You’ve heard the stories, you’ve seen the news reports, and you’ve probably caught an item or two on the Net about the hiring practices at Pollstar.com. We’ve been dissed by the talk-radio brigade, slammed by Drudge and rumor has it, even CBS is planning a fictitious, four-part miniseries based on all the events that have transpired in the last two weeks. However, let us take the time to say that everything you’ve heard about us in the past couple of weeks is not true. It’s all lies, rumors and innuendo, and the company is innocent of all charges.

In short, we did not hire any illegal aliens to work at Pollstar.com.

But that’s not to say we haven’t hired any legal aliens. In fact, some of our best concert researchers, like the ones who assembled the schedules for Pink and Starsailor, are legally in this country. For example, our head of nuclear research and tour-bus design, Mr. Carpenter, has been with us since the 1950s. And even though his thick accent is sometimes difficult to understand, he’s always on top of all the major tours, like Shania Twain and that Limp Bizkit / Korn co-headline. However, we will admit he’s a little strange, mostly because he’s always wandering the hallways at night muttering “Klaatu barada nikto.”

Of course, our shop foreman can get on your nerves at times, but he’s an excellent Christmas radio show investigator, having successfully figured out the line ups for The 98 KUPD Big Red XMas Show, The Night 89X Stole Christmas and 92.3 Xtreme’s A Nitemare Before X-Mas, and always shouts out “Nanu-Nanu” whenever he comes across another event. However, his wife Mindy proudly attests to the fact that his papers are in order.

Then there are the other, foreign-born workers in our company. Like the head of our concert industry logic department. Sure, he doesn’t have a first name and sports an unbelievable set of pointed ears. But an illegal alien? No way. In fact, his identity card is as green as his skin. Although, we do have to admit, his sullen, no-nonsense manner does raise an eyebrow or two.

There are others: “Uncle” Martin in groupie distribution, Professor Dick Solomon in the roadie tool-belt research department, even that intern with the muscles, Clark something-or-other, who looks no different than any other small-town kid from Kansas. But make no mistake about it. They are all legal aliens, and they work damn hard to bring good Americans like yourself the latest dates for Mad Caddies, In The Grey and Agnostic Front. The bottom line is, you will find no illegal aliens working at Pollstar.com.

Besides, as everyone knows, dollar for dollar, you just can’t compete with Wal-Mart.