ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: HAVE DEATH WILL TRAVEL

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Februart 23, 2006

California is having trouble executing condemned murderer Michael Morales. Seems like anesthesiologists and other medical professionals in the Golden State are getting a little queasy about helping out in the fine art of lethal injection.

Something about the Hippocratic Oath or some other medical mumbo jumbo.

So why doesn’t California just do what New Mexico did in 2001, when the state performed its first (and so far only) legal execution since 1960?

Hire moonlighting executioners from Texas.

In 2001, when child killer/rapist Terry Clark’s days officially were numbered, the state hired two employees of the Texas prison system.

The $12,000 contract had to be one of the most macabre ever issued by the state:

“At approximately 20 minutes before the scheduled time for the execution, as directed by the warden, contractor shall insert the necessary catheters into the appropriate veins of the inmate sentenced to death. At the scheduled time of the execution, if directed to proceed by the warden, contractor shall administer the lethal injection to the inmate sentenced to death.”

A New Mexico Corrections Department spokesman said at the time that the two “execution experts” had also been hired to help out with capital punishment in New York, Montana and Kentucky.

So how come California didn’t do the same and hire some outside “execution specialist”?

One of Terry Clark’s attorneys, Brian Pouri — an Albuquerque lawyer who also is licensed to practice in California — said Wednesday that California’s laws governing executions are virtually the same as New Mexico’s.

But in the Morales case, a federal judge ordered restrictions on the lethal-injection process. Basically, Pouri explained, the court ruled that the state could either have an anesthesiologist on hand to make sure Morales wasn’t feeling pain — or in the alternative, give the condemned man a big enough dose of barbiturates to kill him.

“Once they got the doctors involved, that was it,” Pouri said.

Why didn’t that happen in Clark’s case?

Clark, who murdered 9-year-old Dena Lynn Gore in Artesia in 1986, wanted to die. He asked to stop any further legal proceedings.

“Nobody else had any (legal) standing,” Pouri said.

Speaking of medical ethics: The contract for Clark’s executioners included travel and expenses. But there’s one thing the Texas guys didn’t have to provide — the drugs used in the execution.

The sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride were purchased by the state Health Department — you know, that agency with the mission statement that says it’s supposed to “promote health, prevent disease and disability.”

But the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, the agency that licenses government agencies and private companies to buy controlled drugs, said it had no problem with the state Health Department supplying drugs to kill a man.

At least they didn’t give him something illegal like medical marijuana.

No announcement of an announcement: Gov. Bill Richardson has said since before Day 1 that he plans to seek re-election. He is already on the June primary ballot — unopposed.

So there’s no real need for a formal announcement. But can you imagine Bill Richardson giving up a chance to give a speech before an adoring audience cheering wildly every time he says he’s “moving New Mexico forward”?

Yet on Wednesday, when asked whether a formal announcement was forthcoming, Richardson seemed noncommittal.

His chief of staff (and 2002 campaign manager) Dave Contarino said there probably would be some kind of announcement. But Contarino noted that when Bill Clinton ran for re-election for governor of Arkansas, he never formally announced.

Last November during an interview on CSPAN2, Richardson said he wasn’t pledging to serve a full four years if re-elected.

On that show, he used the example of President Bush, who told voters when running for re-election as Texas governor in 1998 that he might run for higher officer. “I may do the same, but I haven’t decided that. ... What I will do is, I will tell my constituents the truth when I talk to them about whether I go beyond this.”

But Richardson said Wednesday that he’s not ready yet to have such a talk with voters.

The latest numbers: Richardson continues to do well in the SurveyUSA/KOB TV poll. The latest one, conducted Feb. 10-12 of 600 New Mexico adults, shows his best numbers in 10 months. The firm has been doing monthly tracking polls of the nation’s 50 governors.

Richardson’s approval rating was 64 percent. Only 32 percent said they disapproved of the way Richardson was doing his job.

For the first time, SurveyUSA shows Democrat Richardson getting a majority of Republicans giving him approval. That’s 52 percent to 42 percent who disapprove.

SurveyUSA’s margin of error is 3.9 percent.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, February 20, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Leave the Capitol by The Fall
Ugly Band by The Mekons
Almost Dying by Kevin Coyne
Cigarettes by Greg Dulli
True to This by Concrete Blonde
Trouble Ahead by The Grabs
Is She Weird by The Pixies
Amphetimine Annie by Canned Heat
Do the Watusi by Cat

I Will Sing You Songs by My Morning Jacket
Bad Chardonay by Graham Parker
Little Floater by NRBQ
Goosebumps by Jerry Lee Lewis
Motor City Baby by The Dirtbombs
Tango by Bernadette Seacrest
Get Right Church by The Rev. Gary Davis

I Could Never Be President by Johnnie Taylor
If You Want Me to Stay by Devin Lima
Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey by Sly & The Family Stone
My Mind's Playing Tricks on Me by The Geto Boyz
If Loving You is Wrong (I Don't Want to Be Right) by Isaac Hayes
Just Say So by Bettye Lavette

Earth Blues by Jimi Hendrix
You Don't Love Me Yet by Bongwater
Cryin' in the Streets by Buckwheat Zydeco
Make Sure They Hear by Mark Eitzel
Into the Mystic by Warren Zevon
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, February 17, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
I Want to Grow Up to Be a Politician by The Byrds
The Education Song by The Gourds
American Trash by Betty Dylan
Blues About You Baby by Big Al Anderson
All You ever Do Is Bring Me Down by The Mavericks
Drinkin' Thing by Gary Stewart
Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad by Wanda Jackson
Long-Legged Guitar Pickin' Man by Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash
Ain't Got No Home by The Band

LUBBOCK SET
Midnight Shift by Buddy Holly
Stars in My Life by The Flatlanders
Stubbs Boogie by Jesse Taylor
Own and Own by Butch Hancock with Marce Lacouture
The Lubbock Tornado by Terry Allen
Hopes Up High by Joe Ely
Winds of Time by The Legendary Stardust Cowboy
Don't Let the Stars Get In Your Eyes by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Boomtown Boogie by Butch Hancock, Terry Allen, Jo Carol Pierce & Joe Ely
One Road More by The Flatlanders

Pedal Steal by Terry Allen

The Burden of Freedom by Kris Kristofferson
The Revenant by Michael Hurley
Bootleg John by Ralph Stanley
Take Me by George Jones
Everybody's Talkin' by Bobby Bare
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: IT CAME FROM LUBBOCK

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
February 17, 2006

At 9:10 p.m. on Aug. 25, 1951 ... The night was clear and dark. Suddenly all three men saw a number of lights race noiselessly across the sky, from horizon to horizon, in a few seconds. They gave the impression of about 30 luminous beads, arranged in a crescent shape. A few moments later another similar formation flashed across the night. ... A check the next day with the Air Force showed that no planes had been over the area at the time.
— From ufocasebook.com

When you Google the phrase “Lubbock Lights,” the above passage is what you find on the first site listed.

This mysterious phenomenon is mentioned in Lubbock Lights, a documentary by Amy Maner showing this weekend at the Santa Fe Film Center. But that’s not really what the film is about. Lubbock Lights deals with the amazing musicians who came out of that unassuming little West Texas city, from Buddy Holly to the Flatlanders to The Legendary Stardust Cowboy.

I can’t help but wonder if there’s not some direct connection between the spook lights of ’51 and the talent that rose out of Lubbock in the years to follow. Joe Ely suggests it in the movie. Terry Allen was at a drive-in theater and saw the darn things fly over. Jimmie Dale Gilmore says he saw something similar about 10 years later.

Lubbock Lights starts out with images of West Texas highways, the Lubbock skyline, lightning storms, tornadoes, even a grainy, black-and-white local TV weather report. There are a few moments of what apparently was an old documentary about Lubbock history that starts out with square-dancing cowboys.

The movie is rich with musical footage. You can see Joe Ely’s band when they were in their late-’70s/early-’80s prime. There’s a young Allen ripping the hell out of his song “The Lubbock Tornado.” You’ll meet C.B. Stubblefield — aka Stubb, the tall barbecue cook, restaurateur, and mentor to musicians — and hear him sing “Summertime” and talk about feeding the world. You’ll marvel at a shirtless Stardust Cowboy going insane onstage.

There’s a fascinating segment on Tommy X. Hancock (no relation to the Flatlanders’ Butch Hancock), a Lubbockite who started out in the ’40s as a fiddler in a Western swing band. He later went to San Francisco, dropped acid, and started a group called the Supernatural Family Band with his wife and kids. His music took just a slight turn to the weird — there’s a video of the group playing a bluegrass rock stomp and dancing around the ruins of Machu Picchu, Peru.

One of my favorite parts was an old black-and-white clip of the Flatlanders — Ely, Gilmore, and Butch Hancock — playing “The Stars in My Life” in the early ’70s at the Kerrville Folk Festival. As was true on the band’s first record, the Plan 9 From Outer Space musical saw is too loud, but in a weird way it adds to their ragged charm.

Ex-Talking Head David Byrne pops up in a woolly Russian hat saying that the Flatlanders were to Texas what the Velvet Underground was to New York. “It was a group that didn’t sell many records, but ... anyone who heard them started a band — or started writing songs,” Byrne said.

I’ve heard the story of Lubbock music history a million times. But this movie only makes it more enjoyable. Everyone interviewed seemed so sincerely positive and warm toward each other — and not in a smarmy, show-biz kind of way. The laughs sound real, the love is obvious, and the music is soul-deep.

Lubbock Lights is showing at The Film Center, 1616 St. Michael’s Drive, at 5:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 17 and 18, and at 3 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 19. Call 988-7414 for more details.

You won’t find this DVD at ufocasebook.com so look for it at lubbock-lights.com.

Also recommended:

Pedal Steal by Terry Allen. Unlike your typical “album,” this isn’t a collection of a bunch of songs. It’s a 35-minute stage piece commissioned by the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in the ’80s. Sugar Hill Records reissued it this month.

Songs and instrumental pieces weave in and out of spoken-word pieces eulogizing a steel guitarist named Wayne Gailey, who toured around Texas and New Mexico — and who did studio work with Rose Maddox and undoubtedly others — and died of a drug overdose in the late ’70s. (“Death by misadventures” was on the autopsy report.) Here he’s called “Billy the Boy.” Sometimes his myth seems to overlap with that of Billy the Kid.

Pedal Steal also is an irreverent tribute to 20th-century Route 66 culture. It’s all there: the drive-in theaters, the motels, the trucks, the beer joints, the trailer parks, the graveyards. There’s a recurring Navajo chant, strains of mariachi, lots of piano boogie, and “Sentimental Journey” performed by sax men Bobby Keyes and Don Caldwell. It’s also got a great overlooked Allen song, a sad and lovely tune called “Loneliness.”

The true magic of the West is summed up in the monologue about motels:

"Out west they’re always raisin’ holy hell, kickin’ in walls, shootin’ guns, havin’ fights and wild parties. Somebody’s always screamin’ bloody murder or [sexual intercoursing] their brains out in the room next door. Back east motels are different. You never hear nothin’, not a peep ... course they can kill your ass in either place. It’s just a lot more fun out west.”

If you’re only interested in the music, Allen distilled most of the songs from Pedal Steal onto a nine-minute medley on his 1999 Salivation album. But there you won’t hear about the spooky man in the Moriarty bar who warns of “The Creature” or Billy’s batty mom or the other lonesome ghosts of Pedal Steal.

Hear music from the lights of Lubbock — including the complete Pedal Steal — tonight, Feb. 17, on The Santa Fe Opry, 10 p.m. to midnight on KSFR-FM 90.7

LEGISLATURE HEADING TOWARD OBLIVION

Just when I needed it the most, my New Mexican Legislature blog is having some kind of technical problem. This started sometime around 1 a.m. last night, which helped lead to my decision to go home. I lost one large post and so far the paper's site has caused both my home and work computers clog up.

Kind of like House of Representatives. It's been dominated by Filibuster Foley most the morning. Lots of things still out -- minimum wage, tax cuts, medical marijuana -- with less than an hour left.

There's a funny Xerox floating around the Capitol -- an Isletta Casino boxing ad with the faces of Gov. Bill Richardson and a famous cartoon character pasted over the boxers. The caption: "Porky Pig vs. the Flabby King."

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: IF I RULED THE LEGISLATURE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
February 16, 2006

Earlier this week, I had to explain to editors several times one of the strange quirks of the Legislature, the “mirror bill” — how if the Senate passes a Senate bill and the House passes an identical House bill, neither bill becomes law unless the governor signs a bill passed by both chambers.

“It’s not the way I would have set it up,” I said during one of these conversations.

That got me to thinking. There’s lots of things about the Legislature I’d have set up differently.

Not that there’s a chance of instituting any drastic change in the legislative branch. These guys refuse to open conference committees and vote down bills that would have required telling the public more about their campaign contributors. They’re not about to do anything that would seriously change business as usual at the Roundhouse.

As a pure exercise in fantasy, here are some changes I’d make if I could magically restructure the Legislature:

* A unicameral Legislature: Why does there have to be two chambers in the Legislature? The current rationale for having two houses in Congress is that smaller states get a bigger voice in the Senate. But that’s not applicable with the states. Due to the one-man/one-vote doctrine, all districts in a state House or state Senate must have roughly the same population.

Some say the state Senate is designed to be a more “deliberative” body where members, who only have to run every four years (instead of two years like the House), can take a more long-sighted view.

You have to wonder if anyone who says that has actually witnessed a Senate debate.

Nebraska is the only state with a unicameral legislature. Minnesota, at the urging of former Gov. Jesse Ventura, considered it a few years ago but didn’t take the plunge. Currently, there’s a group called Unicameral Michigan working to force a vote on a state constitutional amendment that would abolish the Michigan state Senate.

Advocates say a unicameral legislature creates more transparency in government, eliminates legislative redundancy and saves taxpayer money.

Having two chambers creates more obstacles for bills, providing more opportunity to waste time to run out the clock and for using other procedural tricks to kill bills.

Granted, a lot of bills deserve to be killed. But if that’s the case, vote them down.

I would create one house with a nice, even 50 districts. Lots of House and Senate members could end up running against each other, a potential political bloodbath that would be fun to watch.

And with a unicameral legislature, the Senate chambers could be turned into a permanent large committee room for those really big issues that attract large crowds. (Unless, of course, the remaining lawmakers would want to turn it into a cockfighting pit.)

You wouldn’t have to open conference committees because there would be no need for conference committees. And I’d never have to explain “mirror bills” to an editor again.

* Limit on bills: I would put a cap on how many bills a legislator could introduce in a session. I’m not sure what number I’d impose, but something has to be done to cut down on the clutter of bills that seems to grow every year.

In this year’s 30-day session, there were nearly 900 bills in the House and more than 750 in the Senate. Most of these never got anywhere, and truth is, a good many really were never intended to go anywhere.

* Resolve to eliminate resolutions: I’d eliminate all unnecessary resolutions and memorials. Proposed constitutional amendments would still be allowed, and I suppose some of the studies mandated by memorials are justified.

And maybe the Legislature should have one more chance to pick a state cowboy song — but that’s it.

Seriously, there’s no reason legislators should be spending precious chunks of time debating unbinding memorials on quail hunting season (as the Senate did Monday night) while serious issues are waiting to be heard. If legislators want to honor some New Mexico athlete or spelling-bee winner or send condolences to the family of a prominent state resident who has died, they can send a card.

* Don’t share the love: One of the biggest wastes of time in a floor session is when some former legislator or other former state official is up for confirmation to some board or commission. Though I didn’t catch this happening during this session, all too often, the confirmation turns into an hourlong love fest with each lawmaker showering some former colleague with flowery praise.

That’s nice. But at the end of the session when lawmakers throw up their hands and say, “Sorry, we just ran out time” to consider serious bills, it’s hard not to think back to the day when they spent hours heaping sweet soliloquies onto some former colleague who was tossed out by the voters years before.

If I ruled the Legislature, the floor “debate” over confirmations would be limited to five minutes, unless there was actual opposition to the appointment.

* But share the food: On many days during the session, some community chamber of commerce or other well-meaning group will prepare lunch or dinner for lawmakers. That’s nice.

But it violates a basic principle we all should have learned in elementary school: Don’t bring anything unless there’s enough to share.

So if I were in charge, nobody could bring food for the legislators unless they share it with everyone else in the Roundhouse. State farm and ranch organizations do this every year, serving free barbecue and ice cream in the Rotunda. (Thanks, guys. The food was great Tuesday.)

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, February 12, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Bits and Pieces by Joan Jett
Gluey Brothers Creep by The Gluey Brothers
Hiding All the Way by Nick Cave
Don't Crowd Your Mind by Lorette Velvette
Already Forgotten by The Grabs
Porcupine People by Kevin Coyne
Chlorophorm by Graham Parker & The Figgs

Women is Losers by Big Brother & The Holding Company
Early Today and Later That Night by Greg Dulli
Eric's Trip by Sonic Youth
American Music by The Violent Femmes
Tornado at Rest by Concrete Blonde
Mad Bomber by The Mighty Sparrow
Stop the Violence by Wesley Willis

MY MORNING JACKET SET
What a Wonderful Man
Mahgeetah
Dancefloorz
Gideon
The Bear
One Big Holiday

Goodnight Josephine by The Tragically Hip
Room Full of Mirrors by Jimi Hendrix
Bastard by The Mekons
There is a Ghost by Marianne Faithful
Green Eyes by Mark Eitzel
In the Wilderness by Mercury Rev
Favorite Hour by Elvis Costello
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis