The only sad moment of my trip to Stockholm earlier this year was the discovery Victorias Bar had closed down. I had been there on many occasions, with many fond memories of their schlager nights. It was there, I discovered the band, “Hallå hela pressen”, seen here performing with one of the members of legendary Swedish band, Blond, Gabriel Forss and Andres Esteche who was an entrant in Melodifestivalen.
They’re a covers-band specialising in Swedish pop songs, particularly Swedish Eurovision contenders, from the last twenty or thirty years. The two guys who front the band obviously really love the songs, as they sing them with large amounts of passion and enthusiasm. And a sense of fun, too, I suspect. The audience really loves the music too, and as they dance and sing along to every single song
While the schlager nights continued until earlier this year, the band moved on. I’m not sure what happened to the bald guy, but the dark-haired guy, Mikael Landby, went on to be part of a group that entered Melodifestivalen in 2014. A couple of years ago when I was in Stockholm I went up to him and asked for a photograph. He seemed slightly bemused at the nameless bloke from Australia, who knew about his musical career, but he obliged, nonetheless.
And then, all of a sudden, a few weeks ago, he popped up on Youtube/Spotify with a new album/EP which I purchased, which I like very much, and so I thought I’d share here.
Another musical favourite from Sweden, Oskar Linnros, also has a new album out.
Oh, and Mikael, don’t worry, I’m not some crazy Aussie stalker!
I spent a few months in hospital last year after my below the knee right leg amputation. This inclulded a few days in an induced coma, and on heavy medication. In one of my hallucinogenic dreams, I wasn’t allowed to go to the hospital bathroom alone because “my faeces were so toxic they would poison the entire Sydney water supply”. In another drug-induced dream, I was convinced one of the nurses was planning to blow up the hospital
In common, Tom Nash in the book “Hook, Line, and Sinner,” describes some hilarious coma-related dreams while he too was in hospital. He also describes the weird situation of being in a coma and knowing a little about what what going on around him, but not entirely. I totally understood what he meant when he said, you know “when you’re being talked to and when you’re being talked about.”
My friend Andrea gave me the book before Christmas because she thought I would be interested in Tom’s story as a fellow amputee. And when I say amputee, his situation was a little more dramatic than mine, having had both arms and legs removed due to Meningococcal disease. She also thought I would like the book because the writing displays such a great level of self-awareness, and such a great sense of humor.
Andrea interviewed Tom for ABC Radio a few months ago and introduced us to each other in the foyer of ABC Radio Sydney. We chatted briefly, with a laugh-out-loud moment where we noted we had seen each other with a double take earlier in the day in the foyer of the ABC in Ultimo. I was having coffee with a colleague, Elizabeth Wright, who is also a Paralympic swimmer. Though not an amputee (she was born with different length limbs), she wears prosthetics. “For a moment, I thought it was amputee’s day at the ABC,” Tom joked.
I’m not exactly sure why I’ve been holding off reading the book, though I’m sure there’s something deep and psychological going on to explain why it has remained unread. Although some friends have given me other books and readings about the experiences of amputees, I’ve also been holding off on reading them also. The other books and readings probably fall into the category of “inspiring stories,” about people who’ve lost limbs in dramatic circumstances but have then gone on to climb Mount Everest.
Jokingly, Tom says this book is not an “inspiring story of someone with a disability”.
The book is in three “acts”: life before contracting the illness, his experiences in hospital, and his reflections on the amputations, and his life afterward.
His early life involved a childhood in South Africa and the United States before finally settling in Sydney with his mother, after his parents separated. His early life wasn’t particularly extraordinary, aside from the anecdotes about teenage drug and alcohol use (nothing terribly extraordinary) and setting up his own small business along with a friend.
On starting university, he began working at a pub in Balmain, and it was during that year that he contracted Meningococcal disease, a severe, often deadly disease. In Tom’s case, much of the skin on his body, especially his arms and legs, was impacted. Effectively, the skin “died,” which led to the amputations.
He was in the hospital for many months, including being in the burns unit, due to the impact of the disease on his skin. His descriptions of the pain he experienced throughout, including when the wounds were dressed daily, are confronting. At some points, he said he considered suicide. He also described the dedication of family and friends, including his mother who was there every and helped with the wounds dressing.
The book also describes his recovery, includintg his first experience of dating a community support worker who was assisting someone assigned to help with him. He describes the apprehension he felt about whether or not he was still sexually attractive to women due to the amputations, but he also comes across with a lovely self-confidence that he should give it a go, nonetheless. The relationship lasted a few months.
The third act of the book describes the years after the medical procedure, and how his life is now, aged in his early forties. I won’t go on with the plot, except to say Tom has a good story to tell.
Tom has a lovely writing style that is engaging, with a lovely sense of self-awareness, and a wicked sense of humour. I really loved reading this book on so many levels, and even if you haven’t had an amputation, it’s still a great story. I actually bought the audio book also, and Tom has a lovely voice that tells the story with such great authenticity.
And even if Tom says it’s not the “inspiring story of someone with a disability,” I found it so.
As I headed to the Art Gallery of NSW this morning, it was already bloody warm outside.
An hour or two in the gallery provided some welcome relief to an otherwise almost unexpectedly warm day.
I was at the gallery for a work-related activity. But in between keeping an eye on things, it was great just to have time to wander around the gallery for a while.
In the current exhibitions, unfortunately, there was nothing which really grabbed me. I did, however, enjoy having a look around some of the classic works of Dobel, Roberts etc.
Sculpture at Art Gallery of NSW
Coming outside I felt the warmth again as I walked through The Domain. A bite or two followed in Chinatown, and then I came home.
I’m pretty sure we hit at least thirty-degrees and it felt like it.
But it wasn’t too hot to have an afternoon nap, and for a walk around the park.
When I arrived home, I even considered putting on the air conditioner.
Thanks to Facebook Group: I don't mind if the Swedes take over Australia.
For the most part I “ignore” most Facebook Group and Application invitations. “By agreeing to install this application you agree to share all of your information and those of your friends”.. blah blah blah.. just screams information harvesting to me. But tonight I came across a Facebook Group that actually makes a lot of sense to me. It’s called, “I don’t mind if the Swedes take over Australia“.
Think about how good this would be…
* We would finally get an efficient and clean public transport system.
* The Australian Republican Movement would wither on the vine, as we would finally have a Royal Family that was well-liked and respected.
* We’d get to see Melodifestivalen on the ABC every year. And not forgetting Allsang pa Skansen
* We would get H&M instead of K-Mart.
* We would never go to war again. etc, etc, etc
But it’s not just good for us. For the Swedes, it would mean…
* Somewhere nice to spend winter.
* A dramatic increase from 9 million to 30 million in the number of people who spoke Swedish.
* They would finally get an insight into the mindset of a people that became obsessed with ABBA, etc, etc, etc,
As a 45-year old, single gay man living in Surry Hills, I can assure you my interest in meeting and dating single women between 25 and 45 who live in the United Kingdom is virtually non-existant (unless of course they’re looking for a marriage of convenience in exchange for an EU passport!!). And yet for the last few weeks I’ve been receiving a daily email from a UK dating website informing me of the many women – over 200 at last count – who have viewed my profile and who would like to meet me.
At first I ignored the email as some kind of spam. But when they became more and more regular I finally got the shits and wrote to match.com informing them of the situation. The problem you see was that seamus_a_481 had signed up to his match.com account using MY email address. So even though he was presumably logging in and out with his own username and password, I was getting the daily email notifications.
I was also able to access his account. All I had to do was click on the links in the emails I received and there I was inside his account. If I was morally bankrupt I could have made changes to his account details. In theory, I could have also written a reply to any of the women who had written to me, though of course, I didn’t. Not exactly what you would call a secure site.
As soon as I wrote the email to match.com I got one of those automated replies which indicated my problem was going to be forwarded to a consultant for resolution. Yeah, right.
Eight days later and I was still been receiving those daily emails. Although it had been kinda interesting, I felt it was morally wrong to let it continue any longer. In particular, I was concerned for the women who were corresponding with a bloke who was either a) an idiot who didn’t know his own email address or b) an idiot who was deceiving them.
And so I wrote an email to match.com saying I was disappointed at their lack of response and was planning to go in and delete the account on their behalf. Unfortunately it wasn’t so straightforward as I also needed his password to delete the account. So I called them up and spoke to a nice man on the phone who was able to help me do that.
So in summary, a big thumbs down to the James O’Brien in the UK who was using my email account to sign up to a dating site, and a big thumbs down for match.com in the UK for having an automated reply which said they were going to respond and deal with the issue but didn’t even after eight days. It took a phone call from Australia – thank goodness for cheap international calls – to get any action. And a word of warning about the dangers of signing up to a website with someone else’s email account.
Within seconds of walking in the door tonight and logging on, I received an instant message from my friend Patrick. I’d caught up with him last night for dinner, as he arrived back from a month travelling around Europe and had a few hours to kill between Sydney and Canberra connecting flights. The conversation was short, but sweet. He wanted to know what I thought of “Mamma Mia”, the new movie I’d just seen.
Good mate, Cotton, was able to organise some tickets for the first Australian preview of what’s predicted to be one of this year’s biggest movies. As a bunch of ABBA fans, we were both exicted and anxious about how the songs we have loved for at least three-quarters of our loves would be interpreted in a movie starring the likes of Meryl Streep, Colin Firth and Piers Brosnan.
We all arrived at the cinema on George Street reasonably early. A daytime email from Graeme indicated we would need to check in our mobile phones if they had cameras. “How weird is that?”, I told a workmate, upon receiving the email. He replied that he, too, had been to a couple of movie previews this year where that had been the case in an effort to eliminate piracy.
After checking in our phones, we took our seats. Shortly afterwards, some bloke from Universal told us ours was the third “official” preview in the world, whatever that means. He also encouraged us to tell all of our friends what we thought of the movie.
The opening scene is fantastic. Much better than the musical, I thought, as the character of Sophie sings “I Have A Dream”. It’s then the plotline concerning Sophie’s quest to discover which of three men she invited to her wedding was actually her father is explored. Meryl Streep famously delivers a line about how she was “such a slut”.
For me, the disappointing part of the movie was the early part. It’s all a bit disjointed, and some of the songs don’t seem to fit in all that well. That said, there are some great moments, and the “Dancing Queen” sequence is particularly memorable. It’s a moment of pure joy as a large group of women, led by Meryl, make their way towards the island’s jetty, singing loudly and proudly. There’s also a cameo where Benny Andersson from ABBA makes an appearance playing the piano. “Dancing Queen”, by the way is reprised at the end, in a sequence I also loved.
Misc fans at the Mamma Mia movie preview in Sydney
The middle part of the film is quite distinct from the first. A lot of the clumsiness is eliminated as a number of songs provide a soundtrack for the respective bucks and hens nights. Most memorable for me was the scene with the engaged couple singing “Lay All Your Love On Me” on the beach, in a scene reminiscent of “From Here To Eternity”. It’s also very sexy! Keep an eye out for the extra who Colin Firth makes eye contact with during this sequence, as the same extra turns up later in the film playing an important role.
There is also a third distinct “segment” to the movie. That’s when some of the great moments of the film are revealed. I got quite teary when Meryl sang “Slipping Through My Fingers” (a little known ABBA song about a parent’s regret of missing some of their child’s upbringing), and in “The Winner Takes It All” which is probably the film’s greatest moment. While Agnetha Faltskog sang the song as a shattered woman lacking self-esteem – “I apologise if it makes you feel bad seeing me so tense, no self-confidence” – Meryl’s performance conveys a great deal of confidence and strength. It’s a wonderful moment.
Graeme and Grant at the Mamma Mia movie preview in Sydney
As we left the cinema and stood around I wondered for a moment what I would say when someone asked me what I thought of the movie. When Grant asked me the question and I responded with “mixed feelings”, he agreed. There were some wonderful moments in the film, but there were also some moments that didn’t work all that well.
I’ve seen the musical three times now – London, Sydney, and Melbourne – and of course, I’ve heard the songs thousands of times. Maybe I’d built this up in my mind too much? Maybe we weren’t there with the right crowd? I saw “David & Margaret” (legendary Australian film reviewers), as well as Julie Rigg (who reviews films for Radio National). Beyond that, it seemed like there were a lot of Universal Music staff, and of course, the crazy group of ABBA fans. I didn’t get a sense there was a “buzz” associated with the film. But of course that might be different when the film opens to a broader audience, and when Meryl, Colin and Dominic Cooper visit Australia for the opening night.
I’ll go and see the film again when I arrive in Stockholm. The opening night is next Friday, and of course Bjorn and Benny will be there. I made a brief inquiry to see if I could move my flight earlier to make the preview, but didn’t make too much of an effort. I’m far more interested in going to see the movie again in an ordinary Stockholm cinema. I’m keen to know what people who haven’t spent three quarters of their life listening to ABBA songs think of the movie.
Damo and I arrived right on the dot of seven, as we were keen to maximise our drinking and schmoozing time with the other “very important people”. Damien said he was particularly impressed by the white wine, declaring it “the best Rosemount I’ve ever tasted”. While he was, at first, more polite when it came to gulping down food – I had no such qualms – he was eventually grabbing two pieces of food, just to be sure. We became best friends with the short Irish girl and the bleach-blonde-tips gay boy who looked after us all night. Unfortunately, they didn’t provide ice-creams, but they did open up another bottle of wine so we could sip wine during the movie.
And what a movie it was. It was called Standing In The Shadows Of Motown. According to the publicity blurb from the website, Fourteen years in the making, this film is based upon a book of the same title that won the 1989 Rolling Stone / BMl “Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award”, STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN was shot in 35mm film, on location in Detroit and elsewhere. This one hour and forty-eight minute documentary and performance film tells the Funk Brothers’ saga through archival footage and still photos, narration, interviews, re-creation scenes, 20 Motown master tracks, and twelve new live performances of Motown classics with the Funk Brothers backing up Chaka Khan, Ben Harper, Bootsy Collins, Montell Jordan, Meshell Ndegeocello, Joan Osborne, and Gerald Levert.
There were some wonderful anecdotes, some fantastic insights into the construction of the “Motown sound”, and some great performances. One of the real surprises was Joan “What If God Was One Of Us” Osbourne. Although she seemed like a bit of a “try hard”, her vocal performances were truly remarkable, especially one of my favourite songs, “What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted”.
