Michael Long in front of Healy Hall on the Georgetown University campus. December 28, 2006 3:49pm

It's 10:22am on Friday as I type these words. This'll be another quick blog, cuz I got stuff to get out of the way before meeting up with friends this afternoon. So my old flamenco guitar buddy Michael Long is in town visiting for a week from Arizona. You might remember him from my photo diary in 2001. We used to hang out all the time playing guitar in-between classes while on the Georgetown University campus.

Of course we had to make the obligatory visit to Red Square, the university's popular between-class hangout, although it was a bit chilly and late in the day to pull out our guitars for old time's sake. We ended up getting some hot coffee at My Bakery Café nearby on Wisconsin Ave, found some tables outside and played our guitars anyway...

The outdoor tables at My Bakery Café. December 28, 2006 5:30pm

View of Wisconsin Ave traffic from the café December 28, 2006 5:30pm

Miguelito out-of-focus self-portrait. December 28, 2006 6:00pm

December 28, 2006 6:00pm

My gig at Andalucía was cancelled for the evening, boohoo! , but it kind of worked out for the better since I got to hang out a little more with Michael. A few hours later, we ended up at Guarapo where my friend Indira Terrazas happened to be celebrating her birthday.

Miguelito and Indira. December 28, 2006 10:59pm

Miguelito and Sally. December 28, 2006 11:58pm

Turns out my new friend Sally is related to our friend Marcos the owner of Caffeine, a café where Michael and I used to hang out a lot and have flamenco jam sessions while enjoying lovingly prepared cups of yummy dulce de leche....mmmmm! And it just so happeend that Marcos was at Guarapo last night too! (see last pic below)

Duende Camarón: Armand, José and César. December 29, 2006 12:02am

José and César. December 28, 2006 12:02am

December 28, 2006 Marcos (on the left) and his buddies with Sally and Jamie. 12:19am

Overall it was a pretty good night. Got to hangout with an old buddy and party with the local flamencos--just like old times. Good to have you back in town Michael!

OK, that's it for today. Oh, some late-breaking not-so-good-news: tonight's gig at Cabanas has been cancelled. This winter slump in gigs is really hurting my wallet. Oh well, on the positive side, since I'm free tonight, I'm considering stopping by Tapeo tonight and hang out with the lovely Isabelita and Raquel and see where the evening goes from there. Ciao for now!

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Handmade Christmas card from a friend. December 26, 2006 10:56pm

It's 12:14am on Wenesday as I type these words. This'll be a quick blog--got personal stuff to do that'll keep me up late, again. Anywayz, 'bout an hour ago, a dancer friend dropped by to deliver something from Santa. Hehe. Actually she texted me earlier but I was at the movies and didn't get the message until I got out of the theatre. (I saw The Good Shepherd starring Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert de Niro etc--good movie by the way.)

So I received a bag full of goodies including lots of delicious homemade culinary treats and some other cool stuff. And it was all accompanied by a handmade Christmas card--the best kind (see photo above). While I still do very much appreciate thoughtful gifts that my friends buy for me, there's nothing more special than homemade gifts knowing that my friend cared enough to make the time and effort just for me---sooo sweet!

The past few days and nights, I've been wearing my webmaster hat, so to speak. Thing is...I used to do a redesign of DCFlamenco.com and publish it on New Year's day--speaking of which the 11th birthday of the website is coming up on January 10th. Instead, I'm working on important technical behind-the-scenes stuff focusing on search engine optimization, tweaking stuff like sitemaps, robots.txt files, keyword analysis and poring over numerous Google Analytics charts. It's not that I'm trying just to boost my rankings--although that would be a good thing. Besides, my site already has a respectable page 2 Google listing for the search term "flamenco." It's more like I'm making sure that ALL the relevant pages on my site are indexed in Google--and I've got hundreds of pages in DCFlamenco.com! And also making sure that my site shows up in search results for the most important flamenco-related keywords.

I'm doing all this for you, my loyal readers. But I'm also doing it for myself. For example, I'm putting together publicity materials for an upcoming show and I use Google to find old pics of my flamenco colleagues. Think about it. I take, on average more than 5,000 pics a year multiplied times 7 years. That's more than 35,000 pics to sift through. OK, I don't publish all those pics, but more like a few thousand. Still, as this site grows in the coming years, I'm going to need a good quality index to find the pics I need.

Yeah, it's a lot of work, but I seem to be in my computer geek phase right now.

Another thing you may have noticed recently is that there are a lot more Google ads all over the site--hopefully displayed in a undistracting and tasteful manner. It's kind of like a game of strategy--well, it's mostly trial and error where I try out different layouts, color schemes with Google ads while keeping a close eye on the statistics to see which tweaks increase click-throughs. It's fun in a geeky kind of way, but I actually do make money each time my website visitors click on a Google ad. Mulitiply those clicks over the thousands of visitors I get each month and the money adds up! It's not going to make me rich but it's more than enough to pay for web hosting services for a year and still have some money left over. As this website grows in size and popularity, I'll need more and more diskspace and bandwidth.

OK, so how did I spend my Christmas? Don't worry. I won't bore you with details only of interest to my fellow familiy members. I'll just give you a few hightlights. Here are a couple of pics...

Driving down I-95. December 24, 2006 5:31pm

Sunday night I met up with my brother and my new sister-in-law and drove down to my Mom's place in Stafford, Virginia. It was a quick trip--there was no traffic to slow us down. Our plans were to attend the 11:00pm Christmas Eve service at the local church where my Mom was one of the soloists in the choir, yay! She majored in music at USC and I followed in her footsteps majoring in music at Cal State Fullerton--thanks for the inspiration Mom!

At the house, we had some close friends of the family there too and just noshed on tapas and surprisingly filled-up ourselves as much as if we had a sit-down dinner. Around 10:30pm we left for church and arrived with few minutes to spare.

Third row pew for a decent view of the choir. December 24, 2006 10:53pm

Not surprisingly it wasn't a full house--perhaps 3/4 full. I imagine most people were busy celebrating at home or were probably asleep already. But it was still cool to be there. My mom comes to my flamenco shows more frequently than I come out to her performances. So it's the least I could do to proudly show her my support, a fellow musician in the family. It was a beautiful service overall and during the part where we turned down the lights and held lighted candles I so much wanted to take a picture but I had a little "accident."

So I had the lit candle in one hand and with the other I was reaching into my jacket for my digital camera--the scene and lighting would've made a perfect Christmas pic. I was having a hard time pulling the camera out of the tiny pocket. And in moment of frustration I discreetly made a Pffft! sound with my mouth which of course was strong enough to extinguish my flame. So embarassing! Anywayz, I turned to my stepfather and tilted my candle to relight the wick, but of course I wasn't thinking about the fact that there was still some hot liquid wax on the top of the candle which dripped on his hand. Ugh. Fortunately, whatever wax dripped oh his hand wasn't enough to make him flinch. My candle was lit again, and I gave up trying to fish my camera out of the pocket. I thought that instead I'd take a "picture" with my eyes, enjoy the moment and record it my memories.

Made it home a little after midnight--it was now officially Christmas early morning and I was hungry again. Mom gladly found some leftover appetizers from earlier. I made myself a few flatbreads spread with salmon paté topped with flakey smoked Pacific Northwestern salmon, yummy!

Midnight Christmas snack. December 25, 2006 12:32am

Got all kinds of cool Christmas presents from my family including a replacement for my worn-out cellphone--someone's been reading my blog! It's the same model but in white! OK, it's 1:13am now, I'm just going to take a quick nap and get back to my personal stuff. Ciao for now!

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Mariya and Miguelito. December 18, 2006 10:47pm (photo by Jill Hatzai)

It's 2:53pm on Saturday as I type these words. It's been a mellow but still very satisfying week so far. Thing is that I've been sleeping in a lot--usually until 1:00pm. Then again, I've been going to bed at 4:00am or later so it works out. Hehe. Despite the late schedule, I'm still getting enough sleep to thwart off any symptoms of coughs, colds etc. Today (Saturday) worked out nicely since I have the day off from dance classes so (surprise, surprise), I slept in again although I did have to get up a little before noon to tidy things up a bit since there were some classes scheduled in the dance studio next to my room.

Anywayz, my photographer friend Jill Hatzai sent me a bunch of photos from Monday night at Citron and I published a few here to keep the buzz going since the next two Mondays are cancelled on account of the fact that they fall on Christmas and New Year's Day. It's my favorite gig of the week, so I'm gonna be in serious withdrawal. It's all good though. It'll give me a chance to catch up with family and friends.

So I haven't blogged for a few days and based on my last two entries, you probably think I'm fixated on food. I am. :-) But my friends who know me well, know how much I love to eat good food.

Anywayz, this past Wednesday, a dancer friend invited me accompany her to a holiday party at some ritzy hotel in downtown DC.This company rented out one of the larger ballrooms, set the holiday ambience with red stage lights, a DJ and of course setup a lavish buffet featuring everything from fresh pastas, steamed veggies, turkey, Virginia ham and more. Yum! Funny thing is that neither of us knew anyone there---we got entry to this party thanks to my friend's father who works for the company. Hehe. Can't complain. The food was good and so was the company. :-)

It actually brought back memories of when I used to have a day job and would attend these holiday parties--not as fancy as this one, but along the same sort of lines with lots of food, silly but fun games with my fellow office workers like musical chairs, doing the electric slide, bingo etc.

Afterwards, I stopped by my brother Kevin's art boutique to make my weekly visit, say hello and see what's he's up to. You know me, despite all the food from the party, my high metabolism made me hungry again and we ended up going out to dinner with a couple of friends. I got myself a juicy medium-rare 12-ounce steak at nearby Woodgrill. Yum! Made it home by 11:00pm-ish and went straight to bed but got up again a few hours later. Oh well. Can't fight it: I'm a night person.

Gerard Moreno. December 18, 2006 9:50pm (photo by Jill Hatzai)

Thursday I slept in late, spent a few hours at Barnes and Noble doing research on search engine optimization and made it to Andalucía in time for my gig.

Friday I headed to Alexandria to pick up my sound system at Las Tapas with the intention of taking it to Cabanas in time for my gig. But I got a call from the manager informing me that the show was cancelled. Ugh. It's that time of the year, when people would rather go shopping then go see a flamenco show. It's OK. I managed to get my flamenco fix anyway...

I stopped by Tapeo in time for the Sevillanas show by Isabelita but (surprise, surprise) that show was also cancelled but since they were there already, we hung out and had some dinner. Six of her friends from college came so we got a large table in the back, enjoyed a variety of tapas and paella and around 10:30pm Isabelita and I gave them a private spontaneous flamenco show with no rehearsal or warm-up! Thank God I had my guitar with me. For most of them, this was their first time to see her dance. And in a way, it worked out better since a show with live guitar is lot more interesting than Sevillanas with a recording, no?

It was a rainy night and Isabelita gladly gave me a ride (Thanks Isabelita!) bringing me home warm and dry.

Miguelito. December 18, 2006 9:51pm (photo by Jill Hatzai)

It's 3:26pm on Saturday now and I'm just waiting to hear from the manager of Tapeo to find out if tonight's show will be cancelled or not. Cross your fingers! I need the money of course, but more importantly I just want to get out there and do some flamenco!

Of course, I already got a backup plan lined up. A dancer friend just called suggesting we go to the movies tonight. Turns out I've been waiting impatiently for the latest Almodóvar flick Volver starring Penelope Cruz. It so happens that Estrella Morente recorded a canción por bulerías for the soundtrack. And it's playing at the theatre near my house. We'll see what happens. My thanks to Jill Hatzai for the awesome pics. Ciao for now!

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My favorite Peruvian dish: Papa a la Huancaina. December 19, 2006 12:56pm

It's 1:00pm on Tuesday as I type these words. Got up a short while ago and was feeling hungry so I raided the fridge for Tupperware #2 that my dancer friend gave me Sunday night. The contents: homemade Papa a la Huancaina, a traditional Peruvian dish made with potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, spicy cheese sauce and lettuce, yum! The Huancaina sauce was smooth, the way it's supposed to be, when I received it, but my fridge, which is on the colder side, made the sauce, um, less smooth. Regardless, it was so delicious! I'm resisting every temptation to finish it all in one sitting and hoping to enjoy this wonderful culinary gift at least for another two or three days.

I gotta get out of the house pretty soon and enjoy this beautiful day, so I'll make this a quick blog...

OK, so about last night at Citron, I've got some good news and not-so-good-news. The good news is that it was unbelivably crowded for a Monday last night. I'm guessing that all the local college students had just finished finals and were out blowing off steam, or maybe there were a couple of holiday parties going on at the same time--they even opened up the basement bar which they almost never do on a Monday night! (There was one group right next to the stage that sang "Happy Birthday" in the middle of our show. Tsk, tsk. No class. Unbelievable.)

We had a number of friends in the audience including Angélica, Karine, Aseel, Jason Vera y Aragón, Ronaldo (from Brazil), Keith, Jill Hatzai, Sarah, Eric and Antoine (from France), Giovanni (from Italy), Luciano (from Brazil), Ashok (from India) and Isabel (from Ecuador), Davide (from Italy) and a few new ones including Neran, who took the pics during the show. Thanks Neran!

Mariya in soleá. December 18, 2006 9:55pm (photo by Neran)

December 18, 2006 9:56pm (photo by Neran)

December 18, 2006 9:56pm (photo by Neran)

December 18, 2006 9:56pm (photo by Neran)

December 18, 2006 9:57pm (photo by Neran)

As you can see in the timestamps of the pictures above, we started the second show quite late. The DJ Helio arrived a little late last week and he doesn't seem to mind when we run over into his showtime. Thing is I just like it better when the moment comes that the flamenco show finished, the DJ's music kicks in immediately and keeps the party momentum going without losing a beat, you know what I mean? So my strategy Monday was to start late to ensure that the DJ had arrived and was all set and could press the "play" button on his system the exact moment we finished. And it worked, yay!

It's pretty typical on the weekends at Citron for customers to dance on the bar, but on Monday, it only happens every now and then. This was one of those nights. It's one of the Cafe Citron traditions and seriously there's even a sign posted that encourages it.

There a sign that says: "Dancing on the bar is not only allowed, it's encouraged!" December 18, 2006 11:01pm

And yeah, even yours truly danced on the bar at Citron a few times over the years. Hehe.

Anywayz, the not-so-good-news is that the next two Mondays fall on holidays: Christmas and New Year's Day--which means there will be no flamenco at Citron until Monday January 8, 2007. In addition, there will be a couple of other show cancellations at other flamenco venues which I will announce when confirmed. Ugh. Of course, I'll enjoy the time off over the next few weeks but I'll be going into flamenco withdrawal and will need a serious fix after the holidays. :-)

So why don't we all make plans to come to Cafe Citron for flamenco night on Monday January 8th and start off 2007 with a bang? Email me if you're interested and let's talk about ideas to make it special. So...if I don't see some of you over the next two weeks, I just want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

OK, I'm outta here. Tonight I'll be performing at Las Tapas with María Roncal, making her DC tablao debut. The other dancer will be some dude named Edwin Aparicio. Heard of him? :-) Ciao for now.

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Yum! Homemade arroz con carne made with that special ingredient you can't buy in stores: love. :-) December 17, 2006 11:18pm

It's 2:14am on Monday as I type these words. Yesterday (Sunday), I literally went to bed before sunrise and got up around sundown. So I'm officially becoming a vampire now. Works for me anyway. I like to dress stylishly in black and lure innocent victims back to my castle. Got that part down. Just gotta work on the blood sucking part. Hehe.

So I finished the previous blog entry around 6:30pm last night (Sunday) and left the house in time to catch the 7:00pm screening of Copying Beethoven at the local artsy movie theatre in nearby Bethesda. One of the lines from the movie (where actor Ed Harris plays the fictionalized character version of Beethoven):

"The vibrations on the air are the breath of God speaking to man's soul. Music is the language of God. We musicians are as close to God as man can be. We hear his voice, we read his lips, we give birth to the children of God, who sing his praise. That's what musicians are."

Nice quote--love it! Anywayz, after the movie, I went across the street to Barnes and Noble (surprise, surpise, I know) and as usual came upon yet another book to add to my list of must reads: Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day.

Yeah, I know content is the most important part of a website--I should know since I've been creating the content for DCFlamenco.com for ten years now. And yeah, I'm on a very respectable page two listing in Google for the search term "flamenco." But you know how it is with technology: you gotta keep up with the times or you'll get left behind. And while I've dabbled on and off in search engine optimization for years, I've never really approached this in a very systematic and effective manner. This book maps out a step-by-step process to do just that in literally an hour a day. And so one of my goals for the coming year, is not only to improve my search page ranking for the term flamenco but also for other important flamenco keywords and continue to keep up with the high quality content my website is known for.

And besides...I'm going through a computer geek phase which seems to come and go every couple of months: behind the scenes I've been trying out some new web-related software to add some cool new features to improve my website. Pssst! I'll gladly accept some cool PERL scripts as Christmas presents. Right now I'm looking for professional quality mailing list management software. You may have noticed that there is no sign-up form for my newsletter: I"m maxed out on the number of subscribers permitted in my current online freebie mailing list service which is a good thing: it means that my website is getting more and more popular, yay! But it's time for me to upgrade.

By now, you're probably asking, "OK, that's interesting, Miguelito, but what's with the food pic?"

Glad you asked. :-) So after the movie, I was sipping my usual doppio at the bookstore cafe. It was around 9:00pm. I got a call from a dancer friend asking what time I'd be home. Turns out she wanted to bring me some homemade South American food--awww how sweet! So two hours later, my friend drove up to my house and delivered what she promised. I'd tell you her name, but I think it's more fun to keep it a mystery. Hehe.

Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), the homemade arroz con carne was heavenly. It was also my first meal of the day considering I woke up around 4:00pm. It had been a great weekend already with the flamenco gigs, the holiday party and getting to sleep in. The late night dinner delivered to my door was the cherry on top of this sweet sleepy Sunday. :-) Tomorrow, I'll open the second Tupperware of food and take some pics for you. Hehe.

Same plate: minutes later. December 17, 2006 11:25pm

So here are the holiday party pics I promised you earlier. Enjoy!

Claudia dancing bulerías. December 16, 2006 11:55pm

December 16, 2006 11:55pm

December 16, 2006 11:55pm

Cerritos in bulerías. December 16, 2006 11:56pm

December 16, 2006 11:56pm

December 16, 2006 11:56pm

Torcuato Zamora. December 17, 2006 12:00am

Claudia again. December 17, 2006 12:01am

December 17, 2006 12:01am

December 17, 2006 12:01am

Party in the kitchen: guitarist Quique with the lovely dancers: Claudia, Emily, Midori and Pam. December 17, 2006 12:25am

Meanwhile back in da studio: Torcuato teaching what he calls the Italian cha-cha. December 17, 2006 12:36am

Party in da dining room: guitarist Juan Delgado with Midori and Pam. December 17, 2006 12:39am

Back at the studio again: Adriana easily does the limbo. December 17, 2006 1:25am

Torcuato losing the limbo but with grace and style. :-) December 17, 2006 1:25am

My thanks to dancer/teacher Natalia Monteleón for the party invite. OK, enough blogging for now. A few days ago, I retrieved my old guitar from storage. So while I'm still awake for another hour or so, I'm gonna spend some time getting reaquainted with it. Good night!

My old guitar. December 18, 2006 3:04am

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