Lilip Pipoyan and Armen Movsisyan in my Class!!!

I love Armenian music, When I say Armenian music I don't mean Tatul or Armenchik (although he works after 4 shots of Grey Goose), but the ARmenian music that I have always adored is the melow and a little rebelious Armenian music.

It's not too popular, but whoever listens to this kind of music loves it !!! Lilit Pipoyan and Armen Movsisyan fall into this category....

So, Just to prove how awesome UCLA is, not that you didn't already know, my Armenian teacher got Lilip Pipoyan and Armen Movsisyan to come and sing LIVEEEE in my class!!!

It was one of the coolest experiences EVER!

You may know Pipoyan from the album that Rouben Hakhverdyan and her did together, EIther way, she sings the songs my mama sang for me when I was very little. Her voice is the nicest sound next to my mom's voice.

Pipoyan ended her line of songs singing Kilikia... (I have it on video, but don't know how to post it up).

A quick fact about her, She is also a professor in Armenia and she was SHOCKED that students bring their little pets to school with them...

Movsisyan was amazed that my professor told him to sit on the table, he was confused at how that was completely proper. After he sat down, he concluded that it's America afterwards.

He sang many songs we all love and ended with a song that we all could relate to... He sang a song that made my eyes wet, titled Վեր կաց եղբայր իմ. This song was about the men who fough in Kharabagh... he ended with a song about missing our homeland (Կարոտ Հայրենիքի Հանդեպ), our Home...

My Favorite Cool Freshy

Attending an incredibly competitive and large university can at times seem more like a chaotic movie rather than four years of memorable education. Everyday you meet people of different backgrounds, interests and outlooks, however, most students I meet have a commonality, they all seem to have similar careless attitude towards life and daily endeavors.

Needless to say, very few people have the ability to make an impression without even trying to do just that. And I have met incredibly small number of people who have made a lasting impression. One of these is my dear friend that I am going to refer to as Miss L.

Miss L is a freshman and I met her in the winter quarter during which we had two classes together. From the outside she seems to be just like any other 18 years old Armenian girl, but when you get to know her, you find out that she is easily one of the most endearing individuals you will ever meet.

Her naivete is pure, her clueless moments are countless and her love for the Armenian culture is undeniable. Miss L is genuinely nice to all the Armenians and admits that she mainly accepts Armenians as the only other human beings on this planet, particularly at our school.

In addition, she finds it necessarily to write down everything in her daily journals so when she grows up and has 800 grandchildren, she can show those journal pages to them and let them know that she was Cool one day.

On her free time, Miss L enjoys timing her walks from Kerckhoff to any part of the campus that she has class in.

Although, it may seem that I am mocking Miss L, in fact, I am simply admiring her passion for life and her ability to enjoy everyday that God blesses upon us.

So, I dedicate this little piece of blog to my Favorite Cool Freshy :)

There is and There isn't

ԿԱ ԵՎ ՉԿԱ

This is the name of the show that I am planning on attending this month without any hesitation. "There is and there isn't" is a one woman show by Anahid Aramouni Keshishian who is a lecturer at UCLA. She is my Armenian teacher and hands down she knows how to teach Armenian literature and culture.

However, I am incredibly excited to go and watch her one woman show because she fascinates me. I know there are numerous people who love her and many who cannot stand her viewpoints, yet, all of them would have to say that she has an amazing ability to grab everyone's attention when lecturing.

Currently I am working on an article about her for our school's Armenian newspaper, so I will not write much more except that this is going to be a biographical show with poetry, singing and dancing. That's all that I am aware of.

FYI

Place: Luna Playhouse

3706 San Fernando Rd., Glendale, CA 91204

When: Sundays: May 20, 27, June 3, 10 7:00 pm

Thursdays: May 24, 31, June 7, 14 8:00 pm

Tix: 25 $

To get the tickets call Christina at (818) 556-6122

This show will be sold out very quickly, in fact, I am pretty sure the first event is already sold out. Go out, enjoy a night in the playhouse.

Our Hollywood

Although I live in Los Angeles where all the glamour and glitz with gossip occurs, I have the tendency of not caring much for most of the "Hollywood world." My friends freak out when they see me with any gossip magazine aside from GQ that is. The Hollywood that I am familiar with is far from the glamour and glitz, but I won't go as far as to say it's free of gossip :)

Anyhow, today was my sister's prom. I took her to the nail salon then hair than make up... You get the idea. Either way, I was waiting for her to get all dolled up and and the boredom forced me to read the magazines dumped on the table.

Apparently, Prince William is still single and didn't marry the girl that he was with for three years. There were tons of pictures of that poor girl all over every single magazine :(

There was tons of news on Lindsey Lohan, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.... But inside alll that news about all these awesomely wealthy celebs of Hollywood, I also found a really cool celeb in the million pages of gossip.

There is an actress named Mary Lynn Rajskub -not a familiar name, but she's been in tons of movies (the pic above) - and this is what she had to say about being cool in Hollywood:

I saw Paris Hilton and she talked about all these cool clubs she goes to, like
Hyde and Suede. I've never heard of these places, so I felt like an idiot. But I
do some Hollywood stuff that people would think is cool... Sometimes I hand out
at the Armenian Christian center. We pray in Armenian. It's hot.

I totally think she's cool.... :) She is talking about the Hollywood we all know.

When I moved to US nearly eight years ago, my new home became Hollywood. I had seen the Palm Trees, the Beverly Hills sign, the Hollywood sign million times on TV when I lived in Yerevan, however, the depiction of Hollywood that lacked was the Hollywood that is ours.

It's the Hollywood with many new immigrants, it's the Hollywood with Baghdik's store, it's the Hollywood where there are more Nparatouns than markets, more food stamps than dollar bills, the Hollywood where you'll find more people who speak Armenian than English, it's the Hollywood that we proudly call Little Armenia.

I completely give huge brownie points to Mary Lynn for shining a tiny light on the Hollywood that has become home to so many of our people.

Fun in the Sun at Los Angeles Country Club

I write sports for a newspaper and I have covered numerous golf tournaments this season. However, I had never been to an actual golf match because most of the matches are held outside of CA, hence I usually write stories based on the statisitcs I receive and the interviews I conduct.

Luckily for me, there was a dual match between UCLA and USC at Los Angeles Country Club. The enthusiastic reporter that I am, I jumped on the opportunity to go and watch the match. I have to say that both teams wildly dislike one another, of course, that does not effect the respect they present towards each other.

The teams don't matter much when the tournament is held at LACC. THe Los Angles Country Club is the huge country club you see on your right when you pass Beverly Hilton on Wilshire. It's humongous and it's beautiful. Let me let you in on a few more fact: Lionell Richie, Nicole Richie's dad, has a house practically attached to the golf course. Chris O'Donnel, I dont really know who that is exactly, also lives by there. And most importantly the Playboy mansion is pretty much on the golf course. You could hear noises of animals coming from that side of the course.

Moreover, you could probably find every whealthy middle aged perverted person in the world hanging out there ordering vodka from Ramon who went around the huge golf course maybe one million times serving drinks to the country club members and the golfers.

Disregarding the members of the club, the picture on the top doesn't do justice to how beautiful the whole golf course is. I spent about five hours there and I must admit it was really enjoyable. THe whether was beautiful and I got much better feel for the game of golf.

The Man Who Sold the World

Maybe im a bit Americanized but I absolutely adore Nirvana and this is the lyrics to one of the best songs alive, I don't think they wrote it, but they perform it and I just fall in love with this song every time I hear it... The songs title is "The Man Who Stole the World"... I do not understand the meaning of this song, but it's too awesome :)

We passed upon the stair, we spoke in was and when

Although I wasn't there, he said I was his friend

Which came as a surprise, I spoke into his eyes
I thought you died alone, a long long time ago

Oh no, not me
We never lost control
You're face to face
With The Man Who Sold The World

I laughed and shook his hand, and made my way back home
I searched a foreign land, for years and years I roamed
I gazed a gazeless stare, we walked a million hills
I must have died alone, a long long time ago

Who knows? Not me
I never lost control
You're face to face
With the Man who Sold the World

Who knows? not me
We never lost control
You're face to face
With the Man who Sold the World

Minimum Wage Debate

I was offered a job that paid eight dollars per hour and I completely refused to take it. I did not find it satisfactory pay for the job offered, which was simply office work. In SoCal, you cannot buy much making eight an hour. However, miles away, in our homeland... you still cannot buy much with eight dollars. You may be able to buy milk and bread for couple of days, but that's pretty much it.

However, unlike in SoCal, where the janitors in hotels demand at least ten dollars an hour for work, in our homeland of Armenia, the government tells its people that it cannot afford to pay them 140 dollars per month.... Check out the story below:

ARF Minimum Wage Campaign Pledge Worries Ruling Part
YEREVAN (Combined Sources)--A senior government official affiliated with the ruling Republican Party of Armenia Wednesday dismissed as “populist” the Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s pre-election pledge to sharply raise the country’s modest pensions and minimum wage.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation has committed itself to more than doubling the minimum monthly wage to 50,000 drams ($140) as early as next year. Its campaign manifesto also says the average pension will be raised from the current 13,400 drams ($38) to 50,000 in 2008 if the party does well in next week’s parliamentary elections.
Vazgen Khachikian, the Republican head of the state pension, criticized the campaign pledges in a public debate with Deputy Social Security Minister Artsvik Minasian, an ARF member. “We take into account Armenia’s real potential for development, while the Armenian Revolutionary Federation is setting objectives which I believe can not be achieved in the foreseeable future,” said Khachikian.
ARF leaders, including Social Security Minister Aghvan Vartanian, insist that pensions and broader public spending will grow much faster if the government combats widespread corruption and tax evasion in earnest.
However, Minasian disagreed with Khachikian’s arguments saying increasing pensions threefold and making minimum wage 50,000 drams is quite realistic.
He said it would not hinder the government to raise the minimum wage to 50,000 drams beginning next year, which, according to him, would require up to 12 billion extra drams.
According to the ARF’s election platform, social spending next year must go up to $800 million from $600 million, projected by this year’s budget; in 2008 it is supposed to grow to $1.2 billion and to $1.6 billion in 2010 when it is estimated to be at $4.1 billion with gross domestic product rising to an estimated $19 billion.
Minasian said these indexes, coupled with the government’s active struggle against the existing shadow economy would allow the proposed raises in wages and pensions.
Khachikian attempted to turn the serious debate into a petty and made remarks such as, “You know well that the Republican Party leads in all opinion polls. At least, we will get more votes than the ARF.”

ASBAREZ, 5/3/2007

R-Mean show

On Tuesday night, after a long day of school work and writing, I decided that I would go to the Knitting Factory to see Armenians' favorite rapper, R-Mean, perform. I had seen him perform before and I have written an article about him as well, but all of my friends truely wanted to be at that show, so I did go even though my legs were incapable of feeling anything.

I must admit it was a very good performance. However, what really sucked was the fact that he only performed for only 15 minutes and he was followed by a rap duo named "God's gift" who did absolutely no justice to their name.

Either way, I think he has a new CD out which should be good because all of the songs . performed on Tuesday were outstanding. That's all. :)

Yerevan Drive

Before I explain the picture above, I have to say that I absolutely find video games to be stupid, pathetic, and brain damaging especially in out society. HOWEVER, I am completely willing to put all those feelings aside and check out the game above. The picture is the cover of a video game titles Yerevan Drive. IT's sort of like a racing video game that takes place in Yerevan.... It's Absolutely awesome...

Okay I am an armo... but whatevers.

Go check out the page. Get the game. It's less than 15 bucks (thats barely 3 starbucks trips!!!)

here is the website: http://en.emergency-soft.com/category/yerevandrive

Chicken or Beef?

My mom refused to go to her coworkers engagement party because the certain Otar coworker asked her if she would prefer eating chicken or beef at the engagement. My mother was offended by that question, in fact, she was outraged.

I woke up late this morning, well I woke up around 8 am which means I was going to be late to class, so I didn't bother going to class since I assumed that driving to Westwood at that time would be hell. I simply went to the kitchen got some homemade coffee that I firmly believe tastes more like crap than coffee, but either way, it was warm So it almost hit the spot. Then I went to the living room and sat besides my mother and her friend when they were having their morning American brewed coffee.

"I am not surprised one bit," said my mother's friend, "Remember the kids baptism? My husband's partner was there too, remember? He's white, che? OKay, well, he was in heaven with all the food that was on the tables, and all the alcohol? You know, at the Otar people's special occasions, you have to buy the alcohol by the glass at the bar, these people are just different."

As I sat there and listened to their conversation, I began to join in. ( I am about to turn 20, so I have decided that I am going to conversate with grown ups from now on. ) I began saying that, Otars appreciate our ways of doing things, though. I recalled the numerous Sweet 16s years ago, where the friends from school who weren't Armenian would try to learn how to dance under Armenian music and they would always try all the food that was on the table.

"You know, I have noticed that too," said my mom's friend, "After the baptism, my husband's partner did his wedding at Yepremian, in the small room - I mean, he doesn't really have a lot of people - but, still. The tables were full of food, and free alcohol. All the guests thought that the wedding cost him a fortune, when in reality it was only 25 dollers per person. And I decided that since the best man, my husband, is Armenian, there should be Armenian music. So, I went and got the Armenchik CD from my car and gave it to the DJ. Everyone was trying to dance under that music."

I nodded as I listened. My mother was still a bit amazed at how anshnork the otars can be, however she realized that they were willing to accept our ways of life. Living in Los Angeles, CA, early on a Tuesday morning, as my mother was taking her last sips of American brewed coffee before she left for work at an American corporation, she theorized "Otars are defenitely beginning to act respectful towards us. They don't ask me what I would prefer eating at a reception, I told them they should decide. Ha, mi ban el, My boss said that he has been to an Armenian wedding and knows that he should not eat all that's on the table at once, because there is always more plates coming. hahaha"

When I finished my coffee, I realized. Armenians are heading in an odd direction, they are Armo-washing everyone, one business partner at a time.

I heard Hispanics are having Quinces at Anoush nowadays...