The IDIOCY of Blogs

Dear Blog,

As you can see, dear readers, I am in no word-mincing mood today. This blog's title is as straightforward as any straight thing moving in a forward direction. And now, having celebrated the visceral directitude of my title, let me clear a few inevitable ambiguities about it: when I talk about "the idiocy of blogs," of course I don't mean that bloggers are idiots or that the content of blogs are idiotic (lest I be a hypocritical nincompoop), but that blogs themselves - the programs, if you will - are idiots. They are stupid, stupid, stupid, worthless, backstabbing, smelly, Satan-spawn, and I hate them I hate them I hate them I hate them. Now, I could stop there and move on, but I feel an account of their malpracticing evil is necessary to complete the ironic humiliation I am infliciting upon them. So what is this action that has warranted such punishment, you ask? Well I was just going to recount the story when you asked that - if you had a lick of patience we'd already be well into it. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I had just finished my latest blog entry - it was a lovely entry, too, and I clicked "post" and tucked it into the webpage before shutting down my laptop and going to sleep. I felt so secure, so safe, knowing my entry was snug and sound up there in cyberspace. Little did I know, that the bed upon which it rested was but a veil, concealing rows of metal spikes, prepared at any moment to burst through the mattress and kill my sleping entry in an unimaginably horrifying way. Of course, I can't be sure that it was a boogy-trapped bed that did in my entry, but it's gone now, and I can only assume that anyone dastardly enough to have done it would have done it with a booby-trapped bed. And so for those of you who have been wondering, crying out in the night, "Why hasn't Dorian posted on his blog yet?" it's because I have been mourning - trapped in the frustrated apathy that follows such trauma. But wait, you say - what gives you the right to blame the blog when you have no proof of it's alleged misdeed, and human error is the more likely option, especially if it was late at night? Well, dear reader, if I wanted your opinion, I'd have cared enough about what you think to type in a request for your thoughts. And if wanted a blog-sympathizer, no less, I'd have first reached into a dumpster and asked a McDonald's wrapper it's opinion on existentialism. You know what, traitor? You can just go impale yourself on a metaphorical bed of spikes. Well, I'm glad he's gone. Anyway, as you may have noticed, I am now back in the blog-writing business again, and in this entry I will recount, along with new events, the entry that was taken by the blog, in summary form (but of course it will soon become full form, due to unintentional extension; but then, I suppose, since I am aware of this, yet proceed unabated, it cannot be considered unintentional - so I suppose I'm wasting your time just to spite you).

So, to start off the spitefulness, I'll begin with the most outdated remnant of the lost blog. A few weeks ago, I got sick. Don't worry, it wasn't swine flu, just a cold - but a very specific cold that I get from extended periods of sleep deprivation, that I've fondly named Mr. Chilly-bones. The reason I say fondly is that, unlike most people, I am actually fond of Mr. Chilly-bones, disease though he may be. During my sickness, I all of a sudden had a revelation that I enjoy being sick. Not because I get to miss school or avoid responsibility, but because I enjoy incapacitation. The moment I realized this, I was wandering about the house, collecting various things that are useful to have at one's bedside when you're sick - water, toilet paper (in lou of tissue paper, you dirty people!), etc. And I had been too lazy to turn the lights on when it got dark, so I was just shuffling about the house, clutching a book and a cup, enjoying the silence and the darkness and the leisure. And shortly after I realized how much I liked that, I realized that the reason I like incapacitation is that, deep down, I secretly want to be an old person. I can't wait to be free of all the movement, both external and emotional, that makes young people so virile and exuberant, yet troubled and restless. And shortly after I realized this desire, I thought of all the other exchange students I've met here (I'll devote a blog to them later on) - all social, hip, fun-loving, easy-going cats. Well, either they are, or they want to be like that. And most of them chose Brazil because they had that personality - Brazil is the partying place, and youth is perfect for that. But exchange students in general tend to be toward that bent, and in realizing that, I suddenly felt very alienated and alone. Is it possible for me to have a beneficial experience here if I can only be a youth when I really try? It was a disheartening thought, to say the least, but I've been here for two and a half months, and have been doing well - perhaps my social networking is not light-speed, and perhaps I shall be doomed to exile from some of the more exciting social circles, but Brazil has a lot to teach me yet, and people will learn to accept my nature. One of the most important lessons I've learned here is that integration into a culture isn't learning to imitate the natives - it's being comfortable being yourself amongst the natives.

But that "summary" has reached its end, and now it is time to move on to the next, and last part of the lost blog: futebol. I know I've already discussed Brazilian futebol before just in passing (no pun intended), but that was simply my first impressions upon watching a game here, an academic assessment. Until a few weeks ago, I had never been to a Brazilian game. And so here I shall walk you through the experience. The night we decided to see Guarani (the team in Campinas, named after a Native American tribe, and, I must say, with a great deal more PC than the Redskins and the Chiefs), the crowd was quite rowdy. And I get the feeling that this was not unique to this game; Brazilians don't look at futebol as a spectator sport - the fans are very much a part of the game. At a rock concert, the musicians make the racket to make the people go nuts. If we follow this analogy, the spectators, not the athletes, are the rock stars - they make the stadium ring, and the players are inspired. So if you want to really watch a futebol match, watch it on TV - if you go to a game, you're doing all the work and it's tough to catch everything that happens (especially if you have the seats behind the goal, where you can pretend you don't have depth perception and watch the players turn into an ocean of limbs and shirts).

So here ends the recount of the lost post; from here on out, this blog entry is more (well, a little bit more) up-to-date. So, a long time ago, as I was getting to know my schoolmates, I asked them if they were familiar with the movies of Hayao Miyazaki (most famous for Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Totoro, for all you benighted readers), and only a couple people were, including a Japanese girl (interesting factoid: Brazil has the largest Japanese population in the world outside of Japan) who, like me, adored all of Miyazaki's work. So, and I'm still not sure if this was an unfair assumption on her part, she asked me if I was interested in going to a Japanese culture festival called Fanmix. As its name suggests, it is not full of kimonos and flower-arranging demonstrations; however, there was no short supply of Pokemon and Naruto and Bleach, as well as people dressed as characters from said shows. So by "Japanese culture," they really meant "anime fest." And the fact that there is a biannual, enormously popular anime festival in Campinas, Brazil show how wide anime's influence has become. And not only are the geographics demonstrative of that, but the demographics as well: it is safe to say that anime culture doesn't exist as an independent entity, but rather as an amalgam of subsets of other entities that anime, so to speak, mated with. Here in Brazil, anime bonds most often with emo culture and card-game nerd culture; many people there weren't dressed up as characters, but nonetheless were seemingly trying to look like vampires or Jack the Ripper, and many people there wore baggy shorts and Monty Python shirts and carried cases filled with their life's work - cards. But to try to divide up the cultures from there would be impossible (I will only mention that there was a booth selling all things medieval - how far from Japanese can you get?); I'm sure that every popular or underground culture is tied to anime somehow. And when I think about anime, it is easy to understand its popularity - although it has innumerable manifestations, there is one uniting subconscious conception of anime that our generation, having grown up at the dawn of anime, is infatuated with. And now my bond with this culture is solidified - I bought a hat there - it's either a green shell or a mushroom from Mario. Yes, I am truly Japanese now.

But let us return, just for a moment, to the topic of Brazil. Shortly before Fanmix (a few hours before, in fact), I went to lunch at a feijoada. Feijoada is a traditional Brazilian meal, composed of meat, beans, rice, and a side. Now Brazilians eat this pretty much every day, but 1) it's better at a feijoada, and 2) it's only legit at a feijoada (kind of like how hot dogs are only legit if they're grilled and eaten on paper plates). Now this feijoada was particularly Brazilian because it had a samba band. Now I know what you're picturing: a bunch of half-naked men and women stirring beans and meat in a bubbling cauldron while dancing to the samba. Although this does happen on a daily basis, it's only with younger people, and they're dancing to the Jonas Brothers instead of samba, and they're fully naked, and there are snakes too. Suffice to say, that wasn't happening here (although there was bingo!), but what I'm getting at here is that about half-way through the mean, I decided to try a caipirinha. Caipirinha is a traditional Brazilian alcoholic drink, so before i continue I'd best cover my ass before a great stone slab falls from the sky and smites me, upon which are hewn the the 4 D's, the first of which (or perhaps the third) is no Drinking. So, to please the beast of formality, I was drinking in a cultural context, with my host family and several rotary members (my counselor was even there). But in any case, I was drinking and was excited to be doing so. I was proud to have my own little plastic cup of yellowish liquid among the many others around the table. Of course, that pride was soon tempered after I took the first drink; I knew from wine that I wasn't fond of alcohol, but every time I try a new drink I hope that it will be more tolerable - that this will be the one, the one I'll be able to actually enjoy from time to time. But caipirinha was not destined to be that drink - it was a bit sweet, fruity perhaps, but retained the bitter-cough-medicine-mixed-with-battery-acid timbre apparently inherent in all alcohol. But it felt so important, like a rite of sorts, and I felt that the rite wouldn't work if I didn't finish it. So I soldiered on, taking a couple bites of rice and beans in between drinks. But perhaps, in my desire to finish, I didn't leave proper intervals between drinks. This was confirmed after my host mother informed me that I should stop because I was going to pass out. Apparently caipirinha is about equivalent to vodka. So, as I was tottering about at Fanmix, I had another revelation: aside from being perfect for old age, I'm also a natural drunk. Now, *ducks to avoid falling slab* I wouldn't say I was drunk, but I certainly couldn't have passed for sober. And in that time, I felt very relaxed and content - exactly the same way, I realized, that I feel whenever I am happy and perfectly myself. I wish I could just totter around all the time, incompetent and content, at ease with those around me and simply enjoying their company. Of course I aspire to be that way all the time... I suppose without the incompetent part, although it is nice.

Alluding to that point on incompetence, it's time I moved to the final topic of discussion: futebol. In the lost post I discuss attending a Brazilian game - now it's time to discuss actually playing the game. Yeah, I've played it at school with my friends, but recently my family (god bless 'em) found me a soccer school. Yes, it is a lot like what it sounds like - you come in three days a week after normal school (which ends at noon in Brazil, mind you), and you have an hour and a half practice. I didn't really expect to do well - I haven't exercised seriously (or played soccer seriously) in a long time, and these were Brazilians to boot. But I have found the whole experience to be incredibly insightful. First of all, I learned that these players are the most difficult people to understand in Brazil. Perhaps my schoolmates know how lingually impaired I am, and thus have learned to modify their speech, but there are few discernible words in what these people say (and, I don't mean to brag, but I've learned to discern quite a few words these days - I am a discerning machine, I don't mind saying, so it makes me suspect I've stumbled upon some pocket of society where speech impediments are at epidemic levels). The second, and more fruitful, area of insight that I've insighted is more generally about their culture. Although there is none (or at least little) of the male posturing that is so common to American sports, there is an obvious air of masculinity - an individualism and simultaneously an expectation to perform that is, of course, fostered by the fact that Brazilians have better skills than us. And why do they have better skills? I think I know that as well - of course I won't reveal the specifics on how to achieve skill effortlessly until I've contacted the MLS and the US patent office. Although Brazilian culture feeds off of their skill, their skill is a direct result of their culture. I'm not talking about the machismo part, I'm talking about the festive part. It seems simplistic, but I truly believe that it is the exuberant partying aspect of Brazilian culture that lends them their talent. The bodily freedom that it affords is the key. What is bodily freedom? Bodily freedom is feeling free with moving all parts of your body, of course. Well doesn't everybody have that? Nope. Americans sure don't. If I asked you to get up from your computers right now and dance a jig and sing a song, would you do it? Or more accurately, would you be able to do it without feeling embarrassed, even if you were alone? Almost everyone would say no, and the people who would are almost always the strange ones - you know the ones I mean. Anyway, this is because of our cultural eschewing of free movement - face it, even when we dance we got no rhythm. And when you're trying to play futebol, you need absolute freedom - of the shoulders, arms, legs, and the hips - for proper technique as well for skill. Of course this freedom also goes the other way - if you remember far enough back, I once discussed how there are more fouls in Brazilian futebol than other styles; there's a basic philosophical/political maxim that says the more freedom you have, the more you are able to infringe upon other people's freedoms. I remember a couple years ago our soccer team had a Haitian on it. Everyone thought he was a bit of a cheap shot - he was far more aggressive than we were used to, and seemed to enjoy tangling up his limbs with yours. But he just came from a culture with more bodily freedom, and that made him harder to play against both in terms of skill and physical contact.

Now, I'm done writing my blog, but there is one more bit of business I must get to. You may remember my introduction to this blog - talking about the idiocy of blogs. Well I just found another reason that blogs are idiots. Apparently, when you save a draft, you have to click on the "edit posts" button to access it. There's no other way! There's no separate section just for drafts. How crazy is that? I mean, how idiotic, how simply moronic is it that when you save a draft, you can't just click a "Drafts" button and find them all? That's how gmail works. I mean really. Anyway, the gist that I am establishing is that I found the so called "lost entry," which was actually cleverly hidden by my fiendish blog. So they are kidnappers as well as murders... their dastardly-ness knows no bounds... Argh! Must... not field... imaginary... questions... from the... audience... gah!... Anyway, I've posted it, and if you want to read it as well as my "summarized" versions above, you are free to. Just consider it like listening to a senile old drunk who insists on telling you the same story twice; I'm not quite to "senile old drunk" yet, but don't worry - I'll get there someday.