‘Psychologist for what? I have Eliene, my manicurist’, says Zeca Pagodinho

Zeca Pagodinho is relieved. The white shoes he used to wear when he left the house, determined to “get ready” returned to circulate through the streets of the Barra da Tijuca neighborhood, where he lives. The concert schedule was resumed, the place where he raises horses, pigs and chickens – his real Pasargada in Xerém, in Baixada Fluminense – is full of friends again (“I looked at that empty backyard and it made me feel sad…” ).

In these post-isolation times, the return to routine has been doing “a damn good thing” to the sambista of daytime habits and addicted to old soap operas, who only go to bed after watching a rerun of a soap opera or “Escolinha do Professor Raimundo” , your favorite TV show.

“I go to sleep and wake up early, I couldn’t stand not seeing people anymore, without coming here to chat,” says Zeca, 63, straight from the beauty salon near his home. It was from there that he gave the interview to F5, while doing his toenails, on the eve of his performances at Camarote Bar Brahma, at Carnival in São Paulo, this Thursday (21) and Saturday (23).

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, you said you were ‘almost depressed’ because of social isolation. Has life improved now? Oh, a lot. I lost some friends, my backyard was very sad, empty. Look how it got better: on Easter Sunday I distributed Easter eggs, that bunch of kids came to hug me. Can you imagine that when we had to be alone? I was missing hugging. Oh, Elaine! Go slow!

What was there? Who is Eliene? She’s doing my foot while we’re talking. Look, Eliene, the journalist is asking who you are (some women laugh). I’m in the salon now, I come here every day before lunch, I stay here chatting away, I don’t even need a psychologist anymore. What for? I have Eliene now.

Is it so good to go to the salon?

I love it here. I keep talking, I get a job, I give tickets, I send beer to their parties, I send a suckling pig from Xerém. I just can’t go (to parties) because they keep asking to take a picture and I hate it. There! Look. Eliene got angry and took a steak from my fingernail.

This year you will only participate in the São Paulo Carnival, you will not be in Rio. Is Paulistano good at samba?

They are great, this samba tomb story has nothing to do with it. Apart from that all my shows there pump. Do you know that I won’t even be in Rio on Saturday of Champions? I’m going to Portugal. Oh no, confused. I’m going to Recife. It’s just that I have Portugal in my head, I was thinking about living there.

Was? Not anymore? I did not give up. I wanted to escape the violence, this low spirits that is here, but there are two more grandchildren coming. Two males: one from my daughter Elisa and the other from Louisinho. By the end of the year there will be four in total. Let’s just stay right here. Hey Eliene, stop messing around! It tickles my feet! She knows my foot is numb from diabetes.

The bar that bears his name is becoming a successful chain, opening new branches. Can you make money with it? Do you give suggestions, since you are an expert on the subject? There are already three bars in Rio, there will be another one in Nova Iguaçu, São Paulo. The beast is catching. I’m not a member but I take a little royalty, right? I don’t get involved in anything, but it’s good that I go there, eat, drink, and leave without paying. Every now and then someone comes to talk, sits with me, chats.

You were recently at a meeting of artists with former President Lula and you have already stated that he is a hero. What is the level of friendship between you? We only meet at election time. He called me when my father died, called me again on my birthday.

Do you call him too? Not.

Why not? Because I don’t have his number. I don’t have much to talk about with him either, we like to drink beer together. Lula still hasn’t been to my bar, but he said he wants to go.

Still betting on the animal game? I stopped. In the pandemic I won three times, but I never won again, so I stopped. Look, now Eliene is filling my foot with cream, this woman mistreats me too much.