One day, someone decides to carry out a plan that had been kept hidden at the back of their mind, and then the most exceptional dreams come to life. I think that is how it all began. A project that took off with a sentence like “Instead of going to Taksim tonight, let’s go to the States next week, man” soon opened all kinds of doors to the bon vivants who would carry it out. Now you are on the road, literally, wandering through the States’ legendary Highway 61, in a convertible, let’s say, Cadillac. Every stop smells of blues and anise. It’s like New York, New Orleans, Mississippi Delta, Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago had been waiting for you all along and now you show your gratitude by sharing your rakı with them. Probably because you are so enchanted, now the question “Why have I come to this world?” loses its philosophical connotation and becomes words of praise. Even your closest friends are a bit jealous of you, in the hope of the smallest of presents. “Please them, buy gifts.” Yes, please…

Only the ones to live through these sixteen days know how magnificent it is, and we decorate our dreams with the texts, photos and videos we send. And an important note: This projects colours the dreams of the non-participants and urges them to carry out theirs own. Not to say without bothering themselves with the problems like visas, passports, etc… Better than none.

In case you wonder, here are the fortunate ones…

Fikret Bekler

After high school everyone, including himself, thought he would become an electronical engineer. The false expectation was there in the first two years of university. Then he started writing regularly for Leman magazine and the comedy programs in HürFM and soon he found himself as a text writer in an advertising agency. Then he went on working in another agency and writing sketches for television, etc., only to find himself as a student still after ten years!

After realizing how his friends at the university suddenly became his teachers, he finished the school. He then went on working with the agencies as a writer and became a script writer. For the last five years, he’s been writing scripts for various television series with Kuledibi Senaryo Grubu, a group he formed with his advertiser friends. They started with Çemberimde Gül Oya, then wrote Beyaz Gelincik, Karayılan, and then Yol Arkadaşım.

Apart from writing, he loves watching movies, taking photographs, and traveling. He’s about to hit the road with Metin Solmaz, to travel and take photos…

Metin Solmaz

During the primary school years, he started trade business by selling paper bags he produced using newspapers and floured water, and started managing by making his unfortunate cousins sell water. He made his mother buy him an organ while in high school, but failed to play it and sold it, then using the money as capital, he started trading hi-fi equipments. At seventeen, he read passages from the communist manifesto to the four workers at his own ceramics atelier. He turned Pizza Tek, home to his first experience as a waiter, into the sole trendy rock bar in Ankara. He did not make much money out of his record store he opened in a suburb neighbourhood, but he sure learned a lot. He worked as a salesman, peddler, refrigerator repairman, electrical technician, and DJ. Between 1989-1996, he worked as a freelance writer for almost all major newspapers and magazines, like Birikim, Cumhuriyet Dergi, Cumhuriyet Kitap, Express, Milliyet Sanat, Müzük and Radikal 2, writing mainly on cultural sociology and music. He made radio programs. His three books, Kenardaki Milyonerler, Rock Sözlüğü and Türkiye’de Pop Müzik: Bir İnfilak Masalı, were written during this period.

Since 1996, he has been, surprisingly regularly, working on internet. He is among the founders of Siberalem.com and ideefixe.com, and with his company called Overteam, he has had his signing under many projects including Gayet.net, azbuz.com, buyukkeyif.com, biriyim.com…

And now he is flying to the States, having fun, glowing.

If you ask me,

This is the Blues! So, hit the road men!