Yeah, we know it’s irritating. All that yelling and cursing. All that pounding on our backdoor, while you try to look up the latest dates for Green Day or Motley Crue. But don’t blame it on us. After all, we’ve tried to stop the noise. We’ve tried to put a lid on all the racket and clatter, but, try as we might, a certain person just won’t give it up and go home. So, don’t blame us if it gets a little loud out there. After all, it’s not our fault.

Instead, blame it on last night’s Academy Awards.

As you already know, many years ago Pollstar.com was selected to monitor the Oscar vote tallies. Sure, the Academy still has that accounting firm adding up the votes for Oscar, but after Raging Bull lost best picture to Ordinary People in 1981, it was decided that some extra computing power was needed to ensure that this year’s awards were on the up and up. And who better to watch the people who count the votes for Tinsel Town’s greatest awards show than the folks who spend each day counting upcoming shows for Alicia Keys, Elvis Costello and LeAnn Rimes?

But it wasn’t easy. For the past month we’ve had to deal with the concert industry AND Hollywood. We’ve had to persuade promoters to give us information for Rodney Crowell, while, at the same time, do lunch with Martin Scorsese or dine with Clint Eastwood. We had to sort out routing schedules for Umphrey’s McGee and Tori Amos while going to wine-tasting events with the producers of Sideways. In fact, for the past month we’ve done nothing but plug in dates for acts like Toby Keith, Sting and Slipknot, while people like Johnny Depp, Leonardo Di Caprio and Jamie Fox kept sending us gifts and buying us drinks in hopes that we would send a little Oscar love their way.

But it didn’t work. As tour date specialists, we’re immune to bribery, as well as threats against our personal wellbeing. Sure, we can accept a gift now and then, like the diamond-studded Rolex that Hilary Swank gave us last week, or the solar-powered Mercedes that Kate Winslet gifted us with last Friday. But when it comes down to influencing the Oscar results, we’re no more capable of fudging the numbers than we’re capable of making up dates for Neil Diamond or Elton John. Just like the concert industry iself, we stand for honesty and integrity, and we’d never sink so low that we’d give someone an Oscar advantage just because some actor or director gave us a little trinket like two weeks in Hawaii, all expenses paid.

But some people just don’t get it, and there’s always someone banging on our door the day after the Academy Awards. Someone cursing a blue streak as to how we “could be so stupid,” or someone threatening to “carve us a new one,” if we didn’t recount the Oscar votes. Which is why we’re faced with all that yelling, cursing and pounding at our backdoor. But just ignore it. Instead, immerse yourself in the tour schedules for R.E.M., Rick Springfield and Laurie Anderson, and pay no attention to the racket at our backdoor. We’ve learned from experience that it won’t last for long. That no one can keep up that noise forever.

But, you gotta admit, that Michael Moore sure can raise a ruckus.