Well, it's been a week chock full of bad news for Weird Al fans.

First, Al unfortunately didn't win either of the two Grammys he was up for with Straight Outta Lynwood, losing the Best Comedy Award to Daily Show regular Lewis Black (and we congratulate the first-time winner). That same night, Al's "Don't Download This Song" music video (animated by Bill Plympton and also available on SOL) lost out to the Ice Age-inspired No Time for Nuts for Best Animated Short Subject at the Annie Awards.

As if this news wasn't heartbreaking enough, this week the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced--well, "announced" in that they didn't make a point of publicly saying it on their own and one would only find it buried in a related news story--that they were increasing the sponsorship fee for a new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, upping it from $15,000 to an eye-popping $25,000! The chamber claims that the increase in fees was necessary to help fund for repair work on existing stars. So, in other words, because people keep urinating on the Olsen Twins' star, someone needs to fork over even more money to honor a new celebrity.

Naturally, our friends at the Weird Al Star Fund are crushed by this news since they now have to raise an additional $10,000 for Al's potential star...and they now have to do it by this May in order to meet this year's application deadline! If you haven't done it yet, please donate to the Star Fund. Even if it's just five or ten bucks...every little bit will help. We'll keep prodding you throughout the spring, so you might as well get it over with now.

To help out the Star Fund, and to help us gear up for Al's rapidly approaching world tour, we are extremely proud to announce that we are now offering tour shirts and hoodies for sale!!! Specifically, the shirts will chronicle this year's petition tour, highlighting the many cities where our volunteers will be collecting signatures before Al's concerts. Both the front and back feature stunning Al cartoon artwork from two of the finalists from our 2005 art contest, including the first place entry by Kristine Slipson! The clothes have the full approval of Al's management (a fact that we're all giddy about in of itself!) and are a great way to help spread the word about our cause, our petition, and Al's upcoming tour!

And, best of all, all proceeds from the sale of our tour shirts will go to the Weird Al Star Fund, and the shirts are now offered exclusively at the Star Fund's Cafepress shop (where you'll also find tons of cool Star Fund-related merchandise as well!). So not only do you get a cool and pretty unique piece of Al clothing, but you also get to support two international grassroots fan efforts!

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR MAKE THE ROCK HALL "WEIRD" TOUR SHIRT OR HOODIE!

And what good is a petition tour if there aren't any volunteers helping to circulate such a petition? Al is now releasing a steady stream of tour dates, and we are trying to keep up on our own tour page. By all means, check out the itinerary and volunteer to represent the campaign at the show nearest you. We would love to have people at every show helping out (New Zealand fans, we're looking in your direction!).

So, go, go, go...volunteer, donate, and buy!!!