Month: January 2023

Hollywood’s Post Human Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though Hollywood is about to enter an era of transition not seen since that from silent movies to talkies in the mid-20s. As we careen towards a Petite Singularity based on the Chatbot Revolution it definitely seems the conditions are there for Hollywood as we know it to cease to exist within a few years.

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, “The Town” and the idea of that Hollywood tech could reach the point where there is no “uncanny valley” when it comes to resurrecting dead celebrities was broached. The person interviewed gave a very open ended, evasive answer, but the sentiment was clear — this revolution is well on its way.

As such, this raises a lot of very intriguing — and potentially alarming — consequences for not just Hollywood, but society as a whole. In fact, one could make the case that this revolution of Hollywood would be the point of the spear for an actual hard Singularity at some point in the near future.

What other indication that technology is officially going to fast for human culture to catch up than the idea that Hollywood will no longer really need humans at all. This could lead to the rather nightmarish scenario where entertainment is kind of forever fixed at some indeterminate “now” in which no new actors ever work their way through the ranks because every actor since the dawn of Hollywood can be conjured up at will.

Another, less depressing scenario is all of this leads to the theatre industry suddenly seeing a incredible resurgence. It could be that Broadway will be seen as the premiere “artisanal” creative outlet for actual human actors and instead of a starlet taking a bus to LA to start her career, she goes to Broadway. She builds enough buzz as a live actor that she catches the eye of those few Hollywood director still making movies the old fashion way.

The goal of her career would then be to make a big enough name for herself that she could get scanned for Hollywood and have her image plopped into all the movies being made with dead actors.

Anyway, the point is — the conditions are there, at least, for a huge disruption in showbiz in ways we can only begin to imagine.

Movie Pitch: ‘Bottom Rail’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is a famous anecdote from the very end of the Civil War when a former slave is claimed to have told a bunch of white people that, “bottom rail is on top now.”

Ok, here’s my movie pitch.

The movie opens with a montage about a virus that wiped out much — but not all — of humanity. After a lot of chaos, death and destruction, humanity manages to bounce back. But here’s the twist — white people are now in the minority and pretty much the entire globe is run by black and brown people.

You would have to be very careful how you approached this story, but in general, the point would be to confront white people in the audience with how systemic racism is real TODAY. The movie would be an excuse to highlight the macro social injustice that POC have to endure in our modern world.

You might suggest that white people in this future world are blamed for the the destruction of the old world and that only adds to the prejudice that they face. Now there are obvious risks to this move in the sense that Right wing nutjobs might completely miss the point of the story and latch on to it as a parable about the perils of illegal immigration.

Ugh.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Anyway, it’s an interesting idea. It’s a more realistic end-of-the-word scenario than is in most fiction these days.

‘The Culling’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

No matter how much people like Peter Thiel may believe they are going to be immortal by regular blood infusions from fucking virgins, we all eventually kick the bucket. The interesting thing is, we’re just about at the moment when a number of really old, really powerful people are probably going to shuffle off this mortal coil all at once.

Just a back-of-the-envelope survey of Silent and Greatest Generation people in the public eye suggests that the next few years could be quite dramatic for no other reason than nobody lives forever. We haven’t reached the Singularity yet, folks.

Take, for instance the two remaining Beatles. Both Paul and Ringo are now in their 80s and just because they’re rich and active doesn’t mean they can escape basic elements of human existence. There’s a reason why they say death and taxes are the only two things that are inevitable in the world.

And, remember, we may be about to experience a Petite Singularity in conjunction to a moderate to severe recession in which AI causes the economy to shed an unprecedented number of jobs in a very short timeframe.

The is all happening in the context of the looming so-called “Fourth Turning.” I still think the Fourth Turning is astrology for dudes, but is definitely a thought provoking concept given how the United States is careening towards a very dramatic 2024 – 2025.

We’re definitely are heading towards something akin to a Perfect Storm. A part of me believes that 2024 – 2025 could be a historic period equal to 1917 – 1918. A lot of things we take for granted on a macro scale could very well collapse into chaos. Even though I’m always, always wrong, the case could be made that there really could be a Second American Civil War in late 2024, early 2025 that will, in turn lead to WW3 as the post-WW2 global order is destroyed because the United States is too busy destroying itself to do anything about the rest of the world.

I am well aware of how hysterical that sounds. But, lulz, that’s just a possibility at this point. The conditions are there for such things to happen, it doesn’t mean they actually will.

An Existential Crisis

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something about turning 50 in just about a month is doing a real number on my mind and heart because it is really beginning to sink in that it’s kind of put up or shut up time. If I don’t do something, anything of creative note soon I’m going to be so old that whatever success I have will be framed exclusively in the context of, “how does it feel to be a success so late in life.”

I hate that.

But things kind of snuck up on me.

After Seoul, I was a changed man. I was consumed with grief over what happened with ROKon Magazine to the point that I was stuck very much in neutral. I had ambition, but no motivation. I was in something akin to a self-construction mental prison.

But now I’m free and I have a very clear focus –write the best possible first novel I can. And, if I’m really lucky, begin a career as a successfully published novelist from here on out. I have to say, though, that the limits of age are really beginning to roll around in my mind.

As I keep saying, even if I get what I want, I don’t get what I want. I want to be an overnight success and then go back to working towards making all the dreams of my 20s come true now, as someone in my 50s. Sadly, of course, that’s just not how it would happen.

Under the most ideal of circumstances, even if I am an “overnight” success by writing a really popular first novel….oh boy. I have, in real terms, just a few years to live up to my “potential.” It takes time to create things and being a success suddenly in my (mid) 50s just isn’t going to give me the same opportunities than I would have had in my 20s.

If you’re a man who’s never been married and don’t have kids, getting older kind of sneaks up on you because there are no rituals associated with zooming past your 40s. The best you have is you suddenly realize that, in real terms, you simply can not date someone in their 20s and, what’s worse, you probably don’t even really want to.

It’s not like I can somehow give my mind a hard reboot and think like I did when I was in my 20s. That’s just not how any of this works. If I’m a success in a few years, it will be in the context of being a success in my mid-50s after having done absolutely nothing with my life for the better part of 15 years. You just can’t fix that problem.

So, in real terms, I’ve made my decision and that’s that. To any “normal” person with a traditionally successful career what I want to with my life is pretty fucking bonkers. I’m being extremely and wilfully delusional.

Keep the faith.

‘Every Problem’ — #lyrics to a #pop #rock #ballad

Every Problem
lyrics by @sheltgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform

life can be so difficult it seems
don’t know which way to go
but feeing down just makes me
feel like a sad, sad clown
we all need to find some glee
when we fix
the issues we face

I wake up every morning
wondering how it’s all going to end
will I be a hero or a zero
when they close my coffin
and I see one the sun one last time

young people think they’ve got it all
got it all figured out
(don’t they)
but I know the truth
and she won’t tell me no lies
when we are faced with with pain
the trick is to stay sane
the trick is to say sane

(bridge)
I’ve not solved all my problems it’s true
give me a little bit more time
and you’ll see that
what I believe is right

so let drink some more whiskey
and have yet another toast
to the loves I’ve lost
knowing in my hear that
in the end

every problem is just a opportunity
in disguise
every problem is just a opportunity
in disguise
every problem is just a opportunity
in disguise
every problem is just a opportunity
in disguise

Fuck That, I’m Not Self-Publishing (At The Moment)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The key reason why I don’t plan to self-publish (at least at the moment) is that’s not my fucking vision. I refuse to “self-limit” by dwelling on all the problems associated with getting traditionally published. Every problem is just an opportunity in diguise.

I totally validate people who go the self-publishing route, but that’s just not my dream. My dream is to go through the whole process of going the traditional route of publishing to see how far I can get before it’s absolutely clear that I will never, ever get this novel published without self-publishing.

That is not to say I don’t often these days have a bit of existential angst on the issue of how I’m going to attempt to get this thing published. I do constantly, especially now that my Tik-Tok For You Page is full of people either singing the praises of self-publishing or shitting on going the traditional route.

But I believe in myself. I feel as though if I set my standards as high as possible, the end product will be a lot better. And, really, there are two major issues that I find myself coming back to again and again.

One is, I can’t help how long it’s taken me to get this point. If I had really given my age a lot of thought as I was working on this first novel, I would have taken things a lot more seriously and had a lot more structure with hard, fast metrics that might have sped up the process. But, here I am.

If you factor in post-production issues, even if I stick the landing, I could be in my mid-50s before this novel is in people’s hand. But I have accepted that as a real possibility and each time I do a gut-check on this issue, I still want to proceed with trying to get published the traditional route.

The other issue, the real wild card, is what the fuck is going to happen with the United States between now and spring 2025. I continue to have real concerns about the possibility of a civil war in the United States in that timeframe. It could be that, in the end, it won’t be how difficult it is to get through the gatekeepers that end my dreams of being a published author, but rather, well the effective end of the world.

But there is one thing I have to do if I’m absolutely sure I’m not going to self-publish and that is read more and watch more TV shows and movies. They say if you have enough time to write, you have enough time to read.

I continue to be really impressed with what I’ve managed to come up with in this first novel and the only reason I’ve gotten this good is I have worked on the assumption that, ultimately, I am going to traditionally publish.

So, in other words — I have my vision and if you don’t like it, fuck off. Wink.

I’m Impressed With The State of This Second Draft Of My First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m finally about where I’ve been wanted to be for several years now with this story. It took me a few years longer than expected, but I finally have a sense of how I can tell this story without embarrassing myself.

My hope is that things will move a lot — A LOT — faster now. I’m still struggling with some of the finer details of structure at the beginning of the story, but I hope to wrap those problems up pretty soon. Once I do, I think I should be able to write at a pretty fast clip – in relative terms.

It still definitely seems as though it’s going to be about a year from now before I can begin to query in earnest. I’m well aware of how the odds are stacked against me, but that is besides the point. The point is to go through the process and see how far I can get before it become obvious that I’m going to have to self-publish.

I also desperately need start working on other novels so I will have something to work on while I’m struggling with querying. I can’t just twiddle my thumbs creatively for months and months while I wait to see if my dream is going to come true.

Anyway. It will be interesting to see if, in the end, someone manages to somehow steal a creative march on me and I have to turn on a dime and work on some totally different idea. I don’t think that will happen, but I’m paranoid it will.

‘What A Perfect Day’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At the moment, we’re experiencing something of a lul. Not a lot is going on one way or another. There are a few blips here and there, like the Biden secret documents screw ups, but in real terms…meh.

It seem as though the main reason for his is the Congressional Republicans are kind of laying low. They’re not screaming at the top of their lungs — yet — about how much most of the Biden Administration needs to be impeached. It makes you wonder how long this moment of tranquility is going to last.

Some of it could be this is the last gasp before there’s a frantic shitshow with Trump coming back to Twitter at the same time that the economy begins to tip into a moderate to severe recession in the context of the Chatbot Revolution. Or not.

It could be that much of this year could be far less eventful than I have gamed out and it won’t be until 2024 that everything collapses into chaos and despair. But things are very quiet right now. Very. Spooky quiet.

Everyone In The Publishing Industry Seems So Fucking Bitter

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Long ago, my dream was to work at either Media General or The Richmond Times-Dispatch. Sadly, it took me about a decade to realize I was being extremely delusional to think that was a possibility for me. I’m just too creative and don’t have the intense, introverted personality that most successful journalists have.

The great irony of it all is that being a successful journalist — or someone in the media — isn’t really that hard. You often have to take something akin to a vow of poverty to pursue the career starting off, but many people go straight from college into a job at a daily like The Richmond Times-Dispatch. That makes me sad that I wasted so much time being oblivious that if I ever become a success, it will be through telling the “truth” through a novel or screenplay rather than the “facts” of journalism.

Over the years, I have seen plenty of cases where people went straight into a daily newspaper environment out of college, grew disillusioned and moved on to something else. This smarts because they so casually were able to drop my dream because they saw what it really took to be a journalist and even though they could do it, just didn’t want to.

I monitor the chatter within the publishing industry through chatter and it’s shocking how bitter people who are far more advanced in their novelist career than I am. Many of these bitter people are “mid-list” authors who have had some success and now are being screwed over in various ways. I totally get that, but I’ve been an aspiring novelist for so long that I would be grateful at this point to be a mid-lister.

All of this happens in the context of me being concerned that not only am I too much of a drunk crank to ever get a literary agent to begin with but that cold, hard fact that I simply can not, will not abide by the strict orthodoxy of the “woke cancel culture mob” that seems to be mainstream among many successful novelist these days.

I know my truth north and if you don’t like it — fuck you. I try to be as empathetic and understanding as possible but when people tell me they will ding my storytelling ability because I don’t have two women having a conversation among something other than a man — Jesus Christ.

I fucking hate this test.

While I don’t support or defend JK Rowling’s anti-trans stance, the mentality of the people who would “cancel” her for having concerns me because, as I keep saying — it’s shit like that that drives Traditionalists in the arms of fascism.

Anyway, I just hate how hysterical both the far Right and the far Left are these days. They have a symbiotic relationship at the moment because they force “radical moderates” like myself to defend the most extreme policy aims of whichever side I am forced to align with.

Since I fucking hate MAGA fascism, I have to defend some pretty kooky woke ideas to my Traditionalist relatives whenever we discuss politics. But, as I keep saying, we all have to pick a side, or a side will be chosen for us. To be a “centrist” is to be complicit in the rise of fascism. Post-truth is pre-fascist and all that.

There are no easy answers and all I want to do is give my audience the best possible story with most fleshed out an interesting characters possible. It will be interesting to see if me being a “delusional jerk with a good heart” will get in the way of that dream.

Sometimes, The ‘Woke Cancel Culture Mob’ Is Full Of Shit

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m far more anti-MAGA than Leftist and, as such, sometimes I’m aghast at the hot takes emanating from “cultural Leftists” who Right wing nutjobs would call the “woke cancel culture mob.”

All of this is happening in the context of the United States cleaving into two nations, one Blue, one Red. Usually, Leftist bullshit is a rationalization for why some of the more extreme behavior of going on within Blue circles is a lulz. All of this is very corrosive because it makes it way too easy for my Traditionalists relatives to lean into the extensive permission structure surrounding supporting American fascism.

Everything from “drag queen story hour” for little kids to men wearing skirts is dismissed by the Left as something we all must accept without any question. It’s that inflexible orthodoxy that alarms me because it allows Traditionalists, the bedrock of any functioning democracy to “both sides” things to the point that when the time comes they will willingly vote to give up their American democratic birthright.

I am growing more and more concerned that Something Big is going to happen in late 2024 — early 2025 between Election Day and Certification Day. All the conditions are there there to be a National Divorce which will, in turn cause a Second American Civil War.

Of course, it will only be hindsight that we will look back and go, “Well, OBVIOUSLY there was going to be a 2ACW.” Some of what Leftists cling to so tightly is just dumb. While gender has always been a fluid thing over the generations, everything is happening so fucking fast these days that I continue to fear that 2024 – 2025 could see autocracy, civil war or military junta.

But these are macro issues. I still believe it all boils down to income inequality. One might make the case that the current crisis of masculinity that we’re experiencing in the Western world is pretty much the result of how difficult it is for men to get a good education and, as such, a good enough job that they are seen as valid mates for women who are growing in economic freedom.

One thing I struggle with is the rise of “hot lesbians.” I am well aware that on a basic level women are by default bi-sexual. My own theory on this is that the biological imperative is so absolute when it comes to raising babies that evolution would go so far as to want women to have sex with other women if that ensures that children have a loving home and support.

That’s probably delusional bullshit on my part, but it definitely makes a lot of sense. To me, there is a connection between “hot lesbians” like the singer Fletcher and the model Cara Delevingne and the fact that women demand some very specific metrics when it comes to sperm donors.

Fletcher and Miley Cyrus

Growing numbers of modern women are tired of the bullshit of broke fuckboys and they would rather be treated right by another woman. And since there is little or no taboo surrounding lesbianism (especially among elites) an eye-popping number of traditionally attractive women just don’t find their male counterparts all that attractive.

All of this spooks Traditionalists who see any form of homosexulaity as a “sin.” So, as such, the rest takes care of itself. People like fucking fascist Ron DeSantis demagogue the “gay agenda” of the “woke cancel culture mob” in an effort to goose the base and get votes.

Again, these are macro issues, things beyond the control of any one individual. And to my mind, it all comes to a head in late 2024, early 2025. There is, of course, the possibility that I’m wrong and we’ll punt all these structural problems down the road one more election cycle.

But the conditions are there for something very, very dramatic to happen to the most powerful democracy humanity has ever seen. And, as such, the likely of a “Fourth Turning” or “Great Reset” is real.

No one can predict the future — least of all me –but I am feeling an unease about the next few years.