Touch me. Touch me like you didn't touch me last night.

pensylvania_joe

Thursday, 8:27am. The Wise Owl Cafe, Walter Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

I like this library. It’s really just a science and law library. Not much in the way of real books. But it does go down into several layers of stacks. And there is a door, marked “Staff Only” that leads to the occult section. Between that and the Rare Books Room, there’s some actual value to this place book wise. But more importantly, it has a cafe. A place for coffee. And for cookies.

Right now, I have both. I’m not eating or drinking though. I’m a little bit in shock.

You see, I sat down to enjoy my cookie and drink my coffee. I was all set to do that. Then this guy sat down across from me. He’s got a little goatee that curls up at the bottom, is wearing glasses that are just a pair of sqaure like lenses connected by wire somehow sitting on his nose, and is wearing a smoking jacket, pajama pants, and slippers. His hands are in fingerless gloves that look both like they are hand knit and like they’ve seen better days.

Do this: Search google for “newspaper bonus tire tree” and read first webpage

Write: What works

Fifteen Minute Maximum Writing Time, No Editing While Writing.

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spasmsproject

   God bless Constantine “Taki” Iatropoulos. He was a mad bastard, but we loved him.

    Taki had run a lot of eating establishments in his life, from a high-end establishment in New York that used to have people like Zoot Sims and Dean Martin as regular guests, to a Weenie Wagon on the streets of Champaign, Illinois.

    Sometimes Sara and I bought hot dogs and polish sausages from him when we walked past, never suspecting that I would spend two and a half insane years working for him.

    He opened his new restaurant in a “cursed” space. In six years, it had seen five restaurants come and go, sometimes for good reason. That didn’t deter Taki, though. Hanging the battered and worn painting that once belonged to Billie Holliday on his wall, hanging a whole bulb of garlic over one of the doorways (“it keeps away the evil eye”), and establishing that the whole joint was a smoking section, he set out to sell saganaki and 50 kinds of hamburgers, souvlaki and lemonade shake-ups, gyros and chocolate cake.

    After about 3 years and some change, a crazy life and two or three packs a day caught up with him. Taki got cancer that spread quickly, through his kidneys and liver. If his doctor hadn’t been negligent, maybe they would have caught it sooner, but maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. After all, he eschewed all treatment, demanding that he’d rather die of cancer than spend years alive but suffering through chemotherapy and radiation on something that couldn’t be cured.

( Anyway, here’s a true story. Only Joe Smith’s name was changed to protect him. Or, rather, ‘cause I can’t remember his real name. )