I was torn. There’s a Bosa Nova club in Ipanema that I love, Bar Vinicius, on Rua Vinicius Moraes. Vinicius Moraes was a Brazilian poet who frequented the Veloso Bar and Grill across the street with his friend Tom Jobim. Each day a beautiful 17-year-old “tall and tan and young and lovely” girl, Helô Pinheiro, walked by on her way to the beach. Sometimes she would stop in to buy a pack of cigarettes for her mom. Jobim and Moraes were obsessed and wrote a song together.
Years later Moraes revealed that Helô Pinheiro was “the girl.” She opened a boutique “The Girl from Ipanema,” trained as an attorney and became a businesswoman and TV presenter. She’s married and lives in Sao Paulo.
Veloso has changed its name to Garota de Ipanema, the Girl from Ipanema. Bar Vinicius had been playing Bosa Nova for decades. Last time in Rio we went there both nights we were in town.
But the ship was putting on a Samba show with locals from some of the Samba clubs. One night, two venues. But we were in luck. Apparently Bosa Nova fans are aging. Bar Vinicius had moved the start of its music to 6 PM on weeknights. That meant we could spend a couple of hours over dinner (mixed grill) at Vinicius listen to Bosa Nova and make it back to the ship for the late Samba show.
It was the only time this trip to Rio that we took anything other than the tram. We used Uber. I am not terribly familiar with this app, there are no Uber drivers in Sitka. The first time I used it, in Washington DC, I got what I considered an apoplectic sounding message saying, “Jesus is coming in 2 minutes.” It turns out Jesus was the driver. But the ship advised us not to do public transportation at night, so we took the Uber.
We drove through Copacabana to Ipanema just at sunset.
As a radio DJ I often wonder if something I said or played had some impact on someone’s life. You never really know. The disc Jockey, Herb Schoenbaum, who introduced me to Brazilian music passed away in 2020 but he had a lasting impact on my life. He brought me to Rio 50 years later for Carnival, and two more times since, He engendered a lifelong love of Bosa and Samba.
