What it really means to get into Grupo Especial

Friday night; Mangueira had a technical rehearsal at the Sambodromo, but what I did instead was catch up with my friend Christiana. In my previous trips to Rio I have almost exclusively been an escola junkie, racing from rehearsal to rehearsal, drinking it in, loving it all, and making packs of those pseudo-friends that you make in the little bar outside escolas. But I've lived here long enough that now I have some friends of a deeper type here now too, not just the bar-after-the-rehearsal friends, but friends of the heart. Friends I know will be with me for the rest of my life. And they take priority.

So I skipped Mangueira to catch up with Christiana, my brilliant graphic-designer friend who lives in Flamengo.

It was so wonderful to see her again. After the 5 minutes or so of tight hugs and whooping and exclamations about new hair colors and so on, we just sat in her Flamengo apartment, sprawled out on her couches, chatting and chatting, describing our past year and all our adventures, and our dreams for the future, and hopes and dreams and the lives we want to have. And suddenly it was 11pm.

That's the sort of evening that makes me realize that Rio really is my HOME now, and not just a place to see escolas.

Later I heard Mangueira drew a crowd of 25,000, a record for a Friday Sambodromo rehearsal. I'm not sorry I missed it - I've had plenty of experiences of being packed into a sardine crowd at a Mangueira rehearsal. Mangueira's like the Yankees - top dogs, historic legacy, zillions of fans, tourist favorite; but, what can I say, I don't really like them! (hey, I'm from Boston.)

I did have time for one more escola rehearsal at midnight, after Christiana returned to work (She Who Works Twenty-four Hours a Day). The Sambodromo rehearsals are always early in the evening - probably the only musical event in Rio that always finishes before midnight. But the "real" rehearsals at the quadras don't start till midnight, so you can always go to a quadra rehearsal after the Sambodromo rehearsals.

Only a couple escolas rehearse Friday nights, among them Portela and Sao Clemente. I chose Sao Clemente, OF COURSE, because they're my escola and I played with them last year. I had a splitting headache by this time (I'd spent all day surfing and was plenty dehydrated) but dragged myself out to the Sao Clemente quadra anyway.

Tip for visitors: this is a great escola to visit, and they're in Grupo Especial this year, AND they're super easy to get to, probably the easiest of any escola, right downtown, practically across the street from the Sambodromo. (well, actually, it's across the street from the Correios building, which is a gigantic neon.) I think it is the only escola that you can get to on the subway. Always an excellent choice after a Friday night Sambodromo rehearsal because usually a large chunk of the Sambodromo crowd ends up at Sao Clemente afterwards, so it's always a good party.

I walked in and - holey moley! They're in Grupo Especial this year and that means they get some major funding from the city - and- wow - NEW BATHROOMS!!!

Let me repeat:

NEW BATHROOMS at Sao Clemente!!!!!

The other tourists were over watching the dancing girls but I just stood in the women's bathroom for a while, admiring the new sinks, new toilets, new mirrors, spotless black-and-white tile job - and-

TOILET PAPER DISPENSERS!
WITH TOILET PAPER!

I couldn't get over it. NOW I realize what it really means for a Grupo A escola to get into Grupo Especial.

The Grupo Especial Fairy Godmother didn't stop at the bathrooms, either. They've also got:

- A new big stage for the singers! With a little stage-let out in front for the passistas to dance on!
- Gigantic new framework to hold the lights
- New lights
- Partly new sound system (sound quality still sucks, though. Oh well, that's Rio)
- Bunches and bunches of new tables and chairs - wow, somewhere to sit!
- New little office selling t-shirts

And, for the bateria: That extremely annoying elevated concrete obstacle thing, right in the middle of the dance floor, is gone! yay! The bateria used to try to perch on this little 1 foot high thing, and I was perpetually falling off of it and could never see the mestre, who was always trying to balance himself on a tiny little box. But they've carved up the concrete thing and taken it away, and replaced it with an actual bleacher for the bateria. And the mestre stands up on a huge new elevated platform and EVERYBODY CAN SEE HIM, AT LAST.

And best of all, brand-new heads and strings on all the drums; all the new caixa heads emblazoned with a big Sao Clemente logo (made by King drums, I notice, a new brand that I've been seeing a lot - their surdos are quite nice) and piles of actual drumsticks instead of the splintered little fragments they were using last year.

So there were all the other tourists still watching the passistas and I'm staring at the shiny-new plastic chairs, going around sitting in each of them, and admiring the shiny new drumheads, and going into the bathroom periodically to look around, and just generally enjoying the peculiar sensation of actually being comfortable at the Sao Clemente quadra.

I realized that even if a Grupo A escola wins just once and gets just one year in Grupo Especial and goes right back down, they get this long-term benefit: a quadra upgrade. This one-time infusion of money that they can use to fix up their quadra, re-stock with new drums, make the bateria and singers comfortable, build a good stage, put in some bathrooms.

Hey, the system actually sort of works sometimes.

But the best part of being at Sao Clemente again: They remembered me! A huge warm bear hug from the mestre, and a big excited arm wave from Nico-the-amazing-repinique-player, who was way off in the middle of the bateria but spotted me anyway, and another big wave from my friend Tanit, who was right there in the front row chocalho'ing her arms off.

I'm not the only foreigner there any more - they've now got a pack of Germans in the tamborim section. (the same ones who were playing at Unidos da Tijuca. They get around!) Nico immediately took me over to them, working on the common Brazilian theory that all foreigners know each other - which isn't really too far off when it comes to samba. I didn't happen to know this bunch, but I do know. They seemed like a good bunch of folks and I'm sure I'll see them in Germany someday.

So I'm not the only foreigner there anymore. But I get to have the rosy glow of having played with Sao Clemente back when they were in Grupo A! Just for the love of it.