ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: WE'RE GONNA MISS THIS GUY

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 27, 2008

It’s been nearly a week since the leaks about Gov. Bill Richardson’s being the probable secretary of commerce in the Obama administration, and I don’t think it’s really sunk into most of us what a huge change in New Mexico politics this appointment would be.

We don’t have the official word yet — and the governor, the lieutenant governor and everyone else involved are being annoyingly, if understandably coy about the situation.

(My favorite quote of the week came from a spokeswoman for Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, asked in an Associated Press story early this week whether Denish and Richardson had discussed a transition of power: “It’s early to be talking about a transition because there hasn’t been any official announcement yet.” Holy mackerel! If there’s any truth to the Commerce leaks and they’re seriously waiting until an “official announcement” to discuss these critical matters, that’s the story.)

I guess I let myself get bothered by little stuff like that to distract myself from the obvious: Assuming the big announcement is coming, there’s going to be a giant crater in New Mexico politics where there once was Richardson.

“Put on your tennis shoes. You’ll be running to keep up,” was the advice that former Richardson staffer Butch Maki gave me shortly after Richardson was elected governor the first time in 2002.

He wasn’t joking. I realized the first week of his administration — when North Korean diplomats came to Santa Fe to discuss nuclear disarmament with the governor of New Mexico — that this wasn’t going to be like covering a regular state government.

For most of his first term, it seemed like everything he did was preparing his argument on why he should be president. I may be exaggerating a little, but in those early years, it seemed like he was having three press conferences a week, each one to announce some new “bold initiative,” and most of them beginning with remarks alluding to the historic nature of the occasion.

Some of those bold initiatives turned out to be big deals — the Rail Runner and the Spaceport, for instance.

Some seem pretty weird in retrospect. Statewide trials for Billy the Kid to see if the famous outlaw deserved a pardon? A pro football team for Albuquerque?

Then there was all the overt national political activity. In Richardson’s first few months in office, he arranged for the first debate of the 2004 Democratic candidates to take place in Albuquerque. He got himself elected chairman of the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. He twice was chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. And reporters joked the most unsafe place in the Capitol was in the hallway by the television studio if Richardson was late for an interview on CNN or Fox News. (Luckily, those times were rare. He was far more punctual for the national media than he was for us local yokels.)

I’m waxing a little nostalgic here because most of this truly was fun to cover.

There’s things I won’t miss though.

Trying to get information out of Richardson’s office was often a frustrating exercise for reporters working on a story that wasn’t part of his “message.” In recent weeks, for instance, Richardson’s office has seemed to have the attitude that it’s nobody’s business when the governor is out of state. He and some of his many press aides frequently were thinned-skinned if they didn’t like what a journalist was writing. Once last year, Richardson angrily told me I was the only one who said his performance in a recent debate had been sub-par.

I’m not the only one saying this: It’ll never be the same around here once Richardson leaves.

Interesting facts about the secretary of commerce: It’s no big secret the Commerce Department is a consolation prize for Richardson, who really wanted to be secretary of state. Some people have told me they believe this is a place-holding job for Richardson, who will move up when something else is available.

That might be true. But if history is any indication, there’s only so far a secretary of commerce can go.

Only one commerce secretary later became president. That was Herbert Hoover, who headed the department for more than several years under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

Another commerce secretary was a vice president. That was Henry A. Wallace, who was President Franklin Roosevelt’s veep during his third term. Roosevelt dumped Wallace from the ticket in 1944. Roosevelt appointed Wallace as commerce secretary — apparently as a consolation prize. Wallace was fired from that job in 1945 by President Harry Truman.

Richardson wouldn’t be the first Hispanic commerce secretary. That would be the current secretary, Carlos Miguel Gutierrez.

And he wouldn’t be the first Commerce Secretary Richardson. That honor goes to Elliot Richardson, who was appointed to that position by President Gerald Ford.

Elliot Richardson, however, is better known as the attorney general who resigned rather than follow President Richard Nixon’s order to fire special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox in what went on to be known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” in October 1973.

The secretary of commerce is a relatively low-key position, but some secretaries ended up in tragedies or scandals.

Ron Brown, President Bill Clinton’s first commerce secretary, died in a 1996 plane crash in Croatia, while on a trade mission.

Nixon’s first secretary of commerce, Maurice Stans, who also served as Nixon’s campaign finance chairman, was indicted in 1973 for Watergate-related charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. He was found not guilty.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, November 23, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Momia Twist by Wau y Los Arrrghs!!!
Acton by Los Peyotes
Miniskirt Blues by The Cramps with Iggy Pop
Boomerang by The Black Lips
I'm Hurtin' by Thee Headcoats
Ward 81 by The Fuzztones
Exploder by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Mean and Evil by The Juke Joint Pimps
Granny's Little Chicken by The Dirtbombs
Do the Watusi by Cat

November/Weapon by The Rockin' Guys
Hurt Me by Lightning Beat Man
Mr. Link Wray by The Happy Happy Jihads
Rawhide by Link Wray
Monkey Run by Johnny Dowd
Hit the Road by Scott H. Birham
Make You Say Wow by Bob Log III
Warmth of the Sun by The Beach Boys

Mad Mike/Las Vegas Grind set
A La Carte by James "Red" Hollway
Mama Ubangi Bangi by The Four Sounds
The Whip by The Creeps
Snacky Poo by The Del-Mars
Surfin' in the China Sea by The Hong Kongs
For the Birds by The Charts
Rigor Mortis by The Gravestone Four
Strollie Bun by The Blonde Bomber
Little Girl by John & Jackie
Mysterious Teenage by The Vels
Cherry Juice by Marino Choice
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff by The Rhythm Kings

The Kukamong a Boogaloo by King Khan & The Shrines
Ain't It Hard by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Praise the Lord Everyone by Dante Harmon
Slinky by The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker
Waiting at the River by The Blind Boys of Mississippi
A Night at the House of Prayer by The Rev. Lonnie Farris
Don't You Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down by Linda Tillery & The Cultural Heritage Choir featuring Wilson Pickett & Eric Bibb
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

LAZY SUNDAY MORNING

What better time to think about that amazing meeting between two powerful forces in American entertainment: Jack Benny and The Blues Magoos. (From the Kraft Music Hall, Nov. 1, 1967, assuming the Youtube information is correct.)

Hide your ears, Jack!

RICHARDSON TO COMMERCE

So it looks as if Gov. Bill Richardson might soon be leaving the greatest job he;s ever had and going t work as Commerce secretary in the Obama administration.

Here's the stroeis that Miss Nash and I were working on Friday afternoon.

CLICK HERE and HERE and HERE.

It's just starting to sink in to me that this job is not going to be anywhere near the same if Richardson really is leaving the state.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 21, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Change in the Weather by John Fogerty
Sweet Sweet Girl by Warren Smith
I'll Sail My Ship Alone by Cornell Hurd with Tommy Alverson
Wake Up and Smell the Whiskey by Dean Miller
Cajun Stripper by Doug Kershaw
The Story of Mama Rosin by Mama Rosin
Girl Called Trouble by The Watzloves
That's My Rabbit, My Dog Caught It by The Walter Family

Long Hauls and Close Calls by Hank Williams III
Five Brothers by Marty Robbins
Goodbye Earle by The Dixie Chicks
The Taker by Waylon Jennings
Friday Night on a Dollar Bill by Huelyn Duvall
Black Cat by Tommy Collins
Dig Myself a Hole by Charlie Feathers
Things are Gettin' Rough All Over by Hank Penny
Squaws Along the Yukon by Hank Thompson
Don't Come Home a Drinkin' by Loretta Lynn

Everybody Wants a Cowboy by Skeeter Davis & NRBQ
Life Begins at 4 OClock by The Starline Rhythm Boys
Blue Sunshine by The Meteors
Thunder by Yuichi & The Hilltone Boys
Cowboy No. 77 by Charlie Pickett
Shout Out Loud by Eric Hisaw
Single Bar Love Song by Mike Neal
Waitin' Where She Hides by Dave Insley
Strangeness in Me by The Cramps

Lee Harvey by The Asylum Street Spankers
Whiskey Willie by Michael Hurley
I'll Be Fine When I Get Home to You by Gann Brewer
Bad Music (Is Better than No Music at All) by John Hartford
Neck of the Woods by Hundred Year Flood with Shannon McNally
Last Days of Tampa Red by Ronny Elliott
He Was a Friend of Mine by The Byrds
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: MONSTERS ON THE LOOSE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 21, 2008


Writers, DJs, and hyperactive fans who champion music that’s obscure and out of the mainstream often have the desire to lift the wild geniuses and inspired outcasts they so love out of the shadows and give them at least a modest bit of the attention and acclaim they so richly deserve.

That wasn’t the case with “Mad” Mike Metrovich, a Pittsburgh disc jockey who became a broadcast institution on WZUM (AM, of course) in the mid-’60s. Mad Mike was infamous for going to dusty, old, out-of-the-way warehouses, buying thousands of 45s for pennies on the dollar, finding the craziest R & B, the greasiest doo-wop, and the most delinquency-inducing rock ’n’ roll for his radio show and the local teen dances he played — and for scraping off the labels so other DJs and fans weren’t able to find out what he was playing.

Lucky for us that Norton Records didn’t hide the artist and song-title information on Mad Mike Monsters: A Tribute to Mad Mike Metrovich, a three-disc collection (you have to buy the CDs separately) filled with dozens of the mad one’s favorites.

Not that anyone will recognize many — or perhaps any — of the names here. Except for Johnny Otis, who has a couple of 10-second radio plugs included in this compilation, the only group I recognize is The Sonics, whose garage hit “Psycho” is the first song on Volume 1.

Otherwise, the roster of artists reflects an alternate universe — Wild Child Gipson, the Grand Prees, Baby Huey & The Babysitters, Calvin Cool, Big Danny Oliver, Big Syl Barnes, and Little Ike. And no, the Marquis Chimps weren’t the actual apes who used to appear on television back in the ’60s, and Mad Mike & The Maniacs wasn’t led by Metrovich.

Just like radio listeners in Pittsburgh in 1965, you can enjoy the yackety saxes, the Reefer Madness-style piano, the piercing guitars, and the screaming Little Richard wannabes over dozens of tasty tracks with a certain sense of wonder. Who are these anonymous maniacs producing such intense sounds? Where did this stuff come from?

Some of the song titles in the collection sound familiar. “Goo Goo Muck” by Ronnie Cook & The Gaylads is a bizarre little ditty that was later covered by The Cramps. But “Camel Walk” by The Saxons, though similar to the one done by Southern Culture on the Skids, isn’t the same tune. And “The Hunch” by Mad Mike & The Maniacs has nothing to do with Hasil Adkins.

The songs are all from the days well before political sensitivity, so there’s some ethnic stereotyping not for the easily offended — like that in “Mama Ubangi Bangi” by The Four Sounds, complete with physical descriptions of a “Watusi Lucy” and jungle animal sounds, or “Chop Suey Rock” by The Instrumentals, a saxed-out, surfy instrumental introduced by a phony saying from Confucius. There’s a similar track called “Surfin’ in the China Sea” by The Hong Kongs. Then there are “Geronimo” by The Renegades, which includes sound effects of rifle fire and Indian war cries, and “Firewater” by The Premieres, another instrumental, which has someone trying to imitate a Native American.

There are songs that will bring to mind better-known tunes. “Uncle John” by Wild Child Gipson is basically an “answer song” to Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.” James “Red” Holloway’s “A La Carte,” with its shouts of “fried elephant lips,” “spider giblets,” and “baboon eyeballs,” sounds like a rewrite of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “Feast of the Mau Mau” and “Alligator Wine” — although I can’t say for certain whether Holloway’s song came before or after Screamin’ Jay’s.

And some songs just sound dirty. There’s “Strollie Bun” by Blonde Bomber, for instance (“Where did you get that strut?” asks the singer, who sure doesn’t sound like a blonde). Even though “Cherry Juice” by Marino Choice doesn’t contain any overt obscenities, it sounds as if it could be from a lost “party” album by Jackie Wilson. Similarly, “Snacky Poo” by The Del Mars is even more suggestive (“Some people like it, some people don’t/Some people do it, some people won’t”). This sounds like the song Otis Day & The Knights would have been playing in the juke joint in Animal House right before the guys from Delta House walked in.

Mad Mike died on Oct. 31, 2000, just hours after doing his annual Halloween show. If not for Norton Records, most of this music probably would have died along with him. Listen and be amazed.

Grind it!: For those wanting to dig deeper beneath the underbelly of rock ’n’ roll: Mad Mike’s Monsters reminds me of another collection of crazy, obscure R & B and rock. That’s the Las Vegas Grind series, which came out in the mid-’90s on the tiny Crypt label. (Faithful readers of my blog might recall that I patriotically spent part of my $600 federal income-tax rebate check on a couple of volumes of Las Vegas Grind. I’ve since bought the other two CDs.)

It’s the same type of music you’ll find on the Mad Mike CDs. (In fact, one song is in both collections — Holloway’s “A La Carte.”) Supposedly, the music in the Grind series is what live bands used to play in Las Vegas strip joints in the late ’50s and early ’60s. There’s no evidence that any of the acts on the albums actually played Vegas or at topless bars anywhere. But it sounds like they should have. Most of these tunes could serve as the soundtrack for a yet-to-be-made movie version of James Ellroy’s American Tabloid.

I found my copies, which by the way, have some of the greatest cover art in the history of recorded music, on Amazon. (Hint: there are only four CDs, parts 1, 2, 3, and ... 6! Although there apparently were LPs of parts 4 and 5, the fourth CD is Part 6. Let the mystery be.)

You know I love playing stuff like this on the radio: tune into Terrell’s Sound World, free-form weirdo radio, starting at 10 p.m. on Sunday on KSFR-FM 101.1. And don’t forget The Santa Fe Opry, the country music Nashville does not want you to hear, same time, same channel on Friday.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: MINNIE WON'T SEEK ANOTHER TERM

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 20, 2008

Minnie Gallegos, who has chaired the Santa Fe County Democratic Party for the past seven years, won’t seek re-election next year.

“I’m not quite ready to quit yet,” she told me earlier this week, “but I won’t be seeking re-election.”

She’s been county chairwoman since November 2001, after then-chairman Bill Sisneros stepped down to join Bill Richardson’s gubernatorial exploratory committee. In 2003, Gallegos was elected in her own right, becoming the first woman elected to the county party post. She won re-election in 2005 and again in 2007.

Gallegos has held the position longer than anyone else in recent history. In the seven years before Gallegos became chairwoman, the position was held by four men — Sisneros, Art Bonal, Fernando Rivera and Domingo Martinez.

In the last election there had been some grumbling from the rank-and-file about Gallegos. No major controversy. Most of the gripes seemed to be about the way Gallegos runs meetings. After covering the meeting at which she was re-elected last year, I wrote that the proceedings “reminded some attendees of the old Will Rogers quote — ‘I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.’ ” It took more than an hour that night just for all the county central committee members to get through the door, register and get their credentials.

Gallegos did have a challenger last year: party activist Ricardo Campos. But once he realized he didn’t have the votes, Campos withdrew and moved to elect Gallegos by acclamation. Campos then was elected vice chairman by acclamation. If there’s been any dissatisfaction with Gallegos since then, it has not been made public.

Having a unified party obviously didn’t hurt. As expected, Santa Fe Dems, who have a 3-to-1 registration advantage over Republicans in the county, did more than OK in the general election two weeks ago. According to unofficial returns in Santa Fe County, President-elect Barack Obama took 76.9 percent of the vote in the presidential race, and Senator-elect Tom Udall won 79.3 percent. The only countywide race in which a Democrat lost here was the Public Regulation Commission race, in which controversy-prone Jerome Block Jr. came in second to Green Party candidate Rick Lass, who got a 62.5 percent to Block’s 37.5 percent. (Block won the total vote in PRC District 3, however.)

Election trivia: A couple of incumbent Republican legislators actually beat Democratic challengers in this county by 2-to-1 margins.

State Sen. Sue Beffort Wilson beat Democrat Jason Michael Burnett here while Rep. Kathy McCoy defeated Janice Saxton. Both of these legislative districts are mostly in Bernalillo County but each contains a small pocket of precincts in the more conservative southern part of Santa Fe County.

Richardson watch: Most of the recent national chatter about our governor’s chances of being appointed U.S. secretary of state has been in the context of Richardson being a alternate to Hillary Clinton for that job.

The New York Times has been profiling potential Obama appointees in a series called “The New Team.”

Among the governor’s strong points, the profile says, “He earned a reputation as a tough and inventive negotiator, especially when dealing with America’s most entrenched adversaries, among them Iraq, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba. In the 1990s, he negotiated the release of a downed American pilot imprisoned in North Korea, some Red Cross workers held in Sudan and two American contractors detained by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. ... By most accounts, he is the country’s most influential Latino politician. Hispanic groups are pushing hard for him to become secretary of state.”

But, as it does for other Obama administration prospects, the Times notes “baggage” for Richardson. “He has no landmark achievement as a diplomat and has said, in hindsight, that he was wrong on several important issues ... and the North American Free Trade Agreement (which he helped pass). In the late 1990s, he also was secretary of the Department of Energy during the disastrous security breaches at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the widely criticized prosecution of scientist Wen Ho Lee.”

But that’s not nearly as nasty as the comment by former George H.W. Bush Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger who, when asked in an MSNBC interview about the possibility of Richardson as secretary of state, said “I don’t want to beat everybody to death, but I have very little respect for his intelligence and his knowledge of foreign affairs.”

Radio daze: After last week’s column about the elimination of Christmas lights for Human Service Department employees in an effort to save money, one state worker called to say that employees in her office were told they can’t even play radios at their desk.

I didn’t immediately mount an investigation of this. But it is true that a memo from the governor on Oct. 23 about conservation in the state workplace says, “Personal space heaters and individual appliances (refrigerators, microwaves, etc.) are no longer allowed in staff offices or cubicles.” It’s quite possible that some supervisors have interpreted “individual appliances” to include radios.

(By the way, this memo is titled “Good Governance: Tips for Conservation and Efficiency.” But these “tips” aren’t just friendly suggestions. The first paragraph makes clear the “tips” are to be implemented and enforced by all agencies.)

I suppose workers could bring in iPods — as long as they didn’t plug the devices into state computers to recharge them.

Or maybe HSD and other state employees could take a tip from the Cultural Affairs Department’s proposal to have a private foundation augment the pay of state museum curators and directors. Perhaps they could get New Mexico broadcasters to set up a foundation to help pay the state’s electric bill so that workers can play a radio now and then.

The photo of Minnie Gallegos near the top of this post is by Barb Wold, used under Creative Commons license and found on FLICKR.

UPDATE: I just corrected a spelling mistake in the "Richardson Watch" section above. As a reader pointed out, "security breeches" sounds like some sort of new uniform at LANL. That'll teach me to cut-and-paste from a rag like The New York Times.