Reviews of Inside the New Mexico Senate: Boots, Suits and Citizens are beginning to come in (http://newmexicomercury.com/blog/comments/finally_an_honest_book_about_the_new_mexico_legislature)
I've got a few upcoming book signings I'd like to invite you to:
- For Santa Fe folks: Jan. 30th The Rio Chama Restaurant 414 Old Santa Fe Trail 5-7pm
- In Albuquerque: Feb. 4th 7 p.m. Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande Blvd. NW
Meanwhile: Here's a litle "out-take" in the form of a poem on one of the three main players in the book.
Boots
The smartest cowboys know
When to keep their own counsel
And when to hold forth, endlessly.
Bruce, the King of the Cowboys
Knew how to buttonhole you
How to tell you, his face right next to yours,
That “yer Mama would be so proud a yew,”
And you listened, because he was right.
“How’ya doing, How’ya doing,”
He asked all of us.
Bruce’s era spanned three decades, and more
Through homesteads, through ranches,
Through burning prisons,
Small towns with fewer people, and boxes and boxes
Of Pandoras.
Tim Jennings took us “down the road” a bit
His sheepish smile and huge girth
Seated in almost every chair,
Sprawed across every office the
Senate had to offer.
But don’t get him started about elk, about private property
He’s the last Democrat on the East Side, he’ll remind you.
And he’s loyal, he’s true, and the Senate is Supreme.
Bill Richardson always wore cowboy boots,
But I worried about the size. Those boots
Were made for walking, I suppose,
but did you ever notice
that Big Bill walked like his feet hurt?
Maybe the pain goes with the territory
For the Nortenos, too, those boys from the North,
All around me in the Senate.
They wore them anyway
Fancy in black tooled leather
Shined up for special occasions…
like Las Vegas day,
They were not worn and dusty like
The ones the Aggies wore,
Their toes still pointed toward El Paso.
“You can’t wear those in here,” the
Sargeant of Arms tried to tell the
Cockfighters, their black hats
Still firmly planted on their heads and their spurs
Beginning to scratch the marble floors inside the capitol.
“The hell we can’t,” one of the cockers hissed.
“We live here-- not like those sissy Animal Lovers
Those white women, they’re obviously from out of state.”
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