Month: March 2021

There’s A Lot Of Momentum With My Allegorical Scifi Spy Thriller About The Trump Era


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After about three years of hard work, I’m now really in the zone when it comes to this novel I’m working on. I’m well on my way to — in a few months — wrapping up something akin to a (proto) first draft. It’s not something I would want to show anyone, but it’s a shit ton better than the novel I tried to work on about a decade ago that was pure crap.

Should I finish this first draft, it will be the first serious first draft I’ve ever written. Then I can give myself a month to read and think and then throw myself into a real, honest-to-God second draft that I can then turn around and show beta readers.

There are still a lot of things I don’t know.

Given that the Trump Era is over, will anyone want to read a novel which uses gauzy allegorical subtext to rant about the excesses of that fucked up era. I think they will because if I actually manage to sell this thing, by the time post-production is over Congress will be in Republican hands and we’re all going to be worried that MAGA is going to come roaring back in 2024.

Ta-da! Instant audience!

But, in general, I’m quite pleased with how strong this novel’s structure is. I still have a massive amount of reading to do to shore up the characters. Right now, too many of them are just place holder “moods” rather than fully developed people you want to hang out with.

I have managed to get this far this time around because I’ve simply worn myself out. I’ve managed to get to the point where I’m not nearly as demanding upon myself when it comes to this first draft. It’s just a first draft and no one is going to read it.

It’s the second draft I have to worry about.

Why We’re Going To Have A Second Civil War (Or Turn Into An Autocracy) In 2024-2025


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We’re doomed. Because of a number of very specific situations — the pandemic and Trump being a total ding-dong — the United States dodged a catastrophe in 2020. We won’t be as lucky in 2024. There is going to be severe political instability in the winter of 2024-2025. And either there’s a rolling political violence across the country that descends into something akin to a second civil war or we finally fall into Republican minority rule for the next 50 years or more. Here’s why.

FOX Fired Its Election Night State Caller
One of the subtle things that saved our asses was FOX News Election Desk called Arizona. That was a tipping point for the night. This will not happen in 2024. If Trump — or someone like Trump — is anywhere near winning on Election Night the crucial FOX News is going to be on the side of the bad guys, no questions asked. So it could be possible that the Right will never accept a Democrat winning, no matter what. So, either the 2024 election is stolen and we become an autocracy, or the country implodes.

The Macro Problems of the Last 40 Years Are Still There
The deep seated rot within the bowels of the American political system are still there. Republicans are hell bent on turning the United States into a white ethno state where white Christians tell everyone else what to do because they have no policies and all their political views are based on fear. So, in a sense, if it’s not 2024, it will be 2028 and so on. There is going to be a point when these different macro trends are going to come to a head one way or another. Either it will be a civil war or our zombie liberal democracy will finally just be dead.

The Republican Party Is A Fascist Party
Liberal democracy is simply a means to an end for the modern Republican Party. They see it as either a way to take power or keep power. Any form of compromise is weakness. A huge chunk of the Republican Party has slipped directly into such thuggishness that they’re willing to embrace the traditional fascist playbook to achieve their ends. So, once they take over Congress in 2022, that will be the setup a very brazen theft of the 2024 election one way or another. And, really, the issue is do the fascist Republicans bungle the strangling of our zombie liberal democracy and start a civil war or do they get away with it clean?

Known Unknowns
There are a number of things that may come out of the blue to change things so much in the next four years that what is obvious — that on a macro level the United States is fucked — doesn’t happen.

Elon Musk
Four years is a long time. It’s at least possible that on the technological front someone like Elon Musk might pull a rabbit out of a hat that throws everything up in the air. There are 3 million high paying blue collar jobs at risk should Musk perfect the automated semis he’s working on. It’s at least possible in the 2024 presidential cycle that something will happen whereby the far Right and the far Left merge into a new party that is opposed to “soft singularity” technology like automation. But that would be a lot more sooner than I would expect.

North Korea
This is an existential threat to the United States that if it flares up in the next four years could make a lot what I’m worried about very moot. If we have a major regional war the scares the shit out of us, then it’s possible the Biden – Harris Administration will quite easily win a second term.

The Inevitable
Neither Biden nor Trump is immortal and it’s at least possible that one — or both of them — may pull a Justice Scalia on us. If it’s Trump, then that opens up the flood gates for a number of young would-be autocrats to do a lot of shit that Trump wanted to do but was too big an idiot to pull off. If it’s, God forbit, Biden, then it’s possible a President Harris might have the spunk necessary to fight the macro forces that I think have us doomed at the moment.


The Secret, Soft Singularity: Real Talk About Tik-Tok (& Big Tech) & ‘Digital Telepathy’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about what might amount to a secret “Soft Singularity” being perpetrated upon us by Big Tech is if they are doing it they’re probably screwing themselves over in more ways than one.

First, if Big Tech can read our minds then couldn’t that technology be used for some sort of $1,200 “Mindcap” in the future? If they gradually grew consumers used to notion that such technology actually already existed — or was on its way — then they could roll out a Mindcap and start a $1 trillion industry.

Meanwhile, if they keep leaning on their ability to read our minds (if they can, in fact do this) then should the technology somehow become rather abruptly known, then, well, all bets are off. People could freak out at the notion of some sort of “mind rape” taking place on the general public at the hands of Big Tech and that, unto itself, could cause some sort of anti-technology “Neo-Luddite” movement to spring up. It might not be very pretty.

And this doesn’t even begin to address the national security aspect of all of this. If the Chinese government is rooting around the minds of American youth via its so-called “algorithms” that might give an astonishing amount of practical information about what’s going on in the United States.

It’s not too difficult to imagine someone related to NSA or CIA person using Tik-Tok and giving the Chinese government an eyepopping amount of information about the United States intelligence community via their minds.

That sounds bonkers, but something is fucking up with Tik-Tok. Not a day goes by now that I’m not pushed content by Tik-Tok on my For You Page that goes beyond just listening to me via my phone or even monitoring what I’m typing via my browser…it goes straight into fucking reading my mind.

It seems as though Tik-Tok thinks they can get away with reading our minds in part because they reference things we’re embarrassed to admit we’re thinking about. Let that sink in for a moment. If that isn’t a sly way of keeping people from talking publicly about any potential mind reading technology, I don’t know what is.

But let me be clear — 99% of the “spooky” things I’m being pushed can be explained in some way other than digital telepathy. But there is that 1% that simply can not be explained in no other way than something that is not easily explained.

And, yet, I have no proof that I could point to and get the New York Times to look into this idea. But all of this is very concerning to me for various reasons.

In 2024, The United States Either Becomes An Autocracy Or Has A Second Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The first thing we have to keep an eye on is someone being shot on the floor of the House. This kind of shit happened all the time between 1830 and 1860 (according to The Field of Blood, a book I’m reading) and it seems inevitable it will happen between now and the winter of 2024.

Having said that, we are so fucked. So very very fucked.

The Republican Party, by definition, sees any policy or legislation on the part of Democrats as illegitimate. Unless, of course, they can claim credit for it so they can win votes and strangle our liberal democracy once and for all.

Anyway, the point is, when the next presidential election cycle rolls around, I just don’t see the American political system being able to withstand its passions. Either we, at last, become an autocracy or there’s a civil war. There are no other options.

We simply don’t have the political strength to punt this particular problem down the road another four years, much less the 20 or 30 years necessary so the browning of America can take place and we get over the hump.

All I can say is, at least my novel will be timely again by the time I try to sell it. And if I do somehow sell it, post-production will push it right into the sweet spot of all my ranting against extremism being very timely.

Another Spooky Tik-Tok Pushing of Strangely Relevant Content


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I went to a restaurant today and had some tequila. Then, today, on my Tik-Tok “For You Page” what do I get, but an extremely relevant video about, you guessed it…tequlia.

I don’t know. I just don’t know. It seems as though I’m being really paranoid about this — which I probably am — and, yet…it’s spooky.

Cancel Culture, Nostalgia Politics and Breakfast At Tiffany’s


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The reason why the fucking dickhead cocksuckers of FOX News may soon be babbling about the “canceling” of Breakfast At Tiffany’s is the movie pretty much is what “make America great again” means — a return to an era when it costs a white man $50 in New York City for a woman to go to the powder room.

Excuse the low-tech nature of my dystopian hellscape scenario.

The move is extremely white other than Mickey Rooney’s racist neighbor character. So old people and racist, misogynistic idiots who want to fuck their guns can wrap themselves around the movie and say we have to destroy America because we can’t risk the movie being “cancelled.”

Let me be clear — I love Breakfast At Tiffany’s, but I doubt Truman Capote would be all that thrilled for it to be thrown into the maw of the culture wars by fucking cocksuckers who watch FOX News. I mean, what fucking kind of fucking cocksucker watches FOX News? Idiots!

Anyway, I only rant like this because I know we’re just four years away from either a civil war or a final slide into autocracy. It’s cathartic to rant in public, hoping I might get my point across to some MAGA Qanon dipshit who stumbles across this site at the mere mention of “Cancel culture” in the headline.

I still think is tragically amusing that in four years the United States is probably going to finally buckle into anarchy, even though if fucking idiot MAGA people would simply play by the rules of a liberal democracy they could everything they wanted.

But, not, they want to hurt people. Idiots.

Should Breakfast At Tiffany’s Be ‘Canceled?’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Short answer: No
Long Answer: It’s complicated. Let me explain.

Ok, so the whole reason why the fucking FOX News bullshit echo chamber keeps stroking one to the idea of “cancel culture” is because they have no agenda and no policy ideas. They’re fucking fascist cocksuckers who would rather destroy America than risk the browning of America or accepting women with sexual agency.

So, really, the whole idea of “cancel culture” is done in a bad faith manner. The whole thing is fucking bullshit.

And, yet, there are aspects of so-called “cancel culture” that exists enough to give MAGA Qanon fucktards something to hang their hat on. Fucking cocksuckers.

Anyway, as for Breakfast At Tiffany’s, other than the Mickey Rooney’s tragically racist character in the movie, the movie is The Perfect Movie. But the Rooney character is, self-evidently, a racist stereotype.

It seems to me the solution is to simply edit the character out of the movie. And if that’s not possible, then liberal-progressives need to slow their roll before they do anything too conspicuous to the movie. A movie like Breakfast At Tiffany’s that would be so easily use as cudgel against our zombie liberal democracy to finally kill it.

So, either this issue blows up and helps the fucking fascist racist MAGA Republicans get out the vote so they can strangle our democracy and establish a “managed democracy” like they have in Russia or it doesn’t.

Deconstructing Phoebe Bridgers’, ‘Kyoto’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok, as always, I’m extremely late to the party with a new artist. This time, it’s Phoebe Bridgers. The one song of hers that I love, love, love is Kyoto. But to my ear, there are a number of other songs floating around in this one song. So, let’s go through them, shall we?

First up, The Velvet Underground:

Then, add in a little bit of The Polyphonic Spree:

And, lastly, throw in Paul Westerberg

It’s rare that the influences of a song are so stark to my ears. But those three songs together and you get this:

Burn Hollywood Burn: Is Oscar Dead?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love the Oscars and I love movies. And, in all honesty, if I had had a mentor of some sort to knock some sense into me when I was, say, 15, I would have gone into creative writing as a young man and bounced to LA as soon as I got out of college with a Creative Writing / Theatre degree. (Or something like that.)

But, alas, that’s not what happened.

Anyway — given how niche the movies the Oscars are celebrating are, we have to begin thinking the unthinkable: that the Oscars are dead. They’re now irrelevant.

I only say this in the context of what they once where. For generations, an Oscar movie was both a creative and financial success. It’s only been in the last decade or so that Hollywood has begun to grow more interested in the artistic quality of the movie and not the “double dees, double dees” aspect as SNL would tell us.

I think Hollywood should embrace this as a form of freedom. They should not televise the awards anymore, but put them on Amazon Prime or Netflix and let them be four hours without interruption.

My Novel’s Villains Aren’t Bad Enough Yet


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I’m beginning to slip into a groove about how to wrap up this first draft before the sun goes black, I find myself thinking about how to make the final project better.

One issue is my villains remain more “moods” than evil personified. They just aren’t up to the evil found in Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium series. But I do think I’m going to do some reading to at least give my villains some sort of ideological underpinning for their dickhead behavior.

I’m getting there. I’m getting much closer.

I have a specific book I’m eyeing as I write this that I think will be the key to giving some sort of motive to my villains. And, I recently read Ezra Klein’s “Why We’re Polarized” which, in a sense, helps ME with the universe I’ve constructed. That book — despite not giving any answers to why we’re polarized –definitely was an eye opener for me as to try to make this novel an allegory about the fading Trump Era.