Dolo was an orphan, like me. Legend had it that he had been taken away from his Calao gypsy people after being caught stealing from a grocery store and put into a reform school in Minas Gerais. From there he was adopted by a respectable local gadji family who had given him an upper class education and tried their best to raise him as a gadjo. One day they took him to the local Catholic church to be baptized by the priest. The priest had jokingly referred to him as ’shorty.’ Dolo, a proud Rom, son of a respected gypsy Baro himself, took offense. As the story goes, he stormed out of the church and promptly stole a horse. Then he rode the horse right back into the church in the middle of the Sunday mass. He galloped the big animal down the aisle and stopped abruptly right before the alter. Looking down at the astonished priest, he yelled, ‘Try and call me shorty now, stupid gadjo!’ before galloping away to find and rejoin his estranged Calão gypsy clan where he was immediately ‘repatriated’…

Now we were all getting together again after so long. Music, wine, food and laughter. Good times. The lusty “just for today” spirit that always bound us all together here as Brazillian Roma, no matter how many months or years and all the inevitable hardships passed between our infrequent gatherings. I was just glad to be seeing my old clan again, the people who had long ago adopted me as family despite my half-Rom, half-gadji heritage. They’d always been there for me when I was a fucked up homeless street kid and nobody else wanted to know… They were the most loyal people I’d ever known and they had taught me everything I knew of family and friendship and loyalty, even before AA. I was glad to be with them again- especially glad that Narcisa was safe and sound at home sleeping with the angels, giving me this chance to get out for a while and see my people again.

to be continued…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

“And Sergei here’s another great violinista,” Mimo went on, gesturing to the other guy. “These guys come all way here now from Para to see Dolo and play with all us together. Big Roma gathering on the weekend… Gonna be ciganos from all the South America, even some come from far away in Europa… Like Dolo. He got some big gadjo music producer up there to pay all their passage. He wanna study our music…”
The two visiting gypsies nodded and grinned proudly like overgrown kids. Mimo, like the legendary Dolo and most of the other Roma I knew in Rio, was an excellent musician. He drove a taxi and bought and sold old cars for extra money since it was never easy for gypsies like Mimo to earn a living with music in Brazil. But the music was his soul. Traditional Roma music fused with popular Northern Brazilian Forro.
Our mutual brother, Dolo, the Baro or spiritual Godfather of this local Roma clan was also a gifted gypsy violinist, a remarkable singer and composer too who improvised impromptu Romani poetry and story as he sang and played at Roma gatherings all over the world. But like most of the others, Dolo often made his living doing other things. Mostly buying low and selling high and other things of a more shadowy nature. Like any good professional con man, he never shit where he lived, so he spent as much time traveling around Europe as he did here at home. There he was always working hard to promote Brazilian gypsy music and culture. We never spoke of his other ‘business ventures’ when speaking of Dolo. Ever since we were kids, we only spoke of Dolo at all with the highest respect as a renound traditional gypsy musician and our very dear old friend. Dolo was always the Baro, the humble unspoken leader of the local Roma and the one Rom we all knew who had done very well for himself financially. He had always done us proud and generously spread his good fortune around the community. Dolo was a true gypsy and an all around stand up guy, a charismatic and ballsy Romanian-born, life-loving eccentric. A big outspoken lusty gypsy soul, Dolo was something of a black sheep among other gypsies, inspiring much envy and suspicion among certain international Roma clans, but always a real life hero to us all in Rio.

to be continued…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

Half an hour later I heard the familiar short toot of Mimo’s horn downstairs. I went to the window and gave him the sign… Narcisa was snoring softly and steadily now. I put the note I’d written on the table by her pack of cigarettes where she’d be sure to see it if she woke up and panicked… It said I’d be right back and for her to call me if she needed anything… Just in case she woke up. She woudn’t, God willing, but just in case.. Then I tucked her into the blanket and gave her a light kiss on the forehead.

  “Dream with the angels, baby,” I whispered.

  I picked up my keys and cell phone, put them in my pocket and went out the door.

  “Sar san tu!” Mimo shouted cheerfully, greeting me in his familiar broken Brazilian Romani, flashing me a wide gold toothed smile as I got into his cab.

   ”Mixzto, prala!’‘ I said, giving him a hug and the customary kiss on the cheek. There were two other Roma I didn’t know sitting in the back seat.

   Mimo introduced us and we all made the usual easy-going gypsy small talk, exchanging loose gossip and news of people and friends in the local Roma community as he drove us up the hill to Dolo’s place. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed as the tropical downpour came down. I was glad I’d had time to go back up there to Dolo’s house with a cleaning lady after the “incident” before he got back… God forbid he’d have come home a few days sooner and walked into a literal shit storm up there.

    “You got your guitar, Mimo?” I said, turning to my old friend, guiltily hoping to change the mental subject and forget about the recent mess up at Dolo’s place.

    “You know I got my girl, Nacho. She’s in back with Rico’s acordian… Rico is best Rom safoneiro in all the Brazil,” he said gesturing to one of the guys in the back seat.

    The gypsy, a guy about my age with a full grill of gold teeth wearing a black felt hat and looking like he’d just stepped out of a caravan in the Ukraine just waved his hand modestly and laughed. He said something in a Northern dialect of Calao Chib Romani which I didn’t quite catch, my own grasp of the language of my ancestors being primative at best. For all that though, these local Roma had always treated me as one of their own, not as some bastard half gadjo mixed breed. I smiled back at the guy and stammered in my own broken Romani that I looked forward to hear him play.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.

(to be continued….)

A man must put grain in the ground before he can cut the harvest. - Gypsy proverb

 Russian existentialism dwells on two questions: “What to do?” and “Who is to blame?” Jonathan Shaw replaces them with: “What else can I do?” and “For the good and the bad, I take responsibility for all!” Which, at the end of the day, sums up a living example of human undestructability that’s hard to surpass. 

When I first met Jonathan in Rio de Janeiro he said, “I have gypsy blood, but dont know much about the culture, so maybe you can teach me.”

 Well, after hearing bits of his life story I said: “I got nothing to teach you, Cigano, you been living it… Now just let me introduce you to the rest of the family.”

      - Eugene Hütz
           (Gogol Bordello)

To the person who called me a pretentious asshole, I bet you are a fat, unfucked pc man-hating new age ass licker who took special exception to “invasion of the Twinkie Snatchers. Hey, is that yer spare truck tire you’re wearing as a belt? Btw, the picture was taken in the mid 70’s when wearing gloves was an unheard of practice… But of course you probably already knew that. What? They didn’t teach you that little bit of tattoo history in your fancy art school, DIPSHIT? Your daddy should get his money back… Btw, its stupid sheeple like you that make people like me feel “anitsocial” and proud of it…

Next… I doubt when you were 14 and pissed off you ever dreamed you’d grow up to become a pathetic loser who spends his time writing to tattoo forums… At least I get paid for putting words to paper. My advice? Get a life…

 To my defenders… If there is intellegent life with a sense of humor out there, you guys are proof that there is… Thanx. JS