Cause you got mad issues
So imagine that all the wineries in the Napa Valley were required by law to ship all their wine to one place to be aged and bottled -- someplace small and picturesque, near the ocean (for purposes of easy world-wide shipping) but not a city. Someplace like, say, Tiburon. (If you've ever been there, the mental image is a good fit.) This place would naturally become a huge tourist draw, since going there is basically the equivalent of visiting all the Napa County wineries in one fell swoop. Then imagine that San Francisco, the big city just across the bridge from this little tourist town of Tiburon, had been ruled by a dictator for 40 years. A dictator who was not only a conservative Christian like George Bush, but also an economist, god help us (he has two reasons to think he knows what's best for us better than we do). And as a consequence, it wasn't exactly the San Francisco we know and love. It was more like Oakland, or even Detroit -- if Oakland or Detroit or both had been superimposed on the San Francisco hills and fog and the remnants of the lovely old buildings. Now you've got Porto. The restaurant I ate octopus in last night was playing American R&B for our dining pleasure, and one of the songs had the refrain "Cause you got mad issues..." Poetry, really, and I couldn't help giggling over how apt it was for this screwed-up city. The guidebooks all say that European Union money has been pouring into this place over the last few years, and although I'm not normally in favor of expensive political boondoggles, in this case I have to say, hell yeah. Keep it coming. If anybody's earned a little pork, it's the good people of Porto.
So today I went to taste some -- yes, it's a cliche, but what can you do -- port. Yummy. I learned a lot, got a little drunk and saw the world's largest wooden barrel (it holds 100,000 liters). But I won't bore anybody with the history of port -- the interesting thing was what happened on the way back. I blundered into a huge group of teenagers in yellow t-shirts who were gathered on the Vila Nova de Gaia side of the River Douro (across the river from Porto proper). There were a number of slightly older types wearing a bizarre uniform of all-black, topped off with a billowing black cape. The Black Capes were herding the Yellows up and down the waterfront, much as one might attempt to herd cats, with periodic stops so the Yellows could all face the river and chant very loudly, all jumping up and down and waving their right arms in the air in unison. Their chants were almost songs, complete with harmony, with the women and men taking different parts as if they were a choir. I heard something that at first I thought was an echo, until I realized that across the river in Porto an equally large group of people, all wearing red t-shirts, were swarming down the street toward the riverfront all chanting at the top of their lungs and waving their arms. Once again, just one arm. I guess if you're going to jump up and down and chant in public you've got to be reserved when it comes to waving your arms around, otherwise the whole thing spirals completely out of control. Now, this is not a narrow river, mind you. This is like, the East River. If the East River were deep in a gorge, with cliffs rising on both sides that amplify and bounce sound back and forth across it. The Reds all lined up on the river's edge precisely opposite the Yellows, and they proceeded to chant back and forth to each other. Different chants, too, not always the same one. Sometimes they politely took turns and sometimes the two chants played off of each other, almost like counterpoint but distorted by the time lag across the river. It lasted a good long while. I took the opportunity to cross the bridge so I could get a better look at the other half of the show. Once I got close enough I realized that for some reason, the Reds only had one or two Black Capes chaperoning them. I guess they didn't need as much herding as the Yellows. Or maybe they did, since at one point a few of them started to wander off. When he saw that, the head Black Cape immediately barked a reprimand, and instantly every single Red bowed low to him and stayed down. He yelled at them for a while and then they all started walking, still with the top halves of their bodies bowed low and their faces parallel to the ground. When I saw that, I knew -- this was an initiation of some kind. The vibe was unmistakeable -- if we had all been in some shitkicking town in Alabama, he would have been yelling at them to fry like little piggies. As it was he let them stand up straight after only a couple minutes. Wimp. The synchronized chanting and getting yelled at and running up and down the riverfront was still going on when I got tired of standing in the drizzle and left. I did notice, while I was there, that the Reds all had a url on the back of their t-shirts, so when I got to the Internet cafe I looked it up. Sure enough, it led me to the home page of the good ol' Associação de Estudantes do Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto -- according to Babelfish, the student association of the Porto University of Accounting and Administration. Yes, they were accountants. Student accountants, anyway. I can now say that in my world-wide travels I've been entertained by chanting mobs of Portuguese accountants. Apparently freshman initiation is the same the world over.
Click on the photo to enlarge and see the teeny yellow shirts on the other side of the river.
So today I went to taste some -- yes, it's a cliche, but what can you do -- port. Yummy. I learned a lot, got a little drunk and saw the world's largest wooden barrel (it holds 100,000 liters). But I won't bore anybody with the history of port -- the interesting thing was what happened on the way back. I blundered into a huge group of teenagers in yellow t-shirts who were gathered on the Vila Nova de Gaia side of the River Douro (across the river from Porto proper). There were a number of slightly older types wearing a bizarre uniform of all-black, topped off with a billowing black cape. The Black Capes were herding the Yellows up and down the waterfront, much as one might attempt to herd cats, with periodic stops so the Yellows could all face the river and chant very loudly, all jumping up and down and waving their right arms in the air in unison. Their chants were almost songs, complete with harmony, with the women and men taking different parts as if they were a choir. I heard something that at first I thought was an echo, until I realized that across the river in Porto an equally large group of people, all wearing red t-shirts, were swarming down the street toward the riverfront all chanting at the top of their lungs and waving their arms. Once again, just one arm. I guess if you're going to jump up and down and chant in public you've got to be reserved when it comes to waving your arms around, otherwise the whole thing spirals completely out of control. Now, this is not a narrow river, mind you. This is like, the East River. If the East River were deep in a gorge, with cliffs rising on both sides that amplify and bounce sound back and forth across it. The Reds all lined up on the river's edge precisely opposite the Yellows, and they proceeded to chant back and forth to each other. Different chants, too, not always the same one. Sometimes they politely took turns and sometimes the two chants played off of each other, almost like counterpoint but distorted by the time lag across the river. It lasted a good long while. I took the opportunity to cross the bridge so I could get a better look at the other half of the show. Once I got close enough I realized that for some reason, the Reds only had one or two Black Capes chaperoning them. I guess they didn't need as much herding as the Yellows. Or maybe they did, since at one point a few of them started to wander off. When he saw that, the head Black Cape immediately barked a reprimand, and instantly every single Red bowed low to him and stayed down. He yelled at them for a while and then they all started walking, still with the top halves of their bodies bowed low and their faces parallel to the ground. When I saw that, I knew -- this was an initiation of some kind. The vibe was unmistakeable -- if we had all been in some shitkicking town in Alabama, he would have been yelling at them to fry like little piggies. As it was he let them stand up straight after only a couple minutes. Wimp. The synchronized chanting and getting yelled at and running up and down the riverfront was still going on when I got tired of standing in the drizzle and left. I did notice, while I was there, that the Reds all had a url on the back of their t-shirts, so when I got to the Internet cafe I looked it up. Sure enough, it led me to the home page of the good ol' Associação de Estudantes do Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto -- according to Babelfish, the student association of the Porto University of Accounting and Administration. Yes, they were accountants. Student accountants, anyway. I can now say that in my world-wide travels I've been entertained by chanting mobs of Portuguese accountants. Apparently freshman initiation is the same the world over.
Click on the photo to enlarge and see the teeny yellow shirts on the other side of the river.
posted by HarleyQ @ 11:58 AM
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