BUGS BUNNY SUPERSTAR

He's adorable! And it wasn't all that long ago that we of the buck tooth persuasion were considered something along the lines of...oh, would "hideously deformed" capture it? It's euphemistically referred to as "overbite," but in the streets of our miserable everyday lives we so afflicted were taunted with names like "Bugs," and "rabbit" and "Bucky Beaver." And why shouldn't we be? I mean the only one of our kind who ever really made it on any sort of mass, public (i.e. in plain unadorned view) scale was always some dumb hillbilly or hang-dog, dopey-eyed Donald Sutherland type. That's hardly inspiring.

But that's all over now, friends. Finis. Cause Freddie Mercury is A-D-O-RA-B-L-E. That's Freddie Mercury of the buck teeth I'm talking about. Freddie Mercury is adorable and a bona fide sex symbol. And Buck Teeth Liberation is here to stay!

Ogre battles. The Seven Seas of Rhye. Black and White Queens. Fairy Fellers and Jesus. This is the stuff of Faere Dust Freddie's dreams. In what is perhaps his master stroke he mixes Galileo and Figaro, among others, together in some sort of operatic West Side Story melodrama called, organically enough, "Bohemian Rhapsody." Truly the man trips the light fantastic. And why shouldn't he, huh? Why shouldn't he dream? Why shouldn't he have believed as a little Bucky Beaver growing up in England that someday he would be a famous sex symbol? He did it, didn't he?

So much for ye of anti-buck teeth. Paul Simon fans, line up.

"It took me four days to hitchike from Saginaw..."

Simon's transient mention of the town in his mealy-musings on our great country is really all you could possibly say the place was famous for. Unless you count the Saginaw Sows. The Saginaw Sow, as one city-slicker photog pointed out to me, is the generic term for those farm-bred local girls who have a tendency towards obesity, particularly of the chest, and a predilection for denim overalls. In other words, before Paul Simon's "America" M there were only the Sows here. So | where and why did Paul Simon come up with Saginaw? Why else?!? Because once upon a. time Paul Simon was a regular ol' hubba-hubba guy and one day (maybe back when he had that Tom & Jerry duo with Art in the early 60s) he passed through this little hick town and, like any hubba-hubba guy woulda, he got hisself ahold of a pair belonging to one of them legendary Saginaw Sows. And he swung! So years later when he'd gotten all sensitive and was going in for something a bit more refined (something with acne maybe) he just thought he'd send one on out to ol' Sag for old times' sake. Brief though it may be, the reference is clear. There is no choice for the inference: Paul Simon made it with a Saginaw Sow. Whick makes him in all honesty the real Jim Dandy! All by means of saying that when Freddie Mercury, the buck-tooth liberator rolled into Saginaw, a scant two hours ahead of me, he didn't head straight for no Saginaw Sow. Which makes him sensitive. The real Paul Simon.

"Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the Fandango [op. cit. ZZ Top].

Thunderbolt and lightning — very very frightening to me —

Galileo, Galileo..."

Which just goes to show that sometime prior to his writing "Bohemian Rhapsody" Freddie Mercury either 1) went to France, 2) went to Texas to see ZZ Top or to a record store to buy their album Fandango (they do have the same p.r. firm), or 3) went to Olympus where Zeus put on a pyrotechnical display that would blow any one of those terminally earth-bound Rastafarians clear out of their ganja huts. Which ain't exactly like going to Saginaw. What I mean is: Freddie Mercury had never been to Saginaw before the concert's line-of-duty called him. He didn't go for no Saginaw Sow, Paul. And, as far as I can tell, he didn't get one or try to get one for the duration of his stay because when he wasn't onstage, he was in the bar of the Holiday Inn drinking Bloody Marys and talking to meabout Bloomingdale's and Japan.

Goodbye, Paul.

As for all you snivelling little synthesizer fans out there, take note that on every Queen album is printed a disclaimer which states something to the effect: "No synthesizers!" (In fact, that last is verbatim from their latest album. Tantamount to saying: "No dogs!") So all that whooshing and spiralling stuff you hear had to have been done by more conventional instruments^ such as Brian May's guitar or Freddie Mercury's voice. Naturally, these are aided and abetted by every studio technique known to man, naturally. The point is, sci-fi freaks, Queen is a purist group. And when I said this to Freddie — and I'll admit I was being facetious — he agreed. So I agree with Freddie, and I agree with myself: Queen are as pure as the driven snow. Queen is so pure that they are the human embodiment of a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young wooden set. Q.E.D.

It took me four days to hitchilfefrom Saginaw.

Now, who els^?

Right, Roxy Music.

It occured to me that in a way Roxy Music and Queen were both aiming toward similar things as far as image and stage presentation. The illusion of elegance, one might call it. Innocently, I inquired after Freddie's opinion of the other band. "Oh, they're all right," he opined diplomatically. "You don't like them?" I returned somewhat incredulously. "Oh, they're all right but..." He laughs. "Well, I know I'm bad, what with the limosines and all, but Bryan Ferry is totally caught up in his image, totally lost in it."

Fine. And never you mind that for the encore Freddie comes out in the most ludicrous outfit to grace a stage since.. .well, at least since Bryan Ferry's gaucho get-up. Red and white striped skin-tight shorts with matching suspenders and no shoes or socks — no black socks even! — or shirt, no HAT (!), nothing but this outfit. He looks like a kid at the beach, or maybe like a player in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Except for that dick. They would never allow that dick to show in the Charlie Brbwn show and I don't care what they say about actors! Fags or not. No dick in a Charlie Brown show! And as to the beach, well, they certainly wouldn't let a little kid run around the beach with a dick like that bulging in his, shorties. Nossirree! First his Mommy would take him behind a wall or something and check to see if he'd somehow. made potty in the front part of his i pants, and then when she found out 2 the truth she'd either fall for him — | probably in two seconds like all the girls at the concert — or send him off to a laboratory that researches natural phenomena like that. Suffice it to say that this is the first stage ensemble I've ever seen at a rock V roll show which actually made me laugh out loud. And I'm certain Freddie would be pleased as punch that I'd said that.

Because for all the pomp and ceremony of a Queen show, it certainly is not a grim affair. It's supposed to be fun. Some of it is. Personally, I think they put on the best fog machine show in the business. Bar none. Personally again, I think they display a more imaginative use of flashpots than anyone else in the biz. I also like some of their music. I know that the two kids who were standing beside me part of the show were absolutely flattened by Brian May's guitar playing; I know this because they kept yelling at each other, "Wow! Is that May?!? Wow!" whenever he did some futuristic, non-synthesized effect. And they cracked up when he whipped out the ukelele for one brief solo. But me, I'm a Freddie fan. I was knocked out when, by means of this spiffy new electronic delay device, he performed vocal harmonies with himself. He really does have this bell-clear, note-perfect voice, and all that selfharmonizing seemed quite complex. He modestly informed me later that it really hadn't taken that long to master. Impressive.

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 36.

But anyway back to the Saginaw Sows.

What 1 want you to realize is that they weren't the only ones in the audience. Perhaps my most notable encounter on my dutiful trip around the interior of the Saginaw Civic Center during, the concert was with a group who appeared to have come directly to the show from a nearby mental institution. I could tell that they were from a mental institution because not only wasn't Jack Nichfilson with them, but they all still had those institutional white wall haircuts and were, wearing clothes that were just enough out of date that they weren't antique or camp, they appeared either borrowed or issued. I chose to think that the clothes must have been issued. But I do not jump to conclusions. I had to observe mental patients in the act of being mental in order to accurately pin them as such. Alas, what should be sitting in the front row of the geeks' section but two profoundly retarded teenagers who lolled jistessly together in their adjacent seats. Proof positive. (This Queen is a crossover act if I've ever seen one!) But where were the attendants? And where did these guys get girlfriends! Normal ones, or so it seemed. A quick re-assessment of the situation revealed these, the real truths: the guys in the front row were indeed retarded, but only temporarily, as it became clear that retardation was the result of alcdhol intake (remind me to stop drinking) and the whole crew in all likelihood was from the nearby military base. They had sideburns! The answer: Of course they loved the show! In spite of the facf that they acted like Freddie was a sergeant and stood up and sat down and clapped and cheered simultaneously.

That's not all. I tell ya this was a heterogeneous audience. I spotted greasers who tried to break my legs when I got in the way of their flight from tier 93, and glitter queens manque and boogie monsters ("AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!") and teeny-boppers holding up Freddie We Love You signs and pre-teeny boppers who carried white satin purses and-preteeny bopper parents who seerried to be enjoying themselves — and why not, sjnce the^y were probably fried out of jheir minds on that acid that they had left in the fridge back in '67 — and Playboy swingle cats tvith their swinglettes and, of course, the members of all the local garage bands. Bluntly put, I've never, seen a weirder mix. \

But Freddie knows what's happening. He treats 'em all like they're in kindergarten, which is a safe bet if you're aiming at the lowest common denominator, "f^uery-body! Come on! You and you and you and you," he points exaggeratedly into the audience from the edge of the stage, "everybody join in!" Well, even if you were the only black kid in a suburban school you'd feel welcome when Miss Freddie called on you like that. Especially when she's so pretty and classy like she is.

In my grade school we had a teacher like Miss Freddie who we used to lay in ambush for after lunch every day.

When she'd get halfway up the narrow stairs outside the cafeteria the lookout guy would shut out the lights and we'd try to grab a quick feel — or pretend to —.and then run away. Funny thing that she never brought any goons with her on her way back to homeroom after rpeals. Too much class, I guess. Or maybe it was because she was Japanese, and really wise and patient. Horny, maybe? Imagine a thousand little preteen paws yanking at your erogenous zones. Kind of like getting in a hit-andrun with a magic fingers machine.

Then 6gain, Freddie's been to Japan. The band is extremely big there, and for the last time they did a tour Fred learned to say "Hi. How are you?" in Japanese. I swear. He said it for me in the bar. It was part of the reason I enjoyed talking to him so much.

Another part came in a green bottle with a Heineken's label on it. And yet another part — this was a multi-faceted conversation you can be sure! — had to do with the subject matter which was New York to a large,extent. Where I come from. And where Freddie said he'd love to live, though he hasn't even seen his new apartment in London yet except in pictures. I made a date with Freddie for the next time he makes it to New York lo show him around to all the auant chic places that all the au courant chic folk aren't chic enough to have caught on to yet. Somehow I found myself talking this way with Freddie. It came easily and quite pleasantly in his company, though if there were pictures of me all over these pages you might wonder WH A?!?!? But Freddie's a dilettante and a narcissist and would be the first — before you and me both — to admit it. That's a part of the act, however natural it comes to him, and it's there for all to enjoy.

Freddie's no snob"I'm a snob. Of Course, I'm a snob!" Freddie told me. But he's no snob about the people who listen to his music. He doesn't mind that for a while it may have been just 12 year olds admiring a sex symbol (with buck teeth, remember?). "Our music isthat," he spreads his hands out. "We want everybody frorp the Eskimo up there to...just everybody."' { ,

A man stumbles and falls on the tundra in the deep gloom of the Alaskan ever-night. He stretches forth a hand frbm this prone position towards an igloo a scant 30 yards away. The wind blows daggers. In a moment the man will be frozen to death. Suddenly...He strains his ears..."Galileo, Galileo..." He withdraws his hand and milliseconds later the deep-freeze sleep overtakes him. His last thought: "Maybe it's better..."