Sao Paulo and Joao Paul...

Greetings All,

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you!  Happy Birthdays to my niece, Katelyn, and my nephew, Patrick.  Katelyn, or "Princess" as she has been known to call herself (you have a rival Trish!) was born on St. Patrick's Day while Patrick's birthday was last week.

 

I am plugging away at these blog posts so let's keep them coming...

 

Our friend, Joao Paul, also made a tremendous difference on the quality of our stay in Sao Paulo.  Because of him, we had an inside track on what was good to do on each particular evening.  He also took Ozell and me to a weekly craft fair/farmer's market  held on Saturdays.  The thing about this craft fair / Farmer's Market is that it turns into a gay street party starting about 5pm in the afternoon.  It was very crowded!  Ozell and I have both been curious to know the size of the gay community in a city of 20 million people.  Ozell and I joked that maybe we could live in Sao Paulo because neither of us thinks we could sleep through the entire pool of eligible men.  Actually, I guess was Ozell was more ambitious in his assessment because he phrased his question, "How looooong would it take for me to sleep my way through Sao Paulo?"  Hahahahah-  As big a slut as I am, I did not even consider it a possibility.  If this Farmer's market was any indication of the number of gay guys in Sao Paulo, then it would take a very long time indeed.  Imagine a crowded Ocean Beach Wednesday Farmer's Market.  Now double the number of people there, make them all gay men from age 22 to 40, and then realize that only a very small percentage of the city's gays actually go to this event on any particular weekend.  It is a pretty deep pool to go swimming in...  LOL  We also met a handful of friendly and interesting guys at the market who were friends of Joao Paul.  There was even a Dutch-Dutch-Brazilian triad with whom we talked.  I think Ozell is going to mention something about the number of "triads" (three person relationship) and functionally "open" relationships we came across in our short time in Sao Paulo so I will let him discuss that...

 

Joao Paul also told us about a club called "Blue Space" and their annual drag queen soccer match.  He had a friend who recently bought an apartment near the club and who was hosting a party to coincide with the soccer match.  After meeting even more friends of Joao Paul's at the party, we all headed down the block and watched drag queens, some of which where actually in heels, play a soccer game in the street against other drag queens and a few gay boys.  Well, I was told it was going to be a soccer game, but it seems that the drag queens can pretty much move the ball any way they see fit.  So in reality, the soccer match was more of a combination of soccer, American football, rugby, handball, and basketball.  It was pretty fun to watch even though the crowd made it difficult to see anything more than the shoulders and heads of the players.  I did see a really good Amy Winehouse playing in the game!  There were also a handful of TV cameras filming the event.  I presume for the local news stations.  They even had surprisingly good quality halftime entertainment.  A local samba band which won top honors in the youth division in this year's Sao Paulo's Carnival played during halftime. 

 

This is just yet another example of how ridiculous and hypocritical the USA is at times.  First, and many of you heard me say this before, we claim that we "are the Land of the Free and the home of the Brave."  That is a bunch of horseshit.  Our Bill of Rights have been shredded into the trash can with the most harm coming just in the last 8 years and on our watch.  So think how you are going to explain away your roles and responsibility for this travesty to your children and grandchildren.  Oh wait!  I forgot!  I bet not a single person reading this blog post can even name the 10 Bill of Rights!!!  (I don't want to sound too preachy, so I will admit I can only come up with 8 of the 10 off the top of my head).   And those are the rights that we used to have that many people in this world do not.  Now let's move on to the every-day-living freedoms in which Americans think they once again exceed all other nations...  Here is just one, stupid, little law that makes such a quality of life difference- public drinking.  I know there are places in Europe and almost everywhere in South America, you can take your fucking beer with you everywhere.  Inexpensive street parties are possible which means that bars and clubs have competition.  There are more people who are willing to use public transportation to get to and from their nightly activities so drunk driving is reduced.  I can buy a beer from a street vendor and walk down the boulevard on a hot, sunny day and enjoy one of the simple pleasures in life.  And in all of these "less sophisticated and less free" countries, I do not see any evidence of all the bogus reasons given in the States for why public consumption of alcohol needs to be illegal:  fighting, trash/litter, vandalism, etc.  Fighting was the primary reason cited in San Diego's   The only activity I will admit that there appears to be an increase in is public urination.  That is just something you have to expect when you have street parties like they do here in Brazil.  But for the example of just me when I am walking through the city park with my beer, I am most likely not going to urinate in public.  It is when you get hundreds or thousands of people drinking beer after beer that you are going to have large scale public urination.  And hell, it all goes into the local storm drains anyways.   Hahahaha.  That is just one, single, tiny example of how in many cases daily life it much more readily enjoyed and more personal freedoms available outside of the great ole' USA.

 

So back to the youth samba band and my point there...  another reason why I think many of the world's nations are more developed than our own.  Here is the "Youth Champion Samba Band" from Sao Paulo's Carnival playing at a drag queen soccer match with a bunch of gay guys and lesbians all crowded around.  I do not understand Portuguese, but I doubt the drag queen who was MC'ing the event censored her raunchy language so as not to offend the ears of the children.  So you have a bunch of innocent, impressionable, fragile children performing their samba routine in front of a bunch of homos and drag queens.   I can't believe someone didn't cry out, "Won't someone please think of the children!!!"  And to think that the local news media filmed this corruption of the youth for their nightly newscasts!  Everyone had a good time.  The audience was very appreciative and supportive of the drum school, and the kids got to perform their routine one more time that they spent the last year practicing.  No moral fiber was corroded.  No new homosexuals were converted.  The family unit and society did not collapse.  All that happened was that some fun was had, some feet were dancing, and more than a few smiles were seen.

 

So thanks to Joao Paul, Ozell and I got to see a little more of Sao Paulo than we might as well not have seen.  And the other nice thing is that Chris and Joao Paul got to spend some time together and enjoy each other's company.  I think both of them are happy about that...

 

Sorry for my mini rant.  You know I couldn't go a whole trip without a few!!!!

 

Cheers,

 

Sean