November 13, 2020

Don’t Fear Friday the 13th or Steve Buscemi

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Looming disaster and imminent peril get all the love, but there’s a stack of good news in today’s archives: It was Friday the 13th when Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins recorded “Friday the 13th” in 1953. An eerie start: Rollins was delayed by a car accident, and trumpeter Ray Copeland fell sick, so Julius Watkins filled in. The 10-minute jam was written on the spot, and it was one of Rollins’ most fulfilling collaborations. Full track here; Monk’s solo here.

It was Friday the 13th when Evelyn Brier became the first woman to receive an airplane instructor’s license. And Friday the 13th when President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order banning gender discrimination in federal employment.

And Friday the 13th when Super Mario Bros. entered the world, and Steve Buscemi entered the world. Beyond bloodbaths Fargo, Reservoir Dogs, and The Sopranos, Steve’s good! He was a firefighter in New York City in the ’80s. One day after 9/11, he volunteered with his old firehouse to work 12-hour shifts digging through rubble in search of missing firefighters. “Very few photographs and no interviews exist because he declined them. He wasn’t there for the publicity,” a firefighter community wrote in solidarity. Ten years later, he joined protests against firehouse closures under Mayor Bloomberg and has supported labor rights on a firefighters’ advisory board.

The first dinosaur eggs were discovered on Friday the 13th.

NASA announced water on the moon on Friday the 13th.

World Kindness Day was Friday the 13th last year.

Share a word about kindness shown to you or by you at recharge@motherjones.com. And if today bellies up and Steve Buscemi knocks at your door, there’s always Saturday the 14th, unless you answer that door.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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