Dweezy & Trazzler "City Flavor" & NoH8 : Tastes Like Rio All Over Again

Oi, Keepin' It Rio faithful. Hope you are guys are all in for another Trazzler treat.

The cidade maravilhosa has yet again inspired a writing contest entry for the twitter-esque travel website, Trazzler. Their February contest,"City Flavor" has five categories, meaning you could enter five separate trips.

I scribbled up a trip about Santa Monica Art Museum for their "Neighborhood Spots" category & recalled a recent SF excursion to Grubstake grubbary for the "Only in SF" category.

For the "LGBT Icons" my mind turned back to Fall 2008, in Rio. Without any further rambling, I give you my latest Rio entry:


If you can find a moment, I would love it if you Wishlisted (Trazzler's form of voting) my "trip". All you need to do is slap that little green button that says "save" & follow the instructions (which include either creating a free Trazzler account or signing in through Facebook).

Merely slap the green button that says "SAVE" beneath the photo to wishlist/vote for my entry.
(Overly explained instructions appear below):

Step 1. Hit the green button "Save" beneath the photo.
- estimated time: .5-2 seconds

Step 2. Either press Sign In (for Facebook or Trazzler users) or Sign Up to create a Trazzler account.
- estimated time: .5-2 seconds









Step 3. Enter your Facebook or Trazzler login (or if you are already logged into Facebook, just proceed)
Estimated time: 5-45 seconds

And yer done!

Don't worry, you aren't going to be spammed (errr) or charged anything.

I have the chance to win 700 bucks, and a trip to SF if I end March atop the "LGBT Icons People's Choice" standings.

If I finish atop the podium I will be donating half of that dough ($350) to the NoH8 campaign:


In other words, it's an art-based effort to end the hate in the state where I reside. Which would make California, and any other place a much more pleasant one.


Thanks a billion, happy Trazzling and much love.

Vasco Para Vida.

San Fransisco Food—> http://ow.ly/1dwZZ Rio Parade —> http://ow.ly/1dx0X Santa Monica Art —> http://ow.ly/1dx1p

Trazzler: Rio, Is What Has Been Kept

In what has been a serious period of suadade for me, I have managed to mangle a couple of Brazilian Trazzler stories aka mini-travel-poems for your Keepin It Rio Blog obsessed eyes.

Expect more of this sort of writing in the future, thanks to the contract that the Keepin It Rio nation helped me win over at Trazzler with their NYCGO contest.

Below are my quick musings on Rio's greatest two gifts to the world: Baile Funk & Vasco De Gama

For more of Dweezy's Trazzler Tales:

Muito Obrigado, enjoy:

Congrats Cariocas: Olympics Headed to Rio (Yes We Créu)

I read Michelle Malkin's blog.

Not because I'm looking for any sort of political guidance but because it helps me stay balanced. Too much of the lefty and not any use of the righty makes my forearm muscles too big on one side.

Nasty jokes aside, I want to congratulate Rio for getting their game on with winning the 2016 Olympic bid. Yes, another reason for me to have an excuse to return to the Marv City in addition to the 2014 World cup.

But this recent post by Malkin, only touches on the tip of the sugar loaf.

What's really funny about "Yes We Créu" isn't merely the Obama word-play but the sex at play here.

Admittedly, if there are two things Rio is known for it's probably sex and violence. Which is why I notified the twitterverse of the more known usage of Créu. Soon, my Brazilian homie ReTweeted the message as seen here:



Yes, I am saying that there is a much larger and more plentiful pun going on right beneath the noses of anyone outside of Rio. Créu does literally mean something like "believe" or "can" or "do," however it also means exactly what "do" also means here in the U.S. — to bang.

Not getting the picture?

What about sexify, pork, grind, plug, slam, slide, push or almost all other verbs, any clearer? To "do" someone means to have sex.

So...more vulgarly..."Yes we Créu" can loosely be translated in plain-speak as "Yes we f•ck."

There. Now let's all enjoy Rio's win like we enjoy their insistence on always using the Sugar Loaf at every moment possible — even their winning Olympic logo (see Pelé's pin above)

See you in 2016 (and 2014 and probably sooner than that too).

I leave with MC Créu & accompanying booty, Rio's finest:

Keep In Rio: Southern Utah Press Style

On this, the day of the Trazzler final judgment, I give you — Keepin It Rio's first appearance in that archaic, rough, dirty-up-ya-fingers, form of media — newspaper.

+

In true, um, Brazilian-style — this wasn't printed until the day after the contest voting ended (Sept. 15).

Imagine the untapped potential of the dozens of literate Southern Utahans...a few of which, surely have the ability to use a computer.

I hope, within the next few hours, it is THEIR spirit that forces the Trazzler judges hands towards selecting my trip.

Good morning and good luck.

Travel Channel: Keepin It Phony

Travel Channel — how can you be so bad and so good all at once?

You give the Hunter S. Thompson of Food a platform (Bourdain's No Reservations) and then you barf up this.

Brace yourself folks. Below is the actual description of the shows first episode — taken directly from the press release sent to us:

Riku and Tunna, the two Finns behind the madness, begin their journey in Brazil where they encounter dangers I personally wouldn't dare to face. The episode starts with Riku in a medical chair getting his bicep sliced open with a scalpel. What for? A diamond of course! He gets a diamond sewn under his skin in case he gets robbed and needs cash fast.

This precaution makes more sense once they reach their first destination: a shanty-town (Rocinha Favela) run by gang members. The murder rate in this town is significantly higher than Rio's, which has one of the highest crime rates worldwide. A lot of criminals move to the shanty town to get lost after leaving prison. Riku and Tunna get up-close-and-personal with one of the gang members and his guns.

They have got to be joking...

Unfortunately, prior to this post, the preview of the show has been removed from YouTube.

It was probably because of the dozens of comments pointing out whatever false location the show was calling Rocinha.

I spent around a dozen Funk fueled nights scurrying up and down the morro of the most populated favela in Rio and, no, that certainly doesn't appear familiar. I'm no favela expert but I do also recall every single person (Brasilero or not) being accosted by rifled minions whenever even seeming to take a picture with so-much as a cell phone — much less a video camera.

Aside from Diplo's 'Favela On Blast', which doesn't even show too much visually, you will be hard pressed to find quality favela footage.

In addition to the obvious cultural clusterfuckery this show is about to induce upon the places it visits, I wonder about the legal ramifications of lying about the place you are claiming to be shooting from.

Of course, I refuse to actually tell you what day the show will start. If you really wanna see it you will have to figure it out by means other than those of my words.

Travel Channel stays losing.

Tony may wanna jump ship before it's too late.

Trazzler Halftime: The Push for 1,000 Slothy Wishlists

Welp.

We are at the midway point in the Trazzler.com #NYCGO writing contest. It has been a lot mo' fun and exciting than people woulda predicted. From the jump, I've been all sorts of active about getting the word out and it seems like a few dozen of the 204 semifinalists did the same. The efforts have livened the experience up for everyone involved.

I don't readily toot my own horn but in this case I'll break for a squeeze.

For one, my idea to donate some of the winnings to charity has caught on almost as rapidly as the wildfires burning my current So-Cal surroundings. Initially, I felt a tad robbed but charity is still charity and I would rather the winner donate a portion of their winnings to positive cause — especially one having to do with their Trazzler trip. After all, the writers owe as much to the places they visited as they do to their writing abilities. It's also true that most of my fellow competitors have only been complimentary instead of malicious.

I've been impressed with my supporters' drive to hustle votes and clicks for my lil' writing tidbit. Some get pretty excited and I have to be wary to warn cats not to flirt with their five-per-IP address limits by allowing votes from their friends and family. Visions of mid-party music halts aimed at convincing everyone in the room to log onto Facebook and send a vote the sloth direction plague my mind.

Still, aside from a few techno-tards who can't seem to follow the simplest of steps (albeit the voting/wishlisting terms take an inkling of explaining) to vote for the trip, all of my efforts have yielded results. The YouTube video should hit 1,000 before the contest is up, my CouchSurfing comrades have represented well, the Twitterverse has been responsive and, of course, the majority of my wishlisters have flooded in from my Facebook contingent.

As the contestants tighten their shoe laces, adjust their shin guards and wait for the second half to begin, a lot could still change. Team SLOTH won't. And to paraphrase Mos Def:

"No Matter How Hard You Sloth, You Can't Stop Us Now."

VOTE NOW BY WISHLISTING THIS TRIP FOLKS!

Let's hit 1,000!

Trazzler Wishlisting Underway: This One's For The Sloths

The word sloth has zig-zagged in and out of this blog since its inception. Eventually both the physical animal and the metaphoric one penetrated my mind state and my writing. All things sloth intensified on February 7th, when I finally had the chance to not only see a sloth but meet one.

Among the many amazing adventures that I had in Brazil, that day ended up leaving the thickest mark on my memory of the country.

#24514 Slouching in Slow-Travel, Sloth Style in Caraíva, Brazil

Nothing says “take it easy” like a hug from a sloth. No matter how easy you have been taking it, it’s simple to find yourself past the point of relaxation in Brazil’s cultural dream state of Bahia. True, you may have spent the last few hours or days in a gentle zephyr of milky sand, soothing ocean suds, and soul-cleansing moqueca (seafood stew) in the petite village of Caraíva—but a state of zen is only attained via sloth. Kept as pets by the indigenous Pataxó tribe, these smiley, three-toed mammals accentuate wooden handicraft outposts on the path back towards reality. Need a hug for the road?

When I stumbled upon Trazzler and their #NYCGO writing contest, it was my duty to that day and that animal to try to relay that experience. After considering the total amount of money, the idea of giving back to the experience came naturally.

So, yes, if I win I will donate exactly half ($5,000) of the grand prize to the World Wild Life foundation's Brazil focus. Of course this will help the sloths but it will also help preserve the area around Caraíva and beyond. I think that is only fair. After all, I will be helping to increase tourism to that area just by publicizing it this heavily.

It's sort of part of a bigger eco-friendly tourism reality that travelers and trazzlers alike will have to start realizing sooner or later. The ease of travel increases and the likelihood of too many visitors adversely effecting a place becomes inevitable. I just want to get a head start. Most travelers can't afford big donations, so I would hope, if I win that this one would be for the team.

Today voting (wishlisting) has begun for the Trazzler.com NYCGO writing contest and my trip is in fourth place out of 204.

For the sloth's sake, my sake and your sake, fellow traveler, let's hope I win.

Click here to vote/wishlist for my trip.

Check out the YouTube Video: Vote Sloth



Let's do it live!