VamoLa leads the 2007 Solstice Parade

Solstice day. Alarm clock rang and I woke with horror to realize it was already time to get up. Oh noOOOOO!! It CAN'T be time to get up already! We'd only gotten to bed at 2am after that exhausting, intense Lions show, and here it is just 8:30. Up and tackle the costume.... I'm so glad I decided against body paint - there really was no time. On with my inferior back-up costume,which is just, silver lame bellbottom disco-queen stretch pants, a backless zebra-striped black-and-silver drape top, the black-feathered military headdress (now with peacock feathers on top). Sparkly blue-and-silver shoes below; blue tulle tied to the repinique. Overall effect: jagged silver and black. Best I could do for tossing a costume together at the last minute, ok? For the final touch I tape a massive white bandage to my right hand, over the huge blood blisters from the Lions gig last night. Anyway.... Collect instruments for everybody: Surdo for Jeremy, chocalho for Uma, caixa for Justin, tamborim for Garrett. Put on sunblock and blue glitter, tuck my sparkly shades into the waistband of the disco-queen pants, and I'm ready to go. Wake my houseguests. Get the earplugs. Check email for last minute crises. check phone. Take everybody to breakfast, find a parking space, walk to the parade start....

Oh, impossible, it's already 11am!!! Time to start warming up. Play my repique for a while, both to warm myself up and to call drummers to arms. People slowly assemble.... start playing... run through repertoire, all the hand signs....

you know what, it is getting progressively funner and funner to just blast into playing repinique at full volume in the middle of a crowd that wasn't expecting it!

We have a simple repertoire for this parade:
Samba with simple 8-count call
Two very simple, classic, one-measure-long, samba breaks:
8 booms
"One. And Three."
One long break that can feature different sections & that has a "VamoLa" shout.
Sectional solos (have half the band shut up to feature certain sections; then layer back in)
Funky samba, starting with cut
Funky dispersion into crowd, then reassemble
Funky 8-boom break (same break that we use in samba)
Transition straight back into samba
Tihai - can be used as an entrada or a call-out
Paradinhas:
"Three-three"
"Five-Five"
"George of the Jungle"
"Long buzz" - I totally forgot to do this one
"Three-boom"

That's it. I run through it all, except, there's no chance to warm up the Tihai because the lead tamborim player hasn't arrived yet, and I already know that the other players can't do it without him. I keep scanning around for him, itching to review Tihai and knowing it is going to need a long warm-up. He arrives very late, and finally we try Tihai once. Uh-oh. It's very rocky. It's decayed hugely since Sunday rehearsal. Now I'm not sure whether to call it in the parade at all.

All other breaks sound relatively clean. The groove sounds good. Our brand-new chocalho player, who joined the group a whole week ago, is settling in well (and has a great outfit, too!) Justin shows up and grabs the caixa I brought for him. Garrett's got a replacement tamborim for his broken one. My 3 Lions guests seem to have settled in too - I have one each on surdo, tamborim and chocalho. I check with them about whether my hand signs make sense; apparently they do.

Thank god I switched VamoLa to the 8-count call - the VamoLa players & Lions players are actually all starting together in the same spot! I think this is the first time in 10 years that Seattle and Portland players have been able to jam with each other successfully! yay for the 8-count call!

11:30. I call out the band and give them a 10-minute break. I tell them to absolutely without fail be back by 11:45, no excuses or I will kill them. While they're gone I keep worrying about the Tihai.

11:45. We're supposed to start playing but of course HALF the drummers are still missing. I haul their surdos (sans players) into a formation by myself. I realize I've forgotten to check surdo tuning.

And where are the dancers? We have only one dancer! June is the only one who's showed up. It's 15 minutes to parade start time. What has happened to our 12 dancers? Finally Oriana shows... then Stacey. Three. Where are all the others? One dancer says to me worriedly "All the dancers were carpooling and were planning to be dropped off here, but they just discovered that the streets are closed for the parade so they can't get here, they're trying to get here now, they're trying to find a way closer." Of COURSE the streets are closed for the parade. The streets are ALWAYS closed for this parade. aiiiii....

I check who's actually here and come up with a parade formation. Problem: surdo and caixa line-up. It is like a little SAT math puzzle: "You are leader of a samba band. You are starting a parade in 10 minutes."

"Your guest on third surdo needs to be in back row to be able to see other third surdo.
The front row of drummers needs to have a first, a second, and a third surdo.
Each first surdo needs to be next to a second surdo.
One of the first surdos needs to be able to see the other first surdo.
The other first surdo needs to be on the right-hand side of the line.
As many surdos as possible need to be near Alexandra, our third surdo player,
All surdos need to be within 5 feet of a loud caixa or 3 feet of a soft one.
The lead caixa player is missing from this parade.
We have only one other loud caixa player, Brian, who will be switching to repinique occasionally.
There are 3 old-hand caixas who have just rejoined this week but are out of practice and not loud
There is 1 guest caixa player who has impeccable time but does not usually play caixa."

"How do you arrange your drummers?"

All right. Surdos in two rows: 4 in front and 3 behind. I tuck the 2 strongest caixa players in between the surdos of the second line, where they can be heard by the most surdos at once: they'll blast the front line surdos but also be heard by the surdos on either side of them. I line the rest of the caixas in a third line, warning them all "Caixas - always be sure you are very close to AS MANY SURDOS AS POSSIBLE. Make sure surdos can hear you." Bells on the side. Chocalhos in back- damn, I should have centered them - no time, we're about to start. Cuica player given freedom to room - this is Ray, wildly dressed up in colors and a crazy hat - he typically roams the edges of the crowd like a crazy samba clown, and they love it..

Spare drumsticks and repique stick are in the wagon.

11:50. The nude bikers are assembling. The street has been cleared. The crowd is huge. Two topless girls with a huge sun banner have positioned themselves in front of us - the start of the parade.

Where are my dancers??

Start playing. Run through samba and funky.

11:55. About eight breathless dancers come flying up out of nowhere. They hurl on their shoes, their headdresses, fling their bags into the tiny wagon. I'm still missing my main first surdo. Suddenly he appears - looking exhausted, as if he's had a narrow escape from some frustrating last-minute problem. He straps on his surdo and finally we're ready to go.

We go through samba, into funky and - yikes! The parade's starting and we're still in funky! Quick as is musically possible, I call them back to samba and,
ta-da,

we sail out into the vast street,

the crowd packed tight on either side, THOUSANDS of eyes on us,

the dancers suddenly, magically in their flying arrow formation, all glitter and feathers.

Brilliant Oriana in front leading them seamlessly through the three Donna choreographies. I see them start to wave their arms. That means they're starting a choreography. Oriana glances back. She's waving "1" with one hand - choreography #1. She counts it off for the dancers, glances back to see they've got it, catches my eye to be sure I got it too, and off they go. I can see that the crowd is starting to applaud, but I can't actually hear them.

It's brilliant. It's fantastic.

The dancers are so beautiful.

The band sounds nervous at first, but within a minute it settles in. Solid and sure.

I'm walking backwards for a good chunk of the parade (to give cues to the band) and so I'm the only drummer who sees that we are being followed by several enormous flowers, stilt-walkers and some kind of huge robotic dragon. Nude body-painted bicyclists start weaving through the crowd.

Our breaks are a little wobbly at first but tighten up. The 8 is good. The Ned is good. The transition into Funky is, miraculously, very solid. (It's a brand-new transition.) The paradinhas are clean. Recklessly I decide to try the Tihai - what the hell. The tambs are ragged, but the rest of the band responds clean and loud, and to my surprise it gets a HUGE crowd cheer.

Oh, yeah! Finally I can relax, for the first time all week. The preparation is over - and now it's time to just enjoy the parade and play our asses off.

It is so cool to know that the dancers are in such good hands - I almost never take my eyes off Oriana and it is so calming, somehow, to see her start waving her arms again for the next choreography - I know she has everything under control.

I start to realize I don't even have to be facing the band when I call them in. They get the call every time, they always get the pick-up now - they're steady on the 8-count entrance now - I don't have to worry.

Only two near disasters:
#1 - I call a bell and caixa solo, and the bells immediately go so far astray that I have to shut them up again. My fault - I should have remembered that the bells tend to get lost when they don't have a surdo playing along. They'd even specifically warned me that they get confused if they can't hear a surdo, but I'd completely forgotten.

#2 is kind of funny - I call a caixa solo and immediately it starts to fragment because somebody is playing unbelievably far out of time. I look around for the source, baffled, and find that Justin happened to have, just then, been inviting a tiny little kid to bang on his caixa. The little kid is going CRASH, CRASH, CRASH, with all his heart, and this one little 4-year-old kid is louder than all of the Vamola caixa players! (His technique sucks, though) All the caixas falter in confusion and the groove starts to fragment! I dash over and slam my hand in between the caixa and the little kid's stick. Then it takes the caixas an oddly long amount of time to get organized again, and I'm too slow in realizing that I need to add a strong player on a prominent instrument immediately - surdo or chocalho. Caitlin intelligently joins in on chocalho on her own, saving the day.

We pause a long time by the Fremont bridge while the belly-dance army behind us assembles its huge mobile pyramid. A great time for us to stand still, relax, go through all our breaks. We do the VamoLa break over and over, we go through Funky and the paradinhas, and it occurs to me to do a repinique solo in one of the VamoLa breaks. I've actually never done any kind of repinique solo in public before, but I am pretty confident about just a plain ol' repique ride, so I just stick to that, and, hey! It sounds good! And it is kind of fun! Actually it is really, really fun!

We pass under the gigantic Aurora bridge, home of Seattle's best public-arts statue, a huge troll who crouches under the bridge with a VW Beetle clutched in one vast stony hand. Under the bridge marks the end of the intense first phase of the parade, which has most of the media and the thickest crowd, and it's my personal cue for, time to relax and change things up. I invite Brian to lead for a while. He's completely smooth and competent at it, calls a variety of breaks, catches the dancer cues just fine, plays the calls beautifully. He's so obviously a competent parade leader that I relax into playing his caixa and immediately I shatter one of his thick drumsticks with a sharp CRACK that sends the broken end spinning through the air clear across the street. Sorry, Brian!

On and on. Brian and I trade back and forth a couple more times.

Finally we arrive at Gasworks Park. It's over.

We do a weird little stage show - very weird - VERY bad (lesson learned: Never, ever, ever, commit to a stage show without being sure you can run through every piece at the rehearsal before). Then I stagger home with Jeremy, Uma and Christina, who all seem to have had a fine time. We lounge around in the yard eating cherries and raspberries, then drive to Portland. I am dangerously teetering on the edge of collapse - it's been a week now with barely any sleep, little food and a lot of stress - so I launch into full-bore high-octane hell-for-leather Chat Mode to keep myself awake. Christina helpfully gets me going on many fascinating topics involving horseback treks through Argentina, and deforestation and endangered species, and I manage to stay awake and we manage to get to Portland in one piece. I drop everybody off, head to dancer Tanya's place (she's kindly offered me a bed, for the umpteenth time). Tanya has a HOT TUB now!!! So, a half hour in the hot tub. I totter to bed at 10pm and wake up at 10am. Stagger through one more odd Lions rehearsal, at which I feel fairly useless (there are no caixas, but all I have is a repinique). Drive allllll the waaaaay back. Arrive in Seattle and sit in a stupor on the spread-open futon. I watch Planet Earth for while.... gazing wide-eyed and empty-headed at the astonishing scenery of oryx galloping over sand dunes. It's so beautiful and relaxing.

It's all over.

I have been back in the US for three months. In that three months, I taught 35 students about how their bodies work, and it went REALLY well, and they learned a lot. Many said it was the best course they'd ever had in the Honors proram. I taught 15 others about sleep and dreaming and the nature of consciousness. I played with the Lions at the Fundo de Quintal show, and it went REALLY well, and they were fantastic. I led VamoLa in the Solstice Parade, and they did REALLY well. I'm so proud of them. It's been so rewarding to work with them. And I called a Harris' hawk and he flew right to me, and I held a gyrfalcon on my hand.

I'm going to go to sleep now for a year.

The Lions at Fundo de Quintal

Friday night. Tear through a last-minute VamoLa costume and run flat out of time on it. No time for the silver trim, extra peacock feathers or silver Mardi Gras beads; just no time. Make 3 beds for my expected Lions guests. Now I'm down to the wire. I heap all the stuff I will need for Solstice tomorrow in a little pile: my repinique, strap and stick; my whistle; the caixa, strap & sticks for Justin; tamborim for Garrett; chocalho for Uma; a spare drumstick for the water wagon; a tiny bag that will hold my cell phone, id and money. I pile my costume, such as it is, on top, a messy concoction of silver lame with not enough feathers. Next to that, a small box with sunblock, makeup and glitter.

No time left. It's already 9 and Pauline has left me a voicemail saying that the Lions bus has arrived in Seattle! I grab my 18" surdo, put on my Lion whites, and run out the door to drive a half-hour south to the Fundo de Quintal show.

I've been looking forward to this show for ages. Fundo de Quintal is Rio's premier pagode group. (They are the group that more or less invented pagode.) I don't know if they've ever played in Seattle before,but it is a hugely rare event to have them here, and all the Brazilian community came. It just makes it extra special that I could play with the Lions too at this show. I've made several trips to Portland in the last couple weeks for Lions rehearsals for this show.

I love Fundo, by definition, but the sound in the hall was pretty bad... and I REALLY wish they hadn't had a drumset player!! Why, why, why have a drumset when you've already got a full line-up of the best percussionists in Rio? I couldn't even hear the repique-de-mao. Oh well. They are fabulous musicians, just the same, and I had a great time anyway.

Finally, time for the Lions. We all got our drums on and assembled in a long column at the entry way. Randy was peering around the corner at the stage to see when Fundo was actually finishing. The crowd kept chanting "Mais um!" (one more!) and Fundo played one encore, then another.... much of the crowd was already leaving. Finally: time. Randy led us down the ramp with a ripping repinique solo, and the remaining crowd came flying over to our side of the hall, wedging up tight to see us, even standing on the tables. Randy called us in and POW, once again, that shimmering air, the fire of that unstoppable Lions momentum. We started off unbelievably fast, Mangueira tempo, Salgueiro tempo, ridiculous tempo! It was so fast I couldn't even do half my usual third-surdo stuff - forget those rolls! We must've been at 155 or something insane. But the momentum and adrenalin was uncontainable and I started ripping on the surdo harder than I ever have. I could hear David and Jeremy behind me - my favorite third-surdo trio. I was flanked by two wonderful caixas and had the tamborims right in front, and always could hear the rock-solid certainty of the thundering of the firsts and seconds (such a treat to play with firsts and seconds that solid...)

Randy did some unbelievable repinique solos. He's such a beautiful player.

People have been asking me a lot recently if I could lead the Lions next year (I haven't been angling for this at all - I think they're asking me just because they know I lead a group in Seattle, and because I've spent so much time in Rio.) I'd started to consider the thought, unlikely as it was, but watching Randy tonight, all I could think was "There is no way in holy hell that I could ever lead these breaks that well or play repinique a tenth that well." Randy is just an incredible player, and plus, he's just so confident and solid calling those breaks. With all that fire and thunder all around, I can't believe he could even think, let alone count out where to place a break. And his solos, jeez, so beautiful.

The dancers were phenomenal, the crowd electrified the whole time. We had what seemed like dozens of incredible dancers in fantasias (probably really only about 8, but it sure seemed like a lot) - and every damn one of them was a top-flight samba dancer on a full adrenalin high, which is something to see when there's even just one of them, so imagine EIGHT of them in that state and you might get the idea.....

Then all four of the huge blue Portela outfits came shimmying out. I'venever seen four of those out at once. The Portela outfits are huge contraptions of feathers, silver spikes and glittery blue-and-black streamers (they're from one of the Portela escola's Carnival parades some years ago.) They are so outrageously elaborate that it's hard to recognize that there is a dancer inside. I could see them above everybody's heads, four huge architectures of blue feathers and silver streamers, shimmying and samba'ing over to us in a vibrating fury of blue. It looked exotically inhuman, like an alien invasion from Planet Samba. The crowd was floored at first, then ecstatic, then uncontainable. A man in the front row kept screaming at the top of his lungs. We went through most of the choreographies, our best breaks, then invited the crowd to come dance, and did they ever.

We only played about forty minutes, but we sure made every minute count. I finished the show buzzing with adrenalin and unable to stop moving. I glanced down at my hand to find a huge, throbbing double blood blister - two blisters joined at the side, both full of bright red blood. I could poke it and shove the blood around - cool! Plus 2 other large subsidiary blisters (the ordinary kind, no blood) and a big scrape and bruise on my knuckles from bashing my hand into a lug. I'd totally shredded my hand again - shit, and I have to play tomorrow! what was I thinking?

Some of Fundo de Quintal even applauded us as we passed by them going into the dressing room. Backstage, people's eyes were glittering, wide astonished smiles, thrilled happy looks everywhere.

We sure did give them a show, didn't we??

What a great band.

Calling Cisco

Friday - I had to table all thoughts to work at the zoo. The Lions gig is tonight, the VamoLa show is tomorrow and I still don't have any kind of costume for the parade; but the raptor program needs me today and I already committed to them; so I have to go.

They're short one keeper today, so Jean proposes that I participate in the free-flight program today. My job would be to call Cisco, the Harris' Hawk, to fly over to me at two points in the show.

The problem is that Cisco doesn't like me. On my first day there, four weeks ago, I was standing in the barn, peeking out into the outside yard through a half-open door. Outside were a dozen hawks each tethered to their own personal perch, and one of them started screaming. That was Cisco. He was 50 feet away away from me, surrounded by a few hundred zoo visitors, and I was just peeking around a door in the dark barn far away, but he spotted me, knew right away from my maroon sweatshirt that I was a new volunteer, and started screaming. "He's seen you," said the raptor keeper. "He's yelling at you because you're new. He does this with every new volunteer."



For that first two weeks, every time I walked through the thick zoo crowd outside, he'd scream at me. Every time I visited the zoo on other business and happened to walk past the Raptor yard, Cisco would scream at me. I didn't matter what I was wearing any more - he knew my face now, and immediately picked me out from the thousands of zoo visitors that he sees every day.

For that first two weeks there, the lead keeper had me hide in the barn during Cisco's free-flight routine. "Cisco is obviously not down with you and I think it's better if you stay out of sight," he'd said. The birds fly completely free in the raptor shows, and if they're startled or upset about something, they can forget the routine and fly away.

Cisco is a Harris' Hawk, which is the only social hawk in the world. Harris' hawks live in tight-knit family groups, and it makes them extraordinarily sensitive to the social bonds they have with individual people, and rather stubborn about new people who try to join their "family" of human handlers. On the plus side - once you get on their good side, they become sweet and cooperative.

Well, the first two Fridays I was there, Cisco screamed at me nonstop. The third Friday, though, he just gave me a few peeps, and I carried his box (with him in it) to the start of both programs. I know he could see me through the holes of the box, but he didn't scream, and he flew well in both programs. Was he starting to get used to me?

Today is the fourth week. So, in the 12:30 program, I waited for my cue (hide by the tree till Cisco flies to the back perch three times). Then I stepped out into view, and climbed up a little stepladder to the platform that he was supposed to fly to. Cisco had arrived at the front perch. Jean pointed toward me, and he looked at me. I had a little mouse leg, which I put on his platform, and then I blew my whistle and waved my hand - which meant "I've got a yummy mouse leg for you if you fly to my platform."

He looked at me, I blew the whistle, waved my hand, blew the whistle, waved my hand. He just kept staring at me.

To my surprise, he started to crouch as if to take off - then changed his mind.

Crouched again to fly... and changed his mind and stood up.
Tweet, wave my hand.
Crouched... took off! Flew partway but lost his nerve halfway toward me, and landed instead on a fence.

Jean called him back to the perch. We started over.

Tweet, wave my hand. Tweet, wave my hand.
Crouch, change his mind. Crouch, change his mind.
Crouch, fly!
... but again lose courage halfway there, and land on the grass this time.

The crowd was watching all this in rapt silence. Jean had explained to them that I was new and that Cisco was still getting to know me, and they were interested to see that a hawk could be undecided about working with a new person.

There he was, a nervous Harris' hawk sitting in the grass, looking at me uncertainly.

... and then, due to a miscue, a third raptor handler walked out unexpectedly with Cisco's box. He spotted it and flew gratefully right to it - at last, his nice safe box, instead of the scary new person!

Jean said afterwards "I'm sure he would have flown to you if we hadn't had that miscue with the box coming out. I'm certain of it. Let's try again in the 3:30 program."

So, 3:30 program rolls around.... I hide by the tree, wait my cue, go to the platform.

Tweet, wave my hand.
He stares at me.
Tweet, wave my hand.

Cisco takes off straight at me. He soars RIGHT AT ME. Huger and huger and huger, a beautiful, enormous, hawk coming straight at me, wings wide. Larger and larger and larger. He swoops up and lands on my platform softly and gracefully, folds his wings, eats my little mouse leg. He gives me one more of those contemplative, intent Cisco stares. Jean calls him back and he flies right back to her, hops along the fence for her.

Then I call him back one more time and this time, with no hesitation, he takes off immediately for me, flies right to me.

I almost melted. I'm amazed that the sight of a bird flying toward me could move me that much.

Exhausted

It has been a really hellishly stressful week. The last week of my UW teaching job, with its relentless fury of grading; two other equally stressful jobs starting immediately; juggling a 4th job at the zoo; THREE round-trip drives to Portland this week, which means six days in the car. Housing falling through constantly. Shit, I just realized I am juggling 4 jobs, 3 bands and 2 cities - no wonder I'm tired. And it's all coming to a head this week: one job ending, three starting, and major gigs for the 2 major bands. I'm always couch-surfing and begging for beds in Portland since my long-term housing there still hasn't worked out. I'm exhausted from hopping from bed to bed, futon to floor.

And looming at the end of the week, the two events I've been waiting for for months: on Friday night, the high-profile Lions gig for Fundo de Quintal in Seattle; and then, Saturday, the finale of my two-month stint as VamoLa's music teacher and temporary director, leading them in the Solstice Parade. I'll also be hosting several Lions guests overnight so they can play in that parade, and though I'm really delighted to have them, I also suddenly realize that it means I have to clean the whole house (it hasn't been cleaned since I left for Brazil last fall!), and finish painting the bathroom. While doing laundry for clean sheets for my guests, I discover the hot water heater is leaking - uh-oh.

So this is the big week at last. It is blurring by. Grade the exams, race to UW, drop the grades off at the registrar, post the exam key, hop directly in my car, drive to Portland. Lions rehearsal, then straight to UP for a huge meeting about the biology teaching... drive back to Seattle... Repeat.

I am intensely anxious about the Solstice Parade. VamoLa has come together quite well over the past couple weeks, but they still have that odd erraticness: they'll be great in one rehearsal and then will decay to unrecognizable messiness the next rehearsal. This is a sign that most people are not solid on their parts. I estimate that only about 1 or 2 people per section is truly solid, in the sense that they don't need to see or hear anybody else to be completely sure of their part. So, if that person is gone, it can fall apart to an astonishing degree. One key caixa and one key surdo will both be missing for Solstice, so I'm scrambling to pull it together, get a back-up surdo player, beg some old caixa hands to come back. I spend a lot of time on Tuesday racing around Portland trying to track down one more surdo. I have the feeling that it will all work out in the end and that it will be a good parade, but the uncertainty is eating at me nonstop.

And I'm still weirdly worried about my own repinique playing, since I haven't had any time to practice. I've taught a lot but have only rarely played lead, in my life. It's something you can't practice in Brazil - no gringa ever gets to play lead repinique or practice leading in Rio. You can only be a cog in a 350-drummer machine. So for all my samba experience, and all my time leading rehearsals, I still have very little lead experience in actual parades or shows.

Thursday is my first free day in a month. Clean house nonstop for my Lions guests. Wrap up paint job on bathroom. Spend an unholy amount of money on a new feathered headdress, gold bikini and gallons of blue body paint and glitter. Still undecided about body paint since the weather's been pretty bad.... and given that I'll be up very late with the Lions gig, I won't really have time Saturday morning to do a full body paint job, will I? dang... I really wanted to do blue body paint but it might not be the right time for that.

Today I wasted a stupid amount of time sending out unnecessary emails to the cbc list.... I usually don't get into that kind of inane email exchange any more, ever since I completely destroyed a friendship last year with a barrage of unnecessary emails. Since then I try not to discuss things over email. But on days when I'm near collapse with stress and sleep deprivation, I will sometimes slip into those old habits and start writing lots of long rambling emails again, and that's what I do today. Sorry, cbc'ers.

I have a horrible night Thursday. I haven't had enough time to practice for either gig, I'm stressed beyond belief about my housing, my job changes, the constant running around - everything is up in the air again and I'm completely sick of it. I no longer have an answer when people ask me where I'm living. I reply "I don't have a home, " or "It's hard to explain," or "I move around a lot." I'm desperately tired. I wish I could sleep for a week.

Fortunately and unfortunately

Prepping a samba group for a big parade.... Let's take just one topic that came up this week: Surdos. I shuffled the surdos all around about a month ago in preparation for the Folklife show. But Solstice is a longer parade.

Unfortunately, Juliana announced she can't come to parade.
Fortunately, David's doing really great.
Unfortunately, we still really need another 1st surdo - you always want back-up there in a parade, so the other player can take a drink of water, adjust a strap, etc.
Fortunately, Dave Henson said he could play.
Unfortunately, he couldn't find his drum.
Fortunately, he realized where it was.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be the same drum that David F is already playing.
Fortunately, I realized I have another 24" surdo!
Unfortunately, it's in Portland on long-term loan to Bob Webster.
Fortunately, I happened to be in Portland for 12 hours yesterday!
Unforutnately, I didn't have Bob's email or phone number.
Fortunately, I remembered that Xuxa is Bob's brother, and I had Xuxa's email.
And fortunately, Xuxa actually saw the email the next morning, and called Bob, and Bob called me.
Unfortunately, I only had 4 hours left and Bob was already at work... and he's a half hour out of Portland.
Fortunately, he actually offered to leave work and drive back to his house to give me the surdo.

So I drove a half hour west and there it was, the missing 24" surdo! Threw it into the car and took off north on a shortcut that Bob told me about, up the west side of the Columbia.

My other major things I've been wrestling with:
- worrying about parade repertoire in general. I think I've come up with a good mix of samba & funk breaks that everybody is confident with, but it feels kind of last-minute and I've been vibrating with stress about it.
- I am completely terrified about leading the whole parade and doing all the repinique calls. I've led 2 parades before but never did the calls in public. (There was another repinique player last year who did all the calls.)
- putting a 15 min stage show together at the last minute; the parade organizers want us to do this; but I don't know the dance cues (i.e. where to place the breaks so they fit with the dancers' choreographies); and dancers are going to be wiped out anyway.
- majorly running out of time on costume plans: I'd like to do body paint again, but might not have the time; and I can't decide between gold & a deep dark blue with gold stars painted on it.
- also have a MAJOR Lions show Friday night that I need to not forget about....
- ... and four Lions to house, feed, and transport on Saturday morning to the parade
- And I have to make a whole nother trip to Portland to get those 4 Lions back home.
- and my other commitments, an overwhelming NOAA job that I need to be starting on right now, and the zoo on Friday.

Tidal waves

Another hugely long drive to Portland - the drive seems to have gotten longer - I got in too late to join in on Donna's dance class. Also found out on the way there that my housing plan & back-up housing plan and back-up back-up housing plan were all not going to work out. So, no bed tonight. Bummer.

So I made it to Lions rehearsal in the end and came in to find a weird caixa/repinique ride going on that I could not identify as a samba. I had to walk myself into it by staring at the player's hands and chanting "That's the slap so the downbeat MUST be right after it".... finally I realized that repinique was not accenting the 1 at all. Couldn't quite figure it out... Lions players do tend to use an unusual repinique ride (they use a really pretty version from Jorge that comes back into the center after the 2 and 4), but usually it's not quite like that. Something about it was swinging really oddly. Eventually I joined in with my usual repinique ride, which has a pretty strongly accented 1 like Jorge had drilled into me, but that made everybody jump! There was a weird zinging around the room as everybody tried to adjust to each other - I'd definitely rocked the boat and I don't know if it was in a good way or a bad way or if my swing was bad. Still not sure. Took a few bars for us all to lock in with each other, but eventually we did.

Rehearsal tonight was ok... but I was drained from the long drive, annoyed I'd missed most of Donna's class, and slightly bummed in a way that I could not pin down. I got unnecessarily irritated halfway through rehearsal when another surdo player tried to demonstrate something by leaning forward and staring at the guy he was trying to communicate with, apparently trying to drill his message in by ESP, playing the same part over and over again. But not saying anything.... I'm so literal, I can never understand when people try to teach that way.... I never have any idea what point they're trying to make: Play like this? Don't play like this? Play this loudly? Don't play this loudly? Play with this kind of dancing? Play leaning forward? Play with your mallet clenched like this? Play with your eyes wide open? I eventually figured out that he was trying to say "The segunda player is not hitting the syncopated beats correctly" but he never actually SAID that. He's the kind of teacher who teaches by metaphor - "Ya gotta FEEL it" kind of thing - whereas I am much more a "You're hitting the 3 slightly late" kind of communicator. oh well, I was just too tired to grasp the metaphors tonight.

Was discouraged again later to discover the Lions don't play any samba-reggae - damn, that stuff's fun! Was SERIOUSLY bummed about it, in fact. no reggae? none???? not even a little bit? But later I heard that they actually have about a zillion samba-reggaes; they've just fallen out of commission because of that classic instrument-switch problem: what do you do with all the tamborim and bell players? You can try to shift 'em to timbal and shekere, except, unfortunately, both those instruments have a pretty massive learning curve of their own. Dang. That IS a tricky problem.

At the end of rehearsal I asked if anybody had a sofa that I could sleep on. I had, in my idiotically optimistic way, just assumed somebody would jump forward to help me out. But there was a disheartening moment when nobody offered, and I faced the dismal prospect of sleeping in my car again. I was a little hurt & baffled since I know I'd have immediately, instantly offered to house any Lion who was stranded in Seattle. Moments like that make me realize, all over again, that I seem to have a completely bizarre idea of how friendship works - I always seem to both offer more, and expect more, than other Americans do. (I am told by Turks that I have an innately Turkish sense of friendship.) It was stupid of me to have just sprung that request out of the blue and expected someone to come forward.

But, a few moments later, both Blake & Brian came up to offer! How kind of them! All by themselves they redeemed the evening. I ended up crashing on Brian's futon (I've always wanted to see Blake's sheep, but he lives quite a ways out). And Brian turned to have a full music studio that had me drooling over its 32-channel mixer and double drumsets. I slept in the room with the mixer! And I got to eavesdrop on an editing session for a way cool hour-long radio show.

Woke later out of a vividly frightening nightmare of being trapped with a bunch of Lions in a small seaside house that was being pummeled by a series of tidal waves. First i just noticed that people outside were drowning, and I was going to go rescue them, but then realized a tidal wave was coming and that I couldn't rescue them. It was terrible to watch them being drowned. Then one after another the waves hit - each one higher than the last. I thought I was safe in the house at first, huddled in there with all the Lions, but finally the huge waves started reaching the house, and finally I decided I'd have to abandon the house and dash for the hills.

I am not sure what this dream meant but it was a doozy. I am suddenly feeling unsure if my potential home here in Portland, with the Lions, is going to end up being as vulnerable and storm-battered and temporary as all my other temporary homes.

Gyrfalcon, vulture and elephant

Here has been the oddest development in my samba life: I started working one day a week at the zoo in the raptor program. This marks a real change for me since it's the FIRST NON-SAMBA HOBBY that I've allowed myself in almost four years.

To get to functional level in drumming as quickly as I have, I've had to table everything else. I had two years solid of: no TV, no music, no books, no movies, no dinners out.... no nothing except practicing. I even stopped horseback riding, which has always been the constant love of my life, since I was a little girl.

But now that I know I can teach and lead, I feel like I can relax. Broaden my world out again.

God, the birds are spectacular.... today I actually had an Arctic gyrfalcon on my hand, fastest bird in the world in level flight (~90 mph)! Biggest falcon in the world! Falcon of royalty, the king's bird, the falcon of Kubla Khan! It was astonishing to have one of these legendary birds on my wrist. She was so amazingly beautiful that I kept almost flinching in surprise every time I glanced over, as I was talking to the public, to find that classically beautiful falcon face so close to my own, just a few inches away. Those huge dark innocent eyes, the perfect dark-grey feathered head, that wicked bill. She was watching me curiously: "Who are you?"

Those birds, it's amazing how alert they are and how closely they watch us. I actually caught the lead raptor handler, Tom, saying "That eagle is always watching me like a hawk! Well, I guess, like an eagle, actually." But truly - they really DO watch you. I didn't know it wasn't just a saying. And they recognize you! The Harris' hawk spots me coming a mile away.

The hard day of physical labor, caring for the birds, scrubbing out their mews till they're spotless; the afternoon behind-the-scenes excitement of prepping and releasing the free-flight birds for the show for the public. The show is more tightly and carefully timed than any music show I've ever been part of. Then watching them soar free overhead and come swooping back down home when called.

Crazy day today. The zoo's adorable little elephant Hansa died unexpectedly. A keeper came in to tell us and we were all stunned speechless. I was terribly sorry to hear the news, since I'd played a (minor) role in the 3-year drama of the Hansa's birth, and I know what she meant to the elephant keepers and the whole zoo. But no time to think about - there's the 12:30 raptor show to prep for - and in the show, Modoc the turkey vulture took off! (he does that sometimes) I followed him clear to Orangutans, trying to keep him in view, but a little girl spotted my zoo badge and started trotting after me asking worriedly "The mama elephant, whose little baby died, is the mama elephant angry? Is she sad? Is she upset?" - and I was trying to answer her sympathetically, but whoops, there went Modoc flying away and all I could say was "The mama elephant loved her baby - I'm so sorry, but I have to follow this vulture!"

Eventually Modoc swooped to the ground... right in the middle of a herd of about 8 little kids, who all instantly started toddling toward him like he was a baby magnet. It was alarming, since a vulture can do some pretty good damage with that carrion-ripping beak of theirs, and the parents were all pretty slow on the uptake (understandably; who expects a wild animal to land right next to your kid when you're at a nice safe zoo?) and the raptor handler had his hands full trying to get Modoc back on the glove; and all I could do was shove little kids out of the way. "Get back, stay back, I MEAN IT, get BACK!!!!"

Weird day. But then I got to cruise that magnificent gyrfalcon Kenai, taking her up front on my glove to the public and talking about her; and then, later, Coba, the eerily beautiful spectacled owl.

I cannot put my finger on why the birds were so invigorating for me. But when I got home, after the 8 hours of physical labor, such an odd day of elephant-grieving, vulture-chasing and gyrfalcon-cruising, and then a couple MORE hours physical labor painting a bathroom, after all that, I put on my Mocidade recording of their last rehearsal before Carnival, and I played chocalho and caixa for hours and hours. Playing and playing and playing. The whole evening stretching ahead of me, and nothing to do but play. No road trip. No teaching. Just playing. Not because I have to; because I love to.

The day job

For a student, the moment of infinite freedom is the moment you hand in your last final. For the teacher, it's the moment you turn in your grade sheets to the registrar. I handed them in today! My UW teaching wrapped up at last. This has been a beast of a job... pretty much 70-hour workweeks nonstop, seven day weeks, no rest. I took 1 weekend off sometime in May, but that was about it.

I've had some playing time - trips to Portland, and teaching for VamoLa, and jamming with the Saturday group, but it's been grueling. VamoLa and the Saturday group both cause a certain amount of stress, since I'm in a leader position for those; and the Lions always involve a long journey. So it's always, race home from a draining day and straight to a rehearsal or a long road trip, tired and edgey. Very little down time, and, the worst problem has been: no time for my own practice! My caixa playing is sliding; and I really want to work on repinique, and Chris Stromquist's conga stuff, and timbal; and Ramiro's samba-reggae stuff.... and my pandeiro-spring plan only lasted 1 month. I've had to table pandeiro again. The reality of the working life.

And frustratingly, my new job in Portland is going to prevent me from going to Brazil camp. :(

The grind of the teaching job has been so relentless that I felt music fading away a bit, in a disturbing way. Am I a biologist or a musician? It felt deeply disturbing to start saying "biologist" again instead of "musician." I can still picture the Mocidade quadra, so vividly, and remember being there, the thunder and awe and thrill of being in the middle of that 350-drummer bateria, and playing in the Monobloco and Banga parades; yet it seems so far away. At the end of the tiring days, recently, I've wondered if I will stop playing entirely someday, if music has been a side journey that will come to a natural end.

But this week, with the end of this teaching job, suddenly the music rose again back into view, like the blinders coming off. I booked my ticket to New York and London, for August - my one musical trip this summer. I felt ELATED when I bought my London ticket. Plus I have managed to squeeze in a trip to Maine too (for a big family get-together), a rare treat.

And yet I've really been loving teaching again, too. After I got over my first three weeks of total clumsiness learning how to speak English again, it started rolling. Somewhere in the middle of the quarter I hit a good stride and started really loving it again. I got GREAT feedback from my students on the last day of class when they turned in their last assignments. Lots of them lingered to tell me how much they'd enjoyed the class. So it felt like all the hard work was worthwhile. Maybe I will learn yet how to balance this double life.

Vamola pulls it off!

Folklife. Spent the full four-day Memorial Day weekend there. I dyed my hair on Saturday (deep brown with a purple sheen and blond streaks, pretty radical for me), had a good little jam with my Saturday group on the Folklife grounds. On Sunday, I met the Lions bus as they pulled in, ready with all their Folklife buttons. As soon as the bus appeared it started thudding and booming. I figured they were just drumming or something - you know those Lions - but it turned out they were all banging on the windows shouting to each other "There's Kathleen! OH MY GOD LOOK AT HER HAIR!"

It's nice to feel like I have a family!

I'd been drilling the Lions repertoire ferociously all week. Went through the past month of rehearsal recordings, sorted out the last confusing hand signs, drilled myself on the most dangerous breaks. Well, it paid off, I nailed everything! Every single break. I put all my power into it, ALL my heart and played like I was at Mocidade, full out. Some of the Lions have not seen me play full out before. They'd only seen me at the recent rehearsals where I was hanging back, because I was learning the repertoire! - Trying to hear what everybody else was playing, stopping to record, stopping to listen. That's the learning phase. But, once I've got it, then I play for real.

The Lions dancers were fabulous. The crowd was mesmerized. We blew the 6/8 a little bit but recovered, and nobody cared, it was great.

Such an honor to play with them, as always.

As for VamoLa - I'd been working with them SO hard, trying to get it together. I hadn't been slated to play for them but in the end I joined them on second surdo (where they most needed support). We got partway into the first piece, our beautiful 6/8-reggae medley. The dancers were flying, the groove was tight and confident, and the drummers all shot each other a surprised and thrilled look that said, clear as day: "Oh my god. This is going really well." A zing of confidence shot through the whole band at that moment and I knew the entire show was going to be fantastic. And it was.

It was another of those trademarked VamoLa Miracle Shows - when they pull together at the last second and somehow, impossibly, pull off an electrifying world-class show. Out of the blue.

What was cool was, I knew my teaching had made a difference. Over the last month I'd re-taught the entire repertoire, every single break in every piece; and taken apart the surdos and re-taught them all from scratch; and changed the basic samba call; and done a lot of basic rhythm training. Now it was suddenly so much stronger. In and out of every break seamlessly, none of that stuttering hesitation.

I was so proud of them!!

In the end it was a toss-up between Lions and VamoLa for the better show. The Lions are always technically better; they have that tidal wave of unstoppable confidence, ripping swing, and a much higher caliber of skill across the board. But VamoLa's got a more varied repertoire (they mix in a lot more northeast stuff, with samba-reggae, and more section features and solos), better drummer visuals (a ton more moving & smiling & dancing from the drummers, and surdos up front - always the crowd favorite for most visually charismatic drum). And by sheer luck of the gig, all of VL's top-flight pro dancers had reappeared. Ben Harris had turned up too and he was FLYING on timbal and on third. Made me wish I was on third... but that's what I have the Lions for.

It was damn impressive. I wish the Lions had been able to stick around to see it. The Lions are used to being king of the hill; and usually, rightfully so; but I honestly think VamoLa's got some great repertoire & showmanship that the Lions could learn from.