Matthew T McCourt -Flourishing In Obscurity Since 1959 the true and tiresome story of my life
this website is my autobiography "Flourishing In Obscurity"
watch my Story on video 30 minutes each covering my life in music from 1959 - 2020
This page here is about the personal side of me
other pages you may be interested in topics that deserve their own
BEAR THE WONDERDOG
MATT;S FAMILY ALBUM
Matt YOU SELF SERVING BASTARD!...... ? read this and you will understand me a bit better
I am the last in my line the McCourt family name of this line ends with me.Never having children and both my parents were only children this tree is very small i met my " cousin" on youtube a while ago (he lives in Ireland)we share the same name and he is from the area my father tells me his father came from. That explains a little bit why this site is important to me and my creations and endeavors. while many rely on their offspring to carry their lineage i do not have that option and with no other kids in the family it just never MATTered ( hey my name is in that word!) ( my mother encouraged me to not "ruin my life" by being stuck with kids hmmm it took me til i was 30 to figure out she was talkin to me! doh!. ( my comedy act has a joke that goes: "ya know... my mother never fully recovered from that tragic accident-MY conception!") she was on her way to becoming a flight attendant and you couldn't have a child and be a stew back in 1958. ) My choice of career was about travelling and performing -even as a kid i didnt have much in common with kids my age "I was better than working 9-5 and coming home to the same meals my step grandfather had.( something i saw living with my grandmother after my mom escaped my war dog dad) -( another career that should not allow parents. when i met capt mccourt at age 20 he said "killing is my busness and have never been out of work" i don't think that is conducive to being a parent . e. The vietnam war he spent 12 years in was on the news everynight and some photos and souveniers he sent when he contacted my mom 5 years after she split,really soured me on war and military life - while it was god for him ( he was charged with some heavy crimes while working for an irish "family" as a teen and needed to get out of town, in those days it was common for judges to give you a choice between jail and military * i do not think the judge would have done that in his case
My objective with USMETAL.COM is to offer a place to SELL the music i've been part of and watch the videos I have produced THIS is my legacy my intent was to leave a large body of work AND a large body when i die Better Late Than Never is my mantra so ifim famous after im gone that is how it was supposed to be. people don;t seem to grasp my concept of leaving a big body of work for after i die for people top doiscover( and they tell me I have a big ego and then say u wont be able to enjoy it if u arent here and i said and oustanding thing 'tHAT IS NOT THE REASON ARTISTS ARE ARTISTS - WE DO IT BECUASE IT IS INSIDE ITCHING ITS WAY THOUGH OUJR SKINS TO GET OUT AND GET ON THE CANVAS THE TV THE RECORD MEDIA or monitor AND I COuLD HAVE SAID SCREW IT AND just went for the irrregular joe ting i tried being married once all it did was make me wnna cheat with pther women LOL by the tinme i saw the value i a steady job it i was 40 years old i was working in film productoion getting paid thebest ever inmylife but greedy as they were they drove the outside fimies out of town who figured if we are paing this much to work in the rain why not just stay in LA? and i went to workl as a raod manager for a great band called johnny limbo a 50;s sow band with a huge fanbase and they paid well i was aroadie with wild dogs guitarist jeff and our sound guy jack and a guy who always had the killer weed this hippie biker named sunshine from Eugene ... on 911 i got woekn up by my woman who worked at the same college i went to video school and the reaosn i even got to college( hmm college changed my whole outlook on the world and made me EMPLOYABLE! i had worked there before duplication eduicational tapes for 'online classes" theinternet was not yet a household thing and ive been there ne ver missing a day and doing ,usoic and video which proved to me you can do both...at least until the world goes apocalyptic! and the pandemic hit and then the protest riots negan andnow a week l later tose gung ho whitefiolks who were taking pity on the people ion the struggle i see posts that resemble anger and resentment i call it the 7 day activist itch ya kow do your part for a week but thenm the marching is so tiresome.. and my damn latte is getting cold so isee he next phase of all of this being worse than a sci fi move ( prove me wrong big bad world ) maybe this guy who ot killed by a cop (who obviousy had a barney with in the past) mayube he IS thejesus as they are saying ya know Jman was... a criminal(thatmay not digest so wel with some of you but facts are facts, he was charged with criminal doings nothing that warranted his punishment but he messed with the jewish priests money train and we all know that is never a good thing to do . and no cops see the whole ting s is not a coheive gaol ting its white peopel wop dont want cops with a fanasy that we are soo evolved we can govern oujrselves and ( uh not untl we are redesighned we are no fuirther along on the evo scale that that pirahhna waiting for you to put your toe in the water. we are animals with shiny toys that allude to the fantasy of evolution becuase we dominate the animals by cruel and unusal ways to make us feel sperior but we share the same instincts and survival is one of them/ When we stop slowing down to see the gore of an auto crash we may be trning the conrer ( marching for a dead man is not the same. Humans are the worst! there are a few good ones in everyone;s life but they are all relieved when something bad happens to somoeone else because IT DID NOTHAPPEN TO Them church o wont save you it makes yu feel good but in a more discrete way ,,,Being chrisianb seems to be a real good thing for criminals wanting to get paroled though that forgiveness thing that Islam doesnt appear to do means you can be the worst mofo in the planet . allw eek .. go to church on snday or saturday and say im hardly sorry i meant heartily) and start fresh on the rape and pillage spre right where you left off! sp tats enough of my typoing for today
Matt has been entertaining people since he was age 4. Music ,Video ,Bombastic outrage ,SongWriting and playing all the instruments neccessary to make a complete band IF he had enough limbs to do that. His "obstacle" has always been finding others with the same drive, ambition and dedication to join him ... who live within 1000 miles!
As an only child I learned to entertain myself early on more often other people tend to slow the progress .I proved that between 2001 -2007 when i wrote,recorded and released more than 150 songs in 4 genres and styles with my friend Bryce Van Patten. Music came easy and early. My Grandfather's side of the family were working musicians in the 40's playing swing at the dance clubs all around the Rose City.He had drumsticks in my hands age 5 and lessons by age 7 By age 4 I was a hardcore Beatles Fan my mom got me out of bed to see them on Ed Sullivan and said I wanna do that! mom got me the records by that already she did not know what to do withme we had no children in the family so she had no expeience with babies . There were only 2 other kids in the family, they both died from cancer age 11 Susie who was 3 years younger than me and Rocky age 20 he was older and ( i have him playng mattison" in the mattison Aveno show family movies deadmen never say no.... lol ( of the 5 sisters in my grandmother's family only 2 had children yes i was the darling of the group being young and cute ( my mother's words not mine and a big hit with the 4 great aunties but all of them including the men were dead b the time i turned 22 except aunt catherine the oldest of the 5 sisters never married and is in the guiness world record book as being the oldest living virgin in the USA but the way she spoke of her drunk father i think there were some skeletons in the closet she was a telephone pioneer when the tech was new prior to that time the only intercontinental method of cimmunication were letters and the postal service ( to me the usps is one of the wondersof the world drop a packageat a counter buy it a ticket and it shows up halfway round the world and one reason im entitled to write this so thank you postmaster general!
TEENAGER IN THE 1970'S
Sports and music were my activities. I was offered a scholarhip to a prestigious college prep shool(Jesuit high) for my head bashing abilities on the football field. Too young to start when first went out at age 10 the endurance training was brutal! like boot camp! older kids dropped out by day 3 i made it a week before they asked me when my birthday was and and i was a year too young and they asked me to come back next year, i did and it kicked my ass then too but i made the team the only 6th grader on the team in years ... and the thing that made me tough as nails the rest of my life and i needed it cuz it was pretty soft up til then the coach Gene Newton was like Elvis presley as a rodeo riding USMC drill sergeat he had us "chickenfight" each other at practice in "Ring of Blood "
my Grandfather was a boxing trainer/manager who had the world champ bantam boxer by 1965 and i spent a good deal of time on the weekend in the ring punching out my uncle (my gramps son by another woman my grandpa was a pro drummer untl the doctor found a black spot on his lung from spending years in a smoky dance hall playing swing to dancing people inthe 1940's recounted in a great book called "Jumptown" the golden years of Portland jazz 1942-1957 by Robert Dietsche) That side of the family were musicians and performers.Uncle Homer welch(married to one of the 5 sisters Veronica who was mistaken for Veronica Lake often. I remember her looking like Holland Taylor in the Netflix series Hollywood- one of my favorites) Homer was a drummer in town and a radio star on NBC radio and landed a big time NBC radio gig in Burbank ( when television was just starting he was offered a tv show and turned it down claiming " it is only a science experiment radio will ever be replaced by that -the show he turned down became the ground breaking Ernie Kovacs show im oretty sure it was a regret he never lived down and died from alcoholism while managing a motel in Monterrey Ca. ) his friend was Hank Ketcham a neighbor of his in San Francisco who painted Dennis The Menace on his bass drum when he played with the Columbia records Jazz band in the bay area i saw it on a trip to San Francisco with my Gramps i was 6 years old but rememeber the train ride and great Aunt number 3 Doris and staying with her in her house in Salinas.
in High School I had bands that played school dances (and made more money per gig than the last 10 years!) talent shows and community centers writing songs by age 13 and recording in the infamous basement the year i "graduated " from a public high school 2 years before a bandmate had turned a flashpot on me in that basement and burned me real good including my luxurious girl catchng hair! my scholarship and any chances at the same deal for college went up in flames from greg allman to older bernie taupin in a fash of fire. it made me a freak ,my long hair went woosh and as did my social life so i adopted the right clothes and became the " Rocker Dude" in my hippie grateful dead and jazz filled school n the west side BUT on the other side of town i was accepted as a trendmaker but where ilived it was a bit stuffy a a place where other kid's parents would "sit me down for a talk" about my future doing their best to crush my dream of being a celebrity ( while they had already preplanned their children's future careers by age 10 ( i tell ya... when you go down the crossroads to make the deal with the man in the bigblack car MAKE SURE YOU ask for the RICH part say that LOUDER than the word FAMOUS,,,, because if yo only get one of those take the money you canalways roba bank and be famous but money > than fame... by a long shot, Dont get ne wrong it was very pleasing to my EGO having strangers come up and sing whips and chains and baseball bats into my ear at 10 db but it doesnt buy a bus ride across town.
HIGH school lived up to its name like everything i do i seem to read up on the subject Before i do anything(drugs were no different) i love manuals and today if yo dont RTFM first you might mess up your elctodiamisteral chronotopier . i got a football scholarship to a private college prep school Jesuit high in portland and it paid for PART of the tuition the rest i had to work off with the landscape /grounds maintenance excavation crew from Jun- Sept The Schoool lived up to their promise of 3 hours per homework per night AFTER football practice but my previous 3 years got me in good shape. The priest i had worked for in the summer crew was Father Mctighe a former Irish boxer and literary scholar who looked like he would kick your ass but never saw him do that it was tough memorizing poems and storries we had to be prepared to take over the memory recitation when picked on at any stanza or stay after school to clean the place they called THAT the Jug list. if you were really a twit in a class theyd send ya down to the discipline office and theyd take a swing at your back end with a softball bat and announce it over the PA in every room so we could go witness the punishment and the embarrased student I never got that or JUG i hate bein in trouble i really dont liked to give them anymore of my time than required that i could be playing guitar. The sophomore year i waited out the summer and they caved on the supplement cuz they needed footballers and i played in bands with teachers and older students. the third year my ploy was working again and i had a starting position on the varsity team BUT the band i was playing with Snapper ( because we stole a lawnmower sign and used that as our band sign and our drum riser was a table from a nearby park maybe i was that Karma thing or just bein an idiot with a flashpot that my mother had told me NOT to use in the basement the guitaist giggled and i saw a flash of flame and i was on fire gunpowder and magnesium my long hair was burned up and my eyebrows bd lashes skin on my hands abd fingernails blown off in the blast hair and skin stinks when burnt nt sociall life with the hottie wife around the corner was dine in a flash and so was my high school football career yep my frined's stepmom Pat Dicey was having a great fling with me, i was a 17 year old long blonde horny shy guy and wow i learned alot from that and had a wonderful 7 months of physical fun. But i looked and felt like a freak! i had the first rock star haircut by fire! I couldnt wipe my own arse with the palms being burned and school was set to start in a few weeks yes it did a number on my psyche and i wasinto alice cooper so i went tiping to the side of freaky weirdo as i returned to classesw with the people i didnt like in grade school ( i never fit in with those kids and now im even more way out.
so i switched to the local public high school where the advanced curricullum was pedestrian,easier than first year English at Jesuit ( when i brought my mechanics of english language book the teacher was floored that was advanced senior class stuff)i was accused of cheating, the pocket protector crowd class i tested into tossed me in with the violin and briefcase people who probaby were more freaky than i would ever be - in their own way.i skipped alot of class andstill passed the tests and had to attend night school senior year to graduate but the girls on the other side of town were alit more advanced and it turned out to be a really good time that month of night school. i gave a few girls rides home and we didnt always go straight home!, i was destined to be ROCKSTAR i figured that would solve all my social problems andpeopel woudl envy me and that must have been important to me aorund this time i met MIke landauer later becoming Mick Zane of the metal band Malice and he sold weed to a guy named tom Roberts who later became Tom PIG Champion and was with the kings of punk Poison Idea he was our roadie and flashpot tech apparently i didnt get the scare of fire onstage we played all kinds of parties and gigs that summer playing judas priest and scorpions while they were still only available on import but me and tom were into punk rock and he trned me onto the Mentors and Motorhead and punl bands i had only read about in cheezy magazines. and i was writing my own songs in the new wave style and recording them on my gear in the basemment a cassette deck and a reel to reel borrowed from a school a wilson student was warehouse manager at Bi amp a company that made power amps and mixing boards ( formerly Sunn amps and he would back door deals to people for some weed and blow that was abundant at the time. The tpaes i made in the basement id force people to play at parties hahaha i was pushy eric frey was playing drums y lifelong school pal who i tripped with 100 times on good vitamin C lsd or blotter that was made in class at REEED college LSD played a huge part in my mental transition form 9th grade all the way thru 4 years the frirst trip i had was given to me by Brian Spooner his brother Mark was the guitarist for the band the tubes all 14 of us in home room had this experience and it changed my perception and tore down all the walls of what i was told and taught my entire life ( that trait still holds me in the seat of power in my life ) the concept of god changed from a man's business to real spirituality. existentialism became a way of thinking i questioned our purpose and after 50 years i realized there is no magic man to thank you only have yourself to blame or patyou on your own back nobody gives yu a damn thing right time right place is a real deal but it is what you do with it my mother liked fortune tellers i do not wnat anyone telling me bullshit it would get in the way of my recognizing opportunities i didnt expect and turned down because i was told by some idiot something else they guessed at i was waiting for TRUST your own instinct is my advice. i always said i didn twanna go to college and after seeing some of the side effects of university life i might have made the right choice .
When i was 17, a fantasy i had for a long time came true in the form of Mrs Dicey and Pat had a daily way with me for the summer ! id always had a crush on her She was a gorgereous flight attendant who had gotten bubbly being a trophy wife and sitting by the pool drinkin she was the trophy wife of best frined's dad. Jim Dicey was a handful a crazy good lookin guy guy he lived around the corner , went to Benson high and was a jock and muscle car kinda guy and quite handy with the ladies always a good looker on his arm a couple years older than me so when he left for the airforce this orange sports car( an Opel GT) pulls up and it was his step mom Pat in ared spandex body suit with half her body trying to escape ! She walks in and asks me to read a letter from jim and i cant figure out why except maybe the beer and tom collins had made the vision a little blurry but what do i care? her tanned brown boobs were trying to show me a tan line i'd only seen in the playboy magazines my Nana gave me so i woldn't turn out sissy. stepped on a can it was cut for a guitar jack and it cut my foot pretty good but by now her arms were around me and my gorgeous blond hair was doin its trcik she kissed me and said she could come back tomorrow when my mom wasnt home and i was very agreeable to that i had already lost my virginity with cathy meyers a couple years ago and that was a buig deal so yeah i was ready to go! hahah i got a ride to my job washing ppots art the towne club am all laides luncheon club and it was a weird place lotso f old money and hollandasise sauce i could see the new freemont bridghe tru my window by the sinke and it was about to open soon what a 360 turn form the hour earlier i was tin king but tomorrow mornong i was gonna be reasy and she came in a green tennis dress and white tennis showes and her lovely smell yeah it is all true and it went on all summer like this i got "driving lessons from her and she taught me ow to do eerything good and n ot clumsy oh ive been told her teacing went a long way one time i was at HER ho[use and heard the car pull in to the driveway just as i was pulling the boat out of the canal hopped on me bile and scrammed off yeah my mom knew and thought it was pretyty cool besides what was she gonna do? it made me a b it more wordldly than i wasgetting taught here junior year i had to change schools due to the flashpot ev ent that killed my football crareer so i went to the co ed wilson high with the peopel i was tryong to escape at my grade school and i looked very enmglish rocker by flame hahaha i stuck it out for 2 loing years and made music but i kkept thinkin ever since I am, never gonna top that !
I kept recordingin the basement til i met Rob Sample who owned a studio a real one with 8 tracks and recorded my first 2 songs they got airplay on the KBOO station and was introduced to the local scene at the new wave club the Lng Godbye and put a band together and stated gigging i had started teaching tom roberts guitar chords he had a great collection of guitars and amps from " trades " for weed and blow( like i said it was abundant and i said y9u should learn to play those things i learned alot from tom. he had a great brain,i introduced him to Eric frey who played drums on my songs and wa also a punk rock record collector i knew they would be friends and in not time they were in a band eric the only one with any experience as a pro by age 16 Eric taught me how to sing too . 40 years ago this week my band was performong at the long goodbye when Mt St Helens blew it's top. we played every week made a lot in beer and some gas money too enough to be included in the book portland underage about the underground scene here its a weird week man the almighty Steve Hanford died from a freaky heart attack the punk rock scene is dying off fast and furious like hair coming out in chunks the ld crew is thinning out already a weird time with the covid 19 its like a conspiracy agains the over 50 crowd. many already hit the stop button from different causes over the past 17 years. at age 20 i never thought anyone of us would perish from anything than old age but Heroin hadn't made it's way into the lives of people yet when johnny thunders played here at Urban noize one of 2 clubs that allowed this type of music and his rider included a heroin fix prior to the show Nobody knew where to get it - mexican drug dealers hadn't yet infected the sidewalks in downtown. Starry night and Satyricon didnt exist until years later. by then it was easier to come by than soda pop .
Meanwhile there was a new thing goin on called metal and it called my name loud and clear im a musician first so music is what i dod and whatever style is just another music style. and Mike Landauer came back into the picture i now im jumping across the ravers record to the wild dogs and the new stuff. so i shall return to this i feel like ive covered my life 5 times already in videos
as a smaller kid in the hillsdale area age 6- 10 a funny thing happened on the way to.....
ONe of the weirdest things that happened tome as a kid was when i had a bpoil fro football shoulder pads the boil was on the right side on my back shoulder b blade and my mom asked the 2 sisters my granny and my ant catherine and they sid they askerd "ray" the step grandad who never liuked me at all well he said boil a mason jar in a pout of water and then put the mason jar on my back around the boil and it should suck all the puss right out no just birned the hell out of me! and left a ring burn scar hahah when i went to the emergency later that day the doc asked me what happened and wheni told him he was floored like it was an old tribal snakepite fixer then the dc says y9ou must have yur mom squeeze the excesss ou well it was preyy large this volvan ice boil and i pushed against here leaning on the coun ter for balance and woooosj! it squirted out with volocirt ciowruinbg the mirror and my moms boiler bukakae id later call it but wow that felt much better and oh yeah the pud i was stuck in uir backyad neighbr was a bit on the loopy side and had the capaciy as a disney character she cooke great though and i learned alot of cooking frm eating what shef hand me over the gate cuz my m,om worked and she fed me or had me over but i was 3rd grade 10 years old> and walking home form school and there was a new cul de sac and one of the houses hadnt gotten the foundatonn yet and i waled thue the area and dropped like in the quicksand movies i was there 3 hours yelling for my disney naighbor in line of site but the 5 dogs were alwatys barkikng w so wheni got them to bark fro me they were told to stop baking every invh up i moved took me down 2 in the suction oft he hole ilost a good asdidas shoe in there,,, and almost list me when i saw how deep the hle was later freaked me out something big oh the time this kid knockedme off his trike and buit me like a zombie making monkey all up and down both artms from wrist to pits little fjucker BIT me guess he didnt want me ridin his tricyclkle he was a liuttle bastard and got hit by a car on his bicyclke i a few years later maybe that knciked something into him the nackyard neighbors had a good time scaring the living shit oput of me in their haunted house marla day came to the rescue see im not a fan of the dark nor closed spaces that was why writing parking tickets at PCC sylvanina was a perfecgt , match my brain finally goto a place to work in a place big enough to spread out with trees too yeah,,,, where i came up witrh my proposa; fpr short run cdr duplication and diskmakers did it within the year and how i got into the record biz a compny here nw inc did a similar ting for nmme for out for blood the very first post 80's cd of these songs frm jeffs basement but they didnt do the cover and everything retail ready as my proposal andwerenotinterested later o they were,,, but that hayuned ouse would sendme running hone everytime
the worst and weirdest thing i saw as a kid was andy cravens dad dying of a heart attack - the song the pain before you die is about that it was horrifying to watch fromn the backstop at baseball practice Andy's dad was poiur cpo coach i was 1972 and we were practicing for the champoionship i was pticher the catche r had to leave so i washitting ballls out for fielding practice and mr craven said i dont feel good and laid down on the fit behind the backstp there wereno cell pones no pay phines and nobody b home on a sunday in portland many were still at church as a family the assistant coach came over his frined and we all ran to houses to use the phone andnobody home i watched as his breathing got poainful and he turned red and bright red and orange like he imploded and then all the way back to a graeyish palor and oit was too late yeah that sucked
and here we are feb 2021
so now it has been almost 8 months of the bells thingy , my sopeeech is a lttle beter but i have what looks lik a arack in my skull? or something i dont know fucking weird crap. i always wonder what i would be like IF i g had parents who actually taight me how to do things rather than having to find a way or nopt telllin me to keep me from succeeding .
yes ive been told by my dearmother more than once "why do YOU get to do yiour dream and i dont and i thougth well i didnt get fucking pregnany and that was one thing she made sure i would never do she told me she always had money for an abortion ifthese flat backkes got knocked up
yes parenting with a grudge is never good at least i got therapy and counseling after a dui so i never relaly knoew what a fucked up childhood i had til i was 30.
men liked my monms tits but hated me and the fact i came withthe package ( inot convinced w they were the only ones but when it came time for me to riule the world or take a job in LA at MCA in the publciity dept they did theur best to tlak me out of it and hullible me i TRUSTED them something if i had a problem it was THAT even the fuckers i worked for i trusted them and hatthey took car eof me adnd my hj=job and they didnt you cant furkcing traust anyone but YOU ad YOUR Insteincts and you gotta be ready to cut em ALL loose if they arent on you side the closest people are the worst ennemies youll have dont trust anyone close enough to fuck your mission up cuz they will hey are j jealous of someone with ambution drive and a destination... theyll do littl e things like keep you fat enough knowing that it will eventually be the problen the roadblock and tell you its ok it isnt fat kids arent rockstars and others didnt like me havng success either even a little bit so ive clawed the wall from early on sports was different it wore me out( but gsave me energy too the eelectic may go out its icy here so im saving my work fast but fuck all man im doin it my way 46 cds and teeshirts and 40 years ive worked at keeping m y name in the memories alive yeah some dont make millions but if you know how to polich a turd you canmake it look like gold and kiods 30 years fomr now wont know the difference y9our music will just be out of print and more valuable than ever ,,,
so thats what im focusing on ill never make a record better than the ones i already did ive said all i need ot say musically i just need to sell it all now ,. it feels like soemthing is etting i my way a force i canntsee but i feel i feel that block in little ways the doors closing onme tryn to do something r not being able to sleep fuck em ill do it tired ya see the ting people never can figuhire out is that i will keep coming at the goal until i score one way or another and if ya get in my way you are gonna go first... i im a triple scorpion im not easily stopped im felling better the first week of this i did 3 tv shows just to make a point that ya cant grind me down or scare me off its 8 months and ive added a lot to my story and webite stay tuned there more to come i might have been a tragic accident(my birth but im tkain every bannan i can grab the book came out the rstedmetal number 46 for me bettert late than never
I MISS MY CATS
I miss my cats! Barnaby was the best frined i will ever have and when my mom dies i will get another cat, they are the best people i haveever known and they love me like nobody ever can or will.
im goin to make Barnaby the cartoon come to life this week and i will make a tee shirt out of him
watch that be the thing that really hits!
i always have a project to look forward to the wild dogs lp tee shirt the sawblade is a hit i felt a little relcutance from one guy so i went with plan B.... when you feel a wall -----go around it
my mission is ongoing IF i had any advice to give id say "dont take advice from some old fart "
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