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Sounding Out Loud @_Lunargirl_ @freestartammas @pandorablake
My new audio interface arrived today. According to my new really cool soul friend, Lunargirl, it’s going to work! I say “going to” because I have yet to fully test it. I had to go to Sam Ash music store to get some interconnection cables and adapters. I came back home, had dinner with Ren, and haven’t gone back to work with the setup.
It’s not that I’m not excited. But maybe I’m a little too excited. I keep thinking “I will be podcasting and webcasting soon” and it feels like home and it feels like embarking on a long voyage at the same time. ‘Home’ because it is my path. I really feel that in my heart. And ‘long voyage’ because I am a fairly shy person and the idea of just being myself and being “on the air” is really a stretch for me, to say the least. I am definitely challenging myself. The few “Friday Quai-day”s that I’ve done have both confirmed the fact that it’s a challenge as well as the fact that this is the kind of thing that I should be doing.
Things I love to do – singing, writing songs, writing fiction (especially spanking fiction), discussing intellectual and creative subjects… things like that. And I used to wonder how could I ever … or even could I ever… combine these things into a career. Running a broadcast ‘network’ with programming variety seems like the very thing, custom-designed for me. Besides, I will need help. And this feeds my need to work as part of a team.
I’ll want/need contributors, correspondents, discussion and interview participants, musicians/composers as well as other podcasters/webcasters. I can’t imagine a more (potentially) fun “team” to work with.
And the more I think about it, the more certain I am that this thing should be mostly listener supported. I don’t like the idea of loading up my site with noisy, indiscriminate ads. I do like the idea of being underwritten or in an affiliate program with ethical content producers (ethical, by my standard – it will be a benevolent dictatorship…). I do like the idea of listeners knowing my honest need for money to support this network and its… ahem… crew. And I like the idea that they can freely give or not give and still get the content. I will sell things for profit, but for those items, that will be clear up front.
I also have come to realize that I don’t want to restrict myself to the spanking/kink world. My recent visit with Ren to the Second Life Florida Sunshine Jam confirmed to me that I do need to be involved with the world of music in general. So I’ve decided that there will be general original music programming as well as music shows by and for kinksters.
Throw some philosophical and political commentary and you basically have more content than I have time to produce. So, again, I do want help.
Pandora, as any good friend would, asked some smart questions that prompted me to look into music licensing. So I did some preliminary research and found out some potentially good news. The licensing schemes that (I believe) I would qualify for with the big three music licensing agencies (ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC), would cost around $300 each or probably under $1000 altogether per year. So this means I am not restricted for the most part in whose music I can feature. This is really good to know. Thanks again, Pandora.
Now I need to focus on contacting other audio content producers and artists like maymay (who produces “Kink Radio” I believe) and others who I’ll try to work out sharing agreements with. But absent that, or until that happens, it’s just me and the occasional Ren most likely.
Anyone want to collaborate? 
Considering the Future
This past week has been quite an adventure. I took vacation time from work and Ren and I went to Second Life Florida Sunshine Jam . We decided to drive rather than fly to and from NC to FL for various reasons, but whether we flew or drove it was going to be arduous. For various other reasons we don’t travel that well and so we don’t travel often. By the end of Sunday night, the last night of the jam, it turned out to be well worth all the challenges (which I shall fill you in more later if you’re interested). We renewed old friendships and made new deep connections that are sure to become friends. It’s always fascinating and exciting to meet the real faces behind our avatars in Second Life. I think most of us look different than expected, but one always feels like “Oh yeah… that does make sense though.”
Aside from the great music I participated in with this group of incredibly talented musicians, I also solidified for myself, my vision of my artistic and career path. I am now more certain than ever, that I want media, audio in particular, to be my mode of expression going forward. I want to focus more on podcasts and webcasts. For lack of a better way to describe it, I want to be the “NPR or the spanking/kink world” and bring you interviews, discussions, news, commentary, original music, and audio content from other providers/producers. I will still continue to write and post spanking fiction as well. (In fact, I’m considering creating audio versions of the stories.) In any case, I plan to post text versions of many of the main podcasts. I realize there are times when text is more convenient as well as times when audio would be more convenient.
In preparation for moving my artistic career down this path, I’m working on setting up a Skype account under the name “Quai Franklin”. And that leads me into still more deep territory. Adding the name “Franklin” is my way of incorporating my vanilla-world self. ‘Franklin’ is my actual first name. The reason I decided on this new name is because I am merging my vanilla world and my kink world to a great degree. I realized that I also want to provide “interviews, discussions, news, commentary, and original music” in the vanilla world as well. (Striking news, of course. I don’t have that kind of time or that many resources and the scope is way too wide). I do already have two vanilla-world musicians who have agreed to interviews.
So my question becomes, do I need to introduce them to the blog I write or their possible kinky audience? Why would it matter? We’d be there to talk about them and their music and their plans. The common denominator is simply Quai. The people I interview, the discussions I host, the commentary, etc… It’s all just my taste – the things I happen to be interested in. So the obvious answer, to me, is to establish other blogs that focus on my other areas of interest and to eventually link to them all from a “Quai Franklin” portal website. And I do want them to be under the same umbrella, because, frankly, I want to live my life as honestly as possible. As odd a person as I am, there are bound to be others who appreciate (more or less) my aesthetic and what it is I’m trying to do here. And as Martha Graham would say, “It is not [my] business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions.” And also true, “It is [my] business to keep it [mine] clearly and directly, to keep the channel open“.
This time I’m going to take this wise advice and just do that which interests and excites me – from my ‘channel’. I’m going to produce just the kind of content I like and see what happens.
Now, onto the business of how to make it “work”…
I want to work with you as much (as it can be mutually arranged and be mutually beneficial) in terms of doing interviews, participating in discussions, being a correspondents for news stories, co-authoring, c0-producing, etc. I really want this to be collaborative and fun as much as the hard work it surely will be.
As far as revenue, I’ve decided to take the public radio approach and depend on donations and advertising and possible underwriting by those whom I consider to be “ethical producers” (by my own standard). “Dreams of Spanking” is an excellent example of just such an ethical producer. Pandora Blake and her partners are producing “Fairtrade Spanking” with an emphasis on consent, and gender equality.
In practical terms, this week I’m testing the ways Skype can be utilized and recorded for interviews and discussions, as well as correspondent input. I’m establishing a new account with the name “Quai Franklin” and it will have an “online number” to allow call ins from regular phones. I want to test it out so I’m looking for volunteers to call in and discuss things and help me test the process and get the bugs worked out.
Please send me “show” ideas and topics you’d like to see discussed and people you’d like to see interviewed. What would you like a music program to be like? I get so excited just thinking about the possibilities. How about you?
So tonight as my achy body recovers and I take the last few days of my vacation, I’m in a happy place and feeling like I’m finally doing what I love and just need to work out the small detail of how to make a living from it.
Stay tuned…
