HAPPY RETIREMENT, 3D DANNY

I meant to post this earlier this week. My friend Ray in Oklahoma City sent me this link about Danny Williams retiring from KOMA radio at the tender age of 81.

He probably was my first TV hero. In the '50s he hosted a classic kiddie show on WKY-TV that featured the wonderfully low-budget adventures of 3-D Danny -- that's Dan D. Dynamo -- a space traveler.

In the '60s he became Xavier T. Willard on The Foreman Scotty show. Scotty was a cowboy, while "Willie" was his crusty sidekick.

Later in the '60s Danny also had an afternoon talk/variety show on WKY, Danny's Day. Williams boasts that he once interviewed President Lyndon B. Johnson on his show.

But even more impressive was that he had my band, The Ramhorn City Go-Go Squad & Uptight Washtub Band in early 1968.

My first encounter with Williams though was in his role as 3-D Danny. I probably was four years old when Danny did a live shooting of his show at Wedgewood amusement park. The day before he warned his viewers on TV if they saw the evil robot (whose name I forget) sneaking up on 3D Danny and Foreman Scotty, WARN THEM!

That day at Wedgewood, sure enough, the evil robot was about to attack. Scared out of my wits, I ran out on the set screaming and crying, telling my heros to look out. Remember, this was in the days of live TV. I'm sure the crew hated me for screwing up the scene, but Danny and Scotty (Steve Powell) were really cool in comforting me.

One other Danny Williams connection. When you hear me say, "Watch out for flying chairs" at the end of Terrell's Sound World every week, I got that from Danny, who hosted Live Wrestling on Saturday nights on WKY. The phrase became his weekly signoff after getting beaned in a chair-throwing orgy in a match one night.

Enjoy your retirement, Danny. And thanks for taking a hit frm that chair so I wouldn't have to.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: THIS SONG'S FOR THE WORKIN' MAN

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
August 29, 2008

Like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween, Labor Day’s meaning has been obscured by time. For most folks, it’s a day off and symbolizes the end of summer — which is kind of dumb, because summer doesn’t actually end until Sept. 20 or so, and the start of school, which is summer’s end for most kids, is in late August in many places.

Labor Day, which became a federal holiday in 1894, was originally meant to honor all working people — not presidents, not any individual. And it wasn’t associated with any religious tradition. But yes, the day off with pay was part of the deal. Why no “Bosses’ Day”? Look at corporate salaries, and you’ll realize that every day is Bosses’ Day.

This country has a proud history of labor songs and songwriters. Joe Hill, leader of the Industrial Workers of the World, whose ghost appeared to Paul Robeson and Joan Baez in dreams, wrote some classics like “There Is Power in a Union,” “Rebel Girl,” and “Casey Jones: Union Scab.” Woody Guthrie wrote (or perhaps co-wrote) “Union Maid” and “Ludlow Massacre.” And we can’t forget Utah Phillips, who died earlier this year. He sang lots of labor songs and, in the 1990s, recorded two albums with Ani DiFranco — Fellow Workers and The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere — filled with original and classic labor tunes.

Here’s a list of my favorite songs for Labor Day. Most of them you won’t find in union songbooks, which is too bad.

1. “Plenty Tuff, Union Made” by The Waco Brothers. Sung by Jon Langford, this rockabilly rouser is a punchy, high-energy anthem. The song is about hard times, but there’s joy in the struggle, and ultimately it’s an optimistic tune. “I don’t think the king woke up one morning/Said all people should be better paid (no!)/Things were bad but things got changed/Plenty tough, union made.”

2. “Working Man’s Blues” by Merle Haggard. This country classic captures a lot of the conflicted sentiments and impulses of modern American workers. And with the opening line, “It’s a hard job just gettin’ by with nine kids and a wife,” it could serve as propaganda for Planned Parenthood.

3. “Sweetheart on the Barricade” by Richard Thompson and Danny Thompson. This tune, from Richard and Danny’s (no relation to each other, by the way) 1997 album Industry, owes much to Woody Guthrie’s “Union Maid,” with the added element of romance. Richard picked up on the sexual energy of the struggle for decent wages and working conditions: “My heart, it skips a beat/There’ll be fighting in the street/My sweetheart’s on the barricade.”

4. “Union Song” by Carter Falco. It’s not surprising that this Steve Earle-influenced song wasn’t embraced by the Nashville establishment. Lyrics like “I’m headin’ into tear gas, dig in, man, hold your ground” tend to scare corporate bosses in any industry. Falco curses “dirty scabs who cross the line” as well as cops firing rubber bullets at strikers. And he sings praises to César Chávez, Joe Hill, and all “union men and women standin’ up and standin’ strong.”

5. “Red Neck, Blue Collar” by James Luther Dickinson. This song, written by Bob Frank, is the highlight of Memphis veteran Dickinson’s 2006 Jungle Jim and the Voodoo Tiger album. It’s not a glorification of the working class but a frustrated look at how so many working-class folks are systematically fooled into backing politicians and political positions that are contrary to their own economic interests.

6. “Lawrence Jones” by Kathy Mattea. This is the most powerful song from Mattea’s concept album Coal, released early this year. It was written by folk singer/organizer Si Kahn and deals with the bloody 13-month miners’ strike that began in 1973 in Harlan County, Kentucky. As documented in Barbara Kopple’s influential documentary Harlan County U.S.A., Jones was fatally shot.

7. “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” by The Del-Lords. This tune was written by West Virginia hillbilly bard Blind Alfred Reed at the outset of the Great Depression. It’s a screed against high prices, bad schools, trigger-happy cops, crooked preachers, and doctors who dispense “a dose of dope and a great big bill.” All these things were still around in the 1980s when New York’s Del-Lords ripped into it and made it rock.

8. “Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)” by Randy Newman. This song comes from the album Good Old Boys, which was released in 1974, so I always assumed the lyrics were aimed at Richard Nixon. “We’re not askin’ you to love us/You may put yourself high above us/Mr. President, have pity on the working man.”

9. “Don’t Look Now (It Ain’t You or Me)” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. In this rockabilly tune, John Fogerty takes a poke at the elitism found in too many hipster circles in the late ’60s. As Fogerty explained in a Rolling Stone interview: “We’re all so ethnic now, with our long hair and shit. But, when it comes to doing the real crap that civilization needs to keep it going ... who’s going to be the garbage collector? None of us will. Most of us will say, ‘That’s beneath me, I ain’t gonna do that job.’”

10. “Big Boss Man” by Jimmy Reed. “You got me working, boss man, working ’round the clock/I want me a drink of water, but you won’t let Jimmy stop.” The sentiments of this venerated blues song are so universal. I can imagine a movie about the construction of the Pyramids. One of the slaves stops his work, looks up, and begins to sing: “Big boss man, don’t you hear when I call?”

Workin’ man radio: Hear these songs and lots more when Stan Rosen joins me at 10 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 7, for Terrell’s Sound World’s annual post-Labor Day show (on KSFR-FM 101.1). As always, we’ll focus on songs about workers and the labor movement.

OBAMA SPEAKS

MADELYN & ME

Look who I ran into shortly before Richardson's speech.

HE'S ON!

I was just about to start calling Pahl Shipley!

UPDATE: And he's giving a different speech.

And he's getting a good response

HEEEEERE'S BILL!

I'm in Ivesco Field now. More on that later.

They just passed out an "embargoed" copy of Richardson's speech. At first quick glance it looks like the exact same one that slipped by the embargo last night.

It's 5:18 p.m. now. I wonder if this means he's about to go on soon -- maybe after they quit playing U2's "Beautiful Day"?

UPDATE: 5:54 p.m. According to the official podium schedule, Richardson was supposed to have spoken between 5 and 6 p.m. -- right after Martin Luther King III and before the John Legend number.

Sheryl Crow is playing her third song now. Richardson couldn't have been bumped again could he?

UPDATE: 6:04 PM. Sheryl Crow has finished and Mark Udall is talking. Now I'm really wondering about the governor. Here's the rest of the schedule:

The Honorable Mark Udall
Member of the US House of Representatives, Colorado

The Honorable Tim Kaine
Governor of Virginia

Live Performance
Stevie Wonder

Remarks
The Honorable Al Gore
Former Vice President of the United States

7:00 PM - 8:00 PM (LOCAL)

Remarks
John Kuniholm
Wounded Iraq veteran

Live Performance
Michael McDonald
Singer/songwriter

Remarks
Susan Eisenhower
Granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Retired Generals Tribute
Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration (Ret)
Accompanied by additional generals

American Voices Program
Roy Gross
Monica Early
Wes Moore
Janet Lynn Monacco
Nate Flick
Teresa Asenap
Pamela Cash-Roper
Barney Smith

Remarks
The Honorable Dick Durbin
US Senator, Illinois

8:00 PM - 9:00 PM (LOCAL)

Video/Remarks
SENATOR BARACK OBAMA
DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

THURSDAY MORNING CONVENTION NOTEBOOK

DENVER — American Indians have among the worst voter turnout rates of all ethic groups in the United States. The Barack Obama campaign is basing much of its hopes around new voters, voters who in the past have tended not to participate in the political system and minority voters.

Thus it’s natural that Obama would be making a serious effort to tap into the vote of Indian Country.

Two New Mexico Indian leaders spoke Thursday morning to the state delegation at their daily breakfast.

Both Joe Garcia, a former governor of Okay Owinge Pueblo and currently president of the president of the National Congress of American Indians and Alvin Warren, secretary of the state Department of Indian Affairs, told delegates the importance of native Americans working with the political process.

Garcia referred to a recent meeting between Obama and New Mexican Indian leaders. This took place last week during Obama’s campaign stop in Albuquerque.

Warren, a former lieutenant governor of Santa Clara Pueblo, is a member of Obama’s First Americans Council. He talked about leading a voter registration drive at Santa Clara in 2006, in which 100 new voters were registered. “A high percentage of which showed up to vote,” Warren said.

Asked after his talk what the Obama campaign would have to do to get new Indian voters on board, he said the campaign “ will have to find people familiar with all 22 tribes, all 52 Navajo Nation chapters.

“They’ll have to find people who can work with the tribes and bring voter registration to them,” he said. “They’ll have to describe the opportunity to participate in the political system, They’ll have to describe how crucial it is to participate and explain the connection between the political process and needed services such as healthcare, education and infrastructure.”

Said Warren, “Native Americans as a demographic provide the best opportunity to grow the voter base.”

A spokesman for the state Obama campaign said in a phone interview Thursday said Indians are an important part of the campaign strategy and has already begun a serious effort to get out the Indian vote. They’ve hired a Native American Vote director, Amber Carillo, and four field organizers for Indian Country in New Mexico. The campaign is planning a “Camp Obama” training session for volunteers at a yet to be determined pueblo in early September.

One of New Mexico’s superdelegates at the convention is Laurie Weahkee, lead organizer of Native American Voters Alliance. Weahkee said Thursday that while she’s a Democrat, her group is non-partisan. The group had a voter education convention in Santa Fe on August 1 and plans a get-out-the-vote effort for the general election.

Mayors for Truth: Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez, a superdelegate at the convention, told convention-going New Mexicans at breakfast Thursday that he and other Democratic mayors have agreed to serve as a “truth squad” keeping an eye on Republican John McCain and his surrogates.

“My intent is not to be anybody’s attack dog,” Chavez said. “But if John McCain comes to town and makes misstatements about Barack Obama, I’m going to be there to answer it,” Chavez told a reporter after his talk to the state delegation at the Crowne Plaza hotel.

Other Democratic mayors will do the same thing in their respective cities, Chavez said.
The “truth squad” could be put to the test soon. Chavez said both McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — who frequently is mentioned as a possible McCain running mate — are scheduled to speak in Albuquerque early next month,

Previewing Richardson’s speech: The sudden rescheduling of Gov. Bill Richardson’s convention speech Wednesday night took most New Mexico delegates — not to mention reporters — by surprise Wednesday night. Richardson had been scheduled to speak on the night in which many speeches focused on national security and foreign policy. Instead, however, he was asked instead to speak the big night of Obama’s acceptance speech .

As is the custom, advance copies of speeches were available to reporters. This included Richardson’s. At least one Web site, The Politico, published Richardson’s speech, which went out over the Associated Press wire. You can find the transcript HERE

It starts out with some self-effacing humor: “Fellow citizens, I am not known as a quiet man.” But then he turns serious, asking for a moment of silence for the “young men and women are dying for our country overseas.”

Richardson praises Obama for his “prescient and brave” speech in 2002 in which he called the coming invasion of Iraq as "a war based not on reason, but on passion; not on principle, but on politics." Richardson doesn’t mention that he supported the war himself at that time.

WHERE'S OUR BILL?

Gov. Bill Richardson, who was supposed to speak at the convention tonight, apparently got bumped.

There's some talk he'll speak at the Invesco Field event tomorrow night. But I haven't confirmed that.

Watch this space.

UPDATE: 9:01 p.m. State Democratic Party spokeswoman Conchita Cruz just told me that Richardson definitely is on for tomorrow. "Bigger venue, bigger speech," she said. But she had yet to confirm the time. More might follow.

WHO DECIDES THE MUSIC AT THESE THINGS?

Preident Bill Clinton just finished speaking.

Good speech. But whose idea was it to have the band play "Addicted to Love" for Clinton as he left the stage?

STOP GOVERNMENT SPYING

I spotted the sign while I was riding the free 16th Street Mall bus Tuesday morning. A big sign with a simple message: “Stop Government Spying” held by a smiling man with bushy gray sideburns in a “I (heart) Big Brother” T-shirt.

About 11 hours later, while walking down 16th, I spotted the same guy holding the same sign, this time assisted by a younger woman. He had a friendly smile and didn’t look like the kind to yell in my face with a megaphone. So I decided to find out why he was doing this for hours on end on the streets of Denver.

His name is Ben Masel, and he comes from Madison Wisc. He’s a long-time activist and veteran of many protests and various causes. When I told him I was from The New Mexican, he said he was at a drug reform conference in 2001 that then Gov. Gary Johnson attended. I’d covered that same conference.

I later learned that he’s announced his candidacy for the 2012 U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin on a pro drug-legalization, pro-civil liberties platform.

“I’m doing this partly in the hopes of influencing President Obama,” he said, “But especially to try to influence members of Congress passing through with the sense that we need some legislative fixes for the massive erosions of our privacy. My own representative, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) stopped and posed with us an hour ago.” Masel said Baldwin will sponsor a bill to create “an affirmative privacy right in cell phone location data, which apparently belong to the phone companies to deal with however they like.”

Masel said he’s faced no harassment from police or passersby in Denver. But he’s forced some “free speech issues” with business owners who have tried to remove him from sidewalks. "I've backed each of them down,” he said.

When some security guards tried to have him removed from in front of a downtown hotel, Masel said, the manager came out to discuss the problem and eventually the manager agreed with Masel’s right to protest on a public sidewalk.

Masel also was protesting a party Sunday at the Mile High Station thrown by AT&T for the conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats. Some left-wing blogs have criticized the party noting that most the Blue Dogs voted to immunize telecommunication companies for their participation in the Bush administration's warrantees spying program.

The cops tried to remove him, but Masel said a Denver police lieutenant was “smart enough” to know he had a right to protest on a public sidewalk. Masel said he agreed to stay in one spot and not block passerbys.

Maureen Warfield, who was helping Masel hold the sign said she’d just been there for a short time. “I was just walking up and down and I saw this awesome sign,” she said.

Warfield is from Castlerock, Colo., who said she’s been downtown every day during the convention, sometimes with her children. On Monday, she said, she was in front of a MTV Rock the Vote performance with a sign that said "Screw Iraq, Fight for freedom in America."

“I’ve got four kids, I’m a stay-at-home-mom and I’m sickened by what’s happening today,” she said.

Masel said he’s planning on protesting the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn. next week.