Flyin’ Down to Rio
So I’m in Rio last week, waiting in the lobby of the Copacabana Palace Hotel to be picked up by my friend (of Tylenol fame). We were going out to dinner at Gero in Ipanema, which is currently ‘the’ italian restaurant in Rio (gawd, I love business trips and expense accounts!). Anyhow, as I’m waiting there, I notice two slightly dumpy, paunch-endowed guys in their late 50s/early 60s waiting for a cab. Let’s call them Shorty and his best bud Tubby. You know the type. The ones with the neon signs floating in the air above their heads flashing “GRINGO! GRINGO!”
Hell, I’m a gringo, but when you’re overseas you sometimes run into folks who make all those stereotypes true. My friend picked me up and we went off to Ipanema to eat. We get to the restaurant and decide to sit at the bar for awhile and await the other fellow who was supposed to meet us. We have a few drinks and a lot of laughs, and who should walk in but my two gringos. The maitre d’ seats them at a table for four, and makes a comment about the two long stemmed roses one of them (Shorty) is carrying. “They’re for the two beautiful ladies who will be joining us” says Shorty, and my heart sinks, for I know that I am soon to be mortified by my, and it pains me to say it, fellow gringos.
My friend and I have another drink, decide the fellow we were waiting for wasn’t coming, and we get seated a few tables away from THEM. I’m facing the door, and he’s facing THEM. He soon gives me a strange look because my jaw has dropped open, as, since I’m looking at the door I can see that their hookers have arrived. We’re talking top-dollar here folks. A blonde and a brunette; the blonde shorter and amply proportioned, the brunette tall, striking, and wearing a mini-skirt that extended all the way down to…well, I guess it went below her waist, but not by much. There was an audible ‘crack’ in the restaurant as every head snapped to take the scene in…the gringos…the hookers.
I just thought, you know, well, ick. Here we are in the swankest place in Rio, and you’re doing this. I really wished I had a camera to record all the boozing and carousing that proceeded to occur; the hookers were no dummies, they were getting these guys sloshed to make the rest of their night more enjoyable…
You ever have one of those moments in your life where you really really REALLY wished that you had the requisite-sized cajones to say something? I had one of those moments the next night, when I got on the plane in Rio to fly back home, and there sat Shorty and Tubby. Lordy-lordy how I wanted to go up to them and ask in a loud voice “So! How was dinner?”
Morality | Mr. Bingley | 
February 3, 2005 9:50 pm
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*in response to a previous comment*
Hi, Mr B! Nice place you got here.
(I’ll refrain from commenting on your declared wish for requisite-sized cajones.)
perhaps had i said “any” cajones that would have been more accurate…
Oh Lordy, don’t I know exactly what you’re talking about. You know what’s even worse than lascivious tourists? It’s guys who’ve lived overseas for years and refuse to learn a lick of the native language, and still carouse and cavort with the putas when they should know better. It’s by no means restricted to Americans, either. I’ve seen Brits and Canadians behaving like boors. There’s a bar in central San José, Costa Rica, (the Del Rey) into which I will not venture for fear of the psychic contamination I will suffer from seeing a grotesquely fat, cigar-chomping, Bermuda-short-and-panama-hat-wearing loudmouth surrounded by desperate-eyed teenagers from Honduras and Guatemala.
Yuck. Just ugh.
Hi David!
yep. i’ve found you can tell the origin of the fat loudmouths by there swimsuits: the americans tend to wear trunks whilst the europeans are in tight (blech) speedos (blech again).
i’ve only been in san josé once, and the bar/putaria i was in was called ‘olympus’ i think. blechblechblech. and the girls were nicaraguënsas.
Great blog title
Frequent commenter on conservative/libertarian blogs Mr. Bingley has just started his own blog, the Coalition of the Swilling. Check it out. He has one story…
Olympus? How did you get dragged in there? Strip joints are even worse than the hooker bars. This is why I steer well clear of downtown San José. Instead, I spent Friday night swigging beer in a very convivial atmosphere in a friend’s newly-opened pub. Much more salubrious (and the pretty girls there won’t want $100 in fake champagne to talk to you).
a business trip, oh 7-8 years ago, and the person i was travelling with liked/sought out those sorts of places. ick. so i really didn’t have much say in the matter; at least i didn’t get the tab.
it was very dark, and i assume very dirty as well. i was afraid of touching the chair i was in, let alone the employees. did i say ick?
a nice pub sounds far more inviting.