TWO LETTERS-TO-THE-EDITOR, FROM YOUR HOST:

(Crosswinds Weekly , Albuquerque, September 2, 2004)

Watching Out for the Feelings of Santa Fe's Republicans

No one dislikes President Bush more than I do, but still I am disturbed by how regularly I hear performers and speakers at public, nonpolitical events, even in restaurants, lambaste the President, as though the feelings of Republicans (of whom I think we still have a few in Santa Fe) don't matter.

I would ask my fellow Bush-haters to consider whether Republicans, too, don't have a right to be in public places without being insulted and assaulted in this way, and further reinforced in the bunker mentality which is afflicting all of us.

Jim Terr
Santa Fe

---

(Miami Herald, Sept. 5, 2004 )

A security boost

It's not unreasonable to consider what problems we might have addressed with the $100 billion that has been thrown at the Iraq war so far. Your Aug. 29 article Holes in U.S. security exposed by woman mailed to Miami citing the impossibility of examining every person and cargo container entering the country got me to wondering how many more we could inspect with that $100 billion.

A rough answer, assuming a cost of $5 per person or container, is 20,000 times the number inspected per year currently, based on the figures cited in the article. This would represent a real benefit to our security, versus the $100 billion blown under the false pretense that Iraq had something to do with terrorist attacks on the United States.

Jim Terr
Santa Fe, NM

(They left out this final sentence, maybe for the better): Perhaps some of that money could also be used to ship gullible Bush supporters back to some authoritarian country where they'd feel more at home.

BuDDy Almost Performs at NYC Republican Convention:
Real Audio  /  Windows Media  /  MP3 download

"In his letters and articles, Jim Terr makes too much sense. In any other country he would have long since been locked up."
            - Jonathan Alter, Senior Editor, Newsweek

"Jim Terr's spirit shows through consistently in the essays, songs and other projects he creates. It's the droll, sardonic, 'cut the B.S.' outlook that is known around the world as 'American.' His tone is especially valuable in an election year."                      
        - James Fallows

"Absolutely brilliant website. This guy does some of the best satire in the business.
One of the great comedic and auditory geniuses of our day."  - Thom Hartmann "A lot of times I don't like those (satire) songs, but I went around (singing) after I heard that song this morning, 'Pokin' the Bear....' " - Sam Seder, Air America

"A highly creative, satirical Outlander and asskicking comedian without parallel; an excellent writer...reminds me of Calvin Trillin...Jim Terr has too damn many websites"
-Mike Malloy

"Refreshingly biting and intelligent comments on the current state of our politcal affairs"
    - Jon Elliott, Air America

"Jim Terr’s creativity and versatility are unmatched. Well, almost unmatched."
                            - Hodding Carter

"A gentle agitator...who's come up with a way to lower the country's political temperature." -Paul Greenberg, syndicated columnist

STAMBERG'S FAMED RECIPE GETS MUSICAL
TREATMENTS, C&W AND CLASSICAL
Click to hear Jim Terr "country" version, MP3

From CURRENT, The Public Telecommunications Newspaper,
    December 4, 2000 (www.Current.org) What's stranger? That NPR has given Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg airtime to dispense an icky-sounding cranberry relish recipe over the air for 30 years? Or that, this year, a composer set the recipe to music, while a fictional country star dissed it in a protest song? Every year, in the days before Thanksgiving, Stamberg finds a new way to present the family recipe, a bright pink hash of cranberries, onion, sugar, sour cream and horseradish. Once she interspersed clips from classic movies throughout the delivery. Last year she chatted up Seattle fishmongers.The recipe has a following of vocal fans as well as naysayers. Some in public radio have made a tradition of fighting about the recipe on the Pub radio e-mail lists. Detractors call it selfish and silly, while supporters call it...self- indulgent and silly, but in a good way. Few spoke up either way this year, perhaps throwing up their hands in resignation. But no matter. The disagreement lives on, in music. In this corner we have New Mexico satirist Jim Terr. Fed up with the annual relish ritual, the Santa Fe resident woke up one morning and wrote "Susan's Cranberry Sauce," a shuffling minor-key lament in the style of Johnny Cash that asks the musical question, "I, too, love my mother-in-law and want to see her shine, but do you see me tryin' to push her loganberry wine?" "I don't mean to sound bitter," says Terr, who admits he has never tasted the relish. "It's in fun, but it was a matter of true irritation...I just thought only somebody with some power or pushiness or standing could get this thing on the air for 30 years." Terr plays bass guitar and sings, under the name Buddy Converse, with a friend who adds back-up harmony and what, with some generosity, could be called an "impression" of Stamberg. The chorus goes: "Shut up, Susan, go away, it won't be any loss, if we never hear again about your goddamn cranberry sauce." You can hear it at www.bluecanyonproductions.com/satire.html.

Terr admits that he was too muzzy with sleep when he wrote the song to recall that Stamberg's recipe is a relish, not a sauce. "I might have been able to rhyme relish. I might not have," he says.

Stamberg's recipe also inspired a non-musical how-to version by Monkey the stuffed monkey, viewable on this website, www.himonkey.net. (Photo: M.A. Pecen.)

Terr e-mailed Stamberg with the web link to his song, which also aired on Albuquerque's public station KUNM-FM. "Very funny," she wrote back. "Not WITTY, but funny." She also told Terr that this year's recipe rendition was her "swan song." (Stamberg was not available to confirm this.) Swan song is an apt turn of phrase, because, this year, NPR's listeners heard the relish recipe delivered not in Stamberg's distinctive voice, but by soprano Denise Konicek in the key of A minor. Konicek managed to imbue lines like "Makes 1-1/2 pints" with moving sorrow. Composer Rodney Lister of the New England Conservatory of Music, who wrote the song, provided piano accompaniment. Like Terr, the Muse struck Lister out of the blue. On his website (www.rodneylister.com) he explains that he decided to set the recipe to music after hearing last year's broadcast. He also encourages visitors to his site to let him know if they perform his song -- so keep an eye on your local concert listings for "Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish."

-Mike Janssen (c) 2000

YOUR WORST SUSPICIONS ABOUT THE MEDIA CONFIRMED
    (OR AT LEAST REINFORCED)

Interview with Janine Jackson, host of "Counterspin" media watch radio program (www.FAIR.org), conducted at the Taos (NM) Talking Picture Festival April 13, 2003 by Jim Terr for community radio stations KSFR-FM (Santa Fe) and KUNM-FM (Albuquerque).(Total time: 7:52) Windows Media   Real Audio   MP3 download for use on radio.

Questions:

1. Why is the White House press corps so timid and compliant, for the most part?

2. (at 1:56) Comment on the majority of the American public believing that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9-11 attacks despite the lack of any evidence.

3. (at 4:26) Comment on the observation of a former Oregon governor [John Kitzhaber? -- not 100% sure] that most politicans are more interested in getting re-elected than in taking a potentially unpopular stand on something they believe.

4. (at 5:53) Comment on politicians operating out of fear of "attack ads" which can twist almost any position into something negative and menacing.

5. (at 6:35) Why is National Public Radio not more of an "alternative" souce of news and commentary?

NEWS FLASH: RIGHT-WING RADIO IS NOT ALL THERE IS!
For a listing of most of the liberal radio available, see: www.makethemaccountable.com/listening/
     and http://progressivetalkradio.blogspot.com/
              And congratulations to Air America Radio.Visit the heroic archive of progressive radio shows, WhiteRoseSociety.org See what Garrison Keillor has to say on the subject!

 

Coming! New video:
RADIO NEWS READINESS
Building a radio news capability to connect a community to itself. The "how" and "why" of local radio news reporting.
(This foundation-funded video is almost completed, and needs additional funding for completion and distribution).

What does "October Surprise" mean? Perhaps you are familiar with the original "October Surprise" in 1980? It was the plan executed by those who backed the Reagan campaign who set out to unseat Jimmy Carter by making a deal with the Iranians (through the CIA) to continue to hold American hostages beyond the 1980 November elections.

"A day without an update or recommendation from Jim Terr is like a day without sunshine,
a night without stars, a party without guests, a pond without frogs, a dog without fleas,
a deer without ticks."

-Gershon Siegel, publisher, Eldorado Sun (Santa Fe)

Busy Putting Burrs Under Saddles: See, Hear Jim Terr

By Leslie Linthicum / Albuquerque Journal on Sun, Sep 18, 2011

LAS VEGAS, N.M. – Conservative demagogues who are familiar with Jim Terr might ask, “Jim, why do you hate America so much?”Everyone else who has heard Terr’s twisted country tunes about our current national morass might wonder why he isn’t famous yet.

Terr has been kicking around the music and film business ever since he graduated from Northwestern University in the early 1970s with a major in partying and a minor in English literature.While Terr has written some beautiful mainstream country tunes, he’s best-known for his novelty songs, which take on corporate greed, the NRA, menopause, Walmart, Glenn Beck, day trading, Santa Fe tourists, the American health care system, Joe the Plumber, Texas school board members, global warming, Karl Rove and Facebook.Have we left anything out?Oh, yes. Terr has also skewered common grammatical errors, the BP oil spill and NPR correspondent Susan Stamberg’s annual Thanksgiving piece on her mother-in-law’s cranberry relish recipe.“Believe me,” Terr assured me, “I’m an equal opportunity annoyer.”Terr, who has lived and worked in Santa Fe for most of his career, is back in his hometown of Las Vegas these days.

Terr (rhymes with “burr” – as in burr under the saddle of just about everybody) has been on my radar screen for a couple of decades, mostly because of his profuse letter-to-the-editor offerings, but it was two of his most recent songs that persuaded me I needed to finally meet him.“The Campaign Finance Song” is a subversive little piece that takes on the fundraising system that keeps members of Congress chasing campaign contributions. Terr’s solution is for each of us to just kick in six bucks and eliminate the possibility of special interest influence.And “Standard & Poor” examines the economic slide of the upper middle class. “I guess I’ve been downgraded, now I’m standard and poor,” is the money line.

Over coffee and papitas at the Spic & Span cafe, a short walk from his family home, Terr told me that finding targets for satire is as easy for him as tuning in to the news of the day or listening to people talk. His songbook grows thicker every day.“Since I’ve been in Vegas, I’ve been on a real amped-up song-writing streak,” Terr said. “Sometimes, I write a couple a day.”It’s not like there isn’t plenty of material out there for a willing satirist, and Terr sees something to get worked up about everywhere he looks.Indeed, Terr has a stunning array of songs and videos available on his websites, www.jimterr.com and www.bluecanyonsatire.com (old website, deleted) and on YouTube, where he recently passed 600,000 views (now over 2.5 million).

His oeuvre includes a spoof commercial spot for turquoise-encrusted jackalope droppings as well as “Chickenstock,” a Jewish parody of Woodstock, and a rock ‘n’ roll song about a public health care option accompanied by singing hamsters.Which is to say he’s not exactly mainstream.Still, Terr put out a record called, “Please Cut My Song, Mr. Travis” and even though Mr. Travis has not yet complied, Terr hopes to someday write a country hit.Even though he has been aired on NPR and other nationwide radio broadcasts and he has released a handful of CDs, he says he barely makes a living writing and recording songs.

His new CD, unreleased and as yet unnamed, is mostly comedy, only some of it political, and Terr said he’s tried to trim out the most partisan tracks.“It just cuts back your market to have songs about hating Republicans,” Terr acknowledged.Even so, the new CD will include “What We Need Is Another Texas President” and “Bosses of the World Unite.”And, for the record, Terr doesn’t really hate America. He just wants to keep it from flushing down the drain.“I don’t hate Republicans,” Terr assured me. “I’m anti-demagoguery and mass hysteria and so I attack it when I see it.”

Terr also likes to take a break from politics and just have some fun. Two of his most popular recent releases are “Mama Don’t Send Me to the Big Box Store” and “Do They Have Email in Heaven?” The punch line to that tune, which could be the official anthem of the 2000s, is “cause if not, I don’t want to go.”

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Leslie Linthicum at 823-3914 or llinthicum@abqjournal.com. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal