Category: Media

Dave Chappelle’s New Netflix Special Leaves Me Conflicted

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I loved Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special “The Dreamer.” He’s probably the best storyteller alive and he knows how to tell a joke. And, yet, he continues to think “edgy” means “bigoted” when it comes to the trans community. Whenever he made one of those type jokes, I thought about what would have happened if some member of the Rat Pack had made a racist joke back in the day.

But, I suppose, the case can be made that gender isn’t race. Or something. Something like that. The whole thing makes me very uncomfortable in more ways than one. I think there’s room enough room in this world for all God’s chillens and there’s no need to pick on transgender people.

What’s more, I just discovered that one of my favorite new artists Ethel Cain was born a dude with the name Hayden Silas Anhedönia. (Though I suspect Cain’s “male” last name is made up, given how close the surname is to the word for the inability to feel pleasure.)

They say intelligence is the ability to hold to contradictory ideas in your mind at the same time and when it comes to Chappelle, I definitely am doing that. I really liked The Dreamer, and, yet, given how amazingly talented Cain is…I also feel angry that Chappelle went out of his way to attack the transgender community.

I dunno. I just feel really conflicted about the whole thing and there’s no easy answer.

Come On, New Jersey, Name Jon Stewart To The Senate & Be Legends — If The Opportunity Arises

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez is in something of a political pickle. It is at least *possible* that he will resign or be expelled before the end of the year. I’ve heard of a few names floated to replace him should that happen, but they’re all dull.

Jon Stewart

It seems to me that as the US could very well be careening towards autocracy or civil war / revolution that it sure would be nice if someone like Jon Stewart was Senator Jon Stewart.

But that’s very much my personal delusion. Stewart has shown no interest in any sort of retail political career, yet I will note those times that he has dabbled in politics he’s been VERY EFFECTIVE.

Lulz, what do I know.

Third Time’s The Charm?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve been writing a lot about how we might get rid of Tyrant Trump should he be re-elected late this year. While I’ve blathered on about very speculative ideas about him being “deposed” by the U.S. Military using the 14th Amendment as some sort of legal cover, in reality given American history, what would probably happen is just a regular old impeachment.

I say this because if Trump went full tyrant in a very ham-handed way, that, by definition, would be an abuse power, and as such, an impeachable offence. There is the issue, of course the chief issue is who would be in charge of the House in 2025.

If it’s Republicans, then holy shit would things have to get very, very, very bad before there would be any talk of an impeachment. Meanwhile, if Agenda 47 was implemented the way we’ve been told and Democrats control the House, Trump could very well be at least impeached within a few months of being sworn in.

But there are a lot complications.

If Trump has gone full tyrant when he’s impeached and things head over to the Senate for trail, the country would literally have to be on the cusp of a Glorious Revolution for him to be convicted — especially if Republicans controlled the Senate.

And some unpreceded things would have to be going on for Trump to be convicted. An actual General Strike that was actually in place and working would be the only way I can imagine that Trump would come anywhere near being convicted in the Senate.

And…maybe…if Republican Senators were leaving the Senate in droves to help organize some sort of “rebel” Trumplandia government as all of this was going on then, yeah, I guess it’s possible Trump might get convicted. But he would probably just fly to some safe rebel Red state and plot his revenge.

But that’s all very speculative and just my usual hysterical doom shit. It could be that either Trump loses and MAGA fades in power, or he wins and so many smug, wealthy Twitter liberals will be too busy leaving the country to organize any sort of effective direct action against our new Red King.

Who knows. Not me.

The Heroine Of My Novel Has A Very Messy Love Life

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are moving quickly now with the alpha release of the third draft of my first novel. As I move into the second act, I am taken aback by how…messy…my heroine’s love life is. It’s so messy that I could even see that being played up in the marketing should I sell this thing.

In my mind, my heroine looks a lot like Corrie Yee.

One issue I really struggle with is the same-sex relationship aspects of this story which have grown in the third draft. I struggle with it because the novel is set in late 1994, early 1995 and A LOT has changed since then when it comes to people’s perceptions of such things.

With that in mind, I think in the beta release of the third draft, I’m going to try to make the fact that my heroine is in a lingering romantic relationship with a young woman A Big Deal that people mention in a very 1990s way. That will add drama and conflict to the story while making it more realistic. A lot has changed in the last 30 odd years on that front and I can’t pretend that even the less-controversial lesbian relationship would be all rainbows and unicorns for those involved in it.

Anyway, things are going really well at the moment. I’m very pleased. But I still have a lot of work to do to get this third draft anywhere near being good enough to show to a paid manuscript consultant. And, given how fucking broke I am, I am beginning to fear that is an element of my trek towards querying that I just won’t be able to do.

We’ll see.

I’m Aghast At The Idea Of A Second American Civil War Starting In Late 2024, Early 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am not a violent man. I’m a man of peace. A man of ideas. I hate guns with all my heart. What’s more, I, in general, hate even basic conflict and will do everything in my power to avoid it. Having said all that, I also refuse to be intimidated by people on the Right who seem to be chomping at the bit for a Second American Civil War.

I once had a boss who would scream at the top of his lungs over a phone bill, but when he had to vote about the arrival of Wal-Mart to town (he was on Town Council) he pretty much just said, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

And that’s how I feel about the prospect of a civil war. I don’t want one, but don’t try to browbeat me into submission by threatening to start one. It is growing more and more obvious that MAGA is a fascist, bad-faith movement that wants to rule, not govern. They want to turn us into a white Christian ethnostate that will inevitably slouch into excess that will transform American life.

Now, this is the point where I remind you that I can’t predict the future. It could be that all of this is a lot of words over something that isn’t going to happen. We are just going to punt our problems down the road and that will be that. But the MAGA Right loves to use the threat of civil war as a way to spook the center-Left into doing their bidding.

And I say, fuck that. If you are such crybabies — snowflakes — then shake your money maker and attempt to leave the Union should either Trump lose or Trump win and then be deposed / impeached and convicted because he goes full tyrant.

Don’t threaten me with a good time.

I believe that the ideals that Blue states organize themselves under are true and right and are no less honorable than those of the North during the first American Civil War. I don’t want violence, but there is such a thing as a Good War and I refuse to be scared into submission at the threat of a civil war.

Please, God, let’s not have any of this happen. I just want to live in a traditional liberal democracy. That should not be such a big deal.

What Caused The Second American Civil War?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If there is new, second civil war, the question of what caused it will be just as potentially controversial and complex as that of the first. But to me, I think just as slavery is the simple answer for what caused the First Civil War, the Second Civil War was caused by one word: abortion.

I say this because, in a sense, abortion is an economic system as much as it is a form of birth control. Where the population of a state lands on the legality of abortion pretty much aligns with if they’re a Blue or Red state. This is a very simplistic point of view — there are some obvious exceptions — but I guess what I’m trying to point out is that if the dominate political party of your state does everything in its power to make abortion absolutely illegal then you’re probably living in a Red state.

Of course, the REAL answer for what caused the 2ACW is, well vibes.

Pretty much the United States is being torn apart by how the two sides perceive each other. Or, to put an even more fine point on it, the issue of how MAGA perceives itself in relation to Blues is what will be the cause of the 2ACW. MAGA is a classic late-stage-empire movement.

It’s about retrenchment combined with the once majority ethnic group — white people — feeling resentment about the growing encroachment of brown and black people. So, in a sense, while slavery was the clear cut macro issue that led to the 1ACW, the 2ACW is about not one clear-cut macro issue, but a number of such issues that all could be referred to under the rubric of “abortion.”

Just from the conversations I’ve had with my far more conservative relatives, it definitely seems as though Trump will have a huge amount of slack should he get re-elected and go full tyrant. It won’t be until it starts to get personal that my Traditioinalist relatives — whom I love dearly — might begin to have second thoughts.

That will be the moment of truth, not just for them, but for the nation in general on a macro level.

Of course, it could be too late by that point.

Can The American Union Be Saved?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The Right in the United States is making it very clear what its agenda going into the 2024 Election cycle is, as can be seen from this tweet.

When the American Right is openly talking about such anti-woman policies, it really begins to test my faith in the continued unity of the United States. I say this because the American Right through a combination of having a decades of momentum and its manipulation of our rotting political system, is probably going to make all of its dystopian hellscape dreams come true.

Which, in turn, makes one wonder — what will be the political consequences of them, yet again, catching the car? There are a few possible endgames. One is, they catch the car and rather than doing anything about it, about a million wealthy, well educated Americans on the center-Left just leave the country. Meanwhile, another option is Trump wins in 2024, he pushes the agenda above in such a ham-handed way that he is impeached and convicted or even deposed by the U.S. Military, which will, in turn cause Red States will leave the Union.

Those are just two possibilities. It could be that we just punt our problems down the road another four years by going some “third way” that I just can’t predict at the moment. But all the momentum is with the American Right’s anti-woman agenda at the moment and, as such, it definitely seems as though one way or another we’re all going to be pushed to the breaking point in late 2024, early 2025.

Either because Trump loses and he screams bloody murder about the need for a National Divorce to keep him, specifically, out of jail, or he wins, get deposed and Red States leave the Union as a sort of counter-revolution. But the key thing we have to consider is what the “Red Line” is for Traditionalists — especially Traditionalists women.

Remember, the US is a huge, diverse and decentralized country. Many non-MAGA conservatives just want kids back in cages. But when Traditionalists women get charged for having a miscarriage after the above agenda is introduced nationwide….it’s possible some unexpected political events might happen.

At the moment, at lot of Traditionalists live in a La La Land where they think, “Oh, no one would ever come after birth control.” And when the Right does, in fact, go after birth control….then what? Are they just going to shrug, or might they become Radical Moderates?

Only time will tell.

Finally Reached The End Of The First Act Of The Third Draft of My First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Months past when I thought it would happen, I finally reached the end of the first act of the third draft of my first novel. Now, things should move far faster because I’ve pretty much written the remainder of this story twice before and know it really well.

The problem was for months was I did not know what type of new relationships I wanted in the third draft. So, I kept spinning my wheels. Finally, however, things have clicked and I understand a new, improved vision for the story. Of course, I’ve changed the first act so much that I now have to go through and change a lot of the rest of the novel to accommodate it.

But, we’ll see. I hope that I can zoom through the rest of the novel to the point that I can finish at least an Alpha Release of the third draft by around April 1st. Then, I will go through and make things consistent and work on fleshing out characterizations.

I’m feeling pretty good, all things considered. I still hope to start work on some backup stories using the skillset I’ve come up with during the last few years of hard work on this novel.

I really want to make a living as a novelist / screenwriter from here on out.

Someone Needs To Tell Tim Pool That A Second American Civil War Would Fucking Suck


By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Apparently, I’m not the only one with a second American civil war on the brain. I still am curious what green haired woman at Vice broke that poor man’s heart to the point that he turned to a raving MAGA lunatic. But, anyway, while I write a lot about a civil war, it’s not like I *want* one.

I just feel compelled to game different scenarios out because I don’t want to have some sort of abstract fear hanging over my head.

Anyway, it’s par for the course for people like Pool to scream at the top of their lungs that we *should* have a civil war. Ugh. A civil war would be a massive tragedy not just for how much it would fucking suck in the US, but how WW3 would break out if it actually happened.

We Might All Suffer From Groupthink When It Comes To Trump’s Popularity

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We still haven’t actually had anyone vote one way or another when it comes to Trump in either Iowa or New Hampshire, so it’s at least *possible* we all have some sort of lingering group PTSD over what happened in 2016 and we’re wildly overestimating Trump’s actual popularity.

The scenario I have in my mind at the moment is Trump gets trounced in both the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire Primary and we all spend about a month mentally masturbating about the possibility that “Trump is done” or that he might run third party.

Then, of course we reach South Carolina and lulz, Trump comes roaring back and eventually everyone else drops out. But I don’t know. I really got burned in 2020 by overestimating Trump. He is so dumb and lazy and such an avatar for deep problems in our political system that maybe his win in 2016 was just a quirk of history and, as such, it’s over for him.

I just don’t know. That seems a little too good to be true, and, yet, as 2020 proved, stranger things have happened.