Well, in the blogger's defense (not sure if the blog was in fact written by our own Leonard Cohen, as it seems to be quite vague who put up that site), they were just copying and pasting the rather lazy and shortsighted article from "Rolling Stone's" blog from a year ago, which was written shortly after we sent out press materials to New Zealand media outlets and word of the 2007 petition drive sort of became an unexpected, minor international news story. I don't really think the blogger was trying to pass off the article as their own personal opinion; it just seems as if they didn't make it clear that they were quoting an article. I don't know.
Outside of that, and until I know more about who put up that blog and why, there's really not much I can say. While I'm always grateful for a link to the campaign site, I'm not quite sure what an outside blog can offer or cover that isn't already taken care of in the normal, official blog on the web site and MySpace. Nobody has asked me to keep them in the loop for any kind of blog coverage, and if the blog was set up to cover news of our campaign then they really missed out on some key tidbits in the last, oh, thirteen months (Yankovic '08 shop opening last January, all the various celebrity signer news, Plain Dealer poll news, etc.). And one would hope that if someone was interested in such a cause enough to actually start a blog chronicling it, then surely they would have offered to volunteer with the petition, right? Alas, nobody who has volunteered in the past year has mentioned any such blog, so go figure.
Regardless, I actually came on to discuss some official campaign business tonight.
There are still a few outstanding petition signatures out there, and I have already contacted those whose pages are still missing in action (so check your PM inbox, e-mail inbox, or e-mail spam folder right now). I will send a general e-mail out to all volunteers later tonight repeating this, but I will be unable to accept any pages that arrive later than Monday, March 31.
This is because a day later, on
April 1, the current petition will be sent off to the Rock Hall Foundation in New York. No ifs, ands, or buts.
I am extremely proud of and grateful for all the hard work of everyone who both volunteered and also fulfilled their commitments to the campaign this past year-plus. We all went out there, got the word out, and were able to get thousands upon thousands of people on our side. But now it's time to wrap it all up, see where we are, and cross our fingers that all our hard work and good vibes will amount to something fantastic.
Unfortunately, though, we are still about 1,400 signatures short of our goal of 10,000. This is nobody's fault. We crammed in as much work as we could considering we were working around a tour schedule that we had no control over.
But, we still have time to make up the difference, if everyone's willing. I am currently working on a few leads (oh, you'll see me pop up on the oddest forums in the coming week or so begging for help) and, though I don't want to jinx anything, hopefully I'll even have a surprise or two before the deadline comes. Meanwhile, this is the time to turn to those closest to us: relatives, co-workers, schoolmates, those creepy people you work with in your volunteer haunted house acting troupe, anyone...just to fill in the slots.
We only need 1,400 more signatures. To break this down, if just ten people committed to getting those signatures, that would be just 140 signatures for each person to track down, or seven whole petition pages to fill.
If you
still haven't signed the petition yourself yet, download the PDF from this link....
http://www.allthingsyank.com/rockhall/petitionnew.pdf
Print it, sign it, circulate it among others, and then PM me so I can tell you where to mail it. That's it!
We are so close to finishing this petition and delivering it with a number that simply cannot be ignored. It's time to rally together and get this done right!
You can buy 4 brand new cars for that amount!!
