Fiesta en Chipiona

Sunday, October 19, 2008
We just got back to Rota from our adventure in Sevilla. We came back because we had been invited to play at a fiesta in Chipiona, a seaside town just up the coast. We went with Miguel, el gitanillo de bronce, and Angél, his nephew. Here are Miguel and his wife, Pilar. After seeing him, I wished that I'd have dressed a little nicer. But what a great fiesta. There were just a few of us, which kept the distractions down to a minimum. With the exception for a little food break, they sang and kept me playing for about 5 hours. And what cante!! Angél would be great if he weren't in the company of Miguel. Miguel is just so great that everything else pales in comparison with him. They got pretty excited and for a while were singing mano a mano - as fast as one finished a verse, the other would jump in. I never even got to play a falseta (riff) - just one cante after another. But with that kind of cante, who cares if there is a falseta? There can't be 20 singers left on Planet Earth who can sing like Miguel. And last night, he didn't hold anything back. What fun! For me, this is the culmination of a dream - actually I never thought that I would actually ever get to participate at this level of fiesta - playing 5 hours straight.

Here we all are in Manolo's kitchen. My cante will never be a level with these guys, but getting to accompany them all night is plenty for me. They like the fact that I know cante so well that I always know the chord that is needed. And, they are more and more asking Andi to dance now that they know that she can fit into fiesta dancing so well. In the fiesta, you don't get to dance very long, but if you raise the energy level, then you have contributed to the fiesta and will be welcome. At one point, even Miguel danced - and, having spent plenty of time in tablaos, he dances very well. A few years ago, he decided to hang up professional singing and came home to Rota from Madrid. Now, he hardly works at all. But apparently he is content with the choice. But, he has a lot of pent-up flamenco that comes out in the fiesta. He is very knowledgeable about cante and it is evident that he continues to learn new things. He has tons of great stories about his adventures on tour.

On the way home from the fiesta, we were stopped by the Guardia Civíl at a roadblock where, as the driver, they made me blow into a drunk tester. That was very scary!!!! Because I had been drinking all night, although fortunately had been eating too. And, because I was playing the guitar, I didn't get to drink as much as the others. It saved my butt because I blew a test that didn't get me arrested. They let us go. Whew!!! Knowing that this can happen, I'm going to be more careful in the future. You should have seen 3 gypsies, the two of us, and a guitar in the little car! Packed is an understatement - but it worked.

I recently saw an announcement on the bulletin board at the peña, telling about a concurso de cante (singing contest)in Alcalá. They had a special interest in the soleá of Alcalá, which just happens to be my best cante and one which I could probably sing for 2 hours without repeating a verse. So I wrote them and they have invited me to participate. I'll be up there on November 7. And under the heading of "Cheap Thrills", here is a poster that went out to every Peña in Spain with the name of your author on it. Well, I was thrilled anyway.

Thanks to those of you who have written. We enjoy hearing from you. Keep using Sailmail if you know the address because we still don't have internet on the boat.

Here is a video from the fiesta. It's funny; in the old days the Americans did all the recording of the gypsies. Now the gypsies are doing the recording. They gave me this video. The sound goes out of sync at the end and starts looping - don't ask me why, but the video gives the feeling of the fiesta better than any words....no matter what its technical limitations.

Visit to Sevilla I

October 17, 2008
We went up to Sevilla to visit friends and see some flamenco. We were fortunate enough to be able so stay at the house of our consuegros. English doesn't have a word for consuegros, but it is the parents in law of our daughter. Enrique and Maria, our consuegros normally live in Madrid, but have restored this beautiful 11th century home from a virtual ruin. The walls in places are almost 2 feet thick. It is an incredible luxury to be able to stay here. The guitar echoes up through the 3 story central patio with a sound that is delightful.

Here is the central patio on the ground floor.

And here it is looking the other way. You are looking at at a Roman column made by hand by some Roman 2000 years ago! These columns were left over when the dark ages fell and the Romans were evicted, but became a basic building material for the moors and later were used for all kinds of trivial purposes - like they would build them into the corner of a wall so that carriages wouldn't gouge up the plaster.

Up on the roof is the azotea, another patio with a view. In this case, you can see the Giralda peeking over the roof of the 11th century convent across the steet. We'll talk more about that in the next post.

Here is the first person I met when I first came to Spain a long time ago. His name is Antonio and he is with his wife, Mercedes. When I first met him, he was 16 years old and working in his father's bar. Now he is 41 and has his own bar. We've watched his children grow up.

And here are some more friends. On either side are Marianna and Federico, old friends from Santa Cruz. I have known Freddie for more than 40 years. In the middle is Lakshmi, a fabulous young dancer who will be appearing with me in the performance in Puertollano next month.

Visit to Sevilla II

We went to Sevilla to see friends that we hadn't seen in a very long time, but couldn't resist walking around to see the sights.

Here is the cathedral as seen from the back side. We were fascinated by the ornate stonework. The cathedral itself is way to big to fit into a single picture - it is the 3rd largest cathedral in the world. It is spectacular. Columbus is buried there.

This tower is one of Sevilla's landmarks. It is called the Giralda and was built in the 11th century by the moors, who at that time occupied most of Spain and had the most literate society in Europe. The tower originally had a flat top on it. After the Christians retook the land in the 14th century, they built the cupola on top of the tower and added Christian details. The tower has ramps leading up inside it so that the lords and ladies could ride their horses to the top. As you climb it, you can't help thinking of all the people who have walked where you are placing your feet - from Columbus all the way up to John Kennedy.

Here is Andi at an archway leading into the Patio de las Banderas with the Giralda in the background. We can also see the Giralda from the roof of the Sevilla house.

Here is another view of the top of the cathedral with the Giralda right next to it.

And here is a building at the Plaza de España, showing a lot of "recycled" Roman columns and replicas thereof. They are white, so they are easy to see. This building was built in the early 1900's. We went out for a walk to see some touristic things and took this picture.

Visit to Jerez I

October 9, 2008 Thursday
You can't imagine how much grief I've had to go through to upload these following pix. The internet access at the library is very touchy about uploads. I can only do one picture at a time and never a video. But I know that all text is boring so here they are!!!

A few weeks ago we went to Jerez for some flamenco and while we were waiting went and did some touristic stuff - we visited the cathedral and the Alcazar (old Moorish fortress). Here are the pix:

Here is the front of the cathedral. The stonework and carving is exceptional.

Here is the cathedral as seen from the Alcazar. Jerez is a smaller town, so this is a big cathedral for a small town, but nothing like the one in Sevilla.

Here is a closer view of the fascade.

Visit to Jerez II

We went to Jerez for some flamenco and while there decided to do some tourist stuff - so we visited the Alcazar (old moorish citadel) and the cathedral.

Here is a gargoyle outside the cathedral - have you ever woke up feeling like this?

Here is the interior of the cathedral. This is a relatively recent cathedral - I think it was finished in the 1700's.

You could put 3 of these cathedrals in the big one in Sevilla.

Still, it's very impressive.

Here is Andi in the Alcazar in a moorish doorway.

Life as usual...

October 5, 2008 Sunday
Life has settled into a quiet domestic routine punctuated by wild moments of flamenco - which seem to occur in the strangest places. The other night, we were barbecuing some pinchitos de pollo when we heard palmas (handclapping) coming from a power boat two docks over. But these were not ordinary palmas - they were GOOD palmas (which we don't often hear, even in places where there is flamenco). We turned off dinner and rushed over to the other boat, guitar in hard. Now that was what was called "presumido" - overly bold, presumptuous - but we didn't care. When the people saw the guitar they asked if I knew how to play it and I assured them that I did. They invited us aboard and we soon had drinks in hand. In short order the guitar was out and we began to rock. They were mostly younger folk, in their mid to late 20s, but they had uncle Juan with them. He liked to sing the older stuff, but the kids could sing Jerez buleria like crazy... they were all from Jerez, but rich enough to have a fancy powerboat. It was a fun night and we'd put pictures and videos up but for some reason the internet at the library balks at uploads, so nothing for the moment.

Happy domestic life revolves a lot around good food. It is so amazing to open the refrig to find that our cheese is Manchego (a kind that we bought on rare and special occasions in the US - when it could be found); our olives are hand-cured and bought at the open air market from the olive-lady who is always there; lots of great seafood and sausages.

We just love our little town. Clean, no crime, everything close at hand. This weekend, Rota is celebrating a fiesta that is going on for 5 days. It will have a little flamenco in it, but of the pop variety that can be consumed by the average Spaniard - flamenco is a cult artform and not well understood, even here. Most don't care for it all that much, although like Americans with Blues, they all pretend to be experts.

It turns out that we got to be famous without even expecting it. When we were anchored off Sanlucar last month, the Guardia Civil came by our boat to check our papers. We showed the papers and the man left after about 5 minutes, a pleasant enough visit. The next morning, at sun-up, two Guardia Civil boats appeared and the smaller began banging on our hull. We were asleep, but I threw on some pants. By that time, one of the officers was already in our cockpit. Now that is the first time that anyone has ever come on board without permission. Normally they request to board (and everyone knows that the answer must be "yes"), but it is a formality and a courtesy to request permission. I opened the hatch and the officer began by complaining that we were not showing our flag as is required. True, I took it down the previous evening because the wind was so strong that it was tearing the flag. I quickly put the flag up and produced our papers again wondering why these guys don't share information from one shift to another. He gave a cursory look at the papers and then said he wanted to inspect the boat. THAT hadn't happened since Mexico, but sure, go ahead and look. He took a quick walk through the cabin to see if we had any bales of marijuana, I guess. In less than two minutes he was back on deck. The people on the larger boat then called him to leave and he prepared to get back into his boat. At that point, I noticed a girl running a small video camera on the deck or the larger boat. I waved and asked the officer, "What is that about?". He didn't answer - just left. Just the other day, we heard from our family that Channel 3 had done a report on drug busts and had a video of our boat and the boarding. Now I don't know if they were trying to claim that it was a bust or whether they just said it was a search for drugs. But whatever they said, our Spanish family was bothered by it and are investigating further. I would certainly be upset if we were on national TV and our boat name was associated with running drugs. But it was probably just a training exercise and hopefully said so plainly. We shall see. If they neglected that last, there will be consequences.

Just because we don't blog as often doesn't mean that we don't like to get emails - use Sailmail!