Eurovision mania
It’s like the World Cup, except that it involves only Europe (and Israel and a bunch of former Soviet Republic) and instead of a soccer team, each country fields a singer or a band. And the winner is determined by voting. And there’s no off sides.
The Eurovision Song Contest was ABBA’s big international break, as well as Celine Dion’s (she sang and won for Switzerland in 1988. Don’t ask me what she has to do with Switzerland). I learned to appreciate the fun of watching this event when I lived in Germany, where a group of my friends would get together to watch, critique the bands (and the dancers’ butts), and vote multiple times for our favorite asses acts. There was also a lot of Rotkäppchen drinking involved.
Last night we invited a few friends over, blended up several batches of margaritas (thanks to Ali’s tedious but successful search for bagged ice), and gathered around the TV for a fabulous evening of good old-fashioned Euro pop. Twenty-four acts banged out their performances, and then the home audience was given a few minutes to call in our votes. This was then followed, as always, by the tedious reporting of results live from each country (although we were told that this was nothing compared to the tedium from back in the day, when results were called in over a crackly phone line and repeated in a ridiculous number of languages).
The highlights this year included the German country-western entry called Texas Lightning and the rubber-mask-wearing Finish metal band Lordi (who became the evening’s surprise winners). But the song I annoyingly can’t get out of my head this morning is the sing-songy and repetitive ‘We are the winners of Eurovision’ performed by the Lithuanian group. Damn you, LT United!
