When part of your childhood disappears...

In memoriam - Toše Proeski 1981 - 2007


It was winter 1998, raining heavily.. had a fight with my dad because i wanted to go out and he wanted me to stay home away from the rain, but no.. i had to go.. it was Toše Proeski's first visit to my city.. his first concert in Esperanto Disco... and i wanted to take his autograph so badly.. so i gathered all what i had in my 13 years of courage and decided to go for it..

Streets were full, girls were screaming , wish to touch Toše's hand or have the chance to take a photo with him.. the excitment was growing, i had all the lyrics memorized.. just waiting for the concert to start. Somehow me and my cousin Jasmina, somehow managed to be in the first few rows..

We all went home with a big smile on our faces.. wondering when will be his next concert because i couldn't get his auto-graph. Then we went to Krushevo with my school... Toše's hometown.. the surprise of the trip was his un-expected performance in the Hotel we were staying for the entire school but yet somehow he was evacuated quickly as soon as he finished; because it was becoming very crouded.

Aaah... the Eurovision song contest.. my all time favourite show.. in 2004 he proudly presented Macedonia.. and even though i was in Jordanhaving my tawjihi exams.. i couldn't miss his performance.. i cheered for him and was simply proud.. and still looking forward to attend at least one of his concerts in the Gradski Stadium in the capital Skopje...

My attachment and home-sickness never been stronger when the Ethno- Macedonian Folklor album was released by Toše.. with the ever lasting "Zajdi Zajdi" he wrote his name with bold letters in the history of the Macedonian identity and made me anxiously wait the day when i will go to Macedonia and attend his concert and get his autograph.

That small 13 years old kiddo grew up.. but still has the wish.. 9 years after this Star rose on the Macedonian and Ex- Yugoslav sky it tragically left us... took with him all my hopes and wishes to go to Gradski in Skopje and enjoy with all his fans an ever-green concert..

A significant part of my childhood went with him.. May your soul rest in peace.. Every True Macedonian will remember you along with all the Icons of our History. You won't be forgotten .. your music will always be played and sang that i can promise.

You still owe me an auto-graph

Yours Samer

The Hardest Thing - Toše Proeski

Song performed by the late Macedonian singer Toshe Proeski. He didn't have the chance to hear it in the world's radio stations as his very first english song. But we -Toshe's fans - are here to spread his angelic voice and his everlasting music.
Rest in Peace Toshe.
You won't be forgotten

i will leave you with the vedio clip made after his tragic death by MTV Adria.

Ethno Music

I'd say its the soul of a nation put in musical notation.

Sometimes you don't need to actually visit a country

to experience its culture and elevate to their spiritual patriotism.

You don't have to know the people,

you don't have to know their background,

you don't have to understand their language,

just close your eyes and listen.

Elections

Its interesting how different countries experience the Elections phenomena. There are ofcourse some general observations everywhere... that it's an event that takes the country's attention for couple of weeks or even a year...

Here in Jordan, this phenomena haven't changed much since it started 20 years ago; streets filled with candidates' names, mansaf, knafe, pink promises and ofcourse the Radio begging vote for me method. Its worth mentioning that within last year's elections campagne new more technologically inhanced methods were used like Facebook ads, or lets say Internet in general.
But hey lets take a look how other countries experience elections.. aside of our arab world.

In the United States -as we can see these days- the competition between Hillary and Obama has not only become a world wide discussio topic but also an entertainment for the US' citizens. Every meeting and debate between the leaders are widely followed at least by those who are interested in politics. All the candidates for the upcoming presidential elections in the US use professional agencies just to conduct their campagne moreover to take care of every little detail from the color of the balloons to the candidates speech. Ofcourse all that needs money to fund all these activities.
So since they don't need Mansaf or Knafe to feed the voters, they spend their money to make sure everything goes perfect in any meeting with the voters.

Lets take another example of a little bit modest campagne compared to the American one. This year, actually on the 1st of June , the Republic of Macedonia will go into its first early general elections. Their approach of campagning was different this year. In order to attract youth to vote, they decided to pull the popular singer and performers into singing a campagne song that carries the Party's main objective and moto. In every public apperance of the party they make sure to start their meeting with those singers performing the coalition song live which in a way secretly makes sure that the singer's fans will vote for that party.

Here is their song... i wonder if that will give a result on the 1st of June.

Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song contest is probably the biggest musical event in Europe that has been occuring for the past 53 years. It's a contest between all the members of European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The winning song is selected by televoting, each country can give points from 1 to 12 but don't have the right to vote for its own song. The Country that gathers the most points wins the Contest and the Winning country becomes the new Eurovision Host.

Many famous singers kicked their carrier from this contest to name a few: ABBA, Celine Dion (as Swiss participant), Jonny Logan, Helena Paparizou, Dima Bilan and many others. This contest is usually organized in the second or the third week of May each year. During the previous 3 months each country organizes internal selection for their entry for the contest.

Due to the increasing number of participating countries (43) as of this year there were 2 semifinals in which the participants perform their songs and the best 10 songs from each semifinal proceed to the final with the Big 4 (UK,France, Germany and Spain - who go directly to the Final becoz they fund the contest) and the winning song from the previous contest.

It is a trend that the winning song or at least the participating songs become a Hit sometimes within europe other times to the whole world like the case of Greece's winning song "My number one" by Helena Paparizou that was extremely popular here in Amman (though i doubt that people new that it was an ESC winning song :) )

Its interesting to point out that Jordan Radio Television JRTV used to broadcast it live until 1999. Due to political reasons.. in 1998 Israel won the contest and the Israeli Television brought the contest to Jerusaelm and since then JRTV stopped the broadcast.

Another political trivial thing was the application of Lebanon to the contest 2 years ago, but because according to the contract the Lebanese channel had to broadcast all the songs including the Israeli song they withdrew. But it is expected to see Lebanon in 2009 since the applicant Television has changed.

Its also worth mentioning the technically Palestine has the right to participate since its an official member in the EBU, so who knows maybe we will see the contest in Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.

Last year's winner was Serbia (which many thought that it was Europe's way to tell Serbia that we appericiate you although we will take Kosovo from you) and they Hosted this years contest in their capital Belgrade. It was a magnificent show and for one week Belgrade was the center of Europe hosting thousands of young europeans from all over Europe.. from UK to Armenia..

Here is a small interval act during which the Televoting was occuring in this years Eurovision SOng contest . The music played is composed by a famous Serbian musician Goran Bregovic who is popular with his folk serbian music.




You can find more about the contest following this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision#Participation