I’m sitting at my computer, working at my “day gig” (my marketing company, Girl Friday), and watching the Democratic National Convention on TV (I moved my office onto the dining room table so I can watch while I work).

I’m watching the convention on C-SPAN, because, unlike on the “main stream media” stations like CNN and MSNBC, C-SPAN has no bloviating talking-heads opining and talking OVER the speeches I want to hear by people like Gov. Bill Richardson and others. So….C-SPAN is definitely the way to go. GREAT coverage. No talking heads. Just the info, thanks very much.

In between speeches, C-SPAN is showing the live music performances taking place by artists like Will.i.am (I LOVE his song, “Yes We Can” - it’s so beautiful I cry every time)….Cheryl Crowe just played. Over the PA system, in between acts, they’ve played Earth, Wind and Fire, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, U2…all uplifting, great, positive lyrics…and ROCKIN’ or FUNKY or GROOVIN’.

So, I’ve got the TV blasting through the surround sound, and it’s LOUD and I’m getting up and dancing.

Yes, dancing with those 75,000 people in the Mile High Stadium in Denver who are attending a political convention! But not just any convention! Oh no, this is the convention for the first African American Presidential nominee…the future leader of the free world. I wish I were there in Denver sharing this moment in history!!

Oh….here is Stevie Wonder with Take 6 performing live….be right back!!!!!

Wow, Take 6 are amazing. And I notice all the performers have ear monitors in both ears, rather than just one. I guess it must be really difficult singing in such a large stadium, with at least a one-second delay in the sound…

Anyway, I feel so excited, so hopeful and so PROUD of our country today. After almost eight years of near rage and almost physical illness every time I would hear or see the current resident of OUR White House, it is so refreshing to watch and listen to a beautiful, brilliant, inspiring, CLASSY man and his gorgeous family poised to bring us back a position of respect and admiration around the world.

I just hope and pray it’s not too late to repair what has been lost, destroyed or corrupted during the ‘long, national nightmare’ of the administration of He Who Shall Not Be Named So As Not To Sully My Blog.

Now, here’s Al Gore. Don’t even get me started on what could have been with him as our president.

My friend Jan Kucker sent me a link to this absolutely beautiful video of artist “Kaziah,” who paints portraits of soldiers who have died in Iraq. She has painted hundreds of them, refuses any payment, sends them to the families, and then just keeps going. What a tragedy that she has over 4,000 soldiers to choose from. But what comfort and joy she brings to the mothers, fathers and loved ones whose pain will never go away. I dare you not to cry. A very touching video. Click here: http://www.militarytimes.com/hancock

My thought was to begin this blog with my ruminations on the process of recording my latest jazz CD. I intend to do that; after all, this is my music blog. But today I learned that a very young lady, who grew up here in Petaluma and whose family I have known for several years, died tragically and unexpectedly from a fall off a cliff overlooking Rodeo Beach in the Marin headlands. Although I didn’t know Phoebe Washer very well personally, I do know her mother, Drew, and was especially smitten by her brother Henry, who is a friend of my daughter. I’ve been thinking about the family all day long, and feel so heavy in my heart for their pain. It is something I dare not imagine, that devastation and utterly bereft and unfathomable dark hole of anguish that Pheobe’s parents must be experiencing as I write this. In moments like these, one automatically thinks of their own child, and the heart clenches in that reflexive, instinctual spasm of “oh no God please don’t ever let this happen to mine. Please keep her safe.” And I’m not religious in any way, but Who Else to call on but ‘God’ the huge omnipresent Presence who surely must be able to prevent things like this from happening? If not God, then Whom?

Phoebe was a truly remarkable artist. In fact, her art was astounding, deep and full of a wisdom that belies the young age at which she created it. You can see it at her website: http://www.phoebewasher.com.

I think that Phoebe’s art perfectly reflects the image that I have of her in my mind. Ethereally beautiful - in fact, she was so physically beautiful, as you can see, that it was hard to look at her - impossible beauty! Yet with a sweetness that was not cloying or self-aware…more nostalgic or old-fashioned. So much like the images that she created in her paintings. Maybe it’s because I am the mother of a teen-aged girl, but I find that all of the young women here in Petaluma that were Phoebe’s friends and my daughter’s acquaintances are so painfully beautiful in their rawness and openness. How was Phoebe able to render those aspects of herself into images that evoke stories of loneliness, pathos, searching, discovery, arrival? At 16, 17, 18, 19 years of age? Only talent that she was born with, and parents that nurtured it, and friends and family who loved her for it and knew it’s promise.

Dear Phoebe, rest in peace. I am so sorry you are gone. Sorry for all those who love you and will miss you every day. You’ve reminded me today that the beautiful, the talented, the special and the blessed can leave just as suddenly and irrevocably as anyone else.