Chez Calé

I just want to give a shout out to Agent Calé and the quality of his hospitality - although he did say yesterday that I could stay for free for three months, but after four he'd charge me rent. His flat is in the neighbourhood of Humaita, right between downtown and Copacabana. From the back window you can see the Cristo (who watches you while you hang your laundry) and from the living room window you can see Sugarloaf. From my front window in New York I can see a parked car, and I live on the fourth floor!

Bobueeeeeno!

...is Brazil's football commentator that everyone loves to hate. I've only been here a week and even I recognised the weeble-doll below. Every country has (at least) one such character, but not all of them sell special effigies that you can smack around while watching them on TV. Sounds like an untapped market to me...



My Portuguese is getting better too: I was able to translate the phrases on the doll all by my lil ole self. They say "For your entertainment, hit him with passion!" and "Relieve your tension while watching the Cup!" Actually, in fairness, Portuguese is the kind of language that makes one feel a bit smarter for comprehending it than might be entirely justified. But you can`t say that about many languages, so I`ll take it.

Monkeys and orchids

... make for a pretty sweet combo on a visit to the Rio Botanical Gardens. The park itself is lovely, but the addition of monkeys puts it on another level - you don't see simians at Kew Gardens. I had no idea there were going to be monkeys at this place, but years ago in Guatemala I learned that if you're in a tropical environment and you hear something falling from a tall tree and it turns out to be a large green nut of some kind, then look up. Because you might well see a monkey. And happily, today that was the case.




It's winter here so there weren't many flowers in bloom, but the orchid house was open (featuring a variety of bizarro Amazonian plants) and the tree-lined paths were lush and empty of people. And did I mention there were monkeys? The pics below are especially for a certain Italian gangsta gardener of my acquaintance.





As ever, there's more at the Flickr set now labelled Trip do Brasil, which I'm updating as I go along.

Sugarloaf/007 moment of clarity

While taking the cable car up Sugarloaf today, I remarked to my friend Lena that if there were any problems mid-climb that she had no need to worry because I'd learned from the Bond movie Moonraker how to escape from a rogue cable car. It was only later when I was blogging it that I realised... that's the actual one in the feckin movie!!! A large part of it is set in Brazil!! You remember - Roger Moore's in the car alone with Dr Holly Goodhead (certainly the best bondgirl name after Pussy Galore) when the silver-mouthed behemoth Jaws pulls up alongside them and a rather clumsy fight ensues on the roof, culminating in JB and Goodhead sliding down the cable wire hanging from his belt and Jaws crashing into the station. This is followed by the very Moore-era Bond exchange I culled from IMDB:

Goodhead: Have you broken something?
Bond: Only my tailor's heart.
[She kisses him]
Bond: What was that for?
Goodhead: For saving my life.
Bond: Remind me to do it more often!

Class.

Animals update

Meet Dali (yes, as in Salvador). He lives in a much, much phatter pad than you do, two blocks from the beach in Ipanema no less. Dali and I went for a walk along the beach together the other night. I have a phonecam pic of us looking out at the sea together, but it was kind of a private moment...


And here's a pussycat that lives on the lower peak of Pão de Acucar (Sugarloaf) Mountain.

That one is for Nyx. The one below is from the top of Acucar. It was impossible to look at this without thinking of the cable car sequence in Moonraker with Jaws. Come to think of it, that might have happened in Rio...

AK47's and flipflops

So my Rio contact Agent Calé used to live in the biggest favela in Rio, Rocinha. He still has lots of friends there, and took me to watch the Brazil v Ghana game on Tuesday. He told me not to take my camera with me so I don't have any pics, and I'm not sure I can do it justice with a brief description. It is, however, one of the most vibrant and friendly places I've been in a while. The fact that it is kept that way by gentlemen in shorts, flipflops and a variety of automatic weapons is just one of those things that makes Brazil a bit different from other places.

Sure there's poverty all around, but there are businesses and cafés and pet stores and machine shops and World Cup decorations and regular people doing regular things. Kids play football in the narrow streets, boys flirt with girls, mates play tricks on each other - although often with pretty powerful firecrackers, I noticed. Motorcycle taxis lurch around winding streets, darting between buses and shopping-bag-laden old women who don't bat an eyelid. I know this because we had to take a couple of them up and down the mountain Rocinha occupies (moto-taxis I mean, not grannies). Lots of people called out to Calé to say hi as we walked around, including the druglord kingpin of the neighbourhood, who was surrounded by chaps with the aforementioned weapons - I saw at least two AKs, an Uzi and what we call in gamer circles a BFG (first letter is for 'big', the third is for 'gun', you can guess the middle one) that I didn`t recognise. Yes this is pretty insane, but the real Brazilian cops who don't go into favelas are scarier-looking and smile less, which are likely both consequences of their being paid considerably less than their favela counterparts.

We watched the match under the corrugated iron awning of a tattoo parlour. There were about 30 people standing around watching the game - men and women of all ages and some very cute kiddies - all laughing and commenting on the players and enjoying themselves. Ronaldo's early goal set us up for a highly entertaining 85 minutes - each time Brazil scored, the whole crowd leapt to their feet and ran out into the street to make a joyous and almighty racket, only to dash straight back to their original postions as firecrackers went off all around. I was prepared for this by the third goal and sprinted out into the muddy street with everyone else. The tattoo guys also had a huge soundsystem that played a 'Brasiiiiiiiilllll!!!!' electronic jingle after each goal.

There's so much more but this is getting long. Buy me a drink sometime and I'll tell you the rest.

Where music and passion are always in fashion

Copacabana Beach from the roof of the hotel, about 5:30pm.


This is the view to the north...

...and to the east. The famous Cristo is on the hill on the right. Its size in relation to the city reminds me of the Statue of Liberty in New York. Their representations in films and photos make them look like they dominate their respective cities like colossi, but actually they´re pretty iddybiddy from the ground.


Tomorrow my Rio contact Agent Cale is taking me to the Racinho favela to watch the Brazil-Ghana match. I´m rather hoping the boys in yellow win that one... better to be in a favela with happy Brazilians than pissed off ones.

MEAT!!!

'kin 'ell. I'm just back from perhaps the meatiest meal I've ever eaten. We had dinner at a vast churrasco (bar-b-que) restaurant, where waiters come around with every kind of flesh imaginable on skewers and just drop slices on your plate. I tried at least three different kinds of beef, pork and lamb, and you could taste all of it (unlike most American meats these days). All served up with fried yukka roots, the local beer and yet more caipirinhas. I think tomorrow has to be an exclusive veggie and weird fruit day.

Eat my goooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!!

Here's a vid I took of the crowd I was watching the Brazil v Japan game with when Ronaldo put the first goal in. Almost spilled my caipirinha. Listen for the firecrackers about 40 seconds in, they were being tossed into the air from apartments above the throng. The boys at the end of the film had a laugh with me later when they found out I was from Inglaterra, especially about "Croosh" the lanky English striker.

Brazil v Japan - in Rio, baby!!

Arrived at the hotel, caught a much-needed snooze, and headed out to find a place to watch the match. Found a street party with a caipirinha stand and lots of yellow shirts -- and apparently an explosives factory nearby, because after each goal it sounds like downtown Baghdad. Amazing. More details later, some pics are already up at the jamesbmartini flickr page.

Thoughts on the eve of Brazil mission

Tonight I embark on a special mission to Brazil, which should last about six weeks. Top secret stuff naturally, but I can reveal that it may or may not have something to do with cats that look like Hitler.



I shall endeavour to continue blogging when it is safe to do so. It seems that I may be all that stands between the end of civilisation as we know it and a 'Planet of the Apes'-type scenario, only this time with furry fuhrers. Wish me luck.

Thanks to Georgie P. for the link.

Feline Trifecta

Or, if you will, a cat-trick. Three high-larious cat-based offerings tonight. First up is this story from New Jersey that I found at Hullabaloo (which is strange, because it's one of the best political blogs on the interweb, and doesn't normally go for this kind of thing). Add in Colbert's constant warnings about the threat posed to America by bears, or "godless killing machines", and we're looking at a perfect storm of jbm blog material.


WEST MILFORD, N.J. - A black bear picked the wrong New Jersey yard for a jaunt earlier this week, running into a territorial tabby who ran the furry beast up a tree — twice.
Jack, a 15-pound orange-and-white cat, keeps a close vigil on his property, chasing small animals when he can, but his owners and neighbors say his latest escapade was surprising.
"We used to joke, 'Jack's on duty,' never knowing he'd go after a bear," cat owner Donna Dickey told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Friday's newspapers.
Neighbor Suzanne Giovanetti first spotted Jack's accomplishment after her husband saw a bear climb a tree on the edge of their northern New Jersey home's back yard on Sunday. Giovanetti thought Jack was simply looking up at the bear, but soon realized the much larger animal was afraid of the hissing cat. After about 15 minutes peering down at the cat from the tree, the bear descended and tried to run away, only to have Jack chase it up another tree.
At this point Dickey, who feared for her cat, called Jack back home and the bear scurried back to the woods.
"He doesn't want anybody in his yard," Dickey said.


Next up we have two sterling finds from Bredren Boris. A video entitled simply "Stupid Cat":



Outstanding. And finally, this pathetic chap. I'd really appreciate an explanation for this...



poop!

Colbert on the World Cup

London, 5am

I'm in London now, preparing for my next mission in Brazil. Can't reveal too much about what I'm up to, but for some reason M insited on a meeting at Whitehall at 5am. At least Big Ben looks nice at that time of day.



So does Albert Bridge and the Battersea Power Station.

Under covers

The Museum of Bad Album Covers is good for a variety of giggles. Blogspot is engaged in game of silly buggers at the moment and won't upload photos, so you'll just have to wait to see a visual representation of Paddy Roberts' 'Songs for Gay Dogs'. I want to know what it actually sounds like...

Found it.

For my green homies

Moss graffiti, baby. It's nature in a can! Now all y'all oldbloods can get to taggin' up your gardens.



And you make it yourself:
1 can of beer
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Several clumps garden moss
1 for the homies that didn't make it. Peace.

Nothing to see here

I saw this piece of news on Atrios this morning, and then caught it on headlines on papers on the way to work. New York has had its federal funding for the 'Great and Holy War on a Human Emotion' cut, nay slashed, by the DHS. Here's a fun part from ABC:

"New York has no national monuments or icons, according to the Department of Homeland Security form obtained by ABC News. That was a key factor used to determine that New York City should have its anti-terror funds slashed by 40 percent--from $207.5 million in 2005 to $124.4 million in 2006.

"The formula did not consider as landmarks or icons: The Empire State Building, The United Nations, The Statue of Liberty and others found on several terror target hit lists. It also left off notable landmarks, such as the New York Public Library, Times Square, City Hall and at least three of the nation's most renowned museums: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan and The Museum of Natural History."

The M*rdoch-owned New York Post even went with "Washington to New York: Terror? What Terror?"

This sort of thing has been going on since The Day Everything Changed. It's happening on a different scale altogether in Louisiana and Afghanistan right now; apparently they don't have any iconic landmarks either.

Sweary R.I.P.

Paul Gleason of 'Breakfast Club' and 'Trading Places' fame has died. He was also in the original 'Die Hard', two episodes of 'The A-Team', and 'Ewoks: The Battle for Endor'.

Lest we forget...
"You mess with the bull, young man, and you'll get the horns."
"The next time I have to come in here I'm crackin' skulls."
"I'm gonna knock your dick in the dirt!"

And the sweary classics from gorilla-lovah Clarence Beeks:
"Back off! Or I'll rip out your eyes and piss on your brain!"
"[into telephone] I anticipate penetration and acquisition at 21:00 tomorrow. Hold on. [to woman waiting at phone] Fuck off."