After several years, due to various serious hang-ups of both, I met again with my teacher, mentor and dear friend, Michalis Bourboulis. We picked up where we left off, almost ten years ago, and both expressed our intention to make up for lost time.

Our conversation deep and personal in many places touched both of us.

I was inspired and inspired by the ethos and dimension of sensitivity of the man, I have the honor to consider me a friend.

I explained to him what we are trying to do with my friends and colleagues, through this website-production company-electronic magazine, and I asked him if he would like to participate and support this effort. He replied: “My honor! A music and culture production platform of our own aesthetic, that will provide the majority of potential revenue to artists. Well done!”

Some points of our conversation, which I think may be of general interest, are the following:

– “What we write is not ours. They are planted inside us and at some point we take them out. Then we look at them and say, Did I wrote this? All of us, who write, are crazy!”

– “Greece sank. The vast majority are in despair with their faces and arms open looking at the sky. And ingratitude is great. Apart from my very own people,  rarely does anyone seek to see me. If you were a Graikos I wouldn’t want to see you. Giovanni… I am a Kefalonian! »

– “If you address me as Mister again, I’ll kill you.”

– “Okay teacher”

– “Teacher, I see that misery prevails. Poverty is one thing, misery is another, isn’t it?”

– “Of course. The poor man may be lord on the mountain and the rich man, in terms of money, buried in misery.”

I had intended to write some lyrics referring to my teacher, but I will keep this for later, so that it comes out beautifully and effortlessly. This was helped by his emotional reaction to the my lyrics “The new republic”, which I read to him as something I wrote having in mind my socio-political point of view, which is not trapped in political party stereotypes, ideologies, etc. However, it draws from several theories and applied practices.  

I needed to communicate my view and instead of consuming myself with analysis, which is not the main concern of this article, I thought it would be better to convey the essence with the following: 

The new republic

Monopoly of progress,

in Greece belongs to leftists.

And in Cyprus, being Greek,

a privilege of right-wingers.

With labels full of color,

extremism is thriving,

and parties, like churches,

full of sterile conservatism.

“I am a foreigner in Greece,

I am a foreigner in Cyprus.

Plato, no matter how much I seek,

I can’t find, in the Hellenism.”

Socially a leftist,

I want Justice!

And, also free and right-wing,

to have some Responsibility!

Greek Democracy,

you were some sort of solution,

and instead of evolving you,

we have demeaned you.

He took me by the hand and said: The new Republic! Wonderful! At that moment I felt that the first article in his column could not have another title.

Thank you, teacher! For everything!

Note: This article was written by Yiannis Kouzaris immediately after our penultimate meeting a few days before he left on July 20, 2023.