Queen Sized

My favourite band is Queen. These days that favour is a somewhat dormant one. I listen to a lot of different stuff and find most other things (whatever the age) fresher than Queen. This is hardly surprising given that I devoured the fifteen Queen studio albums in my young adulthood (including the posthumously produced Made In Heaven in 1995). Still my interest is regularly revived and recently a documentary on the ABC (These Are The Days Of Our Lives) has provoked a re-visiting of my collection.

I was always a dag and never had a favourite band like all the cool kids. Imagine my excitement then at discovering one around the age of 18. I knew a number of Queen songs but had never known they were all by the same musicians – they were all so different. It is amusing to think that because now I can instantly detect the unique characteristics of Queen, whatever genre they may be messing with in a particular song. The vocal of Freddie Mercury is (like all vocals) unique while the guitar resonance and playing of Brian May is incredibly distinctive. And they compliment one another – warm and round and ringing.

It was a blow to me back in 1991 to have discovered this band (at the time of its last album) to then have the vocalist die as a result of HIV. It was all over except I had two decades of back-catalogue to explore. And explore I did – all those layered guitar arrangements and vocal harmony. Also the wandering bass of John Deacon and the alternately skittering or smashing drums of Roger Taylor. Also the lush piano. Also the stamping and clapping. And then there were the themes of love and life and getting employed to make scores for science fiction and fantasy films.

Naturally as a self-described fan I also consumed band biographies. The story of some British youths who formed a band and went from on-campus gigs to stadium concerts was fun to follow. The process by which albums and songs are written was likewise interesting. The personal stuff however was the most fascinating and naturally it focuses most of Farrokh Bulsara (Freddie Mercury).

I had somehow overlooked the Indian origin of Freddie as part of the Parsi ethno-religious minority. And apparently many others round the world overlooked his bisexuality despite his overtly camp stage persona. It is amazing how we can compartmentalize our perceptions of the world. I have even had conversations with Queen fans of the more bogan sort wanting to say nothing of the sexuality of its vocalist. And in some ways I do think it is fine to separate the art from the artist but this was a kind of homophobia. Did they think they would get queer germs via the stereo?

In many other cases familiarity breeds respect and I think the fact this band of mixed sexuality got on with the job of producing music that inspired millions has done something to relax prejudices. It may be a pity that such inadvertent advocacy is needed. On the other hand everything that promotes a more accepting world is worthwhile.

I have moved on somewhat from my fanaticism partly because there is only so much life force one can suck from a finite back-catalogue. Queen is frequently bombastic while I have been drawn to gentler and more introspective stuff. Queen is polished while I have gotten into more gritty rootsy music. I suppose as life is lived one wishes music to reflect its many facets more accurately and one band can only ever do so much. And yet Queen keeps the accolade of my favourite band and I have the t-shirt to prove it.

Stretching

Some months ago I lamented the lack of a particular job offer and then added a postscript to say that I had been offered another role. Now I feel I can report on how that is progressing. This week we have had our contracts extended beyond the original January end-date till the end of May.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has taken on a lot of temp workers to process the information collected during the 2011 Census. The role has been more interesting than I had expected for a data-entry role. This is in part because we do more than just computer work. We also 'groom' forms for scanning and interpret forms as best we can. They even get us to draw family trees to ensure we have a full understanding of household relationships (and there is way more than the standard nuclear family to map). More importantly however it is the way in which the working environment is structured that I have enjoyed.

One totally new thing for me is the practice of getting us to do stretches every hour and go away from our desks to get a drink and visit the loo. Nothing is too boring if in any given hour there is such a rest and I am lacking the odd twinges and aches I have had in other desk jobs. In this and other ways the ABS is an enlightened employer. They even offer a free confidential independent counselling service to workers and my curiosity and some personal concerns have driven me to make use of that.

The most important aspect of this experience is the human environment that the supervisors have fostered and the staff have run with. We are chatty and even playful at times. My workmates do things like draw faces on balloons and I never even set that trend. The group is diverse and yet there is an overall interest in the world that I have rarely encountered in a work environment. Even one of my younger workmates whom I had mentally categorized as shallow made passing reference the other day to Hunter S Thompson. I had better be more open-minded in future!

All this combines to be a job I am happy to go to every day - the most difficult part of the day is waking and a lot of that has to do with me having a full non-working life. So this extension is excellent and will allow me to have some structure and growing funds for a while. I will continue to be frugal but will also throw the spare cash at a few worthwhile but costly experiences such as live music and interstate travel. I am more into services than goods because ultimately I find it is experiences and recollections that enhance life. Mind you if I want some better clothes or the odd new (old) Transformer then that can happen too.

I feel more well-placed to go into a short holiday feeling more secure than I have for a while and the fact that I got this as much as a result of luck as by effort is a bit sobering. But for now I will relax and enjoy.