Boomer Family Untied From the 60s

Happy Wednesday, Stroock's Books reader(s).

We got a spot of rain here in New Jersey last night and are supposed to get more on Thursday. Let's hope so. Local reservoirs are about half full and the state is wracked with small wildfires. 

A dear friend from college is turning 52 today. We congratulated him and said he should celebrate by finally coming out. 

Fun fact, we filed yesterday's post from an exam room in Morristown Medical Center. We ourselves were not the patient. Rest assured that everyone is just fine, A-Okay and everything is back to normal. We walked into the empty ER and the nice lady at the front desk sent us right back. The polite, competent (and really young) medical staff got us in and out of that joint in two hours. We passed the time by mocking our fellow North American and his socialized medicine which would have taken a couple of hours just to admit us.

Yesterday we described Family Ties' Steve and Elise Keaton as a couple of ex-Hippies who had turned into respectable middle-class types. Quite right. We should take a look at the couple's politics more, because they were a fascinating 80s cultural phenomenon. Steven had radical roots. He attended many anti-war protests. He was once an editor at a radical hippy magazine called The Scavenger.  Steven wrote a play called A Draft Card for the Burning. He openly associated with former 60s radicals wanted by the FBI. 

Time passes, as is its wont. Marriages happen, children arrive, mortgages are taken out. Those children must needs be cared for and mortgages paid. By 1982 Steven is a producer at the local PBS affiliate. Elise is an architect. These are facts of life in 1982, and hilarious in retrospect in 2024. Even funnier, Steve and Elise didn't settle down in San Francisco, or some other hippie heaven. The Keatons live in Columbus Ohio. Why Steven even likes to take in the Ohio/Ohio State game. Sorry folks, one can't get more American outside of laboratory conditions. 

Stop Anti-Semitism has issued its college and university Juden Hass report card. Four schools get an A grade: Baylor, Elon, Clemson, and the University of Mississippi. The south has always been a friend to the Jew. Sadly, our grandmother's own LSU didn't make the list. Actually, several southern schools received mediocre or failing grades, but reader(s) will get the point. And most of the northern schools on the report are run by Jew hating communists. Dang Yankees....

Disgraced former Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle is a plagiarist and fabulist. He is also a moron. Via Breitbart, Barnicle laments the decline of cable news:  “I don’t know how we make ourselves relevant again because we can’t compete with 20 second snippets on an iPhone, walking up the street and getting your entire news digest of the day in less than a minute on your phone as you’re walking in a crowd with coffee in one hand and your phone in the other. I don’t know how we catch up to that.” Barnicle still doesn't 'get it'. Cable news isn't competing with Tik Tok. It's competing with Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla, and Pod Save America and hundreds of others of current events podcasts that people listen to while on the way to work, or at the gym or doing household chores. Idiot. 

We sigh forlornly as we consider what to write next summer. Too early? No. It's only six months off. We think perhaps we may be over thinking the Medieval novel problem. Our bookselling strategy relies on the backlist. People buy one World War 1990 novel and then buy another and another, and another...We're employing the same strategy with the Great Nuclear War series. There's plenty of overlap and vertical integration between the two. And honestly there would probably be some overlap with an entirely different kind of novel eg, Medieval warfare. But maybe not enough. Let's say we write The Bastard's Conquest. It sells well. We write another, and another...

Gen-X Thieved the Ties

It's nice to see the Cowboys still stuck, losing to the Houston Texans 34-10. 

Hot Air has a post about how Generation-X went right and elected Donald Trump. The post features Justine Bateman's crusade against PC cancel culture. David Strom writes of Bateman, 'That's Gen X in a nutshell: cynical and focused on being left alone to live our lives.'

So yesterday we posted the opening credits to one of the later seasons of Family Ties. Reader(s) may have noticed the montage is about the entire Keaton family. Now here's the opening credits to Family Ties' very first season in 1982:

Season 1's opening credits show the Keatons looking at the family photo album. We see young Steve and Elise when they meet at some hippy protest in the mid-60s. The montage montages and we see Steve and Elise hiking by themselves, then hiking with kids. One gets the idea. 

Family Ties was written and produced by the ultimate Boomer*, TV writer Gary David Goldberg who would go on to bore the nation with a show chock full of Boomer masturbatory nostalgia called Brooklyn Bridge.** Family Ties was supposed to be a Boomer show about Steve and Elise Keaton having advanced from Boomer youth in the mid-60s to Boomer middle age in the early 80s. The ex hippies had turned into respectable middleclass types. 

But as Family Ties developed, the side character kids gradually became prominent, and son Alex the most popular. Here was a television show with semi-realistic Gen-X kids***. Family Ties had several episodes dealing with Gen-X issues, sex, drugs, death, teen suicide, creepy older men, getting into college; a cavalcade of ABC After School Special issues. Gen-X tuned in. The Keaton kids didn't worry about war and peace because they grew up in the 80's, the age of Reagan. The well-meaning Steve and Elise where perplexed. 

Probably there are Boomers out there who sit around and reminisce about the Keatons. These people must exist, right? But Family Ties was a Gen-X show. Did we actually steal something from the Boomers? 

Moving along...ideas, we got a few. But are they good? Here's a good idea, the previously mentioned The Bastard's Conquest. Devotees will recall this story would be about a knight named Robert d' Hauteville, in William the Bastard's army. We'd follow Robert from Hastings to roughly 1096.  We originally had the novel beginning after the Battle of Hastings. But now we're thinking TBC should begin with the battle proper, with Robert in the cavalry line getting ready to charge up the ridge.

TBC is a good idea. 

Ahhhh...but is it a selling idea? People read us for tanks going boom, not swords going clang. And we doubt people who like medieval stuff or sword and sorcery novels would read TBC and then pick up a copy of World War 1990: Operation Arctic Storm. By the way, we'd do a second novel about Robert's son in the First Crusade. 

Exit thought, perhaps The Bastard's Conquest could open up a book sale revenue stream and a new point of writing interest for us. Perhaps, perhaps (?) we could write a tonne Medieval themed novels. Maybe even some alternate history themed Medieval novels. Perhaps. Reader(s) will recall we've written a tonne of Medieval military history. [You're point?-Ed]. Our point is that we're on good ground here.

*Technically, and ironically, Goldberg wasn't a Boomer, as he was born in 1944. But everything about the man and his writing screamed, 'Did I ever tell you kids about the 60s?'

**We watched Brooklyn Bridge. Every episode, every line seemed written to get the Boomer to remember something about the mid-50s. 

*** Tina Yothers was born in 1972 and Justine Bateman was born in 1966. Michael J. Fox was born in 1961 so he ain't no Gen-Xr and...holy mooseburger, Fox is a goddamn Canadian?! Damn you Justin Trudeau! Damn you, you maniac!

Baited Ties Developed

Good morning, Stroock's Books readership, such as it is. 

So the Jets lost in the most horrifying, and frankly, Jets way possible. Blow a lead with under a minute left. Get the ball back lose 13 yards on a fumble by QB Aaron Rodgers. Throw a midfield pass with no timeouts but get saved by a dumb defensive penalty which stops the clock. Then get sacked by a three man rush with no time left. Jets' score a previously thought impossible 5/5.

In Giants news New Jersey's own Tommy DeVito will start next Sunday. Why the hell not?

Reminder, World War 1990: Castro's Folly cracked the top 20 in its Amazon category, has 566 ratings for a 4 + star average, made back its production costs and then some in like, a month, and is part of our large and profitable backlist.  We are a Titan, in the top ten percent or so of English language writers - on the planet. We are among the best there is at what we do.

Over at The Free Press, Peter Savodnik discusses the case of Justine Bateman, who has earned left-Twitter's rage for ironically critiquing the production values of their various post-election internet meltdowns. This is a very Gen-X thing for a Gen-X icon like Bateman to do. 

Savodnik notes that Trump won Gen-X by about ten points. Of Trump's Gen-X win, Savodnik  writes, 'Maybe part of it was that we had grown up in a distinctly unpolitical moment, when there were no wars to protest and no civil rights to champion. There was, about us, an all-pervasive don’t-give-a-shit quality, and it was reflected in our Ray-Bans, our irony, our apathy. Mostly, we wanted to be left alone—by our parents, by the sex ed counselors preaching abstinence, by Nancy Reagan telling us to “Just say no.” We were, for the most part, ideologically committed to nothing. ' That might be the most Gen-X sentence in the history of Gen-X sentences. We cling to our detachment. We cling to it.

For younger reader(s), Bateman played Malory Keaton* on the 80's sitcom classic, Family Ties, a pleasant show about a pair of ex hippie parents and their very 80's kids. Family Ties is probably the first time pop culture showed the Boomer/Gen-X dynamic, and the conflict that was brewing. In short, the Boomers would demand 'Why can't you be more like us?' but also 'How dare you try to be like us!' while Gen-X asked, 'Why can't you shut up about the 60s?' Mallory is interested in clothes, hair and makeup; she comes off as a valley girl ditz. Little sister Jennifer is just a kid, kind of a tom boy. Alex P. Keaton, about whom much more will be written, is a Nixon admiring, Reaganomics loving, upstanding young man who wears a jacket and tie to school. 

In response to Savodnik's very interesting piece about Justine Bateman and politics, this week is also Family Ties week here at Stroock's Books. We'll begin with the very wonderful Family Ties theme, fulfilling this blog's Monday (not) metal requirement:

You know, we haven't watched Family Ties since it went off the air in 1989. Damn it all, we're getting emotional. 

The leader of this blog's Confederate Contingent suggests an Indo-Sino-Pak war novel. 

for our summer sneak in, which is an interesting idea if for nothing else the sheer scope of said conflict. This reminded us that we had planned an Indo-Pak war in The Great Nuclear War universe. We were left thinking, maybe. But then we remembered that half the point of these summer sneak in machinations is to come up with something different to write. Let's flex a little. 

We want to do a one-off novel, [The World War 1990 series was supposed to be one-off. So was The Great Nuclear War of 1975 -Ed]. We don't want to do anything modern because we don't want to get into the cyberwar and drone warfare thing. [Really? You'd probably have a great time researching that-Ed]. Putin's War, about a Sino-Russian war, has been overtaken by events, and so has our idea about a US-Iran war. 

We could probably do the alternate history thing about a US/Iran war. Hezbollah in America conducts a terror war here at home while the Feds fight a terror/cartel war on the border. The US wages an air and naval campaign against Iran and launches an all-out invasion of Lebanon (1st Marine Division, the 101st Air Assault, 82nd Airborne, 1st ID). We like this idea, we really do. The POD would have to be post 2006. W in his last year in office? Na. What about a counterfactual where Mitt Romney won? Maybe. Okay, here us out on this one. It's 2017 and...Hillary is president. Have to admit, we're feeling it a little. Just think it over.

We're another day closer to making the call on War Night: Stories of the Great Nuclear War of 1975. 

*Here's our favorite Justine Bateman performance, with her real-life brother Jason in what is for us one of the top-5 sitcom episodes in all of human history. The title of the episode is Family Ties.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 11/17/24

Good Sunday morn, Christian faithful. We had a typically and blessedly boring Saturday, the highlight of which was an Arturo Fuente and bottle of Cavalliere d'Oro. Probably not wise, but what the heck. That's our 25th Arturo Fuente this year. So were averaging one every two weeks. Which is fine. 

Speaking of blessings, the Giants don't play, the Eagles already played, and Penn State annihilated Purdue. We've never been less interested in the NFL, and are looking forward to folding laundry this afternoon while listening to the great Stephen L. Miller podcast. 

We read through a bit of War Night on the deck yesterday, getting to the Razorback-1 story about a Titan II nuclear missile silo in Arkansas. What we read looked pretty good. We've noticed some of the stories feel much smoother than others. Why can't the less smooth stories be more smooth? We don't know - yet. 

We're locked in as the kids say. War Night is 10 stories and 64,000 words. We took a risk with The Great Nuclear War of 1975 and that risk has been rewarded. Take risks Mr. Trump said during The Apprentice. And so we did. And so we are with War Night: Stories of the Great Nuclear War of 1975. And if War Night does well, we'll take another risk with another nuke short story compilation. Everyday we lean more toward wrapping up War Night. 

Ah...but what else? What else? We've been locked into World War 1990 and The Great Nuclear War of 1975 for so long we've had no time to write anything else. And we have ideas. 

And what is Will's Good Idea for the Week of 11/17/24? As we promised we're going to blog about ideas all week here at Stroock's Books in a desperate and probably futile attempt to have a fresh project for the 2025 summer sneak in. 

Here's one...what about a novel about a second Korean War? The twist...or hook...is that this novel would be an alternate history. The urge, the flash, the juju is vague but it's there. [You already did that?--Ed] We did? [Yes, in The Aftermath of 1976-Ed]. Fuck, we did. [And don't you remember toying around with an idea like that on this very blog waaay back in 2017? Tiger's Tail?-Ed] We do. [But what if you wrote a one off alternate history novel about some other war?-Ed]. Which war? Upon this notion we shall dwell as we lift weights in the manliest way possible this morning. 

Saturday Updates

Good morning, Stroock's Books Kibbutzim, and shabbat shalom. 

We wonder if we miss a post like yesterday do reader(s) think we dropped dead or finally got picked up by the Feds? Or did Mrs. Stroock finally have enough of us? Yeah, we started a post, got halfway done with the post, decided we didn't like the post, deleted the post, and realized we had nothing to say for another post. 

We've lifted and trained a tonne the last few months, and it's finally catching up with us. We're tired and sore. We've been doing back to back days at the gym all that time. Maybe we should go back to inserting a pure cardio day between sessions. We look good, though. There's not getting around it. 

                                  

Not bad for 51. We're impressed with our own forearms. If you'd told us at 31 that we'd look like that in 2024...well, we'd be skeptical. 

The Things.

We got back to a kinda sorta normal work week. To put off making a final decision about the 2-4 remaining story ideas we have for War Night, we've been reading through our finished or almost finished stories. These are looking pretty good, but as always they could use some work. We'll finish the readthrough, put War Night down...and then what? War Night is 64,000 words.

We opened up World War 1990: Thatcher's War for the first time since...August 22nd, OMG. At this rate the rough will be done by summer 2025, leaving the season for editing. Which opens up the door for [oh no-Ed] the summer sneak in. Whatever shall we write? We'll spend next week blogging about a few ideas we have. Thatcher's War is 20,000 words. 

The Thursday Downer

Yes, a post Trump victory downer. 

Okay Trump people and assorted MAGA hats, let's talk. We'll start. 

Calm down. We've seen this before. We've been here before, and the end result was not good. 

We go back, as we often do, to the election of 2004. That year W won 286 electoral votes and 50.7 percent of the popular vote, defeating John Kerry overall by 3 million votes. The GOP retained the house and expanded its lead in the senate by four seats. That night we were glued to the TV and the computer watching the returns come in, and seeing win after win. When W won Ohio he hit 269 electoral votes, it was all over. This was a fun, satisfying night.

W's election was a win on multiple fronts. With talk radio and the emergence of right-blogosphere during the Rathergate scandal, we thought conservatives had overcome the media. We were hooked. We read Hot Air (Captain's Quarters back then), Instapundit, Ace of Spades, Powerline, Belmont Club, Hugh Hewitt, and many others. 

In the airy November of 2004, we believed W and the GOP were set for a period extended dominance, a durable majority in the words of Karl Rove. 

Go ahead. We laugh too. 

Because of ongoing war, Terry Schiavo, Katrinia, W's second term was a mess. The Dems annihilated the GOP in the 2006 congressional elections and annihilated the GOP once again in 2008, giving us Barack Hussein Obama. Barry was very beatable in 2012. But Mitt Romney was the GOP's version of W-Light (who knew such a thing was possible?) and didn't have the guts to get the job done. America suffered four more years of a very strange, untalented, vindictive and bigoted man. Then came Trump who won a surprising but not all that impressive victory. So began the era of Trump. 

Our point is that the great realignment the media is talking about in the aftermath of Trump's reelection may be swept away in a blue wave two years from now. Read this highly relevant piece from Hot Air and calm the fuck down. 

So should we. For us the last few days before the election were nerve-wracking. We had a case of the yips which brought out the doldrums.  Halloween was fine, but we were distracted and maybe even morose at the Friday night Diwali party. We'd been looking forward to the outdoor gathering all week. On Monday and Tuesday we doomscrolled the news and election updates. We've been doomscrolling ever since, though the news hasn't been doomy, not at all. 

Political disappointments have been among the worst moments of our life. We had a dark hour and a half or so when we thought Algore had won the 2000 election. The Supreme Court saving Obamacare was a political gut punch which has stayed with us for a dozen years. We watched helplessly as the Dems stole 2020, sending us into a weeks long funk. As for the 2022 off year disappointment we ran and lifted through the pain. 

Trump Did It

Pete Hegseth can't be any worse at DoD than Loyd Austin*. This blog likes the way nominations are going. But will the senate? We dunno man...but we'll save the black pill and doomerism for tomorrow's Thursday Downer. We promise it will be epic. 

It's time to consider the consequences of Trump's victory. 

Obviously Trump and company can start fighting back against the Woke virus in the government. They'll close the border. They'll begin mass deportations. They'll fight crime.

Over the next four years Trump will almost certainly have a couple of Supreme Court appointments -Justice Thomas can retire, perhaps Alito too and maybe even Chief Justice Roberts. The court will truly be conservative for a generation. 

In Congress, the Dems have no choice but to back off 'reform' ideas like abolishing the filibuster.** Legislatively the Biden Regime passed a stimulus bill and the Inflation Reduction Act, which was really just a trimmed down Green New Deal. The GOP managed to hold the line. Barely. It could have been soooo much worse. It would have been under Kamala. In four years maybe the Dems will be sane...why are you laughing?

Abroad, Jerusalem is celebrating, and Tehran is making new calculations.  So's Kiev. What will Zelensky do when the Regime isn't urging him to keep fighting so that the war will go on, and on, and on***. Man, does Beijing ever have to rethink things. Moving back the Middle East, expect the Israelis to become more aggressive against Hamas and Hezbollah. 

Not knowing what else to do, we're going back over War Night, hoping to move things along before we decide what we're going to do about our remaining four story ideas in limbo. We've read the Irish Taoiseach story and Haig in the bunker story. We see a few issues. In both stories there's a lot of people getting up and leaving and coming back. This may not actually be an issue at all. Overall things are an uptalked okay. 

Everything has been finalized for our story, Morning Suns, an alternate history story about a WWII Gato Class submarine rescuing some flyboys downed in Japan, in 1946. Re-reading it over the weekend we really liked what we wrote. Morning Suns is very Jewy. Ask a Jew for a short story during the high holidays, get a Jewy story with a maximized Jew score of 4.5./5 [Why is 4.5/5 a maximum score-Ed?] You gotta be downright biblical for a 5/5 score. Those go to Moses, or Joshua or Charleton Heston...[You're still going with Charleton Heston jokes after all these years?-Ed]

*No, we don't think the GOP should abolish the filibuster, even now. Some of us have actual principles, and the majority not being able to run roughshod over the minority is one of them. Fuck you. 

**We're not going to bother looking up how Austin spells his first name. Screw him. We don't care. 

***Reference. IYKYK.