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.

A Bit Of Regret

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have to accept that it definitely appears as though — barring something I can’t predict — that my dream of pulling of a third hat trick with my life is a bit…delusional? I say this in the context of reading the big new book about The New York Times, “The Times.”

I always though that I had one big third act ahead of me. But, lulz, even if I sell my novel and it’s some sort of hit, it’s not like I will be, uuuuhhh, YOUNG when it happens. Everything will happen in the context of me being in my 50s.

It’s not like I can get my act together an one day work at The New York Times. I MIGHT be able to, like, hang out with New York Times people if I was some sort of successful — and eccentric — novelist, but work there full time….nope. Not only am I too old, I’m too bonkers and my personality just doesn’t fit working at such a high pressure gig.

Meanwhile, my other option — making it big in Hollywood — is just as delusional, but for different reasons. Yeah, I could probably talk my way into a three picture deal while drunk at a cocktail party, but, still, the whole context would be different from what I always imagined.

Rather than partying with 24 year olds, I would be this guy that everyone is stunned became a success 25 years later than everyone else. “So, how does it feel to be a success later in life,” is the chief question every reporter would ask me.

All of this is delusional, of course.

And I have to appreciate that barring something REALLY BIG that I can’t predict, I probably won’t actually be able to physically see my novel on the shelf of a physical bookstore until my mid-50s. (And by that point, a combination of AI and XR may have even made physical print bookstores rather quaint.)

Who knows. I don’t. But no matter what, the context of any success I have at this point in my life just won’t be what I expected back in the day.

Will The New York Times & CNN Websites Soon Become Indistinguishable?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The conventional wisdom at the moment, which I think makes a lot of sense, is that soon all the major news Websites will essentially do the same thing — be something along the lines of CNN’s Website. They will feature a lot of video — even if they’re the Website for a print newspaper.

Now, remember, the times they are a changing and all of this should be seen in the context of the rise of AI.

Soon enough, lulz, AI will eat the Web to the point that rather than passively read Websites via a browser, we will simply ask our digital personal assistant to tell us the news — and maybe display news via our XR vizor display that we’re wearing.

It definitely seems as though everything we know about media is about to be upended very, very quickly. And, what’s more remember the fucking Fourth Turning may be happening as all of this is going on, so we won’t be able to enjoy any cool AI shit until, well, we’re done totally and completely re-arranging the world order for various dumb reasons including “vibes.”

Anyway. It will be interesting to see what happens next, I suppose.

That Time I Met Arthur Sulzberger Jr In Seoul

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Many moons ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I was a lowly hawgan teacher in Incheon. It was my first year in South Korea, so it had to be at some point between late 2004 and late 2005. Anyway, I learned that the World Association of Newspapers was having a conference in Seoul.

Arthur Sulzberger Jr

So, I did what every failed journalists who doesn’t realize his career is over does — I engaged in a bit of light fraud and, using some credentials faked via my membership in the Society of Professional Journalists, got myself into the event.

This is where I mention that, in general, I’ve had fairly good interactions with New York Times people to date, those few times I’ve actually interacted with them. But I don’t know how much of that graciousness was simply humoring a drunk loser and how much of it was genuine.

I will note that Jennifer 8. Lee was superficially gracious to me when I met her in Seoul, but I fear that to this day she may mention what a freaky loser I was to her high end cocktail party friends — to this day, occasionally someone will show up in my Webstats wanting to read my account of meeting Lee and her friend Tomoko in Seoul. (I presume to gawk at what a fucking loser I am.)

So the day of the event, I traveled all the way from Incheon to the center of Seoul and went to the WAN event. It was all a bit overwhelming. I think it was at this point that I saw the President of Korea. I would be a lot more calm and collected now if I went to such an event, but then, about 20 years ago, I was a ball of nervous energy.

Anyway, I went to one event and kept staring straight at Arthur Sulzberger Jr and, to his credit, rather than having the guards escort me out for being weird, after the event was over he made a beeline to me. That was a very memorable event for me.

I was supposed to spend, like, an hour with him and a small group of people talking about Very Important Things, but I had to go back to work in Incheon. I think that was probably for the best. I kind of dodged a bullet on that one, I think. That could have been very, very ackward.

Anyway, no harm no foul. It was a one of the more surreal experiences of my time in South Korea.

Of The New York Times & Class

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m reading the new book “The Times” about the recent history of The New York Times and I’m taken aback by how aspirational working for The Old Gray Lady continues to be in my mind.

I’m too old for it to be any such thing, of course. And, what’s more, reading the book keeps reminding me of the issue of class. For all my ability to fake a good conversation with someone who works at The Times, there is no denying that in the end, they would dismiss me because of — if nothing else — my socio-economic status.

I’m broke as fuck.

Which, of course, raises the issue of what might happen if my novel is some sort of break out hit (this is just a daydream at the moment). I think, in fact, that being a best selling author would be just about the ONLY WAY that anyone who worked at The New York Times might take me seriously.

Even then, I would be an outsider. I just have to accept that as the old saying goes, “You take yourself wherever you go.”

I Have A Growing Number Of Books About The New York Times To Read

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I now have TWO tomes about The New York Times to read. I already have one, The Trust, while I’m waiting on the second, newer one, The Times to arrive in a few weeks from Amazon.

For all its problems, I really love The New York Times and I wish I could hang out with a few of them at some point in my life. All the times I’ve crossed paths with them they came across as really genuine, nice folks. Two of the times I had an opportunity to interact with Times folks, I was as giddy as a 50s bobby socker.

Anyway. Absolutely no one cares or listens to me. And if I ever manage to breakout with my DJ (novel) money and actually hang out with any New York Times people that way, it will all be very, very surreal.

I’m been a drunk crank loser for so long that any change in that particular situation that allow me to have drinks with New York Times people would be a rather dramatic change of fate.

Of Meeting The Publisher of The New York Times & Ageism In The Context of My Homage To Stieg Larsson

When It Comes to Fixing The Looming Problems of A.I., Ezra Klein is Full of Shit

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I finished reading Ezra Klein’s great book “Why We’re Polarized” with a lingering sense of being a little bit cheated. He was great at explaining WHY we’re polarized, but when it came to giving a rube like me any sort of solution as to what to do about that polarization there was nothing.

So I find myself listening to him on The New York Times’ Hard Fork podcast and he did it AGAIN. He gave a really cogent description of the problems associated with the rise of AI, but when he was asked how AI companies might make money other than in advertising — he punted. He pivoted to the idea that somehow we should get the government to award huge prizes for technology development.

Does he really think that somehow, magically the government is going to subsidise the AI industry to the point that Federal prizes would be able to supplant the vast sums of money that would come from the path of least resistance that would be advertising?

I hate that. I hate the idea that a smug wealthy podcast liberal Klein can make all this money, get all this status by bitching and moaning about the problems associated with AI…and yet he refuses to come up with any actual solutions. The idea of government “prizes” instead of advertising is complete and total bullshit.

I turn to people like Klein for not just complaints, but solutions. Because I think ultimately Klein’s complaints-with-no-solutions will ultimately lead to the exact thing he doesn’t want to happen: a combination of competition and people using the experiences associated with social media will cause AI to be based on the concepts not of government prizes, but pure capitalism.

I Feel Your Pain, Catturd

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While the earnest, well-meaning nature of MAGA “thought leader” Catturd enrages me, I saw a description of him that gave me pause for thought. I’m really self-conscious about my current loser lot in life and the way some smug Twitter liberals were describing Catturd could very well be pretty much applied to me.

And, I hate to admit it, in some ways at this specific moment Catturd is actually on a personal basis a lot better off than me. And, in fact, I suspect there’s at least one smug liberal out there who uses her encounter with me in Seoul many moons ago as something of a cocktail party joke.

I’m talking, of course, of Jennifer 8. Lee.

Many moons ago, back in Seoul, Lee came to Seoul to work on a book about fortune cookies. And while she was polite to my face, I think she and her friend Tomoko thought I was completely fucking bonkers — a total fucking loser. And, occasionally, I will see in my Webstats random poking around about my various write ups over the years of that event from my point of view.

I can just imagine how much glee she gets in talking about the crazy, loser expat she met in Seoul. Her friend Tomoko, who was working for the Asian Wall Street Journal at the time, I think, really, really did not think much of me. So much so, that to this day it kind of rattles my personal self-perception.

And, going forward, if I should manage to write the Great American Pop Thriller, I think I’m going to have to prepare myself things not to be as great and wonderful as I want them to be. Any inspection of my personal life over the last 20-odd years will leave Normal Smug Wealthy Liberal Elites aghast at what a fucking loser I’ve been.

But I can’t change how old I am and I can’t change the past. All I can do is just try to write a good a novel as I possibly can.

What’s The Matter With The New York Times

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve all but given up talking to my Traditionalist relatives about politics. They are really, really upset about the evils of the “media narrative” and anything that doesn’t fit THEIR media narrative is dismissed as “bogus.” One thing that they often raise is what they feel is the lack of objectivity on the part of the mainstream media.

This really upsets them a whole lot.

And I honestly don’t understand why they’re so upset or what, specifically, they want to change. If you give a lie (MAGA) equal value to reality (everything else) then you’re pretty much lying to the audience. Of course, they like the lie and they get really angry when anyone calls a spade a spade and a lie a lie.

Which brings us to The New York Times. I love The New York Times and all my occasional interactions with them have been pretty cool — other than Maggie Haberman who was really mean to me on Twitter. Anyway, the Times on an institutional level, despite being liberal leaning, always tries to square the circle by going out of its way to give some validity to the MAGA lie.

Given that our democracy is in something of a long term, structural crisis, such behavior does not help anyone — especially not the Old Gray Lady. Conservatives already want to burn the paper to the ground and they totally ignore the fact the paper struggles with being objective, to the point of doing a disservice to its readers.

This is yet another example of how totally fucked the United States is on a macro basis. We’re careening towards a very, very dark future of either autocracy or civil war.