Don’t Ask Me to Explain. You Just Have to See This Photo of Macaulay Culkin.


(Knock knock)

“Who’s there?”

“Pizza.”

“Pizza who?”

“Pizza-themed Velvet Underground cover band Pizza Underground.”

“What?”

“I said, we’re Pizza Underground. We’re a…hey, can you hear me through this thing? Look, maybe you should open the door.”

“No, no, I can hear you fine. Did you say you were a pizza-themed cover band?”

“A pizza-themed Velvet Underground cover band, yes. Have you heard of the Velvet Underground?”

“And what are you selling?”

“Well, nothing, really. I mean, I guess technically we’re selling pizza-themed Velvet Underground cover songs.”

“I think you have the wrong house.”

“No, look, you know Macaulay Culkin?”

“My family is just sitting down to dinner. I really don’t have time for this.”

“Macaulay Culkin? The actor? Home Alone, The Good Son? You know him?”

“Yes, I know of Macaulay Culkin.”

“He’s with us! He’s in the band.”

“Please. I don’t want to have to call the police.”

“No, look, I’m going to slide this photo under the door, ok? (slides photo under door) You see that? That’s a photo of Macaulay Culkin wearing a shirt with a picture of Ryan Gosling wearing a shirt with a picture of Macaulay Culkin on it.”

“Now does that not blow your mind?”

“Sir?”

“Sir??”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, it blows my mind.

“OK…OK! Now we’re cooking with fire! So, how about it, friend? You want to open the door and let us in? It’s freezing out here.”

“Yeah…yeah, OK. (begins unlocking door) Honey, could you make up some more spots at the table? A pizza-themed Velvet Underground cover band is going to be joining us for dinner…Don’t ask me to explain. You just have to see this photo of Macaulay Culkin.”

The End.

(via Bullett Media)

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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