Monoblo-CO!

My last Carnaval event was the Monobloco parade Sunday morning. I caught two hours' sleep after the Parade of Champions (and thank god, there was a time change - daylight savings ended here - or it would have been just 1 hour). The alarm went off at 7am and up I jumped, bleary-eyed, so tired I was dizzy. Grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the sleeves and neck off my girls' pink Monobloco parade shirt (the system in Rio for every Carnaval event is, your t-shirt is your ticket and backstage pass; but the t-shirts are frumpy, so, ALL women cut up the t-shirts to make them into girls' styles. There is a whole cottage industry of seamstresses who will alter your t-shirt into a snappy-looking, nicely hemmed halter-top for you).

I put on my caixa skirt and parade sandals, slapped on some sunblock on in the usual spots - backs of arms, shoulders, nose, cheeks - and out the door I ran.

Jumped in a cab. We were almost there when we were broadsided by a van! My first cab crash! It was pretty scary but nobody hurt, and, thank, god, my cabbie had amazing reflexes and swerved so hard that his cab was only grazed in the end. But it was freaky to see that van charging right at my door. The van and cabbie pulled over to exchange information (taxi meter still running! HEY!), so I got to Monobloco a tiny bit late. Everybody had their drums on and ready to go. I didn't have time to go get more sunblock like I'd planned. Threw a drum on and off we went.

The Monobloco parade finishes it all off. It's always the weekend after Carnaval. It marks the end of the Carnaval season for all of Rio; the end of the Brazilian summer, the end of daylight savings time, the start of the school year... time to say goodbye to the friends here and started planning for the trip back.

It was a blazing hot day and we were in full scorching sun, on this sunny Rio Sunday, along Copacabana beach. The temp was 95F (35C) at 9am when we started. I don't know how much hotter it got, as the sun soared higher and higher in that blue blue sky, but, MAN, it was broiling. Seemed like all of us were near passing out at one point or another, but luckily there were guys running through the bateria nonstop with big coolers of water bottles, which we just kept grabbing and dumping over our heads. Most of the bateria was soaking wet most of the time. I think I spent as much time pouring water over myself as I did actually playing.

Here is one of my fellow players with the same idea. (all photos from O Globo and O Dia)


The lack of sunblock soon turned into a terror for me. Me and my Irish skin! I'm very savvy about the sun here and have not got burned yet - but, when you're playing in a parade, you can't escape! The sun started just radiating down, baking my right side. I had put on my one quick dash of sunblock, but I knew that would run out pretty fast. So, in between all the wonderful music, while watching Celso for all his cues, trying to get the 25 caixa patterns right and nail all the breaks - trying to stay alert for the sometimes long, complex cues ("Coco1 - then Coco 2 - segue to Maculele 1, but first and second surdos, do Mangueira - caixas Maculele 2 - watch for repique call - ") - Meanwhile I was on Sunburn High Alert. I found I could keep my legs in the shadow of the caixa player in front of me if I kept very close to her. Luckily, she ended up drifting back from her line to mine, crowding me out of my spot, so I had an excellent excuse for crowding her so closely. Partway through one of our sambas I spotted that she had a tiny travel tube of sunblock in her waist pouch. I tapped her on the shoulder and she instantly, apologetically scooted back to her row, but I went chasing after her gesturing "no, no, please stay where you were, I just was going to ask for some more drops of sunblock! Please stay EXACTLY where you were!"

She gave me several life-saving drops: Right arm. Right shoulder. Nose.

Eventually the sun got so high that her precious shadow shrank to a little dot right under her. Dang. High noon. Broiling. It felt like the top of my head was being microwaved. If I took tiny little steps, I could keep my feet and legs in the shadow of my caixa. Poor caixa; it was so scalding hot that the rim was painful to the touch.

I went through phases of fuzzy fatigue that always turned out to be due to my head being microwaved. Got into a routine: Dump water on head. Play. Dump water on head. Play. Dump water on head. Play. Player next to me is dumping water on head - stick my legs in the shower coming off his shoulders. Dump water on head. Play. Keep watching Celso. "Caixas - Timbal samba! Caixas - switch to Salgueiro! Caixas - Mocidade! - Caixas - break 4, then Mangueira!" Dump water on head, play.

And all the time the crowd was growing and growing and growing, and getting more and more and more packed.... it was later reported at between 70,000 and 80,000, the biggest crowd Monobloco has ever drawn. We in the bateria, thank god, had our own bubble of empty space around us (maintained by a complete square of security guys around the entire band and sound truck, carrying a rope barrier that they just kept pushing ahead through the crowd.) But the poor crowd, my god, they were so wedged that when one of them started jumping, they all had to jump! When they all put their arms in the air, they couldn't put them down again! ho-ly moley! Sizzlin' sardines, Batman!

The blue truck is our sound truck, and the cluster of pale dots in front of it is the bateria. Pedro Luis & the other singers were on top of the sound truck:




Apparently the crowd spread all the way over to the major commercial streets of Copacabana. Copacabana and Ipanema were completely impassable and the traffic jams spread all the way to Lagoa and Botafogo. Hey, MY band managed to shut down half of Rio! Cool!

But amazingly they looked so HAPPY out there all wedged together, all carrying their Skol beers, all bouncing up and down together, singing every song. People seemed just delirious with this one last chance to party.





The city of Rio actually made good on its promise to bring some porta-potties to the bloco parades - and a bunch of skinny guys had climbed up on them, where they carefully balanced on the fragile plastic roofs, one guy per porta-potty, and started doing the most ridiculous funk dances, cracking everybody up.



It was so wonderful. Despite the heat. We played all my favorite songs, every last one, all the Monobloco classics, all the crowd favorites. We played my very, very favorite songs, like Que Beleza (well, actually, it's Imunizacao Racional, but everyone knows it as Que Beleza). Monobloco has converted it into the Monobloco anthem by adding their trademark chant:
Em-eh,
oh,
en-eh oh beh el-eh oh,
seh oh,
que beleza,
OO!
Monoblo-CO!

This used to be a totally mystifying chant to me until I learned to pronounce the alphabet Portuguese-style. It's just M-O-N-O-B-L-O-C-O.

And we did Rap do Real, a song with an old personal connection for me. And all my other favorites.

I couldn't believe I was there actually IN Monobloco playing those songs that I have danced to and sung to for so long.

And there's nothing like playing a well-known Brazilian song to a Brazilian crowd - they just light up like they have been electrified, and all start jumping around like a mob of excited puppies, waving their arms, delirious with excitement, and singing along at the top of their lungs. Whether or not they can actually sing. Totally un-self-conscious. Everybody dancing. Every time we would hit the chorus of any of our songs, BOOM, ALL the arms in the air, ALL the people jumping up and down, every last one of them, EVERYBODY singing, EVERYBODY dancing. Oh, I am going to miss Brazil....

The famous singer Elsa Soares came out on the balcony of her penthouse apartment to watch us go by, and we all waved up at her and played an Elsa song in her honor, and she waved back and she started dancing too.

I forgot, when I was allocating my precious few drops of sunblock, I forgot that I play left-palm-up now. Forgot that the INSIDE of my left wrist was going to be facing up, full-on to the sun, for four hours solid. I ended up with a brutal second-degree burn on the inside of my left wrist, just a little 3" by 2" strip but wow, it is a beauty of a burn! Second-degree! Cool! My whole wrist was swollen and purple for days! (It's nice having a very SMALL dramatic sunburn. You can show it off and boast about it, but you're not truly miserable.) It's almost a week later now and it's still purple and blistering. But I'm very proud of it: it's my Monobloco caixa burn! Ever since I heard that band play, and heard that they did a parade, I've wanted to parade with them. And I did it!


(I am the girl in the pink t-shirt on the left, with my back almost completely visible. Somewhere in there are my friends Mick, JP & Emily from London. And a lot of other great friends too.)