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A State of the State analysis, some local news, and talk of the arts..
WARNING: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, meanness, peanut fragments, innuendo, and insect parts, all of which have been known to cause indigestion, increased heart rate, and psoriasis.
HOWDY, everyone. My pronouns are ‘Gimme-a-bud,’ ‘Whaat?,’ and ‘Huh?’ I lost a reader/subscriber due to some triggering word, phrase, or typo, or perhaps halitosis. I am sorry to see her go, and I pray that I don’t lose any more with this post. You are all very precious to me. But I cannot burrow down into the sand like a clam and shut up. I am not a clam; I’m a writer. And a writer is a kind of nag, trying to get inside your head and lead your thought-herd in a certain direction. And yes, we use wit (if we have it... If not, exclamation points, bold, UPPER CASE, and italics) and humor to pull it off, calling it entertainment or opinion. I try to keep it non-partisan as much as possible because... I’m down to 39 subscribers after starting out with 40.
Things overseas are not good. The people of an entire city in China, Shanghai, are being locked down due to Covid. They say they are being starved to death in their apartments by their own government. The Russians are grinding up one of their former Soviet States, Ukraine. Instead of leading an international coalition in a world peace conference, our rulers seem more intent on destroying Russia. Wouldn’t a ‘Cyprus-like’ peace be better than a lengthy guerilla war in Ukraine with ongoing civilian casualties? What do you think? Did your Senator or House Representative call or email you to ask that? Mine hasn’t. It’s just assumed, I guess, that all Americans are okay with another foreign war involvement. For the sake of all involved over there, I hope and pray that this is over soon.
Here in our own country things seem relatively peaceful at the moment. However, I believe we are in the eye of the hurricane, that little donut hole of calm before the raging winds once again tear at the fabric of our society, ripping it away like the tin rooves of mobile homes. For one thing, our rulers now know how we will react to their unconstitutional mandates. All they had to do was to observe and count. After the Covid fear campaign, they demanded we incarcerate ourselves in our own homes, wear masks, and on the rare occasions when we went out, not talk with our fellow citizens and stay six feet away from them. Approximately a third of Americans diffidently obeyed; another third grumbled, took a deep breath, then complied for the sake of ‘science’ and to calm the fearful; and the remainder refused wherever and whenever possible, stealthily and sometimes openly. For that many of them lost their businesses, their jobs, some even had their children taken away from them. Some were beaten up by the boys-in-blue and jailed.
As an old guy with historical-memory, I saw parallels with the 1960s when the ’good’ protestors burned their draft cards. But today’s protestors against government over-reach are not portrayed as good by our rulers and the major media outlets. Quite the opposite. And inquiring minds (aka white right-wing extremists) want to know why.
Now our rulers are quietly discussing reinstating the mask mandates. Some are doing more than discussing. Philadelphia, a city of 1.6 million people, has 46 people hospitalized with Covid, so they are re-instating the indoor mask mandate. Is it because we have an election coming up? People will be in close proximity at the polls in the almost-sacred act of voting. Our rulers are very concerned about that. They need more control over the process, for our safety, doncha know.
Remember the violent protests in 2020/2021, when entire neighborhoods in cities were destroyed, when Federal courthouses and police stations were burned to the ground? Our rulers didn’t exercise much control over them. Remember when they told the police to ‘stand down’ when mobs of anonymous (their faces masked to protect them from the Covid—we were told) ‘protestors’ raged and looted and surrounded and beat down anybody who had a different opinion? Remember how our rulers applauded the protestors as valiant defenders of civil rights? And how the knee-pad media dutifully finessed the coverage of the ‘mostly-peaceful protests?’
Well, the protesters have not gone anywhere, certainly not to jail. They are still out there, waiting for their new marching orders. The other night, black Republican and Gulf War Veteran, Lt. Col. Allen West, was shouted down when he tried to speak at the University of Buffalo, and had to be escorted out by police. (Google it if you don’t believe me.) The students quickly formed up a mob and chased down and attempted to capture the conservative female student responsible for bringing West onto the campus to speak. She managed to escape, but other students were beaten by the mob, yes, mob. This sort of thing is now common at our vaunted bastions of free speech and higher education (colleges and universities). It differs only by degree from what the violent, ignorant Red Guards did to their fellow citizens during Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China. Will this sort of thing get worse? These students are supposedly the best and brightest, America’s future. If that’s true, I pray for a major meteor strike on the planet or some other apocalyptic event, or perhaps the Second Coming.
So, what the hell does all of this have to do with my having written what I consider to be a conservative book? I guess I should explain. In my book, Escape From the Future and Other Stories, I take what is happening in the world around us—the aforementioned protest, the federal government defining deviancy down, elevating ghetto culture, normalizing violence (but only against certain groups of people), pushing hyper-consumerism vs citizenship, and sex so casual you form a more intimate bond with your hair stylist or dental technician than you do with your ‘lovers’—
—and, as honestly as I can, I turn that into STORY you can read and enjoy.
So, you say, what is ‘conservatism?’ Well, a philosophy of conserving for future generations, one’s culture, religions, society, nation, mores, laws, how to make s’mores, art, breakfast cereals, old vinyl LPs, and hair styles. Like for instance... (and this is just crazy, which probably explains the big push to quickly get it over the goal line) conserving American boys as ‘boys,’ and little American girls as ‘girls,’ and not allowing their teachers or the library drag queens (often the same people) to sell them a big loud, colorful, sparkly bunch of twot-foddle about how they can just ‘become’ the opposite sex, or any one or several, of the other 64 varieties now available.
I am like many of you in one respect. I, too, have friends who have children and grandchildren who tell them that the majority of their generation has no problem with the new woke belief system; in fact, they embrace it. But I believe that it is the duty of the old to try and keep the young from making major catastrophic mistakes. I think there are older cultures (China, the Middle East) that are watching what is happening here in America with great interest. And like them, I believe that this big experiment our rulers are pushing will be the death of our Nation.
WURLD LITERARY NOOZ. BREAKING! Author and pundit, Paul Clayton, who has 39 followers on Substack, publishes new book, Escape From the Future and Other Stories!
I would describe my latest book as ‘American social science fiction.’ It’s not technology or science-focused, but rather speculation about existing and future societies. Think of books like The Jungle, Brave New World, The Grapes of Wrath, and 1984. In this woke age, Big New York City Publishing limits ‘American Social Science Fiction’ to stories about feminist women, minority Americans (see Whitey Mann Need Not Apply), illegal immigrants...
(Microsoft Editor just warned me that the phrase, ‘illegal immigrants’ is ‘not inclusive.’ Prediction: in a year or two you will not be allowed to type it!)
... and foreign authors with strange-sounding, almost unpronounceable, names. (I know, stating the last makes me a nativist. Sosumi.)
I compare my book to other American social science fiction novels, not in way of popularity, longevity, craftmanship, or greatness—I’m just an old scribbler, a storyteller, a mid-list writer—but in subject matter, intent, and scope. Like all social science fiction, my book is not meant to merely entertain, although I am told it does that, but rather to use the clay of ordinary people in extraordinary times, to mold a fictive world that will cause present day readers to think.
So, with all that in mind, I went on the internet and searched for ‘conservative book blogs,’ web sites that would likely address some of my needs as an author, namely reviews and access to people who are conservatives and like to read, not just opinion and politics, but FICTION. I found only one, Conservative Book Reviews. But lo and behold, it was sitting out there on the internet like a broken-down house in a tract scheduled for demolition for a new freeway. The last review the site posted sits on the table gathering dust.
Andrew Breitbart famously said, ‘Politics is downstream from culture.’ He was right, of course, and thousands of conservatives give lip service to this truism. However, what they publish, support and promote seems to be mostly from the non-creative side of conservatism, that is, not story, which has traditionally influenced culture, but rather, professors and TV/radio-pundits who rag on for a thousand pages in hardback tomes costing upward of $25.00, works that younger generations care not a whit about (thank a teacher).
So where does a ‘teller of tales’ like me, go? In this brave new world, the (whore)Houses of Publishing are under the complete control of escaped circus performers—Bearded Ladies, the 900-pound Snake Charmer, and the Rubber Man (don’t ask)—and closed to one such as I. So where do I go to tell others of my work? Well, Substack for one, hence this post.
I hear you... “Enough,” you say. “It’s time for lunch, or dinner, or My 1,000 Pound Little Sister is coming on the Learning Channel.” Okay. Let me close with a poem. Having spent a lifetime writing, I feel an obligation to advise shy young people contemplating life as a Bard or rapper. And so I composed a heartfelt poem for them. I titled it, Write!
Write!
Hone your craft
day and night.
Live simply,
brown rice and rainwater.
Meditate and
Write!
Take a walk;
and tomorrow
write again.
Be pure and
Write!
Hug your kitty,
but not too tight.
Write!
Look around and see
what is there
underneath
all the
crap...
More crap!
Write about it!
Read too.
Blow up your TV
(about three ounces of C4 will do).
Think and
Write!
Listen to your Muse and
Write!
Eat your rejection letters
slowly and rage
in front of the mirror,
screaming out,
“I will publish,
damn you!”
Thanks, everyone, for spending some time with me. And please remember to share this post with your friends who read.
Peace... or whatever passes for that these days!