ArcaMax

I used to drink tequila.

I drank it when I was a lot younger. I only drank it seriously for about six months, then I stopped, which is one of the reasons I got to be a lot older.

It had some romance, tequila did.

I drank it straight, out of a shot glass, with the salt and the lemon in the non-shot glass hand.

Drinking tequila that way, in the amounts I drank the stuff, is tremendously harmful.

Which was good. I was a young writer, and I wanted to be dark and interesting and self-destructive.

"Yeah," I could have said. "I'm a young columnist. Gimme a frozen strawberry daiquiri, lots of berries."

Doesn't sound too tough, does it?

"Gimme a straight shot of tequila. You got salt and a slice of lemon?"

That sounds tough. That sounds newsroom. That sounds like you just came off a night shift after standing on a street corner with a Marlboro in your mouth, asking the cops if they had any idea who shot the kid.

And I threw back the tequila so hard that the rim of the glass almost hit me on the nose, and I looked world-weary, and I told the girl sitting next to me about the shooting I'd just covered.

"Kid was 17," I'd say, ordering another tequila.

If the girl was drunk or stupid enough, she'd think I was dark and interesting and self-destructive, and she'd let me go home with her. She'd feel a lot different about me when I threw up in her sink. Also, she wouldn't know how lucky she was that I made it to the sink. Coulda been worse.

I'm damn lucky I didn't buy a motorcycle during that time in my life, or several semi-automatic weapons. As it was, I threw up a lot, fell down a few times and made some women sad.

You want things easy, and you want to look tough, and you want to get things stripped down to simple: tequila, salt, lemon.

No one wants to have complex feelings or beliefs, and drinking is the paint remover of complexity.

Six tequilas and you can solve the nation's economic woes.

"We need to use gold coins again," you say, and if you say it loudly and strongly enough, the other drunks will agree with you, and the bouncer will be unable stop you from shouting because you are right, dammit, right!

So, I quit tequila for modest amounts of beer, which never leaves me with a smeared memory of kicking the side of someone's car as they pull out of the parking lot.

"Yeah, you better run away," is what you yell in that situation.

Stripped down and simple. Don't ask why the guy is driving away. Don't ask why you're the kind of guy who makes people run away. Pour some more paint remover on the situation.

Donald Trump is the paint remover of complex thoughts and hard questions. Before Nov. 5, about half of voters need to throw up, nap for a while on the bathroom floor and vote for Kamala Harris. You've been too drunk for too long, and if you don't sober up, the hangover might last for the rest of your lives.

To find out more about Marc Dion, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.