A Guest Rant, Greek Style

What a ranting week this has been.  Actor Charlie Sheen revealed to the world that he’s exactly what people assumed, Wiki-Leaker Julian Assange took a big, splashy one all over himself, and mega-designer John Galliano decided to publicly circumcise his career down to mini.

I guess that’s why it didn’t come as such a surprise when a friend of mine from Greece—Athens to be precise—decided to tee off in an email to me on life these days in Greece.  But first, a bit of background:

At the foot of the Acropolis

We are living in interesting times, in the full sense of that Chinese curse: confusing, hard to grasp, and incredibly fluid.  No one seems to know where things are headed, so I take that as an opening for my unsolicited observations. 

Wherever I look there are severe public fiscal crises, virulent demonstrations, and endemic distrust of politicians.  Be it Greece, California, Wisconsin, or [fill in the blank].  And the bitching…complaining is far too weak a word…is endless.  And no place is the current state of the world more in evidence than in the eastern Mediterranean basin.

A street in Athens' Plaka

I can’t imagine anyone seriously lumping the U.S. into the Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, et cetera situations—for though they surely share outraged populaces, the reasons and degrees of dissatisfaction are very different.  But lying as it does just across the sea from those North African countries, Greece faces an unfair tarring by that eastern Mediterranean brush.  Greece is first and foremost a democracy and a member of the European Union, but one that allows what many consider beyond the pale public demonstrations.  Yes, Greece faces more serious challenges than it has in decades, but not to a change in its form of government. 

Against that background let me share my friend’s tale of her day in Athens...

My doctor wanted me to have a cardio-stress test, and referred me to another doctor who worked out of one of Athens’ prominent private hospitals—the sort supposedly offering better care for its patients than public hospitals.  It was raining when I got there and the parking lot was full.  I had to drive around for twenty minutes to find a space then walk a very long distance back to the hospital.  Admittedly, by then I wasn’t in a good mood. 

Not the doctor in the story

Smokers were massed immediately outside the hospital’s main entrance creating a fog of tobacco smoke for all to pass through.  So much for the country’s anti-smoking efforts.  I was directed up to the cardiology area, a place crammed with entire families offering support to their patient family members in a manner and volume reminiscent of a party.  I squeezed past the partiers to get in line.  In Greece, lines such as this often seem to require two employees to wait on one customer.  Why that is I do not know.  But it encourages those with just questions to step in front of everyone else and make the wait for those in line even longer.  Finally, it was my turn. 

Sort of.  The secretary told me I must first pay and handed me an almost illegible photocopy of a form to take downstairs to the cashier...and then come back and wait in line again.  At least she said it with a smile.

I went, but there was no cashier at the cashier station, only broken computers with plugs and wires pulled out.  I asked around and was sent next door to another building to pay.  There I found living, breathing people, but with two serving one and line jumpers asking questions.  Everyone seemed struggling for attention.  That’s when I wrote a SMS to the doctor who’d put me in the middle of all this—and who, by the way, did not give me a receipt for my cash payment of her fee (so much for Greeks paying taxes)—telling her, “I’m out of here.”  I wonder whether the experience itself was intended to be my true stress test?

But wait, there’s more. 

I left the hospital at 1:30 and hurried to the post office to mail a letter to the United States.  Post offices here close at 2 PM, no matter how long you’ve been waiting in line.  I was relieved to find it empty except for one customer and two postal workers. 

The free clerk was sitting in a chair and I asked if he could help me.  He seemed offended at that, and told me to “take a number.”  After my morning at the hospital I actually found what he said funny.  I took number 122.  The display screen read 119.   The clerk sat there doing nothing but watch his colleague wait on the other customer.  Number 120 came up—even though there was no 120 or 121 to serve in the place—and the clerk wandered off to make a joke to a woman in a backroom.  He walked back and sat down in his chair.  Number 121 came up, no one stepped forward but the clerk still did not move.  Finally, 122.  It was now my turn.

Not a Greek postal worker wave.

I walked over and handed him my letter.  He said, “Oh, you need stamps, and I don’t have any.  You’ll have to go to the other line.”  By now there were several people lined up at the other window and it was almost 2 PM.  No way they would let me ahead of them, my being number 122 or not.   The clerk reached to toss my letter over to his co-worker.  I grabbed it and said in English, “Stop, I have stamps!!!” 

Speaking English caught him off guard and he suddenly became more responsive (as if Greeks weren’t deserving of his attention).  He weighed the letter but had to ask his co-worker for the rates to the U.S.  Rather than telling him she took her time handing him a list of international postage charges.  He told me the price.  I stepped aside to let a young Greek man behind me take his turn as I put my stamps on the envelope. 

The poor guy asked for stamps.  He was met with the clerk’s “I have no stamps” line, delivered with a “why would you expect to find stamps in a post office attitude,” as the clerk went back to sitting in his chair. 

Delphi

I burst out laughing, and asked the young man if he wanted to buy stamps from me—and cut out the post office.  He laughed, too.  What else can you do in these times, enduring such everyday struggles for services that most developed countries take as a given.  There is much to love about my country, but my day epitomized what is very wrong with it.

***

Thank you for that front line report from Greece.  Now, back to Charlie Sheen…

Jeff — Saturday

 

Tales of the Piano Bar, Part 2

By popular demand, here is another cabaret story (and cocktail) from Mykonos’ Montparnasse Piano Bar, the Greek Aegean’s own La Cage au Folles, sans dancers.  This is where the ages, races, genders, ethnicities, national origins, and sexual preferences that make up Mykonos’ legendary 24/7 in season lifestyle gather amid other tourists, locals, yachters, Broadway and West End performers, for one hell of a good time—as they have for thirty years.

Ancient archival photograph

The Piano Bar is the creation of Nikos Hristodulakis and Jody Duncan, and they’re behind the bar every night, amassing more stories than O’Henry.  They shared one with us here about a month ago and, as death threats stayed to a minimum, they’re daring to venture out with a second accompanied, of course, by another of their dynamite cocktail recipes.

One word—so to speak—of caution.  There is a punch line word to this story that I never use in my writing.  Not because I dislike it by any means, but because to some its use is offensive and I respect that.  Still, this is not my story and its use is seminal to another’s tale, therefore I cannot bring myself to serve as censor.  However, in fairness to the sensitivity of others, I feel compelled to alert those who may not chose to go further, WARNING “FELINE” AHEAD. 

Montparnasse Piano Bar Tale #2:  “The Sneaky Snake,” as told by a blond Jody leaning over the bar and ignoring the dark-haired Niko (still) making faces behind him.

Mykonos' Little Venice

Each season very talented, some might say offbeat, entertainers stop by the Piano Bar for a surprise guest appearance or two.  And we love it when they do, especially Niko.  It makes him feel normal.  A few years back, we decided to book a duo of “unique” professional entertainers as headliners for a September gig.  George Sanders, the vocalist of the duo, specializes in comedy and most of his songs revolve around characters he created and intricate costumes to match.  His partner, Shawn Curran, can best be described as George’s “accompanist,” but theirs is not a children’s party act and Shawn is not the traditional sort of accompanist.

Their most famous routine, Sneaky Snake, involves a costume capable of concealing Shawn beneath and behind George, for in the midst of George’s delightful vocal performance, Sneaky Snake makes his unexpected appearance through George's until then decidedly open but unnoticed fly—manipulated by none other than Shawn the skillful.  Need I say more?  Of course I must.  Shawn’s Sneaky Snake puppetry involves certain creative hand manipulations in George’s nether regions that still have me laughing every time I think of them.

George, Shawn, and Sneaky

George and Shawn quickly became an established hit on Mykonos.  One night they arrived about an hour before scheduled to go on.  Shawn went to spend the time sitting outside, while George sat at the bar exchanging stories with Niko.  Unbeknownst to any of us, in that brief interlude away from George Shawn found true love, in the angelic form of a three-month old cuddle-bunny of a neighborhood kitten (if you can say that for a kitten).  It was a mutual love affair; so much so that by the time for Shawn to prepare George to go on, kitty was draped across his shoulder sound asleep.

Scene of the assignation

Not wanting to disturb his new amore, sleepy-on-the-shoulder stayed on Shawn as he went inside and set up George in his Sneaky Snake costume.  Now it was time for the act to begin but still kitty snoozed.  Shawn did the only thing he could, he went on with the show, carefully keeping kitty hidden from the audience behind George’s backside.  Once again they brought down the house. 

A star is born

At the conclusion of their act, George and Shawn dismantle their costume in front of the audience to reveal the “secret” of Sneaky Snake’s masterful manipulations.  This time Shawn's shoulder unexpectedly fell under a spotlight, catching an irresistible, golden kitten draped across it.  At that precise moment kitty chose to rouse, yawn, stretch, and return to her place on Shawn’s shoulder.

The applause and cheers for George and Shawn quickly turned to love-smitten awwwwwws for the newest member of their troupe. 

Timing being one of George’s strong suits, he waited until miss kitty and the crowd had reached a state of shared karmic bliss before quipping, “First time I've ever been upstaged by a pussy! And, my God, I actually enjoyed it!”

That’s all folks, but for those still reading, here’s the Sneaky Snake’s favorite Montparnasse Piano Bar cocktail, The Hypnotic Martini:  Mix 1 ½  ounces vodka, 1 ounce Hpnotiq liqueur, and 1 ounce lemon sour mix or sweetened lemon juice together in an ice filled cocktail shaker.   Shake well and strain into a chilled martini glass.  Garnish with a twist of lemon. 

And by the way, here’s the link to George’s and Shawn’s Sneaky Snake Films website…if you dare… http://www.sneakysnakefilms.com/

Enjoy. 

Thanks, guys—and I’ll forward the emails to you. 

Jeff — Saturday

Tails of the Piano Bar

Montparnasse Piano Bar, Mykonos, Greece

Plus Tales.

During tourist season it seems at times that the entire world is on holiday on Mykonos.  Age, race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, or sexual preference makes no difference; that Aegean Greek island is popping for everyone.  But of all the nightspots catering to the myriad sorts contributing to Mykonos' 24/7 in season lifestyle, just one brings everyone together.  For thirty years, tourists, locals, yachters, Broadway and West End performers, have flocked to the Piano Bar, now located amid the narrow lanes of Little Venice as the Quartier Latin-style Montparnasse Piano Bar sitting at the edge of the sea across a bay from Mykonos’ signature windmills.

Little Venice at sunset

Steve Allen and Jane Meadows

It is the Aegean’s “La Cage au Folles,” sans dancers, for here it’s all about cabaret.  And if you think that guest from the audience who did a song or two seemed familiar, you may be right, for between sunset and two in the morning—when everyone’s off to continue the night in the island’s ‘til sunrise clubs and discos—the Piano Bar is a must stop for visiting musical theater folk.

Nikos and Jody, Proprietors

The Piano Bar is the creation of Nikos Hristodulakis and Jody Duncan, and they’re behind the bar every night, amassing more stories than O’Henry.  I’ve been trying for a while to persuade them to share some tales, hopefully the juicier ones.  They’ve agreed to test the waters, so here’s their first one, chased with a recipe for one of their most popular cocktails. 

Montparnasse Piano Bar Tale #1:  “The Red Hot Mama,” as told by a blond Jody leaning over the bar and ignoring the dark-haired Niko making faces behind him.

Mykonos' Grand Diva, Phyllis Pastore

The place was dead.  It emptied out right after Phyllis’ midnight set.  That happens sometimes.  No matter, it will fill up for her one o’clock gig.  Everybody loves her here.  Some say they come to Mykonos “just to see Phyllis.”  And she believes them.  She should, she’s the Grand Diva of the island when it comes to cabaret and loves to accessorize her songs with props­–none more famous than her bright-yellow foam rubber, McGuire sisters’-style wig and trumpet-shape, silver kazoo.  The kazoo is reserved for her nonpareil performance of “Dr. Jazz,” the Dixieland staple written by Joe “King” Oliver in 1926 and covered by such other notables as Jelly Roll Morton and Harry Connick, Jr.—but none with quite the style of our Phyllis.

So, there I am talking to one of the waiters, and thinking about what kind of mischief I could get into to kill time, when he asks if Phyllis is going to do Dr. Jazz in her next set.   That got me to thinking about Dixieland, which led to thoughts of New Orleans, and on to the subject of…Tabasco!

The scene of the crime

Phyllis was outside the front door talking to some fans, so I told the waiter to grab the kazoo from her basket of props in front of the piano.  With one eye on the door I soaked the mouthpiece in Tabasco and had it back in the basket before she was back inside the bar.  Now it was only a matter of time.  I couldn’t wait to see her face.

But as the set wore on no one shouted up a request for Dr. Jazz and Phyllis hadn’t even glanced at the kazoo.  This was not looking good.  How could I get her to sing?  I used the old standby.  Cash.  An anonymous written request accompanied by 500 drachmas to the piano player for Phyllis to perform Dr. Jazz guaranteed that kazoo would soon be heading toward her lips.

By now I couldn’t restrain myself and had shared my brilliant plan with several regulars sitting at the bar [“With me too,” says Niko waving from behind].  To be honest, most were horrified and thought it childish…but if the shoe fits… Besides, even the most critical were fascinated at how Phyllis would respond.  After all, she was Italian.  And not a word of warning went out from the crowd.

So, on went the wig, and out came the lyrics for Dr. Jazz, “Hello Central give me Dr. Jazz…” At the point where the lyrics took a break and the piano player took over, Phyllis did as she always did, told the audience that she wanted to be part of the band and picked up her kazoo.

I’m in stitches, almost convulsions.  Here it comes.  The eruption is about to blow, we’re all going to be dead for sure, but what a way to go….  You guessed it, absolutely nothing happened.  Tepotah.  Phyllis played her kazoo as she always did with not even a twitch of discomfort across her angelic face. 

"Curses, foiled again!"

When she’d finished, she calmly and deliberately put the wig and kazoo away, picked up the microphone and said to the packed house, “When I’m in Mykonos I stay with Jody and Niko.  Well, one of my roommates, no doubt the nasty blond one, must have thought it would be funny to pepper up my kazoo.”  She cleared her throat.  “Would someone please tell him that, yes, it did burn my lips, but there was no way I was going to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.  At least not now.  Please tell the convulsing gentleman behind the bar that, payback will be hell, and he’d best sleep with one eye open for the rest of his practical joking life!”

Good conquers evil

That took place more sleepless years back than I care to remember and I’ve matured since then [please take notice of Niko in the background rolling his eyes], so I wish to make a (Tabasco free) peace offering to our still dear friend and performing star.  For the first time anywhere Niko and I are revealing our “ultra-secret” recipe for Phyllis’ favorite cocktail, the Montparnasse Piano Bar Chocolate Martini.  Ours is clear—not one of those dark and creamy concoctions you find elsewhere—so it passes as a regular martini, but one taste and you’ll never go back to the others.

Montparnasse Piano Bar Tail #1, the Chocolate Martini:

Start with a chilled martini glass and roll the lip in powdered cocoa or chocolate.

Fill a martini pitcher or mixing glass halfway with ice.

Add 3 ounces of Vodka, along with 1 ounce of White Crème de Cacao (both clear spirits).

Stir well and strain into the rimmed martini glass.

Drop in a chocolate covered almond as a final treat at the end, but no fingers allowed, you must drink your way to the bottom. 

Thanks, fellas, see you next month.

Jeff — Saturday

Once Upon A Time...

In these times of post-party depression (no, not those brought on by our respective politicians) as winter wages on from the long end of year holiday season toward a hoped for Valentine’s Day festive break, I thought it might be a good idea to come up with something light and cheery.  Something to get my mind off the horrible tragedy in Tucson and onto Houston, Texas where I head next week to visit my almost four- and almost two- year-old grandkids (and their parents) and find a bit of calm before setting out on a two month book tour.

My idea was to skim (not surf) the Internet in search of inspiration for an upbeat Greek topic.  Something drew me to the official website of Greece’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not a place generally thought of as yielding up light hearted gems, but as fate would have it I landed on the Ministry’s “Greece at a Glance” page and what to my wondering eyes should appear directly above “© 2011 Ministry of Foreign Affairs” but this:

“Over the last decade, Greece has achieved impressive converging trends with the rest of the European Member States.  Real GDP growth outstripped the EU-27 average, unemployment has been declining since 2000, social expenditure has been increasing and life expectancy is among the highest in the EU-27 Member States.”

Eureka!  I had my topic for the week:  Greece and the Fairy Tale.

I expect that most who read Murder is Everywhere have at least a passing familiarity with ancient Greek myths.  Greeks think most of the world does because a few years back they tied their national tourist campaign to the slogan, “Live your Myth in Greece.”  And it is hard to imagine an educated soul in the western world who hasn’t at least heard of Greece’s legends, if not the Iliad, certainly the Odyssey.

Odysseus resisting the Sirens

Countess d'Aulnoy coined "fairy tales"

So, what is a fairy tale anyway?  Their written origins go back thousands of years, and their oral roots thousands more.  Yet, it’s still hard to say what is precisely a fairy tale for as with so many other things in life there is serious academic debate over that seemingly simple question. To make things more complicated the actual name “fairy tale” didn’t exist until the late 17^th Century and at one time much of Tolkien’s work and even Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz would have been considered fairy tales but today are called fantasy.  God bless progress.

As I see it, the stories we grew up with, the ones we always thought of as fairy tales, brought out gnomes, trolls, elves, dwarfs, giants, and that sort of creature, featured magic and sometimes—but far from always—an actual fairy.  Yes, fairies are no more required for fairy tales than reality is for certain economic tales.  But I digress. Back now to Greece’s seminal role in the fairy tale.

Although the Egyptians generally are credited with reducing the first fairy tale to writing in 1300 B.C.E., it was Greece’s own Aesop who brought fame to the genre with his collection of fables in the 6^th Century B.C.E.  And the oral tradition of such tales in Greece goes back thousands of years before then.  That’s not to say other cultures didn’t have similar rich oral traditions.  Indeed it’s striking how so many different societies shared similar stories passing the same bit of wisdom or moral guidance across Europe, China, India, Egypt and elsewhere in Asia and Africa.

Some say the similarities sprung from shared values.  Others claim they spread through tellers and listeners traveling and battling their way to far off places, but if so, for those tales to survive must they still not have rung true to each culture that absorbed them as its own?

Rapunzel today

So, what are examples of these similar tales?  I don’t want to sound Grimm (pained looks noted) but there are many.  For example, if you’re looking for something in the “Let’s rescue the maiden in the tower” vein, you can have the Greek champion shouting “Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa let down your hair,”—yes, that one young maiden had all those names—or go with the snappier “Rapunzel” of the Brothers Grimm version.

1962 movie of 1958 book

Then there’s the one about how sometimes success in life is nothing more than a matter of “being in the right place at the right time.”  The Greeks call their version “Almondseed and Almondella,” but the Grimm Brothers’ went for “Doctor Know-all.”  Just in case neither title seems particularly fetching, doesn’t the Grimm Brother’s moniker at least make you wonder if their version didn’t tickle a homonymic chord in Ian Fleming’s search for a title for perhaps his 007’s most celebrated escapade?

And then there is the most famous fairy tale of all, or at least one of the top five.  Its recorded history goes back to the 1^st Century B.C.E. as the story of the Greco-Egyptian girl, Rhodopolis.  Over ensuing centuries that little Greek girl moved around quite a bit until finally finding a home in Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose tales as Cinderella.

Cinderella's crowning feat

Which reminds me.  I’ve got to start rounding up the mice and get my pumpkin moving. It’s off to Houston in a few days…and off that Foreign Ministry site this very instant.

Jeff — Saturday

And Just When You Least Expect It...

A Revered Monk

Welcome to Vermont

How many of you ever submitted the same paper to different professors in different courses?  Come on, you can 'fess up now.  It’s too late to go on your permanent record card.  Well, even if you never did I’m sure you’ve figured out where I’m headed.  The delightful Beth and David Kanell of Kingdom Books in Waterford, Vermont kindly invited me (through Leighton’s introduction) to do a guest appearance on their blog.  They thought their readers would be interested in how real life experiences gave rise to fictional inspiration.  And, so, with Beth and David’s blessings, I’m sharing the same thoughts with you as originally appeared December 27, 2010 on Kingdombks.blogspot.com.

If you’re open to it, there’s no telling when or where an idea might just sneak up and bite you on your inspiration.  Especially if your writing is situational rather than character driven.  Stephen King, for instance, points to chance encounters as the trigger for many of his ideas—such as one with an abandoned car that led to Christine.  The plot idea for my first Greece-based, Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis novel, Murder in Mykonos, came at the funeral of a close friend in one of Mykonos’ more than a thousand churches, and the epiphany moment for my second, Assassins of Athens, was the passing mention of the ancient Greek practice of ostracism at an Athens theater’s virtual reality journey back in time to Classical Greece. 

Mykonos Harbor

This ain't Mykonos

And for my just published third book, PREY ON PATMOS, An Aegean Prophecy, inspiration came on a balmy early winter morning by the sea as I was having coffee in a harbor café at a table shared with three Mykonians.  The situation was not unusual, it was part of my daily routine, but the table wasn’t in Mykonos, nor by the Aegean Sea, or even in Europe, and I knew only one of the three men around it.  He was a friend on holiday in the U.S. and somehow learned that I was in Orlando visiting my son, so he called and said, “Come to Clearwater Beach for coffee with some Mykonians who moved to Florida.”  As Orlando is not within walking distance of the Gulf of Mexico, it took me a couple of hours to get there, but there I was, at the edge of the water, listening to my buddy bring a father and son pair of émigrés up to speed on all the news from “home.”  

Patmos' Monastery of Saint John the Divine

A Mount Athos Monk

At one point the father asked me what was my favorite island, aside from Mykonos.  I said Patmos, a place I’d been to many times and at one point knew almost as well as Mykonos. In fact, I’d been there for the 1900^th anniversary of Saint John recording the Book of Revelation in a cave on Patmos.  When I mentioned the 1000-year-old monastery that dominated the mountain above Patmos’ harbor, the son said if monasteries were my interest there was no place on earth like Mount Athos, a rugged mountain wildness on a 130-square-mile peninsula about an eight-hour drive north of Athens.  Following a way of life virtually unchanged for 1500 years, hermits utterly withdrawn from secular life living in isolated huts and monks living within massive, fortified monastery walls shared a common commitment to God, prayer, contemplation, and protecting the cherished seclusion of their life in the world’s oldest surviving monastic community.  It was perhaps the last remaining place on earth still using the 2000-year-old Julian calendar.  In the 11^th century, 180 monasteries existed there, but times had changed and today only twenty survived: seventeen Greek, one Russian, one Serbian, and one Bulgarian, each sovereign over their twenty respective self-governing territories.

Mount Athos

Construction cranes in Byzantium

The son spoke of his trips to a half-dozen of Mount Athos’ monasteries.  Access to the peninsula was only available by boat from one of two cities on the adjacent mainland.  He told of the “smelly, stinky bus” that took him from the port to the region’s little and only city.  To reach the monasteries he had to walk for hours along mountain paths.  He said it seemed strange to see so many construction cranes and trailers, but they were necessary.  Some of the monasteries were spending extraordinary sums on restorations; others were not.  All, though, had one thing in common: They were incredible, almost imaginary, castles overlooking the sea, embracing massive churches filled with extraordinary icons—some free-standing and others covering virtually every space on every wall.  There was no electricity, and those that did not have generators, lit their spaces by candlelight.

Gregoriou Monastery

Simonos Petras Monastery

A meal on Mount Athos

At each monastery he’d be greeted with mastiha liqueur, a sweet, and water by a monk assigned to that task.  Most monks would not speak to visitors.  There were two meals each day, generally at ten in the morning and six at night, served on stone tables for twenty to thirty people.  You ate from metal bowls and cups.  There was no meat and little dairy.  The staples of each meal were chick pea soup served in a large metal bowl for the table, olives, bread, apples, onions, red wine, and water, all from Mount Athos.  During dinner one priest would read stories on how life should be led, and another would preach.  The food was good, some exceptional, but the moment the head priest finished eating the room went eerily quiet; at that point dinner was over and it was time to return to prayer, the primary purpose for the lives of the 2000 men who lived on Mount Athos.  There were no women allowed on Mount Athos or men under eighteen years old, and, with rare exception, no female domestic animals.

Prayer on Mount Athos

Services could run for hours.  Mesmerizing chanting in candlelit spaces filled with gray-bearded men in black robes darting their eyes from icon to icon, crossing themselves as they did.  Then it was off to sleep for the visitors in tiny bedrooms filled with not much more than two single beds perpendicular to one another and a scent reminiscent of the bus ride.

Vatopedi Monastery

Putin on Mount Athos

Just about then, the father interrupted his son to make a point about a fraudulent land swap and money-laundering scandal growing out of the 2004 Olympics and involving Mount Athos.  It was the most talked-about subject in Greece and the focus of a nationwide media feeding frenzy dragging in high-ranking government ministers and the abbot of perhaps the most prominent of Mount Athos’ primary monasteries—this one, though, had accommodations equivalent to a five-star luxury hotel and played host to such prominent guests as Prince Charles and George H. W. Bush.

Bingo!  An inspirational fireworks moment, and I spent the next thirty minutes scribbling down ideas for what would become PREY ON PATMOS, An Aegean Prophecy. 

And yes, I picked up the check for the coffee.

Jeff — Saturday