Third-Person Blogging – part one

nazarioAmanda Nazario is a writer, DJ, dogwalker, and artist living in New York. She grew up there, right on the upper-west side, and as a native she’s somehow reached her thirties without ever learning to drive. With such public transportation, who would blame her?

Now she’s going from never once driving a car to driving a van across the country, wireless Internet broadcasting equipment in tow, and bringing her radio show, Nazario Scenario on Washington Heights Free Radio, to the masses. Billed at WHFR.org as “your scene if you like singalongs, rollicking hilarity, sweetness and light, or general merriment,” NS is like that right sort of themeless eclectic mixtape your friend that knows more music than you do makes on a whim and sends to your mailbox one afternoon. You’ll hear Willie Nelson and ELO and Superchunk within a fifteen-minute interval—and it’ll sound exactly right.

To raise the funds, Amanda’s signed up with fundraising Web site Kickstarter, which enables people to pledge money to the project without much risk. The Mobile Nazario Scenario needs $10,000 to happen, and it needs this money by October 15. If—heaven forbid—the money doesn’t get raised, everyone walks away as though nothing happened.

But what if she got the money? What if you helped make the project happen?

Here’s Amanda, to give you a sense of why you should head over to her project and donate whatever you can.

Q: In what way is your project not like the final act of the 1990 classic, Pump up the Volume?
AN: Well, no one’s out to shut me down. I think real-life authorities care a lot less about pirate radio than they did in 1990 in the movies, so I suspect I’ll be able to pull it off with less controversy and fewer cop cars chasing me. If anything, I hope to be respected by the traditional media outlets, not reviled—though they’ll likely just ignore it. Also, the curator of my project will not go on to work in a crap adaptation of Robin Hood, and that is a solemn promise.

Q: Pop quiz: You’re driving on the highway and get a flat tire. What do you do? (No Googling!)
AN: Please note that at the time of this interview I haven’t started lessons yet! Funny that the first thing I thought to say was, “Oh, it’s all right, I’ll have triple A.” But that’s not what you meant, was it? I’m pretty sure I have to put the hazards on and slow down gradually. That’s what I would do, anyway, if it were to happen right now.

Q: And then what?
AN: Hit the ejector-seat button.

Q: You’ve mentioned making playlists consonant with the region of the U.S. you’re broadcasting from. Say you make it to the Great Plains. List six songs you’ll play for a seven-song set that will by needs begin, of course, with Springsteen’s “Nebraska”.
AN:
1. Great Plains, “A Picture of You”
2. Neil Young, “Prairie Wind”
3. The Flaming Lips, “In The Morning of the Magicians”
4. The Everybodyfields, “Lonely Anywhere”
5. Melanie, “Kansas”
6. Kansas, “Bringing It Back”

Q: Will you have any time to read? If you’ll have time to read what are the books you plan to bring along with you? Which of those will you read aloud to us on the air?
AN: The book that leaps to mind is A Mouthful of Air by Anthony Burgess, a deep analysis of linguistics in English and other languages, that a friend gave to me years ago and I haven’t gotten around to finishing. It deals with things like pronunciation, the position of the tongue in the mouth, grammar and all that. It’s been calling me since I’ve gotten more into talking and recording myself talking. I might read some of it aloud, sure. Or maybe I could read different passages from different site-specific novels I like—Cormac McCarthy in the Southwest, Saul Bellow in Chicago….

Q: If people donate to The Mobile Nazario Scenario, can they expect a DJ visit to their hometowns?
AN: Oh, for total sure! So far I have a nice list of contributors whom I have met at some point or other, many of whom live far away—they’ve told me they want the van to stop in their locale and I’m happy to drive there. Connecting with friends in places foreign to me is going to be a huge part of this; I would like to have the term “friend” extend, in this project’s context, to anyone who’s become a “friend” of the program by donating. Especially if they introduce themselves and we correspond.

Introduce yourself to amnazz >at< gmail, and correspond.

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