Cubango and the Juggernaut

It's 6:30 am but I just can't get to sleep. It took an unusually long time to get home from Niteroi tonight. I volunteered to be taxi-translator to get some new, non-Portuguese-speaking friends safely home, to Ipanema, i.e. pretty much entirely in the wrong direction for me; and afterwards it took over an hour to reverse my steps and get back up to Lapa where my apartment is. The bus to Lapa took for-EVER to show up!! at least a half hour wait, and then a 45 min bus ride, and then bus driver was kind of crazy and I ended up with a big ol' bruise to show for it, but that's a whole nother story. ANYway, I didn't get home till well past 2am and after all that I was so wired I haven't been able to fall asleep at all...in fact, hm, the sun appears to be rising as I write this. Guess this is the first official all-nighter. So, a brief blog update.

Things are rolling crazily toward Carnaval, which is (unbelievably) this weekend. The Juggernaut approaches. Which makes this the Last Week Before Carnaval. Which means it's when suddenly everybody has their frantic, intense last rehearsals and complicated last-minute changes in the complicated plans. And when all the costumes need to be picked up (each costume necessitating a bewilderingly long multi-hour journey, consuming a large part of a day, and an expensive cab ride somewhere along the way.) Simultaneously all the Sambodromo tickets have to be hunted down and paid for (since this is the week when the physical tickets are actually picked up.) All of which requires a lot of handing over of large amounts of cash. I started to feel today like I was involved in several elaborate and secretive drug deals, but it was really just Sambodromo tickets that I was after. Really.

I've also been spending all the last two weeks running around between Banga, Monobloco and Cubango. I've been trying to find the time to write updates about all three of them (if I can ever find the time!) - suffice to say, Banga and Monobloco have been regularly blowing my mind. Everyone knows about Monobloco's famous Friday shows, and rightfully so, but if you're in Rio and you haven't yet been to a Banga show, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? But that will have to wait for another post. Right now I want to talk about Cubango.

Cubango is my Grupo A escola over in Niteroi, remember. Cubango has been SUPER INTENSE. I've been going to 3 rehearsals a week for the last couple weeks - street rehearsals every Sunday, tech rehearsal on Tuesday and of course the "general" (= party) rehearsal on Friday. These are long, long events. Complicated journeys involving ferries and multiple buses; and hours of waiting and chatting and uncertainty; followed by long, intense, slightly scary, very exhilarating rehearsals; followed by long, difficult, confusing, complicated and expensive rides home.
It's not remotely like Banga or Monobloco. It's a whole different energy, very wild and half-tamed and thunderous. For some reason it even seems wilder than my escolas from last time, Mocidade and Sao Clemente.
The Sunday street rehearsals have been blazingly exciting. There's just something about the moment when the whole bateria wheels out onto the wide-open avenue. Right in downtown Niteroi....the whole long line of sight of the grand avenue opening before you, the canyon of the high buildings wheeling into view... the bateria so huge that there are little subtribes that you drift in and out of: a crazy pack of Viradouro players in one corner, a nest of shockingly strong third surdos in another... directors racing up and down wildly gesticulating... The tamborins and chocalhos are only distantly glimpsed, like foreign tribes from distant countries that have been summoned for a huge battle against a common enemy. A flicker of silver on the horizon when the chocalhos all toss their instruments in the air. Or a far distant "kak!" barely audible in a tamborim break.
And even farther ahead, glimpses of flags whirling, of the tops of feather headdresses, hundreds of arms waving. And farther still, the wide open sky above the ferry terminal, slowly darkening as the sun sets.
Maybe a quick glimpse back at the hulking sound truck packing along behind you like a dinosaur....
Through it all the wild ride of the bateria.
An hour into it. Starting to get badly tired. Then Jonas comes leaping through the bateria with a wild crazy open-mouthed smile on his face. Bounding around like a giant puppy. Arms waving. LEAPING around, leaping a foot in the air with every bound. With that HUGE smile. Dancing and jumping. Weaving through all the players. He gets everybody charged up again.

The Tuesday tech rehearsals have been more about taking care of business, ironing out problems. Tuesday is when Jonas really has a chance to drill the bateria.
Last week's Tuesday rehearsal was pretty deadly serious, Jonas really taking everybody to task over the breaks. He made an fascinating speech that was along the lines of: "Enough with the excuses. Enough with 'I'm a member of the community, so I don't have to come to rehearsals.' Enough with 'I'm a musician, so I don't have to come to rehearsals.' Enough with the excuses. It is ONE WEEK TILL CARNAVAL. ENOUGH. IT IS ONE WEEK TILL CARNAVAL."
He then made us play the breaks over and over - with no signals at all and no song and no cavaquinho. That is, with none of the usual helpful cues. He'd count off the break, then stand there DEAD STILL, and with a completely blank expression on his face (which was so un-Jonas-like that we were all kind of thrown off balance). He was trying not to give us any cues at all, not even unintentional body-language or facial-expression cues. And so we'd play the break entirely on our own. I thought the breaks were suddenly sounding pretty good, but the first several times through each break, some poor chocalho or tamborim (or whatever) would do one "shk" or "kak" (or whatever) too many ... into what was supposed to be a silent spot... and Jonas would spring to life suddenly and leap up, yelling "MORREEEUUUU!" ("it died", i.e., you just singlehandedly killed the entire break. Or possibly "you died"... yep, it could definitely also mean "you just died, sucka!")
Over and over, "MORRREEEEEUUUU!"
Until suddenly it was perfect - no more morreu's - the breaks were flawless.
Another favorite Jonas technique: later on, he was dancing away as the bateria was grooving along, through the samba, through various breaks, if somebody screwed up, suddenly he'd FREEZE in place. Completely stop dancing. And STARE at whoever had messed up. Not move a muscle - and not frown - and, interestingly, not yell. Just STARE and STARE and STARE and STARE. The more serious the mistake, the more still and silent he would get, and the longer the stare would last. This stare seemed to be reserved for certain players and seemed to mean something like "You really should know better by now. But you've been skipping rehearsals, haven't you? Haven't you? You KNOW how badly you've screwed up, DON"T YOU?"
Luckily I was never the subject of the Deadly Stare (I was air-playing all the breaks anyway, just to be on the safe side while I learned them).

It did the trick: the breaks tightened up amazingly. Nearly to perfection. ("Nearly" because there is STILL this one measure in this one bossa where 90% of the caixas are silent when I am sure they are supposed to be playing.... hmm.....However, it actually sounds kind of cool the way it's coming out, so maybe he's decided to not to mess with it at the last minute. )

Then tonight was the final Tuesday rehearsal. This was our last rehearsal of all, and it was a crazy long intense street rehearsal... us all marching down a long, long, long sloping hill in the dark, while scattered rain showers blew by, lightning flashed and storm gusts swirled past and dark clouds rolled overhead. Very dramatic.
I happened to end up in a position that I absolutely hated: dead center front row of the caixas. Where (I now know) you cannot hear the repique calls clearly, cannot hear any third surdos at all, and can only very distantly hear the firsts and seconds. (and plus you have one of the more scary directors in your face the whole time.... oh dear.) My closest surdo was 4 drums away and it was tremendously difficult to hear even him - I had to keep looking over at him to be sure of my place. And so.... I messed up one break RIGHT in front of that scary director. Dammit!! Because I couldn't hear the repique call, and I went with the singer, when of course the singer was leaning way ahead of the beat (the way these singers often do) and I realy should have stayed with the Imaginary Repique In My Mind. Result: Big ol' flam. I wasn't the only one who did the flam - several players behind me also did the same thing - so at least I was not alone in not being able to hear the repique, but the scary director thought it was all just me and concluded that I didn't know that break.
Dang! Now I'm all worried about whether I'll get to parade or not!
There are also a LOT of gringoes playing, too many really, so I'm not sure they'll let us all play. In most cases, with most baterias, I think actually they shouldn't let lots of gringoes play. Not if it's going to mean that some kid from the community is not going to get to parade. But in Cubango's case, since it is a newish and smallish bateria, I think the gringoes are mostly an asset (i.e. we are playing pretty well, and we are not locking out local players who would otherwise get to play).
But it still just feels weird to have that many gringoes there. I know that if I were a resident layer, I'd feel like the bateria had been suddenly invaded by barbarian hordes.
Who knows. For my part I am more and more impressed with Cubango, and have been thrilled to be a part of it so far. I've memorized the song, written out all the breaks, and am very grateful to be there .... and even get a glimpse of the wild untamed animal that is an escola-de-samba.

So anyway, in an attempt to shield myself in advance against the crushing disappointment if I don't get to parade in Cubango, I have also just realized that not-parading might save me from death. Because:
(1) I could die of heat stroke. I just looked at the Grupo A schedule for the parades on Saturday night, and realized that there are so many Grupo A escolas, all going on the same night, that Cubango's dead-last position means we'll probably be parading at 7 or 8 in the morning. In full sun. When it is well over 90 degrees. In a full-coverage costume with full sleeves, legs, boots and a heavy hat. Of polyester. (I'm not making this up - heat stroke is a real danger in these costumes. People pass out all the time, literally keeling over in dead faints, and are simply dragged off the parade route.)
(2) I could die of exhaustion. OK, so Banga just announced its parade schedule and I suddenly realized that this is my schedule for Saturday night:
Imperio Serrano parade at approximately 8pm in the Sambodromo. The last time I paraded with Imperio, it was the most exhausting thing I'd ever done and I went home and slept for 12 hours. But this time it'll be just the beginning:
10pm ish. Finish Imperio parade. Run back home and change out of Imperio costume. Into Banga t-shirt. Run to Lapa.
Midnight-3am. Play Banga show.
4am ish - Run back home, change out of Banga clothes, into Cubango costume. Run back to Sambodromo.
5am ish. Meet up with Cubango.
7am ish. Parade with Cubango.
8:30am ish. Run back home, change out of Cubango costume, back into Banga.
9:30am ish - race to Jardim Botanico to play the Banga parade from 10am-noon.
- retreat to apartment for feverish hot nap -
At 7pm the Grupo Especial parades start. And go till maybe 4am. Same the next night too...

That's all assuming the escolas go on time, which they won't. Hoo-ee, this is going to be NASTY! So that's what I mean about Carnaval approaching like a relentless juggernaut.... never mind "will I get to parade", the question is really, will I survive??? (If I don't, you'll know I died happy.)