Ask the Master of the Extraordinary (cont.) – Maria, Maria

This is the response to a reader’s question that I published yesterday:

Dear Maria,

You’re a carioca, huh?  That’s cool… I guess.  Or something.  Are you going to remind me how marvelous your city is?

What is it with all these Brazilians writing me?  It’s ridiculous.  Where do you people come from and who taught you how to speak “English”?  First they took over Orkut, then they took the Olympics, next thing you know, they’ll be taking things as fundamentally American as the hot dog, steak and beer!  I would be outraged if I were an American!  But I’m not. Frankly, if you brought your bathing suits, your music and your joie de vivre to the US, I wouldn’t complain. Just keep it down while I’m programming!

Anyways, Maria, Maria, Maria…

They’re right, you know.  Your English actually is terrible, horrendous even. I don’t know what you want me to do about it.  You people seem to have this notion that just because I’m the Master of the Extraordinary, I am simply going to be able to solve your insignificant little problems.  Look, I’m not a relationship counselor, or a speech therapist or a witch doctor (not that you’d know if I were…).  The point is I can’t make you learn a language magically.

However, if I were you, I would try to improve my English as quickly as possible: watch tv, read books, “make new friends” (Your boyfriend will understand it’s for the greater good). If you still can’t improve your English, just move back to Brazil. I find it hard to believe that any guy would be able to turn down beach, sun and Brazilian-style fun.

Cordially Yours,

The Master of the Extraordinary

PS Qualquer coisa, esqueça do seu namorado e eu vou para Rio com você.

If you too have another idiotic question for the Master of the Extraordinary, I can be reached at talesofextraordinarysanity@gmail.com.  

- The Master of the Extraordinary

“Help, I dont spik inglish”

This crazy chick sent me a email so long that I’m going to have to wait to respond until tomorrow:

Dear Master of the Extraordinary,

I am called Maria. I have 20 years old and I come from Rio de Janeiro. I am in love with my boyfriend Matt and it’s one year that I habit at New York living with him. I love USA, but everybody makes fun of me and kid about my English. I don’t know what to do. And USA is really a racist place. When I spik with my accent my friends all make jokes about how I pronounce things and words. The life is really hard and I am worried of leaving my love because I don’t like live in USA anymore. Master of Extraordinary, I need your help, your my only hope. How can I make my English better? I want to be free from mistakes and to stay with my boyfriend. I can understand that at the beginning he was in love with my strange way to speak, but now he starts to be worried and annoyed of my way to speak and write. I embarrass him. Yesterday I was at a Mc Donalds and it took me 5 minutes to order a Cheeseburger because the girl couldn’t understand what I was saying. I went back to the table Matt asked me “why you do cry?” I tryied already everything. Watching movies, reading a lot of books. But nothing, nothing seems to work. In a week we are going to visit Matt’s parents for the first time and her mother doesn’t like me at all. I want to be even with that bitch. She doesn’t like me because she think that I am with Matt only for the green card. Who wants to live in this country with all this mean people. I want to go back in Brazil where my family is, and they love all of us, my and Matt. But Matt doesn’t speak Portuguese. Master of Extraordinary what can I do? You thing there is a solution for me?

A desperate English speaker, Maria.

To be continued…

- The Master of the Extraordinary

So What Exactly is TES?

…continued from This is not a blog.

“But then what are you guys trying to do, Mr. la Cuercha?”

You know… Tales of Extraordinary Sanity is a project that started in a smoky pub in upstate New York.

“But there are no smoky pubs in upstate New York…”

Hey, who’s telling the story here?! As I was saying, Mr. de la Gringa and I were in a smoky pub in the Communist Independent Republic of Upstate New York. It was about two months ago. After a (few) drink(s) we had the brilliant idea of starting a magazine. Since we’re lazy pieces of s**t, we needed a good motivation to keep writing on a regular basis. But how? With a daily magazine, of course! That’s why TES is published every day at 7:00pm – when we don’t lose completely the sense of time watching Spanish, Portuguese and Italian s**t on YouTube. But how is it possible to keep going with a daily publication? I have no idea. But by writing bullshit, with no shame, exactly as I am doing right now with this interview, we have managed to pull it off – so far – even if our imagination wants to divorce us. …she’s asking for the house and child custody.

TES is an honest reflection on those experiences that everybody is familiar with but is just too afraid to talk about, an experiment to push the boundaries of society further. Every article must be on the edge. Every article must be irreverent, aggressive, funny and honest. Why? Because we want to hit that really delicate point, the limit between being comical and being offensive – or just plain crazy. Because that’s where our readers are most ticklish!

- Simone la Cuercha