Mercury And Me

I love when stuff I order arrives long before the estimated delivery date. According to Amazon, I was supposed to get Mercury And Me by Jim Hutton somewhere between December 6th and December 17th. So you can imagine my joy that it arrived today :-)




Obviously, I haven't read it yet, but there are three sets of photos. Even if some of them can also be found in Phoebe's book, but that isn't the point.

After Jim Hutton died, I had my reservations about ordering it. I think at one point, a used copy cost $60something plus shipping. So I waited until recently when it would be less than $30.

I love Queen and Freddie a lot, but as a man who doesn't make a whole lot of money (but is shockingly careful with what he has) it isn't often that I'll spend a huge amount on a used item.

Freddie Mercury will make you a soy latte that will rock your world

I was on Facebook earlier and I saw a post from Diesel Cafe that the staff today were dressed as various rock stars, but the one that obviously caught my attention was that someone was apparently dressed as Freddie Mercury. So of course I had to venture out immediately to see if I could get a picture because I had no idea if the person's shift was ending or not... and y'know, I just wouldn't be a creepy stalker if I sat at home not doing anything.

So I got there and, as usual, it was pretty busy. And I immediately spotted a guy wearing a white A-frame shirt and thought, "That has to be the guy." After plucking up some courage, I approached him while he was making drinks and asked if he was dressed as Freddie just to be certain I had the right person. He smiled and said he was, and I asked if it was cool if I could take a picture of him for this blog. And then I proceeded to wait like a creepy stalker until he wasn't making drinks, killing time by texting a couple friends: "I'm at Diesel and there's a guy dressed as Freddie Mercury. And they're playing Mika. It's so awesome!!!"

Eventually he told me when his shift was ending and that I should give him the URL to this blog so that he could post it on Facebook at some point. I'm not going to lie, I also gave him my email address because I'm too much of a wuss to give cute people my phone number. But I digress...

I feel bad for not getting a decent picture of him, but Kyle (that's the guy's name) was a really awesome sport and since he had just ended his shift I didn't want to keep him from whatever else he had going on today.




So if you're reading: thank you again, Kyle for being a badass. And the hot chocolate you made for me was delicious!

*ETA* I didn't order a soy latte, but I thought putting that in the title would make it funnier*

Friends will be friends

When I was 12 years old, my mother made the mistake of showing me the internet where I'd discover the Official International Queen Fanclub site. It doesn't exist anymore, but there used to be a chat room where I started making friends. It was my very first sense of community.

It was a place where you could be a kid and/or a new Queen fan and you were welcomed with open arms, as opposed to nowadays where one is typically greeted on forums like, "You posted in the wrong fucking thread, you dumbass!" or, "Why the hell would you ask such a dumb question?"

And yes, to this day I still miss the people from that room. But I've recently got back in touch with one of them! We clicked ridiculously well. We'd call frequently in the days before cell phones (can you say $70 phone bill??) and mostly sing together and pretend to put on concerts, write really terrible (my contributions, not hers) fan fiction, obsess over Freddie, etc. It was fucking sick.

We eventually started calling ourselves The Mercury Gurus because... well, I don't know. You can't spend hours talking about Queen and singing Queen and jacking up phone bills thanks to long-distance calls and dial-up internet without giving us a name.

And then for a while we lost touch. But being a fucking stalker, I Googled her name and found her contact info! And then we had an intense and wonderful conversation scarily similar to what I described above, where she eventually said something like, "By the way, it feels SO GOOD to talk to somebody else about Queen on this level!!!"

We both had friends in real life, but they weren't hardcore about Queen like we were ("WE'RE ELITE!" - her words) My counterpart is also super badass because she won the 2001 mime contest at Breakthru using a rolled up Back To The Light poster as a Freddie mic :-D

However, I'm really fucking jealous of her. She fucking met Brian May! (she's in the middle) And ever since then I can't see pictures or videos including Brian without uttering a good "Fuck you, counterpart!" ... But I say that with love. She knows that. Or at least she does now :-)

Oh, and she recommends this.

I got back from Illinois on September 29th and didn't have the motivation to post until now. But I did decide to make a purchase from good ol' Amazon as a reward for putting up with the excruciating, 24+ hour train rides and staying in the Midwest for two weeks.

By far, this is the most I've ever spent on anything Queen-related, let alone on something used. But this was extremely important.




Magic Years volumes 1-3 on DVD. I paid something close to $200 for them, but since we all know how readily available these are, I maintain that the price was worth it. The only criticism I have is that volumes 2 and 3 share a case. I mean, what the fuck is that all about? What I love the most about having these is that I can see the whole screen now. On my VHS tapes the picture hadn't been formatted and it always bugged me. What I love secondly is that the sound is a million times better. And third, I can watch these videos without worrying about them getting eaten in the VCR :-)

As you might be able to see in the background of that stunning picture, my 2003 Queen calendar is hanging up. I managed to take some of my collection with me back to Boston. Unfortunately, my poster got a tear in it, but it wasn't too bad. It now hangs next to the doorway to my kitchen. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my Queen polo shirt, though. I didn't post a picture in my shrine post because my brother, in his infinite wisdom, packed the shirt in a bag in the attic until I remembered that I even had it. I won't get into how I got it, but it's official Fan Club merchandise from the late '70's(?) so it's pretty special to me. ... And yes, it still fits. But I won't wear it since it's irreplaceable at this point.

At some point I think my father is going to ship the rest of my Queen stuff for me, but I'm not in a rush. Also not pictured in my shrine post were my DVD cases, because I'd left those at my mom's apartment for some reason, and she said she may have thrown them out. So I've decided that I will re-buy almost all of my CDs and DVDs starting in February 2011. Partly because it seems stupid to ask my dad to ship 30something empty CD cases, and partly because some of my CDs are over 10 years old and need replacing anyway. I anticipate that it will be a really fun project!

A few things

First, September 18th marks the 34th anniversary of Queen's free concert in Hyde Park, London.

Here's a really pretty link to go along with that since I really don't think this post can do the date justice. Although I do believe that the seventh and ninth pictures in are from 1977... Anyway, that concert needs to be released on DVD or Bluray or something. I'd totally get a Bluray player for that!

And today marks the 28th anniversary of Queen playing on Saturday Night Live. It's too bad that Freddie's voice was worn out the night before (see Phoebe Freestone's book for details). But still, Queen on SNL!

Thanks a million to gregsynthbootlegs for posting these videos!

And! And! And! That biopic about Freddie! The one that was scrapped in 2007! It's back on and Sasha Baron Cohen is going to play Freddie! You can think what you want, but this guy is a brilliant actor in my opinion. According to this article the film will probably focus on 1975 to 1985.

My shrine

I'm currently in my hometown in Illinois. I'm happy to say that my Queen shrine has been kept relatively intact, aside from my brother carelessly mixing some things up. So I took the liberty of cleaning and reorganizing it and taking pictures because, holy crap, my stuff is awesome. And they're thumbnails, so you can click to make them bigger.




Vinyl albums Sheer Heart Attack, A Night At The Opera, Jazz, three copies of News Of The World, and A Day At The Races. I already had one copy of NOTW and attached a newspaper clipping listing Queen as one of the 2001 inductees into the Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame. My grandmother recently began sorting through my late uncle's records and sent SHA, ANATO, Jazz, ADATR and the other two copies of NOTW to my dad's house for me.




VHS tapes. One taped copy of VH1 Legends, Magic Years volume 2, taped Magic Years volumes 1 and 3, Classic, Champions Of The World, Interview Sessions, Greatest Flix III, We Will Rock You, Greatest Hits, Live At Wembley '86.




My CD cases, part one.




My CD cases, part two. In Nuce, At The BBC, The Queen Symphony, The Queen Collection by The Royal Philharmonic, Live At The Bowl, Live At Wembley Stadium, In Vision, The Gold Collection, The Platinum Collection, The Freddie Mercury Solo Collection, Barcelona, unofficial interview CD.




 Painted glass portrait of Freddie Mercury circa 1977. Made by my uncle Mike.




2003 calendar.




Queen necklace.




Painted glass portrait of Freddie Mercury circa 1982. Made by my uncle Mike.




Queen plaque.





Painted glass portraits of Queen on the cover of Hot Space. Made by my uncle Mike.




Poster advertising their April 16 1974 show.

The rest, as you might know by now, is safe and sound in my apartment in Boston. ... And yes, I'm trying to figure out how much shipping all that stuff will cost.

Would you still need me, would you still feed me...

Today is Freddie Mercury's 64th birthday! I've had a lot of other stuff going on lately so I have nothing pretty or eloquent to say, except that I'm sure Freddie and Jim are celebrating together and having a blast. And I will probably do what I always do today: watch my videos. Nothing too elaborate or exciting, I know. But

Here's a link to the video, Living On My Own For those not in the know, Freddie recorded his 38th birthday party to use as a music video... and the guests weren't entirely aware (except David Wigg and Jo Dare). Did you spot Brian in the beginning walking in with his then-wife, Chrissie?

Also, a friend of mine, by pure coincidence (I think?), sent this to me on Facebook around midnight EST. For those who cannot read Freddie's handwriting, there's a transcript in the link.



... I just spent several minutes trying to find a picture of Freddie with his Rolls Royce birthday cake. Google has failed me. Oh well, maybe next year.