Economic Troubles Trickling Down to DJs, Up to U2

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mojo-photo-downarrow.jpgThis is what I get for gloating. I was just reassuring my family that my work area, DJing and various audio production gigs, is so specialized that it’s generally immune from economic ups and downs. Plus, holidays can be good for DJs, and I typically pick up a couple well-paying gigs for company holiday shindigs. I’d already booked a few, but I just got this e-mail:

To: partyben@yahoo.com

From: [person at event planning company]

Subject: URGENT: [company] Holiday Party

It is with regret we advise you that [company] has cancelled their holiday event scheduled for [date]. We were really looking forward to it, but due to the current economic conditions, it couldn’t be helped.

Things are so bad out there that our workplaces’ annual celebrations of Jesus are being scrubbed, putting our nation’s, uh, guys who are willing to throw on “Play That Funky Music White Boy” when the trashed sales exec demands you play it, out of work? Wow, this is a real recession!

After the jump: Bono feels my pain!

It turns out, though, that I’m not alone in my suffering: a group of investors including the band U2 has been forced to shelve their plans for a 350-foot skyscraper in central Dublin. The mixed-use building would have been Ireland’s tallest, and was to house a new recording studio for Bono in some sort of ridiculous, egg-shaped construction perched on top.

The Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) said on Friday it had suspended negotiations over the tower for up to 12 months due to uncertainty in the property and financial markets. “The objective is to see this landmark project completed,” the DDDA said in a statement. “However, given the current unfavourable economic environment, more time is needed at this juncture.”

Okay, this all looks pretty bad, but you’ll know things have really gotten scary when Kanye suspends recording his new album to focus on the economy.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist 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 need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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