The Tulsa Voice | Vol. 5 No. 21

O C T. 1 7 – N O V. 6 , 2 0 1 8 // V O L . 5 N

ThE Ones wE loSt stories of the dead, on their day P20

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2 // CONTENTS

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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CONTENTS // 3

4 // CONTENTS

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

CANDIDATE INTERVIEWS P15

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // Vol. 5, No. 21 ©2018. All rights reserved.

BY TTV STAFF

PUBLISHER Jim Langdon

Four candidates talk reform ahead of the Nov. 6 midterms

EDITOR Jezy J. Gray ASSISTANT EDITOR Blayklee Freed DIGITAL EDITOR John Langdon CREATIVE DIRECTOR Madeline Crawford GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Georgia Brooks, Morgan Welch PHOTOGRAPHER Greg Bollinger

THE ONES WE LOST P20

AD SALES MANAGER Josh Kampf

BY TTV STAFF

CONTRIBUTORS David Blatt, Liz Blood, Eliseo Casiano, Alicia Chesser, Russell Cobb, Charles Elmore, Barry Friedman, Allison Herrera, Greg Horton, Jeff Huston, Frances Jordan-Rakestraw, Jeff Martin, Nicole McAfee, Deana McCloud, Mary Noble, Deon Osborne, Kathryn Parkman, Andrew Saliga, Damion Shade, John Tranchina, Charles Tuberville, Holly Wall, Brady Whisenhunt, Clark Wiens, Michelle Wiens

Stories of the dead, on their day

The Tulsa Voice’s distribution is audited annually by

‘A PLACE ON MY ALTAR’ P24

BY JEZY J. GRAY

Oklahoma artist Eliseo Casiano on death, family, and representation

Member of

DECOLONIZING DEATH P26

The Tulsa Voice is published bi-monthly by

BY ALICIA CHESSER

Tulsa’s Day of the Dead Festival builds a bridge, not a wall 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

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD Send all letters, complaints, compliments & haikus to: voices@langdonpublishing.com FOLLOW US @THETULSAVOICE ON:

Day of the Dead Festival at Living Arts | COURTESY

NEWS & COMMENTARY 7 FUTURE VISION

B Y DAVID BLATT

28 HALLOWEEN HAPS

B Y TTV STAFF

SQ800 imagines life after oil and gas

8

A SERIOUS INDICATION

30 JOIN THE RUMBLE

B Y BRADY WHISENHUNT

BY LIZ BLOOD

Tulsa Police Department combats domestic strangulation through education—and arrests

FOOD & DRINK 10 KICKSTART KITCHEN

B Y GREG HORTON

O C T. 1 7 – N O V. 6 , 2 0 1 8 // V O L . 5 N

ARTS & CULTURE

Meet the fall cohort of Kitchen 66

12 LESS-THAN-FRIGHTFUL SPIRITS

B Y ANDREW SALIGA

Halloween drink recipes you shouldn’t fear

ThE Ones wE loSt

Where to be on All Hallows’ Eve

Tulsa Pop Culture Expo brings ‘Ponyboy’ C. Thomas Howell for Outsiders House Museum benefit

32 ‘GO TO THE WORDS’

BY HOLLY WALL

Rilla Askew talks literary Oklahoma and writerly advice

34 PHANTOM LIMBS

B Y KATHRYN PARKMAN

MUSIC 40 THE CULTURE IS OURS

B Y MARY NOBLE Women in Tulsa’s hip-hop scene are breaking ground, and they’re here to stay

TV & FILM 44 THIEF OF HEARTS

B Y CHARLES ELMORE Robert Redford delivers a graceful performance in ‘The Old Man & the Gun’

44 STRANGER THINGS

B Y JEFF HUSTON Nicolas Cage reaps bloody revenge in art house horror ‘Mandy’

Tulsa history, told by trees

36 NO MORE ‘CHEESEBURGERS’

B Y JOHN TRANCHINA Local referee launches campaign to improve adult behavior at youth sports events

ETC. 6 EDITOR’SLETTER 38 THEHAPS 42 MUSICLISTINGS 47 THEFUZZ + CROSSWORD

stories of the dead, on their day P20

ON THE COVER “Broncos” painting by Eliseo Casiano THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

CONTENTS // 5

editor’sletter

D

espite finding no evidence of fraud in past elections, the Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld the legislature’s inordinate voter ID law earlier this year. This is one among a suite of similar restrictions passed in state houses across the country since 2010, making voting as hard as bureaucratically possible for the poor and people of color.

The Oklahoma ruling follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to strike a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, allowing nine (mostly southern) states with histories of voter repression to change their election policies without federal approval.

This opened the door for states like Texas to blow the dust off their own shelved anti-voter efforts and carry on with the wind from Washington at their backs.

In June of this year, that same body upheld Ohio’s “use-it-or-

lose-it” law, scrubbing voters from rolls if they declined to participate in recent elections without mailing in a special confirmation form. Then, last week, it upheld a suppression measure in North Dakota, making tens of thousands of (mostly Native) voters noncompliant with its unduly rigid street address requirements.

Days ago, the Associated Press reported that “voter roll maintenance” in Georgia wiped more than 1.4 million registrations off the books over the last six years, under the direction of secretary of state and current gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp. Now, in the runup to his contest against Rep. Stacey Abrams—who would be the first Black woman governor in U.S. history—more than 53,000 registrations of (mostly Black) voters have been “stalled” due to burdensome technical requirements of the state’s “exact match” voter ID rule.

With scandalously low turnout in U.S. local elections, why are legislatures across the country so determined to put up barriers between people and their ballot box? Proponents say they’re safeguarding against voter fraud—but studies, courts, and government investigations agree that voter fraud is extremely rare. The maneuver of voter suppression is clearly about power: who gets it, and who keeps it.

If you’re one of the lucky ones—those of us with permanent addresses that match state databases, with squeaky-clean rap sheets and secure jobs with accommodating bosses—then, please, snatch your power and vote in the midterm election on Tues., Nov. 6.

This issue features some of the candidates, in their own words, about how the decisions made in their offices will affect

RECYCLE THIS Cardboard

your life and the lives of your most vulnerable neighbors—like how gubernatorial candidate Drew Edmondson would work to expand Medicaid (pg. 16); how Ashley McCray would bring environmental justice to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (pg. 15); how Blake Shipley would reform Tulsa’s bond system (pg.

18); and how Jenny Proehl-Day would shake up the district attorney’s office (pg. 19).

For more information, check out the 2018 Oklahoma State Questions and Elections featured report at okpolicy.org. a

JEZY J. GRAY EDITOR

NOT THAT Styrofoam

Throw styrofoam away in the gray trash cart.

Cardboard boxes are perfect for

LEARN MORE AT

recycling, but styrofoam is NOT

TulsaRecycles.com

acceptable for the blue recycling cart.

6 // NEWS & COMMENTARY

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

okpolicy

O

FUTURE VISION SQ800 imagines life after oil and gas

by DAVID BLATT for OKPOLICY.ORG

THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

klahoma will begin to set aside a portion of future oil and gas revenues for a new reserve fund if voters approve State Question 800 on Nov. 6.

SQ 800 creates a new trust fund known as the Oklahoma Vision Fund in the state Constitution. Five percent of the collections from the gross production tax on oil and gas would be deposited in the Fund beginning July 1, 2020. Each year after that, the amount diverted to the fund would increase by 0.2 percentage points. The State Treasurer would be responsible for investing that money, and the fund would also include any returns on that investment.

As of July 1, 2020, 4 percent of the average annual principal amount of the Fund over the preceding five years would be deposited to the General Revenue Fund for Oklahoma’s ordinary budget needs. Up to 5 percent could also be used to pay back debt for the State of Oklahoma or local governments.

The state question was added to the ballot with the passage of SJR 35 in 2018. The measure, authored by Senate Minority Leader John Sparks and House Speaker Charles McCall, passed the Senate 42-0 and the House 94-3.

If SQ 800 is approved by the voters, the Oklahoma Vision Fund would become the state’s third budget reserve fund. Oklahoma currently has two reserve funds: the Constitutional Reserve Fund, commonly known as the Rainy Day Fund, created in the 1980s, and the Revenue Stabilization Fund, created in 2016. The two existing funds are designed primarily to build up reserves when revenues are growing and stabilize the budget in periods of revenue downturns.

By contrast, the new Vision Fund would operate more as an endowment that would grow steadily over time and would ensure long-term savings from

depleting energy resources. Of the 11 states with the highest oil and gas production revenues, only Oklahoma and Louisiana do not have a permanent fund like this, according to a 2017 study by two researchers at the University of Oklahoma.

In her veto of companion legislation to SJR 35, Gov. Mary Fallin identified two concerns with the new reserve fund. First, she noted that deposits to the Vision Fund would divert an ever-increasing share of revenue that is currently dedicated to the state budget and to existing reserve funds. However, the share of gross production taxes going to the Vision Fund is only 5 percent initially, and, even growing at 0.2 points annually, it would not hit 10 percent for 25 years.

Her second objection was to the provision allowing up to 5 percent of the Fund to be used for debt service payments for a local government entity. “The state should not be paying for obligations that are not its own,” wrote the Governor in her veto message. Though not mentioned in her veto message, there is also no language specifying who would decide how money from the Vision Fund is allocated for debt obligations, though this could be addressed in future legislation.

The precise mechanisms of how money flows into and out of the Vision Fund may need to be revisited in future years, as well as how the Vision Fund interacts with the two other reserve funds.

However, Oklahoma voters will likely agree that setting aside a modest portion of the revenues from energy production is good stewardship that should allow the state to be better prepared for economic and energy changes in the decades ahead. a

David Blatt is Executive Director of Oklahoma Policy Institute (okpolicy.org).

NEWS & COMMENTARY // 7

community

S

trangulation is one of the biggest signs that a physically abusive relationship has the potential to turn deadly.

“It’s indicative of an escalation—that things are getting worse,” said Sgt. Clay Asbill, head of the domestic violence unit at Tulsa Police Department (TPD).

“It doesn’t mean all domestic strangulations end up in homicide, but in a large part of attempted and domestic homicides, there is a history of domestic strangulation.”

According to the San Diego Tribune, a study published in 2014 showed that women who had been strangled were almost eight times more likely to end up victims of homicide than women who suffered other forms of abuse.

According to another study, quoted in the 2017 Oklahoma Domestic Fatality Review Board annual report: “Non-fatal strangulation was reported in 43 percent of homicides and 45 percent of attempted homicides of women … another study of 300 cases of female attempted strangulations in the San Diego Domestic Violence Unit of the city prosecutor’s office found that in 89 percent of the cases there was a prior history of IPV [Intimate Partner Violence].”

Survivors of strangulation— regardless of age—may suffer serious, long-term injuries including memory loss, stroke, traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, and blindness.

In 2013, when the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was re-authorized, strangulation and suffocation were elevated to felony offenses under federal law.

This is one example of why re-authorizing VAWA (which was set to expire Sept. 30 and was extended until Dec. 7) is crucial.

Locally, TPD’s Domestic Strangulation Initiative—spearheaded

by Asbill—is already making a difference in the lives of strangulation survivors. Asbill became head of the domestic violence unit in early 2017, when Tulsa County had the highest rate of domestic

8 // NEWS & COMMENTARY

A SERIOUS INDICATION

Tulsa Police Department combats domestic strangulation through education—and arrests

by LIZ BLOOD

TPD STRANGULATION INITIATIVE PROVES EFFECTIVE In one year, numbers of reported domestic strangulations, arrests, exams, and charges doubled or nearly doubled at the Tulsa Police Department.

JAN. 1–JUNE 30, 2017

JAN. 1–JUNE 30, 2018

Reported domestic strangulations: 190 Domestic strangulation arrests: 41 Domestic exams: 544 (81 for strangulation) Domestic strangulation charged: 73

Reported domestic strangulations: 355 Domestic strangulation arrests: 82 Domestic exams: 534 (142 for strangulation) Domestic strangulation charged: 140

homicides in the state. He made strangulation a priority in his office by launching the initiative at the tail end of 2017.

“Since we’ve started the strangulation protocol, we have increased by 100 percent the numbers of people who have come in this January to July [2018] over January to July last year,” Asbill said.

“So, it’s working. We have been successfully able to intervene and have sent several people to the hospital who should have gone earlier.

We were able to catch it before they had a stroke or stopped breathing.”

Victims are also able to receive a forensic nurse exam at the Family Safety Center (FSC), housed in the Police Courts Building (600 Civic Center), to document their injuries—which could be important if the victim is seeking a protective order—or to understand if their injuries are severe and need emergency medical attention.

“The nurses here [at the Family Safety Center] have kept records since 2006,” said Suzann Stewart, the Center’s director.

“They did a 10-year scan and found 80 percent of the people

they had examined over the last 10 years alleged strangulation.”

In 2017, the Oklahoma Domestic Fatality Review Board’s number one recommendation was that “all professionals working with victims of domestic violence: advocates, judges, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, child welfare, mental health/substance abuse professionals, and healthcare professionals should participate in strangulation awareness training.”

“I think sometimes law enforcement in general has treated it like a misdemeanor, probably because we weren’t educated on it,” Asbill said. “Which is why I’m trying to make them understand the danger of it.”

To that end, domestic strangulation arrests made by TPD officers doubled in the past year.

TPD officers are now also trained to give a trifold strangulation/choking info card to all victims of domestic strangulation.

The cards, which are printed in Spanish and English, include a drawing of observable signs of strangulation—like a bloody eye from burst blood vessels or finger-shaped bruises around the throat. The card offers information on the Family Safety Center (where services are free), provides space to take notes about symptoms, date and time, and physician information, and gives warnings for when care is immediately necessary, like if one experiences loss of consciousness, trouble seeing, neck pain, trouble breathing, severe headache, dizziness, seizures, loss of bladder control, and other signs of distress. a

If you have been strangled or choked and need immediate medical attention, call 911. If you think you have no symptoms, call the Family Safety Center for a forensic nurse exam: 918-742-7480 (and after hours or on weekends at 918-7435763). If you need other help regarding domestic violence or sexual assault, call the 24/7 confidential DVIS crisis line at 918-7HELP-ME (918-743-5763).

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

DON'T MISS

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NEWS & COMMENTARY // 9

foodfile

M

ark Gawey is an architect by trade, but for 20 years, he’s been making tabouli for his family. The recipes are modified versions of the recipes his mother has cooked for the family since he was a child, and for the past six weeks, he has been fine tuning variations of tabouli, hummus, and kibbeh at the Kitchen 66 Launch Program.

Those products will be packaged under the Gawey Grocery brand, and the launch program is helping Gawey decide if he will sell them in retail outlets, like grocery stores, or create his own brick and mortar deli.

“I’ve been playing with different slogans, and I think I’m going with ‘Better tabouli… better life,’” Gawey said. “So far in the program, we’ve had some time in the kitchen, and a lot of legal information, accounting procedures—the nuts and bolts of doing business.”

Kitchen 66 is a program of the Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation, and since its creation in 2016, it has helped more than 60 food professionals and entrepreneurs, and that’s not including the more than 40 other food-philes using Kitchen 66’s other services. Program manager Adele Beasley said they prefer to think of the business incubator as a “kick start kitchen” that helps would-be owner-operators break down barriers to entry in the food service industry.

“We have three different aspects to Kitchen 66,” Beasley said.

“There is a shared kitchen that participants can rent at less than half of what the market would normally charge, which is good for testing recipes and refining processes. We also have programs that walk them through all aspects of the business, and sales support in the form of referrals and our Takeover Café.”

Gawey is thinking about using the Takeover Café while he works through his concept. The participants use a functional restaurant space on site to replicate all components of a working food concept: meal prep, line cooking, front-of-house service, etc. It’s very much like a practicum in ongoing education.

10 // FOOD & DRINK

Kimberly Long shows off her treats from her catering business Big House Chow Line | GREG BOLLINGER

KICKSTART KITCHEN Meet the fall cohort of Kitchen 66

by GREG HORTON “During the program, participants work in the café or the community kitchen, and they receive training and education about the industry, and we help them refine what their concept is,” Beasley said. “Sometimes they come in thinking they want a food truck or a brick and mortar, and then learn packaged foods for sale in grocery might be a better approach with their products.”

Kimberly Long was an interior designer before she decided to change careers. Kitchen 66’s

launch program is helping her take a relatively well-defined concept and tweak some of the components.

“The goal of Big House Dessert Company was to open a dessert-only restaurant, and then employ women who were in or coming out of recovery or prison,” Long said. “From that, I spun off Big House Chow Line, and I’ve used the concept to provide catering for offices, pharmaceutical reps, and other businesses.”

Long specializes in what she describes as Southern comfort food—“everything from chicken pot pie to German chocolate cake”—and she hopes to have a permanent facility by Spring 2019.

She’s hoping for the Bixby area, or even downtown Tulsa, but one other factor might complicate her decision.

“Mother Road Market is opening this year … and I think they have one spot left,” she said.

“If I could get in that spot, I’d stay there for a year and refine the concept.”

Mother Road Market is opening Nov. 2 and will be Tulsa’s first food hall. Although Beasley said they prefer not to use the “food court” verbiage, the model is based on food court logistics: restaurants or stores with small footprints arranged around a central dining area. Located at 11th Street and Lewis Avenue, the market will be the next step in the Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation’s comprehensive vision to help improve Tulsa’s food and food business scene.

“There will be 17 concepts in the market, and some of them are Kitchen 66 grads,” Beasley said.

There are seven participating concepts in the 2018 launch program class, with a variety of focus that includes a meal prep service, a chocolatier, a fine foods shop, and a healthy eating meal program. Gawey and Long have a traditional model in mind compared to some of the others, and for both it comes down to passion. Long said she wants to combine food with helping others. For Gawey, it comes from his love of food and family.

“I love to make tabouli,” he said. “I’ve made it to feed my family, and I enjoy the process of making it: tweaking recipes, and creating dishes. Tabouli is supposed to be a parsley salad; that’s the key. It’s the way my mom made it, and it’s the way I make it for my family.”

Now, Kitchen 66 is helping Gawey share that tabouli, as well as hummus, kibbeh, cabbage rolls, and other traditional Lebanese dishes with the rest of us. a

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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www.guthriegreen.com THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

FOOD & DRINK // 11

downthehatch

Less-than-frightful spirits Halloween drink recipes you shouldn’t fear

by ANDREW SALIGA

T

he scariest tales of spirits I’ve heard involve the creation of “spooky punches.” You know the kind.

They lurk in the depths of Pinterest, lingering in the ether of large gatherings. It’s there they prey on unassuming victims using coy terms like spooky, haunted, devil, blood, etc. The kitschy names and vibrant colors lure victims. Their cognition clouds with every sip.

However, the real terror doesn’t occur until the next morning.

Fortunately, with a well-made punch or batched drink it’s possible to satisfy the thirst of guests without being responsible for their ghastly hangovers. Punches and batched drinks serve two primary purposes: to allow the host to focus on the party, and to facilitate social interaction among guests. The large self-serve bowl means the host can focus on other elements, and the communal aspect ensures a constant cycle of guests flows between social interactions and the punch bowl itself.

Serving punches and batched drinks is the perfect way to set your Halloween party up for a win. With a little creativity, many punches or batched recipes can be given some seasonal flare, often by means of a garnish or a slight tweak of the recipe. Here are a few options to get you through the start of the holiday season.

1775 PUNCH Serves 9-12 Stories of spirits are draped in a rich history, much like 1775 Punch. This recipe was created at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, a location that founding fathers Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington all drank at when it was known as Peggy Mullan’s Red Hot Beefsteak Club. Tun’s is also where the U.S. Marines and Masons were 12 // FOOD & DRINK

¼ teaspoon salt 1 cup dark rum (suggested: Cruzan Black Strap) 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 2 cups boiling water Cinnamon sticks for garnish Instructions: Combine brown sugar, butter, heavy cream, spices, and salt in a heatproof pitcher. Mix until well-blended. Add rum, vanilla, and boiling water. Serve and garnish with a cinnamon stick.

1775 Punch | ANDREW SALIGA

founded. After a few glasses of this modern rendition of that classic recipe, you’re sure to find the inspiration to come up with a frightful tale or two. For some added pizzazz, add about 3 ounces of Green Chartreuse which goes surprisingly well with pineapple.

1 lime, thinly sliced 17 oz gold rum 1 ¼ cups pineapple juice 5 oz lime juice 3 cups spiced black tea Brew 3 cups of black tea.

(12g loose leaf, 3-4 minutes at 210°F) Dissolve ¼ cup brown sugar in tea. Steep 1 thinly sliced piece of fresh ginger in tea for 20 minutes.

Instructions: Place lime slices in a bundt pan or plastic container and

freeze. Combine rum, pineapple juice, lime, and tea and chill until cold. Transfer chilled punch to a bowl or pitcher and garnish with a block of ice.

HOT BUTTERED RUM Serves 4-6 As the weather cools, there are few things as comforting as a warm drink like hot buttered rum.

The spiced butter mixture can be made ahead of time and will keep for up to 3 weeks.

1 cup packed brown sugar ½ cup unsalted butter (room temperature) ½ cup heavy cream 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg ¼ teaspoon ground cloves

BATCHED MANHATTANS Serves 7 If you insist on serving cocktails to a group, most stirred cocktails can be batched. The classic Manhattan is the perfect candidate, and you can tailor the choice of bitters to fit the occasion—ginger or apple blossom bitters would work well for fall. These batched Manhattans can be served out of a pitcher and should be served all at once while cold rather than allowing them to warm. Be warned that this is a 26% ABV cocktail, not a punch, so those small cups are a must.

14 oz bonded rye (suggested: Rittenhouse) 6 ¼ oz sweet vermouth (suggested: Dolin) ¼ oz bitters (suggested: Angostura Aromatic, Hella Bitters Ginger, or Hella Bitters Apple Blossom) 10 ½ oz very cold water (chill with ice and strain) Instructions: Combine the rye, sweet vermouth, and bitters in a 1-liter plastic bottle and squeeze out any excess air. Put in freezer for 2 hours. When ready to serve, combine the spirits with the ice water (do not include the ice) in a large pitcher. Serve entire pitcher to guests in small glasses. Garnish with an orange peel. a

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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FOOD & DRINK 13 10/16/18 11:52//AM

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14 // FEATURED

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

behalf of Oklahoman water, land, and communities.

In 2018, I confronted Bob Anthony to talk about the issues related to excessive fracking and the industry’s impact on our water, land, and communities. I am also proud to be part of the #ReadyFor100 #RF100 campaign, which was successful in passing a citywide policy in Norman that will commit us to 100% renewable energy by the year 2035.

ON NOV. 6, OKLAHOMANS will head to the polls during the 2018 midterm elections. For a state battered by revenue shortfalls, world-record incarceration rates, shuttered rural hospitals, poor health outcomes, and infamously low pay for public school teachers, support staff, and public employees, the stakes simply couldn’t be higher.

In the following pages, you’ll find interviews with a selection of candidates who have placed reform at the top of their campaign platforms. You’ll hear from Ashley Nicole McCray, who’s leading an insurgent campaign to bring environmental justice to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. You’ll also hear from gubernatorial candidate Drew Edmondson, Tulsa district attorney hopeful Jenny Proehl-Day, and district judge candidate Blake Shipley.

We hope you’ll read up on these candidates and their platforms, and that you’ll head to the voting booth on Nov. 6 better equipped to make the important decisions that impact your life and the lives of your most vulnerable neighbors. For more information, check out the 2018 Oklahoma State Questions and Elections featured report at okpolicy.org. —TTV STAFF

While the TTV editorial staff has determined these candidates to be Oklahoma’s best shot at reversing the state’s most disturbing trends, our view is not necessarily shared by the individual contributors who interviewed these candidates, and their participation in this feature should not be considered a personal endorsement.

THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

OSBORNE: What do you plan to push for if elected?

‘TRUE OKIE’ Ashley McCray | COURTESY

Outsider Ashley McCray wants to shake up the Oklahoma Corporation Commission

BY DEON OSBORNE ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT contests on the Nov. 6 ballot may also be the one voters know the least about: the race for Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC).

The OCC oversees the most powerful industries in our state: utilities, telecommunications, oil and gas, and more. With legislative, judicial, and executive powers, no other state agency rivals the impact the Oklahoma Corporation Commission has on our daily lives.

Ashley Nicole McCray, a political outsider, environmental scholar, and fierce community rights advocate, has been traveling across rural and urban parts of the state, listening to the concerns of voters as she works toward a movement to unseat 30-year Republican incumbent Bob Anthony.

McCray’s scholarly research focuses on intersections between the environment, political economy, and industrialization. She has helped organize and facilitate education initiatives and listening sessions around the issue of environmental policy and its impact on ordinary Oklahomans.

McCray comes from the Oglala Lakota Nation, and she’s an enrolled tribal member of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.

“I also have ancestors who came here on the Land Run, including David L. Payne’s brother,” she said.

“My roots here pre-date statehood.

I consider myself a true Okie.”

DEON OBSBORNE: How does OCC impact Oklahomans?

ASHLEY MCCRAY: They are responsible for approving injection wells, among a number of other oil and gas-related projects. This makes this state agency directly responsible for the earthquakes we experience because of injection well dumping of frack wastewater. Our state currently allows five other states to dump their frack wastewater into our injection wells, because of bans and protections that prevent it from happening in their respective states, so the Corporation Commission is essentially responsible for opening the door to Oklahoma being the dumping grounds of the nation.

MCCRAY: At the very least, interstate dumping of fracking wastewater must end. I also plan to work to expand our energy economy, which would be inclusive of renewable energy—specifically wind and solar. Most importantly, I will work to make sure communities are informed and included in the decisions that will most directly impact them. We need to prioritize people over profit and hold corporations accountable.

OSBORNE: How do you plan to beat a 30-year incumbent?

MCCRAY: I’ve been traveling all throughout the state, meeting people from all backgrounds and political parties who are dissatisfied with my opponent’s complete lack of concern for Oklahoman voters. He has declined to participate in any public forum that would provide voters the opportunity to see and hear us together. Oklahomans are tired of incumbents. Oklahomans are tired of earthquakes, property damage, being worried about their water, and having their voice stripped away through administrative approval.

OSBORNE: What makes you qualified for the job?

OSBORNE: Why should conservative Oklahomans vote for you?

MCCRAY: As an advocate for community, I present a real opportunity for Oklahomans to restore their voice back to state government. I was recognized by the White House in 2015 as one of 11 nationally-selected Champions of Change for Young Women Empowering Communities.

That same year, I was recognized by my hometown of Norman as their Norman Human Rights Commission and Norman City Council’s Human Rights Award recipient.

In 2017, I was recognized by Oklahoma’s Sierra Club (Red Earth Group) for my advocacy on

MCCRAY: Conservative Oklahomans are voting for me already because I care about making sure their property isn’t damaged from earthquakes, that their home values won’t decrease—because administrative approval could very well mean a hydraulic fracturing operation right over their fence—because they know diversifying the economy is the only way to ensure a robust and secure economic future, and because I can save taxpayers money by further developing the relationships I have with our 39 federally-recognized tribes. a FEATURED // 15

IF DREW EDMONDSON, the Democratic nominee for Oklahoma governor, doesn’t beat Republican Kevin Stitt in November, his statement right here may be why.

“We’re trying very hard not to attack the Republican Party generically.”

We were sitting on the patio of the Coffee House on Cherry Street.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I stay away from it because I really don’t think I need to talk about it. I think it’s out there.”

Which is about the time I nearly hurled myself over the railing onto 15th Street.

Like postwar Germany and Japan, the Republican Party must be destroyed before it can be rebuilt. 1

That’s conservative columnist Max Boot.

Drew Edmondson | COURTESY

THE END OF THE PARTY Drew Edmondson is running against the GOP, whether he likes it or not

BY BARRY FRIEDMAN 16 // FEATURED

Where is the [Supreme] Court that claimed it was at least striving to transcend partisan politics? That Court is gone forever. We will spend at least the rest of my lifetime fighting over its rotting corpse. No prating about civility can change that fact. The fight is upon us now and the party that shirks it will be destroyed.2

That’s friend of the column, Garrett Epps—University of Baltimore professor of law, writer, and Supreme Court correspondent for the The Atlantic—reminding us there was one party responsible for this transformative decay: the Republicans, and it is with them the battle must be fought.

In American politics today, to not mention the GOP and its accompanying rot is like complaining about reality television without mentioning the Kardashians.

Nationally, this Republican Party has supported a president who has warehoused immigrant children after ripping them away from their parents, mocked the disabled and veterans, cozied up to Vlad-

imir Putin and Kim Jong-Un, increased government borrowing by almost 63 percent3 since 2017, questioned the loyalties of law enforcement officials, and—at the very moment Edmondson and I were talking—trashed a woman who said she was the victim of sexual abuse. Trump put a man with the temperament of sevenyear-old refusing to take a bath on the Supreme Court —and Edmondson doesn’t think the GOP should be attacked generically?

I give up.

Republicans have controlled every statewide office in Oklahoma for almost a decade and, in the process, have gutted state education spending, passed unconscionably irresponsible tax cuts, perpetuated Oklahoma’s status as a national punchline, fulfilled every wish on every special corporate interest wish list, and rejected funds that would have brought medical insurance to thousands of Oklahomans without costing the state a dime.

In the 24 states [including Oklahoma] that have not expanded Medicaid, 6.7 million residents are projected to remain uninsured in 2016 as a result. These states are foregoing $423.6 billion in federal Medicaid funds from 2013 to 2022, which will lessen economic activity and job growth. Hospitals in these 24 states are also slated to lose a $167.8 billion (31 percent) boost in Medicaid funding that was originally intended to offset major cuts to their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement.4

This is today’s GOP. What makes Edmondson’s decision particularly maddening is that the race is winnable. In early October, polls have Stitt up anywhere from 3-6 percentage points, which is within the margin of error, making it the closest gubernatorial race in Oklahoma since 2002, when— with the help of Gary Richardson’s ego and cockfighting4—Democrat Brad Henry narrowly defeated October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

Republican Steve Largent. This election will come down to enthusiasm, and by refusing to go after the GOP brand, by refusing to tether Stitt to it, especially considering the dark money aimed at Democratic candidates, Edmondson is bringing restraint to a gun fight.

Edmondson, who was the state’s attorney general from 19952011, ran for governor eight years ago, narrowly losing in the Democratic primary to Jari Askins, who then lost to Mary Fallin.

“It’s a much better time,” he tells me. “And a lot of it is about timing. You’re either running in a good year or a bad year—and this is a good year.”

It’s just not the race he expected.

“I was very surprised [Lieutenant Governor] Lamb wasn’t in the runoff. I didn’t know if he’d win the primary, but I assumed he’d be in it.”

The primary, as it turned out, was between Kevin Stitt, owner of Gateway Mortgage Group, and former Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett.

“It’s a much clearer path against Stitt than it would have been against Cornett,” he says. “That’s because, against Cornett, we’d be running against the positions he had to take in the primary—not his record as mayor.”

“One of the good things that would have happened in a Cornett/ Edmondson race is—and I doubt either side would have admitted it—nobody would have lost sleep over the winner,” I say. “You’re both sane, accomplished guys, which is ultimately healthy and better for Oklahoma. For the GOP, now, it’s whether Stitt excites the base more than Cornett would have.”

“That was in my calculation,” Edmondson says. “Exactly as you described it.”

And it’s not that Edmondson backs down from a fight. In 2005, he filed what came to be known as the “poultry suit” against a host of companies, most notably Tyson, which were polluting Oklahoma’s waterways by literally dumping chicken shit in them. It is a fight he would like to see continue, especially since the judge during THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

the case, Greg Frizzell, still hasn’t issued a ruling.5 “There’s no reason for the delay,” Edmondson says. “Now, I’m not in the litigation anymore, so I am in no position to have any influence on the judge.”

“What about if you were governor?”

“I might have some influence on the appellate court that monitors what judges do.”

“Is that something you’d like to do?” I ask “It’s something I’d enjoy doing.”

Edmondson, who was for the teacher raise and for medical marijuana, also supports an extra 50 cent tax on cigarettes, an increase in the capital gains tax, and a return to a 7-percent gross production tax, says simply: “We need more revenue.”

“How do you run against a mortgage banker, half your age, with no political experience—and against a guy who hasn’t even bothered to vote since 1999?”6 “Two ways: One, what I’m for and what I want to accomplish; and, two, he has given us some great gifts along the way by saying he would have voted against the teacher pay raise and the funding mechanism for it. And he’s also opposed to medicaid expansion.”

Stitt, who fawns over Donald Trump like a cooing teenager, was against the teacher raise, waffled on medical marijuana, and never met a tax he didn’t think would bring about Armageddon, also said this: “I believe in choice [ . . .] And we’ve got six children and we don’t vaccinate, we don’t do vaccinations on all of our children.

So we definitely pick and choose which ones we’re gonna do. 7

Read that again. He picks and chooses which of his children get vaccinated?

For his part, the president, who is also an anti-vaxxer, tweeted: Kevin is a very successful businessman who will be a fantastic Governor. He is strong on Crime & Borders, the 2nd Amendment, & loves our Military & Vets. He has my complete and total Endorsement!

Speaking of the military, Stitt never served. Edmondson did.

“Why is it so tough for Democrats to talk of their service? If you were [Jim] Bridenstine, you’d be campaigning in your Navy whites.”

“I have no problem talking about my service or my patriotism,” Edmondson says. “But the issue itself doesn’t come up as much during the campaign, even though how we treat veterans is on the minds of many.”

“Remember, though, when John Kerry in the 2004 debate with George W. Bush—when his patriotism was being questioned in those Swift Boat Ads (funded in large measure by T. Boone Pickens)8— Kerry let the moment go by.”

“I am totally puzzled by that to this day,” Edmondson tells me.

“John Kerry should have attacked and should have counter-attacked immediately.”

It’s Oklahoma, so we talk about guns—of course we talk about guns. There was a time that Edmondson received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, but that was before the NRA lost its collective mind.

“You resigned, right?”

“The same time George Herbert Walker Bush did,” Edmondson says. “When the NRA referred to federal agents as ‘jack-booted thugs.’”

“So what happened to your rating?”

“Well, a prerequisite to getting a rating is filling out its questionnaire, and I didn’t fill it out.”

Before the conversation gets out of hand, he wants to make it clear that his fight is with the NRA and not gun owners or the Second Amendment.

“I’m a gun owner,” Edmondson says. “I have a concealed-carry permit. I carried an M16 in Vietnam. I carried a side-arm for ten years as a district attorney. I know about firearms.”

Stitt got rich re-selling mortgages—badly.

Business Insider,in an article entitled, The 15 Shadiest Mortgage Lenders Being Backed By The Government, included Stitt’s Gateway Mortgage Group. 9 There’s also this:

Gateway Mortgage, the company founded by Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Kevin Stitt, is one of the defendants in a federal lawsuit that began today in the Southern District of New York …

The lawsuit alleges Stitt’s company was among those that sold defective mortgages to consumers at the height of the mortgage crisis.10

I can see Edmondson’s aide start to stir. The candidate has an appearance at the Tulsa State Fair, but I can’t let him go without asking him one more time about Stitt and today’s GOP. “What is the most frustrating thing about this race?

“It’s a good question,” he says after a while. “I guess the very idea that an outsider is automatically better.” a

1) washingpost.com: I left the Republican Party. Now I want Democrats to take over.

2) theatlantic.com: Requiem for the Supreme Court 3) cnbc.com: The Trump administration is headed for a gigantic debt headache 4) urban.org: What is the Result of States Not Expanding Medicaid 4) newsok.com: Independent candidate affected vote, observers say Cockfighting proposal also linked to outcome 5) tulsaworld.com: Tulsa World editorial: Judge Frizzell, it’s time to get busy on the Illinois River case... in fact, it’s long since past time 6) tulsaworld.com: Gubernatorial hopeful Stitt hasn’t voted in races for governor since at least 1999 7) thedailybeast.com: Oklahoma’s GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Kevin Stitt Is an Anti-Vaxxer 8) sourcewatch.org: Swift Boat Veterans for Truth/Funding 9) businessinsider.com: The 15 Shadiest Mortgage Lenders Being Backed By The Government 10) kfor.com: Kevin Stitt’s company appeared in court today as defendant in federal lawsuit FEATURED // 17

FIXING TULSA’S COURTS FROM WITHIN District judge candidate Blake Shipley on the city’s path to better justice

BY DAMION SHADE ally for this constant rotation of 1,500 inmates—the vast majority of which are just waiting for their case to be heard—and 70 percent of those people are non-violent, there’s just an enormous tax savings that’s available. We just need to move towards a system that gives a bond that’s more within financial reach but that is still significant enough to get people to show back up to court.

BLAKE SHIPLEY IS A TULSA NATIVE who graduated from Booker T. Washington High School. He completed law school at The University of Tulsa, and he earned an MBA at OSU-Tulsa by night while working in litigation by day. He first served as an assistant district attorney, later as an assistant public defender, and is now in private practice. He’s also running for district judge in Oklahoma District 14, which includes Tulsa and Pawnee counties.

Shipley has litigated over 30 trials, including criminal and juvenile deprived matters. He, his wife Terrie, and their two children live downtown in the Arts District where, according to his bio on Facebook, “he spends much of his discretionary income on Lone Wolf sandwiches.”

DAMION SHADE: What has led you to this transition in your life where you’ve decided to run to be a district judge?

BLAKE SHIPLEY: It’s relatively good timing for my family and where I’m at with my career—being in private practice and having some extra ability and time to run for office. [. . .]

I’m 34, which is relatively young to be running for office. I would say as a young person living in Tulsa, I’m frustrated with the lack of change and the slow speed of progress.

SHADE: What is some of the progress you’d like to see in the criminal justice system in Tulsa?

SHIPLEY: As I’ve been knocking doors this summer and fall, I’ve been talking to people about bond reform. It’s going to be one of the biggest issues this year with the fed18 // FEATURED

SHADE: Who has most been hurt by these issues, and who are the folks who inspired your run to be a judge?

Blake Shipley | VALERIE GRANT

eral lawsuit that “Still She Rises” filed. There are always issues, but I feel like there’s a lack of receptiveness from the district judges that are currently there in terms of listening to people in private practice, people at the DA’s office, people in the public defender’s office, people with the many philanthropic agencies we have in Tulsa trying to create progress. There are these voices that are trying to weigh in, but I don’t get the impression that they’re being listened to. I think the basic tenant is that when the government touches our lives, it shouldn’t leave certain groups of people disproportionately worse off.

SHADE: Why do you think progress has been so slow in Tulsa, and what are the current district judges missing?

SHIPLEY: I never got the impression that there was anyone within that circle [of judges] that was willing to be the point person for making progressive changes that at least in my mind are no brainers. Bond reform is a good example of that. Moving away from the bond schedule they use now.

Which is just a list of different charges and bond amounts that will be assigned if you’re charged with those crimes [and moving] towards a more individualized bond hearing.

There’s this opportunity for getting non-violent poor people out of jail who are just stuck there because they’re poor, and there’s an opportunity for saving a lot of taxpayer dollars because we have all of these people stuck in jail. So if we pay $35–40 million annu-

SHIPLEY: If you look at the makeup of the jail, there’s a disproportionate number of people of color who are exactly the people who live in the district I’m running in. The vast majority of African Americans here live in North Tulsa. Obviously there is an issue with police presence in North Tulsa. That community is policed in a different way than South Tulsa. Those disparities are really tough.

I was really affected by a case I had a few years ago. I got a notguilty on a case when I was a public defender, and that fellow waited in jail for a year and a half before we got to trial. There’s just that much of a backlog of cases. Sometimes when someone requests a trial it might be set a year out, and then the date might be moved forward a couple of times. There are a lot of other people waiting for trail.

I really got the sense that this young man was telling the truth, and he was innocent. He still lost more than a year of his life to the system. It was great to see justice done eventually though, but sadly that doesn’t always happen. a October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

‘I’M HERE TO LISTEN’

Jenny Proehl-Day centers criminal justice reform in her run for district attorney

BY BLAYKLEE FREED nor children. I don’t think our women commit more crime than anywhere else; I don’t think our women are more criminally-minded or more dangerous. I think our response has been to treat them like men.

JENNY PROEHL-DAY IS RUNNING for district attorney in Tulsa County, a position currently held by Steve Kunzweiler. In layman’s terms, the DA is responsible for pursuing alleged criminals and deciding what punishment they should receive.

Proehl-Day is from Minnesota but moved to Oklahoma to attend the University of Tulsa, where she also completed law school. Upon graduating, she worked in the Tulsa County District Attorney’s office.

Now at a private firm, Proehl-Day is ready to step back into the public sphere as the head of that office, with a bold vision for reform in tow.

FREED: What’s one or two things the DA’s office in Tulsa can do to stop disproportionally locking up people of color? And as a white woman, how do you plan on specifically helping communities when you’re not necessarily a part of them?

BLAYKLEE FREED: What is your vision for a fairer and more humane criminal justice system in Oklahoma?

JENNY PROEHL-DAY: You have to change the culture of the office. [. . .] There are prosecutors there that measure their success by the number of life-without-the-possibility-of-parole verdicts they’ve had, and the number of life sentences they get. They’re not really focusing on whether or not that person was actually guilty of the crime. So for me, I think it’s just changing the culture and moving form a one-size-fits-all criminal justice model to start doing individualized recommendations.

You start referring people to the appropriate alternative courts … you start making sure their probation involves treatment. If it’s addiction, then we do treatment. If it’s mental health, we connect you to resources. [. . .] If you don’t have a job because you don’t have a high school diploma, let’s get a G.E.D. Let’s learn a trade. Let’s give you the opportunity to make yourself better. So, yes, you’re held accountable for your actions, but we’re also THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

Jenny Proehl-Day | STEVEN HALL

focusing on the rehabilitative nature of the criminal justice system.

FREED: Why do you think Oklahoma locks up so many women, and what’s a way that you see to deter that?

PROEHL-DAY: I think Oklahoma locks up more women because they think they’re being equitable in justice. They say, ‘Well, you committed the crime and now you have to do the time. You wanted equal rights? Here you go.’ I think, longterm range, I don’t think people understood the consequences of the decisions they were making.

FREED: The people committing said crimes, or the people making these rules to lock them up?

PROEHL-DAY: Both. Oklahoma has

a history of mass incarceration.

We’ve been incarcerating women higher than anywhere else in the U.S. since 1991. Our tough-oncrime [stance], our war on drugs, was really successful at locking up poor minorities. [. . .] Oklahoma hasn’t taken the opportunity to address why these women are coming into our system [. . .] we never stopped to say, “What do you need to become better and healthier so you can be a good mother and raise your children and we can stop the cycle of generational incarceration?”

Oklahoma has just been really reactive, and now—almost 30 years later—we’re realizing we have created a crisis among our youth and public health because the majority of [incarcerated women] are the primary care giver to mi-

PROEHL-DAY: The number one thing we have to do is [. . .] acknowledge that there are inequalities in the criminal justice system as far as policing goes, as charging goes, and as recommendations go.

Currently, [Kunzweiler] denies that there’s any racial bias in the system.

We have to stop ignoring what the data is saying. And if you want more equitable outcomes in the criminal justice system, you need to start employing people who come from different backgrounds. [. . .] That office is not representative of the actual [demographic] makeup of our community.

When I go to [minority] communities, I tell them my experience in life is different than theirs. [. . .]

I grew up in the trailer park. Nothing was ever given to me. [. . .] I’m the first person to go to college in my immediate family. I don’t come from an affluent background—so I understand a portion of it, but I make it very clear to them that while I’ve pulled myself up from my bootstraps, I’m aware that because of the color of my skin I was at least born with bootstraps. [. . .] I’m here to listen and ask what can we do to level out the playing field. [. . .] If I’m elected, I’m going to continue to have those frank conversations. a FEATURED // 19

SHANE BROWN

The ones we lost

Stories of the dead, on their day

BY TTV STAFF This year, TTV is marking Día de los Muertos with a dedication to the Tulsans we lost this year—the ones who helped shaped our community into a better space for us all. The tributes that follow highlight six of those remarkable people, although we could have easily filled the pages of this issue with similar tributes to others whose impact was just as meaningful.

These are not the only ones we lost, but each of them represents an important part of our robust community.

We asked six community leaders and Tulsaconnected writers to pay tribute to the Tulsans who made the strongest impression on their own lives and work. Here’s what they had to say.

20 // FEATURED

ROBERT TREPP

BY RUSSELL COBB • ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY ALLISON HERRERA In the corner of the Victorian-era kitchen was a giant wooden mortar and pestle. “Pick it up,” Robert Trepp said. I tried to lift the bois d’arc mortar with one arm. Impossible. I lifted it with two arms. “Now pound that all day,” he said. “That’s what Creek women did to make sofkee.”

The instrument, a kecvpe, belonged to Trepp’s great-aunt, Rachel Perryman, and it was as much a part of the Perryman kitchen as the wood-burning oven and fine China.

Sofkee is a corn-based soup or drink that helped the Muscogee (Creek) people persevere through forced removal, the Civil War, and the dissolution of the tribal lands at the turn of the 20th century. Here at the Perryman Ranch, on an idyllic piece of lowland virtually swallowed by the expansion of Jenks, Trepp kept the living memory of Tulsa’s Creek origins alive for decades until he passed away in September.

Descended from a family often called “Tulsa’s first family,” Trepp’s life work was dedicated to keeping Creek culture alive in a time when many of his generation were losing their language and customs.

For years, Trepp helped run the Perryman Ranch with his brothers Wally and Tom. Trepp served as President and CEO of the National Indian Monument and Institute, which also gave rise to the Greater Tulsa Indian Art Festival, the American Indian Theatre Company of Oklahoma, and the American Indian Arts Association.

Sitting back in the offices of the Perryman Ranch, Trepp recalled his great-grandparents’ struggle to hold onto their land in the early 20th century.

“Creeks held land in common. You could put up a fence, but it was still held by the tribe.” Historians estimate that Creeks lost 90% of their allotments by 1951. Allotment was nothing short of an “orgy of graft and exploitation,” in the words of one book written in the aftermath of allotment.

But the Perrymans held on. While many descendants dispersed throughout the country, Trepp always maintained his connection to his ancestors’ settlement.

In June of 2016, during one of Oklahoma’s sweltering summer days, many Tulsans met Trepp for the first time. Dozens of Tulsans hopped on their bicycles to learn more about the city’s Creek past. At the corner of 32nd and Utica, they rode up to find Trepp, parked in his truck with the air conditioning full blast. He pulled open the gate to the Perryman cemetery, a small plot tucked into one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods—places where oil barons built their mansions on Creek allotments.

As Trepp pointed out headstones and names, his long, white ponytail blew in the breeze. People leaned in as Trepp, a towering figure, spoke in a soft, lilting Oklahoma accent, about all the men and women that lay before their feet. These were some of the founding men and women of Tulsa. A short distance away, cars roared by on Lewis avenue—a street named after Lewis Perryman.

Trepp lived through a difficult period of continued cultural loss and marginalization of American Indian identity. But, at the end of his life, he sensed a new beginning. He told the Voices of Oklahoma oral history project that a renaissance had occurred. “The real miracle going on in Indian Country is the new explosion in education,” Trepp said.

“Instead of having people educated enough to listen to a lawyer, we now we have Creek lawyers, Creek doctors. It is finally giving us a structure where we can rebuild our society and maintain our identity as a people.”

As Tulsa moves forward in the difficult path of reconciliation with its Native communities, it can give thanks—mvto in Creek—to Trepp’s life of work.

Russell Cobb is a scholar and writer living in Alberta, Canada. His forthcoming book is called “The Great Oklahoma Swindle: Race, Religion, and Lies in America’s Oddest State.”

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

GUY LOGSDON

Hazel Jones

RICK EAGLETON

BY FRANCES JORDAN-RAKESTRAW Hazel Jones was the last living Tulsa survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. She was a strong woman who openly shared her family’s testimony about their time during this horrifying event. She would open her home to the media, film producers, authors, and even students who were assigned to give reports about the riot. She passed away in March of 2018 at the age of 99.

During World War II, Hazel moved to Oakland, California, and worked as a welder. She later returned to Tulsa and attended the Madam C. J. Walker Beauty College and graduated in 1947. Hazel also worked for the Meadowbrook Country Club. She became a pastry cook for Tulsa Public Schools in 1966—a position she held for 18 years, traveling to nine states for cooking conventions.

She retired from Tulsa Public Schools in 1984. When retirement did not suit her, Hazel took a job at Life Senior Services as an assistant to the receptionist. Hazel worked there for eleven years through a program called “Reaching Hands.” She accepted Christ at a young age and became a member of the North Peoria Church of Christ. Hazel’s motto was: “Always put God first in your life.”

In 2016, CNN contacted me to assist them in getting an interview with Hazel. As always, I would call her daughters, Yolanda or Tootsie, to see how their 97-year-old mother was feeling and if she wanted to be interviewed. Hazel wanted to do the interview, at the Greenwood Cultural Center. The CNN team thought it would be a good idea to interview Hazel next door in the Mable B. Little House, the only home built in the 1920s still standing in Greenwood. Hazel was excited about that.

“My Daddy wasn’t at home when all the trouble started, just Mamma and the kids,” she told CNN. “They came and got us . . . white men in a truck began gathering residents and taking them out of their neighborhoods. They carried us to the fairgrounds, and we were there for days. My Daddy didn’t know where we were.”

Those who interviewed Hazel were amazed at her wit, her knowledge and memories of the 1921 Race Riot. At times, and at her age, I’m sure Hazel did not always feel up to par to talk with anyone, but it never showed. There was always the sweet smile and kind spirit. She closed the gaps of history, the unknown and forgotten. We feel a sense of pride in knowing Hazel has left her legacy at the Greenwood Cultural Center and the city of Tulsa.

Frances Jordan-Rakestraw is the executive director of the Greenwood Cultural Center.

THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

BY DEANA MCCLOUD Dr. Guy Logsdon was a scholar, musician, historian, librarian, and loving husband and father—but to Woody Guthrie academics, he was Woody’s first champion.

During the years in which Woody was labeled a communist because of his progressive views on equal rights, workers’ rights, and social justice, Guy became the first Woody Guthrie scholar, researching his work and continuing to share his message.

This relationship with Woody’s legacy came at a cost to Guy and his family when his research, along with his subscription to Sing Out! magazine, caused him to be also be unjustly labeled as a communist. This label was addressed by Woody himself, who called himself a “commonist,” someone who stood on the side of the common people. This same commonist perspective was reflected in Guy’s life as he supported those who needed a spokesperson.

Although small in stature, Guy’s shoulders are those upon which the next generation of numerous Woody Guthrie academics would stand. However, for many years, Guy was the first and only scholar who researched and wrote about Woody’s life, music, and legacy.

Since his lovely wife Phyllis grew up in Woody’s hometown of Okemah, the connection to Woody was a personal one for Guy. When the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival began there in 1998, we always knew Guy would be on the front row to show his support.

That pride in his state and a hometown hero remained a constant in Guy’s life,

not only through research projects, but also through his own music.

Guy and Phyllis Logsdon shared Woody’s legacy through songs as they performed on stages, creating beautiful harmonies for audiences. When they sang about those “Oklahoma hills where I was born,” they reflected the pride that Woody had in our state.

During his tenure as librarian at the University of Tulsa in the 1970s, Guy worked with Marjorie Guthrie, Woody’s widow, to promote the idea of housing Woody’s archive of work at the university. Although this dream of Guy’s didn’t become a reality, the culmination of his work to have Woody’s collection return to Oklahoma was realized when the George Kaiser Family Foundation purchased the archive in 2013. The opening of the Woody Guthrie Center was a dream come true for Guy as the work that he held so dear was open to the public, enabling all visitors access to these treasures he had been studying for many years.

The legacies of these two men are intricately intertwined. They both were sponges for information as they researched, read, and investigated sensitive topics that many may have been timid to discuss. They never hesitated to present information and views for discussion, and welcomed the free exchange of ideas to make the world a better place.

The sign of a life well lived is one in which those who remain on this earth feel your presence standing right over their shoulders, encouraging new champions to carry on. We feel Guy and Woody standing over our shoulders constantly at the Woody Guthrie Center. Most of all, we are all honored to have called him our friend and part of the Woody Guthrie extended family.

Deana McCloud is the executive director of the Woody Guthrie Center.

TIM BONEA

FEATURED // 21

COURTESY

PENNY WILLIAMS

BY NICOLE MCAFEE As I think of this election cycle in Oklahoma—a wave of women candidates, teachers running for office, education as the key issue up and down the ballot—I cannot help but remember Penny Williams. A former state Representative and state Senator, Williams always fought to move Oklahoma forward. She led the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment in the state, championed public arts, and was always a fierce advocate for a robust public education system.

Williams paved the way for women to not just work in politics, but also to lead political battles. She modeled that leadership up until the end. A few weeks before she passed, Williams penned an editorial for the Tulsa World about how Oklahoma could fulfill her vision of adequate education funding. She urged this legislature to be bold in their capacity to do better by Oklahomans. I hope that she would smile thinking about all of the folks who, in the face of being told they won, keep showing up to say that is not enough.

In this tumultuous time, I imagine Williams would rather me focus on the beginning of her story, rather than the highlights. As she told it, Williams changed her political affiliation to Democrat as an adult, shortly after returning to Tulsa from spending several years in Iran for her husband’s job. It was a split from her Republican spouse, but a move to a party where she saw she could make a difference. She committed to doing just that. In Tulsa, she was a member of the League of Women Voters, worked on school integration, and soon got involved on a Democratic congressional race.

While everyone was worried about who had more yard signs, Williams spent her time knocking on doors. For years she helped candidates, headed committees, registered voters, and in 1980, she put her own name on the ballot and won. It was the start of 24 years in elected office.

Williams did not grow up in Oklahoma, but she was a proud Oklahoman. She was a wife and mother. She was a lifelong learner. Politics was not a natural step for her—it required leadership, and a team of mentors who encouraged her. More importantly, it required her capacity to do work that was rarely glamorous or easy in order to make meaningful change.

Williams died in April, at the age of 80. As we honor her legacy, I ask you think about your responsibility in continuing her fight for a better Oklahoma. Whether it is showing up to knock doors for a candidate or cause, or putting your name on a ballot, take that risk. In Williams’ last editorial, she urged folks into action, ending by saying, “the key is leadership.”

Penny Williams was a leader. She had a heart for service, and the Oklahoma we live in is better for her work. But we haven’t fully lived up to the Oklahoma she knew we could be—let us be bold in leading that charge for change.

Nicole McAfee is the Smart Justice campaign manager at the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma.

BY CHARLES TUBERVILLE Local Tulsa Sound legend Jimmy “Junior” Markham used to tell a great story about Elvis Presley, who performed an early career engagement at the Tulsa Fairgrounds Pavilion in July 1956. After the show, Jimmy ran into Elvis in the wings, and the King asked Jimmy where he could find a bathroom. Upon giving Elvis directions, the young Markham followed him into the John to talk some music while the King did his business on the throne.

On the morning of Sept. 21, 2018, Jimmy “left the building,” to paraphrase an old Elvis expression. Markham was 78 years old at the time of his death—remarkable for a man who led a hardcharging rock and roll lifestyle for almost 60 years.

In his long musical career, Jimmy was sideman, bandleader, vocalist, songwriter, recording artist, club manager, restaurateur, trumpet player, and—last but not least—a blues harmonica player. He performed with some of the rock and roll and blues greats as well many local unknowns in Tulsa, Los Angeles, and Nashville.

Everyone knew Jimmy. He seemed to know everyone as well. The list of famous musicians Jimmy knew personally is too long to name here but included his fellow Tulsans, J.J. Cale and Leon Russell, and artists from all over the world, including the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, bluesman Jimmy Reed and the wildman pianist Esquerita. Markham, a great storyteller, was always happy to share his adventures with music legends—like his time with Texas guitarist Jimmy Vaughn at the infamous Paradise Club—with anyone who would listen.

“Junior,” as Jimmy was known by many of his friends, came by that moniker from an L.A. record executive who thought that would be a more exciting stage name for the young Okie in 1960s California. The “Junior” label stuck with Markham for many years, although the recordings made for the record company never materialized.

After years of off-and-on stints in Los Angeles and Nashville, Markham returned home to Tulsa to stay. This is the time period when most of the musicians of my generation got to know and work with Jimmy in a myriad of night clubs and dives around town.

Markham, the bandleader and harmonica player, was a blast to make music with, even when things got a little crazy—as they sometimes did. If you wanted to play real blues music, this was the guy you wanted to play with.

His song list included some of the finest blues tunes ever written, and he played and sang them with fire, conviction and respect. If the drinks were flowing, the band was cookin’ and people were dancing.

Jimmy would do his best to get right in there with them. The man dearly loved to have a good time.

Charles Tuberville is a guitarist, songwriter and (sometimes) singer in Tulsa.

22 // FEATURED

Jimmy “Junior” Markham

COURTESY

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

Cindy Hulsey

COURTESY

COURTESY

GEORGE R. KRAVIS II

BY CLARK AND MICHELLE WIENS The Circle Cinema was built in 1928 for silent films, which are still shown, and was featured in the opening of the Tulsa film “The Outsiders.” One of 26 theatres built in Tulsa before WWII, it is the only one still standing. The Circle certainly has a place in Tulsa’s history, and its restoration is due in large part to George Kravis.

George R. Kravis II, collector, businessman and philanthropist passed away February 12, 2018. The son of the late Raymond and Bessie Kravis and brother of Henry R. Kravis, George spent his life in Tulsa. His education includes: Lee Elementary, Horace Mann Junior High and the University of Oklahoma.

George was well known in Tulsa for his community leadership and arts support. As a trustee of his parents’ foundation, he supported many innovative educational programs, including scholarships for Tulsa public school teachers, the Kravis Discovery Center at the Gilcrease Museum and The Kravis Summer Arts Camp. He supported the Tulsa Symphony, the Tulsa Ballet, the Tulsa Foundation for Architecture and Price Tower Arts Center. In 2010 he was honored with the Oklahoma Governor’s Arts Award for his leadership and significant contribution to the arts.

George started KRAV radio in 1962. Four years later, he purchased the KFMJ radio station which became KGTO. He was one of the youngest and earliest founders of an FM station in the U.S., spanning a 25-year career in the broadcasting business. He was known for his pursuit of the latest and most innovative techniques in radio communication.

In 1970, he began to collect graphic and industrial design. He assembled one of the largest and most important collections of industrial design in the country. His collection includes works from 1900 to present day with a focus on industrial design from the 1930s and 40s on an international scope. He found beauty in simple, well designed objects.

Rizzoli published two books on the collection—“100 Designs for a Modern World” in 2016 and “Industrial Design in the Modern Age” in 2018.We knew George as a friend. With him, Clark co-founded the Circle Cinema Foundation. Not only did George provide economic support, he championed the restoration of one of Tulsa’s legendary theatres. As we celebrated the Circle’s 90th birthday, July 15, 2018, we reflected on George’s vision and his impact on art and culture in Tulsa, Oklahoma, our home town. He is sorely missed by many, but especially by those associated with and the many who now enjoy today’s Circle Cinema.

Clark Wiens is co-founder of Circle Cinema, where his wife Michelle is involved with many special projects.

THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

BY JEFF MARTIN I first met my friend Cindy nearly 20 years ago when I was just a kid working in a bookstore. I got to know her and her husband from their nearly weekly visits. I’d usually see them on Saturday afternoons and tell them about the hottest new reads or my latest favorites.

They’d do the same for me.

As I began putting on large author events and partnering with outside organizations, I had my first opportunities to work with Tulsa City-County Library. Cindy, who worked at Central Library, was often my point person.

Our first true author event together was bringing in “Secret Life of Bees” author Sue Monk Kidd in the spring of 2006.

A few years later, when I left the bookstore and started my own thing, I began teaming up with Cindy more frequently, culminating in 2013 with a truly epic (and now slightly infamous) event with “Fight Club” author Chuck Palahniuk just after Central closed for some major renovations.

Cindy and I often talked about the “pipe dream” of opening a bookstore. To be honest, she talked about it much more than I. But she had a great job with wonderful coworkers. Why leave to try something crazy? But in 2015, when the stars aligned and the moment arrived, the first person I reached out to was Cindy. I wouldn’t and couldn’t have done it without her. I asked her to quit her job—which paid well, had nice benefits, and so many damn government holidays. She’d been there for almost two decades. But thankfully, she said yes.

She was courageous in a way I’m not sure I could ever be.

From that moment on, we embarked on a journey that was longer, more difficult, and ultimately more rewarding than we’d ever imagined. In late 2015,

we founded the nonprofit Tulsa Literary Coalition. In June of 2016, we had our first event under the banner of Magic City Books. We wanted someone cool to kick it off. We got Stephen King.

The store was supposed to open that fall. Long story very short, we opened our doors on Monday, November 20, 2017— the week of Thanksgiving. Hundreds of people lined up on a cold morning to watch us cut the ribbon and buy the first books.

Here we are, not even a year later, and Cindy is gone. Three months ago, in one of those out-of-the-blue medical moments, she went from totally fine to terminally ill. She passed away on Sept. 19. She was 58 years old.

There’s no silver lining or comforting explanation. It feels like an amputation of sorts. Just hours after her passing, I was on stage talking to another author.

It struck me as we chatted that this was the first author event I’d ever done without Cindy in my life. Of course, she’ll always be with me in memory, but right now the vacancy is deafening. I keep telling myself that this could have happened last year, before Cindy saw her dream, our dream, fully realized.

That certainly would have been worse.

And perhaps there are degrees to this sort of randomness that can provide some comfort. But I believe that the best, and maybe only way, to stay connected to the people you loved is to experience the things they loved. I know the books that changed and impacted Cindy’s life. She told me about them all the time. I’ve read a few.

I plan to read them all. Over time. Just to keep the conversation going.

Jeff Martin is co-founder of Magic City Books and president of the Tulsa Literary Coalition. a FEATURED // 23

LAST NIGHT I TEXTED ELISEO Casiano a variant on the same message I’ve sent him every night at bedtime for the last six years or so: “Goodnight bud.”

This tradition started out, like so many of the affectations of our 10year friendship, as a dumb way to be weird. But I’ve since come to depend on our near-nightly exchange—sometimes elaborate, other times just a simple “G’night”—to ground me in my daily life, and remind me to value old friends like Eliseo.

When my mom’s health started to slip in the summer of 2016, Eliseo was one of the few friends I told. Then, when she died unexpectedly the next February, he was the first.

Throughout that voided season of fear and grief, Eliseo sent memes, made playlists, and kept in touch with texts ranging from absurd to supportive. (He once sent me a still from a Simpsons episode: Bart and Milhouse walking into the sunset with their arms around each other, which I saw in the ICU waiting room at Texoma Medical Center and burst into tears.)

Eliseo was living in Baton Rouge at the time, getting his MFA in painting at Louisiana State University. He grew up in Sulphur, Oklahoma, about a half-hour north of me—but we didn’t meet until a few years after high school, at East Central University in Ada, where he was studying visual art.

I knew Eliseo’s work was the real deal the first time I saw it. His vibrant, collage-style paintings of scrambled cultural touchstones pulsed with an impish joy. In the decade since, he has begun interrogating the slippery concept of American identity with that same spirit. His art draws from his experience growing up a brown kid in a southern Oklahoma town, and the family stories—the stories of the dead—he carries with him.

Eliseo’s artwork is featured on the beautiful cover of this issue. The painting is called “Broncos,” and it honors members of his family who have passed.

He spoke to me from a back porch in New Orleans during a rainstorm.

JEZY J. GRAY: When you look at “Broncos,” whose face do you see first?

ELISEO CASIANO: The top image. It’s my grandfather—my dad’s dad—Carlos Casiano. He passed away before I was born. It’s a WWII-era photo.

24 // FEATURED

you see. They look like little sculptures.

What’s funny is I don’t even like it, but it was always in the house.

GRAY: It’s pretty dry.

CASIANO: It’s super dry, really dense.

My family loves it. But I’ve met a lot of other Latinx people who say the same thing: ‘I don’t really like it, but it’s warm to me. It symbolizes home.’

Any time I go back to visit my parents, my dad buys a big-ass trash bag of it, and we just sit around the house eating it—especially during holidays.

I’d never painted conchas before— and when I was working on this piece, I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is a major symbol in my life that I’d never even thought about!’

GRAY: Tell me about the Selena photo in the painting.

CASIANO: My family is from Texas, and she’s true Tejano royalty. The Queen of Texas. Selena is in my blood. She’s an icon—a saint in her own way. And I can relate to her. She’s a crossover.

She brought Mexican culture into American living rooms, which is what I’m trying to do in a way. So she gets a place on my altar.

“ Hamptons” – Acrylic on cavas (30 x 48 in) – 2018 | ELISEO CASIANO

‘A place on my altar’

GRAY: As soon as we landed on doing a Day of the Dead issue, I knew I wanted to bring you in for it. And not just, you know, because of the cultural stuff in your paintings. But just from watching your work shift over the last decade or whatever, as you’ve started folding these rich family stories into your work. Can you talk about that pivot?

raphy was present—like, with the candles and the food. That was normal, but not in that way where everything’s pieced together perfectly. It wasn’t so official.

CASIANO: Representation became more prevalent in the work, for sure. Mining through family photographs, I started to put together family narratives in my own sort of lexicon that felt natural and more sentimental. But no matter what I paint, I’m representing the product of a brown, working-class family. My mother and her siblings were migrant farmworkers. I feel privileged to have soft hands and make pictures in a studio. My work is not trying to represent the Latinx experience. I’m trying to represent my experience, and what I’m able to know of my family’s.

GRAY: Did your family celebrate Day of the Dead?

GRAY: What’s the bread—concha?

GRAY: How does death figure into it?

CASIANO: Not really. I mean, in a more relaxed setting. We didn’t grow up making altars. But that kind of iconog-

CASIANO: Yeah! That bread is beautiful to me. It just looks beautiful. When you go into a panadería, it’s the first thing

CASIANO: I mean, everyone shares loss.

And I’m putting these people who are important to me, some who are gone,

Oklahoma artist Eliseo Casiano on death, family, and representation

BY JEZY J. GRAY

I love that vintage military portraiture.

Everyone seems so regal and youthful.

They’ve got that Hollywood golden age swagger.

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

in a new setting. My uncle probably never imagined that his likeness would be hanging on a gallery wall. So, telling the stories of people who have passed has become more important to me in that personal sense—but also in a political one: bringing brownness into a “white” setting.

GRAY: Can you tell me about Ramón Casiano?

CASIANO: Well, the uncle I just mentioned—Ramón—passed away when I was a couple years into grad school.

He was basically my godfather. We were close. He used to joke that he was my real dad, because we looked so much alike. As I was mourning him, I was doing research on my family and learned I was related to another Ramón Casiano—a teenager who was murdered in Laredo in the ‘30s. My family never talked about it, but my uncle Ramón may have been named after him.

GRAY: Drive-By Truckers wrote a song about him, right?

CASIANO: Yeah! [“Ramon Casiano.”] He was murdered by a guy named Harlon Carter, who went on to become executive vice president for the NRA. He opened the floodgates for gun rights during the Reagan era. He’s a big reason people feel so strongly about their “right” to own semi-automatic weapons—why it became a political issue.

He joined the border patrol after killing Ramón. A white man with power, controlling brown bodies. It’s a disgusting history I’m attached to that I didn’t know about. It reminded me about the importance to keep family records alive.

GRAY: What can you say about the painting, “Ramón”?

CASIANO: It’s a portrait of my uncle at 15, the same age as the other Ramón when he was killed. His face is adorned with this luminous dot pattern, to kind of represent the glow of his brown skin. The pattern-work also relates to the depiction of mythical Albrejes, these Mexican zoomorphic sculptures. But, yeah—the painting commemorates the life of my uncle, and the murdered fifteen-year-old kid who shared his name.

GRAY: What about “Hamptons”?

CASIANO: That one is kind of a fantasy vignette, portraying my grandparents as THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

“Ramón” – Acrylic on cavas (48 x 60 in) – 2018 | ELISEO CASIANO

these bobble-head caricatures. I placed them in the Hamptons, a place totally foreign to them and other working-class families, in these leisure workout jumpsuits—radiating from this kind of golden space of unattainable comfort and certainty. Their oversized faces are held back by a rope netting to visualize the baggage that comes from a life of code-switching between these different worlds.

Now I’m in this new setting, and I want to represent those family members who’ve helped me along the way.

It’s like a tribute. And there’s that radical political notion, like I said before, of bringing brown bodies into white spaces. Pulling up a seat at the table.

It’s time. a

Eliseo Casiano at work in his former Baton Rouge studio | CHRIS BURNS

FEATURED // 25

(Above and below) Day of the Dead Festival at Living Arts | COURTESY

DECOLONIZING DEATH Tulsa’s Day of the Dead Festival builds a bridge, not a wall

BY ALICIA CHESSER

26 // FEATURED

WHEN I ASKED LIVING ARTS OF TULSA director Jessica Borusky if I could interview her for this story, she basically said no. That was my first hint that the Day of the Dead Festival has evolved from previous years.

Instead, she pointed me toward the majority non-white committee, which, she said, is literally running the festival this year. It would be more appropriate to talk to them, in other words, because it’s their hard work that’s going to make it happen—and also, haven’t white people said enough about this stuff ?

That’s how I found myself talking with three indigenous North Americans—Oklahomans for Equality program director Jose Emmanuel Vega, director of telatúlsa (Tulsa’s Latino Theater Company) Tara Moses, and designer Val Esparza—watching the real-time process of decolonizing a traditional Mexican holiday.

Día de los Muertos is indubitably a celebration, a joyous feast honoring those who have gone to the other side. But there’s more to it than a party with sugar skulls and mariachi music. Decolonizing this festival doesn’t mean “white people are no longer welcome, since you’ve appropriated our 3,000-year-old traditions into a pastiche of Halloween.” And it doesn’t mean “Mexicans only.” Quite the contrary: The idea is to make everyone, from every culture, welcome at the Día de los Muertos table.

Esparza noted that this year’s festival theme is “the bridge”—between life and death, between cultures, and between individuals within those cultures. “Día de los Muertos is a huge part of Mexican culture, but there are other cultures that celebrate the same thing in similar ways,” he said. “We’re saying, here are the traditions, and this is what we want to do with them. What do you want to do with them?”

“We want to bring back the authenticity and make it educational,” Vega said. “Make people aware what every color means and why it is used.

Talking about bridges is a great way to build connection.”

White Westerners might have successfully shoved death into the closet, but many cultures celebrate it wholeheartedly as the mother of all mysteries. Living Arts aims to bring everyone into more awareness of cross-cultural connections with regard to celebrations of death, Moses said. “Although it’s a Mexican holiday rooted in the indigenous Aztec people, we want to bring in others who don’t have a [Latinx] background, or may have that background but may not be as connected to it as others, or may be inter-

ested and want to learn more, in a very welcoming environment.”

“Appropriation comes from a lack of education,” she continued. “With this event, people can learn how they connect with the tradition and how they can do it respectfully because they’re educated about how to do so. And also, it’s about who we’re welcoming.”

For the first time this year, the Day of the Dead Festival will extend over two days. The first night, Nov. 1, will be the festival as it has always happened, where a $5 admission fee gets you in to see the altars that people in the community have created to honor their deceased loved ones, shop with the many merchants, eat the excellent food, and soak in a celebration of life between two worlds.

The second night will happen on First Friday, so patrons of the art walk can come right in to the festival for free. Vendors and altars will be there as on the first night, with the addition of short excerpts on the hour from telatúlsa’s “Hamlet: el principe de Denmark,” a bilingual Spanish/English production featuring an all-indigenous and Latinx cast and set during Día de los Muertos.

After the festival, Living Arts will offer ongoing educational events to deepen the connections. Informational details will be on display in the gallery, exploring the traditional Mexican imagery in the altars and artwork. Events will feature a movie night, a craft night, and a facilitated roundtable discussion about the decolonization of death— not just with regard to Día de los Muertos, but also intersectionally with other individuals, cultures, and communities.

Full performances of the bilingual “Hamlet” will happen at Living Arts in the evenings, with tickets at $15 for a 90-minute production in the round.

“Día de los Muertos is everywhere in the culture today,” Esparza said.

“We’re taking that basic affirmation and arming people with all the things they would need to contribute in the future, so there’s not a barrier.

“How does a black person take this holiday and apply their own culture to it, and make an altar with relics of their culture in their own way?

I would love to see that. That’s as American as it gets.”

Fewer walls. More bridges. That’s the heart of this year’s Day of the Dead Festival and its commitment to the idea that authenticity, accessibility, and inclusivity go hand in hand.

“We’re all going towards death,” Esparza said. “We’re all skeletons.

We’re all the same in the end, crossing the same bridge. So what can we do to lower the barriers so more people can get involved?” a October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

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FEATURED // 27

HALLOWEEN HAPS Where to be on All Hallows’ Eve Family-friendly

The Castle of Muskogee’s Haunted Castle Halloween Festival features several attractions ranging from kid-friendly to downright terrifying.

Fridays and Saturdays through October, free admission, attraction prices vary Circle Cinema will screen several spooky films, including the punky Eyeslicer Halloween Special (10/18, $10) and National Theatre Live’s broadcast of “Frankenstein,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch on 10/22 and Jonny Lee Miller on 10/29 ($16–$17).

Circle will also screen a pair of spooky silent films with scores performed live in the theater. Brian Haas of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey will provide a score for 1922’s “Nosferatu” (10/20, $12), and Austin’s The Invincible Czars will accompany 1925’s “The Phantom of the Opera” (10/28, $12).

For an evening of blood-soaked high art, Tulsa Ballet presents Ben Stevenson’s “Dracula” for the first time since 2012. 10/25–28, $25–$105, Tulsa Performing Arts Center For Philbrook’s final Films on the Lawn screening of the season, the museum will host a freaky doublefeature of “Labyrinth” and “The Shining.” 10/26, 6 p.m., $6–$15 O’Brien Park will host a Flashlight Candy Hunt. 10/26, 7–8:30 p.m.

Brookside’s 28th annual BooHaHa will feature a parade and six kids’ zones with costume contests, activities, candy, and more at Brookside Library, City Veterinary Hospital of Tulsa, Brookside Collective, and other locations. 10/27, 8:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Guthrie Green will host its annual Ghouls on the Green event, which will feature costume contests for kids, adults, and pets, a “Thriller” dance class, a performance by Alaska and Madi, and more. 10/28, 2:30–5:30 p.m.

28 // ARTS & CULTURE

Head to Vinita for the fourth annual Route 66 Punkin’ Chunkin’ Festival, in which teams launch pumpkins into the air with air cannons, catapults, and trebuchets. 10/27, 11 a.m.–3 p.m., $5

Tulsa Zoo’s HallowZOOeen is a spooky, but not-too-scary event for families, featuring a royal castle, pirate island, haunted train, “Scary-GoRound,” and more. 10/27–31, $8–$9 Trick-Or-Treat with the fishes at Oklahoma Aquarium’s HallowMarine, which will feature games, costume contests, and more. 10/27–31, $8–$14 Magic City Books will host author Laura Van den Berg for a special Halloween-week discussion of her story of psychological reflection and metaphysical mystery, “The Third Hotel.” 10/29, 7–8 p.m.

Tulsa Spirit Tours will host events leading up to All Hallows Eve like Haunted Tulsa Bus Tours, the Ghosts, Girls & Gunslingers Walking Tour, and overnight events at a local haunted theater.

Not for Kids The firefighters of Tulsa Metro Women on Fire will host and judge a costume contest at Dead Armadillo Brewery with live music by Seven Feathers. 10/26, 6–11 p.m.

For its monthly Gilcrease After Hours event, the museum will hold a Spooky Cocktail Party, featuring live music, magicians, themed cocktails, and mysteries that will unfold over the course of the evening. 10/26, 7–9 p.m.

Sip, celebrate, and support the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation at Corks + Kegs, a Halloween-themed wine and beer tasting gala. 10/26, 7–11 p.m., Cain’s Ballroom, $100 Inner Circle Vodka Bar will feature special themed drinks and Fall infusions. 10/26, 10 p.m.–1 a.m.

The 10th annual Spider Ball features a costume contest with a $1000 prize and different themes and music in three connected clubs: Enso Bar, IDL Ballroom, and The Unicorn Club.

10/27, 9 p.m.–2 a.m., $15-$25

The End Is Near is Mary Fencl Events’ 10th annual bash at The Venue Shrine.

The costume contest grand prize at this apocalyptic party is a custom bug out bag. 10/27, 9 p.m.–2 a.m., $5 The Starlite hosts Halloween Horror, a costumed dance party with DJs Robbo, Lynn K, and Xylo. 10/27 Shanel Sterling will host the two-night Halloween Bash at Club Majestic, which will feature costume contests and music by DJ Fenix FX. 10/27 (21+), 10/28 (18+) What’s this?! Step into Jack Skellington’s Halloween Town for the Nightmare Before Christmas: Intergalactic Dance Party at The Venue Shrine.

10/31, $15-$17

Music Josey Records Halloween Bash will feature a costume contest, refreshments, and music from Tom Boil, Will Hargus, and Tight Rope. 10/20 Barkingham Palace will host its fifth Zombie Prom, featuring Søaker and friends playing the music of Black Flag, The Big News, The Shame, and more. 10/20 Black Mold Halloween Bash will feature cover sets including Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers by Acid Queen, Hüsker Dü by Plastic Psalms, The Yardbirds

by Norman’s Psychotic Reaction, and more over two nights at Colorfeed A/V. 10/26–27 The Floozies return for their annual Halloween show at Cain’s Ballroom with Famingosis and Recess. 10/27, $23-$38

Local groovesters Count Tutu will host a Halloween Throwdown at Blackbird on Pearl. 10/27

Tulsa bands will reanimate the corpse of Nu-Metal on Halloween at The Vanguard. Lineup includes a System of a Down tribute featuring Mr. Burns, a Rage Against the Machine tribute featuring Mike Dee, and a fullycostumed Slipknot tribute featuring members of Lizard Police, Constant Peril, and Blind Oath. 10/31, The Vanguard, $10 Lyrical Smoke will host a costume party with a $50 grand prize and performances by DismondJ, Duutch, GxThree, Adam The God, and more at Soundpony. 10/31 DJ Moody will spin spooky tunes accompanied on live drums by David Teegarden at The Max Retropub.

10/31 Z104.5 The Edge’s Halloween Haunt w/ The Struts & Meg Myers. 10/31, Cain’s Ballroom, $27-$42

Where’s da scares?

Hex House – Tulsa Oklahoma Asylum – Nowata House of Thorn – Dewe Psycho Path – Sperry Fear Fest – Inola Barn of Harm – Pawnee

FIND MORE INFORMATION ON ALL HALLOWEEN EVENTS AT THETULSAVOICE.COM.

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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W

e’ve grown used to accepting a certain status quo of anonymity in Tulsa—a place where, somewhere along the line, we resigned ourselves to the idea that nothing much is supposed to really happen. We know how pastoral Tulsa must look in the eyes of the proverbial Big Coastal City, flanked for miles in each direction by rolling plains: a fishing bobber floating in a vast, still pond.

Both metropolitan movement and small-town stillness paint the backdrop of S.E. Hinton’s 1967 novel “The Outsiders.” The wildly popular characters, teens struggling together in Tulsan darkness, captured the American imagination and their message of interrogating one’s prejudices in the name of community spread across the globe like prairie fire.

“The Outsiders” called out to Danny Boy O’Connor long before he ever set foot in Tulsa.

Though he’s famous around the world for his career making hiphop records with House of Pain, here in Tulsa he’s becoming a legend of a different sort.

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation of “The Outsiders” was O’Connor’s favorite movie when he discovered the Curtis brothers’ residence while passing through Tulsa on tour in 2009. When he saw that the dilapidated house was on the market with no buyers, he feared it was going to be bulldozed. He’d be damned if anyone was going to try to tear it down.

O’Connor was shocked. “I couldn’t believe a national treasure could be had for 16 grand.”

He’s since been busy renovating the house and upgrading it for use as a public facility, The Outsiders House Museum. “This house will always need some form of community support. We’re constantly trying to raise awareness and build support to keep this thing afloat,” O’Connor said.

C. Thomas Howell—who immortalized the iconic “Ponyboy” Michael Curtis onscreen—will join

30 // ARTS & CULTURE

C. Thomas Howell | COURTESY

JOIN THE RUMBLE Tulsa Pop Culture Expo brings ‘Ponyboy’ C. Thomas Howell for Outsiders House Museum benefit

by BRADY WHISENHUNT celebrity guests like Karen Gillan and Summer Glau at the Tulsa Pop Culture Expo on Nov. 2-4 at the Renaissance Hotel. He’ll also take four VIP bus tour groups to some of the filming sites from “The Outsiders,” ending with a guided tour of The Outsiders House Museum. The $125 VIP tickets sold out in two hours.

Three standard tours minus Howell’s in-person commentary also sold out quickly.

Arthur Greeno, organizer of Tulsa Pop Culture Expo and Tulsa Pop Kids, says there’s still an opportunity to snag some extra tickets as a small number of seats open up. Purchase of a Tulsa Pop Cul-

ture Expo ticket will allow you to enter a lottery to buy two of the coveted Outsiders VIP tour tickets.

Tulsa Pop Kids, the organizer of Tulsa Pop Culture Expo, doesn’t make money from the tours, because the nonprofit group has a greater goal: to stimulate the local economy and forge connections. “All that money will roll back into The Outsiders House Museum,” Greeno said. “The goal is for them to make money on it, so we can support them.”

C. Thomas Howell spoke about the legacy of “The Outsiders,” in a swelling, expressive growl. “People can identify with this book and characters in the film,” he said.

“We’re all just trying to figure out who we are as people.”

Howell strongly supports Danny Boy O’Connor’s cause, which is why he’s coming to Tulsa to fight alongside him in this effort to preserve and celebrate one of Tulsa’s most iconic cultural landmarks.

It’s a fight that’s near and dear to his heart. Howell discovered “The Outsiders” book at age 14. “I fell in love with the book, and I fell in love with the character,” he said of Ponyboy. “Instead of revering switchblades and chains and grease, he loves poetry and life and love.”

At age 14, Howell was following in the footsteps of his dad, a movie stuntman and professional bull rider. Howell’s friends in the rodeo were older kids, but they embraced him. “I would be the kid that would point out the budding flower, on the side of the hill, as we were dragging our bull ropes, and people would be like, ‘You’re fucking different, but you’re cool.’”

Howell’s background made it easy to channel Ponyboy’s bravery.

Acting didn’t scare Howell. He already knew real danger. “I mean, Francis Ford Coppola wasn’t a 2,000-pound bull,” Howell laughed. “My father lit himself on fire for a living. I didn’t care if you won an Academy Award because you made a movie. My dad was a fucking badass.”

With the blessing of his dad back home in L.A., Howell filmed “The Outsiders” without parental supervision. He forged strong bonds with his onscreen brothers during production. “My family became my cast in the production, and that’s probably why it means so much to me to go back, and to share these stories, and to keep this spirit and the intention alive,” he said.

Tulsa isn’t just a pit stop on Route 66 to C. Thomas Howell and Danny Boy O’Connor. It was the setting for genuine, lasting memories. Tulsa means enough to these two outsiders that they’ve chosen to come here to preserve it, pro bono, in hopes the rest of us will join the rumble. a

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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ARTS & CULTURE // 31

bookworm

‘Go to the words’ Rilla Askew talks literary Oklahoma and writerly advice

by HOLLY WALL

I

first met Rilla Askew in 2014, when we were both hawking books at a fair hosted by Decopolis. I introduced myself and spent the evening wandering over from the table I was manning to pick her brain—about writing, about Oklahoma—and to take selfies and have her sign my copies of her novels “Fire in Beulah” and “The Mercy Seat.”

Over the years, I’ve had many more opportunities to talk to and even work with Rilla, as managing editor of This Land, back when it was still publishing. I was part of the team that published three of her non-fiction essays—fangirl-turned-colleague.

Askew moved back to Oklahoma in August of 2015, after living for 35 years in New York, to take a full-time teaching position in the English department at the University of Oklahoma and also to be closer to her aging parents, both of whom have since passed.

I caught up with her again recently to hear how she likes teaching and living full-time in Oklahoma, and also to get a preview of what wisdom she’ll be imparting to other writers at the 2018 Nimrod Conference for Readers and Writers, Oct. 19-20 at the University of Tulsa.

ON OKLAHOMA AS A LITERARY PLACE: “It feels to me as if, in comparison to when I was starting out as a writer, that Oklahoma has an absolute sense of itself as a literary place, and I think that’s key here in Tulsa, and I think it’s really prevalent in the Oklahoma 32 // ARTS & CULTURE

nomically. There are reasons why some of our most talented musicians and artists and poets, and especially our Native writers, have had to go elsewhere. We didn’t work to keep them here.

And that’s a shame. I think there’s more consciousness of that within certain people who support the artist communities. There’s not a consciousness of it politically.

There’s not a consciousness of it in the whole power structure.

I wish there were, but they don’t celebrate the arts.”

Rilla Askew | COURTESY

City area. Go down to Ada, go up to Tonkawa—there’s a really established and confident literary community in Oklahoma.

And I think we can hope to keep some of our best greatest

talent in this state now because of the renaissance in Tulsa, because of the renaissance in Oklahoma City. It’s a challenge—it’s a challenge for people politically, it’s a challenge for people eco-

ON WRITING “MOST AMERICAN: NOTES FROM A WOUNDED PLACE,” HER FIRST COLLECTION OF NONFICTION ESSAYS: “Some time ago, even before I wrote ‘Kind of Kin,’ I started working on a memoir about my relationship with my godchildren’s family [. . .] that shows up in one of the essays, called “A Wounded Place.” But I couldn’t find a way to make it one full narrative like a book. So I wrote different pieces of what became, within this book, the one large, lengthy essay ‘A Wounded Place.’

The very first essay I published was in Nimrod, and it became the title essay, ‘Most American.’

And then when I started thinking about this, I had other pieces that had been published in different venues, and three of them had been in This Land. So once I had these different pieces, I saw that it could be a book, and then I approached the University of Oklahoma Press, my editor there. And then I had to write a few more to sort of fill it out and make it have a kind of unity.”

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

T

ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WRITING FICTION AND NON-FICTION: “The challenge with nonfiction for me, the two largest challenges, are being able to simplify the complexity of our lives in a way that makes it contained within the piece, and also really characterizing human beings that are people you know. I think they’re just different animals. I don’t know that one is easier, harder, more challenging. I think they just take different parts of your brain. They take different kinds of energy. I can write nonfiction while I’m teaching more easily than I can write fiction while I’m teaching, because of that immersion in the story, that living that imagined life.”

ON HER NEXT NOVEL: “I have been working on this for 17 years […] It’s a novel set in Tudor, England. I’ve started it and it’s had so many voices and so many ways to get to the novel and so many different times. And doing all that research about the Reformation and all those things over years. And then every time I get pulled away from it by another book or by life, then I have to redo all of that again. I’m to the last hundred pages of a probably 400-page novel. And it’s the story of a woman who’s burned at the stake as a heretic. And she’s a historical character. And so it’s really imperative to make it as accurate as I possibly can, and yet there’s so much we don’t know. But I’ve reached the part in the writing that we’ve at least got her in historical record. So all these 300 pages before have been her life imagined.”

ON WHAT HISTORICAL FICTION CAN TEACH US ABOUT OUR PRESENT WORLD: “I don’t know that there’s another era that’s as parallel to the era we’re living in now as the great tumult of the English Reformation.

The changes were so dramatic— they were propelled by the invention of the printing press. It was by this explosion of reading, of books within their vernacular and of the Bible within the vernacular.

The parallel to our current era, not only with the internet but also particularly with social media and the dissemination of information and worldview—that’s hugely important to the story I’m writing.”

ON HER BEST ADVICE FOR WRITERS (A PREVIEW OF HER NIMROD SESSIONS): “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.

[In my Nimrod session about] about historical fiction, I’m going to concentrate on making place real within historical fiction.

Historical events, obviously, happened in very particular places, and we know that acutely in Oklahoma. You can’t really separate Oklahoma’s story and what happened here from all of the forces that make this place what it is. It’s geology, it’s weather, it’s landscape, it’s certainly the Native peoples who were removed there, but you can’t separate the place from what happened here.

The oil boom that ultimately led to the Tulsa Race Massacre, as they’re beginning to call it, is very different than what happened with the same kind of oil boom that happened in Texas.

Place needs to be a character in one’s historical fiction as much as the characters themselves and the costume, the settings, and all those other elements.”

ON COMING HOME TO NIMROD: “My first short story ever was published in Nimrod. It was called ‘The Gift,’ and it was published in 1989. And my first nonfiction [essay] was published by Nimrod.

And I graduated from the University of Tulsa in 1980 … I’ve done the Nimrod festival, but it’s been years—more than a decade, probably. So it feels like a homecoming.” a

THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

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ChamberMusicTulsa.org ARTS & CULTURE // 33

ontherecord

Creek Nation Council Oak Park | GREG BOLLINGER

Phantom limbs Tulsa history, told by trees

by KATHRYN PARKMAN A people without the knowledge of their past, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.

—Marcus Garvey

I

n October 1832, while traveling across the western American prairies, Washington Irving and a team of U.S. Rangers arrived at what would become Riverside Drive in Tulsa. They were scouting for President Andrew Jackson’s plan to forcibly move indigenous peoples of the southeast to Indian Territory. Irving’s party set up camp near what’s now the River Spirit Casino.

Some of the men embarked on a honey quest. They soon discovered a honeycomb nestled in an oak tree. Irving described the honey hunters “stumbling along over twisted roots and fallen trees, with their eyes turned up to the sky. In this way they traced the honey-laden bends to their hive, in the hollow of trunk of a blasted oak.”

34 // ARTS & CULTURE

The honeymongers attempted to chop the tree down. “The jarring blows of the ax seemed to have no effect in alarming or agitating this most industrious community,” Irving wrote. “[The bees] continued to ply at their usual occupations, some arriving full freighted into port, others sallying forth on new expeditions, like so many enchantments in a money-making metropolis, little suspicious of impending bankruptcy and downfall.”

The tree eventually fell, “busting open from end to end, and displaying all the hoarded treasure of the commonwealth.” (Seventyfive years later, another commonwealth treasure would be discovered 20 miles south of Irving’s band of honey barons.)

“It is difficult to describe the bewilderment and confusion of the bees of the bankrupt hive who had been absent at the time of the catastrophe, and who arrived, from time to time, with full cargoes from abroad,” Irving wrote of the ransacked bee-tree in 1832. “At first they wheeled

about the air, in the place where the fallen tree had once reared its head, astonished at finding all a vacuum. At length, as if comprehending their disaster, they settled down, in clusters, on a dry branch of a neighboring tree, from whence they seemed to contemplate the prostrate ruin, and to buss forth doleful lamentations over the downfall of their republic. Now we abandoned the place, leaving much honey in the hollow of the tree.”

After a violent resistance, Muscogee (Creek) Chief Achee Yahola guided hundreds of families into the wilderness in compliance with the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

They walked. From Alabama to Oklahoma, they walked. It was a very cruel distance.

Native Americans of the southeast traditionally marked trails by bending trees crooked.

Only young limbs have this flexibility—rather than snap like bone, the greenish saplings will bend, adjust, and adapt to the weight.

Bend a young tree over itself and the limb will grow in this unnatu-

ral adjustment. Leaves a signal.

A trail, marked.

By 1836, most who had followed Yahola were either dead or found themselves under the boughs of an enormous oak east of the Arkansas River, six miles north of where Irving had camped years before. Chief Yahola tended a Lochapoka ceremonial fire upon their long-carried coals.

“It was a strange beginning for a modern city—the flickering fire, the silent valley, the dark intent faces and the wild cadences of the ritual,” Angie Debo wrote in “Tulsa: From Creek Town to Oil Town.” Debo estimates 565 Lochapocka residents arrived in Tulsa in 1836. Today, the Creek Council Oak tree still stands, fenced and gated against a slab of generic condos at 17th Street and Cheyenne Avenue next to a modest sculpture commemorating Yahola’s ceremonial fire.

By the time Tulsa was located by rail in 1882, almost all of the “immigrant Indians” had died or settled farther south and east, in Broken Arrow.

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

Nina Lane Dunn reproduced J.M. Hall’s account of 1880s Tulsa in her family’s history book, “Tulsa’s Magic Roots,” printed in 1979. Hall reportedly encountered “nothing but rough, rolling prairie lands” and “groves of oak, blackjack and other trees; the Arkansas river outlined with trees and underbrush; a few Creek Indians and an abundance of wild animal roaming the wooded areas.”

Tulsa’s first white family took up residence between Archer Street and Elwood Avenue, beneath a blackjack, a.k.a. post oak, a.k.a. Quercus marilandica. They thrive where other oaks don’t: in the poor, thin, dry soils across Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska.

You can tell a blackjack by the fissures in its bark, and how its leaves are glossy green on one side, pubescent underneath, and flare from a tapered base into a long three-lobed bell shape. Its wood is very dense, which makes for very hot flames. Traditional Oklahoma barbecue requires blackjack smoke wood.

Also in “Tulsa’s Magic Roots,” a primitive sketch of Tulsa and the author’s ledger, by number: 1. Elm Tree Tent where first baby was born in Tulsa.

2. Noah Partridge, a Creek Indian, who was living with his family in a log house. Only family living here when town was located.

3. Frisco Railroad grade stakes...

The remainder marks the locations of white settlers’ tents and Main Street. The elm tree tent referenced first, where the inaugural white baby was probably born in Tulsa, stood approximately where the Center of the Universe stands now, just north of the tracks, near Boston Avenue.

From Dunn’s version of Tulsa’s last couple decades of the 19th century, this place was inhabited primarily by drunks, thieves, and Presbyterians: “Cowboys with guns, and ruffians of the neighborhood were always present in the gathering of every church. Gatherings which were held generally under shading trees or on store porches, with gambling dens nearby.” In 1887, at a particularly rowdy Christmas eve party, drunk cowboys chucked whiskey bottles at the church Christmas tree, “breaking

many presents.” The pastor of the church quit not long after.

In 1928, Tulsa’s First Presbyterian Church hosted a general assembly. As a memento for the occasion, Hall and his committee carved gavels from historically significant wood. The gavel woods were sourced from Tulsa’s first store, an old mission school, and the Creek Council Oak tree.

Between 1870 and 1889, 15–20 people were executed under Creek law at the so-called “hanging tree.” A lugubrious lower limb of the burr oak was 12 feet from the ground—an ideal height for public executions. Three cattle rustlers were hanged there simultaneously, according to local historian Terri French. “In the 1920s, as the land was being developed, workers digging for sewer lines unearthed many human remains at the base of the hanging tree,” French wrote in “Tulsa’s Haunted Memories.”

In 1989, the land around the tree almost became a criminal justice center, but Tulsans successfully protested the location out of fear the historic tree would be removed.

The hanging tree still stands at 3 N. Lawton Ave., between the northwest bend of the IDL and the BOK Center, behind a barbed wire fence that guards Linde Oktoberfest’s bleachers and festival equipment. Now a dozen feet up the trunk is a stub, scarred— some phantom limb. Scientists speculate the 200-year-old oak’s uncommon size and longevity was made possible by an underground spring. Today its trunk is six feet in diameter.

It has been said that humans are the livestock of trees. Trees feed us and supply our air, knowing that we’ll all die eventually and feed them. a

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The Muscogee (Creek) Council Oak Festival will take place Sat., Oct. 20, 2018, at 2pm, at Council Oak Park, 1750 S. Cheyenne Ave., in Tulsa. A public ceremony will commemorate the arrival of the Locv Pokv to Indian Territory with speeches, historical readings, a proclamation from Mayor Bynum, and a rekindling of the ceremonial fire. Following the ceremony, the Tulsa Creek Indian Community, 8611 S. Union Ave., will host art vendors, traditional stickball, exhibition stomp dance, and other activities. All events are free and open to the public.

THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

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Tulsa Performing Arts Center | John H. Williams Theatre TICKETS @ TULSAPAC.COM or 918.596.7111 ARTS & CULTURE // 35

sportsreport

No more ‘cheeseburgers’

Local referee launches campaign to improve adult behavior at youth sports events

by JOHN TRANCHINA

B

rian Barlow, a youth soccer referee from Broken Arrow, has become something of a minor celebrity. Things really started taking off last July when The New York Times published a story about him, followed by numerous appearances on TV news segments and newspaper articles, all covering his crusade to eliminate verbal and physical harassment of officials at youth sports events.

Barlow started a Facebook page called “Offside” examining the problem. He posts videos of parents and coaches berating referees for all the world to see, with the hope that exposing the behavior of verbally abusive grown-ups (whom he calls “cheeseburgers”) will make others think twice before causing a scene.

“We’re making a bold statement by offering $100 for people to capture videos of referee abuse, whether it’s verbal or physical,” Barlow said. “I think that’s the ‘wow’ factor, but I will say the awareness has grown to where now I can walk around—it can be in Denver, [. . .] Seattle, Chicago, Tulsa—somebody’s going to stop me and say, ‘Hey, I love what you’re doing on the site,’ or ‘Hey, I’m not a cheeseburger anymore!’ I would say it’s definitely got some legs now.”

Barlow has also launched a program called Stop Tormenting Officials Permanently (STOP), which sells signs for youth sports organizations and facilities—for any sport—to put up on their premises.

“It’s visual accountability for clubs and organizations,” said Barlow, who has sunk about $45,000 of his own money into his referee website endeavors.

“It’s an expectation of, ‘We are aware of what you’re capable of.

We don’t tolerate it. These are the 36 // ARTS & CULTURE

Brian Barlow | GREG BOLLINGER

boundaries. If you stay within the boundaries, you’re going to be fine, and if you don’t, you’re out of here.’ It’s gone well. I get a ton of positive feedback on it.”

The signs include slogans such as, “Warning! Screaming at officials not allowed!” and, “Caution! Players playing, coaches coaching, officials officiating— mistakes will be made, stay calm.”

Other signs warn that anyone yelling at an official will be removed from the spectator area.

For those who aren’t frequent visitors to a youth sports sideline, the conduct of parents and coaches can be shocking, especially considering that games

for younger kids feature referees as young as 12 years old. Barlow recently met with a 17-year-old referee in El Paso who suffered a concussion and a fractured orbital bone after being assaulted by a 35-year-old man coaching a soccer team of nine-year-olds.

Barlow also visited the family of John Bieniewicz, a ref in Detroit who died in 2014 after he was attacked during a game by an adult soccer player who was about to be penalized with a red card.

That kind of behavior has fed a vicious cycle that has seen more and more officials quit because they no longer want to endure the abuse that comes with the job.

Fewer officials means the ones that remain are sometimes overworked and more prone to make mistakes.

The inexperienced replacements will make more errors while learning. It just perpetuates the problem.

“We have more games than ever before and less officials,” Barlow said. “The state of Michigan lost 400 referees after the Bieniewicz incident, 80 percent of them youth referees.

It all comes full circle. Everybody wants the best referees, everybody wants fresh referees, and everyone wants the referee to be perfect on their match and it just is never going to happen—especially if we don’t change our behavior.”

Barlow points out that even though officiating will never be perfect, that is just one of the lessons that youth sports teaches the players.

“You’re going to get bad calls. The ref ’s going to miss stuff,” Barlow said. “We’re human beings. It isn’t about the perfectly-officiated game.

It’s about how to teach Little Sammy and Little Sally how to get up off the ground when they get pushed down, how they keep going whenever they don’t get the whistle. That’s the true innocence of youth sports—how to overcome adversity, winning with dignity, losing with grace.”

Since starting his websites and calling out adults for unacceptable behavior, Barlow is continually updated of new incidents across the U.S. and beyond. But he also sees that slowly but surely, progress is being made.

“All over the country, there’s a serious issue,” he said. “I’m just trying to change that behavior by making people look like idiots on video on my website. And so far, it’s working. I do see a glimmer of hope.” a

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

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Supporting Sponsors: American Airlines, Bitburger, Crossland Construction Company, Marshall Brewing Company, Miller Truck Lines, Osage Casino & Hotel, Pepsi Beverages Company, Specialty Brands Signature Hotel: DoubleTree by Hilton Tulsa Downtown

THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

ARTS & CULTURE // 37

OPERA

Sarah Coburn and Peter Strummer star in Gioachino Rossini’s classic opera, The Barber of Seville.

Oct. 19, 7:30 p.m., Oct. 21, 2:30 p.m., tulsaopera.com

SKATE PARTY

Tulsa’s favorite rink, Skateland will celebrate its 50th anniversary with discounts and specials. Oct. 25, 6–9 p.m., skatelandtulsa.com

SOVEREIGNTY

Oct. 26 through 28, Nov. 2 through 4, $20–$25 Liddy Doenges Theatre, Tulsa PAC, tulsapac.com

A

ttorney and writer Mary Kathryn Nagle has argued cases in in federal courts and had her plays produced on stages from New York City to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. But never in Tulsa, where she lives and works. That all changes when Heller Theatre Co. presents her play “Sovereignty,” which interweaves the story of Nagle’s own family history (she’s a descendant of some of the Cherokee Nation’s most prominent political and cultural leaders) with a present-day tale of violations and reprisals.

AUTHOR

Congregation B’Nai Emunah will host an evening with Pulitzer Prize-winner Jeffrey Eugenides to celebrate the 25th anniversary of “The Virgin Suicides.” Oct. 25, 7 p.m., $20 for two seats, magiccitybooks.com

RUN

Runners will take to the streets for the 41st annual Tulsa Run. Oct. 27, 7 a.m.–12 p.m., $15–$90, tulsarun.com

PROST!

COMEDY

Celebrate the change of season and German culture with traditional food, drink, music, and dancing at Tulsa’s 40th Oktoberfest. Oct. 17–21, $7-$10, River West Festival Park, tulsaoktoberfest.org

Superstar Kevin Hart will bring his “Irresponsible Tour” to BOK Center, Oct. 28. 7 p.m., $38-$128, bokcenter.com

LGBTQ

CULTURE

National LGBTQ Center Awareness Day is the perfect day to get to know Tulsa’s own Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, home to Oklahomans for Equality and the seventh-largest LGBTQ+ community center in the world. Oct. 19, okeq.org

Tulsans will memorialize loved ones and celebrate Mexican culture at Living Arts’ Día de los Muertos Arts Festival, which will feature dozens of altars, as well as Mexican food, art, and live music. Nov. 1–2, 5–10 p.m., $5, livingarts.org

AUTHORS

GRAND OPENING

Nimrod International Journal’s annual Write Night will feature chats and signings with acclaimed authors Patricia Smith and Rilla Askew (read an interview with Askew on pg. 32.) Oct. 19, 6:30–9 p.m., Tulsa Garden Center, nimrod.utulsa.edu

With 20 vendors including & Tacos, Trenchers Crustacean Station, Nice Guys Shrimp Shack, and Umami Fries, Mother Road Market celebrates its grand opening Nov. 2–4. motherroadmarket.com

CULTURE

POP CULTURE

South Asian Performing Arts Foundation hosts Garba, an opportunity to come together in traditional Indian dances. No experience needed. Oct. 19, 7–11 p.m., Guthrie Green, sapaf.org

Tulsa Pop Culture Festival will feature appearances by Karen Gillan, Summer Glau, Sean Gunn, and “The Outsiders” star C. Thomas Howell (read an interview with Howell on pg. 30.) Nov. 2–4, $25–$99, Tulsa Renaissance Hotel, tulsapopcultureexpo.com

38 // ARTS & CULTURE

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

EVENTS

Oklahoma Jewish Film Festival //

10/20-25, Circle Cinema, facebook.com/ oklahomajewishfilmfestival

Kiefer Medieval Faire // 10/26-28, Kiefer Mu-

Tulsa Oilers vs Allen Americans // 10/21, BOK

Tulsa Oilers vs Rapid City Rush // 11/1, BOK

TU Women’s Basketball vs Stetson // 11/6,

Center, tulsaoilers.com

Center, tulsaoilers.com

Reynolds Center, tulsahurricane.com

TU Men’s Soccer vs ORU // 10/23, ONEOK

TU Women’s Basketball vs USAO // 11/1,

TU Men’s Basketball vs Alcorn State // 11/6,

Reynolds Center, tulsahurricane.com

Reynolds Center, tulsahurricane.com

Tulsa Oilers vs Rapid City Rush // 11/2,

TU Softball vs Oklahoma Christian // 11/17, Collins Family Softball Complex, tulsahurricane.com

Field, tulsahurricane.com

Tulsa Oilers vs Kansas City Mavericks //

11/3, BOK Center, tulsaoilers.com

nicipal Park, facebook.com/kiefermedievalfaire

10/26, BOK Center, tulsaoilers.com

Art After Dark - A Nocturnal Emporium //

TU Volleyball vs Temple // 10/26, Reynolds Center, tulsahurricane.com

Stadium, tulsahurricane.com

Poetic Justice Poetry Slam // 11/3, Chimera,

Tulsa Oilers vs Wichita Thunder // 10/27,

ORU Women’s Basketball vs Rockhurst //

11/19, Collins Family Softball Complex, tulsahurricane.com

11/2, Guthrie Green, guthriegreen.com

TU Men’s Soccer vs Uconn // 11/2, Hurricane

TU Softball vs Oklahoma State //

poeticjustice.org

BOK Center, tulsaoilers.com

11/2, Mabee Center, oruathletics.com

Big Band Hangar Dance // 11/3, Tulsa Tech

ORU Men’s Soccer vs Omaha // 27-Oct-,

TU Men’s Basketball vs Northeastern State

ORU Volleyball vs North Dakota // 11/19, ORU Volleyball vs Purdue Fort Wayne // 11/26, Cooper Aerobics Center, oruathletics.com

Riverside Campus, caftulsa.org

Case Soccer Complex, oruathletics.com

// 11/2, Reynolds Center, tulsahurricane.com

Will Rogers Days // 11/4, Claremore,

TU Football vs Tulane // 10/27, H.A. Chap-

TU Football vs Uconn // 11/3, H.A. Chapman

willrogers.com

PERFORMING ARTS

man Stadium, tulsahurricane.com

Stadium, tulsahurricane.com

TU Volleyball vs Uconn // 10/28, Reynolds

ORU Women’s Basketball vs Harris-Stowe State // 11/6, Mabee Center, oruathletics.com

Center, tulsahurricane.com

Cooper Aerobics Center, oruathletics.com

ORU Volleyball vs Western Illinois // 11/28, Cooper Aerobics Center, oruathletics.com

Man of La Mancha // 10/18-27, The University of Tulsa - Kendall Hall Theatre 2, utulsa.edu Star Wars and Beyond: The Music of John Williams // 10/19-20, Van Trease PACE, signaturesymphony.org

10 Hairy Legs // 10/20, Tulsa PAC - John H. Williams Theatre, tulsapac.com

Celebrate Octoberfest with your pets!

Tonatiuh Dance Company Master Class // 10/21, Tulsa PAC - John H. Williams Theatre, tulsapac.com

World of Dance Live // 10/24, Brady Theater, bradytheater.com

ArcAttack // 10/26, Tulsa PAC - John H. Williams Theatre, tulsapac.com

Aaron Diehl // 10/27, Tulsa PAC - Charles E. Norman Theatre, tulsapac.com

Love Never Dies // 10/30-4, Tulsa PAC - Chapman Music Hall, tulsapac.com

Disney Junior Dance Party on Tour // 11/1, Brady Theater, bradytheater.com

Barnum: The Musical // 11/2-10, Tulsa PAC John H. Williams Theatre, tulsapac.com

Beethoven’s Eroica // 11/3, Van Trease PACE, signaturesymphony.org Monty Python’s Spamalot // 11/6, Broken Arrow Performing Arts Center, brokenarrowpac.com

COMEDY

Jason Cheny, Matt Holt, Jeff Shaw // 10/1720, Loony Bin, tulsa.loonybincomedy.com

Opinions Like A-Holes 100th Episode w/ Lauren Barth, Chuck Stikl, Bill Sr., Ryan Green // 10/18 , blackbirdonpearl.com

Laughing Matter Improv - It’s a Scream! // 10/20, pH Community House, facebook.com/ laughingmatterimprov Open Mic Comedy // 10/22, The Fur Shop, facebook.com/thefurshoptulsa Dr. Ken Jeong // 10/25, Paradise Cove at River Spirit Casino, riverspirittulsa.com Jeanne Robertson // 10/26, Brady Theater, bradytheater.com

Open Mic Comedy // 10/29, The Fur Shop, facebook.com/thefurshoptulsa Open Mic Comedy // 11/5, The Fur Shop, facebook.com/thefurshoptulsa

Come see us for Halloween Treats, fall dog sweaters and pet costumes!

Comedy Night // 11/6, Louie’s Grill & Bar, louiesgrillandbar.com

SPORTS

ORU Men’s Soccer vs Eastern Illinois // 10/20, Case Soccer Complex, oruathletics.com

1778 UTICA SQUARE • 918-624-2600 • MON-SAT, 10-6

THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

ARTS & CULTURE // 39

musicnotes

Left to right: Ali Shaw, Sarah Short, TeAndrea Dyer, Shakera Simmons | GREG BOLLINGER

THE CULTURE IS OURS Women in Tulsa’s hip-hop scene are breaking ground, and they’re here to stay

by MARY NOBLE

40 // MUSIC

“To be a woman who loves hip-hop at times is to be in love with your abuser.

Because the music was and is that. And yet the culture is ours.”

— Ava DuVernay

W

omen have been major players in the hip-hop game since its inception. Artists such as MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, and SaltN-Pepa worked to combat the misogyny that existed in the early days of hip-hop by forging their own path to success. The golden era of hip-hop fostered women rappers unafraid to be themselves and speak on social justice issues.

Ava DuVernay, director of the documentary “My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women and Hip Hop,” points out the fact that around 45 women hip-hop artists were signed to major labels in the early 90s compared to three women signed to major labels in 2010. Last year, Pitchfork reported on this disparity, finding only three out of 13 major labels with female rappers on their roster.

When Rick Ross was questioned on “The Breakfast Club” about not having any female artists signed to his Maybach Music Group (MMG) label. He responded: “I never [signed women] because I always thought, like, I would end up fucking a female rapper, fucking the business up […] if she’s lookin’ good and I’m spending so much money on her photoshoots, I gotta fuck her.”

Ross’ unabashed misogyny and apparent lack of control over his own body shines a glaring spotlight on the sexism deeply ingrained within the industry— and the men who run it. Another justification frequently offered by male executives as to their labels’ lack of women artists is the alleged amount of “upkeep” women require to keep them looking glamorous, cutting into profits (cue overly-dramatic eye roll).

In the current climate, women powerhouses like Nicki Minaj and Cardi B have risen to the top with record-breaking success.

Yet, the two artists are constantly pitted against each other by the media and those hungry for rap beef. The tension between Minaj and Cardi underscores the fact

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

that the industry creates very little room for more than one rap queen, while their male counterparts work within a space large enough for hundreds to enjoy commercial success.

In Tulsa, there have been very few, if any, women emcees recognized in the local rap scene—until recently. In September, a cypher video was released highlighting women rappers in Oklahoma.

Shot downtown by King Spencer, Tulsa emcees Sarah Short (a.k.a.

Ayilla), Shakera Simmons (Bambi), TeAndrea Dyer (Tizzi), TaNesha Rushing (Tea Rush), and Shiann Davis of OKC freestyle over instrumentals with the orange glow of the Tulsa skyline shimmering in the background.

After generating buzz with their freestyle video, the women featured have continued to rise up within the scene and make waves by releasing singles (see: “Mango Tree” by Tizzi and “Ms. Mary” by Ayilla), working on EPs, and making regular appearances on Tulsa stages.

I met with Bambi, Ayilla, Tizzi, and Tea Rush together at the home of 105.3 KJMM DJ and host Ali Shaw (a.k.a. Mama Tulsa) to learn more about their personal experiences navigating the scene.

We gathered around Shaw’s dining room table as she prepared homemade chicken noodle soup.

Shaw began by sharing her mixed feelings about the title of the cypher video. “I didn’t really want to call it ‘Female Spittas,’” she said. Shaw points to the fact that women are not seen as equals within rap, labelled as “female emcees” rather than just “emcees.”

I sat back and listened as they shared their experiences, navigating a culture rife with double standards and unrealistic expectations of beauty.

“Our world is run by men, and it is also run by sex,” Ayilla said.

She was once asked to appear in a music video wearing only a sports bra and underwear. “I’m just not a video vixen,” she said. “I do not judge any woman who does that; that’s just not me.”

“There are a lot of women out here doing it better than some men, but they have to fight a lot harder to get that recognition,” Shaw said. “Because most can’t get past the way we look or how we are dressed.”

The women began discussing their desire to express their sexuality in their music on their own terms, in a way that is comfortable to them. However, this sexual expression is often met with criticism or men interpreting it as an open invitation to be predatory.

“It’s controversial no matter what a woman does,” Tizzi said. “I posted this video of me wearing this wig and [got] a text saying, ‘If you want the image of being a slut, then here you go. Then I had somebody else email me a picture

THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

of their—ya know. . .”

“I’ll dress how I want for a performance no matter what,” Bambi added. “But men will make assumptions and take that as me wanting to get with them. Did you listen to what I was rapping about?”

While the experiences shared by these artists evoked feelings of rage and frustration, I managed to leave the interview feeling uplifted and encouraged by the fact that women like Ali Shaw exist in the scene. By using her hard-earned influence within the music indus-

try to uplift and promote other women, she has helped create lanes and reduce barriers for women artists.

Shaw hopes to use her production skills in the near future by transforming her music room into a studio space, providing a safe place for women to record and receive feedback. In addition to promoting women emcees, Shaw promotes women DJs like Afistaface and DJ Kylie and is planning an all-female DJ event at Fassler Hall on Nov. 17. a

MUSIC // 41

musiclistings Wed // Oct 17

Blackbird on Pearl – Wubby Wednesday Cain’s Ballroom – Clutch, Sevendust, Tyler Brant & The Shakedown – ($36-$51) Cellar Dweller – Grazzhopper Trio Gathering Place - Great Lawn – Dhoad Gypsies of Rajasthan Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Bobby Ray Heirloom Rustic Ales – Bud Bronson and the Good Timers, Lizard Police Mercury Lounge – Jared Tyler Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – Shelby and Nathan Eicher River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Stephanie Oliver & Johnny Mullenax Soul City – Don & Stephen White Soundpony – Ghostwriter The Colony – Tom Skinner Science Party The Vanguard – Sleep Signals, Lights of Alora, Second Glance – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Michael Glabicki of Rusted Root – ($15-$20)

Thurs // Oct 18

Dead Armadillo Brewery – Joe Mack Gathering Place - Reading Tree – Alphabet Rockers Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Travis Kidd Hard Rock Casino - The Joint – Jamey Johnson – ($29-$49) Lefty’s On Greenwood – Branjae Mercury Lounge – Paul Benjaman River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – DJ 2Legit River Spirit Casino - Paradise Cove – Paula Abdul – ($50$325) Soul City – The Begonias Soundpony – My Brother and Me The Colony – Jacob Tovar’s Western Night The Colony – Robert Hoefling - Happy Hour The Vanguard – Bloodhound, Dying For It, Better Days, Iron Born, Give Way, Omission, She, The Serpent – ($12) The Venue Shrine – Afton Music Series – ($12-$15) Tulsa Botanic Garden – Rachel Bachman

Fri // Oct 19

American Legion Post 308 – Round Up Boys Blackbird on Pearl – Robert Hoefling and Family, Grazzhopper, Carla Britton Gregory – ($5) BOK Center – Ozuna – ($42-$202) Brady Theater – Blue October – ($27) Cabin Boys Brewery – Nightingale Cain’s Ballroom – Ray Wylie Hubbard, Travis Linville – ($20-$35) Centennial Lounge at VFW Post 577 – Hootenany w/ Sloppy Joe Fiasco, And Then There Were Two, Zoey Horner, Dave Les Smith, Kevin Price Colorfeed A/V – Ringdown, AP MFG, IC Fuel 66 – We Make Shapes, Konkoba Percussion, The Busty Brunettes, Cucumber and the Suntans – ($10) Gathering Place - Great Lawn – Kirk Franklin, Tulsa Metropolitan Baptist Choir, The Walls Group Gathering Place - Reading Tree – Alphabet Rockers Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Barrett Lewis, Lone Rangers Lefty’s On Greenwood – Curt Hill Mercury Lounge – Lloyd McCarter and the Honky Tonk Revival Osage Casino Tulsa - Thunder Bar & Grill – Stars River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Tiptons River Spirit Casino - Volcano Stage – Mike Wilson Soul City – Katy Guillen & Kalyn Fay Soul City – Susan Herndon - Happy Hour Soundpony – DJ WhyNot The Colony – The Beaten Daylights, The Lonelys – ($5) The Colony – Damion Shade - Happy Hour The Hunt Club – Dante and the Hawks The Max Retropub – DJ Moody The Vanguard – Flyover Fest II w/ Harley Flanagan, Kublai Khan, Purgatory, Judiciary, Rhythm of Fear, Vatican, Revenge Season, Creeping Death, Terminal Nation, Miracle Drug & more – ($30-$55) The Venue Shrine – Thunder Underground Fest w/ Fist of Rage, Severmind, Machine in the Mountain, Zen Hipster & more – ($7-$10)

Sat // Oct 20

Barkingham Palace – Søaker, The Big News, The Shame Blackbird on Pearl – Saganomics and Friends Brady Theater – Alan Parsons Live Project – ($45$59.50) Bull and Bear Tavern – Western Swingabilly Jazz Tribe ft.

Dean DeMerritt, Mike Cameron, Shelby Eicher, Sean Al Jibouri, Scott McQuade Cabin Boys Brewery – Roger Jaeger Cherry Street Farmers Market – Sloppy Joe Fiasco Circle Cinema – Brian Haas accompanies Nosferatu – ($12) 42 // MUSIC

Colorfeed A/V – CBN, True Commando, Effluvium, Cultplay, Bonemagic – ($5) Cox Business Center – 4U: A Symphonic Celebration of Prince – ($17-$86) Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Kalo, Time Machine Josey Records – Tom Boil, Will Hargus, Tight Rope Lefty’s On Greenwood – DJ Harvey Mercury Lounge – Dale Watson and His Lone Stars Osage Casino Tulsa - Thunder Bar & Grill – R-Kaine River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – The Hi-Fidelics River Spirit Casino - Volcano Stage – Stephanie Oliver & Johnny Mullenax Soul City – Anthony Gomes, Antry – ($25) Soundpony – World Culture Music Presents: Don’t Sleep On My City Studio 308 – KISS tribute Dressed to Kill – ($20-$25) The Colony – Hosty – ($5) The Hunt Club – Bandelier The Max Retropub – DJ AB The Venue Shrine – Thunder Underground Fest w/ Less Than Human, Locust Grove, Custom Black, The Normandys & more – ($7-$10)

Sun // Oct 21

Cain’s Ballroom – Rainbow Kitten Surprise – (SOLD OUT) Chimera – Anthony Worden, Cucumber and the Suntans Colorfeed A/V – El Escapado, The No Loves, Loose Wires – ($5) East Village Bohemian Pizza – Mike Cameron Collective Guthrie Green – Roger Jaeger Mercury Lounge – Brandon Clark River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Brent Giddens Soul City – Blues Brunch w/ Dustin Pittsley Soul City – Bruner & Eicher Soundpony – Darku brings a drum machine The Colony – Paul Benjaman’s Sunday Nite Thing The Colony – Singer Songwriter Open Mic Matinee w/ David Hernandez

Mon // Oct 22

Blackbird on Pearl – The Portal Hodges Bend – Mike Cameron Collective Mercury Lounge – Chris Blevins River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Travis Kidd Soundpony – Sherry The Colony – Seth Lee Jones The Colony – Ryan Browning - Happy Hour

Tues // Oct 23

Blackbird on Pearl – The Pearl Jam Lefty’s On Greenwood – Olivia Duhon Mercury Lounge – Wink Burcham, Jacob Tovar Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – Depot Jazz and Blues Jams River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Faye Moffett Soul City – Tuesday Bluesday The Colony – Dane Arnold & The Soup The Colony – Deerpaw - Happy Hour The Vanguard – Gold Route, Letdown, Handsome Sinners, My Heart & Liver Are The Best Of Friends – ($10)

Wed // Oct 24

Blackbird on Pearl – Wubby Wednesday Cain’s Ballroom – GWAR, Hatebreed, Miss May I, Ringworm – ($25-$40) Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Darrel Cole Mercury Lounge – Jared Tyler Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – Shelby and Nathan Eicher River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Stephanie Oliver & Johnny Mullenax Soul City – Don & Stephen White Soundpony – Live Band Karaoke w/ Satanico and the Demon Seeds The Colony – Tom Skinner Science Party The Vanguard – Flint Eastwood – ($10)

Thurs // Oct 25

Cain’s Ballroom – The Lacs, Infamous – ($19-$34) Gathering Place - Reading Tree – Dan & Claudia Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Scott Eastman, The Fuze Lefty’s On Greenwood – Jeremiah Kerby Mercury Lounge – Paul Benjaman River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – DJ 2Legit Soul City – The Begonias Soundpony – Some Kind of Nightmare The Colony – Jacob Tovar’s Western Night The Colony – Robert Hoefling - Happy Hour The Hunt Club – Ego Culture The Vanguard – Ward Davis, Casper McWade – ($20-$75) The Venue Shrine – Groovement – ($10-$12) Tulsa Botanic Garden – Jared Tyler

Fri // Oct 26

American Legion Post 308 – American Stings Blackbird on Pearl – The Danner Party Colorfeed A/V – Black Mold Halloween Bash

Cox Business Center – Ghost – ($34.50-$69.50) Gathering Place - Great Lawn – Sam Bush, Byron Berline Band, Shelby Eicher and Tommy Crook Gathering Place - Reading Tree – Dan & Claudia Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – The Hi-Fidelics, The Fuze Lefty’s On Greenwood – Mary Cogan Mercury Lounge – Lindsay Beaver Osage Casino Tulsa - Thunder Bar & Grill – House Party River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Tiptons River Spirit Casino - Paradise Cove – Boz Scaggs – ($34-$199) River Spirit Casino - Volcano Stage – Jacob Dement & Co. Soul City – The Stylees Soul City – Susan Herndon - Happy Hour Soundpony – Afistaface The Colony – Deep Sequence, TFM – ($5) The Colony – Damion Shade - Happy Hour The Hunt Club – The Brothers Moore The Vanguard – Coin, Arlie – ($15-$40) The Venue Shrine – SOOHAN, Trippy Hippy, Kudos – ($10-$15)

River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Stephanie Oliver & Johnny Mullenax Soul City – Don & Stephen White The Colony – Tom Skinner Science Party The Max Retropub – DJ Moody & David Teegarden The Vanguard – Halloween Tribute Acts: Rage Against The Machine, System of a Down, Slipknot – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Nightmare Before Christmas: Intergalactic Dance Party – ($15-$17)

Sat // Oct 27

Fri // Nov 2

American Legion Post 308 – The Birdsongs Blackbird on Pearl – Count Tutu Cain’s Ballroom – The Floozies, Famingosis, Recess – ($23-$38) Cellar Dweller – Grazzhopper Trio Colorfeed A/V – Black Mold Halloween Bash Dead Armadillo Brewery – Ghosts of the Prairie Duet – Tia Fuller – ($35) Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Weston Horn, Squadlive Hard Rock Casino - The Joint – Bret Michaels – ($45-$65) Lefty’s On Greenwood – Faye Moffett Mercury Lounge – Jamie Lin Wilson, Osage County Osage Casino Tulsa - Thunder Bar & Grill – Travis Kidd Band Renaissance Brewing Company – Parktoberfest w/ Steve Liddell, Sloppy Joe Fiasco, Ausha Lacole River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – The Hi-Fidelics River Spirit Casino - Paradise Cove – Maren Morris – ($55-$70) River Spirit Casino - Volcano Stage – Brent Giddens Soul City – Jennifer Knapp – ($10) Soundpony – Pleasuredome The Colony – Lauren Barth / Rachel La Vonne Retro Party – ($5) The Hunt Club – Smunty Voje The Max Retropub – DJ Jeffrey Fresh The Vanguard – My So Called Band – ($10)

Sun // Oct 28

Cain’s Ballroom – Lauv, Charlotte Lawrence – ($20-$25) Circle Cinema – The Invincible Czars accompany The Phantom of The Opera – ($12) East Village Bohemian Pizza – Mike Cameron Collective Guthrie Green – Alaska and Madi Mercury Lounge – Brandon Clark Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – Moore Jazz Plus w/ Mike Moore, Spike Green, Scott McQuade, Steve Wilkerson – ($5-$20) River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Brent Giddens Soul City – Blues Brunch w/ Dustin Pittsley Soul City – Bruner & Eicher Soundpony – Golden Ones The Colony – Paul Benjaman’s Sunday Nite Thing The Colony – Singer Songwriter Open Mic Matinee w/ David Hernandez The Venue Shrine – MK – ($5-$10)

Mon // Oct 29

Blackbird on Pearl – The Portal Cain’s Ballroom – Jonathan Davis, The Birthday Massacre, Julien-K – ($25-$40) Hodges Bend – Mike Cameron Collective Mercury Lounge – Chris Blevins River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Travis Kidd The Colony – Seth Lee Jones The Colony – Ryan Browning - Happy Hour

Tues // Oct 30

Blackbird on Pearl – The Pearl Jam Brady Theater – LANY – ($25) Lefty’s On Greenwood – Aja Kim Mercury Lounge – Wink Burcham, Jacob Tovar Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – Depot Jazz and Blues Jams River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Faye Moffett Soul City – Tuesday Bluesday Soundpony – Lyrical Smoke – The Colony – Dane Arnold & The Soup The Colony – Deerpaw - Happy Hour The Vanguard – Demon In Me, Youth Fountain, Goodfella, Spotless Mind – ($10)

Wed // Oct 31 Cain’s Ballroom – Halloween Haunt w/ The Struts & Meg Myers, Albert Hammond Jr., Thunderpussy – ($27-$42) Cellar Dweller – Grazzhopper Trio Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Breaking Southwest Mercury Lounge – Jared Tyler Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – Shelby and Nathan Eicher

Thurs // Nov 1

Cain’s Ballroom – Papadosio, Evanoff – ($17-$32) Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Ayngel and Jon, Zodiac Mercury Lounge – Paul Benjaman Soul City – The Begonias Soundpony – The Nunnery The Colony – Jacob Tovar’s Western Night The Colony – Robert Hoefling - Happy Hour The Venue Shrine – Will Hoge – ($12-$15) Blackbird on Pearl – Roots of Thought and Friends – ($5) BOK Center – Fab Four: The Ultimate Tribute – ($26.50$46.50) Brady Theater – Ray LaMontagne – ($39.50-$79.50) Duet – Dean DeMerritt, Sarah Maud, Sean Al-Jibouri album release Gathering Place - Great Lawn – A Tribe Called Red Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Sam Royal, Squadlive Hard Rock Casino - The Joint – Stevie Wonder – ($100-$130) Mercury Lounge – Jason Steady, The Dull Drums Osage Casino Tulsa - Thunder Bar & Grill – Jesse Joice Soul City – John Fullbright – ($10) Soul City – Susan Herndon - Happy Hour Soundpony – Soft Leather The Colony – The Mules, Hey Judy, Clint Vines, The Hard Times – ($5) The Colony – Damion Shade - Happy Hour The Vanguard – Skysia EP Release w/ Advocate, Fester, Abrrant Construct, Most Low, Gangar – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Red Dirt Rangers CD Release – ($20-$25)

Sat // Nov 3

Blackbird on Pearl – Kashmir – ($5) Cain’s Ballroom – Casey Donahew, Mike Ryan – ($23-$38) Hard Rock Casino - Riffs – Alaska and Madi, Time Machine Hard Rock Casino - The Joint – Stevie Wonder – ($100-$130) Mercury Lounge – Ford Theatre Reunion Osage Casino Tulsa - Thunder Bar & Grill – Barrett Lewis Duo Soul City – Carter Sampson Album Release – ($10) Soundpony – Soul Night The Colony – Dom Ferrer – ($5) The Vanguard – Illusions X w/ Darku J, Ject, The Runaway – ($5-$10) The Venue Shrine – Swan Lake Gentlemen’s Society – ($7)

Sun // Nov 4

Brady Theater – NF – ($37-$100) Cain’s Ballroom – Eric Johnson – ($30-$33) East Village Bohemian Pizza – Mike Cameron Collective Guthrie Green – Global Music Fest w/ La Gozadera, Local Hero, Gemstar Steel Band Mercury Lounge – Brandon Clark River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Brent Giddens River Spirit Casino - Paradise Cove – Christina Aguilera – ($100-$995) Soul City – Blues Brunch w/ Dustin Pittsley Soul City – Bruner & Eicher Soundpony – Reverend Red, MFTC The Colony – Paul Benjaman’s Sunday Nite Thing The Colony – Singer Songwriter Open Mic Matinee w/ David Hernandez The Vanguard – Public Safety – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Watermelon Slim – ($10-$15)

Mon // Nov 5

Blackbird on Pearl – The Portal Cain’s Ballroom – Coheed and Cambria, Maps & Atlases, Thank You Scientist – ($25-$100) Hodges Bend – Mike Cameron Collective Mercury Lounge – Chris Blevins River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Travis Kidd The Colony – Seth Lee Jones The Colony – Ryan Browning - Happy Hour

Tues // Nov 6

Blackbird on Pearl – The Pearl Jam Cain’s Ballroom – Blues Traveler, Con Brio – ($28-43) Mercury Lounge – Wink Burcham, Jacob Tovar Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – Depot Jazz and Blues Jams River Spirit Casino - 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar – Faye Moffett Soul City – Tuesday Bluesday The Colony – Dane Arnold & The Soup The Colony – Deerpaw - Happy Hour

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

MUSIC // 43

onscreen

THIEF OF HEARTS Robert Redford delivers a graceful performance in ‘The Old Man & the Gun’ Robert Redford and Sissy Spacek in “The Old Man & the Gun” | COURTESY

THE STAKES AREN’T ALL THAT HIGH IN THE new indie film, “The Old Man & The Gun,” but it’s a charmer all the same. The goal of writer/director David Lowery (“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” “A Ghost Story”) is simply to entertain with a delightful, American crime yarn about a septuagenarian bank robber portrayed by Robert Redford.

The film is based on the 2003 article of the same name by David Grann, author of “The Lost City of Z” and “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” which covers a series of killings that rocked Osage County, Oklahoma, in the early 1920s.

“The Old Man & The Gun” follows Forrest Tucker (Redford). At the age of 60, he’s mastered the art of the holdup and derives too much delight in the thrill of a good, well-mannered heist.

Sissy Spacek is immaculate as Jewel, a down-home Texas gal whose country twang and wry smile continues to steal any scene she’s in. But it’s Redford’s beguiling charm

Tulsa’s independent and non-profit art-house theatre, showing independent, foreign, and documentary films.

44 // FILM & TV

that makes “The Old Man & the Gun” such a thrill. There’s a pleasure in watching someone succeed at something they love—even if it’s robbing banks well into senior citizenship. Redford’s charisma gives the rakish Forrest such magnetism that you can’t help but root for him to succeed, even at the expense of a bank vault’s contents.

With “The Old Man & the Gun,” Lowery pays homage to the maverick spirit of the New Hollywood Cinema of the ‘70s without feeling slight or capricious. Lowery even manages to pull a page from the Soderbergh playbook, re-contextualizing images from Redford’s prior filmography to build the myth of this genteel bank robber.

The whimsical score by Daniel Hart keeps the atmosphere light and airy, pairing nicely with the grainy, laconic cinematography of Joe Anderson. But this is really an actors’ film. The well-rounded cast includes Danny Glover and Tom Waits as Forrest’s bank-robbing accomplices, and Casey Affleck plays the bored cop whose passion is reignited by Forrest’s recent spate of robberies.

David Lowery has settled comfortably into one of our most vital and interesting filmmakers. Not one to take the easy paycheck and helm a major comic-book franchise or CGI-laden blockbuster, he has instead built a diverse and quirky filmography that feels homespun and humanistic. With “The Old Man & the Gun,” he’s created yet another indelible yarn, with yet another iconic turn by Redford.

Redford has walked back his statement on retirement with “The Old Man & the Gun,” a film that would be a fitting swan song for the Sundance kid himself— going out on his own terms with that mercurial smile and a glint of mischief still in those iconic blue eyes.

“The Old Man & the Gun” opens Fri., Oct. 19 at Circle Cinema. – CHARLES ELMORE

Nicolas Cage in “Mandy” | COURTESY

STRANGER THINGS Nicolas Cage reaps bloody revenge in art house horror ‘Mandy’

IF YOU’RE WEARING A BLACK SABBATH T-shirt in a movie like “Mandy,” you’re doomed.

That’s the first brutal lesson in the haunting and hallucinatory new horror film from emerging filmmaker Panos Cosmatos. Chock-full of images worthy of @OnePerfectShot tweets, “Mandy” is a serious (and seriously mesmerizing) work of art that shouldn’t be marginalized by its straight-to-VOD platform.

It also gives us everything we want from Nicolas Cage—and everything he does best—from the unhinged B-movie crazy that fans geek out over, to the brooding, burdened psyche that anchors it.

“Mandy” is the latest entry of “art house horror,” a strain of auteur-driven terror that is often thriller-heavy but gore-lite, exploring spiritual darkness more than gratuitous savagery.

Some purist detractors have dismissed recent hallmarks of this subgenre (like “Hereditary” and “The VVitch”) as too cerebral to be scary or too patient to be terrifying—even with their nightmare-inducing wallops—ostensibly defining “horror” by some jump-scare quota or torture-porn excess. For them, less is bore, not more.

The slow burn of “Mandy” may elicit the same gripes from the same groups, with the carnage coming too late, but cineastes will be entranced by—and, at times, in awe of—sights and sequences in this atmospheric opus that could only come from a bona fide visionary.

Set in the Pacific Northwest in 1983, Red Miller and Mandy Bloom (Cage and “Birdman” actress Andrea Riseborough) live a bucolic life in a big rustic home made of glass panels framed in wood beam vectors. It’s a striking work of ar-

chitecture, especially when lit up at night, that eventually becomes ominous.

Deep in those same woods is a religious cult lead by a hippie-styled guru named Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache, TV’s “Vikings” and “Homeland”). He drops edicts like, “If you’re not with me, you will not ascend,” and can turn sadistic on a dime. There’s also a darker, perverse occultism at work, from the psychic control that Jeremiah wields to the demonic bikers summoned by a strange stone flute. The evil is palpable.

After being spotted by Jeremiah on a roadside walk, Mandy becomes their target, and Red is swept up as a collateral victim in their midnight ambush.

Cosmatos fuses a wide range of influences—from his dad George P. Cosmatos (“Rambo II,” “Tombstone”) to John Carpenter, Clive Barker, George Miller, and early Sam Raimi—with a Lynchian ethereal dread, but the bold palette is all his own.

As transfixing as the images are, it’s their dreamlike assembly in a disorienting haze that gives “Mandy” its queasy, unnerving power, magnified by a baleful retro synth from the late Jóhann Jóhannsson (“Arrival,” “Sicario”) in his final film score.

The story briefly loses its way as it transitions to its final act of rage-fueled vengeance, seemingly unsure of exactly how to get where it’s obviously going—but once it gets there, “Mandy” crescendos in a blood-soaked, psychedelic flourish.

Horror isn’t everyone’s genre, but Cosmatos is a film lover’s kind of filmmaker.

Even if “Mandy” sounds like a hard pass for your tastes, keep an eye out for whatever Cosmatos has next.

“Mandy” is available to rent or buy on VOD platforms. – JEFF HUSTON

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // THE TULSA VOICE

woodyguthriecenter.org

WOODY’S WEEKEND WORKSHOP FOR STUDENTS OCT. 26-28 “NO ONE ELSE COULD PLAY THAT TUNE: The Making & Unmaking of Bob Dylan’s 1974 Masterpiece”

CLINTON HEYLIN THURSDAY, OCT. 18 • 6:30pm

JACKIE VENSON TUESDAY, OCT. 23 • 7:30pm

VANCE GILBERT SUNDAY, OCT. 28 • 7pm

VICTOR & PENNY SATURDAY, NOV. 3 • 6pm

address 102 EAST BRADY STREET, TULSA, OK

74103

phone 918.574.2710

email INFO@WOODYGUTHRIECENTER.ORG

VT_TPCE 4.375x6 AD.indd 1

Benjamin Britten’s

10/12/18 12:30 PM

Sunday, November 11 2:30pm Tulsa Performing Arts Center Experience the breathtaking 1962 work, “War Requiem,” led by Guest Conductor James Bagwell. This large-scale masterpiece combines the Latin Requiem Mass with the wartime poetry of British writer Wilfred Owen to offer a moving prayer for peace that sounds entirely as relevant today as it did when it premiered in Coventry Cathedral.

tickets at tulsasymphony.org THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

FILM & TV // 45

The Lord has told you what is GOOD, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is RIGHT. FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST

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REAL COLLEGE RADIO

Tune into Tulsa’s eclectic, uniquely programmed, local music loving, commercial free, genre hopping, award winning, truly alternative music station. @RSURadio | WWW.RSURADIO.COM 46 // ETC.

October 17 – November 6, 2018 // 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

KIRK and his siblings were found all alone and brought in to us when they were very tiny. Kirk has been raised around other kittens and lots of different kinds of people. He loves to play and enjoys snuggling.

Kirk is 4 months old and weighs about 4 pounds.

ACROSS 1 Fixes securely 7 Jumped right, on a keyboard 13 Preventative shot 20 Acquire via work 21 Mountain cabin design 22 Borderer of Peru 23 Four “first” things 26 Council meeting for ecclesiastical business 27 Millions of years (var.)

28 Ladybug feature 29 “I’d rather be somewhere ___” 30 Prosperity 32 Goblet part 34 Modern English song, “___ With You” 36 Butler or Aykroyd 39 Win, lose or ___ 41 Forbidden scent?

43 Award for Allison Janney 47 A wading bird 49 Coordinated and quick-footed 52 Snap producer 55 Myrna of old Hollywood 56 Four “first” things 60 Walked the floor 61 A coin for some 62 New entries to society, briefly 63 Caesar’s brutal day 64 Online periodical 65 “Who ___ you?”

66 Who has visited Mars?

68 Titled anew 70 ___ down (loses weight) 73 Towered over 77 “Nevermore” claimer 79 Super wet, as ground 81 Morning step-on

82 Spelling of “Beverly Hills, 90210” 85 “Hard ___!” (ship command) 87 Three-piece ensemble 88 Palindromic ideology 89 Five “first” things 94 “Long, long ___ ...”

95 Fireplace 96 Bizet opera character 97 Is litigious 98 Certain Jamaican sect member 100 “An apple ___ keeps ...”

102 Sash relatives 104 Explodable letters 105 Los ___, Calif.

108 Ducky shade 111 Egyptian goddess with horns 113 Carve, as into memory 116 Driver of Miss Daisy 118 Sect suffix 120 Fine net for veils 124 Four “first” things 128 Bliss 129 Good-natured and mild 130 Providing help 131 Like yet-to-bedeveloped land 132 Way to thicken a lawn 133 U.S. cabinet department DOWN 1 Breakfast serving 2 Pieta figure 3 Source of fiber 4 Fund, as a scholarship 5 Like transferred property 6 Indian sir 7 Sprinter’s destination

NOVA was surrendered to us through no fault of her own. She has lived indoors and did well, according to her last home. She is happiest outside playing fetch but also enjoys being taken for walks and would be happy to lie beside you while you channel surf.

She would probably do better in an only-dog home.

Nova is one year old and weighs about 49 pounds.

8 Roundish hairstyles 9 Announcer Musburger 10 Hound variety 11 Typography widths 12 Agnus ___ (mass prayers) 13 Copperhead fluid 14 Type of pain or angle 15 Hockey’s Stanley, e.g.

16 Citadel students 17 Word with teen or matinee 18 “___ as good a time ...”

19 Fish-loving eagle 24 Andalusian capital 25 Dope-y place of old 31 Quick horse 33 Medieval war club 35 Thing to be repaid 36 Ladle, e.g.

37 Going up in flames 38 B vitamin type 40 Cirrus cloud formations 42 Halftime entertainers 44 Hunk of dirt 45 Best-of-the-best 46 Bar whiskeys 48 Screenwriter’s description 50 Garden bulbs 51 Artist’s frame 53 Personify 54 Plant new crops 57 Plant swelling 58 Fashion dressmaker 59 Male peregrines (var.)

65 Plant in the spurge family 67 Far beyond unpleasant

69 Avoid, as capture 71 Storybook ending, sometimes 72 Cathedral topper 74 Spread, as a search party 75 Desired dice roll 76 Hate 78 Cornhusker’s place 80 Salk’s 13-Across target 82 Alpine lift 83 Korbut of gymnastics 84 Little bounding Australians 86 Founded, engraved 90 Lentil-based Indian dish 91 Steps leading to the Ganges 92 Rare ape 93 Raised speaker’s platform 99 Gauguin’s island 101 Has cravings 103 Attends a meeting (with “on”) 106 “And ___ you have it!”

107 Made sounds of admiration 109 Sharp, narrow mountain ridge 110 Tightly twisted thread 112 Blue shoes material of song 113 Tan relative 114 “Better you ___ me!”

115 The po-po 117 Ga. Tech. grad, perhaps 119 Acted like 121 Haven for big wildlife 122 Weak conclusion?

123 Touchy and ohso-sensitive 125 Use a knife 126 Passing grade 127 Not among Scots

Find the answers to this issue’s crossword puzzle at thetulsavoice.com/puzzle-solutions.

THE TULSA VOICE // October 17 – November 6, 2018

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.

FLOYD is a very playful boy and wants all the love.

He would do great in a variety of homes. Floyd is 4 years old and weighs about 34 lbs.

UNIVERSAL SUNDAY CROSSWORD FIRST THINGS

By Timothy E. Parker

© 2018 Andrews McMeel Syndication

10/21 ETC. // 47

SATURDAY

BRET MICHAELS

8PM

THURSDAY

SCOTTY MCCREERY

8PM

THURSDAY

TLC

8PM

10.27

11.08

11.15

NOVEMBER

STEVIE WONDER

8PM

SATURDAY

CAT & NAT

8PM

THE ULTIMATE QUEEN CELEBRATION STARRING MARC MARTEL

6PM

2&3

11.10

SUNDAY

11.25

LIGHTING IT UP SCAN TO PURCHASE TICKETS

Schedule subject to change.

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Pleas e re cycle this issue.

10/8/18 5:43 PM