Prayers for Josimar

I was coming home to Rio de Janeiro after spending a trying, difficult year in the US. I was ill, tired, and disappointed, but happy to be going home.

It was a long flight from Boston—around twelve hours, with a stop in Washington D.C. The overnight flight from D.C. to Rio was around nine hours, so I was very happy to find three empty seats in a row so I could lie down (sort of) and try to rest. It wasn’t restful, and the hours dragged by endlessly, but it was better than sitting up all night.

When I roused myself for breakfast in the morning, my first thought was, “How will I make it through customs?” I was worn out and could barely stand up to go to the bathroom. Plus it was a long, long walk to customs after leaving the plane and I knew I’d never make it. I was feeling a bit rattled, and wondered how I’d bear up if the officer made me open my bags. If I made it to the customs area, that is.

But I had no choice but to drag myself up out of my seat, pull down my carry-on, and slowly walk down the aisle behind the other passengers.

As I was exiting the plane, I looked up and my gaze was met by a slender middle-aged man with glasses standing next to a folded wheelchair. He smiled kindly at me and I said, “Could you…?” Yes, he could. I had never even thought of a wheelchair! I’d never used one before in an airport or anywhere else. I thought you had to be really incapacitated before you could use one.

He settled me in the chair with my carryon on my lap and then pushed me and dragged my suitcase so fast I felt like we were flying. We zigzagged between all the people walking towards customs, leaving them in the dust. Before I could catch my breath we had stopped in front of the customs officer, who actually looked quite pleasant, sitting at his table. He asked me if I had bought anything in the USA. I said “no,” and that was it. I was home free!

My sweet chair-driver guided me out to the exit area where I saw my friend Dulce and her favorite taxi driver waiting for me. There were warm greetings all around. I turned to my angel driver and said, “What’s your name?” “Josimar,” he replied. Then I started chatting with my friend, and in my excitement and relief to be home, forgot all about Josimar and that he was probably waiting for a tip. I just kept jabbering away, and the next I knew, he was gone.

To be honest, I really didn’t remember the tip until I was installed in my temporary apartment in Copacabana, and then I felt so bad—I actually felt pain and remorse. After all, Josimar was my guardian angel. He had rescued me from an impossible situation, and I had forgotten to tip him!

Believe it or not, I thought about this for months, and even a year or two later it would occasionally pop into my mind. I thought, “I should have tried to find him. I should have called the airport. Why didn’t I call the airport?”

Why such a fuss over a forgotten tip? I don’t know—there was just something about Josimar.

I’m sure he has long since forgotten the incident, but I never have. And I often include him in my prayers in a whisper of gratitude.

Brazil, Rio, and music

OK, so what else do I love about Rio?

The first time I came here was in 1990. I was a journalist at the time, and my writing assignment was to cover Rio’s famous Carnival and do some interviews with Brazilian musicians.

Even though I had already lived in Brazil for two years back in the late 60s, at that time I was in Porto Alegre and Curitiba, two cities with a European style and influence. They were nice, but I didn’t really feel at home until I spent some time in Rio, where the influences are more African than European. Why is that? Mostly because of the music, samba in particular, and the people who play this music. I almost always found a feeling of real camaraderie and mutual respect among the musicians, rather than a strong sense of competition, and I liked that.

There was nothing I enjoyed more than hanging out in a bar or restaurant where people would sit around a long table, singing and playing. Everyone knew the words to the songs, and there was such a feeling of joy and community…like a family.

In the USA, music is generally thought of as a performance, where some people play and/or sing on a stage and others sit in the audience and listen. Although we have shows and concerts here, too, we also have spontaneous musical “happenings,” which I found to be rare when I lived in the states. Here, even birthday parties usually end up with everyone spontaneously breaking into song, and it’s not unusual for a mini-batucada (percussion) group to warm things up on a public bus.

Aside from these popular get-togethers, Brazil is famous for its groundbreaking musical geniuses—people like Dorival Caymmi, Tom Jobim, João Gilberto, Hermeto Pascoal and many, many others. I’ve always loved Brazilian music, and am happy to find myself here where I’m surrounded by it. Of course there’s junky music, too, but nothing will ever override the wonderful musical heritage created by these outstanding Brazilian composers and musicians.

Rio – why I couldn’t want more

In my last post, after talking about all the mildew and rust in Rio de Janeiro, I wrote: “And best of all, I’m in Rio de Janeiro—what more could I ask for?” Well, a bit more than mildew and rust, I guess!

One of the commenters wrote this: “This post left me wanting more…why you couldn’t want more for instance. People who are new to your posts/book/blogs won’t know why you love Rio so much.”

Good point. So I thought I’d start out by answering this question with a passage from my book, Getting Down to Brass Tacks – My adventures in the world of jazz, Rio and beyond.

One thing I had to get used to when I first moved here was the carioca [Rio native] conception of time. Time in Rio is not time as I had been accustomed to it all my life. You can’t pin it down here. It floats. It sashays. “Come by my place tonight—the party starts at 8 p.m.” 10 p.m., 10:30 p.m., people start to show up. Or you’re on your way to meet someone and you run into a guy you know on the way. So you stop and have a beer with him. Then someone else crosses your path, and you get into a long, involved conversation. Eventually you end up at your destination—maybe. This nonchalant relationship with time can be frustrating for a punctual, organized New Yorker, but I’ve found that over the years it has actually had a calming effect on me. I’ve learned to roll with it and work around it, like everyone else does here. And then there’s the beach, of course. The beach right in the city, where you can go any time you want, stroll along the water’s edge and enjoy a view of Sugar Loaf mountain and surfers during the day, and friends sipping coconut water at the kiosks under the moonlight at night. You feel at home. You look around and see that’s it’s not just eye-popping young women in bikinis on the beach. It’s also old, fat, skinny, black, brown, tan, white, men, women, kids—people of every age, size and shape, most of them in bikinis, including the men. You relax. You already feel less self-conscious about your thighs. You watch the teenage girls and young mothers step down to the water, but rarely go all the way in. They carry a plastic container that they dip into the ocean and pour over their heads. Then they go back and sit under their beach umbrellas. The younger men sit right on the sand, or play paddle ball. Or they surf.

Sun-darkened men, boys and women parade up and down the beach selling things—suntan lotion, hats, sunglasses, bikinis, pieces of pineapple, popsicles, water, beer and soda, sandwiches and airy manioc biscuits (called biscoitos de vento—wind biscuits) that cariocas adore—they’re a must at the beach. The vendors never give you the hard sell unless you’re obviously a tourist. Usually they just call out whatever it is they’re selling and you gesture them over if you want something.

You head back home. The streets are lined with lush green trees. People stand at little bars sipping cafezinho (demitasse cups of very strong coffee) or drinking beer. Some of the men are wearing only their Speedo-style briefs, and the women miniscule bikinis with a sarong around the hips. There is chatter and laughter all around. Rio is warm, warm, and just oozes love and joy. The air of Rio is a like a caress, and there’s almost always a gentle breeze blowing, even on the hottest days…

OK, that’s just a taste…more to come.

The paperback and Kindle versions of Getting Down to Brass Tacks are available on Amazon, and the e-book is also available at iBookstore, Barnes and Noble, and various other online e-book stores.

Living with mildew and rust

When I moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1991 I didn’t know about the mildew and rust. I moved to a tiny apartment very close to the beach. It was quite humid, especially with the maresia (sea spray) in the air.

Now keep in mind that I’m no stranger to mildew and rust. I grew up in a house in Connecticut that was built into the side of a hill, and our downstairs was like a damp cave. But I’d never seen the likes of what I saw when I moved to Rio.

The first thing I learned was not to buy anything made of metal unless it was aluminum or stainless steel. Everything else disintegrated into a pile of rust in a very short time, unless it was small enough to store in a well-sealed plastic bag. I discovered that washcloths mildewed (maybe that’s why Brazilians don’t use them), and the cellulose sponges that I’d brought from the USA, too. Sponges here are those frustrating plastic ones that really don’t absorb anything, so I took to using rags (which also mildewed).

The real shocker was when I opened my closet to take out my winter clothes and discovered everything covered with mildew! I had to wash every item thoroughly, and then I bought a bunch of those little anti-mildew thingies and put them inside the closet.

But as time went on, I started to adjust. I discovered that if I left the closet doors open a crack, there would be no mildew. I bought anti-mildew towels. Metal lamps were replaced with plastic or wooden ones.

Sound like a pain? Well, yes, but there are compensations. First of all, the beach is close enough so that the wonderful ocean smell drifts in my windows. And the damp air is great for my skin. And best of all, I’m in Rio de Janeiro—what more could I ask for?

Ode to the garbage collectors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hail, intrepid garbage men!

Orange jumpsuits, sturdy arms

Swift, strong legs,

Driving your orange truck

Emptying orange cans

Into grinding metal jaws

Picking up stray pieces

Of paper, plastic bags

Leaving the street clean

Running to catch up

With the truck as it

Slowly moves toward the

Next group of cans and bags

You come in the dead of night

And I often wake up to the

Roar of the engine and grinder

I’ve even been known

To go to the window and watch…

There’s something so, well,

Dependable? Comforting?

Orderly? Clean? Energetic?

Well, yes, all of those…

I always go back to sleep

With a feeling of contentment.

I wanna go home!

The first hint was the oat bran. OK, let me explain…

After living in Rio de Janeiro for eight years or so, I decided to try going back to the land of my birth, the United States of America. Leaving Rio in November probably wasn’t such a great idea, since I was blasted with blood-congealing, knee-rattling snowy weather when I arrived in New York, but I was still determined to give it a try.

I went to Connecticut for awhile and stayed with my sister and brother-in-law out in the country. That’s when the oat bran thing happened. In Rio we have yummy Quaker oat bran, nice and finely ground and slightly toasty. I ate it every morning for breakfast. When I went to buy some oat bran at the supermarket where my sister shopped, they didn’t have Quaker’s. I thought, oh well, how different could it be? It’s just oat bran.

When I opened the box I was suspicious right away. The grains were too coarse. It was too white. I had a bad feeling. I cooked it and it tasted nothing like my beloved Rio Quaker oat bran. I tried putting it in the blender. It was useless.

OK, big deal, you say…it’s just cereal for God’s sake.

But then I moved into my own apartment in Boston. Right away I felt something “off” in the streets. At first I couldn’t figure out what it was, but then I realized that nobody was speaking Portuguese…they were all speaking English! It was really jarring. I found myself missing that soothing, slightly nasal sound of cariocas (Rio natives) chatting at the corner juice bar in Copacabana.

Not only that, I missed speaking Portuguese, too. One day I had a grocery delivery and I knew right away that the delivery guy was Brazilian and I was really excited. I struck up a conversation with him in Portuguese and I just couldn’t make myself shut up. He kept edging toward the door as I rattled on and on…I think the poor guy was afraid he was going to get fired for being late on his route!

Then I caught myself reading the Brazilian newspapers every time I went online, and listening to João Gilberto and Caetano Veloso on iTunes every chance I got.

Most of all, though, I missed people sticking their heads out of their windows and yelling “GOALLLLLLLL!!!!” at the top of their lungs during the soccer games. Sigh. I knew this was never going to work. I wanted to go home. And that’s exactly what I did after being back in the USA for only one year.

When I stepped out of the plane at the Tom Jobim international airport in Rio, I sure was one happy camper. Home at last!

Names in Brazil

When I moved to Brazil from the USA, one of the first things I noticed was that Brazilians had some pretty strange and difficult names, at least for a foreigner like me. Of course I’ve long since gotten used to them, but at first I had a hard time wrapping my tongue around names like Iguarací, Ubirajara, and Adalgamir.

I also noticed that Brazilian names tend to be rather long, and that people almost always address each other by their first name, or by a nickname. Our ex-president, for example, Luiz Inácio da Silva, is always referred to as “Lula” (which means “squid” in English!), even in the press.

One of the first friends I made here was Maria da Conceição Ferreira de Almeida. When I first met her I found her long name quite daunting, so I asked her what I should call her. She said, “My friends call me Conceição.” At the time I thought it was odd that they didn’t just call her “Maria,” which seemed so much simpler. But I soon found out that there are scads of Marias in Brazil, being primarily a Catholic country, and that they are rarely called Maria. Maria de Lourdes, Maria da Fátima, Maria da Graça and so on, are nearly always called by their second name…probably to avoid confusion!

Brazilians also have a fondness for giving their boys names that end in “son” – Anderson, Wilson, Adilson and Kleberson are all common names here. Some of them sound American, others not. Speaking of sounding American, of you really want your kid’s name to sound like its American equivalent, make sure you don’t spell it the gringo way. For instance, if you like the name Michael, to get that approximate sound you’ll have to spell your boy’s name “Maicon.” Or if David is your favorite, make sure you have “Deivid” written on his birth certificate.

I’ve also run into a few names that are spelled “wrong,” but seem to work just fine for Brazilians: Willian, Carmem and Johny, for example. And I was really surprised to discover that the name Joyce here is not just a woman’s name, but a man’s name, too.

So what about my name? In the past few years people have started naming baby girls Amy, but before that the name was unknown by most Brazilians. So people called me “ah-MEE.” Sometimes I’d correct them, but most of the time I just didn’t bother. As for my last name, well, there’s a famous singer here named Zélia Duncan, so the name is well-known. Nevertheless, people nearly always pronounce it “DOON-kahn.”

Believe it or not, I remember hearing somewhere that a young couple had named their kid “Feicebuk” — can you guess what that is?

Mengooooooooooo!!!!!

If you read my blog post about high school gym class, you know I’m not a sports kind of person.

Nevertheless, since I moved to Rio de Janeiro I have become a rabid soccer fan. Well, a Brazilian soccer fan, and to be more specific, a Flamengo (aka Mengo, or Mengoooooooooooooo!!!!!) fan…my favorite team.

I’m probably the weirdest soccer fan ever, because I don’t even understand the rules all that well. But I get the general gist of what’s going on, and I have my own way of watching and analyzing the game. For instance, let’s say my team is winning 2-0 and there are only 10 minutes left to play. This actually happened yesterday, and the commentator was complaining that the other team was playing like mad to score, but Flamengo was just playing defensively and not going for the goal. My reaction was, “Well sure, why should they bust their butts trying to get another goal when they already have two and the other team has none and the game is nearly over? They’re better off making sure that the other team doesn’t get any!” Probably not the reasoning of a true (aka knowledgeable) soccer fan, but hey…

What I like about soccer is the dance…the balance, the counterbalance, the slick moves, the focus, the alertness, and the intuition. It isn’t a sport of strength, it’s more about speed and coordination. Even Ronaldinho, my team’s star player, isn’t a big guy…he has skinny arms and sometimes even looks a little, shall I say, “girlish,” and not just because of his ponytail, either. But small and skinny is fine in soccer. Yesterday we had a sub goalie who was skinny as a stick and he hopped around like a jumping bean, never missing a ball…one of the main reasons we won the game.

Ronaldinho Gaúcho

In my neighborhood, you always know when someone made a goal, even if you’re not watching the game, because everybody sticks their head out the window and shouts and yells at the top of their lungs…yep, soccer in Rio is serious business and big time fun.

Carnival in Rio ends today…sort of

Today is the judging of the major Carnival parades. One samba school (samba schools are the large social groups that make up the parades) from the Special Group will win first position, and two will drop down to Access Group A, which means they’ll still have a chance next year to get back into the top group, if their parade is good enough.

The parades are judged in a variety of categories, from best samba song, best theme, best costumes, best floats, best overall harmony in the group, and so on. The competition is fierce, and the judging is a solemn occasion, televised all over Brazil.

I watch Carnival every year, and participated in it for around seven years as a drummer. Every year I’m filled with wonder at how these ordinary people can stage such a magnificent, larger-than-life event involving thousands of people, and actually pull it off, even though there is always a lot of last minute scrambling around to get things done. But that is the Brazilian way, and especially the Rio de Janeiro way of doing things. And they do get everything done, as can be seen every year in the Sambadrome with each eye-popping parade that passes by.

Of course there are upper class folks and tourists who take part in the parades, but many people who can barely pay their rent save up all year long to buy a costume, just so that they can have their 80 minutes of glory parading in their favorite samba school. The baianas, the older women who, from a bird’s eye view, look like twirling, swirling flowers dancing down the avenue, wear gigantic skirts that can weigh 20 pounds or more. Some of the baianas are in their 80s and 90s. In the video below, the baianas are dressed as bees:

And when it’s all over, the “garis” enter. These are the clean-up men and women, and they often put on their own show. Dressed in bright orange suits, they enter the avenue with their long-handled brooms, and have been known to samba their way through their job of sweeping up streamers, confetti, and trash left behind by the huge Carnival crowds.

But Carnival isn’t quite over yet. On Saturday there will be the championship parade, featuring the top six samba schools. It’s not quite as engaging as the original parades. I know this from experience, having gone out in one in the 90s. Carnival is essentially over, and you don’t feel the same enthusiasm repeating the same parade, but you do your best to make it a spectacular experience for the people in the grandstands, and I honestly don’t think they can tell the difference.

Who will win today? I don’t know, but I’ll sure be glued to my computer screen this afternoon to watch the judging.

Carnival in Rio

Our yearly Carnival in Rio has begun. It’s without a doubt the biggest party on earth, a mind-boggling display of costumes, floats, singers, musicians and drummers who parade all over the city.

The larger Carnival groups, or samba schools, hold their parades in the Sambarome in downtown Rio. I’ve had the privilege and joy of parading with several of these groups as a drummer, although the very first time I went out I just jumped around (see photo) in my little pink and green dress, which was also fun.

My first parade, in 1991, with the samba school Mangueira

People often ask me, “Isn’t Carnival just a lot of chaos, with out-of-contol crowds, like the Mardi-Gras?” Well, no, it isn’t. Sure, there are crowds, but Rio’s Carnival is very well organized, and well policed. The major parades in the Sambadrome are also a contest, where one group comes in first and parades the following Saturday in the championship parade with the other groups that came in near the top. Carnival is fun, but it’s also serious business.

Carnival is a time to dream, to pretend, to dance, sing, and live for a little while in a magical world. Those of us who play in the huge drum bands (“baterias”) rehearse for most of the year, every Saturday from around 11p.m. to 4:30 a.m. It’s hard, but exhilarating work.

I have written a lot about my Carnival adventures in my book, and what it feels like to stand in the Sambadrome with 400+ other drummers and up to 4000+ other paraders, watching the opening fireworks and waiting for the downbeat. I get chills just writing about it here.

With two pals in the samba school União da Ilha

So, as we say here in Rio, “Bom Carnaval!” (Have a great Carnival!)

União da Ilha