Lorne Michaels Plans On Retiring In 2025: Who’s Likely To Succeed Him?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Lorne Michaels gave an interview recently where he said 50-ish years at SNL was enough. The show first aired in 1975, so it’s reasonable to assume he’s going to retire in 2025. (He DID step away from the show for a few years in the 80s, so I guess he has some wiggle room if he wants to hang on longer.)

So, who is going to replace him? I keep writing about this because I love SNL and Michaels is such a specific-type person that it’s difficult to imagine anyone doing the show in the same way he has over the decades. But, here goes. I’m going to try to be a bit more detailed in this post than I have in my previous half-assed posts on this subject.

Tina Fey
Fey seems like the tough-as-nails broad who could keep the post-Michaels SNL humming along as if nothing had happened. And, yet, should would probably be a transitional figure. She has a Hollywood career and running SNL would be a career topper for her. She knows the show inside and out and, despite a weird tone deafness sometimes on race, her comic sensibilities are pitch-perfect for modern America.

Amy Poehler
She’s another bad ass bitch who would strike fear into the hearts of the young comics who are the heart-and-soul of the show. She did well working with Broad City and, as such, is probably a pretty good manager.

Seth Meyers
He’s young and knows SNL really well, so he might see running SNL as a real step up from languishing in late night TV. I mean, it’s not like he’s going to take over the Tonight Show — Jimmy Fallon has that gig wrapped up until the sun goes dark. Meyers seems like the “cool dad” who could step in to SNL longer term and remake it into something more modern.

Kenan Thompson
He’s perfect to take over running the show but for one thing: he just seems too nice. He would be a perfect person to replace Michaels in those skits where he hams it up, but I find it difficult to imagine Thompson being able to herd the cats of SNL each week. But he definitely knows the show, having been there 20 years. So, I dunno?

Wildcard: Lin Manuel Miranda
Usually, when TV execs find themselves in the position of replacing a legendary figure like Lorne Michaels, they do something really weird that makes no sense. So, it’s easy to imagine someone young and talented like Miranda being tapped to replace Michaels. I think he would do a great job, but he does have a burgeoning Hollywood career, so, who knows.

Wildcard: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
But for her being British and having a huge Hollywood career ahead of her, I would say Waller-Bridge would be the perfect person to run SNL because she’s young, hip and could really take the show to the next level. But, I think this suggestion has more to do with me stanning her than any real possibility of it happening.

Wildcard: Someone We Don’t Know Who Knows The Show
Since SNL has been on for 50 years, there are probably many, many people who could take over for Michaels and the show would continue on as if he never left. It’s just they’re not name-brand people, they’re behind the scenes types who just have worked there long enough — and are strong enough managers — that they could take over without anything really changing.

A Hot Take For Undead Gawker: Is Canada A Real Country?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Editor’s Note: I can’t tell if Undead Gawker is boring or if the snarky milieu of the OG Gawker has so permeated our mainstream culture so much that…meh. But the following is all in good snarky fun and it’s the type of post that would get people talking if my dream of a Modern Political Gawker every magically came into being.

I sometimes find myself thinking — is Canada a real country? The reason why I ask this is Canada is so nationalistic compared to the United States that it’s almost like they know they’re not a real country. The “country” of Canada hides its insecurity about itself via being really nationalistic.

Let’s look at what Canada is more closely. It’s not really a nation-state. It’s more of two nations force-fused together with some leftover land above the United States tacked on. What race is to the United States, language is to Canada. There’s a reason why Canada defines itself as being NOT the Untied States. They don’t really have much of an identity otherwise because of the Anglophone – Francophone divide.

In a sense, North American geopolitical boundaries make no sense in the context of geography. What North America SHOULD look like is a huge French Canada that comes down through the center of the continent and reaches the Gulf of Mexico. The United States should be a small — but powerful — country that resides from Maine to about North Carolina.

Why this didn’t happen is, well, the French weren’t all that interested in North America and so the English speakers were able to plow through the middle of the continent, leaving the rump remains of New France and the parts of America that remained loyal to the crown.

But is that a real country? Defining yourself by what you’re NOT is kind of a strange national identity. What’s worse, the United States is so big that should we have another civil war, it’s very possible that this particular issue will solve itself.

You’re the real MVP.

If the United States should, say, split into the rump Blue USA and Trumplandia, it’s easy to imagine Blue USA gobbling up Canada so Blue States remain contiguous. This would happen regardless of what Canadians felt about the matter.

Another issue that faces Canada is global climate change. It’s very easy to imagine 50 years from now the United States finally invading Canada for its “resources” which, in this case would be the resource of livable land.

So, is Canada a country? I guess so. But it’s more a construct of the modern world that started about 1865 when America figured out that whole slavery thing. Once the United States realized it had the Wild West to settle and the “Dominion of Canada” wasn’t all that interesting, it’s position as a “country” was finally established.

God save the Queen!

Burn Hollywood, Burn: My Hot Take On The ‘Death Of Movies’ Discourse


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s a lot of buzz of late about the “death of movies.” And, sadly, I fear some of it may be right. American culture is facing something of an existential crisis because the very idea of any sort of “mainstream” is now beginning to melt away. Identity politics is now so absolute that the legitimacy of any heteronormative story is up for debate in the overwrought conversations of Twitter.

I know I sound a little too Joe Rogan with the above, but it comes from a place of love — a love of movies as an art form.

You know it.

Here’s what I think is going to happen — movies are going to continue to drift into culture insignificance until one of a few things happen. If we stop being force fed movies about people running around in capes, then, maybe people might sit up and take notice. But this is unlikely to happen because you can make a shit ton of money with movies like that, so, lulz.

Another way to “fix Hollywood” would be to end “Woke Hollywood.” Instead of trying to make us more woke, tell us a good story. Don’t worry about identity politics — tell a good story. I want less Beanie Feldstein screeching about lesbian sex positions to a Plain Jane lead in Book Smart and more, I don’t know anything. I only keep ranting about how much I fucking hated Book Smart because I was shamed into seeing it by my center-Left echo chamber and the movie is the epitome of preaching to the audience about how being woke is so important.

But, as I always say whenever Book Smart is brought up — I wasn’t the audience. So if you’re a bi-curious high school girl in the suburbs of LA, you probably loved that movie.

Yet another way that movies may come roaring back is because of technology. It could be that once we fully transition to MX (VR and AR) or, hell, even some sort of Strange Days-like MindCap technology, that movies will, like vinyl, make a big comeback as young people grow disillusioned with immersive media.

The crux of the Hollywood’s current problem is a combination of industry dynamics and the need for it to suck its own cock when it comes to there being a “message” in movies. America is so tightly wound at the moment, that a huge segment of the potential viewing audience is turned off with Woke Hollywood, hence the popularity of message-free MCU movies.

I only get a little upset about this specific issue because I love movies. It’s not that hard to tell a great story in a movie. Hell, *I* want to tell a few of those great stories so bad that I recently bought Final Draft. So, lulz.

But are movies dead? Yes, in the short term. Long term, however, I believe they’ll turn out just fine. We just need a New Era of story telling that harkens back to the early 70s.

The Rise of Trumplandia — The MAGA New Right & Popular American Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just like how Putin’s initial transition of Russia into an autocracy was popular among a large swath of the Russian electorate because it promised to bring “stability,” so, too is the prospect of American autocracy very popular within the MAGA New Right.

Once you establish this, everything begins to make a lot more sense.

It’s difficult to talk to someone about politics in a liberal democracy when their personal political views are based on the goal of…destroying the liberal democracy you both currently live in. That’s why Trump remains so popular long after any other politician in a similar position would have been destroyed. He’s so out there that we lose sight that the “idea” of Trump is so popular because the “idea” the he represents is autocracy.

Or, put another way, people wanted an old fashion autocrat when they elected him in 2016 (with the help of the Russians) and, in a sense, we kind of dodged a bullet when he turned out just to be a malicious idiot. So, Trump could very well be seen as more a transitional character that the guy who gets the job done. But the thing about Trump is for all his autocratic, disruptive leanings he’s all talk — or just really lazy.

That’s why you have the situation where he telegraphed in exact detail his intentions of being an American Hitler…only not to be able to produce the goods. So center-Left people like me who screamed that Trump was an autocrat who was going to destroy America…were right. We were right given the metrics we had at the time.

What we got wrong was Trump’s actual ability to do all the things he said he wanted to do. I mean, if he was anywhere near as effective as he would have us believe he would have EASILY stolen the 2020 election, pulled out of NATO the moment he was re-elected and began to rant about how we needed a Constitutional Convention. And this would have been popular enough that absolutely nothing was done to prevent it.

Donald Trump

But, surprise, Trump is all hot air. He’s a lazy racist piece of shit who talks a good game but can’t in any way do any of the autocratic things he so desperately wants to do. This, even though he had the entire power of the Federal government at his disposal and a entire political party at his beck and call.

It takes a lot of talent to screw up your autocratic dreams with all that going for you.

And, yet, Trump managed to do just that.

The point of all of this is two fold. One, don’t get your hopes up if we figure out the direct link between Trump, “R. Congressmen” and the January 6th Insurrection. We could know for an absolute fact that Trump personally was involved in the direction of that violent event and STILL nothing would happen to him. There are just too many people who not-so-tacitly support his dream of an autocratic America — too many people inside the Republican Party wanted the goal of that particular conspiracy to be successful.

The issue is Trump is such a ding-bat that if history AGAIN gives him the power to finally transition us into an autocracy, there’s a good chance we’re going to have a civil war. He’s just too big a doofus to be able to pull it off without the Blue States, in some manner, fighting back on the field of battle.

So, Trump’s personal laziness and incompetency would be the specific reason why the civil war that so many MAGA New Right fucktards want so bad finally happens. It would probably happen at some point around the certification of Trump’s “winning” the 2024 election because a MAGA Congress nullifies Biden’s win. Good times!

Lastly, there is one huge piece of the puzzle that way, way, way too many are oblivious to — they’re so busy hating on Trump that they forget all of this bullshit is a systemic problem. Trump is just an avatar. There are probably a dozen talented Republican elected officials who are positioning themselves to be America’s Putin.

They will get into office and never leave. An entire generation — or two! of Americans will grow up with President Pompeo, or Hawley, or Cotton or Noam or DeSantis…or you name it. And, as much as it pains me to say this, the only way this will NOT happen is if the transition to autocracy is somehow bungled and we have a very tragic civil war that will pretty much cause WW3 and the potential death of billions around the globe.

So, take your pick, folks.

Autocracy or civil war. Autocracy or civil fucking war.

The Vision Thing: My Pitch For A ‘Political Gawker’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A lot time ago, Ana Marie Cox ran Wonkettte. It was a sister blog to Gawker in NYC. It was really fun and was known for its coverage of one particularly sordid Capitol Hill sex imbroglio.

Anyhoo, that was a lot time ago. Wonkette was sold and the last time I checked it was so over the top in its political coverage as to be something of a more serious version of The Onion. Gawker, meanwhile, died from hubris. Then came back. Then died. And now is back in a undead form

I’m completely consumed by this blog’s Webstats and, as such, I’ve noticed a minor uptick in traffic for one specific reason — a lot of other people besides me have our looming autocracy or civil war existential choice on the brain. To me, it seems obvious that there is a sweet spot out there in the aether for a blog that would sort of be Wonkette-Gawker-Spy in nature.

It would take both seriously and literally Trump and the entire shit show that is the modern MAGA New Right. People like Jesse Kelly and his “Welcome To The New Right” catch phrase would be our meat and potatoes. We would attack that fucker — and people like him — with all the snark at our deposal. And this new blog would wallow in pacing out what is going to happen in the late 2024 – early 2025 timeframe in regards to autocracy or civil war.

I say “we” only as a rhetorical device. I have tried — and failed — repeatedly to start various new blogs over the years (usually about 1 a year in August). And I’m just not going down that route again. I really — REALLY want to wrap up four novels sooner rather than later and I’m just not going to divert my attention away from that massive project.

But.

If I could get someone with some business sense to join forces with me, I could be convinced to narrow the amount of time I work on those four novels. I have the experience and vision to build the editorial side of a “political Gawker” up from the ground up. I don’t know shit about the business side and would only throw myself into such an endeavor if I could find someone with the money and business sense (and shared political vision) to help me out with the basics of starting such a blog.

And, yet, I’m realistic. I don’t live in a big city and all this writing about this subject is hence very moot. I would love to write for the new, undead Gawker in some capacity, but I don’t live in NYC and, lulz.

I keep telling myself I’m going to stop writing about this particular dream, then I turn around and write about it some more. I think this summer dream will burn itself out by late August. If I can just get a few URL hits from NYC or LA that would be enough to make all this verbiage entertaining.

I have a lot of experience in writing in the Gawker-style (see below) and it’s kind of a shame that just because I have no friends and no one likes me that I can’t find someone, anyone, to be my business partner for something that would probably be quite lucrative and influential.

ROKing Sinchon with Jenny 8

Jennifer 8. Lee likes food.

A lot.

Recently, I hung out with the New York Times reporter and her friend Tomoko Hosaka of the Wall Street Journal here in Seoul.

The plan was for her to go to a jimjilbang with Annie Shapiro and ms. tiff, but that didn’t work out. Tomoko wanted to go to eat “Korean barbeque” and since Annie and Tiff are veggies, they were left out. This story was supposed to be about Annie and Tiff taking Jenny to a jimjilbang and getting all nekkid – now that would have been funny – but there are no happy endings in Korea so you get this write-up instead. I took a picture of the two ladies at the restaurant, but they wouldn’t let me use it. I generally think taking pictures of yourself with famous people is kind of lame, so you, gentle reader, will just have to settle for a picture of the fortune cookie I was given. If Annie and Tiff had done the story, maybe the situation would be different.

On the way to the subway, Jenny kept stopping to eat stuff from street vendors. I had to DJ that Friday night and we had to go all the way across town, so I was starting to stress out a little bit.

Again and again, she would ask me what this or that food was offered at street vendors as we headed towards the subway station. I had no clue. “I eat because I have to, not because I want to,” I told her finally. What else could I say? I

The fact that I met her is a testament not only to this wacky Internet age that we live in, but how being an expatriate in a place like Korea has its quirky advantages.

I met Jenny ’cause I, well, picked on her middle name online. When I first came to Korea I had way too much drunken spare time on my hands, so I often found myself in bouts of soju-fueled writing binges.

“I can not stress enough how odd it is that Jennifer Lee uses an ‘8’ for her middle name. It’s just totally unheard of. It’s like one of the

columns of Western civilization has suddenly become just a little unstable,” I once wrote. “I don’t care that her name really is ‘Jennifer 8. Lee.’ In

years gone by, an editor would have taken one look at it, eyed the flask of Jack Daniels in his desk drawer then said, ‘Look, kid, I don’t care how

lucky the damn number is, you’re going by ‘Jennifer Lee‘ from now on.'”

Her middle name is a lucky number in Chinese culture. How exactly she was able to keep it in her byline eludes me. The fact that she graduated from Harvard University may have something to do with it.

When this actual famous reporter out of the blue contacted me, it both made me very happy and very nervous. She contacted me because she had read some of the shit I had written about her online and she needed some help finding Chinese restaurants in Korea. She’s on sabbatical from the Times to write a book on, like, the best Chinese restaurants in the world or some such. The first time she contacted me, I suddenly felt kinda bad about all the pointless mental masturbation I expended on her.

It’s funny how you can talk shit about a famous person online, but when you actually meet them you treat them like you would anyone else. While she’s no Maureen Dowd, in some media circles, Jennifer 8. Lee is, in fact, “famous” or “notorious.” For people who read Gawker.com, Jenny is shorthand for a reporter who writes seemingly pointless trend stories about things like “man dates.” She had the odd habit of using the phrase, “people of my generation” in a very authoritative tone, like she literally was speaking for everyone her age. “Jenny, you’re younger than I am,” I said teasingly at least once over galbi.

She actually has a rather bubbly, cute personality. My lone meeting with her did leave some1thing of a mystery in my mind — how is it that someone who, in the words of one article “causes $148,000 in damage to her Washington condo” actually be quite nerdy? What the heck does she do? She is obviously an extremely smart woman and from the little mischievous glint in her eye I can see how she probably loves to host a great party. But like all the great reporters I’ve known, she didn’t seem like much of a extrovert. She was quiet and curious about everything.

I picked her up at the Ritz Carlton. When I met her, she handed me a fortune cookie, while I handed her a copy of ROKon. “Fortune cookies are actually originally from Japan, not China,” Jenny said. It was a huge fortune cookie. It looked like a piece of found art. “I’ll either eat it when I’m drunk or crush it when I’m drunk,” I quipped.

I took the women to Sinchon to my favorite Korean restaurant. I go there so much that I’m like a part of the family. Tomoko seemed a bit uneasy hanging out with little old me, while Jenny was a good sport. I wanted to get Tomoko drunk to loosen her up a bit, but she had an early morning date with the DMZ.

At one point, I felt kinda bad for Tomoko. She’s a fairly important journalist in her own right, and all I did was talk to Jenny.

“I know you went to Harvard, Jenny,” I said invoking the “H-bomb” without meaning to, “But where did you go, Tomoko?”

“Northwestern,” she said with just a touch forlornly.

We talked a long time. I talked up ROKon, while the ladies were more interested in the food than anything I had to say. They’re an intense bunch, those two. I told them about knowing another Wall Street Journal reporter, Lina, but neither of them knew her. They were perplexed that they didn’t know her ’cause she has some connection to the Washington Post. Jenny acted like if there was an Asian who worked in any capacity at the Post, she would know her.

I had of vision of taking Jenny to Nori People and being able to see her shake what her momma gave her to my musical selections, but it was not to be. Jenny couldn’t stay. I did take Tomoko and Jenny there just to show it to her. “Oh, this is fun,” she said. You have to give those New York Times reporters credit, they are an observant bunch.

They left a lot sooner than I’d liked. As I said, I had all these grand plans to show them what a fun time we ROKon staffers were. Jenny promised to show me around New York City if I ever happened to end up there. The more I look at that fortune cookie, though, the more it looks like something that rhymes with “Mulva.”

By SHELTON BUMGARNER

ROKon Magazine Editor

De Agony And De Ecstasy Of Ron DeSantis


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If this was the pre-Trump Era, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would be well on his way to being a run-of-the-mill Republican president. He might even be a tick or two better than idiot George W. Bush.

But this is the POST Trump presidency era, and, as such, things are fucking bonkers. Instead of just a run of the mill Republican president, DeSantis, if elected would be more like an American Augustus — the first autocrat of our new post-democracy America.

Ron DeSantis

All the hysterical, dystopian things I’ve been ranting about would happen during his presidency instead of ding-dong Trump’s. DeSantis is young, competent and not only knows how to weld the levers of power, but also how to be Trump without Trump. And, as such, he’s extremely dangerous.

DeSantis could turn into an American Putin and simply never leave office. There is already a well-organized move afoot to get a Constitutional Convention called and given how its members would be selected — via state legislatures — it’s a gimmie that it would codify MAGA “blood and soil” concepts into the Constitution.

And that would be it.

What’s worse, DeSantis is actively killing his own electorate at the moment by denying science when it comes to COVID19 in an effort to curry favor with those sweet, sweet MAGA base votes. We’ve reached the point where MAGA New Right voters are so absolute in their need to “own the libs” because of their abstract fears over Cancel Culture and Critical Race Theory that they would LITERALLY RATHER DIE than see COVID19 for what it is — a lingering national health crisis.

There is one other potential obstacle to DeSantis getting his opportunity to be the founding autocrat of Trumplandia — a 300 lb tub of lard who thinks HE should be the founding autocrat of Trumplandia. Trump is so fucking deranged and unwilling to let go of either power or the spotlight that it’s very easy to imagine him politically shiving DeSantis so he can run again in 2024.

Now, logically, Trump would pick DeSantis as his new veep, paving the way for Trump to put DeSantis in the position of being his autocratic successor. But Trump is a craven idiot who thinks in such a short-term, so it could be we end up with Vice President Michael Flynn instead of Vice President Ron DeSantis.

Anyway, the point is — Trump is such a political history disrupter that he could bend the nature progression of our history simply because he’s self-serving dick head. Or not. Who knows what that guy.

I will note, however, that DeSantis is extremely fucking popular with conservatives in general. But even if everything breaks his way, there are going to be a dozen other would-be autocrats stalking him in an effort to get him to trip up.

And, lastly, don’t forget the real possibility of some sort of civil war should DeSantis win the presidency only via the skullduggery of a MAGA Congress.