Month: October 2020

Had A Successful Personal Writer’s Retreat In #Atlanta This Weekend


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Since I couldn’t go where I wanted to go — New York City — I went somewhere totally different — Atlanta. It was a lot of fun, though I found the city so huge that I just stayed in my hotel room and worked on novel development.

Anyway, I just got back and now I’m going to relax and read just a tick before I throw myself back into development. I’m tired from all the driving. But I think I understand the story even better than I did before.

Hopefully, things will move significantly faster now. My only concern right now is that the election — one way or another — is going to change the national zeitgeist to such an extent as to make my allegorical thriller about the Trump Era seem quaint.

And, yet, you can’t edit a blank page. And, really, writing your first novel is aspirational by definition. Writing a novel gives me hope. If something really dramatic happens and changes things so much as to make the story moot, I can probably turn around and write a new novel using what I’ve learned over the last two years very easily.

After I stop sulking, I can probably turn around and write that scifi novel I have in my mind these days.

But that’s a worst case scenario.

I think I can get back to writing past the midpoint of the first draft pretty quick now. I hope.

Potential Upcoming ‘October Surprises’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

  1. The Full Mueller Report Is Released
    Because of a deranged tweet on the part of Trump, it’s possible that an emergency FOIA request by BuzzFeed might actually get us the entire Mueller Report right before the election. Or not. Given that we’re now an autocratic managed democracy, Barr could simply shrug and say either “fuck you” or “wait until after the election.”
  2. Trump’s Taxes A Leaked
    Even though the NYT apparently has gotten Trump’s taxes, it’s possible that at least on a criminal level, the authorities might actually get them as well. It would happen mid-October or so. They might leak in their entirety and they might show Trump is doing his foreign policy directly because of his finances.
  3. A Durham Investigation “Preliminary Summary”
    Even though we’ve been told “not to expect any indictments before the election” when it comes to the Durham Investigation, that doesn’t mean Barr won’t pop out and lay out what he thinks the investigation will show at some point after the election. Given how absolutely deranged Trump is about indicting someone, anyone he doesn’t like, this could be a way for Barr to square the circle on that one
  4. Trump Finally Snaps
    Given that Trump constantly acts as though he has already snapped, how we would know the difference, I don’t know. But I guess it would be a matter of degree. Trump would do something so insane that in some sort of transational fashion that it finally gets people’s attention.
  5. COVID19
    Someone REALLY IMPORTANT shuffles off this mortal coil and suddenly everything is throw up in the air in a big, big way. I really don’t want this type of thing to happen.
  6. Political Violence
    This would happen in such a way as to either cause people to “rally round the flag” right before the election or pretty much cause the country to implode in some fashion.
  7. Geopolitical Saber Rattling
    In real terms, both the DPRK and Iran have been very quiet. I could see Little Rocket Man trying to help his BFF Trump by scaring the shit out of us. Then everything goes out of control and we’re fucked.

    Bonus Post Election Surprises
    Even if there’s a huge landslide in Biden’s favor, Barr STILL tries to steal the election and all bets are off. Or, even worse, the Russians steal the election for Trump and we find out sooner rather than later.

The Absence of Pop-Rock In The Top 40 Is…Odd?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was DJ in Seoul for a few memorable months in late 2006, early 2007. There was a very specific type of music that was popular at the bar I was working at. It’s pop rock. It’s music that’s got a beat and you can dance to it.

Since about 2008 or so, pop-rock has dropped of the face of the earth. Don’t quite understand what’s going on. As I keep wondering, is this an existential situation or just the right cultural conditions haven’t occurred yet? Or, more specifically, is this an issue of the Great Musician theory of musical history or simply general macro trends that no one can control?

I don’t know. It’s just frustrating. It would be nice to have good-to-great music to listen (and dance) to again.

To date, Trump’s time in office has been completely value-free on a cultural level. He hasn’t caused any change in music at all. It’s wild. Surreal, even.

‘Vortex,’ Or, My Struggle To Write The Lyrics To A Pop Hit


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have long thought that “Vortex” would be the great title for a pop rock song. And the last five years of Trump craziness has only reinforced that idea. But I don’t know how to play guitar and know nothing about music. But I can write — and find writing lyrics relaxing — so I keep coming back to this idea.

The concept for the song is it would sound a lot like Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” The lyrics would be about a really crazy situation (romantic?) that someone had to live through.

The interesting thing about trying to write this kind of song is you have to be really abstract and open ended. I have written all these really bad lyrics about very specific things. The genius of good song lyrics is they both make sense and can be interpreted a lot of different ways.

I really need to learn guitar.

I’m very interesting in seeing how far down the process of selling song lyrics I can get. But that’s for after finishing the two novel story I’m working on right now.

Skylar Gray, Lorde, Billie Eilish & The Untapped American Rock Audience


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

What’s interesting about Blur — one of my favorite acts — is how their one big hit in the US, Song #2, is not really their normal song. They actually usually do moody, ruminative ballads, not rock bops.

While that happened 20 odd years ago, if you look how successful Guns & Roses continue to be performing live, then it definitely seems as though there is a pretty large untapped audience for good old rock music in the USA. Or, put another way, the audience is there but the dynamics of the modern music marketplace just don’t make pop rock tenable.

The only people willing to actually BUY MUSIC are tweeners who are so busy shaking their ass on Tik-Tok that they’re oblivious to the wonders of good old rock music. So, as such, it makes you wonder how you might change that.

There are three women I can think of who could pull of a Song #2 kind of hit — Skylar Gray, Lorde and Billie Eilish. They have very strong, very rock-friendly voices. I would go so far as to say that Ms. Gray is pretty much one slight tick in popular tastes away from being a massive rock star.

Or, put another way, if Ms. Gray teamed up with Annie Clark to write a thumping rock song, it would be a huge hit. (I keep thinking up different parings of singers because I’m desperate to listen to pop rock again.) Americans natively love a really powerful wall-of-noise rock song and the music industry is pretty much saying fuck you.

It’s all very frustrating.

Miley Cyrus Should Work With Timbaland


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I loved Nelly Furtado’s “Loose” album. In fact, that’s probably one of the last albums I thought was “good.” In fact, what’s notable about Miley Cyrus’ latest work is how much it sounds like that album. Sorta.

So it seems as though Ms. Cyrus is kind of looking for a “new sound.” It would be cool to bookend the rise (and fall?) of Adult Contemporary as “pop” with Timbaland producing an album.

I continue to wonder if I’m just old and all this talk of a “New Sound” is just me feeling nostalgic for my lost youth. It definitely seems as though rock is dead, never to return. Tastes have a changed, moved on and there’s no going back. It definitely seems as though that’s what’s going on.

The reason why I say this is Adult Contemporary’s tyranny is based on the cold, hard metrics of the music industry. With the rise of steaming services, it’s a lot more difficult for a “new sound” to pop out because how are they going to make any money? As such, you have to find and established act to take a risk with a “new sound.”

They have a vested interest in no doing so, so, it never happens.

Anyway. I hate Adult Contemporary.

Trump Being Bonkers Is A Lulz, Until…


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok, for some time now, Trump’s mental acuity has been in self-evident decline. In short, he’s slowly going bonkers. But he’s been bonkers for so long in a very publish fashion that at this point we see it as white noise.

So, what has to happen is Trump really, really, REALLY has to go bonkers for it to matter. Specifically, he has to do something that would hurt himself politically because it’s so bad that it would puncture the bubble of “I haven’t see the tweet” that currently surrounds him.

What, exactly, would that be?

Well, all I got is he starts to actually spew racist vitrol on Twitter. He starts to use the N-Word on Twitter. He starts to call AOC obscene names on Twitter. He does has to do something so batshit insane and offensive that it actually causes people to sit up and take notice.

Or, lulz, he starts a war.

I just don’t see any of that happening, though. Even as bonkers as he is, Trump would really, really be out of it if he actually did something concrete that was actually impossible to defend.

Who knows.

Billie Eilish, Rock Star?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the seminal musical events of the 80s was Aerosmith teaming up with Run DMC to do a fusion version of “Walk This Way.” It was an earthquake because rap threw down the gauntlet — it was here and it was here to stay.

Now, flash forward to 2020 and we got a problem. Adult Contemporary, which is just warmed over Steely Dan that’s been reanimated like some sort of musical zombie, has dominated the Top 40 for about 15 years. Something. Has. Gotta. Fucking. Give.

So, maybe we plot a return of pop rock. I call it Rona Rock because it’s catchy and ties into what is at the center of life right now — COVID19. But here’s what I would do — get Billie Eilish to team up with Guns & Roses to do a rebooted version of their cover of Paul McCartney’s Live And Let Die.

Here’s how you do it. You open with Axel singing the song then — plot twist — Billie Eilish belts out the chorus. It would be a symbolic changing of the guard, if you will. I pick Ms. Eilish to pull this off for a specific reason. She has a very strong, very rock voice.

Something about Miley Cyrus’ voice is just too light to ever be a true rock voice. I point out how out of place her attempts to sing Led Zepplin are. She’s a beautiful woman who has an excellent singing voice, but Ms. Cyrus is better cut out for more pop songs. Or she needs to stop screaming at the top of her lungs songs that don’t need to be — like Heart of Glass. (Ugh.)

I see Ms. Eilish as a secret weapon for the forces of rock. She’s young. Has cross-generational appeal and her voice is so strong that she could carry the weight of a song like Live And Let Die.

I Hate Being Old: I Could Write A Pop Hit, Given The Opportunity


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I used to write lyrics all the time because it was very, very relaxing. But I wrote them very quickly. And I don’t know anything about music. I might write some more soon because it’s so relaxing, but it’s also a huge waste of time when I could be working on my novel.

I don’t know guitar. And even if I became a middle-aged cliche and learned how to play guitar now, I would still have to overcome the ageism. The entire music business is designed from the ground up to prevent people like me to break into it.

But maybe once I finish the two books in this novel story I’m working on right now I’ll learn guitar. I like how writing lyrics force an economy of words on you that is very challenging.

Annie Clark Needs To Team Up With Taylor Swift


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a pretty big fan of St Vincent. And, yet, my mind grows irritated with her music for some reason. And with all this talk of a “New Sound” beginning to — maybe– develop, I realize what it is : Annie Clark needs her Paul McCartney.

See, this is what’s going on — St. Vincent is so busy producing weird art-rock music that she’s squandering her potential. She needs someone like Paul McCartney to force her to balance her need to write the next “Tomorrow Never Knows” with, say, her ability to produce something closer to “Revolution.”

The thing that draws me to Clark is her guitar ability. But the songs that are associated with those guitar solos are…just too fucking weird. If you could, like, get someone to create a female version of Guns & Roses with Annie playing the part of Slash, well, then, that would be pretty cool.

Ok, hear me out. Who’s the one person that could balance out Clark’s weirder tendencies? Taylor Fucking Swift. That paring would be perfect. Put Meg White on drums and maybe make Carrie Brownstein the group’s “George Harrison” and I think you would have the makings of a rock group for the ages.

You’d need some serious ego-management to make that particular dream line up a reality. But, alas, no one listens to me. At least my novel is going well at the moment.