wordpress 2.6, Manual SELECT query and tags

I’m using wordpress 2.6 and have a page where I need to call up posts via a manual select query, so i can sort them by a custom field. I more or less have it working, except I can’t get tags to display/work. I’ve included tables: terms, terms_taxonomy, and terms_relationships, but am running into some problems.

first, I’m getting multipe entries, ie each post shows up for as many tags as it has.

second, wp_tags still isn’t displaying anything in my loop.

any tips would be appreciated.