January 28th, 2008
Milan, Italy

Known.

We've come to the end of the European Portraits series, and with that, I give you the, without a doubt, most intriguing character I met on my trip.

I was walking with ~martasmarta when I noticed him sitting on an office-chair in the corner of a small parkinglot, and told Marta to hang on for a second.

That second turned into half an hour, and after I finally waved her over, it turned into another hour and a half.

The man was named Roye Lee, and was a homeless - or so we thought.

He claimed to be a famous songwriter/composer, had hung out with Frank Sinatra and other old stars, and backed this claim up with highly detailed stories about the people and the situations he had experienced.

He told us he used to be a big name in music, had left the spotlight some time ago, but was now planning a triumphant return with some modern classics he had been working on. He also informed us that he had just returned to Milan from a business-meeting in New York, where he had talked to big producers about this return of his.

Like mentioned earlier, we spent almost two hours mostly listening to this guy, entertaining us with stories about the singers, and even singing us the occasional song, with brief pauses in the lyrics when he had to snort and spit out a loogie.

He claimed to be the most photographed man in Milan, featured in magazines like Vanity Fair, and had his own website with photos and stories. It would, however, be no use trying to write him, for as he told us, all his mail went through his company who sorted out all the non-important letters.

As the sun was setting, I told him we had to go to catch the last light for the photos, and he let me shoot another couple of photos before we were off.

Marta gave him her address (which she seconds later regretted), and we gave him one of four little photos we had taken of ourselves in a photobooth earlier, and told him to have a nice day.

He let us know we made a nice couple, and said goodbye to us with a song.

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Another photo of him

Posing with his website-sign

His website (click 'Le mie foto' to see a photo-gallery)

And finally:

A little talking...

...and a little singing

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Was he telling the truth? I will leave that for you to decide.