One evening last October, I met with Anna Hamilton in the Northern California town of Garberville. A singer-songwriter with a barbwire voice, Hamilton is known locally for her radio show, Rant and Rave, Lock and Load and Shoot Your Mouth Off -- which, it turns out, is a pretty good description of her approach to life.

"I'm a little gutterballer from the beach," she said. "And I get nervous around too much normalcy."

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