Alright You Primitive Screwheads, This is My Boomstick

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Ulisses' brother Augusto works for Pfizer and implied that he could score me some Viagra. I learned this as he drove us around Pampulha, a really nice lake area that features its own church called São Francisco de Assis, but unlike the one in Ouro Preto, it wasn't painted up by a cripple. And to cap off an afternoon of looking at pretty things, we noticed Playboy Magazine being sold in a supermarket at child-eye level, which led to a discussion about Brazil's refreshingly laid back approach to sex, which in turn led to a discussion about the USA's irritatingly uptight approach to sex, subsequently leading into the USA's confusingly laid back approach to violence.

(Specifically, I referred to a story I'd heard about the South Park movie: When the filmmakers submitted it to the ratings board, the ratings board told them to cut out all the sex scenes or they'd receive an NC-17 rating and not the R rating they wanted. In response to this, they indeed cut the sex scenes, replaced them all with scenes of extreme violence, resubmitted the film, and received their R rating. Augusto, understandibly, was completely flabberghasted.)

Before that, years ago, Augusto worked concessions for his girlfriend's uncle in a travelling carnival in the United States. And apparently, Americans are even dumber than I thought.

"Really? You're from Brazil?" he told me they'd ask. "Do you live in a tree?"

Sometimes, they'd follow that up with "Have you ever hunted a monkey?"

People, listen: São Paulo is a bigger city than ANY city in the US. Augusto and Ulisses' current home of Belo Horizonte was designed to look like Washington, DC - an actual American city for whose existence I can vouch. A vast majority of Brazilians, for the record, do not live in trees. Okay? Okay.



...But they did live in caves!

Ulisses and his buddy Amilcar took us to Gruta Rei do Mato, about an hour and a half outside of the city. Gruta Rei do Mato is a real live cave - complete with stalagmites, stalagtites, and really expensive postcards in the giftshop. There is, allegedly, a section of the cave with actual caveman paintings -- "Closed for renovations," they told us in Portuguese, and we all stood with the same slackjawed and dumbfounded stare you might have right now, reflecting on those words that they might actually be repainting the caveman paintings.

Or perhaps they contained too many depictions of sex and violence.

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Photos

The exceptionally cavey Gruta Rei do Mato
At first glance, I know, many of you might mistake this for my nasal cavity. It is, in fact, just a cave.

The Gang
In order of height, tall to short: Ulisses, Kyle, Augusto, Eden, Augusto's girlfriend Luciana, "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Comments

[drae j namaste-roes]

just making entries to entertain myself now.. (and hopefully kyle and eden too)
that is a great cave photo! i mean it. i've seen a good number o caves and this is a great one!