Last summer I was interviewed by the cable TV show “Visual Crunch” for the HIJK music video “Alibi” (the very first music video I directed, 2008). The show aired tonight, but I was a bit shy to let you know before I actually watched the show myself and see how I looked on it… Well, I looked as fat on it as I’m in real life, not much more, I think. Thankfully, my English panned out pretty well on (the HVX-200) camera too, another one of my fears.

I’d like the thank the band for their kind words though. Meant a lot to me. We’ve already discussed shooting a new music video for their new EP, so I hope we will be shooting soon!

If you’d like to watch the show, here are the re-runs of the specific episode #5. Our segment is on the second part of the show. Check out first if you have access to the MYX channel btw (Channel #368 on Comcast, I believe):

- Feb 19, Friday at 1730 PT/ 2030 ET and 2100PT/ midnight ET
- Feb 20, Saturday at 2000 PT/ 2300 ET
- Feb 22, Monday at 1200 PT/ 1500 ET

This is my mountainous village where I originate from, Skiadas. I lived there from the ages of 2 to 4, and 9 to 12. It’s what I consider home. My father’s house can be seen in the picture too. I can’t believe how easily I was able to run through the climbs to reach other houses when I was a kid. If I would try the same thing today I’d probably die of a heart attack mid-way. My 82 year old grand father doesn’t have a problem with the landscape though, he still pushes through like a teenager. Anyways, I miss my home, I’m just mumbling.

Click picture for a larger view. Picture by Kostas Dimeris

From Wikipedia: Skiadas took that name because the ancient Greek God of the dead, Hades, would sometimes come out of his underworld to seek for some daily light (which its supposed entrance is only a few miles away from Skiadas at the nearby Serziana village — that my mother is from). But because he was sensitive to sun light, he preferred to stay near Skiadas where sun doesn’t shine before 11 AM and there’s lots of shadow (because of a high mountain in front of the village). ‘Skiadas’ means “the shadow of Hades” (in Greek: Σκιά του Άδη).

Skiadas is part of the Souli region, a collection of mountainous and hard-to-reach villages that never succumbed to Turks during the 400 years of Turkish occupation (well, not until a Greek traitor showed the Turks a secret passage). Interestingly, my grand-mother on my father’s side had the same surname as that traitor — a shame that we try to not think too much about in my family.

I had a 3-hour nap yesterday, and during that time I had the weirdest dream ever (although I’m known to have adventurous dreams). I saw some gangs that some of its members were hideous monsters, I saw my mom telling me that the little girl that’s part of one of these gangs was my twin sister that I never knew I had. While trying to free her (with… Adam Lambert’s help), I got chased and I had to swim away and fight the bad guys like a ninja.

By the time I got out of the water, the gang boss, none other than Samuel L. Jackson, took away my mother and my sister and he wouldn’t tell me where they were. Myself and some ex-gang members… tortured him, to no avail. Then, another monster comes in, and told us that Jackson has a secret place in his basement, a labyrinth. To get in and out of there without getting lost, you need to be accompanied by a kid that was a twin (and that was the reason he had kidnapped my supposed twin sister as a baby). I decided to go in.

It was an amazing place, and for the first time in a long time I did not realize that I was dreaming. It felt real. Some of it had places where you fall “up”, some of it had floors that would break apart and re-arrange itself, some of it had corridors with doors that monsters would come out and bite you, and the rest had a lot of stolen art, technology and what not. Even Adam Lambert was stashed there, and couldn’t find the exit. I asked him if he saw my mom and sister, he led me to them, and with my excitement for finding them, I woke up. I guess we’ll never know if I was able to lead these trapped people out.

I had a weird dream this morning (not my first, not my last). I spent the first part of my dream trying to protect a massive octopus, who was apparently a God. He had a book that I kept for him while he was captured by bad humans. There were pictures in it from my genealogy and my village in Greece. I tried not to read its text, but my eye did caught a prophetic verse that was something like this:

10:25 AM to 11:00 AM: Humans are standing up
11:01 AM to 11:04 AM: Humans’ best times
11:05 AM to 11:07 AM: The end of the humans

I felt the need to blog about it, and profess my belief for this octopus God, but at the last moment, my atheist self won out. In fact, my brother could not see him earlier, while I could. I thought that I might be getting crazy, so I gave up to the whole octopus God thing.

I then found myself at my village, between my father’s home and my uncle’s. I was in the middle of the street when I noticed that the sun had become huge, and there was another planet behind it too. It was burning and I could visibly see the fire around it. Suddenly I saw my mother, and I told her to run towards our house to protect ourselves from the solar flares. I tried to find my brother, but there was no time.

Just as we were running towards home, I stopped under a bridge. My mother continued running. I shouted at her to come back, but she continued running. I saw her bursting in flames.

At that point I lost all hope, and I prepared myself for the inevitable. I took some big stones tried to build a quick wall around me, under the bridge. Suddenly, this 40-something guy walks in under the bridge, and unlocks a door that have been there, but couldn’t see before. I followed him in, and there were some stairs, going deep underground.

It became obvious that this was a shelter: there was food, lots of water. Soon, more people arrived. I asked the guy who was he and how did he know about the flares and prepared himself. He said, he was the Octopus God, saving just a few of us. He said that the people that were going to be saved, will instinctively find the door under the bridge.

At this point I started begging him to save my brother. He said that only the chosen ones will be saved. I knew that there was no point arguing about that, so I gave up, and tried to help a few half-burning people that were coming in.

I tried to help a guy lying on the floor, who had been protecting himself with some cloth. I took the cloth away. And it was my brother! He had passed out, but he was not visibly burned. I started shouting at the octopus God to help him!

My heart started pounding fast, and I had trouble breathing seeing my brother lying there not moving. That was when I woke up.

I just heard Madonna’s new single, “Revolver“. It’s a good song, but it’s not as smart as it could have been. Upon listening to it, I immediately imagined it with a cleaner electronic sound, reduced auto-tune, with traditional Chinese singing/sound at places, and even with some hard guitars at some other spots. In other words, I needed a “bigger” tune that the one released, one that’s more complex musically (one that had many genres combined). Same thing as I like TV shows and films to be like.

And this made me think. What’s with me and “bigger”, “grander”, “more”?

Really, this is a problem. Why the hell I can’t be happy with whatever is being made available to me? Why am I after “more”? Is it because most of the available products/art are indeed “cheap/easy” and mediocre? Or is it because I am thinking too much about the whole thing and don’t let life just flow?

Maybe the answer is in both. Truth is, I am difficult to please. And I just can’t change that. I don’t think I will be finding nirvana any time soon.

JBQ: I am sorry I woke you up this morning, I just wanted to kiss you and tell you that I love you before I leave for work.
Eugenia: Oh, I don’t remember waking up, just very faintly… What did I do?
JBQ: You kissed back, and you told me that you love me too.
Eugenia: Hmm… I didn’t call you Eric or anything, did I?
JBQ: No…
Eugenia: Good.
JBQ: …

We got married in a French castle. Lavish and all. I am very grateful to my parents in law who paid and took care for everything. That was really amazing on their part, and I can’t thank them enough!

If I could go back in time though, and if it was my decision alone, I would just do the town-hall wedding, with 5-6 of the most closer-to-us guests and be done with it. I just don’t see the point of expensive weddings. “Γαμο τρικουβερτο” my mother says to describe big weddings. And I ask you, why? Why spend a fortune for such a thing, when you can keep the money and educate your future children in a better college? Or buy a house, or a new car?

Sorry, I just don’t see the big deal over the whole wedding thing. I was never one of these women who dream of their wedding day: I picked my wedding dress within 10 minutes, 1 week before the wedding (because I had just arrived in France). Heck, my mother and my mother in law, present at the store that day, couldn’t make their own minds which wedding dress they wanted for me, rather than ME having such a hard time deciding. I just find all that superficial. What really mattered to me was to find my one true love and be with him (which I did). I guess, I like things to be simple, I don’t particularly like formalities.

Then, there’s the other thing: many parents (like my own parents for my brother’s wedding) are pushing for a big wedding because it’s a social status thing. The bigger the wedding, the more “respected” you are as a family man (let alone that my parents divorced 2 years later ). Well, yeah, that’s cool and all, but thing is, why should the couple be your sacrificing goat? There were people at my brother’s wedding that the couple never met before (e.g. the elected senator for our periphery, that my father invited). At the end, in many such weddings, it’s the parent’s party rather than the kids’.

Some will bring the “have a celebration, bring the two families together”, argument, but I don’t buy it. I had a good time at my wedding, sure, and I am sure the guests did too. But it’s not something I would want to spend thousands of dollars/euros at. Even when calculating-in the wedding gifts, you’ll still be at a great financial loss. Heck, most of the guests are probably going to get so drunk, that they wouldn’t remember whose wedding that was. Case in point, we haven’t watched our wedding video more than once, and I have no clue where our wedding pics are located in our house.

So my advice to you youngsters out there: don’t do a big wedding. Go marry in a town hall with up-to-10 of your closest friends/family, and then, during the next months, just invite over on weekends the rest of the family/friends for barbecues or dinners at your home. This way you will get more personal time with them to talk about your plans and your life together with your new spouse, rather than one big crazy party where everyone’s drunk. That’s what I would do now that I am older and wiser (and if it was my decision, JBQ likes the formalities of a big wedding for example).

It’s a curious thing, really. Back in the ’80s I hated the Cure, or the Talking Heads, or any other progressive rock band. I also disliked heavy metal, although I didn’t mind the milder Bon Jovi. I also hated my native Greek music (and I still do). I was a yet another pop girl, in love with Michael Jackson and Madonna.

But in the ’90s, things changed. The time I became an adult was also the time we were able to acquire MTV signal from the local pirate re-broadcasters in my area. It made me more used to rock, alternative rock in particular, but that was also the time that Eurodance was big in Europe/Japan, which I also loved at the time.

This current decade has been all about rock though. JBQ is a heavy metal/alt/hard rock guy (big Iron Maiden fan), so I naturally got used to the sound even more. Franz Ferdinand, AFI, Green Day, Rise Against, Disturbed, Linkin Park, Metallica are all in our daily rotation.

However, I am changing again.

This time, my favorite music is actually the indie experimental sound, a sound that usually sits somewhere between pop, rock and folk — with a twist. Bands like Arcade Fire, Cloud Cult, British Sea Power, Blitzen Trapper, Feist, Orenda Fink, Portugal The Man, Ratatat, Scissors for Lefty, Midlake, Sea Wolf, Sin Fang Bous, We Are Wolves, and Wye Oak are what I like listening to. I don’t like all of their songs, but some of their stuff, I find amazing.

Now, you are probably thinking: “wait a fucking second. Aren’t you the same person who said just a few weeks ago that indie rock is not that epic, or that this is the kind of music you actually dislike?”.

I am. Or, maybe I am not.

I feel that I am changing again. During my vast research of free, legal mp3s on the internet last month I had to listen to this “new” sound a lot. Most of the new bands out there play such music. And I got used to it. I now “get it”.

For some of that music we have a specific word in Greek: “κουλτουριαρικη”. Means that it’s somewhat modern art, difficult to get into at first, and usually liked by specific kind of people, not your normal Joe & Jane. This doesn’t mean that it’s the music for snobs, but rather somewhat underground and unappreciated by the public at large. The funny thing here is that I always disliked that kind of music and I even opposed it all my life. I liked accessibility. But I think I now too get the endorphins associated with it. Update: I guess the international equivalent term to that Greek word is “avant-garde”.

I think one reason this music is not more popular (especially in Europe), it’s because is it’s uneven. I mentioned some bands above, and yet, I only like a fraction of their songs. For example, I bought the whole repertoire of Arcade Fire the other day, and I only find 10 songs that I like in there (and only 5 that I really like). As for my favorite indie band, the Cloud Cult, I *only* like their latest album! And while I love the current Blitzen Trapper, I can’t stand their first two albums. On the other hand, I can go through an AFI, Green Day, Muse, Franz Ferdinand, Madonna album without skipping songs! Some of these guys with a major’s contract might be history in terms of music genre, but their albums are overall better because they have more evenly good songs in them. The only indie bands that I like all their albums and all the songs, from start to finish, are the Malbec and the Drist (JBQ likes them too).

However, JBQ hates that vast majority of that indie folk-y music (he can’t stand Cloud Cult for example, to my surprise). He in fact finds it “painful”, he said, on at best “nothing special”. But I think it’s just that: getting used to it and “get” the serene melody with complex layers these songs offer compared to a hard rock shouting match that probably we heard it all before. To me, indie music is like rock married pop and had babies. However, I did notice that for some songs that JBQ hated originally, when I replayed them days later he was more susceptible to them (e.g. Feist’s “One Evening”).

These days iTunes is playing for me alternative rock, that new crop of indie rock, and some hard rock and trance songs. Very rarely I listen to pop anymore. Regardless of what kind of music I will be listening to in the new decade, one thing is for sure though: it won’t be Greek.