CROWDFUNDING

Peaked. You hardly even hear about it anymore. Another Internet fad that didn’t live up to its promise.

It all depends on the excitement of benefactors. Right now, they’re elsewhere, and too many are disappointed what they funded did not come to be, or did not meet their standards. Furthermore, those who raised money found out they could fund their project, but could not increase their visibility.

GOOGLE

We have no need for another search engine unless it’s demonstrably better. So far, no one’s done search better than Google, there’s no need to go to Bing. This war’s been fought.

TWITTER

Illustrates how Wall Street is out of touch. Dropouts galore, but the Street can only talk about money. Tweeting is akin to calling for your mommy at Yankee Stadium.

As for the Stadium, we’re all interested in stars. So the most popular on Twitter have an audience, no one wants to hear the musings of the wannabe.

FACEBOOK

Is populated by those who post incessantly and grazers…and dropouts. It’s somewhere you used to go that you occasionally visit, fearful you’re missing out on something, but you’ve got no allegiance.

SAMSUNG

Is about manufacturing efficiencies. It killed Sony and put a dent in Apple’s handset business. Samsung is where products go to be commoditized. It never successfully leads, only follows. He who follows must have the best systems. Right now, Samsung does.

iPADs

Is it all about software?

Read this story by Farhad Manjoo, “iPad is Poised to Rule the World.”

Oh, that’s right, it’s behind a paywall, and you don’t have a subscription!

Don’t feel superior, it just means you’ve got no access to the best information. Everybody you aspire to be subscribes to the “Journal,” by refusing to do so you’re just perpetuating your ignorance.

But I’ll make Manjoo’s point simple. The iPad may dominate in the future because apps work on all of them, since the vast majority of people upgrade to the latest OS, whereas there’s a veritable cornucopia of OS’es in the Android world, and phone apps blown up to tablet size are not acceptable.

Read it, it’s the buzz of the cognoscenti:

Android Who? iPad is Poised to Rule the World

SPOTIFY

Could be too entrenched for Beats/MOG/Daisy to supersede it. He who doesn’t grow is busy shrinking.

LORDE/ROYALS

This year’s “Rolling In The Deep,” only more so, because unlike “Rolling In The Deep,” “Royals” is not derivative, it doesn’t sound anything like what came before.

Despite all the Miley and Katy hype, the biggest track of the year belongs to Lorde.

And deservedly so.

1. Make it instantly hooky.

2. Lyrics come last, but if you have something to say it decreases a track’s burn. The fact that Lorde is decrying the phony totems pop, hip-hop stars and the money-grubbing rich are searching for makes her the anti-star, who is always the biggest in the game, just ask John Lennon.

However, “Royals” never would have been this big without a major label. You can’t cut through the noise without one. Even Macklemore got major label radio promotion. In the age of information clutter, you need a powerhouse to get your message through.

JACK CONTE

Of Pomplamoose. Has shifted to a patronage model since the act’s YouTube revenue is down. In the nascent days of YouTube something left field could rise to the top and stay there. Conte says today’s algorithms prevent this. I’ll just say you can’t rise above the noise.

AMAZON

Is evil. Read Brad Stone’s book for further education. Oh, that’s right, you don’t read, you’d rather bloviate, just like the content industries who served their business up to Amazon not knowing the company’s business model, which is to engulf and devour, to dominate and then extract price and billing concessions and raise prices to users.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

And stop talking about competition on the web, there is none. Just a dominant player who eats all comers, who can lower prices to put others out of business, and raise them when they dominate.

“Mr. Stone writes that Randy Miller, an Amazon executive in charge of a similar program in Europe, ‘took an almost sadistic delight in pressuring book publishers to give Amazon more favorable financial terms.’ Mr. Miller would move their books to full price, take them off the recommendation engine or promote competing titles until he got better terms out of them, the book says.

‘I did everything I could to screw with their performance,’ Mr. Miller told the writer. The program was called Pay to Play until the Amazon lawyers changed it to Vendor Realignment.”

A New Book Portrays Amazon as Bully

“The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon”

LUDDITES

Are holding on for dear life, they’re ignorantly embracing the musings of David Byrne and the writings of Dave Eggers in order to feel they’re superior, that the old way was better and modern technology is a scourge upon society. Then they use their iPhones to text their friends to meet them at the movie, having already purchased seats online.

UNIVERSAL MUSIC

Understands the blockbuster mentality. As in he who has the most blockbusters wins today. Warner is finding this out to its detriment.

DOUG MORRIS

Thinks it’s about records, but now more than ever it’s about careers.

Records are short-term thinking, careers are long. And all the money’s in long.

CLEAR CHANNEL

Has an online problem. iHeart Radio is no competition for Pandora, iTunes Radio and Spotify. Our problem isn’t being able to listen to lame terrestrial radio online, but our inability to escape the plethora of commercials to hear what must be heard. Clear Channel is doomed unless it changes its name. People will love it as soon as they love Ticketmaster, which is never.

INFORMATION IS KING

He who knows the most wins.

Ignorance is rampant. Don’t side with those with the biggest bullhorn, research and make your own decisions.

THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, AKA OBAMACARE

Forget that the website doesn’t work well, the Administration has done an awful job of explaining exactly what it is and how it works. Porn sites have better FAQs than the Affordable Care Act. The Administration should stop fighting Republicans and try reaching out to the public/customers. As for the press…it too is complicit in this fiasco. It’s like arguing over whether airplanes should have escape slides, citing the dangers of those who utilize them, without explaining to passengers why they need them and how to use them.

SPOTIFY 2

20% of the tracks have never been played.

BLOCKBUSTERS

Anita Elberse has been writing on this topic for half a decade, but she’s only getting traction now.

Yes, the blockbuster book is not a blockbuster, because it was not sold in a blockbuster fashion.

If Ms. Elberse wanted a blockbuster book she would have negotiated a huge advance and a substantial marketing budget and made an appearance on every TV show and done a tie-in with McDonald’s (well, just kidding about that.)

Ideas take eons to get traction, irrelevant of their veracity. Spotify can’t combat those who believe they’re being screwed by a service that pays 70% of its revenues in royalties. The company is doing a bad job of selling its story. As a result, young ‘uns use YouTube.

But YouTube probably won’t win the mobile music subscription game, because Google has got a terrible track record of winning at anything but search. In tech, if you don’t play to win, don’t even bother to start.

Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment

MILEY CYRUS

Stop marketing and start making music, it’s the only way you’ll survive. Now you’re famous for being famous, that doesn’t last long.

LADY GAGA

Needs a hit record. Soon. Or will become an also-ran.

You don’t rest on your laurels today, you don’t go on a worldwide victory lap, you go back in the studio and make more hit music.

You’re gonna pay in the future.

Yesterday there was a piece in the “New York Times” lamenting the write for free mentality of the Internet. The truth is there are two classes, those who get paid and those who don’t. And those who do would never work for free, they’re professionals.

I’m not saying people won’t give away their wares for free online in the future, I’m just saying this whining that you can’t make any money, that everyone expects everything to be free online…those days are just about through. Sure, you can read posts free on Facebook and Twitter, but those sites were built on the public’s back. And they’ve peaked too.

How do I know?

Because I didn’t post a photo last night because I knew nobody was interested. At least not enough to make the effort.

You see the Net has been built on cool. It’s been about the new new thing. But those days are through, it’s solidifying. Now we’ve got winners and losers, and the odds of going from the underclass to the ruling class online are about similar to those doing the same thing in real life, essentially nil. Yes, the American Dream is dying online too. A few people make it through, but it’s like winning the lottery, the odds are low.

Prior to the Internet, did you sit at home watching television saying I CAN DO THAT?

Maybe, but you rarely took action. Videocams have been around since the late seventies, they were cheap in the eighties, was MTV inundated with home made tapes? Of course not, especially when videos became slick, expensive productions in the late eighties and nineties.

We’ve been sold a fiction. That the Internet has leveled the playing field. That all are welcome and respected. Hell, you can’t even get people to read your tweets, what makes you think you can get them to watch your YouTube clips?

Sharing has peaked. At least your own personal stuff. Sharing will be limited to sending along what has already broken through. Because no one has the interest or time for the wannabe.

So we’re returning to the old era. Just when you believed we were on the cusp of a new.

There’s no tech breakthrough on the horizon, no new Website paradigm. We’ve already got mobile phones, maybe we’ll get watches… As for Google Glass and other wearable computers, other than specific items like Fitbits/trackers, that help us individually, they’re niche, because they don’t do something we want them to.

As for paying… For all the hoopla over piracy, unless you’re HBO making your shows unavailable without a cable subscription, it’s no longer an issue. Ten percent of the people will never pay. The rest crumble to convenience. Kids don’t bother to steal music anymore, they just go to YouTube, where the artists do get paid.

The “Wall Street Journal” is behind a paywall. The “New York Times” has got a soft paywall. They no longer care about dominance, they want to survive. There are micropayments on iTunes. Figure out a universal payment system that’s friction free and suddenly you’re paying for everything.

That’s the online trend. Not freemium, not give it away and hope to make it up on the road, but raw payment. And it might not be much now, but it’ll grow. It might not be what it once was, but what will be what it once was is the culture of winners and losers. It’s the culture of curation. When people are overloaded, they gravitate to the known, or abandon altogether.

The Internet has been taken over by the man.

And that includes everybody who went to Silicon Valley to get rich. As for Google saying to do no harm, they’re gonna use your identity in ads without permission, unless you’re sharp enough to opt out.

Apple was never free. Sure, its OS is now free, but only if you own an expensive computer. The company’s goal is to lock you into their system.

So we’re giving you your life back. Same as it ever was. Just you and your family and buddies, no one else is interested.

Our rockers, they don’t last long.

I came to the Velvet Underground late. I didn’t listen to their first LP and start a band. A friend played me “Sister Ray” back in ’68, but I saw no need to buy the album, same deal with the Mothers of Invention, I had to come to them on my own time.

Which was in 1972, with Lou’s initial solo album, which no one I knew ever bought, but I loved.

“I Can’t Stand It” was the hook. But “Ocean” was the closer. Literally and figuratively. It had this majestic quality, that was especially compelling because it seemed made only for me.

And then came the hit.

Doesn’t happen the same way anymore. Left field hits are by unknowns, crashing the Top Forty chart with something that sounds just like the rest of what’s on the radio, just marginally different.

But that was not “Walk On The Wild Side.”

And the colored girls go…

Can you even say that? I didn’t think so, back in ’72, yes, Lou released two albums in one year, the appellation was now “black,” this was before “African-American,” everybody enlightened had cast aside “colored” before the close of the sixties. But here it was. Everywhere.

That’s what’s strange about popular culture. It takes a while for the outside to be assimilated. You have to hang in there long enough until you get your turn, getting better all the while.

“Walk On The Wild Side” was the story of Warhol’s sixties.

But it dominated the airwaves in the seventies, and unlike so much music, it hasn’t faded away, it continues to radiate.

“Transformer,” produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson before they had their date with destiny in the USA, but were already stars in the UK, was uneven. But a hit doth make an album desirable.

“Perfect Day” was probably the next best track. Because yes, a day can be perfect for those not perfectly ensconced in mainstream culture, it was an alternative anthem. And “Satellite Of Love” was hooky and brought back to life by U2 during its Zoo TV tour, but the rest of the album’s been forgotten. Almost like Lou Reed himself. He became representative of what once was, instead of what still is.

That’s what happens. You’re cutting edge until you’re co-opted and then confused as to what to do next. Lou Reed kept making albums and I kept buying them but then despite the press, the public and I kind of gave up. It’s hard to wear black as you get older.

But not before he put out the concept album “Berlin,” which has been critically resurrected, “Sally Can’t Dance,” deplored but known by heart by me, and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal.”

They say that “Live At Leeds” is the best live album ever. But that’s an assault, a raw power hit to the brain, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal” is a mellifluous compendium of what came before and what was done now and to listen to it was to believe that Lou Reed was emblematic of a mainstream star, even though in truth he was anything but.

I knew the Velvet Underground’s material at this point. I’d purchased “1969: The Velvet Underground Live,” with an earlier version of “Ocean,” I’d been turned on to “Loaded,” with “Sweet Jane” and “Rock and Roll,” but “Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal” was the piece de resistance.

Credit the twin guitars of Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, I purchased the latter’s solo album upon release as a result of his exquisite playing here.

The album started with an instrumental flourish, akin to a Broadway musical or an Alice Cooper show, in which Wagner and Hunter participated. And then the riff of “Sweet Jane” sliced and diced and Lou Reed was our rock and roll hero.

Next up came “Heroin”… “It’s my wife and it’s my life.” Deep and dark, at this point the audience had caught up with the scene. Not only New Yorkers knew about drugs. But it was the closer, “Rock and Roll,” that truly summed it all up.

Jenny said when she was just five years old
There was nothin’ happenin’ at all

It was the fifties. We were living in cookie cutter houses in the suburbs. Our parents will still recovering from the war, buckling down and making a better life for their children, with barbecues and trips to the beach and…

Every time she puts on a radio
There was nothin’ goin’ down at all
Not at all

The radio was primarily for baseball. They played music, but it did not change our lives and then…

Then one fine mornin’ she puts on a New York station
You know, she don’t believe what she heard at all

It happened overnight. Sports became secondary. The music, the politics, suddenly life was full of opportunities and children were the leaders, not their parents.

She started shakin’ to that fine fine music
You know her life was saved by rock ‘n’ roll

Imagine that. Not an iPhone. Not an iPad. The greatest exponent of technology was the transistor radio, almost no one had a color television set, never mind a flat screen. But that rock and roll music coming out of the tiny speaker or earphone…was enough.

And Lou Reed was not much different from the rest of us. With the suburban upbringing, the tenure at Syracuse, and then…his life was changed by rock and roll. He followed his muse to the city, hooked up with Andy Warhol and Nico, but really he was just another kid infected by the sound who needed to play.

Jenny said when she was just ’bout five years old
You know my parents are gonna be the death of us all

The world was topsy-turvy. In the sixties, we were angry, by the seventies we’d taken over, despite Nixon being in office, we’d won.

Two TV sets and two Cadillac cars
Well you know it ain’t gonna help me at all

And there you have it. We realized the American Dream of constant consumption was b.s. It was about what was in your mind, what you felt inside.

And when you look back on the continuum of rock and roll, Lou Reed does not raise his head as high as Lennon and McCartney or Jagger and Richards, but he was there, on the landscape. Illustrating that we could do it too. You didn’t need a fine voice, just something to say.

And the reason his death means so much is because everything’s so different today.

But Lou Reed did not stop being who he was. He was not corrupted by the modern era. He didn’t get greedy in the eighties, he didn’t go disco, he didn’t try to modernize his sound. He just kept testing limits, believing the rock and roll ethos was enough.

And that’s what we loved him for.

That’s why his death is such a big deal.

And it is.

I read it because James Patterson said it was his favorite book of the year.

Actually, I’ll look it up!

“Maybe that’s why ‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette‘ is my favorite novel so far this year. It’s funnier than a season’s worth of ‘Modern Family,’ ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ and ‘Justified’ episodes; it’s also the most original and imaginative fiction I’ve read since ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret.'”

James Patterson: By the Book

That gets your attention, doesn’t it?

No, I’m not a fan of James Patterson, I’ve never even read any of his books! All I know is you’re required to hate him. But I’ve become intrigued by him, because a guy I went to college with coauthors his novels.

That’s how Patterson does it. He comes up with an idea and gets somebody else to write the story, that’s how you become rich in the book business…produce, produce, produce.

And this guy…I’ll never forget standing on the steps of Hepburn Hall as he groused he’d gotten a B in poetry, and told us his prep school teacher told him he was her best student EVER!

Yes, he actually said that. I know they don’t talk like that in real life. But at Middlebury College, “Lord Of The Flies” incarnate, you staked your spot on the intellectual ladder and you swatted down those below, and pushed aside those above.

I wasn’t used to this. I went to public school. I still haven’t recovered. Well, about ten years later I normalized, but after four years at Middlebury I was convinced I was…inadequate. Could never measure up. Because these people were winners and I was not.

But that’s not the way it played out. The people who put me down, corrected my grammar, poked holes in my analysis, taught me to think before I speak, have not gone on to be world-beaters.

And that leaves me elated, alienated, depressed and exhilarated all at the same time.

Just like Bernadette.

Characters are supposed to be sympathetic. No one’s got time to listen to complaints. Every rapper’s a winner and every homeless person has got an app. Life is no longer about the middle, but the edges. If you’re not a winner, you’re a loser, kind of like Bernadette and her husband Elgin. Elgin’s a winner, with a famous TED talk, Bernadette can barely leave the house.

A TED talk! That’s why the book is so good, it’s so au courant, not worried about being universal, unafraid of being dated.

And it’s told primarily in e-mail. At least at first. Then there are faxes, snail mail, autobiography… Maria Semple is taking a risk. It’s like the music of the sixties and early seventies. You put it on and your jaw dropped as you were taken through twists and turns only the musicians could conceive of. This is not Katy Perry, safely replicating what she’s done before, but someone stalking into the wilderness on her own trip, which you can either ignore…

I looked up “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” on Amazon. It had 1600 reviews. It was not brand new. It was a positively cult item I’d never heard of being kept alive by word of mouth, today’s vaunted virality. Especially in books. There’s no money in books. They launch them with a zap of publicity and abandon them. It’s left up to the readers to keep them alive.

For every “Fifty Shades Of Grey”… That’s just the point, there’s only one of those. Just about every other book is niche, except those by Malcolm Gladwell and Stephen King, and when you lie awake at night by the light of your Kindle, you feel like you’re part of a secret world, and there’s nothing more thrilling than being a member of a cult no one else is aware of.

And at first the sheer innovation is so thrilling you can’t stop reading.

But then you’re not sure where it’s going and you’re no longer riveted until…the twist. And then you cannot put it down.

And that’s all I’m gonna tell you. Because there’s nothing worse than a book review that gives away all the plot points.

But I will whip out a few good lines…

“My point is this. I’m getting really scared about the trip to __________. And not just because I hate people, which, for the record, I still do.”

Ha! If you don’t hate everybody on a regular basis, you’re no friend of mine. I hate those people who never have a bad word to say about anybody, who refuse to gossip, who act so well-adjusted. It’s hard for us to get along, like penguins without chicks!

“Not eating cake because the man has discipline.”

I don’t have this discipline. Can anyone deny oneself to this point? Hell, Jim Gaffigan has built an entire career on the inability to deny oneself food.

“Because, as they like to say, it’s a company built on information, and that can just walk out the door.”

THAT’S WHY STEVE JOBS WAS SUCH A SECRECY FREAK!

“He’s usually all into his email.”

I’ve been unable to break my addiction, you?

And the piece de resistance…

“My heart started racing, not the bad kind of heart racing, like, I’m going to die. But the good kind of heart racing, like, Hello, can I help you with something? If not, please step aside because I’m about to kick the shit out of life.”

Whoo-hoo! I was just talking about this to my shrink this afternoon. I’m too INTO things for people. I just voraciously devour them and can’t stop talking about them. I read too much, ski too much, analyze too much, if I had a dime from everybody who told me to cool it I’d be rich.

Yes, the world is comprised of those who do their best to fit in, to look cool. And I never fit in, and that does leave me hating people on a regular basis, but it does not leave me bored. I’m pissed the flight is only eleven hours, how am I going to get all my reading done! I want to know how every ski on the market turns. I hoovered up the credits on my albums. I’m writing so much now that you’re unsubscribing!

You think I don’t know that? That you’ve got limits!

And god forbid I go off point.

And if you don’t unsubscribe, you jam it in my face. To make it less frequent and shorter and…

But there’s a thrill in creativity. And to get the juices flowing you’ve got to work, work, work, to get to the pinnacle!

Which means I’m working all the time.

So I’ve never seen “Modern Family,” or “Justified.” I’m not saying they’re bad, I’m not saying I don’t have a whopping cable television bill, I’m just saying I’m so busy getting deeper into my stuff I don’t have time for them!

Except when I don’t. When I’m so spent I can barely get off the couch.

Like Bernadette.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette