It’s less about winning than participating.

This is difficult for baby boomers to understand, they grew up in an era where domination was key. But their progeny are all about being a member of the group. And one of the ways you demonstrate your membership is by making a parody video, a tribute video, a lip-synch video…that’s how you evidence ownership and inclusiveness.

This is remix culture. It’s what rights holders have fought against for over a decade, believing it would dilute their copyrights. But it turns out that the best way to have a valuable copyright today is to allow the public to make it their own. That’s when you know you’ve got something valuable, when the public embraces it, twists it, bounces it off its brethren.

This is a significant change from what came before. In the past, you were either a hero or a zero. Either the newscaster on TV or the nobody. But today, those newscasters are seen as bloviating helmet-haired automatons and if you’ve got an opinion you don’t keep it to yourself, you express it on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. And your friends know all about it. Want to triumph in today’s culture? Dig very deep.

There was a fascinating article in Sunday’s “New York Times” stating that the mainstream reporters can no longer follow political campaigns, they’re not sophisticated enough. The candidates do such deep data mining that they target micro-groups and ignore the mainstream. You may think what’s on TV counts, but really it’s what’s in the Hadassah newsletter. And it’s no different in entertainment. It’s what’s happening deep in the niche that defines not only today, but tomorrow.

Look at movies… Either they’re blockbusters or stiffs, there’s nothing in between. Either they’re cultural touchstones or irrelevant. The movie business hasn’t figure this out yet. That either they have to be in the blockbuster or niche business, there’s nothing in between. Same thing in music. But when it gets interesting is when the niche flips and becomes the mainstream.

That’s the story of “Gangnam Style.” Suddenly, the marginal, brought to life by parody and tribute videos and word of mouth, becomes mainstream.

But don’t equate mainstream with lasting. Hell, one can argue the day you become mainstream is the day you die, then no one will forward your work anymore, you live in a viral dead zone.

You’re in bed with your audience. Not only do you have to communicate with your minions, you have to give them the tools to spread the word. That’s why free music is so important. It allows your soldiers on the ground to build your career. If you think it’s all about being on the radio, you’re missing the point. No one takes seriously what’s on the radio, real truth is off the radio, just like real truth is never on TV news. You’ve got to come down off your high horse and realize the only way to make a buck is not by selling tracks, never mind albums. Fans will give you all their money, if you just let them believe they own you.

Instead, hit artists are doing their best to keep fans at a distance. Flying private, hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Want to make a commotion? Fly public and tweet what flight you’re on. Tweet where you’re having dinner. Say you’ll pay for the first hundred fans who show up at In-N-Out. This money is better spent than radio promotion. Because you own the fan whose dinner you purchased, you don’t own anything on radio, if anything, they own you.

Now it’s primarily about getting lucky. You’ve got no idea when you’re going to go viral, just like an act isn’t the best judge of what’s going to be a hit. You provide music and stems for years, just waiting for that lucky moment. Hell, Psy was on his sixth album already!

You’re waiting for someone to discover your fish. Meanwhile, they’re not even aware of your pond. But if someone is, and you hand out free maps and a coupon for a free soda when people show up, you’ve got something.

We’re all in it together. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you’re on the road to success.

P.S. Music is already free. The dominant way teenagers listen is on YouTube. So stop arguing about Spotify payments, stop arguing about maintaining the album, embrace the new. Hell, if the majors had embraced Spotify two years earlier, kids would have cared, it would have burgeoned. Instead, they’ve become inured to YouTube.

“Why Campaign Reporters Are Behind The Curve”

PSY – GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) M/V

Is it the music or the video?

I went to Best Buy to scope out TV sets. I didn’t bother looking at Sonys. For someone who grew up in the sixties and seventies, this is incredible. Sony was the BMW of its age. Only Sony charged a premium to be a member of the club.

But Sony missed the flat panel revolution.

And multiplayer Internet gaming.

Microsoft is not making any money with the Xbox, and Samsung is barely eking out any cash with TVs, but Samsung is the new Sony. Only hipper.

Yes, there was the loss to Apple. But Samsung will recover. It’s just that their handsets won’t look exactly like the iPhone.

You see it’s a Samsung world. While we weren’t looking, while we thought brands were forever, Samsung realized the game had changed and became number one. Just like with this Psy video.

Isn’t it funny that all the Americans, salivating over the Asian market, dying to penetrate China while bitching all the while that music is free there, have been beaten at their own game by the Koreans. Because the Koreans realized it wasn’t about money, it wasn’t about connections, it was about art.

Just like a Samsung is skinnier than its competition, with a better picture, K-Pop has finally broken through not on the music, but by a video. Which demonstrates something that’s been absent from mainstream American music for far too long…HUMOR!

Actually, the video walks a line. You’re not sure whether Psy’s taking himself seriously or not. But the longer you watch, you realize he’s winking at the camera, Psy’s in on the joke, and you become endeared to him.

He’s not classically attractive or thin, he’s the opposite of what Hollywood tells us to be. He hasn’t been seen in all the right places. But he realizes musical success is about sound and the trappings. And he’s got the trappings right.

This is bigger than Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” name your own price promotion, because “Gangnam Style” is replicable.

Yes, we finally live in a global village. And it’s not about relationships, it’s not about any of the phoney-baloney business that keeps the downtrodden out. It’s solely about art. Anybody can play. And you can play around the world.

Used to be stars were made by the machinery. By radio and television. But “Gangnam Style” was made by YouTube and the public. It went viral…

Today viral is oftentimes just part of the campaign, you can smell the manipulation, people want no part of it. But when you truly find something that is an outlier, something with no connections, something that’s cool in its own right, you want to tell everybody about it. That’s what the Internet is all about, sharing!

So Scooter Braun attaches his tag at the end. There’s nothing wrong with that, but very little right. If only Scooter could have been there at the beginning, then I’d be impressed. Instead, he’ll milk this for as much as he can, then he’s done.

Yes, “Gangnam Style” is a novelty track. I’d be surprised if there’s anything more, just like Rebecca Black with “Friday,” it’s one and done.

But what it represents…

This electronic sound is the music of the planet. It translates across borders. The language is not important. Just the way the music makes you feel.

In other words, the younger generation is remaking not only the music business, but the world!

That’s what the older generation does not get. The older generation is all about money, whereas the younger generation knows the power is in the tools. The computer, the iPhone, YouTube, Twitter. The barrier to entry is essentially nonexistent. But there’s tons of noise, tons of clutter. To rise above you have to get lucky or be really smart.

That’s what “Gangnam Style” is…smart. We’re not laughing at it, but with it. With its weird mashup of sex, style, spy and luxury living. Instead of feeling closed out, that you cannot play, “Gangnam Style” is weirdly inclusive, you believe everybody in the video is nice, that they’d let you play along, because everybody involved is so…normal.

Cool is dead. Because we’ve got too much information to believe you’re cool. We’ve got your high school photos, we know who you dated, we know deep down inside you’re just like us. And if you want to succeed big, you’ll realize that. Stop being Jay-Z or the rest of those performers saying they’re better than us, rather project the image that you’re just like us!

“Gangnam Style” puts a smile on your face and flips your brain’s creative switch. You tell yourself “I can do that!”

And you can.

Without Simon Cowell.

Without Lucian Grainge.

Without Doug Morris.

This is the old guard’s worst nightmare. Because if the proletariat controls the means of production and distribution, the old guard is unnecessary, the old guard is dead.

The old guard can give you the illusion of success. Sign you to a contract, spend money. But if you truly want to make it today, look in the mirror. We’re all on our own. Living on our wits. Worldwide success is only a heartbeat away… If you’re human, if you’re honest, if you play to everybody instead of the traditional gatekeepers.

Last week Jonathan Tropper released his sixth book, “One Last Thing Before I Go“…it has not gotten good reviews.

I stumbled upon Tropper by combing the Amazon reviews. A book takes a long time to read, I don’t want to waste my time. Something I read on the site convinced me to take a risk. And I ended up reading all of them. They were easy, I loved the sensibility, but they seemed to be movie scripts, you know, starving fiction writer tries to sell book to Hollywood to strike it rich.

Except for “This Is Where I Leave You.” “This Is Where I Leave You” is a step beyond, it’s like not having made it yet in Tinseltown, Tropper decided to write for himself.

And he succeeded.

I’ve recommended this book to many. If you like Tom Perrotta, when he was writing “Joe College” and “The Wishbones,” before he tried to elevate himself to the rarefied air of “serious writer”…you’ll like “This Is Where I Leave You.”

But that’s not why I’m writing about the book. Hell, few people read novels anymore, it takes too much time, it’s too much work, even romps about relationships and family like “This Is Where I Leave You”… No, the reason I’m writing about “This Is Where I Leave You” is because this week, three years after it was released, “This Is Where I Leave You” is number 10 on the “New York Times” Fiction Combined Print and E-Book Best Sellers list. Hell, it’s number 8 on the Fiction E-Book Best Sellers list. And that’s important. You see it used to be books disappeared, there were winners and losers, and if your tome wasn’t the former, it would be shipped back to the publisher and pulped, ultimately dropped from the list, it’d be like you didn’t even write it.

But now, with electronic publishing, books can last forever.

In other words, after three years of percolation, “This Is Where I Leave You” is finally a hit. Deservedly so.

Now books are not like music. There’s no radio. Only consumption. There’s no airplay enticement. But could this be the future of music too?

In other words, if you do something truly great, could it eventually find its audience?

Don’t think it was any different in music. Availability of anything but the hits in retail shops was always low, and every record collector knows about cut-outs, that’s what makes records so rare.

But nothing’s rare online.

Music is made for today. But what if it was made for tomorrow?

What I mean by that is, if instead of trying to crack the chart, go for immediate success, you woodshedded, slowly built a career of quality, maybe word of mouth could spread your music.

Now it’s much easier to make music than write a book. Less effort is required. Then again, everybody’s writing a book these days, and it doesn’t take much to put it up on Amazon… But to write a great book is nigh near impossible. And you can’t force someone to listen to a book, it’s not a three minute affair, but an hours-long procedure…but if someone dedicates their time and loves what you’ve written, they tell everybody they know. It’s kind of like going to summer camp, you can’t forget it.

Just maybe we’re going to see an end to this vapid era we’re enveloped in. Hell, album sales are tanking, because no one expects a long player to be any good.

And the change is gonna come from the audience. The audience builds acts, spreads the word, supports you.

Too much music word of mouth reaches a dead end. Because the stuff that is recommended just doesn’t work for the person receiving the information.

Then there are exceptions.

Are you one of the exceptions?

One Last Thing Before I Go

This Is Where I Leave You

Joe College

The Wishbones

He doesn’t go to meetings and he’s on antidepressants and this podcast is so riveting it will make your lips smile and your ears orgasm.

I’m rushing out to the beach for Felice’s family reunion, and then off to Fullerton for the rehearsal dinner for my nephew’s wedding, but I cannot help but tell you about this podcast. Because it’s so damn good, it’s life itself.

Speaking of good, that’s what Alec Baldwin is here. Because he’s in his element. Unlike interviewing musicians… He asked Peter Frampton how many albums he had before “Comes Alive,” whether Humble Pie ever played in the U.S… We know those facts cold.

And Alec knows most of Dave’s story cold.

But not all of it.

He majored in radio and TV because there was no foreign language or math requirement. These are the choices we make in life, based on arbitrary obstacles that we do not want to face.

And he got a gig at a TV station as the late night booth announcer… I don’t think the younger generation remembers what a booth announcer is. I barely do.

But when he came back to Ball State, Ole Duck Lips was famous.

And he gave up the TV gig to go on radio. His boss said he was finished in show business. That’s something you never forget. Someone in power telling you you’re finished, because you made a bad choice. That separates the men from the boys. It’s usually too disheartening to go on. I remember the first day of law school, which I didn’t want to attend anyway. The career counselor told us if we were here to get into the entertainment business, to drop out immediately, the odds were insurmountable. This almost made me do it. I really didn’t want to go to law school. I’d just run out of options. Ski bumming had no future and I’d caught the world’s worst case of mononucleosis, now what? And I certainly would have dropped out if it hadn’t been the worst snow year on record, look it up, 76-77 in Utah… Everyone thought I was lying until last year, when it was the second worst ever in Utah…hell, the worst ever in Colorado. And the professors kept saying to never use outlines, they were the enemy. But I employed them after giving up the books to pursue a woman and ended up in the top 15% of the class… Because it’s not the hours you put in, but how you do on the test. Kind of like those 10,000 hours Gladwell talks about. They’re meaningless if you screw up at the major league tryout, if you blow the audition. I memorized the Gilberts in sheer fear and desperation and aced the tests. I knew what was important.

And Dave moves to L.A. to write sitcoms. He talks about how clueless he was. That he didn’t know there was a template. That he really couldn’t do it. That’s what I hear all day long, especially in L.A… “Oh, I could do that!”

Right, you’ve got no idea.

And then he got his chance on Carson. And here’s how it works… You either kill or you’re done. It was just that simple. Talk about pressure.

And from there Dave lives somewhat of a charmed life. Within three appearances, he’s guest-hosting “The Tonight Show.” He and Merrill Markoe create his own show, which he thinks everybody is waiting for, but they’re not. That’s the arrogance, you think everybody is waiting for you, when you show up they’re gonna drop everything and pay attention. You’ve been woodshedding off the grid and now you’ve arrived. Huh? Most people just don’t care.

And then all Dave does is work. Because he’s afraid not to. He forestalls kids, almost his entire social life, because he believes if he doesn’t work, he’ll fail. He believes this attitude caused him to have a quintuple bypass.

And Dave doesn’t hang with the rich and famous, because what would he say to them, what do they have in common? He’s on TV every night, that does not make him a member of the club… As a matter of fact, the club members are suspicious of him.

But now he’s got a kid, and his social life is dictated by the kid, and…

Dave didn’t want to be a standup comic from a young boy. And unlike Jimmy Kimmel, it wasn’t like he never stood in the lone spotlight. Dave’s a weird hybrid…of comedian, grumpy uncle and ten year old who wants to upset the apple cart.

Oh, you’ll learn a lot of inside info. The restrictions put upon “Late Night” by Carson’s team. No monologue, no orchestra, no jokes about Bob Hope becoming a drug addict.

But you’ll also learn that Dave likes nothing more than banter. When you give it back to him, play along. He doesn’t want you to let the ping-pong ball fall to make him feel good, he wants to engage in a game!

This is a story. That’s honest. Thinking about it later, you’ll realize how much Dave left out, but listening you feel like the guy who invented modern late night TV, which is about sketches and gags as opposed to serious conversation, a comedy show, knocked on your front door, sat down on your couch and told you his story. He’s so present, so there, so into it, he laments when it’s done.

Podcasts were supposed to rule half a decade ago. But they’re only coming into their own now. Because no one knew the format. Kind of like they tried to sell you a personal computer to handle your recipes…huh? Turned out a computer was a communication tool, once the Internet burgeoned everybody had to have one to connect… Who knew?

Turns out podcasts are everything society says is gone. Long form entertainment for people who want to take the time to get really deep into a subject. Traditional media is ruled by ratings, producers are so worried you’ll flip the channel, they keep trying to dazzle you, there’s no depth. And the commercials! I’m done with them. I never ever listen to terrestrial radio… Why? Give up all that time of my life? Podcasts are akin to the radio of the sixties, when we’d put on the nascent FM stations and let them play all night. When we felt we were buddies with the deejays, when we felt we were part of a secret club.

Listen to this Letterman podcast. You’ll feel like a member of a secret club. On one hand, you want to keep it to yourself. On another, you want to tell everybody you know, about this listening experience, it’s FANTASTIC!

P.S. You’ve got to hear the story of Alec Baldwin auditioning for “Knots Landing”… We’re not prepared for our dreams to come true, we don’t even have a frame of reference…

Letterman On Here’s The Thing with Alec Baldwin