BILLY, YOU'RE SO FAR AWAY FROM HOME

The New Mexican Web site today has a feature I did on Jay Miller s new book Billy the Kid Rides Again: Digging for the Truth. CLICK HERE.

It's a collection of Miller's columns about the strange effort by three New Mexico law enforcement officials -- aided and endorsed by Gov. Bill Richardson -- to "learn the truth" about the death of Billy the Kid -- a truth most serious historians thought they already knew.

I didn't work this story nearly as much as Miller, but I had a little fun with this investigation. Here's a column I did a couple of years ago:


A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
August 14, 2003

Billy the Kid's head in a jar at Highlands University? Is New Mexico's most famous cop killer buried beneath a Santa Fe hotel?

Ever since Gov. Bill Richardson earlier this summer announced his support for reopening the case of the death of Billy the Kid (and some of the desperate deeds that he did), theories and rumors about the fate of the boy bandit king have flown around like ghost riders in the sky.

It seems the story of Richardson pledging state resources to aid in the investigation -- including the possibility of exhuming the grave of the woman believed to be Billy's mother as well as a couple of Billy claimants -- still has legs after all these weeks.

As has the fear that investigators might try to dig up Billy himself from his grave in Fort Sumner.

The Discovery Channel's Unsolved History series is planning to go to Fort Sumner later this month to shoot an hour-long program about the death of the Kid. Gary Tarpinian, president of Morning Star Entertainment, said Wednesday the Kid program was in the works even before he knew of the official investigation. The program is expected to air next spring he said.

Paul Hutton, the University of New Mexico history professor assigned to the new investigation, said he has been contacted by The History Channel, which plans to produce a documentary about the Kid hosted by Bill Curtis.

And the story made it to the cover of this month's True West magazine. The cover story, titled "Digging Up Billy," by Jana Bommersbach, quotes filmmaker John Fusco saying despite the fact his movie Young Guns II helped revive the claim of "Brushy Bill" Roberts that he was Billy the Kid, he doesn't really believe the story.

She also quotes Fusco as saying, "Many years ago in New Mexico, old timers told me that the Kid's remains had been relocated with other graves years ago and most likely rests today somewhere beneath the Santa Fe Sheraton."

This is similar to an e-mail The New Mexican received a few weeks ago that quoted Marcelle Brothers, who runs a Billy Web site.

There was a huge flood of the Pecos River circa 1905 near the Fort Sumner cemetery where most people believe Billy was buried.

And shortly after that the graves of soldiers in the cemetery were exhumed to be relocated in the national cemetery in Santa Fe (not far from the former Sheraton, which was built about 70 years later, and is now the Radisson Hotel.)

Therefore, Brothers wrote, "I highly doubt Billy the Kid's remains are under that slab of cement (in Fort Sumner; his bones may be in the military cemetery in Santa Fe or in the Gulf of Mexico or sunken into the riverbed of the Pecos River miles away from the Fort -- who knows?"

Hutton said the flood and the relocation of the soldiers' remains do raise concerns about the actual whereabout of Billy's grave.

But this e-mail wasn't as interesting as another recent e-mail to the paper.

According to the writer -- Earl Chafin, a historical researcher from Riverside, Calif. -- Billy "is most likely buried in Las Vegas, N.M., according to the Las Vegas Optic newspaper of 1881. He is not buried in Fort Sumner. His body was claimed as a medical cadaver and his head placed in a jar of formaldehyde."

Contacted by telephone recently, Chafin said he came across this information on microfilm about 30 years ago while researching an unrelated matter.

Hutton said he'd never heard this theory. "It's a standard story," he said. "Pancho Villa's head is supposedly roaming around there somewhere."

But despite all the theories, Scott Smith, director of the Fort Sumner State Monument -- which is adjacent to the cemetery -- insists that Billy is where he's supposed to be. "The grave is accurately marked," he said in a telephone interview.

And people in Fort Sumner -- as well as tourists who visit -- are dead set against anyone literally digging up Billy, residents say. Sandy Paul, executive director of the Fort Sumner Chamber of Commerce, said she has told her family she'd chain herself to the cage around Billy's grave if anyone tries to exhume.

She sounded serious.

Richardson and the Lincoln County lawmen who initiated the latest investigation say the plan is to exhume Billy's mother in Silver City, Brushy Bill in Hico, Texas, and another man in Arizona to conduct DNA testing. "The intent is to debunk the impostors," Richardson spokesman Billy Sparks said Wednesday.

Sparks said exhuming the grave in Fort Sumner is "unlikely." But because it's a serious investigation, it can't be ruled out, he said. "It would be the last thing to happen," he said.

In general, Sparks said, the new investigation is "an opportunity to educate a new generation of New Mexicans and individuals from all over the world about Billy the Kid."

Educational it has been.

And by the way, Sparks said if anyone has that jar with the Kid's head, please send a photo -- but not the jar -- to the governor's office.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 25, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Kansas City Star by Roger Miller
Sink Hole by Drive-By Truckers
Chaos Streams by Son Volt
San Quentin by Johnny Cash
There Ought to Be a Law Against Sunny California by Terry Allen
Rehab Girl by Joe West
I Know You Are There by The Handsome Family
Pick a Bale of Cotton by Leadbelly

I Just Want to Meet the Man by Robbie Fulks
Tonight i Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown by Mudhoney
Gotta Travel On by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Silver Wings by Merle Haggard
Lost Highway by Nancy Apple & Rob McNurlin
I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You by Hank Thompson
History of Lovers by Iron and Wine with Calexico
The Obscenity Prayer by Rodney Crowell

THANKSGIVING LEFTOVERS
I am a Pilgrim by The Byrds
Turkey Chase by Bob Dylan
Turkey in the Straw by Jon Rauhouse and Norm Pratt
Thanksgiving by Loudon Wainwright III
Wayfaring Pilgrim by Darrell Scott, Danny Thompson & Kenny Malone
Pilgrim by Steve Earle

Wild Country by Chris Whitley
It's All in the Game by Bobby Bare
Just One Love by Bobby Earl Smith
Where Was That God of Love by Oneil Howes
I Still Miss Someone by Dolly Parton
I'm Troubled About My Soul by Clothesline Revival with Lillie Knox
Alibis by Blaze Foley
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

PUT ME IN COACH, I'M READY TO PLAY

The Bill Richardson baseball revelations begin to reverberate.

First I get this email from a friend:

I did some heavy internet research on the gov's putative baseball career. I found that it wasn't the KC Athletics that drafted him in 1966, it was the Bad News Bears! (Matthau nixed the deal when O'Neal agreed to pitch.)

Then I get this startling confession from state Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell in the form of a press release:

State Senator Rod Adair today admitted he had no proof he had actually been drafted by the Chicago White Sox in 1973.

"I thought a friend of mine told me I might have been, so I put two and two together and assumed the best," said Adair, "I mean, what would you have done, what would anyone in my position have done?" Adair was 0-1 for the Gary Moseley Furniture Cubs of the Roswell Connie Mack League in 1972, having made two appearances, one in relief and one as a starter. He had an Earned Run Average of 8.31 in 4 1/3 innings of work.

Previous press releases have mentioned that Adair had been "drafted by the Chicago White Sox in 1973." Adair said, "Today is the first I've heard that it never happened. I'm as shocked as the next guy. I do think we should probably have legislation that states that Major League Baseball must announce draft choices, go on record about it, put it in the papers and stuff like that. I mean what happened to me should never happen to anyone, going around being misled all this time. We really should clean this up for all future ballplayers."

Adair's media relations spokesperson, Teresa Davis-McKee, made it clear Adair would seek no damages, and take no action against MLB, Inc. or the Chicago White Sox Baseball Club, Inc. "He's really a very forgiving kind of guy, and he understands how these things happen. He's ready to move on with his life and he has no hard feelings toward the Sox," McKee said.

I dunno. This one could go into extra innings. It's starting to pick up some steam nationally. Here's some pretty scathing commentary: CLICK HERE

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: GO, GRANNY, GO!

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 25, 2005

“Listen to this tune that sounds like a condolence card bought at the last minute for someone you can’t stand, someone you never liked … Listen to this tune I’m playing now, kids. Does it seem sad? Does it remind you of when?”

These are the words of Olga Sarantos, the 83-year grandmother of Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger, siblings known collectively as The Fiery Furnaces.

Granny Olga along with the Furnaces are responsible for one of the strangest albums in recent memory, Rehearsing My Choir .
It’s a wild journey led by Olga -- who really did direct a choir in a Greek Orthodox church -- through darkened corridors of the past, filled with memories, fantasies, triumphs and regrets, part sung and part spoken word by Olga and Eleanor (who portrays the younger Olga through most of the album. )

It’s all told in the secret language that family members share, part verbal scrapbook, part travelogue of 20th Century Chicago, part radio drama, Eleanor’s clear youthful vocals playing off the deep, knowing voice of Olga, colored by meandering melodies, synthy squiggles, bleeps and blurps, church music, carnival tunes, insane soundtracky backdrops, kiddy songs played on what sounds like dingy- dongy toy xylophones -- and even a few moments of raunchy rock ‘n‘ roll.

In the old days they’d call this “art rock.“ A listener might hear strains similar to Brian Wilson’s Smile, to Laurie Anderson, Pere Ubu, The Residents, They Might Be Giants, maybe even Phillip Glass or Terry Riley, definitely a heap of prog-rock excess, maybe even a little early Electric Light Orchestra.

And to answer her questions, posed at the end of the album’s first song “The Garfield El,” and again near the end of the last song, yes, it seems sad, though often the tunes are funny, sentimental, mysterious and just plain crazy, And yes, it does remind me of “when” -- my own “when,” the strange tales and traditions of my own family.

It makes me wish I’d recorded my own grandmother before she died.

One niggling detail: Although the stories here have the sound and feel of an oral history project, it’s actually Matthew Friedberger who wrote the words.

In an interview in Tunetribe.com, Matthew said, “A couple of (songs) are stories that I knew -- one is a story she always told about her father-in-law coming back from Greece after the war, and she got drunk at a kontiki bar. I asked her for details on other stories, like in 'Guns Under The Counter', with the bowling team and the mafia. She was a big help."

The stories in Choir go gracefully from the mundane to the surreal. For instance, in “Guns Under the Counter” you meet a doctor who treats bullet wounds with blackberry jelly after a gangland hit on a Cicero donut factory.

When you listen to Rehearsing My Choir for the first time it helps to know that the stories are not in chronological order.

Matthew posted a little guide on Amazon.com: “Tracks 3 and 4 take place in the 40's; tracks 5 and 6 in the 20's and 30's; track 7 in the later 50's; track 8 starts in the very early 40's; track 9 goes back and forth; track 10 takes place in the early 60's; the final track takes place in the early 90's. Track 2 takes place a few years ago; track 1 took place when it was recorded.”

And by the way, “The Wayward Granddaughter” (Track 2) isn’t literally about Olga and Eleanor, and “Slavin’ Away” (Track 9), is supposed to be Olga fantasizing about the plight of working women.

The last song, “Does it Remind You of When?” Olga finds herself playing for the funeral of a friend, maybe even an old boyfriend (“and his wife is there in some chapel she picked/and there’s not even an organ/I have to play on some broken upright piano …”)

The noise from the traffic and some nearby construction project is so loud, “you can’t even hear the ceremony,” Olga moans as the guitars, keyboards and drums grow burst into an oppressively loud fury.

At the cemetery, covered in slush Olga passes by the graves of her parents, her sister, her husband. “I can hear the cars/just 100 feet behind,” Eleanor sings, “and I can smell the rock salt in the air/And I know in my bones, it isn’t fair …”

“Listen to this tune I’m playing now, kids,” Olga says once again. “Does it seem sad? Does it remind you of when?”


Also recommended:

*They Got Lost by They Might Be Giants. This is a compilation of “rarities” from Johns Linnel and Flansburgh. McSweeney’s. There’s even a commercial for a New Jersey graphics company and ditties used on t.v. and radio shows.

Among the highlights: “Reprehensible,” a loungy song about a man tormented by voices that tell him of his past incarnations (“the secret history of my immortality … the records of my unspeakable crimes in previous lives in previous time indelibly stains the pages of history …”)

* A live song called “Disappointing Show,” which sounds like they’re making up as they go along. The vocals are off key and the band, with a roller rink organ out front, sounds like they’re playing for cocktail hour at a rest home. In other words, it’s wickedly hilarious.

* “All Alone” a faux science tune about a germ on the moon, originally appearing on t.v. in an ABC documentary series, anchored by Ted Koppel called Brave New World.

* “The Army’s Tired Now,” which has nonsense lyrics (surprise, surprise) but is a minute and 11 seconds of Pet Sounds-inspired bliss.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: A GARGANTUAN EGO

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 24, 2005

According to national political commentator Chuck Todd, Governor Bill Richardson has a “gargantuan ego,” an “incredible ambition that borders on overdrive,” lacks a “soft side” that appeals to female voters, “carpetbagged” a Congressional seat and “bullied his way to the top of New Mexico politics.”


And, according to Todd, Richardson might be doomed in the 2008 presidential race because of a “whisper campaign” by those who say he’s not presidential material.

Still, Chuck Todd, who recently interviewed Richardson on CSPAN2, sounds like a Richardson fan.

Todd, a columnist for the Washington, D.C.-based National Journal and editor of that magazine’s political blog The Hotline, recently complained in his blog that Richardson wasn’t included in Time magazine’s recent Top Five Governors list. (Time also erred by omitting Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Todd wrote.)

And in a column last week, Todd wrote of the governor of New Mexico, “Apart from his gargantuan ego, we came away more impressed with his credentials as a major presidential candidate even while having doubts about whether 2008 will be his year.”

Todd went on to say, “If a Democratic consultant were trying to create the ideal presidential candidate, Richardson would be the model.”

He goes on to state the usual litany we’ve read a million times in national Richardson coverage: western governor blah blah blah, experience in foreign affairs blah blah blah “Latino in appearance with a gringo last name who speaks fluent Spanish” etc. etc.

Todd writes admiringly of Richardson’s ambitions: “just look at how he carpetbagged his way into New Mexico’s congressional delegation in a mere four years of taking up residency.”

But he added, “The only thing the lab would add that Richardson’s missing is a stable full of kids, military experience (he got out of Vietnam thanks to a deviated septum) and, shall we say, a svelter physique.”

Whispers and skeletons: But, Todd noted, for some reason, Richardson isn’t viewed “in the national Democratic salons that we believe still matter (particularly for fundraising),” as a top-tier Democratic candidate for 2008.

“We attribute Richardson’s struggles in the national Democratic circuit to a whisper campaign that contends he’s a bit reckless and ‘unpresidential’ (whatever that means),” Todd wrote. “This is a reputation that’s likely been earned by the fact that he’s got a coarse, or blunt, way of speaking to folks in private or semi-private situations. If you didn’t know him, you could even come away offended.”

Richardson, Todd says, "wants the presidency as badly as any candidate we've seen in a long time.”

“Candidate Richardson has some flaws, but barring some skeleton he’s failed to reveal, they are flaws he can overcome,” Todd concludes. “Dismiss his chances in 2008 at your own peril.”

This last paragraph inspired Albuquerque political blogger Joe Monahan to quip, “Thanks Chuck. Should we start the ‘Skeleton Watch?’ ”