Stephen Shaiken's Blog, page 8
September 16, 2022
COMING THIS NOVEMBER-A VERY DIFFERENT KIND OF STEPHEN SHAIKEN NOVEL
You may have noticed the contest for a free $50 Amazon gift card, the only requirement being that you sign up for my e mail newsletter. I will be releasing two books over the next six months, one is the fourth novel in the NJA Series and the other is Queensborough Rock, coming out in mid-November. Queensborough Rock is a very different kind of novel than the series books. It’s an historical novel about rock ‘n ‘roll in NYC in the late sixties and early seventies.
Below is the press release for the book. If you follow this blog or sign up for my e-newsletter (and maybe win $50 if you sign up through the post announcing the contest) you will know the exact date and any days it is discounted. (You can sign up through the contest until September 30.
Click here to enter the contest and sign up for my e mail newsletter
It’s 1971 and young Jack Bernstein is a struggling rock ’n’ roll manager in New York City. Instead of a fancy office in Manhattan, a flashy car, and backstage passes, he operates out of a basement apartment in working-class Queens, driving a cranky year-old Volvo as he trolls third-string venues for hidden talent.
Tampa, Florida, September 12, 2022, Author Stephen Shaiken has released his new blockbuster called Queensborough Rock, and his fans will not be disappointed.
This is a Rock & Roll novel, a work of historical fiction set in Queens, NY in the late sixties/early seventies. It’s 1971 and young Jack Bernstein is a struggling rock ’n’ roll manager in New York City. Instead of a fancy office in Manhattan, a flashy car, and backstage passes, he operates out of a basement apartment in working-class Queens, driving a cranky year-old Volvo as he trolls third-string venues for hidden talent.
He suffers enormous betrayal when Manhattan agents or “sharks” steal his top talent, Galahad. Jack financed a demo tape for his top talent by borrowing from a loan shark and pawning a friend’s guitar. When the tape fails to land a deal, Jack’s last hope is an offer from a friendly Queens mobster: manage his obnoxious nephew as best he can and doors will open. Jack counterintuitively connects the nephew with a Black band from South Jamaica in a desperate attempt to break into the big time. New York City in the late sixties and early seventies comes alive with all its intensity.
Jack is haunted by his experience with Tennessee Eddie, his first serious talent. Eddie lived with and was supported by Jack for almost a year. Jack got him a gig at famed Max’s Kansas City, where “Sharks”- Jack’s term for powerful Manhattan music executives – steal Eddie and land him a record deal and contract tour.
As the novel progresses, so does Jack’s savvy and ability to act forcefully when necessary. He refuses to be intimidated by the Sharks or their lawyers and sues the people who stole Tennessee Eddie.
In this very relatable novel, being in the late sixties, there are scenes throughout the novel that mark the period. Jack’s car has a touchy choke, he is forever looking for pay phones and navigating without GPS. He attends a concert at the Fillmore East and secures a gig for Tennessee Eddie at Max’s Kansas City.
He engages with a weed dealer in the hopes of making enough to pay off his debts, but he and his friends smoke up so much that there is no profit. Jack takes his one and only LSD trip. Readers will enter NYC pizza parlors and Italian restaurants and pass through iconic NYC landmarks like White Castle and Lemon Ice King of Corona. They are also brought into the studio for the making of the Galahad tape.
About The Author:
Stephen Shaiken practiced criminal law for more than thirty-five years. He is a graduate of Queens College and Brooklyn Law School and earned an MA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.
Stephen has authored three novels in the acclaimed NJA Club Series, best described as exotic noir thrillers. The three novels-Bangkok Shadows, Bangkok Whispers and Bangkok Blues-feature American expat lawyer Glenn Murray Cohen and his eclectic friends from Bangkok’s mysterious NJA Club as they are dragged into intrigue and danger.
Queensborough Rock is a different kind of novel, very loosely inspired by Stephen’s brief career as a rock manager in 1970-71.
When not writing, Stephen enjoys travel, gardening, yoga, guitar, and following politics and current events with a passion. He’s a voracious reader of fiction and nonfiction in too many genres and subjects to list.
Follow Stephen on his blog and on Twitter and sign up for his newsletter to receive advance notice of Stephen’s future novels and short stories. His blog contains short stories, travel tales and photos, and comments of the state of the world.
For complete information, visit: https://stephenshaiken.com/
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Media Contact:
Stephen Shaiken
stephenshaiken@gmail.com
September 11, 2022
IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO DIED ON 9/11
September 10, 2022
WIN A CHANCE FOR $50 AMAZON GIFT CARD BY SIGNING UP FOR MY E NEWSLETTER
September 3, 2022
THE MUNICH OLYMPIC MASSACRE OF 1972 WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.
Fifty years later, the memories and pain are still felt. All of the known and living terrorists who carried out the monstrously criminal act of genocide were hunted down and killed by Israeli agents. Steven Spielberg made a movie, Munich, which asked whether this was the right thing to do. I am absolutely convinced it was. To those who say it doesn’t make them feel any better or any safer, I say, okay, don’t feel any better or any safer, but I do. These monsters would have gone on to kill more, because that’s all they know how to do.
#Munich #Israel #antisemitism #Steven Spielberg #terrorism #genocide #Germany #PLO #Mossad
50 years after the Munich Olympics massacre, families of the slain continue to grieve — and remember
August 30, 2022
JORDAN PETERSON THROWN OFF TWITTER FOR ANTI-TRANS HATE RANT
Say what you want about the crackpot Canadian psychologist and philosopher-king to the West’s homophobes, white and Christian nationalists, science deniers, and just plain kooks, but he’s a surviver. He’s come back to haunt us after battles with addiction, depression, police investigations, allegations of hate mongering and absolute rejection by the world’s genuine philosophers and scientists. He’s just been thrown off of Twitter, joining a select group of neo-Nazis and Donald Trump. (Sorry, I repeat myself.)
This time, Peterson is in hot water because of some disgusting and hateful comments he made on Twitter, comments which went far beyond the pale even for Twitter.
In this latest installment of the Jordan Peterson Meltdown Hour, he revisits a favorite target of his hate: transgender people. The specific targets of the bigotry are the actor Elliot Page, a star of The Umbrella Academy who recently transitioned to male.It’s not clear at all what the actor Elliot Page or any other trans person has ever done to Mr. Peterson, or why he cares so much about other peoples’ orientations or personal life choices. In fairness and sympathy, we must consider that Peterson’s words may have been driven by his mental illness and substance abuse problems, which makes it even more distressing that he has an audience of impressionable and angry young white men.
Nevertheless, Peterson has called the physician who treated Mr. Page legally and in a medically proper manner, “a criminal physician,” which is a defamatory lie. It goes right to the heart of the doctor’s professional reputation and the allegations are completely false. That’s typical of Peterson, who simply makes things up without any scientific, historical or legal support. It’s unclear whether he is a deluded liar who believes what he is saying, or a Trump-style conman out to make a quick buck the easy way-tell lies bad people want to hear.
Twitter has a right to avoid being a platform for defamation. In a time when LBGTQ people are being assaulted in the streets, Twitter can surely refuse to promote hatred against them. In age when abortion providers have been targeted and killed, doctors who provide services to trans people are in the same danger thanks to fascist haters like Jordan Peterson
I’ve posted quite a bit on Jordan Peterson, and they continue to be among the most popular and widely read posts. The first was EXPOSING JORDAN PETERSON, PSEUDO-INTELLECT SUPREME OF THE FAR RIGHT AND WHITE NATIONALISTS, and it is constantly finding new readers. This was followed with Updates: BLM Protests,Exposing Jordan Peterson, Works Of Historical Fiction, JORDAN PETERSON: THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING, and JORDAN PETERSON: STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. They are all on this blog; just click on the links to read them.
Much as I loathe people like Peterson and the hate they spew, I must admit he’s been good for my blog. Apparently there are a lot of people out there who feel as I do. (However you feel about Jordan Peterson or anything else, feel free to comment!)
Click here to read a Newsweek article about Peterson’s Twitter ban.
Elliot Page's new passport photo, courtesy of Elliot. 
Jordan Peterson, courtesy NY Times If you enjoyed reading this or any other post on my blog, please go to the lower right on this blog page, below the archives, and sign up to receive new blog posts and my e mail newsletter which keeps readers up-to-date on my upcoming fictions work. Between now and the end of the year I’ll be releasing a fourth novel in the NJA Club series and a totally different kind of novel about rock ‘n’ roll in NYC in the late sixties and early seventies. Of course, this blog will continue to feature a steady stream of short stories and political and social comment. You’ll know all about release dates, reduced prices, giveaway days! The blog and newsletter mean you don’t miss a thing.
August 13, 2022
EVEN TRUMP DOESN’T DESERVE THE DEATH PENALTY-LOCKING HIM UP FOREVER IS JUSTICE
I must disagree; I’ve been opposed to capital punishment my entire life, and tempting as it may be, am not inclined to carve out an exception for Donald Trump. We’ll have to settle for life imprisonment with, most appropriately, a steady diet of baloney sandwiches.
August 9, 2022
TRUMP’S BEING TREATED LIKE ANY CRIMINAL SUSPECT, AS IT SHOULD BE
The reality is that for four years, Donald Trump’s Justice Department stood complicit in all of his criminal actions. Trump became convinced he was above the law. Now we haver a new Justice Department, but we still have Chris Wray, the same Republican FBI Director appointed by Trump; he’s the one who sought and executed the search warrant. Republicans, put that in your pipe and smoke it: the primary mover in this investigation and search warrant is a Republican personally selected by Trump and approved by the then Republican Senate!
There’s nothing political about this. Trump broke the law, refused opportunities to correct the situation by returning classified documents he illegally possessed, and he refused to return all of them. No one can be above the law.
Now the Republicans are talking about cutting off funding to the DOJ and even abolishing the FBI! Now we see which party really wants to defund the police!All to protect one criminal from the consequences of his actions!
Click here to read the Yahoo News article about Kevin McCarthy’s threats against the Department of Justice and the rants of his fellow far-right Republicans.
Courtesy of Newsweek
August 5, 2022
DESANTIS PROVES JOE SCARBOROUGH IS RIGHT ABOUT HIS OLD PARTY’S ANTISEMITISM
Is anyone really surprised that when push came to shove, in a tightening election, Ron DeSantis would fall back on this well-worn and bigoted Republican trope? As former GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough has stated, a far-right Republican can only go so long without throwing out a little antisemitism.
Florida public safety would really improve if DeSantis worried as much about his Nazi supporters beating up people on the streets of Orlando and congregating in downtown Tampa to trumpet their support for him. Instead, DeSantis wants more deranged Nazis to have assault rifles.
DeSantis suspends ‘Soros-backed’ state attorney over stance on abortion, trans youth
July 5, 2022
TIME TO REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT-JUSTICE STEVENS WAS RIGHT
Justice John Paul Stevens was a Republican appointed to the Court in 1975 by President Gerald Ford. He served for thirty five years, until 2010. In 2018, eight years after his retirement, the ninety year old moderate wrote an op ed piece in the New York Times calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. That call resonates today more than ever.
It is time to revisit Justice Stevens’ idea. Now that the Supreme Court is in the business of repealing Constitutional rights, no reason why we can’t consider the Constitutional process for doing so. First Democrats need to control three quarters of the states, so it’s time to take those races seriously. If the repeal movement picks up steam, we might see state and federal legislators ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines in an attempt to head full repeal.
Repeal of the Second Amendment would not mean that no American could ever own a firearm. It would mean that possession would be regulated like all other licenses. States would again be able to require a sound reason for possession or a carry permit,. Legitimate hunters, sports shooters and collectors would have nothing to fear.
The Second Amendment has long outlived any usefulness. It’s not 1776 anymore.
Read Justice Stevens’ op ed piece: OpinionOP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
John Paul Stevens: Repeal the Second AmendmentBy John Paul Stevens
March 27, 2018
A musket from the 18th century, when the Second Amendment was written, and an assault rifle of today.Credit…Top, MPI, via Getty Images, bottom, Joe Raedle/Getty Images Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday. These demonstrations demand our respect. They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society.
That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms. But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.
Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of that amendment, which provides that “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Today that concern is a relic of the 18th century.
For over 200 years after the adoption of the Second Amendment, it was uniformly understood as not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun control legislation. In 1939 the Supreme Court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated militia.”
During the years when Warren Burger was our chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge, federal or state, as far as I am aware, expressed any doubt as to the limited coverage of that amendment. When organizations like the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and began their campaign claiming that federal regulation of firearms curtailed Second Amendment rights, Chief Justice Burger publicly characterized the N.R.A. as perpetrating “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
In 2008, the Supreme Court overturned Chief Justice Burger’s and others’ long-settled understanding of the Second Amendment’s limited reach by ruling, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that there was an individual right to bear arms. I was among the four dissenters
That decision — which I remain convinced was wrong and certainly was debatable — has provided the N.R.A. with a propaganda weapon of immense power. Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.
That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday’s marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform. It would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States — unlike every other market in the world. It would make our schoolchildren safer than they have been since 2008 and honor the memories of the many, indeed far too many, victims of recent gun violence.
July 4, 2022
LIZ CHENEY, PROFILE IN COURAGE AND INDEPENDENCE DAY HERO
This is what I call a Profile in Courage. A rock-ribbed Republican conservative explains to her constituents what the Constitution really means and vows to always put the Constitution and the country above her party. Any Republican fool can get up in front of a bunch of Trump cultists and repeat the Big Lie, as most do these days, but only a patriot like Liz Cheney has the courage to speak the truth to those who don’t want to hear it. No sane person should disagree with a word she said. We’ll find out next month how many rational people there are in Wyoming.
Click here to watch Liz. Cheney’s closing statement in the Republican primary debate two days ago.
Phot Courtesy ABC News Years before becoming President, JFK authored a book titled Profiles in Courage, about American elected officials who chose principle over politics to the detriment of their careers.
I’m not prone to praise Republicans, but when a person’s character rises above any political differences, the character always prevails, because it’s so rare these days.
Liz Cheney has shown she possesses that character and Profile in Courage. In her closing remarks at the recent Republican primary debate, where she is being challenged by a Big spouting Trump sycophant, this rock-ribbed Republican conservative explains to her constituents what the Constitution really means and vows to always put the Constitution and the country above her party. Any Republican fool can get up in front of a bunch of Trump cultists and repeat the Big Lie, as most do these days, but only a patriot like Liz Cheney has the courage to speak the truth to those who don’t want to hear it. No sane person should disagree with a word she said. We’ll find out next month how many rational people there are in Wyoming. Whatever the result, she is and will always be remembered as a genuine American hero.
