Do Any Casinos In Los Angeles Have Slot Machines

mods please lmk if this violates the rules. i’m posting here because I write about the mob/casino and many relevant themes that are important elements of the Sopranos, in my opinion. I think they’re of the same medium and genre so wanted to post here. Hope that’s alright. Cheers! (11 min read) ————————————————————————
EDIT 2: TL;DR -
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
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Every good filmmaker makes the same movie over and over again—Martin Scorsese is no different
Scorsese's Casino is a phenomenal story of the condoned chaos and "legalized robbery" that happens on a daily basis to gamblers who bett away thousands of dollars and return each day for more “FinDom,” but without any of the sexual sadism. The whole scam only persists because the house always wins: the odds are stacked 3 million to one on the slot machines, but the same shmucks return wide-eyed each day hoping for a different outcome, devoid of any rational re-evaluation required to maintain their grasp on reality, and the liquidity of their bank accounts.
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
Robert De Niro plays Sam "Ace" Rothstein, recruited by his childhood friend Nick "Nicky" Santorno to help run the Tangiers casino, which is funded by an investment made with the Teamsters’ pension fund. Ace’s job is to keep the bottom line flowing so that the Mafia's skimming operation can continue seamlessly. De Niro's character felt like half-way between Travis from Taxi Driver (of course, nowhere as mentally disturbed) and half of the addictive excess, greed, and eccentric business-mind of Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Ace’s attention to detail gives him a rain-man-esque sensibility; his ability to see every scam, trick, hand signal, and maneuver happening on the casino floor make him the perfect manager of the casino, and take his managerial style to authoritarian heights in his pursuit of order and control over what is an inherently unstable and dynamic scheme; betting, hedging outcomes, and walking the line to keep the money flowing and the gamblers coming back. I’m not claiming Ace is autistic, I'm no clinician, but his managerial sensibilities over the daily operations of the casino, from the dealers to the pit bosses, to the shift managers, are to the point of disturbing precision, he has eyes everywhere, and knows how to remove belligerent customers with class and professionalism, but ultimately is short sighted in “reading” the human beings he is in relationship with. Ace is frustratingly naive and gullible in his partnership with Nicky and the threat he poses to him, and in his marriage with Ginger.
Ace has no personal aspirations to extract millions of dollars for himself out of the casino corruption venture. Ace simply wants the casino to operate as efficiently as possible, and he has no qualms about being a pawn of the bosses. While Sam, “the Golden Jew”—as he is called—is the real CEO of the whole enterprise, directing things at Tangiers for the benefit of the bosses “back home.” Ace’s compliance is juxtaposed with Nicky’s outrage upon feeling used: he gripes about how he is in “the trenches” while the bosses sit back and do nothing. Note that none of the activity Nicky engages in outside of the casino—doing the work of “taking Las Vegas over”—is authorized by the bosses. Ultimately Nicky’s inability to exert control over his crew and the street lead to his demise.
In the end, capitalism, and all that happens in the confines of the casino, is nothing but “organized violence.” Sound familiar? The mob has a capitalist structure in its organization and hierarchy: muscle men collect and send money back to the bosses who do not labor tirelessly “in the trenches.” The labor of the collectors is exploited to create the profits of their bosses. The entire business-model of the Mafia is predicated on usury and debtors defaulting on loans for which the repayment is only guaranteed by the threat of violence. But this dynamic is not without its internal contradictions and tensions, as seen in Casino.
In a comedic turn, the skimmers get skimmed! The bosses begin to notice the thinning of the envelopes and lighter and lighter suitcases being brought from the casino to Kansas City, “back home”. The situation continues to spin out of control, but a mid-tier mafioso articulates the careful balance required for the skimming operation to carry on: to keep the skimming operation functioning, the skimmers need to be kept loyal and happy. It’s a price the bosses have to pay to maintain the operation, “leakage” in their terms. Ace’s efficient management and precision in maintaining order within Tangiers is crucial for the money to keep flowing. But Ace’s control over the casino slips more and more as the movie progresses. We see this as the direct result of Nicky’s ascendance as mob kingpin in Vegas, the chaos he creates cannot be contained and disrupts the profits and delicate dynamics that keep the scam running.
Of course I can’t help myself here! We should view Scorsese’s discography, and the many portrayals of capitalist excess not as celebratory fetishization, but a critique of the greed and violence he so masterfully captures on film. See the Wolf of Wall Street for its tale of money as the most dangerous drug of them all, and the alienation—social and political—showcased in Taxi Driver. Scorsese uses the mob as a foil to the casino to attack the supposed monopoly the casino holds on legitimate, legal economic activity that rests on institutionalized theft. When juxtaposed with the logic of organized crime, we begin to see that the two—Ace and Nick—are not so different after all.
The only dividing line between the casino and organized crime is the law. Vegas is a lawless town yes, “the Wild West” as Nicky puts it, but there are laws in Vegas. The corruption of the political establishment and ruling elites is demonstrated when they pressure Ace to re-hire an incompetent employee who he fired for his complicity in a cheating scam or his stupidity in letting the slot machines get rigged; nepotism breeds mediocrity. In the end, Ace’s fall is the result of the rent-seeking behavior that the Vegas ruling class wields to influence the gaming board to not even permit Ace a fair hearing for his gaming license, which would’ve given him the lawful authority to officially run Tangiers. The elites use the political apparatus of the State to resist the new gang in town, the warring faction of mob-affiliated casino capitalists. While the mob’s only weapon to employ is that of violence. The mafia is still subservient to the powers that be within the political and economic establishment of Vegas, and they’re told “this is not your town.”
I’d like to make the most salient claim of this entire review now. Casino is a western film. The frontier of the Wild West is Vegas in this case, where the disorder of the mob wreaks havoc on, an until then, an “untapped market.” The investment scheme that the Teamsters pension fund is exploited for as seed capital, is an attempt to remain in the confines of the law while extracting as much value as possible through illegal and corrupt means for the capitalist class of the mob (and the ultimately dispensable union president). Tangiers exists in the liminal space of condoned economic activity as a legal and otherwise standard casino. While the violence required to maintain the operation, corrupts the legal legitimacy it never fully enjoyed from the beginning. This mirrors the bounty economy of the West and the out-sourcing of the law and the execution of the law, to bounty hunters. There is no real authority out in the frontier, the killer outlaw on the run is not so different from the bounty hunter who enjoys his livelihood by hunting down the killers. Yet, he himself is not the State. The wide-lens frame of Ace and Nicky meeting in the desert felt like a direct homage to the iconic image of the Western standoff. The conflict between Ace and Nick, the enforcer and the mastermind, is an approximation of the conflicts we might see in John Wayne’s films. The casino venture itself could be seen as an analogy of the frontier-venturism of railroad pioneers going to lay track to develop the West into a more industrial region.
I would have believed that this was a documentary about how the mob took over control of the Vegas casinos in the 1970-80s … if it were not for the viewer being expected to believe that Robert De Niro could play a Jew; it's hard to believe a man with that accent and the roles he’s played his entire career could be a “CRAZY JEW FUCK!!” I kid! But alas, De Niro is a class act and the last of the many greats of a bygone era. At times, it felt like Joe Pesci lacked talent as an actor, but his portrayal of the scummy, backstabbing bastard in Nicky was genuinely remarkable, but I might consider his performance the weak point of the movie. It’s weird to see a man that short, be that much of physical menace. There are a number of Sopranos actors in Casino. I’m sure Vincent Chase watched the movie and said to himself, “bet, i’ll cast half of these guys.”The set design and costumes were gorgeous. The styles and fashion of the time were spectacular. Scorsese’s signature gratuitous violence featured prominently, but tastefully. The camera work, tracking shots through the casino and spatial movement was incredible and I thought the cinematography was outstanding, the Western-esque wide lens in the desert was worthy of being a framed still.
The Nicky//Ace dynamic is excellent and the two play off of each other well. The conflict between the two of them escalates gradually, and then Nicky’s betrayal of Ace by cheating with Ginger marks the final break between the two of them. Nicky’s mob faculties represent a brutal, violent theft that is illegal and requires the enforcement of violence by organized crime. Despite the illegal embezzlement and corruption at play with the “skimming” operation at work at the casino, the general business model of the casino stands in contrast to the obscene violence of the loan sharks. Ace operates an intelligent operation of theft through the casino, and his hands-on management approach is instrumental to the success of the casino. Nicky’s chaos pervades the casino, and the life and activities of “the street” begin to bleed into Ace’s ability to maintain order in the casino. “Connected” types begin frequenting the casino, and Ace unknowingly forces one particularly rude gambler to leave the casino, who happens to have mob ties with Nicky. The “organized violence” of the casino cannot stay intact perfectly, because the very thing holding it together is the presence of the mob. Nicky is in Vegas as the enforcer and tasked with protecting Ace but his independent, entrepreneurial (shall we call them?) aspirations lead him to attempt to overtake what he realizes is a frontier for organized crime to brutalize and exploit the characters of “the street” (pimps, players, addicts, dealers, and prostitutes) and the owners of small private businesses.
Nicky is reckless, “when i plant my flag out here you won’t need your [casino/gaming] license” Nicky thinks he, and Ace, can bypass the regulations and bureaucratic legal measures by sheer force of violence alone. But ultimately Nicky is shortsighted and doesn’t have a real attachment to the success of the casino. After all, he isn’t getting profits from it (or much anyway) and isn’t permitted to play a real, active role in its daily functions because of his belligerent, untamed personality. Nicky has no buy-in that would motivate him to follow the rules or to work within the legal parts of the economy, it’s not the game he knows how to play, and win. All that he is loyal to, or deferent too, is the bosses back home; for whom he maintains absolute, uncompromising loyalty to, but still holds intense spite for.
And now to the more compelling element of the narrative. Sam “Ace” Rothstein is positioned as remarkably intelligent, he makes informed decisions that aid in his skill as a gambler, he can read people to determine whether he’s being conned, he has an attention to detail—aided by the casino’s surveillance apparatus which monitors cheating—that is almost unbelievable. Ace knows when he’s being cheated, he knows how to rig the game so that the house always wins, enacting psychological warfare to break down the confidence of would be proficient gamblers, who could threaten Tangiers’ bottom line. But in the end, the greatest gamble Ace makes is his marriage to Ginger. Ginger is the seductive, charismatic, and flirtatious madame who makes her money with tricks and her sexual power. Ginger works as a prostitute, seducing men, and extracting everything she can, almost as a sort of sexual-financial vampirism.
Ginger is the bad bet Ace can’t stop making even when she destroys his life, her own, and puts their daughter Amy in harm’s way. Ginger is the gamble Ace made wrong, but he keeps going back to her every time, trying to rationalize how she might change and be different the next time. Ace is not a victim to Ginger’s antics. Ginger makes it clear who she is: an addict, alcoholic, manic shopaholic who will use all of her powers to extract everything she can from everyone around her. She uses everyone to her advantage and manipulates men with her sexual power in exchange for their money and protection. Ginger had a price for her hand in marriage: $1 million in cash and $1 million worth of jewelry that are left to her and her alone as a sort of emergency fund.
Ace’s numerous attempts to buy Ginger’s love—and the clear fact that no matter how expensive the fur coat and how grand the mansion, none of it would ever be enough to satisfy her—mirrored Jordan Belfort’s relationship with Naomi in The Wolf of Wall Street. Both relationships carried the same manic volatility and conflict over child custody was found in both films, with the roles reversed in the respective films. Ginger may be irredeemable and a pathological liar, but Ace can’t claim that she wasn’t clear with him; when he asked her to marry him, Ginger said she didn’t love Ace. Ace replied that love could be “developed” but required a foundation of trust to develop. That trust was never there to begin with. The love was doomed from the start to destroy the two of them; two addicts, two gamblers, lying on a daily basis to one another and themselves about reality to justify their respective existences, the marriage, and Ace’s livelihood. And as Ginger pointed out, “I should have never married him. He’s a gemini, a triple gemini … a snake” Maybe astrology has some truth to it after all.
Now I’m not licensed (but hey neither was Ace, and he ran a casino empire!), but Ginger has the inklings of a borderline personality: her manic depression, narcissism, drug and alcohol abuse, and constant begging for forgiveness all seem indications of a larger psychological disorder at play. In the end, Ginger runs away with all the money Ace left her and finds her people in Los Angeles, the pimps, whores, and addicts she fits in with, in turn exploit and kill her for 3 grand in mint coins by giving her a ‘hot’ dose.
Overall, Casino is an incredible cinematic experience. I highly recommend watching this and seeing it as part of Scorsese's anthology of commentary on our economic system and its human victims. I’d argue that Casino, Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman all fit together nicely into a trilogy of the Scorsesean history of finance and corruption from the 70s to the 90s.
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EDIT 2: TL;DR —
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.

Hello my fellow poor people! Welcome to this week's “Malikas Kards Konfidential," inside production details/family notes from KUWTK’s last episode, “Sister, Sister and a Babymoon”
Needing 2 weeks of multiple health screens after watching this Malika-filled episode, producers surprised us with a trip to Morongo where we could pretend that we really care about the Malikas just for a brief moment in time. They gambled, put their own health at risk, discussed the horrors of giving birth to a person that’s about to pop, and honestly, nothing more. I realize that for most people, this episode is something so far out of reach from the normal Kardashian realm, so in moments like these, I am humbly reminded why this show is coming to an end. #ThisIsTorture
Our A-plot is Khloe taking Malika on a babymoon, something that is apparently a very real thing, and our B-plot was Corey v. Kendall. Let’s dive in before we're all haunted by Robert Kardashian's hologram!
Cold Open/Scene 1: Kourtney and Kim discuss Kendall/Kylie fight

• Producers say Kourtney and Kendall spend the most time poolside at Kris' Palm Springs House.
• When the family films in the pool, producers usually watch from Kris' outdoor grill and bar area.
• Producers were still reeling from Kendall and Kylie's fight. They assumed the drag show ended their Palm Springs filming, but then things got turned upside down.

Scene 2: Kim and Khloe talk about the fight while Kourtney sits in the corner and says nothing

• Producers spent a bit of time with Kim and Kendall after the fight to better understand what went down.
• The girls are in one of Kris' guest rooms... The 14,500 square foot home has 7 bedrooms in total.
• Kim and Kourtney's fight was still very fresh for producers even though it happened a few months ago. Producers say intense sister fights of that magnitude don't happen very often.
• Because none of the sisters were actually present for Kendall and Kylie's fight, they were hesitant to take sides. They hoped Kylie and Kendall could work things out themselves.

Scene 3: Kim, Khloe and Scott talk about the fight + Malika's babymoon

• Producers make sure every family member involved in an argument has their side captured on camera. "It's important we don't come off like the show is presenting only one person's perspective and emotions."
• Although her sisters reached out, it was Kris that Kylie was in touch with the most after the fight.
• Before giving birth to True, Khloe took a sister "baby moon" with Kim and Kourtney to Tokyo.
• After Kim and Kanye announced in 2013 that they were expecting for the first time, they escaped to Paris for a "little baby moon"
• Malika has said she craved cereal throughout her whole pregnancy.
• Malika has said she'd love to have twins one day, just not in her first pregnancy.
• There were a lot of mixed feelings when Scott started coughing. Most producers didn't know what to think or take seriously yet.
• The crew also tried holding their breath and counting to ten.
• Producers thought Kourtney was the family member who might get bored during lockdown. She loves to travel, so it would be hard for her to suddenly be grounded.
• Producers thought Kim would love the downtime... she's so busy, it would be nice for her to get a breather from all of her obligations.
• u/LinusRanger13 NOTE: Alright let's hold up a minute because we got some kontinuity ERRORS up in here. Let's call this scene for what it is: staged. This scene was filmed on March 30th, 2020, three weeks after Kendall/Kylie's fight and Malika's babymoon. I can tell because Kim is wearing the same shirt/hairstyle that she wore while taping virtual interviews for The Tonight Show and The View, the latter of which which aired the next day. Poor Malika... she's just trying to spend some time with her newborn baby, but this is the price you pay for taking over Kourtney's spot on the show! This must also mean that they were NOT quarantining separately here... as this was just two weeks after the L.A. shutdown. A professional camera crew clearly shot this as well, so let's hope they all got tested before filming!

Scenes 4/5: Malika sits through labor horror stories during her baby moon lunch + en route to Malika's favorite spot in the world, Morongo

• Malika's babymoon was the same week (erhm, the day after) that Khloe had been in Palm Springs with her family.
• The girls wanted a cute outdoorsy restaurant that was close to Morongo.
• In August 2020, Khadijah announced she was pregnant with her third baby. She gave birth to her son Christian in 2010 and daughter Celine in 2014.
• It made Malika nervous to hear all the birth stories over lunch.
• The girls got recognized at lunch, but producers say people were respectful.
• Palm Springs is frequented by L.A. residents. Producers say everyone kind of gets it and isn't so out of control the second they see a celebrity and cameras around them.
• A long bathroom break at the restaurant held up the girls. Producers say it started with Malika, then everyone was in there with her, so it took her forever to get on the road.
• It was only a 20-minute drive from lunch to Morongo.
• Producers say Malika got pretty carsick whenever she wasn't driving.
• Production provides a basket of snacks when filming on long drives.
• All the sisters have given pregnant members of production great advice about labor and delivery.

Scene 6: Kylie breaks away from STASSSIE BABBBYYY to fulfill her contractual obligations by participating in a scene w/Kris at her office

• Both Kris and Kylie have the same exact desk size in their offices.
• Because Kris is seen by many as a "boss bitch mega-mogul," it's easy to forget she's parented 6 kids. Producers are always in awe when that side of her comes out.
• Kylie and Kendall have bickered about "typical sister stuff" over the years, like borrowing each other's clothes without saying anything.
• Some of producers' favorite memories of filming Kylie and Kendall as little girls were during family trips... most notably the Dominican Republic, Greece and Bora Bora.
• Producers say those trips were a lot of fun, and the girls would film music videos with the whole family.
  • u/LinusRanger13 NOTE: Here's another bonus music video from back in the day. :)
• Producers say out of all her kids, Kim is the one Kris has the easiest time communicating with.

Scene 7: Khloe, Khadijah and the other girl day players celebrate Malika in their Morongo suites

• The girls had five suites at Morongo.
• Champagne and different juices were served at the "Momosa" bar.
• Khloe had never been to Morongo... it was a place Malika usually liked going to by herself.
• Besides hitting the casino, Malika wanted to lie by the pool in a cabana, go in the hot tub and do some shopping at the nearby outlets.
• Producers found it funny that Khloe went through drama over not packing proper clothes. "We thought it was funny and just rolled with it... they would've had fun if they all only brought sweats."

Scene 8: A future boring plot is SAVED by Corey reading Kendall for the "asshole" that she really is

• Corey just happened to have a mirror ball because of a prank that was being pulled on an associate producer.
• Corey and Kris are big Dancing With The Stars fans. And, Rob and Kim's time on the show are some of the family's favorite memories.
• This was Kris and Corey's first time meeting Artem, but Kris and Cheryl Burke already went way back.
• Cheryl was Rob's partner on Dancing With The Stars.
• The man standing against the wall is Kris' security guard.
• Corey and Kris were learning the Argentine tango because they wanted to enter a small dance competition.
• Producers say Kourtney would also be a great dance partner for Corey. (okay? 😅Maybe not after he whoops Penelope's ass!)
• While Corey was on the phone with Kendall, Cheryl and Artem gave Kris a few pointers.
• Kris knew Corey was on with Kendall, but she had no idea things got so heated until after the call.
• Kris and Corey had a long dance session with Cheryl and Artem.
• Producers say Kris and Corey's dancing was actually pretty good, and their choreography was complex.
• Producers say maybe the footage of Kris and Corey's dancing will pop up in some future never-before-seen footage show.
• u/LinusRanger13 NOTE: This scene is legit, as it was filmed two days after the Kendall/Kylie fight, on Mon. 3/9/2020.

Scenes 9/10: Malika celebrates International Women's Day by telling the world she don't give a flying FUCK about her baby daddy's business + Khloe, Malika and their day players risk their health by playing in the casino amid a pandemic

• The family usually asks each other for their opinions before posting things on social media.
• Producers have joked that the girls should read their DMs on camera - but it's never happened.
• Many photos on the family's social media feeds are taken by the crew members. Audio supervisor Erin - aka Paxy - is their favorite "camera phone" photographer.
• Sometimes producers will set the lighting and the DP suggests the framing... helping with the family's social media pics becomes a fun little production.
• Throughout the babymoon, Khloe never took Malika's phone away... or made her take social media breaks.
• Malika said she didn't morning sickness at all during pregnancy.
• Malika has said, "I'm able to be a Malika because I have a Khloe.... we're a duo that's really tough to come by."
• Producers say the girls got recognized in the casino, and there was a point where a small crowd was gathered behind their table filming them.
  • u/LinusRanger13 NOTE: WOW, recognized with a full camera crew in tow!? SHOCKING.
• None of the girls hit up the slots, which was good for production... it's difficult to get clearance to film slot machines.
• Besides roulette, the girls also played blackjack for a while.
• Khloe won the most money that night.
• About 20 crew members went to Morongo.
• The girls spent about an hour in the casino.

Scene 11: This trip seems to never end as Khloe, Malika and their day players head to dinner

• Malika thought she was having contractions for about half an hour before dinner, but producers say nothing super alarming.
• Producers were really worried Malika would actually go into labor.
• Despite hearing about Morongo for years from Malika, Khloe had no idea what to expect.
• Producers say this was one of the longest dinners ever filmed. It lasted for hours - the girls hung out and were chatting forever.
• After dinner, Malika wanted everyone to play games back in the room, but Khloe and a producer were trying to figure out how to get out of it. It was really late and Malika needed to rest, even though Malika didn't feel like it.

Scene 12: This episode still drags on as Malika gives her baby a real kick by drinking caffeine

• Malika had been in pain on and off since waking up.
• There was talk about Malika pranking the girls by pretending her pain was getting worse, but that wasn't until later in the day when it was clear she was feeling fine.
• One of the most heartwarming moments for producers was when Malika shared a sonogram of the baby with them. It was the first time any of them saw her future son.
• Khloe and Malika did steal some private moments together early in the morning and at the end of filming.
• Khloe was first to leave because she had work obligations back home. The other girls took their time and hit up some shops on the way out.

Scene 13: Corey and Kris talk about the phone call w/Kendall

• When Kris moved into this house, production limited the amount of crew allowed inside to just a couple. That's significantly fewer than any of the girls' homes.
• Kris had spoken off-camera to producers about being in the middle of Corey and Kendall. They really felt for Kris as she struggled with her dilemma.
• Kendall didn't want to see Corey or film with him. Producers say she was still super upset.
• u/LinusRanger13 NOTE: After this scene aired, a "Konfidential Klip" was shown of Khloe, Malika and their other day players playing a baby game. Malika also pretends that she is in pain but plays it off as a joke. Hilarious! Nothing noteworthy here.

Scene 14: Khloe, masked up, is graced by a visit from Kris... who is shook by the new mask culture

• Khloe's assistant picked up the masks at a hardware store.
• When filming that day, production also wore masks per Khloe's request. Producers say masks weren't yet mandated.
• Some crew members were worried about Khloe's runny nose, while others were unsure what to think. The severity of it all was still not as clear as it is now.
• At this point, producers and the family were all freaking out and unsure what was going on. It was the next week when they stopped filming and went into lockdown.

Scene 15: Kendall shoots her Architectural Digest cover

• There were 15-20 people from the Architectural Digest team at the shoot, and just two people from the series production team.
• According to producers, the most impressive part of Kendall's house is her art room. It has curtains that are actually a canvas you can paint on.
• Sometimes the family copies each other's interior design ideas, but producers say they have individual vibes and like keeping certain things unique to their individual homes.
• Producers were surprised that Kendall and Kylie still weren't speaking. Khloe and Kendall discussed the drama with Kylie for about 30 minutes, then Khloe "really started coming apart," say producers.

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
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FUTURE YEARS ARCHIVE:
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• The Bunkhouse Stampede Finals and Royal Rumble are in the books, and as a head-to-head it’s best described as a stalemate. Neither show is what Dave would consider among the best cards he’s ever seen, and from the perspective of a tv viewer they were about what you’d expect. No strong overall lineup for either, and what was delivered wasn’t spectacular either. WWF had the edge in glitz, but not as much as usual because of the live factor meaning they couldn’t rely on post-production editing tricks. Here’s a sentence that describes a typical Raw today: “The three-hour show had too many replays and looked like it may have dragged in spots if you were there live.” Dave’s gotten some word from people who were there for the Bunkhouse finals live, and all rated it terribly as a live experience. From the tv viewer perspective, though, it was better than Starrcade despite some major issues (Dave says they owe the audience an explanation for why the Rock & Roll Express and Steve Williams were absent, as well as for the lack of Mike Rotunda vs. Sting which was pushed on WTBS half an hour before the show).
  
• Dave’s tired of writing a lot of the same complaints about NWA, but they do seem to be responding to fans. They’re going to start showing the finishes to matches that go off the air on the following week’s show and have made changes to the announce desk. Jim Ross did a great job on ppv and toned back on calling every match an all-time classic like he did at Starrcade. But there were eight no-shows among the wrestlers and on Thursday night they had a terrible show in Los Angeles. Most of the no-shows were guys they pulled from the card to save money on flights. The Bunkhouse Finals were advertised with a 7 pm start time, but many of the tickets had 8 pm printed on them, and the show itself actually started at 6:35. Pm and ended at 9 pm, so those arriving at 8 missed most of the show. Not all the no-shows can be blamed on the promotion (Mighty Wilbur got injured, Rock & Roll Express appear to have up and quit), but some kind of explanation needs to be made for the fans. Between all that, getting chants of “Refund” after the Stampede and Dusty getting booed (which fans watching on tv heard) when he won the finals, NWA has significantly hurt its position in two of the biggest markets in the country in LA and New York. They’re making changes, slowly, but some changes need to be made or they’re going to sink. NWA fans come for action, but you can’t get the kind of action the fans want with the schedule they’re running (contrast to WWF which can get by with less action because their guys are seen as stars and the fans want to see the stars). Doing cross-country double shots on weekends is killing NWA, and they need to make new stars. Turning Flair face, since he’s more popular than almost anyone else, isn’t even something to do right now because Luger’s turn is in full throttle and they don’t have a heel to take up the slack. They could turn Dusty heel and have him feud with the Road Warriors, but they won’t.
  
• In the past few weeks, NWA has managed to lose several guys they really shouldn’t have. Terry Taylor is gone apparently because the office had it in for him because of when he left the promotion in 1985. Big Bubba Rogers had become a good worker and had a great gimmick going, but WWF poached him. Rock and Roll Express apparently quit because they were unhappy about their push (though Dave thinks despite their ability and work, they’ve been on borrowed time for nine months now). Dave gives Steve Williams 50/50 odds of coming back and just kind of gestures to UWF as explanation. Sean Royal quit, and Chris Champion, Eddie Gilbert, and Brad Armstrong are all but disappeared. And more are looking to get out. Dave hates writing all this stuff about what Crockett’s doing wrong on the front page, especially when he’s been talking about it for months, and especially because he’s a fan of the NWA. He wouldn’t classify himself as a fan of WWF, but they’ve earned his respect with what they’ve done to take the business to another level and in the next two months he expects them to blow the whole wrestling business wide open. But WWF’s success isn’t the reason for NWA’s problems. WWF doing counterprogramming has made Crockett earn less money than he would have unopposed, and Dusty probably books himself the way he does because he knows WWF won’t steal him (spoilers: WWF gets Dusty in just over a year) and it’s hard to leave the limelight, but WWF isn’t the reason for most of Crockett’s issues.
  
• According to the newspapers this morning, Wrestlemania IV will take place in Atlantic City’s Convention Center. Capacity is 16,000. There were rumblings of Vince being close to a deal in Vegas for either UNLV Gym or Caesar’s Palace, so Atlantic City’s a surprise. Wrestlemania is going to be more focused on ppv than closed-circuit this year, apparently. But most of the audience can’t get ppv, so they’ll still need closed-circuit in major cities.
  
• Two weeks after Wrestlemania will be the Crockett Cup. Place is to be announced, and Dave thinks it’s high time Crockett re-establishes working relationships with at least one or two other North American promotions in order to help make the Cup a big event. They just don’t have the talent roster this year to get away with doing otherwise.
  
• A correction on Starrcade: Dave reported a 6.6 percent buy-rate, but the reality was a 3.3 percent buy-rate. Dave heard they got 20,000 buys and just assumed it was of the 300,000 homes available on cable, but forgot to factor in the 300,000 homes it was also available in via satellite. Dave’s received reports that there were 6 million potential homes for the Bunkhouse finals, but that seems high to him. Even matching the buyrate of Starrcade at that number would mean over $3 million in gross revenue, and Dave doesn’t think they were remotely close to that.
  

- Anyway, Dave goes through the Bunkhouse finals. An estimated 7,000 were in the arena, and the dark match was Sting and Jimmy Garvin beating the Sheepherders by DQ. Nikita Koloff retained the NWA TV title against Bobby Eaton in a 20 minute draw. -2 stars. Larry Zbyszko beat Barry Windham for the Western States Title, with the match starting slow and getting very good in the last ten minutes. 3.5 stars. Road Warrior Hawk beat Ric Flair by DQ in the NWA World Title match. 3.75 stars. Dusty Rhodes won the Bunkhouse Stampede finals. Lots of blood, a lot of guys going the distance you wouldn’t expect to have the stamina to do so (the match was 26 minutes long), and it was exactly what was promised and was good stuff. 3 stars.

Watch: a brief clip of the bunkhouse finals

- As for the Royal Rumble, the crowd appeared to be nearly sold out with almost 18,000 in attendance. Ricky Steamboat beat Rick Rude by DQ. Heavy with rest holds and stalling before the final two minutes had them trading near falls constantly and getting good heat from it. 2 stars. The Jumping Bomb Angels won the WWF Women’s Tag Titles from the Glamour Girls in a 2/3 falls match. They started behind with Judy Martin getting the first fall, then the Angels won two straight falls with each Angel pinning Judy Martin (sunset flip and double missile dropkicks, respectively). It was a good match, but not great - the Angels missed a lot of moves and seemed to be out of shape. 3 stars. Jum Duggan won the Royal Rumble, last eliminating One Man Gang. The match was much better than Dave anticipated, and the match went on roughly at the same time as the Bunkhouse finals match. Better camera work in it, and Dave notes that WWF seems to have fudged the two minute intervals after a bit. 3.5 stars. The Islanders beat the Young Stallions (Paul Roma and Jim Powers; Dave’s nickname for them is The Barbie Dolls) in two straight falls. He makes a weird joke about a submission actually working on a pushed guy (Haku submitted Roma with a Boston crab) making him go out for “Oriental food” afterwards because it was so surprising. I’m too confused to even know what to make of the line. 2.5 stars.

Watch: the finish to the 1988 Royal Rumble match

• Outside the matches, Royal Rumble had some other stuff. Andre and Hogan had a contract signing for the Main Event, where Andre slammed Hogan’s head into the table and pushed the table onto him. Dave’s amazed people buy Hogan as a face, because there’s just something naturally dislikable about people who act the way Hogan does and he thinks Vince could probably get Lee Harvey Oswald over as a face. Dino Bravo attempted to set a world bench press record. Of course, the weights were as legit as the half a million dollars Dusty supposedly won, but Bravo’s supposedly able to bench over 600 lbs legit. Jesse Ventura helped him with “715 lbs” and then claimed he didn’t help at all (the Road Warriors are scheduled to bench on the 30th and were originally planned to use legit weights, but they’ll have to use bogus weights to keep from looking weak next to WWF’s monsters now). Anyway, now they’ll bill Bravo as unofficial bench record holder, and that should get him heat because of the obvious cheating.
  
• Next up then for WWF is The Main Event on February 5. Dave’s told not to worry about Andre, because his back is in much better shape than last year. He and Hogan are practicing daily and have worked out the gist of the match. Dave says you can be sure to expect Ted DiBiase to interfere somehow on the 5th.
  
• Stampede is continuing to do good business and nearly selling out all their big shows. Chris Benoit and Great Gama get 4 stars (from Trent Walters, who I guess submitted the reports for the matches in Edmonton) for their Commonwealth Title match from January 9 in Edmonton.
  
• [Stampede] Jason the Terrible has been made an “honorary member” of Bad Company, Bruce Hart and Brian Pillman’s tag team. So now in addition to the hockey mask he’s also got sunglasses over the hockey mask and a bandana and a black leather jacket. The whole getup is hilarious.
  
• Do you remember Central States? Mike George won the WWA World Title tournament on January 23. They had 800 fans. Match ended on blood stoppage.
  
• Speaking of blood, Keiji Mutoh is headed to Puerto Rico.
  
• Tatsumi Fujinami and Kengo Kimura won the IWGP World Tag Titles from Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Kazuo Yamazaki on January 18. Riki Choshu and Super Strong Machine were originally slated to face the tag champs, but Choshu injured his knee and had to miss the match. Dave expects Choshu and Machine to face Fujinami and Kimura on February 7. He then goes on about how bad Choshu’s luck has been lately. Dave thinks he was supposed to win the tournament, except the Maeda shoot happened, and he was definitely supposed to win the tag titles (the match was scheduled for his hometown and New Japan actually does nice things for wrestlers in front of their home audiences). And with all the work they’ve put into getting Choshu on tv, it’s surprising they’ve phased him down the card so much from where he was.
  
• Lots of stuff about Vader’s look in New Japan. On December 27 he wore long tights and had Road Warrior Hawk’s hair, and it didn’t get him over at all. On January 4 he had a mask and full bodysuit to hide his size. January 11 saw him ditch the bodysuit and keep the mask. The evolution of a mastodon, I guess.
  
• Antonio Inoki began negotiations with Fuji TV after TV Asahi scheduled NJPW tv to move to midnight Mondays, and TV Asahi caved. They’ll now be on a 5 pm Saturday time slot. It’s not as good as their old Monday evening slot, but it’s not a death slot like midnight Monday.
  
• Akira Maeda turned down NJPW’s plan to have him go to the U.S. Also, he and NJPW are fighting over his contract. They offered him a new contract for 1988 with a 15% pay cut and he’s not willing to sign it.
  
• There are rumors that Inoki will wrestle Koji Kitao (the sumo wrestler mentioned a few weeks back) at the Tokyo Dome in April. Kitao is 24 years old and 6’5.5”, weighing 345 lbs. The story of his exit from Sumo is he apparently lost his temper and started kicking one of his sponsors (who is 92 years old) and the knocked his stable master’s wife through a sliding door. Dave’s been told if this match does happen, it could draw very big. Kitao is denying he’s going into wrestling (nope). Kitao was made a yokozuna in 1986, just before he turned 23, because the sumo hierarchy felt they needed a new young star to create interest in the younger generation of fans. But Kitao liked the party lifestyle and didn’t care for tradition, and sumo does not tolerate that. But you can’t demote a yokozuna, and that made him controversial (it would turn out that most of this was made up because Kitao’s stablemaster didn’t like him and felt he was underperforming and wanted him out - more on Kitao’s sumo years here if you want to read it). Turns out sumo is kind of worked too, though not as much as pro wrestling.
  
• All Japan is promoting a “Martial Arts Olympic” show on April 2 at Sumo Hall, to feature all kinds of stuff. Tiger Mask II and Giant Baba will team against some foreigners, Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling (the group running against AJW) will have two matches on the show (Miss A vs. Harley Saito and Rumi Kazama vs. Xochitl Hamada). There will be boxing, kick boxing, the original Tiger Mask Satoru Sayama’s “shooting” sport he invented, shoot boxing (boxing + wrestling with gloves), and more. The whole show is being billed as a memorial service to Ikki Kajiwara, who created the Tiger Mask cartoon and comic.
  
• When baseball season starts, All Japan’s tv will be moved to 10:30-11:30 pm Sunday nights. Usually they get moved to Saturday afternoon during baseball season, and this shift will lose Baba lots of money and viewers.
  
• While Crockett and McMahon ran big shows on January 24, Giant Baba met with their rivals in Las Vegas. Baba’s plan in the U.S. is to send his guys, as well as Bruiser Brody, Abdullah the Butcher, Jimmy Snuka, Stan Hansen, and Terry Gordy to smaller promotions to help them fight against the big two.
  
• Dave finally saw Hennig vs. Tiger Mask II. Not terrible, but no heat and little action, he thinks. Meanwhile, John Tenta’s improving well, and Baba seems high on Akira Taue, though he’s so new it’s hard to guess what kind of future he has.
  
• [AJW] Yukai Omori’s retirement show will be on February 15. This was announced after her January 15 world title match with Chigusa Nagayo, where she said if she couldn’t win the title she was ending her career. They went 32 minutes to a double count out in the ring after both collapsed.
  
• [Memphis] Lawler vs. Hennig for the AWA Title on January 18 had Lawler’s ring on the line as well. Hennig promised to give his dad the ring if he won, and Larry Hennig was there. The Axe helped Curt win, and Curt gave him the ring, but Lalwer stole it back.
  
• Memphis local prelim wrestler Jerry Bryant has been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
  
• Global Wrestling in Florida somehow turned what was an awful live show on January 22 into a good tv show. They taped on Friday night and by Sunday had it polished up into a good looking product. The miracles of post-production. Issues with the live show included starting 30 minutes late, long delays between matches, the ring mic not working, and bad wrestlers. What they lack in wrestling talent, though, they make up for in knowing how to make a tv show that’s on the level of World Class and better than Crockett or AWA.
  
• Continental (Alabama) did a bench press contest between Lord Humongous (not Sid, but Gary Nation) and Doug Furnas. They fudged the weights here, as Humongous did 645 lbs and then Furnas did it twice (his best in competition has been 600) before Humongous pushed the bar down on Furnas and “injured his ribs.”
  
• Apparently the Observer was mentioned positively in the Detroit News by Justice B. Hill in the January 17 issue.
  
• Since Dave started writing this issue, he’s been flooded with fans writing about the Bunkhouse finals. The reaction he’s gotten has largely been negative, with those there live being extra negative about it. Crockett really needs to reserve three hours for the next time they do ppv - going too short pisses the fans off, and ppv viewers expected the show to last past 9 pm. Another difference between WWF and NWA is that WWF always gets their hottest acts on the mic at some point during ppvs and big live specials (twice in the case of Hogan and DiBiase at Royal Rumble), while at Starrcade they didn’t have Flair, Dusty, or Cornette talk once. Instead Jim Garvin gave the worst promo of his career, Michael Hayes was quiet for the first time ever, and they shoved Steve Williams and Nikita Koloff on the mic for some reason. At the Bunkhouse Finals they had no interviews, and getting mic time for Flair or Dusty or Luger while they set up the cage would have been a big help. More of Dave wondering when Crockett will realize they’ve killed the credibility of their world champion and thus killed the drawing power of the belt.
  
• Michael Hayes has apparently quit Crockett and everyone expects him to go back to World Class. And if Steve Williams doesn’t come back, they’ll probably just forget about the UWF Title entirely rather than doing a unification match.
  
• A couple letters this week requesting that Dave keep up the coverage of wrestling in Japan. Another couple letters praising how good Stampede has been lately. Canada and Japan, bringing us the best in wrestling.
  
• Another letter writer asks Dave to realize how offensive it is to refer to a wrestling match as “a total abortion” and to consider that he’s probably offended many female readers of the newsletter. Dave apologizes and says he’ll stop using the term, before doing a “well, actually” bit. It’s a kind of weird response. Judge it for yourselves.
  

I apologize for that one and will quit using the term. Actually the term abortion for a bad match is a business term just like jobber, mark, babyface and the rest. But there are a few business terms (mainly for ethnic wrestlers and ethnic fans) which are in bad taste that I don’t use, so I’ll add that one to the list.

• Tickets for Wrestlemania IV go on sale January 30. The best 2000 seats in the Convention Center are being reserved as freebies for casino high rollers. And as a heads up, this is the location it does take place at. They called it Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino during the show, but it’s the same building. More on that as we get to Wrestlemania.
  
• If Dave can find the space next week, he’s going to talk about whether or not “30 minute matches which ‘tell a story’” work for today’s fans. He really enjoyed the Windham/Blanchard match on tv but there was no crowd reaction, so he’s beginning to wonder if this is even a style that resonates anymore.
  
• Everyone’s asking Dave for predictions about Hogan vs. Andre. So here’s his prediction (and he is way off on many parts of this):
  

DiBiase will interfere and Andre will pin Hogan on 2/5, however Jack Tunney will prove he can’t be bought and hold the title up so Ted doesn’t get the title, and order a rematch in a cage at WM4 so Ted can’t interfere (and also so Andre can lose without doing a job). Hulk will win on a fluke, and they’ll run Hulk vs. Andre over the summer in your local cities after Hulk gets back from playing Hulk Hogan in the movies.

• ”There was a clip in Detroit about Hogan, saying that ‘he’s nice[r] than Kirk Gibson, but not by much.’” Gibson’s reputation is of being a total asshole to fans, especially kids.
  
• Crockett is billing FlaiAnderson vs. LugeWindham on Feb. 6 as the first time Flair goes against Lex anywhere. It’s forgivable to forget Lex’s Florida days, but they’ve got FlaiBlanchard vs. LugeRhodes booked for February 2.
  
• Apparently Road Warrior Hawk’s neo-nazi line is just a quote from The Breakfast Club. Okay. So I guess the first letter writer was mishearing him and he’s saying “Neo-maxi-zoom dweebie”? TVtropes gives us this, from the October 3, 1987 episode of NWA World Championship Wrestling: HAWK: "WELL, Tony Schiavone, There Are Two Kinds Of People, as far as me and Animal are concerned. Clamheads and Neo-Maxi Zoom Dweebies." (the Road Warriors consider themselves the latter). And corroborating with the WWE Network, yeah, the line comes through pretty clear. Network 4 minutes in, and yeah, he’s not calling himself a neo-nazi. Definitely an error by that letter writer, and what a weird line for Hawk of all people to utter.
  

THURSDAY: WWF’s Big Four are born; The Main Event; Rock & Roll Express, Michael Hayes, and Steve Williams update; Tenryu wins all the awards in Japan; and more

Concept: Near Future setting, semi-dystopian (but not full out dystopian) Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, Las Vegas
A Vampire Mafia begins a Gang War with biologically, technologically, and chemically enhanced Criminals. Eventually the conflict escalates to an actual full on violent conflict around Nevada.
Keep in mind: this is not actually a chapter, just an outline for the first few chapters. Forgive my writing, I just wanted to know if anyone can see too many obvious plot-holes and what you might suggest would add to the tone of the story.
TL:DR; down on his luck 28 yr old gets laid off from his security agent/IT/Cyber-security job, turns to crime peddling artificially enhanced organs, patented (stolen) DNA that has been enhanced, cybernetics. Eventually escalates into discovering the blood trade, which pays big. Turns out he's fallen into the clutches of a member of the Vampire Mafia. After a successful smuggling job his client rewards him with initiation into this group with futuristic and illegal forms of coercion and converts him into a vampire. However, his connections with the cybernetics trade makes him powerful enemies-- cyborgs/artificially enhanced humans/clones/etc.
The Year: 2040 (TBD)
Summary/Synopsis:
Brian is down on his luck. He has been furloughed from his low paying job as a cyber-security and loss prevention agent at a high-end electronics store at a Mall, replaced by an automated robot. The humiliation has sent him spiraling into an alcoholic stupor for weeks. Eventually he gets a call, offering his old job back at 50% his original rate, just to do modifications to the AI system’s hardware and re-update its malfunctioning features.
Infuriated by this demotion, he remembers an old friend back from college who had some seedier predilections, his old fraternity pal Mark who dealt drugs to the other kids at university. He decides to contact him in order to start doing under the table work—and with some luck, manages to get some fairly high-profile underground jobs smuggling contraband items throughout the Silicon-Valley to other areas in the South-West, meeting with other smugglers to distribute the illegal wares all over the country.
This contraband contains altered human DNA that has been in research and is patented by these Gerontology and Transhumanist labs, along with cloned organs that have been enhanced with both gene editing and hormonal methods. There are even mechanical chips that could be inserted into one’s brain to increase learning capability or even give someone a skill set they didn’t have before without having to spend time getting a degree. These are all high end services for the super-elite, many of which are not available to people without means, but the dark market knows that underground people will spend money on stolen goods and even replicated goods (they can take these stolen patent plans and designs and create these types of items in clandestine laboratories – often with mixed effect). He makes a decent amount of crypto money enough to be well off. He enjoys the thrill of smuggling these items across state borders and there are some close calls with border patrol—could be a lark. Eventually after several successful runs he becomes highly adept at getting through technological security and finding ways of eluding detection with police officers and DEA agents.
Eventually through his new connections he meets a new client—a very eccentric man. A high-roller at the high end casinos in Vegas, one of the places where there is a huge market for brain chips and other technology that allows people to hack the slot machines and rip off the casinos, or rip people off with convoluted credit card scams (such as the ones you might find on the darknet today). This man is incredible, full of energy, one who partakes in many new-fangled performance-enhancing or recreational drugs, including superfluous blood infusions. A gambling addict with a fake alias to elude people looking to collect money from him, though this time it seems like he’s going by the name Stefano. Always on the run for ripping people off and scamming them, it’s a miracle he hasn’t been killed yet.
He introduces the Brian to a new product that could be sold at a remarkably high mark-up on the underground market. The Brian is suspicious of this because nobody else is looking for just blood—especially rarer types. In order to do this our Brian chooses to do something gravely immoral by high jacking a truck full of blood donations—the payoff is just too great. In order to pull this off he must disable all security systems surrounding the area that the blood bank has and sneak in undetected and make off with an entire truck full of bags of frozen donor blood. He gets paid a hefty sum in exchange for his work, and his new client is pleased—highly pleased.
He takes him out for a night on the town in downtown Las Vegas to various shows, cocktail bars, strip joints. Brian is beguiled by Stephano’s incredible high life and starts to feel a sense of camaraderie start to form. By the end of the night, Stephano takes him to a hotel room and Brian is only mildly surprised to see full of kilos of cocaine, enhanced-Amphetamine, and a personality-perfecting form of alcohol (an older form of the enhanced alcohol they have now, this older iteration was abused in the date rape scene, though the effects of the drug are highly addictive) There is still a high demand for this now-illegal product.
This leads to a disturbing scene wherein the Brian’s client offers him a variety of substances to partake in, each one having a different strange effect. Finally, he is offered the enhancing alcohol and becomes receptive to his client’s request that they swap blood— “How does that work? I don’t know if I’m the same blood type as you man”, he laughs, clearly affected in a strange stupor. Logically he knows if they have differing blood types, there is a chance of a deadly consequence, though so inebriated he holds up no protest as the true intention becomes clear. He asks whether or not they need a syringe or an IV to do the swap transfusion, but as soon as he turns around his neck is being bitten and he is in the grips of shockingly strong wiry, gnarly hands. He falls unconscious and wakes up on the floor of the hotel room, alone.
He looks at his messenger to see that his client sent him a text about “needing to run a few errands—don’t leave the room unattended. Big trouble if people see what we’ve been doing in there.” He decides to open the blinds and is horrified by the brightness, immediately closing them and wondering why he feels so strange. He tries turning on the TV and watches a News Segment about the current trade relations between Port-Coel Corporation—a company leading an expedition terraforming and colonizing a moon of Jupiter to mine for precious metals and other resources like plutonium, uranium, and others. Trillions of dollars are being spent on mining and moving these materials to earth for use in various industries and the United States military. As time goes by, he feels time and space being distorted, strange new feelings come over him. He becomes violently ill and full of rage. He storms around the place he knows he cannot leave, not knowing what happened after the blackout. He gazes into a mirror and sees nothing but his own clothes, with blood stains around his collar. No, it couldn’t be, he thinks, but as he runs his hands over his neck, he feels two distinct marks. The cuts are deep. He pulls his hand away and sees blood.
Upon the return of his client coming in all-smiles, Stephano bellows “Aye buddy, how was your first day?”
“What have you done to me?”
Stephano then explains that because of the Brian’s high trustworthiness and professional discreteness, especially from his last job, Stephano desired him a permanent part of his crime syndicate.
Initially rejecting the offer in a rage, realizing the limitations of his new life, he wanders the loud nighttime streets of Las Vegas, noticing he can smell the vitality of the humans walking by. He decides to contact one of his old friends from his previous underground jobs to find a friendly face again. He now no longer could be outside during the day or go anywhere without explicitly being invited inside, nor can he cross bodies of water. He notices that his old friend is in the middle of a back-alley operation having cybernetics placed into his arms and having his eyes replaced with bio-identical but modified eyes that can be heat seeking, et cetera. This is a typical happening in this scene. Underground surgeries are growing in popularity these days. Eventually he decides to confide in his friend about what has happened to him. His friend is a bit incredulous about the whole vampirism thing, asks him to prove it. The guy just goes ahead and takes a clove of garlic and presses it into the Brian’s arm, burning him horribly. “Holy shit, they really did it to you.”

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Website | Forum | Discord | Reddit
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At Singleplayer Roleplay also formerly known as Streetz of Los Santos, we try to keep everything modern during the 90s but with a slight twist to make it comftable to playthroug has possible, from our phone system, our vehicle gui and our property system with storage and such and rent system.
Businesses are mostly player owned with a in-come process giving the player a profit for using his savings on a business.
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At Singleplayer Roleplay also formerly known as Streetz of Los Santos, we currently have a damage system that have different areas to hit, leg which does so you no longer can run, arms so you no longer aim right.
Our food system with food objects, and packages which you can put down and share among your friends, everything stored in props menu.
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At Singleplayer Roleplay also formerly known as Streetz of Los Santos, we came up with a brand new concept on San Andreas Multiplayer to use the singleplayer voicelines used by the peds, they are all available through our in-game command with voicelines from Ballas to Vagos and all the gangs in the game and much more.
At Singleplayer Roleplay also formerly known as Streetz of Los Santos, we base our faction Grandt Theft Auto lore, we accept any factions fit in the world of Grand Theft Auto.
Ballas, Families, Aztecas, Leones, Triads, Yakuza etc for a few examples.
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At Singleplayer Roleplay also formerly known as Streetz of Los Santos, It's possible to play basketball against your friends based on the singleplayer system with a power bar, players are capable of doing tricks and throwing, and dunking.
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At Singleplayer Roleplay also formerly known as Streetz of Los Santos, we have a casino system with slot machines, blackjack and poker slightly based on the singleplayer but with few tweaks and such.
Also you are capable of playing Eightball based on the singleplayer game.
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At Singleplayer Roleplay also formerly known as Streetz of Los Santos, we have made up an entire new weapon system with different types of calibers, and models sadly SAMP doesn't allow us to change the model look-wise but the gun has It's own name and damage, you are required to reload a magazine to shoot.
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At Singleplayer Roleplay also formerly known as Streetz of Los Santos, when your faction are awarded official status, you are given the option to brew/grow drugs, we a constantly updating and coming up with new ideas with benefits of doing the drugs, to effects and such.
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At Singleplayer Roleplay also formerly known as Streetz of Los Santos, we have a dedicated mapping/envoirement/modding team that constantly greates custom models and maps that fit the city better making it feel like a city during the 90s in Los Angeles.

The results are in for Match 8. The winner is…
Autumn Miranda Jasper, with a score of 72 to Garland’s 63!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	Autumn Jasper	22-18	Despite Autumn’s early lead, Garland rode the tide of the classic “PHD Curse” to catch up, ending the vote 5-4!
Quality	Autumn Jasper	26-21	Reasoning
JoJolity	Tie	24-24	Reasoning

With that, we must now sadly bid goodbye to Team Earth, Tower of Terra, the third team to be eliminated from Tournament 4. They slipped under the radar in Round 1, and didn’t win a single match Round 2, but their high-profile ties that round proved they were a force to be reckoned with, as did their very close losses this round.
Let’s take a moment to remember…

8th/7th Place: Darwin Glerman and Bhangra Mendhi - This duo got caught in a game of Tetris played by Oscar K Computer, and they just couldn’t clear their rows.
6th Place: Jianbin Zhuge - For all his talk about his ancestral heritage, he lost to an upstart Baroness in a ski chase worthy of a spy thriller!
5th Place: Professor Bernal - The horse-whisperer ended up losing her match betting on the Kentucky derby by default when she attacked her opponent.
4th/3rd Place: Colorado Blue and Mars - Mars spent her first round winning a jungle relay race, while Colorado was defeated by Mylo Xyloto in a battle on the rooftops of Detroit, but through a twist of circumstance was still given the opportunity to move on to the next round, where he and Mars lost a game of Brazilian football to a Prince and a “Hero.”
2nd Place: Robbert Chitter - One of the only ACT Stand-users in the tournament, in the first round he advanced to Round and ACT 2 by winning a relay race in the jungle with Mars, and just scraped by into Round 3 after a double-tie in Guatemala. Sadly, this round he fell to the forces of ｢m.A.A.d city｣ in Los Angeles.
1st Place: Garland - It was only fitting that one of the strangest builds in this tournament had one of the strangest, and most impressive, runs to get to this point. First he faced off against the All-American cryptic Spider-Vic in a daring art heist, and followed it up with a stalemate against the equally confident and capable Killian Keyes in the site of Electric Grapevine’s second defeat. And how else could someone like Garland go out but by being turned into a salmon and coming in second place in a race up a waterfall?

Tower of Terra may be out of the game, but their presence can still be felt… For example, one of their former opponents is currently fighting for his life against a “superhero?” in an under-construction train tunnel.
Scenario - Las Vegas, Nevada:
The rack was lifted up from the balls, and the cue immediately clacked against them hard, two of them sinking on the break. Connor stood up, examining the table state and running quick calculations. “Good job setting them out, Kris!” He cheered, clapping the younger man on the back as 「Megalovania」 bickered and cheered behind him, inaudible to the others at the small dive bar.
The other man, clad in a pool-patterned polo Connor had acquired for him, almost certainly with Ric’s eponymous credit card. “You want to switch cues?” He asked, three different ones that Connor had carefully coached him in the differences between. Connor nodded, taking one made of a slightly different maple wood than the first.
He lined up his shot, easily sinking two more balls, and grinning. “I’ve been thinking about the game.” He said, standing up and straightening his back.
“...Nine-ball?” Kris asked.
“Well, I’m always thinking about nine-ball, but I’m talking about the tournament.” Connor responded. “I had some things I wanted to talk with you about it.” He smiled genially at Kris. “How did you like your match?” He asked.
Kris pursed his lips, thinking. “I think I’d prefer to have won, sure.” He said. “But I got to show off my abilities, and I must’ve made some sort of impression!” He fished out his phone, showing off the screen. “I’ve been hanging around third place in the popularity polls, for whatever reason.” He gave Connor a hearty thumbs up, 「Under Pressure」holding the cues.
Connor returned it, setting up his next shot. “I’ve been having some fun myself. The match against that nice girl was some of the most fun I’ve had in years, and pairing up with Noriko was certainly a unique experience!” He easily sunk two more balls.
Kris nodded. “Yeah, she’s seemed a little friendlier lately… though it’s still hard to get a read on her,” he said, not seeming too bothered about it.
Connor examined the table. I’ve been looking into some things, but I think with all of the excitement I’ve been dealing with, I could go with something… a little more easygoing.” He moved around the table, looking at the last three balls on the table. “Things have been really intense lately, I suppose. I’ve had enough excitement for a while.”
Kris perked up, and snapped his fingers. “Oh! Connor, that just reminded me of something I was thinking about!” He tapped his phone, reading off something from the UU app. “I think this is a match all about bingo. You know, a bunch of elderly with blotters, only danger there might be is you having to fend off fans! I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”
Connor set up his shot. “Hmm. ‘Bingo’, you say? I’ve never played it before… I’ve heard some of the people who play it can be dangerous if you get in their way.” He shifted over a few millimeters, cue perfectly poised on the ball. “In either case, Kris, something like bingo sounds….” With an audible ping, his eye glowed bright blue as he took his shot. “Perfect.”
The sound of knitting needles clacking together echoed in the front hall of the ｢Bohemian Archive｣. A small fire roared in the fireplace. Nora had put the only two members of Oceans 11 remaining in the Archive to bed. She didn’t expect them to be getting much sleep at all, with how much energy Jack had to go through all of the information Hadrian and Demis had stolen.
Not that she could blame the two, she had only glanced at it, and there was just so much to dig through. Mountains of information, all of which could be put together, making a web of culpability to point to… something. She hadn’t had that long to look at it, after all!
“I’m really very proud of the boys,” she mused. “Jack’s really come into his own, I think. He’s really relaxed around me and Hadrian, and he’s been doing some just lovely work with helping us out. Buggy’s been doing well too, recovering at least.”
“Hadrian’s really made me proud. He just seemed so… hopeless, when I first met him. I don’t like that Niyaz fellow one bit, but something that happened in Argentina has changed him, and for the better! He’s such a lovely man at times, I’d hate for him to die before such an old fart as myself when I can help it!” She let her head back, still knitting up a storm, cackling.
Calming down, she continued. “As suspicious as the ARG is, I can’t help but feel fond of some parts of it. Hmm. I’ve been so busy with my investigations and all I haven’t actually had any time for myself, thinking about it!”
A moment passed. “Well, I am between investigations and all, I could take some time for myself. I could probably give my spot to Jack, but that wouldn’t be much fun at all, would it?” She barreled on. “I remember seeing a hint about a bingo match. It’s a little bit stereotypical, sure, but a bit of bingo sounds like it could be fun. Besides, I want to save some of my energy, it wouldn’t do to beat someone up, and I can hardly see how they can turn bingo dangerous… though with some of the participants of the blasted thing, I should never doubt.” She nodded to herself. “...Maybe Cal would be there too. I do hope so, Stand users attract other ones.”
“All things considered, I think I’ll be going out to do it, as long as it hasn’t been snapped up by someone else. It would do to get out of the Archive and have a little fun.” She finished.
Paracadute, knitting as well, with the care of someone new to it, continued. He sat across from her, in a black and white outfit that was at once extraordinarily high quality, high thread count, and comfortable to wear. Yet it felt as much a straightjacket as the one that Nora had trapped him in days ago. “That’s… wonderful to hear Mrs. Kleid. Absolutely lovely to hear you getting out of the Archive.”
He hesitated, looking away and asking meekly, “May I please go out of the Archive too, Mrs. Kleid?”
Nora smiled at him, one cheery and genuine. She simply responded to him, “No.”
The Casino Chiaroscuro. A glorious, old casino built in the late 1940s to cater to men coming back from the war, to emulate the glories of old Europe. A gaudy place, built in the heart of Las Vegas, it was nonetheless relatively small by the city’s standards, tucked away, somewhere that catered to older, more refined clientele.
Connor sauntered up to the casino, in his normal outfit. He hadn’t seen fit to show up to a Match in anything different so far, and he wouldn’t change it now. He made his way in, poking around the area and making his way to the bar. He was used to glitzy places, it’s where he’d done quite a few matches in his heyday, and now it would be a match of a different sort.
He ordered a soda and sipped at it, checking his phone every so often, waiting for something to happen. He was one hundred percent sure about the location, of course, so he could only wait for an opponent to appear.
After waiting for a few minutes, he heard a clearing throat behind him, a kindly but assertive voice, making itself known. “Hello, is this seat taken?”
Connor turned around to it, recognizing the speaker immediately and grinning. “By all means, take it if you like!” He said, patting the stool and going back to his drink.
While she was always impeccably dressed, a trip to the casino was an occasion for Nora to bring out her best. Without impeding any of the thief’s range of motion, Nora’s dress was long, reaching the floor, and dark blue in color. Completely knitted, and with regular words on it. KLEID, KLEID, KLEID, with a small telescope after each word, in what would have looked chaotic and arrogant without the sheer bravado that Nora exuded. It opened over her chest, showing off a black cardigan underneath with an incredibly realistic pattern of Neptune on it. Her hair was worn in its normal way, a small hat in a jaunty angle, large, knitted feather drooping off of it.
Connor nodded approvingly at her getup. “My, I feel underdressed for such esteemed company!” He marveled. Nora laughed, shifting around in her bag a bit and pulling out a woolen mass and tossing it to Connor. “If you can’t handle life without some Kleidiscope goods, here you go!” He opened it up, revealing a lavender vest with a subtle, mesmerizing pattern and “FAIRY FELLERS” embroidered on the breast in large writing.
She slipped into the seat, ordering some water as Connor excitedly put his new vest on. She sideyed Connor’s drink. “Soda, huh? Maybe I should come back in a few years when you’ve ruined your body with that, hm?” She jabbed playfully.
Connor pulled his coat on and carefully took another sip. “Well, I’ve been having soda since I was a boy, and it’s done a worse job at killing me than being hooked on booze would have. And I suppose you’re here to face me?” He paused. “Dear, I suppose we’re so familiar with each other through the game that I forgot how to be polite! My name’s Connor Pruckette, 9-ball champion. Mind if I ask yours?” He extended his hand.
Nora took it, shaking it heartily. “Lenoir Kleid. Everyone calls me Nora. Came here because I felt bingo would be funny for such an old fart like me.”
Connor swirled his soda. “A teammate recommended it to me, and I just couldn’t turn down a challenge!”
Nora’s smile turned menacing, seeming to look through Connor. “And my teammate is currently still recovering from some bullet holes where your teammate had shot him.” She said, frostily.
Connor immediately waved his hands. “Jeez, I wanted some relative peace and quiet. Hey, if you should blame anyone, blame the other sniper there. Sofia has had some… bad experiences with those folk, I’m sure she wouldn’t have been as...driven as she was otherwise.”
Nora stared at him a few moments longer, the tension mounting, and suddenly dissipating. “Surely. Well, I’m not facing her, I suppose.” She laughed to herself. “If ‘Sofia’ cares at all, Buggy is recovering well.”
Connor graced her with a genuine smile. “I’m very glad to hear that!”
The duo continued to talk, first about their teams, and then about their family. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Nora talked about how she had dealt with the death of her husband, and Connor about how he was worried for some of his wilder grandchildren. Thirty minutes. Forty. They talked about their professions. Secret, forbidden nine ball techniques. How big corporations were ruining fashion. By the time their phones rang, they had spent a full hour at the bar together, enjoying each others company.
Nora and Connor instantly scrambled as one to open their phones, identical grins wide on their faces. The eponymous mascot of Urban Uprising, Andromeda, was on screen wearing a suit. It wasn’t as bold as Nora’s attire, of course, but there was a certain chic air to it: typical black tie attire, but adorned with her favored iridescent trim and a faint eight-pointed star pattern tessellating along the lapels and sleeves.
Before Andromeda could so much as open her mouth, Connor interrupted. “Howdy, Andromeda!” He said, tipping his hat a bit. “It’s been a while since I saw you last, how have you been?”
Andromeda paused, seeming caught off guard, after recovering gracing Connor with a smile. “Oh, I’ve been stellar!” She beamed. “I may have been off the air, but I’ve been doing some... restructuring of the way things are done a little. It’s been a busy time for the people who are helping make this work, but it’s all worth it to make things more fun for everyone.” She cleared her throat, whispering conspiratorially. “You’re actually the first contestant to ask me that, I think.”
Nora spoke up herself. “Oh, speaking of which, Andromeda, is Cal sill working for you?” Andromeda nodded slowly, waiting for Nora to continue. Nora thought a bit about her words. “...I suppose he’s still not ready to talk.” She said with a measure of sadness. “Well! Is he doing well, at the least?”
“Calendar’s been doing very well in the Admin work, yes!” Andromeda smiled softly. “And… he still apparently hasn’t called.” She clicked her tongue in disappointment. “I’m really sorry about that, I’ll try talking to him again. I can’t make him do anything, but you deserve better than this.” Her guard seemed lowered for a bit before she transitioned back into her hostess persona. “Let’s get into the Match!”
Connor and Nora listened patiently as Andromeda explained the rules, Connor speaking up once she finished. “Well… I can say I’ve had a lot of fun meeting you, Miss Kleid.” He and Nora stood up as one, carefully making their way over to the center of the casino. Eyes locked, stalking like predators.
“Dearie me.” Nora said. “I can’t help but feel the same.” Her voice carried an undercurrent of danger, as if she could kill someone with a glance, with her Bingo Intent. “I’ve just had a lovely time, and I’d absolutely adore spending a little while more with you.”
Connor’s grin simply grew, echoing a cockiness of years long past as Aggravated Intent To Bingo filled his own frame, invigorating him. “Indeed… I came here for a challenge, you know. Something to cool down from all the excitement. Tell you what.” They got to the center of the casino, facing each other. “‘Loser’ 🥈 buys the ‘winner’ 🥇some ‘drinks’ 🍻 and ‘beverages’ 🥤 to cool off?”
Nora slid a hand up her leg, leaving it at her hip, the other on her neck. She snapped into a pose, eyes and body burning with energy, as ｢Doll Judgement｣ appeared in a flash, its arms interlaced with hers in a dynamic, impossible seeming pose. “If you wanted a ‘challenge’... then dearie, I think you’ve found what you wanted. I just wonder, is it more than you can handle, dear?”
Connor crouched down, an arm sweeping in front of him, and around, the balls of ｢Megalovania｣ coming out from behind it He locked into a pose, Stand spread out around him and crouched down further than seemed natural. In an instant, he looked up at his opponent, eye flashing. “I guess we’ll find out…. Well Nora… are you ready to have a GOOD TIME?”
“Yeah!” With a vim and vigour contrasting the relatively sedate surroundings, Andromeda cheered out her signature line from their phones, fired up and clapping her hands enthusiastically. However prim and proper she looked in her suit, her excitement at what was sure to be a great match got the best of her. “Here we go...”
“OPEN THE GAME~!”
Location: The (fictional) Casino Chiaroscuro in Las Vegas, Nevada. There are three floors, on Floor 1 are the slot machines, on Floor 2 are the card and pool tables as well as where the players start, and on Floor 3 is a bar and lounge area. Each floor is 50 by 50 meters, 5 by 5 meters per tile, and there is about 5 meters between floors.
The marked red circles are stairway rooms with openings and exits on all sides, the orange squares are slot machines, the brown rectangles are poker tables, and the teal rectangles are pool tables, the purple circles are tables, and the green L shapes are bar counters with bartenders denoted by the orange circles.
The area is packed with people around the slot machines, tables and bars with a decent amount of people also just walking around so you may have to squeeze past people in the more crowded areas. Every game table has a fully seated game going, people are playing on both sides of the slot machines, and people are drinking at the bar counters and at tables resting.
The people have 222 Physical stats and won’t pay much attention to you, but will shove back if you try to push them to get to one of the objectives. The bartenders have 433 Physicals and 4s in Bartending, they will also try to prevent anybody else from trying to get back behind their respective bar counter, however they may not always be observant while serving drinks or attending to other duties.
Goal: Score a bingo before your opponent does! The stars are colored oversized bingo balls about the size of a softball and are objectives to collect to win the match with more elaborations bellow. The balls are all on the floor, the stars that are on the tables just mean that the ball is underneath that table.
In the case that neither player can complete a bingo with the tokens taken, the current balls will immediately deactivate, losing their color, and new balls will be placed in the locations. In essence, the game state is entirely reset.
While nothing necessarily stops you from harming your opponent, you’ve spent a lot of time getting to know them and you aren’t here to hurt someone. Seriously harming your opponent will lead to you RETIREing out of shame!
Additional Information: Both players have the same three by three bingo sheet, and for an easier time remembering, the stars are roughly located in the area they are on the sheet compared to the map. The Dark Blue star being in the top left corner of the map for example.
The balls have to be in the player’s hands in order for them to be counted. Balls may not be stolen once they are already counted.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Fairy Fellers	Connor Pruckette	“Hap-py Joy-py Yorupiku-ne~!” You're here to blow off some steam, so do so! Have as much fun as possible in your strategy, with a focus on smooth moves and flashy applications of your abilities! For bonus points, win of course, but help your opponent have fun as well!
Ocean’s 11	Nora Kleid	“Well in this case, everyone’s happy, so it’s fine.” You're here to blow off some steam, so do so! Have as much fun as possible in your strategy, with a focus on smooth moves and flashy applications of your abilities! For bonus points, win of course, but help your opponent have fun as well!

Link to the Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to R3 Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!

Logan age 26
Struggling musician, lives in Vegas. Takes odd jobs like magician's assistant and Ubering people around.
Cooks top ramen with a sprinkle of cheese and an egg because it makes him feel fancy.
Owns a YouTube channel although not a successful one. He's talented he just doesn't have the marketing savvy.
Into conspiracy theory videos. Stays up late sometimes watching 10-15 videos in a row going from simple UFO / Bob Lazar stuff, to debating whether the earth is flat using 6th grade Trigonometry. He knows it's not flat, but sometimes he looks up and can't help but wonder.
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He's that shady guy at coffee houses. Wears a scarf to places that you don't expect people to wear scarfs. Always has stubble but never a full beard. Which is odd because you rarely see him shaving, you'd think his stubble was permanently tattooed on his face.
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Hosts various open mic nights around the city every other week.
People mistake him for Russell Brand until they hear him speak.
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"Russell! Russell!" you'd hear them running up on the strip trying to take a selfie, sometimes he just goes with it.
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One night our would-be British celebrity picks up a couple in his Uber. They're young in their mid 20s.
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The woman has wavy brown hair, in a navy blue mini skirt with dark red heels and a white blouse. As soon as they get in the car she starts crying begging the man who appears to be her husband to stay.
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She appears to be a little tipsy and has a pizza stain on her right shoulder. Logan can see from the mirror, aside from being a messy eater, she's also very worried for her husband's well being.
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"Honey I can't let you go all that way alone. Don't they have housing for spouses on the base?" She begs.
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"No.. normally yes but... Baby we can talk about this when we get home. Please.." The man looks as though he fears she might say something that might get them both killed.
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"How dare you leave me all alone while you go to fucking ANTARCTICA!!!! What the fuck is so great about Antarctica anyway? Do they have hot Antarctican strippers on the base? I bet that's what it is. You're cheating on me with a whale!!!!!"
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She laughs with tears in her eyes.
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"Baby I told you.. \Looking at Logan glaring at him in the rear-view\** It's.... it's classified".
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"CLASSIFIED CLASSIFIED THAT'S ALL YOU EVER SAY! I'M YOUR WIFE!!!!!!! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO TELL ME THINGS ANYWAY!!!
Like that time you told me about the space craft they found in New Mexico. And the portal in Africa. And the pasta colander Gina found in Switzerland"- hiccuuppp
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"....The particle collider in Geneva, Switzerland*... Dear you're so drunk... Please.."
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"YEAH THAT THING!!!! IF YOU TOLD ME ABOUT THAT WHY CAN'T YOU TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON IN ANTARCTICA!?"
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".... I'm so sorry sir she had a little too much to drink tonight. You can just let us out over here. Thank you. Here's a tip. For the disturbance."
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He hands Logan $100 bill. As if to keep quiet about what he had just heard.
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"Hey" said Logan to the man who had just handed him a crisp hundo.
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Being a conspiracy nut himself and having done tons of research on Antarctica, Logan needed to know more but he couldn't let on that he wanted to know more.
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"Are you guys hiring? For... for that trip I mean... Uber... doesn't pay very well at all. And well... I could reaaally get out of this damned heat, a change of pace in Antarctica sounds exciting."
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Faking desperation, thinking it would help his case. People sometimes take pity on you if you plead nicely, Logan has learned.
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"I'm not supposed to say... and normally I wouldn't. But.. you've got that same look in your eye that I once had. So... I definitely did not tell you that we're leaving from Los Angeles in 2 days. And if you were somehow to show up at this address with a suitcase and a sad story, you might get hired as a cook on board our ship. The captain has a soft spot for sad stories. But I didn't say that. Have a good night."
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Logan thought for a minute.
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"A cook... hmm... I don't know how to cook...But I gotta get on that boat somehow...
I don't have a lot of money either.. Ahhhh who am I kidding. Me? Antarctica? Pshhhhhhh"
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With a swipe of his finger on his smart phone that fit snug into the cup holder of his silver and black SUV, he logged off the UBER app and headed to the Circus Circus with a crisp hundred dollar bill.
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He hands his keys to the parking attendant who gives him a claim ticket.
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"You can come to me later for free parking validation sir!!"
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"Thanks......Hmm.. I like what they did with the remodel" Logan says under his breath as he passes a gaudy slot machine decorated with polar bears, ice bergs and a huge fan set up to blow cold air on your face every time you pull the lever.
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"Worth it just to get out of the heat, I'd say.."
Something pulled him towards that specific slot machine. Maybe it was the remnant of a frantic woman drunkenly babbling on about government conspiracies or maybe it was... fate.
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With a fold, a tug and a whirling grinding of the tiny conveyor belt, Logan had a feeling he would never see that hundred dollar bill again.
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Part of a 50s doo-wap song begins to play on the machine before a loud obnoxious voice takes over.
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"ARE YOU READY TO PLAY BYEEEEEEE POLARRRRRR!!!!!! LETS GET READY TO CRUMBLLLLLLLEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!.... THESE ICE BERGS!!!!!!! Choose your bet and pull the lever! Try max bet for a chance to win 20 free spins and an entry into our million dollar jackpot at the end of the night!!!!!"
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"Yeah right... I just want the free buffet. It's reasonable? Come on. Give me a buffet"
As Logan presses max bet, pulls the lever and the warm musty air blows on his face from the fan that obviously needs a can of freon, Logan can't help but wonder if he should have just got a buffet with the hundred dollar bill.
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"Well too late now"
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The machine starts whirling and spinning, a video of a big ice wall pops up as a bunch of birds in military uniforms attempt to jump over it as each number counts down.
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Sorry you lose. Admiral Bird is sad. Try again?
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Logan goes to spin again but it won't budge. He glances over at the sign that reads "Max Bet $100"
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"Wow I spent $100 on one spin???? Are you serious??? What a rip off..."
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As Logan stands up from the chair that looked more like a throne and had 10 ice swords sticking out of it with a vortex in the middle, he hears another whirling printing noise coming from the machine.
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"Keep this ticket for the million dollar drawing at the end of the night! Your number is 74819!! If 74819 gets called, show this ticket to the concierge to collect your prize. Not valid if you leave the casino before the drawing. Not valid if you go to the bathroom before the drawing. Not valid if folded. Not valid if you validate your parking. Void where prohibited"
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"Geeez what a load of crap.. Not valid not valid, you'd think they would just print "GFYS" and be done with it".
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$100 was all Logan was willing to spend at the casino. He knows the slots are rigged, but he also knows they're on a certain percentage payout, meaning if enough money goes in, some money has to come out. $100 is his limit. It's a rule. With a rule like that you'd think he knows what he's doing, except the most he's ever won was $900 on a malfunctioning roulette machine in Atlantic City.
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Logan heads for the door to go validate his parking when he hears on the loud speaker:
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"Greeeeetings Circus Circus fam!!! We're about to announce the winner of our million dollar jackpot drawing. BEtter not VaLidAte your parking just yet!! We'll be calling out one number every 5 minutes until the final number is drawn!!!!"
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Logan looks at the parking attendant and snatches his ticket back before he had a chance to stamp it.
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"Awe mannnnn they pay me for every stamp" The attendant with red hair and braces cried.
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"Shut up kid, I'm trying to hear this"
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"ANd nOw the MOMENT YOU'VE ALL been waiting for.... the million dollar drawing!! FIRST NUMBER IN 30 SECONDS!!!!!"
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The parking attendant tries to stamp Logan's ticket without him noticing. Logan stares at him with a Bruce Lee stare that said "I'll kill you with subtitles".
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"If your number has a 3 in itttttttttt!!!!!!!!" - Logan exhales and reaches to give the parking attendant the ticket he's been drooling over like Gollum at a wedding rehearsal.
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"Then you're out of luck because the first number is 7!!!!!!!!"
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"NOT TODAY GOLLUM!!!!!!!" - Logan snatches the ticket back and starts to run as the attendant hisses.
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The attendant chases Logan around the casino with his freshly inked stamp while each number brings him closer to the prize. Logan careful not to fold it or enter any bathrooms before the final number gets called.
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Finally Logan seemed to lose the red haired parking attendant and found refuge sitting near an old lady in fishnet stockings playing a fortune teller slot.
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Trying to keep his cool knowing he's only 1 number away from a million dollar jackpot (minus taxes of course), he tries to make small talk with the aunt-like fishnet wearer.
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"So.. do you have one of those tickets too?"
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A little giggle comes out as the woman pulls the lever to the slot in front of her.
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"No..... I don't. But I do have.... a PARKING VALIDATION STAMP!!!!!!!"
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What Logan thought to be a nice old woman woman turns her head to reveal a toothy grin from the red haired parking attendant.
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"Holy shit what are they paying you guys???? I'm not even mad.. That's impressive.. No really, like how you did your eye shadow? It's a lovely color on you. It looks like Egyptian markings!"
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The parking attendant blushes.
"Oh you really think -"
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*AND NOW THE FINAL NUMBER!!!! 9!!!!!! If your ticket says 74819 then head to the cashier right away to collect your prize!!!!!"
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Logan takes off running towards the cashier. The attendant doesn't chase after him, instead just sits there feeling sad because he actually thought Logan was complimenting his eye shadow.
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"I would have let him off the hook ya know. I've validated parking for so long, no one ever... validated my markings....."
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Some time later, Logan sitting in the back room of the Circus Circus cashier cage with a team of people making sure that he didn't get his parking validated or took a bathroom break, trying to find any loop hole to deny him a payout.
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A short chubby bald man holding a cigar, dressed in a short black suit snarled at Logan while a team of data scientists prepare Matplotlib graphs from camera footage in Jupyter Notebooks on a server a few feet away. The short man looked like Dr Eggman played by Danny Devito joining the Men in Black.
​
"Okay Fine you got us, kid. Here take your damned cash. You earned it fair and square."
​
Leading Logan into the "back-back" room filled with the sound of cash rolling through the electrical money counters and yellow paper bands with a tiny bit of glue being wrapped around and tightened against stacks of green currency with old men's pictures printed in the center to denote dollar amount.
​
"1 million dollars. Minus taxes and parking attendant therapy fee that's 6 hundred thousand, 3 hundred and 68 dollars annnnd 46 cents." The short balding Eggman said.
​
"Parking attendant therapy fee? Seriously?"
​
"Look kid, we can give you 6 hundred grand and change or free parking validation. Which will it be???"
​
Sensing that this isn't your average casino, and that this isn't an average situation, realizing the reality that he was just hours ago driving for $10 dollars a ride, now having over half a million after tax dollars in his face, he said what any human in his position would say.
​
"I'll take the cash...."
​
2 days, 40 grand and 5 high class call girls later..
​
Logan arrives to the address scribbled on the back of an Ale house business card. Turns out it was an abandoned building. The guy was just messing with him.
​
"I drove 4 hours for nothing.. Maybe she was just wasted. Antarctica sounded so cool though. The mystery. I need to know what they're hiding... Man how am I gonna get to Antarctica?"
​
Driving down the industrial complex, Logan spots a travel agency. "Maybe they have a cruise?"
​
The door opens with a BEEEEEEP and a jingle of door chimes with the atmosphere of a knock off 7/11 on a back alley road. It even had those little red and green door beads that lead to the back room where you just know there's a round table and an elderly group of ethnic gentlemen in tank tops smoking cigarettes and complaining about the "races".
​
"Can I help you?" A tall dark gentleman in a red and yellow Hawaiian shirt with curly black hair said in a rough southern British accent. Which was weird because he seemed.. not British.
​
"Uh...... yes do you guys have anything for Antarctica?"
​
"Ohhh quite booked up eeem'afraid. Yup till September."
​
"Well that's only next week..."
​
"Of 2022 eem'afrraiid, yup it's quite a while yup."
​
"Why... are you talking like that?"
​
"Look we're booked up bruv. If you wanna have a go at one of our Hawaiian cruises I can put you on the next boat to Waikiki which leaves in an hour."
​
"Dude come on, how can I get to Antarctica? I got money..."
​
"How much money?"
​
"I'll spend 100k on it if I have to. I want to go to Antarctica."
​
"Hmmmmmmmmm wellll woi didn'tcha say so govna, come on back let's have a look at our private charters why don't we".
​
The clearly not British man in the tacky Hawaiian shirt led Logan down past the rasta beads to the back room which.. looked exactly as Logan presumed
​
​
"Ayeeeeeee Earl man wants to go to Antarctica. Got 100k"
​
"100k? To go to Antarctica? Why? Can't he wait til 2022 it's only 4k. What's the rush?"
​
Both the tall dark gentleman stare confused at Logan. Logan himself looks a bit bewildered.
​
When he really thought about it, he hadn't even made a plan. "Just get to Antarctica" was the plan. But as to what was next once he got there he hadn't given really much thought.
​
"To be honest I have no clue myself, I just... wanna go. See the sights.."
Logan said not wanting to raise any red flags.
​
"THATS E SPEEEREEEET" the clearly not British man shouted, as both Logan and his counter-part looked frightened.
​
"Sorry... I mean... yeah man that's the spirit!"
​
Earl peered down at Logan through his black rimmed prescription glasses in confusion and doubt, wondering if he's actually got the 100k to spend.
​
"For 100k I'll take ye there and back. But how'loi know you got the monay" said Earl who didn't before but now has a very thick Scottish accent.
​
"Well I just won a jackpot from the Circus Circus in Vegas. See here's a bag full of money. They even zip locked stacks for me at a nominal fee."
​
"Circus Circus eh? A wise guy eh? Oi want payment up front and en cash. And ye gotta sign a waver, if'n ye die in and or around the boat during any time from here to Antarctica and back, you hold SaberTooth Charter LLC indemifiable for all liability and such."
​
The other clearly not British man chimed in "Yeah indemnifiable!"
​
".......I'm gonna have to think about it...." Logan said, backing away slowly, clearly uncomfortable, trying to peacefully exit the building.
​
"Okay fine fine... I'll drop the accent and you can pay half now, half when we get there. 3 meals a day, whole crew ready to do your bidding. It'll take 4 weeks. We'll stop in Guadalajara, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru, Chile straight to Antarctica. If you've got any specific spots you'd like to check out along the way, we'll try to accommodate you. Fair enough?"
​
"Deal." said Logan.
​
(Chapter Two)

On this post, I will focus on Sony Pictures/Columbia Pictures, the studio people want dead because they own Spider-Man and not Marvel. Besides Spider-Man, this studio is most well known for Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Men in Black, Hancock, 2012, the Daniel Craig 007 Films (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre), and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.
Before we start, I want to say something, and I might get downvoted for this.
People when Paramount Pictures’ 2017 slate critically and commercially flops (every single one of them was rated poorly: Monster Trucks, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, Rings, Ghost in the Shell, Baywatch, Transformers: The Last Knight, Mother!, Suburbicon, Daddy’s Home 2, and Downsizing): I hope Paramount Pictures improves as a studio. But hey, with new management, Paramount will turn things around in no time.
People when Sony Pictures’ Venom gets negative reviews from critics: FUCK YOU SONY! STOP MAKING SPIDER-MAN FILMS! PACK YOUR BAGS! SELL THE SPIDER-MAN RIGHTS TO MARVEL! GO ROT IN HELL! YOU PEOPLE ARE INCOMPETENT! Oh by the way, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse looks great, Sony. I also can’t wait for Spider-Man: Far From Home which is an MCU film (as they forget that Sony has final creative control and distributes the film). Anyways, FUCK YOU, SONY! I WISH YOUR MOVIES WOULD FLOP SO YOU CAN SELL YOUR MOVIE DIVISION! YOU CAN’T MAKE SPIDER-MAN MOVIES ANYMORE! (Screeching Intensifies)
It’s a good time to be a Spider-Man/Sony fan and a bad time to be a Sony hater. I’m not saying Paramount Pictures deserves to get blasted on, but Sony getting blasted constantly is somewhat unjustified to me. Of course, you may not like the direction the Spider-Man franchise had been going with Sony (then again Into the Spider-Verse says hi), but people are judging some films negatively because it’s a Sony film. Or some people just look at the new Spider-Man movies, Ghostbusters (2016), the Emoji Movie, and Venom’s reviews, and say that the whole studio sucks because of that. I’m sure some people have other reasons, but I don’t get how Sony is a reason why a movie is bad. It’s just a film studio. They’ve made bad movies, but so have 20th Century Fox, Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros, and Disney. They’ve made good movies too. I’ll show you some down below.
1924-1976: The Beginning and Before the 80s
In 1918, Harry Cohn, Jack Cohn, and Joe Brandt founded Cohn-Brandt-Cohn (CBC) Film Sales. In order to improve the brand name, the company was renamed to Columbia Pictures Corporation on January 10, 1924. Columbia’s films were mostly moderately budgeted comedies, sports films, serials, and cartoons. As time went on Columbia would start making high budget films and join United Artists and Universal Pictures to become the “Little Three” in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Unlike the five major film studios in the Golden Age, RKO Radio Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros Pictures, Columbia didn’t own any theaters. However, Columbia’s rise to become a major film studio was due to the ambitious director, Frank Capra, with movies like It Happened One Night, Lost Horizon, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which made James Stewart a star. Columbia couldn’t afford to have a large amount of contract stars to the point where they would borrow stars from other studios. MGM would send some of their stars to Columbia to punish them if they weren’t obedient. After Harry Cohn’s death in February 1958, Columbia started to decline with multiple box office failures to the point where they could possibly go bankrupt. Fortunately in 1972, the studio was saved with an drastic overhaul in management and a deal with Warner Bros to share the WB studio lot. Some Columbia hits include Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Strangelove, and Taxi Driver. Notable Columbia Pictures films: Discontented Husbands, It Happened One Night, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Strangelove, and Taxi Driver
1977-1983: Close Encounters of the Third Kind Era
On November 1977, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a sci-fi film directed by Steven Spielberg, became a major success for Columbia Pictures and was their highest grossing film at the time (making $307M worldwide). In 1982, Columbia Pictures was bought out by Coca-Cola, the company behind the soda. Tri-Star Pictures was also created around this time, while Columbia expanded its television franchise. Major hits for the studio include Kramer vs. Kramer, The Blue Lagoon, Stripes, Stir Crazy, Tootsie, and The Big Chill. Notable Columbia Pictures films: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Kramer vs. Kramer, Stripes, Stir Crazy, and Tootsie
Notable Columbia Pictures film that bombed: Krull
1984-1989: Ghostbusters/The Karate Kid/Rambo Era
On June 1984, two Columbia Pictures movies would be the biggest movies and the most well known films in Columbia’s library: Ghostbusters (making $295M worldwide) and The Karate Kid (making $91M in the US). Ghostbusters would receive a sequel in the form of Ghostbusters II, while The Karate Kid would become a trilogy. On the TriStar side, they had received Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III, which would be a major success for the studio. Rambo: First Blood Part II was the highest grossing Columbia/TriStar film in this era, making $300M worldwide. Other hits include Stand By Me, Look Who’s Talking, Peggy Sue Got Married, and When Harry Met Sally… This success would catch the eyes of a fellow Japanese multinational conglomerate that would buy them in 1989. Notable Columbia/Tristar Pictures films: Ghostbusters 1 and 2, The Karate Kid Trilogy, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III, When Harry Met Sally…, and Look Who’s Talking
Notable Columbia Pictures films that bombed: Ishtar and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
1990-1996: Early Sony Era
On 1989, Sony bought Columbia Pictures for $3.4B. Did Sony buy the best studio at the time? Probably not, but I don’t know if they could’ve bought a different studio (20th Century Fox was owned by News Corporation, Warner Bros was probably too successful to be bought, and Disney would never give in to another corporation). The three studios I could see Sony buying instead of Columbia are MGM/UA, Universal, or Paramount, though I’m leaning towards Paramount more. Imagine complaining about the new Star Trek movie or Transformers movie being ruined by “Sony”. But honestly, this wasn’t a bad buy for Sony as they would keep their film division to this day. In the long term. As for short term, well, something was off. In 1994, Sony took a $2.7B write-off. It seems like it took less time for Sony to make a successful video game console (PlayStation) than it took for Sony to make Columbia Pictures an actual worthy investment. Most of the hits came from TriStar and not from Columbia Pictures with movies like Hook, Basic Instinct, Cliffhanger, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Jumanji, and the highest grossing film for TriStar at the time, Terminator 2: Judgement Day (making $521M worldwide). On the Columbia side of things, the biggest franchise they had was probably City Slickers, but it wasn’t much compared to Ghostbusters, The Karate Kid, and Rambo in the 80s. They did have some other hits like Total Recall, Flatliners, Misery, Boyz N the Hood, The Prince of Tides, A League of Their Own, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, A Few Good Men, Groundhog Day, In the Line of Fire, Bad Boys, The Cable Guy, and the highest grossing Columbia Pictures film in this era, Jerry Maguire (making $274M worldwide). Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: Total Recall (1990), Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Hook, City Slickers, Basic Instinct, and Jumanji
Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures film that bombed: Hudson Hawk
1997-2001: Men In Black Era
Fortunately in 1996, Amy Pascal and Chris Lee was brought in to become the president of Columbia and TriStar, respectively. On 1997, Sony Pictures was ranked as the highest grossing film studio in the US, making $1.26B with movies like The Fifth Element, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Air Force One, As Good As It Gets, and the highest grossing Sony film in this era, Men In Black (making $251M in the US and $589M Worldwide). Other hits from Sony in this era include Godzilla, The Mask of Zorro, Stepmom, Big Daddy, Stuart Little, The Patriot, Charlie’s Angels, America’s Sweethearts, and Black Hawk Down. After their success in 1997, they weren’t able to replicate their success and fell behind the other major film studios. In 2000, they were in 7th place behind every major film studio plus Dreamworks SKG, making $682M that year. In 2001, they were in 6th place behind every major film studio, making $729M that year. Fortunately for Sony, they had gotten their hands on the most iconic Marvel superhero with plans to make a live action movie of this character. And this character made a major impact on Sony Pictures. Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: The Fifth Element, Men In Black, Air Force One, Stuart Little, and Charlie’s Angels
Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures film that bombed: Ali and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
2002-2007: Spider-Man Era
While Paramount’s 90th anniversary in 2002 didn’t end well, Columbia Pictures’ 78th anniversary was amazing. Not only was this year the best year since 1997, Sony was able to have the largest market share and make $1.5B in the US, surpassing 1997 with movies like Panic Room, Mr. Deeds, Men In Black II, xXx, Maid in Manhattan, and Sony’s highest grossing film at the time, Spider-Man (making $404M in the US and $822M worldwide) Spider-Man would be the highest grossing Sony film domestically until 2018. In 2004, Sony had the largest market share again and made $1.2B in the US with movies like 50 First Dates, White Chicks, The Grudge, Christmas with the Kranks, and of course, Spider-Man 2. In 2005, Sony led a consortium that purchased MGM, giving Sony the distribution rights to the James Bond franchise. In 2006, Sony would have the largest market share for the third time this era and made $1.7B in the US, surpassing 2002 with movies like The Da Vinci Code, Click, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Open Season, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness, showing that Sony doesn’t need Men In Black or Spider-Man to make $1B in the US. This didn’t happen with the odd-numbered years, as Sony was 2nd in 2003 (making $1.2B that year), 5th place in 2005 (making $918M that year), and 4th place in 2007 (making $1.2B that year, even with the release of Spider-Man 3) Around this time, Sony were able to keep two actors around to make most of their films under Sony: Adam Sandler with Mr. Deeds, Anger Management, 50 First Dates, and Click and Will Smith with Men in Black II, Bad Boys II, Hitch, and The Pursuit of Happyness. Spider-Man was clearly the biggest franchise for Sony in this era and has been the biggest franchise for Sony since. Sony had other small franchises that were profitable like Resident Evil and Underworld. Other hits from Sony include Daddy Day Care, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, S.W.A.T., Superbad, and Spider-Man 3, which would become the highest grossing Sony film at the time, making $890M worldwide despite mixed reviews. Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: Spider-Man Trilogy, Men In Black II, Hitch, The Da Vinci Code, and Casino Royale
Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films that bombed: Stuart Little 2, Gigli, xXx: State of the Union, Stealth, and Zoom
2008-2012: The James Bond Era
Now with the Spider-Man franchise mostly absent this era besides the Amazing Spider-Man, Sony mostly depended on Adam Sandler, Will Smith, and the James Bond franchise to be successful. I’ve noticed that other than that, Sony doesn’t heavily depend on multiple successful franchises compared to the other major film studios. They actually profited off of many original films in the previous era and this era. James Bond was still going strong with Quantum of Solace and reached to franchise and studio records with Skyfall, becoming James Bond and Sony’s highest grossing film and Sony’s only billion dollar film to this date, making $1.1B worldwide. Adam Sandler had hits with movies under Happy Madison like You Don’t Mess With Zohan, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Grown Ups, Just Go With It, and Zookeeper. Will Smith had hits with movies like Hancock, The Karate Kid (as Producer), and Men In Black 3. They were 5th in 2010 and 3rd in 2008, 2009, and 2011. The only time they had the largest market share this era was in 2012, making $1.8B in the US, surpassing 2006 with movies like The Vow, 21 Jump Street, Men In Black 3, The Amazing Spider-Man, Hotel Transylvania, Skyfall, and Zero Dark Thirty. Other hits for Sony include Step Brothers, Pineapple Express, Angels and Demons, District 9, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Zombieland, 2012, Salt, The Other Guys, The Social Network, The Green Hornet, Battle: Los Angeles, The Smurfs, Bad Teacher, Moneyball, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: 007 James Bond (Quantum of Solace and Skyfall), Hancock, 2012, The Karate Kid, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Men In Black 3
Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films that bombed: Year One, The Pink Panther 2, How Do You Know, Jack and Jill, That’s My Boy, and Total Recall (2012)
2013-2016: The Amazing Spider-Man 2/Sony Hack/The Decline Era
After 2012, it seems like Sony was slowly declining. Sony didn’t have a stable franchise, though was still doing better than Paramount. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was supposed to set up a whole cinematic universe on Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, but underperformed and the sequels were cancelled in favor of a deal struck with Marvel Studios to bring Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Spectre did well as a James Bond film, but was the last James Bond film Sony would be able to distribute. Adam Sandler and Will Smith movies weren’t doing as well as before and pretty much stopped making films for Sony at the end of this era. Ghostbusters was rebooted, but infamously underperformed. They were 4th in 2013 and 2014 and 5th in 2015 and 2016 (making slightly less than $1B in the US), just above Paramount Pictures. Some other hits are This is the End, Grown Ups 2, Elysium, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, Captain Phillips, American Hustle, 22 Jump Street, The Equalizer, Hotel Transylvania 2, The Angry Birds Movie, Sausage Party, Don’t Breathe, The Magnificent Seven, and Passengers. In late 2016, Sony took a $962M write down, with rumors starting that Sony would sell off their movie division sometime in 2017 if their 2017 lineup didn’t do so well. This most likely wasn’t true, and 2017 fortunately proves the studio’s worth. Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: Captain Phillips, American Hustle, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, 22 Jump Street, Hotel Transylvania 2, and Spectre
Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films that bombed: After Earth, White House Down, Aloha, Pixels, Grimsby, and Ghostbusters (2016)
2017-Present: Spider-Man/Jumanji Era (Comeback Era?)
In the first half of 2017, it wasn’t looking too good for Sony. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter did fine, especially in China. Life and Rough Night were only modest successes for the studio. Smurfs: The Lost Village was an attempt to reboot the Smurfs but underperformed, making slightly less than $200M. However, things started to turn around with three summer movies: Baby Driver, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the Emoji Movie. Baby Driver was a surprise success for Sony and for director Edgar Wright. Spider-Man was shared between Marvel and Sony, which led to everyone wanting to see Spider-Man’s first solo film (+Iron Man) with Marvel Studios, making $880M worldwide, just $10M behind Spider-Man 3. The Emoji Movie was made fun of by everyone, even though enough people went to make this film $218M worldwide. The Dark Tower did alright, but probably not enough to warrant a sequel. It seems like Sony did alright, but then December 2017 came. Sony decided to release Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle near Star Wars: The Last Jedi as counter programming (what a moron, am I right? /s). With the movie having a surprisingly strong word of mouth, it topped Star Wars: The Last Jedi in the first few weeks of 2018. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle would later go on to make $405M in the US, surpassing Spider-Man to be the highest grossing Sony film in the US and would make $962M worldwide, just a notch below $1B. I had a feeling that $405M made in the US was what Sony was expecting the movie to make worldwide. In 2018, Sony’s success continued on with hits like Peter Rabbit, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, The Equalizer 2, and the biggest surprise of 2018 for Sony that isn’t Jumanji, Venom, making at least $212M in the US and at least $823M worldwide. Sony was also able to keep the budgets low and have low budget films like Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, and Searching make a decent amount of profit. It may seem like Sony is making a comeback, especially with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse being well received and being at least moderately successful (though only time will tell). Notable Sony/Columbia Pictures films: Baby Driver, Spider-Man Homecoming (and Into the Spider-Verse), Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, and Venom
2019 is next year, and it’s time to look at what Sony has in-store for everyone next year. I’ll try to keep it short (with a basic description of each one if necessary and how well it might do). The numbers I have won’t be accurate, so take it with a grain of salt.
Escape Room - it’s a psychological thriller film directed by Adam Robitel. If it has a low budget, I think this could be moderately successful while adapting the escape room idea into film. I’d say $50M Domestic and $70M Worldwide.
A Dog’s Way Home - it’s a family drama film directed by Charles Martin Smith. I don’t get how A Dog’s Purpose is at Universal while this movie is at Sony. Did Universal not buy the rights to every single A Dog book or what? This will probably make less than A Dog’s Purpose with $50M Domestic and $180M Worldwide. But at least it comes out before A Dog’s Journey, another movie based on the A Dog franchise. A Dog’s Way Home will probably make more than A Dog’s Journey based on this movie coming first.
Miss Bala - it’s an American-Mexican action thriller directed by Catherine Hardwicke and is a remake of the 2011 Mexican film of the same name. I don’t know what to compare this too. There isn’t any numbers on how much the original did either, so I have to make guesses. I’d say $50M Domestic and $100M Worldwide.
Greyhound - it’s a war film directed by Aaron Schneider and starring Tom Hanks in another World War II movie. No footage has been released, but it could make $100M Domestic and $300M Worldwide with the right marketing and a good movie like Saving Private Ryan.
The Intruder - it’s a psychological thriller directed by Deon Taylor. This could do almost as well as Don’t Breathe, but I still don’t get why the former owner of the mansion sold his house (if you see the trailer). $70M Domestic and $100M Worldwide.
The Rosie Project - it’s a film directed by Ben Taylor. Not much is known unless you read the book. Besides Crazy Rich Asians, there hasn’t been much romantic comedies. I guess this can be compared with Overboard (2018), meaning this movie could do $50M Domestic and $70M Worldwide
BrightBurn - it’s a horror film directed by David Yarovesky with James Gunn producing the film. This could break out, even in the late May slot. Then again, not much is known about this film. Maybe $80M Domestic and $120M Worldwide?
Men In Black International - it’s a science fiction action comedy film directed by F. Gary Gray and is a spinoff of the Men in Black trilogy. What makes this a spinoff is that this is a London based team instead of New York. And hey, Chris Hemsworth is another Sony franchise that Sony is trying to make relevant. But I think it could succeed this time, unlike Ghostbusters (2016). I could see this doing at least $160M Domestic, though it could go as high as $240M Domestic with a strong word of mouth, similar to how well Jumanji unexpectedly did. As for Worldwide, I’d say $450M, but it could go as high as $600M.
Grudge - it’s a supernatural psychological horror film directed by Nicolas Pesce and is a remake of The Grudge (2004) which was also a remake based on a Japanese horror film. It probably won’t be as successful as the 2004 remake as this 2019 remake is a similar premise and no one is really demanding it. I could see this doing $100M domestic and $160M worldwide at most.
Spider-Man: Far From Home - it’s a superhero film directed by Jon Watts and is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I could see this going two ways. One way is that this will make $900M and the domestic total will drop from Homecoming (maybe $320M). However, this could possibly be the second Sony film after Skyfall to gross $1B. The only two obstacles are The Lion King movie which comes out two weeks later (it’s like Disney is trying to prevent Sony from being a major competitor for Disney in the movie industry like how Universal and Warner Bros currently are to Disney while Fox is taken care of and Paramount is trying to pick themselves up) and the plot is pretty much Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.
Wish Dragon - it’s a 3D computer-animated film from Sony Pictures Animation. Not much is known about this film besides Jackie Chan being involved and it having a Chinese theme. It’s set to release on the same day as Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, but I have a feeling it could be moved to late 2019 or even 2020. Maybe this could make $80M Domestic and $200M Worldwide? I don’t know. I need more footage.
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - it’s a mystery crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino. I could see this being similar in success to Inglourious Basterds or Django Unchained as this film seems like a wider release with a lot more marketing compared to The Hateful Eight. I could see this doing $150M Domestic and $400M Worldwide at most.
The Angry Birds Movie 2 - it’s a 3D computer-animated action comedy film from Rovio Animation and is the sequel to The Angry Birds Movie. Reception to the first one has been mixed, so I think it could go as low as $90M Domestic and $300M worldwide, or it could go as high as $120M Domestic and $400M worldwide.
Zombieland Too - it’s a post-apocalyptic zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer and is the sequel to Zombieland. This will be another franchise Ruben Fleischer is working on with Sony besides Venom. I could see this making more than the first one with a $90M Domestic and $120M Worldwide.
You Are My Friend - it’s a drama film directed by Marielle Heller. Not much is known besides the fact that it’s about a journalist who runs into Fred Rogers and has his life changed. Unlike Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, another film about Fred Rogers, this film has Tom Hanks portraying Fred Rogers. With a wide release (if it does get one), I could see this making $40M Domestic.
Charlie’s Angels (2019) - it’s an action comedy film directed by Elizabeth Banks and is a reboot of the Charlie’s Angels franchise. If this film goes the Ghostbusters 2016 route, I could only see this make $70M Domestic and $120M Worldwide. If not (hopefully), I could see this making as much as $140M Domestic and $260M Worldwide.
Masters of the Universe - it’s a He-Man film directed by Aaron and Adam Nee. It’s supposed to come out the same day as Jumanji 3, but I think it could be moved to 2020 (but I’ll still analyze anyways). This is a wildcard and a gamble for Sony. It could go both ways, but I think I need more footage to fully judge. $40M Domestic, $90M Worldwide?
Jumanji 3 - it’s a fantasy adventure comedy film directed by Jake Kasdan and is the sequel to Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and the movie that made Disney move Jungle Cruise to July 2020. Like Spider-Man: Far From Home, it could go both ways. It could drop from the second, especially if Star Wars: Episode IX gets people to care about Star Wars, by making as much as $380M Domestic and $800M Worldwide. It will still do well as counter-programming, but maybe not as well as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Another way this could take is that everyone lost hope in Star Wars: Episode IX, and the people who didn’t see Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi and hated it will go see Jumanji 3 instead. It’s possible that Jumanji 3 could be the second after Skyfall or the third after Skyfall and Spider-Man: Far From Home to cross $1B worldwide as a Sony film. This movie could also get a sequel boost with this making as much as $420M domestic, possibly becoming Sony’s highest grossing film domestically and passing Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. I’d say it could go down domestically, but it has the potential to reach $1B worldwide.
Little Women - it’s a drama film directed by Greta Gerwig and is based on the book of the same name. Columbia Pictures did a film based on Little Women back in 1994 and that was a success. I’d say it could go up from here. I’d say $60M Domestic and $80M Worldwide.
Thoughts on the 2019 Slate: Besides not having Ghostbusters, Robert Langdon, or The Karate Kid on their side this year (Well, there’s Cobra Kai, I guess), I think Sony is going all out next year. This is probably one of the best lineups for 2019. There’s Angry Birds, Men in Black, Jumanji, Charlie’s Angels, and Spider-Man on the same year, along with possible smaller hits like Grudge and Little Women. They won’t be going against Paramount anymore, they can now go against Universal, Warner Bros, and possibly Disney.
The Future: Regardless of what happens, I’m sure Columbia Pictures will live to see its 100th anniversary in 2024. Sony Pictures Animation will stay strong with a Peter Rabbit sequel, a Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel, and a spinoff (though I don’t expect the Into the Spider-Verse movies to come out until 2021). Other upcoming Sony Pictures Animation films are The Mitchells vs. the Machines and Vivo. With the success of Venom, the Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters will continue in 2020 with possibly Morbius and Venom 2. Even with the success of Venom, I doubt Sony would pull Spider-Man out of the biggest franchise ever after Far From Home. Bad Boys is coming back as Bad Boys for Life. Sony is getting more superheroes, this time from Valiant Comics starting with Bloodshot. Sony could start new franchises from video game adaptations like Watch Dogs and Uncharted (with Tom Holland as a young Nathan Drake). It seems like Sony is making a comeback, whether you like it or not.

Bit of a pointless post but something I was curious about. Combining all the lyrics from DCFC songs Ben has written, here are all the words used and the frequency of them.
834 the 587 and 479 you 432 i 369 a 356 to 264 in 235 of 180 that 175 your 148 it 146 all 144 me 141 so 140 on 135 my 132 we 125 be 123 but 121 for 119 as 116 when 114 was 113 with 110 is 107 this 100 are 85 no 84 they 82 it's 77 there 77 from 76 our 76 like 72 there's 69 know 68 will 66 what 64 just 61 you're 61 love 61 at 60 can't 59 don't 57 if 56 never 56 gold 54 were 54 rush 54 down 52 time 52 through 50 nothing 49 i'm 48 away 47 out 47 not 46 have 46 could 44 oh 43 where 43 way 42 into 41 'cause 40 heart 39 same 39 one 38 then 38 only 37 how 37 every 36 see 36 i'll 35 would 34 some 32 more 31 up 31 find 30 been 30 back 29 their 28 won't 28 why 28 here 28 do 27 who 27 or 27 can 26 now 26 by 26 an 25 stay 25 new 25 got 25 go 24 sun 24 something 24 she 24 little 24 feel 24 around 23 you'll 23 sunlight 23 open 23 night 23 i've 23 always 22 used 22 home 22 had 21 you've 21 us 21 than 21 said 21 didn't 20 wanderer 20 too 20 let 20 left 20 keep 20 he 20 days 19 they're 19 long 19 both 19 about 18 think 18 them 18 sound 18 say 18 make 18 lines 18 life 18 hold 18 eyes 18 end 18 change 18 boys 17 want 17 these 17 off 17 loved 17 his 17 cause 17 before 16 someone 16 skin 16 past 16 need 16 gotta 16 am 15 we'll 15 waiting 15 take 15 spend 15 remain 15 ooh 15 head 15 far 15 fall 15 doors 14 true 14 that's 14 tell 14 place 14 people 14 mind 14 inside 14 hear 14 alone 13 underneath 13 turn 13 things 13 sea 13 old 13 move 13 morning 13 man 13 live 13 last 13 i'd 13 get 13 fool 13 did 13 behind 13 air 13 again 12 words 12 unlocked 12 trying 12 took 12 told 12 thought 12 much 12 many 12 friends 12 ever 12 come 12 along 11 thing 11 still 11 slowly 11 sky 11 should 11 seems 11 remember 11 look 11 light 11 her 11 haunted 11 hard 11 free 11 everything 11 digging 11 black 11 bed 10 years 10 year 10 well 10 those 10 such 10 street 10 slow 10 room 10 monday 10 modern 10 knew 10 hope 10 getting 10 face 10 even 10 empty 10 drive 10 dream 10 day 10 dark 10 came 10 best 10 age 9 wonder 9 we're 9 under 9 turned 9 town 9 thinking 9 someday 9 side 9 safe 9 possess 9 once 9 ocean 9 near 9 moved 9 meet 9 lying 9 kept 9 help 9 hands 9 fire 9 finally 9 door 9 distance 9 disappeared 9 city 9 begin 9 beautiful 9 anymore 8 windows 8 while 8 truth 8 tried 8 tonight 8 speak 8 soul 8 right 8 please 8 pity 8 mouth 8 mirror 8 mean 8 leaving 8 lead 8 kind 8 hole 8 gonna 8 glass 8 give 8 floor 8 fading 8 fade 8 everyone 8 ending 8 cannot 8 burning 8 burn 8 break 7 young 7 you'd 7 worse 7 within 7 wish 7 wind 7 wha 7 walls 7 walking 7 until 7 tears 7 standing 7 speed 7 sometimes 7 sleep 7 quite 7 own 7 over 7 oo 7 name 7 motion 7 mine 7 may 7 making 7 lonely 7 leave 7 ho 7 hand 7 ground 7 gives 7 filled 7 fear 7 dreamt 7 different 7 debris 7 cool 7 body 7 better 7 being 7 ask 7 arms 7 anything 7 alright 7 alive 7 'til 6 yet 6 upon 6 two 6 try 6 today 6 times 6 thread 6 talking 6 takes 6 synapse 6 sycamore 6 summer 6 stop 6 start 6 stars 6 spoke 6 soon 6 sleeping 6 single 6 play 6 paper 6 nothing's 6 names 6 myself 6 mess 6 memories 6 made 6 looking 6 lights 6 its 6 higher 6 hearts 6 he's 6 has 6 half 6 grows 6 gone 6 girls 6 ghosts 6 full 6 found 6 first 6 felt 6 feeling 6 fast 6 ends 6 else 6 el 6 either 6 each 6 dorado 6 document 6 couldn't 6 clothes 6 closer 6 clear 6 call 6 california 6 built 6 bring 6 brain 6 belly 6 believe 6 bah 6 bad 6 baa 6 awake 6 another 6 against 5 yourself 5 yes 5 work 5 window 5 went 5 watching 5 watch 5 wasn't 5 wanted 5 wait 5 turns 5 together 5 three 5 thin 5 tangled 5 talk 5 taken 5 swim 5 summer's 5 stage 5 song 5 somewhere 5 shoulders 5 shoes 5 set 5 seem 5 screaming 5 scene 5 saw 5 save 5 sad 5 roll 5 revolved 5 read 5 rain 5 put 5 pretend 5 pass 5 parallel 5 nue 5 must 5 moving 5 mistakes 5 mistake 5 meets 5 lovers 5 lost 5 lose 5 listen 5 lips 5 line 5 late 5 kid 5 ing 5 hotel 5 hides 5 held 5 heaven 5 grow 5 gotten 5 goodbye 5 gave 5 gates 5 frame 5 followed 5 follow 5 faster 5 fair 5 faces 5 expect 5 enough 5 engine 5 dying 5 drunk 5 dress 5 dancing 5 cut 5 cruel 5 cracks 5 concrete 5 compromise 5 close 5 cars 5 buildings 5 broken 5 binds 5 between 5 beside 5 bend 5 below 5 began 5 because 5 beast 5 any 5 angeles 5 above 4 yeah 4 wrong 4 worth 4 without 4 winter 4 who's 4 white 4 which 4 wheel 4 wedding 4 water 4 wanna 4 walked 4 waited 4 view 4 vast 4 twisting 4 travels 4 thinner 4 teeth 4 steel 4 started 4 squeaking 4 space 4 softly 4 smoke 4 skyline 4 simply 4 silence 4 sent 4 sense 4 s 4 run 4 rooms 4 road 4 return 4 rest 4 reach 4 plays 4 perfect 4 outside 4 other 4 occurred 4 northern 4 nights 4 news 4 mountain 4 miles 4 met 4 machine 4 los 4 looked 4 less 4 leaves 4 learned 4 lay 4 known 4 keeps 4 ivory 4 information 4 ice 4 hurricane 4 houses 4 house 4 holding 4 him 4 hills 4 highway 4 guns 4 guess 4 gets 4 forget 4 forever 4 flows 4 flames 4 fingers 4 filling 4 father 4 farther 4 fact 4 everybody 4 escape 4 embrace 4 earth 4 dreams 4 doubt 4 done 4 dear 4 darkened 4 crawling 4 condescending 4 comfort 4 clouds 4 closed 4 climbed 4 climb 4 clean 4 child 4 car 4 cameras 4 calling 4 brothers 4 boy 4 bound 4 bones 4 blinding 4 blame 4 beneath 4 awoke 4 autumn 4 after 3 youth 3 yours 3 world 3 working 3 worked 3 word 3 wine 3 wife 3 what's 3 weeks 3 we'd 3 wave 3 watched 3 warm 3 wander 3 vultures 3 very 3 vacancy 3 understand 3 type 3 twin 3 trust 3 top 3 tired 3 tiny 3 though 3 thinks 3 tether 3 television 3 taste 3 tall 3 sweet 3 swallowed 3 surround 3 supposed 3 strong 3 streets 3 stranger 3 storm 3 stood 3 stays 3 stayed 3 station 3 static 3 stare 3 stand 3 stable 3 spread 3 spent 3 speaks 3 snow 3 smaller 3 slip 3 slept 3 skies 3 size 3 sink 3 singing 3 signs 3 sights 3 shroud 3 shared 3 series 3 self 3 second 3 seat 3 seasons 3 searching 3 school 3 saved 3 satisfied 3 runs 3 running 3 rubble 3 river 3 rhythm 3 remains 3 remainder 3 regret 3 reflection 3 recall 3 really 3 re 3 rather 3 rainy 3 promises 3 possibilities 3 plates 3 plastic 3 planned 3 plan 3 plain 3 places 3 placed 3 part 3 others 3 ones 3 nowhere 3 noise 3 neighborhood 3 music 3 mother 3 monument 3 mistress 3 meant 3 matter 3 maps 3 makes 3 lover 3 lookin' 3 longer 3 lie 3 learn 3 lake 3 lack 3 kissed 3 kids 3 keeping 3 isn't 3 island 3 inaccurately 3 illuminate 3 hunger 3 hung 3 hours 3 horizon 3 hell 3 hang 3 grid 3 grey 3 grass 3 good 3 gon' 3 glued 3 front 3 four 3 fly 3 fish 3 feet 3 familiar 3 falls 3 failure 3 failing 3 explain 3 eventually 3 endless 3 embarks 3 echoes 3 easy 3 east 3 early 3 drown 3 double 3 doing 3 discover 3 died 3 die 3 diamond 3 design 3 defeated 3 defeat 3 deep 3 decide 3 death 3 countless 3 counting 3 count 3 comes 3 collide 3 cold 3 cloud 3 claim 3 cigarette 3 children 3 changes 3 ceiling 3 care 3 burst 3 brown 3 bright 3 breathe 3 bought 3 bottle 3 born 3 bodies 3 blurs 3 bird 3 become 3 became 3 beach 3 bar 3 band 3 astound 3 asleep 3 apartment 3 anywhere 3 ain't 3 ago 3 across 3 'no's 2 york 2 wreckage 2 worry 2 winter's 2 win 2 wild 2 wide 2 whose 2 whole 2 whiskey 2 weight 2 weathered 2 we've 2 waving 2 wash 2 wants 2 waking 2 wake 2 waitresses 2 vows 2 voice 2 vine 2 views 2 veins 2 upstate 2 untrustable 2 unobstructed 2 unfold 2 underground 2 unconscious 2 twos 2 twenty 2 tv 2 turning 2 truths 2 tripped 2 towards 2 touching 2 touch 2 tongue 2 tones 2 tires 2 tire 2 till 2 tied 2 ticking 2 thrown 2 threw 2 threes 2 thousands 2 thousand 2 they've 2 there'd 2 ten 2 technicolor 2 tear 2 taking 2 synchronized 2 symphony 2 sworn 2 swift 2 swept 2 sweat 2 sure 2 superhero 2 suit 2 strobe 2 strange 2 stranded 2 straight 2 store 2 stopped 2 stones 2 stomach 2 step 2 states 2 state 2 starts 2 starting 2 stands 2 stake 2 stairs 2 stacked 2 st 2 sputters 2 spring 2 splinter 2 spit 2 sphere 2 speaking 2 spat 2 spark 2 son 2 something's 2 someone's 2 soaring 2 smugded 2 smiling 2 smile 2 smell 2 slipping 2 slightest 2 slide 2 skid 2 six 2 sitting 2 sit 2 sings 2 silver 2 signed 2 sign 2 sifting 2 shrugged 2 show 2 shouldn't 2 shore 2 shift 2 shed 2 share 2 shards 2 shallow 2 shake 2 shadows 2 settling 2 setting 2 sets 2 separate 2 sees 2 seen 2 seemed 2 security 2 secrets 2 season 2 scream 2 scraping 2 scenes 2 sand 2 safety 2 rows 2 routine 2 role 2 roads 2 rhythms 2 resolve 2 repeat 2 renewed 2 remained 2 refrain 2 refine 2 red 2 record 2 recognize 2 reason 2 real 2 reading 2 reaction 2 reaching 2 ravine 2 railroad 2 radio 2 quietly 2 quiet 2 question 2 queen 2 pushing 2 push 2 pursuit 2 pulling 2 pulled 2 pull 2 prove 2 potential 2 portable 2 poor 2 point 2 piles 2 pile 2 picked 2 photographs 2 photobooth 2 photo 2 phone 2 peter's 2 perspective 2 peace 2 pavement 2 patterns 2 passing 2 passenger 2 parlor 2 pane 2 pages 2 packed 2 pack 2 pace 2 oxygen 2 overloads 2 overcoat 2 outrun 2 optimist 2 notes 2 network 2 nervous 2 needs 2 neck 2 morse 2 moment 2 misleading 2 mile 2 metal 2 message 2 mention 2 men 2 memory 2 melody 2 markers 2 map 2 magazines 2 losing 2 lonesome 2 living 2 let's 2 led 2 lawn 2 laughed 2 language 2 knows 2 knots 2 knock 2 killing 2 keys 2 jury 2 judge 2 jar 2 isolation 2 iron 2 invitation 2 intermittent 2 intentions 2 instincts 2 ingested 2 infinite 2 image 2 idealistic 2 hour 2 honest 2 homes 2 holds 2 hint 2 hill 2 hedgerows 2 heard 2 headlights 2 he'd 2 hardly 2 hardest 2 hair 2 guiding 2 guide 2 growing 2 grouped 2 greys 2 grave 2 granted 2 going 2 goes 2 god 2 glasses 2 giving 2 given 2 girl 2 gilded 2 ghost 2 further 2 furniture 2 funny 2 frost 2 friend 2 freeways 2 forward 2 foreign 2 foolish 2 fluorescent 2 flights 2 flight 2 flickering 2 flicker 2 five 2 fits 2 fit 2 fine 2 final 2 film 2 fill 2 figured 2 field 2 fiction 2 few 2 fences 2 fell 2 fearful 2 favorite 2 fault 2 faucet 2 family 2 false 2 falling 2 faithful 2 eye 2 except 2 evergreen 2 evening 2 entered 2 engulfed 2 easily 2 ears 2 ear 2 dusty 2 drowned 2 drove 2 drop 2 droop 2 driving 2 drinks 2 drinking 2 drilled 2 dressed 2 dollar 2 doesn't 2 does 2 dive 2 distracted 2 disorderly 2 disappointment 2 disappear 2 directions 2 details 2 desert 2 depths 2 deepest 2 decided 2 december 2 dealers 2 dead 2 daylight 2 date's 2 darling 2 darkest 2 darker 2 damn 2 cycle 2 curtain 2 cursed 2 currency 2 cup 2 crystal 2 cry 2 crowns 2 cross 2 crippling 2 crimes 2 crashing 2 country 2 conversations 2 construction 2 constant 2 coney 2 complications 2 completely 2 command 2 colors 2 color 2 coldest 2 code 2 coat 2 coast 2 clarity 2 circles 2 cigarettes 2 choice 2 chemicals 2 cheap 2 chattered 2 chase 2 chance 2 catholic 2 cathedral 2 cath 2 catches 2 carried 2 cans 2 candle 2 camera 2 cake 2 busy 2 bus 2 build 2 brownstone 2 brow 2 broke 2 bridges 2 bridge 2 bricks 2 bow 2 bounce 2 bottom 2 bored 2 book 2 blues 2 blue 2 bleed 2 beverly 2 bent 2 belong 2 believed 2 beginning 2 becomes 2 beauty 2 beat 2 bastard 2 ball 2 bags 2 baggage 2 backwards 2 backbone 2 aware 2 atmosphere 2 atlas 2 atlantic 2 assume 2 askew 2 arrived 2 applause 2 apologies 2 apart 2 anyone 2 anticipation's 2 answer 2 amputating 2 already 2 almost 2 alleys 2 alcohol 2 advancing 2 advances 2 admit 2 address 2 accident 1 zone 1 zeros 1 zentropic 1 z 1 youthful 1 youngest 1 yearning 1 yearn 1 yard 1 wrote 1 wrongs 1 written 1 writing 1 write 1 wrinkles 1 wrinkled 1 wretched 1 wrecking 1 wrap 1 wounds 1 worthwhile 1 worst 1 worn 1 works 1 workadays 1 wore 1 wool 1 wood 1 woken 1 woke 1 withered 1 wished 1 wires 1 wintery 1 winners 1 window's 1 winded 1 willow 1 whom 1 whispers 1 whenever 1 wheezed 1 wheels 1 wet 1 weights 1 weightless 1 weigh 1 week 1 weave 1 weather 1 weary 1 wearing 1 wealthy 1 weak 1 ways 1 waves 1 water's 1 wasting 1 wasted 1 waste 1 washes 1 warn 1 warming 1 war 1 wall 1 walk 1 waits 1 vowels 1 volume 1 voices 1 vision 1 violent 1 villain 1 vile 1 vicious 1 vessels 1 vessel 1 versus 1 verse 1 vengeful 1 vending 1 veiled 1 vase 1 varies 1 variables 1 van 1 valleys 1 valley 1 vacant 1 uv 1 using 1 urge 1 urban 1 upwards 1 upstream 1 upside 1 upcoming 1 unwired 1 unseen 1 unresponsive 1 unknown 1 uninspired 1 unfounded 1 undone 1 underwhelming 1 understood 1 understated 1 unconditionally 1 umbrate 1 twists 1 twine 1 twilight 1 twice 1 tvs 1 turnstile 1 tunnels 1 tunneled 1 tunnel 1 truly 1 trudged 1 trouble 1 trend 1 tree 1 treble 1 treasures 1 treacherous 1 travel 1 trapped 1 transistor 1 trains 1 train 1 trailed 1 tragic 1 traffic 1 trades 1 traded 1 track 1 tracing 1 towers 1 tower 1 towed 1 tourists 1 tourist 1 tour 1 touched 1 toss 1 tortured 1 tomorrow 1 tombs 1 tokyo 1 toes 1 toe 1 timony 1 timely 1 til 1 tight 1 tide 1 tidal 1 thus 1 thursday 1 thumb 1 thses 1 throwing 1 throat 1 thoughts 1 thirty 1 thirteen 1 thinning 1 thicker 1 thickening 1 they'll 1 they'd 1 theme 1 thanksgiving 1 th 1 terrified 1 tenderly 1 temptation 1 temporary 1 tempo 1 tells 1 telling 1 telescope 1 teen 1 teachers 1 teach 1 taught 1 tattered 1 tasting 1 tastes 1 target 1 tapped 1 tape 1 tank 1 tangles 1 tan's 1 tamed 1 tame 1 tallest 1 taillights 1 tabloid 1 tables 1 swore 1 swings 1 swinging 1 swinger 1 swiftest 1 sweep 1 sweaters 1 swear 1 sway 1 survive 1 surprised 1 surprise 1 surfaced 1 surface 1 super 1 sunk 1 sung 1 sunday 1 summers 1 sum 1 suited 1 sugary 1 suffered 1 sufferance 1 suddenly 1 suburbs 1 suburban 1 subcompact 1 styrofoam 1 stutter 1 stung 1 stumbling 1 stumbled 1 stumble 1 studies 1 stuck 1 strung 1 strumming 1 struggle 1 stripped 1 strings 1 stretch 1 strength 1 streaks 1 streaking 1 strands 1 strain 1 story 1 stormed 1 stopping 1 stocking 1 sting 1 stick 1 stenches 1 steered 1 steeple 1 stature 1 stated 1 starves 1 stared 1 stamped 1 stained 1 stain 1 staggering 1 squid 1 squeezed 1 squeeze 1 squeaky 1 squares 1 springtime 1 springs 1 split 1 splicing 1 spinsters 1 spine 1 spilt 1 spending 1 speeding 1 speech 1 sped 1 spectrum's 1 speck 1 span 1 souvenirs 1 southern 1 south 1 soused 1 sour 1 sounds 1 soundly 1 sounded 1 sorry 1 sorrow 1 songs 1 solutions 1 solution 1 soles 1 solely 1 soldier 1 sold 1 soil 1 soft 1 soaking 1 snub 1 snowing 1 sneaky 1 sneaking 1 smoking 1 smiles 1 smells 1 small 1 slurring 1 slur 1 slot 1 slopes 1 slips 1 slippery 1 slick 1 slew 1 sleeves 1 sledding 1 slate 1 slander 1 slammin' 1 slacks 1 skyscrapers 1 skip 1 skinny 1 skills 1 sites 1 sip's 1 sins 1 singe 1 sing 1 since 1 simpler 1 similarity 1 silverstones 1 silken 1 silhouette 1 silenced 1 signals 1 sighted 1 sight 1 sides 1 sick 1 shutters 1 shut 1 shuffling 1 shrouded 1 shrine 1 shower 1 shovels 1 shop 1 shooting 1 shivers 1 shirt 1 shining 1 shines 1 shine 1 shifts 1 shield 1 shelf 1 sheets 1 sheen 1 shebang 1 shaved 1 shasta 1 shaking 1 shakedown 1 shades 1 shackles 1 sewing 1 seven 1 servers 1 seriously 1 sentence 1 sending 1 send 1 sell 1 selfless 1 seek 1 seeds 1 secret's 1 seas 1 seams 1 scripted 1 scrimped 1 screams 1 schemes 1 scent 1 scarves 1 scarf 1 scale 1 scaffolding 1 says 1 satellites 1 sat 1 sarcastic 1 sarah 1 sappiest 1 sang 1 san 1 saltwater 1 salivating 1 saddens 1 sacred 1 rusted 1 rushed 1 runway 1 rules 1 rule 1 rubber 1 royal 1 row 1 round 1 rotten 1 roman 1 roller 1 rocks 1 rock 1 robot 1 rises 1 ring 1 rights 1 righteous 1 ridge 1 ride 1 revisions 1 returns 1 returning 1 retreat 1 restrictions 1 restlessness 1 restless 1 response 1 resort 1 resolutions 1 resigned 1 resignation 1 reside 1 rescue 1 requiem 1 repressed 1 reports 1 reporting 1 replaced 1 repetition 1 repeats 1 repeating 1 rented 1 reminder 1 remind 1 remembering 1 relief 1 relax 1 reject 1 regardless 1 regal 1 refused 1 refined 1 reeling 1 reeks 1 reeked 1 reduces 1 redemptions 1 records 1 recollect 1 receptors 1 recently 1 receipts 1 receded 1 rearrange 1 realize 1 ready 1 react 1 rays 1 rationed 1 rate's 1 rank 1 ranges 1 random 1 raising 1 raise 1 rail 1 raggedy 1 radios 1 racket 1 quitting 1 quit 1 quips 1 quell 1 queens 1 quarry 1 quarreling 1 pushes 1 purpose 1 purity 1 punks 1 punk 1 pumping 1 pulp 1 proves 1 protect 1 propping 1 proposing 1 proof 1 promise 1 procession 1 problems 1 pristine 1 priest 1 pride 1 prices 1 prevail 1 pretty 1 pretentious 1 pretending 1 pre 1 prayers 1 prayer 1 praising 1 postcards 1 postcard 1 possoibilities 1 possible 1 possibility's 1 position 1 pose 1 porch 1 population's 1 pools 1 politics 1 pointed 1 poets 1 pockets 1 pocket 1 plymouth 1 plumes 1 plots 1 plot 1 plenty 1 pleasantries 1 pleas 1 plea 1 playing 1 playful 1 plate 1 plaster 1 plans 1 plaguing 1 plague 1 pixels 1 piss 1 pink 1 pinhole 1 pinch 1 pillow 1 pillars 1 pigtails 1 pier 1 pieces 1 pictures 1 picture 1 picks 1 picket 1 phrases 1 photos 1 phones'll 1 pews 1 person 1 permission 1 permanence 1 perforated 1 perfectly 1 perfection 1 pension 1 penance 1 pen 1 peered 1 peeled 1 peel 1 peak 1 payroll 1 payment 1 payin' 1 paycheck 1 patrons 1 patio 1 patiently 1 passes 1 passed 1 partyline 1 party 1 parts 1 parks 1 parking 1 parked 1 paris 1 parents' 1 parents 1 parent 1 parapet 1 par 1 panic 1 pangs 1 palms 1 palisades 1 pale 1 painted 1 paint 1 paid 1 page 1 packing 1 pacers 1 overturns 1 overturned 1 overrated 1 overpass 1 overloaded 1 overjoyed 1 overflow 1 overcome 1 outstretched 1 outdo 1 outdated 1 ottoman 1 organ 1 orderly 1 opinions 1 opened 1 oozed 1 onto 1 onset 1 one's 1 oncoming 1 olympia 1 older 1 offense 1 occur 1 occupy 1 obscure 1 objectively 1 nurse 1 numbs 1 numbers 1 note 1 non 1 noises 1 nice 1 next 1 newsstand 1 nerve 1 neighbors 1 needle 1 needed 1 nearby 1 navy 1 natural 1 named 1 mute 1 murals 1 moviescript 1 movement 1 mourning 1 motor 1 mothers 1 mother's 1 most 1 mopped 1 moonlight 1 moon 1 moods 1 monuments 1 months 1 money 1 model 1 mock 1 moat 1 mittens 1 misspellings 1 mississippi 1 mission 1 missing 1 missed 1 misguided 1 mirrored 1 mirages 1 minor 1 mined 1 minds 1 minces 1 millions 1 might 1 midnight 1 midday 1 microchip 1 messes 1 messenger 1 messaged 1 mend 1 memory's 1 melt 1 mellow 1 medians 1 medals 1 measly 1 meaningless 1 meaning 1 maze 1 mattress 1 math 1 mates 1 match 1 masterfully 1 master 1 mary 1 mark 1 marching 1 march 1 manuscript 1 manhattan 1 mangled 1 malls 1 makeshift 1 major 1 main 1 mail 1 magistrate's 1 magazine 1 machines 1 ma 1 m 1 lustrous 1 lust 1 lushing 1 lungs 1 lump 1 luck 1 loyal 1 lowered 1 loves 1 lovely 1 love's 1 lousy 1 loud 1 lot 1 losses 1 loosened 1 loose 1 longest 1 lodged 1 locusts 1 lock 1 loan 1 lives 1 lived 1 lipstick 1 likes 1 lighting 1 lighthouses 1 lighthouse 1 lifts 1 lifetime 1 lies 1 levitate 1 letting 1 letters 1 letter 1 lesson 1 lenses 1 lens 1 lengthwise 1 length 1 lend 1 legal 1 least 1 lean 1 leaks 1 lcd 1 lazy 1 layered 1 laughing 1 laugh 1 lattice 1 latitude 1 lathe 1 later 1 lanes 1 landlocked 1 lamp 1 lame 1 lain 1 laid 1 lady 1 ladder 1 labor 1 knuckles 1 knew' 1 knees 1 knee 1 kiss 1 kings 1 king 1 kinda 1 killed 1 kill 1 kicks 1 kicker 1 kick 1 keyed 1 key 1 kaleidoscope 1 justified 1 junctions 1 jump 1 judgement 1 joylessly 1 join 1 johns 1 jet 1 jealousy 1 jealous 1 jamc 1 jailhouse 1 jacket 1 itself 1 it'll 1 isolations 1 isle 1 islands 1 irreverence 1 irresponsible 1 irrationally 1 invited 1 invincible 1 inventions 1 interstate 1 intersected 1 interest 1 intentioned 1 intentionally 1 integrity 1 innocence 1 inlet 1 ink 1 inhibitions 1 inhale 1 inflicted 1 inflating 1 indoors 1 indicating 1 increasing 1 incomparable 1 incessant 1 impulse 1 impressed 1 impossiblity 1 important 1 impending 1 imagination 1 illegible 1 ignore 1 idle 1 ideals 1 ideal 1 idea 1 icu 1 hurts 1 hurry 1 hunted 1 hunt 1 hundred 1 humid 1 hum 1 hues 1 hudson 1 huddle 1 hovers 1 hot 1 horrible 1 hoping 1 hood 1 homily 1 homemade 1 homeland 1 home's 1 holly 1 hitched 1 hit 1 hipsters 1 hips 1 highways 1 high 1 hide 1 hidden 1 heros 1 hermit 1 here's 1 helplessly 1 helpless 1 hello 1 heavens 1 heavenly 1 heat 1 heart's 1 heal 1 heading 1 haven't 1 haunts 1 hated 1 harm 1 hardwood 1 harder 1 happier 1 happen 1 hammer 1 hallway 1 hadn't 1 habits 1 habit 1 gutters 1 gutter 1 gust 1 gun 1 guestroom 1 guenivere 1 grown 1 group 1 grounding 1 grooves 1 greyhounds 1 greyhound 1 grettings 1 greetings 1 greet 1 greenery 1 greed 1 greater 1 gray 1 gravitated 1 graves 1 gravel 1 grasp 1 grapevines 1 granite 1 grand 1 grace 1 grabbed 1 gossip 1 goodnight 1 goodbyes 1 glowed 1 glow 1 glove 1 gloomy 1 glitches 1 glimpses 1 gleam 1 glared 1 glances 1 glacial 1 girlie 1 girl's 1 gift 1 giants 1 geography 1 generator's 1 gears 1 gas 1 garbage 1 game 1 gallows 1 gag 1 furrowed 1 fund 1 fumbling 1 fulfilled 1 fuel 1 frozen 1 frowns 1 fronts 1 frolicked 1 fringe 1 frightfully 1 frighteningly 1 frightened 1 friction 1 freshest 1 freeway 1 freckles 1 francisco 1 framing 1 framed 1 fragile 1 foul 1 forwards 1 forth 1 former 1 formed 1 formal 1 forgiveness 1 forewarned 1 footsteps 1 fooled 1 fonder 1 follows 1 folds 1 folding 1 focusing 1 flying 1 flushed 1 flowers 1 flow 1 floors 1 floorboard 1 floes 1 floating 1 flinging 1 fleeting 1 flee 1 fled 1 flaw 1 flattered 1 flatlands 1 flat 1 flashes 1 flashbulbs 1 firsts 1 firm 1 firemen 1 firecrackers 1 finish 1 fingertips 1 fingertip 1 finds 1 finding 1 filthy 1 filter 1 films 1 figurines 1 figures 1 fields 1 fictions 1 fiberoptics 1 fence 1 feed 1 federales 1 fed 1 features 1 feathers 1 fears 1 faulty 1 fate 1 faraway 1 fantasies 1 fanned 1 fallen 1 faking 1 fake 1 faith 1 fail 1 fabric 1 expressions 1 explosions 1 explode 1 explanation 1 expense 1 expel 1 exit 1 exist 1 excuses 1 excited 1 exceptionally 1 exactly 1 everywhere 1 everytime 1 everything's 1 everyday 1 eroding 1 erasing 1 envy 1 envisioned 1 entertained 1 entertain 1 engaged 1 energy 1 endure 1 endlessly 1 encapsulate 1 employee 1 embers 1 embarrassed 1 else's 1 elegantly 1 elegant 1 eiffel 1 egos 1 edge 1 echo 1 eastern 1 dyes 1 dust 1 dumpster 1 dumping 1 dummy 1 dug 1 due 1 dry 1 drunks 1 drum 1 driveway 1 drips 1 drink 1 dresser 1 dreadful 1 drawn 1 drawers 1 drank 1 drama 1 drained 1 drag 1 downturn 1 downslide 1 dotted 1 doom 1 donor 1 dj's 1 divulge 1 division 1 divide 1 distorting 1 dissolving 1 dissolve 1 disruption 1 disputed 1 display 1 dishes 1 disguise 1 disgrace 1 discouraged 1 disconnect 1 disclosure 1 disarray 1 disappearing 1 dirty 1 dirt 1 direness 1 direction 1 dipping 1 dip 1 dinner 1 diminishing 1 diffusing 1 differences 1 difference 1 diet 1 dies 1 dialogs 1 devouring 1 devour 1 devoted 1 destroy 1 destinations 1 destination 1 desperate 1 despair 1 desire 1 deserted 1 descending 1 descended 1 deposit 1 depend 1 denver 1 demons 1 delicate 1 degrees 1 degraded 1 definitely 1 defined 1 define 1 defense 1 defacing 1 deeper 1 deem 1 deck 1 december's 1 deceive 1 deceit 1 decades 1 debt 1 debate 1 dealt 1 dazzling 1 daydreaming 1 dawn 1 daughter's 1 date 1 dash 1 darlin' 1 dangerous 1 dancehall 1 danced 1 dam 1 dakotas 1 cutthroat 1 cuts 1 cute 1 curtains 1 cursing 1 curse 1 current 1 curled 1 cups 1 cupped 1 culver 1 cue 1 crying 1 crust 1 crumbling 1 crumbled 1 crossing 1 crosses 1 crooked 1 crimson 1 crest 1 creek 1 creases 1 creaping 1 cranes 1 cracked 1 crack 1 courting 1 course 1 council's 1 could've 1 corrupting 1 correct 1 cornerbooth 1 core 1 cord 1 convince 1 conviction 1 control 1 continue 1 contest 1 contact 1 constellations 1 constantly 1 console 1 consequence 1 conscious 1 connections 1 congregation 1 confused 1 conduit 1 condos 1 conclude 1 conception 1 concept 1 comprise 1 compress 1 compliment 1 compete 1 compartment 1 compared 1 compare 1 company 1 committing 1 coming 1 comfortable 1 combing 1 colored 1 collision 1 collegiate 1 collapsing 1 colder 1 codes 1 cocktail 1 coats 1 coaster 1 coalinga 1 clove 1 cloth 1 closing 1 cliffs 1 clearly 1 cleansing 1 cleaning 1 classes 1 clasped 1 clanking 1 cityscapes 1 churches 1 church 1 chose 1 chords 1 choose 1 choking 1 choke 1 chock 1 chitter 1 chill 1 childish 1 chicago 1 chest 1 cherry 1 cheer 1 cheeks 1 checked 1 chatter 1 chased 1 charming 1 charmed 1 charity 1 changing 1 changed 1 champagne 1 chalks 1 century 1 centered 1 center 1 cemetery 1 celestial 1 caving 1 cave 1 causing 1 caught 1 catch 1 casualty 1 casual 1 castle 1 cast 1 casino 1 casing 1 case 1 cascading 1 cartoon 1 carry 1 carpet 1 carousel 1 carnival 1 cardigan 1 card 1 capturing 1 captured 1 capture 1 capsizing 1 capsize 1 caps 1 capable 1 cap 1 canyon 1 candid 1 calls 1 called 1 californ 1 calgary 1 cage 1 cafeteria 1 cabin 1 buzzers 1 buying 1 buy 1 butt 1 bury 1 bursting 1 burns 1 buried 1 burden 1 bumper 1 bumming 1 bum 1 bullets 1 bruises 1 bruised 1 bruise 1 brows 1 brought 1 brooklyn 1 brittle 1 bringing 1 brilliant 1 brightly 1 brightest 1 bride 1 bribes 1 breed 1 breaths 1 breathing 1 breath 1 breaking 1 breach 1 braved 1 brave 1 brand 1 brainstem 1 brainless 1 brain's 1 bracing 1 brace 1 boy's 1 boxers 1 box 1 bowties 1 boundaries 1 boulevard 1 bough 1 bottoms 1 bottles 1 bottle's 1 borders 1 bold 1 bodies' 1 bob 1 boats 1 blustery 1 blurred 1 blur 1 bluffs 1 bluer 1 bluebird 1 blossoms 1 blooms 1 blooming 1 blood 1 bloc 1 blissful 1 blips 1 blink 1 blinds 1 blinded 1 blew 1 blessings 1 bless 1 bleeding 1 bled 1 blatant 1 blasting 1 blanks 1 blank 1 blacking 1 blackest 1 bixby 1 bitterness 1 bite 1 bind 1 binary 1 billings 1 billboards 1 bill 1 bike 1 bigger 1 bible 1 beyond 1 betrayed 1 berlin 1 belongs 1 bellow 1 begun 1 begged 1 beer 1 bedroom 1 beating 1 beak 1 beacons 1 beacon 1 bathe 1 bath 1 basically 1 basement 1 based 1 barstools 1 barefoot 1 banks 1 bank 1 bangkok 1 bandwidth 1 backwashed 1 backfired 1 awful 1 awakes 1 autumn's 1 audiences 1 attraction 1 attitudes 1 attitude 1 attic 1 attend 1 attempts 1 attempting 1 attempt 1 attack 1 attached 1 asterisks 1 assuredly 1 assigned 1 asked 1 ashes 1 ascribed 1 ascensions 1 artifacts 1 arriving 1 arrives 1 arrange 1 arguments 1 arches 1 arch 1 appropriate 1 appetites 1 appeared 1 appear 1 anyways 1 answers 1 another's 1 angry 1 angels 1 amputee 1 amplify 1 amphetamines 1 amount 1 amongst 1 ambition 1 amaze 1 aloud 1 alley 1 alibi 1 alcoholic 1 alarmed 1 alarm 1 airport 1 airplanes 1 air's 1 aimless 1 aiming 1 aim 1 agree 1 ages 1 age's 1 afraid 1 advantage 1 addictions 1 actors' 1 ached 1 account 1 accidents 1 abuse 1 absorbing 1 absence 1 abscence 1 able 1 abhor 1 abandon 1 'round