Okay, what have you got? Mildred… Fitch. Mildred Fitch, 1429 Mulberry Lane, Aurolias, NJ. Got it. Who’s next? Get… Get… Stuffed. Get Stuffed. And where does “Get” live? Up… my… HEY!!
Oh, hi. Okay, good enough, how are you? Great, great. What are we doing? Funny you should ask. We’re working on our mailing list. In fact, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and I were just compiling names when you logged on. Frankly, it could use a little work. We haven’t released a full-length album in almost nine years – that’s NINE YEARS to those of you who are hard of hearing – and our list has kind of gone to seed in the interim. Truth be told, we sent out a little teaser message to the folks on our 2000 Years To Christmas list, and it bounced back so hard the sucker hit me square in the face. (I think it loosened a tooth or two, actually.) It’s been a rough nine years on our constituency, friends, and a lot of them have moved on to bigger, greener pastures. C’est domage.
Okay, well… that experience was a little 
unnerving. So we took it up with our label, Loathsome Prick, and they put us in touch with their Marketing V.P., Gertrude Al-Kabar, who suggested (no… fairly demanded) that we build a new list. “What the hell,” I said, “most of our most loyal fans are beyond the orbit of Saturn. The post office doesn’t ordinarily deliver to rural routes in that zone.” She was, however, insistent on this point, and we decided to at least appear as if we were doing something about it. Matt took the opportunity to sit down with the two Lincolns and ask about their presidential campaign experiences, direct mail appeals, that sort of thing. (Not a lot of help there – in point of fact, they got into a fist fight. Something to do with Steven Douglas.) John and I spoke with Mitch Macaphee, but he has nothing but contempt for the social sciences and would never associate himself with something so crude as a direct mail campaign. (Now handbills he might agree to, but not direct mail.)
You get the drift. Once again, we are left to our own devices. So with nearly two names on our mailing list (call it one), one of which resides at our own address (man-sized tuber), we set ourselves to aggressively expanding our database… by swiping names from the phone book. Foolishly simple, isn’t it? Don’t know why I never thought of it before. 
All we do is send junk mail to people at random. In fact, that’s such a wildly adventurous idea, we should try to sell it to other bands. Hey, Coldplay! Hey, Captured By Robots! Here’s a great way to get heard by strangers! Send them shit in the mail! (Shouting across the internet? Another new communications strategy! Get Gertrude on the phone!)
Okay, so we’re pulling names at random from the phone book. And Marvin is getting kind of surly after an hour or so. Fatigue? I don’t think so. He’s a little sore about his credits on the new album. Marvin claims to have mixed no less than four of the sixteen songs on International House. I’m sure that’s an exaggeration, but… frankly I don’t remember who mixed what at this point. And what’s the name of the band again? Can’t say. Can’t … say….
Man, it has been a long time since the last one. We need more names, damnit!
