With the Leaves

At the invitation of my friend, PJAddict, I am now posting elsewhere at www.withtheleaves.blogspot.com.

Since we both post infrequently, we decided to post on one site to have more frequent posts, and perhaps encourage each other to post more often and let our creative and reflective juices go.

So join us!

MLK, Obama

I had hoped to write something about MLK day yesterday but did not get around to it. But today's news of Barack Obama announcing his decision to run for President is historic and honors the legacy of MLK.

There have been other African Americans who ran for President: 1972 - Shirley Chisholm (first African American woman elected to Congress), Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988, and (I am sorry to have to mention this) Alan Keyes sometime in the 1990s. There may have been others.

Obama brings something different than those candidates. He has a transcendent quality which allows non-Blacks to view him as not just a Black candidate while at the same time he is not viewed by those in the Black community as abandoning his roots or heritage or the politics of the Black community. It is an intangible element, an element that Bobby Kennedy certainly had. That different constituents and communities are able to view him as representing the best of their particular values, and by embodying a spirit which is broad enough to attract disparate communities, he is seen as a uniter, and thereby, in him, they see hope.

I would say Jesse Jackson had a transcendent quality in his oratory; he could inspire and galvanize you right out of your seat. And if you listened to him, he preached a philosophy that sought to unite the poor and the middle class to fight against common enemies of greed, poverty, and economic hardship. That was the Rainbow Coalition. But he was never viewed seriously outside the Black community; he was viewed as too radical, too outside the mainstream. I don't think it was his involvement in the civil rights movement, but certain anti-Semitic comments which were alluded to him. In any event, I supported him.

I was too young to know much about Chisholm's campaign, and I am not even going to mention Mr. Keyes, and will refrain from using the moniker given to him by Borat out of respect for MLK.

But Obama is the real deal: community organizer, attorney, state senator, and Senator. He also carries the imprimatur of elite status which for better or for worse soundly establishes his mainstream acceptablity: graduate of Columbia Unversity and Harvard Law.

Some say that he is too inexperienced to serve as President. Of course, it was another Illinoisian who ran for President after two years in the Senate and a stretch in the state senate: Abraham Lincoln. Those are high standards to meet and it is not fair to raise such comparisons.

But what Obama brings is the ability to inspire people beyond the ordinary politics, beyond partisanship, and most importantly for me, still bring a progressive vision to people. I have always believed that a progressive politics is not just a liberal or conservative one but one that demonstrates that social justice, and economic opportunity, among other progressive values benefit the majority of poor and middle class people.

Another parallel characterstic is that while MLK and RFK both opposed the Vietnam War during their times, Obama is also steadfastly against our current war in Iraq. The progressive vision is that misplaced militarism is not consistent with a just and conscientious society. Such militarism deprives resources that can ease the suffering of many people, whether it is economic hardship and poverty, lack of health care, lack of housing, inadequate education, and the list goes on.

MLK said it best in his historic 1967 antiwar speech at Riverside Church:

"A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. S o I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such."

I dare not say that Obama is akin to MLK, and only time will tell if he can inspire the populace like RFK, but I am encouraged that his candidacy may push the country's politics in a new direction.

When MLK was assassinated, Bobby Kennedy was in Indiana giving a speech to a Black audience when the news came in. He delivered the news to the crowd and in his eloquence captured the outrage and anger of the people and offered a way to channel that into a transformative politics.

In honor of MLK, in the words of RFK, and in the hopes of a Obama candidacy that can inspire people the way those two leaders did before both were assassinated within two months of each other in 1968:

Indianapolis, Indiana - April 4, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy

Ladies and Gentlemen - I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because...

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with

bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

(Interrupted by applause)

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love - a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

(Interrupted by applause)

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

Still the Greatest

Happy Bday Champ!! Wish I could write more about your legacy and contributions.

But, for folks interested, the ESPN Sportscentury piece on Ali was excellent.

Darryl Hunt Free!

Tonight I had the opportunity to see an excellent film which tells a tragic but ultimately triumphant tale: The Trials of Darryl Hunt. It is the true story of a man wrongly accused, convicted, and sentenced for the murder and rape of a woman in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The woman was white, Darryl Hunt is black.

The incident took place in 1984, and it wasn't until 2003 that Darryl Hunt was finally released from prison, after numerous trials, appeals, and hearings.

In 2004, even the U.S. Supreme Court denied Darryl Hunt a last chance to have a new trial. But where the legal system failed, faith and science working together brought Darryl's freedom. Faith, of course, because of the firm and unwavering belief of Darryl and his supporters that he was innocent and he was right, and that the truth would prevail. Science because it was the emergence of DNA testing technology which was able to finally exonerate Darryl.

Darryl's faith and commitment was so strong that after serving five years, in 1989, he was offered a plea deal before the start of his second trial that he would be released on time served if he pled to a lesser murder charge. Despite the fact that Darryl could walk out free, the fact that he would have to admit commiting a crime which he did not do was against his conscience and self-integrity.

There are so many stories of wrongfully convicted or imprisoned persons finding and gaining their freedom: Ruben Carter, Nelson Mandela, and so many others that we hear about. There are fictional tales too such as Shawshank Redemption or The Count of Monte Cristo.

It may appear that after a while, you may feel that you have heard this story many times, and the tale of the wrongfully imprisoned would not affect you.

But I can tell you that this story, as I am sure all of these similar stories, will leave you heartbroken and thrilled no matter how many times you have heard a story such as this.

The combination of racism, corruption, negligence, and criminal conduct by the police and District Attorney's office created a personal hell for Darryl which through his faith he was able to survive.

There seems to be something about someone who is wrongfully imprisoned and seeks his freedom which seems to talk to me, and many folks I would think. Maybe because such a person evokes sympathy and is an example of injustice clearly defined. Maybe it is because we see an innocent person suffer unnecessarily, and we identify with him especially if he is also good and decent. Or maybe it is because we ourselves find ourselves in circumstances that we cannot necessarily control or change, circumstances that we think may be limiting, restricting, or even imprisoning, and we don't see how we will emerge from it. And we see the story of someone like Darryl Hunt, and how he maintained his faith while acting to win his freedom, and we are inspired and humbled that we too should persevere and have faith.

In the film, Darryl's strongest advocate, Larry Little, who had organized the Black Panther Party in North Carolina in his earlier days, says the struggle is akin to man trying to move a mountain with a shovel. It is an impossible task, but to not make the effort in light of the circumstances would drive you crazy. So you fight, not knowing if you will win, but so you can have your sanity, your dignity, your sense of meaning in this world. That is all.

I remember reading the Alice Walker book, Possessing the Secret of Joy, many years ago after I got out of college. It is a book dealing with genital mutilation in Africa, and at the end of the book, when the protagonist faces the firing squad, the message is laid out before her in a banner unfurled which reads, RESISTANCE IS THE SECRET OF JOY!.

Well, I think I have spoiled enough plots and endings for one post. I want to encourage people to learn about different organizations fighting for wrongfully convicted persons. Some of them are listed at the film's website. These include:

North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence
The Innocence Project
Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama
Truth in Justice
The Center on Wrongful Convictions
The Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice
Southern Center for Human Rights

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Another dimension to the issues surrounding prisons deal with how certain counties and districts use prison populations in their census to qualify for funding, social services, political representation via redistricting, and many other resources while the prisoners themselves see no fruits from this practice. In fact, prisoners cannot even vote. One cannot think of the Constitution's original sin of acceding to slavery in exchange of counting slaves as 3/5ths of a person for census enumeration, thus allowing slaveholding states to benefit from the slave population both in their labor and their physical presence, while providing them no rights or liberties.

An excellent website and group addressing this is Prisoners of the Census.

Stormy Monday

The day started off pretty rainy but it's clearing up now. I heard this over the radio this morning. It's a blues song by T-Bone Walker:

They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday's just as bad
They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday's just as bad
Wednesday's worse, and Thursday's also sad

Yes the eagle flies on Friday, and Saturday I go out to play
Eagle flies on Friday, and Saturday I go out to play
Sunday I go to church, then I kneel down and pray


Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy on me
Lord have mercy, my heart's in misery
Crazy about my baby, yes, send her back to me

Soundtracks

I just signed up for "History and Significance of the Blues" at the New School's Continuing Ed program for the spring semester. My first choice, Jazz and its Roots in America, was all full. The professor of the jazz course is David Bindman, one of the coleaders of the Brooklyn Sax Quartet. I was looking forward to the jazz class because it looked at jazz in a holistic context, relating it to the politics, economics, and literature of the times. I hope a spot opens up so I can get into it.

But having signed up for this class, I started thinking about how my own musical tastes, or at least what I predominantly listen to, has changed over the years.

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In junior high, it was pure top 40, just loving the music. In high school, it was all classic rock, a form of my rebellion and alienation. By college, rebellion and alienation joined with bravado, sex, politics, and at times, rage when I was all about hip-hop and rap.

As law school approached, I started integrating more world music, traditional Indian music, and gospel - as I was probably seeking some peace, tranquility, and divine intervention in getting me through those years.

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After graduating from law school, I seemed to graduate to more dance tracks, reggae, soca, dance hall as I was liberated from my law school trappings. Karaoke was a lot of fun back then. Next was alternative rock, grunge, electronica - music with more "noise", I think. It seemed to match my emotions dealing with depression. I used to listen a lot to WLIR, 92.7.

Through these years, I listened to all of the above in different amounts, but it seemed that I gravitated to certain genres more during certain times.

Now that I am married with a daughter, I somehow finding myself listening to more folk: WFUV, 90.7, is a great station, which I basically turned to after WLIR closed up shop.

I listen now a lot to Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash as I would describe myself in a period of irony.

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My favorite group all these years is U2. They more than any band for me actually stretches or stretched at different times to cover a good portion of the different genres: classic rock, the politics and outrage of hip-hop, alt rock, electronica, folk, and country.

They seemed to be able to crystallize how my soul feels at different times, and I guess that's what makes them great.In any event, I find it interesting how the music we listen to during different times is a mirror of our emotional, psychological, and soulful lives.

The Godfather's Revolution

Just some addtional reflections on James Brown and his legacy. I was listening to the Underground Railroad, an exceptional hip hop show on WBAI - 99.5 FM on Saturday nights from midnight to 2 A.M with Jay Smooth.

He was comenting on the significance of JB. An interesting point that he made was that yes, many recognize him for the innovative sound and music he introduced, and some recognize him as a pioneer of hip-hop by providing so many of the foundational beats which were sampled and the basis of many a hip hop track.

But, according to Jay Smooth, his influence went a dimenstion further. Prior to his sound, the focus of American music was the melody with the rhythm or percussion being the background. What JB did was place the rhythm or percussion in the foreground and made that the focus relegating the melody to the background. As a result came the explosive and electric sound that we identify JB with, and which so many afterwards adopted.

This departure went one step further: in making the rhythm or percussion the foreground, he did not limit the rhythmic sound to just that of the drum. Instead, every instrument from horn, guitar, organ, piano, and even the voice became a percussive instrument. The beat was elemental in every expression of sound. Thus, we hear the horns and other instruments in the now familiar herky-jerky, stop-and-go sound.

The fact that the voice could be used as a percussive instrument was revolutionary in American popular music. Of course, that tradition existed for ages in the African and African American music and oral tradition.

However, its use by JB laid the foundation of rap itself, which became a musical genre completely centered on the fact that the voice is a percussive instrment, the rhythm, the beat itself.

Understanding that dimension of JB's influence allows one to see that it is no wonder that so many hip-hop and rap artists looked to JB's music for their elemental beats. Hip-hop and rap was a part of an innovation that JB had himself introduced in American popular music, and which embodied age-old African and African American practice: the power and prominence of the beat, the rhythm.

This was the revolution which the Godfather wrought.

Little Moon

One of the joys of my life is my 19 month old daughter. Let's call her Little Moon. Why? Well, she has a list of favorite words: cat (the first English word she spoke - my parents have a cat), plane (we live on the route to JFK airport so whenever a plane flies by overhead, she rushes to the back door to see it fly into the distance, and proceeds to say bye-bye), and of course, moon.

One of her favorite books is naturally, Goodnight Moon. That is where she learned the word while reading the book with her mother who diligently taught her this and many other words she now knows.

She is very sharp in identifying images of the moon. It could be the actual moon in the sky - full or crescent. A picture in a book. Or funny enough, any image that resembles it. One day we were walking down the steps to our basement. The stairs are wood and have random carvings on it that came about naturally and over the years. As she is walking down the steps holding my hand, she sees a little curve line creating a lighter shade in the dark wood. The line can't be more than half an inch. But sure enough she points to it and says, "Moon!"

That was very sweet.

We have a routine where after I come home, we will go to our bedroom and I will turn on the cd player and we'll dance to songs. I started this after I bought the Best of R.E.M. cd, so when we dance it's to R.E.M. The first track on the cd is of course, Man on the Moon. So as we are dancing and looking at ourselves in the mirror in our bedroom, as soon as she hears the refrain, "Do you believe, they put a man on the moon, man on the moon," she will join in and say "Moon!"

Another game we have is playing ball. Our basement is such that the stairs come down in the middle of the basement so that you can walk around the stairs in a circle. We have one of those big bouncy balls, the kind that you see in supermarkets in those receptacles stacked up high, about the size of a soccer ball but light as air. So we would kick the ball to her and she learned to kick it. I'm pretty sure we started this during the World Cup or around then. She kicks funny. It's not a kick where you bend your knees and let your calf portion generate the momentum. She does a straight leg kick, scissor style and it's so cute because you know she's trying.

So in the basement, I try to get her to play soccer with me and kick the ball. Except whenever we start doing that, she, for some reason, wants to just run and run around the stairs in the circle fashion. That's her enjoyment and excitement. So what I try to do is to kick the ball to her as she's running, and at times she will kick it if it comes in her path. But the game for her has become to avoid being caught by the ball as I kick it to her. So she runs and runs, and I try to catch her by kicking the ball in her direction so the ball reaches her and so she can kick the ball.

My enduring image is of her zooming across the basement tile floor around the bend of the stairs while I am just at the previous bend, as I try to kick the ball in vain to reach her as she, her back to me, disappears from my view.

She has become so fast that I can't kick the ball at each end and catch up to her, so I cheat and wait til she comes around and laps me basically and kick the ball to her then.

These are the joys of Little Moon.

James Brown is Forever Alive

James Brown is dead. No, not the 1992 L.A. Style track which tried to negate the need for soul in dance tracks. The real living legend, "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business" is really gone, having passed on Christmas Day.

JB was a special figure in my own exploration into music, soul, race, and expression. I don't know when was the first time I saw a video of JB, but I knew it was electric. I think it was on Video Music Box, the afterschool rap music show on Channel 21 that showed all the cool videos.

Seeing JB do his moves just made me want to be like him. And so when I was alone in my own room, dorm room, or apartment, I would get the hair brush out like it was my mike, put on the JB tape, and let it rip. For me, he represented a certain fearlessness about himself. Not afraid to let his soul come out, let it all hang out. And I admired that, primarily because my own personality was not like that. But certain situations or songs would bring that out in me, and I liked that new me, as fleeting as it was.

So JB was a reminder of what can be, of what I can be.

He was also a pioneer of sound and beat and dance, influencing the whole of hip-hop and rap. He contributed many great tracks which have a life of their own: I Got You (I Feel Good), Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, Say it Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud, Sex Machine, just to name a few.

Watching him and listening to him was a liberating experience. It is like how they say, when one person is liberated, it cannot help but have a liberating effect on those around him.

Sex Machine affirmed my machismo. I'm Black and I'm Proud was the basis of one of the placards we used during an anti-racist march after the beating of a young Indo-Caribbean in Richmond Hill. Our placard read "I'm Brown and I'm Proud." Newsday ran a picture of two little girls, twins actually - maybe 6 or 7, each holding signs saying "I'm Brown and I'm Proud."

So I was not such a follower of JB where I went to any of his concerts or had a big collection of his albums - I had some. But his influence on me and the world extended far beyond his music.

And so, even as his own personal history was uneven and, at times, troubled, JB was a legend, a true American original representing agony and exultation, pride and pain. Most importantly, he did it with soul, his soul, which he was never afraid to express, and which in turn liberated so many others to express their own soul, even if it was for a brief moment with the hair brush while alone in one's world.

Tis Not Too Late to Seek a Newer World

Since this is the first blog that I've ever started, I am uncertain of really what to write. I look at my friend's blog, brooklynmasala.blogspot.com, and I think, man, that is how a blog should be or at least that's the way I would like to create a blog - part storytelling, part reflection/journal, part history, part art and poetry, and part political news and exhortation.

But I'm not there yet, nor do I have ideas of how to get there. So I'm focusing on just getting my thoughts down on the screen, and see what flows.

I'll start with some major influences, though they will date me.

But before I do, I revisited my friend's blog and saw that his first entries were very much like journal entries - a series of thoughts, reflections, and experiences. No graphics and very simple. So that makes it a little bit more manageable for me.

Among my influences growing up were reading about figures such as Robert F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Gandhi - very common figures I would say for anyone influenced by progressive politics and social justice issues.


With Kennedy, I was fascinated by his transformation or evolution toward the end of his life and political career, how his politics seemed to have depth. That there was a underlying philosophical and poetic influence to his politics, thus giving him a passion that a regular politico just doesn't have.

I remember reading Arthur Schlesinger's book and Jack Newfield's book on Kennedy and was inspired by references to poetry, Greek and otherwise.

One such poem that I really liked was this poem by Tennyson. The title is Ulysses, and it refers to the great epic, the Odyssey. But I knew it from the line "'Tis not too late to seek a newer world."


IT little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.


What drew me to this poem, aside from Kennedy's own liking of it, was the sense that life is arduous, full of struggle, but nevertheless there is and can always be new beginnings. There is also this sense of a kindred spirit between Ulyssess and his fellow journeymen. It reminds me of the bond I have with my close friends who I have known for such a long time, and while we go through different stages, relationships, phases, jobs, locations, and struggles, we, together, push forward to inspire each other to reach the new frontier.

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"How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things

Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die.

We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Why Three Burials

I chose Three Burials because I decided I would try to keep a blog around the time I saw the Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, the movie by Tommy Lee Jones. This blog is not a tribute to that film but I found the title to be an apt metaphor on which to choose a title.

That being said, I did find the movie to be well done. Some friends had good but not glowing reviews. I admired it as a testament to one man's devotion to a promise made to a friend and his own sense of justice.

For me, Three Burials represent the three times in my life in which I have faced major or near major depressive episodes. At least these were the three most identifiable times. Before the first time, which was a couple of years out of school, it is possible I had some minor shocks or episodes but I did not recognize it as such. The second time was two years into my marriage, and the third was earlier this year.

In this metaphor, each episode is akin to a death. Hence the Three Burials. But from those deaths, there is creation. And that is what I hope this blog will serve as - a forum for creative expression and thought, and observations about politcs, society, and life. That is being very broad, I know. But that's how I see it now.

So a burial need not be an endpoint, but a doorway to another realm. Some call it reincarnation, others see it as a resurrection, but in either form, it is creation. This blog is not meant to glorify or romanticize death by any means, particularly the notion of death as taking one's life. Rather, I am trying to look at how depressive times can be like one being in a cocoon, and as the time passes, something beautiful emerges.

Well, anyway, I may just go ahead and change the title if this whole thing gets too morbid.

Since this is my first post, I thank Ganesh at Brooklyn Masala and PJAddict for encouraging me to write, even if it is a few sentences. I hope I will continue to keep posting and not be one of those blogs (who have taken all the cool names) where the posts have stopped a few years ago, but the damn cool names are still taken.

See ya later.