photo by The New Guy

Well, I usually don’t watch Grammys and stuff but Hannah now works at Universal Records and Mary J. Blige is one of their artists and she was nominated for like a gazillion Grammys so not only did I have to watch it but Hannah printed out “Grammy Scorecards” from www.eonline.com and made me and Rusty pick winners so we could see who would get the most picks (I went 15-17 and Hannah went 16-16…don’t know what Rusty went…)

The cool thing was the Grammys showed a pix of Arthur Lee in the memorial segment! Although it only lasted a few seconds (and I’m not even sure what song they played with the clip; either I’m crazy or they played FOXY LADY by Hendrix!), it was nice and very special for them to recognize the man who made brilliant music and was a better performer than anyone in that building. I believe the New Guy kindly provided them with the video footage they ran (which was slowed purposely to look sad and dramatic, which I know would have pissed Arthur off; he wanted everyone to have a good time.)

It was really a surprise (a pleasant one at that) to see the Dixie Chicks win 5 awards. Hannah and I saw the movie about them and their whole demise after they said they were ashamed to be from the same state as President Bush (note: he’s actually from Connecticut and they recently named a street after him and all the signs were vandalized so I think the shame isn’t limited to Texas…)

Although I wasn’t able to make the Love Tribute show the Silverlake gals put on (Julie, Heather, and company) I am confident they did a wonderful job. I mentioned it to Diane Lee but I don’t know if she was able to make it down, but I know she felt really good that they were doing that. I’ve known Diane since 1993 and she is without a doubt a picture of class.

On a personal level, I have got on with my own thing. I understand some people are curious about what we’re all up to but I can only speak for myself. I spend my time still writing music ( specifically for tv projects ) but mostly I am a supervising manager for a cool pop culture company in Hollywood. Our clients include celebs like Posh Spice and Paris Hilton but also guys like Corey Maggette (LA CLIPPERS) and Jeremy Piven and basically people who dig unique pop culture stuff.

So that’s my story, for the most part. If anything changes, you all will be the first to know! Now, Valentine’s Day is coming up and I got Hannah a nice gift and she supposedly got me one! And Julian is coming out to LA Saturday (for a week or so) so it’ll be great to see him after so long. I hope everyone is doing well and Love fans can still ‘get along’! That would make me (and you-know-who) feel especially great.

Mike Randle