The train to Mocidade

I posted 2 updates yesterday but I think only the second went out on the email update. So if you didn't get the post about Grande Rio, check the blog website (riostories.blogspot.com) - and, there are Grande Rio Sambodromo movies up at homepage.mac.com/sambakat.

Today I made the huge long trek out to Padre Miguel again, this time on the train with Nana and another new sambista friend, from South Africa, Avron.

The train itself was an adventure. I'd never realized that the Metro station Central, which I've ridden past many times, is directly under the Central do Brasil train station - yup, the station featured in the movie "Central do Brasil". And YES, it's just as crowded as the movie showed!!! The subway was the worst, actually. I've done a lot of rush-hour subway commuting in my life, but this was one of the very most crowded subway rides I've ever had! It started to seem positively impossible that a single other human being could squish on to that subway car, yet at each station, somehow, more people kept squishing on. Finally it reached that completely wedged state in which people can't even shift their feet to keep their balance. As we pulled into Central, the driver hit the brakes a little hard and the whole jammed mass of people all tipped helplessly forward, and everybody said:

"woooOOOOOOOOOoooooo!!!!"

....but then they all tipped back into place.

Then the doors opened and people EXPLODED out of the subway car, charging up the stairs to the train stations. How could one subway train have held so many people??? Up above, they all sprinted into the train station, divided neatly into 5 groups heading out on the five train lines, and then waited in 5 long tense mobs on the train platforms till the next empty trains pulled in. Then, the second those train doors open, it's like the Olympic five-yard dash! I've never seen people sprint so fast for so short a distance! The doors open and POW, everybody just rockets into the train like little human meteors, ZOOM, to the nearest seat, leaving little firey trails in the air behind them. Because, of course, there are nowhere near enough seats. Then suddenly it's all over and everyone's just sitting peacefully (or standing resignedly), suddenly serene and calm, while the train waits quietly with its doors open for another three minutes.

Of course I didn't get a seat - my Rio reflexes aren't that sharp yet. I'd already spent 45 minutes standing on the subway and now, another full hour standing on the train. At least when you finally get there you are right at Mocidade! The train station is literally right across the street from the quadra.

Tonight's rehearsal was the ensaio tecnico, the technical rehearsal, where they work only on the Carnaval song. It's much more serious than the Saturday rehearsal, and they're much more restrictive about who they'll let play. They've been letting me play as sort of a visiting guest, late on Saturdays, but I'm not a full member of the bateria (and can't even try to be unless I can make that two-hour (one way), all-night-long journey three times a week!). So I wasn't sure I'd be able to play at all tonight, not even caixa. I asked Jonas, though, and he said to go head and play if there was an extra caixa, which there was!

I noticed they were even taking attendance - there was a man at a little table with big notebooks for each section of instruments, each book with a page for each player. One by one, each player came up and signed in for tonight. One woman seemed to be taking an unusually long time fiddling with the book, until two other players came up and distracted the attendance-taker. Then she flipped instantly to her page and signed in twice, once for this week and once for last week. She saw me watching and gave me a wink and a grin as she left the table.

We all trooped outside - tonight was going to be a street rehearsal, to practice marching - and somehow I ended up in the scariest spot, RIGHT by the lead repiques, RIGHT at the front of the caixa section, and RIGHT in front of the scary director who had thought I'd screwed up on surdo last weekend. But, you know what, it went fine! I can hardly believe it but I seem to be able to play caixa pretty clean at that tempo now. (150bpm) Just two weeks ago I had that "15-minute barrier" where my arms would suddenly give out, and a week before that it just seemed flat impossible to play clean at 150 at all, even for a minute. But, as of last Saturday, suddenly I can play for hours. Except when I walk... yeesh... there's my next thing to work on, playing at 150 while I walk.... it all went completely to hell then... and volume, I still need more volume!

It really does change your playing when you spend a long time in a bateria. This was my fifth long night of caixa in an escola in two weeks (three nights in Mocidade, two in Sao Clemente), and, every time, I feel my playing continue to change. My ability to play at tempo, my stamina, swing, control, clarity and volume are all changing. Partly it is just the effect of the players around me. Last night in Sao Clemente, there was an absolutely killer first-surdo next to me who was kicking me forward on every single measure. It was like having Thor, the God of Thunder, zinging a lightning bolt at me every second. He was as far forward (hitting the beat very slightly early) as you can get without actually rushing; and the VOLUME he had, good god, an entire wall of air would come at me and almost knock me over; and the kick-in-the-pants effect it had on me was astonishing. And tonight in Mocidade, there was a third-surdo directly behind me who was so powerful it felt like he was hammering directly on my shoulderblades. The force of his playing was actually making my caixa vibrate! There was a massive wall of tamborims right in front, and strong repiques all around me, and that third-surdo right behind me...

In those kinds of conditions you cannot help but start to absorb the FEEL of it all and start to produce it yourself. Almost unconsciously your playing starts to align with the swing and the drive, the garra (claws), that you feel coming from all around you.

We played and played and played. We practiced walking, stopping, walking, stopping, turning corners, going in and out of a recuo. There was a focus and intensity that I hadn't felt on the Saturday rehearsals. Jonas came down hard on the bateria for rushing. There's one break they'd rushed so horrifically at the Sambodromo that they skipped nearly an entire quarter note (!). In my mind, that particular break has started to seem like a litmus test for the Mocidade bateria. Jonas harassed them endlessly about that break tonight, cycling it over and over, till it calmed down and began to have a semblance of timing again.

My favorite break, though, is break 7. The bateria stops playing and freezes absolutely solid, like statues, for a full EIGHT measures of complete silence, then thunders into action again with a BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! The rule is that you can't move AT ALL during those eight measures. The bateria has started to really get into the "freeze in place" game and guys are starting to freeze in silly dramatic poses with their arms up. (In a moment of characteristic brilliance last Saturday, Jonas suddenly lunged forward and kissed the Queen of the Bateria - an incredibly good-looking girl - just at the beginning of the break; then of course he had to stay there and continue kissing her for 8 more measures. )

It started to rain; nobody seemed to notice. It started raining harder, and harder, really pouring, but we just kept playing and playing.... getting wetter and wetter... The surdo players flipped their surdos over to play on the rain side (the side that has a plastic sheet stretched over the head). My sticks got slick in my hands and started slipping away. But the cool rain felt wonderful and I loved the abandonment of just keeping on playing, no matter what.

I tottered back home at 2am - two long bus rides and then a long walk. Honestly I don't know if I can keep making that grueling journey out to Padre Miguel. But I am very happy, and honored, to be playing in Mocidade at all, whenever I can.