Google Doodle: Freddie Mercury

Freddie would've been 65 today. Alas, he is an eternal 45 (just a few years older than I am now), dead for these last 20 years.

Some people think Queen was one of the best rock bands ever to exist. Some will say the music was good, but nothing special. But even many of the people with the latter opinion concede Freddie Mercury was an amazing performer; as frontman of the aptly-named band, he energized audiences through stage and video.

Speculation about Freddie's sexuality was always a topic. He'd been reluctant at best to discuss it, being a somewhat private person. But it was more or less an open secret at best that he was bisexual, so when news leaked that he'd been tested positive for AIDS, most people believed it. For some time he denied it, but just before his death he finally admitted it. Two days later, he died of AIDs-related pneumonia.

Since his death, a lot of people have wondered if he should've been more open about both his sexuality and his HIV+ condition. His popularity could've lent a lot of clout to fundraising and acceptance efforts. But he was raised in an England where homosexuality was illegal, and even once that wasn't true, he was an adult in an era where being openly gay was a much riskier proposition than it is even now, when prejudice is still rampant and attacks on gays still prevalent. In the late 80s, many people still thought you could get AIDS from casual contact, and it was still thought of as a "gay disease". Only recently have most people learned better.

In his death, however, he may serve that purpose. His legacy as a performer lives on, and when those who learn about him (perhaps by clicking that awesome Google doodle) find out a musician they admire died of AIDS, perhaps they will reflect on how sad it was he felt any need to hide his sexuality and his disease from the public.

Top Chef idea

You know what I want to see? A spin-off of Top Chefs called "Home Cooks" or something.

You know how people who are really good home cooks sometimes are told they should open a restaurant? The purpose of the show would be to help someone do just that.

I'd want it structured more like TC Masters, with qualifying rounds and then "playoffs" and finals, and with a rating system like theirs as well. I'd also like to see some more generous time limits, or the addition of sous chefs or something else to acknowledge that home cooks aren't always the fastest preppers, and take the focus off of speed a bit in favor of letting them see what they could do. And the prize would presumably be both money to go towards opening a restaurant (or catering business, maybe) and the aid of someone who knows the ins and outs of opening restaurants to help them set up their place and hire the right people and such.

The challenges could be similar to what they do now, so long as they got the extra time or extra prep help I mentioned above. Plus I'd probably want to give them basic reference guides—not recipe books, exactly, but things like "this is what goes in basic sauces at these ratios" and "here's a basic white cake mix", and "here's a list of basic substitutions". A bit of a cheat sheet seems reasonable for people who don't spend as much time with cooking as professionals do.

Anyhow, I think that'd be interesting to see.