Month: August 2022

Trump Is Going To Get Away With It (Again)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I think, in the end, the Justice Department will simply be so glad to get the documents that Trump stole back that they will punt on actually holding Trump criminally accountable. The nation is too divided and the Right has already begun the process of baking into the cake yet another Trump scandal. Trump will continue to warp our political and criminal system because of the absolute fidelity of the MAGA base and that will be that.

The key issue is, of course, that Trump’s usual political bullshit is working. And because the wheels of justice are so slow that ultimately, the whole thing will be see through the lends of politics and, by definition, Trump wins.

And, as such, the it seems as though we’re going to zoom towards Election Day 2022. Then we find out if the fascists take Congress again. The Trump announces for 2024 and then we zoom towards the complete clusterfuck of 2024.

At the moment, it seems, that 2024 is going to be it. We will face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war. I think it’s obvious — at least at the moment — that we’re just going to slip into some form of autocracy. That’s our fate. Get out while you still can.

This Latest Outline Of The First Novel Is REALLY GOOD

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I’m not done yet with the latest version of the fleshed out outline, I am in the third act. And I’m really pleased with what I’ve managed to come up with. Now I continue to have a lot of worry about how I’m doing all of this in a vacuum and there could be a lot of things I’m missing.

But I think if I really focus on developing characters and their motivation then I will at least be in a position not to embarrass myself. I keep saying I’m going to read more and then lulz it. I’m so busy producing content that it’s difficult for me to consume it.

And, yet, that’s something I absolutely have to do. I have to read more. A lot more. I have a small library of books I haven’t read yet. Once I finishing fleshing out this outline — which will be about 50 pages — I think I may pause for a day I really force myself to read up on some basic elements of how to write a novel. I’m so proud of what I’ve managed to come up with, I don’t want to blow it with application.

I’ve been working on writing my first novel for way too long. I need to finish a solid first draft. I’m not getting any younger. Not only could too many things go wrong, but even if I get what I want — which is to sell at least one novel — I’m going to be so old when it happens that the whole context of what I get will be different than want I want.

All anyone will want to talk about is how I “came out of nowhere” and I “found success late in life.”

UGH.

Not to mention there’s always a chance that some dumb thing I did when I was drunk 20 years ago when be used to “cancel me.” But it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.

Anyway, once I finish the outline and do some reading, then I will start the next step — writing scene summaries for each individual scene. THEN I will get down to writing.

Rule Of Three

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Not to sound too morbid, but now that Gorbachev is dead, we can now probably begin the countdown to what other elderly statesperson might croak. The most obvious candidates are, of course, Kissinger and the Queen. Both of them are, like Gorbachev, in their 90s.

Once you hit your 90s, you’re just shuffling deckchairs on your own mortality. Something gotta give, sooner rather than later. Though, I must note, I have a close relative who is spry and in his 100s, so anything is possible.

There is the far more ominous prospect that someone else who is elderly but not in their 90s might suddenly and unexpectedly shuffle off this mortal coil. I have already stated that if anything happened to dingus Trump that we might face a situation similar to what happened after Martin Luther King died, only with white people.

No way would the MAGA faithful believe that fat tub of lard Trump simply died because he was, well, an old fat tub of lard. They would spin all kinds of insane conspiracy theories to the point that severe political violence would almost be a foregone conclusion.

But, who knows. I’m probably wrong. I’m often wrong. Almost always. Maybe the Rule of Three won’t apply this time.

‘Hello?’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The strangest thing to pop up in my Webstats is the person who randomly show up as if they were searching my name. The reason why it’s odd is — I’m currently living in oblivion and there’s absolutely no reason for anyone who doesn’t know me personally to search for my name.

The late Annie Shapiro and myself in happier times.

So, the idea that someone would want to know more about me because they heard something about me kind of rattles my cage. It does this because I don’t know why. Is it because of something I wrote? Is it something I did on Twitter? What? What is going on?

I think there must be an element of what goes on with this Website that I can see using the Webstat software I use. I — think — that some forms of access to this extremely low-trafficked site is seen as bot traffic even though it isn’t. As such, there is a percentage of the people who view this site that I don’t see.

Anyway, welcome, I guess? If you really want to know who I am, here’s what the late Annie Shapiro said when she was really, really mad at me, I’m a “delusional jerk with a good heart.”

Be Thankful Trump Hasn’t Gone Transactional Again — Yet

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

To date, Trump has only gone transactional once — on January 6th. And he ony did so because it was personal and he was desperate. Below are three ways that Trump could start a civil war by going transactional.

  1. An Effort to Stop Criminal Accountability
    This is the one scenario whereby the MAGA New Right people who keep coming to this Website looking for a sooner-rather-than-later timetable for being able to murder people like me without criminal recourse might happen. If Trump really felt he might, at last, face some criminal accountability, he could very well begin to rant that Red States need to leave the Union because of how unjust it all is. I suppose he might, in general, demand in his usual dog whistle kind of way general political violence, but I doubt it. When you have an entire party — the Republican Party –with a cult-like devotion to you, why go for general violence when you can get entire states to leave the Union at your behest?
  2. A Ploy to Convict Biden / Harris in the Senate
    In this scenario, it’s 2023 and Republicans have gone nuts. They have impeached both Biden and Harris out of spite. Now, for Trump to actively be trying to destroy the country, he would, of course, need to have some personal investment in it. So, this one only really works if he is the Speaker of the House and he thinks he can become POTUS again early. So, in a bid to scare the living shit out of the Senate, he, as Speaker, begins to demand Red States leave the Union in order to get what he wants. He says this just as a rhetorical flourish, but MAGA legislatures take him seriously and states, probably beginning with Texas, begin to convene Secessionist Conventions. An away we go.
  3. A 2024 Clusterfuck — MAGA Counter Revolution
    This endgame was two parts to it. It could be that at some point in late 2024, after Election Day, it will be obvious to Blue States that the election was stolen and they have no recourse but to begin the process of leaving the Union. By the time Certification Day 2025 rolls around, we are in a full fledged Secession Crisis. The other possibility is that Trump wins outright — even though he’ll cheat no matter what — and by late January it becomes clear that Trump’s second term agenda is so fascist and radical that Blue States begin to leave the Union.

    The question, of course, is how likely is it that malignant dingus Trump would summon the wherewithal to go transactional sooner rather than later, say, to save his sorry ass from facing any criminal accountability. That is a real mystery. What happened on January 6th was such a specific, simple situation on a cognitive level that to think Trump could summon up the mental acuity necessary to bring the country down via some sort of secessionist crisis is kind of pushing it.

    I just don’t think he has it in him. He talks a good talk, but unlike, say, Hitler, Trump is just playing himself. He can’t bend history to his will like Hitler did. As such, for the time being, at least, I think we’re fairly safe. There will be a lot of talk about a civil war, but, in the end, we’ll just slip into autocracy. Millions of wealthy liberals will flee the country and the country will circle the autocratic drain.

Why, Yes, Charlie Kirk, MAGA Is Fascist

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, last night, Right Wing talking head Charlie Kirk popped a gasket over the fact that Dark Brandon called MAGA, “semi-fascist.” Now, this is hilarious for a number of reasons ,chief among them being it’s very self-evident that there’s no “semi” about it — MAGA is fascist.

It’s a testament to how fucked up our political system is that just because Biden said was is patently obvious –MAGA is fascist — people like Kirk are even more determined to be…fascist. It’s all yet another sign of how the country is lurching towards some sort of Great Reset or Fourth Turning no later than late 2024 – early 2025.

We just can’t keep this level of political uncertainty up forever. Something’s gotta give. There has to be a point when we either slip into autocracy or we collapse into civil war. The more the center-Left wakes up to the fascist dangers of MAGA and the more we gird our loins for how to address American fascism, the more this only serves to enrage MAGA.

So, either Blues throw down the gauntlet when MAGA steals the 2024 election and begin to leave the Union, or we just give up and all the wealthy liberals who might otherwise help the Blue cause abscond to the south of France.

One day, we all may be Antifa.

MAGA thinks the American center-Left is communist and the center-Left thinks MAGA is fascist, then, well, then there’s your sign that American democracy is finally dead and we’re either going to start murdering each other for political reasons or slide into a Russian-style autocracy. There is no middle ground. Pick a side. Or a side will be chosen for you.

The Issue Of Finding A Beta Reader (Eventually)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m just about to finish fleshing out an outline for yet another version of my first novel. It’s dramatically different than what I originally came up with for this novel to the point that it’s pretty much — on a specific basis — a totally different book.

The structure is significantly different — I am no longer using the structure of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire as a crutch. I use a much more traditional structure with an inciting incident that happens just about when you might expect. In other words, I get to the point of this story a lot sooner than I did before.

Anyway, now that I’m on the cusp of actually writing a new version of this novel, I find myself gaming out the next few steps. And that would be, after finishing wrapping up the second draft of this novel, finding someone to be a beta reader.

At the moment, I’m at a loss as to with whom or how this will happen. I have no friends and no one likes me and I’m very, very poor. I’m flat broke and paying anyone to read a novel that may approach ~120,000 words is going to be a real chore, if not nearly impossible.

And, yet, as I learned with my time as the publisher of ROKon Magazine in Seoul many, many moons ago, sometimes, things can break your way when you least expect it. But, of course, it goes without saying that one shouldn’t simply “hope” that things will work out.

Sometimes, you have to work hard to make luck happen.

I Have About Another Year Left With This First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Apparently, there are two times of the year when you can query literary agents — the spring and the fall. In that is the case, then I probably have about another year left in this project. Despite all my expectations, I’m simply not in a position to query this first novel, much less sell it anytime soon.

Almost.

So, as such, it’s going to be the fall of 2023 when I’m finally done with this novel to the point that I feel comfortable querying it. There are a huge number of things that could either go wrong, change the context or delay this, but, in general, I think I’m fairly safe in believing I can begin querying by the end of 2023.

One big issue is that of who I’m going to ultimately find to be my beta readers. I have no friends and no one likes me, so I’m going to have to find someone to pay to be my beta reader. Or, alternately, I can participate in a beta reading program of some sort myself and that way I would read someone else’s stuff in exchange for them reading mine.

But, in the end, you just have to have hope. You have to believe in yourself and not be so quick to assume you won’t succeed. I’m not getting any younger, though. Since I broke my ankle a few months ago, I have found myself doubly aware of how fragile life is and how unexpected events can change everything without any notice.

Wish me luck.

My Hot Take On The ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ Kerfuffle

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me be absolutely clear — I fucking hated Olivia Wilde’s debut movie, “Booksmart.” I was shamed into seeing it by my center-Left media echo chamber and just about the time when they started screeching about lesbian sex positions, I bounce out of the theatre. I went into the movie expecting something akin to Heathers and came out of it shaking my head, disgusted with how woke it was.

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post.

What are we to make of the drama behind the making of Olivia Wilde’s sophomore effort, “Don’t Worry Darling?” This is a very complex situation because of all the different elements of the drama. On one hand, we have the issue of the tension between Wilde and Florence Pugh over not only the casting of Harry Styles, but the rumor that Wilde was so busy banging Styles that Pugh had to pick up the slack of actually directing the movie in the first place.

It’s all very curious. It’s a very weird thing to have happen on a set.

Meanwhile, there is the issue of what the fuck was going on between Wilde and problematic star Shia LaBeouf. He has various credible accusation of sexual misconduct lodged against him — I think one of them is from former girlfriend FKA Twigs — and, yet, despite that, woke Wilde apparently was begging him to star in her movie, the point of calling Pugh, “Aunt Flo.”

It’s all very, very strange. And, yet, if nothing else, here I am writing about a movie I probably won’t see and otherwise would have no interest in. It very much harkens back to the plot of the Julia Roberts vehicle, “America’s Sweetheart.” (I think she was in that movie.)

Anyway, I think if nothing else everyone involved in this clusterfuck has learned a lesson about how maybe we all need a bit more understanding and compassion in our lives.

What If I’m Right?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I’ve been ranting about the existential choice of autocracy or civil war in the United States starting at some point in late 2024, early 2025 for some time now. And the general drift of the country on a macro level definitely seems to indicate I might — gulp — turn out to be right.

The question for me is — will anyone notice or care?

I don’t think so. I think the best I can expect is some writer for The New Yorker or The Atlantic will read some of what I’ve written as part of their overall research into the issue and THEY will get all the credit. I’m a nobody loser crank in the middle of nowhere. There’s absolutely no reason for anyone to care enough about me to give me any credit for it

So, ultimately, if what I fear happens, I’m probably going to be just another nameless either victim of weaponized ICE or a political refugee who flees north to try to get to at state that better fits my Blue political point of view. Nothing of note will happen because I was right.