I'm baaaaaack!

Rota, Cádiz - November 30, 2015
OK, so I sort of disappeared.  This blog is called Sailing Flamenco and the sailing part sort of disappeared when I sold Saeta.  I stayed busy with flamenco of course and that has gone very well until finally I actually began losing interest in chasing more flamenco.  I was totally satisfied with what we created here in Rota.  I didn't have much interest in writing about my performances because they were all about the same.  I had a lot of fun and was received by Spanish audiences in a way that I never thought could be possible.  But writing about the shows wasn't very interesting.
Actually, the high point of my life is my relationship with Ada - which has continued to be a total delight.  We are living a dream.  I never imagined this level of happiness.  We are approaching 5 years together now and every day is a new delight.
Lacking a boat, I distracted myself with motorcycles and that was fun enough.  But boats have been a part of my life for almost 50 years, so being without one was unusual.  So I was riding the motorcycle one day and made a swing through the marina.  I just happened to see a boat that was a miniature version of Saeta - a modern and attractive pilot house sailboat.  I stopped the moto and took a closer look.  It was a really appealing boat and on the side was the legend Eclipse 33.  After I got home, I googled Eclipse 33 and it turns out that it was built by Moody, a very reputable English builder.  In fact, there were 254 of that model built between 1989 and 1994. Without realizing that I was entering dangerous waters, I began to check YachtWorld, an international website with boats for sale.  There were always 4 or 5 Eclipse 33s on the market and so I studied the listings.  I really liked the interior. It is a brilliant design and gets a lot of boat into just 33 feet.  This was a size that appealed to me because it was small enough for 2 people (older people) to muscle around. There was a video that came out that I must have watched 50 times that showed the boat clearly.  It shows clearly how bright and cheery the interior is with 360 degree visibility - not a dark cave like so many sailboats. Here it is:

I really couldn't think of buying another boat since I was pretty committed to staying in Rota.  If I wasn't planning to travel, then why did I need a boat?  So a little voice in my head suggested that I buy the boat for David and Adita, Ada's kids.  They had a sailing charter business and were using a boat that I thought was very uncomfortable.  I convinced myself that I could buy the boat for them to use and that I could use it from time to time.

A boat came on the market in France.  It wasn't listed very effectively, so was very hard to find.  As a result, the owner hadn't received any offers and had dropped the price down the point where it was a real bargain.  I was hooked.  So a year ago, we all went up to France to inspect the boat. It was stored in a boatyard, where it lived most of the year.  The owner came down from the north of France to use his boat in August and then put it right back on land again.  So the boat was filthy.  Covered with leaves and trash, it was raining and when we entered, the windows were leaking.  The weather was lousy and the boat was a turn off to everybody but me.  I found it depressing, but still liked the space inside the boat.  We went back to Rota and everyone forgot about the boat - except me.

It fermented in my brain for a few months and finally I realized that I really wanted it.  If not for the kids, then I would have to buy it for myself!  It took a while to get to that level.

The boat still hadn't sold, so I went back to France again to make an offer.  The weather was better and the gloom was off the boat as well.  I made an offer that was accepted and we went for a demo sail.  The boat was grubby, but everything worked well and it was pretty impressive in action.  So I bought it.  Here is the boat when her French owner was using her regularly:

I really like boats with a pilot house since I don't much care to be cold or wet.  The interior of the Moody is very comfortable:

There is a second helm inside for when the weather is bad - or the sun too hot.  The table is big enough for 6 persons to have dinner.  There is a private double guest stateroom in the back of the boat and the owner's stateroom in the bow.  There is a bathroom with separate shower across from the galley.  And there are a few places in the boat where there is 8 feet of headroom!

I returned to France in May with David and Adita as my delivery crew.  We launched the boat and brought her down to Rota - 860 nautical miles in 6.5 days.  Everything worked perfectly and we all came to appreciate the boat's virtues.  We had pleasant weather almost all the time except for a few wild hours off Valencia when we ran into a small, but intense weather system.  The wind jumped up to 45 knots at the worst and we countered it by sailing downwind with just the mainsail.  The boat handled it without a problem.  In a few hours, it was all over and we returned to normal.  We stopped in Denia to buy fuel and here was the boat at the main dock:

What was unusual about this voyage was the absolute lack of sea life in the Gulf of Lyon.  For 3 days between the French Riviera and Spain, we didn't see a bird, a fish, dolphins - nothing.  I've never been in such a marine desert.  Finally off the coast of Spain we began to see some life again.  Our remaining trip to Rota was easy and pleasant.

Now that the boat was in Rota, it was time to convert her to a Spanish boat.  We changed her name to Platero, the famous donkey in the book by Juan Ramon Jimenez.  Platero was a friendly companion to an aging gentleman on his tranquil adventures.  Sounded about right to me.  Changing from the French flag to a Spanish flag was very expensive and loaded with paperwork - like pretty much any official transaction in Spain.  But we got it done.  Then I needed to get a license to operate a boat in Spanish waters.  It didn't matter that I had sailed half way around the world, but just another hurtle to pass.  So I did.  Now we are totally legal.  We have a slip in Rota.
Since the boat got here, every day has a project or two of restoration - making the boat pretty and making everything work the way I want.  We went into the shipyard and for the first time in my life, I had the luxury of telling them to do the work.  Before, I always had to do things myself to keep the cost within my budget.  I envied the rich guys who just turned the boatyard loose on the boat.  This year, I was one of the rich guys.  I'm not rich, but life here is so much less expensive that I can afford this kind of thing. So here is the boat in her slip after getting polished, new stripes, and a new name:

I don't know if anybody is still following this adventure, but it is back in balance again with flamenco and my eighth boat...

Long time gone, but really here all the time....

September 5, 2012 Rota, Spain

Well, I certainly have been a delinquent blogger.  Lots of great stuff has happened but I had promised not to publish anything about my personal life to avoid upsets.  But, I'm in a new life now and I'm quite sure that whoever didn't want to know about my life now knows everything necessary.  So I think from this point forward I am going to report on what's really happening.  Anyone who doesn't want to know about it can stop reading right here...

OK, so Ada and I have been living together for a year and 3 months.  Our level of compatability remains miraculous.  We have a lovely 2 story house in the more modern (and quiet) part of Rota.  We selected this house because it had a tiny lawn for the dog and 4-5 bedrooms for visiting family.  OK, so I stole a bedroom to make an office and Ada stole one to have a dressing room, but that still leaves 2 formal bedrooms and a basement room we call the "leonera" (lion's den).  The basement sleeps at least 8 and has it's own kitchen.  So when the kids come to visit (and they do because this is the Beach!) they have their own space. Here's the house:

It's a duplex and the white half is ours.

Since then so many things have happened that it is hard to summarize.  On the flamenco front, I have been playing as the house guitarist for our Peña in Rota and did a show with some of our singers - me among them.  I also am playing guitar for the Peña in Chipiona on Friday evenings, so I get my fill.  I hardly ever go out looking for flamenco anymore.  We have had visits from some pretty impressive artists, who came to visit and ended up singing for hours.  Needless to say, it has been terrific.  Ada participates fully in all this and sometimes when she is washing dishes and thinks she is alone, I hear her singing flamenco.  She grew up in it and even knew Camaron as a 5 year old.

But life is about more than flamenco.  This year, one of the big events was the wedding of Ada's daughter, Adita.  This was a big event and some of our Madrid family came down for it.  We all had to get new clothes for the occasion and I have to show you the pictures of us all dressed up:

Ada and I entering...

Adita and David in our hallway

And the wedding brought out all the relatives that I hadn't met yet, so now I am pretty well known.  It kept us busy for a month, but after that it was time for some vacation...

When I arrived in Europe on the sailboat, part of the fantasy was to continue on into the Med and visit Italy, Greece, and the Adriatic.  That never happened quite as planned, but intentions have a way of manifesting themselves.  It seems Adita is a travel agent and was able to arrange for us a 7 day cruise at ultra-cheap travel agent prices (can't mention).  So we flew from Madrid to Ravenna, Italy and boarded the boat.  Then we left for Venice and spent a day and a night there.  Following days took us to Dubrovnik, Katakolon, Corfu, Santorini, Myconos, and finally Athens.  I like cruising!! Somebody else is responsible for getting us around and my only job is to be charming and keep my glass filled.  We respected the fine tradition of gaining weight on cruises, but the food and drink were all included - and there were lots of opportunities.  When it was time to go ashore, Ada and I found that we preferred not to be part of the herd.  So we created our own adventures.  We walked, rented cars, and on Santorini, rented a motorcycle (that will have future consequences).  Sometimes we joined up with other couples to share car rentals, etc.  So we made some cruising friends. It's not easy to select 1 photo to capture a place, but I'll try:

A canal in Venice

Dubrovnik - a walled medieval city on the Adriatic

Olympus was immense, but this shows a tiny corner of it...

Actually, selecting photos of the cruise is overwhelming -there were so many.  Suffice to say, we had a marvelous time - sort of a honeymoon since it was our first major trip together.  In succeeding chapters, I'll bring us up to date with more current news.  But for now, time for dinner.

If anybody is still reading this thing, it would be nice if you would shoot off an email and tell me your news.

So what exactly is an ADA???

February 12, 2012 Rota, Spain

If you just tuned in, go back to the post of January 12 and start there.  Then this one will make sense.

Before dealing with the question in the title, let's catch up to date on the story.  So the first coffee went well and so there was a second coffee and then there were dinners, and visits to the Peña, and so forth.  It got to where we were seeing each other every day.  And why?  Well, we were just amazingly compatible, that's why.  There's no explaining this, but we appear to be twins in so many ways.  This was totally unpredictable.  I wanted to date a Spanish lady just to see how it would be.  She really had no desire to date an American at all.  Rota used to be full of Americans when the air base was booming and she avoided them.  One of the really important things is that both of us are "we" people - we like to live as part of a couple.  That is something that I always wanted and something missing previously.  It got to the point where I had to ask myself, "Is it possible that there could be anyone more compatible with me?"  She is affecionate, smart, practical, tall, slim and likes flamenco(!)  Both of us were tall and thin when we were young - both felt that we were "ugly duckings".  Both of us like the same kind of books, movies.  Both of us are a little "different" from the rest of our cultural peers.  But when we are together, everything is totally effortless.  Although Americans are perhaps more likely to participate in personal growth education, she certainly has arrived at the same kind of consciousness on her own.  In short, she is a terrific human being.  So after a while, we became a couple.  Did we live happily ever after - well, stay tuned and find out.

Back to our question.  So what exactly is an ADA???  Well, Ada is a nickname for Inmaculada (like Inma or Conchi also are).  Actually Inmaculada is the short version for Inmaculada Concepción de la Santisima María!  Well, it's pretty clear that some shortening was needed and in the spanish manner, she became Ada.  Her daughter who has the same name became Adita (little Ada).  Ada is 7 years younger than I am.  For 40+ years, she was a schoolteacher, finally retiring here in Rota.  She knows most of the young people in town because they passed through her classes.  So she is different from most of her peers because she has a university education, which was pretty rare in the time of Franco.  She has four kids between the ages of 31 and 41 years old and remarkably they all like me!  Well, I like them so it works out well.

L to R - Fany, Yago, Ada, Adita, and Nacho

The oldest is Adita and then Yago (Santiago), Fany (Estefania), and finally Nacho (Ignacio).  They are a terrific group and when they are all in the house, it jumps.  Our Christmas this year was one of the best I have ever had.

Here's another picture of Ada and I at an art show at the local castle.

So as you see, I am no longer miserable.  An from this point forward, I can just report the news as it happens.

Don't be afraid to write.....

Just a coffee, please....

January 18, 2012 Rota

If you just dropped in and are reading this post as the first thing, please go back to January 12 and start there.  Then the next two will make sense.

So there I was in Bar Castillo, just across the plaza from my apartment, sitting at a table outside with my Kindle to entertain me, waiting for a woman that I had never seen before.  I was pretty much alone at the sidewalk cafe because after all, it was January.  But it was a nice day and at 4PM it is still pretty decent.  So I was drinking my coffee and looking around - trying to look casual because I had no idea where she would be coming from.  I was 15 minutes early because I didn't want her to have to wait for me.  After a while a tall woman was approaching from the direction of the cathedral. Hmmm.  There was nothing about her appearance that rang any bells.  I might never have noticed her except that I was waiting for someone.

She didn't have to work too hard to figure out who I was.  I was the only single person sitting outside and I was tall and looked like an American.  So she walked right up to me.  So both of us knew that we had made the connection.  Now, attraction is a funny thing.  All of us humans, admit it or not, have an image of our ideal mate - maybe several images, or a certain type that attracts us.  And often that attraction - chemistry if you want to call it that - is the basis for starting a relationship.  At some subconscious level we interpret that initial pull as an indication to go into action.  Well, in this case, there was none of that on my end.  She was pleasant looking.  Her hair was sort of the same color as mine - faded red or dark blond.  She was slim and shapely.  At 62 years old, she had some wrinkles, but had a smile and an animation in her expressions that was what caught your attention.  But I certainly couldn't say that I was swept off my feet.  But, nice even though not my stereotype.

So here I was - my first date with a Spanish woman!  She was really easy to talk to.  Having been a teacher for so long, she was accustomed to speaking fairly slowly and enunciating.  So I could understand her.  That is the hardest part - I can say just about anything I want in Spanish if I just beat around the bush long enough to get the idea out.  So we started talking and found it really easy.
Really easy - so we kept talking.  One topic followed another effortlessly.  Who knew it could be so easy.  I usually have more trouble conversing in English.
 
After we finished our coffee, we stayed and talked for a while more.  Then I suggested that we take a stroll along the Paseo Maritino - a sort of boardwalk along the beach that was only 100 yards away.  So we did.  After going way up the beach and then all the way back again, we sat down on a bench to watch the sun set.  All this time, talking about everything under the sun, but at an amazing level of comfort.  We agreed on all kinds of things and liked all the same things.  Our values were amazingly alike.  So the sun went down and we went on talking until it got cold.  Four hours had passed!!!

Finally, I walked her back to her car and saw her off.  I was pretty exuberant because it had gone so well and we had obviously gotten along extremely well.  She wasn't looking for a pareja, but I think that she would probably like to talk some more.  So I'll send her an email tomorrow and find out....

An anniversary....

January 17, 2012 Rota
Yes, today is an anniversary.  I year ago today I met someone special and today we are celebrating.  But let me start at the beginning.  You will remember that I had been looking on the internet for a companion.  Well, after a few adventures with Americans and English living in Spain, I was still dissatisfied.  It seemed like foreign women tended to run with packs of other foreigners and not mix very much with the Spanish.  Even the flamenco aficionados were that way. That group did mix with the gypsies, but sort of ignored normal Spaniards.  Well, I didn't much like that because my favorite thing about Spain and my reason for being here is that I love the people and their way of being, gypsies and non-gypsies.

So one afternoon, I was bored and decided to do a search limited to just Rota.  That way I was sure to find someone that I didn't need to drive all day to visit.  Well, in Rota I got about 50 hits.  It was pretty easy to weed out the ones who weren't for me.  Most of them smoked.... pass!  And then a lot in my age group were sort of typical middle-aged Spanish women - sort of like fire-plugs - short and squat.  Quite a few put phoney numbers for their weights, but it was pretty easy to read between the lines.  There were a few Americans who had divorced their military spouses but for some reason were still here.  But nothing attractive.

But, I did notice one woman who fit a lot of my criteria...non-smoker, tall, slim, and educated.  She was a retired school teacher, having taught many years here in Rota.  She didn't have a picture on her profile which always made me a little nervous.  But the text showed a person of substance - so many of the women wrote things about themselves that were really superficial or showed off their lack of education.  This one showed promise.  So I sent off a few indications of interest and a message.  And got a response in due course.  So we started trading emails.  After a while I invited her to join me for a coffee.

Well, on the other end, she was dealing with my emails with some concern.  She wasn't really actively searching for anyone, but her kids made her put herself on the internet.  As a divorced women, she had found that men were mostly looking for an "adventure" and even if they weren't, few of them held any interest for someone at her level of education.  So she had decided that she just wanted a "friend", but not a "pareja" (lover).  She was pretty conflicted about meeting me.  She asked her youngest daughter what she should do.  Her daughter knew me because she worked in the office of the marina where I had kept the boat.  She told her mom, "Go ahead and meet him.  He is a perfect gentleman".  The pressure was mounting.  But I had indicated in my profile that I was looking for a "pareja" and so she wrote to me turning down my invitation saying that since she wasn't looking for a "pareja" she would be wasting my time.

But by this time, I was getting really curious about her and so told her that it couldn't possibly hurt for us to have a coffee.  I had never had a coffee with a Spanish woman and so it would be a unique experience.  What did we have to lose?  So she agreed to meet me at a restaurant close to my house, right next to the cathedral.  And at 4PM, a year ago today - we shared a coffee.

The part I neglected to tell you....

January 12, 2012  Rota, Spain

During the last several years, I have censored my posts to keep from upsetting Andrea who didn't want to know anything about my "personal" life.  But I find that this blog has become a sort of diary and I can't just ignore things that were big parts of my life.  So let's fill in the gaps....

After Andrea left, I sold the boat.  And it sold almost immediately and long before I was emotionally ready I found myself standing on the dock with 15 cardboard boxes of personal effects, waving goodbye to the boat in which we had lived so many adventures.  A double loss!  And really sad!  But being alone gave me the opportunity to reflect on my marriage - and I realized that we weren't really all that compatible... which is why she left me 4 times. Her idea of relationship was very different from mine. I finally was able so see what I didn't want to see when I was crazy in love. I finally realized that I couldn't ever go back to that marriage.

So, as reported previously, I rented an apartment and started putting together a new life.  Well, as the months passed, I realized that flamenco and parties with the gypsies only went so far in satisfying my needs for a fulfilled life.  I am not naturally a single person.  I know many folks who prefer being single, but I'm not one of them.  I like sharing life with someone special.  And my way of dealing with grief is to look forward, not backward.  So I decided to look for a new life companion as a way of coping.  And it made me feel better to look forward to someone new.

Now, I didn't expect to find anyone all that special, but I wanted to relate to someone of the feminine persuasion a bit.  The gypsies had their limitations.  Here in Rota, I couldn't see any possibility of meeting anyone interesting.  I met an Englishman living on his boat in the marina and he had been telling me of all the women he had been meeting on the internet.  So I wrote down a list of the sites that he recommended and put myself on a few of them.  Of course, that connected me with women who spoke English.  But it was fun to spend time reading about all the women who wanted to meet someone.  Matching someone with me isn't easy.  She would have to be tall, non-smoker, politically liberal, and I preferred slim.  Oh, and speaking Spanish with a willingness to be around flamenco would be an advantage. 

At that point, I still considered the possibility that I would return to the US some day, so I searched for women around Santa Barbara, assuming that I might like to live there.  There were lots of single, attractive women in my age group there.  In due course, I found one that appealed to me and wrote to her.  In short order, we were emailing daily.  It looked pretty good.  We were born in the same town and about the same age so we shared lots of cultural memories.  She was smart and cute.  So as time passed it seemed logical that we needed to meet.  She had a lot of air miles saved up and so decided to come visit me here for a week.  I put on my tourguide hat and picked her up at the airport.  I gave her the quick tour of the best attractions in Andalucia.... Sevilla, Cádiz, Jerez.  We had a great time, but I couldn't see a future there.  In spite of getting along well, I couldn't imagine leaving Spain and going back to a plain-vanilla American life.  And she was in the process of becoming a Catholic - and subscribed to a newsletter from Newt Gingrich.  So she went back to the US and after a while the emails sort of dropped off.

Next, I tried searching for women already in Spain.  There were quite a few ex-pats living here, both English and American.  However, most of them smoked or were living a life totally removed from Spain - playing golf in Marbella, shopping, and drinking in bars along the coast.  Nope.
Finally, I found an Englishwoman who was living in her own house in the country in the province of Malaga.  She was in the small town of Iznajar between Cordoba and Malaga.  I went to visit her one day (and played a benefit show in her town that same night).  We got along pretty well, so we had some more visits in my town and in hers. 
Then I found out that I was losing my apartment because the owner wanted to rent it to summer people.  So she offered to rent me a spare room there and I moved my 15 cardboard boxes and me to Iznajar.  There I discovered that living in the country is a lot more work than living in an apartment.  She spent her life working on her place and socializing with English ex-pats.  She spoke good Spanish, but only seemed to mix with the locals a little.  There was a very tightknit ex-pat community there with lots of drinking - lots of drinking!  But very little flamenco in the neighborhood.  By the end of the summer, it was pretty obvious that we were too different in too many ways.  And I missed my friends in Rota, so when the house on Calle Gravina showed up on the internet, I rented it.

I again buried myself in the flamenco life of Rota, taking a break only long enough to visit my son for Christmas - as shown in one of the posts below....  You will have to await the next chapter.  I can't imagine anyone is reading this - it is becoming sort of a confessional, but I need to do that before the next chapter.

Let's talk about Spain...

January 4, 2012 Rota, Spain

Rota is one of the warmer places in Spain during the winter.  Spain is sort of like California - it is warm in the South and cold in the North.  Spain has snow on the ground now up North, but I am almost as far South as you can get and on the ocean to boot.  So today, it is supposed to get into the 70's.  I think a walk on the beach may be coming up.

But first a bit more on the Spanish National Character.  Since I have been in a 100% immersion program, I note keenly the differences between the Spanish and American characters.  It's not a better or worse thing - just different. 

Let's start with Prudishness.  Americans have a huge streak of prudishness.  They are just as interested as anyone else in sex and natural body functions, but have a tendency to peek through their fingers instead of just looking.  I remember the scandal that followed Janet Jackson's breast in the Superbowl.  Here in Spain, the body is just natural.  Drugstores advertise skin-care products with huge posters of nude women on their store windows.  Almost all beaches are topless if women so desire.  On the Mediterranean coast, they mostly seem to so desire.  And I remember a TV show recently where the camera was passing a group of cattle.  There was a bull with balls that hung down amazingly far.  So the camera zoomed in on the balls for 15 seconds or so.  The commentator was talking about something else, so the balls weren't mentioned, but the visual was there.  I had to laugh because to do that in America would cause the TV station to get calls and complaints.  The commentators would talk about it for a week.  Here, it's no big deal.
And in conversation among friends, there are few taboos.  Bodily functions are discussed naturally.  And in normal conversation, you will hear a surprising reference to "private parts" of the body.  The word "coño" refers to the feminine part, but has become so common as an expletive that is is now sort of the way Americans might say "shit".  The current slang for the female part is "cho-cho" and you actually hear young girls calling each other "cho-cho" - or husbands using that as an affectionate term with their wives.  Seems incredible, no?  And men will greet each other with the phrase "picha" which is slang for the male part.  But the Spanish are great realists in their speaking.  I was surprised to hear a friend call his wife "gordi" as an affectionate name.  That would mean "chubby".  Well, she was a little chubby and they just acknowledge it as a reality.  Likewise, a person who is lame might be nicknamed "cojo" which means lame.  And so it goes.
Actual cursing is equally bawdy - a common expletive is "me cago en la mar" which means "I shit in the sea".  I won't elaborate on the cursing except to say that they seem to have more rich variations than the Americans.

The next topic is Tolerance and "vivo yo".  Those two topics go together.  Let me start with "vivo yo".  That literally means "long live Me".  To a foreigner, it shows up as a kind of insensitivity to others.  For instance, if someone is driving and sees a friend on the sidewalk, he may just stop and start a conversation.  The two of them will cheerfully talk for a while without much concern for the growing line of cars waiting to pass.  Or the checkout girl at the supermarket may stop working to talk with a friend, ignoring the waiting line.  Perhaps it's just in Andalucia, but here conversing seems to have the highest priority of all possible activities.  Employees are expected to be working except when they are conversing.  Then everything stops until they are done.  Or mothers pushing a baby carriage will stop to talk, without concern that the carriage is blocking the entire sidewalk. 
Another insensitivity is that people walking on the sidewalk will make no effort to move to one side to pass others coming from the opposite direction - resulting in a sort of game of "chicken" which is resolved by the minimum movement at the very last moment.  This has sort of surprised me since the Spanish are so "gracioso" in so many ways that they would be so insensitive with strangers.  As an American, I move to one side long before a collision on the sidewalk.  I never even think about it - until I find it missing in others.
And Tolerance is the other side of the same coin.  The Spanish tolerate quietly certain inconveniences brought on by the insensitivity of their fellow humans - perhaps because they also hope to have the same indulgence for their own behavior.  I was always amazed in my old house on Calle Gravina that the drunk Americans from the Irish bar down the street lurching through the streets at 3AM, cursing and shouting never seemed to result in anyone calling the police.  In the US, drunk foreigners in the streets making noise would produce cops in no time at all.

So those are some of the differences that I have noted.  But the difference that I like the most is the warmth that exists between friends and family members.  There is a lot of "touchy-feeley" and hugging/kissing.  And people who are friends make time to stay in touch.  I guess that their priorities are a bit more biased toward relationships.

Another small difference is the construction of buildings.  In all my time in Spain, I have never been in a building made from wood.  Everything is bricks or stone of some kind.  I have had to learn to hang pictures into brick interior walls.  I had to get used to using different tools here.  Well, that also means that the walls have very little insulation.  After a week of cold weather, the walls (and floors) are as cold as the mean temperature outside.  You don't go barefoot very much.  So your very own walls are radiating cold.  You have to get aggressive with the heating because the house wants to be a refrigerator.  That can be nice in the summer until there has been a week of 90+ degree temperatures to heat up the walls.  But at least at night you can open the windows.  A small benefit is that there seem to be a lot less bugs living in the house.  No spiders either.

All of the above is from my own observations and may not be true in other parts of Spain.  Spain has at least as many different regions as the US and there are strong regional characteristics.  I have spent almost all my time in Andalucia - although next Spring I want to take a jaunt to the Rioja region to sample the wines and food - which is reportedly exceptional.  Well, it isn't all that bad right here, so I am anticipating.  I send my best wishes for a Happy New Year.  Don't be afraid to write - same email as always.

I'm gonna start blogging again - starting NOW!

December 21, 2011  Rota, Spain

OK, so it's be seven months since I've sent anything in.  I couldn't seem to find any way to blog without discussing things in my current life that my soon-to-be ex-wife didn't want to hear about.  Well, the divorce process is officially under way and more and more I'm going to be revealing what I am doing these days in Spain.

When I thought about writing this, my idea was to express my gratitude to the people of Andalucia and my friends here for the wonderful support I have felt while living here.  But when I read my last post, I realized that I had already covered that.  Well, it is still very present for me.  I can't believe the things that I am doing now in my life, and I have the confidence to do them because of the way I am seen by the people around me.  For some reason, my way of being works much better here than it did in America.  I am quite bold these days, both artistically and socially.  I've never felt like I had many social skills, but I am imitating the manners of those around me and find that I have become much more effusive and outgoing.

As an artist, I have been much more daring.  When I can find someone else to play the guitar, I actually get up on my feet and dance buleria while singing it.  No, I'm not any good and I have no idea what I am doing, but I just feel so turned-on that I risk it.  And the people love it!  My singing has become much more expressive.  I really tune into the meaning of the words to the song and express them in the way I sing.  When I sing, the spaniards stop talking.  That is a big deal because spaniards almost never stop talking!  So that is a huge compliment.

I have been the guitarist for the peña in Rota for some time now, but now they are starting to pay me when we have a show and I accompany the local singers.  I have also started going to the peña in Chipiona, a neighboring beach town.  This was initiated by our friends Manolo and Ana who are members of both Rota and Chipiona.  And in Chipiona, they are starting to use me more and more.  So with all that guitar playing, I decided that I would take guitar lessons - after 50 years of playing without lessons!!!  There is a guitarist in Chipiona named Juan Gomez who owns a music store and also teaches.  He's not a flashy guitarist, but plays very cleanly and tastefully.  I figured that he could help me clean up my technique and could give me some new ideas.  He doesn't play any jazz chords.  Just good old-fashioned flamenco.  Since I don't hang out with other guitarists, I needed some new input.  I take what he teaches me and use it to invent five times more music.  I am practicing 2-3 hours daily and the change is pretty obvious.  Since I know the music and rhythms so well, my playing is really getting powerful.  In a way, I'm playing like I always wanted.

All in all, I'm pretty darned happy.  And so, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish the happiest possible Christmas and New Years to whomever is still following this.  And thank you for that.  Don't hesitate to write - still have the same email.

It's been quite a while......

June 18, 2011  Rota, Spain

I've neglected my blog of late and am sorry for that.  As you probably know, Andrea and I are going through a divorce and she told me that she preferred not to know anything about my personal life.  So I didn't know how to write this blog without sharing that part of myself.  But finally I decided to try to share that part which isn't my personal life.....

I'm still living in Rota, but decided to get a house in a different neighborhood.  I was living in a tourist mecca - charming, but with no parking for guests and way too much noise from the streets.  There was an Irish bar just down the street that served drinks called "chupitos" - which were nothing other than shots of mixed liquours.  They had about 25 varieties of different colors and flavors.  Kids from the military bases would come and drink there, but not understanding the Spanish practice of eating while drinking, they would toss down about 5 chupitos before the effect really hit.  Then they were staggering through the streets, vomiting, cursing, and generally offending the whole town.  I can't imagine a scenario in the US where drunk foreigners could stagger around in the streets, shouting and cursing at 4AM without the police arriving in short order.  But the Spanish seem to be much more tolerant because the police never came.  And just a few hours after the last drunk stopped shouting, the beach people started passing my bedroom window on the way to the beach.  They were well behaved, but spoke loudly in the Spanish style.  It became too much.

So I rented a duplex (not an apartment) in a quieter part of town.  It is outside the old walled city, but still only about 3 blocks from the beach.  It has lots of parking on the street and I still have a closed garage.  The place is huge with 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and I have my office with computers all set up.  To get to the old part of town is 10 minutes walking or by car and 5 minutes by bike.  I can visit my old neighborhood by taking a stroll down the beach.  As you can see, rent money goes a lot further in Spain than in the US.  To rent a duplex like this in Santa Barbara would cost 100% of my monthly income.  My half of this duplex is on the right side....

Here is the new house.

Other than the new house, life is about the same.  I continue to make new friends here and am an active and full member of the Peña (flamenco club).  I play guitar for the local singers every saturday afternoon and often for performances as well.  My accompaniment skills have grown considerably and my guitar playing has also grown nicely.  I am totally at home with the people from the peña.  They don't treat me like a foreigner, but as a respected fellow aficionado.  I feel more welcome there than any place I can remember in my life.  One of the older members told me that I was the "alegria" (happiness) of the peña!
I don't know why exactly, but my way of being seems to really work for me here in Spain.  People really seem to like me.  In the US, I always felt a little like an outsider.  I never felt like I totally fit in.  With the "artists" I was always too square - too much of a businessman.  With the business people, I was better accepted, but always as a sort of bohemian.  Here people I don't know greet me on the streets.  And people I do know treat me with such warmth.  I have been accepted into a group of artists (painters) and poets here - who are also important figures in one of the political parties.  So I'm not on the margins of society.
I am still close to the local gypsy community, but have pulled back a little and don't try to spend all my time with them.  In that way, I am different from most American flamenco enthusiasts.  Most of them come here to study; live in little groups of other foreigners; and try to get close to gypsy artists whenever possible.  I have gotten away from that.  I love Andalucia (the part of Spain in which I live) more than flamenco.  I love the annual rituals of Semana Santa (Holy Week), Feria (the spring fair), the pilgrimage to Rocio and all the other events which make Andalucia special.  I love the warmth of the people and their values.  So I don't run around with foreigners.  I have one American friend who is here from time to time, but the rest of the time I am 100% with the locals.  I see the gypsies and consider some of them to be friends.  But I have begun to avoid some of those who who don't control their drinking or otherwise behave poorly in public.  I apply the rule: Would I be friends with this person if they didn't do flamenco?  If the answer is No, then I am a bit more reserved with them.  I have begun to cherish my own space.  For a while, my old house was becoming Club Quijote - a place where you could sing all night with free drinks.  This new house has become more private and I like it that way.
I see my whole attitude about flamenco going through a change.  The great artists who I grew up with are mostly dead.  Those who remain are not at the same level and just don't excite me much.  Most of the young artists are trying to make a living with Flamenkito - pop flamenco mixed with whatever they can imagine.  It might be interesting music, but it's not flamenco.  And none of it will be remembered in 20 years.  So I am a confirmed dinosaur.  I like the old stuff and prefer to be with the few artists who still do it.  But I don't go to very much trouble to go looking for action.  I get all the satisfaction I want with the locals.  My current favorite is Paco Peña, a torero who also sings.  I believe you can hear him on some of the earlier posts or on my new webpage www.cantejondo.com.  He is a great guy and really fun to be with.
OK, time to get dressed for the regular Saturday tertulia at the peña.
Don't be afraid to write.....

Christmas with the family....

December 31, 2010  Rota, Spain

I'll interrupt my discourse on Spanish living for a visit to North Carolina to see my son, Tony and his wife, Annette, and the special star, Akilah - celebrity granddaughter.  Christmas for me is the most fun seen through the eyes of a small child.  Akilah is almost 3 and now old enough to be dazzled by the Christmas pageant.  But she is still young enough to be completely un-material.  When asked what she wanted for Xmas, she didn't know.  I'd be surprised if that were the case next year....

I had two weeks in North Carolina and the kids fixed me up with a bedroom down in Tony's music studio.  Great!

While I was there, I was Tony's roadie for a few gigs that he had.  One of them was with Woody Wood and Artimus Pyle (formerly of Lynryd Skynryd).  They took their last names and called themselves Black Wood Pyle.

Here we all were after the gig, L to R, Woody, Artimus, me, and Tony.  Turns out that I am Artimus' landlord as well.  Great getting to meet him.

But the real fun was just the daily living and playing with Akilah.  She is at the age where she is the center of her universe, which is a good thing when you can get her to perform.  Here we were having some breakfast...and being silly.

Christmas morning rolled around and when we came out to the tree, it was snowing outside.  How perfect.  Akilah was a little new to the Christmas thing so she opened her presents v-e-r-y carefully, trying not to rip the paper and when she did finally rip it, she took each handful to the trash before making the next rip.

This was the fun part for me.  I wasn't feeling very much Christmas spirit - didn't do presents and cards this year - not even a newsletter.  The news wasn't cheerful enough to send out.  But this turned out to be theraputic for me.  I ended up enjoying the holidays completely.

Here is the front yard after a few hours of snow.  It eventually reached about 8 inches. If you click on these pictures, they get bigger.

Here are Nettie, Akilah, Tony and dog Annabelle romping in the snow.

This was a really good picture of Tony and I eating the worlds biggest breakfast burritos

And I thought Nettie deserved her own picture, no?

.

All too soon it was time to fly home again.  Here you can see the snowy fields in the East.  I had some airplane adventures.  As normal, I always ask for seats in the exit aisle to get room for my long legs.  The agent in Asheville mananged to get me good seats for the first two flights, but there was nothing available for the long transatlantic flight.  That is the critical one, so I figured that I would stand on my tip-toes and look pitiful at the boarding gate while begging for a seat change.  So I was the first one in line at the gate.  But I began to get worried when the staff arrived.  There was a little wizened black man who didn't look like the kind of person who could work a computer (I know - stereotyping - but we DO think that way).  His companion was a Latina who walked in like she was carrying the troubles of the world on her shoulders.  Not a happy appearing person.  She took her post directly in front of me and shuffled papers for a about 10 minutes in a desultory way.  Finally she looked up and asked what I wanted.  I explained about the "tall-man seats".  She checked the computer and gave me the answer that I was expecting - that the flight was full and there were no other options.  I asked if she could give me a window seat so that I could try to sleep leaning against the wall since my head is too high for the cushions.  Then she suddenly had a change of mood and broke out in a big smile.  She went to the computer and printed out a new boarding pass.  She passed it to me with a smile, saying "try this one".
She had put me in seat 1-H.  Hmm, that sounds like the very front of the plane.  When I got back to my luggage, I noticed that the pass had the word "Envoy".  Isn't that what they call First Class?  Yup!  When they called boarding, I got in line with the Envoy crowd and in we went.  As I passed the agent, I had a chance to thank her again.  I'd like to send her a card!  That was a $500 upgrade!!!
When I got to my seat, the stu took my coat and gave me a glass of champagne.  I was in the best seat in the plane.  A front row window seat with as much room as 6 seats in coach.  There was nobody next to me.  Lots of vacancies in First Class.  I've never flown 1st class before so I was dazzled.  Instead of eating the sushi and vegetable wrap that I had put in my luggage, I chowed down on some decent food.  It was so artfully presented that I should have taken pictures.  A linen tablecloth, no less!
After dinner, I put the electric seat into sleep mode and it got completely horizontal at which point I slept my way all the way across the Atlantic.  What a treat.
On arriving in Madrid, I got my car and drove back to Rota.  I'm making lentil soup today for our old family tradition on New Years.  But I also bought some grapes to celebrate the Spanish way, too. And I bought myself a good ham to get the year off to a good start.  On the first, I'll go up to Sevilla and have dinner with the assembled Hernandez family - well, almost all of them.

I'm sure there are parties tonight, but nobody knows I'm here.  I'm going to stay home and enjoy just being home again.  Feel free to write......

So what's so different about Spain? Part 1

December 2, 2010 Rota, Spain
I've been living here for a few years now and visiting for 25 more.  So I decided to contribute some thoughts about the differences between Spain and the United States.  I am writing primarily about Andalucia, the southern-most province.  Northern Spain can be quite different although there are many similarities.  I'll start with the physical differences first....

The Countryside:  Spaniards tend to live in cities; even farmers live in little villages and go out to their fields during the day, but return to the village at night.  Living in a house all alone out in the country is just starting to become fashionable now that so many foreigners are building villas in the "campo".  But for most Spaniards, town is where they live.  Well, that means that the countryside is generally pretty empty - miles and miles of rolling fields, or olive groves, or oak trees with pigs grazing under them.  And the government doesn't really allow billboards, so there is nothing to mar the beauty other than electrical wires.  So driving through the Spanish countryside is very pleasing to the eye generally.  Close to big cities, you run into industrial buildings as you approach and those are as ugly as they are anywhere else.

Because people don't live out in the country all that much, driving in the country is pretty relaxed with very little traffic.  Generally Spain has a good highway system with large freeways and lots of little rural roads.  While it is easy and pleasant to drive in the country, it is harder to say that about the cities.  In the old parts of the cities, the streets were laid out in the time of horses and pedestrians - my street is probably 1000 years old - so they are very narrow.  That means only one lane per street.  So one way streets are very common.  I've found my GPS indispensable for getting around in the older neighborhoods.  Another big difference is the use of "glorietas" or what the English call roundabouts and we call traffic circles.  But I have come to appreciate those - you get around a lot quicker because intersections are a monentary delay at worst instead of a 2 minute wait.  Usually you just blaze on through.

Spanish drivers are generally very good.  Rules for getting a license are very strict and too many tickets will get the license taken for a while.  That said, there are very few traffic cops around.  They use radar-cameras on the highways and if you are speeding, a ticket will arrive in your mailbox.  But the Spanish tend to follow the rules that make sense without big brother watching over their shoulders.  For a tourist, it is easy to rent a car and use your foreign drivers license.  The traffic rules aren't that different although you will probably want to drive in cities during the siesta hours or late at night.  Driving in the country is a delight.

There is a big difference in the kind of cars that you find here.  With the prices of fuel in the $5/gallon range, you don't find very many SUVs.  The average car is very small, light, and often with a small diesel engine.  My car, which is a small van, has a 1.3 liter turbocharged diesel engine that is very zippy while getting 40 -50 MPG.  It does that without any visible exhaust smoke or odor!

One thing that you can't miss here is the incredible sense of history.  Rota was an old city when Christ was born.  For a very long time, folks didn't have much respect for their own history.  The Moors tore down Roman buildings and used the columns and stonework to make new Moorish buildings.  And the Christians reconquered and tore down the Moorish buildings to make new Christian ones.  Finally they are starting to preserve things a bit more.  Spain has some fabulously well preserved Roman ruins.  Here you see a Temple of Diana in Mérida - just a small sample of the Roman sites in this town.

And of course, Spain is famous for it's castles.  I was surprised to discover that Spanish castles were rarely homes of the powerful like they were in England or Germany.  They were walled enclosures built on hilltops and were intended to allow all the residents of a town to camp out in the castle while fighting off some invading group.  So the castles were walls with ports for archers and ramps for soldiers, but most of the center was open space for people and animals.

So, I'll leave room for another chapter or two in which I can discuss the food, the bureaucracy, and the people and their culture.

But I should probably update the news.  Life has been about creating a new webpage and flamenco adventures.  My son-in-law Isaac very wisely grabbed the domain name http://www.cantejondo.com/ many years ago, thinking of me I suspect.  Well, now it is a site in development and I've actually made good progress with many pages in 2 languages.  And this weekend, the flamenco just overflowed.  Friday, I was typing away on a webpage when the phone rang and it was the local gypsies, wanting me to come to a party nearby.  It was in the dance studio of Manuela Lopez (who also sings very well).  There was food and drink aplenty and in short order I was accompanying all comers por buleria (the fast, bouncy rhythm).  Miguel and his brother Eduardo started a mano-a-mano singdown that got things really cooking.  There was plenty of whiskey.  Now normally, I don't get drunk - because I have to drive and because I am too busy playing the guitar - but this time I must have had one or two too many because I literally staggered home.  But what fun!!!
And then the next day, Manuel Agujetas invited me to a matanza - that is where a pig goes to meet his maker and a lot of humans eat pork.  It was held at a small private bodega where some wealthy folks made wine for themselves and their friends - nice wine, too.  I already knew some of the folks and so was very comfortable.  Little by little the music started and they got me singing.  We all took turns.  Many of the people had done the pilgrimage to Rocio and liked to sing sevillanas about that.  They sang as a group and lots of folks danced.  Now that is not really what the gypsies like all that well, so they went outside and drank.  After lots of food, we got down to the flamenco.  Manuel Agujetas doesn't much sing in public unless he is getting paid and this night was no exception, but Eduardo did his share.  But most of it was me.  I had ladies dancing buleria and the group was doing palmas and screaming.  A big burly drunk guy kept hugging and kissing me after each song.  All in all, I couldn't have felt more accepted, personally and artistically.  It was just plain wonderful.  But the best part came today - Agujetas came over for lunch and we were listening to some of my private music collection.  He commented on one very well-known singer, "well, his cante no llega (it doesn't arrive - meaning that it doesn't move you - you don't feel anything) unlike the little things that YOU sing which do arrive" (!)  Agujetas is moved by MY singing.  Now that has got to be the best compliment, ever!

Well, you've been so good to wade through all this text so I have a reward for you:

The One Tomato Meal
Take a nice tomato and slice it into thin rings and then cut those into quarters so you have bite-size bits.  Put your tomato pieces on a large plate in such a way that no piece is on top of another. Mince one tooth of garlic and sprinkle over your tomato pieces, trying to get a little garlic on each piece.  Then sprinkle a generous pinch of coarse salt over the whole plate (regular salt OK) and then pour a little premium olive oil over the whole thing.  No need to cover the tomatos, but they need to all be swimming in the oil.  An optional extra is to sprinkle a little basil or oregano over everything.  Let it sit for an hour and then eat with slices from a good baguette or some other kind of real bread. In the US, french or italian bread is best.   Dip the bread in the oil.  A meal for one or a side dish for many.  Spaniards would just put the plate in the middle and everyone would spear pieces of tomato with their fork.

A Date with Destiny....

October 21, 2010 Rota

When your world turns upside down and you find that you are no longer doing what you had planned to do with the rest of your life, it is easy to sink into a kind of depression.  We humans like goals and looking forward to the future.  And so I took a look at my life and discovered that I didn't really have any goals anymore.  That will never do!

I looked around in my world to see what I wanted to do next and the only thing that I could find was to expand my career as a flamenco artist.  I've been fooling around with this for 50 years and now I'm in Spain.  Duhhhhh.  So I decided that I would get serious about it.  Now every morning, I get up and go to work.  I play guitar, sing, work on my recording studio, study and listen to new material I want to learn.  All of a sudden I'm so busy that the laundry is starting to pile up.  But I'm having fun.
 
And the funny thing is that, this thing wants to happen whether or not I get better.  If I did nothing, it would still happen - but if I'm going to be a celebrity (and I am!), then I should get really good so that I can be proud of myself.  I can't rush this because the thing I am most lacking is real fluency with the language.  I get better every day, but fluency is a ways off yet.  I don't want to be in the public eye making grammatical errors or misunderstanding questions.  So part of my job is to practice my Spanish.

Sometimes it is hard to get any work done, because flamenco keeps getting in the way.  Manuel Agujetas continues to have me over almost daily to play for the singing lessons he is giving to Miguel's brother, Eduardo and to Negro Agujetas.  Eduardo is a great cook of Andalucian country cuisine and I've been eating there more often than not.  (Picked up some good receipes, too)  I've taken Manuel to medical appointments several times and am getting to hear a lot of stories.  Fascinating.  They are talking about a fiesta with the neighbors in which a pig will go to meet his maker - and then play a key role in a feast.  I'm looking forward to that.  I'll take some pictures.

I've been invited to go back to La Unión in Murcia for a flamenco weekend with friends of my consuegro (and now mine).  They have an ambitious weekend planned out with a number of other singers.  And tomorrow there is a really good show in Jerez.  I rarely go to shows because most of them are so disappointing compared to what I experience live.  But tomorrow is all artists that I like and respect.

I've put up a recording studio in my living room and am learning how to do multi-track recordings.  Part of my new job....

A little bit about Rota

October 14, 2010 Rota
I thought that it might be nice to share a little of the history of my little town.  Well, not that little I guess. There are 30,000 inhabitants.  The following two paragraphs are from Wikipedia:

(Begin Quote) Archaeological evidence suggests that there was a Bronze Age settlement on the present site of Rota. The current town was founded by the Phoenicians at approximately the same time as Cádiz. Rota is assumed to be the same city known as Astaroth of the Tartesian empire. It later passed to the Romans, who knew the town as Speculum Rotae.

Following the arrival of the Moors in Spain, the city became known as Rabita Rutta ("watchtower of Rota"), from which it derives its present name. From 1248 onwards, the Moors were gradually expelled from Spain, and the city became Christian. In 1297, Sancho IV awarded the town to Alonso Pérez de Guzmán in honour of his defence of Tarifa. Later, Pérez de Guzmán gave it to his daughter, Isabel, as a wedding present when she married Fermin Ponce de León, Maestre of Alcántara and First Lord of Marchena.

Construction of the Castillo de la Luna (Castle of the Moon - right outside my bedroom window) had begun in 1295, two years prior to the bequest to Pérez de Guzmán, as part of Sancho IV's effort to develop strong coastal defenses, especially near the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. During the Middle Ages, the town was an important port for trading with North Africa. In 1780 the 11th Duke of Arcos died without issue, and the city was rendered to the Duke of Osuna. (end of quote)

Today the town is heavily dependant on tourism and on the military bases of the US and Spain in the harbor.  The tourists are almost exclusively Spanish, mostly from inland.  They use Rota to escape the summer heat and so the town more than doubles in population during the summer.  The rest of the year, it is pretty quiet except for those who know where to look for action.

Below you see the whole town and the air base at the top.  My house is out on the point, at the red dot.  The "casco antiguo" or the old walled city was actually quite small and that is the part where I live.

The town is remarkably crime-free and is very safe.  There are lots of restaurants, generally standard Andalucian cuisine, because that is what the tourists like.  Andalucian cooking is not particularly elaborate - lots of fried fish, stews, and aliños (chopped up vegetables in oil and vinegar to preserve them, often with shrimp, tuna, or octopus).  I am getting good at cooking in this style.

Since I was playing with Google Earth, here is my neighborhood.  Not far from the beach, so few bugs and it stays temperate throughout the seasons.  This is one of the Southern-most parts of Spain, about 36 degrees North - about the same latitude as Oriental, NC or San Luis Obispo, CA.  The North part of Spain gets real winters with lots of snow.  Here, we almost never get that cold.

And here to give you a musical travelogue, here is a little video of Rota with Gordo Agujetas singing.  He is the father of Negro Agujetas of whom you have read quite a bit in these pages,  Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVL037B2g5o&feature=share

So, like always, I invite you to write and will even provide a link to make it easy for you: saeta@sailingflamenco.com Have a great day!

Los Altibajos

Tuesday, October 12, 2010  Rota
Altibajos is a Spanish word for "highs and lows".  We use it as a joke when Negro Agujetas and I do a show together because he is so short and I am so tall that we are sort of ridiculous if we are both standing up on stage.  I try to stay seated.
But I am using it here to describe my life.  Highs and Lows.  I'm not sure if anyone is reading this anymore, so it is becoming more of a personal journal - perhaps of interest to my family some day.
The Lows: When someone suffers a loss, there are some predictable emotional stages that one passes through.  I read about this when my wife, Kathy, died at the age of 39.  First comes shock, anger, denial, perhaps an attempt to distract oneself to avoid feelings; but finally there comes a phase of acceptance.  In that one, you just get it - this is the way it is and the way it is going to be.  I have now reached that stage and all there is left to do is to grieve about the loss.  There is no changing it, you just have to mourn the loss.
So I am doing that.  I miss the life I used to have and I miss You-Know-Who..  And I can see clearly that, as much as I don't like to live alone, that is my future.  I can't imagine any woman who would chose to be a part of the odd life I have chosen.  So alone it will be - and that is the Low.

The Highs: well, that is pretty much everything else.  In many respects, I have a fabulous life.  I belong to a community.  For the first time in my life, I actually feel like a part of my community.  I know so many people here in Rota. And so many recognize me and greet me on the street.  I truly can't even go for a short walk without running into someone for a chat.   After 4 TV shows and that two-page article in the local paper, I am becoming a junior celebrity of sorts.
The other day, I was having dinner at the bar right next to my house (best tapas in Rota) with some friends when a lady from Rota who I had seen at the peña asked to take a picture of us.  She was making such a fuss over us that the other diners got curious and started asking the barmen who I was.  I turned out that across the room was a table with the president of the Peña Luis de la Pica from Jerez.  They asked if I would play and sing something for them.  Well, the guitar was only 50 feet away, so I went and got it.  And we had a little mini-fiesta there in the bar.  Maybe it will turn into work, who knows?

I feel comparatively wealthy here.  I have a deluxe apartment, a great car, and can generally afford to live.  I couldn't begin to live this well in Calfornia on my Social Security and a little pension.  Not even close.  The bill for the dinner I mentioned above for 4 people with many drinks and all that we wanted to eat came to 30 euros.

And the flamenco!  I keep having the experience of not believing what is actually happening to me.  In addition to all that is happening at the peña and with a growing circle of artist friends (3 of whom speak English), I am now playing the guitar for Manuel Agujetas almost every day.  He is giving lessons to Negro and Miguel's brother, Eduardo.  He likes me to play for the lessons, so every day he calls and invites me to lunch.  Eduardo is a great cook.  We eat and then there is a cante lesson.  I'm supposed to be playing the guitar, but I'm not deaf.  I'm learning a lot - and from the best singer alive today!  Last week I ate at Manuel's house 6 times and went to two fiestas with them.  He has been showing me off to some of his more obscure relatives in Puerto de Santa Maria.  That's what I mean about not believing what is happening.  I am getting into things that I never dreamed I would see.

Like the day in the following link where I sang in the Peña Tio José de la Paula in Jerez, surrounded by famous artists and accompanied by the guitar of Antonio Higuera: Here is one of the most exciting days I ever had here.  And the audience seemed to eat it up!

A few weeks ago, Bobby and Adam Marcowitz, came to visit from Santa Cruz, CA.  They are a father/son team of guitarists that I have known for years.  I put them in one of my spare bedrooms and took them to the peña to see one of the best Saturday afternoon sessions we have had this year.  Some artists came down from Jerez to join us and brought a mariquita with them.  That is an effeminate gay guy who plays on his own gayness as a comedy routine.  He had us peeing our pants, he was so funny.  And there was excellent singing that day.  So Bobby and Adam had a great adventure.  What a delight to be able to offer that.
Otherwise, life has it's little satisfactions.  Like I got my first ham:

And here it is.  Jamón Serrano is a huge delicacy, sort of a richer version of Italian Prosciutto.  It comes as a whole leg and you slice little pieces off to serve as a special treat.
Of course when you are alone with a ham, there is nobody to tell on you if you cut a little slice every time you pass the ham.  Delicious!

And I am nearly ready to take the written exam to get a Spanish drivers license.  Tomorrow I get a medical checkup and take the photos and then the driving school will schedule the test.  Yes - driving school.  It is much harder to get a license here and the other drivers are generally pretty competent.  I did about 60 practice exams (in Spanish) to prepare myself.  You can only miss 3 out of 30 questions.  Once I have my license, I will feel really permanent.  Having my "residencia" means that I can stay here forever.  I can't imagine having a life in the US anywhere that could compare to this.

And I have two spare bedrooms for family and friends.  And the same bedrooms for others as part of a Flamenco Tour package that I am offering for folks who want to see some real flamenco when they come to Spain - not just the canned tourist stuff or the shows that they could see in the US.

NEW GUITAR!!!!!!!

Sunday, October 10, 2010 - Rota

I have my new guitar!  And what a dream it is.

I actually had no intention of buying a new guitar.  I already had a fabulous Faustino Conde 1983 that made other guitarists insanely jealous every time they saw it.  But by chance, I took in for repairs my student model Conde that I use for fiestas and situations where the guitar might suffer damage.  I wanted to clean up some damage to the finish.  I was recommended to a guitar maker in Jerez, Andrew Smith.  This guy is half English and half Spanish - equally comfortable in either culture.

So I took my old guitar to Andrew and was immediately impressed by the depth of his knowledge about things guitaristic.  He had a few guitars around that he had made and I tried them out.  I was very impressed by how easy they were to play; better than anything I had played before.  And the sound was very decent.  I left my guitar with him and went home.  When I came back to pick it up, I played his guitars again - and took with me Steve Kahn, an excellent player and old friend.  Both of us played Andrew's guitars again and I was more impressed than ever.

Then as fate would have it, an old guitar that I had owned since the 60's finally found a buyer and I had a chunk of cash.  More than it would take to buy one of Andrew's guitars.  I wanted to save my good Conde just for concerts, so I wanted a guitar to play everyday and to take out at night.  And I figured that a new guitar would improve my outlook on life.  So I ordered one to be built to my specifications.

It started from pieces, everything created from scratch by Andrew.  But good pieces - cypress back and sides and a top of 1st quality Engleman Spruce.

Here is the top - as you can see, you can see light right through it.

Here is Andrew removing the cord that he uses to hold the bindings together while the glue is drying.  He is a traditionalist and uses hide glue and varnishes with French Polish, which is very labor intensive.

So here I am, getting a first look at my baby, mostly assembled.  You'll notice that it is nearly white because color is added during the varnishing phase.

And here it is all done, in my patio.  The workmanship was beautiful and Andrew wanted me to let it sit for a month or two for the varnish to continue to harden.  But there was no way I could do that!  The guitar is a total dream.  I enjoy playing it so much that I leave it sitting out on a chair and everytime I pass it, I have to play for a half-hour or more.  I've never played so much in my life and it has made an amazing difference it the way I play - with more improvement sure to come along.

To actually hear the guitar in action, here is a video recorded at the Saturday tertulia at our Peña - click on the link below and it will take you to YouTube.....
First Fiesta with the New Guitar

So, this has given my spirits a real boost.  In it's first 3 weeks of life, I went through a set of strings - even though I turned them end-for-end, a string broke.  The video above was shot just before the strings gave up.  I have never played so much to wear out strings so fast.  Everyone who hears it marvels at the sound.  And the guitar invites me play with more sentivity because it wants to sing.