding this bloke who looked like he should be in a cage. I swear he was 6ft 8in and about the same across. His boat had been shifted around so often he didn’t look human. I whispered to Kenny. ‘Hope you got a better deal than 500.’ He said, ‘We’ll walk away with two grand from this one. He ain’t as tough as he looks.’ I said, ‘How do you know?’ I just got that big grin again. ‘I don’t, I’m just trying to cheer you up.’ We all moved back away from the flashing lights of the rides, and they formed a large ring. No formalities, no bell. Just, ‘Go on, boys.’ I steamed straight in putting all my weight behind four or five solid belts. Every “one connected on his arms. I tried to come up under and do his ribs in but I couldn’t get round those massive arms. It was like he was holding sandbags up in front. He threw a couple but his eyes gave him away before he even started to swing. I tried again. Bang. Bang. Bang. This time I got through and put a nice split in his forehead; good bit of claret. Then he grabs me, pins my arms to my sides, and nuts me full in the face, trying to get his teeth into my nose. I could smell his breath – a mixture of shit and beer. I brought my knee up into his sack and he let go with a surprised look on his bloody face. Got you now, you bastard. I slammed into him, but he’d got those fucking great arms up and I’m punching sandbags again. Round and round we went. I had him sussed now. He’s not a fighter, he’s a steamroller. He wanted to tire me out then drop 20 stone on top of me. He’s got the right idea; I’m knackered. It’s dead quiet except for faint music from the fair. No one was cheering encouragement, just a ring of brown faces watching us both with cold eyes. Kenny’s looking worried. Fuck it. I shouldn’t have looked round; he’s caught me with a right-hander full in the side of the head. My head’s ringing, I’ve gone deaf on that side and now I’m really pissed off. This has gone on for long enough. I had to take a risk. I turned my back on him, raised my arms in Kenny’s direction and said, ‘When are you going to ring the fucking bell?’ At the same time, I spun round and, as I’d hoped, the big animal was so surprised at me turning my back he dropped his arms. Everything I’ve got went into a straight punch to the heart. He fell backwards and down like a falling tree.

I crack the beer and put the cold can to my lips as Rhett sits in the Adirondack chair next to me. Summer painted them bright red, cheerful just like her. They remind me of Willa’s hair.

When the doctor was done, Hitler leaped onto a long table positioned smack in the middle of the crowd. His oratorical style was provocative, his language colloquial and at times coarse. He hollered insults at politicians, capitalists, and Jews. He castigated the Reich finance minister for supporting the Treaty of Versailles, a humiliating concession to the victors of the war that would bring Germans to their knees, he warned, unless they fought back. “Our motto is only struggle!” Hitler cried. The beer-hall crowd, a fizzy mix of working-class and middle-class men, erupted—some cheering, some jeering. His controversial speeches fueled attendance at future meetings of the German Workers’ Party, which grew to 3,300 members by the end of 1921, at which point it had a new name, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, nicknamed the Nazi Party. It also had a new chairman, Hitler, who gave himself a new title: Führer (Leader).

In July, Stackhouse and Kaye had been at a honky-tonk bar when a guy wearing a cowboy hat pointed at first one and then the other and said, “A girl with your face, and with your tits, damn, that girl could take over the world. Hell, you could take me home tonight, you wanted to.” Stackhouse took off the man’s cowboy hat and dumped her beer on him and the bar cheered. She kept the hat.

With the first banks opened on Monday, the afternoon brought another request from Roosevelt. Stating that he needed the tax revenue, he asked Congress that beer with alcohol content of up to 3.2 percent be made legal; the Eighteenth Amendment did not specify the percentage that constituted an intoxicating beverage. Congress complied. The House passed the bill the very next day with a vote count of 316–97, pushing it to the Senate. Wednesday brought good cheer: The stock market opened for the first time in Roosevelt’s presidency. In a single-day record, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained over 15 percent—a gain in total market value of $3 billion. By Thursday, for increased fiscal prudence, the Senate had added an exemption for wine to go with beer, but negotiated the alcohol content down to 3.05 percent. Throughout the week, banks were receiving net deposits rather than facing panicked withdrawals. Over the following weeks, the administration developed a sweeping farm package designed to “increase purchasing power of our farmers” and “relieve the pressure of farm mortgages.” To guarantee the safety of bank deposits, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was created. To regulate the entire American stock and bond markets, the Exchange Act of 1933 required companies to report their financial condition accurately to the buying public, establishing the Securities and Exchange Commission. Safety nets such as Social Security for retirement and home loan guarantees for individuals would be added to the government’s portfolio of responsibilities within a couple of years. It was the largest peacetime escalation of government in American history.

Dr. Armstrong handed Boss Baby a root-beer float to toast his success. Boss Baby took the drink and raised it. In a weak voice he said, “To no more parents!” “Cheers to the revolution!” Dr. Armstrong raised his own float and the two of them clinked glasses.

Stop Caring them, Leave them cheering their beer, You just step up your life's gear.

When, at 11:01, the sound of Wolfe's elevator came, I got the big dictionary in front of me on my desk, opened to H, and was bent over it as he entered the office, crossed to his oversized custom-built chair, and sat. He didn't bite at once because his mind was elsewhere. Even before he rang for beer he asked, "Has the sausage come?" Without looking up I told him no. He pressed the button twice--the beer signal--leaned back, and frowned at me. I didn't see the frown, absorbed as I was in the dictionary, but it was in his tone of voice. "What are you looking up?" he demanded. "Oh, just a word," I said casually. "Checking up on our client. I thought she was illiterate, her calling you handsome--remember? But, by gum, it was merely an understatement. Here it is, absolutely kosher: 'Handsome: moderately large.' For example it gives 'a handsome sum of money.' So she was dead right, you're a handsome detective, meaning a moderately large detective." I closed the dictionary and returned it to its place, remarking cheerfully, "Live and learn!

The Drunk’s Blue Book, written by Norman Anthony and O. Soglow in 1933, for instance, details what the authors call the Drunk’s Code: Free lunch. Free speech. Free cheers. Five-day week. Every third drink on the house. Lower curbstones. Overstuffed gutters. More lampposts. Rubber nightsticks and rolling pins. More keyholes for every door. More farmers’ daughters. Colder ice. Two cocktails for a quarter. Bigger and better beers.

Thirty-eight of the seventy-three households in Mashai reported that they brewed and sold beer at least six times in the last year. Many brewed far more often than that, and some brewed once a week or even more. Brewing can bring in a significant amount of money. Most often about forty liters were brewed at a time, which could be sold for between M4 and M10 depending on the quality of the beer. The ingredients, which included a washbasin full of sorghum and a small bowl of maize meal for each forty liter batch, usually cost less than M1, so it was possible for a diligent brewer to net as much as M5, M10, or even more per week from beer. For many households which lacked wage labor, beer brewing was the main source of income (see Gay 1980a for an account of the economics and sociology of brewing in a lowland village). Beer brewing, like many other economic activities through which women support themselves, must be understood not simply as a productive activity, but as a mechanism of redistribution. Beer is sold only to local villagers, predominantly men, and brewing is first of all a way of obtaining access to the cash earnings of employed men. Production of beer is directly stimulated by the presence within the village of men with money to buy it, and it is best understood as one of a number of possible ways for women to get a piece of that money. Brewing is thus very much a dependent or derived form of production; without migrant labor, the villagers of Mashai could no more support themselves through beer brewing than Mark Twain’s famous townsmen could support themselves by taking in each other’s laundry. Understood in this way, it is easy to see why brewing is as much a social skill as a technical one, and why one’s ability to make money by brewing is not a simple matter of the amount of beer one produces. Beer drinking is the main social event in the village for men, and it goes on in small or large groups every day. To sell a lot of beer a woman must be a cheerful and congenial hostess, and have a strong social position in the village. Making money on beer requires the same kinds of skills and social assets as throwing a successful party. It is thus a form of economic activity which is deeply embedded in the social relations of the village. I shall return to this point later.

Stop Caring them, Let them cheer their beer, You just step up your life's gear.

There were unknown tongues and aromas drifting out of the beer gardens and delicatessens. There were Germans, Poles, Slavs, Hungarians, Irish, Italians, Greeks, and Russians who had come here, as Ida Mae and her husband had, willing to work their way up from the bottom and make a life for themselves in a freer place than the one they had left. Before World War I, Milwaukee had not extended itself to the laboring caste of the South, nor had it needed to, with the continuing supply of European immigrants to work its factories. But, as in the rest of the industrial North, the number of Europeans immigrating to Milwaukee plummeted from 22,508 in the first decade of the twentieth century to a mere 451 during all of the 1920s because of the war. Factories that had never before considered colored labor came to see the advantages of colored workers from the South, even if some of the so-called advantages were themselves steeped in stereotype. “They are superior to foreign labor because they readily understand what you try to tell them,” one employer reported. “Loyalty, willingness, cheerfulness. Quicker, huskier, and can stand more heat than other workmen.” Most colored migrants were funneled into the lowest-paying, least wanted jobs in the harshest industries—iron and steel foundries and slaughtering and meatpacking. They “only did the dirty work,” a colored steelworker said of his early days in Milwaukee, “jobs that even Poles didn’t want.

The tent where the beer was sold was slushy with black mud. Country people stood sturdily about, some bursting with glee like ripe, rosy apples, others grim, lined and dour like cadaverous cheeses, glistening in the lamplight. The soft greyness outside faintly pricked with stars and seemingly transparent to all eternity had suddenly turned to inky blackness enclosing them tightly in a little glittering cave. All seemed aware of each other's perspiring faces and eager to communicate either good cheer or gloom; or held proudly apart with shining eye-balls and a flashing ring displayed on brown fingers curved round the smooth column of a glass. A man in corduroy trousers and a thick jacket, tilted his battered felt to the back of his head and bravely began to sing above the hurdy-gurdy din.

Smellin' the beefaloes and leanpigs turnin' on their spits, holding a cold cheer-beer in my hand, watchin' the stars poppin' out one by one like random pixels on God's antique monochrome display, listenin' to the joyful chatter of my fellow gips, contemplatin' the easy job ahead of me, I was as near to heaven asI have ever been on this mostly sad ol' earth.

I thought about Gobi and her sister and the way it had all come unraveled. I thought about my dad. When you’re young, you think your father can do anything. Unless he was this severely abusive person and beat you or got drunk and smashed things, you probably worshiped him. At least most of the guys I knew were like that. They might not have used those exact words, but they all have some cherished memory of something they did with their father, even if it was just a shiny, far-off moment. I remembered being eight years old and making a Pinewood Derby car for Boy Scouts. Dad had brought out a gleaming red Craftsman toolbox that I had never seen before and helped me carve the car out of a block of wood, and we sat at the kitchen table painting it silver and blue with red flames up the side. I drank Pepsi and he sipped a beer. When we finished, the car didn’t weigh enough, so we put lead weights in the bottom and sprayed lubricant on the wheels until it rolled freely from one side of the table to the other. I won third place, and he said, “I’m proud of you.” I remembered going fishing with him up in Maine, taking a little motorboat out across the foggy lake until it was too dark to see our bobbers. I remembered him teaching me how to tie a necktie on the morning of my cousin’s wedding. I remembered seeing him in the stands at my first junior high swimming tournament, standing next to my mom and cheering. I remembered waking up very early in the morning and hearing him downstairs making coffee before slipping out to work. I remembered the first time I ever heard him swear.

Now ... this” idea: the phenomenon whereby the reporting of a horrific event—a rape or a five-alarm fire or global warming—is followed immediately by the anchor’s cheerfully exclaiming “Now ... this,” which segues into a story about Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple or a commercial for lite beer, creating a sequencing of information so random, so disparate in scale and value, as to be incoherent, even psychotic.

There is an inn, a merry old inn beneath an old grey hill, And there they brew a beer so brown That the Man in the Moon himself came down one night to drink his fill. The ostler has a tipsy cat that plays a five-stringed fiddle; And up and down he runs his bow, Now squeaking high, now purring low, now sawing in the middle. The landlord keeps a little dog that is mighty fond of jokes; When there's good cheer among the guests, He cocks an ear at all the jests and laughs until he chokes. They also keep a horned cow as proud as any queen; But music turns her head like ale, And makes her wave her tufted tail and dance upon the green. And O! the rows of silver dishes and the store of silver spoons! For Sunday there's a special pair, And these they polish up with care on Saturday afternoons. The Man in the Moon was drinking deep, and the cat began to wail; A dish and a spoon on the table danced, The cow in the garden madly pranced, and the little dog chased his tail. The Man in the Moon took another mug, and then rolled beneath his chair; And there he dozed and dreamed of ale, Till in the sky the stars were pale, and dawn was in the air. Then the ostler said to his tipsy cat: ‘The white horses of the Moon, They neigh and champ their silver bits; But their master's been and drowned his wits, and the Sun'll be rising soon!’ So the cat on his fiddle played hey-diddle-diddle, a jig that would wake the dead: He squeaked and sawed and quickened the tune, While the landlord shook the Man in the Moon: 'It's after three!' he said. They rolled the Man slowly up the hill and bundled him into the Moon, While his horses galloped up in rear, And the cow came capering like a deer, and a dish ran up with the spoon. Now quicker the fiddle went deedle-dum-diddle; the dog began to roar, The cow and the horses stood on their heads; The guests all bounded from their beds and danced upon the floor. With a ping and a pong the fiddle-strings broke! the cow jumped over the Moon, And the little dog laughed to see such fun, And the Saturday dish went off at a run with the silver Sunday spoon. The round Moon rolled behind the hill as the Sun raised up her head. She* hardly believed her fiery eyes; For though it was day, to her surprise they all went back to bed!