Some upcoming events below & important info from Brian (our JPF Founder) in #3

1) Tonight 2/1 7:30pm Seminar/Song Critique with Alan Roy Scott
2) Upcoming JPFolks events
3) Health Care/JPF Political Advocacy Network

Have a successful Wednesday!

Faith / JPFolks LA

==============

1) Tonight 2/1 7:30pm SONGNET Seminar/Song Critique with Alan Roy Scott

February 1st 7:30PM with Alan Roy Scott
Coffee Gallery
2029 N. Lake Ave
Altadena
2 mile N off the 210 freeway@ Lake
FREE!
http://www.songnet.org/

Among the many artists who have recorded his songs are Celine Dion, Luther Vandross, Cyndi Lauper, Gloria Estefan, Patti LaBelle, The Pointer Sisters, Rick Springfield and Johnny Mathis. His TV/Film credits include First Wives Club, Top Gun, Coming To America, Karate Kid II, Fame (TV show), Santa Barbara, As The World Turns and Beverly Hills 90210, among others. But Alan is more than a commercially-successful musician and songwriter. He has has a powerful vision: to unite a world community bonded by the creation of music. "I wanted to make myself available to answer questions anyone might have for me directly about "Unisong", song contests in general from the organizer's view, my own perspective from 25 years of writing, war stories about the industry, or anything else you'd like to talk to me about. I look forward to stepping out and just shooting the proverbial breeze songwriter to songwriter. If you EVER considered entering a music contest, & if you'd like to get a REAL opinion of your work from someone who understands both sides of the mic, you need to come meet Alan!

Thanks to JPFmember & Songnet Coordinator, Jimi Yamagishi (http://www.myspace.com/guitaryoda) for offering this wonderful free event to our members!

==============

2) Upcoming JPFolks events

Just a head's up...

Later this month on Feb 20th Mon 6:30-9pm, we'll have Tim Bomba (Music Supervisor of recent underground hit movie "What the Bleep")as our guest speaker at Dwarf Village Studio. More details coming soon.

And in March, JPF Member www.JodyWhitesides.com will be hosting a BBQ Song Share & Networking Party

Anyone else interested in hosting or putting together an event with a speaker or topic you're interested in, please let me know at jpf@faithrivera.com

==============

3) Health Care/JPF Political Advocacy Network

Below are two items...the first is a local invite for those of you passionate about the healthcare crisis & who would like to voice your suppport & opinion. JPF Member Lee Ballinger (http://www.rockrap.com/) is very involved with this issue & provides some great healthcare info for musicians on his site.

The sencond item below is from JPF founder, Brian Austin Whitney. He has personally been involved with his own healthcare crisis - not having insurance & yet requiring an immediate surgery to save his life. I'm so happy to report that he recently married his best friend and JPF Projects Director, Linda Berger, which allowed him to get insurance & the surgery he so badly needed. For this reason, Brian is even more passionate now about this cause and so has formed the JPF Politcal Advocacy Network which he hopes to make some real noise & real change on the legislative level - but he needs your input, your support, your vision & voice...read below for more on this.


~~~~~~
From JPF Member ~ Lee Ballinger

Are you a musician (or writer or visual artist) who has had trouble getting access to or paying for health care? Have you played a benefit for someone in need of health care? Would you like to come out and tell Congress your thoughts and experiences in regard to the health care crisis?

On Thursday, February 23rd, at 7 PM the California Nurses Association is sponsoring a hearing on health care in Los Angeles. There will be a panel of Congressmen/Congresswomen to hear testimony from the public. The location will be announced shortly.

If you would like to attend or would like to testify, please contact Lee at Rock A Mole Productions at rockrap@aol.com or 310-398-4477.

If you don't live in Southern California, it would be much appreciated if you could forward this email to anyone you know who does. Thanks a lot.

~~~~~~
From JPF Founder ~ Brian Austin Whitney

Just Plain Folks Political Advocacy Network
Last summer I realized that all the rhetoric and passionate observations about the ills of the music industry and the plight of grassroots artists serve no real purpose unless someone is actively doing something about those problems. There are a lot of people who are relentless in their pointed criticism of political and corporate factors that affect our community. They can lament endlessly on what is wrong, and in some cases even offer their suggestions on how things should or could be better. What seemed to be missing was folks who could actually do something about it. There really seemed to be only 1 focused core of people who not only talked the talk, but walked the walk and had actually won some important victories for our community at large. Those folks are our friends at the Future of Music Coalition http://www.futureofmusic.org/. We've written about them many times and below at the bottom of this newsletter, I've even included their latest efforts to educate and inform our community on what health care options are available. As amazing as those folks are, they need help. And I think it's about time that we all step up and collectively put our actions where the rhetoric is. Just being right isn't enough. We need to take tangible action.

To do this, I propose a new network of Just Plain Folks members. We did a little research into who our members are, and we've discovered that we have JPF member in every single US Congressional District. It occured to me that in a world where most people complain loudly but carry no stick at all, we could, instead, take the opposite approach. We could proceed with diplomacy, but carry a very big and noticeable stick in the efforts to get what we want, what we need and what we deserve. Imagine if every time an important political issue came up that affected our music community, such as FCC media ownership limit issues, group health care availability for those self employed (i.e. artists and writers), and more tawdry topics like what is a suitable punishment for a Radio station that engages in illegal payola using our public airwaves, we had a network of local constituents to come out in full force to every single US Rep and Senator with a unified voice and position? When's the last time the little guys, with no hidden corporate agendas did that on any issues? When's the last time ordinary constituents banded together in a non partisan way (versus the myriad of partisan political party connected special interest groups favoring exclusively the left or right) to express their opinion and better their ideas on how to solve the issue at hand?

This is my vision. Like Just Plain Folks in general, it's broad in scope and ambitious in every way. But for us to start being taken seriously, and to stop settling for simply being "right" but ignored, we need take the battle, the ideas and the solutions into our own hands and do something about it all.

So what do we need?

YOU! We need to hear from every single one of you who wants to throw their personal hat in the ring to get involved and make a difference. We need to hear from all political viewpoints, including the left, right and center of the political spectrum. We need to gather all the most passionate and motivated members among us who would welcome the challenge of bringing a human face and voice to non partisan issues that affect our music community. It's a tall order to get people motivated to help themselves, but out of the 40,000 artists, writers and music industry professionals reading this, I am confident we can find enough of you to build the long term foundation of this network.

If you'd like to get involved, either directly and actively as a representative, or perhaps more casually as someone who is willing to share their opinion and thoughts on issues that affect all of us, please email me directly and let me know.

Contact US:

Send an email to: justplainfolks@aol.com

In the Subject Field Place: "JPF PAN" and your City and State.

Inside that email (this is VERY important) include your full name, your city, state and zip code (so we can determine what congressional district you reside in) and a little about yourself such as any special skills you have. If you've had previous political experience on any level, let us know. If there's a burning issue you'd like us to address early on, let us know. If you have experience in organizing a similar grass roots effort, let us know. If you just want to cheer us on, let us know that as well.

Our short term goal is to find an initial "Think Tank" of individuals who want to share ideas on how this network can be created, what topics to tackle and how to make the most of the potential power of it all. Our long term goal is to have a collection of specific representatives in every single US Congressional District who can speak with each other and then for the entire community to local, state and federal political and business leaders.

If you don't live in the United States, we STILL WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! There's no shortage of good ideas out there and we welcome advice and wisdom from our friends around the world. Many problems we face here in the US are shared in other countries. Lets open up those lines of communication as well.

Once we hear from at least 1 member in all 50 US States who is interested in getting involved, we will contact everyone with more info on how we will next proceed.

Is it ambitious? Sure. It won't be easy and it won't happen overnight. But I think it's time for us to use the power of our grassroots community (and hopefully team with the communities of our friends at other organizations and companies) to create what is essentially a non partisan shadow political party of volunteer artist/citizens to have our voices heard along side the professional corporate lobbyists and lifetime political power brokers that have all the say now.

I welcome any and everyone to post their thoughts, ideas, feedback and support here to kick things off!

Remember, We're All In This Together.. so let's take advantage of the power we have in that fact.