Once again, it has taken me a while to post an update!

Since the last post, I had a whirlwind of a birthday celebration, which involved a week straight of non-stop partying. It was electric! My friend Rebekah Chesnes flew into LA and we painted the town with theatre, food, music and dancing!

School is now back in full swing and it is busier than ever. This semester I'm taking Constitutional Law, Evidence, Federal Income Tax, and Music Industry Contracts. Obviously, Music Industry Contracts is my favorite class. Classwork and studying has been constant, and while the material we cover in second year is harder than the first year material, it seems easier because we have gotten the hang of how law school works. I've also found we don't go over cases as dilligently as in first year and some of my classes rely less on the Socratic Method (where the professor calls on specific students to explain a case).

I also got my grades from my summer classes and they both are great. I'm very happy with the outcome.

Aside from just classes, I have been working hard as the President of my school's Entertainment and Sports Law Society. We have a TON of events planned for this year and have lined up a lot of great speakers. Most of our meetings involve a panel of speakers which I think will be really fun and informative for the students.

Our first meeting was a smash! We had Donald Passman speak, who is a very well known music industry attorney and is responsible for some of the biggest deals the industry has ever seen. I think the success of this meeting will really help to set the tone for a great year.

In addition to all the busy school stuff, I have found some time to go out and pursue my other interests, like Electric Effect. I've been out doing some swing dancing which has been great fun and gotten to see some live music - namely one great indie artist that I'll be speaking about more in the near future.

I'll post more soon.
~D*J*E

This weekend I attended the Starry Night gala honoring Quincy Jones, put on by The Grammy Foundation.

The outdoor evening event featured dinner and an all-star concert under the stars. The concert featured performances by Herbie Hancock, Nancy Wilson, Clark Terry, John Legend, Kanye West, Gloria Estefan (who was fabulous despite not rehearsing), Patti Labelle (who sang one of the best versions of "Over the Rainbow" I have ever heard) and others. I was also excited to see Nathan East on bass. Mr. East has toured extensively with Eric Clapton and he is a fabulous bass player.

I escorted Herbie Hancock for the evening, saw many celebrities and spoke with Naomi Campbell. I also saw many other industry people I knew and enjoyed seeing all of them.

Here is a photograph of me on the red carpet:


This photo was taken on a cell phone and didn't come out that great under the bright lights. I did the best I could with it in post processing.
(Thanks to Joe for the photo!)

So many song lyrics come to mind with that subject...

It really has been quite a long time since my last post. It's been a CRAZY two months. I have been working for my professor and studying A LOT for my classes. I just finished final exmas for my summer school classes and I am excited to get a bit of a break!

Both of my classes were very interesting. My Criminal Procedure class was all about the IV Amendment (Searches and Seizures), the V Amendment (right against self-incrimination and due process), Miranda Rights (not part of the V Amendment but related/based), and the VI Amendment (right to counsel). It was informative to learn about the rights afforded to everyone and the fact that so many people have no idea of their rights. It was also interesting to see the dynamics between the students in the class. Some were very anti-law enforcement officers. Others, like a friend of mine who is a former officer, is pro-law enforcement. I was a bit surprised to find myself siding more on the law enforcement side of the cases. Forgive me for lack of a better word, but a lot of the defendants were just so stupid. However, I guess that is why they got caught. The thing I keep in mind is that I am just an outsider reading the stories of the troubles in which people got themselves involved. Hindsight is 20/20, as is an objective third party.

My other class was Music Publishing. In addition to looking at cases, we looked at actual publishing contracts and the different types of deals that can be made between the writer and the publisher. We also looked at the different kinds of licenses for different uses of musical compositions and even had mock negotiations. Our professor is one of the top music publishing attorneys and the class has been really worthwhile.

Now for something on a more personal note:
Lately, I have been encountering many people with a complete lack of manners. It is really not that hard to reply to an email, return a phone call or make time for a meeting. It is incredibly frustrating when things need to get done and people cannot get themselves together enough to do their parts.

In addition, when a person receives an invitation, especially one with an RSVP date, it is important to actually read the e-mail, pay attention to that date and actually respond by the designated RSVP date. Even if a person does not know whether he can attend, respond to the host and say he does not yet know. To not respond at all is rude, inconsiderate and ill-mannered.
Manners never go out of style.

My dear friend and flautist extrodinaire, Rebekah Chesnes, is the featured artist for this month on the Soldier's Angels website. Soldier's Angels is a charity supporting our troops and their families. Rebekah is donating a portion of the proceeds from each copy of Introducing Rebekah Chesnes that is sold.
Please visit the following sites to find out more about Rebekah and Soldier's Angels, and purchase her album.
Official Rebekah Chesnes website

Street Symphony Artist Alliance Label

Soldier's Angels

It's VERY late so I am going to make this short. Tonight, I had one of the BEST concert experiences. I went to see Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple) and Chad Smith (RHCP) play at the Whisky.

First, let me say - I was in the front row!!! Woo!

One of the opening bands, Kingbaby, is fantastic. I have seen them play before and was definitely not disappointed. I met the lead singer, Lance, who was very nice. We talked a little business, and hopefully I will soon be featuring the band on Electric Effect.

Then Glenn and Chad took the stage. I thought this was going to be a good show, but it FAR exceeded my expectations. I would definitely put this show on my list of all-time best concerts I have attended. Glenn can ROCK. Chad is such an insanely electric drummer. Jeff, the guitarist, was also phenomenal, but unfortunately I do not know his last name.

Not only are they all incredible musicians, but you could tell they were having a blast on stage. They all interacted with the crowd (Glenn shooke my hand, and Chad winked, smiled, and gestured to me), which was great. Plus, Glenn was genuinely appreciative and visibly touched by the cheers for his music. It was wonderful to see such a great talent be so humbled by those that admire him.

My friend Jordan and I made friends with some really nice guys, Pat and Mike, that had driven in from San Diego. Jordan had gotten one of Glenn's guitar picks and gave it to me. At the end of the show, Pat got one of Chad's drum sticks. I had told him that I am a huge RHCP fan, and so we made a trade at his offering -- my Glenn guitar pick for his Chad drum stick.
That drum stick is totally getting framed along with my ticket stub.

Anyway, I'm going to close this blog entry because I am barely coherant enough to type. Hopefully this entry was coherant enough for you to understand.
Definitely check out Glenn Hughes at www.glennhughes.com and www.myspace.com/glennhughesonline.

My schedule has become so busy, I decided to record a new episode of Electric Effect while driving in my car, using the microphone attachment on my iPod. The other night, I took my new recording and fired up ProTools to put together the new episode. Everything was fine until I had some technical difficulties. The computer locked up and I had to shut it down by holding down the power button. This caused something to go completely haywire because when I went to turn the computer back on, it wouldn't boot.

One of my very good friends is a technological genius and told me to bring the computer over to his place to fix it. He got the computer to boot and recovered the files. Other than our conclusion that the hard drive was toast, things were looking good and I left the computer at his house while we let the computer copy the files to an external drive. I later got news from him that the computer locked up again while he was trying to back up my data, and he could not get it to reboot again. This also meant that we were not able to save my data. He then hooked the computer up to his computer and got it to boot that way. However, his computer could not recognize anything on my computer. Things were looking bad.

Next, things went from bad to worse. I went by his house today to pick up the computer. Not only is my computer toast, but now his is having the same problems as mine because he had connected our computers together. Here is my friend, one of the best people I know - not to mention the most generous, who took a large chunk of time out of his busy schedule to try to fix my computer. What happens? His computer gets screwed up. I feel really bad.

From his house, I took the computer to an Apple store where they confirmed its grim fate. As I stated, the hard drive is toast. Furthermore, the CD drive doesn't work, as my friend's CD is stuck in there and we can't get it out. If that wasn't enough, there may be problems with the logic board, and there could also be some video issues. Of course, I did not do a recent data back-up. I decided to take the computer to an authorized repair shop who could try to do some data recovery for me. I had an hour until the repair place closed for the weekend, and ideally, the shop was about 30 minutes away. However, because it was Friday rush-hour in LA, I couldn't even make it there in an hour. Closing time arrived and I wasn't even there yet. With a sigh, I just drove home.

It has been one of those days where one thing after another goes wrong. I still have a broken computer and have to wait until Monday to take it in for repair, where it will wait for 2-4 days before even being looked at because the repair place is so busy.

Needless to say, episodes of Electric Effect are going to be delayed. June is a big month because several bands have new releases and gigs that I was supposed to promote. Insert sigh number two, here.

I'll keep you updated on the computer status.

Meanwhile, Happy Birthday to my good friend Eric, and my super Homie-G-Money A.J.

More later...

On Thursday night I had a delicious dinner of Brazilian food in Hollywood with a friend from college. After dinner, I am driving down Sunset Blvd., which happens to be one of my favorite streets to drive on in LA. I stop at a red light and I look up to see Dave Navarro waiting to make a left turn across the street from me. It was such an LA-Hollywood moment and I loved it. Except for today's unbearable traffic, LA is just the most wonderful city. I love Los Angeles.