With Sunday's release of the long-awaited (by some, not all) Guns N' Roses album, Chinese Democracy, Dr Pepper will make good on its promise of a free Dr Pepper for everyone in America. Starting at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday November 23rd, Dr Pepper, for 24 hours, will offer a coupon on its website for a free 20-oz. soda. Will getting a $1.50 soda for free make spending $10 to $15 on a CD from a Hughesian, irrelevant, washed-up rocker a little easier to take in these hard economic times? Probably not. You could always do what you were probably going to do anyway and just download the damn thing for free from a torrent site. But be careful; it seems Axl needs all the money you could possibly give him and he may have you arrested for that! I vote for taking the Dr Pepper $1.50 economic stimulus package and not even bothering with Chinese Democracy.
Look deep inside yourself.
Search your feelings.
Do you really even care about Guns N' Roses anymore?
I didn't think so.
UPDATE 12/2/08
From CNN.com
So many GN'R fans — and, no doubt, fans of free stuff in general — tried to get the coupon that they choked the site and it crashed. Disgruntled and downright ticked off, some blamed the band.
"When you go on the blogs and you read the responses from the fans, they associated Axl with this promotion … and blame him for the fact that they didn't get their free soda," said GN'R lawyer Laurie Soriano.
Really? Really? People are getting pissed off about not being able to get a free Dr Pepper? And Axl Rose is coming to their rescue? Maybe his attorney will have one of those class action lawsuit ads running on latenight basic cable next week. Maybe the economy is worse than we all thought. Maybe GN'R is slumming for any press they can get for this very lackluster album. Maybe people really love Dr Pepper that much.
What makes this all the more amusing is CNN's fine writing. Really.
That's when GN'R became GN'RN'L. Soriano fired off a letter to Dr P. No one is LOL.
Our Copy Editor was miffed at Rick Reilly yesterday for his eloquent prose ("xanaxed ferret" is already taken as a band name), but I think Kareen Wynter at CNN is giving him a run for his money.
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 2, 2008.
