The Ben From Brazil

Latest Update: October 13, 2006

By Ben Marcus

21:25 RIO TIME THURSDAY THE 12TH OF OCTOBER ROSALDO’S OFFICE

As much as I am disappointed with CNN today, their CNN World broadcast is pretty cool. They cover the world the way they cover the US so they just showed a weather pattern bubbling up from the Southern Ocean which is going to ease brushfires in Tasmania, and the showed a typhoon spinning from the southeast to the northwest and heading for China.

Just got back after a long day at the mall. My battery ran out and I didn’t have the cord so I put it up for a while. I was interviewed for Brazilian TV but it was pretty awkward. The girl (she was sexy too! No way!) had trouble getting out the words: “So Ben, how did surfing change the world and how did the world change surfing?” And she also couldn’t say “Miki Dora.”

I videoed it a little, schmoozed with some people, met a surfboard collector named Rodrigo and was shown around by Romeu, to some of the nicer shops in the mall to show me surfer fashion, Brazil style.

Hung around, drank coffee, met the mall owner and drove home.

I am watching CNN World and am going to edit the three chapters of the History of the Surfboard Michael Dregni sent me today. He is fiending to get this done so I am going to edit what he sent me and try to hack down the remainder and get this over with.

19:17 RIO TIME FRIDAY THE 13TH OF OCTOBER RUBRO CAFÉ AT BARRA DESIGN MALL

I just edited the chapter on Foam and sent it to Michael Dregni. I am in a swank shopping mall. He is in Minnesota. We are communicating perfectly.

This is the modern world.

This is the second time I was here today but I don’t mind it at all. This is one of the most relaxing malls I have ever been in. I don’t suffer the “malaise” that bugs me in most American shopping malls. This place is fun and relaxed, they have power ports under each table, they have free Wi Fi, the bathroom is right behind me and the girl watching is, well…

I am sitting and digesting an epic meal from a place called Porcao. This is the most famous of all the churrascaria in Brazil. It is a meat restaurant that I call The Garden of Earthly Delights. It is a semi-swanky place with a bulletin board full of photos of Brazilian celebrities at the entrance, and also a weird sign that seemed to warn about the illegality of prostitution and child prostitution. I am not sure why that sign was outside of a restaurant, although it might have had something to do with Rosaldo’s earlier statement about how Brazilians like to eat, then….

Anyway, Rosaldo also had observations about the differences between white women and black women that weren’t what I wanted to hear before diving in carnivore heaven.

We met Rosaldo’s wife Carol and their daughter Maria and Rosaldo’s friend Flavio and his pretty wife and their adorable little boy, whose nickname was Duda, I think. We walked in and immediately had people all around us, helping is take seats, getting us drinks. The service in Brazil is really good because there are so many people who need jobs, and wages are pretty low. Rosaldo has an excellent mason laying bricks in a wall under his garage and he pays him $35 a day. The guy built half a wall in the six hours we were gone. And it was perfect.

Anyway, we sat at Porcao and some people came back with plates of sushi and sashimi and other stuff and I walked over to the buffet table and found heaven: smoked salmon, oysters, sashimi, California roll, cheeses and salads very much like California salads.

It was the best of everything, for starters. Back at the table, Rosaldo ordered me a caipirinha and then the waiters started coming around with everything from chicken hearts to steaks on big skewers. Everyone has a plastic circle with red on one side and green on the other for yes or no on whatever they are bringing: sausages, lamb, etc. etc. etc. Epic.

Porcao means “big pig” and they aren’t kidding, because we all made big pigs of ourselves. It was like a feeding frenzy with waiters scurrying around with huge skewers of meat and big knives and if it wasn’t all so elegant, it would be something else.

I videoed the whole deal if anyone wants to see it.

I tried not to think of how much damage was being done to the Amazon and global warming and all that from all the land that had to be cleared to raise all that beef, and I just got stuck into it mate.

I videoed some pretty women in the restaurant and Duda pouring sugar into his water glass and I took a bunch of Porcao toothpicks and some of those round, stop and go circles to add to the collection in the van.

I threw in my Visa card with Rosaldo and Flavios but the whole thing, for like eight people, came to around $200, which was like $30 a piece for all that, and it was a lot.

Today is Rosaldo’s birthday and I was going to go with Carol to buy him a DVD player for his office, but instead I just went with Rosaldo to a place like CostCo and bought him a DVD player for about $150. I figured it was the least I can do and I always like buying things that people need.

Earlier today, we came to the mall and Rosaldo took care of business while I feverishly communicated with Michael Dregni in Minnesota. It is time to finish the History of the Surfboard so he sent me the chapters that covered the period through World War II up to the late 40s. I approved all his Track Changes and sent them back, and then started to hack down the chapter on Foam, which goes from 1947 to 1959, but he told me to stop and focus on the chapter from 1959 to 1966, and the second to last chapter which goes from 1966 to 1981.

So I was trying to do that and finish it before we had to go to Porcao, but I didn’t quite finish it all. That is what I am going to do now. Once I get that done I will have on more chapter to go, called This is the Modern World, which goes from 1981 to the present, and then that long project will be done.

We are using Fernando Aguerre’s surfboard collection as a timeline and filling that in with other photos and the book has the potential to be pretty good, even if the story has been edited way down.

Michael Dregni is a good editor, whacking down all my verbiage from 80,000 words to 25,000.

Maybe I should send him these blogs first.