About six years ago, ex-Sepultura drummer, Igor Cavalara, invited me down to San Paolo, Brazil to do a guest spot at a new clothing store that he had opened. I’ve tattooed in a lot of places and I figured, what the hell, why not a clothing store, too?
He had plenty of space for me, and I tattooed my ass off while I was there and had a lot of fun. I had already known Igor for quite a while before that, but this was the first time I had made it to his turf. I worked hard, but there was still plenty of time for fun and I can’t say enough about the Brazilian barbeque. Now, one place you don’t want to bring a fat man is an all you can eat steakhouse full of every exotic meat you can imagine. As great as that one, the best part of the trip was going to a futbol game with Igor.
I’m not much of a sports guy -- for some reason, I never could really get into the whole thing -- but this was an experience like no other. For people in Brazil, futbol is like a religion. Igor had warned me that it was probably going to be crazy, but I had no idea what to expect. We went early and stopped at a little cafe near the stadium, where things just progressively got crazier. People were marching through the streets, chanting some crazy Portuguese futbol mantra, as if they were marching to war. At one point, I turned and noticed a bus rolling by, fighting thru the crowd. I guess that’s not that big a deal, except that the bus room for around 50, but was loaded with 150 crazed people. They were sitting on the roof, the hood, hanging off the windows on the outside, and were all screaming that same mantra. With all the bodies crunched together, it looked to me like some giant human Chia Pet (cha-cha-chia!).
We tore our way through the crowd to get to the stadium, where we were thoroughly searched by a s--tload of soldiers with machine guns. Then, we headed to our seats. Igor brought me to what, apparently, was the mellower side of the stadium, where I could see the psychotic behavior as opposed to being a part of it. I’m a pretty chilled out dude so I was grateful. I guess I’m just a different breed of psycho.
Now, Igor is a big celebrity down there, and it didn’t take long for the news cameras to find us. It was kind of weird having two of them trained on my face for the entire game. It struck me as odd that they were interested in the only white guy there. I mean, everyone in the stadium was jumping up and down and screaming like mad for the entire game, and -- me being a chilled out kind of dude -- I looked like I was sitting and watching a movie. The only thing I knew for sure was, I was supposed to be cheering for the guys in green. I think they got a kick out of the fact I was so reserved. I remember there was one little section of fans for the opposing team, and they were next to a section full of soldiers that were there to prevent the two breeds from killing each other. Forget the excitement of the actual game, I got to watch people jumping over the railings and getting the sh-- beat out of them. Now that’s entertainment. There’s something about random violence that just really warms the cockles of my blackened heart. Go, team.
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