TOMORROW'S BLUE AMERICA CANDIDATE: ALAN GRAYSON

We've written a bit about Alan Grayson here, here, and here and tomorrow (Saturday) he'll be our guest at Firedoglake at 11am, PT (2pm in Florida). We'll be talking with him about his experiences prosecuting war profiteers and about his campaign for Congress in the Orlando area. But there's a lot more to Alan Grayson, of course. You can see something about him, his wife and five children at his website bio. But I wanted to find a way to give people a better feel for who Alan Grayson really is.

While we talked on the phone, he wound up talking about Joni Mitchell... a lot. I asked him why she is so important to him. I thought if I shared that with you, you might get a feel for where this guy is coming from beside the fact that he is a strong and committed progressive.

Can one person be the soul of a whole generation? If so, then Joni Mitchell is that person, for every child of the '60s and the '70s. "I am a woman of heart and mind," she sang, and she has been sharing with us what is in her heart, and on her mind, for almost all our lives. In song after song, she introduced us to characters of surreal depth and texture: "Edith and the Kingpin," "A Strange Boy," "The Last Time I Saw Richard," "Nathan La Franeer," and so on. And she introduced and then re-introduced us to her ever-evolving self, as in "Refuge of the Roads," "The Silky Veils of Ardor" and "Chinese Cafe." Wise enough to create "The Circle Game" and "Both Sides, Now," funny enough to create "Twisted," and soulful enough to create "Big Yellow Taxi" and, of course, "Woodstock." Chronicler of love for the first liberated generation. Creator of songs I want to share with my children. Voice of an angel, beauty of a goddess, wisdom of a maharishi, conscience of a saint. 
 
Everything we need to know, we learned-- or can learn-- from Joni Mitchell.

By the way, you don't have to wait 'til tomorrow. We've already opened our Blue America page for Alan. Ric Keller likes boy bands. If you want to elect a progressive who understands the difference between the Backstreet Boys and Joni Mitchell... well, you know.