And, actually it was interesting because I had done a lot of traveling in the United States and Canada and Mexico on my motorcycle; and I was really, it was the first time I had really gotten out of the Minnesota area to speak of.
Whatever I won in cycling, I won with my own skills. I never won anything I couldn't win. For example, I never won a time trial at 60 kph, whereas others have and maybe still do.
It took me a long time to get selected as an astronaut. In fact, I applied for 20 years before I was selected.
I didn't grow up during the time that Louis Armstrong or Miles Davis and all those people were playing. So it's not really my responsibility to keep it up, what they were doing.
Sparks is a sporting charity that puts on golf tournaments for sick children, and my animal charities include Oldham Cats and Feline Care, a big cat charity close to me in Norfolk. I'm also a Freemason and the money they raise for charity is phenomen...
I feel particularly close to them, because I am now out in the universe. I'm in a position to see nature from another point of view, to be outside the earth and see the big picture.
If I can get some student interested in science, if I can show members of the general public what's going on up there in the space program, then my job's been done.
If you look at our current technology level, something strange has to happen to civilisations, and I mean strange in a bad way. And it could be that there are a whole lot of dead, one-planet civilisations.
Technology has given us this wonderful opportunity to have low energy costs. We have to seize that, rather than keep debating and discussing and fighting over it.
For anyone who doesn't have that connection with Mozart, I urge those people to go and find some of his music, because it can quite genuinely make you just glad to be alive.
Ultimately, at the end of it, it's just trying to get into that space where you feel like you're hitting the right thing and you're making music. And it feels intuitive rather than being counterintuitive.
An hour of violin lessons in Berlin is an hour where you get the child interested in music. An hour in a violin lesson in Palestine is an hour away from violence, is an hour away from fundamentalism.
I thought that I would like to be affiliated with some school or institution. As time went on, I also decided on the subject that I wanted to get involved with in addition to music: it was Black Studies.
Anything I do has to have integrity, so if you just want to make music, it's not difficult finding support. The hard part for a publicist or manager is making a star.
And to understand this, I think this is a most important point where I would like always to be understood what we do with the New York Philharmonic. That the meaning of the music is number one.
I try to get the hip-hop aesthetic, most times without an MC. I don't use a rapper or a DJ to give it the hip-hop style; it's strictly the band that makes that music, which is a lot harder to do.
My first language is both English and Spanish. My mom was raised in Los Angeles, so with her we spoke English, but my father was born in Cuba, so with him we spoke Spanish.
In 1984, my mom gave birth to my older sister, Teresa. Due to a complicated delivery, she needed a blood transfusion, and at that moment, my mom had HIV+ blood put into her body.
I'm always just carrying a Tupperware cup, ever since my mom went to a Tupperware party and got 'em. I've left them strewn all over the U.S. and Europe. I drink iced tea out of them.
I feel like people around me are betters voting on the wrong horse in the race. I am that horse, always failing to make others win.
The conductor's gift does not always go hand in hand with that of composition; indeed, the union is found much more seldom than is popularly believed.
