My friend Ozzie* and I on our way to Denmark for the KISS-gig!! June 21st was the date, and what I remember the most about that day was that the sky practically OPENED...! It was raining CONSTANTLY all day, all evening and all night... We were soaked, which was not the worst thing - but my leather-jacket with all the celebrity-autographs was more or less ruined. I'll have to wait for all those bands to show up again so they can sign the jacket once more. The crowd STEAMED, believe it or not - but the body heat from thousands of people, combined with rain and the cold created some serious steam!

* I got to know Ozzie through the newspaper I was working for back in 1988. She used to write to me, ask questions about local bands and people like Yngwie Malmsteen. The first time I actually met her was at a concert in Lund (Bad Habit/Nasty Idols). She tapped me on the shoulder and said "hello!" with a wide smile. "You have no idea who I am, do you? Well, I'm Ozzie!". We kept seeing eachother on concerts here and there, and she used to go to Spirit´s gigs (Spirit was my band back then). It's a given thing that we would become friends, cause she's the only girl I know who knows a lot about hard rock music and really LIVES a rock'n'roll life! We've both been meeting bands and going to concerts all over Europe for years, and it's fun to have somebody to talk music" with. Besides, she's probably crazier than I am! I remember once when we were at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen for a Pretty Maids-concert, we had a bunch of Japanese tourists hanging after us, who wanted to have their picture taken with us! And if we go out, people stare like they've never seen humans before! I don't know what it is, but it's fun! A word of advice - don't ever tell her this line: "I bet you don't dare to...". I guarantee you - no matter HOW embarrassing it might be, she'll probably do it just for the fun of it! And she loves Jack Daniel's! I think we've been friends for about 8 or 9 years now (with a few rocky periods when we weren't speaking to eachother due to "differences in opinion" regarding Pretty Boy Floyd, Poison and bands like that... Well, it was actually me and my big mouth!!) Ah, well, TEENAGE stuff!

Bianca *and Paul Stanley at the Omni Hotel in Albany last year. This evening was really something - I was in the bar with Sebastian Bach (Skid Row) and his wife Maria, and didn't even notice mr Stanley, who was sitting at a table with his family having dinner. It wasn't until Baz said "come on, let's go say hi to Paul!" that I realized PAUL STANLEY had been sitting there all evening, and I hadn't seen him...! Bianca on the other hand HAD seen him just a few minutes before I did, but explained that "I didn't wanna tell you, cause you were so caught up in a discussion with Maria, I didn't wanna interrupt..." (when I set up the Skid Row section, you'll understand why she said that). Well, by the time I came over, it was too late to ask him for a photo. He signed my leather jacket and the second after that he "disappeared" in a sea of fans. I met him a year later though!! More about that some other time!

* I met Bianca when I lived in Albany 1996. We were both au-pairs and I met her the third day I was there, when a bunch of au pairs met at Applebee's at Colonie Center. Somebody said "that girl is Swedish too". So we talked a bit, and suddenly she asked if somebody wanted to go to New York City in a few weeks, with two friends of hers who were coming to the States to visit. I said "yes, I wanna go!", cause I wanted to do and see as much as possible during that year. Well, we had a great time in New York and I really liked her friends too (Lotta and Peter). It's a hard life to be an au-pair, and I had a living hell in MY host family, to say the least! If it hadn't been for Bianca I might have left Albany a lot earlier! But we had a lot of fun, went to the AC/DC concert and met the guys (see the band-stories section) went to two Kiss-gigs, including the one on New Year's Eve in New Jersey, travelled around and just tried to make life bearable. She went back to Sweden 5 months before me, and the first thing we did when I came back was - go to another Kiss concert! She's fun, she's one of those people who always says "yeah, let's do that!" when you suggest something. It's not like some other people I know who usually go "naah, I don't know..." or "maybe..." or "I can't, my boyfriend and I are gonna watch a video tonight...". I've only known Bianca for about a year and a half, but I have a feeling that it's gonna be a long friendship!

Janet is one of my best and "oldest" friends, one of those who knows everything about you and still sticks around..! We got to know eachother in high-school, but we didn't become friends the first few months. She's a quiet and reserved kind of person - at least when she's with people she doesn't know, I'm quite the opposite, so it took a while for us to understand eachother! We are the typical "opposites" - whatever she IS, I'm NOT! She's good at planning ahead, I make plans for this evening or the next hour - she likes pop/dance-music, and I'm a metal-maniac - her home is in perfect order, I have to use a bulldozer to get through mine (but I know exactly where my stuff IS!) but we learned a great deal from eachother. The most important thing I learned is to understand and respect people who have different interests and tastes than myself. It makes it easier to communicate with all sorts of people. Well, anyway... This shot was taken at the MCB-party, the radio-station that I was working for (Janet too, she was there answering the phones). I was pretty drunk, and Janet had to take care of me most of the evening. Her boyfriend at the time was annoyed cause he didn't get enough attention, so he told her that it was either me or him. She told him to beat it...! Well, all I can say is that THAT is The ULTIMATE friend. Thanks for being there for more than 10 years, pal!

Then there is Camilla, the absolutely "oldest" friend of mine. Now THERE you can talk about HISTORY!

We've known eachother since 1976, we went to school together. She was the one who introduced me to heavy metal music! But the reason why we became friends was because we both loved the Beatles when we were about 9 years old. We used to trade LP's and collect pictures. Her favorite was John and mine was Paul (I became a Lennon-fan later ). God, we've gone through SO much together that I could write a whole book! We don't have anything in common anymore, except the love for the Beatles and Christmas! She's not listening to metal anymore. Well, she was never as hooked on that whole thing as I was. It was just a passing stage for her, whereas it became a LIFE (style) to me! But we are still friends - and have been for the last 21 years! I'll have to dig through my photo-album and find a photo of her (funny really, after so many years, I'm sure that only our PARENTS have pictures of us together! We never took any!)

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