A cursory listen to [baile funk] might give you the impression that Rio de Janeiro is one big, happy !@#$%^&* humping utopia, which it is, for a first-class Third World clusterfuck. Carnival is Mardi Gras-St. Patty's-Freaknik-Spring Break- !@#$%^&* Your Town Up After the Big Victory-madness. The national soccer team commands the pitch like the cast of West Side Story. Surfing, samba, white-sand beaches loaded with brown-skinned sex machines. And has anyone met an ugly Brazilian? How about a mopey one? Yeah, me neither. But if you read about the conditions in Rio's favelas--Gestapo-y police tactics, unchecked drug trafficking, preteen death squads, and a mind-boggling homicide rate among people age 15-24-- poppin' that booty suddenly becomes a Thriller dance for the woefully begotten. -- Peter Macia, May 2015