Description
The shirt is a tribute…
In 1994 I graduated high school. I was 17.
I wasn’t quite a green 17-year-old. I’d already spent two years doing late and overnight shifts at a McDonald’s on the entertainment strip of Sydney’s George Street. This obviously led me to some sketchy characters, and finishing a shift at midnight often meant hanging around with colleagues afterwards in some of Sydney’s more colourful establishments. Well, the ones that didn’t seem to mind a group of underage teenagers who smelt like grease and pickles.
I’m not encouraging this sort of behaviour, but it may have helped shape my personality and sense of humour.
Anyway, back to the story.
I’d just graduated high school and my parents offered to take me to Portugal for Christmas. I honestly jumped at the opportunity. I mean, what else did I have to do? Pick up more shifts making Big Macs?
Nah. I packed my bags, bought myself a Sony Handycam and got a fresh undercut. Yeah, I still had hair back then, and that hairstyle was very much frowned upon by the Catholic school I’d just attended.
I arrived in Portugal and my cousin picked me up with his mate China behind the wheel of his 1972 Toyota Corolla.
I’m not sure why China was called China, nor do I even remember his real name. The thing with Portugal, and the people I call friends over there, is that most of them don’t go by their real names. They all have an alcunha — a nickname.
My name is just peculiar enough over there, Glen, that I don’t get a crazy nickname. At least not one they call me to my face.
We went to this bar, and it was something I really didn’t expect to find in the town of Loulé.
It was small, dark and dingy, with a stage set up at the back. But it really was my type of place. It was a bit of a dive, but my God was the music loud and hard. The sort of place where your ears would ring for a few days after you left.
It was Christmas 1994, and I’d stumbled into Loulé’s punk and hardcore scene.
The bar was actually called Bafo de Baco — Baco being the god of wine.
Wine. As in classy, responsible adults discussing the subtle tasting notes of citrus and oak in their glass.
Yeah… that doesn’t sound very punk to me.
But in my world, and perhaps because I just wanted to hear it this way, I heard Bafo do Bácoro — “the piglet’s breath”.
It seemed like a perfectly reasonable name for an establishment like this.
We went there quite a bit during that trip to Portugal, and I never once looked at the sign above the door. I would just be told we were going to the Bafo, and that was fine by me.
Fast forward to, I think, around the year 2000.
Once again I was kicking around Portugal. This time I had paid for my own flights. I was still sponging off relatives for accommodation and most of my food where I could, obviously.
I was 23 by then and, in my mind at least, considerably older and more experienced in life.
One of my younger cousins decided she was going to take me somewhere she thought would blow me away.
She took me to… you guessed it.
The Bafo.
It was still dark and dingy and very, very loud. They now served strange blue and green drinks in shot glasses, but yes, it was still a hardcore bar, and it was still a hell of a lot of fun.
I don’t know why, but I haven’t been back since.
Recently — very recently — after starting Oporco, I started scouring Facebook and Instagram for Portuguese content, people and places.
Then I came across Bafo de Baco.
And suddenly it hit me.
I’d had the wrong name for one of my favourite hangouts for over 30 years.
This shirt is a tribute to that mistake.
Bafo do Bácoro.
The name I thought it was called.
The name I never bothered to check.
I hope the fine people at Bafo de Baco can forgive me.
I definitely intend to make sure I go back there for a beer — and hopefully see a band — the next time I’m in Loulé.
And this time, I’ll even look at the sign.
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