Macy’s 85th annual Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City had plenty to offer fans of 80s culture, starting with Neil Diamond singing his classic 80s hit, “America.” Diamond appeared on a float sponsored by the tourism department for South Dakota, & behind him on the float was a (much smaller) replica of Mount Rushmore. I thought he looked good, & sounded good as well! Glad to see him still able to knock out a powerful tune like that, & it was great to hear the song from “The Jazz Singer” on a frosty Thanksgiving morning in N.Y.C.

Chip Davis & his Mannheim Steamroller showed up on a float for Staples with a bunch of tap-dancing elves to promote their “Elf Yourself” website… did you recognize the “Deck The Halls” he was playing as being from one of the top five best-selling Christmas albums of all time? It was the 6x platinum, “Mannheim Steamroller Christmas,” released in 1984! Yet another 80s reference in the 2011 parade. (His 1988 Christmas release, A Fresh Aire Christmas, would do even better. You’ll hear tracks from both albums over the next few weeks on BlackLight Radio.)

I hesitate to bring this group up, but they DID have an 80s tie-in… this group of regular guys performing in their red jackets, powder-blue gym shorts, white sweatbands, white sport tube socks & gold tennis shoes, did a good but very funny dance routine to Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero” from the soundtrack to 1984′s “Footloose.” The 610 Stompers had even the air staff on NBC chuckling as they jumped, swayed, & gyrated to the high energy tune. Bonnie Tyler remade the song in 2004, & it has was covered by Ella Mae Bowen for the remake of “Footloose.”

Although the concept was originally created in 1958, the Smurfs didn’t make it to the United States until the 80s… and kids went smurfy for the Smurfs! With a new movie out this past summer preparing to release on DVD next week, it’s not a surprise Sony Pictures saw fit to include both a small float with a couple of smurf characters AND a balloon. “Clumsy Smurf” (which struck me as a VERY dangerous name for a parade balloon!) did a great job down the parade route, and the two live-action smurfs on the float in front were entertaining as well. Even if the movie WAS in 3D, it was nice to see a giant smurf smiling down on the parade attendees.

Kermit the Frog returned this year, and it’s another no-brainer: with the new Muppet movie hitting theaters this weekend, they wanted the exposure as well. As children of the 80s, we remember Kermit singing the Rainbow Connection from the original Muppet Movie. It hit the Hot 100 in the first part of 1980… so yes, we play Kermit The Frog (voiced by Muppets creator Jim Henson) singing Rainbow Connection occasionally! (So many of us grew up watching Sesame Street & other great PBS kids shows in the 70s that Kermit brings back great memories from our childhood, too.)

The Energizer Bunny also made an appearance this year as a “balloonicle,” which is a balloon / vehicle. The balloon IS the float. The Energizer Bunny was created in 1989 qualifying him as an 80s flashback. I found out a few days ago in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” video with Grant Imahara of Mythbusters fame, that Grant was the one who built the drum-beating bunny robot in the commercials! It takes 3 people to run the Energizer Bunny robot: 1 to steer, 1 to beat the drum & twirl the sticks, & the 3rd to handle head movements. No word on how many were required to drive the balloonicle…

All in all, a great parade… and more evidence that the 80s are not only being recognized by advertisers as the best way to get us to part with our money, but also that the 80s are being re-discovered by the current generation… a reason for all of us to give thanks!!!

Very cool news for fans of The Boss: his website reports a new tour of Europe and America coming in 2012, and a new album as well!

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band will tour Europe from the middle of May until the end of July and the exact dates are being announced this week. Info on the US dates & the World tour dates will reportedly be coming up shortly.

Bruce says the music for the new album is almost done and a release date has almost been picked… so it sounds like they almost have an album planned for release in 2012.

Rolling Stone Magazine says “don’t be surprised if he does a run of American arenas before going to Europe in May.”

The official Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band website is here, and you can read the Rolling Stone Magazine article right here..

It’s a very reasonable question: when you donate to BlackLight Radio, where does your donation go?

When you click the “donate” button in the right-hand column on the webpage, the money you send goes into our PayPal account. PayPal takes 2.9% plus $0.30 off the top of every donation, so your donation minus 2.9%, minus 30 more cents goes into the BlackLight Radio PayPal account.

The BlackLight Radio account is used STRICTLY for BlackLight Radio… nothing else. I’m not getting a cheeseburger out of the account, or buying DVDs at Amazon with it, or anything like that.

Four bills come out of the BlackLight Radio PayPal account:

#1 — $19.38 to LoudCity, monthly. LoudCity is our music licensing service. We launch our stream from their site and pay them $19.38 / month, and they cover our payments to ASCAP, BMI, SESAC (all 3 are songwriting copyright holders) and SoundExchange (who holds the rights to the mechanical reproductions). If we didn’t pay LoudCity, we’d have to pay these organizations independently, which would run into thousands of dollars a year… or, if we didn’t pay licensing fees, we could have our equipment confiscated and we could be thrown in jail. As you can imagine, we LIKE paying LoudCity.

#2 — $29.99 to Cloud Broadcaster, monthly. Cloud Broadcaster provides our bandwidth, or our listener slots. $30 / month gets us 150 slots on their Dallas, TX server. Without Cloud Broadcaster, when you tried to tune in, either you would get an “all slots full” message, or it would just time out. $30 opens up 150 “seats” for you and your friends to sit in on the show. We like playing Cloud Broadcaster, too.

#3 — $29.95 to Top 40 Music On CD website, yearly. This is a subscription to a database containing every song to hit the top 40, including the 80s. Through my subscription to this website I’ve been able to track down numerous radio versions of songs I never could have found otherwise. It’s not just a database, but a community. If something is out of print, generally another member is able to provide me with a high quality copy for airplay. I could give this site, but it would handicap my ability to accurately add the “hit” versions of songs. Renewal is in February; if it’s between LoudCity and / or Cloud Broadcaster, I would not renew with the site.

#4 — $1.29 to iTunes, infrequently. As I continue to add songs which hit the hot 100 in the 80s but didn’t make the year end charts, or as I add PartyMixes for our Friday and Saturday night shows, if there’s no other way for me to get it I will grab it from iTunes. This is infrequent; some months I’ve bought as many as 3 songs, other months I haven’t bought any. If our account is low and it’s a question of buying a song or paying LoudCity and / or Cloud Broadcaster, I skip the iTunes purchase!

The only exception to the above list was once, a few months ago, when a friend found out we were personally in financial trouble. The fastest way to get the cash to us was through the PayPal account; we withdrew exactly what he donated (minus what PayPal charged, of course). No listener donations were or are ever moved to our personal account or used for our personal expenses. In fact, the only other time money has moved either way was we were doing better financially and moved money IN to the account so we would have to ask for your donations.

I hope this explanation makes you feel a little better about donating to BlackLight Radio. First, you can see with only about $50 / month in expenses, when I say “every dollar helps,” it’s really true! 50 people donating a dollar every month would cover our expenses. 5 people giving $10 = same thing. Your donation isn’t just a “drop in the bucket;” it can cover much, most, or all of our monthly expenses, depending on how much you give!

Second, I hope you notice there’s no salaries for myself, my wife, Anonymous John or Shar or anybody else connected with what we do. This is a labor of love for all of us; and your donations re-focus my dedication to serve you, our listeners, with the best programming possible. I want you to be confident the money you give is going to what you want it to go to… in fact, if you want your money to go to LoudCity specifically, or Cloud Broadcaster specifically, or whatever, just shoot me an email… I’ll make it happen.

Perhaps I should also mention that if two people give $50 in one month, that second $50 isn’t treated as “play money.” It will sit there, ready to pay for the NEXT month. If a dozen people gave $50… yeah, we’d be set of a year of webcasting.

One question I haven’t covered is, why do we ask for donations in the first place? Most stations asking for donations are either religious or National Public Radio. You might think BlackLight Radio “just plays the hits.”

Due to LoudCity’s contracts with ASCAP, BMI & SESAC, we can’t run commercial ads in our stream. That is to say, we can’t get PAID for running commercial ads in our stream; you may hear classic ads from time to time, but we’re not getting paid for those. The only way we can make money is through people clicking through on-site banner ads… and that’s not yet generated enough for us to even get a check cut.

My wife & I had covered the costs of BLR for quite a few years, but since a little over a year ago we have been in financial straits. We’ve taken it back over for a month here and there when we thought we could afford it… but those times have been few and far between, and right now we are certainly in no financial shape to keep BlackLight Radio on.

BlackLight Radio is on because you, the listener, won’t let it die.

We do need your help; we need your help every month. This month has been covered, but next month the clock starts ticking again. A regular monthly donation from you would mean the world to us!

If you have any questions about any of this, email me or hit me up on Facebook.