Month: January 2021

Wait What? We Have To Talk Again About The Prospect Of A Kaia Gerber – Cara Delevingne Relationship


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve already written some about this some time ago, but the lingering possibility that it happened puts such a smile on my middle-aged face that I have to write about it again. And, I just have to laugh, and laugh and laugh that this thing has happened. It’s one of those value-free fun-interesting things that I always look for.

First, some context.

In the fashion world — and among the wealthy elites in general– same-sex relationships (especially between women) are so commonplace and treated with such indifference that one can come across as something of a hayseed rube for even pointing them out.

Meanwhile, Cara Delevingne seems to have something of a reputation as a lesbian lothario.

Now, let’s look at this picture:

Taylor Swift’s gift to the..couple?

Looking for that picture, I found a surprising number of OTHER pictures online that pretty much prove these lovely ladies are, in fact, dating. It blows my mind. I mean, Cindy Crawford is an icon for the ages. And it breaks my poor old middle-aged brain to think her daughter is dating Cara Delevingne.

I guess the real interesting thing about them dating is not so much that they’re dating as is how it isn’t a bigger deal. Pictures like this are presented without a cocked eye or comment. I guess what rubs me the wrong way is the media is being a bit disingenuous by not shipping these two in a more overt manner. Wouldn’t it help the cause of gay rights if they did? I guess celebrity news editors assume we’re all idiots and can’t handle something so surreal, even if it’s pretty self-evident that it’s happening.

I haven’t really kept up with the couple, so they may have broken up by now. And throw in how Margaret Qualley of all people was seen hanging out with couple and the plot thickens. That REALLY blows my mind at the “mathematical possibilities” as they say in Annie Hall. But that may be me just being a dirty old man. But there is the Delevingne factor in that particular potential flesh sandwich.

I’m wrong all the time, so take that into consideration.

But I wish the couple well.

Kaia Gerber is only 19 and she’s probably sowing her wild oats, which is her right. She dated Pete Davidson — as did Margaret Qualley! — so maybe she’s just bouncing around available hot people for fun.

Have fun, Ms. Gerber. You’re only young once.

The Rise of The American Fourth Reich: Rating Would-Be Fuhrers


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m reading a book about the rise of Hitler given that the United States definitely has a Weimar Republic vibe to it right now. When it comes to Trump, I totally got him wrong — he was a would-be Hitler (or Putin) but the stress on would-be. He had autocratic and fascist tendencies, but in reality he was just a big old ding-dong.

He was nothing more than a real-life Chauncey Gardner from Being There.

But there are a whole host of men waiting in the wings to do what Trump couldn’t do, despite his impulses: strangle American liberal democracy. Let’s look at who they are.

Lara Trump / Ivanka Trump / Don Jr.
Of all the Young House Trump people, Lara Trump is probably the most dangerous. She’s smart and could probably be very smooth in any type of “Velvet Fist” arragmentment with, say, Mike Pompeo or Josh Hawley. Ivanka and Don Jr are just too vacuous to actually get the nomination. Or not. The likelihood they could pull off such a stunt grows significantly with how much Trump goes with The Patriot Party concept.
Christ Christy
Christy is probably the best of a lot of bad choices. Since Christy would have to bank right in a big way to win the nomination, if he became president, he would probably be an autocrat, but one with a little bit of enlightenment. He would become an autocrat for no other reason than he would need to dance with the one that brung him. His heart probably wouldn’t be in it all that much because he would want to at least pretend to stay within democratic norms.
Ted Cruz
The thing about Cruz is he’s so craven and cynical that even his turn to autocrat would likely have air quotes around it. He would be an autocrat simply because he could be, not because he was all that into it. But the end result would be the same — we would be nothing more than a managed democracy for the foreseeable future.
Mike Pompeo
Pompeo is dangerous. He’s dangerous because he’s smart and seen Trumplandia up close. And he really sees the job as an opportunity to force Jesus to come back by starting a war between Israel and Iran. As such, he’s the real deal when it comes to a would-be fascist leader in the United States. Once he’s elected, there’s no going back. I say this in the context that I expect both houses of Congress to flip in 2022, so in 2025, he would have zero oversight, just like Trump in 2017. He would have a full two years to completely consolidate power and crush any putative “resistance” to him.
Tom Cotton
Cotton is even more dangerous than Pompeo. He’s the real deal when it comes to would-be American autocrats. He’s the autocrat that Trump thought he could be. He’s young enough — and smart enough — that I could see him holding back in 2024 so he could get into a “Velvet Fist” arrangement with either Lara or Ivanka Trump where he would be Veep and let one of them be the “pretty face” of autocracy.
Josh Hawley
As I understand it, it’s Hawley that the MAGA base likes the most after the usual suspects of House Trump. And people who know him call him a fascist. So, in a sense, the only thing stopping him going full Fuhrer on us is his personality. At what end of the autocratic spectrum would he fall? Would he be more of a Putin or more of Hitler? That, I’m afraid, I can’t predict. But what I can predict is it would be Hawley who would flip the switch to turn the existing ICE infrastructure into concentration camps where people like me would be put.

Person X
If there were more conservative celebrities, I would say the real danger is not from any of the above, but someone who is similar to Trump but younger and more focused. James Woods seems the ideal type second generation Trumpian figure to run for POTUS. But he’s kinda old and, to date, doesn’t seem to have any political asperations. Bruce Willis is too nice as is Tim Allen. It would have to be someone who was conservative, frequently played autocratic figures in the media and was actually more than just an empty suit.

Liberal Fever Dream: A Runaway Senate Jury


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is very much a liberal fever dream. It’s never going to happen. But it is mildly pleasant to imagine a situation where once the Senate starts its second impeachment trial of Trump that events cause what would otherwise be a pretty meh trial to go haywire.

Imagine if the two sides got into in a pitched battle of new witnesses and evidence as a series of huge new Trump Era scandals exploded in the coming days. We might even get to the point where John Bolton and Don McGahn finally spill the tea about what a criminal fucktard Trump has been the last four or so years.

But that’s never going to happen. Never.

Trump will be acquitted, run again in 2024 and we’re going to be exactly where we were earlier in January.

After Trumplandia — The New Modern Era: Postmodernism & A Potential Pop Culture ‘Reset’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Being old sucks. You can’t date cute 24 year old women without seeming like a creepy old man. You face ageism at every turn. And you’re left with a lot of wistful memories about this or that thing you could have done better or different a decade ago.

And, yet, at the same time, being older does give you some perspective on life. You start to be old enough to see macro trends that were once completely obscured. So, let’s talk about pop culture over the last, say, 50 years.

For me, the “Modern” media world starts with the films of the late 1970s and early 80s. That was Modern. I was too young to understand what was going on, of course, but those films like Being There, Annie Hall, Manhattan, The Empire Strikes Back and All That Jazz established the “modern” world. Such films established what was “real” for my little developing mind.

On a personal level, it wasn’t until Neo took The Red Pill in The Matrix that we entered the modern post-Modern era of media. (I say this only because, as I understand it, the original post-modernism happened in 1968 when the French intelligentsia grew disillusioned with Communism after the invasion of Czechoslovakia.)

After The Matrix, I would say the modern post-modernism was epitomized by The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. What a great film.

The point of all of this is, because of the Rona, it’s at least possible that we’re in for something of a reset in media. There will be the New Modern as opposed to the Post-Modern. There are a shit ton movies that have been delayed because of the Rona, so it’s possible that as all those movies get unclogged from the system that one of them might be That Movie that makes a huge impression on the tinder minds of Gen Z and starts the whole process over again. I would note in passing that one might point to the extreme post-modernism of Fleabag as a sign that such a reset is just about to happen.

Or not. Who knows.

But the Rona is such a huge macro event that has put a pause on the media world, it definitely seems that if any such reset is going to happen, right about now would be a great time for it to happen. And if you throw in the ultra-extreme post-modernistic nature of the Trump Era — and it’s rather abrupt conclusion, that, too might indicate Something Big in pop culture is happening.

It make take us years to see it, though.

Fourth Reich: Hitler, Trump & The Rise Of The Patriot Party


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In the spirit of wanting to be where the puck will be, not where it is, I’m reading a great new Hitler biography. It’s part of a two book biography and talks about Hitler’s rise to power up until 1939. It’s a very easy read about a very dark and deep subject.

As I have predicted for some time, the United States is now in political neutral and will likely be so for about two years until Congress flips to the Republicans again. This, of course, will be the setup to Trump or someone like Trump becoming president in 2024.

Enjoy your liberal democracy while you can, America, things are about to get dark. Really dark.

The only reason why liberal democracy survived is because Trump is an idiot. He had the entire nation prone before him, ripe for the taking and he totally, completely blew it. He was all impulse and no follow through. He just isn’t as smart as Putin or as bloodthirsty as Hitler.

So, this brings us to the prospect of The Patriot Party, which be, at first, simply the MAGA subset of the Republican Party. I’ve seen some Twitter liberals gloating about how great such a historic cleaving of the Republican Party would be and all I gotta say is — slow your roll.

If Trump did pull the MAGA element away from the Republican Party to start the Patriot Party, any victory that liberal-progressives would get out of such a situation would be fleeting. Maybe one election cycle. The macro trends that have the United States lurching towards an autocracy are just too powerful. Either we become an autocracy under Republicans in 2024 or one under The Patriot Party in 2028.

You pick.

So, in a sense, the American First Republic has already fallen, history hasn’t caught up yet. The Patriot Party is going to be like that slutty girl who will do the political buttstuff that our old girlfriend won’t do. Broken free from the moderating force of the National Review wing of the Republican Party (the “establishment”) The Patriot Party is going to break any law, destroy any norm, do whatever is necessary — even violence — to obtain and keep power as soon as possible.

I still think in hindsight Qanon will serve as the basis for a new Holocaust. This time, the United States will implode like Cambodia in the 1970s and there will be American Killing Fields filled with…gulp…people like me. It’s going to all happen so fast, it’s going to be a political history suckerpunch.

I just don’t see any way this doesn’t happen. Something I just can’t predict would have to step in and prevent it from happening. I’m thinking something like a limited nuclear exchange with the DPRK or something. Something big. Something so big it would overshadow the rise of fascism in the United States on a macro political level — or at least punt the problem down the road until, I don’t know, the Singularity or First Contact happens.

So, in short, read up on Hitler’s rise now to prepare for how you, on a personal level, will address something similar in the United States at some point in the next decade.

Good luck.

A Trump…er POTUS…By Any Other Name #AmWriting


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I’ve finally finished a solid outline and am really throwing myself into writing a great first draft…we’re no longer in Trumplandia. Ugh. One of the things that I’ve repeatedly said is I don’t plan to ever use Trump’s name in this novel, even though, in a sense, my rage against the era that fucker caused is the beating heart of the work.

Now that Trump is out of office — at least for the fucking time being — I wonder if I might at least be a bit more specific who “POTUS” in the novel is. And, yet, I really don’t want the whole thing to be dismissed as a liberal fever dream or screed. It’s just meant to be a fun, thought provoking novel in the tradition of Stieg Larsson’s work.

That’s it.

Nothing more complicated or deep than that.

But my rage against Trumplandia is so white hot, so totally consuming on a creative level — and I’ve gone through so many hoops to get here — that it does make me wonder if maybe it’s ok to go beyond simply a “Individual #1” level of description as to who the “POTUS” in question is.

One solution, of course, would be to cut the POTUS angle out of the story altogether. But that part of the story is existential. That’s the whole point of the story. I can’t help that it took me three years to get to the point where my novel raging about Trump won’t be finished until well into his successor’s term in office.

So, I think I’m going to continue to look at this as just a scenario. It’s not THE POTUS it’s just A POTUS. Who the POTUS at the time in question happened to be is pretty obvious, so that should be enough.

I like the idea of using proxies to rant about MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cocksucker fuckers. My goal is that simply by what I bring up in the novel, I will definitely give you some sense of what’s really going on. There shouldn’t be any need to be explicit about it.

You’ll know, if you’re not an idiot.

Or, put another way, the more I use subtext to explain how enraged I continue to be about Trumplandia, the better the story will be. It won’t be preachy and — hopefully — even center-right people can read and enjoy the novel as a novel and not some sort of Atlas Shrugged for liberal-progressives.

I just want to write a novel that’s not embarrassing.

Rage Becomes Me (On A Creative Level)


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After some thought, I realize the rage that generated the energy to develop this novel is still there — only in a new form. What used to be rage over the staggering amount of hypocrisy, racism and misogyny in the age of Trumplandia is now replaced by rage over how there’s been no closure. Trumplandia came and went…and nothing.

The first draft of this novel isn’t going to be very good.

It’s like it didn’t exist.

So, I’m enraged. I’m enraged with a white-hot anger. And that’s the engine I need to finish this novel ASAP. It’s still going to take physical time to actually write a first draft, but the structure of the novel is complete. There’s a lot of reading I need to do for character development, but I can do that as I work on the first draft.

I hope to push forward very quickly now. I just have to get over myself and allow myself to write crap. I’m just not going to write the anything that satisfies me at this point.

You can’t edit a blank page, as they say.

As such, just about right NOW, I’m going to use the completed outline I have to write a first draft as quickly as possible. I’m going to read as I write and going do a lot of prep work for the second draft.

I thought I was going to write a first draft that was so good that I could skip right to beta readers, but…no. I may have a few alpha readers that I allow to see what I’m writing as I write it for no other reason than I’m such an extrovert that I need an audience to get anything done.

Other than that, I’m going to keep things to myself.

The ‘Lady Bird’ Solution To The Changing Context of My Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The more I think about it, the more I realize the movie Lady Bird provides a solution to the conundrum I find myself in — how do I write a novel I can sell after the era that conceived it is over?

On the face of it, it’s a serious, existential problem.

The energy to get this far with the novel came directly from my white hot rage against the Trump Administration. And what’s wild is now that Trump is out of power, the Trumplandia era now seems surreal, but very much the past. I am acutely aware that novels, in general, need to be “timeless” so they have more shelf life.

But this novel I’ve been working on for about three years now was always meant to be very “of the moment” and of the zeitgeist. Now, of course, I’m going to try to sell it during the Biden Era and not Trumplandia. Yet the movie Lady Bird is set in a very specific moment — the early 90s — and it manages to pull that off in a timeless fashion.

As such, that’s how I’m going to fix this problem.

I’m going full speed ahead — unless something fucks those plans up — and just write the damn thing. But write in such a way that I lean into character development and entertainment — in short, write a great story — to such an extent that people will forgive me if I wallow in things that now seem completely moot.

And, let me be clear, when I saw “wallow,” all I mean is had Trumplandia at the forefront of my mind as I mapped out the structure of the novel. Hopefully, it will, unto itself, just be a great story and you can read it as that without realize being all that aware of how enraged I was by Trumplandia as I developing and writing it.

Really, the point now is to write something, anything. I hopefully can read a lot and write a lot starting in the next few days. But I have to admit that I might have to break down and do some character studies of my major characters so I have a “legend” to reference as I write.

We’ll see.

Hollywood, ‘Fleabag’ & The Strange Case of The Dog That Didn’t Bark


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Looking back over all my ranting about Trumplandia, there’s one thing that really shocks me — we never got a “Network” for that era. It’s surreal. It’s almost as if Hollywood was scared to touch the epic shitshow that was happening all around us for four years.

For much of Trumplandia, the case could be made that it just takes time to develop and produce a movie. But in the four years of Trumplandia, we never once got a movie that directly referenced the insane situation we were in. And, really, in a sense it was Phoebe Waller-Bridges’ “Fleabag” that gave us the catharsis we needed.

How many times during Trumplandia did we collectively want to look at the camera of life with one of Fleabag’s expressions?

Now that Trumplandia has fallen, it does raise the question of will art ever address it. The novel I’m developing and writing hopes to do that, but the context growing very, very different every day. I struggle with how to tell the story I’ve always wanted without it seeming extremely dated.

The issue, I think, is to make the story a good as possible and also to really lean on character. If I can just make it a good story set in a specific moment in time — like, say “Ladybird,” then some of the more potentially dated aspects of the story will be “hidden” by how good the story is unto itself.

I really have a huge amount of reading to do, but I also have to put-up or shut-up. They say your first draft is meant to be shit, and so now that I have the structure of the story down pat, as soon as I’m mentally in the right space to do so –which should be very, very soon — I’m going to sit down and start writing a serious first draft. One, I hope, is the best first draft I’ve attempted to date.

But I must admit that I’m on a hair trigger to do something different if I feel I’m forced to. I have maybe three or four solid novel or screenplay concepts rolling around in my mind and if this current novel becomes untenable, I’m going to move on — even if it sucks and will hurt like a bitch.

Yet, that hasn’t happened yet. Gotta keep moving on.

I still think there will be an audience for a novel that wallows in the conventions of Trumplandia.

Trumplandia Has Fallen — Now What


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the stranger political events of my life is what didn’t happen — Trump turned out not to be an autocrat, but just a lazy idiot with autocratic impulses. Or, put another way, everyone — even me — fell into the trap of ascribing to Trump political acuity that he obviously did not, in fact, have.

So here we are.

Within a matter of days, something we all assumed was the “new normal” — Trumplandia — has vanished. The person who was in the center of the American experience for about five years, has dropped off the face of the earth. What I think will happen is we’re going to be in political neutral for about two years until the Republicans come back to power in Congress and the whole cycle starts up again.

An would-be autocrat (Trump? Pompeo? Cotton? Hawley? etc, etc, etc) will arise, use their base of support in Congress to win the election one way or another. All our fears will come true, just a few years late.

Enjoy your liberal democracy while you’ve got it — barring something pretty historic, the macro trends that caused Trump in the first place will cause a Trump-like figure (only this time younger and more focused) to win election and strangle it.

I keep saying — we’re an autocracy without an autocrat.

The moment the inevitable autocrat takes over, then, well, that’s it. We’re going to be no better than Putin’s Russia. And loudmouth people like me, who, to date, have had the luxury of a liberal democracy to allow us to shoot off at the mouth without the fear of the jackboot…will just fade away.