News Snippets: Tarkan Trademarks

Posted by Steffan Matrak from Moscow, Russia

In a quick rundown of showbiz stories about Tarkan doing the rounds, his wife is spotted out in Istanbul for the first time since news of her pregnancy hit the news wires, as pop peer Serdar Ortaç congratulates Tarkan while in Ankara for a show.

When asked by the paps if he had congratulated Tarkan, Ortaç said that he had done so via the cameras and how great it was the megastar had announced it by video. "I would probably dance on tables for joy," Ortaç, who is married to an Irish model, said. "I'm going to do the same when the time comes".

Meanwhile, a local paper mentions a new magazine printed about Karamürsel - a town and district located in northwestern Turkey - where Tarkan grew up and went to school as a teenager in the eighties after his father relocated his family back from Germany.

Critical of the positive outlook the magazine tries to portray, the local column writes that although the magazine makes mention of Tarkan being raised in Karamürsel, it fails to say why the musical megastar has never returned in the intervening years.

It's public knowledge that Tarkan had a tough childhood, from neo-nazism in Frankfurt to Islamic conservatism and small town mentality in Karamürsel. It's been said that Tarkan's nickname during those years was "Girly Tarkan", with local boys often bullying him over his looks and his easy manner with the opposite sex.

Moving on, in 2010 there was news that Tarkan had trademarked his name associated with his singing - but the artist might have considered other services, too. Now a German internet service provider, Level421 claims to have revolutionised communications by providing a global wifi hardware they have branded as TARKAN.

The specs don't make clear why the model, which is labelled as the ultimative traveler gadget, keeping you online in more then 180 countries worldwide without a sim, has been branded as Tarkan. It could be an acronym, but for customers of the German service provider, they can now take Tarkan with them wherever they go.

On to music and in a Saturday article for Habertürk, Ece Ulusum bemoans the lack of original music in the Turkish music industry recently with the spate of tribute albums and covers. She mentions that Tarkan's tribute genre album "Ahde Vefa" was amongst his least selling, while Tarkan's current music label exec Samsun Demir took to social media to tweet on the following Monday that the tribute album had made the iTunes top twenty in Singapore.

Elsewhere, the paper Akşam has run an interview with musician Behzat Gerçeker, the co-founder of ENBE Orchestra, who worked with Tarkan in 2010 on "Herşeye Rağmen" (Despite It All) for ENBE Orchestra's 2010 album, Kalbim (My Heart).

In the interview, musician Gerçeker thanks all the big name stars like Tarkan who chose to work with the orchestra, while also being proud of the new names they have helped showcase throughout the years.

In other news, Karşıyaka, a district in İzmir in Turkey, has seen a play performed by a troupe of disabled women to highlight violence against their sex. It's reported the performers began with their rendition of Tarkan's award-winning second video single release "Beni Çok Sev", while - last, but not least - Onedio has published a list of Turkish singers and their equivalent countries.

The article writes that for "their dear prince" Tarkan there was only one country the pop icon could be twinned with as his geographical equivalent - the scandinavian nation Sweden. Reasons cited are his profeminism, wealth, high standard of living and that he has no "historical black stains" to his name.

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