Grave Error

Last night I went to the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid to see (and hear) my friend, Philippe Raskin, play. Although I had heard him play once before in a quartet setting, this was the first time I got to experience him live on solo piano. The experience blew me away. It was by far the best concert I have ever been to. I wish I had more time now to describe the performance in depth. Unfortunately I don’t, so I’ll be brief. (more…)

Ildefonso Fernandez passed away this morning. He was a very close friend of my friend Manolo, and whenever I got the chance to see Ilde, I was always entertained by his amazing stories of living in Kazakstan, on an oil rig in the North Sea, and elsewhere and by his great charisma. He even commented here on occassion.  ¡Hasta pronto, Ilde!

My friend and co-worker Jacobo (who I used to affectionately call Hysidro) made this Obama “Yes We Can” T-Shirt for me. It actually looks much better on than in the photo. Unfortunately, I had to crop the image to hide sweat marks.

Thanks Hysidro! ¡Eres el mejor!

Some people are all talk and no game. Well that isn’t the case with my Bro. If an attorney/community organizer can aspire to be president of the U.S., I think my Bro may have a futre — even though he might want to think twice about cetain statements he makes to the press because those go into your permanent record — just kidding.

In any event, check out this article on what’s he’s going to fight the power: (more…)

What happen? I’m back from Brooklyn. I spent ten days back in the States, split about half and half between home and NYC, and now I am back. After almost two weeks of being offline, I almost feel as if I could never go back to work again in my life and not be a lesser person for it.

As usual, I didn’t get to do all of the things I would have liked to over Christmas, but I did get to spend some extra time with ReWrite in Brooklyn. This ain’t the best video ever shot, but it’s the only footage I got. It starts with the Potomac River near Great Falls on the Maryland side, then goes to photos from the Staton Island ferry, and then finally the view from ReWrite’s window in Brooklyn near Prospect Park (on the other side). The music is “One Step” by Aretha Franklin.

Sometimes it feels as if time stands still or passes by slowly without us knowing it. Then other times, we put time into perspective. That is what is nice (or cruel) about capturing time in images. Between the left and the right, there are twenty-three years.

The first shot was actually taken by my orthodontist. He wanted to do his own before and after shots to measure the improvement. I didn’t keep the pimple/puberty-stricken close-up from only two years later. Regardless, and I am not sure whether my dentist is to blame, I faired better as a younger person. Nevertheless, from an artistic stand point at least (thanks my “lady friend”), I’ll go with the latter image. And don’t let the shading fool you, I still have a full head of hair.

My friend, the infamous Manuocho, has just come out with this video entitled “The Vatican Croquet”. I really don’t know what the video is all about, but I like it. Manuocho and I are thinking about joining forces in a unified effort to bring to life another compelling story: “The Portero”. I won’t give any of the details away at this point, but it might be big. It might be revolutionayr. It might never happen.

I think Hysidro and I are going to still need some practice to get the salutation just right.

Today is my eighth consecutive Thanksgiving that I spend without my parents. As a matter of fact, until 2000, I had never missed a single Thanksgiving (during my lifetime) with my parents, whereas my parents’ other two children have missed the event on numerous occassions. In the past few years, I have had the occassional Thanksgiving with friends, but we’ve never actually celebrated it on Thanksgiving Thursday — it’s always been on the weekend. Plus it’s just not the same having turkey away from home.

Today for lunch, I subsconsciously celebrated Turkey Day by ordering a Turkey sandwich. Turkey or not, I am actually much more excited about mañana than I am a sad for missing Thanksgiving. That’s right, tomorrow I get to begin my nausciously and painfully annoying assault on humanity’s collective ear drum with loads and loads of Christmas music and Christmas Specials!

ReWrite is about to move to Brooklyn across from Prospect Park, near the corner of Flatbush. It’s too late to stop the genetrification now!