Gravity’s rainbow sections 26-29 summary
Hello there, here is my humble contribution to this great reading group. Thanks to everyone involved and especially to bloomsdayclock for overseeing the logistics involved in this hefty operation. I am a tad late because I had to fill in for somebody at work yesterday. Furthermore, any mistakes made I will blame on the fact that my laptop broke down and I have written this thing on my phone.
My plan of attack is very simple. I will summarize the sections in a - I hope - lucid manner and make some simple observations about the text as we go along. Here and there I will point to some passages that I think are beautiful, astute or important; simple enough right? I don’t think it will be as a complex or exhaustive exegesis as my worthy predecessors have provided, but I do hope it will provide enough fuel for the discussion below. Let’s get into it!
SECTION 26 (part 5 of part 2)
We are nearing march 23d 1945 as “Wernher von Braun, [...] prepares to celebrate his 33rd birthday”. We have just been provided with some of the yuckiest scenes in the book so our lord and saviour, Pynchon, moves away from the morbid proclivities of the White Visitation and provides us with some more comically induced and lighthearted scenes, before we get into THE ZONE.
Slothrop has become more aware of the plot that has been created to his detriment. Therefore we are provided with the first of the proverbs for paranoids: “You may never get to touch the master, but you can tickle his creatures.” Through some paranormal activity he has been conversing with, or receiving necessary information from, Roland Feldspath about systems of control, and whatnot before he goes to Germany. Feldspath reminisces on a periodical, “Paranoid Systems of History”, in Germany which asserted that the hyperinflation was purposefully created to show the failures of the adherents of the Cybernetic Tradition. This is bolstered with some ruminations on the nature of entropy (not explicity) and the problem of Maxwell’s demon. This is to provide for the fact that the way of thinking of the rocket’s was reduced to a too simplistic notion by the scientists that created them. These scientists would only realize in death the mistakes they made. A foreshadowing (sorta) of Slothrop’s own rite of passage through this book.
(I think it is clear I’m having some trouble with going over this bit; if anyone feels inclined to feel in the gaps and maybe explain Maxwell’s demon in layman’s terms, that would be much appreciated.)
We are now (really) back at the casino, where slothrop stumbles into Hilary Bounce (from Shell) - who is going to learn him about propulsion. There are some things Slothrop needs to learn before he goes into the zone, among them are: the mechanics of propulsion; dialects like plattdeutsch (which just means something like ‘normal’ German - as opposed to ‘proper’ German); and also English English. Slothrop is thinking about and discussing with Bounce the curious nature and endeavors of Shell on both sides of the war. We are hit with the second proverb: “The innocence of the creatures is in inverse proportion to the immorality of the master”. Bounce shrugs Slothrop suspicions off by saying: “It’s only a “wild coincidence,” slothrop’”.
As part of Pointsman’s experiment Slothrop is learning about rockets via German blueprints. In such a blueprint a rather out of the ordinary insulation device catches his eye: Imipolex G. Rather than just plain out asking for more information, slothrop is a bit more slick. He gets one of his ladyfriends (Michele) to seduce bounce, so he can have Bounce’s teletype to ask about Imipolex G. This succeeds, Slothrop goes down to the same party where Bounce and Michele went to - and will read the info later.
SECTION 27 (Part 6 of 2)
This party is hosted by Raoul de la perlimpinpin who has been keeping this party going for a long while. Tonight instead of the usual spiking of the punch, the Hollandaise sauce has been flavored with some grass. Due to this people are asleep on the floor, and whoever is awake is eating everything they can get their hands onto. Slothrop receives “a kraft-paper envelope” to hold onto from swanky Blodget Waxwing - forgerist and arms dealer - to keep safe from Tamara(or Italo?). This he does for good reason as Tamara, for reasons très convoluté, shows up at the party in a Sherman Tank. Slothrop - in true hero fashion - saves the day. He receives a zoot suit and a nice keychain from Waxwing as was promised early.
I think this is a prime example of Pynchon’s visual (comedic) imagery! We get some more of this in the next sections (in the Raketwerke). I have read somewhere that this type of scene taps into cinema of this era, yet should not be viewed as Pynchon lauding popular movies, but it more so being a comment on this type of popular entertainment being not so necessarily good for our original thought. (It also exerts a certain amount of control by Them on Us, I guess?) Whilst this may be the case I think Pynchon also does it because he has a lot of fun doing this! It also shows how writers can use popular cinema to their advantage, by borrowing ‘cliché’ images and making them your own.
Of further interest is the fact that the loud noise did not cause an erection for Slothrop. Is this simply due to it being a tank and not a rocket? Or “because nobody was looking”, tapping into how an experiment can change when there is an observer vs. no observer? Furthermore, Waxwing says the tank scene did happen, but the scene with the octopus did not. This is because the octopus was planned? And therefore ‘artificial’? But the tank scene ‘natural’ and therefore ‘real’?
SECTION 28 (1) part 7 of part 2
Slothrop is reading about Imipolex G and we get some information on this plastic, but als on the scientific history of plastics in general and this one in particular. Of importance is the fact that: “Chemists were no longer to be at the mercy of Nature.” One of these chemists is Laslo Jamf who created Imipolex G for IG Farben ( IG = Interessegemeimschaft = syndicate/ cartel and farben = dyes) . Jamf was originally working Psychochemie AG (previously known as the Grossli Chemical corporation). Grössli was a spinoff from the Sandoz corporation. When the Germans (under the cover of IG Chemie) did business in Switzerland they bought a large chunk of Grössli stock the company was named Psychochemie AG. So both IG Farben and Psychochemie got access to the patent for Imipolex AG. Shell oil has info on Imipolex because of an agreement with Imperial chemicals (which is also partly owned by IG Farben) which stipulates they can sell it in the commonwealth. Psychochemie AG is still alive and kicking in their “old adress in the Schokoladestrasse in that Zürich, Switzerland.” Furthermore, the rockets that are falling on top of London “with the help of a transmitter on the roof of the headquarters of Dutch Shell”, share an “uncanny resemblance to one developed by British Shell at around the same time”. This information is being gathered by Mr. Duncan Sandys at the Shell mex house. A lovely bit of shady corporate dealings fuelled by malice and greed.
On the shell mex house, Slothrop stages a hypothetical raid with Waxwing. Wherein they find no signs of Evil but only “a rather dull room”. This prompts a rumination on Duncan Sandy’s role in this supposed plot who is just “a name only a function”, it is unclear where the plot ends and begins: this is due to Them who have made the organization charts (so what is the use in even asking this kind of question. Which leads into the third proverb (and my favorite): “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”
During slothrop’s rereading of the blue parts list which made him aware of imipolex G in the first place he finds a very special type of rocket: “‘S-Gerät, 11/000000.’” This is unusual because there he has come across an I- or J-Gerät but no S-. Furthermore he has not seen a rocket with so many zeroes before.
In the Casino Restaurant slothrop finds out (through a newspaper) about the death of his old pal Tantivy Mucker-Mafick. It is unclear whether this happened, if it happened who did it and why. What is clear is that Slothrop is getting increasingly paranoid.
He goes to Nice and tries to shake his tail by giving Claude the assistant chef his clothes and stealing a citroen with the keys in it (we find out later that They were still onto him in Nice though, but it’s a nice try!). Slothrop enters a hotel and on the top floor meets a mysterious “old motherly femme de chambre” (chamber maid). He shows her Waxwing’s card and she points him upstairs, where, there is a “kind of penthouse in the middle” here he finds three boys and girls smoking a thin cigarette of ambigious odor (might it be a cigarette dipped in acid? or is it just weed?). He shows them Waxwing’s card; he is not there, but Slothrop will get an id card the day after and a place to sleep.
After a rather unpleasant night of sleep filled with visits by various ghosts of the past: Murray Smile, Jenny, Katje and Tantivy. He is woken up by the noise of some American MPs and for the first time feels the threat their voices might hold for any non-American. His papers are brought up to his room. His new guise is Ian Scufflin, English war correspondent (hey that English English you have been learning might do you some good after all). With these new papers he’s off to Zurich!
SECTION 28 (2) Part 7 of part 2
After a long train ride he arrives in Zurich. During this ride he noticed the following in the landscape: “The war has been reconfiguring time and space into its own image. The track runs in different networks now. What appears to be destruction is really the shaping of railroad space to other purposes, intentions he can only riding through it for the first time begin to feel the leading edges of…” This is an important description of what the war has been doing and how it will affect the zone later on.
He checks into Hotel Nimbus and later makes its way to find the local Waxwing representative: a russian named Semyavin. They talk about information being/ becoming the currency of the world. “Is it any wonder the world’s gone insane with information come to be the only real medium of exchange?” (In the previous discussions Pynchon’s prescience has been a talking point; I find it to be especially strong in this small conversation between Slothrop and semyavin.) Semyavin provides Slothrop with three Zurich cafés that somebody with an interest in industrial espionage should check out. He begins loitering at these places, but is having trouble with sorting the corporate spies from the LOONIES ON LEAVE (from their “fancy asylums”).
He is accosted by a chorus of crazies and their keepers. In their song there is talk of entropy management, perpetual motion which has to do with Maxwell’s demon as well. This ties into the help Slothrop has been getting while giving nothing. Not realizing that he, himself is the information by which he is ‘paying’ for the help he’s been getting - as is similar to the way the problem of Maxwell’s demon was solved.
Furthermore there is this line where Slothrop is having trouble “telling Nuts from Keepers”. Which to me feels to be about a lot of things amongst which, the question of: who is in control vs. who is being controlled? And also about the maybe-not-so-rigid-difference between a nutcase and a genius. Which ties into Slothrop’s paranoia. Because in everyday use paranoia is seeing a connection between things that are not there, yet in this book it does not seem to be that negative (as Slothrop’s paranoia is by no means uncalled for). So are scientists who have their moment of eureka not paranoid crazies who are right and vice versa? Is a paranoid anything less than a genius who has not been able to prove the connection he sees? Or maybe I’m reading into these lines a bit much… Carrying on!
After the crazies have left him alone and some time flies by, Slothrop is chomping down on a bratwurst in Stragelli (one of the three cafés) and meets Mario Schweitar. Schweitar is from Sandoz a member of the swiss chemical cartel from the early 20’s remember? Which evolved into Psychochemie Ag (the German cover company). Slothrop sez: “I’d like anything they got on L. Jamf, a-and on that Imipolex G.’” Slothrop hears that getting this information will be difficult and also that Jamf is dead. For the info he wants, slothrop will need to raise 500 swiss Francs.
Semyavin advises him to pawn his zoot. He is not too keen on parting with it. Later he sees a car who is, ostensibly, checking him out, so we receive proverb 4: “You hide they seek”. In another attempt of hiding from them he calls his to his hotel from a restaurant asking: “‘can you possibly tell me if the British chap who’s been waiting in the foyer is still there, know…”’, this backfires, as a variety of people were watching him: they know know he knows.
As he’s killing time in the famous Cafe Odeon, he meets Fransisco Squalidozzi. They get friendly and Squalidozzi starts telling him about his heist of a German submarine and of his “plan to seek political asylum in Germany, as soon as the War’s over there…”, Slothrop does not get it as Germany’s a “mess”, Squalidozzi enlightens Slothrop with his perfectly logical reasoning. There is talk of the centralization of Argentina. The need to reign from Buenos Aires (entropy, control all that stuff). There is talk of Labyrinths. Labyrinths and Argentina? Ah there he is: “look at Borges.” Slothrop calls this centralizing progress. Squalidozzi waves slothrops (conservative Western) ideas away for mild insanity instead of rudeness. Squalidozzi further states that the war is changing something inherently: this gives him hope and is why he plans to settle there.
There are swiss people who want to assist squalidozzi in his anarchism-in-exile, he needs to get a message to Geneva. Slothrop can help him for some money. Anon, he flies there in a “battered DC-3”. He delivers the message with slickness that would make James Bond jealous. He goes back to Zurich by train, but gets off at a stop earlier at Schlieren in an attempt to lose his tail (which was succesful?). The next day he meets Schweitar to give him half his money in advance. They agree to close the deal (for info on Jamf and Imipolex G) in the mountains by Jamf’s grave. Slothrop is unable to find Squalidozzi though - so he can’t deliver his message to him…
Slothrop goes camping by Jamf’s grave and we get treated to this wonderful description of Zurich: “The city below him, bathed now in a partial light is a necropolis of church spires and weathercocks, white castle-keep towers, broad buildings with mansard roofs and windows glimmering by thousands. This forenoon the mountains are as translucent as ice. The lake is mirror-smooth but mountains and houses reflected down there remain strangely blurred with edges fine and combed as raind: a dream of Atlantis, of the Suggenthal. Toy villages, desolate city of painted alabaster…” Schweitar’s delivery boy comes along and gives him the goods. And we switch to Pointsman.
See you again in the zone Slothrop!
SECTION 29 part 8 of part 2
The white visitation has a small gathering at Whitsun by the sea. We find out they're in a bit of a crisis. They have lost Slothrop in Zurich or at least the secret service did. We recap to a duo called harvey speed and floyd perdoo who were/are investigating Slothrop’s sexual endeavors in London. They don’t do much though aside from eating and bickering with each other.
Pointsman is wondering when he is going to see it. He is worrying about data sets and of what can be perceived as truth/ trustworthy (evidentially vs. clinically). Slothrop being missing also causes worries at the Shell mex house, because Slothrop knows about some sensitive rocket stuff. Hehas information that Russians and Americans would be keen to have. Pointsman is also worrying about his team. So he organized a party to up the atmosphere a bit.
Pointsman, Mexico, Jessica, Dennis Joint and Katje are present. Mexico is having trouble with Jessica. Dennis Joint is eyeballing Katje who does not seem interested and Pointsman is losing his mind (what a fun get-together!). We also find out that Pirate Prentice has been asking about Katje at PISCES’ new brand office… for reasons unclear (for love or something else?). Pointsman starts up a conversation with Mexico that seems odd even for his standard. Then we find out in accordance with Murphy’s law or Gödels Theorem that there are actual Schwarzkommando’s in Germany (the hereros who will be explained thoroughly in the next sections). We go back to Pointsman losing control the party, the situation, his work, of Katje and of himself. And on this lovely note we end this section and part 2 of Gravity’s Rainbow!

This is my first reddit post, so please be gentle, but do point out any errors of fact or etiquette I've made.
I've spent some time this week getting ready for the finale episodes by making a list of every scene in every Season 3 episode: what time the scene starts, who's in the scene, and a very limited amount of notes for some scenes. There are probably quite a few errors, and I know I haven't classified all the locations yet (like many Silver Mustang scenes are listed as "LV" instead of "SM").
Comments and corrections are very welcome!

TWIN PEAKS SEASON 3 - SCENES location key: BA - Buenos Aires, Argentina Fa - The Farm FH - Fireman's home (the purple place) GN - Great Northern Hotel (in Twin Peaks) LV - Las Vegas, Nevada NM - New Mexico NY - New York City, New York PH - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Rh - the Roadhouse (Twin Peaks) RR - Double R Diner (Twin Peaks) SC - Sioux City, South Dakota (Yankton Federal Prison) SD - South Dakota SM - Silver Mustang Casino, Las Vegas TP - Twin Peaks, Washington UT - Utah VA - the Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia WA - Washington state, outside of Twin Peaks WR - the Waiting Room (Red room) ? - I don't know. "+" means first appearance ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.1 3:43 FH +???????, +Special Agent Dale Cooper ("Remember 430. Richard and Linda. Two birds with one stone.") 6:11 TP +Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, +Delivery Driver 8:28 NY +Sam Colby 12:49 NY Sam, +Guard, +Tracey Barberato 15:40 GN +Beverly Paige, +Ben Horne, +Jerry Horne 18:24 TP +Lucy Brennan, +Man in Suit? 19:35 SD Mr. C (Dale Cooper doppleganger), +Robby, +Otis, +Buella, +Ray Monroe, +Darya 24:30 NY Sam, Tracey, +Experiment Model (@ 33:38) 34:35 SD +Marjorie Green (Buckhorn, South Dakota) 36:15 SD +Officer Olson, +Officer Douglas, Marjorie 38:40 SD +Hank Fillmore, Olson, Douglas, Marjorie 40:10 SD Olson, Douglas, Ruth Davenport 41:27 SD Hank, Olson, Douglas, Ruth, +Detective Dave Macklay, +Constance Talbot 43:40 TP +Margaret Lanterman (The Log Lady), +Deputy Chief Tommy "Hawk" Hill 45:15 SD Constance, Macklay (Buckhorn Police Department) 46:35 SD Macklay, +Phyllis Hastings, +William (Bill) Hastings 48:18 TP Hawk, Lucy, +Deputy Andy Brennan 49:30 SD BHastings, Macklay, +Detective Don Harrison, +Chief Mike Boyd 56:00 SD Macklay, BHastings 56:42 SD Macklay, Harrison, PHastings (lump of meat) ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.2 1:38 SD BHastings, PHastings, Macklay, +George Bautzer (woodsman @ 6:00) 6:18 SD PHastings, Mr. C 7:20 LV +Duncan Todd, +Roger ("why do you let him make you do these things") 9:05 SD Ray, +Jack, Mr. C, Darya (restaurant) 12:07 TP Log Lady, Hawk (Hawk in trees with flashlight) (pool @ 14:34) 15:08 WR Cooper, +Phillip Gerard, +Laura Palmer (red room) ("is it future or is it past?") (white horse @ 22:05) 23:38 WR Cooper, Gerard, +Evolution of the Arm, +BOB 25:20 SD Jack, Mr. C 26:47 SD Mr. C, Darya (calls Phillip Jeffries @ 36:30) (Jeffries: "you're going back in tomorrow, and I will be with BOB again.") Owl Cave symbol playing card @ 34:32 Mr. C: "This is what I want." 39:22 SD Mr. C, +Chantal Hutchens 40:33 WR Cooper, Evolution of the Arm ("253 time and time again") 42:39 WR Cooper, +Leland Palmer ("Leland: Find Laura."), Evolution of the Arm, Gerard ("something's wrong"), Mr. C, doppleganger of the Arm ("non-ex-ist-ent!") 45:25 NY Cooper, Sam, Tracey (box shrinks @ 47:20) 47:59 TP +Sarah Palmer (her house) 49:12 Rh +Chromatics, +Renee, +Shelly Briggs, +Hannah, +James Hurley, +Freddie Sykes, +Red, +Jean-Michel Renault 52:54 Rh credits 54:23 Lynch/Frost Productions ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.3 1:38 FH Cooper (falling through space, then purple place) 4:25 FH +Naido, Cooper, +Major Garland Briggs (number 15, then number 3, "blue rose") 13:16 FH Cooper, +American Girl (Ronette Pulaski?) (watch with 2:53) 14:36 SD Mr. C (clock at 2:53) (in car) 15:03 FH Cooper, American Girl ("When you get there... you will... already be there.") 16:20 PP/SD Cooper, American Girl ("You'd better hurry... my mother is coming."), Mr. C 19:03 LV +Douglas "Dougie" Jones, +Jade, Mr. C (owl ring, Rancho Rosa) 22:27 WR Dougie, Gerard (owl ring) 25:41 LV Cooper, Jade 29:35 LV +Gene, +Jake, Cooper, Jade (Rancho Rosa) 31:45 LV Gene, +Little Boy, +Drugged-out Mother ("one-one-nine!") (Rancho Rosa) 33:30 SD Mr. C, +First Trooper, +Second Trooper (SD Highway Patrol) 34:25 TP Hawk, Andy, Lucy 39:10 TP Jacoby 41:30 SM Jade, Cooper, Laura, +Security Guard (Silver Mustang Casino) 43:40 SM Cooper, Security Guard, +Cashier, +Slot Machine Man, +Lady Slot-Addict 50:25 SM +Floor Attendant Jackie, Cooper 51:25 PH +FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole, +FBI Agent Albert Rosenfield, +FBI Agent Tammy Preston (FBI Headquarters, Philadelphia, PA) (meeting with strange murder "clues") 55:40 Rh +Cactus Blossoms 57:09 Rh credits 58:40 Lynch/Frost Productions somewhere: +Wise Guy ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.4 1:40 SM +Pit Boss Warrick, guard, boss, Cooper, Floor Attendant Jackie, Lady Slot-Addict 3:50 SM Cooper, +Bill Shaker, +Candy Shaker 5:55 SM +Supervisor Burns, Mr. C, Warrick 9:35 LV +Limo Driver (Al), Cooper, +Janey-E Jones 13:00 LV Cooper, Janey-E 15:35 PH Cole, +Bill Kennedy, +Denise Bryson 19:40 TP Lucy, +Sheriff Frank Truman, Andy 21:32 TP +dispatcher Maggie Brown, +Deputy Jesse Holcomb, Frank, +Deputy Chad Broxford, +Deputy Bobby Briggs 23:25 TP Lucy, Andy 24:30 TP Frank, Hawk, Chad, Bobby, Jesse, Andy, Lucy 28:45 TP Frank, Andy, Lucy, +Wally "Brando" Brennan 33:30 LV/WR Cooper, Gerard, Janey-E, +Sonny Jim Jones 41:41 SD Constance, Macklay, Boyd 42:10 SD Cole, Albert, Tammy, +FBI Driver (SD airport) 44:00 SD Cole, Albert, Tammy, +Warden Dwight Murphy, +Inspector Randy Hollister, Mr. C (SD prison) 50:13 SD Cole, Albert, Tammy 54:20 Rh +Au Revoir Simone 55:16 Rh credits 56:45 Lynch/Frost Productions ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.5 1:40 LV Gene, Jake, +Lorraine (Rancho Rosa) (Argentina box, message "Argent 2") 3:29 SD Major Briggs, Constance, Macklay, Harrison, (wedding ring in stomach: "To Dougie, with love, Janey-E") 4:33 SC Mr. C, +Prison Tech, BOB ("you're still with me. that's good.") 6:50 TP +Mike Nelson, +Steven Burnett 8:10 TP Frank, Lucy, +Doris Truman 10:46 LV Sonny Jim, Janey-E, Cooper 12:17 LV Gene, Jake (Rancho Rosa) 14:00 LV Janey-E, Cooper, +Phil Bisby 16:48 LV Phil, Cooper, +Rhonda, +Frank (Bob Stephenson), +Anthony Sinclair, +Bushnell Mullins, +Darren 23:13 LV Bushnell, Cooper, Phil, Rhonda 25:25 SM Warrick, casino dude, Candie, +Rodney Mitchum, +Bradley Mitchum, +Mandie, +Sandie 28:16 LV Drugged-out Mother, Little Boy, +Punk Leader 30:50 LV Chris, Jade (xxx who is Chris?) 31:47 RR +Norma Jennings, Shelly, +Toad, +Rebecca (Becky) Burnett, Steven 34:11 RR Becky, Steven (cocaine smile) 37:56 LV Cooper, Phil 39:29 TP Andy, Hawk 40:47 TP Jacoby, +Nadine Hurley (Dr. Amp) 45:24 VA +Colonel Davis, +Lieutenant Cynthia Knox (Pentagon, Arlington, VA) (16 fingerprint hits on Major Briggs in last 25 years) 46:40 Rh +Trouble, +Richard Horne, +Charlotte, +Elizabeth, woman, +Federico, Chad 50:56 PH Tammy (Cooper photos & fingerprints) 52:28 SC Mr. C, Warden ("Mr. Strawberry", "the cow jumped over the moon") 55:23 BA (beeping, shrinking box) (Buenos Aires, Argentina) 56:05 LV Cooper, +Officer Reynaldo 56:25 LV credits 58:07 Lynch/Frost Productions somewhere: +Heidi (fat RR waitress), Hollister, +Detailer, Burns, Jade ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.6 1:43 LV Cooper, Reynaldo 3:27 LV Sonny Jim, Janey-E, Reynaldo, Cooper, +Patrol Officer 6:37 LV Sonny Jim, Cooper (clapper) 9:00 LV Janey-E, Cooper, Sonny Jim 13:12 ? (stop light) 13:30 ?/LV Gerard ("wake up" "don't die"), Cooper (case files scribbles) 18:35 PH Albert, Cole, +Diane Evans (Max Von's Bar) 20:41 TP Red, Richard (coin trick) 27:00 TP Richard 27:24 TP +Carl Rodd, +Mickey 29:33 RR Shelly, +Miriam Sullivan, Heidi 30:57 TP Richard, Carl, +Hit and Run Mom, +Hit and Run Boy, Miriam (yellow "soul", number 6 & 324810) 35:35 LV Todd (computer & folder for Ike) 36:54 LV cops, Drugged-out Mother 37:53 LV +Ike "The Spike" Stadtler 39:33 LV Cooper, Phil, Sinclair, Bushnell (Cooper's scribbles) 45:35 LV Janey-E, +Jimmy, +Tommy 48:04 LV Lorraine, Ike, other woman 49:13 TP Richard 50:15 TP Hawk, Chad (Laura's diary pages) 53:00 TP Maggie, Frank, Chad, Jesse, Doris 54:54 Rh +Sharon Van Etten 56:18 Rh credits 57:52 Lynch/Frost Productions somewhere: Jade ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.7 1:40 WA/GN Jerry, Ben 3:35 TP Hawk, Frank (Laura's diary pages shown) 7:03 TP Frank (on phone to Harry; Laura's diary pages shown) 8:08 TP Andy, Farmer 9:10 TP Frank, +Doc Will Hayward (rising computer screen) 12:50 SD Knox, Macklay 13:40 SD Constance, Major Briggs, Knox, Macklay, Davis, woodsman at 16:08 16:53 PH Cole, Albert 18:20 PH +Younger Man, Cole, Albert, Diane (Diane's house) 21:36 PH Cole, Albert, Diane, Tammy (on airplane) (Cooper's fingerprints, photo of Mr. C & mansion) 23:47 SC Cole, Albert, Diane, Tammy, Hollister (Yankton Federal Prison, Sioux City) 24:24 SC Diane, Mr. C 27:05 SC Cole, Albert, Diane, Tammy, Warden 27:33 SC Cole, Albert, Diane, Tammy 29:25 SC Mr. C, 2 prison guys 30:02 TP Andy 31:17 TP Warden, Mr. C, 2 prison guys 33:42 LV Janey-E, Cooper, Sinclair, +Detective T. Fusco, +Detective "Smiley" Fusco, +Detective D. Fusco, Rhonda, Bushnell (Cooper draws figures) 40:00 LV Janey-E, Cooper, Ike, Evolution of the Arm 41:25 LV Cooper, Janey-E, +Another Mom, +5-Year-Old Girl, +Soccer Mom 42:10 GN Ben, Beverly (Great Northern Hotel) 46:58 TP Beverly, +Nurse, +Tom Paige 49:18 Rh Renault (sweeping peanut shells) 52:38 SC +Prison Guard, Mr. C, Ray, Warden 55:23 RR Shelly, Norma, +Bing (person asking for Billy) 55:55 RR credits 57:24 Lynch/Frost Productions ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.8 1:42 SD Mr. C, Ray 7:40 SD Mr. C, Ray, woodsmen, BOB (Ray calls Jeffries @ 10:50) 11:20 Rh +MC, +"The" Nine Inch Nails 16:00 SD Mr. C 16:21 NM (July 16, 1945 / White Sands, New Mexico / 5:29 AM (MWT)) 18:28 ? (effects) 21:20 ? woodsmen (Dutchman's / convenience store) 24:10 ? Experiment/mother? 26:20 FH outside purple place. (formed from gold globule seen in previous scene?) 28:55 FH +Senorita Dido 30:25 FH Dido, ??????? 33:54 FH ???????, Dido (movie theater) 36:32 FH ???????, Dido, Laura (gold sparks, gold seed, Laura @ 39:05) 39:35 FH ???????, Dido (Fallopian tube) 40:49 NM +frog-locust (1956 / August 5 / New Mexico desert) 42:52 NM +Girl, +Boy 44:14 NM woodsmen 44:38 NM +New Mexico Husband, +New Mexico Wife, +Woodsman 46:06 NM Girl, Boy 48:34 NM Woodsman 49:11 NM +Disc Jockey, Girl 50:00 NM Woodsman, +Receptionist 51:06 NM Woodsman, Disc Jockey, Girl 51:45 NM "This is the water. And this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within." 54:00 NM Girl, frog-locust 56:35 NM Woodsman leaves, "horse whinnying distantly" 56:44 NM credits 58:04 Lynch/Frost Productions ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.9 1:40 SD Mr. C 2:09 plane Cole, Tammy, Diane, Albert 3:35 SD Mr. C, +Gary "Hutch" Hutchens, Chantal 4:43 plane Cole, Diane, Albert, Tammy 6:41 SD/LV Mr. C, Hutch, Chantal, Todd (text: "around the dinner table the conversation is lively") 9:51 LV Cooper, Janey-E, Bushnell, Fuscos, +Desk Sergeant (Las Vegas Police Department) 18:35 LV Ike, Fuscos, more Las Vegas police 20:40 TP Lucy, Andy (chairs) 23:05 TP +Johnny Horne, +Sylvia Horne 24:02 TP +Betty Briggs, Bobby, Frank, Hawk 27:35 SD Diane, Cole, Tammy, Albert, Knox, Macklay 29:47 SD Constance, Major Briggs, Diane, Cole, Tammy, Albert, Knox, Macklay 32:45 WA? Jerry ("I am not your foot") 34:40 TP Chad, Frank, Hawk, Lucy, Bobby 37:37 TP Frank, Hawk, Bobby (Major Briggs' message @ 39:01: sun over left peak, moon & splotch over right peak 253 yards east of Jack Rabbit's Palace before ... Jack Rabbit's ... put some soil from that area in your pocket 2:53 10/1 10/2. other message: COOPECOOPECO and other stuff) 40:35 SD Diane, Cole, Tammy 42:45 SD BHastings, Tammy, Macklay, Cole, Diane 49:25 GN Ben, Beverly 51:56 Rh +Hudson Mohawke, +Ella, +Chloe 55:06 Rh Au Revoir Simone 56:30 Rh credits 58:09 Lynch/Frost Productions somewhere: Warden Dwight Murphy ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.10 1:41 TP Richard, Miriam (trailer park), Chad 5:04 TP Carl, Steven, Becky (trailer park) 7:00 LV RMitchum, Candie, BMitchum 9:34 LV +Doctor Ben, Dougie, Janey-E 11:49 LV RMitchum, Candie, Sandie, Mandie, BMitchum, +Paul, +Sheena, Ike, Soccer Mom, Cooper, Janey-E, Roger? 15:13 LV Janey-E, Cooper, Sonny Jim (sex) 18:15 ? (wind howling) 18:37 TP Jacoby, Nadine (Dr. Amp) 20:42 LV Janey-E, Cooper, Sonny Jim 21:25 WA Jerry 21:45 TP Lucy, Chad, mailman 24:20 TP Richard, Johnny Horne, Sylvia Horne 28:56 LV Todd, Roger, Sinclair 30:40 SD Albert, Constance, Cole, Tammy 31:25 SM Pit Boss Warrick, Sinclair, BMitchum, RMitchum, Candie, Sandie, Mandie 38:18 LV RMitchum, BMitchum, Candie, Sandie, Mandie 40:12 SD Cole, Laura, Albert, Tammy (Diane received: "Around the dinner table, the conversation is lively", sent: "They have Hastings. He's going to take them to the site.") 43:22 GN/TP Ben, Sylvia 44:27 TP Log Lady, Hawk ("Laura is the one.") 46:17 Rh +Rebekah Del Rio, +Musician (Moby) 51:33 Rh credits 53:12 Lynch/Frost Productions somewhere: Fuscos ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.11 1:41 TP +Boy Playing Catch, Miriam (trailer park) 3:07 TP Becky (trailer park), Shelly, Norma, Carl 5:30 TP Becky, Carl, Norma, Maggie, Bobby (Carl's van) 7:02 TP Becky, +Gersten's neighbor, Steven, +Gersten Hayward (Gersten's apartment) 8:14 TP Maggie (police station) 8:51 SD Macklay, WHastings, Albert, Diane, Tammy, Cole, woodsmen (Buckhorn), Ruth Davenport, 13:15 woodsmen @ Dutchman's 16:25 RR Bobby, Becky, Shelly, Norma, Red, +Carrie, +Ralph, +Russ, Jesse, +Woman in Car, +Sick Girl, Toad? 24:55 TP Frank, Hawk, Lucy, Log Lady, Jesse (Indian map, mention Blue Pine Mountain, "day after tomorrow") 29:50 SD Cole, Albert, Diane, Tammy, Macklay (Ruth's coordinates) 33:48 LV Bushnell, Phil, Cooper, Sinclair 37:40 LV BMitchum, RMitchum 39:40 LV Cooper, Bushnell, Gerard, Limo Driver 42:06 LV Cooper, Limo Driver 43:10 LV BMitchum, RMitchum, Cooper, Limo Driver 50:00 LV piano player, Cooper, BMitchum, RMitchum, Candie, Mandie, Sandie, Lady Slot-Addict 55:26 LV credits 57:03 Lynch/Frost Productions ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.12 1:35 SD Cole, Albert, Tammy (Chet Desmond mentioned) 5:35 SD Cole, Albert, Tammy, Diane 7:37 WA Jerry 8:07 TP Sarah, +Check-Out Girl, +Bag-boy 11:25 TP Carl, +Criscol (Kriscol in subtitles) 13:07 LV Cooper, Sonny Jim 13:37 TP (mountain & woods) 13:51 TP Hawk, Sarah (Sarah's house) 16:06 TP Miriam (hospital) 16:32 SD Diane ("Las Vegas?" text, "THEY HAVEN'T ASKED YET") 17:10 GN Ben, Beverly, Frank (Ben's office) 25:25 SD Cole, +French Woman, Albert (hotel) 31:25 UT? Hutch, Chantal, Warden, +Warden Murphy's Son 33:36 TP Jacoby, Nadine (Dr. Amp) 36:27 ? +Audrey Horne, +Charlie (mentions Billy, Tina, Paul, Chuck) 47:17 SD Diane 49:20 TP (woods) 49:42 Rh Chromatics, +Abbie, +Natalie, +Trick (mentions Clark, Mary, Angela) 53:02 Rh credits 54:34 Lynch/Frost Productions ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.13 1:40 LV BMitchum, RMitchum, Cooper, Sandie, Mandie, Candie, Sinclair, Bushnell, Todd 4:44 LV +Head Mover, Janey-E, Sonny Jim, Cooper 7:02 Fa Mr. C, Ray, +Renzo, +Muddy, +Farm Accountant, Richard (Western Montana, "The Farm") 23:25 LV Fuscos, Sinclair, +Detective Clark, +Crooked Partner, Desk Sergeant? 27:05 UT Hutch, Chantal (Utah) 28:00 LV Janey-E, Cooper, Sinclair, +Szymon Waitress, +Man in Urinal 34:22 TP Shelly, Becky 35:50 LV Cooper, Sinclair, Bushnell 38:47 TP Bobby, +RR Diner Waitress, +Big Ed Hurley, Norma, +Walter Lawford 44:52 TP Nadine, Jacoby 47:29 TP Sarah 50:14 ? Audrey, Charlie 53:10 Rh MC, James, +Backup Singer #2, +Backup Singer #3, Renee 56:30 TP Big Ed 57:39 TP credits (Big Ed) 59:11 Lynch/Frost Productions xxx owl ring in 3.13 somewhere. ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.14 1:41 SD/TP Cole, Lucy, Frank 4:20 SD Albert, Tammy, Cole, Diane why was ring in Major Briggs' stomach? 9:22 SD/LV Albert, Tammy, Cole, Diane, +Special Agent Randall Headley, +Agent Wilson 11:21 dream Cole, +Monica Bellucci, Cooper, Tammy, Albert, +Phillip Jeffries 14:39 TP Andy, Hawk, Bobby, Frank, Chad 16:10 TP Andy, Hawk, Bobby, Frank, "it's 2:53" 22:00 TP Andy, Hawk, Bobby, Frank, Naido 24:34 TP Andy, The Fireman, Experiment?, Woodsman, Laura, Naido, Cooper, Mr. C, Lucy, 29:00 number 6 29:40 TP Andy, Hawk, Bobby, Frank, Naido 31:00 TP Naido, Andy, Lucy, Chad, +Drunk 33:43 TP Freddie, James 43:26 TP Sarah, +Trucker (@Elk's Point Bar #9), 47:48 face, Experiment?, +Bartender 49:19 Rh +Megan, +Sophie mention Paula, Tina, Billy 52:41 Rh MC, +Lissie 54:25 Rh credits xxx BOB here somewhere? ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.15 1:41 TP (woods & mountains) 2:02 TP Nadine, Big Ed 5:30 RR Big Ed, Norma, Walter, Shelly 10:42 Dut Mr. C, woodsman, +Jumping Man, +Bosomy Woman (the Dutchman's) (number 8 on Jeffries' door) 17:22 Dut Mr. C, Jeffries' apparatus ("who is Judy?") (the Dutchman's) 21:18 Dut Mr. C, Richard (text "Las Vegas?") 24:08 TP +Cyril Pons, Gersten, Steven 30:05 TP Cyril, Carl (Fat Trout Trailer Park) 30:50 Rh MC, James, Freddie, Renee, +Chuck, +Skipper 33:18 LV Headley, Wilson 34:00 LV Todd, Roger, Chantal 34:55 TP Drunk, Chad, Freddie, Hawk, Bobby, James, Naido (jail) 36:35 LV Hutch, Chantal 37:54 LV Cooper, Janey-E, Sonny Jim 41:55 TP Log Lady, Hawk 45:39 TP Frank, Bobby, Lucy, Andy, Hawk 47:40 ? Audrey, Charlie 50:30 Rh +The Veils, +Ruby 53:22 Rh credits 54:57 Lynch/Frost Productions somewhere: Albert ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.16 1:42 ? Mr. C, Richard 5:02 ? Mr. C, Richard, Jerry (":-) ALL." @ 9:29) 9:50 LV Hutch, Chantal, Headley, Wilson 12:40 LV Cooper, Janey-E, Sonny Jim, Bushnell 13:40 LV Cooper, Janey-E, Sonny Jim, Bushnell, BMitchum, RMitchum, Candie, Sandie, Mandie 17:56 LV Hutch, Chantal, +Polish Accountant, BMitchum, RMitchum, Candie, Sandie, Mandie 24:25 LV Cooper, Gerard (owl ring, seed), Sonny Jim, Janey-E, Bushnell, +Female Doctor 29:12 LV Cooper, Bushnell, BMitchum, RMitchum, Candie, Sandie, Mandie 30:18 LV Cooper, Janey-E, Sonny Jim, Headley 31:33 SD Diane (coordinates: 48551420117163956 34:45 SD Cole, Tammy, Albert, Diane ("I'm in the sheriff's station", "I'm not me") 42:10 ? Diane, Gerard (seed) 43:26 SM Cooper, Janey-E, Sonny Jim, Mitchums (Silver Mustang Casino) 47:05 LV Cooper, Mitchums, Candies 48:38 Rh MC, +Edward Louis Severson (Eddie Vedder) 50:53 Rh Audrey, Charlie, +Throwing Man, +Man Hit with Bottle (Monique mentioned) 56:12 Rh credits 57:36 Lynch/Frost Productions somewhere: Phil ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.17 1:?? 5?:?? ?? credits 5?:?? Lynch/Frost Productions ______________________________________________________________________ EPISODE 3.18 1:?? 5?:?? ?? credits 5?:?? Lynch/Frost Productions ______________________________________________________________________ 

The period following the end of the Liberation of Brazil was one of good feelings and America basking in its own glory.
The Progressive Era that was ushered in by the election of Samuel Clemens back in 1896 continued well into the 1900’s. President Kimball continued his administration well into a third term, before leaving office in 1904, to be replaced by another Labor Party president, Quinten Allen (Labor, New York). His administration was defined by his focus on the destruction of the so-called “political machines”, breaking up several large trusts, and cracking down on the dismal conditions in urban industrial workplaces, continuing the anti-corruption and pro-union efforts of the Clemens and Kimball administrations.
However, despite the progress made in advancing the strength of unions, cracking down on corruption in the federal government, Allen would not win reelection. Much of it had to do with his infamous extramarital affairs, but it also had to do with the hijinks of Congressman Ned Kelly (Labor, Illawarra) in Australia. A Labor Party extremist notorious for attempting to shift the party further to the far left, the Congressman from the state of Illawarra ended up being arrested in 1905 for a bizarre scandal involving collusion with a small group of communist bandits in the southeastern Australian bush. News of this was spread by opposition newspapers across the USAO, and the Labor Party would require a decade to break free from the stigma of “attempting to institute godless communism across our righteous Union”.
As sudden as this sounds, this was actually the flashpoint punctuating a long-standing struggle within the Labor Party. The struggle pitted the civic nationalist, social democratic (as in, economic social justice within a capitalistic framework) faction, against an internationalist, revolutionary socialist faction which sought to turn the former spirit of Manifest Destiny into a worldwide crusade to liberate the proletariat. Kimball had managed to briefly bring these two factions together for 1896, while sidelining the most extreme militants. However, shortly after his first election, this alliance began to fall apart very quickly, boiling over into brawls in the National Acropolis, culminating in an event even worse than the Kelly Affair. On May 28th 1907, Senator Andrew Takahashi (Labor, New Texas) brought his gun to the National Acropolis and attempted to shoot moderate Labor senator, Edward Brenner (Labor, New Texas). Takahashi’s assassination attempt failed, and he was dogpiled by everyone in the chamber, as Senator Roberto Gutierrez (Conservative, South Peru) wrestled the revolver from Takahashi’s hand. The fact that Senators from across the political spectrum came to Brenner’s aid in that moment was satirically seized upon by satirists as “the first Congressional consensus in four years”. The aftermath of the Kelly Affair, the brawls in Congress, and the Brenner assassination attempt cost Labor a victory in the 1908 Presidential Election, and the far-left faction broke off from the Labor Party completely, to form the American Workingman’s Party – the farthest-left political party in USAO thus far.
Anyway, in 1908, the Liberal Party succeeded in getting their first president in the White House, Wilbur H. Porter (Liberal, New South Wales). A representative born and raised in an upper-middle-class Buenos Aires neighborhood, he was the first British Argentinian president of the USAO, and his faction of the Liberals managed to win over the more centrist Labor voters left disillusioned post-Kelly Affair, while also out-lefting the more conservative members of the Liberals. He respected the Labor Party’s fervor for social justice, but felt they were getting too extreme in some regards and believed their goals could be achieved through other means.
Despite defeating Allen in the 1908 election, he and his faction of the Liberals in Congress formed a coalition with the defeated Labor Party, to push for a resolution to the “Amazon Question”.
Since the 1880’s, the Amazon Territory knew the horrors of logging camps, gold mines and rubber plantations worked by enslaved indigenous peoples. Entire towns were run by companies like Firestone, who regularly bribed the territorial government. And after the expansion of the Amazon Territory in 1901, you had large forces of armed mercenaries keeping these slaves in line. These mercenaries were mostly former soldiers of the Imperial Brazilian Army, who didn’t even bother hiding their distinctive tattoos; ironically, many were former IBA officers descended from Confederate soldiers. The mercenary armies would occasionally wage war against each other over territory, limbs and digits were amputated every day, and sexual assault was an instrument of terror.
The entirety of the Labor Party, along with the Porter Faction of the Liberals, and a surprisingly large two-thirds of the National Party, came together in Congress to push for the Amazon Territory to be abolished and replaced with a new “Amazon Federal District”. Opposing them were the Conservatives and the faction of the Liberals led by Theodore Shepherd (Liberal, Pennsylvania – Porter’s opponent in the 1908 Liberal Primary), and the remainder of the National Party. The Whigs, who represented the small states of the Caribbean and Central America, abstained from voting. The Whigs objected to what they felt was an over-reach of federal power, while at the same time sympathizing with the intentions of the Labor-Liberal coalition.
In the end, the Labor-Liberal coalition was successful in passing the Amazon Preservation Act of 1910, creating the Amazon Federal District. A federally-deputized paramilitary known as the Amazon Ranger Corps was formed to shut down the logging camps, mines and plantations, which led to pitched battles between these federal troops and the mercenaries. Backed by desperate rubber, gold and lumber barons, mercs under the command of Confederato Nataneal Whitaker (a former IBA colonel) attempted to wipe out the ARC garrison in Manaus, as part of a larger effort to establish a secessionist “Free State of the Amazon”. This insane plan ended in failure, as Nataneal’s troops were defeated and forced to retreat back into the rainforest to be pursued by the Ranger Corps, and the conspiracy’s backers were arrested. The “Manaus Incident” only convinced Congress to tighten the screws on their proposed regulations on economic activity in the AFD. Said regulations would declare huge swathes of the Amazon to be federally-protected nature preserves, and would limit the number of trees that could be cut down. Additionally, the AFD’s labor regulators would regularly inspect the rubber plantations and gold for incidences of abuse or exploitation, and ensure that the workers were compensated for their labor and that extraction and cultivation techniques remain sustainable. Other than that, the AFD would pretty much be OTL DC, only writ large and with more jungle. Make of that what you will. And in addition to preventing abuse of the locals, the Amazon Rangers would be responsible for search and rescue, tracking down poachers, and enforcing general law and order in the Amazon, though major cities like Manaus and Belem would retain their own police forces.
The AFD was only the most radical of the USAO’s national parks, however. President Felix Strong created the first national park, Yellowstone National Park, in 1875. Avid nature-lover Aaron Kimball signed into existence national parks in Northern California’s Redwood Forest and Yosemite Valley, Entre Rios’ Iguazú Falls, Colorado’s Grand Canyon, the Alaska Territory’s Denali, East Florida’s Everglades, Mato Grosso’s Chapada dos Guimarães and the Galapagos Islands. Under the Allen and Porter administrations, Tasmania’s Great Barrier Reef, Deseret’s Zion Valley, Alta Colombia’s Ciudad Perdida, South Peru’s Machu Picchu and Nazca Lines, Yucatan’s Chichen Itza and the ancient Inca roads of the Andes, were added to the federal government’s protected natural wonders and archeological heritage sites.
Throughout the early 1900’s, the Caribbean states began coming into their own. By 1910, Port-Au-Prince was the most advanced city in the Caribbean. Rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in 1892 with the latest in seismically-resistant structures and electrical infrastructure, the capital of Haiti received a flood of investment and was modernized, as was the rest of the state. As part of the electrification program begun under the administration of Haiti’s greatest governor, Jean Bolous (Liberal, Haiti), the island’s first telephone lines and power plants were built, and the economy of the island boomed with the increased demand for citrus fruits in North American cities. Additionally, the island began building up a strong manufacturing base in the eastern part of the state (“Spanish Haiti”) though widespread corruption would lead to child labor going on longer than in many other parts of the USAO.
Elsewhere, over in the Lesser Antilles, you had Trinidad & Tobago undergoing the fastest rate of industrialization in the whole of the West Indies, with its oil, asphalt and natural gas fields and refineries expanding rapidly amid the pristine Caribbean jungle. Close behind Trinidad was Jamaica, with its more diverse mixed economy which really came into its own during the Progressive Era; a large garment sector, agriculture, refining of petroleum products from Trinidad and Gran Colombia, bauxite, gypsum, iron and alumina mining, a friendly tourism industry, and the Caribbean’s premier insurance and financial services, all allowed for Kingston proper and Jamaica as a whole to flourish in the early 1900’s, rivalling the growth and commercialization of the ascending Port-Au-Prince. Fruit, coffee, iron, bauxite, sugar and fishing in the other island states kept their economies afloat, as did tourism from middle and upper-class folks hailing from the rest of the USAO, as well as Europe.
Politically, the Lesser Antilles were (and, today, still are) dominated by the Whig Party. The Whigs are a right-of-center conservative political movement which stresses fiscal responsibility and social moralism, a very “quaint” party preoccupied with limited spending, manners, state autonomy and local politics. They promoted the modernization of the islands’ infrastructure, the expansion of education, and the prohibition of alcohol. That last one would become the impetus for the “Wild West Indies”, a very long period of bootlegging and moonshining, equal parts OTL Prohibition, Wild West and Golden Age of Piracy. Though Whig politicians had some limited success in Central America, Polynesia and Australia, after a while, the National Whig Convention stopped seriously trying to expand their influence beyond the Caribbean.
A little further to the north, in Dixie, the Reconstruction Era was in a way still ongoing. Though now, only a few Military Districts remained. West Florida, Arkansaw and Louisiana. In 1904, West Florida and Louisiana experienced a major revolt by Copperheads and Bloody Shirts. The situation never got worse than West Florida and Louisiana. In West Florida, the capital of Mobile was occupied by the “Confederate State of West Florida” and loyalist citizens (black and white alike) were forced to arm themselves and build barricades as federal troops put down the uprising. And in Louisiana, roving gangs of white supremacists in New Orleans staged a failed ethnic cleansing attempt against its black population. There were also sporadic insurgent attacks in Louisiana, Arkansaw, Georgia, East Florida, South Carolina and Oklahoma. One of President Kimball’s last actions was sending federal troops into the Old South to quickly suppress the racist uprisings, though the role of National Guard units, law enforcement, local militias and armed civilians should not be discounted. Bloody Shirts were undersupplied, outnumbered and most ended up surrendering upon encountering armed resistance.
This would be the “last hurrah” of neo-Confederate sentiment. The rebellion was crushed by federal troops and ragtag militias, received very little public support, and actually extended the date for which West Florida and Louisiana would be readmitted into the Union, from 1906 to 1930. Oklahoma, Georgia and Arkansaw, for not going entirely under rebel control, were readmitted on time in 1906.
With the exception of the 1904 Rebellion, Dixie had come a long way. Aside from a few crazy people, the Confederate surrender at Nuevo Paz was considered the best thing to ever happen to the “Old South” (as Dixie is also known). The process of redistributing land to former slaves and educating both freedmen and poor whites had the effect of economically empowering blacks and mitigating (if not eliminating) much of the racial animus one would have otherwise associated with the region. The extremists were marginalized, and so by the time the 1904 Rebellion rolled around, the insurgents who had counted on the “white man awakening and rising up against federal tyranny”, found out the hard way how wrong they were in their assumptions. There was no “white awakening”. The masses of the Old South rejected their cause. Violently, in fact.
Further to the north, in New York, the city’s now-famous skyline was coming along just fine. New bridges were being built. Newfangled motorcars fresh off the assembly lines had begun to quickly replace the horse and buggy on the city streets. The New York Subway System was opened in 1905. And the world’s tallest all-metal structure was built in 1906 on Coney Island. Costing nearly $1,500,000, the Globe Tower is an eleven-story, 700-foot-tall structure, containing restaurants (one of which rotates), an observatory, a United States Weather Observation Bureau and wireless telegraph station, a vaudeville theater, the world’s largest ballroom, bowling alley, a cinema, roller skating rink, casinos, 50,000-room hotel, 5,000-seat hippodrome, and four large circus rings, where PT Barnum’s famous troupe put on a show for the Globe Tower’s opening day. And the whole thing was fully electrified.
Meanwhile, out in the North American West, the suffragist movement was gaining steam. The movement had already swept Australasia. The states and territories of the former republics of Australia and New Zealand gave their women the right to vote and run for office just prior to joining the US, and this equality was grandfathered in when they became new American states. The presence of Australasian suffragists emboldened suffragists across the USAO, with their most dynamic successes being made in the Rockies, beginning with Auraria in 1890, where the frontier economy actually created the circumstances for strong and empowered women to emerge as major players in their communities. The movement also reached the states of the Canadian prairies, and then down into Mesoamerica by the late 1890’s. Congress finally gave women the right to vote via a 1910 constitutional amendment, which was greeted by a suffragist demonstration in Liberty City, DC. Elements of the Conservative, Labor, Whig and National parties resisted the move, for different reasons.
Speaking of Australia, about a decade after the political union with the United States, things were getting interesting. The people of Australia still thought of themselves as “Australian”, but also part of a larger nation of which they were proud to be members. Increasingly, immigrants from the New World crossed over the Pacific to Australasia. Many were “Yankees” from North America, though there were also plenty of Hispanics who made the journey over, looking for opportunity. The federal government encouraged this, as well as immigration of Australians (white and Aboriginal alike) to the New World, in order to encourage a sense of common nationhood, with similar exchanges taking place in the Philippines, New Zealand and Polynesia. However, the Aboriginal community (which is much larger in this timeline because a dead Indian sailor washed up on the Australian shore around 45 BCE) was split on whether or not they wanted to be part of the USAO. They were already split on the Australian republic. During the Australian Revolution, they formed an alliance with the white settlers against the British. The hatchets which were buried resurfaced after independence, though the Aboriginals were unable to really put up a united front – not in the Australian Congress, nor in the form of armed militancy - due to tribal politics getting in the way. However, small numbers of Aboriginal separatists attempted to resist the US government in this time period, to very little success.
The Russian Imperium gifted the Statue of Brotherhood to the United States in 1902. The statue was placed at Middle Head, at the mouth of Sydney Harbor in the State of Illawarra. Dubbed by the newspapers of the time as “Lady Liberty’s Brother”, the statue stands about as tall as the Statue of Liberty, but it depicts the Roman citizen-soldier, Cincinnatus, holding a Fasces (rods bound together around an axe - a symbol of republican brotherhood and strength of unity) in his right hand, while leaning on a plough with his left, to symbolize peace and prosperity.
All across the Pacific, the US was integrating its new island states and territories. Submarine cables were laid between the various archipelagos, connecting them to each other and to the Australian and American landmasses, as well as to the Philippines, China and Japan. Infrastructure projects on the islands put the natives to work and put energy into the economies of the island states. Investments in education worked to bring the locals into the 20th century, though this sparked plenty of conflicts with more conservative elements of Polynesian society. Given the vast expanses of the United States, it was one of the first nations to fully embrace commercial air travel. Airship flights to the Pacific states and territories boomed, as did airplane flights, though these would not truly take off (excuse the pun) until the 1920’s.
The USAO dominated all of Polynesia, save for the independent kingdoms of Tonga and Samoa. However, the first step towards turning the Pacific Ocean into “an American Lake” began in 1907. In that year, the Samoa Reform Party won the position of Prime Minister, after winning half of the Samoan legislature three years previous. Established by a coalition of native Samoan Unionists and American expatriates (mostly missionaries and businessmen), this was the successor to the banned Samoan Unionist Party, which was outlawed in 1888 by the Samoan monarchy. An attempt by the Samoan king’s monarchist supporters to regain control of the legislature and prevent an inevitable annexation into the USAO resulted in a small civil war. Samoan nationalists targeted anyone they could find who was not ethnic Samoan (Americans, Chinese, Japanese), as well as ethnic Samoans who desired political union with the USAO. It got crazy, and after fervent debate in Congress (overshadowed by the Amazon Question), it led to United States Marines invading two years later, in 1909. King Tanumafili I was forced to abdicate after a referendum in 1910, establishing the Republic of Samoa. The republic voted for annexation in late 1911, though the Samoan nationalists would not go quietly, continuing the fight for about eight years. The impact of Samoa’s annexation would make things…interesting, in Tonga.
Over in Brazil, most of the region was still under US military occupation to one degree or another. Though increasingly, local recruits began to outnumber the outsiders, and the last remnants of the IBA surrendered in September of 1908. That being the case, a new rebellion began to spring up. In spite of all that, however, the Italian Empire gifted the United States a statue of their own, the Statue of Equality, which was placed in Rio de Janeiro in 1906. More similar in design to her sister up north, this 151-foot-tall statue was carefully placed atop Mount Corcovado (the OTL location of the Christ the Redeemer statue), holding up a set of huge scales, with a sword wresting against her thigh. The “Lady of Rio” wears a toga, Phrygian cap, laurels, and a blindfold over her eyes.
And finally, a little to the south, a new state was carved out along the borders of Chile and New South Wales. For over thirty years, low-intensity guerilla war raged between loggers and the indigenous Mapuche people in the Araucanía region of Patagonia. Realizing that they couldn’t hope to fight their way to independence, Mapuche activists became a persistent presence in Liberty City, arguing and lobbying in favor of a new state for the Mapuche. Their efforts ultimately bore fruit in 1910, when the State of Araucanía was admitted into the union.
But for all the USAO’s good fortunes, big trouble was on the horizon in the Old World. More on that in the next chapter.

So, you wanna go to SHOT show? You think it's all fun and games? Get to play with guns? See Jesse James and R. Lee Ermey? SHOT show is the annual pilgrimage of the unwashed masses to Las Vegas to rub elbows with youtube celebrities, bloggers and overseas businessmen copying US made equipment and share infectious disease.
If you love guns, gambling and gonorrhea - SHOT show is for you! It is not my typical idea of a good time. I am not a big fan of Las Vegas.
However: I do attend for a few reasons. First, I do enjoy travel and I'm platinum on AA so I can usually score an upgrade. Second, industry people are in there that I do hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars with business with so it's nice to put a face with the name and see what deals are out there. SHOT for me has been a bust for the past few years. Being a value guy, I want to buy at $1000 and sell at $3000 and as of recently the gun business is more like buy for $1 and sell for $1.10 if you get what I mean.
We used to do business at SHOT and now it's just checking in on foursquare, instagram and rubbing elbows with bloggers and the like. I want to make money, not spend money so this is very annoying to me.
Anyways, onto the play by play.
Monday, January 16th. One day before SHOT show.
http://imgur.com/a/HoFUm
Every time I've been rejected by a woman, I move $1 from checking into savings and I take the bankroll down to the Wynn for some play. Lets do this.
The TSA line is a shitshow thanks to, well TSA.
I slog my way to the lounge, as shitty as it is to wait for my winged chariot to DFW. I have gone from being in an abusive relationship with Delta to being in an abusive relationship with AA. Although if you really want to experience the battered spouse feeling, UA is a few gates over. This trip's light reading is trying to finish "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. Such a good book as well as "Outliers" if you want a good read.
I walk up to the podium to find out that my upgrades do not clear, even as an AA Plat thanks to the addition of a FOURTH elite tier. Goddamn fucking W. Doug Parker. Asshole. I gate check my bags to make life easier for me and the rest of the folks. The gate agent calls concierge key and executive platinum passengers. I look down and realize I'm wearing a suit and board with the executive platinum folks because I do not care and I look the part. If you walk with a purpose and are dressed reasonably well, you fit the profile. I settle into my window seat and try to finish outliers. I pass out before takeoff and I'm awoken by the dulcet tones of the flight attendants preparing for landing. We land at Dallas a few minutes early and I hightail it to the Centurion for a quick bite to eat. I grab a plate and help myself to some of the excellent brisket, pecan encrusted chicken and some roasted jumbo asparagus. Yes, my pee is going to smell funny. No, I do not care. The lounge is packed. The bar is full and I grab a quick single malt as I have my meal since American's not going to feed me. They begin boarding to Mccarran as I walk out of the lounge. No time for a stop in the spa on this trip. I make it to the gate just as the call group 2 boarding.
I bypass the main line and walk up through the priority line giving no heed to the people that have been waiting there before me as I hold up my paper boarding pass with PLATINUM to the gate agent. I board and take my usual seat - the exit row without the seat in front of it. I'm aghast to see this sight.
http://imgur.com/a/dygil
The savages. Literally. The savages.
I put my loathing away for a moment and look down at the exit row. I have the window. The aisle is a large middle aged man and in the middle is what I believe to be a formecurrent linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys wearing a 52 regular sports jacket. He's not a fat guy in a little coat, he's a big fucking hulk of a man stuffed in an exit row seat that is already an inch narrower due to the tray table. I grimace as I take my seat and give him the manly nod. He does not look happy about the fact that his knees are in the seat in front and I'm stretched out like a Cheshire cat in front of a fireplace on a cold January afternoon.
The boarding door closes for an on time departure and Stephanie the FA takes her seat. He leans over and asks if he can take the empty row across the aisle and she takes one look at the three of us and gives him the nod. I bail out to give him a path of egress and suddenly the trip to Las Vegas has just become way more comfortable. I finish The Tipping Point somewhere over west texas, so I pop a xanax and dr pepper and zone out for the rest of the ride. I awake to feel one of the FA's jostling me awake telling me to put my seat up. I do so and we have a ride so smooth that not even the Delta guy behind me can complain about light chop. We catch the TYSSN4 arrival and the next thing I know it the Messier Dowty landing gear of the A321 touch the paint at Mccarran for a smooth rollout down 25L.
My phone battery is approaching grim death since this seat has no power plugs and I find bartman383 has sent me a message. He has been enjoying LV with his wife and their due to bad weather they are in the city of sin for a few extra nights. He invites me to dinner. I'm still pretty full from DFW and I tell him I'll be over there once I get my bags and the car and I'll see him when I see him. He gives me the info for the hotel as we pull up to the gate.
First stop: Centurion lounge. AA's app tells me bags being unloaded. I grab a quick bite of fried chicken and brussels sprouts since they are good for you and a chocolate pudding. The brisket and pecan encrusted chicken from DFW still has me full but I'm well aware of the speed of a union baggage handlers nowadays and who doesn't like chocolate pudding? Terrorists. That's who. Want to know how to screen for terrorists TSA? Set up a table of free chocolate pudding at the airport. The people who don't take any are members of ISIS. It's just that simple.
I grab my bag and hoof it to Hertz. I'm an idiot and I am an hour late for my pickup. Oops. Will an Audi A3 suffice? I sigh and I accept my Teutonic quattro chariot. I do a burnout in the parking garage and hightail it to the exit. I flash my #1 card and my ID and the gatekeeper gives me the go ahead. I get onto the the strip and traffic is awful. I'm going to be late for dinner. I make a left onto Russell Road and hightail it up the 15. I manage to get the car up to 100 as I pass the Luxor. My phone is dead so I can't message Bart about being late. Fuck. The exit approaches quickly as I put the 4 wheel disk brakes to work and sling the car around and head south on Las Vegas Bl. I accidentally turn into the Bellagio and I'm now running even more late. Fuck. Eventually, I get the car into the garage at the Cosmopolitan and head upstairs. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant but I head up to the third floor where all the restaurants are and I see this sign that's reminiscent of my days in retail.
It says RESTAURANT - LOUNGE - PAWN SHOP.
I laugh. I walk in. It's literally a pawnshop. I look around puzzled.
FC: Is this a restaurant?
Bald Headed Guy: Yes, through that door.
He points towards a door. I walk in to find a bustling restaurant, lounge via the entrance of pawnshop. This is insane. I pass a mirror and check myself out. I adjust my tie, after all it is YSL and the ladies LOVE YSL. Remember that. I find the hostess and inform her I will be joining some friends for dinner. They probably do not have me on the reservation though but I turn on the charm and she smiles and says no problem at all. She asks if my tie is from Hermes. I say no, I'm a YSL guy. She looks impressed as I tell her I'll make a quick lap of the room to see if they're there and surprise them. She gives me a nod and tells me to go right ahead. Still got it.
I spot bart and his wife who I can only remember vaguely from gunnitlive after party video and I pull up a chair. Bart is surprised to see I made it and they are in the middle of dinner. They offer to ply me with food and beverage but I decline as I'm driving so no booze for me and no food since I am stuffed from Dallas. We chat about life and liberty over libations. Bart's wife thinks I am hysterical. She's had a few drinks and they are already into their main courses. The brussels sprouts are way too salty and we have to send it back. No bueno.
Bart invites me up to his suite on the top floor of the hotel where we are to meet Brogelicious later in the evening. I say, when in rome......we head to the top floor of the hotel tower where Bart shows me his view from the balcony and cracks open the mini bar for some more libations. He asks if I want a drink and I say I better not. I'm driving.
Not 30 seconds after arriving, brogel shows up. Bart's wife hugs brogel. She's infatuated with him. We start shooting the shit and bart opens up the minibar and tells us to take anything we want, it's on the hotel. I laugh and I look outside as bart opens his yeti 110 for some silver bullets. Apparently he is so baller the hotel will send up a yeti 110 filled with beer to make him happy. His wife is apparently such a baller. I ball on a budget. They just ball. Hahaha.
We shoot the shit some more about guns, gun stuff and people on the reddit for a while. I get a little thirsty and I crack open bart's cooler. I ask him how long the stuff in the cooler is supposed to last and he says until Wednesday.
I look down and I am agape at what I see.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.
I mentally prepared my butthole and I decided to help myself to a coors light against my wishes but Bart, Bart's wife and Brogel are all drinking so I let peer pressure take hold as I cracked open a beer with them. We head out to the balcony to smoke some cuban cigars together as bart's wife takes a photo of all of us. We all look like hell. Haha.
As bart downs his second beer, he asks me a question.
Bart: ever go hunting?
Me: Ducks a little bit but not much
Bart: ever want to hunt some deadly game?
Me: Like on african safari?
Bart: No, I mean like.........man.
Me: Hahahahhahaaha you're just fucking with me. Hahahahahhaa. That's really funny.
Bart: No really, the concierge here at this hotel will set it up for us. It's amazing. I remember my first hunt......
Brogel starts laughing and I realize they've been doing a bit. I've been had.
We bullshit about SHOT and Barrett's shotguns and other things and next thing I know, it's late but bart hands me a mixed drink. I sip it a bit and I was in the middle of a tirade complaining about my customers. Suddenly, there was a terrible roar all around us, and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the city, and a voice was screaming: Holy Jesus. What are these goddamn animals? Nobody seems to understand what I'm talking about. It's cold on the balcony. Our cigars are done. We head indoors. No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastards will see them soon enough.
Back indoors I realize Brussels sprouts and coors light is a bad choice. Seriously no bueno. I excuse myself to the bathroom and drain the vein. The asparagus funny smelling pee and the side effects of beer and brussels sprouts is a noxious combination that a defense contractor should weaponize it. It's pretty bad and not even cuban tobbaco can mask the smell.
I sit back down and continue to talk about guns and stuff with bart and the gang and bart asks who ruined the bathroom. I apologize as he sprays a bunch of febreze around and opens the balcony. I apolgize to brogel. He is not accepting my apology. (sorry :( )
Nearly 11, it's about time to pull chocks and mosey on down the dusty trail. I don't want to prompt an evacuation of the hotel due to noxious odors so I decide to leave and bart seems to be kinda mad that I've ripped ass and polluted the sanctuary of his hotel. Half a coors light and brussels sprouts are no bueno in my book now. Bart decides to party hard with his wife and I offer brogel a ride home. He seems skeptical to share a confined space with me after I have just destroyed bart's hotel room. The car has 4 windows and the Uber will cost him a few bucks he can put towards ammo. He relents as we head down to the garage to find my car. Thankfully we find it quickly and I manage to contain the weapons of ass destruction for the 16 minute ride off strip to casa de brogel.
He says I'm not that bad a dude and I agree as I hightail it to my hotel. I cannot find my hotel reservations so I call my travel agent to see.
Apparently the Wynn was not in my travel budget this year. I have come to find out I have been booked at Circus Circus, much to my chagrin. How bad could it be? I've stayed at the Wynn. I've stayed at Encore. I've stayed at the hotel that Elisabeth Shue's character got raped in in Leaving Las Vegas - but Circus Circus? Did I mention that I HATE CLOWNS? I HATE CLOWNS. Fuck.
I pull into the parking garage and the check in line resembles something straight out of the TSA line at Mccarran. 45 minutes to check in. The clerk is friendly and says he's also from Louisiana which is neat. He asks if I've stayed there before and I, being a connoisseur of old vegas history I decide to make a joke and I tell him the last time I was there, Jay Sarno owned the place. He got a laugh. I head up to my room and unpack. The lobby is clean as an old vegas casino can be, the room is clean and there's no way to plug anything in since the hotel predates personal electronic devices. I plug my phone into my external battery and collapse on the bed. I message Bart and chugbleach instead of falling asleep about show tomorrow and I offer to pick bart up early since there is no shuttle from the cosmo.
Tuesday, November 16th SHOT Show Day One
I awoke several hours later in a daze......the clock said 10AM. The show opened at 8:30. Fuck me to tears. I hurry up and get dressed and down to the sands convention center. The parking lot is FULL. The entire complex is a mess. When my man Steve Wynn built his joint he didn't build enough parking. So people would park at the Venetian and now FUCKING NOBODY CAN GET A PARKING SPACE. Holy shit. I eventually say fuck it and park over at the Wynn and walk over to the Sands. I meet up with a few of my regular suppliers and I see nothing interesting at all. Bart went to bed at 6AM after spending all night partying with his wife over at the palazzo. I joke and say that he just should have stayed there. Bart is amazed at the size of the show and we have lunch at the most disgusting place in las vegas - the convention center bistro snack bar. Bart is a wise man as he grabs a powerade and a fruit cup. I decide to try an "italian beef" and a fruit cup instead of fries to stay semi health conscious. The "italian beef" is the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten. It is flat out depressing. They give me fries with it and I demand a fruit cup. The sassy black woman working the stand asks me "DID YOU ASK FOR FRUIT? CAUSE RIGHT HERE SAYS FRIES" and I channel my inner Louis CK from the "this is how I talk" bit from SNL as I shoot back "WHY YOU FRONTIN ON ME I ASKED FOR FRUIT AND YOUR ASS BETTER BACK UP AND GET ME SOME FRUIT" so she goes back and gets me some fruit.
The "italian beef", my fruit cup, bart's fruit cup and powerade comes to $81. My platinum amex comes out and I treat bart to "lunch". We bullshit about guns and stuff in the Springfield booth as we wait at the world's worst concession stand. We eat and Bart is so hungover that he thinks he is in need of physical therapy and a wheelchair. There is no way he is going to party tonight before his trip home. Or so I think. Haha.
I meander around the show a bit more and I find this, the most USELESS PRODUCT OF 2017. It's made by a company called radetec.
http://imgur.com/a/GOiCB
It's a shot counter. For your gun.
A digital odometer, for your gun.
The only person that would buy this is the guy like my dad that kept a spiral bound notebook in his car where he documented how many miles he traveled per tank, gallons dispensed, PRICE, service station and whether they had a different price for cash/charge, oil consumption, tire rotations, alignments, all services - scheduled or otherwise, and a running odometer. Does anyone know the gun owner who asks for a round count when they are looking at a used gun? The question I always shoot back is "do you want to be lied at a little or do you want to be lied at a lot?" because that's what you're asking for when you ask for round count.
UNLESS YOU BUY THIS PRODUCT!
I roll my eyes so far back into my head that I nearly lose my balance. This is idiotic. I cannot fathom anyone willing to buy this. What a waste of perfectly good exhibition space.
Bart heads back to his hotel after visiting SHOT show for a few hours, not getting any swag and to get an IV of fluids since he looked like he was rapidly approaching grim death.
I wrap up visiting prime vendors and checking out the new products, or lack thereof because I have something on the schedule. At 4:30 there's a suicide prevention for retailers seminar hosted by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. As many of you know this is an issue that is important to me and perhaps we as retailers should be doing more. The keynote was from their chief medical director talking about the accessibility of firearms and the mindset of the "typical" suicide. Mostly men. If you are a veteran you are at a significantly larger risk. The information was presented very not surprisingly and one of the things discussed was that we only spend around 21M a year on suicide prevention.
A few take away facts from the keynote:
When suicide barriers are put up on a bridge, suicide rates for the entire area drop. The key to preventing suicide is getting people to talk about their problems. Once you can get someone out of that mindset, they are statistically less likely to do it and live productive lives afterwards. There are certain terms that they are trying to get away from - for instance, they are not saying "committed suicide" they are now saying "died by suicide" in order to bring awareness and tell it like it is.
One thing that really was interesting to me was my reading on the flight in from Dallas. In The Tipping Point, Gladwell discusses how things stay the same and suddenly they all change. One of the things that he discusses is in micronesia - where teen suicide was practically unheard of became an outright epidemic. One teenager did it, for reasons passing understanding to me as an outsider and then all the other kids realized that they too could escape their pain by hanging themselves as well and suddenly the suicide rates in micronesia became so high to where it became a public health issue. I wish I could show you all the article I wrote on TTAG about my friend's death but it has been lost in the cloud and I am unable to find the last draft I sent to print, but it echoes some of the problems we have with suicide and mental health in the firearm industry.
After the keynote, the good doctor opened the floor up for questions. Her keynote posed a lot of statistics but not a lot of answers. I am a detail oriented granular data guy and I did not get a solid grasp of the AFSP solutions posed, if any.
Several firearm dealers discussed the lack of a cohesive solution and the takeaway was they're trying to develop awareness for the suicide problem. Their goal is to lower suicide rates but how they get there is yet to be determined. I didn't like hearing that and the comments from the crowd reflected the lack of a "here's what you can do TODAY to help this problem" part of the initiative.
Going around the room, one dealer who used NICS said that if a customer was just flat out acting funny - he'd lie to the customer and say there was a delay with NICS even though there was an approval just to get them to not be able to have a gun for a few days. The crowd applauded this initiative, however I'm not sure lying to customers is the best way to run a business and treat them with respect. Another dealer brought up an interesting point. When someone comes in looking to buy a gun and they don't know what kind of gun they want, what caliber, and are generally clueless - they're either buying a gun to kill themselves with, OR perhaps they are a very uneducated prospective customer - and there is no clear way of finding out which is which.
The problems presented by the AFSP are real. The solutions aren't there though. Yet. Ideally I'd like to see some change to that. However, there's some problems.
I hung around and asked the good doctor and her staff some questions and I am in no way denigrating her life's work and her dedication to preventing suicide since she has dedicated her life's work to the issue, but the conversation went something like this.
Did you do any research on the accessibility of firearms from a retailer from the legal standpoint?
"No, we haven't"
Do you know how the NICS or state POC background systems work in regard to mental health holds, etc?
"No"
One of the problems that I foresee right off the bat is that you talked about how you are fighting time, and if you can get someone out of that suicide mindset - even for a few hours, you can get them into that higher survival bracket. If we apply a one size fits all solution to it like California and put a 10 day wait on everything with the goal of protecting someone from their own life, how do we balance that with the needs of the woman who has been hiding from her abusive spouse and needs a gun right away?
"That's a good question that I don't have an answer for."
Their initiative, I admire - the lack of solutions is a little off putting however. I tell the doc about how my friend's suicide has impacted me and she seems to be sympathetic to the situation as does her colleagues. I am given her cards and told to call the next time I'm in New York so we can get together and discuss things within the industry. I'll give them a buzz in a few weeks when I'm up there on business. On my way out of the hall, I run into Massad Ayoob. Nice guy. I've admired his work over the years. Bart invites myself and chugbleach to dinner, I can't reach Chug and even though I am beat I decide to hang out with Bart and Mrs Bart
Bart: What do you want to eat?
FC: Let's find a nice seafood restaurant and eat some red salmon, I feel a powerful lust for red salmon.
I begin vomiting.
God damn mescaline. Why the fuck can't they make it a little less pure?
We eventually head downstairs and order too much food. We are tired and not very hungry. Bart is still hungover and barely able to process food. His wife is grazing on all sorts of meat products. I am in awe of how they are both still upright after six nonstop nights of partying. I've only been here one day and I feel like I am about to die.
Dinner concludes with an awkward hug with bart's wife - I don't know how other men feel about wife hugs so I have just avoided the prospect entirely. Like flying through Denver on Frontier. Or flying on Frontier. Ever.
I drive over to the Wynn to set up my markers and the poker room is full. I draw a $2500 marker at the craps table and watch the game a bit. I have never played craps before in my life but the three people there seem to be having fun.
I look down at my phone and I realize a plane has landed. fluffy_butternut has landed in Las Vegas on business. I had lost a bet and offered to pick him up from the airport. I cash back in my chips against my casino credit and head back to my car. I cannot find my car. Fuck. I wander the wynn garage which is covered in construction debris. I eventually find it and haul ass to the airport. Now, I didn't know this but fluffy has the WORST SENSE OF DIRECTION AT ALL. Seriously. I have no idea how he even made it to the correct city. He lands and has to get his bag and stuff and I circle the airport. He lets me know he's at door 77 wherever the fuck that was. I drive into the pickup portion and I see no sign. He then says he's coming up a level, and I tell him that I'll be there shortly. I park the car and Metro PD starts yelling.
Metro: You can't park your car here.
FC: Why not? Is this not a reasonable place to park?
Metro: Reasonable? You're on a sidewalk! This is the sidewalk!
I give the man a $20 and tell him to keep it running as I wander Mccarran screaming FLUFFY! HERE FLUFFY! I message fluffy to let him know I am the car parked on the sidewalk. I instantly figure out who he is having never seen a photo of him and I throw his bags into the car as we head for his hotel. I haul ass out of the airport and get the A3 on the highway.
Now this was a superior machine. Thirty nine grand worth of gimmicks and high-priced special effects. The rear windows lit up with a touch like frogs in a dynamite pond. The dashboard was full of esoteric lights and dials and meters that I would never understand.
We check in at the Rio where the desk clerk is friendly and flirty. I express amazement there is no line. Fluffy checks in and we take his bags upstairs and he offers to buy me food for driving him to the airport. I decline. We head to the bar anyways. He orders two beers and we decide to call chug. He's staying out in Summerlin or something because his company is apparently run by cheapskates. He asks if we want to hang out and shoot the shit. I say sure and ask if he wants us to pick up food or anything from CVS or something since I have the car and I'm able to do anything I want. He asks for some toothpaste. No problem. I may be an asshole on the internet but I have a heart of gold. We get some toothpaste get to the hotel.
Arriving at the lobby, we have no idea where he is. It turns out he gave us the address for the hotel across the street. We laugh and go to that lobby and shoot the shit till 3AM much to the chagrin of the hotel clerk. Fluffy has some beers and we plan on dinner the next day. I drive fluffy back and arrive at the hotel at 4. Fuck me to tears.
Wednesday, January 18th. Day 2 of SHOT show.
Alarm goes off at 7:30 AM. I wash up, eat and get breakfast. In the garage by 8:15. Nice. I get some dillo dust and check out the new Sig 220 DA/SA and SAO legions. Daddy likey. I go to a competing firm and I piss of my state sales manager by telling him his newer designed triggers suck ass. He says the company tested them and they're the same in every way. I ask him why the triggers have two different part numbers in the catalog and how come they're not interchangeable and if that's really the case, how come there's X changes in the supposedly identical pistol parts that he's holding side by side. He gets mad at me and says I'm not an expert on their product and perhaps I should take his job since I'm so smart. I agree that I'm smart and I hold firm that if he didn't want me to complain about the shitty trigger, they should stop selling guns with shitty triggers. I am nearly kicked out of the booth.
I meet up with some of my wholesale reps and I'm mid convo when I see Itsgoodsoup and his friend walking around the show. I yell SOUP but he does not hear me. So I grab his friend and find him and I tell him we should get together at dinner with fluffy and chug. He agrees.
The show winds down, I get some business done and nothing much else. We break for a shitty gunnit live lite and I take a few questions from the crowd in fluffy's suite at the Rio. Dinner is at 8 and we arrive at the restaurant late to find soup and his friend sitting at one table and chug and his girlfriend sitting at another. Perhaps we should have gotten here a little earlier. Hahaha. So, fluffy said the place is really good and I order a few of the specialties of the house. Apparently according to yelp they do a kickass peking duck. Soon to be mrs chug is a vegan. But we can eat meat in front of her. I wonder how it's served and Soup's vancouver raised asian friend tells me that they normally carve it tableside. Our vegan says as long as there's no head she's cool. We're not sure if they can fulfill that request. So we order and food starts coming out and we tell tall tales of shot show BS and other stuff. Sure enough, the duck comes out with the head. No bueno. Haha. But I decide to treat us to vegan donuts at the vegan bakery across the street later. Seven courses later we are full. Vegan bakery closed. I am committed to getting her some vegan donuts though. We head to Fremont street to gamble. Fluffy wanders about and we try craps and we're not impressed. We hit some slots and eventually I hit the craps table where chug explains the game to me. We start betting on dice. And somehow we start winning. I find that the house allows you to take 10X behind the line. No idea what this means so I plop $5 on the pass line and the point hits 6. I drop $50 behind it and it hits. We go a few rounds and leave ahead. It's 2:30 AM. Fuck. I drive everyone back to their hotel. I get to sleep around 4.
Thursday, January 19th. Day 3 of SHOT show.
Wake up at 10AM feeling like crap. Debate whether to head straight to show and wander about. Fuck it. Went to halal guys for some halal. Delicious. Got vegan donuts. Dead drop them at the Palazzo lobby for chug and his girl. Show is a bust. Literally nothing exciting. Fluffy offers to buy me dinner. One of my customers who lives in Summerlin offers to take me to dinner. I pass on fluffy and he destroys the seafood buffet at the rio. I head to Sinatra at the Wynn for dinner with my customer. All good in the hood. Chug has been invited to the Glock dinneafter party and I'm not so we all go our separate ways. I call foghorn5950 and due to some weather, he's flying home early and our plans to hangout are fucked up unless I go tonight. I grab fluffy and we head to Whiskey Down. He orders a makers and I give him a funny look. I tell the waitress make it a bulleit. Everyone laughs. I talk shop with Jeremy also from TTAG and we shoot the shit over cigars and talk about useless products. Next thing we know, chug is out of the dinner and wandering the strip. We decide to meet up at the Linq. It takes us nearly 30 minutes to get out of Whiskey Down at MGM because the waitress was awful and messed up everyone's tab. It was a fucking disaster. To boot, MGM is now charging for parking.
FC: What a bunch of fucking jews
Fluff: You should just tailgate that lady in front of you out and screw them out of the $7
FC: I should
We pull behind her and watch as she gets flustered at the awful parking machine. Her nevada license plate says VETERAN. As the gate goes up we haul ass and screw MGM out of $7. I shout "THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE" out the window as we blow right by her up to the Linq. Through fluffy's awful navigation, we wind up at the loading dock for the Linq. Eventually we find chug and gf hanging at the penny slots. They are holding vegan donuts, which she is very appreciative of. Least I could do after showing her the head. Fluffy plays the House of Cards slot machine.
He stuck $100 in, played for 6 minutes and then got really mad and hit the cash out button and $80 was left after 5 minutes.
ITS EXACTLY LIKE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!
Chug's gf asks to play a special slot machine called kitty glitter. We ask and the linq does not offer it but Harrahs next door does. So we head over there and the slot tech finds the kitty glitter machine. Fluffy sticks a C note in there and tells her to play and have a blast. So she's banging away at the one armed bandit WHEN SUDDENLY I HEAR THE SOUND.
It's PUTTIN ON THE RITZ in shitty .wav file internal speaker format. Hahah. She's just hit the progressive jackpot on the penny KITTY GLITTER machine. THIS PLACE IS AWESOME! We cash out after some play and a good time was had by all. I dump off fluffy at the rio since it was very close and drive everyone else back. It's late, I'm tired and the Palace Station oyster bar is open 24 hours......I head over there and there's a 45 minute wait.
So, I pull out my backup bankroll and using everything chug and fluffy have taught me about craps I belly up to the $3 min table where they let you take 10x behind the line. I'm still learning and the table is slow so one of the boxmen start explaining the game to me.
Box: So if you place the 6 or the 9 or individual numbers you can bet those but you gotta pay a little juice on it like a commission
Me: Like when you buy the hook?
short pause
Box: Yeah! Exactly like that! You got this!
So I played a little and went up a bit and down a bit. As you do. Plunked $5 down on the pass line and took full odds and the point hit. This game is pretty cool! So I hung around and watched for about an hour and finally decided to eat my winnings. I take $5 off my stack and, drop it on the pass line and announce dealer bet - $5 to pass. It hits. The dealers love me.
Maybe Vegas isn't so bad after all.
http://imgur.com/a/LGhDj
I have the pan roast at the oyster bar. No line. It is DELICIOUS. I get back to the hotel at 5AM. I don't care when I wake up.
Friday, January 20th. Day 4 of SHOT show.
Wake up around noon feeling like crap. Go to show. Debate destroying milk cart with wheels with an ax borrowed from fire station. Decide against it. Gas up car and find myself out by palace station again. Played some craps, hit the buffet and went for an early sleep.
It's midnight. The neighbors in my the hotel are having sex. A LOT OF SEX. I can hear everything. I gently knock on the door. No answer. I knock slightly harder. No answer. I head back to my room and close the door just as I hear their door open. I zoom back out to find a puzzled middle aged stocky and perhaps sticky Latino man looking both ways.
I get in his line of sight.
Me: Hey. I'm next door. It sounds like you're having a lot of fun. I get it. I really do. In fact I haven't had sex since the bush administration so I'm gunning for you man I really am. But it's midnight and I have a 6am flight and a rental car to return. So trust me when I say I'm really happy for you but if you don't mind I really need to get some sleep tonight okay?
The awkward silence is deafening. He nods without saying a word and mouths okay. I give him a manly nod and thumbs up.
Me: thanks. I'd shake your hand or fist bump but well you know.....
I give him a peace sign as he goes back into his little pleasure palace and I turn to realize that I have just locked myself out of my room. I am wearing boxers, a tshirt and barefoot. I head downstairs to the lobby. The check in at the front desk resembles the TSA line at Mccarran. Normally I would not be this rude but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The line is 50 people deep. I walk past every person. Fuck your queue. I approach the desk where someone is helping a guest and I raise my right hand as if I were in a deposition to get them to stop. The staff and guest looks puzzled as the angry barefoot man clad in nothing but boxers and a "uzi does it" tshirt approaches the desk.
Me: excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt. I have an emergency. I'm up on 8 and my neighbors are having a lot of sex. I mean a LOT of sex.
(This is the same front desk clerk who actually checked me in Monday night by coincidence looks back at me very awkwardly and puzzled.)
Me: this isn't your regular sex. I'm talking this is your (I begin air humping the front desk and slapping the granite counter with my palm and grunting loudly) sex. You could hear the plan B packaging open.
At this point - the ENTIRE FRONT DESK STAFF HAS STOPPED CHECKING IN GUESTS. The people in line and are watching the show. The clerk is stunned. Speechless. Shock and awed. Crapped out and busted. The women are covering their children's eyes and ears. The men are wondering if this show requires a 2 drink minimum.
Me: now I get this is Vegas. Everyone wants a good time. It's midnight. My flight leaves at 6 which means I have to be up by 4. And this just isn't working. So I asked them to keep it down and I locked myself out of my room. So if you can make me another key or move me I'd appreciate it.
The clerk nods.
Clerk: of course. may I see your ID?
Years of ballet have prepared me for this day. I step back to make sure my genitals are still ensconced in my boxers as I pirouette and gesticulate wildly.
Me: DO I LOOK LIKE I HAVE ID?
The floor manager steps over and asks me to head down to the end of the desk where she will make me a key. I give her the room number and thank her after she offers to have security sent up to shutdown the best little whorehouse in Vegas. I tell her it may not be necessary. As I take my keys and walk away the people in line break out in raucous applause.
I take a bow and miraculously my boxer shorts don't rip. These people are my subjects and I have been crowned the the king of the three ring circus that is the circus circus lobby. Im offered a $1 tip from a kind soul but I decline.
My walk back to the hotel elevator bank is uneventful. So much so that I realize it is going too well. The other shoe, if I were wearing one felt as if it was about to drop. Suddenly a dumbass in a rascal scooter is heading toward me at flank speed as his head is turned to look at everyone BEHIND HIM. There's no way this will end well.
For you gentle readers joining us mid conversation - it's midnight and I need to be at the airport in 4.5 hours. I can just see it now. (Cue the harp noises)
Scene: Emergency room
Nurse: Allergic to anything? Me: NKDA Nurse: cause of injury? Me: what's the IC10 code for "run down by drunken buffoon on motorized wheelchair?"
I saw my life and confirmed upgraded first class seats home being given away by the Mccarran gate agent flash before my eyes and my catlike reflexes kicked in and I jumped to my left into the wall, mid 1960's Las Vegas union construction being the path of least resistance. Think "The Bodyguard" with Kevin Costner.
The buffoon barely realizes what happens. Children are amazed. "HEY MOM! Look! That guy just ran into a wall!"
Me: it was that OR GET RUN DOWN BY SOME JACKASS ON A GODDAMN SCOOTER GOING FULL SPEED DRIVING LIKE A....
I look down and a midwestern nuclear family with two children of formative age are waiting for the elevator. I change my last word.
Me: LUNATIC!
I look over to the parents.
Me: I'm really sorry. This is a family joint and I shouldn't have cursed the drunken scooter driver like that. Sorry kids.
Parent: no big deal. They've heard fucking worse.
I crack a smile at her word choice. Fucking worse. Yeah. That sounds like my evening.
After jumping into a wall, I'm now wide awake and unable to go back to sleep. I make the plane and push on time. The 737 comes to a stop short of the runway and holds. Something is wrong. The pilots come on and say that they loaded more cargo and passengers than planned so they have to redo their numbers. We're waiting on the taxiway with both engines running as they do this and the waiting music comes on. What's the first song?
Whitney Houston - "I Will Always Love You"