This past Tuesday I volunteered to help with the phones during Tom Scharpling's Best Show On WFMU marathon pledge drive. This was week two of FMU's Marathon.
I had a blast. Being a long time listener to The Best Show and WFMU in general,
it was a great thrill for me. The vibe in the phone room was great.
Tom's ladyfriend Jillian Barberie handed out sailor caps with FOT (Friends Of Tom) emblazoned on them, to all of us in the phone room.
Tom had dressed as a yacht captain like Ted Knight in Caddy Shack so we were all his crew.
The captain of the good ship Best Show, Mr Tom Scharpling.
I was sitting next to Tom's Associate Producer Mike during the show. He was a really great guy. At one point Mike tried to get a caller to up his pledge from $50 to $75. This way the caller could get the shows fantastic premiums. Try as he might the caller wouldn't budge.
That's Mike taking a call.
I took about five calls. The room was set up with 9 phones. The calls came in to the phones on a rotation so when phone number one was busy phone number two would ring and so on. The lower number phones got most of the action. I was on phone number 8.
That's my phone.
Most of the pledges came in through the web. A computer was set up at the end of the phone table and it would play an old fashioned phone ring whenever a pledge came through and then a pledge card was printed to be counted and read over the air.
The oddest call I got was from one of John Hodgman's Twitter followers. John Hodgman was one of the guests on the show that night. You may know him as the PC guy on Mac commercials or his work on the Daily Show.
The caller wanted to speak to John because John left a tweet to call WFMU's number, but he didn't know what that was. He had no money to pledge but he wanted to speak to John so I oblidged. John apologized to the guy for not being more specific. He got his Twitter follower to plege $5 which was below the $15 minimum but what the hey. Every dollar counts in this crazy economy.
That's John talking to his Twitter follower.
There were some great guest in addition to John Hodgeman.
Paul F. Tompkins from VH1's Best Week Ever, Ted Leo and Aimee Mann.
Ted and Aimee performed together as did Paul and Aimee. Everyone joined in at the shows grand finale of Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight."
In the end the show collected over $62,000 in 3 hours and over $123,000 for the two marathon shows. At this point WFMU is more than halfway to it's goal of 1.2 million dollars. Let's hope they get there.Call in your support.
In this age of corporate control of most media it is most important that WFMU survive.
Here are more pictures from inside the phone room.
Terre T
Paul F. Tomkins
Paul and John with Tom on the air.
Ted Leo and Aimee Mann performing through the "submarine" studio glass.
One of the altered album covers decorating the walls of the phone room.
Tom Scharpling on his feet for the entire show.
Martin who came all the way from Sweden to be at the Best Show marathon. John Hodgman taking a call.
PFT with Tom on the air.
Me again with AP Mike having the time off my life.
Tom singing along to the grand finale of "Someone Saved My Life Tonight."
The home of WFMU in Jersey City.
Apologies for the lousy quality of the photos. They were all taken with my Nokia 3555 cell phone
