Before the end

Just before the end of the year, I'm trying to lay my thoughts in order.

A lot has been said and written after the murder of a 15-year old in Greece from the police 10 days ago.
This sparkled a unique row of events that involved extensive rioting in Athens and other major Greek cities.

These riots have probably been the worst that Greece has seen in the last 30 years - perhaps since 1974, when the junda was overturned by protests in the Polytechneion in Athens, a night that led to numerous dead people and years of persecution of the students. Because of these current riots there has been an impressive shift in the discussion among Greeks, from the topic of police brutality, unlawful killing and impressive lack of punishment to the riots themselves and the over the top destruction of numerous properties by 'anarchist' groups. Essentially what people are saying is that yes, police did bad for killing this boy but why did all of these awful young people have to go round destroying people's properties?

What people are not discussing is why these people went out, put on balaclavas and started burning down things.
What people are not discussing is where do all of these young people came from.
What people are not discussing is where did all this repressed anger and frustration came from.

Dismissing the riots as acts of 50 'anarchists' misses the point entirely.
Something that is unfortunately not a new practice of the Greek society.
The foreign press can put things into perspective, Greece cannot.

In my country

... cops kill 15 year old students.

This is a warning to whoever wants to come and visit Greece: don't! A cop might kill you too. Especially if you are a 15 year old child, with longish hair and defies authority. You don't need to hold a gun yourself so that the cop might feel threatened: you just need to not adequately respect his authority.

Bitter jokes aside, this is a disgrace. I feel extremely angered and ashamed. I cannot write a coherent post at the moment. For more information read here., here and here (for Greek speakers).

New/Old life

I often wonder whether I am truly the same person I was 10 years ago. My life then was different, the music I liked was different, my feelings were different. I was more pretentious, I thought people should listen to a specific kind of music and they would be cool just because of that. Then I grew up and to my horror I realized that there exist people with excellent music taste who are crap. So I had to reconsider.

One of the few things that have remained constant in my life is some of the music I like. Although I don't listen to some things with the determination that I used to, memorizing lyrics and thinking of them for hours on end, there are still some bands and albums that I listen to with exactly the same adoration. Radiohead's OK Computer is one them, Portishead's live in NYC, Suede's Dog man star and Sci-fi lullabies are some others.

There is also a Greek band that made its mark on me, Stereo Nova. I remember seeing them live in a small club in my hometown, and being entirely mesmerized. Then I bought their CD, Ασύρματος Κόσμος, and learned all their lyrics by heart. They have split for many years now and there was talk about them having split bitterly. But in two days they will play again, for one special time. I am extremely gutted that I won't manage to go, not least because my amazing cousin will be opening the show. Aparently, people are hiring buses from Germany for this show... It would have been amazing for me to go. It would have been a trip to the past, a trip to my past. I could wear my clothes from 1998 and pretend that not a day has passed from then. But I can't do that. I have to stay here and remind myself that I am not the same person I was 10 years ago. And that hurts most of time. Apart from the times that it doesn't.

Grow up

It's really very sad to realise that my ingenuity keeps me believing in things that really don't exist so that I feel like the worst fool when I'm confronted with reality.

For me, East Timor, the newest country in the world, was an example of bravery and courage. They fought Indonesia invasion for 25 years and then they became a country in their own right. Of course I only know this because East Timor was a former Portuguese colony and it was on the news all the time. I remember one day, 15 years ago or so, a Portuguese TV channel did a story on East Timor freedom fighters. Many of them lived with their families and children hidden in the mountains. The reporters followed them at night, they were going some place and for some reason they could not make any noise, maybe because Indonesian troops were patrolling the area, I don't know. What I do remember is that at some point a little boy trips and falls into a hole on the floor. Her mother runs to him, helps him to get out of the hole and you see her talking to the boy, taking her finger to her lips and urging him to be quiet, not to cry, so that nobody hears them. The little boy holds his tears and doesn't cry. An old men sees that and turns to the camera, smiles and gives the thumbs up, as if he's saying "we're going to make it". And they did make it.

Or so I thought. The latest reports I've read by journalists that have recently been to the country talk about a country devastated by corruption, inefficiency, lack of money or money obscenely spent in unimportant things. It turns out that the people of East Timor are not as united as was thought, they have different ethnicities and fight each other or don't get along and politicians don't give a shit and buy expensive cars and use money from abroad to invest in mobile phone companies. It is expected that a new country faces the deepest problems but these are problems cause by sheer disrespect and corruption.

I am the most stupid person in the world. Also the saddest.

There are consequences of breaking the heart of a murderous bastard

The two best movies of female vengeance of recent times are undoubtedly Kill Bill Vol II and Lady V. They are two very different films, if it wasn't for the fact that they are dealing with the same theme: female vengeance.

Incidentally, or perhaps crucially, both women are mothers and this plays a central role in the plot, their characters and ultimately to the deeper "message" of both movies.

Both Geum-ja and the Bride, gain a long-lost daughter in their quest for revenge. Both of them get reborn from this act, and reinvent themselves as something different. In the extremely poignant end credits of Kill Bill, Uma Thurman is credited for playing the Bride AKA Beatrix Kiddo AKA Black Mumba AKA Mommy. This last role is the one that the Bride chooses to hold on to the most, and is the one that defines her. In the end of Lady V, Geum-ja wants to give her daughter back to her adopted parents not because she doesn't love her, but because she feels she is not worthy of this relationship that has so much to give her. On the contrary her daughter disagrees and 'forgives' her, in way helping her being reborn.



Motherhood therefore, is not the end of the road for the two female protagonists. Instead it is what defines them and ultimately redeems them from the horrible acts that they both did. I think that the message of these two movies, perhaps more clearly demonstrated in Lady V, is that revenge is a self-indulgent pointless act and the only redemption that can be achieved is if you are loved. Pure unconditional love is only a result of a mother-daughter relationship, that's why women (who can also be murderous bastards) can be saved by their daughters' love.

Men, in short, do not stand a chance.
Neither does Medea who killed her only chance of redemption.
Oh, well...

The Python strike again

True to themselves, the Monty Python have set up their own youtube channel with plenty of their videos, which can now be watched properly in high quality. Instead of engaging in stupid anti-piracy wars in the hopes of getting more money, which would ultimately harm viewers and people who genuinely like a certain artist or artists, the Python have decided to share their own work for free. One has got to admire them even more for this.

Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MontyPython

Go, Python.

Stick it to the man

"Give up, just quit, because in this life, you can't win. Yeah, you can try, but in the end you're just gonna lose, big time, because the world is run by the Man. The Man, oh, you don't know the Man. He's everywhere. In the White House... down the hall... Ms. Mullins, she's the Man. And the Man ruined the ozone, he's burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! And there used to be a way to stick it to the Man. It was called rock 'n roll, but guess what, oh no, the Man ruined that, too, with a little thing called MTV! So don't waste your time trying to make anything cool or pure or awesome 'cause the Man is just gonna call you a fat washed up loser and crush your soul. So do yourselves a favor and just GIVE UP!"

Dewey Finn, School of Rock

With this amazing quote, Dewey Finn aka Mr. S aka Jack-Fuck her gently-Black summarizes the fundamental human need to defy authority. School of rock, which theoretically sounds such a naff-seen it before kind of movie (inspirational teacher with unconventional methods helps stuck up/shy rich kids to find themselves through - dah - music) is actually amazing. And not least because of Jack Black who is perfect in the role of wannabe-stuck in the past-loser rocker who creates a school band to compete in the battle of the bands, delivers lines like the above with amazing poise.

I guess what really makes SoR so much better than all other movies of a similar kind, is that it is so honest and because it manages to find space for optimism (through art and creativity) within the most pessimist of situations-loserism.
Viva la loser, then!