by Harold McMillan

I don't know how many folks out there actually read my column every month. I do know there are some of you who do read what I have to say at least some of the time. I know this because folks comment to me about what I've said in the column. Sometimes it's complimentary, sometimes critical. Sometimes folks just want to know what the hell I'm talking about. They don't get it, so they ask me.

Getting that feedback is really good for me. The thing is, I guess, I'll never get a balanced review of my musings. From most folks who read me, the critique will never be critical enough for me to know how I'm being received. Because I do have an ego investment here, I am concerned with my ratings, want to know how I'm doing with this.

As I was going through my usual hand-wringing about what I'd write this month (past deadline, still considering three possible directions for my rant), I got some feedback from someone who actually reads each and every column I write. My best friend, my wife, the mother of our child, gave me a critique of past columns, made a suggestion based on her observation, and wished me good luck as she went away to bed.

By and large, most of my columns have a lot to do with issues that are real to me. I don't often write simply to "cover" an issue that doesn't affect me or the work of DiverseArts. "Up All Night" is perhaps about vanity, is surely autobiographical, is real life stuff that is important to me.

As I was discussing this column with Grace I told her my head was scrambled with all kinds of stuff: SXSW in review, new collaborations with ArtPlex folks, City of Austin arts funding season, budget shortages, lack of support, damn this, more damned that, and damn etc. Even with those potential good damn-this/damn-that topics, the real thing that is going on with me/us right now is that we are in the middle of moving into a new house. A new house that is ours. That is the biggest thing on my mind right now.

As I conjure topics to rant on, my personal situation is what keeps coming back to the top of my head. The whole house thing, however, is very much connected to all of these issues about doing cultural work in Austin. And if you live in the nonprofit arts world, believe me, once you sign-off on that stack of paper that comes with a mortgage contract, that whole complex of issues about work -- doing cultural work in Austin, money, credit history, and financial stability come into focus. Or, as Grace sometimes argues, denial sets in. If you want to own a house, the question begs to be asked: knowing that financial rewards are rare, why start, and continue, to work in the arts?

So, I am talking to my wife, trying to decide what I'll write about, asking her for advice and critique. I tell her, given my preoccupation with the house and moving, I want to avoid being quite so autobiographical this time. Who wants to hear about our house?

This is the point where the fair critique comes in. Grace tells me that many of my recent columns show too much of my frustration with this life I've chosen. Lack of support? Nobody forced me to choose a career in arts and culture. Because I've grown old (compared to my 20-something staffers) and cynical, too many of my columns show my jaded, tired-of-it self. Why do I do this stuff anyway? What is the purpose behind my projects, where does the will come from to do this work?

Grace tells me that autobiographical is OK, but maybe I should try to remember why I started all of this stuff to begin with. The work that is now the work of DiverseArts started as ideas in my head. If I decided to dedicate my life to this stuff, surely there were motivating factors that have to do with some amount of passion in me that is fueled by something good. Surely there was something that proceeded my frustration, there was something that caused me to find joy in the work to begin with.

Well, I do argue with my wife about a range of things. This time, though, I think she is right. My frustration, my jaded cynical self has been way out front recently. Folks probably think I walk around being mad all of the time. I don't. I do want to find support and approval for my work. But let me tell ya, I/we do this stuff because we think art and culture are important. We do this work because our hearts are tied-up in it.

I actually feel lucky, I feel good about being able to pursue my passions this way. Life is hard for artists. Life is hard, too, for the 8-to-5 working stiff who hates his/her job, hates the boss more, and envies the creative freedom of the starving musician. Perhaps the difference is most obvious in the tradeoffs that come with those choices. I guess the frustration that tends to come to the top happens after one realizes that he/she has traded just about everything there is to trade. When that finally has happened, when you've traded it all -- most everything but your soul, you don't fare very well in the marketplace.

For the cultural worker, the artists in this society, it's their work, soul and integrity that provide trade value, of sorts. Good or bad, like it or not, the trade value of soul doesn't necessarily buy much out there in the financial marketplace. In the best-of-all-possible-worlds scenario, soul and integrity don't require food and housing. The human individuals connected to those souls, however, do get hungry now and then. Therein lies the dilemma.

Given that I already had many of these same thoughts in my youth, how and why did I make the leap to begin building a cultural arts organization?

Before there was a DiverseArts, there was the Jazz Fest. I founded the Clarksville Jazz and Arts Festival 12 years ago because I though it was a project that Austin needed and wanted. Austin needed it because there was a jazz community, a community of players at all levels, that did not have sufficient opportunities or venues to exhibit their art. I wanted to do this because it was also an opportunity to bring this community together to celebrate a significant area of African American-based culture. This was especially important to me because that kinda thing was simply not happening in Austin. There were jazz clubs who seldom booked black players. There were huge blues festivals where all of the players were white. There was a community of music business-types (not really the musicians, so much) who pretended that these issues, pretended that the cultural roots of this music didn't matter in Austin.

There was also Clarksville, an historical African American neighborhood in the midst of rapid and not-so-genteel gentrification, struggling to hang on to its identity and cultural roots. To me, these "Austin Stories" provided a very interesting cultural parallel. It made sense to link these and put together a celebration of the music, the community, the culture, and organize a full-blown arts fair right in the neighborhood (actually not in the neighborhood, but as close as the city fathers would allow me to), and invite the whole city to attend. To be able to pull this off in Austin, I knew it would have to qualify as a "media event." Although we started out as a very small festival, we had to project an image that something really special was going on in Clarksville.

In spite of what I've just said to you, to my way of thinking, the Jazz Fest was/is not a Black Festival. That is not the point. The point in 1989 was to bring Austin folks, all of us, together to celebrate art and culture, life. This particular culture happens to be rooted in Black America. Just as the Austin Symphony's season is not a celebration for white folks and white music, our little Jazz Fest was to be a celebration of the neighborhood, for all who appreciate and perform the forms presented. The thing that we did want to do, however, was to put on this very inclusive event and get all kinds of folks from all over Austin to attend. In my vision, that was what it was all about.

There was a subterranean agenda, too. Once we got them there, we wanted them to see and hear artists that they were missing on popular Austin stages. We wanted them to see what and who they were missing because of the booking policies of the local jazz and blues cartel. We wanted them to hear performers, of all stripes and colors, who were being excluded from the few gigs available in Austin. And we wanted Austinites to see that, yes by-golly, this kind of inclusive multicultural, multidisciplinary event was being put on by a group of folks who were just as diverse as the line ups. And the guy behind it (me) was a black man.

You see, in my perfect world, that shouldn't have been a factor here. But, believe me, in the 1989 jazz scene, and in the 1999 Austin festival presenters community, the fact that I am a black man does (sadly) matter to some of the players here.

Eleven years later the Festival hasn't made any real money, and has cost me untold thousands of dollars in personal cash, trade, and bad credit ratings. See, I believed in the idea of it. My soul and my integrity told me that I simply needed to concentrate on doing good cultural work. All I had to do was put the Festival out there -- for free -- for two or three years and the money-powers-that-be would see that I was really into this stuff for the cultural good of Austin. That's what I had to do, then they would step in and help make sure that my personal financial position would no longer be the underwriter of this project. I thought this because that is what made sense to me, I believed it. Yes, I did/do this work because I get a real charge out of putting on a good show. My ego does get served when it's good. But, really, the idea for the Jazz Fest was not just about what I wanted.

There are, at this point, literally hundreds of other poorly paid Jazz Fest staffers and volunteers who do this work simply because they think Austin needs it, wants it, and should support it. Although most have now moved on, there is actually a small handful of folks still with me who worked on the first one or two Festivals. They keep coming back. They share my frustration about sponsorship and fund-raising, but the work is really a labor of love for most of us.

And regardless of all of the bitching and moaning that I do, I am very proud to be the person responsible for a decade of introducing or reintroducing Austin to world class music from the likes of...McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Smith, Cornell Dupree, James Clay, Charles Neville, Ellis Marsalis, Kenny Garrett, Nicholas Payton, Mark Whitfield, Roy Hargrove, Crisol, Marchel Ivery, Jason Marsalis, Kermit Ruffins, Ray Barretto, Chucho Valdez, Carmen Bradford, Bobby Bradford, Pete Mayes, Sebastian Whittaker, Tom Braxton, Kenny Kirkland, Jeff Watts, and many others. This is the reward.

Now, I just need to figure out a way to make those house payments.