Octobers tend to get expensive for me, mostly because I’m a sucker for charities … and radiothons. I LOVE radiothons, and someday I hope to have enough listeners over at Indy In-Tune Radio to hold one of my own … even though I don’t like taking money from fans. My favorite radiothon, which occurs every October is over on Radio Teesdale. My love of, and bizarre ancestral calling to, the Yorkshire Dales is documented in a couple of other blog posts. Last year I tried to pledge, but the form kept rejecting (or at least refusing to covert) American dollars to British pounds, so I settled for buying a coffee mug and a couple of pens. This ended up having the same effect as pledging to public broadcasting (at least the way it works here in the US), since after currency conversion, fees tacked on for conversion, shipping, handling and such, one £4.00 coffee mug and two ball point pens ended up costing me a little over $30. It was well worth it, but it squelched my goal of building an international radio swag collection.
What I find amusing is that, at the exact same time our friends in the UK are having a really awesome fundraisers with lots of fascinating special guests, quirky fun tracks, and a , meanwhile over on this side of the pond, NPR is foregoing coverage of the impending election, the current debates, and you know, generally informative stuff in order to play their favorite game. “Give us $2000 in the next hour or our in-studio guests — a couple of boring, tight-assed lawyers from the firm of Anderson Bruford Wakeman and Howe — will kill this kitten!!!”
Two more quick ones to bring up: In the runner-up slot for the October drive for Darrin’s spare change goes to my good friend Jack Barkley of Whoa!Tiger with his ingenious tactic of getting me to donate to the Juvenile Diabetes Walk by publicly thanking me on my Facebook wall for my generous donation … which I made two years ago. Yeah, like I can ignore him now. And finally, in the honorable mention slit, Katie Trotta, who persuaded me to join her kickstarter campaign by … well … being Katie.
