Tuesday, February 24, 2009

way too late, but well entertained nonetheless

I have just finished watching We Will Rock You, the musical, through the lovely medium of YouTube, all of it. I am sure it would have been a much more fulfilling experience when experienced live rather than late at night on a laptop screen in my room, though at least I was not disinclined to laugh as much as I wished when I wished. I was not entirely convinced in parts of this show, and I think I would have still preferred Les Miserables to this show even had I seen it live, but it was still hilarious and musically strong, and I really liked the casting. I love the character of Killer Queen, especially. And I shall never hear One Vision in quite the same light again thanks to this show.

It is a fun thought that through this show Queen has trained another whole generation to know to clap and move correctly to We Will Rock You and Radio GaGa, so that the audiences in this musical were still moving to the pattern set by Queen decades ago. We are perhaps well on our way to the world they describe in their musical, if more people were still into Queen, and if they could market their musical to the US. I do wonder how it would do in Denver. It is so flashy, with all the bright lights and constant moving and wiggling, and continuous loud music and noisemaking, more than Cats did by far, so maybe the odd choppy flow of the story and the not quite perfect fit of some of the lyrics to the storyline would smooth out for any modern audience. I liked Les Mis in part because it was a complete and elegant story, well portrayed, with great dynamics, and maybe I would have to see this musical a few times to really appreciate its different sense of storytelling and dynamics.

I found it amusing that just about at the point where Pop was telling the story about Queen, and the Hairy One's guitar, a spider emerged out of the darkness into the edge of my computer screen, so that I had to put the computer down, turn the light back on, and maneuver the spider away from the computer before I could concentrate on the show again. The spider is squished now, and it did not distract me from finding out about the guitar before it died, either. :)

But now it is time for bed. I was reading earlier tonight about the symptoms of rheumatic fever and scarlet fever as complications of untreated strep infections, and I am wondering if the odd allergy-like rashes I was getting on my legs after my sore throat got better again a few weeks ago was caused by the strep infection, along with the periodic swelling in my fingers. In any case my throat is quite sore again, and I feel flushed and feverish, and was feeling strange earlier at work, like the sort of mild floaty dizziness I get if I drink a couple shots of honey whiskey. I have probably not been completely free of strep since camp 2007, and leaving an infection that long I am relying on the strength of my immune system to keep me standing, despite stress and my poor diet and sleep patterns, and periodic depression. Maybe I can get some penicillin soon so I can finally get over it. It would suck if I reached my 31st birthday actually wanting to live on and to find myself dying anyway from an infection I never bothered to treat. I am probably dancing with bronchitis already, from the way it feels to breathe now, and I know the strain of strep that Missy's daughter had recently progressed to pneumonia, so it is a fairly tough one.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Aphasia and strep

Ugh. I wish I had twice the hours in a normal day. That or a job where I could multitask more. All these ideas and projects and what I need most is just time. And on top of my many projects and interests I am also sick now, though not enough not to go to work, so far. My throat is sore again, and I feel like I must have a mild fever, though I have not taken my temperature yet. My guess is that the strep I had back at camp has never completely gone away, since I have not ever had a full course of antibiotics to treat it since camp, and it had been there for months before I started treating it then. Every so often it seems to come back, and the throat spray Kathy gave me seemed to help just enough that it went away last time, mostly. Now, though, maybe I might actually get to a clinic and get a culture taken and maybe get rid of it.

Fun experience though- I was scanning through all the books listed on Project Gutenberg for authors starting with U-Z, and my brain glitched on me, last night, not tonight. I all of a sudden was no longer familiar with the printed word "English" that appears after the title of every English language text on that site, though I could still recognize the letters and knew the meaning of the word. I know this is a type of aphasia, though only for a single word that I could tell. It only lasted a few minutes, and no one else would likely have ever had reason to notice since our brains have so many different mechanisms that reinforce our ability to use language, but it was rather cool to experience. It would suck if this indicated anything significant or permanent brain damage, like a hole or a tumor or some sort of brain disease, but I doubt I am ever likely to have anything like that in my young life. My medical drama is pretty much over for a while. Even if it were not true, I could not afford to involve the medical community in my care enough to know anything serious was wrong till it would most likely be fatal anyway. So short of something unavoidably bad, something that causes me to collapse or be otherwise unable to work or walk to work, I doubt I will know myself to ever be particularly ill. Right now I know I am ill, but nothing a little sleep, vitamins and food and fluids won't fix.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Scarcity and Demand

It is nice to know that had I not had all my tapes stolen I would have had a lot more than $200-worth of tapes in that case, since Queen tapes are so pricey on the used music market now. I do miss all the pictures in the album cover that are not in the CD jackets. And Europe! I can't imagine paying more than $10 for a used rock CD, but the cheapest I could find on Amazon for Wings of Tomorrow was over $30. Same for Europe, their first album under their bandname. This of course sucks since their first album was my favorite.
Somehow or another, albums from the Penguin Cafe Orchestra are either rare and expensive, or quite cheap. This is another where a new album might run $70, but other albums I actually ordered at around $5. Does this money return to the artists? We must hope some of it does.
I am liking the personalization on Amazon. I no longer have to do anything special to find albums by Roger Taylor, Brian May, or Queen, as they pop up on their own. Very handy since I am now on to solo albums, except for those 4 remaining Queen albums. I am still hoping for a cheaper copy of Sheer Heart Attack, especially since I got a cheaper copy of Hot Space finally.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Physics 2 returns with a vengence

I was hoping I could avoid this part but it looks like I will have to read a lot of e&m physics to really make a guitar from scratch. I know I could possibly just buy one, but I really don't want to put much money into this yet, and I don't know that I could find a guitar I could physically play. So I may be writing a bit less often for a bit while I finish learning the physics I never quite mastered a decade ago. I don't want to buy pickups, cause they are expensive and I would like to understand them better. Plus, I don't know yet if in making my mandolin electric and tuning it with each string different, so 8 strings instead of four, if a standard pickup would even work best. I am enough of a nerd that making my first set of pickups would be satisfying, even if I wind up buying some later when I can actually play well enough to need them. I will have to figure out a neck design too, that allows me access to the strings while maintaining their tension and allowing multiple pickups. And I still don't quite get the part about how the sound gets out of the guitar. Stupid, I know, but perhaps understandable since I have no electric guitar to play with. If they are hooked up to an amp, is there a cord? Where is the amp? How big is it? When Brian is playing with three amps, is there a cord running from his guitar to the amps? Then how could he walk around onstage playing his guitar? I hope in a day or two this confusion will seem silly and I will understand completely.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Things that make depression seem like heaven.

Leave it to Brian May to once again be behind such life-changing sentiments as make the choice to live necessary and obvious, even to the most apathetic depression imaginable. Here I have been still allowing that I might choose to die in about a year from now, not for any real pain, but simply out of a sort of fundamental frustration with life and the universe. I just finished reading the stuff on Brian's page about Vicki, a girl who died a few years ago of terminal cancer. I can't say I was shamed into retracting my pact, because it is not a matter of shame. Rather, I am certain now that it is not life itself I need to decide on, but my way of living. If I had, as this girl, only months left to live, I would no doubt truly live every day of the rest of my life. Since I have no such certainty of death, I am allowing my life to slip away, mired in work at a department store I couldn't care less about, selling lots of crap to lots of people who need little or none of what I have to sell, wasting not only time, but material resources, energy and everything else, to bring me money with which I pay bills and buy a few needless trinkets. If I knew I was going to die in a year and a few weeks, I would have to do differently.

I have not made time or any decent effort lately at seeing my many friends, who I hope still remain my friends even after months and in some cases years of neglect on my part. This has been largely an effect of my depression, and yet I know well enough that if I was around my friends more I would have less severe depression, and it would not feel so awkward to see people. I am becoming a recluse, unnecessarily. I live in an annoying apartment, which I know most of my friends who have visited disliked being in. It has lousy ventilation, and even without cats would smell stale, and it is cold in the winter. My ex was still telling me almost the last time I talked to him that I overheat my apartment, cause in Washington I did like to keep my room at about 72 degrees occasionally. This apartment is lucky to hit 65, ever, except in the dead heat of late July. And I use these things as an easy excuse to not invite anyone over anymore. And since I live in Longmont, and can't drive, and most of my friends live elsewhere, it is easy to have no contact with anyone away from my place, too. If they lived here, I might meet up with them at Old Chicago's for dinner some night, or meet someone in Boulder for a concert at CU, and many of them would really not mind and could even drive me back to Longmont after. It simply takes some effort and motivation, which I was not possessed of.

Well, as being on facebook just a brief while has shown easily enough, I do still have friends, lots of them, and lots of incredibly good people who I am glad I have known. And as they mean more to me than my store, and are more rewarding than new shoes, I have to change something to make my friends my top priority after taking care of myself.

And hobbies- I own a piano, and a mandolin, and a pair of drumsticks, and I have enough of a science background to understand books on making electric mandolins, setting up sound studios, and anything else music related. I may not have a great volume to my voice, but I have a great range, and I know it. Heck, I have performed in choir concerts the Hallelujah Chorus in every part but bass. When properly warmed up I can sing all of every song Freddie has recorded, and I am quite capable of writing my own songs. Making music is a much bigger hobby than anything I have played at so far, but everything I do so far is something that requires little effort, and no committment, and it is all easy to drop or ignore. My life feels like it is made up of tons of tiny bits that take up all my life and all my energy, yet add up to practically nothing. I may miss some of the tiny bits if I concentrate on just one thing, but really. By my age, my favorite musicians (Queen) had made quite a few albums, toured all over playing music for thousands of fans at a time, and had been treated to countless priceless moments that are well worth losing some random time-wasting experiences.

I let depression and my handicap decide a lot for me. There is a lot that is not my handicap behind my not driving, for instance, and I will most likely be driving in the next few years, when I can afford to. I don't play my piano or mandolin because of my handicap, too, yet these instruments make sounds for me just as they do for others. I can type at almost 40wpm, faster than many of my friends, without thumbs, and on a 'normal' keyboard. Surely if I actually try to work with my instruments I can learn to play them, even if I can't ever play someone else's music. And I have a very strong will, which most days makes up for whatever mania or depression I am experiencing. Some days I have to admit the mood disorder and deal with it, but most days, till I get worn down or careless anyway, I can act as if I am just fine. Most people only know I have a mood disorder because I have told them. And as Brian and the author May Sarton demonstrate by example, in a creative life mood disorders can be used for what they are worth, adding a certain depth to music and writing that most 'normal' people never could reach.



Really if I concentrate on restoration ecology and music, and my friends, my life will be full enough, and maybe I could actually feel interesting enough as a person to be happy meeting Brian May.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

New shoes and daydreaming

My card is working again, after a week blocked due to a miscommunication at my bank after my computer purchase. So I celebrated by buying a new pair of designer shoes. Actually I spent about $20, and I knew my card was working again cause the purchases I made of, yes more, Queen CD's went through finally.

Wow, what an experience. To sing one's song live with Luciano Pavarotti. Sounds horrible, but still quite an experience. I think playing guitar for Robert Plant is perhaps a higher achievement if a bit less high-class. He really should not have tried to comb out his hair like that though. It looks all frizzy and fluffy, not at all attractive, whereas his nice mop of curls looks great if he just lets his curls stay intact. He would have been a dull-looking man with short hair, but his curls make him distinctive, and, yes, attractive, though much too old for me.

I can feel the high of my hypomania beginning to really seep away now. I am fighting it, and Queen still helps, but I am losing energy. Yes, the Show Must Go On, and it will, but it may be mostly will for a while. I got pretty decent at managing my moods like this for a bit, before depo, and was only very rarely suicidal. Obviously this might still be unhealthy if I am suicidal at the end of March next year, but my pact still holds for now, and I can't consider death an option at all till then. So I might as well continue to ride the wave of this rock-star path. I have no idea what I am capable of in this, as I have never sang into a microphone, nor have I made music in ublic except in choir. Yet, I am not afraid of public speaking, and am rather flamboyant when in public, some days anyway. Most importantly I need to figure out how to reinvent myself, cause where I am now seems too much of a dead end. So maybe there are other aspects of me that can help. If I live past my 31st birthday I have to have something to live for, and otherwise I might as well jump figuratively instead of literally, and choose a new life instead of just giving up entirely. Who knows but maybe I will become good friends with Brian May and John and Roger, and live a life of my dreams if I give myself half a chance. All that is certainly more possible if I am still alive, even if it is still silly and highly unlikely. Maybe my dream guy, Jonathan, exists too, and I'll fall madly in love with him and live happily ever after, too.

I wonder that I never thought to google the names of the guys from those dreams. There is the skeptics' approach to such dreams. I know the first and last names of three of the four and the middle name as well for one of them, and if the Internet was not so infernally slow at night I might find out something interesting, though not finding them does not proove anything, any more than John Deacon's absence from the web makes him dead or imaginary. Not that a name like Brian Masters is distinctive or anything. No, I doubt I will ever meet those guys. Nice daydreams, but they are not real and can't be. I am much more likely to become best friends with Brian May. :)

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Battle Rejoins

I have been wondering about this ever since I returned to Queen. Listening to Brian talking about writing "Too Much Love..." I suddenly am quite sure and aware that I am in fact cycling again. It is a weird phase now. I sleep very little and have some of the outward giddiness of hypomania, but it is as if I am fighting to hold on to that energy and craziness tooth and nail as I am inexorably slipping back the other direction into depression. It is maybe no big surprise then that I am back to Queen. The music has always been such a comfort, a friend that is always there, at least now that I have CD's and my computer to bring these voices back to me. The YouTube videos of songs I have never heard or heard of, and live performances that actually do sound at least as good as the studio versions, all this gives me little boosts that keep me less depressed, and listening to songs and interviews that bring back all that about Freddie and his death seems to be allowing me to attach my depression feelings to something external, something almost unbearably sad but at the same time not personal. It is truly painful for me right now to watch the last few music videos, especially "These are the Days of Our Lives" with that image of Freddie weak and nearing death, though I have seen it often enough the last time I was really 'into' Queen.

Maybe I ought to take to heart what I have been picking up through Brian May and May Sarton about how one can use one's mood disorder to the good. I will not resort to drug therapy, so I have to figure out other ways to deal with this. I have really latched on to this idea of making my mandolin electric, and maybe doing the electric double bass from my dreams too, and perhaps music is a channel I could benefit from. It seems rediculous that I at 30 could possibly have a career ahead as a musician, but so long as I can afford it, I would really enoy making and mixing my own tracks and putting together my own solo album. In my dreams Brian May is always involved in all this too, but that scene in Wayne's World with Alice Cooper comes to mind (We're not worthy! We're not worthy!)

It's a great dream, though. Brian May turns up at Dillards and is talking to Hayley at the fragrance counter, not that she is likely to know who he is, and that is I guess the point, cause she introduces me to him as a guy who might know what I am doing wrong with my pick-ups on my poor little mandolin, as he has built his own guitar. Why she is telling him all that about my project I don't know, but I guess I am having problems with getting the second and third pick-ups working and the music store people think I am crazy for wanting multiple pick-ups anyway. I chat with Brian briefly, trying not to be too self conscious and embarrassed, since maybe it is not Brian May, but simply someone else who looks and sounds like him and knows about building guitars, and then remember that I was getting change and really ave to go finish counting down my drawer so I can clock out on time. I pass him and Hayley again on the way back from turning in my bag, and Hayley, true to form for my usual experiences of walking home when there is weather of any kind, makes a big deal of my walking. Brian has been waiting for Anita, who is shopping with Mrs. Deacon, and she turns up as I am asserting that I will be just fine walking home in rain, that I won't melt, etc. She and Brian agree that I shouldnt have to walk home, and he insists on driving me home, ignoring my turning beet red at the thought of having to accept a ride from one of my rock heroes. He wants to see my mandolin, too. I am not sure how normal my idea is, really, but he thinks he might like to see it. So he gives me a ride home, and I show him my mandolin, and bring out my finished electric double bass, also with three sets of pick-ups, to show him that the arrangement itself has worked for me, if not on the much smaller mandolin, and he starts playing with my bass. We work on the mandolin a bit and he tells me he thinks he has something back at his hotel that might help.

The nex day, a day off for me, he shows up with the parts, and with John Deacon, who was bored and lured in by the idea of the electric double bass. Brian, John and I fiddle with the mandolin a bit more, both of them amused at my tuning it as an 8-string guitar, and then notice that I have been recording music, using my bass and the mandolin, and an electronic drum pad, with my voice. All the bits are charted out in a format remeniscent of a form I have seen on video of Queen's studio work, and while I am in my room for something, Brian starts listening to the trackon my computer. When I come back out he is talking with John about how it could be improved, mostly with adding backing vocals, which he has taken the liberty of singing and is in the process of layering in. I blush beet red again, of course. Brian May on my song! John is tweaking the bass line, and when they are done it sounds great and really rofessional, but not quite done. So Brian calls up Roger, who is also here, and he comes over, bringing along a few drums (bass, snare) and a few cymbals. An hour or so later we have a finished track, something I would enjoy listening to, though I still am uneasy about my voice being on a Queen track, especially the first ever Queen track since Made in Heaven to feature all the surviving members of Queen. The dream continues on, as Roger sends is producer friend an email with one minute of it attached, and gets a reply back by phone asking him if it is real, and when it would be ready for release as a sngle. Brian tells him that they think it is ready, but that it is my song, written and performed largely by me, and with the three of them only doing backing vocals, second percussion lines and a running bass line, at which point the producer guy realizes the significance of John's presence in the room. We are asked about a second track, a B'side, and John meanwhile has discovered another track on my computer for which I had written out a bass line that was too fast and comlicated for me to play, and has been playing it and tweaking it. By the end of the night we have, the four of us, recorded and mixed another track, from that bass line and my mandolin, extra percussion and voice, Brian and Roger's voices, and drum and guitar lines and solos from Brian and Roger. I think this is where I wake up, but there is a general impression that the story continues, and that the single is released and is ugely successful, to my extreme distress, as I still feel that it is rediculous that I could be the catalyst to bring John back into Queen, as the press insists, and that I could belong in the same studio or on the same stage as them. If I could shut up these common sensical voices and just enjoy the fantasy it would be a great dream, but I think a part of me wishes too strongly that this dream would translate to reality. Dumd and silly, I know, but there it is.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

oh happy day. . . .

I am so thoroughly enjoying my Queen II CD. This is and always has been my favorite Queen CD, though certain songs on other albums rate higher. I do love them all, and will re-buy all of them this year, but I have most of my top picks now. I do need Jazz, and A Night at the Opera though. And as I put in my order on Amazon for those and 4 other Queen discs, I ought to get them this week. Yay! Four more albums and I will have them all.

I also got my plant systematics project data sent off, at least enough to run the next semester's plantings easier. There is a lot more I could do with it, and I may do some side projects to try to get some of the harder or less successful ones to work. I think some of the seed is maybe too old, but there are too many factors to be sure yet why any one of these plantings failed. I almost wish I could stay in Boulder and finish this project properly, with a second run and a properly controlled program, but I can't figure out how to make it into a proper graduate thesis project, and it seems silly to stay on for it otherwise. We don't have a horticulture program at CU, and there is very little in the project that could be a decent thesis question without a lot of tweaking. Getting mecanopsis to grow reliably and figuring out what has been preventing our seeds from germinating or starting properly might lead to a thesis, but there are not any professors here who could adequately support me on this project. The fact that I got my lovely schizanthus to grow is great for my ego, and meant that I did in fact have a better understanding of this plant than Tom, but also is not thesis-worthy. HMPFH! Maybe I can find a professor at CSU whose work can piggyback off of this stuff though. After all, I was working with 86 different species, so I ought to be able to find a decent project connected to at least one of them.

Tomorrow, though, is day 2 of Pinguicula Day, and as long as I make it into Boulder I get to thin and clean pinguicula all day, or for as much of it as the task requires. After that if I have more time the sundews may need attention again too. :)

Monday, February 9, 2009

Innuendo and odd dreams

Innuendo arrived today. I can't help thinking about that interview with Brian talking about recording the Innuendo tracks and about how sick Freddie was by then- he had bronchial pneumonia, and Brian was apologizing for the high notes in The Show Must Go On, and Freddie stopped him and did the song, very beautifully, a sound that is quite miraculous for Freddie as he was then. Brian tells the story much better than I can, of course. But this idea now lingers within my perceptions of that song.

I told Andrew about my wanting to build a guitar and fix up my mandolin, and he seemed to like this idea for me, and thought I ought to go for broke, and get a drum kit and a recording studio. A one-man-show starring me. It would be fun if I could do it. I don't have much faith in my ability to generate enough good material even if I can play the necessary instruments, but if I can afford it I will try. It's better than accepting all the excuses for not.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

piggybacking from Queen

I love the idea of YouTube! I strongly sympathize with those whose music is stolen and made public via the Internet, and I certainly do not watch all videos on these sorts of sites indiscriminately. I don't watch expose style reports about people, at all, and having watched far more than I ought to have of the interviews immediately before and after Freddie's death, enough to have a more than adequate impression of how it was for Freddy and his close friends during that time, I can do myself no good by dwelling any longer on this sad part of music history. It is enough to hear all the allusions to the pain and darkness of this time in the music of Queen from the 90's.

I really like this song, btw. I am listening to songs I have never heard, or heard of, on YouTube, as I write tonight, and right now it is "Why Don't We Try Again" by Brian May, a VH1 recording. Earlier it was a duet with a Sissel, who I will have hear more of. Maybe the reason I feel like I know him so well, from just the bits I have read of his soapbox pages is that his music 'clicks' with me, that he IS a sort of kindred spirit to me such that his music is so natural to my ear. It was alway his songs or John's that actually made the difference in keeping me alive through my deepest depressions, too. I enjoy Roger's music, and Freddie's, but it is more an entertainment and a diversion, rather than something I deeply relate to. Brian's Lost Horizon piece is one that the first time I heard it was like hearing a song I had always known, and could almost hear in the corner of my mind, and I still get a strong resonance with it.

I talked with Forrest tonight about building an electric guitar, and I think it sounds like an approachable task, though reading the Wikipedia article on electric guitars I know I have a huge learning curve to overcome on this one.

Friday, February 6, 2009

. . . not bad, not bad. . . .

I said earlier that I trust Brian May and Roger Taylor not to put music out under the name Queen unless it is good, and I must admit that I do like it. I am not keen on the title track, or C-lebrity, but I am already fond of Through the Night, and I have not even finished listening to the whole of it. But I wish Roger had been lead vocals for Cosmos Rocks, and C-lebrity, at least.

Cosmos Rocks vs. A Kind of Magic

yes, a standoff. And I am afraid I will have to get used to Paul Rogers' voice first before I can decide much. The track I am playing now is so obviously a Brian May song that it sounds off because it is not Brian's voice singing it. Paul is certainly making his voice a bit softer, closer to the tone the song needs, but . . . . There are old-Queen elements mixed into these tracks, but they don't sound so natural yet. Maybe never. The tracks that are strongly Paul's sound like Bay company enough that one could substitute any guitarist and any drummer for Brian and Roger and get the same song and sound. I am liking the softer ballad style though. Paul's loud clear voice doesn't quite mesh with the instrumentation on some of the others, like his voice was just pasted over the top of another instrumental track. That IS in fact what they did with Freddy's voice for much of Made in Heaven, but after 22 years making music together, they could do that easily enough; they grew together musically, enough that each of them has a style that meshes with the rest and brings out each other for a stronger band and sound. Paul seems still to be just a guy playing with Queen, not a true member of the band, and if they are to make much more of this they need to a) change their name and weave together the sounds that work for them, not so much clashing 80's hair band style with what remains of Queen, or b) they need to keep the name Queen, drop the "+ Paul Rogers" bit, and work at developing more of a mesh, where Brian and Roger sow equally with Paul in their music. [ Honestly I would not be at all surprised if Brian has already thought long and hard about this, and come to similar conclusions, from the contrast between the 'mesh' in his songs on this album, and that of the rest of the album. I really ought to be listening to Queen's first album next, as that is the Queen sound most directly comparable to this one.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

life in big waves, progression optional

I hope I am making some progress in my life, and not just going in circles. I thought I was pretty well over the death of Freddy Mercury, which happened almost two decades ago, and which I was only aware of after the fact. I had never even really heard a Queen song, including We Will Rock You, or We are the Champions until 1992, so it seemed and still seems a bit silly that it hit me so hard watching the Concert for Life. I really did go through all the classic stages of grief despite having lost something I never knew anyway. These many years later, as an adult, it certainly affects me differently to see him in These are the Days of Our Lives, so gaunt and obviously ill, and I am so very glad I never saw that interview on British TV from the week after his death, till tonight. I can still recall the way John Deacon appeared at that tribute concert, and seeing someone in such obvious pain and grief did not help mitigate the affects of that whole episode in my life. Now, though, after years of knowing Queen's music rather thoroughly, and with how important their music was for me, it seems I almost did know Freddie, enough that I most certainly understand much better.
It is for us, the living, to continue to really live, to the best that is within us, if Freddie's life and death are to have any real lasting personal impact on any of us. This I understood well enough as a kid, and it was that as much as any Queen songs that kept me from suicide as a teenager. But life is not so straightforward and easy to assess as I used to think. I cannot really call where I am success or failure. I am simply alive. Alive and working on the rest.
And, yes, while it is incredibly unlikely and a silly wish, I do wish I might become acquainted with Brian May someday. He is a person I admire, and if he were a part of my life, actually in person, it could only be a good thing.

Queen across 15 years of life

My sister is having a grand time teasing me about being obsessed, with my renewed interest in Queen, and I must admit I would have had more sleep the last two nights had I not been interested in them, most likely. Actually, no. The thing keeping me up is the new laptop, not the stuff I do with it. When the novelty- the faster computer with Internet, a laptop I can take into my room, and with this lovely small keypad- wears out, then I shall sleep more. I love the keypad. I am sure my typing speed is up a bit already. Now if only my drums widget was working all would be grand.

I was up last night learning about playing electric guitar, watching the 4 sections of guitar instruction by Brian May on YouTube. I may never be able to play guitar well without thumbs, but it was still an interesting thing to watch. Now I have a much better idea which sounds in these songs are Brian and which are John, which having never played or been around their instruments I was not so sure of. I can also hear now what Brian is doing much better. Yes, some of this was about as basic an understanding as knowing the difference between a slide trombone and a a tenor sax, but I usually just listen to the end results of rock music, and indeed of any music, except choirs, which my brain, after so many years singing in choirs, picks apart into the individual parts as easy as breathing.

I also was looking up other videos by the members of Queen, of course, to even stumble across those instruction videos. I am glad that Brian, and probably all three remaining Queen musicians, are comfortable with the idea of YouTube, because it is always a bit uneasy enjoying free media when the artists involved resent it. (Metallica and Napster come to mind right away, and the fact that most of Brad Paisley's videos are no longer on YouTube.) I was particularly interested in stuff I had read about but not heard, so I was watching videos of The Cross, and Brian's solo work, and the new Queen stuff, all songs I do not know, and tat I would really have to digest before I could say what I really think. I can say that I rather liked The Cross from what I heard, better perhaps than the Queen + Paul Rodgers sound. (This is a great argument in favor of free media. I am not at all inclined to buy music I don't already like, and if I can't hear a band without buying an album or accidentally hearing them on the radio, I won't buy their music, ever. I did order a used copy of the Cosmos Rocks album online when I bought the others this week, but only because it was cheap and I already trust Brian and Roger to make good music. Frankly, if either of them puts music out into the world, I have good cause to trust that it is good, whether it will be a favorite of mine or not. But there are never albums from bands like The Cross at my local chain music store, so I had not ever heard them before. I really liked Roger's version of Heaven for Everyone, better overall than the one on the Queen album. Ths song is a good fit for Roger's voice, and seemed a bit awkward for Freddie's style, though I have no idea what would have canged had he lived long enough to polish the tracks for that album himself.

It's Late, far too late...

and yes, I have been googling Queen again, this time Mr. John Deacon. From the way he looked and sounded at the Concert for life, and in interviews around that time, I am not at all surprised that he has left the public spotlight for good. And with a wife and 6 kids, he has plenty on his plate without trying to be in another band, or even a new version of Queen. Freddie was so decidedly the lead personality in Queen that for John, who did not have so much of a solo career alongside Queen, Freddie's death was the death of Queen as he experienced it. The same sort of dynamics underly the difference between my own reaction and Andrew's to changes at camp, and Chuck's retirement. I was integrally involved in the management and planning of camp for all of my years there, and for me the 'superstars' of camp, the ranger and the directors and executives, were people with whom I hung out at the South 40, swapping stories, or people with whom I tried to make Venturing exist in reality the way it appeared to on paper, through all the Venturing Leadership Council stuff I did. Andrew worked his way up through the ranks, so his view of camp was through the illusions and ideas the group I knew had helped to create. Had he been in my place he may have done more or better with it, but as it was he experienced PV in much the same sense as Mr. Deacon experienced Queen, as a vital and active part, but where the energy and direction come from elsewhere. And just as Mr. Deacon left Queen, so Andrew left PV, completely.
And with that overly complex analysis, I ought to sign off. I had a great time setting up my computer with Excel and then instead of doing the data spreadsheet and summary I was supposed to have sent off tonight, all the info from my records combined with all the stuff in my head about all those 80-90 species of plants I was raising for plant systematics this past year, instead of doing all this I went back into Project Gutenberg, a site I love and consider important. I had started proofreading books for this organization before my computer died, so now I had to go back and proof read a bit, and I wound up spending several hours proofreading mammalogy publications on pocket gophers and kangaroo rats. Fun, and maybe even good for me, since I am picking up that style of thought and writing again that I will need for grad school, but I have a lot to do for my own project still tomorrow.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Brian May, a new computer, and astrophysics

The juxtaposition of one of my favorite musicians with one of my favorite sciences comes about in my evening through my new computer and my looking up info on Queen and what they are doing now. I am a rather lousy 'fan' in my having had no idea that they made their 1995 album, Made in Heaven, let alone anything after that. I sort of figured from what I could tell about John Deacon when I was paying more attention, that he was not going to stay in the public eye. It was wearing on him in a way that Brian May and Roger Taylor seemed somehow better insulated against. Sad in a way, because as a fan I liked John by far the best of all four of them. However, I didn't know much about any of them, obviously. Still don't, really.
However, I have been browsing Brian's blog tonight. I felt a bit silly writing him a note at all, and while it is what I wanted to ask, I felt just as silly asking him about his thesis, since maybe he already had talked about that plenty if I had just been patient enough to read further. However, no, I don't know much more now. Having read quite a bit further, I know he was interested in interplanetary dust, but so is Kristine, and her research has her hanging out in caverns in Japan watching for rare blinks of light that might indicate a neutrino has passed through their pool of heavy water. Just being interested in interplanetary dust leaves a huge range of research and ideas to sift through still. I doubt I will hear back from him, but I wanted to congratulate him on his PhD, at least, and acknowledge my gratitude for his music, which has kept me company through so much already. It is always nice for me to know from people that my work, whether helping someone find jeans or a bra that fits, or teaching environmental science or pioneering, has done some real good for someone. I suppose even with being a superstar, Brian May might still really appreciate similar acknowledgment.
He will most likely never be any more personally involved in my life than he is now, but I still like the idea that as a scientist he is in fact much more accessible to me, and that it is in fact less impossible that I might one day actually be acquainted with him. Of course if I never get my own PhD that all is less likely, but as I am interested in English schools, and especially in the Scottish tundra, which is close to 'civilization' compared to the Taiga or the vast expanses of central Canada, I may wind up at a school near him, at least to visit. I at least like him well enough from his blog. He reminds me of my college friends, like Erin M, or Kristine W, and somewhat of Jessica S, in such a way that I think had we been students together we would have been at least casual friends. Yes, there are many other people in the world with whom I might be friends, but it is nice to think that a man whose voice sings me to sleep many nights is among those potential friends. It makes his music a bit more personal too, silly though that may be, and unnecessary as that is. He is almost 30 years older than I am, so well outside the usual range of people I am used to being easy friends with, though not outside the range of my actual friends...
I really just need to get on with my degree somewhere and see what happens. It would be quite lovely to actually know Brian May, if I could know him as a person, and a friend, not as a great famous rock star, but otherwise, I make a lousy fan. I have no desire for autographs, and no real drive to follow the careers of rock stars. I may still google Queen and its members occasionally, but it was almost 15 years between now and the last time I really paid any attention to anything about Queen besides the music. I consider it valid enough for me to know all the lyrics to all their songs, and all the notes in all the right places, and be able to hear every album in my mind, perfectly, from my well rehearsed memory, which needs refreshing badly, btw. It does not matter to that music when the musicians were born, to whom they are married, if they married, or anything else. I dreamt that I was going out with Brian May and a bunch of other people to a pob in Surrey, so as illogical as it is, I was not at all surprised that he lives in or around Surrey, and i probably actually knew that factoid earlier, but it doesn't matter the way the music does. Knowing about Freddie's death adds a huge element to much of the last few albums before his death, and makes aspects of Made in Heaven hauntingly beautiful, but the music has to stand alone too. That vignette about how those lines, "my soul is painted like the wings of butterflies, ..." were added into The Show Must Go On certainly made those lines more poignant, and Freddie's nearing death makes the whole song very heavy and sad, but it is important that that song is a great song no matter who sings it, and that when we tried to adapt it to our 8th grade choir, on my insistance, it meant something to all those who were singing it. Moulin Rouge gives it a great setting too, actually.
All in all, I am glad I did not hear Made in Heaven until a few weeks ago, and that I have so much new music to enjoy along with all the old albums I can now afford to start reacquiring. I only have Queen, News of the World, Greatest Hits I and II, and The Game in any format, besides Made in Heaven. The Game is on cassette, and is not going to last much longer, and News of the World and both Greatest Hits albums are as single MP3's from way back when Napster was legal. I found them on Napster shortly before my tape collection was stolen, and while I do not begrudge Queen the money it would take to buy new copies of those albums, I have been glad of those MP3's in the meantime. Now that I have some spending money again I can get the albums, and I can choose which song to play without having to play the whole album. I dislike the remix of We Will Rock You, from the end of News of the World, and would rather not have it pop up in my playlist, but I absolutely love some of the other songs on that album.