Month: May 2023

The Looming Prospect of An American Fourth Reich — The MAGA Right Has Gone Full Fascist

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just in the last few days, the MAGA chattering class on Twitter has decided to go all-in on fascism. They’re openly talking about the need for a Right wing dictator along the lines of Franco, of all people.

And, given that it definitely seems as though the United States is about to default for the first time ever, it seems as though the conditions for the US to transition into a fascist state are just about there. Trump will be get re-elected — even if he’s under indictment for violating the Espionage Act — he will demand MAGA Enabling Acts be stapled to the Constitution via a new Constitutional Convention and, there you go — The Fourth Reich.

All my hysterical doom shit — the shit that got me blocked by Twitter liberal darling Mueller, She Wrote — will come true. And we’ll be faced with the existential choice of autocracy or civil war / revolution.

It definitely seems as though that’s our future. Or, put another way, the moment the US defaults for the first time, all bets are off. The French Empire defaulted in the years leading up to the French Revolution, so, lulz? Either we implode into a white Christian ethnostate or we explode into civil war / revolution.

If it happens, it’s probably going to be at some point in late 2024, early 2025.

It Definitely Seems Like America is About To Default

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Welp, I think America is going to default. Or, more specifically, I think we’re going to default, Biden is going to be forced to invoke the 14th Amendment and it gets throw into the lap of the hack MAGA judges who want to destroy America so we become an autocratic white Christian ethnostate.

Then, in turn, once all that is figured out, MAGA House Republicans will strike — they will impeach Biden for “abuse of power” and that’s what we’ll be focused on for the next few months while we suffer through a severe global recession o a par with the Great Recession.

Now, obviously, having such a horrific economic situation ahead of us definitely would focus the mind of pols in Washington. But I think because MAGA Republicans are so tyrannical and politically bloodthirsty that they will lulz everything because a default will help them transition the US into an autocratic white Christian ethnostate.

So, there you go.

We’re fucked.

Or not.

I suppose it’s possible we’ll somehow muddle through yet again, but I have my doubts.

A.I. May Soon Make The Hollywood Writers’ Strike Moot

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about A.I. that a lot of my fellow writers — many of the far better writers than I will ever be — miss is that most people watch and enjoy dreck. As such, whatever A.I. produces just have to be good enough to be on in the background of daily life for most people to accept it without even thinking about it.

As such, I think there is a real possibility that if the Hollywood writers’ strike lingers long enough that A.I. will not just break the strike, but render it moot. Barring something I can’t predict — I am wrong all the time, afterall — it definitely seems as though Hollywood is on the cusp of being radically transformed — “Moneyballed,” if you will — to the point that the only people making any money will be studio execs and actors who live passively off of full body scans.

And that’s if the actors are lucky!

It could be that ultimately even actors will be rendered moot as a cost-cutting measure on the part of Hollywood studios. All those 90s dystopian movies about faux movie stars generated by AI will become a reality and people will grow to have parasocial relationships with stars that don’t even exist in reality at all.

Stranger things, and all that.

If you throw in the growing likelihood of a severe economic downturn happening very, very soon because the US defaults, well, there you go. Before you know it, people will turn to Broadway and their local live theatre if they want to have any sort of human-generated entertainment.

Would The Indictment Of Trump For Espionage Be A ‘Disruptive Event?’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me be clear — I think much like the late Roman Empire, America has given itself over to the macro forces of history. We’ve just given up and there just doesn’t seem to be any way to avoid our inevitable transition into an illiberal democracy.

In fact, between now and spring 2025, our choice will be rather stark — autocracy or civil war.

So, I don’t really give much credence to the idea that anything — ANYTHING — can stop Trump from being 2024 Republican nominee and probably the next POTUS. In short, we’re fucking doomed. And, yet, for some reason, 50 Senators have, according to CBS News, been given satellite phones because of the fear of “a disruptive event.”

Just like how the paranoid Right spent 30 years mulling what James Baker was going to say in the “New World Order” speech that he never gave, it’s possible that the same people are going to spend the next 20 years worried about a “disruptive event” that never comes.

But it does seem that Trump might — MIGHT — be on the cusp of being indicted for a number of Big Boy Crimes, amongst them being espionage. I just don’t see that as rising to the status of a “disruptive event,” however, because everything is so baked into the cake with Trump that even if he, I don’t know, ate someone live on TV, he would still be 60,000 voters in five swing states away from being president.

That’s how much America has collectively given the fuck up.

It definitely will be interesting to see Trump running for POTUS between now and Election Day 2024 having been indicted for espionage of all things. Jesus Christ.

But, here we are.

Day 52: The Struggle Is Real

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I found myself randomly wanting to show the latest first chapter of the novel to people today and I was reminded of what a struggle the Beta Reader process is going to be. I’m a good talker, but I can’t get people to do jack shit for me. I’m just not a very persuasive person for some reason.

Anyway.

The point at the moment is to keep momentum going. So, I’m more concerned with rewriting the absolute worst scenes rather than scenes that are just mediocre. I plan on rewriting the scenes that do their job just in sort of a meh way for the next read through of this still private beta.

If everything goes according to plan, I SHOULD have enough slack in the chronology of the transition from private to public beta that I will have a few days to kind of collect my thoughts before I do one last read through and hand the text over to Beta Readers to read.

Remember, the point at the moment is to just keep momentum going.

In other news, a fear someone I wanted to use as a source when it came to improving the investigation found in the novel did some due diligence and decided I was too much of a crank and they wanted nothing to do with me. This is a growing problem.

I just can’t help who I am. And I’m not all that inclined to change who I am, either.

Who Is The Person In California Who Is Obsessed With This Blog?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are my current guesses as to the person in California who seems absolutely determined to read every single post on this site. Now, I don’t mind the attention, I suppose, because I love attention. I am, however, a little nervous that the person is some sort of stalker.

Anyway, here are my guesses as to who this person might be

  1. Someone from KAF
    There was at least one young man who was absolutely fucking obsessed with me who was a member of the Kermit and Friends community. And I seem to recall he was in California. That would make a lot of sense.
  2. Someone who knows me from South Korea who loves / hate mes
    I was quite the unique character in Asia and it would make a lot of sense if someone who knows me from my time in South Korea was now totally obsessed with me. If Annie Shapiro was still alive, I would assume it was her. But my fear is, of course, that someone connected to her in some way is obsessed with me because they know of my troubled relationship to her.

The Political Implications of America’s Looming Default

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are, in no particular order, the political consequences of the United States defaulting.

Trump Will Probably Win In 2024
A default would hand Trump an economic gimmie on a massive scale. Unless something none of us could possibly predict, America defaulting all but assures a second Trump Administration. In short — we’re totally, completely fucked. I still believe that Trump, in the end, will be something of a transitional figure with his MAGA Nazi successor being the person who finally consolidates power and turns us into a Hungary-like illiberal democracy.

Probability of Revolution / Civil War Grows Greatly
By definition, a default would not only totally scramble the world economy — maybe causing the Second Great Recession — but would also destabilize the United States to the point that when the 2024 election rolls around, we either have a civil war (Reds leaving the Union) or a revolution (Blues overthrowing the Red Nazi autocratic state.) Regardless, it’s going to be fucked. It’s going to be horrible and there’s a real chance that WW3 will happen while the United States is too busying imploding to keep an eye on global hotspots.

UBI Becomes Closer To Reality
A severe recession would give companies the cover they needed to use AI to replace many, many, MANY jobs, to the point that it’s even possible that implementing some sort of UBI will be a major campaign issue of the 2024 presidential cycle. It’s possible that it will become clear to everyone that AI is going to end most jobs and the government is going to have to step in. If nothing else, AI’s impact on the economy and society could be far bigger than any of us imagine when it comes to the political landscape of 2024.

Biden’s (First?) Impeachment
MAGA Republicans in the House are already itching for an excuse to impeach Biden and WHATEVER he does in the context of a default that doesn’t involve screwing over the Poors will be enough for House Republicans to ram through an impeachment. It’s a testament to how dumb and ill-focused House Republicans are that they haven’t managed to come up with an excuse to impeach Biden, even though their base obviously wants it really bad.

A Critical Re-Examination of My Novel Writing ‘Textbook’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When writing a novel, you’ve got to start somewhere, and I started with Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire.” But as I grow into my own as a novelist, I find myself mulling how wrong I was about the novel and how maybe I was wrong to use it as my “textbook” in the first place.

The chief issue for me as I march towards the Beta Reader process for my first novel is how self-indulgent all of Larsson’s work is. Just off the top of my head, I could shave off 50,000 words from The Girl Who Played With Fire. There’s just a lot of fat in the novel that doesn’t need to be there.

Get to the point, Stieg!

In fact, I wasted many, many, many days struggling to figure out the structure of my “textbook.” It just made no sense. I could not figure out what the midpoint of the novel was. It was not until much, much later that I learned that — get this — the novel is actually half of a far longer manuscript that was cut into two.

As such, the reason why I couldn’t figure out the structure is the midpoint was actually the end of the novel. NOW the novel’s structure makes sense.

I think the reason why Larsson got away with being so self-indulgent is was not only was he a successful journalist in his native Sweden, but there was a little bit of linguistic nationalism going on — the publisher probably was willing to publish the novel because it would contribute to the the Swedish language and, more broadly, Swedish culture.

It was not until much, much later that I realized that as an American writing in English that I had a tight 80,000 to 100,000 sweetspot that I needed to hone to. I still as of yet don’t know if I’m going to succeed in doing that. I think it’s possible I may closer to the general 120,000 – 140,000 word range.

I hope not, but it’s possible.

Anyway, I’m, in general, feeling pretty good about the status of my first novel. I still have a great deal of work to do, but it’s at least possible that I will succeed in wrapping up the public Beta no later than July 4th.

The Persistence Of Memory

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s comical how fucking bonkers the story of ROKon Magazine is. I knew it was a special story when I was at a restaurant in Seoul a few months after it was all over and it took a participant in the story 30 minutes to tell the whole story to a uninvolved third party.

The late Annie Shapiro.
The characters involved in what was little more than a club — that was run like a cult — that put out a monthly zine were so over the top and their interactions so dramatic that to this day I think you could probably write a pretty good movie based on what happened.

But rather than do that, I’m drawing upon all those experiences as the basis of my first novel. A lot, maybe much, of what goes on in this novel is greatly inspired by and influenced by what happened to me in Seoul between 2006 and 2008.

And, let me tell you, some pretty fucked up shit happened during that period of my life.

But, if nothing else, I’ve FINALLY figured out a way to explain to a third party how unique the late Annie Shapiro was in life. Man, that chick was weird. I stil have a ways to go, but the general vibe of who Annie was I feel I’ve come to convey in one of the characters in the novel.

It has taken me far, far, far longer than I could have possibly imagined to get to this point, but I’m finally here. And the process isn’t over yet. If I get a professional editor to look over the manuscript, he or she may try to get me to amp up the weirder elements of the character inspired by Annie. There is a lot to work with, is all I gotta say.

But, over all, I’m very pleased with my first novel at the moment.

Day 51: At The Midpoint

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In an effort to keep momentum going, I’m playing fast and loose with this version of the Private Beta. I’m going to have to a lot — A LOT — of tweaking of this new version before I can consider it a Public Beta.

As it stands, it’s ok, but not great.

And the story continues to not quite fit the genre its intended to fit into because it’s not violent and action packed enough. It’s got high stakes, spice scenes and dollop of speculative fiction, but I just can’t bring myself — at this point — to actually show a lot of stuff that audiences might otherwise see in a thriller. I do a lot of before and after stuff, but not SHOWING this or that bad thing.

This is the farthest I’ve ever gotten in the process, so…I don’t know? Is it possible for me to have a more thoughtful, character driven story as opposed to one with a lot of on-the-page death and destruction? I just don’t know. I do like the story I’ve come up with, however.

It’s a heartfelt, accessible easy read.

One problem I’m already facing is when I read a scene I’m content with, I really struggle to have any motivation to read it at all. I think the only way I’m going to overcome this particular problem is to force myself to pretty much line read the draft before I begin the Beta Reader process. That seems to be the only way I’m going to catch the nit-picky little problems that have to be caught if I’m going to expect people to take me seriously.

I’m also really beginning to think about what I’m going to do once the Beta Reader process officially begins. I think I’m going to really throw myself into both working on the other novels in the project AND begin to prep for the querying process.

I’ve pretty much given up on Tik-Tok, which seems filled with a deluge of videos designed specifically to make ME feel bad for wanting to be traditionally published.

Anyway, I continue to have a lot of fun.