BILL MEETS THE BLOGGERS PART 2

The New York Times covered the YearlyKos 2006 Convention in Las Vegas Friday. Here's what Adam Nagourney had to say about our governor.

"I see you guys as agents of advocacy — that's why I'm here," said Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat and a prospective 2008 presidential candidate, who flew here at the last minute ... Bloggers, Mr. Richardson said later, "are a major voice in American politics."

Mr. Richardson's visit was interesting in that he decided to come so late that his name did not appear on any programs; a hand-lettered sign announced a breakfast with him on Friday morning. Still, Mr. Richardson arched an eyebrow when asked whether he had suddenly decided to fly in after learning that many of his prospective rivals for 2008 were here and that Mr. Warner, in particular, was giving a major address on Saturday.

"Warner?" Mr. Richardson responded with a hint of a smile. "Is he here?"

In addition to Richardson and Warner, other possible 2008 candidates at the confab were retired Gen. Wesley Clark and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. Sen. Hillary Clinton declined an invitation.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 9, 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
The Lost Highway by Sabah Habas Mustapha
St. Pete Jail by Panama Red
This Town's a Riot by Bill Kirchen
Invisible Twice by The Rivet Gang
Goodbye Guitar by Tony Gilkyson
Don't Look Now by Dave Alvin
First I Lost My Marbles by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks

Don Julio by Cordero
18 Wheels by Fred Eaglesmith
Your Great Journey by The Handsome Family
It's an Unfriendly World by The Del McCoury Band
Only Mama That'll Walk the Line by The Stumbleweeds
Shut it Tight by T-Bone Burnett
It Takes One to Know Me by Johnny Cash
House on Mulberry Street by Porter Wagoner

BOTTLE ROCKETS SET
Middle Man
1000 Car
Waitin' on a Train
Align Yourself
Sometimes Found
Lawd I'm Just a Country Boy in This Great Big Freaky City
Zoysia

Lonesome Roads by Carla Bozulich
I am Your Destroyer by Gary Heffern
Remain by Jon Dee Graham
Can't You See I'm Soulful by Eleni Mandell
Two Candles by The Backsliders
Out Among the Stars by Hazel Dickens
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

BILL MEETS THE BLOGGERS

I just got a press release saying the governor is traveling to Las Vegas, Nev. to talk to a liberal blogger confab. Richardson, according to his statement, "will address as many as 500 of the nation’s most prominent Internet bloggers today at the YearlyKos Netroots Convention ... "

Right after that, Air America sent an e-mail saying, "Thousands of bloggers and activists have descended upon the Riviera Hotel for what is sure to be an unforgettable weekend of fun and fellowship, punctuated by a first rate lineup of panels and presentations. ... Appearing today (6/9) will be Ambassador Joe Wilson, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Sen. Barbara Boxer.

'Later on this afternoon, you can catch General Wesley Clark and the man/blogger of the hour, Markos Moulitsas, aka Kos of the DailyKos."

They didn't mention our governor.

Early this year, Richardson addressed the blogger menace at the New Mexico Press Association's annual Legislative Breakfast.

I wrote about that on my Legislature blog:

(Richardson) praised political blogger Joe Monahan. “I think we’re lucky that we have one blog that all of you read. Monahan And he’s good. He knows the process.” But, Richardson said blogs are predominantly partisan right-wing efforts full of innuendoes and rumors. He urged members of the press to be “diligent, vigilant and check their sources and not get over-excited in a competitive frenzy to deal with, in many cases, misinformation that is ideological.”

Richardson charged that many bloggers are paid “indirectly” by political organizations. “On both sides,” he said, “But I think the preponderance is on the right.”

I wonder if he'll say the same thing today in Las Vegas.

You can watch the video stream of the conference HERE

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: GRASSROOTS ROCK

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 9, 2006


I’m a writer, not a gardener. So I had to look up the word Zoysia, the title of the new Bottle Rockets album. It’s a type of grass used in suburban lawns. I thought it was a breakaway Soviet republic.

But the image of suburban lawns is at the metaphorical center of this album by Brian Henneman and his trusty band of blue-collar rockers. “But in the meantime, life just goes on/We pay our bills, we mow our lawns.”

Zoysia can be seen as a loose-knit concept album about yearning for normalcy and moderation — yearnings not normally associated with rock ’n’ roll. Sure, artists like John Hiatt have been here before, but Henneman is one of the first rockers who came of age in the ’90s to deal with middle age, middle-class values, and trying to maintain middle ground in divisive political times.

One of the songs here is even called “Middle Man,” which has Henneman grousing, “If I could be a little bit happier/If I could be a little more cranky/If I could be a little more Dixie/If I could be a little more Yankee ...” (Henneman is from Missouri, a Civil War border state).

In “Align Yourself,” Henneman mocks those who give up their individuality to groups and movements. Singing through an electronic filter that almost sounds like a bullhorn, he recites an alphabet soup of various special interests, religions, political parties, and football conferences. “NRA, KKK, Adventists Seventh Day ... FFA, PLO, choose your partner there you go/NAMBLA, PETA, People’s Temple.”

While members of Future Farmers of America might resent being lumped in with the North American Man/Boy Love Association, the message of the song is in the refrain: “Align yourself, define yourself/When you don’t know who you are, you can remind yourself.”

On “Blind,” a slow, twangy tune (complete with mandolin and slide guitar played by Rockets string man John Horton), Henneman sermonizes about the pitfalls of judging people by race and appearance and takes a cheap shot at the American Idol/Britney Spears pop universe. “If we all were blind/would we be surprised at who’d become important in our eyes?”

The most moving track is the title song, which comes at the end of the album. “In my neck of the woods, the town where I live/It’s out in the sticks and conservative/Got lots of churches, we’ve got lots of bars/And the kids ’round here, they fight our wars.”

The lyrics of the bridge remind me of driving through Santa Fe neighborhoods during election season: “Out on the lawns we got campaign signs/We always know when it’s election time/The guy next door, his signs are not like mine/But he’s all right/We get along fine.”

Then there’s that image of the grass, a metaphor of interconnection among people who live close to one another: “If your neighbor gets the zoysia grass, buddy you get zoysia too/And maybe if you hurt yourself, he’ll mow the lawn for you.”

Musically, Zoysia shows the Rockets doing what they do best. They roar like Southern-rock warriors on “Better Than Broken” and “Mountain to Climb” and burn on the Neil Youngish “Happy Anniversary.” They’re also perfectly capable of good-time country, as in “Blind” and “Feeling Down.”

The biggest musical surprise here — and by a landslide the prettiest song on the album — is “Where I’m From,” a slow, mainly acoustic song with trippy chord changes that recall The Grateful Dead’s Aoxomoxoa.

While not breaking much new ground — and not likely to set the commercial woods on fire — Zoysia shows Henneman and The Bottle Rockets living up to that self-description in “Middle Man”: invisible and reliable.

Also recommended:
En Este Momento by Cordero: Fans of Los Lobos and Calexico definitely should check out Cordero. This is a four-piece band (guitar, bass, drums, and trumpet) that specializes in minimalist, Mexicano-influenced rock.

Singer Ani Cordero, who also wrote all the songs, is from Brooklyn by way of Georgia, where she played drums for a side project of the old space/surf group Man or Astro-man? She has also spent time in Arizona, where she got some recording help from Giant Sand man Howe Gelb.

Cordero’s warm vocals are the main draw here; she sings mainly in Spanish. But trumpeter Omar Little and drummer Chris Verene (Cordero’s husband) are indispensable. Verene shows his stuff on percussion-heavy songs like “Come on Dear” and “María Elisa.”

My favorite songs here include “Don’t Let Them Destroy You,” which has an early-’60s girl-group feel (Shangri-Las go south of the border?); “Matadora,” which would have fit in on the first Los Super Seven album; “La Piedra,” a quiet, acoustic waltz that threatens to explode in thunder; the upbeat “Don Julio,” which Al Hurricane should cover; and “Mamá Ven a Buscarme,” which could almost be part of an Ennio Morricone soundtrack.

For more information on Cordero and The Bottle Rockets, check out www.bloodshotrecords.com.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: STARTLING E-MAIL

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 8, 2006

During a primary campaign, a reporter receives tons of e-mails and news releases — most of them predictable self-serving drivel.

But a campaign e-mail I got late last Friday afternoon was downright startling.
The subject line read as follows:

“Press Release — J.R. Damron Quits”

Lots of thoughts raced through my head as I clicked to open the e-mail. Was something wrong with the Republican gubernatorial candidate? (I’d just seen Damron a few days before at a Michael Martin Murphey concert, and he seemed to be in good health and spirits. I even snapped his picture backstage with a celebrity, as shown at the right.)


Had GOP kingmakers, perhaps frustrated by Gov. Bill Richardson’s ridiculously huge campaign-fund advantage, forced him out of the race to replace him with some better-known candidate (whoever that might be)?

Had Richardson’s opposition-research operatives unearthed something shocking and nasty?

Had George Bailey’s quixotic write-in campaign suddenly picked up steam?

But when I read the actual message, it was nothing of the kind. Damron had quit his medical practice. He saw his last patient Friday. At first, it seemed like a pretty misleading subject line. But it sure got my attention fast.

(For the record, Damron beat Bailey in the primary by a margin of 99.3 to .7 percent.)

Inside the e-mail: Damron said he was quitting his practice to devote full time to his campaign. He said he’d also be a full-time governor, calling the frequently traveling Richardson an “absentee governor.”

“Richardson planned to be an absentee governor from the start,” the statement said.

Then came something I’d never heard before.

“Almost as soon as Richardson was inaugurated as governor, he had the state Legislature change the number of days allotted for the governor to be out of state from 30 to 180,” the statement said. “Richardson knew from the start he planned to be out of state half a year.”

Something bothered me about that. If that had happened and somehow everyone in the press missed it, I can think of at least six Republicans who would have been calling the next day to make sure someone noticed.

Raul Burciaga of the Legislative Council Service said Wednesday that he could find no such legislation.

“In 1999, the Legislature changed the compensation of the lieutenant governor (for days served as acting governor),” Burciaga said. The lieutentant guv gets an extra $250 a day every time the governor leaves the state.

Richardson became governor in 2003.

Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said Wednesday that Richardson never asked for — and never received — any such legislation.

In 2002 — the last year of Gov. Gary Johnson’s administration — the Department of Finance and Administration created a “dedicated source” (that’s DFA-speak for a reserve fund) to pay the lieutenant governor for those days, Gallegos said. This took effect in fiscal year 2003.

The fund was originally $26,700, allowing for 106.8 days. “It was based on past history,” Gallegos said. Subsequently, the fund was cut to $20,000, allowing for 80 days, he said. He said Richardson hadn’t exceeded that amount.

Even if this shot was a misfire, Richardson’s travel is bound to be an issue in the upcoming campaign.

Wen Ho who? Speaking of potential campaign bombshells, chances of the Wen Ho Lee case blowing up on Richardson during the campaign were lessened greatly last week when the former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist settled his privacy lawsuit with the government and five news organizations.

The case had turned into a battle over reporters’ confidential sources. Lee accused the Energy and Justice departments of violating his privacy by leaking the fact he was under investigation as a spy for China. Five reporters were held in contempt of court for refusing to disclose their sources.

Last year, federal Appeals Judge David Sentelle singled out the names of Richardson — who was secretary of Energy — and two other Department of Energy officials as being the probable sources of the leaks.

In a sworn deposition for Lee’s lawsuit, Richardson testified he didn’t remember making some statements about the Lee firing attributed to him in various newspapers.

So it looks like Lee got $1.6 million. And maybe the governor got off the hook.