So, okay, I had to come to a decision this week that I'm not very happy about, that I'm in fact frustrated and disappointed by; I've had to postpone the live-events schedule for my new arts organization, the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, until spring 2007. And that's not for lack of interest, nor lack of work, nor lack of talent, but simply a lack of money; not enough to buy the tech equipment we need, or run off our first round of paper promotional material, or to get out to a lot of other artistic events and spread the word. And our live-event schedule was literally supposed to start a week from today, and we're just nowhere close to being ready; so I've just had to delay the entire thing for another six months, and hope that I finally have the money raised by then.

It's...frustrating. Very, very frustrating. I won't kid you. Ever since the beginning of July, in fact, when I first stepped in and helped save an ex-friend's internet startup from falling apart, my entire life has seemed odd and off-track, to the culmination of this week and realizing that my autumn plans for CCLaP aren't ready. And doubly frustrating, because every other aspect of it besides the financial one was going just fine; I was slowly gaining a real public interest in the shows, enough that I was feeling safe about meeting our break-even audience quotas, gaining more and more publicity, having the actual logistical details coming more and more into focus. So frustrating that all of that could be killed off so profoundly, just from a lack of a thousand bucks to buy some mics and speakers and flyers, what should be the most insignificant part of the entire process. And triply frustrating, because by all rights I should have this thousand bucks right now, and a lot more, which I legally earned at this crazy internet-startup day job I had this summer; but the owner ended up fucking me over at the end of it all, and screwing me out of over $3,000 I was owed, in this really petty way so that I will have to sue him if I want to see any of it, no matter how in the wrong he knows he is.

Frustrating, yes. Very, very frustrating. But it's just the reality of the situation, and there's not a whole lot I can do about realities, no matter how unpleasant they are. I don't have any money right now, so can't start the live-event program for my arts center. That's how it is, and so that's how it's going to be. And it'd be easy to be overwhelmed by cynicism and defeatism at this point; I know, because I spent the better part of this week wallowing in it. And thinking about how maybe I should just hang the entire experiment up, declare it a failure and go lead a normal life, one that's nice and quiet and private, where I just work for some company and get a paycheck and don't blab on the web about every little high and low in between. I thought a lot this week about doing that. I won't kid you.

But then a snotty little part of me thought, "No one likes reading about a whiny self-pitier." I certainly don't; do you? I love reading about people who have failures, and are determined not to let things like that stop them, and jump right back into whatever crazy new project they actually can accomplish at that point. So yeah, I ultimately decided not to be one of those people who hang it all up and go off to live some quiet, unassuming life; I've decided to just accept the reality of this situation, own up to it, then figure out what I actually can accomplish right now.

That's sort of the beauty of my arts center's plan, after all; that there's a whole lot of things I want to do with it, and so therefore have the implementation plan laid out as a series of stages, spanning out a good five to ten years at this point, all the way to the point of owning our own permanent physical space in Chicago. So, just as I'm pushing off one part of the plan until spring 2007, for lack of money, I can bring another part of the plan from next spring up to right now -- the publishing program, that is. Because fuck it, I can do the publishing program right now; I can solicit great photos and great literature myself, edit the work myself, lay it out all groovy-like myself, publish it electronically myself, promote it online myself, and collect voluntary payments myself. All for not an extra dime added to my current budget, using tech I already own, and needing no additional employees whatsoever.

Goddamnit! Nobody can fucking stop me from making electronic books and magazines! No matter how broke I am, no matter how little outside interest there is, I can still write and edit great material, and lay it out into a great-looking electronic publication. And so that's what I'm going to do for the next six months; I'm going to start up and really obsessively concentrate on CCLaP's publishing program, instead of its live-event program. And I'm going to maybe make some money, definitely make a lot of fans, for sure generate a lot of interest in what CCLaP is doing, so that by next spring we hopefully do have the structure and financing needed to finally start our live-event program, and maybe have it work this time.

Ugh! It's a struggle for me to remain optimistic and upbeat these days; frustrations and setbacks seem to have been piling up around me all summer, sometimes so tall that I can't see over them. But I'm going to stay optimistic, or at least keep trying to as much as I can; because I've been down that other road before, and know that it's no less frustrating. I spent a lot of my twenties giving in to depression and bitterness, defeatism and the like, and got really nothing more out of it than yet more depression and more bitterness; so now I try to do the opposite, and at least try to salvage something good and new out of every setback.

Like, here's something -- I now have the time to start my own monthly culture magazine about Second Life, something I've idly thought about doing for six months now, but never had the time before because of CCLaP's live-event schedule formerly starting in the fall. God, it's just so needed there right now, you know? It's such a random and chaotic world there in Second Life, and the makers of the videogame no longer provide a central web location to announce news and the like (they got sick of all the flame wars so decided to just shut down their entire forum system, believe it or not); so in the void, there have now been nearly 15 new SL-related publications open up in the last six months. Yeah, 15, I shit you not; but with almost none of them coming from people with real-life (RL) publishing backgrounds, most of them full of beginning design and editing errors, a lack of focus on theme or attitude, or just plain ol' crappy layout and stories.

That's something I can do; I can design shit good. And I can write shit good. And I can edit other people's shit good. And I'm already an insanely inquisitive person, with no fear and no sense of moral boundaries; so I make the perfect person to run a magazine about the "underground culture" of Second Life. Because that's another big mistake most of these other culture magazines are making; they're purporting to report on really unique, unknown stuff, but then all end up covering the same tourist spots and "shocking" articles about how you can have sex with furries while there. I'm already going to stuff for fun that would make for a highly intriguing magazine or blog; fetish fashion shows, vampire balls, Gorean cuffing ceremonies (don't ask), unpublicized ambient raves, violent "edgeplay" sex clubs, the works.

So, I thought, why not a two-fisted publishing approach, something else that none of the SL magazines are doing right now? Publish a monthly PDF magazine, doing in-depth profiles of the most interesting individuals and groups I met that month; and then a daily blog, run kinda like Michael Musto's gossip column, where I'm always out at crazy underground stuff, taking pictures, writing witty and snotty blog entries about what they were like. Then run ads, of course, with those who buy a magazine ad getting a free month of a blog ad too; and with my decade now of RL experience in interviewing artists, just pile up a whole crapload of intriguing conversations with intriguing people, and have lots of content for each issue whether anyone else contributes or not. A cross between a zine and a magazine, if you see what I'm getting at; still opinionated, still a one-man outfit, but with mainstream readership and advertiser interest. It's something a lot of my readers have urged me to do with this personal site for years, after all, is run banner ads; but if I'm going to accept paid advertising, why not do something natural for it like a traditional magazine?

So the magazine, lots of ebooks through CCLaP from writers and photographers, plus teaching myself Flash finally and building a really cool virtual photography gallery there too, complete with MP3 audio interview with the artist about each work being seen, as if you were actually walking through a physical gallery with them and listening to them talk about the work. Plus keep signing up Fellows to CCLaP, keep featuring creative work there, keep mentioning other cool things going on in the arts, and keep building up a fan base. Oh, plus there's this; that finally, finally today I became a Premium member of Second Life, which means that I'm finally going to own land there for the first time, which means I can get to work right away on CCLaP's first virtual gallery and performance space.

I can do everything mentioned in the last paragraph without spending any extra money, or needing a single other person's help, or needing a single other piece of tech equipment besides what I already own. Damnit. So that's what I'm going to do, because I can. Damnit! And because these are still all going to be cool things, popular things that impress people, although in my eyes not quite as cool as producing regular live events. It's something, though, something constructive instead of (self-) destructive, something that requires only time and skill, both of which I have an abundance of right now, and a lack of everything else. And something that keeps CCLaP's momentum moving in a forward, ever-enlarging direction, instead of on permanent hiatus or worse yet shut completely down. And so that's good, although still frustrating, yet weirdly hopeful, yet unsurprisingly depressing. You can take the boy out of the drama, but never the drama out of the boy. Sigh.

So, that's the plan. And now if you'll excuse me, I'm fucking busy; I've got to get the CCLaP website redesigned as soon as I can, and the Second Life magazine blog designed as soon as I can, and interviews scheduled and photos taken and lots and lots of piled-up landmarks to check out. So that's it; I'm off to work again. Talk with you again soon, and don't forget to start reading my new Second Life blog starting Monday.