It’s time for you to get on.

Oh, I know, you’ve heard it’s too complicated, that it doesn’t really matter, you don’t need another social media network.

But forget about all that.

Twitter is the heartbeat of America. Actually, it’s the heartbeat of the world. And you do want to know what is going on, believe me.

Maybe you signed up long ago, during the initial wave, 2010-11. So you’ve still got an account, you can reactivate it, assuming you remember your user name and password. Or you could sign up for a brand new one, it’s easy, like taking candy, from a baby!

Yes, one, two, THREE, just like Len Barry said!

Start with your smartphone. If you don’t have one…well, scroll down further.

You know how to download an app, hell, you’ve got scores of unused ones on your device!

Don’t let that deter you. Download Twitter and put it on the very first screen. That’s right, you don’t want to have to scroll for it. Then you won’t check it, and then you’ll be left out.

So, download the Twitter app. Of course there are other apps that will allow you to use the service, actually, I prefer Echofon Pro on my phone (which you have to pay for!) and I still use Echofon on the desktop, but now it’s buggy.

Well, since I mentioned the desktop… If you’ve got no smartphone, or if you want to be able to check in on your computer too, download the app there. If you’ve got a Mac, just click on the App Store, you know, that blue icon with the “A” in your dock. Or, you can always Google, you can do this too on Windows.

So, you’ve got your app(s). Make that account. Use a recognizable name. You don’t have to, but you’ll want to, in case you ever want to tweet, which you may never even do…unless you’re a hater and want to be anonymous, but if you are you’ve probably already got a Twitter account.

So you’ve downloaded the app(s), registered and entered your info, now what?

Don’t be daunted.

You need people to follow. Just about everybody with a profile has a Twitter account. Just Google to get their handle. It’s as simple as Googling (first name) (last name) Twitter. Or something like that, the handle will come right up. Click on this link in Google, and the person’s Twitter page will come right up, just hit FOLLOW and you’re all set.

Of course you can search for people in the Twitter app, but I do not want to make this complicated.

So, now back in the Twitter app…

Click on the house icon. That’s all you need to know.

A caveat, which I hate to add. Trying to make Twitter more usable, the company has made it less so. What I mean is when you click on your house icon, you’ll see curated tweets. Only from those you follow.

You can click for more tweets at the top of the screen, but that will just be more recent tweets from those you follow.

To get your tweets in running order, from everybody you’re following, click on the star icon in the upper right hand corner of the app and choose “See latest Tweets instead.”

Now I’ve scared you off. Please, DON’T GO!
Worst case scenario, you’ll see a curated thread. That’s not bad.
If you want to avoid this entire issue on the desktop, download Tweetdeck, it’s free, and very good: tweetdeck.twitter.com/

And, not to confuse you, but you can download the standard Echofon app, which is free, on your iPhone or Android device and avoid the problem with the Twitter app recents issue.

So, let’s recap.

You can use the Twitter apps. They’re good, but unless you click on the star in the upper right hand corner, you’re not going to see the absolute latest tweets, and you want to, Twitter is all about keeping up to date. The company is employing this curation to make the app easier to use, but you don’t want to use it that way, it’s for dummies.

Oh, hope I haven’t insulted you.

So, now you’ve got your Twitter-reading app on your smartphone. Hell, download both if you’d like. But, to make it easy, I say to go with Echofon: echofon.com

And maybe you’ve downloaded Twitter and/or Tweetdeck for your computer, cool.

All of the above is much less complicated than I make it, but I want to be thorough, I don’t want you to hit any brick walls and give up in frustration.

So, now that you’re following people…

You’re gonna use Twitter when you’re killing time. Yup, that’s right, that’s when you’re going to check the app. Come on, how often do you do this with your smartphone? Which is why your Twitter app has to sit on the first screen.

And this is all you’re going to do, check your feed. All the other features of Twitter…IGNORE!

There’s news and trends and search and lists…FORGET THEM! If you become hooked and you want to fiddle, be my guest, invade these other spaces. BUT NOT AT FIRST!

Consider Twitter to be your read-only news source.

Oh, that’s another thing, never ever tweet! All that hogwash about Twitter being a social media network of interaction, forget about it. You can tweet, but unless you’re somewhat famous, almost none of your tweets will be read by anybody.

Which brings us to followers. What are the chances your followers will read your tweets? In order to do this they have to make a conscious effort, and chances are your info is not that important to them. So, only a subset of your followers will read what you have to say.

AND IT’S NOT ABOUT FOLLOWERS!! Don’t worry about gaining followers whatsoever, you’re a lurker! And be proud of it! No need to get into any petty wars, and no one cares about your little life anyway.

This is not Facebook, which is about oldsters sharing their lives.

This is not Instagram, which is a place where you brag.

This is not Snapchat, which no one over the age of twenty five can even figure out, never mind be on.

This is about NEWS!

And there’s news in every vertical that appeals to you. And it only needs to appeal to you, you’re not burdened with threads of others that don’t interest you. It’s all you, all the time.

So, first you’re interested in hard news, what’s going on in D.C., the coronavirus. This is where you want to start.

And then there’s the stuff you’re interested in. Like with me, it’s skiing. So I follow ski related tweeters, like @liftblog (all about ski lifts) and @RickysRidge (Rob Katz, head of Vail Resorts) and even Mikaela Shiffrin (@mikaelashiffrin). And I follow even more, I want to know what lifts are running or closed at Vail and…so much more.

But ignore all that. You don’t care about skiing. But you do care about something.

Don’t overwhelm yourself. At first, sign up to follow five people. Once you get comfortable, you can add more.

Now a good place to find people to follow is by looking at what is retweeted by those you do follow. I could walk you through this, but it’s pretty obvious.

So, what you’re doing is curating your own news feed. And believe me, you’ll get hooked. Because you want to know what is going on.

Forget celebrities, other than maybe comedians. You are not looking for canned info, which is what most celebrities purvey on Twitter, if they’re even doing the tweeting themselves. Their feeds are worthless. If you want celebrity info, go to Instagram, it’s all migrated there.

But that’s all hype, pretty much all the time.

But, once again, Twitter is about information.

All that hogwash in the news about Twitter not being representative of America…IGNORE IT! It’s inside the beltway talk from professional writers and pundits who are pissed that they don’t control the dialogue. Meanwhile, they’re all on the service anyway, posting and reading. Yes, it happens first on Twitter.

Do they sometimes get it wrong on Twitter? Of course. But a lot of tweets you read will link to well-known news sources, like the “New York Times” or “Washington Post”…and you can follow them too!

You are now going to the source. And separating the wheat from the chaff. Twitter is where it all happens and it happens there first, and you do care.

I’m gonna give you some people to follow. These are seen as left wing people, but I think right wing info, tends to be spread on specific websites, like Fox and the Daily Caller. And as far as disinformation, swaying people’s opinions…that is done on Facebook, where Zuckerberg controls the algorithm as to what is seen and they charge you to be seen a lot.

Sure, there are ads on Twitter…but you get to see all the tweets of those you follow.

So, if you’re a left winger, follow:

@sarahkendzior

@NaomiAKlein

@paulkrugman

@frankrichny

@maggieNYT

Now Michael Rapino and Irving Azoff tweet occasionally, and if you’d like to follow them:

@Michael_Rapino

@irvingazoff

And you can always follow me, @lefsetz, but just so you know, I don’t tweet much, it’s easier for me to reach people via e-mail, like this.

All the likes, the retweets…IGNORE ALL THAT!

At least until you feel comfortable and want to do more. But you never have to do more, ever! I never like, I don’t get that whole paradigm. But I do occasionally retweet.

And, once again, you are not building a monument to yourself, don’t worry about gaining followers whatsoever.

Is the Twitter learning curve steep?

No.

But you do have to jump a few hurdles, all of which I’ve outlined above.

Which is why the younger generation tends to own participatory media online, they can figure it out whilst oldsters cannot. However, a lot of oldsters have figured out Twitter.

I’ve got no problem with you wanting to stay in touch with your buddies via another social media platform, but that’s not what Twitter is about. Twitter is about feeding your head, giving you information, making you think.

And you need to be on!

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

This book is utterly astounding.

Turns out book sales are down in the Covid-19 era. Digital more than physical. Seems inexplicable to me, then again, readers are a subset of the public, which may explain the adherence to the physical. However, those who do not embrace the future are left out when the screw turns. But that’s all of America today. We love our tech, we love its cheap prices, but when we no longer have jobs that can pay for them, we’re flummoxed. The future keeps rolling down the track, be prepared for it.

But some things you can’t prepare for.

We live in a world where we believe everything can be fixed, where if everybody just lifted themselves up by their bootstraps, we’d all be okay.

Not if you have schizophrenia.

But that’s about a third of “Hidden Valley Road.” The search for cures to the disease. Actually, they don’t even want to call it that anymore, they want to talk about a “spectrum,” and they’re still arguing how much is nature and how much is nurture. At this late date it’s agreed that nature is a huge component, but can patients be improved by psychotherapy?

We live in a world where mental illness is seen as something akin to leprosy. An exotic taboo that you must not get close to for fear you’ll be infected too. But at least you can see leprosy, mental illness is hidden.

Well, not always. The Galvin boys act in bizarre ways and do bizarre things and they’re not always harmless.

This is a baby boomer story. If you were born in that era, you’ll relate to that setting. Mothers did not work outside the home. Fathers worked for the man and were moving up in their careers. And you didn’t need a chaperone to play outside the house. It was all dreamy, a simpler time.

Don Galvin was in the Air Force. He moved the family to Colorado Springs. And then…

Six out of his twelve children got schizophrenia.

The mother, Mimi, alternately blamed herself and her husband’s genes whilst doing her best to take care of these ill children.

Meanwhile, there were so many children…there was a pecking order, and violence, which the parents were unaware of. And as far as a stabilizing force, Don was oftentimes on the road.

So you’re living a charmed life.

As for the twelve children… Yes, the Galvins are Catholic. But it was also a time when you could take care of this many kids on one salary.

So everything is going swimmingly until the oldest boy goes to college and…

Goes off the rails.

And then it happens again and again. Not only with him, but his brothers.

The scientific advancement is interesting. But it’s the family and its dynamics that are fascinating. These are the stories that intrigue me, that I’m drawn to. What exactly is happening amongst all the people in the family?

Some are ignored. Some play hockey. Some are abused.

Meanwhile, it’s the sixties and music is dominant, such that some Galvins start playing for a living. It was a different era. Where there was less income inequality. You could make it as a music teacher. Sure, college helped, but you did not need to have a degree to become a receptionist.

And the father has relationships that enable the girls, there are two of them, they’re the last born, to escape the household. But they’re still traumatized, for their entire lives, by what happened back in Colorado Springs.

Meanwhile, the sick brothers are alternately zombies and out of control. In and out of mental hospitals. Men, who could hurt you.

As for the professionals… There’s always a new theory. You’re looking for answers, so you have hope. Even though some leads are scams. You end up just taking your own counsel, accepting this is the way it is, going through the motions so you don’t fall apart.

I guess everything today is about reality. Even though it’s faked. We want it visceral, right there on the flat screen. Or we want cartoons on the big screen, both animated and real life.

But we are living real life all day long. Where do we go to be understood, to be accepted.

You’ll see yourself in this book. Do you want to dive in, or pull yourself out. Can you let go of the past. Do you think you can fix people.

But this is not an everyday story.

You think everything is going just fine, and then there’s a left turn. All around you people are marching forward, but you’re lost. Happens to all of us, rich and poor. You have a financial setback. Your relationship ends. You have health issues. Meanwhile, you’re having to make decisions all the time…are you practical or do you go by your gut? And really, you’re in control, you’re the only one who cares, it’s overwhelming.

But “Hidden Valley Road” is really not about your life, about you relating, but the story of this family, the Galvins.

Now this is a big best seller. You can order it from Amazon, or dial up your local bookstore for curbside delivery. Or you can download a Kindle copy. Or, you can wait for it to be available at the library, good luck!

Everybody’s willing to spend fifteen dollars on a movie, but a book? That’s too much!

Which is one of the reasons why Amazon wanted to lower the price on digital books.

“Hidden Valley Road” is available right now, it’s just a click away.

I try to avoid non-fiction. Oftentimes it’s too dry. I’m truly looking for real life and too often I get facts, but no story, no emotion.

“Hidden Valley Road” is better than all the vaunted fiction from the writing factories. It’s not self-conscious. It’s not about flowery prose that distracts from the story. It’s a winding road that you can’t stop driving down.

It’s not hard to get into. But when you stick with it, you become engrossed, you’re constantly wanting to go back to it, to its world.

The girls are still alive. They’re still functioning just like you and me. We all have to make a life, they made theirs, as did their three uninfected brothers, even though they all were worried they would get it, and experienced guilt when they did not. This story starts long ago, but it’s positively up-to-date. Sure, it’ll make you think about mental illness, but even more it’ll make you think about yourself, wowing you all the time with its twists and turns.

You may see the scientific chapters as Tolstoy’s philosophizing in “Anna Karenina.” Roll through them, you do not have to catch every word.

“Anna Karenina” is the best book ever written. “Hidden Valley Road” is not quite that good, but like “Anna Karenina” it’s focused on people.

And that’s all we’ve got, that’s all we are.

Trump has no intention of leaving.

Every day I’m inundated with info from those on the left decrying Trump’s behavior. Hell, even today he refused to wear a mask at the Ford plant. Tune in Rachel Maddow as she scowls at the insanity. She’s positively right, but she cannot see the big picture. Trump ain’t gonna change, if anything he’s tightened the reins on his power. He beat impeachment, punished naysayers and eliminated checks and balances…and this is the guy you think is gonna suddenly wake up and do it your way, the right way? NO CHANCE!

Laurene Powell Jobs bought “The Atlantic.” It’s amazing what a bit of money can do. Kinda like Bezos’s purchase of “The Washington Post.” The D.C. paper was declining and now it’s giving “The New York Times” a run for its money. Meanwhile, “The Wall Street Journal” is writing ever-shorter articles, dumbing itself down for consumption to the point it’s alienating its core business customers. The NYT and WaPo have spent money to gain influence. And despite all the hoopla about “the failing ‘New York Times,” the truth is anything but. As evidenced by new media columnist Ben Smith’s March 1st article:

“Why the Success of The New York Times May Be Bad News for Journalism: In his debut, our new media columnist says The Times has become like Facebook or Google – a digital behemoth crowding out the competition.”

The scuttlebutt is oftentimes wrong. The story has been about the death of newspapers, of the profit-draining distribution by Google and Facebook. Meanwhile, those left standing have only gained power, no news entity as much as “The New York Times.” Hell, digital subscriptions grew by 600,000 in the first quarter of this year. For a total of 6 million. Yes, people are willing to pay for news, as “The Los Angeles Times” shrinks its news hole and heads for extinction. Hell, there’s that hedge fund that buys newspapers like “The Denver Post” and then makes draconian cuts, trying to maintain profit margins and make big bucks before the outlets are worthless and then discarded.

So Laurene Powell Jobs bought a moniker, and built it into a monolith. “The Atlantic” is one of the most e-mailed publications these days, at least in my inbox. And it’s not garbage, it’s not clickbait, but deep thought pieces. And in the new issue, there’s a doozy:

“Putin Is Well on His Way to Stealing the Next Election – RIP democracy”

You don’t need to read every word. A quick scan will do the trick.

Bottom line, our voting infrastructure is full of holes, easy to penetrate by public citizens like the Stanford University hacker in the article, never mind big governments with big money with an investment in the outcome.

Once again, you must listen to the podcast “The Big Steal.” As America circles the wagons, cutting ties with foreign countries, decimating treaties, the rest of the world is not only ignoring us, but some nations, like Russia, are actively penetrating us. You can stick your head in the sand, but that does not make you invisible.

“The Big Steal Podcast”

But as you read this “Atlantic” article, as you focus on Russia’s hacking, you realize…

It really isn’t about Russia at all.

Now one of the biggest stories of the last few weeks has been about voting by mail. Hell, Trump is in a war of words, planning to retaliate against Governor Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan because it’s a swing state.

Yes, as we learned in 2016, the presidential vote of most people in this nation just doesn’t count. But if you live in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Florida it does.

So the Republicans are trying to suppress the vote in those states.

They say it’s to stop voter fraud, even though every study extant shows it’s a non-issue. The truth is they just want to strip as many indigent and minority voters from the rolls as possible. If you moved, which the poor tend to do more than the wealthy, if you don’t drive, if you can’t provide the required identification…good luck getting to vote. And sure, many people will be able to cast their ballot, but it only takes a very few to change the outcome.

So most of the left believe Trump wants to eliminate voting by mail because he believes it will encourage Democratic voting.

WRONG!

Oh, right to a degree. But there’s a bigger issue. PHYSICAL BALLOTS CAN’T BE HACKED!

Oh sure, there can be tons of fraud. Ballots can be lost. But a paper trail is harder to circumvent. Whereas if the voting is electronic…LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

Trump planned to protest the 2016 results vociferously. He said the election was fixed. But he was surprised to win.

In 2020 one thing is for sure, Trump does what he says he’s going to do.

So let’s say the election utilizes machines/electronics. THE OUTCOME IS UP FOR GRABS!

Of course there are the bad actors, i.e. Russia, and the Republicans themselves. They could swing the outcome making it a done deal. But if the numbers say Trump lost, he’ll never accept it. He already said he wasn’t gonna do this back in 2016. He’ll say it was fixed. And he’s got plenty of people to blame it on. Enemies like Silicon Valley. China. The list goes on and on.

So, even if Trump loses, he wins.

Forget telling me about the inanities. How Trump voted by mail himself. Doesn’t matter, don’t you get it! It’s not about truth, justice and the American Way, it’s about perpetuating Trump’s reign. Like Putin, he’s running a kleptocracy. Forget his hotels and golf clubs, the head of vaccine development is a drug maker himself?! We see the movie again and again and again. Trump pushes the limits, installs loyalists, makes sure they make money, and life goes on, no matter how many complaints there are. People keep waiting for transparency and justice, but it never arrives. We still don’t have the tax returns… He’s in control of the government, they’re still auditing? He beat impeachment. He installed right wing justices, but you expect to be saved?

Don’t call me hysterical.

For over a year, Bill Maher has said Trump has no intention of leaving. And he posits this question to Democratic candidates and toadies ad infinitum and they laugh and brush it off. Cite nonsense like the law says otherwise, or they’ll employ the military to remove him.

The Putin playbook is to muddy the water. To get you to doubt your beliefs, or become overwhelmed and stop paying attention all together. Ever notice that Trump does the same thing? Every day there’s crazy behavior. But Trump’s reign goes on.

And he wins.

Come on, would all these states be rushing to reopen if Trump didn’t plead for his acolytes to protest? Furthermore, a lot of these protests were astroturfed. Funded by dark money. Protesters paid to do so, going from location to location. If Jane Roe can be paid to change her mind, do you think others are not open to the buck?

And it is all about bucks. The fat cats want those factories humming. Hell, the latest statistics say the workers, those who have to inhabit the offices, are reluctant to go. But, already they’re being threatened. They won’t get unemployment, there will be no choice. No one can predict the future of Covid-19, but one thing is for sure, the policy of Trump and the Fortune 500 is to open America for business and if some people die, so be it. Come on, you can see it already. All your friends who were locked down tight suddenly aren’t. Trump shifted the wind of belief, and it wasn’t that difficult.

I thought Trump’s refusal to leave office was crazy until I started listening to Sarah Kendzior. Unlike those on the coasts, the talking heads who are part of the media-industrial complex, Sarah has her boots on the ground in the middle of the country and she is not climbing up the pundit ladder, it’s not important to her. Meanwhile, “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post” have refused to review her new book, “Hiding in Plain Sight,” despite it being a best-seller, despite it being #1 in Amazon’s Democracy category, despite it debuting at #14 on the aforementioned “Times”‘s best seller list. And it’s not like “Hiding in Plain Sight” is a vanity project, rather it was published by Macmillan.

Meanwhile, all we read about is Ronan Farrow’s insistence upon Hachette canceling his father Woody Allen’s book. Our priorities are screwed-up. We’re more worried about ALLEGATIONS of Me Too as opposed to facts we can see with Trump every day.

But the media establishment does not want to piss off Trump. Or Jared or Ivanka, whose classmates and friends inhabit the ranks of the media.

I know, I know, it sounds like too much.

Keep telling yourself that. Keep watching MSNBC with your fist in the air. You’re the same person who missed Trump in 2016, who thinks since some Democratic congresspeople won in 2018, it’ll be no problem defeating Trump.

Hell, the Democrats argued for a year who was the best candidate to run. IT DOESN’T MATTER! Statistics say ALL of them would beat Trump, at least all those in contention at the end. But the left is busy triangulating, believing it’s about issues when the truth is it’s about mechanics.

If Democrats vote, Trump loses.

It’s not about switching pro-Trump people back to the blue side, it’s about getting out the vote of those already blue. Rachel Bitecofer goes on about this seemingly daily, but her words fall on deaf ears, because the DNC believes it knows better.

But it’s really about the integrity of the vote.

Come on, do you believe it’s been this long without the propping up of the Post Office? Public companies with CEOs that make millions can get government funds, the Fed rescues Wall Street, but there’s no cash for the Post Office?

You keep telling yourself that someone will take care of it, that the Post Office can’t fail. Who are these people again? The ones who’ve stopped Trump so far? The Republican senators who declined to convict him at the impeachment trial?

And Trump is working all avenues. No Post Office, no mail-in vote. Trump is establishing so many ways to make sure he wins in 2020. And only one or two have to work to tilt the election.

They should cancel MSNBC. All left wing outlets, all Democratic voters should be working 24/7 on the integrity of November’s election. And making sure it happens. Jared Kushner wasn’t convinced. Forget the law. Hell, Trump said government agencies could ignore regulations in an effort to reopen the economy:

“Trump orders agencies to cut regulations that ‘inhibit economic recovery’

Trump signed the order Tuesday, there was no debate, you probably aren’t even aware of it.

You keep saying it can’t happen here.

But it does.

And will continue to do so.

WAKE UP!

Writer/investor/musician Roger McNamee was there at the beginning of the tech revolution, ultimately becoming a venture capitalist, most notably with Bono in Elevation Partners. An investor in Facebook, McNamee is now a critic, his book “Zucked” took on the negative consequences of social media. Roger is insightful and articulate and raises the questions that too many in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. do not. Listen as we discuss today’s cultural, political and technical landscape.

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