Hosting.
*****Hosting is not
something I have ever put much thought into.
Actually, I did host part of a show me and a friend of mine did at Write
On some years ago…..the show was called Black Hollywood and I played host for
all of about ten minutes……it was so outside my comfort zone that when I got on
stage, as host, I felt like crickets were going off in my head…..i had NO IDEA
what to say or how to proceed, so I generically said a couple non-funny jokes
and immediately called the next person up and decided that would be my only
attempt at hosting….FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m a writer. And
sometimes I perform poetry…..but hosting….yeah, I aint nobody’s dangon host.
Leave that for the professionals.
^^^^Its like I could
hear those words as I was exiting the yin yang stage.
***Fast forward some
years and I was approached by two women who for whatever reason thought it a
good idea to ask me to host a spot they had come up with. I reluctantly said yeah, not knowing what in
the world to expect. And within two
weeks, I started hosting.
***Fast forward ten
months. ….as we count down to (a total of 6 shows until) our year anniversary, I
had to take a moment to reflect on the last ten months I have spent
enjoying/complaining and loving every moment of hosting….it has been one
helluva experience, I will tell you that. ….. since I had no expectations out the
gate, it became a situation where I took creative control and said “Ok Ken, you
have a venue and an opp to do whatever you want…..do it!!!”
And the story is
written…..i can only hope that DPoM goes up in history as a goooooood spot….not
for my name….my name will be written in the perfect stone just the way it
should be. Hosting for me, is not about
my name….its not about claiming fame or coming up with fancy events so that ppl
can say Januarie York is the shit…..truth is, as much as I care about what
people think, I don’t. I care because
any real person with a sense of drive and ambition knows that to a certain
degree, it absolutely DOES matter what other people think. But the rebellious Aquarian within me does
not care whether or not a person thinks/thought I have done a good job. I don’t care if you say jY is a dope poet, or
jY puts together great events……because what I am is a good writer. I will
embrace that. I am a big dreamer…..and
my dreams come true with great help from other people. Nothing I do comes easy and nothing I do is
done alone. As I started outlining 2012
(for tax purposes) last night, I couldn’t help but smile at the successes,
win/lose/draw, of DPoM…….i have a team of strong black women on each of my
sides and together, the three of us laid out an initial vision to be DIFFERENT
and to create an environment that was welcoming to all people, of all races. Everything we’ve done has been open to the
public to partake in, directly or indirectly.
What we have wanted more than anything was to create an environment of
unified energies having a good ass time on a early week work night. And I think these last ten months have done a
good job of all of that.
I mean this from my heart, when I look out into the audience and see
smiles or looks that show someone is thinking or relating to what is being said…..when
I hear the audience talking back, when the room goes dead silent and when the
people are chanting fuck it, feel it together, there is a spirit that comes
over me that is almost unable to be described.
I only wish life was as good as those moments ALL THE TIME…..i could
almost say I live for every other Tuesday night. But with hosting, comes a lot. To whom much is given, much is required.
Fast
Forward to the trials*:
With hosting comes responsibility. Having tried my hand at this for the last ten
months, and I am by far full of no one’s seniority, I have been able to see a
different side of poetry. Hosting has
given me empathy for situations hosts sometimes end up in; where as the artist
in me might not have understood so easily.
I have dropped the ball as a host a few different times. I have failed to promote correctly, I have
made flyers late, I have forgot tip buckets and more. I have done my fair share of ball dropping as
a host, so I have come to have not only a greater understanding of this
position, but also a newfound respect for hosts……
……….some hosts.
Some just don’t give a
fuck. They don’t try, they don’t care
and it’s an anything goes situation. I
have been fortunate to not have worked hands on with many of those types of
hosts, but if this were an honest blog, which it is, I would admit that those
kinds do exist. And for those, I don’t
have empathy or understand for. You know
why????
Because I’m just a
different kind of person. I think there
is a way to make shit right if & when it goes wrong and if you choose to do
nothing, then I can’t empathize w/that because I CANNOT understand it.
*Fast forward to Responsibility.*
With hosting comes a
level of responsibility that if you don’t know what all it entails, you will
surely learn thru trial and error, as I have, depending on how long you
continue to do it. As hosts, we are
charged with unspoken responsibilities to keep our people happy. Who are our people???
*the audience
*the venue
*the features
*anyone I didn’t
mention who is in the building
It is our job to keep
the crowd engaged, to entertain in between poets, to see to it that our
features for the evening are in the city, well taken care of and ready to
perform. We have to market, we have to
shop, we have to be accommodating. Hosting
does not equal “I get to do a lot of poems” …..sometimes, I don’t even think
about doing a poem because I’m so engulfed in whatever is going on around
me. Passing the bucket, making sure
people are putting in (not taking out), making sure the people of the night are
paid, making sure the audience is listening, making sure if someone wants on
the list, they make it if there is time…..its a very “accommodating” job.
And then there are the finances. …..#TheScaryBeautiful.
As I mentioned, I forgot
to pass the tip bucket for a feature from out of town…..This is when the “host”
in me leaves and the artist/human in me reminds herself to get it together
dammit……I ain’t gonna lie….i stressed myself out for the next two months about
it….you know why??? Because I told my feature that I would make up the
difference out of my own pocket……not because I wanted him to go back spread the
good word that “if jY forgets your tip bucket, she will cover it” …..but
because I am an artist…..and a human. I
have worked as a full time, part time & featured poet before…. so there is
no excuse available for me to say “I don’t understand where they are coming
from” in regards to wanting that tip $$…..we as artists, esp as full time
artist, COUNT on all possibilities of $$$ …..the longer we are in the business,
we know what is feasible to “count” and what could go “either way”……we know not
to count on a certain amount in the tip bucket, but we also know that if the
venue says they are “passing it” that we can expect SOMETHING. I would say I start off with $30, depending on
the crowd…in my head, as an artist featuring, I might consider myself able to
collect $30, give or take a few ends and again, depending on the crowd size
(and how the show itself goes). I figure
if I expect low, it won’t be a bad thing if I look up and its $60 bucks in
there….but if I expect $60 and I end up w/$25, I might be up shit creek….at
least thinking-wise. Lol…..so I stay low. But that’s just me….But the point is,
we count that money…….poets don’t hit the pavement featuring around so they can
take the money and go buy shoes and shit.
I can count on my hand how many shoes I have bought with poetry funds….
0_o Which could contribute as to why I don’t
want to be a full time poet…..LMAO!
But featuring poets are
counting on the money they are promised….they are counting on the tip bucket
being passed if that’s what you said as well as CD/book/Merch Sales, at least
to some degree……so it almost goes like an arithmetic poetic equation: x+y+1/2 + 50=$$ + merchX-CostOfTravelZ.
Yeah its like
that. When we go out somewhere, we are
COUNTING on a whole figure when we leave that may not be exactly what we
predict, but we hope it will come very close to it. So when we leave and part of that equation
turns to negative zero, we leave out in a deficit, no matter what we ended up
with. Why the deficit ? Did we
self-sabotage by expecting too much?
Well the deficit is
because we were expecting to have “around about” X amount of dollars. Did we self sabotage by thinking this way ???
NO…..this is survival of the fittest.
When you are full time, you are paying bills, making it to the next stop
and eating off of what you do. Imagine
if you are traveling out of town ??? Do you have somewhere to stay ? Do you
have gas money ? How are you traveling ? Who paid for your travel ? The list of
check off questions can go on and on, so rewinding back to me promising to
recover those lost tip dollars for my much deserving feature, it was the RIGHT
thing to do. I have a job. I might end up taking a loss, I might end up
needing to figure out how to stay afloat from the missing money from my check,
but at the end of the day, if I am in the wrong, I have to make it right. So that lack of tip bucket passing, became my
new bill. A bill that I didn’t get to
pay until 30+ days and three checks later.
But I paid it and prayed that it came right on time for him. It was my hosting responsibility to correct
that mistake on my behalf. It wasn’t the
people’s fault who brought me as a host…it wasn’t the venue….it wasn’t the
audience or the DJ’s fault and it surely wasn’t the poet’s fault. It was my mistake, my correction and while
the correction took a minute to make good on, I tried to stay in touch with him
to let him know he wasn’t forgotten but not “So in touch” that I kept making
faulty excuses that would fall thru. The
problem with over-communicating is sometimes you try so hard and so much that
you think (or hope) that you can make something work by a certain day and it
turns out impossible. So I tried to keep
distance and stay close at the same time until the issue was resolved.
I say that story for
reason. Not in attempts to tip my hat or
to down anyone but possibly to make my fellow hosts question their actions:
Again, we have a
responsibility that sometimes we don’t sign up for. A responsibility that sometimes we may not
want or that will cause interference with our regular, non-hosting lives……you
think I didn’t need that money I sent him ??? Mannnn I missed it as soon as it
was gone…….but that’s been months ago AND I never went below water. I’m still
breathing. I made it thru that and
possibly kept my hosting rep in some kind of decent order. And that is the for real point of this blog.
Fast forward to final thought:
We as hosts have to
operate in a different mindset sometimes that we were not necessarily signing
up for when we said “I wanna host or I’m gonna do this”. Maybe this blog will shine light into the
silent job of hosting and give someone something to think about if they are
considering it. Its not meant to turn
anyone away from the job or make anyone
fearsome of hosting. I honestly can’t
think of anything I’d rather do every other Tuesday (but not more than that,
shit…lololol) other than hosting. I have
a great team behind me, a cute DJ w/dimples and a black owned venue. My audience is live, they let me ramble about
everything from my dogs to my mom and overall and we support each other….which
does not equate to asses in chairs, for me. ….in my mind, supporting me is as
simple as telling someone about us. ….sharing a flyer…..coming out….staying
late, leaving early, dropping off
someone…..man the list goes on. I
am proud. I am ecstatic and I am happy
to have been asked to be apart of something this beautiful and inspiring. I
have been inspired and amazed in more ways than I can count in the last 10
months.
As we approach our
first year anniversary, with the next six shows already accounted for, I tip my
hat, at all of us hosts out here doing our jobs……our unspoken jobs that are not
always patted on the back……people don’t always come up to us and say “thank you
for doing that” …..folks don’t always look at you and be like “do you need some
help???” …….and that is ok….i am NOT complaining about that. ….a lot of the
times, folks have no idea what all hosting REALLY entails….What I AM saying is
sometimes hosting is a thankful thankless job.
Sometimes we are tasked with shit we weren’t expecting. Sometimes we drop the ball. Sometimes we go overboard and sometimes we
don’t go in deep enough. But if your
HEART is in the right place and you align your head up w/your heart, you will
succeed….in whatever you do but in this case, hosting : )
You will leave a
legacy.
You will trailblaze and
start new traditions. Hosting, in my opinion, is a stressful, fun job that
allows creativity to BLOOM in full…..take advantage of it. Love it. Embrace it all. But most importantly, take care of your
people. Take care of your features. If
you have to take an L in order to make sure your rep is intact or that your
featured artists leave out happy and WILLING TO RETURN, then so be it. Sometime’s that L is finances….sometimes you
have to take it out your pay for the night, out of your paycheck for two weeks
or hell, out of your Bill Me Later thru paypal.
But that dedication to the arts will be rewarded. Have the faith in yourself and your people
and your God that it will all work out for the good. Don’t leave your people out here in the dark.
Don’t leave them
clueless and don’t leave them mad.
You will end up on the
receiving end of a poem that you will likely fall in love with……
………………and won’t even know
its about you.
So if you are a host
And have not already
done so
Its time to Fast Forward to giving a fuck.
With love to us all,
~jY
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