Feliz Ano Novo!

Some corrections:



- No, Birgitta, it's not a Brazilian waxing I became with. It's a real Brazilian...




- No, Josef, it's not bugs. I said three bags on my living room floor...




And I've just found a sea urchin down my bathroom porcelain. I guess Curls just made his hair for the NYE-dinner.

So. A Happy Ending to everyone! And don't worry, even if 2009 starts out great, it will have torn you down by December again.

Big kisses!

// T.

New Years Orgy

The Brazilian invasion of my home won new territories last night.

My kitchen have had it's first encounter with a lime. As so also my C-vitamin cylinder, which in excellence filled the absence of a lime-squeezer in the ritual making of the Brazilian mother milk - Caipirinha.



After sharply being informed that "a freezer should contain ice cubes", and that "a kitchen without sugar is hereby out of the question" he sent me to Seven Eleven. His intense gesturing with the carver in one hand was everything but safe , so in purest concern of his wrists and my wallpaper I made him happy - and left.



Let's just put it that the soothing result made some peace, and a nice conversation ended in a question from my side about his plans for new years eve.

- I'm invited to an orgy. Do you want to go?

Since this kind of hometown adventures isn't exactly my Coupe de Champagne I said "no", and politely offered my hurricane of a houseguest to come to a nice and laid back dinner for a bunch of media working leftovers. I guess the merry group ov lovers just got one man short. He accepted.


Hope they filled up on lime, sugar and ice.

Better call and tell them to hide the carvers.

// T.

Brazilian invasion

I've unwillingly become with a Brazilian.


It's a story as long as the distance between São Paulo and Stockholm, but since I'm the guy nicer than an average dairy cow, and also because the word "no" never came to my knowledge, there are now three big bags and a Brazilian in my living room.

For five days is this curly spectacle going to camp on my couch. It's pretty strange to all of a sudden become sort of the significant other to someone you somewhat not know. Add to it the culture crash this intercontinental 5-day marrige will be. Brazilians and Swedes are not meant to be, it's like creating a popgroup out of Shakira and Carly Simon. (I guess I shouldn't have written the earlier posting abut wanting to be Brazilian... -Click here-).

- I'm Brazilian. We don't do depression. We do drama!

He said. And of what I've seen so far - yes. Seeing this tornado of a 5-day tenant put a dish of prebaked fish into the oven totally outshined "Gone with the Wind" - the fire of Atlanta and Scarlett's goodbye included. Come what may!















To be continued.... most surely!

// T.

Less is more...

Take a close look at this...


There is nothing as smooth and soothing for soul and stomach as the view of my fridge. It's normally not this loaded and jampacked, but after all... it's Christmas.

I'm the missing link of my family.

// T.

War Games

After 36 hours constantly being forcefed by three generations of women named Ryttar I luckily got away.

As soon as sister Helena, mother Ulla or grandmother Margareta get hold of a frying pan - you are dead. Fighting the three of them united at Christmas is like trying to take The Red Army down with a slingshot and peas.


The smell of gingerbread make them react as Orchs on Hobbit hunt, and if they get within an armlength from a traditional Scandinavian Christmas Ham - you're as doomed as Geoge Bush barhopping in Baghdad.

After fainting from an eggnog overdose, they will go on by nasogastric intubation just to make sure that you store some pickled herring in that empty space called the left atrium of your heart. Then when death by carb-chock occurs, there is no questioning about who's handling the funeral catering.

After long planning a daring and dangerous escape, I managed to get my ass on a train back to Stockholm. Just as I thought I was out of danger I opened up my bag to take out my laptop... just to find out that it had been undermined.



... Meatballs!

Women, Christmas and food... you can never escape.

// T.

Hippopotamus

Thank God God, that you kept it in your pants.

I would never make it if you had decided to send your extended organ on another holy mission of mounting Mary. Then we would have been forced to stretch our stomachs one more time every year to celebrate the parturition of a sibling.


I feel like I've eaten a hippopotamus.

// T.

Clean at Christmas

Just as in a happy marriage of figure skating and curling.

In a very well practiced form of sliding pirouette I'm gracefully going to land, and in the same sweeping movement gently place my IKEA-bag filled with cotton, regrets and DNA in front of two gaping washing machines. Tomorrow I'm going to take the laundry room by storm!


I will set the table with all the Christmas delicacies like washing powder and stain remover. There won't be any shortage of surfacants, since X-mas is the time of good feasting and full gluttony. The Schnapps will obviously be the obvious, and be poured into the fabricsoftener container in an endless line of apple scented shots.

I'm a true fundamentalist in it's most fundamentalistic form. Thats why I traditionally wait until Christmas day before I decorate the drying cupboard with colourful underwear and glittery garments, before I place a white wifebeater as the star of Betlehem on top - and switch it on.

Luckily our tumble-drier is of the same height, width and rythm of Mahalia Jackson, and with some good will and a powdersniff one can sing along in Silent Night, Holy Night when it's time to dance around this decorated X-mas tree replacer.


There are loads of stockings to match later during the evening. If I've been a real nice guy, Santa will have slipped a clean quarter in one of them, but I will probarbly find more of tumble-drier dust, or at least some unreadable paper fragments out of an unemptied jeans pocket.

They sing about a white christmas in the song.

Mine will at least be clean.

// T.

Bad Santa

"Merry X-mas, Coverboy..."

The textmessage from a good friend brutally woke me up at 11 am, after my first good night's sleep since the Battle of Hastings. I didn't pay much notice to it until I opened up my mail where three messages all said the same thing.

foto: Jonas Norén

I got the explanation in an IM from my friend Jonas, a photographer who I helped out earlier this year, when he with a short notice needed "a Santa" for a photo project of his. Three Vodka Lime, some baby oil and lots of laughter later this photo was taken.

It ended up in his free download Boys-calendar as Mr. December,(get it here) and today it was taken up as the cover - and coverstory on one of Sweden's largets online communities. NOT expected that hurried evening back in November...

What can I say except that I'm happy mother isn't online that much anymore, and its slightly flattering being 37 and still considered "a boy..."

How, how... Merry Christmas!

// S. - like in Santa (a naked one...)

Reality TV

Glamour, groupies, celebrities and a fat paycheck...


What a lie. My TV truth is more manour, grooms, geldings and a fat back pain.

Just spent four days working in glamorous Paris, the city of Haute Couture, enchanted nights and star spangled restaurants. My version is the city of wet feet, dead early mornings and dry chocolate bread. Paris should be shooting with a full staff and the eye of Stephen Meisel, while I am the the full staff with the eye of a chain smoking cameraman from Romania.


The capital of France is supposed to be easy sleep-in mornings with a croissant and strolling along the Seine. I must rise at 3.45 am, chew on my upper lip for breakfast and then do 400 kilometers in an Opel Corsa.

Normally the photos taken show a tower made by Gustave Eiffel, easy to shoot cause it stays quite in the same spot. My model was a 1 000 000 EURO racehorse - who surprisingly came out as a Llama!














My Paris pillow is the woodden armrest of a run down 1972 3-seater in leather which works as my bed. (situated in a suburbian stable...) But it's a bed of blessing since it always is heaven to slide under a horse blanket-cover after the 20 hours workday which Paris is to me.

But at least I had some great raw beef, since I acidentally bit the tip of my tounge off when a four legged friend that we filmed suddenly decided to kiss me for christmas the way horses do. Hard.


TV-work in Paris. The two most glamours things of life in one.

We're so lucky - me and Ryan Seacrest...

// T.

Confession

The City of Light is my City of Sin.


Father forgive me.

Yesterday - a 2004 Châteauneuf-du Pape to my cheeseburger at Café Marly.
Today - Swedish meatballs from IKEA.
Tomorrow - 100 Hail Marys.


That gives me about twelve more hours to... yeah.

// T.

A Dangerous Night

Tonight I'm taking my Mink for a walk...


It's time for the annual X-mas party at my former employer OTW Television.

It's a party wrapped in myths, where the Holy Communion comes in 45% and the last rites are never read. A party where no mistletoe is needed for kissing, and also the prime suspect to the frequent birthrate of September. Everybody go there but it's not everyone who make it back. It's a hard package. So hard it's considered a XXX-mas party.


As I said... tonight I'm taking my Mink for a walk.

// T.

Booted

Eight years and this is what you get...

... a perfect size 12.

What if it was the other way around? I would just love to se the son of Gloria Vanderbilt throw two Stingray Manolos (of course signed a certain full circle) at Jalal Talabani.

Say what you want about the Iraqi journalists, but they got balls.

And shoes.

// T.

Style Icon

Watch out, fashion bloggers - I'm here!

The smartest way to become a successful blogger is simply to tell others what you wear.

So. The following ten pound pile of trendy textiles on my living room floor is what have been kissing the skin of this icon of true style called me. This pile, and -22 degrees centigrade.

From bottom to top, then in and out... (Gosh, that's gay....Oh, that must be a good thing, I forgot it's a fashion blog!)

1. Cheap sheep skin boots from Vagabond.
2. Socks stolen from Virgin Atlantic's Upper Class.
3. Dismatching tubesocks, stolen from my friend Mikael.
4. Dead ugly briefs, best kept incognito
5. Long underwear invested at Dressmann.
6. Worn down jogging pants bought in 1992.
7. High waist jeans. Marked Levi's 542s.
8. Thermal long sleeve T-shirt from American Apparel.
9. Second hand golden scarf from The Salvation Army.
10. Grey Chicago sweatshirt from Target.
11. Thermo jacket lining in Aquatex.
12. Chocolate brown winter jacket sponsored by TV4.
13. Knitted woollen cap from Abercrombie&Fitch.
    

Tomorrow I'll tell you what I wear in bed...

// T.

10:15 PM

This very night...

Place:

Östersund, Sweden

Outside:

"A Nordic night serving frosty kisses."


Inside:

"A Tosca made of raspberries and rhubarb with vanilla ice cream."

Delicious. But not as delicious as the real thing:

"Brava Diva!"

1 000 000 dollar thanks, Birgit.

// T.

The price of a slice...

I've never believed in stone oven pizzas.

In Sweden there is nothing as fancy for a pizzeria as being a pizzeria presenting a traditional stone oven, heated by the extra fine flames of real firewood.


The flour, yeast and water dough automatically become bread sent from heaven, and the pizza itself will be classified a Rolls Royce among the neighbouring FIATs, all coocked in an electrical version.

The price for a slice will rise as if the mushrooms suddenly turned into truffles by the very first sigh of Birchwood gently carresing the Mozzarella. With the firewood, any inexperienced intern will create a pizza fully worthy the one of a Nonna Napolitana, who has had her family's secret tomatosauce pulsing through the veins since three generations.

(True wood, huh!)

I've always belived that "stone oven-ed" pizza over an open fire was as bogus as a Bolognese missing meat sauce, and just a simple PR-trick fooling us to belive that we are buying a better piece of Italy. Until yesterday, when I became the witness to a deliverance of fresh fine firewood - delivered to the best pizza joint in town.


So I guess it's true.

There is still hope for mankind - and for pizza!

// T.

The Sound of Music ???

I haven't seen them. But I've heard them.

Just got new neighbours on top. According to the nameplate on the door I think it's a family. (And I would add to it a dog, if they now hasn't got one kid with scary long toenails who is surprisingly fond of chasing a ball around the four rooms...)


The sad thing is that the whole family got serious problems. They are addicted - To Singstar! At hours that even Satan would consider sacred they gather around their PlayStation2 and deliever a united version of Roxette's "It must have been love".

It doesn't stop there. They only see other Singstar-junkies, so my ceiling has become the floor of a joint where people gather to loudly use and abuse ABBA for days. They come there to get high on power ballads, fly furhter with Franklin and chill out on Elvis. That there is something fishy going on is crystal meth clear - I've heard Amy Winehouse from there, and not only once!

For all of you who wonder whatever happened to The Von Trapp family after they climbed that mountain in The Sound of Music... I know! Whenthey left Austria the sudden stardom struck them, their manager got them into drugs, and ops... now they moved in upstairs.


Is there something like electrified microphones?

Anyone, please!

// T

False alarm

Another attack of anxiety.

I thought.

Then I had sushi and happily discovered that the big block of concrete just was plain hunger.



// T.