{"id":759,"date":"2017-08-25T11:09:34","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T17:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/?p=759"},"modified":"2018-03-30T13:35:50","modified_gmt":"2018-03-30T19:35:50","slug":"dont-mess-with-mama-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/dont-mess-with-mama-bear\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Mess With Mama Bear!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week, I got to play with the wondrous women of Missing Mandy<\/strong> at Hotel Andaluz. Every time I play with these ladies, it\u2019s a fantastic time \u2013 full of laughter and music and laughter and a little alcohol and laughter. Did I mention laughter?<\/p>\n

To help illustrate that, let me tell you a story.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong> and hONEyhoUSe<\/strong> \u2013 folks who are super excited any time these ladies are playing in Albuquerque. There were also fans of Hillary Smith<\/strong> \u2013 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 \u2013 folks who weren\u2019t sure who was playing that night, but they knew someone good would be there.<\/p>\n

The other group consisted of random folks\u2026 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.<\/p>\n

All these folks were gathered around us as we played. We were playing groovy music \u2013 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\u2026 always a fun time!<\/p>\n

There was one little gang of ladies who belonged to the second crowd. They weren\u2019t necessarily fans of ours \u2013 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 \u201cBrick House,\u201d and these women went nuts. Their dancing had already been entertaining \u2013 but when this song started, they got serious, bumping & grinding like their lives depended on it.<\/p>\n

Then it was time for me to take a solo. I started out fairly gently, but soon the Hammond was screaming \u2013 trying to keep up with the crowd. As is often the case when I\u2019m concentrating a little, my eyes were closed\u2026 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 \u2013 basically throwing their best drunken seductive dance moves in my direction.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit that it was a tad distracting, but it wasn\u2019t really tempting. I\u2019m in crazy love with my wife, who was just a few feet away, laughing hysterically at my probably obvious discomfort. She wasn\u2019t at all angry or jealous \u2013 it was clear that these ladies didn\u2019t even really see me\u2026 they were just caught up in a haze of booze & tunes.<\/p>\n

However, these ladies didn\u2019t count on Hillary Smith.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you know her? I don\u2019t think you could meet a more fiercely loyal and protective person. She saw what was happening, and started watching them like a hawk \u2013 and as soon as my solo was over, she stepped up to the mic and gave me props. \u201cMikey Cunningham on the keys! He\u2019s a bad man, y\u2019all!\u201d Then she turned directly toward the little dance party and added \u201cOh, and did I mention that he\u2019s married?? And that his wife is right there??\u201d Everyone who had been close enough to see what was happening started laughing \u2013 and we finished the song to the accompaniment of a raucous laugh track.<\/p>\n

It was a great night! Playing with Hillary Smith is always exciting \u2013 never boring!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, I got to play with the wondrous women of Missing Mandy at Hotel Andaluz. Every time I play with these ladies, it\u2019s a fantastic time \u2013 full of laughter and music and laughter and a little alcohol and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikeycunningham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}