May/June 2007 Issue

Traffic and Weather

Fountains of Wayne. <i>Virgin</i>. They’re not quite John Cheever or Alice Munro, but Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood are the closest thing in rock and roll to great short-story writers.

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They’re not quite John Cheever or Alice Munro, but Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood are the closest thing in rock and roll to great short-story writers. Throwing Beatles-esque rock, synth-pop, country, and you-name-it into the stylistic blender, the irresistible Traffic and Weather captures the quiet desperation and occasional triumphs of ordinary people, including the lonely guy hitting on a clerk at the dmv, the Long Island waitress who flees to Europe on a whim, and the cheerful pothead subsisting on Doritos and Oliver Stone movies. Schlesinger and Collingwood prefer dry, understated vocals that wisely shrug off melodrama, realizing that their indelible character studies don’t need a hard sell.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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