Month: October 2018

The Strange Case Of Celebrity Social Media ‘Burner Accounts’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

This is almost too boring a subject to discuss because, well, I’m no so naive as to think any celebrity would ever be interested in me burner account or no. While I like to think of myself as interesting, I’m not THAT interesting. Also, really, even if I miraculously managed to gain the attention of a celebrity using a burner account — so what? What are either one of us going to get out of it?

I might get a day’s glow from knowing a celebrity gave me a moment of their time, but that’s about it. They, meanwhile, have no upside to talking to some middle-aged schmuck like me. So, I have a very high bar to such encounters. You can’t just tell me you’re a celebrity, you have to prove it in several different ways.

The burner account — or purported burner account — type I don’t get is the one where a celebrity doesn’t even hide who they are. Those are the ones I’m the most suspicious of. That really doesn’t make any sense. Doesn’t make any at all. It’s very perplexing. But celebrities are human too, I suppose, and they’re just as screwed up as the rest of us, may far more so to be a celebrity in the first place.

Anyway. It’s definitely an interesting situation.

Some Idle Observations On Exposition In #Novel #Writing

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

They say if you have a lot of exposition in a story you have to get through, it’s best if something interesting is going on in the background so it’s not boring to the reader or viewer. I find myself with a nice chunk of a scene that really explains a lot about what’s going on in a brief way, but I also find myself struggling a little bit with making the whole thing a little bit more interesting.

So, I think I might rewrite the scene some, but a bit more creative with it. It’s an important enough scene and conveys important enough information that it deserves a better presentation than what it currently has. It shouldn’t be too difficult, I guess, to spice things up some. Really all you need is something odd or interesting happening as you do all this exposition. I’m pretty flexible and fluid when it comes to scenes at this point in the process — there’s a lot of heavy lifting backend stuff I’ve not even begun — so it’s just a matter of putting my mind to it.

I have a few ideas. It’s interesting how you write a scene, think it’s finished, then turn around and

Trump & The ‘Petite Singularity’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

I have struggled for some time to articulate the significance of technology in aiding and abetting the the rise of Trump. I thought maybe one might called it a “Creeping Singularity,” but Singularities, by definition, are not something that happen over time. But having said that, it definitely seems we’re feeling the influence of a “Petite Singularity,” if nothing else.

A series of long term technological trends are crashing into each other. Things like VR, AR, crypto, AI and automation are all going to come to a head probably within the next, say, 5 years. Of course, it’s something much more prosaic than that which has given rise to Trump — social media. But social media is definitely a precursor to the Petite Singularity. It’s a forerunner to a world that is likely to be transformed dramatically in ways we can barely begin to comprehend.

When all those low training, high wage jobs transportation jobs like semi truck driver vanish in the coming age of automation, that is likely to cause any number of significant political shifts that we can only barely begin to comprehend. One of the central issues of the day is while Trump is making a mockery of our political traditions, he’s pulling a huge fast one on us. He’s pretty much fucking ruining everything we hold dear while we’re running around struggling to understand how such an asshat as he is could be our “leader.”

And, honestly, there simply isn’t anything we can do. Trump is an avatar for some titanic, tectonic shifts in the American political system and he — or someone like him — was obviously inevitable. Really, his only saving grace at this point is he’s really old, really bad at his job and completely devoid of an ideology. As such, I am more worried about what happens when someone who doesn’t have those problems is president than I am Trump, no matter how completely horrible everything about him is.

But back to the Petite Singularity. It’s likely being the asshole demagogue that he is, Trump will exploit the social displacement of the Petite Singularity rather than see any political harm from it. I’m not feeling very optimistic at this point. Makes me want to leave the States as quickly as possible and never fucking come back.

I’ve Really — REALLY — Romanticized My Time In #Seoul

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

A long time ago, I lived in Seoul. I was, for various reasons, very unhappy during much of my time there and yet now I have romanticized my time there so much that you would never know. I was going to through a really rough patch for much of my time in Seoul and I guess my wistfulness about it now stems in large part from 1) my desire to be young again 2) my desire to “fix” the problems that occurred while I was there.

Neither is going to happen if I ever go back, sad to say. I honestly don’t want to go back to stay — I am too acutely aware of some major strategic issues preventing that — but I do every once in a while moon over the idea of going back for, say two weeks. There are so many problems preventing me from seriously even vising Seoul anytime soon that it’s comical to even do so.

One major problem is money. If I actually saved up the money to visit Seoul, I would have to, well, think seriously that I could use that money for something far more constructive. So, the conditions would have to be absolutely perfect for me to go, even for a visit. Since that’s simply unlikely to happen, it’s best if I focus on my life in the States. I might be able to visit NYC or maybe even LA every once in a while, but going to Seoul is something that, at least for the time being, I can only dream about.

My #Scifi #Novel I’m #Writing Has A Lot Of Potential As An Allegory Of The Trump Era

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

The more I think about it, the more I can see there is a lot of symbolism built in to the scifi novel I’m writing that could be construed as my personal critique of the Trump Era. I think it has more to do with how art is made than anything else. I’m learning that if you actually are serious about writing a novel, your era is part of the primordial goo from whence a novel is birthed.

In other words, you don’t produce a novel — or any work of art for that matter — in a vacuum. You produce it as a snapshot in time. This novel in particular, if I can pull it off, could really be an interesting take on the Trump Era for various reasons. The novel deals with some pretty basic, fundamental issues that we come back to time and again in the Trump Era. I don’t know how much of that is I’m just interested in those topics and how much of it is writing about that has come to the forefront of my mind as part of writing this novel at this point in time.

Anyway, writing a novel seriously is definitely an interesting experience for a multitude of reasons. It’s definitely like a romantic relationship given how long it takes. That’s why I’m a little annoyed by the whole “write a novel during the month of November” thing. Writing a novel seriously is a long term project and you usually don’t even show your first draft to anyone for no other reason than it’s pretty much just you, the author, trying to get the story down in your own mind before you come back to it and try to make it readable enough that someone else can read the second draft.

I am really enjoying the process of writing a novel, though it sure does take a long time to simply sit down and write a novel that I hope will be at least 100,000 words. But hopefully once the process is done, it will be something, someone will want to read. Really, at this point, if I can get one person I don’t know personally to read the finished product and they want to know what happens in the second book in the series, it will be a successful in my mind.

Wish me luck.

‘Caesar’ — #Lyrics To A Rap Song

What I’m trying to do with this one is compare Trump to Julius Caesar. I don’t know how successful I was. I’m at least trying to take a little bit more time on these lyrics. But, of course, I have no beats and don’t know anything about music so the usual problems exist with anything I write. This is more about me feeling like writing a story out in verse than anything else. Take it for what it is.

Caesar
lyrics by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform

the die is cast
now the Rubicon is crossed
a Republic is now an empire
the tyrant rules the land

darkness has descended on the nation
it’s no lark I’m afraid
disgrace has a name
conflagration is on its way
our democracy is at stake
lust for freedom is in our hearts
when the dust settles will we be free
will the people bring the tyrant to his knees
are we prepared to return us to our good state

freedom isn’t free
hit the streets with me
freedom isn’t free
hit the streets with me

some things never change
tyranny always lurks in the heats of men
be willing to voice your pain
lace up your shoes and exclaim
when liberty is at stake
you’re willing to do what it takes
to break the people free of their chains
return the Republic to its glory
life to how it used to be
nothing will be the same I admit
but don’t you fret we’re going to celebrate
once this time is over
’cause freedom ain’t free

freedom isn’t free
hit the streets with me
freedom isn’t free
hit the streets with me

[bridge]
we can’t turn back
our eyes on our goal
the people just want
a Republic that’s free
people are angry
as they should be
the government isn’t listening

if we don’t do something now
we’l have a king in all but name
that is my refrain I’m afraid
our liberty is at stake
I’m not prepared to give that up
without a fight
without a fight
without a fight

‘Colony,’ ‘Captive State,’ ‘Under The Dome,’ & #Writing My #Scifi #Novel

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The novel I’m writing shares at least one plot point — in a sense — with “Captive State,” “Under The Dome” and “Colony.” But the concepts my novel deals with are significantly bigger and deeper than those creative works. My concept is much more like The Matrix compared to those creative works of art because I’m coming at the same idea from a dramatically different point of view.

Either it’s going to hurt me or help me that this micro genre is popping up. Either it means people are interesting in this concept, or there really is nothing new under the sun and by the time I actually finish the novel no one will care because something sufficiently similar will have come out already and it will be a moot point.

But we’ll see. We’ll definitely see, I guess. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Idle Rambling About Kavanaugh & Usenet

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

Now, I did a quick search of Google’s Usenet archive and I didn’t find anything to indicate Brett Kavanaugh used Usenet while in college. So, that’s pretty conclusive evidence that my barely-a-hunch that he might have used it while he was in college didn’t pan out.

I guess what made what made that whole thing a least a little bit interesting was the fact that if you could find Kavanaugh Usenet posts from his college days, it would be a unique snapshot of his mentality during the period of time everyone is concerned about. Usenet was pretty free wheeling at that moment in its history and the conditions, at least, are there for us to get some sense of his drinking and other behavior.

But, like I said, doesn’t look that my hunch paid off. The only way I could possibly see it panning out would be if you were with a major news organization and you could talk to Google directly about its archive and see if maybe they could find any archive evidence from Yale specific newsgroups. That might be something that might have a greater likelihood of panning out. But barring something pretty dramatic, this definitely seems like a dead end.

There’s just no there there.

But it definitely was an interesting idea for a moment or two. If you could have found Kavanaugh Usenet posts, that could have really changed the game. It would have been pretty dramatic.

Brief, Idle Rambling About The Themes Of The #Scifi #Novel I’m #Writing

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The novel I’m writing is, at least at this point, my personal attempt to address the Trump Era via a novel. In some ways it’s obvious and in some ways it’s not. The more I think about it, the more there are some major issues of the day that the novel deals with.

Chief among these concepts is “what is America?” The story gives me an opportunity to address the issue of the United States being an “idea” as opposed to “blood and soil” in a really concrete manner. It’s one of the things that makes writing the novel so much fun.

Anyway, I could go into this a lot more, but I need to shut up and, like, actually write the novel.

‘Blackout’ — #Lyrics To A Pop Song

I just like writing lyrics. The recent SCOTUS situation gives me something to riff off of.

Blackout
lyrics by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform

the light go out in your mind
leave you not remembering your past
it can catch up with you eventually
the shadows of life have damage
it hides from the light
but in your sin can’t escape a

blackout
you know what you did
blackout
it’s rolling around in your head

the next day people look at you and stare
pointing at you as you walk by
makes you wonder what you did
who’s life did you ruin
all you hope is it will go away
you’ve got plans to make
girls you’ve got to date

blackout
you know what you did
blackout
it’s rolling around in your head

[bridge]
the lights come on
you remember your evil deeds
worry the cops will come after thee
but all you can hope is it will pass
until the next blackout

blackout
you know what you did
blackout
it’s rolling around in your head