O Rei

"Life's like a mayonnaise soda" - Lou Reed

   Lisbon is truly a lovely city. Portugal is truly a lovely country. But like all cities and all countries, there's a lot of weird shit.

There's a guy who almost everyday stands in the square below my window. He calls himself, "The King of Portugal". He stands near the statue of Camoes, the great Portuguese poet, and like a snake handler on acid, shouts and screams to everyone around. What exactly he rants about, I'm not totally sure ? Much of it is of a political nature, for example stating that he is the king of Portugal (there is no longer any royalty here). Much of it seems aggressive and most people think that he's totally fucking nuts. Schizophrenic perhaps or an extreme alcoholic.Maybe he just doesn't give a fuck. What if he's totally sane and he just doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks about him ? People generally don't like things that make them uncomfortable, okay maybe masochists and homophobes do, but do they count for much ?