Best music news of the last 5 months.
Hooray!

The real music news of this weel though is the brand new record by Wilco. “Sky Blue Sky” is the title, and although everyone would expect that this would also be a leak, the truth is far from that. The band itself made available all the songs of their new LP for streaming at an excellent quality. It should be pretty clear even to them, that bloggers would hack the stream, convert it to mp3 and distribute it worldwide, which of course happened. As far as the music part of the record is concerned, the songs are beautiful. It’s Wilco though, so that means that repeating listens must occur in order to grasp the true essence of Tweedy’s brilliance. There are two songs though are masterful. I can’t wait for the official release of both these records so I can’t get them on my hands and listen to them properly. This is a good year indeed.

Oh, the new Maximo Park record is out too. Um, who gives a shit? Really?

I’m done for the day. I’ve seen it all.

It’s quite promising to see that the most popular show on earth (and the U.S. too) decides to come clear about it’s stance on the political context. Of course someone might argue that since Bush is on his last term, this kind of attack is pointless and overdue, but nevertheless it might aware some people on the contingency of a Cheney candidacy. I haven’t finished the whole 5th season, but I suspect that the president gets completely humiliated and rightly so, since it’s a fiction show.

It’s only 10 months for the change of the American administration. All the files on the war and 9/11 will become available on 1/1/2008 and hopefully the public will be informed on stuff that was being held from it. If a republican administration gets on the oval office again, then nothing much will change, and it’s possible that the political lines will continue to apply. The Democrats haven’t so far put a brave candidate out there, except Hillary Clinton, but that’s a little sad. I don’t know if Cheney will run, but I can’t even bear that thought. I know most of you don’t care about american politics, but I do. I watch American TV, I watch American movies and I listen to American music. It’s kind of a no brainer that I should be interested in what influences those artists and what they’re up against. The creators of 24 did something, although very small and insignificant (I imagine that some people didn’t even get the reference), yet very valuable. Other shows do it all the time with much more hate and power, but they don’t have the numbers of viewers of 24. It is kind of late, and everyone thinks that no one could be worse than Bush, but that’s a unfortunate mistake. There’s always worse.

Only 6 more days to go, and www.mixtape.gr will launch. It’s a new arts & culture webzine that my best friend the drude put together along with two more great friends. It will involve music, cinema, dvd, theatre, comics, arts, anything you can imagine (I’m trying to squeeze porn into in, but everybody seems to frown upon that… well okay I haven’t tried that yet, but I will). Some of the writers that will assemble this team are exceptional writers and I couldn’t be more happier.

Be sure to tune in.
February 1st.

C u there

She was all so happy yesterday because they’ve made plans. She along with her fiance and another friendly couple were set to spend the night at a monstrous casino not far from Athens. Obviously they needed some extra money, and everybody knows that going to a casino is the easiest way to get some. At least they thought so.

So, today came, the sun woke up, the birds sang, I didn’t have a hangover (hoorah!), I hit my head at the bedboard when the alarm went off, I made breakfast, I put on some clothes, I drank my coffee, I took a shower, I checked my e-mail, I smoked 3 cigarettes, I crapped, I put on different clothes, locked my door, took the bus, arrived at work, she came in, and of course they lost a shitload of money. Now….I’m not ashamed to say it, but I’m happy. I’m a happy camper.

Millions of people go gambling every day. I don’t care much about it. I used to but I quit when I realized that in the long run, I’ll be poor. But then again, everybody knows that. No one can beat the house. These morons knew it too. Yet they felt, just because they wanted to do so, that god would bless them with good luck and that they’d won every last penny in that damn building. Boo-hoo, they didn’t. And now is the time to bitch about it. Because apparently bitching tends to make the other listener sympathazing and feeling sorry and angry at the same time for all the wrong reasons. These same people who earn a very respectable salary per month, just can’t get enough. They can’t. They want more, and they feel they deserve it. They deserve all the money of the world, just because they think they’re good people. They can’t stand the fact that thousands of other people are way richer than them, and they want the same luxuries but at the same time don’t want to work as much. They also think that they should get away with it, just because others do it too. And they expect me to understand that. I’m this close to getting fired today for speaking out my mind. But I won’t. I need this job for at least six more months.

Once I mentioned to this bitch, that the money we’re making at this office, even though it’s a basic salary, still is way bigger compared to the amount of work we’re doing every day. I urged her to think about the fact, that all the work we’re doing takes up most of the times 3/4 of an hour every single day. The rest of the 8-hour period we’re just browsing the internet or do whatever the hell we want. For that 3/4 of an hour a day, we get paid minimum wage. Still is a lot. But no, they want more. Do they want to work more? Hell, no. So why would they demand such benefits? When I find an answer to that (apart from the obvious greediness), I’ll come back with it. So far, I’m sitting tight and doing the next best thing. Is working the root of all evils? Probably. That’s why we’re struggling for an alternative.

Finding a theater or a distribution wasn’t at all easy for the director. The movie was screened at Cannes Film Festival last year, received great reviews, got the most important award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, and everybody who was lucky enough to have seen it already is talking about a fantastic film.

Nevertheless,
no one wanted to distribute the film. No theater-owner dared to screen it, no respectable distribution agency attempted to advertise it, nothing. This is truly a kick in the balls. Everybody is saying that this is the best greek movie of the year, and no one wants to get involved. I understand, that it’s not multiplex material, but there are dozens of shitty european films coming out every week grossing minimum money. I can’t understand it. I realize that if you’re a multiplex owner, you have every right to protect your audiences from things you know they hate. But if you are a regular movie theater owner who screens films like Shortbus, The Idiots, Catherine Breillat’s turds, Funny Games and so on, what kind of excuse are you having for not willing to play this movie?

I cannot stress enough the fact that everybody has to see this movie. I’m going to tell everybody. Don’t miss it.