I’ve Decided To Manage My Drinking Better

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

They say there’s nothing worse than a dry drunk and with that in mind, I won’t say that I’m going to stop drinking, but I am going to manage it. I’ recently turned 50 and it’s really beginning to hit home that I have a limited amount of time on the planet.

As such, I want to free up some time by not being drunk all the time.

The thing about booze is everyone comes at it from a different direction. Some people think that, by definition, if you drink at all you’re an alcoholic. Meanwhile, I’m of the opinion that my drinking so much has been the result of just pure old laziness.

I feel it’s possible — not probable — that I’ve entered a New Era in my life because it’s really hit home how precious every moment of life is. Something about turning 50 has rattled my cage some.

I have a lot of plans and, yet, I’m not getting any younger. And, what’s worse, even if somehow I miraculously did become a success late in life, the whole context of that success would be different. Sure, I might finally reach my dream of being a fucking smug bi-coastal Twitter liberal looking down on the Poors of middle America as I jet between New York City and LA, but….I will be an Old.

It’s not like I can experience New York City as a wide eyed and bushy tailed 24 year old…ever. The closest I ever came to that situation was in Seoul. Even then, I was in my 30s.

I think…what’s happening is I’m beginning to feel some regret? Is this what it feels like to be an Old?

Anyway, I hope to use my new quasi-sobriety to get a lot of creative work done. I’m not prepared to make any grand pronouncements about how I’m on the wagon now, I’m not.

But I am trying to be more productive.

DeSantis Is Worse Than Trump

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve begun to see some signs that the #NeverTrump movement may be beginning to buckle at little bit now that they don’t have malignant ding-dong Trump to rally against. I saw a headline from The Bulwark, a major #NeverTrump online publication, suggesting that DeSantis is “not worse than Trump.”

This is totally wrong.

First, some context. American democracy is so fragile at the moment — in large part to Republicans not even believing that we ARE a democracy — that, by definition, I believe our next Republican president will be America’s first autocrat.

One way or another, the moment we have another Republican president, that’s it for American democracy. We’re going to slide into a Hungary-like situation where we’re no longer a functioning democracy. There are two ways this might come about.

There’s the brazen — when President DeSantis demands a Constitutional Convention for what sounds like harmless reasons that goes rouge and ultimately codifies MAGA into the Constitution. and there is far more subtle, insidious version.

So, I could see either that the years 2025 – 2033 are a huge struggle over what a Constitutional Convention is going to cram into the Constitution or it could be that we wake up to Speaker (Veep?) DeSantis in 2033 while he figures out how to get the Constitutional Convention.

This is what Putin did, ultimately, and given how popular authoritarianism is within Republican ranks, I don’t see why this won’t happen to America, too. It could be that someone like DeSantis could decide that the fucking so-called “Resistance” is simply too weak to worry about and he will consolidate power in such a way that he gets everything he wants while Morning Joe commentators whine and complain — but ultimately aren’t able to do anything.

DeSantis is worse than Trump because he’s young and focused and knows how to use the levers of power to get what he wants in ways that Trump is too lazy and stupid to do. Though, I will note that if Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee, the chance of some sort of Second American Civil War increases dramatically.

So, DeSantis is far, far worse than Trump and if he’s elected the great fleeing of Twitter liberals will begin and they’ll all sit around drinking white Russians in the south of France, telling me how great MeUndies are on the podcasts.

The Pitch For My Vision of A Twitter Replacement

by Shelt Garner
@shetgarner

They key thing to remember is there is a window of opportunity for a startup to come up with a replacement for Twitter that embraces and extends its existing UX. I propose that a startup cherrypicks the best UX elements of Usenet so you give users what they don’t even realize what they want.

One issue is, instead of little banner ads, you could have very specific full-page ads woven into a thread on a subject where users could buy goods and services without going to a new Website. That’s where you would make your money and that’s what would make the whole thing worthwhile.

A use case would be that a user creates a very-specific Group devoted to, say their favorite TV show — maybe The Last of Us.

It would be one of many other similar Groups devoted to the show. But through data mining, you would know what people in that Group were interested in and you would place a full page ad in such a way that it would be unavoidable as people were going through the thread.

Remember, because the basic building block of this proposed service would be full page Posts with in-lining editing, that really expands what you could do with ads.

Could A Writer’s Strike Prompt Hollywood Studios To Experiment With AI Written Scripts?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was so busy thinking about how a recession might cause the widespread adoption of AI that I totally missed a scenario whereby a Hollywood writers’ strike was the thing that caused it to happen.

The Robots of Hollywood.

So, the thinking goes, should there be a major, long-term Hollywood writers’ strike, the studios might, out of desperation, begin to experiment with AI-generated TV and movie scripts. This sounds pretty dystopian and hysterical, but it’s exactly a shock to the system like a strike that might cause the adoption of AI to write scripts.

And, remember, the issue is — new technology just has to be good enough. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just good enough.

It will be curious to see how things work out. It could be that AI just isn’t developed enough for my fears to become a reality. And, yet, I suspect if a writers’ strike lasts long enough that someone, somewhere is going to at least try to see if they can avoid using human writers altogether.

Examining The Crucial UX Elements Of My Proposed Twitter Replacement

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve finally concluded that I’m totally and completely wasting my time to think about this idea anymore, and, yet I have gotten at least one ping in my Webstats related to this, so, lulz, let’s waste some MORE time.

A sample of my vision for the UX of a Twitter replacement.

Also, it definitely seems as though there is a very, very narrow window of opportunity for someone to actually implement this idea. I’m a dreamer and a writer so, as such, it’s better if I just stick to working on my novel(s) rather than spending years learning how to code something that will ultimately be replaced by a combination of the metaverse and chatbots.

Ok, the key selling point of this concept is is brings back some really cool UX concepts that we somehow lost when Usenet finally succumbed to porn and spam and porn spam. The cool thing about Usenet was you had a full page Posts that were robustly threaded in the context of Groups. What’s more, you had in-line editing.

Usenet

Now, obviously, some of this sums up modern-day Reddit and that would be the thing most people would initially compare the service to because no one remembers Usenet except for weirdos like me. And, in real terms Reddit is the closest approximation to Usenet that exists.

But the implementation is really ham-handed, at least in my view.

Imagine if everyone when they went through on-boarding was forced to created both public and private groups devoted to not just grouping their friends, but also creating the equivalent of really robust Facebook Groups combined with Twitter Lists.

And there would be a lot of innate redundancy in the system, to the point that Groups would be seen as disposable. This would, in turn, reduce the likelihood of not only a Group growing too large, but also the sort of in-ward looking thinking that alienates people who just want to discuss a topic without having to lurk for weeks while they read the Group’s FAQ.

That’s a key element of Twitter — there is almost no learning curve. One can just jump in and start tweeting. The downside to this is, of course, this makes it far easier for trolls and bots to flood the service.

Anyway, if you establish a service where you have a full page Post with in-line editing and robust threading, I think it would be instantly popular. After, of course, people stopped trying to figure out why you had just re-created Reddit (which you hadn’t.)

There are so many cool things you could do with the UX of this service. You could push entire pre-formated Webpages into the service that Users could pick apart via in-ling editing. You could have some sort of profit sharing agreement with content providers whereby they push into the service complete Webpages with their ads already in the pages.

Or something. Something like that.

The point is — none of this is going to happen. While there IS a very narrow window of opportunity because of the current Elon Musk-generated instability at Twitter…no one listens to me.

I, For One, Look Forward To A New Chatbot Media Overlords

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It has occured to me I am looking forward to a future where all media is design and personalized for us all on a individual basis. I struggle — and I mean STRUGGLE — to watch ANYTHING on Netflix. I just can’t find anything at all that interests me that I haven’t already seen.

I think, of course, that some of that comes from how difficult is for me to consume media as opposed to produce it. I find myself producing a great deal of writing every day — not that any of it is usable relative to my personal expectations.

Anyway.

It would be nice sit down in front of a TV, have the set scan my face to figure out what my exact mood at that very moment is and then sit down to watch a two hour movie with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin in it, or whomever. I would have access to thousands of actor’s body scans that my digital personal assistant could use to pump out very specific entertainment that I might actually watch.

But that’s probably a decade or so from now. We’re going to have to wade through a civil war / WW3 before we get cool stuff like that. Hopefully, we won’t bomb ourselves into oblivion to the point that we never get to enjoy such “cool stuff” once the Fourth Turning / Great Reset is over

‘Let the Stars Shine’ — #lyrics to a #pop #rock Song

Let the Stars Shine
lyrics by @sheltgarner
Please give credit if you produce or perform

don’t you fret
the best is yet
to come I swear
give me a chance
let me lance your fears
the worst is behind us
no more to worry about
’cause the stars shine

let the stars shine
way above us
let the stars shine
way above us
let the stars shine
way above us

people want us to fear
what we hold dear
but I know for a fact
that they don’t know
or mean
jack
give me a hug
or maybe a tug
’cause just you wait and see
you’l be safe with me

let the stars shine
way above us
let the stars shine
way above us
let the stars shine
way above us

(bridge)
it’s dark under the clouds
nothing to see but doubt
but throw off the covers
of despair
let’s get down
’cause we’re not
louts

let the stars shine
way above us
let the stars shine
way above us
let the stars shine
way above us

This Is 50

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, this is 50. It’s a time of reflection and a moment to figure out what the fuck is going to happen next in my life. I’m having a very, very uneventful 50th. I had all these grand plans of going to New York City…but I just wasn’t able to save up the money.

Instead, here I am getting drunk, listening to sexxxy music and writing.

But I still have a dream of somehow, someway finding myself doing something interesting soon (by the summer of 2024) involving maybe going to New York City, LA or even Asia for an extended amount of time.

And, yet, I’ve reached an age — and have done so little with my life in real terms — that I beginning to fear that the window of opportunity has finally, at last closed. Even if I magically became some sort of success at some point in the future, the context will be totally different than I imagined.

Instead of starting a career, settling down and having kids I’m going to be so old that that, unto itself, will be the only thing anyone will want to talk about.

“What’s it like finding success later in life,” everyone will say.

I suppose it’s better to find SOME success later in life than NO success, EVER. But I think the key issue is all of this snuck up on me. I just did not really expect this to happen to me. It’s not like I can fix this particular situation, even if, in a sense, fix it.

I just can’t change how old I am.

Everything from here on out will be done in the context of me being 20 to 30 years older than the way it’s “supposed” to be done. It’s kind of tearing me up inside, I have to day.

Because, even if I somehow magically found myself in LA for an extended amount of time….I’m old. All the personality in the world isn’t going to help me change how fucking old I am or what I look like as An Old.

There’s just no fixing how old I am, no matter what else I may do with my life. It’s all very deep and disheartening. But, I suppose, it is also incentive to double down and try — try — to finish my first novel. My writing and storytelling ability has gotten much, much, much better since I started working on my first novel, to the point that I feel pretty comfortable spending some of my time working on a second, backup novel.

Anyway.

Let’s Play Pretend & Speculate Wildly As To Why People Searched For Me On LinkedIn

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a total rando in the middle of nowhere at the moment, so anyone being interested in me for any reason, is something of note in my personal life. Hence, my obsession with the Webstats of this lonely old blog. But let’s turn our attention to something else — people who have searched for my name on LinkedIn.

Who, me (right) paranoid?

Here is what I know:

Founder  37.5%
This could be anybody, but maybe it’s someone connected to Crooked Media because I’ve pointed out that it’s odd how much Jon Lovett hasn’t been showing up for work — even his signature show Lovett or Leave It? Who knows, it could be pretty much anyone.

Executive Director  25%
Sounds like some sort of non-profit. Or not. Could be anyone with that title for any reason.

Salesperson  12.5%
I’m at a loss on this one.

Lawyer  12.5%
This one is, on the face of it, ominous. Why would a lawyer care about anything I have to say? Note to self — stop being so paranoid.

Government Policy Specialist  12.5%
This one is interesting. It could be anything from someone who is a listener to Crooked Media podcasts being curious as to who I am because of me mulling Jon Lovett’s fate to someone who works at some sort of thinktank who saw one of my spicy hot takes.

Who knows?

So Very Strange

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A few days ago, I thought really hard about the time many moons ago when I slept overnight at a hostel. Well, would you believe that I got pushed a Tik-Tok just now about that VERY SAME THING — someone worried about sleeping at a hostel.

Because that was the memory I thought about — how unhappy I was as an Old sleeping at a hostel. And there it was, a video of a young woman looking very concerned about the risks associated with sleeping at a hostel.

I know — know — it’s not possible that Tik-Tok is actively rooting around in my mind.

But…it is very eerie. I didn’t tell anyone about this memory. I didn’t tweet or blog about it. Only *I* specifically knew that I was even aware of such a situation in the first place.