Wednesday, August 24
Irrelevant, but Amusing
A royalist demonstration in Tirana, Albania:
"Then, at greater volume yet, they played the Albanian national anthem, which is as long as a Wagner opera and sounds like the Marine Corps band perfornming the Ring cycle falling down all the stairs in the Washington Monument.
"The royalists were demonstrating on behalf of one Leka Zogu, who thinks he's the king of Albania. He'd just gotten his butt whipped (80 percent of all voters said, "jo") in a national referendum on restoring the monarchy. Not that Albania ever had a monarchy...
"Leka Zogu's father, Ahmed Zogu, was a putsch artist from the sticks who overthrew what passed for the government in 1924, crowned himself King Zog the First in 1928, pimped the country to Mussolini, and Airedaled it into exile one step of Axis occupation in 1939. Leka was two days old at the time...
"...and the royal himself popped out in one royal beauty of a leisure suit. Leka (in the Albanian language, the definite article is a sufixed u or i, so "Leka Zogu" translates as "Leka the Zog") stood at the microphone like a big geek--six feet eight inches tall, chinless, and bubble-bellied. He mumbled a few words. (His unmajesty's command of Albanian is reported to be sketchy.) Then he booked. Wide guys patted lumpy items under their clothes. All the Benzes tried to turn around at once, creating still worse traffic mayhem, if such a thing is possible."
--P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics, pp. 44-45.
"Then, at greater volume yet, they played the Albanian national anthem, which is as long as a Wagner opera and sounds like the Marine Corps band perfornming the Ring cycle falling down all the stairs in the Washington Monument.
"The royalists were demonstrating on behalf of one Leka Zogu, who thinks he's the king of Albania. He'd just gotten his butt whipped (80 percent of all voters said, "jo") in a national referendum on restoring the monarchy. Not that Albania ever had a monarchy...
"Leka Zogu's father, Ahmed Zogu, was a putsch artist from the sticks who overthrew what passed for the government in 1924, crowned himself King Zog the First in 1928, pimped the country to Mussolini, and Airedaled it into exile one step of Axis occupation in 1939. Leka was two days old at the time...
"...and the royal himself popped out in one royal beauty of a leisure suit. Leka (in the Albanian language, the definite article is a sufixed u or i, so "Leka Zogu" translates as "Leka the Zog") stood at the microphone like a big geek--six feet eight inches tall, chinless, and bubble-bellied. He mumbled a few words. (His unmajesty's command of Albanian is reported to be sketchy.) Then he booked. Wide guys patted lumpy items under their clothes. All the Benzes tried to turn around at once, creating still worse traffic mayhem, if such a thing is possible."
--P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics, pp. 44-45.
![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
