Hi everyone this is Erica. Today a special show all about money and shilling

for it it's kind of like my very own one-man pledge drive except it's only

going to be about six minutes long and there are survivor songs in it and there's no

phone bank and I have really really good prizes which I'll tell you about in a minute.

Before I go on I want to thank again all the people who have made donations to this

show already. You are in Ludlovermont in Lincoln Nebraska, you're in San Diego and Austin, Barry, and Melbourne, Australia.

These donations fund this show, but they also let me know that you're out there and that

you're listening, and I swear to God it's a little

like a soundtrack plays in my head when these donations come in and that soundtrack

is a little bit like Rocky the first one when he's running up the stairs. But then I heard the pledge drive on my local

public radio station and I thought I'm going to do that, do a little consolidated shilling.

And when you donate to my show, you know that the money is going straight to the

production of this show, which includes a few things.

First, it's gas from my car and an occasional oil change.

Most of my interviews are done in person, so I drive around a lot.

So the gas is one thing.

Then there's a bunch of boring computer and recording stuff that I need to own and maintain

But the very biggest thing that these donations buy is time

These donations give me the time to talk with people, to find new story ideas, to do a lot of interviewing, and to edit.

And editing is probably the biggest one.

By editing, I mean changing every blessed second of the raw interview, removing umms and aahs and likes, figuring out what's interesting in the tape and what order that it wants to go in and there's a whole part of

editing that involves weeping because I have no idea what I'm doing or I'll never

...