Month: February 2024

Birthright Citizenship Is In Serious Danger If Trump Is Re-Elected

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the absolutely bonkers element of any second Trump Administration is the fact that he will be gunning for something we all taken for granted — birthright citizenship. This make me both very angry and very alarmed because the first thing fascists — like the Nazis — do is start to fuck with who is a “citizen.”


I have conversations with my far more conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — and their reaction to the potential demise of something as fundimental as birthright citizenship is a real life shrug emoji. They just don’t care. All they care about is “securing the border” to the point that when you press them about how they plan to deport 20 million undocumented people — they just laugh.

They don’t care, they just want it to happen, damn the consequences.

So, it definitely seems as though if Trump is re-elected that many of my dystopian fears for his first term will come to fruition. I just don’t know what to tell you folks. It definitely FEELS like I may very well lose my citizenship and find myself in a Trump-branded concentration camp at some point after 2025 if I can’t manage to sell the novel I’m working on and get the hell out of the country.

Trump Is Going To Have Entirely Too Much Political Slack To Consume Before Anyone On The Right Notices That’s He’s Gone Full Tyrant If He’s Re-Elected

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is growing more and more apparent to me that should, God forbid, Trump get re-elected that there is only one Red Line for most Traditionalists — the personal. Otherwise, they will be so happy that brown kids are again being torn from their mothers and put in cages that it will all be a lulz.

But when things get personal, then, yeah, Traditionalists might stop being Good Germans.

The only reason why I even bring such a thing up is Trump is so dumb and lazy that he is the only person who might thrash around in such a tyrannical manner as soon as he has power again that the people who should be the core of his support — center-Right Traditionalists — might actually become “Radical Moderates” just long enough for him to be successfully deposed.

Even this is very iffy.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we really are going to go straight into a dystopian MAGA Nazi future where people like me are snatched off the street an no one — no even Traditionalists who are related to me — will care or notice.

And, yet, at least now, in early 2024, I’m not prepared to assume that that is the case. I’d like to think that if Trump really does go full tyrant on us that because of the Red Line of the personal that Traditionalists might, just might, look the other way if Trump has to be deposed. (Not that I’m advocating anything.)

It definitely will be interesting to see how, exactly, things play out going forward. Just from my conversations with my far more conservative Traditionalists relatives — whom I love dearly — we are in a lot — A LOT — of trouble if Trump is re-elected.

They just don’t believe that Trump is going to do all the shit that he has made very clear that he is going to do if he’s re-elected. I keep talking about Agenda 47 and Project 2025 and they look at me like they have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.

All I can say is, yet again, that late 2024, early 2025 is going to be VERY INTERESTING.

Too Many Center-Left People These Days Miss The Cultural Point Of SNL

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In yet ANOTHER sign that the country is tearing itself apart, the fact that Saturday Night Live is trying its usual thing of trying to threat the political needle is causing people on the center-Left to pitch a fit.

The thing about SNL — which is the Bob Hope of TV entertainment shows — is while it definitely leans Left, it has a long, long history of pretty much just picking on whomever happens to be in power. It’s just that Trump stirred the pot to such an extent that the two sides have really, really hardened their views.

As such, people who are too young to remember how things used to be, think it’s the end of the world if SNL features Nikki Haley or brings back the very, very popular Right wing comic they fired even before the season began a few years ago.

It definitely seems as though all of this is yet more sign that the greatest nation in the world is tearing itself apart over “vibes.”

I Need To Focus

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Various things have shifted around in my personal life and now I realize really to not only focus more but maybe try to give my listless, dissipated life some much-needed structure.

As such, I’m going to at least TRY to lay off the booze so at least I’m not in some sort of tipsy daze most of the time. Also, I’m going to really think seriously about the three scifi novels I want to write.

Lastly, I’m also going to think seriously about doing some freelance work. It’s not going to be easy for various reasons. My immediate goal is to see if I can get an op-ed published in The New York Times.

I know how bonkers that sounds, but, lulz, why not. The point of trying to do such a thing is more about the structure in my life necessary to get the point where I think I have a chance at getting published than actually believing I will get published.

Anyway. Being sober-ish and more structured is my immediate goal.

Hollywood Is A Dead Industry Walking

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love Hollywood. But I’m also a realist. And with the advent of the Apple Vision Pro and all these AI image generators at the same time….oh boy. It is clear to me that barring some sort of “Fourth Turning” event starting in late 2024, early 2025….”human” Hollywood is about to have its goose cooked.

The very idea of humans being involved in any sort of entertainment creation may be pretty quaint. And I say this as someone working as hard as possible to finish a novel. As long as the AI Generated Media is “good enough,” audiences will gravitate to it.

We are probably 18 months away from a Toy Story-level AI-generated movie being produced and released. And once that happens, it could spook everyone so badly that Hollywood might demand some sort of carve outs legislation that requires humans be involved in the generation of art, no matter what.

Or not. I could happen so fast that there’s just not time for the slow moving U.S. Government to get around to doing such a thing. But I do think we have to realize that Hollywood is about to be disrupted in a rather dramatic fashion a lot sooner than any of us may have otherwise realized.

Uh Oh

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I was in Richmond yesterday, finding random people to hand out a draft of the first three chapters of the novel to when something happened that stopped me cold. I told a young woman who was obviously a liberal white woman the more “edgy” elements of the novel — that my heroine owned a strip club — and she immediately shut down.

This does not bode well for how the liberal white women that I imagine make up the majority of literary agents will respond to that same “edgy” part of the story. I was talking to the young woman in question, having a friendly conversation about the novel, but the moment I told her about the strip club part of the story — she shut down and wandered off.

My reaction to this is multifold.

On one hand, it definitely is a tap on the shoulder to have a back up plan of some sort. I really need to work on a back up novel. I have three solid scifi concepts I can work on.

The heroine of my novel, in my imagination, looks a lot like Corrie Yee.

My other reaction is, fuck it, we’ll do it live. If “Barry” can be produced to success, then my weird little story can potentially be a success, too. I just have to buckle down and get this thing done.

I continue to be concerned about word count, however. I really need to be prepared for the novel to be in the 140,000 – 160,000 range which is just way too fucking long. That gives me another reason to pause and work on a backup plan

I Fear I’ve Been Romanticizing Elements of This Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I went to a strip club to do some “research” for the novel (wink) and while I had a good time — as always — I came away thinking maybe I’ve been so wrapped up with how “cool” and “edgy” making my heroine a part-time stripper hobbyist that I miss something — the stripper lifestyle is a lot darker than I’m portraying it.

And it would help the tone of the novel to talk about that in the novel.

So, that’s kind of a long-term project, to make it clear that being a stripper kind of sucks at times. I just have to give a lot of thought as to how to exactly do it.

It Appears That The Novel Has Stabilized

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have printed out a few chapters of the first act and now I hope to go through and make sure that the mystery-thriller elements of the story are evenly spread across as much as possible.

The basic scenes are fine, but I need to keep reminding readers that this is all leading up to a mystery-thriller Big Event that will make the novel a traditional thriller in the guise of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

The structure of this novel is much more like The Girl Who Played With Fire, however. I have about 50 scenes of lead up to the event that kicks off the second act of “the special world” and gets us going into what the novel is really about — murder in a small town.

The biggest problem I have at the moment is I’ve changed so much of the first act that I have to accommodate those changes in the rest of the novel. That is really slowing me down.

But I need to stay focused. I know I have a really great concept, I just have to build it out in a way that the novel fits the genre of mystery-thriller. It doesn’t help, of course, that I’m just not very dark or twisted in my writing. I find it really difficult to write that way.

Ugh.

Wish me luck.

Facebook Is In Trouble

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Facebook is very much for The Olds now. So much so that I could see the rise of AI on the Apple Vision Pro being The End for Facebook as we know it. It may be revived as an app on the AVP because it’s something of a utility, but there could be a little bit of a bumpy period between now and then.

We’re about to lurch into the future in a big, big way and there will be winners and losers. And there is at least a possibility that Facebook could turn into something akin to Blockbuster and it just not survive the transition into this new era.

Everything is about to change very quickly. All that has to happen is, say, AVP 4.0 come out with a $1,200 price point and a lot lighter headset and wham! We wake up and everyone is wearing one of the damn things. There will be a huge vibe shift to the point that people will think, “Gee, I remember before everyone walked around with what looks like a Star Trek Visor.”

It will be interesting to see how things play out going forward.

Hollywood Has Hit The Iceberg

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The release of the Apple Vision Pro it’s only a matter of time before it is combined with AI generated media (AIGM) and Human Generated Media (HGM) is totally and completely disrupted to the point that it’s comical.

It’s only a matter of time.

Barring a revolution / civil war / WW3 kind of delaying things starting in late 2024, early 2025, there is a real chance that by 2030 “real” entertainment in will be about 1% of what people consume.

There will be additional cultural value to live entertainment to the point that Broadway could become white hot. It’s even possible a lot of what are now movie theatres could be converted to live theatre venues for no other reason than people — especially young people — will still need an excuse to be a dark theatre with someone (on a date.)

But I think my long sought “vibe shift” is here. It may take a few new versions of the AVP for it to happen, but once they become slimmer –and more affordable — there will be some future shock when people are seen out in the wild wearing, say, the AVP 4.0 or something.

It’s coming. And I don’t think Hollywood as we traditionally conceive of it is prepared. There just not going to be much use for ANY human involvement in the creation of the moving image when not only is everything generated in a very personalized manner by AI, but people are watching such things in the “immersive media” of a AVP headset.

A lot of the timeframe as to when all of this is going to happen depends on what happens between now and early 2025. If things are pretty peaceful — which I hope — then things are going to go very very very fast to the point that there might even be some sort of legislation passed in hopes of saving human Hollywood.

I’m afraid it won’t help, though — the future is AI and AVP.