The Jedi Mind Trick

Several people have asked me "Who is that guy on the trip with you?"

I met Bobby about a year ago in Austin. Bobby is one of those people that can span the full range from debauchery to enlightened compassion, depending on the mood and needs of the situation. He has had many lifetimes of experiences in his life and has many interesting stories to tell, but those are his stories, and I won't tell them for him. This is one story that involved me.

Bobby and I went to Buzios for two days. Buzios is a beach town a few hours drive from Rio. Buzios has a nice beach, a small compact downtown, and a lot of Brazilian tourists. We spent the day enjoying the beach and the evening in the town center, then went to a popular bar that was a short walk away. Around midnight we walked over to the popular disco in the town called Priviledge. A long line snaked from the front door around the side, and Bobby and I had the same thought: It's not worthwhile to wait in line for an hour to get inside. Maybe we should just go back to the hotel and drift into sleep?

But Bobby asks: Should we try to get in without waiting in that long line? Sure, I answer, if you can.

Bobby walks up to the door man at the front of the line and says "Bobby Costello, writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. We're on the VIP guest list." I don't think the door man speaks English, but he points to a woman with a clipboard and list, and motions for her to go talk to Bobby.

Bobby waits for her to approach, flashes a big smile, and says "Hi, I'm Bobby Costello, I'm a writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. We're on the guest list." He says it slowly, calmly, enunciating each word. She smiles back and starts leafing through the sheets of paper on her clipboard. Bobby continues: "I'm here to do an article for Rolling Stone. You know Rolling Stone?" She says "Costello?", slightly mispronouncing it. He answers "Caw-stell-low. It might be under Bobby." She starts leafing through the papers again, but she's mostly looking at him, not at the papers. He's still smiling at her, eyes big & wide. He says something else, mentioning Rolling Stone again, and gestures with his hands, and she follows his gestures and movements.

She looks down at the clipboard and says "Yes, OK." Then she waves to the door man at the exit to allow us through and motions for us to go in that way, to avoid the line. She hands us entry cards and VIP passes, so we can avoid the line and also don't pay the cover charge. Bobby thanks her, smile still large, as we walk in.

This is called the Jedi Mind Trick because of the Jedi's mythical ability to convince people of things that are patently false. Remember in the first Star Wars movies when Obi-wan says "These are not the droids you are looking for. We can move along." And the stormtrooper lets them move along because, well, he's Obi-wan Kenobi.

The same thing can work many times in real life, if you're confident enough about it. If you are sufficiently convincing then other people will want to believe what you believe, even if there is factual evidence to the contrary. The key to convincing others is to believe it yourself, and project that outward. Bobby's name was not on the guest list, and he doesn't work for Rolling Stone Magazine. But he believed it while it was talking to her, and he manifested that externally. Since he clearly knew he was on the guest list and he knew he wasn't lying, it must be OK to let him in.

Bobby was also using a cultural touchstone. Rolling Stone Magazine is a cross-language meme. I'm not even sure how well she spoke English, and she had probably never read Rolling Stone Magazine, but she knew the name. That name is a meme that carries a whole array of connotations and is the same in any language, and that makes it stronger than an explanation in any one language.

We stayed about 30 minutes, enjoyed ourself, then went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

Rio Pollution & Beauty

Smog & pollution hangs over the city in Rio. At first I just ignore it, but after a few days that becomes harder. I start to feel it in my throat, my eyes, my nose, my body. Did I catch a cold or some infection? It's possible, but I think not. The pollution is entering my body and causing it distress. My eyes weep, my throat is sore, muscles ache, frequent sneezing. My skin is laden with pollution and contaminants.

I've been to other large pollution-ridden cities before and had only minor problems. What will I encounter in Beijing in a few weeks, with it's pollution problems? My eyes are red and aching. White pus seeps from my eyes, and dark bags hang under them. I wake one morning and my right eye is glued shut from the pus which has seeped out of it during the night, then dried and latched the top & bottom eyelashes together. I carefully rinse & pull away the crust in the morning. Lord, deliver me from this purgatory.

Rio also has some of the most lush scenery and beautiful trees that I've seen. Most streets are lined with trees that I haven't seen before, except in movies of jungles or Amazon forests. They have palm trees that grow tall and straight and strong.

Does the pollution someone help the trees grow? Plants need carbon dioxide to grow, perhaps all that pollution contains larger amounts of carbon dioxide to help the plants. It could also help that it never gets too cold in Rio, certainly never freezes. I don't think any of these trees could survive even one winter anywhere in the US, except maybe in LA or Key West.

Rio has a botanical garden that is large and wonderful. It is nicely laid out with organized columns of trees and other plant life. Take a look at the picture on the right. It looks like a fake backdrop, but it is the actual scene behind us as we sit on a bench in the botanical garden. I make you this promise: This photo is untouched, not even color corrected.

The Disney Favela Tour

Favelas are slums in Rio and other parts of Brazil. Slums in America usually started as government-sponsored low income housing, but many of the Favelas in Brazil started as squatters camps and grew organically from there. They've grown quite a bit from the origin and they now have roads and many other services.

The favalas are controlled by various drug dealers who function as an organized crime syndicate and they keep the peace in the favelas. Many tour companies in Rio offer group tours of one or more of the favelas, in which they've made some kind of agreement with the local drug militia to allow them to take the tour group through certain parts of the favela.

The favela tour that we took was no more dangerous than the Jungle Cruise ride in Disneyworld.

I have no doubt that there are dangerous parts of the favelas, and dangerous things that happen there. If you've never seen it, you should watch the movie "City of God", which is based on a true story about one boy growing up in an infamous Rio favela during turf wars between rival drug wars in the 1970's and 1980's.

But that was not what we saw on this tour. Our tour guide seemed more scared of the favelas than we were. On the ride from the hotel towards the favela he kept talking up the danger they same way the tour guide on the Jungle Cruise talks up the danger of the mechanical hippopotamuses. "Watch out! You never know when they might charge!" We drove in through a well-paved, well-maintained road to an area where they had street vendors setup to hawk tchotchkes to the tourists. You could tell that it was lower income than other parts of Rio, but most of the buildings were properly constructed, with running water, electricity, phone and cable TV. About the oddest thing we saw here was some guy drive by slowly in a car with ice chests in the rear seat with fish in them, selling fish along the road.

After wasting our time here, they drove us to a different part of the favela where there was a day school setup for children, that the tour company helped sponsor. The school had been sponsored by an family from Italy that lived next door, who worked for the Italian airline office in Rio. I have trouble believing that an Italian expat would live with his family in a dangerous area.

They also took us to an apartment building that had a rooftop with a nice view over the favela. The apartments had been built by a large extended family that worked hard together, and were an example of the rising middle class in the favelas.

I could go on with other examples that they had shown us but there isn't much point. They wanted to show us, with pride, how the favelas had become more normal, more middle class, how they were continuing to grow and develop. That's wonderful, and I'm happy for them, but that's not interesting or worthwhile for us to see on vacation.

We saw this same cycle repeated in other interactions while in Rio. Some people would claim that certain areas or activities were dangerous, and they would never themselves go there. But some other people, even middle class people, would happily go there often without a second thought. At the 4-star hotel we stayed at for part of the time in Rio I happened to ask the one desk clerk about funk dance parties in Rio, which I had heard about. She happily recommended one in a dance club and said how much she enjoys that one, and that she goes often. The other desk clerk standing next to her interrupted the conversation: That place was dangerous, and he would never go there, and he didn't think she should be recommending it to anyone. He said that place was in an old run-down building that wasn't clean. She sheepishly warned me that it wasn't a clean, modern club, but it was clear that to her that was part of the fun and the attraction.

Rio Arrival

Riding through Rio, into Ipanema, I immediately notice the large amount of greenery throughout the city. Tropical trees line the streets. This type of trees couldn't exist in Austin, and probably not in most places in the US. These tropical trees couldn't stand the cold winters. But, Oh, they look nice.

After checking in at the hotel (really, a backpacker's hostel), we walk the 1 1/2 blocks to the beach. It's still 10am. It's beautiful. I've been in big cities before, and I've been on nice beaches before, but I've never been in a downtown city that adjoins a nice beach. We strip down to swimsuits and go in the water. It isn't even cold. The large waves crash over us, playfully tossing us around.

We decide to walk down the beach towards a large rock outcropping. Is Copacabana this way? I'm not sure. People play volleyball & soccer on the beach. The sand is squeeky clean. It's not only very clean, and it actually makes a squeeking noise when you walk in it.

This is the best first morning I've ever spent travelling. I can see why people never want to leave Rio.

Walk inland a few blocks, and back in the direction of the hotel. Stop along the way for breakfast. A salmon burger and a banana & granola smoothie. We notice people eating what looks like a big bowl of poo. Now, I know it's not poo, and it doesn't look exactly like it, but I don't know how else to describe it. So Bobby asks them what it is, and they say it's Acai (pronounced assa-ee, accent on the ee). Some kind of local fruit which is frozen immediately when they pick it, to prevent spoiling, then sold in a cup or a bowl as a healthy smoothie that you eat with a spoon. I try it, and it's quite good. Acai quickly becomes a part of every street meal for me.


The next day we sleep in late, then go on a long meandering walk before choosing a place for breakfast. Bobby isn't feeling well when we return, so I go alone for a swim and a walk on the beach.

Women here are no more beautiful on average than women in the states. I make a point of saying this because everyone says how beautiful Brazilian women are. There are beautiful women here, but the range and spread seems about the same as in the US.

People here do seem to be better than Americans, on average, about their overall health. Is it because of the relative cost of junk food vs healthy food here? Or maybe because more of their bodies are exposed, becaue of lighter clothes & warmer weather? Or is it just cultural habits that tend to promote healthier living and eating? The cause is unclear, but the effect is that there are fewer obese or overweight people here than in the states.

Most people here don't smile as they're walking on the street. From what we can tell most of them have a slight frown. But it isn't all of them. The large percentage of people here are poor, by our standards. The small percentage of people we see on the streets are idle and rich, and they seem to be smiling. (They may not be rich by our standards, but they are rich enough for down here). The rich people we see & meet on the streets seem to be the semi-adult children of richer families, who like living the beach lifestyle.

Several people we meet here, in discussions with them about Rio, make a comment about how hard it is to make a living here. It's hard to find good jobs they say, and yet it's expensive. Rio is suprisingly expensive. Prices are almost the same as in the states, in most restaurants, bars & stores. For the few people who have are from rich families or have real international/professional jobs here, they can live a good life. But the majority of people probably have a hard time making a living. They seem reasonably happy & healthy, and they don't seem to work that hard.

Where has the day gone? We slept in late, took three hours to get breakfast, then I went for a swim & walk on the beach, then went to get a late lunch. It's now 5pm and I haven't done anything, but I have enjoyed every moment.

(pictures to follow)