On Friday the Plain Dealer finally published the results of its readers poll. There was nothing too earth-shattering in the outcome. Al unfortunately didn't get a mention. According to the article, readers favored Van Halen, which is hardly a surprise. Why it took forty-two days for the results to be counted and published is another question.

Before writing this blog entry, just for fun I reread the blog entry from when last year's poll results were announced. Here is an excerpt of what I wrote from November 6, 2005:

As has been the norm of this year's attitude to the Rock Hall inductions, the paper downplayed the significance of the poll, burying it in the middle of its "Sunday Arts" section (in previous years news of the results could easily be found on the front page of the section or the paper itself). The article claims that "more than 250 ballots were cast," which is pathetic for a metropolitan area of three million.


...In the main article, there was barely a mention of any artists not already on the ballot. In fact, in total the write-in option, once a heavily spotlighted part of the paper's readers ballot, was vaguely summed up in two sentences...


More interesting were the blurbs of reader comments that complemented the article. Probably showing the music editor's bias a bit...none of the comments of Al fans were printed, and I know several were submitted.

This year things were quite different, as you'll see. This year's results article ran in a Friday edition of the paper (and not even in its weekly arts-and-music supplement, Friday! Magazine) as opposed to the more prestigious "Sunday Arts" section. And this time the write-in results were summed up in just one sentence instead of two.

But, like last year's poll, "more than 250 ballots were cast." Why do I have a feeling that there was some copying and pasting going on this year?

Oh, I tease...ahem. According to the article, their "call for write-in candidates generated outpourings of support for Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper, Kiss, the Moody Blues and Yes, among others." So way to go, "others!" You're in some fine company there.

Again the paper didn't reveal any hard numbers or percentages of votes, outside of listing the top five vote-getters (Van Halen, R.E.M., the Dave Clark Five, the Ronettes, and the Stooges), which just begs one to entertain suspicions for a second. Let's say that just twenty-five people voted for Al, which is realistic based on the response back when voting was open. That's about 10 percent of the total votes, leaving 90 percent for the fourteen other acts actually mentioned in the article (not to mention the other "others"). Granted some artists obviously got more votes than others did, but if one was to divide that remaining 90 percent equally among just those fourteen specific acts, then each one would only get 6.4 percent. It can then easily be concluded that Al must have received more votes than some mentioned in the article, either actual nominees or other write-ins, and the paper just chose to exclude him. So much for wanting to know what readers think, eh?

The one bit of actual news in the article is that it seems as if one of 2007's inductees has already been decided, as Val Halen's onetime singer Sammy Hagar made a slightly vague statement about the group's chances.

"Management told me the other day we got in," Hagar said in the article. "I'm curious to see if we actually do get inducted."

Well, here's hoping that the group's management was telling Sammy the truth, as they certainly deserve the honor.

In any event, we sincerely thank all who voted for Al in the paper's poll. Thanks for giving them a piece of your mind, even though they clearly weren't interested in it.

As we look ahead to 2007, we are still looking for petition volunteers for Al's upcoming New Zealand/Australian tour this March. We have a couple of kind people lined up already, but the more the merrier! Check out Al's official site for tour dates.

And of course, we'll need both petition and video volunteers for the upcoming North American tour. We cannot assume you're on board unless you tell us, so please contact us as soon as possible.

This is it! Our 2007 campaign is on! Let's finally get Al into the Rock Hall!