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Tiny Andrew Collings has got on the case to attempt to promote the tantalisingly close AIOTM kickstarter. Listen here or on iTunes (it's on the RHLSTP and AIOTM feeds). With time on my hands today I managed to coerce over 100 people into donating by giving a fact about the year that the current number of backers equated to. I was hoping to get at least to 2000 (having started in 1888) and possibly have to start predicting the future if it got to 2017. I mainly concentrated on stories where there had been massive loss of life, in the hope I could make some sense of those needless deaths by getting people to donate a small amount of money to a seemingly unconnected internet comedy series.
But here were some of my personal highlights of he odyssey
1898 Caleb Bradham names his soft drink Pepsi-Cola. (gets in trouble as already a soft drink called that - with apologies to Simon Munnery)
Not looking forward to 1914, not much happened then, though the first steps were made in the formation of Franz Ferdinand.
1915 poison gas used for the 1st time on large scale, but it was too cold so it didn't work. Bah!
1926 Rudolph Valentino died. They named both a reindeer and Valentine's Day after him
1928 20 Mickey Mouses died filming versions of Steamboat Willy, the 21st, Mortimer Mouse survived to become the star we know today
1929 Vladimir Zworykin takes out the first patent for color television - the idiot it wasn't even invented yet. And it's spelled colour.
1934 March 20 – The Great Hakodate Fire kills at least 2,166 people in southern Hokkaido, Japan. COME ON. Can you sit back and do nothing?
1945 Hitler snuffed it and everyone learned never to vote in fascists ever again...
1966 my dad did a sexcrement up my mum and created me.
1967 Kurt Cobain was born. A surprise for my mum and dad who were expecting me
1980 Estelle was born. Didn't need wikipedia
To be fair it was the year that God made her, implying she might not have been born but crafted from clay.
1981 June 27 – The first game of paintball is played in Henniker, New Hampshire. PJ or Duncan is blinded in it.
1989 Estelle started to get by
1999 Estelle started to write rhymes and probably thought she was the Fresh Prince. Man that took a long time to pay off.
And just before I fell asleep we got to 2016, which seemed apt. This year's fact was
2016 As It Occurs to me fails to get made by 1p
It was a great effort by all concerned and according to kicktraq for today at least we more or less raised the £4,500 that we need to take on a daily basis now to hit the target. I thought this was all down and out and I think there's still a good distance to go and we'll almost certainly require a couple of billy big-balls or Vanessa vast-vaginas to stump up £5000 for an episode sponsor, but we might just do this. Though I feel I may have to walk the thing over the line with some hard work on social media
We should hit two third of the way with approximately 2100 backers, so I am guess we're going to need about another 1100 people to get on board in the final week. Not impossible and there's certainly a large untapped market of listeners out there, but certainly not a certainty. Spread the word if you can and give a little or a lot if you want to see this thing made.
It's terrific if people who pay for monthly badges want to chip in too, but you've already done your bit and your money will be going towards this project too. And I personally won't be receiving any of this kickstarter money. I know it sounds like a lot, but it's really not for making six videoed episodes. Even with a lot of good will from actors and crew we're going to have to stretch that money a long way to make the shows that I want to make. I want to make something that will be able to compete with TV shows in terms of quality (in terms of the way it looks, can't make the scripts that good obvs). Some of you just want an audio AIOTM I know, but I am not really interested in retreading old ground. I am prepared to do six months of work for free (in all probability) as I think this could be an important step forward for the possibilities of autonomous online work. But I am afraid I am not doing well enough to spend £100,000 of my own money on this too. And wouldn't it be great if three or four thousand people giving a reasonably small amount were able to make this happen?
Here's where to donate.
