Happy Saturday, music nerds!

As those of you who’ve been following the music nerditude ’round here already know, I have been asked to serve as the Community Blogger on Classical music for this year’s GRAMMY^® Awards. I’ve been invited to the Salute to Classical event honoring Placido Domingo during GRAMMY Week, and hopefully I’ll even get to sneak into the Classical portion of the awards ceremony on January 31. It’s a great honor and a wonderful opportunity, but it’s also a bit of a white elephant gift, as I’m not receiving compensation or travel expenses — only the glory! 😉

But I couldn’t not go, right? So I went ahead and put a plane ticket on the ol’ credit card. I’ll be heading out to L.A. in just over a week, and I’ll need to cover car rental, meals and incidentals. (I’m fortunate to have friends and family I can stay with in the L.A. area, which will save on hotel expenses!)

So I am issuing a brazen appeaI to you, my fellow music nerds: if you believe that what I do is worthwhile, will you chip in 5 or 10 bucks to help send me to Hollywood? You can use the “donate” button on the right-hand sidebar of this page, or this here Paypal link. 😀

If you don’t wish to use Paypal, contact me for my mailing address, as I will gratefully accept checks!

My goal is $1,000, and I’m already 12% there, thanks to the kindness and generosity of several wonderful friends. There’s a week to go until I leave, so I think I can reach my goal, with your help!

I know times are hard financially for many people, and also, the timing of this is not great in light of the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Haiti. So I will donate 5% of anything I receive, but at least $50, to the relief effort. I will also tell you that McDoc is looking at taking a week off in February to go to Haiti as a medical volunteer; he has submitted his credentials to Partners in Health and is waiting to hear if they can use him. I’m very proud of him!

So, after you’ve donated what you can to the relief effort for Haiti, if it works for you to help out my admittedly far less serious cause, I will be most grateful. If not, no hard feelings! 😀