How It Began

To answer a question I hear frequently, my musical journey began when I turned five years old. Since my birthday is in December, I don’t remember if the present was for my birthday or for Christmas, but either way, my folks got me a toy piano. It was a tiny little wooden thing with maybe three octaves of plastic keys, but it was fantastic!

I banged on it for hours, making all kinds of joyful noise, until my dad finally got tired of it and decided to show me a song. Along with being a great trumpet player, he’d taught himself to play a little guitar… and as a kid, he’d taken the two years of piano lessons that seem to have been mandatory for everyone in his generation.

And what was my very first tune, you ask? “Yankee Doodle.”

Very soon after that, they bought me a real piano and got me into lessons. Rather quickly, my piano skills surpassed those of my parents, and it became clear that I might have a wee bit of talent. But it all began with a cute little toy piano.

 

 

 

 

 

NDI

I got a new gig, and it’s with one of the coolest organizations around. They’re called NDI New Mexico. The National Dance Institute was founded in New York City in 1976, and in 1994 they opened the New Mexico campus in Santa Fe. They have after-school and summer programs for kids to learn to dance, from beginners to advanced classes. In Albuquerque, they meet at the old Hiland Theater on Central.

In addition, they have an amazing in-school program that is just the coolest thing. Public schools all over northern New Mexico provide weekly dance classes through NDI during their school day. Every class has a certified NDI dance instructor and a pianist. Did you catch that? They have a real-life musician providing actual live music for every class at these schools.

This is an exceptional idea. In a time when arts programs are being taken out of schools, these kids are being exposed to two real art forms on a weekly basis. They’re learning about dance – which is fantastic. And they’re also seeing live music that’s being performed by a professional. They’re learning to see musicians and dancers as people – not just inaccessible performers. And, as a result, they’re being confronted with the idea that perhaps they, too, could become artists.

How cool is that??

Don’t Mess With Mama Bear!

Last week, I got to play with the wondrous women of Missing Mandy at Hotel Andaluz. Every time I play with these ladies, it’s a fantastic time – full of laughter and music and laughter and a little alcohol and laughter. Did I mention laughter?

To help illustrate that, let me tell you a story.

As was often the case when we played at Andaluz, the crowd was made up of two distinct groups of people. The first group consisted of fans. Of course there were fans of Missing Mandy and hONEyhoUSe – folks who are super excited any time these ladies are playing in Albuquerque. There were also fans of Hillary Smith – folks who come to see her no matter which of the eleventy-twelve bands she happened to be performing with that night. And there were fans of music in general – folks who weren’t sure who was playing that night, but they knew someone good would be there.

The other group consisted of random folks… some of whom were staying at the hotel, some of whom were just there to eat at the restaurant or eat at the bar, and some of whom had simply been walking by and heard the music.

All these folks were gathered around us as we played. We were playing groovy music – stuff that made everybody sing as loudly as they could while dancing as hard as they could. As the night progressed, and the alcohol flowed, inhibitions began to go the way of the dodo… always a fun time!

There was one little gang of ladies who belonged to the second crowd. They weren’t necessarily fans of ours – they were fans of partying. Visualize five inebriated forty-somethings who were having a really good time dancing to some groovy 70s or 80s tune. Suddenly, it was time to play “Brick House,” and these women went nuts. Their dancing had already been entertaining – but when this song started, they got serious, bumping & grinding like their lives depended on it.

Then it was time for me to take a solo. I started out fairly gently, but soon the Hammond was screaming – trying to keep up with the crowd. As is often the case when I’m concentrating a little, my eyes were closed… so I was a bit surprised when I felt a hand start rubbing my shoulder. I opened my eyes, and saw that this little tipsy dance party had gathered around the keyboard, and the two or three who were closest to me were writhing up and down, rubbing my shoulder, messing with my hair – basically throwing their best drunken seductive dance moves in my direction.

I’ll admit that it was a tad distracting, but it wasn’t really tempting. I’m in crazy love with my wife, who was just a few feet away, laughing hysterically at my probably obvious discomfort. She wasn’t at all angry or jealous – it was clear that these ladies didn’t even really see me… they were just caught up in a haze of booze & tunes.

However, these ladies didn’t count on Hillary Smith.

Do you know her? I don’t think you could meet a more fiercely loyal and protective person. She saw what was happening, and started watching them like a hawk – and as soon as my solo was over, she stepped up to the mic and gave me props. “Mikey Cunningham on the keys! He’s a bad man, y’all!” Then she turned directly toward the little dance party and added “Oh, and did I mention that he’s married?? And that his wife is right there??” Everyone who had been close enough to see what was happening started laughing – and we finished the song to the accompaniment of a raucous laugh track.

It was a great night! Playing with Hillary Smith is always exciting – never boring!

2012 – the Year In Review

2012

A year. Twelve months. As the song says, 525,600 minutes (give or take) has passed since my last Year In Review. So it’s time to take a look back at 2012.

I think this particular retrospective is gonna be just a bit different. So much of 2012 was negative – and I don’t really want to go back over it again – so I’m leaving that in the past.

There was plenty of positive in 2012 – the slow but steady decline in unemployment, the political changes happening in Myanmar, Nicholas David making it to the Top 3 on The Voice – so I’m going to look back at some of the positive stories that interested me. It’s entirely possible that they weren’t interesting to you – and that’s OK… you can write your own Year In Review!

To show emotional support for those friends of mine who are chronological purists, I’ll go ahead and start with…

January

In “We Keep On Running Into Weird Timing Issues In Our Technology” news, the International Telecommunication Union chose to postpone the decision to keep or toss the leap second until 2015, “pending the results of further studies.” Now those are going to be some riveting studies! In “stupid criminal” news, some rocket scientist in Mexico accidentally sent 2 sacks of pure cocaine to the headquarters of the United Nations in New York. Oopsie! And in other international news, my favorite reggae-loving island, Jamaica, announced its intention to move forward with plans to become a republic. Once that’s done, Queen Liz II won’t be its monarch any longer. Speaking of Liz, in…

February

…she celebrated the 60th anniversary of her queenliness. Not a bad run! Adele won the Grammys, and The Artist won the Oscars. And in a wondrous example of grocery-store-impulse-buying, Kellogg bought Pringles from Proctor & Gamble. They didn’t buy a can of Pringles… they bought Pringles. Hope they had a coupon! From there, our shortest month gave way to…

March

…which was a month of milestones. The Apple App store passed 25 billion downloads. Wendys passed Burger King as the second fiddle to McDonald’s. And Sara Blakely became the youngest self-made female billionaire according to Forbes. How’d she do it? She invented Spanx… there are so many jokes in there, but on the advice of my attorney, I’ll let you think of them. The venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica stopped its print version, deciding to stick with the online version. I sure hope this Internet thing isn’t a fad! Speaking of fad, one of the flicks I was most anticipating, John Carter killed on Mars, but bombed on Earth. But at least Hunger Games got girls interested in archery… which took us from March to…

April

Faster than you can translate all of the lyrics of “Hakuna Matata” into Klingon, The Lion King passed The Phantom of the Opera as the all-time highest grossing Broadway show. And I don’t mean gross as in the bug-eating scene – I mean cash! Speaking of cash, Facebook downloaded Instagram for $1 billion. That’s a lot of hipster snapshots! The world commemorated the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic – and to metaphorically illustrate the idea of sinking, 50 Shades of Grey was published. And it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke.

May

Bringing us ever closer to our promised Roddenberrian Utopia, Chinese scientists successfully teleported photons more than 60 miles. The SpaceX Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Trying their best Mayan impression, astronomers from the Hubble Telescope Project predicted that the Milky Way galaxy will collide with Andromeda… in 4 billion years! And the first of a series of bizarre zombie cannibal attacks happens in Miami. Oh, and speaking of galactic and/or hideous disasters, Facebook’s IPO happened…

June

The science-y stuff continued. A plane called The Solar Impulse completed the first intercontinental flight powered only by the sun. And the US Air Force’s “secret” robot spaceplane returned to Earth after a 469-day orbital mission. In a failed attempt to prove he’s not a Bond villain, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison bought the Hawaiian island of Lanai. Coca-cola returned to Myanmar after 60 years, making Cuba and North Korea the only 2 countries where Coke doesn’t do business. And in Final Jeoparty! news, a popular game show host recovered from a mild heart attack. Who is Alex Trebek?

July

After lots of bucks and promises, scientists at CERN finally presented results that are consistent with the existence of the Higgs boson. Weirdly, the world didn’t end. The California senate approved funding for a bullet train that will run between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The senate then held a press conference to emphasize to California commuters that this is a bullet train – not just more bullets. DirecTV and Viacom reached an agreement, restoring Comedy Central to the millions of homes that had to do without. And Ye Olde London Towne hosted the Opening Ceremony of the Summer Olympics. I heard that there might have been an athletic event or two after the Opening Ceremony, but that was never really confirmed. July was the hottest month of the year,
until…

August

…rolled in. Brazilian researchers published a study showing that banana spider venom can relieve erectile dysfunction in less than 20 minutes. Many men considered the information – and, upon further reflection, decided that’s not a good place for a spider bite, choosing to stick with the little blue pill. NASA’s Curiosity rover landed on Mars. Oh, and there was more space news! A journal called Physical Review published a study that described the Big
Bang as a phase change ruled by event symmetry (a function of quantum gravity wherein the diffeomorphism invariance of general relativity can be extended to a covariance under any permutation of spacetime events), which could totally be an explanation of how our spacetime could’ve originated from previous matter. Duh!!

September

Some scientists in Japan confirmed the discovery of the 113th element – so now I gotta re-do my periodic table again!! In “what on earth will they serve” news, McDonald’s announced plans to open 2 vegetarian restaurants at pilgrimage sites in northern India. In “I can’t un-read that” news, the University of Gothenburg in Sweden completed mother-to-daughter uterus transplants… so now women can give birth using the very same wombs that birthed them! And in news that other people really really cared a lot about, the NFL referee lockout ended – so people could go back to complaining about refs’ calls in football games… wait a minute…

October

October was a kind of a slow month. Except for Disney – they announced their plan to buy Lucasfilm Ltd. for over $4 billion. That’s billion – with a B! So we have some new Jar Jar Binks movies to look forward to! Oh, and that lunatic Felix Baumgartner set a bunch of crazy records: highest altitude for manned balloon flight, highest altitude for a parachute jump, and greatest free fall velocity. He jumped from 24 miles up, hitting 834 miles per hour, and was the first person to break the sound barrier without a vehicle!!!. I don’t even remember what I did in October!

November

Google’s Gmail passed Microsoft’s Hotmail as the top email client… the latest in Google’s transition into SkyNet. Puerto Rico voted to become a US state. It’s in the hands of our Congress now, so a decision should be made by the time the Milky Way crashes into Andromeda… November was a good month for Japanese robots: they unveiled a robot designed to enter nuclear disasters (like the one in Fukushima), and they announced that they’ll be sending a talking robot into space next year to keep astronaut Koichi Wakata company on his 6-month ISS mission. And in creepy news, Gangnam Style, the creepy song/dance from Korean pop star, Psy, passed the Biebs as the most-viewed creepy video on YouTube – approaching a billion views. Creepy.

December

Prince & Princess Willie & Kate announced that they’re expecting a new baby monarch. Voyager I has approached the end of the heliosphere and will soon be heading into interstellar space. To those aliens who find it, welcome! After quadruple-checking the vote counts, governments in Washington and Colorado amended their state laws allowing personal use of marijuana. And in probably-unrelated-but-I’m-not-quite-sure news, Pope Benedict XVI sent out his first tweet. And in I’m-sure-it-is-related news, Hasbro announced that it will start producing a gender-neutral Easy-Bake Oven. Since Hostess is going away, those might just sell like crazy in Washington and Colorado!

As usual, I wrote this before the actual end of the year, so I might have missed something that happened over the holidays. If I did, well, hey – it just happened… you probably remember it!

It’s been a rough year for a lot of us. I hope this look back has shown that there were some bright spots. And I pray that next year will provide even more bright spots!

On this date (Nov 20)…


On this date (Nov. 20, 1985), Microsoft unleashed Windows 1.0 into the world. When it first came out, the retail price was $100… which, in today’s dollars, roughly translates into your eternal soul, and any free time you might have had for the next century. Roughly. These types of currency conversions are really more art than science…

We have a marketing whiz named Rowland Hanson to thank for the name. Bill Gates wanted to call it Interface Manager. As trippingly as that might roll off the tongue, Gates was finally persuaded that Windows was a better name. Just think how different your favorite geek’s life would have been if they couldn’t spend the late 80s and early 90s making up clever “I don’t do Windows” jokes. Tragic!

Thanks to Windows, there was no more need to type those MS-DOS commands – you could simply move a mouse to point and click your way through various screens, with drop-down menus, scroll bars, dialog boxes, and little representative images called icons.

In other words, it was what Apple was already doing.

When Apple warned Gates that there were serious copyright and trade secret issues, he made the best deal since Peter Minuit bought Manhattan for 2 bagels and a used Britney Spears CD: he licensed Apple features for Windows 1.0 and all future Microsoft software programs… This deal protected Microsoft from several Apple lawsuits as subsequent Windows versions were released. Not bad!

That move set the stage for decades of Microsoft dominance in the tech world, and helped turn Bill Gates into the bajillionaire he is today. And it still impacts my world – yeah, I have an Apple iPad and an Android phone, but I’m typing this on a Windows laptop. In fact, I’m typing this into a little program called Notepad – which was included in the original Windows 1.0 release.

Still, all good things eventually end, right? Microsoft finally quit supporting Windows 1.0 on December 31, 2001 – a 16-year run ain’t bad in the software world.

So, happy 27th birthday, Windows… Press [OK] to continue.

Are you sure? [Y] or [N]