Tuesday, 1.13, 2:15 pm: Between public GoFundMe and private Venmo, the Cannes/Venice campaign has raised $2500 after four days…certainly a good start. But that’s only about 30% of the target goal ($8K), and the pace of accumulation feels a wee bit sluggish compared to last year and the year before.
True, there’s plenty of time to get there — 2026 has barely begun — but I’d ideally like to see this campaign come to a happy conclusion by, say, this time next month, or certainly by March 1st. (Wouldn’t you if you were in my position?)
I’m looking to raise $4K per festival or $8K total. Rent, air fare, train fare, low-rent meals, cappucinos, baguettes, etc.
Please remember that I’m not “begging” for dough, as a few haters have claimed. I’m simply attempting to attract donations in a different, far less draining manner than the monthly method used by other webzines and columnists. I’m just asking for a one-off gimmee of $25 or $50 and whatever feels right. HE stopped paywalling this site a couple of years ago, and so the regularly refreshed content is entirely free and wide open, and this — this! — is the only pitch I’m making.
I’ve shed buckets of spiritual blood for this site over the last 21 and 1/2 years. Buckets.
Again, $25 or $50…. whatever’s affordable. Oh, and if you’d rather keep your donation anonymous, please send it to my Venmo account — @gruver56.
Special offer to haters: No name-brand Hollywood columnist has had more darts, steak knives and horse manure flung in his/her direction over the last eight years or so. (Except for poor Sasha Stone — she’s been taking it in the neck since the summer of ’24.) I’ve been routinely shot with thousands upon thousands of sharp arrows by woke fanatics, and boy, do they lay it on! If there are such places as heaven and hell, the HE haters, trust me, will be roasting on a spit in the immediate wake of their demise. This, therefore, is their chance to free their souls. One decent donation and I, for what it’s worth, will offer a measure of charitable forgiveness in the usual…uhm, saintly, turn-the-other-cheek way. The haters may roast anyway because of other (many?) transgressions, but HE-wise their consciences will be clean.