The Lost Ann-Mi

So it’s finally over. No more will I have to get spammed by eurovision themes as I walk to my bus station. Thank goodness. Some of it was good, but most of it was shite. 

To be honest, I was actually surprised by the amount of good singers in this year’s competition. There were actually more than the standard 2 people who could hold a note! What’s going on? Is Europe yet again starting to take it seriously? 

I watched the finals last night, and I have a few totally irrelevant observations to make. First of all, Black is the new White. Yes. That’s right. Last year, like five different groups dressed in all-white. This year, only Spain was behind the times and dressed their really terrible boyband up in white. Everyone else, it seems, dressed in black. 7 out of 24 performances featured people in all black, and many more had people in mostly black. Wind machines also remain in style. Last year, I believe the Swedish performance had perhaps the most blatant use of windmachine as well as a few others, but this year I counted a total of five!!! Wow. That’s a lot of people who felt they needed some more drama. There were also some groups who decided to use both the windmachine and dress in black, such as Finland’s really mediocre entry (which got exactly the points it deserved). I can’t believe people were so delusional they expected that crap to win. I mean, seriously… so ok, she didn’t sing off-key unlike the first four performances before her, but those lyrics!! SO BAD! 

Leave me alone, I want to go home… 

Couldn’t you possibly think of a slightly better more powerful rhyme? No? Oh well, I guess that’s what you get from Idols-performers. Incidentally, I hear there were 2 other countries who also sent in their Idols-people, but I don’t know which countries they were. 

Anyway, in the end, Serbia won. This was a pleasant surprise, because the woman can actually sing. It was apparently also the first time Serbia partook in the competition. Great stuff! They also beat the really horrible horrible horrible slimy Turkish entry (dear god, someone castrate him, please?) and the equally pathetic Russian child-porn-schoolgirl entry. 

England was… abysmal. I think it’s safe to say that they definitely stopped taking the competition seriously. Unlike the Ukraine who also had a “comedy” entry, theirs was really tasteless. It was an airplane-themed entry that featured lines such as “Would you like something to suck on during landing?” Very very very very camp. I was disappointed to see that they actually only came second-last, beating Ireland, who really tried so very hard but was so nervous they couldn’t hit a single note. 

So sit back. Relax. Enjoy the flight! 

 

Thank god it’s over. Shame Switzerland didn’t get into the finals and England did. Something wrong with the system, methinks.

My brother managed to capture the second Eternal Erection show on Friday. He was prepared and brought his camera with him and managed to record a few video snippets before he ran out of batteries! 

So for your enjoyment, I present you with this. It’s the live performance of “C’mon” by Eternal Erection on the roof of the Funky Bus: 

 

Also, you will probably have noticed I changed to a new layout. This one’s more in harmony with my art site.

For anyone unfamiliar with the band, the title of this post is most likely a little misleading and bewildering. 

I’ve just returned from a free concert in Helsinki by Eternal Erection. And dear god, I can tell you THEY ROCK! Hm. On second thought, rock is probably not the right word, since they’re not a rock band. They are a FUNK band, and man are they funkeh! WOOH! YEAH! They could even make my lonely little butt wriggle to the music. Unfortunately, I didn’t go into full-blown dancing mode since I was weighed down by a backpack, feeling very shy, and completely alone with only strangers to dance with. Some of them had really groovy moves though. 

My brother phoned me while I was at work and told me that he’d spotted the Funky Bus over at the statue of the three naked smiths in Helsinki. (Just opposite Stockman.) Unfortunately, I was working fervently to meet a deadline of a few hours just then and couldn’t really question him about it properly, but apparently the Funky Bus was being rigged as a stage! 

After work, I began to wander in the general direction of Stockman. I couldn’t hear any funky music coming my way, so I figured they weren’t set up yet. I used the time to buy myself a funky book calledGeneration T: 108 ways to transform a T-shirt. (It appararently even has a website.) I also got some new pens and markers, a set of Moleskin notebooks and then went over to the Three Smiths and sat down at their base, carefully avoiding pigeon-shit. I whipped out my linoleum-plate as well as my tracing paper sketches and began to work on my printmaking, all the while trying really hard to ignore the big plasma screen nearby that was blasting Eurovision music videos and Helsinki advertisements. I listened and doodled, and got really excited when finally someone with a trés funkeh voice popped up on stage and started doing sound checks. “One..two.. YEAH! WOOOOOOH!” etc. Unfortunately, that excitement passed soon and I felt mildly embarassed as I tried to imagine myself having to perform such a test. What would I say? “One..two.. uh.. Help. Is it ok? Please tell me it’s ok. Uh. Yeah. HI EVERYONE…! (very unconvincingly and feebly) ..rock..on..! RAaask….” Luckily, included in the sound check came the announcement that they would start playing at 19.00. Unfortunately, this was two hours away. I didn’t have a coat with me, it was cold, and the eurovision screen was getting to me. I gnawed on a piece of bread and finished my ice tea, trying really hard not to memorize the simplistic lyrics of the entries, yet again boggling at the strange woman in a Ramones T-shirt and her random random random circus entourage, and wondering at the soft core porn of a pseudo-opera song backed up by raped viciously by bad keyboard dance music. 

My butt was getting mighty cold, the idiot teenage-boys harassing pigeons with cigarette butts and whacking at them with newspapers were even more infuriating than the Eurovision crap, and the sun had shifted to some less Ann-Mi favoring position, but the time was nigh. 

And then it was there. The Funky Bus started to ejaculate Eternal Erection members. They trickled onto the top of the roof wearing pimp-outfits. I counted a red velvet suit, a pink beret, lots of sunglasses, a white suit with an accompanying white hat, a bowler hat… It was a sight to behold. The main singer who wore the white suit was also, of course, decorated with several gold chains and a golden shirt. I wish I’d brought my camera with me, but I had no idea they were performing! 

I stood up on my perch atop the base of the three naked giant dudes and began to wiggle along, trying to avoid whacking the kids behind me on top of the statue with any excessive back-pack maneuvering. My hands still tingle from all the applauding. 

I escaped unscathed, wanting more, but completely frozen in their halftime half-hour break, and took the bus home. If I’d had my jacket or funkier dance moves, I’d have stayed for the rest. 

So, anyway, after all that babble, I give you a link to a very very weird video by them. It’s not live, unfortunately, but youtube seems to be devoid of the appropriate Eternal Erection links. Unfortunately, it’s not my favorite song, but it’s still enjoyable. Plus, you can see the Funky Bus! (I think Funky Policecar might be my favorite.) 

Eternal Erection - Simple People

I sat down and began surfing some of the Eurovision entries that I’d missed. Yes. I seem to do this when I should be going to sleep. Flinching at the Finnish entry and gagging at the Spanish one, I stopped as I approached Romania.

With the somewhat scary title of “Liubi, Liubi, I love you”, I expected some horrible techno again. Or at the least, something with guys in matching outfits, jiggling their hips to a windmachine. But no. This is actually very… minimalist, cute… and … dare I say it?… surprisingly nice! What the hell? 

I think I’m going to root for these guys. Dont’ get me wrong - I’m not wasting any money on voting, but I can sit in the couch and go YAY for them. 

So please, enjoy the possibly only actually pleasant eurovision entry. 

Edit: 

Oh my god. Israel is scary. *cries* They seem to be following the same multilingual idea though.