TERRELL'S TUNEUP: A TRIUMPH BY HIATT

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

They don’t make many songwriters smarter, tougher or more consistent than John Hiatt.

And Hiatt hasn’t made many albums smarter, tougher or more consistent than his latest one, Master of Disaster. Indeed, this ranks up there with Crossing Muddy Waters, his under-rated acoustic album from about five years ago.


As we’ve come to expect from Hiatt, this record is soulful, rootsy, full of tales to astonish and dripping with the singer’s wry humor and hard-earned wisdom.

And on this one, he’s got a great band to boot. Produced by Memphis music guru Jim Dickinson (who plays keyboards here credited as “East Memphis Slim“), Master features Dickinson’s sons Luther on guitar and Cody on drums (they’re the core of the North Mississippi All Stars) plus Muscle Shoals titan David Hood on bass. (Speaking of musical families, he’s the father of Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers.) Some tunes feature a funky horn section.

The title song deals with a guitar picker who lost at love and became a heroin addict.

The verses are in first person (“Eight ball pounding in my lungs …”) though Hiatt steps back to third person for the chorus.

“The Master of Disaster/Gets tangled in his Telecaster/He can't play it any faster/When he plays the blues/When he had the heart to ask her/And every note just shook the plaster/Now he's just a mean old bastard/When he plays the blues.”

There’s no great, disastrous Telecaster solo on this song, just a sweet greasy sax.

Sometimes Hiatt and band rock hard . The ominous “Love’s Not Where We Thought We Left It” almost screams for a Lindsey Buckingham guitar solo.

But they do a good job on the softer acoustic songs too, such as ‘Howlin’ Down the Cumberland” and the automobile ode “Thunderbird” (“From the old Volkswagon/Back to the Model T/A lot of men died so you could ride with me In my Thunderbird”)

“Wintertime Blues” is a cool near jug-band romp with some of the funniest lyrics on the album (“Three hours of daylight and all of them gray/The suicide prevention group has all run away“). Is it just me or does this melody consciously make reference to “In the Summer Time” by Mungo Jerry?

“Back on the Corner” has a similar feel. With Luther’s slide guitar and a subdued Dixieland horn section, this sounds like a long-lost tune by The Band. And the first bridge is hilarious:

“Used to take seven pills just to get up in the morning/From seven different doctors with seven different warnings/I’d call ‘em up to say that I’m coming apart/They’d say call us up later when the fireworks start”

There’s pure country in “Old School” (featuring “T-Bone” Tommy Burroughs on fiddle). And there’s raw soul. It’s not hard to imagine Al Green singing “Find You At Last.”

The emotional centerpiece of this album is the acoustic “Cold River,” a sad tale of a couple of drifters (he’s a pool shark, she’s a truck-stop hooker) who abandon their baby while making their way to Chicago.

Hiatt tells the story matter-of-factly, noting the couple’s justification. (“Tell me which one of us rounders/ would you trust this baby to?”) Though the narrator sings that, “some Texas woman found him,” a listener isn’t sure whether this is true or just wishful thinking. You don’t know what happened to the infant, though the couple makes it to their destination: “That night they slept like babies/in Chicago town.”

In some ways Hiatt reminds me of the masked luchadores pictured on the front and back covers and on the lyrics booklet. When he crawls back in the ring you know it’s going to be a thrill. It may be all show biz, but the bruises are real.

Also noted

*Here Come the Choppers by Loudon Wainwright III. This album has the most impressive band Wainwright ever assembled for a record -- including Bill Frisel on guitar, Greg Leisz on a variety of strings, Jim Keltner on drums.

It sounds great. But I just wish the songs were as strong as the musicians here -- and as strong as Wainwright is capable of writing.

To be sure, there are some potential Wainwright classics here.

“Hank and Fred” is about the singer learning of the death of Mr. Rogers on the day he visits Hank Williams’ grave in Montgomery, Ala. I still don’t quite get the cosmic connection between the great country singer and the mild-mannered kid-show host, but when Wainwright sings that he cried, it’s real and it somehow makes sense.

There’s “No Sure Way,“ a sad song about riding the subway under the World Trade Center shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. “

The walls were tiled, I hadn’t noticed/ They seemed so antiseptic and clean/But we knew what we were under/The lights were on/that seemed obscene.”

Like any decent Loudon album, there are some good family album tunes. Here there are songs about his grandparents, “Nanny,” an up tempo tune about his beloved outspoken, gin-and-tonic-sipping granny who took him in after he got busted for drugs as a youth. “Half Fist” deals with his grandfather, Loudon Sr., who died before he was born.

And there’s “When You Leave,“ a heartbreaking, guilt-ridden song about divorce and leaving his kids.

“Who would have thought or could believe/Things go so badly when you leave/The skin you saved is growing slack/And those you left don’t want you back.”

But too many songs here are forgettable or downright dumb -- such as the near-7-minute title tune, which about enemy helicopters destroying Los Angeles.

So keep your sidemen’s phone numbers Loudon. And call them back when you’ve written a worthy set of songs.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: TOUGH QUESTIONS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
July 28, 2005

Back in late May when the appointment of Tommy Rodella as a magistrate judge in Rio Arriba already had kicked up a controversy, Gov. Bill Richardson said the public stink over the appointment had prompted him to start “tightening up the vetting process” for potential judges.


“We’re checking references, spending more time in interviews with applicants and asking tougher questions,” Richardson told me following a May 28 news conference.

Last Friday, just before he stalked out of another news conference when the questions about Rodella — who resigned last week after a meeting where Richardson expressed his unhappiness over the handling of a drunken-driving case — Richardson repeated his claim that he now spends more time with magistrate applicants and asks tougher questions of them.

However, at least three of the 21 applicants who were passed over last month for the new Santa Fe magistrate position said this week their interviews with Richardson were short and the questions weren’t that tough.

The applicant who go the job was Sandy Miera for the Santa Fe magistrate position. Miera worked as executive assistant for District Judge Daniel Sanchez. She’s also the daughter of Santa Fe County Democratic Chairwoman Minnie Gallegos.

One of the applicants, Andrew O’Connor said Richardson asked him only one question: “Is there anything in your past that would hurt me politically if I appoint you?” Richardson, O’Connor said, explained that what he meant by that was whether he’d ever been arrested or had any DWIs.

He said he tried to tell Richardson about his work as a public defender and the fact he had graduated from Vanderbilt University, O’Connor said, “but he cut me off.”

Another applicant was P.J. Liebson, a teacher and former librarian who holds a certificate in paralegal studies from the University of New Mexico. (She’s also a published author of murder mysteries under the pen name of P.J. Grady.)

Liebson, who said her interview lasted about five minutes, said Richardson asked her how she would handle DWI and domestic violence cases. But the next question was even deeper.“He asked me about electability,” she said. “I told him I was a registered independent. I think I might have lost the job right there.”

Another applicant said her interview with Richardson lasted only five or 10 minutes and that the governor seemed mainly interested in her view on DWI enforcement.

Tony’s view: A former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, Tony Scarborough sees some irony in the recent Rodella flap.

Scarborough, now in private practice in Espanola, recalled the controversy when Richardson in 2003 demanded the resignations of all six members of the 11-member commission who were appointed by his predecessor.

Those commissioners filed a legal challenge, asking the state Supreme Court to block Richardson, arguing the governor has no power to remove members whose terms had not expired. However, by a 3-2 decision, the high court ruled the governor could oust those members.

Opponents accused Richardson of trying to consolidate power and enlarge the influence of the governor’s office.

But in demanding Rodella’s resignation last week, Richardson usurped the power of the very Judicial Standards Commission he’d stacked, Scarborough said.

“It’s like he handpicked the jury, then took the case away from the jury and decided himself,” the former justice said.“Too bad the commission and our Supreme Court lack the guts to stand up to the governor and remind him of the separation of powers doctrine,” Scarborough said.

Richardson, who defended his appointment of Rodella for months, changed his tune after news broke of Rodella driving from the Espanola area to the county jail in Tierra Amarilla on July 4 to deliver release papers for an acquaintance who’d been arrested on DWI charges.

Rodella told me last week that Richardson didn’t ask him to quit. The governor insists that he did — though his spokesmen have acknowledged a governor doesn’t have the constitutional authority to force a judge to resign.

Scarborough — who stepped down from the high court in 1990 for an unsuccessful race for governor — expressed sympathy for Rodella.“I’m not close to Tommy, but I felt sorry for him,” Scarborough said. “What he did wasn’t all that bad. I think he’s just motivated to help people.”

PAYOLA!!

Looks like another payola scandal is rocking the nation. Here's one story. But I like this one from the New York Daily News better because its lead gets down to business:

Sick of lousy songs on the radio?
Blame it on a corrupt record business that skews the Top 40 by giving free trips and other goodies to radio programmers - and cold cash to radio stations to play their artists, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charged yesterday.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I miss the good old days of payola, back when working DJs got their fair share of hookers and blow from the record hustlers. These days all the free trips and lavish gifts are for the bosses, not to mention the blatant cash payments made directly to corporate radio coffers. The working DJ is out of the loop.

Seriously, I miss the days when commercial radio DJs were considered worth bribing because they had the power to bring the music they wanted to the public. These days at most commercial stations DJs have become mere button pushers playing whatever the home office says to play.

UPDATE: Slate has an interesting article by Daniel Gross called "What's Wrong With Payola?" CLICK HERE

TERRELL'S SOUNDWORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, July 24, 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
Dancing Queen by The Yayhoos
The World's a Mess, It's In My Kiss by X
Woman of Mass Destruction by Alice Cooper
Crooked and Wide by Mudhoney
Bad Girl by The Detroit Cobras
The Denial Twist by The White Stripes
Wilderness by Sleater-Kinney
Private Detective by Gene Vincent

Feel Like Lightning by Otis Taylor
Night Watchman Blues by Memphis Minnie
Lonely and Blue by Van Morrison
Boogie Woogie Jockey by Jimmy Sweeney
Love Gravy by Rick James & Ike Turner
Sissy Man by Josh White
Twenty by Robert Cray

Valleri by The Monkees
99 by Barbara Feldon
Spy World by Wall of Voodoo
Secret Agent Man by The Ventures
Agent Double 0 Soul by Edwin Starr
Secret Agent Holiday by Alien Fashion Show
Thunderball by Tom Jones
The Silencers by Vicki Carr
We're All Spies by Busy McCarroll
Valarie by The Mothers of Invention

El U.F.O. Cayo by Ry Cooder
Hijack by Paul Kanter & The Jefferson Starship
Into My Arms by Nick Cave
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

WHO LEAKED THIS TO NOVAK?

This from Robert Novak's column today's Chicago Sun-Times :

Richardson for president
Prominent New York City liberals who are concerned about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's electability are quietly talking up New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as her alternative for the 2008 presidential nomination.

Richardson especially intrigues Democratic strategists because he is a Hispanic American with a Mexican mother. Richardson would be expected to pin down the burgeoning Latino vote.

The same New York liberals who are interested in Richardson fear George W. Bush could build Republican support among Latinos by appointing a Hispanic American to the next Supreme Court vacancy.

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON A LAZY SUNDAY

If you think you see Ashton Kutcher hanging around the Roundhouse or Quentin Tarantino in line at the Hunan Restaurant or Keanu Reeves browsing at the south-side Borders, it's probably just me. I just took the Analogia Star Estimator test to see which celebrities I most resemble (hey, it's a lazy Sunday!) and these are the results their crack computers came up with. (I think this link is only good for a couple of days, so hustle!)


UPDATE: What does my dog, Rocco have in common with Hugh Grant, Matthew Broderick and Jackie Chan? CLICK HERE. (Again, this link is only good for a couple of days ...)



xxx

Hey look, Rep. Greg Payne, R-Albuquerque, is blogging again after a two-month absence from the blogosphere.

xxx

I picked up some new and used CDs in Albuquerque, including some new releases (Ryan Adams' country-rock return Cold Roses, and a new X album called Live in Los Angeles (looks like I'm going to have to pick up the DVD too).

I also bought Mink, Rat or Rabbit by a retro/garage band called The Detroit Cobras; Chef Aid: The South Park Album (gotta have them "Chocolate Salty Balls" plus there's a song here by Rick James and Ike Turner!); Ace (the only Bob Weir solo album I ever liked); The Band's self-titled "Brown Album" (I have most the songs on various compilations, but I've never owned the CD version of this album -- one of the greatest records in history -- before now); a cheap but worthy Memphis Minnie collection; and a strange Gene Vincent album called The Beginning of the End, which is stuff the rockabilly royal recorded in the early '60s. There's some hideously cheesy tracks, such as two takes of a watered-down "Be-Bop-A- Lula" featuring a tacky flute and a new verse that informs us that "Be-Bop-A-Lula, she's a little twister." (Note to younger readers: This refers to a dance craze called "The Twist" that was popular about the time this was recorded. By the way, The Detroit Cobras do a version of the Hank Ballard song, better known by Chubby Checker, "The Twist," which The Cobras call "The Cha Cha Twist") However there's some great obscure Vincent tracks like "Private Detective" (the singer's trying to score with a sexy female gumshoe hired by his jealous wife) and a hard gutsy "Baby Blues." I'm not sure what to make of Vincent's out-there take on "Lavender Blue." All I can say is dilly dilly!

I'll play some Detroit Cobras, X and probably some other stuff from this batch on Terrell's Sound World tonight. Also some new songs from Otis Taylor, Robert Cray, Alice Cooper (!) and others. That's 10 p.m. Mountain Time on KSFR, 90.7 FM in Santa Fe and streaming on the web.

xxx

Last night I watched Beyond the Sea, Kevin Spacey's loving ode to Bobby Darin. Spacey not only acted in, directed and co-wrote the movie, he sang all of Darin's songs in it. It got mediocre-to-bad reviews, but I liked it, even the big song-and-dance sequences. My only complaint was he never did "If I Were a Carpenter" -- Darin's big folk-rock hit from the mid '60s.

TOMMY RODELLA

Here are links to my most recent stories on this week's resignation of Rio Arriba Magistrate Judge Tommy Rodella:

* Rio Arriba magistrate resigns (published Friday)

* Richardson wants magistrate screening (published today)

And yes, gentle readers, I do know the difference between Tierra Amarilla and Tierra Contenta. The New Mex web staff was kind enough to correct that humilating blunder, though it was too late for Friday's print edition.

Feel free to join the fray in the comments section on the New Mexican site.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, July 21, 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
The Ballad of Thunder Road by Robert Mitchum
Little White Lies by Jason & The Scorchers
Everybody's Doin' It by Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen
Who by Son Volt
Demonic Possession by Drive-By Truckers
Glendale Train by New Riders of the Purple Sage
If You Knew by Neko Case
Behind the Fear by Lum Hatcher

Oklahoma Bound by Joe West
Cold River by John Hiatt
When the People Find Out by Steve Earle
The Golden Inn Song by The Last Mile Ramblers
Western Union Wire by Kinky Friedman
Marie Laveau by Bobby Bare
I'm So Lonesome Without You by Hazeldine

Wanted Man by Michelle Shocked
Used Car Lot by Michelle Shocked
Baby Mine by Michelle Shocked
Little Hotel Room by Ray Charles with Merle Haggard
Proud Mary by George Jones with Johnny Paycheck
The Old Fashioned Preacher by Flatt & Scruggs
My Tennesee Mountain Home by Dolly Parton
To Ramona by The Flying Burrito Brothers
White Trash Wedding by The Dixie Chicks

Keep Your Hat on Jenny by Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez
Beautiful Despair by Rodney Crowell
Nanny by Loudon Wainwright III
Sweet Little Bluebird by Grey DeLisle
Cold Trail Blues by Peter Case
No Good For Me by Waylon Jennings
Rio by Michael Nesmith
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: THREE FROM MICHELLE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
July 22, 2005

Remember back in the early ‘90s when acts like Bruce Springsteen and Guns ‘N’ Roses created a stir by releasing two albums simultaneously? Bruce had Human Touch and Lucky Town, while Guns had Use Your Illusion (Volumes 1 and 2).

Michelle Shocked has topped them both. Last month, on her own Mighty Sound label, she released three albums: Don't Ask Don't Tell, (a scenes-from-a-crumbling-marriage collection); Mexican Standoff, (half Mexican-flavored tunes, half electric blues); and Got No Strings, (a set of songs from Disney movies done in a western-swing/hillbilly style)

The albums are available separately, or as a set, which is titled Threesome.

If nothing else, you have to admire Shocked (born Michelle Johnston) for her audacity and spunk -- not to mention her ability to believably pull off such a big variety of styles.

But it should be noted that Springsteen’s 1992 double dip resulted in two of his weakest albums and that the Use Your Illusion CDs could have — indeed should have — been boiled down into one strong album.

And the same could be argued for Shock’s recent releases.

Individually none of these three albums come close to Shocked’s previous album, the soul and gospel-soaked Deep Natural. (Hey, come to think of it, she released a “bonus album” with that one too, Dub Natural, which consisted of remixes.)

Still, all three new CDs work as individual albums. All three have their separate strengths and charms as well as drawbacks.

The promotional material compares Don't Ask Don't Tell with such divorce classics as Richard & Linda Thompson’s Shoot Out the Lights, Marvin Gaye’s Here My Dear, and Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks.

She wishes!

Don’t believe this hype. It doesn’t come anywhere near those milestone records.

But it does have its delights.

This is the most musically varied album of Threesome. There’s some New Orleans funk crossed with early Ricki Lee Jones beatnik cool (“Don’t Tell”) a little swamp rock (“Don’t Ask”), some hot and nasty blues (“Used Car Lot”), some cocktail sleaze (“Goodbye”) and even a raw blast of punk rock (“Hi Skool.”)

It starts off with “Early Morning Saturday,” a lilting melody that’s sweet and mellow -- except for some ominous banging percussion that provides a clue that all is not really sweet and mellow in Shockedville.

Lyrically the album gets down to business with the jazzy muted-trumpet tune “Hardly Gonna Miss Him” (“He’s gone, he’s gone/And here’s the reason why/ He don’t like to laugh/I don’t like to cry …)

“Evacuation Route,” a sad melody with a Mexican accordion is the heart-stopper in the whole Threesome collection. It’s about a woman and her children leaving her unhappy home in the middle of the night.

“Wake up, wake up/Your mother said/Go tell your brother/Get up, get out of bed/Get into the car/Just do as I say/She packed a few things/ And then you drove away/This was no vacation/This was an evacuation.”

Mexican Standoff is the least satisfying album of Threesome. Shocked says it’s an exploration of her Hispanic roots. There are Texas Tornado-like Mexican-style tunes with cantina accordion and mariachi horns -- and there’s some basic blues stompers.

In mixing these styles, my first thought was that Shocked was auditioning for Los Lobos. Then I learned that Lobo sax dude Steve Berlin produced the “Mexican” part of this standoff. (You can hear echoes of them Lobos’ Hispano-psychedelico Kiko in the slow, sultry “Match Burns Twice.”)

But the standout on Standoff is “Picoesque,” a high-charged gospel celebration of storefront churches in East L.A.

“Now, riding down Pico Boulevard and for the first time/You notice how many churches,“ Shocked says, “Foursquare Baptist, Catholic Cathedrals/Buddhist Temples, Synagogues, Mosques/Keith Dominion, COGIC, Pentacost/Iglesias de Cristos Iglesias de Dios and the Sweet (swear to God) Aroma of Jesus …”

Finally, Got No Strings is something of a guilty pleasure, but it’s a pleasure nonetheless.

I’m a sucker for those old Disney songs -- not the ones from the most recent movies like Lion King or Pocahontas, but the real oldies like “When You Wish Upon a Star.” I loved that various-artist album Stay Awake from the late ‘80s, and I loved Sun Ra’s Disney tribute Second Star to the Right.

Shocked is no stranger to Disney tunes. Back on her 1991 Arkansas Traveler album she did “Zip a Dee Doo Dah” (from the long censored movie Song of the South) as part of a medley with “Jump Jim Crow.”

But there, singing the tune in a weird falsetto, she seemed to be making an ironic statement. In contrast, on Got No Strings, her love for these songs shines through.

With fiddle, lap steel guitar (Greg Leisz, who also plays slide) and on some cuts a banjo (Tony Furtado), the arrangements are irresistible on songs like “Bare Necessities” (written by the late Terry Gilkyson, a former Santa Fe resident) and “Baby Mine.”

And yes, Shocked’s sweet, sexy version of “When You Wish Upon a Star” gives Jiminy Cricket a run for his money.

Word is that Shocked has plans to release even more themed albums featuring New Orleans brass-band music, techno, and a tribute to blues queen Memphis Minnie.

I can’t say I’m holding my breath for any of these, but I bet they all will contain some great tracks.

Also noted:

*Fantastic Greatest Hits by Charlie Tweddle

I always wondered whether anyone taped any of those helplessly-stoned 3 a.m. living-room guitar jams I, uhhh, heard about back in the '70s. If so, I bet they'd sound something like Charlie Tweddle.

Naw ... Charlie was even weirder. This album, recorded in '71, released in '74 (only 500 LPs pressed) originally under the name Eilrahc Elddewt, has been re-released by Companion Records, the same good folks who brought us The New Creation, that Canadian Partridge-Family-gone-Jesus-freak group whose odd style of gospel rock never has been duplicated.

Fantastic Greatest Hits is lo-fi hippybilly weirdness with primitive “futuristic” sound effects, cricket noise (one track is 25 minutes of this) and found-sound Mexican radio. Not an easy listen the first time out, but strangely addictive thereafter.

Tweddle was born in Kentucky but ended up in northern California where he took lots of acid and had powerful musical ambitions. (Does this story remind you of anyone else named Charlie from that era? Luckily, Charlie T. used his strange powers for good instead of evil.)

Tweddle's still alive but not making music. He's making expensive cowboy hats out of roadkill.

OKIE BOYHOOD MUSINGS PART 2

The other night when I posted about pro wrestlers and TV personalities from my childhood in Oklahoma City, I should have included a couple of amusement parks that were a huge part of my childhood.

There was Wedgewood Village, which was owned and operated by Maurice Woods, who was the father of my friend Bobby Woods. (I heard from Bobby a couple of years ago. He's a lawyer in Los Angeles now.)

Take a look at this photo of the park's grand opening in 1958. I think I was there that day. (I would have been four or five.) Notice the robot looking over the crowd in the top right corner? That's Bazark, a character on the 3-D Danny show.

One of my earliest memories is going to Wedgewood with my mother and grandmother (and I assume my little brother) to see the 3-D Danny show live. The day before on the show the announcer said that if you're at Wedgewood and see 3-D and Foreman Scotty in danger, you should warn them.

At Wedgewood I saw my heroes and a huge robot was sneaking up on them. I ran onto the set screaming and crying, warning them about the robot behind them. I wish there was a videotape of that show. I remember 3-D and Scotty (the late Steve Powell, who later married my brother's kindergarten teacher) being very nice to me, trying to calm me down -- despite the fact I'd ruined their scene.

Then there was Springlake Amusement Park, an older, funkier park on the city's northeast side. Springlake originaly was built in the 1920s.

Both parks hosted concerts that make up some of my earliest musical memories.

At Wedgewood, I saw Herman's Hermits , Johnny Rivers and Gary Lewis & The Playboys. (The Web site says the Yardbirds and the Who also played there. I don't know how I could have missed those.)

At Springlake I saw The Beach Boys, The Righteous Brothers, Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs, and most importantly, The Everly Brothers. My grandfather went to that concert with us and loved the Everlys because they, like he, was from Kentucky. Shortly after my grandfather died in 1967, the Everly Brothers had a modest hit with "Bowling Green," which has the refrain, "A man from Kentucky sure is lucky ..."

Both Wedgewood and Springlake have been gone for years. Ironically, the only amusement park left from my youth is Frontier City, which used to be pretty crappy, though it's now a Six Flags operation.

At least the Oklahoma City Zoo is still up and running.