Arts Liaison Kal Penn Starts Job At the White House

• He'll use his given name now, which is Kalpen Suresh Modi, and he never changed it legally.
• The arts organizations he'll be reaching out to are mostly regional arts organizations.
• He has no plans of any kind to run for office himself.
• This move came from his decision two years ago to "get involved," volunteering to work in the Obama campaign.
• He won't disclose his salary (previously reported at abut $60,000 a year), but his greatest reward in this post is the opportunity to work for the Obama Administration.
• He's living in a rental apartment ("my life is much like that of my colleagues here") and he unloaded boxes and unpacked them over the Fourth of July weekend. (Friends in LA are taking care of his home there.)
• His start wasn't delayed -- it just took a while to wrap up his life in LA and move.
• His first day on the job has been spent doing a lot of paperwork, setting up his email account and having introductory meetings with people.
• He didn't know he'd be asked to make an appearance in the finale of "House" until about a week before it was shot.
• It's an "incredible honor" for him to be involved in this "movement for change."

Penn also repeated what the White House has said before about his job, which is about bringing "new voices to the table" and being "the front door to the White House" for people. "We take the administration out of Washington and into communities," he said.

  It was a smooth debut, if not a substantive one.

But not to worry: It has been clear for some time that President Obama did not want an arts czar in the White House. That's not bad, and it may be good, as long as the arts figure strongly in other ways. It's also clear that Michelle Obama likes her involvement with the arts, and that can be great for the arts, especially -- as I've said before -- if she goes into the arts trenches, visiting not just the Kennedy Center and the Metropolitan Museum, but also regional museums and performing arts companies that need visibility even more.