Bahia, que nao sai do pensamento...
This is an all-purpose, rough, unedited, personal, completely subjective, often dull travel journal that I'm updating in spurts as I make my way through Brazil from Porto Alegre to Salvador and points north. There are spelling/grammar/formatting errors that I just don't care about, so neither should you. If chunks of it do not interest you, ummmm, oh well. If none of it interests you, hit up a Barbara Kingsolver novel. She's way cooler than me. The newest entries are at the top, so to read chronologically, scroll down and start at the bottom. The story is punctuated with photos, but to see the whole library, click below. I think the movies here work for some people and not for others, but as I improve my multi-media capabilities I'll try to get that fixed. I also have some sound to post, but that hasn't happened yet. Soon come.
Feel free to send me a hello or travel advice at info@beleza-music.org. And now, on with the show!
Pictures
Movies
Sound montage from World Social Forum
Thurs, March 17, 2005
Vôo is my favorite word. Voe-oo. It means flight. Vôo. It lolls out of the mouth in one languid, velvety syllable. Voe-oooo. It's the most elegant word ever said.
Things I'll miss:
Sun, March 13, 2005
Unsuprisingly, the jigsaw that looked like it was almost put together turned out to be only a little chunk in the corner, and even that got knocked off the table and all over the floor by some errant elbow. Big suprise that in the middle of the last days of one world and staring down the barrel of a radically changed old world, your head would race like a swarm of paranoid electrons. Less predictable was the fact that I unexpectedly ended up in Nelson's old neighborhood yesterday. The Periperi bus to Plataforma. Five years ago this bairro on the river was all wooden houses built on stilts, one of the poorest in Salvador. Now some of the swamp has been filled in, much of the wood has been replaced by clay block, and 2 waterfalls are polluted. There is still a quite respectable amount of mangrove and swamp though. On one side of the road is a quite rural little collection of houses overlooking swamp while cows and horses stroll by, concluding in a culle-de-sac of 2 little waterfalls, just about the only 2 you'll find within Salvador city limits. Sitting by the foot of one waterfall was what looked like a picnic to me, a few people sitting, chatting, drinking beer and smoking a cigarette. But Nelson saw Candomble. When consulting a caboclo, there is always beer and a burnt offering, and the guy in the white shirt was a well-know local pae do santo. We almost went over to ask what our orixas were but for some reason didn't. Nelson's uncle is a pae and told him his orixa is Yansa.
But we'll back up a minute. The last few days have smouldered with color and intensity and given off a bit of a sickly sweet smoke. Nelson is almost surely a player, but his game is sophisticated and nearly perfect. What lends elegance to his schpiel is the fact that he actually is the real deal. He really does tag and paint and do tee shirts and work for a living, although he clearly makes up some deficit in subsistence income with the kindness of smitten strangers. But good on 'im--he's just making pragmatic use of natural resources. His friends all over the city are actually and really cool. He seems to trust me, or at least has accurately calculated that I have no desire to jack his stuff, and seems to want to hang out, leaving all of his belongings out, leaving cds at my place to pick up later. We ran into this German rasta artist girl yesterday, clearly a close friend of his, maybe a past/future lover. She was pretty amazing. She smoulders too, with a pendulum-slow herb-hazed calm punched through with stabs of vivid paintings of Rasta-ized depctions of scenes from Revelations, portraits of Selassie I, parables of Jamaican and Ethiopean mysticism. You don't get friends like that only running around town collecting pitter-pattering tourist hearts.
So Friday night we hung out on the rocks with Anouk, Sydney, and Fransisco who is a thinker and reads a lot, and I call him Socrates. Met for dinner at "Cesar's", although Cesar isn't working there anymore. We met 2 Americans, one a nearly-albino player type, the other a delicious appreciator of genderqueer who came accross as so with-it that when he didn't know the term transman, I was shocked enough to spill caipiroska all over the table. Maybe it had more to do with the previous caipiroska. Dunno. But that was especially cool because they are beach buddies of Nelson's too, so we all had a fun multi-ligual evening that was a welcome punch of realness among a slightly suffocating crowd of foreigners and ex-pats, who, despite being apparently quite lovely and interesting people, seem to live in a condom. They have Brazilian wives and girlfriends and eat at the local restaurants, but favorite pasttimes include trading stories of near-muggings and strategies for shooing away vendors and street kids, and estimating what the $Real is worth in Euros this week.
It occurs to me this entry is probably not making any sense at all. If it's any consolation, it makes no sense to me either.
So after dinner, Nuk and Fab (who had just barely snatched some productivity from the clutches of a nearly fruitless day at the newspaper archives) stuck around at the restaurant and Nelson and I headed to Pelo for my last Brazilian Friday. Nelson sees right into me, although he gives me back evidence only 50-75% of the time. We hung out at a samba joint for a little while which he saw was clearly electrifying to me. He encouraged me to get in the middle, dance, and absorb it, but I couldn't quite conquer enough shyness to stop being a fly on the wall. We wandered around a little, looked at a reggae joint that was kinda dead, and went back to the samba place. I can't overstate the infectiousness of samba. It's so fast, and the way the bands play song after song medley-style could teach most DJs a thing or 2 about continuity and holding a floor. The dance is mesmerizing. I can kind of do it in spurts of a few seconds at a time, but to watch these bodies defying the laws of physics, seeming to swing in both directions at the same time and oscillating faster than a blender for hours on end ranks with Iguazu Falls as one of the wonders of the world. The lights are generally on pretty bright and no one cares. Self-consciousness is replaced with a lightning-fast groove so obvious you stop thinking. The dance is so overtly sensual in itself, that there is no MTV trying-too-hard and the sensuality is made more irresistible by the fact that there is serious skill and precision in every improvised step.
Hmm, I just discovered that after Nelson made caipirinhas last night, he refilled the ice tray. Two points.
So we went back to the samba place. I would have headed for home but I think he knew I needed to soak in some more and he nudged me in the door. We danced and sang and grinned and steeped in the soaking wet electricity of samba on a Friday night in Bahia, que nao sai do pensamento.
The next day was set to be pretty thrilling. He was planning to finally buy the first piece of equipment to do permanent tatoos, which he is counting on to be a sucessful source of stability for his daughters and him. I hope and think he's right. It's a really big deal. We went to a couple of places to look at machines, and he ended up not buying the ones he saw. He wanted to go to his old neighborhood to talk with a guy there who has a machine, and I'm not sure if he wanted to buy something from him, or just get a feel for prices. He didn't buy the equipment, but we spent a lot of the afternoon on his old turf where he lived from the time he was 7 until 14. He showed me where his old house had been. It's no longer wood and stilts, most or all of those houses were razed and rebuilt in block, but tons of people there still know him and yell hellos from their doorways as he walks through the remarkably clean streets. We hung out at the acaraje shop that his cousin runs where I made friends with a couple of the little girls there, and he did a henna tattoo for his cousin. We just kind of hung out, chatted with the neighbors, talked to the guy with the tattoo gun who also makes sandals out of old tires, and then headed home. We thought about going to Liberdade to see if Ile Aye was having an ensaio, but we were both a little bushed and feeling grimy.
The thing that was so intense about the day, and what smothered me in blankets of muteness was that I finally got my chance to be the fly on the wall. I glowed like neon with my lighter-than-morena skin and yellow touristy shirt, but since I was Nelson's token tourist, I could sit on the sidewalk and chat with the girls or just look around at Pelo and Plataforma through his eyes. When I walk around with him, I see the city he lives in, I meet his friends, go to the stores and cafes he knows. I get to peak past the stubborn skin of tourism and disquieting unfamiliarty and see the sweet-sour flesh of the real city from posh Barra to earthy Plataforma.
This is the time in Sprockets where I crack the egg and indulge the bulging eyes who are undoubtedly creaming to know whether or not I went to "the favela" and if so, what was it like. So yes, voyeurs, Plataforma qualifies as a favela. How was it? Pretty darn chill. People sit on the corner and gossip the same way they sit on the porch or the stoop and gossip in West Philly or North Philly or South Philly or Queens or Little Havana or anywhere that people hang out and casually chat. Some people have sharp eyes that are sneaking quick snapshots of you, looking for signs of the untoward. Some people have kind eyes that want to make sure you are not hungry or thirsty or in need of a place to rest your feet. The kids are mostly curious and happy to trade smiles and affection with anyone who's willing, which is how I ended up with little girls in my lap and curly heads diving at my chest for hugs. There are houses, some of which looked pretty darn nice actually, and little shops that seemed to be healthy. Sanitation is something I couldn't get any handle on. There are no trashcans and people insist on putting their trash in the streets. That is, they litter. They had to cajole a little to get me to do it too, but there really wasn't any option besides the street or putting my acaraje wrapper in my pocket, which I felt silly doing. So I gingerly placed the little wadded up ball of paper on the street, as though that would make it better. But the streets are clean. Like, clean. There only seemed to be a couple hours of accumulated community waste. I have learned to dispose of waste in a way that makes it easy for people to pick out the valuable plastic and cans for recycling. This human ecosystem of secondary recycling where you can't find a recycling bin, but people ask you to finish your beer so they can take your can is kind of fascinating, if not a bit odd and perverse. But anyway, there was no raw sewage trickling through the play areas of children with distended bellies, and truth be told, I didn't see any obviously distended bellies. There is a video game shop run by an older woman who makes the cutest purses that look like dolls, really adorable, and Nelson did the anime graf on the walls of the shop. There were no gun-toting gangsters or rabid bands of storm-trooper cops, although I dished out a couple evil eyes to staring playboys and the po-po did a waltz-slow drive through the neighborhood after dark. Nelson also said that the favela up on the hill above the rural side was where the arms dealers operate. He has some family there, mostly half-brothers, and could probably go there more or less safely, but in general prefers to avoid it. All in all, people in his old neighborhood seem to be existing just on the positive side of survival, on that line where a minor crisis becomes major in a snap of an un-insured finger, but everyday existence seems to work itself out. This bairro had clearly seen worse days, and indeed the classic model of favela development is that a cluster of makeshift housing sprouts up clinging to the side of a mountain or the edge of a city limit (periferia) and over time the cardboard walls turn to wood, then to brick and block. So there you have it, I toured an "authentic" favela with an "authentic" resident, and didn't even have to pay a dubious $R45 to some guy in Rio who claims to be working within the community.
But now that the slightly sadistic favela-story thirst has been slaked, it's really critical to point out that I wasn't walking around having a "cultural experience." It didn't feel like that at all. I went to a friend's old stomping grounds which just happened to be caked with sociological significance. But what stood out in the silhouette of the day was seeing Nelson's side of the city--his people, his bus routes, his spots, the way he walked, and even how he interacted with me in that context. It's personal, intimate, full of meaning, and nowhere to be found in Lonely Planet or the Rough Guide. I feel like I should get some reality TV game show prize for finding the most elusive token on an absurd scavenger hunt, then sell it on EBay.
That's it for now. It's time to stop walking around in my underwear like Lost In Translation, listening to ghosty Sonic Youth songs, and get my tan butt back out into Salvador to wring out some last-minute sight-seeing and record shopping.
I think I dreamt of meaning last night. Between Nuk and Fab, Nelson, beaches, finally buying a berimbau (at an ancient slave market no less) Tom Robbins, almost a good sleep, Adam throwing me software like softballs at a dunking machine, explaining to an Aussie how the US health care "system" is yet another impediment to long-term travelling, and PMSing, something seems like it bent far enough to stop panicking that I'm doing too much or not enough or just the wrong things. I didn't dream of any particular nugget of wisdom, just of the cooling sensation of having it.
I have been thinking about "accomplishment" and "status", or rather, how I don't give a crap about either. The crush of have-to-do's seems to be erroding from right off my chest leaving only a lacy, rock-solid skeleton of want-to-dos. Passion generally produces much better results than coercion, so I'm optimistic.
I suspect that traveler's disorientation/discovery probably happens in painful stages like everything else worth doing, from meditation to capoeira. I am ready to go home because, besides last night, I can't catch a good night's sleep. I crave my cats, couch, kitchen, garden, Robot. I want to stop racing and start putting this experience together in a place where I have every possible tool to do so, from computers to 401k statements to a hammock among vibrant greenery. (Well, it should be getting vibrant in the next month anyway.) But as I hit this plateau, curiosity teases me with the idea that just over this hump, where, after 1.5 months you start to unwind enough to sleep--either that or you've finally hit the right combination of exhaustion and after-dinner cocktails--there might be an exponentially deeper level of good stuff that happens to you and in you. The time I've allotted here is enough to just begin to recognize patterns (Tuesday night is drums in Pelourinho, after a few days, the beach gets a little dull) but not enough to test their consistency. So your conclusions are still questionable buckshot, although, that's possibly/probably true of 95% of conclusions that have ever been reached. But I will have to wait until another time, and maybe another destination to find that out. I have not managed to misplace my eticket and like a schoolkid at the end of summer vacation, I'm ready to go back.
I'm ready not so much because I want to sleep or garden or know where the hell I'm going when I walk around, but because I am really itchy to figure out what all this has meant. I want to put it all together and see what's different, and see what then results. I'm curious about what's changed, and I want to get started. I guess my first few weeks back home will kind of still feel like traveling as I note all the things that I understand differently now and if/how it's relevant.
Fri, March 4, 2005
Things are much better now. More later...
quick notes on things to expound on later: The value of the dollar (lack thereof). I'm starting to understand why brazilians are completely uninterested in my interest in brazilian music and I think I understand why it's silly to try to promote to them, although I can't quite explain it right. The Netherlands sounds like a really cool place. My values for discovery have shifted and I am more interested in going out fewer times but with people I like and having a really good time, than i am in toughing it out alone and facing the huge probability that I will spend most of my time being scared witless. The best way to disappear is to make a spectacle of yourself, or at least place yourself in the middle of the action and take part. you may be watched, but you're not being scrutinized for vulnerability nearly as much. When i hear something nice and synthesized and electronic, I get nostalgic and buttery, proof that satisfaction does not exist. Buddhists are really cool, but quite possibly wrong about everything. Peole here will walk past you and touch you, just to mess with you. Like pinch the back of your arm or swipe your elbow or something. People were randomly playing with Fabienne's hair. a kid and then one of the ppl we were hanging out with just came up behind her and started playing with her hair. 2 kids in the ocean kept swimming directly at us and acted confused and mad when i put out my hand to stop his head from bumping right into my chest. One of them insisted on getting on Anouk's shoulders to play chicken, and immediately grabbed for her boobs. These kids were probably 11.
Paraphrase of a conversation between Ed and me, wherein I describe Pelourinho on Tuesdays with the Afoxes parading through the streets:
Ed: hey you're livin the life
. .: yeah, kinda
. .: like, it's just so diffeent here
. .: like it's exactly the same in a LOT of ways
Ed: it must be so much more laid back
Ed: that seems to be the brazillian style i envision
. .: but like now i understand why i am ignored by most lovers of brazilian music, brazilians, that is
. .: well kinda, and no, at the same time
. .: like
. .: oh my god
. .: this is def going in the journal, but the toher ngiht
. .: the center, Pelourinho as it's called,
. .: every tue has like drum night
. .: like first friday kind of thing
. .: but all the local blocos africanos come out
. .: big drum corps with groups of =dancers
. .: parading downt he street
. .: it's INTENSE
. .: but it's like tense, intense
. .: not good intense or bad intense
. .: just TENSE
. .: everyone is completely wound up
. .: and like
. .: in one corner a couple is making out like crazy
. .: ahead of you, a guy is throwing his drum in the air
. .: to your left, someone is being robbed by an 8 yr old with no shoes
. .: while a cat with a broken leg is walking by
Ed: sounds like a party!
. .: and over on the sidewalk, the cops are beating the crap out of someone
. .: and you can't tell if he's innocent or a serial rapist
. .: it's ....
. .: oh my god
. .: wow
. .: so yeah
. .: it's not good, it's not bad
. .: it just is, and as it is, it is is'ing VERY LOUDLY
. .: you know?
. .: it's totally africa
. .: like how we've talked about the Yoruba gods not being good or bad, just forces
. .: but then my little surfer friends make their living walking up and down the beach from the time they get up to the time it's time to smoke and watch the sun set over the Bay of All Saints
. .: so to say it's laid back is kind of not true
. .: except when it is
. .: ugh
. .: this place is insane
Tue, March 1, 2005
Oh, thank god. I have been rescued from the terrifying nightlife (and daylife) of Salvador, Bahia, by a delightful pair of Dutch lesbians. That is neither surprising nor unusual, but what is remarkable is that not only is it about 20 times safer to hang out not-alone, but it turns out that Fabienne and Anouk are AWESOME. They started at the World Social Forum too, so their politics are what you would expect. We spent our introductory night USA-bashing, which is like the guaranteed traveller's ice-breaker. They are pretty appalled to hear a first-hand account of how life actually is in the States right now. They also report that at the moment in the Netherlands there is a bit of a conservative backlash going on, especially among the youth. That's discouraging. But trends come and go and every so often the kids think it's cool to be reactionary. They'll grow out of it.
So yeah, I'm no shrinking violet, I wandered around Rio and Sao Paulo on my own, and while I was cautious and occasionally concerned, I was never scared the way I am here. I think it's a combination of tourism, poverty, and african culture that results in an environment where you are constantly being watched. Everyone sees everything and it's impossible to disappear. That's a huge problem because my preferred method of discovery is to just flit from place to place and observe, but here you can't do that. You are an active piece of the social ecosystem whether you like it or not, and the only thing you can do is put on your best hard, fearless, mae-de-santo face and look at people before they look at you. I tried to sit down on a step yesterday to eat some acaraje and within 10 seconds 2 kids came up begging for whatever I had to give them. But you can see that they are scheming every second, and you quickly learn to leave your compassion at home where you can theorize about the politics of poverty in relative safety. While you're out on the street, it is war.
But I shouldn't give Salvador such a bad rap. I suspected that it would be the kind of place that has an armadillo shell, but is ridiculously magic inside. I haven't proven out that theory yet, but there is mounting evidence. For sure, just going out with other people makes Pelourinho a completely different place. Yesterday we started in the afternoon, with designs on meeting up with some Olodum-affiliated people, as Fabienne is doing research on them and their relationship with black pride and black power efforts. Her research sort of didn't really happen, but we did go to the Afro-Brazilian museum which was quite cool, drank beer, met up with a capoeirista and met his mestre (we are going back for a class today), drank some more beer and wandered around looking for music, found a nice little samba group, then ended up going to another cafe where 2 of the guys from the band got out their guitar and serenaded us until 1:30. W might go to see them on Wednesday. I would NEVER walked around Pelourinho with 2 guys I just met alone, but together, we had enough mass to take them down if they tried anything, and we also acted as a collective check and balance system, double checking our group decisions for safety and wisdom. So all in all, we had a lovely and happily uneventful evening, full of walking deep into little labyrinthine cafes and shops, discovering the tiny worlds behind the colonial facades. It was cool.
Sunday I mostly did laundry, Saturday I wandered around the downtown area looking for a laundromat that didn't exist and then I went to this amazing little club called Zanzibar. It has an upstairs open air lounge and a tree growing through the middle of it! Ha! Friday I got a little apartment here in Salvador because I just could not handle hotel/hostel life anymore. Salvador is a decent point from which to explore the Northeast because it's a city that needs time to be discovered, and it's also where I fly out of in March. Having a kitchen is GOLD to a vegetarian in Latin America, and it's so refreshing to be able to just stretch out in my own space. I'd been thinking about renting a place next time I come here, but I figured, why put it off? I'm glad I did it. I also cut my hotel and food bills in half by doing it. Then Thursday was the night I got into town... The bus from Belo Horizonte took exactly 24 hours. Oof.
Belo was fantastic. I didn't have to think the entire time. Raul (Retrigger) and his friends were amazing. It was so much fun and a well-needed respite in the travelling schedule. Raul played me a samba-breakcore track he made! It was so cool! Also met Sezy and Jneiro's Red Bull buddy Alexei, who opened for Wax Poetics. I was thoroughly unimpressed with Wax Poetics, but Alexei is a great keys player and has some really nice tracks.
Sun, Feb 13, 2005
All checked out of the Municipal Hotel and running errands then to Santos. I can't believe how managable my bags still are, even with a full dj and production studio, computer, a stack of vinyl at least 4-5 inches deep, a small mound of gifts and souveneirs, oh, and 1.5 liters of water. Let this serve as my official endoresement of the Columbia Windpass I think it was, the smaller wheeled 2-piece backpack. We'll see how it continues to hold up, but so far it's been a trooper.
I think I'm starting to understand why people are so amazed, and occasionally appalled that I go out alone. Unaccompanied women, or even ambiguously accompanied women, are set upon like fruit flies to a peach pit. It's like the reproductive process in macrocosm. It's really nuts. It's kind of liberating in a way, but usually much more irritating. You literally can't walk 10 feet in a bar or club without being approached. And eye contact, forget it! And if your refusal is cutesy or shy, it's taken as an invitation to persuasion. I usually give the sweet "no" twice, then switch to Dragon Lady, which seems to do the trick. I haven't yet experimented with going out looking intentionally frumpy--any frumposity has been purely co-incidental.
Zen set in for a second last night. Saw these great little bands upstairs in a packed joint in Vila Mada, where Pra�a Benedito Calixto really blossoms of a Saturday evening. I have been feeling so freaked and weirded out and trying to take everything in and not look like a lost puppy far from home, but for a second I was looking out the windown and I became South America. I stopped trying to understand, interpret, and absorb it. I just stood there and became a part of it. That moment planted a seed, and on my way home I decided that next time I come to Brazil, and there will be a next time, I'm going to shack up in a little apartment with internet access and a place for my stuff, to borrow from George Carlin, and stay put for a little while to get the sensation (and liguistic fortification) of living here. I'm too old to have not yet lived in Latin America for a spell.
Also, I don't wish to work anymore. That sucked. I much prefer life as a bon vivant.
Hmm, my trip to Santos to pick up documents from Marcos's parents house didn't work out so good, but the bus back to Sao Paulo is breathtaking. Stars up above the mountains, the tiny lights inside the darkended bus imitating them, Medulla in headphones, and a crescent moon. Once I said to Ken, "I like going." He said, "I like coming back."
Off to Rio!!!!
I've had to fess up to a few disturbing facts about myself. I seem to be incapable of:
without the aid of a plane ticket. The last time I made it to the Jersey shore was two relationships ago, we're talking late 90s, and in the elapsed time I've dug my toes into the sands of Miami, the Yucatan Penninsula in Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Atlantic *and* Pacific coasts of Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Southern Brazil. And every summer I SWEAR I'm going to go to the beach and go camping with D or my sisters, and every winter I SWEAR this year I'm going to become a competant snowboarder. And every summer I end up promoting or djing every weekend, and every winter I would rather spend my money on records and gear than an adequate snow jacket.
HOWEVER! In my defense, I would like to point out that while I did Winter Lite(tm) this year, getting out of Dodge with 15 inches of snow on my windshield and planning my return in time to brush off the hammock and put in seedlings, I did go sledding in Clark Park, Robot and Bug as my witnesses, and got a buttcrack full of snow, giggling, hurling myself at the ground because it was soft, winning (???) races down The Bowl on a very apropos 35mph speed lmit sign, and carefully plotting with Kris our junk food trajectory at the Sunoco, so as to survive the night's storm on Combos and chocolate chips. It's a sparse existence, but somehow we managed. Good times, good times.
But not to stray too far from introspection and self-deprecation...I really have to fix this beach issue. Sure, Jersey is no Mayan Riviera, but dude, it's an hour away. That's like... 1/4 tank of gas. I absolutely MUST stop exoticizing joy! Erm, maybe I mean enjoyment. Yes, I think that's what I mean. There can be no more promotional seasons SOOOO critical that I don't see the ocean the entire time. If I couldn't spare the vacation time becase I was saving it for a line-less tan at Haulover, why didn't I call in sick and play hooky? I sure went into work half-sick enough days, checked my email and installed packages from an internet cafe or friend's house on vacation, sat on hold for Veritas support with the portable phone between puking sessions the time I gave myself food poisoning in a failed attempt to add more omega-3 to my diet. Why didn't I play hooky? One of the hundreds, thousands of days when I was SICK AND TIRED, why did I not say, dude, "I feel ill" (the honest truth) and tottle off to the beach? Maybe because I'm kinda stupid.
I just finished "Nickel and Dimed" and I think my lack of hooky-playing had little to do with work ethic, or shouldn't have. I think maybe it came from knowing that when my time was unfairly, unjustly, and probably illegally taxed, I could extract more compensation on the sly by simply working on my own stuff all day than I could by doing something conspicuous like calling in sick. And I did extract my pound of flesh, not least of which have manifested in a healthy 401k, zero debt, a chunk of savings, and a dwelling whose mortgage pays for itself. Like I always say, just because you have privilege doesn't mean you shouldn't use it. Incidentally, the ethicality of that statement was verified by a sociologist friend of mine before I bought the house, diving into the role of "gentrifier", i.e., the first white woman on the block, and was having all kinda of bougie guilt. But dude, the housing stock I provide (one whole apartment!) is affordable and I don't bother my neighbors. So I think I'm pretty safely non-evil.
Erm, I've digressed, imagine that. So yeah, the issue at hand is Work. The way I worked before sucked and I hope not to do that again. Being the working poor also sucked, and I have no intention of doing that again. So I'll hustle. I can totally do that. And conserve. I've lived (pretty well) on $17,000/year. I can do just fine. Joy and meaning are top priorities. I will treat work like more of a game, and if we go back to recession, it will be war. But I hope not to go back to the "working" class. Every employee these days, lamentably (or not) is a free agent and I will be more explicit about that. I will build the skills I lack in a playful and cocky way that suggests (truthfully) that I can learn and successfully execute just about anything. And when I work I will work hard and efficiently and charge my time appropriately such that when it's time to play I will have the resources (time) to go play. And I will carve space for meaning and joy. And that's the truth. Pfffft.
Sat, Feb 12, 2005
Welp, the bloom is off the rose. I'm tired and this is hard. I completely missed meeting up with Ed because I was on the wrong side of Av. Paulista. Sao Paulo has made me generally uneasy and besides it being my first stop on my own, I think it has to do with starting in one of the most overwhelming cities in the world. 18 million people? Something like that? Dwarfs New York. So I'm here, in SAO PAULO knowing that every corner is PACKED with amazing stuff, and unsure how to access it. I think it's the anxiety of watching the minutes tick away and knowing I'm missing a lot that is so hard.
Well, that and the fact that my brain has gone on strike. Not only can I barely speak, but I'm completely drained of confidence and most of my common sense. I just bought a record and forgot to put it in my bag. Fortunately I stopped outside to take a picture of some graffiti and a guy came out and gave it to me. Why am I suddenly stupid? Gee, it couldn't have anything to do with totally overclocking my head with information overload. My cup runneth over, is the problem. This place is very hard to get a handle on.
Why do I do these things? Why do I get on planes with nothing but a few email addresses and a bag of music? Why do I insist on mixing afropop and broken beat? Why am I a vegetarian in Latin America? Why do I give a crap about anything, ever, when it's so much easier to just go to Starbucks, or watch TV?
But boo hoo, no matter how tired I get, the answer is always the same: Because you have to. No pain no gain. You have to drop yourself like a penny into the crazy machinery and see what happens. If you stay in your comfort zone you never go anywhere. You have to actively push your boundaries or they close in around you and one day you wake up scared, isolationist, and republican.
I know I'm on the right path even though it feels tough, but I'm looking forward to Rio. It's cozier, clocking in at a mere 10 million people, and I can't wait to get to the beach and lazily soak in the beauty.
Sao Paulo will be here for a long time, and I will come back. And every time I do, I will be better able to navigate the concrete poetry of it's street corners. For now, I'm going to hightail it to Vila Madalena to the flea market there and the cafe where I know I can get some reliable ravioli.
Wow, Sao Bento metro station really comes alive on Saturday night. But I need to turn in and get some sleep.
Fri, Feb 11, 2005
Ow. My body hurts. My hearing in one ear is all goofy. I'm starting the day at 5pm. That last caipirinha was really deceptive. I had no idea how tipsy I was until I got home and scooted into the dining area to snatch up something like breakfast. It was kinda worth it, but I absolutely can't afford to waste any more days stupid and cloudy like this.
But let's not let a hangover dampen the review of last night's activities. My new friend Paul and I went to the Lov.E club where Dudao met up with us, guestlist and all...I love being guestlisted in strange places. =) That would be a good acid jazz list topic...how many cities have you been on the guestlist? So anyway, lov.E is a really adorable club and the sound is outstanding. But the music...WOW. Marky blew me away! He wasn't playing that kind of saccharin cutesy typical brazil-n-bass with the Jorge Ben samples over a beat. Everything he played was fresh from London, hard, and tight. Oh man. Like, I wasn't mashing up the middle of the dancefloor thinking, gee, this is good for drum and bass, I was just not-thinking along the lines of YYYYEEEOOOOWWWWWWEEEEEE!!!!! He's REALLY GOOD!!!! At some point, maybe about 3 or 4am, I turned to Dudao and just said, "Catharsis." Everyone was having a dandy time and the crowd was substantial until 5 or 6 am. I think I got back home at like 6:30. Yeah, it was like 6:45 because breakfast had just started. I though noodle soup in Chinatown was a good after-party food, but it is nothing compared to getting breakfast because it's actually time fore breakfast. Insane!
You're gonna be mad. One of the stupidities I executed wasforgetting to charge my camera. I was riding the metro and decided to get off at a random station. I picked Armenia because it looked interesting out the window. I walked in a random direction and stubled upon an all-aged punk rock show in a warehousey space called Hangar 110 whose block was covered in really amazing graffiti. Note to friends in the States: do we have punk rock graffiti that's more sophisticated than drippy anarchy symbols? I can't think of any, but this stuff was amazing. I went back later and got pictures, and also took pictures of punk rock flyers that I picked up at the space. Flyers look remarkably similar to the ones we're used to, aesthetically, but they have an interesting twist. They print them on like pads of paper that have a strip of glue at the top. So you tear off a flyer at a time, like a notepad. That seems to make a real lot of sense to me (no mussing with rubber bands, less mess, fewer lost, etc) and I think I will look into such a printing possibility next time I have to do non-glossy flyers.
Guess what? It was just like home. Kids all over the world mosh in the same direction, although there seemed to be a lot of elbows in this pit. There was the classic bank of shoegazers and knowing head-nodders, and the peanut gallery of slightly disinteresteds over in the bleachers to one side of the room. There were visuals too, and I wouldn't be suprised if there was a skate ramp in another area. So there you have it, Brazilian all-ages shows are just like home.
Went back to Sarajevo, Bruno was chipper, but Dudao was as pooped and wrecked as I was. But regardless, a good time was had by all.
Thurs, Feb 10, 2005
Met an American from DC at breakfast, Paul, and we are going to go to Fernanda Porta's record release together tonight at Lov.e Club with DJ Marky. He said Carnaval in Rio was FANTASTIC. Oh well. =) Another year!! He also reports that Israel and Palestine have kissed and made up?!?!?!?! That they are working on borders and Israel has pulled out of 5 towns??? WHOAH!!! I never thought I'd say this, but Bush and Condi could learn something from Sharon because I also hear that we are making veiled threats against Iran. Awesome. I mean, what were we going to spend our taxes and human lives on next? Finishing up in Iraq? Poppycock. Education? What's that? Nice goin, Condi. I always knew you could undo any watered down peace-mongering that Brotha Colin managed to do. You need to hang out with your cousin Connie Rice more often because SHE knows what's up. But man, this Israel Palestine stuff, if it sticks, is incredible!!!!!
Marky @ Lov.e Club
Wed, Feb 9, 2005
I'm finally starting to settle in here for real. Like, I can finally say, ok, I live here for a while, and this is the language I speak now. It's a little scary, but also kind of a relief. Coming around to that feeling means you no longer feel guilty for skipping a day of sightseeing to work on music or go to sleep early, which is what I did. But in my defense, I was exhausted, had plans to wander around the Jardins on Thursday, and will probably be out till 5 or 6 for the next 3 nights, then on to Rio.
Finally got the Ozone recording from a mic in, but when it goes to Peak, it is pitched down about a half note. Not sure why, and haven't tested line in yet. Need to mess with Traktor and the Ozone. I think I see a way to do lots of interesting stuff if I can get the connections right.
Tue, Feb 8, 2005
Don't be mad at me. I spent the entire day dorking around on the internet at a cafe on Rua Augusta. I needed it. and I uploaded tons of stuff! Also sucked down a bunch of record information and generally got a lot accomplished.
At night I went on a wild goose chase for samba clubs and struck out 3 times in a row. I finally just got out of the cab in Vila Madalena, and what do you know, across the intersection was a little neighborhood bar with a samba band. Perfect. I set myself up in there and the bartender looked at me funny when I only asked for one glass for my beer, and after about an half an hour, this girl came up and asked me if I was alone. When I said I was, she insisted that she and her friends would hang out with me. Turns out she was a Riot Grrl, her friend is a lesbian circus acrobat, and their friend is a clown and a physical therapist. The night didn't go nearly as wildly as I suppose it could have though...pretty tame, actually, but the music was really good. The cab ride home was pretty harrowing and when I got back around 4, the desk guy seemed a little concerned that I was getting in so late. Gonna try not to do that again. It seems a little better to just stay out until the sun is up.
Mon, Feb 7, 2005
Today ran some errands, did some laundry, and sat and chatted with the guys at the desk of the hotel for about an hour. Dave wanted a recording of just people speaking Brazilian Portuguese and it was a great excuse to chat with the guys and get the Brazilian perspective on lots of stuff. They were really nice and candid too, about everything from Samba to soccer to why Brazilians love music so much, to racial mixing, to politics. I'm constantly suprised how much this place is kind of how I figured it would be. For example, one of the things I saw walking around the World Social Forum, was there wherever there is a drum, there are people singing along. And everyone joins in...cops, old ladies, anyone within earshot is singing a samba. It's not just a cultural stereotype. But it's not a bunch of Carmen Mirandas running around with bananas on their heads doing the lambada. There's a certain sentimental reverence to it. It's not Brazilians Gone Wild, I guess is what i'm getting at. It's sincere. It's real. It's just people who love music and have perfected the art of communal music-making. Way cooler than any other sing-along I've ever seen in my life. They do it up proper.
The guys gave me their perspective on why Brazil is the way it is, particularly with music, why everyone knows how to play a drum, and everyone is ready to start up a song and pause their day to enjoy one at any moment. They say it's in the blood...this famous "Raca Brasileira", the Brazilian race ("Ta no sangue da raca brasileira, capoeira / e da nossa cor / o pandeiro / e da nossa cor / atabaque / e da nossa cor / berimbau / e da nossa cor...") which is a strange concept for Americans, because this "race" includes people from blond and blue-eyed German immigrants to the blackest African complexions, plus every possible mix you could think of, of European, African, Asian, and indigenous. My one desk friend is German and African for example. Oh, and it turns out he runs a 70-voice gospel choir! Ha! But they don't have any performances coming up b/c everyone is on retreat during Carnaval. Oh well. They were saying that there was this famous Brazilian singer, was it Clara Nunes? I forget...who went to Portugal for a concert. They tickets were really expensive and it was in this fancy hall and everything, but on the afternoon before the show she just went out into the city and started singing on the street. In Brazil, an audience would gather within a minute and start joining in, but in Portugal she got ignored. Until the concert, of course, at which time she got showered with love. Just goes to show the difference in mindset. I really like that here, music does not need context. There's a purity in that which is incredibly refreshing.
So that night, I was determined to celebrate Carnaval one way or another, and the guys gave me the guide to shows from the paper. I had a route plotted out and started at this DirectTV auditorium or something. There were huge lines everywhere and it was really hard to tell where to buy tickets. People were clamoring to get in and being patted down once they were inside the door. There were food and liquor vendors lining the street and it was like a big block party outside with lots of people already halfway to tipsy, and the doors had barely opened. And there were cops everywhere, just watching people drink in the street! I guess there's no Puritan "open container" law here, or if there is, it's suspended for a certain 5 days in February.
I stuck around for a bit trying to figure out the ticket situation, and taking in the ambience. But at some point I decided that this was just not for me. The crowd was getting obnoxious, and the ratio of men to women was way off. I finally determined that a sausage party is a sausage party in any culture, and I was not going to spend 15 reais to be be shoved around in line, patted down by security gorillas, and groped by a few hundred drunk men for the pleasure of some DirectTV-sponsored samba thing with a jungle theme that from the outside, looked like a high school prom gone horribly wrong. What's a girl to do in a sitch like that? I did what anyone would do....I hightailed it to the gay club!
Ahhhhhhh, what a relief. The cab ride up was a bit ruff...the neighborhood looked like North Philly and I started to think that the place didn't really exist and that I would be heading straight (ha!) home. But never fear...we pulled up to a big entrance and there were friendly, freaky-looking people getting out of cars and cabs from a bunch of directions. Home. =)
The space was this huge mega-club with 2 rooms and an outdoor patio complete with a pool and a trampoline (!). No one was swimming, but plenty of people were in line to get strapped in for a few minutes jumping and flipping around. One room was your typical trashy house-trance-whatever. I mean, I wouldn't call it house, but the flyer did. But it was your typical Woody's type music that we all make fun of and lament that THIS is the center of queer culture. Bah. The other room was all poppy carnaval music tho, and it was really fun. The place was tastefully decorated, as you'd expect, and drinks were STRONG. And good thing too, b/c they were WAY pverpriced. There was a drag show around 3am or so, maybe 3:45? Which is peak hour in Brazil. Yep. None of this going home at 2am stuff. People are just getting into the swing of things at 2.
The crowd...wow, was something else. The environment was, wow, it was just this total openness and friendliness, real touchy-feely. I tried to maintain some personal space for maybe the first half hour or so, and finally had to resign myself to the fact that I was just going to have to rub up against 2000 attractive gay men (and a respectable number of women too) with no shirts on for the next few hours. It was almost aggressively open, like pairs of arms kept appearing around my waist and kisses planted on my neck (mostly from boys) before I even saw the person's face. But it wasn't bad somehow. It was kind of this group consensus that in this space, we're up for anything. I got grabbed for pictures, grabbed to dance, and grabbed just to be told how fabulous I was, but it was kind of this assertive gentleness that I'm not doing a good job of describing. But the point is, the environment was really positive and really charged. It was something else. Wow. I got in about 6:45, just in time to catch some breakfast and hit the sack.
Sun, Feb 6, 2005
Just spent a while reorging pictures and stuff. Gonna back up laptop and head out to bounce around to some parks and museums. I desperately need to find event listings. I want to see some shows but I don't know where to look.
Found some more records in Bixiga/Bela Vista, but most of the good stuff was overpriced. Not that I wouldn't have paid 100 reais/$40 for Gilberto Gil's first full length or "Estudando O Samba" by Tom Ze, but I didn't have the cash, and this guy was tryng to tell me that his prices were normal, but I have bought some of those records for the same or less in New York. However, this bodes extremely well for upcoming vinyl searches.
So yeah, I take back what I was breathlessly saying about being swept away in the mystery of travelling. I was walking through a little mall looking at the lamps and pillows saying, I wish I lived here. But no, that's not it. What I wish for is for a place where I live. I want to curl up on my ludicrouly cozy couch and snuggle with the kitties and watch a movie or Arrested Development with Kris. Today I walked through Bela Vista, then later on Ave Paulista. I realized that what is so exhausting about travelling is feeling so conspicuous. In Bela Vista, I might as well have a glowing sign over me saying "HI! I'M NOT FROM HERE!", so I can't walk into any pizzeria withut feeling stared at, although half of that could be my socially-anxious imagination. But on Paulista, I'm just another urban hipster, almost invisible. And that's where the comfort comes from...it's the ability to disappear much more than the familiarity of a cultural/lifestyle context that makes things comfortable.
The other day I heard my very first Southern Brazilian liguistic snob. This super super white guy asked me if I needed help (I was hididng in a corner looking at the map) and I asked him about a road that started with "R", using the regular "h" sound. He repeated it, but with a hard R, rolling it lavishly. He went on to rrrrrroll severrrrral morrrrre rrrrrrrr's and I got the picture. I am making an effort to use a little more R sound here since that happened.
The geographic/cultural split in Brazil is just like England and the opposite of the US. The South is the economic engine, the center of "high" culture, and where the white people (and generations of European immigrants) live. There's a good measure of snobbery over it, too. I was talking to a Paulistano once a long time ago about Bahia, and he said, why would you want to go there? It's like Africa. And I said, yeah, exactly.
As a proud blue-stater who really has little interest in the south beyond like Research Triangle, Atlanta, and New Orleans, maybe Austin for kicks, mostly because I just don't want to deal with racism and bible-belt-ism on that order, I know I am that guy. But here, I can't wait to get my shiny white butt to Bahia, which has the world's largest population of Africans outside of Nigeria, and is sure to make me feel quite foreign yet totally at home. I acknowledge the hypocrisy. I'll work on it when I get home. Promise.
At the moment I'm in a linguistic never-never land where my Portuguese still sucks, but when I'm speaking English, I often want to substitute Portuguese words that I have in my head. And my Spanish, forget it. it's a mess!!! Even in Costa Rica I once asked for a "pedaço de pao", because I had "Aguas De Marzo" stuck in my head.
Sat, Feb 5, 2005
For cultural bias, see "caboclo" in Michaelis English/Portuguese dictionary:
caboclo: s. m. civilized Brazilian Indian of pure blood. adj. copper-coloured; characteristic of a caboclo.
Wow.
Yeesh, in Latin America, strict vegans need not apply. It's flexetarian or nothing. I know-I know-I know dairy is evil, but I am soooooooo happy to eat cheese and be able to round out a cafe de manha of bread and fruit with a yogurt drink.
I flexed for real for the first time last night when I finally got hungry enough for some feijao, bacon and all. Much of today was spent with Pablo on a quest for veggie restaurants from the Rough Guide in the Jardins, and it was largely a bust. Pablo and I finally scarfed down some ice-cream-cone-shaped shitake sushi things and dessert at this sort of fast food Japanese joint. It scratched the surface for 2 hungry vegetarians on the hunt for a generous plate of seitan. But my belly has shrunk so much from having better things to do than eat, that I actually ended up full.
But in preparation for another day of staring at menus of saladas completas and rice/beans/fries, as if the longer I stare, the more likely it will be that "sandwich de tempura" will magically appear, I am at a schwank little cafe in Vila Madalena nibbling spinach ravioli stuffed with melty, stringy, yummy mozzerella. Unfortunately, the singer/guitar player doing Brazilian covers in the next room is generally off key and decidedly uninteresting. Plus the sound is EQ'd alllll wrong.
I've discovered that in Sao Paulo, carnval is not a city-wide street festival. It happens in the Sambodromo stadium, which I have yet to find, and you have to buy tickets. Normally I would crinkle my nose and be a purist, but yo, I'm in Brazil. I'm going to find carnaval one way or another. I don't have a good line on less official caranaval happenings. I'm a bit unconcerned though, as I expect to get my fill of music in Rio, Belo, and Salvador.
Sampa is all about being an urban hipster, and to that end, I'm seeking out the jazz clubs and such. I am unashamed that I've spent the day in posh Jardim and Vila Madalena. I'm also unreasonably boastful of the records I got today. DUDE!!! I got Dorival Cayimmi original pressing for $3! I got Jorge Ben's greatest hits (up to the early 80s, not that post-Taj Mahal crap) for $8! On vinyl! I bought a couple extras just for gifts, stuff you might see in the states, but certainly not for $3. It's so hard to look at these street vendors' inventories, this totally sparkling, glowing, magical pirate's treasure, and not look like a total schmuck. I mean jeez, not that I mind paying 5 reais even tho with a little more aplomb maybe I coulda got it for 3. Pfft. It's a buck. They need the cash, I need the music. But for real, it's all I can do not to squeal and let my eyes get all big and hop up and down. In fact I think I did hop a little today on Sao Joao when it became apparent that these vendors where not going to charge me NYC prices. I half expected it, I mean, how many treasures of American funk and soul go for $5 bucks on the sidewalks of Philadelphia every day? Intellectually, I know this makes sense, but having spent $50 in NYC on Gal Costa's first album with a disintegrated sleeve and never having regretted one red cent, this is like walking through a dream. Hmm, maybe as part of my Montreal/Toronto in the summer, Brazil in the winter imaginary lifestyle, I will go into importing Brazilian vinyl to the States and Japan. A labor of love for sure.
Oh lord, the guitar guy is SLAUGHTERING Fio Maravilha. Oh boy, apparently his dummer just showed up. Oof. This bairro feels totally like Shadyside/Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh.
I can't quite get myself to feel any urgency about investigating all the Brazilianess I've always been curious about. I think it's much because the essence of it will only come (and continue to come) by just walking through, seeing without looking for meaning, which is why I am not feeling any annoying "authenticity" guilt about sipping a beer in a schwank Sao Paulo neighborhood instead of toughing it out in a rougher area. And anyway, the rough and real of Brazil does not hide. It comes to you.
One of my first sites in Sao Paulo was a kid, a little kid huffing glue out of a bag, totally out of his head. Then 3 tiny kids, the oldest and the leader had to be no more than 7, doing someting with scrap wood, probabl for money. Today, whilst making conversation about pre-paid cell phones with a bolivian guy who lived in Salvador for 15 years, an aggressive street kid wanted $ from me. I played dumb and he would not leave me alone. At the end, he called me something which I'm sure was meant to be extra insulting
Sorry, drums outside! gotta go!
I'm boooooored. It's Saturday night during Carnaval in Sao Paulo and I'm bored to tears. I'm watching it on tv and it's remarkably, scandalously similar to The Mummers, and it's completely a spectator sport. Very shiny. I'm not particularly impressed. Need to re-think my Sao Paulo strategy.
Fri, Feb 4, 2005
Came to Santos yesterday afternoon, went shopping with the gang, almost went out with the boys, but the energy was a little too boy, plus the fender bender we got in was enough excitement for me, honestly. Then very nice conversation with Pablo, and some sleep.
Next day off to class. Finally met the legendary Mestre Bandeira who was not nearly as terrifying as I'd imagined. He's downright nice. Feirce, certainly, and dangerous in the wrong context, but nice. Got dropped. My head bounced off the floor. Took me several seconds to figure out whether or not I was conscious, and another couple of minutes before I trusted my ability to keep my balance enough to walk. When I was sure I could stand up, I went back to the roda and played Mestre Bandeira but I was tired and uncreative because I'm out of condition.
The better part of the day was spent trying to track down Pablo's lost wallet and getting back to Sao Paulo.
Played at Saraievo (sp?) but not only did they not have turntables in that room because the floor bounces too much, but they had Pioneer, like, *100's* for CD players. Final Scratch was happy at first, soundcheck was fine, then when I went to play, it decided to not play out of one side, and the cd players were soooo hard to learn on the fly. Finally I got it playing out of both sides and was controlling the pitch from the laptop. I'm lucky I'd done that before, and a whole set like that could be feasible with some practice. But learning on the spot was unreasonably hard and I let the others guys get back on with many apologies. I don't want to be the kind of DJ who complains about equipment, or suffers from any equipment imperfections. I want to be ready for anything without complaints or excuses. To that end, I am hooking up the midi controller to practice that way.
Thurs, Feb 3, 2005, 1amish
So I'm walking back from the 24hr Internet cafe with the really crappy keyboards and no way to bring your own computer to up/download stuff (which is why there are no updates), and it starts to drizzle. Stop for some grub (Yay for Middle Eastern food! La Shish saved me in Detroit, and Habib's is going to be my savior here) and it really started raining. It was actually chilly and I was getting drenched byt he time I got back to the hotel, but across the block in front of the church, a truck with a huge sound system was pulling up with a parade of stragglers, some in costume, some not, in tow. I went back to the hotel and asked if they were rehearsing for carnaval. "No," the doorguy said. "Carnaval just started."
HOLY BEJEZIZ OH MUH GOSH YEEEEEOOOWWW!!!!!!! Carnavaaaaaaalllll!!!!!! So I ran back out to catch the party.
I'm telling you, this country is a figment of my imagination, and I am just living out some altruistic Truman Show in which I get to live in my craziest dreams, courtesy of a huge, theatrical team of people who are overly concerned with my personal entertainment, so suited is it to my every taste, whim, and expectation. The first show of Carnaval started about midnight and consisted of a team of almost exclusively women banging on drums, singing, and playing wih fire. That's rad. The tee shirts that were floating around said Ilu Oba De Min and the theme was definitely African. They sang songs to summon Xango and ask for blessings. People were singing along, myself included after a couple repetitons of the main themes, and it was just this really cool thing...all these people standing out in the rain until it wasn't raining anymore to give praise to African gods and goddesses, the cops leaving everyone alone, and this kind of tense, reserved energy of nervous anticipation. It was wonderful, soooo good, but not yet crazy. That apparently comes later. I don't think Carnaval even officially starts until tomorrow.
Wed, Feb 2, 2005
It's wrong. It's sick and wrong for this many people to be this HOT. The rapaz at the hotel desk -- oof-- and so nice. And the guy who just sold me a phone card? Could have eaten him with a spoon. And the women... I don't even want to get into it. It's too much. The mixes are fascinating and so unusual you swear there couldn't be another face like that in the entire world. The other day I saw a guy who looked Japanese-Portuguese-Black-Tupi Guarani. What is that??? Beautiful, that's what. The diversity is staggering, which I love. It's lacking in other Latin American countries I've been in, like mexico, Argentina, El Salvador. I hadn't realized that diversity was something so engrained in my aesthetic until I went to Argentina where the faces are slightly darker maybe, but overwhelmingly European. When I was on the shuttle at JFK after that trip and looked around the bus I had a fit of sentimentality. There was in Italian immigrant family, a red-haired British Isles-tyep Americn dude, a Haitian guy driving, and me. I'm not sure if Brazil is more diverse than the US, more mixed, or if the mixes are just different. But lordy, whatever the historical/genetic/sociological explanation, it all makes for some UNBELIEVABLE eye candy. Chris said, "There's so much eye candy, I'm getting cavities." I said, "Yeah, there's so much, I'm getting diabetes."
So, earlier in the day I had a typical Steph adventure. Out of total stupidity mixed with being utterly overwhelmed before I left, I didn't get the contact info of my capoeira buddies down here, where they would be staying and how long and all that. But I knew they were in Santos, so, naturally, I took a bus to Santos. The hour-long ride was a familiar Latin American up-the-mountain-down-the-mountain jaunt which was very pretty.
I got to the rodoviaria which has these very pretty murals outside, and called Mestre Doutor's mom, but she didn't have any info. I went back to the tourist booth and the young guy there was super nice, helping me look through the yellow pages for capoeira academies. We didn't find ASCAB, but we found another, and he pointed out the Aerea Branca neighborhood to me. My plan was to go to the academy in the phone book and ask if anyone knew anything about ASCAB. So I walked to the first academy, somehow locked myself in the front foyer, knocked on the door of the adjacent photo booth to be let out, and the girl there told me that class there wasn't until 7:30pm. So, Plan B: Catch a bus to Areia Branca and start asking around.
I took a bus back to the center, then another to Areia Branca and a couple people told me to go to the cemetary, where there was an office with people who had radios and communication with the whole neighborhood. Thus began a comedy of errors where the 2 people at the desk, who turned out to be the 2 sweetest, kindest, loveliest people in the world apparently, sat me down in the office for about an hour making phone calls and trying to track down anyone in ASCAB. The guy at the desk knew Bandeira, Marinheiro and Corisco, and told me the original ASCAB site was right at the end of the cemetary road, but they hadn't been there for years and years. The woman who worked there happened to be friends with a capoeira teacher who turned out to be Contra-Mestre Zum, who studied under someone who Bandeira taught, so I guess we are kind of capoeira cousins.
Erm, it occurs to me that all this mestre/contra-mestre stuff is kind of insider. Let's open source it, shall we? In capoeira, one is trained by teachers of many levels of mastery, the highest being mestre. My mestre is Mestre Doutor, who grew up in Santos and is a jolly, charismatic, extremely lovable guy with a very magnetic and infectious personality. He also kicks butt. His mestre is Mestre Bandeira, who I haven't met yet, but is legendary. He would make Doutor play pandeiro until his hands bled. He would make people jump off window ledges 12 feet in the air, basically diving into the floor, and come out of it in a cartwheel. He will hit you. You will get hurt. I am very concerned. Now, Bandeira's mestre is Mestre Corisco, a caboclo who is absolutely magical. No one meets him without falling in love. His soul is so pure, and well into his 50s, he can flip around and do twice as many squats as most of his students. Corisco is amazing. So there's your ASCAB (Associao Santista de Capoeira Areia Branca) primer.
So here I am in the office of a cemetary with a yummy orange drink just given to me by the guy at the office without asking (I'd already refused tea, so I think he wanted to just sneak it in there..total sweetheart.) and this guy Zum comes in. He was also super nice. He took me to a bus stop, talked to the driver, told me to get off when the driver indicated, and he would meet me at the stop, because he was on his bike. He totally interrupted his workday to put me in good hands. So we met at the bus station, he put his bike up in the office where he makes commemorative plaques, I guess that's how he's friends with the lady at the cemetary, and we walked back into the town center to another capoeira office. They had Mestre Bandeira's cell phone number, called him, and got through to Marcos, who was a very welcome familiar (and English-speaking!) voice on the other side. This whole thing took most of the day, and despite the exhausting effort to speak and understand, it was kinda fun. Everyone was nice way beyond the call of duty, and protective, and I got to flex my old crack investigative reporter muscles. And hey, I got everyone's phone number.
Tue, Feb 1, 2005
The 18 hour bus ride from Porto Alegre to Sao Paulo, the overnight ride anyway, is WAAAYYYY less hellish than you'd imagine, and absolutely nothing like the 20 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires to Iguazu Falls that I remember from the summer I spent in Argentina. That was seriously one of the worst experiences of my life. But the trick is to get 2 seats to yourself! Also, bring your blanky. Or favorite pillow, or your woobie or your Freudian creature comfort of choice. Then, get a beer, and down it real fast at the beginning of the trip. And bring a book. Then you basically crash out in a myriad of semi-comfy positions until it's all over. No problem, buddy! Only thing I regret is not looking outside more. When I did get a peak outside I remember thinking, "That's pretty. I'm grumpy. I'm going back to sleep."
One of the things I treasure most about travellng is that your naivete makes you feel like a kid again. Remember being 4, or 7, or 12, and figuring out language and the world? Things sort of made sense and you were piecing together all this input with whatever context you'd scrounged together so far. You'd mis-hear new vocabulary words, mistakenly associate new concepts with ol ones. There's where you get classic kid-speak like "I led the pigeons to the flag of the United States of America...". The same thing happens when you're travelling and/or dealing with a new language, witness engrish and tourist-ese. You're awash in overstimulating sights and sounds. All off it is new, so all of it is interesting and you have no ability to seperate the critical from the banal because none of it means anything yet. But you can hook onto little boueys of meaning via things you have heard about the culture or words you happen to know, and you come up with all these wistful, poetic misinterpretations that are usually COMPLETELY off the mark, while occassionally dead on. But it's hard to know that, because even if you ask around for confirmation, you can doubt your understanding of the answer, or the completeness of it in the first place. It's easy to get stuck at that point in a spiralling perfectionism where you realize how extremely far you are from cultural fluency--in other words, how long you would need to spend in this place to understand the finest subtleties that you have mastered in your home-space. If you've had a good night's sleep, soemthing to eat, and found a safe place to put your bags, it's exhilerating. If not, it's exhausting.
But something interesting has happened. This is the first travel adventure I've been on where I realize I dont' want that level of mastery. I've often thought about how impossible it would be to get to a point where I had a basic comfort level anywhere in the world I decided to plop down. I think that came from a desire for cultural authenticy, not to mention safety. But in the cab on the way to the Forum the other day, it hit me what a gift it is to have an entire globe full of newness ready to disorient me beyond my wildest surrealist daydreams, and all it takes is a passport. And a visa. And a plane ticket, and a good bag, and sensible shoes. But really, that's pretty much it.
The 3-lane highway into Sao Paulo looks like roads around Orlando, construction and all. Porto Alegre was just like a cross between Miami and DC. They say that in Sao Paulo, people regularly take helicopters from building to building because the traffic is so bad. Pratak was also saying that in Bangkok, people have gotten stuck in traffic for days at a time. So I got into town around 4:30ish, got a room at the Municipal Hotel in the centro no problem, kind of brownstone-ish high celings, tall victorian doors, that sort of thing. Kind of reminds me of the room I had in San Juan, but don't worry, Joni, the bathroom would not scandalize your abuelita. I even have a fridge which is cool. So my bags are actually quite manageable and I'm wondering about the wisdom of mailing a lot of stuff back. I packed pretty spartanly to begin with, and with the small pack on my back and the big one on wheels, I could even get up multiple flights of stairs without much misery. So, I get in, drop my stuff, go out to walk around a little, and one of the first corners I see, is this:
WOW WOW WOW! First I get to see a procession made famous via Gilberto Gil's "Procissao", and now I am standing right at the corner where, in Gil's song "Sampa", Caetano Veloso crones that "Something happens in my heart, and it only happens when I cross Ipiranga and Avenida Sao Joao." WOW WOW WOW!!! Although nothing in particular happened in my heart except being excited to find it.
In general, when I'm pegged as a foreigner, people seem to think I'm Argentinian. Some guy on the bus who wanted to strike up a conversation (I did not) asked if I was Argentinian, and one of the guys standing under this sign called me "flaca" which may be Brazilian too, but it's definitely an Argentinian thing to say (pero no se como es que yo soy una flaca!!! haha!)
Found a 24 hr internet joint, and then got some sleep.
Mon, Jan 31, 2005
Last day of WSF, dinner with 11 people and at least 10 languages. hosted show with Sakura, did sound montage for 1pm broadcast. Veg restaurant, adventure to get ticket for Sao Paulo. Aguas De Oxum, church that looked like a bank. Murals.
Yes yes, wrapped up the Forum today. Worked on my montage for most of the morning, hosted the 1pmshow with Sakura, then took a walk to the bus station to buy my ticket for Sao Paulo. I was a little nervous it would be sold out, actually. The walk there was made at least 45% more wonderful by the gorgeous and meaning-rich murals on the walls near the Forum.
But the whole walk was interesting. I had my first brush with Candomble, as I walked by a store called Aguas De Oxun. It was basically a botanica filled with all sorts of little religious items like incense, fake coins, tissue paper flowers, even liquor for offerings. I didn't get any oogy or nervous vibe in there, which suprised me. Most times I've wandered into a Cuban or other caribbean botanica, I've been kinda weirded out.
What was weird, however, was the church that looked like a bank.
It had smoked glass automatic doors and everything. I'm not even sure how I caught onto the fact that it was a church, honestly, but I went inside to check it out. It was a huge space, auditorium-like with theater-style chairs and this huge fluorescent and colored-plastic cross on the ceiling.
So behind this bank-like facade is this quite large gathering of people who are being summoned to the front to recieve the spirit one way or another, seemed to be the case. I hung out for a minute, pretended to head toward the line to receive Christ as my lord and savior, and took some sneaky photos all spy style. The rest of the walk to the bus station was largely uneventful, and I even managed to pick up a little sewing kit to take care of some button issues. I got my ticket after a short wait, and had YUUUUMMMMMMMYYYY vegetarian buffet on the way back. Tried to fill up a bit, forgetting that i'd committed to dinner with the gang that night.
By the time I got back, it was almost time for the final broadcast of the Forum, after which we started dismantling the total chaos and cable speghetti that had been our beautifully ad hoc and creative workplace for the week. Just at the end Bianca accidentally plugged a 110 cable into a 220 plug and the thing got so hot it immediately burned through the wire on my spiral bound notebook! I made sure I kept my 220-to-110 converter close at hand and since that happened, I always check the outlet with the adapter and a cheap piece of electronics. If it works, it's 220 and I need the adapter. If not, it's 110 and I don't need it. Brazil has a mix of 220 and 110, but so far I have only seen 110 except at the Forum and the fancy hotel which could also accomodate British electronics.
We grabbed a beer at the cafe in the building and I was given the task of calling the restaurant to make a reservation for a large table upstairs. I'll say it again: Poof, you're trilingual. Dinner was sweet, and yeah, we did a count of how many languages we cumulatively spoke. We came up with English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Arabic, Hindi, one other Indian dialect--not Punjabi...I can't think of it at the moment, and Welsh. That's 10 languages for 11 people. The lingua franca at the table was a kind of English/Spanish/Portuguese/French hybrid that ultimately worked out ok.
Then a couple french Canadians and myself split a cab to the bus station, and it was off to Sao Paulo.
Sun, Jan 30, 2005
Did lots of batch sound recording for AMARC. Walked around and found procession, indigenous groups, batterias, skateboarders. Amazing. Met Pratak, slept at Sakura's hotel. hard to describe it all, just took it all in.
Sat, Jan 29, 2005
On Thursday when I was interviewing Andre Saroba from Movimento Hip Hop Organizado Brasileiro, pirate/community/low power radio deity Steven Dunifer walked by.
So after spending a frickin day trapped indoors, which I have to admit to having loved b/c I got to spend quality time with a high speed connection, I let loose on Porto Alegre and the World Social forum again today. Poof, you're a radio journalist. My first piece was on the Movimento Hip Hop Organizado Brasileiro and it kinda sucked b/c 1) it was my first, 2) I left the audio clips run too long against my own better judgement, and 3) I wasn't usin multitrack so it was choppy. But I'll post it in its imperfectness b/c it's a cool org.
So I finished that piece this morning and then co-hosted the 1pm English broadcast for AMARC, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters. that was easier than I thought. But a far cry from playing Pavement songs and babbling on college radio. On Monday I'm co-hosting with this wonderful woman named Sakura, and also doing an audio montage of the sounds of the Forum for that broadcast. Super cool. So much good footage.
Impossible to encapsulate the amount of not-less-than heroic effort, not-less-than amazing work. Norm is a machine. Does not ever stop, and helpful/sweet on the order of a Hannah or Petri. Finally found Sakura at Friends of the Earth tent, and she magically had a place for me to stay.
My feet are caked with dirt. I kinda like it.
While yall were freezing your butts off, I woke up to this:
Dennis asks:
anyhting take you off guard down there?
d
not yet, not too much. the local hip hoppers think american hip hop is 50 cent. that is sad. on the positive, they are generally unconcerned with how things are going in muhrica (hip hop-wise) and are all about the hip hop diaspora which is apparently quite vibrant. People are both rude ala london, trying to cut in front of you, and afectionate...woman on the plane physically took my foot and placed it closer to her seat to indicate that i was welcome to take up some of her space, and a woman started talking about me and my rosy cheeks right in front of me. that was kinda super annoying actually, but i can see how it could be endearing.
Portuguese phrasebook entries for the day:
Disculpe, pode me ajudar? Preciso ajuda com o fogao.
Excuse me, could you help me? I need help with the stove.
Ja descubri que ele e gas, nao electrico, pelo odor na cozinha depois de estar ligado para uns minutos.
I already discovered that it is gas, not electric, by the odor in the kitchen after it had been on for a few minutes.
Mais, nao me realizei que a tapa de vidro nao foi para cozinhar.
But, I didn't realize that the glass lid was not a cooktop.
Entao, o pote nunca ficou quente, mais a tapa quebrou em milhoes de pecas em uma explosao pequeno.
So, the pot never got hot, but the glass lid broke in a million pieces in a litle explosion.
Foi bem dramatico.
It was very dramatic.
O que e que foi cozinhando? Eu estava tentando ferver agua.
What was I cooking? I was trying to boil water.
No futuro, eu vou usar o microonda.
In the future, I will use the microwave.
Key vocabulary words:
estupida - stupid (fem)
idiota - idiot (fem)
Por favor me disculpa, que sou Americana. - Please excuse me, I am an American.
So basically, I spent the day waiting for the stove repair guys to bring a piece that didn't fit and tell me it would be 10-15 days before they got it in stock.
Also, before I left, I got my hair did.
Thurs, Jan 27, 2005
First day of Forum, found AMARC office, bags too heavy, nice conversation with bus fare collector, nice lady in airport, 5 ATMs, Elizabeth put me to work, went ot hip hop forum, interviewed Andre. Busy!!!!
Yeah, so I guess I accidentally deleted the first couple days of updates, so I'll try to fill in the blanks now... I got to Porto Alegre around noon-ish local time. The Brazilian government requires all Americans to be fingerprinted and photographed when they enter the country. Why? Soley because we do it to them. Good for Brazil. It's about time somebody stood up to the US and said, heh, you're gonna treat us like 2nd class citizens and terrorism suspects or migrant workers here to steal all the best paying jobs in fruit-picking and janatorial work? Fine. Back atcha. So it was with total sympathy and sad resignation that I let myself be fingerprinted.
But no time for sentimental saudade for the good ol' days before everything started to suck so bad, because I had to get to the forum to try to find a place to stay before it got dark. This really nice, and seemed to be really cool Brazilian lady of Japanese descent helped me get oriented, showed me where to get the bus, helped me with some Portuguese phrases, and even offered to drive me to the Forum b/c she was headed that way for a lecture. I didn't take her up on it b/c I was still trying to get cash. It took 4 or 5 ATMs before I got one that would work, which caused a little consternation. I hope it's not like this everywhere. But that encouraged me to start shoving an extra $50 in "The Bank" (wink wink nudge nudge) every time I go out, and that has saved my butt a few times already.
So there you have it, an American bon vivant elegantly rolling 2 months worth of accomodation joyfully into the open arms of the land of Order and Progress. Or on a bad day, Disorder and Regression. And I wasn't looking all that elegant. I was smelling downright proletariat, I'll tell you that. But off I went. I got on the bus and had a largely successful conversation with the bus driver who was very nice indeed. Once I got off the bus, the walk to the Communication section of the Forum was long and dusty but really cool. The forum was split up into thematic sections A through... J I want to say? Themes like Diversity and Social Justice, Environment, Health, Arts, Dignity and Human Rights, etc. A smelly hippy's dream come true! I came in at the very southern point of the Forum and it was about a 20 minute walk just to the center of the action at the Communications center where I was hoping to catch up with Norm Stockwell from WORT in Madison, Wisconsin and a few other people.
I didn't really have the energy to dig in my bag for sunscreen, thinking I wouldn't be out that long. Mistake. I paid for it a week later in leprotic peeling. Gross. Welcome to Brazil! This is how we do at the equator, yo. I stopped for a few minutes to film an impromptu samba circle that started up. It was so charming! So Norm wasn't in the office when I got there, but a woman with a nametag reading Elizabeth Robinson came in and I recognized the name from one of Sakura's emails. I introduced myself, said I knew some Prometheus folk, and she totally took me under her wing. Within 45 minutes and a little walk to get some lunch, she had introduced me to the AMARC project, told me what their goals and needs were, and had me on the trail of some stories and tech tasks. Poof, you're a reporter. Oh, and Poof, you're also an engineer, radio host, news writer, and trilingual. It's times like this that being a superhero comes in handy.
In late afternoon, went to a panel discussion about hip hop hosted by the Movimento Hip Hop Organizado Brasileiro, and ended up doing a short piece about it for the Saturday broadcast. The organization is a primarily political group, focussing on the ways hip hop discusses and informs social, racial, political, and bread and butter issues relevant to Brazilians, especially youth. Later that night I did about a 15 minute interview with him. Mind you, this was all in Portuguese. I definitely got the gist of what was going on, but I hope and expect that by the time I get home and listen back to the recording, I will understand much more. So, cool day. Busy! How did I end up overworked not 1 day into my vacation????
Wed, Jan 26, 2005 - Here we go! (On the plane)
I'm super diggin being marooned in the air for many, many hours, in a cozy tin can where I can stretch out in two seats and dream with stuttery lullabies on the minidisk. In here there is no risk of being robber or mugged and it doesn't matter that my portuguese is total crap, but I get to try it out anyway, which is fun.
But holy hell, it's definitely a voa magica ao Brasil, because a Fernanda Porta video just came on! Like wow, Scooby! I didn't even know she had any videos and didn not expect to be seing it up here. And DAYUM but Brazil has the best frickin pop music in the world. It's not only listenable, it's actually kinda charming. Emmy Pay Bay, baby.
This stratosphereic cacoon is awesome for fighting the generalized anxiety brought on by the malaria med (stupid mefloquine) and I honestly have no desire for it to end. I really needed that nap, and that's where the stutta-step comes in.
This guy DJ Kiva, oof, you gotta hear this! His tracks are kind of electronicky, Nubian Mindz-y broken, but all in 3s!!!! NO WAY!!! It all has this inner warmth, kind of swirly, like warm chocolate. It's comfy but challenging, the perfect lullaby for weirdos. then Moonstarr came on, soooooo good, in fact I had to turn it off because I was diggin it too much to fall asleep.
The Kiva stuff gave me this feeling of being enveloped in warmth and comfort and all I could think about was how he HAS to collaborate with :brownstudy. Jneiro kicks it hard in 3/4 on one track, and Jason would flow like hot honey. Then I started daydreaming about us three in a room with laptops. Detroit, Brooklyn, and Philly, nodding our heads and improvising on some Live/Logic/Reason/Fruity Loops tip for hours on end. I daydreamed about tiny pockets of serendipity where the improv made magic and we all looked up, surprised, and grinned, alike, did you do that? Did I?
Then I slept a little. Then I got woken up for breakfast and wooshed it away with a sleepy grunt but she gave it to me anyway because Brazilians are motherly like that. the woman in the seat next to me insisted that I stretch out as much as I wanted. She physically took my foot and placed it closer to her seat to indicate that I was welcome to take up some of her space.
Someone just said "Beleza"!
Adam is going to burn in hell on the grounds that he is a pusher. One hour and I am hooked on Live (music software) like a bad case of phonix. It's FUN!!!! So fun that is was hard to snap off the lappie with ne hour of battery left and try to take a nap. This red-eye bizniz is going to start to hurt soon. I hope I get a good night;'s sleep tonight, but maybe not since Sakura reports that nights at the Youth Encampment are full of "loud music?" I am hoping to get me and my opportunistic laptop in on that action.
Wow, Elis Regina looks fantastic in this video.
not sure how I feel, and how much of it is the mefloquine, but it's good anticipation. For now, going to try for nap, version 2.0. So, sleep, yeah.
To start, it's critical to acknowledge that there was a fair amount of luck involved. I was lucky to have a job through the recession, lucky to have hit the tech sector during the dot com boom which positioned me strategically in the industry for the next several years, lucky to have grown up with privilege and and education that i could parlay into a lucrative career, and also lucky to have been raised with the ability to endure interminable stretches of mental torture in favor of a payoff at the end.
But that's where luck ends. From there, skill and desire take over, and anyone can do it. When I went to mexico I decided that the cube lifestyle was not for me no matter how cool the open source movement is, and started building a nest knowing that one day I was going to freak out and have to leave. I got outof debt, bought a house, and kept my cute little 15 year old Toyota while I built my savings. When I finally snapped, I was ready. I had investments, savings and passion at the ready. I had no car payments, no exorbinant condo fees, and also, no kids. That changes everything. It's a decision that has been the right one for me, and for people who have or want children, it's a totally different thing. But it's all a matter of priorities and decisions. I'm not "lucky" that i don't have kids, I have simply chosen not to have any because at the moment it's not where my passion lies. If you do have kids, hopefully it was by choice, and those creatures better be your top priority, your joy and light, and you are the one who should be calling yourself lucky to have them.
So anyway, this "luck" thing is really irritating. It's not "luck" that got me here, and it's not luck that's going to keep me going. It was ordered chaos, planned implosion, and organized freak-out. It was passion and desire and planning and research and priorities and years of methodical nest-building. When you find yourself saying that someone is "lucky" to be doing something cool, ask yourself if it was really luck, or rather a series of planned actions. Ask yourself if that is something you would want for yourself, and if so, if you would want it badly enough to change your course to head in that direction. And if you don't want it badly enough to change your course, then you, my friend, are extraordinarily lucky yourself to have a life that you find satisfying and happy.