Bring on the Olympic Sailing Events!

The excitement that all of Búzios felt at the possibility that the Olympic sailing events would be torn from Rio's grasp and staged out here in our clean, unpolluted waters was contagious. After all, we were told that even the great and powerful United States Olympic Committee had requested the change of venue! Wow, now that's support a little town can get behind. Even Mark and I felt the buzz, since our terrace sits smack dab in what would be the front row. We began to draw up lists of people to invite, and in what order: family first, friends next, acquaintances last.

Windsurf event in front of our house

Sailing event in front of our house

But the momentary excitement was just that — momentary. It's taken a while for the penny to drop, but we're all pretty sure that it ain't gonna happen. Rio will never allow the recently-documented problems of pollution, bacteria, viruses and e-coli to come between it and the stupendous opportunity it has to strut its stuff on the world stage. There is not a chance in hell that Rio will let itself be robbed of images like these:

 










So was the idea of bringing the sailing events to Búzios just a publicity stunt? Is the hashtag #velaemBuzios a wink-wink-nudge-nudge joke? It does look that way. Búzios has the clean waters, but it doesn't have the infrastructure needed to accommodate all the sailing vessels with their attendant equipment, or house the athletes, the coaches, the technical support staffs, the medical staffs, the press corps, the spectators, etc. The idea was floated, everyone got into a tizzy, stickums were slapped on surfaces all over town — and the idea has fizzled.

But don't you think that a few new Olympic events will have to be  developed with host city Rio de Janeiro in mind? Put Jérôme Valcke in charge of it, he's not doing anything, and he can even steal my ideas: Sailing in Sewage, Canoeing through Corpses, and Rowing in Rubbish. Triathlon Trash has a certain ring to it as well. Oh, well, I guess Mark and I can throw out those guest lists we were drawing up!

Imagina Na Copa!

Hard to forget the many catchphrases of my youth, like Eh, what's up, Doc? and Heeeeere's Johnny, and the always sturdy Go ahead, make my day. And then there was one of my favorites, Where's the beef?, from Wendy's successful ad campaign to convince the public that Wendy's hamburgers had more meat in them than McDonald's or Burger King's. So popular were the commercials, and so infectious was the catchphrase — not to mention Clara Peller, the woman who delivered it — that even the normally dry and boring Walter Mondale got a big laugh when he used it in a 1984 democratic primary debate against an insubstantial Gary Hart.

There's a hilarious and wildly popular catchphrase making the rounds in Brazil these days. It's Imagina na Copa!, something like If you think this is bad now, just wait 'til the World Cup! At first people used it about traffic jams and chaos in the airports, but as the catchphrase got traction it was expanded to anything that might be bothering you: bad service in restaurants, black-outs, slow mail service, crowded beaches, surly taxi drivers, a bad hair day, in short, anything at all. I admit that I use it as often as I can. It's a terrific way to end a conversation without having to resolve anything, and to get a sure laugh to boot.

To get the full flavor of the catchphrase, watch this very funny YouTube video entitled "Shit Cariocas Say" — a parody of the video called "Shit New Yorkers Say" which, if you haven't yet had the pleasure, can be found at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRvJylbSg7o. The Brazilian version here, with English subtitles, is completely intelligible even if you've never been to Rio or met a carioca (a Rio native). During the course of the video, Imagina na Copa is used about seven times, and each time is funnier than the last.

The irony of this catchphrase is that the World Cup won't even be held in Brazil until 2014. Why are Brazilians trashing their future preparedness level when they have the FIFA Confederations Cup set to kick off in just a few short weeks? The number of Brazilian and foreign fans estimated to attend the Confederations Cup is around 950,000. That ought to test Brazil's mettle. And one month later Brazil will host World Youth Day, the triennial international event organized by the Catholic Church. Number of people expected? I've seen quotes of 2 million, 3 million and 4 million. Any way you look at it, that's a lot of bodies. As for the onslaught of visitors expected for the 2016 Summer Olympics, well, I haven't seen any official attendance estimates yet, but most people think things will be far worse during the Olympics than during the World Cup. Even so, it's Imagina na Copa that's caught everyone's imagination. It's simple, it's rhythmic, it's — well, you know, yada yada yada.

Rio's Eight Minutes

Mark and I just suffered through the Olympics Closing Ceremony — a two-and-a-half-hour long anthology from hell of five decades of bangers-and-mash British rock (the Queen was smart, this time she stayed home) — for no reason other than to watch the eight-minute Introduction to Rio segment. When the spotlight hit Renato Sorriso, and he began his magical samba footwork, I applauded. But then I worried that no one outside of Brazil would think he was anything other than an actor in a funny orange costume. No one would understand his importance to the city of Rio, and why he had been picked to open the closing. And then, to prove I was right to worry, I read this in New York Times reporter Campbell Robertson's blog: "In the middle of the stadium is  Renato Sorriso, ‘the garbage collector who is a samba dancer and a symbol of Rio de Janeiro's Carnival.' Seriously. A samba dancing garbage man is Rio's introduction to the world." So arrogant. So smug. So ready to put Rio down. Robertson obviously considers a samba-dancing garbage man pretty low down on the food chain.

Renato Sorriso on the job

I don't know why this bothers me so much, but it does. You see, I've seen Renato Sorriso in person. I know his story. I know how important he is. Renato Sorriso (which, by the way, means Renato Smile) has become a larger-than-life personality, and even something of a tourist attraction in Rio. Renato Luiz Feliciano Lourenço has worked for COMLURB, Rio's municipal sanitation company, for 15 years. If you want to go and talk to him, he can be found every day sweeping up around the Praça Xavier de Brito in the north Rio neighborhood of Tijuca. Back in 1997, Renato signed on to work the Sambadrome during Carnaval for some overtime pay. As each samba school finishes its show on the runway, a group of COMLURB men follows behind, sweeping away the ribbons and sequins and feathers and anything else that fell off the floats and the costumes, and getting the runway ready for the next samba school. Except that Renato, who loves Carnaval and samba, didn't do as much sweeping as he did samba-ing. His boss reprimanded him, but since the public was applauding and demanding more, his boss gave up and decided to let Renato do his thing. A star was born.

Nowadays Renato spends Carnaval parading down the runway with one or another samba school, in between his cleaning duties. There aren't many sambistas as good as he is, or as talented, or as charming, or with as much charisma. And that smile, well, it's contagious. It's from the heart. Renato has also appeared in a Brazilian television soap opera, he's done a telephone commercial in Europe, and he's toured with professional dancers in France, Spain and England in a show called "Brasil Brasileiro." And now he has danced at the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Campbell Robertson may not think that this "samba dancing garbage man" should be Rio's introduction to the world, but that just shows how very little Robertson knows of Brazil. It also shows how much a person's brain can be fried after hours of rock music.