I never heard of “rockrolling” till the other day, when my neighbor Kerry Prep sent me an e-mail. Kerry runs a very creative singing-telegram business around the NYC area, doing many of the deliveries himself – he’s an accomplished singer/actor/musician.

As Kerry explains:

I got a call two days ago to go to a location in NYC and sing a late-80′s number from from an artist named Rick Astley. The song is Never Gonna Give You Up, an “infectious”, upbeat, campy song. There was no explanation as to WHY I had to do this. I was just told to show up to this company, walk in on a meeting, and sing to a specific person. Without understanding what was right in front of me, I was given the YouTube link to check out the song. I admit I was a little stunned that this clip had over seven million hits. Another clip of him singing the same song had over five million hits.
At first I thought I was being set-up, so I called back the client and asked for more information. He just said, “We were recently ‘rolled’ by this guy and we want to get back at him”. Still blissfully ignorant, I said, “Oh, OK” and went on my way to make the delivery, which apparently was a big hit. The guy was shocked and the group at the meeting joined me in singing for the last half.

Here is a clip of Kerry making the delivery. His e-mail continues:

Two days later (today), I get a call from some woman at Wireless Flash News, an internet news agency that provides pop culture news to TV, radio stations, newspapers, and magazines throughout the world. She asked me if I was aware of my delivery being disseminated on YouTube and the 30,000 hits it had already received in two days.
I had no clue. I asked her to explain the inside joke, which she promptly did. See the Wikipedia explanation.
On top of that, I received two calls from England today asking if I could do it there. Sure … just pay for my flight!
It’s the “Gotcha” game for the new millennium! Tag, you’re it! My advice to Kerry is, to grab a hold of this one as it flits by. There are transient pop-cult phenomena, and then there are really transient pop-cult phenomena.