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Hi, although I created my account a while back, I have only really joined this forum a few weeks ago. It has captivated me. In the last 2 weeks I am improving my playing because of it. And I am grateful and curious to who is behind or key players in it. Some I can deduce are musicians, others I am not certain. Is the admin doing this out of his good heart? Who is Michelob who seems to be putting a lot of time and effort into different initiatives? Who else is there? Thank you and high five to you all!
The best way to figure it all out is the way the rest of us did: just take your time and keep reading. I can assure you it'll be a fun learning experience.
Simon Shearston, Escribano, is foroflamenco. He is the reason it exists, the cause and the keeper. the admin/mods do the work pro bono, ron and henry. they keep the delicate balance.
GJ is the man. he makes competitions happen, brings order to chaos and offers a genuine and honest perspective that is refreshing and diplomatic.
ToddK, Grisha, Ricardo, Jason, Florian and others are our illustrious pros who offer a wealth of good knowledge and info.
Norman Kliman is flamenco, or the sum repository of all the information about it. Norman: encyclopedia flamenca.
Romerito is our scholar.
Stephen Faulk, John Shelton, Stephen Eden, Peter Tsiorba, Tom Blackshear, Andy Culpepper (deteresa), Anders and a few others are our luthiers (nothing personal if I missed you but its late and im tired!)
Richard Bruné is our resident lurking luthier. He reads up on us from time to time but doesn't post for some reason. He is quite famous, quite knowledgeable and quite generous! and a wicked guitar player.
Doitsujin is the peanut gallery
Everyone else is very cool, drop them a line some time
I'm also going to pm you the name of someone you should never ever talk about
The foundation members met at flamenco-teacher.com when it was run by Dimitri. I can't remember what happened that motivated Simon to create this forum, but it looks like the FT forum is dying a slow death. I was actually asked to be an admin for ForoF when it was first created, but that was about the same time that I realized that I needed to take a long vacation from the guitar.
I'm an amateur who was/is just as obsessed as anyone here. I'm involved in several musical (non-flamenco) projects in Portland but I make just enough money at it to buy a new instrument now and then. However, I might be teaming up with a gypsy jazz player for some type of flamenco (maybe just rumba at first) fusion. I figure that opens up the wedding opportunities and some other decent paying gigs.
You could easily produce a comedy soap opera with the stuff which is going on here. Very entertaining over the years! It reminds me a little bit on prince Artus sword. From time to time guys come along who think they are mighty enough to pull it out of the rock... but in general they fail and vanish.
The reason I noticed and liked Simon over on the FT was that he was a fellow Brit on a virtually all-American forum and was just as anti-establishment and anarchistic as me..
because it also sounds like rheumatology, which is indeed a medical specialty (were you aiming at that pun, Ron?).
Hi Ramzi,
I used to see the sign everytime I went up to the Hospital and it did put me in mind of that!
(Even patients have some intelligence.. )
For instance, when I was being diagnosed for blurred vision due to high blood pressure, I kept hearing the Specialists mentioning swelling around the optical disc inside the eye.
When I was admitted to a ward for treatment an African student Doctor came up to examine me (for training purposes) and get a history to date. He was a pretty arrogant kind of fellow and when I mentioned that as far as I understood, that the high blood pressure had caused deformation of the optical disc in my eye...he looked surprised and laughed at me like I was a "common non medical school idiot" and said,"Disc?.. Disc?...What Disc?... HaHaHa.. What on earth do YOU know about the optical disc?... Who told you that?"
I hope you never become like that Ramzi...we patients are not so daft as you think..
Ron, I can't believe that guy could have said that! You should have reported him directly! I've seen some crap by medical people toward patients, but I don't recall something this crazy. For my sake, I hope I NEVER become like that.
Hi, I only joined last year and I must say that my playing and knowledge has improved quite a bit in Flamenco because of all the valuable information and great players that you have here.
Ron, I can't believe that guy could have said that! You should have reported him directly! I've seen some crap by medical people toward patients, but I don't recall something this crazy. For my sake, I hope I NEVER become like that.
Ramzi,
I could NEVER imagine you ever being like that!
Thing is, part of the social contract of having a free National Health Service is to allow yourself to act as a subject for student doctors to practice their examination/diagnostic skills...which is fair enough, since you are doing nothing anyway and Aberdeen is a teaching hospital. You have the right to refuse if you want to. But it can be a bit tiresome to get poked and prodded by 4 or 5 students in a row all asking the same questions... They are not allowed to actually carry out any procedures unless supervised by the Medical Consultant.
Very few are like the guy I mentioned, but you can always tell them... They are the ones who walk about wearing their stethoscope around their neck, instead of in their pocket...and are running behind the Consultant like little puppy dogs.
They do put in very long hours though. It's relentless. I saw some around at 11pm and again at 8am the next morning..7 days in a row.
The African guy did get his comeuppance though!
After all the students had carried out their examination, the Consultant appeared and asked them their findings and next steps to take. Everyone did OK...except the African guy who was told his findings and diagnosis were completely wrong! He had also said that I had a Heart Murmur. The Consultant looked surprised and listened himself for a few minutes before turning to him and telling him he was talking utter nonsense.
I don't run Flamenco Holidays - just help out a friend. Anthony, you should know that! Cherry's not fixed anything yet for next year. We're wondering about a change of venue.
Val, you don't give yourself enough credit for the hard work you do! Yes, I checked the website and saw something about Cordoba. That'd be interesting!
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I think you all might enjoy this video
they were great dancers. there was also another girl, blonde i think, in their troupe. what was her name? she did a really dramatic piece with juan antonio in the beginning.