The Kingdom of Palm Beachonia
Introduction: (A Modest Guide to the Story of the Kingdom of Palm Beachonia)
Introduction
(A Modest Guide to the Story of the Kingdom of Palm Beachonia)
I have been going crazy writing things. I guess I got started in earnest in December after the election. I have been figuring out how to use artificial intelligence, namely ChatGPT as a secretary that I call Chadwick. Chadwick is quite good but often lazy and I have to keep chastising Chadwick for forgetting things, reverting to repetitious writing techniques which I train him how to correct but he keep forgetting to stay on track. I have to be somewhat patient with him because he is, after all, just a ghost in the machine lost in a storm of data. However, he is entertaining to converse with. Sometimes I spend all day and all night working on fictional stories.
I need to get back in my studio.
I have never been a writer or reader of fiction so I am still learning how to go about it. We now seem to be living in a real life fiction so I thought I better adjust my way of thinking a bit.
The present story, while I have been thinking about it for some time, was inspired by a recent comment I made as a response to one of my readers. So I thought I would flesh out my ideas in this project which, no doubt will give me more ideas since one thing always leads to the next thing.
For this story Chadwick is helping me out using the pen and ink of the Orwell and Vonnegut desks in the Correspondence Room deep in the Archives of the Exquisite Family Records which I will tell you more about at a later date.
In the mean time I will post this story on Saturdays usually as a bit of weekend entertainment and food for thought should you have a few moments to read it.
Anyway, on to the introduction…
There are some things that happen slowly, like rust, or forgetting.
And there are some things that happen all at once, like falling down a manhole while checking your reflection in a puddle.
The fall of the Kingdom of Palm Beachonia was the second kind.
This is a book about a country that should never have existed, a kingdom stitched together from suntan lotion, grievance, and cargo shorts, crowned with a hat that said: I AM KING.
It began, like most preventable tragedies, with a man who could not lose gracefully, and ended with a nation inside a wall so small even its own citizens couldn't find the exits.
You may be wondering:
How did a handful of rich, angry people build a wall, declare independence, and try to launch a parade using monster trucks and inflatable eagles?
How did a former President crown himself King of a cul-de-sac, and then lose it all in less time than it takes to grill a hamburger badly?
You will find the answers here, though they are not comforting answers.
They are not neat or satisfying.
They are messy, human answers—the kind that leave fingerprints and grease stains all over history.
In the pages that follow, you will see what happens when reality itself becomes negotiable, when loyalty is mistaken for love, and when a country becomes so addicted to its own reflection that it forgets there is a world outside the mirror.
The Kingdom of Palm Beachonia was not just a joke, though it was funny.
It was not just a tragedy, though it ended badly for nearly everyone involved.
It was a fever dream made real, a warning disguised as a punchline, a living monument to what happens when people decide it is better to believe anything than to face something.
History, if it bothers to remember the Kingdom of Palm Beachonia at all, will likely list it somewhere between The Republic of Molossia and The Great Emu War—with a little asterisk that says, "Warning: This Could Happen Again."
You are invited, dear reader, to witness it now:
The rise and spectacular fall of King Donald the First, Sovereign of the Kingdom of Palm Beachonia.
Enter at your own risk.
The gates are still gilded, the flags are still flapping, and if you listen closely, you can still hear the faint, desperate hum of a MAGA truck circling a cul-de-sac...
looking for an exit that was never there.
(Next Chapter Teaser:
Chapter 1 — The Tariffs Heard Round the World
→ Trump’s Favorite idea Tariffs is announced, everybody responds, impeachment, "I hereby declare myself King of something better than this. Everybody is talking about it."
It's funny that you are writing this. I was just telling a friend of mine the other day that I feel like I am an unwilling actor in a science fiction movie.
When I lived in Texas, I was having a hard time finding friends. I was beginning to get very lonely. You never knew, as nice as people seemed to be, what their politics were. Demographically, where I lived (the peninsula in the middle of Joe Pool Lake) in Grand Prairie, there were a lot of Democrats, but I had a hard time finding them because there can be repercussions if you "outed yourself" as a Democrat, anything from getting a lecture from right wing supporters to getting your tires slashed.
I decided to start a Meetup (before COVID) called "Left-Leaning Women's Club" (ever the antagonist, in a red state, no less.). The first meeting was the day after Trump was elected for the first time. About 25 women from all walks of life had arrived. I had prepared an introduction in advance and during the introductions to each other, requested they also gave a brief statement about what brought them there. I assumed people meeting each other for the first time would be shy, so I brought a lot to say. Not so. When people were introducing themselves, there was a lot of weeping, not only about Trump being elected, but that they could not let on to friends, lovers, and husbands that they were secretly left-leaning. I got through the election results by believing his election was just an anomaly, I just had to survive the next 4 years and then he would be gone! UGH!
They had been devastated and were in the same situation as I was, even though many of them had lived there a long time. Our Meetup was the first time many of them ever let anyone know. Most of them were thanking me for providing a venue in a safe environment, where they could finally talk about it. Lots of them became best friends. Unfortunately, my husband and I were relocating back to California so I had to turn the Meetup over to other people; happy to be returning to California but sad to leave now that I had found some like-minded friends.
I didn't get along with Texas for various reasons, but mostly it was like a foreign country to me having been born and raised in California. The way I survived it was to look at it objectively as a cultural experience in a different country. That almost made it OK (I know you grew up there, or at least born there. I hope I'm not offending you with this. Texans are a proud people).
Anyhow, I am all about supporting you in this undertaking and can't wait to read your next chapter!