1. We just want someone to listen to us.

My mother broke her hip, she’s in rehab, she wants to get out, but imprisoned she needs someone to listen to her story, I’m providing that service.

That’s what we all want. Someone we don’t have to be our best self with. Someone we can reveal our inadequacies and frustrations to. Someone who will patiently listen and won’t give us unwanted advice. We usually don’t want any advice, we just want to be heard. A great listener possesses the key to friendship. Someone who listens will have more friends than any world-beater. People are complicated and flawed. Don’t berate them for opening up, embrace them.

2. Don’t do all the talking.

That doesn’t mean in one or another conversation you can’t dominate, but if you can’t ask how the other person is doing, if you can’t interact in a way that evidences you’re listening, you may think you’re winning but you’re not. Life is about giving. If you’re always taking, it’s going to get very lonely.

3. Business books are b.s.

Because even if the advice is good, it’s not particularized to you. I’m not saying you can’t gain insight, but the people you’re reading about don’t resemble you, and too often the writers are doing it to make money and burnish their careers as opposed to genuinely trying to help you. Sure, it’s great to identify with what a writer says, but don’t overinvest, you’ve got to find your own path.

4. You can’t tell people what to do.

They’ve got to find out for themselves. When you’re listening to them it’s about being heard, as stated above, it’s not about you dropping pearls of wisdom that they can follow. Furthermore, if you do manage to help them out once, they’re still gonna be flummoxed soon. Life is about experience. It’s a long ride we’ve all got to take. You’ve got to find your own way. It’s great if you can find a mentor, but I’ve never encountered one. But the main point is people don’t really want advice, no matter how much they say they do. Tell them the truth and you’ll be in trouble, they’ll start explaining why you’re wrong. It’s human nature.

5. Don’t evidence weakness.

I know this sounds contradictory, but my main point is don’t always be the person who got the raw deal, who the world is against. Life is tough for everybody. Sure, complain. But be joyful sometimes too. Otherwise, everybody’s gonna run from you.

6. Life is not always up.

If you haven’t experienced downs, you haven’t taken any risk or you’re so rich you’ve never engaged. Life is about losses, even more than victories. Lick your wounds, but then lift yourself back up, however slowly, get back in the game, learn from what happened, but do your best not to be burdened by it.

7. Everybody’s got an interior life.

When they reveal it to you, you bond. Most people don’t feel safe enough to tell you their truth. But when they do, its a magic moment for both of you, the teller feels exhilarated and alive, finally able to relax in his skin, and the listener starts to tingle, stunned that the teller trusts him that much.

8. It’s not what you own, but who you are.

But you don’t realize this until you’re close to sixty. The young kids have little wisdom and all the strength and synapses. The old people have all the wisdom, but failing bodies. So you’ve got young people doing stupid things, not realizing how long life truly is, and you’ve got old people driving around in the sports cars they can finally afford. It would be better if the young people had wisdom and Ferraris, that they could truly enjoy, when they’re truly meaningful, and the oldsters could drive Priuses and Fusions yet have no aches and pains.

9. No one remembers history.

They’re doomed to repeat it. It’s the way of the world, the same way people repeat the same relationship until they finally wake up and realize their choices are bad, what they think they want is actually no good for them.

10. Trustworthiness is more important than excitement.

11. We want people we can count on.

Who will take us to the hospital. Who will go out of their way to help us just because they’re our friend. We all know these special people, who live to serve, despite being neither rich nor famous, they’re our society’s secret savers. If you don’t have one of these people in your life, someone not related to you, start looking, now. And once again, you get them by giving more than taking.

Write a hit single.

After all that hype, stories in every mainstream publication known to man and an appearance on the Emmys, Elton John sold a paltry 48,000 albums this week. And you know it’s less than 20,000 next week and then it’s over.

What happened?

Elton failed to write a hit song. Too many elders believe if they just ramp up the publicity machine, people will buy. But that only worked when media was scarce, and today even babies are overloaded.

Contrast this with Cher, who did do “Today” and “Letterman,” but was the beneficiary of a hit single, “Woman’s World,” which hit number one on the Dance Club/Play songs chart in August. Hell, I didn’t even know she had an album coming out, and that’s the way it should be, only the fans care.

And you don’t reach the fans via carpet-bombing.

And McCartney just answered a bunch of questions on Twitter. You know you’re done when you employ a paradigm every hipster used two years ago. What next, an AOL real time chat?

Don’t swoop down and try to get our attention when you’ve got something to sell, be in our face every day if you want to play the viral marketing game. Miley Cyrus posted video of herself twerking on YouTube long before the VMAs. It got the fan base energized, she showed she was an artist, not an entertainer.

Huh?

Yup, today’s artists are creating all day long. And not in the same way they used to. Madonna wasn’t all about the music and neither is Miley. And if you want to make it about the music, make good stuff!

I love Elton. But despite the sound being exquisite, I couldn’t find one decent track on the whole damn album, and I actually listened to it. Certainly no “Take Me To The Pilot” or “Sixty Years On.” Would I love to write about Elton? Of course! But now I can only say something negative.

Hey Elton! Go where the people are! Go on Twitter and post pics of your kids, talk about your frustrations, tell us what you’re listening to!

Or don’t do anything like that and release undeniable music, that’s how the Weeknd broke.

It’s creepy, all these oldsters with their faces lifted and hair dyed, trying to appear young while the audience either ignores them or makes fun of them. Baseball players don’t come out of retirement to hit home runs and pitch no-hitters, why should it be any different in music?

If only McCartney put out a track every month. And supported it with an online presence. Maybe, one of them would hit.

Or if he’s truly that desperate, why not work with Dr. Luke. Or provide backups on a Cyrus record or drop into hits like the rapper du jour.

Anathema you say!

But if you don’t think Elton and McCartney are dying to sell their new records, you don’t know them.

And it’s very tough. Because their audience is ancient and hard to motivate. But if you do it the same damn way, why expect a different result?

Elton broke because of the undeniable “Your Song.” Half a listen was good enough. Write another one ninety percent as good, get Jeffrey Katzenberg to feature it in a new DreamWorks animated production and whore it out as a theme song for Burger King thereafter.

Stop with the albums no one cares about. There’s not even any money in it anymore.

Play the YouTube awards. Sit in with your brethren.

Don’t appear desperate, but HUNGRY!

Isn’t that the main appeal of Miley Cyrus, how much she WANTS IT?

It’s irrelevant, he’s dead.

Oh, I could divine a lot of lessons from the conclusion, as to the liability of concert promoters and the greediness of heirs, but what we truly learned about the Michael Jackson trial is that which is not on television doesn’t really matter.

It’s the national sport. Forgetting how poor you are and watching the shenanigans of the screw-ups in court. Randy Phillips and Paul Gongaware would have become cultural icons, with longevity exceeding that of Kim Kardashian and the already faded Paris Hilton, if only…this trial were on television.

In a world where the movies are fake, our best entertainment comes from reality. The studios believe by adding more explosions and special effects they’re winning. But this is untrue, because it’s story that counts, heroes and villains. A great story can be shot in black and white. But instead the studios focus on the penumbra, because that’s all they know.

Come on, we don’t really care about whether the Jacksons get the money or not, and we already know Conrad Murray is guilty, we were most interested in the dirty laundry, the behind-the-scenes machinations, but only being able to read about them, filtered through the words of bored-to-death reporters unwilling to give us anything but the facts, not knowing it’s how you tell the story that’s most important, we shrug our shoulders and move on.

I mean come on, the verdict is AEG is guilty but it’s not? They hired the doctor but he’s not competent? If this makes sense to you, you pray to the god of nonsense. Because Conrad Murray appears anything but competent, isn’t that why he’s in jail? And AEG doesn’t hire doctors for every gig, they did it at Jackson’s insistence, somebody he wanted…huh?

Proving once again, you never want to go to a jury. Because juries are nuts, completely unpredictable.

Obviously they didn’t want to hold AEG monetarily liable. How they got there has us scratching our heads, but that’s the essence of juries, they vote from their hearts, logic goes out the window.

So now we move on, to the next faux spectacle. Especially in a world where we can’t handle the real thing, i.e. a bunch of lunatic Congressmen who believe after losing they can win, then again, they’ve got nothing to lose after redistricting, those areas are never going blue, they’re safe in their convictions, irrelevant of what Democrats believe.

That’s the world we live in. Run by corporations which control the government, the people are completely powerless. Living by their wits, they don’t like to see anyone get ahead undeservingly. I mean after hearing for decades that Michael Jackson was deprived of his childhood, are we really gonna compensate the family? As for the kids, how much money do you need, they’re already rolling in dough from the estate. And if money bought you love, Paris wouldn’t have attempted suicide and been placed in a mental hospital.

Still, we’re fascinated by the lives of others. It’s the only true entertainment we’ve got. Evaluating others’ choices, seeing how they behave when pressured. But in this case, we were deprived of all that, the only thing we truly care about.

So, so long Kevin Boyle. Without TV you never became as famous as Johnnie Cochran or Christopher Darden, most people still have no idea who you are.

And so long Marvin Putnam, tool of billionaire Philip Anschutz. Sure, you won, but we still don’t love you, we hate those on the side of money, even when they’re right. Our sense of fairness would not allow the Jacksons to get paid, but that doesn’t mean we’ve got any sympathy for you.

So long Paul Gongaware! May your memory no longer fail you!

So long Randy Phillips! Your name may occasionally appear in the press again, but at best you’re a footnote.

And so long Phil Anschutz, the only man with enough money to fight instead of settle. Of course you had insurance, but who can afford coverage like this other than someone like you? May you never get a football team and be subject to even more press, since anyone this rich and this private has something to hide.

And so long Michael Jackson.

This is the end. Your legacy will live on. Your records and your dancing. Your weirdness will fade into the background, just like that of your fellow deceased drug addict, Elvis Presley. If John Branca were smart, he’d turn Neverland into a west coast Graceland, that’s where the real money is.

And so long to newspapers. Which did such a lousy job of telling this story that it had no traction. As for TV, it’s all talking heads and no news. So, without actual footage to comment on, reports had no sass, no gravitas, no pull on the public, and fell flat.

And hello to a world that veers from one crisis to another, with very few lasting, but those that do being scripted as reality TV, where we all go for refuge from our dreary lives.

This crisis is done. Next!

“Electronic Arts, the publisher of the Madden football series and other sports favorites, sold 67 different titles in stores in the fiscal year ending March 2009. In its last fiscal year, it sold 13.”

Shrinking List of Video Games Is Dominated by Blockbusters

I read.

You can sit on the phone all day, go to lunch, but that’s a very inefficient way to gain knowledge.

In other words, are you reading the new Malcolm Gladwell book, about David & Goliath? It came out today, I got it at midnight, oh how I love the Internet and wireless delivery.

What are the hidden defects of those in power, those you want to topple? Usually it’s that they’re so insulated that they cannot see the landscape. Some college kids put a dent in the recorded music industry that the labels will never recover from. And right now while people are dying at EDM shows, Las Vegas is burgeoning, where they make more money from deejays than they do at the slots.

Didn’t know that? You’ve got to read last week’s “New Yorker” story by Josh Eels “How Electronic Dance Music Conquered Las Vegas”:

NIGHT CLUB ROYALE

Unfortunately, most of it’s behind a paywall, making it near-irrelevant. Protect your business model and turf at your peril. Here the “New Yorker” writes the best, most definitive article about the EDM scene in Vegas and most people don’t read it, what have they accomplished, reaching those who are not interested?

And yesterday, on the front page of the business section of the “New York Times” there was this story “Shrinking List of Video Games Is Dominated by Blockbusters,” linked to above.

You should read it, because exactly the same thing is happening in music. People only want the best music, the stuff that everyone’s talking about. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Pooh-pooh Max Martin and Dr. Luke all you want, but if you can’t admit they’re talented, you don’t know there are 88 keys on a piano. They’re playing a game. Of making records that Top Forty will play. Complain all you want that Miley Cyrus has little talent, but can you, at home, make a record as good as “Wrecking Ball”?

NEVER!

And Top Forty is the only format that builds mainstream careers.

So, you’ve got to be a triple threat, a great writer, player and singer, and you’ve got to be able to produce too, otherwise you won’t make it. Oh, you can hire a producer, but how much do you think an A-lister costs? Only the labels can afford them. The same labels with not only deep coffers, but relationships.

Believe me, Electronic Arts would like to have more hits, it’s just that people weren’t buying their other titles. Take-Two, which makes GTA, otherwise known as “Grand Theft Auto,” makes essentially nothing else. Rather than being a producer, they’re more like a band, putting out an album every couple of years, which they slave over, that they spend double digit millions not only producing but marketing (to make a billion dollars in three days!)

That’s how hard it is to cut through the noise. And it’s those with headway who continue to succeed.

I’m not the only one saying this. Anita Elberse, a business professor at Harvard, is releasing a book entitled “Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment” on October 15th. How did I discover it? By reading!

But my main point is while you were at home plotting your assault on the Internet, growing virally from nothing to something, the entire game changed. The public became wary of wasting time, not only foraging for new entertainment, but finding out in most cases what they discovered wasn’t worth the effort. So people have retreated, they’ve come back from the wilderness and have set their eyes on what everybody else is paying attention to.

That does not mean there are not niches. That does not mean you can’t create a profitable business using the Internet and social networking to reach those who care. But in most cases they’re the only ones who care. That’s the story of Kickstarter. You raise money to make an album for the very few who care. You get paid, but your audience doesn’t become any larger. Sure, the media has picked up on how Amanda Palmer has made herself a success, but the audience for her music has not grown significantly, she’s not become a blockbuster, what are the odds that you will?

Very low.

Look at the movie grosses. Every week there’s one winner, assuming it wasn’t produced for too much cash, and a ton of losers. What’s the result? Studios are making fewer flicks, pouring more money into those they green-light. They’ve all closed their art house divisions, because they just weren’t profitable enough, and a bad use of capital, the returns were meager.

So no, the label is not interested in your niche product, if it can’t get on Top Forty radio, forget about it.

And if you’re going it alone, you’ll probably stay close to alone.

Do I wish it were different?

OF COURSE!

But it’s not.