Mortiis in Concert; and the Effects that Changing Genres has on an Audience

            On January 28^th my wife and I made it out to Tampa to see Norwegian musician Mortiis in concert (a special thanks to my mother-in-law and father-in-law for watching the baby). As I’ve written on this blog before, his album The Smell of Rain is one of the defining albums of my teens, when I mostly listened to Black Metal. But the thing is, that’s the only album of his in that exact genre (sort of industrial/darkwave). His music got heavier from then on, becoming industrial metal, until recently. In 2001 when The Smell of Rain came out it signaled a dynamic shift for Mortiis, as he had spent most of the 1990’s creating music that today has come to be known as Dungeon Synth. This music has few if any lyrics, and is a kind of dark ambience with gothic and medieval-sounding melodies. A lot of people use this type of music as soundtracks to their Dungeons and Dragons games, to give you an idea of what it’s like. Mortiis gave an interview recently detailing the falling out he had with his band and with more than one manager, all of which led to him revisiting his roots and returning to the style of music he made in the 1990’s, now that the Dungeon Synth genre has more of a wider audience (wider than in the 90’s at least, it’s still pretty underground). I’ve been open-minded enough to enjoy pretty much anything Mortiis puts out. Not everyone is though.

            The concert was held at The Orpheum in Ybor City, which is a neighborhood in Tampa once known for its Cuban immigrant community and cigars, now known for its nightclubs. Nearby is The Castle, one of the too-few dedicated Goth nightclubs still in existence. So Ybor City itself is important to the Goth community. And it's reasonable to think that there are Goths who probably have enough money and time to show up to any concert at The Orpheum no matter who is performing, and thus maybe don’t even do a lot of research on the acts that are performing; under the assumption that if they’re playing at The Orpheum, they’ll be right up their alley anyway. What’s more is that the concert was sponsored by Communion After Dark, a podcast that plays modern dark electro, EBM, darkwave, etc. I’ve listened to a lot of their back catalog going back to 2008, I haven’t listened to every episode, but I’m pretty sure they’ve never played Dungeon Synth. So, the concert was going to attract a certain crowd, with certain musical preferences. I’m not sure it was the right crowd. I’m sure they’d at least heard of Mortiis, but perhaps they only knew him for his industrial metal. Thus, they were completely blindsided when he performed Dungeon Synth instead. That must be why half the crowd left before the concert was done.

            To begin with, the opening acts couldn’t have been more different from each other and from Mortiis. First we had Gulf Blvd., a dark electronic band who sounded pretty good. They didn’t play for very long but I think they show promise. Next up was Tomb, an extremely heavy, screaming metal band. Now I’ve enjoyed pretty heavy music before (have a listen to Dornenreich), particularly in my teen years, but I like it better when there’s at least a melody. Tomb was just not cup of tea, I’m not here to complain about any of the acts. It struck me as odd that the genres of the two opening acts were so different, but people were here to see Mortiis mainly, so they stuck around.

            It took a long time for Mortiis to set up after the end of Gulf Blvd.’s act, but for good reason. Stage hands brought out banners, dead tree props, and a big synthesizer, making the stage look like winter in medieval Norway.

            Mortiis walked wordlessly onto the stage, wearing his famous troll mask and sporting long dreadlocks, with much fanfare from the crowd. He did not acknowledge them. He merely walked up to the synthesizer and remaining completely stoic, played his dark ambient Dungeon Synth, with charcoal sketches of castles, dragons and witches projected behind him. 

He never said a single word the entire concert. It was all about atmosphere. In my last blog entry I talked a little about the wrestler The Undertaker. He originally was a lot like this too. He’d come out to the ring with traditional funeral music, put on a grim look, never show any kind of emotion or respond to the cheers of the crowd (and incidentally The Undertaker would go through many different eras and change his look and personality repeatedly, just like Mortiis, only to return to his roots later, so it’s a good analogy). Mortiis was doing something similar to that.

Mortiis went from song to song. He did raise his fist to the crowd’s cheers a couple of times, but that was the full extent of his interaction with the crowd. And when he was done, he just walked off the stage. A few fans wanted an encore, but he didn’t come back. I think people were put off by this. I wondered if it was because so many people had left before the concert ended that he left so unceremoniously. My wife brought up a good point. I don’t know a whole lot about Norwegian culture, but it might have been a cultural thing. Americans have been brought up to expect flawless customer service from everyone they give their money to. I know this well enough, having worked in call centers. They’re entitled. When you pay somebody, they owe you and are expected to go above and beyond. “The customer is always right” and all that. I think for example of Aurelio Voltaire, an American singer (whose music really defies genre but leans mostly goth). At every concert of his I’ve been to, he goes to his merch booth before and after his performance, talks to the fans, signs their CD’s and takes pictures with them. He goes above and beyond what most musicians do for their fans. This is the sort of thing Americans expect. I recall something similar happening when I saw the German band Project Pitchfork in San Francisco with Ayria, where after the last song they just up and left without saying a word; although they did get talked into doing an encore after the crowd got loud enough. Although they were a lot less stoic than Mortiis, maybe it’s a European thing to not act quite so indebted to ones’ fans.

But by the time the concert had ended, most of the crowd was already gone, for what I think was a combination of the genre not being what fans expected to hear because they didn’t do their research, and Mortiis’ stoicism and lack of interaction with the audience. Now I personally didn’t mind any of this at all. I could see that Mortiis was trying to create an atmosphere. I really felt like I was in wintery medieval Norway, as I listened to the calm ambient music. It was a welcome break from being in Florida where any temperature under 70 Fahrenheit is unusually cold. I thought the performance was awesome, personally. I loved the set design and the artwork that was projected in the background. It would have been weird if Mortiis suddenly shouted “Hello TAMPA!!!”. It wouldn’t have worked. It would have clashed with the energy of the performance.

 I follow Mortiis on social media, so I already had an idea about what I was going to get. I heard he was going back to his original style. I mean it would have been nice to hear him sing some of my favorites, but I understand. All of his merch was based on his old music too. No The Smell of Rain or The Grudge in sight. It was all either his old albums from the 1990’s or his brand-new album in the same style, released just this month. I picked up a couple cassettes as souvenirs too.

The one on the right is his new album, Spirit of Rebellion.

Thing of it is though, I think people expected this Mortiis:

But got this Mortiis:

And yes, this is basically what the concert I was at sounded like.

That’s the risk you run when you change your genre. It’s the same for a musician, a writer, an artist, any creator. You risk alienating a fraction of your fanbase that grew to like your work in a certain genre. I just so happen to like all the different genres Mortiis plays in. I have to be in the right mood for Dungeon Synth, mind you, but it’s good background music for writing or meditating. Nobody’s going to be dancing or head-banging to it or starting a mosh pit. Going back to Aurelio Voltaire again, a few years back he released a country album, almost as a joke, I think. I wanted to like it, but I just couldn’t because I’m not into country music at all. So, I can understand fans not liking Mortiis’ Dungeon Synth.

Anyway, the concert gave me something to think about, with regards to creators wanting to switch genres, and what can happen as a result. I admire Mortiis for just doing whatever he wants to do and not caring what anybody thinks. He doesn’t choose the easiest path, but he chooses the path that feels right to him. If you read his recent interview, he doesn’t have an easy life. But he still does what he wants to do, makes the art he wants to make. I want to be that way myself. I want to write in different genres and do whatever strikes my creative fancy while making a living off my art. I find him to be rather inspirational. Something I aspire to be. He’s one of my heroes, in that way.   

My Favorite Dark/Obscure Wrestling Themes; and Thoughts on the Current State of Pro Wrestling

In today’s blog post I want to talk about some of my favorite unappreciated dark wrestling themes (mostly Undertaker themes). Because going against conventional blog advice, which tells you to find a niche topic to blog about, I don’t want to pigeon-hole myself into just one topic. I guess I’ll just rely on my cult of personality for page views. Anyway, the first thing you hear as a wrestler enters an arena is their theme song. Before you even see them, it’s the first impression we get of a wrestler. In wrestling, music is an important step in character-building; often the first step. I can’t think of another storytelling medium that does that. And yes, professional wrestling really is its own unique storytelling medium. It is distinct from theater and other types of acting, although it derives a lot from theater. Are the commentators not just a modernized Greek chorus? Most everyone knows it is choreographed and scripted, but so are movies, except the actors all perform their own stunts in wrestling. Pro wrestling is a genre of fiction. When you look at it that way you can respect it more. Unless you’re a literary fiction snob.

            Since this is my first time mentioning wrestling on this blog, I feel like getting my thoughts on the current state of pro wrestling out of the way. I used to be a huge fan of pro wrestling. Still am to a degree. I still have a collection of old wrestling pay-per-views on VHS tapes and DVDs. When I’m in the mood I’ll watch them. The WWF/WWE just isn’t what it used to be. It was a slow downhill turn once their only competition, WCW, went out of business, and they no longer had anyone to impress because they were the only game in town. But it was still pretty watchable for a few years after that. I think it was the Chris Benoit incident in 2007 that really killed it. WWE became too heavily sanitized from that point on. That’s around when I gradually stopped watching. And nowadays they’re pandering to the Saudi Arabian government regime by hosting pay per views there while the commentary extols the virtues of the oppressive Arabian government, making me pretty glad I jumped ship before it got to that point. There are other pro wrestling companies I could be watching that are probably doing better content, but I never seem to follow through with them anymore. Lucha Underground was pretty good, I watched that for a while, but I kind of lost track of it. I don’t even watch cable TV anymore, really.

After 2007 WWE started to target children instead of teens and adults. Now no one does any dangerous stunts anymore, no one’s allowed to cuss or bleed. But the change in the target demographic isn’t fully why it’s not as good as it used to be. No, something else is missing. In the 1980’s and the first half of the 1990’s they targeted children too, but they still were never as boring as they are now. The thing was back then they had cartoonish gimmicks. It was campy and silly, but entertaining. Today all the wrestlers go by their real names, and they all dress the same. We’re probably never going to see another Undertaker, Goldust or Mankind. Any storyline they use has been recycled 50+ times already because they figure the current target demographic, 12 and under, hasn’t seen it done already so it’s alright to re-use it. They're not doing anything original. And there was more actual wrestling back in the day. There’s more wrestling in a 1-hour episode of Monday Night Raw from 1995 than there is in a 3-hour episode from today, or at least just as much. If I wanted just storylines without any wrestling, I’d watch a soap opera. And if I wanted just wrestling without any storylines, I’d watch UFC or actual unscripted wrestling (and I do from time to time). WWF and WCW used to blend both pretty well.

Or maybe I’m the one who’s changed. Maybe I just sort of grew out of watching pro wrestling. I’ll always appreciate the technical aspects of wrestling, like the grapples, or anything else with potential real-life martial arts application. But the storylines don’t do it for me anymore. Maybe I’m too old and jaded for it. All my favorite wrestlers are either really old, or dead, and I’ve become a curmudgeon. Anyway, I still like to look back. Let’s have a look some old wrestling themes.

The Original Undertaker Theme

 

There’s no replacing the original Undertaker theme. The one he would come out to in his original attire, as the western-style Undertaker, with his eccentric manager Paul Bearer at his side holding the urn. It’s simple, not too over-the-top like some of his later themes (which I’ll get to), it tells you who he is. It’s just Chopin’s “Funeral March” on a church organ. I like it better than the one he’s used since 2004 with all the thunder in the background and grandiose instrumentals. This is all you need. I’ve gone back and forth quite a bit on my favorite era of the Undertaker’s career, but ultimately, it’s the original I always come back to. Back when he was an emotionless monster, impervious to pain, who only spoke a sentence or two at a time, and only to say something ominous and threatening, or to gloat about the casket he was building for his opponent. He became too human over time, especially during his years with the biker gimmick (my least favorite era, when he had those awful themes by Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock), but even after. I still loved watching any match with The Undertaker throughout the mid to late 2000’s, but by the 2010’s it became kind of painful to watch him become bald, hobble around the ring and have to be carried away in stretchers after his matches. Time waits for no man. Not even supernatural, undead zombie wrestlers. He should have retired around when Paul Bearer died in 2013. It really should have been it for him when Brock Lesnar defeated him at WrestleMania, which in my opinion should never have happened. This Undertaker, the original Undertaker who came out to this theme, has been gone for a long time. And that may actually be the biggest reason I don’t watch WWE anymore. And it's sad.

Undertaker – Dark Side

 

This song is off the album WWF The Music Vol. 2, which I found at a record store one day years ago and have kept ever since, even though I only like two tracks on it, this one and the next on the list. But those tracks are worth having. This one derives from a promo that was released in 1996 when The Undertaker had a feud with Mankind. It contains a speech from the 1994 Royal Rumble, when The Undertaker was defeated in a casket match and “crossed over” into the afterlife for a while. On the screen in the arena (called a titantron) we saw the Undertaker laying in a casket, and he woke up and said this speech before floating out of the casket via some kind of bungee cord up to the ceiling. (I’ve heard it wasn’t actually The Undertaker they got to do that stunt). You’d have to see it to get it. I love this speech. He will never Rest in Peace.

 Mankind – Ode to Freud

 

The original gimmick of Mankind was the best one, in my opinion. By 1998 he was a cartoonish parody of his former self, then he had his other two gimmicks at the same time Dude Love and Cactus Jack and did a sort of split personality thing, and then eventually he dropped all his gimmicks and just went by his real name Mick Foley; by which time that’s what most wrestlers were doing anyway. Unlike a lot of wrestlers Mankind had two themes to start with; an entrance theme and an exit theme. This song incorporates both themes, overlaid with one of his classic rants. “Deep inside, you are merely a mirror image of all my atrocities. The ugliness that exists outside, lives inside every one of you! Destruction…can be beautiful!!”

When can destruction be beautiful? I suppose there’s a certain beauty in buildings being demolished. A supernova, the destruction of a star, can be very beautiful. Fire destroys, but is beautiful. Who thought pro wrestling could get so philosophical?

Ministry of Darkness Theme – Wrestlemania XV

 

There were so many variants on the Ministry of Darkness theme it’s hard to pick just one. And they’re all good. But I went with the version played specifically at Wrestlemania XV because it had both the Gaelic muttering and “Accept the Lord of Darkness as your Savior”. The Ministry of Darkness was The Undertaker at his darkest. From late-1998 to mid-1999 he was an evil overlord who abducted wrestlers and brainwashed them into joining his cult. His goal was to kidnap Vince McMahon’s daughter, force her to marry him and then take over the WWF. It didn’t quite go as planned, of course. The whole storyline was ruined when Undertaker joined Shane McMahon’s Corporation stable (the WWF at the time was a series of wrestling gangs; WCW did it first), and destroyed beyond repair when it was revealed that the Undertaker had actually been working with Vince McMahon all along and it was all some elaborate scheme to steal the WWF championship belt from Steve Austin, who wasn’t even champion yet when the storyline began, but oh well. What could have been the greatest storyline the WWF ever had was ruined. I’ll die mad about this. 

Corporate Ministry Theme

 

I already talked about the Corporate Ministry, when the Ministry of Darkness merged with the Corporation to create this super gang of wrestlers who really would have had nothing to do with one another normally, and reduced the great evil overlord version of The Undertaker into just a minion. But they had a great theme song, you have to give them that. There were a couple different versions of the theme song, but of course my favorite version is the one with the evil laugh.

Ringmaster Theme

 

This was Steve Austin’s original theme in the WWF, when he was known as the Ringmaster. It didn’t fit him of course, a bit too dark and symphonic for his later beer-guzzling redneck gimmick, but it was such a good song that has been forgotten. If only they’d given it to someone else, really.

Unholy Alliance Theme

 

For a couple months in 1999 The Undertaker teamed up with The Big Show, a wrestler known for being over 7 feet tall. Most of The Big Show’s theme songs have kind of a blues vibe to them, and this song is a mixture of that with the Undertaker’s usual dark theme songs, creating something that, like their tag team, didn’t seem like they’d go together well but then they do.

Type O Negative’s Kane Theme

 

Kane had a great gimmick, especially in his first couple years, as the Undertaker’s long lost brother who was thought to have died with their parents when their funeral home burned to the ground, but actually Undertaker’s former manager Paul Bearer rescued Kane and kept him in a basement somewhere, bringing him into the WWF after Undertaker refused to rejoin him (Bearer had betrayed Undertaker in 1996 and sided with Mankind after years of Undertaker not seeing any championships). He wore a cool mask that supposedly covered up his burned face, and was able to shoot lightning and fireballs from his hands using special arena effects aided by clever camera angles. Kane challenged his brother at WrestleMania XIV and continued to have a rivalry with him afterward. The gimmick kind of went downhill after Undertaker became a normal biker with no superpowers and suddenly didn’t really need to have a burn victim half-brother with pyrokinesis. See what I mean when I say wrestling went downhill? They’d never in a million years do a storyline like this again. But this theme song was too cool even for Kane, and went unused. How could they have not used a theme song by Type O Negative?!  How did they let this slip through their fingers?! I mean just listen to the part with the Gregorian chants at about the 1:44 mark. Is that not awesome? What was wrong with this theme, WWE? If only Peter Steele sang on the track; but if he had it would be even more unforgiveable that they never used it.

Anyway, I’m done writing about wrestling for a little while, but it won’t be the last time I write about it. Stay tuned for whatever else strikes my fancy next.

Industrial Songs that Sample The Great Dictator

For the full text, click here:

https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-the-final-speech-from-the-great-dictator-

                Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator contains in it one of the most poignant speeches ever written. One which, sadly, still isn’t taken to heart by enough people. Greed is still poisoning men’s souls. Our knowledge still makes us cynical. Our cleverness still makes us hard and unkind. We are still treated like machines and cattle. There are still dictators in power. Greed rules our world, and hatred is alive and well. Chaplin’s speech has done little to change that.

            But the speech was never forgotten. It is remembered enough to be sampled in a few Industrial songs, in fact. I’ve heard it done several times. Although I can only remember three of the songs by band name and title. I’m probably going to come across more, and regret not adding them to this blog entry. But oh well, let’s go ahead and have a listen to some of these anyway, shall we? Feel free to leave me a comment if you know of any others. Maybe I can update this list later.

Stoppenberg – Unite!

           

“You are not machines! You are men!” The song has a robotic feel to it, perhaps emphasizing that part of the speech. We have let the greedy turn us into machines. Into robots. If you ask me that’s what Kraftwerk’s “The Robots” is really about too; about the workers being made into slaves by the wealthy. I really felt this song, listening to it on my MP3 player in the break room when I was working at the call centers. If only the people woke up and united against their oppressors, we could make this life free and beautiful, a wonderful adventure. Instead, we are machines. Cattle. They make sure we never unite. Instead we are stuck doing minimum wage jobs that strip us of our humanity, sacrificing hours and days of our finite lives to the wealthy all for this completely made-up concept called “money” which exists to separate the haves from the have-nots.

            It’s no wonder McCarthy went after Charlie Chaplin.

Komor Kommando – The Power Within

           

This song uses one of my other favorite samples; the Howie Long Scream. You’ve heard it before. It’s that scream that goes “YOOOOUUUURRRRRAAAARRRRRGGHHH!!!!!” It’s hilarious. See also “Liar” by Felix Marc, where the scream comes right out of nowhere. Anyway, the use of The Great Dictator samples in this track gets you energized and pumped up. ”You the people have the power! Let us fight for a new world! Let us all unite!” Instead of playing up the machine aspect of the speech, this song plays up the empowering aspect. It’s a great track for the dance floor. Just look at the cyber-goth in the video go. She looks like she feels empowered.

Hanzel und Gretyl – Der Furor

           

Ah, Hanzel und Gretyl. The only band that would ever sample one of Adenoid Hynkel’s speeches. So, this is from the same film of course, but it’s the speech that the “Great Dictator” himself makes. It’s completely satirical, with Hynkel shouting “Wienerschnitzel und sauerkraut!” in faux-German. Chaplin was making Hitler look stupid, and that’s what this song does too. I love how the song stops for a few seconds as Hynkel has a coughing fit, only to resume again when he shouts “Hey!” This song is just funny. But be careful playing it too loud, lest someone overhear it and not get the joke.

Laibach – Tanz Mit Laibach

           

Okay so this isn’t really a true example because they don’t sample The Great Dictator, but they do reference it in the lyrics. “Wir tanzen (we dance) Ado Hynkel, Benzino Napaloni”. These are the names of the parodies of Hitler and Mussolini in the film. The song is symbolic. My interpretation is it’s about how governments stir their citizens into extremism with propaganda. Like Hanzel und Gretyl, there’s always been a satirical edge to Laibach’s music, and I think that’s why they reference The Great Dictator, the most famous, dare I say, the defining satire of totalitarianism (okay trivia nerds, I know, The Three Stooges technically beat him to it by a few months; someone should sample Moe Howard’s Hitler impression in one of their Industrial songs).

Ten Mistakes Self-Publishers Make

            I recently joined the Space Coast Writer’s Guild of Brevard County, Florida. It’s been a nice association so far. They do yearly short story anthologies, provide members with connections for proofreading and editing, host book-signing events (I’ll need to have at least more than one book published before I do one), and have guest speakers do an educational presentation at every meeting. Before joining in November it had been ages since I spoke with other writers. Not since graduating with my Master’s degree. At today’s meeting, the topic of discussion was ten common mistakes self-publishers make. I thought to myself “oh goody, I get to beat myself up all over again.” But actually, I think I learned some valuable information from the meeting, which I’d like to discuss here, for whoever wants to read about it, and probably for myself at a later date when I go back and read this. Let me get this obligatory thought out of the way: it sure would have been GREAT to have learned this in Graduate School. I should have joined a writer’s guild instead of getting a useless degree in Creative Writing. I would have learned actual life skills, and it would have been a lot cheaper.

            If you asked me what the biggest pitfall to avoid while self-publishing was before this meeting, I’d have said it all boils down to “don’t be poor”. I’d still stand by that to a degree, but there were things I could have done for Odinochka: Armenian Tales from the Gulag that wouldn’t have had to cost me extra money. I want to go through the list and see what I should have done differently with my book. The speaker at today’s meeting was Jacquelyn Lynn. I hope she wouldn’t mind my commentating on her list she gave us. She runs CreateTeachInspire.com. If she has issue with me doing this, I’ll gladly take this blog post down. Anyway:

Mistake 1: Ineffective title. Oh boy. Odinochka: Armenian Tales from the Gulag. Really rolls of the tongue, don't it? What was I thinking?! I want to bang my head on the wall for picking this title. It’s stuff I didn’t think about at the time. No one guided me through self-publishing. Especially not in Graduate School. But I can write a damn good twenty-five page term paper, so there’s that. I’m sure I’ll get rich with that skill. Ahem, sorry. I should have picked a title that was in English, and said something about what the book was about. I know that, in hindsight. I learned it the hard way.

Mistake 2: Poor cover design. 

Well what do you think? I did the best with what I had in this regard. I still like my cover. The title is legible, it doesn’t clash with the image. The painting is symbolic and you'll only really get it after you read the book, but I dunno, I still like it. I don’t think that was my book’s biggest problem. I've seen much worse covers on self-published books.

Mistake 3: Poor interior design. 

Umm, now that you mention it...

Well, okay, I could have done better. I should have had the page numbers at the top of the page. I don’t know why I didn’t do that. And the footers are uneven from page to page too. They're higher up on the right pages than the left pages. Formatting in Microsoft Word is such a bitch, if you’ll pardon my language. You'd think something as simple as adding page numbers to your document would be easy. It isn't. I tried. This was as good as I could get it. I remember calling Microsoft customer service for help and they were basically like "Did the online tutorials work? No? Well your version of MS Word is over six months old so screw you". I was lucky to even get it this good. I learned that you'd better have the page number situation on your document figured out before you really start writing a novel because going back and adding them later is near-impossible. I like the Palatino Linotype font, so I still stand by that choice. I think the spacing and font size are fine. But the formatting needs work, for sure.

Mistake 4: Low Quality Graphics. I didn’t dare risk using any kind of illustrations or graphics in Odinochka. I don’t think the book needed it anyway. But it’s something to keep in mind for my next books. It'd be nice to at least have maps in them or something.

Mistake 5: Using copyrighted material without permission. I might be doing that right now with this blog. Sorry if I am. Maybe it falls under Fair Use because I’m commentating on it? Hopefully. Well, this didn’t really apply to Odinochka. It may have been partly inspired by my grandfather’s memoir, so there might be that, but he won’t sue me. My next book is based on the Oz series by L. Frank Baum and I’m being extra careful only to use material from the public domain books. No ruby slippers, no green Wicked Witch of the West, etc. I'll still credit Baum, Ruth Plumly Thompson and Jack Snow even though I don't technically have to, out of courtesy for their work which inspired me. I’ve written fan fiction before based on various animated films, but I’m not profiting off that, so it should be alright. Though fanfiction.net did make me edit my stories for copyrighted content at one point. Try figuring that out. That’s another blog for another time. Anyway, as much as copyright is just a creative leash that mainly only protects the interests of mega-corporations at this point, it’s a law we must abide by.

Mistake 6: Poor editing. I did my best. I made this book on a shoestring budget. It benefited from being reviewed by my professors and fellow students at Graduate School. It was my Master’s Thesis. But yeah, Rule#1 of self-publishing: don’t be poor. Editors are expensive, and there’s no guarantee you’re going to make that money back. That’s why I’m going to have to play the traditional publishing world’s lottery from now on.

Mistake 7: Sloppy Proofreading. I don’t think my book had this problem. I even ordered a proof copy and went over it with a fine-tooth comb. This kind of goes with editing. I’ve even seen traditionally published books with spelling and grammar mistakes, so this can happen to anyone.

Mistake 8: Poor book description. 

What do you think? I thought I did a good job for what the story was. The story isn’t very marketable to begin with. The books I likened it to are obscure themselves. I wasn't able to say "If you loved Harry Potter or Game of Thrones, you're going to love this!" The more honest marketing quote would probably be “Need a good cry? Want to lose your faith in humanity? Read Odinochka!” I’ll be writing more marketable books from now on, so this will get easier. To write a really good, marketable description with all the right SEO and keywords, I ought to hire someone. “Don’t be poor” rears its ugly head again.

Mistake 9: Trusting friends for feedback. Your friends and family won’t be neutral, even if they try to be. I already knew that. My feedback for Odinochka came from brutally honest classmates and professors. The same people who boiled me alive when I tried to workshop my fantasy novel seemed to love this book. I’m going to have to find people to workshop my coming novels with. Comment here if you want to be one of them!

Mistake 10: Failing to create a plan. I had a plan. It didn’t work, but I had one. I knew it wasn’t going to be a best-seller, obviously, but I really didn’t realize what a drop in the ocean my book was going to be. My target audience was Armenians. Didn’t really catch on with them. I needed money to be able to market it. And I didn't have money. Still don't. I went into it not knowing much. My plan up until now was to write a much more marketable second novel and hopefully more people would buy this novel too out of curiosity. 

            You might think all of this discouraged me. But you know what? I feel more resolve now. I told the speaker at the meeting today that I have already self-published and I have some regrets. I asked her if there’s any recourse, you know, if I want to change the title or hire a better editor for it. She explained that I can “unpublish” it, as in take it off the market, rename it and re-edit it, and then republish it under a new ISBN number. It’s not so set in stone. One day when I have the money that’s what I’ll do. Come up with a better title, hire a professional editor. It’s kind of low on my priorities right now, but one day I’ll fix that old book and maybe it’ll be more marketable. It deserves better than I was able to give it back in 2016. I’ll remake it when my ship comes in. Whenever that’s going to happen. Anyway, you could technically buy it now and have a rare original copy before I take it off the market and revise it. Might be worth big bucks once I'm rich and famous. You know, I'm just saying...

Genius marketing, eh?

The Armenian-Turkic Music Wars; or Why I Feel Weird Listening to She Past Away

            My preferred musical genre for the past several years has been music under the “goth” umbrella, like Industrial, darkwave, coldwave, EBM, death rock, etc. Sometimes I’ll be listening to a music podcast or have YouTube on autoplay, and I’ll hear a really great song I’ve never heard before that’s right up my alley genre-wise, only to find that it’s She Past Away. She Past Away is a very popular band in goth circles, and I would enjoy their music too if not for one little thing that gets in the way, and makes me back off and skip the song. They’re from Turkey, and I’m Armenian. Am I being petty and childish, not wanting to listen to a band I would otherwise like if they were from any other country in the world? Am I being overly-nationalistic? Discriminatory, even? I am conflicted on these questions myself. It’s a dilemma I’ve been wrestling with. But before you write-off my misgivings, let me go through all the baggage that has led me to feel weird and uncomfortable about listening to music I would otherwise love.

                        

Why must you sound so good?!

 I could go all the way back to the Seljuk Turk invasion of Armenia in the 1000’s AD in which thousands of Armenians were slaughtered by invading bloodthirsty horsemen from Central Asia, or the rise of the Turkish-run Ottoman Empire which committed several massacres against the Armenians during its existence, but let’s start at the year 1915. World War One was on, the Ottoman Empire was on the verge of collapse and losing the war to the Russians, and with the world distracted they finally saw their perfect chance to eliminate the Armenians, who being Christian and native to a large chunk of the Ottoman Empire were very problematic to those who wanted racial and religious purity in the new Turkey, committing the oft-discussed (and denied) Armenian genocide, which had been in the works since at least the 1890’s, but probably even earlier. Unlike the Holocaust there was never any justice at the end, no closure, Turkey denies it ever happened and basically got away with it, and in doing so makes it a modern issue, as it is at the root of many of modern Armenia’s problems.

Now to narrow our scope, let us discuss the Armenian musician Komitas Vardapet. Komitas is famous to Armenians for preserving the folk music of Western Armenia, which otherwise would have been forgotten after the genocide. He’s considered one of the greatest Armenian musicians in history. Komitas was among the Armenian intellectuals arrested on April 24^th, 1915, most of whom were executed or put on death marches to the Syrian desert. Komitas was somewhat lucky, as a higher-up in the government who was a fan of the work of Komitas arranged to have him taken off the death march and rescued. But the damage was done, whatever Komitas had witnessed on this death march had broken him and driven him insane. He spent the rest of his life in a mental institution in France. The music was dead. Now this is just one musical genius who was essentially killed in the genocide. 1.5 million other people were killed. Stop and think about that number. How much music, not to mention works of literature and art, were lost?

Komitas' last Night, by Sargis Muradyan

So, that’s a big reason I feel weird about listening to and enjoying Turkish music, even gothic Turkish music. Turkey is a country built on the blood and bones of my ancestors. Modern Turks have benefited from their grandparents and great-grandparents stealing the wealth and land of my ancestors. So yes, I hold a grudge against the country of Turkey. “Oh but that was a long time ago”, you might argue. Why don’t I get over it? I would argue that it is still a modern issue as I said earlier; the present was shaped by the past, therefore the past is part of the present and inseparable from it. But alright, fine, let’s look at some more modern battles in the Armenian-Turkic music war. There’s always been a mutual grudge and distaste for one another’s cultures between Turks and Armenians after the genocide, as well as arguments over who came up with what first (see the Middle Eastern food wars for some great examples of this, where Greece, Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia also get involved; go ahead, find a Middle Eastern forum somewhere and ask who invented hummus or dolma). One incident I can remember from recent times is the sort-of scandal back in 2011 when a Turkish pop-singer, Sibal Alas, saw fit to take the tune to a traditional Armenian song about the 1909 massacres of Armenians in the city of Adana and turn it into some poppy love song, thereby symbolically erasing the Armenian genocide in a sense. I don’t believe this is the only time something like this has happened, but it’s the one I remember most. People in the United States like to argue about cultural appropriation, but it happens all the time with Turkey and neighboring Azerbaijan against Armenians, Greeks and others, usually with a lot more malicious intent than, say, a distasteful Halloween costume. 

Let us have a look at what tends to happen when the shoe is on the other foot; rather, what happens when a Turkic person happens to find themselves liking Armenian music in their home countries. Back in 2017, the song “Mi Gna” (“Don’t Go” in English) by Super Sako became an international hit, even in Turkey. It’s part folk music and part hip hop; not my preferred genre. But, it was fascinating in that even Turks were liking a song in the Armenian language. Perhaps the cultural boundaries were finally being broken. I can’t say it’s had a tremendous impact on Armenian-Turkish relations in the long run, but maybe it was a small step in the right direction. Perhaps She Past Away could be my “Mi Gna”, if I’d give the band a chance.

But, that was in Turkey. Azerbaijan is another Turkic country to the east of Armenia. Their language is Turkic, they consider themselves cultural brothers, so they’re basically mini-Turkey, and I think relevant to the discussion. They are notoriously sore losers over their loss (ceasefire, officially, but basically loss) of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in the early 1990’s, in which a region of Armenia historically known as Artsakh which was put under Azerbaijani control by the Soviet Union in the 1920’s declared independence with the fall of the Soviet Union, and is today an unrecognized country. Anti-Armenian sentiment in that country is government-enforced. It is taught in schools, anyone with Armenian ancestry has to hide it, etc. The same is true in Turkey to a lesser extent, but it is even more militant in Azerbaijan. So, while “Mi Gna” was topping the charts in Turkey, anyone caught listening to it in Azerbaijan got arrested. Azeri DJ’s have been arrested for playing Armenian music too. And when it comes to Eurovision, anyone in Azerbaijan voting for Armenia can be arrested and interrogated for being political dissidents (because a stupid music contest is apparently serious business; I guess if you can’t win a war you might as well try to win music contests using any sneaky underhanded tactic at your disposal). Even more recently, earlier this month an Azeri opera singer refused to share a stage with an Armenian opera singer at the Dresden Opera Ball, for fear of getting Armenian cooties or something.

When I read stories like this, I realize that the Azerbaijani government is being petty and childish. Am I being just as petty and childish by not listening to She Past Away? Or does all of that cultural baggage justify my feelings? If they’re not going to be open to the music of my culture, why should I be open to theirs? Of course, I don’t even know the opinions of the members of She Past Away on Armenia, or on Azerbaijan for that matter. Maybe they would disagree with how the Azerbaijani government handles things. Unsurprisingly, I haven’t been able to find out one way or another in my research if they deny the Armenian genocide or not. If they were active deniers then I definitely wouldn’t listen to them. Of course, if they came out and admitted it happened and were apologetic, they could really be the Taner Akcams of goth. It might win them bonus points with Armenians (at least among the very few Armenian goths that exist; I feel like the only one sometimes) and goths who care about human rights in general, but alienate themselves from their home country. It is still illegal to say the Armenian genocide happened in Turkey, after all (because of course it is; if it didn’t happen would they really need a law preventing people from saying it did?). They could have their citizenship revoked or be thrown in jail, or have their families threatened. The majority of their fans wouldn’t care either way more than likely, they’ve probably never even heard of Armenia outside of the song “Little Armenia” by Night Nail (which has nothing to do with Armenia actually). It’s probably smart on the part of She Past Away not to voice an opinion one way or another. Maybe they don’t want to alienate someone like me, or maybe it’s just never even crossed their minds. I have no idea. But, I can understand a Turk not wanting to publicly talk about the Armenian genocide one way or another even if they know it happened. The benefits for doing so wouldn’t outweigh the negative consequences. But that’s just how genocides work. The final stage is denial. The Turkish government is really at fault, not so much the people.

And what recourse do I have against a country that has gotten away with the annihilation of my ancestors? I can refuse to buy Turkish apricots and figs at the supermarket because the land they were grown on is stained with the blood of my ancestors, I can boycott Turkey, I can write niche and difficult to market self-published novels about the Armenian genocide that maybe twenty people will read, and I can skip songs by Turkish bands when listening to goth music even though if they were from any other country (besides Azerbaijan) I’d be all into it. That’s all I’ve got, as a rather powerless individual person. It’s not much.

I don’t know, maybe I should just get over myself and listen to She Past Away. Maybe I’m being just as silly and immature as the Azeri government. It’s not going to hurt anyone if I listen to She Past Away or the other Turkish goth bands I’ve come across. And I’m certainly not going to be arrested for it. If I became a fan of She Past Away, perhaps in a small way I would be participating in breaking down the cultural boundaries between Armenia and Turkey, just like the Turkish fans of “Mi Gna”, and the Turkish fans of System of a Down for that matter. Maybe music is the cure for cultural conflict. It transcends national boundaries and brings humanity as a whole together.

 Nations are a man-made concept anyway. Borders are just lines drawn in the sand. Meaningless. You go outside for a walk at night, look up at the stars, think about the distant constellations and galaxies and how vast the universe is, and think about how insignificant this planet is in the grand scheme. All of this human tribalism and territorialism doesn’t amount to a thing. We’re like little ants fighting over ant hills. It’s all a joke. It’s like the Joker said in The Killing Joke. “Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for, it’s all a monstrous, demented gag.” It’s music by members of a rival team. Another tribe. Who cares? I probably shouldn’t.

But, I don’t think my deceased grandfather would be very happy with me if he were alive and knew I was listening to Turkish music. Perhaps I’d be betraying him, Komitas, and the rest of the Armenian victims of Turkey throughout history. What about them? Not that they’re ever going to know or care that I’m listening to Turkish goth music. And I do have a pet peeve about people trying to put words into the mouths of the dead. “Your ____ would be so ashamed if they were alive to see this, blah blah blah”. Nobody knows what a deceased person would think. They’re not here to tell us. I respect their memories in other ways.

 Cultural hang-ups are weird, okay? Every time I’m about to break free of it, another part of me drags me back down. Nihilism versus nationalism, logic versus pride, battling it out in my mind. But, after examining and analyzing the reasons I felt uncomfortable with listening to She Past Away, I am leaning towards giving She Past Away a chance. Or at least not skipping their songs when they come on. In writing this blog entry I’ve kind of talked myself into it. Unless I find out they actually deny the Armenian genocide. Then I’d have a much stronger reason for avoiding them than just “they’re from Turkey”.

References

• https://news.am/eng/news/63378.html (Adana turned into a pop song)
• https://www.panorama.am/en/news/2020/01/13/Azerbaijani-singer-refuses-to-share-stage-with-Armenian-opera-singer-at-Dresden-Opera-Ball/2222104?fbclid=IwAR34up22WWWFgKcQkpl_7q0miKZ7bhbLIYxwuH6hAKhcbr6uhedISo03ApQ#.Xhyy0ncuv0U.facebook  (Azeri opera singer refuses to share stage with Armenian opera singer)
• https://armenpress.am/eng/news/884711/ (Mi Gna a hit in Turkey)
• https://armenpress.am/eng/news/994319.html (Azeri taxi driver arrested listening to Mi Gna)
• https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/aug/18/azerbaijan-authorities-interrogate-music-fans (Eurovision)
• https://www.panorama.am/en/news/2018/07/24/Azerbaijani-DJ/1982728 (DJ arrested playing Armenian music)

Year One of Fatherhood – Thoughts on Being a New Parent

            The overarching theme of this blog is my life, so it follows I must talk about what’s been the biggest part of my life since the time my wife became pregnant, my little pokrik jan, Jareth, aka Jare Bear, Jerry Berry, etc. He turned 1 year old on the 13^th this month. We’ve kept him alive for an entire Earth orbit, and that is certainly an achievement worth celebrating. It’s been an interesting year, and a lot’s changed. Although it’s his birthday, it’s also an occasion for my wife Deborah and I to look back and reflect.

We were timing the contractions the night she went into labor.

It was early January 12^th, 2019, when Deborah began to have labor pains. This began a sleepless night in which I sat beside her, playing calming music on the TV as she was in agony, trying my best to comfort her while also trying not to panic myself. We didn’t go to the hospital right away; instead we waited until morning. I was at her bedside the whole day as she was in labor, letting her squeeze my hand every time a contraction caused her to scream. Nobody knew just how big the baby was going to be; if they’d known, she might have had a C-section. As it was, he was more than a week late. The doctors tried to get her to push, but he wasn’t clearing the pelvic bone. Morning became afternoon, afternoon became evening, and night. The baby still wasn’t out. My mother-in-law and I stayed with Deborah in the delivery room the entire day, not really doing anything else. That night doctors gave Deborah a horizontal bar to hang on over the bed while she pushed so that gravity would do some of the work, and that helped a little, but the baby was simply too big.

 It may not have been a pleasant experience for me, but I wasn’t the one in painful agony for more than 24 hours. It feels kind of petty and selfish to complain about whatever discomfort I was in, after more than one and a half sleepless nights. But I will say it was just awful listening to the screams and cries of pain of my wife who I love. She felt like giving up at times. She didn’t want painkillers but eventually she had to take them. I’ll never know what the pain feels like. I’ve had a horrible root canal that went on for hours because my dentist decided to go on lunch break in the middle of it, and that’s probably nothing compared to the pain of childbirth, despite being one of the most painful things I personally have endured. I felt guilt for putting her through this much pain.

            We were all sure he was going to be born on January 12^th, but it wasn’t until sometime after 2am on January 13^th when Jareth Sevan Daniel Oganessian came into the world at long last (his fourth birthday will be on Friday the 13^th, how lucky). He got stuck on his way out; the doctors shoved me away and had to perform an emergency cut to get him out. I was in a daze. There was blood on the floor, screams, and chaos. When they took him out, I swear he looked like a four-year-old. Ten pounds, fourteen ounces. My family has big babies. A candid picture was taken as the baby was placed in Deborah’s hands, with me watching. I wasn’t even fully aware of what was going on thanks to a lack of sleep. I was wearing a coat in the picture because they kept the temperature in that hospital in the 40’s Fahrenheit it seemed.

            Jareth was named after Jareth the Goblin King, David Bowie’s character from the movie Labyrinth. It was my idea. At one point in the movie, Jareth has the baby he kidnapped on his knee, and says “I think I’ll name him Jareth. He has my eyes.” That was the line that made me want to name my future son Jareth. Sadly, my son Jareth didn’t get the blue eyes that most males in my family have, for some reason. But oh well. People have asked why I didn’t name him Suren, but the family tradition is that the name skips a generation. My firstborn grandson who bears the Oganessian surname gets to be Suren III; should Jareth choose to have kids and follow the tradition. Sevan is the obligatory Armenian name he needed to have in there somewhere. I always liked that name. It’s a very pretty lake in Armenia. Daniel was the name of Deborah’s sadly deceased half-brother, so that had to be in there somewhere in memory of him. It’s a long name, but when he’s older he can choose which name to go by, just like I did (I went by my middle name Michael until I was 18). If he’s ever in Armenia he can go by Sevan. There’s no “th” sound in Armenian so they’d have a hard time with it.

There was a strange couple days after his birth where it really didn’t register in my brain that he was my baby, even though I knew he was. It felt like babysitting at first. We stayed in a sort of hotel at the hospital while Deborah recovered in a very uncomfortable bed that only made her back aches worse, while I passed out on a hard cot. Little Jareth was born with a slight jaundice and needed to be put under a blue light to treat it. Phototherapy they called it. Time seemed to stop in this room as we waited. I had my laptop, and a copy of The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum to read to Jareth (he’d never sit still long enough to read to him today, sigh). Soon after we brought him home it did finally start to sink in that he was my son, and it was like a type of love I’ve never felt before. You’d never really know it unless you experienced it. It felt nice. It was exciting, being a brand-new parent. I’d get to pass on my knowledge, I’d get to read him the books I wrote, show him my music, all the cartoons I used to watch when I was a kid. All that fun stuff. A brand-new start. Who knows if he’ll actually like the same things I do, but one can hope.

Here he is in his crib for the first time, watched by Fievel, Tails, and my old teddy bear Coco

In the first year he’s proven to be rather picky in his tastes. He does love the song “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel, which I loved at his age too. But he does that thing babies and toddlers do when it comes to music and anything they watch, he wants to see it on repeat a hundred times a day. That is, when he’s in the mood to sit still, which over the months has decreased exponentially. He loves anime opening themes for some strange reason, and has to watch them every time my wife and I put on anime. He also loves the Armenian children’s music I put on for him to familiarize him with the language; now I’ve heard it all so many times I’m desperate to get him into anything else! Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood is sadly a no from him, and Sesame Street he might watch for a couple minutes. He's not allowed to watch anything too annoying or asinine. Most of the time he’ll sit through the beginning theme of a show and then wander off to get into mischief. It’s really hard to get him to like anything he hasn’t already watched or listened to a million times. But, kids shouldn’t sit in front of the TV for too long anyway, so it’s probably a good thing.

I’ve heard it said by many people that babies will just kind of fit into your life, even if it seems like they won’t before you have one. I’ve found that it’s true in the sense that you’ll eventually get used to having one and adjust to the new reality, to the point where you’ll forget what it was like before you had a kid. Not completely, obviously it’s only been a year, but I am kind of forgetting what it was like. He’s a big responsibility; a 24-7 job. A lot of men who get a girl pregnant run from that responsibility. They can’t handle it. They don’t want fatherhood to interrupt their eternal childhoods. To be honest some women run from motherhood too, but less often. But I’d never run away from fatherhood. I think if I’d become a father at twenty for example, I may have been terrified, but I wouldn’t have run from it. I’d have stepped up to the plate, even though I wasn’t ready.

He’s spent the year growing and learning rapidly. His mind is a sponge. I liken it to the Big Bang; his mind is like an expanding universe. He spends every second learning something. Things that we long ago accepted as a mundane everyday reality are new and exciting to him. For example, the other day when we were at the library, they announced over the intercom that they were going to close soon. I’ve heard intercoms all my life so I don’t think twice about them, but he let out a happy shriek and looked around, wondering where that voice was coming from. I could learn a lot by trying to look at the world the way he does. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a child’s fresh mind, pure and unsullied. The world hasn’t beaten his innocence to the ground like it has my own. Maybe one day he’ll help me recapture some of it. There’s a certain wisdom babies have that we’ve lost. Perhaps it came as a price for the knowledge needed to survive in the world.

He changes as much in one month as an adult changes in ten years. Every month it’s like having a completely different baby. Over the summer he began to drag himself along with his arms, then he started properly crawling around September, now he’s at the stage where he’ll hold onto couches and tables for support as he walks. He’s on the cusp of walking. He wants to examine everything, he’s always craving new objects and new places to explore, and he seems to prefer electronic devices that he shouldn’t touch to actual toys. He’d rather play with a digital clock, a modem, a laptop, or my shelf of VHS tapes than a toy. The forbidden fruit effect is strong in him. He wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes in the Garden of Eden. He doesn’t sit still anymore either unless he’s sleeping. He used to sit in my lap for quite a while in the beginning, but now he’ll scream and twist his body if I put him in my lap for a second because he always has to be on the move. I don’t know how I’m going to do it when he’s running around.  I often wonder how long he would last without anybody watching him at all.

He's a team effort between Deborah and I. He requires constant attention unless he’s asleep, and even then, you don’t really want to leave the room when he’s asleep, because who knows what he’s going to do when he wakes up. Sure, there’s unpleasant aspects to fatherhood sometimes, but all in all it’s worth it. I love the little guy. He gives me a purpose and makes me feel needed. And that helps me through the rough times in life; I need to feel needed. I am worried about the world he’s going to have to grow up in, but it’s my job to do all I can to make sure he survives in it.