I hadn't watched basketball in a long time. Usually I start watching from about now till the end of September, from the Euroleague quarter-finals till the end of the national teams obligations.

                        While not supporting any of the 2 teams the game kept me in suspense all the way through. Panathinaikos played better and is a more experienced team, but was lucky in the end. The final could easily be won by Olympiakos, if ... Dorsey was allowed to commit 6 fouls ...

                               Point One: Smith and Logan, haven't yet adjusted to the system of Panathinaikos. Maybe they do not belong to the team fter all
                              Point Two: Papanikolaou can not bear the weight of being the main small forward yet for Olympiakos
                              Point Three: Spanoulis can not be the number 1 leader in any team. He plays better as first among equals
                              Point Four: Great performance by Printezis. I hope he returns to the Greek national team
                             Point Five: Talking about the national team, I hope Diamantidis will change his mind and play in  the summer along with Calathes, Zisis and Spanoulis in the London Olympics.
                            Sixth and final point: I wish that Jasikevicius will continue to play, even for only 10 minutes per game, as there are no players with such intelligence anymore in basketball.

                            I can't wait to see if Panathinaikos and Olympiakos will be able to be get to the Final 4 of the Euroleague. Panathinaikos seems to  have an easier job against Maccabi Tel Aviv. Olympiakos needs improvement to beat Siena, especially under the basket, where it is missing the good Lazaros Papadopoulos. The favorites to win the trophy is definitely CSKA Moscow.

                   Then we have the Greek League Finals and then the Pre-Olympic tournament. The basketball summer just started and it is still March.

        My family used to listen almost exclusively to George Dalaras. In the car, at parties, when friends visisted, or when we had people from abroad visiting and we wanted to show them a little piece of Greek culture. 

        I used to think that he was a great artist until I was 14-15 years old. I remember the last album that I liked was the one with the songs of Goran Bregovic. I was excited how the rhythm was going faster in the song: “Nyhta” (Night).

        After that I began to hate him. Partly in response initially to my family, where everyone always knew everything better than me, because I was the youngest. I remember we went to see him playing with the band called Pyx Lax, and I told my parents that I was coming along only to listen to Pyx Lax, a small band at the time! He wasn't that bad that night...

        The next year we went to see him again, played with the band called Kitrina Podilata (meaning Yellow Bikes). He wasn't good ... I remembered after the concert that we had seen him in the castle of Lefkada island once during the summer time, where again he wasn't good ... Well these 2 performances, as well my teenage age, the Bregovic songs that are the same in different languages, some things that comedian Tzimis Panousis said, and then I decided: Dalaras was finished for me. 

        Later in my life I realized why I dislike him till now. Dalaras is the symbol of everything bad in the modern Greek, after the Junta. The poor person who is now posh, but makes his money by singing revolutionary songs, betting on the memories of Greeks, the right-winger (at least life style-wise) with the left-wing past, the sold out person, etc. In general consider him a hypocrite.

       Moreover, I thought he was to blame for many problems of the Greek music. He has “stolen” the songs from every Greek artist. This pissed me off and still does! 

       I had decided not to pay ever for his concerts, albums or anything else that he was involved, and usually the shows I listen to on the radio do not play his songs, EVER! 

       Living abroad, purely by chance I found several non-Greeks who spoke to me about Dalaras. Turks, Yugoslavs (I still call them that, because that's how I was taught to call them) Israelis and Arabs. I always said: "He has an amazing voice, but I can't stand him!"

       And honestly I really couldn't bear to listen to him! The people who are listening to him fanatically are those who are leading Greece into destruction. The generation of the resistance in the Athens Polytechnic School against the Junta in 1973, the people who made a lot of money in the 1980's, who packed Athens, made illegal villas with swimming pools, inflated tax evasion, wanted to place their children in the public sector and were obsessed with getting them into University, voted PASOK (Papandreou's so called Socialists) and forgot where they were coming from. The only thing that this generations was left with was the voice of Dalaras. These people were listening to him and crying while they were drinking whiskey in very expensive bouzoukia nightclubs ...

       Now this generation votes for memorandums, and betrays her own struggles of the past as well as her children. The fact hat the wife of Dalaras became a politician with PASOK and voted for the measures and the cuts for the Greek people gave me another reason to hate him ...And once I learned about these free concerts that he is giving at the moment in Athens, I disagreed. 'He should be ashamed,' I said ' to play political songs about poverty, while his wife is killing people 2 years now by voting for the measures in the parliament."

        But seeing the picture in Ilion, really hurt my heart. And that weight made me write today. Because I still think about, 36 hours after I saw ayoghurt thrown at him while being on stage, and him not leaving. I was moved ...

        I felt like my father was being attacked, whom I criticise from morning till night - and those that are like him! And I wanted to defend him.

        That scene made me fed up and shocked me. The guy who went up on the stage wearing a helmet scared me. Dalaras did not leave even then, although he could be harmed. This picture reminded me of Christ in the Last Supper and later on the Calvary, although I hate all religions. I admired him.

         I don't disagree with the throwing yoghurts at politicians, businessmen who want workers to be slaves, journalists and publishers, who delibrately hide the truth. Quite the contrary, I would throw them a yoghurt myself if I had the chance.I also don't disagree with invading the parliament, throwing stones at the cops, the attack on Marfin Bank, the burning of the Christmas tree, throwing Molotov cocktails. In fact, I want us to take up arms and make a deep class, social and political revolution in Greece.

         But attacking an artist, I find it ugly, profoundly wrong and fascist. I doesn't express me and I would preferred if it had never happened. I realized that I started to like George (as Panousis calls him) by his reaction. Then I heard his interviews in the past few days, and I liked him even more, unlike his wife...

          I realized something else as well: these songs that Dalaras sings symbolize all the negatives that I mentioned above, but their meanings could also become a symbol for a new beginning for us, the younger generation, who have passion and soul and want to change the establishment in Greece.

          This does not mean that Dalaras did not screw up in the past in his life and career, and also it doesn't mean that I agree with him on the "inevitability" of the memorandum, etc. I'd prefer if he was along with people like Mikis Theodorakis and Alkinoos Ioannidisin street marches in the last 2 years, and not silent till today. Dalaras instead decided to organise these free concerts for the people and that's his choice.

          As it is my choice to disagree with them, and now that I changed my mind , it is to support them! I wish I was in Athens in one of his following concerts, to applaud him, defend him and congratulate him in person. For now, I look forward to Dalaras coming abroad, so that I can shake his hand, only for his reaction during his latest consert.

GreekRagnaroker

Postscript: I will continue to love and listen to Tzimis Panousis on the radio every day, because this is the Greece that expresses me more