
Why We Are Here
Full Transcript - Episode 1
Donald Trump, Route 66, Bank Robbers, Hobbits and Dengue...
G: Hello and welcome to the very first episode of The Samba Buzz – São Paulo’s first English speaking podcast. Are we the first by the way?
J: Um, I don’t really know about that. I think so. I’m pretty sure.
G: Anyway, my name is Gee…
J: And I am Jay, and we are very, very proud to offer you original content that will hopefully help you with your listening skills and perhaps even entertain you along the way. Each week, what we are planning is to be giving you different topics. We’ll be discussing business, lifestyle, politics, or just plain nonsense, with occasional guests that we invite in to talk about specific themes.
G: So, basically, um, we are here to help you with your listening and we’ll give you a few grammar tips along the way, and hopefully you’ll have a bit of fun with this, and we’ll have a lot of fun with it…and by way of introduction, we’re going to be talking about ourselves, and how we ended up here in Brazil.
J: How did you get here in Brazil, by the way Gee, I’m very curious about that?
G: That is, that is a very long and painful story which… I may share some of it with you, a bit later on.
J: Oh, I thought I was the only one with the painful stories?
G: Well no, that’s what you buy the cream for!
J: Ok.
G: Anyway, um, we’re going to begin with a section we are calling ‘What Caught My Eye’.
J: I like that.
G: And the idea is that it is a light-hearted look at some of the week’s news stories and hopefully it is going to be one of our regular sections here.
J: Ok, here we go.
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G: So, er, Jay, what caught your eye this week?
J: Well it’s kind of funny that you mention it because…er…I’d like to talk…well actually before I introduce the topic, let me go back a little bit. Er, you’ve heard of Route 66 in the United States?
G: Absolutely, yes.
J: Ok, ok, so that’s a famous route. It goes from the East Coast to the West Coast and it’s kind of a way that people can traverse the United States and get to know the people as they really are.
G: But to do it properly, you gotta have the open-top Chevvy with, er, you know, Brigitte Bardot, or actually Marilyn Monroe by your side…
J: Marilyn Monroe would be great or on a motorcycle with maybe the Hell’s Angels next to you.
G: That’s true.
J: That, that would be fun.
G: Easy Rider!
J: Yeah, Easy Rider – all that kind of stuff. I mean there were films made about all this stuff. Anyway what caught my eye was that this week there was, er, a serious bill before the, the legislature in the United States in congress, and they want to propose a name change for this route.
G: You’re kidding me!
J: No, no seriously, it’s not going to be called Route 66 anymore.
G: It’s going to be called Route 69?
J: No. Also not. Do you have any other ideas?
G: Well I wasn’t on the committee but, um, maybe I should apply.
J: They want to call it the Donald J. Trump Highway! Seriously.
G: Oh my God, it would be better off being called Donald Duck.
J: Seriously. I’m not…and some people are so outraged. One guy proposed that, no, let’s not have it be called the Donald J Trump Highway, let’s call it the Route 666 Highway!
G: Yeah, I think that’s very appropriate – complete with horns!
J: Complete with horns.
G: Made out of his hair.
J: So people are outraged. Anyway, er, if they were to, let’s say, change the name, of course you’d have to change all the road signs, and all of the infrastructure, and basically all of the maps would become invalid. Now who do you think would be paying for this?
G: Well hopefully Donald Trump, and then he’d go bankrupt and then we wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore.
J: But of course in Donny’s world it doesn’t work like that and he’s not going to be paying for this. The Republican senators have suggested that they would pay for this. Now how that’s going to happen I have no idea because they don’t have the money for this. Come on, let’s be honest.
G: Hmm.
J: But it’s just a completely absurd proposal.
G: Well that does sound interesting.
J: So, the-the Donald J Trump…now that does bring me with a different question, because I-I believe that if you are in England, ‘Trump’ means something completely different than it does in the United States?
G: Well, it’s, um, it’s not a commonly used word but, um, certainly up until about 50 years ago, or less, maybe, yeah, 40-30 years ago, the word trump actually was, um, a bodily function. It’s to pass wind.
J: To pass wind? Like…
G: To pass wind between…
J: …like, to blow?
G: No, no, it’s to pass wind in a way that requires you to relieve yourself.
J: Oh, so not with your mouth?
G: Not with your mouth, no.
J: Oh, a different way to pass wind?
G: A different way, and a way that doesn’t smell so good, often.
J: Aah, ok, so, so it’s actually more of a verb?
G: It is a verb – to trump – yes.
J: So, to trump. So, imagine what the Queen of England would have been thinking when she decided, oh, Mr Trump is coming to… The president of the United States is a trump!
G: Exactly, yes. Hide the whoopee cushions!
J: She had to have laughed about that.
G: Yes, for sure.
J: Alright, great. What was the piece of news that you had?
G: Well, actually my, my first item here is also from your country, funnily enough. It’s not that your country is crazy or anything else but…
J: No, not at all.
G: This one’s a bit further south, possibly, in Texas.
J: That’s where all the crazies live!
G: It’s about a guy who, um, was getting married on the Saturday, and he decided that he hadn’t bought the ring yet…
J: Oh, that’s not ni...
G: so…um…and he didn’t have the money, so he went and held up a bank. And, basically he got away with some cash and…
J: Ok.
G: …he had it all planned out. He made his getaway. He was on a dirt road, and on the road he threw off all his clothes and threw them out the window of the car…
J: Ok.
G: …so he’s kind of driving along semi-naked at this point and um…
J: But he had to go to a wedding.
G: Well his wedding is the next day, so it’s the day before the wedding. So he’s actually just stolen the cash to get the ring.
J: This was supposed to be for his party – his own bachelor party.
G: So he’s got the cash for the ring, for the wedding the next day…and then he gets a call, and it’s from his fiancée and...
J: Sure, of course.
G: …and his fiancée says – a ‘Look, I’ve just seen you on Facebook. You’re all over Facebook. I’m sure it’s you. You’ve just robbed a bank haven’t you?’ And he says, ‘Well, what makes you think…’, and she says – ‘No, no I’ve seen you on Facebook! I’m sure it’s you – admit it!’ And he says, ‘Well, ok, yes actually it was me, yes.’
J: ‘I robbed a bank and I still love you.’
G: Exactly. And I still love you and I still want to get married, but unfortunately…
J: But she didn’t value his, let’s say, his show of love? She didn’t think it was a good idea?
G: Well actually I’m quite impressed with that extreme that he’s prepared to go to. But um…He, he, anyway, he…she persuaded him to turn himself in.
J: Turn himself in.
G: So he was arrested. He’s going to get tried before a full grand jury.
J: Ok.
G: And apparently the wedding didn’t take place cos the sheriff was asked whether the wedding went ahead and he said – ‘No wedding took place that I know of, and it didn’t happen in my jail.’ And that was his quote.
J: That’s Texas for you.
G: That’s Texas. That’s the United States. That’s why we love it so much!
J: Yeah but…I…we can go into historical reasons but I would actually say that Texas is a very, very different part of the United States.
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G: So what about in Brazil? Was there anything in Brazil that caught your eye this week?
J: Well, funny that you should ask that but I’ve actually got something quite important that I’d like to…er… Usually it’s a bit of fun and games here but this is actually quite important. It came from the American Embassy and it’s of local interest, of course. So, you know, we always try to focus on São Paulo and Brazil in general. Erm, and this is something that the United States Embassy sent me today.
G: Wow. You’re important, you know you’re well connected.
J: Well, I don’t know. I guess I have some connections. I’m not really extremely connected.
G: I’ve never had a letter from the British Embassy, so I mean…
J: I get stuff from them all the time. I don’t know… They even call me by my first name! Anyway, um, what they sent me today is they sent me a health alert. And they’re very worried about Dengue in Brazil for this particular year. And, and let me read this because I don’t want to mince words on this. This is something. Dengue is very serious and it’s something I think everybody out there should be aware of. Er, what they said is – ‘Dengue is an ongoing risk in Brazil. After low numbers of Dengue cases in 2017 and 2018, Brazil has already recorded more cases in 2019, and now they are talking about 2,384,000 cases as of September 11th.’
G: What, for this year?
J: For this year.
G: 2 million cases?
J: Already 2 million cases this year. And they say that’s more than, than occurred in either of those two previous outbreak years. And as we know, Dengue was a big problem last year and the year before. Er, then they continue. ‘Public health officials are particularly concerned because this rise in cases is happening during the dry season, which is now. So this is strange because normally during the dry season the cases go down. Now they’re going up.
G: Yes.
J: So it’s quite concerning. And, and they say that the rates are typically lower in the dry season, and they’re predicting further increases in case numbers as Brazil enters the rainy season. So you’re hearing it first here on The Samba Buzz Podcast – I’m warning you! It’s not a laughing matter – it’s actually quite a serious matter, so be careful. Take care with any kinds of mosquitos or anything like that. Be very, very careful.
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J: Er, so, let me know, Gee – what do you have from Brazil?
G: Um, well my second piece here is, um, actually a bit of analysis done by the Confederação Nacional de Industria here in Brazil.
J: Ooh, that sounds official.
G: Yeah, they actually do their work and um, they’ve been analyzing the effects of Brexit on the Brazilian economy, and what they’ve calculated…
J: On Brazil?
G: …they’ve managed to put some numbers together and they have calculated that the Brexit would cost Brazil US$736 million per year.
J: Well now how is that possible?
G: Well, apparently there’s 11 agreements that there are have in terms of tariff reductions, that sort of thing, and there are 3 areas where the agreement would no longer apply in particular. And one of those is chicken.
J: Chicken?
G: Yes, the exports of chicken will be affected by about…um…I’ve got some numbers here somewhere…
J: So, Sadia, and that kind of stuff. Brazilian… Brazil Foods is going to be affected.
G: Yeah, they won’t be very happy. Chicken would suffer a loss of 30% apparently.
J: Er, that’s no good.
G: Um, and the other two they mention are processed meat, of poultry in general, a fall of 33%, and then...
J: So we might have some unemployed chickens here quite soon?
G: Well, they, they can go and join the headless ones up in Brasilia, no…?
J: Ok, why not?
G: …the ones running the country.
J: There you go. Lovely.
G: So that’s…that’s a possible negative here for Brazil, especially as the economy here, the GDP, is falling a little bit right now.
J: Well I think it’s interesting as far as I know, I haven’t actually heard any calculations about how much Brexit is going to cost Britain. But now, actually in Brazil, we know how much Brexit is going to cost Brazil.
G: That’s because they don’t want you to know how much it’s going to cost Britain because then you might not want to have a Brexit!
J: Ok, well, that makes sense – politically speaking at least.
End of Part 1
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