Song of a generation

Last night I was at the local bar, with some friends. Random talk about a million subjects: work, life, politics, experiences, travelling, girls… past, present and future. We spent a huge part of the time complaining about the surf that has been pretty bad this winter. I must say we were pretty spoiled last winter with consistent swell and good surf conditions. While we were at this the song from Beck, Loser, started to play on the “jukebox” and we looking at each other and I think we all realized the same this was one of those songs we played in loop rewinding our chrome cassettes on our walkmans until the tape was busted. For me it is THE song of our generation, the lyrics don’t make much sense, but Beck is one of those music icons that are misunderstood, we were so to …

This youtube thing now has movies you can see and movies that are not allowed in your country kind of thing… who comes up with this stuff? Well instead of the original video clip I choosen the live performance made available by the Vintage revolution, Enjoy!

“Butane in my veins and I’m out to cut the junkie
With the plastic eyeballs, spray-paint the vegetables
Dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose”

Suit and tie …

I’m always envied (yes they don’t criticize me, it is pure envy! And then maybe not) at meetings because I dress very casual, I’ve attended a number of high profiled meetings wearing me trainers and in the Caribbean I went in with flip-flops even!

This time however, things seem to be changing. I’ve been advised by more than one person to start taking all my “fancy clothes” out of the wardrobe an get them ready for FLAD and the PEW meeting. True  is I don’t really have many of them so it seems that I need to get someone (my friend Susana) to get me geared up for the gig. It will be funny!

Damn am I manning -up?  Wow!

Some new documents are now online:
Agenda of the meeting

Biographies of the invitees

List of experts

PEW meeting + IWC scandal

Last Friday I met with Alex Garcia, an associate of the Varda Group that is organizing the PEW meeting in Lisbon, and I’ve passed from an invited observer to a local coordinator. Nice! The PEW meeting comes in a time where much discussion is abide related to the IWC and I belive it will be interesting, they will also try to congregate the Portuguese NGOs in a room and hopefully engage them into the IWC affairs!

Scandal within the IWC in again on top of the table…
“Apparently” (IFAW and I have been saying this since the IWC meeting in Chile on last July) the Bush Administration is trying to reach a deal with the Japanese to solve all the whaling issue. (We also start the meeting saying other things that turned almost everyone against us but in the end of the meeting many press releases came out saying what we badgering all along!)

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Washington Post story about the attempts to craft a deal
IFAW’s press release on the secret Bush’s administration plan to legitimise Japanese whaling

NGOs are now asking President Obama to cancel all negotiations regarding this “coup d’état”.
Read Greenpeace pledge to President Obama to assert authority and replace officials

I keep saying that this year things will get very interesting, the only down side seems to be me stuffed down on a suit and tie … funny!

Bode “expiatório” …

Em Kwara, um dos 36 estados da Nigéria, a polícia prendeu um bode sob acusação de “suspeita de roubo” à “mão armada”… e esta?

Os agentes da lei detiveram a besta, cuja característica é ser malhada de preto e branco, sob a alegação de que o bode não era um bode; era antes sim, um feiticeiro, um animago! Este tinha-se transformado a si mesmo na figura do praticamente inocente caprino [porque um bode sempre tem alguma culpa em algum cartório...]; enfim, foi uma tentativa sobrenatural de fugir do flagrante de roubo de carro, um modelo Mazda 323… Todavia, os policias e seguranças africanos, que são especialistas em magia negra, agoiros, macumba, engissos, mão olhado. encantamento, feitiçaria, despachos, vodoo, manginga e outras práticas, logo viram que ali tinha marginal em pêlo de mamífero…

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Naquele momento, vigilantes estavam em patrulha e viram elementos suspeitos cercando o veículo. Percebendo o fracasso da operação “puxa carro”, perseguidos, os meliantes puseram-se em fuga: um, escapou; o outro, transformou-se em bode! Foi o que informou o porta-voz da polícia do estado, Tunde Mohamemed em entrevista à reuters, por telefone! [Tem telefone! Claro, em África há telémovel e antena parabólica; não tem é comida, nem escola, nem hospital, nem polícia, terra sem lei, não tem casa de banho, esgoto e água canalizada...].

O oficial disse, ainda, que: “Nós não podemos, ainda, confirmar a identidade entre o bode e o gatuno mas este bode está sob custódia! Não, não temos nenhuma base para informar sobre aspectos místicos da questão. É uma coisa que tem de ser provada cientificamente, se um homem pode tornar-se um bode!” [Vê-se que é uma autoridade séria e capaz. Pergunto-me apenas onde é que o sacana escondeu a arma com que efectuou o crime...]

Logicamente, como se percebe a arregalados olhos vistos que a crença em feitiçarias é amplamente difundida na Nigéria, o país mais populoso do continente Africano. Os moradores da localidade onde se deu o caso do bicho ladrão estão em romaria ao posto da policia local para ver o bode, que tem sido fotografado e até manchete de jornal foi enquanto aguarda o resultado do inquérito confortavelmente refastelado em cima de um fardo de palha.

É o que se pode chamar um verdadeiro bode expiatório!

La mer …

La mer n’apporte que des coups durs et, à l’occasion la chance de se sentir fort. Je ne connais pas beaucoup la mer, mais je sais que c’est comme ça ici. Et je sais aussi combien il est important dans la vie, pa nécessairement d’être fort, mais de se sentir fort, de se mesurer au mains une fois, de se trouver au mains une fois dans les conditions humaines antiques, seul face au rocher aveugle et sourd avec rien que ses main et sa tête pour s’aider…

An Ode to Mariana

I think I told you this before…

Mariana, wherever you seen a cop beating a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Wherever there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me miúda, I’ll be there
Wherever somebody’s struggling for a place to stand
For a decent job or a helping hand
Wherever somebody’s struggling to be free
Look in their eyes, Mariana…
You’ll see me

The beach is alive tonight
Nobody’s fooling nobody as to where it goes
I’m sittin’ down here in the campfire light
Trying to understand my ghosts and sending you this prayer

And if the crisis would solve the whaling issue?

The other day I was talking to my dear friend and Guru, Sidney Holt, about this world economical crisis and if it would have any impact on the whaling scene as we know it. It is almost certain that good faith, politics, conservation policies, and lobbying alone will not turn the tide; the economical aspect of it all will be the decisive feature. As of now we cannot really forecast what will happen, but wondering about it, the fuel prices will fell dramatically, the Japanese whaling industry and hardware is getting old and they been having repeated misfortunes lately. The Oriental Bluebird, the refueling vessel that would go down to the Antarctic lost its registration and Panamá flag and is now registered in Japan requiring more staff and funds etc.

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What would be the decisions of the Japanese to the future, go forward and build the new factory ship, which will drown us on a few more years of negotiations and political battles on the stalemate state that the IWC is at the moment… we don’t know.
What do the Japanese really want of this entire circus, do we even know? It is obvious that most of the reasons they present are total bogus … so what now?

But the question I’m maybe more interested in finding out is what will the Obama Administration do? Will they uphold all the negotiations done by Hogarth? Will they change all of it upside down? It will be interesting to see!

1/3 of life crisis

In less than a month I’ll be 26 years old; and now I start thinking that maybe, just maybe I’ll not life forever.  People that are dear do me have died recently, I burry them, mutter their loss and kept trying to live my life on a good respectful and honorable way.
Before this things happened I would always feel (despise thinking differently) that; yes this stuff happen but it will never strike my core friends or family. Now I put my own end of life into perspective.  My Father was 68 years old when he died, I’ll be at that same age in about 42 years, seems quite a long time, but 26 have passed and I still don’t realize that now I’m a man (whatever that means), a adult, now I need to make my living, to build something, to keep a shelter, but something is missing.

A MEANING. I don’t know when it happened or how but in some ways I lost the will to live. Don’t know if it was the deceptions I took and gave, the easy life with all I could ask for, the disbelief in my own self, the incredulity, skepticism and mistrust on the world.  Something occurred that is beyond my understanding that led me to a inertia that is winning its way over me almost every day. I keep saying tomorrow it will change, tomorrow I’ll arise, and revolutionize all this, but it never happens.

Myself at a Fire Show in Carreiro de Joannes, Peniche, Portugal :: click by Diana Matoso

I also ask myself. What kind of meaning for my life am I searching for? A wife, a child, all my kindred and lifeline? When I’m not even sure of my ancestry and where I’m coming from. A mix of Celts, Arabs and Romans but I lack the strength of those long gone. Or do I need an aim, an objective that is higher than my own life, something I would be will to die for?

I’m not sure of many things… and I need to accept what I cannot change, and dare to change what I can, and have the courage and strength to surface from this puddle of mud I staked my head into and make a difference. And it will start today!

VI Campeonato Europeu de Jiu-Jitsu

A maior prova de Jiu-Jitsu no velho continente vai-se realizar nos dias 30 e 31 de Janeiro e 1 de Fevereiro.

Da Academica Kombat Team Portugal vão estar a participar o Mestre Andersom Lourenço e o faixa azul João “Cabeça”.

Para se inscreverem, os atletas interessados deverão fazê-lo no site da Confederação Brasileira de Jiu-Jitsu (CBJJ/IBJJF). www.cbjj.com.br

VI Campeonato Europeu de Jiu-Jitsu

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NOTA IMPORTANTE: Os atletas portugueses, ou residentes em Portugal terão que obrigatoriamente estar filiados à Federação portuguesa de Jiu-Jitsu Brasileiro (FPJJB) para poderem participar no Campeonato Europeu, sob pena de a sua inscrição ser devolvida. A filiação já se encontra online.

J’ai n’ai pas encore tout compris …

“C’est l’histoire d’un homme qui tombe d’un immeuble de cinquante étages; le mec au faire la mesure de sa chute il se répète sans cesse pour se rassurer: jusqu’ici tout va bien, jusqu’ici tout va bien, jusqu’ici tout va bien… mais l’important, c’est pas la chute, c’est l’atterrissage.”

Primitive Reason, Some of Us, The Day Will Come