Alf Poier
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Alf Poier (born February 22, 1967 in Styria) is an Austrian artist and stand-up comedian.
Born in Judenburg in Styria, he started doing cabaret in 1995 in Graz, and has won several prizes for his work, including the Salzburger Stier in 1998, the Deutscher Kleinkunstpreis, Prix Phanteon and RTL Comedy Award in 2000 and the Austrian Karl in 2002.
In 2003, Poier participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 and secured 6th place with his entry Weil Der Mensch Zählt ("Because humans count"). The song, and his stage act, were a parody of the contest's excesses.
Although his result was considerably better than most of the pre-contest predictions, Poier spent several hours mischievously telling anyone that would listen that his 'low' placing was an outrage, that Europe had demonstrably shown itself to have no musical taste, and that he wasn't sure if the shame would permit him to return to Austria. This included an appearance on Liquid Eurovision, shown on the UK channel BBC Three immediately after the 2003 contest ended, where after saying the above he shouted "I hate this contest! F*** this contest!", causing much laughter from the presenters.
In 2005, his bid to represent Austria in the contest for a second time put him in the spotlight for more serious reasons, as some people took offence at the lyrics of one of his songs, Good Old Europe is Dying. Having deleted the offending lines, albeit while insisting they had been misinterpreted, Poier took the characteristically 'oddball' song to the brink of securing the Austrian national selection, only to be "narrowly" beaten by folk band Global Kryner. In the end, he arguably only missed out because, in Y asi, Global Kryner had somehow succeeded in crafting a song that is even more colourful than anything Poier has yet attempted, featuring as it does Latin-style music liberally peppered with bouts of yodelling. Nevertheless, Poier was able to - very loudly - claim a moral victory after it emerged that his song had actually garnered the most votes, and had only been thwarted by the regional points system that was used.
