Monday in Portland

Monday in Portland. Worked hard all day - learned all about human respiration today - spirometers, pneumotachs and how to do asthma tests - just in time to teach a three-hour lab on it, nick of time! Then a 1.5-hour lecture about endangered cats.
It's such a crazy mind flip for me on Mondays to jump from my biology classes to Lions rehearsal. My head is still buzzing with pieces from lecture. Today my head is full of Sand Cat and Bay Cat and Black-footed Cat, the plight of the Clouded Leopard, the three extinct tigers and the five endangered ones... the certain looming extinction of half the world's great carnivores... as I'm zooming from the university down I-5 to rehearsal, where I fly in already late and having missed half of rehearsal. Find a parking spot, thinking "only 35 Amur leopards left in the wild! Thirty-five! Hopeless!" Hear the bateria already playing, in a sealed basement room a block away. Put my earplugs in BEFORE going into the basement. Ah! They're in Break 7! Charge in the door, pick up my segunda and off we go.

Break 7 finishes, samba calls out and they call "Six-eight! Six-eight and then Samba-Reggae!" I look around and, oh no, I'm the only timbal player and the 6/8 starts with a long timbal solo. Well, hell, do or die. This happened a couple weeks ago and I was mortified then, and so I've been practicing; time to see if the practice paid off.

Jump right into it and - YEAH - the practice paid off. Steadier and surer, slappier slaps, tonier tones, steadier tempo. And that wasn't even all that much practice, either. Rewarding to feel it improving. I'm still not great, but now I'm solid, and that's half the battle.

I'm still not loud enough though - Brian has to jump ship from repinique and join me on timbal so that the bell can hear me. But I don't feel too bad about that since it's just me on one lonely timbal against 6 caixas, 6 surdos, and a rack of tamborims, and the bell player is clear across the room. But it makes me EXTRA DETERMINED to play AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE. I know I can't play as loud as a guy with twice the arm muscle - that's just physics - but - how loud COULD I play, really? If I really try? I briefly, momentarily consider that I have a bruise on the palm of my left hand that I'm trying not to aggravate, but then HELL WITH IT and starting whapping AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE on and on and on in a FAST six-eight, a ROCKING six-eight. LOUDER! LOUDER! LOUDER! KEEP IT CLEAN! KEEP IT BRIGHT! KEEP IT LOCKED! Then I find a way to make it EVEN LOUDER! More momentum! More arm! Floppier hand! WHAPPIER!

... and I'm wearing out fast, oh wow, this is an athletic workout and no joke, and I am PANTING.

I'm shocked at how hard I'm panting. Now, remember I was just assessing respiratory physiology earlier today, right down to measuring vital capacity of the lungs before and after exercise. So I just happen to know that the rate I'm puffing now is nearly full vital capacity, as deep and fast as if I were biking at 70% of maximum heart rate.

How is it possible to get such a workout using only your arms? On a measly little hand drum? How can that be equal to biking? I'm not even dancing! I'm standing still!

I finish the 6/8 completely out of breath, my arms shaking, and freshly inspired for a new research project that, in fact, I was just proposing earlier today to a fellow biologist: The Exercise Physiology of Drumming. I want to bring drummers into the lab and measure their oxygen consumption. I want to study drumming AS A PHYSICAL SPORT, as muscle and endurance training.

I'm breathless and happy. No, I wasn't loud enough, but it was reasonably clean and steady and I've got some great research ideas.

Samba-reggae next, I'm solo timbal on this and it goes pretty well too. Nothing fancy at all - in fact I don't think I did a single variation - I just wanted to get the groove to groove.

Vou Festejar. Pauline & I sing our little hearts out! Trying to be audible, just the two of us hollering against an entire bateria, so Brian can count out where to call the breaks. Damn, it's so fun to just belt that baby out. I love that song. And extra fun to sing it with Pauline since it reminds both of us so much of our time in Brazil.

What a weird rehearsal. I'm not a timbal player, and I'm not a singer, but I was soloing on both the last couple days with the whole pride of Lions all watching. Hung in there, did my bit, as best I could. Felt useful. Felt really good actually. At 9pm sharp rehearsal finally ended, but everybody went into Full Chat Mode, enough to go get a whole nother round of beer from the beer fridge. So I hung around a long time just chit-chatting and it was all so friendly, and so nice, to just be hanging out with my friends, that I got positively sentimental about it during an especially touching conversation about old electrical wiring. They're all going "Remember the really old kind with two wires with the braided insulation? And those little porcelain insulators?" and I'm thinking "I LOVE you guys!" Ah, Lions... you're my family, really, you really are.

"Happiness not real unless shared" - Chris McCandless (Into The Wild)