Ok, hear me out. Here’s my new (somewhat self-aggrandizing) theory about why I’ve started to see people using Automattic as their ISP in my Webstats. I thought, maybe, that I was either going to be deplatformed for my drunk rants or maybe, even my Website was being scraped for some reason.
Then it occurred to me — maybe it’s possible that some media company that maybe has a turnkey solution with Automattic that includes an ISP element. As such, it’s possible that I’ve caught the attention from some (media?) company and what I’m seeing is a few of their staff looking at this site on a regular basis.
If that’s so, WOW! That’s great! I’m very flattered.
Anyway. I’m nothing more than a delusional jerk with a good heart in the middle of nowhere. Anyone being a regular reader of my writing pleases me. I would prefer if said people weren’t stalkers or haters. But, lulz. Nothing matters.
I’m beginning to believe that Spotify was very smart to invest big in podcasts. It seems to me that we’re just about to go to the next level with podcasts. There is just too much slack, too many unfilled niches in the podcast industry for this not to be the case.
Let me explain.
Usually, any industry is going to consolidate into three or four major players. Or, something happens to make the whole issue moot. So, with blogs about 20 years ago, you had an explosion of really cool blogs that filled a number of niches.
And then social media came and, lulz, nothing matters anymore.
I mean, it’s a real, real struggle for me to get outside of my passive comfort zone and read any blog. I get all my information from Twitter. So, in a sense, at least for me, Twitter is the center of my online experience.
But there are two online spaces that draw my attention away from Twitter — Tik-Tok and Spotify. Tik-Tok because it’s strangely addictive and my be reading my mind (ha!) and Spotify because I love music….and I keep finding new and interesting podcasts to listen to.
In fact, if I had the right personality, I probably could start a very successful podcast. But, alas, I have no friends, no one likes me and I have no money to bribe people to pretend to like me enough to talk to me on a podcast on a regular basis.
But the point remains — there is huge growth potential for podcasts. In fact, it could be that, in the end, podcasts may just grow and grow until the metaverse finally arrives. Remember, all the other options are mature. YouTube is mature. Social media is mature. Blogs are mature. The only industry with any momentum and room to grow is podcasting.
And, really, all you need is a basic amount of infrastructure, talent, vision and access to Spotify. If you did a good enough job with the other elements, you could — potentially — grow organically.
Anyway, there is a window of opportunity, maybe two years, that if you came up with a great podcast idea that you could probably re-create the cool of Gawker Media back in the day.
As I’ve written before, I don’t hate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but I do know that if he can just get past dingus Donald Trump he can be America’s first autocrat. I say this because DeSantis is younger and organized and, from what I can tell, an actual adept governor. But he’s also an aspiring autocrat.
If this was 25 years ago, DeSantis would probably just be a basic Republican. He would probably be somewhere on the Bush I or Bush II spectrum of politics. But that’s not what’s going on. DeSantis has one obstacle to becoming very powerful and extremely wealthy: dingus Trump.
We haven’t reached the battle royale that could happen very soon between Trump and DeSantis. It could be, of course, that DeSantis may be co-opted by Trump rather than destroyed. This might come because, in the end, that Trump is a lot weaker than we all — including Trump — current believe.
And, this doesn’t even begin to address the other issue, which is Mike Pence might dive into the little kerfuffle of wannabes who somehow think there can be MAGA without Trump. (Which I think is bullshit.)
The key thing is — Trump is too lazy and stupid to be a true autocrat. But whomever he picks as his MAGA success (probably his veep) will, in fact, be our first Putin-level autocrat. The person who will establish white minority rule in the United States. Given how nuts Trump is, it’s possible that our first autocrat might be Gen. Mike Flynn. It could really be that bonkers.
If that happened, then we’re probably going to have a civil war.
But if DeSantis somehow cockblocks Trump and is the nominee in 2024, then I believe that through hook or through crook DeSantis will be POTUS in 2025. Then he will, by definition, be America’s first autocrat. He will probably push through a Constitutional Convention and he will, through grift, become fabulously wealthy.
Remember — there are macro trends at work. Around 2024 -2025 we’re either going to become an autocracy or have a civil war. That’s it. No other options. We might punt things down the road a little bit, but we’re totally, completely fucked. Get ready.
It’s interesting how different authors interpret Stieg Larsson’s first three books involving Lisbeth Salander. What I liked about them — and the element I hope to emulate — was the characters.
I really like The Girl Who Played With Fire the best of those first three books because of those three books that make up the Millennium Series, it’s the one book that really reads like a normal novel. The first book is way too slow at times and the last book is just, well, weird. It’s too complex and about conspiracy theories that Larsson obviously believed in.
Anyway.
I continue to pause my writing on the first novel for about a month. It’s a real struggle. Every day since I went on this “pause” I’ve felt the urge to say,”Fuck it,” and read the first draft so I can turn around and start actively working on the novel again. But I know there are plenty of other things I could be doing while I wait to start up again.
I need to do a lot of reading, for one. A whole lot. I’m going to read — or try to read — the latest book in the new series featuring Salander. I’ve read just a few pages and I already taken aback by how different it is in tone from the other books (I tried to read the first post-Larsson written book in the series and…kinda got bored midway through and stopped.)
But I really need to read any and everything I can get my hands on while I pause my writing. And I also need to throw myself into working on development of the other four novels. I need to remember as I do that, of course, to stay flexible. That’s the one thing I’ve learned from all this work over the last few years is don’t grow too attached the specifics of anything in your outline.
Everything should be up for reworking or change as need be.
I read another novel that is trying to do what I want to do — cater to the Larsson audience — and I was again taken back by how different it was from what I expected. Larsson’s work is very much slow-burn in nature. It’s as if the author of the book in question was trying to cherry pick the best bits of the Larsson stuff so he could be more of a hack.
I don’t know. Whatever. I have my own vision and interpolation of what made Larsson’s work great and I’m going with it. The first three novels in this five novel project are DEFINTELY very “me.” They have my sense of humor and aren’t nearly as dark as Larsson’s stuff, which is probably bad. I need to work on making all these novels darker.
Now that I’ve finished my first draft of my first novel, I’m taking about a month’s worth of a pause to develop and read. I’m re-reading Jack M. Bickham’s Scene & Structure and I’m being reminded of some basics of storytelling that will really, REALLY improve the second draft.
As such, I’m careening towards a point later this year (hopefully) when I’m going to need Beta Readers for the second draft. The problem is, I have no friend, I’m flat broke and no one likes me. What’s more, if I’m going to make the spring querying season, I’m going to need a pretty quick turnaround from anyone reading the second draft.
But I have to believe. I have to have hope that I can figure out how to overcome this potential problem with Beta Readers. I’ve gotten this far, I don’t see why I can’t figure out a way to fix this particular issue, too.
One of my Traditionalist relatives “joked” that The Slap was all a big Leftist plot to help Will Smith’s career. This, on its face, is completely totally fucking bonkers. And, what’s more, it makes me very angry because it’s such thinking that gave us the whole fucking Qanon situation.
And the fact that anyone would think that Leftists have the wherewithal to conceive of a plot complex enough to destroy Will Smith’s career short term and potentially help it long term(?) gives us some insight into what the Right thinks of the power of the Left.
It’s all very fucking bonkers. The center-Left is completely powerless while the Right is ascendant. The whole thing is very frustrating. At its core, the Right will not stop until they establishment permanent white minority rule. Then, in their paranoia about the all-powerful Left, they’re going to hunt down Leftists and murder them in cold blood — or put them in a camp, or whatever.
If that sounds hysterical — it does — then what about how another thing that we thought sounded hysterical, the end of Roe, is now here? So, we need to admit that our future is pretty dark.
I often talk to my Traditionalist relatives about the clusterfuck that is trying to hold Trumplandia accountable. We endup talking in circles. I talk about holding Trump and his ilk accountable and they say if he’s done something illegal, then charge him. Then I say that we don’t have any political will to do that and we won’t have that political will until Traditionalists stop supporting MAGA (which they will never do.)
So, we’re stuck.
The only way to get any accountability for Trump is for the very people who are protecting him — Traditionalists — to stop supporting him to the point that when Trump freaks out and calls for blood he spews whenever he’s indicted he’s ignored.
In other words, someone, somewhere needs to have the balls necessary to stand up to Trump and I just don’t see that happening. We live in a post-accountability era of lawlessness because we don’t have the political will to go after Trump.
There is no easy answer. All I got is maybe if we had a civil war then after Blue States win that maybe we’ll have some Second Reconstruction Trump accountability at last.
I continue to think about what the fuck I’m going to do if we actually do have a civil war. At the moment, I’m heading north. I’m a Blue speck in a sea of Red and if things have gotten so bad that I feel it necessary to head north, then there will probably be an infrastructure in place to help me do just that.
I thought you were dead.
It is both exciting and abjectly terrifying that there could come a point in the near future when everything will be thrown up in the air. Heroes will be made. Cowards will be named. Both will live in our memories forever. In other words, if things get as bad as my absolute worst scenario, even a freaky weirdo loser like me might find a moment to shine.
Which, of course is very tragic — why would things have to get that bad in the first place?
But my state, Virginia, is one of several states that will likely implode if there is a civil war. The state is just too internally divided for that not to happen. But that’s really the worst case scenario. What’s more likely to happen is we’ll slip peacefully into autocracy and that will be that.
I’ll cross the autocrat and find myself in a camp.
Jesus Christ. The Republicans are moving the goal posts AGAIN. Now that they’ve caught the car of overturning abortion in Red States, the goal they are going to fundraise with now is the total, complete ban on abortion (and birth control) across all 50 states.
And, given how ascendant they are politically, one has every reason to believe they’re going to catch this particular car. The question is, of course, when does catching the car actually hurt the Republican dog? Ever? Will there ever be a moment when Blue States get woke and realize that Republicans want permanent white minority rule?
Let me be clear yet again — I hate violence and certainly don’t want a Second American Civil War. But I will note the fucking fascist Republicans are doing everything in their power to put a knee on the throat of Blue States. As I keep saying, Blue States will face the existential choice in 2024 – 2025 of bending a knee to a MAGA New Right themed autocracy, or attempting a “National Divorce” by seceding from the Union.
And, as I also keep saying, any “National Divorce” will be messy, messy, messy and bloody, bloody, bloody. And that doesn’t even begin to address the fact that WW3 will start should there be a Second American Civil War.
But Republicans will have only themselves to blame if Blue States decide to leave the Union (or try to.) The differences between Red and Blue have grown so absolutely extreme that something’s gotta give. Either we implode into autocracy or we explode into a civil war.
While, yes, there is something of a spectrum in all of this with civil war on one end and autocracy on the other, in reality when the time comes, we’re going to have to pick one or the other.
For the time being, my general belief that we’re just going to become an autocracy still stands. But I would keep an eye on the reaction when Roe is officially overturned. The key element is Blue States just don’t have the leadership they need to successfully leave the Union.
And I just don’t see any reason for Red States to leave the Union since they’re kind of the bullies of this particular moment in our nation’s history.
Even I, as an Old, am growing frustrated with how other Olds are clinging on to political and cultural dominance. It seems as though we’re way, way, way overdue for a major “vibe shift,” the likes of which we’ve not seen since about 1960.
AOC 2024
And here’s how it might happen — Joe Biden, citing his advanced age — bows out of the 2024 election. And who suddenly becomes the front runner? The newly married (and potentially great with child) AOC. She would be compared to JFK right off the bat. She would BARELY be 35 — her birthday is late in the year, as I understand. (It’s actually in October and she’s 32 now, so, yes, she could pull it off.)
And if she was pregnant while she was running for POTUS that would make the Washington press spooge their pants. There would be talk of how she’s putting her baby’s life at risk from all the campaign stress, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Anyway, the point is — the vibe shift between now and around 2025 (if we don’t endup blowing ourselves up in a civil war) could be rather dramatic and AOC running for POTUS when she’s barely, barely 35 would be the tip of the spear for such a thing to happen.
But the Western World is ripe for a Changing of The Guard. I mean, there are sooooo many Olds who just need to retire. Around 2025, Lorne Michaels of SNL fame is also said to be thinking of retiring, so there you go.
It will be interesting to see how the vibe shift shakes out. It could be we wake up one morning and realize rock and punk are back, superhero movies have been replaced with the gritty movies of the 1970s and….the Olds have all gone to The Villages to become MAGA New Right Republicans?
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