Getting el-get on OS X (Terminal emacs)

[Peter]

I've now spent quite a few hours trying to get el-get installed so I
can use it with the Terminal version of emacs on OS X 10.6.  I tried
the  installation code suggested at <https://github.com/dimitri/el-
get>, and tried copying the files by hand and running the el-get-
install.el script.  I made some headway with the script suggested here
<http://yergler.net/blog/2011/09/26/getelget-update/>, but I have only
an incomplete installation.  Some commands (el-get-list-packages)
work, but others (el-get-install, el-get-self-update) do not. When I
try to install, I giet

Symbol's definition is void, loadfile-rubric

If I try to update/re-install el-get itself, I get (something like)
"invalid recipe: 'nil'"

Can anyone suggest a way to make this work on OS X (in the Terminal
app)? It's running gnu emacs 22.1.1.  Do I need a newer base emacs?
Something else?

Thanks,
-pd