Sao Paulo

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I’ve been there, São Paulo. Several times actually. I clearly remember the first time I heard Brazilian Portuguese through the intercom of one of the country’s biggest airports during a lay-over. I almost glided off my chair. Man, that’s sensual! I softly punched the woman sitting next to me and whispered in her ear: “I have no idea what the hell he’s saying or who the man is behind that voice, but I want to marry that guy.” In short, I had a reason to go back and discover the city behind the airport.

Two days before I realized I might want to get a Couchsurf host in São Paulo, so I used the diversify technique based on quantity. Eight people got a Couchrequest that night. Eight people accepted. I forgot I’m girl, Brazilian men tend to love those. I decided to go with Guilherme: the painter, the tattoo-artist-to-be and, let’s not pretend I didn’t notice, the best-looking one of all. It’s not that I was looking for some adult fun, all on the contrary actually (unlike someone else of this duo), but I think a pretty face just looks more enjoyable at the breakfast table, don’t you agree?

As the province of São Paulo (and actually everything up north from there) is too dangerous to hitchhike, I decided to not be reckless for once. Weird, I know. So I settled with the civilized version of hitchhiking: Blablacar, a rather popular device in Brazil providing you a door-to-door-service for about half the price of a bus (because man, they’re expensive in this country!). After some highly gratifying welcome-caipirinhas my fresh host prepared for me I traced down my bed rather early, as there was another alternative motive to make it up here:

Festival Maximus!

Last year I had the great pleasure to meet my heroes from Rammstein (4th time) and Halestorm (3d time) at this wonderful event in the city of Buenos Aires… This year I had the chance to visit the second edition in São Paulo! A chance made possible by my extraordinary host, friend and all-those-things-in-between-the-lines from Florianopolis, who figured this might be the ultimate gift for a metalhead like me.

For those about to rock we salute you!

Of course, we’re still in Latin America, so the whole concept of organization is surrounded by screaming chaos and utter confusion. First of all, in Brazil you can’t give gifts to anyone. Anything that has your name on it has to be bought with your credit card, accompanied by the name of your parents. I’m 29 years old and they live on the other side of the planet, not sure why that is relevant, but okay. So my generous giver had to create an online-interim-bitcoin-one just for the occasion, which I had to print as proof. Then, once you received your confirmation email with instructions (all in Portuguese), you have to take them to the entrance of the festival, to wait in one line with 10,286 other people.

You have to take along the most valuable thing you possess, your passport, BUT apparently carying 20 bucks in cash along is too risky according to the festival’s management. So they came up with this wonderful system: you can solely pay for your consumptions via the chip in your festival-bracelet, in a currency called ‘metals’. Fancy! Side-note: you have to have A) a Brazilian simcard with B) internet credit to C) create an online account on a solely-in-Portuguese-website to deposit money, for which you D) need a Brazilian credit card, E) a Brazilian tax number (only for permanent residents) and F) a national address, that G) all have to match with your name. Long story short: if you’re a foreigner, and there were many, you can die from hunger and thirst. Or, as a necessary Plan B, flirt your way out if it.

Ordem e progresso. Good one.

Luckily I had dragged Guilherme along to be my translator and navigator-through-the-bullshit, but the mind-numbing bureaucracy made me very unluckily miss Hatebreed.

I guess GHOST had to make up for that.

Is it metal? Is it rock? I don’t really know, I guess none of that. All I know is that it sounds sinister, unusual and catchy all at the same time. I’ve been waiting a long time on a chance to see this band live, and all of a sudden there it was. Truth told, the entire spectacle of gothic cathedrals, painted faces and Dracula-organ-sounds would come out stronger in the context of an intimate, dark venue instead of a giant stage at broad daylight, but that couldn’t take away our enthusiasm.

I slowly pushed myself to the front of the stage to be closer to my idols scheduled for later that day. But before that climax I was delightfully entertained by ROB ZOMBIE. I know, with an artist name like that, who can take you seriously right? Well, I guess that’s exactly what this guy doesn’t want.

Who else runs on stage in a silver latex cowboy-suit and a band dressed like superheroes and transvestites, while asking the confused crowd who was also recently anally fingered by aliens? (Upon which he threw some alien sex dolls into the audience). Interesting. I’m sold.

Also enjoyable to have Mr. Zombie at a 1-meter distance away from me… and meet my childhood-hero John 5 again!

Time for one of my personal favorites: FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH! A macho-name for macho-metal.

Yes, I know, their lyrics aren’t all that deep and sound rather selfish and utterly ‘murican (here, have a look, could be one of Trump’s speeches if you read it like that don’t you think?), but man, does it sound yummy. Addictive riffs, clap-along-sounds and a beat that just invites for crowdsurfing. Bonus points for wearing a Soulfly-shirt (CAVALERA!) and letting the Brazilian die-hard fans on stage to headbang along on their sides.

A nice warm-up for everything I came for that day. And I’m still coming just thinking back about that masterpiece of a show.

SLAYERRRRR!!!

Once again. The lords of trash metal! Many bands try, but they set the standard. The best you can do as a musician is just try to follow and accept a modest spot in their mighty shadow. I won’t waste any more words on an indescribable show, because whatever I try, it won’t do it justice.

I pity every band that has to play after those destructive monsters, even though they were supposed to be the ‘headlines’. So I just enjoyed my dinner of peel-peanuts while listening to some group called Prophets of Rage. Whatever. Some dude with an Arafat-scarf on his head and a rapping black guy. Although that chap shredding his guitar does look and sound familiar.

Prophets of Rage… wait, Rage… “Oí, essa banda tem uma relação com Rage Against the Machine?”, I screamed in the ear of a guy pogoing next to me. But before he could answer I heard the classic unmistakable intro. Tu-tu-tu-du-du-tu-tu, tu-tu-tu-du-du-tu-tu… KILLING IN THE NAME OF!!!

And I lost my shit. My whole childhood came back in that one song. What a pleasant surprise. Thank you, life.

Talking about my childhood. I will never forget the day that my father came back from the record store and took a present for me. 13 years old I was, more or less, when I stared at the album cover with glittering eyes: Hybrid Theory, that sounded so bad ass. Obscure they were too, no one ever heard of this shady band called LINKIN PARK, which made them even more desirable. Until their breakthrough… when even those hockey-girls with pigtails in second grade and Avril-Lavigne-fans (by us, ‘gothics & altos’ back then, referred to us ‘happy-hopping-cunts´) started wearing their shirts as well, while moaning “how cute” that blonde guy Chester was, I immediately lost interest. Not cool anymore. I stopped following them entirely. However, hopefully at the age of 29 I can forget about my street credibility, if only for an instant, and scream along with those smash-hits that colored in my teenage years.

EVERYTHING YOU SAY TO MUUUUUUUUHHHH!!! CRAAAAAAAWLING IIIIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIN, THESE WOUNDS THEY WIIIIIIIL NOT HE-YAAAAAALL! Can you give an encore, do you want mo-mo-more.

Yeah, fun.

[Especially so as this was the last week Chester Bennington was alive. Gives it a dark special side.]

This was all I needed. The wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell. (5FDP)

But there was more to São Paulo than just that, obviously. Time for some exploration-session.

I jumped on the passenger’s seat of Gui’s car and let him drive me to the Sunday market at Paulista Avenue. Good advice, as the entire lane of this normally insanely chaotic traffic gateway was now completely closed for transport, minus bikers, skateboarders and inline skaters.

The result was a beautiful scene.

In the middle of the concrete, capitalist labyrinth that’s called São Paulo, filled with futuristic office buildings and shopping malls, there was this bohemian, socialist vibe of handicrafts, animal rights manifestations, Hare Krishna chanting and an eternal quantity of street artists.

From clowns spitting fire to bearded men in tutu’s juggling with knifes, imagine the craziest stuff your mind can come up with and I saw it happening that day. Right in my alley!

I learned soon enough that this contradiction is emblematic for this city. The previous president, a woman, implemented many and very welcome reforms to the country. Improving the level and accessibility of education, supporting artistic and ecological initiatives, enhancing the leveling of income and wealth, fighting the distressing poverty tormenting Brazil… a policy that was also adopted by SP’s previous mayor. Amazing, don’t you think? Well, for sure a certain group of people didn’t think so. Exactly, the rich! Because obviously, you can only be rich if more are poor: you win / others lose, that’s a rule of our current society. And all that leftish ecological artistic bullshit, where’s the monetary profit of that exactly? Unfortunately, even though the rich consist of very few people in Brazil, they do have that one thing that gives them infinite power: money. They can buy the media and as such manipulate public opinion, and man, they even bought all the politicians.

So right now the right-winged are winning, both in São Paulo and the entire country, and therefore the Earth is losing.

Source

The newly built bicycle lanes will soon give way again to the carbon-monoxide-monsters only the elite can afford, hunger will prevail and the biggest graffiti wall of entire Latin America is painted over with grey. A felony! A scandal! And on top of all of that, a crying shame and a giant loss for the city. Because this is what my fellow foreign travelers recommended me to see, the best street art they had ever seen in their lives. Painted in a haze of passionate obsession, transmitting the sense of desperateness, like they’re on the edge of dying with only a brush in their hand to pass on the social, economic and political tension tearing their homeland apart. Luckily, there’s still much to admire in Villa Madalena, but if this is the state of affairs… for how long?

The paintings don’t exaggerate the intensity of the message. While staring at a representation of a homeless man holding up a carton reading “forgive me for existing”, subtitled 'Proud to be Brazilian', I heard Guilherme’s words echoing in my memory. The current right-winged mayor sees the homeless as a nuisance, an ugliness in the city. He tried to fix this by allowing the cops to scare them away with intimidation and by taking away the few possessions they have, like their warm clothes and mattresses. Well, Mr. Mayor, homeless aren’t the problem: they are the result of a problem. Maybe it’s better to eradicate the roots instead of the unwanted weed you allowed to sprout out of it?

A few minutes later I passed a man in the gutter, filtering sewage water with a dirty t-shirt so he had something to drink. I walked to the next supermarket to buy him a 2-liter bottle of water including lunch for him and his entire family, in case he had one. The man told me this was the first time in three weeks someone had looked him in the eyes. This is happening.

The strength of the art on the streets is alternated with the delicacy of the works in São Paulo’s countless museums. To see all of them your 90-day visa wouldn’t suffice, but I had the luck to experience a tiny handful. Among which the SESI Centro Cultural, a big melting pot of music, art and theatre (in short: Stephanie’s wet dream). And even better: everything they offer to the public is 100% free.

The same goes for Centro Cultural do Banco, although you really should consider the amount you pay with hours, minutes and seconds of your lifetime, wasted on that crap. I’m not sure if it was just the exposition of the chromosome-missing village idiot Cicero Dias, or if all exhibitions they attract are of the category I-could-have-done-it better-at-the-age-of-4 (although I would probably have added less penises and vaginas)... But I must confirm, I do enjoy watching those people analyzing those ‘artworks’ with their most sophisticated, intelligent stare. Congratulations, you successfully introduced your mental retardation to the public!

I know art. This is not it.

No, then the Pinacoteca do Estado, that was the real deal. Certainly not all was of my liking (cubism alert!), but there is sufficient diversity to please every art-hungry soul. I forgot my 10-year-expired-student-pass that would have brought me a 50% discount, but I made it work somehow by shouting “ew souw estudjantche do intercaaaambio, sim!” and flashing a photo of my passport. Not sure how I pulled it off, but for sure you can too.

Check this out! This is what Europeans thought Latin America was like, before actually going there:

Of course nowadays people never do that anymore... judging someone else's culture, religion or country based on assumptions and without actually going over there to research reality... [sarcasm trembling in the air]

No, you won’t get easily bored in São Paulo.

If 20 million inhabitants can be entertained there, so can you.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Wes here in São Paulo, a reader and donor of this blog. Not only he offered me his friendship and good company, he also started and financed some great adventures to come… stay tuned for these stories and more!

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