Pablo & Júnior

Pablo Pineda não é um espanhol como qualquer outro. Ele tem síndrome de Down.
Só que tampouco tem síndrome de Down como outros. Pablo tem um diploma universitário e está prestes a se tornar professor.

A história desse jovem de 34 anos me impressionou demais.

Na Alemanha, cerca de 90% das gravidezes diagnosticadas com a doença são interrompidas. Na Espanha, Pablo freqüentou escolas comuns e sempre foi estimulado por seus pais, sensibilizados pela avidez do filho.

Na minha família há um portador da trissomia 21. Júnior teve menos sorte que Pablo e, até hoje, bem acima dos 30 anos, se comporta como um bebê.

Quero que todos conheçam a história do espanhol. Para que menos Júniors e mais Pablos venham (e vençam) ao mundo.

Mamma's underwear

Tchibo is one of this shops I usually do not enter. I find very confusing the fact that they offer a bunch of new products every week. It might be a paradise for the bored housewife, but since their assortment goes from coffee to camping tents, I never find my way there.

Until I saw this nice fat-control-invisible underwear advertisement as I walked by. On the package, a nice picture of a middle age woman with long gray hair but firm breasts and nicely shaped hips.

“That’s it!”, I thought. “That will be the present for my mom in my next visit to Brazil.”

I bought the silky-cotton-white bra and matching briefs, packed them nicely and gave it to her. Her curiosity at first turned into a big laugh as the wrapping paper fell on the floor.
“What is this, Clarisse?! A camping tent?”
“No, mom, the camping tent was sold out but they still had these.”, I contested, pissed as I was.
“But, my daughter, this underwear is huge! Look at what I normally wear”, as she showed me her tiny-little-lace-black string. “These might be good for your grandma, though”.

I truly felt I missed on something that moment. Living so long far away from my country obviously changed me as any other expat. I just did not realised it had affected my sense of sensuality too.

I surrendered to comfort, I admit. It’s just hard to be confronted with this by your own mother’s underwear preference.

Respeito no grito!

Agora que minha mãe ficou chique e mora em Copacabana, onde tem metrô, pude finalmente vivenciar o vagão feminino!

Nas horas de rush, das 6 às 9h e de 17 às 20h, um vagão em cada comboio é dedicado a nós de Vênus. A versão carioca foi adotada em 2006, embora medidas semelhantes já existissem antes em outros países, como Japão. Na Alemanha, por exemplo, há vagas de estacionamento em edifícios garagem reservadas para elas, em geral, mais próximas da saída.

Mesmo já tendo sido roçada em transporte público, confesso ter sido estranho estar cercada por mulheres por todos os lados. Essa ilha de respeito (por sinal, respeito dá o tom da campanha no vagão: Respeito é bom e elas merecem”) tem também um quê de ressentimento. Além surtir o efeito inverso: nas horas de pico, as que não tiveram a sorte de ser empurradas porta adentro pelos seguranças, têm que torcer para não serem abusadas pela maioria esmagadora masculina nos vagões regulares.

Tem mais aqui sobre o assunto.

Medidas paleativas à parte, acho que assédios se resolvem mesmo no grito. Pelo menos foi assim que escurracei o babaca que se roçou em mim num bonde em Amsterdã.

Too wet

When I turned 31 last year, I got a bookstore voucher from a cousin. My choices were:
Panic, by Jeff Abbott,
If you liked school, you will love work, by Irvine Welsh,
and finally...Feuchtgebiete, by Charlotte Roche.

The last one has just been released in the US with the almost naive title "Wetlands". The cover is red instead of pink, but the band aid is still there.

I took the German book with me to my holidays in Brazil. I refuse to wrap any book cover for the sake of privacy in trains, so Brazil sounded like the perfect place to read Feuchtgebiete incognito. Those pages of filth would be unnoticed there, I thought. I actually told my mom about the subject of the book and, as a gynaecologist, she did not sound too shocked. I almost had a fit when my brother, a catholic priest-to-be, found it on the piano and asked me to read the text on the back cover to him. Luckily he was only interested in my pronunciation of the German language, not the content of Roche's dirty pussy, oops, sorry, mind.

And that is exactly why I quit the reading.

Rubbing your vulva on a parking lot public toilet seat does not sound exciting. It is disgusting. I don't see excrements as taboos, but honestly, I am not interested in picturing them in my mind either.

Roche is a provocateur. She did not offer her pussy juice to her fellow celebrities on national German TV like Lady Bitch Ray but since she is a pretty girl, I agree it was kind of shocking to see her remove her fake front teeth in front of the cameras.

Feuchtgebiete has already sold more than a million copies. Eight translations are spread out there in the world. I am now curious how antiseptic America will react to Roche's haemorrhoids operation.

More on Roche and Wetlands here.
Photo by DDP.

Vida ínfime

Ontem, voltando para casa com minha amiga Renata num lindo dia ensolarado, vimos um homem caído no chão. Ao seu lado, uma sacola de supermercado com cascos de cerveja e um pacote de pão de forma. Sua calça jeans molhada de mijo.

Ele estava atravessado na calçada bem em frente a um restaurante chinês onde pessoas sentadas aproveitavam o sol enquanto aguardavam o almoço ser servido.

Dois passantes antes de nós pararam e chamaram uma ambulância.

Muitos antes já haviam ignorado o homem, inclusive a garçonete do restaurante chinês e seus clientes famintos.

Liguei impacientemente também para o número de alarme, e, enquanto aguardávamos a chegada do socorro tentei falar com o homem, que exalava pela boca um cheiro forte de álcool. Pelo menos respirava.

Toquei sua mão e ele mostrou reflexo. Um alívio.

Atrás de mim a garçonete trazia o arroz xadrez do cliente com um sorriso no rosto. Uma sacana.

A ambulância chegou e pela reação reprovadora dos paramédicos o homem deveria mesmo ter tido um colapso decorrente do álcool. Um deles pegou a bolsa de compras e a pôs no banco da frente. E voltou, para junto com seu colega por o homem na caçamba da ambulância.

Os clientes do restaurante curtiam indiferentes suas refeições.

Renata e eu voltamos para casa com a sensação ruim de que a vida vale pouco, por vezes até menos que um prato de arroz xadrez por três euros e cinqüenta.

At the gynecologist

I don't like going to the gynecologist. Even though my mom is one, I would rather go 10 times to the dentist than only once to the women's doc.

Anyway, today was yearly check up day. Same procedure as every year: Doctor calls Frau da Silva, I shake hands with him, he asks me if everything is fine and tells me to take off my clothes. As usual, I wear the examination dress on the wrong side and take my position on the most uncomfortable bed in the world.

This time, legs spread out, I lay there and wait. And wait. In the other room, doctor is on the phone, kind of upset. I can't really understand what he is saying, but whatever it is, takes quite a while. I decide to put my legs together and sit down. 10 minutes later he rushes in.

"Sorry, Frau da Silva. I just have a problem with an order. The prosthesis is not there and the surgery is tomorrow"
"Prosthesis?!" (First thing that came to my mind was some sort of fake womb, or maybe a brand new silicon clitoris, but that makes no sense, I know.)
"I have this patient. A gogo dancer. Do you know what a gogo dancer is?"
(Duh. I am not a prude, doctor.)
"Yes, I do".
"We ordered 500ml prosthesis for her. And the supplier can't find the order!"
(500ml on each tit! I suddenly think of Lola Ferrari's best friends...)
"Poor patient. She desperately needs the prosthesis for her job, right?"
"Yes, but it is her own fault. We had settled for the 500ml... but just yesterday she changed her mind for 600ml!"

Quite an entertaining talk. Made me forget his finger was touching my womb from inside my body.
"Oops, you have a full bladder, Frau da Silva".

Yeah, I do. Thanks for the information...

Tanita Tikaram

When I worked for SuiGeneris, this gay magazine in Rio de Janeiro, I once interviewed Tanita Tikaram.

Ok, the interview was on the phone, and Tanita is far from being as popular as Britney Spears, but I must say I am quite proud of what I did.

One of Tanita's songs (not the best one, though) had become very popular in Portuguese on the voice of a(nother) lesbian singer, Zélia Duncan. It was the Cathedral Song.

Apparently Tanita did not know about the Catedral version and was probably missing lots of royalty money. She seemed very thankful to me for this revelation...

So, perhaps, I was the reason Zélia Duncan became less rich with her hit.

Tanita was also in the same clique as the film director Monika Treut, who in the lesbian scene is best known for her sadomasochistic movie "Seduction: the Cruel Woman". Both were born in Germany, by the way.

All this background story so that I could post my favourite song by Tanita, Twist of my Sobriety. There you go: