My Own Bohemian Rhapsody With Freddie Mercury- Out Of This World!

I heard my first Queen song on my sister, Debbie's record player- she was a year younger than me, and dated a bass player and the two of them were fixtures at Max's Kansas City. I listened to show tunes and, like Freddie Mercury, knew more about opera than most people my age, because I was in the Metropolitan Opera for 2 seasons and it was awesome, mostly because I was paid $7.00 a rehearsal and $10.00 a performance. I remained rock and roll current just by passing Debbie's doorway. I stopped when I heard something I liked, and burst inside when it was something excellent, as I did when she had been playing Killer Queen- it was phenomenal.

When I worked at Entertainment Tonight, I was assigned to interview the band at one of their venues on the Hot Space Tour. I remember three things vividly. I interviewed Brian May and Freddie separately, and it seemed as if they kept a certain distance from each other. I remember thinking how charismatic and sexy Mercury was in person and since I was grappling with being one foot in, and one foot out of the closet, I remember concentrating on not looking at him too intensely. He was very sweet and I think he got all of that.

The other thing I shall never forget, was when we were shooting the concert from the audience, there was a group of guys and girls, I had pegged to being Long Island townie types-they loved their rock and roll, their blue collars and their lack of entitlement. One guy in the group suddenly shouted to Mercury on stage, "Freddie we know you (a crude way of saying he performed oral sex on men) but we don't give a damn!" It was a confusing thing to hear because this sentiment was not the norm- at all. Homophobia in rock and roll was prevalent and Elton John, Lou Reed & David Bowie were icons of a different sort. (Bowie collaborates with Mercury on this album, btw, and it was voted second best collaboration of all time in a poll done by Rolling Stone magazine.)

I also was privileged to cover Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in London and I have posted a shot I took of Bowie- one of the only pass by photos I was able to take while working. It was an extraordinary event- I was producing/directing for Entertainment Tonight, and we had our own Wembley P.R. person and she had a specific agenda to get us to the biggest names, so we would pass artists, such as Kris Kristofferson, and she'd say, "No time for him," curtly, but not disrespectfully, but I was a nervous wreck- "WE CAN'T DISS "A" NAME ROCK STARS BY SAUNTERING PAST THEM TO FIND A+ GODS- THEY MAY NEVER DO OUR SHOW AGAIN POST-LIVE AID- "CREW-REMOVE ALL BRANDING ASAP!" As depicted in the movie, the Queen performance was awesome.

I watched Bohemian Rhapsody last night with Bruce & Tom, two of my closest friends in L.A., and Bruce had seen it already at the ArcLight in Hollywood but wanted to see it again because 20 minutes into the film, when the character who is part of Queen's road crew, suddenly gives Mercury a passionate kiss, a woman in the audience yelled out, "Is this movie about faggots?"

It did remind me of the guy in the concert arena in 1982, who yelled something similar but with a very different vantage point. One can't emphasize enough how extraordinary were Brian May and the other two band members - to be straight and embrace a conspicuously gay lead singer- at that moment in time, it just wasn't done. One might make note that Jann Wenner was the most important rock and roll publisher of the time, as the Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Rolling Stone magazine, that began in 1981, the same year as Entertainment Tonight; CNN & MTV began in 1980. Wenner had lived as a father and husband in a conventional family unit- married, with kids, but years later he left his wife for another man. Rock and Roll has always been the most progressive of the arts and also, not very progressive at all.

For anyone interested in hearing Freddie Mercury sing with Monteserrat Caballe, Spain's greatest opera singer, who recently passed away, here is a link to their performance at the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympics. It is sublime. Montserrat Caballe & Freddie Mercury singing Barcelona - youtube

Hot Space & Bohemian Rhapsody graphics courtesy of wikipedia