Hello again from Dana & Carl and THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO. Technical problems prevented us from doing a show this week; in fact, the webcast is still down at this writing, but we hope to have it working in time for Sunday night's show. In the mean time, however, we need to jump-start another major fundraiser, and we'll start by apologizing for it; believe me, we're not pleased about coming to you once again with tin cup in hand, particularly so soon after the desperate appeal to save TIRnRR at the end of last year. Rest assured, we wouldn't bother you if it weren't important. Lemme tell ya 'bout it.... At the beginning of this year, we and the other webcasters formerly affiliated with Syracuse Community Radio split from SCR to form a separate webcasting group, Westcott Radio. The money donated by you effectively paid for our divorce from SCR, as we bought the studio equipment and politely told SCR to take a hike. SCR no longer had a webcast, nor any music programming; Westcott Radio had the webcast and the programmers, but no on-air broadcast signal. Which is part of the reason why we're puttin' the ol' band back together. After further internal shakeups, DANA has become the president of Syracuse Community Radio. While Westcott Radio will remain a separate entity from SCR, we hope to eventually provide programming for SCR. And, for the first time ever, SCR is poised to secure a stronger FM signal, allowing its programming to finally be heard ON THE RADIO throughout Syracuse and the surrounding area. Let's hear from Dana: Imagine this, you are drinking your morning cup of coffee, you open the paper and see this headline: “FCC gives local group permission to build Syracuse's newest radio station.” Sounds intriguing, doesn't it, sounds impossible you think, but this could come true. In fact, it could become a reality sooner than you think and all we need to make it happen is a little help from you. In October of this year, just a few short months from now, Syracuse Community Radio (SCR) will be applying for a chance to build a new radio station in Syracuse. Not only for Syracuse and Onondaga county, but for portions of Oswego, Cortland, Cayuga, and Madison counties. SCR has been working with a professional engineer from Brown Broadcast Services Inc.(BBS) in Portland, Oregon for the past several months in preparation for this chance. For the first time in seven years, the FCC has opened up a window of opportunity for small grassroots organizations like us to apply for these frequencies and we don't know when the next such opportunity will present itself, it may be a decade or more before that happens. So the time is now for us to seize this rare opportunity to do something new, positive and fresh for the city, county and CNY. “How can I help?” you ask, well let me tell you. There are many ways that you can help out. First and not least, send us money, to put it bluntly. I know a lot of groups are asking for your hard earned cash these days and it may not seem the most glamorous way to help us but it is one of the most important ways you can help us. The bottom line is this, we need money to make this happen, and the magic number we need is right now is $3,500 to submit this application, well, not entirely true, we have already paid BBS $800 towards the $3,500, so we still need $2,700. I know it may not seem like a large amount, but as a non-profit 501c3 tax-exempt organization, we exist mainly off the nickels and dimes of working class folk like you, and that's a lot of soda cans to return. But you can make a difference with as little as a $10 or $20 donation. We hope you can give more and we know you work hard for it, but every little bit helps, no matter what the size of the contribution. Now, a large part of THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO's webcast audience is certainly outside the Central New York area, and would not seem to benefit directly from the FM signal. But anything that gets decent rockin' pop music on the air ANYwhere is a worthy goal in my book, so we're asking you to give whatever you can. We've even got some cheap, homemade crap to offer as: INCENTIVES!! First off, anyone who sends in a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION for any amount will be entered into our Who Needs Dana & Carl Sweepstakes, with one randomly-drawn winner given the chance to program all of the music for a future episode of THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO. There are practical limitations--no profanity, nothing that violates station policy and, of course, we have to actually have on-hand copies of the songs you want us to play--but it's otherwise an opportunity for one of you to call the shots for an installment of The Best Three yadda yadda Friggin' Planet. 1. For anyone donating at least $20: you will receive an exclusive CD-R of rockin' pop obscurities from my collection (and no overlap with the similar CD-R offered in our last fundraiser), plus your choice of any one of the following: a) a DVD-R of RADIOVISION, the legendary (as in legendarily HORRIBLE) one-hour public access cable TV special hosted by Dana & Carl back in the early '90s. We must be pretty dedicated to this fundraiser if we're willing to let folks see this abomination, which you can use to blackmail us if we ever become famous. (As a bonus for those hardy souls who slog through this DVD, I've tacked on a bonus clip of THE DAVE CLARK 5 singing "Do You Love Me," apparently LIVE, which is a true rarity among DC5 clips.) b) a CD-R of the beta version of our first compilation CD, THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO, VOLUME 1. This is an unmastered copy, with a different running order, fewer songs and more between-song bits by Dana & Carl (in an atempt to emulate THE WHO SELL OUT), but including TWO songs that were not on the official release. c) a double CD-R of one of our old shows (from back when we only recorded the first 2 1/2 hours of each week's show for subsequent playback, with the final 1/2 hours lost to posterity). 2. Anyone donating $30 or more will receive ALL of the above. 3. Anyone donating $40 or above will receive another double CD-R of an additional old TIRnRR show, plus ANOTHER old show for each additional $10 increment donated. 4. Anyone donating $50 or above will also receive an exclusive DVD-R of pop video obscurities from my collection. No idea what'll be on this one, but I'll try to pull something interesting outta the archives. Granted, no one's gonna donate just to get these cheap incentives, but I hope you'll find them a reasonably cool thank-you gift for your contribution to the TIRnRR cause. Here are the bottom-line details: Your donation to Syracuse Community Radio is 100 % TAX-DEDUCTIBLE. The FCC filing deadline is imminent, so we need money fast; the deadline for your contributions is October 1, 2007. Make your check out to SYRACUSE COMMUNITY RADIO, but mail it to me: Carl Cafarelli, 5540 Taormina Drive, Clay, NY 13041. We can do PAYPAL also, but contact me first. Once again, we apologize for the tin cup, and hope not to have to bother you again for a while. Even when we're groveling for dollars, this still ain't no SPAM, so let us know if you need to be deleted from our weekly greetings. And here's hoping that more folks will soon get to hear what rock 'n' roll radio sounds like on a Sunday night in Syracuse each week. ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour