Samba Gata Riot Grrlz

*News flash* Pink girls' drum group causes street riot

Traffic along Alberta Street in Portland, Oregon, was briefly shut down today by a near-riot at the 2nd public performance of Samba Gata, Portland's new all-girls' drum group. The all-girls' group caused reportedly the largest crowd that has ever assembled at the popular monthly Last Thursday street festival along Alberta Street. The Last Thursday event has nearly hipstered itself out of control recently. The event last week drew the largest crowd it has ever had, with the mysterious pink girls' group concentrating the crowd to near-breaking point.

The mysterious ladies, all of whom were dressed in hot pink and black, began their show outside a small pet store on the sidewalk. Sidewalk traffic quickly grew so intense that the caixa section had to squeeze around a parked moped in the parking lane and the surdos wedged themselves onto an unfortunate decorative plant. The crowd quickly became so thick that normal progression in any direction became impossible. Three cars were permanently stalled in traffic; it is unknown whether the motorists survived. The chaos caused some band disruption to the extent that it was not quite possible at first to tell what exactly they were trying to do, but it appeared to be some kind of loud, semi-rhythmic activity.

Due to the limited space, the band moved partway down one block to a slightly larger area, briefly losing one of its founding members when she made the mistake of thinking that the band was actually going to go to the place that they had said they were going to go.

At the second performance halfway down the block, the crowd doubled in size and again closed off the street. Several hundred eyewitnesses stated afterwards the girls were definitely 100% female. Several dozen male drummers took it upon themselves to verify this by staring intently at the hands of the female timbal section for the entire twenty-minute performance, and stated afterwards that the females' hands did appear to be moving in sync and playing an actual drum pattern, and even were playing it rather quickly and performing actual solos now and then. None of the male drummers can ever recall having seen a female drummer drumming without a nearby male. It is unknown how the mysterious pink girl drummers have managed to accomplish this unprecedented feat.

The crowd was so loud and intense that nobody could verify the name of the mysterious pink group. Several audience members tried to solve the mystery by grabbing at the arms of players, while they were playing, and yelling "WHO ARE YOU? WHERE DO YOU REHEARSE? CAN YOU PLAY FOR US NEXT MONTH?" However, for some odd reason, band members appeared unable to engage in full, detailed conversations while also playing at top volume.

The band reportedly made $43 in tips, which onlookers calculate should be enough for a beer for all band members.

Two male founding members of March Fourth were spotted in the crowd, including one who reportedly dressed himself in a pink feather boa and carried around a tip basket, WHEN HE DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A GIRLFRIEND IN THE BAND, an act of generosity that the band members all reported as "totally sweet."

An Alberta street resident reported afterwards that "the female energy was so intense that it was going all the way to the trees." The resident then whirled in circles and crashed into a nearby bong vendor's table.

A University of Portland biology major reported that his biology professor was among the pink drummers, but this report could not be confirmed.

***
(I woke up the next morning out of a dream in which I was trying to have a shouted conversation in the place where we'd played our first [extremely messy] set, but painted bicycles and mobs of people kept whirring past me and pushing me into the parked cars. And yes, one of my students spotted me. Outed!)

The Wildcat Caixas of Bloco X

I'm getting overwhelmed w/the backlog of stuff I haven't written about! Well, my hand is better (5 days off email, netting songbirds on the high Oregon desert, was just the ticket). Meanwhile I've been slaving overtime, running an accelerated summer school course of human physiology for nursing students that has just been killing me. Human phys is a heavy-duty course at the best of times, but a 3x-accelerated summer course is, well, three times faster. Plus I'm running another job trying to edit 6 chapters in a major college bio text.

Overall: SLAMMED. Sick with stress and worry. I've had days where I've just been crying with frustration because I can't play any music and have to work nonstop, all the time, every minute, every evening. I have to work while I eat, eat while I drive, work while I bike, eat while I sleep, shower while I work - it's all blurring together -

But... these two jobs are how I am paying for that Europe trip. So it is worth it.

The only really ironic thing about it is that this summer school job conflicted with Bloco X's mega party at the European Cup in Vienna. It is still causing me some serious heartache that I couldn't go to that.

But I am lucky that I got to go to Europe at all and go to the Bloco X rehearsal in May. I am very grateful. Especially with the US currency in its precipitous nosedive, the economy crashing, the airlines collapsing, the fall of Rome upon us. To be able to fly halfway around the world and have friends take me in... (thank you so much, Yonca, Ameena, Rob, Charlotte)....

Bloco X is floating now on a little cloud in my memory, an idyllic and mysterious time that took place in another dimension. I have some trouble now remembering the exact sequence of events. But here are some of the images:

- The big introductions Thursday night (coincidentally it was may 1, my birthday!). Frank went through every country that was represented at Bloco X - something like 104 players from 14 countries. He'd say "Welcome to our friends from... Finland!" and all the Finns would all wave and everybody would cheer. And he introduced the contingents from Germany, and England, and France, and Poland, and Spain, and Scotland.... At the very very end, after everybody else had been introduced, he said "And last of all, we have a very special guest who has come all the way from the United States!" - that was me. Holy smokes. They gave me an OVATION. I waved. They kept clapping and cheering. I waved again. It went on and on and on. I took a little bow. I got embarrassed. I blushed.

I was truly amazed and really touched to get that kind of welcome.

Then Frank said "And it's her birthday!" and there was a whole nother ovation, and they all sang Happy Birthday to me. Later the Scottish band Sambayabamba gave me a copy of their cd for a present, and somebody bought me a beer, and somebody bought me another beer, and I felt so happy and lucky to be there.

later...

- feeling really overwhelmed by the terrifyingly beautiful swinging caixa players. Bloco X has a silky mesmerizing swing that is slightly different from the way the Lions play. They just ROCKET along, little caixa cheetahs. I was struggling to match the swing and tempo. Plus they almost all play em cima (holding the caixa up on their arm), so I tried that and I felt like a TOTAL KLUTZ... And some of them have been playing for only a YEAR, it's just not FAIR, it's not FAIR!

Partway through Friday I became absolutely convinced I was playing really horribly. Then became convinced I was playing LIKE SHIT. Then became convinced that as the ambassador for North America I was letting down my entire continent. I got into a little mental nest of self-doubt that kept me solidly snared for the next 48 hours.

But eventually I decided, well, what the hell, this is how I will learn to play better, just PLAY dammit, and I started playing out again.

later...

- Standing in the back row just soaking up the swing and suddenly a caixa player joins in behind me. RIPPING and powerful. It is so loud and amazing that I actually jump. I turn, unconsciously expecting to see a guy, with that kind of volume. But no, it's one of Verde Vai's drop-dead-gorgeous samba goddesses. Bethan. She is playing like a goddam Alaskan wildcat. Her sticks are just a wild blur, her swing PERFECT and amazing, her power unbelievable. She's scowling in concentration at her drum. There appear to be little lightning bolts shooting off of her. (I don't know what it is about the London groups, but they seem to have all these supermodels who just completely rip on caixa and tamborim).

Bethan instantly becomes graven in my memory as the Alaskan Wildcat of Caixa.

- 6am at Bloco X and a small group of players is still at it. In a foggy stupor I watch the band and fuzzily notice something is very different from what I'm used to seeing. what is it, what is it? OH - All the caixa players are dancing, but none of the other players are! (The exact opposite of what I'm used to in the US, where we suffer from Stoic Caixa Player Syndrome.) But here in Bloco X, at 6am in this deep dark forest in northern Germany, there's 3 crazed looking guys who bounce UP on every beat, UP, UP, UP. They're not playing em cima for once, and they're sort of straddled over the drums, curled over them.

I cannot BELIEVE how fast they are playing. I cannot believe the height and spread of the blur of their sticks. They're at the center of a sphere of whirling stick blur that looks about 3 feet in diameter. I become convince that their hands are not under their conscious control.

Are these players really human?

But the band hits a cut, and miraculously the caixa palyers actually stop playing for a second. The sticks briefly become visible as solid entities. Their magical blurred hands suddenly pause and reveal themselves as ordinary human hands. Then BOOM off they go again into hyperspace - the sticks and hands literally disappear again into the whirling glowing air.

I'm totally humbled by the Bloco X caixas.

(PS I never caught most of the bouncing blurred caixa players' names, but one I now know is Matze da Caixa).

Two months later I am playing in an Axe Dide show in Seattle, Washington, and I accidentally end up on caixa alone in an impromptu fast samba during a stage show. (with Axe Dide! yipes!) Andy is on repinique, Jesse on 3rd surdo - these are excellent pros, scary good - and they're both FLYING. And I'm the only caixa. And we're speeding up. Jesse goes sailing into an unbelievable string of pure swinglets. A dangerous flicker of "uh oh, can I pull this off?" shoots through me. But then I suddenly remember Bethan, and I feel the Spirit of the Alaskan Wildcat enter into me and I start PLAYING. Out of the corner of my eye I see a couple of the players shoot me surprised looks, including another great player (Doug) who straps on another caixa. He starts matching me.

We get so into it that when we finally stop, he roars at me:

"ARRRRRRR!", Doug says, shaking his caixa in the air ferociously.

"ARRRRRRRR!" I roar back, shaking my caixa in the air too. Yeah, baby, wildcats.

ice

wee spot o' tendonitis preventing me from typing much... I knew I shouldn't have played 3rd surdo quite that hard at that big Lions show last week, it's been months since I've been on it and my arm was out of practice, but I just couldn't resist! back to my ice and ibuprofen. Part 2 of bloco x hopefully to follow soon...

Bloco X: The Journey

ok, I'm back. Wow, two months off the computer, that was fantastic!! But due to popular demand... here's the Bloco X report.
Bloco X is the mega-bloco of Europe. It forms up really just twice a year, for a rehearsal and then for the European Cup (and sometimes for some other little things like the World Cup)

Movie is worth 10,000 words department: Here they are last weekend in Vienna.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzXf31QcFa8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Qign6k-bg&feature=related

Here are the ten thousand words. Part 1. The Journey.
so, what I did was, I knew I couldn't go to Vienna, so instead I went to Bloco X's huge rehearsal weekend in early May. Is it a rehearsal, a camp, or a four-day party?

So, on Monday April 28th, at 7pm, I turned in my final grades for my biology classes at the University of Portland, and on on April 29th at 4am on I was headed to the Portland airport. Hadn't gotten much sleep Sunday or Monday, of course, doing all my packing and ALL my grading for my four university courses; and then I was in the air Tuesday night over the North Atlantic, arrived in London at Heathrow Wed morning, had a humungous long bus ride out to an airport I'd never heard of (Stansted, home of the famously cheap Ryan Air. Deja vu of the old People Express, man, I haven't been cattle-prodded in quite the same way since back in the 80's in the gray Newark International Airport with the original budget airline People Express. I tell you, it really took me back.)

But, the fun part was, I was wandering around the Stansted airport through the RyanAir mobs, and suddenly they they were! THE BRITS! Rob, Charlotte, Phil and the other Phil, Bethan, Lauren, Aileen and the rest - all my original pack of London friends that I met in Rio two years ago. Plus some new friends too. (well, ok, so they're not all exactly Brits, but that's my mental category.)

It is cool, to travel so far across so many continents and countries, to be so bone-weary and semi-lost, and then out of the blue to see familiar friendly faces beaming at you.

Only a few very long interminable hours later, we'd slogged our way through the RyanAir flight and were in Berlin! Germany! Stuck at the airport for seven hours! (the photo on my facebook page was taken at this point; running nearly 72 hrs w/o sleep by then; I can't remember who took the photo).

They turn out to speak German in Germany. It was a shock to suddenly be somewhere where I REALLY didn't know the language. I've gotten used to being able to more or less fumble by in Spanish, and fumble fairly well in Portuguese, but now I was in a place where I knew NOTHING. (I'd meant to study some German before this trip, but decided I would need Turkish even more. So I focussed on Turkish. Which did turn out to useful.) You always hear about how "everybody in Germany knows English" which is almost true until you meet the one waitress who really DOESN'T speak English, and then you're reduced to the silliest, most helpless, hopeful sort of wide-eyed pantomime.

Hours trickled by and our promised ride did not appear. We'd all found ourselves a cozy little airport bar but my London friends were all getting pretty tired and I was seriously clobbered. Finally, a German sambista with a car (one small car) appeared, and our invaluable German-fluent friend Phil worked some miracle on a gullible taxi driver, and so we wedged, and I mean STUFFED ourselves, our surdos and caixas and bags and bodies into our 2 vehicles. Something like 10 samba musicians plus drums and bags in two cars. Aileen & I ended up really packed together, TIGHT, an enormous suitcase on top of us and cutting off all the circulation to our legs. It was the sort of situation where you start calculating how many hours you can go before necrosis sets in. I thought, two hours without permanent damage, maybe three?

Off we went on a many hours-long (more than three) ride through the mysterious dark woods of northern Germany. We were trying to find the Bloco X samba camp, which was in a new place this year, buried deeply in an unknown dark forest by a vast lake, in the middle of the night.

We drove and drove and drove. We drove through Berlin, where my impression was, Berlin looks like the top of a suitcase. (I couldn't see a thing except the top of the suitcase. I was in the middle of the back seat ) Through the dark night, past tiny German villages and into deep, mysterious woods. This was my first time in Germany and, the further we went into the woods, the more medieval and Brothers Grimm it started to feel to me. I kept listening for wolves.

We got off the main road and into a maze of tiny forest roads. It was 4am. Still no samba camp. We took to pausing every now and then and listening to the trees, hoping to hear the sound of distant drums. (or wolves?)

Finally - we heard drums! A few more winding turns of the road and we were there! Buildings! People! Music! 4:30am. (Have I ever been this tired? Even when I'd been up all night at Mocidade, and up all night the night before?) We piled out and there, at last, were the sambistas! And OF COURSE THEY WERE STILL PLAYING! Camp didn't even officially start till the next evening, but as soon as we showed up, a couple of leader types started clapping their hands, rousing everybody up with "Let's start rehearsal! The Londoners have arrived! Go wake up so-and-so," I'm not kidding, they were dead serious; they were honest to god calling a rehearsal at 4:30 in the morning. I knew right away: These are my people.

So we all strapped on our drums (I was still hauling out the pieces of my disassembled caixa from my bag, looked away for a minute, and dang if Rob hadn't put my whole drum together for me. Thank you!!!)

OK, so, we got going, and even with this small 4:30am, camp-hasn't-even-started-yet bateria, I could see they were GOOD players. I immediately knew I was going to be out of my depth, on caixa anyway. They all play em cima. They all swing like hell. They all do the fancy double-right. uh-oh... Why on earth hadn't I thought of practicing em cima before I left home?

We played till well past dawn. Good thing because I couldn't have found my bunk in the dark anyway.

I'd slept a grand total of 3 hours Sun night and 3 hrs Monday, none on Tuesday, none on Wednesday, plus 3 flights, a long bus ride and the squished-est car ride of my life. On Friday I slept nearly the entire day; everybody in my dorm room was wondering if I'd died.

And what did Bloco X turn out to be? Part 2 tomorrow. But the upshot is, I think I'll be going back to Europe every year.