Hi all,
I’ll be in PDC in a few weeks and am trying to get a little more info on the gambling scene.
I like to play texas Hold’em and from a quick use of the search function, it looks like Grand Riviera is my best bet. A couple questions I’m hoping you folks can answer:

1. Is this casino still open and does a NL Hold’em game usually take place? Every day? Weekends only? Nights only?
   
2. Is it safe? I’m not staying in the area. I’m staying in a rental outside of town so would be cabbing back and forth with a pocket full of money.
   
3. Will the casino change dollars to pesos and vice versa or should I do that ahead of time? I have no problem doing that at my bank in the states ahead of time if the rate is much better. I just need to know.
   
4. For anyone who is familiar with poker, could you tell me what the rake is?
   

Thanks in advance

Going to mexico for a week and want to try my first real life game. Only ever played online so far. Wanted to know if anyone has experience at this place? thanks!

Shouts out to u/fqmorris who broke down Sections 54-58 for us last week, be on the look out next week for u/Autumn_Sweater and their write up on Section 63-66. You can find the full reading schedule here!

Section 59

We join Reef in Nice where he’s taken up professionally gambling, and he runs into his old buddy Flaco. Flaco catches Reef up on Frank, and lets him know the “Match is lit” over in Mexico, and that Reef should go get in on the action. Reef mulls it over, getting down on himself for enjoying the comforts of bourgeoise life when the café at which they’re meeting is bombed, seemingly by a less discerning outlaw than Reef or Flaco ever was. Reef takes Flaco to a doctor for injuries sustained in the bombing, and has a vision of Kit telling him he didn’t fuck up. Reef disagrees.
Back at the bar, Reef and Flaco get ready to part ways and have a small conversation on their philosophies at this point.

“So you just gonna stay out on that old track, try to get you a capitalist with that elephant gun,” Flaco said.
“Ought to be your folks’s beef too, after that kid Tancredi they went and mowed down.”
Flaco Shrugged. Maybe he should have known better.”
“Pretty cold, Flaquito. Kid’s in his grave, how do you just let that go?”
“Maybe I’m losing faith in assassinating the great and powerful anymore, maybe all it is, is just another dream they like to tease us with. Maybe all I’m lookin for these days is a nice normal shooting war with peons like me I can shoot back at. Your brother Frank at least had the sense to go after the hired guns that did the real work.”
“But that don’t mean Vibe and them don’t deserve it.”

We cut to Yashmeen on her journey back to Venice as she ruminates over a little green book Vlado gave her called The Book of the Masked, which details “chance encounters with details of God’s unseen world.” Yashmeen reminisces on the conversation she had with Vlado as he gave her the book, in which she’s concerned as to why a sacred oral text was written, to which Vlado replies that maybe its just to scam wealthy Americans into believing it had value. Yashmeen decides it does have value regardless. Yashmeen also recalls seeing a film with Vlado, Alexandre (misrepresented in the book as Albert) Promio’s Panorama du Canal Grande, of which she finds Vlado seemingly frightened, more so than she’s ever seen him at anything real.
Still in Venice but back to Reef, who should we run into but our men of the Tiny Torpedo themselves, Pino and Rocco? Though not so tiny any more, they still find themselves impressed with Reef’s large, erm.. Elephant Rifle. Pino and Rocco show Reef to a secret bar open only to “a certain clientele.” After Pino and Rocco explain that they got too attached to their weapon of death to ever have it explode and rather expanded it into a vehicle of discovery, Il Squalaccio, Yashmeen breaks in to reunite with Reef. Before they can discuss much, a party of men begin to search the room for Yashmeen and Vlado. Pino and Rocco offer another rescue, and Reef gets in a firefight to cover their escape as society’s dispossessed listen on up to 5km away, wondering what the gunshot sounds might be. Vlado is captured before the rest of the crew can make an escape. Yashmeen and Reef discuss how the men may have been Austrian, may have been English, alliances are getting complicated. In Trieste, Reef and Yashmeen set up in an outpost. Reef gets some info on where they took Vlado and who knows what happened and why it didn’t trigger a war, and then Reef and Yashmeen fuck, which is pretty cool. Yashmeen gets a haircut to disguise herself, and we’re hinted that the hair will make an appearance in the near future at a fateful masked ball.
We’re treated to a reflection on how the fall of the Campanile reflected a shift in power wherein “the Arsenale, and the bleak certainties of military science, had replaced the Palazzo Ducale and its less confident human struggles towards republican virtue.” Here we find Theign subjecting Vlado to, uh… Enhanced Interrogation Techniques mediated by Theign’s “eyes quiescent and pale in a white face he was able to somehow relax into a mask” which “had been known to frighten subjects into blurting information they didn’t actually have, confessing to acts they had never thought of committing.” Yashmeen copes with Vlado’s imprisonment by retreating to the infinite possibilities promised by indeterminate factors which might allow a possibility for Vlado to survive to emerge. Reef first believes Math to be a superstition, but then sees it rock casinos and figures its probably okay. No, in fact, Yashmeen has been finding religious solace in The Book of the Masked, identifying some parts of it written in quaternion notation, which is meant to cloak the true identities of the terms behind a mask only to be revealed at a coordinated time. She consciously keeps herself from Knowing Too Much of the mathematical content of the book, a blockage she can’t replicate for her intrusive thoughts of Vlado.

Section 60

Welcome back, Cyprian. Cyprian too finds himself lost in a helpless revenge fantasy that he knows he won’t fulfill, this one for Theign, but gets into conversation with his old friend Ratty McHugh. McHugh is now married to old Jenny Invert, a crack shot from Nether Wallop who Cyprian muses may be useful in a bind. McHugh, however, would rather not bring her into their world of spying and would rather forget the past, which reminds him to apologize for a prior misunderstanding he had with Cyprian. As he departs, McHugh advises Cyprian to visit Principe Spongiatosa. Spongiatosa reflects on Theign choosing Venice “suggests an allegiance to forces already long in motion. But that is only the mask he has chosen.” He goes on to muse on how others, particularly Americans, like to think they know what Republics are all about, but Italy’s experience under cruel Doges who themselves become sacrificial animals to perpetuate the State project. I think this means to say that this is the ultimate state of republican government, either to be oppressed or to be a ruthless oppressor who himself is miserably bound to the system’s goals. Much sad. Spongiatosa sighs for the lost potential of il stato interested in protecting the interests of its citizenry, but now there are only Empires. Is it even possible for such a state to exist? Cyprian considers some of the folks he met out in the Balkans might just be the type of folks who could step outside imperial power, but before they can discuss it, Spongiatosa puts Cyprian out on his ass.
Cyprian’s path briefly intersects with Reef and Yashmeen in Venice, hardly long enough for an introduction but definitely long enough to spark Cyprian’s fire back to life. Cyprian also brushes up by Vlado’s people, Mavrovlachi of Croatia, perhaps just the people outside of imperial power he’d need to get to Theign, who has insulated himself within all conflicting Great Powers. Cyprian dusts off his old invisibility routine to learn Theign’s schedule. While learning, he has a dream wherein Yashmeen betrays him for “Austria”, but not really Austria (I don’t really have a great guess as to what this Austria not Austria is, but my money is on Estrella because it sounds similar). Using the intel he gathered, Cyprian sicks Vastroslav, Zlatko, and their band of “Industrial ghosts” on Theign. “Your world refuses them, so they haunt it, they walk, they chant, when needed they wake from its slumbers.” How spooky. They exquisitely torture Theign, removing both his eyes as a means of symmetric punishment before killing him.
Yashmeen summons Cyprian for a meeting, they flirt with the idea of fucking again, or allowing Cyprian to watch Reef and Yashmeen fuck, or even letting Reef fuck Cyprian one day, perhaps years down the line. As standoffish as the encounter seemed at the time, Cyprian finds it gives him confidence and Yashmen finds Cyprian back in her thoughts.

“The hope it ignited was unexpected – almost, in her life at the moment, unaffordable. But hadn’t she just been out in the Riviera casinos willing to risk far more against longer odds? Laboring through a world every day more stultified, which expected salvation in codes and governments, ever more willing to settle for suburban narratives and diminished payoffs – what were the chances of finding anyone else seeking to transcend that, and not even particularly aware of it. And Cyprian, of all people. Dear Cyprian.”

Seems like the failures of modernity and the declining rate of profit have got a lady down, as they’re known to do. She looks back on her whole life settling for being the object of other’s desire and commands, spectating her own body in action, but in Cyprian, she finds something restored to her, what I would imagine to be a sense of sexual agency and compatibility on her own terms (As a side note, I’ve seen some complaints in previous discussions about Yashmeen lacking characterization. I’m glad to report we can now shift that criticism to another staple of criticism of Pynchon’s writing, namely resorting to characterizing women only via their sexual kinks. Its progress!! See, that’s why we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope). Yashmeen and Cyprian fuck, which is pretty cool.
They identify their sex with a protest of the status quo, which ties back to the masks we’ve seen so far in these sections.

“With no interference from authority, church or civic, all this bounded world here succumbed to a masked imperative, all hold on verbatim identities loosening until lost altogether in the delirium. Eventually, after a day or two, there would emerge the certainty that there had always existed separately a world in which masks were real, everyday faces, faces with their own rules of expression, which knew and understand one another – a secret life of Masks. It was not quite the same as during Carnevale, when civilians were allowed to pretend to be members of the Mask-world, to borrow some hieratic distance, that deeper intimacy with the unexpressed dreams of Masks. At Carnevale, masks had suggested a privileged indifference to the world of flesh, which one was after all bidding farewell to. But here at Carnesalve, as in espionage, or some revolutionary project, the Mask’s desire was to be invisible, unthreatening, transparent yet mercilessly deceptive, as beneath its dark authority danger ruled and all was transgressed.”

One thing I’ve enjoyed about Against the Day is that it has this tendency to explain its metaphors explicitly enough for you to appreciate how interconnected they are, but not so much that the broader symbolism is obvious.
At the masked dance these two sections have been building up to, Cyprian dresses in Yashmeen’s old hair and a tight corset, which is enough to attract Reef’s rigid attention. Yashmeen slaps Cyprians hand away from Reef’s penis, taking control of the affair. The three find a room and then Yashmeen and Reef AND Cyprian fuck, which is pretty cool. Afterward Reef and Cyprian share a moment of masculine bonding, followed by a moment of more intense masculine bonding, which is to say, Reef and Cyprian fuck, which is pretty cool. We get some nice commentary on society’s hegemonic rage against homosexual relationships and the liberation that can be found in consciously casting all of that prejudice out of yourself for love, I’m a fan of that sort of thing.
All the sentimentality knocks a seam loose in Reef and he finally dreams of Webb. Reef fears having to present himself to his daddy, but Webb just greets him with the exchange

“Small victories. Just to come away with one or two. To praise and to honor the small victories where and however they happen.”
“Hasn’t been too many of them lately, Pa,” Reef tried to say.
“Not talking about yours, you numbskull.”

After fun home antics, Reef meets up with his old Anarchist pal Wolfe Tone O’Rooney, who warns Reef that governments are about to fuck things up more than Brother Bakunin could ever imagine. But Bakunin was a “The American Civil War was a War of Northern Aggression” kinda guy so I don’t think much of his imagination (let’s see how many of my anarchist siblings I piss off with that one). The section ends with Yashmeen watching Reef and Cyprian share a dance as discovers she’s pregnant with Reef’s child.

Section 61

This chapter brings us back to Hunter and Dally in London, who are being housed by Ruperta Chirpingdon-Groin. Pert introduces Dally to Arturo Naunt, a sculptor of Angels of Death. Dally becomes Naunt’s new model for his sculptures, a career path she’s returning to after having posed for a statue known as The Spirit of Bimetallism in New York. Ya see, Dally likes to get into character for abstract concepts like bimetallism, Surplus Value, Diminishing Returns, Supply, Demand, the whole economic gamut. As she models for Naunt, Ruperta and Hunter head to Gloucester Cathedral for the Three Choirs Festival, which seems to have an impact on Ruperta’s very soul. Afterwards, Dally notices Hunter’s painting all seem have deliberate voids where some person should be. Hunter tries to throw off Dally by insisting its an homage to Durner’s Dido Building Carthage, but she can’t be tricked so easily. Hunter suggests he’s left the spot open for Dally to pose in, should she have the time away from her Angel of Death posings, and she recounts a story where Naunt had her pose as pegging a young man named Karl for a statue. Despite my best efforts I couldn’t find a real analogue of this statue.
Dally runs into R. Wilshire Vibe who needs someone with her red hair for play casting. She’s an instant hit, attracting all sorts of men and women. One such fan is her newest suitor Clive Crouchmas, a railroad magnate and childhood… friend? of Ruperta, who himself is well connected with noted death merchant Basil Zaharoff. Dally also meets Lew Basnight at a weekend party hosted by Lord and Lady Overlunch. The party seems to be full of T.W.I.T. agents. Lew and Dally connect over Dally’s recent Taro reading, which ended on The Star, “which at first glance signified hope, (but) was just as apt to portend loss.” Lew discloses to Dally that he’d pay her a handsome fee to keep tabs on everything that passes through Clive’s hands in German, to which Dally happily agrees. This, however, puts a strain on Dally and Hunter’s relationship, “[as] if just having discovered a level of ‘reality’ at which nations, like money in the bank, are merged and indistinguishable – the obvious example here being the immense population of the dead, military and civilian, due to the Great War everyone expects immanently to sweep over us. One hears mathematicians of both countries speak of ‘changes of sign’ (Werfner and Renfrew) when wishing to distinguish England from Germany – but in the realm of pain and destruction what can polarity matter?” Indeed.
Dally visits a sleek, obsidian building, which houses, so near as I can tell, The Office of the Military-Industrial Complex to look for secrets. On her way out, Clive Crouchmas sees her. Upset by finding her snoop his place of business, Crouchmas visits a bar owned by Madame Entrevue to hash out the details on how he’ll dispose of Dally, Plan A being to sell her to a harem in Constantinople. Old “Doggo” Spokeshave tips him off that, as long as he’s down in Constantinople he may as well pay a visit to Baz Zaharoff who’s buying a weapon with “a Q in it somewhere” from the Japanese. At the end of the section Crouchmas commits to the trip, Dally gets clearance from Basnight to accompany him.

Section 62

On the train over to Istanbul, Crouchmas considers that it may be more advantageous to sell Dally into slavery somewhere else where he can also get political favor for it. So he gets Imi and Erno to kidnap her, but Imi and Erno take Dally’s red hair as a sign she’s already Zaharoff’s girl, and as such figure she’d fetch a nice ransom. But wouldn’t you know it, Kit Traverse happens to be near enough by to foil their plot and escape to Szeged with Dally. Kit ruminates on his time in Pera, what is said to be a microscope of the two continents of Europe and Asia, with small stakeholders jostling for power in New Turkey and the economy of death that accompanies power struggle. One such arms dealer is Viktor Mulciber, who offered Kit a job working in aircraft engineering. Now normally Kit would have ignored the offer but as fate would happen, he saves the life of an enemy of the Committee of Union and Progress, which endangers his own. Jusuf the manager handed Kit a wad of cash and a train ticket, and that was Kit’s time in Pera. Back in Szeged, Kit tells he was headed to Venice to fulfill a promise they had made to meet each other back there (pretty slick, there, Kit), which Dally is embarrassed to have forgotten up to now. Kit and Dally fuck, which is pretty cool, this time in a paprika field. Afterward they book a room in Grand-Hotel Tisza, where Miklos the desk clerk recommends a show at the Varosi Szinhaz, The Burgher King.
The plot of the play goes like this: a king in a fictional European country decides he needs to connect with his people, but only the urban middle class people. He sings a fun song about window shopping, and on a window shopping stroll he meets Heidi, a married and Horrible Little Bourgeoise. Heidi is married, so one of the Burgher King’s advisors, Schleppingsdorff, goes into disguise to seduce Heidi’s best friend Mitzi. Schleppingsdorff becomes obsessed with Heidi, while Mitzi becomes obsessed with The Burgher King, all while Heidi’s husband Ditters goes crazy trying to figure out what Heidi is up to. The first act ends with BK singing that all you need is an Austro-Hungarian girl to escape the Austro-Hungarian blues. Dally is impressed by the performance, Kit less so but he noticed Heidi seemed to enjoy BK biting her neck. Kit tests this out on Dally, successfully I might add, and they rush back to their hotel where they fuck, which is pretty cool. The section ends with Kit and Dally talking about their escape, talking about the sins they’ve found themselves caught up in, and in the last few words they begin to fuck, which is pretty cool.

Discussion Questions

1. Leading up to Carnivale, we had a lot of mentions of Masks. What’s your takeaway on how Pynchon used masks in this section, how do they connect to the rest of the book?
   
   1. Reef seems to be caught up in his failure to assassinate Scarsdale Vibe, thwarted by the Power of his wealth. Cyprian rather quickly succeeds in getting revenge on Theign, but doesn’t seem to care very much. How does Cyprian’s successful deployment of the Balkan Boys shift the book’s perspective on Revenge?
   2. In this section, I noticed a bit of a difference in how characters related. There was a lot more fucking (pretty cool), some of it even Fucking as an Act of Protest, and also a lot more brief encounters with old friends. A couple sections ago the question was asked about the role of sex in Against the Day, and now that the dynamic has shifted a bit, I’d like to ask that same question again. What’s your take on these interactions?
   3. This section had Reef’s vision of Webb, which I found a bit less comprehensible than the previous visions of Webb. I’d like to open the floor up for some discussion on Webb’s character before and after his death, how his role, personality, and values shifted as he moved from our plane to the next.

Pic: https://imgur.com/a/aP2rd
Top row: Fender CS Masterbuilt Dennis Galuszka 50s RI Tele Thinline, Gretsch White Penguin, 1952 Gibson ES-295, Martin CEO-7
Middle row: 1966 Fender Mustang, 1967 Epiphone Riviera/Casino, 1952 Gibson CF-100E
Bottom row: MIJ Fender 12-string strat, MIJ Fender 50s RI Strat, Danelectro DC2, MIM Fender Jazzmaster
A lot of these were rescues or restoration projects in one sense or another. The White Penguin, ES-295, Mustang, Riviera/Casino, Strat, Danelectro, and Jazzmaster all have had some kind of work done, either new/NOS electronics/hardware (Gretsch, Danelectro, Jazzmaster) or total refinish/restoration (ES-295, Mustang, Riviera/Casino, Strat). It's the only way I can afford to have cool guitars. :)
Anyway, thanks for looking!
EDIT: Thanks for all the love, here's a bonus pic of my super awesome baby in front of them all: https://imgur.com/a/VLMyu

Our story begins with Dr. Arnim Zola, henchman to Johann Schmidt, alias the Red Skull, leader of the leader of the Nazi wartime research organization HYDRA^1. After pretending to defect and moving to America under Project Paperclip, Zola began to secretly re-form HYDRA within the US Government, resuming not only their attempts at world domination but their twisted occult and scientific research projects as well^2.
One such project delved into the feasibility of human cloning^3, with one potential end-goal being the resurrection of the Red Skull⁴ or possibly even Adolf Hitler himself^5. Zola was cautious, however, unwilling to risk cloning whoever it was he intended to clone until he was sure the technology was ready. Using his newfound US Government contacts, he obtained a genetic sample from General Martin Lieber of the US Army who, coincidentally, happened to have been present at a ceremony in which Capt. Steven Rogers, alias Captain America was to receive the Medal of Valor in 1942⁶ and would later encounter Howard Stark while out-of-uniform in 1946^7, as well bearing an uncanny resemblance to Earth-1218⁸ comic writer Stan Lee (indeed, his resemblance could be described as not only Uncanny but Amazing, Incredible, and Fantastic as well). It remains to be seen what the eventual outcome of this line of research might have been, but Zola was left with a bunch of cloned Martin Lieber which he had to find some purpose for.
Three of these clones escaped in the mid-to-late 1950s, two of whom established false identities and careers that just happened to precisely mirror those of Earth-1218 celebrities Hugh Hefner and Larry King, encountered by Tony Stark, alias Iron Man in 2008⁹ and 2010¹⁰ respectively. This may seem unlikely, but its actually fairly common for equivalent figures on different Marvel earths to have strikingly similar names, personalities, and careers despite having wildly different backstories and parentage. Tony did not comment on the uncanny resemblance between the two, but considering that both were public figures, it's likely that by this point their resemblance was well-known, and there was nothing he could say about it that hadn't already been said.
The third escapee took a different route, taking the name Irving Forbush and joining the NYPD in the 15th precinct. Like the Earth-665 resident whose name he shared^11, Forbush turned out to have a tremendous gift for sheer dumb luck (a gift that was no doubt shared to a lesser extent by his clone brothers, explaining their improbable tendency to be in the same place as superheroes), leading to a number of improbably successful arrests that enabled him to rapidly rise to the rank of Captain and honored with a portrait at the station which went unnoticed in 2015 by both Matt Murdoch, alias Daredevil¹² and Jessica Jones^13, also spearheading a few PSA campaigns which went equally unnoticed by both Luke Cage¹⁴ and Daniel Rand, alias Iron Fist¹⁵ in the same year. The next year, he would find himself in the opposite situation as he failed to notice Doctor Stephan Strange and Karl Mordo as they collided with the bus he was riding on one of his off days^16.
The purpose Zola was looking for emerged some time around the turn of the millennium when HYDRA's agents within NASA began to work on what would eventually become Project Distant Star Return, an attempt to send astronauts to rescue the ancient inhuman Alveus (a being worshiped by the secret society that would eventually become HYDRA) from the distant planet Maveth^17. Though Project Distant Star Return eventually ended up sending the astronauts through the portal created by the Monolith, HYDRA's researchers at NASA were aware of the Monolith's unreliability and intended to use it only as a last resort if they were unable to reach Maveth by other means. For this reason, a number of experimental spacecraft were developed to explore the possibility of exploiting such little-understood phenomena as the Bifrost Bridge^18, Universal Neural Teleportation Network^19, magical inter-dimensional portals^20, and even attempts to replicate the unique properties of the Tesseract^21. The clones of General Martin Lieber were press-ganged into serving as expendable test pilots for these craft, despite being nearly as old by this point as the original General Lieber had been in 1942.
One craft found itself stranded in space near the planet Xandar, where its clone pilot was rescued by the Nova Corps and began a new life on that planet as a swinging ladies man (considering one of his fellows' career as Earth-199999's equivalent of Hugh Hefner, it's possible that this personality trait was inherited from the original Lieber). It is here that he is breifly observed flirting with a young Xandarian lady by Rocket Racoon in 2014^22.
A second craft failed to make the jump through whatever spacial phenomenon it had been intended to exploit, and crash-landed on the Earth's moon, just outside the terreformed earth-like region whose Earth-616 equivalent was known as the "Blue Area"^23, where its clone pilot was found and nursed back to health by Uatu the Watcher, becoming his companion. Due to injuries sustained during his brief time on the part of the moon outside the Blue Area's artificial atmosphere, the clone must be confined to a modified space suit in order to survive. This clone was present in the Blue Area when Yondu Udonta, Kraglin Obfonteri, Rocket Racoon, and Groot II pass through in the rapidly teleporting escape ship Quadrant^24, also in 2014.
A third craft experienced a misfire in whatever form of teleportation it had been meant to use, and as all teleportation misfires apparently seem to, it arrived on Sakaar. After receiving extensive cybernetic augmentation in an attempt to blend in with the local culture, the clone pilot got a job as a hairdresser in the employ of Grandmaster En Dwi Gast. It was in this context that Thor encountered him in 2017^25.
A forth craft failed to leave earth at all, and after the HYDRA technicians finally managed to shut off its drive remotely, its clone pilot was returned to captivity. We'll get back to him in a moment.
It's unknown exactly how many experimental craft there were, or what the fates of any other test pilots might have been, if there were any. But after so many failures, it became evident to HYDRA's agents at NASA that they were going to have to use the Monolith as a means of transport after all, and the attempts to develop some sort of interstellar drive were abandoned, and in 2001, Project Distant Star Return went forward^26.
Around this time, there was a mass breakout in which all of the remaining Lieber clones escaped captivity. To evade recapture and avoid arousing suspicion of being clones, they split up and cut all contact with one another, starting new lives in various different parts of the country. Many deliberately took low-profile, blue collar jobs in the belief that this sort of life would put them beneath HYDRA's notice, though the truth is that as men with no histories, they probably couldn't have gotten better jobs even if they wanted to.
One clone moved to Milwaukee. His personal history is largely unknown, but it's evident that at some point he discovered the imported Brazilian soft drink Pingo Doce and took a liking to it. In 2008 he happened to drink from a particular bottle that had been accidentally contaminated with the blood of Dr Robert Bruce Banner, alias the Incredible Hulk, who at the time was also attempting to keep a low profile in a blue collar job, working at the Rio de Janeiro plant where the beverage was bottled. The clone was hospitalized with "gamma sickness", catching the attention of the US military and giving them a lead with which to track Banner down^27. Having popped up on the US military's radar and by extension HYDRA, this clone was assassinated in hospital by HYDRA agents posing as nurses via an "accidental" morphine overdose.
A second clone moved to Puente Antiguo, New Mexico where he got a job driving a winch truck for a local mechanic. When Mjölnir landed outside of town in 2011, he participated in the town-wide attempt to remove the hammer from the ground^28. Luckily, when SHIELD arrived in town he got lost in the crowd and as a result, manged to escape their notice.
A third clone moved to New York, secure in the belief that the tremendous population of the city would make a chance encounter with HYDRA agents improbable to the point of being nearly impossible. However, in 2012 he was unlucky enough to be approached by NY-1 reporters as a "man on the street" to ask his opinion of the rumors surrounding the recent formation of the Avengers. He attempted to brush them off with a short, dismissive answer, but the brief encounter still made it onto television^29, enabling HYDRA agents to track him down and assassinating him, making it look like his death was simply collateral damage in the Battle of New York.
A forth clone moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee. True to Lieber's lecherous personality, he served as the judge of a local beauty pageant attended by Tony Stark in 2013^30. Stark was not working with SHIELD at the time, and the pageant only made it onto local channels, so this clone evaded HYDRA's notice.
Following his experiences in the failed Distant Star Return launch, the forth test pilot wanted to get as far away from the US Government as he could, and eventually saved enough money for a plane ticket to London. It soon became clear to him that his exposure to the malfunctioning drive had left him more traumatized than he'd realized, and he checked himself into a mental institution. It was here that he encountered Dr. Erik Selvig in 2013 following the latter's mental breakdown^31.
A sixth clone had a similar idea to the test pilot, but managed to scrape together enough cash to escape all the way to Italy, where (using the same luck that helped Captain Forbush) he made a name for himself as a high-roller at the riviera casinos. While taking a train, he encounters undercover SHIELD Agents Coulson and Simmons^32, but manages to evade HYDRA's detection twice over since neither agent is working for them, and the people who soon attack the train are merely taking bribes from a HYDRA front company, rather than being employed by HYDRA itself, and thus neither privy to HYDRA's secrets nor expected to file reports to them. Nevertheless, this encounter rattled him, and he decides to move even farther away, to South Korea, where he drew on his gambling experience to establish a new identity as a croupier at a speakeasy casino in Busan, where in 2016 he narrowly escaped a battle between King T'Challa of Wakanda, alias Black Panther, and arms dealer Ulysses Klaue^33.
An eighth clone moves to San Fransisco and becomes a bartender, where in 2015 he has a brief encounter with Ignacio, cousin to Scott-Lang (alias Ant-Man)'s friend Luis.³⁴
A ninth clone decides to take a different route, hiding in plain sight within spitting distance of HYDRA's stronghold in Washington DC, in the employ of the US Government no less, as a security guard at the Smithsonian Institute, on the grounds that HYDRA would never think to look there since they'd assume he wouldn't be stupid enough to try it. Though he loses his job in 2014 after failing to prevent the theft of the original Captain America costume by Natalia Alianovna Romanoff, alias the Black Widow^35, he survives long enough to see the overwhelming majority of the arm of HYDRA that had been infiltrating the US Government brought down by the combined efforts of Captain America, Black Widow, and Samuel Wilson, alias the Falcon.
With news of HYDRA's defeat, many of the clones cease attempting to hide, but they don't abandon the lives they've taken up, as they've become integral to their identities. Captain Forbush, who through his trademark dumb luck had obtained a hat incorrectly identifying him as a member of a group of WWII vets who Captain America had invited to a party at Avengers Tower in 2015, and was unafraid to go with them (though perhaps he should've been, judging by his reaction to trying Asgardian whiskey^36. Another clone, who had gotten a job as a FedEx man, willingly delivers a package to "Tony Stank" (sic.) at the New Avengers Facility in New York³⁷ (this New York-dwelling clone was almost certainly the same one who witnessed Peter Parker, alias Spider-Man attempting to stop a presumed car theft from his apartment window earlier that same year^38, as that one was called Gary and therefore is unlikely to have been the same person as Irving Forbush).
'Nuff said.
Footnotes:

1. Captain America: The First Avenger
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier - The Official Game
4. This never came to fruition in the MCU (Earth-199999), but did on Earth-616 (the primary Marvel Comics universe), as seen in the Uncanny Avengers comic book, enabling the reintroduction of the Red Skull as a villain in the present day.
5. Another scheme of Zola's that came to fruition only on Earth-616, resulting in the villain Hate-Monger, who debuted in the pages of Fantastic 4. While this may seem unlikely to have been Earth-199999 Zola's goal, as the MCU version of HYDRA had specifically divorced itself from Hitler's Nazi Party, since Hitler's desire for global conquest conflicted with Schmidt's own desire for the same, seeing the Fuhrur demoted to the position of his subordinate would no doubt have appealed to Zola's ego.
6. Captain America: The First Avenger
7. Agent Carter, Season 1
8. I.E. real life
9. Iron Man
10. Iron Man 2
11. A gofer at Mable Comics, appearing in the comic book Not Brand Echh, who used this gift to fight crime (mostly by accident) as the (poorly) masked vigilante Forbush Man.
12. Daredevil, Season 1
13. Jessica Jones, Season 1
14. Luke Cage, Season 1
15. Iron Fist, Season 1
16. Doctor Strange
17. Agents of SHIELD, Season 3
18. Thor
19. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2
20. Doctor Strange
21. Captain America: The First Avenger
22. Guardians of the Galaxy
23. So named after being discovered by the Fantastic Four, who have yet to make their appearance in the MCU.
24. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2
25. Thor: Ragnarok
26. Agents of SHIELD, Season 3
27. The Incredible Hulk
28. Thor
29. The Avengers
30. Iron Man 3
31. Thor: The Dark World
32. Agents of SHIELD, Season 1
33. Black Panther
34. Ant-Man
35. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
36. Avengers: Age of Ultron
37. Captain America: Civil War
38. Spider-Man: Homecoming

Proof and Pictures, click to make larger
Hey everybody, I have a good little variety of things for sale today at what I believe are pretty fair prices.

• $2 Face Value Silver War Nickels, Average Circulated, #1 (Should be a decent mix of years and Mint Marks, comes with roll tube) - MELT Value = $38.80 SOLD
  
• $2 FV Silver War Nickels, Avg. Circ., #2 (Should be a decent mix of years and Mint Marks, comes with roll tube) - MELT Value = $38.80 SOLD
  
• $2 FV 80% Silver Canadian Dimes, Decent Mix of Dates 1942-1963, comes with roll tube - $22 (11x FV)
  
• 3x 80% Silver Canadian Dollars - $12 a piece
  
• $1 FV Barber Half Dollars, worn/possibly polished, priced accordingly - $13 SOLD
  
• $1 FV 1964 Kennedy Half Dollars - $12.50 SOLD
  
• 1961 US Proof Set in Capitol Plastics holder, some nice toning but a slight rattle with 2 of the coins - $22 SOLD
  
• 1920 US Pilgrim Tercentenary Commem. Half Dollar - $32 SOLD
  
• 1797 Carolus IIII Silver 2 Reales, Mexico City Mint - $16 A couple more pics of the 2 Reales; the 1801 and 1816 are not for sale SOLD
  

(With each 2 Reales purchase I will place them securely in a 2x2 and include written information on Date, Mint location, Ruler, Mint Mark, Silver Purity, and ASW)

• 1822 Ferdinand VII Silver 2 Reales, Guatemala City Mint, has a slight dent/bend in it but Great reverse details! - $22 A couple more pics of the 2 Reales; the 1801 and 1816 are not for sale SOLD
  
• 1993 Riviera Casino Silver Strike - $12
  
• 2016 1 oz Canadian Silver Maple Leaf, comes with Airtite - $18 SOLD
  
• 2015 1/25 oz Gold Austrian Philharmonic - $70 SOLD
  
• 2010 1/10 oz Gold American Eagle, comes with Airtite - $138 SOLD
  
• 1907 Canada Silver 5 Cents, 1910 Canada Silver 5 Cents, 1944-D (Denver) Philippines 20 Centavos (the Canadian 5 Cents are .925, or Sterling Silver, the 20 Centavos is .750 fine) - $6 added to any order
  
• 1957 Proof US Washington Quarter - $5 added to any order SOLD
  

Payment: Really only looking for PayPal Friends & Family at the moment - MUST leave the comments/note line blank. PayPal Goods & Services also accepted at the Buyer's request, but you must add 3% to the total to cover the fees.
Shipping: Add $2.50 to the total for USPS First Class shipping, tracking included. If you'd rather do Priority we could do that, but it will be a little extra. I package very carefully and securely, and I have never had any problems with outgoing packages getting lost or damaged. That being said, I am not responsible for the package after I hand it over at the Post Office. Therefore it is up to the buyer if they want to pay to add insurance.
Will ship worldwide at cost.
Any questions just ask!

Class 2 electronic bingo games, maybe?

Proof and Pictures
Want To Sell:

• 2x 2015 ASEs - $17 each SOLD
  
• 1 oz Buffalo generic - $16 SOLD
  
• 1993 Riviera Casino Silver Strike - $15
  
• 1986 Proof Canada Dollar, Vancouver Centennial, comes with Royal Canadian Mint clamshell case - $16 TRADED
  
• 10x 40% Kennedy Half Dollars - $23 for all, < SPOT! Current Melt Value $2.31/coin SOLD
  
• $2 Face Value Mercury Dimes - 13.5x FV - $27 SOLD
  

Want to Sell/Want to Trade

• China 2010 Shanghai Expo Commemorative 30 gram Silver Bar, Proof minting, bar is in hard plastic case, sealed in plastic, comes with original 2 cases and what appears to be a COA. - Somewhat Rare, hard to find this exact bar for sale anywhere. More Pictures TRADED

APMEX sold a very similar bar for Spot + $100, Proof
My Price: $75 OBO or Trade. Interested in- 2012 NGC MS69 China Panda, US & Canadian Junk Silver, World Silver, Finding SilverBug Island rounds
Payment Info: PayPal Friends & Family (Must leave "note line" blank), and/or Bitcoin.
Shipping Info: Just $2.50 for USPS First Class with Tracking, $4.00 if buying Chinese Expo Bar, Worldwide Shipping At Cost (PM for quote). I drop off every package directly at the Post Office; once received in their system I am not responsible for USPS screw-ups. However, I pack Very Carefully/Secure and have Never had any problems with my outgoing packages.
Any Questions Just Ask!
Thanks!

I currently have a Gibson Les Paul, but I need to get some work done on it and want a backup electric. I also want to diversify a bit at the same time so I figured I would go the hollow/semi-hollow route. I’ve always been drawn to Epiphone so I am favoring one of those three so far. I’ve gone to a few guitar stores near me and I’ve been able to test some sheratons and a Riviera, but I have not been able to try a Casino as of yet.
So far I have not liked the Riviera, although it was a $600 new model. I absolutely loved the tone and feel of the Sheraton II pro, it felt very similar to my Les Paul. I really wish I could try a Casino but I haven’t found any near me.
I mostly play Classic rock, folk, and folk rock. So I was wondering what all of your opinions were on these models.

Honestly I find this shocking. As a Casino addict who already owns 4, I'm good, but if you have been wanting a Casino and have been holding off, it's now or never, or at least until they decide to revive the import.
Otherwise your only option is the Made in USA Casino which is $3,000
Casino IS the Epiphone guitar imo. Getting rid of that is surreal. It's like McD's getting rid of the Big Mac, Ford getting rid of the F-150, Starbucks getting rid of coffee!
I honestly don't know what the mindset is behind this decision. Could be the Riviera was cannibalizing Sherry sales, but it's not like Casino customers will say "oh, the 599$ model is no longer available? Guess I'll get the $3k one instead".
Shocking turn of events in my book. Get a Casino or Casino worn, or even a smaller Casino Coupe.
If Epiphone really doesn't bring it back anytime soon they're gonna start getting pricey on Reverb fast.

Me and two friends just decided to head out to Vegas for the first round of the ncaa tournament. We will be in town for the nights of the 20th and the 21st. I've always wanted to catch a crazy girls show but cash is going to be tight and the tickets are like $76 a piece. I was wondering if any locals knew of a way to score cheap tickets other than gambling all of our money in the Riviera Casino. I tried to get free tickets last time I was there by going to one of those time share tours. They wanted my credit card when we got there so I bailed. Any advice would be welcome. Thanks

Has anyone seen it? The film is a guilty pleasure of mine - even more so since losing Prince two weeks ago - and the accompanying album is one of my favorites as well.
But the film, well, yeah, it's not flawless. It probably wasn't possible or advisible to make a PURPLE RAIN 2 that would satisfy audiences, but what would help UNDER THE CHERRY MOON capitalize on its strengths: settings, style, and charisma?
What I'd keep: In terms of concept, there's nothing wrong with a black & white comedy about two American gigolos on the French Riviera. The essential story, settings and characters can remain intact.
What I'd change: Again it's obviously not a sequel to PURPLE RAIN, but that film was more dramatic, featured most or all of the Revolution and the Time, and centered on Prince's concert performances. UNDER THE CHERRY MOON gives the audience none of these elements: it's essentially a romantic comedy, elevates Jerome Benton to a co-starring role but no other band members (Susannah Melvoin was originally cast as Mary, but couldn't act), and most importantly, features hardly any Prince musical performance on camera. PURPLE RAIN has plenty of problems as a film as well, but the performances make the film... and they're missing from CHERRY MOON.
Were it possible to re-cut and do reshoots for the film:

• Music - include 2-3 additional musical numbers by Prince on screen. There's basically just 'Girls & Boys' mid-way through the film, 'Kiss' plays on the soundtrack in a romantic scene and the video to 'Mountains' plays over the credits. Adapt the story as necessary - Christopher performs lavish numbers in a Riviera casino? - to include these songs and perhaps 1-2 more as on-screen performances.
  
• Story - make clear why Christopher and Tricky are in France.
  
• Character - make Isaac Sharon more villainous, make clearer why he and his family are in France (they're British?) and what Mary's marriage is worth to him
  
• Story - make Christopher's death more dramatic, bloodier, more tragic; clarify that consequences were paid and that Isaac will be held responsible in some fashion.
  
• Performances - just make them all better, lol... Kristin Scott Thomas clearly has talent but has no range in this film. Tricky's interest in Mary and vice-versa is never believable, if it were then Prince and Jerome Benton's conflict in the 3rd act would have much more resonance. Wendy, Lisa, Morris Day, etc. are fan favorites - finding cameos or roles for them would have generated some audience goodwill.