The Nightlife of Bodrum, Again

After my last post about Bodrum, here is a a follow-up on certain aspects of the nightlife of the ever-popular holiday location.

A detailed discussion of Bodrum's thousands of bars and clubs, of course, will be patently impossible and pretty boring. Instead I want to tell you about the places that mattered to me, my close friends and the 1000-2000 other young people that frequent them.

This, for example, is the infamous BBC club, the only place that played rock and alternative during my adolescence in the early 2000s.

We were struck down with grief when the old BBC closed down to become one of the omnipresent "holiday discos" found throughout Bodrum. In 2007, however, it reopened as a rock bar, with the original trashy decoration meticulously "restored" to evoke the old days. However, people had moved on...

...to other places, Bodrum's labyrinthine streets among them. Here is my brother and his friends during last year.

They were busy preparing and drinking vast amounts of a notorious concoction called "Karışım," which was made out of beer, wine, vodka and tequila, among other things. Naturally disgusted by alcohol, I could only fathom one sip - which tasted like stale oil.

If the streets are not to your liking, you can always try the real bars that lie around Bodrum's landmark castle.

The first, and the most popular of these is called Körfez, which is always crowded to the brink and has not updated its playlist of songs since 1999.

These factors, however, do not deter people from having a good time, as this couple I shamelessly spied on can attest.

Other good places to go apart from Körfez include the newly-opened Tower,

...and the ever popular Adamik. If you spend your holidays in Bodrum, chances are your nights will be spent tracing infinite triangles between these three bars, and... nowhere else!

All of these pictures were taken last year. I wonder what this summer will bring? By the way, this is not my first post on Bodrum's nightlife. Check this out for the last report!

At Riddim Bar

Nope, these are not scans from one of H.R. Giger's amazing books.

"If not, then what?" You might ask. Well, these pictures are all on walls.

And the walls belong to one of Istanbul's largest and oldest rock bars, Kemancı.

These murals were painted here by one of the students of Galip Tekin, one of Turkey's most famous fantastic comic artists, who ran this place as a "hobby." Some hobby!

Kemancı used to cover three whole floors, with different concerts and music on each. These intricately copied paintings decorate the stairs between different floors.

They are all reproductions, but these pictures were so good that a local legend soon grew, that Giger had painted them himself, and what's more, these pictures were the originals!

Of course, something later happened that put these images slightly out of context.

That "something" was R&B music. As hardcore rock and metal music lost its audience in Turkey to newer genres, Kemancı became an unsustainable venture. The establishment first sold one, then two, then all floors off to a new R&B club called Riddim.

In the initial days of this partition, a slight tension grew between the heavy metal fans and R&B revelers that went to the different clubs in the same building. The Kemanci crowd obviously hated losing ground to what they saw as their polar opposites and played only ultra-hard metal hits to annoy Riddim. This, of course, only hastened Kemanci's demise.

So now Kemanci is Riddim, and sizzling rap hits echo off the same walls that once rang with Metallica and Slayer. The beautiful pictures have been left untouched by Kemanci's new owners, so now people like me can enjoy the doubled pleasure of grinding with hot chicks while admiring quality reproductions of top fantastic artworks. Rock on!

The-O in Istanbul

More than two months ago, I attended an exhibition opening organized by my friend Mihda, seen above on the right-hand side. She runs URA, a gallery-space-thing in one of the busiest districts in Istanbul.

This exhibit in URA was devoted mostly to the documentaries of Bronwen-Parker Rhodes, who is an up-and coming director from London. Here she is.

I really liked her work, especially that one big video that chronicles the lives of some nerds who dress up, act and live like Tolkien-esque orcs.

There was also this one, which peeked into the life of an entomologist. For more of Bronwen's work, you can visit this link.

But arguably, the highlight of the opening night was an "art performance" by a certain The-O; a British-Cypriot performer. Admittedly, I had seen some very poor stuff peddled off as "performance" before in Istanbul, so I didn't have high hopes...

...but this show was really intense. And good.

Halfway through the show, I was viciously attacked by The-O. Here is a shot from my camera just then.

Using complicated Krav-Maga maneuvers, I redirected his attack to an unsuspecting group of Turkish art appreciators standing next to me.

At the end of the show, The-O suddenly dropped as if dead, and proceeded to lie comatose for the next hour.

...not even shock therapy, or being kicked by hot girls, could revive him.

At the end, however, he did move from his place as hunger pressed above all other needs. Mihda and some of our friends took The-O to a local Sutlac (Turkish pudding) place, resulting in a stranger artistic combination than anything that happened before in the night.

Emo Turco

Turkish emos keep fascinating some of my readers, so here are some more examples from Istanbul. This picture is actually really (well, about four years) old, it was taken in a local bar called Bronx, which was extremely popular among Istanbul's indie youth in its heyday. This guy has both a panda-eye makeup and a white fringe, and he has no shirt on. How cooler can you get?

D.I.Y. Lomo Colorsplash

Only an idiot would be daft enough to fork out hard-earned money for a clunky Lomo Colorsplash camera when the alternative is blindingly obvious. Just hold out differently colored drinks or beverage bottles in front of the flash with any ordinary camera: Voila! You have trendy looking distorted, colorful, psychedelic photos in no time! Now, you can upload your ersatz-lomo photographs on Myspace and tell all the ladies that you have a Lomo up in your bedroom.

Above is the intense red strobe that results from holding a cherry-vodka mixture in front of the flash...

...while green-tinted beer bottles create this hallucinogenic green glow. This method has an additional bonus in coolness, as you can also reveal your extravagant drinking habits along with the pictures.

Beer in a plain glass, on the other hand, creates a very subtle yellow haze.

Drinks are not the only things you can hold out in front of the flash. Here is the effect given by using a pair of sunglasses instead. Ping! Everywhere is all brown, slick and grungy!

I wonder what light reflected off a glass of Raki would look like? A glass of wine? Some tea? The potentials are limitless.

Vomit in Your Closet

This poor girl seems to have had too many drinks in a recent housewarming party we went to.

Yup, more vomit. By sheer bad luck, it also lies splattered all over the home-owner's class sketchbook. I wonder if that is a bad thing, or could the awful stains be marketed off as a unique style with experimental materials?

At Nisantasi

Here are some pictures from Nişantaşı, arguably the most westernized neighborhood in all of Istanbul. Here, you see one of the Ottoman-era obelisks that mark the frontiers of the district.

It is not a large place between the obelisks, yet it is home to countless upscale apartments, restaurants, bars, pubs and galleries; all the amenities of a posh life. For example, this massive business center has a pleasant arcade with cinemas, numerous bars and bookstores in it.

If you close your eyes, you could just imagine that you are in Rome or Barcelona. But that would be a little pathetic.

Here is Taps, one of the nicest restaurant/pubs in the vicinity.

The omnipresent House Cafe, which has branches in every upscale district in Turkey, is not absent from Nisantasi either. Its spacious garden is a local favorite.

Nişantaşı is also home to the famous Teşvikye Mosque, one of the best examples of neoclassical architecture on a mosque. Nişantaşı is also home to many of Istanbul's Jewish and Armenian families, and newly-settled foreigners.

If you ever visit Istanbul, you should make a trip to this neighborhood, albeit while keeping an eye on your wallet. If you never come this way, you can get an idea by reading the life of a local Nişantaşite on this blog, which seems to consist of an endless succession of parties, drinking, birthdays and celebration.

Balls of Steel

No ball games: Tonight at the LSE (London School of Economics) campus, we saw a group of brave young men lining up with their testicles in their hands...

...a minute later they broke out into a wild run, at the end of which they spin around themselves for ten turns, all the while drinking gregariously...

...I guess this was one of England's antique pub games, or alternatively, an equally arcane initiation rite to the LSE rugby team that was holding a party that night...

...I could have just asked, of course, but it would be a bit awkward to ask the drunken guys with their balls hanging out just what they were up to.

Really Awful T-Shirts

These guys seem to have entered a bad t-shirt contest... and won. The scariest thing is, such awful clothes can actually attract Turkish girls. From Ortaköy, a few weeks ago.