WOW!!! Festa Junina at Meio Mundo - Friday, 28 June

[ihpguy]

Wow. Just Wow. It was a great surprise to end up at Meio Mundo last night. After the not-great Tuesday at 117 this week, I wasn't planning to leave the house yesterday. But I have some fears with what my happen on Monday and the general strike. I have some bills that need to be paid on the first of the month and didn't want to run the risk of problems drawing money/saques out of an ATM. So I figured what the hell. Got my business done with no problems. The banks are all still boarded up with pink - so gay - plywood. But they are all still open. It just looks like you are entering a construction site in order to conduct business. Everything else seemed normal. No protests that I could see.

Got to Meio Mundo and I was so happy that I hadn't missed their Festa Junina after all. It was last night and the place was festively decorated. Large cloth with the word ARRAIAL or thatched tent, country music, naked boys square dancing with their cocks and balls flopping around. So many of my favorites were there, it was like choosing from five finalists for Miss America/USA or whatever. If I was TomCal, it definitely would have been me as the main course among five hungry men invited to the Feast of the June Gringo. They had a kissing booth set up. Also, a huge selection of sweets, chocolates and cakes in a buffet. An enormous scrim behind the stage of a Romero Britto artwork with the colorblocks. But these colorblocks were in country-style prints. Loved it.

And the new bartender is spectacular. Quite, quite pretty with a great smile and interesting to find out on a return visit if he is hiring out outside of sauna hours. The toalhiero/towel guy - too old to be a boy, was doing a great job and surprisingly keeping up with all of the customers. And there were so many tht they resorted to using the old locker area which is in that wide corridor.

I still haven't made it up to the fourth floor disco area and discover exactly how it functions. Both Jorge and Acyr were there last night. Out on the floor, shaking hands, talking with the clients, making nice and doignthe kind of stuff that decent business owners should be doing when conducting business. All great!

And I had an incredible programma with Emerson/Marcello from many years ago. I saw in in 2005-2006, before I had my Paulista live-in lover, I forgot how good he was. Just incredible. Ativo liberal. When I first saw him downstairs he was a little flaccid and I thought my memory was playing tricks. I remembered him as having an enormously large and than penis. But upstairs in the bar another favorite of mine was sitting on my other side kind of in competition with him, to see who I would choose. And Marcello wasn't close in the size department. But upstairs it just kept on growing and growing and growing. Longer and thicker. He is not so bulked up as when he did some porn films. He told me with age, he is doing a lot more bike riding every morning. He has to keep the circulation up to keep the blood flowing. That monster needs a lot of blood to grow to full mast.

Needless to say it was definitely a top three session for the year.

Emerson/Marcello - true name - used to have a review at the other site, but it is no longer there. Next time I see him, I'll be sure to take a photo or three.

Here is something from Wikipedia about this very unusual celebration.

Festa Junina (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈfɛstɐ ʒuˈnĩnɐ], June Festival), also known as festa de São João for their part in celebrating the nativity of St. John the Baptist, are the annual Brazilian celebrations historically related to European Midsummer that take place in the beginning of the Brazilian winter. These festivities, which were introduced by the Portuguese during the colonial period (1500-1822), are celebrated during the month of June nationwide both in Brazil and Portugal, but are particularly associated with Northeastern Brazil. The feast is mainly celebrated on the eves of the Catholic solemnities of Saint Anthony, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Peter.

As Northeastern Brazil is largely arid or semi-arid these popular festivals not only coincide with the end of the rainy seasons of most states in the northeast but they also provide the people with an opportunity to give thanks to Saint John for the rain. They also celebrate rural life and feature typical clothing, food, dance (particularly quadrilha, which is similar to square dancing). Like Midsummer and Saint John's Day in Portugal and Scandinavian countries, São João celebrates marital union. The "quadrilha" features couple formations around a mock wedding whose bride and groom are the central attraction of the dancing.

An arraial in Rio Branco, Acre

The celebrations usually take place in an arraial, a huge tent made of raw material (with a thatched roof) that was reserved for special parties in old rural areas. Men dress up as farm boys with large straw hats and women wear pigtails, freckles, painted gap teeth and red-checkered dresses, all in a loving tribute to the origins of Brazilian country music, and of themselves, some of whom are recent immigrants from the countryside to cities such as Olinda, Recife, Maceió and Salvador, and some of whom return to the rural areas during that season to visit family. However, nowadays, São João festivities are extremely popular in all urban areas and among all social classes. In the Northeast, they are as popular as Carnival. Like during Carnival, these festivities involve costume-wearing (in this case, peasant costumes), dancing, drinking, and visual spectacles (fireworks display and folk dancing). Like the original European Midsummer celebrations, during the two-week June festivities in Brazil, bonfires are lit. They can be seen everywhere in northeastern cities. Two northeastern towns in particular have competed with each other for the title of "Biggest São João Festival in the World", namely Caruaru (in the state of Pernambuco), and Campina Grande,in Paraíba state. In fact, Caruaru features in the Guinness Book of World Records for holding the biggest outdoor country festival.

[TampaYankee]

Great to hear about the festival and your renewal with old acquaintances. Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm and experience.

[axiom2001]

Great to hear about the festival and your renewal with old acquaintances. Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm and experience.

Yes, thanks for sharing this. ...found it interesting reading, and I, too, remember Emerson! Am interested to see what he looks like after nine years. -