AL AND THE STORY OF THE CM!
Al and I were pretty good friends back in the CC days. We'd collaborate on which thread we'd spam (INCLUDING the HOTW: NEWS ONLY THREAD) and we'd have conversations on there without letting anyone elses post be replied to. He then showed me his fansite (
http://www.clumsymonkey.net )dedicated to primarily the St. Louis Blues, with one TINY section for OLP... (I believe it was a bio page which was a few paragraphs long). He had a small forum which mainly consisted of picture after picture of Anna Kournikova, posted by Al himself! It had a very small amount of members... I believe 12 when I signed up.
Late one night, Al and I were discussing the things we didn't like about the CC. How our spam didn't seem appreciated!!! (Sorry Stace!) The only relevant thing I would ever post there was about my vast collection of OLP concerts I had accumulated. So, we decided a BRAND SPANKIN' NEW OLP fansite and community would be a cool idea. Over the next week, Al started completely redesigning his St. Louis fan site. We'd discuss how the new forum should work, sections, OLP LYRICS for thread names, and even a RANKING SYSTEM (Cool OLP titles, for members who've reached a certain amount of posts) etc...
After we'd been testing the site for about a week, then came our biggest problem... How would we really draw attention to the site and gain members!? Why would anyone want to join this site instead of the "OFFICIAL" Our Lady Peace fansite and community? So we decided to LURE our prey er... uh members...with something none of the other OLP sites really had... OLP MEDIA! Concerts, Radio shows, and even videos. We tried using a Right Behind You Video that I had created, but since it wasn't an official video, it brought in mediocre results. The full concert mp3s helped quite a bit, but a lot of people wouldn't post and would only come to leech our files. So the CM grew bit by bit, but slowly at first, for the amount of people who posted regularly anyway... Al came up with CM Banners to use when posting on other web communities such as the CC to advertise this site. It was working, people were starting to post here more regularly and then a huge BOOM in the OLP world changed things for everyone. Mike Turner, guitarist for OLP had left the band... This brought new members almost constantly every day. The site was doing well, people were sad... abd our bandwidth was safe for a while...
Then came an early radio release of OLP's first single from their upcoming album. Who would host it!? Why the CM of course! So many new people signed up. The CM died. Al cried. All the CM's bandwidth had been eaten up and not one girl had hit on Al in the meantime.
So while we waited for Al to dig into his pockets for more money, or for the new month to arrive... Wait a minute... didn't we have a daily limit back then!? Anyway... back to the story... while we waited for things to straighten out with the CM... Al had to look elsewhere for a woman. Then one day... Al was volunteering at some FESTIVAL. (Al I don't remember what it was, so you'll have to clarify on that.) At this festival Al laid eyes on what would become his obsession for the next few months. A beautiful Mexican girl. When in communicating distance with this girl, however, Al immediately turned from being THE FONZ into someone more similar to Ralph Malph. He was more nervous around her, than when he noticed for the first time that his pubic hair was starting to appear. He would mention her CONSTANTLY with regret that he didn't say anything, but as time went on... This changed.
*Al, trying to forget his past obsession, decided to steal MY woman! How could he do such a thing!? Anyway... moving on, due to unforseen circumstances, I, Lando had to leave the CM for a while. Al cried for days, sending me love letters requesting my return, but this was not something I could do. For I was hurt also and was shedding tears of my own!* (* section = the fictional part)
As time went on, Al continued to improve the CM with better ideas, new layouts from time to time and new downloads including nude pictures from himself with his phone number and area code printed along the bottom.
So in closing, I'd like to ask you, without Al would many of us have formed such close friendships with each other? Would there have been as many meetups between OLP fans? Or as many inappropriate nude pictures of Al and the elderly women he picks up at the Bingo hall?
Personally, I'd have to say no. We owe the guy a lot, and he's done a lot more than even I could mention on my own. Not much is seen of Al these days... He tells me he's joined some sort of cult called "Wal-mart" or something... I've never heard of it... It's probably just another one of those Heaven's Gate dealies where he's going to end up drinking some poison kool-aid.
Al was or still is a huge Dave Matthews Band and Oasis fan, he still plays hockey once a week and as he recently told me "needs time for the ladies"
He also said they could help him "put his jock on" in the shack if I forced him to play more often. That's all I can say about the guy. He likes jockstraps and ladies.
Which one he likes the most, may forever remain a mystery.