Category: Media

We Have To Have A Frank Discussion As Society About The Looming Need For a #UBI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

With the release of ChatGPT 4.0, it is yet even more apparent that there is a risk that huge swaths of the American economy may be eaten by AI far sooner than we would like. The first test of this will be, of course, the coming Hollywood writers’ strike.

If studios can successfully write professional-grade scripts using ChatGPT, then, well, there you go. Before you know it, instead of subscribing to a streaming service, we’ll all just pay $15 a month to access to the body scans of Hollywood stars so an AI can pump out very, very specific entertainment to us on a regular basis.

The end of mass media will have arrived.

But I’m really growing alarmed that a lot of high end, white collar jobs may goo poof within a few years as AI grows better and better. And we’re just not prepared for what happens when everyone from semi-drivers to tech bros simply don’t have any jobs available to them anymore.

As such, we need to start thinking about how we might implement a Universal Basic Income. The obvious way to me seems we “bribe” plutocrats by replacing the entire tax system with a 30% VAT while also having some sort of montified UBI deployed.

That seems to be the type of thing that might allow us to get a UBI.

But there is the darker scenario where we, well, have a civil war / WW3 and it’s not until after THAT is all sorted out that things like AI really begin to take off, much like TV and WW2.

Who knows.

Give It A Rest, Riley Keough — We All Know Whose Granddaughter You Are

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m hooked on the TV show Daisy Jones & The Six. It’s really good and it’s really helping me with some of the finer points of character development in the novel I’m working on at the moment.

Give it a rest, babe.

But, I have to note that Riley Keough is being EXTREMELY DISINGENUOUS when it comes to her singing ability. She acts like the granddaughter of Elvis would not be musically inclined.

She goes way out of her way to act as if she’s oblivious to why she got the starring role in the show. I suppose some of it has to do with she’s afraid of being dismissed as a nepobaby and doesn’t want people to see her just as the granddaughter of Elvis.

Maybe? Is that what’s going on?

Anyway, I think she’s great and very talented. My quibbles are more about how she’s trying to frame herself in the public eye than anything else.

Jesus, I Hope I’m Wrong

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though the United States is careening towards autocracy or civil war starting at some point around late 2024, early 2025. My thinking is –we just aren’t going to make it through the passions of the 2024 presidential election cycle.

When your best case scenario if your country slides peacefully into autocracy, you’re definitely in a “Not great, Bob,” situation. But that’s where we are at the moment. I just don’t see the United States being able to punt the structural problems of our democracy down the road anymore.

Late 2024, early 2025 is it — Something Big is going to happen.

It could be as dramatic as civil war, or it could be something far more subtle where someone like a President DeSantis becomes America’s Putin and we are an autocracy in all but name. What I mean by this is, it’s possible that we could become a zombie democracy, with the only indication of anything having changed be how many smug Twitter liberals now live outside the country to do their smug podcasts.

We’ll all wake up in 20 years and wonder why Canada is being invaded to “save it from the woke cancel culture mob.”

Ugh.

But there is, of course, the far darker scenario — there is a National Divorce with either the Reds leaving the Union or the Blues leaving the Union. I don’t want either one of those things to happen, but it’s something we have to start taking seriously.

It could happen. It really could.

But who knows. It’s still too far out for us — or at least me — to get some sense of what might actually happen. One scenario is Reds leave the Union instead of Blues because Trump doesn’t get the GQP nomination and when he splits the conservative vote he freaks out and demands Red states leave the Union because he’s an idiot, not realizing they want to take him up on it.

Anyway. God good luck, folks. You may very well need it.

This is Hilarious: Allegedly, Kaia Gerber & Cara Delevingne Were Back At It After The Oscars

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Pete Davidson may get all the PR for his “big dick energy,” but it’s Cara Delevingne who is the DL MVP of Hollywood’s collective sexlife. The woman can not be stopped.

Just “friends.”

But her amazing ability to bed female celebrities is obscured because Hollywood doesn’t want us Poors to know what’s going on. If the Hollywood press was clear about what they knew of Delevingne sapphic exploits, it would raise a lot of questions from us Poors that they the Powers That Be would just rather not be asked.

The issue — we Poors just can’t process that the amount of bi-sexualism found in the upper ranks of society. This is especially the case for women. The Elite hold we Poors in such low regard, that they actively gaslight us whenever Delevingne beds yet ANOTHER high end Hollywood starlet.

What I care about is not so much who Delevingne beds, but the fact that the Hollywood press is gaslighting us. This is really grating on my nerves when things like this happen — apparently, Cindy Crawford’s daughter might be hooking up with Delevingne, despite having a “boyfriend.”

The rumor mill has it that the two women were all over each other at some post-Oscar function. I first became aware that they were OBVIOUSLY fucking when I saw a picture of the two women in a two-person cardigan gifted to them by none other than Taylor Swift of all people.

Given that fucking Delevingne is some sort of rite of passage for any hot woman in Hollywood, the idea that the Hollywood press would wilfully not mention what was going on between the two women when the picture was taken is very, very annoying to me

Just tell the fucking truth, people.

Holy Shit

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Writing it may take me longer than I hope, but I’m really feeling great about the state of my second draft. It’s actually professional-grade storytelling. I’m really leaning into character this go round.

I’m ecstatic.

A lot and I mean A LOT could still go wrong. Writers are known for dying unexpectedly for dumb reasons. And, yet, you know, you have to have hope. After years and years of spinning my wheels, I finally, finally feel like I’m living up to my “potential” that the late Annie Shapiro claimed I have.

At 50, I’m old as hell, but, fuck you. (wink.)

My hope is, of course, that now things will speed up significantly. I have the cornerstone of the story, so the rest of it SHOULD flow really fast.

I hope.

A Darkness Looms

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We have all feared that there might some sort of moderate-to-severe recession in America in 2023 for a variety of reasons. With the demise of Silicon Valley Bank and the risk that the United States may default because Republicans are cocksucker, it definitely seems as though those fears may be realized.

My overarching fear is, of course, that all the conditions are being established for a massive political and historic clusterfuck in late 2024, early 2025 as I have long predicted. If the American economy is in some sort of Great Recession 2.0 on Election Day 2024, the probability that MAGA Nazis will seize power in the United States once and for all.

Or, of course, Blue States refuse to bend a knee to autocratic MAGA fascism and we have a National Divorce and, as such, a civil war. So, it’s going to be Blues, not Reds, who start any civil war we may have in the future.

There is, of course, the small possibility that somehow, someway we’ll punt the massive structural problems that America faces down the road.

But I have my doubts.

It definitely seems as though we face the existential choice of MAGA autocracy or civil war. That’s it. One of the two. Either or or. And if the United States is suffering from a moderate or severe recession at the time we all go to the polls definitely seems as though we’re pretty fucked.

But the issue is that I simply can’t predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen, I just am working on hunches and gaming out macro factors down the road.

‘You Don’t Have To Leave’ — #lyrics to a #Pop #rock #ballad

‘you don’t have to leave’
written by @sheltgarner
Please give credit if you produce or perform

I want to believe
that you don’t have to leave
here we are face to face
fighting through this disgrace
in the end no matter what
you don’t have to flee
you don’t have to leave
you don’t have to leave
you don’t have to leave

I want you in my face
a kiss would be great
but just a sneer would suffice
if that’s in the dice
you’re all I hope
and can expect
just in the end
don’t grin on your way out the door

you don’t have to leave
you don’t have to leave
you don’t have to leave

(bridge)
the booze is too much
stay another night
’cause no matter what
we’re in it to win it
that I believe
no matter what
the outside may believe

you don’t have to leave
you don’t have to leave
you don’t have to leave
you don’t have to leave
you don’t have to leave
you don’t have to leave

‘Something Of My Own’ — #lyrics to a #Pop #Rock song

‘something of my own’
written by @sheltgarner
Please given credit if you produce or perform

no need to run
no need to hide
I’m here all alone
hoping to have
something of my own
something of my own
something of my own

they all say
much to my dismay
how much we should ally pray
if we want to have another day
but all I want I must confess
is something to call my own

something of my own
I moan
something of my own
I moan
something of my own
I moan

let’s have another drink
before there’s a stink
girls without tops
pull out all the stops
when you’re building something true
’cause
all I want is something of my own
I moan

something of my own
I moan
something of my own
I moan
something of my own
I moan

(bridge)
I’m no slave to you
I’ll do what I do
owning your heart
is just a start
I confess what’s making blue
you are just confused

something of my own
I moan
something of my own
I moan
something of my own
I moan

‘I Don’t Read’ – #lyrics to a #pop #rock song

I Don’t Read
please credit @sheltgarner

I don’t read
but I can read your legs
the ones a mile high
that make me bite my knuckle
not knowing where they end

I don’t read
but I know what matters most
I don’t read
but quench my thirst
I don’t read
but so what you’re the best
for this man whose the worst

your inner though
is divine
there’s no excuse
for me not to stare
when you walk into a room
your little black dress
makes me want
to carress your ass
with a bit of sass

I don’t read
but I know what matters most
I don’t read
but quench my thirst
I don’t read
but so what you’re the best
for this man whose the worst

(bridge)
the snow is pure
when you’re ready lure
people to their doom
don’t you worry one bit
I won’t let you fret

I don’t read
but I know what matters most
I don’t read
but quench my thirst
I don’t read
but so what you’re the best
for this man whose the worst

‘Every Lie Is True’ — #Lyrics To A #Pop #Rock #Ballad

“Every Lie Is True”
Please credit @sheltgarner

every lie is true
when you’re in love

there’s nothing you can do
to change the course of fate
when I’m in love with you

every lie is true
every lie is true
every lie is true
when I’m in love with you
when I’m in love with you
when I’m in love with you

can’t say it enough
I know you like it rough
but loving you ain’t easy
when every lie is the truth

every lie is true
every lie is true
every lie is true
when I’m in love with you
when I’m in love with you
when I’m in love with you

let’s skip to the part
where we make love in the dark
having you by my side
just makes me sigh
and remember that

(bridge)
the facts are the facts
and that’s no sass
I look you in the eye
knowing it’s all a lie
it’ll all come to an end
but I’m willing to sin
when every lie is true
when I’m in love with you

every lie is true
every lie is true
every lie is true
when I’m in love with you
when I’m in love with you
when I’m in love with you