Emergency kit

Ahhh, can't believe I'm out of earplugs again. About once a year I buy a 50-pack of earplugs and stash them in every single bag, every backpack, every drum case, put 2 in the back pocket of every pair of jeans, and tuck dozens in different places in my car. But one by one they disappear, get loaned to desperate friends & strangers, and then one day, wham! No earplugs and we're going on in ten minutes! I had to play a Lions gig sans earplugs last week. I thought I'd be all right because it was open-air, but it was horrific. I only survived by inching to the very back left corner of the bateria, as far from the tambs as I could possibly get. Pat discovered an emergency earplug wedged into her tamborim somewhere and gave it to me for my right ear, thanks babe.

OK, time for an earplug run and also got to pick up another drum key to add to my car's emergency kit, which includes:

Jumper cables
Flashlight
Spare house key
Drum key (drum tuner)
AA batteries (for sound recorder)
2 straps (1 for me and 1 for the inevitable friend who forgot his)
3 drumsticks (1 for when my right stick breaks - the left never breaks - the other 2 for the inevitable friend)
2 matched surdo mallets
1 pair alfaia beaters
1 tamborim beater
1 repinique stick
Extra tamborim for when I'm stuck somewhere with no drum.
Extra pandeiro, ditto.
Shaker egg, ditto.
Roll of tape for blisters

All this is under my passenger seat, all the time, plus the (to be purchased) 20 pairs of earplugs scattered in strategic little hidey-holes all over the car. I suppose I ought to have a tire jack or a spare tire or something too?

wiped out and it's not over yet

I'm too massively exhausted right now to think straight (past 3am Saturday night and I still haven't made the study guides that I promised my class... nor set up Monday's physiology lab.. nor written Monday's lecture nor Wednesday's exam). Jorge Alabe's in town this week and that means, a constant flood of critically important rehearsals, private lessons, weddings and huge events always ending in some unexpected afterparty, huge pagode parties, Brazilians everywhere, thousnads of people singing, Shirley storming around yelling "CANTA, porra, CANTA!" (Sing, dammit, sing!) floods of Portuguese in my ears again, the delight of finding that I still understand it. Intense lessons from the Brazilian men in fending off Brazilian romantic advances (my favorite line this week being "You'll never really understand Brazilian culture till you learn how to sleep around like a Brazilian"), followed immediately by hilarious lessons from the Brazilian women as to how many useful items you can stuff in your bra at any one time, plus a great deal of completely unsolicited and extremely graphic advice on sex toys (all in very loud semi-drunk voices right outside the Portland Art Museum, for the edification of Oregonians everywhere. I swear I was not doing anything to start on this topic, they just launched right into it). And INTENSE musical high this week, including one of the best caixa lessons with Jorge I've had - totally fun samba-de-roda pattern - Viradouro's original ride and I'M MATCHING HIS SWING NOW, I really AM, it's really THERE, it was so reassuring - then attempting to attend a dance class and accidentally ending up on conga next to Jake Pegg, Derek Rieth, Brian Davis and Jesse Brooke, when they were short a player. Frightening. Looking around thinking, I can't believe I'm living in a town where I can play with guys like this. Then discovering once again Derek's phenomenal ability to encode quite a lot of information about your playing with just one slightly narrowed glance in your direction! Then Tanya's beautiful wedding tonight, third surdo for me, Dan and I somehow telepathically locking up so that we were practicaly always doing the exact same variation at the same time. And another party, and another party after that....

3am and terrifically far behind on my work. Tomorrow, 5 hours of rehearsal planned with Jorge and I'm already exhausted... I'm pushing it too close to the bone again, too far behind on my work. I shouldn't be doing all this music and I'll pay a terrible price come Sunday night. But who could resist a musical week like this? well, not me, obviously.

Maracatu and practice

Went to Jorge Martins' maracatu workshop. I knew the first half of the material already (a bunch of classic Estrela Brilhante songs, breaks and entrances that I know cold). Soon enough Jorge started folding it all into a big cool arrangement that sequed into a timbal-cued afoxe/funk and then ended up in mangue-beat. Very nice stuff.

Two things that kind of amused me about the workshop: First, the fact that the people most experienced on alfaia were not playing alfaia - because the beginners had grabbed them all! There is something about alfaia where people get this lust for it, and they HAVE to play it or they will be miserable. But eventually you pop out the other side, once you've basically mastered it, and then, you still love it but you don't have to play it every single damn second. You can let someone else play it and go play caixa or bell and truly enjoy the caixa or bell. It's like you're IN love with alfaia at first, but then you get into a more mature relationship with it, where you enjoy its company but aren't obsessed by it any more.

The second funny thing was how Jorge would start speaking in English, but he'd hit a word he didn't know, drift into Portuguese, and since Derek and me and Pat and Jake and Pauline and Scott and Brian and lots of others all speak Portuguese, we'd just all kind of drift into it too. Unaware that we had shifted languages. Scott would forget to translate, since so many of us fala. Till one of the other people in class would say meekly "What are you saying?"

Afterwards everyone headed to pagode; but I headed home. The pagode was probably great, but I
really
really
really
need some time to practice. I need LESS time playing with other people and fucking up and thinking "Damn, I really need to practice" and MORE time actually doing the practicing.

So I went home, and for the first time in literally months, FINALLY got some practice time. Just a little. I ran through the Brenda funk:

rlrl Rlrl rlrl RlrL rlrl Rlrl rlRl rLrl

... trying to take it down super-slow and iron out the tiny little glitch I've always fought coming out of a left accent. Then the non-double-right Mangueira:

RllR llRl RllR lZzL

(which for me is harder than the double-right)

Then the double-right, but SWUNG, dammit, swung hard:
RrlR lrRl RrlR lZzL

and a few other patterns, and then, holy mackerel, dragged out the poor little orphaned ignored pandeiro and did an infinitesimal amount of playing; just a little buzz work, a tiny bit of samba, a little puzzling over frevo. Just to feel it again. It's been so long. Felt good. Felt like I was finally on the right track again. I did not miss the pagode. This is what I need to be doing. Tomorrow, repinique.