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If you're old enough to remember the late 1980's/early 1990's (and you were in the U.S. at the time), then you probably remember the public access television explosion. Local public access channels were jammed with amateur producers and "talent" of all sorts, covering subject matter from the obscure to the mundane. The public access sensation was more or less the basis for the film "Wayne's World" and because of the success of the film, public access cable gained a shred of credibility for a very short period of time. Hell, I even joined a friend in taking the "Community Producer" course at the local cable access channel back in 1992 or so in hopes of launching a comedy show of sorts. Thankfully, the show never made it out of the "concept" phase which was probably a good thing because most of our "concepts" were pretty bad. But somewhere there is an awful, awful public access show from 1992 that features my name in the credits as a camera operator. It was my final project for the "Community Producer" course. Don't bother looking for it.
Miss Mia and
Ratso from
Chic-a-go-go
There's still a bit of bad programming on the local public access channels where we live. I suppose this is also true in bigger cities as well, but I am sure that it is not at the level that it was 15 years ago. As far as our current selection of public access shows in Dayton goes, you can choose from a terrible show on wine-tasting or incredibly bad, boring shows on local politics. Occasionally, there is a 1970's "documentary" on the Illuminati or some other kind of conspiracy theory. These shows are always fun in a creepy sort of way. The local access channels also feature dreadfully boring shows about local city attractions and history, most of which feature embarrassingly bad "talent" and poor audio and video. I could provide the names of the shows I am thinking of, but I don't really want to give them any press. Most of these studio shows are pretty formulaic, featuring the same desk, chairs, curtain and scenery ("scenery" typically refers to 1 plastic plant). And really...it's like death to try and watch more than 5 minutes of them. The call-in shows are really the most entertaining of the bad shows, because there's a least a little suspense in waiting for a crank caller to curse on air or say something really disgusting. It becomes annoying when the on-air "talent" try to stay ahead of the callers and hit them with one-liners before hanging up on them. The absolute power of controlling a telephone (with real, live callers) becomes just too much for these guys to handle.
There are some good things to have come from public access television in the U.S. I suppose my favorites are probably pretty obscure. I have previously mentioned my affection for the show Chic-a-go-go, which I think has something of a cult following in the Midwest. There's also Pirate TV which I think is produced out of Dayton' s MVCC. This is really one of my favorite shows on television. Each episode is about an hour's worth of oddities which include music videos, cult film movie trailers, commercials and clips from long-forgotten shows of the 1980's, toy commercials, clips from Japanese game shows and all kinds of other weird stuff. I am completely serious when I say that I think that Pirate TV is one of the only shows on television worth watching. I wish they had a web site or that there was some kind of info somewhere on the web to share, but all I can offer are my rave reviews.
In the U.S., I think interest in public access television is definitely waning due to the rise of blogging and YouTube. But my friend Panos has shared that Greece is fortunate to boast a bumper crop of vintage public access-like craziness. Consider the work of Anestis Keramidas, who believes that the DNA of Greeks is different from the DNA of other humans. He also believes that in 2012 the Greeks and their ancient culture will dominate the world, giving peace to all the living creatures with the help of something called the Epsilon Team. Awesome. Then there's the work of religious oddballs like Anastasis Theodoridis and far-right wingers like the Georgiades Brothers. Demosthenis Liakopoulos seems to be a bit nutty as well. But it seems that Nikos Konstantinidis takes the cake. Apparently he was bitten by a stray dog in 2006 and he used his television show to declare that the attack was orchestrated by the Antichrist. Now who wouldn't be fascinated by this guy? And he's got the backing of the Church — or at least a representative of the Church — in the esteemed Father Modestos. Christos kai Panagia!
It's good to know that Greece has picked up where the U.S. left off when it comes to televised insanity!
Thanks to Panos for sharing his Wikipedia articles. Recommended viewing from YouTube Dimosthenis Liakopoulos video 1video 2 Anestis Keramidas video
During some down time this afternoon, I read a 1946 issue of Airboy (v3, #4) that I picked up a few months ago at the2006 Buckeye Comic Con.
The issue’s final story is an Iron Ace yarn that features a young Greek
orphan named Mike. The tale opens as Captain Britain (a.k.a. The
Iron Ace) is flying Mike from a camp in Italy back to his home on the
island of Crete. Along the way, Captain Britain learns that Mike
is the living reincarnation of Icarus, Iron Ace does battle with the
immortal Daedelus, and they all meet up with Pluto, the Prince of Hades. At
the end of the story, Mike decides to tell Captain Britain the story of
the Greek Resistance forces of Crete:
The rest of Mike’s tale remains a mystery, because the above panels are
actually the final panels of the story. I looked around for more
information regarding "Captain Alexandropolus" and I was unable to find
anything on the Internet. I also checked the booksRed Acropolis, Black Terrorand the Time-Life World War II volumePartisans and Guerillasand I came up empty. I’m not sure if Captain Alexandropolus was a
real figure or some kind of composite, but I sure would like to know
more. Further reading The Greek Civil Warmarxists.org
It looks like the Greek monopoly on feta cheese
is simply not enough to keep their economy strong. The celebrated
cradle of Western civilization and birthplace of reason and democracy,
has now written a new page in the annals of political economy. Under
pressure from the EU because of it’s budget deficit, the Greek
government has come up with a rather...um... innovative way to bring it’s GDP on to a more even par with its budget deficit:
Athens
has announced that its economy is 25% bigger than thought thanks, in
part, to the round-the-clock duties of the country's prostitutes, who
were known as hetairai in ancient times.
The
Greek authorities are revising the country's gross domestic product
(GDP) after deciding that the black market should be included in the
figures.
Manolis
Kontopyrakis, the head of the national statistics service, told
Reuters: "The revised GDP will include some money from illegal
activities, such as money from cigarette and drinks smuggling,
prostitution and money laundering."
Greece's
economic output was €180bn (£128bn) in 2005 and is expected to rise to
€194bn this year. The black economy is estimated at up to €60bn,
according to Reuters. (full story)
Bootlegging and prostitution revenue figures in the GDP? Let’s see if it measures up to what we know about GDP...
...(GDP) is a measure of National
Income. It is the total value of all goods and services produced over a
given time period (usually a year) excluding net property income from
abroad. It can be measured either as the total of income, expenditure
or output.
Hmm...I
guess the bootlegging covers the "goods" end of things. And
prostitution definitely involves "servicing" of one sort or another. But
a proposal like this has to be based on some sort of intensive field
research, doesn’t it? I wonder if Kontopyrakis paid for the research
with his own money or if he used government funds in his study of price
structures, exchange rates, and the like.
At
any rate, the silver lining in Greece’s cloud of vice and profiteering
might ultimately come with an even higher cost at the end of the day.
Not only will Athens have to contend with some unwelcome scrutiny from
the EU over their new GDP figures, they also will face the likelihood
of losing money should their inflated GDP numbers ultimately be
accepted by the EU.
The
country’s newfound wealth raised eyebrows in Brussels, because it means
Greece will find it easier to bring its budget deficit below the
European Union’s 3 per cent of GDP ceiling.
Having
previously been found guilty of underestimating the size of its budget
deficit, Greece’s new GDP calculation will be scrutinised by Eurostat,
the EU statistics agency.
"Member
states revise their figures regularly, but this is quite a significant
revision and needs to be checked," said a spokeswoman for Joaquín
Almunia, EU monetary affairs commissioner.
Mr
Almunia’s aides admit they were surprised by Athens’ announcement,
which was not discussed in advance with Brussels or other EU finance
ministers. Typically, such upward GDP revisions are of between 1-2 per
cent, although Greece and Italy have each previously made big revisions.
[...]
Among
the snags of becoming so much richer, Greece will have to contribute
more to the EU budget and could lose €470m ($597m, £318m) a year in EU
funds earmarked for poor countries after a review in 2010. (full story)
Best
of luck to the Greek government in this new wacky and sensational
scheme. It kind of gives new meaning to the phrase "fetishism of commodities," doesn't it?
Efharisto
-- once again -- to the superior intellect of Antonis, who is the
honorary Minister of Cultural Affairs for greeklish.org.
The
2006 Greek Festival is now one for the history books. The big
Ohio State game and the Bengals' home opener seemed to leave the
attendance a little thin this year, but hopefully the $40 price tag on
the Elena Paparizou CDs helped to make up for any lost revenue.
We've posted a few of our pictures from the event here. The final picture in the gallery was taken looking down from the church parking lot on to the grounds of the Dayton Art Institute.
Note the large metal "sculpture" in the picture. DAI now has
about 6 of these on their grounds, all of which were sculpted by the
same guy. I guess it is true that art is in the eye of the
beholder after all...
While
going through some family photos last night, Thomai found a nice old
black and white photograph featuring Papou Vangelis in Polygyros standing near a
building he he had built. We think this photo is from the early
1970s:
On the back of the photo is a note from Papou Vangelis, written in Greek cursive:
In this picture I laugh for my courage and enjoy my work.
When we visited our family in Polygyros in 2004, we stopped to visit
Thio Saki at his store, which is on the ground floor of the same
building. While we were there, we took a picture. Here's
how the property looks these days:
The building is still owned by our family. One day, we hope to spend a lot more of our time there.
Efharisto to Anthony for translating the inscription on the back of the photo.
Σας ευχαριστώ πάρα πολύ για το δώρο. Είναι μία θαυμάσια προσθήκη στη
συλλογή μου. Οι γονείς της Θωμαί το πήραν από το Θέμη το
σαββατοκύριακο. Με έβαλαν να το δοκιμάσω να δουν πως δείχνει πάνω μου.
Είπαν ότι μου πάει, αλλά κάτι μου λέει ότι δεν θα γινόμουν πολύ καλός
αστυνόμος!
Ευχαριστώ πάρα πολύ και πάλι γι'αυτή την ευγενική χειρονομία. Ελπίζω να
σας επισκεφτώ και τους δύο όταν ξανάρθουμε στην Ελλάδα σε μερικά χρόνια.
Ο φίλος σας,
Μιχάλης Extra-special thanks to Antonis for translating the above message. He is probably the smartest Greek person I know.
Okay,
I know I may catch some heat from some of my more "nationalist" friends
and family over this, but I can’t resist sharing a few comments on this
story:
A
domestic squabble in Parliament last night over the government’s
foreign policy was seized upon by the prime minister as a perfect
opportunity to send out strong messages to neighboring states with
which Greece has differences.
"I
want to be absolutely clear," said Costas Karamanlis as he tackled the
issue of the name disagreement with the Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia (FYROM) during yesterday’s foreign policy debate. "An
accession process to join the EU can only exist under two
circumstances; either after a mutually acceptable solution or under the
FYROM name." (full article)
In a related story, the city of Athens, Ohio has demanded that the city of Macedonia, Ohio
change its name to "Macedonia of Northeast Ohio, Near Akron" (or
"MONONA") for short. Additionally, Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has filed a
formal complaint against both Ohio cities in an EU court, claiming the
rights to both city names on behalf of Greece. Karamanlis cited the recent feta cheese decision as precedent to his claim.
Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (better known as "FYROS," "FYROC," and
"FYROBH," respectively) have declined comment on the matter. And finally,
Kazakhstan has now offered to change its name to "FUSSRROK" (Former USSR
Republic of Kazakhstan) in a bid for EU membership.
The
long-running legal fight over the rights to feta cheese was finally
resolved on Tuesday when Europe’s top court ruled that it should be
designated as a traditional Greek product and protected as such
throughout the European Union.
The
decision, which could have implications for other contested food
products, came in the face of strong opposition from the UK, France,
Denmark and Germany, all of which had argued that feta was a generic
name for the salty, crumbly white cheese. (full article)
Thank goodness that's
resolved. Now if we can just figure out who holds the rights to
American cheese, Brazil nuts and Vienna sausages, we can all sleep a
little easier at night.
* Special thanks to the Greek Mangas himself for drawing my attention to this riveting issue.
We
snapped this picture earlier today. We came upon this rather
unexpected sight while driving around town and we raced home to grab
our camera because we didn’t think anyone would believe us if we didn’t
have some evidence.
Now,
you may think that you’re a Greek. You might be Greek-American or
you might even be a first-generation, full-blooded Greek with
citizenship papers and all that. But if this isn’t your
car....Well then, you’re just not Greek enough, my friend!
