Don’t sing Happy Birthday in a restaurant in the USA

Yeah, you know the song. That Happy Birthday one we all sing. Apparently, though, if you’re in a restaurant over here you better not sing it!

What? You can’t sing Happy Birthday in a restaurant? Really?!

A friend told me that at some restaurant chains the waiters and waitresses came out singing and clapping some weird concoction of a Happy Birthday song when they bring the birthday cake for the birthday recipient. The song was like a chant, and a really bad tune.

Why? Cos the song is protected by COPYRIGHT! They are legally not allowed to sing it in public, and neither are you. Else it’s off to jail, folks.

Yes, we can’t sing Happy Birthday in public, and here’s the explanation I found.

And these are the replacement songs that are sung on TV to avoid the Happy Birthday cops coming round and sending you off to a state penitentiary.

California

Lots of people are asking where we are going in CA, and here are the answers…

*Redondo Beach
*LA
*San Diego
*Santa Monica
*Carmel
*San Francisco

And others stops on the way round.

Looking forward to the beaches here 🙂

Things I didn’t know about California but now do…

1. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War. The U.S. paid Mexico $15 million for war damages. In turn, Mexico ceded nearly half of its territory, including California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Colorado, Nevada, and Utah.

2. California was originally known as the Bear State. As California boomed—and the bear population was wiped out—it became the Golden State.

3. The grizzly bear on California’s current state flag is a tribute to Monarch, the last wild California grizzly bear. In 1899, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst paid a reporter named Allen Kelley to capture the animal. Monarch was sent to San Francisco, where he lived at Woodward’s Garden and then Golden Gate Park. He was a star attraction until his death in 1911. The last reported sighting of a wild California grizzly bear was in 1924.

4. California is the only state that’s hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

5. Most of the U.S. athletes competing in the 2012 London Olympics came from California. But take that with a grain of salt—one out of every eight Americans is from California.

6. The first step to getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: Work in entertainment. The second: Pay a $30,000 nomination fee. Living celebrities are required to appear at their star’s unveiling. (Barbra Streisand is the only person who got away with missing the event.) All of the Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz—122 adults and 12 children—share one star.

One more night of California Dreaming to go and then it’s California Reality!

🙂