“Extremely Online”: https://tinyurl.com/4kjthpmd

You’ve got to read it. Like right now. Like click that link and start in. Because this is the key to the real America, the real world, that the boomers and the straight media pooh-pooh but drives all the viewers, eats up all the attention, generates all the dollars.

Forget the backlash. That goes with the territory. Like the negative reviews on Amazon. They don’t like Lorenz writing about their field, where they live, so they’re hating on her, just like everybody does on social media. Like I’ve said again and again, if you’re not experiencing online hate, you’re not playing, or you’re not honest enough, not posting enough, because social media is a giant pecking order, a greased pole that everybody wants to climb, and if they can’t make it to the top they’re going to tear you down in the process.

Lorenz left the “New York Times”… I’ve heard her version, I’ve read the public version, but one thing is for sure, the usual suspects at the “Times” had no time for her. Because she was part of the scene, part of what she was writing about, she didn’t keep the usual distance, wasn’t neutral in the way they were taught in J-school. But that paradigm went out with the internet itself. If you don’t participate, you’ve got no idea what is truly happening. The old paradigm of who, what, why, where, when and how? Gone. We don’t want reporters, we want the words of people living the lifestyle, in the pit, reporting back their experience. The cheese moved and the mainstream media denizens don’t like it. So, social media is a criticized backwater just like rock and roll in the sixties… It’s where all the youth are, it’s driving the culture, but the oldsters denigrate it, say it’s worthless, decry all the time the youth are spending on these social media sites.

So what we’ve got here is the history. From blogs to Friendster to MySpace to Facebook to…

And for a minute there I was bummed, because I know so much of this. But do most people know all this, do they care? Kind of like all those books about Napster and file-trading, the changes in music distribution…we all lived through it, who needed to be reminded of it. But most people did not live through social media, at least the kind who are going to read this book. They were too busy doing other stuff. But just like you laid on the rug in your bedroom, listening to records while you devoured “Rolling Stone,” today’s younger generations go online and spend that time on social media. Yes, want to know about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? Go on TikTok. I’m not saying the straight news is doing a bad job here, but it’s completely different from what you get on TikTok. On TikTok you get people testifying personally, the message is more vivid, it resonates, it’s right here as opposed to over there.

That’s right, many people use TikTok like Google, to research products, to find the news…

But even me…I don’t know all the players in history. Maybe I know Maker Studios, but not the names of those who started it and the ins-and-outs of its development. You’ve got to know, in the beginning, there was not that much money in it, and therefore unless you were in the scene you ignored it, were clueless, like a developing band fifty years ago. They might ultimately break through, but the early albums, the gigs, the history, you had to be there. And with so much diversion in today’s world, unless you lived on social media, you’re not going to know all this information.

But there’s a parallel story… How the usual players, the agents, the studios, ignored the growth of social media stars. Wanted nothing to do with them.

And then there is the platforms themselves. They were devised to do one thing, but then the creators took them somewhere else, a place unforeseen.

And if you were around in the early days of the record business, the post-Beatles music business, you’ll know it was cottage industry, with people forming new companies, trying to figure it out, make a buck, and the music itself was so interesting that it attracted the brightest minds.

The brightest minds were in social media. Because they were willing to think independently, to pivot. It’s one thing if you’ve got the template and follow it, but to create the template? That’s something else.

As for the music business today, we’re in a post-template world, and everybody who was around in the pre-internet era can’t handle it, and hates it. The business used to be defined, and closed. You needed a major label, for distribution, to get paid. And the major label owned radio and the press and other means of public relations. Today? It’s a free-for-all, everybody’s got the tools, and everybody’s creating. And there’s a lot of dross, but there’s a ton of great stuff too.

And it’s mostly based on personality. Your identity, your life, your thoughts, your comings and goings…things that got excised as music became more centralized, as opportunity cost rose, these elements were squeezed out.

Again and again in the book, after being rejected by the usual gatekeepers, the creators wake up and ask themselves why they need these intermediaries, why can’t they do it for themselves? And then they do and make beaucoup bucks.

Right now I’m only in Instagram, the book is chronological, but I got a text from Lewi about Aspen and I told him I was reading the book…Jim devours business books, and it immediately occurred to me that I had to tell him about it, that he had to read it.

You see it’s a completely different vision. They’re making it up as they go, with no restraints. That’s what blew up the music business. Yes, you got Tull, Zeppelin and Joni Mitchell all burning up the charts at once. People were excited about music in general, they were open to everything, they didn’t want something calculated, but something new and different.

This is where all the money is, social media. Used to be in the movie business, then in the music business, but now it’s social media. Anybody can make it, but very few do. Then again, so many die trying.

But this is where you can express yourself. This is where you can connect with the public. And you don’t have to narrowly define yourself, you can be who you are, changing along the way, and you can find an audience and thrive.

Don’t tell me about some of the worthless influencers, who are prank-oriented, where there’s so little there there, they’re like Top Forty hits, getting all the ink but not representative of what is going on. You’ve got to dig deeper.

This is so exciting. This is the world today. And just about everybody with power is missing it! They don’t understand it. All they can say is it’s worthless and to get off your damn phone.

But that would be like telling people not to listen to their Jimi Hendrix records in the sixties… Where else could you get this excitement?

The economy is gigantic. As is the artistic expression. And most people are unaware of the details, how we got here, the building blocks, to their detriment.

There is not another book like “Extremely Online.” It’s a peek into a world that you don’t know everything about unless you’re living it 24/7 and based on my inbox and what I read in big time media, most people are not. This is a window, a decoder ring.

I’m telling you now. Buy and devour this book. It’s not hard to read, you might get bogged down occasionally in the names, but isn’t that just the point, the fact that you don’t know who these people are, that you’re clueless?

And the sites might change, but the bedrock remains. This is about people, expressing their humanity, that’s where all the money and excitement is today, and if you want to know what is going on…

Read this book!

“Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World” by Naomi Klein

“Crook Manifesto” by Colson Whitehead

I love Naomi Klein and most of what she stands for, but I want my time back. What she does here is shoehorn a paradigm into every facet of life, as a way to explain every ill in society today. Yes, she was mistaken for Naomi Wolf, and that’s interesting, but do we have to take that to Trump and everything else? I mean why not just write a book about the insane society we now live in?

But man does she have a crack publicity team. Klein has been everywhere. Hyping a book with a title most people can’t pronounce, never mind understand. Proving that hype can bring people to the river, but it cannot make them partake.

Klein is personable and eloquent live, but her book too often reads like an academic tome. And it should have been cut down by at least half. It’s endless. It gets good when she talks about her child, her family, when she makes it personal, but too often she’s quoting academics and if it were assigned in a college course, you’d be pissed you have to read it. And if you’re just a layperson… You may be motivated to buy “Doppelganger,” but if ten percent of the purchasers actually finish it, I’d be stunned.

“Doppelganger” consumed two flights, to Toronto and back from L.A., and hours at home to ultimately consume. I could have quit, I know, but I stopped doing that. Let me change that, if I’ve read in excess of a quarter of your book, I’m going to finish it, I’m invested, I’m waiting for the payoff.

Which is the case with Colson Whitehead’s “Crook Manifesto.” I stayed with it and then it actually got good. But that was over halfway through. And not only is the first half boring, it’s at times indecipherable, Whitehead writes in this choppy way that oftentimes confounds you, has you trying to understand what is going on.

But both of these books got terrific reviews, hosannas.

I was down on Whitehead, because the very first book I purchased for my Kindle was “Sag Harbor,” which got a great review in the “Times,” and it was disappointing. I stayed away from Whitehead for years because of this. However, my mother purchased “The Underground Railroad” and long after it came out I dove in and it’s really good. So then I read “Nickel Boys,” which is not quite as good, but is very good. But “Crook Manifesto”?

Everything sells, is consumed, based on word of mouth these days. Reviews, press will gain you attention, but if the product doesn’t deliver not only will you not move any units, there will be a backlash. I wouldn’t have warned you off “Doppelganger” if I hadn’t seen it and its author everywhere. And then there were the stellar reviews of “Crook Manifesto”…

So I’m warning you off both of these. Also proving that not everything I consume do I give a thumbs-up to. And then there’s all that I watch and read and listen to that I don’t even bother to write about, like “Women at War,” the French series on Netflix. The ratings were good, and it stars Audrey Fleurot, who blew me away in “A French Village” and more. But while watching I wondered if I would have stuck with the series if it was an American show. Images great, story thin.

All this to say that when I find something that is truly great I want to tell everybody about it. I want you to have the same experience I had, to feel alive.

But I also don’t want to have you waste your time. Stay away from these two books.

Your mileage may vary, but I doubt it.

https://tinyurl.com/35rcnjn7

I loved this book. And I think you will too. Then again, it’s hard to know who people are, you know, below the surface. So many are gooey, yet many are not.

I’m talking about men here, but occasionally women fit this paradigm. What you see is what you get. It’s all surface. They want it and they’re out to get it. If they’re reading a book, dedicating the time, it must pay dividends, it must teach them something, best to read nonfiction for the lessons, even though fiction is always more true than fact.

So what we’ve got here is a Jewish family.

Well, that excises most of the public. However, families are universal. The primary unit. From which direction and neurosis emanate. If you grew up in a typical Jewish middle class suburban home, a lot of this will resonate. The professional father, the mother who sacrificed her career to raise children, the hopes and dreams instilled in said children, and the ultimate veering from the path.

That’s what they don’t prepare you for, how it all goes haywire. Sure, unexpected things can happen, like car accidents, illness, but usually it’s situational. You find yourself in a place you never anticipated, without a map, and all the people you counted on for advice are the worst to go to, because they don’t understand who you truly are, who you’ve become. You’ve grown up, separated from your parents, become a full person, yet the roadblocks and choices have you flummoxed.

Like Maya. She wanted to stay in education, get her doctorate, become a teacher. But her advisor tells her this is the worst path possible. You know it’s hard to get a tenured professorship, right?

And then there’s Gideon, who knew he wanted to be a doctor from day one, emulating his father. But when you start to think, do you really want to continue down the path you’re on?

Then there’s the self-centered grandmother, Marjorie. You know people like this, who don’t believe they’re an imposition, who can’t be criticized, who are essentially children in adult bodies, narcissists.

And then there’s Scott, the head of the household. Sure, he’s a doctor, but can he really pay all the bills?

And his wife Deb… Those urgings in her loins, can those be suppressed?

We only go around once. And you get to decide how tight you want to hold the throttle, the joystick. There are people sans instruction, who wake up one day behind the eight ball. They’ve got no education, got no money, and life continues to be a struggle. And the problems keep compounding. The drugs, the babies, the bills… And then there are those who do exactly what they’re told to. They become professionals. Follow in the footsteps their parents have laid out for them from the time of birth. They jump through hoops, get that graduate degree, and then wake up in mid-life and ask themselves if they truly want to be doctors or lawyers or… I hear from this type all the time, they’re more passionate about music than the people who work in it. They live to go to the show, because that’s their fulfillment, their jobs have become empty vessels rendering the cash it takes to feed their lifestyle. And in-between.

Do you know how hard it is for a Jewish kid to drop out of college? Maybe you’re not making it, believe me, your parents will excoriate you. And then there are people like Mark Zuckerberg…you slave to get into Harvard and you’re not going to finish? And normally finishing is everything. But sometimes you have to break the rules. Like Mick Jagger dropping out of the London School of Economics. His father was horrified. This is not the way it was supposed to be. You’re throwing away your future! But sometimes inside you know, this is not the way to go.

And oftentimes that comes from upbringing, ironically. Having been given the best and the brightest by your parents, who want to enrich your life so it can be even better than theirs, you discover other stimulants, other paths, and your parents are confounded.

So, once again, what we’ve got here is a family. And you’ve got no idea what goes on behind closed doors. As you get older you realize this. A friend of my father was married to a beautiful woman, yet he was stepping out, why? She was too needy, too hard-edged, he had to go his own way. I was stunned when I found out. And you hear it all the time, that this or that couple that looked incredibly happy got a divorce. And that kid you grew up with, who you played at the house of, they went to India, followed a guru, are into yoga, and don’t seem to care about money whatsoever. And we don’t know what is going on behind the front door of the Greenspans’ house either.

Some are shocked. Some knew and played it back to them.

As for Scott… Where is the line between truth and fiction? It’s kind of like Trump’s fraud trial, if no one gets hurt should there be a penalty? But the rules are the rules.

And Deb follows her desires and her life is at risk of being stolen out from under her.

And Maya is living out her fantasy, putting her whole life, never mind her job, at risk. Furthermore, the underpinnings of her interaction are based on a false premise. That’s happened to you, right? Where you’re acting based on a certain perception, with your significant other, a good friend, and then you find out the real story, the basics, the bedrock, it’s all completely different.

But it’s life and life only. And what we’re truly looking for is fulfillment.

Well, not if you’re broke and disadvantaged, then you’re just in survival mode. You’d be stunned how much of America is in survival mode. Their judgments, their choices might not make any sense, but if you were in their shoes, desperate and oppressed, they probably would.

But as we move up the economic food chain, that becomes the question. You wake up one day, hopefully, and realize it’s your life. What do you want to do? And are you so invested in what you’ve done that you can’t change?

“Hope” is one of those books you can’t put down. You sacrifice other activities to read. And when you’re reading your mind does not drift. And it’s an easy read, cuts like butter.

You might find some of the plot points, especially in the beginning, a bit too obvious, a bit too neat, but as you continue to read you’re no longer bugged by this. We always expect books to surprise us, and when they don’t, we consider them lowbrow. Not that “Hope” doesn’t ultimately surprise us, but at first, I wondered, was “Hope” lowbrow or highbrow?

And I couldn’t remember where the tip came from. Mostly mine come from the Sunday Book Review section of the “New York Times,” and Ron Charles’s weekly e-mail from the “Washington Post.” But I’ll read an article and someone will be testifying and I’ll reserve that book too.

Yes, I reserve these books via the Libby app. And you’d be surprised how soon you can get the best sellers. But the best thing is the spectrum of books you can sample is much more vast, and you’re not invested if a book doesn’t ring your bell, you’re not out bucks. Remember when you bought a bad record? It really bugged you, your money was limited. And this set, the music freaks, bought many fewer books. And if one was a bummer…they might wait an entire year to purchase another.

So at two a.m. last night, well, this morning, I was confronted with whether to read for another hour and a half and finish “Hope,” or to go to bed and pick up today. I ultimately forced myself to sleep, it wasn’t easy, but I was fearful of my day being messed up from lack of sleep. But before I turned in, I was in my own cocoon, my own world, with these characters. This is what I live for, the darkness, with the story.

And I know this is a conundrum. Rather than read about people, I could leave the house and hang with them, meet them. But there’s my social anxiety, and too often the experiences are not fulfilling, and like I said above, fulfillment ends up being everything. Actually, the question is when you can veer off toward fulfillment. Do you have to finish college first? Man, if I’d dropped out of college my father would have killed me. Literally.

So, I very much enjoyed reading “Hope,” and I hope you will too.

Otherwise you lose.

This is an axiom in sports, where defense scores no points, but it’s also a truism in music. Want to date yourself, want to stop having hit records? Keep on doing the same damn thing. It’s only when you change that you have longevity, but this is so risky most people just can’t do it.

Innovation, new, it’s anathema. That’s what’s wrong with America, no one can sacrifice, no one can lose their job. A bigwig told me file-trading had to end, not because of equity, not because of the artists, but because of what would happen to him! He needed his job running a label. That’s how myopic this person was.

Change is inevitable, and either you change or you die, you become irrelevant.

The number one example here is the Beatles. Believe me, “Sgt. Pepper” was a surprise. And people are too young today to remember that the Beatles’ so-called White Album came with a blank cover as a comment on over-produced record packages, gatefold covers, hype, everything but the music. The Beatles wanted to say it was about the music. And they ended up achieving their goal. Either you keep on pushing the envelope or you die, it’s over. You may even keep your job, but you become increasingly irrelevant. Irving Azoff is a prime example. Once a record label titan, he got back into management, but then created GMR, a competitive performing rights agency that lobbies for better returns for artists, and the Oak View Group, which builds and manages venues. Record labels are at the tail end of the music game today, even their paradigm is suspect, sans their catalogs they’d be dead in the water, they don’t even know how to break an act, they’re the opposite of nimble. And that’s what the internet, the digital tools afford. Used to be creation involved heavy lifting, now you can acquire many of the building blocks for free, nearly anybody can compete, and they do, disruption has been the mantra for the last two plus decades. It’s especially prevalent in social media, we went from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook to Instagram to TikTok with a stop at Snapchat along the way. The only way Facebook can compete is by purchasing its rivals. Isn’t that the story of Threads, that Facebook can’t win if it starts from scratch? Threads started without bedrock Twitter features and therefore it missed its window, never mind being tied to Instagram. Putting out half-baked software might work if you’re a startup, if you own the field, but if you’re me-too not only must you have everything everybody else has, but more.

Kind of like electric cars. Castigate Elon Musk all you want, but Tesla is so far ahead of the traditional auto manufacturers it’s laughable. You’ve got to read Dan Neil’s take on the new Mercedes…

“Mercedes-Benz Introduces Hands-Free Driving. How Does It Compare to Tesla? – Drive Pilot, the first Level 3 autonomous system to be state-certified for use on public roads, underscores the difference between Mercedes-Benz’s and Tesla’s approach to driver-assist technology.”: https://tinyurl.com/mxp2zm6t

That’s a free link and you should read the article, Dan Neil is the #1 auto writer in America, he’s at the “Wall Street Journal.” Neil is raving about this Benz, about its auto-driving. But if you read what Tesla is doing…you might not even understand it:

“To cross this uncanny valley of autonomy, Tesla has moved to a deeper kind of processing based on generative artificial intelligence. FSD V12 (using the fourth-generation hardware, HW4) effectively abandons the bulk code front-loaded into previous versions, even a map, relying instead on a series of neural nets daisy-chained together, tasked to learn and mimic human driving behavior by watching video clips. FSD V12 was never told to stop at stop signs; it just knows how humans respond to them, and does that.

“Initially trained on video clips and telemetry curated from millions of Teslas already on the road, FSD V12 will continue to observe and learn. More data is always better. To that end Tesla has built Dojo, a supercomputing neural-network trainer. Dojo is designed to turn millions of terabytes of video data, gathered from hundreds of millions of driven miles, into something like instinct, reflex, wisdom and experience, to be imparted to succeeding generations of self-driving cars.”

Tesla is leapfrogging its own technology. Tesla understands cars are not about iron, but software. And its competitors still don’t understand that. VW can’t even retool for it. They don’t get it. Because they’re not willing to invest and risk. Software is an adventure based on vision. That was Steve Jobs’s expertise, vision, not coding. You have to know the landscape in order to solve the problem. The questions of yesterday are not those of today.

So it’s not only the Beatles, it’s Madonna. She kept changing her sound and she survived. Had a long run of hits when everybody else became an oldies act. There might be money in being an oldies act, but there’s very little glory, musicians want to create and have their new work accepted. It’s one thing to triumph in an era, it’s quite another to triumph in another. And I’m not talking about using disco beats, or employing rappers, that’s me-too. What you’ve got to do is continue to innovate. But very few people can do this, and that’s why they’re icons.

And this is what the public responds to. Always. It wants the new and fresh. You age quite quickly in today’s world, you have to shake up yourself before you’re replaced. That was the essence of Clayton Christensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma,” a legendary book most people still haven’t read. Yes, you must disrupt yourself.

The label wants more like the old. But that’s not what the audience wants. As a matter of fact, the audience can’t even tell you what it wants, that’s your job.

So Scott Galloway, the business guru of the bros, the hottest analyst working today, talked about a soccer game he went to, in the U.K., the Premier League. His team was the underdog, but the score was tied 1-1 deep into the contest. But then his team focused on defense and the other team won. Defense is a whole state of mind. It’s about fear, it’s the opposite of aggression.

It’s worst in golf, it’s well-known if you play it safe to win you lose. You have to continue to go for it.

I can give example after example. But in politics, the Democrats say to play it safe, to go with Joe Biden. Hell, you should see my inbox, people are excoriating me. Look at the good job Joe has done! They’re drinking the kool-aid. They forgot how Trump won. Which was by speaking to the hearts and minds of the dispossessed. Biden isn’t connecting with almost anybody. Intellectually you might be a fan, but emotionally… Hell, the guy’s barely in public, for fear he’ll commit a faux pas.

Time after time a celebrity wins political office. Not always do they succeed, but plenty of time they do. Why? Because the public wants something, someone new! That’s the story of Jesse Ventura in Minnesota and Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. Ventura was a bust, and forget that Gray Davis would have been better than Arnold, Jerry Brown came back and made people forget that Schwarzenegger ever held the office. Because Brown is a pro. Furthermore, Brown changed his perspective, he was no longer Governor Moonbeam, he was a pragmatist, oftentimes going against his own party. Hell, Brown is like FDR, people would still be voting for Jerry if it weren’t for term limits, Californians overwhelmingly adore what he did.

Don’t tell me you don’t. You might hate the Beatles, or Madonna. No one wins with everybody. And in the heyday of streaming, we’ve got vinyl. We’re talking about winning, that’s all. It’s rarely universal.

So by putting their faith in Biden, the Democrats are playing it safe to win. As you can see from everything I said above this is a bad strategy, because the landscape changes, never mind the fact that Biden has a record, that can be picked apart. You don’t see Biden reinventing himself.

Don’t make this about Trump. That’s playing defense. I’m talking about playing to win.

Let’s make it plain. Can you see Biden debating Trump? Donald will eat Joe alive. And Joe can’t get away without debating, it’s a bad look, it will cost him votes.

Everybody is an expert until they’re not. Just because you spent decades in a field that does not mean your opinion is right today. Usually you’re out of touch with the public, the consumer, the voter. You’re into your fat cat lifestyle, and you’re unaware, you can’t see the threats. Today the threats always come online, that’s where stories start, both Joe and Donald are jokes when it comes to tech, but I must admit Donald works social media, to his vast advantage.

The parties think it’s all about television advertising. This is identical to the majors thinking it’s about terrestrial radio. That’s an old paradigm, which still carries some weight, but the ball has moved, most records today are broken on TikTok. And it’s the same in politics, it’s all about online.

And stop asking me for money, empower me. That’s a classic story, to the Democrats’ detriment. You gave money to beat Trump in 2020, now you can’t pick up your phone, can’t check your e-mail without an ask for money. Makes you want to give nothing at all. Not to mention these companies reaching out have forgotten the story of CD Now, whose e-mails generated revenue, so they increased the frequency to the point that it put the company out of business. The audience said no mas!

How do I know all this? I’m online all the time. On that smartphone that my aged contemporaries decry. Enough with the digital detox, the denigration of the internet, online is where it’s all happening today, from calling up an Uber to ordering food to connecting with friends. And today kids have more friends than ever, and you never lose touch with anybody you ever knew, they’re right at your fingertips. Meanwhile, the “pros” in politics and fundraising are doing the same damn thing as always.

Also, I reach a whole lot of people from all over the world. And this direct feedback informs me. I know more than most politicians and writers because I’m on the front lines where the people are. I’m not going to dinner, I’m not a member of the club, I’m sacrificing a lot, but getting rewards in return. But I keep being told they know better. How? They don’t talk to the people involved!

And then there’s the reverse. Everybody complains about ticketing but there’s been no change, even after the Taylor Swift brouhaha. The government still might act, but I can tell you from firsthand experience, the government still doesn’t understand ticketing, never mind the public. And it’s one thing to identify a problem, quite another to propose a solution. And how you gonna fix the problem if you’ve got people making 20k selling Taylor Swift tickets?

“Yes, I Just Made $20,000 off Taylor Swift Tickets”: https://tinyurl.com/33e9c7wy

Yes, make it equitable and the public doesn’t like it! They want to scalp!

I don’t need to toot my own horn. You know a whole hell of a lot that I don’t know, I guarantee it. But what I’m talking about here is my area of expertise, where I live, all day long.

Go from the gut. Voting is emotional. Check the landscape for emotions. Believe me, I hear from the dyed-in-the-wool Trumpers. As for Biden? I always hear from old people telling me to shut up, not to upset the apple cart. But where would America be if it didn’t upset the apple cart on a regular basis? Biden is the apple cart. As was Hillary before him. Or as Bob Dylan put it so eloquently half a century ago…

He not busy being born is busy dying.