Friends Will Be Friends

(why can't we give ourselves one more chance)

Long work day, but a good day.

I've been planning a St. Patrick's day celebration with Margaret and Martin, hiding the location of where I wanted to go, until I realized it was right in the previous entry. Oh well. A good example that I write this blog for me and not for anyone else, I suppose.

I've going to try and help out Margaret in her midterm crunch by sending out Ch.1 and Ch.2 of The Flames of Resistance by Sunday, which means writing weekend (in which I have to implement Martin's Ch.1 ending plothole bridge). Then it's Ch.3 and possibly more on Wednesday! Rough but good. Sometimes a deadline is exactly what a story needs. This is one of those times.

I've determined that Queen is the most copied band of all time. It's astounding! Listen to the songs that have been wildly copied:

- Bohemian Rhapsody: Queen releases a video along with their song that went #1 and was eventually voted the #1 song of all time in Britain. A group releases a music video, big deal, right? Well this was 1975. Critical acclaim abounded along with press hostility, but the popularity and famousness of the video (remember the Mountain Dew commercial a couple Super Bowls ago?) helped spawn a video craze that in turn contributed to things like the creation of MTV.
- Flash: Queen may lead the world in songs stolen practically verbatim with little apology. The opening to the anime "Big O" IS this song. When I first heard the song (I saw the anime first) I got really confused, thinking that Queen actually wrote the song for the anime. Well, they did - just not knowingly.
- We Will Rock You: The adopted anthem of half of the professional sports teams in America.
- We Are The Champions: The adopted anthem of the other half of the professional sports teams in America.
- The Invisible Man: The critical "doo doo" noise that defines the chorus and holds the entire thing together is verbatim the noise you get for completing objectives in "Grand Theft Auto". Craziness.
- Barcelona: This poignant ballad was used as the theme of the 1992 Olympic Games, held in (guess where).
- Under Pressure: This song has the distinction of being the most blatant and most successful theivery in the history of music. Hit play on this song and try and guess whether you're listening to the opening of "Under Pressure" or "Ice Ice Baby". Completely, utterly indistinguishable. In defending his #1 chart-topping song's apparent utter theft of Queen's music, Vanilla Ice (during an interview) sat for a while, then suddenly said, "There, right there, the 'doo doo'? That's me." Pressed later, he admitted that he 'liked the riff, it was pretty good.' Um, yeah Vanilla - Under Pressure was a No.1 chart-topper in the UK AND Argentina. Most blatant theivery ever.

And that's just the stuff I've noticed, not to mention the use of songs like "I Want To Break Free" for Coke and "Driven By You" for Coke, among others, and "Another One Bites The Dust" going to "Another One Rides The Bus" via Weird Al, and who knows what else that I just haven't heard yet.
IT'S MADNESS!

The show must go on...