So I was called an asshole...

Oh sorry...Its not like I am teasing on purpose...I just do it. Dont know why...

By the way, what about your accent ?

And yeah...I was eggagerating about Portuguese making me cum. I mean, it is a sexy language, the prettiest I've ever heard...But I need a whole lot more to make me cum.

 

My accent in Portuguese is from Rio...sort of middle-class.

My accent in English is New York and standard. The brazilian shite almost doesn't get in the way.

 

Brazlian shit doesnt get in the way ?
Now thats a shame....

 

Sorry to disappoint you. But I don't have much of an accent at all speaking English. Just...New York. Been here a while.

 

Oh dont worry...I am used to disappointments...
If I may ask, why are you in NY ?

 

long story. lots of misadventures. failed loves. and money-making schemes. but when i was a kid, my father came.

 

Okay.
I am not gonna ask any further....

 

you can. i'm just lazy right now. most always

 

Thats okay. I dont need any more info....

 

k.

 

Are you in any contact with anyone (friends, family) from Brazil?

 

Yep. My father, stepfather, and sisters...most of my family lives there.

I also have some good friends going all the way back to when I was 9!

 

Cool

I have a burning curiosity about how folks from other countries view Americans as well as the United States in general... sort of my own attempt to break the constraints of ignorance created by an educational and home brewed information structure that bases the manner of informing people on some fundamentally false assumptions. Of course this post is helping to veer your thread off topic

 

Veer away, stinkfoot. Be my guest.

There are certain things concerning my cutural background that are beyond revision:

1) Americans appear to me to be phobic about personal boundaries. I'd think boundaries essential in all human interaction, but so long as they remain dynamic;

2) Similarly, I notice an excess of bureaucratic rules and micro-managing in anything from education, to social norms, to the use of public space;

3) Politically, both conservative puritanism and liberalism are foreign to me. Talking to an american liberal immediately opens a vacuous chasm between us, and sends butterflies fluttering in my stomach like the feeling you would get from arriving at a foreign country for the first time. And realizing everyone around you speaks a language you're not privvy to.

The reason why is because Brazil has had a very state-based political culture for a while. I'm used to thinking politically in terms of the systemic, not in terms of individual moral reponsibility or appealing to people's hearts;

4) Finally, in terms of being accepted as being dressed well-enough, being "successful", or projecting status, or possessing social skills, I feel like I can't win. Here, I am perfectly marginal and an outsider.

All that being said, I don't think the U.S. is one thing, or that it's inherently evil or worse or better.

 

This is probably exaggerated in a city but I think you're quite observant here. The human animal is territorial and the dense urban distribution violates this and people go to more effort to avoid any sort of contact

Yup. When the right people demand action against what is a trivial issue rule are made- and they accumulate. Parenting- at least GOOD parenting is becoming a lost art and increasingly people are emerging into adulthood without basic respect for other people and common spaces. Eager beaurocrats enact rules to placate a vocal few who seem to make it their business to be offended by the slightest infractions... these are the same people who sit in on board of education and town meetings- and they happen to vote- so they are heard and heeded.

The joke is on us here... there ain't shit for difference between the two since the same policies spew out more or less- the language differs though. The political wrangling as is seen in the presidential campaigns is little more than a puppet show put on for the purpose of reinforcing the illusion that a candidate actually represents real change and is an alternative... but the truth is that none of them differ all that much. You can be encouraged to know that the language that you're not privy to is utter nonsense anyway- although there are enough brain-dead voters lapping it up as the gospel truth that we will see it again and again.

In other words, a political culture that makes more sense than theater

Being an outsider is a good thing, trust me. There's a significant chance that within the next decade, the economic system here will collapse and the infrastructure will no longer be able to support the population. Because people have willfully let the system do their thinking for then and gradually, but forcefully created a system that serves an elite few at the expense of so many, they will get what they have coming to them. As a whole, we have become a culture of children afflicted with the disease of presumed entitlement. You can apply that last bit to the woman who called you a grimey motherfucker because you avoided her. She apparently felt entitled.

 

Thanks for your post, stinkfoot. Interesting, but probably too kind.

I definitely had my head shaking in agreement when reading your comments on electoral politics, bureaucrats hired to pass and enforce superfluous, nit-picking rules, etc.

I think when it comes to the urban issue, it reflects a competing motivation in human beings. Historically, the city is where we thrived. But you're right...Being encompassed by constant movement and compressed into dense, shared space, the human animal adapts by ignoring much (the Parisian "blase", the New York "don't give a fuck", etc.), and learning how to set boundaries.

In fact, Rio de Janeiro, where I grew up, is also one of the densest urban areas in the world. And we also have a "carefree" culture which equates very nicely with the "blase."

Again, that to me doesn't seem a problem in itself. The problem with boundaries is their rigidity. Rigidity also implies lack of concern for what is shared.

Are you a New Deal nostalgic like me? The dollar can't sustain itself on speculative value for ever, I'm sure you know. But these people don't care.

But making sure I'm thinking dialectically, I'd say there are advantages to all of the items I've listed as foreign. As is the case with every immigrant, I pick and choose what works for me.

And I've recently come to terms with the fact that my personal space was constantly violated in childhood (not talking about abuse) by family, friends, and sharers of the public space. Catholic culture can be claustrophobic indeed...but living here has made me learn how to set boundaries without eliminating collusion altogether.

Oh, and concerning the girl...I was an asshole. No doubt about it.

 

I was just called pube lice

 

far worse than being called an asshole....

 

I was just called a tubthumping veggielover. haha

 

Iraqi-Persian goth chicks in helicopters...

Whoa some major image overload. My brain could never have thought that one up. Thanks.