BAD AD SONGS AND CLASSY RIDES

Slate magazine this week has a funny piece about painfully inappropriate songs used in television commericals.

Among them are General Electric using the song "Sixteen Tons" in an ad extolling the virtues of coal (What? They couldn't get the rights to "Dark as a Dungeon"?); Iggy Pop's junkie anthem "Lust For Life" used in an ad for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines; and worst of all, Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" being twisted into a patriotic ditty for Wrangler Jeans. This is worse than Ronald Reagan's infamous misinterpretation of "Born in the U.S.A."

I thought of a few songs just waiting to be used as commericial jingles.

1. "The Bed" by Lou Reed would sound great on a Posturepedic commercial.

2. "Hellhound on My Trail" by Robert Johnson surely would sell a lot of Alpo.

3. "Wreck on the Highway" -- either the Roy Acuff version or Bruce Springsteen's -- are ripe for an auto insurance commercial.

4. "People Who Died" by The Jim Carroll Band is just begging to be picked up for a commercial by a life insurance company.

Any other ideas? Post 'em in the comments section.

On a completely different subject, my friend Judy pointed out that Gov. Richardson isn't the first gov in these parts to get stylish transportation. Below is from today's New Mexican's "The Past 100 Years."

June 16, 1905: Two handsome Ford automobiles are on the road for Santa Fe people. One is for Gov. Otero and the other will be used by Territorial Secretary J.W. Raynolds.

GOP ATTACKS LEATHER SEATS, WET BAR AND MAKE-UP ARTISTS

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 15, 2005

The radio war between Gov. Bill Richardson and the New Mexico Republican Party escalated Wednesday.

The GOP unleashed two more commercials -- in English and in Spanish -- that blast the governor for his administration’s purchase of a $5.5 million jet airplane and what they call his “high-roller lifestyle.”

Both ads make pointed references to the eight-passenger jet and to Richardson having a “make-up artist” on staff. Both will be running on six stations across the state for the next week, state GOP executive director Marta Kramer said Wednesday.

The ad comes a week after a similar GOP radio ad ran in New Mexico and New Hampshire, where Richardson made a political trip last week. Richardson quickly responded with his own ad that ran on New Mexico stations defending his purchase of the jet.

State Republican Chairman Allen Weh said the notion that Richardson leads “the lifestyle of the rich and famous” — at taxpayer expense — will become a theme in next year’s gubernatorial race. Richardson has said he’ll seek re-election.

“I don’t know of another governor in any of the other 49 states who has such a pampered lifestyle as Bill Richardson,” Weh said.

Richardson’s political director Amanda Cooper said the ads are “full of lies.”

Cooper it was “unconscionable” and “disgraceful” that the Republicans would run such ads during a time when the governor is working with Sen. Pete Domenici and other Republicans to save Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, which the Pentagon has recommended for closure.

“Bipartisan work needs to be done,” she said. “Let’s save Cannon”
But she said it’s likely the Richardson re-election campaign will pay for another round of ads attacking the new GOP spots.

One ad features a narrator acting as a pilot, welcoming passengers to “Gov. Richardson's new Cessna Citation Bravo.”

The “pilot” continues, “This 5.5 million dollar jet is the lap of luxury, with leather seats and wet bar.”

The ad gives a little history of Richardson’s efforts to get the new plane, specifically how he tried to purchase it without approval by the Legislature, until Attorney General Patricia Madrid issued an opinion saying that plan was illegal.

The “pilot” also talks about Richardson’s “$4 million helicopter, a Cadillac Escalade, three chefs and the largest personal staff of any Governor in the state's history ... that even includes a make-up artist.”

The ad claims Richardson has raised taxes to pay for personal extravagances. “Well, maybe that 's why he wears all that make-up.

“I guess it's hard to look at New Mexicans with a straight face while he raises taxes on the sick and elderly to pay for his high-roller lifestyle.”

The ad concludes, “So sit back, strap in and hold on to your wallet. Gov. Richardson is taking you for a ride... so he can fly first class.”

The second ad consists of a man and woman discussing Richardson’s response to the jet controversy, also referring to the leather seats and wet bar.

“Bill Richardson says it's the Republicans fault,” a woman says.

“How can he say that?” a man says. “ The Legislature never voted on the jet itself. It says right here that the jet was tied to funding for schools, senior centers, and over 3,000 other projects. ...”

The jet was in the general appropriations bill.

The couple jokes about Richardson having a staff make-up artist, whose job included fetching the governor cigars. This was based on a 2003 Washington Post story in which a reporter followed Richardson the day of a Democratic presidential candidate debate in Albuquerque.

That staffer, whose job title was executive assistant, now works for another state agency.

Cooper said there is no make-up artist on staff. She also said Richardson has only one chef, not three.

She said the image of Richardson as a pampered high roller isn’t fair. “Gary Johnson had a car. He had a cook,” she said. She added, “The governor does not do politics at taxpayer expense.”

But Weh said the Republican ads are resonating with New Mexicans who see Richardson as “an egotistical guy who indulges in perks."

“The emperor isn’t wearing any clothes," Weh said. "and we’re going to tell people.”

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: ROUNDHOUSE HOME COMPANION

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 16, 2005

There was a time, not too many years ago, when you could predict how Republican legislators would vote on any given bill by knowing how the New Mexico Association for Commerce and Industry — the state’s most prominent business lobby — stood on it.

Republicans tend to vote in favor of ACI positions on bills relating to such issues as taxes and easing regulations on businesses. And thus, traditionally, Republicans get the highest scores in ACI’s annual report on the Legislature.

But this year it seems there have been some tensions between the ACI and some GOP lawmakers. During a House floor debate this year, Rep. Dan Foley, R-Roswell, sarcastically referred to the ACI as the “Association of Conflicted Interests.”

And in one of his periodic mass-e-mail “Legislative Reports,” Sen. Rod Adair, another Roswell Republican, says the ACI’s rating of lawmakers is “of absolutely no value whatsoever, even worse they communicate a completely false picture of the attitude of the Legislature toward business.”

He suggests the group has manipulated its scoring system to make Democrats look better.

Borrowing a line from radio humorist Garrison Keillor, Adair wrote, “Some might call the New Mexico Legislature ‘ACI's Lake Wobegone’ where everybody is above average.”

Adair points out that several longtime conservative Republicans this year were rated the same or even lower than some of the most liberal members of the Legislature.

For instance, Rep. Gail Beam and Rep. Miguel Garcia, both Albuquerque Democrats, got higher scores than Rep. Richard Cheney, R-Farmington, while Don Bratton, D-Hobbs, tied Beam with a score of 73. Meanwhile, House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Nambe, tied ultra-conservative Foley with a score of 80 percent.

Adair said he doesn’t want ACI to become a laughingstock. He doesn’t want people to start saying, “Oh, yeah ACI, that's the organization that says Miguel Garcia is more pro-business than Richard Cheney and Don Bratton.”

“I want to make it clear that far from being a critic of ACI,” said Adair, who has been deemed a “Business Star,” by the ACI for having a cumulative score of better than 85 percent for the past four years. “My point is not to criticize the organization, but to encourage a serious discussion of ACI, with the goal of trying to keep it from becoming completely irrelevant,” he said.

Points of conflict: Three bills caused many Republicans to lose ACI points and helped Democrats get better scores this year.

One was a pre-kindergarten pilot program. Another created a new cabinet department, The Department of Higher Education. The third, House Bill 410, delayed implementation of personal income-tax cuts for the state’s richest citizens but contained several tax incentives.

Republicans voted overwhelmingly against these bills, which were backed by Gov. Bill Richardson and supported by the ACI.

ACI lobbyist J.D. Bullington said, “Education reform has been at the top of the business community’s agenda for many years. In Florida, it’s the Republicans who are working for pre-kindergarten.”

As for HB 410, Bullington disputed Adair’s argument that delaying the tax cut is the equivalent of raising taxes.

“HB 410 was the most important economic-development legislation in the session,” he said.

The bill eliminated some of what the business community calls “pyramiding” — charging gross-receipts taxes on business-to-business transactions -- a change which the ACI has advocated for years. It also established a gross-reciepts tax holiday, tax credits for high-tech start-ups, renewable energy production and creating jobs in rural areas.

But by delaying the tax cuts, the state over the next three years will collect an estimated $121 million in personal income taxes that would have been lost if the tax cuts had taken effect on schedule.

“That does not meet our definition of a tax increase,” Bullington said. “We’re still moving downward (in taxes).”

Another reason for high Dem scores: Bullington said besides those issues, there’s another explanation for the Democrats and Republicans having closer ACI scores in recent years. The scores, he said, are based on floor votes.

“We used to see floor votes on whistle-blower bills, union laws, bills that punished business,” he said. “We don’t see those bills coming to the floor any more.”

According to Bullington, lawmakers have “gotten so sensitive to (the ACI) report card for the last 15 years, they’ve shut off the flow of anti-business bills.”

El Queso Grande: There have been two cheese-related announcements coming out of the governor’s office in the past couple of weeks.

First there was the plans for a whey factory in Clovis that will use byproducts from the nearby cheese factory to make food for piglets.

Second, Richardson appointed ‘70s pop star Tony Orlando to the state Music Commission.

MR. BIG STUFF

There's a story about our governor in The Hill today, focusing mainly on Richardson's support for a western primary -- a move that assumedly would boost any Richardson '08 effort.

The Hill story is by Alexander Bolton, but it sounds like John Coventry helped him with his lede:

"New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is pushing to increase the weight of Western states with fast-growing Hispanic populations in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary ..."

ANTI-BOLO BIAS SPREADS TO MARYLAND

My former Capitol Bureau partner Mark Hummels alerted me to this alarming example of anti-bolo bigotry at a Maryland high school.

Seriously, this is idiotic. The school wouldn't give this Indian kid his diploma because he "wore a braided bolo tie under his purple graduation gown this week as a subtle tribute to his Native American heritage."

No, the principal's name isn't Don Grady ....

My natural sympathies are with young Thomas Benya. Afterall, I got in trouble at my high school graduation for giving a speech urging the Class of '71 to go to jail instead of Vietnam.

Here's Benya's school's side of the story:

"We have many students with many different cultural heritages, and there are many times to display that," said school district spokeswoman Katie O'Malley-Simpson.

"But graduation is a time when we have a formal, uniform celebration. If kids are going to participate, they need to respect the rules."

Thomas Benya did everything he needed to do to graduate -- except for learning the lessons of conformity.

(For a previous tale of bolo madness CLICK HERE)

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, June 12, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Now 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
Steppin' Out by Paul Revere & The Raiders
Indestructible by Rancid
It Kills by Stephen Malkmus
Little Girl by Syndicate of Sound
125 by The Haunted
Man or Animal by Audioslave
Laredo (Small Dark Something) by Jon Dee Graham
Bulldozer Love by The Baby Robots

This Ain't No Picnic by The Minutemen
Killin' Floor by John Schooley
Throw a Boogie/Black Betty/Just a Little Bit by Scott H. Biram
Boob Scotch by Bob Log III
Your Memories by Hasil Adkins
Paralyzed by The Legendary Stardust Cowboy
Lover Street by Heavy Trash
Crazy Crazy Mama by Roky Erickson
Justine by The Mummies
Boom Boom by John Lee Hooker

Honky Tonk by Miles Davis
Turkey's Lament by Waldo the Dog-Faced Boy
La Bamba by The Plugz
Bless You by The Devil Dogs

James J Polk by They Might Be Giants
All For Swinging You Around by The New Pornographers
Home Made Blondie by Stuurbaard Bakkebaard
Ghosts of American Astronauts by The Mekons
The World Spins by Julee Cruise
Muriel by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

YOUTH PROGRAM ON KSFR

Here's a message I just got from Tom Knoblauch about an interesting sounding radio program:

Living On the Edge is hosting 15 short news, opinion, and creative narrative productions from the Santa Fe Community College radio production class 1 p.m. Sunday on KSFR, 90.7 FM. These short productions were entirely student written and engineered with advice from Judy Goldberg, producer of Backroads Radio; John Calef, of the KSFR News team; and Tom Knoblauch, producer and co-conspirator of Living On the Edge. Give a listen to the voice of youth in Santa Fe.

If anyone knows of a youth interested in taking the class or participating in the Santa Fe Youth Radio Network please write to:
judy@backroadsradio.com or call 986-1880. The class is eligible for concurrent enrollment with the public High schools and is paid for by Santa Fe Public Schools.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

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

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
My Name is Jorge by The Gourds
The Winner by Bobby Bare
Juanita by The Flying Burrito Brothers
Love's Gonna Live Here by George Jones & Buck Owens
I'm Gonna Take You Home and Make You Like Me by Robbie & Donna Fulks
Roll Truck Roll by Terry Allen
Fake Out by The Blacks
Dolores by Eddie Noack

New England by Jonathan Richman
Leave Me Liquor If You're Leavin' by Hog Mawl
Independence Day by Say Zuzu
New Lee Highway Blues by David Bromberg
Maybe Mexico by Jerry Jeff Walker
First Girl I Loved by John Hartford
Chicken by Geoff Muldaur with Jenni & Clare Muldaur

I'm a Lover Not a Fighter by John Schooley
I See the Light/What's His Name by Scott H. Biram
No Shoes by Hasil Adkins
Cussin' in Tongues by The Legendary Shack Shakers
I'm Convicted by Bad Livers
Louisiana Fairy Tale by Devil in a Woodpile
Boney Fingers by Hoyt Axton
Who's Julie by Mel Tillis

The Bloody Bucket by Grey DeLisle
My Home is Not a Home by Clothesline Revival with Tom Armstrong
How You Play the Game by Michelle Shocked
My Darlin' Hometown by John Prine
Trademark by Karen Collins
Gatsby's Restaurant by June Carter Cash with Jerry Hensley
When I Get My Rewards by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with Levon Helm
Fight or Flight by Shine Cherries
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: HASIL'S BASTARD SONS

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 10, 2005

Hasil Adkins, described in the All Music Guide as a “frantic one-man band who bashed out ultra-crude rock & roll tunes about sex, chicken, and decapitation into a wheezing reel-to-reel tape machine in a West Virginia shack," died in April, just before his 68th birthday.

He was truly a one-of-a-kind musical maniac. Artists like Adkins are lightning-struck mutations. You can’t study and rehearse your way into Haze-hood.

But his one-man band routine is a modern incarnation of an ancient tradition. While the common image of one man-bands is a goofy novelty worth of Vaudeville or Venice Beach, according to music historian and instrument inventor Hal Rammel, the concept can be traced back to the 13th Century.

“As a category of musicianship it transcends cultural and geographic boundaries, spans stylistic limits, and defies conventional notions of technique and instrumentation,” Rammel wrote in 1990. “despite its generally accepted status as an isolated novelty, it is a phenomenon with some identifiable historical continuity.”

The cult of Hasil, did leave its mark on the music world -- though his followers are even more obscure than Adkins was.

One obvious heir is Arizona’s Bob Log III, an avant-blues avatar who looks like a drunken Power Ranger playing simultaneous slide guitar and kick drum as he sings sonically distorted songs about whiskey and strippers.

And shortly before Adkins’ death I came across recent CDs by two other Hasil-soaked one-man bands -- John Schooley (pictured here with Hasil himself) and Scott H. Biram.


Schooley’s CD, John Schooley & His One-Man Band is on Voodoo Rhythm, a Swiss rockabilly label. This means I had to do a little research. Voodoo Rhythm, after all is that same whacky company that perpetrated the Jerry J. Nixon hoax -- a CD of a rockabilly singer who purportedly recorded in Santa Fe in the early ‘60s.

But I’m pretty sure Schooley actually exists.

Birham’s The Dirty Old One-Man Band is on Bloodshot Records of Chicago, the home of “insurgent country.” The Bloodshot folks are smart enough not to get hung up on the fact that Biram is a lot closer to blues than country.

Here’s the rap on Biram: According to Paste Magazine, “Back in April 2003, Biram was rammed head-on by an 18-wheeler at 75 MPH, leaving him wheelchair bound with two broken legs, a broken foot, broken arm and a foot less of his lower intestine. But that sure as hell wasn’t going to stop him. Within a month he was back onstage at Austin, Texas’ Continental Club, rocking his hometown crowd with an I.V. jabbed in his arm.”

I think the Human Resources Department would refer to that as a “positive work attitude.”

Both CDs are boozy, lo-fi, noisy guitar-driven raunchy romps. Both men list Austin, Texas for a hometown. (Biram thanks someone named “Schooley” in his liner notes. I’m assuming it’s John.)

Each does a mix of his own songs along with covers of blues and country material.

Schooley covers Rufus Thomas’ “Tiger Man,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “KIllin’ Floor” and Jimmy Reed’s “Honest I Do” Biram does Lead Belly‘s “Black Betty,” and the old hillbilly favorite “Muleskinner Blues.”

To the naked ear, these one-man bands from Texas may sound somewhat alike.

One difference is that Schooley is more of an actual one-man band, which means he plays guitar and foot-pedal-operated percussion at the same time. Biram’s main percussion comes from amplifying his tapping foot, so the beat isn’t as strong as Schooley’s

But Birham’s CD is more diverse in sound. He occasionally skips the surly bonds of one-man-band convention with an actual back-up acoustic country group called The Weary Boys. In a couple of tunes he’s accompanied by a gaggle of background singers he’s dubbed Scott H. Biram’s First Church of the Ultimate Fanaticism.

He puts aside the train-wreck blues sound for a sweet country sound. One might think that after his run-in with that 18-wheeler, a song like “Wreck My Car” would be a cacophonous scream ride. Instead, it’s actually a rather pretty, heavy on the harmonica, that contains a sweet snatch of Bruce Channel’s “Hey Baby” at the end. And in “Sweet Thing,” a bluegrassy song, Biram even abandons his 4 a.m. ham-radio distorto voice to sing it clearly.

While both Biram or Schooley specialize in a sound suggesting wild abandon, and both can rock like madmen, neither have the crazy edge of their spiritual forefather, Mr. Adkins. In the weird subculture of one-man blues screamer bands, that one man still stands miles above anyone else.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: RACING WITH RICHARDSON

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 9, 2005

MANCHESTER, N.H. — New Mexicans upset by those reports a couple of years ago indicating Gov. Bill Richardson orders his state police drivers to go 100 mph on our roads shouldn’t feel alone.

According to one New England journalist, our governor does this in Nuevo Hampshire too.

On Wednesday morning, a freelance photographer from Cambridge, Mass., working for The New Mexican to document Richardson’s visit here this week, tried to follow the governor’s entourage from a public radio station in Concord, N.H., to a meeting in Portsmouth, N.H. “I tried to keep up, but I gave up at 95 mph,” Jodi Hilton said.

No, the New Hampshire police didn’t stop him. In fact, a New Hampshire State Police officer accompanied Team Richardson on his travels.

Richardson spokesman Billy Sparks denied the governor was going that fast. “I was in the car behind him, and we didn’t go over 70,” he said.

The Richardson Posse: Richardson, of course, didn’t go alone to New Hampshire. Traveling with him, according to Chief of Staff Dave Contarino, were four staffers and two state police officers assigned to the governor.

The Democratic Governors Association, which Richardson chairs, is paying for the travel — except the police, who are paid by the state. So far, there have been no audible objections from other Democratic governors — though that could change if any other D-guv jumps into the presidential race.

Keeping the trains on time: Also with Richardson was Michael J. Stratton, a political consultant from Littleton, Colo. Stratton has worked for the Carter and Clinton administrations and has managed campaigns of several Colorado Democrats, including last year’s successful U.S. Senate race by Ken Salazar. He’s now a consultant for the Democratic Governors Association.

“I do a lot of (Richardson’s) out-of-town appearances,” Stratton told me shortly before Richardson spoke at Tuesday’s New Hampshire Latino Summit luncheon. “We’re old friends. I’ve known him for about 30 years, since he first moved to New Mexico.”

Stratton, according to a March article in The Hill, a publication about Congress, is a new member of a Democratic National Committee’s commission studying possible changes to the strange process by which the political parties choose our presidential nominees. The publication noted that Stratton assembled a coalition of Democrats in eight Western states, including New Mexico, to petition the DNC to push for a Western regional primary.

Richardson repeatedly assured New Hampshire audiences, who are a little touchy about the subject, that he’s in favor of keeping the New Hampshire primary first.

Stratton was modest about his role in Richardson’s current trip. “I’m just an advance man,” he said. “I make the trains run on time.”

Another familiar face: Also popping up at several Richardson stops here was Walter “Butch” Maki, a Santa Fe businessman and lobbyist as well as a former staffer of Richardson’s when he served in Congress and a longtime associate.

Maki told me he was in New England helping set up a branch of his security business. Maki, a New Hampshire native who still owns land there, invited several relatives from the area to Richardson’s Politics and Eggs speech Tuesday.

Recycling jokes: When you hire joke writers for $12,000, you don’t just want to use a joke once and throw it away. One of Richardson’s best-received routines here is one where he explains in both English and Spanish his position on running for president. “No, I will not run for president,” he says in English. Then, switching to Spanish, he adds, “Seguro que sí, ¡voy a ser candidato!” (”Of course, I will be a candidate!”)

Luckily few people, if anyone, attending Tuesday’s New Hampshire Latino Summit had been at the annual Gridiron dinner in Washington, D.C., when he premiered the joke a couple of months ago.

Courting the I-man: Speaking of jokers, at a Wednesday breakfast for a group of French-American New Hampshirites, someone asked Richardson whether he would seek the support of national radio-personality Don Imus, who operates a ranch for children with terminal diseases in San Miguel County and also broadcasts some of his shows from there.

Richardson described his relationship with the acid-tongued broadcaster: “In the early days of our relationship, he made false allegations about me — that I was fat. I wondered why I should go on his show when he pillories me.” After Richardson appeared on Imus in the Morning, however, Imus wasn’t so rough on him, Richardson said.

Richardson, who is a frequent guest on countless national television-news shows, said he gets more comments from Imus listeners than from all the other shows. “People are always telling me, ‘I heard you on Imus,’ ” he said. “Or Imus was making fun of you, ha-ha.’ ”

STATE GOP ATTACKS GUV IN TWO STATES

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 9, 2005

MANCHESTER, N.H. — As Gov. Bill Richardson traveled around New Hampshire on Wednesday, making contacts and trying to build his name recognition for a possible presidential bid, New Mexico Republicans launched an ad campaign designed to embarrass him in two states.

The New Mexico Republican Party began airing radio spots in both New Hampshire and New Mexico criticizing Richardson for what they call his “extravagant lifestyle at taxpayer expense.”

The ad labels Richardson as a “high-class showboat” and compares him with entertainers P. Diddy and Britney Spears.

The attack apparently was inspired in part by news reports that the Richardson administration spent $5.5 million to buy a new jet airplane — though the 30-second commercial blasts him on other issues as well.

Marta Kramer, executive director of state Republican Party, said Wednesday, “When people heard about this plane, our phones were ringing off the hook.”

A Richardson spokesman issued a statement denouncing the ads. “This is a desperate, pathetic, partisan attack filled with lies and complete fabrications, and about what you would expect from a party that lacks leadership and any real ideas for moving New Mexico forward,” Gilbert Gallegos wrote.

A GOP news release said the ad campaign — called “Operation High Roller” — will run statewide in New Mexico for at least the next week and that the ads aired Wednesday on three New Hampshire stations. The New Hampshire ads, the announcement said, are “designed to coincide with Richardson’s pursuit of the Democratic nomination for President.”

Richardson has told several New Hampshire audiences this week that he is keeping his options open for 2008. He has repeatedly said his main focus is getting re-elected governor in 2006.

Political experts in New Hampshire and Washington, D.C., have said this week’s trip to New Hampshire appears to be a “testing of the waters” for Richardson.

Kramer declined to say how much her party had spent on the ads or what stations would be airing them. But the party released this transcript of the ad:

It’s the lifestyles of the rich and famous ... who is this high-class showboat?
$5.5 million for a brand new jet airplane ...
Three personal chefs ...
Travels with a large entourage of body guards and staff to places like Europe and Las Vegas ...
Gets front-row seats to all the best events ... and isn’t bothered by speed limits ...
Is it P-Diddy? (Britney) Spears?
No ... it’s Gov. Bill Richardson ...
And how does Gov. Richardson pay for it all ... he doesn’t — you do ...
That’s why Bill Richardson has raised taxes by 740 million dollars ... and raided our children’s permanent fund ...
And the most creative way to keep the money rolling in? Bill Richardson taxes the elderly in nursing homes at $9 a day ... that’s over $3,000 a year for every patient ...
Nursing-home patients may have to dig deep to pay the tab ... But Governor Richardson just wouldn’t be the same without his 5 million dollar jet.
Announcer: Call Gov. Richardson at 827-3000 ... tell him to stop living the rich and famous lifestyle ... on the backs of New Mexico taxpayers.

The controversial jet is a 2005 Cessna Citation Bravo, which can carry eight passengers and two pilots at a speed of 463 mph. Delivery is expected in August.

Speaking to reporters before hearing the news about the Republicans radio ads, Richardson defended the purchase of the plane, saying Republican critics were “just playing politics.”

“Every Republican in the Legislature voted for the plane,” he said.

Richardson said he’s not the only state official who will be using the plane. “A lot of people will benefit from it,” he said, adding that the governor’s office will only use it 7 percent of the time.

Gallegos said the Department of Transportation uses state aircraft the most at 28 percent of the time, followed by the School for the Visually Handicapped at 20 percent; the Department of Health Children Medical Services uses state planes 9 percent of the time.

The new jet will replace a “39-year-old, unsafe plane,” Gallegos said.

Gallegos’ news release challenges most the points of the Republican ad.

He said the Governor’s mansion staff employs only one chef.

He noted that Richardson has successfully pushed for personal income-tax cuts as well as ending gross-receipts taxes on food. Republicans argue that these tax cuts have been more than offset by increases in taxes and fees in other areas, including various taxes on the trucking industry, a huge raise in cigarette taxes and other increases.

He argued that Richardson rarely takes a state plane on his out-of-state trips and that most of Richardson’s travels are within the state.

NEW FANS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

As published in The The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 9, 2005

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Gov. Bill Richardson’s two-day trip to New Hampshire, which included an overstuffed schedule of speaking engagements, interviews and news conferences, won him praise from many who heard him.

A typical comment came from Eric Drouart, a professor of business administration who heard a Wednesday breakfast speech by the New Mexico Democrat.

“I was impressed by his bipartisan approach to solving the problems of education and security,” Drouart said. “And he was very funny.”

Richardson, who claimed his trip officially had nothing to do with any presidential ambitions, told anyone who asked that he is keeping his options open for the 2008 race. New Hampshire traditionally holds the first presidential primary in the election cycle.

Most of those interviewed seemed to assume that Richardson is running for president. At a Tuesday breakfast event, when Richardson said “I’m not running for anything,” a woman in the audience laughed and said “Sure.”

Many praised Richardson for his sense of humor. “I like the fact he is self-deprecating,” said Chris Williams, vice president of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, who was part of a small audience Wednesday at a breakfast for leaders in the local Franco-American community.

In that talk, Richardson poked fun at his girth and laughed at his attempt to speak French. (Though Richardson said he minored in French in college, his command of that language is far less impressive than his Spanish.)

He also made frequent jokes about his real intentions for 2008.

“I’m not asking you for anything. ... Yet,” he told the Franco-Americans.

Many praised Richardson’s knowledge of issues. “He spent a good deal of time talking about education,” said Jim Brett, president of the New England Council, a business group that sponsored Tuesday’s Politics and Eggs breakfast.

Karina Mera, who heard Richardson at a luncheon for the New Hampshire Latino Summit on Tuesday, said it’s good for young Hispanics to see an example of a successful Hispanic like Richardson. “I really hope he runs for president,” she said.

New Hampshire reporters and radio interviewers who talked to Richardson seemed to be interested in two major topics — the governor’s opinion of recent comments by Democratic National chairman Howard Dean and two small-town New Hampshire police chiefs who recently began arresting undocumented Mexican immigrants on charges of trespassing.

On Dean, Richardson said he stands behind the chairman, though he said Dean made a mistake with his recent controversial remarks about Republicans.

On the police chiefs, Richardson said he didn’t think they should make such arrests, but said he sympathizes with them, saying the situation is the result of a failed federal immigration policy.

One Republican who heard Richardson on Wednesday said she found Richardson charming and full of common sense.

But Georgi Laurin Hippauf, a former vice chair of the New Hampshire GOP, predicted Richardson would not end up on the top of the Democratic ticket.

“If Hillary (Clinton) runs, I can see Gov. Richardson as being the perfect geographical match,” Hippauf said. “She’s from the East and he’s from the West. And he emulates a warmth she doesn’t necessarily have. If I were running the Democratic campaign, that would be my strategy.”

RICHARDSON: THE NEW HAMPSHIRE RITUAL

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 8, 2005


MANCHESTER, N.H. — Many of the New Hampshire political veterans who came to hear Gov. Bill Richardson on Tuesday at a “Politics and Eggs” breakfast and at the 2005 New Hampshire Latino Summit assume Richardson’s trip here this week is a classic testing of the waters.

They have no doubt the New Mexico Democrat’s grueling schedule of speeches, interviews, fundraisers and private meetings with party honchos is part of the same ritual that scores of other would-be presidents have gone through.

At a news conference, Richardson remained officially noncommittal about his intentions in New Hampshire, traditional site of the nation’s earliest presidential primary: “I haven’t ruled anything out.”

On other occasions, he joked about presidential ambitions. He said he is too busy with local issues to run for president. “Like the new snowmobile trail in Dixville Notch,” he quipped, referring to a New Hampshire state park.

It’s an election process that starts so early that most average citizens here — people who work in stores and restaurants — don’t seem to know or care about the politicians making “Hey, look me over” trips through their communities.

“No one’s going to declare their candidacies until after the midterm elections,” observed Michael Chaney, president and CEO of the New Hampshire Political Library, an organization dedicated to preserving the history of the New Hampshire presidential primary. “But it does not hurt to come up here and make friends with political leaders.”

James Pindell, managing editor of a Web site called politicsNH.com, said of Richardson: “He’s the third Democrat to come up so far. His agenda is to be mentioned as many times as possible as a potential candidate.”

State Senate Deputy Minority Leader Lou D’Allesandro said the 2008 primary clearly has started already. “I was with (U.S. Sen.) Joe Biden (a Democrat from Delaware) last night,” he said. “I helped Gov. Richardson set up his schedule.”

D’Allesandro, who supported former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina in the 2004 primary, said he would be inclined to support Edwards again if he runs. But he said Richardson is making the right moves in New Hampshire.

“The person who wins is the person who connects,” he said in an interview at his state Capitol office in Concord. “If he comes and he connects and people see him and want more Bill Richardson, he’ll get momentum. These visits are in that category.”

A sense of state boosterism about the New Hampshire primary is one area in which Democrats and Republicans share the same view. Warren Henderson, state chairman of the New Hampshire Republican party, said Tuesday that early — and frequent — visits by national candidates are good for the people of New Hampshire. “I don’t know about the Democrats,” he said, “but Republicans ask over and over for national politicians to come visit. It helps us raise money and draw crowds.”

In an interview at his office across the street from the Capitol, Henderson said the New Hampshire primary is an opportunity for candidates to not only promote themselves, but to promote issues they care about. “In Washington, there are only four or five issues they talk about,” he said. “But when you come to a place where politics is always in season, you can make your issue part of the national debate.”

Richardson got belly laughs from politicians and business leaders Tuesday when he joked about the New Hampshire primary’s traditional first-in-the-nation status.

“Being from New Mexico, I believe very strongly in a Western primary,” he said. People from the West should have a say in who is chosen for president, he said. “The people of Keene should have the same right as the people of Manchester.”

(For those unfamiliar with Granite State geography, Keene is in the western part of the state, Manchester in the east.)

Later in the speech, Richardson went back to the subject, saying despite his support for an early Western-state primary, New Hampshire should remain the first primary in the presidential-selection process.

“Besides the fact that it’s your birthright,” he said, “you are the grass-roots state.”

Reassuring people in New Hampshire that he does not want to usurp their first-primary status was a good move on Richardson’s part, several political observers agreed.

New Hampshire voters are protective about their primary — which by state law must be held before any other state’s presidential primary.

Both Democrats and Republicans here seem to think this status is under siege. The national Democratic Party has a commission studying various plans to restructure the primary process.

Richardson and other Western governors have for more than a year been talking about an early Western presidential primary.

“The advocacy of an early Western primary won’t hurt as long as it’s after (New Hampshire’s),” Linda Fowler, a political-science professor at Dartmouth College, said in an e-mail last week. “Otherwise, the hostility will be pretty thick.”

The New Hampshire primary dates to 1916, when it was one of three states to conduct a primary to elect delegates to party conventions. For many years, the state selected uncommitted delegates to the conventions and didn’t vote directly for candidates. That changed here in 1952, a year when Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower proved he could win votes by defeating Republican Party favorite U.S. Sen. Robert Taft in the GOP presidential primary and U.S. Sen. Estes Kefauver upset President Harry Truman in Democratic Party voting.

Unlike New Mexico, where the state pays for primaries in which only major-party voters can participate, New Hampshire allows independent voters to cast ballots in either the Democratic or Republican primaries. More than 40 percent of voters here are registered as independents.

Although Richardson trails far behind in a recent New Hampshire poll, many state residents feel he would have a decent shot.

Westerners like Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado have emerged victorious in New Hampshire — at the expense of the perceived front-runner.

And one little quirk about New Hampshire: Due to the intense news-media and political-professional-class analyses of the primary and “horse-race” coverage, you don’t actually have to come in first in order to “win” the primary.

Ask Democrat George McGovern, who came in behind front-runner Edmund Muskie in 1972, or Bill Clinton, who came in 8 percentage points behind U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts in 1992.

Most New Hampshire residents interviewed said they expect to see a lot more of Richardson in the next two and a half years. And the governor did nothing to dispel such talk. Concluding his speech at the Latino Summit luncheon, Richardson said, “See you soon.”

The early polls:

A recent poll by The Survey Center at the University of New Hampshire indicates New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has a long way to go to win the New Hampshire primary.

In April, pollsters read a list of potential Democratic candidates and asked 178 voters which ones they would support if the election were held now. Richardson’s numbers were in single digits — a distant fifth behind better-known potential candidates.

Smith said it’s not surprising Richardson scores so low in New Hampshire at this point — about two and a half years before the next presidential primary.

Several New Hampshire political observers have noted that Granite State voters sometimes back candidates initially seen as long shots.

On the Republican side, a Smith poll of 195 voters showed former New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani in the early lead with 29 percent, followed by Arizona Sen. John McCain with 25 percent. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was a distant third with 9 percent.

NEW HAMPSHIRE BOUND

I'm heading to New England Monday to report on Gov. Bill Richardson's trip to New Hampshire.

Here's what I had in this morning's paper:

As published in the Santa Fe New Mexican
June 5, 2005

As usual, Gov. Bill Richardson has a full schedule this week.

On Tuesday and Wednesday he'll be giving at least four speeches before political, business and cultural groups; doing a couple of radio interviews and appearing at various meetings with Democratic Party officials. He'll be attending breakfast, lunch and dinner events, at least one political cocktail party and conducting at least one news conference.

On Wednesday, Richardson's public itinerary starts at 6:30 a.m. and runs until 9 p.m.

But it's not in New Mexico where these events are happening.

It's New Hampshire.

Politicos and those who watch them know the significance of the Granite State. It's traditionally where the first presidential primary is held.

Richardson, who routinely brushes off questions about his possible candidacy for president in 2008, denies this week's trip has anything to do with the primary.

"He was invited to speak to these groups," Richardson spokesman Billy Sparks said Friday. Sparks said the governor has had long-standing invitations for some of the functions. He added his oft-repeated mantra: "The governor is focused on his re-election campaign."

The Democratic Governors Association - of which Richardson is chair - is paying for the trip, Sparks said.

However, publicity for some of the events mentions that Richardson is a "potential" presidential candidate in 2008.

And serious political observers assume that, despite any official denial, the main purpose of Richardson's trip is to make contacts and build relations with Democratic Party activists and to start getting his name out in front of New Hampshire voters.

"Bill Richardson is something of a blank slate to New Hampshire Democrats at this point, even to the core of activists who are paying attention now," said Dante Scala, a professor at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester.

"He doesn't come with sizable negatives or strong baggage," Scala said in a telephone interview. "I'm sure he'll find a receptive audience here, but people aren't really anticipating his arrival like they are Hillary Clinton."

Although the primary is more than two and a half years in the future, Scala - author of a 2003 book titled Stormy Weather: The New Hampshire Primary and Presidential Politics - said this is a good time for a potential candidate to begin making overtures in New Hampshire "especially for someone like Richardson who is not that well known here," he said. "It's good for someone
to come and get his face known, especially to the core activists who could end up working in his campaign."

Linda Fowler, a political-science professor at Dartmouth College agreed. In an e-mail last week, Fowler wrote, "this is the type of visit for meeting the activists who organize grass-roots primary campaigns in the state. The state legislators and party people will be looking him over, and like every Democrat, they will be looking for someone who can win."

Richardson isn't the only early bird to visit New Hampshire. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and retired Gen. Wesley Clark have trips planned in the near future.

On the Republican side, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Virginia Sen. George Allen, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney have paid recent visits. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska spoke last month at the "Politics and Eggs" breakfast, where Richardson is scheduled to speak Tuesday.

New Hampshire voters are "spoiled," said Larry Sabato, director of the Virginia Center for Politics. "They're going to expect to see more of Bill Richardson than New Mexicans do. They're tough to read, and they don't intend to make their final decision until the last minute. That's why there are so many upsets in New Hampshire."

Fowler agreed: "The state has a tradition lately of boosting relative unknowns in the fall polls before the primary," he said.

What will New Hampshire Democrats want in a candidate?

"Typically they are attracted to a candidate with a message of reform and a willingness to stir the pot," Scala said. "They like new ideas, candidates from outside the Beltway instead of résumé candidates."

Could that be trouble for someone like Richardson, who campaigned on his résumé for governor three years ago? (His employment record includes stints as U.S. Energy secretary, ambassador to the United Nations, a long Congressional career, as well as being governor of New Mexico.)

"He's going to have to find a way to turn his résumé into something like 'a reformer with results,' " Scala said, borrowing a catch phrase used by President Bush in the 2000 election.

Voters there will pay special attention to the issues of education and health care, Scala said.

The fact that Richardson is a westerner shouldn't in itself be a handicap with New Hampshire voters.

"New Hampshire voters are not parochial," said Paul Manuel, also a political-science professor at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.

"Westerners have as good a shot of winning the primary as New Englanders. People here pride themselves for being independent thinkers and try to select a candidate best able to lead the country. In that regard, (New Hampshire) Democrats will probably be on the look-out for a candidate who can articulate a clear, perhaps centrist, message, as well as have broad electoral appeal. As is probably the case elsewhere with Democrats, they are tired of losing national elections."

Sabato said Richardson might "intrigue" New Hampshire. "They will give him a close look," he said. "Being Hispanic could be a plus. Some New Hampshire Democrats are sensitive about the fact the state is 98 percent white. This could be their opportunity to go for a minority."

Here are some of the stops on Gov. Bill Richardson's New Hampshire itinerary. (All events in the Manchester area unless otherwise noted):

Tuesday June 7

Politics and Eggs Breakfast
Richardson is the featured speaker at this monthly breakfast sponsored by the New Hampshire Political Library and the New England Council, an economic development group. The breakfast was started in 1996 and, according to some New Hampshire press accounts, has become a "must-stop" for presidential candidates.

The 2005 New Hampshire Latino Summit
Richardson is the luncheon speaker at this conference sponsored by Visión Hispana-NH, an organization for Hispanic professionals, and Vote Now New Hampshire Hispanics. While New England isn't generally thought of as a hotbed of Hispanic culture, event organizers say more than 25,000 Hispanics live in New Hampshire. This is New Hampshire's second annual Latino Summit. Richardson will speak at a press conference immediately before the luncheon.

Meeting with Gov. John Lynch at state Capitol in Concord.
Lynch is a Democrat elected last year and up for re-election next year.

Event for the New Hampshire Democratic Party
This is a meet-and-greet cocktail party at the Common Man restaurant in Concord. However, the common man won't get to attend, as this is a private event. The press isn't invited either.

Wednesday, June 8

The Charlie Sherman Show
Richardson will be interviewed on this early morning radio show on WGIR-AM, a Clear Channel station that broadcasts popular right-wing talk shows by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Breakfast speech for Franco-American citizens at America's Credit Union
Museum
New Hampshire Commissioner for the Department of Cultural Resources Van McLeod organized this event for a group of New Hampshirites in the local business, academic and cultural communities who have ties to Quebec and northeast Canada. Richardson was invited, McLeod said, because he speaks French as well as English and Spanish.

The Exchange, New Hampshire Public Radio in Concord
Richardson is scheduled to be a guest on New Hampshire's only statewide call-in show.


The 10th Annual Grover Cleveland Dinner
Richardson is the featured speaker for this event sponsored by the Carroll County Democratic Party and held at the Grand Summit Hotel in Bartlett, N.H. While President Cleveland was a Democrat, the former mayor of Buffalo, N.Y. originally was from New Jersey, not New Hampshire. But he used to vacation in New Hampshire and his grandson George Cleveland lives there. George Cleveland is scheduled to make an appearance at the dinner impersonating his grandfather.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 3, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Cohost: Laurel Reynolds

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Countrier Than Thou by Robbie Fulks
Honky Tonk Shadows by The Waco Brothers
I'm a Ramblin' Man by Waylon Jennings
Johnny Armstrong by Michael Martin Murphey
What Am I Doing Hanging Round by The Monkees
Your Husband, My Wife by Bobby Bare with Skeeter Davis
Ghosts of Hallelujah by The Gourds
Funky Tonk by Moby Grape

Nixon in '96 by Doodoo Wah
Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues by David Bromberg
Runaway Mama by Merle Haggard
I Thought I'd Die by Karen Hudson
Bohemian Rhapsody by Grey DeLisle
Maybe the Devil by Eric Hisaw
Border Radio by Dave Alvin with Katy Moffat
The Mansion You Stole by Johnny Horton

JOHN PRINE SET
Crazy as a Loon
Illegal Smile
In Spite of Ourselves (with Iris DeMent)
Bear Creek Blues
Ain't Hurtin' Nobody
Grandpa Was a Carpenter (with The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)

Mike the Can Man by Joe West
Dancing Days by The Bad Livers
Ripple by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Broke Down Palace by The Grateful Dead
Horseflies by Butch Hancock
If I Needed You by Townes Van Zandt
Legend in My Time by Leon Russell with T. Graham Brown
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNEUP:GOOD JOB, GOV!

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 3, 2005

Here’s one of those strange incidences where my main job as a political writer creeps into my “fun” job as music columnist.

The first time I heard the new John Prine album Fair & Square, a line from the first song leaped out of my car stereo and smacked me in the face.

“I got some friends in Albuquerque, where the governor calls me `Gov’ …”

Dang, I thought. This is better than six appearances on Larry King Live .
First chance I got, I asked Gov. Bill Richardson’s spokesman Billy Sparks whether his boss knows Prine and if so, does the governor call Prine “gov”? Sparks said he doesn’t think the two “govs” are friends. And for the record, unlike fellow musicians Quincy Jones, Herb Albert and Andy Williams, Prine isn’t listed among Richardson’s campaign contributors.

One pal of mine suggested that the governor Prine sings about might be former Gov. Gary Johnson. The key to this theory lies in Prine’s old song “Illegal Smile.” (I think my friend was smiling that way when he brought this up.)

But notwithstanding that political wild goose chase, I love this album. Backed by a small, mostly acoustic group (with a smattering of guest harmonies by Alison Krauss, Dan Tryminski and Mindy Smith), Prine shows there’s still gold in those classic three-or-four-chord melody structures he does so well.

Fair & Square is Prine’s first album of new material since 1999’s In Spite of Ourselves, a collection of duets with a bevy of female singing partners, and first album of primarily original new material since 1995’s Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings.
During this last decade, Prine has struggled with throat cancer. His voice has dropped an octave or so, but that always was a scratchy instrument. The important thing is that he didn’t lose his sense of humor nor his sense of poignancy.

There are some classic Prine tales here.

One of the best is “Crazy as a Loon,” about an ambitious young man with “a picture of another man's wife tattooed on my arm” who heads off to Hollywood “just to have my feelings hurt.” From “the wrong end of a broom” in Tinsel Town, the hapless protagonist ventures to Nashville and New York with the same result.

In “Other Side of Town,” a live cut, Prine sings of a henpecked husband whose mind wanders, during his wife’s nagging, to a fantasy bar on the astral plane.

On the slow but sturdy “Some Humans Ain’t Human,” Prine rails against unfeeling people.

“You open up their hearts/And here's what you'll find/A few frozen pizzas/Some ice cubes with hair/A broken Popsicle/You don't want to go there.”

But later in the song, gets political.

“… you're feeling your freedom, and the world's off your back, some cowboy from Texas, starts his own war in Iraq.”

It’s obvious that Prine still believes that a flag decal won’t get you into heaven anymore.

Prine’s songwriting is the main draw on Fair & Square. (He collaborates on some tunes with partners including Keith Sykes and “Funky” Donnie Fritts.) But he also includes a couple of excellent covers. “Clay Pigeons” is a sad song by the late Texas sultan of sad songs, Blaze Foley. And the most rocking track on the album is “Bear Creek,” a Carter Family song.

Concert alert: According to his Web site, Gov. Prine is coming to the Kiva auditorium in Albuquerque on July 29.

{Hear a whole lotta John Prine Friday night on the Santa Fe Opry, KSFR Santa Fe Public Radio. Show starts at 10 p.m., the Prine segment will start about 11 p.m. }

(Check out www.ohboy.com)

Also recommended:

Georgia Hard by Robbie Fulks. Back on his second album South Mouth, Fulks had a hilarious little ditty called “Fuck This Town,” a vitriolic tirade against the Nashville music establishment. “I thought they'd struck bottom back in the days of Ronnie Milsap,” he barked in the song.

Since that time, Fulks and Milsap appeared, though not together on an album, (a Disney various-artists tribute called O Mickey, Where Art Thou?)

It’s not hard to imagine Mac Davis or even Milsap himself crooning Fulks tunes like “You Don’t Want What I Have,” “I Never Did Like Planes,” “It’s Always Raining Somewhere” or the title song.

Fulks flirts with country schlock here. Maybe he even steals a kiss. But with a strong band, including Merle Haggard vet Redd Volkaert on guitar and Lloyd Green on steel and Sam Bush on mandolin, the performances are all solid.

And with Fulks writing the lyrics, there’s enough twistedness to give the songs strange edges. “Doin’ Right (For All the Wrong Reasons)” might sound like a Jimmy Buffet song on the surface, but the story is about a guy who avoids infidelity only because his wife is rich.

There’s some good hard-core honky stompers here, such as “each Night I Try” and “All You Can Cheat.” And there’s a couple of madcap Fulks novelty tunes like the ones that made fans love him in the first place.

“I’m Gonna Take You Home (And Make You Like Me),” a song about a sloppy-drunk pick-up attempt is a fun-filled duet with his wife Donna Fulks.

“Countrier Than Thou” starts out as a wicked slap at practitioners of C&W purism. But then it turns political.

“He’s got a ranch, with a Stetson / He's a hip-shooting ex-oil king/ He even talks like Buddy Epson/ But he’s sittin’ in the West Wing … won’t somebody please explain/ How you get a county sheriff walkin’ with a frat boy’s brain.”

Along with Prine’s song listed above, this one definitely won’t be found on the president’s iPod.

{For for Fulks’ apology to Ronnie Milsap, CLICK HERE }

ROUNDHOUSE BLUES: CLOSING THE WATERGATES

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 2, 2005

It was the late ‘80s or early ‘90s. I was working on a story about some problems in the state Corrections Department. One of my sources knew someone who had access to some documents that would nail the story for me. But that person didn’t want to actually meet with me for fear of being seen. For fear of being labeled a “rat.” And he didn’t want to be seen anywhere near The New Mexican office.

So I made arrangements through my source to be in a certain parking lot at a certain time that afternoon. I described my car to my source. Sure enough, I drove to the parking lot, found an empty space, waited just a few minutes until a vehicle pulled up behind me. A man with an envelope — someone I’d never seen before — got out and approached me. I don’t actually remember if we even spoke. He might have said something like, “You Steve?”

I took the envelope. He rushed back to his car and drove away. The documents were as promised. I had my story.

To my knowledge, I’ve never seen the guy with the envelope again. I wouldn’t be able to give you his name even if you tortured me.

The weird thing is, I honestly don’t even remember what the story was about. It obviously wasn’t as consequential as, say Watergate.

But this story, with this little dash of cloak and dagger, is the closest I’ve come in my newspaper career to the moving-flower-pots, underground-parking-garage-rendevous world of Deep Throat journalism.

This week’s revelation of the identity of the mysterious “Deep Throat” — former FBI number two man Mark Felt — comes at a time when using anonymous sources is coming under more and more scrutiny.

It’s something you try to avoid as a reporter. But sometimes it’s neccessary to uncover what’s really going on. Workers for instance are almost always hesitant to see their name in print criticizing their bosses. And I would never have gotten honest opinions from Democratic delegates about Gov. Bill Richardson’s convention speech in Boston last year had I insisted on using their names.

But the days of secret super-sources like Deep Throat do seem to be over.

Appearing on MSNBC’s The Abrams Report Tuesday, former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw said, “if a ‘Deep Throat’ had emerged now, you would be talking about it every night. Chris Matthews would be talking about it. Bill O‘Reilly would be talking about it. It would start with the news cycle in the morning. Rush Limbaugh would be on the air demanding to know who it is. And you wouldn‘t have the opportunity to have the kind of reporting that was going on then because there would be so many distractions. It would become kind of a sideshow.”

To which Limbaugh responded Wednesday, “So people questioning the motives and work of the media is a sideshow. We would have been a distraction because they wouldn't have been able to do the great work that they did, and they're unable to do it now. They are distracted by people like me. We are nothing but a sideshow. ... that's why they're going back and reliving Watergate, because that's when there was nobody to stand in their way.”

Reliving Watergate: The flood of Watergate retrospectives that broke following the Deep Throat story dredged up a lot of Nixon-era memories for those of us old enough to remember that strange time.

Bob Johnson, executive director of New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, was in New York working as managing editor for the Associated Press during Nixon’s final days.

“I had to oversee most of the reporting that was coming out of Washington,” he said Wednesday. “Woodward and Bernstein got ahead of everyone on the Watergate story. They jumped on it and never let up. It took the rest of us a lot to catch up.

One of his hardest tasks was overseeing the story about the White House tapes released by the House Judiciary Committee. Basically he had to condense a 30,000-word summary into 10,000 words — being careful not to leave out anything important in the cases for and against Nixon.

Before Nixon resigned in 1974, Johnson said, “I didn’t get to go home for a month. I was living on coffee and sandwiches, sleeping at a hotel and putting myself to sleep each night with a couple of stingers.”

Billy Sparks, deputy chief of staff for Gov. Richardson, had been an intern as a teenager for North Carolina Sen. Sam Ervin, the grandfatherly constitutional scholar who chaired the Senate Committee investigating the Watergate scandal.

Sparks didn’t work for Ervin during those years, but he stayed in touch. He recalled talking to Ervin after Nixon’s autobiography was released. “He was very disturbed,” Sparks said. “I remember he said ‘Nixon still doesn’t admit that he was guilty. He wouldn’t recognize the Constitution if it fell on his head in the middle of the Rose Bowl parade.’ ”

Camelot: New York Attorney General Eliott Spitzer was in town Wednesday for a a $500-a-ticket fundraiser at the home of his friend, art gallery owner Gerald Peters. He was up in the office of his other local friend, Gov. Richardson in the afternoon for a quick session with a couple of Capitol reporters.

Spitzer apparently was impressed by the huge round marble table in the governor’s cabinet room. The moment he walked into the room he said, “Wow! Look at this table. Where does King Arthur sit?”

DEEP THROAT THOUGHTS

Tuesday's Deep Throat revelations brought back lots of Watergate memories.

Sitting in Okie's every afternoon during a period of unemployment in the summer of '73, watching the Senate Watergate Committee hearings on TV. ... Learning the phrase "twisting slowly slowly in the wind" ... Listening to my grandmother defending Sen. Joe Montoya, whose questions at the hearings became something of a national joke. "They're not dumb questions," Nana would say. "He just has to go last, so most the good questions have already been asked." ...

Watching Nixon resign on a black 'n' white TV in the projection booth of the Master Adult Theater in the summer of '74. Hey, it was a job. At least I wasn't hanging out at Okie's every day. Plus I read a lot of Hemingway and Fitzgerald in that room that summer, and back then country radio was really good. When Nixon made his announcement, I figured that this was a goddamn historic moment and the guys in the auditorium had a right to know, even if they were just a bunch of pathetic old porn scum. So I shut down the projector, walked into the theater and told them Nixon had resigned -- only to get answered with a bunch of "boos," "fuck yous" and "turn the movie back on, dammit!!!!" ...

Interviewing John Ehrlichman for The Santa Fe Reporter at Fenn Gallery in the early '80s, and how he later sent my editor a note calling my effort "sleazy," which I took as a badge of honor. ... Interviewing Egil "Bud" Krough, another Nixon man who did time in prison for Watergate, when Ehrlichman died in 1999 ...

Visiting Nixon's grave with my son in the 1990s and feeling vaguely sad. The last time I'd been that close to Nixon was a '72 campaign stop in Albuquerque, and I, along with a few hundred protesters, was screaming my lungs out. A nice old Republican lady came up to me and said, "You shouldn't do that. We don't come boo your candidate." She was so sincere, I was kind of embarrassed. "Sorry ma'am," I muttered. "I just have to." Say what you want about Tricky Dick, in those days candidates actually went out and came face to face with protesters.

My favorite read on Deep Throat so far is by Hank Stuever of The Washington Post (and formerly of The Albuquerque Tribune). Read it Here

My favorite passage from Hank's essay is this:

Had he lived in this era, Deep Throat might not have lasted long. He'd be blogged to bits. He'd be Drudged, smudged, Romenesko'd. People would disprove him with their own Deep Throats. His identity would be discovered within a news cycle or two, spun around, and he'd be left holding a book contract.

HOOSIER DADDY?

I just heard back from the Indiana Steve Terrell, whose Hoosier Lawyer blog I stumbled upon a couple of days ago.

In addition to his serious legal-issues blog, he also runs a fun blog called "Hoosier Daddy?"

I haven't been through the whole thing yet, but I laughed out loud at the story of the 3-year-old kid who got stuck inside a "Win a Stuffed Animal" machine at Wal-Mart.

(If I had a quarter for every time I denied my son money for those damned machines, I could buy 100 stuffed animals!)

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, May 29, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Now 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
I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night by The Electric Prunes
Rich by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Valley of the Saroos by The Blue Men
Dirty Water by The Standells
Burn the Flames by Roky Erickson
Night of The Hunted by Mudhoney
You're Pretty Good Looking by White Stripes
Phantom Dragster by The Bobby Fuller Four
Amazon and Coyotes by Simon Stokes

I Can Make Music by The Rev. Al Green
Only the Strong Survive by Jerry Butler
Ghetto Life by Rick James
Voyage to Atlantis by The Isley Brothers
I'll Be Alright by Terance Trent D'Arby
Love Train by The O'Jays

MEMORIAL DAY SET
Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen
The Burden by Terry Allen
Bataan Death March by Robert Mirabal
The Big Battle by Johnny Cash
Western Hero by Neil Young
51-7 by Camper Van Beethoven
And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda by The Pogues

Soma by The Strokes
Home by Stuurbaard Bakkebaard
Root Smooth Sapling Whips by Jean Smith
Lay Me Low by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

ANOTHER STEVE TERRELL BLOG

Somewhere in Indianapolis there's a lawyer who is in danger of getting getting puzzling e-mails from folks wondering about Bill Richardson's latest doings or asking what band did that weird song last week on The Santa Fe Opry.

And I'm probably lucky I haven't heard from people asking about Indiana real estate law or personal-injury litigation.

Yep, there's another Steve Terrell in Bloggerville. Check out the other Mr. Terrell's Hoosier Lawyer.

And no, neither of us starred in Drag Strip Girl or Invasion of the Saucer Men.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, May 27, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Three Foot High and Risin' by Johnny Cash
High Water (For Charlie Patton) by Bob Dylan
The Day John Henry Died by Drive By Truckers
Oh Tired Feet by Terry Allen

KAREN HUDSON LIVE SET
Honky Tonk Merry Go Round (EP)
I Thought I'd Die
Nicotine
Hudson River Blue
Lovesick Blues

You Don't Want What I Have by Robbie Fulks
The Good Ain't Gone by Rex Hobart & The Misery Boys
Ride Me Down Easy by Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison
Get Up and Go by David Bromberg

The Moon is Down by John Prine
Give a Little Whistle by Michelle Shocked
Please Don't Go Topless, Mother by Troy Hess
Up on Mars by Hasil Adkins
Downtown Chicken by Scott Biram
Hotel Hell by The Earl Brothers
Brain Damage by The Austin Lounge Lizards
Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young by Faron Young
Lean on Me by Michael Hurley
Amos Moses by Jerry Reed

My Biggest Fan by Loudon Wainwright III
My Generation's Golden Handcuff Blues by Peter Case
I Love Her, She Loves Me by Ware River Club
Howard Hughes' Blues by John Hartford
The Man in the Bed by Dave Alvin
My Father by Audrey Auld Mezera
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

NO PAGAN JOY FOR THIS BOY

Talk about "activist judges" ... here's a family-values jurist in Indiana who has ruled that a divorced couple of the Wiccan persuassion can't teach their religion to their 9-year old son. CLICK HERE

According to the Associated Press, Judge Cale J. Bradford followed the recommendation of a court commissioner who presided over a custody hearing for Thomas Jones and Tammy Bristol.

A court commissioner wrote the unusual order into the couple's divorce decree after a routine report by the court's Domestic Relations Counseling Bureau noted that both Jones and his ex-wife are pagans who send their son, Archer, to a Catholic elementary school.

"Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones display little insight into the confusion these divergent belief systems will have upon Archer as he ages," the report said.

The divorce decree said "the parents are directed to take such steps as are needed to shelter Archer from involvement and observation of these non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

The commissioner who wrote that obviously knows nothing about Southwestern Indian tribes who have little trouble reconciling their traditional religions with Catholicism.

One little ray of hope here. The head of a conservative Christian group in Indianapolis actually is siding with the Pagans.

"The parents have the right to raise their child in that faith, just as I have the right to raise my child in the Christian faith," said Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: BACK AT BUCK'S RANCH

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
May 27, 2005

For a jolting reminder of the era when both country music and local television productions were raw, real, spontaneous and fun, a good place to start is The Buck Owens Ranch Show DVD collection.

Available only through Owens’ Web site, these three discs contain episodes of Owens’ syndicated television show, which showed in some 100 markets between 1966 and 1972.

Before I get started here I’d be remiss not to give a consumer warning. Strictly speaking. these DVDs are a giant rip off.

Sold only separately they cost $29.99 each, plus postage and handling, so if you get all three the cost is over $100. Each disc contains only three 30-minute episodes — and unfortunately each one contains one inferior early ‘70s segment (more on that later).

That being said, I’m glad I spent the money. I love these DVDs.

Part of it is sentimental. The Buck Owens Ranch was taped in my hometown of Oklahoma City at WKY-TV studios. The show initially was sponsored by a local store, Mathes Brothers Furniture. I saw the very first episode in 1966 and rarely missed it on Friday night until I moved to Santa Fe in 1968.

But even more important than these precious memories, is the fact that nearly 40 years later, the music not only holds up, it’s even better than I remember.

The Buckaroos was an extremely tight little roadhouse band. “Tender” Tom Brumley was one amazing steel guitarist. But the real menace was guitarist/singer/occasional fiddler Don Rich. His guitar solos often were breathtaking and sometimes downright crazy. His harmonies with Owens could rip out your heart and stomp on it.

Though Buck and his band were the main focus, there were some fine guest performers as well. Bakersfield icon Tommy Collins was a frequent guest, performing mainly novelty songs, (at least on these DVDs.) Kaye Adams, famous for her proto-feminist trucker theme “Little Pink Mac,” also was a semi-regular.

By far the most surreal performance in this collection was J.D. Sumner & The Stamps Quartet, a gospel group, led by a frog-voiced singer with a pencil-thin mustache. (This group would become part of Elvis Presley’s stage show.) Here they sing “Poor Wayfaring Stranger.” I had to check the credits to make sure that David Lynch didn’t direct this episode. The Stamps, in their pompadours, matching green suits and otherworldly expressions are weird enough. But what about the sudden shifts of Sumner’s scalp? His hair looks like some sleeping mammal that wakes up only when Sumner hits certain notes.

The earlier definitely were the most fun. As the DVD notes explains, “During the first few years, the shows were performed live to tape—each segment between commercial breaks was done without stopping or editing!”

Indeed, there were some rough moments there. You sometimes can hear the sound man making adjustments in the middle of a song. Whenever someone sings near the fountain, you can hear the water gurgling. And at one point Buck practically has to shout at Tommy Collins, who was on another part of the set, to start a song.

But by 1970, the show became slicker, more professional -- and ultimately far less immediate and far less charming.

As the DVD notes explain, “In later years Buck brought his son Mike in to help and they started editing the shows together after the songs were taped.”

In the 1970 and ‘71 shows included in the DVDs, The Buckaroos still have Rich, though his role seems diminished. Brumley was gone. Instead of Tommy Collins and Kay Adams, there’s the cheesy Hager Twins and Buck’s talentless son, “Buddy Alan.” (I do like big-haired/mini-skirted singer Susan Raye, who had joined the Owens troupe by this time though.)

In short The Buck Owens Ranch had become a junior version of Hee-Haw, which Buck had started co-hosting in 1969.

Owens quickly was heading for artistic decline by 1970. But the mid ‘60s episodes included in these DVDs show Buck Owens in his prime.

{CLICK HERE for an interesting article that contains some deatils about The Buck Owns Ranch.}

Other notable music DVDs:

The Dirty South Live at the 40 Watt Club by Drive-By Truckers. The Truckers don’t make it out to New Mexico very often (last time was January 2002 when they played Burt’s Tiki Lounge in Albuquerque), so if you’ve been craving to see this band, this DVD might have to do.

The performances here, including nearly all the songs from their latest and best album The Dirty South, was recorded last August at the kick-off shows for their 2004 tour.

It’s a hometown crowd for The Truckers (who, like R.E.M. before them, rose from the Athens, Ga. Scene) so the energy is high and crowd’s enthusiasm seems to fuel the band.

Besides the Dirty South tunes, the Truckers also include some of their greatest older tunes, including “Sinkhole” and “The Southern Thing” and their wild-eyed Southern boy version of Jim Carrol’s “People Who Died.”

My only complaint: No “Steve McQueen.”


The Pretenders Greatest Hits (to be released June 7). One of the first videos I ever saw on MTV featured guys in business suits jumping up and down in slow motion on “Back on the Chain Gang.” It’s true, Chrissie Hynde’s sad and soulful voice is the main draw of that beautiful song, but the video imagery, Chrissie in her denim jacket and windswept sheepdog bangs, helped burn it in my mind forever.

This collection includes classic late ‘70s/early ‘80s Pretenders works as well as increasingly less essential products going up to the late ’90s.

I started losing interest in The Pretenders’ music almost 20 years ago, and have been disappointed with all their post Learning to Crawl albums. But seeing a scowling Chrissie with graying hair and a black cowboy hat in the 1999 “Human” video, looking like some criminally insane cousin of Lucinda Williams makes me want to give some of her more recent stuff another listen.

BELABORING THE OBVIOUS

When a member of the state press asks Gov. Bill Richardson about his intentions in 2008 he'll usually laugh and roll his eyes and act like this is something we're making up.

However, Richardson's ambitions are obvious to the national media as well. Check out today's edition of ABC News' The Note

Six things that are known:

1. What George F. Will thinks of the Democrats, the filibuster deal, and Harry Reid.

2. What Paul Gigot thinks of ethanol.

3. How badly Bill Richardson wants to be president. (Emphasis mine)

4. How high Sen. Grassley's frustration level is over Social Security.

5. How Michael Whouley reacted when Carlos Watson named him one of the five possible "next Karl Roves" on CNN.

6. How quickly the RNC will put out a press release on what Bob Rubin said yesterday to the House Democratic caucus.

The only other reference to the gov in today's Note is a link to a New Hampshire Union Leader story that mentions his upcoming trip to New Hampshire, which, if you believe the governor's office, has nothing to do with the 2008 New Hampshire primary.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: WHOSE PARTY IS THIS ANYWAY?

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
May 26, 2005

Gov. Bill Richardson is catching flak in the blogosphere for amassing a $3 million re-election campaign treasury.

But the complaints aren’t coming from Republicans, who have yet to find an obvious frontrunner to challenge Richardson in 2006. They’re coming from fellow Democrats — specifically the progressive wing of the party, or as some of them call themselves, the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.”

Over on the Democracy for New Mexico blog, a site that grew out of Howard Dean’s national Democracy for America group, Dems have been going back and forth over a recent post by the blog’s co-founder and webmaster Barbara Wold.

“Is it just me, or is anyone else put off by Gov. Richardson’s already large campaign fund for the 2006 governor’s race?” Wold pondered .

“What peeves me is that we frequently hear ‘we have no money’ when we suggest that the Dems, particularly our County Parties, do something about building our Party BEFORE the next election cycle,” she wrote. “No wonder it’s so difficult to raise funds for party activities when the big honcho at the top sucks all the bucks into his own personal coffers for a race that’s way down the line.”

Noting a couple of major donors on Richardson’s contribution list — namely Miguel Lausell, a political and business consultant based in Puerto Rico who gave the governor $25,000, and California real-estate investor Richard L. Bloch, who also pitched in $25,000 — Wold wrote: “Hmm. I wonder what they expect to get from such generous donations to a governor’s race in New Mexico? We once were truly the party of the people. What are we now? The party of the big bucks contributors?”

This initial post prompted just a handful of replies. But one Democrat who noticed was Amanda Cooper, Richardson’s political director.

In a lengthy reply, Cooper defended her boss, saying Richardson “has taken the lead here in New Mexico and across the country when it comes to the importance of investing and strengthening the Democratic Party. New Mexico is the first state in the country to put grassroots organizers on the ground. The grassroots organizer program was conceived, developed and funded by Gov. Richardson and his organization. Gov. Richardson not only placed the organizers at the Democratic Party, he continues to raise and donate the money for them to work in communities around the state in an effort to help move the party forward.”

Cooper denied the guv keeps all his campaign contributions for himself.

She wrote that Richardson “invested over a half a million dollars in helping candidates run for office here in New Mexico just last cycle, over a million dollars registering people to vote, holding campaign trainings, and turning out people to the polls.”

Cooper’s post elicited major response. And some blog regulars weren’t impressed.

“Are these organizers working for Richardson or the Democratic Party?” one poster asked. “Is the party just a parking lot for Richardson organizers before they go over to his campaign in ’06?”

Another wrote: “We are all happy we have a Democratic governor. And we are all glad that Richardson has brought more attention and resources to our state. ... What we (are) concerned about is someone making a private kingdom out of donations from large donors and sucking up all the capital for himself instead of for ALL our candidates, and our on the-ground operations.”

Some defended Richardson.

“As the leader of our party and the executive branch, and with a punch clock on the national playing field, the governor is the most obvious recipient for special interest largesse, which is why he has three million in the bank,” one man wrote. Richardson, he said, “has shown that he is able to say no to some of his biggest donors.”

Another wrote: “Instead of sitting around complaining about Richardson, we should be happy that he’s investing in the party both in NM and across the nation. We have the chance to have a two term gov running for President of the United States. What’s not to like about that?”

One poster got all historic on us: “Machiavelli would be pleased, reacting like a Jacobin Mob, which one of our leaders will we bring to the guillotine today!! Need not worry about the GOP, we will cut the throats of our own.”

But keeping quiet in the name of party unity doesn’t seem likely with these folks. These guys think the higher-ups might learn some things from the lower-downs .

In one of her posts, Wold said: “I think one thing people in higher positions in the Party here and nationally don’t seem to fully understand is how much mistrust and disgust there is within the Dem base about how things have gone and who’s in charge of the message and how it’s communicated and disseminated. There is a massive sea change happening from the ground up and people are very frustrated with the business as usual attitudes of many of our ‘leaders.’ ”

ATTENTION NORTHERN NEW MEXICO MUSICIANS!

Pasatiempo editor Kristina Melcher asked me to post this. Feel free to copy it and pass it on to any northern New Mexico musician you know. I don't want to hear any whining if you get left out.

Will you be in Pasatiempo's Music Directory?

If a musician plays in northern New Mexico and nobody is there to hear it --
does it make a sound?

Don't put this to the test. Instead, tell us who you are (or your band,
ensemble, orchestra, or any other musical life forms play; where you play (Santa Fe, La Cienega, Cerrillos, Las Vegas, Pecos, Los Alamos, Española, Chimayo, Taos or any surrounding areas); and how others can contact you (by phone or online).

We¹d like to consider you for inclusion in our new directory. Deadline to
apply is Friday, June 10 at 5 pm.

E-mail your facts to pasa@sfnewmexican.com with "music info" in the subject line, or fax us at 505-820-0803. Or use the mail: send info to R. Benziker, Pasatiempo, The New Mexican, P.O. Box 2048, Santa Fe, NM 87504.

UDALL SIGNS ON CONYERS LETTER

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
May 25, 2005

U.S. Rep. Tom Udall has signed onto a letter asking that President Bush answer questions about a top-secret document written in 2002 by an adviser to British Prime Minister Tony Blair indicating the U.S. had already made up its mind to invade Iraq and planned to manipulate intelligence to justify it.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, and 88 other Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to Bush earlier this month asking whether the July 2002 memo, unveiled by The Sunday Times of London on May 1, accurately portrayed the administration's thinking at the time. It also asks whether there was a coordinated effort to “fix” intelligence to justify an invasion.

Conyers’ letter said the memorandum — which has come to be known as “The Downing Street Memo” or to some war opponents as “The Smoking Gun Memo” — “raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own administration.”

Udall — who voted against the Iraq war resolution in October 2002 — wasn’t among the first wave of Congress members to sign Conyers’ letter.

“So many reps didn't get a chance to sign it that they've done a second letter and he's on that one,” Udall spokesman Glen Loveland said in an e-mail Tuesday.

“Rep. Udall signed the (second) letter because he feels that the allegations need to be addressed,” Loveland said. “Many of our constituents still want answers about the planning that happened before the beginning of the war.”

A spokeswoman for Conyers said Tuesday that “four or five” Congress members, including Udall, had asked to sign on the request for Bush to answer questions about the memo.

Conyers’ second letter, dated May 23, chides Bush about not answering the original letter.

Bush spokesman Scott McClelland has said there is “no need” to respond to Conyers.

The Downing Street Memo, written by Blair foreign policy aid Matthew Rycroft, consists of secret minutes of a British cabinet meeting eight months before the invasion of Iraq and three months before Congress passed the resolution authorizing military force in Iraq.

No British official has challenged the authenticity of the memo.

The minutes quote the British intelligence chief Richard Dearlove saying who said of his American counterparts: “Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and (weapons of mass destruction). But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

The memo quoted British foreign secretary Jack Straw saying “the case was thin” for an invasion because Saddam Hussein “was not threatening his neighbors” and because “his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.”

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, May 22, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Now 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
The Sky is a Poisonous Garden by Concrete Blonde
Eve Future by The Mekons
Debaser by The Pixies
Freedom by J. Mascis & The Fog
Panthers by Wilco
Cosmic Highway by Les Claypool

Johnny Gillette by Simon Stokes
Love to Burn by Neil Young & Crazy Horse
My Little Problem by The Replacements with Johnette Napolitano
People Who Died by The Jim Carrol Band
Sex With the Devil by Anne Magnuson

Puzzlin' Evidence by The Talking Heads
Under the Waves by Heavy Trash
Don't Step on the Grass by Steppenwolf
You Are What You Is by Frank Zappa
Detachable Penis by King Missile
Touch Sensitive by The Fall
South Street by The Orlons

Back on the Chain Gang by The Pretenders
Isis by Bob Dylan
We Both Go Down Together by The Decemberists
Here Come the Choppers by Loudon Wainwright III
Poison by Susan James
The House Where Nobody Lives by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, May 20, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Georgia Hard by Robbie Fulks
Blame the Vain by Dwight Yoakam
I Thought I'd Die by Karen Hudson
Dirty Little Town (Too Late For Prayer) by Jay Ruffin
Jamie Was A Boozer by Joe West
Blood, Sweat & Murder by Scott H. Biram
Cat Squirrel by John Schooley
I Ain't Got Nobody by Emmett Miller
Jimmy Martin Set
All Songs by Jimmy Martin except where noted
Grand Old Opry Song
I'm Sittin' on Top of the World
Hold Whatcha Got
My Walkin' Shoes
Tennessee by The Last Mile Ramblers
Save It Save
Losin' You (Might Be the Best Thing Yet)
Will the Circle Be Unbroken by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & Guests (Jimmy Martin plays guitar)

Charlie Poole set
All Songs by Charlie Poole except where noted
Shootin' Creek
Moving Day by Arthur Collins
It's Moving Day
He Rambled
If the River Was Whiskey
May I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight, Mister
May I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight, Mister by Hank Thompson
Can I Sleep in Your Arms by Willie Nelson
Goodbye Booze

All Go Hungry Hash House by Norman Blake
Hank and Fred by Loudon Wainwright III
The Other Side of Town by John Prine
You Wouldn't Know Love by Billy Joe Shaver
Summer Wages by David Bromberg
Baby Mine by Michelle Shocked
Take Me by George Jones
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

OH HAVE YOU SEEN THE MUFFLER MAN?

My daughter Molly sent me this link to this site devoted to the strange phenomenon of The Muffler Man, the fiberglass giant that appears in scattered places throughout this great land of ours.

There's even mention here of the Lumberjack at Central and Louisiana in Albuquerque near my favorite Vietnamese restaurant, the May Cafe.

This is part of the amazing Roadside America site, where it's easy to get lost for hours.