Missing In Action...

Yes I know. I haven't written for a LONG time, even though there is A LOT going on. This week is the beginning of April, and I'm still in awe that 3 months of 2005 has already passed. What have I been doing? A lot, and yet nothing.

April 24th work has already started. Every organization is beginning planning for that one weekend. Why can't we do things throughout the year? This year the AYF is having a March For Humanity during which people will be marching from Fresno to Sacramento... a 19 day, 215 mile march. If you'd like to sign up, or even follow along and go support the marchers, please go to the website for more information or call the AYF office at 818-507-1933. This is going to be an interesting project!

So much has been going on, I don't know where to start. First of all, teaching is soooooo cool right now. I think I finally got used to not only the schedule, but the students too. I'm really enjoying it, and I think my students like me (well maybe not yet, but they'll like me in the future... hahaha). The only bad part is the drive... but even that's not so bad. I kind of like seeing the sunrise on my way to school and seeing the sunset on my way home. Makes it seem like I ACTUALLY experienced the day.

In the last month (and during next week), I had some health tests... they thought they found some cancer in my upper chest (between my lungs) so they did a biopsy and it came back NEGATIVE.... excellent! :) So next week... the search continues...

Yesterday I got back from a week-long trip to Argentina. Yes, that's right... I was in South America. I had gone to participate in a seminar of AYF members from North and South Americas. It was actually a great week! We had so many great discussions about youth, being Armenian, being Diasporan Armenian, our role as diasporan youth in the betterment of Armenia, preserving culture, language, assimiliation vs. integration.... and so much more! I didn't really get to see Buenos Aires, but in my opinion I saw all the important things.. the Armenian center, the church, the schools, and I got to meet the community. It was overall a great trip. Although, I didn't expect it to be soooooo far! Damn, a couple more hours and I could've flown to Hayasdan in the same time! (that just shows how much I suck at geography)

Other than all this, I'm still working with the Badanees... and we will have our second camp weekend this week. Basically, I've been keeping myself VERY busy. The good thing is, the days are passing REALLY quickly, and before I know it the school year will be over and I'll be on my way to Hayasdan (again).

Here are a couple pics from Argentina....

TSUH! :)~





Discussion group (notice the headsets ... that's how the South Americans could hear the Armenian translated to Spanish).
With executives from different regions.
Lunch at HMEM agoomp
With Unger Damien from Buenos Aires

On The Road with Iakovos Kolanian, Part 1- San Francisco

I have been fascinated with music every since I can remember. In fact, my earliest memories have been of me sitting and dancing in front of a portable record player when I was no more than 3 or 4. My dad used to have to replace the needle on the record player often as I would break it. So, it's no surprise that music would become my serious hobby and would be profession. We're still working on the profession part. Until the, I have to pay the bills working in the mundane insurance world. So, when opportunities come up, I like to share the music I like with as many people as I can. My latest project is trying to bring the music of Iakovos Kolanian to as many people as I can. The following logs will describe what goes into putting together a tour, dealing with the Armenian and non-Armenian listening public, and some other surprises along the way. It's been a while since I have fully unleashed my thoughts into words for this forum. The last time was in June of 2001 for cilicia.com describing my experiences in Armenia. I'll do the best I can conveying my thoughts as I know it won't be everyone's cup of tea. And plus, I have a bit of an ego, so please excuse me for that. Here we go...

San Francisco

As I boarded my United Airlines flight from Boston to LAX on Thursday March 3, I knew two years of work with my friend and producer Kevork Imirzian was finally coming together. The concert would be tomorrow, I thought to myself, and we can at long last enjoy witnessing something truly special. Monthly dinner meetings with Kev at Sepal in Watertown hashing through the album "Shoror: Armenian Folk Music for Guitar" and tour took over two years. We wanted to make sure we presented Iakovos in the proper way, taking into account that we were dealing with a pro and here were a couple of music enthusiasts trying to do something to kickstart his career in the North America.

While on the plane rider over the LAX, I asked for one thing to go right- just get Iakovos to San Francisco and ready to play the next day. For some reason, I had a bad feeling about the San Francisco show. I decided on renting the best venue I could find at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. It cost $1750 to rent plus ads in the Asbarez, California Courier, and some ad banners announding the San Francisco. Since my budget was limited, I did the free press release thing and blanketed all media outlets. However, I still did not feel good about this show for some reason. Maybe it was the 175 people that showed up for a Lilit Pipoyan in the Bay Area the year before- even when she was well known in that town.

As my plane touched down at LAX, the plan was for me to pick up my rental car, go to Fresno and pick up 300 CD's and drive to San Francisco. I turned on my cell phone and found that I had 5 messages waiting for me. At that moment, I knew something was wrong and that I was somehow screwed. I checked my first message and it was my wife mentioning something about our cat. Ok, nothing of importance there. However, the next four message were from Iakovos- he was "snowed-in" from his Paris connection and there was a good chance he was going to miss his connecting flight to LAX en route to Oakland. Great, there is no way this is happening to us. Those damn French again!

So, the show was Friday March 4 at 8pm, and here I was on the phone with Iakovos at around 2pm on Thursday March 3rd trying to find out when he can take the next flight to LAX to connect to his Oakland flight. The best case scenario was that he would take a flight the next day and arrive at LAX at 12:05pm and hit a connecting flight to Oakland at 2:30pm arrive at the Hilton Oakland airport at around 4pm, grab an hour of sleep and then perform as scheduled. In the meantime, I jumped in my rent-a-car and booked it Oakland, checked into my hotel and started working the phones with Air France. When I checked in at the front desk, I noticed someone familiar that also checked in at the same time with the last name of "Hamill". I glanced at him again and was shocked to see none other than Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. I shook his hand to do the famous actor thing and just say that I met him.

As the evening wore on, I was contacted by a person who was in town for the San Francisco show from Vancouver, Canada whom I had met in Shushi, NKR. I gave him a CD while in Shushi last September 2004, and he promised to see Iakovos if he ever made it to North America. A guitar afficionado, Vahe and I met that night for dinner and I told him of the situation regarding Iakovos. While driving into San Francisco, he accessed Iakovos's cell number and we reached him on cell where he was just about to board an Air France flight that would arrive at LAX at 2pm the day of the concert.

Next, we needed to get Iakovos to Oakland and then to the Legion of Honor by 8PM. So, the next day we rebooked Iakovos on a Southwest Airlines flight taking off at 4:30PM and arriving at 6PM at Oakland. So, on Friday, we get the call from Iakovos that he arrived at LAX and was going to board the Oakland flight. Luckily, Vahe was available to pick him up at 6pm while Kev and I headed to the Legion of Honor to set things up for the concert. I still had never met Iakovos and I had briefly met Vahe for 5 minutes in Karabagh and for dinner the night before. Yet, the Armenian network was in full working toward the common goal of getting Iakovos on stage- asleep or awake for a large anticipated San Francisco crowd.

As I arrive at the Legion of Honor, we had 36 advance ticket sales and my hope was for a few hundred to show up. Not bad, I can cover costs and make a little to put toward my next project, I thought. It was 7:30PM and Vahe was driving Iakovos to the Legion while the poor guy is limbering up his fingers on the guitar in the back of the Lincoln Town Car. At 7:50pm, I get a call that Iakovos and Vahe just pulled up. I finally meet Iakovos for the first time, then we get to the main question- does he have enough energy to go on stage having not slept in over 24 hours? Iakovos gave us the international thumbs up sign, needed about 20 minutes to meditate and get mentally for the show in the dressing room, and at 8:23pm, he took the stage.

To my utter amazement, the San Francisco crowd numbered no more than 70 people with only 56 tickets sold. I was pissed and swore I would never put a show on in this lame Armenian community again! What a joke, 70 people! However, as I took my seat in the back of the theater and saw Iakovos take the stage, the crowd was treated to an amazing show from the master of the guitar. 24 hours without sleep, Iakovos later said that he gave the show on "only heart, because the mind was asleep". He considered cancelling the show because of his fatigue, but, knew what Kev and I had went through to put this thing on and for the 70 people in the audience who paid good money and were cool enough to show. Iakovos delivered as only a professional could, a money performance that left the crowd in relative awe of his talents. Fortunately, Kevork captured Iakovos in action during the show from stage left.

After the show, we were treated to a wonderful reception at the Hillsboro home of Assadour Kevranian until 2 in the morning. Vahe set up the whole thing and Iakovos felt at home, finally here after all this time. The 12 or so people who were at the reception promised a better showing the next time Iakovos was to come to town. I will take them up on their promise. As we said out goodbyes, the next show was in less than 16 hours in Fresno. Would 70 people show up there as well and totally financially sink Pomegranate Music for a couple of years?

I'll tell you that story another time.

All photos by Kevork Imirzian.

Road Weary

What a month. The West Coast Iakovos Kolanian Classical Guitar Tour ended last week and we had our fair shares of ups and downs. I am considering posting a long winded journal on this as our tour went from city to city. The brief version is that Iakovos is a tremendous professional to work with that made the artist/label relationship part of the deal really work. His opening concert was a story and a half. He was scheduled to take the stage at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, CA at 8pm and due to severe delays and snow-ins on his connecting flight from Paris (from Greece), Iakovos arrived at the venue at 7:50PM with not having slept in 24 hours. He put on a great show for only 56 paid ticket patrons plus a few more comp tickets I gave out. Folks, that San Francisco show was about my highest and lowest point of my music profession career thus far. It was the first time I met Iakovos after working on this project for over 2 years and here he was finally performing. But, the San Francisco community really let me down big time by not showing. 70 people in the audience was embarrasing for this kind of talent. Fresno had close to 300 people and LA had about 200 on average a night. 70 people in San Francisco! You have to be kidding me!

So, I will start with the whole blog very soon detailing the trip including the behind the scenes stuff. From the near cancellation of the San Fran show to the unexpected and emotional Fresno show to the two Stepan Partamian organized shows in Hollywood. There will be some good stuff I hope for readers. Here are some pictures to enjoy. All pictures taken by Kevork Imirzian.

Great news! System of a Down just announced that they will once again be holding the Souls benefit concert on April 24. They also announced that the first of a 2 CD set will be released in May. Tickets for Souls 2005 go on sale Sunday. Again, whoever goes... share all, I'll be at the NY Commemoration.

Other news these days, very little. Most of the activity I see around DC is either preparations for April 24 or AYF Olympics. I'm so pumped for Nune. There was a time that that would be a bore for me, but she's such a diva... and she's OUR diva! Check out the Olympics website, it has most of the info on Olympics so far and will be updated regularly... www.olympics2005.org.

This weekend I'll be in LA for a jam-packed 36 hours of eating. I have a breakfast meeting with ANC folk, lunch with friends, dinner with extended family (cousins, etc.), then I'm going to the Iakovos Kolanian and Winds of Passion Concert. Sunday morning just before I leave, I have breakfast with more family. It'll be a nice break from the DC routine.