The Queen Influence

Song: Queen - Tear It Up

Being home for the weekend right after you return for college has its good and bad about it. Good: You get to see people back at home so quickly and it feels like you  never left. Bad: See "good", but tack on the fact that now I have to realize that I have to return to the land of college so quickly. It's not cool. Syllabus shock is over now, but I have the looming realization that all the things on the syllabus will be catching up with me about halfway through the semester. Goodie good. Not. 

Anyway, the real point of the blog is because today I watched the Queen: Live at Wembley Stadium (1986) DVD for the one thousandth time, approximately. I mean come on, who wouldn't want to watch 4 men in their late thirties  or early forties rock around on stage? From the gallons of sweat dripping of their faces from the heat of the lights, the horrid colors of their ill fitting clothes (or lack thereof. ex: John Deacon's really short shorts) making you want to hide your eyes, the bad (aka AWESOME hahaha) hairstyles becoming shiny with the gallons of sweat mentioned before, the glazed look in Brian May's eyes, the bouncing of John Deacon, the countless inappropriate pelvic thrusts of Freddie Mercury, and the "I'm so awesome" look Roger Taylor has the whole time, this concert certainly holds huge entertainment value amongst the people wiling to take the time to watch it. 

Besides the laughable bad 1980's style of the crowd and band and that nagging reminder in your head that 30 years from now our kids will be saying the exact same thing about what we wear now, another reason I watched it was for the nostalgic value it holds for me. Back when I was a wee freshman in high school (5 years ago, yippie) Queen was the number one band in my book. They're the band that got me started in to the whole concept of finding music for myself and discovering how music could really change things. Don't ask me why it happened to be a 1970s/80s British rock band, but it was. No matter what was wrong or what was going on, I could listen to Queen and it'd instantly make me feel better. Then, because of the wide array of influences they stated and the different genres they tried, I eventually started to reach out and find more of this beautiful thing called music. Queen still holds a special place in my heart to this day.

The band Queen, though, was a revolutionary band for it's time. They started in 1971 with their debut album, Queen, (super creative title) and honestly didn't get a lot of response right at first from the rest of the world (except the UK). The music on that album was just too weird for people to latch on to right away (progressive rock). However, they just kept going and climbing towards stardom doing exactly what they liked to do, which was play the music they wanted, no matter what. Their experimentation with different genres turned to work for the best for them quickly, and by the mid 1970s they hit success all over the globe. 

Enough of that. Back to the DVD. The crowd looked like they were having the time of their lives because of  these 4 middle aged men running around on stage singing and playing their instruments. In theory it sounds ridiculous, but honestly I completely understand. These guys, no matter how weird they were or what kind of lifestyle they lived, used what they could do to make different people across the world have at least one thing to enjoy. Their music. They wanted to share it with everyone else, and it led to that moment at Wembley where they have just made an extremely memorable night for everyone who attended. Random people all over the globe will probably say the music changed their life forever. It doesn't have to be that extreme, it could just be a "oh I really like this music" sort of change, but still. The band has some part of influence in millions of people's lives, even 30 years later or whatever. 

The point is that everyone everywhere has some sort of influence in someone's life. I recently began thinking about all of the people that I remember coming in to contact with throughout the 18 years I've been living. Obviously, most of the people that came to mind are the people I consider my family and friends (and the bands I've really grown to love), but even some random people I only remember coming across once in my lifetime but they made some sort of memory popped up in my mind. I'm not going to get all gushy and crap over how much everyone means to me in some long bloated paragraph with over used phrases... but believe me, some people may have no idea how much I love them or how much I've appreciated their presence on my life. I would need to sit down with every single one of them and have huge chunks of time set aside so I could truly tell them how they've impacted me over the amount of time I've known them.

(See, I only used two bloated cheesy sentences to get my point across.)

However, that is not the end. Jumping back to the men of Queen, I know they have no idea how much of an impact they've made on music and the people who chose to listen to it. They may have small clues and a couple examples, but the full impact they don't understand. And I doubt they ever will. They were just doing what they loved. 

It makes me wonder what kind of impact I actually make on other people. It's not really something that I consciously think about all of the time. I just go about my life doing what I love to do or what I have to do. Even though I'm not a famous person running around singing giving everyone the joy of listening to music and a chuckle to the bad fashion choices, I still come in contact with people every day. And maybe, possibly, I don't truly know how much of an impact I could have made on someone. I know there's people I know who have no idea how much one small thing they did really helped me out. They've probably forgotten by now. I know I've forgotten some things I've said or done for people. 

The conclusion? Stop feeling like you're useless in the world or that nobody cares about you. You're probably just not looking hard enough at the impact your actions have on everyone around you. You don't have to become an international superstar to make somebody's day or to be a person they'll never forget, even if you do part years down the road (which isn't fun, but it happens). Obviously, I'm only 18 years old, so I haven't lived a lot, but I know I've lived enough to say this to some merit. 

Now excuse me, I have to go find eye bleach because of an incident on the concert DVD involving a very bad camera angle and a very short pair of yellow shorts.

Never Say You Didn't Learn Anything

Song: 30 Seconds To Mars - Kings & Queens 

(The only reason I put the song I was listening to when I first start a new post is because one: if you've never heard it, you can try listening to it, or two: you can see if there is any link between the song and the blog post. Which, more than likely, there's absolutely no link between what I'm listening to and what I'm writing. Unless I say so before hand. If you guys find some random connection, tell me. If you want.)

I really love raspberry mocha. Badly Drawn Boy is a really good band. I need to not just put my keys in random places. That one coffee house at the bottom of the hill is an enjoyable place to be. Parcheesi is a very fun game. Grown Up Soda is delicious. My car can't magically keep snow off of himself. My car has an emergency brake (and is capable of donuts). I still enjoy doing tech stuff. I'm figuring out how to look out for myself better. I still can't listen to Be Thou My Vision without crying. Second semester requires less adjusting than first semester. Yellow shorts look horrible on me. 8:30 classes still feel a lot better than 8:00 classes. Never go shopping when you're hungry really is good advice. The cafeteria smells yellow. Taking walks in the snow is really refreshing. That metal pole that stands between double doors can randomly fall over. 

Look around you. You can learn a lot from the smallest events.

For example, today I was walking in the snow. It was a short walk to go meet Bethany and Dustin, but the walk was much more enjoyable than I expected. I just had a little time to myself and could focus on how beautiful everything around me looked without having to worry about getting to class on time or keeping passengers in my car safe. A five minute walk just reminded me again that life can hold the smallest surprises or lessons, but we just have to take the time to look around, listen, and take in all the small lessons around us. 

I'll end with this lesson: Take time for yourself. You'll go crazy if you don't.

Started this blog off by listening to: 009 Sound System – Born to Be Wasted

Blogs. The concept: Typing out whatever is going through your head about a particular subject so that the rest of the world can see it and/or think about it.

That could get really scary. Our minds are always going, always thinking, and I honestly can't fathom how or why no matter how much I enjoy studying the brain. If everything we were thinking was on display at all times, that could get really funny and amazingly informative. We might possibly have to change the way we think about everything. Words are simply tools people use to try and explain what goes on in the grayish mass called the brain, and for some people, myself included, usually have a hard time explaining in words how they see things. So with that in mind, it's sometimes wondered whether we ever truly know a person. We base everything on the words and actions people choose to use. There is no actual way of seeing what is actually going through their mind at a particular moment.

Maybe that's where the whole trust thing comes in the play. That's a whole other subject.

But I digress.

Blogs. I started one because people say that I see things in interesting ways. I don't know, I just think I talk and think too much. I think really sporadically and I write the same way, which then turns out badly for papers I write because teachers tell me to make the paper flow better. Whatever.

I tend to always have a P.S. if I'm writing a letter or journal entry. I draw pictures and put arrows and longer explanations to things if I don't think I explain it well enough before. So believe me, if this were a hard copy instead of an internet blog, there would be scribbles and side explanations everywhere, along with a random picture of whatever is sitting next to be at the time just because I can. And a few coffee stains would probably decorate the page.

Why am I doing this blog? Because I can. Because people should try to learn things. Like you can mix poprocks and coke and it won't kill you unless you eat an unearthly amount. Proved it on Mythbusters. But people are still naive and think that you can't at all. And I might as well share what I think with the world, there's no harm in it.