Hello, this is Fikret… You have been reading the amusing stuff Metin kept writing for the last few days. You know my profession is script writing and I had been writing continuously for the last two years. So I am a little bit reluctant to write anything while I am travelling. And now I am writing only because I want to share the load Metin has been carrying since our venture began.

This morning (US calendar, June 10^th, Wednesday) we set off on our journey, driving our rental car. You already know we had this dream of renting an old convertible American car since leaving İstanbul, but unfortunately that didn’t come true. It is not possible to rent those kinds of old cars. As a matter of fact, it is not possible even to find them. Eventually, we ended up renting a giant SUV – or so we thought, until we saw the bigger monsters on the road, which made our car look like a “Mini Cooper.” (More …)

I think mostly because I spent almost all my youth in south of Turkey, now the notion of a touristic place brings with it images of German tourists wearing lace socks on their feet and carrying a bottle of water in one hand and a toilet paper in the other. The more a trip takes the form of a touristic activity, it becomes more meaningless, and the actions taken become more detached from the actual place. So it doesn’t matter where you are. The ones that go to Ibiza do the same things with the ones that go to Ölüdeniz. So do the ones that go to the Alps or Uludağ. The children smile cutely for the camera. People stand in front of the statues and pose happily, they ski or become bronze. Like the thing I read a long time ago: Does one know more by travelling or by reading? Who knows more – a historian or a Japanese tourist who poses to a camera in front of a Renault factory in France?
The music changes a little bit. So does the food. But nothing changes more than a little, because these things are domesticated according to the visitor’s taste. Like Chinese food. You expect it to be called just food in China, right? I heard that it’s called American Chinese Food… And what about ‘world music’? World music is “normalised” music, whether it belongs to Pakistan or Egypt. It is just muzak. (More …)

And this is what happened. My dear friend Semih Aközlü was the guest DJ at the DJ Carlito program “If Music Could Talk” on WRIR 97.3 and he dedicated the occasion to “Rakı on the Road.” The program received unusual number of calls. Some showed up at the studio. And it was broadcasted live in a big club.

It is said to have been a delightful program that started with “Yaz Gazeteci Yaz” (a Selda Bağcan song) and ended with “Ramblin’ on My Mind.”

Semih and DJ Carlito, thanks a lot to both of you.

If you would like to listen to the program, here is the link:

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/33847

Sisters and brothers, be sure that every comment will soon be replied. However, once we sit in front of the computer we just can find time to write down what’s on our minds. Then we are too tired to write anything more. Evidently we work a lot, and don’t keep notes. Strolling around all day long, drinking rakı – and by the end of day, we are wretched.

I think we need a vacation

This is the first news of the day: We feel like Matthew Scudder. We bought a copy of the famous New York Times Sunday edition for $5, and it’s really heavy as a rock. OK, it now lays untouched inside the valise, but buying is an effort so it should count for something. (More …)

Brothers, sisters… What a waste it was to wander around Time Square, etc… Forget all about it! It’s all happening on the street down from Chelsea.

If you think you’ll be impressed with Madison Square Garden, twice the size of Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, you should see Soho – it’s like Sirkeci. We bought for Fikret a CF card. Its price tag said $179 but we managed to get it for $30, after a fevered bargain that started with $60. Looking at the range, I still think we may have been ripped off.

Drinking rakı on the roads is oddly socializing. It’s strictly recommended to every traveler and guaranteed to make people gather around you. First, you see the suspicious looks trying to figure out what you retards might be doing, soon come the looks of sympathy. Then, of course, the curious questions… (More …)

I think his name was Joe Jackson – the musician. I once saw the lyrics to one of songs in Roll magazine. I am not sure about the year and the brands but it was something like this:

In the year 2001, one man drank a bottle of Jack Daniels, he got on a Honda, hit a woman. The woman died. That year, they didn’t ban cars, they didn’t ban whisky, but now you can’t smoke in a bar.

I can’t think of anything more despicable. In a city where you can’t smell anything other than waste, those rascals banned smoking instead of fixing the ventilation systems. I used to smoke three to five cigarettes a day normally, and here I am, smoking half a package. Because now every time I go out on the street I urge myself to smoke one, knowing I won’t be able to once I enter a place. (More …)

This is between you and me: New York is very far from İstanbul. It is even farther than Urfa… A never-ending trip… God give strength to those pilots. Before arriving at New York JFK Airport, we flew for eleven hours, at -60°C. Our flight altitude was 11,000 meters, our speed was 1,000 km/h on the average. It is a pretty sloppy airport, by the way, compared to Atatürk Airport in İstanbul.

Some people had a bit of swine flu paranoia at the airport (even in the plane). It was over by the time we arrived at JFK. It seems as if the home of swine flu does not take it as seriously as we do. Unfortunately, as usual, something we take seriously as a country fails to catch up with the world trends, again.

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My name is Metin and I don’t know the treatment for this condition. But the diagnosis might as well be “laziness related working disorder.”

I have worked, in some irrelevant sectors, as a waiter, DJ, journalist, web designer, and photographer not because I was hard-working but I wanted to secure a life of laziness. None of them has been eligible to be called as my profession. Thank God, my friends have dubbed me “a project man.” And I am proud of that. I am not so sure about how successful I have been in other jobs, anyway. (More …)