Why Curtis Sliwa Can't Win: A Rant

 LIVING IN CLASS-BASED AMERICA

I SHOULDN'T CARE about the New York City mayoral contest, but observing it from a distance has set off my alarm bells about why America never fulfilled its potential and why the American Dream today is a fraud. 

What do I know of New York? I never lived there-- tried to once-- but when I was promoting the Underground Literary Alliance in the 2000's I went up there from Philadelphia via the Chinatown Bus nearly every week. Before and after 9-11. I promoted a number of events (crashed more) there-- one at historic CBGB's-- and attended countless readings, open mics, parties, you name it. I knew a lot of writers who lived in NYC, from varied backgrounds, and I caught at least part of the New York vibe.

What triggered this rant is noise from the usual suspects about the various other candidates, with Curtis Sliwa usually dismissed as "kind of a loon." As any ambitious person not from the elite class, or inside an approved institution, is viewed.

Liberal-left intellectuals, of whom there are many in New York City, are backing Zohran Mamdani, whose parents are themselves intellectuals: his father a Columbia University professor; his mother an award-winning filmmaker. Likely they see themselves, or elite versions of themselves, in him. Curtis Sliwa is an actual working class guy, but leftist intellectuals, who claim to speak for the working class, don't trust him to know his city and its people. Who has traveled New York City's streets more than Curtis Sliwa? There was even once a mob hit put on him! He should be, and for many is, a folk hero.

But no, Sliwa doesn't fit the standard pre-packaged ideological solution which has never worked any time, any place. They'll keep trying to pound the square peg into a round hole because it's what they've been institutionally taught: the most conditioned persons on the planet from the time their yuppie parents dropped them into their first pre-pre-pre-school at age two.

Differences between the candidates are huge. Only one is not from a conforming institution, but from the streets, the grass roots.

A Recent Comment By Me at Lit Mag News

(A response posted July 1, 2025, as a comment to a recent article.)

Re Simian Smith and AI. Like the lit mag mentioned, at New Pop Lit we're firmly against AI, but we try to spell it out: "No AI!! Generated, structured, edited or designed." There are reasons not to use the technology in any way (including the huge amounts of water and electricity consumed in the training of LLM's, and from their use). Another reason: the push for AI by the largest companies on the planet, run by the world's richest individuals-- obscenely wealthy individuals (see the Jeff Bezos wedding)-- is an enormous gamble/money grab. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in the technology, on the prospect that it will be used by everybody. Once everyone's using it, they'll proceed to monetize it. RIGHT NOW they're not making profits off it. Continuing investment in AI (and AI stocks) by venture capitalists is fueled by one thing: use by individuals, including writers. Chatbot use is strictly monitored, including by investment analysts. Since the damage done to humanity, including to writers and artists, will be substantial, there can be only one stance toward the technology. One mantra: DON'T USE AI!! When you do, in any way, you're enabling the entire enterprise and the forthcoming consequences. Just saying.

Recently Published in Frighty #2!

 (The blogger finally gets around to announcing on his blog his latest credit, publication in the newest release from one of the most exciting human-centered happenings on today's literary scene.)

Tired of AI slop?! Of the overregulated robotic by-the-rules mindset which comes with it?

One solution is Wred Fright's new Frighty zine. The kind of off-the-wall from-the-people writing that won't be done by robots.

The issue includes a short rant by myself.

Read about the second issue here.

Humanity is back!

Reading Lists

 IN RESPONSE to reading lists appearing in some corners of the literary world-- invariably containing the names of currently approved authors-- I offered my own "Literary Unorthodoxy" list.

In response to my list, New Pop Lit Assistant Editor Kathleen M. Crane then came up with her own, titled "Another Reading List."

(She offered twelve names. Mine only had ten.)

Insightful Review of The Loud Boys

 A new review of the novella The Loud Boys is now up at Amazon. Check it out!

New Mention

 For what it's worth, I received a mention in a recent column at Compact magazine, grouped in with promoters of "rebellion lit": those writers and literary projects out to renew the art. (Long-time followers of this blog know I've been at it for awhile.)

Here's the column: https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-great-american-novel-will-not-be-substacked/

How to Be Topical

 MAKING LITERATURE RELEVANT

Now up as featured story at New Pop Lit is my short story, "The Advisor," about a mega-billionaire advisor to the U.S. President. "Yanked from news headlines," as long-ago promotions used to say.

The Question is whether other writers will begin penning tales about broader society during the here and now-- or remain stuck creating ever more examples of Selfie Fiction??

For myself, too much is happening in this country to ignore. Writers have voices. Time to use them!

Ode to Money: A Poem About America

a poetic rant by Karl Wenclas

GIVE US your gold cards, your five-million-dollars to immigrate payments, global billionaires yearning to own five hundred-foot-long yachts in Miami or sixty-thousand square-foot mansions at Mar-a-Lago, bolstered by taxpayer-funded crypto.

GIVE US your rich, your schemers and grifters, your bitcoins and gold-plated tributes to greed and acquisitiveness.

KEEP OUT the poor but let in South African apartheid fans of spaceships and brain implants, tech bro money grabs, a once-great nation now consisting of posturing plutocrats and a bloviating orange-colored President eating carnival peanuts, front man for the circus show, busy capitulating to dictators while placing political puppets in positions of influence, issuing edicts halting any regulation of the money-making madness.

Meme coin bubbles masquerading as investments, pushed by armies of CON MEN, hucksters hawking exploding electric-powered Cybertrucks and accelerationist AI robots.

BOOK your ticket to Mars! You'll be abandoned on the red planet like thousands have been abandoned on this one, legions of homeless left on the streets consuming drugs leftover from oligarchs counting their profits.

This used to be a country-- a land of honor and integrity, a nation of citizens, united, We the People looking out for everybody, no one left behind, but the safety nets have been shredded, cut by chainsaws, gaping holes in them, the circus is closing, sideshow hustlers sneaking out the back door with all proceeds. 

Those still on the high wire, or flying above it all on the ketamine adderall trapeze, LOOK OUT, or you'll come crashing back to earth, to the ground, the dirt, the raw-wound skin-bruised muck of reality, with the rest of us.

The Trump-Musk Blitzkrieg

 

IT'S OBVIOUS what Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing-- old-fashioned 1940-style blitzkrieg, like when Germany invaded France, moving swiftly and gobbling up territory. Merely a variation of the tech bros mantra of "move fast and break things," only this time applied to politics.

The idea being to move faster than your set-in-its-ways opponent can think. For Trump and Musk, it's been a scandalous break-the-rules, outrage-the-Democrats every day, from dismantling federal agencies to raising tariffs on friendly nations to insulting allies. Democrats are stunned. What happened to their clubby world? Like the French general staff in 1940 (young Charles De Gaulle excepted), they're fighting the last war, not this one. What they feel they need is time to discuss the matter before moving. Before doing anything. Maybe this and maybe that. Maybe if they do nothing and cross their fingers, Trump will collapse. Yet his entire movement and his 45-day second administration thrives on action, including change or at least the appearance of change.

In 1940, while most of the French army froze or fled, De Gaulle kept his head and organized his own tank-based assault-- against the blitzkrieg. It worked on a limited scale, only enough to serve as a lesson of how to respond. For the left, now, in the United States, the response should be: Attack! Against Trump-Musk weak points.

I'll mention one: the wildly overvalued Tesla Motors stock price, upon which much of the richest-man-on-the-planet's wealth-- and myth-- is based. Indeed, keeping that stock-price bubble inflated is a large motivation for Musk's entry into the federal government, to gut federal agencies that investigate and regulate companies like his.

Needed: report upon report revealing safety problems with his cars, and about the endless broken promises from Musk about everything from potential sales to the benefits and possibilities of so-called Full Self Driving. That's his weak point. The stock price will plummet at some date in the future, and reveal him for the huckster he is, or has become. But why wait?

An Awkward Alliance

 Strange bedfellows indeed.

America's conservatives have thrown in with a coalition that includes Nietzscheans, libertarians, and tech accelerationists, with a scattering of angry Christians (which should be an oxymoron) thrown in.

Moreover, the movement is currently led by two of the most UNconservative individuals who could be found, namely billionaire Donald Trump and mega-billionaire Elon Musk. That is, if conservative still means, at its core A.) control of one's appetites, and B.) moral consistency.

What the two men are is not conservative. They are, instead, opportunistic salesmen, for whom nothing is more important than making the sale-- for their own personal benefit.

(photo c/o flipboard)

 

Both men, after all, have been masters at cronyistically benefitting from government largesse over the years. For most of their careers they weren't Republicans. Most of their wheeling-and-dealing was with the political party on the other side of the aisle. Trump, for his real estate projects in New York. Elon Musk, with the federal government, beginning with his relationship with Barack Obama.

(photo c/o Obama Library)

Elon, needless to say, has never had scruples about doing business with anybody. Tesla's largest and most profitable factory is in China.

(photo c/o financialounge)

Donald Trump of late has also shown a preference for dictators. . . .

Which part of the Awkward Alliance will get burned?

Guesses are welcomed.

Art Seen Through Layers of Prisms

 

ONE KEY to keeping the arts human and vital is to embrace the idea of not creating art through layers of prisms of other artworks. (Which is what A.I. does.) For instance, older movies-- of the 1920's, 30's, 40's, 50's-- have a freshness and originality to them missing in later cinema, especially from the film school crowd or certain watched-too-many-movies directors, where everything becomes an homage or recycling or reference to this "auteur" film or that one. Examples range from an alien watching a clip from a John Ford movie in "E.T." to various Coen Brothers offerings to almost every minute of a Quentin Tarantino film. 

The best art is taken from experience and from life.

The Two Forms of Censorship

 WHAT MANY don't realize is there are two kinds of censorship: the old-fashioned kind and the current version.

In the past, censorship meant removing writings and other kinds of media from any and every platform-- blocking access to every avenue of expression. While the situation was difficult, if you somehow did get your or your group's words and ideas out there, they could spread quickly and cause a sensation. This happened in 1917 during the Great War when Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik colleagues distributed their broadsides to Russian troops on the frontlines-- to an audience hungry to read alternatives and explanations. The simple printings were widely circulated.

Today, anyone can say and print anything, somewhere. Good luck getting it noticed! We are in the midst of a bombardment of Too Much Information coming at us from all sides-- a situation exacerbated by the onset of AI, which gives individuals and entities the ability to flood already-saturated markets at ten-to-100 times the previous level. Instead of new ideas or words of truth standing out against a barren landscape, they're buried beneath an avalanche of nonsense.

THE NOTION that technocratic billionaires like Elon Musk or Marc Andreessen can be censored, as they claim, or denied free speech, is ludicrous. They have gigantic megaphones, given their wealth and standing, to start with. As we see with Musk's purchase of Twitter, or his enormous monetary contribution to the Trump 2024 campaign, they retain the ability to steadily and exponentially increase the size of their speech.

We retain the right to scream like lunatics at the air, heard by nobody.

The Populist Moment

 What IS authentic populism?

Authentic populism is not on the right or the left. It involves downsizing our institutions, our culture, and our minds-- moving away from top down Big Box monopolistic thinking. Instead, returning to our roots as a people and a society. Back to our humanity. Right now we live in a fake world, experienced via electronic devices and their artificial digital worlds, created by gigantic trillion-dollar tech companies owned by a handful of hyper-rich individuals. That is today's unfortunate reality, and holds true whatever party of bought-and-paid for politicians is officially in power.

We as a people, a nation, can do way better. But it will involve recapturing the original populist American vision, which existed at least since Lincoln, and can again.

Fiction 2025

 

THE QUESTION is whether fiction-- our literature-- will ever change, or stay stuck in a rut like a car in a ditch, in the mud, tires no longer even spinning-- our literary mandarins press the accelerator but nothing happens, maybe it's broken. Or their foot presses too gently.

Literature isn't moving. It's marginalized. Trapped behind walls. The elite still attend parties-- in Brooklyn, mostly-- while going through the motions of being important, but they all sound tired. It's all been done. Their book education in a stuffy house, too large, with stuffy, usually absent parents. Big armchairs to hide in, resting on plush burgundy carpeting, with heavy green drapes covering windows to keep the world outside. So they can hide. They've been hiding their entire lives-- still are, frankly-- with books full of long corridors they can hide within. Intellectual-- the facade of intellectualism anyway-- not exciting. Don't give them anything exciting, or emotional, or political-- they've been conditioned to ignore anything of relevance in this chaotic society-- that which SHOULD be addressed by these writers and their acolytes.

Instead they're lost on a Virginia Woolf island searching for an elusive lighthouse. They're not moving, and they're not leaving.

Which leaves us: what? 

It leaves opportunity for change.

A tumultuous new year requires all-new ideas.

(Among my new is a new novella, The Loud Boys, available at Kindle, Kobo and Nook Books.

"The Loud Boys" Is Here!

 State of the art "hyper-pop" writing has arrived. The Loud Boys novella is now available at Amazon's Kindle, at Kobo-- soon, at Barnes & Noble's Nook, with a print version to follow.

Fast-paced multidimensional writing that's topical and relevant? Check it out!

Coming Soon!

 

SOON-TO-BE-RELEASED--

An exciting new novella by yours truly: The Loud Boys. All about a dangerous right-wing activist group, but much more, as a mysterious new journalist in town writes an article critical of the "Boys," which brings their wrath down upon her, but also that of the city's #1 mogul, "Fake Face," known for his ruthlessness. Which leads, ultimately, to an exciting climax.

NOT just an entertaining narrative, but a commentary on today's America, portraying the corruption of both extremist ideology and the greed for money. A depiction of the chaos of now?

Done in the innovative style of multidimensional fiction. Fast-moving while covering every view and angle, creating a unique reading experience.

CAN literature be once again relevant? The Loud Boys is an ambitious attempt to say: YES!

Let's Be Real

 A RANT

Let's get real for a minute. Revolutionaries aren't carefully selected Ivy League university students paying $87,000 a year to attend schools whose purpose is to place those students into the highest echelons of the power structure of the United States, whether in government, law, or business. The System will be threatened when no one plays that game, falls for that scam, the prestigious halls and campus lawns emptied.

Let's get real. Anti-capitalists aren't those obtaining higher wages and better benefits for workers at giant factories-- as laudable as that fight is-- because it ties those workers even tighter to that version of the capitalist Machine. Ensures they continue working-- get that thirty or forty-year pin doing the same unfulfilling job year after year. Yes, it beats starving. Maybe. If you're dependent, you may as well live well-- but let's recognize what's happening.

Let's get real. Being against AI technology doesn't mean arguing against the latest toy produced by the tech boys-- their latest iteration-- when you've accepted everything else. It doesn't mean thinking you can somehow reform the system-- just get the right hyper-aggressive tech hustler in place, the one assuring you everything will this time be ethical. Of course it will! He said so, didn't he?

Let's get real. The only way to fight the hyper-tech system monitoring us, steering us, controlling every aspect of our lives, is to do as little as possible to sustain it. (I recognize I'm helping sustain it with this blog post.) It's to understand the electronic technology scam with all its unfulfilled promises began with the advent of television in the late 1940's as a vehicle for ads. Our minds have been bombarded with propaganda, salesmanship, broken promises and nonsense ever since.

The only alternative-- if we truly want one-- is to create an authentic counterculture, starting small-scale indie art or craft projects, or back-to-the-land farming, or something. Ways to sustain ourselves while disconnecting step-by-step from the totalitarian grid. Can this happen? Sure.

Will it?

My Political Predictions for 2024

AN OFF-THE-WALL ANALYSIS 

GIVEN the crazy chaotic times we live in, the primary objective of the practical observer should be to help move into the office of President of the United States the safest candidate possible. Meaning, that person with the best chance of not screwing up what remains the richest, most dynamic and even possibly freest country on the planet.

HERE are my levels of safety-- personality barometers-- from worst to best.

A.)  EGOMANIAC. The individual who sees all issues through how they affect his overlarge personality. Seen as a welcome change, by some, as a way to shake up a status quo machine, but the risks are great. Too great, to the thinking of this observer. This nation was built on the rule of law, with a system designed to discourage demagogues and dictatorships. We're not ready to abandon that thinking, yet.

B.)  OPPORTUNISTS. Those so overfilled with ambition they're liable to say or do anything in pursuit of their ends. Of the present crop of candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy best fits this profile. A fast-talking salesman, making outlandish promises, with no scruples, much less beliefs, other than making deals.

C.)  IDEOLOGUES. There are always plenty of those to go around, on the left or the right. They view the world as if through a tunnel, and force that world to conform-- in their minds if not in reality-- to their preformed beliefs. Included in this category are what might be called metaphorical bomb throwers, Hamas-like political extremists whose objective is to throw the present system into chaos. On the Republican side, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Any of them running for the office of President? Not yet.

D.)  PRAGMATISTS. Not those who exactly blow with the wind, but are shrewd enough to see which way the wind is blowing-- who can look more than one chess move out and plan accordingly. They're also not locked rigidly into their political party, are able on occasion to compromise (creating venomous attacks from their own side in so doing). They're typically mildly corrupt in a standard-local-politician kind of way. The best example among those currently running is Chris Christie. Corrupt enough to sit on a closed beach with his family during COVID, yet at the same time pragmatic enough to hug Obama to gain hurricane funding for New Jersey. Not ruthlessly ambitious-- he's stated in the past he wouldn't run for President if that meant stopping his visits to Burger King! Christie, perhaps alone among Republicans, can see that Donald Trump is going down-- will end up cutting a deal or going to prison: there's too much evidence against the Donald, as a former prosecutor would well know. Christie has planned accordingly. Not that he has a chance to get the nomination, at least this time. Too many bomb throwers on that side of the aisle.

MY PREDICTION:

For the Republicans, best guess is ideologue Rob DeSantis, who'll move to the forefront when Trump is knocked out-- then go on to lose big in the general election.

The Democrats, meanwhile, have problems with their own ideologues. If Biden loses the left wing of his party over the Israel-Gaza War, he'll become vulnerable in the primaries. Then, a 1968 situation develops. In that tumultuous year, President Lyndon Johnson faced unexpected opposition from upstart anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy. McCarthy made a strong-enough showing in the New Hampshire primary that LBJ bowed-out of the running. Eugene McCarthy, however, was too unpredictable for party bigs. A similar candidate-- one with a bigger name and more charisma-- was encouraged to run for the nomination. Robert F. Kennedy. Which he did-- and would've won the nomination, if not for an assassin's bullet.

In 2024, IF upstart outsider Marianne Williamson makes a strong showing in New Hampshire, Joe Biden will face pressure to step down in favor of a candidate with Williamson's upsides but at the same time, with stronger ties to the party. This means either Kamala Harris or Gretchen Whitmer will enter the race-- or both. One of whom will become the next U.S. President.

An outlandish scenario?  Perhaps. But worth a longshot bet.

AI Article at Lit Mag News

 

Are you a writer? An editor? A small press publisher?

I wrote an article for the widely-read Substack site Lit Mag News about the ongoing AI craze, in which I tried to give some background to the technology and cover all aspects of how it will impact those in the literary community.

Is it worth reading? YES!

(Plus there are about 58 supportive and contentious comments at the end of it.)

Take a look:

The Coming AI Assault

Interview About the Underground

 RECENTLY I did an interview with Wred Fright for Patrick King and the Mugwump Corporation. Much scattered thoughts about some crazy times, a slice of literary history.

With gigantic monopolistic corporations more powerful than ever-- dominating the culture-- alternative voices and ideas are more important than they've ever been. Needed: credible indie scenes, of the kind the Underground Literary Alliance once so capably represented. Culture belongs to everybody!

The Interview