About the Story

Come along with the Raging, Flaming Goat of Samos for a turbulent trip of personal transformation. But beware — things get awfully hot! More about the Wild Cat of Samos… If you search for him you will find a remnant of his kin, the “Kaplani” of Samos, also called the “tiger” of Samos. The legend continues to spread via the internet.


About the Author

Michael Joseph Andrade

I've enjoyed writing for as long as I can remember. One of my first stories I wrote when I was about eight, and was a sci-fi encounter complete with elaborately animated sound-effects. I wrote it in pencil on a piece of beige binder paper, and had to erase and do-over several of the spellings of the sounds to get it just right.

I did my first illustrated story in the fourth grade for an assignment. I was so enthralled with the task of projecting my vision through words, and then again through images that I drew in pencil on newsprint. I was excited to live out my fantasy of riding a BMX bike over a dirt course by creating the story.

The Raging Flaming Goat of Samos is my first published work. I wrote the story to summarize events and conversations that I experienced with my wife and friends while traveling in Greece back in the summer of 2001. We joked and laughed a lot about "TRFGOS" on that trip. I trace the moment of conception of TRFGOS to a conversation that a group of us had while traveling on the island of Samos. Our tour guide responded to a question from the back seat of the car.

"Armand, what's that over there?" queried the tourist, pointing at a lighted-up area on a hill in the distance.

"Why, that's The Raging, Flaming Goat of Samos!" he exclaimed, barely getting the phrase out of his mouth before erupting in laughter.

All of us in the car laughed too, just at the sheer absurdity of it all. Somebody yelled "SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!" like the Monster Truck commercials, and we laughed harder. I added a line from the show that would become Beavis and Butthead-- "$21.95 pays for the whole seat, but you'll only need THE EDGE!"

I guess you had to be there. But it was a great laugh, a great sequence of events. And a book idea was born.

I've been working on a memoir of that same trip to Greece, and I hope for it to be my next book. It's coming along, growing like a tree. One can't rush these things.

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