Essential Spatulas
First of all, today marks our sixth anniversary...so, um, Happy Anniversary Us! We would sincerely like to thank all of you who have stuck with us over the years and are always willing to leap at the chance to help out. This campaign only exists because we have great friends out there willing to actually work on it.
For those of you wondering about the status of Yankoheit 27, our feature-length documentary...it IS coming. Production will ideally wrap this month, with final editing taking up the month of August. It might still be a little while after that before it gets formally released as we try to line up a distribution deal, but copies will make their way to the Rock Hall Foundation as soon as it's completed.
Also, we are still scheduled to have our second annual Make the Rock Hall "Weird" Tweet-In on October 23, Al's 51rst birthday. If you haven't been following us on Twitter already...good god, man, what is wrong with you?!? We're @rockhallweird
Most importantly, though, today we are launching our summer 2010 campaign project. Taking inspiration from the "Spatula City" commercial in UHF, we will be urging fans to show how much they care by sending spatulas to the Rock Hall Foundation in New York. All we ask is that you attach a gift tag onto your spatula conveying your desire to see Al inducted...but the type of spatula is entirely up to you! Decorate it, paint it, let your creative juices flow if you'd like. And please, be sure to take a picture of your spatula before you send it out. We would like to have a big "Spatula Map" on our home page showing everywhere they're being sent from.
Also, for those of you with a little more time and money on your hands, we are asking fans to send copies of Al's recent The Essential "Weird Al" Yankovic compilation to specific members of the Rock Hall's nominating committee. This is a new strategy that we're taking this year, targeting the individual committee one-to-one...as Darth Vader said in Star Wars, we'll need to attack them ship-to-ship.
On our new campaign page, we have listed the thirty-four known members of the nominating committee and, in most cases, where they normally reside/work. If you would like to send a member a CD and a heartfelt letter, please e-mail us to request a member, and then we will get back to you with their contact information. We already have a number of members already spoken for, so send in your request soon!
Full details and instructions on the new campaign activities can be found here:
www.allthingsyank.com/rockhall/spatula.htm
To commemorate our anniversary and our new project, we have also opened up a brand new campaign shop. More items will be added very soon, but to start things off we have parodied--alluded to--ripped off, whatever verb you'd like--two of the biggest pop culture phenomena of the last couple of years, The Dark Knight and the insufferable Twilight franchise. We're especially proud of the "Team Yankovic" design and hope it becomes the next big thing even for those who don't necessarily know about the campaign...after all, making fun of Twilight should be a universally shared experience.
The new store is here:
www.tinyurl.com/twilightshop
(or for you sticklers for real URLs, www.cafepress.com/teamyankovic)
As said, some more designs will be added in the coming days, and we'll gladly be taking suggestions for things to play up or parody. Think of this new shop as the "Hot Topic" of our stores. All trend, very little substance.
And of course, you don't necessarily have to send either a spatula or a CD to the Rock Hall to show your support...like before, a nice, polite, heartfelt letter would do just fine. But we need to get their attention, so let's have some fun doing it!
Get out there, send your spatula, buy your CD, pick your nominating member, be sure to see Al out on the road this summer, and Make the...well, you know the rest!