Sao Paulo – I have been in this amazing city twice. The first visit was in 1994, with a quartet: Jon Gagan on bass, Mark Clark on percussion, Calvin Hazen on guitar and myself. We were picked up at the airport by a van, hired by Sony Brazil. I remember very clearly that we were very excited about being in Brazil and were chatting with the Sony person, when Calvin yelled: “look, there is a loose wheel running down the highway”… and moments later the van started braking and veering to the right… Yes, it was one of our van’s wheels that was rolling down the highway ahead… Once the van had safely stopped, Calvin took off after the wheel…
Several days later we were on our way back to the airport in a different van, when the driver said: “something feels funny” and pulled off to the right. We discovered that the nuts of one wheel had all been loosened. To this day I wonder whether somebody in the band or crew had insulted somebody working at the hotel and this was retaliation or whether it was just another coincidence…
Another memory I have of Brazil: we had all recently read Hemingway, and after drinking a handful of Caipirinhas one of us would always say: “Let’s drink some beer to sober up!”
Oh, and I think Brazilian Portuguese is the most sexy language in the world. You could read a bus schedule and I would hang on every word… Unfortunately I have no talent for speaking Brazilian. I do alright with English, which is a second language for me, but when I try to say a few words in Brazilian I sound terrible and everybody laughs at me!
I’ve always found French to be my favorite sexy language… never had the good fortune to hear Brazilian Portuguese in person though. I wonder if any Brazilian bloggers are audbloging?
And on the subject of Brazil, definitely check out City of God – I just saw it over the weekend, awesome film, as is the included documentary. (it’s based on a true story)
-E