# agita numa boca



## la jeremiada de Jeremías

Again, I leave the *agitar* thread separate because I believe (perhaps erroneously) that the verb with preposition is different enough in meaning.

Here's the lyric:

Meio se maloca / *agita numa boca* / descola uma mutuca / e um papel

--Chico Buarque, "Pivete"

Of the several meanings of *agitar*, I find to shake, to flap, and to excite.  I have no idea which one to read in this case.  

That's where your help comes in!


----------



## Guigo

In the context, it means that the _pivete _went to a place ("boca" or "boca-de-fumo") where marijuana is sold. These places are obviously illegal and generally located inside _favelas_ or slums.

_Meio se maloca_: keeps hiding from cops or foes.
_Agita numa boca_: goes to a boca
_Descola uma mutuca e um papel_: gets a bong


----------



## almufadado

Como os caras na boca-de-fumo devem estar em tensão/nervosos por causa dos policiais, e é ilegal comprar droga ... o cara devia ir agitado, is the sense of "nervous", "tense", and stired it up.

[...]Come on and _stir_ it _up_: little darlin, _stir_ it _up_. o-oh! Its been a long, long time, yeah![...]

Bob Marley


----------



## caioguima

Wow... To be able to understand this song by Chico Buarque you really have to be used to brazilian slang.

The song "pivete" is about a "street kid" (I think the best translation for pivete would be a 'kid that lives on the street' although it can be used to mean a ''a kid that does wrong things'' in general).

These verses, specifically, refer to Drug Using.

*Boca*, is used as short for "Boca de Fumo" or, in English, it´s a place (could be in the favelas or not) where one would find access to buying drugs.

*Agitar* does, in fact, mean to shake. But in the slang sense it means to "make something happen". Another example: "Vamos agitar uma festa?" = "Let's throw a party?"

So, knowing this, the phrase *Agita numa boca *would mean that he got his way around to getting access to drugs.

¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

The next verse: "Descola uma mutuca" is even harder to translate. 

*Descolar *in the literal sense means to unglue something off of something. But in the slang sense, it means "to manage to get something that you'd want".  

Example: "Descola uns ingressos do show pra mim?" = "Arranja alguns ingressos do show pra mim?" = "Can you manage get some tickets to the concert for me?"

"Descola uma grana?" = "Me arranja uma grana?" = "Can you manage to get me some money?"


*Mutuca  *in the literal sense means a type of big fly (bug). But in slang it means ''rolled up joint'' (maconha , or marijuana)


So, to sum it up: "Descola uma maconha"  = "He managed to get a rolled up joint"


----------



## caioguima

Keep in mind, that all the verses are missing the Subject of the sentence.

(Ele, pelé) agita numa boca
(Ele, pelé) descola uma mutuca
...

so, the verbs are all in the present tense


----------



## caioguima

Actually Almufadado is wrong about the translation. But it´s comprehensible, because the verb 'agitar' here is used in a very specific brazilian way of saying


----------



## almufadado

Meio se maloca / *agita numa boca* / descola uma mutuca / e um papel

keeps his head down,
While sliding to the dealer
Pops some"mary jane" 
and a "skin".


A bong if an aparatus to smoke marijuana, kind of a tube.


----------



## la jeremiada de Jeremías

ROFL!!!

I'm surprised to find so much happened as I lay sleeping!

This was really a lesson in slang.

I write here my literal impression of what was happening in the song before you all...uh...enLIGHTened me.    I think you'll find it quite comical.

(Pelé, the street urchin has gone up to Morro do Borel, a favela)

He's half delirious
Agita numa boca?
He peels a horse-fly off his face
And a piece of paper (which, in my imagination ignorant of street slang, had flown through the air and stuck to his face!)

So, let me try to get some of this straight.

1.  malucar-se does not mean, in this case, to talk nonsense or to be delirious (the only meaning given in the dictionary), but rather, to hide oneself?

2.  descola uma mutuca = he scores a joint

3.  I don't understand the significance of papel.  You're saying it means "bong" and not "rolling papers"?

I'm too disheartened to try the next verse, although I'm pretty sure a guy named Mané breaks into someone's house, makes a phone call and goes for a ride in someone's car.


----------



## almufadado

la jeremiada de Jeremías said:


> ROFL!!!
> 
> This was really a lesson in slang.



More lessons in drug addicts slang.

"skin" is L.A. slang for a rolling paper, what, reading the lyrics, is meant.

The lyrics are somewhere here 

The story is "pivete" made some money selling stuff to drivers, walks to streets of Rio till he reach Borel where is the "boca", buys some, surely smokes it gets crazy, steals a car a goes heywire and crashes ... he is just a street kid that spends every little is money on drugs !.


----------



## Guigo

Not bong (my fault! ) but _rolling papers_...


----------



## olivinha

caioguima said:


> *Mutuca *in the literal sense means a type of big fly (bug). But in slang it means ''rolled up joint'' (maconha , or marijuana)


Great detailed explanation, Caio!
As far as the term _mutuca_, however, I don't think it translates to _rolled-up joint_ (that would be _baseado_). _Mutuca_ is the little package of pot (_a trouxinha de maconha_) that can amount to several joints.


----------



## olivinha

la jeremiada de Jeremías said:


> 3. I don't understand the significance of papel. You're saying it means "bong" and not "rolling papers"?


Hi, Jeremiada.
Neither, it actually refers to cocaine. In the _boca_, cocaine is sometimes sold in small paper envelopes, or just in folded paper, hence _um papel_.

_Descola uma mutuca e um papel_
That means the boy managed to score some pot and cocaine.


----------



## Guigo

Olivinha is probably right, the only issue that still makes me confused is _papel_; especially if you consider the time the song was writen (around 1980) when cocaine was beginning to become popular among wealthy people and unattainable for its price to the poor people.

I thought originally that _papel _could mean _seda_ (paper to roll the joint).


----------



## olivinha

Guigo said:


> Olivinha is probably right, the only issue that still makes me confused is _papel_; especially if you consider the time the song was writen (around 1980) when cocaine was beginning to become popular among wealthy people and unattainable for its price to the poor people.
> 
> I thought originally that _papel _could mean _seda_ (paper to roll the joint).


You have a point, Guigo, but given the context, he probably wouldn't get any rolling paper from a _boca_. I do think the translation for _paper_ here is cocaine, or the very small dosage of cocaine he could get from a paper (which wouldn't be more than two or three hits, so reasonably affordable). It would also be consistent with the street slang used to describe how the _merchandise_ is sold in the _boca_: the pot in a _mutuca_ and the coke in a _papel_.
Regardless, with this discussion, we could offer Jeremiada two possible translations for _paper_ in a street drug context: it can both refer to _rolling paper_ or a _small dosage of cocaine sold in a _boca_._


----------



## zefirus

Let's be honest.
I have never ever seen people selling rolling papers in a "boca". It surely means a small portion of coke. 
Olivinha has it right.


----------



## almufadado

Papel - dose de cocaína

Malaco - bandido vadio e sem confiança - >Durante os anos oitenta em Portugal ouvia-se muito  "- É muito malaco" = vadio 

Acham mesmo que o "pivete" ganha suficiente para comprar cocaina na "Boca de fumo" (ponto de venda de maconha que sim faz muito fumo)?

A canção data de 1978. Nos anos Oitenta, segundo a ONU, a cocaina chegava a valer 2x o preço do ouro.
[...] May 15, 2007 ·  Recent government estimates admit cocaine's price fell to about $135 per gram — down from the peak prices of the early 1980s, when a pure gram of the drug sold for several hundred dollars.[...]
from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10192766

No entanto, faz sentido !


----------



## Guigo

zefirus said:


> Let's be honest.
> I have never ever seen people selling rolling papers in a "boca". It surely means a small portion of coke.
> Olivinha has it right.


 
The lyrics say _descolar_... it doesn't imply that he bought it but he got it. 

BTW, there's a book about Buarque's lyrics:
_*Chico Buarque, Análise Poético-Musical*_ by Ligia V. CESAR (Editora CODECRI, 1982).

I don't if this book is easy to be found.


----------



## almufadado

Não resisto ! Vou ter que ler a letra em Portugal :

Nos semáforos 
 Ele vende pastilhas elásticas
Deseja o pano de flanela 
E chama-se Pelé 
Pinta a janela 
Luta por uns trocos 
 Aponta uma navalha 
 E até 
 Bebe a chavena com o Carioca (de limão ? de Café ?), olerê 
 Passa a mão pelo Frei Caneca, olará 
 Se comanda na Tijuca (tijela  ?)
vai à colina onde é o Borel 
 A meio se encontra uma maluca (gralha?)
 Agita-lhe a boca 
 Descola uma mutuca (do pé tipo chiclete grudada na sola ? um macaco no nariz ?) 
 E algum dinheiro 
 Sonha com aquela fortuna, olerê 
tábua, vela, olará 
 Dorme gente fina
 Acorda pinel (Amaral _Pinel_ (Vitorino Vitoriano Xavier do). n. f. Era natural de Setúbal, e membro da Academia Problemática ?)


----------



## la jeremiada de Jeremías

Olivinha, thanks for the clarification.  I guess I'm seeing something now that means, "he scores some weed and some coke".  

Guigo, almufadado, zefirus, caio:  thank you all for your help.  Those four little lyric lines really were giving me a headache.  Wikipedia helped me with some of the place names in the song, but without the forums here how could I have known about the street slang?

Cough...cough...by the way, I'm still intrigued by malucar-se as used in the song.  Does it really mean "to hide" in this case?


----------



## zefirus

Chico says MALOCAR (wich comes from maloca, small hut), and it means to hide.
It should not be mistaken with MALUCAR (wich comes from maluco, or crazy)

cheers


----------

