Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

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Good morning, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Jazz and boy, I'm Dave Washington, your host. After a few announced we will have our first guest, Mr. John Edmund, as you may recall, we had him on last month and some very important observations I made personally after the call as it got I'd even talk to John about development, community development, construction projects, John know how to do all this stuff. And I feel even get into that part of the discussion. So Mr. John, Edmund will be on shortly. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. I was hoping to have a call from Mr. Winslow P. Williams, former Assemblyman and president of the Martin Luther King, Jr, committee of Las Vegas to just give us an update on the Queen King Week activities. So all I will say at this particular point in time is check your local listings because they have a lot of activities that will occur up to the day of the parade. So please check those listings out where you can get involved in as they always have some good stuff going on as it relates to celebrating the life and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King birthdays this month, a dear friend and very close friend, Chief Eugene Campbell, Chris Thompson, one of my colleagues from the city of Las Vegas, he worked in the marshals department, if I remember correctly, Chris was a lieutenant. And he handled all the background checks of all personnel, particularly police and fire who came on to the city's payroll, if you will, in terms of other birthdays, my daughter, Amber. Her birthday is this month. So happy birthday, early Amber. And then my my brother, my big brother, Leon, Washington, Jr. We call him buddy. Some people call him coffee from back in the day, but his birthday is also this month, just want to give you guys a quick indication of what we did over the Christmas holiday, the family and several of us traveled to Cape Town, South Africa had a great time. And for those of you who don't know, it's about 10 hour difference in timeframe on the clock, if you will. And it's summertime down there. So we went from winter, to summer, back to the winter, it was a very nice weather down there, anywhere from 75 to 85. And they do that Celsius thing. But we really knew what the temperature was that we were right off the beach in a nice, what they call guest house very, very beautiful place owned by a young black couple down at its bill several of those and laying to build some more, if you will. So had a great time and happy to be back in the United States of America. And now for our first guests, Mr. John Edmond. Hey, John, how you doing?

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Dave? How are you? I'm doing well, brother doing well. And like I said, I messed around. And last time we talked, I talked about you talk to you about you're embarking upon the position you have with the federal government. But I failed to allow you to talk about some of the things that you did as far as development within the community, because I know you'd build and enhance several projects. So would you please give our public first of all, go back and tell us a little bit about you prior as we did, because I like people don't know who people are when he come on because we have a number of veterans that may or may not know you, even you even though you have a long history in our community. So again, this is John Atman.

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Thank you, David. Thank you. Well, of course you know, I'm a native in Las Vegas.

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And I was fortunate enough to become the first African American baccarat dealer back in the day when one state passed a decree that will allow blacks to be gainfully employed. And I

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through a program that EOB was sponsoring that had to do with trying to get blacks into the gaming and of the hotel industry. I ended up

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I've

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taken a liking to what was called a baccarat and and went to school became a bank right dealer

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actually was the first African American Black Rat dealer and training another five or six baccarat dealers that I ended up happening to get jobs on the strip. And

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from there, I thought it was a lucrative type of job, especially from back and then

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and, and by being a native by the community and grew up here in the community when things were really flourishing.

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The actual the place that I got the

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the job placement from which was called a Golden West shop instead of and, of course, for people that don't know where to go to West shopping center, was the largest shopping center built in Southern Nevada in 1964. And then they built the boulevard Mall. So

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of course,

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knowing the history of the development and the different things that was happening in the community. And that property at that time had become sort of

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disenfranchised, to a point to where most of the stores that have been closed out as a result of, you know, the transition from out of Las Vegas used to be

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as a community to where it is today.

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So I ended up

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taking that property, which was called a Golden West shopping center, buying it, reposition it, renaming it Duclos Plaza, and started doing stuff in a community with the money that I had gotten from baccarat dealer. I invested

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probably as much as

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close to $20 million of my investments back into the community.

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This community well one thing I recall, you know, I know a number you guys

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Glen Walker home a miller one thing I noticed you guys when I say this, this is definitely an upscale dealer job if you will, because yeah, yeah, well tuxedos if I remember unless my memories failing me right I mean, we went to work we

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actually were Little Brown was which we wanted to do with was the second person that approached me about me training them how to become a dealer.

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And then the next person was Glenn and the next person was Homer Miller.

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That just a few but yeah, we the game was pie in AI and gambling game at the casinos, Baccarat. And yet we will go the work back in the early mid 70s. And tuxedo right, you know, and John, I didn't realize until actually our last conversation where you mentioned that you had an accounting background I didn't realize you had an accounting background so I would assume that backer rot the way they they count etc etc came pretty relatively easily for you.

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Yeah, I did as a matter of fact got you know, that's that was part of what what kind of attracted me to the game was the fact that I was

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an accounting major and and it it dealt with numbers and quickness of numbers you know, you have to you have to be able to call ahead make the payoff put your commission up, be ready all within

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810 12 seconds 15 seconds, you know, in other words, it's just a fast moving game right bass paying

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and you know, you really have to kind of be good with numbers to really be able to pick it up right and be able to do the game way out and do it well. And you mentioned commission so what is what is what does that entail? The commission has something that goes into the bank for the for the hotel, because I don't know Yeah, the the game is you know, Baccarat is played is dealt like, player, bank by player is sort of like with roulette, but you bet the black Tenebris and you know, in other words, you've got to get one of those size glass Rotary, it's so backwards. Very similar. You got the bankers hand and the player said, one or two hands are gonna win unless it's a tie.

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If you bet on the bankers hand, though, you could you pay a 5% commission on your bet that the bank will fail. So that commission goes to the house. That commission goes to the house. Okay. So when you see the dealers, and as you counted, and then you see when a be putting up blood markers, those markers indicate if you sit it in Section C to let's say, you look up, you look and see how much going back and forth. You owe the house for Betty loan the bank, what your commissioning. Okay. Very interesting, very interesting now, in terms of development and redevelopment of various projects within the community. You mentioned the Golden West shops, because I remember when we met Bob Bailey, Dr. William H. Bob Bailey had a lot to do with it. Then I found out to only after going to his services, George sin Simmons had something to do with the the architecture or the design and the layout of the Golden West shopping center. So you had some partners dealt with

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buying that project? Brian, at that whole complex?

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Yes. Yeah. I ran up buying it from the first western savings was was the same as a loan that had to

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mortgage on the on the shopping center,

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from the bank.

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And you know it, you bought it at a very reasonable price, because

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so the fact that it was basically all mostly boarded up, right, you had

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a you had a supermarket.

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You only had like a handful of tenants that were all right. So what was your inspiration, John, to even want to approach a project such as that, and redevelop it, if you will.

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I think mainly, my biggest inspiration was the fact that being a lady from the community, and you know, watch how everything kind of grew up, as we were growing up as kids. And then when I went off to college,

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and I came home, like four or five years later, which happened to be right at the end of the 70s and early 80s.

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And the community look like a ghost town. I mean, it didn't look like nothing that I could remember, on this, what I grew up liking about the community. Right. You know, it's so

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my inspiration was the fact that one

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What can I do?

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To make it better for the people come in for the young people in the community? What, what, how can I help? And that's how I got started more or less, like, as a means of trying to help the community itself. Right. So Dan, John, you rolled into you rolled into across the street? So how did that come about, if you will?

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Well, and then from there, you know, because let's say that the filters you know, well, first of all, the original name was to go to West shopping center. And it was a purchase it and we started to work and start developing and putting in landscaping and putting putting a new roof on the property and attracting to new tenants change the name from Goldenwest to nucleus platform. Okay. The nucleus, what's the name by the corporation? You know, it's like, from the beginning if you know Newfields Right, right. The center of Isa and from there and

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getting involved with the property across the street II know there was some disaster there that that particular profit across the street

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when they had the little

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riots, they 1992 Rodney King was that property have become somewhat

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you know, the abandoned, abandoned everybody scattered to the wind and didn't want to have nothing to do with it. I remember that. Oh, yeah, I did as a result of

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of Magic Johnson coming in and demands and so on. And then you know, after a while, that happened to David too. So I ended up buying Magic Johnson out in

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2000 That was okay.

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Because it I ended up buying it out because although

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You know, the Magic Johnson in the things that they were doing that fit around the country as it relates to, you know, minority community, I'll just notice that that shopping center was not really having any attention put on it, you know, like, the landscaping wasn't kept.

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stuff was drying the pocket lab wasn't cup up, you know, it's like, it's like, okay,

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you know, it's one thing to invest in a community, but it's another thing to take pride in your investment community. And those are the things that has always sparked me, as it relates to, you know, how do we keep our community

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looking prosperous, and nice. Any parts of the rest of the city of Las Vegas? So John, the whole thing that triggered me was the fact that just try to make the community better and invest in projects that will, you know, absolute right about? Yeah, yeah. So as we close out, Jonah, what would you say to young folks who may have some interest in development within a given community no matter where it is?

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Yeah, well, you know, the first thing that you want to do is, if you're interested in like, let's say, becoming your own business person, that today's one number one, you, you should know something about it, open up.

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In one of the other things that you don't want to do is that if you want to, let's say, open up a flower shop, but you want to maybe hire somebody to, to work it, and you got a job, and you want to try to keep your jobs that you've got already, right. But you want to open up a business and let somebody else run it bad, bad mistake.

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And nobody's gonna like you, and count your money, like you, you know, they don't have your you want to do it could so you invested your money, you got an idea of what you want to do, right? But you also, you know, you got a job that you you know, you got to be able to make sure you pay your rent, right. So, you know, you can't necessarily just want to just jump right on into to this new venture. But if double tough to try to do both,

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you know, you you you must you make that commitment, you gotta go all the way. You gotta go all the way, you know, you have to be able to be committed to it. But if you commit yourself to it, got to, you know, in most cases,

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and follow, you know, follow the footsteps or, you know, be able to have people around you, you know, that you listen to this was, you know, business ideas and things that work, things that don't work. Right.

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All right, Joe, John, I appreciate that man gave a lot lot more insight. Like I say, I fail to cover that the last time we had a discussion, but appreciate you, brother. And I hope folks out there who are interested in going to some type of business to take the the encouragement and those words of reasons for a man who has experienced in the business enterprise, in our community and elsewhere as well. So thank you, brother, John, admin. Hope you have a very prosperous 2024. Thank you. Thank you, David.

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All right. Thank you.

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Good morning. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host and I'm excited to introduce our next guest who was a longtime resident of Las Vegas, Miss Faye Duncan Daniel before she retired and how to start here to Helena Arkansas. How're you doing today?

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I'm doing great day. Thank you. But right now it's freezing in my little

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Berber Berber. He just gave folks a brief update on our trip to Cape Town, South Africa. And the fact that it's summertime down there. So everything's going all right, other than the Kofi

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everything is was wonderful. It couldn't be better. Good. Good. Now, I know you were in town. And again, happy belated birthday. You were in town a couple of weeks ago. So Faye, I know that you had informed me and Marcia have a plate that you had put together and actually had it

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produced and actually accomplished in terms of having the plate done somewhere. Is that correct?

Unknown Speaker 19:46
Yes, that is correct. I in fact, I did two plays, and the if I could. The impetus for this play was around preserving gospel music and its current

Unknown Speaker 20:00
Oh four Wow. Okay, that's music was was was the, the essence of the music of our ancestors it is how it was our psychological weapons against the issue against oppression. Right? So so the so we learned so we sang We created those songs and they have gone through some some changes as all music does there you know there's different varieties but at this stage I thought it was important to preserve them as they are today. Okay. So being attached to that is if you live in Arkansas, you live in a state that that's adjacent to the Mississippi River. And there's there's hundreds or rivers running through Arkansas, right but but most of us are not aware of because we you know, at that stage in our lives, we're not serious about learning geography, so we don't value the rivers or the land that we live on. So my play was around the rivers and gospel music, and also the rivers were the highway to freedom for most Africans. Right right. So there's a long history of black folks and rivers and that's what the place sort of captures. So did you actually write and develop this yourself this from your own personal ideas?

Unknown Speaker 21:23
Yes, sir. I did I have to admit I did I you know, as a as a teacher, I wanted to combine geography and spirituality in a way that that was presentable to a an audience, no matter what that audience is makeup wise, it would be of interest. Very interesting. I can tell you guys and Faye mentioned teaching, I can tell you we used to be involved with the, what was called the Nubian convince a cultural community, start doing business as a West Side Art Gallery and bookstore. And I remember, Fay was doing some writing classes for us and she said, Dave Washington, you need to learn how to spell. I said, Hey, you know, we all have

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their weaknesses. In Fe bust out of style. laughs Yeah, you're right, Dave, we all have different strengths and weaknesses you case.

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I will, I will always love you for that fake as you put it right out there on the table. You need to learn how to spell.

Unknown Speaker 22:21
I can't I can't let Mark I can't let marsh and listen to the show. She gonna say yes. Still don't know how to spell even with spell check.

Unknown Speaker 22:31
Oh, my goodness. But, you know, I think the time that in our times that we could get away with that. Right. But but but in this technical age, I don't think that we'll be able to get away with that any longer. That's why I always stressed spelling, right? I you know, it I shudder to think of what our children are going to spell like using the texting, that's going to just destroy any, any sense of spelling and business communications. But our children have always been residual, they'll find a way to conquer whatever to do what they need to do, no matter what shortcomings we think they have very true. In fact, they I want to delve a little bit into, if you will,

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a i i had the president of the University Dr. Week till here on the show a couple of months ago. And he said when he first arrived here, his staff was really concerned about AI.

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And cheating. He said, Did cheating start with AI?

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It still said no. He said, Well, why do you? Why do you think it's going to affect so much today? He said, Look, when you guys give assignments, what you do is you pull everybody in a room together. And you explain what it is you wrote. He said No, break them up from just using AI as a total crutch. There's nothing wrong with using AI, but you can't have it to do just all of your stuff for you. If you can't explain it and understand it. Your thoughts on it? Well, you know, I have to agree. So because I think we sometimes when we cheat, we we think we're cheating and getting away with it. But I think the victim, we become the victims of our own cheating. Because anytime you cheat at anything, the only person who actually cheating is yourself. You're not receiving the benefit that was intended from that process. So as much as I mean, it's not like I was a perfect law student. I did my share. But you know, it's a waiting. It's a temporary solution. Right? So fate. Again, I want to go back to because that's one of the most interesting points that I invited you as a guest. The whole play thing again. So now you say you've done a second play.

Unknown Speaker 24:43
Yes. Well, can I just go back to the first play for a minute? Absolutely. I grew up as a child. I was in rural Arkansas, and I never knew anything about the rivers that surrounded me.

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And as I came back

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Back to this area and I began to see the richness. I just didn't think that another child should go through life without knowing the importance of rivers. You know, there's not a whole lot of things in Arkansas to be proud of. But that was the one of the things that we could have been proud of, is having all those rivers. Yes. So that was the impetus for that. And the second, my second play, came out of actually Ron defenses in Florida, declaring that people trying to marginalize and invalidate the contributions of African Americans in this country. And from what I've read, they're just too deep and too significant, to not be celebrated all the time. Right. So so the second play was about the, the not all not Not, not all the African Americans that that our historical ancestors, but the folks that we have in power right now. Okay. Right now, in this country, there are some brilliant young African Americans that are leading a lot of the head of a lot of industries ahead of us. I mean, we're just, we're just coming into our own as a group of people. And I don't think we recognize that and celebrate that enough.

Unknown Speaker 26:15
Okay. Interesting. And I do agree, there's things that we have done for it about this country, because we are a great part of this country. And we need to recognize and I agree, celebrate that. So what's the what's the Oh, absolutely. So that second play deals in detail what?

Unknown Speaker 26:37
Well, evils highlighting the second play came about, I was telling, I did a I work with some children, for Black History program last year. And so we were being different people currently in history. And one of those people was Cassandra brown Jackson. And so the young woman I was working with was about 15, and did not know who could touch brown Jackson was. I found that after that kind of spawned me, what was even more significant, David is, I was telling a professor, friend of mine that I met about the event. As I was talking, she spaced out she said, You know, I don't think I know who could talk to you.

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I thought, Oh, my God, I'm on the floor. Now he gets worse. Because I'm telling another friend of mine about why I'm doing what I'm doing. And she didn't know who could turn to brown Jackson was saying, How in the world, can you not know who the first Supreme Court judge in America first black woman in America is? I mean, even if you're not interested in history students, something I think you would you would have known. So my play was about those people who are now in government. Okay, taking some of these, like Kamala Harris, all that we don't we don't recognize what people do. Right now. In the Biden administration. There are about 15 people of color that are making decisions about everything that are actually leading to government say yes, so so when I hear people say Biden ain't doing nothing for him. Have you looked around? Have you seen his staff right? Fi as we as we went down, because I'm gonna have to get you back on because I want your place to have success in fact, what little I know about the arts because you know, we did a lot with the with the West Side arts and Westside Art Gallery rather. And bookstore we need to get some grant money because I know that it's available through the arts. And maybe we could talk with Vicki Richardson because I think a place such as this can be granted and paid for to come and go on the road. And you have you have a rich background here in this city and I just could see it coming here at some point so give some quick thought to that because we were winding up with time.

Unknown Speaker 28:54
Well we gonna talk about because I got some powerful gospel voices that you will love what take care of my friend and thanks for the interview. And good luck the rest of the evening. All right, hey, once again fade duck and Daniel longtime resident of Las Vegas before she retired and moved to Helena Arkansas, doing outstanding thing she's written two plays and hopefully we can get them here in the city. So this is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Jazz.

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The smoking

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tilde Hey, when I step on the way

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