Doug’s World

Hugo House Cottage

Here in the US, as in many places, the creative literary lifestyle and the degenerate drug-addled lifestyle have often come together in a single person. Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack London, and Jack Kerouac are typical: men who spent their time recovering from prolonged fits of self-medication or writing, each of which served as the inspiration for the other.

That lifestyle can prove stressful, however, as the suicides of those four clearly attest. So in in laid-back Seattle, where we always put safety first (have you ever tried to jaywalk here?), we have a sane and responsible approach based on specialization. Our authors write, and our addicts ingest, and each is happier and healthier for not straying from their chosen path.

But what about the stories that Papa found in those bottomless mojitos, or the characters Duke dredged from his ether binges? Isn’t self-medication at the core of many of the greatest writers’ triumphs? No worries, Seattle has a simple and straightforward solution for that, too: Cody lives in one of the Hugo House cottages.

Last night Cody was kind enough to invite a few friends to step over the used needles and urine stains to join him for a party, photos of which will appear in a separate post shortly. Meanwhile, here are a few photos of Seattle’s oldest and finest urban residence …

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 11:05 am. You can subscribe to comments on this post through its RSS feed.