Exciting stuff going on!

First of all, here's Brian May performing with My Chemical Romance at the 2011 Reading Festival! I'm pretty stoked that my dream to hear Brian play Welcome To The Black Parade has been realized! Say what you will, but I like My Chemical Romance, okay??

And in news that's local to me: an all-female tribute band will be playing and hosting Queen For A Day in Jamaica Plain, Boston on September 2nd!

The hour-long trek on the bus and subway system (we call it the T) is going to be so fucking worth it!

Brian performs with Lady Gaga/Jo Calderone at the 2011 VMAs

I fell out of love with Lady Gaga around the release of her single Born This Way (basically it's a hollow, condescending gesture, much like Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project, with racist undertones), but I still respect her just a bit musically.

In the interest of this blog, I tuned in to the MTV VMA awards show because I heard Brian would be appearing as a special guest. I have to admit I was pretty pleasantly surprised. Lady Gaga's character Jo Calderone is fucking HOT (and very likely under the influence of some sort of substance. Don't judge, Freddie's been drunk and high on stage LOADS of times)! And like every good gender-bending performance, he (Jo) made some people (Justin Bieber) uncomfortable, was entertaining and engaging, and... yeah, REALLY HOT!




It's a bit ridiculous how attracted I am to him!

For those just tuning in, I'm queer. Both in every sense of the word and ways you might not expect. But I digress.

Brian rocked his solo (there's a video in that link. And I'm fucking pissed with that completely disrespectful "he/she" pronoun when referring to Jo). Sadly, I don't think the younger members of the audience knew who Brian was. Dave Grohl was the only one who cheered his ass off at the introduction of one of the greatest guitar players ever. But there's hope for the future!

Killer Queen documentary

I just finished listening to the final part of the Killer Queen documentary on Absolute Radio (mentioned here). It's the kind of thing, while listening, I imagined every single person I've ever encountered who never understood why I loved this band, and could easily picture myself telling them to listen to that program if they really want to know what the big deal is.

The music alone should be enough, but it doesn't always make for a strong case. I often tell people that there are no words to explain my love for Queen or Freddie. I'm beginning to think that maybe I just haven't tried hard enough.

I don't think I'm quite ready to put what words I can grasp here yet, but I will work on it.

Something that bothers me

(... because I'm a queer-identified feminist)

I don't mean to pick on Brian, but after a while I've decided I don't feel comfortable not addressing this. I've touched upon it here, but I need to expand on this.

Brian's been quoted as saying he dislikes that the track Don't Stop Me Now implies a separatism because the late 70's was probably the peak of Freddie's homo-tastic sexual adventures. So the song is very much Freddie going, "I'm a dude and I like sleeping with dudes, and it's a lot of fun!" and Brian has expressed discomfort.

On this same track of thought, Brian's said he prefers songs with romantic content to be universal and apply to everyone of every sexual orientation (as demonstrated in songs that avoid pronouns or other cues which may imply gender... "gender" being used very loosely here). That's beautiful and great, but... Brian, dude, your straight privilege is showing.

If I pick up a magazine, watch TV, or play music, I can be certain my sexual orientation will be represented.

In (just about?) every culture in the world, heterosexuality is considered the default, or the norm. So even if some of Queen's love songs (or songs by any other artists for that matter) don't blatantly illustrate a hetero dynamic, it's universally implied that they are anyway. And while Don't Stop Me Now isn't literally screaming "I'M A BIG 'MO!" casual listeners probably wouldn't consider it more than just a song meant to boost the mood and get people amped up. But Brian was uncomfortable anyway because he knew where Freddie was actually coming from.

The idea of Brian wanting songs to be relevant to all sexual orientations by not always hinting at pronouns/stereotypical gender cues sounds great in theory. Same as folks who proclaim that people are people and things like race, gender and sexual orientation shouldn't matter, so let's just never talk about it!

To quote this article, "Being queer is one aspect of my identity and while I don’t need you to focus solely on it, I do need you to recognize that it is an aspect of my identity which is oppressed, and thus it does matter."

And to further illustrate my point, one of my favorite comic strips which translates the "we're all just people" mentality:

It's like saying, "my heart is in the right place, but fuck I'm stupid."

Does this make Brian homophobic? I'd say he would benefit from taking the time from his schedule to examine his views a little more closely. And I'm confident that he's open enough to learn from it if someone chooses to directly call him on it.

And I should clarify, because I can see this reaction coming from miles away, that calling someone out on their shit is NOT the same as telling them that they're a horrible person. Brian May is a wonderful and decent human being and musician and I am in no way implying otherwise.

Happy birthday, John!

Holy crap, it's Deaky's 60th birthday!



I hope he's having a good one!

More links!

I just got an email from a person named Violeta, and they asked me to talk about their sites.

There's The March Of The Black Queen, which has some pretty stunning pictures (I may have to steal some). There's also a site dedicated to Queen member's families and relationships, and a Yahoo Group.

For reals. Get in touch with me and I will get back to you! And I might even fulfill a reasonable request or two!

Queen Season on Absolute Radio

Woot.

Part one of the upcoming documentary, Killer Queen, will air on Absolute Classic Rock on August 22 at 8pm GMT, which is 3pm EST. Part two will air the next day at the same time. There's a whole lot of shit going on, but since I don't live in the UK, I'm probably not eligible to win £500 ($816). Damn. Or tickets to the Freddie For A Day birthday party. Even more damn!

All branching out and shit

I was worried that someone would steal this blog name and use it on Tumblr, so I beat them to the punch!

Yes! I made a Tumblr account that will lure people here. Hubris, yo! Fuckin' hubris!



There can be only one! Also... fuck Adrian Paul!

And HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY COUNTERPART AND MERCURY GURU NUMERO UNO!

Here, have a Freddie!


He's like, "Yeah, yeah. Happy birthday, dear. Is it time for cake yet??"

Okay, that's actually me.

Life goes on and on and on

I meant to do a post on the 9th about Queen's last concert performance with Freddie 25 years ago, but so much shit has been going on for me and the only thing I've managed to keep on top of is listening to Adele (who is amazing and gorgeous and OM fucking G!! Yay for hot musicians who don't weigh less than 100 pounds!) and angsting out on Livejournal. Sorry about that.

Anyway. I've also been on the hunt for the perfect birthday card for my counterpart because her birthday is TOMORROW!! and she's turning 25 TOMORROW!! (we met when we were 12) and Hallmark doesn't fucking make cards for Queen soulmates! She once told me that I should sing Happy Birthday to her Freddie-style. She got so spoiled from that one time Gregory Finsley sang to her and I cannot compete with that!

So Audrey, if you're reading: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! You are wonderful and I'm super grateful to have you in the world and obsess over Queen with me!



Cheers!

Random

I very recently upgraded to a smartphone. If that wasn't enough, I made my ringtone the chorus from Brighton Rock, and this is my wallpaper:



It feels a bit like an overload, but I don't really care right now. I'm way too excited about this.