Well, since then, people have been sending me feedback suggesting how I could have improved it further. Including, unbeknownst to me at the time, the actual album cover's creator, Nick Egan. (His suggestion for improving it was not to have modified it at all, naturally.)
Today, however, I got another email followed by what is quite possibly the best suggestion of them all via voicemail. I share them with you now:
Subject: YOU'RE A PRIZE GINGER CUNT, DUDE.
Who or what are you?
Opinions are a universal rite.
What you did deserves your balls kicking into your kidneys.
' I fixed it ' ? The most arrogant piece of shit I've ever read online in 16 years. Next time I'm over I'll come for a chat about poetry and music so I don't miss out on your wisdom. Saying shit like that with your phone number and address attached would get you bounced from here to FUCKING Spain where I'm from ... Dude. Don't get a life, give it up. Waste of food you cheeky prick.
Hope you fail in everything you do. You FUCKING Ginger Minge Tit .
It's kind of scary getting a (surprisingly polite) threatening voicemail message, but that scariness doesn't outweigh the irony of someone actually calling me to share his opinion regarding my not sharing my opinion.
Nick, it appears that my attempt to sound like a dumbass on the Internet has succeeded far better than I'd intended, which I truly regret. I really do hate that skateboard at the top, but that's just my opinion. 'Fixing' your album cover is purely in jest, however, and clearly falls under fair use / parody. As I think it's pretty clear by now that I'm just a dumbass and not intentionally trying to disrespect your or your work, I'd really appreciate it if you'd call off your goons. Thanks.
If you're out of the loop -- and I suspect that you are -- then you're not aware of the big Johnson & Johnson "Camp Baby" conference that's taking place this weekend in New Jersey.
Essentially, Johnson & Johnson is hoping to get some good "blogblicity" from some high-profile "mommybloggers" by flying them out, putting them up in fancy hotels, picking them up in fancy GM SUVs and presenting all sorts of mom-related forums and panels and things. I guess they'll probably show off some new products and whatnot, and hope to recoup all the costs of putting on such a shindig by the word-of-mouth that will inevitably spread around the various mommyblogger circles. Or spheres. Or whatever we're calling it now.
There are several funny things about this though:
1) Johnson & Johnson made quite the snafu when they announced that mommybloggers would not be able to bring their babies to "Camp Baby." This resulted in spheres of fury the likes of which the world has never seen, with wave after wave of interconnected communities of high-profile mommybloggers vowing to not only not participate, but to never again buy a Johnson & Johnson product. And worse: to recommend to their faithful readers that they not do so either. The jury is still out on the possibly irreparable damage to the mommyblogosphere; it was neatly cleaved in twain by the rift between those bloggers participating and those that aren't.
2) A good number of these mommybloggers are a members of the BlogHer ad network, which has a rule stipulating that you can't blog about things if they happened as a result of payment or promotional material by a corporation. Meaning: none of these BlogHer mommybloggers can actually blog about any of the things that they saw or did with Johnson & Johnson unless they specifically disable the advertisements on their sites for those blog articles/feeds. And they are GIRLS, so you know they don't know how to do that, right? ;)
Anyway, I've been seeing reports of all the fun times the mommybloggers are having via some of my contacts on the inside, and it sounds like Johnson & Johnson have gone all-out to make this bloggy get-together a great time that will be shared by all involved. The rest of the world just probably won't get to hear much about it. Now that's what I call planning.
