BACK HOME!

Just got back from our nation's Capitol, where I went to the wedding of Chuck of Liisa. Loads of fun, though I didn't take a laptop, so I'm behind on blogging, etc.

There should be a lot of new photos on my FLICKR account in the next couple of days, so check in.

And here's Laurell's playlists for my radio shows this weekend. (THANKS LAURELL!!)


Friday, April 14, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Guest Host: Laurell Reynolds

Wayne Hancock-Thunderstorms and Neon Signs
New Lost City Ramblers- Little Maggie
Jamie Hartford Band- Who Cut Your Heart Out?
Allman Brothers- Midnight Rider
Buffy Sainte Marie-Rolling Log Blues
Neko Case-John Saw That Number
George Jones and Tammy Wynette-Golden Ring
Merle Haggard-Bottle Let Me Down
June Carter Cash-He's Solid Gone

David Crosby-Cowboy Movie
Kris Kristofferson-For The Good Times
Gordon Lightfoot-Somewhere USA
Bingo-Red Apple Juice
Holy Modal Rounders-If You'll Be My Girl
REM-Witchita Lineman (live)
The Louvin Brothers-If Could Only Win Your Love

Joe West-Jam Bands In Colorado
John Denver-I Guess He'd Rather Be In Colorado
Judy Collins-Daddy You've Been On My Mind
James Taylor-Carolina In My Mind
Cordelia's Dad-Old Virginia
Neil Young-Long May You Run
Emmy Lou Harris- Today I Started Loving You Again
Kitty Wells-Making Believe
Gillian Welch-Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor

Michael Hurly-The Tea Song
Geechie Wiley-Last Kind Word Blues
Dock Boggs-Country Blues
Lee Sexton-Pretty Polly
Clarence Ashley-Little Sadie
John W. Summers-Fine Times At Our House
Holy Modal Rounders-Dance In Slow Motion


Terrell's Sound World
Sunday, April 16, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Guest Host: Laurell Reynolds

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Patti Smith Group-Because the Night
MC5-American Ruse
Janis Joplin-The Cuckoo
Love-7 and 7 Is
Jimi Hendrix-Highway Child
Robin Trower-Little Bit Of Sympathy
Morphine- Thursday
I'm Free Now
Dramatic Theme- Pink Floyd

Frank Zappa-My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama
Peaches En Regalia
What's The Ugliest Part of Your Body
GTO's-Wouldn't It Be Sad If There Were No Cones?
Syd Barrett-Love You
Eric Burdon And The Animals -San Francisco Nights
The Byrds-I Knew I'd Want You
It's A Beautiful Day- Wasted Union Blues
Edwin Star- A Girl Like You
Captain Beefheart-Zig Zag Wanderer

The Fugs W/ The Rounders-I Couldn't Get High
CIA Man
GTO's-The Original GTO's
Sinead O'Connor-I Want Your Hands On Me
Peter Gabriel-I Have The Touch
Siouxie And The Banshee's-Melt
Mazzy Star-Fade Into You
Jane's Addiction-Of Course

Olivia Newton-John-Magic
ABBA-Knowing Me, Knowing You
Funkadelic-Can You Get To That
John Lennon & Yoko Ono-Watching the Wheels
Laura Love- Mahbootay
The Doors-Freedom Exists
-End Of the Night
Scott Joplin- A Real Slow Drag
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: A TRUCKERS BLESSING

A version of this appeared in The Santa Fe New MexicanApril 21, 2006

Everybody’s favorite Southern rockers (well, at least mine), The Drive-By Truckers, for the last several albums have created kudzu-covered musical landscapes populated by Southern characters both famous — Lynyrd Skynyrd, George Wallace, Buford Pusser — and small-time farmers, gamblers, unknown stockcar racers, bootleggers, local losers. While singing with pride about the “Southern Thing” and gleefully playing with and adding to the region’s mythology, any pride or sentimentality about Southern living you might detect in a Truckers song is countered by grim realism. Poverty, ignorance, corruption, and racism hang like Spanish moss in the Truckers’ songbook.

However, on the Truckers’ new CD, A Blessing and a Curse, the band, lyrically at least, seems to have crossed the Mason-Dixon line.

No, the sound hasn’t drastically changed. They’ve still got their three-guitar, three-singer, three-songwriter front line (Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell). They still play it loud and, when called for, can play it awful purty. And they’re still following the advice of Isbell’s dad in the song “Outfit” (“Don’t sing in no fake British accent.”)

But the pure Southern themes from the previous albums are missing. The songs on A Blessing and a Curse are more universal, not pinned to any geography. Less grits, but no less gritty. The Truckers still sing of debauchery, despair, decay, and domestic misery. But heck, even Yankees experience these things.

Of course it would be impossible to completely de-Dixify these guys. Cooley’s deep Alabama drawl, for instance, is still a powerful force.

And even when they’re rocking their hardest, the music is still soaked in Allman/Skynyrd roar with blues and country undercurrents. And ain’t that what we love about the South?As always, the Truckers have filled their album with terrific songs. As the album starts, right in the middle of an ugly lover’s spat in Hood’s song “Feb. 14,” a listener almost feels like he’s got to duck to avoid being hit by a flying object.

“Flowers flying cross the room/Vases smashed against the floor. Said I’d rather be alone/Take your chocolates and go home.”

This is followed by a Stones-y Cooley song called “Gravity’s Gone.” It’s about a soul gone adrift in the champagne/cocaine world of rock ’n’ roll excess.

That world grows even more desperate on Hood’s “Aftermath USA,” which has a similar Exile on Main Street feel — and is sung with a similar wicked grin. The narrator wakes up to find his home — and by implication, his world — in shambles.

“There were beer bottles in the kitchen/And broken glass on the floor … Crystal meth in the bathtub/Blood splattered in my sink/Laying around in the aftermath/It’s all worse than you think.”

In addition to these rockers, A Blessing and a Curse contains some of the prettiest songs the Truckers have ever recorded.

“Little Bonnie,” written and sung by Hood, is the story of a child who dies and the guilt her father feels.

“My grandma said she would keep her in the mornings/A swollen angel who never would complain/She’d read her stories about little girls and princesses/Whose daddies don’t feel punished for what heaven takes away.”

The melody of Cooley’s “Space City,” played quietly on an acoustic guitar, is devastating in its sad beauty. But not nearly as devastating as the story it tells.

The song is about a man grieving at the grave of a lost love with a heart full of regrets at the way he treated her.

“My hands are as good to me as they’ve ever been/And I ain’t ashamed of anything my hands ever did/But sometimes the words I used were as hard as my fist/She had the strength of a man and the heart of a child I guess.”
Blessing ends with a song in which Hood gets very serious, talking to a troubled friend. A spacey Jerry Garcia-like steel guitar (actually it’s former Trucker John Neff) plays in the background as Hood says, “I was 27 when I figured out that blowing my brains out wasn’t the answer.” (Ah, that magic age of 27. Remember Kurt Cobain’s mother’s reaction when her son committed suicide at that age? “I told him not to join that stupid club,” she said, referring to Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Jim Morrison, all of whom were 27 when they died.)

“So I decided maybe I should find a way to make this world work out for me, No, it’s a wonderful world, if you can put aside the sadness/And hang on to every ounce of beauty upon you/Better take the time to know it, there ain’t no way around it/If you feel anything at all.”

The last verse concludes with Hood declaring, “It’s great to be alive,” but the refrain of the song warns, “Gonna be a world of hurt/Gonna be a world of hurt/Gonna be a world of hurt …”

I just love this damned band. It’s great to be alive!

Concerts: The Drive-By Truckers appear with Son Volt and former Meat Puppet Curt Kirkwood at El Rey Theater, 622 Central Ave. S.W., in Albuquerque, on April 30. Tickets are $25 in advance, available at Bookworks and Natural Sound in Albuquerque, online at www.abqmusic.com, Tickets Santa Fe and by phone from the Lensic Box Office at 988-1234. It’s $30 at the door.

Unfortunately the Truckers won’t be at Son Volt’s Santa Fe show the night before. But The Handsome Family will be. Plus, it’s at the ever-bitchen Club Alegría on Agua Fría Road. Tickets are $23 and available through Tickets Santa Fe.

WHO IS HEATHER BREWER?

Careful readers of this blog (thank God we don't have too many of those) might have noticed some strange gibberish in the original version of this morning's Roundhouse Roundup. (The post right below this one.)

In the paragraph about Patricia Madrid, in which her campaign spokeswoman Heather Brewer talked about Madrid donating the money she'd received from Guy Riordan to the Humane Society, there appeared the words "Who is Heather Brewer?"

It was an "invisible" editor's note that I'd picked up in cutting and pasting my column.

Heather Brewer, (whoever she is), caught it and called me up to good naturedly razz me about it. But thanks to her, I found another editor's note, which I promptly removed from the blog.

And no, none of these showed up in print.

The joys of blogging ...

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: CHARITABLE KICKBACKS

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 20, 2006

New Mexico charities should get together and name former state Treasurer Robert Vigil as “Man of the Year.”

No kidding. If nothing else, the state treasurer scandal has created a windfall for charitable organizations.


On Tuesday, Gov. Bill Richardson’s boxing buddy and campaign contributor Guy Riordan was implicated in the scandal by former Treasurer Michael Montoya. Montoya, testifying at Vigil’s trial in federal court, said he received as much as $100,000 in kickbacks from Riordan in exchange for investment contracts. Most of this money, Montoya said, was passed to him at restroom stalls at restaurants.

Riordan’s lawyer hotly denied this. And the Albuquerque investment broker/commercial-hunting ranch owner hasn’t been charged with any crime.
But Richardson wasn’t taking any chances.

Shortly after the story hit the wires, the governor’s office zapped out a press statement saying Riordan had been yanked off the state Game Commission, and Richardson would donate the $24,000 in campaign donations he received from Riordan to “New Mexico charities.”

Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley said Wednesday that first lady Barbara Richardson’s office will determine which charities will get how much money.

Chain reaction: By Wednesday, several other politicians who have accepted Riordan’s generosity in recent years were following suit.

Lt. Governor Diane Denish’s re-election campaign announced it will donate $10,000 to the United Way of Central New Mexico. Denish chef of staff Chris Cervini said Riordan gave Denish $5,000 in 2004 and $5,000 last year.

I found an e-mail from Rep. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, in my in box saying “my campaign donated $500.00 today to the Santa Fe Children's Museum representing the amount Guy Riordan/Wachovia Securities gave in May 2004.”

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Patricia Madrid’s congressional campaign said the $740 Madrid received from Riordan in 2002 is going to the dogs. Madrid will be giving the money to the American Humane Association, Heather Brewer said. Madrid is having some of her money people check to make sure $740 is the total amount Riordan has given Madrid, Brewer said.

Rep. Al Park, D-Albuquerque, said Wednesday that he’ll be donating his $1,000 in Riordan money to charity. He hasn’t decided which one.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chávez said Chávez’s mayoral-campaign organization will donate the $1,500 it received from Riordan to the Albuquerque Public Schools Foundation for programs promoting early-childhood literacy and helping homeless students.

Riordan also donated $200 to Chávez’s 1992 state Senate race. Chávez spokeswoman Deborah James said that campaign organization folded years ago. But to avoid any appearance of impropriety, James said, Chávez would personally donate $200 to the APS Foundation.

What a deal: Riordan gave $250 to the New Mexico Democratic Party in 2002. Party executive director Matt Farrauto said the party probably won’t be giving that donation to charity.

But he said he’d make a deal with U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M. “We’ll give the $250 to charity if Heather donates all the money she got from Tom DeLay,” he said.

Wilson, between 1998 and last year, received nearly $47,000 from the indicted former House majority leader’s political-action committee. Last year she returned the $10,000 she’d collected from DeLay's PAC in June, but not the $36,959 she received from the PAC between 1998 and 2003. Wilson campaign officials have said she won’t be returning that money.

Wilson in January did donate $1,000 she received from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, after he pleaded guilty to a fraud charge, to the Boy Scouts.

Don’t forget Vigil: As reported several months ago in this column, the former treasurer — on trial for 28 felony counts of extortion, racketeering and money laundering — started what I dubbed a “Kickbacks for Kiddies” program.

According to records in his court file, Vigil was captured on tape talking with a “cooperating witness” about helping Vigil’s wife's favorite charity — Big Brothers Big Sisters — by soliciting contributions from investment advisers who contract with the state.

At one point, Vigil tells the informant, “Where is there a law that doesn't allow you to help kids, you know. Bunch of (bovine manure) ...”.

Refining the national message: This week, Wonkette — that Washington, D.C.-based blog whose motto is “Politics for people with dirty minds” — described a meeting, supposedly taking place this week on Mansion Ridge Road in Santa Fe.

Gov. Richardson, the blog said, “is hosting several top political consultants at the Governor’s mansion this week, as part of a two-day retreat to ‘refine his national message’ leading up to his 2008 presidential bid.”

Not so, says Richardson’s political director Amanda Cooper.

Cooper said there was in fact a recent meeting in Santa Fe that involved several Richardson campaign consultants, including Steve Murphy of Murphy Putnam-Media, in Alexandria, Va., who was U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt’s national campaign manager in 2004; Doc Sweitzer of the Philadelphia-based Campaign Group, who worked Richardson’s 2002 campaign; and Dave Gold of Taos.

But Cooper claimed there was no talk about refining any “national message.” It all had to do with Richardson’s re-election campaign and “moving New Mexico forward,” she said Tuesday.

FLICKR

My daughter talked me into starting a FLICKR page.

CLICK HERE to see photos of loved ones, favorite bands, landmarks, etc. (Some of them, perhaps most of them, you've already seen on my blog, but in weeks to come there will be a lot you won't see anywhere else.)

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 16, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Peter Cottontail by The Bubbadinos
Easter by Patti Smith
The Temple by The Afghan Whigs
Damned For All Time by Scratch Acid
Superstar by Murray Head
Jesus Christ Pose by Soundgarden
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues by Bob Dylan
The Ballad of John & Yoko by The Beatles

Take a Chance by Hundred Year Flood
Roam by The Yahoos
Wilder Than the Wind '66 by Johnny Dowd
Cheated Heats by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Where There Are No Children by KULT
Mussolini vs. Stalin by Gogol Bordello
The Burglars Are Coming by Solex

Across the Borderline by Ry Cooder with Freddy Fender
Wave by Alejandro Escovedo
Across the Wire by Calexico
California Snow by Dave Alvin
The Line by Bruce Springsteen
Ballad of the Tucson Two by Howe Gelb with Freakwater
Born in East L.A. by Cheech & Chong
Deportee by Concrete Blonde y Los Illegals

Single Again by The Fiery Furnaces
Mr. Ambulance Driver by The Flaming Lips
Habeus Corpus by David Thomas & Two Pale Boys
A Day of the Trumpet by Fireblood Angel Band
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 14, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
If You Play With My Mind (You're Gonna Get Your Hands Dirty) by Cornell Hurd
You Can Pick 'em by Jessi Colter
Wednesday by Drive-By Truckers
8 Miles a Gallon by Scott Miller & The Commonwealth
Do What I Say by The Waco Brothers
Whole Lotta Things by Southern Culture on The Skids
Jubilee by Jon Dee Graham
Half as Much by Van Morrison
Smokey & The Bandit by Lucy Falcon

If I Needed You by Townes Van Zandt
I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love With You by Hank Williams
Parallel World by Steve Terrell & The Desperados
Love Hurts by Roy Orbison
When Two Worlds Collide by John Prine & Trisha Yearwood
Lion's Jaws by Neko Case
The Old Part of Town by James McMurtry
Fruit of the Vine by Nancy Apple
Baby Let's Leave Me by Rex Hobart

California Snow by Tom Russell
Stranger in Town by Dave Alvin
Gone in a Gamble by Cordero
Mendocino/Dynamite Woman by Sir Douglas Quintet
Someday We'll Look Back by Merle Haggard
Lulu's Back in Town by Leon Redbone
Pink Burrito by R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders

Middle Man by The Bottle Rockets
Here Comes Forever by Curt Kirkwood
Once I Loved an Outlaw by David Bromberg
The Pilgrim Chapter 33 by Emmylou Harris
Be My Love by NRBQ
Passin' Through by Gary Heffern
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

JUST A LITTLE KISS

From L.A. Times:

"Joey Fatale, the 4-foot, 4-inch New Yorker who heads the all-dwarf KISS tribute band MiniKiss, is denying published reports that he tried to sneak past security last month at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas to confront a rival band leader, 4-foot "Little" Tim Loomis of Tiny Kiss, for allegedly ripping off his idea for such a group."

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: IMMIGRANT SONGS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 14, 2006

While the debate over illegal immigration from Mexico has dominated the nation’s headlines in recent weeks, it’s an issue that has long been addressed by this country’s singers, songwriters, guitar pickers and rock-and-rollers. It’s a one-sided debate in music land, however. In all the songs I’ve ever heard, those who cross the border without documentation are regarded with compassion.

Like the issue of crime — on which our politicians scream for harsh punishment while our songsters show sympathy to the men workin’ on the chain gang — songs about immigrants seem to express our kinder side. Here are a bunch of songs that deal with immigration.

* “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee)” by Woody Guthrie. On Jan. 29, 1948, a U.S. government plane deporting 28 people to Mexico caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon in California and crashed, killing everyone on board. When he heard news of the crash, Guthrie was not only saddened by the tragedy but angered at how the story was reported. The victims weren’t named. They were just deportees.

The story is told from the point of view of “Juan, Rosalita, Jesus and María” — names he assigned the doomed passengers. (It’s interesting that “Jesus” was among those names. Though Guthrie was an avowed communist — and they’re supposed to be “godless” — the figure of Jesus often appears in his songs as a helper of the poor and powerless.)

“Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted/Our work contract’s out and we have to move on/Six hundred miles to that Mexican border/They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.”

“Deportee” has been recorded by dozens of performers, including Joan Baez and Dolly Parton. My favorite rendition was a sad waltz by the Byrds on their underrated 1969 album, The Ballad of Easy Rider.

* “A Matter of Time” by Los Lobos. I’ll argue that this is Los Lobos’ greatest song. Appearing on their first major-label album, How Will the Wolf Survive, more than 20 years ago, it’s at least the first song that proved the East L.A. group was destined to become a great band.

The song is a hushed conversation (”speak softly; don’t wake the baby”) between a Mexican man and his wife right before he departs for the United States. “I’ll send for you, baby/Just a matter of time,” he promises. While the words suggest uncertainty, Steve Berlin’s jaunty sax gives an underlying sense of optimism.

* “Across the Borderline” by Ry Cooder. Cooder performed this song, co-written by John Hiatt and Jim Dickinson, on his 1987 album Get Rhythm. But the best version was sung years before by Freddy Fender in Cooder’s soundtrack for the movie The Border.

“Up and down the Rio Grande/A thousand footprints in the sand/Reveal a secret no one can define ...”

This song tells the other side of the story heard in “A Matter of Time”:

“When you reach the broken-promise land/Every dream slips through your hand.”

* “California Snow” by Tom Russell and Dave Alvin. The co-writers each recorded it separately, Russell’s version appearing on his 2001 album Borderland and Alvin’s on Blackjack David (1998).

The narrative, as a friend said, could almost be a Cormac McCarthy short story. It’s about a Border Patrol officer who comes across a Mexican immigrant lying in a ditch with his wife, who has died of exposure in the mountains east of San Diego. The experience horrifies the officer and makes his own life seem cheap and empty. By the end of the song he’s contemplating going back to his ex-wife and trying to reconcile.

* “The Line” by Bruce Springsteen. Here’s another song from the point of view of a Border Patrol officer. Here the officer falls in love with an immigrant girl and crosses the line by helping her cross that other line — compromising his friend, another officer, in the process.

This song is from The Ghost of Tom Joad, Springsteen’s 1995 album that has several other songs about immigrants, most notably “Sinaloa Cowboys,” about a pair of brothers caught up in the drug trade.

* “Born in East L.A.” by Cheech and Chong. It’s a goof. It’s a parody of Springsteen’s “Born in the USA.” But while it’s a joke — about an American Chicano mistakenly deported — it’s a sharply pointed joke, and like the Cheech Marin movie it inspired, it’s a lot better than it should have been and, 20 years later, it holds up well.

* “Wave” by Alejandro Escovedo. This song is about the singer’s father, who came to the United States from Mexico when he was 12 to search for the parents who had abandoned him. The song — from By the Hand of the Father, a play by Escovedo that deals with his family history — starts optimistically: “The sun is brighter there/and everyone’s got golden hair ...” But the boy learns, “the sun’s not brighter here/It only shines on golden hair.”

* “Xich vs. the Migra Zombies” by Concrete Blonde y Los Illegals. This collaboration between two Los Angeles indie-rock vets is a metallic romp about immigration agents chasing two men through a mall. It’s from the 1998 album Concrete Blonde y Los Illegals. Inspired by California’s Proposition 187, which meant to eliminate social services for illegal immigrants, the album also includes a version of Guthrie’s “Deportee.”

* “Across the Wire” by Calexico. The Arizona-based kings of mariachi rock, with trumpets blaring and accordion pumping, sing of “Alberto y Hermano on the coyote’s trail/and dodging the shadows of the Border Patrol/out in the wastelands wandering for days/the future looks bleak with no sign of change.” It’s on their 2003 album, Feast of Wire.

* “Ballad of the Tucson Two” by Howe Gelb (with Freakwater). Dan Strauss and Shanti Sellz, immigrant-aid volunteers, were arrested last summer while taking three illegal immigrants from the desert near Tucson to a hospital. They are facing felony charges. This is a strange but wonderful ode to the two, with Freakwater sounding like Appalachian ghosts singing “Amazing Grace” and Giant Sand man Gelb mumbling his lyrics about the Sonoran sun to a near-bossanova beat. The song is available on iTunes.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: POLITICAL GRILLING FOR JURORS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April13, 2006

Prospective jurors in former state Treasurer Robert Vigil’s trial — scheduled to begin Monday in Albuquerque — might be grilled about their individual political beliefs.

A 13-page “Request for Voir Dire Questions” filed in federal court this week lists specific questions prosecutors want to ask during jury selection.

Vigil faces multiple counts of extortion , money laundering and racketeering . The FBI says he demanded kickbacks from investment advisers in exchange for giving them state business .

Included in the list of proposed questions for the jury panel is an entire section under the heading of “Political Biases.”

Among them:

* “You will hear evidence in this case that defendant belongs to the Democratic party. Are there any jurors who would tend to sympathize with defendant as a result of this fact? Conversely , are there any jurors who feel they would be biased against defendant because he belongs to the Democratic party?”

* “Are there any jurors who feel that Democratic politicians are generally more honest than Republican, or other, politicians?”

* “Are there any jurors who feel that Republican politicians are generally more honest than Democratic, or other, politicians?”

* “Is there anyone on the panel who thinks that the United States Attorney’s Office should treat politicians differently, depending on their party?”

* “Is there anyone on the panel who has an issue with the United States Attorney prosecuting Democratic politicians?”

* “Is there anyone on the panel who has an issue with the United States Attorney prosecuting Republican politicians ?”

Background for us nonjurors: For the record, Vigil is a Democrat, while U.S. Attorney David Iglesias is a Republican . He was the GOP nominee for attorney general back in 1998.

He lost to current Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who is running for Congress against incumbent Republican Heather Wilson. State GOP leaders have criticized Madrid for not investigating Vigil in 1999 after a scathing state auditor’s report about activities during Vigil’s tenure as auditor.

But what’s that got to do with Scooter?: The former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney comes up in the proposed Vigil jury questions.

“Has anyone on the panel heard of a person named Scooter Libby? What opinions do you have about the United States prosecuting a high level official in that case?”

Libby is under indictment in the Valerie Plame case. There’s no evidence that he had any dealings with Vigil. On the other hand, there’s no evidence that Vigil leaked the name of any undercover CIA agents.

Getting theoretical: Here’s another proposed question that might draw out potential jurors’ ethical attitudes.

“Suppose a person walks into her boss’s office and asks her boss for a raise. Further assume the boss responds, ‘I’ll think about it. Oh, by the way, would you like to buy a raffle ticket to benefit my son’s soccer team?’ or ‘I’ll think about it. By the way, would you like to go out with me on Saturday night?’ In this situation, is there anyone on the panel who would not feel obligated or pressured to say ‘yes’ ?”

There’s a follow-up: “If the son’s raffle tickets cost $1,000 each, would this make a difference?”

Full disclosure: I once bought a Halloween pumpkin at my general manager’s church. This didn’t get me a raise.

Go ahead, punk, make my day: When Gov. Bill Richardson announced that Dave Contarino was stepping down as his chief of staff to take a top position in the Richardson re-election campaign, the governor had all sorts of kind words for Contarino . Richardson called Contarino the “strategic mind” of the Richardson Administration” and “my most senior and trusted aide.”

But in his autobiography, Between Worlds, published last year, Richardson had another word for Contarino.

“Punk.”

Richardson discusses how he approached Contarino in September 2001 to become his campaign manager .

“To my astonishment, the punk turned me down,” the governor, or his ghostwriter, wrote. “He has a life apart from politics, he said — a business , a wife, two small children — and he didn’t want it ruined. The guy had cojones, I thought. Fine, I said. I thought we could suck him in later. I did. Lock, stock and barrel.”