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 I got a call from a close friend, producer Sergei Avakyan, regarding a new project he wanted me to direct, about two months ago. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make it on time, so I asked for detail and it turned out it was a video inolving a friend I had met with Sergei earlier on, drumming genius Jacob Armen.

I knew Jacob in person, but had never heard him play. So once I received the files, I was excited to work on this new challenge. Soon enough we shot the video, and every obstacle that’s known to man came against us, but a beautiful piece came off of it. Why? Because it has a story. It had a story during his making, it had a story during my making, and now that it’s up for you to watch, it’s creating a new story going forward. That can only tell you one thing about this project: perfection.
Ladies and gentlemen, here’s the piece directed by yours truly, titled Heartbeat. Enjoy the video, and pay attention to his music writing. Here’s Jacob Armen in Heartbeat.

Apo Avedissian

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First things first, I’d like to start this blog by thanking each and every one of you who contributed to and participated in this campaign. This should show you how much an online presence can pay off.

If you’re not aware of what I’m talking about, on April 22nd, 2011 I posted the Twitter: The Armenian Genocide Campaign article in which I suggested starting a campaign, as the name suggests, for the Armenian Genocide recognition, by using Twitter’s hashtag symbol “#” in order to ‘trend’ the wording and make the ‘Armenian Genocide’ show up on every Twitter users’ account when they log in, hopefully giving them the option to click on the trend, and learning more about the issue.

Incredibly, this campaign started the same night, as the Facebook event page was started, about 5,000 members were invited to join, and boy did people join! We had tweets updating the #armeniangenocide page every minute or two on April 23rd, and by April 24th, we had tweets coming about every 7 seconds or so average!!!!! It was insane!

Our goal to trend the #armeniangenocide wasn’t perfectly met, however we did pull off to trend it in Los Angeles, with the tweet numbers reaching 6 digit numbers, we had ‘Armenian’ trending first, and ‘#armeniangenocide’ later on; the latter with the help of Kim Kardashian and the Armenian Youth Federation (AYF).

What did Kim Kardashian do?

Well, Kim Kardashian actually wrote a very nice blog condemning the event and asking for it to be recognized, although still blogging to her millions of fans to call their state representatives and asking them to recognize the Armenian Genocide. That alone, in my book at least, is enough of teaching odars (Armenian for ‘foreigners’) about the Armenian Genocide! Since we’re survivors, we should teach! Soon enough, Kim Kardashian, with the help of the #armeniangenocide hashtag supporters who made sure they tweeted Kim as many times as they could, and once she was online she did post a tweet that got re-tweeted lord knows how many times and boom! WE WERE TRENDING AN HOUR LATER!

By achieving this, we actually had the chance to teach many people (by many, the number is in thousands) of people who asked about what the fuzz and trending was about, and myself and many users actually helped answer these questions and got their support or at least taught them a fact. I’m proud of every single person who did this or spread the word about it, thank you very much, this cause is very dear to me and the recognition has been my life goal, still is, and always will be. No words can thank you enough on behalf of the one million and a half dead during the Armenian Genocide. You made the unheard voices heard. Thank you again.

People credited with the first initial push of this project deserve the credit and recognition for what they have done. They taught people by the simple action of posting or spreading the word about the initial process of this campaign, and they include, but are not limited to:

My partner in crime: Alex Trebor.

Close people to me/friends of mine: Seza B., Edith K., Shant Avedissian, Caroon A., Mary K., Norair V. and everyone else who posted or spread the word that I wasn’t aware about.

An honest photographer who helped with his heart: Sako San.

And a close friend of mine, and an AYF member: Levon A.

Model, beautiful inside and out: Rose Lopez.

Rapper, fresh out of the oven starter: Enfinal.

Here are some pictures for you to show you what we achieved, click on the pictures to see them in their real sizes with no distortions:

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Hi there, so as most of you have forgotten already, we’re human beings.

Okay so, continue reading after you figure out the line before.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it seems as if I need to bring this to everyone’s attention again. I’m an entertainer.

Is that a job? No. It’s a personality.

I’m made to push out positivity. Whether you hear a joke from me or not depends on the moment you met me and the time you waited for a joke, but if you’ve met me you should already know me. Even a first time meeting, that ice breaker will be there for you to remember.

I have mentioned before that my interest is never to tell you where I stand with my “accomplishments” in life. I’m not the person who stands there with his hands in his pockets walking around telling you “I made this” and “so I got this deal”. I’m here to make fun of me, you, and the situation we’re both in.

Awkward? Good luck. It’s gonna get awkward-er.

I tend to be an asshole sometimes, notice the ‘sometimes’, but I’m good most of the time. Well, at least I claim.

I went to Costco today, and man is that shopping cart fun to drive.. Common sense is sucked out of people’s heads, and now you have a bunch of ants in a jar just running around crossing left and right walking over each other causing shit load of traffic, that, ladies and gentlemen, is how my day went =) [HERE GOES MY MEMBERSHIP]…

I love when I’m on the actual right side of my road, I’m in my own lane, and those stubborn, excuse me, dumb asses, come and decide that the lane I’m on is actually theirs. Luckily, when I go there, I have all day, and one of my tactiques is stopping my cart, letting go of the handle, walking right next to them, grabbing some item, walking back to my cart, and lagging it, or for my older crowd, jumping to sit in it. BINGO. You should see their reaction.

Why do I do that? BECAUSE THEY DESERVE IT. (and I need a laugh).

Just like driving, just like walking in hallways; the right side from where ever you’re facing is your way, unless you drive in Europe, then don’t worry about this blog, like it never happened O:-), but other than that, seriously, you gotta get this right people! Right side is your side, why is there the urge to move and to just walk left and right and block the way? And what topped it all off, I asked one of the workers where the hummus was, after searching for it over and over at the spot I knew it used to be stacked at, his reply was “we relocated it”. REALLLLLLLY?

Do we need to be slow? There’s SOMETHING wrong with how people behave that I still need to understand. I do understand it, but I don’t understand the reason why they keep doing things like this. Get a hold of your cart and MOVE; Otherwise, don’t ‘dawwgg’ me when I ‘accidentally’ hit your cart to make way after waiting for you to decide which cereal you’re gonna buy.. We’re there to get our needs and leave, why is it so hard to stand in line, by the way?

I was trying a sample, which you should all try (one of my previous jobs was serving samples), and a lady just threw her self first in line, right in front of 2 women and my self  and one lady and one guy after me. The second lady in line asked her if she realized where the line was, and her reply was “oh I sorry I don see line” and just turned and kept standing at her spot. I, being pissed now, where no longer the gentleman side lives, said “well now you do”. She turned and said “no I don see line” with a smirk. The server looked at her and said “the line is there ma’am” and the lady replied back “I nohh I nohh just geemee one sample”. The server took the first sample out of the oven, brought it across the lady’s chest and handed it to the lady who was actually in line first. She then handed the second sample to the second lady, while the one who threw her self in is just standing there staring at the server, I gave my sample to the lady behind me. I took the next sample and gave it to the guy who was after the lady, and then I took the last one for myself, took a bite, and dropped it in the trash can and walked out.

Good night,

Apo Avedissian

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Apo Avedissian

As days pass by, I meet more people; the more people I’ve been meeting, the more I’ve been realizing that people tend to study or major in careers they don’t really know much about, and at the same time they have a talent with no value, at least in their beliefs.

Coaching is something I do. I automatically push people towards finding their talents and showing them what it consists of. When I see you doing something that interests me, the artisty side of me says “very nice, I love how that idea turned out and how the lighting here tells this story”, and then the entrepreneur side of me says “heyyyyyy, hello there, $_$”.

Why do I do that?

Well, I’m a big supporter of artists. By artists, I don’t mean people who can afford $5,000 DSLR cameras who run around and shoot pictures. I’m talking about artists. The ones who use the $100 camera and do work that has your jaw hanging. That’s what she said. Sorry, I had to.

What’s my point? Why am I telling you this?

Well, I was at your place one day, and it took me some time to realize that art is not about who pays you in millions, it’s about how much your work is valued by people to the point where someone in this world is willing to pay that much to have that piece hung in their houses.

If I were to sell my prints right now, would I make a million dollars? Chances are I wouldn’t. Why? Because I wouldn’t accept that much money. Why do I do this? I do this for the love of the art and the entertainment of the people. I’m an entertainer. I’m not a natural actor or mime, but I can put a smile on someone’s face by standing next to them and showing them one single picture. How does that happen? Well, it just does. I learned this the hard way, believe it or not, but it does work that way. Once your piece has a story, that piece is art.

I’ve heard so many people talk, or even complain, about how some art pieces sell for thousands of dollars. You need to understand the concept of art first, and then you need to worry about the money. When someone made such a great idea that was sitting in his or her head for so long, and the idea came out the way the artist intended for it to, then chances are that piece will boost the artistic side in you, not just financially, but mentally as well. You can see how much of a story you have told just by a single snapshot imagined in your head.

I’m talking about art here because I’m an artist, but you can definitely switch the topic to the career you want to pursue and see what you could do to change the world.

My goal has always been to fund any children-helping groups/agencies because I was lucky enough to have a childhood, even though it was mostly spent in war, I was and still am a survivor. I know how much a childhood of a person affects their future. I have received American Aid my self, went to middle school in Baghdad with a bag and two notebooks and a pack of pencils provided by American Aid, and my goal is to give back however much I could to help other kids get the education they need and the toys they desire and the puzzles they have to play with to grow their minds. Who knows, one kid you feed today might pay you back tomorrow. If you don’t believe that, read this article again and see the example I just made that good hearted people will work on paying back and building a higher art empire =)

Good night world.

Much love to you,

Apo Avedissian

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To some of you, my title “you party while I work” will sound like a complaint; Actually, it isn’t. It’s the total opposite.
Let me clarify. I love this. I love writing. I love creating. This is my hobby.
Saturday night, what are you doing? Partying? Clubbing? I’m here getting work done! Why? Because I’m relaxing. My work is my vacation.

“What cause I been in the lab wit a pen and a pad
Tryna get this damn label off?” Dr. Dre

One of my favorite lines in music is this Dr. Dre line he performs in Forgot About Dre, featuring Eminem.

We sometimes like lyrics because we like the idea and the intention of it, but other times, you just happen to know what the artist is saying, and you know exactly what his position is on that topic.

Spending day and night for a week only to render a music video the way you want is what I do. Yes, OCD might have something to do with it. Perfectionism as well. But this is my work. Monster, anyone? My Vacation, go and brag about it. Haha. Alex Trebor there!

Why should I go and spend 2 hours at a hooka place when I can sit here and plan to open my own hooka place? (Just an example, no I am not opening up a new hooka place. I don’t even smoke to begin with.) I can get so much work done without having to be there. Asthma, anyone?

By now, I hope not everyone is offended because I am not targeting every single human being that goes to hooka places; hooka places are just an example. One of hundreds. My word is aimed at those who waste their full lives there and end up with nothing left. You might read this and say “I feel bad for them,” but truth is there’s a chance that anyone could just lose everything in a matter of seconds. Whether it’s fate or mistakes, it depends on your mentality, but at the end, there’s a way to better secure it not happening.

I have faith in a lot of people, and it’s sad when I see a few who lose their power and throw it on something else that does not give them any gain. It’s their lives, after all, and I have absolutely no right to “boss” them around. But it hurts seeing so much potential to create so much good, go towards the bad and gets wasted.

If you need advice, I’m always here to help. I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not certified in anything, however, I do have personal thoughts, which you are not obligated to do or follow, and are more than welcome to just hear. If you are stuck between making a decision, ask me. If your friends keep bullying you, or if you’re scared from being called names, email me. I will try and help you become the cool one and get your name out instead of being pulled back. Don’t let negativity rule you. You’re your own self, after all.

Until then, good night.

Much love,

Apo Avedissian