ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: ORDERED BY GOD

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


Gov. Bill Richardson was the interview subject in this week’s “10 Questions” section of Time magazine. He talked about immigration, his book, his meetings with famous dictators, etc.
And he also spoke a little bit about theology, specifically the divine right of early primary states.

“Nobody should tamper with Iowa and New Hampshire being the initial primaries or caucuses,” Richardson told Time. “That's God given and party given.”

This is even stronger than what he told people in New Hampshire last summer at a political breakfast. There, Richardson said that having the first primary in the nation is “your birthright.” But he didn’t mention God by name.

Even so, a Democratic National Committee panel is apparently trying to mess with God’s plan.

The 40-member commission is considering a plan that would add a Western and a Southern state to the January primary calendar.

“The four Western states under consideration are Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada as well as Colorado,” Rocky Mountain News columnist Peter Blake wrote Wednesday. “But Mike Stratton, a Colorado political strategist who's on the commission, conceded Nevada is the likely choice.”

Stratton, by the way, was working for Richardson during the governor’s visit to New Hampshire last June.

But a Nov. 30 story in the Manchester Union Leader quotes New Hampshire’s secretary of state William Gardner saying he will move up the New Hampshire primary if the Democrats adopt the proposed primary plan. And state law allows him to do it.

Truly he is a man of God.

Meanwhile, Richardson still is pushing for a regional primary — which would include this state, Arizona, Utah and possibly others — for Feb. 5, 2008.

For the record, God didn’t create the New Hampshire primary until 1913. Actually, according to the New Hampshire Political Library’s the Web site, it was a body called “The General Court” that created the primary. The first primary actually wasn’t held until 1916.

But New Hampshire didn’t become the first-in-the-nation primary until 1920, when the state of Minnesota decided to drop its primary and Indiana moved its primary back to May. I’m not sure what happened here.

Did God also create the Minnesota and Indiana primaries and decide He had made a mistake?

Or were those primaries the work of Satan?

At first New Hampshire primary voters elected delegates to the national political conventions. It wasn’t until 1952 that God decided the names of the presidential candidates themselves should be on the ballot.

God didn’t get the January Iowa caucuses going until 1972. (A history of the caucuses by The Des Moines Register also gives former Iowa Gov. Harold Hughes some of the credit.)

Baseball blues: The subject of Richardson’s professional baseball “career” was bound to come up in the Time interview.

After all, last week in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Tom Ruprecht, a writer for Late Show with David Letterman poked wicked fun at the governor’s recent discovery that he actually had not been drafted by the Kansas City Athletics in the 1960s.

Ruprecht’s story, headlined “Field of Hallucinations,” started out, “Yes, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico had to embark on an exhaustive fact-finding mission to determine whether or not he was ever a major-league baseball player. (And we wonder why nothing gets done in government.)”

In the Time interview, Richardson, apparently decided that a good defense is a bad pun.

“I had been told by various scouts that I would be drafted if I signed,” he told reporter Karen Tumulty. “When it appeared in the official program of my team that I had been drafted, I assumed it was correct. However, the mistake was mine. I should have checked. Obviously, it's become a little bit of an instance where I dropped the ball. Get it, Karen?”

“I get it, I get it,” Tumulty replied.

“Get that?” Richardson continued. “Dropped the ball?”

Flattery will get you nowhere: State Rep. Al Park, D-Albuquerque, who according to the Roundhouse rumor mill was considering a run for state attorney general or treasurer, announced last week that he would instead seek a fourth term in the House of Representatives.

“While I am flattered by the support I have received to run for higher office, I believe the best way I can serve the people of New Mexico is to remain in the Legislature,” Park said in a news release.

How come I get the feeling that if he’d been flattered with more support, he might have been making a different announcement?

E-MAILS FROM POSSUM

I've recently been involved in correspondence with the one and only George Jones. I didn't realize until this week that he's not only one of America's greatest entertainers, he's also an important official with the government of Mauritius. Not only that, but he has a plan that could make ME some money.


Here's the e-mails we've exchanged the past few days:

From: georgejones@virgilio.it
Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2005 5:34 AM
To: (Me! Steve Terrell!)
Subject: Funds for keeps/investment

Sir/Madam,

My name is Mr George Jones, chairman of contract award and monitoring committee of the ministry of industry and international trade development, my duty as empowered by the Mauritius government is to provide the basic amenities, social recreational activities in urban and rural areas.

This program includes assistance to deprived local communities and to co-ordinate projects and development at the national level. Furthermore,from this projects were able to realize some reasonable amount of u.s.$21.8 (Twenty one million eight hundred thousand US. dollars only) as commission from various contractors resulting from over invoicing of payment receipts/vouchers hence all the necessary approvals has been completed.

These approved funds were packaged and dispatched through a security company for onward delivery to its destination in Europe. The money was first deposited into a security vault before we arrange for its movement to Europe through diplomatic channel using decoy purporting that the fund belongs to an expatriate/company.

As we are government officials, the oath of office does are not allowed us to operate foreign bank account, hence we need you to stand as the beneficiary and claim the fund on our behalf from the security company.

Presently I am now in Europe to search for a reliable person/company of high integrity /dignity and one with conscience who will claim this fund on our behalf as the beneficiary.

We have agreed to give you 30% of the total sum as commission for your assistance/effort and 5% will be used to settle every expenses incurred, we will use 65% to invest under your recommendation/guide and go into joint venture business with you.

I would greatly appreciate your assistance and I look forward to your response as soon as possible through this e mail address:georgejjons@netscape.com

Best regards,

Mr George Jones

(To which I replied ...)

From: (me)
Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2005 5:34 AM
To: georgejones@virgilio.it
Subject: Re: Funds for keeps/investment

You can't fool me, George! You're America's greatest country singer.

swt

(Then today, George wrote back ...)

From: georgejjons@netscape.net
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 2:40 AM
To: Steve Terrell
Subject: information from Mr George Jones.


y will be required to come with their official handling charges.{NOTE: That's how it actually starts, "y will be required ..." Must be some Mauritian slang.) The fees representing the handling charges will be paid in the office on your arrival, and receipt will be given to you immediately before your funds is subsequently released to you.

On your acceptance of all the above, the contact details of FORTIS security company is below:

FORTIS SECURITIES AND FINANCE
15 KOMMERSTRAAT,AMSTELVEEN BRANCH,
AMSTERDAM THE NETHERLANDS.
CONTACT PERSON;MR VAN ENLO
EmailAddress: fortisfinancebv@mail2world.com

Please due contact them and get back to me,I will be waiting for your response including the requested information of your personal data(full names, address, phone/fax numbers) or do you want us to use your official contact information below.

Note : the motto of this business is trust , secret and confidence. I will expect your phone call as soon as you receive this mail.

Sincerely.

George Jones

(Wow! George Jones is sharing secrets with ME! And I notice his e-mail changed too. So I wrote back ...)


From: (me)
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 2:40 AM
To: georgejjons@netscape.net
Subject: Re: information from Mr George Jones.

I love the way you do "Window Up Above."

Possum, you are a genius.

swt

XXXXXXX

Remember folks, the motto of this business is "trust , secret and confidence," so please don't tell anyone.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, December 4, 2005
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
Backstreet Girl by Social Distortion
This Side of Heaven by The (International) Noise Conspiracy
Let There Be Pain by The Stillettos
Dimples by The Animals
Push Up Man by The Fleshtones
The Unheard Music by X
Hit the Road Jack by Cat
Captain of a Shipwreck by Neil Diamond

Robert Mugge Set
(from the soundtracks of Deep Blues and Last of the Mississippi Jukes)
Jr. Blues by Junior Kimbrough
Casino in the Cottonfields by Vasti Jackson & The King Edward Blues Band
Love Like I Wanna by Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes
Strokin' by Patrice Moncell

John Lennon Tribute
Not John by Loudon Wainwright III
Give Me Some Truth by John Lennon
No Reply by The Beatles
Cold Turkey by John Lennon
Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles
Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles
God by John Lennon

Instant Karma by John Lennon
I Am the Walrus by The Beatles
Run For Your Life by The Beatles
Remember by John Lennon
Don't Let Me Down by The Beatles
The Late Great Johnny Ace by Paul Simon
Medley: Happy Xmas/Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, December 2, 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
Don't Get Above Your Raisin' by Ricky Skaggs with Elvis Costello
Haley's Comet by The Tom Russell Band
Cortez Sail by Terry Allen
The Moon is High by Neko Case
Ghosts in the Holler by The Family Lotus
Trotsky's Blues by Joe West
Behind the Fear by Lurn Hatcher

Christmas Time Will Soon Be Over by Jack White
Steve McQueen by Drive-By Truckers
I Like My Chicken Fryin' Size by Hank Thompson
New Lee Highway Blues by David Bromberg
County Line by Eleni Mandell
Silver Bells by The Rev. Horton Heat

He'll Have to Go by Ry Cooder
The Big Easy by The Jimmy Stadler Band
Blue Louisiana by Bobby Earl Smith
Hard Luck Troubador by Nancy Apple & Rob McNultin
To the Music World Unknown by Oneil Howes
Bluer Than You by Ronny Elliott
It Took 4 Beatles to Make One Elvis by Harry Hayward
Your Past is Going to Come Back to Haunt You by Emily Kaitz
Christmas Time is Here by Marah

On the Wings of a Dove by Lucinda Williams & Nanci Griffith
My Sister's Tiny Hands by The Handsome Family
Lonely Boy/Greener by Boris McCutcheon
Ain't No Cane on the Brazos by The Band
(Think About a) Lullaby by Merle Haggard
Last Train from Poor Valley by Norman Blake
Am I That Easy to Forget by Bobby Bare
Four Walls by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

ROBERT MUGGE'S MUSICAL SPIRIT

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 2, 2005

To filmmaker Robert Mugge, music is a metaphor for the human spirit.

“It’s beneath the surface in every film I’ve made,” he said in a recent telephone interview. “Music is a leaping-off place for discussions of social issues, cultural issues, political issues, even religious issues.”


Mugge, who will be in town to present three of his music documentaries at the Santa Fe Film Festival, is enmeshed in a project to document the effects of Hurricane Katrina on a city that is a major wellspring of American music. Mugge is making the Katrina movie for the cable network Starz.

“The story of what’s happening in New Orleans is so big,” Mugge said, “you can turn on a camera anywhere there and get something interesting. You can talk to anyone you see on the street and get a great story. So music makes it a manageable focus.”

Music has been a metaphor for Mugge’s spirit since his early childhood in North Carolina in the early 1950s, when a radio introduced him to the strange and alluring world of American music — country, gospel, and rock ’n’ roll.

Mugge began studying film in the early ’70s at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. By the end of the ’70s he’d made documentaries about Frostburg, Md. (an Appalachian mining town where he’d gone to college in the 1960s), and controversial Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo. George Crumb: Voice of The Whale (1976), a portrait of the contemporary avant-garde composer, was Mugge’s first music movie.

In 1978 Mugge began filming Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise, a portrait of the Alabama-born jazz spaceman. From then on, music, musicians, and places where music is made have been his focus.

Music isn’t shortchanged in Mugge’s movies. Unlike many music documentaries that interrupt great performances for inane fan chatter or irrelevant observations, Mugge frequently allows the whole song to play and let the music speak for itself. And his interview segments almost always go straight to the core.

Mugge has made documentaries about bluegrass, reggae, and Hawaiian music and has done films centered on Rubén Blades, Sonny Rollins, Robert Johnson, and Gil Scott-Heron. In 1984’s Gospel According to Al Green, Mugge became the first interviewer to get the soul singer to open up about a terrible night in which a spurned girlfriend threw a pot of boiling grits on him — causing second-degree burns — then went into a bedroom and fatally shot herself.

He’s done several movies on the blues, three of which are showing at the film festival. Deep Blues, a 1991 film narrated by Arkansas music writer Robert Palmer, features performances by Mississippi masters R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough — captured on film well before they became cult heroes on Fat Possum records — as well as lesser-known worthies like Jessie Mae Hemphill (both solo and with her fife-and-drum band), Roosevelt “Booba” Barnes, and Big Jack Johnson.

Mugge said that a major point of Deep Blues was that pockets of authentic Mississippi blues were alive and well. But by 1999, when he made Hellhounds on My Trail: The Afterlife of Robert Johnson, “I started to sense (Mississippi blues) was beginning to die. A lot of performers were dying, and jukes were closing down.”

That concern prompted him in 2003 to make Last of the Mississippi Jukes, which also is showing at the film festival. While it’s full of high-powered performances by Alvin Youngblood Hart, Chris Thomas King, Vasti Jackson, Bobby Rush, and Patrice Moncell, it’s ultimately a sad film.

It starts off with a brand-new juke joint in Clarksdale, Miss., the Ground Zero Blues Club, which is co-owned by actor Morgan Freeman. But it ends at the Subway Lounge in Jackson, Miss., shortly before the club closed. At the end of the film there’s hope that the Subway would be renovated and revived. However, due to structural problems, the building has since been demolished.

The third film Mugge presents in Santa Fe is Rhythm ’N’ Bayous: A Road Map to Louisiana Music, originally released in 2000. Mugge said the purpose of this film was to show the impressive breadth of music in Louisiana — Cajun, zydeco, Creole, gospel, country, blues, soul, funk, jazz, rock ’n’ roll — and not just focus on “the same people” usually chosen to represent Louisiana music.

Among those featured in the movie are jazz trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, rockabilly artist Dale Hawkins, New Orleans rocker Frankie “Sea Cruise” Ford, and blues pianist Henry Butler.

Rhythm ’N’ Bayous can be considered a preamble to his new project about Katrina’s effect on New Orleans music, a joyful picture of “before” that will provide a sad contrast with the “after” that Mugge is documenting.

In the days before his interview with Pasatiempo, Mugge had been in New Orleans and other locales in the South talking with and filming performances of New Orleans musicians. He found cars on top of houses and in swimming pools, and he saw mysterious men dressed in black patrolling the neighborhoods at night. He filmed in clubs with no running water and unspeakably foul restrooms.

Mugge convinced the Army Corps of Engineers to take him up in a helicopter for an aerial perspective of the city and of landmarks such as Fats Domino’s house. Mugge’s co-producer, Diane Zelman, convinced a voodoo priestess to allow the crew to shoot a voodoo ceremony in a neighborhood where electricity hadn’t been restored. At the climax of the ritual — whose purpose was “to bring the city back to life,” Mugge said — the lights suddenly came back on, evoking nervous laughter from all involved.

Mugge filmed a gig at Grant Street Music Hall in Lafayette in which Marcia Ball presented fellow pianist Eddie Bo with a new electronic keyboard to replace the one he’d lost in the hurricane.

He shot an unknown guitarist playing an unplugged electric guitar on the roof of his mother’s home.

“We filmed Irma Thomas going back to her home, which is now gutted,” Mugge said, speaking of the venerated soul singer. “We went with her to her nightclub, the Lion’s Den, which was destroyed. She pointed to these Christmas lights on the wall and said, ‘You guys put those there 12 years ago’” when Mugge filmed Thomas for True Believers, a film about Rounder Records.

The new Thomas footage as well as that of Ruffins, whom he tracked down in Houston, will be interspersed with old performance footage “from happier times.”

A major question underlying the Katrina project is whether New Orleans will survive as a living, thriving music center. It’s a question Mugge has yet to answer.

“Cyril Neville believes there’s a real conspiracy among white financial people to do away with the black, impoverished neighborhoods,” Mugge said. “That’s where the people get this culture that’s responsible for this music.”

But even people who are less conspiracy-minded fear that New Orleans will be rebuilt as a Disneyfied version of its former self, perhaps something like Beale Street in Memphis, once a bucket-of-blood crucible of the blues, now an upscale tourist district offering safe, sanitized blues.

“People want to make sure that the city (government) doesn’t sell them out and don’t try to turn it into a new Las Vegas,” Mugge said.

Many New Orleans musicians have fled and might not return. Ruffins is Houston, Eddie Bo in Lafayette, and Neville in Austin, Texas. “These guys are really good and they’re still New Orleans musicians,” Mugge said. “But if New Orleans ceases to be New Orleans, there’s no place for them. If every city in the country has its own New Orleans musician, are they truly New Orleans musicians if the city’s ceased to function?”

New Orleans, Mugge says, “is like a body without a spirit. The music itself is the spirit.”

(The photo way above is Robert Mugge with Jack Owens during the filming of Deep Blues.)

Schedule for Mugge Films at Santa Fe Film Festival

Deep Blues 7:30 p.m Thursday Dec. 8
Rhythm 'N' Bayous 2:30 p.m. Friday Dec. 9
Last of the Mississippi Jukes 2:30 p.m. Sunday Dec. 11
(All at CCA Cinematheque, 1050 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe NM 87505, phone: 505 982 1338)