Feliz Cumpleaños to Andi.....

March 24, 2009
I pulled off a series of surprises today which provided our princess with a birthday to remember. Normally, we don't make that much of a fuss over birthdays and so she was expecting the usual. It started off pretty much as usual with a birthday card along with coffee in bed.

Then I took her shopping in Jerez. I am pretty hopeless when it comes to shopping for her, and with little available space, everything needs to be special. However, I do seem to have some kind of magic in that she finds the things she has been looking for as soon as I walk into the store. But if she goes alone, she comes back empty-handed. So the magic worked and she found a few things that she really liked. Then I took her to lunch at the best restaurant in Jerez and when we walked in, surprise - there were Estela Zatania and Brook and Kristin Zern - with presents, no less!
So she figured that was it for surprises. We went home around dark and went to the library to read all her email greetings and the ones on Facebook. (Thanks to all of you for your good wishes)

Then I suggested that we go up to the Peña to rehearse some dancing. She agreed. Surprise!!!! When we got there, all our Spanish friends were there, about 20 people including our old friend, Pepe Haro, a guitarist that we got to know when he was touring through California several years ago. We hadn't seen him since, but we contacted via Facebook and I invited him for the party.

Here we are getting started. She took the picture, so isn't in it.

Here is Pepe, playing for her (and the rest of us)

Manolo and Ana brought cake. Here she is wearing her new top from this morning.

We proceeded to have hours of flamenco, food, drink, and birthday cake. She was pretty happy. She even stood up on a chair and made a speech in Spanish!!!! Happy wives are much fun.

Here is the boat, flying the "bandera gitana" (gypsy flag - also known as laundry).

Tomorrow we are leaving for Zamora where the local Peña is hosting a lunch with some toreros and us. Then we go to a bullfight and finally in the evening, I sing and play. With the money we are raising thereby we are going to take ourselves for some tourism, maybe to the Rioja country to try the wines and young spring lamb - or maybe to Galicia and Santiago. Who knows? Stay tuned - video at 11.

Deep Jondo, no exit......

Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Hello friends and family,
Sorry we've been away for a while. We are now in recovery from intense flamenco and social events. Whew!
Our friend Gopal, flamenco guitarist from music camp (Sweets Mill) came to see Rota. Unfortunately it was a Carnaval weekend and we couldn't show him all the fun we have at our local peña. The best we could show him was a rehearsal with Negro Agujetas and all the local Rota sights.
We ran into him again at the show in Jerez with Pilar Ogalla dancing. This time he was joined by another Sweets Mill friend, Wendy (the sparkle bunny), who came back to the boat to spend a day with us and gave Andi a chance to catch up on girl talk.
Then Negro sang at the Peña with me accompanying him. Negro's uncle, Manuel Agujetas, came down to see him perform. I hadn't seen Manuel for quite a few years, so that was a high point. And of course, Miguel and all the rest of Negro's family were there. Steve Kahn managed to get down for that show and we spent a day with him.
After the performance, there was a bit of a fiesta around a table. (Steve's photo). Next to me is Miguel - across the table is Negro's mom - next to him is his brother Manolo.

Then we went back to Jerez for another big show with Mercedes Ruiz dancing. All of these trips to Jerez involved a lot of collateral socializing, of course, with folks like Sir Brook (knighted by the king) and Kristin Zern.
Before we even recovered from that, we went off to Morón de la Frontera with our friends Manolo and Ana from Chipiona. We visited a retired guitarist, Manolo Morilla, and then went to the peña in Morón for some fiesta with Steve Kahn and one of the guys from the group, Son de la Frontera, and other Morón singers. Steve came back to Rota with us for another day.
Here we are having a copa in Morón.

During all of this time, whenever not otherwise occupied, we were rehearsing with Negro since we were both going to a singing contest (concurso) in the mountain town of Ubrique. Finally it was time to go to the contest. On the way we stopped in Arcos, a spectacular spot with a moorish castle on top of a steep hill. Right around the corner from the castle was a little flamenco bar. We went in and there were only a few people in there so we decided to rehearse a bit more. But in no time, the bar was packed and all of a sudden there was a French video crew there shooting video of us all. The bar gave us free drinks and we continued on to the beautiful city of Ubrique.
There we hung around until it was time for the concurso to start.

Again we were joined by Manuel Agujetas and Miguel. The people at the peña were blown away that Manuel was there because he is probably reckoned to be the number one singer alive today (although he is what is described as "raro" - peculiar). The regular guitarist for the peña failed to show up and so I was asked to accompany another singer, a young man from Malaga. That meant I played for 3 of the 4 singers that night. But it went well, even though I had never heard him sing before. He seemed happy.

Then Negro and I were last. I have his performance on video, but none of my own. It seemed like I did pretty well, but have no evidence to confirm it. Negro sang the best I have ever seen him sing in public.

After we got back to Rota, our old friends from Santa Cruz, Charles and Roberta Sutton, came to join us for a few days and we were able to show them a fabulous session at the regular Saturday "tertulia" at the peña - followed by a few mini-fiestas in Rota bars.
And yesterday we went for dinner with Negro at the house of Manolo and Ana from Chipiona. So of course we did more flamenco. My guitar needs new strings and it looks like, for a few days at least we are going to be able to rest. And so I get to blog a bit and write on Facebook. We still have no regular internet, but can get through by using the library. I have more photos and videos to upload, but the system at the library is too slow.
Feel free to write....