John Rogers, mensch

As most of you know, my cousin Scott was killed in Iraq last year. 

Scott's older brother, my cousin Mark, held a fundraiser in Scott's memory.  The money from this went to Fisher House, a charity that helps military families.

There's a guy named John Rogers who has a blog called Kung Fu Monkey.  John Rogers has done a lot of things.  He used to be a standup comic.  More recently, he's been a Hollywood screenwriter, working on movie scripts... some successful (Transformers) some less so (Catwoman).  More recently still, he's been writing the Blue Beetle comic book, which is pretty good if you like comic books.  Which I do.

Anyway: John announced a while back -- like, a year ago -- that he'd match contributions to Fisher House, dollar for dollar.  So when cousin Mark decided to do the fundraiser, I sent an e-mail to John and asked if he would match that.  He said he would.

Now, this was months ago; and, at the time, we didn't know how much Mark would raise.  I told John maybe five thousand dollars.

Meanwhile came the writers strike.  Maybe some of our non-American readers haven't heard about it... well, professional writers for movies and TV are on strike.  Have been since early November.  So, John hasn't had much income for the last three months, except for what he gets from writing the comic book.  Possibly he's sitting on a huge pile of cash, I really don't know, but still: the guy's been pretty much unemployed for a while, and he doesn't know when he'll be able to work again.  The strike could resolve tomorrow, or drag on for many months.  Even if you're flush, that's gotta make you thoughtful.

So yesterday cousin Mark e-mails me and tells me how much he ended up raising.  Mark's a hard-working guy, and he's really put some time in, and when the pennies are all counted the final figure is rather larger than $5,000.

So after some thought I send John Rogers an e-mail.  I hem and haw a little and basically say, look, this is more than you bargained for, and things have changed, so if you don't want to do the matching thing, that's cool.  Everyone will understand.

Got a response in about ten minutes: send the receipt.  He's matching the entire amount.

I don't really have a lot to add to this. 

Thank you, John Rogers.

Comments

[Will Baird]

He is a mensch. wow.

[Carlos]

It is possible that some not unknown shows are close to reaching agreements with their writers.

Not that I would know anything about writing or television or unions.

That guy Rogers must be from Wisconsin.