SOME UPDATES

Democratic Land Commissioner candidate Jim Baca responds to my column about Mario Burgos' campaign-finance blog:

I challenge Pat Lyons to put his campaign donations on line with Burgos. I will do it if he agrees. It wouldn’t make sense to do it unilaterally, but I will do it. Will He?

I dunno. How about it, Pat?

State Rep. Brian Moore, R-Clayton, has become the second candidate to sign up on Ethical Reporting.

Meanwhile, please note Sheriff Greg Solano's comment on a Wednesday post about Jeffrey Epstein. He's decided to donate his $2,000 contribution to two charities -- $1000 to Mothers Against Drunk Driving and $1000 to Challenge New Mexico.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: REAL-TIME CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
August 17, 2006

If you want to know who is giving how much money to what politicians in New Mexico races during most of the summer and early fall, you’re pretty much out of luck.

The way state campaign laws are set up, candidates for state and county offices don’t file any financial-disclosure reports between July 6 and Oct. 9.

However, a conservative blogger from Cedar Crest has created a Web site called Ethical Reporting — subtitled The Campaign Finance Reporting Blog for Politicians With Nothing to Hide — on which candidates can post their contributions, expenses and in-kind donations as they come in.

Burgos has been a critic of the secretary of state’s Web site, saying it’s difficult to use and virtually impossible to search.

“I’m an active Republican with a conservative blog who has run for political office in the past,” Burgos says on his site. “Now that we have that out in the open, please know that this site will remain strictly nonpartisan.”

He later told me: “Nothing would make me happier than for Dems to participate as well.”

Burgos said he ran the idea by Matt Brix, executive director of New Mexico Common Cause.

“I think it’s a pretty creative effort on Mario’s part,” Brix said. “I would definitely encourage candidates to use it.”


So far, only one candidate is on the site’s List of Ethical Politicians. That’s state Rep. Kathy McCoy, of Cedar Crest, who won her seat in 2004 after defeating Burgos in the Republican primary. She’s posted all donations and expenditures she incurred since the July 6 report.

McCoy is a member of the state task force that is recommending changes in ethics and campaign laws. “I thought it was appropriate as a task-force member to take this first step,” she said.

McCoy is running against Democratic challenger Janice Saxton of Placitas.

Burgos — who spent about 20 hours over the past three weeks and less than $200 creating the site — said readers can add comments about individual contributions. “If somebody’s getting money from someone who’s dealing with the state, you can post a comment,” he said. Candidates in turn can respond to the comments, he said.

But he admitted there is one drawback: You can’t click a button and total how much McCoy or future participants have raked in or spent.

“I’m not a programmer.” Burgos said.

Both Burgos and McCoy say they support the idea of the state requiring “real-time” reporting of contributions as they come in.

“The way it is now, by the time the public can look at our contribution lists, the election’s over,” McCoy said. “This helps create cynicism in the public arena.”

“I don’t like the way the (ethics) task force is going with trying to set limits (on contributions and gifts),” Burgos said. “I’m for 100-percent disclosure. If you have lunch with a lobbyist, put it out there.”

Man of Mystery: Speaking of campaign contributions, all the candidates I spoke to earlier this week who had taken money from Jeffrey Epstein — the billionaire financier recently indicted in Florida on felony charges of soliciting prostitutes — said they’d never met Epstein.

It kind of reminds me of what my mom told me about taking candy from strangers.

I also was struck by The Palm Beach Post’s description of Epstein — accused of having sex with a string of teenage girls — “Epstein, now 53, was a quintessential man of mystery. He amassed his fortune and friends quietly, always in the background as he navigated New York high society.”

Five years ago in this paper, former New Mexican reporter Elena Vasquez, writing about Epstein’s gigantic mansion in Santa Fe County (on land he calls "Zorro Ranch"), picked up on the “mystery-man” aspect of his character.

“Epstein is as mysterious today as he was when he began building his estate. He apparently is a private man who has sworn his ranch employees to secrecy — making him an enigma to his 30 neighbors in the sleepy town of Stanley. One resident said her curiosity died down after many of her questions remained unanswered.

“ ‘They wouldn’t tell anybody anything,’ said (a neighbor), who has become friends with some of Epstein’s employees. ‘... Whatever they do there is their business, so I just let it drop.’ ”

Lamont/Lieberman: So far at least 20 Democratic U.S. senators have said they will back Connecticut Democratic Senate nominee Ned Lamont in the general election against incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is running as an independent after losing to Lamont in the Democratic primary. Only three Senate Democrats say they’re sticking with Lieberman.


Missing from both lists is New Mexico’s junior senator, Democrat Jeff Bingaman.

“Jeff’s not going to get involved,” Bingaman re-election campaign manager Terry Brunner said this week. “He’ll leave that decision to the voters of Connecticut. He’s got his own race to worry about.”

Bingaman is running for a sixth term against Republican Allen McCulloch of Farmington.

Other New Mexico Democrats haven’t been shy about the Connecticut race. U.S. Rep. Tom Udall is supporting the Democratic nominee, a spokeswoman said. Meanwhile, Gov. Bill Richardson endorsed Lamont last week and urged Lieberman to step aside.

MORE ON EPSTEIN

First off, Jim Baca called to say he will be returning his $10,000 contribution from Jeffrey Epstein.


My story was noted in the blog Dealbreaker.com, ("An Online Business Tabloid and Wall Street Gossip Blog.")

In a previous post Dealbreaker chided a New York candidate who was returning Epstein's contributions, offering this perspective:

Let's put it this way. By sending back Epstein's $10,000 donation, Attorney General candidate Green just bought Epstein 50 sessions with local highshool girls at $200 a pop.

(Let's do remember, folks, Epstein is innocent until proven guilty and that hasn't happened quite yet.)

UPDATE: Sheriff Solano talks about his contribution from Epstein on his blog.

UNMASKING ZORRO

Jeffrey Epstein, a New York billionaire finacier with an enormous mansion in south Santa Fe County, has been indicted on felony charges of soliciting prostitutes in Florida.

He calls his 10,000-acre New Mexico property The Zorro Ranch.

Palm Beach police say he had sex with teenage girls, paying then between $200 and $1,000 for their encounters.

But he was even more generous with New Mexico politicians. According to state records, he gave:

* $50,000 for Gov. Bill Richardson’s 2002 campaign and, under the name of one of his companies, The Zorro Trust, another $50,000 to Richardson’s re-election campaign this year.
* $15,000 to attorney general candidate Gary King.
* $10,000 to state land commissioner candidate Jim Baca.
* $2,000 to Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano.

Read my story in today's New Mexican.
Read a feature on Epstein in the Palm Beach Post
And read all the grimy details in the police affidavit at The Smoking Gun

IMMORTALS

I'm stealing this from NewMexiKen:

Four American Immortals
… died young on this date.

Robert Johnson in 1938 at age 27.
Babe Ruth in 1948 at age 53.
Margaret Mitchell in 1949 at age 48.
Elvis Presley in 1977 at age 42.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, August 13, 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
Greasebox by TAD
Private Hell by Iggy Pop & Green Day
Two Timing Touch and Broken Bones by The Hives
Store Bought Bones by The Raconteurs
Stack Shot Billy by The Black Keys
Room 213 by Dead Moon
Forty Dollars by The Twilight Singers
What's Left of the Flag by Flogging Molly

Thank You Lord by Hellwood
Secrets by The Mekons
Lost in Music by The Fall
Sheriff of Hong Kong by Captain Beefheart
Drove Up From Pedro by Mike Watt with Carla Bozulich
Call the Doctor by Sleater-Kinney
You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You by Dean Martin

Crackpot Baby by L7
Black Mask by International Noise Conspiracy
My Sweet Angel and I Considered the Asthetics of The Black Pen by Bleach 03
Did You See Me? by The BusBoys
Between You and Me Kid by Mudhoney
Waves of Fear by Lou Reed
Burning Down the House by Talking Heads
Tapioca Tundra by The Monkees

Living Room by Carl Hancok Rux
Let Me Down Easy by Bettye Lavette
John Henry by Van Morrison
We Still Got It by Redneck Manifesto
It's the Day of Atonement 2001 by Dayna Kurtz
Our Day Will Come by NRBQ
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

eMUSIC AUGUST

Here's my allotted 90 downloads from eMusic this month:

*Minimum Wage Rock & Roll (plus stray cuts from other albums) by The BusBoys I snared MWR&R just just in time. Just a day or two later it disappeared from eMusic.

I hadn't thought of The BusBoys in years. But last month when I was working on my column about coon songs and minstrel shows I recalled the band stirred controversy by messing with Steppin Fetchin shuck 'n' jive stereotypes with their moves, facial expressions and other antics in their stage show. "Hey! Can I shine ya'll's shoes? I just loves to shine ya'll's shoes ..." At the same time they directly confronted racial issues in their songs. "There Goes the Neighborhood" talks about how "the whites are movin' in." Back then it just seemed funny and ironic. Now it's obvious that it was one of the first rock songs about gentrification.

They also talked about segregation in rock, which was at it's worse in the early '80s, those strange days before Prince. Rock was for whites, funk and soul was for blacks. But in the BusBoys, the twain met. "I bet you never heard music like this by spades," singer Kevin O'Neil says in the Devo-like "Did You See Me."

More than 20 years ago I interviewed O'Neil after a show at the honky tonkin' Golden Inn. He was one of the first musicians I ever interviewed who was brutally honest about how downright grueling show biz can be. He was exhausted, cynical and by his account near broke -- and this was at the height of their short-lived popularity.

But it was a hell of a show. While fooling around on Amazon.com I was delighted to stumble across another person who had been there. She says she saw Willie, Waylon and Jessie there that night. I didn't see them, but I wasn't really paying attention to the audience.

*Broken Boy Soldiers by The Raconteurs. I mainly got this one -- White Stripe Jack White's latest musical project -- for my son, who has repaid me by constantly humming "Steady As She Goes" for the past week. I do like it, though not as much as The Stripes.

*Good Bread Alley by Carl Hancock Rux I first heard Rux on Bob Edwards Weekend a few weeks ago. Rux is a poet, playwrite and photographer, but veers into music when his art calls for it. His bio says he's been commissioned for a couple of operas. This album is mainly art-damaged, literate blues. My favorite track here are the title song and "Living Room," which is a mutated "Gimme Some Lovin'." There's also a song for Kurt Cobain.

*Live from Mountain Stage by NRBQ. Maybe this isn't NRBQ's best live album, but it's a darn good one. It has songs from two shows, one before the departure of Big Al, one after. I love Al's "What a Nice Way to Go," ("Let's play some stripper music, boys," he drawls at the outset of the instrumental section). Also there's a good sleazy take on "Our Day Will Come." Who among us doesn't like Ruby & The Romantics?

*Hardwired in Ljubljana and Live at The Casbah 10/21/2004 by Dead Moon
With the zeal of a new convert. I downloaded not one but two live albums from this Portland garage/punk/psycheledelic/whatever band. Ljubljana is the better of these two, but Casbah has a version of "You Must Be a Witch."

At first I just assumed it was just a cover of the '60s garage classic (included in Rhino's Nuggets box set), but reading up on Dead Moon, I learned that singer Fred Cole actually was a member of The Lollipop Shoppe, which originally did the song. But I still want to know why Toody Cole always skips the second verse of The Rolling Stones' "Play With Fire."

The above accounts for 89 tracks: For my final track I chose to expand my modest but growing eMusic Cab Calloway collection and download "Kicking the Gong Around" (one of Cab's "Minnie the Moocher" sequels. I previously downloaded "Minnie the Moocher's Wedding Day.")

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, August 11, 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
I Wanna Be Sedated by Two Tons of Steel
Please Stop Playing That Didgeridoo by Jono Manson
Nuthin' Much by Doug Spartz
Have You Had Enough? by Ricki Lee Jones
Big Bad Bill is Sweet William Now by Ry Cooder
Oklahoma Waltz by Acie Cargill
American Pagaent by The Sadies with Jon Langford
Farther on Down the Road by Eric Hisaw
Mary Lou, Good Time Gal by Kell Robertson

Cookeville Kid by Porter Wagoner
Jesus Was a Capricorn by Marshall Chapman
Forest Fire by Mark Pickerel
Worthless by Tony Gilkyson
Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends by Kris Kristofferson
What a Nice Way to Go by NRBQ
Sins of a Family by P.F. Sloan with Lucinda Williams

Gun Show by Bobby Bare, Jr.
Highway to Lowdown by Frank Black
Never Gonna Be Your Bride by Carrie Rodriguez
Unglorious Hallelujah by Chip Taylor
If I Ever Get To Heaven by Kate Campbell with Spooner Oldham
Wild Wild Women of the Wild Wild West by Lynn Anderson
99 Friends of Mine by Dan Reeder
The Way of the Fallen by Ray Wylie Hubbard

Mighty Sweet Watermelon by Greg Brown
Kansas by Fred Eaglesmith
Look What Thoughts Will Do by Merle Haggard
The Maker by Willie Nelson with Emmylou Harris
In the Middle of It by Irma Thomas
Dreaming My Dreams with You by Waylon Jennings
Wings of a Dove by Dolly, Tammy & Loretta
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: PORTER, ACIE & KRIS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
August 11, 2006

Porter Wagoner has always held a special place in my musical heart. With his electrifying sequined jackets and his most pomp-worthy pompadour, Wagoner turned his syndicated TV show in the 1960s and ’70s into a classic.

While many think of Dolly Parton as a glitzy superstar, I still remember her stunning harmonies with Wagoner. Also unforgettable are those soap commercials in which the duo pulled dish towels out of boxes of Breeze.

In recent decades, Wagoner’s musical output has been negligible. However, his recently released CD, The Versatile Porter Wagoner, is pleasantly surprising. If you like your country music spooky and mysterioso, you have to check this one out.

While the CD has some predictable, modern, Branson-ready country-and-western filler, some of the tunes on Versatile remind me of Wagoner’s weirdest song ever, “The Rubber Room.”

On “Indian Creek,” Wagoner teams up with John Anderson with a musical backdrop of heavy tom-toms and Native American flute as well as a Cherokee fiddle and “Kaw-Liga” steel guitar.

“Sometimes, the water gets crimson red/From the battles they fought and the blood they shed/If you look real close, you can almost see the ghosts and hear the mournful sound of their retreat,” Wagoner sings. The song ends with Wagoner praying to the Great Spirit.

In “Mystery Mountain,” Wagoner challenges the haints and hostile critters on a forbidding landmark, while “Divers Are Out Tonight” is a tale of crime, punishment, and hidden treasure. “Cookeville Kid” is a twangy outlaw/gambler ballad in which Wagoner speaks the lyrics (“Here lies the Cookeville Kid/He bought one too many queens/so said Judge Roy Bean”). Wagoner duets with Pam Gadd on a sweet version of the old folk song “Mary of the Wild Moor.”

You can get the Versatile album for a mere $7.97 on Wagoner’s Web site,

Also recommended:

* In Old Oklahoma, by Acie Cargill and The Coyote Kick Band. Cargill isn’t really an Okie — he lives in Illinois and has roots in Kentucky — but he’s got some kin in the Sooner state. After this album, as a born Oklahoman myself, I’d be the first to nominate him for honorary Okiehood.

“I can always tell an Okie,” Cargill says in one song. “They treat you like we’re all in the same boat, nobody’s special. They hold up their end, and they expect the same from you/And they’re not afraid to be friendly.”

This pretty much sums up the spirit of this album, which celebrates the history of Oklahoma, from the Indian migrations up to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing in 1995.

The album starts off with a seven-and-a-half-minute history lesson called “In Old Oklahoma,” featuring a spoken-word recitation by Cargill in his folksy drawl backed by a jaunty country instrumental. Cargill’s Coyote Kick Band does some convincing Western swing on “Okies,” another spoken-word piece, this one concerning the Dust Bowl.

As he’s done on some of his past records, Cargill, who wrote nearly all the tunes on this album, turns over the microphone to various relatives and friends, giving the effort a homey, homemade feel. Standouts include celebrated singer-songwriter James Talley, whose “Oklahoma, You’re OK” is a moving ballad about the 1995 bombing. It reminds me of another recent Talley song, “I Saw the Buildings,” which is about September 11.

I’m also fond of cowgirl singer Mary Minton’s contributions in “Pawnee Bill” and “Tom Mix and Lucille Mulhall.”

In Old Oklahoma is part of a planned trilogy of Cargill albums honoring Oklahoma’s statehood centennial, to be observed in 2007. Red Dirt, which isn’t available yet, features Cargill, his uncle Henson (“Skip a Rope”) Cargill, Talley, Byron Berline, and others doing original tunes plus covers of Okie giants such as Woody Guthrie, Spade Cooley, and J.J. Cale. Also in the works is Oklahoma Roots, featuring Cargill and his pals.

*The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson This is the third tribute album to the old lion in recent years. Perhaps it makes sense that Kristofferson would inspire so many people to want to cover his tunes. After all, most of us old fans were introduced to his songs through interpretations of others. “Me and Bobby McGee” was first recorded by Roger Miller but made famous by Janis Joplin; Johnny Cash had a hit with “Sunday Morning Coming Down”; Ray Price recorded “For the Good Times,” to which Al Green later would add soulful new dimensions; and one-hit-wonder Sammi Smith’s soulful country/pop cover of “Help Me Make It Through the Night” is the version we remember.

The previous tributes, Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down and Nothing Left to Lose (both released in 2002), consisted mostly of alt rockers and alt-country types. Pilgrim, on the other hand, is more mainstream, with singers such as Emmylou Harris; Willie Nelson; Waylon Jennings’ widow, Jessi Colter, and their son, Shooter Jennings; Roseanne Cash; and Rodney Crowell.

Among my favorite songs on Pilgrim are Crowell’s two-steppin’, honky-tonk version of “Come Sundown” and Gretchen Wilson’s properly aching “Sunday Morning Coming Down.”

I can’t forget Todd Snider’s convincing version of a relatively obscure song called “Maybe You Heard,” written after Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge divorced. The song angrily blasts friends who took sides in the aftermath of the breakup. Snider sounds like he’s taking it personally as he sings the final refrain, “Don’t turn away, hey goddamn you, you used to love her ... don’t you condemn her.”

The album has a couple of clunkers though. Brian McKnight’s overwrought, middle-of-the-road, soul/samba version of “Me and Bobby McGee” makes me yearn for Janis. Also, if the producers wanted someone to sound like Claudine Longet, why didn’t they just hire Claudine Longet instead of Jill Sobule, who duets with Lloyd Cole on a forgettable “For the Good Times”?

RICHARDSON TO LIEBERMAN: QUIT!

Gov. Bill Richardson just added his thoughts on the Lamont/Lieberman race.

“Joe Lieberman is a good friend of mine, a true public servant who has served his constituents and the Democratic Party well. However, after a hard-fought race Connecticut's Democratic voters chose Ned Lamont as their candidate for US Senate. I look forward to supporting Ned as he fights to help Democrats take back the Senate, and I call on Joe Lieberman to respect the will of the voters and step aside.”