It's been over a month since my first blog entry on the subject of the Coronavirus. Here in Florida at least, it's the last day of the lockdown. They're ending it prematurely in my estimation. I've been carrying hand sanitizer with me but I haven't really been wearing a face mask much, but I think now is the time to really start to do it. Ministry's new track, "Alert Level", embedded above and released less than a week ago, really illustrates my feelings at the moment. Doom and gloom. We haven't even seen the worst of it. That's the feeling that I get. The leadership of the US cares more about money than people. This has always been the case. Therefore they're making decisions based on what is most profitable.
Anyway, here's an update on things.
I'm not sick, and none of my family and friends are sick either. That's what I'm most grateful for. I used my stimulus check to pay off my credit card and get out of at least some of my debt, which is a load off my shoulders. Yes we have cabin fever, but I've almost just gotten used to it by now. I can live without restaurants and such. I know a lot of people have suffered during the pandemic, but I myself been extremely fortunate. So far, anyway.
Due to the fact that everyone is being affected in one way or another (although your experience depends highly on what social class you find yourself in; whether you're an "essential hostage worker" risking life and limb for a paycheck and health insurance, or spending the quarantine on a yacht), I don't know that I have anything special to say about the pandemic that isn't common knowledge, really. I'll simply just say where I stand on it. The lockdown measures have been fair, at least as far as people have been obeying them. I could go into the hilarious and contradictory conspiracy theories being cooked up about it, which seems far more prevalent in the United States than elsewhere, but enough people are talking about that. I'm choosing to trust the scientists; not the right wing nutjobs, not the billionaire CEOs who want their mindless robots to get back to work, and not the politician sock puppets of the rich. Just the scientists. I also plan on supporting the workers on strike at Amazon, Target, Wal-Mart and Trader Joe's starting on May 1st by boycotting those companies.
You can probably tell where I am on the political compass by my stances. Let's just agree to disagree if you don't like where I stand, please. Anyway, here's some interesting articles and videos from somewhat outside the mainstream that you may have missed, and I would recommend checking out.
Expert predicts no concerts until fall 2021. Damn, I'm pretty glad I went to that Mortiis concert earlier this year. Now's a good time to support the bands you enjoy and pay for the music you listen to, because concerts are really the main source of income for a lot of them. No one really makes money off the actual music anymore.
https://oc-media.org/in_pictures/in-pictures-life-under-guarantine-in-gyumri/
What's life been like in the Armenian city of Gyumri during the quarantine? This article will go into it. If you're reading this blog chances are you may be Armenian yourself, but if not, this could be a chance to read some international news that doesn't get reported at all in the United States.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juoI0TQ_dC8
CivilNet covers Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day 2020, which for the first time had to be commemorated remotely. It was still very tastefully done. The monument at Tsitsernakaberd was lit up with the names of victims and survivors of the genocide, there were live streamed concerts. I mean living where I do, with little to no Armenian community around me, this is how I commemorate the day anyway, usually.
Okay, that is a monstrous URL, I know. But you may remember in my last post on this topic I spoke about a struggling independent book store in Cocoa, Florida called Hello Again books. They almost got evicted by their landlord for not paying their rent due to having to close their doors. Thankfully some wealthy benefactors chipped in and saved the store. This is their post on Facebook about the whole thing. A feel-good story, sure. But the real story here is that all the huge corporations have gotten bailouts, profits have skyrocketed for the wealthiest in society, and the government literally conjured over a trillion imaginary dollars out of nowhere to try and save the stock market, while regular people are left to suffer; at the very least tossed some bread crumbs in the form of a stimulus check, the bare minimum to keep people from rioting. Money isn't real. People need to wake up and realize it's not some finite resource. It's made-up numbers. Other countries are doing rent-freezes, but not the good ol' US. This story should make you angry, not warm your heart. Again, if you disagree with me, that's fine, whatever.
Here's another small business that's suffering. Ravens & Rockers, a gothic clothing store in Tampa, FL. Much like Hello Again Books, they're barely hanging on, they didn't qualify for any of the small business assistance or any of that. They're selling things through eBay, so if you're into that sort of thing, go ahead and help them out. You can also buy a gift card to be used when they open again, if you're living in the area. I don't live in the area anymore but I've been to this place before.
There was a reason I did Birthright
Armenia in 2015; a reason I didn’t do it a year later or earlier. I felt that I
needed to be in Armenia for the occasion of the centennial of the Armenian
genocide, and the Birthright Armenia program was my best chance of being in
Armenia for it. It is perhaps a little surprising there weren’t more Birthright
Armenia volunteers there at the time; if memory serves me correctly there were
maybe a little over twenty. The timing of my coming to Armenia was also
interesting because two of my cousins just happened to also be in Armenia at
the same time. My cousin Armen was there for his sister-in-law’s wedding (he
married a woman from Yerevan), and my cousin Raffi goes back and forth from the
United States and Armenia rather often because he runs a record company there,
Pomegranate Music. I guess the biggest miracle was that I was there, since my cousins get to visit Armenia far more often than I do. The picture you see above is the only one of the three of us together, sharing a meal at a nice little restaurant called Teryan Kebab. What would my grandfather Suren think
if he were alive to see three of his grandsons in Armenia on the centennial of
the genocide? It almost felt like some higher power was at work to make that happen. Fate, perhaps. It did illustrate one thing perfectly; Turkey failed, indeed.
The
night of April 23rd was dominated by System of a Down’s free concert
in Republic Square. I wrote a bit about this concert on the blog before. It was
a powerful thing to be present for. The whole concert is available on YouTube
for anyone who wants to see it. Sure, not the same thing as being there, but it
will give you an idea of what the concert was like. An outdoor concert in a
thunderstorm. As I wrote previously on this blog, "Yes, everything came in full circle when I was lucky enough to be in Armenia as a volunteer teaching English when this concert took place. Standing out there in Republic Square in Yerevan in the pouring rain, thunder roaring in the clouds, lightning streaking across the sky, listening to the music of my early teens, I felt complete. Alive. And that was our revenge for the genocide. Despite their best efforts, we were alive." Birthright Armenia had a party with a live feed of the concert
projected on the wall in their office, but with the actual concert right down
the street, it wasn’t long before I bailed on the party and joined the crowd in
the rain. It was something that was only ever going to happen once, and I’m
glad I made the most of it. Indeed, I picked a good time to be in Armenia.
April 24th is the
anniversary of the day the Ottoman authorities rounded up the Armenian
intellectuals to massacre them. This isn’t actually the day the genocide really
began, as the siege on Van began a few days earlier, and one could argue the process of genocide itself started in the 1890’s with the Hamidian Massacres, if not when the Seljuk Turks first invaded. But the 24th was when it
really went underway. It may seem strange to mark the centennial of the deaths
of 1.5 million people with anything resembling a celebration, but really, it
was a celebration of Turkey’s failure to complete the genocide. 100 years
later, Armenia was free and independent, it’s culture and people alive and
well. That was something to celebrate.
April 24th, 2015
On April 24th, 2015, I
had an interesting, if not completely pleasant, day. Luckily I kept a journal. I left the apartment I was
staying in at around 4:30 pm and took one of the minibuses prevalent across
Armenia called marshrutkas. My plan was to hang out at the Birthright Armenia office
for a while and take advantage of their wi-fi, which as you may recall from one
of my previous posts, my host family did not have. Later that evening all of
the Birthright Armenia volunteers were going to participate in a torch-lit
procession from Republic Square to the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian genocide
memorial, something that happens every year (except 2020, sadly). It was
pouring down rain, and after we were around halfway to Republic Square and the
Birthright Armenia office, the marshrutka stopped in the middle of the road and
the driver forced everyone off. I don’t even think they gave us our money back.
Something had made the driver furious. I never found out why, thanks to the
language barrier. So, I ended up walking to the nearest metro station to take a
subway train the rest of the way, getting completely soaked in the process. Fun
times. I wonder if it was engine trouble. I’ll never really know. When I got to
the Birthright Armenia, lo and behold it was closed. But I was able to get into
a nearby kitchen area in the building, with a weak wi-fi signal, and take my
shoes and socks off to dry.
When the office opened, we listened
to a long lecture by a Danish genocide expert who’d examined the Ottoman
archives, which while long since largely wiped clean of anything proving their
guilt in the genocide still holds valuable census data and such. After this
interesting lecture, we were taken outside to Republic Square, where we were handed
candles in glass cups. This presented a nice photo opportunity, of course.
Now
I hadn’t been told what the torch-lit procession was going to entail, exactly. I
was under the impression that this march might be an hour or so long. The
memorial isn’t really that far from Republic Square, if you go the direct
route. A couple months later I walked there directly from Republic Square and
it did take me around an hour. But no, actually the route they take for the
procession is quite possibly the longest route through Yerevan you could
possibly take. It went on for many hours. I had been following one of
the secretaries from Birthright Armenia named Diana, but eventually she ran off
with a friend somewhere and left me lost in the crowd. It probably wasn't on purpose. I had the phone number
of another volunteer, a young woman from Chile named Constanza, but she didn’t
pick up either. So, I was lost. Looking back now, I really wish I hadn’t been so frightened and
angry as I was about it at the time, but I found being alone in this crowd,
having no idea where the crowd was going, very upsetting. From then on, I would
not see another familiar face until I returned back to the apartment. At least
if I were ever to find myself in Armenia on an April 24th again, I
would know what I was in for. Part of it was just the fear and anxiety of being
alone in another country with a language barrier. Even if I had been in Armenia
for a couple months by this point it wouldn’t have been so frightening to me,
but I had only been there a little over three weeks.
Along
the way, sights I saw included cars driving by with Turkish and Azerbaijani
flags sticking out the backs of the trunk and dragging in the mud, which I
found amusing. Some people might think flag abuse is a little too vindictive
for their tastes. But Armenia has been through enough torment due to these two
countries that I think it’s perfectly justified.
At
another point we passed a restaurant which had the flaming numbers “1915” on
its roof. This was pretty awesome looking, certainly a highlight on this long
trek.
It felt like a long, long time
before we finally reached the memorial, which by the time I reached it, maybe 2
in the morning, was surrounded by a wall of flowers taller than I am. I took
the picture you see above by holding my phone up above my head. By the time I
reached the memorial I was no longer full of fear. I had stuck through the
entire march through sheer willpower, and the memory of my ancestors who had
suffered and survived a century ago. I thought of those poor souls, who
suffered a million times more than I ever have. It felt good to complete the
march.
After
placing a flower at the memorial, I was on my own getting home. Lost in another
country in the middle of the night. How fun. The fear returned. In desperation
I tried to call my cousin Raffi but he had been sleeping and advised me to find
a taxi. So, with my legs already aching like they’d been in a leg lock, I
wandered through Yerevan for another half hour or so before finding a taxi
driver, who charged me 2000 drams to get back to the Arabkir District; an
overcharge, but what was I to do? At any rate, I don’t
think I’ve ever walked so much in a single day in all my life.
All that said, I’m still glad I was
there for the occasion. I wish I had enjoyed myself a bit more at the time and
that it had been more of a positive experience. But, that’s just how it was for
me personally at the time. If only I could go back, knowing what I know now. 2020 will be the first year in decades that the Armenian Genocide
hasn’t been commemorated with gatherings and marches, thanks to the coronavirus
pandemic. It will instead be mainly an online affair. It’s unfortunate, but I
suppose it’s not worth risking lives to commemorate it.
I know I just did a whole blog post about how I was going to prioritize from now on, but I already had this in the works before I decided on that. Anyway, this meme has been circulating on Facebook quite a bit lately in all the art and animation groups, where an artist will choose to take requests from their friends or whoever on what six characters to draw.
I've been wanting to practice using the Comic Draw app, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon. So see, it is productive, it's practice! I took all the characters requested and picked six at random (sorry if I didn't get to yours). Now a few of these certainly need an explanation. I'll just run down the list.
Rick and Morty - Requested by Erika Oganessian
I've seen and enjoyed this cartoon, and in fact I've even doodled the characters before, so this was a good one to start with.
Olaf (being Melted by a Blow Torch) - Requested by Deborah Oganessian
My wife showed her sadistic side by requesting this one. But since that damned annoying snowman has to be my least favorite Disney character (even worse than the stupid gargoyles from Hunchback of Notre Dame), the drawing was quite cathartic.
Peridot - Requested by Erika Oganessian
My sister lucked out and got two of her requests. Peridot is from the cartoon Steven Universe, initially a villain before turning over a new leaf. I liked her better when she was a villain, of course, but she's still amusing afterward.
Jareth the Goblin King - Requested by Mitchell Mayle
I named my son after this character so how could I not jump at the chance? Of course this was chosen at random though. Jareth is David Bowie's character in the film Labyrinth. He rules the Goblin Kingdom, which consists of a huge labyrinth. I never knew how many people had never heard of this movie until I named my son Jareth. It's really sad. But I think I did a good job on this drawing.
Spawn - Requested by Salvador Coveiro
I know next to nothing about Spawn, to be quite honest. The only real superhero comics I read are Batman.That said I still think I did a pretty good job on this drawing.
Chef Astaroth - Requested by Kris Kritscher
This request was an in-joke and has a backstory. Back in my early days of college I did this fan comic about Astartoth from the Soul Calibur video games having his own cooking show, where he invited guests from obscure video games to work on recipes and such. And it usually never ended well. Maybe I'll scan them and post them up someday. I do still have the notebooks.
Anyway, this was fun. Still focusing on my webcomic for now.
As of late I’ve been trying my best
to eliminate distractions, and prioritize. My attention has been divided on
side projects for so long I’ve been forgetting what my main project was
supposed to be. At the moment, I have two finished novel drafts on my hard
drive (and backed up on flash drives, don’t worry). I’ve also been working on
this blog, and I’ve been developing a webcomic. I found myself at a crossroads
after finishing the first draft of the second novel; and I’ve finally chosen a
path. I want to buckle down and focus most of my effort on my upcoming
webcomic. I’m organizing my priorities. Anyway, I’m going to do a run down on
all the projects I’m juggling right now; more so I can keep track of it all.
Priority
1: Loose-Headed Harry
This is my webcomic. Earlier this
year I finally had enough money to buy a good tablet and an art program, so now
I’m finally ready to make it a reality through digital art. It’s based on a
comic I used to draw in High School. It was originally a gag comic where this
unfortunate, bullied teen gets decapitated in gruesome and creative ways. The
new incarnation will be something much deeper; a dramedy that explores themes
of bullying, and examines and ridicules the American education system. It is
set in an exaggerated reality. I liken it to the kind of worlds Johnen
Vasquez’s works are set in, such as in Invader Zim and Johnny the Homicidal
Maniac. It’s reminiscent of the way I looked at the world as a teen, where the
teachers are all sadists participating in a conspiracy to make the student’s
lives a living hell. It goes back and forth between fantasy and realism.
Anyway, I’m going to have to come up with a good summary of it. That’s always
the hardest part when it comes to writing; actually explaining what your story
is about in a few sentences.
I’ve chosen to make this project my
main focus. As it stands, I think this is the one project that I have the
highest chance of being able to monetize. And that might mean fewer blogs.
Priority
2: The Flutterbudgets of Oz
As I mentioned, I have a finished draft of a novel sitting on my hard drive, it's the first book in this two-part series set in L. Frank
Baum’s land of Oz. I can do this because it’s public domain. It’s high-brow fan
fiction, essentially. I spent all of last year and the beginning of this year
writing it as my primary project; it was something I was just motivated to
write. I had to write it. I’m currently waiting to see how it’s going to be
published, but the prospect of it getting published looks promising. I’m going
to remain a bit tight-lipped on this project for the time being, but you’ll
hear all about it from me eventually. The sequel to the first book is one of my
current side projects; and I’m well aware the first book probably has a lot of
editing to be done, as any finished draft does.
Priority
3: This Blog: My Memoir
I started this blog as a means to
cope with a deep depression, and it has helped. It’s my memoir. I’ve somewhat
given up on the idea of actually trying to traditionally publish a memoir. It’s
hard enough to publish fiction. It might be fun to self-publish a memoir
someday, whenever I have enough money to throw away doing that, but until then
I’m better off just posting my memoir here, and hoping Blogspot doesn’t cease
to exist or a solar flare doesn’t permanently knock out the internet. Features
like the Years in Music and Birthright Armenia Reflections blogs are something
I write because I enjoy it, whether a lot of people end up reading it or not.
Another reason this blog exists is to boost my portfolio. Every writer has a
blog somewhere that they can guide literary agents to. So that’s also what this
is. It’s been taking up a lot of my time though. Those Years in Music articles
take a lot of time to write, and I don’t make any money doing it, nor do many
people even read them. I don’t think people want to read about music they’ve
never heard of or wouldn’t like if they did hear it. I don’t write for the
money, of course. But society being what it is, I need to gain imaginary
numbers with my work to be permitted to continue doing it.
The
conclusion I’ve come to is the blog is going to have to take a back seat to the
comic, and is even a lesser priority than the Oz novels, at least right now. I
do still want to write for the joy of writing, so I’m not going to stop
blogging completely. Writing is still a good therapy for me so I will keep
doing it.
Priority
4: The Immortal Tales
This is the novel series that I’ve
wanted to write since I was a teenager; following a group of immortals
throughout history as they do their best to prevent a mask that is possessed by
a malevolent dragon spirit from falling into the wrong hands. It’s historical
fantasy that gradually becomes urban fantasy as it gets closer to modern times.
The first book in the series was to take place in the Kingdom of Urartu
(ancient Armenia). I have a finished draft of the book, which last year I
actually was trying to send out to literary agents with query letters, with no
luck. Now of course you can send queries to hundreds of agents and get dozens
of rejections before anyone says they’re interested. That’s expected. I
actually had two agents say they were interested before they never contacted me
back again. I waited, and waited. I got more and more rejections. And as I did,
I grew more and more discouraged with the whole publishing world. “Oh, think
about how many times J.K Rowling got rejected”, they all say. It’s like playing
the lottery. Now I’m thinking that starting the first book in the series in a
setting that the average American has neither heard of nor cares about probably
isn’t the best thing to do from a marketing standpoint, and is probably why I
was getting so many rejections. If I want this series to be published by a traditional publisher, I have
to start thinking like them, as difficult as it is for me to get into that mindset. So instead I’m going to have a story from later in
the series be the first book. This one takes place in contemporary times, in
America. The Urartu book will be kind of a prequel that gets released later.
Now, I just have to write the next book. Sigh…I’ve been too busy with other
things. Worst case scenario with this series (besides it never getting written), I could end up self-publishing it, and probably selling two
copies a year because I have no money to market it. Might as well put it online for free and ask for donations,
really. Anyway, this project is on the back burner right now.
Priority
5: Everything Else
There are other art and writing
things I do, but, they should be the lowest priority at this point. I’m
probably going to end up doing some of these anyway, but I shouldn’t devote too
much of my energy on them. Another thing that should be included here is social
media and such. I need to go on Facebook and Reddit less often.
Will I be able to keep these
priorities in order? I’ll try. But as a result, I’m probably going to be
posting on the blog less often.
From April to July 2015, I lived in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. This was until I left for the city of Vanadzor to intern there for two months. During my time in Yerevan, when I wasn't either interning at the American University of Armenia or on an excursion elsewhere, I explored the city, gradually learning the ins and outs of its streets, discovering little nooks and crannies here and there. That's the kind of thing I like to do when I travel. I'll go and see the big touristy areas, sure, but I like to go off the beaten path. I like to see how the residents actually live. I would venture away from downtown and find myself in random neighborhoods. I took the Metro Train all the way to the end of the line and just got off and explored. You might find that to be a risky proposition in most countries, especially when you don't speak the language all that well, but Armenia is generally pretty safe.
This blog entry will be mostly pictures I took during those four months with some brief explanations. The phone I had at the time was a cheap little thing, so the pictures aren't as high quality as I wish they were, but they're all I've got. Some of these pictures may have ended up on Facebook at the time, but some I haven't shown anyone before. For many of them I have no idea if it still looks the same five years later. But if you're in Yerevan, these might be fun locations to try to find and get to.
Republic Square
This is the hub of the city, where everyone who visits Armenia probably goes at least once. I guess just wanted to show off this pretty picture I took there. It was taken by the fountains in front of the Museum of Armenia. You can see a government building, and a tall radio tower in the distance which is visible throughout the city.
Here it is from another angle, at the roof of the Diamond Restaurant, where you can eat at a table and look down on the square.
Yerevan History Museum
The Yerevan History Museum is a museum dedicated specifically to the history of the city of Yerevan. There's practically a museum on every block in this city.The front of it not only has an etched street map, but a reproduction of the Urartian cuneiform tablet which spoke of the founding of Yerevan (known as Erebuni) by King Argishti in the 780's B.C.
Here's the tablet itself.
Vishapakar
A Vishapakar, or "dragon stone", is an ancient monument which typically were placed near water springs as a form of water worship.This perhaps dates back to the belief that dragons were responsible for hoarding water during the winter months, only for the God Vahagn to force them to give it back to the land with the return of spring. The top depicts the head of a dragon. There are several Vishapakars in Yerevan. This one was near another museum, not far from the Vernissage market and the Republic Square Metro station.I greeted it every time I was in the area, which was often, because the Birthright Armenia office wasn't far away. I do wonder how the Vishapakar is doing these days.
And this is the park right in front of the Vishapakar, where there are many recreations of khatchkars (cross stones) that were destroyed by the Azerbaijani government, which occupies the former Armenian territory of Nakhichevan, in hopes of eradicating the evidence that Armenians once lived there. I suppose rebuilding them is the next best thing. The park is now dominated by a large statue of the revolutionary Garegin Njhdeh, but this hadn't been built yet in 2015. I caught a dance troupe performing on this particular day.
The Sherlock Holmes Cafe
There were a few amusing themed restaurants in Yerevan, this being one of them. It was not on Baker Street but Marshal Baghramyan Avenue, right across from the American University of Armenia and the British Embassy; which is probably the reason the cafe exists. I didn't get a picture of the inside, but it was very classy as I recall and followed the theme. I do wonder if it is still around.
Here is the British Embassy just across the street, for reference.
Dracula Pub
I so hope this place is still around. It was a spooky-themed pub, and was brand new when I was there. It was just down the street from the Cascade Steps. I was thrilled to find it of course, given my love for all things dark and macabre. I remember giving the owner some recommendations for spooky goth music to play, jotting down a list on a piece of paper. Just to be clear, there's no goth scene in Armenia to speak of really, making anything like this popping up in Yerevan a rare oddity.
Cascade
Speaking of the Cascade Steps, here they are. Again, this is hardly "off the beaten path", everyone who goes to Yerevan sees this. It's two rows of tall steps, reminiscent of a Mayan pyramid. Underneath the steps is a must-see modern art museum, where if you don't want to walk up the steps you can cheat and use an elevator. But that's for wimps. You've got to walk up those steps. It's a rite of passage. But, a little-known (and disappointing) fact about these steps is that they're unfinished. After Armenia's independence no one really had the money to finish them. There's supposed to be another museum there whenever it is finished. When you reach the top you're greeted with a big construction pit.
However, if you want to truly conquer the Cascade, you can go around the pit, and keep climbing. Follow a path upward until you get to this tall brick monument with a golden feather at the top; an old Soviet monument to the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. But, the Armenian eternity symbol and golden feather (which hearkens back to Urartian symbolism) still gives the monument an Armenian flavor. You haven't really defeated the Cascade until you make it up to this.
I was almost at the summit when I took this one. The whole climb took me about an hour as I recall. Yes, I did have to stop and rest.
Classy Jessica Rabbit Street Art
This was a surprising find. Graffiti artists back in America are so lazy. Why couldn't they do something like this more often? It's Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit! I don't think the movie is very well-known in Armenia, but that just makes finding this all the more surprising. As I recall, it was on a wall directly behind the Armenian History Museum near Republic Square. The above picture I must confess is actually from my 2014 trip to Armenia, but I found it again after my 2015 trip, where it was still there, but sadly accompanied by less classy graffiti.
Here it is about a year later. So sad. BAH indeed. At least they tried not to spray over it, but still. How unfortunate.I have no idea how it might look today, if it's even there anymore. Graffiti isn't everywhere in Armenia (although it is disappointingly common on historic buildings that aren't churches, for example the Erebuni Museum), but most of the buildings aren't painted, they're stone, which must make removing graffiti a horrible job.
"Dov e, Tigran Grande?"
I'm going to make Yerevan seem really dirty by showing off all this graffiti, for which I apologize, but have a look at this one. A note for anyone from the US who has never left their country: Yerevan, and I'm suspecting many other former Soviet cities, has this incredibly smart idea of building tunnels underneath busy intersections so you don't have to risk your life crossing the street. I have no idea why this is never done in America. Inside these tunnels you might find little shops selling electronics or souvenirs. It was in one of these underground tunnels that I found this.
The picture shows the legendary Armenian King Tigran the Great, who in the 1st century B.C. exploited a power vacuum in the Middle East when Rome and Persia were both weak to stretch the Kingdom of Armenia from modern Israel to the Caspian Sea, bringing Armenia to the zenith of its power. "Dov e, Tigran Grande" is Italian for "Where is Tigran the Great". Why this was written in Italian I've no clue. Near the picture of Tigran the Great is the outline of Armenia with Artsakh, so it is as if Tigran is looking at the current borders of Armenia. It's quite a statement. Whoever did this must be the Armenian Banksy.
A Charlie Chaplin-themed Clothes Store
Charlie Chaplin turned up quite a few times when I was in Armenia. There was also a Chaplin-themed coffee shop in Vanadzor. Perhaps his continued popularity there owes to the fact that translating silent movies is a much easier process than dubbing sound films. No one I spoke to had heard of The Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy, having instead grown up knowing old Soviet comedians from the same era that I had never heard of. Chaplin overall seems more forgotten in America than in Armenia. I never went into this store, but the bus I took from where I was living to the American University of Armenia would always pass this place, which was somewhere on Komitas Avenue.
Anyway, that's enough raiding of my hard drive for old pictures for now. There will be more in the future. Later this month I still need to talk about what it was like being there for the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. That was an interesting time.
1986 has always held particular
significance to me, for you see, this was the year I entered this world (and of
all the possibly trillions of planets in the universe that could possibly
support life, it just had to be this one, sigh). It is sad that I missed out on
the first six years of the 1980’s, and all I actually remember is very late
1989. But I did manage to grow up with the aftermath of the 80’s, through
reruns and such. And to this day I’m still discovering 80’s music I haven’t
heard yet.
1986 in
Culture and News
I had Labyrinth and The Great Mouse Detective on VHS at some point...
Like other years I’ve covered, the
box office successes of 1986 largely didn’t have the same staying power as the
films that became cult classics. Take Jim Henson’s Labyrinth for
example. Like its predecessor The Dark Crystal, it was misunderstood and
underappreciated when it debuted, but has a large following today. I personally
didn’t see it until sometime in the early 1990’s, but I loved it enough to name
my son after its villain. Some other films from the year include Ferris
Bueller’s Day Off, and two of my favorites, the animated mouse movies An
American Tail and The Great Mouse Detective. After the box office
failure of The Black Cauldron theprevious year (a movie that, while not
as good as it could have been, is still under-rated), Disney nearly closed its
animation department. But, The Great Mouse Detective was enough of a
success to keep them afloat. Later that November An American Tail
debuted, directed by Disney’s rival at the time Don Bluth, breaking Disney’s
box office records. This would start a game of one-upsmanship that, while Bluth
was ultimately unable to compete with, ushered in a renaissance for animation
as a whole; high quality animation would be the norm for even television
animation, at least until the 2000’s. The Great Mouse
Detective has the slightly bigger fandom today, probably thanks to it being
a Disney movie; I myself had to write most of the An American Tail Wiki and can
attest that the An American Tail fandom mainly consists of probably less
than ten dedicated people.
On the video game front, we have the
debut of The Legend of Zelda series. I really didn’t get into the series
until 1998’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. As a result of being
somewhat of a latecomer, I’ve never really been able to truly appreciate the
older 2D Zelda games. As I may have mentioned before, I was a strict Sega kid
for most of the 90’s. But I did get the first game for the NES some time in the
late 1990’s, when people were getting rid of NES games for $5 or less. The game
itself is too hard for me, I must admit. I’ve never beaten it or even gotten
that far in it. I mean you get sent back to the same place every time you die.
But the gold cartridge is pretty awesome looking, you have to admit. I’ll keep
it until I have some sort of major financial emergency I suppose (in which case
it’s kind of amazing I haven’t had to sell it yet).
Probably the most notable news item
from 1986 was the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which happened about a week after
I was born. Fortunately for myself I was on the other side of the planet. But
it was one of many things that would lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union
in a few short years. I’ll have a thing or two to say about that when the time
comes.
1986 in
Music
I wish this were my cassette cover, but I got it online.
I’m going to say Ministry’s Twitch
is my favorite album of 1986; this is a more recent dethroning of Kraftwerk’s Electric
Café, which I’ve known about much longer. It pains me to say it, as much as
I love Kraftwerk, but the same time, Electric Café is far from
Kraftwerk’s best work, really. Their golden age was really from 1975 to 1981.
They would come out with a remix album in 1991, The Mix, but we’d have
to wait until 2003 for their next album of original music; and we unfortunately
haven’t had an album of original music from them since then either. Meanwhile
Twitch represented Ministry moving in a different direction, away from
the synthpop that singer Al Jourgensen claims he was forced to make by the
record companies (which is debatable) and into industrial, and finally later,
industrial metal, a genre they would pioneer. I prefer their early synthpop work
myself, but this album is a happy medium between that and their later, noisier
work. I’d have still been alright with it if they’d stayed sounding like this.
But Kraftwerk’s career was on a downturn in 1986, while Ministry was on their
way up. A top 3 songs of the year is also a hard pick, as I’m confronted with a
choice between nostalgia and my current musical tastes. Why not both then? My
inner child will go with Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer”, David Bowie’s “As The
World Falls Down” from Labyrinth, and the movie version of “Somewhere
Out There” from An American Tail. My 30’s self will go with “All Day” by
Ministry, “Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order, and “Sex Object” by Kraftwerk.
Anyway,
by 1986 industrial music was emerging, even leaking into the mainstream via
Janet Jackson’s debut. 1985 and 1986 were sort of transitional years; the early
1980’s and the late 1980’s are rather distinct from one another musically, as
New Wave and Post-Punk gave way to more electronically-influenced genres. This
would affect the development of pop and hip-hop as well.
This is the song that heralded my
birth. When it comes down to it, this song is at the root of my existence. I
have know way of knowing if this was the first song I ever heard, but it may as
well have been. It was released four days after my birth, on the 25th
of April. I grew up with this song and its zany, colorful stop motion music
video. It appears on my first mix tape as well, recorded in 1999. Lyrically if
you look at it and be honest with yourself, it’s actually a song about sex. One
of the least deep topics you could write a song about. But I like to think the
music video carries additional meanings.
After analyzing the music video many
times, I believe the video is about life. In a general overview this is how I
interpret the video. It starts with a sperm cell incubating an egg, then shows
a fetus forming, and then we’re shown Peter Gabriel, fully formed. This is
conception and birth, obviously. The early part of the video represents
childhood, with its colorful and wonderous visuals. When you’re a child
everything is fresh and new and you’re experiencing the world for the first
time. Your self-image may change often in your childhood and teens, which is
what is shown in the video as we see Peter Gabriel’s face take on different
forms. By the time Peter Gabriel is in the room surrounded by people he has
reached adulthood. We see his full body; he has a fully realized sense of self
that will no longer change. We see all of the different people he’ll meet;
perhaps they’re family, children, co-workers. Things become less surreal as he
becomes accustomed to reality. Then, in fatigue, he rests in a chair, it turns
around and he arises in a black costume with lights like stars; he steps
through a door, and he’s surrounded by darkness and stars. This part of the
video represents growing old and dying, and the spirit rejoining the stars from
whence it came.
Of course, I could be completely
wrong and it’s just a song about sexual innuendos with a pretty and artistic
video. Meh.
A-Ha
– Soft Rains of April
And here’s our obligatory “Other
Songs by One hit Wonders” entry; although A-Ha had lots of hits in their home
country of Norway. It’s a song about April and it came out in 1986. It’s
another song that reminds me of my birth! Perhaps I was being a bit of a
narcissist by including it. It otherwise isn’t actually my type of music.
New
Order – Bizarre Love Triangle
This was one of New Order’s bigger hits,
and one of their catchiest songs. A lot of New Order songs have random lyrics
where you can’t really find a meaning of them, as was the case with “The
Perfect Kiss” which I discussed in 1985 in Music. This is another one of those.
An actual “bizarre love triangle” might make an interesting topic for a song,
but it doesn’t really come up in the lyrics at all. Still a fun song though.
Cyndi
Lauper – Change of Heart
I’m throwing Cyndi Lauper a bone here. I like Cyndi
Lauper’s music just fine, it’s not my favorite, but it’s alright. “Girls Just
Want to Have Fun” is of course her most recognizable hit and could have been on
my 1983 in Music mix, had I not heard it a million times and grown tired of it.
So, here’s one of her lesser hits.
Yello
– Oh Yeah
“Mmm bow bow. Chick. Chickachika.”
If you’ve ever seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, you know this song. It
sounds like Jabba the Hutt if he were in a particularly lecherous mood. So
Yello were these two older Swiss guys who made experimental electronic music
that was not designed for mainstream appeal, but accidentally gained mainstream
appeal with this song and one other (“The Race”, which was only a hit in
Europe). The YouTuber Todd in the Shadows recently did a good video on the song
which I recommend viewing, as he gets pretty in-depth about the band and such.
Depeche
Mode – Stripped
I have to confess I heard
Rammstein’s cover of this song first, back when I was in high school. I didn’t listen to a lot of
Depeche Mode growing up, it wasn’t until I was older, after I transitioned from
metal to goth. The Rammstein version is very comical sounding, with the lyrics
being sung in the same gruff, German-accented voice that is better suited for
industrial metal than synthpop. But after hearing both I have to say I like the
original by Depeche Mode better. A very carnal song about stripping naked with
your lover and running off into the woods or something like that. You know
there were a lot of sex songs in 1986, I’m noticing. What was going on that
year?
Janet
Jackson – Nasty
Listen to those clanging beats at
the beginning of the song, like someone taking a hammer to a sheet of metal.
This song is an industrial song disguised as a pop song. It really is. Anyway,
this was off Michael Jackson’s sister’s debut album. Janet Jackson went on to
have a pretty respectable career, maybe never reaching the heights of Michael
Jackson but she was still pretty popular in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. We’ll
get to the song I really remember hearing from her in my toddler years,
“Escapade”, at a later date.
Kraftwerk
– Sex Object
I remember being shocked by the
title of this song when I first bought Kraftwerk’s Electric Café album
back in my teens. Was this song going to be about an electric sex toy or
something? No, actually it’s a song about someone who is tired of being
objectified by their significant other. Which is still a really weird topic for
a Kraftwerk song. They usually sing about robots or technology and the like.
Also unusually for a Kraftwerk song is it is dominated by a string section. It
has plenty of synths too, but other than on The Mix version of “Trans
Europe Express” this has never really happened. There exists a demo version
that does sound more electronic though.
As for the album as a whole, only
“Music Nonstop” and “The Telephone Call” really appealed to me, and the version
of “Music Nonstop” on The Mix was a vast improvement. Electric Café is
kind of a disappointing release after so many groundbreaking albums in a row
from the band. From what I gather it was plagued by setbacks during its five
year productionand didn’t gain much
critical acclaim at the time either.
KMFDM
– Itchy Bitchy
KMFDM, standing for “Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid” or “no pity for the majority”
in English, is an industrial band out of Germany. I’ve always felt like I
should like their music more than I do, but I could never really get into them,
for some reason. I was amused by the title of this song when I was looking for
music to include on this mix, and I kind of like the track. And surprise
surprise, it’s another sex song. A really dirty one too if you look at the
lyrics.How fun.
Ministry
– All Day
This song and “We Believe” are my
two favorites off Ministry’s Twitch album, which as I discussed before
was Ministry branching off and doing the sort of music they wanted to do I
suppose. I chose this song over “We Believe” because it hits close to home for
me now that I’ve experienced what it’s like to be part of the work force. It’s
a song about wasting day after day of your finite life working for the wealthy
who sit back and laugh while they count their money and drink champagne. The
world needs more anti-work songs.
Metallica
– The Thing that Should Not Be
Alright, here’s the metal section of
the mix. This was a track off of Metallica’s Master of Puppets album, a
true classic of course. It’s a song based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos,
which I’m perhaps not as familiar with as I ought to be given that I write
fantasy, but, perhaps I’ll get on that later. It’s a badass song either way
though, about an unspeakable beast that is immortal and will drain you of your
sanity.
Ozzy
Osbourne – Shot in the Dark
Every now and then I like to listen
to a bit of Ozzy Osbourne or Black Sabbath as the case may be. This isn’t
perhaps one of his more famous songs, but it has an undeniably 80’s feel to it.
You can see he was trying to adapt to the times.
Beastie
Boys – Fight for the Right
I went through a major Beastie Boys
phase when I was about 14, which like many phases I had around that age came
and went in a manner of a few months. If forced to listen to rap I’d choose
Beatie Boys over any other rap group. This is one of their more punk rock type
songs, which they made every now and then, and one of their more famous songs.
A song about the eternal generation war, which everyone always acts like is a
new thing but can be traced back at least as far as ancient Greece.
Siouxsie
and the Banshees – Cities in Dust
Siouxsie and the Banshees were at
the height of their popularity in the mid-80’s. This song is actually about the
city of Pompei, which as you may know was a Roman city that was destroyed by a
volcano. Given that it happened almost 2,000 years ago you really don’t see a
lot of modern music dedicated to that tragedy. And that’s too bad really. History
shouldn’t be forgotten, no longer how long ago. Human beings still make the
same mistakes, putting their settlements in dangerous areas where it’s not a
question of if a disaster will happen, but when. That’s the story of our entire
civilization, really. You wouldn’t expect a 1980’s gothic rock band to be the
ones to keep history like that alive, but you know what, I’m glad they did.
Clan
of Xymox – Back Door
Clan of Xymox is a band that formed
in 1981 and is still around and making new music today, amazingly. They just
released a new single this year, “She”, which is pretty good. I’ve only
recently begun to listen through their discography. Their debut album was their
self-titled album released in 1985. This song, ”Back Door”, was the final song
off their second album, Medusa.
David
Bowie – As the World Falls Down
Now for the soundtrack section of the mix.I
personally think David Bowie’s music on the Labyrinth soundtrack are
some of his best songs altogether. Maybe I’m being overly nostalgic, or maybe
it’s because I didn’t really start listening to Bowie’s other music until years
later, but Bowie’s three songs in this movie are my favorites. This is the song
that plays during Sarah’s dream sequence at a masquerade party with Jareth the
Goblin King. I played it at my wedding so it has just a tinge more significance
to me than the rest of the soundtrack, but only by a little.
Vincent
Price – Goodbye So Soon
This song appeared in The Great
Mouse Detective, which is basically Sherlock Holmes but with mice if you
haven’t seen it. This was a prerecorded song performed by the villain Ratigan
(played by Vincent Price) specifically made to play while his arch enemy Basil
of Baker Street is stuck in a death trap. You have to admire the forethought
and dedication it would take to compose such a song for this purpose. Such
malice. Vincent Price should have sang more often. Ratigan’s other song in the
film, ”The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind”, gets more attention than this song
does, which is largely overlooked, and that’s a pity. This is more of a legit
song which you could even picture hearing on the radio. It is without any
interruptions that would give it away as being from a musical. It’s an
overlooked song in an overlooked movie. Even if I like An American Tail
better, I have to concede this movie may have had slightly better musical
numbers. But very different musical numbers too, not the sort that exist to
advance the plot. “Let Me Be Good To You”, the famous burlesque number from
this film, is another good song from this film and a runner-up to be on the mix.
Phillip
Glasser and Betsy Cathcart – Somewhere Out There
I had a version of this song on my Moon Mix, so the
cat’s already out of the bag that I like this song, from An American Tail.
That said, I only like specific versions of this song. Appearing on this mix is
the one sung by the voice actors from the film; a song that young Fievel, a
mouse who was separated from his family on the way to America from Russia,
sings as his sister Tanya, a long distance away, sings her verses at the same
time. There was a far more popular pop love ballad version by Linda Ronstadt
and James Ingram which managed to climb the charts in early 1987. It changes it
into a generic love song, going against the deeper meaning behind the song in
the film. While I don’t mind Ronstadt’s voice too much, I dislike Ingram’s.
It’s just not my thing. Anyway, I compiled this article on the song over on the An American Tail Wiki, if you want to take a gander and learn some trivia about it.
Conclusion
The 1980’s are going to start
winding down from here on out, although the musical style bled into the early
1990’s for a while. We’re also going to start getting to the point where I can
remember songs from my childhood. In 1987 we’ll have a look at follow-up
releases to many of the bands featured on this mix, such as New Order, David
Bowie, and Metallica, as well as some other rarities of course.
