If I was that smart I'd be rich

For those of you who don’t live in Eastern New York, Alan Chartock is the President and CEO of WAMC, our local NPR affiliate. I’m a huge fan of WAMC, don’t know what I’d do without Garrison Keillor and All Things Considered, but Chartock is one of the few things I don’t like about the station. He’s most impressed with himself, has an annoying voice, and from the number of programs he either hosts or participates in, loves to hear the sound of it.

Say what you want about him, but he’s either a marketing genius or he’s sold his soul to the devil.

I don’t know how he and his team does it, but for the last few years, every fund drive the station holds just happens to coincide with some event guaranteed to galvanize every liberal with a checkbook 100 miles outside of the sound of that whiny, wheedling voice.

When Mario Cuomo, beloved 4-term democratic governor of New York (beloved toward the end only, I believe, out of nostalgia and for his impassioned oratory for The Way Things Should Be, for at the time the state’s financial system was going down in flames), lost to Republican challenger George Pataki, it just happened to be right before a fund drive. Pledges in Cuomo’s honor rained, no, poured upon the station, coupled with fears Chartock whipped up that now with a Republican at the helm, the enemy would soon be at the gate to cut their funding. Volunteers could barely keep up with the callers, and it was one of the fastest fund drives in the station’s history.

When Paul Wellstone was tragically killed in a plane crash, it just happened to be right before a fund drive. And the pledges cascaded in. “They are surely going to take over now,” Chartock said.

Now he’s got a doozy planned. The next Pledge Week (at the beginning of February) is slated to correspond with the Arlen Spector hearings, which want to investigate whether or not Bush undermined the constitution with his wiretaps. But…to allow the station to air the hearings at all, a certain pledge quota must be made each night. Not enough money pulled in by morning, and the station couldn’t run the hearings. Chartock has been airing service announcements about this for a few days, so that you have an opportunity to get your pledges in early, through the station’s web site.

Brilliant. This is absolutely brilliant. Not only do I NOT have to listen to Chartock talking and pleading his way all the way through yet another fund drive (and threatening to yodel, which he does when the phones get slow), but the station is guaranteed to make a lot of money, which might even keep the Metropolitan Opera on the air.

For the opera fans among us (even though I learned all my arias from Bugs Bunny), for Garrison Keillor and something to balance out the growing weight of conservative radio, in the interest of keeping all opinions in the public ear, keep those pledges coming.

Now if I could only figure out a way to market myself as cleverly. Perhaps I can choose the most dour times of year – income tax deadline looming, the day we set the clocks back, that one week in February when it’s been snowing for ten days in a row and you can’t bear to put on the coat and scarf and boots one more time..and have my own Pledge Drive! Buy my books (when I get them published) and laugh a little!

Hey…it could work. Now if I could only get my hands on a few dozen phones and some volunteers….