shelbinator.com

No time for words; must go get more coffee and put any words I can spare into the thesis. For now, you get my final Georgia video for that thing we called Street Team ‘08.

Just a few of the moments from last night; I gotta go get my Flixwagon footage off the server.

My phone will not be broadcasting to my usual Flixwagon account today; for ease of production I’ll be publishing to a parallel server for MTV, and clips will show up in the player below (UPDATED/FIXED):
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A few weeks ago I mentioned this shindig over at the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation with CBS political correspondent Jeff Greenfield. Since Jeff had said that the current state and trajectory of media tested his faith in American polity, I threw together this little look back at the MTV Choose or Lose Street Team ‘08 experiment:

Lucky for me, something got screwed up in the A/V system between Monday’s sound check and Tuesday’s event, my video had no sound, and I looked like a friggin’ idiot in front of the whole audience. Yeehaw!

The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation — you know, the guy who owns our Atlanta Falcons — is having one of its Speaker Series events this evening at 5:30.

Jeff Greenfield, CBS News Senior Political Correspondent

Known for his quick wit and savvy insight into politics, history, media and current events, Jeff Greenfield is one of America’s most respected commentators and journalists.
…
“I am an optimist by nature,” he says. “I still have a Jeffersonian faith in our capacity to reach for the best in us when we have to. But the more I look at the present, and the future, of the media, the more that faith is tested.”

The affair is booked solid, but lucky lucky you, I will be live-streaming the event over at ustream.tv/shelbinator starting around 5:20 p.m. (program begins at 5:30 p.m.). I will also be monitoring the chat room (or DM me on Twitter) so if you have any questions during the Q&A portion, take your best shot and, time permitting, I’ll raise my hand on your behalf.

I’m presenting a video overview of our Street Team shenanigans between the talk and the Q&A, so we’ll see whether I test, or restore, Jeff’s faith in the future of media. Place your bets!

Where else to be for a speech this big but Manuel’s Tavern? After a quick stop a Verve Lounge to verify there was indeed not enough light (or quiet) to shoot satisfactory video, I headed to Manuel’s in time to wedge myself into a corner between a couple tables and ration my oxygen. Thirty-four Street Team ‘08 punks were at watch parties across the country to collect the ever-prized “youth reaction” on video, turn it around overnight on the Viacom servers and hope for inclusion on Friday night’s MTV News special, Choose or Lose: Obama Decoded.

I have no idea what “decoded” is supposed to mean. If you needed a lot of help breaking down the messages in the speech, perhaps a federal ballot is a bit dangerous of a weapon in your hands. And strictly speaking, in data terms, it was encoded and compressed, but now I’m just being nitpicky. The point is, out of something like 115 choice snippets of interviews, two got chosen and the rest of us are losers in the game of life. About 13 other interviews (if three instances of giving one’s name and age count) were provided by the “real” reporters from Denver, while political expert WaPo reporter Chris Cillizza (who thinks I live in my parents’ basement^*) got four 15-second clips to explain complex politics to the yout’s.

Anyway, rather than let all this footage rot in the trash, here’s what I got (including some of the famous Qik footage mentioned below), with apologies to my interviewees for the trouble.

(Quicktime format)

* Technically I don’t, but apparently that’s the best place for me to dissertate, sadly enough.

Apparently CNN’s internet reporter found my cellphone coverage of the hearty crowd reactions from the overflowing Manuel’s Tavern interesting enough to put on her big shiny screen. Bhaskar Roy, co-founder of Qik — whose software I used to stream video from Manuel’s (because frankly I wasn’t all that caught up in the speech) — sent me a couple snapshots of someone’s TV after he, and a number of local tweeple, were all a-twitter about the segment. I was totally oblivious (no one in Manuel’s noticed and said “Hey, that’s us! And that’s that guy!”).

That’s fellow YDAtlien Justi in the corner of the second pic.

They must’ve had slim pickin’s in the blogosphere at 11:42 p.m. (judging by the sudden simultaneous influx to the blog of people googling “shelbinator”), because the video ain’t all that interesting. But for posterity, here it is:

There’s a view from the back bar here, too.

In January 2008, at the beginning of the primary election season, Sen. Barack Obama addressed the congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church on the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. King was a pastor of Ebenezer 45 years ago today, when he delivered his "I have a dream" speech during the march on Washington, August 28, 1963. Tonight, 45 years later to the day, Sen. Obama formally accepts the nomination of the Democratic party for president — the first African-American to be nominated by a major party.

Talk a walk with me through the childhood neighborhood of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(Video page.)

A gay British Obama volunteer hopes to survive a Texas gun range while an Atlanta Clinton delegate looks forward to lots of happy hours despite relying on a cramped chemical toilet.

Sounds like a road trip to me.

Here’s the video from the Unity Express send-off Sunday, as six Democrats packed into a wee RV and started the long, winding trip to Denver, registering voters and taking in the sights along the way.

I’ve gotta tell ya, filming a Courteous Mass wasn’t all that interesting because nobody got into any trouble, but I might still find time to make an extended remix for elsewhere.

Video source.