John Lasseter got fired from Disney.

There are certain magazines in every shrink’s waiting room.  You can count on "The New Yorker" and "National Geographic".  And there are good odds you’ll see "The New York Review Of Books".

Find yourself in therapy long enough, and you end up with subscriptions to these journals.  You’re sick of being unable to finish articles.  Arriving early, since you’re paying by the minute, you’ve always got time to start, but never to complete.  It’s taken me months to finish articles in "The New York Review Of Books".  I finally broke down and got my own subscription.

I’ve gotten "The New Yorker" forever.  And, upon getting a good offer for "National Geographic", I got that too.  So all there was to read in my shrink’s office was "The New York Review Of Books", and I’ve gotten hooked.  The articles are usually not reviews, but exhaustive discourses on subjects as diverse as politics and pre-code films.

But I wasn’t going to subscribe for $69, the price listed on the blow-in card.  But getting an offer for half of that, I ponied up, nevertheless fearful I was never going to have time to read the damn thing.  But if I can find just a few good articles a year, it’s worth it.  I don’t believe in needing to read every piece in a magazine.  Do you eat everything on your plate?  Forget that, my childhood training leaves me unable to leave anything…

Anyway, I’m on my third issue of "The New York Review Of Books", and the article that hooked me this time was "Pixar Genius", by Christian Caryl.  Ostensibly a review of three Pixar books, in reality it was an exploration of "Wall-E" and Pixar genius.

"The Wall Street Journal" castigated "Wall-E" for its anti-corporate views and "The New York Times" cited the lack of feminism. Proving that if you listen to your critics, you’re screwed.  For Pixar has a perfect record, ten out of ten.  In a business where supposedly no one knows anything, obviously John Lasseter and his team at Pixar know something.

I like "Wall-E".  But I think the best movie of the twenty first century is "Finding Nemo".  Not the best animated movie, the best movie period.  You’ve got fear, joy and even an LSD trip (what else do you call that adventure in the current?)  And although the imagery is dazzling, it’s the story that grabbed me.  "Finding Nemo" may be a cartoon, but it’s positively human, mesmerizing.  It’s cool to blow up stuff on screen, but it doesn’t stick with you, doesn’t haunt you.  Pixar’s films haunt you.

Deep in the article there’s a quote from Ed Catmull, one of Pixar’s founders:

"Creative power in a film has to reside with the film’s creative leadership.  As obvious as this might seem, it’s not true of many companies in the movie industry and, I suspect, a lot of others."

Corporations are run by MBAs.  Corporations are ruled by the numbers.  Chances can’t be taken, the bottom line must be protected.  Albums must be delivered in the fourth quarter.  Blow a deadline and annual revenue is screwed.

During the golden age of music, the acts were in control.  They cut the albums in a studio of their choosing and delivered finished product.  Was all of it good?  Of course not.  But when artists got it right, the audience was enraptured with the adventure.  Rather than worrying about creating three minute singles, the Who did a whole rock opera.  Might seem quaint today, but it was revolutionary back then.

John Lasseter lost his job at Disney back in ’86.  Fired by an old line animator who said there was no future in computer animation. Just like there’s no future in digital music.

Lasseter slept under his desk, and a decade later delivered Pixar’s first hit, "Toy Story".

The computer animation was a delicious novelty, but what made the movie successful was its three-dimensionality, not in imaging, but character.  Everybody wasn’t good or bad, life was complicated.

With the success of Pixar came numerous imitators.  Some of them financially successful.  But despite being created on computers, these trifles are just that, they don’t stick to the viewer’s bones, you leave the theatre and forget them.  In other words, Pixar’s movies are about story.  It’s not the images, but the cerebral content.

John Lasseter now runs Disney animation, the same way Steve Jobs, Pixar’s owner during its commercial explosion, runs Apple once again.  Both were exiled, they weren’t suits, they didn’t play by the anointed rules.  But absent these two, their respective corporations foundered.  Ruled by the bottom line, they lacked not only sizzle and pizzazz, but substance.

An Apple devotee will buy everything by the company, despite a questionable need for such.

Same deal with Pixar, once hooked you won’t miss a movie.

This is the devotion the music business once specialized in.

It’s gone.

Because corporatists told the artists what the music had to sound like, what deals to make, how to act.  Occasionally it works, but the audience knows it’s phony, there’s little devotion.  So, an act can have a hit single and sell no albums.  And despite ruling the Top Forty, no one wants to see these hitmakers.  The problem is not the audience, the problem is the company.

Technology now allows artists to do it themselves.  But so far, no benign benefactor has come along to pump in the money until they get it right.  You can get the cash you need to develop, Pixar needed millions, but you won’t be encouraged to follow your dream but to deliver…something successful, that will rain down coin.

The acts that sustain deliver more than hits.  Their music touches us, makes us feel human, stimulates us to explore our decisions, our future path.  The magic is hard to codify, and even more difficult to create, so today’s companies have stopped trying.  Easier to have a good-looking act work with Timbaland and get a leg up.

Sure, an artist considers commerciality.  But he doesn’t sacrifice his identity, his muse, in pursuit of money.  A great artist says no more than yes.  A great artist stands on his music, not his marketing.  A great artist is willing to take risks.  A great artist doesn’t give up when he hits roadblocks.  And great artists often take years to triumph.  Instead of placing all our hopes and dreams on the barely pubescent, better to develop talent, place one’s bets and support one’s acts.

But that’s too risky.

But today’s path is too risky.  Reinventing the wheel with every release.  Mariah Carey delays the release of her album when her single stiffs.  If you believe in your project, you don’t have to tweak it, don’t have to redo it.  You’re the final arbiter, not some suit at a company.

I’m eagerly awaiting the next Pixar release.

Used to be I waited with bated breath for the new release of musicians.

Those days are through.