Miguelito and Ginette Perea at Cabanas. February 23, 2007 9:52pm (photo by Valerie)

It's been a crazy week. Had lots of personal stuff to deal with, not to mention having to cancel an important appointment last Sunday due to the snow. Ugh. So while I catch up on my blog, the entries will be short.

Actually I'm working on an article about Ulrika and Mirada Flamenca which I will publish later today, but just taking a break by blogging. Am I crazy or what? Nah, I'm in my creative groove right now and got to go with it although my body is telling me, "Go to bed and take a nap." Can't do that though. Got a lot to do and little time to do it.

So last Friday, I did my usual gig at Cabanas with dancer Ginette Perea. For the past month or so we've had to get accustomed to the format of a one dancer show--cutting it down from two dancers is just our way of adjusting to the winter business slump. I'm proud to say that we've been performing here continuously for a year-and-a-half now. But I have to admit that there were some days when the weather was so cold, that we weren't able to get that many customers to show up. I was almost ready to hear the manager tell us, "Sorry we gotta let you go." But thank God it hasn't happened. And it's not just here at Cabanas, it's the same kind of situation at all the restaurans where I perform including Cafe Citron, Las Tapas, Andalucía and Tapeo.

I won't try to pinpoint the cause of the slump. I just know it happens every year and we've got to do whatever it takes to deal with it. Everyone seems to have their theory:

1. "It's too cold to go out." OK, well a couple of times I've gone to Cafe Citron after my gig the past few bitterly cold Fridays and it was packed with people.

2. "it's the economy. No one wants to go out. Gas it too expensive." True. But there are ways around that. I don't think anyone is going to let gas prices stop them from going out and having a good time. Partying is a basic human need and it's not like people are going out every night.

3. "It's a holiday weekend. Everyone's out of town." Um, no. Not everyone is out of town. I'm here. Ginette's here. We do have some people here tonight. Maybe not a lot. But I wouldn't attribute the slow business to the holiday.

4. "It's pouring rain. No one wants to drive in the rain." Well, interestingly when it rains, especially during the summer, it seems to encourage people to want to come off the streets and go inside a club. In fact there have been nights when I've seen it more crowded on a rainy night than on a clear warm night. And sometimes when the weather is nice, the clubs are dead. Why? Perhaps people would rather hang out and enjoy the fresh air.

I've beeen performing regularly in restaurants and clubs for 11 years now--my first weekly gig was at Havana Village with Sara Candela on Thursday nights in 1996. You'd think that I should be able to explain the seasonal slump in business by now. But I've had my personal theories both disproved and proved equally. And while a lot of the theories by my friends do have some factual basis, they're just theories with just as much possiblity of being disproven. OK so it makes for interesting conversation, but it just cracks me up how people will tell me their theory with such an air of authority as if they really know what's going on.

Anywayz, I digressed. Since we didn't see any personal friends in the audience last Friday at Cabanas, we couldn't get any pics during the show. But trust me on this, we had a good time regardless. So I asked the manager, Valerie, to take pic of Ginette and myself after the show which turned out very nicely. Thanks Valerie.

OK, it's 11:24am. Time for me to go across the street and get some lunch, come back and get back to work on Ulrika's article. As for tonight, I'll be performing at Cabanas with dancer Mariya. Ciao for now!