NASNA 2007 Conference

Last weekend there was a NASNA (North American Street Newspaper Association) conference right down there in Portland, less than two hundred miles away! So Real Change sent a bigger than usual contingent to it. We had two vendors, a director, a reporter, an intern, a consultant, the unclassifiable Anitra Freeman, and the overly-classifiable me.

Bad lighting and a shortage of time and free hands prevented me from taking more than a few minutes of video. I broke the camera out first at Saturday's lunch in Portland State U's Farmer's Market. There was a shot of a Buddha, followed by me tracking down the sound of a jug band. It turned out to be the Sassparilla Jug Band, specializing in "Dust Bowl Folk".

Sassparilla



Paula (to our left) and Anitra, rise to the challenge to become impromptu music video babes backing up the Sasparilla Jug Band. I display a low threshold for repetition toward the end, but I'm only just joking around.

Video Girls



Later than day I wanted video proof that the 2007 North American Street Newspaper Association conference was not all Farmer's Market food, jug bands and music video babes. There were serious workshops, too. Here, we see two brief clips of director Tim Harris of Seattle's Real Change newspaper leading a workshop on vendor issues, intercut with a typical surreal conversation between me (holding the camera) and Robert Hansen, Real Change vendor #1188.

Anitra wants all to know that Robert and I just clown around like this all the time and it's all in fun. I want everybody to know that if you couldn't figure that out yourself you probably can't figure out whether your socks go on the inside or the outside of your shoes without tossing a coin. So half the time we know who you are.



Tim mentioned the Real Change Wiki. It's here.