Flamenco guitarist Torcuato Zamora. March 27, 2010

It's 3-something pm on Wednesday as I type these words. I'm outside the Starbucks facing the National Archives. It's 68°F and sunny and I'm lovin' it. Although it is a bit of a struggle to see what I'm doing on my glossy computer screen with all the sunlight. Oh well…there are worse things to complain about. :-)

Just a few hours ago, I did see Furia Flamenca perform at the Shakespeare Theatre's Sidney Harman Hall Forum—a rather intimate space (seats 180) that's perfect for flamenco. I was taking pics as usual and halfway through the performance my 2GB memory card maxed out. Instead of switching in a fresh one, I just put my camera away. I already took a few hundred pics of Furia a few days ago anyway. So I just relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the show, sans camera.

This time they had a percussionist named Hector playing cajón who was phenomenal! I'll get his full name later, but you should definitely check this guy out at a future Furia performance!

Anywayz, let's talk about the pics you see here.

Furia Flamenca director Estela Velez introducing the show. March 27, 2010

So this past Saturday I went to the Sylvan Theatre next to the Washington Monument where Furia Flamenca was performing. Although it was sunny and beautiful it was very very cold! I was already a bit sick as it was but I decided to go anyway with the intention of taking a bunch of pics then heading straight home to rest up a bit. And besides it had been quite a while since I featured Furia in my blog so I couldn't pass up this opportunity. Enjoy!

Amy. March 27, 2010

So later, I was playing at my usual Saturday night flamenco gig at Cafe Citron and had the pleasure of meeting a fellow flamenco guitarist, Roy Brewer, who happened to be in town for a music symposium in honor of Elvis. He's an ethnomusicologist from the University of Memphis! Of course, it always turns out the day that an esteemed colleague comes to hear you play is the day when you're not feeling all that well. But hey I'm a pro and I pulled-it-off anyway, well almost. :-) So just like Furia carried on despite the cold and wind on Saturday, so did I!

Carmen, Karina and Lauren. March 27, 2010

After my show, I put my equipment away and chilled at the bar for a bit and this cute girl struck up a conversation with me, "Good job on guitar!"

"Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it."

We made small talk for a bit then she asks me, "So what do you REALLY do for a living?"

Mildly irked, "I play guitar full-time."

"No, really. What do you DO?"

Realizing she didn't get the arts-as-a-living concept, I decided to scare her off. "Dude, don't tell anyone, but when times get tough, I sell drugs. Want some?"

Didn't work though. She laughed. I didn't really care that much whether she believed me or not. But I decided to turn the tables and ask, "So what do YOU do?"

"I'm a social media evangelist."

"A social media what? So you spend all day posting on Facebook and Twitter. Everyone I know does that. That's not a REAL job. Really what DO you do?"

I was being sarcastic of course and she picked up on it thank God. Although she did playfully punch me in the shoulder (ouch!).

Long story short, we ended up talking about online social networking awhile and she gave me her card, but can't seem to find it. :-( (Hopefully she'll come across this blog and contact me.)

Sylvia, Carmen, Torcuato and Mariana. March 27, 2010

Still sunny out and I want to squeeze in some time walking around Old Town Alexandria before heading to Marsha Bonet-Savchenko's flamenco dance class at Landmark Mall. Yeah I'm there pretty much every Wednesday night. Those of you who follow me on Facebook also know that I play for "La Miri's" flamenco class at the University of Maryland, College Park on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3:30pm. If you go to UMD, please stop by and say hi!

The sunny day awaits me. Signing off for now. Ciao!

Estela and Daniel. March 27, 2010

Margarita, Morgan and Lauren. March 27, 2010

Daniel, Karina and Torcuato. March 27, 2010

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Guitarist Miguelito and dancer Emily Mazzotti at Cafe Citron. March 20, 2010

It's 3:30pm on Monday as I type these words. It's a rainy day and I'm sitting comfortably at my neighborhood Barnes & Noble sipping coffee and reading up on geeky stuff like location-based social networking, really!

So what's this social networking thing and why I am so interested in it?

Let's go back in time a bit. When I first launched the DCFlamenco.com website 14 years ago, my goal was simply to make it easy for people to find info about the DC flamenco scene in one convenient place. And without a doubt I've achieved that. But just putting up a website doesn't guarantee success. You have to get it listed in all the major search engines. And to get a top listing, you need to do some geeky tweaks and have a constant stream of quality website content. Been there, done that. :-) Nowadays when you search Google for "flamenco," my website consistently shows up in the first or second pages of results—that's a good thing!

Fast forward to current day. Did you read last week's headline in Silicon Valley's Mercury News? Facebook surpasses Google in weekly traffic

Miguelito and Emily. March 20, 2010

"The key trend to think about here is people are spending more time talking to and interacting with each other. This does impact Google because people may be making decisions by listening and talking to each other rather than using traditional search avenues." [Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at the Altimeter Group in San Mateo ]

I'm no social networking pundit, but I've been aware of this trend for some time. When it comes to announcing flamenco events in DC, I still get the word out via DCFlamenco.com but I'm finding it's more effective for me to keep the local community informed through Facebook.

Why? Well, I don't have to be a social networking expert to know that a lot of people spend a lot of time on Facebook everyday, usually at work (yeah I'm talking about YOU!). So whenever I announce something on Facebook, it goes out to my more than 1500 "friends" of which a couple hundred are local friends with an interest in flamenco. Actually the majority of my "friends" are flamencos from all over the world!

Emily and Miguelito. March 20, 2010

So you've read this far and you're still wondering what does all this techy stuff have to do with flamenco? It's mostly just to give you an appreciation for what I have to do to keep up with the ways to keep the local community informed—my primary goal! If you've had enough of this geekiness, stop reading now, because it gets worse. :)

Miguelito and Emily. March 20, 2010

Now that you know why I spend a lot time keeping up with Internet technology, let's answer the question, "Why am I so interested in Location-Based Social Networks?" [or LBSN for short]

First of all, what is LBSN? There are a couple of apps for the iPhone that go by the names Foursquare and Gowalla (there are more, but these are the most popular) that let you "check in" whenever you go someplace like a club on Saturday night so that your friends who have the same app will know where to find you. Hence, you network with your friends socially based on your location. Get it?

I mean you could just call up or text friends at 11:00pm saying, "So where's the party tonight?"

But wouldn't it be cool to use an app like Foursquare and at-a-glance get an idea of where all your friends are hanging out right now?

My current Foursquare screeen on my iPod Touch.

As you can see above, there are only two people who have checked in today. Of course, this is only helpful if a large number of your friends actually use the app. But it still hasn't caught on in the DC area, not yet. Being the geek, I'm playing with Foursquare for now so that if and when location-based social networking does catch on, I'll be ahead of the game.

Another cool feature with Foursquare is that you can use it to explore the city. If you tap on the tab for "Places," you'll get a list of restaurants and clubs near you. And if you click on individual places, you'll get more details such as who's there right now as well as comments and recommendations from people who have been there. And of course, yours truly is visiting all the flamenco spots in DC and announcing where and when the flamenco shows take place.

Recommendation for the Saturday night flamenco show at Cafe Citron.

Yet another way for people who are just exploring to discover the flamenco happenings in DC! But like I mentioned, this will only be useful if a lot of your friends get on board. Anywayz, you get the idea.

Location-based social network technology has some kinks to work out before it catches on, but you can count on me to be keeping up with the latest developments and using them promote the DC flamenco scene!

My office "cubicle" on Saturday nights. :-) March 20, 2010

I'm not a total geek though. I still do network the "analog" way. :-) For example, usually before my shows at Citron, I go around to some of the tables and introduce myself. Most of the time, I do this to find out if there are any people who know how to dance Sevillanas so they can have a little fun and come up on stage. It's a perfect icebreaker for me though and I've made quite a friends that I wouldn't have otherwise met if I didn't take the initiative and introduce myself this way.

Check out the Red Guitar Wine website. March 20, 2010

This past Saturday there was this one cute girl in the audience that I recognized. I had seen her in a dance class a while back, but couldn't quite remember her name. Actually I don't remember talking to her much anyway. Usually the dance students take off immediately after dance class and I usually have someplace to rush off to anyway.

But if I didn't follow this habit of going out and introducing myself before the show I probably wouldn't have gotten around to talking to her. Speaking of which I didn't ask her how she found out about the flamenco show at Citron, but I'm willing to bet that my geeky work on the computer had some influence!!!

View from the stage: Emily and friends at the front table. March 20, 2010

Call me a computer geek if you want, but if being one means that I'm helping flamencos meet other like-minded people, promoting the art and having a good time, then I've done my job!

PS Checkout this article titled Is Foursquare the new Facebook? Location-based social networking could be the next big thing.

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Sara Jerez and Miguelito at Cafe Citron. February 20, 2010 (photo by Jani)

It's almost 6pm on Monday as I type these words. Pretty much spent the whole afternoon in various cafes catching up on email, reading blogs, news etc. Right now I'm at Barnes & Noble in Georgetown cranking out a quick blog with some pics that I meant to publish a month ago.

My friend Jani is a pretty loyal supporter of my flamenco shows. He's been coming around for years and fortunately for me (and you my loyal readers!) he loves to take photos so I gladly hand him my camera whenever he stops by! These pics are from the Saturday night flamenco show that took place on February 20, 2010. Enjoy!

Sara and Miguelito. February 20, 2010 (photo by Jani)

So this past Saturday's attendance for the first show was slightly down—which I attribute to the fact that a lot of other clubs were hosting pre-St Patrick's day parties. In any case, I did have some friends show up who had never seen Citron's flamenco show before (thank you Omoladun & Aleshia!) which is always good. By the second set, we had the dining area filled-up to capacity as usual, yay!

If you're one of my many friends on Facebook, you know that I've been promoting the Saturday Night flamenco show consistently every week. And every week, I send out invites to a couple of hundred DC area friends who I know have an interest in flamenco. As expected, the first few weeks, I had an overwhelming response to the invite with a lot of people saying they were definitely coming and quite a few saying they were maybe coming. Then the next following weeks, the response to the invite went down slightly but people still showed up and packed the place anyway.

I'm going to continue to send out the invites every week as usual, but I'm confident that the word is out by now: everyone that I know in the DC area (who's on Facebook) and has an interest in flamenco pretty much knows about the Saturday night show. But it doesn't hurt to keep announcing it week after week. So I apologize in advance if you're getting annoyed by my persistence! :-)

Sara and Miguelito. February 20, 2010 (photo by Jani)

Just a few brief announcements:

The Alfonso Losa flamenco workshop (organized by Genoveva) is coming up March 31st at DC Dance Collective. More info on Facebook.

If you're a student at the University of Maryland, College Park, you'll be happy to know there is a weekly flamenco class taught by Miriam Phillips with live guitar accompaniment by Miguelito (that's me!) and Gerard Moreno. The course number is DANCE 489F and it's on Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:30pm-4:45pm in Studio 2 of the Clarice Smith Center ('cept this week due to Spring Break). Stop by and say hi!

Just added to the calendar a bunch of upcoming shows for Natalia Monteleón's Arte Flamenco. I'm all about promoting everyone of course. But I checked the websites for the other DC area dance companies and didn't see any upcoming shows. Nudge, nudge. :-)

UPDATE: Furia Flamenca just added a bunch of shows to the calendar! Thank you Furia!

Dancer/teacher/choreographer Jaime Coronado celebrates his birthday this week. Unfortunately, I don't have any recent pics of him, but if you do run into Jaime be sure to wish him a happy birthday...which reminds me that I have to write a blog about my experience working with him last year doing a Spanish-themed musical (yes, I said musical) based on the childrens' book Ferdinand the Bull.

Sara and Miguelito. February 20, 2010 (photo by Jani)

Sara. February 20, 2010 (photo by Jani)

Sara and Miguelito. February 20, 2010 (photo by Jani)

Sara and Jani. February 20, 2010

Thanks again to Jani for taking these fabulous pics. Just a reminder, if you do intend to come out to the Saturday night flamenco show, call ahead at 202-530-8844 and reserve a table and be sure to ask to be seated next to the stage.

My netbook battery's about the die out, so I'm going to sign off. Stay tuned in a day or two for another blog entry. Ciao for now!

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Singer guitarist César Oretea. (photo by Jill Hatzai)

It's almost noon on Friday as I type these words. Still at home, but will be getting out soon even though it is a rainy day. Just wanted to quickly post a blog featuring the work of my awesome photographer friend Jill Hatzai.

She texted me last night saying she was going to Guarapo—a lounge in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia which is practically a few blocks from my house. As much as I wanted to come along, I was so tired (which I'll explain in another blog). But the next best thing to going is seeing some fabulous pics of what I missed. Enjoy!

Percussionist Lelis Cueto (photo by Jill Hatzai)

César (photo by Jill Hatzai

Lelis (photo by Jill Hatzai)

Guarapo features live rumba flamenca by singer guitarist César Oretea and percussionist Lelis Cueto on Thursday nights starting around 10:00pm. More info at the Guarapo website.

For more samples of Jill's photographic work, visit her website at www.jillhatzai.com

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My FaceBook status from a few days ago.

It's 3-something pm on Wednesday as I type these words. Of course it's sunny and 64°F outside and like an idiot I'm indoors sitting in front of my netbook but there is a good reason. I'm at my old workplace from 10 years ago attempting to rekindle the memories and feelings from when I used to clock in and out here five days a week! Can you imagine me working in an office? Well, it's true...I did! But I only lasted there for 8 years before I came to the realization that the day job lifestyle was not meant for me.

Let's backtrack to my college years for a bit. As you probably already know, I was a classical guitar major at Cal State Fullerton. Had a full-time class load and was living at home (thanks Dad!) but I needed to make some money to pay for tuition, books, gas and going out. So I did what a lot of college students did at the time: got a job on campus.

The university library happened to be next to the Performing Arts building so I went in and applied and got the first available job in the reference department. Wasn't really thinking too far ahead about how this would look on my resume. Besides, how many musicians carry around a resume anyway? So I started out with shelving books and later moved up to filling-in at the reference desk. Not very stimulating work I admit, but it was easy enough and the hours were flexible so it worked. Long story short, I ended up working there for about three years. Then I got my degree, a Bachelor of Music in Classical Guitar Performance, and moved to DC literally the day after graduation where I had a music job waiting for me!

I became the dance class accompanist at George Washington University where they offered a course in Spanish dance taught by Marina Keet. My pay was supposed to be funded by a grant, but that grant fell through. And while I gladly continued to play for the dance classes for free (because I loved flamenco that much and wanted to learn), I still needed a job and fast! So I finally put my degree to use and applied for a government job in the city I was living in: Arlington. So what's a musician with a Bachelor's degree and three years of library experience going to do? I got a position in the circulation department of the Arlington Central Library.

Again not very stimulating, but it was a government job with a stable income and benefits. In the meantime, as I got more experienced in accompanying dancers, word got around of the new guitarist in town (me!) and I started playing for other dance teachers and got hired to play in shows with other dance companies—the other guitarists in DC back then were Paco de Málaga, Torcuato Zamora, Henry Jova, Tom Cotton, Ralph Pemberton, Marija Temo and William Christie. I was 25 and having the time of my life. I was working 8 hours in the office, then playing for dance classes and rehearsals several nights a week. So I would come home late and practice guitar until I fell asleep at 2:00am or later then woke up at 6:00am to get ready for my day job. Not exactly a healthy lifestyle I admit. OK, so I was in my 20's and did it anyway, but I knew deep down inside that eventually I would have to choose one or the other: flamenco or the day job.

(Mind you...there are people who can do both and still accomplish a lot. Kudos to those people. But as for myself, I'm one of those types that can only do well at something if I commit myself to just that one thing.)

I managed to keep this lifestyle going for eight years believe it or not. Looking back now, I don't know how I lasted that long, but I did. But as you might expect, my performance and motivation at my day job was starting to suffer. I'd call in sick without really being sick. Usually it was to catch up on sleep. Sometimes I'd force myself to go to work, show up late and just sit at my desk staring at my computer screen. Nothing against my day job. My coworkers were nice people and my work in the public library in a small way made a positive difference in my local community. It's all good, but my heart just wasn't in it.

There were days when I'd make it all the way to the office and when I arrived at the employee entrance and placed my hand on the door knob, I couldn't make myself turn it. I kept on saying to myself, "What am I doing here?" then I'd turn around and go back home.

My coworkers knew I played flamenco guitar at night so when I called in sick without really being sick, I'm sure they knew. So this period of frequent "sick days" went on for about six months. And finally in March 2000, I gave my two weeks' notice and quit my day job.

Oh my God...it was the greatest feeling of relief when I made that decision. Brave? Reckless perhaps? More than anything else, I felt I was being true to myself. "Do what you love and the money will follow," as the saying goes, right? Still I knew this major change would mean I would no longer have a stable income, let alone medical benefits etc, yikes!

But now that my days were freed up, I found myself practicing more and making a lot of progress—a definite plus to playing guitar full time! Of course, over the years, gigs would come and go (and they still do), but somehow I made it work. There were times when I gigged everyday. And there were times when I'd gig less, much less. It hasn't been easy, but while my income dropped drastically from when I had a day job, my job satisfaction and overall happiness went up, way up!

Sometimes I'd wonder how my life would've turned out if I stuck with the day job. Would I have settled down with a family and wishing I had more time to play guitar? Then again, as a flamenco guitarist there's no real career advancement...hopefully you just become better at what you do artistically, get more gigs with better artists, enjoy the satisfaction and as an added benefit get recognized for it. There's no such thing as Senior Executive Vice President of Flamenco....just flamenco guitarist.

Unlike my old day job, I still get that tinge of excitement each time I get ready for my shows each week—and I have my occasional bad days too just like in any job. Ten years have gone by since that day I quit to play flamenco guitar full-time and it's all a blur now. But looking back now I'm glad I did it.

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It's a little after noon on Wednesday as I type these words. As usual I'm at my neighborhood Barnes & Noble enjoying coffee and soaking in the vibe of productivity in the air. I'm surrounded by other like-minded people sitting in front of their laptops. Most of them are typing away furiously or otherwise trying to look busy. As for myself, I'm staring off into space wondering which ones are college students, which ones are teleworkers and which ones are freelancers.

I am one of those freelancers. But we don't have a particular look that gives us away. What about me? I've got a ponytail—an old stereotype for musicians which doesn't really apply anymore these days. I've got artificial long nails on my right hand—I'm guessing that most people don't recognize that as a clue that I'm a classical or flamenco guitarist or perhaps even a drag queen, take your pick. :-)

Most of the time when I'm here at Barnes & Noble, I'm here because I want to get out of the house and write a blog entry which bring us to today's topic: ME!

Yeah...even though I write about flamenco for the purpose of making people aware of the local flamenco community as a whole, the truth is that I can write best about my own personal experience so naturally most of the blog posts will be about ME.

After publishing more than 500 blog posts over the years, a lot of people know me fairly well. Even though I am particular about what I want the world to read about me when I write, certain topics or trains of thought will come up again and again in very subtle ways without me realizing it. I suppose a psychoanalyst can read my hundreds of blog posts and come up with a psychological profile about the kind of person that I am. Scary! :-)

Anywayz, everyone knows that I play flamenco guitar. I run into people who recognize me on the street, at clubs and restaurants, on the metro, even in the laundry room of my building at 3 in the morning, really!! I've done a pretty good job of promoting my name and face on the web—and not just on my website, but also Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc. But I learned the other day, that not everyone realizes that Miguelito the flamenco guitarist is also Miguelito the webmaster.

So yeah, the other night I was at a certain club (which will remain unnamed to protect the innocent...haha) and was talking to this girl at the bar. She was telling me that recognized me from my flamenco show at Cafe Citron.

So we talked about flamenco for awhile and one point I thought I would tell her about my website. But she beat me to it.

"Hey Miguel, do you know about DCFlamenco.com?"

I was taken aback. I mean c'mon. Maybe I'm full of myself...but I'm pretty sure everyone who is actively involved in flamenco in DC has heard of DCFlamenco.com by now. But I kept my cool and decided to have some fun—big mistake!

"Oh yeah, that's a pretty awesome website. I go there all the time."

"I've seen pictures of you there."

"I know. I put them there myself. I am the webmaster for DCFlamenco.com."

I must've had the word LIAR written across my forehead for all I know...cuz she didn't believe me.

"No...that can't be you!"

My guitarist friend Behzad Habibzai came up with a funny analogy for my frustration: "Imagine the guy who created Facebook being asked at a party 'So are you on Facebook or something?'" Good one Behzad!

Geting back to my story...it wasn't going to crush my ego that much if she didn't believe me, but I still wanted to prove it. And unfortunately I ran out of business cards. So what does one do to prove that he is the webmaster for a website? Well...I don't have a webmaster bio with my pic on there. I suppose I could've pulled out my netbook, and uploaded some text to my website that said, "See?? I am the webmaster!!!"

Long story short...we hung out for a little while longer and talked about other stuff, but we parted ways with her still not believing I am the webmaster. I was bit irked, I admit. But it is kind of my fault: I don't have a webmaster bio.

I suppose I should just quietly enjoy the satisfaction that she knows about my website. One of these days, she'll be visiting DCFlamenco.com and perhaps even be reading this blog and realize I am who I say I am!

When this happens I'll let you know. ;-)

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