TERRELL'S TUNEUP: NOW HERE'S A MAN WITH THE BLUES

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
July 8, 2005

It’s a sad confrontation, a clash of the titans that nobody wanted to see.

The scene is backstage at the Newport Folk Festival in 1966. Ethnomusicologist and folk music heavyweight Alan Lomax, who brought several old Mississippi blues greats from the ‘20s and ‘30s to the show, had set up what he called a “juke joint” backstage where he filmed informal performances.

Son House, one of the most venerated of all the early bluesmen was there. He’s drunk and belligerent and he‘s made the mistake of interrupting the performance of Howlin‘ Wolf, the Mississippi-born Chicago bluesman, who was more of a demiurge than an entertainer.

At first Wolf tries to joke with House, who had been one of his mentors back in the Delta. “Now here’s a man with the blues,” Wolf growls.

But when House doesn’t stop, the Wolf pounces. “You had a chance with your life, but you ain’t done nothing’ with it,” he says. “You don’t love but one thing, and that’s some whiskey.”

This was captured on film and is, in fact the most intense moment in Don McGlynn’s 2003 documentary The Howlin' Wolf Story: The Secret History of Rock 'n' Roll, which is showing Saturday and Wednesday at Santa Fe Film Center.

There’s lots to like about this film. One of my favorite parts is the home movie footage from Wolf drummer Sam Lay’s camera of 1960s gigs at long-gone Chicago joints like Sylvio’s -- where you can spot Chicago blues royalty like Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter in the audience.

But the scene that keeps haunting me is the one with Son House. It’s hard to watch and embarrassing to everyone involved, including present-day viewers. The hard fact is Wolf is right.

House, who was eight years older than Wolf, had lived an archetypal blues life. He’d been a traveling troubadour, a preacher and a hobo. In his early years he’d killed a guy and served time in the infamous Parchman prison. He had a brief recording career in the ‘30s, then disappeared until 1941 when Lomax tracked him down, then disappeared again until the early ‘60s when folkie revivalists “rediscovered” him. House had spent most of those missing years working as a Pullman porter in Rochester, N.Y.

Wolf, born Chester Burnett, on the other hand, never turned his back on his music. Learning guitar from none other than Delta blues founding father Charlie Patton himself, Wolf went to West Memphis, Ark., where he hooked up with Sun Records’ Sam Phillips, then to Chicago, where, along with his friend and rival Muddy Waters, he pioneered electric blues.

His music and his wild stage persona personified the rough and raucous spirit of the blues, but, as becomes apparent in McGlynn’s film, he was a hard-working, big-hearted conscientious man — which counters the blues stereotype.

He paid unemployment insurance for his band, even back in the ‘50s. He was a family man. His grown daughters recall how he bought them back fancy clothes when he toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival. He was intent on self improvement, taking classes to learn to read and write when he was in his ‘50s and even taking music lessons to improve his guitar playing.

Like most the bluesmen we know and love from that era, Wolf was born under the bad signs of extreme poverty and racial oppression. His own mother, a religious fanatic, threw him out of the house as a child of 13. (In the film his longtime guitarist Hubert Sumlin tells how Wolf, while touring Mississippi, came across his mother. He tried to give her some money, but she threw it on the ground and stomp on it. She didn’t want any money that came from the Devil’s music.)

So when Wolf tells Son House, “You had a chance with your life, but you ain’t done nothing’ with it,” it’s coming from the realization that he could have ended up like House -- drunk, broke and living on past glories -- had he not worked so hard.

The Howlin' Wolf Story will show at The Santa Fe Film Center at Cinemacafe, 1616 St. Michael's Drive 4 p.m. Saturday and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Tickets are Tickets $8; $7 for students and seniors; $6 for film festival members.

Also Recommended:

* Blues With a Message by Various Artists. In the minds of too many modern fans, blues is nothing but party music, celebrating drinking, fighting, gambling and -- especially -- skirt-chasing.

But besides other mules kicking in his stall, sometimes the wolf knocks at a bluesman’s doors. In other words, besides the songs about drinking and fornicating, there’s also a tradition of socially conscious blues tunes.

Blues with a Message is a collection of 18 songs that deal with issues of poverty, racism, war, prison and even one medical epidemic (“The 1919 Influenza Blues” by pianist/singer Essie Jenkins.)

The artists represented here are mainly older acoustic players, such as former Mississippi Sheik Sam Chatman, who sings about racial stereotypes in “I Have to Paint My Face” and former inmate Robert Pete Williams, who tells a long sad tale called “Prisoner’s Talking Blues”

There’s also some electric blues, such as Juke Boy Bonner’s “What Will I Tell the Children,” (“Listened, looked around all day for a job/and I looked almost every place/It’s hard to come home and find hunger on your children’s face.”) and “Little Soldier Boy” a Korean War-era song by a Detroit singer named Doctor Ross.

One of the most uplifting songs here is “Why I Like Roosevelt” by sacred steel icon Willie Eason. He praises FDR (“Racial prejudice he tried to rule out/Invited Negro leaders to the White House …) while recalling the dark days of his predecessor (“After Hoover had made the poor man moan Roosevelt stepped in, they was a comfortable home.”)

SHIELDING REPORTERS

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown has a good piece about reporters and anonymous sources relevant to the Judith Miller case -- and, by extension, the Wen Ho Four (see my column immediately below.)

Like Brown, I have off-the-record/don't-use-my-name conversations practically every day, though I've never been jailed for protecting a source. The closest I came was a couple of years ago at a trial that resulted from a lengthy murder investigation I'd covered for about 10 years.

This was "The Rosebush Case," in which a human skeleton had been unearthed from the back yard of an east-side Santa Fe home when the homeowner was transplanting a rosebush. DNA eventually linked the remains to a former owner of the house.

For more than a year before the trial, I had been in e-mail contact with a former employee of the suspect's. I never wrote anything based on those e-mails. At that point the suspect, an Oklahoma man, hadn't even been charged. My correspondence was all just for background.

Eventually the former employee went to the police with her story. In the interviews, she mentioned her e-mails to me. When her former boss went to trial, the defense attorney claimed that I had tried to "program" the witness (I can barely program a VCR!) to believe her former boss was guilty of the murder.

The defense attorney wanted copies of all our e-mail. I refused to give it to him. I got subpoenaed as a witness and thus not allowed into the courtroom for a day or so, before The New Mexican's lawyer got it quashed.

There was a hearing before Judge Michael Vigil on whether I should be forced to give up my e-mails to the defense. Driving to the courthouse that morning, I didn't know whether I'd be spending the night -- or the next several nights -- in the Wen Ho Lee suite of the Santa Fe County Detention Center. I called my ex-wife's voice mail and left a message saying I might not be able pick up our son that weekend.

This of course wasn't the matter of giving up a source's identity. She had already identified herself and in fact had handed over copies of some of our e-mail. Still, I had promised to keep our correspondence confidential and I intended to keep that promise. Our lawyer came up with a compromise, to let Judge Vigil read the e-mails "in camera" and decided whether they should be admitted as evidence.

Vigil agreed and ruled later that day the e-mails were protected under New Mexico's shield law and wouldn't be allowed into the trial.

I got to see my son that weekend. And even without my e-mails, the defense attorney was able to get his client a not-guilty verdict.

Here's an Associated Press account my little ordeal. And here's something extremely weird about the Rosebush case.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: BILL RICHARDSON & THE WEN HO FOUR

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
July 7, 2005

Many believe that Gov. Bill Richardson is praying that the reporters involved in the Wen Ho Lee privacy lawsuit remain as steadfast as The New York Times’ Judith Miller, who was sentenced to jail Wednesday for refusing to divulge the name of a source to a grand jury investigating the outing of an undercover CIA operative.

But some political experts interviewed Wednesday say that even if it’s revealed that Richardson leaked the name of the former Los Alamos scientist to reporters months before Lee was charged with any crime, the ultimate effect on Richardson’s political career would be minimal.

Richardson, as secretary of energy under President Clinton, fired Lee, a computer scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who was under investigation of espionage. He has long suspected of leaking Lee’s name.

Richardson flatly has denied being the leaker. In a deposition for Lee’s lawsuit the governor said he didn’t remember making some statements about the Lee firing attributed to him in various newspapers.

Lee filed a lawsuit shortly after his 1999 indictment claiming officials from the Energy and Justice departments violated the privacy act of 1974 by leaking his name and other information about him to reporters.

That case came roaring back in the news last week when a federal appeals court upheld contempt citations against four reporters who refused to testify concerning confidential sources who gave then information about Lee. The court dropped a contempt charge against a fifth reporter.

That decision came one day after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of Miller and Time reporter Matt Cooper, who are charged with contempt in the Valerie Plame case. Plame’s name as a CIA agent was leaked by unnamed White House sources after her husband, diplomat Joseph Wilson disputed Bush administration claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa.

What the judge said: In the Wen Ho Lee decision, Appeals Judge David Sentelle singled out the names of Richardson, Acting Director of DOE Intelligence and Counterintelligence Notra Trulock and Edward Curran, former director of the DOE Office of Counterintelligence.

“These three individuals in particular had been identified as likely sources of the leaks, but were unable (or unwilling) to identify the leaker(s).”

The judge noted that one of the defendants, James Risen of The New York Times, “refused to testify as to whether Secretary Richardson disclosed Lee’s identity or information about his interrogation or prosecution to Risen.” Risen also refused to testify “whether Notra Trulock was correct in his testimony before Congress when he said that Secretary Richardson had leaked Lee’s name to Risen.” Trulock made this statement at an October 2000 hearing.

The judge also noted that another defendant Bob Drogin of the Los Angeles Times had refused to answer questions about alleged interviews with Richardson about Lee that involved off-the-record statements.

A Richardson spokesman said Wednesday that the governor doesn’t comment on pending lawsuits. But Billy Sparks said Richardson believes the decision will have a “chilling effect” on journalists’ right to protect confidential sources.

Who remembers?: Let’s assume a worst-case scenario: One of the Wen Ho Four, perhaps shaken by the image of Judith Miller being taken away in handcuffs, breaks down and sings like a bird, naming Richardson as his Deep Throat.

What would that do to the political career of the governor, who is seeking re-election next year and is considering a run for the presidency in 2008?

“People who wish to discredit him will hunt for possible blemishes on his record,” said UNM political science professor F. Chris Garcia.

He said such a revelation would have to be considered negative. “But I think there would be tremendous damage control measures,” Garcia said. “The governor and his staff are pretty good at that.”

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said, “The bad news (for Richardson) is that it would be an unpleasant episode for him. Some of his former colleagues, like Bill Clinton, might be unhappy with him.

“The good news is that besides you and me there’s probably only 140 in this country who remember Wen Ho Lee. Someone like Bill Richardson has overcome a lot of obstacles. He could overcome this.”

SHOW AND TELL MUSIC

Here's a cool site (thanks, Garry!) with strange and delighful album covers -- a self-described "orphanage for thrift store music"

You can even find some MP3s, like this one.

These guys are the brain trust behind Companion Records, home to such delights as Charlie Tweddle and The New Creation.



UPDATE: Fooling around on this site just now I stumbled across an album by a real live Santa Fe Band, Henry Ortiz & The J-Js.

I knew Henry Ortiz. He had a Hispanic music radio show on KTRC back in the early '70s when I got my first radio gig. He used to hire me to sub for his show, even though I don't speak Spanish.

Henry also used to own a cool little record store downtown called Kiva Records. It specialized in Spanish language music.

Back in the '80s. my pal Steve Sandoval made me a great compilation tape of New Mexico music that had several cuts by The J-Js.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, July 3, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Now 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
An American is a Very Lucky Man by Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians 4th of July by X
American Idiot by Green Day
Rockin' in the Free World by Neil Young
4th of July by Soundgarden
4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) by Bruce Springsteen
America by Lou Reed

Batman Theme by The Ventures
As Ugly As I Seem by The White Stripes
Starry Eyes by Roky Erickson
To Love Somebody by Billy Corgan
Heart of Stone by The Mekons
It Kills by Stephen Malkmus
What's Mine is Yours by Sleater-Kinney

FLAMING LIPS SET
My Own Planet
Talkin' 'bout the Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues
Oh My Pregnant Head
Strychnine/Peace, Love and Understanding
A Spoonful Weighs a Ton
Do You Realize?
Evil Will Prevail
Bad Days

Until I Die by Brian Wilson
The Last Hotel by Patti Smith with Thurston Moore & Lenny Kaye
Democracy by Leonard Cohen
American Tune by Paul Simon
America the Beautiful by Ray Charles
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

A COUPLE OF POLITICAL STORIES

Here's two political stories I wrote for today's paper that didn't make it to The New Mexican's Web site:

A version of these were published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
July 2, 2005

With a new Supreme Court vacancy two ideological sides are preparing in New Mexico for a possible political battle — and the focus is on one man who could make a difference — U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman.

The U.S. Senate must confirm whoever President Bush nominates. Bingaman, a Democrat has been known to vote against some Supreme Court nominees of Republican presidents.

One of the likely areas of contention is the issue of abortion.

NARAL Pro-Choice New Mexico, an abortion rights group, is organizing a rally in Albuquerque Tuesday to gather petition signatures, which they plan to deliver to Bingaman’s office. The rally is scheduled for noon Tuesday at Fourth and Central.

NARAL will be on the Plaza Monday during the annual pancake breakfast to distribute petitions urging Bingaman “to protect the balance of the United States Supreme Court,” NARAL director Giovanna Rossi said Friday.

Rossi said most people assume that the state’s other senator, Pete Domenici, a Republican, will support whoever Bush nominates. “Bingaman is a swing vote,” she said. “He’s a national target.”

Meanwhile, a newly-formed Republican consultant business called Gordian Strategies is representing a national organization called Progress for America, which has vowed to spend $18 million nationwide to promote whoever Bush nominates to the Supreme Court.

Robin Dozier Otten, a former cabinet secretary in the administration of Gov. Gary Johnson, talked to reporters in the state reporters about the campaign earlier this week — several before Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement.

“My job is not to convince Jeff to vote for the president's nominee,” Otten said Friday. “It is to convince Jeff's constituency to convince him to vote for the nominee.”

Bingaman’s spokeswoman Jude McCartin said Friday said the senator hopes Bush will nominate a qualified candidate acceptable to both sides. “We’re hoping this will be done as it should be,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be a divisive time.

She said that Bingaman recently signed a letter from Senate Democrats urging Bush to consult with senators from both parties before making a nomination. The Democrats haven’t heard back from the President McCartin said.

Bingaman released a statement Friday saying, “ “It is my hope that the White House works with the Senate to find a nominee of the same caliber as Sandra Day O’Connor.”

Both Rossi and a Republican law professor at the University of New Mexico said Friday they hope a nomination fight can be avoided.

”We really want to stress that we hope there’s a consensus,” Rossi said. “He could do this by putting names out who have mainstream records. If he does chose the course of an extreme nominee, we’re ready to put up a battle. But we would rather have consensus.”

Lisa Torraco, a former Santa Fe prosecutor who teaches law at UNM. “What should happen is that (senators) defer to the system and recognize that the president was elected by a majority and he has the right to make a nomination. The Senate should have an up-or-down vote. Don’t reduce the judiciary to a political smear campaign. Protect the integrity of the jurists and the integrity of the Supreme Court.”

XXXXXX
(Here's the other story ...)

City Council David Pfeffer, a Democrat-turned-Republican who is considering running for U.S. Senate, said Friday he’s still in the “exploratory” mode of his possible candidacy,” meaning, among other things, he’s looking at fundraising possibilities.

But — as is the case for virtually anyone who challenges a incumbent member of Congress — he’s got a lot of exploring to do before he catches up with the man he hopes to run against.

More than a year before the general election, Sen. Jeff Bingaman in his latest campaign finance reports shows he has more than $1 million cash on hand. Democrat Bingaman, who first was elected in 1982, announced earlier this year he will run for re-election in 2006.

“There is no way we’ll beat Bingaman on the dollar,” Pfeffer said Friday. But he said he thinks he can beat Bingaman with “a smart campaign.”

“It’ll be a strong grassroots campaign,” he said. “I’ll make it obvious for everyone to see the differences between Sen. Bingaman and me on what is role of America in the world, what are the dangers confronting America, our views on protecting the border, Supreme nominations, Social Security, and what the character of America is and what it ought to be.”

A spokeswoman for Bingaman said Friday, “Sen. Bingaman works hard for New Mexicans and hopes they will continue to support him next year.”

While Pfeffer hasn’t officially announced his political intentions, he talks increasingly like someone running for Senate. Asked if he’d ruled out running for re-election on the council, he said, “My focus now is on the Senate.”

Many local political observers say Pfeffer would have hard time winning re-election for council in a city where Democrats enjoy a 3-to-1 registration edge over the GOP.

Pfeffer would be the second Republican who once was a Democrat to announce for next year’s Senate race. Former state Sen. Tom Benavides of Albuquerque threw his hat in the ring earlier this year. Benavides is something of a perennial candidate, running unsuccessfully last year for his old Senate seat and for state auditor in 2002. In 1990 he was the Democratic candidate who ran against Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici.

Pfeffer, an architect and Vietnam veteran, was elected to his north-side District 1 council seat in 2002, defeating incumbent Jimmie Martinez. Pfeffer was known mainly as an advocate for recreation facilities before he got elected.

Once elected he frequently found himself in clashes with other councilors when the governing body discussed resolutions about national issues such as The U.S. Patriot Act and the Iraq War.

About a year ago he announced he was supporting President Bush for re-election against Democrat John Kerry. Early this year he announced his party switch.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, July 1, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Red Necks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer by Johnny Russell
Fourth of July by Dave Alvin
Song of the Patriot by Johnny Cash
American Trash by Betty Dylan
Indoor Fireworks by Elvis Costello
One Time, One Night by Los Lobos
Only in America by Bobby Purify

Endless War by Son Volt
Waist Deep in The Big Muddy by Pete Seeger
That's the News by Merle Haggard
Chosen One by The Waco Brothers
Give a Little Whistle by Michelle Shocked
The Obscenity Parayer (Give It To Me) by Rodney Crowell
Dying Breed by Lonesome Bob with Allison Moorer
Bargain Store by Dolly Parton
The Story of Susie by Billy Ray

Theme from A Fistful of Dollars by Hugo Montenegro
High Noon by Tex Ritter
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance by Gene Pitney
The Ballad of the Alamo by Marty Robbins
The Ballad of Davy Crockett by Doug Sahm
Rawhide by Frankie Laine
The Ballad of Cat Ballou by Nat King Cole & Stubby Kaye
Paladin by Johnny Western
Legend of Wyatt Earp by Hugh O'Brian
Wanderin' Star by Shane MacGowan with Charlie MacClennan

God's Country by Loudon Wainwright III
Here We Are by George Jones with Emmylou Harris
I Heard The Bluebirds Sing by Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge
Who Made You King by Grey DeLisle
Independence Day by Say ZuZu
The Wayward Wind by Jackie "Teak" Lazar
I'll See You In My Dreams by Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: TO LOVE THE LIPS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
July 1, 2005



When I moved from Oklahoma City to Santa Fe 37 years ago, it didn’t take me long to see the huge psychological difference between the two cities. While both places can be considered laid-back compared to big cities, people in Santa Fe seemed far more free to express themselves, far less pressured to conform, much less inhibited about being weird.

Oklahoma, according to filmmaker Bradley Beesley, is known for “oil derricks, college football, and country music — hardly a mecca of freaky art rock.”

But in many ways — especially for freaky Okies and freaky Okie exiles — that’s a big part of the charm of the Flaming Lips, the freakiest, artsiest Okie rock band ever.

Beesley, a longtime Lips crony, chronicles the Lips — their history, their families, their music — in his documentary The Fearless Freaks, showing for two weeks at CCA Cinematheque, 1050 Old Pecos Trail, starting tonight, July 1 (tickets are $8).

The Flaming Lips rose from the working-class Classen-Ten-Penn neighborhood of Oklahoma City, starting out in the early ’80s as, in the words of Lips leader Wayne Coyne, “a no-talent, derivative, hillbillies-gone-punk version of the Who.” Beesley remembers seeing them in Norman, Okla., around 1986, though all he remembers about their music from that show is that “it was insanely loud.”

The Fearless Freaks — the title comes from the name of a backyard football league organized by Coyne and his four brothers — is bound together by psychedelic montages of Lips performances from home movies of their loud-young-punk phase, their MTV videos, and recent big-time extravaganzas with dancers in bunny suits, puppets, strippers, bubbles, balloons, and a goateed, graying Coyne acting as a smiling emcee in a white suit.

The band’s journey from Okie punksters to serious, Grammy-winning musicians, whose latest albums sound like otherworldly soundtracks, is pretty fascinating in itself. But the strongest parts of the film are when Beesley introduces us to the families of Coyne and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd.

The love Coyne and Drozd have for their respective families is obvious. No sad tales of rage or abuse — unless you count those Fearless Freaks football games, which Coyne describes as “more of a violent cult” than a football team.

And Coyne at least seems like a happy fellow. He still lives in Classen-Ten-Penn, where he enjoys scaring the local kids on Halloween, walking around the neighborhood, and yakking with folks on the street. He even talks fondly of his days of working as a fry cook at a Long John Silver’s.

But it’s not all bunny suits and Martian Santa Clauses in the Lips Universe. There are dark shadows that Beesley reveals in his film.

Coyne’s oldest brother Tommy, who has gone from a “tortured artist” to “just plain tortured,” according to Wayne, has been a druggo for years and has had scrapes with the law. You’re not sure whether Wayne is joking when he asks Tommy whether he’s actually a fugitive at the moment.

“Wayne went to Hollywood to do concerts, I went to jail,” Tommy Coyne says.

Houston native Drozd also has a jailbird brother. James Drozd served an 11-year sentence for grand theft auto, beginning about the time Steven joined the Lips. But harsher still is that the Drozd brothers’ mother and two of their siblings committed suicide. The Drozds seem like the embodiment of the Allison Moorer song “Dying Breed” (“I take after my family/My fate’s the blood in me/No one grows old in this household/We are a dying breed”).

Those family demons catch up with Steven Drozd by the mid-’90s; his heroin addiction is a big reason why guitarist Ronald Jones quit the band. There’s a disturbing interview scene with Steven, shot in noirish black and white, when he was in the depths of his addiction.

But the horror of that scene is offset by one of the most touching moments in the film, when Steven and fresh-from-the-joint James play a song (written by James) with their father, Vernon Drozd, a saxophone-playing veteran of Texas polka bands.

What makes this band so special is the ability of its members to embrace their pasts and recognize the darkness (without wallowing in it) while creating strange, beautiful, and transcendental art packed with whimsy and raw, real emotion. The Fearless Freaks captures the earthiness that grounds these freaky art-rock musicians.

Steve Terrell’s Lips list

*Favorite Flaming Lips song: “Bad Days” from Clouds Taste Metallic (1995) — my second favorite Lips album. In a masterful example of sequencing, this song comes right after “Evil Will Prevail,” a mournful tune reportedly inspired by Tim McVeigh’s act of terrorism in Oklahoma City. It’s a declaration of goofy optimism — “all your bad days will end” — with just a suggestion of carnival music. And the first verse is one of the best rewrites of Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man” in recent years. “You hate your boss at your job/But in your dreams you can blow his head off/In your dreams, show no mercy.”

*Favorite Flaming Lips album: The Soft Bulletin (1999). Listening to this album prompted me to go back and listen to material from the Beach Boys’ Smile. With its elfin choruses, harps, synths, musical saws, UFO noise, and medical and scientific imagery, this is one for the ages.

*Favorite Flaming Lips song title: “Talkin’ Bout the Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues” (from Hit to Death in the Future Head; 1992).

*Favorite Flaming Lips cover song : “After the Gold Rush” (from The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young, 1989).

*Favorite Moment in The Fearless Freaks: Wayne Coyne’s reenactment of a robbery at Long John Silver’s.

*Biggest Flaming Lips regret: I was in Austin in 1996 when Coyne performed his “parking garage symphony” — and I missed it.

*Most Flaming Lips ever played on local radio in New Mexico at one time: This Sunday night, July 3, starting at 11 p.m. on Terrell’s Sound World, free-form weirdo radio, KSFR-FM 90.7.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: POLLS & SPORTSBOOKS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 30, 2005

George W. Bush might have won New Mexico’s five electoral votes last year — the Republican incumbent beat Democrat John Kerry here by less than one percentage point — but according to a statewide poll taken by a national research company earlier this month — Bush is losing the job-approval race.

And according to the same polling company, Gov. Bill Richardson’s numbers, while still favorable by a healthy margin, have slipped from last year’s poll figures.

According to the poll, released this week by the New Jersey-based Survey U.S.A., 50 percent of New Mexicans surveyed said they disapproved of the way Bush is doing his job, while 45 percent said they approved of Bush’s job.

Albuquerque pollster Brian Sanderoff of Research & Polling Inc., said Wednesday these numbers are believable. “New Mexico usually is pretty close to the national numbers,” he said, pointing to the Real Clear Politics Web site (www.realclearpolitics.com/polls.html), which shows the average of the three recent national polls to have 50 percent disapproving of Bush’s performance and 47 percent approving.

Survey U.S.A.’s poll was conducted June 10 to 12. Six hundred New Mexico residents were randomly called to participate in an automated phone poll. The margin of error is 4.1 percent. Similar polls were conducted in all 50 states.

Rating the governors: Early last month, Survey U.S.A. did polling in all 50 states on how residents rated their governors.

According to that project, our Gov. Bill Richardson is the 20th most popular governor in the union.

Asked “Do you approve or disapprove of the job Bill Richardson is doing as governor?” 54 percent said they approved while 39 percent said they disapproved.

While these are good numbers for the gov, if this poll is accurate, it shows a slide from the numbers Sanderoff got last in a poll he did in late August and early September for The Albuquerque Journal. That poll showed 63 percent giving Richardson a favorable rating while 25 percent said their opinion was unfavorable.

“I don’t know if there’s been a change in attitude or a methodological difference,” Sanderoff said.

Sanderoff said he is wary of polling outfits that use automated systems to gather opinions instead of live callers. He also noted that his company calls likely voters who have voted in recent elections, while Survey U.S.A. calls random numbers.

Another possible factor in the big shift in Richardson numbers, Sanderoff said, is the fact that Survey U.S.A. asked whether participants “approved” or “disapproved” of Richardson’s performance, while Sanderoff’s company asked if participants had “favorable” or “unfavorable” opinions of the governor.

“The favorability polls tend to be higher than approval polls,” Sanderoff said.

Sanderoff noted that the Survey U.S.A. poll was taken before Richardson “took some hits” over the $5.5 million jet his administration is buying and for a recent incident in which Richardson’s driver refused to stop for an Albuquerque police officer.

“The jet story was really the first (Richardson controversy) that has gotten to the point of water cooler talk,” he said. “Something like that probably would affect his rating by three points or so.”

The poll on Richardson was conducted May 6 through 8 of 600 New Mexicans. The margin of error is 4.1 percent.

According to Survey U.S.A., the most popular governor is North Dakota’s John Hoeven, a Republican, who is approved by 71 percent of his people. Hoeven had a 20 disapproval score. The least popular is Ohio’s Robert Taft, also a Republican, whose approval rating was a mere 19 percent and disapproval a whopping 74 percent.

Popular senators: Survey U.S.A. also rated all 100 U.S. Senators earlier this month. Both Republican Pete Domenici and Democrat Jeff Bingaman scored high.

Domenici’s approval rating was 61 percent, just one point higher than Bingaman’s. Thirty two percent disapproved of Domenici, while 28 percent disapproved of Bingaman, who is running for re-election next year.

This poll was taken June 10 to 12 with the same number of people called and same margin of error as the company’s other polls.

Betting on Bill: So what are the odds of Richardson actually making it to the White House? According to the posted odds to one sports betting Web site Wednesday, the odds are 13 to 1.

According to the Canada-based SportsInteraction.com — reportedly the first internet sportsbook in North America — Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has the best odds of winning the presidency in 2008 — 5 to 1. In second place was former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, whose odds are 7 to 1. Former North Carolina Senator and 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards has 9-to-1 odds. Richardson is fourth, while Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. follows with 15-to-1 odds.

{Note: As of about 7 p.m. Wednesday, all the individual candidate bets disappeared from the SportsInteraction site. All that was left in the political section was a bet on whether Hilary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice will get the nominations of their respective parties. (The odds there are 21 to 1, which I think is way way low.) I called the helpline and a woman told me the page was just being updated and that all the candidate bets would return in a few minutes. But as of 12:01 AM Thursday, they were still missing.}

R.I.P. BOUNCER

My old high school vice principal died Sunday.

I first met Bouncer Sena in August 1968 on my first day at Santa Fe Mid High. He saw my name and asked if my mother was Mary Ruth. When I said yes, he said, "I knew her in high school. She was the prettiest girl in school. I knew your dad too."

Later that day, there was a school assembly. Bouncer informed us that students were no longer welcome at Josie's Restaurant. Something to do with a firecracker incident the previous school year.

I took him seriously.

In fact I was probably 30 years old when my pal Paul Milosevich asked if I wanted to meet him for lunch at Josie's.

It took me a second. I almost blurted out, "I'm not allowed in there."

Here's the obit for Bouncer I wrote for this morning's paper.


A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 29, 2005

He was a coach, an educator, a politician, a family man, a high-school football star and a lifelong Santa Fean. Anyone who knew the sometimes-gruff but ultimately big-hearted authority figure for two generations of local high schoolers knew him by his childhood nickname: “Bouncer.”

John “Bouncer” Sena died Sunday. He was 77.

Sena had been hospitalized with pneumonia and other ailments. “He was in the hospital for a little over a month. Then he came home (about two weeks ago) and was very happy,” his daughter, Melinda “Jo Jo” Tarnoff, said Tuesday.

“He was always an inspiration,” said Orlando Baca, a retired Santa Fe High School typing and math teacher. “He was one of those tough old guys like (longtime Santa Fe High School principal) Joe Casados. But they always had a heart and treated everyone with dignity and respect. That’s why they got so much out of their staff and the students.”

Sena was born in Santa Fe in 1927, the youngest of eight children of Abran and Elena Sena.

He was raised on Agua Fria Street near Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. His father worked for the state Highway Department.

When he was about 11, Sena got dubbed with the nickname that would stay with him for life. “There are various stories on how he got that name,” Sena’s son Frank Sena said. “He was a big kid. His brother told him he looked like a bouncer when they were boxing.”

As a sophomore at Santa Fe High School in 1943, Bouncer Sena was on the Demon football team when they won the state championship.

“He was the tackle,” said lifelong friend and former College of Santa Fe athletic director Bob Sweeney, who was fullback on that champion team.

Sweeney said he and Sena were involved together in various athletic pursuits through the years. Sena was manager for the College of Santa Fe basketball team when Sweeney was coach. And in recent years the two were golf buddies.

After graduating from high school, Sena attended college at The University of New Mexico. He graduated in 1951 from the College of Santa Fe with a degree in business administration.

But it was in the field of education where he would find his career.
Baca recalled that when he was in high school “Bouncer” Sena was teaching driver’s education and coaching.

“He coached everything,” Frank Sena said. “Football, track, anywhere they needed a coach, he’d do it. I grew up in locker rooms, press boxes and on the sidelines. It wasn’t bad.”

When the current Santa Fe High School campus open in the mid 1960s, the old school building — currently the location of City Hall — became Santa Fe Mid High. “Bouncer” Sena became vice principal of the school.

“He was a steadfast, loyal employee and colleague,” said Don Casados, who was Mid High principal during that period. “He set high standards of honor, morality and integrity. He earned respect from faculty, staff and parents. His main concern was the students.”

While his dedication to students was unquestioned, Sena also had another interest — politics.

He made unsuccessful stabs at running for a state House seat in 1972 and 1974. The first time he lost the Democratic primary to Eddie Lopez by two votes.
“They didn’t let him put the name ‘Bouncer’ on the ballots that time,” Frank Sena said. “A lot of people didn’t realize it was him.”

But “Bouncer” Sena twice won a County Commission seat in the mid ‘70s. In 1978 he was named commission chairman. “They did a lot during those years,” Frank Sena said, noting that the Stephen Herrera Judicial Complex was built during his father’s watch.

State Sen. Nancy Rodriguez, D-Santa Fe, who worked in the county manager’s office during those years, has fond memories of Sena. “I could always tell when he was in the building,” she said. “I could hear him singing as he came up the stairs. He was always so pleasant and full of energy.”

After his two terms on the commission were up, Sena made two more unsuccessful runs for Legislature. He ran for state Senate in 1980 and 1984.

Shortly after he retired from Santa Fe High School, Sena was named a “Living Treasure.”

In recent years, Sena worked part-time at Sam’s Club. He worked there the day before he was hospitalized, his son said.

Sena is survived by his wife Bernadette of 47 years; son Joe Frank Sena of Santa Fe, daughters Dolores Greenwood of Los Angeles, Melinda “Jo Jo” Tarnoff of Ribera and Rebecca Abbo of Albuquerque; and six grandchildren.

UPDATE 4-25-07: I have updated the link to Bouncer's page at the Living Treasuers Web site.