February 18. Jack's first adventure.

Today Jack got out early, while I was still dreaming of rosabuds and guirlandes on the wall of a monch's refectory, of tulips and waterpipes, of drowsy days spent under semispherical
pink umbrellas, of the Lisbon elevator that takes you up to the sky for only 2€ and the tram that takes you down for much less, of the drug dealers harassing everybody who looks like a
tourist with their cheap Marihuana offers, of the miserable street people gathering food furtively like a bunch of shrewd vixen, of the affluent enjoying their café with flannel pillows
put behind their back, under their butts, supporting their knees, their hips, their shoulders, their ellbows, their ankels and all other ligaments, huge piles of pillows everywhere,
stowed in the heavy space around them, pillows with the goose feathers peeping out and start twirling slowly to the ground.

Jack got out because he wants some action. "What is a stay in
Lisbon" he thinks, "without something happening, I mean, really hap-pe-ning, something unusual like a dog pissing kiwijuice." And Jack has a nose for things. He just goes down to Rossio, the tourist area and walks into a drug dealer. He sniffs his nose and looks the guy straight in the eyes, saying
"Got some coke?"
The guy looks at him and hisses
"Not here. Police."
"Ah!" Jack shouts and points at the poor guy, his hands in an almost majestic pose like the Redeemer on the other side of the Tejo,
"This guy doesn't even have the guts to sell me some decent coke. Keeping it al for himself under his pillow. What are you, a fucking pussy?"
The bystanders gather in a perfect circle around Jack and the poor guy, who starts stuttering and a white spumy stream of saliva glistens in the corners of his mouth like frothed eggwhites.
"What are you?" shouts Jack and he looks at his public. The man is angry now, he does not understand where Jack aims at. Jack aims at his frazzled identity that he identified as the
Achilles' heel he had to put his spear in. The man sees Jack with his eyes turning and a victorious grin on his face.
"You're nothing but a despicable street rat, a scumbag, a bum, a lost case."
The man wipes the foam off his chin and tries to hit Jack with his fist. He misses him. Jack doesn't think about his boredom anymore, he looks at the sky and falls in love with the clouds.
How beautiful they are, how they regained their structure, their hue, all of a sudden the world has dimensions again, dimensions to explore, myriad possibilities of soft clouds, the world was fluffy like goose feathers escaping from flannel pillows that are squeezed under well-fed behinds. Then he laughs and kicks the man between the legs. His shoes have steel fronts. The guy almost loses consciousness. He sinks to the ground and yells like a strangulated kitten. The circle of bystanders is perfect. Jack looks up at the sky again, the clouds sailed now, direction Tejo. Adrenaline is soaring through his veins. How easily does our body secretes that stuff
when engaging in a conflict with other humans. It's almost the same hormonal high as in a deadly animal attack. I'm talking tigers and crocodiles here. Jack wonders. I have to take a note
of this, he thinks, this is bigger than me. Something along the lines of "in human encounters we are more prepared for a deadly fight than in the case of a deadly animal attack. Fear and
vigilance primordial stance of a human being-" It is a conjecture, nothing more, but Jack believes it. Suddenly, a heavy hand grasps his wrist firmly tight. The officer talks fast in Portuguese, he drags Jack along and he is taken to the police vehicle. Neat, modern minivans the Portuguese police has, Jacks observes. Now he can observe! Nice leather seats. He is unable to answer the questions the officers start yelling at him. He keeps shrugging and smiling and looking at the clouds that are almost out of sight now.
"We need your name and id please" an other officer says in English. His voice is echoing between the Pombal-facades. Jack nods his head. They begin. The first page is almost done when the same poor guy that Jack just hit walks up to them and offers his help. His voice was
vibrating.
"Hi my friend, how are you?" says he.
Jack nodded. He is fine. The policemen look at each other and at some goodlooking women that pass.
"You can go now, but the next time we'll arrest you" the officer said to Jack.
"Got it" Jack replies and they walk together, the man he hurt and he.
"Why did you come?" Jack asks with great surprise. "I kicked you right in the balls. I inflicted terrible pains upon thou."
The man walks next to him and seems in a hurry.
"This way" he tells Jack and takes him up a few blocks.
"You wait here." Jack stands in a narrow street and feels happy. All the laundry drying in the February sun, silk and linen and cotton of marvelous bright colors dangling underneath the
window sills. There are blouses, towels, skirts, wunderbras, and many woolen socks. Jack can't believe he is gazing at socks while he ought to be hanging out, having chilled Portwine with
the beautiful women of Lisbon. Why does he not hit on woman? Something is holding him back. The same thing that makes him aggressive towards people who want to sell him drugs. Jack doesn't need anything. Just the seconds, not the stream they constitute. Jack lives his life second by second. That's why he is disconnected to everybody, that's why he starts kicking
other humans. The stream does not matter to him at all. The seconds are his solace, their he seeks the fecundation of his dearest ideas. He tries to hide away in the pulse of time.
I know he's there, and I know he he is lonely and wants to listen to us. I live this life day by day, I understand Jack.The man returns and pushes Jack through a small door. Suddenly he stands in a tiny room with two beds and a smal color tv on a mahagony sideboard from colonial times. In the bed Jack counts two children.
"My family" the man says.
-"Why did you bring me here?" Jack says while uneasily looking at his toes.
"We will have dinner together."
-"Why the hell...?" Jack grunts.
"Ssst, children asleep" the man whispers crossing his wet lips with his dirty forefinger. Jack sees the drool again. Abruptly, he turns to the man and asks
"Did Kamiel send you?"
-"No", the man replies. "Not this time."

I am traveling alone. I buy 10 portions of instant coffee in Pingo Doce for 50 cents, it keeps the ideas flowing. Pingo Doce reminds me of an old friend. It's a sentimental thing. Instant coffee with milk does not taste too bad, while being a cheap form of caffeine intake. I take my computer and write, trying not to care about the result too much. Maybe I have to keep it
all to myself. If it's a struggle and only the result counts, the shiny beads of polished insight. Nobody cares how you get there. If a friendly old man has written poetry all his life and he is invited to a tv show to tell about it, the question will be "what is your best poem?" Only the most lean, brushed-up, only the best are of any value to the interviewer. He says we reduce your life to that one poem which we are gonna absorb so all your value, all the things you are worth will be sucked out of you and into us. Your own life is worthless, we don't give a shit about you. Give us your best poem, give us your best photograph, your best painting, your best composition, all free of charge of course, and we'll digest that and poop it out to fortify the encrusted walls around the nidus of their fat egos.

How are peaceful societies possible? Let's not think about that. Let's just rejoice the freaking miracle. Couchsurfing.com has a 99.8 percent rate of positive references. 99.8 percent of
all couchsurfing experiences are good. It's a high number, and since there are almost one million couchsurfers on the planet, it's a reason to be positive about human nature. We are getting somewhere. Think of Obama. Still, it remains a miracle and I think it should. But we are on our way. Miller's Tropic of Cancer closes: "The sun is setting. I feel this river flowing
through me - its past, its ancient soil, the changing climate. The hills gently girdle it about: its course is fixed."

February 17. Meat and Metaphores.

I want to find my way into the cave underneath us, explore the big hollow caverns that lie below the fundament of our civilization. I want to descend as far as I can, and breath the stale air of the dark grotto that is filled with highly inflammable gasses. The weight of our civilization compresses it and makes it very dangerous down there. Any spark can blow it up, leading to total disaster. Our fundaments stand on fragile grounds. If we become aware of all the absurdities that support our very roots, if we drag them into the light, they'll spark and everything will collapse like, like...like...All of this is nothing but metaphores, graphical comparisons that never touch the thing they are intended to describe. They can never mean it. They never are what they describe. There are only worlds upon worlds of description. When I write a sentence like the one preceeding this one I always get a little nostalgic. I could have been a scholar sucking on those sentences for the rest of my vitality, it's a hard candy.
I wrote about Nietzsche. The multifarious perspectives are central in his work. Each "Will to Power" is a perspective, a self-assuming element of the world. There is nothing except metaphores, nothing except perspectives, nothing except the Will to Power. I like this candy more than Jack does. They have invented libraries to work together with people absent or dead. Sometimes they have amazing things to teach us, we call it nourriture when we read a good book, we could feast on a decent library. But I don't feel like roaming a library at this point in time. I know the books are there in their racks, and they will be standing there long after I'm gone. I don't feel much curiosity for their content. Why not? I could learn something new. But I've already done that for a decade. I'm not hungry now, and I lost my appetite. Probably a digestion problem. I should take a vow or something. Never I will visit a library again before I feel such a strong physiological urge to do so, to gently strike an old book's cover, to caress its stained Bordeaux linen, to turn the grumbled pages, not before the itching need of burying myself in a tall pile of books becomes omnipresent. By the way, you can do the same oath with respect to people. No bonds again, not before several of your inner organs start swelling and craving and shivering and keeping you out of your sleep for countless nights.

February 14.

It is sunny outside but I write inside. Had a great lunch that filled my belly like it hasn't been filled for weeks. All the chemicals that will be involved in the digestion, plus the cafeine intake that I'm used to after a meal make me write like a fertile hen. It's a typical working day again. There are lots of people near the Adamastor, after all it's saturday. I will work until sunset.
There is no internet in the café where I am working so I will have to upload the whole bunch at once tonight. Blots of writing and digital pictures. If they're good enough, they can be digested by readers and they'll shit money on my bank account and from the money I can buy real things like bread, lobster, roastbeef, seaweed soup, Super Bock beer, Vinho Branco, Vinho
Verde, Portuguese cheese, fried chicken stomach. Perhaps I put a little announcement alongside these lines. Make a donation if you want the story to continue. If you want to know how the story will end because that's the amazing thing about it one day she will simply end. useless fuzz.

At night we walked around in Barrio Alto. It is amazing how many people are on those narrow streets, even in February. This city is so lively. I sought a comparison, a sister city with the same allure, but it's not easy. Well, Berlin in the summer, or Barcelona, or Munich in October. But let's cut that. Lisbon is Lisbon, okay?

February 5. At the Docks again.

I went to the docks again, wanted to find out if a crossing is possible in early February. Here's the result: no. The freighters have their European Union regulations with safety measures and every human being on board needs a certification for everything. It would take me months to do the necessary paperwork and besides, I detest it because I'm too dawn romantic. What I want is walk up onto a skipper and he asks me
"what are your skills?"
and I say
"Do you know Hemingway?"
and he says
"Yes, man, welcome on board".


There are yachts of course, but it's not the season, they won't catch the right winds and streams to sail down there. So I stroke through the marine crossing plan (that didn't really hurt me) and went to write some crap in Baixa-Chiado.

There is no other freedom

than being unleashed
pull the leash long enough
pull it like you have to
until you hear in your head
until you hear the leash snap
welcome home:
welcome homeward bound

At night Rui and I took tram 28 it's an old car and it takes you all through the old city with great old views. It's my recommendation for today! They are good people, Rui and Viviane, they also played plays even Fassbinder's Tränen der Petra von Kant. Really enjoyed their hospitality.

February 4. City over the Rainbow.

Famous scene with Streetcar 

The next day, I turned into a tourist. Got up early, same breakfast, same women, same atmosphere. But I met Alicia, a little Chinese woman who was nice to talk to. With her and some other guys we walked up to the castle. If you're visiting Lisbon, you should walk up to the castle first, provided the weather is good. You'll have a great view over downtown Lisbon and the red bridge in the distance.

February 3. At the Docks.

So I woke up in a hostelroom in the upper bed of a bunk bed, pretty girl below me, pretty girls in the other beds, pretty girls everywhere. Went to brush my teeth and have breakfast which two diligent women prepared for all the youngsters. What will they get paid, I thought. The scrambled eggs were good and there was plenty of coffee, Kaffee satt as the Germans say. The weather was nice too, so I went out with Shin who is now already back in Japan, to walk the city and eat some soup and some Pastéis. Lisbon Pastéis is the best, you should try it if you visit the city. It's famous so you'll read it in your guidebook anyway. Shin and I enjoyed the view over the river Tejo - we're at the riverside here, not the seaside. For the seaside, go to Cascais it's only
half an hour by train, there you face the Atlantic. It's almost the westernmost point of continental Europe. Shin was a nice guy with Asian temper. He even agreed to accompany me
to the docks yes the docks I wanted to find out for myself if there are boats crossing the ocean to south America.

Want to cross that water you can't call yourself a world traveler without crossing the water. But the ships said no. Two German marine ships of course had their security (I am a potential
risk and besides they were probably going to Palestine oder Ethiopia or God knows where they have their missions - not to South America). Another ship in the docks was being repaired and laying there till april. That's enough for today, I told Shin, let's eat. So we had dinner in a bar. In the evening I read a book I found at the hostel. I'll recommend it to you: it's Paul Auster's Brooklyn Follies, a novel about pre-september-eleven (you have to mention it) life in New York with a dense plot, told skilled and wittingly. In France, Paul Auster is published by Actes Sud, which prints on a very nice format.

January 28. Lucky in Lisbon

Andre showed me around in his hometown Lisbon. We walked uphill into the Barrio Alto, and he showed me some bars in this lively part of the city. When it became clear that I had no Couchsurfing options open, he very kindly offered me his couch. Relieved of all my worries, I had a very nice evening in a bar with Andre and a girl who was an actress studying a Pirandello play.

Since there was internet, I aired my giddyness in a Facebook-status message "Kamiel is drinking ginger-tea in Lisbon". I found that it sounded somehow exotic. At about eleven, Andre took me home with his black smart-car, curving sharply through the steep cobblestone streets of central Lisbon. Later that night, he went out again. I felt too tired and preferred the couch, on which I fell asleep over a funny Bunuel DVD.

For today, I recommend the poetry of Ann Hatcherly, a Portugese with an English name. Andre had a Portuguese-Spanish bilingual edition. It's beautifully crafted language.

Airplane to Lisbon

There's nothing special about air transportation. I got to the airport way to early, checked in my backpack, except for my netbook which I kept in my cabin luggage, entered the plain after some boys yelled "Portugal!" expressing how fond they where of going to that country. Soon enough, they'll get older and say "I've been everywhere man. Nothing excites me anymore man". Life is boring. In the air I explained one of the boys about my netbook. He'd buy one himself, too.

In Lisbon, it was the usual drill. I took a shuttle bus to the center, checked the internet but was not welcome on no couch, so I walked to the post officed, where I met Andre who was very friendly to show me around, take me to a nice bar, and eventually when all my other options had died, let me sleep on his couch. We met his friend Christa, an actress who was currently preparing a Pirandello play, and drank ginger tea which I announced on facebook. The world is very much connected, they people are very much disconnected. Sorry, I'll stop with that tone now. Perhaps it was because I fell asleep over a Luis Bunuel-movie... It was amazing hospitality and I am very grateful for it.

I discovered new hobby: taking photographs like this one of people on the street and making up stories to fit them. I am fond of this one... I made more photo's available online at picasa. The whole bunch will be uploaded there.