Month: September 2019

Great Britain Seems To Continue To Careen Towards A Mad Max Endgame For Brexit

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

What if Parliament passed a law preventing No Deal Brexit and Boris Johnson simply ignored it? It’s that kind of behavior would tip the UK into revolution and civil war.

The two sides are still not sure what is going to happen. The clock continues to tick. I have no idea what is going to happen — and I don’t think they do, either. Things could pretty much devolve into the absolute worse case scenario of revolution and civil war. The Brits may be growing ever closer to a 10 Days That Shook The World type situation.

Brexit is currently such a clusterfuck — and I know so little about British politics — that I honest have no idea what might happen. Anything could happen, it seems.

I do know, however, that should “the good guys” (Remain) win in Great Britain in the next few weeks, it definitely will give me some semblance of hope that it might happen in the United States as well.

It’s Time For WarnerMedia To Crack Open The Looney Tunes Vault

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

If ever there was a time for WarnerMedia to tap into the national mood with something really cool, it’s now. Unlike Disney, WarnerMedia has some pretty potent Legacy Brand cartoon IP to play with.

I’m speaking, of course, of Looney Tunes. And I’m not talking about the upcoming Space Jam movie. I’m talking about rebooting Looney Tunes to make them what they used to be — cartoons for parents of the Greatest Generation who had to sit through them as shorts to watch, like, Gone With The Wind and stuff.

What better stand-in for Trump than Foghorn Leghorn. Wouldn’t it be great to have Bugs get to sass Foghorn Leghorn in a new adventure? It could be quite cathartic. If ever there was a built-in Hero made for the Age of Trump, it’s Bugs Bunny.

I don’t see this happening, however. The suits wouldn’t want to offend people or turn Bugs into some sort of symbol of the Resistance. Legacy Brands rarely get the update they deserve.

Election 2020 — The Year America Has Its Own Brexit

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Election 2020 is going to be the American version of Brexit. In every potential outcome I can think of, America will face a political clusterfuck not seen since 1860.

If Trump wins, he’ll dramatically consolidate power. We really will have the “Thousand Year Trump” that evil MAGA goon Brad Parscale keeps talking about. Of course Trump will overreach, going after free speech and the right to assembly. That will cause a response in the Blue States. By about June of 2021, we’ll be openly talking about either secession or Trump using the military to abolish the Blue State governments.

If Trump loses, it’s worse. Trump will claim it’s all a fraud. He will fight it in the courts. The courts are largely full of young, partisan MAGA hacks. They will side with him, no matter what. If that doesn’t work, he’ll dox individual Electors on Twitter. Republican dark money donors will bribe Electors. All he needs is just enough electors to go rogue that the election is thrown into the House where each delegation gets one vote. Trump “wins.” Trump “wins.” Trump “wins.” Trump “wins.” We’ll try to impeach Trump AGAIN, this time for fraudulently gaining the White House in an extremely brazen way, but he’ll be acquitted in the Senate.

What’s most, as all of this happens, Trump’s mental faculties will continue to deteriorate. He’ll be little more than a puddle. But he’s the avatar for existential problems in American society, so it won’t matter.

Throw in the likelihood that Russians will hack the election anyway, and the whole outcome is likely to be the subject of controversy that lasts for months after the election. The MAGA hack judges will always side with House Trump, so that only increases the odds Trump will “win.”

All of this will happen even if we’re in a Second Great Recession. America will be little more than Venezuela at this point. Don Jr. or Ivanka will be anointed Trump’s successor in 2024 and the process starts all over again.

Really, at this point, our best case scenarios are either a junta takes over or Blue States are allowed to leave the Union peacefully. Maybe some sort of EU-type situation is setup.

And you thought we had it bad now.

Happy Birthday Kaia Gerber

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I just have to note something about Kaia Gerber — she’s the product of some savvy, old school genetic engineering on the part of her mom Cindy Crawford.

Crawford is extremely intelligent and while I’m sure she loves her husband dearly, she wasn’t falling for a Ric Ocasek type. She found herself a wealthy, attractive husband she knew would produce some stunning progeny.

I just find it a hoot how brazen Crawford was. It’s not like she’s the only model to do this, but occasionally a model does falls for a schlubby musician. I’m impressed with how Crawford leveraged her position to assure her children could follow in her own modeling footsteps should they so desire.

Anyway, I really like Kaia Gerber and wish her the best. Happy birthday!

The Thousand Year Trump

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Trump’s evil goon of a campaign manager Brad Parscale is touting to the Republican Party faithful the idea that Trump is an American Cesar. He is the founding member of a political dynasty that will last “decades.”

Before I address this, I think Parscale is engaging in what Microsoft used to do to the software industry: FUD — fear and utter despair. As it stands, there’s a grain of truth to what he’s saying. Trump is an avatar for dark forces in the American politics. At this point, there honestly isn’t any reason not to think the Trump family is now a Royal House. They will governor us for the foreseeable future.

I don’t really have any hope that this is not the case. But there are a few things going on that might at least make it a little bit more difficult than Parscale might have us believe. One is Trump himself is obviously mentally sundowning. Also, there are a number of reasons to believe the American economy is beginning to slow down. Throw in the prospect of No Deal Brexit and that flaw in Pax Trumplandia grows more significant.

As such, one’s historical attention turns to Washington’s Ur scandal, Watergate. Nixon had half a dozen Parscale-type goons in his orbit and he still manage to resign in disgrace. Not that I think Trump’s going anywhere. The existential, tragic flaws in the American psyche he represents are too deep and systemic for him to leave office any time before Jan. 20th, 2025. Really, Trump could probably directly lead to the end of mankind and Parscale would simply hold up in the Federal Government’s Doomsday Bunker and that would be that.

I don’t really have any hope. The reason why I don’t have much hope is Trump could become a puddle on the Oval Office floor and MAGA would still vote for him. All I got when it comes to hope is time. House Trump could probably rule for 20 years until the youngest of the Baby Boomers croak. Then the browning of America kicks in and the American political system will resemble a mashup of Apartheid South Africa and modern day Venezuela. That will last until, I don’t know what.

Scrounging for some semblance of hope, all I got is Trump is such a historically bad president that no amount of FUD from Parscale can fix that. And history is unpredictable. I guess, in a sense, all I got is what might eventually overthrow House Trump might be a military junta. But even that is problematic. Maybe Blue States might attempt to secede from the Union en masse at some point in the next 20 years, maybe not.

But I again go back to what happened with Nixon. If we were having this discussion in 1971, we would still have Nixon’s 1972 landslide ahead of us. I think Trump is the primordial goo from which an Imperial American will arise. But it will hone very close to what literally happen to the Roman Republic. Roman only gradually shed the trappings of a republic. It did not happen overnight and the Empire never had a traditional Royal House like modern monarchies. We may continue to superficially be a republic, but in practice will just go from one member of the Trump family to another because the center-Left is still playing by the old rules.

I struggle to think of some reason why Parscale isn’t right. All I got is he’s right on a macro level, but the history is quirky and sometimes goes off in strange directions. And like I said, he probably is right for 20 years. So his prediction of “decades” is right. But the ability for House Trump to stay in power after the Baby Boomers dying off grows significantly more difficult. House Trump just doesn’t have demographics on its side beyond 20 years from now.

Wake me up when this dystopia is over.

The Difference Between Being A Hack & A Storyteller

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

One thing I noticed about the most recent IT movie is they used the old “use a glance to show relationships” technique. While obviously this is useful, at times it can be a bit ponderous.

I know why they did it — they wanted to compress a huge book down to something useable. But I would much rather they told a great story in movie form than insult viewers. Ok, we get it, you want to establish a love triangle really quick.

Meh. Give me character development. Instead of creating a choppy, muddled mess, write a screenplay “inspired by” a portion of IT. A lot of great movies are good movies first and attempt to tell the story of the original novel second.

Why is it so hard for people in Hollywood to stop being hacks and actually tell a good story?

The Striking Difference in Reaction Between American & British Press To Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s ‘Fleabag’

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have something of a celebrity crush on Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She did one of those goofy gimmick interviews and in it she said the best advice she ever got was to “Always to always smell nice, you don’t know who you’re going to hug.”

Well, I’ve watched a lot of interviews with Ms. Waller-Bridge about her hit show “Fleabag,” and it seems as though some more advice would be: British press is going to treat your show different than American press. One thing that keeps coming up in British interviews about the show is how “feminist” it is. I don’t recall an American interviewer mentioning it once.

I think that it is a testament to where the two cultures are right now. As I understand it, the UK never really went through the late 70s women’s movement like America did. There’s a reason why Page 3 girls are continue to linger in British culture. So the American audience for Fleabag doesn’t even think about if the show is meant to be “feminist” or not. They just think it’s funny.

I know I, at least, did not even think about the “feminist” aspect of the show until I kept seeing poor Ms. Waller-Bridge asked about it again and again and again by her British compatriots.

Anyway, I bet she does smell great.

A Message To Hollywood Hacks Who May Want To Steal My Novel’s Premise

Shelton Bumgarner

I thought I was going to undelete a lot of the posts I’ve deleted, but it didn’t work out.

This is the video I was going to replace all the videos with.

Trump’s Not President Howard Beale….Yet. #SharpieGate

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarals

While whatever is wrong with Trump has gotten worse, it’s still not bad enough for it to be a “crisis.” The thing about Trump’s mental problems is he’s not bipolar. It’s unlikely he’s going to go stark raving mad in the traditional sense. His problems are more subtle, chronic and slowly degenerative.

If anything, his grasp on reality is ever-so-slowly beginning to fray, but in a way that is reasonably easy for his supporters to dismiss, deflect or rationalize away. To date, he hasn’t done anything so extreme that Republicans would pull their head out of the butts long enough to notice.

He could go on like this well into a second term. Or by that point we may have a defacto Regency like we had under Wilson and Reagan. And, remember, Reagan in the last few years of his presidency was pretty much out to lunch and yet left his second term one of the most popular presidents in recent memory.

So, Trump would have to really push it for it to be a “crisis.” He would have to do something so surreal, so bizarre that Republican Cult Leaders would start to mull the possibility of a Pence presidency seriously. I just don’t see that happening — ever. Anything Trump did that sparked a crisis would likely only help him politically. I mean, he could start a war with Iran because he’s lost his mind and it would only help him with his base. Lee Greenwood would pop out of his crypt and you know the drill. Or if there was a crisis not of Trump’s making he could easily use it to suspend the Constitution and Democrats would still simply stamp their feet in anger.

Nothing, really, would happen.

I can only assume that Trump could still be tweeting about Alabama a month or six months from now and…nothing would happen. Trump would have to do something like whip is cock out on TV for it to be anywhere near a “crisis.”

While I don’t see that occurring anytime soon, stranger things have happened.

A Half-Assed Review Of It: Chapter 2

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Why is it so hard to bring the wonderful novel IT to the screen, be it big or small? While I wish the producers of IT: Chapter 2 all the best, I’m afraid I walked out about a third of the way through.

Now, some context. I’ve read the novel IT numerous times. I’m working on a novel of my own. I’m obsessed with storytelling right now and so I have very high standards. Maybe too high for my own good — I keep walking out of movies when they don’t meet my personal storytelling demands.

Anyway, I will note that the always talented and beautiful Jessica Chastain was a personal highlight of what I saw. She’s a damn good actor. And James McAvoy also was great. Fan favorite Bill Hader was good, but underused. In the novel, the character he played was the master of voices. That Hader — who is great at voices — wasn’t introduced constantly doing them was a big disappointment. Also Hader still has a lingering problem for me personally of me seeing him on the big screen and going, “Hey, that’s Bill Hader!” The rest of the cast was completely generic. The first movie was a huge hit, you’d think they would spend the extra cash to use marquee names in to fill the rest of the adult Losers.

I left the movie when I had to use the bathroom because I felt the movie was a mess. It was so much of a mess that it was grating on my nerves. If I was writing the “modern” part of the IT story as a screenplay, I would focus on making it a good screenplay first and telling the novel’s story second. It seemed to me they wanted it both ways. The whole thing was muddled and annoying in the extreme.

But what really pushed me to leave the movie early was I realized something about my novel because what I had seen. After I realized how to fix a problem in the novel I’m writing, I realized I had no more need of a movie that was quickly growing to be a waste of time.

So I left.