Desertion

Michael Savage is a barking lunatic who for three hours on the radio each day is violently insane. He jackboots up and down the dial bellowing blood-and-soil "borders, language, culture" atavism, a knuckledragging retroversion basically stolen by The Hairball to become the president.

Savage's real last name is Weiner, like the penis, and with his Savage Weiner penis he produced a son, Russell, who concocted a swill called Rockstar, a blend of caffeine and poison that the humans pour down their mouth-holes in the delusion they will thereby achieve "energy." I have a Resentment and even a Hate for this product, because I know that the original and true Rockstar was invented by Zack. I know this because I was present at the creation.

Zack at that time had created a patented Zack Living Environment in a room of our home at the very top of Brisbane, a bucolic aerie marred only by the mammoth transmission towers marching across San Bruno Mountain above, and the occasional rain of jet fuel from even higher above, slopping from the planes wheeling out of SFO, to fly hither and yon for no reason that has ever made sense to me.

On some of the nights, there in Brisbane, Zack and I would conceive a powerful need to get in his van and drive to John Cipollina's house, hidden away in the impenetrable maze of upper Mill Valley. This was only about 25 miles away as the crow flies, but we were not crows, and so on this journey we had to brave many unsane roads, snaking through many millions of humans, many of these also unsane.

Sometimes on these drives the beer would want to come out of our bodies, and it was for this reason that Zack packed in the van a large glass Gatorade jug. The jug became Vital when they started shuttering the public restrooms at the Marin end of the Golden Gate Bridge, claiming that in the nights these rooms were plagued by werewolves.

The Golden Gate Bridge is an edifice that has always been wrong; driving it is almost as dangerous as diving from it. It has been absolutely accurately described by Hunter S. Thompson as "a sort of low-tech Rube Goldberg experiment for traffic-flow specialists—a maze of ever-changing uncertain lanes and a truly fearful experience to drive. At least half of the lanes are always blocked off by flashing lights, fireballs and huge generator trucks full of boiling asphalt and crews of wild-eyed men wearing hard hats and carrying picks and shovels. They are never gone, and the few lanes they leave open for what they call 'civilian traffic' are often littered with huge red Lane Markers that look like heavy iron spittoons and cause terror in the heart of any unwitting driver who doesn’t know they are rubber . . . Nobody wants to run over one of those things, except on purpose, and in that case you want to take out a whole stretch of them, maybe 15 or 18 in a single crazed pass at top speed with the door hanging open."

Zack has always been a man of many talents, and at this time those talents included the ability to spray urine into a Gatorade jug while weaving through the tar pits, fireballs, and iron spitoons of the Golden Gate Bridge.

"Rock juice," one night Zack cackled, as he loudly recycled the beer from his body into the jug, we bounding over the bridge, our mission the Cipollina compound. Zack then riffed a mad scheme to boil the urine of musicians into a brew that would be marketed to those possessed of the notion that such persons are imbued with special Powers easily transferable. Initially Zack thought of calling this concoction Rock Juice, but by the time we reached the end of the bridge he had settled on Rockstar. This, then, the name the Weiner spawn, later Stole.

Maybe that night the Weiner spawn was in the near physical vicinity, cowering in his bed, praying god for deliverance from a father who would have been at home with Himmler, and in his writhings he received subterranean mental transmissions emanating from the cackling Zack, about rock juice. These transmissions lay dormant for a time, until in 2001 the Savage Weiner spawn poured them into Rockstar. That would explain it. That Weiner's Rockstar is missing the key ingredient in Zack's original, that is attributable to the fact that something is always lost, in the translation.

When Zack was inventing Rockstar, there on the Golden Gate Bridge, he was in his Jonah period, during which he would musically connect with various persons who, as soon as the playing really jelled, would suffer some medical calamity. There was a whole series of these people. Cipollina was one of them. He had always suffered a genetic disorder of the lungs, and in time it got worse. In the spring of 1989, he went over.

While Zack was exploring music with Cipollina, I was exploring an eros connection with a member of the Cipollina karass. That is why I accompanied him on those midnight trains to Mill Valley. Once, when she and I were both complete medicine balls, barely tethered to the planet, I received a clear vision that we could share a rich, dark, magical life, but it wouldn't last all that long, and then we would go to the boneyard. So I eased on off that road not taken. There was a wife and child back in Brisbane, and though I knew the marriage was doomed, not so the parenting; it didn't seem right, daddy winking down the rabbit hole. That was not the first or the only time I veered off, from another world. Like the time an Aztec fireplace opened in the wall, just because I ate some mushrooms. I knew I could crawl into the thing and disappear forever into another life. But at the time I was waiting on two young unferaling cats to drop their first litters. So going into the wall, that too, would have been Desertion.

And so on.

Was writing any of this really Necessary? Probably not. But a good enough excuse to embed "Mona."

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjWGr-h8ETA]

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Lily O Lady's picture

delivered peppermints along with the check to our table, “How unexpected!”

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

hecate's picture

@Lily O Lady
but did your son like peppermints? ; )

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Lily O Lady's picture

@hecate

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Lookout's picture

might be a little tight...but perhaps it is our fate. Great to read your work again.

Often things work out for the best...a life untethered in an Aztec fire might not be all it is cracked up to be....then again it might be far more.

All the best - good to "see" you!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

hecate's picture

@Lookout @Lookout
of rabbit holes . . . .

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR50OlcO9O4]

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WaterLily's picture

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Seems the Nimitz has been called in to catch those terrorist Gatorade bombs.

nimitz-ggb-2.jpg
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@QMS
I think that's what the photo is about. The Navy comes to town every year with the Blue Angels and some serious war ships that dock and give tours.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@Timmethy2.0 Dressed up as celebration. Conditioning the masses for 'Return of the Forces'. After the world sends 'em home. In anticipation of the eventual civilian domestic overthrow. Make great floating cities for the underwater citizens that 'paid' for them.

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@QMS
I have some nice childhood memories of taking ship tours with my Dad. I think it's a nice time for the sailors too.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Mark from Queens's picture

and almost choked on the steel cut oats I decided would be a good start as an antidote to acid reflux after a night of drinking red wine with dinner.

Really great to see you back, man! Hope you've been well and just too busy with stuff.

Got the blood flowing mightily though - thanks for that. I temporarily forgot the piles of dishes and pans from last night, caked with salmon oil and charred brussel sprouts and food splattered all underneath and around the hi-chair due to the infant whose been granted a baby-led weening eating method of her handling and eating with her own hands, which just seems to mean pulverized bananas, wet half-eaten cereal, smeared oatmeal and orange piece husks with the juice sucked out of them that I have to pick up after every breakfast and on and on like that through the day.

I've got the usual Grind going on here with the babies. So I'm gonna drink some more of this Turkish tea, cut with freshly chopped ginger, and be back later to comment on this "doozy," as my son often says (realized early on I had to get creative with my incessant cursing, and douchebag or douche became doozy, with it's old-time upbeat usage applied. Still haven't managed a good sub for f*ck though. any ideas?).

See yiz later.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

@Mark from Queens Funcked and funker. Maybe too close to the original? Frick, frig and flock sometimes fill in for the family audience. Wink

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WaterLily's picture

@QMS My late great-aunt used to use this. Always cracked me up, especially as she entered her mid-90s.

"Shit" became "Sugar."

Her sweet-tooth was pretty obvious.

Hecate, a pleasure to see and read you again!

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@WaterLily as in being forked over. Hey, when sh*t becomes sugar it is much easier to swallow. Can't wait till 90!

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WaterLily's picture

@QMS Love it.

My grandmother (whose sister I earlier referred to) is currently 98 and going strong. She's the youngest of five, all of whom made it to 90 or beyond.

I hope I have her forking genes, so long as my mind stays clear ...

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Mark from Queens's picture

@QMS
He's been saying "funky" lately as I frequently joke around using different voices to amuse myself (and him) and to use funny words. He likes that one. Lots of cool obvious R&B /Soul references there. Also played him a Jackson 5 song called "How Funky Is Your Chicken?" that he really likes.

Thinking of parlaying that one. Funk. Music reference makes sense for me.

Around these parts people often use the adjective "friggin," as in "that friggin' guy."

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Anja Geitz's picture

@Mark from Queens

But I never got around to it. Although there are those who actually consider 'friggin' a curse word, as one elderly lady pointed out to me in the airport in Rome to watch my language. Ha!

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

mimi's picture

@Mark from Queens
I just see a 'Wiener Würstchen' in him, that way he becomes more digestible. Wink

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Granma's picture

@Mark from Queens

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@Granma Used to be a powerful curse shared by the elders of my youth.

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Mark from Queens's picture

@Mark from Queens
and triggered cultural images for which I share a disdain as well.

Michael Savage is your prototypical fascist NY Jew, who has Zionist wet dreams that NutterYahoo will slaughter all those filthy Palestinians and join the Dur Orange Furor in hunting down the rest of those illegal aliens that threaten the pure Fascist Race.

I have a best friend who would tell me he listens to both him and Michael Levin, just to get a read on what these types of folks were saying. But don't think he realized he was starting to ever so subtly adopt some of their lunatic ravings, not heeding a reminder that there's no real counterbalance to the carnival barker RW takeover of the media, especially on talk radio.

Levin is another RW extremist who poses with another canard that he's "constitutionalist," on something that he apparently runs called CRTV, the digital network run by Fox News to further indoctrinate the gullible masses into believing their superior white male American way of life is endangered by a whole host of dropout hippies, bra-burning feminists, gays, communists and socialists, people who read books and don't go to football games and don't watch tv, etc.

Nothing changes in the RW frame of mind, as Gore Vidal said. Later, when it's safe to come out of their delusionary bunkers (because they are at their core hardcore Fraidy Cats) they come around. Because as Twain said, "The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views; when he has worn them out the conservative adopts them." By the way, CRTV also employs the swashbuckling, fearing-females and socialists Gavin McInnes, whose gang of little thug boys went on a little marauding spree after their appearance at Republican Party Club of Manhattan.

Figures the schmuck Savage would produce another loser who brought out another poisonous potion designed to rev up an already caffeine and sugar jacked up youth population with swill designed to appeal to a generation who know absolutely nothing about the now-corporatized and rendered meaningless description of what it really means to be a Rock Star. That word used to mean something.

And it's been gone since the Reagen Devolution destroyed pop culture, especially music. Bill Hicks nailed it when looking at the vapid, soulless, corporate treadmill decade of safe little suckups Just Saying No. "Mediocrity and banality" became the touchstone, said Hicks, instead of "playing from the heart....I want them to play with one hand and a gun in their other fucking hand and go, 'I hope you enjoyed the show.' BLAST."

The whole sanitizing of Rock Stars into the next batch of corporate cliches imported from the boardroom and straight into popular culture vernacular further erodes any potential genuine revolutionary action spring up (for god's sake, the only affordable cymbal bag I could find at the only music store around with the logo "Revolution" emblazoned on. Who's going to turn over the tables of blasphemy in this corporatized world in which so mush has been reduced from sacred to farcical?)

In a city of innumerable panoramic ecstacies for the eye the Golden Gate Bridge almost comes off comparatively as pedestrian, even as its span has undeniable grandiosity. I've been over it a few times. Once on a bicycle, which to me is the only real way to see city (and the subject of David Byrne's book "The Bicycle Diaries" I'm currently reading).

The other time was nearly as memorable, though as usual as hard as one might try it's hard to top Thompson in the arena of mischief. I didn't fling open my car door for extra fun as he suggested but I did pile-drive a few cones going over that monstrous bridge. There's just something about it that seems to call for it. Maybe it's being in one's 20's and still getting a great kick out of smashing things. The little boy doesn't go away entirely. All the bios I have on HST attest to that. He'd literally carry around a head-spinning bag of tricks, and look out if there was a fire extinguished in the vicinity (just ask Jann Wenner). The Jack Nicholson episode in which we left a bear heart on his front door, rang the bell and left, then retreated to the nearby hills where he had rigged a sound system to blare a heinous soundtrack of animals getting ripped apart by other ones is just one of the more vivid examples (turned my stomach to imagine being the recipient, who by the way was a babysitter who was traumatized).

Gatorade bottle under the seat are sensible. One of the more dehumanizing aspects of urban life these days as far as I'm concerned doesn't have to do with noise, overpopulation, lack of sleep/privacy or anything else. It's now just to be a grown man looking for a public restroom. You are viewed as if you were a refugee illegal immigrant who just murdered somebody. To me it's a clear departure from sanity, that there doesn't exist a welcoming place inside any store to allow for the most basic fundamental unavoidable daily exercise. "Sorry no public restroom." That's even at Starbucks now, at least at some locations in NYC. So that puts pressure on an already pressurized bladder, beer or no beer. Be prepared, I say, and not ashamed if you have to take matters into your own hands, as the case may be.

Man, that scene of Eros really hit me too. "...she and I were both complete medicine balls, barely tethered to the planet, I received a clear vision that we could share a rich, dark, magical life, but it wouldn't last all that long, and then we would go to the boneyard." Very evocative. In those moments, piqued by the festivities and the intimacy, charged by the conditions at home, snug in the clandestine cover, it's at once so difficult and so obvious. To float away as one, but to not come back. Sensibility, guilt, self-preservation, and fear all mingling to prick through the bliss. When I was on the cusp of adolescence the sultry Heart song "Magic Man" (with possibly the coolest guitar howl pickup intro) filled me with images of an older cape-wearing girl with red hair entrancing me to her place with the confusing-to-a-boy-not-quite-there-yet enticement, "you don't have to love me, let's get high a while." Was so seductive, but I was back on my heels.

Such a great piece, hecate.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

hecate's picture

@Mark from Queens
amusingly, has a great Hate for Levin. He describes Levin's voice as "Groucho Marx' grandmother getting a hysterectomy."

Love the "Revolution" cymbal (symbol?). And good for you, on the cones.

I married a woman with red hair. And knew a cape-wearer. Now, some years on, I can slide them together in my mind. And thereby achieve perfection.

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travelerxxx's picture

@Mark from Queens

A few years ago, I was forced to listen to Mark Levin during supper breaks at work. He was being broadcast over some right-wing Houston AM radio station. (Sometimes I think he is really John Bolton, but that's another story...) Anyway, I couldn't stand hearing him, but realized he had a magical hold on some of my fellow co-workers.

At some point, I figured out what his shtick was. It's rather simple, but he's good at it: Every sentence contains at least one lie, often a small lie, but a lie nevertheless. Listen to him, if you can stomach it.

I had to listen to him on the radio with my hand on the off switch. As soon as he finished a single sentence, I punched the radio off. Then I examined exactly what he had just stated. I would repeat the sentence out loud if needed. Sometimes the lie was just one word, sometimes a phrase. Of course, there was usually truth as part of the sentence. Still, I was amazed at the guy. He could go on and on, rapid fire, with every single sentence having a lie embedded. I've still never heard anyone else that could do that. Not even Himmler.

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Bisbonian's picture

@Mark from Queens , there really is no substitute, is there?

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Another complete phony sellout who cares not one crap about the world or people around him. Another greedy, worthless parasite in a world with way too many of them.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Raggedy Ann's picture

Loved the ride - love reading your writing - thanks for a great Monday start! Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

EdMass's picture

All time favorite, including the Who Do You Love Suite.

Still trippy, man.

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Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!

Firesign Theater

Stop the War!

janis b's picture

I can’t wait to hear about his patented Living Environment. My living room could use some renewing.

Thanks for your writing hecate, I really missed it.

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hecate's picture

@janis b
patented Zack Living Environment is basically a superfund site. To begin, he has a mutant eyelid, that will not close all the way, and so to sleep he made it pitch black in there, like the deepest cave. It was actually Good that you couldn't see in there, because, being a male, he lived in a trash heap, a rat mound, a festering landfill. When he lived with us he was under strict orders to confine the Hell to his room, and not let it slosh and slob and slop into the rest of the living quarters.

His inventions generally involve a Crime of some sort. Once he invented sheer agony by whipping out his accordion and screeching into a duet with a guy on bagpipes. He also composed a deeply obscene choogling blues called "Scrotum Boogie," which he would play in the supper clubs when people were trying to eat.

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janis b's picture

@hecate

elsewhere then. Glad you didn't incur any medical misadventures from him.

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@janis b modern is the new thing in decorative themes. Think Greyhound bus station blended with a homeless shelter chic. Humble happiness.

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janis b's picture

@QMS

if it weren't so sad. That's a very well drawn image in words of "post-apocalypse modern".

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Anja Geitz's picture

I may never drink Gatorade from the bottle again.

Now for the rock star of my youth Smile

image_26.jpg

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

mhagle's picture

I always enjoy them. Smile

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

gulfgal98's picture

And some of it actually brought back memories of my own decadent days, many decades ago when I was married to my drug dealing first husband. We were renting a small house and I never knew who or what I would find sleeping on our living room floor. Meanwhile, I was the only one of the six people living in that house that actually had a real job, 8-5.

Those times back then were not that great for me personally, but the music sure was and Quicksilver Messenger Service was a favorite of mine. Divorce and having a real job saved me from permanently falling into the abyss. Otherwise I would have ended up like my ex, dead in his 40's from his drug excesses. Being a survivor is always better because I get to tell the story and he does not.

I wish I could tell the stories with such beautiful word smithing like you do, hecate. It is great to see you drop in and share your writing with us once again. This story was a wonderful gourmet meal for those of us who enjoy great writing.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

janis b's picture

@UntimelyRippd

“Sometimes known as the Man with the Golden Ears”

He has quite an impressive history of supporting great talent, and ...

This father of four is also dedicated to his family. He gathers once a week with his children and grandchildren and takes several trips with them each year. "I don't want to be loving strangers. We want to be able to grow through life together meaningfully," Davis once told Esquire magazine.

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Ok, let me rephrase that..Great to read you again!
And, I'm glad you didn't desert us.

A bit of an aside perhaps, but I've been more than tempted on a rare occasion to snip my thread from the shuttle and desert this coil. But, I won't. Ever. Because of my daughter and spouse. I could never desert them. And so thanks for the (unintended) reminder. Sorry if this is a bit heavy, but your writing reminded me as to why many of us stick it out.

Another aside...I've crossed the Golden Gate Bridge probably hundreds of times by bike, motorcycle and car. So, to me, HS Thompson's description initially sounds a bit over the top. But, I do remember it seeming kind of freaky early on, and then that somehow transitioned to routine. I always associated it with Freedom and OMG the world is my mother fucking oyster. Hitting the Bridge on my motorcycle, going in either direction, I don't think I was ever anything but exuberant and happy as all hell. Now that you've made me think of it, more than a few of my happiest memories start with me crossing that bridge. I didn't *know* that until now.

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hecate's picture

@peachcreek
pretty sure he wrote approvingly of booming across the Golden Gate Bridge on his motorcycle, back in his younger days, when he was frequenting Kesey's place in La Honda. The bit I quoted was written when he was older. And crankier. And in a car. Around the same time he went out to the drive-in movie theater, used there the free blood-pressure machine, and discovered he had no pulse.

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kharma's picture

please.

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There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties.. This...is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.--John Adams

hecate's picture

@kharma
maybe. Cats might have to eat paint scraped off the walls, though.

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