I now have TWO tomes about The New York Times to read. I already have one, The Trust, while I’m waiting on the second, newer one, The Times to arrive in a few weeks from Amazon.
For all its problems, I really love The New York Times and I wish I could hang out with a few of them at some point in my life. All the times I’ve crossed paths with them they came across as really genuine, nice folks. Two of the times I had an opportunity to interact with Times folks, I was as giddy as a 50s bobby socker.
Anyway. Absolutely no one cares or listens to me. And if I ever manage to breakout with my DJ (novel) money and actually hang out with any New York Times people that way, it will all be very, very surreal.
I’m been a drunk crank loser for so long that any change in that particular situation that allow me to have drinks with New York Times people would be a rather dramatic change of fate.
Since I can’t predict the future, let’s go through some of the ways that we could somehow punt our structural political problems down the road in 2024, like we did in 2020.
The Primaries Nikki Haley is gaining fast on Trump. And, as such, it is still within the realm of possibility that Trump will be seen as a paper tiger and Haley will be the nominee. But, of course, there is an equal chance that if something so unexpected happens, that Trump runs as an independent and calls for a civil war when he doesn’t win the general.
The General The only reason why Trump remains a viable candidate is how fucked up our political system is. As such, no matter what, once he gets the nomination, he will be 60,000 votes in 5 swing states away from being POTUS again. But Trump is really, really unpopular with a huge segment of the population, so…I dunno. And just because Trump might demand a National Divorce if he loses, doesn’t mean anyone will listen to him.
Something Unexpected It’s totally possible that just like in 2020, something really, really unexpected might happen in 2024 that throws everything for a loop.
I’m old enough to remember the ending of the original Battlestar Galaxia where they encountered modern day Earth. Well, what if you came up with a situation where a group of Star Wars-like people came crashing into modern Earth.
I think it would be great.
It would be great because you could explore how divided humanity is. And, what’s more, you get to use all the architypes found in Star Wars, only this time they deal with the modern globe.
The key issue of the story would be how divided humanity is and how — EVEN WITH A GALAXTIC EMPIRE BREATHING DOWN THEIR NECKS — humanity would STRUGGLE to get our act together.
I’m drunk, so I’m going to rant about something VERY against the media narrative. I’m annoyed that we’ve reached a point where gratuitous gay sex is great, but we can’t have just regular old heteronormative T&A without it being a Big Deal.
I find this very fucked up.
I’m not opposed to depictions of gay sex in pop culture — my novel sure does have enough of it — it’s just why can’t we have the heteronormative sexxy time of the 1980s in movies and TV in modern times?
It’s a very strange situation.
I have my doubts that this quirk of modern culture will change anytime soon. I think we probably have a solid 20 years before people think, “Hey, maybe it’s not so radical to have some traditional T&A in mainstream entertainment.”
I can’t predict the future. No one can. But it definitely SEEMS as though the moment MAGA can ban abortion on a nation-wide basis, it will. The reason why I bring this up is abortion, likely slavery, is an economic issue.
While abortion obviously isn’t as dramatic an economic issue as slavery, the fact that Red states want the entire US to be pro-life isn’t exactly a great situation when it comes to the health of the Union.
The whole thing is very corrosive.
And it could be, when Trump starts to thrash around as a tyrant and band abortion nation-wide, it would be just that type of thing that could push women over the edge to the point that we have some sort of Women’s Strike against Trump.
The events of ROKon Magazine are pretty crazy. It once took a third party 30 minutes to explain the drama surrounding the magazine. It was then that I realized that the story of that failed magazine was pretty….great.
Anyway. I have Romanized what happened all those years ago a great deal, to an absurd degree. And, really, it’s been so long ago that no body — NO BODY — cares anymore.
But I do think that in a world where Saltburn is a hit, that the bonkers story of what happened with ROKon Magazine seems viable. And, yet, I really digging into what happened with the magazine to write a six novel project that is a downlow screed against extremism in general and MAGA specifically.
That doesn’t stop me from thinking about how someone, somewhere might want to tell the ROKon Magazine story something akin to literally. It’s got everything — sex, drugs, rock and people going crazy in Asia.
I think I need to just be content with the novels I’m writing, though. Absolutely no one cares at this point.
I continue to be in put-up-or-shut-up mode with the third draft of my first novel. I finally — THINK — I have a stable first chapter. Now, I have to go through and edit things so they make sense.
I’m down to 42 scenes in the first act, after starting with 65 then going down to 24. I’m pretty sure 42 is good because it’s long, but not so long that I can’t have a 60 scene second act without things being out of whack. I’m really pleased with what I’ve come up with.
Now, to put in the hard work.
And I continue to have three really good scifi novels rolling around in my mind. I need to put in the work to have them ready to go at a moment’s notice in case something goes wrong with the mystery-thriller. But, in general, I need to work them. They’re all really good and should be pretty easy to knock out if I just give them the attention they deserve.
I’m not going to live forever. I need to buckle down and get something done. I am, however, still on track to query this mystery-thriller in the fall of 2024. All systems go!
It has come to my attention that there is a lot of uhhhh, sexxy time in Emma Stone’s latest Oscar bait Poor Things. Something about that really gets my juices flowing for some intangible reason.
I think some of it has to do with how she’s steered clear of T&A in her career to date. And I think it’s a testament to two things. One is having a great personality is hot — and helps a great deal when it comes to being an actress. That’s why Emrata, who is demonstrably better looking than Stone, neither has the acting chops nor the twinkle that Stone has.
Something about Stone doing showing some skin in Poor Things seems like forbidden fruit, which only adds to the allure. It could be that I’m just turning into a dirty old man, but, lulz.
Another thing — that Stone would show some skin later in her career is a reminder that the dynamic for actresses doing such stuff changes the older they get. When they’re just starting out, it can come across as exploitive. But later in their career, they often serve as producers in the movies they are in, so they have some skin — no pun intended — in the game.
But, I dunno. I think a lot of this idle musing on my part is just being older. When you’re older, the context of such things changes. It is very curious to me how skittish we’ve become when it comes to heteronormative monoculture and the use of T&A in mainstream movies.
We’re so busy having gratuitous gay sex scenes, that we seem to miss that straight sex can be pretty hot, too. Whatever. No one listens to me.
I am WELL AWARE of the dark side of Playboy Magazine. And, yet, I’ve reached an age where I think back to what we once had with Playboy and think we’ve lost something. The social function served by Playboy of yore is now filled by OnlyFans and Treats! Magazine.
OnlyFans isn’t my thing. And I would dabble in owning a few issues of Treats! Magazine, but for the fact that inevitably some family member would discover my stash of the high end nude magazine and think I was some sort of perv. That, even though Treats! Magazine is REALLY GOOD. They have great photography (if nothing else.)
That’s the thing about the old print Playboy. It actually *did* have great articles and it did push a lifestyle that men of all ages could aspire to. But, like I said, the dark side of all of that was so dark that, meh, maybe good riddance.
Thinking about Playboy does make me think about how fucked up entertainment is these days. We’ve all grown so woke that we’re so busy having gratuitous gay sex in movies and TV that we’ve loss sight of the power of regular old heteronormative monoculture T&A.
It’s gotten so bad that it’s some sort of scandal when Taylor Swift makes it clear in her music and performances that she fucks. I remember a point in the late 1980s, early 1990s when it seemed as though Madonna was determined to shove all of her deepest, darkest sexual desires down our throats in as public a manner as possible.
I suppose it’s possible that MAGA will get its way and regulate online porn out of existence to the point that porn pops out against in print magazines. And, yet, I also think that I’m just old and I’m struggling to live in this new age of ours.
It definitely seems as though it could be another generation before the pendulum begins to swing back towards the glory that is regular old heteronormative monoculture sex. We’ve got a good 20 years more of either people being too woke for straight sex in entertainment or too prudish for it on the Right.
I hate being old. And, I have to admit, I’m in something of a bad mood at the moment. I have no problem with freaky gay sex in mainstream entertainment, I just wish things like a print Playboy existed so you could see your favorite female stars show a little skin now and again without it being a big deal.
New York Magazine is one of those establishment liberal publications that gives you some insight into what the “conventional wisdom” of the Costal Elites is. And I’m very annoyed by their belief that SCOTUS shouldn’t, well, read Section 3 of the 14th Amendment for what it say — Trump is disqualified from running again.
Any normal human being reading the 14th Amendment would say Trump is banned from office. And, yet, apparently, New York Magazine thinks that because of the risk of fascist violence on the part of MAGA, SCOTUS should punt the problem or do whatever necessary to allow Trump to run.
One argument that New York Magazine makes that I agree with is No One Is Going To Save Us. I totally agree with them on that. Trump is a symptom, not a cause and, as such, we have to prepare for the worst — either autocracy or revolution / civil war.
But at the same time, I believe we should follow the law, and the actual words of the 14th Amendment bans Trump from office. We can’t be intimidated by the threat of MAGA fascist violence into bending to their will. That sort of appeasement didn’t work with Hitler in the 1930s and it won’t work now.
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