Fruit of the Year

And the winner is:

the cherimoya

what Mark Twain called “the most delicious fruit known to men” and “deliciousness itself!”, according to the *free*-speech internet.

At number two we find a fruit that’s been in the top-ten list for 38 years:

the orange

end of blog.

Sex and the Tuna or “When Bubba met Juana, part 2″

Carrie is a fish journalist in the North Sea. She writes an article, all about the sex life of Tuna and other fish. She herself is a Tuna fish. Hungry?

Bubba bumped into Juana again, this time at a Jonathan Richman concert. It was really strange the way it happened, because when he sang: “Because her beauty is raw and wild“, a inebbriated Bubba thought, “hey, this song sounds like it was written for that chick I had met… what was her name… Juana or sumtin…” and he looked to his right and there she was! Dancing away… Strange chick though. I mean, why was she covering her ears during “Vampiresa Mujer?”

Special Issue Ι – Άνοιξη (Spring)΄09

In this special issue of Spiro’s blog we have a very distinguished guest. At the time of writing we are unaware if the writer would like to be named or remain anonymous. In our rush to present to you the information as quickly as possible we present the original here, but be informed that we have given the text to our international desk for translation and it will appear shortly in English.

Στην Ελλάδα δεν έχει πια γυναίκες. Μόνο κάτι ασεξουαλικά όντα με βυζιά. Αλλά ούτε και άντρες έχει. Να λέμε όλη την αλήθεια. Αυτοί είναι οι παραγωγοί καταναλωτικών οικονομικών μονάδων. Κουβαλάνε κάτι σακουλάκια ανάμεσα στα πόδια και ένα σωληνάριο για εξαγωγή των περισσευούμενων υγρών. Μόνο εγώ έχω γκαύλες? Μόνο σ’ εμένα δεν αρέσουν τα διάφορα πορνό αλλά θέλω φρέσκια σάρκα? Ούτε φίλους θέλω. Μόνο συντρόφους. Για τον πόλεμο και την ειρήνη. Για την δημιουργία και την ηδονή. Αυτά τα garage που κατέβασα από το ινδερνέτι μ’ έχουν σώσει απ’ την πλήρη πνευματική κατάρρευση. Δόξα στα Peebles και στους ανώνυμους rockabilly hillbilly partabilly kai valta ekei pou xereis. Γίνομαι ανήθικος? Μπορεί. Δεν πήγα ****. Ήμουνα κλεισμένος σπίτι. Το μυαλό μου και τα άυλα παράγωγά του είναι σαν τα μακαρόνια. Τα βρασμένα. Όπου δε μπορείς να βγάλεις άκρη. Και για να μη βλέπεις το χάος, πασπαλίζεις θρυμματισμένο τυρί και μπόλικη σάλτσα. Όπου βέβαια και πάλι δεν είσαι σίγουρος για το τι περιέχει. Και τελικά για να βγεις από τον κόπο της προσπάθειας να καταλάβεις, πίνεις κρασάκι. Αθάνατο σπέρμα άγνωστου πλέον θεού. Και πάλι γκαυλώνεις! Μα που είναι η Αφροδίτη? Τι να πω? Βλέπω γυναίκες κατά τύχη ή όταν σκάω ένα κάρο λεφτά σ’ αυτά τα άθλια στέκια που λέγονται καφέ-μπαρ. Κι ακόμη προσπαθώ να βγάλω άκρη του τι μου συμβαίνει, τι θέλω – αν θέλω κάτι – γιατί η κυρία κοινωνία επιμένει πως πρέπει να θέλω κάτι, αλλιώς δεν είμαι φυσιολογικός. Κάτι πρέπει να κάνω αλλιώς θεωρούμε άπραγος – κι αυτό είναι κακό και επικίνδυνο για ολόκληρο το σύμπαν και τον κύκλο της ζωής. Γάμα τα. ακόμα δε ξέρω τίποτα. Εκτός απ’ το ότι έχω γκαύλες κι ότι ζω μια καθημερινότητα που δε μου λέει τίποτα.

Su amigo.

Educational Toys

Toy of the month.

Educational Toys

Some of the reviews are quite funny…

Been thinking about beans. Here’s a recipe I made up (and never tried):

1. Soak a cup of coffee beans in water overnight.
2. Make some caramel, however it is you make caramel, in a pot and add the beans.
3. Add water and bring to a boil. Keep adding water until the beans are cooked.
4. Serve on a bed of whipped cream.

Goya Burger

Goya Burger, sponsored by Carrefour

Dia de los Reyes in Spain tomorrow. The Kings came from the East today and arrived in Madrid and all over Spain bringing gifts to the children that have been good all year and coal (!) to the nasty ones… It’s a big carnival-like parade in Madrid. Apparently a lot of children cry in awe when they see the kings (the wise men). I hate to tell them: It’s all a damn lie!

Meanwhile, Israel continues bombing the fuck out of the Palestinians.  It’s no lie. It was planned a long time ago.

Going to Lisbon on Wednesday for a few days, then London on Monday for a week. Bubba has a son. His name is Herbie Tribunales Ramirez. Sorry I hadn’t told you earlier, I just recently found out myself.

Bubba goes to the fair

Bubba: “Ok, I think I get it now. I come out of the house and go to Sabará, there I turn right, cross the road and take the first road to the left and that’s the fair?“

Nujor: “Yeah, just make sure you go to the people on the right-hand side to have your pastel, not the left-hand side. The people on the left-hand side will start hassling you, calling your attention to them, like they do in Morocco or Brick Lane“

Bubba: “Oh, ok, so because they are so loud, I should ignore them and go to the people on the left“

Nujor: “Yeah, that’s right. Well, at least that’s what I always do“

Lanja: “Nujor takes the side of the weak and the oppressed“

Bubba: “Oh, and where can I find an ATM near here?“

Nujor: “On Sócrates. After your pastel you keep walking until the end of Sócrates…“

Bubba: “Ah! The fair’s on Sócrates?“

Lanja: “No, the road the fair is on leads onto Sócrates“

Bubba walked out of the house, to loud fucken’ barks from Nujor’s crazy fucken’ homosexual dog, and made his way, panting, up-hill to Avenida Nossa Senhora do Sabará. He smelled the familiar smell of toasted ham and cheese sandwiches being cooked at Bienal, the padaria on the left, mixed with the sweet smell of coconut bread and super-sugary coffee. He turned right onto Sabará. The air was polluted as the sun was struggling to shine through the clouds and the smog of Zona Sul of São Paulo. Housewives and maids were out shopping and gossiping. Just the way Bubba likes it…

The people on the left didn’t even look at Bubba as he sneaked a peak at them on his way straight to the friendlier looking people on the right. “Um de pizza, um de frango com catupiry, e um caldo de cana“, he said, in his gringo accent. “Com limão?“, asked the nice lady. “Huh?“. “Do you want lemon in your sugarcane juice?“, asked the lady, in Portuguese, of course. “Ok“, said Bubba. “Would you like to take a seat?“, she asked and Bubba said “yes” and just stood there. “Well, take a seat then…“, she said and pointed to the plastic chairs and metallic tables next to her deep fryer… “Gringo estúpido“, she thought, and smiled to herself…

Soon the pasteis and caldo de cana were brought over. They were delicious. Just the way Bubba had expected. He had had it described to him many times by his drinking buddies all over the world: “You haven’t lived if you haven’t had pastel and caldo de cana in a fair in São Paulo, man!“, was a typical line he would hear on a drunken’ Wednesday night in any Irish pub in New York… And here he was, finally sampling it.

He was also very careful to not get burned. Another drinking buddy, this one he had met in a strip joint in Singapore, had told him how when he first tried pastel, he bit straight into it and got burned on his lips, then turned the pastel around, bit into it again, and got burned again! So Bubba was careful when eating the pasteis. Oh yeah, and he added a little bit of cachaça to his caldo de cana. That’s something that no fucken’ drunk Dutch guy had ever told him to do, it was all his own idea.

He sat sipping his improvised cocktail while thinking how clever he had been. A bit like fried chicken breast with a sliced egg on top. Two different food products from pretty much the same source. A bit like publishing a bunch of academic papers based on ONE idea. That’s not something that Bubba would’ve thought of though, but does it really matter, for the purposes of our story and Bubba’s adventures in São Paulo?

There wasn’t much else happening in the fair. A couple of fruit stalls and one or two people selling made-in-china plastic shite. So, he sat a bit, enjoyed the food and the drink and headed back to Nujor and Lanja’s. Walking back, down Pajaú, minding his own business, a tennis ball fell out of the sky and almost hit Bubba on the head. Bubba picked it up and walked a bit, looking for an opening among the trees to throw it back into the tennis court. As he threw it, a middle-aged woman walking just ahead of him started talking.

Lady: “You should’ve given me the ball. I would’ve taken it home to my dog, ha ha, he he. They’re rich, they’ve got enough balls…“

Bubba: “Oh. You should’ve told me…“

Lady: “They have enough balls. BLOODY RICH BASTARDS. You know how many balls fall here? They don’t even come to pick them up… they’ve got so many.“

Bubba: “Well, you should’ve told me before…“

The lady shows Bubba a bag of some powdery stuff: “you know how much I paid for this? 7 reais, for fucken’ flour! My master is gonna have a heartattack…“

Bubba: “That’s expensive“

Lady: “7 FUCKEN’ REAIS! Fuck me!“

Bubba got back to Nujor and Lanja’s house, stuck his head up above the garage door just to piss the fucken’ dog off and then walked in through the front door to watch the maid do her stuff: pick up each item on the bookshelf, remove dust, place back in original position, repeat for next item until there are no more or it’s 6 o’clock: time to go home and do same in own house…

Águas de Julho

É pau, é pedra, é o fim do caminho
o pão de açucar, o cristo que foi mijar
é a opera do bubba é a vida é o sol
é uma lancha no rio, é uma ave no chão
é a mãe da super luiza é a julia é a luiza

é o chico buarque, o luiz melodia, o djavan e o vinicius
o penedo, o fio maravilha, açerola, e truta viva
uma trilha no mato, a bolsa de valores
um gringo chato, são as dores, são as flores
poa, itapemirim, galeto e samba
laura, carlão, sandalias melissa e guimba
rio de janeiro, flamenco, cariocas
cuia e chimarrão é um lanche na esquina

São o oscar niemeyer, o william e a susi
a ana e a lisa, a sofia e a julia
o maneca, a cally e a lancha na quaiba
são são paulo com transito, e sistema de transporte
junior e juliana, luca nano e melissa
tomas e priscilla andre e a dentista
a daiza e o osasco, a ponte la no morumbi
o irmão do evaldo, é a nação zumbi

o renatão e o artur, a angela e o mingo,
a isabella a giovanna, cizo, alcione e flavio
a alzira a alaide, a antonietta a mimi
centro cultural santander, caminho no parcão
e por favor nunca mais habib´s
é o brique e o acarajé, carlos, doug, adam e açai
é a gorda e a seca la no zaffari

é o sol no caixeiros viagantes, é a elis regina
é o chico buarque, é o chico é o chico
é uma ave no céu, uma ave no chão
a cachoeira de deus, uma borboleta na mão

a bethania, e os ramalhos, e um baile de funk, é o creu é o creu
é um coco gelado, saudade e saude
ronaldinho gaucho, é verdade é verdade
uma agua gelada, guarana, fanta da uva
caipirinha, cachaça, picanha e costelão
são tres corações de frango, chocolate do gramado
chocolate do penedo, jiu-jitsu, capoeira
é o menino vadio, a marizete e a jazz
embromation, enrrolation, bossa nova em cartaz
ecohostel, curitiba, fatima, tiago e vinicius
é muita cafeina, é a banda do marcus

é o verissimo no sebo, e umas artes da morte,
o djavan, o corinthians, o flamengo e a flu
uma banana na cachoeira, umas fotos tiradas
pão de queijo, mamão, e umas velhas piradas
um velhinho safado, acarajé no brique
pastel na feira, caldo de cana
a indra e a chirsten, debora, tim, jonathan
um cigarro avulso, uma skol ou polar
ciclovias na curitiba, uma itaipava no ar
são as aguas de março fechando o verão
é a promesa de vida no teu coração
é pau é pedra…

Buenos Aires, 11th June 2008

Before leaving London a friend gave me a travel journal. It’s really just a notebook that says “travel journal” on the front… (oh, bless… but she says she doesn’t have time to read my blog anyway), so I present to you, my dear readers, a slightly edited entry made in BA on 11/06/08…

Going to Uruguay today, to get an extra stamp on my passport. Not really. Don’t give a fuck about the stamp, but will be able to say I’ve been to Uruguay, también. Should send my Hungarian friend who lived in Uruguay for about a year when she was a teenager, and her Spanish husband a postcard… Manteca is butter, but apparently it’s lard in Spain. Mantequilla is butter in Spain. A helpful waitress said she spoke English, but when we asked her “what is manteca?”, fearing that we would get a pasta with lard, she said that manteca = bacon. She meant butter. They both start with a ‘b’. She’s a Boca Juniors fan. Walked down Rua Borges yesterday in Palermo, the most european looking part of BA yet. I find Borges books too difficult for me. Too much hard work. Maybe would be better in Spanish. You need to know too much about … stuff he talks about… to really understand him. One thing I’ve noticed and which further fuels my obssesion with toilet brushes, is the lack of them in BA. Not very pleasant. Another noticeable aspect of Buenos Aires is the amount of crazy people. Oh yeah, and the most beautiful eyes per capita… Could they be linked in any way? Crazy people have beautiful eyes?

… in this travel journal entry I also talk about the milonga’s we went to, which I’ve already written about, but I embarssingly mispelled as Milango’s… here… I should edit that page. I’ve got more to say on toilet brushes. In one place, I think a cafe, there was a toilet brush, but the handle was a stub, so tiny, that you were almost touching the hairs of the brush… and it looked wet and yellowish… I used it nonetheless… only kidding…

Bubba Tribunales makes his first appearance in this journal entry, with one line: “Bubba Tribunales, el viejo malo”. Never made it to Uruguay though. It was ridiculously expensive and apparently not really worth it. It cost around 200 pesos, just for the return boat trip to the town of Colonial, across the river Uruguay. With the same amount of pesos, you can go on a paragliding adventure day trip from Mendoza.

The wheels on the bus…

… go round and round…

I’m getting ready for a 18 hour bus trip, Sao Paulo to Porto Alegre. I love it. Not as much as the train, but the next best thing. I’ve even booked a seat in the front. Cama executiva.

Sao Paulo’s been great. Different, but as I expected, since my friends here are all married with children, so, much more of a family environment for me. The pizza last night was great. It’s a close call between Buenos Aires pizza and Sao Paulo. Brazil maybe just edges it because of Catupiry, Glorious Catupiry. And also ‘coz it’s the most recent one I had. And even though I ate loads, I didn’t feel like shit, as I would if I had had a Domino’s in London. I’m gonna puke just at the thought of that pizza… just a second…

We might go check out the new big bookstore, Livraria Cultura, just off of Paulista, before I catch my bus. But, more about food: went to the Mercado Publico, near Rua 25 de Marco, in downtown the other day and had a mortadella sandwich. Yeah, I know, it sounds boring, but it was amazing! Sao Paulo is still all about food for me, from the first day I came here in 1992 and a friend took us to Bar das Putas, which I’m still confused as to whether it’s the same as Sujinho, which is now a chain of restaurants, also in downtown Sao Paulo, to filet de Moraes (which I didn’t get a chance to have this time), to great Japanese food and of course Brazilian standards, like the feijoada with farofa and couve I had on Sunday and the tastiest rice, beans and abobora I had at my friends house. Mmmm…

São Paulo

I’ve been in São Paulo for 3 days now and will stay about 3 more. It’s been great catching up with old friends. I’ll write more when I’m back in Porto Alegre next week, as well as about the Argentina trip.

For now all I can say is that São Paulo has changed quite a bit since I last spent any reasonable amount of time here. It’s cleaner with less visual polution and seems to have less dirt on the streets. It has some impressive new architecture (mainly in the Morumbi area from what I’ve managed to see) and is a bit easier to get around than I remember. No, the traffic is worse, but the train system seems to be easier to navigate than I thought. The food is still great, the people are friendly though working all the time, the winter isn’t much of a winter by european standards and it’s fucken’ huge. Whereas in London I usually still think of anywhere as being an hour away, here it’s more like one and a half to two hours away.

Bubba’s fine – keeping a low profile. São Paulo has the ability to make anyone feel small and insignificant, but I bet that if HE stayed here, in about a year he’d have regained his usual swagger.