Hutton, Jim and Tim Wapshott. “Mercury and Me”, Independently Published , 2019.

Freddie and Jim— A Love Story

Amos Lassen

“Mercury and Me” is the story of rock’s oddest couple—  the relationship between Freddie Mercury and Jim Hutton that evolved over several months in 1984 and 1985. Even when they first slept together Hutton had no idea who Mercury was, and when the star told him his name it meant nothing to him. Hutton was a simple man who worked as a barber at the Savoy Hotel and retained his job and his lodgings in Sutton, Surrey, for two years after moving in with Mercury, and then worked as his gardener. He was never fully part of Mercury’s jet-setting lifestyle, nor did he want to be, but from 1985 until Mercury’s death in 1991 he was closer to him than anyone and knew all Mercury’s closest friends: the other members of Queen, Elton John, David Bowie and Phil Collins to name a few. Jim was always present at the countless Sunday lunch gatherings and fancy parties, Hutton has many stories and a deep understanding of, Mercury’s life. He nursed Mercury through his terminal illness and often held him throughout the night in his final weeks and was with him as he died. This is the accurate story of the last few years of Mercury’s private life from one of the two people who experienced it.

As we read, we surely sense the love between Jim and Freddie, but we can only wonder if there had not been AIDS, would their relationship have been different? This fascinating memoir of Jim Hutton’s years as Freddie Mercury’s boyfriend or “husband,” as Freddie called him, shares intimate moments in a rocky relationship. We get Hutton’s take on some events that are documented on film, and others that weren’t. He struggled with Freddie’s fame and he shares Freddie’s bravery in dealing with AIDS, as well as his fears and need for discretion. The British tabloid treatment was horrible and saddening. Hutton died in 2010 and this adds to the bittersweet memoir’s tone. Hutton’s mostly hidden role in supporting one of the greatest rock musicians of all time is revealed here.

This is a portrait of a man that is told in a beautiful, honest and compelling way. Hutton gives us a picture of a man who was tortured and inspired and always a decent guy. By the end, my eyes were filled with tears and I became angry. Freddie had final wishes bit they were not legally recorded. It is very sad to read about the final treatment of Hutton and the other housemates of Freddie’s, his closest friends who had been with him for years and sat with him to the end are treated shamefully.

I read this after seeing “Bohemian Rhapsody” and it helped me with some of the inaccuracies from the film. I went into the film not knowing much about Queen or Freddie Mercury, but I was curious to learn more. Freddie and Jim were already in a relationship before Live Aid and Jim visited  Freddie while he was in Munich. It made me feel very disappointed that the film acted as though Freddie still was fixated on Mary at this point, when instead he seemed to be falling in love with Jim. It must have been so hard for Jim to be treated as invisible in so many situations because gay couples were so much less accepted at that time. I was amazed time and again by his patience with Freddie’s mood swings yet in spite of Freddie’s moodiness, they both seemed to have a deep love for each other. The end of the book is heart-breaking, particularly with Jim having to be forced so quickly from the home he and Freddie shared. This is a story about what true love is.

There is insight into Freddie Mercury as a person and some insight into his music as well, particularly into what he was working on in his later years and observations about his work ethic, and musicians who inspired him.

Freddie Mercury had a heart as big as his voice and I believe he fell for Jim and genuinely loved him. Even though I knew the ending, I had tears in my eyes during the final chapters. Jim Hutton was just a hairdresser making 60 pounds a week when he met Freddie Mercury at a bar/club. After one night together Freddie told Jim, “I’m a singer.” Jim had never heard of Freddie Mercury. An unlikely love story begins. So many times during this book I recognized the love between Freddie and Tim.

There were no salacious stories or intimate moments mentioned in detail but rather we learned  about the relationship between two people who obviously cared deeply for each other.

Leontis, Artemis. “Eva Palmer Sikelianos: A Life in Ruins”,  Princeton University Press, 2019.

A Visionary Performer

Amos Lassen

Artemis Leontis brings us the first biography of Eva Palmer Sikelianos, a visionary twentieth-century American performer who devoted her life to the revival of ancient Greek culture. She was a director, composer, and weaver best known for reviving the Delphic Festivals. Yet, as Artemis Leontis reveals, Palmer’s most spectacular performance was her daily revival of ancient Greek life. For almost half a century, she dressed in handmade Greek tunics and sandals and looked to make modern life freer and more beautiful through a creative engagement with the ancients. She was in contact with other modern artists including Natalie Clifford Barney, Renée Vivien, Isadora Duncan, Susan Glaspell, George Cram Cook, Richard Strauss, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Nikos Kazantzakis, George Seferis, Henry Miller, Paul Robeson, and Ted Shawn.

Not only was Palmer a style creator, she was brilliant ad beautiful. She had been a wealthy New York debutante who studied Greek at Bryn Mawr College before leaving “conventional society” to live a lesbian life in Paris. She later followed Isadora Duncan’s brother Raymond and his wife to Greece and married the Greek poet Angelos Sikelianos in 1907. With her single-minded purpose set out, she re-created ancient art forms, staging Greek tragedy with her own choreography, costumes, and even music. When she had exhausted her inheritance, she returned to the United States in 1933, was blacklisted for criticizing American imperialism during the Cold War and was barred from returning to Greece until just before her death.

Writer Leontis based her research on hundreds of newly discovered letters and previously unpublished photographs that are included in the book. What we get is a fascinating look at a fascinating women written in a fascinating way. I have always loved the stories and history of Isadora Duncan so I was quite surprised to realize that I had never heard of Palmer before reading this. It is almost like finding a new subject to pursue and learn about.  Palmer was, without doubt, a remarkable nonconformist.

 Of course to make this book the read that it is took a larger than life character as subject and a remarkable storyteller to share that character’s life. I have always loved learning and to have a chance to read a book with all new information is a real treat.
Palmer’s life work influenced the cultural direction of modern Greece and changed and “queered American culture in ways we have yet to recognize.”―Eleni Sikelianos, poet and great-granddaughter of Eva Palmer Sikeliano.

Okporo, Edafe. “Bed 26: A Memoir of an African Man’s Asylum in the United States”, Xlibris,  2019.

A Powerful Memoir Debut

Amos Lassen

“My life, as you will read, has taken me from one place to another. “Bed Number 26” is the story of how I fought my way out of constant persecution and reclaimed my freedom. It is my hope that by sharing my experience and my pain, you will begin to understand why people are forced to immigrate.” Those are the words of a Nigerian letting us see what people like him are forced to go through. This book is a revealing memoir and empowering manifesto, with contributions from other asylees, refugees, and Nigerians.

Based on a true life story, “Bed 26” narrates the experiences of Nigerian and West African gay, bisexual men and the reason they are forced to flee from their home country. It is alos about the experiences of immigrants in an immigration detention, and the gap between the perceived American dream and the reality of racism, discrimination and phobia for people of color in America.

Okporo stresses why people should not be categorized based on accepted norms “that are created to suit people who created them.” He encourages to looking beyond labels and stereotypes such as “refugees” and “citizens” and looking inward into human character and behavior. We have been aware of the stigma in today’s society but now it has become overbearing. We must learn to accept people the way they are and love them just the same.

We are to be more compassionate and caring for people around us, our loved ones and people who are close to them. We  should not judge people without knowing how far they have come and this is why Okporo reminds about forgiveness for people who have wronged us in the past, and resilience for young and old people to challenge the norm.”

This is Okporo’s first book and he is far from being a polished writer but I must commend him for taking the stand that he does and putting himself available for public to criticize or agree with. The story jumps but it is powerful. He relates truths that most Americans need to understand about how critical it is for our country to continue to represent a land of welcome and refuge from countries filled with traditionalism and violence.

Reading about growing up in Nigeria as a gay man is very difficult to do with dry eyes. We read of injustices on both sides of the Atlantic  and we see our author move “from trust to distrust and from shame to autonomy while making sure he knows his own identity.

The story is captivating and gut wrenching. We are helped to frame our own challenges with a worldwide perspective and to  see the anguish experienced by members of the LGBTQ community in countries where there are laws that foster, facilitate and even promote oppression and violence against sexual minorities. In many cases they face physical violence just because of who they are. Okporo shares with us his struggles and the struggles of LGBTQ Nigerians and he gives us a message of hope and redemption as he advocates for others who have similar experiences. Okporo, continues to fight for the LGTBQ community around the world.

 

 

Keehnen, Owen. “Dugan’s Bistro and the Legend of the Bearded Lady”, OutTales, 2018.

How It Was

Amos Lassen

Owen Keehnen, Jeffrey Mark Bruce and Richard Knight Jr. remind us of how it once was at the hottest disco in Chicago. Dugan’s Bistro was the place to be for gay men who love to dance.

From 1973-1982, the sign above the door and on the club’s matchbooks read: “Dugan’s Bistro, the Home of the Bearded Lady.” “The Bearded Lady” was a celebrity unique to Chicago who for over ten years was covered in the LGBT magazines and in the gossip columns of the “Chicago Tribune” and “Sun Times” as well as several national and international publications. Even though he was quite famous as the Bearded Lady, his life story was mysterious and it was not until Owen Keehnen published this book that we learn anything about him. (Let me tell you that his little book is quite a treat and I relished every word as I read).  We see how time and place came together to allow the rise of both the LGBT community and the Bearded Lady. This is a story of the decadent nightlife and the exuberance that epitomized the “lost” generation.

Dugan’s Bistro was a genuine nightlife phenomenon as well as the “Home of the Bearded Lady.” This was long before Conchita Wurst won the Eurovision Song Contest wearing a dress and having a beard. The Bearded Lady was every bit a star and he faced the press head-on and loving the limelight. He was truly a celebrity at a time when so many of us dared not leave what we thought was the safety of the closet. He loved everyone and everyone loved him. I love that he dared to be who he felt he was.

He was audacious and lived by his own rules and was paid well to perform and “carry on” at private parties yet he always made it back to the Bistro before midnight. He seemed to be everywhere but he always came back to the Bistro. He loved attention and do what was necessary to get it even if it meant posing with a pig next to his face. Bearded Lady always dressed for the occasion like in the 1976 Chicago Pride Parade when he wore a mini-sundress, a hat and veil and satin opera gloves. Going to a rock concert, he wore an enormous polka dot ante-bellum gown with a zebra print shawl, and a huge hat with ermine tails hanging from the brim. Over the hat was a surfeit of black bridal netting that he tied beneath his chin in an oversized bow. He sparkled with glitter.

He seemed to become more outrageous in every subsequent photo. He was always over the top and read to raise a ruckus. He even made it into Time Magazine in 1977 in a piece showed him waiting in line at a concert wearing silver platform shoes with black and gold ankle ribbons, silvery hose with garters, a leopard print hot pants/top combo, gold workout belt, black coat, pink sunglasses and a biker hat with a pink floral purse slung over his shoulder. The leopard print top was open to his waist, revealing two slabs of meat fashioned into a bra. When Time hit the stands he was ecstatic and came onto the Bistro stage that night wearing a red, white, and blue sequin outfit with lit sparklers in his hair screaming, “Your Mother has made Time Magazine!”

It is so good that we have people who are concerned with recording our history. Imagine how much we would have lost without this wonderful look at a time that is gone forever. Writer Owen Keehnen book gives us an in depth  description of Dugan’s Bistro and it’s founder and his entourage. It does not then take much thought to imagine how it was once. This is a quick and short read at less than 150 pages and at times it is as audacious as its subject and I am sure the same kind of fun.  And there are bonuses—-we have “My First Gay Bar” by Richard Knight Jr. and wonderful photographs. We also learn that Jeffrey Mark Bruce made contributions to the text but there is no index. “The only time a gay person goes straight is when they go straight to the Index to check the names”… The Bearded Lady

Matthews, Norman. “The Wrong Side of the Room: A Life in Music Theater”, Eburn Press , 2018. To Be Himself Amos Lassen In “The Wrong Side of the Room”, Norman Matthews tells us that he was born in the wrong town during the wrong era and with the wrong name. Therefore he was forced to conjure a more enticing, yet imaginary, world to better deal with the perils of childhood. In this imaginary world, he had self-assurance and dreams of romance and fame. He had not, like in the real world, been psychologically abused by a priest nor did he have to deal with psychotherapy over his sexuality. He did not attempt suicide. In the real world, he survived all of this and much more. His autobiography not only details his honesty and humor but shares it with us and we see  how Mathews resolved to build a meaningful life led him to the life of his dreams. He began as a magazine editor and eventually became a Broadway and film dancer he worked with Barbra Streisand, Gene Kelly, Dorothy Lamour, and Michael Bennett. His star seemed to be rising until an injury cut his career as a performer  short and forced him to look elsewhere. He reinvented himself as a pianist, composer, and playwright and “was able to create award-winning works for the concert stage, Tony-Award winners, and opera luminaries.” Now he has written his autobiography and it is filled with passion and inspiration as well as very dark humor, gossip, and backstage intrigue. It has a lot about musical theater but it also tells the story of goes so far as to tell about the grisly murder of a Broadway conductor, gives an inside look at the embezzlement of a famed Broadway producer, and shares a never-reported rehearsal argument involving a famous choreographer. We read of Matthew’s triumphs and heartbreaks, and his road to love and life.  We learn what it means to live a life in which one’s passion guides him. Matthews is a fine writer and he writes with wit, humor, openness and self-deprecation. He faced repeated challenges and setbacks but never gave up it paid off. This is the fascinating and inspiring true story of a man who struggled just to be himself and to find success in life and it is a delightful read.

Patterson, Jodie. The Bold World: A Memoir of Family and Transformation”, Penguin Random House, 2019. Family and Self Amos Lassen Jodie Patterson’s inspiration for “The Bold World” came from her transgender son. She explores identity, gender, race, and authenticity to tell the real-life story of a family’s history and transformation. We realize as we read that sometimes it is necessary to unlearn what we have been taught. Patterson grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in the 1970s. She learned early on to engage with her community for strength and comfort. “But then in 2009 this mother of five had her world turned upside down. Realizing that her definition of community wasn’t wide enough for her own child’s needs, Patterson forced the world wide open.”
This is the story of a mother reshaping her attitudes and beliefs and those of people in her community. She did so in order to meet the needs of her transgender son, Penelope and she opened the minds of everyone in her family who up until then totally and absolutely refused to conform. Patterson introduces us to the Southern women who came before her—the mother, grandmothers, and aunts who raised and fortified her, while at the same time challenging cultural norms and gender expectations. She shares her family’s history—particularly incidents within the Black community around sexism, racism, and civil rights. We learn about her children, who provide a way for Jodie Patterson’s own growth and acceptance of her diverse family, and her experiences as a wife, mother, and, eventually, activist. We gain an intimate portrait and an exquisite study of identity, courage, and love. Patterson’s unstoppable drive to change the world will is inspiring and “reflects our own individual strength and tenacity, our very real fears, and, most of all, our singular ability to transform despite the odds.”

Patterson makes a case for respecting everyone’s gender identity by way of showing how she came to accept her son. We also see the permanent work of social justice. Patterson presents us with a blueprint for what it means to be a champion for our children and encourages us to be bold enough to let our children lead the way, especially when we don’t have answers. Patterson makes a case for respecting everyone’s gender identity by way of showing how she came to accept Penelope, her son. Patterson encourages us to seek out our blind spots—to see who we can’t see and to hear what we can’t hear.  This is, above all, a story about self-determination, and it is important for anyone seeking love in its highest form. Patterson shares recollections and poignant insights from her own transformative journey and inspires us all to remember and to become the people we are meant to be. Her unconditional love for her son Penelope is felt throughout her book. We gain great advice on how to raise a strong black family, how to value and celebrate marriage-merging of cultures, and how to instill confidence in a transgender child. Also an interesting and honest look at difficulties the author faced in both her marriages and variegated career; and finally her transformation from a young mom running a beauty business who exaggerates gender norms in her early parenting (“pretty girl” “pretty girl” “pink and purple” “pink tutu” “head-to-toe pink” “plastic dress-up high heels” “hyper-boy, tough-boy, assertive-boy”) into a champion advocating for transgender rights for her fifth child. 

Patterson talks about the influence of her family growing up and learning what it meant to be black and a woman. She was influenced by cultural norms and had to fight through some of them to become who she wanted to be. She was able to gain the strength and determination to do what he does. She also has a lot to say about motherhood and her different experiences and growing pains in raising her kids and having a blended family. She shares openly about her struggles and growth with raising a transgendered child and she pulls it all together some parallels between growing up with a rebellious sister who took most of her parent’s attention and the energy and attention required to help her son navigate an unfriendly world. This is a memoir about Patterson’s  personal transformation throughout life but it is about so much more.