The Best Dent
I'm not interested in making the biggest dent for me. I want to make the best dent.
Authority Magazine asked me for an interview. Obviously it was a slow week for them. I answered more honestly and in-depth than most public figures would — for example, I told them I disagreed that I was a “person of enormous influence”* and that in general I find semi-successful musicians far more interesting and inspiring than big successful ones — and I figured they’d edit it all out. They printed almost everything. The best questions I’ve ever been asked and probably the best interview. We go deep on art, culture, purpose, tragedy, the nature of confidence, philosophy and more. If you’ve ever resonated with my writing, music or conversation, I truly hope you’ll take to the time to read this interview about how we approach the world and other human beings and why.
Got a phone call from an artist in Beijing, China yesterday. (Friends know I prefer phone calls to emails and texts, and answer them faster.) She’s a fantastic 20-something composer coming to study and collaborate at my Stanford Recording Arts Workshop this summer. I also heard yesterday from a guy with multiple Stanford degrees (one’s not good enough**) who’s coming. These two interactions reminded me that we always have fascinating and diverse people from all over the world collaborating to make a unique album at our annual 2-week all-in Stanford course. It makes my life perspective so much smarterer.*** Registration for the summer course opened here this morning at 12 AM! Amazing artists are coming. You should too.
Speaking of that… I received this text today from Shazia Harshman,**** recent 3-time Stanford Workshop student, trailblazer, newlywed, now colleague, who sent me this:
That’s right, the Recording Arts program we started at Pikes Peak State College in Colorado, based on our Stanford program and buoyed by Shazia’s boundless work ethic and charisma, has 54 active majors less than a year after we launched it. Shazia’s now head of both that program and the entire Music Department, and I’m Chair of the Advisory Board. We’re pictured here at Pikes Peak with my college advisor John Chowning, who just won a lifetime achievement technical Grammy and gave a highly-attended lecture/demo at Pikes I moderated last year as we launched the program.
As I watched events unfolding in my country, with a native government dispensing cruelty in equal measure to both citizens of other countries and its own citizens, it felt half appropriate and half tone-deaf to release my Doctor Noize retrospective album entitled Positive Energy! (The Music Of Doctor Noize) this month. I didn’t want to focus on trying to insert myself into the news cycle with a new release; I wanted to focus on the news cycle as a citizen, a nation, a world, and consider what I can personally do to help steer adults back into a more empathetic and responsible direction.*****
So I’ve rescheduled Positive Energy!’s release for June. I will not reschedule it again, regardless of what is going on around me. I believe in Positive Energy! and its message wholeheartedly, and want to share it with you and the world when I can personally focus on it. Yet, unbelievably, there have still been dozens of articles, interviews and reviews about my music in the last month — you can Google them. One creative periodical created a recipe based on my life and songs. I’m the guest on upcoming episodes of both the Unstoppable Mindset podcast with New York Times bestselling author Michael Hingson and the Imperfect Dads podcast with Devon Neisen, where I told extremely personal stories I’ve never told in public before. And Diversity was a hit:
The above viviPLAY review closed with these words: “Is harmony really about blending in, or is it just the beautiful noise of everyone refusing to be quiet at the exact same time?”
Amen brother. Still, why all the press? I believe it’s because people are yearning for positive purpose. Honesty. Vulnerability. Collaboration. And I believe we should all try to bring some of all of that into the world right now. I could sure use yours.******
Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.
— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize
—————
*The other night I ate a burrito and became a person of enormous flatulence.
**Just one Stanford degree is for LOSERS. Right Jimmy?
***Shut up that’s like totally a word. Like totally.
****Formerly Shazia Ali. Not formerly Muhammad Ali. But definitely a fighter for good.
*****American adults — in and out of leadership positions — are currently behaving, or enabling behavior, in ways they would never accept in their children. Let’s change that.
******So gimme a call!