terça-feira, dezembro 20, 2005

By A Nose...

Another classic comedic scene worth transcribing...

This one comes from the movie "Roxanne", with Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah. Based on the play "Cyrano de Bergerac", it tells the story C.D. Bales (Martin), a man who is charming with the women, who demonstrates an impressive intellect, who is well-liked by nearly everyone, but whose most evident characteristic is his hideously immense nose.
Mocked at a bar in town by a drunken barfly with the IQ of asparagus - Big Nose! the man says - C.D. takes on the challenge of exposing the creative potential of being face to face with such a frightening facial feature. Twenty jokes is the bet, but Martin´s character outdoes himself in this scene!

- C.D. Bales:

Obvious: Excuse me. Is that your nose or did a bus park on your face?
Meteorological: Everybody take cover! She's going to blow!
Fashionable: You know, you could de-emphasize your nose if you wore something larger. Like ... Wyoming.
Personal: Well, here we are. Just the three of us.
Punctual: Alright Dellman... Your nose was on time but you were fifteen minutes late!
Envious: Oooo, I wish I were you! Gosh... To be able to smell your own ear!
Naughty: Pardon me, Sir. Some of the ladies have asked if you wouldn't mind putting that thing away.
Philosophical: You know... It's not the size of a nose that's important. It's what's in it that matters.
Humorous: Laugh and the world laughs with you. Sneeze and it's goodbye Seattle!
Commercial: Hi, I'm Earl Scheib and I can paint that nose for $39.95!
Polite: Ah... Would you mind not bobbing your head? The orchestra keeps changing tempo.
Melodic: Everybody! "He's got the whole world in his nose."
Sympathetic: Oh, What happened? Did your parents lose a bet with God?
Complimentary: You must love the little birdies to give them this to perch on.
Scientific: Say, does that thing there influence the tides?
Obscure: Oh, I'd hate to see the grindstone.
Inquiry: When you stop to smell the flowers, are they afraid?
French: Say, the pigs have refused to find any more truffles until you leave!
Pornographic: Finally, a man who can satisfy two women at once!
Religious: The Lord giveth and He just kept on giving, didn't He?!
Disgusting: Say, who mows your nose hair?
Paranoid: Keep that guy away from my cocaine!
Aromatic: It must be wonderful to wake up in the morning and smell the coffee ... in Brazil.
Appreciative: Oooo, how original. Most people just have their teeth capped.
Dirty: Your name wouldn't be... Dick, would it?

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

domingo, dezembro 18, 2005

Christmas Done Right

Santa Claus must have some sort of advanced, built-in cooling system within his red coat and trousers. How else could the lovable old furball (sorry kids!) support the Rio de Janeiro summer heat?! It should be, as always is, somewhere around "hot as all hell" when he flies overhead and drops into each house with his bundle of gifts. Speaking of which, in a tropical climate such as this, there are very few chimneys - the old man must have on hell of a keychain! But that´s another subject altogether...

The point is this: A White Christmas is magical. And unless it starts raining talc here, Christmas (Xmas for short) in Rio will always be "just-short-of-magical". I mean, it´s all rather unnatural down here. Want examples? Here´s a short list:

1. Snow - And that would be WHAT again?

2. Pine Trees - Sure, we have the fake ones which we decorate yearly, but if I had to see a pine tree right now I would have to pack.

3. Santa´s "apparel" - The clothes and hat scream heat-stroke. The sleigh is something not far from extra-terrestrial for most brazilians.

4. Jingle Bells - Everybody here sings it (in portuguese!), nobody here knows what the hell it means.

And that´s just the tip of the iceberg. Or, considering the sun and beach for which Brazil is known, maybe I should say "the tip of the sand dune".

On the other hand is New York City. I'll tell you right now: If you ever have the chance, take your family and spend two or three weeks in NYC, Xmas included (just leave before New Year´s - 500,000 people watching a ball drop is about the most foolish thing I've ever heard of). I promise you, it will be unforgetable. Why, you ask?

Cold weather and snow, coats and scarves and mittens, choirs and Xmas Carols, ice sculptures, Xmas trees, lights and decoration everywhere, eggnog, toys, street Santas, Rudolph and Frosty, chimneys and cookies and glasses of milk, Xmas stockings, candy canes, a White Xmas, and a partridge in a pear tree! Just to name a few...

You know what it is? CONTAGIOUS. That´s what it is. There is no escaping it. It penetrates deep inside your heart, it reminds you of what are the truly important things in life, it just makes you feel good all over.

I had eleven such "Chrismasses". I miss each and every one of them. I hope someday my kids will have the opportunity to discover what I was lucky enough to experience. Every kid should. And the big kid now writing these words would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Merry Christmas

sexta-feira, dezembro 16, 2005

Biloxi Blues

Just finished watching - far from it being the first time, mind you - Neil Simon´s World War II bootcamp comedy "Biloxi Blues", with Matthew Broderick. Besides Broderick and his character (Private Eugene Morris Jerome), which seem to have been taylor-made for each other, the scene involves a sublime Christopher Walken (Sgt. Merwin J. Toomey) as the psichotic drill sargent, and an animalistic, neanderthal-like, but disciplined and exemplary foot-soldier (Private Joseph Wykowski), played by Matt Mulhern.

As usual, nearly had myself a collapsed lung at this following conversation:

-Sgt. Toomey: Enjoy your meal now, you hear?

-Pvt. Jerome: (mocking) Enjoy your meal now, you hear? That´s good. Hominy pigs and black-pea eyeballs. I've got to make you men strong because tonight we´re going to march the entire platoon off of a 3,000 ft cliff. Dying makes a man out of you. I died in the war. They had me cremated. The ashes were buried right here in my head.

-Pvt. Wykowski: You think it´s funny, Jerome?

-Pvt. Jerome: No, I think you´re funny, Wykowski. You forgot to eat the aluminum tray.

Why is it that certain playwrights, such as Neil Simon, for starters, have such a masterful mind for comedy? If not in "Biloxi Blues, take as another example his "Brighton Beach Memoirs", in which the first half of the play/movie is a comedic assault! You may or may not find what you read above as being funny, but Simon´s comedy is, at the very least, clever! On the other hand, comedy these days seems, in many cases, like it comes out of an assembly line. Very little is new, very little is intelligent, and most of all, very little is funny.
They certainly don´t make playwrights like they used to...

quinta-feira, dezembro 15, 2005

Até Amanhã

Iluminado pela escuridão
Vendo as pálpebras por dentro
Alcançado pela sombra
Caindo rumo ao teto
Enfim...

Hospedado numa quarta dimensão
Enclausurado na imensidão
Impossibilitado do não
Enamorado pelo breu
Enfim...

Esquecido pelo tempo
Abandonado pelo eterno
Acorrentado ao nada
Enganado pela verdade física
Enfim o começo...

Enfim o sonho.

terça-feira, dezembro 13, 2005

The Dream Between My Legs

Easy now... Don´t go brewing perversions in your head. I am merely referring to a dream of mine - one which did not exactly begin in childhood, but came about within the past five years or so - which, hopefully, will soon be coming true.
Despite the warnings and the scenarios of carnage firmly implanted in my head by those against the realization of this dream, I WILL purchase a motorbike in the very near future.

The bike? A Yamaha Drag Star XVS 650. A dream between my legs! If you want to see it, check it out at the site: www.yamaha-motor.com.br

I just read a (future) fellow Drag Star owner´s blog about his 1700 km trip from São Paulo to Cuiabá and was hypnotized. The motor´s powerful purring under the seat, the soft laid-back ride, the wind on your chest (I won´t say "face" because a helmet will be glued to me at all times) and, according to the blog, all eyes and ears on you... Not to mention the fact that there seems to be a sort of admiration, a kind of respect, on the part of those bound to four wheels and windshields.

And as I write this, I get more and more excited! Feels like I've been infected by some rather persuasive parasite - nobody can take my mind off of this dream! But just before I start playing my own role in "Easy Rider", something fundamental has to be said:

I hope that I may always have the conscience that I am indeed in a quite perilous position, in a huge and unforgiving city, surrounded by larger, more numerous and usually angry vehicles. And I pray that there is always someone, or something, to watch over me as I two-wheel my way into bliss.

segunda-feira, novembro 14, 2005

Idiots Beware!

The image of a british man in a McDonald´s a year ago is forever engraved in my mind. Why, you ask? Well, this man was neon pink. And I don´t mean that figuratively. He was NEON PINK. Courtesy of the Rio de Janeiro sun.

Under his cap, his face looked nearly paralyzed. Under his t-shirt, his body seemed to be permanently grafted to a clothes-hanger - you know, like when you move in such a manner to allow as little contact as possible between your skin and your clothes. This guy was fresh out of the beach and he was already in pain. I can only imagine what his next three days were like... Or maybe not. I am presently getting a glimpse.

Someday I WILL learn. Someday I will behave differently from the british fool. But not yesterday. I went to the beach yesterday and, thanks to a nice, cool, steady wind to bring down the temperature, underestimated the intensity of the ultraviolet rays. The result? It hurts to smile. It hurts to put on or take off a shirt. It hurts to shift around in bed. It hurts to be so eternally stupid.

This is NOT the first time that I've done this. It´s happened a couple of times before. But since the last time, about two years ago, I had decided that I would never let it happen again. Sunscreen would be a must, regardless of the heat. And up until yesterday, I had been very faithful to my resolve.

Yesterday, however, was the first sunny day after nearly three weeks of incessant rain. It was the first chance to erase the bright-white from my face. And boy, did I make the best of it or what!?

So here I sit, incandescent, in obvious discomfort and above all, feeling foolish.

segunda-feira, novembro 07, 2005

Got a Map?

Ladies and gentleman, I'm afraid I'm the bearer of terrible news. Alright, this actually isn´t news to anyone, but there is no way on earth that I would let this one slide:

GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE VILLAGE IDIOT.

Village, you ask? Yes, village. This is, after all, the way he treats the world. It´s his little town, he´s the big sheriff and his word is the law. As for the "idiot" part, I assume that nobody needs to ask. In either case, prepare your eyes, for you are about to read something which can only be described as surreal!

It seems that at the Brazil/U.S. Summit this past weekend, Mr. Bush needed a little geographical question answered. The question?

WHERE IS THE AMAZON BASIN?

As I type this preposterous phrase, I'm suddenly at a lost for words. How is it possible that the "leader of the free world", the "most powerful man on earth" as we've all heard before, does not have a clue as to where the world´s largest rainforest and one of the planet´s biggest issues for DECADES is located!!!

Please, this isn´t like searching a map for a little middle-eastern town (to annihilate...) This is a chunk of land several times larger than his home state of Texas!

And this is the man with the I.Q. of 92, with the itchy trigger-finger, with God in his pocket, with the planet´s future in his hands.

God help us.

domingo, novembro 06, 2005

Soap!

This one goes out to almost all brazilians...

I HATE SOAP OPERAS.

If you are brazilian and you are reading this, let me translate: EU ODEIO NOVELA. Why this sudden attack? Because, for lack of something better to do and to get myself a good laugh, I was stuck watching the final episode of Brazil´s favorite soap opera last night. So I thought: What better idea for a blog than to crucify, even if just for my own enjoyment, such a excruciatingly foolish brazilian tradition?

For starters, let´s go directly to the problematic heart of the matter. The very essence of soaps is ridiculous! You have a pathetic, overly sentimental, highly improbable story which, every six months or so (at least here in Brazil), gives its primetime slot up for the next pathetic, overly sentimental and highly improbable story. It´s a neverending cycle of the same annoying plot being told in a slightly different manner. Nothing is ever new!

In second place, the acting. OH GOD, THE ACTING. Of course, before I go anywhere with this, I must say that there are phenomenally talented and potentially award-winning actors in Brazil (like Fernanda Montenegro, who was nominated for an academy award a few years ago) and that many of them take part in these soaps. HOWEVER...
It seems there is a tendency (or should I say, insistence) for casting to be done on the basis of looks rather than talent. Again, there are exceptions, but let´s stick to the crucification. So let´s take, for example, the female lead (yes folks, I said LEAD!): She needs to know that dialogue is not made more intense or more dramatic if one whispers! And whispering is all she does, no matter what the character or the story demands. If this is what the leading actress does, imagine the cascade of bad acting below her! A bunch of pretty faces on empty heads which can best be summarized by "overacting, underacting or NO acting".

The third complaint is not in reference to the content, but to the effect it has on the public. It is preposterous that an entire country should be paralyzed by something so useless. And I use the word useless to illustrate the fact that the soaps have no informational value whatsoever! Once again, the exception to the rule resides in that there are "public messages" incorporated into the dialogue (for example, donate blood and organs, save energy and water, or things of the sort). But for the most part, what would be a fantastic chance to feed knowledge to a large portion of a largely uneducated population is instead a factory for stupidity.

Well, in my fury I could go on forever, but I will limit myself to dream of a future without soaps. As this seems to be next to impossible, my alternative is none other than to just crawl back into my distaste for brazilian television.

sexta-feira, outubro 28, 2005

Espelho

Escolha seu espelho aos poucos
Pense na hora da vida e da vida na hora
Faça a si mesmo o favor
De assustar-se com a imagem
Jamais se deixe acostumar com os traços
Até porque seus traços não são imutáveis
Sorria na pausa diante do reflexo
Cerre os olhos para se ver melhor
Quem sabe este sorriso não se estende?
Ou quem sabe, até mesmo, evolua este sorriso
Em algo sem as primeiras três letras
Aí sim será tua hora
Para renegar a carne e acolher o intangível
Pois são estas, meu amigo
As imagens que o espelho
Escolherá para você

segunda-feira, outubro 24, 2005

The Subjectivity of Torture

I spent the latter part of yesterday using my pain and suffering to get some laughs. I know, it sounds strange, but you'll soon understand...

The current, very melodramatic but undeniably comic description involves me getting hit by a car. Cuts and scrapes, bruises and overall soreness, and Mt. Kilimanjaro on the back of my head. Not that I have ever been hit by one, but I imagine that, if it were to happen in a civil manner (as opposed to being pulverized by a bus travelling at 100 km/h), meaning the car gently lifts you off your feet and places you neatly at curbside, the cuts and scrapes, bumps and bruises might be a plausible aftermath. But I'm rambling here, and on the wrong subject.

The fact is that my so-called torture occurred at sea, sailing in a small and apparently harmless sailboat. So now you're thinking: "What the hell?!"
Well folks, let me give you all of the variables so that you can fathom the totality of my misfortune.

First: I´ve been bitten by the sailing bug once before. It happened in my only summer spent in camp, and whatever free time I had was devoted to the sport. As a matter of fact, I actually became pretty good at it, if I may say so myself. Now here´s the big difference: The bug which bit a 15-year-old back then, bit an almost 30-year-old this time! To translate, it´s half the agility with twice the weight. You do the math.

Second: Yesterday was my fifth day at sea. The first four were pretty much devoid of wind. And much like the Lotto, when the accumulated money which nobody wins for days on end is finally given out all at once to one lucky winner, the wind, which had apparently been on vacation the first four days, reared its ugly head with a might vengeance yesterday. And I was the unlucky winner. To cut things short, I spent just about the same time in the boat, flying across Guanabara Bay, as I did IN Guanabara Bay, continuously overturning the capsized sailboat.

Third: Inexperienced and clumsy that I am, my blunders came in quantity and quality. If you could only imagine the sheer stupidity of some of the things I did... And the fact that I kept repeating them certainly didn´t improve my cause. The result? The skin on my hands is, well, no more. And the rest of the skin on my body has now been gloriously adorned in lovely shades of hot pink and crimson red (scrapes), and black, blue and purple (bruises). And the icing on the cake is the aforementioned african mountain on the back of my head, where the sailboat´s boom (for those of you who know EVEN LESS about the sport, it´s the horizontal beam which supports the sail) took batting practice.

I can only assume that you must be thinking: "This man is clearly a masochist".
My rebuttal:

The pain is secondary and temporary. It is outweighed by bliss and outlived by experience and savvy. Sailing is, for lack of a better word, adictive. For these reasons, I will continue to drink from this fountain as often as I can.

One last thing to be said:

If you ever have the chance to be on a sailboat, no matter the size, do not let it pass. It is, in essence, the privilege of sharing nature by means of wind.

sexta-feira, outubro 21, 2005

Mordendo a Língua

Insistência triste esta nossa, sempre enrolando a língua mais do que o necessário, sempre lançando mão de uma bela e valiosa herança Lusitana para desovar, em terras tupiniquins, idéias e nomes in english. Aparentemente, não basta a poluição auricular diária, a teimosia em abrir a boca para massacrar nossa própria língua portuguesa (pra mim fazer, que eu seje, de menor, e similares). Eis que fomos também infectados por um vírus gutural, um mal social, econômico, cultural e aparentemente hereditário que nos engana em achar que devemos trocar nosso sonoro português pelo inglês, porque "assim fica mais bonito".
Pois, pedindo permissão para apossar-me das palavras de um ícone da música brasileira, dou-lhes minha humilde resposta:


E do amor gritou-se o escândalo
Do medo criou-se o trágico
No rosto pintou-se o pálido
E não rolou uma lágrima
Nem uma lástima
Pra socorrer

E na gente deu o hábito
De caminhar pelas trevas
De murmurar entre as pregas
De tirar leite das pedras
De ver o tempo correr

Mas, sob o sono dos séculos
Amanheceu o espetáculo
Como uma chuva de pétalas
Como se o céu vendo as penas
Morresse de pena
E chovesse o perdão

E a prudência dos sábios
Nem ousou conter nos lábios
O sorriso e a paixão

Pois transbordando de flores
A calma dos lagos zangou-se
A rosa dos ventos danou-se
O leito dos rios fartou-se
E inundou de água doce
a amargura do mar

Numa enchente amazônica
Numa explosão atlântica
E a multidão vendo em pânico
E a multidão vendo atônita
Ainda que tarde
O seu despertar

Chico Buarque, 1969


Alguma dúvida sobre a capacidade de nossa língua mãe em nos enfeitiçar? Algum indício de que uma ou outra palavra em inglês serviria de adorno na obra de arte que é esta letra de música? Certamente nosso exuberante idioma dá conta do recado...

Mas sim, terei que fazer justiça aos cento e setenta e nove milhôes, novecentos e noventa e nove mil, novecentos e noventa e nove brasileiros deste planeta:
Só há um Chico.

Mesmo assim, repito que nos falta, acima de tudo, o interesse em desbravar a rica imensidão do nosso idioma. Falta-nos a gana em saber expressar em nossa própria língua aquilo que queremos comunicar ao mundo. E falta, finalmente, o amor-próprio e o patriotismo do cidadão brasileiro para fazê-lo com gosto.

Já me disseram pessoalmente, nas vezes em que estive no exterior, que falamos o idioma mais bonito da Terra e que, dentre as variações do português, o brasileiro é o mais belo. Gostaria eu que nós brasileiros fizéssemos jus a esta fama.

E aqui estamos, dia após dia, mordendo a língua.

sábado, outubro 15, 2005

Old Man, Bad Music

Critical and impatient. Two adjectives you could, without any resistance from my part, put on my resumé. Whether you do or do not believe in astrology, I am your classic Aries: It´s gotta be now and it´s gotta be perfect. So, being that my anal retentiveness (pardon the term, but my friends were the ones who used it first!) seems to have quite a good grip on me, I'm just gonna go ahead and bitch away about a subject which lately - lately being the last 10 years or so - has annoyed me.

WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH MUSIC THESE DAYS?!

Just for now, try to look past my apparent intolerance and show some sympathy towards me... Yes, I'm being inflexible. Yes, I'm condemning something which is, after all, only a matter of taste. Yes, I'm behaving like an old man! Mind you, I'm not even thirty yet... But c´mon, you gotta give me some credit! For someone who grew up addicted to Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Simon & Garfunkel and the likes, it´s simply torturous to turn on the radio these days. Sticking to what I know, which is rock and roll, here is what I hear:

Guitar distortion at maximum so as to create a musical blur. Some idiot plowing away at his drum set (which hurts even more, since I'm a drummer myself!). The missing bassist: Either you can´t hear him or he doesn´t exist altogether. Keyboards. What keyboards? And last but not least, vocals. Oooh, things get interesting here! The mentality is "write anything and bellow it"; or the variation: "Write anything, throw in your best raspy voice and sing like you have some serious speech impediment". Sounds familiar, right? And the worst part is that almost any band which struck it rich since the mid to late 1990´s, with the rarest of exceptions (Coldplay, to name one), sound exactly the same!

Is it just me? Am I becoming another one of those old geezers, incessantly mumbling "how can you listen to that stuff? In my day..."? Or is this an accurate diagnosis of today´s "music"? Yes, in italics and quotation marks.

I hope there is someone out there, with a bit more leverage and a lot more creativity than today´s musicians, who sees things in the same manner. Maybe this person can bring back the beauty and complexity which once fueled music.

Lyrics and melody, not gibberish and noise.

quinta-feira, outubro 13, 2005

American Beauty

"American Beauty". Off the top of your head, can you think of another movie, as unpretentious as this one, that portrays life so... well... beautifully? Here I am, watching it again for the fifth or sixth time, and yet again it instills in me some strange feeling of spiritual paradise lost.
Forget the spectacular photography. Forget the impressive acting of Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Chris Cooper and company. Look past the fantastic dialogue, the latent comedy, the simplicity of the entire thing! Few movies have made me think as much as this one. So, here´s my question:
Is it possible to abdicate so completely from life´s responsibilities and its routine - to clean the slate, so to speak - or is it all fun and games 'till somebody gets hurt?
And another thing: Is this the right recipe of life for everyone?
I guess if I were to give a preliminary answer to my own question, without spending the necessary lifetime to think about it, it would most likely be a very unromantic "no".
Am I missing something?

10th Planet

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to my head. Indeed, this heavy, round, bald and (if I may say so myself) rather goodlooking summit of my anatomy is what I consider my personal little planet. Nine planets in the solar system and at last, my head. Hence, the name of my blog. This is where I go - and where I now invite you to join me - when I need a break from humanity. In other words, this is where the barren fields of monday-through-sunday give way to the fertile jungle of daydreaming and limitless brainstorming. I promise you, some days will seem to be filled with brilliant insight. I warn you, other days will seem to be completely and utterly deprived of any and all brain activity. Hopefully, the latter won´t outnumber the former by too much.

Oh, let me add just one more thing! Uh... How good is your portuguese?? Well, it better be sharp my friend! Because if it is not sharp, and if by a one-in-a-gazillion chance you become an avid reader of this blog, you should invest in language lessons. I will most likely interchange between english and portuguese so as to satisfy readers (hmmm, what readers?!) in Brazil as well as in the States.

So, enough babbling. Let´s get to it.
Cheers