Omigod! I’m famous! OK, not really.
Self-proclaimed tireless anti-spam litigator Mark Mumma has posted clips he filmed of his infamous interview with this newsletter on YouTube. Yeah, it was a phone call. Yeah, he filmed it. Don’t ask me. I just report it.
Some quick background: A jury earlier this month awarded vacation marketer Omega World Travel $2.5 million in its defamation suit against Mumma. Though the figure will probably be significantly reduced, the decision was a devastating blow to a man who claims on LinkIn.com that he is aiming to be “America’s First Anti-Spam Czar.”
I keep thinking I should lay off Mumma, but he’s funny and he makes my job easier.
Mumma claims his YouTube videos blast holes in the way his failing legal crusade against commercial e-mail has been portrayed in this newsletter. He also says they shred an interview conducted here in February in which Mumma went ballistic, called me gay in a pathetic attempt at insult, and told me to have fun in prison, among other things.
During the interview, Mumma admitted that he knew someone registered his e-mail address with Omega World Travel subsidiary Cruise.com, yet he refused repeated opportunities to settle with Omega and continued his ill-fated legal battle with the travel company.
Now, Mumma is claiming that he had no idea I was a reporter when he responded to my e-mail requesting a call. Though the e-mail identified me as a reporter in the first line, Mumma claims the message came through truncated.
As a result, the YouTube videos are named “The Magill Ambush” parts one and two.
The Magill Ambush? But Mumma filmed himself making the call. Who was trying to ambush whom here? Did he think I was some random guy with an interest in his lawsuit? Not likely. Does Mumma film all his calls? I hope not.
More likely, Mumma tried to spring a trap and ended up getting his self-righteous rear end caught in it, and now he’s doing damage control.
As of this writing, there are two short clips of Mumma’s infamous interview with Magilla Marketing on YouTube with promises of more to come. The first is a three-minute snippet of the beginning of the call—pretty dull.
The second one shows Mumma making a rambling point that makes little sense without the preceding conversation while “Don’t Bring Me Down” by the Electric Light Orchestra plays in the background.
ELO? Does 70s/80s arena rock get any lamer than ELO? Oops, I almost forgot about Styx. Maybe Mumma will score the next clip with “Mr. Roboto.”
Neither video is additive. Mumma simply shows himself talking on the phone with the context edited out.
He doesn’t make a single point in the videos that he hasn’t already made. All he does is reveal more of who he truly is. Here is a link to the videos: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ken+magill&search=Search
Don’t bother with the top video labeled: “What if Spammers got Awards.” It is simply a repeat of a Saturday Night Live skit, and we all know SNL hasn’t been remotely funny in a very, very long time.
