Month: January 2024

What The Fuck Is Wrong With The New York Times?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The New York Times is a great newspaper — maybe even the best newspaper in the world. But as is shown by the existence of the NYTimes Pitchbot parody Twitter account — something, on a structural basis, is wrong with the place. It’s so bad that I fear that the failure of The New York Times to properly address the threat that is Trump will be written about a great deal once we sort all these issues out one way or another.

It seems as though The Times is — on an institutional basis — is really nervous about being seen as a bastion of liberal thought. It is, of course, but it’s doing its readers a disservice by not being more adamant in its defending of freedom in the face of the rise of MAGA fascism.

It’s all very curious.

I mean, if a doofus like me can notice something so obvious, you’d think the popinjays at The Old Gray Lady might do something about it. But, no, here we are. The Republic is on the cusp of either collapsing into civil war / revolution or turning into an autocracy.

Shrug emoji.

Being A Good Journalist Is Not Hard

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The central mistake of my life is probably that someone did not sit me down, at about 15, and tell me I would never be a journalist. Had someone — preferably a male figure in my life — done that, then, maybe, I wouldn’t have wasted my 20s thinking I could be a daily newspaper reporter.

Me (background) during my crazier days in Seoul.

It has taken me decades to realize that being a good journalist isn’t really that hard, it’s just difficult for me. I am thinking about this because of the review of the Jayson Blair imbroglio I’m reading in the book “The Times” about the modern history of The New York Times.

The way Blair is described at times hits a little bit too close to home, but for the fact that I’ve never done cocaine and I’m honest to a fault — I would never just make shit up in a newspaper article, especially one I knew would be in The New York Times.

Other than that, yikes. I feel seen.

Anyway, there has to be a statute of limitations on alternative universes. I’ve had the life that I’ve had and hopefully — hopefully — I will somehow manage to write a breakout hit novel.

Now, To Take A Deep Breath

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I may, in fact, finally, finally, FINALLY be in the second act of the third draft of my first novel, I have to take a very deep breath. I’ve decided that I’m going to game out the character arc of the secondary characters in the novel.

That seems to be the only way I’m going get anything done. I also have to be prepared to throw a lot of the existing specifics of the story up in the air and just see what happens.

But, as I keep saying, I have something of a time limit. I still am shooting for some time in April for the Third Draft of this novel to be finished and ready to go. I fear if I don’t give myself a really tight deadline, that things will slip another year and, what do I know, we could have a civil war/ revolution by that point.

(Not that I really think that is going to happen.)

Old Gray Lady WAP: Of Judith Miller, The New York Times & WMD

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Editor’s Note: Please note, the “Old Gray Lady” in the title is a nickname for The New York Times.

I could care less that Judith Miller of the New York Times would “whip it around” as is said in the song “I Got A Man” with various people, including sources, but I do have beef with her for her Iraq WMD coverage.

Judith Miller

I only even mention her self-avowed bed hopping because she is rather matter of fact about it in the book “The Times” that I’m reading at the moment. I’m sex positive, I don’t care what she did with her body, even if it a bit cringe worthy that she was working at The Times and boning sources with great abandoned.

But like I said, that’s not my beef with her — my beef with her comes from her WMD reporting that was the basis for the US’ invasion of Iraq. I have conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — who took 20 YEARS to admit that that there were no WMD in Iraq.

Twenty fucking years!

And they admitted it in such a casual way because by that point Trump was on the scene so, lulz, all the blood and treasure spend on a lie was no big deal.

Anyway, you go girl, is all I gotta say. But it is amusing that editors of The Old Gray Lady were played so well by Miller at such a crucial juncture in our history.

The Right’s White Hot Need To ‘Own The Libs’ & The ‘Media Narrative’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the ways the browning of America and the increased economic and political agency of women have warped our politics is white Christian (men) get really worked out up about “owning the libs.”

Bari Weiss is among the conservatives who were “canceled” for not following the evil liberal “media narrative.”

This need to “own the libs” pops out in a variety of ways, but one of them is the idea that the evil liberal cabal is out to get people who don’t follow the liberal, mainstream “media narrative.” As part of this, many conservatives are bad faith free speech absolutist, when they are in fact, just annoyed that they can’t be racist and sexist.

They are also crybaby snowflakes who mistake their lack of engagement for being “shadow banned” when, in fact, their views just aren’t popular.

In my personal life, my conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — are quite haughty about how they’re free speech absolutist and if only the evil liberals would get out of the way, then EVERYONE would see how great and wonderful conservative ideals are.

UGH.

The whole thing is a symptom of how fucked up the political world is these days. Everything. Is. So. Fucked. Up.

Why Tay-Tay Will Never Be ‘Great’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about Taylor Swift is she’s good, but she will never be great. And there is one specific reason — she never takes any risks. One of my favorite genre of song is when the moody, melancholy ballad singer freaks the fuck out for one song.

Tay-Tay

A prime example of this is the Tori Amos song “Raspberry Swirl.”

I just can’t imagine Tay-Tay doing such a thing. She will occasionally pop out a pop-rock song, but the long-rumored rock album “Karma” is just that — a rumor. If she were to freak the fuck out for one album in a way that scared the ever living shit out of her liberal white women fanbase, then she takes things to the next level.

I mean, think of The Beatles. They started off as One Direction…and ended up as Radiohead. If it makes Tay-Tay feel any better, if she DID freak out in her music, it would be a great way to steal a creative march on a young upstart like Olivia Rodrigo.

Total Eclipse Of My Art

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I’m just about to wrap up the first act of the third draft of my first novel, the rest of the novel has collapsed. I’m going to have to totally restructure — and in large part, rewrite — the rest of the fucking thing because of all of the changes I’ve made to the first act.

Write, write, write

Oh boy.

So, I have to do a lot of aggressive daydreaming to figure out how to pretty much re-imagine the entire rest of the novel. I still have the general plot well established in my mind, but the specifics are going to be totally different.

And thinking that through is going to take some time. Time I have very little of if I still plan to wrap a presentable Third Draft by no later than the end of April.

So, I have a long ways to go and a short time to get there.

Quibbles With Adam Nagourney’s ‘The Times’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Adam Nagourney’s “biography” of the modern New York Times is really, really good. In fact, so far, the only quibbles I’ve had with it are one formatting issue and one stray word that did not quite fit the idea he was trying to convey.

Adam Nagourney
But, in general, the major “quibble” I have with the book is that it reads like An Official Book About The Times, even though the book says it’s not. It reads like it was sanctioned by the Powers That Be at the paper to give we plebes The Official Line about some pretty dramatic events in the paper’s history.

I will also note that I would read a 500 page book that was nothing more than a tick-tock of even events of, say, Sept 1., 2001 to Oct. 1st, 2001. That would be great. I would love to know EXACTLY what each major player at the paper was doing on Sept. 11 during the course of the day. (Has someone already done that?)

Anyway, I still have a few hundred pages to read.

Class Is Real: Adam Nagourney Edition

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I pinged the author of the book about The New York Times, “The Times” that I’m reading — Adam Nagourney — and he was kind enough to say thank you about my praise.

Adam Nagourney

When I pinged him, I mentioned that while the book is great, there were a few quibbles. He said he wanted to know what they were, for future editions of the book.

I don’t know what to think about that. Was he being sincere, or was he kind of humoring a weird, random person on the internet? I just don’t know. But, anyway, the book is really good.

You should read it.

In The End, Not Even Comedy Will Be Safe From AIGM

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, apparently, there’s some sort of AI generated George Carlin special floating around. Such AI Generated Media (AIGM, pronounced Ayee-Gym,) is a sign of things to come.


What gets me is that it’s also a sign that we need to re-calibrate what we expect for AI going forward in regards to the arts. It definitely SEEMS as though within about 18 months….that human Hollywood…just might not exist as we think of it. AIGM will totally consume Human Generated Media (HGM) and…that will be that.

It might be a bit longer than that, given the US could collapse into civil war / revolution in late 2024, early 2025, but, still…the times, they are a changing.