Electra to perform at The Viper Room

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The Greek-American singer songwriter and her band have been performing all around Los Angeles but their next live perfomance is at the world famous Viper Room on Sunset on november 1st (9.30 pm).

Electra grew up in Athens, Greece and attended a Musical High School where she started to develop professionally her musical skills in theory, singing, and piano. During her stay in Greece she performed with all the famous performers in the music industry. Her performances gave her the chance to open her mind in different styles of music, especially Greek. Once she graduated, she decided to come back to Los Angeles, and continue her studies. Having been accepted through auditions in all three universities Cal Arts, UCLA, and California State University of Northridge (CSUN), she decided to attend CSUN. During her time in CSUN Electra was awarded with a vocal scholarship and with the society of singers award. She performed numerous times as solo and in opera productions. She received her Bachelors degree in Music-vocal performance in spring 2007. Electra has also dedicated lots of her time in acting. She studied acting in Los Angeles and in Greece and has also been trained in improv with director Tim Simek. Today, besides her music she is a voices actress, doing the voices of Nazli, Zenep, and pinky the fly, in the televised cartoon series “Green Valley”. Electra has just currently finished her demo consisted of four rock/pop songs, one of which “Blame” is an original by her piano player Kosta Lois.

The Viper Room is a nightclub located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California. It was opened in 1993 and was partly owned by actor Johnny Depp until 2004. The club is well known for having been the site where actor River Phoenix died of a drug overdose on Halloween morning in 1993. Even following Phoenix’s death, the club remained a hang-out for Hollywood’s hottest young actors. Regulars included Jennifer Aniston and Sean Penn. Adding to that group, Adam Duritz, the lead singer of Counting Crows, hid out as a Viper Room bartender in late 1994 – early 1995 to escape his newfound fame.

The 2008 Homeless World Cup in Melbourne

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The 2008 tournament will be held in Melbourne, Australia, December 1st to 7th, at two parks: Federation Square and Birrarung Marr. It will have a new record of participating projects. National Teams from 56 nations will gather in Melbourne, amongst them for the first time 8 all female teams competing in the Women’s Cup. Two Greek Australians will participate in the tournament but in different teams. George Chalkias is the coach of the Australian team and Christos Alefantes is the creator and one of the player for the Greek Homeless team.

The Homeless World Cup is an international football (soccer) tournament, where teams made up entirely of homeless people compete. The event is held annually and, as of 2008, is in its sixth year.

The tournament was created at the end of the 2001 International Network of Street Papers Conference in Cape Town that Mel Young, Co-founder The Big Issue Scotland, and Harald Schmied, editor of Megaphon, a street paper in Austria, came up with the idea for the Homeless World Cup. They decided to make it happen and 18 months later the first tournament took place in Graz, Austria. It was such a success that they decided to do more.

Player Eligibility

Players must:

  • Be male or female and at least 16 years of age at the time of the tournament
  • Have been homeless at some point after the previous year’s World Cup OR
  • Make their main living income as a streetpaper vendor OR
  • Be asylum seekers (who have neither positive asylum status nor working permit)

Anyone can participate regardless of his or her ability.

Participants

A maximum of 4 players per team on the court:

  • 3 outfield players,
  • 1 goalkeeper,
  • Plus 4 substitution players (rolling substitution allowed)

Tournament details

  • The winning team gets 3 points. The losing team zero. If a match ends in a draw, it is decided by sudden-death penalty shootout.

In this case the winning team gets three points and the losing team gets one point.

  • Games are 14 minutes long.

sources: Wikipedia and Neos Kosmos

Greece is No1 destination for Australians

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Flight Centre listed Greece at number one in its annual Top 10 Where To Go list, thanks to the country’s “simple pleasures”.

The list is based on the company’s top selling destination data, showing the countries that have consistently gained popularity over the past 12 months and will be the places to be seen in 2009.

“Greece offers … an affordable holiday, delicious food at reasonable prices, cheap sailing, local wine, beautiful beaches, sunshine, quaint villages … and little islands full of scenic surprises,” Flight Centre says.

Other top destination countries include the tiny nation of Brune, Croatia and Vietnam.

Greek populations frustrated by the situation in Greek Consulate of Melbourne

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Greek populations frustrated by the situation in Greek Consulate of Melbourne

According to an article of Neos kosmos, the Greek leading newspaper of Australia the Greek Consulate in Melbourne cannot serve the Greek population of the area. The waiting time for phone calls and work that remains ufinished are a common reality. George Zois, the Greek ambassador in Australia, commented that ” sometimes even I had to wait in order to talk to somebody on the phone”. He went further to say that he hopes that Athens will send more people to help out but he does not think that thiss will happened soon.

“The Kingdom of Paramithi” by the Wiggles

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Australia’s richest entertainers The Wiggles have produced a TV show that won’t require them to wear a colored skivvy. For the first time, they have put together a project outside their famous children’s singing group and plan to market it around the world.

The brainchild of Blue Wiggle Anthony Field and his brother Paul, who is also the group’s producer and director, The Kingdom of Paramithi (Greek for fairytale) is a children’s program based on telling the story of well-known nursery rhymes. Now none of them is Greek or of Greek descent. So how did they learn the word paramithi and why? I seems that the answer is Michaela Patisteas. In spite of being named as “Bachelor of the Year” in Cleo Magazine, Field married Michaela Patisteas, of Greek descent in 2003.

With 30 half-hour episodes already finished, the Fields are planning to present their new show at the prestigious MIPCON conference in France, the world market for TV sales, next week. The show will debut in Australia on Channel 9 on November 10.

source: news.com.au

Tatiana Delligianakis: "Yes, I have seen numerous dead bodies…"

A. Makris
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She likes bagels (as does the stereotypical New Yorker) and because of this we met at a bagel shop.  This sweet and well-established girl is only 26 years old, and she writes for the New York Post, the largest tabloid newspaper of New York.  And, unfortunately, no one from the Greek Embassy of New York, nor any other organization, has approached her to maintain correspondence.  Surely, I think that we would want these types of people near us.  And she would never say no, especially to an invitation for a meal; just as she will later admit.

What part of Greece are your parents from?
My father is from Kefalonia, and my mother is from Thessaloniki.  I was born in the Bronx but then we moved to Astoria.

Did you go to a Greek school?
Yes, I went to the Saint Demetrius School.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t any good.  When I was a freshman in high school I changed schools and I went to an all-girl American high school.  I was completely behind in my studies because the preparation was terrible at Saint Demetrius.  Also, it was incredibly boring because we had religion for an hour a day — I was completely disenchanted; then, they told me that I was going to a to an all-girls’ school.  I was shocked, but also relieved that I was leaving that Greek school.

What have you studied?
I got a degree in Journalism and my Master’s from Fordham University.

How did you start working at the NY Post?
In the beginning I did an internship and then I started writing in the newspaper’s web page.  After that, since they liked my work, they offered me a full-time position as a reporter, which I, of course, took.

What are the two most memorable articles from your career at the Post?
To tell you the truth, for me, everyday is completely different from the next, and many times I don’t remember the article I wrote a week before, so I can’t really answer that question.

Do you have Greek-American friends?
Not many, but I would like to become more involved in the Greek-American community.  Many people tell me that I don’t act or look like a Greek girl at all, and I ask myself what that even means.  Honestly, what makes you a Greek girl?

Do you go to Greece often?
Yes, about every three years.  When I am there I feel very comfortable, I don’t think of it as being away from home.  My grandmother and cousins live in Greece.  I love them a lot.  Usually I stay in Thessaloniki, I think it’s wonderful, and I would have no problem living there. However, there is no way I would be able to live in Athens.

How much interest do you take in Greek media?
I would say very little.  I watch Greek TV only when I am in Greece, and sometimes when I go to my parents’ place, because they have some Greek Channels.  Overall it seems just like American TV, only that it’s in Greek.  I don’t read Greek newspapers, either.  Once in a while I might get into reading some Greek Magazine’s web page.

Where do you see yourself professionally in five years?
I would like to be in a different newsroom.  Perhaps I could get into editing news so I won’t constantly be traveling.

What do you usually write about?
I do general articles and I cover crime a lot.

Have you covered many crime scenes?
Yes, I have seen numerous dead bodies and a lot of blood shed on floors.

How do you stomach it?
What can I do?  Naturally I don’t care for it, when I show up at a crime scene I look at the body once, then I look elsewhere.  I have spent many hours in waiting rooms of hospitals and I have gone to many funerals.  I have been depressed many times but that is the nature of my work.  Many times my job makes me into contemplation; for example, last week I went to a funeral of a soldier from Iraq and I spoke with his parents and his extended family.  They were all so stoic and dealt with the situation with such calm that I really admired them, but it also made me think.  They were saying that he died for his country, but I put my own family in their situation, if something like that had happened to me.  My parents would have reacted completely different in a similar situation.

Have you ever considered your job as a dangerous one?
No, because I have not been threatened, but I have had interviews with prisoners who may have disliked something I wrote, and, believe me, it isn’t the best thing to happen to you.

Have you been approached by Greece, or the Embassy in New York, or representatives of the Greek government so that they might invite you to some dinner, to discuss the place of our country (in the global scene)?
Unfortunately, no, never.  I am sure I would not decline the offer for dinner though.

“Dancing with the Greeks”

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Mark Ballas is the star who has impressed critics and audience of the popular TV show “Dancing with the Stars”.  At the age of 4, he was enrolled at the Italia Conti Academy of Dramatic Arts Associate School, where he was trained in singing, dancing, and acting. When he was 10, he became British Juvenile Ballroom and Latin American Dance Champion. At the age of 11, he earned a full time slot at the Academy, as well as earning a full scholarship to the college. In 2005, he was awarded “Performer of the Year”. He then moved on to win championships at The British Open to the World, The US Open to the World, and The International Open to the World. With his former partner Julianne Hough, he won the Junior Latin American Dance Championship and the gold medal at the Junior Olympics. This season Mark’s partner on the show is reality television star Kim Kardashian. He and his best friend Derek Hough have formed the band Almost Amy.

Mark’s family is all about dancing. his father used to be a professional dancer and his Greek grandfather, George Ballas Sr owned and operated a 64,000 square foot dance studio in Houston: the largest dance studio ever in the world, called Dance City USA, with 125 teachers on payroll.

This season also his father, Corky Sr,  tried his luck on the dance stage of “Dancing wit the Stars”.

Greek-born woman who tried to kill herself and her husband is free

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The story of this older couple is a modern Greek tragedy with victims both of them. Anastasia Nestorowycz, 76, tried to kill her husband Paul, 82, because she believed he was suffering and she wanted to end his life.
The Supreme Court let her free stating that “she did not act out of hatred but because she felt sorry for her ailing partner.” Her husband had begged her to take him home and, unable to, she decided to end his life and her own.
The woman who immigrated to Australia from Greece in 1970 admited that she regrets her action and she feels sorry for her husband. Speaking from her Thornbury home yesterday, after walking from court on a wholly suspended sentence of two years and nine months, Mrs Nestorowycz said she was happy to be free.
The Greek-born woman had not seen her husband of 35 years since the attack but said yesterday she wanted to make peace and planned to visit him in two weeks.
“I love my husband. I am very sorry. It might be too late. (But) I love him,” she said.
The court heard Mrs Nestorowycz, who pleaded guilty to attempted murder, was aiming for her husband’s heart when she stabbed him with a kitchen knife in his bathroom in June last year.
Justice David Harper said Mrs Nestorowycz was suffering a “major depressive disorder” and believed staff were neglecting her husband.
The court was told she believed staff were not feeding him properly and were stealing his clothes.
Paul Nestorowycz, who is in a wheelchair and has dementia and diabetes, was waiting to play chess when his wife stabbed him once in the stomach then stabbed herself in the stomach and cut her wrist.
The pair were found covered in blood and rushed to hospital for emergency surgery.

source:news.com.au

In Jail for defaming the Royal family of Thailand

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Harry Nicolaides, a Greek-Australian writer who has worked in Thailand as a university lecturer and freelance writer was arrested at Bangkok airport on 31 August 2008 and now is facing 15 years in jail for allegedly defaming Thailand’s crown prince. Mark Dean, a Melbourne-based lawyer for 41-year-old Harry Nicolaides, said judges at Bangkok’s Criminal Court deemed it to be a “very serious offense” and regarded him as a flight risk. This was the official reason for which Nicolaides’s bail application was rejected.

“His family is very concerned about his welfare,” Dean told Reuters. His relatives had written to Thailand’s royal household, Dean said, apologizing for any offense caused by his 2005 novel ‘Verisimilitude,’ billed on the Phuket info.com Web site as an “uncompromising assault on the patrician values of the monarchy.”

In newspaper interviews from the prison where he has been held since his Sept. 3 arrest, Nicolaides said only 50 copies of the novel had been printed and only seven sold.He also admitted to feeling suicidal in prison, and feared being beaten up by the 90 men with whom he shares a cell because they had found out about his alleged misdemeanor.
Lese-majeste, or insulting the monarchy, is a very serious offense in Thailand, where many people regard 80-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej as semi-divine. It is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
As Nicolaides continues to languish in a Bangkok prison cell, the use and abuse of the lèse majesté law has received a modicum of worldwide scrutiny.  However since 21 September, Nicolaides’ case has been completely out of the news.

Sources: Reuters.com & News.com.au

New York Greek Film Festival

A. Makris
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The Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce is presenting the second annual New York City Greek Film Festival October 3 through 16, 2008, with new feature films and documentaries you will want to see. The schedule includes, screenings of Greek films but also special events and panels. Some of the films that the festival will present have won awards from the Los Angeles Greek Film festival. The festival will take place in Cinema Village in Manhattan until 9th of october and then it will continue in CineMart Cinema in Queens. for more information visit the website of the Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce.

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