I continue to flirt with the idea of a “second creative track” of some sort. The idea I have rolling around in my mind has to do with a story about the consequences of global climate change.
It’s really hot outside.
The idea is great, but to work on it would require drawing time and energy away from the main event. But I go outside and it’s broiling hot outside to the point that I think it would help to write a story that dealt with the theme of global climate change.
Anyway. It will be interesting to see if there comes a point where I’m so broiled that it’s distracting enough that I’m willing use some of my time on the second creative track.
Even though I’m not young anymore, I am a male white writer. Of course, the Usual Suspects of Woke Twitter poo-pooed the tweet. And, yet, I have to admit the sentiment of the tweet rings true.
This is definitely an instance of me being far more anti-MAGA than Leftist. I hate identity politics and I’m coming to grow tired with people being “woke.” Even though the usual caveats apply of what exactly it means to be “woke” is very, very muddled and loaded to the point of being practically meaningless.
Or, put another way, I think my general angst about ever being able to get published in a traditional way really works well with the what the tweet above suggests. But I went into this literary project knowing that to get traditionally published is to, essentially, play the lottery.
It’s almost impossible to break into the literary world and to do so requires as much luck as it does talent. You have to hit the zeitgeist in just the right way for you to get through all the gatekeepers between you and success. It helps, of course, to have a relative who is already famous, but, lulz.
Anyway, when it comes down to it, you just do the best you can see what happens. And, if all else fails, I can always self-publish.
Oh, Jesus Christ. If ever there was a clear delineation between the bonkers world of MAGA and, well, everyone else, it is the deification of Ashli Babbitt as some sort of right wing martyr.
To make her some sort of fascist John Brown requires some significant mental gymnastics given everything else MAGA wants us to believe about Jan 6th. So, here’s what we’re supposed to believe. The whole thing was a Deep State operation by a combination of Antifa and the FBI and yet somehow, at the same time, all the parts that MAGA likes were done by patriots who just wanted to Stop The Steal. These patriots were just on a tour of the capitol. They just wanted to remind Mike Pence of the right thing to do — never mind the whole “Hang Mike Pence” chant.
As such, it’s not biggie that had Ashli Babbitt NOT been shot, there’s a good chance there would have been significant bloodshed on January 6th. But I know people who are all-in on the idea that Babbitt Did Nothing Wrong and the evil Deep State people who shot her should be hung.
OH MY FUCKING GOD.
Fuck Ashli Babbitt. Play deranged mob games, get deranged mob prizes. She was no martyr. She was a seditious goon who wanted to murder Mike Pence and other members of Congress.
I love to write. In fact, the only creative thing I love to do more than write is take pictures. Anyway, for a certain subset of writers, the idea that someone “loves to write” is very gauche.
But I do love to write. I like to compare my love of writing to shedding skin — it’s something I do without even thinking about it.
Yet, there is a trade off — I don’t have any friends and no one likes me. So, I live a very isolated life, even though I do write a lot.
Anyway, the first novel in what is meant to be a six novel project is going really well. Things are moving pretty fast. It’s unlikely to be the spring 2023 querying season that I participate in, but rather than fall 2023 season. I’m hoping that I might have a second or even third novel in the project done by that point.
I still have a serious amount of work to do with all the books. I have to give my writing some edge so people see these as thrillers. Right now, they’re very interesting, fast paced paged turners…but they just don’t have much edge to them.
I need to change that.
And, of course, I need to shut up about writing in the first place. I need to, as they say, shut up and write.
As long as I’ve been using the Internet, which is almost 30 years now, I’ve been obsessed with Webstats. Something about being able to see where someone comes from to look at my writing is extremely addictive.
But, because I have a tendency to wildly speculate on the basis of little or no information, I sometimes come up with some pretty crackpot ideas. The thing that unnerves me the most is when someone uses the Internet Archive to look at this site. Usually, this happens when I contact or otherwise have some sort of interaction with a major media nattering nabob of negativism.
They’re doing due diligence on me. Given that I, unfortunately, can come across as a drunk Internet crank, I usually fail the audition. But someone doing due diligence on you via something like the Internet Archive is like being forced to go on a secret first date against your will.
Anyway, my latest paranoia is someone from the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland looked at this site, apparently by coming through the link on my Twitter bio. I have a few guesses as to who it might be, one of them being the manuscript consultant that I contacted, but ultimately couldn’t afford. I have this lingering paranoia now that she’s going to use the fleshout outline I gave her to write her own version of my novel.
But, for the time being, that says more about my continued anger about Annie Shapiro “stealing” ROKon Magazine from me than any evidence I might have that this is going to happen. It could be anybody. Literally anyone. I just know where the person came from.
If anything, this paranoia makes me want to develop and write faster. I know this story really well, I just have to finish it.
I hate to break it to all the earnest, well meaning “Resistance” people on Twitter who seem to be forever stuck in January 2017, but: getting angry on Twitter doesn’t mean jack shit.
Or, to put it another way, a strongly worded Twitter thread is not a law passed or a SCOTUS ruling handed down.
Everything on a macro level continues to point to America having the existential choice of autocracy or civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025. At the moment, I definitely think we’re going to just slip into autocracy. Trump, or some other Republican thug, will seize then consolidate power and that will be that.
If we’re lucky, we’ll stay somewhere around Hungary or Turkey. If we’re not lucky, we’ll become a political clone of Russia or Nazi Germany. People like me will just vanish and that will be that, while at least 1 million liberals will flee the country.
Or we have a civil war when Blue States leave the Union en mass.
And it’s not just one person we have to stop to prevent this dystopian hellscape from happening — it’s an entire party. What’s worse, Trump has served his political and historical purpose. The Republican Party now fully understands how weak our democratic norms are and they will be able to establish white minority rule in the US without much trouble.
All along, of course, “Resisters” will rant on Twitter, thinking if they can just “destroy” the autocrat one more time on Twitter that everything will be fixed and we’ll be saved.
I would prefer not to leave the country because the US has become an autocracy. I would prefer, in such a situation, to stand and fight. And it’s possible that because I’m a broke ass motherfucker that I won’t have any option but to do just that.
All I know is, we are currently in the twilight of America’s 250 year experiment with democratic self-governance. Either we renew it as part of a Second American Civil War where we blow ourselves up and the Good Guys win, or we just give up and become an autocracy.
While I love my Traditionalist relatives dearly sometimes it’s very obvious that all their talking points are simply the watered down talking points of American Nazis. They hear about the Great Replacement and the Great Reset and the evils of the “liberal world order’ and then turn around and either yell at me about them or just sulk in silence because they no longer want to me about politics.
One thing I’ve found to be frustrating as someone who’s Twitter echo chamber is center-Left is how so many “Resistance” thought leaders are very, very oblivious to the issues that are important to Traditionalists and MAGA.
To your typical conservatives it’s not “the border” it’s The Border. There is only one border, the national border, and it’s like their political clit — touch it and they get really excited one way or another. Now, for me, the center-Right’s obsession with The Border is patently racist and bigoted.
America is, by definition, a nation of immigrants and what anyone who rants about The Border is really talking about is their fear that scary brown people will change the make up of the United States because white women aren’t haven’t enough babies.
One thing that is interesting is the Traditionalists I know fucking hate liberals and Democrats with such an absolute rage that there is no room for compromise. They often get so wrapped up in their dreams of “putting Hillary Clinton under the prison” that when you say, “Ok, you can have that as long as Trump is right there with her” they don’t even notice the concession you’ve made.
What’s more, not only do my Traditionalists think that the “woke cancel culture mob” is out to ruin their lives on a practical, personal basis, they also think that anyone who isn’t MAGA is either gay, a “groomer” or wants to force everyone to bend a knee to the “homosexual agenda.” This is RIGHT THERE at the very front of their minds whenever you want to talk about politics. In other words, we’re totally fucked. It’s just a short jaunt towards a President DeSantis getting approval to throw people like me in a camp.
Because all of that is very bonkers, it’s very easy for center-Left thought leaders to make fun of what MAGA believes. That serves no purpose. While we’re all laughing at MAGA, they’re quickly taking over not just state governments but the administration of elections.
And, I hate to break it to you, but the Nazis believed some pretty crazy things — comical, even. But that didn’t stop them from taking over Europe and threatening the entire world.
Is there any solution to this clusterfuck?
No. There isn’t. We’re beyond the Even Horizon. Not only that, but we’ve given up as a country. We’re either going to have a civil war or we’re going to turn into a Very American Autocracy. Get out while you can, if you have the means.
One of the strangest things going on these days is how MAGA is so interested in a Second American Civil War. This blog is very, very obscure — virtually no one reads it — and yet, there continues to be a regular trickle of obvious MAGA people interested in my speculation about a possible civil war.
It’s all very curious because why would MAGA want to start a civil war when they’re getting everything they want via the courts and regular old politics? They’re ascendant. They have a vested interest in there not being a civil war so they can peacefully consolidate power.
All they have to do is be patient and they will get the fascist autocracy that they apparently want so bad.
And, yet, MAGA definitely seems to be chomping at the bit to have the opportunity to murder people like me in cold political blood. I struggle with this contradiction a great deal these days. What is going on?
Some of it, I guess, comes from MAGA’s self-perception. They are both bullies and crybabies — who are apparently very impatient. As such, they are totally oblivious to how they’re getting everything they want — and more — without firing a shot.
They are so aggrieved, so full of rage because of the all-powerful “woke cancel culture mob” that they keep assuming that if there is a civil war that they’ll be the ones who start it. It just doesn’t make any sense. I suppose some of it comes from the “froth” of some of the major MAGA thought leaders who won’t shut up about the need for a civil war.
But, as I keep saying, if there’s a civil war in the United States, it’s going to happen when Blue States leave the Union at some point between Election Day 2024 and Certification Day 2025. And, yet, I just don’t see that happening. The people who would be leading any effort at secession on the part of Blue States will already have one foot out the door by the time that particular crisis hits.
So, it’s all very dumb.
Yet, that doesn’t stop MAGA people from looking at this blog to see what a civil war would look like. I wish they would just cool it an be happy for once — everything is set for them to peacefully seize control of the United States and never let it go.
It’s up to them if we become a clone of Turkey, Hungary…or Russia or even Nazi Germany.
I’m a huge, huge fan of Wet Leg. I was taken aback by how glam Rhian Teasdale was in the latest live YouTube video the ban has done, “Smoko.” She comes across as Very Hot.
Rhian Teasdale
I just worry that she’s going to veer off into Being Famous with all the downside that entails.
But maybe I’m reading too much into very little information — something I’m known to do.
Anyway, I wish the best for her. She needs to go solo and be my favorite Punk Rock Girl. But that’s a realization she has to come to own her own. If she stays with Wet Leg, that’s fine.
For various personal reasons, I find myself listening to Taylor Swift’s 10 minute version of “All Too Well” over and over and over again. It’s a good to great song. Very easy to listen to.
But there comes a point where you, as the audience want to say, “Ok, we get it, you want your fucking red scarf back.”
Now, to Tay-Tay’s base the song is about how all men are trash and how Tay-Tay would have been better off scissoring with Karlie Kloss in the privacy of their New York City apartment.
But, I have a different hot take on this song.
I think it’s nothing more than her personal version of Meatloaf’s version of Paradise By The Dashboard Light. She’s saying to the audience that it sucks to grow up…but, in the end, she doesn’t regret allowing Jake Gyllenhaal to punch her v-card. It’s all rather muddled in the song, obviously, but “All Too Well” is very wistful and melancholy, but the over all vibe is definitely the very end of Paradise By The Dashboard Light. The. Very. End.
“It was long ago and far away and so much better than it is today,” that song says at the very, very end.
So, all the Tay-Tay fanbase hate towards Jake Gyllenhaal is extremely misguided. Yes, I know, she wanted to keep her virginity until she got married, but I think that says more about who Tay-Tay was at the time that she dated Gyllenhaal than who she is at the time she wrote “All Too Well.”
Anyway, I guess I just I just find Tay-Tay’s fan base a little annoying. We all know no matter how much you purport to hate men that you’re going to settle down with an accountant! That’s what hot chicks do!
You must be logged in to post a comment.