The Word on The Street has it
Time’s running short for me, so I gotta make a special plea. I’m turning a personal odyssey into a project that will call upon bloggers and readers to help and to get YOUR WORD heard for a change.
Outline: I’m making a coast to coast jaunt that will take 10 days. I want to interview bloggers, readers, and others along the way to create a series of small videos that will be posted online in October. The topics will range broadly. Questions might include:
How’s your local economy?
Know any soldiers who went to Iraq?
What do you like/dislike about Candidate X?
Why did you start blogging?
What would you like America to be for your children?
And others.
I’d like this to reflect views across a number of states, as my route will pass through several potential swing states:
OR and MT…
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MN, WI and IN …
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OH, PA and I could easily detour slightly into southern MI.
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And there’s several ways you can help make this happen.
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I need You to help make the Word On The Street project a success.
One or more of the following assists would be great:
Interviews: you could agree to meet with me to be interviewed. Or maybe you could arrange to have me interview a friend or family member who lives along this route. Maybe you know some colorful ‘character’ who has an added story to tell. Let’s set that up!
Technical assistance: I don’t have a laptop. One of my videocams only takes an hour of footage before it’s full. When that occurs, if I could download it to your computer, you could email or upload the raw footage to me, so I can edit it into videos at the end of my journey. Or maybe I can just stop for a couple of hours to chat and do coffee while recharging a videocam battery.
Cost reduction: Tentative stopping/sleeping points include someplace between Butte and Billings in Montana, near Rapid City in South Dakota, near Minneapolis (I have a place to stay there), northern Indiana or Ohio or Southern Michigan, and Philadelphia or NYC.
If you have a spare room where I can spend the night and take a shower, alleviating the cost of a motel room, that’d be fantastic. I’d even be willing to pay something like $25, as that still would beat normal lodging costs.
Direct financial Aid: I need your help with this as my best-laid plans have already gone astray. If you can afford a donation - even $20 - please donate via the PayPal button in the right sidebar. And please do so right away.
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The genesis of this effort is rooted in financial necessity brought on by the Bush neoconomy. 16 months ago, my employer - a real estate broker for 35 years - folded his tent when the housing bubble burst. I’ve only been able to find intermittent temp jobs since. So I’m moving to eastern Massachusetts where a couple of my siblings reside and where better employment options can likely be obtained.
Simultaneously, my youngest daughter was offered a job at a college in Minnesota - which includes free tuition - so part of my effort means I’ll haul a rented trailer to deliver some of her belongings there.
The journey requires me to sell my old 1983 Nissan beater and buy a used vehicle that can haul the trailer. So in addition to the costs of gas, food and lodging, there’s about $3,000 for the expense of purchase, title, registration, etc.
The entire cost of the move will come in around $4,500 and I’ve only succeeded in saving $2,500 of that.
(9/15 Update: I’ve purchased the truck, title, insurance, etc, but still am about $1950 short of the full cost of the trip. I raised $65 in the first 8 days. Now I urgently need your help in the next 9 days with the rest.)
The kicker? I have to vacate my residence on September 24th, so I’m seeking the miraculous by raising $2,000 $1950 in two weeks nine days. Past fundraising efforts to keep this blog afloat usually required at least a month to raise $1,000.
I actually had this project planned better, till the fates intervened. An unexpected car repair. A check that bounced for work I performed. The person who was going to buy my old car backed out. The person who was going to buy all my furniture flaked out.
As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, “It’s always something.”
So please, please, please, if there’s anything you can do to contribute, even if it’s your sunny face and spectacular insights for an interview, please let me know.
Begging sucks. But the money’s better spent on me and some really cool videos of you than on some pervy Arizona Senator and his tawdry new paramour/gun moll. Right?
September 9th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I’m willing to try to help and to be interviewed if you get out this far east (New England). I’m afraid financial help is completely out of the question for at least a few months. I assume you have my email, so you can let me know here or there if there’s maybe something I can do.
September 10th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
[…] (Btw, speaking of the woes and realities of economics, have you considered this?) […]
September 11th, 2008 at 7:28 am
[…] Meanwhile, I could also use a hand with the Word On The Street project. […]
September 12th, 2008 at 4:29 am
Hey Kevin! Send me an email on this. I’m pretty sure I will be able to help you out once you get to the southeast Michigan area.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:05 am
[…] Here’s how to make the Word On The Street project happen. Time’s short before the launch, so act today. […]
September 15th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Videotape me–you can have a room as well (I hope you’re not allergic to cats or dogs…)
I am now in Portland, OR–don’t know if you have already left Oregon or what your itinerary is, but contact me regardless. I still hang out at Jesus’ General or you can find me at my own little nuthouse.
Good luck in your move!
mjs
aka frank
++++
September 15th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
I live near Madison, WI (about half hour east, in Jefferson)and can come in to be interviewed. I can bring a laptop. I can provide a room at my house, but it may take you a bit out of your way.
Elizabeth
September 16th, 2008 at 3:09 am
I’ll email each of you who leaves a comment here, to arrange all the interviews I can fit in. Thanks for your responses!
September 16th, 2008 at 8:07 am
We’re in Sun Prairie, WI about 15 minutes east of Madison and quite near the interstates (39/90/94). We can provide a room (if you’re not allergic to pets), computer access and a truck tune up if needed (we run an automotive service shop). As small business owners, we’d also be available for interviews.
Liz
September 16th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Kevin,
You’re not coming through TX and I’m unemployed (thanx GW!) so I can’t send money but I can give a short statement as to why I’ve been an avid blog reader since 2000, especially since 2001 -
It’s like that big wreck on the other side of the freeway, you don’t want to look, but you can’t not do so. Furthermore, what you get in the US teevee, radio & newspapers is not ‘the news’ anymore, it’s ‘infotainment’, it’s propaganda, it’s lies & half-truths to persuade us to support our corporate overlords. I’ve been getting my news from a multitude of sources for the last 38 years or more and the liberal blogs are a handy shortcut as long as one is prepared to remain skeptical and insist upon documentation and sources.
September 16th, 2008 at 11:16 am
I’m in Vancouver, WA. It looks like you’re from this area so won’t need other support, but I’d be glad to let you interview me. Here’s my humble blog.
September 17th, 2008 at 8:09 am
I can provide a bed/shower/meal/interview/$20 bucks cash, in Rockford, IL. since it seems you might be heading that way from Madison to Chicago.
September 17th, 2008 at 8:59 am
To bad you can’t detour through West Virginia. Morgantown is on the PA border and is one of the best towns in America. We could put you up and introduce you to some excellent interviewees.
The local night life aint bad either.
September 17th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I would be willing to be interviewed! I’m in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area but I could relocate further into the cities if you needed me to.
September 17th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I live 1.5 hours north of NYC if you need a place to stay get in touch with me! It’s a college town where we could get you some great interviews…
September 17th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Good grief, Kevin! I obviously haven’t been checking in often enough. I read about this thing over at Pharyngula, for cryin’ out loud.
I have relatives who are on your route. At least one would make a good interview subject. I’ll send you an e-mail about them if I can talk them into it.
Meanwhile, good luck, particularly on the employment front.
September 18th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
This is a wonderful plot. I live in Bozeman, MT, on your route between Billings and Butte, and would love to help you round up resources here, including a place to stay. Certainly we’d have a bed for you, or can find a friend to put you up.
Feel free to email me.
MT is, I think, a snapshot of the U.S. political future — people hang on to the terms “liberal” and “conservative”, but that terminology is increasingly irrelevant in a political climate where everything crosses over; libertarians donate and work on community projects, liberals have guns, and gun-totin’ good-ol-boys are concerned about the degradation of public lands and the preservation of fishing rights on streams that cross private lands. You run into a lot of people who are social conservatives and social liberals. I mean, rolled into one. It makes for a very capricious electorate, from an outside standpoint, but has its own internal logic.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
[…] Here’s previous details about the route I’m traveling, and more. […]