ericwmu94

My friend Steve asked me to do the 25 favorite albums thing. It’s not 25, but:

“Beleza Tropical – Brazil Classics 1” – The album that sparked my love affair with BR.

“Graceland” – Paul Simon - The first truly great album I ever bought. High school quiz bowl memories and singing along to it with my mom coming home from my grandma’s. If someone put a gun to my head and demanded to know my favorite album, “Graceland” would be my autopilot answer.

“Kids in Philly” – Marah – Marah is by far the best “unknown” band I’ve ever seen live. Got to hang with Nick Hornby (who wrote an entire book about his 25 favorite songs which want to read) for an entire evening, too.

“Crash” – Dave Matthews Band – “Lie in our Graves” and “Say Goodbye” (which I refer to in my mind as the “seduction song”)

“Summerteeth” – Wilco - “I dreamed about killing you again last night, and it felt alright to me.”

“Rites of Passage” – The Indigo Girls – Harmonies, really strong songwriting, and a balance of heavy (“Ghost”), light (“Airplane”) and just right (“Galileo”)

“Document” – R.E.M – I still don’t understand the meaning of most of the lyrics, but they still ring strong. I saw their “Work” tour in Spring 1987 (“10,000 Maniacs” was the opening act), my first unaccompanied-by-an-adult rock concert I also learned the word “acumen” from “Exhuming McCarthy”.

“Step Inside This House” – Lyle Lovett - I had never heard a Lyle song until I saw his show at the Chicago Theater in the fall of 1998 (my girlfriend who later became my ex-wife got free tickets through her work) supporting this album, and I went in with low expectations. I’ve been a big fan since. It’s the most beautiful, and humble, ode to Texas I know of.

“The Joshua Tree” – U2 - One of the biggest regrets of my life is not skipping a track meet in Okemos (MI) to go see them at the Silverdome in the spring of 1987. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

“Cor de Rosa e Carvão” – Marisa Monte – Smart, playful, sometimes cryptic lyrics; beautiful voice, and an incredible sound.

“Tigerlilly” – Natalie Merchant – See Marisa Monte, plus she’s an utterly beautiful woman, whereas Marisa is oddly beautiful.

“Tracy Chapman” – I bought this sound unheard on a recommendation from “Rolling Stone” in June 1988. She and my Walkman were my among my best companions that summer. She’s never come to close to matching this album, but she set the bar really high for herself.

“Bachata Rosa” – Juan Luis Guerra – In Spain in the fall of 1991, I persauded the owner of the small record store (remember those?) to let me take the album jacket the lyrics (I already had a cassette copy and was broke, so I didn’t want to buy it) to the copy store and make photocopies of it. It was a great Spanish teacher. Anne (my-ex) and I danced to the title song at our wedding.

Other albums I consider mileposts in my life but wouldn’t include them as all-time favorites include:

“Business as Usual” – Men at Work
“Kick” – INXS
“Purple Rain” – duh
“Sign of the Times” – Prince (I drove to the mall alone before I was 16 (i.e. illegally) so I could buy it the day it came out)
“Little Earthquakes” – Tori Amos
“101” – Depeche Mode
“Lo que te conté mientras te hacías la dormida” – La Oreja de Van Gogh
“I’m Not Dead” - Pink
“Descanso Dominical” – Mecano
“Grandes Exitos” – Silvio Rodriguez
“Greatest Hits” – Jim Croce
Johnny Cash.

I think it’s worth mentioning that several of the albums that David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label have issued, especially the three or four compilations of Brazilian music, inspired me to learn to Portuguese and come to Brazil (or vice versa, not sure which).

I am now 60 weeks along with my Invisalign braces. They are as good as advertised. My mouth looks completely different than it did when I started and, 26 weeks from now, both bottom and top will be totally aligned. I go to the dentist once a month or so, and shell out $125 for about 15 minutes of her time, but apparently that’s the going rate. Overall, I’m extremely pleased with the results.

Over the weekend the weather was cooperative and I made my second solo flight with the paraglider. This time, no broken toes. I inflated the glider, turned around and ran off the ramp as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Following the instructions of my mentors on the ground via walkie-talkie, I flew straight toward the water before making a right turn over President Wilson Avenue and set myself up for a smooth touchdown, which I managed to pull off in the sand. Elaine, one of the instructors, figured landing in the sand would be better on my vulnerable feet. Of course she’s right, but the glider got a little bit sandy and I couldn’t get it all off before I folded it up.

The other day I hopped a bus to go meet up with my girlfriend, who was in a neighboring town visiting her mom. I mistakenly boarded a city bus instead of an express, private bus, and thus spent two hours traveling from Sao Vicente to Itanhaem instead of the 30 minutes the express bus would have taken. But the trip gave me the opportunity to see a couple of towns on the state of Sao Paulo’s southern coast. My conclusion: Man, are they ugly. I wish I could be more generous in my evaluation, but they are ugly. The beaches are ugly, the buildings are ugly, and the fact that seemingly every square inch of land is covered by concrete or some sort of construction (ugly, no doubt). I was telling one of my colleagues about my adventure, and she recounted that many people who live in that region don’t have basic sanitation because the population grew much faster than governments could build sewer and municipal water systems (of course, due to bribes these systems often cost taxpayers multiples of their actual cost). Every place has its share of ironies, and one of the most pronounced in Brazil is the contract between the natural beauty of the landscape and the lack of beauty in most buildings and neighborhoods. I am developing an eye for aesthetically pleasing buildings only because there are so few of them here.

Yesterday I had a conversation with one of my paragliding colleagues about American football. He pointed out that it lacked beauty (compared to “futebol”) and who wants to watch a bunch of men climbing all over each other? I told him that only idiots would want to play a game where they can’t use their hands. He laughed and headed off for a shot or two at a beachside watering hole.

Random thoughts about my hosts:

The urban middle and upper-class in Brazil mostly drive cars that are either black or grey.
If you drive out to rural areas, however, the color options seem to expand. Lots of red, green, even purple. Nel tells me it’s because people believe that black and grey “look better” and are less likely to draw the attention of thieves. Her Citroen C3 is black, as was her Peugeot 206, which she traded in a year ago. One night a couple months ago someone broke her window as she was waiting for a stoplight to turn green. I guess her car was not as stealthy as she thought. (By the way, she was shocked but was not hurt, and the thief got away with a bag of sweaty clothes and shoes from her dance class).

Every business has to be in a union and every formal sector employee has to be in a union. I’ve yet to see what the union does to justify the full day’s salary it gets from me each year (I am a whiny ex-pat and thus get it reimbursed as a business expense in the U.S.). This is an extremely paternalistic society, and labor law is thick with supposedly protectionist statutes that end up costing everyone more, hindering business growth (and thus job growth), and limiting individuals’ career mobility.

Fire extinguishers are required in all cars.

When you’re on a rural highway and want to turn left, driving etiquette dictates that you pull off on to the right shoulder to wait for all the cars behind you to pass before you complete your turn. A lot of crossroads have traffic circles or designated turning lanes on the right hand side of the road for a left hand turn.

Today I read the following in a World Bank document regarding legally starting up a business in Sao Paulo: “An inspection to obtain the municipal license is necessary but not mandatory.”

The other day Nel and I had some out-of-this-world rice pudding at a roadside restaurant that caters to Paulistas (people from Sao Paulo) headed to and from the mountains.

Jonas, the guy who irons for me and shops for groceries for me, is getting good grades in his English class. He was proud when he showed them to me this evening, before he headed off to class which started at 9:15 pm. Glad it’s not me starting class that late.

The current global economic crisis has certainly arrived in Brazil, but being a country that has been through several economic crises, a military dictatorship, a drug-addicted president, and the death of a national hero (Ayrton Senna) over the course of the past 50 years, my hosts are taking this latest storm in stride. It was only two years ago, according to a recent article in The Economist, that Brazil became a majority middle class country (middle class here is defined as having a salary somewhere between the equivalent of US$600 - $2,000 per month). With economic stability a relatively new phenomenon here, and at that only for a slight majority of the populace, Brazilians don’t seem particularly unnerved by global economic affairs.

But I am.

I read way too much of the financial press. I worry about my parents’ pensions and the funds that pay them out. I fret about the money that I put into my niece and nephews’ 529 accounts every month and will it be there for them when in 10-12 years when they are college bound. I wonder how long I will have a job and what I would do if my company decided that our Brazilian adventure was not going to pay off.

Lifting my head from the laptop and taking a look around offers some perspective. I hear how my co-worker’s nanny lives on $350/month (40 hr work weeks) and I wonder what her home must be like, and what kind of neighborhood it might be in. I wonder how it must feel to be a young Brazilian lawyer, who even in a good firm might make $1000/month. (Firms can pay this little because there are plenty of young lawyers and 99% probably still live with their parents). And I wonder about the legions of people in Brazil and around the world whose job mostly involves standing around: security guards, parking valets, elevator operators, pamphlet distributors at street corners, bathroom attendants at the bus station.

Unfortunately, the excesses of the latter half of the 20th century and the refusal of most Americans to live within their means have caught up with us, and the piper needs to be paid, and paying the piper will take some time because he no longer accepts credit cards. But I’m betting that a majority of Americans will still have the opportunity to be able hold jobs that are more interesting and better remunerated than their peers around the world. And given that’s my bet, I am going to try to chill out for awhile and read a good book…

Brazil looks to be headed into a recession, just like everywhere else. Luckily, it’s much better-positioned than it was in the past to weather the storm, but it will be difficult. Banks are not granting credit so easily, thus consumers are buying less, and companies are being forced to lay off workers, despite the strict labor laws making it very expensive to do so. This isn’t going to be an easy year anywhere.

****

I have spent the past six weeks in pain due to my feet. I broke my toe upon the landing phase of my first solo flight with the paraglider. I wasn’t prepared to run when I landed and my forward momentum took my leg and back half of my foot over my toes, breaking a metatarsal. I was not put in a cast or a boot immediately, and thus stupidly did too much on it, exacerbating the problem and likely causing the gout attack that occurred in the same foot two weeks later. I finally got the stabilizing boot, and used it for three weeks. Now my right foot is just about 100%, but the other day gout struck my left foot, so now I am crippled up again. Hopefully in a week or so I will be back to normal.

I started my paragliding course in October. I had done it in Spain when I lived there in 1992, but since then had not lived near mountains to make it feasible. It’s been an eye-opening experience and I have got to know a lot of good people through it. I have a long way to go before I become a good pilot, as flying a paraglider is much more complex than it seems, as you have to have a good understanding of meteorology, aerodynamics, your equipment, and your own limitations. Needless to say, I am enjoying the journey thus far, apart from being sidelined due to injuries.

*****

One of the great things about being relatively wealthy in a poor country is that you can easily afford domestic help. In addition to have someone come in once a week and clean my apartment thoroughly, I hired a waiter at the restaurant where I get my breakfast most days (US$2.30 for all an all you can eat buffet).to do my grocery shopping and iron my clothes twice a month. He works about 8 hours a month and I pay for his English classes, which are about US$70/month). It’s a great deal for him, as I would imagine he makes about US$300/month at his waiter job working 40 hours a week. And it’s a great deal for me, since I hate grocery shopping and would rather spend my time doing something other than ironing.

A number of my ex-pat acquaintances here have commented to me that if you marry a Brazilian; expect to live in Brazil for the rest of your life. I think the family ties are a big part of that, certainly, but the cost of domestic labor must also be a major factor.

Greetings. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?

 

Stirring observations from Brazil:

-Going back to the U.S. for 5 days beats the crap out of one, but it sure was nice to spend a couple days on the farm where I grew up and see family and friends. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to run down to Ann Arbor to see friends and eat at Zingerman’s. Next time.

-I turned 37 last week. Brazilians are very effusive about birthdays. More than half the people in the office came over to give me a hug, wish me a happy birthday and a variety of good wishes for year 38. I worked some 12 hours that day, but Nel and I caught a late meal of tacos, potato skins, ice cream sundaes and capirinhas, which translates to “little hillbillies”. 

-Nel and I celebrated 6 months together on May 2. No, there are no pending marriage plans, but she’s been one of the better things to happen to me in a long time.

-My braces are working. I can see positive movement in my bottom front teeth and my front left lateral incisor (I had to look that one up) is aligning nicely. My dentist tells me I am a textbook case for the type of braces I have and that I am right on target. Apparently most of the aesthetic work will be done by the end of 2008, but during 2009 the hard work in back, like correcting my crossbite, will take place. Luckily, I’ve become very accustomed to the braces and I don’t mind their maintenance much. I figure it’s much easier than insulin injections twice a day.

-Work has been crazy, but we’re about to tie up two large deals, our first in Brazil. However long I stay in Brazil, it’s going to be a very busy time in my life.

-Speaking of staying in Brazil, I still have a tough time getting used to life in Sao Paulo and know that I won’t last here more than three or four years. By then I will be 40 and ready for a different challenge anyway.

-Brazil has been captivated for the past two months by the “Isabella” case. Isabella’s father and step-mom are accused of strangling her and then throwing her out the window of their 8^th story apartment. It reminds me of the OJ case, except nobody has media consultants and therefore everybody talks too much. My guess is Dad and stepmom will die in prison.

 -Nel bought a new car.  She apparently got a good interest rate, and I believe her, but I did the math and she’s paying 28% per year on a 5 year car loan.  Wow.

-I recently read an interesting book called “Caught in the Middle”, which is about the Midwestern U.S. in the age of globalization. Fascinating read, but the future for small town people looks rather grim, according to the author, as the manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back and corn-based ethanol production is more adverse to the environment than carbon emissions from gasoline. One of the arguments he makes is that the region needs to do is embrace immigration. He says a diverse population shakes things up and makes people more innovative, and innovation, he argues, is something the Midwest sorely lacks. My dime store prediction is that the abundance of water in the region could be its saving grace, but only if the adjacent states and provinces work together to keep them clean.

I noticed recently that Brazilians are very comfortable talking about things in public that for most Americans would not be the topic of conversation at lunch with co-workers.  A couple of examples:

A female co-worker’s two year-old son was recently ill.  He was seen by a couple of doctors, had several bad days, and lost a few pounds, but eventually he got better.  I would have been satisfied with that amount of information, but unfortunately, I got more.  She told me how many times he went to the bathroom during those days of illness and the consistency and color of what resulted of his going to the bathroom.  She left no room for the imagination. 

Another co-worker and his wife have been trying to have a second baby.  Recently, they decided to do an in-virto procedure, about which he felt perfectly at ease giving us a blow by blow account (or stroke by stroke, as it were) of the process.  It was a little much for my country boy tastes.

I’m not sure why the need to share so much health and reproductive information. Perhaps it’s because for so long Brazil was an extremely poor company and material goods were hard to come by.  Instead of trying to one up one another on the possessions front, people may have tried to outdo one another with the degree of their illness or the # of different medicines they were taking (I’m constantly getting told I should be taking something).    

Happy Birthday to Trish P. this week!

It’s certainly been awhile since I’ve written.  My principal excuse is that I’ve been very busy with work.  My boss and his boss were here for a week, and then I got deeper into a project I’ve been working on for a while.  Hopefully it will come to fruition…

My friend Todd Stanaway died two weeks ago of brain cancer, which he’d been fighting for over a year.  He left behind his wife and 5-year old daughter.   I didn’t see him much after we graduated from high school, but I was fond of him and have good memories of him.   The last time I spent any time with him was 10 years ago, when he and two other friends from high school came to Chicago for a few days.   We had a lot of fun, and the Cubs actually won the game we attended.   I’m told that at his funeral his wife asked his friends to write down some memories they had of Todd so that their daughter will get a better sense of her dad when she’s older.  I plan to do so in the next few weeks.

I spent this weekend in Rio.  I had to go there for work on Thursday and Friday (which included about an hour and half in a helicopter touring real estate!),  so I got Nel a plane ticket and she joined me for the weekend.  We had a really nice time.  We spent a lot of time walking around and doing tourist things.  Today I went hang gliding for the first time, which was fun.

Brazil is treating me well and I am continuing to learn a lot.  Having Nel in my life has been really good for me.   I’ve become very used to my braces and they seem to be working.  My Portuguese continues to get stronger and I’m starting to use slang and odd constructions correctly. 

My friend S came in from New York a couple of weeks ago, and we had a really nice time.  We were going to do some paragliding, but got rained out, so instead we spent the afternoon drinking and doing exercises that are intended to teach us that our (everyone’s) goals aren’t as out of reach as we may think they are.  We also had a very nice dinner with some of my friends here, and she got to know Sao Paulo a bit.    I think she will be back to Brazil…

Happy Birthday this coming week to DF and JT, and I will be thinking of LF, who will be undergoing surgery.

 

 

Tuesday night I went to see “The Kite Runner”.   I have not yet read the book, but I’m now inclined to do so.  I really enjoyed the film.  It touched on a lot of issues:   friendship, father-son relationships, redemption, cultural divides, religious fanaticism, the pursuit of happiness, etc.  I highly recommend it.

Carnival was fun.  We tried to go to the sambodromo on Saturday night to see the samba schools parade, but due to poor organization and few entrances into the stands, we were going to have to wait in line what looked to be two hours to get in.  We gave up, scalped our tickets, and went to our favorite bar to watch it on TV for awhile.  The crowd was surely disappointed that I didn’t strut my stuff in my florescent green Speedo, but next year is coming…   On Sunday Nel and I headed out to a friend’s farm, about three hours from Sao Paulo.  There were several couples there and we spent a great deal of time laughing.  One of the guests had recently had a vasectomy, of which he gave us a play by play over dinner.   We went for a couple of nice walks and I really enjoyed being in the country, despite the rain.  Monday night we went to dinner with friends F and N, who just remodeled their house.  F just finished her master’s degree thesis, too, so she is feeling like a relatively free woman these days.

Not much else to tell.   Work is work.   The bridge I wrote about a few months ago is coming along.  It should be open by April.  I’ve been having problems with the internet company, but I think they’ve been resolved.  At least for now…

2008 is a month old already.   My land, as the older folks say, how time flies.

 Week one with transparent braces has gone well.  No one has noticed them, or if they have nothing has been mentioned.  The only annoyance is having to excuse myself to the bathroom to remove them before sharing a meal with someone.  I will probably be annoyed when the bill comes, too, but I knew what I was getting into.  I am definitely eating less and consuming less caffeine, which is probably healthy.

Saturday is the beginning of Carnival.  I have purchased a florescent green Speedo in which I plan to prowl the streets of Sao Paulo, shaking my farmboy, pasty white stuff for all the world while singing “The Girl from Ipanema” and slugging Brazilian moonshine from a plastic cup. Sorry to disappoint, but I actually am planning a tame Carnival.  On Saturday a few of us are going to the “sambódromo”, a stadium specially built for the samba schools to parade through.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  On Sunday Nel and I are heading out to a friend’s farm about three hours from here.  We’ll be back on Monday, and I will probably work on Tuesday as I need to prepare for a big visit from my boss and his boss beginning a week from Sunday.

In Brazil this week the government is trying to determine how much deforestation took place in the Amazon during the last few months of 2007.   A report several weeks ago said that the rate of deforestation had decreased, but soon after it was revealed that the rate had indeed increased.  Whatever the case, it’s not stopping, and probably won’t until rich nations get together and pay the Brazilian government billions of dollars to put a halt to it. 

The other day, for work, I went to look at a property that’s for sale.  Today the property is a country house on a 50 acre parcel, but the owner wants to sell. I was told that he no longer is willing to go there because it’s no longer secure enough to his liking. Last year his wife was kidnapped and held for two weeks.  The kidnappers wanted US$5 million.  Apparently she was able to signal to police where she was and they rescued her, and no ransom was paid.   It was a friendly reminder that stuff like that happens here.

When I was living in Mexico a co-worker told me a story of how a friend of his was kidnapped and murdered.  However, the killers, friendly folks that they were, tried to extort her family for several weeks after she was murdered.   The family was arranging to make a money transfer when the police found her body in a field 40 miles from where she was abducted. 

Not to say that the U.S. is a beacon of personal safety. When I lived on Malden Street in Chicago, a guy was killed in the apartment I had lived in before I moved down the hall a few months before (thanks, J.C., for telling my mother about that!).   In my hometown of 2,000 souls there’s a guy who’s suspected of murder, and a guy my sister dated briefly when she was in high school is, last I knew, serving a life sentence, also for murder.  Everybody’s got a story like that, I suppose. Life is fragile and s**t can and does happen.  That said, maybe I should ask for hazard pay during my review in a couple weeks…

As I write this I’m looking at a radar loop of the upper Midwest.  The screen is pretty blue with snow (funny, but in my experience snow is white, not blue). I read that 7” are expected at O’Hare overnight.  Here it’s overcast and 70-ish.

If you’re in or around Chicago, go see my friend A. in “1776” at the Chopin Theatre on Division Street.  It runs Thurs-Sun through March 1.

I just found out that a friend of a friend is going deaf.  She was born deaf in one ear, and now is losing her hearing in the other.  I believe she’s 36.  My mother’s hearing has deteriorated a lot in the past several years, but thankfully hearing aids work quite well for her despite their needing seemingly constant adjustment.   I often wonder if lots of folks, including me, will suffer early hearing loss due to earphones.   It’s always something, isn’t it?

Yesterday morning I met N at Sao Paulo’s largest park, Ibirapuera, to walk for an hour or so.  It was very nice.  The flora in there is quite spectacular.  I particularly liked a cluster of bamboo trees, which I didn’t realize could get so tall.  Living in a big, concrete jungle like Sao Paulo, it can be easy to forget that I’m nearly in the tropics (the Tropic of Capricorn runs about 25 miles north of here).  One reminder, however, are the intense downpours we’re getting a couple times a week these days.  From up here on the 37^th floor, I have a great vantage point for watching them come in from the west.  I marvel at their intensity and feel thankful that I don’t live in a shantytown, especially one on a hillside.

I’m on Day 5 of having braces.  My teeth are a bit sore, but I only notice when I’m eating.  I’ve been very good about wearing them the prescribed 20 hours a day thus far.  We’ll see. 

Friday night I bought Dusty Springfield’s “Dusty in Memphis” on Itunes.  I read an article about Shelby Lynne a couple weeks ago in the New York Times.  She’s coming out with a new album of Dusty covers.  Since I had never heard the original and have read in various places over the years how talented she was, I decided to get one of her discs.  My first impression was positive.  We’ll see how it grows on me.

I just finished Ben Franklin’s autobiography. Ben seemed to have been a wise fellow and was truly a statesman.

The gloomy, grey skies over Sao Paulo continue.  The sun crept threw the clouds for a moment yesterday, and hasn’t come back out since.   The temperature is probably in the high 60s.

I hope your week’s off to a good start.

I’ve been a bit silent of late, but things are fine.  Work is keeping me busy during the week and this past weekend I went to the beach with N. and my friend J.  We had a very nice trip, highlighted by a trip via fishing boat out to an island a couple miles off shore.  Unfortunately, we had to scurry back to the mainland before a big storm came in, which cut our time there short, but all of us were thankful to be safe.   The trip home took us 6 hours (as opposed to 3 ½ to get there) due to extremely heavy traffic of weekenders returning home from the shore.   There is a mountain range that runs along the coast, which means that there aren’t many roads to Sao Paulo, which is on the west side of the range.  In addition, the huge increase in car owners in recent years (automobile sales increased 28% last year) means there are more people going to the beach on the weekends, making the traffic increasingly worse.   We decided that during our next weekend trip we’ll start heading back around 9 pm.

Something I’ve found a bit hard to get my brain around of late is the idea of people taking long vacations in January.  In the U.S., many folks take a week or (at most) two off for Christmas, but then start the New Year running.   Here, however, lots of folks take long vacations.   One of my co-workers just came back to work on Monday after nearly a month off.   Another guy I know is about to head for France for two weeks with his family, and another is leaving today for 10 days in the northern part of the country.  Of course, given that it’s summer here and kids are off from school, it makes perfect sense that people would take a holiday, but it is certainly different for me.

The big news in my life is that I got braces today.   They are the “invisible” kind, so nobody is supposed to notice them.   They fit over my teeth and I’m only to remove them for eating.  Every two weeks or so I will go pick up a new plastic molding, which will always be slightly different from the previous one in order that my teeth conform to the molding and, over time, become straighter.  In addition to aesthetics, by the end of the process my cross bite will be corrected.   I have a feeling that because they are a bit of pain to remove, I will be less inclined to snack or to drink copious amounts of tea or coffee, which I am well-capable of doing.

I found out last week my friend A. is coming to visit in May!   S. and W. are supposedly coming over the summer, and another S. is supposed to come around Thanksgiving.  Any other takers?

It’s been very rainy of late, and tonight I have a fleece sweater on as it’s a bit chilly.  I’m looking forward to the sun and heat of winter!

Happy Belated Birthday to several of you!

It’s been a warm, rainy weekend in Sao Paulo.  Last night it was pouring as my companions and I left dinner, a little after 11:00 pm.   The sun will probably come out tomorrow, just in time for the work week to begin. 

The stolen artwork mentioned in last Sunday’s blog was recovered this week on the north side of Sao Paulo.  The cops suspect the thieves were hired, and more arrests are likely.

I don’t have a whole lot of news.   Nel came back on Tuesday from the Northeast and she had lots of stories, most of them funny but a few of them sad.  She has an easy way with people and they end up telling her a lot about their lives.   She told of one guy who wants to learn English so that he can give better tours on his dune buggy for foreign tourists.  Another told her that his dream is to fly in an airplane someday.  A woman who works at the inn she stayed at would like to open a bar in her backyard but cannot because she doesn’t have electricity and cannot afford a solar panel which could be used in lieu of an electrical connection. 

 I got several nice e-mails from a few long lost friends after I sent my holiday letter.  It was really nice to hear from them.

 The primaries continue to be interesting, thankfully.

 This past week I met my exercise goal for the week, which was 3 hours of aerobic exercise.  One day at a time…

 Nel and I have decided that we’re going to stay in Sao Paulo for Carnival, which starts a bit less than three weeks from now.  Though Sao Paulo’s carnival is not particularly extensive or interesting, we didn’t get around to planning anything and will probably enjoy four days of having Sao Paulo almost to ourselves.   However, we are planning to catch some of the parades here.  It should be interesting.

 Have a good week!

Happy New Year!   I am back in Sao Paulo after a great holiday in Chicago and Michigan.  I was able to get together with many friends, spent a lot of time with my family, played a lot with my niece and nephew, and simply enjoyed being with people that I love.   But I did miss seeing a few folks I normally get together with when I’m in Michigan.

 

Now that I am back, I have a ton of work to do (I did virtually none over the holidays) and have had difficulty getting the focus I need to do it well.  That mental discipline I was resolving for 2008 has yet to materialize.   Let’s hope it arrives soon.

 

I am highly encouraged by Obama’s victory in the Democratic caucuses in Iowa last week.  It says to me that we Americans want to take a different path from the status quo. While it is only one state and there are many primaries to go, it bodes well for our country that an African-American won the caucus and that so many young people voted.  Hopefully the latter trend, at least, will hold around the country for both the primaries and the general election in November.

 

As far as Brazil goes, there was a big robbery at one of Sao Paulo’s major museums just before Christmas.  To my knowledge no arrests have been made.  On a more positive note, several economic indicators show that Brazil’s economy continues to grow and, therefore, Brazil’s quality of life, at least materially, is improving.

 

Now only if my powers of concentration could improve….

 

This week was the company Christmas party.  Because I have issues regarding parties, especially parties related to work, I did not attend.  This caused some upheaval at work and several people asked about my non-attendance, which I attributed to being tired and having an early meeting the following day (both true statements).  I suppose it’s good that people missed me, but I found their insistence that I really should have been there rather odd.  I guess there was an expectation that everyone attend, even though there was a request sent out that people confirm their attendance.   Since I did not plan to go, I did not confirm I would attend, yet the day after, as I mentioned, I got a lot of questions.   Looking back on it, I realize I should have probably employed the “fake it ‘till you make it” strategy and gone to the party.  Next year is coming…

 

This past week there was a series of articles in the newsweekly I always buy, Veja, commemorating the 100^th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil.   The Japanese began to come to Brazil during a time of famine and general hardship in Japan.  Once they arrived here, they went to work on coffee plantations, taking up the positions traditionally held by Italian immigrants until Italy’s government banned further immigration to the Brazil.  Desperate for labor, the Brazilian government invited hungry Japanese to come work the fields.  Today, Sao Paulo is the world’s largest Japanese city outside of Japan, and from an economic standpoint Japanese immigrants have tended to do very well.  

 

The magazine also featured several articles on modern-day Japan, including how the Japanese are having fewer children because women are becoming more choosey and wait longer to marry, if they ever do.   At current rates, Japan’s population will drop nearly 20% over the next four decades.   It also had a rather humorous article about a class for men on how to seduce women.  The article said that because boys are raised to focus exclusively on work, they have a hard time relating to women, who tend to be worldlier and barely focused on work because they know their career horizons are limited.   So when men meet women, they often have no idea what to say, and quickly fall on their faces.  I know very little about Japan, but from what I can tell the social pressures are enormous.

 

The Christmas decorations are out in full force, which seems very strange to me, even though I realize that it is December, because the temperature is often in the low 90s.  All the Santa Clauses climbing ladders that I see around town look rather hot.   A co-worker was telling me that she has bad memories of being a little girl and her mother forcing her to go sit on Santa’s lap.   She said that Santa always reeked of b.o. because he sweated all day long in his Santa suit, which didn’t seem to be dry-cleaned from year-to-year.  

 

I fly back to Chicago on Thursday morning for the holidays.  This is likely my last blog of the year.  See you in 2008.

The week before last the United Nations announced that Brazil is now considered a “developed” country according to their Human Development Index, which takes into account a number of factors (health care, life expectancy, education, etc.) reflecting development.  This news occasioned much fanfare.   Later the same week, a study published by the Brazilian equivalent of the U.S. Census Bureau reported that at current rates, Brazil’s entire population will have access to water and sewage services by the year 2122.   Columnists here had a field day with the irony, which is indeed hard to ignore.  Coincidentally enough, yesterday morning I saw a guy installing a drain pipe that looked like it would run from his shanty (which sat between the back of someone’s home and the off-ramp to a major thoroughfare downtown) down the hill and into a city drain.

 

The sun is going down about 8 pm in Southeastern Brazil as the summer solstice approaches.   It’s been raining a bit every day lately, which I’m told is typical of the season.  I’ve started to carry an umbrella in my briefcase, and it’s come in quite handy a couple of times now.

 

A friend made what I thought was a wise observation today about the quality of service in shops and restaurants.  He said that as societies become richer, the quality of service declines, because there are more and more people in the middle class and middle-class folks refuse to see themselves as subservient to others of their class.   I’d never thought about that before, but it makes a ton of sense.

 

This week I broke my New Year’s Resolution again and bought another book.  The book is called “Practical Guide to Correct Portuguese:  Syntax”.   (Ever notice the relationship between syntax and sin tax?    I hadn’t either.)    The language nerd within is never far from the surface.   I get a lot of compliments on my Portuguese, but it has a long way to go.  Unfortunately, taking up a new language in your 30s means that you’ll always have an accent, and a bad one at that, but I suppose it’s the struggle that matters.  Spending a lot of time with a certain Brazilian woman who also happens to teach Portuguese on occasion is also rather helpful.   No, Mom and Ola, I don’t know nor do I want to learn any dirty words in Portuguese.  Don’t worry.

 

There was an interesting piece in one of the major newsmagazines last week about psychosomatic illnesses.   One of the items I found most interesting, apart from the fact that doctors can now tell precisely how organs are influenced by specific emotions, was that 32% of all Brazilians report illnesses they believe are related to their emotional state compared to 10% of Americans.   I guess there are a few ways to look at this figure, assuming it’s true and actually means anything, and one take would be that Brazilian culture does not encourage people to emote, therefore their bodies are more likely to transfer mental “trauma” into physical pain.   Another might be that Americans’ extensive use of psychiatry and psychotherapy (which they can afford more easily than Brazilians) and various alternative therapies is paying off.   There are probably a few other likely explanations, but I found it quite interesting given that Brazilians are reputed to be quite happy.   In my experience, Brazilians do seem a bit less inclined to complain about trite things than are Americans.  They are also a lot more tolerant of poor service, bad traffic, thieving politicians, and crappy infrastructure than Americans.  Perhaps it’s this tolerance for constantly being screwed that manifests itself by negatively affecting their health. 

 

Happy Birthday to Javier in Santander this week!

 

As you may have noted, I have been a bit remiss about blogging of late.  There is a woman to blame (thanks Jimmy Buffet!), fortunately.   Her name is Nel and I met her at a party a few weeks back.   She’s a lot of fun and so far, so good.   The other day we had a funny conversation about how the sounds animals make are rendered differently across languages.   She does not accept that dogs say “roof” or roosters say “cockle-doodle do”.   Rather, she contends that dogs say “uau uau” and roosters “coe-coe-ro-coe-coe”.   We do agree that cows say “moo” and cats say “meow”, though they are spelled differently.

 

I’ve already decided about what my New Year’s Resolution for 2008 will be.  In 2007, I resolved not to buy any new books or music, as I had a lot of things I’d never read or listened to.  Apart from the free downloads on Itunes and a small inspirational book that I bought just before a flight after a long week, I have stuck to my resolution.  

 

Unfortunately, I did not get through all those books I wanted to, but I have discovered / re-discovered some great music in my collection, like Cesaria Evora, Steve Earle, and David Gray.  Lately I have been listening to a collection of old samba and bossa nova tunes I got as a gift when I lived in Brazil four years ago.

 

Anyway, my New Year’s Resolution for 2008 is to develop better mental discipline. In contrast to my above-mentioned financial discipline, I’ve been having some problems staying focused for a few months now and I think I could be a lot more productive and happier if I weren’t so susceptible to outside forces, especially when it comes to my job, which I spend a lot time wishing were something else. No doubt the self-help section of the book store will have plenty of offerings. 

 

My all-time favorite New Year’s Resolution was one conjured by a friend in Chicago:  “Embrace the freak within”.  

 

Tonight I read an article in the NYT about the shooting at a mall in Omaha in which eight people were killed and the gunmen apparently committed suicide.  I thought the following sentence which started the article’s ninth paragraph was a bit obvious and hinted at what I suspect may be the author’s indifference: “The shootings broke the usually banal routine of holiday shopping.”   Unfortunately, these mass shootings seem to be more and more common in the U.S., and I suppose, sadly, that indifference may be a typical reaction after we’ve been so many of them in recent years.

 

My mom turned 65 the other day.   She’s two pounds away from being where she was pre-ovarian cancer last spring, is getting her share of exercise and enjoying being a snowbird in Florida.  

 

There’s much to be grateful for, though I wish I could have that kind of perspective all day long instead of late at night after a beer and couple hours’ downtime from work.

On Friday afternoon I returned from a very nice trip through northeastern Brazil.  I got to do a few really cool things, like snorkeling in the ocean, riding across the sand dunes in a buggy, traveling via ferry, and taking numerous walks at the beach. It was great to be out of the big city and to see a part of Brazil that is vastly different from Sao Paulo.

 

One of the low points of the trip was getting stopped at a checkpoint for not having a translated driver’s license as the law requires.  The cop was going to fine me more than $200, but when I told him I didn’t have the money and could we resolve this in some other way, he said I could make a donation.   I offered about $60, and he took it.   Case closed, have a nice day.   That’s probably the equivalent of 10% of his monthly salary, so I’m sure he went home quite happy that evening.

 

I celebrated Thanksgiving Day alone at the beach, hanging out under a parasol drinking beer and eating French fries.   Since the beach had no bathrooms, my waiter encouraged me to pee either in the river or the ocean.   Since the ocean was too rough, the river it was.

 

My trip took me between Natal and Salvador, mostly along the Atlantic coast.  The sun came up well before 5 a.m. and was down before 6:00 p.m.   It was very odd to be this close to the summer equinox and have the sun go down so early, but when you’re close to the equator, the length of the day varies little throughout the year.

 

After landing in Sao Paulo on Friday, it took me 2 hours and 45 minutes to get home from the airport, a trip of some 30 miles.   It was not quite the welcome home I was hoping for.   

 

I hope all of you had a nice Thanksgiving holiday.

15 November 2007

 

This quote came with the “A Word a Day” this morning:

 

The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished
steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy.
-Antoine de Rivarol, epigrammatist (1753-1801)

 

 

A friend whose husband works in the corporate office of a major retailer didn’t like my suggestion that American families limit their Christmas budgets to $200 this year.   She said that if that were to happen, her husband would likely lose his job and there would be Christmas for no one in her family.   I gave her comment some thought and recognize that what I suggested is radical and would be painful for many, and I certainly don’t want her husband to lose his job.   However, it seems to me that the only way politicians in the U.S. will be begin to take on the myriad structural problems in our society (health care, education, infrastructure, environment, etc.) is when the financiers of American politics (big business and big labor) start pressuring them to do so, and that will only happen when it’s in their financial interest to do so.   A partial consumer boycott would certainly get big business’ attention.  For better or worse, my suggestion is pure fantasy, so happy shopping!

I have been randomly tagged by My Salad Days.

Rules:

1-     Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.  
2- Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
3- Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4- Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Comments:    1) tried to link, but can't figure how to do it, but as you can see I posted the rules!  2) see below  3) and 4)  I don’t know 7 people who blog, so I can’t pass this along…

Random and/or Weird things:

I will eat almost anything except grapefruit, olives, velveeta and catupiry (nasty Brazilian processed cheese).

In the past five and half years I have lived in the following places:    Chicago, South Carolina, Sao Paulo, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Chicago, and Sao Paulo.

I am allergic to wine.

I grew up on a farm but have never milked a cow or killed a chicken and I’ve only ridden a horse once.

I can be a total jerk and once in a while get very defensive.

I love to sing.

My dentist tells me I am a mouth breather.

 

I haven’t talked about Brazil at all lately…   

 

There is a pet-care place near my house called “Melly Dog”.   Lots of melly dogs go there to get a bath.  They also make house calls.

 

Brazilians call brochures, using the English word, “folders”.

 

Brazilians have a specific word for foot odor, “chulé”.    Children like to say, “Sai do meu pé, chulé” (“Get away from my foot, stink”) when someone is bugging them (“pé” rhymes with “chulé”).

 

I am still trying to perfect the male-male hug here in Brazil.   After spending four years in and out of Mexico, I got their hug down pat.   Mexican male hug ritual:   Shake hands with right hand, soft hug with head going over the other person’s left shoulder, shake hands again. Brazilian male hug ritual (seems to be):  Males approach one another from the side and give sort of a half hug.   The guys turn into each other, briefly embrace with one arm, and then pat each other on the shoulder.  The hug seems to vary by the degree of friendship once has with the other person, too.

 

Tomorrow I start an eight-day vacation to the Northeast.   I hope to resume my blog on Sunday, November 25.  Hopefully I will have a couple of stories to share…

 

Happy Birthday next week to Lori, Amanda, Jake and Gayle.   Not sure how it’s possible that my sister could be approaching 40…

 

Sorry everyone, but I’m going a bit off the deep end here today…

 

Today in Frank Rich’s column in the NYT he says, referring to Americans, “We are a people in clinical depression.”  Unfortunately, I agree with him.   Our foreign policy has undermined our place in the world, our government and a sizeable percentage of our citizens are in crippling debt, and our schools and infrastructure get weaker by the day while commodity prices and inflation climb.

 

One of my dime-store theories about why Brazilians don’t hold their politicians accountable (apart from not having a word for “accountable”) is because most people are too busy trying to survive and too poorly educated to concern themselves with what their leadership is doing.   It seems to me that the U.S. has accelerated down this same path over the past decade or so.   The politicians’ M.O.: Keep ‘em hungry and stupid and they won’t care that we’ve bankrupted the nation and betrayed our supposed values.   Bread and circuses, baby.

 

I recall reading several years ago a piece by Robert Kaplan, who’s a journalist specializing in U.S. foreign policy, that within 30 years societies in the developed world would more like the developing world.   At the time I read this, I thought he was nuts.  Why would developed nations take a turn backward?   But the better I understand economics and Machiavellian thought, the more I agree with Kaplan.   However, I don’t blame the Bush administration alone, which hasn’t done much good for most Americans nor the world.  We Americans are guilty, too, and unless a radical shift takes place over the next few years, our cultural and economic decline will only spiral.  

 

So I think a good place to start is to vote with our feet about where our priorities truly are.   70% of the American gross domestic product comes from private consumption.  So if we really feel concerned that the U.S. is not on the right track, as apparently 76% of Americans do, let’s do something about it. It would send a major message to the corporations and vested interests that finance American politics if every American family chose to limit their Christmas shopping to $200 this year.   If the average family currently spends about $800 per year on Christmas gifts and Christmas shopping accounts for at least 40% of most retailers’ annual sales, this would have a dramatic impact on economic growth.  

 

Suicidal, you ask?   There would be suffering, no question.  Lots of folks would lose their jobs (for awhile).   Lots of bambinos would feel short-changed on Christmas morning.  And the stock market would fall when the GDP figures are released in early February.   And then next year we could do it all over again, just after 80% of American adults voted in the presidential election, and then perhaps the world might start to take Americans seriously again instead of looking at us like the lemmings we are as we head to Costco in our SUV that’s never had its 4-wheel drive engaged with a $4 cup of coffee in hand.

 

Obviously, once something is broken, it’s much harder to put it back together again, and my proposal won’t fix anything overnight. But the U.S. is broken, and we as a nation need to make some major sacrifices if we are going to turn things around.  Perhaps making do with what we have for awhile might be a good first step.

 

 

Ok, stepping down from my soapbox, it’s good to report my friend Dave arrived from Los Angeles safe and sound and he’s wooing my neighbor ladies.

Thanks to all the Veterans!