Strike me! - São Paulo

My view of the stopped buses during last week's strike

A friend of mine sent the following link to me this afternoon and it gave me the best laugh I've had all day (given it was a pretty dry day for laughter since I had to go fight with FIFA about my Cup tickets). The article talks about the strike planned by CET tomorrow--CET are the traffic cops who give tickets, direct traffic if the stoplight stops working (often) and probably do something else that I don't know what it is. They are affectionately (?) known as the marronzinhos or Little Brownies. No, zero girl scout cookies.

What made me laugh is how they are doing the strike. It is not a full-frontal assault--a work stoppage where people walk off the job. Nope. Much more crafty and fun: The CET workers are going to go en masse to donate blood. It's not because they are feeling community-minded, but because they get to take the rest of the day off after donating blood. Every blood center will provide donors with a "medical excuse" for the rest of the work day. I know this because I have also given blood here and was given the rest of the day off. Theoretically, since I don't have a boss. Sorry, BH, you do not count.

Now I am wondering if I can just escape paying parking or make a run with my car that is not supposed to move tomorrow because of rodizio (rodizio explained here).  Frankly, I am not too worried about CET taking the day--in fact, I encourage it. I find them most unhelpful in any case.

This is all following on two weeks of strikes of buses, of metros, of trains, of professors and who knows who else. Of course all these unions are taking advantage of the fact that the world cup comes anon. The world is watching us right now. Last week was absolute chaos as bus drivers literally walked off buses and left them parked where they were in the middle of traffic.  I know two people who had to walk home and it took them more than three hours. One lady interviewed on TV had walked home for 10 hours, fed her kids, then turned around and walked back to work the next day.

All I know is that most of these strikes affect only the middle to lower class. Does anyone believe that the construction company executives and the politicians take the bus? Many don't even take a car--maybe the helicopter pilots and bodyguards should strike. The quantity and diversity of the groups striking is definitely making me laugh, especially as my favorite comic writer, Jose Simão talks about having to have rodizio (taking turns) of various groups, including headless Barbies (link here). Maybe we should all have a strike on the same day and we can all just stop. And have a glass of wine.

I am pretty tired of having to plan out how I am going to get my kids at the end of the day. My only warning to the strikers (some of whom I sympathize with, and some I don't) is that if you get between me and my kids, the mama bear will go into action. The Blacky Blockies have nothing on me. 

Anyway, enjoy double-parking at the blood donation center. Hey, and take the rest of the day off!

Buemba! Buemba! - São Paulo

José Simão - "In the country of the easy joke"

When I moved here for the second time, more than five years ago, we started received the Folha de São Paulo, the largest circulating daily in Brazil. In general I would flip through the first section (world) but mostly skipped it because I got most international news from US newspapers, read the business section, get shocked by metro life in the local section, peruse sports and then breeze through Illustrada (Arts & Entertainment, I suppose). I would never stop to read a daily column by José Simão which is always filled with exclamation points and inside (Brazilian) jokes about politics or sports or daily events. I couldn't understand the jokes and I really thought the guy was borderline nuts.

José Simão is now my favorite Brazilian columnist. By far. The BH has a preference for a man named Helio, but he's far too serious. And correct, by the way. Helio, not the BH. Anyway. I won't be able to show well most of why I love José Simão because of course he writes in Portuguese, the jokes are about Brazil and heck, it's taken me five years of living here to understand roughly 70% of his jokes.  Okay, 50% if I have to be honest. But let me share what I can.

He always starts his columns with "BUEMBA! BUEMBA! Macaco Simão Urgente!" Buemba must be jungle drums because a macaco simão is a Simian Monkey, and of course a play on his last name.  And he always ends his column with "Nóis sofre, mas nóis goza! Que eu vou pingar o meu colírio alucinógeno!" which I translate as "We suffer but we enjoy it. I am going to go take my hallucinogenic medicine." I can't help more with this but that's where it is.

He also ends many of his paragraphs with Rarará which is "ha ha ha" in English (the "r" in Portuguese is pronounced as an "h"). There is something about this Rarará that makes me laugh every time.

Here's a column of his from 22 November 2013 where he spends 2 paragraphs making fun of the huge Mensalão corruption scandal. What made me spit out my coffee were his comments on house arrest for the bad guys. He says he too would like house arrest as long as it was in Maluf's house, where everyone is rich and no one gets sent to prison. Maluf is one of the most corrupt politicians ever to "grace" São Paulo streets, yet lives out his later years in complete freedom and huge wealth. 

Then he goes on to talk about the São Paulo vs Ponte Preta soccer game where SP lost to Ponte Preta. Apparently Ponte Preta's nickname is the Macaca, or female monkey, and Bambi is the nickname of São Paulo. Now if I read the title without knowing Brazilian slang, I would have thought that a monkey had eaten a deer. But that is not exactly right. At all. You don't want to know what the title of the whole thing means but needless to say, it is more than a little racy.  

If you are one for political correctness, this is not going to be the columnist for you. And yes, I do think he goes over the line more than once in a while. Fortunately for his lawyer bill (incidentally he was a law student at USP before dropping out), he attacks everyone and anyone so it's hard to say you are singled out.

One of my favorite things about being fluent in Portuguese: understanding José Simão. Oh, you can run him through google translate if you'd like but I'm guessing that's not going to get you anywhere...