What Is Code?

You’ve got to read it.

I famously said I’d buy a computer when you could talk to it. This was after trying to do a sociology project via the Dartmouth computer from a terminal at Middlebury back in ’73. Dartmouth was famous for its bleeding edge computer but I couldn’t get it to work, and I punted on computers until 1986, when I bought my Mac Plus to start my newsletter.

That’s right. I ignored the Apple II. I never read an article about Steve Jobs. I knew his company went public and everybody got rich but it was just too complicated.

And then it wasn’t.

First there was the GUI of the Mac.

GUI stands for Graphical User Interface. Which few now know, because it’s so embedded in computer culture. But to make it simple, the GUI of the Mac resembled a desktop, which you could navigate via mouse, and the world was revolutionized, especially when Microsoft caught up with Windows 95.

Then came AOL and even grandmothers had computers, everybody wanted to communicate.

And communicate we do, via our computers, tablets and smartphones. But how does this happen? What makes it all run? You don’t need to know, just like you don’t need to know how your car works, but there’s a new dividing line between those who do and those who don’t.

And those who don’t are being left behind.

There’s too much hype about finance and tech.

Finance, because that’s where the money is. Those guys on Wall Street are close to it, they’re touching it. But it’s a soulless endeavor. Rather than building things like their predecessors, today’s financial titans just make money from money. But the best way to do this is via tech. You may have read Tom Wolfe’s book about the Masters of the Universe. They’re history, they’ve been set out to pasture by the techies writing algorithms.

And then there’s Silicon Valley. We all hear how much money is to be made there. You can go from nowhere to somewhere seemingly overnight, like a rock star of yore. But what is never mentioned is that these enterprises run on code. And sure, ideas rule. He who comes up with the concept wins. But he who doesn’t know how to code loses. Because he can’t talk to the programmers doing the work. And the programmers will have contempt for him. And programming is a walk into the wilderness that can burn money faster than a director on a film set.

This is why Jimmy Iovine is screwed.

As am I.

Jimmy thinks it’s about relationships. That you can fake your way into the center and then steer people where you want them to go, extracting cash along the way. But in tech, you either win or you lose, you don’t make money unless you’re victorious, and just like music is the determining factor in an artist’s career, code is the essence of tech.

I feel like the train left the station while I wasn’t even looking.

I grew up in the sixties. When culture ruled. Arts won. Hell, Steve Jobs lionized Bob Dylan.

But those days are through, for now, because all the smart people have abandoned the arts. They’re learning how to code. They’re desirous of changing the world, something musicians did, before they whored themselves out to corporations and kissed the asses of third world dictators for a paycheck.

It’s deeper than tech running the culture. Tech is pulling away from the rest of America! Delivering goodies while it leaves old businesses in its wake and makes the proprietors ever richer. This is the story of Amazon. This is the story of Uber. This is the story of Spotify.

Spotify is written in Python.

Now I’ve heard of that. But until I read this article I didn’t know the difference between it and Ruby, never mind C or C++ or Java.

That’s right, Daniel Ek is not winning because of his idea, every week people e-mail me the same idea, really. Ek is winning because he knows how to code.

And coding is both easy and hard.

The barrier to entry is not unscalable, but it requires much more effort than posting a YouTube clip or uploading your music to iTunes.

And people are afraid of hard work. Which is why they’re being left behind.

I don’t have the cure for income inequality.

But I do know if I was twenty two today, I wouldn’t go to Hollywood, I’d go to Silicon Valley.

And I also know I wouldn’t major in art, I’d learn how to code. Just like I learned so much about the recording studio, just like I learned so much about music business infrastructure, I can now see the future is not there. Am I too old to change?

I can read this article. I can understand it. Well, most of it.

And I don’t think it would be a good use of my time to go to a coding academy today. Although Ivy League graduates are going in droves. Because they can’t get jobs and if you know how to code, you can. Work, that is. But the schools are nearly 24/7 and they kick you out if you don’t keep up. They’re the opposite of our coddled society. That’s right, you’re dressing up little Johnny and Josie like a gangster or a ho thinking fashion rules but the truth is you’d be better off putting them in a uniform and getting them to learn how the world works. Which is on code.

And the truth is there are few women.

And code without culture is death.

But baby boomers have no idea what’s going on. And right now, baby boomers run the old world. From the government to the entertainment business. Which is why young techies got Obama elected when Romney was sure he was gonna win and the internet has eaten the music business’s lunch.

We need tools people! We need building blocks!

We’ve got room for great musicians, great thinkers, great analyzers, but only a few. The rest of you…boo-hoo. You can post on your Facebook page, you can post snaps to Instagram, you can tweet a hundred thousand times, but you’re losing and don’t even know it.

Our whole world has changed. And I only just learned it.

I’ll make it simple. I get e-mail from rock stars all day long. I know who they are. It feels good.

But then I’m reading this article and they mention that WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg is backing NPM, which is short for Node Package Manager, and my eyes bug out… HE E-MAILED ME! I didn’t believe he was telling me the truth! I didn’t think he really started WordPress.

Yes, I could have Googled him. But if I Googled everybody who wrote me, I wouldn’t have time to write.

And Mullenweg reached out to do me a favor, unsolicited, he offered to help me with my WordPress site. I’m so inured to entertainment culture I figured he had to be a nobody. Because access is everything, and you can’t get access in Hollywood unless you’re somebody, and somebodies don’t e-mail nobodies.

But in Silicon Valley they do. It’s a fluid culture. It’s THE culture!

This article is imperfect. It will leave you with  more questions than answers. But it’s written in a breezy style and if you’re over forty and you don’t read this the joke is on you.

Because everybody younger knows the world has changed.

And either they know how to code or they don’t.

And those who do know code is the building block to success.

Your move.

We don’t do this anymore in the music business. We don’t have any blockbuster acts reinventing themselves with every project, garnering stellar reviews and great customer word of mouth which ultimately rains coin and makes everybody happy.

That’s right. After a detour into sequelmania, which generates cash but leaves everybody unsatisfied, Pixar dropped a blockbuster which is setting sales records.

And how did they do this?

By baking cookies and showing up at fans’ doorsteps?

No, that would be Taylor Swift, who was one time an original but is now so busy dashing for cash and fame that she’s sold out her sound. Ignore the hype and the sales records. The media needs something to cheer, and there’s nothing there.

Or maybe Luke Bryan. But despite an endless supply of hit albums, Luke’s sound remains the same, and his appeal stops at the country border. Whereas “Inside Out” is for everybody. Worldwide.

Kind of like Adele.

That’s the last big blockbuster we’ve had in music, Adele’s “21.” And let me remind you, in addition to selling more than ten million copies in America, where the album is dead, she fulfilled none of the supposed requirements. There was no huge social media campaign wherein Adele tweeted her way into your heart, she did not tie up with corporate sponsors, all she did was make great music, what a concept.

That’s what’s been missing.

The young people don’t want to admit they’ve failed.

And the old people are afraid of looking just that, old, so they keep saying today’s music is as good as ever, and that if you’re a naysayer you’re wrong.

But come on, what kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where Beck creates an Album of the Year that no one hears and no one wants to. It’s not like you can’t check out “Morning Phase” for free, but after all the hoopla no one cared, because Beck doesn’t touch all the bases, he doesn’t appeal to most listeners.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that the music industry voted for “Morning Phase” instead of something more appealing, which doesn’t exist.

And then we get the endless accolades for Kanye West. Who is anything but universal. Trumpeting Mr. West is kind of like raving about Iron Maiden, he’s an acquired taste. Oh, his appeal is greater than that of Steve Harris and the boys, but it doesn’t penetrate the masses, no matter what you might read.

And the masses are hungry. They want great.

The movie business has been faltering. Grosses are way off. But it turns out if you deliver something fantastic, people want to go.

And I’m not talking about the comic book films. The genre tentpoles. Those are Taylor Swift, made for an audience and ignored by everybody else.

Pixar is like Steely Dan.

No, that’s not good enough, Pixar is like THE BEATLES!

If you lived through the era, not only did you anticipate the four’s work, you were always stunned how each record was different. They kept pushing the envelope, while their contemporaries repeated the formula and their careers fell off a cliff.

There’s never been a movie like “Inside Out” before. You can’t even explain it. The same way you couldn’t explain the second side of “Abbey Road,” you just had to hear it.

Pixar is akin to its sister company Apple. Which has dazzled us so many times that we follow it into new territory. Believe me, if Microsoft had made the Watch it would be dead on arrival.

It’s about careers. It’s about reconstituting building blocks to deliver something new and tantalizing.

It’s about vision and freedom. Two things sorely lacking in the big money music world.

In this crazy fucked up world the businessman is king and the “artist” is secondary. If the businessman was so insightful he’d make the music himself. But no one told Led Zeppelin what to record. All those acts in Warner-Reprise’s heyday… They delivered what they wanted to, the label’s only chore was to sell it.

And we were so excited we talked about music, we lived at the record store, we went to the concert to be taken away by the sound, not dazzled by the special effects. And people knew the new material. It wasn’t an endless supply of greatest hits.

We need a new hero. A whole slew of them, in fact.

The bar is very high.

All the rules go out the window if you reach this artistic pinnacle. Take as long as you want, spend as much as you want, we’re desirous of something to sink our teeth into.

We know it when we hear it.

And we haven’t heard it in a very long time.

“Box office: Disney Pixar feeling joy as ‘Inside Out’ opens big”

“Une Nuit A Paris”
10cc

That’s the way the croissant crumbles after all

From the “Original Soundtrack,” the album with the band’s big hit “I’m Not In Love.” “Une Nuit A Paris” is a nearly nine minute opus with movements. It opens the album, and if you’re young and unfamiliar with the band’s oeuvre you’ll be positively stunned that people made music like this, never mind opened an LP with it.

One night in Paris is like a year in any other place

That’s the tip of the iceberg, just the headline of the story, check this out, it’s been going through my head all week!

“You Went The Wrong Way Old King Louie”
Allan Sherman

This has been playing in my head too.

He was the worst since Louis the First!

Ah, the sixties, when comedy and irreverence ruled, that’s why we revere the decade. Allan Sherman peaked with “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!,” but there wasn’t a Jewish household without his LPs, he was a giant star. Listen to this, it’ll crack you up.

“Every Picture Tells A Story”
Rod Stewart

DON’T IT!

Rod the Mod was an insider’s game, until the track from the second side of this LP, “Maggie May,” broke through. But all these years later it’s this gem, the opening cut from the first side, that plays through my head, the one with Maggie Bell’s “vocal abrasives.”

It’s a whole story, you can PICTURE IT!

Paris was a place you could hide away

I started singing this to myself long before I left the U.S.

I’ve spent too much time feeling inferior, but when I hear this track I feel positively POWERFUL!

“Free Man In Paris”
Joni Mitchell

David Geffen’s song. From Joni’s breakthrough album. Probably the best song on the LP. With the verse that explains what it’s truly like to be the man behind the music…

You know I’d go back there tomorrow
But for the work I’ve taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song

That’s where the phrase about the “star maker machinery” made its debut. Now you know why Joni Mitchell is a cultural icon.

Furthermore, how many first heard of the Champs-Elysees in this song?

“California”
Joni Mitchell

Sitting in a park in Paris France

From Joni’s best record, “Blue,” the first song on side two.

A masterpiece that puts today’s Top Ten to shame.

The voice, the changes, the lyrics…

I’m coming home to California tomorrow. I may not kiss a Sunset pig, but it’s still the Golden State, it’s still the repository of my dreams.

Rhinofy-Paris Songs

He’s not quite the last of the rock stars, but he’s still a believer, he’s still pursuing his dream, when so many have been lost and forgotten.

It was drizzling today in Paris. And when I sat by the fountain in the Tuileries I felt like I’d come full circle. I remember sitting in the same chairs, singing Todd Rundgren’s “Something/Anything?” to get me through back in ’72.

Unlike in that year, the entrance to the Louvre is now a pyramid designed by I.M. Pei, and despite all the advance word about the crowds, it wasn’t that bad, especially if you were avoiding the greatest hits.

I struck out for early Netherlandish painting. I almost did my thesis on that. But it turns out those galleries are closed on Thursday and I proceeded to wander the halls disappointed and ultimately overwhelmed. If you can’t see what you came for…

You might as well go for the greatest hits.

And the Mona Lisa may as well have been in another time zone, the museum is so vast, but contrary to said advance wisdom, you could get pretty close, once you wove your way through the selfie taking masses. It’s almost laughable, the made up young girls posing in front of possibly the world’s most famous painting. One forever, the other momentary. But that’s life. We’re all important in our own world, even though very few leave their mark.

It’s astounding how many paintings are anonymous. And others died before their fame. But after seeing the Mona Lisa and marveling how she radiates intelligence and beauty without selling it, I decided to pursue further greatest hits. And while on my way to the Venus de Milo I encountered the frieze from the Parthenon. Talk about stopping you in your tracks. If the Mona Lisa is the world’s most famous painting, the Parthenon is its most famous building. To see the marbles was to have the past come alive. Real human beings who did not know they were living in antiquity did this stuff.

And the Venus de Milo was impressive too, but then I had to run, to catch up with Elliott Murphy.

Yes, the bard of the Aquashow. The new Dylan from 1973. The man who made albums for Polydor, RCA and Columbia before he retreated to the Continent to play for those who cared. Elliott was indie before indie was cool.

So he’s living in Garden City. Going to community college to avoid the draft. And when his shrink writes a note and he gets out of going to Vietnam Elliott flies to Europe, in 1971, and lands a small role in Fellini’s “Roma” and with the resulting inspiration starts writing songs.

And then flies back to the U.S. and plays the Mercer Arts Center and ends up with a deal on Polydor. They paid him ten grand cash. He had to go to the bank to cash the check, he didn’t have a checking account.

And they sent him to California to make a record with Thomas Jefferson Kaye, but it didn’t feel right to Elliott so he came home. That’s what mattered back then, what felt right. And if it didn’t, you didn’t play ball, no matter how much cash was involved.

And after that record got notice and flopped, Elliott hooked up with Lou Reed’s manager who made a deal with RCA. The Nipper paid Polydor $150,000 to relinquish its rights, and then paid Elliott 50k an album. But when two of those stiffed and Leber and Krebs came into the picture Elliott jumped to Columbia, which paid off RCA the same $150k and then Elliott’s album failed.

Three strikes and you’re out. Elliott was demoralized, sleeping on his mother’s couch, he got a divorce, and contemplated the future.

That’s when he found out he was a star overseas. Calls came in. he gigged. But no one in America cared. He was tarnished goods.

But then his old bandmate Jerry Harrison implored him to come to Milwaukee to make an LP and Elliott met a woman and she got him to sober up and when that record didn’t make much noise Elliott went back to college and started working as a legal secretary. His father always told him to be a lawyer.

But after getting his degree, the telexes from Europe started coming in, the firm said it was their way or the highway, either give up the dream or get out.

Elliott got out.

And hasn’t looked back since.

He used to play a hundred dates a year. He’s toned it down a bit, but he’s still hungry. His old pals Billy and Bruce broke through. Elliott would like to, in the meantime he’s keeping on.

So he married him a French wife. An actress he met on tour. And had a kid. And put together five working class apartments for his domain and made enough cash to put his son through college in America. There’s money in music, if you’ve got fans.

And Elliott has them.

And I heard great stories of walking around the Eiffel Tower with Bruce Springsteen at midnight, the Boss was wearing a baseball cap, nobody recognized him.

And we cracked up at the people we knew in common.

And it all transpired at the place Jim Morrison hung out at just before he died.

But Elliott Murphy’s still alive.

That’s the challenge.

To find your way.

To soldier on, pursuing your dream, even though the business no longer cares.

Elliott’s not depressed. He’s not complaining (although he can’t get a royalty statement from Sony), he’s just making music, going on the road, cobbling it together. And it gets tougher as you get older, schlepping the equipment, working class musicians don’t fly private.

But oh for that hour on stage.

Elliott Murphy lives for that hour on stage.