Email sent to employees
Casino Arizona and Talking Stick Resort will reopen at Noon on Monday, June 1, 2020. As part of their soft, phased openings, each will open at a limited capacity and with significant health and safety measures in place. Among them include temperature checks, the use of personal protective equipment and social distancing. The properties will also temporarily eliminate smoking, a step combined with the others that they hope will mitigate any potential spread of novel coronavirus amongst guests and employees.
Leveraging directives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and guidelines from state and local officials, the first phase of Casino Arizona and Talking Stick Resort’s opening will require that guests and employees have their temperatures taken upon entry. Should a guest or employee’s temperature be at or above 100.4 degrees, they will not be allowed entry. Masks will also be required while inside the properties. Additionally, smoking has been temporarily prohibited at each location to limit mask contamination, though there will be designated outside smoking areas for guest use.
Social distancing has also been implemented throughout each property. At Talking Stick Resort, the number of available hotel rooms will be reduced with no access to adjoining rooms. Further, a reduced number of restaurants will be open with limited grab and go food and beverage menus. At Casino Arizona, The Coffee Station, Salt River Café and the Bingo Hall will be open, while Talking Stick Resort will open Black Fig, Blue Coyote Café and Ocean Trail for take away dining. No seating will be available within the restaurants. Moreover, elevators will be limited to four people per ride and valet services will be temporarily unavailable.
On the casino floor, plexiglass has been installed between slot machines, while others have been taken out of service in order to observe appropriate social distancing. Plexiglass has also been installed at table games for guest and employee safety. In addition to acrylic dividers, limited capacity will also be practiced at the table games, in our Bingo Hall at Casino Arizona and in the ARENA Poker Room at Talking Stick Resort.
In addition to these physical changes, Casino Arizona and Talking Stick Resort will continue intensified cleaning policies with an increased focus on high-touch, high-traffic areas such as; slot machines, tables, door handles, buttons, and kiosks. Further, designated internal and external teams are in place to implement those policies. Hand sanitizing stations will also continue to be available for guest use. Talking Stick Resort and Casino Arizona will continue to monitor the pandemic and take the necessary steps for the health and safety of their guests and employees.

They have used this downtime to do some upgrades such as new tile, new wallpaper in the poker room, re-felting many gaming tables and new padding around the edges. Also the parking lot lines have been repainted and new carpet in the entry ways.
There will also be new temporary promotions of somewhere near $250,000 to attract players back.

Just saw this (very old) video of a fan hitting a halfcourt shot for $77,777 and was wondering what I would pick. (To make it more interesting, I changed the numbers a bit.)
 
Rules: Choose one of the following to attempt. You hit the shot, you get the $$.

• make a layup for $777 ^{+$7 for a reverse layup}
  
• make a free throw for $2,777
  
• make a 3-pointer for $7,777 (and where on the arc would you shoot it from?)
  
• make a half-court shot for $77,777
  

^{(Or you can hire any NBA player to take the shot for you, but they take 90% of the money.)}
edit: You can take warm-up shots, but not for free. First warm-up shot costs you $7 (from your pocket), the second one $77, third $777, etc.
 
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWDXtIBxJCs
original rules: http://azbigmedia.com/ab/casino-arizona-talking-stick-present-mercury-playoffs

I think we're all aware by now of the conspiracy that's building in the background of 2077. Most of us know about the mysterious Blue Eyes who appears in The Sun ending to the game. He operates as The Stinger of sorts for (that) ending of the game; He and V discuss a job vaguely alluded to through out the ending sequence and then the ending cuts to V in space charging off towards The Crystal Palace. Cue DLC Hook and credits.
But, let's go back here. This is only the tail end of the conspiracy and where it actually intersects with V's story. Blue Eyes (and some connections to him) crop up multiple times through out the game and, when pieced together, start building a larger picture that runs deeper into Night City than the pockets of most corporats.
I've finished my second playthrough of the game and I've been drafting this post as I play and find more clues. I doubt I'll find everything or might completely dismiss some, but I want to be on the front lines of uncovering this mystery, especially if this will be our Gaunter O'Dim for Cyberpunk 2077. I apologize for the length of this post ahead of time, but I need to summarize a bunch of lore and at least 4 major side-quests; "I Fought The Law", "Dream On", "Full Disclosure", and "The Prophet's Song".
Here's a long essay incoming, but I hope you chooms enjoy and I hope you read through to the end because, oh boy, I uncovered some cool shit!
So, who is Blue Eyes? Who are his contacts? What is his role in the ecosystem of this city?
"I FOUGHT THE LAW"
Let's start with where he most appears in the game; Jefferson and Elizabeth Peralez, political family in the running for Night City's first family. Which I kinda have to summarize their questlines, including the first one which Blue Eyes never appears in. But I'd prefer to go in chronological order and not jump around, so stick with me.
Elizabeth first contacts you for the job "I Fought The Law". It's fairly basic, but the quest tells us she convinced her husband to hire V to look into the recent death of Mayor Rhyne. We get a BD of a cyberpsycho attack by Peter Horvath on Mayor Rhyne. Weldon Holt leaves the room before the attack and then the security gate crashes right before Peter walks in with billions of eddies worth of chrome. The attack is unsuccessful and stopped by Detective River Ward, who was only there because Peter went missing internally at the NCPD and he knew where Peter would go.
When investigating Peter Horvath, his previous boss describes him as paranoid that "probably thought Mayor Rhyne talked to him through the TV" and that the world was out to fuck him. She then mentions that someone "finally saw what he was worth" which cues into how Peter was thrown into this attack in the first place; he had a patron who funded his chrome and the attempt on Rhyne's life. Tellingly, River than goes into a little talk about how clues rarely make sense until put into the larger context, much like we're doing right now.
V goes to the club Rhyne died in; The Red Queen's Race. V sneaks through, takes out some Animals, and can investigate what actually happened to Rhyne. If we read the emails on the office terminal, we know that Weldon Holt arranged for Rhyne to be there. He initially mentioned this to Rhyne during the first BD; Rhyne asked Holt directly to arrange his usual room at the club. So, this doesn't inherently look too suspicious on it's own, but Holt knew where Rhyne would be. We also find out via the Animals Boss there that Weldon Holt is the one who hired them to smash up the club and they're currently waiting around for payment. Further, you can go to the room Rhyne died in, find the BD headset, and put it on... which INSTANTLY knocks V out and they need to be rescued by River (who, btw, takes out any Animals on the property you didn't get to! Ty bro!). They surmise that Rhyne was killed by a virus in the headset. Lastly, we find footage of Detective Han (River's partner) covering up the death of Rhyne. They confront Han, V goes off to the Peralezs, and quest ends.
Of note, finding the BD set is a hidden dialogue option with the Peralezes suggesting, yes, that's the correct deduction to make. You don't get that option otherwise. And V never actually comes to any real conclusion to what happened to Rhyne.
So, let's summarize what we know about the death of our Mayor. Peter Horvath was hired by an unknown Patron who spent a ton of money to turn him into a suicide bomb against Rhyne. They have connections internally to the corrupt NCPD which allowed Horvath to get access to Rhyne, both from escaping NCPD custody and for the security to give him access to Rhyne's conference room. That fails so our mastermind instead assassinates Rhyne at his usual sex club, one that we know for sure Holt knew about. Rhyne is assassinated via malware in a BD porno headset, NCPD comes in an Detective Han cleans it up. Later, Holt hires the Animals to take claim to the club and fuck it up.
Holt is looking suspicious AF rn, but we also don't have any direct evidence and V says as much if you accuse him. Personally, I think it's a little too clumsy if it's him. Holt leaves the room just as an assassination attempt goes down, sets up a sex club appointment for the Mayor where he's successfully assassinated, NCPD covers it up... and then he hires a gang to cover it up more? Something doesn't fit here.
My theory is Holt is innocent. He's a scum bag, but not the culprit here. Why would you EVER give your identity to the Animals you hired to cover up an assassination? The big dumb brutes of the underworld? A name they give up with almost no fight? No, I think someone hired them under Holt's name. And I think they hired them because they KNEW the BD Headset was left behind; Han dismissed it entirely as Rhyne dying of a heart attack brought on during sex. They needed that destroyed to cover the final footprints. It's the only piece of evidence that doesn't have Holt or NCPD's name on it and doesn't fit the narrative that both are pushing. If they're covering NCPD or Holt's tracks, why not delete the emails or footage of Han? And if Holt or Han were trying to push this false narrative, why leave the headset right there the first time?
And, while I have no evidence of this assertion, the Animals are only still there because they're waiting for payment to come in... I think our employer never intended to pay them and left them in the path of V, who is likely to shoot them and tie up the loose end for our mysterious entity. Animals destroy the BD set, V shoots the animals, no trace. And, even if he doesn't, Animals will point V to the wrong person.
No, we've got a third party here. But let's continue so we can finally let our lead actor take center stage.
"DREAM ON"
"Dream On" starts when Jefferson calls V and asks them to help in another case. Long and Short; Jefferson woke up in the night and found a man in a mask (or an implant) standing over him. Jefferson shot the man, only for his head to fry and knock him out. Coming to, he's back in bed with no evidence it ever happened. SSI, their private security, insists that there was nothing on the cameras, no evidence, and nothing happened. Elizabeth claims she slept through the whole thing event.
V investigates the apartment, with Elizabeth giving the tour, and finds a lot of evidence. Elizabeth is kinda dismissive at first thinking V won't find much. First small stuff leading into larger reveals. Let's start small and work our way up.
First room Liz takes us to is the campaign room. She talks about running the campaign entirely out of pocket and having to keep most of their supplies at the Penthouse; "It's cheaper that way". You find a picture of their daughter on the wall and Liz explains that she's off at university in Europe while Jefferson is running for office; "It's easier that way" she says. That phrasing again.
EDIT: A redditor in the comments pointed out that the Peralez are being controlled via drugs in their food as part of the tech. They mention they've been eating fast food lately, explaining why Jefferson was lucid enough to catch the agent and shoot him.
V can look at Jefferson's emails (which Liz slightly discourages them, saying there's nothing there) which reveals a bit more about their campaign. There's a video of the iconic commercial and poster of Jefferson pulling out a gun and shooting a bunch of paperwork. In the email, Jefferson HATES this commercial, but his assistant, Lea Patel, insists on it as it will air in television time slots with action-drama series and catch the attention of voters. Further emails have Eric Boucher, Jefferson's Campaign Partner (Manager?), saying Jefferson has been acting unpredictably lately; presumably referencing one of the next emails. Boucher is confused because they fired Lea Patel together, only for her to continue working and sent him a new ad for approval. When emailed, Jefferson is confused about Lea being fired at all and doesn't remember the event ever happening, even telling Boucher to be honest if he has some issue with her. A final email is from SSI Chief of Security, Wallace, discussing Jefferson's intent to hire a merc to look into Rhyne's death ("Dream On") and they suggest Jefferson drop it or have NCPD or themselves look into it. Private Security just... offering to investigate the former mayor's death? Huh... sounds more like they want to squash the issue to me.
We should now talk about the Peralez's campaign. As you explore the apartment, Liz explains that they're running on a corp free campaign; they want to get Night City out of the control of the corps and do so without ever owing any favors to them. She specifically cites "Night Corp, Militech, and Petrochem" as ones they've denied. Militech and Petrochem come up a few times in other quests but Night Corp is relatively obscure. And they choose that corp to be the first one she mentions? Stands out to me. It also isn't lost on me that we're talking about running a campaign out of pocket and refusing corp assistance... while walking on the fancy ass balcony of a penthouse in Charter Hill- North Oak.
Next room, we find Jefferson's office. Elizabeth and Jefferson both graduated with law degrees from Asukaga University in Berkley. V points out it would be extremely expensive for them both, but Elizabeth says that both got full ride scholarships from the Richard Night Foundation, run by Night Corp. To further fucking cement this moment, there's a Richard Night biography shard on the desk. But we'll drop this for now because I want to get to Night Corp a bit later.
The computer on the office desk has some emails on it sent by Elizabeth. One is between her and Judy where she's asking Judy for help on the original "I Fought The Law" quest and Judy is the one who gave her your contact in the first place. Another is from their daughter kinda asserting the same thing earlier; safer for her in Europe so she's not a target on the campaign trail. And here's the interesting one; Boucher emailed Elizabeth asking why Jefferson changed his mind on Lea Patel. Elizabth says Jefferson explained it to her that it "slipped his mind" and "circumstances changed in Lea's favor" and she asks him to drop the whole thing. She's dismissive and gives extremely vague details.
Next room, Bedroom. Elziabeth's gun is on the table. It's the one Jefferson claimed he fired and scanning it tells us that it has been fired recently. We also find the wedding photo of Jefferson and Elizabeth where she fondly talks about having blue roses because she loves them so much... except the photo's roses are red and V says as much. Elizabeth quietly corrects herself that they only had red roses instead and moves on.
In the hall, we find the blood trail and gun shots in the wall; both covered up hastily. Following the trail, we enter a tv room. The Smart Glass isn't working and Elizabeth says it stopped working recently; not like they use it much anyway. Passing a Tech Check lets us try and fix it... only to be quickly blacked out by it so hard Johnny felt it too. V asks Elizabeth about it but she doesn't know what V is talking about despite having been standing right there. We also find a hidden door in the wall. Unlike earlier, Liz is actually confused by the door but demands V try and open it.
Downstairs we have the security room. Liz says that it used to be her place but "Security had to set up somewhere" and that she had to make sacrifices for this campaign; "it wasn't the first nor will it be the last". One computer has a Welcome email from SSI to new recruits. It details that they have access to all areas except Section Zero, which is reserved for Blue or Black agents and that, should the encounter a Blue or Black Agent (SPECIFICALLY "in the night"), do not interact or acknowledge them. The next email from Wallace mentions an accident where there was a "behavioral anomaly" and "ALPHA" injured a Blue Agent (BLUE-66M) who is in critical and the SSI head is requesting access to Sector Zero to give medical aid. SSI gives Wallace the code to Sector Zero and sends a team to aid. SSI knew about the accident and lied. You go to the second computer, unlock it, and can unlock the upstairs door. On that terminal is a bunch of deleted files (presumably the security footage from that night) and emails discussing "normal maintenance procedure" and further informing security that ALPHA (Jefferson) hired a merc (V) and, should security encounter them, do not interact with them.
Small thing I found interesting, a shard called "You Are What You Slot" is found down here too. It details a fictional assassin who kills and then steals the identity of her victims. Small and doesn't mean much on it's own, but the shards are hinting at the story here; one of false identities and manipulation.
Now, let's get to the main event; the secret room. Inside is a control center. Elizabeth is horrified and feels violated. She shouts that she's not letting SSI anywhere near them, only for her head to start hurting and she tells V to do what he needs to do. She leaves him. Inside the control room is a box of bloody medical supplies. The computer discusses "behavioral norms" for ALPHA (Jefferson) and suggests amplifying "neural dampening". It discusses things similar to Wallace's terminal, but from the other side; ALPHA is displaying odd behavior by hiring a merc, the SSI teams avoided meeting the merc, and then the actual accident that occurred injuring BLUE-66M during regular 'maintenance'. The other side of the room also has another data shard, "Rewriting Synaptic Pathways", basically talking about using tech to rewire the brain a bit.
Following some wires from the control room to the roof, we find a signal dish. Johnny (replacing Elizabeth for conversation now that she's gone), joins in that the tech looks prehistoric but functional and that Militech used it in the war; it requires line of sight to transmit data but otherwise can't be intercepted. We can see the tower and go to investigate. V tells Liz the whole deal; V can suggest that the Van near the tower could be SSIs or that it might not be due to unconventional tech. Liz then itterates twice that it's a stressful campaign time for Jefferson and V should talk to her, NOT him. "Sure, whatever" V and the player dismiss.
(I SWEAR WE'RE ALMOST DONE WITH THE SUMMARIZING FOR DREAM ON, I'M SO SORRY.)
We drive after the van, Johnny is suddenly excited for smashing a corpo conspiracy and iterates that citizens do not choose their representatives, instead they're chosen by "key players" who watch the Peralezes for weaknesses or blackmail material. We arrive at the facility patrolled by Maelstrom and the occupants of our van park, get out, and climb ladders to the roof where they get into an AV that is cloaked to be near invisible (as shown in a couple of vids on YouTube and this subreddit).
At the place, Maelstom is explained; "UNKNOWN USER" contacted them while driving the van for protection to take care of V and then destroy the van. Van's data makes it pretty clear; the Peralezs' minds are being manipulated, new neural pathways are being created, and their memories are being created, changed, or erased. There are also a couple of other names of other test subjects. The data is then erased. We do see an almost flower like symbol before the data is destroyed.
The agents on the cloaked AV CAN be killed and do drop a shard, thought it doesn’t have many more details, merely that they’re contacting HQ to arrange extraction and that the Van’s data should be destroyed and echoing the arrangement with Maelstrom mentioned earlier in their shards.
V calls Liz, Liz wants to meet in person instead of over holo and send him to a Japantown Raman shop (same one that used to be Rainbow Cadenza, coincidentally). Odd choice for an upstanding congresswoman. She says her nerves are shot, the ramen shop is a quieter place to meet than the apartment, and she needs a moment to gather herself since she last saw V, with V even asking if something has happened since they last saw each other. Of note, Liz is stress smoking the entire scene, something she hasn't done until now. She then explains, no, it's been over a longer period of time. She's been watching her husband change and act differently for awhile; he stopped reading, his taste changed, and he even insisted he was an only child and never had a bother when Liz asks about visiting the grave. Of note, yes, Antonio Peralez has a Columbarium Vault, which proves Liz is correct on this. She confesses that she herself has been told by others she's been acting strangely. V says she knew what V would find and she asserts that she doesn't know the who, how, or why, but "they're changing us". Jefferson apparently went on in great detail about a trip she swears they never went on, but she doesn't know if the vacation is a fake memory or if she's the one that doesn't remember.
She saw a stranger in their apartment tinkering with a monitor, only for him to be missing when it was reported to SSI and they looked at the feeds. The next day, she got a phone call from a stranger (whom she refers to by "he") saying that she's walking on thin ice and Jefferson could have an accident. They later erased all data that the phone call had happened. Elizabeth claims she's terrified for herself and her husband's safety and doesn't want V to reveal the truth. V points out "they" could be telling her to say that but it doesn't really change how she feels since she just wants Jefferson to be safe. She tells V to tell Jefferson it was SSI spying for Holt. She asserts she wants SSI out of her roof if they're spying on their sleep. She will take responsibility for firing SSI, but wants Jefferson to be safe and out of that fight. She adds a meeting with Jefferson to his calendar at Reconciliation Park. But, ultimately it's V's choice (especially since she has no idea if she'll remember the conversation) and leaves. Johnny jumps and and talks and mentions that there were talks like this back in his day and worrying about the damage a puppet mayor could do.
V heads to Reconciliation Park to meet with Jefferson. Entering, V is called by an Unknown Number which blacks out V's optics. They claim to know who V is, *what* V is, and what V wants. It doesn't matter what V tells Jefferson, but "don't dare cross that line" and "you're playing with fire". Its a garbled male robo voice, so safe to say it's irrelevant to the owner.
Enter Stage Right, our missing lead; Mr. Blue Eyes. He is standing on a balcony watching the place where we meet Jefferson. In the Scanner, he is labeled "Mr. Blue Eyes", has no known affiliation, is wanted for "SC 370", and is wanted for "Classified". His eyes are electronically glowing blue you can even see from several yards away. You cannot injure him as grenades do nothing and you can't aim at him. Of small note, and I don't know if this ACTUALLY means anything, but his hair style asset is referred to as Morgan Blackhand in the files, but could mean nothing if this hair is actually used by other NPCs. MOST LIKELY THIS IS NOTHING UNLESS SOMEONE HAS FURTHER INFO.
(Plot twist: It meant something. But we'll get there.)
V sits with Jefferson and can reveal the truth; "SSI is on the take from an unknown group to control your lives". V can even point out the absurdity of Peralez being as successful of a politician as he is without any corp sponsors. "They want you to be *their* mayor. Molding you like clay". You can tell Jefferson how to proceed and additional details, but it doesn't matter. Later, Jefferson will send a text and delete your number and so will Elizabeth, who will call you out for telling Jeff. In the end credits voicemails, Jefferson has decended into paranoia about some vitamins Liz gave him which he didn't trust so he sent them to the lab, only to then not trust the lab results saying they're fine. Jefferson Peralez is confirmed the new mayor during Late Act 2 and the major difference is his state of mind at the end game; either hiring V to be on his security staff or descending into absolute paranoia over everything in his life.
Lastly, Johnny appears and cryptically talks about back in his day when they'd talk about rogue AIs. Personally... I kinda completely dismiss this? It comes out of nowhere, Johnny cites NOTHING for why he'd bring this up in relation to the case, and I can't fathom a motive. I’d also point out that this isn’t the only time Johnny is outright wrong. In fact, he’s wrong A LOT in the game. For example, he criticizes V for listening to the Netwatch Agent and that he’s bullshitting you. Except, the agent is 100% correct that VDB did spike V as a suicide virus and Johnny is actually wrong. He also claims he doesn’t know what happened with Thompson after Never Fade Away, but this is a lie because Thompson is flying the AV Johnny takes to Arasaka in 2023. The only connection I can find is "Who is controlling Blue-Eyes" which might make Johnny correct, if just not in the way 'Rogue AIs' initially implies.
So, what actually has happened?
The Peralez family has been molded for a very long time into being the perfect political couple. They got scholarships from the Night Foundation for two fancy law degrees, have successful political careers, and Jefferson is running for Mayor on an anti-corp platform, an insanity for Night City. And he's actually successful at it. During a maintenance service at night on the Peralez's apartment, Jefferson woke up and shot an SSI/Unknown agent making repairs. The Control Booth knocked Jefferson out and they pulled the agent out of the apartment into the secret room. SSI put the Peralezes back into bed and hastily cleaned up everything, but the damage was done and Peralez hired V who uncovered mostly everything.
Elizabeth seems to be initially very upset by the discovery, but wants V off the trail when we meet her next. However, she's not in on it as she's equally a victim to the brainwashing/gaslighting and that's for certain. I think she's a pawn who is either too scared or too programmed to break the rules of movement on this chessboard. It's worth noting that, while the unknown entity threatens Jefferson's life and V's well being, they do not make due on either of these threats. I call their bluff. They have put too much work into Jefferson to abandon or kill him.
But, where else have we heard of this gaslighting brainwash process before?
"FULL DISCLOSURE"
Ok, we're on the shorter end so I don't have to actually explain this quest in full. Sandra Dorsett is a netrunner and a very skilled on at that, actually collecting data from Night Corp. She was kidnapped by the savs we rescued her from at the beginning of the game shortly AFTER she stole this data, suggesting Night Corp was behind it. This data is on the shard she asks you to collect during the aforementioned quest. V has full ability to NOT read it, but let's look at it; "Operation Carpe Noctem" ("Seize The Night" in Latin)
Described in it is an experiment on Night Corp's own employees where they are quietly brainwashing them and getting them to do whatever they want. They specifically cite an empathetic and calm employee who they got to fight a co-worker and then jump from a 16th floor window. The shard ends on mentioning that they're ready to install CN-07 on "our actual target".
I think multiple quests discussing brainwashing and gaslighting is too coincidental to be utterly unrelated to each other. I think Night Corp's actual target mentioned here is Peralez.
So, what is Night Corp?
Night Corp is the most mysterious of the corps in Night City. It currently operates to better Night City via philanthropic ventures, fundraising, community support, and city infrastructure. Basically, while Militech and Arasaka and the others operate in the city, Night Corp basically RUNS the actual city. They're also noteworthy for the level of security they have that even the best netrunners can't get much from them and, since they keep to themselves and seemingly just do city infrastructure stuff, no one really super bothers them. It has been run by Miriam Night, wife of late-Richard Night, until recently and we currently don’t actually know who runs NightCorp.
Originally, they were the Night Foundation, but that requires explaining Richard Night... oh boy, Lore Drop. I'll make it quick as possible.
Richard Night is the founder of Night City. He started as a partner of a firm, but his ambitions grew beyond that to founding "Night International" to build his dream; a city that would be so grand it would make all other cities pale by comparison, Coronado City. A capitalist mecha of opportunity, Night City would be run by corporations and have next to no anti-business policies on the books. Arasaka, EMB, and Petrochem were his first backers and he came into claim of land on the central-California coast; Del Coronado Bay and Morro Bay would be the location of his dream city.
(BTW, irl, Morro Bay, California is a real place. Been there, have family there, go there regularly, kinda cool!).
Despite being a capitalist mecca city and run by corps, Richard Night also dreamed it to be "A sprawling metropolis, free of crime, of poverty, of debt. A place where people could live safely, peacefully, without having to worry about the dire situations that were growing around the world at the time".
However, due to the design plans, Night didn't employ local contractors and instead got expensive architects and builders from all over the world. Local builders didn't like that, they had mob connections, bloodshed started. And soon Richard Night was murdered by an unknown assassin, presumably a mob hitman. The city was renamed Night City in his honor and his dream utopia became to embody everything that was destroying the world. Mob took control and corps didn't give a fuck since it didn't hurt them any until they eventually had to take out the mob gangs, but not in any favor to Night’s dream either.
Miriam Night, Richard's Widow, founded the Night Foundation (later Night Corp) to stick to Richard's Ideal dreams of what he wanted the city to be. They invest heavily in ecological research, alt power sources, civic infrastructure, public works, and charities and scholarships for Night City youth. "They've even managed to stay out of the normal corporate power struggles which tend to plague every other corporation, both inside the city and out. Even the shadowy corporate rumors about them, like having underwater bases in the bay or access to orbital satellites, remain unsubstantiated despite extensive investigation."
So, where does this put us now? We have ONE last quest...
"THE PROPHET'S SONG"
Garry The Prophet is our local crazy man. He spouts off insanities to anyone who will listen near Misty's Esoterica in Kabuki. However, some of his ideas aren't quite as much off the mark as one might think. There ain't no technonecromancers from Alpha Centuri (or Spanish Inquisition) nor is Saburo Arasaka an immortal vampire, but he was correct that Saburo wasn't dead and in fact immortal; via Mikoshi and The Relic.
He send you on a quest to investigate a meeting; he says that his ripper mistuned some cyberware in his head and he can hear their communications. You show up to a meeting between corps and Maelstrom. They say some nonsense phrases and transfer a data shard. Reading it ("Destroy After Reading") it seems like nonsense. But does include the line "The cages of men melt as night descends". You can decode it via a Null Cipher; first letter of every line: “Project Oracle Command Execute Plans”.
We don’t know what Project Oracle is. In real life, secret project or operation names actually tend to be chosen at random and are unrelated to the actual project (you can google funny stories about names that ended up awkward to the actual project), so this could mean nothing. But, narratives tend to give meaning to everything. Oracles are mythical in references and could predict the future or see the unseen. Perhaps perfect prediction via behind the scenes manipulations? Not sure we’ll get answers on this one for now.
Going back to Garry, he's been kidnapped. His protoge is screaming he's been kidnapped "Black suits came by - blue eyes and all". Blue Eyes huh? Further, she claims that they threw him into an invisible AV... Huh, like the one we saw back during "Dream On"? "Night's comin... The eternal night"
So, it’s time to jump us to the final step in our Fool’s Journey: The Sun.
“THE SUN”
The Sun ending has V wake up in their new penthouse apartment (with their love interest if they have one). Checking the computer, we see emails from our dear Mr. Blue Eyes. He wants an answer from V as to the job to the Crystal Palace he has planned and that they’re on a tight schedule for “obvious reasons”. We meet with him at the Afterlife and he talks about the job; Casino security is going into maintenance and V mentions giving him the casino client list. V also asks him to “hold up your end of the bargain”. They never discuss eddies or payment. It’s all in such vague terms. “Your end” or “Obvious reasons”. Smaller point but an email from Vik on the space shuttle also tells us that he’s asked around about Blue Eyes and has nothing; either he works with people WAY above Vik’s paygrade or he’s shady as hell… or both.
I think Blue Eyes knows V is dying (the obvious reasons) and I think the unspecified payment is V’s survival. V always says that they want to come back to their love interest so it’s not a mindless suicide run and I don’t think V would risk it all for nothing but eddies; especially not after Reaper (both versions) paint suicide runs as a horrible terrible thing. To then glorify it in another ending… no, the game is smarter than that.
Your love interest doesn’t seem to be too upset about the situation either. Panam and Judy leave V in The Sun due to their lives taking different directions, but it seems mostly amicable and understanding. They even express desire to see V again because they know V needs to do this job. Kerry, who stays with V in The Sun and expresses worry and also a desire to settle down with V, also seems mostly understanding that V needs to go on this quest. I don’t think they’d be so calm and loving and understanding if this were a suicide run. They know more than the player does.
Further, I think Blue Eyes isn’t after the casino aspect of the Crystal Palace at all. While that’s the major commercial aspect of the station as marketed to the citizen world, the station also has embassies from every nation on earth, facilities from all the major corporations, and is pretty much THE place where all the dark corporate espionage goes down. There’s so much more to this location than ‘casino resort’. *EVERY* corp has space stations and hideaways in space because the Crystal Palace offers it’s own legalities and opportunities that are not allowed within Earth’s terms and conditions. If they want to do some research that would be frowned upon elsewhere and get up to some Top Secret shit, it’ll be in outer space. Night City is controlled by corps and has lax laws, but outer space’s are even more so.
I think the cure V wants is not only on the station, I think it’s what Blue Eyes himself is after, but I’ll get there when it’s time to theory craft about the future.
I think it’s worth noting; Blue Eyes IS IN THE TRAILER FOR THE GAME. Yeah, anyone remember that shot on a shuttle with a guy being burned out from the inside? Yeah, he’s there. In the foreground. *Smirking*. The shuttle also seems like they’re in space.
These events leading to the Crystal Palace and the conspiracy with Blue Eyes are blatant DLC Hooks for the future and suggest a post-game DLC. This isn’t the first CDPR has done so either; Blood and Wine takes place after the story of Witcher 3 and is explicitly incompatible with the worst endings of that game. I think, conceivably, other endings where V is still alive could be roped into this adventure; Blue Eyes merely needs to hire them with the same offer of survival. While The Star takes V to Arizona and away from Night City, I think that choice of location is appropriate as, to even get to space for The Crystal Palace, citizens go from LAX to Arizona for a space port to launch them off Earth’s surface. They could have chosen anywhere else to send Panam and V, but they choose Arizona, huh. I do think Reaper, Temperance, and Devil will be locked out of this future, however, as all make any point of Blue Eyes hiring V irrelevant; there’s no V left to hire/save. MAYBE a rejected Devil ending, but I wouldn’t blame them for not continuing that conclusion either as Devil is one of the bad endings.
So, it’s finally time to really compile a lot of this information into where I think this is going in the next comment below

This will continue to be updated as long as there are updates to provide.

• ABC15 has a pretty good list going - keep checking it for updates.
  
• Phoenix New Times article of events being canceled or postponed. Keep an eye on this for updates too.
  

Schools

Gov. Doug Ducey announces statewide closure of schools over coronavirus
Please check with your individual district/school for further information on re-openings.
Colleges

• ASU
  
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Restaurants

• Pei Wei statement

Sports

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• WNBA
  
• MLB
  
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• NFL
  
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Concerts

List of events/concerts/happenings/attractions that are Postponed - unless otherwise noted as of 03/17/2020 (please always check event website for ticket information).
Orpheum
All shows through the end of March are currently postponed.
Gila River Arena

• Rage Against The Machine
  
• Celine Dion
  
• Pearl Jam
  
• Jojo Siwa - Rescheduled
  
• Nick Cannon’s Wild ‘N Out Tour
  
• Jim Kieffer Community Cook-Off- Canceled
  
• PBR (Professional Bull Riders) - Canceled
  

Talking Stick Resort Arena (TSR)

• André Rieu
  
• Foo Fighters from TRSA Twitter
  

Marquee Theatre

• All events in March have been postponed, keep checking their website for updates.

Crescent Ballroom and Valley Bar closed until further notice. Keep checking their social media for further updates. COCINA 10 will be open limited hours for take-out orders.
The Van Buren - All shows scheduled to take place through the end of March have already been canceled, rescheduled or postponed. See website for further details. Further shows are still be canceled, rescheduled or postponed by the artists.
Chandler Center for the Arts

• All events at Chandler Center for the Arts have been postponed or rescheduled through April 30th.

Mesa Arts Center
Out of an abundance of caution, and to support other preventive measures underway, beginning Monday, March 16, and continuing through Sunday, March 29, the City of Mesa is closing the theaters at Mesa Arts Center
Arizona Federal Theatre

• LFA 84
  
• Prince Royce - Canceled
  
• Iliza Shlesinger
  
• John Crist - Canceled
  
• Dancing with the Stars: Live!
  
• Thom York
  
• NEHA KAKKAR
  
• Premier Boxing Champions - Canceled
  
• In this Moment & Black Veil Brides
  

Festivals are all postponed unless otherwise noted.

• Scottsdale Arts Festival - Canceled
  
• Italian Festival of Arizona
  
• Luke Days - Canceled
  
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• Modern Phoenix has rescheduled some events. Check website for details.
  
• Gilbert Pizza Festival
  
• Arizona Bao and Dumpling Festival - Canceled
  
• Gem City Sours & Ciders Festival
  
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• Anthem Days - Canceled
  
• Arizona Dragon Boat Festival - Canceled
  
• Chandler Jazz Festival - Canceled
  
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• A’REZZ’ONA
  
• UFEST 2020
  
• Pat's Run - Canceled but going virtual
  
• Scottsdale Fashion Week
  
• Phoenix Film Festival
  

Attractions that are suspending or restricting operations

• Great Wolf Lodge
  
• Crayola Experience in Chandler
  
• Children's Museum of Phoenix
  
• Phoenix Art Museum - museum open but all on-site and off-site programs and events, including daily public and school tours are cancelled through April 3.
  
• Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Phoenix
  
• Turf Paradise
  
• Medieval Times
  
• Changing Hands Bookstore has canceled all in-store and offsite events through March 31. Ticket refunds should be requested through Eventbrite.
  
• Tovrea Castle at Carraro Heights will postpone all Tours, Events and Garden Days from March 19 – April 26, 2020.
  
• Arizona Science Center
  
• Harkins Theatres
  
• AMC Theatres
  
• Phoenix Art Museum - now closed through April 6th.
  
• Maricopa County Library District
  
• Mesa Public Libraries
  
• Phoenix Public Libraries
  
• Tempe Public Library
  

List of events/happenings/attractions that are still taking place or to remain open as of 03/17/2020. Always check event website before leaving to ensure most current information.

• Phoenix Zoo
  
• Desert Botanical Garden
  
• Arizona Boardwalk (Butterfly Wonderland, Odysea Aquarium, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition)
  
• Phoenix Art Museum
  
• Renaissance Festival has now ended their season.
  
• Arizona Science Center
  
• LEGOLAND Discovery Center Arizona
  
• Castles N Coasters
  
• Japanese Friendship Garden
  
• Out of Africa Wildlife Park
  
• Wildlife World Zoo, Aquarium & Safari Park
  
• Boyce Thompson Arboretum
  
• Stand Up Live
  
• Tempe Improv
  

Venue Links, Statements and Contact Information

• The Van Buren
  
• Marquee Theatre
  
• Crescent Ballroom or 602-716-2222
  
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• ASU Gammage Auditorium
  
• Harrah’s Ak Chin Casino
  
• MIM Concerts
  
• Arizona Federal Theatre
  
• Stand Up Live
  
• Tempe Improv
  
• Tempe Center for the Arts has canceled all events through April 30th.
  
• Talking Stick Resort and Casino
  
• Master list from Ticketmaster of Phoenix area shows with any ticket status other than normal. It is constantly updated.
  

Misc. Government and Utility Updates

• SRP
  
• APS
  
• City of Tempe
  
• City of Phoenix
  
• City of Glendale
  
• City of Avondale
  
• City of Surprise
  
• The Arizona Legislature has indefinitely closed the Senate and House public galleries.
  
• The Judicial Branch of Arizona says prospective jurors who are sick or experiencing symptoms can call the Jury Office at 602-506-5879 to discuss postponing service.
  
• Navajo Nation Closes Tribal Parks to include Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Little Colorado River Tribal Park, Four Corners Monument, Lake Powell Navajo Tribal Park (Antelope Canyon) and Canyon de Chelly.
  
• Havasupai Tribe: Tourism to Havasu Falls, Mooney Falls, Beaver Falls suspended until April 14
  

Kennedy and Heidi: Vicarious Patricide as Tony’s Decompensation

At the risk of needless redundancy, I think it’s helpful to summarize Tony’s state of mind going into the episode Kennedy and Heidi. His consciousness is teeming with ancient but recently-agitated memories showcasing his father’s violence and toxic influence, like Johnny shooting a hole through Livia’s hairdo and baptizing him in the act of murder. He’s unable to shake stories of parental neglect leading to tragic outcomes for children. He’s painfully aware of Christopher’s hatred of him and desire for murderous revenge, feelings ultimately rooted in the fact that Tony guided him into the same corrupt existence into which he himself had been led by Johnny, Junior, and company, suggesting a reciprocal, if unconscious, rage by Tony towards those men. His subconscious mind is under constant assault from hats and movie posters and coffee mugs bearing the image of a bloody meat cleaver, an emblem of his own lost childhood innocence and inculcation by his father into his brutal, ugly vocation. He is racked with acute but intense guilt over the role he thinks his life’s example has played in shaping his son’s values and poor sense of self-worth. And he is still repressing a mountain of hurt over the fact that his uncle and second father tried not once but twice to kill him, a repression Melfi warned would someday result in a total collapse of his defense mechanisms, that is, a collapse of his paternal hero-worship and related quest for the macho validation that has prevented him from critically examining his father, uncle, and the men upon whom he modeled his life.
Now consider the circumstances immediately before the crash. Tony and Chris are on a routine drive back from business in Christopher’s new black Cadillac SUV (the first Cadillac Chris has ever owned, incidentally.) The conversation turns to life priorities. Chris, conspicuously clad in a Cleaver hat, specifically mentions how Kaitlyn has changed his priorities, and Tony mentions the “shit with Junior”. So the context is immediately pregnant with the fact that Junior shot and nearly killed Tony within the past year and with the fact that Chris is in a new place of responsibility, a position where he is, for the first time, truly the custodian and trustee for another life.
In a perfectly-timed illustration of just how ill-equipped Chris is to live up to those responsibilities, he nervously and repeatedly fiddles with the car stereo, fidgets, and widens his eyes, telegraphing to Tony that he is high as a kite on drugs. “Comfortably Numb” swells on the sound system as Tony stares at him, the lyrics underscoring that, in that moment, he does not see Chris as a youngster, as the “adorable kid” he once road around in the basket of his bicycle, but as a grown man:
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse Out of the corner of my eye I turned to look but it was gone I cannot put my finger on it now The child is grown, the dream is gone
Chris swerves, and the crash happens seconds later.

Tony as the Child in the Carseat

It’s critical to note that Tony initially manifests every intention of helping Chris, even as he’s fighting his own injuries. “I’m comin’,” he says as Chris asks for help. His expression and demeanor only change when he realizes what Chris means by “help”. “I’ll never pass a drug test,” Chris moans. “What?” Tony asks incredulously as Chris is inhaling his own blood. Almost simultaneously, Tony turns towards the back and sees that a tree limb has penetrated the passenger compartment, lodging in Kaitlyn’s car seat like a spear. While Tony would somewhat exaggerate the size of the branch in later narrations of the event, there’s no question that it was large enough to have impaled or seriously injured an infant.
Even after this warning shot over the bow, Tony apparently intends to help Chris, coming over to the driver’s side and breaking the window when he couldn’t get the door open. He draws his cell phone to call for help but stops when Chris again mentions being doped up, which suggests that Chris is more concerned about the legal consequences of his intoxication than about the fact that he is drowning in his own blood, completely belying his claim to a life newly ordered around the lofty priority of fatherhood.
That’s the moment when Tony forms a genuine murderous intent, an intent that has little to do with Christopher’s animosity towards him or the danger that he might flip. Those are conscious, background motives that help Tony rationalize and make sense of his actions later. But the factor impelling him to end Christopher’s life is his own, fundamental identification with the child who might just as easily have been killed or seriously harmed in that carseat.
To objectify this point, there is a slow pan of the limb sticking through the seat as Tony performs the suffocation, clearly not a shot representing Tony’s vision or gaze at that moment but objectively corroborating the earlier angle when Tony glances back and we see the seat from his point of view. The juxtaposition of these shots – subjective and objective – tells me the carseat is not just a convenient excuse for Tony. This is what he’s really feeling. In this moment, he is the phantom child in that carseat, a child whose safety and well-being come second to his father’s corrupt values and reckless self-indulgence, a child whose soul and humanity are metaphorically impaled by riding in and being taught to drive his father’s black Cadillac.
The exclamation point on the symbolism is provided by Christopher’s hat. Incredibly, it remains on his head throughout the crash and suffocation, its bloody cleaver logo pointing towards Tony when the car comes to rest. As Tony acts consciously on behalf of an innocent child, the symbol of his own lost childhood innocence is directly before him. And, for good measure, the cap and logo stare back at him in the hospital from the gurney laden with Christopher’s bloody clothing and the black bag containing his dead body. (The logo antagonizes Tony a final time from his coffee mug the next morning before he angrily tosses the mug into his backyard woods.)
Several points about the suffocation itself are remarkable. First was the look of absolute depravity on Tony’s face as he watched Christopher struggle to breathe. This look was unlike any ever seen on Tony’s face at any other moment in the series. Even when committing other personal and deadly acts of violence, his face and demeanor had always betrayed a commensurate level of animus, an active, passionate intent. In contrast, he reached through the window and pinched Christopher’s nose – and maintained that hold – with remarkable calm. His face and eyes throughout the suffocation were paradoxically both incredibly intense and completely devoid of human emotion, a look far more disturbing than any look of mere rage he’d ever worn before.
Second, although this act was, in my judgment, clearly about the release of Tony’s pent up rage towards his father figures, the method of killing evokes Livia. Besides her conspiracy with Junior to kill Tony (which she rationalized was for his own good) and general obsession with stories of child deaths, she had once threatened to “smother [her children] with a pillow” to save them from a fate she deemed even worse. Tony grabbed a pillow intending to smother her in the season one finale before nursing home personnel intervened. In Members Only, Tony spoke of being smothered with a pillow as a suitable form of euthanasia. Its functional equivalent at the scene of the crash had a definite vibe of putting Chris out of his own – and everyone’s – misery. So, in killing his “father”, Tony was also paradoxically suffocating his “son”, thereby channeling Livia’s filicidal urges and concept of mercy killing.
The most spine-tingling resonance with the scene comes from two season four episodes where Tony’s deep identification with “innocents” – be they children or animals – once again comes to the fore, as does his appreciation for the consequences of Chris continuing to use drugs. In Whoever Did This, Tony warns Christopher that he “can’t be high on heroine and raise kids.” And in The Strong, Silent Type, after learning that a doped-up Chris accidentally smothered and suffocated Adriana’s dog, Tony ominously snaps, “You suffocated little Cossette? I oughta suffocate you, you prick!” It’s such perfect foreshadowing that the earlier episodes seem to have been written with the outcome of Kennedy and Heidi in mind.

Righteous Retribution as the Explanation for Tony’s Lack of Sorrow

As previously noted, the most troubling aspect of the episode from the standpoint of character consistency and plausibility was not the fact that Tony murdered Chris. It was his vacuous expression during the killing and the fact that he never betrayed a moment’s genuine sorrow or regret afterwards. He remained, in fact, defiantly happy and unconflicted about it, especially to Melfi, and was sincerely troubled that neither she nor anyone else could see how Christopher’s death rescued Kaitlyn from a lifetime of risks and harm that she would naturally suffer as the daughter of a drug addict (and mob captain).
In his therapy scenes with Melfi, real and dream, Tony even makes the very contrast I raise, noting that he’s never felt this way after murdering any other person close to him. He alludes to his sorrow over Pussy and specifically allows that murdering Tony B left him “prostate [sic] with grief.” In effect, Tony himself is revealing that this killing feels righteous and justified to him on an instinctive level and is therefore not one about which he can feel guilt or sorrow.
That sentiment makes no sense if his dominant motives were those he talked about in therapy: Christopher’s animosity and resentment towards him after the Adriana hit and his drug-use and consequent risk to flip. Whatever weight those factors carry in justifying murder in the corrupt “ethics” of the mob (which, in any case, is less than the weight of the transgressions by Pussy and Tony B), they carry absolutely no legitimate moral weight outside it and could not sustain in Tony the sense of just triumph that he felt in response to Christopher’s death. What could inspire that sense of triumph is the perceived liberation of a child from a dangerous and toxic father, experienced subconsciously as vicarious retribution for the abuse and harm he himself suffered at the hands of his own father and uncle.

Significance of the Names “Kennedy” and “Heidi”

“Kennedy” and “Heidi” are the names of the young passenger and driver, respectively, in the car that sideswipes Christopher’s SUV before the fateful crash. The girls are barely onscreen a few seconds, just long enough to (somewhat artificially) learn their names in the following exchange:
Kennedy: Maybe we should go back, Heidi! Heidi: Kennedy, I’m on my learner’s permit after dark!
Much forum debate after the first airing of the episode centered around the significance, if any, of these names. I propose a related but even more basic question: why are the girls present in the scene at all?
Tony’s windfall opportunity to murder Chris and pass it off as death from accidental injury was entirely dependent upon being unobserved by others after the crash. Given Christopher’s intoxicated state and inattention to the curvy road while he fiddled with radio controls, a mere swerve and over-correction or swerve to avoid an animal (Tony’s crash with Adriana, anyone?) would have easily sufficed to trigger the accident but without the problematic involvement of another car, the driver of which would have to be made to flee the scene illegally and in contravention of the ethics and instincts of at least 95% of the motorists on the road. So the very fact that another car is involved, complicating both the story and the filming, suggests some symbolic or subtextual design to the involvement related specifically to the momentous event occurring right after the crash.
One aspect of that design is revealed and amplified when a grieving Kelly shows up at Christopher’s wake with dark hair framing her face and large, dark sunglasses covering her eyes. A member of the crew remarks, “Look at her. Like a movie star.” An odd look immediately crosses Tony’s face as he spontaneously responds, “Jackie Kennedy”, noting Kelly’s resemblance to the widow of John F. Kennedy.
In my mind, this striking moment in the episode can have only one purpose, and that’s to evoke Johnny Boy in relation to Christopher via a kind of symbolic math. If Kelly = Jackie Kennedy, then Chris = JFK = Johnny Boy since JFK was the explicit parallel figure for Johnny in In Camelot, the first episode of the series depicting cracks in the foundation of Tony’s paternal hero worship. When that foundation completely crumbles inside Tony’s subconscious a season and a half later, it’s entirely fitting that the JFK/Johnny parallel is renewed.
As for the name “Heidi”, most folks around these parts felt it was meant to evoke the idea of “orphan” because of the famous Swiss orphan tale of the same name and because Kaitlyn (and Paulie) both lost parents in the episode. That’s an entirely plausible analysis that requires no expansion, although I’m inclined to think there’s more to it than that, starting with the analogy of Tony himself to “Heidi”. No, Tony was never technically orphaned, though he arguably suffered more as the son of Johnny and Livia than if he had been. He was certainly deprived of real parental love and guidance, on both sides, and that roughly equates to the definition of “orphan”.
Before discussing this episode for the first time, I never knew that Heidi was the story of an orphan, only that it was some kind of tale for children. And I knew that only because of the epic 1968 football game between Joe Namath’s Jets and the Oakland Raiders, the climactic ending of which (an improbable comeback by the Raiders) was cut off abruptly for television viewers at the end of its scheduled broadcast slot so that a movie version of Heidi could begin airing on time. I was only four at the time of this debacle but recall my parents talking about it – and the considerable chaos it caused at NBC and at telephone switchboards around the country – for years afterwards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game
It wouldn’t become clear until the end of Made In America, but there’s an obvious parallel to the Heidi phenomenon in the wind-up of The Sopranos. Consider that, like the Heidi Game broadcast, Made in America featured an abrupt, unexpected termination of excruciatingly tense action at a penultimate moment, pre-empting audience experience of what appeared to be an imminent and momentous climax. The Sopranos ending may not have disabled an entire telephone network, but it certainly generated an enormous amount of controversy that, for better or worse, persists to this day.
Beyond that, there were enough other football references in the final Sopranos episodes, and especially Jets references, to warrant further consideration of this football connotation for “Heidi”. In Remember When, Tony’s betting losses on Jets football games prompt his call to Hesh for a bridge loan. Later that same episode, Paulie annoys Tony and company with yet another old tale, this one relating how, after witnessing Joe Namath stagger drunk into a bar the night before a game, he bet a load of cash the following day on the Jets’ opponent. In Chasing It, Tony gets inside information on a Jets football game and is irate when Carmela refuses to bet money on it. The episode features a closeup of a large newspaper headline, “Jets Bomb Chargers”.
In Blue Comet, then-current coach of the Jets, Eric Mangini, makes a cameo appearance in Vesuvio, with Artie informing a suitably-impressed Tony so the two can go over and shake hands. News articles at the time clarified that the cameo wasn’t Mangini’s idea but the idea of Sopranos producers, who contacted him months in advance and made accommodations in the shooting schedule around his availability. So this seemed more than a casual desire to have some generic celebrity show up.
That especially seems true considering Mangini was given no dialog and that his meeting with Tony and Artie was only depicted in the silent background of a conversation between Charmaine and Carmela. Mangini’s only purpose on set was apparently to show his face briefly and to have the fact of his identity (Tony has to tell a bewildered Carm that Mangini is the head coach of the Jets) permeate the minds of the audience and the subtext of the scene, which is ultimately about chickens coming home to roost on Tony and Carmela because of the lives they chose.
As alter egos for Tony and Carmela throughout the series, folks who took the proverbial “other path” in life, Artie and (especially) Charmaine engage in subtle gloating in the scene. Football coaching was firmly established as Tony’s “road not taken” in Test Dream, so having an actual football coach present in the episode where the unsavory and downright deadly consequences of his chosen vocation are crashing in all around him provides dramatic ballast. All the better to have the coach in the scene be the coach of the team involved in the Heidi game in view of the ending planned for the following episode.
And speaking again of that ending, the wall behind Tony in Holsten’s is consumed with four large murals specifically brought in by the production crew for the shoot. The largest and most centered depicts a huge, light-colored building with lots of windows, somewhat reminiscent of the Inn at the Oaks in Tony’s coma dream. It’s apparently a high school, however, as it is flanked on either side by images of football players in full uniform with what appear to be names and year of graduation engraved at the bottom. To the side and extreme left is a mural of a tiger and the caption “Class of 1973” at the bottom. The tiger is presumably the mascot for the team and school represented in the other murals. So there is a strong symbolic presence of “football” in the last scene of the series, particularly of high school football from roughly the era when Tony would have entered high school.
Finally, though it may be completely insignificant, when Tony tells Carm about the accident from his hospital stretcher in Kennedy and Heidi, he mentions that he re-injured his knee, “the one from high school.” That certainly sounds like a reference to an old high school football injury.
If these loose strands from multiple episodes are indeed intended to connote football in relation to the name “Heidi”, what does that actually mean in the context of the episode Kennedy and Heidi? What does football have to do with Tony killing Chris or, more precisely, with him killing his father in the guise of Chris?
The linchpin in that symbolism, it seems to me, is Tony’s old high school football coach, the guy who would have been his coach when he originally injured his knee, the guy Tony dreamt repeatedly of trying to silence or kill, the guy whose puzzling duality in Test Dream suddenly makes sense when he’s viewed as a classic, Freudian composite of opposites, specifically a composite of Tony’s opposing father figures with Johnny dressed in the physiognomy of Coach Molinaro by Tony’s subconscious in order to render acceptable imagery of his latent, patricidal feelings.
If you further allow, as I do, that the Johnny look-alike shooting at Tony with a scoped rifle (ala Oswald/”Kennedy”) in that same dream is yet another Freudian “reversal into the opposite” by Tony’s subconscious to disguise his repressed paternal rage, then the Kennedy/Heidi connection is pretty clear. The names are presented proximate to the crash to connote that, in killing Chris, Tony has finally acted out the Test Dream imagery that haunted him for years: he has (symbolically) killed his father, the “Kennedy” and “Heidi” of his dream.

“He’s Dead”

In my judgment, this explains Tony’s otherwise puzzling, peyote-induced insight when he proclaims, “He’s dead,” after winning at roulette on 3 successive spins, prompting him to fall to the floor in spectacular and uncontrollable laughter. What other, real death could have inspired such a euphoric and epiphanic reaction? What real death could Tony only have appreciated while in a drug-induced, altered state of consciousness?
Many felt the line referred to Christopher because he’d just died, obviously, and because Tony’s gambling luck suddenly changed afterward. That analysis never made sense to me.
First, Tony plays roulette at the casino while sober when he first arrives in Vegas and loses every round. Chris was already dead at that time, as Tony well knew and accepted. Indeed, Tony was never in any state of denial about Christopher’s death (or about having killed him.) He embraced it, both consciously and in his dream therapy session with Melfi after the crash.
The “he’s dead” insight occurs only after Tony takes peyote and notices a sudden and complete about-face in gambling luck. Why would he need psychedelic drugs to suddenly realize what he already knew and accepted about Chris? And why would Christopher’s death be tied in his mind to his own gambling luck anyway? No prior connection between those two things had ever been suggested.
On the other hand, Tony’s sudden escalation in gambling, which coincided with the agitation and intensification of his latent rage towards his father(s), could easily be seen as a subconscious rebellion against the stern, anti-gambling lecture Johnny imparted the night Tony witnessed the cleaver incident. To the extent that the rebellion results in huge financial losses and self destruction, it obviously fails. His father retains ultimate power and authority. To the extent the rebellion results in huge winnings, it succeeds, and Tony vanquishes his father.
That conquest was the ineffable and elusive “high” that Tony was subconsciously pursuing in Chasing It but which he could not articulate to Melfi. Thus the sudden change in gambling fortune on his Vegas trip is easily tied in Tony’s drug-altered psyche to a euphoric realization that he has conquered or symbolically killed his father, none of which Tony could appreciate without a vastly altered state of consciousness.
And that leads to why he went to Vegas in the first place. He asks that question out loud to the Vegas prostitute, Sonia, immediately before admitting that Christopher once mentioned taking peyote with her. Tony then confesses to having always wanted to try the drug.
Clearly, then, he didn’t just happen to pick Vegas and didn’t just happen to make contact with this girl. His subconscious was pushing him to that venue because he craved the enlightenment of a peyote experience. So while Tony’s real motives for the murder, and for his otherwise inexplicable jubilance afterward, were completely closed off to his conscious mind, somehow he sensed their existence and yearned to unlock and understand them. However his peyote revelations didn’t stop with simply understanding why he killed Chris.

“I Get It. I Get It!”

Tony’s desert epiphany is a bookend to his near-death coma experience and, I believe, can only be fully understood in relation to it. Yet exploring that relationship is a journey all unto itself, calling not only for consideration of the coma episodes and Kennedy and Heidi but the meaning of the cut to black that ends the series. While exploring the religious and spiritual underpinnings of those episodes is of even more weight and interest to me personally than the issue of Tony’s motives in killing Christopher, it deserves and demands its own, dedicated discussion. For now, I’d simply like to posit what I strongly believe Tony’s epiphany to have been with only minimal argumentation as to why I hold that belief.
The epiphany is presaged when Tony enters the casino on his peyote trip and notes that the roulette wheel is built on the same principle as the solar system. The ball spins round and round the center or “sun” of the wheel because of two delicately-balanced but largely opposing phenomena: the momentum of the ball (which, without the wheel, would carry the ball away in a straight line) and the centripetal force of the wheel (applied by the rim, which continuously pulls the ball towards the center even as the ball’s momentum continuously pulls it on a path perpendicular to the centripetal force.) The antagonism (or cooperation, if you prefer) of the forces gives rise to a unified system: an orbit.
If this sounds a bit like the Bell Labs scientist’s explanation of how two tornadoes are in fact just facets of one, unified system of wind, it’s likely no mere coincidence. As Hal Holbrook’s character argued, separateness is a mirage. The universe, and everything in it, is one big soup of molecules interacting in cause/effect fashion according to laws, making it one whole, not a bunch of discrete parts. “Everything is everything,” as the black rapper reduced it.
That was the philosophy that really made an impression on Tony in the days and weeks following his coma. The principles of quantum physics articulated by Holbrook’s character are likely as close as you can get to a scientific codification of Bhuddism and therefore reinforced much of what the Bhuddist monks conveyed to Tony in his coma. The monks laughed when Tony claimed he wasn’t Finnerty and explained that there really is no “you” and “me, that death would bring an obliteration of individuality. Separate consciousness – and the consciousness of separateness – is an illusion of the living.
So all this laid the philosophical groundwork for Tony’s Las Vegas trip. In that trip, Tony seeks out a girl with whom Chris had slept, then sleeps with her himself. He mentions having refrained from a longstanding desire to try peyote because he always felt the weight of his responsibilities, an implied contrast to Christopher, who always indulged in drugs despite his responsibilities. The idea that Tony was seeking to almost live life in Christopher’s skin in the Las Vegas portion of the episode was something several posters mentioned in first discussions after Kennedy and Heidi aired. Even the girl, Sonia, remarks how similar Tony and Chris are, a somewhat dubious observation that somehow offends Tony but which also helps define his impending epiphany.
That epiphany is spurred when the rising sun flares at him over the desert mountain vista. This recalls Tony’s earlier comparison of the roulette wheel to the solar system. It also resonates completely with the fact that Kevin Finnerty was a solar heating salesman from Kingman, Arizona, a town which, not coincidentally, lies 95 miles southeast of Las Vegas and shares the same desert landscape. Also not coincidental, IMO, is the fact that in the prior episode, Christopher spoke of the perks of joining witness protection and of “living large” in Arizona.
So I believe that, in that desert sunrise on the cusp of Arizona, in fulfillment of his identity as Kevin Finnerty, solar heating salesman, Tony saw his “son” – Christopher – “rise” and realized that, in murdering him days before, he (Tony) was really “rising” as a “son” against Johnny Boy. And in that linkage, he suddenly realized that “everything is [indeed] everything.” He is both Chris and Johnny Boy, both abused and misguided son and abusing, misguiding father. He is murdering uncle and would-be murdered nephew. He is both the mother that sees suffocation as mercy killing and the son who is suffocated. Christopher is both his son and his father. Johnny Boy is Coach Molinaro. “Kennedy” is “Heidi”. Opposites are really two sides of the same coin. In that fleeting moment of insight, Tony was truly feeling “one” with the universe.

The Second Coming

The episode following Kennedy and Heidi is titled The Second Coming after the Yeats poem that grips AJ in the English lit class he’s auditing. While the poem speaks to the bleakness of his depression and outlook on life at that particular time, there’s little doubt that – like everything of substantial weight in the Sopranos universe – it ultimately relates, first and foremost, to Tony. First referenced in the Cold Cuts therapy session dealing with pent-up rage where Tony’s deep shame from the cleaver incident is finally revealed, the poem seems the veritable inspiration for the storyline (as interpreted in this article) that culminates in Christopher’s murder:
The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The widening gyre, the orbit that breaks down when the center can no longer hold, is clearly a parallel to the decompensation of which Melfi warned, the point at which Tony’s defenses after Junior’s second murder attempt could no longer hold and the underlying pathological rage at his fathers would take over. True to the poem, a “blood-dimmed tide was loosed”, inspired by a perverse compassion for the “innocent”. While “the best” all mourned Christopher and thought his death a tragedy, Tony, “the worst”, was full of passionate intensity and could not understand why no one else saw the greater good in Christopher’s death.
The “revelation” occurs in a “waste of desert sand”, imagery easily compatible with Tony’s “I get it” moment in the Nevada/Arizona desert. The uniquely depraved look on his face as he suffocated Christopher is evoked by the line describing a “gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun”. “Twenty years of stony sleep” refers to the decades of denial Tony maintained, the defense mechanisms that kept him all his life from confronting and admitting that, in some very real ways, he hated his father. It’s a figurative sleep that was suggested literally in the noted fact that so many episodes in season 6B started with Tony in a deep sleep. Somnolence was suggested even in the choice of the song “Comfortably Numb” as soundtrack in the moments immediately preceding the crash, the moments right before the hour of the “rough beast” finally arrived. Even the incidentals are perfect allusions, as with the image of “stony sleep” being turned into a nightmare by a “rocking cradle”, or, in this case, by a car seat with a branch sticking through it.
I’m intrigued by the line describing the emerging beast as having “lion body”. It may mean absolutely nothing. But among the story points worth considering in relation to it are the tiger on the wall in Holsten’s and the enigmatic cat in Made In America.
More obscure is the fact that in Remember When, the single episode most explicitly dealing with the violent release of stifled paternal rage, Carter Chong described his grandfather as a “lion” and noted that his father owned “Grumman” stock. (Grumman manufactured a number of high-profile fighter military aircraft, most of them named for some kind of cat, e.g., Panther, Jaguar, Tomcat, Tigercat.) Carter was reviewing these facts to himself in the scene immediately preceding his vicious attack on Junior, suggesting that, in acting out on his stifled paternal hatred, he was adopting the predatory, aggressive characteristics of a wild cat. Notably, when Junior, the paternal surrogate who modeled this kind of aggressive behavior to Carter, was seen at the end of that episode bruised and literally defanged, his sunken mouth void of false teeth, he was stroking a harmless little housecat on his lap. Once a lion, the former mob boss was a lion no more.

Asbestos Dumping as a Metaphor for Tony’s Toxic Spill of Rage

Kennedy and Heidi opens with a controversy between Tony and Phil Leotardo over asbestos disposal. One of Tony’s contractors was removing asbestos from old buildings, while following none of the strict (and expensive) asbestos-handling laws regulating worker and public safety, and was seeking to dump completely uncontained truck-fulls at waste stations controlled by Phil. Phil’s guys were denying the trucks the right to dump. As a consequence, huge, openly-smoking asbestos mounds were building up at job sites.
After Christopher’s death, Tony was doing little to find a solution, skipping town to gamble, get laid, and get high and leaving the contractor high and dry. Finally, near the very end of the episode, the contractor dumps heaps of asbestos at dawn in an open marsh area resembling the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that gained widespread use in the 19th and 20th centuries as an ingredient in various building industry materials – including wall compounds, insulation, and roofing materials – primarily because of its extreme insulative properties and resistance to heat and fire. In the last 40 years, it’s become better-known for its cancer-causing and toxic effects on those mining and working with it in manufacturing, demolition/remodeling, or other “raw” environments.
Both the heat resistance and toxicity of asbestos make the shoddy removal/dumping storyline a compelling metaphor for Tony’s equally shoddy “dumping” in Kennedy and Heidi. The smoldering heat and flames from his hatred towards his father and uncle were contained beneath his consciousness by an insulating firewall of denial and repression. In essence, this denial and repression was Tony’s psychological asbestos, and it (more or less) contained the heat and fire within him for 47 years.
But it finally broke down, allowing the flames to rage and do damage and necessitating a messy disposal. Unfortunately the breakdown didn’t happen where it should have, in his therapist’s office as the result of honest introspection and dialog about little things like his uncle trying to kill him twice and his father indoctrinating him to murder at 22. That would have been the equivalent of careful, legally-compliant asbestos removal. Instead the breakdown occurred in a roadside ravine and the resulting “waste [in the] desert sand” was every bit as toxic as the smoking piles illegally dumped in the Meadowlands immediately before the desert epiphany and which we saw reprised in the very first shot of the following episode.
Think about that for a moment. Tony’s “I get it” moment was literally sandwiched between shots of noxious mounds of asbestos blowing in the New Jersey wind, a significant clue that some other kind of perversely cathartic disposal was in the middle of that sandwich.

The Orbit of the ‘Blue Comet’: Long Journey to Nowhere

It’s fair to ask: if the broad strokes of my interpretation are valid, what impact did the epiphany have on Tony going forward? After the drugs wore off, did he actually retain any specific understanding of his subconscious motives for killing Chris? Was he left only with the impression that he had enjoyed a very brief moment of enlightenment but without intellectual distillation of the enlightenment itself?
Because the insight was founded upon the secret that he had murdered Chris, even if Tony had retained it, he couldn’t overtly share it with anyone. Still, I lean toward the interpretation that the specifics (at least the ones I proffered) were lost to him when the altered state of consciousness ceased. When he tried to describe the magic of what he experienced in the desert to his crew, he could only come up with the most mundane, inadequate words: “The sun . . . came up.” They all looked at him like he was half retarded.
He was slightly more specific with Melfi, offering that he saw “for pretty certain” that this reality is not all there is. He couldn’t define the alternative but was still convinced there was “something else”.
He did speak in therapy of appreciating a balance and unity in opposites that he hadn’t appreciated before, a “ying” [sic] and “yang”. And he offered that “mothers are like buses . . . the vehicle that gets us here,” but that, once here, we are all on our own, individual journeys (mothers included.) So, to the extent his epiphany comported with what he revealed in therapy, it seems to have had little to do with fathers and with Christopher’s murder and more to do with letting go (finally) of some of his issues with his mother.
But perhaps the best clue to his residual state of understanding came when he indicated that some of what he thought he had grasped in the desert now eluded him. “You think you know, you think you learn something . . . like when I got shot,” he begins. Then, speaking specifically about the peyote experience, he reports that the insight gained is “kinda hard to describe. . . . You know, you have these thoughts, and you almost grab it . . . and then . . . ftt.” He flicks his fingers away from his chin as if to indicate “nothing”. So, to paraphrase Edna St. Vincent Millay, a fragment of what he knew remains, but, apparently, the best is lost.
It wouldn’t take long for all of it to be lost. By the time Tony sits with AJ’s female therapist in Made In America, “going about in pity” for himself because of who his mother was, he has come full circle, essentially back to where he was to start the series. Like a “blue comet”, his orbit was highly elliptical, if not erratic, and carried with it the potential of veering off into deep space or crashing into the sun. But despite killing his own nephew, having a near-death experience himself, and saving his son from an act of suicide, the orbit held. The sober breakthrough never came. The repudiation of his father and of his way of life never took hold in his consciousness. And so, by series’ end, we, like Tony, were exhausted from a long journey that ultimately took us nowhere.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

• Per Brendon Kleen, The Fox Sports pre and postgame shows (Tom Chambers and Tom Leander) will now be held in the main arena entrance formerly known as the Casino Arizona Pavilion. Image of the current set construction from FSAZ

A rep from Okland Construction, which is overseeing the renovations at TSRA, says the @FOXSPORTSAZ broadcast stage will be where the Casino Arizona pavilion used to be, at the main entrance of the building.

• Media was allowed to walk in to through the main entrance and the new cutout to the lower bowl. Here is a video showing that experience from Kellan Olson. Another view from FSAZ .Kellan's Tweet.
  
• Other Construction images: full arena bowl and seating pic from Kellan Olson, current pic of Casino Arizona Pavilion main entrance from Katherine Fitzgerald
  
• The Ring of Honor will now be digital on 1 of 2 ribbon LED panels that goes around the interior of the stadium.
  

See the white tape below the upper deck and around it? That's an LED ribbon board, one of two they will have there that goes around the arena. They will actually have the Ring of Honor come up on that. Rowley said they want that space to be constantly changing and not so static.

• The Suns are working with the league to try and implement better sanitation methods such as UV lights and paint that creates an adverse surface environment for bacterial growth
  
• Professional photos from AZCentral including a look at the new seats
  

If any new images or news comes out, I will update it here in this post.

Don't mind me, just shoving everything in one big thread. Please avoid posting separate threads, post in this instead! I will update this thread as time goes on.

Tour dates

UPDATE: More dates to be announced. https://twitter.com/muse/status/1059456440526626820
"Mexico and South America dates will be in the autumn. Still working on venues etc."
"Stay tuned, LA will be a part of the US tour, also NY and Chicago"
"We are hoping to do a tour of Japan in September! More dates to come"
https://twitter.com/MattBellamy/status/1059456986683752448
https://twitter.com/MattBellamy/status/1059457212148576256
https://twitter.com/MattBellamy/status/1059457314330157058
​
In a question to "Will the shows at open air venues (like Lisbon) be any different than the stadium shows? ", Matt answers: "No, all parks and stadiums same show"

Official Store pre-sale starts Tuesday 13 November at 10a local. Codes will be delivered via a separate email on Monday 12 November.
Members section pre-sale begins Tuesday 13 November at 1p local. Please note you will need to reset your password to gain access to the new Members section.
General on sale starts Friday 16 November at 9am local for the UK, 10am local for Europe, noon local for North America, except Philadelphia & Phoenix which are 1pm local. Stay tuned for ticket links!
The Simulation Theory World Tour will feature an exciting new Enhanced Experience Package that allows access to an exclusive Mixed Reality Pre-Show Party, powered by Microsoft, with three original virtual reality games, inspired by tracks from Simulation Theory. Additional Enhanced Experience perks include a premium concert ticket, show specific poster, interactive photo experience with props and memorabilia from the band’s latest videos and more. More details are available here.
Ticket resale will be strictly limited to Twickets, a fan-to-fan ticket resale platform.

22/02/19 Toyota Center, Houston, Texas
24/02/19 American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas
26/02/19 Talking Stick Resort Arena, Phoenix, Arizona
28/02/19 Vivent Smart Home Arena, Salt Lake City, Utah
02/03/19 Mandalay Bay Events Center, Las Vegas, Nevada
05/03/19 Valley View Casino Center, San Diego, California
07/03/19 Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, California
09/03/19 Oracle Arena, Oakland, California
24/03/19 BB&T Center, Sunrise, Florida
26/03/19 State Farm Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
28/03/19 Scotiabank Arena, Toronto, Ontario
30/03/19 Bell Centre, Montreal, Quebec
31/03/19 Videotron Centre, Quebec City, Quebec
02/04/19 Capital One Arena, Washington, District of Columbia
04/04/19 Little Caesars Arena, Detroit, Michigan
07/04/19 Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
10/04/19 TD Garden, Boston, Massachusetts
26/05/19 Letnany Airport, Prague, Czech Republic
28/05/19 Papp Laszlo Sports Arena, Budapest, Hungary
29/05/19 Stadhalle Graz, Graz, Austria
01/06/19 London Stadium, London, England
08/06/19 Etihad Stadium, Manchester, England
12/06/19 Arena Riga, Riga, Latvia
15/06/19 Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow, Russia
18/06/19 Suvilahti Open Air, Helsinki, Finland
22/06/19 Tauron Arena, Krakow, Poland
27/06/19 Goffertpark, Nijmegen, Netherlands
29/06/19 RheinEnergieStadion, Cologne, Germany
30/06/19 Rock Werchter, Werchter, Belgium
03/07/19 Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland
06/07/19 Stade de France, Paris, France
09/07/19 Stade Orange Velodrom, Marseille, France
12/07/19 San Siro Stadium, Milan, Italy
16/07/19 Matmut Atlantique, Bordeaux, France
20/07/19 Olympic Stadium, Rome, Italy
24/07/19 Passeio Maritimo de Alges, Lisbon, Portugal
26/07/19 Wanda Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain
06/10/19 Rock In Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Interviews

Deejay
https://www.deejay.it/news/muse-a-tropical-pizza-ogni-brano-del-nuovo-album-sara-accompagnato-da-un-video/578553/amp/
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1047959418699268&id=75575542251&refsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2FRadioDeejay%2Fvideos%2F1047959418699268%2F&_rdr
News: You can see a preview of the next music video at 3:40. Blockades and Algorithm apparently will be released on Friday. It is pretty interesting interview, I recommend to watch this!
Virgin Italy Radio 1 PM Italy time (in 5mins) ENDED
https://www.virginradio.it/news/home/253454/muse-dalle-13-15-ospiti-a-virgin-radio-segui-la-diretta-onair-e-su-facebook.html https://www.virginradio.it/sezioni/1184/virgin-radio-on-air https://www.facebook.com/virginradioitaly/videos/187698868775390/
News: no new information what's o ever.
RTL 102.5 (3PM Italy time) ENDED
https://www.rtl.it/ospiti/i-muse-a-rtl-1025-ospiti-in-the-flight-lunedi-5-novembre-2018/
News: "Brass, choreography and other "interesting formations" in live shows. "Vdeos are gonna come out when the albums comes out". Matt reassured that there will be nine music videos in total.
(thanks u/dmarcop777)
Tour announcement official time by Muse (6AM PDT / 9AM EDT / 2PM GMT / 3PM CET)
https://twitter.com/muse/status/1058335152823250944
"Muse will be in the final of X Factor in Italy on December 13th (artists often play 2/3 titles)"
https://twitter.com/MuseFrance/status/1059411559028588544 https://xfactor.sky.it/2018/11/5/muse-ospiti-internazionali-finale-x-factor-2018/
"Friday 9.11 between 6pm and 7pm **@**muse will be in interview in the Drive @RTL2officiel! "
https://twitter.com/LeDriveRTL2/status/1059415576588795904

I’m an American.
Hello, NZ Herald! I'm sure you want to know all about me.
...annnyway,
In 2010, I came to NZ on a working holiday visa, but (for various reasons including homesickness), I decided to return to the states.
In 2018, I’ve decided to send in my Expression of Interest letter for the Skilled Worker Visa, with the intent to permanently emigrate.
So, if you want to know what an American really thinks of New Zealand, and has thought about New Zealand long enough to write a (sold-single-digits) book on it’s political structure, here’s what I come back with.

• I’ve met everyone on your political spectrum from sandwich-wearing conspiracy theorists to Prime Ministers (Geoffrey Palmer, Jenny Shipley, Jim Bolger, and then-shadow-deputy PM Bill English). They were willing to give me the time of day. It was easier and more accessible for a complete foreigner to get in touch with the highest echelons of power, just by asking, than it is for an American to get in touch with their own state representative.
  
• I disagree with the right wing on general principles in New Zealand — but they make reasonable points and logical assumptions. In other words, I can have a discussion with a National supporter and disagree but know that they’re coming from a place of information (though we may make different mental models of how the economic system works.) The fact that a National MP who made the big “big gay rainbow” speech would never happen in America. In fact, Republicans and Democrats do not talk to each other, nor do they have anything to say to each other as the common ground - the very reality itself, is different. In short, I don’t have to hate political opposition in order to disagree with them.
  
• Winston Peters is the Donald Trump of New Zealand.
  
• Proportional Representation has done more, I think for New Zealand than most Kiwis realize, as it has changed the game theory so that corruption is rooted out quickly by the parties themselves. Cabinet Sackings have occurred more often since MMP was adopted, in addition, you have more diversity in your Parliament, and your voters aren’t locked into a situation where they feel they MUST “vote for the right lizard so that the wrong lizard doesn’t get in.”
  
• There are some foods I missed from the U.S.: Root Beer a.k.a. Sasparilla, is nowhere to be found. Neither is Grape Jelly/Jam (which Americans serve with peanut butter - a favorite from our childhood.). There was also no Taco Bell, but I missed that a bit less.
  
• Similarly, there are foods from my days in NZ that I miss here. Coffee is not as good. Nor do Americans have pies the same way that NZers do.
  
• Wellington in winter can be so gray that you want to slit your wrists open just so that you can see some color. But it’s also true: You can’t beat Wellington on a good day.
  
• I found it horrifying when a Maori friend said “What up my N-words!”. I guess you’re less sensitive to that because you don’t have the years of slavery, etc. Then again, I think nothing about strapping on a “fanny pack”.
  
• You’re more friendly than New Yorkers, less friendly than Texans from Austin.
  
• Kiwis are more racist as a group than they think they are, but they’re still less racist than Americans or Australians.
  
• Kiwis think Kiwis as a group are more racist than Americans or Australians think Americans or Australians are as a group.
  
• Chocolate Milk.
  
• They call it Rotovegas, but I couldn’t find a single casino. And yes, it does smell.
  
• Internet is slower, but not unreasonably so. Long story short: throughput is okay, latency is a bitch.
  
• This is a big one - you don’t have a homeless “problem.” Or you do, but the problem is not having enough affordable housing. That is not to say that you don’t have homeless. I’m saying that the homeless in America can’t afford to see a doctor or dentist, so they can develop some really chronic problems which can mark them for life. There are ways to bring yourself up out of poverty or homelessness in NZ - in the U.S., once you become homeless, it can be a trap you can’t get out of. When one conjures images of the homeless problem in the U.S., you picture tent cities of people deformed by disease, stuck in addictions, often with mental problems which either caused their homelessness or were caused BY their homelessness. In fact, Roy Morgan conflates “house prices” with “homelessness” in their poll of Kiwi issues. In the U.S., those are seen as - are - two separate problems.
  
• Stores close way too early. Banks are closed on weekends. It’s a pain in the butt.
  
• I will never take the ozone layer for granted. And when I move back I will slip-slap-slop. The sun is a harsh mistress….
  
• Nor will I take home insulation and central heating/central cooling for granted. Though an oil heater does an okay job.
  
• Love or hate his policies, Peter Dunne is a mensch.
  
• Pharmaceutical ads are exactly like they are in the States. NZ and the U.S. are the only countries that allow TV pharmaceutical ads.
  
• You guys are way more aware of wealth inequality than Americans are. Subsequently, compared to America, NZ is an egalitarian paradise. Not to say that you don’t have a problem, or that it’s not getting worse, but your inequality graph doesn’t look like a hockey stick.
  
• Your people are better educated, mostly because of zero-interest student loans that you only have to pay off the minimum each month. In America, students are saddled with tens of thousands of dollars - at the minimum - in debt before they even start their careers. But your secondary education is a little more rigorous too.
  
• If I had kids, I wouldn’t have waited one second before deciding to go to New Zealand.
  
• I find myself wanting to eat healthier (and I’m a typical fat American gourmand.) Your vegetables don’t taste like crap because of racism.. You also don’t put corn in everything.
  
• When I move back, I’m planning on spending extra to get a flat in or near the CBD so that I don’t have to buy a car so that it’ll force me to walk more. Your public transportation isn’t as good as the one in Sydney, but it beats ANY public transportation system in America save New York, SF, and Chicago.
  
• Tall poppy syndrome is an overall negative, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, New Zealanders take care of the least of their own, and are a much better society, but there’s a positive for America in that, yes, you can reach for the stars here, and you’re encouraged to go for it. Our kids grow up wanting to be astronauts, run Fortune 500 companies, be a world-famous singer or dancer or anything… and that’s not a bad thing. Sometimes those kids make it. In short, America says "Some people are going to be superstars, some people are going to starve to death." NZ says: "Nobody starves to death here, but set your goals realistically."
  
• Americans and Kiwis are equally friendly when formally introduced through a third party, but Americans are more willing to be friendly to complete strangers.. You can become fast friends on the subway, at the bar, on the plane, etc. And it’s genuine friendship. That’s true, but on the flip side, that means that we spend less time going to formal social groups.. That might be one of the reasons our democracy has frayed so badly, as fewer and fewer of us find that the League of Women Voters, or the United Way, or the Shriners, or the monthly bridge club, or even a Sunday picnic with friends fits the way we have come to live. Americans have a “social capital deficit” and New Zealand, I think, less so.
  
• That said, Kiwis are more informal than most Americans when interacting with strangers. Kiwis do a bit of "good natured ribbing" with one another that you'd reserve for close friends in America.
  
• Kiwis are less rushed and more willing to help out strangers even if it takes out time from their day. That's... not necessarily untrue of Americans from my home city, Austin, but NY, Chicago, or SF, that's not likely.
  
• Salaries in the U.S. are much higher in my field, software engineering. But let's be honest, once you make enough, you can't buy the improved quality of life a more equal society provides.
  
• Mt. Manganui’s beaches are as good or better than any beach in the Continental 48 states. Hawaii, however, edges you out, but I’ve never been…
  
• Dick Smiths is like Radio Shack, only with useful stuff.
  
• I don't need a gun to feel safe in New Zealand, probably because there aren't tons of people around me who feel that they need a gun to feel safe.
  
• Your politicians are surprisingly chill. That one guy on John Oliver took a flying dildo to the face, and took it in stride, joking about it. The protester who threw the dildo wasn't even charged with anything, (despite it being, if one wished to call it, assault and battery with a large floppy phallus.) Compared to the inauguration protestors in the U.S., who faced riot charges.
  
• I also have more faith in the justice system of New Zealand. Rongomai Bailey was charged with terrorism, got out on bail, and had the charges dismissed considering that they didn't really have any evidence, and the review said the police were responsible. In the U.S., police literally get away with murder.. This is why, if I'm ever robbed, I don't even bother calling the police in the U.S. - they can do nothing to help you, they can only hurt you.
  
• I will never get used to calling it "EnZed" rather than "EnZee." It will mark me for life.
  
• I still get stuck on some aspects of NZ English, like, for example, putting punctuation outside the quotation marks.
  

"Hello," he said. "Hello", he said.

Week of: March 25 - March 31
This is a weekly thread of things going on in and around the Phoenix metro area.
We have a public Google Calendar for meetups and events.If you want to add something, PM the mods.
Comments are always welcomed. If you know of an event that isn't listed, please feel free to comment below. If your event is recurring, please limit comments to once a month.
Before you attend any event, please inquire to make sure the event is taking place.
Monday March 25

• Other
  
  • Arizona Speaker Series: Jane Goodall @Comerica Theatre, Phoenix 7:30PM
  • TEDxASU:NextGen @ASU Gammage, Tempe 6:00PM ($20.00+)

Tuesday March 26

• 🎤 Comedy
  
  • Aziz Ansari: Road To Nowhere @Comerica Theatre, Phoenix 7:30PM ($68.50+)
• 🎵 Music
  
  • Ayla Nereo: By the Light of the Dark Moon Tour 2019 @Valley Bar, Phoenix 8:00PM ($15.00 - $18.00)
  • Her's @The Rebel Lounge, Phoenix 8:00PM ($16.00 - $18.00)
  • Morgan James: “From White to Blue” Tour @Musical Instrument Museum, Phoenix 7:00PM ($38.50 – $43.50)
  • Queensrÿche @Marquee Theatre, Tempe 6:15PM ($30.00 - $60.00)
  • State Champs: The Living Proof Tour @The Van Buren, Phoenix 6:45PM ($25.00 - $28.00)
• Other
  
  • Cirque du Soleil: Amaluna @State Farm Stadium, Glendale 8:00PM ($55.00+)

Wednesday March 27

• 🎵 Music
  
  • Elevation Worship: Hallelujah Here Below Tour 2019 @Marquee Theatre, Tempe 7:00PM ($21.00 - $45.00)
  • King Buffalo @The Rebel Lounge, Phoenix 8:30PM ($10.00 - $12.00)
• Other
  
  • Cirque du Soleil: Amaluna @State Farm Stadium, Glendale 8:00PM ($55.00+)

Thursday March 28

• 🎤 Comedy
  
  • Chris Hardwick @Stand Up Live, Phoenix 8:00PM ($35.00)
• 🎵 Music
  
  • Against the Current: Past Lives World Tour 2019 @The Rebel Lounge, Phoenix 7:00PM ($17.00 - $20.00)
  • Boyce Avenue @Marquee Theatre, Tempe 7:30PM ($25.00 - $40.00)
  • Chelsea Cutler @Crescent Ballroom, Phoenix 8:00PM ($20.00)
  • Morgan Wallen, HARDY, Lacy Cavalier @The Van Buren, Phoenix 8:00PM ($22.000 - $99.00)
  • The Driver Era @Valley Bar, Phoenix 8:00PM ($22.00 - $25.00)
• Other
  
  • Cirque du Soleil: Amaluna @State Farm Stadium, Glendale 4:30PM, 8:00PM ($55.00+)

Friday March 29

• 🎤 Comedy
  
  • Theo Von @Stand Up Live, Phoenix 7:30PM, 10:00PM ($25.00+)
• 🎡 Fairs and Festivals
  
  • Tempe Arts Festival @Downtown Tempe, Tempe 10:00AM
• 🎵 Music
  
  • Michael Bublé @Talking Stick Resort Arena, Phoenix 8:00PM ($150.00+)
  • The Movielife @The Rebel Lounge, Phoenix 8:00PM ($18.00 - $20.00)
  • We Came As Romans / Crown The Empire @Marquee Theatre, Tempe 7:30PM ($22.00+)
• Other
  
  • Cirque du Soleil: Amaluna @State Farm Stadium, Glendale 4:30PM, 8:00PM ($55.00+)
• 🎭 Theater
  
  • Chicago @Orpheum Theatre Phoenix, Phoenix 8:00PM ($45.25+)

Saturday March 30

• 🎤 Comedy
  
  • Christine Gambito @Tempe Improv, Tempe 1:00PM ($25.00+)
  • Theo Von @Stand Up Live, Phoenix 7:00PM, 9:30PM ($25.00+)
• 📛 Community
  
  • Ultimate Frisbee @Royal Palm Park, Phoenix 9:00AM
    https://www.meetup.com/UltimateEtc/
    Our weekly games regularly have 20+ people in attendance. Even if you see just a few RSVP's, we're guaranteed to have more than enough for a full game. Usually enough for two games on the same field!
    All fitness and experience levels welcome - Friendly relaxed game with plenty of socializing. Brunch afterward.
    
• 🎡 Fairs and Festivals
  
  • African Fest USA @Kiwanis Park, Tempe 11:00AM ($15.00+)
  • Arizona Renaissance Festival @Arizona Renaissance Festival, Gold Canyon 10:00AM ($27.00 Adults / $17.00 Children)
  • Tempe Arts Festival @Downtown Tempe, Tempe 10:00AM
• 🍔 Food & Drink
  
  • Great American Barbeque and Beer Festival @Chandler Park, Chandler 12:00PM ($15.00 - $20.00)
  • Uncorked Wine Festival @Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, Scottsdale 6:00PM ($55.00+)
• Kids
  
  • PAW Patrol Live! The Great Pirate Adventure @Comerica Theatre, Phoenix 10:00AM, 2:00PM ($23.50+)
• 🎵 Music
  
  • P!NK: Beautiful Trauma Tour @Gila River Arena, Glendale 8:00PM
  • The National Parks @The Rebel Lounge, Phoenix 8:00PM ($12.00 - $15.00)
  • Wet & Kilo Kish @Marquee Theatre, Tempe 8:00PM ($30.00 - $60.00)
• Other
  
  • Cirque du Soleil: Amaluna @State Farm Stadium, Glendale 4:30PM, 8:00PM ($55.00+)
• 🐹 Pets
  
  • Phoenix Pet Spectacular @Phoenix Convention Center, Phoenix 10:00AM ($10.00)
• 🏆 Sports
  
  • Iron Boy MMA 14 @Celebrity Theatre, Phoenix 6:00PM ($25.00+)
• 🎭 Theater
  
  • Chicago @Orpheum Theatre Phoenix, Phoenix 2:00PM, 8:00PM ($45.25+)

Sunday March 31

• 🎤 Comedy
  
  • Brad Upton From Dry Bar Comedy @Tempe Improv, Tempe 8:00PM ($20.00)
• 🎡 Fairs and Festivals
  
  • Arizona Renaissance Festival @Arizona Renaissance Festival, Gold Canyon 10:00AM ($27.00 Adults / $17.00 Children)
  • Tempe Arts Festival @Downtown Tempe, Tempe 10:00AM
• Kids
  
  • PAW Patrol Live! The Great Pirate Adventure @Comerica Theatre, Phoenix 10:00AM, 2:00PM ($23.50+)
• 🎵 Music
  
  • Happy Fits & Deal Casino @The Rebel Lounge, Phoenix 8:00PM ($12.00 - $15.00)
• Other
  
  • Cirque du Soleil: Amaluna @State Farm Stadium, Glendale 1:30PM, 5:00PM ($55.00+)
  • D-backs Race Against Cancer @Downtown Phoenix, Phoenix 7:15AM
  • Wanderlust 108 @Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, Scottsdale 7:30AM ($5.00+)
• 🐹 Pets
  
  • Phoenix Pet Spectacular @Phoenix Convention Center, Phoenix 11:00AM ($10.00)
• 🎭 Theater
  
  • Chicago @Orpheum Theatre Phoenix, Phoenix 1:00PM, 6:30PM ($45.25+)

OFFICIAL LINEUP ANNOUNCEMENT on Friday, January 27th at 10am ET!
Note: Before posting a comment with an artist(s) for speculation, please ctrl+F and look to see if it hasn't already been added or suggested. Thanks!
Similar to Bonnaroo's 2017 speculation thread...
Here's the breakdown:

• Confirmed (Artist confirmations or Firefly confirmations via official announcement or press release)
• Semi-confirmed (Talking with an artist at a show, mutual friends)
• Rumored (rumors from artist / record label / band managers / Firefly social media)
• Possible (Tour dates with gaps during June 15-18, in the US in late-May/early-June, playing other US festivals before/afteduring Firefly dates)
• Logical/Plausible (Plausible speculations with no hard evidence, 2016/2017 album release with expected 2017 tour plans, planned tour with no dates or early/mid 2017 dates)
• Unlikely (Tour dates that conflict with Firefly but not impossible, or gaps during June 15-18 but already played Firefly 2016)
• Out (No dates open during Firefly, at other festivals or abroad)

Confirmed

Artist	Source
Phantogram	playing Firefly 2017 First Look show in Baltimore, Jan 16
Busta Rhymes	"Blink-182, Earth Wind & Fire, Busta Rhymes – each of these were booked solely because you told us that you wanted them.", 12/6: DelawareOnline article - Busta Rhymes, Phantogram to play Firefly
The White Panda	confirmed at their concert
Misterwives	Firefly Zoom reveal #1 - Dover (tweet)
Lil Dicky	Firefly Zoom reveal #2 - Philadelphia (tweet)
Glass Animals	Firefly Zoom reveal #3 - Baltimore (tweet); touring Europe/Australia/South America early 2017, playing Bonnaroo
Galantis	Firefly Zoom reveal #4 - DC (tweet)
Capital Cities	Firefly Zoom reveal #5 - Wilmington (tweet)

Semi-confirmed

Artist	Source
Illenium	sobermusic: "Take it for what you will but illenium is a mutual friend and last I spoke to him he said he was booked for firefly."
Rainbow Kitten Surprise	Gabrielx23: "Just spoke with RKS (Rainbow Kitten Surprise) and I spoke to both the drummer and the rhythm guitarist and they both confirmed that they will 100% be at Firefly."
Judah and the Lion	confirmed by the band on FB
Stick Figure	Mother___Superior: "Reggae/Rock band Stick Figure will be there. Friends with a couple of the band members"
Astro 8000	kshucker's DJ friend
Carverton	FF appears on songkick page (screencap)
Short Sleeve Heart	Confirmed via Tweet (screencap)
Quinn XCII	Confirmed via Twitter DM

Rumored

Artist	Source
Muse	Matt Bellamy: “We’re going to do some festivals in the US maybe, because we kind of missed that out last summer. If we feel like it we might record a new song or two but I don’t think we’ll do a new album.”, FestiveOwl: "Muse was mentioned originally. Not much else beyond that."
Paramore	appeared on Firefly website in early 2016
ZHU	appeared on Firefly website in early 2016
Childish Gambino	Firefly hint tweet: "A trait we possess at times", scout's honor, new album release Awaken, My Love! on December 2nd
BØRNS	Brand Ambassador Mike G on Firefly forums: "Ya never know…. 😉"
Foreign Air	playing with Phantogram at Firefly Presents show in Baltimore, no official festival confirmation by Firefly yet, playing Shaky Knees
Colony House	ColonyHouseBand: "Okay. -SCOTT"

Possible

Artist	Source
Twenty One Pilots	playing Hangout Fest (May 19-21)
ODESZA	playing Electric Forest (June 22-25, June 29-July 2)
Beyonce	headlining Coachella 2017
Kendrick Lamar	headlining Coachella 2017
DJ Snake	Coachella, Hangout, Electric Forest
The Weeknd	tour dates end June 9th in the US, no Philadelphia/Baltimore dates yet; playing Bonnaroo
Giraffage	Electric Forest, Forecastle
Snakehips	Okeechobee, Hangout, Electric Forest, Panorama
Francis and the Lights	Coachella, Boston Calling, Gov Ball, Bonnaroo, Electric Forest
Tom Petty	Mountain Jam in NY on June 16th, no tour dates on June 15th and June 18th
Gary Clark Jr	Mountain Jam in NY, June 16-18
Steve Miller Band	Mountain Jam
Red Hot Chili Peppers	touring in Canada on June 18 and beyond, possibly playing Bonnaroo, playing Gov Ball
Metallica	playing Rock on the Range May 19-21
Soundgarden	playing Rock on the Range May 19-21
MGMT	Hangout, Sasquatch, Panorama
Weezer	Hangout, Boston Calling, Forecastle
The Head and the Heart	Coachella, Hangout, Sasquatch, Gov Ball, Bonnaroo
Band of Horses	Hangout, BottleRock
Local Natives	Coachella, Hangout, Gov Ball
Warpaint	Shaky Knees, Hangout, Gov Ball; although playing Roskilde in Denmark on June 28
Mac DeMarco	Treefort (March), Okeechobee (March), Coachella, Hangout, Gov Ball
Rae Sremmurd	Okeechobee, Gov Ball
The Offspring	playing Rock on the Range
Sum 41	playing Rock on the Range; although playing Download Festival in England June 9-11
Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness	playing Hangout, early 2017 US tour
Young The Giant	2017 tour, Okeechobee, Hangout
Lewis Del Mar	Shaky Knees, Hangout; touring with Young the Giant
Bassnectar	Electric Forest
The Orwells	touring early/mid 2017 ending on June 6, playing Bonnaroo
My Morning Jacket	Electric Forest
The Strumbellas	Mountain Jam, Gov Ball, Bonnaroo; early 2017 tour
The Revivalists	Mountain Jam; early 2017 tour
Ween	High Sierra late June
Con Brio	Shaky Knees, BottleRock, Electric Forest, High Sierra
Franz Ferdinand	Hangout, Governors Ball
The Avalanches	Coachella and Gov Ball; although playing Glastonbury June 21-25
Banks	Gov Ball
Phoenix	Shaky Knees, Gov Ball
Chance The Rapper	Gov Ball, Bonnaroo; last played Firefly in 2014
Beach House	Gov Ball
Lorde	Coachella, Gov Ball, Bonnaroo
Air	Gov Ball
A$AP Ferg	Gov Ball
Schoolboy Q	Gov Ball
Logic	Gov Ball
Michael Kiwanuka	Gov Ball, Bonnaroo; although inMusic Festival in Croatia June 20th
Wiz Khalifa	Gov Ball
Charli XCX	Gov Ball
Wu-Tang Clan	Gov Ball
Bleachers	Okeechobee, Shaky Knees, Sasquatch, Gov Ball
U2	Bonnaroo, no tour dates June 15-17, playing Philadelphia June 18
The Lumineers	international tour dates in April and July, no tour dates June 15-17, playing Philadelphia June 18
Bishop Briggs	Coachella, Shaky Knees, Hangout, Panorama
Cage The Elephant	Shaky Knees, Boston Calling, Gov Ball, Bonnaroo, Forecastle
Charles Bradley and His Extraordinares	BottleRock, Gov Ball, Forecastle
Future Islands	Coachella, Bonnaroo, Panorama
BADBADNOTGOOD	Bonnaroo
The Front Bottoms	Bonnaroo
Car Seat Headrest	Coachella, Shaky Knees, Sasquatch, Boston Calling, Gov Ball, Bonnaroo
Barns Courtney	Hangout, Gov Ball
Third Eye Blind	June 18th TBD Baltimore/DC area
Silversun Pickups	June 18th TBD Baltimore/DC area
Alison Wonderland	Shaky Knees, Electric Forest
Jon Bellion	Bunbury, Bonnaroo
Cold War Kids	Okeechobee Festival in March, Bonnaroo
Lucy Dacus	Boston Calling, Bonnaroo, Forecastle
Mondo Cozmo	Shaky Knees, Hangout, Boston Calling, Sasquatch, Gov Ball, Bonnaroo, Forecastle
Tkay Maidza	Hangout, Boston Calling, Gov Ball
Ganja White Night	Shaky Beats, Summer Camp, Bonnaroo, Electric Forest
Rezz	Shaky Beats, Bonnaroo, Electric Forest

Logical / Plausible

Artist	Source
The Shins	new album release March 10th, possibly playing Coachella, playing Shaky Knees, Bunbury, in Brooklyn NY on June 15th
Hodgy Beats	new album out December 9th
Kid Cudi	new album out December 16th
Dropkick Murphys	playing Red Frog's Shamrock Fest in March, new album release Jan 6
Sohn	new album out Jan 13
The Flaming Lips	new album release Jan 13, touring early 2017
The xx	new album out Jan 13, 2017 tour, US festivals: Coachella, Shaky Knees, Boston Calling, Bonnaroo
Foxygen	new album out Jan 20
Tycho	in Europe late May and early June; playing Buku, Coachella; new album out Jan 20
Cloud Nothings	new album out Jan 27
Ty Segall	new album out Jan 27
Temples	Shaky Knees; new album out Mar 3
Hippo Campus	new album out Feb 24, tour dates end April 8th
Magic City Hippies	Fall 2016 album release, on tour with Hippo Campus until April 8th
Stevie Nicks	touring late 2016 and early 2017
Bon Jovi	touring early 2017, plausible but not likely
Joseph	touring early 2017
STRFKR	touring early 2017
The Growlers	touring Feb/March, playing Primavera Sound in Barcelona on June 2nd
Devendra Banhart	touring US early 2017
Wilco	possible but they organize Solid Sound Festival happening 1 week after Firefly
Xiu Xiu	touring early 2017,
Deerhoof	playing Big Ears Festival (TN) in March
The Magnetic Fields	touring early/mid 2017
Mother Mother	new album release Feb 10
Blonde Redhead	touring early 2017
Jens Lekman	touring 2017
Eric Clapton	playing a few shows in 2017, plausible but not likely
Galactic	early 2017 tour
Lake Street Dive	early 2017 tour
George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic	early 2017 tour
Parquet Courts	early 2017 tour, playing Gov Ball
Alesso	playing a couple US festivals early 2017
Kurt Vile	early 2017 tour
Run The Jewels	playing US festivals Summer Camp, Boston Calling and Forecastle; however playing NorthSide Festival in Denmark June 9-11
Marshmello	early 2017 tour, Coachella, Hangout, Bonnaroo
Oliver Heldens	early/mid 2017 tour, Electric Forest
The Motet	playing Electric Forest both weekends, early 2017 tour
Lotus	playing Electric Forest both weekends, early 2017 tour
Miike Snow	plausible but speculative: released an album in mid 2016, played numerous US festivals in 2016 but not Firefly, no plans for tour at the moment
Sleigh Bells	playing a couple US festivals in March, March 2017 tour dates
Flume	late 2016/early 2017 festival tour dates
Dinosaur Jr.	early 2017 tour, summer 2016 album release
At The Drive-In	March 2017 tour dates announced
Sigur Ros	mid 2017 tour dates end on June 17, only available/non-scheduled date is June 18th
P.O.S	early 2017 (Jan through March) tour dates, January 2017 album release
Animal Collective	May 2017 tour dates
Hot Chip	plausible speculation, no plans for tour, came up in Firefly survey
Portugal. The Man	new album release, playing Bonnaroo
The Avett Brothers	2017 tour
Dawes	2017 tour
Kiiara	playing Goldenvoice festivals: Coachella, Panorama
Dr. Dog	playing Shaky Knees
Sylvan Esso	playing Shaky Knees
FIDLAR	playing Shaky Knees
Prinze George	playing BottleRock
Travis Scott	playing Bonnaroo, although playing TinderBox in Denmark June 24th
Wolf Parade	2017 tour, Shaky Knees, Boston Calling
Frightened Rabbit	2017 tour, BottleRock, Boston Calling
PUP	Boston Calling
Flatbush Zombies	Boston Calling
Billy Joel	2017 tour, gap between June 6 and July 14
Major Lazer	new album expected, although played Firefly 2016
Incubus	new album expected
Gramatik	open dates June 15, 16, 18; playing Red Rocks Sat June 17
Modest Mouse	playing BottleRock
Zac Brown Band	2017 tour with gap during Firefly weekend, possible but unlikely (given FF's lack of history booking country acts)
A Tribe Called Quest	Panorama Festival in July
Ed Sheeran	North America tour ends in Mexico on June 14
Queen & Adam Lambert	plausible but unlikely; US tour starts June 23rd in Arizona
Pearl Jam	mainly speculation; no tour dates scheduled and no planned tour for 2017
Joey Bada$$	playing Rolling Loud in May
Father John Misty	new album
Mutemath	Shaky Beats, Hangout
Pretty Lights	Okeechobee, Euphoria, Bunbury
Towkio	Hangout, Panorama
Slowdive	2017 tour
Pixies	2017 tour

Unlikely

Artist	Source
Frank Ocean	to headline multiple festivals in 2017 incl. Hangout and Sasquatch, however will be in Europe May-July, NorthSide Festival in Denmark June 9-11
Bastille	NorthSide Festival in Denmark June 9-11, Isle of Wight Festival in UK June 8-11
Jai Wolf	playing Electric Forest, but already played Firefly 2016
Vince Staples	Electric Forest, but already played Firefly 2016
Bon Iver	Justin Vernon hosts Eaux Claires June 16+17
Grouplove	tour dates end April 13 in the US, but already played Firefly 2016
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds	possible but not likely: gaps in US tour dates on June 15th and June 17th
Aphex Twin	playing Europe festivals late May / early June
Jagwar Ma	playing Roskilde June 24-July 1
Dead and Company	touring early 2017, gap in tour dates on June 16th, plausible but not likely
deadmau5	touring early 2017, just played Firefly 2016
Fleet Foxes	plans for 2017-18 world tour, no plans/not booked for June
Alt-J	multiple European festivals in June/July, inMusic Festival in Croatia June 20th, Hurricane/Southside in Germany June 23-25
Imagine Dragons	Hurricane/Southside in Germany June 23-25
Die Antwoord	TinderBox in Denmark June 22nd, Hurricane/Southside in Germany June 23-25
Martin Garrix	somewhat plausible but unlikely: in Norway June 7th, in Italy June 18th, in Denmark June 24th
Solange	in Europe for Primavera Sound and Roskilde
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis	in Europe early June
Rufus Du Sol	Gov Ball, but already played Firefly 2016
Saint Motel	Gov Ball, but already played Firefly 2016
Catfish & The Bottlemen	playing Shaky Knees, but already played Firefly 2016
The Killers	TinderBox in Denmark June 22nd
Gogol Bordello	TinderBox in Denmark June 22nd
Interpol	currently only have plans for Europe/UK tour starting August 2017
Big Gigantic	playing Sonic Bloom in Colorado June 15th; other festivals: Electric Forest, Bonnaroo
Claude VonStroke	playing Sonic Bloom in Colorado June 15-18
Haywyre	playing Sonic Bloom in Colorado June 15-18

Out

Artist	Source
Arcade Fire	European festivals June 17, 19
Coldplay	June-July tour in Europe
Radiohead	in Europe
Prophets of Rage	Europe tour (Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy, Cypress Hill)
Green Day	Europe tour
Flogging Molly	Europe
Kraftwerk	Europe
Daft Punk	not touring in 2017
Guns N' Roses	Europe
Bouncing Souls	Hellfest in France June 16-18
Neutral Milk Hotel	spring 2015: last tour for the foreseeable future
Frank Turner	London in May 12-15, Hurricane/Southside in Germany June 23-25
Linkin Park	Europe
Rancid	Europe
Foo Fighters	Secret Solstice in Iceland June 16, playing Rock The Beach in Finland June 19th
Knife Party	Europe
Liam Gallagher / Oasis	Europe
Tove Lo	BergenFest in Norway June 16th, Denmark June 22nd; playing Gov Ball, Bonnaroo
Passenger	BergenFest in Norway June 14-17
Cass McCombs	BergenFest in Norway June 14-17
Whitney	Europe during FF weekend (BergenFest)
Moderat	Europe
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard	Maifield Derby in Germany June 16-18; new album release Flying Microtonal Banana on Feb 24
American Football / Owen	Maifield Derby in Germany June 16-18
Dave Matthews Band	tour dates conflict with FF
The 1975	already played FF 2016, in Europe
Matt & Kim	confirmed not playing via Twitter DM
Justice	Sónar in Barcelona June 16-18, Roskilde June 24-July 1
Cashmere Cat	Sónar in Barcelona, Spain June 16-18, Roskilde June 24-July 1
Clams Casino	Sónar June 16-18
Jarreau Vandal	Sónar June 16-18
De La Soul	Sónar June 16-18
Caribou	Sónar June 16-18 (performing as Daphni), came up in Firefly survey
DJ Shadow	Sónar June 16-18
Little Dragon	Sónar June 16-18
Roosevelt	Sónar June 16-18; playing Gov Ball
Anderson .Paak	Sónar June 16-18
James Blake	in Italy June 16
The Kills	Rock The Beach in Finland June 19th
J. Cole	supposedly not touring in 2017

Social media clues/hints

Source	Info
Twitter: @LiveAtFirefly	A trait we all possess at times.

Other festival lineups for reference/cross-check/comparison

• If there is no link it means it hasn't been announced yet.

Festival	Location	Dates
Shaky Knees	Atlanta, GA	May 12-14
Hangout	Gulf Shores, AL	May 19-21
Rock on the Range	Columbus, OH	May 19-21
Sasquatch	George, WA	May 26-28
BottleRock	Napa Valley, CA	May 26-28
Boston Calling	Boston, MA	May 26-28
Primavera Sound	Barcelona, Spain	May 31-June 4
Bunbury	Cincinnati, OH	June 2-4
Governors Ball	NYC	June 2-4
Bonnaroo	Manchester, TN	June 8-11
Eaux Claires	Eau Claire, WI	June 16+17
Mountain Jam	Hunter, NY	June 16-18
Electric Forest	Rothbury, MI	June 22-25, June 29-July 2
Solid Sound	North Adams, MA	June 23-25
Forecastle	Louisville, KY	July 14-17

Wheres the best place to play live poker in Arizona?

Hello mama, it’s June Bug.
I got no real idea how this might come to you, but by post or freight or law man’s hand, you should know it’s me this time. I read in the paper that folks been writin’ you on occasion saying they’re me and apologizing for all the mischief I got up to. I ain’t written to you but once since I left home and that’s right now. That reminds me of the sign up at Busser’s, one that hanged over the stationary? “If you’re going to write, write right!” Were they selling Bics, or what? I can’t remember.
Busser’s is where this all started but of course you know that. In fact, I presume you might know a whole lot more of this than when I left back in spring. Delilah is like to have told you how I met Todd — Mr. Lightnin’ T Daniels of national infamy — when he drove that fine Cadillac up to Busser’s for some ice cream. Maybe you’ve talked to the others, and they’ll have lied if they said I didn’t want to go with him.
I guess that’s all true, but what they didn’t tell you, couldn’t tell you, is that I saw Todd for the first time a week earlier. He was working up at the Targrady pits when we went up there on a field trip so the boys could see how they were going to make their money one day and the girls would know how hard their men were going to be worked. He smiled at Carla Weathers, not me, when we walked past him in a group, even tossed her a lump of furnace coal and told here there was more where that came from. She blushed, but so did I. I wanted a man like that to look at me.
Since I left Arson County, I’ve found that there are a lot of men like Todd, especially in the big cities. But just six long months ago I thought there couldn’t be a second man like him on earth. He was tall, bristling with muscle and sweaty charm, and polished smooth and clean looking despite the grime on his coveralls. He didn’t look like the fat, broken coal miners or their simple, soon-to-be-broken sons. He didn’t look either like the bloated, soft-handed bankers or turned-out souses that came up from the railyard for church some Sundays.
No, he was a man of his own making. He was smoking that first time, cloistered in a little taped-off area and leaning against a broken rail cart. He’d tied his coverall shoulders around his waist and his grimy undershirt clung to his torso like cellophane. Maybe every girl saw him. Maybe it was only me. I committed him to memory the way I had started doing with certain men, certain I’d never see him again. I was wrong, of course.
He came up to Busser’s a week later in a casual sort of hurry. Nonchalant but rushed, sauntering into the place and ordering an ice cream milkshake with a cherry on top. Mr. Pushkin gave him a mean look, but started smiling all the same when he dropped cash on the counter. Real hard currency, big bills like I’d never seen a man his age carrying before. He rested his back on the bar to drink and look around, his legs splayed out before him.
He had thick heels on the black leather boots that left dark scuffs on the floor. His jeans were tight, very tight for a man, and ended in a broad black belt at his hips. He had a white t-shirt on above that, also tight, and black leather jacket. He looked like an absolute criminal, and when he ran his hands through his hair, my God mother. I just didn’t know what to do with myself.
He doesn’t look like that now, as you might guess. By the time you get this letter, I suppose what beauty Todd had known on this earth will have all but fled him. But at that moment he looked like an angel. One of the kind that wasn’t afraid to tell God what he thought then and again, and I wanted him to fall into my arms.
He finished his drink and I followed him outside. The other girls, Delilah, Ethel, Mary, they squealed and urged me to come sit back down. None of them would have ever had the courage to follow him out that door, none of them did. They’ll live long lives, I suppose, telling their children about me as a cautionary tale. But I didn’t care what they had to say then and I certainly don’t now.
We talked by his car. I fixed my blue eyes on him they way I’d been practicing in the mirror, trying my best to look like one of them girls in the cigarette ads. It must have worked, cause he stopped telling me to get lost and got lost himself, running his hand through that hair and leaning against the car. I told him he had bad posture, and asked him real slow that if that car wasn’t there, what else would he like to lean against? You should have seen the look on his face.
Todd likes to try looking like a wolf. He licks his teeth, is the most noticeable thing, and I’d never seen a wolf before he took me to the zoo. That’s where I first made that connection. He could almost bristle that big jacket of his like a pelt, and he made himself stand on his toes, like he might spring at any minute. But he was a puppy on the worst of days. You and me, mama, we know about real wolves, don’t we?
He told me he liked the way I talked to him and I asked what he meant. He told me I shouldn’t play with fire and I told him I didn’t play with fire, but that my daddy let me use matches sometimes. He laughed and asked me what it was I was after and I told him he had a nice car. He asked if I wanted a ride. I said yes.
We drove out by the high school and he tried to put the moves on me. I said no and we drove some more. Up north into Carbones County, up past Gun Cotton and to the highway, then back down through roads I’d never seen before. Past little hamlets and nowhere towns full of staring black or white faces and the occasional house set into hillside where nobody could possibly get to it. He got quiet as we drove.
I asked him if he was mad I turned him down and he laughed and said that wasn’t it. He told me he wasn’t from West Virginia and had to be leaving soon. Real soon. I asked him how soon and he said tomorrow. Then he told me I might not want to be around Busser’s around noon and I asked why, though it’s obvious to anybody now what he meant by that. Then he dropped me off.
You were awful mad at me when I got home. Slapped me on the face as I recall, and hard too. I cried for you the way you like and ran in to daddy. He shushed me and patted me on the head. How is he now? Are you done with him? Is it time to move on again or are your wings too old to catch the wind? I’ll never know the answers to those questions, but I have my suspicions and they help me sleep nights.
I went to sleep and you woke me up in the middle of the night. I remember what you told me, though I won’t commit that hatefulness to paper. And you squeezed me where it hurts, twisted and pinched the way you do and told me not to ruin things the way I always did. You reminded me of what daddy had to lose for us to live there, what my life meant to the people around me.
And the second you left that room I packed what I thought I’d need in my backpack. I hid my school things under the bed, where I’m sure you eventually found them. I ate breakfast full knowing I was about to leave Blunt, West Virginia for the last time. To leave you for good. We had eggs. I told you they were delicious.
You rode me to school that day. I thought you’d figured me out, having done that same shuffle and ride a dozen or more times just in my lifetime. But you didn’t suspect a thing, not from your dear little June Bug. You sat there in the Packard, gripping the steering wheel with your prim white driving gloves, hair up underneath one of those silk headwraps you started wearing in Cincinnati.
You could have told me you loved me, any number of nice motherly things I see women say to their children in the movies Todd eventually took me to. But you just gave me your typical sermon, the one I always got after one of your late night visits. And you told me I was old now, old enough to be a threat if I didn’t watch myself. You reminded me I could be replaced. You warned me I better behave myself.
I watched you drive off down the dirt road that led to that dismal one-room learning shack they called a school and that was the last I ever saw of you. In person at least. I saw you in the news a few weeks later, crying on the front page of the Charleston Independent-Star and asking me to come home. Then a couple months after that on the New York Times, crying and telling me you better never see me again. That headline read, “Mother mourns recalcitrant daughter.” It made me smile.
I didn’t even go inside the school. Some of the other girls would eventually tell the police they saw me walking “with determination” toward some other destination. I actually stopped and talked with Debby Marks, and asked her to cover for me until the afternoon, just in case. I’ve never seen that detail in any newspapers so I guess she kept that little tidbit to herself. Smart girl.
I sat alone in Busser’s until noon, and he showed like clockwork. The shiny red Cadillac pulled up at the far end of the corner lot and he sat there alone, his eyes blocked by square black sunglasses. The armored truck pulled up a second later and I figured out the score right then and there.
The truck had the big Walther Hi-Sec Transportation Inc. logo down the side. Any kid in the valley could tell you that was the payroll wagon, here to bring cash down to the pit bank for payday. You take into account all the money they needed to pay the workers and make purchases, and there was maybe $20,000 in there. At least that’s what Todd thought.
A paunchy old man came in wearing a Walther Security uniform and Todd came in behind him. Now, things have been changed up a bit in the papers. Those newspapermen like to make a lot of interesting additions to the stories about us, particularly this one, painting Todd as some smooth Lothario who just talked people out of their money. Once we were famous, sure, that actually happened a couple times. But this time he was nervous. Scared even.
He smiled under those beetle-shell glasses and put the gun against the security man’s head. Told him to open up the back of the truck. And you know what that security man did? He said no! Honestly and truthfully, that old man, with his moustache and bent back, told big Lightnin’ T Daniels no and went back to his coffee. Todd might have just turned and walked out if not for me.
I screamed and ran to him, getting the attention of the few old men sitting around taking their coffee. Even Mr. Pushkin dropped his skillet in the kitchen and ran out. I wasn’t letting anybody ruin this for me. I jumped between Todd and the old man, pressing against the big automatic pistol with my chest so my breasts showed full and large to either side of it. He swallowed. I felt his insecurity.
I begged him not to hurt the old man, I’d do anything, just drop the gun and walk away. He recognized me and asked under his breath what I thought I was doing, and I yelled for him to take me instead at the top of his lungs. He grinned and pulled me close to him. I twirled into his arms like a dancer, relishing the warmth of his forearm against my cheek even as he pressed the automatic to my temple.
That display made short work of the Busser’s patrons. They begged Todd not to hurt me and I worked up some tears and hollered about how he was just confused. The old security guard looked at the other patrons like they’d lost their minds. I suppose they had. They almost tore the man’s clothes off trying to get at his keys so the big, bad man in the leather jacket wouldn’t hurt the pretty blonde.
It was like a dream how fast we went from the inside of that diner to driving down I-64 at nearly twice the speed limit, laughing like crazy. He didn’t even want to let me in the car with him at first, but I convinced him the locals were all heavily armed and would shoot him to pieces the second I left him. By the time we reached Charleston he didn’t even care. We counted the money from the heist in a filthy motel on the edge of town. Then we had sex.
It wasn’t wonderful, but I loved it all the same. The ecstasy of my escape from Blunt clouded over the meager pain of his entrance. I loved the smell of him, his sweat covering my chest and stomach. The way his arms crushed my body against his. It ended almost as quickly as it had began, and I let him finish where I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t care. I was free.
I slept in his arms on a pile of ill-gotten money. More cash than I’d seen in my whole life, $10,500. That was the first night of honest sleep I’d had in maybe my whole life, and the first time I hadn’t dreamed of little Trixie since that night by the old woodshed last fall. Little Trixie not-my-sister, as you might say.
Of course I don’t have to remind you of that, you were there. Or do I? I certainly haven’t seen you mention it all those wonderful little stories you’re in. I cut each one I find out of whatever paper and keep them in a small card box Todd bought me in Arizona. It has a turquoise June bug on the lid, which he thought was adorable. He’d bought himself one just like it that holds a bent, blackened spoon, some rubber tubing, and an oversized eye-dropper with a needle tied to the end.
My big, beautiful man had a bad habit. I was surprised how fast we could go through all that money, money you could live off for a year gone in just a few weeks. But he spent it on me too, buying me books and clothes and nice dinners at places where people spent big cash on little plates. He made new friends and lost them every week, even tried to lose me a couple times, but after a while he knew that I was his and, more importantly, that he was mine.
We traveled across the states, pulling that exact same heist we’d thrown together on the spot a Busser’s at every stop. I change my hair color after the papers started reporting on me, going from blonde to red and finally to black. I tried brown for a second but it reminded Todd of his mother and he wouldn’t touch me until I changed it. He talked about her, his mother, quite often.
I lied about you. I said you were great, real decent. I convinced him on that first sweaty night in Charleston that he’d left those nasty bruises on my nipples. I was just a fragile thing. He was too big and too rough. I also convinced him I wasn’t a virgin, because I couldn’t tell him that you’d broken me when I was twelve, kicking me between the legs because I wouldn’t stop crying. Because Brian not-my-brother and Pauline not-my-sister had kept calling my name as the car slipped beneath the waves at Glass Shard.
I never told him about any of that. About Kevin, or Julienne, or Matthew, or Ronald, or Victor, or Samuel, or Michelle, or Rebekah. The not-my-sisters and not-my-brothers I wasn’t allowed to mourn, and the parade of daddies who were only ever to be called daddy and not Mr. Kelso, or Mr. Valentine, or father, or papa, or dad. When we traveled through Cincinnati, Gary, Decatur, Chicago, and Pierre, I told him I’d never been to any of those places. All the while I glanced out the windows of our stolen cars, looking for that riverbank, that ash pile, that abandoned lot. I never told him how those road trips made me feel like my mother, a sparrow on the wing, looking for a new nest. And I never told him about Trixie.
Our heists worked the way we’d been doing them until we reached a little bank on the outskirts of Fresno. I’d always gone inside first, scouting the place out on the pretense of opening a checking account. Then I’d be the hostage when Todd stormed in and demanded the money. But this time someone was waiting for us.
The counter girl acted strangely when she saw me, and I didn’t notice anything off about the way she looked down at her lap. Now I know she was looking at my picture. She must have pressed a button or something, because a man swept up behind me and whispered in my ear that I better behave. He told me I needed to tell Mr. Daniels to surrender as soon as he walked in the door. I started crying real loud.
Customers walked over and started asking the man what he was doing, then he cuffed me on the back of the head and told me to shut up. Some Dudley Do Right took that chance to run up and deck him one, knocked the big man out cold. I thanked him and ran off in hysterics.
I found Todd in the same alley where we’d parked. There was a man at the head of the alley where Todd couldn’t see, facing away from me with a gun sticking out of his sport coat. Clean and simple, I walked up, slipped his gun out of its holster, and shot that man to death. Then I put his gun in my purse and walked into the alley, where Todd was standing with his own gun out. We hopped in the car and I explained things as we drove like mad out of California and across the Rockies.
That was at the height of summer, though I’m sure you know all about that. “Dragnet: Federal agent shot dead by Lightning T Daniels and the June Bug.” That’s what the papers started calling us around that time. The first time I ever saw those names was in the Des Moines Register. I clipped the article out and put it in the box with the little turquoise June bug on the lid. The fame and the pressure got to Todd and he started getting rough in bed, doing all those awful things to me that you used to do, the poking and prodding and twisting. But it felt so good when he did it.
He would get sullen afterward sometimes and tell me I was too beautiful for things like that. He said he was debasing me, that I was a flower and if he plucked me I’d wilt. I told him I was his June Bug and the only thing he had to do was keep me from flying away. He liked that.
And he was a good man, despite how we made our living. He didn’t yell or cheat or hit me, with a single exception on each account. The cheating I wouldn’t even call cheating. You see, pickings got slim after the botched job in Fresno. Cops were looking for us like never before, and we couldn’t stay in the same place long, much less cause a stink with a big heist. So we did little things, robbing underground casinos and junk dealers.
I carried a gun then. The agent’s mean little .38 special, in fact. I don’t know what such a big man had needed with such a tiny gun, but it fit my tiny hands perfectly. I killed three men with that gun, the agent, another, and one I’ll tell you about right here. His name was Buggy and he was something of a hot shot, for South Dakota.
Buggy knew Todd from a stint in a Minnesota prison Todd didn’t talk about much, and apparently they owed each other a host of favors. Buggy had everything Todd needed that wasn’t me, most of which came folded up in little paper squares and dollar bills. Todd started doing small jobs for Buggy, enforcing, running packages, and he’d leave me cooped up in a dingy motel for days at a time. I got sick of that real fast. It reminded me of Blunt, and all the little cages you kept me in before Blunt.
I went out on the streets and found Buggy’s place by dropping his name here and there. By the time I found the dive he operated out of, a converted speakeasy with big steel shutters over the door, Buggy knew I was coming. Buggy was a nasty guy, as his name suggests, and he had a bad habit of spectacle. He was the biggest show, the only show, in town and he made sure people knew he was important. He dressed like a mobster and let on that he knew a few made guys, though he never quite had the courage to call any by name. His suits were new and as nicely tailored as you could get out there in the sticks, but they did nothing to shape up the nasty little man. He had a sloppy gut and breasts that disturbed the spread of his lapels, along with a stringy black comb-over and a thick, warty nose.
He intercepted me just inside the door and told me where to find Todd. I had figured he wanted to keep Todd around in town, to fold him into the crew for the respect Lightning T Daniels’ name would bring. But I hated South Dakota, and that nasty little town and I wanted to leave. When I left, Todd would go with me, but only if we were still together. Buggy didn’t want that to happen.
He led me to the main room, where Todd lay back on a couch almost completely off his mind from the stuff. A pretty girl, red-haired and about my age, was on her knees in front of him, her mouth where you’d expect. I sighed as Buggy started on some rant about men these days and how he never expected he’d walk in on something this shocking. Todd’s eyes took a few seconds to focus on me, and he started trying to push the girl off him.
I think Buggy expected me to start crying and run out of that grungy hole in the ground, or maybe to just fall apart right then and there. The only thing I’m sure of is that the greasy little pusher man had a low opinion of woman. I saw his point and made him a counter-argument.
The girl, undoubtedly in on the whole thing, looked up at me with smirk on her face, almost daring me to do something. I went over to Todd, still so beautiful in his sweating delirium, and pulled his switchblade out of the interior pocket of his leather jacket. Dull recognition dawned on the redheaded girl’s face just a second too late, as I grabbed a fistful of that hair and sprang the blade open. I cut her just twice, long strokes that made an X on her pretty young face.
They didn’t bleed until I pushed her away, then they wouldn’t stop bleeding. She blindly ran from the room, screaming for somebody to help her. Buggy jumped to his feet and started toward me, cursing. I pulled the federal agent’s snug little .38 out of my purse and shot him through his ugly nose. The bullet pulled off the back part of his skull and everything inside spilled out when he hit the ground.
I remembered Trixie right then, her skull coming apart in the dark of the woodshed. Her beautiful face, so like a tiny angel’s, ghastly and malformed in the smoky light of your kerosene lantern. Dirt on my hands. Blood underneath my nails. Dogs in the woods and your harsh whisper telling me they couldn’t smell her, they wouldn’t smell her. Keep digging June. Keep digging.
I’m still digging that hole now, gonna’ keep digging until I hit bottom. Until I get down low enough to pull the sides in over me like a blanket. There may be blood and heat at the end, I know, the smell of pistol smoke and burning flesh. But before I go to hell I’ll smell that rich West Virginia earth, and I’ll feel splintered wood in my hands as I work, work, work that shovel.
She called me Sissy, God damn you. She called me Sissy.
The security man from the front came down with a pump action shotgun in his hand. I didn’t kill him, just asked him if he’d ever been shot before, and pointed at what was left of Buggy. I told him neither of us were going to miss at this distance and he agreed, dropping the shotgun. I promised not to shoot him or anybody else if they filled a tablecloth with money and drugs and didn’t try anything funny. Nobody did, so I kept my promise.
Todd never apologized for the way I found him down there. He refused to even talk to me even until we were in St. Louis. He had another friend down there, Luther, who was a much better friend than Buggy. Luther took half of what we had off our hands in exchange for the keys to a room in a northside tenement. Todd got drunk the first night and slapped me when I wasn’t expecting it.
I fell on the ground and started crying in earnest. I’d never been hit by anybody I cared about before. And it hurt so much worse than when you hit me.
He told me I was crazy and who did I think I was? He told me he didn’t know who I was anymore and asked what right I had to be involving myself in his personal matters. He told me that just because we slept together — he used a different phrase — that didn’t mean I had any right to pry into his affairs. I told him I was pregnant and he took a seat on the edge of the bed. His fine dark hair was in disarray. He apologized to me and told me he’d do whatever he could, but his heart wasn’t in it. He sounded tired, wrung out. I knew then he was probably going to leave me, and started concocting ways to keep him. Then I thought of you, and all my daddies across this great, God-fearing nation and I stopped. I really was, still am, pregnant. Rest assured, you’ll never see the child.
Todd got himself shot a couple weeks later. He burned through all the rest of our money and the drugs we’d stolen from Buggy in the days after I told him I was carrying his child. Luther set him up with a crew knocking over drug dealers in town. None of them knew he was the famous Lightnin’ T Daniels from the paper, and none of them would have cared if they did.
I don’t know the specifics of how he got hurt. I do know he showed up to the job almost too high to stand on his own. I know they relied on him to do something and he failed to do it. And I know it took some special intervention from Luther to keep the crew from putting a bullet in Todd’s head right then and there.
He was shot by a small caliber handgun. The bullet went in his thigh and bounced around inside his pelvis, leaving a half a dozen tiny tunnels. The insides of his hips now looked just like the insides of the bituminous coal mine where I first saw him, lean and pretty and leaning up against that ruined old mine cart. I had him take his pants off to show me. Blood trickled from the tiny entry wound, but everything from the bottom of his thighs to the top of his stomach was swollen and purple.
He told me he needed to go to a doctor and begged for me to get him some stuff, anything to take the edge off. I told him that wasn’t possible, we were near out of money and he’d be arrested if I took him to a hospital. He told me to do anything I could, he didn’t care what, he just needed another hit. It hurt too bad. It was killing him. Then he looked at me and told me I was killing him.
I pawned the turquoise boxes he’d bought us, most of our clothes, and the two pistols he’d acquired since we left West Virginia. Blunt felt so far away then, sitting in the dark with him dying beside me in the stale autumn heat. I spent all the money on drugs, a bit of food, and a straight razor so I could shave him, which I did. Luther stopped by about a week after Todd had been shot.
He stood in the door, repulsed by some smell I hadn’t noticed. He asked me what I was going to do, what I expected to happen. I told him I didn’t know. Todd wasn’t going to get better, and if he did he’d just leave me anyway. In the depths of his eyes, behind the drugs and the pain, I saw fear when he looked at me. No hint of love or longing, no apology for how he’d treated me, just fear, and a dull sort of hate.
Luther reached out and took my hand then, and I knew what options I had. I knew Luther wanted me, my body, terribly. I was still young and beautiful, and my pregnancy was little more than a slight bump that any dress could hide. Would he accept a child as part of my being there? I knew he would. I knew I could make him want that child as much as me, that I could sell him the Golden Gate Bridge with that hot piece of hellfire between my legs.
And I thought of you. I thought of you and a long line of daddies, stretching out across the Midwest and back into my history to the first one, the real daddy who put me on you like a curse. I thought of raising a pretty little version of myself with Todd’s hair and big blue eyes, and all the daddies I could give her. All the not-her-sisters and not-her-brothers who’d have to make way once we entered the nest. Luther kept talking while I thought of that line of violence and tainted love that had brought me to Blunt, that had shot me out of West Virginia like a cannon. That had torn my heart and soul to blackened pieces before I ever became a woman. And I thought of Trixie, who’d told me how much she’d wanted a sister. Who read so well despite how young she was, and who trusted you when you took her to play hide and seek in the woods around midnight. Who cried and called me Sissy when you told me to take that ax and “earn your keep you ungrateful little bitch.”
Luther told me he’d treat me right and ran his hand over my cheek. I looked up at him like I’d looked at Todd all those many months ago, and I asked him, yeah? Would he. And I kissed him. And he told me the cops already knew where we were, that he’d tipped them off to get a friend of his out of a bind over the trouble Todd had caused. That I really didn’t have a choice anyway.
I told him that was fine by me, because Todd was weak and a junkie to boot, and he didn’t know how to treat a lady. And I asked Luther did he? Did he know how to treat a lady? Could he show me? He asked if Todd was still there and I said yeah, he was, but he was junked out and wouldn’t wake up for hours. I told him we had a little space atop the table just inside the door, that I didn’t care about being comfortable ‘cause it’d been so long since I had a real man.
Luther smiled at me and shut the door behind him. I pulled him over to the table and sat and wrapped my legs around him, pulling him close. Our tongues met in my mouth and then his. He didn’t notice me slide the federal agent’s tiny little pistol out of my purse and put it behind his ear. He squeezed my breast and then bit my lip so hard it bled when I shot him, tearing away a thin piece of skin when he fell away.
My ears rang. Todd lay in a daze on the mattress. I went over to him anyway and lay down beside him. I told him I loved him and I meant it. And I told him he was the best thing that’d ever happened to me, and that was true too. I curled up beside him and slept one last time, never smelling the rot setting into the wounds on his stomach or the filth he was leaving behind in the bed.
I woke and started writing this. I started this morning and now it’s almost midnight. The moon is up outside and the windows are open. The breeze feels nice. Warm, despite the brown and gold leaves on the trees outside. There aren’t many of them in this neighborhood, but the ones I can see are so very beautiful.
There are men down on the street, and I know they aren’t from the neighborhood because they’re mostly white and have good posture and comfortable shoes. If they arrested me, I bet I could talk my way out of a life sentence. The papers have blamed everything on Todd, because he’s a man and nobody believes women can do evil things, not really. That if they do evil things, they’re trite and pointless. Crimes of passion, neglect, or stupidity.
Understand that everybody that has died on our sojourn across America is dead because I was sick of getting ice cream at Busser’s. Because I wanted more than the quiet security the men you preyed on provided. Because I couldn’t handle the guilt of what I did to Trixie, or face the consequences like an honest human being.
I could have ended this thing whenever I wanted to, and I didn’t.
I hate you, mama. I hate you like you wouldn’t believe. Or maybe you do. You never mention your mama and I can only imagine she was just like us, or at least bad enough you turned out the way you did. I’m not writing you to say goodbye, I’m writing you so that you know I did this all on my own. I did it for me, because I’m my own bad person, not because you corrupted me or because Todd drove me crazy. I did this. All of this. And I did it for me.
And if anybody else happens to read this, you should understand that Todd was the innocent bystander. Tell his mama or papa or whoever is still around that he got wrapped up with a bad woman who twisted him around her finger like a piece of taffy. That he could have walked away from that armored car or me or this life at any time if I’d have let him. And he wanted to. But I didn’t.
And, if anybody else happens to read this, Trixie Macintosh is buried in a busted old woodshed off Rural Route 5 outside of Blunt, West Virginia. She was the most wonderful little girl and I killed her with an ax because I’m a coward.
I’m going to finish this letter now, and leave it up here on this table. Then I’m going to take Todd down off the bed and bring him by the window. The breeze is nice and I want him to feel that before I take that straight razor I bought and send us both to hell. And God I hope there is a hell, ‘cause if there is then there is a heaven. And if there is, that Trixie will be up there with her mama, living some sort of happiness.
And that when you die, you’ll be down here with me.
-June Bug
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