It’s a pretty clever idea for a song: Use telephone metaphors to describe a relationship that has been hung up on, getting a busy signal, etc. Throw in such visual accessories as a bulkily shaped phone, color-coordinated hat, body-wrapping telephone cords and a booth from which to bust out.

These ideas are so great, they were apparently thought up twice — once by current mega-superstar Lady Gaga, and before that by Minneapolis electronic performance artist Brooke Aldridge, a k a Lolly Pop.

Gaga’s 2010 single and video “Telephone” bears a surprising if not uncanny resemblance to the 2004 single “Life on Hold” and accompanying artwork by the Aldridge-fronted band Telephone! Aldridge also coined the term “electro-pop opera” long before Gaga used it for her tour coming Monday and Tuesday to Xcel Energy Center.

Aldridge’s supporters are openly accusing 2010’s biggest pop music star of stealing her ideas. There’s even a Facebook page called “Lolly Pop Has Been Knicked by Lady Gaga.” They can point to an early Gaga producer who may or may not have exposed Lolly Pop’s work to Stefani Germanotta, the clubhopper who would bleach her hair and shed a lot of clothing to become Gaga.

“People sometimes just want validation for their hard work, and I think that’s what Brooke is hoping for,” said Monte Moir, Aldridge’s producer/mentor, who was a bit of a fame monster in the ’80s as keyboardist with the Time. Addressing the specific allegations, Moir said, “Speculation? Yes. Proof? No.”

At this point, I should point out that I believe these claims are about as cuckoo as a coat made out of stuffed Kermit the Frogs. Aldridge has done some clever and fun work, but you’d be hard-pressed to find Minnesotans who have seen or heard it, much less a New Yorker.

That said, it’s hard to dismiss the notion — perhaps not even a criticism — that Gaga is indeed a copycat who freely lifts her outrageous style, mostly vapid songs and club-girl personality from other performers.

Tila Tequila’s weekend run-in with Insane Clown Posse’s biggest fans sounds rather, well, insane.

The reality-TV star, who was more than booed off the stage at the annual Gathering of Juggalos festival in a small Illinois town over the weekend, tells E! News that she needed stitches above her eye after being pelted with glass bottles, human feces and other garbage during what turned into a very brief appearance.

And to top it all off, Tequila says, she had reason to suspect that something nasty was going to happen to her.

“I actually was warned by a lot of my fans online, as well as all the Juggalos telling me what they were going to do to me, prior to going,” she tells E!, “so I contacted my agents and told them my concerns, and my agents contacted the people who run the event, and they swore to us that there’d be a 100 or more security guards and that nothing like that would happen. and that they needed me to go.”

When she arrived at Cave in Rock in southeastern Illinois, Tequila says, things were very “unorganized” and “the atmosphere was really violent.”

“And my own DJ didn’t even show up. Even my bodyguard, who’s been doing this for 15 years, said he’s never seen anything like this.”

As she waited in the artists’ trailer, she tells E!, she could hear the crowd getting rowdy outside and, before she went on, “one of the staff members came running inside looking horrified and he was like, ‘You guys shouldn’t let her go on there. It’s really dangerous out there and they’re ready to throw stuff at her and hurt her.’”

And then a fan ran up to her, she says, also telling her, “Please don’t go up there. They’re ready to just hurt you, they’re not fans.”

But despite being “nervous and worried,” onstage she went after staffers supposedly pleaded with her to at least do one song and say hello to the crowd.

“Everyone started booing,” she describes, “and I was like, ‘Alright, this is a violent and tough crowd,’ so I went out there just to try and have fun…But immediately before I got up there, things were being thrown, there was so much stuff being thrown, besides just beer bottles.”

Tequila says she kept tripping over things, and at one point, she “looked down and saw human poop.”

She tells E!, pointing to a bandage on her face, that she saw the guy who threw a big rock at her, causing the injury.

“These weren’t fans or people that are like, ‘Let’s embarrass her and boo her off stage,’ but looking at these people, or monsters, whatever they are, they looked very angry and violent,” Tequila says.

And now, she says, after being stitched up and told to stay out of the sun for a year, her attorney is on the case.

“He’s taking care of that and we have all of our witnesses together, and I’m hoping this is the last Juggalos gathering they’ll ever have,” Tequila says. “Because it’s been such an underground type of concert and I’m glad that I could bring this to mainstream and expose them for what they do to people and women and that it’s not OK.”

CBS News reports that a man was stabbed at the festival but his injuries were not life-threatening.