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THE CITY WRITES ITSELF FIVE FLASH F IC T ION C ON T E S T W INNER S P 20
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THE CITY WRITES ITSELF
April 3 – 16, 2019 // Vol. 6, No. 8 ©2019. All rights reserved. PUBLISHER Jim Langdon
P20
EDITOR Jezy J. Gray ASSISTANT EDITOR Blayklee Freed DIGITAL EDITOR John Langdon
Five stories from our second annual flash fiction contest
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Madeline Crawford GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Georgia Brooks, Morgan Welch PHOTOGRAPHER Greg Bollinger
THE RADICAL WRITE
AD SALES MANAGER Josh Kampf CONTRIBUTORS Alicia Chesser Atkin, Kyra Bruce, Jenna Buschmann, Matt Carney, Courtney Cullison, Tyler Dempsey, Charles Elmore, Barry Friedman, Jill Grady, Destiny Jade Green, Greg Horton, Judy Langdon, Tamsin Marischal, Gary Mason, Makaila McGonigal, Christopher Murphy, Deon Osborne, Michelle Pollard, Mason Whitehorn Powell, Kris Rose, Joseph Rushmore, Terrie Shipley, Elizabeth Sidler, Bhadri Verduzco The Tulsa Voice’s distribution is audited annually by
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Inspired by flash fiction contest second place winner “The Lover” by Tamsin Marischal | DESTINY JADE GREEN
1603 S. Boulder Ave. Tulsa, OK 74119 P: 918.585.9924 F: 918.585.9926 PUBLISHER Jim Langdon PRESIDENT Juley Roffers VP COMMUNICATIONS Susie Miller CONTROLLER Mary McKisick DISTRIBUTION COORDINATOR Amanda Hall RECEPTION Gloria Brooks
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FOOD & DRINK
NEWS & COMMENTARY 8 HELP WANTED B Y COURTNEY CULLISON
14 VIVA CUBA B Y TERRIE SHIPLEY
Restoring the Earned Income Tax Credit would boost the working poor
Mangos Cuban Cafe brings Havana to the Pearl
10 THE FRAUD OF THE FRAUD B Y BARRY FRIEDMAN
16 WHOLE HOG B Y GREG HORTON
The GOP and voting
12 DISPATCH FROM NINNEKAH B Y ELIZABETH SIDLER Why do we know so little about county government?
CEL EBR AT E E A R T H D AY IN T-T O W N
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38 PUNK’D B Y KRIS ROSE
Boulevard Trash is a Tulsa treasure
VOL. 6 NO. 8
THE CITY WRITES ITSELF FIVE F L A SH F IC T ION C ON T E S T W INNER S P 20
ON THE COVER Inspired by flash fiction contest finalist “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in Tulsa” by Jenna Buschmann PHOTO BY BHADRI VERDUZCO THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
40 FOR THE GRRRLS B Y KYRA BRUCE Sylvia Wrath shows Tulsa ‘how angry teen girls can be’
30 TULSA GOES GREEN B Y DEON OSBORNE Experts, activists, and artists celebrate Earth Day in T-Town
31 SAY IT LOUD B Y TULSA REACHES OUT STAFF
Prairie Creek Farms feeds Tulsa responsibly
Advocacy groups seek input from the LGBTQ+ community
18 ALES FOR TRAILS B Y BLAYKLEE FREED
32 PEOPLE, PROFIT, PLANET B Y JUDY LANGDON AND TTV STAFF
Dead Armadillo taproom event boosts Turkey Mountain maintenance
MUSIC T UL S A LITFEST R E T UR NS
ARTS & CULTURE
TV & FILM 44 MIRROR IMAGE B Y CHARLES ELMORE
‘ Us’ is a horrifying funhouse reflection of American life
45 CHAOS IN THE KEYS B Y MASON WHITEHORN POWELL
‘ The Beach Bum’ is a beautiful ride to the bottom
A conversation with Sustainable Tulsa’s executive director
33 MEET THE FELLOWS B Y TTV STAFF
In the studio with Edgar Fabián Frías
34 POST-SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER B Y MATT CARNEY The Thunder limp toward NBA’s Western Conference
ETC. 6 EDITOR’SLETTER 9 YOURLETTER 36 THEHAPS 42 MUSICLISTINGS 45 FULLCIRCLE 47 THEFUZZ + CROSSWORD CONTENTS // 5
editor’sletter
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” — James Baldwin
M
y mom died two weeks before my 30th birthday. I bought a plane ticket to New York months earlier, to celebrate the upcoming milestone with an old friend—a trip I took, though there didn’t seem to be much to celebrate. On the flight, my grief a wet wound, I reconnected with an all-time favorite novel: “The Stranger” by Albert Camus, which I read from
cover to cover before touching down at JFK. The book begins with the iconic opening line: “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.” From there, Camus spins the bruising and befuddling tale of Monsieur Meursault, an enigmatic weirdo unmoved by the chaotic and indifferent universe beating down on him. It ends— spoiler alert—with our anti-hero embracing life’s absurd antipathy from a prison cell: “I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.” This might seem like odd reading for a mourner on their birthday. But I too felt unanchored and driftless, stunned by the blows of existence, and at the mercy of forces beyond my control.
I needed to spend time with Meursault—to try and solve the puzzle of understanding him, though it’s impossible, and hopefully, myself (also impossible). This is the weird and wonderful magic of reading. This issue of The Tulsa Voice marks our second annual flash fiction contest, presented in partnership with our friends at Nimrod International Journal. Inside you’ll find five very short stories from Tulsa-area and Tulsaconnected writers that pricked, prodded, and delighted us in the best possible way. I hope you’ll be moved and puzzled when the Statue of Liberty vanishes alongside the dreams of America’s heartland in our winning story, “Six Photos from the Lower Midwest: 19901997” (p. 27). And that you’ll find
RECYCLE THIS Cardboard
yourself drawn in close by the delicate prose of “The Lover,” before being sliced open by its masterful ending (p. 28). I hope you laugh and recoil when an absolutely buck-wild teen smacks another girl across the mouth with a leg brace in “All is Dull at the Kum & Go” (p. 30); root for the heroine in “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in Tulsa” (p. 29); and call your grandparents, if they’re still with us, after reading “The Gathering Place” (p. 31). Weird and wonderful abounds. I hope these little stories show you something big. a
JEZY J. GRAY EDITOR
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NEWS & COMMENTARY // 7
okpolicy
T
HELP WANTED Restoring the Earned Income Tax Credit would boost the working poor by COURTNEY CULLISON for OKPOLICY.ORG
8 // NEWS & COMMENTARY
here are multiple tax breaks for high-income individuals and businesses in Oklahoma’s tax code. But just three tax credits are targeted at low-income Oklahomans, and one of those—the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)—was slashed in 2016 to help balance the books during a severe budget crisis. That move to undercut a key poverty-fighting tool with a long history of bipartisan support was one that many lawmakers regretted at the time and still regret today. Now that the state’s budget outlook has improved and lawmakers are looking at a healthy surplus, the Legislature should focus this year on correcting that mistake by restoring the EITC. The EITC most benefits the working poor—people who are working hard in low-wage jobs trying to get ahead and support their families. The credit is designed to encourage work and help low-income families avoid poverty. The credit grows along with a family’s income up to a certain threshold and then gradually phases out so that it never becomes a disincentive to earning more money. The state EITC is still available in Oklahoma, but it’s no longer refundable—that means it doesn’t help working families nearly as much as it used to. Since 2016, if a family’s state EITC is larger than the amount they owe in income taxes, the balance is no longer refunded to them. This cut resulted in more than 200,000 Oklahoma families losing some, or all, of the value of their state EITC. Statewide, low and middle-income working families lost nearly $28 million due to the cut. That’s an average of $121 per family, and many low-wage families lost even more. This cut is a substantial loss for low-income families, but it’s also a loss for our communities. Households that receive the
EITC use a large portion of their tax refunds to purchase basic needs, like food and clothing, or bigger-ticket items they’ve been putting off—replacing a broken appliance, for example. Those purchases put money right back into the local economy to support local businesses and generate sales tax revenue for state and local governments. The EITC also improves the overall health and well-being of the families that receive it, according to a wide body of research. Children perform better in school and are more likely to graduate from high school. Mothers are more likely to receive prenatal care and have healthier babies. And families can save some of the money as a safety net that prevents them from slipping into poverty, alleviating a great deal of stress from parents. The Legislature has been close to a bipartisan agreement to restore the EITC in the last two legislative sessions, but it was dropped from the fi nal budget deal in both years. This session, a total of nine bills to restore the refundable state EITC were introduced in the Legislature. None of these bills were taken up by their respective committees before the committee deadline, but that doesn’t mean this proposal is dead. Restoring the EITC could still be included in the budget package and added to legislation that can be introduced at any time through the Joint Committee on Appropriations and Budget. For more information about how cutting the EITC affected your county and what you can do to advocate for a restored EITC, visit oksays.com. a
Courtney Cullison is an economic opportunity policy analyst with Oklahoma Policy Institute (okpolicy.org). April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
yourvoice LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
“ Nowata County sheriff, staff resign over safety issues with jail; sheriff alleges judge tried to bribe her to keep it open” — Tulsa World, March 19 I want to give a show of support to the Nowata County sheriff [Terry Barnett]. She stood up for what is right and resigned rather than do the wrong thing. She [allegedly] turned down a bribe from Judge Gibson. Then told him to his face how corrupt the county is. I support her and all the county police who also resigned. I hate that they had to resign. They are the very types of people we need in those positions. Our criminal justice system is very corrupt. You don’t have to look very hard to see that. I am also wondering, since the county sheriff publicly accused Judge Gibson of offering her a bribe: Why is there not an inquiry or investigation into this matter? We need to clean house like we did with the county commissioners in the ‘70s. Roger Gibson Tulsa, OK
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THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
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tulsachamber.com NEWS & COMMENTARY // 9
The fraud of the fraud The GOP and voting by BARRY FRIEDMAN
J
ust how dead does this horse have to be before the GOP stops beating it?
11 percent of Hispanic respondents reported that they were incorrectly told that they weren’t listed on voter rolls, as opposed to 5 percent of white respondents. In all, across just about every issue identified as a common barrier to voting, black and Hispanic respondents were twice as likely, or more, to have experienced those barriers as white respondents. (The Atlantic)
In what Rep. Sean Roberts described as an attempt to restore faith in the electoral process, the Republican lawmaker from Hominy has proposed a bill that would authorize and require the state to periodically check the citizenship status of all registered voters in Oklahoma. (The Frontier)
For the love of Kris Kobach lying to a federal judge—really, another cockamamie law designed to prevent the non-existent scourge of voter fraud? This latest effort, HB 2429, would direct the Oklahoma State Election Board to use federal and state databases to check the citizenship of registered state voters. Guess it would have been asking too much for Roberts to check with anyone on the board to see if there was even a problem, or knew what he was talking about. Paul Ziriax, secretary of the Oklahoma State Election Board, said of the more than 2.1 million Oklahoma voters who cast ballots in years past, there was a grand total of 10 cases of possible voter irregularity. To the bill, specifically, election board spokesperson Misha Mohr said: “We don’t know what resources are actually out there. … We’re not really sure what’s at our disposal and how much it would cost, if it would be feasible.” Surely, then, the Oklahoma House laughed this legislation out of the building. More from The Frontier: The bill passed the House with a 66-26 vote on Tuesday evening and will next be considered by the state Senate. 10 // NEWS & COMMENTARY
Here’s how it worked in Georgia: About 40 Black seniors excited about voting in Georgia’s Governor’s race, were ordered off a bus on their way to cast their ballot on Monday raising concerns of yet more voter suppression attempts. (The Grio)
Wow. Here is the most offending section of this offensive legislation: Persons who are identified in the data validation pursuant to this section as potentially being noncitizens and who are registered to vote shall be reported to the district attorney in the county in which the voter is registered. (HB 2429)
District attorneys will investigate “potentially being noncitizens”? How much you want to bet none of the people investigated will look like Sean Roberts? As Ginnie Graham of The Tulsa World put it: Good luck to all those who go by Lopez, Gonzales or Rodriguez. I can already feel the headache for the Masuds, Patels, Habibis and Nguyens.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Native Americans get caught up in this sweep. Oh, the sweet irony of that.
Roberts’ bill, alas, is part of the great national GOP con that maintains hordes of illegal aliens and unregistered voters are gumming up our electoral process. In reality, it’s the GOP policies that are destroying it. The new data support perhaps the worst-case scenario offered by opponents of restrictive voting laws. Nine percent of black respondents and 9 percent of Hispanic respondents indicated that, in the last election, they (or someone in their household) were told that they lacked the proper identification to vote. Just 3 percent of whites said the same. Ten percent of black respondents and
These seniors were neither illegal nor trying to vote without proper identification—they were African American and headed to vote, presumably, for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. At the time, Georgia’s GOP secretary of state, Brian Kemp, oversaw the state’s voting procedures while also running for governor against Abrams. I’m sure that had nothing to do with it. Nor did this: Georgia removed almost 732,800 voters in its previous round of rolls cleanup between 2014 and 2016, according to a recent report from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. (Atlanta Daily World)
Kemp beat Abrams by barely more than 50,000 votes out of 2 million cast. April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
Just a coincidence. Nothing to see here. Here’s how the GOP worked its magic in Wisconsin: More than half the state’s decline in turnout occurred in Milwaukee, which Clinton carried by a 77-18 margin, but where almost 41,000 fewer people voted in 2016 than in 2012. Turnout fell only slightly in white middle-class areas of the city but plunged in black ones. (Mother Jones)
Trump beat Clinton by fewer than 23,000 votes in Wisconsin. Damn coincidences. Roberts’ bill is designed to purge, burden, and scare voters who are inclined to vote for Democratic candidates—like every piece of similar legislative dreck in the country. In 2016, 14 states had new voting restrictions in place for the first time in a presidential election. Those 14 states were: Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. (Brennan Center)
Hmmm. That’s a lot of red. So why are Republicans so desperate to rig the process? They can’t win otherwise. In the last six presidential elections, beginning with Bill Clinton’s first term, the GOP has lost the popular vote in six of the seven races, during which it has worked assiduously to curtail weekend and mail-in voting, ban same-day registration, institute strict new voter/ photo IDs, gerrymander districts which disenfranchised Democratic voters, prohibit those with past convictions from voting, and require proof of street addresses, marriage and birth certificates— sometimes a combination—before allowing people to vote. The GOP simply cannot compete on a level playing field. Nearly a thousand polling places have been closed nationwide in the last half-decade, according to a recent Pew report. And the number of people being purged from voter rolls is rising sharply, according to a Brennan THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
Center study. Another study by the center last year counted at least 99 bills introduced in 31 states to restrict voting access. (New York Times)
Why is it we never hear of any Republican leading voting registration drives and encouraging people to vote? Simple: It’s not in their interest. Lying about voter fraud is. More from the Brennan Center: Most reported incidents of voter fraud are actually traceable to other sources, such as clerical errors or bad data matching practices. The report reviewed elections that had been meticulously studied for voter fraud, and found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent.
And even in those rare occasions when fraud is alleged, who’s at the center of it? North Carolina will hold a new election for a congressional seat following an investigation into alleged ballot-tampering for a Republican candidate. (BBC News)
The GOP doesn’t shame easily though. On Nov. 27, a few weeks after the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump tweeted: “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” The president lied. How do we know? The National Association of Secretaries of State released the following statement on voter fraud: “We are not aware of any evidence that supports the voter fraud claims made by President Trump.” (U.S. News)
Never one to let truth get in the way of a tweet, Trump nevertheless appointed former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to head—please hold your laughs ‘til we’re finished—the Election Integrity Commission to prove otherwise. Problem is, Kobach has the integrity of skim milk and was found in contempt of court
last year in a case involving state voting laws. During his brief tenure as head of the commission, Kobach requested data from all 50 states’ voting rolls, including full names of registered voters, dates of birth, party registration, last four digits of Social Security numbers, and voting history. Let’s just say it didn’t go well. Republican Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said in response to the request: “My reply would be: They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.” Oklahoma officials complied with the request but only to the extent that the information it gave Kobach was the same information given to candidates. (My favorite response was from the state of Oregon, which only turned over the information after the Trump Administration paid a $500 fee.) Which bring us back to the cynicism of HB 2429. More from The Frontier: State election board officials in 2017 conducted a query into voting fraud attempts into the 2016 presidential election and found one noncitizen in Kay County who attempted to register to vote. However, no charges were filed. The board found 17 other alleged attempts of illegal voting, which came from Oklahomans who tried to vote twice, records showed. More than 1.4 million Oklahomans voted in that election (with 18 findings about .001 percent of the votes were found to be allegedly fraudulent).
Roberts would have you believe, though, if we can find those 18, the Republic will be saved—if there even is 18. Or any at all. Roberts, while on the House floor, said it is unknown how many non-citizens are registered to vote in Oklahoma.
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NEWS & COMMENTARY // 11
statewide
Ninnekah in Grady County has a population of around 1,000 and falls outside of any municipality. County government often fills the gaps between municipalities, providing emergency services, road maintenance, and law enforcement in rural Oklahoma. | ELIZABETH SIDLER
Dispatch from Ninnekah Why do we know so little about county government? by ELIZABETH SIDLER
D
riving south on Old Highway 81 toward Ninnekah, Oklahoma, my colleague and I pass endless waves of rolling hills, retention ponds, and cows. Just a few miles north is a Walmart and a Chinese restaurant, a Walgreens and a university. But out here, if not for the occasional phone line maintenance and scattered ranch-style homes, you might not think there were any people in all of Grady County. We turn left at the shotgun-peppered “Ninnekah Public Schools” sign and drive the posted 20 mph through the heart of town. We pass a modest community center, the First Baptist church, a defunct arcade, and the Shamrock where old men gather for coffee at sunrise. Perched on a few acres of hillside sits Ninnekah High School. We’re in this small town just south of Chickasha to work on a semester-long, hands-on civics project as part of a national civics education program called Generation Citizen. Our project is built 12 // NEWS & COMMENTARY
on the idea that all students have the right to a civic education that prepares them to be active, effective members of our democracy. While taking in the pastoral beauty during our drive down from Oklahoma City, we talked through the day’s central question: In what ways will an effective civics education benefit these students? Why do these 60 kids in a town of 1,000 need a good civics education? Past wooden benches and an empty flag pole, concrete paths lead to the tinted-glass entrance to Ninnekah High School. Inside, one hallway runs through the school in a long oval. We say hello to the school secretary, sign in, fi ll out our nametags, and head clockwise past the front desk to Coach Chuck Yackeyonny’s classroom. Coach “Yack” welcomes and introduces us to the 20 tenth graders in his second-hour U.S. Government class, with murals of student art featuring Star Wars characters and Marvel superheroes splashed across the classroom
walls. They’re hesitant—understandable at the beginning of a new and dubious “action civics” project—but as soon as they start talking about the issues they see in the community and the things they want to improve, these students open our eyes to a new civic world. GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT Common threads through all three Generation Citizen classes at NHS were the need for more economic development—restaurants, a bank branch—and better roads. In the state capital, Oklahoma City, both issues can be handled at the municipal level. But in this town of 1,000 there isn’t a Chamber of Commerce and all of the roads are the responsibility of the county. Students are concerned with hyperlocal issues for which there are not clear municipal government solutions. The city’s website describes Ninnekah as “a quiet little farming community.” As such, the economy can be hard for modern eyes
to see, trained as we are by retail. And public institutions are no different. There is a City Hall, and the mayor and clerk can be reached by email, but the Grady County Water District #7 maintenance truck that flew by us on Hwy 81 is a much better indicator of where the civic action is happening. There are 77 counties in Oklahoma, responsible for maintaining everything from roads to health departments, jails to fairgrounds. And in a county like Grady, full of small communities like Ninnekah and households outside of any municipality, county government often fulfi lls the critical role of fi lling in gaps between municipalities by providing emergency services either directly or through agreements with nearby cities. County officials are primarily responsible for maintaining the peace, protecting health and property, and enhancing economic opportunity. Within these broad categories, officials enforce laws; build and maintain county roads; April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
keep official records; collect, maintain, and disburse county revenues; and help to ensure the physical health and well-being of county citizens. Despite its major impact on our lives, people rarely talk about being “from” a county. They identify with their city and their state. Counties are just administrative subdivisions of the state with no legislative power and the nebulous purpose of maintaining the peace. When one realizes how the peace is kept, it’s all too clear how essential is it to understand and engage with county politics. COUNTIES BEHAVING BADLY In 2018, 43,000 people were incarcerated in Oklahoma, and 13,000 were held in county jails. County Commissioners are required to inspect jails once a year, but the lack of oversight in county government means there are often few checks and balances to ensure those requirements are duly upheld. The living conditions of so many Oklahomans in county jails—nearly one-third of whom have not been convicted of a crime—lie with the oversight, decision-making, and investment of county officials. In March, Nowata County Sheriff Terry Sue Barnett resigned—along with most of her staff, including the canine ranger who “resigned with his paw print”—based on what she called “hazardous conditions” in the county jail. Barnett cited numerous health and safety concerns related to the under-funded facilities, including a carbon monoxide leak which sent four employees to the emergency room and prompted closure of the jail on Feb. 28. Scandal rocked Grady County a couple months earlier, when a special state investigative audit revealed that a handful of county officials had been overpaid by more than $727,000 since 2008. The state sets salary limits for its employees, but the Grady Commissioners began ignoring that cap in 2008 and, in some cases without the knowledge of newly-elected or appointed officials, ushered several generations of county officials into the scheme. Counties have critical responsibilities, which is reason enough to pay more attention to who THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
is elected to county office and how they choose to conduct their affairs—but they are also easy seats of mismanagement or corruption when there aren’t dedicated channels of oversight. Representative government does not work the way it’s supposed to when there are no clear accountability measures between elected and bureaucratic officials and the people they represent. Elevating the profi le of county government is good for democracy. That’s the lesson we want to impart to students at Ninnekah High School. WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE As it stands, the county is one of the least-discussed segments of government. And if county government is responsible for the majority of public services in a town, is it any wonder that people would think it easier or more sensible to have their neighbor help fix the pothole in front of their house than to learn which level of government is responsible for that road, how to contact them, and how to persuade them to make the repair a priority? Working in Ninnekah is helping us understand that anyone interested in revitalizing the civic life of our country can’t just talk about effective civics education. We have to begin by seeing, smelling, and feeling the context in which these civic skills are going to be used. We have to ask: What does civic life look like here? The more time we spend thinking about and interacting with civic life in places like Ninnekah, the more we see the natural reciprocity between smalltown life and the preference for “small government.” The men getting together for coffee at the Shamrock know each other and know how to lend a hand when things get tough. But as the torn-up Shamrock parking lot proves, even these folks want Grady County to get to work when conditions demand it. a
Elizabeth Sidler is Oklahoma Senior Program Associate at Generation Citizen, which empowers young people to become engaged and effective citizens. For more information, visit generationcitizen.org.
Greenwood Cultural Center
Legacy Award Dinner Thursday, April 18, 2019 6:30 p.m. – Reception 7:00 p.m. – Dinner
Honoring Chief Bill John Baker Cherokee Nation
David Cornsilk
Marilyn Vann
For table sponsorships and tickets, contact Frances Jordan-Rakestraw at (918) 596-1025 or francesjordan@greenwoodculturalcenter.com.
Greenwood Cultural Center
322 North Greenwood Avenue • Tulsa, OK 74120 NEWS & COMMENTARY // 13
citybites
Viva Cuba
Mangos Cuban Cafe brings Havana to the Pearl by TERRIE SHIPLEY
A
t the corner of Fourth Street and Trenton Avenue, Tulsans can soon sample the complex Cuban flavors of matriarch Oneida Martinez’s Miami kitchen. “My grandma spoiled us rotten, man—with food,” said Anthony “Tony” Martinez, owner of Mangos Cuban Cafe. “Abuela would say, ‘You guys are so skinny! I’m gonna cook you some arroz y frijoles negro.’” With each bite at Mangos, Tony wants guests to feel like they’re in his hometown of Miami, Florida, where more than half of the population is Cuban. “This food brings back memories … of my grandma who used to cook us one of these dishes every day,” Tony said. Though Oneida has since passed, her culinary legacy lives on in the five generations that have succeeded her. Many of them are now hard at work at Mangos. “This is a family operation,” Tony said. “This food is gonna be cooked with a lot of love and pride.” All hands were on deck as the family staff prepared for the cafe’s fast-approaching grand opening. Tony’s sister Ivonne might have had the most challenging task. When asked what she was helping with, she passionately answered: “Bringin’ that flavor!” Despite the relative emptiness of the small, colorful restaurant, an element of familial chaos ran throughout my interview with the Martinez family. In fast-paced Spanglish, Tony rattled off some answers directly. Others were crowdsourced as the conversation ping-ponged between family members in the back kitchen—Tony, in Spanish: “Hey, what makes pan Cubano so good?” Gary, his brother-in-law, in English: “It’s got a little lard.” Tony, in English:
14 // FOOD & DRINK
Mangos’ Cuban recipe is strictly Miamian and consists of layers of ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard, and pork. | GREG BOLLINGER
“Yeah, yeah—the lard,” he said with a knowing nod. When it came time to try their croquetas de jamón—savory, deepfried bombs of ham and seasoned béchamel—Ivonne gave me a pointer: “Put half on a cracker and smush it, just like that.” And so, with the crunch of a Twinkie-shaped croqueta, I began to relax, feeling a part of the gang. Mangos’ food is all kinds of comfort, a cause to throw caution and calories to the wind. I happily tucked into each subsequent dish that was presented. I started with the Cubano, the star of the show. You will not find a more authentic Cuban sandwich in town. Pressed between buttered traditional Cuban bread from a bakery in St. Petersburg are layers of ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard, and what Tony calls “the key and success to a Cuban sandwich”: the pork. “We roast and marinate
our pork for eight hours. … You have to do it right, you know?” Speaking of doing it right: It should be noted that the proper preparation of a Cubano is hotly contested between the rival cities of Miami and Tampa, with the latter’s version including salami. For the record, para que sepas, Mangos’ recipe is strictly Miamian. When asked why they don’t include the salami, Gary said simply, “We’re not Italian!” Next up was ropa vieja—a robust dish of red and green bell peppers, onions, and braised shredded beef. When asked which item on the full menu would satisfy the more adventurous, Tony did not hesitate. “It’s the flavor of this meal right here that just gets you,” he said. This dish is served with white rice, which is great for drizzling the slightly spicy, very flavorful tomato-wine sauce. Bistec palomilla is another
winner at Mangos. It is a thin, marinated steak garnished with thinly-cut fried onions and served with rice and black beans. At first glance, it doesn’t look like much: The steak is almost as thin as fruit leather (about a quarter-inch) and the presentation is simple, if not stark. Yet with that first bite came the now-familiar mouth-punch of Cuban seasonings—this time stronger on the garlic and lime. Cuban food is “more about the flavor and less about the spicy/hot thing,” Ivonne said. A café Cubano can intercept the food coma brought on by a heavy Cuban meal. Not widely available in Tulsa, Cuban coffee is distinct for its sugar being whipped into a foamy top layer. Thankfully, it’s made each morning at Mangos. Pilon coffee canisters surround an espresso machine adorned with demitasse cups and saucers bearing the Cuban flag, all creating the effect of a shrine to the caffeinated Motherland. Other beverage offerings include Cuban sodas from Miami such as Jupiña pineapple and Materva yerba mate (a strongly caffeinated tea that is on its own earthy and bitter, but as a caramel-creamy soda it’s much more palatable); a variety of mojitos made with fresh fruits, including the traditional lime, as well as strawberry and mango; wine varietals showcasing Chile, Argentina, and Spain; and beers such as the citrusy “Havana Affair” pilsner brewed at Stonecloud Brewing in Oklahoma City, alongside brews of Latin origin. “It’s been so hard to get the right ingredients to make it authentic. There’s nothing in Tulsa like the real Miami flavor,” Tony said. “But opening a restaurant is not easy. You have to bring it.” a April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
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FOOD & DRINK // 15
foodfile
Whole hog Prairie Creek Farms feeds Tulsa responsibly by GREG HORTON
T
he McNellie’s Group switched up the sausages at their Fassler Hall location in Tulsa in November last year, largely due to a conversation company vice president Brian Fontaine had with himself. “I made a change in my own life, trying to eat better—locally sourced, responsibly raised, all those things that really do make a difference—and I just thought our customers would probably benefit from the same options,” Fontaine said. That epiphany led to a conversation with Chef Ben Alexander, and the two then sat down with the owners of Prairie Creek Farms, a friend-owned farming operation outside Kellyville. “We got pork chop samples, and we threw them in a skillet with salt and pepper,” Fontaine said. “That was it. When I tasted the pork, I wanted to lick the skillet.” The farm focuses on Berkshire pigs—a breed that, according to Nate Beaulac, consistently wins awards for meat quality and moisture loss during cooking. Beaulac is one-third of the ownership team at Prairie Creek Farms; the other two are Jason Ketchum and Peter Prulhiere. In 2015, the three friends decided to take a chance on “three scrubby acres” near Sand Springs after research told them that pasture-raised pork and beef were hard to find around the Tulsa area. In January 2016, the team bought 10 Berkshire piglets and started farming. “We’ll probably raise 500 pigs this year,” Prulhiere said. “The numbers now make sense for us to start looking at our own breeding program.” Finding a farmer who raises animals responsibly is a small issue within the larger logistical problem 16 // FOOD & DRINK
Nate Beaulac and Peter Prulhiere own Prairie Creek Farms with their friend Jason Ketchum (not pictured). In January 2016, the team bought ten Berkshire piglets and started farming. | GREG BOLLINGER
of what to do with a whole pig. Beaulac explains that most restaurants come to the farm looking for pork chop or bacon, presenting an obvious problem: There’s too much pig left over. Fontaine talked to the larger McNellie’s Group, and the simple solution was to spread the pork between the concepts. “Yokozuna is using neck bones to make stock, and they’ll eventually have pork belly; Dilly Diner is using the ham steaks; chorizo at Guapo. We are finding ways to distribute it throughout the concepts, and once we realized that all these trimmings would be left, we realized we could switch the sausage at Fassler.” The price has gone up, but the
group thinks it’s worth it. “People are at Fassler to enjoy the experience,” Fontaine said. “We’re not one of those daily sustenance lunch places.” Getting the pigs in the supply chain takes time. Prairie Creek raises pigs the way they were raised before factory farming. The animals have 11 acres of woods—pigs love the woods!— around the farm, so the farmers move the paddock to a new acre every couple weeks, which opens up new foraging opportunities for the pigs. They spend time on fresh ground—woods and pasture—regularly, so the acreage doesn’t have the smell conjured in most people’s minds by the word “pig farm.”
“It takes the land about three to four months to recover, but we have plenty of space,” Beaulac said. “Predators aren’t a problem for pigs either, because a bobcat or coyote is going to have a terrible time with a herd of large pigs. The heart of a good farm is the constant movement of animals.” Mixed in with the blackand-white Berkshires are a few Durocs—a beautiful rust-colored breed—and a few of the archetypal Babe/Wilbur breed, the Yorkshire. A goat named Porch roams freely, and laying chickens and meat chickens are in pens between the woods and pasture. The farm may raise 10,000 meat chickens this year. To feed all the animals, Prulhiere mills non-GMO corn, milo, and soybeans on the grounds of Prairie Creek. That’s made it possible to expand their operations, even as they scaled back beef production. “Hay prices spiked last year, so we sold off our herd of 25 steer,” Beaulac said. “We still process beef, but we buy for customers as they order. Our goal always is to give people the breed they’re used to eating, and then raise them as responsibly as possible.” The ultimate goal for the team is to have a venue on the grounds of the farm so that people can see the operation up close. Rapture Brewing Company, a brewery next to the farmhouse, will have licensing sometime this spring, too. The McNellie’s Group is sourcing beef from Prairie Creek also. It’s part of a wholesale change of ethos spawned by Fontaine’s curiosity and convictions: “After looking at the quality and the way the animals are raised, I just felt a responsibility to move local and naturally raised products.” a April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
Tulsa Earth Coalition, Sierra Club & OK Roots Music present
An urban park and event space in the heart of Tulsa’s Art District.
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FOOD & DRINK // 17
downthehatch
Ales for trails
Dead Armadillo taproom event boosts Turkey Mountain maintenance by BLAYKLEE FREED
F
our years ago, developers sought to rezone land at 61st Street and U.S. 75 to build an outlet mall. Adjacent to Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area, locals grew concerned that construction would disturb and destroy wildlife in the area, effectively ruining the park. Those concerned citizens pulled together to form Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition (TUWC). Its mission: to educate and inform Tulsans throughout the development planning process. Today, the land which developers were eyeing has remained largely untouched. But despite that battle being over (for now), TUWC has continued efforts to educate and inform, but the group has also taken it upon themselves to raise money for trail maintenance. So when Dead Armadillo taproom manager Brian Welzbacher reached out to friend and TUWC founding member Laurie Biby about a fundraiser event, Biby enthusiastically jumped on board. “The first year when things were so controversial with the outlet mall, we had some really generous givers,” Biby said. “As a result, we had some people be very generous in that first year, and we’ve kind of been able to coast on that up until now. This year we sat down and were looking at the numbers and were like, if we don’t start getting in some money, we can’t continue for another three years with our current spending.” Believe it or not, coordinating volunteer groups for trail cleanup days is a costly affair, and there is no permanent staff to take care of Turkey Mountain, Biby said. “The trail work we do, we have to carry a rather sizable insurance policy on our volunteers, and that’s required by the land owners. So even though it doesn’t sound like
18 // FOOD & DRINK
Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition is teaming up with Dead Armadillo to raise money for trail maintenance. MICHELLE POLLARD (INSET) GREG BOLLINGER
we do anything all that expensive, just our four major trail days a year for cleaning up are very expensive.” The nonprofit organization is brings in less than 10 percent of what they have to spend, according to Biby. “Turkey Mountain is a private partnership, and most of it is owned by the George Kaiser Family Foundation and QuikTrip Corporation,” she said. “They’ve deeded some of it to the city, which is in turn signed a 30 year lease with Riverparks, but Riverparks is also a nonprofit, so they don’t have any money either.” Welzbacher worked with Biby on a past mud run, so when he was looking to do some commu-
nity outreach with Dead Armadillo, he immediately thought of TUWC. “I had this idea of Ales for Trails running around in my head … and we’re just trying to branch out and give back,” he said. “We utilize the trails, and it’s a big deal in Tulsa.” Ales for Trails will be held April 18 at Dead Armadillo’s taproom. Biby said the $40 ticket buys dinner from Eagleton BBQ, two drink tickets, and entertainment from RocKFiscH Duo. There also will be a short keynote presentation from the director of conservation partnerships at the National Wildlife Foundation, Steve Bender. Plus, a silent auction will feature prizes from Tulsa
Zoo, Stunt Puppy, Ink and Run, Oklahoma Kayak, Rustic Cuff, Ida Red, and more. Dead Armadillo regularly rotates limited-run beers on tap. “We’ll definitely have something new,” he said. “We’ve talked about doing our coffee IPA again that people really love.” Biby stressed that TUWC is for anyone who likes the outdoors. “It’s a big variety, it’s not just the tree-hugging people. It’s the people who want to go outside and go hunting and whatnot. It’s just outdoors people.” Members can join TUWC with $5 dues. Even with Gathering Place going in just down the road, Turkey Mountain remains as popular as ever. “There is a trail counter at the base of the yellow trail by the main parking lot, and there has been zero drop off on attendance since Gathering Place opened,” Biby said. “There’s only one trail counter, and think about how many access points there are.” With the imminent threat of climate change, groups dedicated to protecting and preserving nature are more important now than ever before. Though it can be hard to talk and hear through the political noise, Biby said the important thing is to find common ground. “That’s the one thing we’ve had to work really hard at is educating, especially in Oklahoma, that being a good steward doesn’t mean we have to forego eating our barbecue,” Biby said. “We just want to preserve what we have for the next generation.” a
ALES FOR TRAILS Thurs., April 18 | 6–8 p.m. Dead Armadillo Craft Brewing, 1004 E. 4th St. tulsaurbanwildernesscoalition.org April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
FOOD & DRINK // 19
F L A S H F IC T IO N
the city writes itself
FIVE STORIES FROM OUR SECOND ANNUAL FLASH FICTION CONTEST JOSEPH RUSHMOR E
We at The Tulsa Voice were thrilled to partner with our friends at Nimrod International Journal for our second annual flash fiction contest. We pored through anonymous submissions from Tulsa-area and Tulsa-connected writers, and paired selected entries with different local photographers who were tasked with capturing the spirit of the chosen stories. These are our winners and finalists. The Tulsa Voice and Nimrod International Journal will be closing out LitFest 2019 with a special reading by local authors, including selected winners and finalists from the TTV/Nimrod Flash Fiction Contest.
TULSA READS: T-TOWN POETS AND WRITERS | SUN. APRIL 14, 3 P.M. | DUET - 108 N. DETROIT AVE.
20 // FEATURED
April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
F I R ST P L A C E
JOSEPH RUSHMOR E
Six Photos from the Lower Midwest: 1990-1997 BY TYLER DEMPSEY April 12, 1992 The guy people said was turning twenty crashed his Kawasaki ZX-7R into the side of the red bricked dorm. His brains came out his head, the R.A. informed a student after Earth Science. The student saw police, caution tape, a Kawasaki ZX-7R teetering on its side. “I scooped the brains back in his head.” In the picture the student absorbs the horrible news. October 23, 1997 Unseasonably warm school auditorium. “Around the buckle of the Bible Belt.” Southern Baptist Youth Minister sweating under lights in the half-squat of High School football coaches, palms in front, addressed his all-male sophomore audience. “There’s a lot of liquid.” He said, after, “Diseases.” He pulled out a condom. The 45-minute uniquely mandatory Sex Education our soon-to-be-if-not-only-justfinished-fucking teenagers received was images of sexually-transmitted diseases accompanied by, “When it happens. And it’s gonna happen,” from the Youth Minister. In the photo, a Creek from the reservation down the road makes a circle with two fingers and sticks another finger through it for a kid three seats down. February 17, 1990 Mullets—illegal in Iran, situationally acceptable on Ziggy Stardust—death-rattled in ‘90s America. Then-popular, obviously dooming abominations, summed by a quote on the photo’s reverse: Future in the Arts? Kindergartener side-profile to camera holding paintbrush, flaunting illegal ’do in over-the-top rakishness. Passed to high schoolers at the same school, most agreed he was gay or, worse, a Cub Scout.
THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
January 20, 1993 Six-year-olds “sniped” cigarettes—smoked-ones crushed underfoot—beside the auction barn inside of which they later lobbed fireworks at one another until it erupted in flames. The kid-on-the-left’s father was the auctioneer. Deep voiced, syrupy, generations of cigarettes sniped from hay. Three others wore red and gold jackets that said 49ers on the front. They said things like “Shit,” and, “Fart,” and smoked their reeking butts. March 27, 1997 At the 4-H meet, Jonathon’s aunt swerved the story, “We told Mama we was goin’ to Ray Jones’s, but what we’s really gon’ do was find a squirrel, and eat it. Kevin was driving—You see that? He asked. Pulled over, there was a copperhead on the side of the road. Kevin got down, when it struck whipped his hand and had that snake by the neck. I swear to God.” The story whispered tranquilly to the blonde wearing a blue ribbon. In the picture, a pig pissed an enormous stream of piss. August 30, 1994 After the Nightly News, NBC aired a rerun. David Copperfield: “The Statue of Liberty, standing 305 feet high, weighing 450,000 pounds. I’m gonna make her disappear.” Hair and jacket from the ‘80s, exuding Zack-Morris mystique—Dave knew Image-is-Everything in the American Midwest. Barely time for a self-deprecating joke, the curtains raised to applause. A Midwesterner (this August 29, 1994 NBC airing broke all-time records, besting the original, garnering five-eighths—4.6 million—of its viewership from America’s Midline) called her husband from the back to yell, “I’ve never seen a Statue of Liberty disappear the way this one did.” At recess kids beheld hill-less life-is-elsewhere neighborhoods, felt perspectives shift underneath and in all directions their dreams disappearing. FEATURED // 21
SE C ON D P L AC E
DESTIN Y JA DE GR EEN
It was an ugly little house. Nobody knew what had happened to the people who built it, and with each dying season fewer remembered their names. With its flat tar roof and tiny crooked windows, the house looked like an old feral cur brooding up against the heavy tree line. Watching. Waiting. Angry.
The Lover BY TAMSIN MARISCHAL
The young farmer laid claim on the land with the flick of a coin and a thick heel in the dirt. He ripped the trees away, singing while their roots screamed. He pierced the stubborn land with a plow as sharp and hard as his willful jaw. His bride watched him from behind dingy glass while she blinded potatoes with a bone-handled knife. She thought about her old life in the city, and brokenly hummed the fiddle tune that played the night they met at the dance hall. The house sighed. The stony ground finally yielded to him, and the rain clouds burst over him. The sun bronzed his face and blessed his offering. Fat sweet melons bloomed in his wake. When he moved through the moonlit fields, lush corn stalks swayed against him, whispering. Tomatoes, red and swollen as a kiss, twined their vines tenderly around his rough hands.
22 // FEATURED
Yet each night he lay beside her like a dead man on a cold slab of stone, dreaming only of the dawn. The day came when she couldn’t recall their fiddle tune. The note flattened in her throat and she swallowed hard. She looked at the bone-handled knife lying by the stove. Then she looked at it in her hand for a long time. The air in the ugly little house grew thick and still, and she could see a chorus of nodding faces rising from the wood grain in the walls.
She hurled the knife, and it cleaved the soft mound of earth at his feet. Before he could look up, she had turned away on a jaunty heel, humming in time with the suitcase knocking against her leg. The door to the ugly little house swayed in the sudden quiet on laughing hinges.
April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
F IN A L IST
The parking garage was empty. The cement layers stood naked in the cold, stark and ugly among the winking skyscrapers. It was just the two of them, parked at its peak, staring out into the miniature skyline. He fished around in the backseat, pulling out a lukewarm beer from under a dirtied blanket, and he drank it slow. It was methodical, a sip that was supposed to have some sort of poetry buried in its bubbles, and she hated hearing every syllable of it. “I’m gonna get out of here, you know,” he said with finality, as if they had been fighting. She watched him and tried to seem rapt. She often adjusted her tolerance to his ego. She wiggled out a Marlboro and perched it on her teeth. “Is that right,” she intoned with a flick of the lighter. He nodded, squaring himself up as if to face the city surrounding. “Damn right. I’m gonna be a real writer. Move somewhere where ideas happen. Start something,” he said. She eyed him with a sardonic smile on her lips. “Show us all who’s boss,” she encouraged, knowing he couldn’t hear her. The beckoning of drunken men like him, Hemingway, Joyce, and the dozens that murkily followed, consumed him. His cheeks, high and beautiful in the dim light, were red with a mix of booze and vitality she had never been privy to. He belonged to places she had never been. “I have so many ideas. So many stories inside me,” he went on. “Well, you know that. I let you read them.” He flashed her a smile. She smiled back, not bothering to point out how many notes she had given him that he had thrown away. How stories of her own were washed away in his easy laugh. “You should visit me when I go. Maybe I’ll be able to help you out,” he said, mildly. She knew she should remark something that sounded excited, but she smoked in silence. This had all started out as a plan to get laid. Her confidence was nowhere near his, but it squirmed around her at times, catching the darkened gaze of men like this.
BH A DR I V ER DUZCO
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in Tulsa BY JENNA BUSCHMANN
THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
How long, she wondered, would she go on with this? The men who spouted dreams off into long nights like these, living in warehouses or their childhood homes or a couch smelling like dogs. How long would she listen to them, pretending that she liked when her dreams were seated comfortably in the backseat while theirs charged ahead? She eyed him as he slurped High Life and she envied him. She knew he would leave, if only to come back and lay out his accomplishments before her. And she knew she would let him. The city seemed so small, up here. A nest made of concrete and busted brick buildings. She eyed the city, as she had eyed him. At least here, tucked away, she had noticed it sometimes watched her back.
FEATURED // 23
F IN A L IST
“It’s not that I let the dog lick it,” the woman at the counter with the sling said. “She just gets after it and won’t stop.” Past the woman and the attendant and Little Debbie and the slushie machines with their twirling faces, Lexi shook the locked beer cooler. Lexi wore a pair of orange basketball shorts and had once crushed a boy’s pinkie in her fist. Her fake ID said HarleyMarie Ross. I was sleeping over but we’d snuck out, after curfew. Lexi was buying beer for us to drink in the playground behind her mother’s apartment. She’d done it once before and we fell asleep yin yang, toe to nose, both grounded, whatever that meant. The Kum & Go was down the street from the only Dunkin’ Donuts I’d ever seen. They had iced coffees big enough to fit my forearm. I wanted to go there. I wanted to sneak back in with donuts and watch Supernatural on Lexi’s bed. Lexi wanted to drink beer. She rattled the door again. Her whole family was full of rage. My mom talked about them like adjectives, “Well, you know, they’re Turtles.” Lexi kept trying to bully the lock. She liked Stephenie Meyer and beating the ass off girls who got salty. I liked being sad and high. She was my muscle and I was her dealer. Also, I’m super smart, which doesn’t help at all. I warded off razors and pills with my library card. “Fucking horseshit. Hey, jackwagon,” Lexi waived her hand at the clerk, who had narrow wrists and terrible hair. He kept looking my way. “Hey, why is this closed?” “It’s 12.” Lexi looked at her phone then visibly flexed. I’d seen her whip a girl’s mouth in the locker room with a knee brace for saying she had big shoes. The girl, bleeding, had knocked me over and Lexi caught me one-armed. Lexi made me feel fragile. The clerk said, “It’s 12. That means no beer.” He looked my way. I saw the bad possibility spiral out in front of me. Lexi chucking a can of Bing in a frozen line to the clerk’s bad hair, the clerk innocent like Germans and pipeline workers. Us running out the door, the clerk oneeyed marking Lexi’s height. The cops take me in long enough to put my parents in a bad way moneywise, because we’re in a bad way moneywise. They put Lexi on a raft to the end of her life. She was a Valkyrie. I wanted her to bearhug me between two six-packs and run me safe to the playground behind her drunk mom’s apartment whispering “gay” in my ear. I pinch her arm. I say, “Let’s go get sixty donuts.” At the counter, the woman with the sling kept telling the clerk, “I guess it’s healing, I don’t know. It feels like it’s burning all the time.”
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M A K A IL A MCGONIGA L
All Is Dull at the Kum & Go BY CHRISTOPHER MURPHY
April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
F IN A L IST
GA RY M ASON
The Gathering Place BY JILL GRADDY It seems I have misplaced the kitchen. It isn’t my fault; this house is crooked. The rooms are crouching on stilts and sometimes they stand up and switch places with one another. I go to the bedroom and find myself in the laundry room. I go to the kitchen and find myself in the bathroom. I open closet doors and find myself on the sidewalk, searching for my winter coat. Worse yet are the hallways, inexhaustible, crocheted together by secret trickery. Some lead nowhere; others funnel into further hallways. I have lost hours here, hoping to identify a familiar landmark—a painting, perhaps, or a lamp on a side table—any breadcrumb to illuminate the way out. I study the wall colors but they turn to mud in my memory. I round a corner and come up against the blank wall of my mind. A screaming unravels throughout the house. It is a fragile screaming, like a voice buried in powder, like a voice stuffed with yarn. I cover my ears. “There you are,” someone says. The hallway straightens up and a woman appears, kind-eyed, offering her hand to me. “It’s almost time for lunch.”
I stop screaming. “Please help me,” I say. “I need to get out of this house.” We drive, windows down to let the sun in, to a nearby park. We follow clean-cut paths through monuments like oversized toys: a pirate ship bedecked with children shouting about the North Star, log towers with netted cloisters where a boy has lost one shoe. We circle a pond, once perfect glass, now shimmered by paddleboats that churn and churn. The woman gathers my hand in her own. My skin is so worn, I can see some kind of phosphorescence bulging beneath it. “There they are,” says the woman. I assume that she, too, has noticed the strange surfacing of my bones. But she is talking about a little girl sliding out of an enormous wooden swan and a man stooping to catch her. “Who are they?” I ask to be polite. The woman swallows. “My daughter and my husband.”
The little girl spins on a plate of mulch. Laughter cracks her mouth wide open. I can’t see the paddleboats from here, but I imagine they are spinning and laughing too, eulogizing the winter, stirring up what hibernates in the silt. “Mom,” I hear the little girl say. “Mom. Mom.” But it isn’t the little girl; it is the woman and she is looking at me. “They’ve let loose the boats,” I say. “The paddleboats. Last time, they were leashed to the dock.” Her jaw unhooks. “You remember this place?” “I think so.” I take a moment to gather my thoughts and they come to me, dulled and dog-eared and limping, but nevertheless they come. The woman’s hand was once the size of a grape and it curled around my finger, the sweetest fist. I squeeze my daughter’s hand now. “This place is. This place is the gathering place.” a
HONORABLE MENTIONS “THE WALL” BY SUE STORTS, “BINKY” BY HELEN PATTERSON, “POSSIBILITIES” BY KATY MULLINS, “ASH BABY” DEBORAH HUNTER, “DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON” BY JENNA BUSCHMANN THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
FEATURED // 25
THE RADICAL WRITE Your guide to Tulsa LitFest 2019
BY ALICIA CHESSER ATKIN, MASON WHITEHORN POWELL, AND TTV STAFF
DON STINSON Thurs., April 11; 1:30 p.m. TCC Southeast Campus, Student Union Auditorium 10300 E. 81st St. Don Stinson has taught at NSU, OSU, and Ridgewater College in Minnesota, but has now spent over 20 years at Northern Oklahoma College, where he teaches writing and literature courses and helps organize the annual Chikaskia Literary Festival every fall. “Flatline Horizon” is his first book, and he is currently working on his second. RON SILLIMAN WITH GRANT JENKINS Thurs., April 11; 5 p.m. Living Arts of Tulsa 307 E. Mathew B. Brady St. Ron Silliman has written and edited over 30 books, and his poetry and criticism has 26 // FEATURED
been translated into 12 languages. Silliman was the 2006 Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere, a 2003 Literary Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts and was a 2002 Fellow of the Pennsylvania Arts Council as well as a Pew Fellow in the Arts in 1998. He received the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation in 2010. HEID E. ERDRICH AND SLY ALLEY Thurs., April 11; 7:30 p.m. OSU-Tulsa Auditorium 700 N. Greenwood Ave. See sidebar right.
LITFEST WRITING WORKSHOPS Fri., April 12; 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. OSU-Tulsa, Tulsa Room 700 N. Greenwood Ave. Tulsa LitFest workshops are free and open to the public. Designed to provide exceptional content, LitFest workshops provide an intimate learning and sharing opportunity for writers. To sign up, visit bit.ly/ LitFestWorkshops. 9 a.m.: Experimental Translation and the New Multicultural Avant-garde in Contemporary Poetry with M.L. Martin 10:30 a.m.: In Raptures: Writing the Ghazal with Janine Joseph 12:30 p.m.: Borrowed Forms with Liz Blood 2 p.m.: Getting Published: Trends and Opportunities in the Rapidly Changing World of Books for Young Readers with Karl Jones 3:30 p.m.: How to Snag a Story (or Poem) with Heid E. Erdrich
SEVEN MINUTES IN HEAVEN Fri., April 12; 5 p.m. Mainline, 111 N. Main St. This reading series of short fiction and nonfiction is a crowd favorite. Readers will dazzle you in seven minutes or less. Each will present a complete story in seven minutes; no excerpts, no poems, no songs—just four fantastic stories. Readers will include heavy-hitters Rilla Askew, Sterlin Harjo, Juliana Goodman, Christa Romanosky, and one wild card—it could be you! If you’d like a chance to read, bring your seven-minute-or-less story to the event and drop your name in a hat for the wild card spot.
RILLA ASKEW’S ADVICE FOR EMERGING WRITERS “Get up earlier. That’s the only thing that works for me. That’s the only way I can do it. I have to find a way to do that work before I get into the world. Go to the words—leave the dream state and go to the imagining state before the world comes in. And don’t look at the phone. As you go by where the phone’s plugged in on your way to the coffee pot, just leave it there.” Rilla Askew is the author of six books of fiction and non-fiction, including the American Book Award-winning “Fire in Beulah,” a novel about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
ASKEW, ERDICH, ALLEY: COURTESY; BLOOD: MELISSA LUKENBAUGH
T
here’s no sophomore slump in the cards for Oklahoma’s premier book bash. Tulsa LitFest returns April 11-14 for its second year of diverse and thought-provoking readings, panels, workshops, and interactive events for word nerds of all stripes. In addition to bringing some of the biggest names in the world of literary arts to town, LitFest will also feature plenty of local flare with tons of other homegrown talent— including winners and finalists from the TTV/Nimrod 2019 Flash Fiction Contest. This year’s keynote is author and political superstar Stacey Abrams, but all four days will be packed with fascinating presenters from all corners of the literary arts universe. Whether you want to break into the world of publishing or just spend some time soaking up some of the best poetry and storytelling you’ll hear all year, Tulsa Litfest 2019 is sure to be another weekend for the books.
AN EVENING WITH STACEY ABRAMS Fri., April 12; 7:30 p.m. Booker T. Washington High School Field House 1514 E. Zion St. Stacey Abrams is an author, serial entrepreneur, nonprofit CEO, and political leader. After 11 years in the Georgia House of Representatives, seven as Minority Leader, Abrams became the 2018 Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, where she won more votes than any other Democrat in the state’s history. She has founded multiple organizations devoted to voting rights, training and hiring young people of color, and tackling social issues at both the state and national levels; and she is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Abrams is the 2012 recipient of the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award and the first black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee for a major party in the United States. SATURDAY MORNING STORYTIME Sat., April 13; 10:30 a.m. Magic City Books (Algonquin Room) 221 E. Archer St. Bring the kiddos for stories, snacks, and more. Stories presented in English and Spanish. THE WORLD OF LITMAGS: FINDING A GOOD HOME FOR YOUR WORK WITH SARAH BETH CHILDERS Sat., April 12; 10 a.m. Greenwood Cultural Center 322 N. Greenwood Ave. See sidebar on page 27.
Native tongues
TWO POETS ILLUSTRATE THE DIVERSITY OF INDIGENOUS EXPERIENCES AND EXPRESSION In her introduction to the June 2018 issue of Poetry magazine, Heid E. Erdrich writes: “There is no such thing as Native American poetry. We are poets who belong to Native Nations. There are more than 573 … We also know who we are and we determine our own membership and citizenship. We write into, out of, even despite this fact.” An esteemed poet and member of the Turtle Mountain band of Ojibway, Erdrich illustrates there’s no collective experience shared by Indigenous peoples in the Americas. While intertribal Natives might share cultural links or face similar challenges, their experiences and forms of expression are diverse from sea-to-shining-sea and all the red dirt in between. For this reason, to understand Erdrich’s experience as an Ojibway woman, is to know her poetry. The same goes for Sly Alley, an enrolled Potawatomi with Otoe heritage. But to lump them together in the category of “Indian Artists” would be to misrepresent them; they are American poets born with Native blood, with incredibly different poetics and viewpoints. Alley’s poem “Identity” says it well: If I was introduced to you as an American Indian poet, you might think my poems will be about how Coyote tricked chief So-And-So, or how it’s sacred to use all of the buffalo parts. Alley grew up in Tecumseh, Oklahoma, and spent some time in his father’s hometown of Red Rock. He started taking poetry seriously at Seminole State College. He currently
works in a lumberyard and writes in the evenings. With an Okie drawl, Alley juxtaposes himself as a “working man’s poet” against his peers in academia. “Strong Medicine,” his first collection of verse, was published in 2016 and won the Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry. Alley says the content of “Strong Medicine” captures: “What’s going on, what’s around us … that can be politics and social issues, and that can just be the day-to-day, getting up and going to work. If anything, it’s just recorded history.” His work aligns with this sense of observation and daily reality. He cites his greatest influence as Hunter S. Thompson (“not just the ‘Fear and Loathing’ stuff”), and also named several Modernist, American expat authors. Knowing this, the reportage of his work is clearly life filtered through one man’s humor and perspective. In “I See Why Hunter Got Cremated,” he writes: I hope those winds blowing down from the mountains grab an ash and swing it down over Oklahoma City or Edmond, maybe a quick orbit around that oil company’s Tower of Babel, and jam it into someone’s eyeball “I approached it the way I would imagine maybe a musician approaches putting together an album,” Alley said. “I like these words now, but if I’ve got to read them 600 more times am I still gonna like it?” While some will relate to the unique poetic visions of Erdrich and Alley, we can all take pleasure in hearing them read at the OSU-Tulsa auditorium on Thurs., April 11 at 7:30 p.m. –MASON WHITEHORN POWELL
Something borrowed TELLING STORIES WITH EVERYDAY PAPERWORK Liz Blood is an Okie-grown writer, past editor at The Tulsa Voice, a Tulsa Artist Fellow, an OVAC Art Writing and Curatorial fellow, an Oklahoma Center for the Humanities fellow, and an adjunct faculty member at Oklahoma City University’s Red Earth MFA in creative writing program. Her workshop at LitFest uses everyday paperwork as a way to get inside a story. ALICIA CHESSER ATKIN: How did you develop the process you’ll guide people through in “Borrowed Forms”? LIZ BLOOD: I think I learned the term “hermit crab essay” in college. “Borrowed forms” is used by a friend who teaches creative writing at Missouri State, and it sounds a little more accessible. What is definitely true is that I didn't make this up on my own. But in short, a hermit crab essay takes up the shell of another form (just like the animal does)—like a horoscope or a bank statement or a detention slip. Only in the hermit crab essay, the form is co-opted to make a story, so the horoscope might tell of THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
a doomed relationship, the bank statement might explore privilege or poverty, or the detention slip a remembrance of unfair punishment.
the kinds of big feelings that can be hard to explore with specificity and realism. In what ways do you find that this process has helped your own writing?
ATKIN: Can you give an example of the sort of story that might be generated from a form like this?
BLOOD: When I was young, I was supposed to get braces. The orthodontist told me and my parents that if I didn’t get them my overbite would get worse as I aged and I would basically look awful. As a kid, I imagined being 30 and looking like an old hag. Scary to a pre-teen girl, at least in this culture! Well, I didn't get braces and here we are. And while I’ve grown into liking my teeth, I still find talking about them personal and difficult. So I started going through old orthodontic reports, forms, letters, and recommendations as a way to explore cultural standards of beauty. They're so clinical, so it feels less hard to start there. I’d say to your point about specificity that one of the best ways to explore big feelings is through creative writing. So now I’m writing about the history of my teeth and how I feel about them in the only way I’ve figured out how—through a borrowed form. –ALICIA CHESSER ATKIN
BLOOD: Sure. Leanne Shapton's “Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris...” is written like an auction catalogue and, through the items it's “selling,” evinces the demise of a years-long relationship. In Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola's creative nonfiction craft book, “Tell It Slant,” hermit crab essays use existing forms as an outer covering to protect their “soft, vulnerable underbelly.” So the idea is that the form is a shell for a much more personal, meaningful experience. ATKIN: For a lot of people, things like bank statements and prescriptions are fraught with worries, hopes, fears—
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CHILDREN’S LIT. PUBLISHING PANEL WITH CHAD REYNOLDS AND MARIANA LLANOS Sat., April 13; 11 a.m. Greenwood Cultural Center 322 N. Greenwood Ave. Get an insider’s view into the world of children’s literature publishing. Chad Reynolds is the co-owner and co-founder of Penny Candy Books, an independent children’s book press with a mission to publish children’s literature that reflects the diverse realities of the world we live in, both at home and abroad. Mariana Llanos is the award-winning author of “Tristan Wolf,” which was a finalist for the 2013 Readers’ Favorite Book Award, and a spot in the 2013 Gittle List Independent Book Awards. In 2017 she was selected as Best Artist by the Hispanic Arts Council of Oklahoma.
AN AFTERNOON WITH EILEEN MYLES (FEAT. ADAM FITZGERALD) Sat., April 13; 1 p.m. Greenwood Cultural Center 322 N. Greenwood Ave. Eileen Myles is the author of more than 20 books, including “Afterglow (a dog memoir),” “Inferno (a poet’s novel),” “Chelsea Girls,” and “Cool for You.” Myles’s many honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, four Lambda Literary Awards, the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing, as well as grants from Creative Capital (nonfiction) and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (poetry), and the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers grant. Adam Fitzgerald is the author of “The Late Parade and George Washington.” New poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, Granta, Boston Review, the New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. Fitzgerald is contributing editor of Literary Hub, teaches at NYU, and directs The Home School. He lives in New York. QURAYSH ALI LANSANA AND CLEMONCE HEARD (FEAT. ANDREW BELTON) Sat., April 13; 2:30 p.m. Greenwood Cultural Center 322 N. Greenwood Ave. Clemonce Heard is a New Orleans native and a resident writer with the Tulsa Artist Fellowship. He was awarded an honorable mention in the 2017 Gwendolyn Brooks Centennial Poetry Prize, second place in the 2018 Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize, first place in the 2018 Connecticut Poetry Award Contest, and was named runner-up
The editors are in
DEMYSTIFYING THE PUBLICATION PROCESS WITH SARAH BETH CHILDERS Sarah Beth Childers, author of the 2013 memoir “Shake Terribly the Earth: Stories from an Appalachian Family,” will lead a panel discussion to help emerging writers find the right venue for their work. The nonfiction editor of Cimarron Review, she’ll be joined by fellow editors from Nimrod International Journal and Mojo & Mikrokosmos to share tips and answer questions about placing your work in literary magazines. TTV: What are some immediate ways to tell if a journal is a “good fit”? CHILDERS: I think getting an idea of what you’re trying to do in a particular piece and looking at the journal— even visually, if it looks like your piece or not. A lot of journals have different styles in terms of the way they
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for the 2018 Tennessee Williams Literary Festival Poetry Award. His work has appeared in Obsidian, Ruminate, Four Way Review, World Literature Today, and Opossum among others, and is forthcoming in Saranac Review. Quraysh Ali Lansana is author of eight poetry books, three textbooks, three children’s books, editor of eight anthologies, and coauthor of a book of pedagogy. He teaches humanities at Holland Hall School, and is a former faculty member of both the Writing Program of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Drama Division of The Juilliard School. Lansana served as director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing at Chicago State University from 2002-2011. Lansana’s work appears in Best American Poetry 2019, and he was recently named a Tulsa Artist Fellow. READING WITH YOUTH IN CPW WRITERS IN THE SCHOOLS Sat., April 13; 4 p.m. Greenwood Cultural Center 322 N. Greenwood Ave. Teaching Artist Clemonce Heard will lead this showcase of poetry and spoken word with K-12 students. In partnership with ahha Tulsa and the Mervin Bovaird Foundation, the Center for Poets and Writers at OSU-Tulsa launched its Writers in the Schools program this year, and to date, students at Eugene Field, Kendall Whittier, KIPP Tulsa, Jenks East, Jenks Alternative Academy, and Drexel Academy have all
lay out paragraphs, and some journals are open to hyperlinks and different kinds of experimentation. … Just visually looking at the pieces even without reading can sometimes be helpful. And I think it’s always good to look for journals that are publishing established writers alongside emerging writers. TTV: And why is it important to find that fit? CHILDERS: Especially if you’re wanting to publish a book, it’s helpful to be thinking ahead. Because when you’re pitching and you want to publish [a book] on an indie press or a university press that publishes literary work, then publishing in journals they would recognize helps. I think also finding journals that really fit the vibe of your work can help people understand the kind of writer you are. TTV: What’s the biggest submission mistake frequently made by emerging writers? CHILDERS: Publishing in really small online journals— maybe sometimes because their friend works there—or journals that end up shutting down in a year. I actually published in a journal that ended up going defunct, and it’s always frustrating when that happens. … journals that are too small, or too new, or aren’t also publishing writers that are established.
been mentored by writers with extensive teaching and publishing experience. POETRY SLAM: BEAST MODE Sat., April 13; 8 p.m. Living Arts of Tulsa 307 E. Mathew B. Brady St. Poetry comes to life through this highenergy spoken word event at Living Arts of Tulsa. AN AFTERNOON WITH PETER CAREY Sun., April 14; 1 p.m. Central Library 400 Civic Center Peter Carey is the author of 13 novels and is a two-time winner of the Booker Prize. His other honors include the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Born in Australia, he has lived in New York City for more than 25 years. TULSA READS: T-TOWN POETS AND WRITERS Sun., April 14; 3 p.m. Duet, 108 N. Detroit Ave. Close out LitFest 2019 with a celebration of all things local. Led by Eilis O’Neal of Nimrod and Jezy J. Gray of The Tulsa Voice. Readers will include Tony Brinkley, Cynthia Gustavson, Deborah J. Hunter, Markham Johnson, Katy Mullins, Chris Murphy, and selected winners/finalists from the 2019 Tulsa Voice and Nimrod Flash Fiction contest. a
tulsa blur: 1921 to 2012 BY QURAYSH ALI LANSANA
red dust simmering below skin of earth is how bullet transcends muscle, history a howling fire gasolined to ravenous mouth like language, like hate. irritable june heat in march a trigger, fuse drawn to surface indecisive sky. gunpowder ageless as blood, the northside of heaven ablaze. africans tread atlantic on familiar limbs. ninety-one-year old slug lurking in elevator shaft, bell curve, the front page of a newspaper a senator’s lips, the lynching bee, no the cries. duped into minimum wage belief we are alive buried in piles of our own toil, prosperity’s rubble. ancestors compelled to council, their pull stronger than our illusion, theirs the largest mob. Copyright Quraysh Ali Lansana. This poem originally appeared in the JanuaryFebruary 2015 issue of Oklahoma Today Magazine.
April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
CHILDERS: COURTESY; LANSANA: MELISSA LUKENBAUGH
SMALL PRESS BOOK FAIR Sat., April 13; 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. Greenwood Cultural Center (Goodwin/Chapelle Gallery) 322 N. Greenwood Ave. The LitFest Small Press Book Fair is an opportunity to celebrate print with small, regional presses, independent publishers, artists, designers, and the literary-inclined. Purchase books and litmag subscriptions from your favorite indie publishers and visit the zine-making table to create your own masterpiece. Presses included are Deep Vellum, The New Territory, Awst Press, and tons more. (The Tulsa Voice will also have a table at the event, so be sure to drop by and say hi!)
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303 N. MAIN St FEATURED // 29
community
Tulsa goes green
Experts, activists, and artists celebrate Earth Day in T-Town by DEON OSBORNE
A
s a kid growing up in a polluted Jersey Shore neighborhood, Michael Brune saw firsthand the devastating effects of a chemical plant and ocean water-dumping that went on to ruin his dad’s construction business. He also witnessed the collective reaction from groups of impacted neighbors who fought together, successfully limiting the pollution and placing a ban on ocean water dumping in the Shore. Today, as executive director of the country’s oldest and largest environmental organization, Sierra Club’s Michael Brune will take the fight to Oklahoma as keynote speaker for Tulsa’s Earth Day Celebration on April 20 at Guthrie Green. Most importantly, Brune plans to stress the importance of addressing the reality of climate change through a just transition to 100 percent renewable energy. “I think people in Oklahoma are like people in Texas, Colorado, Minnesota, Florida, or California,” Brune said. “We all care about clean air and clean water.” The annual environmental celebration comes weeks after Congress held its first vote on a bold Green New Deal resolution that calls for phasing out fossil fuels and offers assistance for impacted industry workers and vulnerable communities to enjoy revitalized infrastructures, jobs, housing, and a higher quality of life. Democrats accused Republicans in the Senate of rushing a vote on a resolution that hadn’t been debated in any committee—which the Senate’s Republican majority was sure to block. Meanwhile, Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has led some Republicans in ridiculing 30 // ARTS & CULTURE
Michael Brune is the executive director of the Sierra Club. He is the keynote speaker for Tulsa’s Earth Day on April 20 at Guthrie Green. | COURTESY SIERRA CLUB
Senate Democrats, who voted “present” rather than “yes” for the resolution. “There’s a lot of things that Congress does that has an impact on my life and my kid’s life,” Brune said. “The vote that took place [on March 26] was theatre. Nothing more.” CELEBRATING EARTH DAY IN TULSA With reports from both the United Nations and President Trump’s own administration citing the dangers of surpassing thresholds of 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius of warming in global temperatures, organizers for Tulsa’s Earth Day Celebration hope to balance the seriousness of the situation with a warm, welcoming and fun vibe for all ages. The “pre-game” festivities begin at 1 p.m. with a talk and gallery tour at Philbrook Downtown, focusing on the stunning works of environmental artists Peggy Weil, Joel Daniel Phillips, and Rich Barlow. This will be followed by a “climate reality slideshow” by students from Booker T.
Washington High School. The main events kick off at 3 p.m. at Guthrie Green, including circus performers for kids and adult speakers from diverse backgrounds, such as Ponca tribe elder Casey Camp-Horinek, Sierra Club Oklahoma director Johnson Bridgewater, Ready for 100 member and preacher Gerald Davis, and Ashley Nicole McCray, an Absentee Shawnee scholar and activist who ran for Oklahoma Corporation Commission in 2018. After a keynote speech by Brune, the night will be capped off by a performance from Jamaican roots reggae musician Prezident Brown. Despite the fun-forward atmosphere, these Earth Day speakers don’t plan to hold back in how dire the situation has already become for our planet. “We’ve had water polluted, fish killed, and earthquakes that disrupted our entire water system,” Casey Camp-Horinek said. As an Oklahoma Ponca Tribe elder, elected member to the Ponca Business Committee, and hereditary drumkeeper for Ponca
Pathata (women’s society), CampHorinek said she focuses on her four children, 18 grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren when addressing environmental issues. “I see [the Green New Deal] as a step in the right direction,” Camp-Horinek said. But she doesn’t support cap-and-trade provisions that essentially maintain fossil fuels in the short-run. When asked what drove her into activism, Camp-Horinek said it was the courage she draws from her family’s past struggles. From her brothers organizing more than 30 Oklahoma chapters of the American Indian Movement in the 1970s to her grandpa who survived the forced removal of the Ponca Tribe from Nebraska to Oklahoma. Her great-grandfather was the Ponca Tribe’s last war chief. “They survived a 650-mile forced removal with no food no water, driven at gun point. It became imperative to continue to have a sense of surviving for generations that came before me and generations that come after me,” Camp-Horinek said. Oklahomans of all backgrounds should be aware of droughts, stronger flooding and more powerful storms that are already happening across the country and our state, according to Brune. “Climate change is here. We are already paying billions of dollars in damages from these extreme events,” he said. Brune stressed the goal of the transition to renewables is not to punish fossil fuel workers. “Just like communities that have produced oil, gas and coal have taken care of our country, our country can return the favor and take care of them and make sure they thrive in this transition.” a April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
E V E N T S @ T PA C
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American Dreams World Stage Theatre Company April 4-7 The Wedding Singer Theatre Tulsa April 5-14 Frank Abagnale OSU-Tulsa Business Forums April 10 Sarah Parcak Tulsa Town Hall April 12 Trial By Jury Oklahoma Performing Arts April 13 Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances Tulsa Symphony April 13 Waitress Celebrity Attractions April 16-21 Tulsa’s Best Storyteller Finals OK, So...Tulsa’s StorySlam April 20
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PRESENTED BY
2018 Tulsa Pride Festival | BHADRI VERDUZCO
Say it loud Advocacy groups seek input from the LGBTQ+ community by TULSA REACHES OUT STAFF I N 2004, LOCAL NON-PROFITS TULSA Reaches Out and the Community Service Council conducted a survey of the Tulsa area LGBTQ+ community to help identify important needs. More than 500 individuals responded and many others participated in focus groups, helping many agencies and other providers better understand and meet the needs of LGBTQ+ citizens in the area. Much has changed since the 2004 survey. To identify today’s needs, Tulsa Reaches Out has engaged OU-Tulsa to undertake a new survey which will aid agencies and organizations in providing services and support to the LGBTQ+ community. This new online survey will be open from April 1 until April 30. If you are part THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
of the LGBTQ+ community, we strongly encourage you to take 30–40 minutes to complete the online survey by visiting the link below. While certain demographic information will be collected to aid in the aggregate data analysis, no identifiable information is being requested, so responses are anonymous. While most respondents are likely to live in the Tulsa area, the survey is open statewide. The data will be analyzed and a report prepared by OU in July 2019 will be disseminated to appropriate organizations for consideration and action. Thank you for your consideration and participation in the survey. Please encourage your LGBTQ+ friends to also participate. To complete the survey, visit ou.edu/ tulsa-lgbtq. a
Denim Doves April 12-20 • 8pm
Studio 208 • 308 S. Lansing Ave. Tickets available at https://squareup.com/store/atctulsa
ARTS & CULTURE // 31
community
A
ccording to the 2017 CDP Carbon Majors Report, as few as 100 companies are responsible for the lion’s share of global carbon emissions. Since 1988, when human-caused climate change was first officially recognized by an intergovernmental panel, “more than half of global industrial [greenhouse gas emissions] can be traced to just 25 corporate and state producers.” Numbers like these illustrate an urgent need for government action to reign in polluters in order to combat the most devastating effects of our changing climate. While the harm caused by corporations far outpaces the impact of individual behaviors, there’s still plenty we can do on a personal level to do right by the earth we all share. That’s where Sustainable Tulsa comes in. They “provide education, tools, and resources to businesses and individuals focused on three areas of sustainability: social responsibility, economic vitality, and environmental stewardship — people, profit, planet.” Below is a Q&A with executive director Corey Wren Williams, who spoke about her organization, the state of recycling in Tulsa, and the steps we can all take to be better stewards of the environment.
JUDY LANGDON: How are Tulsans currently doing regarding the mantra, Reduce. Reuse. Recycle? Give us some ideas on room for improvement. COREY WILLIAMS: We are doing better at recycling than we were six years ago, which is when we added curbside recycling. Over 109,000 residents are recycling daily due to the City of Tulsa curbside recycling program and the The M.e.t. recycling centers. As a community we are educating more through civic groups, schools, and businesses; however, we have a long way to go. … We are heading in the right direction, but more waste reduction is needed. As residents and business owners, we can first asses what 32 // ARTS & CULTURE
popular. In your opinion, is that the future of getting around? WILLIAMS: It is a little early to tell how electric scooters will really change transportation patterns here in Tulsa. They certainly can fill a void of a short car ride or a long walk. If we want Tulsa to welcome e-scooters as a future important mode of transportation, we would need to have more protected lanes and designated parking with convenient charging. Several e-scooter rental services like Lime and Bird have been the fastest rising start-ups in the last year, but the e-scooter industry as a whole has few things to figure out before they will make it big in a city like Tulsa that favors the car. E-scooters are better for the environment than driving a car, and they’re also fun to ride! Corey Williams is the executive director of Sustainable Tulsa. | GREG BOLLINGER
PEOPLE, PROFIT, PLANET A conversation with Sustainable Tulsa’s executive director by JUDY LANGDON and TTV STAFF items can we stop consuming that are single use. … Second, we must ask the question: What can we reuse at home and at the workplace that will make us more efficient and save money? Thirdly, what can we start recycling? Recycling in the business place can save big money on the bottom line. LANGDON: When you personally buy products, do you specifically choose items that are all or nearly all recyclable, or can be reused another way later? How convenient, easy or difficult and expensive/inexpensive is it to do that, and how would you impress others to do the same? WILLIAMS: Simple steps are the key to making lasting changes in our lives and businesses. I often think about what I can do to cut back on waste, reduce clutter and stress in my life. When I pick products,
I often consider a couple things: Can I buy the item locally and support a local business and the Tulsa economy? Next, I try to buy from locally-owned stores and then next regionally-owned chains. We are investors, and every dollar we spend with locally owned companies gets reinvested nearly 10 times as much as when we buy from national chains. Then I consider the packaging … if it has lots of packaging, I do not even consider it as an option. Next, is it recyclable, and can it be recycled here in Tulsa? Many items are labeled recyclable, but that does not always mean it is recyclable in Tulsa. And of course, I consider price. It has to also be practical in our budgets to live more sustainably. LANGDON: Recently, the City of Tulsa purchased rechargeable scooters which have become very
LANGDON: What about bicycling as a major mode of transportation, in lieu of driving? WILLIAMS: Like the e-scooter, we need more protected lanes for bicycling in order to make it a major mode of transportation. Along with protected lanes we need education and incentives. … We still need our car culture community to respect and protect [people on bikes]. I have on several occasions relied on bicycle transportation, and it initially takes a commitment to make it work in my daily routine. However, once you get started, you feel lost if you miss your morning ride into work! The exercise and the time connecting with nature can be an invigorating start of your day. We need to make it more available to ride to work with access to showers by employers or building owners. Why shouldn’t it become a major mode of transportation? Well it should, and there are many communities around the nation and world that have successfully incorporated this mode of transportation. a
For more information, visit sustainabletulsainc.org. April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
inthestudio
Tulsa Artist Fellow Edgar Fabián Erías | DESTINY JADE GREEN
MEET THE FELLOWS In the studio with Edgar Fabián Frías
MEET THE FELLOWS TAKES YOU INSIDE the studios of the 2019 Tulsa Artist Fellowship recipients for a look at their life and work. Since 2015, Tulsa Artist Fellowship has recruited artists and arts workers to Tulsa, where they “have the freedom to pursue their craft while contributing to a thriving arts community.” For more information, visit tulsaartistfellowship.org.
THE TULSA VOICE: Can you tell us a little about your background and work? EDGAR FABIÁN FRÍAS: I was born in East Los Angeles to parents who immigrated from Mexico and settled in a small town called Bloomington, about 50 miles east of LA. This has deeply informed my experiences and understanding of the world. … I earned a double BA from the University of California, Riverside, in psychology and studio art. Personally, I also inhabit many intersecting identities, some of which include being: queer, nonbinary, Latinx, Indigenous, multilingual, multicultural, identifying spiritually as a brujx and a marakame (shaman). TTV: How are you enjoying the life and work of a Tulsa Artist Fellow? FRÍAS: It is truly a dream come true. For years I have struggled to be taken seriously as a cultural producer and have, at times, found it challenging to find my place within creative communities. But, being chosen to be one of the new incoming fellows for 2019–2020 cohort has truly felt like a validation of my art and practice. I have thoroughly appreciated having the time, space, and structural support to grow as an artist in ways I didn't even know were possible. THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
TTV: Can you talk a little about your first solo show, Perpetual Flowering in Los Angeles? FRÍAS: I do not create work in a vacuum. Therefore, the idea of having a “solo show” feels almost counterintuitive to my process. As a result, I have invited artists from both the Los Angeles area and here in Tulsa to participate in its co-creation. I will be collaborating with an herbalist named Saewon Oh of Los Angeles and produce a unique flower essence which will be made available for individuals to consume at the entrance of my show. After this, they will be invited to experience a contemplative moment surrounded by printed images, video testimonials, digital animations, and home-like materials (e.g. shower curtains, rugs, pillows). TTV: You have plans to bring in other outof-state artists for a show based around the concept of honoring the land. Can you tell us more about that? FRÍAS: I am collaborating with The Golden Dome, an educational and curatorial platform dedicated to studying intersections of art, metaphysics, and ecology, to create a series of workshops, performances, and ceremonies that will take place at various Tulsa locations. I am inviting five artists, three from Los Angeles and two from Tulsa, to collaborate with me on developing unique, sitespecific experiences for both the communities that meet at the Central Library and as an offering to the artists and writers at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship. These experiences will utilize Tulsa’s land and histories as a central organizing element. We seek to bring healing, love, and creative practice to both the land and its diverse communities. –TTV STAFF ARTS & CULTURE // 33
sportsreport
Post-seasonal affective disorder The Thunder limp toward NBA’s Western Conference by MATT CARNEY
T
he NBA playoffs is my favorite annual tradition of ambient warfare. Compared to the bracketbusting sugar rush of its college counterpart, the NBA’s postseason plays out every year as a monthslong, droning slog. It’s laden thick with the sort of minor, modular adjustments that basketball heads lose their shit over—My god, Mike Malone just called for the Nuggets to run four straight Nikola Jokic-Mason Plumlee pick-and-rolls and it’s only the first round—but shy on moments of large-scale uncertainty. It’s rare in today’s NBA, with its high-powered SportVU camera system that measures players’ every movement across the floor, for the result of a championship or even a single series, to actually hang in the balance, unknown and unpredictable. Moments of tension—fateful, real, franchise path altering-tension—are few and far between. The last time the Thunder experienced such a moment of tension was Game 6 of the 2016 Western Conference Finals. If you’re taking the trouble to read this, then you probably recall where you watched this particular game, as well as your state of mind that night. (For me it was the patio of Louie’s in midtown Oklahoma City, and complete panic.) We finished that night eight points shy of eliminating an historically dominant 73-9 Golden State Warriors team that Kevin Durant subsequently joined in free agency. That night was fateful, and it sucked. This is a very long way of saying that, in all likelihood, history will soon repeat itself and the Warriors will win another championship this year, their fourth in five seasons. Steph Curry will
34 // ARTS & CULTURE
grin and shimmy and chomp on his mouthguard in that obnoxious way and his Oracle Arena crowd of poorly-dressed venture capitalists will keep drinking our milkshakes until no joy is left in the NBA world. This also sucks. Sorry to despair on you all, but the Thunder have given us good reason for it. After going into the All-Star Break with a solid grasp on the third seed in the league’s stronger conference and a clearcut style of chaotic, bruising and inspired play, our beloved boys have stepped in doo doo. Once a legit MVP spoiler candidate, Paul George’s has slipped out of the conversation by shooting just 34 percent from the three-point line in March, about 10 percent down from his sizzling December and January numbers. It’s not all on George,
though—far from it. The Thunder starters’ offensive and defensive ratings pre-All-Star Break inspired confidence. Since then it’s been a horror show. Russell Westbrook keeps missing free throws; Terrance Ferguson’s three-point shot’s gone cold; Steven Adams stopped driving to the basket. It doesn’t help matters much that the Thunder’s schedule happened to be frontloaded with easier opponents this season. (Four early games against the pitiful Phoenix Suns make it difficult to assess exactly how good your team is.) The starters have played more minutes together than any other five-man lineup in the NBA this season, so perhaps boredom is a factor. It’s a long season, after all. Or maybe it’s that their offensive schtick has become predictable and opponents have grown com-
fortable defending it. To my eye, though, they just look like they’ve tired from running their hallmark style of uptempo, aggressive play all season. Just 7-13 since the break as of Monday, Vegas now places the Thunder at 45-1 odds to win this year’s NBA Championship, but there’s at least a glimmer of hope. The oddsmakers have pegged Oklahoma City as the fourth most likely team to win the Western Conference, ahead of the Jazz, Trail Blazers, and Clippers, who all have better records as of publication. Four games remain on the Thunder’s regular season schedule, which leaves plenty of last-minute jockeying to be done amongst the Western Conference playoff teams. At this point it’s no longer a question of who will make the playoffs, but in what order they’ll meet their opponents. Here’s a quick look at how the Thunder match up against the four teams they’re most likely to meet in the first round. DENVER NUGGETS The Thunder went 0-4 against the Nuggets this season, which is bad. In those four meetings, Denver seemed unbothered by the Thunder’s aggressive defense. 24-yearold Serbian center Nikola Jokic is both bull and bullfighter, gigantic but nimble. Nobody in the league seems capable of taking the ball away from him consistently. However, Jokić and Denver’s other leader in minutes-played, Jamal Murray, are 24 and 22 years old respectively, and have logged a combined zero career playoff minutes. Who knows how they’ll hold up under the microscopic scrutiny of a seven-game series? April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
The only thing certain about a Thunder-Nuggets first-round matchup is that it would cause me severe heartburn. GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS The upside to playing the defending champions is that the Thunder obviously and badly want to whip their asses. Instant motivation right there. (Also, Golden State’s getting older and the DeMarcus Cousins project isn’t going as smoothly as team management probably hoped.) The downside is that the Warriors start five AllStars, only take high-efficiency shots, run an offense that has elevated off-ball movement to a high art form and are massively confident drawing on a ton of experience playing deep into the postseason. The Thunder may take a pound of flesh off the Warriors, but at best they’ve got a puncher’s chance in a series. Better that series come at the end of the playoffs than the beginning. HOUSTON ROCKETS The Thunder went 2-1 against the Rockets this season as of publication, but Houston’s been on a recent tear. Nick Collison’s former pick-and-roll partner James Harden has hacked professional basketball, turning the 25-foot stepback three-pointer into a high-efficiency shot. George, however, is one of the few guys in the league who consistently gives Harden trouble and the Rockets look thinner in depth than the team that nearly knocked off the Warriors in last year’s Western Conference Finals. The Thunder team that shot the lights out in December might actually be favorites in this series. This team? No comment. PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS This is where the Thunder should hope to land. They beat Portland in all four matchups this year— Russell Westbrook’s demonstrated antipathy toward Damian Lillard seems to be a strong motivating factor here—and the Trail Blazers are also limping into the playoffs, without their starting center Jusuf Nurkic, who recently suffered a gruesome injury to his leg that you absolutely shouldn’t Google. If the Thunder are capable of a surprise first-round sweep, Portland looks like a victim. a THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
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THETULSAVOICE.COM/ THEINSIDER. ARTS & CULTURE // 35
FIRST FRIDAY ART CRAWL Friday, April 5, 6–9 p.m. The Tulsa Arts District, thetulsaartsdistrict.org Exhibition openings and events include: _Neighbors_., a collaborative experience incorporating visual, written, performance art, and music at Archer Studios. TU’s Arts & Humanities Festival at the Zarrow Center, which will feature works of all media by dozens of student artists. Live music from Tulsa Quartet at ahha and Beta Betamax at Philbrook Downtown. Emergency Infant Services’ Babypalooza concert at Guthrie Green. And more! VALERIE WEI-HAAS
BASEBALL
HURLING
The Tulsa Drillers kick off the season at ONEOK Field with a seven-game home stand from April 4–10, taking on the Arkansas Travelers and Springfield Cardinals. $2–$35, tulsadrillers.com
Tulsa Gaelic Athletic Club hosts the inaugural Hurling in the Heartland 7v7 Tournament, which will also feature live Celtic music from five bands. April 6, Veterans Park, facebook.com/tulsagac
MARKET
PERFORMANCE
Woodward Park’s SpringFest will feature more than a dozen vendors of plants, art, and more throughout the park, Tulsa Garden Center, and Tulsa Historical Society & Museum. April 5–6, tulsagardencenter.org
John Lane and Allen Otte’s performance piece “The Innocents” explores the ramifications of wrongful conviction through spoken word and percussion. April 6, 2 p.m., woodyguthriecenter.org
ART FESTIVAL
SPEAKER
New Genre Arts Festival culminates with a weekend of performance art and workshops. April 5–7, Living Arts, livingarts.org
Fraud prevention expert Frank Abagnale—whose story was made famous in Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can”—will speak in an OSU-Tulsa Business Forum. April 10, 10 a.m., $50, osucepd.com
MARKET
SPEAKER
Cherry Street Farmers’ Market returns every Saturday starting on April 6, 7–11 a.m., tulsafarmersmarket.org
Space archaeologist and Egyptologist Sarah Parcak will speak at two Tulsa Town Hall Events, at Cascia Hall on April 11 and Tulsa PAC on April 12. Tulsatownhall.com
36 // ARTS & CULTURE
April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
EVENTS Duncan Hannah: Hanging with Bowie and Warhol // 4/4, The Venue Shrine, magiccitybooks.com
Luchador Night // 4/6, Elote Café, elotetulsa.com Spring Fling // 4/6, Riverwalk, riverwalktulsa.com
Silly Humans // 4/5, Rabbit Hole Improv, rabbitholeimprov.com
Slow Art Day // 4/6, Gilcrease Museum, gilcrease.org
Dear Diary: Adults Share Their Teenage Stories // 4/6, Rabbit Hole Improv, rabbitholeimprov.com
The First Street Flea // 4/7, First Street Flea, thefirststreetflea.com Nathan Englander // 4/8, Charles Schusterman Jewish Community Center, magiccitybooks.com The Faces of Tulsa Girls Art School // 4/11, Tulsa Girls Art School, tulsagirlsartschool.org
Thurs., April 11 through Sun., May 5 Circle Cinema, okpop.org
To celebrate the upcoming release of Stay Around, a new album of unreleased music by J.J. Cale, OKPOP will host a reception and a special photo exhibit on display in Circle Cinema’s gallery. The reception will take place on April 26, and will include screenings of new music videos for tracks on the album and Cale’s 2005 tour film “To Tulsa and Back,” as well as panel discussions with special guests. Admission includes a copy of Stay Around: $25 for CD or $40 for vinyl.
ART FESTIVAL
Kendall Whittier Art Festival will include local art vendors, gallery shows, live performances, activities, special events, and food trucks in and around the district. April 11–13, visitkendallwhittier.com
OK Root’s Music’s sixth annual Global Bash will feature performances by The Wailers, North Mississippi Allstars, Changui Majadero, Katie Thiroux, and more at Guthrie Green and Duet. April 12–13, okrootsmusic.org
INTERACTIVE
ahha’s Tinkerfest will include a wide variety of interactive, collaborative, and creative experiences and activities for makers and learners of all ages. April 13, noon–5 p.m., ahhatulsa.org
OPERA
Acclaimed baritone Lucia Lucas—who will star in Tulsa Opera’s production of “Don Giovanni” in May—will speak following a screening of a short film on her journey. April 16, 5 p.m., Circle Cinema, circlecinema.com THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
VFW Comedy Open Mic // 4/10, Centennial Lounge at VFW Post 577, facebook. com/vfwcomedyopenmic Blue Dome Social Club // 4/10, Mainline, mainlineartbar.com Erik Knowles // 4/10-13, The Loony Bin, loonybincomedy.com
Tulsa Auto Show // 4/12-14, Expo Square, thetulsaautoshow.com
Funny Makes Laugh // 4/12, Rabbit Hole Improv, rabbitholeimprov.com
Spring Fling // 4/12, Garden Deva, gardendeva.com Expecto Bar Crawl // 4/13, Blue Dome District
Jay Lamont, Lavell “Velly Vel” Harris, Nariah Raquel, Taizja & Torri, Nate Williams // 4/14, Greenwood Cultural Center, eventbrite.com
Adult Easter Egg Hunt // 4/13, Chandler Park, facebook.com
SPORTS
Sand Springs Herbal Affair & Festival // 4/13, Charles Page Triangle Park, sandspringsok.org
TU Softball vs Kansas // 4/3, Collins Family Softball Complex, tulsahurricane.com
Vodka 1K // 4/13, Inner Circle Vodka Bar, icvodkabar.com TFA Second Saturday Walking Tour // 4/13, Tulsa Foundation for Architecture, tulsaarchitecture.org
PERFORMING ARTS
Xtreme Fight Night 357 // 4/4, River Spirit Casino - Paradise Cove, riverspirittulsa.com Tulsa Oilers vs Kalamazoo Wings // 4/5, BOK Center, tulsaoilers.com TU Softball vs Houston // 4/5, Collins Family Softball Complex, tulsahurricane.com
American Dreams // 4/4-7, Tulsa PAC Liddy Doenges Theatre, tulsapac.com
Tulsa Oilers vs Kalamazoo Wings // 4/6, BOK Center, tulsaoilers.com
Steel Magnolias // 4/5-14, Broken Arrow Community Playhouse, bacptheatre.com
TU Softball vs Houston // 4/6, Collins Family Softball Complex, tulsahurricane.com
The Emperor’s New Clothes // 4/5-14, Clark Youth Theatre, clarkyouththeatre.com
Roughneck Roller Derby vs. Stone Cold Foxes, Tulsa Elite vs. Springfield Roller Derby // 4/6, Ninowski Recreation Center, roughneckrollerderby.com
The Wedding Singer // 4/5-14, Tulsa PAC John H. Williams Theatre, tulsapac.com Tulsa Sings! The Bernstein/Robbins Centennial // 4/5, VanTrease PACE, signaturesymphony.org
MUSIC FESTIVAL
Nimesh Patel // 4/4, Duet, duetjazz.com Insult Attack! w/ Brian Joseph, Brent Deo, Hilton Price, Rick Shaw, Trever Carreon, Uncle gary, De’Marrio Oates, Linday Mae Suggins, Zach Amon, Taylor Tope, Tony Farra, T.J. Clark // 4/4, Renaissance Brewing Company, renaissancebeer.com
IICOT Indian Taco Sale & Art Fair // 4/6, American Legion Post 1, iicot.org
J.J. CALE: STAY AROUND
Mr. Showtime, John Wynn // 4/3-6, The Loony Bin, loonybincomedy.com
Landry Miller’s Talk Show Incorporated w/ Evan Hughes, Eric Strauss, Zehava Glaz // 4/7, Nightingale Theater, facebook. com/talkshowinc The War of the Worlds // 4/11-14, VanTrease PACE, tcc.edu
Aquarium Run // 4/6, Oklahoma Aquarium, okaquarium.org The Color Run // 4/6, River West Festival Park, thecolorrun.com/locations/tulsa Tulsa Oilers vs Wichita Thunder // 4/7, BOK Center, tulsaoilers.com TU Softball vs Houston // 4/7, Collins Family Softball Complex, tulsahurricane.com
Denim Doves // 4/12-20, Studio 308, americantheatrecompany.org
Tulsa Oilers - ECHL Playoffs Round 1 Home Game A // 4/11, BOK Center, tulsaoilers.com
Poetry Slam 2019 // 4/13, Living Arts, livingarts.org
Oral Roberts Baseball vs Omaha // 4/12, J.L. Johnson Stadium, oruathletics.com
Lucy Furr presents Va Va Voom // 4/13, The Fur Shop
NeOkla Autocross // 4/13-14, Fair Meadows, exposquare.com
Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances // 4/13, Tulsa PAC - Chapman Music Hall, tulsapac.com
Tulsa Gators vs Muskogee Monsters // 4/13, Inola High School, tulsagatorfootball.com
Trial by Jury // 4/13, Tulsa PAC - Liddy Doenges Theatre, tulsapac.com
Oral Roberts Baseball vs Omaha // 4/13, J.L. Johnson Stadium, oruathletics.com
Second Sunday Serials // 4/14, Agora Event Center, hellertheatreco.com
Run to the Well 5K, 15K, Fun Run // 4/13, Riverwalk Terrace, kibogroup.org
Waitress // 4/16-21, Tulsa PAC Chapman Music Hall, tulsapac.com
Tulsa Oilers - ECHL Playoffs Round 1 // 4/14, BOK Center, tulsaoilers.com
COMEDY VFW Comedy Open Mic // 4/3, Centennial Lounge at VFW Post 577
Oral Roberts Baseball vs Omaha // 4/14, J.L. Johnson Stadium, oruathletics.com Oral Roberts Baseball vs Oklahoma // 4/16, J.L. Johnson Stadium, oruathletics.com ARTS & CULTURE // 37
musicnotes
Bouelvard Trash owners Michelle and Tony Cozzaglio recently reopened their store at 1545 S. Harvard Ave. | GREG BOLLINGER
Punk’d Boulevard Trash is a Tulsa treasure by KRIS ROSE
T
he Tulsa punk scene seems to come in waves. Every few years, a new batch of young people establish punk houses where fresh-faced bands cut their teeth in front of rowdy, all-ages crowds. Now, there’s a new spot on the scene—sort of. Married couple Michelle and Tony Cozzaglio opened the first iteration of Boulevard Trash in a small strip along Route 66 near Yale Avenue several years back. Although there have been places where you could buy a few accessories here and there, Boulevard Trash was the first dedicated space for all things punk. They carried a small selection of punk-inspired attire, accessories, and records. Most notably, they hosted shows in the back. But the store closed before many even knew it existed. The closure allowed the Cozzaglios to focus on other projects, such as the Punk Rock Flea Market and the recently-expanded Oddities and Curiosities Expo, which travels to major cities across the country. Boulevard Trash continued to sell merchandise online after the
38 // MUSIC
brick-and-mortar store closed. But now, with a growing inventory, Michelle said it just made sense to reopen the store. “Once we realized we were basically busting at the seams in our little storage office we just decided to start looking for a new location and open up again,” she said. The new location, on Harvard Avenue between 11th and 15th streets, is a brightly-lit, roomy space. Brand new clothing from Sourpuss hangs from the walls, and several large bins of new punk records take up an entire room. The rest of the space is fi lled with used clothing, CDs, cassettes, books on music, pins, patches, jewelry, and more. The focus for this new iteration of Boulevard Trash is more on the merchandise. No longer a venue, the new spot will include a more robust selection of merchandise for several different alternative scenes—punk, hardcore, metal, Oi!, and rock ‘n’ roll. They also are adding in some of the merchandise from their Oddities Expo, such as bones, skulls, preserved specimens, jewelry, and occult items.
The upstairs will house Taxidermy with Nina, a studio and classroom for artist Nina Lopez. Starting this month, she will be teaching other curious weirdos how to taxidermy their own macabre creations. Her tagline: “Elegantly resurrect the dead.” One of the things Michelle is asked often is whether or not it’s stressful working side by side with her husband Tony. “It’s not stressful at all, if anything it pushes us to succeed and do more,” she said. “We brainstorm ideas together, work on projects together … It’s truly amazing to work side by side with my husband.” On top of feeling supported by her partner, she also feels supported as a woman in the Tulsa punk scene. “I know so many incredible and strong women in the punk scene who stand their ground here. I have never felt inadequate in this scene for being a woman. I don’t have any interest in letting someone make me feel that way,” Michelle said. “Every scene is different, and every person has their own experiences. For me, I feel like women in the
Tulsa punk scene have continued to rise above and are just totally kicking ass in all aspects.” Although the duo travels to many amazing cities with huge punk scenes, they plan on keeping Tulsa as their home base for the foreseeable future. “I love Tulsa for a plethora of reasons—being involved and helping grow the local scene being one of them,” Michelle said. “Every scene and city is different, but there’s something awesome about Tulsa that would be hard to walk away from. Maybe it’s that most [Tulsa Punks] know they have to do their part to help [the scene] grow. In some larger cities, it’s easy to let somebody else do it all for you,” she continued. “That can be nice, but to me ... working and living it means more. I love visiting other cities, but I’m always happy to be home.” The bigger and better Boulevard Trash will have its grand re-opening on April 13, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., at 1545 S. Harvard Ave. You can also visit them online at boulevardtrashpunk.com. a April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
Everyone is Welcome. Everyone is Creative. Hardesty Center Tulsa Arts District
Not just an ordinary bar
Open Tues. - Sat. 11am - 7pm 217 E. Archer Historic tulsa Arts District (918) 619-6353
Join us for the tastiest Chicken & Waffles in Tulsa!
FIRST
TULSA ARTIST FELLOWSHIP
18 East M. B. Brady St. 918-588-2469 cazschowhouse.com
21 E M.B. Brady St 918-585-8587
SIXTH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION woodyguthriecenter.org
TUESDAY, APR. 23– SUNDAY, APR. 28
FRIDAY FIRST FRIDAY HOURS /// 6-9PM
NOW THROUGH APRIL 2019 LEON RUSSELL: A LIFE IN MUSIC MARCH 5 – APRIL 16
ARCHER STUDIOS
109 N. MLK, JR. BLVD. E.
CAMERON STUDIOS 303 N. MAIN ST.
Join us at both our Archer and Cameron Studio locations for open studios, group exhibitions, pop up performances and more. Free and open to all. THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
@TulsaArtistFellowship #TulsaArtistFellowship
THE INNOCENTS THE INNOCENTS BY JOHN LANE & ALLEN OTTE SATURDAY, APR. 6 • 2pm address 102 EAST BRADY STREET, TULSA, OK
JOHN MCCUTCHEON SUNDAY, APR. 14 • 5pm
74103
phone 918.574.2710
email INFO@WOODYGUTHRIECENTER.ORG TULSA ARTS DISTRICT GUIDE // 39
musicnotes
Sylvia Wrath band members, the eldest of them barely being of voting age, use their platform to confront issues like predation, assault, and “overall asshole-ery.” | GREG BOLLINGER
For the grrrls Sylvia Wrath shows Tulsa ‘how angry teen girls can be’ by KYRA BRUCE
F
or as long as men have been in charge (basically forever), young women have been taught to be quiet, polite, and reserved—to let boys be boys and act like a lady. Local band Sylvia Wrath, whose eldest members are barely old enough to vote, is flipping these expectations on their head with a blistering brand of riot grrrl punk that demands to be heard. “Underestimate me again and I’ll punch your teeth in!” Vocalist Tessa Beil roars what sounds like an actionable threat on the track “Fuck You Buccaneer.” On another, she confronts the performatively woke: “You’re not a feminist just because you wanna fuck me!” Expectations were high during a recent performance at the nowdefunct venue Colorfeed A/V. when the four high-schoolers took the stage and launched into their uncompromising guitar-driven assault. They performed in the intimate venue as if it were packed with thousands of screaming fans as they delivered one of the most energetic and well-received punk sets in recent memory, ending in
40 // MUSIC
a glorious catharsis of fake blood and scattered equipment. “It’s important to me that people realize how angry teen girls can be,” said guitarist Portlyn Houghton-Harjo. “I don’t know if anyone listens, but we scream loud enough to at least annoy people.” Guitarist Portlyn HoughtonHarjo, bassist Sydnee Outlaw, drummer Sam Lloyd, and vocalist Tessa Beil demand to be taken seriously. The band uses their platform to confront issues like predation, assault, and “overall asshole-ery.” In a patriarchal arrangement where young girls are often discounted as emotional, immature, or hysterical—Sylvia Wrath are strong, fed up, and fighting back. The band members have already seen the effect their music has on young women. “Our music is very much for the girls,” Outlaw said. “There was even a time where some tweenage girls asked for our autographs, and it meant a lot that there are people who like what we have to say enough to keep our signatures on their phone cases for everyone to see.” However, Sylvia Wrath’s music is not exclusively “for the girls.”
Drummer Sam Lloyd is just as passionate about the riot grrrl message as his femme band mates. “I like to think that when we play our music, it is to get people inspired to take some sort of action or to speak up about things that are needed to be spoken about, such as rape, abuse, pedophilia, etc.,” he said. “But my personal mission is to hit the drums as hard as the message.” Abusive behavior and unwelcome attention aren’t abstract concepts for Sylvia Wrath. They write from experience, with the goal of inspiring other young women to stand up and fight back. “I hope that our music helps girls to know that they aren’t alone in their issues with men, and that there are people who are there for them, and have experienced the same types of things,” Outlaw said. “I did once receive a Facebook friend request, and soon after a message, from an older man where he said he ‘loved watching me play the bass,’” she said. “And while it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, and even seems like a compliment, to me it seemed strange that an older man, to
whom I have never spoken, would seek me out and tell me that he liked watching me. It just rubbed me the wrong way.” Houghton-Harjo has also had uncomfortable run-ins with men at shows. “Most of my experiences have been chalked up to men touching me without consent—or, to a lesser degree, giving us a condescending, ‘Wow you guys were actually OK,’” she said. The band does their best to give even the most obnoxious naysayer a show to remember. “I found it to be a funny coincidence how people danced to the songs that should have made them stop and think about their life,” Lloyd said. The band strives to make the music scene safer and more open to everyone—not just the boys. To this end, Sylvia Wrath is picking up the mantle of riot grrrl foremothers like Bikini Kill, screaming their rage into a male-dominated scene. Setting an example as brave, powerful young women while out-shredding their adult male peers, Sylvia Wrath is the punk savior the young women of the Tulsa music scene deserve. a April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
MUSIC // 41
musiclistings Wed // Apr 3 Brady Theater – Hozier – ($35-$57) Coffee House on Cherry Street – Open Mic Duet – Brad Henderson Trio Hard Rock Casino - Track 5. – Nathan Dean IDL Ballroom – Yhetti, Nasty Nasty – ($18) Juicemaker Lounge – Jared Tyler Los Cabos - Jenks – Wesley Michael Hays Mercury Lounge – Beau Roberson Mother Road Market – Kalo River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Travis Kidd The Colony – Tom Skinner’s Science Project
Thurs // Apr 4 Blackbird on Pearl – Zac Wenzel Cain’s Ballroom – Death Cab For Cutie, My Brightest Diamond – (SOLD OUT) Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Lush, Weston Horn Hard Rock Casino - Track 5. – Wesley Michael Hays, DJ Demko Juicemaker Lounge – Full Flava Kings – ($7) Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Chris Clark Los Cabos - Jenks – Nick Whitaker Los Cabos - Owasso – Jacob Dement Mercury Lounge – Paul Benjaman Pearl Beach Brew Pub – Joseph Neville River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – DJ 2Legit Soul City – Don & Steve White Soundpony – My Brother and Me The Colony – Jacob Tovar’s Western Night The Colony – David Hernandez - Happy Hour The Fur Shop – Victory Season, ArjŸna The Hunt Club – Benny Bassett The Run – The Zinners Jam The Vanguard – Ghost Town Remedy, Men of Action, Laundry Baskets, Unsung Alibi – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Hanging w/ Bowie & Warhol: Duncan Hannah Tulsa Botanic Garden – Glaming Parrot Gypsy Jazz
Fri // Apr 5 ahha – Tulsa Quartet American Legion Post 308 – Round Up Boys Blackbird on Pearl – Alex Williams – ($10$15) Cabin Boys Brewery – Dane Arnold & The Soup Cain’s Ballroom – Battle of the Bands w/ Timothy Deffebaugh, The odyssey, emrldboi, All For More, Sam Lloyd, Hoarseman and the Heard, Emma Rose, Spotless Mind, George., Theory of Procrastination – ($10-$14) Chimera – Modern Color, No Sun, Downward – ($5) Crow Creek Tavern – Jake Flint & Co. Duet – Siembra – ($13) El Coyote Manco – Morro y su Reunion, KonZentido Norteño, Cumbre Norteña, Damian Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Hook, Daniel Jordan, DJ 2Legit Hard Rock Casino - The Joint – The Beach Boys – ($49-$69)
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Hard Rock Casino - Track 5. – Big Time Grain Company, DJ Demko Juicemaker Lounge – Get Up & Dance Party w/ Kenyatta & TT Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Local Spin Trio Los Cabos - Jenks – Stix N Stones Los Cabos - Owasso – Nick Whitaker Mercury Lounge – Kyle Reid and the Low Swingin’ Chariots – ($5) Philbrook Downtown – Beta BetaMax Rabbit Hole Bar and Grill – Milkwave, Zero for Conduct, Bandknife!, Creepozoidz Retro Grill & Bar – Distinct Sound Scotty’s Lounge – Chuk Cooley’s Good Time Believers Soul City – Susan Herndon - Happy Hour Soundpony – The 7th Annual Gurney Show The Colony – Animal Names, The Earslips, Deerpaw – ($5) The Colony – Scott Evans - Happy Hour The Hunt Club – Tony Romanella and the Black Jackets The Max Retropub – DJ Jeffee Fresh The Stumbling Monkey – Gear Dogz The Vanguard – Lone Wild album release w/ Cavern Company, Brother Rabbit – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Deep Sequence, Funk Tulsa – ($10-$15) Welltown Brewing – Mrs. Holliday and the So-N-So’s
Sat // Apr 6 Bad Ass Renee’s – Skytown, Nameless Society, Dixie Wrecked, The salesman, ArjŸna – ($5) Blackbird on Pearl – Mike Hosty – ($5) Centennial Lounge – Ethan Smith, Andrew Live, DJ Maintain – ($5) Chimera – Hikes, Jr. Clooney, Tallows, Speak Memory – ($7) Crow Creek Tavern – The Low-Key Okies Dead Armadillo Brewery – Beth Lee Duet – TCC Big Band – ($10) Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Dance Floor Riot, DJ Mib, Trett Charles Hard Rock Casino - Track 5. – Mark Wills, DJ Demko Juicemaker Lounge – Funky Muthers Reunion Jam – ($5) Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Brandi Reloaded Los Cabos - Jenks – Rock Fish Los Cabos - Owasso – Dave Kay Trio Lot No. 6 – Alan Doyle, The Outsiders Mercury Lounge – The Danner Party, Handome Sinners, Verbose Peachtown – Peter Tomshany, Adrienne Gilley, Snobug – ($5) Rabbit Hole Bar and Grill – Desi and Cody Scotty’s Lounge – Josh Wadsworth & Midland Valley Soundpony – Soul Night Spinster Records – Grinnin’ Gringos, Annie Oakley – ($5) The Colony – Sam Weber, The Lonelys – ($5) The Hunt Club – Larkin The Penthouse Bar at The Mayo Hotel – Antry The Vanguard – T-Connection w/ St. Domonick, M.C., Manta Rays, Parris Chariz, Ayilla, Tizzi, DJ Spencer LG, 1 of O.D. – ($10)
Veterans Park – Hurling in the Heartland: Vintage Wildflowers, Carde Na Gael, Timothy O’Brian’s Celtic Cheer, Tulsa Metro Pipes Wyld Hawgz – Wounded Veterans of Oklahoma Fundraiser The Max Retropub – DJ Robbo
The Taproom at Marshall Brewing – Dennis Roper Whitty Books – Nerve Beats Hawaii, Plastic Psalms, Tom Doil, Daniel(s)
Sun // Apr 7
Coffee House on Cherry Street – Open Mic Duet – Collective Improv w/ Christian Pearson Hard Rock Casino - Track 5. – Brandon Butler Juicemaker Lounge – Jared Tyler Los Cabos - Jenks – Barrett Lewis Mercury Lounge – Beau Roberson River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Travis Kidd The Colony – Tom Skinner’s Science Project The Vanguard – Justina Valentine – ($15)
Brady Theater – Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, Beth Hart Band – ($39.50-$75) East Village Bohemian Pizzeria – Mike Cameron Collective Guthrie Green – Golden Ones Hard Rock Casino - Track 5. – Wilbur Lee Tucker Juicemaker Lounge – Koolie High & The Wise Men – ($10) Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Nick Whitaker Los Cabos - Jenks – The Fabulous Two Man Band Mercury Lounge – Brandon Clark River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Brent Giddens Soul City – Dustin Pittsley’s Blues Brunch Soul City – Bruner & Eicher Soundpony – FAVX The Colony – Paul Benjaman’s Sunday Nite Thing The Colony – Singer Songwriter Open Mic Matinee w/ Cody Clinton The Starlite – North By North, Girls Club, Acid Queen The Vanguard – GnarWolf, Gadgets Sons, Undervalued – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Benefit for the Bachelor w/ Weston Horn and the Hush, Tony Romanello and the Black Jackets, Steve Liddell, Zen Hipster, Dead Union, Let Slip the Dogs, Murderous Mary, ModernMyth – ($5) Whittier Bar – Silent On Fifth Street, Crafting The conspiracy, Basses Loaded, Obscure Sanity, Dark Matter
Mon // Apr 8 Chimera – Keep Flying, My Heart and Liver, The Beaten Daylights – ($5) Hodges Bend – Mike Cameron Collective Juicemaker Lounge – Open Mic Mercury Lounge – Chris Blevins Philbrook Museum of Art – Bandelier Rabbit Hole Bar and Grill – Chris Foster River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – The Morgan Band Soundpony – New Candys The Colony – Seth Lee Jones The Run – Jermey & Friends The Vanguard – Trembler, hUGg, Speedo Torpedo – ($10)
Tues // Apr 9 Blackbird on Pearl – The Pearl Jam Cain’s Ballroom – STS9 – ($27-$79) Centennial Lounge at VFW Post 577 – Open Mic Gypsy Coffee House – Open Mic Juicemaker Lounge – Faye Moffett Mercury Lounge – Wink Burcham River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – FuZed Soul City – Tuesday Bluesday The Colony – Dane Arnold & The Soup The Colony – Deerpaw - Happy Hour The Run – Campfire
Wed // Apr 10
Thurs // Apr 11 Duet – Jared Cathey – ($8) Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Squadlive, DJ Mib, Scott Eastman Hard Rock Casino - The Joint – Gladys Knight – ($40-$60) Hard Rock Casino - Track 5. – Paul Bogart, DJ Demko Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Weston Horn Los Cabos - Jenks – Dave Kay Duo Los Cabos - Owasso – Rockwell Mercury Lounge – Paul Benjaman River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – DJ 2Legit River Spirit Casino - Paradise Cove – The Bellamy Brothers – ($20-$30) Sisserou’s – Elizabeth Speegle Band Soul City – The Begonias Soundpony – Some Kind of Nightmare, One Finger Discount, Gutter Villain The Colony – Jacob Tovar’s Western Night The Colony – David Hernandez - Happy Hour The Hunt Club – Brandon Clark The Run – The Zinners Jam The Vanguard – The Band Camino – (SOLD OUT) The Venue Shrine – Jazz is PHSH – ($12-$15) Tulsa Botanic Garden – The Candy Prince Tulsa Band
Fri // Apr 12 American Legion Post 308 – Joe Harris BOK Center – Carnivale Icône w/ Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Chromeo – ($79.50) Bull & Bear Tavern – Ashlee Elmore Jazz Quintet Cabin Boys Brewery – Generations Jazz Quartet Cain’s Ballroom – Mike Ryan, Erick Willis – ($15-$30) Duet – Global Bash: Changui Majadero – ($15) Garden Deva – Spring Fling: Jason Swanson, Tim Todd Guthrie Green – Global Bash: North Mississippi Allstars Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Replay, DJ 2Legit, Barrett Lewis Hard Rock Casino - Track 5. – Hudson Drive, DJ Demko Heirloom Rustic Ales – Dismondj & Xenogenius Inner Circle Vodka Bar – Feenix Lefty’s On Greenwood – Asphalt Prairie Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – The Aviators Los Cabos - Jenks – Recommended Dose Los Cabos - Owasso – Local Spin Mercury Lounge – Atlantis Aquarius April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
Rabbit Hole Bar and Grill – Josh Pearson, Doctor Junior, Cherokee Rose Scotty’s Lounge – Charlie Hickman Soul City – Susan Herndon - Happy Hour Soundpony – Afistaface The Colony – Scott Evans - Happy Hour The Hunt Club – Bandelier The Max Retropub – Slam! w/ DJ Kylie The Vanguard – Through Being Cool w/ Goodfella, My Heart & Liver Are The Best of Friends – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Swan Lake Gentlemen’s Society – ($7) Vox Pop Tulsa – Kirk Thurmond, Kalyn Fay
Sat // Apr 13
River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Brent Giddens Soul City – Dustin Pittsley’s Blues Brunch Soul City – Bruner & Eicher Soundpony – Baby Bear Lo-Fi, Feral Ghost, The Mules, Eric Strauss The Colony – Paul Benjaman’s Sunday Nite Thing The Colony – Singer Songwriter Open Mic Matinee w/ Cody Clinton The Hunt Club – Preslar Music Showcase The Venue Shrine – John Corabi – ($10-$15) Woody Guthrie Center – John McCutcheon – ($25)
Mon // Apr 15
Tues // Apr 16
Hodges Bend – Mike Cameron Collective Juicemaker Lounge – Open Mic Mercury Lounge – Chris Blevins Rabbit Hole Bar and Grill – Chris Foster River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – The Morgan Band The Colony – Seth Lee Jones The Run – Jermey & Friends
Blackbird on Pearl – The Pearl Jam Cain’s Ballroom – Redbud Lip Sync Battle – ($60) Centennial Lounge at VFW Post 577 – Open Mic Gypsy Coffee House – Open Mic Juicemaker Lounge – Faye Moffett Mercury Lounge – Wink Burcham River Spirit Casino – FuZed Soul City – Tuesday Bluesday The Colony – Dane Arnold & The Soup The Colony – Deerpaw - Happy Hour The Run – Campfire The Taproom at Marshall Brewing – Warren Stewart
Blackbird on Pearl – Brad James Band – ($5) Duet – Global Bash: Katie Thiroux – ($15) El Coyote Manco – Caciques de San Luis Potosi, Juan Acuña y El Terror del Norte, Gema la Calentana Fair Fellow Coffee Roasters – Delaney Zumwalt, David Hernandez Fuel 66 – DJ Vashonda Sherra Garden Deva – Spring Fling: Autumn Shade, The Lonelys, The Whiskey Misters, Zoey Horner, Jesse Aycock, Donovan Fite Greenwood Cultural Center – 20 Gents Throwback Party – ($15-$20) Guthrie Green – Global Bash: The Wailers, Betsayda Machado, Nightingale, Monhollon Bros., Inspyral Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Boogie Fever, DJ Mib, 80’z Enuf Hard Rock Casino - The Joint – Diana Ross – ($90-$110) Hard Rock Casino - Track 5. – Great Big Biscuit, DJ Demko IDL Ballroom – SoDown, Ryan Viser, Homemade Spaceship – ($12-$15) Inner Circle Vodka Bar – The Get Down Josey Records – Acid Queen, Golden Ones Kendall Whittier Arts Festival – Casii Stephan and the Midnight Sun Lefty’s On Greenwood – Clueless Los Cabos - Jenks – Speakeasy Los Cabos - Owasso – Weston Horn Mercury Lounge – Dog Company, The Shame, The Penny Mob Osage Casino Tulsa - Skyline Event Center – Bell Biv DeVoe – ($35-$75) Scotty’s Lounge – Lorri Williams Soundpony – Pony Disco Club The Colony – Luke Redfield – ($5) The Colony – A.H. Pierce and the Arrows w/ Brad Absher - Happy Hour – ($5) The Hunt Club – BC and the Big Rig The Max Retropub – DJ AB The Vanguard – XIII Minutes album release w/ DRYVR, Mudd Flux, Brightside Flight – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Wesley Michael Hays CD Release – ($5) Vox Pop Tulsa – Mark Gibson Band
Sun // Apr 14 East Village Bohemian Pizzeria – Mike Cameron Collective Fassler Hall – Hip Hop Brunch w/ Eclectic Disposition Hard Rock Casino - Track 5. – Allison Arms Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Barrett Lewis Los Cabos - Jenks – The Fabulous Two Man Band Mercury Lounge – Brandon Clark THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
MUSIC // 43
onscreen
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Evan Alex in “Us” | COURTESY
MIRROR IMAGE ‘Us’ is a horrifying funhouse reflection of American life
IN JUST A MATTER OF TWO FILMS, writer-director Jordan Peele has accomplished a rare feat, transforming seemingly overnight into one of the country’s most original storytellers. With “Us,” his highly-anticipated follow up to the Oscar-winning “Get Out,” Peele has not only made good on the promise of his debut, he has proven to be a cunning and shrewd craftsperson with boundless potential. In just its opening weeks, “Us”—like “Get Out”—has become a bona-fide cultural phenomenon. The film opens with a benign living room scene featuring an old TV, strategically-placed spines of VHS cassettes of schlocky 80s films (“C.H.U.D.” and “The Man With Two Brains” stand out) and a corny TV ad for “Hands Across America”—a national campaign to fight hunger and homelessness. It feels like a brief preamble but here Peele presents the entire exegesis for what’s to come. We’re then introduced to young Adelaide—a quiet, only child whose parents are distracted by their constant bickering while vacationing at a sunny beachside amusement park. Adelaide disappears into a funhouse where she encounters and is traumatized by a doppelgänger. In present day, Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o) lives a seemingly idyllic life. She has a doting husband Gabe (Winston Duke) and two children—Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex). The family is a living embodiment of a lifestyle magazine ad featuring a modern middle-class family with means. However, time at their vacation home—complete with bourgeois friends (Tim Heidecker and Elizabeth Moss) and their bratty kids—is no slice-of-heaven for
Adelaide. Once the Wilsons arrive, memories of Adelaide’s encounter soon come back to haunt her—a fear realized by the arrival of said doppelgänger, Red, and her family. To the Wilsons’ horror, the intruders are their mirror images, except the doppelgängers are decked out in red jumpsuits wielding gilded scissors. Nyong’o and cast pull double duty playing their doppelgängers with delicious menace and the ensuing confrontation makes for a highly thrilling and satisfying horror film. Peele nimbly packs this film with suspense, well-timed humor, and even more visual metaphor than his previous outing, accomplishing a rare feat in horror—sparking national conversation. Is “Us” a film about economic disparity in the U.S.; the duality of identity and self-reinvention; a comment on how you can never quite escape your former persona? Is it about America? Capitalism? Processing historical trauma? Quite possibly, yes, and more. Peele said “Us” is a Rorschach for both his influences and his collective fears and anxieties, which make it such a rich, complex film that rewards multiple viewings. While each frame is packed with cinematic references and big ideas, it is also a little shaggy and carries an ending that feels a little too rushed with a slightly unearned ambiguity, showing a hint of the unsteady footing of a sophomore follow-up. Of course, horror is hardly the medium for air-tight logic, and rarely do our fears reflect any such process. With “Us,” Peele turns the mirror not only on himself but toward us, showing America the often-horrifying reflection staring back. — CHARLES ELMORE April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
A BRIEF RUNDOWN OF WHAT’S HAPPENING AT THE CIRCLE CINEMA
OPENING APRIL 5 THE AFTERMATH In post-WWII Germany, a British colonel and his wife (Jason Clarke, Keira Knightley) are sent to Hamburg where he will oversee reconstruction. Tensions and passions arise with the former owner of the house (Alexander Skarsgård) in which they’re assigned to live. Rated R.
Matthew McConaughey in “The Beach Bum” | COURTESY
CHAOS IN THE KEYS ‘The Beach Bum’ is a beautiful ride to the bottom
HARMONY KORINE MADE HIS NAME WITH outsider art films that performed open heart surgery on “white trash” America. Working with the beauty and terror of the Midwest— its eccentricity, abuse, and addiction—he captured the fringes of American life with honest sublimity in early films like “Gummo” and “Julien Donkey-Boy.” These themes carry over to “The Beach Bum,” but here they are informed by a maturing of Korine’s career since his prodigal debut in the midto-late 1990s. Korine’s Technicolor 2012 crime romp, “Spring Breakers,” lies somewhere between the early films and this new release. But where the former represented an escapism from Middle America to fun-loving Florida (until being consumed by its criminal elements), “The Beach Bum” wholly embraces that Floridian setting as an earthly paradise or Boschian pleasure limbo. His earlier films are nightmares, but this one is a reverie that embraces hedonistic life and “fun”—the mantra of its protagonist, Moondog. Played by a pitch-perfect Matthew McConaughey, Moondog is a freewheeling poet prone to substance abuse and creative outbursts that bring listeners to tears. McConaughey’s character is slightly reminiscent of his real-life namesake, the costumed “Viking of 6th Avenue,” an American composer and writer who performed from 1940-1975. But his character is a composite of several unhinged creative figures, such as American poet Richard Brautigan. Korine says Moondog was mainly inspired by those he crossed paths with in Miami and Key West, Florida, where most of the film takes place and the filmmaker resides. THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
Raw, full of sensuality and sexual splendor, “The Beach Bum” is the kind of love story only Korine could tell. Moondog smokes joints held between the toes of his wife Minnie (Isla Fisher) and performs cunnilingus on her while she’s getting her nails done poolside. He drifts around, a millionaire tramp of dialectic chaos, fueled by weed and PBR, exhibiting Korine’s non-narrative magic. Like “Spring Breakers,” Korine’s latest features a perplexing mix of well-known actors and musicians, from Zac Efron and Jonah Hill to Snoop Dogg and Jimmy Buffet. The film’s soundtrack is notably full of dadrock classics and Buffet numbers that play on the film’s retirement theme and Key West setting. The youth culture of Korine’s early work is embodied in Zac Efron’s character Flicker. Moondog meets Flicker in rehab, but Korine leaves youth behind to explore midlife crises, paternity, and the nature of creativity. In a turn toward these more relatable themes, “The Beach Bum” represents what has always set Korine apart, and excels where “Spring Breakers” fell short. Since his 1997 directorial debut, Korine is even more in-tune today with the fine balance between degradation and promise in America. Back then, he expressed this as many young artists do, by showing depravity and destruction. In 2019, he reveals that our opulence and fantasies will destroy us. America is no longer consuming itself from the inside out, but from the top down. With “The Beach Bum” a ride to the bottom is inevitable, but art— poetry—is our only redeeming quality. — MASON WHITEHORN POWELL
NT LIVE: ALL ABOUT EVE Gillian Anderson and Lily James star in this London staging of the Oscar-winning film about fame and betrayal in the world of theatre. Pre-show gathering in Circle Cinema Gallery. $15 admission. (Thurs. April 11, 7 p.m.)
TRANSIT A man flees Nazioccupied France under the identity of a dead author, only to meet the author’s wife who—assuming her husband is missing—is searching for him. A German and French language film, based on Anna Segher’s 1942 novel. Rated R.
BEYOND THE ROCKS (1922) Second Saturday Silents presents Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson in a story about a young woman who falls in love with a nobleman while on her honeymoon. Bill Rowland accompanies on the Circle’s 90-year-old pipe organ. $5 admission; $2 for 16 & under. (Sat. April 13, 11 a.m.)
OPENING APRIL 12 DIANE Tulsa native Mary Kay Place stars as a woman searching for meaning in her life while also trying to connect with her drugaddicted son. Winner of the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. Not Rated.
THE BIKES OF WRATH Documentary of five Australians that cycle from Oklahoma to California in honor of the Joad family from the classic novel “The Grapes of Wrath.” $10 admission. $8 for Circle Members. (Sun. April 14, 2 p.m.)
SPECIAL EVENTS CHARM CITY FREE. Documentary about people in the Baltimore community on the front lines of violence over a three-year period. Panel discussion follows with reps from city council, Tulsa Police, and 100 Black Men of Tulsa. (Mon. April 8, 6 p.m.) EL COMPADRE MENDOZA (1934) FREE. Circle’s Cine de Oro classic Mexican cinema series presents this story of a Mexican landowner forced to take sides during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Co-sponsored by Casa de la Cultura of Tulsa and The Mexican Consulate. (Tues. April 9, 7 p.m.)
PENGUIN HIGHWAY Circle Anime Club presents this new film about a fourth-grade genius who vows to solve the mysterious appearance of penguins in a suburb hundreds of miles from the sea. $10 admission. $8 for Circle Members. (Mon. April 15, 7 p.m.) TULSA FMAC – VIDEO & MIXER FREE EVENT. World renowned Lucia Lucas becomes the first trans woman opera performer in the United States when she stars in Tulsa Opera’s “Don Giovanni”. Informal mixer from 5 to 6 p.m., then a short film about Lucas’s journey, followed by Q&A with Artistic Director Tobias Picker. Sponsored by Tulsa Office of Film, Music, Arts, and Culture. (Tues. April 16, 5 p.m.)
FILM & TV // 45
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April 28, 2019 at 1 p.m. Oral Roberts University Mabee Center Saturday, April 27 Tulsa Club Hotel
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Preservation Oklahoma is proud to advocate for the places where Oklahoma history lives. Tulsa is full of rich history with iconic structures that are worth saving.
Street Cred brings an underused area of town to life for a day. This year, TYPROS is teaming up with Tulsa Art Alley to turn a forgotten part of downtown into a creative oasis. Brookshire Motel
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46 // ETC.
April 3 – 16, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
THE FUZZ THE TULSA VOICE SPOTLIGHTS: TULSA SPCA
2910 Mohawk Blvd. | MON, TUES, THURS, FRI & SAT, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 918.428.7722
HUCK is a fun guy! He loves to play with toys and is a happy entertainer. His foster parents reported that Huck is house trained and an all-around awesome dog. Huck is about nine months old and weighs roughly 47 lbs.
ACROSS 1 Aorta and others 9 Any family member 17 Norm (Abbr.) 20 Bungled 21 Cadillac Ranch’s home 22 Hardship 23 Result of thiamine deficiency 24 Flourish on a bakery item 26 Gas burner stats 27 Thumbs-down votes 29 Appear that way 30 Intelligenceseeking plants? 32 Raggedy dolls 33 Patty ___ 37 Arafat of the PLO 38 Some have felt tips 39 Puff pastry cheese 40 They may send medical records 42 Spot in the cast 43 Wolfed down 44 Historic French river 45 “This is fabulous!” 47 St. Augustine’s place, for short 48 Hands-on EMS technique 49 Sad poem 50 Belt-driven cooler 52 Antidiscriminatory letters 53 Lists of candidates 55 Not-to-be-missed 56 Jacuzzi spurter 57 Ancient Greek historian 59 Gridiron opportunities 63 Solemnly swear 65 Sugar meas. 66 So far
67 TV brand that’s also a record label 70 Espresso unit 71 Actress Streep 73 Space objects in belts 76 Radio host Glass 77 Pocket book? 81 Sonnet part 82 Kylo ___ (“Star Wars” character) 83 Reason for sirens in Kansas 87 Early TV’s Milton 88 Chap 89 Yoko in “Isle of Dogs” 90 It has a pair of scales 91 Vowel-shaped fastener 92 Chi follower 93 Flame, for Tinder 95 One in distress 96 “Death and Fire” artist Paul 97 Cel mate? 98 “___ a gun!” 100 New Mexico art colony 101 Drudge 102 Hyena predators 103 Homework helpers 105 George of “MacGyver” 106 “The Clan of the Cave Bear” author Jean 107 The Milky Way, for one 112 Late-breaking fastball 116 Like yellow newspapers 117 Sank, as a short putt 118 Dash indicator 119 Michelle Obama, ___ Robinson 120 Enterprise time unit 121 Player of an opening song?
MADDIE is a gentle giant who would do well with just about any family. She gets along well with other large dogs and has caught on quickly to house training and indoor behavior. Maddie about 1.5 years old and weighs about 75 lbs.
DOWN 1 Squadron site, briefly 2 Caviar 3 Wind farm revolver 4 Creme de la creme groups 5 Picture puzzle 6 Foreboding day 7 It’s north of Afr. 8 Toy that eventually falls 9 Drag contests? 10 Large flightless birds 11 Drink like a kitten 12 Fly ball’s path 13 ___ Maria liqueur 14 Sort 15 Corrida accolades 16 Too curious (var.) 17 Leaves, mermaid-style 18 Fajita base 19 “Back to the Future” car 25 Sign of use 28 Like the jack of spades 30 Michael Jordan/ Bugs Bunny film 31 Personal gripe 32 Overdue debts 33 Musher’s team, perhaps 34 Torah book 35 Many jeans 36 Act the doctor 39 “Swan Lake,” for one 40 December car topper 41 Rides the bench 44 Screen door material 46 Pigeon-___ 51 Olds-fashioned cars 54 Chinese restaurant bottles 58 Offensive word in 1968? 60 Relaxing soak site
61 “Just because” 62 Movie doubles 64 MGM Grand competitor 67 Its petals are often red 68 French automaker 69 Nutrition author Davis 72 “Stay (I Missed You)” singer Lisa 73 “The Tempest” king 74 Sharply criticized 75 Editor’s “Leave it in” 78 ___ the Impaler 79 Dazzling success 80 Andean beast 83 Saddles with 84 Separate, as train cars 85 12 p.m., poetically 86 Dover’s state (Abbr.) 94 Koh-i-___ diamond 97 Dress shirt pin 99 Greek life groups, informally 101 Liam of One Direction 102 Mario’s brother 104 Venetian blind part 105 Sign often lit in red 106 “___ Well That Ends Well” 108 A 4.0 is a great one 109 Car financing letters 110 Ushered 111 Toothpastecertifying org. 113 More, in music 114 It may need a boost after a bruise 115 Tyrannosaurus ___
The Tulsa SPCA has been helping animals in our area since 1913. The shelter never euthanizes for space and happily rescues animals from high-kill shelters. They also accept owner surrenders, rescues from cruelty investigations, hoarding, and puppy mill situations. Animals live on-site or with foster parents until they’re adopted. All SPCA animals are micro-chipped, vaccinated, spayed/neutered, and treated with preventatives. Learn about volunteering, fostering, upcoming events, adoptions, and their low-cost vaccination clinic at tulsaspca.org.
RUSSELL will do just about anything for a treat and a little praise. This 61-pound pup has great kennel manners. At only about a year old, Russell would benefit greatly from an active family that makes sure to play with and exercise him regularly.
UNIVERSAL SUNDAY CROSSWORD WHORLED SERIES by Peter Koetters, edited by David Steinberg
© 2019 Andrews McMeel Syndication THE TULSA VOICE // April 3 – 16, 2019
Lovely DIXIE has a sweet and spunky personality. This 14-pound cutie is quick to make herself at home on your lap. Dixie is seven years old, but she still wants to run around and play! She does well with other respectful dogs.
4/14 ETC. // 47
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Pleas e re cycle this issue.
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