Text By Santiago Fernandez-Stelley Photo By Thiago Da Costa
Oscar Niemeyer, left, with the author in his trunks of shame.After a week on assignment atVice’s spanking new São Paulo office, I headed to Rio de Janeiro with the VBS crew for a day with Brazil’s most famous ass,Watermelon Woman. Pleased with how things had gone thus far, we decided to follow up with a night on the town. It went well enough but by 3 AM, plenty drunk, I left the others at the bar and headed back to the hotel to get some rest.As I walked the 100 yards to our hotel on Copacabana beach, I was besieged by a swarm of prepubescent kids asking for money and cigarettes. Like every city I’ve visited in Latin America, Rio is teeming with these types—aptly referred to in Rio aspiranhitas(baby piranhas)—so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary and I certainly wasn’t concerned for my safety. Actually, I didn’t have any money on me anyway, which I communicated by pulling my pockets inside out and doling out smokes.Eventually the brats left, replaced by a slightly older criminal who wondered if I needed my shoes shined. I waved him off and continued on my way, but he kept pointing at my feet and insisting I make use of his services. I finally stopped to explain that I was wearing sneakers and that sneakers don’t take well to polishing. Which is when I realized:My right leg is covered in liquid human shit, which is dripping from the top of my knee down to the sole of my unshined shoe. The little monsters had set me up for an elaborate, diabolical, and disgusting shoeshine scam.I told the guy to fuck off and turned to leave. As soon as I did, he pulled a gun from his shine kit and stuck it against the back of my head. At least my pants had already been shit for me. That was convenient.So I went with the empty-pocket spiel again. I noticed that two of the urchins from before had returned and were trying to rip a shitty gold ring from my finger. It was a souvenir from my visit to the border of Kazakhstan and China, and its only value was sentimental, so I took it off and handed it over. The team skipped off happy and victorious.A few shit-soaked steps later I was at the hotel. I tracked human pudding all over the carpet, headed up to my room, and spent three hours trying to clean Brazilian street-kid crap off my pants and sneaker. I was scheduled to interview legendary architectOscar Niemeyerthe next day at 9 AM, and my poo-stained jeans were the only decent clothes I’d brought with me from São Paulo. I can live with stains. But there was no masking—or bearing—the stench. I was forced to interview the 101-year-old Mr. Niemeyer in my bathing suit like a total dick, as you can see above. The urchins had taken not only my cheap souvenir ring, but also my dignity.Thanks a lot, Brazil!

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