LEAVE THE CAPITOL!

I had to split from my office at the state Capitol this afternoon about 3:30 p.m. or so due to an envelope containing white powder found at the governor's office about an hour before.

Read my Web bulletin at The New Mexican site HERE

The guy first who told me about the situation, KOB reporter Gadi Schwartz, later was quarantined and forced to be scrubbed and bleached. Gadi reported that he got to show in Bill Richardson's personal shower. Big Time!

Ironically on Wednesday — a day before the envelope arrived at the Roundhouse — I asked Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos about the governor receiving a white powder in the mail. This was because a Rhode Island news Web site erroneously had reported Richardson among the governors to receive such a package. Gallegos said Wednesday the publication must have heard about a similar 2005 incident at our state capitol.

No word yet whether the powder is toxic or not.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: DRUGS FROM FRANCE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 11, 2008

Four years before Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested for alleged corruption, he and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson were partners in a deal involving exports from France.

But it’s not as sinister as it sounds.

Blagojevich, according to a Nov. 5, 2004, report in this newspaper, had arranged to buy 300,000 flu vaccine shots from Aventis Pasteur’s manufacturing plant in France. Richardson arranged to piggyback on that deal and purchase 150,000 doses for New Mexico.

The two governors announced that plan at a teleconference. New Mexico reporters were invited to listen in at the Governor’s Office.

I missed that event. But I was one of only two reporters to attend a news conference about six months later in which Richardson welcomed Eliot Spitzer, then running for governor of New York. Spitzer was in town for a $500-a-ticket fundraiser at the home of his friend, art-gallery owner Gerald Peters. The main thing I remember about that event was Spitzer joking about the large marble table in Richardson’s Cabinet Room.

“Where does King Arthur sit?” quipped the later-to-be-disgraced Spitzer.

Spitzer resigned in March after The New York Times exposed his involvement with a prostitution service.

Blagojevich is still governor — as of Wednesday evening as I write this — despite his arrest on multiple charges of corruption, including a scheme to sell, to the highest bidder, the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

Obama on Wednesday called on Blagojevich to resign as governor. Previously he called upon Richardson to resign as governor of New Mexico — to become U.S. Commerce Department secretary.

In fairness to Richardson, who served two terms as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, he’s met with many governors, the overwhelming majority of which have not ended up in crazy scandals.

But we in New Mexico should be grateful to Blagojevich. Not just for the flu shots, but for whipping up an alleged corruption scheme that makes Robert Vigil and Manny Aragon seem like amateurs.

Looking out for No. 2: Most of the media speculation about who Lt. Gov. Diane Denish might choose for her replacement has centered around State Auditor Hector Balderas, state Rep. Lucky Varela, D-Santa Fe, and Lawrence Rael, executive director of the Mid-Region Council of Governments. That is, assuming Richardson is confirmed as commerce secretary and Denish moves on to the Governor’s Office.

But, according to one Roundhouse rumor, a dark horse might be high on Denish’s list for lieutenant governor: Veterans Affairs Secretary John Garcia.

Garcia, as keen observers might recall, is the one cabinet member who appeared with Denish at that Albuquerque news conference when the talk of Bill Richardson becoming commerce secretary first broke. Those hoping for Garcia’s appointment speculate Republicans in 2010 might nominate Heather Wilson for governor, who is likely to stress veterans’ issues. Garcia on the ticket could help blunt that, his fans say.

Garcia is a Vietnam vet who served from 1969 to 1970. He was deputy chief of staff for Gov. Bruce King and later secretary of the Economic Development Department. Prior to his time in state government, Garcia’s headed the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce.

Denish, who appointed a transition team Wednesday, consistently has said it’s too early to be talking about her choice for lieutenant governor.

Speaking of the Commerce appointment: A former Richardson press aide this week wrote a column for McClatchy Newspapers about the governor taking on the new position, predicting big things for both Richardson and the Department of Commerce.

The writer is Richard Parker, who worked for Richardson during his congressional years.

Despite his former employment by Richardson, Parker said in his piece that “I am no cheerleader for Richardson.” He says he endured “several years of contentious coverage of him for the Albuquerque Journal.”

But he does sound a little like a cheerleader here.

“Ambitious even for a politician, Richardson will likely seek to transform the job and position himself as the most public Cabinet figure in righting the domestic economic disaster and transforming international trade. In doing so, he will form ties here and abroad that may ultimately write his biography in political history as a senior statesman, if never a president. As a result, more people may be affected by the new secretary than any other Cabinet figure.”

Parker wrote, “Richardson is as much a realist as a careerist. It seems likely that he has arranged with the president-elect to lift the commerce post out of obscurity and into an ‘A’ position, effectively and even formally alongside state, defense, treasury and others. And that means activism. Further, when you consider the other economic appointments, none is as capable, or likely willing, to be a public point man as Richardson.

“As an ambitious politician he may be able to get to the vice presidency, say, but more likely emerge as an elder statesman, probably with a lot of cushy, corporate board seats, too.”

eMUSIC DECEMBER

* Horny As Hell by The Fuzztones. I'm a newcomer to this band, which, in various forms, has been around since the '80s. Though they started out in New York, Fuzztone frontman Rudi Protrudi and his latest incarnation of the band have been based out of Berlin in recent years.

The '08 model of Fuzztones includes a horn section (I don't think that's them pictured on the album cover) and a female chorus. I believe that King Khan & The Shrines is a major influence on this garage/soul sound.

Most the songs are Protrudi originals, though they cover a Pretty Things tune here ("Alexander," which features PT bassist Wally Waller) and a Billy Gibbons tune "99th Floor," which Billy the Beard used to play with his pre-ZZ Top band Moving Sidewalks. Probably my favorite song here is a new all-hornied-up version of an old Fuzztones song "Ward 81."

And just for the heck of it, I downloaded another Fuzztones tune, "I'm a Wolfman" from the Wicked Cool Records Halloween a-Go-Go album.


*Look Ma, No Head by The Cramps. It's been five long years since The Cramps released their last studio album (The Fiends of Dope Island), and as the Wolf Brand Chili used to say, "That's too long!"

Look Ma is a 1991 effort. In my Terrell's Tune-up review, I wrote that this album, "offers no new revelations, innovations or justification for its existence. But it still sounds great when you pop it in your tape deck going 85 mph on the Interstate."

I'll stand by that, even though I don't have a cassette player in my car any more.

As on any Cramps album, there's lotsa, lotsa trashabilly fun in here. Iggy Pop guests here on "Miniskirt Blues." Ry Cooder co-wrote "Hard-Workin' Man." There's references to cavemen, UFOs, Jayne Mansfield, Ernie Kovacks and songs like "Eyeball in My Martini," "Two Headed Sex Change" and "I Want to Get in Your Pants."

How can you not love 'em?

* Pleasure by The Ohio Players. old school funk at it;s funkiest. This is the Players' second album on Westbound, released in 1972.

Mainly these are jazzy instrumental tracks falling somewhere between Music of My Mind-era Stevie Wonder and Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis..

Their character "Granny" appears in a couple of spots (with a little barnyard humor in the tune "Rooster Poot."

And in case you forgot it was 1972, on "Introducing the Players" the band members are introduced by thier names, instruments and astrological signs.

* Stax Profiles by Rufus Thomas. He was as funny as he was funky. He was a veteran of vaudeville and a pioneering Memphis DJ. He did The Funky Chicken, The Funky Robot, and, though it's not on this otherwise excellent collection, "The Funky Penguin."

* Stocking Stuffer by The Fleshtones. A Super Rock Christmas album by The Fleshtones? That seems to be the situation. Titles include "Christmas with Bazooka Joe," "Champagne of Christmas," "Six White Bloomers," which sounds like a Yuletide tribute to AC/DC, and of course "Super Rock Santa." Chuck Berry's "Run Rudolph Run" isn't a very original choice. But I do dig the Joe Meek/Del Shannon "Runaway" organ in "Hurray for Santa Claus." (Consumer tip: "Champagne for Christmas," at least as of this writing, is available for free on the 2008 Redeye Holiday Sampler.)

Plus:
* Five Shane MacGowan & The Popes songs I didn't already have from a best-of compilation The Rare Oul' Stuff. These include some Irish standards like "Danny Boy" and "The Minstrel Boy," a lovely Christmas song called "Christmas Lullaby," a Pogue-ish rocker called "Rake at the Gates of Hell" and a cover of Neil Diamond's "Cracklin' Rosie." (I have that song on their Live at Montreaux 1995 DVD.)

Then I took a couple of tunes Shane sang with a band called Lancaster County Prison on their album released early this year, Every Goddamn Time. There's a banjo stomper called "Satan is Waiting" and a cover of "Long Black Veil." There's another couple of songs here with McGowan vocals, but I wasn't that impressed with the 30-second clips. Maybe someday curiosity will get the best of me and I'll download those also. Meanwhile, all these just make me thirsty for some new Shane.

*Some Christmas tunes, including "Call it Christmas" by The Supersuckers, which, along with the above mentioned Fleshtones song is free from the 2008 Redeye Holiday Sampler, "Santa's Gonna Shut 'em Down" by Untamed Youth, "Christmas 1979" and "A Poundland Christmas" by Billy Childish & The Musicians of The British Empire. Maybe next year I'll downlaod the whole Christmas 1979 album, from which these came.

* The first five tracks from Holland Shuffle, a live album by Andre Williams with a band called Green Hornet, released in 2003 by Norton Records. This is an excellent companion to the old R&B shouter's Can You Deal With It, released earlier this year on Bloodshot. I'll download the rest of these next week when my account refreshes.



And don't forget:

* The five tracks from Passover by The Black Angels that I didn't get last month. Like the first tracks I downloaded, these take listeners to a fuzz-laden aural psychedelic wonderland. If Marvel Comics ever makes a decent Dr. Strange movie, The Black Angels would provide a tremendous soundtrack.

RICHARDSON AT GEORGETOWN FUNDRAISER

Gov. Bill Richardson will be attending a Georgetown fundraiser to help retire his $150,000 presidential campaign debt, The Politico is reporting.

According to Politico, the fundraiser is being hosted by William A.K. Titleman and his wife, Maria. The couple have helped raise funds for Richardson’s campaign last year but also donated to Hillary Clinton's campaign. William Titleman also raised money for group that aired ads earlier this year in primary states harshly criticizing Barack Obama. Obama this month nominated Richardson as his Commerce secretary.

The invitation, according to The Politico lists several hosts, including Nelson Cunningham, Managing Partner of Kissinger McLarty Associates, where Richardson used to work; Andy Athy, a lobbyist for Viacom, DirecTV, U.S. Steel and Lehman Brothers, and Mike Stratton, a veteran political strategist who worked on Richardson's presidential campaign and is now works with the DCI Group, lobbyist firm.

The Politico reported that source close to Richardson said the event was planned "well-before" Richardson's appointment.

Richardson's remaining campaign debt, according to The Associated Press, is for the use of private jets belonging to The Branch law firm, state Highway Commissioner Johnny Cope and Congressman elect Harry Teague.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, December 7, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Gonzo by James Booker
I'm Not Like Everyone Else by The Rockin' Guys
Entertain by Sleater-Kinney
Last of the Small Time Playboys by The Dirty Pretty Things
Psycho Daiseys by The Hentchmen
It's Lame by Figures of Light
We Repel Each Other by The Reigning Sound
Girl Coge mi Cosar by Wau & Loa Arrrghs!!!
I Hear Sirens by The Dirtbombs

Weird and Twisted Nights by Hunter Thompson, Ralph Steadman & Mo Dean
Twisted by Paul Preston
Illuminated Cowboy by Roy & The Devil's Motorcycle
Killer Wolf by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Hotdog (Watch Me Eat) by The Detroit Cobras
I Wanna Hot Dog for My Roll by Butterbeans & Susie
My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama by Frank Zappa

Ozzie, High Times and Me by Mike Edison & The Rocket Train Delta Science Arkestra
New Rocket Train Boogie by Edison Rocket Train
I Love You by Lightning Beat Man
Break on Through by Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog
Blindness by The Fall
Jump the Shark by The SG Sound

Hurray for Santa Claus by The Fleshtones
In the Wilderness by Charlie Pickett
Wang Dang Doodle by P.J. Harvey
Days and Days by Concrete Blonde
Feels Like the End of the World by Firewater
Truly by Hundred Year Flood
Long Way Home by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis