Today begins the on-air pledging portion of WEMU 89.1FM‘s fundraising efforts. If you’re one of those WUOM people, you can just move along, but if you do enjoy the best jazz and blues on local radio, then this plea is for you.

Last year when I did my turn answering phones, only six of you cheap bastards called up to pledge. And realistically, none of you reading this now were among those six. That’s okay though. Here’s your chance to atone for your past transgressions.

If you call up WEMU on Sunday night between the hours of 7PM and 10PM and plege at least $25, I’ll match it with $25. That is to say, if you pledge $200, I’m still only matching $25.

In order to figure out who is meeting this secret pledge, we’ll need a code phrase. I had originally thought of asking people to say “I want to make sweet, sweet love to Michael Jewett,” but I figured that would be too embarrassing for some people and limit the number of pledges. In addition, if someone only used one sweet instead of two, I wouldn’t want to invalidate someone’s pledge over a technicality. I then thought that “Thayrone is my favorite on-air personality” would be cool, but again, that’s liable to get me banned from the station too.

In the end, I’ve decided that after you pledge, you should request a song. After coughing up your credit card number, when the operator asks you if there is anything you’d like to add, say “I would like to request ‘Good-bye Pork Pie Hat’ by Rahsaan Roland Kirk.” This song will be our little code.

I don’t want to make this more difficult than it should be, but I said Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Not Charles Mingus. Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

I can’t promise anything, but if you sing a couple lines of it, I may even up your thank you gift from a mug to day sponsorship or something.

Don’t let me down. Lester Young is counting on you.