Hack the Vote

Diebold, Sirius declare fini
to countdown show fiasco

Thanks to all who supported Her Shit Don’t Stink in the mercifully concluded Red Peters Comedy Music Show Song of the Year voting for Sirius Radio.

Unfortunately, most of your votes were wasted, because in a scenario reminiscent of the last two presidential elections, somebody hacked the vote.

Lacking hard evidence, we’re unable to directly accuse one perpetrator. But voters and contestants responded with outrage as hope slipped away for their favorite profane melodies.

I promoted the vote heavily through this site, my mailing list, media outlets and guest spots on popular podcasts. The contest featured the Top 16 songs, as chosen by Red Peters Show listeners on the Sirius Radio Howard Stern/Howard 101 Channel.

Accordingly, Her Shit Don’t Stink blasted off to an early lead and was soon embroiled in a battle for the top spot with The Clamsmen’s The Muff Hair Song.

Who’s driving this thing?

And then something curious happened. The poll, administered for Sirius by a third party called webpasties.com, locked down. And when it resumed shortly afterward, only one song seemed to be collecting votes. Within days, that one song secured an insurmountable lead.

Finally, when votes once again began to register for the 13 songs that still hovered near zero percent, Muff Hair and Her Shit Don’t Stink (still running 2-3 in the vote) remained suppressed, and we could only watch as our percentages continued to shrink.

Response to previous Red Peters polls indicated listeners would cast hundreds of thousands of votes in the Top 16 poll, which ran from December 27 to January 10. Red invited visitors to sirius.com/howard101 to vote as many times as they wished and said he would announce the winner during the Season 2 premiere of his show on January 26.

Calling Red Peters

Some of you contacted Red early on, politely asking why your votes were not being counted. As the days passed, the tone grew angrier. “I know, bro! Like any other contest it’s rigged!” one contestant, whose total vote never approached 2 percent, told me.

L.A. musician Mad Dog (aka The Clamsmen) gave up in frustration, finally asking his mailing list subscribers to cease participation in the contest:

And my former bandmate Brandon Higgins, after a beer-fueled night of fruitless attempted ballot-stuffing for Her Shit Don’t Stink, dashed off an angry note to Red and declared, “If they let everybody else cheat and they don’t let you cheat, hell, that’s cheatin’!”

You may ask, why participate in a meaningless online vote, reluctantly sponsored by an indifferent satellite radio network, advertised as “intended for entertainment and amusement purposes only” and all-too-predictably resulting in the same old tsuris?

Are you asking? Because I’m asking.

Why we fight: Howard Fucking Stern

And so we expose the underlying, unspoken obsession that drives almost every aspiring entertainer — Good Lord, just get me on the Stern show!

Carson’s dead, Leno’s a neutered weasel, Letterman lost his edge 20 years ago, leaving only one prominent, inspired, uninhibited, haimisch program host: Howard Fucking Stern.

Stern’s a fan of Red Peters’ lushly produced, uncensored comedy music and upon joining Sirius, immediately granted Red a show. In turn, Red played our own profane comic tunes. The hell with Kevin Bacon — that’s only one degree of separation!

Fact is, we held out hope that Red would promote our songs during his appearances on the Stern show, or Holy Jesus, Stern or his staff would snatch up Her Shit Don’t Stink or Muff Hair or I Am Not A Terrorist and, I don’t know, bestow greatness on our desperate, home-brewed, Cakewalk compositions.

Now it looks like we’ll have to wait just a little while longer for superstardom. But thanks for the memories, Red. I know it’s just as tough for you out there as it is for the rest of us.

In the end, we’re all just competing to see who’s going to be the toughest cow on the feed lot.

Pegasus News has picked up the story:
Ken Turetzky has questions about the Red Peters Sirius Radio Year End Countdown contest

Posted in: Hot Topics at 4:00 pm Wed, Jan 10, 2007.

3 comments

1. 

   DamnGreg says:
   

   2:24 pm Thu, Jan 11, 2007

   Did it occur to anyone that maybe you were just out voted?

   The Herpe Boils won they have a decent underground following,and a legion of fans with no life.

   Reply
2. 

   Shawno says:
   Twitter:

   8:52 pm Thu, Jan 11, 2007

   In protest of this outrage, I will continue to not subscribe to Sirius satellite radio.

   Reply
3. 

   Whitie McWhiteivich says:
   

   9:32 pm Wed, Jan 31, 2007

   Hey Ken, I here ya about the Sirius Comedy Song Countdown. Voting for my crazy, funny song “I Am Not A Terrorist” seemed to stop the first day. Votes were not even counted.

   My website has a Google Page Ranking of 1 for Funny Songs and Google page ranking of 1 for funny music. I recieve 1 million hits a month and I promoted through my mailing list.

   With all that my vote totals were only around 1 or 2%.

   Reply