ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: A TRAVELING CONGRESSMAN

A Washington, D.C.-based institute dedicated to "fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue" by holding seminars and forums for Congress members in various parts of the world has paid more than $100,000 since the turn of the century for travel expenses for U.S. Rep. Tom Udall and his wife.

In trips paid for by The Aspen Institute, Udall has gone to conferences on "the global environment" in Lausanne, Switzerland, Barcelona, Spain, and Rome; a confab in Florence, Italy, on "the convergence of U.S. national security and the global environment"; conferences on "political Islam" in Helsinki, Finland, and Istanbul, Turkey; meetings between Chinese and American scholars in various cities in China; an education-reform conference in Canún, Mexico; and two conferences on Latin American policy in the beach resort city of Punta Mita, Mexico.

And don't forget a "congressional planning" meeting in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. — a popular location for congressional retreats — back in 2001.

The total cost of Udall's Aspen trips was $105,066.66.

The Legistorm Web site, which compiles a database of congressional trips, makes a notation — a dollar sign symbol — on the Punta Mita trips to indicate hotel charges were "unusually expensive." The hotel charges for Udall and his wife, Jill Cooper, were $3,175 for the January 2006 trip and $2,950 in January 2005. But that's probably just a case of Punta Mita being a pricey little town. Nearly all of the Aspen Institute's 61 trips for senators and representatives to Punta Mita listed at Legistorm have the "unusually expensive" icon.

Udall's trip to China last year, which cost more than $29,000, was the fourth most expensive trip a member of Congress has reported since 2000, according to Legistorm. The most expensive one was a $31,000 trip to London in 2000 by Rep. Thomas Billey, R-Va., and his wife, which was paid for by the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co.

In response to questions Wednesday about Udall's Aspen trips, spokeswoman Marissa Padilla said in a written statement: "The world is a dangerous place and there are complex global issues facing New Mexico and the nation today. Tom Udall has proven he'll do what's right for New Mexico and the nation by constantly working to expand his knowledge and maintain a strong grasp of the serious issues impacting us today. ... These high level policy conferences give Congressman Udall the opportunity to focus on the key issues affecting New Mexico and the nation. The Aspen educational programs have never cost the taxpayers a dime, and the Congressman has never missed a vote by attending them. ... Every week Congress is in session, the Aspen Institute also holds policy briefings and sessions with distinguished scholars and international experts that the Congressman attends."

What is the Aspen Institute? According to Aspen's Web site, the institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization created in Aspen, Colo., by Chicago businessman Walter Paepcke. Now headquartered in Washington, D.C., the institute has campuses in Aspen, Colo., and near the shores of Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

The institute's board of trustees includes former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; former Disney chief executive officer Michael Eisner; David Gergen, who has been an aide to several U.S. presidents, most recently Bill Clinton; and former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell.

Former Secretary of State (and Bill Richardson employer) Henry Kissinger; former Defense Secretary and World Bank President Robert McNamara; and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker are listed as "lifetime trustees."

According to a written statement by former U.S. Sen. Dick Clark, D-Iowa, director of Aspen's Congressional Program, in 2006, funding for the program was provided solely by Carnegie Corp. of New York, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, The Packard Foundation, the Charles S. Mott Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Asia Foundation.

Though corporate contributions aren't accepted for the congressional program, Aspen's most recent annual report lists dozens of corporate sponsors — assumedly for other institute activities. According to the most recent tax form available, Aspen took in nearly $55 million in contributions in 2005.

According to Legistorm, which has compiled congressional trips going back to 2000, Aspen has spent more money on congressional travel than any other group — more than $4.9 million on 894 trips.

Its closest competitor is the American Israeli Education Foundation, which has spent $2.5 million on trips since 2000.

According to Legistorm's breakdown, Aspen has spent more than $3.4 million on travel for Democratic members of Congress, compared with $1.5 for Republicans.

Other Aspen Institute trips: Udall isn't the only member of the New Mexico delegation to travel on Aspen's dime. Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman and his wife traveled to London in August 2002 for a conference on U.S.-Russia relations; to Helsinki alone in 2003 for the same conference on political Islam that Udall attended; and alone to Moscow in 2003 for another conference on U.S.-Russia relations.

Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., along with her husband and two children, went to the same conference in White Sulphur Springs that Udall went to, courtesy of the Aspen Institute in 2001.

Grubesic won't leave early. When state Sen. John Grubesic, D-Santa Fe, defeated incumbent Roman Maes in the 2004 Democratic primary, Maes, a senator since 1985, resigned to give Grubesic a little head start and a little extra seniority.

But Grubesic, who didn't seek re-election this year, said this week he won't do the same for state Rep. Peter Wirth, who won the Democratic primary unopposed and faces no general election opposition.

"I was elected to a four-year term and I intend to serve it," Grubesic said. Another factor in keeping his seat, he said, is the prospect of the long-threatened special session — currently rumored to be in the works for August or September, though anyone who really knows anything about it is keeping mum.

Wirth said this week that he doesn't mind waiting until January to take the District 25 Senate seat. In fact, he said, if there is a special session, he'd probably be more comfortable in his current House seat than as a newcomer to the Senate.

He said he's met with Grubesic recently, "just to talk about what I've gotten myself into."

PERSONAL FINANCE REPORTS ON SENATE CANDIDATES

You can read my story about the personal finance statements of New Mexico's two candidates for U.S. Senate, Tom Udall and Steve Pearce HERE. These are requried to be filed once a year by members of Congress.

As you can see, neither of these millionaires is going to have to be eating Snack Ramen anytime soon.

Udall's report is HERE.

Pearce's is HERE

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, June 15, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Hell or High Water by Hundred Year Flood
Son of a Gun by Goshen
Albert Goes West by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Selling the Wind by Pretty Girls Make Graves
The Wicked Messenger by The Black Keys
Sookie Sookie by Steppenwolf
Kill You Tonight by The Sinister Six

El Perversio by Deadbolt
Get Happy by Simon Stokes
Mumble and Bumble by The Seeds
These Boots Were Made For Walking by Johnny Thunders & Wayne Kramer
It's Not Bad by The Shakers
Marylou by The Astronauts
Big Boy Pete by Paul Revere & The Raiders
Draygo's Guilt by The Fall
Cha Wow Wow by The Hillbilly Soul Surfers
Mi Saxophone by Al Hurricane

Torture by King Khan & The Shrines
Can't Stop Thinking About You by Charles Bradley
Dirty Old Woman by Denise LaSalle
Cosmic Slop by The P-Funk All-Stars
Slow Bus Movin' (Howard Beach party) by Fishbone
Sherilyn Fenn by Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Can You Deal With It by Andre Williams & The New Orleans Hellhounds

Global a Go Go by Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
Shanghai by Hang on the Box
Soba Song by 3 Mustaphas 3
Sober Driver by Dengue Fever
Dyplomata by Kult
I'm Going to Leave You Satisfied by Divorced
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

R.I.P. LARRY WILSON

I was saddened this morning to hear about the death of Larry Wilson, the man whose giant spray-foam dinosaurs have amazed travelers south of Santa Fe for more than 20 years. You can read Anne Constable's obit HERE.

I interviewed Larry about nine years ago for my "Roadside Attactions" series I did for The New Mexican about weird and wonderful things along New Mexico's highways. I found him to be a very nice guy and way too modest about his art. Here's my section about Larry's creations from the May 30, 1999 issue of The New Mexican.

...the place that some locals refer to as "The Dinosaur Ranch." Actually, it's an otherwise mundane business called Thermal Coatings & Insulation, which specializes in insulating roofs and walls with polyurethane foam.

The company had been doing business at the site for several years. But in the mid 1980s, owner Larry Wilson turned it into a roadside spectacle when he built a couple of giant, realistic prehistoric critters out of rebar, wire and polyurethane. Wilson said he's been interested in dinosaurs since his childhood. He built the first one for his granddaughters who were studying dinosaurs in school.

"They came and said `Grandpa can you make a dinosaur,' so I said I'd try," Wilson said last week. "Of course, I don't think they were expecting anything that big."

Wilson said he had a large piece of rebar that suggested a brontosaurus. "I kept adding onto it and it took on a life of its own," he said.

Wilson sold that bronto and three other of his first dinosaurs to the city of Clayton's Chamber of Commerce. "They'd found some dinosaur tracks in an arroyo so they thought this would be a good way to promote that as a tourist attraction," Wilson said.

Other polyurethane dinos would soon replace the originals.

For the past several years the dinosaur display has featured characters that look like they belong in the 1969 cowboys `n' dinosaurs sci-fi flick Valley of the Gwangi -- a polyurethane cowpoke aside a polyurethane horse, roping a tyrannosaurus rex.

In a nearby coral there are more monsters -- a mamma and baby brontosaurus, a stegosaurus, and an honorary dinosaur a giant horny toad. Wooden owls are mounted on the four corner posts, in a futile attempt to keep birds away from the creations, birds presumedly fearing owls worse than they do dinosaurs.

Then, over at the company building there's another tyrannosaurus looking as if he's bursting through the wall. "He was originally outside," Wilson said. "But he fell over and broke his legs."

Although school classes and church groups often arrange for tours, Wilson said he has to keep his beasts behind a closed fence due to potential liability problems, as well as a spate of vandalism that plagued his dinosaurs about a year ago.

Though his dinosaurs have proven popular, Wilson has resisted temptation to cash in on his creations. He no longer sells his dinosaurs. "That would make it a job and then it wouldn't be fun anymore," he said.

"Besides, I'm not a good artist. Sometimes I'll have one eye bigger than the other or one leg longer. If I was doing them on commission, I couldn't do that. But when I do them for fun and make a mistake I'll just say this species hasn't been discovered yet."

STRINGER, KOMA, SPIDER & THE CRABS

Friday night on The Santa Fe Opry I played a song called "Chevy Headed West" by Jim Stringer & The AM Band, off their new album Triskaidekaphilia . It's a moving, bittersweet song about a couple of young guys on a road trip to California in 1968, worrying about Vietnam and learning about the assassination of Bobby Kennedy on their car radio.

In an early verse, Stringer sings the praises of KOMA, that renown 50,000-watt AM radio station in my hometown of Oklahoma City that blasted across the Great Plains every night (from Texas to Chicago, Stringer sings, but it also was heard out here in New Mexico.)

As I kid I mainly used to listen to WKY in OKC. But I'd frequently switch over to KOMA. They played the same basic music as WKY, but they'd always be advertising teen dance parties at VFW halls all over the Midwest -- Kansas, Iowa, South Dakota. There were several bands these ads would talk about, but the one name I remembered was Spider & The Crabs. What a bitchen band name! How could a Spider gig be anything less than totally cool? As a grade school kid I'd fantasize about going to these places. To hell with California dreaming. I wanted to go see Spider & The Crabs in Pierre, S.D.!

Stringer and I were e-mailing Saturday and I mentioned my KOMA memories. He told me that all those bands that advertised on KOMA were managed by a company called Mid-Continent Entertainment. Jim was in a couple of those bands, The Upside Dawne and Tide.

Furthermore there's a Web site that has MP3s of more than 20 of those groups including both of Stringer's early groups, The Red Dogs, the Bluethings ... and Spider & The Crabs!

It's a real treasure trove. CLICK HERE and enjoy!

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 13, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and our new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Daddy Was a Preacher, Mama Was a Go-Go Girl by Southern Culture on the Skids
Wild Old Nory by The Wilders
Jessico by The Kentucky Headhunters
Bow-Legged Charlie by Otis Taylor
Chevy Headed West by Jim Stringer & The AM Band
Uncle Sam's Jail by The Hacienda Brothers
I'm a Gonna Kill You by T. Tex Edwards & Out on Parole
Daddy Rhythm Guitar by Paul Burch
Animal Hoedown by Harry Hayward

Cool and Dark Inside by Kell Robertson
Rice and Beans by Utah Phillips
The Righteous Path by The Drive-By Truckers
Pigsville by The Waco Brothers
My Name is Jorge by The Gourds
Ruins of the Realm by James McMurtry

Rita's Breakdown by Mama Rosin
Brand New Mojo by Boozoo Chavis
Cajun Stripper by Doug Kershaw
Be My Chauffeur by Clifton Chenier
Alligator Man by Jimmy C. Newman
Down in the Bayou by The Watzloves
Give Him Cornbread by Beau Jocque & The Zydeco High Rollers
Sugarbee by Cleveland Crocket
So Long Baby by Jo-El Sonnier
Zydeco Around the World by Rockin' Dopsie

By the Sweat of My Brow by Hazel Dickens
I'd Rather Be Gone by Merle Haggard
Train of Life by Laura Cantrell
Lead Me On by Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn
I'm Watching the Game by The Boxmasters
The Salty Sea by I See Hawks in L.A.
Lorena by John Hartford
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: SWISS VOODOO CAJUN MUSIC

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 13, 2008

This is not your father’s Cajun music.

Tu as Perdu ton Chemin is the work of a Swiss band called Mama Rosìn.

Swiss Cajuns? There are no alligators in the Alps, but I guess they speak French in Switzerland as well as in Louisiana, though it’s a little different.


And, no, the band isn’t named after some nice old lady who speaks Yiddish and makes chicken soup. It’s a traditional Louisiana song best known from the version by Cajun stomper Zachary Richard and is covered on this album under the title “The Story of Mama Rosin.”

Befitting of the group’s label, Voodoo Rhythm, the sound is rougher and rawer than most of the authentic Cajun and zydeco music produced in recent years. No pop-hit covers, no reggae overtones or jam-band trappings here.

It’s rootsy bayou punk at its finest. The band sounds closer to Cajun than do The Watzloves, Voodoo Rhythm’s other group that dabbles in these sounds. (The German-based Watzloves, however, do have a member from Louisiana — DM Bob.)

These Geneva Mama's boys have all their traditional Cajun instruments down — accordion, banjo, and even a triangle. You can tell they love and respect Cajun and zydeco as they romp through traditional favorites such as “La Valse Criminelle” and “Pine Grove Blues.” They love the music and respect the tradition. But fortunately they don’t treat it too reverently.

There’s a hopped-up drummer who sounds as if he’s trying to beat an alligator to death with his sticks. And there are lots of weird little touches, such as the subtle electro-freakout surge that threatens to overwhelm the end of “Johnny Can’t Dance.”

The strangest and most wonderful song here is “Rita’s Breakdown,” which, in addition to the accordion and slide guitar, features almost industrial-style drums and some metal guitar. With the sirens in the background, it’s almost as if Public Enemy produced a BeauSoleil record.

You can’t help but love the simple touches too, such as the spirited if somewhat out-of-tune hollering by the singer on the waltz “Prairie Ronde.”

Also recommended:

* Someone’s Got to Pay by The Wilders. I’ve covered a lot of murder trials for The New Mexican, but I’ve never served on a jury. But Phil Wade, who plays guitar, mandolin, banjo, and dobro for the Kansas City, Missouri, country-rock band The Wilders, did, back in 2005. He and his fellow jurors in Jackson County decided on a life sentence for “a young man, recently divorced, who shot his ex-wife outside her apartment complex,” Wade writes in the liner notes of this album.

“As I listened to the testimony unfold, I was unnerved by a nagging familiarity to the story. It was an old murder ballad come to life.”

The life-sentence decision was not something Wade took lightly. And apparently the experience has haunted him. He wrestles with it on Someone’s Got to Pay.

This isn’t really a concept album, though there are recurring interludes called “Sittin’ on a Jury,” which deals with various aspects of the trial — the defense, the prosecution, the verdict, etc. Some end with the plea, “Hey, Mr. Judge, let me off of this jury.”

The murder-trial aspect of the CD lured this old crime reporter into the album, co-produced by “Renaissance Mountain Man” Dirk Powell. Thus I discovered a band that makes a tired genre sound fresh. Songs like “Wild Old Nory” (a hard-rocking bluegrassy tune that could almost be an old ballad though it was written by Wilder singer Ike Shelton) and “My Final Plea,” (a fiddle-driven honky-tonker) deserve to be alt-country classics.

* Trains and Boats and Planes by Laura Cantrell. This is a nine-song EP by a New York country gal. Cantrell, born in Tennessee, hosted a show called Radio Thrift Shop for many years on New Jersey’s WFMU-FM. (Full disclosure: I’ve never met Cantrell, but both of us are part of the Freeform American Roots (FAR) radio group that produces a monthly chart. )

In recent years, she’s become best known for her own music. Her 2000 album Not the Tremblin’ Kind made her a favorite of the late British DJ John Peel and helped lead to an opening spot on an Elvis Costello tour.

Cantrell’s talent is only eclipsed by her great tastes. I knew I was going to love Trains and Boats and Planes — if only for her covers of two of my favorite obscure country songs from the early ’70s: Roger Miller’s “Train of Life” (covered by Merle Haggard on his landmark 1971 Someday We’ll Look Back album) and John Hartford’s “Howard Hughes’ Blues” from one of his greatest albums, Morning Bugle (1972).

Plus there are versions of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” New Order’s “Love Vigilantes,” a sad soldier song that sounds like it was written as a country tune, and a nice down-home version of the Burt Bacharach-penned title cut, which originally was a “British Invasion” tune by Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas.

I believe there was a federal law in the 1970s that stated that all country-rock bands had to cover Haggard’s “Silver Wings.” I’m not sure if it’s still on the books (it might have been amended to “Pretty Polly” sometime in the late ’90s), but Cantrell does such a fine cover of the Hag classic you almost forget you’ve heard it a zillion times.

Sorry technophobes, but this is a digital-only release, available from iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, and other digital retailers. As the Firesign Theatre might say, if you ask for it at a store, they’ll think you are crazy.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: THE LATEST ON BUCKMAN

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 12, 2008

A colorful and controversial political consultant from Mississippi who caused some embarrassment for New Mexico Democratic Party leaders a few years ago is back in the news, this time for pleading guilty in federal court to not filing income tax returns.

Richard Buckman, 39, pleaded guilty in February to two misdemeanor counts of willfully failing to file his federal income tax returns for 2002 and 2003, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office from the Southern District of Mississippi. He faces a year in prison and a fine of $25,000 for each count.

Buckman is almost an archetypal behind-the-scenes Southern political operative. Chicago political writer Stump Connolly wrote about a hotel bar encounter with Buckman, then working for John Edwards’ presidential campaign, while covering the 2004 Wisconsin primary. His description of Buckman — “a dark, brooding man in a dark suit and camel’s hair coat leaning into my shoulder” — seemed to indicate someone who enjoyed creating an air of mystery about himself. Besides his political consulting firm in Washington, D.C., he also is a partner in an entertainment business in Los Angeles.

Buckman made national news in 2004 for allegedly offering U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., an unusual deal. Pickering said Buckman told him Democrats were willing to end their opposition to the nomination of the congressman’s father, Charles Pickering Sr., to a federal appeals judgeship. All Rep. Pickering had to do was agree to a redistricting plan that would effectively eliminate his congressional seat. (Buckman denied the story.)

In his current tax case, according to a May 29 story in the Sun Herald, a southern Mississippi paper, Buckman’s guilty plea was part of a plea bargain in which the government agreed to drop two other counts of failure to file tax returns. Those were from the years 2000 and 2001.

“The plea agreement also calls for Buckman to pay $181,714.81 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service for the years covered in the indictment,” the paper said.

During that four-year period, Buckman received gross income of almost $1 million, the U.S. attorney said.

Buckman’s sentencing, originally scheduled for last month, has been postponed until next month, the Sun Herald said.

“I have made some mistakes in my life and I am trying to make amends, do the right things, and get my life straight now,” Buckman told me in an e-mail Wednesday.

Buckman, The New Mexico years: Buckman first came to public attention in this state when several Democrats began to publicly question the $40,000 contract he had with the state party in 2004 and 2005. The contract was for “party building and fundraising.” But some party activists questioned the value of Buckman’s work and called the contract a “sweetheart deal” — literally — noting Buckman at the time was dating the party’s then executive director.

Then-state Democratic Party chairman John Wertheim defended Buckman in a 2005 interview, saying Buckman “did valuable work for the party in terms of fundraising” and had helped strengthen the state party’s relationship with the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Wertheim insisted Buckman’s relationship with the executive director had nothing to do with getting his contract. But the director resigned about a week after stories about Buckman and his contract appeared in The New Mexican. State Democrats said her departure had nothing to do with the stories.

But Wertheim on Wednesday no longer would defend Buckman. “As I learned more about Mr. Buckman, it has caused me to question whether it was wise to employ him as a consultant,” Wertheim said. “Hindsight is 20-20.”

There was another notorious New Mexico incident involving Buckman.

He was arrested in Albuquerque on a drunken-driving charge in October 2004. The two Albuquerque cops who pulled him over said Buckman showed the classic signs of intoxication — bloodshot, watery eyes, slurred speech and the strong odor of alcohol — and he failed a field sobriety test.

However, a judge later ruled the sobriety test wasn’t valid because Buckman was too heavy. Police guidelines state that DWI suspects who are more than 50 pounds overweight shouldn’t be given certain physical tests involving balance. So Buckman’s DWI charge was dropped.

Bad blood in Texas: Buckman became involved with another state Democratic Party executive director, though not in a romantic way.

Mike Lavigne, a former executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said Wednesday that he and a group of investors were “scammed” out of $35,000 by Buckman in a business deal involving the purchase of storage containers from the government. Lavigne created a Web site about Buckman, whom he calls a “con artist.”

Lavigne, who now has his own government and public relations firm in Austin, Texas, said Buckman promised to repay everyone involved when the deal fell through — but all the checks bounced.

When one of the investors confronted Buckman via e-mail, he replied, “The funds have been held up by the Feds is what happened. I am in meetings today with them as they want to have me roll on some people, mostly politicians and attorneys, in return for freeing my money, and making my charges go away. ...”

Asked about this Wednesday, Buckman replied: “There is no truth to what (Lavigne) says about me ‘scamming’ anyone. It was a business deal that didn’t work out. It’s his word against mine, no charges or lawsuits filed by him against me, so that just simply isn’t true. ... If Mike has an issue with his business with me he can file a civil lawsuit and a judge can decide, until then, that is what it is, nothing more.

“There was a conversation between he and I that was suppose to be confidential that there were people who wanted to discuss things with me. ... I am told that his repeating that and anyone who printed something of that nature could very well be committing Obstruction of Justice.”

Buckman’s sentencing is scheduled for July 25 in Gulfport, Miss.

REMEMBERING UTAH

My buddy Kell Robertson will headline a local tribute show next month for the late Utah Phillips. Also on the bill are Joe West, Georgie Angel, Kendall McCook, Mitch Rayes and Richard Malcolm.

Here's an excerpt from the official press release:

78-old New Mexico “beat” poet-songwriter Kell Robertson will make a rare public appearance to headline A Tribute to Utah Phillips concert at Santa Fe Brewing Company, Monday, July 14, 2008, starting at 7 pm. Joining Kell onstage to honor their mutual friend and inspiration, the late bard Utah Phillips, will be Joe West, Kendall McCook, Mitch Rayes, Richard Malcolm (of Burning Moonlight) and White Buffalo Music Presents Georgie Angel. Additional guests and friends of both Kell and Utah are expected to show up and sit in. Bill Nevins, contributing editor of Albuquerque ARTS monthly, will MC the evening. Admission is only $5 at the door, and fine food and beverages will be available.

This will be a rousing evening of music, stories, poetry and gentle rebellion, as befits the memory of the late Utah Phillips, the widely beloved songsmith, union advocate and raconteur who collaborated with Ani DiFranco on Grammy-nominated albums.

Kell Robertson, a long time friend and comrade-in-song of Utah Phillips, is himself an American treasure who has lived quietly in the Santa Fe area for the past ten years. He has performed his music and poetry from San Francisco to New York City .. For several years he tended bar and performed at the Thunderbird in Placitas, where he played and sang with the likes of Lightnin' Hopkins and hosted poetry and sang at Silva's Saloon in Bernalillo.

Kell lived in San Francisco for many years in the late 50s and early 60s, where he made his living singing at noted venues such as Vesuvio's and the Coffee Gallery, favorite hang outs for Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and other Beat writers of the fabled North Beach scene. Kell’s songs, recorded on the albums Cool & Dark Inside and When You Come Down Off the Mountain, are finely crafted and heartfelt music of the American West. Although mostly retired from performing, Kell composes poetry and still writes and plays his guitar every night on the secluded farm where he lives near Cerillos. A new collection of poetry is expected later this year from Pathwise Press

RICHARDSON BRINGS KILLER ROBOTS TO NM

Apparently they'll be in Alamagordo, where they could do millions of dollars in improvements.

ALAMOGORDO -- Governor Bill Richardson today announced DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Pictures and director Michael Bay will return to New Mexico to film major sequences for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The next installment of the box office hit Transformers is expected to hit theaters next summer.

“Transformers was a huge success and I am pleased that Dream Works, Paramount Pictures and Michael Bay have decided to return to New Mexico to film the second installment,” said Governor Richardson.

The first film, starring Shia LaBeouf, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Megan Fox and John Turturro, grossed more than $700 million worldwide.

The current production has been prepping in Alamogordo since April and expects to begin filming in the fall.