My Vinyl Treasure. Vol.1.

One of the things i did when in Greece
this summer was to record some of my old vinyl.
A collection of 2.000 records was almost destroyed when
in my absence the room i had them packed was flooded.

I was unlucky to loose all of the graphic work,all the vintage
beautiful covers but the vinyl was not damaged.

My sister who lives outsideChania
in the island of Crete has them now at her house
together with all of my high end stereo equipment
and she now enjoys them tremendously.

When i went to visit her i spent almost four full days
laying at her sofa listening and recording the ones
i had missed the most.

Early Fleetwood Mac like an amazing double
album titled "English Rose" that was a great influence on me
growing up listening to the genious of Mr.
Peter Green`s guitar playing,
John Mayall`s second Bluesbreakers album
titled "A Hard Road" featuring an even younger than the previous mentioned Peter Green,
who had just replaced Eric Clapton,
after Eric left the Bluesbreakers to form Cream,
"Laurel Canyon" featuring a young Mick Taylor
who replaced Peter Green after the later formed
his own Fleetwood Mac, and "U.S.A. Union",the second album
John Mayall released without drums, after the ingenious
"Turning Point", featuring Mr.Harvey Mandel
on electric guitar and the album i consider one of
Mayall`s finest, as a concept, beautiful lyrics and brilliant playing.

Back from Greece!

This summer i visited Greece for one more time.

The main reason being my elderly beloved parents
who live in
Athens for the winter
and in Agia Marina during the summer months.

And of course my dear sister who lives in Crete.

Having lived in Athens for the biggest part of my life
i have outgrown the place,i have visited most of the islands
and iam now so tired of the Greek way of life.

For one they smoke like crazy!

Like it is the best thing one can do to himself.

Like all vitamins and minerals are combined in one cigarette.

In a recent poll 47% of Greeks declare devoted smokers.

You can`t escape the awful smoke nowhere.

Traveling by boat to the islands is an experience
close to a nightmare because there`s no place on the boat
that you can escape cigarette smoke.

They have recently created smoking and no smoking areas
which is such a joke when the designated nosmoking area
is surounded by maniac smokers.

Even going to an OUTSIDE popular theater, one of the things
i used to like, you`ll still return home smelling like an ashtray.

The way Greeksdrive is a nervous breaking experience.

You have to be on serious alert mode otherwise you`ll end up dead!

But there is no way you can escape seeing all the dead stray
cats and dogs lying in a bloody mess semowhere on the road.

I`ve heard from animal lovers friends of mine that
the stray animals situation has even got worst
since i left Greece in 2003.

Then it is the constant Fires.

Only in July Greece had around 2.000 fires burning every forest left
from the previous ones in June.

It is mind boggling to witness this crime of arsons
every year with NOTHING BEING DONE to prevent them
when noone ever gets arrested
nothing but the same false promises
of the kind that the burned to the ground land
will be replant to a beautiful forest again someday.

The reality of it is that they themseleves burn down the forests
in order to bypass a law that says
"You can`t buit on declared forest land"!

So the brilliant Greeks set the place on fire so that later
the developers will built nice new villas.

Things like they soon will not have air to breath
and that the city of Athens is close to becoming a dead zone
due to lack of oxyzene are maybe too dificult thoughts
for a neuvo Greek to grasp.

The day i finally flew back to N.Y.C.
fires broke all over Greece again, but this time
due to high winds they really got out of control, burning
almost half of Greece`s forests,killing 65 people
and thousands of animals, destroying big part of the econmy
with disastrous consequences for years to come.

Almost one week later this is what i read in the
L.A.Times

What ever happened of those ancient Athenians
that invented so many good things for the humanity
it will be an unanswered question for the historians.