Well, only a week and a half now since I came up with the idea for this new "lite" version of my arts center, and I already have a second major new official announcement: I have my Director of Live Events. Her name is Nikki Patin, as a matter of fact (pronounced 'puh-TAN,' by the way), who just officially said yes to the position on Monday; and needless to say that I'm as pleased as punch, because Nikki's actually been my first and number-one choice for the position this entire time, all the way back to August 2004 when I came up with the idea for an arts center in the first place. And I'm sure there's a lot of you out there who don't have even the first clue who Nikki is, or why I'm so excited that she's my new Director of Live Events; but believe me, you're going to start seeing her mentioned a lot more often here from now on, so I thought today I'd start by giving all of you a little old-fashioned schooling.

I first met Nikki when she was just beginning her Chicago poetry career, and I was ending mine; right around the turn of last decade, namely, when the poetry slam was at its peak of national popularity. Nikki was in her early twenties at the time, and of course hung out with a whole different group of people than me, but even at that early point there were two things that always struck me about her, and that made her stick out in my mind over all the other young poets just starting the scene as well. For one, Nikki's work was a lot different from all the other young hiphop poets of color who were dominating the scene at the time; more universal, I guess, if I had to put a specific term to it, much more narrative than other young hiphop poets' work, much more able to stick home to me as a goofy white male just sitting in the audience. This has always been one of the things, in fact, that I think marks a really great, really mature writer, is their ability to make their stories strike as universal an emotional tone as possible, while sometimes still being about a very specific person or a very specific race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. And Nikki had this, even at a very young age, which always made her work jump out ahead of the crowd, as far as I was concerned.

And then second, even more remarkable, I discovered that Nikki had this refreshingly realistic way of looking at the world, of sometimes breaking through that impenetrable wall of political correctness that dominated the scene back then, and to be critical of things that she thought deserved criticism, even when that rankled people of her own gender and race. And long-time readers, of course, will remember that it was in fact this precise issue that led me to quitting the poetry scene myself, back in 2001 - this just intolerable atmosphere that had taken over the scene by then, fueled by this whole gaggle of young, academic, extreme-leftist hiphop poets, where suddenly it wasn't okay to say certain things because certain people might be offended, although it was okay for other people to say other offensive things, because they're only offending people who deserve to be offended. Political correctness is just such a fucking two-faced monster, you know? So needless to say, discovering that Nikki was not this way herself was remarkable to me, considering that she was still loved by the people who were this way, and is what led to her and I ending up forming a strong friendship, which has lasted to this day.

So then I of course did end up quitting the scene, back in 2001, while Nikki herself ended up staying in it. And, why, just look at some of the accomplishments she's racked up in just the last five years: she was a member of the 2001 Wicker Park slam team; was named one of Chicago's "Most Fabulous 20-somethings" by the Chicago Tribune's RedEye; appeared on HBO's "Def Poetry Jam;" opened for Patricia Smith at the Congress Theatre a couple of years ago; opened for Jill freakin' Scott at the Metro a couple of years ago as well; has gone on numerous tours; has published numerous books, as well as recording an album; I mean, I could just go on and on if I wanted. And meanwhile, she's also proven herself to be quite the successful arts administrator as well; she's the Programming Director of Young Chicago Authors (an amazing organization, if I may say so, that sponsors an annual high-school poetry slam that's become more popular than any of Chicago's adult ones); and she's a full-time employee of The Center on Halsted, a legendary LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered) support organization in Chicago for teenagers; and she runs a dozen workshops throughout the city every year; etc etc. And wow, not only all this, but she's proven herself to be quite a successful entrepreneur as well; for example, a couple of years ago she was one of the founding employees of a novelty publishing company here in the city, that ended up selling over a million books before she eventually ended up leaving.

So hell yeah I wanted Nikki to be my Director of Live Events; because can you think of someone more perfectly suited for the job? She's proven herself in the arts world; she's proven herself in the business world. Like me, she takes a proactive stance towards arts administration; that is, she just goes out and actually does things when she wants things to be done, instead of sitting around waiting for a grant or some board of directors to tell her it's okay to do so. She's immensely respected by a whole wide swath of people here in Chicago; yet she still manages to speak her mind whenever she wants, to not get caught up in political games, to be critical of things when she thinks they're worth criticizing. She's a proud black woman, who continually fights for more opportunities for writers of color; yet she's an admitted nerd as well, a science-fiction fan, and someone who gets just as excited as me about such geeky subjects as Movable Type and AJAX. I mean, seriously, how could I not want Nikki to be my Director of Live Events?

So needless to say, I'm grateful that she's agreed to get involved with my center in such a heavy way, considering that she's going to get paid next to nothing when we first start out. And this is fantastic news as well for both our customers and the artists who get involved; because the simple fact is that Nikki will bring a level of diversity to our programming that would simply be impossible for me to achieve on my own. Because let's face it, all of us have our favorite artists, and types of work that we gravitate to, and in many cases this is a direct reflection of our own genetic makeup; I admit, for example, that the majority of artists I'm a fan of are fellow nerdy white males. And that's of crucial importance to me, that the center not become "The Nerdy White Male Show," and to have an undue emphasis on just those artists who I in particular am a fan of; and so if nothing else, Nikki at least brings a lot of passion with her about the artists she likes, who in many cases are quite different from my own list.

So, more on Nikki as it's relevant; for now, though, I simply wanted to announce that she's officially involved, and to confess how excited I am that she is.

Okay, so I promised to try to wrap up the details of the center's new "lite" plan today; this entry, after all, now marks 6,000 goddamn words I've written on the subject just this week alone. And in fact, I think there's only three things left to talk about before I'm finally done, which hopefully I'll be able to do today: and that of course would be our Membership and Fellowship programs, which I'm still planning on having, even without a permanent physical space of our own; and then of course how much money all of this is going to cost.

So I guess let me just state right off the bat that, under the lite plan for the center, the membership program isn't really designed to make much of a profit; it will instead simply be a way for fans of the center to get involved at an early stage, to get some great real-world benefits for their money, and to hopefully form a relationship with the center that goes way beyond the traditional relationship members have with artistic organizations. Basically, I'm thinking about offering two types of membership, a "local" one and a "web" one, both of them $50 a year, with a very simplified benefit program in place for both; namely, local members get free admission to all center events for a year, plus a t-shirt, while web members get free copies of the four books we will be publishing our first year (three smaller ones, only 40 to 60 pages in length, and then a big "Best Of" trade paperback at the beginning of year 2), and also a t-shirt. And admittedly, that works out better for local people than web people; the retail value of the local membership, that is, is almost $200, if one were to attend every event we hold in a year, while the retail value of the web membership works out exactly to the same $50 people will be paying for the membership itself. So you don't exactly lose money if you become a web member, but you don't exactly get some great deal either; like I said, it's mostly just for people who are fans of the center, and who want a way to be able to support our efforts even at this early stage. And then of course the other benefit of becoming a Member is that you'll then be invited to be a contributor to our website; to write book and event reviews, essays on artistic issues, even your own artistic content if you want. And then you'll have your own page and RSS feed at the site as well, in the way I was explaining yesterday, and all the fun stuff that comes with that. And then also as a Member, you'll have the opportunity to actually pitch project ideas to us, and if we like it and can afford it, we'll sponsor it and pay for all the promotion involved; book discussion clubs, for example, family and children's events, just whatever cool ideas our Members end up coming up with.

And then there's the Fellowship program, which admittedly is one of those things about the center that makes a lot of people go, "You're insane and this idea will never work;" because my idea, see, is to provide an opportunity for any working artist in Chicago to attend all of our events for free, in return for donating the publishing rights for three of their pieces to us. And this is pretty much the opposite of how most other poetry events work; because for most other poetry events, the poets themselves make up the majority of the audience, and the organization wouldn't make any money at all unless they charged these poets to attend. Ooh, but regular readers know exactly how fucking angry this policy has made me over the years, how goddamn ridiculous I think it is to charge artists money for the "privilege" of providing that evening's creative content, the content that is being promoted as the very reason to attend the event in the first place. It's a con job, pure and simple; and under the plan for my center, not a single artist in Chicago will ever have to be subjected to this kind of insulting bullshit, if they choose to take advantage of our Fellowship program instead.

So, for example, a writer could donate the publishing rights to three of their poems or stories to earn a Fellowship; or a visual artist could donate the publishing rights to three of their images. (And note that you're not donating the pieces themselves, but only the right for us to publish them; so in the case of visual artists, for example, we would simply make a high-density scan of your work, then return the original pieces back to you.) Graphic designers and graffiti artists could design alternative versions of our logo, or three flyers for upcoming events. Singers could donate three MP3s of their music. Hell, software designers could do a little volunteer work on our site to earn a Fellowship. Hell, even if you have no talent at all, you could always volunteer to work the door at three of our live events for a free Fellowship! The entire point of the Fellowship program, after all, is to provide a way for creative people to get involved with the center if they want, without ever having to shell out even a single penny of their own money; and fuck it, if we have to make shit up for people to do in order to qualify, that's exactly what we'll do.

And then the other main benefit of being a Fellow, like I mentioned yesterday, is that you'd then get your own category page and RSS feed at our site, and of course a lot more exposure online for your work. (And I should mention that it is only Fellows and Members who will get their own category page and RSS feed, not just any artist whose work appears at the site.) And of course it'll be to our Fellows where we first turn when deciding on show features and authors to publish (hint hint, all you fiction writers and comic-book artists, who might not at first see the benefit of becoming a Fellow), and our Fellows who we will spend the most time promoting and getting introduced to fans and patrons, and our Fellows for whom I hope to start rapidly providing better and bigger opportunities, as quickly as we possibly can. (For example, a big goal of mine for 2007 will be to start setting up some partnerships with downtown organizations, for occasional special shows; the Museum of Contemporary Art, for example, the new theater at Water Tower, the Chicago Cultural Center, etc.) The whole point of opening this center, after all, is to not just be a traditional organization but to foster an actual community, a healthy mix of both artists and fans of the arts, who will hopefully interact in this wonderful way, so that everyone involved will be insanely happy by the end. And if the center has to take a financial hit to do this, if we have to sacrifice an additional, whatever, $60 in revenue per show, then that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Well, goddamnit, would you look at this - out of space yet again, and I still haven't finished up everything I need to go over with the lite plan. Okay, so tomorrow, a quick rundown of the budget I'm anticipating for the first year; and then, I promise, back to more fun stuff here at the journal again, and to the dozens upon dozens of random notes I now have stacked up on my Treo, to get out to you. No, really, I promise!