Month: October 2020

The Big Reboot


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, I’m moving forward with taking the novel to the next level. It’s just a matter of doing a lot of hard work really quick. I also realized I need to study Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire” more, too. He really deals with the mechanics of structure that I can use to figure a lot of things out.

But I have a short amount of time. I can’t keep rewriting this thing forever. I need to move forward faster. So, it’s time to buckle down and start working. I still want to have something, anything, done by no later than Thanksgiving. I’d prefer it be Election Day, but that just doesn’t seem to be possible right now.

I really need to do something like go to NYC to clear my mind. I hope to do that this weekend. Maybe. It might be a bridge too far, but we’ll see. But I have a lot of great ideas as to how to make the first act far, far better.

An Observation About The Proto-‘Rona Rock’ Song ‘Midnight Sky’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I think I may have figured out what it is about Miley Cyrus’ song “Midnight Sky” that makes me think about it so much. Listen to this first:

Then, if you drain the song of the weight of its Adult Contemporary market-required influence, speed it up and make it more obviously rock, you get:

There’s definitely a similar vibe there. So I can go back to hating modern music. I wish someone would do something with the notion of “Rona Rock,” thought. It’s pretty cool.

Constructing The ‘New Sound’ Of Rona Rock


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Absolutely no one listens to me. But I do have an ear for music — and an obsessive personality — so I’m going to rant about this for a little bit until I get this out of my system.

Ok, so, here we are. We have suffered through about 15 years of Modern Adult Contemporary as absolutely dominating pop music. Rock music is dead. It’s relegated to a small corner of the musical world. No longer is rock pop music and pop music, rock. But we are overdue for a change.

We’re overdue for a “New Sound.”

Here’s how I would construct it.

First, you think up a way to make this type of song by The Talking Heads sound more modern.

Then, there are three songs on U2’s Achtung Baby to use as a frame of reference.

These songs are pretty much juiced up Adult Contemporary songs. They’re songs that kind of oldies (ugh) but still modern enough that they fit the conventions of modern music. Next, you throw in the Butch Vig sound that can be found in this song.

And then here’s the crucial aspect of this New Sound. What what I just let you listen to in your mind, draw out what is obviously a “New Sound” in this song to make an entire genre — Rona Rock.

I know that this “New Sound” I’m hearing is simply a producer referencing mid-80s rock. Ok, I get it. But the song does sound very modern to my ears. It’s like I hear something different. I hear potential. Go that way! I wouldn’t mind top 40 music sounding like warmed over Talking Heads. That would be pretty cool, in fact.

And, remember, if the history of pop music is any indication, once you get a New Sound, that changes the dynamic of things so much that some interesting things could happen, like, say….rock n roll? Maybe Rona Rock would be actual rock before it was all over with.

But that’s being delusional.

At best, we we’ll probably just simply Adult Contemporary with a little bit of mid-80s influence.

Advice To Miley Cyrus


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok. Here’s the thing. I noticed that Ms. Cyrus covered the New Wave classic “Heart of Glass” recently. Which is great. But here’s what I would have done if I was, say, the producer involved.

First — New Wave is simply Punk for straight edges.

I would suggest she go to something a big more punkish like Romeo Void’s “Never Say Never.” Then, I would tell her not to belt out the song at the top of her lungs. She’s missing the point. She has a uniquely textured voice. No need to scream.

Once she was singing Never Say Never, I would figure out a way to fuse what people know — Adult Contemporary — with something that sounds like Neo-Pop Rock (Rona Rock.) Or, put another way, it needs a little bit of edge to it. It needs some bite.

To get that bite, you need a backbeat. A strong guitar. A strong “wall of sound” provided by someone thrashing around on the drums. Anyway, absolutely no one listens to me.

But the novel seems to be going well, which makes me happy.

Taylor Swift Is So Frustrating


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ms. Swift is a great singer, lyricist and performer. But I find her exceedingly frustrating. The reason is, she’s at the exact center of pop culture. She’s everywhere and nowhere musically, like pop culture oxygen.

But, I get it. She has a massive fan base. She has absolutely no reason to change. So she doesn’t. What’s so frustrating is I hear stuff from her contemporaries like Miley Cyrus or Dua Lipa and there’s something new there. There’s a New Sound — I call it Rona Rock — that seems just about to pop out. It’s like we might just be about to leave the cultural wasteland of Adult Contemporary for something, something different, something new and modern.

So, I guess I’m really being both “stupid and delusional” to think that someone like Ms. Swift might partner with, say, someone like Butch Vig. What’s more likely to happen, really, is some middle-step. Some album or song that is half Adult Contemporary half Rona Rock.

For all my ranting on this subject, the fundamentals of pop music haven’t changed — people aren’t really buying music. And we’re literally a generation away from people who grew up on that last gasp of rock that showed itself in the States as Grunge and in the UK as Britpop.

It just would be great to have music to believe in again. Music with a backbeat. Music with lyrics that told a story. Music that wanted to change the world. As it stands, Ms. Swift writes gentle pop songs about dudes who have made her sad.

You can’t have everything, I guess.

‘Rona Rock’ — The New Sound


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We’re overdue for a “new sound” in pop music. The history of pop right now goes something like this:

1955 – 1959 “American Pop Rock”
1959-1963 “Waiting”
1964 – 1970 “The British Invasion”
1970-1979 “Punk, Prog and Disco”
1980 – 1983 “New Wave”
1984 – 1989 “Big Hair & Rock”
1989-2000 “Grunge & Britpop”
2001-2008 “Dance Pop Rock”
2008-Now “Adult Contemporary”

The above is not exactly perfect, but it gives you a rough back-of-the-envelope assessment of things. As you can tell, we’re overdue for a new era in pop rock. In short, we need a New Sound.

The thing is, I can hear faint element of a New Sound in this song by, of all people, Miley Cyrus. The production gives the song just a tinge of mid-80s pop rock to it. And, yet, it sounds rather modern.

I find a similar proto-New Sound in some of the more recent stuff done by Dua Lipa. In a sea of Adult Contemporary crap, anything that sounds different is noteworthy.

But there’s something missing. It needs a bit more rock to it to qualify as a “good” song to my old fart ears. All you would need to do is add a bit of THIS song.

I guess what I’m saying is, I would add a strong rock guitar and drums to this New Sound. It wouldn’t really have to be all that much, just enough for people who grew up on pop rock to sit up and take notice. I even know the producer who could do it — Butch Vig.

If he could somehow manage to rustle up a super girl group, then, well, that would rock. Or, put another way, if pop music is ever-so-subtly drifting towards a New Sound, why not give it a push and bring back the rock sensibilities of guitar and drums?

I’m A Delusional Moron: I’m Going To Study Hollywood As An Industry & Try To Start A Blog


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I keep thinking up blog concepts and they go absolutely nowhere. And, yet, I have noticed that on this blog there’s one specific type of post that has a bit more native traffic — entertainment (Hollywood) coverage.

As such, I’ve started a new blog called “Hollywood Chigum” that will feature only writing about the greater Hollywood industry. It’s going to take a while to understand what’s going on so I don’t make a fool out of myself, but I’m willing to put the work into it.

The theory is — if I suck up a lot of time researching Hollywood’s infotainment business, then what time I spend on the novel will be more precious and, as such, I will use that time I have more constructively.

But I’ve failed so many fucking times that I’m going to focus on the novel far more than anything else for the time being. What I might do is any entertainment posts I do here I will also feature at Hollywood Chigum.

Now, about the name.

I spent five years in South Korea as an expat. I really like the sound of the word “chigum.” It means “now” in Korean. I like how brash and snarky the name Hollywood Chigum sounds. And it does have Hollywood in it, so there’s a hook.

But I will note that I’m just a rando in the rural portion of a flyover state. Absolutely no one cares about me and I could drop off the side of the earth right now and barely anyone would notice. It is, however, fun to write about entertainment and the idea of focusing exclusively on Hollywood on a blog is rather fun sounding.

I have a rather unique, wry point of view and I think someone, somewhere might like my hot takes.

American Implosion 2021: Is Texas ‘American’ or ‘Southern’ or ‘Texan?’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As we careen towards a possible implosion –> revolution — > civil war type scenario here in the United States, I find myself wondering about Texas. The thing about Texas is it’s something of a trans-purple state. It’s not there yet, but it’s working on it.

So, it’s possible if the country goes tits up on a national level that Texas as a polity will also collapse as the it can’t figure out if its the Texas of Ted Cruz or Beto O’Rourke. Or, it might be something like Kansas right before the civil war – it’s both and only through the force of arms does it figure it out.

Texas has a tradition of both being an independent republic and a part of the CSA.So, it’s possible it might just bounce altogether and take a wait-and-see approach if the Federal government collapses in some way. As I keep saying, if the United States imploded, there would be, maybe, five polities that would find themselves with a lot more power than they ever otherwise would.

But Texas is a crucial player in any revolutionary America. It’s a lot easy to put the Union back together if you have both Texas and California on your side to do it.

And, yet, maybe this is just me being hysterical. It’s very possible. I hope I’m wrong. I hope we punt all this down the political history road for another four years.

How The United States Implodes


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The United States, much like France before the 1789 revolution, dominates global politics. And, yet, the only thing that holds it all together is a shared idea of what it means to be American –and maybe the U.S. Military.

I propose that even if Biden decisively wins in November, that Barr is going to try to steal the election anyway, because, lulz. As such, my scenario of Red States absolutely thinking Trump is president and Blue States absolutely thinking Biden is president will happen and the whole rotting structure will collapse rather abruptly.

I still think it might not be a civil war we have to worry about, but a fucking revolution. I say this because no institution will escape unchanged. The Civil War was, in a sense, a revolution — for the South — but it actually made a lot of institutions far, far stronger. There’s a reason why Lincoln went from calling the United States “these United States” in 1861 to “the United States” in 1865.

But if the whole thing goes tits up, we really need to look at California. California simply leaving the Union is not only a massive self-own, it’s also a huge fucking cop-out. Why leave the Union to tyranny, when you could join up with other Blue States and re-imagine the whole thing? Only California has the population and economy to be a political cornerstone to a Renew American Covenant.

I guess the point of all of this is I’m a traditional Unionist by nature and I want to save the Union rather than give up. It’s just if my choice is between tyranny and the riskier (and more destructive) implosion, I want to at least want to know where California stands in all of this. I love America and simply want “a more perfect Union.”

As I keep saying, I’m being so hysterical for no other reason than it at least makes my fears concreate. I refuse to live under the tyranny of abstract fears and uncertainties.

But I do think we have to take the idea that the United States — the most powerful, most stable nation in the world — maybe isn’t so stable after all. We could actually have something akin to a revolution. If we’re lucky, it’ll be a Glorious Revolution.

If we’re not, well, glup.

House Trump’s ‘Regency’ & The Fate Of America — & Humanity


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, let me state that I think Trump is going to be fine. But, let’s suppose he’s a “long hauler” and is incapacitated by COVID19 for a longer amount of time. What happens?

The World Without The United States.

I think we’d have some sort of Regency, then. Probably made up of Ivanka, Jared and Barr. I say this because apparently Ivanka and Jared run everything already and Barr would be the goon that inforced everything legally.

This is how “Trump” would do exactly what we all expect him to do anyway — steal the election post-election. Now, this raises and interesting situation — what if Biden clobbers Trump politically and the House Trump Regency STILL tries to steal the election (which they will.)

This is a recipe for the United States to implode.What I mean by this is our national polity goes –poof! — and we devolve into our major local and regional polities. Even the U.S. Military may not be able to keep things together if that happens. They won’t chose POTUS, because they won’t exist.

Major polities in the US below the national level are California, Texas, the Deep South, the Northeast and NYC. If we were to, God forbid, Balkanize, those would be the polities that would sort things out.

Three things of note — if you keep California in the Union, then that’s the bedrock of any “Renewed American Covenant.” Texas is a real question mark as to which direction they would go which can be summed up by the question, “Is Texas American or Southern?” Also, there would likely be massive domestic political refugees as the Blue and the Red consolidated their political positions internally.

But, remember, the entire 70 year old liberal global order would go tits up the moment the US imploded, so the very existence of humanity might be in question as China-India-Pakistan-Israel-Iran-DPRK began to attempt to get a lot of their geopolitical dreams for no other reason than they know they can now.

Do I really think that’s going to happen — no.

But is something to at least take seriously enough to think about.