Monday, June 12, 2006

Life and Lessons from Leo: ABBA and Cher

In the 70's I loved ABBA. I never understood why people thought they were a "happy" group. [Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is more accurate than Muriel's Wedding.] ABBA's vocalists were great (the brunette was a trained opera singer, and actually sang some Verdi once on an Olivia Newton John show); and the arrangements and videos were exceptional. The group was 20 years ahead of its time. And the songs are so sad.

Then I gave up ABBA. I went to University and they were not cool. I threw away my LPs. [If you don't know what an LP is go away!] And then when I met Leo, his complete Brazilian indifference to whatever any other people might think might be tacky, not to mention constant playing of ABBA, made me like them again. [In fact I may have more than 100 odd ABBA tracks downloaded from the glory days of Napster - in Swedish, Spanish, wWhatever: Cassandra is a GREAT song.]

In time, I came to see that one really could see life as a series of ABBA songs.

The problem came when I left New York and moved to Jacksonville. Then my life became a series of Cher songs [If I Could Turn Back Time, This is a Song for the Lonely.

BASIC HALSALL LIFE RULE: Try to live life as a depressed Swede, not as an Ageless Drag Queen.

But live life as an ageless drag queen rather than let the fuckers get you down.

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