this program i got a friend here from a one thousand years ago were friends from way way back at the beginning of all things cable i would say as john hamman he had for those of the macon harken back some time he had the john of program they used to start with his booth and he was going like this we didn't see him we saw the mood going and that was the john hammond story that i remember was right at pioneer programs here in cable television and he's also a musician and he's got a great story to tell he's a good personal friend of mine from so long back that it's a great pleasure to welcome to the conversations thank you very much ira you're hanging out all over the world and everything what i want to do with you is here live but you bro back when did you win that goes back to coco crystal time and all that were classic and all that absolutely or maybe let's just go real quick were you born and raised when did you get to new york and we connected water in the beginning of cable television although it grew up out in the san francisco bay area i was born in chicago and we took the california zephyr train the trainer to berkeley california it's a grant to a father drove the rambler cross places and the music had a real that was so much was happening god we were we were really stop the war you know it was horrible the i'm an old peacenik like you yeah yeah yeah right right and we just want world peace you know you know music is great equalizer and many ways you know it was very big then were you you work forgive me for being a little bit out of sync with the car knowledge a belief one baby was born there you know and you know it was one of the very st mass rock events and put that didn't know that scientifically you know you needed to have everybody you know where it would sack yeah no no it did while but no woodstock was there and you had a gathering and it was no prob lissa the oddly at all right it was just the thing got together and word got around and mr all rockefeller declared a disaster area but there ended up being words it was actually white lake sixty miles south of town of woodstock was celebrating the contributions of bobby dylan he was really brilliant six hundred thousand people came to this area like a big bowl thing like this so many and there was no number that worrying about this and that and everything you were saying and it just happened it was like what they would call a happening and it just the food just appeared the fences were there going to somebody's going to try and charge admission they all went down everybody just came in it was a gigantic gigantic party it was before it was already got but it was celebrating thing and just for the d hell of it it was a major there was a major thing going on that is hardly recognized even what the hell was it it was anti vietnam because that was there but it was something more going on so it's not at that but it was something new and it was a feeling that was so strong and so far heartfelt and it was particularly deserve it because there was something major going on in design at that time and that is christ that would be christ was born ok that was an event i think in the fullness of time of our ten year on earth i think it's going to be made a new year is going to be year one  we're very close friends all until the time we passed and there's six hundred thousand people there and i told you we were there and we had a big we had a like a commune we were in my wife and my kids and all that it was wonderful we had we went and my for the guy was one of the gang he put eight foot weather balloon tethered to the top in order to mark where the people from woodstock and new paltz would know where to gather among six thousand six hundred dollars thousands of a lot of people yeah taken by surprise it was just something for help by you people now and you're walking along and you run into actual friends right you go wow you know it's similar it's like when you're in times square yeah right i always run into friends of mine yeah yeah yeah well as you probably feel you know i'm out of my seat i just saw them recently like i was in shanghai and yeah and  weeks later i'm in times square and i see him over there and he didn't see me i'm sort of used to spotting people yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah amongst all those but it's just amazing i love going t man network and yeah this is a tribute to george stoney more than any other st public which is public access thing exists and this is set and then you've got about four thousand of these across the country this still exist as a place for people to make me and what a thing is for the producers that can make media a multimedia it made it possible for a place where you could make multimedia and not have to think about money right now the whole world is you can't know good man we were supposed to be of god let eyes or freedom public access yeah what it's all about well yeah but yeah but it was also way in which it was financed in a way and it was done by co operative so you didn't have to be thinking about money right because money is the thing that and we're going to have to get to a point where they think humanity writ large is ours this is to understand because it's all degenerated back to where that's the single most important thing that motivates  society is money it's going to get to be where people aren't immune to have to think about money because it's going to be enough for all which is daunting and that was being treated that was being signalled in the thing of numbers of the greater population of the people of the world we're at seven billion now we're heading for ten we've got that all of that and we've been here two hundred thousand years ten thousand generations and it's getting to be where it is going to be enough for all and the idea that there is scarcity which all our institutions are based on is something that we're going to be overcoming but it's been a hard fight yeah but that's when we crossed the line we're collectively ontology is that it was capable to us for the st time in two hundred thousand years we were transcending scarcity now that's something people can't even get in their heads because that's the only thing that motivates most human behavior and will hopefully there won't be starving people or nothing nothing now there will be enough for all adequate yeah no yeah all of that you know thing you know so now we're fortunate to be living in this time even though where there's a lot of challenges right now and it just seems like hospitals assisted living skilled nursing places yeah ok and that's good people who can't go out you know we bring the music into them yeah and i find that if you give them the full power you it's it's somewhat madison oh yeah absolutely no doubt no doubt you know and there's nothing scientific about it you know there's there's there are some people who who try to say it is yeah and they go seems to have a positive effect on the people that god bless you really you know it's you know it's just another activity you know you know you could be doing you know arts and crafts or watching a movie or something but music is the great equalizer well i i think there's some rare much to be said for that an occasion didn't wonder i see we can tell by what we can maybe cast over if we can't get we cast over to that over to over our left over his left shoulder i brought the organ that and that's a serious the smallest time you know i used to have one that weighs four hundred and twenty five pounds really how did you handle that you had an elephant carry around play the organ you have to be more than a musician you know to be a social organizer yeah dinosaurs what about the idea that everything's going cyber everything's going computer you've got all these kind of things that are coming out of the cyber and now we're verge of getting into robotics and things like that but the cyber clothing will circle so yeah yeah but it changing the music and everything like that used to have a banjo and i was telling you before like a lot of the kids today they do music that put together from recordings of other people's music  together it's called sampling you know they take samples of drum beat you know and that sort of thing and a lot of the reason why is besides the fact that the technology is available to do that now yeah it's and a lot of these kids didn't have an instrument and the st place yeah right so if they would put music back into the schools and put instruments in the hands of these young kids and then learn how to play their own music and then they wouldn't have to take the samples they make their own samples you know well you're most familiar with the music thing then and then i am in everything but i remember you remember that sort of years yeah people will remember that our family early gave a reason why i was always looking forward to the y radio guy you know radio is where i want to be on the radio it was before there was any television you don't have very general laws to get on the radio so when i heard about public access i was thinking this is a way that we could sometimes in a way it was too high quality because people would get a directly from the cable and then why should they buy your records they could make a recording that's professional quality right  you can make with the cell phone but you know when we started you know you've been on longer than me but i'm not on since the beginning i have been on for thirty four years a month the same time i've always been on one thirty in the morning i met game writing night yeah  people are now watching you tube and they're watching you know hundreds of channels that you know when we started out there wasn't even numbers on the dial i know yeah he beat a b c s right right right right so now there are so many choices  so the real challenge in public access t v today is to drive your audience to watch your show on public access t v and if you can keep them there you're really accomplishing something but you have a following yeah yeah then the other one pal yeah right yeah you know it's yeah but it's like that but but then it is and then that's all going faster and that whole information it's all electronics and everything right there going and we're going through a major yeah you get confused in all but that's a specific to this and everything i like that i'm glad you still do it's a big honor to be on your well i did do it it's going it's going in everything at yeah i believe in it i had done some political stuff and all that and everything but i am of this that when you're world traveler you know what not much i got a little bit of done and a little traveling i'm travel much most have been to new york but i got i was really upset with the political thing when they i think  ahead of history's curve in terms of the way the united states was ahead of the histories curve out of feudalism in europe we came out a year for four thousand years after rome and it was all done with kings and we had certain where you went over t want a couple times with me there stephen bell was a friend he we did a thing with jane roberts for people that are into the spiritual stuff and we she became a friend of mine but we did but anyway it's just that the implications of what's going on is going into robotics now it's going into robotics and it's really threatening the undergirding of our society which again to come back to it the major thing that motivates the human condition is money and it's going to get to be where money's not going to matter because everybody's going to have what they need a reasonably want we're transcending scarcity and scarcities been the reality in which all of human history you always have to have that so you get out of the thing where you have to be involved with the money thing and then you can be in to create it that gets in the way the whole marketing of things gets in the way of the creative certainly does yeah i think it does then myself and my friends you know we're trying to keep that old spirit alive well i'm not trying to i'm trying to find a new calling to the future i'm not trying to keep the old life and i'm more now than two because the cause of everything is so high and yeah well yes that's the trouble because they don't have they don't have an economic system can handle surplus used to be able to feed the whole band for five bucks and well those are all good old days yeah that was it but anyway i go back into the lot way way back but i'm glad to hear that you dear doing some good work and everything like that and the times are i don't want to get off on my thing but it's so good and it's been a good grand session and you've gone quite a bit to europe now right here with every year i go at least once or my st destination i went to paris yeah on the concorde jet did you know really that was about six hours only or some three hours and twenty hours it was half that right that the trip yeah right that was my st trip to europe that's a big yeah yeah yeah conquer i'd forgotten i made in paris for fifty six dollars days and i fell in love with that scene over there and i thought that someday i would come to live there and i did ten years later for i lived in paris i lived in frankfurt germany yeah old instruments you know some of these companies have been in business for a long time in a drought pianos from czech republic you know they've been over a one hundred years steinway they've been around the block for a long time and then you have you know the and ok here we go yeah it looks in the sun told that jim yeah ok and the other saxophonist he went to north texas university  and the trumpet player and that's joe berger you know joe the guitar player yeah i did i recognize yeah and yeah that's the same instrument and take it over to germany so we're going to hit it we only had a few minutes to play you are a little bit more about the history here you're either into jazz or you hate just so you know there's a lot of different types of jazz you know free jazz and there's the funky jazz and  know a lot of problems to be dealt with in that area but we don't run into that kind of thing and everything got another fit we might show in a minute or two and everything but you doing jazz and so forth by and large i get pigeonholed into the jazz then although i came out of the rock world you know down you know like that and there beethoven was pretty good and he made a composition that was very good right i mean a composition you plate and he can play it and then what happened is the piano at th time to play it on was limited but the score he put down no dosha really ok and pianos improved in quality of what they can get to more nuanced kind of thing like that and by the time it was like sometimes later maybe after he died finally it got down to where they had a piano the could really get into the score the way he put it down and it picked up all the new well you understand right progress to dig the equipment caught up with the score you understand play a little different the whole i think yeah considerably so but anyway the problem is the hell of it is if you're too damned interesting it's slow down and you too interesting and everything and we want to get your chance to demonstrate a little bit of the organ if you can been stuck to the wall we like to say you know like a melody you hear a melody sometimes certain melodies you can't even remember five minutes later you know and so we say that one didn't stick to the wall you know when if you write a to different countries and you know it with a lot of different musicians and it sounds like we've been working together for years so i want to with the role of music is in turn of the the larger scenario human activity every museum and certainly one of the most important art forms and everything like that and it's in many dimensions and what about instance about it or scientific yeah but other things are definitely not scientific so when you go to music school for instance then you're going to sound like every other musician you know so that the thing is that there are certain things that they can teach you and other things that you're going to have to get a life that is a metaphor for life itself you know whether or not  create like there's been some people that are presumed they live down through the ages bach and mozart mozart was buried d in a pauper's grave isn't that something unbelievable or some of the arts yeah you're talking about an art form and everything and and then there's quality in terms consideration for that there when that's going to happen you know set to be the right that like life though right combination of the atmosphere yeah of the people on the stand and around and lot of these programs on television you know you've got somebody there or singing or something and they're just the such a citizen and then they go like there's a woman who sang a song on a program and she was just absolutely fantastic and everybody is recognizing special quality presentation the music and stuff is music given over to that kind of thing that they have moments when you hear the same thing one time but then you words really and singers for what about you know just music american idol t v show now people lined up for days and they go through thousands of auditions to come up with a handful of singers who can actually thing in a special place they find something really synergistically really made magic you know the made you think because it coming down the pike look i was coming down the pike one of the magic thing is we don't have endless time apparently yeah that's