THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 2, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
The Ballad of Thunder Road by Robert Mitchum
True Religion by Hot Tuna
Lion in Winter by Hoyt Axton
Action Packed by Ronnie Dee
Whole Lotta Things by Southern Culture on the Skids
Pill Bug Blues by The Gourds
Payday Blues by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks
Sho-Jo-Ji/The Hungry Racoon by Petty Booka

Dirty Old Town by Frank Black
Milly's Cafe by Fred Eaglesmith
Byrd From West Virginia by I See Hawks in L.A.
Mystery Mountain by Porter Wagoner
The Virginian by Neko Case
Hunter Green by The Handsome Family
You Better Stop Drinking Shine by Rev. I.B. Ware, Wife & Son

Sunbonnet Sue by The Fort Worth Doughboys
Liberty by Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys
Ida Red by Merle Haggard
Saving My Love by The Stumbleweeds
Funky Tunk by Moby Grape
Highway Patrol by Junior Brown
Cold Canadian Love by Joe West
Pop a Top by Jim Ed Brown
Maybe You Heard by Todd Snyder
Chuckie Cheese Hell by Tim Wilson

Cowboy Logic by Michael Martin Murphey
Dancing With the Women in the Bar by Whiskeytown
Don't Let Them Destroy You by Cordero
Where I'm From by The Bottle Rockets
Just a Dream by Eleni Mandell
When Two Worlds Collide by Roger Miller
Country Bumpkin by Cal Smith
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

DEAF EARS

I guess the governor didn't listen to my suggestion about voluntarily ceasing his fundraising activities and donating most of his treasury to charity.

His re-election campaign raised more than a half million last month. CLICK HERE for the AP story.

ALso, here's a link to my story about campaign finance reports for local legislative candidates.

And here's my story about problems with the reports showing up on the Secretary of State's Web Site.

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: BURN ON FURNACES!

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 2, 2006

The brother-and-sister team known as The Fiery Furnaces continues to amaze, delight, and occasionally confound unsuspecting listeners on its latest musical adventure, Bitter Tea.

Bitter Tea is an opportunity for writer/multi-instrumentalist/mad-genius-boy Matthew Friedberger to toss in everything plus a few kitchen sinks, while sister Eleanor Friedberger, the main Furnace singer, captivates and allures. Eleanor’s voice — sweet, clear, sometimes even a little prim — seems like an earthly anchor for a ship tossed along a stormy, unpredictable musical sea. (Strangely enough, the album was released on Fat Possum, once known as a hard-core blues label. Despite some wicked slide guitar in the song “Police Sweater Blood Vow,” I don’t think R.L Burnside done it this a way.)

The music changes from song to song — and often several times within a song. Electronic madness bounces off an old-timey tack piano.

While the Furnaces don’t really sound like anyone else, you could spend an afternoon trying to trace the influences.

“Waiting to Know You” could be doo-wop as filtered through The Flaming Lips. When “Oh Sweet Woods” gets going, it sounds like a mutated noir take on Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” You might hear distant echoes of Brian Wilson’s Smile smirking here and there. There’s sugar-pie-honey-bunch Motown hooks beneath the electronic insanity of “Benton Harbor Blues” (though my favorite touch here is the Garth-Hudson-on-Pluto, roller-rinky organ sound that also colors the backdrop). Bouncy, Beatlesque touches abound — and tell me you don’t hear the spirit of Plastic Ono Band-era John Lennon in “Police Sweater Blood Vow.” And somewhere in the cosmos, Spike Jones smiles knowingly.

In interviews, the Furnaces have said that Bitter Tea is a companion piece to last year’s album, Rehearsing My Choir, a strange family-album kind of album featuring narration by the Friedbergers’ grandmother. While Choir dealt with the memories of an old woman, Bitter Tea is from the perspective of a young girl.

There are lyrical threads here dealing with innocence and its inevitable loss, temptation, sexual curiosity, and danger.

On the title song, the music is built around a faux-Oriental melody — think Madame Butterfly on angel dust. After a frantic synth introduction lasting about a minute, Eleanor pipes in, announcing: “I’ve got a special category business down by the Multifunctional Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Rollerblade Rink ...” After being tempted to drink the “bitter tea,” the music reverts back to a slow, rinky-tinkly version of the original melodic theme, as the Friedbergers sing, “I am a crazy crane/I lost my true love in the rain.”

This song melts into the next track, “Teach Me Sweetheart,” which begins with strange squiggly noises arising over a thumping bass line. Eleanor sounds downright sultry as she sings, “Come away, teach me sweetheart.” But the song swings from sensual to severe as the subject turns to her in-laws:

“My mother-in-law was standing by the stove/hissing like a snake, hissing like a snake ... She gave orders to spill my blood ...”

On “The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry,” the narrator seems to be aching for purity. She seeks solace in a wide variety of churches — and she lists them by name (and address!) :

“I went to the Right Road Ministry at 4801 S. Normandie. I went to the Armenian Brotherhood Bible Church at 5556 Harold Way ... the Iglesia Evangelica Rey de Reyes y Señor y Señores ... the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star and Kingdom of God in Faith at 3810 W. Slauson and I drove around listening to the Greater Bethany Tape Ministry ...”

(This song ends with Eleanor singing a series of telephone numbers. In a forum on a Furnaces fans’ Web site, someone called “todd” apparently called one of the numbers. He posted: “I called and a woman answered with a weak sounding ‘hello?’ and then i proceeded to ask if this was in fact the vietnamese telephone ministry, but she replied with ‘espanol!’ and i switched to my spanish asked her if she knew the fiery furnaces, and she said no ...”)

Sometimes the tempo and melody changes within a song are a little too abrupt for comfort and some of the studio trickery gets a little thick. (Maybe not so much backward vocals next time, OK guys?)

But overall, Bitter Tea confirms that the dreamlike sound of the Fiery Furnaces is some of the most interesting and strangely satisfying music being made these days.
(www.thefieryfurnaces.com)

Also Recommended:

Show Your Bones by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. “Sometimes I think that I’m bigger than the sound,” Karen O shouts repeatedly as the refrain to the song “Cheated Hearts.” Is this a self-critical examination, a chastisement for putting her ego ahead of her band? Or is it a self-affirmation, a way to say that holding onto her real identity is more important than any rock ’n’ roll facade? As her voice rises, it seems more a realization than a question. She’s bigger than the sound!

But that sound is pretty big, too, and here on YYY’s second album, it’s gotten even bigger. This little trio from Brooklyn (since moved to Los Angeles) is making a noise that’s just as loud as before, but broader — more accessible and pop-conscious without losing the ragged appeal that made us love them in the first place.

Such a move is a gamble that some bands can’t survive. (Why am I having these sad visions of Big Brother & The Holding Company?) On the single “Gold Lion,” which opens the album, Karen sings about taking “our hands out of control.” It takes a worried gal to sing a worried song.

But I’m optimistic about Yeah Yeah Yeahs.The music is even more irresistible than ever. And even when they get all anthemy on the last song, “Turn Into,” guitarist Nick Zinner channels Joe Meek and cuts loose with a craze, strangled solo that references The Tornadoes’ “Telstar.”

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 1, 2006


There’s a nifty little shindig going on next Tuesday. I’m helping pay for it.
But I’m not invited to join in the fun.

I’m talking, of course, about the 2006 primary, where Democrats and Republicans will be allowed to choose their nominees for the November election.


But I’m not a Democrat or Republican. I’m a proud member of the DTS classification. (That stands for “Declined to State,” not “Dedicated to Satan.”)

Many of us still use the word “independent.”

According to statistics on the Secretary of State’s Web site, 15 percent of New Mexico voters registered under DTS, while members of minor parties account for another 2 percent of the state’s registered voters.

In Santa Fe County, it’s 17 percent DTS, 3 percent minor parties.

That means that in this county a full 20 percent of registered voters are not allowed to participate in Tuesday’s election to help select candidates for the November general-election ballot.

Except to help pay for it.

State Election Bureau Director Ernest Marquez said Wednesday that the last primary cost taxpayers between $400,000 and $500,000.

The Founding Fathers had a catchy little phrase for such an arrangement: “taxation without representation.”

Doesn’t this smell like a lawsuit waiting to happen?

What to do?: One solution would be to let the parties run and pay for their own primaries. The state Democratic Party managed to pull off a similar operation in 2004 with their presidential-preference caucus.

Another approach would be an “open primary” in which voters of any affiliation could chose to vote in whichever party’s primary they chose. In other words, if you were enthralled by one of the three Republican Senate candidates, you could choose to vote in the GOP primary, no matter how you’re registered with regard to party affiliation. Or if you have a keen interest in the three Dems running for attorney general, you could choose to vote in the Democratic primary.

Twenty-one states do it this way.

The fear, of course, is mischief by the opposing party — Democrats voting for a Republican crook or goofball and vice versa — to assure a weak opponent in the general election. I guess that’s a possibility, though both sides have to realize such tactics could backfire.

(And even states with closed primaries have been known to elect crooks and goofballs from time to time.)

But don’t worry, fellow DTSers. Even though all the campaigns are ignoring you now, in a few months, all of them are going to want to be your friend. At least the ones who survive the primaries.

Campaign finance: The latest round of campaign-finance reports are due today. A day before the deadline, at least one candidate already was touting his numbers.

Democrat Moises Morales, trying to unseat Rep. Debbie Rodella in District 41, said Wednesday that he has doubled his treasury in the last month. He’ll be reporting he has collected a total of about $8,000 for his campaign.

Rodella has collected more. As of last month, she still had more than $17,000 cash on hand. That number is likely to rise today.

Morales has made an issue of Rodella’s contributor list, noting a large share of her cash came from out-of-state corporations. A spokeswoman for Morales said he only has two contributions from outside New Mexico — both from farmers in Wyoming. The larger of those two contributions is $200.

SMOKEY THE BEAR SUTRA

The Michael Martin Murphey firefighter benefit in Placitas was a blast Saturday. (See a bunch of photos from it HERE)

But one thing Murph said during his set puzzled me. Thanking Smokey Bear, who made an appearance working the crowd at the show, Murphey went into a rap about how Smokey had become "politically incorrect" during the '70s and had been banned, or at least discouraged from going into classrooms.

I honestly don't recall any left-wing "war on Smokey."

Well, there was John Nichols' The Milagro Beanfield War, where there was a "Smokey Bear santos riot." It's been a few years since I last read the book, but I think Nichols might have used Smokey as a symbol of the U.S. Forest Service, which was a frequent target of Northern New Mexico land grant activists in those days.

(Murph and Nichols both lived in the Taos area at the same time. Could they have engaged in some late-night cantina arguments over Smokey? Actually, the most passionate debate over the Bear is whether "The" is part of his name. I say it is. He's from Lincoln County, where that's a common middle name -- i.e. Billy the Kid).

But from my own hippie daze, I recall a more benevolent attitude toward the shovel wielder, as embodied in this 1969 epic by beat poet Gary Snyder:


Smokey the Bear Sutra
by Gary Snyder

Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago, the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite Void gave a Discourse to all the assembled elements and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings, the flying beings, and the sitting beings — even grasses, to the number of thirteen billions, each one born from a seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning Enlightenment on the planet Earth.

"In some future time, there will be a continent called America. It will have great centers of power called such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur, Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon. The human race in that era will get into troubles all over its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature."

"The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth. My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger: and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it."

And he showed himself in his true form of

SMOKEY THE BEAR
A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and watchful.
Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;
His left paw in the Mudra of Comradely Display — indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;
Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a civilization that claims to save but often destroys;
Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the West, symbolic of the forces that guard the Wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the True Path of man on earth: all true paths lead through mountains—
With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind;
Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her;
Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs; smashing the worms of capitalism and totalitarianism;
Indicating the Task: his followers, becoming free of cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes; master the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash.
Wrathful but Calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or slander him,

HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.
Thus his great Mantra:

Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana
Sphataya hum traka ham nam
"I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND.
BE THIS RAGING FURY DESTROYED"
And he will protect those who love woods and rivers, Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children.

And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television, or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR'S WAR SPELL:

DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out with his vajra-shovel.

Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice willl accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.
Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.
Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.
Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.
Will always have ripe blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at.
AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT.
thus have we heard.

(may be reproduced free forever)

XXXXXXX

And what would Cheech and Chong say about all this? CLICK HERE

2006 N.M. PRIMARY

My candidate profiles in The New Mexican for contested races can be found HERE.

The races I'm covering are U.S. Senate (in the Republican primary), land commissioner, secretary of state and the House District 41 race between incumbent Rep. Debbie Rodella and challenger Moises Morales. (All those are in the Democratic primary.)

I've taken a few snapshots of various politicos during this primary season. Check them out HERE

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, May 28, 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
Fancy by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Shotgun John by Hundred Year Flood
What it Means by Mates of State
Nobody Cares by The 88
Greasy Heart by The Jefferson Airplane
Another Day of Hunting by Redneck Manifesto
That Summer Feeling by Jonathan Richman

Taxi Driver by The Rodeo Carburettor
Lovefire by The Emeralds
Manhole by TsuShiMaMiRe
Pray For Asia by Takeharu Kunimoto & The Last Frontier
Sun Dance Moon Dance by Bleach 03
Stabbing by Jon
Sukiyaki Kyu Sakimoto

Bitter Tea by Fiery Furnaces
Escargot by Solex
Anxiety by Johnny Dowd
Blue Skies Will Haunt You by The Electric Ghosts
Nebraska Alcohol Abuse by David Thomas & Two Pale Boys
Cooper by Deerhoof
I'd Rather Be Dead by Harry Nilsson

Downtown Baghdad Blues by Black 47
Shock and Awe by Neil Young
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart by Wilco
Milky Way by Syd Barrett
Magpie by Mountain Goats
Goin' On by The Flaming Lips
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, May 26, 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
Street Walkin' Woman by Billy Joe Shaver
Motorcycle Mama by I See Hawks in L.A.
My Pretty Quadroon by Jerry Lee Lewis
Crawfishin' by Marcia Ball
We Shall Overcome by Bruce Springsteen
River of Love by T-Bone Burnett
Divers Are Out Tonight by Porter Wagoner

Johnny Armstrong by Michael Martin Murphey
What Am I Doing Hangin' Round by The Monkees
Big Beaver by Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys
Pussy Pussy Pussy by The Light Crust Doughboys
Smoke Smoke Smoke That Cigarette by Tex Williams & His Western Caravan
Stranger in Your Mind by Miss Leslie & Her Juke Jointers
You Only Kiss Me When We Say Goodbye by Cornell Hurd
Stalin Kicked the Bucket by Johnny Dilks
Lead Me On by Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty

Matthew 24 is Knocking at the Door/Girl in Saskatoon/If Jesus Ever Loved a Woman by Johnny Cash
Tiffany Anastasia Lowe by June Carter Cash
Your Great Journey by The Handsome Family
Seeds and Candy by Boris & The Saltlicks
Assembly of Dog by Hundred Year Flood
Rubberball by ThaMuseMeant
Say a Little Prayer by Mary & Mars

But I Love You by Albert & Gage
I Know You're Married (But I Love You Still) by Don Reno & Bill Harrell & The Tennessee Cut-Ups
The Silver Tongued Devil & I by Shooter Jennings
The Window Up Above by George Jones
Poor Old Tom by Richard Buckner
Blue Dreams by Ronny Elliott
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: NEW CACHE OF CASH

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New MexicanMay 19, 2006

Johnny Cash’s decades-spanning career produced a humongous catalog, which even before his death had been heading toward the same mindless route of recycling, repackaging, and regurgitation previously suffered by The Beach Boys and Elvis.

So when I first opened the envelope containing a new double-disc compilation of Cash material called Personal File, I was less than excited.

Until I looked at the song list and realized I hadn’t heard most of these 49 tunes, at least not by Johnny Cash. It turns out that this is a collection of home recordings, just Cash and his guitar, mostly from the mid-’70s, though there are a few stray tunes from the early ’80s. It was a period just past Cash’s height of popularity, a time when he was sliding toward the bitter sidelines of Nashville’s music-industrial complex.

Apparently these are from tapes uncovered, after the singer’s death, in a storeroom in Cash’s home studio. The ones included in this collection — and apparently more collections will follow, as there were “hundreds of boxes” of tapes, according to the press release — are from a group of white boxes marked “Personal File.”

No, it wasn’t a great era for the Man in Black. But this is a powerful collection of music for those of us who loved him. It’s almost as if Johnny Cash is singing songs from beyond the grave for a troubled world that still needs him.

There are a bunch of sentimental songs about home and Mama. There’s a smattering of Irish songs (“I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen,” “Galway Bay”), a set of Alaska (!) songs, capped off by a five-minute recitation of a Robert Service poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee”; there are covers of country classics like the Louvin Brothers’ “When I Stop Dreaming,” the Kershaw Brothers’ “Louisiana Man,” and John Prine’s “Paradise.” The recordings also include a tune by Cash’s stepdaughter (and former Santa Fe resident) Carlene Carter, “It Takes One to Know Me,” and “Missouri Waltz,” the state song of Missouri. (Sorry, but I can’t listen to this track without recalling a weird ditty my mama taught me that used the same melody. It starts off, “Mary Margaret Truman is the daughter of the pres/lives up in the White House with her father, Harry S.”)

And there’s an entire disc of gospel songs, including a couple of traditional tunes (“Farther Along,” “Have Thine Own Way Lord”) but also a whole slew of original Cash tunes that never were released before. These are the most important discoveries of Personal File.

He gets downright apocalyptic on a couple of songs. “Look Unto the East,” another Cash original, has such an abundance of alluring alliteration it could cause Kris Kristofferson to croak. “The teacher of truth told tales of troubled times that would begin/And the cynical sower sowed the sorrowful seeds of seven sins.”

The next track is “Matthew 24 (Is Knocking at the Door),” which Cash wrote with his son John Carter Cash in the early ’80s. The title refers to a chapter in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus warns of false Messiahs, wars and rumors of wars, famines, pestilence, and earthquakes — the beginning of the end.

“I heard on the radio rumors of war/People gettin’ ready for battle/And there may be just one more,” Cash sings here. The image of “the great bear from the northland” seems almost quaint now. (For you post-Cold War kids, the “great bear” was Russia, which people my age were supposed to fear and despise.)

Maybe the apocalypse Cash envisioned here didn’t happen right away. But no doubt about it, these are troubling times, and more troubles are certainly ahead.

But if you believe in Cash’s vision of Christianity, the answer is not to head for the hills — it’s to help and love each other. The songs here I like best are those that express Cash’s brand of Christian love and tolerance. In “If Jesus Ever Loved a Woman,” a song about Mary Magdalene (Holy Da Vinci Code, Batman!), Cash says of Jesus, “He never did condemn a man or woman just for being man or woman/and he always will forgive if someone tells him that they’re really truly sorry/but couldn’t stand the hypocrite, a person who’d pretend that they were holy and were not/I think he’d love someone like Mary Magdalene quite a lot.” This song is uncredited, at least on the advance copy I have. But I suspect, if it’s not an original, it might have been written by June Carter Cash. The phrasing, meter, and rhyme scheme remind me of some of her songs such as “Tiffany Anastasia Lowe.”

“Sanctified” seems to be a dialogue between a joyful, religious man and his inner demon. Cash plays both roles, speaking in his gruffest baritone for the voice of doubt and temptation and singing his better self’s response. “I don’t believe in God,” the lower voice mocks. “Well God bless you/you ain’t got no argument for what I feel inside,” the singer responds.

“No Earthly Good,” which has a melody eerily similar to “The Times They Are a Changin’,” razzes the holier-than-thou who are “so Heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good,” charging them to help the “hungry hands reaching up here from the ground.”

Similarly, on “What on Earth (Will You Do for Heaven’s Sake)” he asks, “Did you feed the poor in spirit and befriend the persecuted?” The song, he explains in the spoken introduction, was inspired by looking at the stars through a telescope from his home in Jamaica. “God cares for each and every one of us,” he says. “I guess he’s as small as we want him to be or as big as we want him to be. Although we’re earthbound, we can still be more like him if we try.”

Some say this country is headed toward theocracy. I sure hope that’s not true, and I’m pretty sure Cash wouldn’t want it that way. Maybe the antidote is the Gospel According to Johnny.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: DGA WON'T SAY WHERE AMERIQUEST CATERED

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
May 25, 2006

A spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association contacted me to inform me that last week’s column about an in-kind $102,000 contribution to the DGA from a mortgage company that just settled a multimillion-dollar deceptive-practices class-action suit with New Mexico and 48 other states contained an error.

The contribution from Ameriquest — which according to a federal disclosure report was for “catering and facilities” — was not used for a spring DGA conference in Arizona, spokesman Jon Summers said.

The dates of in-kind contributions listed on the disclosure reports, Summers explained, are the dates on letters from the contributors listing the value of the contributions — and usually are different from the dates when the contributions were used.

In this case, the listed date of the contribution, March 31, coincided with the DGA conference in Phoenix.

So I erred in connecting those dots.

Ameriquest is a company founded by DGA chairman Gov. Bill Richardson’s friend Roland Arnall, who now is ambassador to The Netherlands. Many Democrats opposed his nomination last year because of the class-action suit, which was prompted by thousands of consumer complaints around the country. That didn’t stop Richardson from endorsing him for the post last year, even while New Mexico was suing his company.

So if the $102,000 worth of catering and facility rental didn’t go for the Arizona shindig, what was it used for?

The DGA isn’t saying. “We won’t go beyond what is on the report,” Summers said this week.

Frozen Lightning: Here’s the perfect gift for the opposition research operative on your shopping list.

Frozen Lightning, subtitled "Bill Richardson’s Strike on the Political Landscape of New Mexico," is a quality paperback written by “Bill Althouse & a Thousand and One New Mexicans.”

Althouse is a Santa Fe author and longtime Richardson critic. The index cites works by everyone I know in the press corps, including yours truly. The book, whose cover is a photo of Richardson with lightning coming out of his underarms and a mushroom cloud exploding from below his belt — is scathing.

“Richardson rules his empire much like a prison warden,” Althouse writes, “walling off his enemies by stripping them of rank and placing them in a kind of solitary confinement that is the political equivalent of purgatory.”

And that’s just Page 1.

Almost any Richardson flap, foible or fumble you can think of can be found in Frozen Lightning. Wen Ho Lee; Guy Riordan; Eric Serna; Gerald Peters; the gov-ex-temp employees; Milton Sanchez and the Retiree Health Care Authority; the hiring of a good chunk of the state press corps; Sen. John Grubesic’s “flabby king” op-ed; the Hollywood connections; Billy the Kid; trains, planes, speeding sport-utility vehicles and spacecraft.

There are recaps of well-known stories and outright innuendo from anonymous sources that you haven’t read anywhere else (and probably never will).

Sometimes the rhetoric goes way overboard, such as calling Richardson a “tool for fascism” and “a politician driven to evil by his presidential aspirations.”

But anyone interested in New Mexico politics will have fun reading it.


And an inside color photo of the governor surrounded by a bevy of buxom belly dancers is itself almost worth the $12.95 price tag.

Election notes: The e-mail arrived too late to include it in my secretary of state candidate profiles Wednesday.

But a couple of groups active in election reform — VerifiedVotingNM and United Voters of New Mexico — made a joint endorsement of Stephanie Gonzales in that Democratic primary.

These groups pushed the bill requiring paper-ballot voting in all New Mexico counties.

Roxanne Rivera, who is working for state Sen. Joe Carraro’s U.S. Senate campaign, e-mailed me saying that I was wrong to say one of Carraro’s rivals was the only GOP candidate to have paid staffers.

Rivera said she’s being paid as communications director. Plus the Albuquerque senator has a paid campaign coordinator and a paid staff to handle campaign signs.

The Lamb that roared: Former state Election Director Denise Lamb said I made a slight error in a recent article where I paraphrased a quote about her frustrations with a former Bernalillo County clerk.

I said Lamb wanted to hang the clerk out of her window at the Secretary of State’s Office. But Lamb, who originally was quoted in The Los Angeles Times, says she wanted to dangle the clerk out of the clerk’s own window.

The difference? The Secretary of State’s Office is only two stories highs. The clerk’s office in Albuquerque was on the sixth floor.