Dua Lipa ‘Unrelatable’ Discourse Is The Stupidest Discourse

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Jesus Christ. I heard a snippet from a New York Times podcast where some smug Twitter liberal suggested that, and here me out on this, Dua Lipa wasn’t as popular as she could be because she…wasn’t relatable?

Dua Lipa

What the what?

Now, one thing I have to get off my chest about Dua Lipa is she really needs to take a page from Rita Ora and be willing to “accidently on purpose” give her fans a little T&A now and again. As it stands, occasionally Lipa will give us plebs a sexxy snap….but it all very controlled. We get some skin….but not too much skin.

Anyway, the point is Dua Lipa is a smoking hot babe who has managed to figure out how to play into our idiot need for salacious titillation without really showing much skin. I’m impressed that she’s figured out that we’re all a bunch of fucking morons who mistake a short skirt (even with a bodysuit under it) as some sort of sexxy event.

But I think we should lay off Dua Lipa. She may not have much soul — she still struggles to dance — but she is hot as hell and has an exceptional voice. So all the talk about smug Twitter liberals about how her career is being held back by how unrelatable she is, is just fucking bullshit.

She has real stage presence and she’s about as famous as they come, no need to be more relatable. And all my talk about wishing we could get some “accidentally on purpose” sexxy T&A snaps is just me having grown up when Madonna was running around with no clothes on.

Watch Me Try To Figure Out What’s Going On With Emrata

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hate to inform you gentle reader, but I’m intoxicated. As such, find myself going a flight of fancy about what exactly is up with the single best looking woman in the public sphere — Emily Ratajkowski. In short, I’m drunk and I feel like overthinking Emrata’s dating agenda.

Emrata

Ok. We know that Emrata is a single mom. We know she’s got a very languid and sexual personality. So, now that she’s divorced, she’s sort of sowing her wild oats. She’s still reasonably young, so, lulz. I guess the only quibble I have is Emrata sems to go out of her way to have PR relationships. What I really struggle with is..what’s the point?

Why not find just find hyper attractive man — or woman — and just settle down with them. Or, if nothing else, have an actual relationship with someone, not just a string of PR relationships. Emrata is sufficiently self-aware that I can only imagine that she’s kind of playing with our collective minds with all these PR relationships.

If nothing else, she looks happy, from the pictures I’ve seen of her with man after man in a PR relationship. That’s better than a lot of us can say, you know? I still keep expecting her to dip into the lady pond in a very conspicuous, public way that will get people talking. The ideal woman for her to fuck would be, of course, Julia Fox.

Now THAT would get people talking.

Anyway. Lulz. No one cares what I think.

Class Is A Very Corrosive Social Issue

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s very interesting how in America we’re so busy talking about racism that we are pretty oblivious to another prejudice: class. I can usually fake a similar class as the smug asshole Twitter liberals who want to sell me MeUndies on their podcast. That is, until, of course, my natural bonkers kookiness comes out and they dismiss me.

Also, I’m just too poor — at the moment — for smug Blue Check liberals to accept me in any real way, no matter how much they probably would like me if they got to know me.

And that, my friend, is why class sucks.

I could win the $1.1 billion Mega Millions jackpot and it wouldn’t change how old I am and it wouldn’t change my class background. I have a relative who is far more successful than I am who acts like he’s some salt of the earth red neck when, in fact, if we both went to a cocktail party with snooty wealthy people they would definitely gravitate towards him in the end.

I would, however, probably get drunk in such a situation and have very loud, very interesting conversations with the best looking woman at the party. That’s just sort of my thing.

Anyway, the older I get the more I understand the invisible power of class. When I was an expat in South Korea, there was a regular communist utopia going on because everyone was getting paid about the same amount and everyone was doing pretty much the same thing for a living. The only real differences were one of origin, which is why you often get asked, “Where you from?” when you saddle up to a bar and find yourself talking to someone new.

As I approach my 50th birthday, I’m feeling a lot of existential angst because no matter what happens to me there are some things I just can’t change because of my dissipated, squandered youth.

Working On A Novel In A Vacuum Sucks

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m so desperate that I often find myself chatting up random people about my novel in an effort to get some sense of what to do with it. I spoke to a bartender recently and she gave me some insight that helped with a crucial element of the project — what the fuck is this story about?

My dream title for my first novel.

That has been a real problem to date. There is so much going on with this novel that I have struggled to figure out how to start it. I just didn’t have a handle on context. I was really having a lot of problems figuring out the open scene because I didn’t know what to focus on to give the reader some sense of the nature of the story.

But something the bartender said helped, I think, to give me just a nudge of direction so I can begin to work on writing this novel in earnest again. This second draft is turning out to be significantly better than the first, but, as I mentioned, I’m doing all of this in a vacuum because I have no friends and no one likes me….so it can be tough at times.

This project has taken much, much, much longer than necessary simply because I just haven’t had anyone to bounce ideas off of on a regular basis. I don’t have a “Reader” in other words. I think I need to do more reading myself if I’m going to make this the best story possible.

Garp had a “Reader.”

It is going to be interesting to see if I come out the other side of the project with something compelling enough that it can catch the attention of a literary agent. I worry a lot about how much of a drunk crank I can come across as to literary agents. But you take yourself wherever you go. I’m too old to worry too much about changing or hiding who I am.

I am who I am and if you don’t like it, fuck off. wink.

I do wish I still had enough money floating about to be able to go to New York City once a quarter like I used to. Those writer’s retreats were really relaxing and energizing at the same time and give me a lot of motivation to get something done so I could continue to dream about being a successful novelist and, as such one of those smug “bi-coastal” people who laugh at people in Iowa as they bounce back and for between New York City and LA.

Keep the faith.

Countdown To Emrata Dating Cara Delevingne

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know about you, but I sure did like it better when Emily Ratajkowski was married to her cheating shithead husband. It seems as though the woman has decide to have a PR relationship with every single dude in showbiz and it’s beginning to make me roll my eyes.

Emrata

But given her status as a “pick me girl,” it is pretty much inevitable at this point that Emrata is going to date a woman in a really public manner. The woman she probably is going to it with is the go-to showbiz lesbian lothario Cara Delevingne. It almost seems an immutable force of future history that this is going to happen.

Of course, I suppose someone like Fletcher or Miley Cyrus might get in on the Emrata “walk on the wild side” action at some point. Emrata needs to chill out. I get that she just wants to bounce around with different dudes (and eventually women) but she’s so famous that it probably would be in her best interests just to find someone, anyone and stick with them for a little while.

Emrata’s future girlfriend?

I have to give Emrata credit, despite having one of the most languid personalities ever, she does manage to be consistently interesting and self-aware.

The ‘Woke Cancel Culture Mob’ is Driving Traditionalists Into The Arms Of Fascism

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me be clear — I’m well aware that to be a “centrist” these days is to be complicit in the rise of fascism. Pick a side, or a side will be chosen for you against your will.

Having said that, I continue to grow more and more alarmed at how my Traditionalist relatives are primed and ready to give up their American birthright of democracy because of how much they fear their lives being ruined by the “woke cancel culture mob” just because they don’t agree with the established narrative on a variety of cultural issues.

In short, we’re pretty fucked.

On a macro level, America has kind of given up even trying when it comes to having any sort of debate about the major issues of the day. And, as such there are two major possible outcomes — civil war or autocracy. At the moment, it definitely seems as though we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy under a DeSantis presidency.

American democracy will die not with a civil war, but with a whimper. We’ll just shrug and wake up in 20 years to President DeSantis invading Canada for some weird reason.

But, I have to admit that I’m always wrong, so who knows. Anything could happen, I suppose. And, yet, America really does have a serious fascism problem — fascism is extremely popular in the US at the moment — and something gotta give sooner rather than later.

Once More, With Vigor

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. I spent all morning fleshing out an outline AGAIN. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — having an obsessive personality sure does help whenever you want to be creative. Roughly 10 days after my deadline of January 1st, 2023, I find myself pretty much at ground zero with the second draft of this novel.

My dream title for my first novel.

Having said that, things continue to improve with this novel in leaps and bounds. I’m growing in confidence on a structural and character development basis. My two concerns at the moment are how long the first act is scene wise and how long it’s going to take me to finish this second draft.

The first act is a little bit too long at the moment, at least from a scene count point of view. But the third act is a little bit short, so I’m hoping that won’t be that big a deal. Also, I’m determined to save up for an editor after the beta reader process is completed so that might be how I figure out how to get closer to the 100,000 word sweetspot for a first novel.

As for how long all of this is taking — I’ve resigned myself to querying not in fall 2023, but early 2024. I hope to start a few other novels between now and then so when the potentially long process of querying begins I’ll have something to while I wait.

To do all of that, however, I’m going to have to give my life a lot more structure than it currently has. I can’t just keep drifting through life forever. I need to give myself some self-imposed metrics that I have to meet on a daily basis so I can actually squeeze out a first novel before I drop dead — or am so old that it’s just silly.

Because age isn’t just a number. Being old sucks and the sooner I come to grips with how being old limits my ability to do what I always though I could do, the better. As such, I really, really need to be querying my first novel no later than around a year from now.

My Views On The Trans Movement

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In general, I’m completely blase about the Trans movement. I just don’t care. Live and let live, as they say. And I saw a very interesting Tik-Tok that really explained to me that on an even a biological basis, the issue of “What is a woman?” is not nearly as cut-and-dried as one might think.

But.

My issue is not with Trans people or the Trans movement. My issue is with the very strict orthodoxy that has arisen around the issue among some on the Left, to the point that there can’t be any debate at all. I fucking hate orthodoxy of any sort because it limits one’s ability to think freely. And, besides, I’m generally too laid back to be partisan enough to be able to care about an orthodoxy in the first place.

The reason why the Trans orthodoxy is so troubling to me is its existence plays right into the hands of MAGA cocksuckers who see the opportunity to demagogue the issues surrounding the Trans movement. That, in turn, plays into the rise of fascism in America. I spend most of my time when I debate my Traditionalist relatives having to get past their belief that the “woke cancel culture mob” is going to destroy their Christian lives because they believe being gay is “a sin.”

If America had a functioning political system, we would sort out — in a way that pleased no one totally — what to do with the Trans movement. That’s how democracies are supposed to work. But just from my personal experience, I can tell you that there is a vast amount of disinformation flowing out of the Right Wing podcast echochamber. All kinds of conflated bullshit is bouncing around that echochamber, being warped and magnified along the way.

The whole situation is fucked up. While I don’t agree with my Traditionalist relatives, who I think suffer from a bad case of “gay scare,” I do understand where they’re coming from. And seeing them grow more fascist and radicalized because of the touchy nature of the Trans movement is very alarming to me. I really would rather not live in a fascist state because the people who would otherwise be the bedrock of any functioning democracy — Traditionalists — are being driven into the arms of fascists.

A DeSantis Presidency Would Mean The End Of American Democracy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The Republican Party, on an existential basis, no longer believes in traditional American democracy. They’re fascists and, as such, the moment they gain the presidency again, that’s it, the end. It’s not like Republicans hide this cold hard, fact, either — they won’t shut up about how they think the United States is a “constitutional republic” and NOT a democracy.

So, the clock is ticking. It definitely seems as though America has two choices as the moment — either we peacefully side into autocracy under Ron DeSantis or things grow far, far more interesting on a historical basis if Trump happens to win a second term. With DeSantis, the general autocratic drift of American politics will happen in a rather blase manner.

If DeSantis can’t get around Trump for the Republican nomination, then Trump, unto himself, could cause a National Divorce and, as such, a Second American Civil War.

But we have to take seriously the DeSantis threat. Form follows function so, once we’re an autocracy there’s every reason to believe that DeSantis will consolidate power just like every other autocrat and pretty much be in power for the rest of his life.

Things may not change for the average American at first but once the process of becoming an autocratic state begins in force, the question becomes do we stop around Hungary or Turkey or do we continue down the path of autocracy towards something around Nazi Germany or Putin’s Russia? At the moment, I honestly can’t tell you one way or another. Though, I do fear that because of America’s original sin of race that we could endup settling around Nazi Germany and then things get REALLY DARK.

Of course, it doesn’t help that too many center-Left people want to debate how many pronouns can dance on the head of a pin instead of taking practical, real world steps to stop the rise of autocratic fascism in the United States.

I don’t have any ready answers for you. But I do fear that things could be pretty bonkers between now and spring 2025.

South Korea On My Mind

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Yet another expat from South Korea who I don’t know looked at my LinkedIn profile within the last 24 hours, which yet again makes me wonder if people in the South Korea expat community are still talking about me.

I don’t think you realize how colorful and over-the-top I was at the height of my bonkers behavior in Seoul in late 2006 – to early 2008. I was so over the top, so manic that someone even put me in a book about weird expats. That did wonders for my self-esteem, let me tell you.

“It was all long time ago and nobody cares anymore,” is what I like to tell myself, but I think maybe I’m underestimating the impact I had one my fellow expats all those years ago. There are two types of expats in South Korea — the ones who stay a short amount of time and the ones who never leave and go slowly insane. (I say this as someone who stayed too long and abruptly left South Korea because of “homesickness.”)

I love South Korea, but there is definitely a time limit for most people who live there for more than just a year or two. Something about Korean culture really, really gets to the Western mind and it takes a unique person with a hearty constitution to be able to survive for more than, say, five or six years.

Now that I think about it, my best friend from my Korea days is back in South Korea at the moment and I suppose it’s possible that in the process of catching up with people (she’s been out of country for a few years) I get brought up in conversation — expats love, love, love to gossip — and, ta-da someone gets curious enough that they look at my woefully unimportant LinkedIn profile.

The core of the six novel project I’m working on at the moment is pretty much what was going on in my life in late 2006 – early 2007 when I was running ROKon Magazine and DJing at Nori Bar in Sinchon. Those were the days, as they say. I am using my extremely romanticized memories of that era in my life — smashed into a few other eras of my life — as the basis of a murder mystery set in a small town in Virginia. The apex of my life to date. I’m hoping that I can ride those memories to sticking the landing with my first novels. Even if I’m going to be way too old to do such a thing by the time everything gets sorted out.

Anyway. I really miss South Korea, despite everything. But for the fact that little Koreans don’t like me (and I don’t like them) I would probably be still in South Korea, married to a Korean woman with a small brood of Amerasian children struggling to learn English like the rest of the Korean population.