The same but different |
“At more than $7.98
million, Bettman’s salary has more than doubled since the 2004-05 lockout which
saw the entire hockey season cancelled. In that year, Bettman made $3.7
million.” (source Luke
Fox, Sportsnet.ca)
And I really couldn't get a handle on whether the Chiffons
vs. George Harrison musical case ever got resolved—He’s So Fine vs. My Sweet
Lord.
So let’s kick this around a little, although I would much
rather just kick the lawyers in this case.
I had a difficult time with the lead picture initially for
this story. I was searching Google images “group of lawyers” in the image
grouping and could only come up with the one which is an adaptation of one from
Devrylaw.ca.
It seems that all the pictures (including Bettman’s picture
in the Luke Fox story), had them beaming with smiles probably because they just
got a lucrative case that will give them a nice steady income for as long as
they can drag that out. And that is what lawyers are very good at. It isn’t in
their best interest to actually come to a quick and amicable settlement which
is how most normal people deal with disagreements. They seek to prolong the
case since it is in their best interest to ensure a steady billing stream.
So I use the NHL predicament and the musical case above to
discuss this concept. Think past to your youth (especially anybody who grew up
with a future lawyer) and try to remember where that kid got picked in whatever
game you were enjoying. He was usually in the last grouping and he dragged the
game down because he just sucked at the sport or game and so he found that law
was a game that he could be good at since he had no creative talent that you
need to perform a sport or musically. But he could talk a good story, so the
legal profession was calling.
How many lawyers do you know that have played professional
sports or have performed live (musically) in front of a large crowd? Lawyers can perform in front of a large crowd
but I am talking specifically music here. Politicians are an example of lawyers
who have developed an advanced level of performance skill in front of a large
audience. When that gig is up, they go back to a law firm and charge an even
higher hourly rate than before, so politics is good for their business in the
long run.
So Gary has been “in charge” through two lockouts and the
owners haven’t fired him yet for failure but a whole waft of General Managers
and coaches have suffered that fate. Something’s wrong there for sure and he
gets increases in salary as well. I would like to do the job for say $1 million
a year but my friend and I have a better candidate for the job—Ron MacLean of
Hockey Night in Canada fame. He knows the inner workings of the sport, is fair
in his approach to disagreements and is sincerely concerned for the future of
Canada’s most important game and form of entertainment. (Yes Marty, he would
make a good commissioner. Marty is my friend who planted this seed).
From what I can figure out about the law suit regarding so
called plagiarism in the two songs, is that it really was more about the fact
that two groups of representatives from each side (lawyers) were arguing over the
songs and that they were the same. The whole thing is compounded by the fact
that they are simple and really lousy songs and that George probably thought it
was worthy of putting down a track but mind altering stuff will do that to you.
The songs are both repetitive but here’s where they are
different. A song isn’t just about the melody or the chord structure. A song is
also a poem or short novel that tells a story and, in this case, they aren’t
the same. The Chiffons are yada yada-ing about a boy that they all would like
to capture and George is into his Krishna thing talking about his new found
religion and his new guiding force in life. Sort of different aren’t they?
The problem is they use a similar chord structure and boring
repetition (loops) so the story gets boring and you fall asleep. They are no
Taxi or Better Place to Be, Yesterday, Bridge Over Troubled Waters or I Will Always Love You.
If the lawyers got hold of all the 12-bar blues songs that
were ever written they would be fighting for payment to the families of a
couple of guys (or maybe one) that started strumming out the pattern on the
front porch of his broken down home because he was having a bad day. Being a
slave would mean that you had a lot of those.
You don’t see BB King and Eric Clapton getting their lawyers
together (probably because they don’t spend much time with lawyers) and
fighting over whether their songs sound the same but they have a similar
pattern because melodies in music are limited to just 12 notes and the blues
scale has only 5 notes so there aren’t that many permutations. Sure you can
play with the chord sequence a bit and create rifts in different octaves. But
when you add the words to the song, well it’s the sky’s the limit here.
You didn’t see Dolly Parton and Whitney Houston battling
over ownership of I Will Always Love You. Dolly wrote it and Whitney made it a
huge success which Dolly acknowledges in her usual deep down honest approach to
just about everything. I have both versions in my iTunes collection. To me they
are really almost two different songs but Dolly wrote the melody and the words
and Whitney took it over the top with her performance. And there’s those mind
altering drugs popping up again which completely distort your perspective and
can end in tragedy.
So lawyers, go spend some time suing the likes of Monsanto
and stay away from areas that give us pleasure such as sports and music which
are only a small part of the entertainment field. Nobody had the balls to take
on Carlin because they knew they couldn’t win against a guy who was better at
their own game.
So the lesson here is to enjoy you, enjoy playing or
watching sports, enjoy music for what it is, don’t take mind altering drugs.
And for heaven’s sake stay away from lawyers, unless you are another lawyer. Don't have to drive so far to run them over then.
1 comment:
Well said, As the old joke goes "You know how to save 12 lawyers chained to the bottom of the ocean? No? Good!
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