King Arthur Zico

As another Europa Cup match approaches, I found myself checking random photos of Arthur Zico's photos on the internet. Is it because I miss the days when he was our manager? Surely!

Tonight Fenerbahçe are playing a team that they should be able to beat easily under normal circumstances. Yet, I'm not feelin comfortable at all and even considering not seeing the game. Being a Fenerbahçe fan hasn't got a lot to offer other than blood, sweat and tears when it comes to European success. Only one man and his army could change this; Arthur Zico and his Knights!

Remembering the days we just missed out on Champions League semi-final spot deepens my pain. I wish we could go back to those days and have full trust in our manager to decide on what would be the best to win the game.

Rock and Metal Scene in Turkey

...is not very exciting to say the least.

Back in 1996, I was spending time on the terrace of a close relative. It was the place-to-be for me back then. Cool older cousins who listened to weird music as I called it those days. There was a little TV in the terrace with Kral Tv on, the leading music channel back in the day. How would I know that the next song to come on would change my life completely? The lyrics went "A-hey-hey-hey". I would like to give my sincere thanks to Kargo for some brilliant music.

Apart from Kargo, who went into line-up changes and did some crap job later, there were not so many good bands. I can recall Kurban and Duman's first albums as having quality music. Everything changed when Duman released their second album "Belki Alışman Lazım". The first single of the album was a cover of Sezen Aksu's "Herşeyi Yak" and the song had a lot of arabesque elements. With the huge chart success and fame, all the bands followed suit and put ridiculous oriental melodies and singing styles. Not only did this popularize rock unnecessarily, it also directed the coming bands to the same, arabesque fashion. Everytime I had hopes with new bands such as Manga (their first single was original), Redd, Mor ve Ötesi (I wish they had stayed as they were), they went and covered some stupid old songs to grab more money.

Çilekeş, Seksendört and performers like Hayko Cepkin and Aylin Aslım were even worse cases in composing and singing.

Even the more consistent part of the rock scene changed ways to be more appealing to teenagers and emos. The highly respected Pentagram (Mezarkabul, as it is known in the West) started releasing DVDs and giving concerts that had an audience of kindergarten children. Şebnem Ferah tried to make herself look as gothic as she could and her music started to get worse after the 2003 album, Kelimeler Yetse.

Being more different than the other Turkish Metal bands, Almora was giving a lot of hope but they just wanted to be like Therion later.

The situation does not look nice at all now. Every single time I listen to something on the telly, it feels like the guy is suffering a lot because he's been shot in his balls. That's not what you should be doing. I can't recall a Turkish rock/metal album that has had recognition outside Turkey apart from Pentagram's Anatolia.

Why do I have to go back and listen to the same old albums like Suffer Hits by Antisilence? The answer is quite simple; all the new bands suck!

Tight Pants and Dancing

If I were singing in a band, I would definitely try to look like Mick Jagger or Scott Weiland. Don't know why but when I think of the two, I can only come up with one thing in common; Tight Pants!

I used to be skinny once. (About three years ago - App. 62 kg) There were those huge mirrors in the dorms I stayed in and I remember looking at myself and imagining myself on stage with really tight pants and rock the hell out of the arena. Both guys look very unhealthy but anyway. I really practiced dancing like Scott Weiland though. It didn't really work out. That bastard is magical.

Why did The Dude hate The Eagles?

This morning I told myself "A lotta ins, a lotta outs" and then remembered various scenes from the cult movie "The Big Lebowski". After a while I started listening to some Eagles and realized why The Dude hated the Eagles.

In the movie, The Dude was at the back of a cab, visibly hurt and intoxicated. As a CCR fan himself, no one would actually expect him to hate the Eagles but at that very moment, the song "Take it easy" was on the radio and the state he was in didn't let him take things easily. We had also seen him say "Just take it easy, man." at the beginning when he was rather annoyed at what Walter said.

As a result, it's only the song that makes him hate the Eagles. Maybe he doesn't hate them but at that very moment he doesn't want to "take it easy".

Arse N Bullshit

Not a day goes by, -not a day!- without a sports page with Arsene Wenger bullshit on.

I was very happy this evening, with part of my family's surprise visit and a couple of beers in a rather cold Istanbul night. The next thing I saw was this bastard's comments about FA cup and the League Cup.

The first thing he said was that it was OK not to win anything. I could agree with that, thinking the state Arsene is in, I could say he was a coward but anyway, let's just agree.

The second thing he said was that winning the League Cup could hardly count as winning a trophy. Now, if I were in England and was having a conversation with that French maggot, I would have thrown a mug to his head. (The Big Lebowski - Malibu Chief of Police style)

What makes this arrogant French fucker have an opinion about every single thing? What's his problem? FA cup and League Cup are two trophies that have traditional value and every team has the right to take pride in winning those trophies. I started to believe that every single year without trophies makes this man lose his mental ability.

I remember him celebrating the last FA cup he won with Arsenal. (see picture) He's just making excuses for his rubbish management. I bet he would call the other teams as "rubbish" if they won a cup with older players. Why? Just because our Frenchie thinks winning with young players is good.

There is no need to talk about him anymore since he's showing his deficiencies day by day. Wasn't he the one saying he wouldn't buy players older than a certain age? So, guess who bought Sol Campbell back after his 35th birthday. A little clue; not me!

Ekşi Sözlük - the Turkish Wailing Wall

There's hardly anything written in English about one of Turkey's most popular websites. As a member myself, I decided to write a little bit about what it is and how it works.

Ekşi Sözlük is sort of a dictionary where any member of the site can post and add information to. (I bet there is a fancy name for what it actually is but I can really be arsed to check it out now.) Using the motto "The Holy Information Resource", Ekşi Sözlük tries to give information mostly based on the users' experiences or thoughts. Of course, anything that would legally get the website in trouble is not posted.

I remember the earlier days of the website (I think I had first visited it in 2002, have been a member since 2007) and I think the reason why it's so popular is that it's not different from the coffee house culture of Turkey. In a typical Turkish cofffee house, you can people arguing, discussing different thoughts or topics on many subjects ranging from politics, sexuality, sports, religion, etc.

When I have a look at the frame on the left side of the page, which is basically a list of topics which have been contributed to recently, I see topics about pretty much anything. That's probably why I like it too. You can say almost anything about anyone.

I sometimes wish the content of Ekşi Sözlük (lit. Sour Dictionary) was in English sometimes so that people from other parts of the world wouldn't think Turkey is a shithole.

Goodbye King of Kings!

Jeez, I don't know why I didn't write about that before.

As a big football fan, I grew up watching highlights from European Leagues and thus had a great love for players in Europe more than the ones in Turkey. I remember watching Glasgow Celtic highlights on NTV. The only reason that made me watch the boring Scottish Premier League was a Swede that had long dreadlocks and incredible intelligence on the pitch. I have been a huge follower of Henrik Larsson since then.

About 2 months ago Henrik Larsson hung his boots and ended his long career - one that is full of success. I don't know about others but I think he was the best striker that the history of football saw.

Recently this superb man started his coaching career as well. I can only hope my dream of seeing him as a Fenerbahce player one day will come to reality with him being the Fenerbahce manager.

2009 Music Review

Autumn 2009 was supposed to be an interesting time for me in terms of listening to the new albums of my favourite bands.

Humbug of Arctic Monkeys was very different than what I had expected (not in a negative fashion) since the reason why I like Arctic Monkeys is that they tell (at least they used to) the stories of 20-something working class (we can refer to that as lad culture) and because they are familiar.

In Humbug, however, some songs are completely about sex or drugs. This surprised me. Of course there are some great songs like Cornerstone or Secret Door but why did they become Americans after all?

On the other hand, the new Editors album was a load of crap. Change doesn't mean losing your musical identity and the reason why Editors had become so popular was because of their incredible vocal-drum-guitar harmony. What has it been replaced with? Fancy keyboards and Kraftwerk-esque melodies.

Sometimes I wonder why managers don't warn the musicians about their career moves.

Family and All That!

This is my first entry in 2010 and also the first one after a long while. I couldn't come up with anything decent to write about so it took a while.

Recently, I happened to realize most of the things that we are unhappy with are related to family and that we cannot get rid of them no matter how hard we try. It's not like I had a bad experience recently but as time goes by people get further away from their families. I think there are two reasons for that.

1. You have a shit family.
2. You want out.

I belong to the second part. Most of the time, people who attend university go and see their parents in every possibility they have. As time goes by, this becomes an obligation and even though you are working and have time just for short periods, you are expected to go and visit them.

Well, in Turkey this is made a big issue and families often don't get the reason why you don't want to see them. I think it should be considered OK from now on.