RAPIDINHAS

Media

Glossy
Mooning

The newest national publishing venture in Brazil and one causing laughter all around and uproar in some quarters is the brainchild of a group of veterans who 30 years ago revolutionized the Brazilian small press by launching what was to become the most successful alternative national paper to date: O Pasquim (The Pasquinade, cheap newspaper). In a cheap shot against Caras (Faces) magazine, a publication by powerhouse Editora Abril, which celebrates the rich and famous with lavish pictorials, the new lampoon is called Bundas (Butts).

The colorfully slick magazine, whose first issue ran 100,000 copies and which is selling at newsstands for 2.90 reais ($1.70 dollars), is the brainchild of intellectual-cum-cartoonists Ziraldo and Jaguar, both from the defunct Pasquim, and both still very active in their profession. For Ziraldo, who faced imprisonment because of his journalistic activities during the Pasquim years, times couldn't be better for humor and satire. "Today we have hypocrisy and cynicism as raw material for our work," says Ziraldo.

It all started as a joke. Ziraldo drew a cartoon for Manchete, a weekly magazine, in which he showed some prominent buttocks. Rio's daily Jornal do Brasil liked the work and the cartoonist quipped to a reporter from that paper that it would be a good idea to publish a magazine called Bundas to make fun of Caras. He even dreamed up a slogan: "Whoever shows a bunda (the butt) in Caras does not show a cara (the face) in Bundas. Another Ziraldo's slogan goes, `Bundas magazine is the true face of Brazil.'

Soon after somebody spread the news that Ziraldo was going to launch a magazine called Bundas. Rio's daily O Globo dedicated two pages to the non-news. Interviews on TV followed. Only then things started getting serious. Says Ziraldo, "We got together, we had some 500 meetings. The main stumbling block was to find financing as well as someone who would manage the thing professionally. If Jaguar and I were professionals we`d be very rich today. Despite the success that Pasquim was, Jaguar is still paying off the magazine's debts. We are very incompetent. The immense goodwill across the country has made a magazine that did not exist into the most popular one in Brazil."

While the manager was found close by (Ivan Fernandes, son of Millôr Fernandes, one of many famous contributors) Gilberto Camargo, a group from Paraná, came up with the money. Ziraldo does not believe in market research, relying instead on the old gut instinct: "I don't know if Bundas is going to work. I have no marketing data; we've done no market research. Of one thing I'm sure: everybody is looking forward to the magazine because there's nothing like it in the press," said the cartoonist shortly before the launching of the weekly.

It took three years for Ziraldo to make the Bundas idea come true. While the writer refers to the magazine as A Bundas (with a feminine article), Jaguar prefers to call it O Bundas, in a twist he thinks gives a more dignified name to the publication. For Ziraldo it is Bundas, a revista (the magazine); for Jaguar it is Bundas, o semanário (the weekly). The ad people tried to change the name, arguing, "How can we call an ad agency and say, `I'm from Bundas.'" The discussion angered Ziraldo, who finally decreed: "The name is Bundas and that's the end of it."

Ziraldo explained the project's long gestation: "We were waiting for the right conditions to do it, because there is no longer room for adventure." He also insisted that the publication be a weekly instead of a more easily-assembled monthly, as suggested by some. "There is no monthly humor, it has to be weekly."

Jaguar even believes—you never know when these guys are putting you on—that it was thanks to the more dignified name that he was able to convince 102-year-old Barbosa Lima Sobrinho, a very active writer and president of the Associação Brasileira de Imprensa (Brazilian Press Association) to grant an interview for the magazine's premier issue. Pieces like this interview show the serious side of a publication that wants to be both the whip, as well as the cultural thermometer of the nation.

The party for the launching of the magazine—the publication's offices are in a cozy house on Bulhões de Carvalho street, in Copacabana,—had all the informality and irreverence of the publication's team. Writer Luís Fernando Veríssimo joined musicians Aldir Blanco and Walter Alfaiate in a lively samba jam session before some 200 revelers They all gathered on May 31, a Monday, at the well-known barbecue restaurant Marius, in Rio's Ipanema.

The veteran team of founders and contributors want to preserve the same spirit of openness to young writers and cartoonists as existed at Pasquim's. The premiere and second issues are already giving a taste of such fresh and promising talent. Contributions from around the country are apparently pouring in. Contributors are among the best media professionals money can buy. Among the famous names in the first issue, besides those of Jaguar and Ziraldo, there are cartoonists Millôr Fernandes, Chico and Paulo Caruso, Lan, and Miguel Paiva plus writers Carlos Heitor Cony, João Ubaldo Ribeiro, Ruy Castro, Tutty Vasques, Aldir Blanc, Jô Soares, and Frei Betto.

No publication in Brazil today would be financially able to assemble such a bevy of heavyweights. And how did Ziraldo pull off this trick? "Simply because nobody asked how much they were going to make. If this works, we are going to pay well, if it doesn't, we will pay badly. But if the magazine is a hit everyone is going to make lots of money." When prospective contributors ask what they should send in, they are told to write or draw something they think no other publication would publish, a kind of reverse censorship.

As a hint of things to come, Jaguar (67, "but with the head of an 18-year-old") interrupted the flow of formal presentations on the launching night declaring: "Since this is an opposition magazine, let's start the opposition at home. Nobody talks anymore. It is absurd to stop a samba jam session of this quality to make speeches." To a reporter who wanted to know what had changed between the time of O Pasquim and the one of Bundas, Jaguar answered: "The enemy's clothes. Before it was the olive-green of the usurping military. Now the neoliberal gang wears Hermés ties and Armani suits."

Stop This
Nonsense

Journalist Ivan Lessa, who was a Pasquim contributor and now lives in London, declined an invitation to be part of the new publication. His response: "I don't know why you Brazilians waste your time with this nonsense. Go to the beach, folks, go play soccer. Go play the guitar under the stars while beautiful morenas; do the samba, chic-a-chic-a-boom. This stuff of journalism, culture, I don't know, folks..."

While the more respectful weeklies (Veja, Isto É, and Época) reach the newsstands on the weekend, Bundas will be showing up on Tuesdays. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former contributor to the old Pasquim, and named "most successful former contributor" should be now one of Bundas's main targets. Renowned writer Luís Fernando Veríssimo, a constant Cardoso critic, writes in the premiere issue's editorial: "We are here in the name of all moral and civic values which are so often forgotten nowadays and that is contained in the word Bundas. To say things clearly and entirely. And, considering this social democracy that does not dare to say its name in public…"

The premiere issue opens with the poem "A Bunda Que Engraçada" (The Butt, how Funny) by the late Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brazil's greatest poet. In his anthem to the derrière, Drummond writes:

"A bunda, que engraçada
Está sempre sorrindo, nunca é trágica."

"The butt, how funny
It is always smiling, it's never tragic"

Bundão (big butt, but a wimp in this case) of the week is a regular feature, but it was omitted in the debut issue. There was a unanimous vote for a candidate, but his name was not revealed by the Bundas gang. Their explanation: the "weakened character" was spared "in accordance with constitutional precepts." Another regular will be the less politically-charged "Bunda of the Week", a homage to that part of female anatomy most appreciated by Brazilians of all classes.

Bundas follows on the footsteps of satirical cartoons present in the Brazilian media since the creation of Rio's Jornal do Commercio in 1837. Emperor Dom Pedro II apparently didn't lose his sense of humor in spite of being constantly ridiculed by cartoonists such as Ângelo Agostini and Bordalo Pinheiro. Dictator Getúlio Vargas also suffered under the poison pen of several humorists without jailing his critics.

Magazines O Malho (The Sledgehammer), which started in 1902, and Careta (Grimace), which debuted six years later, were the most famous satirical publications in Brazil in the first half of the 20th century. They were feared by the powerful. In 1910, for example, House president Sabino Barroso had to abandon his post after being ridiculed by O Malho, a publication that survived until 1954.

Careta was so popular that it was a staple at doctors' and dentists' offices, at barbershops and shoeshine stands. For Ziraldo, the reality of Brazilian life constantly shows the need for a humor magazine: "What we lacked was for someone to sit and say, `Leave it to me, I am going to publish this magazine.' We got old, everyone went his way to live his life. There no longer was the kind of energy we had in our 30s when we decided to put together O Pasquim. First, we didn't have the balls anymore. Now that we are over 60 we finally notice what kind of crazy boys we all were."

Memory

A
Brazilian
Tragedy

Oscar, the former basketball player hero, was there as well as judo Olympic champion, Aurélio Miguel, and Ademar Ferreira da Silva, twice Olympic champion (1952 and 1956) for triple jump Several authorities came to say goodbye, including São Paulo governor Mário Covas. Some 2,000 people in all paid their last respect to a man who was better known as João do Pulo (Jumping John) after winning the Olympic gold medal in the triple jump category. There was also an honor guard from the Army, where João Carlos de Oliveira served as a lieutenant, and the wake was held at the São Paulo Assembly building where Oliveira served as an elected state assemblyman for two four-year mandates.

Despite the pomp and circumstance, the Olympic hero and record breaker felt forgotten by Brazilians. He started to drink heavily and died of cirrhosis of the liver on Saturday, May 29, the day after his 45th birthday, having spent one month at the Beneficência Portuguesa Hospital in São Paulo. He was buried in Pindamonhangaba, the little town in the São Paulo interior where he was born.

João Sete Vidas (John Seven Lives) was another of his nicknames. It had to do with all the adversity and tragedies he had to face during his life: a poor childhood, a fight against tuberculosis when he was five, and the 1981 accident that caused the amputation of his right leg. His father was as a railway man. Oliveira was still a little boy when his mother died and he was raised by a stepmother who allegedly beat him constantly.

From 1986 to 1994 he was an assemblyman. The hero jumper was elected with 25,000 votes the first time and with 32,000 the second. Attempts in 1994 and four years later to return to his old office failed, though. He couldn't get more than 7,000 votes during his last ill-fated campaign in 1998. That same year, the mother of his daughter Thaís, 11—he was never married to her—took him to court for non-payment of child support. Unable to pay, he ended up in jail. In another forum a suit is still pending, claiming he is the father of a 4-year old boy, Emanuel.

In an emotional statement to Rio's daily O Globo, Pedro Henrique Camargo de Toledo, 59, Oliveira's former coach, declared: "I am going to repeat what other people have said, `João was one of the greatest athletes the world has ever known. He was born at the wrong time, in a country without an athletic tradition and had a coach who lacked the credentials to work with a talent like his. Someone with more experience would have probably done more for him and were I his coach today I don't know how far he would be able to jump.

"What saddens me most is the way we forgot João and so many other idols. We wait until they die, are killed or go through some tragedy before we put them in the news. I guess this is a cultural question in Brazil. The government or some other organization should take the initiative—and this does not mean getting handouts from the government. In Mexico there is a program to help those who get Olympic medals. They may be invited to openings, conferences and to work on sports centers. This is a way to avoid burying them alive."

Who's
That
Man?

It was October 15, 1975, when Brazilians and the world first took notice of a young Brazilian competing at the Pan-American Games in Mexico. He jumped 17.89 m (58.69 feet) in the triple jump, an astounding 45 cm (1.47 feet) more than the record established by Russian Vladimir Swanesev. João was 21. That's when he became João do Pulo. The record would be broken only ten year later by American Willie Banks, who jumped 17.97 m.

On December 22, 1981, João do Pulo was driving back from being honored at Campinas Catholic University PUC when his Volkswagen Passat collided with another car coming the wrong way on the Anhangüera roadway. The other driver died. Oliveira remained in a coma for four days, and after 23 operations the doctors gave up trying to save his right leg. The athlete spent 333 days at the hospital. He was 27, with a very promising future, when his leg was amputated on September 8, 1982.

He was seen as the favorite in the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, but ended up losing to the Russian Viktor Saneev, getting a bronze medal instead. In the next Olympics, in Moscow, he again came in third, (there were charges of fraud benefiting the Russian athlete). He continued winning several international competitions, including the one in Rome in September 1981, when he became triple jump champion for the third time. In 1992 Harry Seinberg, coach for Estonia, admitted that there had been fraud in Moscow in 1980 and apologized to the Brazilian athlete. But later he recanted.

Lately João do Paulo had a daily routine in Guarulhos, Greater São Paulo, where he lived. Late in the afternoons he used to sit alone on a little stool outside his house drinking beer and looking at people go by. If anybody asked he didn't refuse an autograph. But these requests had become rarer and rarer. He was surviving on a $700 pension he received for the time he served in the Army. A bakery and a transportation company he started went bankrupt. In better times his house was always full of people and he had memorable barbecue parties, which could last three days, with gifts for the children. Then there was no money left.

Crime

Breakout
Birds

It was a record for the Brazilian prison system: On Sunday, June 6, 345 out of 456 prisoners escaped from the maximum security Putim prison in São José dos Campos, 100 km from the city of São Paulo. "Escape" does not accurately describe what really happened since the inmates left jail through the front door unchallenged. Four days after the escape 191 inmates were still at large. The escape occurred in the late afternoon and was aided by prison workers, including warden Paulo Roberto da Silva Filho. Da Silva and Gilmar Guarnieri, the jail's director, who had taken the position two weeks before the breakout, were removed from their posts pending investigation.

Another breakout took place at the jail last Christmas. This latest escape was the eighth in the brief history of the prison, which opened in 1995. Putim is not underequipped; it has a close-circuit TV and radio system in addition to electronic locks and alarms. São Paulo's secretary of Public Security, Marco Antônio Petrelluzzi, declared: "This was worse than just poor management. I am convinced that there was criminal participation. We believe that people inside the prison were bribed to allow the jail break.

There were some days of panic for the 550,000 residents of São José dos Campos while 200 rangers, civil and military policemen using helicopters, horses and dogs tried to recapture the fugitives in the neighboring woods. Prisoners invaded houses and took residents as hostages. Trying to save face with the population, police killed two of the fugitives and jailed at least five people by mistake. Talking to reporters, auto mechanic José Ernesto, who was detained for seven and a half hours, complained of police brutality while showing the marks left on his back by the thrashing he got: "I was beaten a lot. They were furious and kicked me all over."

The Putim episode is just part of frightening statistics showing that in São Paulo alone 1,245 wardens were recently indicted during a 17-month period for assisting or looking the other way during jailbreaks. Escapes from prisons across the country have become increasingly common. One week after the Putim breakout 63 more inmates escaped from prison at the Sumaré First Police District in São Paulo. This time four armed men broke into the prison, which held 76 inmates, even though it was built for a maximum capacity of 24 prisoners. Thirteen inmates elected to remain in jail The fugitives stole four cars that were parked close to the police station.

The precarious situation of the Brazilian prison system was criticized in the report Brazil Behind Bars released in 1998 by the Human Rights Watch NGO (non-governmental organization). According to James Cavallaro, the organization's director in Brazil, the Putim breakout reflects a prison system incapable of giving adequate treatment to prisoners and guaranteeing prison security: "Inmates' living conditions in Brazil are the worst, and security is lacking. Because of this, escapes and rebellions may become bigger and more frequent. An inmate can do whatever he wants, since it is very easy to take a warden as hostage."

Economy

Giving
the World
Wings

$4.9 billion, that's how much Crossair, a subsidiary of Swissair, is going to pay for the 200 ERJ aircrafts it ordered from Brazilian Embraer. If the amount seems high, that's because it really is. According to Maurício Botelho, Embraer's president, this is the largest sale ever made to a regional airline. Confirmation of the news was given on June 14, during the Paris Le Bourget Airshow, the last one of this century. "I don't think we are competing with Boeing," said Botelho. "We are going for another niche."

Botelho was talking about regional airlines versus mainline carriers, which prefer longer-range planes built by the two largest manufacturers: America's Boeing and Europe's Airbus. In this niche Brazil stole the limelight with its 70-to-100 seat aircrafts. The competition in this field is with Canada's Bombardier and US Fairchild Aerospace. At the end of the air show, Embraer had accumulated a total of 890 orders for jets of the ERJ family, "more than twice as many as we predicted when the ERJ-145 was launched," commented Botelho. It's curious that some of the planes like the ERJ 190-200 have yet to be tested. Buyers are so sure they will work properly that they are rushing to order them. These machines will have GE and Rolls-Royce engines.

The Swiss purchase will create 3,000 new jobs at the Brazilian aircraft company over the next 10 years—the time it will take to complete the order. Embraer currently employs 6,600 people. Not all the orders are firm though. Guaranteed orders total approximately $2 billion for 60 aircrafts: 15 ERJ 145 seating 50, with the balance being ERJ 170s (seating 70) and ERJ 190-200s (seating 108). The remaining 125 orders are options to buy 25 ERJ 145s, and 100 ERJ 170s and 190-200s. It's estimated that the regional commercial airlines will need 2,800 jets in the next few years. Embraer expects to produce at least 650 of these aircrafts.

The new orders were received with enthusiasm in Sao José dos Campos, the city in the interior of São Paulo where Embraer is headquartered. When the city's main employer almost went bankrupt ten years ago, São José dos Campos was forced to rearrange its economic profile by learning to diversify to survive and entering the field of services and telecommunications. Since privatization in 1994, productivity per worker has skyrocketed at Embraer from $40,000 in December 1994 to $230,000 today. In the last three years alone the company has invested more than $400 million to build new jet aircrafts.

Behavior

Hooked
by the
Mouth

"I like you, I want to kiss you on the mouth." In the Brazilian modern way of courtship this is a very common line on the very first approach among youngsters. The more lips and tongues you can touch with your lips and tongue at one party the better. In an inversion of the courtship ritual, the kiss has often become the first step. Then the couple will talk for a while and see if they have something in common. That might last just a few minutes until it's time for the next kiss on the mouth.

The favorite place for this ritual is nightclubs, where parties don't start until midnight and end only after daybreak. Shopping malls are more for the under-14 crowd and the parent's house couch—this piece of furniture has been rehabilitated—,where anything can happen, is for those already in a more serious commitment.

Daily newspaper Diário da Manhã from Goiânia, capital of the state of Goiás, cites student Marciarosy, 17: "Nobody says he is going to date someone. We say, `we are going to have a good time and find some gatinhos—little cats (hunks)—to kiss on the mouth. The boy comes and asks to kiss on the mouth. Things then happen. If it does not work we go for the next guy. If the boy is shy the girls take the lead. I adore to attack shy boys who are usually the prettiest and the sexiest. With a serious courtship there is all the usual bullshit: the gal only goes out with the same guy, the jealousy starts, visiting and going to bed become a routine."

The most committed are acting a lot like married couples, which includes opening joint bank accounts. Sex is no big deal, but both sides are requiring exclusivity. Kiss (beijo in Portuguese) is the word du jour in Brazil. The biggest hit of the new CD by the Cidade Negra band is an old Pepeu Gomes's tune called "Eu Também Quero Beijar" ("I Also Want to Kiss). Globo network TV Sunday show Fantástico has just dedicated a segment to the beneficial effects of the kiss for oral health and the prevention of cavities.

Urban Life

Saving
an Iffy
Penny

Brazilians across the country have found a way of saving on electric bills, or at least that's what they believe. The method, which would be illegal if it worked, is very simple: place as many water-filled bottles as you can over the electric meter. The practice, spread mainly among the poorest families, started in shore communities and has since spread inland.

Meter readers now find an average of three plastic soft drink bottles filled with water over the meter in poor neighborhoods like Vila Matilde, in the east zone of São Paulo.

Despite warnings from the power companies that the habit doesn't save a penny and several pieces in the media ridiculing the custom, even people who claim they don't believe the method works keep doing it, just in case. Some of those who adhered to the practice comment facetiously that they are spending on water what they save in electricity. Social scientists have already added this to their list of popular urban myths. As an official from Eletropaulo, the São Paulo electric company, explained to daily O Estado de S. Paulo, "if there are any results it is because people who practice this method are already predisposed to save energy and this predisposition reflects on consumption."

Behavior

Moans'
Parking
Lot

This past Sweethearts' Day (June 12) lovers in Brasília, the federal capital, have gained their modern-day version of lovers' lane: a little private space just big enough to receive a passenger car and a little bit more. For $4 the couple gets two hours of parking far from prying eyes and protected from spoilsports like robbers and police. Although this is the first open-air motel of this kind for Brasilienses, the practice is old hat in other places like Rio and São Paulo. Called Só Love (Love Only) the new dating venue is the brainchild of civil engineer Rosemberg de Araújo Gouveia, 46, a former glass merchant, who sold his business and used the money for the new venture.

Só Love offers 40 spaces, all with a little table and two chairs plus an intercom so the couple can order something to eat or drink. Waiters come on roller skates and deliver the food without seeing or being seen by the customers. Some of the spaces come with an enclosed toilet. But there are no Jacuzzis or even showers as some were expecting. For added security a system of TV cameras will film every car and person that comes in.

To avoid protests, which have already started, Gouveia decided to build his love drive-in in Taguatinga, an industrial zone of Brasília. The debut of Só Love was helped by the fact that a construction project in the city has just closed the Pontão Sul in the Lago Sul neighborhood, until recently the official spot for alfresco-loving lovers.

To those who complain that there are schools near the drive-in, Gouveia shows the permit he got from the city last March. He told daily Correio Braziliense: "The law allows a motel in this area of town. For couples this will be a much more secure place. Making love in the streets is way too dangerous. And we even have special accommodations for paraplegics so they also can come for a date. Everything is in order here."

---

Send your
comments to
Brazzil

CDs or Books by Keyword, Title or Author Keyword search Books Music Full search: Books or Music