Tag: NYC

Will The Mythical ‘Woke Park Slope Moms’ Like My Novel?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, let me be clear — I have always been making a joke about “woke Park Slope moms” whenever I mentioned them as an audience for this novel. And, the more I think about it, the more I realize I’ve failed even if I was being serious — this novel is shaping up to be a trashy, somewhat pulpy page turner with a lot of spicy scenes and a curious premise: a part-time stripper’s obsession with owning a community newspaper.

A building in the Park Slope area of NYC.

I think if this novel is popular among “woke Park Slope moms” it will be popular for the very reason why it’s not “woke” — it has a lot of spicy scenes. The downside, of course, is that I’m a smelly CIS white male writing those spicy scenes, sometimes from a female POV.

But these are wine moms we’re talking about, so it’s at least possible that the same dynamic that made 50 Shades of Gray a big hit might be in play when it comes to this novel. I really like what I’ve come up with. This novel is colorful, different and interesting — just like me.

A lot will depend on marketing of this novel once I somehow, magically, manage to get an agent and then sell it. I really want this novel to be an old brown shoe to people who read the Stieg Larsson novel’s 20 years ago. If I can tap into that same audience, then, well, we’re cooking with gas.

It will be interesting to see what happens, of course.

I Find Myself Thinking Of Seoul Again

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For some reason, I find myself daydreaming about a return to South Korea sooner rather than later. I have no idea why this is. Maybe someone in South Korea is thinking about me really hard?

Anyway, barring something I just can’t predict, I won’t be returning to Asia for some time. The only known way with a clear timetable for me to return to Asia for a while would be if I sold one or both of my novels and they had some success. But from what I know of the post-production nature of the publishing industry….oh boy. It could be five years before anything like that happens — and that’s if I stick the landing.

So, I am just going to have to stew in my juices I suppose. I am going to be well past my prime by the time I return to Asia and it just won’t be the same or as much fun. And, in all honesty, if I hadn’t blown out an emotional knee after Seoul, I would have moved to NYC to seek my fame and fortune.

But….oh boy….I’m older now. A lot older now. And there is a small, small chance that if I found myself not in Seoul or NYC but in LA that I MIGHT be able to find a modicum of success simply because of my personality.

And, yet….I just can’t change how old I am.

‘What A Weekday’ But More Snarky & Devoted To New York City Media Is The Vision I Have For A New Podcast

By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The closest approximation to the type of podcast I want to listen to every day would be much like Crooked Media’s new What A Weekday podcast that Jon Lovett hosts. But my vision for a podcast would be centered around NYC life, entertainment and media, rather than the vaguely political vision of WAW.

We need a NYC-based podcast obsessed with Julia Fox’s every twitch.

I don’t even live in NYC, but it sure would be fun to have a podcast based out of NYC that was completely obsessed with the constant power struggles at The New York Times. Or be obsessed with whatever weird thing Julia Fox is doing at any particular moment.

Maybe Crooked Media could make my dream come true?

Most of all, it would be snarky. It would have that sharp comic edge that Late Night with David Letterman had as did Spy Magazine and Gawker. That’s why the Lovett show is very close to what my vision is, it just isn’t as focused as what I think my specific vision for a NYC-centric podcast would be.

Anyway, I hope someone does something with this idea before the window of opportunity closes because AI has taken over everything and we’re all consuming media via our AVP.

‘A Snarky Morning Zoo Podcast Devoted To NYC Media’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing I’ve noticed about a lot — A LOT — of podcasts is how somnambulistic they can be. It’s just two or more people talking in a very languid way that makes you want to go to sleep.

This is a really good book by Ben Smith.

So, my vision for a Gawker-like podcast (which you are free to steal!) would be something like this — you live stream a two hour podcast three times a week (if not more) then edit it down to an hour for the rest of the day for non-live listeners.

I would want the podcast to be snarky, fun and energetic. It would be a bunch of (hot?) young people talking about Emma Chamberlain, Julia Fox and the Dune 2 popcorn bucket that everyone wants to fuck. You know, the type of bullshit Gawker was ranting about in 2003-2004.

The key could be who your hosts — and guests — were. I would grab some hip, just-out-of-college neo-club kids and with great personalities and throw them together into the Thunderdome. I would try to have at least one more “conservative” person on a panel of three to mix things up. But they couldn’t be a knuckle dragging MAGA person, but someone who thinks SNL is too woke or something.

But it would have to be genuine and not forced. And that would be the hardest part of the whole thing — how to get the spark of people who had actual witty banter on the fly and who knew the zeitgeist well. In that respect, I guess you might need to find some young stand up to be one of your three?

The first guest for this podcast would need to be someone like Sarah Squirm of SNL. She would be the perfect person to establish what the podcast was going to be about.

Why *Isn’t* There A Buzzy Gawker-Like Podcast Covering NYC Exclusively?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the things I think got me blocked by Gawker founder Nick Denton on Twitter — other than my puppy-dog, obsessive interest in him — was I noticed an old YouTube video of him blathering on about how he had some sort of cohesive vision about Gawker’s inevitable “piviot to video.”

It was all bullshit, of course and nothing came of it.

After I brought a minor amount of attention to the video, it was mysteriously taken down.

Anyway, I still admire Denton a great deal — despite his obvious character flaws — and I thought a lot about him when I was bootstrapping ROKon Magazine in Seoul. I find myself thinking about all of this because I’m reading Ben Smith’s book “Traffic” and I’m learning a great deal about the rise and fall of Gawker.

Flash forward to today and it definitely seems as though podcasting is the new blogging and it’s just about mature. We’re just a few months, of course, away from its demise at the hand of some combination of LLMs and Apple Vision Pro. But, for a brief moment, there’s still a bit of time for someone to do something cool with podcasting.

I say this because there is one niche that hasn’t been filled yet — the buzzy NYC-based podcast. Or, there isn’t one relative to my little corner of the center-Left media bubble. Maybe one exists, and I just don’t know about it.

My favorite photo from the good old days of Gawker.

There’s The Town, which covers LA. There’s The Powers That Be, which covers a huge swath of things, but there’s not a popular, mass appeal NYC-centric podcast that deals with what Gawker covered — the NYC media world.

If one exists, please forgive me. Or, put another way, I’m sure one DOES exist, it’s just not as popular enough for me to know about it. I would try to create one myself, but for where I live and how much work it would involve to zero outcome.

I do have a novel to write, you know.

But I do think Puck and The Ringer should look into it. Or, alternately, maybe Crooked Media could do it and have Jon Lovett run it (though I doubt he would leave LA do to it, even though I suspect it would be tempting to him to get out from under the shadow of Jon and Tommy.)

It is curious, however, that NYC doesn’t have a popular podcast devoted specifically to it, while LA does.

I Really Need To Visit New York City Again

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really love New York City and, if I hadn’t blown out an emotional knee after South Korea, I probably would have saved up the money to move there when I came home the last time. But my mind was so scrambled at that moment in time that that just wasn’t practical.

So, here I am, at 50, longing to have enough money just to visit the Big Apple. The thing that really grates on my nerves is the cold, hard, fact that even if I blow up with my DJ money (sell a novel) that I can never be young in the big city. I’ll just be an old man whose peers are all middle aged empty nesters and here I am, an old bachelor.

But I’m not dead yet, as they say.

And, yet, it’s times like these that my age really hits home. I have all these dreams and aspirations for what I’ll do if I ever magically “make it big” but I have to accept that I just won’t get what I want. The entire context of any success I might have at this point will be totally different than what I want.

Not only will I have to explain why I haven’t done anything with my life for about 20 years, if I become as successful as I believe I should be, everything will be frame in the context of, “How does it feel to be a success later in life?”

But my age is really at the forefront of my mind these days. The clock is ticking and I really need to be mindful about how limited my time on earth is. Wish me luck.

I Feel Your Pain, Catturd

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While the earnest, well-meaning nature of MAGA “thought leader” Catturd enrages me, I saw a description of him that gave me pause for thought. I’m really self-conscious about my current loser lot in life and the way some smug Twitter liberals were describing Catturd could very well be pretty much applied to me.

And, I hate to admit it, in some ways at this specific moment Catturd is actually on a personal basis a lot better off than me. And, in fact, I suspect there’s at least one smug liberal out there who uses her encounter with me in Seoul many moons ago as something of a cocktail party joke.

I’m talking, of course, of Jennifer 8. Lee.

Many moons ago, back in Seoul, Lee came to Seoul to work on a book about fortune cookies. And while she was polite to my face, I think she and her friend Tomoko thought I was completely fucking bonkers — a total fucking loser. And, occasionally, I will see in my Webstats random poking around about my various write ups over the years of that event from my point of view.

I can just imagine how much glee she gets in talking about the crazy, loser expat she met in Seoul. Her friend Tomoko, who was working for the Asian Wall Street Journal at the time, I think, really, really did not think much of me. So much so, that to this day it kind of rattles my personal self-perception.

And, going forward, if I should manage to write the Great American Pop Thriller, I think I’m going to have to prepare myself things not to be as great and wonderful as I want them to be. Any inspection of my personal life over the last 20-odd years will leave Normal Smug Wealthy Liberal Elites aghast at what a fucking loser I’ve been.

But I can’t change how old I am and I can’t change the past. All I can do is just try to write a good a novel as I possibly can.

If I Had A Spare $300, I Would Travel To NYC Tonight To See Malignant Ding-Dong Trump Arraigned On Tuesday Afternoon

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I went for a walk today to clear my mind and in the middle of it it occured to me that I have the motive and the opportunity — but not the means — to use the ChinaTown Bus from Richmond to travel to NYC tonight in time to see ding-dong Trump be arraigned.

But, having thought it over a few hours, the fact remains: I just don’t have the money. It would be about $300 for the entire trip — factoring in the unexpected that might force me to stay overnight — and I just don’t have that kind of money to my name at the moment. I suppose I *could* go, but I wouldn’t be able to eat all day and if something happened whereby I was forced to stay overnight Tuesday….yikes!

And I would definitely be tempted to stay overnight — I would love to spend Tuesday evening at Sing Sing Ave. A singing my heart out. I love that bar and it’s always a highlight of any stay in NYC.

The only reason why I even seriously contemplate such a dumb, expensive idea is I almost went to D.C. on January 6th, but it was too cold. I regret that I wasn’t there to record that clusterfuck and there is a greater-than-zero chance that MTG might somehow spark similar violence tomorrow afternoon.

And, yet, tomorrow, at the moment at least, is shaping up be historic, but mundane. I don’t think there’s going to be violence at all (thankfully.) If I did have a spare $300 on me, I would already be on my way to Richmond to stakeout the ChinaTown bus station.

But, alas, I just don’t have it at the moment. And I have too much pride to ask anyone to spot me $300 for a few months so I can go tonight. So, I think instead of rushing to Richmond, I’m just going to do some day drinking while I try to finish the last scene of the first chapter of the second draft of my novel.

How Worried Should We Be About Another Jan 6th-Like Event In NYC On Tuesday?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well. The conditions, at least, for something pretty fucking dramatic on Tuesday are beginning to develop in NYC. MTG is set to have a protest in NYC as Trump is being arraigned, so…could she incite the crowd to march down to the courthouse to cause a ruckus?

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Dalton, Ga., on Jan. 4, 2021.

I honestly don’t know.

It could be an example of an example of me just thinking up a dark, hysterical scenario to make myself feel better. Or it could be that something pretty messy and tragic is about to happen AGAIN, only this time in NYC.

In general, I just don’t like the idea of MTG being in New York City with an angry MAGA crowd in front of her. At the moment, at least, it definitely seems that the actual booking will be historic, but rather mundate.

Only time will tell.

More Of My Delusional Daydreaming About Going To Los Angeles

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is beginning to sink in that I’m now an Old.

Age is far more than just a number. I’m kind of fucked. What’s worse, even if I get what I want — to write a break out hit novel — I don’t get what I want, which is run around New York City and Los Angeles with hot chicks on each arm as a young person.

Any success I get at this point will be in the context of being an Old who has done jack shit with my life for way, way, too long. In fact, even if I endup writing something as successful as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo….oh boy. The whole context of my success will be different than all the many elaborate dreams I’ve come up with over the years.

All my peers will be empty nesters with one eye towards retirement, while I’ll be crashing into “normal” life 25 years too late. Anyway, the point is, I continue to idly daydream about taking a trip to Los Angeles to snoop around, see how far I can get on just my innate ability to shmooze. I still half believe that if I can just get myself invited to a cocktail party that I might get drunk and talk about such interesting things that some well-connected person at the party might take notice of me.

And, yet.

I’m beginning to fear that that window of opportunity for that avenue of success has closed. Hollywood wants young people who are hot, sexxy and talented, not an Old like me who doesn’t even have a script but, rather a novel. But a part of me is still interested in at least swinging by LA for a few days. Los Angeles is a huge city and it could all be a huge waste of time.

I dunno. With my luck, the person I ran into would be Craig Mazin who I once said “didn’t have a soul” because he didn’t like flowers. (Who doesn’t like flowers? Very strange.) Anyway. Unless something pretty dramatic happens, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.

Time keeps on ticking, ticking, into the future….