YES WE CAN!

This is the most moving and exciting political and musical statement I have seen in a very long time (maybe ever). This is what I believe. It is why I will work in every way I can to see Barrack Obama elected President.

Si Se Puede... Believe!

Everywhere Else It's Just Tuesday

I'm sitting at the computer with Kermit Ruffins pounding out of my tiny little speakers while WWOZ in New Orleans gives me my first Mardi Gras fix of the day.

In much of the rest of the country, people are voting in the big Super Tuesday primary, hoping to figure out which two people will contend this November for the priviledge and responsibility of leading our country (and the burden of extracting us from the mess that King George has gotten us mixed up with in Iraq) for the next four years.

In New Orleans it's a different kind of day.

Mando Kayo has already taken their "get in front of the parade and parade" philosophy down St. Charles and Pete Fountain's Half Fast Walking Club is heading down Bourbon Street. Zulu is starting out the day of parades that will go on until dark, and the Society of St. Anne is parading along Royal, just a block from the idiocy taking place on Bourbon.

Yesterday, on Lundi Gras , the Social Aid and Pleasure Club Task Force mounted the first parade of Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs to EVER parade during the Carnival season, and today, on Claiborne Avenue the Mardi Gras Indians are showing their colors.

My friend Mary just called and let me in on some of the music playin' on the street, and my friend Tom Morgan just came on WWOZ (with a pre-recorded version of his show because he's off at Mardi Gras). All of this both made me feel better... and it made me feel worse. Dr. John, singing Mama Rough, just used the line "second line fever today" and that would be a pretty good description of how I'm feeling right here at this very moment.

This year, firmly ensconced in my renewed connection to Petaluma, I really thought I was going to find myself disconnected from Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I tried, like last year, to catch some of the parades on NOLA.COM but software issues kept me at arm's length. From the beginning of Carnival, just after New Year and going until the day before Lent begins (and not just today, like so many people think), Mardi Gras is the time for celebration of the craziness in life; a yin/yang juxtaposition with Lent that plays out, like a great drama, the realities of the way life unfolds. For some ridiculous reason I thought I would be able to extract myself from the deeper (and lighter) meanings of the season, and for most of the last month I've done exactly that.

Well... not any more!

Right now... with my friend Al Johnson on the radio singing Carnival Time... I really DO know what it means to miss New Orleans.

HAPPY MARDI GRAS Y'ALL!

Home Sweet Home... Almost

I just got back from leaving a deposit and signing a lease for a new apartment I will be renting in Petaluma starting the middle of March. It's a delightful place, close to downtown and close to someone who matters a great deal to me these days. It's also the first time in almost twenty years that I am moving into a place that I have complete choice over. MY place. It's small, but it's bright and open, cheery and spirit-filled. My landlords, who live next door, are people with whom I have already developed an easy, interesting, enjoyable rapport.

It's not in New Orleans... it's not even in San Francisco... and I am experiencing regular feelings of doubt, betrayal, guilt and even a sort of lost confusion over that fact. But much to my surprise and chagrin I am feeling excited and hopeful in anticipation of moving into "my own place" in a town that a few years ago I couldn't wait to escape from. In the last year, and for many reasons, Petaluma has become for me a place of solace, action, work, spirit, and relationship. I am glad to be here and I can't wait to move in.

I guess that this is the next step in my journey... and I just have to let it go.

Daddy's Girl

Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity is certainly aware of my particular attachment to the relationship of fathers and daughters. It starts with my relationship to my daughter and expands from there to encompass other particular examples of the relationship and to the general reality of what that relationship means across the wide ranging array of personalities, beliefs, and values that people hold all over the world.

In an, until now, unrelated connection, I have also always held a particular fondness for Caroline Kennedy that goes beyond just the fact that she is the daughter of JFK. It is somewhat mysteriously tied to the fact that, as a kid growing up in WEST Palm Beach, Caroline was playing across the river on Palm Beach. This connection was enhanced by the fact that on several occasions, my folks - part of the South Florida working press (my dad was the Palm Beach County Bureau Chief for the Miami CBS affiliate) - would pull me out of school to go with them to see Kennedy and family come into Palm Beach International Airport. Partly due to the fact that Caroline was just slightly younger than me, I felt a strange connection, as if I was almost a part of the family; an idealistic, if not fully genetic (or financial), Kennedy cousin. This is a feeling that has remained with me my whole life.

Beyond all that, I have an enormous respect for how this woman has lived her life. What she's done, what she thinks, what she writes and what she has to say.

So, today, when I woke up to the news that she was endorsing Obama - with a New York Times op-ed entitled A President Like My Father - I sat up to take notice.

On the other side of the country my long term friend, and producing partner, Zach had already done the same thing, adding the article to a growing collection of links on his blog about why he supports Obama and why he adamantly opposes Hillary. The links and articles and opinions are informative, passionate, and even quite amusing (the Letterman clip is particularly encouraging and terrific).

All of this material is worth the time it will take to read. If you can read it and still support Hillary, well then more power to you (and her!). As for me... I have come to the conclusion that this is the most important (and most significant) presidential election in my lifetime.

And... I'm ready for CHANGE We Can Believe In.

Brigadoon and The Beloved Community

Today is the day when we remember and commemorate one of the greatest Americans, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I find it unfortunate that it took so long for the country to get around to honoring this man. When I was in seminary 30 years ago, my boss at a youth center in San Francisco used to close the center for the day in order to make the point that it should be a holiday even before it was made one. Even now many places (maybe even most places) do not honor this day as they do so many other holidays; a day when we are given the opportunity think on, and to live out, the meaning of Dr. King's thoughts, words, and deeds. Unlike most other holidays, this is not a day of rest and recreataion, but a day when we are called - by example - to change the way we live our lives, both individually and collectively. A day when we are shown - if we will but choose to see - what it really would be like to live as The Beloved Community.

To me, this day comes around every year like Brigadoon, a Scottish legend about a magical town that appears out of the mist for one day every hundred years. Like the village in that story,this day when we honor Dr. King gives us a glimpse of what we could be; a glimpse of what we CAN BE. Having seen the vision and glimpsed the prize, it is then up to us to decide if we will seize the reigns of opportunity and seek to build a truly fair, just, right, and compassionate neighborhood, nation, and world.

It's not an easy thing to imagine, and it's even harder to create. If the world were otherwise, Dr. King (and so many others) would still be alive and this day would be just another Monday. And THAT is the point. Today is NOT just another Monday. It's a day to look up from our pettiness, our racism, our cowardice and our greed and ask ourselves, our neighbors, our God, and the Universe "what then must we do?" If we take the time to ask the question, listen for the proclamation, and then wait to truly hear the answer, we will KNOW what to do and then we will be compelled to do it.

The change has already begun, and while so many things seem to cry out against us, the fact is the day is coming when the New World is revealed.

We WILL get there... The time WILL come.

In the meantime... Keep Your Eyes On The Prize... Hold On!