There are two kinds of people, those who check their Twitter feed incessantly and those who don’t. And those who do are newshounds.

Lumped in with Facebook and Snapchat, Twitter evolved into something completely different, and it’s running our country.

Forget all the people seeing Trump’s tweets, the news media is addicted, it disseminates anything of interest.

And that brings us back to followers. The numbers are inflated, not only by bots, but by dropouts. People are intrigued by Twitter and then abandon the service, they say it’s too hard to figure out, but the truth is it’s not providing what they’re looking for, amplification of their identity, attention. You can tweet and it’s like a tree falling in the forest, does anybody hear it? Usually not. Whereas if you post a pic on Instagram, people can ooh and ahh, theoretically you can sell advertising, theoretically get rich, but there’s no getting rich on Twitter, it’s all about information, have you got any?

Sure, famous people have huge followings. But you rarely hear about what they post because it’s only interesting to their acolytes.

But really, Twitter is where you link to stories, post facts, where news breaks.

The major media outlets are afraid of breaking news, unless it’s confirmed, they’re worried about their credibility. So their writers play on Twitter first. The “New York Times,” “The Washington Post,” “The Wall Street Journal.” As for Fox, the TV station is mostly opinion, and it’s rarely off the cuff, it’s set in stone long before, then again, what is said can make it on to Twitter. As for Fox’s website, it’s full of minor stories, it’s more Facebook than news outlet, more “People” magazine than the “Economist.”

As for Facebook… That’s about family, it’s about sharing. As for advertising, the rules are such that unless you’re a hefty player, you can’t, because the service makes you pay too much to reach people. It’s easy to reach people on Twitter, assuming they’re following you and are reading, and those are two big assumptions. Meaning, if you’ve got a minor story, chances are it will not be heard, sorry.

As for news for the rest of us, never underestimate Apple’s News app, which has now made it to the desktop. It’s curated and better-looking and more easily used than Google News. But Apple has a tiny market share.

But Apple News is not interactive, like Twitter. You can play if you’d like.

But mostly, Twitter is where you graze and pick up stories, where you get the temperature of the country, where you find out what’s going on.

The 280 character limit increase made no difference. Because it turns out those complaining about restrictions were not regular tweeters. Twitter is not a game, it’s the heartbeat of America.

THE RICH GET RICHER AND THE POOR GET POORER

This is what the internet has wrought, people flock to the popular. In a sea of chaos, you migrate to what is anointed. Therefore, Drake rules and your rock band is unknown.

For those not rich it’s important to do an attitudinal reset. Try not to get rich, try not to be a household name, focus on your fanbase, extract cash from it and depend upon these fans to spread the word and grow your audience and career. Don’t e-mail unsolicited songs to “tastemakers” and “gatekeepers,” it’s a complete waste of time. Don’t hire a publicity person. Don’t do anything but make music and post it online. And if you want to throw in some social media efforts to fan the flame of fandom, that’s good too. Bond with your audience, know who your fans are, not only with an e-mail list, but saying hi at shows. Fans will be there and do anything for you, don’t be afraid to ask. But don’t be tempted into thinking you’re just a step away from stardom, you’re not. But there’s plenty of money to be made. Instead of bitching about streaming payments, be thrilled that everybody can hear your music for free if they choose to. Chances are in the old, pre-internet era, you wouldn’t have a career at all. Play live. This is where the money is made and the fan relationship is cemented. You can make a ton of money being a semi-known. And if trends turn, there’s a chance it could be your turn for stardom, but don’t count on it.

THE MONEY IS ON THE ROAD

You can make and distribute a record without Universal, but you can’t tour without a promoter, most notably Live Nation and AEG. Michael Rapino and Jay Marciano are much more important than Lucian Grainge it’s just that the media has not caught up with this fact. The story has been about the loss of recording revenue and the recent rebound as a result of streaming, meanwhile live has been burgeoning for decades. Furthermore, live is a one of a kind experience in a digitally replicated world, it’s the difference between having sex with a significant other and masturbating to porn online. And, once you’ve made it, the promoter gives you all of the gate, whereas the label owns your recording, pays a low royalty and screws you on the payment thereof. Expect continued disruption in the recorded music space. The majors’ power is in radio and TV and newspapers, all of which mean less than ever before and will continue to shrink in power. You do need a bank, you do need a team, but not necessarily the Big Three.

STREAMING IS HERE TO STAY

If you hear anybody bitching about Spotify, stop listening to them.

THE CHARTS ARE BROKEN

The only meaningful chart is the streaming one. The Nielsen chart in “Billboard” is a complete joke, factoring in sales, streams and album equivalents and… Future players will look at it like the incomprehensible Rosetta Stone. Then again, this ridiculous chart that counts ticket bundles serves the players, anybody can be number one for a week. But it’s like winning a Grammy, people instantly forget, if they even know. We will go to a pure streaming chart, but not soon enough.

ALBUMS

What is it? A collection of songs? Up until the internet, the length of an album was determined by technology, it was limited. Now albums can be forever! Don’t tell me about needing an LP for reviews, reviews are meaningless, across the board, in music, television and movies, even politics! It’s about word of mouth. You want to satisfy two masters, yourself and your audience. You want to create enough to satisfy yourself and put out enough material to satisfy your audience. Fans want more material. Don’t think about satiating potential fans, satiate the ones you’ve got. Keep in constant contact so they know when you’ve got a new release. Do live stuff on YouTube, Matt Nathanson put out an EP of Def Leppard covers. You may not know, you may not care, but his fans do. Take risks. But don’t get locked into the old syndrome of ten tracks every other year.

HIP-HOP

It dominates, but it won’t forever, it’s just a matter of when. Hip-hop embraced streaming when rock rejected it. Hip-hop gave it away for free when rock was bitching it could not get paid. Hip-hop is today, rock is yesterday, but what is tomorrow? Know that melody and changes and a good voice never go out of style, NEVER! That’s your easiest route to success if you’re not a rapper. Do what you want to, what you feel inside, don’t follow trends, that’s for amateurs.

THIS BEAT IS KILLING COUNTRY MUSIC

Watch this video, all ten plus minutes of it. This evidences how lowest common denominator sounds are killing popular music. Grady Smith calls it “snaps.” I call it an electronic sound that debuted in the eighties and was quickly superseded, kinda like synth solos, which Elton John and Keith Emerson employed and then abandoned, or maybe synth drums! This is what makes experienced listeners lament the quality of today’s music.

This beat is killing country music

I hate arts and craps.

That’s what my sister Wendy called them, back when we all went to Camp JCC, in Stepney, CT.

When you’re a six year old, riding the bus is a big thing. It picked us up in front of our house and escorted us upstate where at first our counselors were women, but when we got older men. Teenagers, in fact, but they seemed so old to us! And that’s where I learned to swim, in the pee-infested kiddie pool, I remember the first step being the Dead Man’s Float. I remember hovering in the water inside my mind, astounding I still do that today and I’m the same guy. And right after lunch…

We had arts and crafts.

I think I went once. But I didn’t only avoid arts and crafts at camp, but in school too, I remember my third grade teacher, Mrs. Trainor, commenting on it. I just have no skill, no talent, I can’t draw, I’m always amazed at those who can.

Like Ella. She was sitting next to us at the table. It was astounding to see her build her gingerbread house, you could see she had a future in the arts. But now, more than ever, it’s a low-paying dead end, so she’ll probably be a lawyer or a banker.

So I came in from skiing, and looking for hot chocolate, I stumbled upon a gingerbread house making activity. I entered the Cucina and watched the kids build and I said to myself “Felice has to see this.”

I thought she’d resist, but I got her to come on down and…

She refused to build a house. She said I could. But I don’t like to get my hands dirty.

Maybe that’s one reason I resisted arts and crafts. And also it seemed pointless, creating something amateurish that even my mother wouldn’t compliment.

But today, I decided to dive in.

Turns out the houses are pre-built. You’ve just got to decorate ’em. But how do you do this?

Well, there’s pastry you squeeze out of a foil tube and various candies you can embed in the pastry and…

I was completely flummoxed, I didn’t know how to start.

So I looked to the kids for inspiration.

Lexi had icicles hanging from under the eaves. I could never figure out how to do that.

Ella had built a snowman in the front yard.

Max’s roof was embedded with candies symmetrically.

As for Seely… She was enjoying playing with the pastry, she was only six years old.

But they all had pastry on the edges, so I imitated that. Then I didn’t know what to do next.

So Felice picked up the reins and created a treble clef.

That begat a conversation.

Seely’s brother Max, two or three years older, told her she didn’t know what it meant. But Seely did, she said MUSIC!

Ella turned out to play the guitar. And now keyboard. Funny how they no longer call it piano. She said she was in a band. The school teacher had exited the institution and started his own business and every Saturday they got together to play music. She picked up her phone, she’s a ninth grader, and played me a song one of her friends wrote, and damn if it wasn’t good. I mean one step away from commerciality.

Then Felice asked Ella what she listened to.

She said “The Killers.”

And Lexi chimed in that she’d seen them live.

Did they like hip-hop?

NO!

Lexi’s favorite band was Led Zeppelin.

Stifling my chuckle, I asked her her favorite track.

At first she couldn’t come up with it, but then she took to Spotify, both Ella and Lexi have Spotify accounts, Ella testified about Discover Weekly, and then Lexi scrolled through her library and she found it…

D’YER MAKER!

I almost asked her if she knew what it meant, but then I thought better of it, especially since she wasn’t old enough to understand anyway.

And Ella’s house had a chunk taken out of the roof. She said it came that way, but she liked it, because it had CHARACTER! She knew more about art than the people spending millions to buy it. If you hang it symmetrically, I know you’re ignorant. You’ve got to hang it so there’s a tension between the art piece and the wall it’s hanging upon. I learned this in college, Ella already knew it.

Meanwhile, the kids had used all the good candy, all that was left were stars and sparkles, and lord only knows how you got the sparkles to stick.

But Ella scrounged and gave us some of her rejects, and I installed some broken candy canes, and we were having a grand old time until…

The mothers came. That stifled the conversation. Suddenly, the kids weren’t so talkative, they weren’t revealing their inner thoughts, they were playing to their parents.

And I was worried if I kept up the conversation it wouldn’t look good, so we all resorted to finishing our buildings.

Ella posted hers to Snapchat.

You can see ours here:

The gingerbread house: pic.twitter.com/GNO4Rh52Ad

— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) December 22, 2018

We’re watching “Mrs. Maisel.”

I know, I know, it won all those awards, but it’s on Amazon, not Netflix or HBO, so there’s just not the buzz, and the tone of the show goes from reality to farce and just when you’re about to give up there’s a moment of truth and your heart sighs.

Actually, I wanted to write about the first episode last night. The Lodge didn’t have enough bandwidth for the big screen, so we ended up watching it side by side on the iPad, like Robin and John, that’s Hickenlooper and I don’t like to drop names but it’s when we reveal our humanity that we bond to people, our insecurities, our peculiarities, our habits, we see ourselves in others’ behavior, or we’re just happy to know they’re weird too.

Like Midge.

Actually, she’s not that weird, she’s just not doing what’s expected of her. You grow up in a Jewish family and there are steps. You get good grades to get into a good college so you can become a professional so your parents don’t have to worry about you. I know, I know, the gentiles read about the entertainers, the tech titans, but the rank and file Jew is looking for safety, then again, they’re not boring in real life.

Like when the Weissmans checked into the Steiner Mountain Resort. They were bitching and talking over one another and that’s exactly how it’s always been in my life. Especially when my dad was alive, when we went on regular family vacations. Back before he passed in ’92 and the estrogen trumped my testosterone. I can still whomp it up, but there’s not room in the family, there are too many people talking, I just retreat into my own cocoon. That’s where the books and records come in. “In My Room” is not one of my favorite Beach Boys songs, but I resonate with the sentiment. That’s what I love about the internet, the stimulation at my fingertips. Those with enough action in their real lives abhor the internet, but for those of us a bit more introverted…

So in last night’s episode, Midge spoke about the inspiration. Her husband leaving her. That’s when she tried comedy. She spoke her truth, she was honest. And all the great work emanates from a similar place, someone with no place to go decides to press forward, because they just can’t stay where they are. They don’t worry about the consequences, they don’t worry about the risk, they just act, in an unfiltered way. Which is why most people can’t do it on a sustained basis. Once the rewards come in, they’re inhibited, they’re uncomfortable, except for legendarily irascible people like Van Morrison. That’s the conundrum, you’ve got to be on the outside to make it on the inside, or to quote Bob Dylan, to live outside the law you must be honest, and Zimmy is coping by staying on the road, in his own personal fog, so he doesn’t have to think too hard about his fame and his life, he just keeps playing, he’s stripped it down to the essence.

And what draws people to “Mrs. Maisel” is story. It’s king in America. We want to be taken on a journey, we want to forget about our troubles, we want to know how it all plays out.

And we want that honesty and truth, that’s what we resonate with.

Like when Midge does her act at the wedding. At first there are laughs, then it’s “Springtime For Hitler.”

Jews know about this.

It’s changing now, with intermarriage, but back when boomers were all told they had to marry within the faith, they went to shul, they went to summer camp, they spent most of their time with the tribe, and when they intersected with the goyim…

I remember working construction, however briefly, lifting I-beams did not mix well with my back and I put out my thumb and left home, but that’s another story.

I took some rye bread and Hebrew National salami from the fridge and my co-worker criticized my meal, as he ate luncheon meat on Wonder Bread.

Sure, everybody’s now into bagels, then again, bagels are not what they used to be, they’ve been homogenized, they’re just circular bread as opposed to donuts that could break a tooth.

And you stick out on a regular basis growing up. You’re with gentiles and you talk too much. Jews are not silent, they speak, they ask questions, they live for conversation, arguments, and when they do their act with outsiders…

It is not pretty.

Some learn as they get older.

Some never do. They never tone it down. They believe irreverence and being the life of the party is de rigueur, until it isn’t.

So Midge is cracking jokes, putting people down, not understanding that she’s misfiring. She’s so caught up in who she is, what her experience has been, that she cannot see another perspective.

And it’s uncomfortable.

Then again, being a Jew is oftentimes this way. Especially when people don’t know you’re Jewish, and they crack anti-Semitic comments. Happens all the time, and all the ignorant are not poor, seemingly the more pure-bred they are, the more racist they are, they believe their tribe is better.

But Jews were always outcasts, we’re just trying to survive. The jokes are to keep us happy in sad situations. Seeing the humor in life allows you to keep on going.

But when you watch a show like “Mrs. Maisel,” you both resonate and wince, you think about your family members, how they’re smiling while watching too, but you’re also thinking about outsiders… Sure, they recognize Yiddish, but does it all seem foreign to them, are they judging us, you see Jews don’t want too high a profile, because they’re afraid of the consequences.

But when you get them alone, with their tribe…

It’s just like the show.