J U N E 1 9 – J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 9
//
VOL. 6 NO. 13
THE ART OF BEER P20
BAR BITE BEER PAIRINGS P18
THE HISTORY OF CHOC BEER P24
paradise never sounded So Good.
Tickets On Sale Now rodney carrington june 29 thunder from down under july 13
tony danza july 19 REO SPEEDWAGON JULY 27 Chicago August 1 DR. Ken Jeong August 10 Nickelback August 16 Chris Isaak August 22
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June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
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THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
CONTENTS // 3
EYE OF THE BEER-HOLDER P20
June 19 – July 2, 2019 // Vol. 6, No. 13 ©2019. All rights reserved.
BY BRADY WHISENHUNT
The silly, striking and sublime imagery of Tulsa’s craft brewing scene
PUBLISHER Jim Langdon EDITOR Jezy J. Gray ASSISTANT EDITOR Blayklee Freed DIGITAL EDITOR Kyra Bruce
STRANGE BREW P24
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Madeline Crawford GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Georgia Brooks, Morgan Welch PHOTOGRAPHER Greg Bollinger
BY RUSSELL COBB
Choc beer’s wild history reflects Okie paradoxes of race, immigration, politics, and good times
AD SALES MANAGER Josh Kampf CONTRIBUTORS David Blatt, Kimberly Burk, Eliseo Casiano, Ty Clark, Russell Cobb, Nicole Donis, Charles Elmore, Barry Friedman, Destiny Jade Green, Colin Healey, Jeff Huston, Fraser Kastner, Mary Noble, Deon Osborne, Joseph Rushmore, Tres Savage, Abigail Smithson, John Tranchina, Brady Whisenhunt
A PLACE TO BELONG P26
BY BLAYKLEE FREED
Queer spaces, queer history
EROSION OF TRUST
The Tulsa Voice’s distribution is audited annually by
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BY MARY NOBLE
Confusion and conflict swirl around Tulsa County’s contract with ICE
The Tulsa Voice is published bi-monthly by
Colin Healey, co-founder and art director for Prairie Artisan Ales | GREG BOLLINGER
FOOD & DRINK
NEWS & COMMENTARY 7 GASSED UP B Y DAVID BLATT
16 DOWNTOWN SLOW-DOWN B Y BRADY WHISENHUNT
Increased gross production taxes are fueling Oklahoma’s revenue boom
Sapulpa’s CTX Coffee serves small-town vibes
8 REVOLUTION BY TEMPLATE B Y BARRY FRIEDMAN
18 PUB GRUB CRAWL B Y TTV STAFF
The University of Tulsa’s sleight of hand
Bar bite beer pairings to prevent a hangover from hell
10 REACH OUT, SPEAK OUT B Y DEON OSBORNE Domestic violence experts call for culture shift, harsher laws
11 ‘ NOT ALL COUNTRY BOYS’ Y TRES SAVAGE B
MUSIC 40 ‘ I’M SO HONORED. HOW TOUCHING. F— YOU.’ B Y KYRA BRUCE AND TY CLARK
Be proud of ‘pride truck’ in rural Oklahoma
Alicia Bognanno of Bully talks misogyny and new music
12 IN THE WEEDS B Y FRASER KASTNER
41 DRINKING SONGS B Y KYRA BRUCE
Growing cannabis in downtown Tulsa’s secret garden
TV & FILM 44 THE THUNDER ROLLS B Y CHARLES ELMORE Martin Scorsese stokes the legend of Bob Dylan in new documentary
45 INJUSTICE FOR ALL B Y JEFF HUSTON The case of the Central Park Five is powerfully rendered in new miniseries 4 // CONTENTS
‘ Choir on Tap’ makes a joyful noise at Welltown Brewing
ETC.
ARTS & CULTURE 30 WITH INTENTION B Y NICOLE DONIS
Contact sheet
32 THE WEIGHT OF RETURNING B Y JEZY J. GRAY
Quraysh Ali Lansana comes home
33 MEET THE FELLOWS B Y TTV STAFF
In the studio with Blackhorse Lowe
34 GAME CHANGER B Y ABIGAIL SMITHSON
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:
Remembering the godmother of Oklahoma women’s basketball
35 FORGOTTEN TULSA B Y KIMBERLY BURK
Zarrow Center exhibit puts a lens on the past
36 ‘ NO DOUBLE STANDARDS’ Y JOHN TRANCHINA B Tulsa’s women’s pro soccer team levels the playing field
J U N E 1 9 – J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 9
//
VOL. 6 NO. 13
THE ART OF BEER P20
6 EDITOR’SLETTER 38 THEHAPS 42 MUSICLISTINGS 47 THEFUZZ + CROSSWORD BAR BITE BEER PAIRINGS P18
THE HISTORY OF CHOC BEER P24
ON THE COVER The art of beer ILLUSTRATION BY COLIN HEALEY June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
He Built the Taj Mahal for Her. 1,200 years of Islamic Art. JUNE 23– OCT. 6 Unknown artist from India. Double portrait of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1592–1666) and Empress Mumtaz (1593–1631), late 19th century. Painting: colors and gold on ivory; frame: gold, wood, and brass, 2 ½ × 3 ¼”. Newark Museum, Bequest of J. Ackerman Coles, 1926, 26.1133.
THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
CONTENTS // 5
editor’sletter
L
ast week, it was announced that the federal government would detain as many as 1,400 migrant children at the Fort Sill Army installation in southwestern Oklahoma. Disturbing as this development may be, it’s not the first time the facility has been used in this way. During World War II, the site was an internment camp for Americans of Japanese descent. In 2014, it briefly held unaccompanied minors from Central America, a move met with outcries from Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma. The difference between 2014 and now? Back then, these children had hope of reuniting with a relative or sponsor while they awaited deportation proceedings. They could also play soccer, take English classes, and receive legal aid. The current presidential administration—uniquely cruel in its application of this American
tradition of immigrant detention—has cancelled all education and recreational programs for the more than 40,000 children currently detained by the U.S government. The headlines came even closer to home last Monday, as advocates and activists packed the Tulsa County Commissioners’ meeting to discuss the county’s 287(g) contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which was extended by county officials behind closed doors. Check out Mary Noble’s account of that turbulent meeting, and the passionate voices fighting for immigration justice and the repeal of 287(g) on pg. 28. There’s fun stuff in this issue, too—calm down. Do you like beer? We’ve got two really great stories about beer. First, Brady Whisenhunt looks at the art behind your favorite local craft breweries,
PULITZER PRIZE PHOTOGRAPHS
talking to the artists themselves about their work and inspiration (pg 20). You’ll meet Colin Healey of Prairie Artisan Ales—who illustrated our amazing cover, which we’re all obsessed with— along with designers from Cabin Boys, Heirloom Rustic Ales and American Solera. I want a Double IPA just thinking about it. Then, strap yourselves in for the truly wild history of Oklahoma’s original brew, Choc beer (pg 24). We’re not talking about the brewery in Krebs—though their histories intertwine—but rather the milky, frothy concoction brought to Indian Territory by the Choctaws, which bears little resemblance to what we think of as “beer.” It comes to us from Russell Cobb, who examines how this strange brew became the most dangerous libation in Oklahoma, and how it illuminates our distinctly weird paradoxes of race, immigration, and good times.
Also, if you’ve been glued to the FIFA Women’s World Cup, don’t sleep on our sports section. We’ve got a story about the Fortuna women’s soccer club, which is finally getting an even playing field—literally (pg 35). You’ll also meet the late, great Bertha Frank Teague, the godmother of women’s basketball in Oklahoma, who left a lasting impact on the game, along with some specific lunch instructions: “Peaches and crackers, or poached eggs on dry toast, with tea. Reserve the heavy meal until after the game.” a
JEZY J. GRAY EDITOR
H
istory comes to life at Gilcrease with the most comprehensive collection of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs ever assembled.
ON VIEW THROUGH J U LY 1 4
1990 Feature, Freedom Uprising (Berlin Wall Falls) David C. Turnley Detroit Free Press Nov. 9, 1989, Berlin, Germany; David C. Turnley/Detroit Free Press/Getty Images
6 // NEWS & COMMENTARY
“PULITZER PRIZE PHOTOGRAPHS” was developed by the Newseum. The Newseum, headquartered in Washington, D.C., promotes, explains and defends free expression and the five freedoms of the First Amendment. newseum.org
The University of Tulsa is an equal employment opportunity/affirmative action institution. For EEO/AA information, contact the Office of Human Resources, 918-6312616; for disability accommodations, contact Dr. Tawny Rigsby, 918-631-2315. TU#
June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
okpolicy
O
GASSED UP Increased gross production taxes are fueling Oklahoma’s revenue boom by DAVID BLATT for OKPOLICY.ORG
THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
klahoma is currently enjoying a period of exceptionally strong revenue growth. As we near the end of FY 2019, General Revenue collections have already come in $360 million ahead of the year’s estimate, which will ensure a large end-of-year deposit to the Rainy Day Fund. Next year’s revenues collections are projected to be more than 20 percent higher than last year’s, which has allowed the Legislature to approve two straight years of substantial funding increases. Much of the credit for the prosperous fiscal situation is due to rising oil and gas revenues. In recent sessions, the Legislature curbed tax breaks for the oil and gas industry that had allowed a growing share of production to be taxed far below the standard 7 percent rate. Until 2017, some older wells were taxed at just 1 percent during their first three years of production while new wells were taxed at just 2 percent for three years. In 2017, the Legislature restored the rate for all existing wells to 7 percent and then in 2018 restored the rate on new wells to 5 percent for the first 36 months. Some in the oil and gas industry warned lawmakers that higher tax rates would stifle production and harm the energy industry and overall state economy. This has not appeared to be the case. Oil and gas production is currently at all-time highs in Oklahoma as well as nationally. Over the 12-month period through February 2019, Oklahoma oil production averaged 17 million barrels, which is 30 percent higher than during the peak years of the early 1980s. The restored tax rates and growth in production have given state revenues a significant boost. Through April, gross production tax (GPT) revenues to the General Revenue Fund are at $584 million, which is 132 percent
above last year. The higher tax rate, which took effect in September, accounted for $260 million in increased GPT revenue through April, according to data from the State Treasurer’s Office. Total GPT collections are 38 percent higher this year than they would have been had lawmakers not boosted the rate from 2 to 5 percent. We do not have data to determine the impact of restoring the 7 percent rate on older wells on revenue collections, but it is likely substantial. The FY 2020 budget approved by the Legislature appropriated $7.999 billion across state government, $434 million (5.7 percent) above the original budget for FY ’19. In addition, lawmakers set aside $200 million for the Revenue Stabilization Fund. Of the roughly $600 million in growth revenue for the FY 2020 budget, at least one-third is due to increased gross production tax collections. Oil and gas taxes are an especially volatile revenue source, and there is good reason to be concerned about the state’s vulnerability to future drops in collections. However, the state has created a safeguard in the Revenue Stabilization Fund, which received a $200 million deposit this year and will likely grow by at least $200 million more in FY 2021. Strong oil and gas tax collections, due in substantial part to lawmakers’ willingness in 2017 and 2018 to restore the gross production tax to higher rates, are a major contributor to the state’s fiscal health. They are resulting in a large anticipated deposit to the Rainy Day Fund as well as significant funding increases and increased savings as part of the FY 2020 budget. a
David Blatt is Executive Director of Oklahoma Policy Institute (okpolicy.org). NEWS & COMMENTARY // 7
Revolution by template The University of Tulsa’s sleight of hand by BARRY FRIEDMAN
O
ne of the things that still boggles the mind surrounding True Commitment: Reimagining The University of Tulsa—aside from its clunky rollout—was how utterly unprepared school administration officials were for the faculty uproar. Instead, they peddled Successories posters: For those focused on our future and on the work at hand, we are rowing hard and in unison. Some of us may be pros, while some may be new and just finding their sea legs. The water may be choppy at times, but we are rowing, all while finding new ways to improve performance.
That was the school’s provost, Janet Levit, presenting the plan to the faculty back on April 11. Bad enough faculty members felt dismissed and marginalized, their departmental identities and life’s work sublimated, but now they were being asked to buy into some fatuous boating cliché. While touting the courage it took to present True Commitment—the administration’s self-congratulations was positively Trumpian—Clancy and Levit simultaneously tried to reassure a nervous university community it wasn’t that big of a deal. Regarding these large changes, President Clancy said, “I actually call it the third transformation of TU.” This is the largest and most significant change seen by the university in over three decades. (The Collegian)
But then he added: Just 6% of our total student population are 8 // NEWS & COMMENTARY
University of Tulsa | GREG BOLLINGER
enrolled in the affected programs for their primary degrees.
Either you’re announcing a significant change to your educational philosophy or you’re just junking the theatre department. Pick one. Which brings us to EAB, an education consulting fi rm— TU’s education consulting fi rm. I have a copy of its report, How Multidisciplinary Organization Supports Institutional Goals, which, depending to whom you talk, was either the muse for True Commitment or simply scanned in under the TU logo. A number of faculty members told me that Tracey Manly, head of TU’s Provost’s Program Review Committee, publicly acknowledged that EAB was actively involved in the formulation of True Commitment. I wrote Clancy and asked him. “The True Commitment plan,” he answered, “was developed by faculty on the Provost Program Review Committee, and no consultant, from EAB or elsewhere, proposed or developed any part of the plan.”
Except. Clancy also said: “For several years, at the recommendation of the previous provost, TU has been a member of EAB’s academic affairs forum, which offers members access to research on a variety of issues, including different models of transitioning small departments into larger divisions.” Interesting distinction. Clancy had also previously sent an email to a faculty member in which he wrote the school had “Implemented the Advanced Performance Solutions with EAB to track our academic efficiencies,” so, clearly, EAB’s DNA can be found on True Commitment. “Manly discussed it at one of the early ‘town hall’ meetings in the weeks after 4/11.” That’s Robert Jackson, the James G. Watson Professor of English at TU, who wasn’t at all happy with the process. “They were not actually ‘town hall’ meetings at all, but highly choreographed sessions in which emailed questions were read to the president, provost, and Manly, and no follow-up questions or other discussion after their
responses were allowed. In light of their efforts at tight control, Manly’s acknowledgement of EAB’s involvement seems to constitute quite a lapse. But there it is. Unfortunately, this exemplifies the administration’s performance from the beginning: dubious methods of forging policy, authoritarian impulses to censor communications and ham-fisted control of the official narrative.” EAB, as mentioned, helps schools transition from departmental models of higher education where, say, philosophy, geology and English act as sort of nation states within the university, to an interdisciplinary approach to academia, where disciplines are combined and critical thinking, acknowledgement and appreciation of ethical concerns are the new focus. An interdisciplinary approach, since it lumps departments together (like Philosophy and Religion), eliminates staff and increases class sizes (all elements of TU’s True Commitment), can also save a school money. But only a cynic would say that’s the true motivation. Call me a cynic. In his book In Defense of Disciplines, Jerry A. Jacobs, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, says there’s something else at play: The push for interdisciplinarity fits with current managerial ideology, and increases the power of administrators.
And EAB is sending out the template to administrators on not only how to implement the plan, but the talking points that should be used in selling it. EAB, in its “Sample Timeline Academic Reorganization,” recJune 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
ommends a five-year phase-in of such reorganization; the University of Tulsa announced a five-year phase-in for True Commitment. EAB talks of “silos” in its “Multidisciplinary Reorganization Toolkit”; President Clancy did as well in his message to faculty and staff, touting the move “from siloed departments to interdisciplinary divisions.” EAB refers to its president of enrollment and advancement marketing services as a “thought leader”; the University of Tulsa applies the business-speak label to Janet Levit as well. And EAB advocates creating “high-touch student service model”; Janet Levit says the University of Tulsa is a “high-touch undergraduate institution.” “We have also discovered uncanny similarities between the proposed cuts at TU and those at other institutions that hired EAB,” Jackson adds. “Even the wording of official documents, press releases, and the like, is identical, or nearly so.” The problems with True Commitment, though, are not just stylistic. In its report, EAB instructs universities how to ramrod the whole process. “When institutions are very small or very centralized, it is possible to make a decision without an extended period for faculty, student, or staff input.” Lovely. “My department, English, is one of the few in Arts and Sciences to have been spared the most devastating cuts,” says Jackson, who, nevertheless, despises the new plan. “Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be much basis at all for faculty to trust the administration at this point,” he says. “A few administrators produced the plan in secret, developing its details with the input of an external consulting firm while keeping the TU faculty in the dark for months. Then they unveiled the plan with the claims that it actually came from the faculty and represented a high level of shared governance. Now they expect the same faculty for whom they’ve shown nothing but contempt to carry out a plan that will seriously harm the institution. So, you tell me, what would you do if you were a faculty member in this situation?” I would throw something. THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
In the section “Divisional Faculty Evaluation Checklist” under Divisional Promotion and Tenure Guideline Checklist, EAB explains the new criteria for faculty advancement. In doing so, it trashes a tenure system which has been around since around 1887. According to the EAB’s website, where once “Department promotion criteria prioritize evidence of disciplinary excellence,” the company now advocates “Divisional promotion criteria prioritize divisional and institutional mission.” What this means is that under the new interdisciplinary model, the University of Tulsa will be able to promote faculty members, not for their mastery of disciplinary rigor, but because of their ability to satisfy institutional objectives. Look, if TU wants to crib an off-the-shelf reorganization plan and pass it off as coming from Sinai, that’s one thing, but this change in tenure is chilling. TU administrators want to be Geppetto to the faculty’s Pinocchio. At one point in her presentation to staff and faculty, Levit reminded faculty to behave: “I request that you have an open mind and civility in discourse.” When you gut a person’s passion and life’s work—when you literally change the ground beneath his or her feet—civility is the last thing you get to ask for. Jackson sees the long con. “Invoking interdisciplinarity is simply an attempt to make an unpopular administrative power grab sound intellectually defensible,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about interdisciplinary scholarship for the better part of three decades now. I even earned advanced degrees in two different fields in an effort to be able to do good interdisciplinary work, which has to meet standards of quality and rigor in each discipline it addresses in order to be taken seriously. That’s a tall order, and one of the things I’ve learned is that it’s quite difficult to produce good scholarship in any single discipline, let alone more than one. What’s been proposed at TU, instead, is the actual destruction of disciplines based on some very short-sighted, and often inaccurate, metrics.” Here’s Clancy again:
We met with faculty who are impacted by these changes to share with them what you are about to read. I’m grateful for their support of the greater purpose. With rare exception, there was understanding and support.
Rare exception? On April 17, the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences resolved not to implement the changes proposed by the PPRC within the coming year (20192020), pending the creation of a task force, composed of and elected by A&S faculty, to study the effects of the proposed changes on students, faculty and the University. The vote was 89 to 4. And one of the four who did support the plan, Kalpana Misra, dean of The University of Tulsa’s Henry Kendall College of Arts and Sciences, just announced her retirement, following the 2019-20 academic year. “Any speculation that my decision and the university’s plans for change are somehow tied is inaccurate,” she wrote me when I asked if there was a connection. “I wanted to return to my teaching and scholarship,” she wrote. “I look forward to leading the college through the next year and recognize that our planned changes are particularly difficult for many of my colleagues.” I’ll be curious to see if “our planned changes” becomes “their planned changes” when she’s back with her colleagues. While we’re on the subject, where are the faculty members not on the PPRC who will fall on their swords (and teaching loads) for this plan? Where are their public statements highlighting their eagerness to row in the same shell for TU’s institutional glory? Jackson, for one, won’t be one of them. “This is a disaster, in something like the 16th-century Italian sense,” he says. “The stars are out of alignment, and a great many people are going to suffer for it.” Read that quote again. Jackson combined history, English, astronomy, and psychology. The University of Tulsa’s True Commitment is not just a disaster—it’s an interdisciplinary disaster. a
TULSA’S ONLY TRADITIONAL JAZZ CLUB
UPCOMING SHOWS
downstairs
Ted Ludwig Trio June 19
Branjae June 21
David Moore and the Nocturne Sextet June 22
Micaela Young June 26
14 Strings June 27
Edwin Canito Garcia June 28
Cynthia Simmons June 29
Collective Improv Jam Night featuring Chris Foster July 3
Crusade Quartet July 5
Grady Nichols July 6
DuetJazz.com
NEWS & COMMENTARY // 9
community
Editor’s note: This story uses a pseudonym to protect the identity of a victim of domestic violence. This story contains graphic information detailing domestic abuse.
T
wo months ago, 22-yearold Allyssa Fielding and her unborn child were killed after suffering a severe beating, allegedly at the hands of her partner Colby Wilson. In October of 2016, Wilson was convicted of domestic assault and battery against Fielding. He was released the following July, according to Tulsa World. A preliminary hearing for Wilson is set for July 3. The double homicide case is particularly jarring because Fielding had a protective order against Wilson when she was killed. Police say Wilson held Fielding hostage, making her sit in front of a camera when he was away, according to Tulsa World reports. “This is a woman that was controlled beyond reason,” Tulsa Police Homicide Sgt. Brandon Watkins told The World. “Under no circumstances can I blame her for not reaching out. I can’t imagine she had much hope of anything.” Mental and emotional abuse can warp the thinking of a victim of domestic violence’s thinking. For one Tulsa woman who survived domestic violence, her ex-husband’s incessant mind games made her believe she deserved the abuse. “He picked away at my insecurities and eventually he mentally conditioned me into thinking his thoughts,” said Hope, a Tulsa teacher. She recalled one particular incident—the one that drove her to seek help. Hope said her husband got upset about a phone conversation she had with her mother. “He waited until our son was asleep. Then he proceeded to beat me,” Hope said. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God. He’s gonna kill me.”
10 // NEWS & COMMENTARY
Tracey Lyall is the executive director of Tulsa’s Domestic Violence Intervention Services. | GREG BOLLINGER
REACH OUT, SPEAK OUT Domestic violence experts call for culture shift, harsher laws by DEON OSBORNE Then their son woke up. Hope bolted out the door and ran straight to the apartment manager. They called the police. Her husband spent a single night in jail. What followed would culminate into a cycle of religious manipulation, false apologies and relentless beatings. He used the Bible to control her, blaming his beatings and verbal abuse on her not being a good enough Christian wife. Eventually Hope reached out for help and received counseling and legal assistance from Tulsa’s Domestic Violence Intervention Services (DVIS), finally giving her the courage and resources to take her son and leave. “We still have people who believe domestic violence is a private matter,” DVIS executive director Tracey Lyall said. She and her organization are working with the OKC-based Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault to change that perception and update criminal penalties for abusers. In recent weeks there have been stronger calls for legislative action after the double-homicide
in April, where a man who was recently released from prison after a domestic violence conviction allegedly regained control over his girlfriend, strangled her and beat her severely, ultimately killing her and her unborn baby. Lyall says stronger penalties and longer prison sentences could have possibly prevented the recent murder in Tulsa. While legislation on the issue has mostly stalled, a ray of hope came earlier this spring with the passage of Senate Bill 926, which requires sex education in schools to also teach consent. “With criminal justice reform, I become concerned that we’re going to forget that domestic violence is a violent crime,” Lyall said. She said she would like to see strangulation become a crime that requires the offender to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence. Strangulation is an indicator that abuse could turn deadly. A 2014 study in the San Diego Tribune showed women who had been strangled were almost eight times more likely to end up homicide victims than women suffering other forms of abuse.
Some advocates wonder whether the mostly male legislature even understands the severity of domestic violence in a culture that blames the victim. “Domestic violence equals manipulation, control and abuse,” said Rose Turner, vice president of clinical services at DVIS. She said when a captor continually hears phrases like “you don’t deserve any better,” “you’re worthless,” or “nobody will believe you,” it starts to challenge their self-worth. After years of counseling, apologies and false promises, a clip of a Dr. Phil episode shined a light through the shadows Hope’s life had become. “What is it about your self-perception that makes you think this is something you deserve?” Hope repeated the quote. She said it was then that she knew she had to leave and through the legal resources that DVIS offered, Hope fi led a protective order against her husband of 20 years. While some ask why a person stays in that situation, Hope wants people to recognize that without a safety exit plan in place, leaving an abuser is the most dangerous action a survivor can make in the relationship. “But there is a life beyond abuse,” Hope said. “I’m remarried to a man who is the complete opposite.” Laughing through the painful memories, Hope said her life went from a Lifetime movie to a Hallmark romantic comedy. For Lyall, domestic violence won’t ever be solved until spouses, friends, families, legislators and society takes a hard stance against domestic violence, which may be a difficult task in a country that hasn’t yet ratified the Equal Rights Amendment for women nearly 50 years after the bill’s passage. a
To learn more about DVIS resources, visit dvis.org. You can also call the 24-hour information and crisis hotline at 918-743-5763. June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
statewide
W
ith a rainbow tailgate and the proclamation “Not all country boys are bigots / Happy Pride month,” a man’s pickup truck in Hulbert, Oklahoma, has made national headlines while drawing attention to supporters of LGBTQ+ rights in rural America. Cody Barlow made his Facebook post June 6 for Pride month, and it has been liked more than 100,000 times shared more than 68,000 times: “This is important to me, not only because I have family and friends that are LGBTQ+, but also because countless people have dealt with hatred and judgement simply for who they are, and/or who they love, for far too long,” Barlow wrote. “Obviously doing this isn’t going to change the minds of those who are intolerant, but hopefully it can help drown out the hatred with love.” Living in Hulbert, a community of about 600 people west of Tahlequah in Cherokee County, Barlow said he is surrounded by small towns. “I’m sure this is not a very welcome message around here, but this is going to be displayed on my truck for the entire month of June in support of Pride month,” Barlow wrote. “I don’t think it is necessary to say, but for all intents and purposes I am a straight man that grew up here in Oklahoma. I love taking my truck mudding, going fishing, swimming at the lake, floating the river and several other ‘country’ activities.”
LGBTQ+ SUPPORT ‘HAS ALWAYS EXISTED’ IN RURAL AMERICA Roughly 3 million lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered people live in rural America, according to a study by the Movement Advancement Project released earlier this year. The study— which notes it “did not explicitly compare rural and non-rural communities”—offers interesting insights into the perceptions of LGBTQ+ community members in rural America. THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
“The complexity of public opinion in rural America illustrates that it must not be written off as opposing equality for LGBT people,” the report states. “Certainly, the public opinion landscape may be more challenging in rural areas than outside them, but support for LGBT people exists—and has always existed—within rural America.” Still, the Movement Advancement Project offers low overall scores for Oklahoma’s public policies relating to LGBTQ+ protections.
A BETTER TYPE OF NATIONAL HEADLINE
Cody Barlow lives in Hulbert, a community of about 600 people west of Tahlequah in Cherokee County. He put this message on his truck during Pride month to show support for the LGBTQ+ community. COURTESY CODY BARLOW/FACEBOOK
‘NOT ALL COUNTRY BOYS’ Be proud of ‘pride truck’ in rural Oklahoma by TRES SAVAGE for NONDOC.COM As might be expected because rural America largely embraces a more conservative identity, the study found that support for LGBTQ+ equality and legal protections was lower in rural areas than in urban centers and suburban communities. “But rural public opinion is still more LGBT-friendly, and diverse, than it’s imagined to be,” the study’s report notes on page 52. “Though rural residents are generally less likely than urban residents to support LGBT legal protections, it is also true that in many cases, a majority or signif-
icant portion of rural residents support these policies.” The study’s report lists statistics comparing urban and rural populations on three LGBTQ+ issues: • Support same-sex marriage: Urban 64 percent / Rural 52 percent • Support nondiscrimination protections: Urban 72 percent / Rural 62 percent • Oppose businesses refusing service: Urban 63 percent / Rural 54 percent
Pages later, the study’s report notes its public opinion “bottom line.”
In Oklahoma, Cody Barlow’s Facebook post stands in stark contrast to the type of social media statements about LGBTQ+ issues that sometimes make headlines in rural communities. In August 2017, word spread of anti-LGBTQ+ harrassment allegations by a former Hitchcock city employee who ultimately fi led a lawsuit against town leadership. In August 2018, residents of Achille, Oklahoma, made national headlines when transphobic comments in a private Facebook group were made public. Some parents in the local school district made threats against a middle school transgender student, who ended up moving. Almost halfway through 2019, it seems that Barlow’s Facebook post is the most prominent LGBTQ+ topic to come from rural Oklahoma this year. After its reception, it will be interesting to see if any other rural Oklahoma pride displays pop up on social media this month. a
Tres Savage is editor in chief of NonDoc, where this editorial originally appeared. NonDoc is an Oklahoma City-based online media outlet promoting diverse voices, responsible reporting and intelligent analysis. For more information, visit NonDoc.com NEWS & COMMENTARY // 11
cannaculture JAMEY JOHNSON
THE JOSEPHINES
WALKER COUNTY
LOCATED IN THE COMMANDRY ROOM
FRIDAY, JULY 5
FRIDAY, JULY 12
WYNONNA & THE BIG NOISE
BLACKTOP MOJO
WHITNEY MORGAN TN JET
LOCATED IN THE COMMANDRY ROOM
Higher Plains Farm is owned and operated by Laurie Keeley, Susan Rhodes and Ali Pearcy. GREG BOLLINGER
SATURDAY, JULY 13
THURSDAY, AUG 22
CODY CANADA & THE DEPARTED
FRIDAY, SEP 13
FRIDAY, AUG 30
BUCKCHERRY BLACKTOP MOJO
SATURDAY, SEP 21
ERIN RAE
SATURDAY, JUNE 29 TULSA, OK . BOK CENTER .7:30PM
GET TICKETS AT TICKETMASTER.COM, BOKCENTER.COM AND AT THE BOK CENTER BOX OFFICE 12 // NEWS & COMMENTARY
IN THE WEEDS Growing cannabis in downtown Tulsa’s secret garden
HIGHER PLAINS ISN’T EXACTLY WHAT one would expect from an Oklahoma farm. For one, they’re located in downtown Tulsa, a stone’s throw from the county jail. Second, they’re entirely female owned and operated. Lastly, they produce one crop: cannabis. Higher Plains Farm is Laurie Keeley, Susan Rhodes and Ali Pearcy. Their secret garden is tucked away from prying eyes— and noses—in a little side street downtown. The farm uses aeroponic tables to grow their cannabis indoors, without soil or natural sunlight. Their facility represents the cutting-edges of the local cannabis industry and modern farming technology. Pearcy and Keeley both have backgrounds in horticulture, and Rhodes had a career in the oil and gas business before they started the farm. For Rhodes, the excitement of a brandnew market was irresistible. “This is the ideal thing for me,” she says. “I can take three things that I love: a business, cannabis, and the opportunity to create better health around me and create a company around that.” “As soon as the law passed, I cried,” Pearcy says laughing. “I was so proud.” She knew right off the bat that she wanted to put her skills to use growing the kind herb. She discussed the idea last summer with Keeley and the seed of Higher Plains was planted. The inner workings of aeroponic growing tables are complex, but essentially the plants sit in small baskets with their roots exposed. Hundred second bursts of nutrientenriched water are misted onto the roots at 400-second intervals. The system is mostly automated, and Pearcy and Keeley can make adjustments to the system through an app on their phones. Healthy plants develop long white roots, what Keeley calls “Santa beard roots.” The aeroponic system allows the growers much finer control over their product’s
environment. It also allows them to grow more and harvest more often. They also avoid the use of pesticides, instead relying on beneficial insects as a natural form of pest control. “It’s actually the same way they grow plants and products in space,” Rhodes says. “Most people take three to four months to grow their plants. We can do it on an eight-week schedule, so we get six harvests a year.” Higher Plains just had its first harvest. This time they grew two different strains, Vanilla Ice and Frozen Glossy. About 20 plants hang upside-down for drying as a worker takes them down one at a time and trims the buds off. The leaves are kept and later processed into concentrates, topicals, and edibles. Higher Plains practices cloning. This ensures the quality and consistency that consumers and patients need. They select the healthiest specimens from their harvest and grow new plants from cuttings. A single plant can produce 900 clones every two weeks. The farm has already outgrown the garage it started in, spreading into a space a few doors down. This is where they keep their cloner, a specialized aeroponic table that allows even finer control of the plants’ environment as they develop. Oklahoma’s cannabis industry is in its infancy, resulting in something not unlike like the land-grab of last century. “It’s completely the free market,” says Rhodes. “All you need are $2500, a background check, and an address and you’re pretty good to go.” A crowded market means lots of competition and a high failure rate, but most people don’t have the experience in business or horticulture that Pearcy, Keeley and Rhodes do. Their cannabis will be available at Lovelight Cannabis Co Dispensary at 3618 E. Admiral Place, and they are planning to expand. — FRASER KASTNER June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
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THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
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NEWS & COMMENTARY // 13
URGERS • SUMMER BURGERS • SUMMER BURGERS • SUMMER BURGERS • SUMMER BURGERS • SUMMER BURGERS • SUMMER BURGERS • SUMM
ELGIN PARK • We may be known for our pizza and wings but did you know we have some great burgers as well? Come by and try our tasty Triple Double Burger! We are a sports inspired brewery located just across the street from ONEOK Field in downtown Tulsa. With over 50 televisions, we’re you’re sports destination. Don’t forget, $2 pints of house brewed beer every Thursday & 50 Cent Wings every Wednesday Night after 5pm!
DILLY DINER • Downtown Tulsa’s favorite diner serves up breakfast favorites and dinner classics all day. The Dilly Burger will make you say ‘woah’ with double meat, double cheese, shaved red onion, house sweet pickles and fancy sauce on a potato bun.
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downtown Tulsa. Come enjoy our lounge, patio, full bar, and food menu full of retro classics with a modern twist. We have many juicy burgers to choose from like our delicious Spicy Bacon Cheeseburger! The Dust Bowl isn’t just about bowling. It’s a unique entertainment destination that can accommodate a variety of parties, corporate events, birthday parties ( kids & adults), reunions, game watches, holiday parties and group outings.
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MCNELLIE’S • Sure, our beer selection is immense, but the food is pretty good, too! Try the original McNellie’s charburger - it’s a 1/2 pound patty served with bib lettuce, tomato, onion and pickle, on a brioche bun. Enjoy it for only $3.99 every Wednesday 5PM-Close.
MCNELLIES.COM • MCNELLIESSOUTHCITY.COM THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
FASSLER HALL • This German gem, located in the heart of downtown Tulsa, is known for it’s German beer selection and housemade sausages. But, don’t pass on the burger! It’s topped with Gouda, house sauerkraut and mustard, and comes with a side of duck fat fries.
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THE TAVERN • The Tavern is a modern interpretation of the classic neighborhood pub, located in the Tulsa Arts District. Enjoy The Tavern burger with a crafted cocktail, artisanal beer, or a world class glass of wine. And, don’t forget it’s half price after 9pm!
TAVERNTULSA.COM SUMMER BURGER GUIDE // 15
SUMMER BURGERS • SUMMER BURGERS • SUMMER BURGERS • SUMMER BURGERS • SUMMER BURGERS • SUMMER BURGERS • SUMMER BURGERS
DUST BOWL • A vintage-inspired bowling alley located in
coffeesnob
DOWNTOWN SLOW-DOWN Sapulpa’s CTX Coffee serves small-town vibes by BRADY WHISENHUNT
CTX Coffee is located in downtown Sapulpa. | GREG BOLLINGER
A
lot of us who grew up in a small Oklahoma town like Sapulpa laugh when somebody calls Tulsa “small,” but you hear it all the time. Tulsa is not a megacity like New York, London or Moscow, but, to many of us growing up, it might as well have been. Tulsa is to Sapulpa what Tokyo is to Tulsa, and we’ve just had to concede that there are people in this world who come from a place so bustling that they may never know a deeper sort of peace and quiet. Coffee shops are a natural broker between these two worlds. Coffee is a sophisticated and precise culinary art when done thoughtfully—one that invites people to gather, converse and collaborate. A coffee shop can turn inertia on its ear and fuel curiosity and innovation. When Jacob Birdwell opened CTX Coffee in downtown Sapulpa, he had a vision: “We tried to bring craft coffee to a place where you wouldn’t normally see it.” Birdwell chose Sapulpa specifically, because it reminded him of Coleman, Texas, the two-stoplight West Texas town where he grew up. In fact, the name CTX is an acronym that pays homage to his hometown. “Growing up in a small community, there was never a place to hang out. It was either outside, or at a friend’s house,” Birdwell said.
16 // FOOD & DRINK
“We went to Walmart to hang out when I was in high school,” said Tulsa resident Veronica Sloan, who moved from Sapulpa shortly after graduation. CTX reminds her of the art, music and culture she felt was so lacking in Sapulpa when she was a teenager. “If this would have been here, this is where I would have been hanging out.” Sapulpa resident Ashley Coley remembers the first time she stepped inside CTX, back in March 2017. “Oh, it was magical,” she said. Coley has been a champion for CTX ever since it opened, in particular their cold brew. “It’s poppin’,” Coley said. “It’s like the perfect temperature when it comes out. He doesn’t even have to add ice to it. It’s really creamy and smooth.” The cold brew, by Birdwell’s own admission, is one of the ways CTX Coffee stands out from the pack of coffeeshops in the greater Tulsa area. His “pride and joy,” he described the way it’s made as a “non-typical, kind of secret recipe,” processed with “down to the gram” precision. From there, he force-carbonates it with nitrogen, to make it silkier and smoother. The resulting flavor is devoid of any bitterness, surprisingly smooth, like drinking Italian marble. Birdwell says CTX aims to do a small number of things well.
His drip coffee, for instance, is produced with more thought and tuning than a typical drip pour. He said the key is letting the grounds “bloom,” which releases carbon dioxide trapped in the beans during the roasting process. Next, he controls the brewing over a very specific period of time. The result creates a flavor-optimized sort of drip coffee that contains qualities often only found in a pour-over. Birdwell moved to Sapulpa from downtown Tulsa over a year ago and isn’t looking back. He said he’s convinced at least four friends to follow his lead. “They love it here!” Birdwell said. Sapulpa has encouraged Birdwell to slow down in his own life. It’s where he’s formed dozens of new, genuine friendships. “Sapulpa is slowly becoming my home,” he said. He even recommends Tulsans looking for a weekend getaway to come to Sapulpa for a change. “We try to encourage them to come hang out, come walk downtown.” Indeed, downtown Sapulpa is an ideal setting for a relaxing Saturday walk, and CTX makes the perfect base camp for just such an adventure. The area contains a wealth of interesting sights begging to be seen and photographed: old buildings, brick-paved alleyways, gazebos, wall murals, architectural curiosities that time has overlooked—and unlike in
downtown Tulsa, it’s not overInstagrammed. “Sapulpa is slept on,” Sloan said. It’s shame, considering the mysterious, old-timey artfulness of its downtown buildings, alleyways and seemingly endless supply of hidden visual Easter eggs. “I try hardcore to get people to come to CTX from Tulsa. I mean, it’s definitely worth it,” Coley said. “I drive to Tulsa for things. Why can’t people drive to Sapulpa for wonderful coffee and great conversation?” Birdwell noticed the same artfulness, and designed the interior of his shop to compliment it. The “mid-century modern western house” vibe, as he describes it, draws inspiration from small towns such as Coleman and Sapulpa, but also features modern touches like minimalist furniture and modern art. The art he hangs is made locally, and Birdwell does not take a cut of the sales. Birdwell hopes to become a hub for local music as well. “We wanted to create a community,” Birdwell said. “It’s cool to sit behind the bar and watch new friendships emerge, and old friendships rekindle.” a June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
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FOOD & DRINK // 17
citybites
D
oes this sound familiar? It’s Friday night. Your squad is in Sicko Mode, hopping between every watering hole, speakeasy, dive bar and juke joint in the city. The beer is flowing and the night is humming, when you suddenly realize that modest dinner from hours earlier isn’t going to give you the sustenance you need to soldier on through your evening of debauchery without waking up with a throbbing headache and a sunlight allergy. So we’ve put together a few pairings of local brews and small plates for when you need a bite at the bar to keep up spirits and give yourself a fighting chance at not waking up with the phrase never again ringing in your ears. While food might not be the star of the show at the spots below, these dishes are not simply standouts in their own right—they might just save you from a wicked hangover. FISH & CHIPS W/ G-FORCE GRAPEFRUIT IPA (New Era Fine Fermentations) Folks without dietary restrictions may balk at the phrase “gluten-free,” but New Era is trying to change that. For Exhibit A, look no further than their GF take on traditional British fish and chips—which, according to TTV contributor Brady Whisenhunt, “is already a serious contender for a local best-in-class award.” The generous portion of fi lets deep fried in sublime, crackly crispiness are stacked high in a nest of golden brown fries, a perfect duet of soft and crunchy. Pair this pub staple with New Era’s irresistible G-Force Grapefruit IPA. Clocking in at 7.2% ABV, this well-balanced brew is a classic blend of Centennial, Cascade and Chinook hops, offering the perfect platform for the grapefruit added at the end of the batch to really shine. They use sorghum as the malt base, instead of other grains like rye or barley, making New Era’s beer an unbeatable boozy indulgence for
18 // FOOD & DRINK
a grilled corn tortilla. Topped with mango salsa and pico de gallo, Island Fire is a taste fresh out of the tropics. Complete the meal with Prairie’s Pink Guava Funk, a kettle sour fermented with Brett yeast. Sweet guava meets tart lemon in this 6.3% ABV sour beer, fi nishing with fruity notes of pineapple and plenty of funk. Like a fermented tropical fruit salad, this beer plays with your sweet and sour taste buds in the best way. If you’re looking to save a few bucks at Taco Tuesdays, Fuel 66 has half-priced draft beer until 7 p.m. and $3 margs all night. Fish & Chips with G-Force Grapefruit IPA from New Era Fine Fermentations. | GREG BOLLINGER
PUB GRUB CRAWL Bar bite beer pairings to prevent a hangover from hell by TTV STAFF those sensitive to gluten—and simply a damn fi ne beer for those without. SMOKED BAVARIAN PRETZEL W/ DEAD ARMADILLO TULSA FLAG (R Bar) Few combos are more appropriate than pretzels and beer, and this beauty at R Bar is leagues above the rest. This entry is a bit of a rule-breaker—since R Bar is known as much for its elevated pub fare as its brews and cocktails—but we couldn’t resist. R Bar’s Smoked Bavarian Pretzel is served with two sides: Seikel’s mustard and white queso. Seikel’s Mustard comes to R Bar from Cherokee home chef Steven Seikel, and his father, Paul Seikel, whose Oklahoma Gold mustard is simply unbeatable. The beautifully twisted lightly salted soft pretzel pairs perfectly with Dead Armadillo’s Tulsa Flag, which has become the gold standard in the city’s summer months.
The blonde ale’s golden color does not only match the pretzels golden brown hue, but its drinkability and earthy hops make the two soul mates. The drinkable beer’s citrusy notes balance the salt of the pretzel in a perfectly curated contradiction. RUB TACOS W/ PRAIRIE PINK GUAVA FUNK (Fuel 66) Oklahoma Rub is known for its BBQ fusion fare with creative takes on brunch, backyard classics, and tacos. Rub parks at Fuel 66 for Taco Tuesdays from 5 to 9 p.m. to serve up grilled corn tortillas fi lled with your choice of protein—including smoked pork belly, chicken, tuna, lamb, steak, shrimp—and jackfruit for those wanting a meatless meal. Rub’s Island Fire taco is an explosion of flavor that transports you to the equator. The spicy jerked jackfruit mixes with your choice of meat (we recommend the pulled pork) wedged between
HOT DOG W/ STONECLOUD CHUG NORRIS MOSAIC PALE ALE (Soundpony Bar) There’s nothing quite like a hot dog and cold brew during the sweltering summer heat—and if you’re itching for this time-honored combo in the wee drunken hours, Soundpony has you covered. This isn’t some fussed-over, farm-to-table delicacy—not some pretentious gastropub’s play on a hot dog, but the OG childhood sodium bomb we all know and love. While best consumed at peak intoxication, these bad boys are free during Soundpony happy hour. Stonecloud Brewing Co.’s Chug Norris Mosaic Pale Ale makes the perfect sparring partner for this summertime staple. The Oklahoma City brewery hops this American Pale Ale with Mosaic, giving notes of candied-mango, lemon, tropical fruit and pine, and a crushable 5.4% ABV. It’s the perfect brew for a hot summer day, and paired with the dog, it’s the closest thing you’ll get to a backyard barbecue from the comfort of Soundpony’s air-conditioned abode. If you’re feeling brave like Walker, Texas Ranger after that Chug Norris, try The Pony Shot: 1 oz. blackberry brandy in a hollowed-out piece of hot dog. Take that shot and then pop that hot dog bite like the champion you are. There’s no way you’ll regret it tomorrow morning. a June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
FOOD & DRINK // 19
EYE OF THE BEERHOLDER THE SILLY, STRIKING AND SUBLIME IMAGERY OF TULSA’S CRAFT BREWING SCENE BY BRADY WHISENHUNT
20 // FEATURED
BEER LABELS SAY A LOT. They communicate a brewery’s level of craftsmanship, taste and dedication—a message of no small importance to discerning hop heads. The word taste refers to the domain of the tongue, but any chef worth their salt knows it’s our eyes that set the expectation. Whether crafting a painting or a beer or a wicker basket, the level of skill and vision demonstrated in the work sets the proverbial wolves apart from the sheep. Prairie Artisan Ales started in 2012 and quickly became known for their world-class brews, and the out-of-thisworld artwork wrapped around its coveted bottles. Before Prairie, Okie-made beer labels with this level of aesthetic care were nowhere to be found. Suddenly, Oklahoma’s beer looked as dope as it tasted. The unprecedented quality of artist Colin Healey’s design—as well as the merit of the brews within—set a new standard for Oklahoma. “It happened organically and in front of a national audience,” Healey says. “I made lots of mistakes.” If Healey was making mistakes, they didn’t register to the legions of dedicated Prairie fans in Tulsa and around the world who quickly established the brewery as one of the most beloved and buzzed-about craft beer operations in the United States and beyond. “Both the beer and art of Prairie seem to be able to take any shape they wish. This is our strength, as it gives us many different angles to play from,” Healey says. “We’re kind of like peanut butter and jelly; often complimenting each other in opposite ways. My art switches back and forth from an abstract to harshly cartoony aesthetic. In some instances, a complex, dry-hopped sour ale is contrasted by a playful, colorful label. And in other cases, a more serious, abstract label is paired with a beer made with ingredients like Girl Scout cookies.” Compare this approach to the artwork emblazoned on, say, a can of Bud Light, whose aesthetic feels more akin to a Gillette Mach 3 razor package: banal, overcompensating, and randomly, awkwardly aggressive. Oklahoma as a whole appears like a Bud Light can to many Americans. But our local craft brewers and artists are offering the world an image that's decidedly weirder, more authentic, and more beautiful.
The team at Heirloom Rustic Ales cares about beauty, and whole lot of other important things too. Things like literature, experimental music, storytelling, wildlife, the mysteries of existence and providing women a place where they can go hang out, have a beer and not feel like an outsider. “We’ve traveled to breweries all over, and one thing we noticed about the typical brewery is it’s very manly,” says Melissa French, co-owner and interior designer of the Heirloom taproom on Admiral Boulevard. “It’s very stereotypical that men like beer and women like to drink wine, but that’s not true. There’s actually a large population of women that like to drink beer.” French designed the space to appeal directly to bring an energy with less machismo than the average taproom, using light, wood, plants and clean lines to create an aesthetic environment more welcoming to everyone. French owns 50 percent of the brewery. Her husband Zach and brewer Jake Miller own the other half. Together, the three partners don’t just tread the road less traveled through the brewing industry; they take the ancient-druid-foresttrail-marked-by-eagle-feather-and-bone less traveled. “We wanted to be different,” Miller explains. When Heirloom names a beer, they try to avoid obtuse comments about the material properties of the beer. If anything, they point towards the spiritual space typical label art points away from. The beer, the location, the brewers, and thoughts swimming in their heads, are characters in this broader story. Heirloom is an unconventional narrator, who understands the story is unconquerable. Miller and the rest of the Heirloom crew want you to drink the story. June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
Larry Herriman PE A R L BE AC H BR E W PUB Larry Herriman started his love affair with brewing in his garage back in 2011. After helping around a local brewery he became confident enough to start brewing at Pearl Beach Brew Pub. “I still enjoy brewing in the garage, though,” he said. Something he can’t get from garage brewing is seeing customers enjoying his creations, which is his favorite part of the process. “I have always loved the interaction in the taproom and at events where you get the immediate feedback and reactions,” he said. “I’ve been working beer festivals for several years and these days people are more outgoing and willing to try new and unfamiliar beers.” Larry tries to keep Pearl Beach’s brews interesting since the brewery doesn’t focus on one style of beer. He loves being “free to get a little out in left field with what we brew.” Head over to Pearl Beach if you want to try his creations and enjoy their three sand volleyball courts!
418 S PEOR I A AV E • 9 18.895.67 98 PE A R L BE AC HBR E W PUB.COM
Each of Tulsa’s breweries has a story...
come drink them in! P e r f e c t f o r c o r p o r at e e v e n t s , w e d d in g s , pa r t ie s a n d m o r e ! Book now to begin your journey with us on Tulsa’s ale trail. (918) 403-9483 • pearlbrewerytours.com THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
FEATURED // 21
(LEFT TO RIGHT) COLIN HEALEY, CO-FOUNDER AND ART DIRECTOR FOR PRAIRIE ARTISAN ALES; MELISSA FRENCH, CO-OWNER AND INTERIOR DESIGNER FOR HEIRLOOM RUSTIC ALES; LISA MCILROY, CO-FOUNDER AND ART DIRECTOR FOR CABIN BOYS BREWERY GREG BOLLINGER
Heirloom’s “Chapel Vistor,” an American wild ale, is so-named to evoke the image of an ancient place of worship hidden deep within the forest. Brooklyn-based artist Jessica Roux, who has contributed illustrations to J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore website, designed the label. She represents the beer visually by a weathered skull, crowned by dried reeds sharpened at the tip atop a bed of small, dead leaves that suggest thinning curly hair. A tulip—a historical reference to the “bleeding” tulips of the Dutch flower trade—dangles near the mouth of the skull, which is missing its lower jawbone. Roux explains that this type of tulip looked as if it was bleeding, due to a viral infection. “And while it was really beautiful, the more they bred them the weaker the flower got. Eventually they couldn’t make flowers like that anymore.” The tragic ephemerality of the flower reverberates with the dark magnetism of an arcane holy site. The two distant modalities wallow in the same moonlit pool. Somewhere nearby, the spirit of the beer might reveal itself. To glide among the visual symbols, allowing their ghosts to map out a portion of the beer’s flavor in the mind’s eye, is a classically Heirloom Rustic Ales moment.
“A stranger came up to me at a beer festival and lifted up his pant leg, and he had this lure tattooed on him!” Lisa McIlroy says. The image comes from the design of Cabin Boys’ “Cast-a-Line Kolsch,” one of Tulsa’s most crushable session craft beers. It’s pretty clear by the tone of her 22 // FEATURED
voice that she’s still a little blown away by the fact that someone tattooed an element from her brewery’s artwork on their body. After all, Cabin Boys is barely a year-anda-half old. The fishing lure jumps out of the pale, matte blue background of the “Cast-a-Line Kolsch” can. Bold feathery red and yellow flashes strike like a fighting rooster. The lure is brilliant, both in color and motion. A fisherman, who we see from directly above, is wading in the steady river. “It’s an I-wanna-be-on-the-lake beer,” McIlroy says. Her husband and head brewer Austin McIlroy refers to the beer’s flavor as “biscuity.” Crisp and light, ringing with a subtle richness, this is not a beer to get hung up on, but rather, it’s a beer to chill with. The artwork on the Bearded Theologian Belgian Quad can depicts a rosy-cheeked gentleman smoking a pipe, his brow furrowed in studious contemplation, pouring over a pale blue book held up by locks of his own sprawling beard. Suspended in the pale, earth-tone background, a rising swirl of tobacco smoke. Inside the can, is a caramelcolored, high gravity medley of crème brûlée, coconut and cashew notes. Like the figure on the can, the beer is unadorned on the palate, steadfast and faithfully adherent to its Trappist forbearers. The founders of Cabin Boys are earnest, straightforward and cheerful. Their social media feed is bastion of wholesomeness in an otherwise image-obsessed world. Silly costumes, corny jokes, the brewers rip on each other good-naturedly here, goofing on yoga poses there. There is kindness in their smiles, they promote their wares unpretentiously. How’s that for trippy?
If you want to develop a better understanding of what minimalism is, consider the can designs of Tulsa’s current innovative forebear, American Solera. Though not technically Minimalist in a strict sense, the designs perform similar tricks. “I don’t even know what this style is,” Cappa says. “I try to do patterns mostly.” Whatever the style, there is no question that there is something to behold in Joe Cappa’s designs. Powerful baths of precisely-tuned color. Satisfying patterns. Cohesion. Things click. A Solera tallboy from the fridge of their SoBo tap house is money well spent. American Solera’s double IPAs crush. Visually, the cans tasteful, funny, and bold, but never dumb, obvious, or gauche. Solera cans are simple, but not simplistic. They’re fancy, but not fancy-schmancy. “Mainly Chase [Healey] comes up with a name, then comes to me asking for a design,” Cappa explains. “Sometimes you kinda have to shut off your brain and think of the simplest, most immediate thing that comes to mind.” I asked him what he was thinking when he made the design for Peacebone, a delicious strawberry and vanilla DIPA with a cheerful, muted pink can. The name Chase picked is a shout-out. It’s the nickname for one of the Solera brewers. “I was thinking, ‘Peacebone: Peace, bone. Peace. Rainbows …” Cappa begins. After a few moments of searching for the words to define his undefinable process, he gives up and laughs. a June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
Ryan Smart NINE B A ND BR E W ING CO. OS AGE C A SINO & HOT EL T UL S A Ryan Smart has been in the beer industry for 13 years. As the head brewer of Nine Band Brewing Co. at Osage Casinos and Hotel, he meets plenty of people, which is his favorite part of the job. Smart enjoys hearing people’s journeys with craft beer. “The joy I take is from people openly sharing about their own passion for it, makes all the hard work for me seem like an easy road in the review mirror,” he said. Nine Band is locally native-owned and strives to make beer “approachable by all beer drinkers.” Smart recommends the Hoop Snake Hefeweizen, a classic take on German wheat beer with notes of banana and clove.The best part about doing business in Tulsa is getting to make beer for his family and friends here, Smart said. Be sure to stop by and say hi to Ryan Smart at Nine Band. Nine Band’s taproom has $3 pints, and Osage Casinos and Hotel has something for the whole family—games, food, concerts and a pool. OS AGE C A SINOS A ND HOT EL • 12 11 W 3 6T H S T N 9 18.9 47. 5 0 74 • OS AGEC A SINOS.COM
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THEMAXRETROPUB
BLUE DOME DISTRICT • 114 S ELGIN
Greg Anderson PR A IR IE A R T IS A N A L E S BR E W PUB Greg Anderson of Prairie Artisan Ales Brewpub worked his way up from serving at the Brewpub to his current position as Brewer. He has been lucky enough to receive training from Brewers at Prairie, Krebs Brewing Company and American Solera. That is exactly why he loves his job, the collaboration, brain-picking and idea sharing between brewers. “It’s always cool to be able to call or chat with someone over a couple beers about the ideas and processes about brewing beer,” he said. “It’s just very cool to part of the Tulsa craft beer scene because there is so much good beer being brewed here.” Out of all the world-class beer coming out of the Prairie facility, Anderson’s favorite is North by Northwest—a west coast-style IPA fermented with a clean yeast strain that lets the malt and hops shine. To try his recommendation you’ll have go to the Brewpub because they aren’t distributing their beers anywhere else!
2 2 3 N M A IN S T • 9 18.93 6.4395 PR A IR IEPUB.COM THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
FEATURED // 23
STRANGE BreW CHOC BEER’S WILD HISTORY REFLECTS OKIE PARADOXES OF RACE, IMMIGRATION, POLITICS, AND GOOD TIMES BY RUSSELL COBB
24 // FEATURED
June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
“A few swigs of the stuff will make an ordinary cottontail rabbit spit in the face of a bulldog.” —The Krebs Banner, 1906 Like any good Oklahoma yarn, the story of choc beer revolves around Indigenous folkways, race-baiting politicians, gruesome mine accidents and wanton drunkenness. Choc beer was an elixir for generations of white musicians and dancers in Greenwood nightclubs in Tulsa, but it was also the “devil’s brew” for puritanical civic leaders who feared race mixing and Mexican immigration. Choc beer’s origins reside in the ancestral home of the Choctaw Nation, in what is today Mississippi and Alabama. At some point, a traditional Choctaw drink involving mildly poisonous fishberries, corn, and tobacco became hybridized with European beer. By the early 19th century, many Choctaw people had created their own frothy version of beer that involved barley, hops, and wheat, but came out quite different than European beer because of the mixture with these (and other) Native American ingredients. Fishberries, in particular, made choc beer an altogether different proposition than its European cousin. The berries contain picrotoxin, which can be poisonous to humans in high doses. The Choctaw used fishberries to stun fish. Like tobacco, small doses of fishberries could provide a pleasant buzz to humans while large doses could provoke intense sickness. After removal to Indian Territory, the Choctaw Nation deployed its lighthorse forces to battle whiskey runners. The matter of choc beer, however, caused internal debates. Nationalists, who opposed assimilation with white ways, thought choc beer should be classified with other spirits as a tool of white invaders. “Progressives”—the name given to Choctaws in favor of some degree of accommodation with whites—thought the beer, which could be low in alcohol (more on that later) deserved a special status within the Nation. The legal status of choc was in flux while its consumption was omnipresent. With the advent of coal mining in the Choctaw Nation came the first waves of immigrants, many of them from Italy and eastern Europe. The coal miners quickly discovered choc beer. Not only was it a boozy alternative to wine, which the Italians could not find in the Nation, but it was also free of pathogens found in the muddy waters of Indian Territory. Choc beer was the miners’ tonic. Some doctors in the Territory prescribed it as a remedy for the many illnesses the miners contracted. It was the CBD of the late 19th century. The status of choc beer was thrown into a legal limbo as judges from Texas and Arkansas tried to impose U.S. federal law on white settlers, while allowing the Choctaws to mete out their own punishments. Choctaw traditionalists, fed up with the drunkenness and lawlessness that came in the wake of the opening of choc saloons, had enough. They raided the saloons and smashed barrels of choc beer and whiskey. By the time of statehood, however, the beverage had acquired the status of the unofficial drink of Oklahoma, spreading well beyond the borders of the Choctaw Nation. THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
In cities as far away as Austin, Texas, and Wichita, Kansas, newspapers complained of an influx of choc beer, most of it provided by black brewers and distributors from Oklahoma. Oklahoma entered the Union as a dry state, but it was an open secret that choc beer flowed at social gatherings. Embattled former Oklahoma governor David Boren remarked in the documentary Blue Smoke that, “a lot of important decisions and important political meetings in the history of the state have been carried out while the participants were drinking choc beer.” One choc beer provider stood out above the rest. Pete’s Place, a Krebs restaurant started by an Italian immigrant named Pietro Piegari, became an institution by the 1930s. Piegari changed his name to Pete after landing at Ellis Island. As a young man, he was nearly crushed to death in a mining accident, and so turned his attention to brewing and cooking. A who’s who of Oklahoma politicians—Carl Albert, Gene Stipe, David Boren—have talked shop and sipped choc beer at Pete’s Place. Depending on the recipe, choc beer could come out anywhere between 4 and 14 percent alcohol by volume, above Oklahoma’s 3.2 percent legal limit from 1933 until 1959. But everyone recognized the gentlemen’s agreement between Pete’s Place and the state’s politicos. In the cups of politicians, choc beer lubricated deals between rivals. In the possession of people of color, however, choc beer was seen as a scourge. The brew had always been associated with the criminal underworld. Before Oklahoma’s most famous outlaw, Charles Floyd, adopted the moniker of Pretty Boy, he was known simply as “Choc,” because of his affinity for the brew. As recipes caught on in the rest of the state, a veritable panic broke out. African Americans in small Oklahoma towns proved themselves to be excellent brewmasters and they attracted customers from across the color line. This, in the minds of the authorities, was a genuine problem. In 1915, The Daily Oklahoman opined that black people who drank choc beer acquired a newfound confidence. “A few drinks of the beer with make a common negro (sic) feel like a Jack Johnson.” Newspapers throughout the state reported on raids of black speakeasies serving choc and playing a nefarious new sound called jazz. On the day following Tulsa Race Massacre, The Tulsa Daily World reported that city police had raided locations in “Little Africa” suspected of making choc beer. One police report argued that choc beer may have fueled a lot of the violence. Police officer Henry Peck said that, before the pivotal confrontation between armed blacks and whites at the Tulsa courthouse, the black men “soaked themselves in choc beer and whiskey until they became crazed with the drink and cared nothing for their lives or the lives of anyone else.” The perceived threat of black, Native or Mexican control of the choc trade made for explosive headlines. Almost
every week during the 1910s and 1920s, The Tulsa Daily World ran stories about a raid on choc brewer. One particularly colorful story involved a place called the Coffee House Restaurant on Admiral Boulevard, where Mexican and black women served as brewmasters until a Spanish-speaking Tulsa police officer overheard a conversation about their choc beer. He sent them all to jail. Another Mexican on the west side was said to be flooding white Tulsa with the booze. Meanwhile, one McAlester judge ruled that a personal stash for private consumption was perfectly legal. The hypocrisy of the situation continued unabated until Oklahoma finally legalized the sale of packaged liquor in 1959. Despite white fears, choc beer continued to fuel Tulsa’s nightlife for many more years. Old time Tulsa Sound musicians remember it being a major draw to the blues and jazz clubs in Greenwood before the era of urban renewal hollowed out the neighborhood. The Flamingo Club was one spot in Greenwood were white and black musicians could jam together and sip a frothy choc beer until it was razed to make way for the Inner Dispersal Loop. There are still many mysteries surrounding choc beer. Many beer bloggers and historians have disputed the notion that “choc” is a shortening of “Choctaw.” One blogger postulated that “choc” was a corruption of “Czech.” Another offered the opinion that choc beer’s milky-white consistency meant that it was actually “chalk” beer. Still another theory ties choc beer to chicha, a pre-Hispanic beverage based on fermented corn. The last theory is compelling, especially since the offwhite color of some chicha and choc is virtually identical. Chicha’s origins come from the Taino, a Caribbean indigneous group that would have traded with the Five Tribes before European contact. Mvskoke and Cherokee people were also known to have some form of fermented drinks made from berries, often for use in ceremony. (Because the use is ceremonial, there are no written records available to outsiders.) So it is possible that choc beer is both a shortening of Choctaw beer while also a distant cousin to pre-European fermented drinks originating in the Caribbean and flowing northward into the U.S. Southeast. The French critic Roland Barthes famously wrote that food and drink are not simple vehicles for caloric intake. Foodways, Barthes says, are “systems of communication,” vectors for more deeply held social, moral and economic values. Barthes thought a lot about coffee, how it informed a French sensibility for relaxation and social contact, rather than— as in the case of Americans—stimulation for increased productivity. I’m sure Roland Barthes never sipped a choc beer or gave Oklahoma a second thought. But he could have written an entire dissertation on how choc beer reflects Okie paradoxes of race, immigration, politics, and good times. a FEATURED // 25
A place to
Queer spaces, queer history BY BLAYKLEE FREED
O
n June 8, days before the third anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, where a gunman killed 49 people, a staffer at Tulsa’s Club Majestic received a message threatening violence at the club. “They said they were going to kill a lot of people like Pulse in Tulsa,” Majestic manager Chris Shoaf said. “Last year we felt the need to start having armed security outside. We already had armed security in place that night … we also had TPD [outside].” Threats of violence toward LGBTQ+ people are nothing new. For years, queer people have kept their heads bowed, quietly meeting in discreet locations to avoid confrontation with people ranging from hecklers to murderers. It’s hard to distinguish who’s who because they all sound the same, so some folks felt it best to just hang out at home. Aside from violence, there was, and still is, the impending threat of being fired simply for being gay. “I actually started meeting people and coming out when I started hanging out in Tulsa when I was living in Muskogee, and so there was some anonymity,” said Janet Gearin, a retired nurse. “And when I moved here in ‘78 we would go to parties that people would throw, and my God, they would be huge parties, 50, 60, 100 people … A lot of us partied that way. We didn’t necessarily go to the bars but we would have parties in our homes.” What follows is an incomplete history of how Tulsa’s LGBTQ+ community shaped our city, carving out spaces and staking claim to a sense of place, one of the most basic desires humans have. The voices that follow are just a handful of the LGBTQ+ people and allies that got us where we are today. With each person interviewed in this story, 10 or more relevant names came up, creating a vast web of connections and narratives that couldn’t possibly be contained in two pages.
26 // FEATURED
JOHN VACHON, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS & PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION, FSA/OWI COLLECTION, LC-USW3-009522-D; CAMELOT HOTEL: COURTESY OF THE SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AT MCFARLIN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF TULSA.
Operated by two sisters, the gay-friendly Tropical Gardens was converted into a nightclub from a gas station/garage in the early 40s. Today it’s unknown where this bar stood, though an entry in a 1940s Tulsa City Directory lists a “Spry’s Tropical Gardens” at 324 S. Denver Ave. Top photo: Throw a stone in Tulsa and you’ll hit a place with ties to Tulsa’s LGBTQ+ history. In 1985, the Camelot Hotel at 51st Street and Peoria Avenue was home to the Miss Gay Oklahoma Pageant where contestants and attendees were met with hundreds of hecklers protesting their event.
June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
Nightlife The same apprehension that drove people to meet in private is what drove others to bars and clubs catering to an LGBTQ+ crowd, which peppered Tulsa’s nightlife scene throughout the 20th century. Harry Cramton, a Tusa hairdresser who moved here in 1952, remembers the first time he set foot in a gay bar. “It was called Pete and Bob’s, and most people have never heard of it. It was a real speakeasy … liquor, dancing, gay life. It was unbelievable,” Cramton said. “You went and knocked on the door and the thing slid across and they’d make sure you were of age and you weren’t the police. They would let you in. It was a huge empty room. You’d go through the room, knock on another door, it slid open, and there was a band and tons of people in there dancing and drinking.” Pete and Bob’s was located downtown near 1st Street and Boston Avenue, a common area for nightlife throughout the mid-century. A scrapbook at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center contains clippings of old advertisements for LGBTQ+ friendly bars and clubs, compiled by Bill Francisco. The book is filled with dozens of bygone businesses; flipping through the robust collection of businesses starkly contrasts with the handful of queer-centric bars that exists today. Lynn Starnes, co-owner of The ReVue, said there were 13 LGBTQ+ bars when she arrived in Tulsa in 2000. “Literally the first week I was in town there was a yellow page listing … when you called it, it was a recording that listed all the bars in town. We came from Wyoming, which was desolate. It was 120 miles to get to a bar.” Starnes and her wife Deb met at a bar—Heads or Tails. “Our generation, that’s where you met people,” Lynn said. “You had Tim’s Playroom which was primarily male, but my softball coach was good friends with [Tim], so on Sundays after we’d have practice we’d go in there and hang out and that was kind of a trip because people weren’t really accustomed to having women in there,” Deb said. “And they would tease us about their drinks being men’s drinks and being stronger, so it was great.” Crampton recalls how people would hop back and forth between Tim’s Playroom at 11th Street and Lewis Avenue and another nearby bar. “Right next door was a girl’s bar, a lesbian bar. You would stay at Tim’s until about 11:30 and then you would go over there and dance because you could dance there. It was locked … it was safer. But it would still get raided.” Tim Turner, the owner of Tim’s Playroom, among other endeavors, wrote a piece on the Tim’s Playroom website that’s still online today describing the history of gay bars and clubs. He details how the Playroom would handle frequent police raids: Doubling in size in just a few years, The Playroom would offer a diverse crowd a variety of entertainment and events. From a Cruise Bar at noon to a wild, thumping Dance bar at night Tulsa got its first feel of Cerwin Vega Earthquake speakers in a bar that pounded away at the fifty year old brick walls causing them to crumble. It also got a close up look at dozens of Tulsa’s Police Officers who constantly toured with flashlights in their hands and disgust and smirks on their faces. It was an ongoing battle. We had it set up so that whichever of the staff went to jail for whatever trivial or trumped up reason, Team B would contact the attorney to bail out Team A and reopen immediately. During the seven years of operation there were more than fifty arrests of myself or staff members and resulted in NO CONVICTIONS. Imagine that.
Resources In addition to being a communal place where LGBTQ+ people could meet each other, bars also served as HIV testing sites. When the deadly disease hit Tulsa in the 1980s, fear paralyzed some people, but it mobilized others. Janet Gearin, a retired nurse who worked with the Veterans Administration, was at the forefront of HIV/AIDS care in the ‘80s. “We didn’t know diddly squat—we meaning the nursing staff, the doctors, nobody,” she said. “We were floundering back then. It was a horrible, horrible time … the healthiest dead and dying were taking care of the worst dead and dying. That was really what we started to find, and we honestly wanted to provide support for those services.” In the beginning, there were just a few groups dedicated to providing services to HIV/ AIDS patients. One of the biggest obstacles groups faced was lack of funds—so they diligently worked to raise the money they needed to support people suffering from the disease. Harry Cramton remembers the story his friend Carolyn Messler told about getting involved with Catholic Charities. “During that time she was a very strong Catholic,” he said. “She went to Medjugorje because there was a sighting of the Virgin Mary, on a hill, on a mountain. So she flew there, and walking up a hill, there was a priest from Tulsa named Gary Sherman from Catholic Charities.” THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
Tulsans march in one of the first official Pride parades from the early 2000s. The first city-official Pride parade was June 12, 1999. COURTESY DENNIS NEILL
Medjugorje, a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is 5,548 miles from Tulsa—yet Sherman and Messler met here, both ready and willing to fight HIV in their city. Whether serendipitous or spiritually driven, the end result was the two teaming up to combat this terrifying disease at a time when much was unknown. At first, the sheer terror and the stigma that followed the disease discouraged people to seek out help. “We couldn’t get anybody to move in, but all of a sudden someone moved in and then it was full. So we opened another one,” Cramton said. “Then we had to open one for girls that had children. They had been thrown out of their family, they had AIDS, and they had children. Can you imagine?” One of those homes was St. Joseph’s residence, which opened in 1987 with support from Catholic Charities. Located in Brady Heights neighborhood on Denver Avenue, the facility closed and has since been remodeled into a family home. Gearin said education was key in combating the HIV/AIDS crisis. Many healthcare providers were afraid to treat people with HIV or AIDS. “I started doing a lot of teaching and working with health groups—I worked with dental hygienists, I worked with dentists … care clinics teaching them how to be afraid, not make it worse for the families as well, just educating,” she said. “You had to diminish the fear, because the first thing that happened was that people were terrified,” Gearin said. “They were hiding because they didn’t know what to do. Even in the hospital, I would go into the hospital rooms, and at this time we knew it was not that easy to get, and a nurse would come in and she would have a gown and gloves and a mask and footwear—I mean, she’s covered from head to toe.” In addition to her work nationally with the VA, Gearin focused efforts locally, fundraising with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights. “Follies [a fundraising group] was actually for many years a part of TOHR,” she said. “It was their fundraising event of the year … We worked with TOHR for a couple of years and then separated out on our own, and we did that for 10 years. Over 10 years I think we got close to about half a million dollars.”
Mainstream culture has written and unwritten rules on what is considered acceptable and what is considered deviant. Those labels can drastically shape the way individuals see themselves. When the world isn’t made for you, there often isn’t a place for you. Those of us who don’t fit neatly into boxes—boxes we never asked for in the first place—have to make our own way. Our own space. Our own sense of place. As the fight for equal rights trudges forward making small victories over time, some might see LGBTQ+ specific places as obsolete. But as the long history of Tulsa’s queer spaces demonstrates, these sites are necessary not only for the community’s sense of belonging—but for the health and safety of its members. “If we don’t have those spaces then the possibility that other spaces that are just generally heterosexual spaces or ‘typical spaces’ may not be able to cater to [the needs of LGBTQ+ community],” Chris Shoaf explained. “They may not understand the culture. If society takes a hard right, all of a sudden people are not welcome in those spaces.” This incomplete account of those spaces in our community is for the countless people unnamed in history. For the man whose mother hung up the phone as soon as she heard his voice. The kid whose parents kicked them out of the house because they refused to use a dead name. The one not yet out to them self or to others. The girls that “walk like boys.” This is for you. You belong in Tulsa. a FEATURED // 27
EMOTIONS RUN HIGH DURING A PACKED TULSA COUNTY COMMISSIONERS’ MEETING REGARDING THE FUTURE OF THE COUNTY’S 287(G) CONTRACT WITH IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE).
EROSION OF TRUST CONFUSION A ND CONFLICT SW IR L A ROU ND TULSA COU NTY ’S CONTR ACT W ITH ICE BY MARY NOBLE • PHOTOS BY JOSEPH RUSHMORE THE TULSA COUNTY COMMISSIONERS’ weekly meeting at the courthouse was busier than usual on the morning of June 10. Residents packed courtroom 119— some in a show of support, others in opposition to the county’s participation in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program known as 287(g). The contract, an agreement between local law enforcement and ICE, has been in effect in Tulsa since 2007. While enforcing federal immigration laws typically falls under the responsibility of ICE officials, 287(g) deputizes local law-enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws by training local correctional officers to screen jailed immigrants, determine their immigration status, and place them on an ICE hold until they are picked up for deportation. Currently, only 90 counties in the United States have 287(g) contracts. Many counties have terminated the 287(g) pro28 // FEATURED
gram due to the high cost of tax payer dollars as well as the erosion of trust between the police and immigrant communities. To that last point, Oklahoma City Police Chief Bill Citty explained to the City Council in 2017 why his department would not proactively enforce federal immigration law: “If we’re put in that position, that means a good portion of the public is not going to call us if a crime is committed. And we are here to serve. The police department serves all individuals, whether they’re here documented or not.” While Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado signed to extend the 287(g) program in Tulsa on May 10, county commissioners hold the power to overturn the agreement with a majority vote. Advocates and activists from organizations including Domestic Violence Intervention Services (DVIS), ACTION Tulsa, New Sanctuary Network Tulsa and Dream Alliance Oklahoma have been advocating for
the program’s end. They have been attending weekly County Commissioners’ meetings to make their case through a series of two-minute statements. Recently, an activist group against “illegal immigration,” the Tulsa 912 Project, caught wind of the efforts being made to cease the 287(g) program. They made a public plea for “boots on the ground” to show up in support of 287(g). Supporters of 287(g) were easy to spot in the courtroom on June 10 as they were encouraged to wear red, white and blue in a show of patriotism. (They were instructed to refrain from wearing anything indicating support for President Trump in order not to distract from their message.) The courtroom was overcrowded, and emotions ran high as attendees stood and applauded in solidarity as people from both sides took turns to speak. Those in support of the contract pleaded with the commissioners, asking them to protect U.S. citizens from “ille-
gal criminal aliens,” whom they said were overrunning the country. These shows of support ranged from sober to conspiratorial and confrontational. “Once they arrive here, how many are directed to education centers run by the far left, or camps in the woods for a Tet Offensive? It is coming,” one man said to a standing ovation from 287(g) supporters. Some claimed undocumented immigrants were draining the economy by “stealing” jobs and accessing government programs—despite the fact that undocumented immigrants pay state and local taxes, and are not eligible for most government resources. The argument in favor of 287(g) seemed to be lost in political rhetoric and misinformation, with many claiming an end to the program would result in widespread lawlessness and Tulsa becoming a “Sanctuary City.”
June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
The 287(g) contract is complex, and those fighting against it say the public needs to know the facts. “We have spent hours and hours researching, writing and reviewing each other’s presentations,” said Mimi Marton director of the Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network. “Why? To ensure that we present only facts and make only accurate statements to support our arguments. I have no issue having a dialogue or even a debate. I do, however, have serious issues when people rely on lies, myths and racism instead of facts.” Cost is one area where the details are especially important. While ICE covers the cost of training officers, local governments are responsible for covering travel, housing, and per diem expenses for officers during training as well as some of the cost of the technology associated with implementing the program, depending on availability of funds. Most of the costs associated with the program are from the day-to-day care of those detained. A person held under the 287(g) contract is still awaiting resolution of their state or local charges; therefore, the county doesn’t get paid by the federal government. Time spent waiting on state charges to be resolved can vary anywhere from one day to a year, so from the time someone is arrested until the time of their trial, they are incarcerated, and that expense is entirely on the county. “That’s a big cost to the county that they have not yet acknowledged, or they don’t understand—we’re not sure which one it is,” Marton said. But the cost in the eyes of advocates like Marton is more than monetary. “Imagine the tentacles that stem from [awaiting trial],” she said. “If you’re a single mom, your kids [enter into] foster care and you’ll likely lose your kids. If you’re the primary breadwinner, your family has no income coming in and can’t pay rent or buy food. And I’m not even talking about the emotional trauma that comes with being separated from your family or being incarcerated for a significant length of time.” One method that has been used to incentivize counties into participating in 287(g) is offering an additional contract known as the Intragovernmental Service Agreement (IGSA). Through this agreement, Tulsa County is paid $69 a day to hold detainees in the jail. While the 287(g) contract deals with undocumented immigrants who have been charged with a crime, the IGSA agreement deals with detaining those who have crossed the border and are being held. The money earned from the IGSA agreement (approximately $4.7 million annually) is how Sheriff Regalado justifies the cost of 287(g) to the public. Marton says the Sheriff’s figures don’t account for the costs associated with the contract. “The sheriff pushes this one agenda, or set of facts that talks about how we make all this money from it, and that’s just factually inaccurate. What we want to see is an audit,” Marton said. “In the Tulsa County budget, there’s THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
ROBIN SHERMAN, A LEGAL FELLOW AT TULSA IMMIGRANT RESOURCE NETWORK, MAKES THE CASE FOR ENDING THE 287(G) CONTRACT AT THE TULSA COUNTY COMMISSIONERS’ MEETING ON JUNE 10.
absolutely no mention of the 287(g) agreement or any counting of its cost to us whatsoever. And on its face, it costs Tulsa County taxpayers money because we pay the salaries of officers to enforce federal law plus they’re training, etc.,” said Robin Sherman, a legal fellow at Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network. “I’ve done an Open Records Act [request] asking, ‘Have you done an accounting of what this actually costs?’ and I received a response saying ‘We have no records of that. It doesn’t exist.’”
The lawyers and activists gathered on June 10 discussed the conditions of the jail and the fact that the detainees are held with the general population—with approximately 90 detainees/inmates to one correctional officer. “They are in with the general population, which I think is for the most part probably safe, but when female asylum seekers who are 18 years old are housed with people with Murder 1 charges who have shown violence in the jail… they’re housed together … [with] one detention officer,” said Molly Bryant, outreach coordinator for Domestic Violence Intervention Services (DVIS). Sheriff Regalado says 287(g) helps keep criminals off the streets. “As long as I am sheriff, I will not get rid of 287(g), because it deals with the criminal element,” Regalado told reporters after Monday’s contentious County Commissioners’
meeting. “If there were people in there that were simply being arrested on things like running a yellow light, stop sign violations, I would end that program and I’ve said that publicly many times. But the fact is that list of 287 detainees is filled with individuals that are committing crimes that impact Tulsa County residents and that I will not abide by.” Linda Allegro, project director at New Sanctuary Network Tulsa, takes issue with this characterization. “The sheriff has said were only deporting the people who are dangerous … but these small counties all have agreements where they bring someone into their jail for driving without a license or insurance and that is now grounds for arresting them—and there even though his charges might be dismissed, or he’s paid his fine, they’re holding him [in Tulsa], and that’s where the controversy is. Do they really have the authority to do that?” Marton also pushes back on Sheriff Regalado’s claim, saying deportation as the result of minor violations is not a fate reserved only for out-county detainees. “We’re in there constantly, and we see people there on minor charges, on traffic charges only, or we see people who are there for a significant amount of time, and then the charges are dropped. But unlike citizens, they are not released—they are then put into ICE custody, most likely to be deported,” she said. Tracy Garcia from Perry, Oklahoma,
offers personal testimony to the impact of deportation on the family unit. She says her stepson Jose Garcia was deported last month after being pulled over and detained for driving without a license. After spending seven weeks in a Perry jail cell, Jose was transferred to Tulsa County where he spent another three weeks before being deported. “He was a good kid—25 years old. He had a good job he had a life. He came from nothing, absolutely nothing,” Tracy Garcia said. “He got caught driving without a valid driver’s license and it ended things badly for him. It took a great big emotional toll [on the family]. My husband and I raised our three granddaughters and the kids had a great relationship with [Jose]. I haven’t begun to tell them. They’re too young to understand all this.” When asked about Jose and his minor charges outside the courtroom, Sheriff Regalado responded: “I would like to see that name, because we have yet to run across that.” Whatever the technicalities of Tulsa County’s disputed contract with ICE, which was extended unilaterally by county officials, Jose’s absence remains a cold hard fact for his loved ones in Oklahoma—a familiar story for many immigrant families in 2019. Tracy expects she will have to break the news to her grandkids on the Fourth of July, one of the many holidays Jose celebrated with the family. “He was always with us—and this year, he’s not going to be.” a FEATURED // 29
contactsheet
WITH INTENTION by NICOLE DONIS
I prefer to shoot with film. I appreciate the challenges it brings and the results it creates. It’s raw and authentic in a way that can’t be duplicated. It also forces you to take more time and consideration with each shot. You really have to be intentional and I think that helps me grow. I love shooting creative people. I find their stories and backgrounds fascinating. I want to include them but I also want to include their lifestyle and outlook on life as much as possible. Every detail in the photo counts. I just want to try and capture an ounce of their spirit and hope that can be perceived by others. My photography is always going to be different because my subjects are different. That’s what keeps life interesting. a
Contact Sheet is a place for local photographers to share their projects. If you’re interested in submitting, write to voices@langdonpublishing.com. You can follow Nicole at @nikodonisfilm on Instagram.
30 // ARTS & CULTURE
June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
ARTS & CULTURE // 31
bookworm
The weight of returning Quraysh Ali Lansana comes home by JEZY J. GRAY
F
or nearly a decade, Quraysh Ali Lansana didn’t step foot in his native Oklahoma. There was too much pain here. The Enid-born poet, nonfiction writer and educator had just become a father, but the rapid-fire loss of his parents and his two best friends—“my Oklahomies,” he remembers fondly—alongside the death of his mentor, the renowned Gwendolyn Brooks, left him feeling unmoored. This uneasy relationship to home gave rise to Lansana’s 2012 collection, Mystic Turf, a book that turns loss over in the light. “It’s a book of grieving,” he says. “It was all about trying to deal with re-defining home as a new father, without my two anchors and my two parents in the world, and my mentor in the world ... the mystery of re-defining home, and what you know of home—in terms of geography, and personal geography—in terms of land, and place. It’s me trying to figure out what I’m standing on.” Mystic Turf is one of the seven collections from which the Tulsa Artist Fellow drew for his latest, The Skin of Dreams: New and Collected Poems, 1995-2019. While its individual poems traverse decades, political climates and locales, Lansana’s warmly surreal collection hangs together as an accumulated emotional knowledge of place and belonging, race and remembering. “Putting together the new and collected was challenging, because it’s not only about choosing the work I felt was most representative of where I was at the time, and trying to build a cogent narrative not only from within each book, but from book to book,” 32 // ARTS & CULTURE
place, and the personal politics within that place.” Take, for example, the opening stanza of “tulsa blur: 1921 to 2012,” one of the collection’s most potent and powerful new poems. Here and throughout The Skin of Dreams, Lansana shows us the thin membrane between our present lives and our history, the personal and the political: red dust simmering below skin of earth, is how bullet transcends muscle, history a howling fire gasolined to ravenous mouth like language, like hate. irritable june heat in march a trigger, fuse drawn to surface Tulsa Artist Fellow Quraysh Ali Lansana is a poet, nonfiction writer and educator from Enid. MELISSA LUKENBAUGH
Lansana says. “But also because my writing has improved since those earlier poems. And also just tracking my own evolution as a man, as a human, as a black man, as a writer—as a historian, as a thinker.” The collection spans 23 years of Lansana’s life, from Oklahoma to Chicago, New York, and back again—but it also charts an inner trajectory whose terrain is harder to map. “I wanted not only for the work to be reflective of where I was at those times, during those moments, but also that I needed the work to be what I considered my strongest work from those moments. And also for the poems to have some meaning, some resonance to me. The poems that are in there all have a weight for me personally.” That personal weight gives the work, even at its most experimen-
tal, an emotional edge that cuts close to the bone. “Many of the poems in the book I almost never read aloud—either because they’re too personal, or too sensitive, or they represent a period of pain or transformation,” Lansana says. “But I wanted them to be in the book because I felt like they were reflective of the journey.” The journey of Lansana’s latest collection begins with 17 new poems, taking readers from Eufaula, Alabama, to a basement in Wisconsin and a border check in South Padre. But it’s the histories surging beneath these locales, and the characters populating them, that make the book sing. “Because I’m a student of history and I’m interested in the relationship between the personal and the political—the internal, and the external,” Lansana says. “It has to do with the politics of
Quraysh Ali Lansana is now living in Oklahoma for the fi rst time in 30 years—in Tulsa, with its gruesome history “simmering below.” As the city continues to reckon with its own past, approaching 100 years since the 1921 Race Massacre, we may just need a poet like Lansana to show us how to grieve, and how to carry on. a
THE SKIN OF DREAMS: NEW AND COLLECTED POEMS, 1995-2019 By Quraysh Ali Lansana 138 pp. The Calliope Group, LLC. June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
inthestudio
Tulsa Artist Fellow Blackhorse Lowe | DESTINY JADE GREEN
MEET THE FELLOWS In the studio with Blackhorse Lowe
MEET THE FELLOWS TAKES YOU INSIDE the studios of the 2019 Tulsa Artist Fellowship recipients for a look at their life and work. Since 2015, Tulsa Artist Fellowship has recruited artists and arts workers to Tulsa, where they “have the freedom to pursue their craft while contributing to a thriving arts community.” For more information, visit tulsaartistfellowship.org.
THE TULSA VOICE: Can you tell us a little about your background and work? BLACKHORSE LOWE: I’m originally from New Mexico; born in the Four Corners area. I’ve been living in Albuquerque for the last eight years and I made the move here just this past January. I focus mostly on filmmaking. I’ve done two features so far, and I’m finishing up my third right now. … I’ve basically been supporting myself as camera operator, cinematographer, editor and producer. Producing short films for friends and fellow filmmakers out in Albuquerque and other parts of the West. TTV: How are you enjoying the life and work of a Tulsa Artist Fellow? LOWE: You can’t beat free housing and a stipend to focus on what you want to create. … That plus being surrounded by all these creative minds from all different types of practices. It really kind of broadens my mind and opens my eye up to other types of art—I’m trying to bring some of that into my own work ... collaborating with other fellows and seeing where that takes me. THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
TTV: For folks who haven’t seen it, can you talk a little about your feature film, Chasing the Light? LOWE: It’s up on Amazon Prime right now—a tale of a down-on-his-luck screenwriter who gets involved in a drug deal and lots of other nonsense in Albuquerque over the span of a day. My first feature was called Fifth World. It’s a love story about these two college kids hitchhiking through Arizona and New Mexico with a tragic ending. TTV: How about your recent documentary short, Hooghan? LOWE: That’s about my family and me constructing a Hooghan, which is a traditional Navajo home, over the span of a month. It’s kind of a shorter version of, like, Koyaanisqatsi or Baraka. … with my mom and dad telling the tale of how we came to the place where we lived, and all my other family members talking about what home means to us. TTV: Any future projects on the horizon you can share? LOWE: I’m finishing a romantic comedy called Fukry. It’s basically about a drugdealer who falls in love with three different women and it all kind of explodes in his face. … I’m in the process of getting this rough cut—now it’s just a matter of fine tuning the smaller bits of getting the picture done: bringing in the color, getting the music done, of course bringing in sound, and then start submitting for film festivals in the fall. — TTV STAFF
JUNE 21-OCT. 13 Experience contemporary art from Tulsa Artist Fellows inspired by the Gilcrease collection and grounds, and by Oklahoma’s distinct history.
The University of Tulsa is an equal employment opportunity/affirmative action institution. For EEO/AA information, contact the Office of Human Resources, 918-631-2616; for disability accommodations, contact Dr. Tawny Rigsby, 918-631-2315. TU#
gilcrease.org/taf
ARTS & CULTURE // 33
sportsreport
Game changer
Remembering the godmother of Oklahoma women’s basketball by ABIGAIL SMITHSON
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n her book Basketball for Girls (1962), iconic coach and Oklahoma legend Bertha Frank Teague offers simple advice: “Keep hustling. A winner never quits and a quitter never wins.” Teague didn’t quit and kept winning throughout her 42-year career as the head coach for the Byng High School girls basketball team. Incredibly, though, Teague never played the game herself before signing on as head coach of the school in the small southern Oklahoma town, where she was a first-grade teacher and her husband Jess was the school superintendent. Teague agreed to the job, purchased a book about the game and went on to become the mother of women’s basketball in Oklahoma, setting a winning standard for the game that still holds today. “She never played a lick, but she loved the game,” said Bobby Johns, Teague’s assistant coach from 1961-69. “She was always dressed neat as a pin, but she would lay down on that whistle every now and then.” Johns worked with Teague up until the year that she retired, and his mother also played basketball under her tutelage at Byng High School in 1932. “She didn’t like to lose but she was real fair,” Johns said. “She never talked about the officials or the other teams. She was just a lady. Her and Mr. Teague, they took care of the girls on the team. They made sure that the players ate, helped them get to games, fixed their hair, and helped out with buying equipment and tennis shoes.” After retiring at the end of the 1969 season, Teague asked if she could come back to give a pep talk to the team before their first game with Johns as the head coach. “We got all the players out in the gym and she got up and gave a big 34 // ARTS & CULTURE
Bertha Frank Teague’s record coaching for 42 years at Byng High School was 1,157 wins and 115 losses, including one winning streak of 98 games. | ELISEO CASIANO
pep talk,” he said. “She told the girls, ‘You girls remember, you do exactly what Mr. Johns tells you to do, because I taught him everything he knows.”
During her 42-year career at Byng High School, Teague’s record as coach was 1,157 wins and 115 losses, which included one winning streak of 98 games. Overall, her teams won eight state championships, 38 conference titles and had five undefeated seasons. She was one of the first women to be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1985. She is also a member of the Okla-
homa Sports Hall of Fame and the National Federation of State High Schools Hall of Fame. Her book details a set of instructions focused on training the body, learning fundamental skills and being a good teammate. She also includes information and advice for coaches, encouraging them to mentor players off the court. Teague recognized the community-building power of basketball. She encouraged other coaches to embrace their role as leaders. She was not only dedicated to the growth of her individual players, but to the growth and progression of the game of women’s basketball overall.
Her book also lays out some of the more minute aspects of coaching, even making recommendations for what meals should be eaten and when: “Peaches and crackers, or poached eggs on dry toast, with tea. Reserve the heavy meal until after the game.” Teague was not just a coach, but a leader who pushed the women’s game forward. The game was very different when she began coaching in 1926. Many women-led groups including the Athletic Conference of American College Women and the Committee on Women’s Athletics, were established to make sure that basketball played by women did not over exert the women’s bodies, which were thought to be more fragile than men’s. There was also fear that the competitive spirit of the game could contribute to women behaving poorly, especially when the games had male viewers. Rules were put in place that restricted the amount a player could dribble before passing as well as to make sure the players would not try to steal the ball from each other. In 1951, largely thanks to organizing and advocating by Coach Teague, unlimited dribbling was allowed and the ball could be pursued aggressively by defenders. Basketball, with its fast-paced movement and physicality, is a game filled with exciting momentum shifts. Teague believed the women’s game should be infused with the same energy. Teague did not seek out basketball, but the game found her. And once it did, she worked her hardest to be the best coach and leader possible, becoming a pillar of her community. She left a lasting impact on her players, her team, and her community, along with a lasting legacy for women’s sports in Oklahoma. a June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
artspot
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two-part photography exhibit at the Henry Zarrow Center for Arts and Education explores what Tulsa looked like throughout the decades, from downtown’s skyline to demolished buildings long forgotten—along with the dark side of our history. Most of the photos in the opening section of Forgotten Tulsa were shot prior to 1950. They include Tulsa sites and landmarks that have been “demolished, abandoned or forgotten,” said Sean Latham, director of the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities at the University of Tulsa, which created the exhibit along with TU’s Department of Special Collections at McFarlin Library. Some photos depict a young and prospering Tulsa with its ornate architecture, luxurious bank lobbies and downtown department stores crowded with shoppers dressed in their Sunday best. Others, shot before the turn of the 20th century, show weather-beaten wooden churches and school buildings devoid of landscaping, which eventually gave way to skyscrapers and parking lots. An 1889 photo shows Tulsa’s first two-story building, an art deco structure that housed a general merchandise store. One of Latham’s favorites is a 1945 downtown skyline photo shot by longtime Tulsa photographer Bob McCormack. The second half of the show comes with a parental warning. It’s also important to remember Tulsa’s violent history, Latham says as he leads the way past the sign cautioning visitors that the photos in the next room might be too intense for children. That’s where one finds photos of the Ku Klux Klan, which in 1924 had a membership of 10,000 in Tulsa, including a women’s auxiliary and a branch for children, said Marc Carlson, head of special collections and university archives at the McFarlin Library, in a telephone interview. “My section of the exhibit was the stuff in the darkened room dealing with the things that Tulsa THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
Tulsa’s past comes to life at the new Forgotten Tulsa exhibit at the Henry Zarrow Center for Arts and Education. | COURTESY
FORGOTTEN TULSA Zarrow Center exhibit puts a lens on the past by KIMBERLY BURK wanted to forget,” Carlson said. “The Knights of Liberty mob material is critical for understanding that period. The more I studied World War I-era events, the more it became apparent that certain things were going to occur.” The Knights of Liberty was a vigilante group that, in 1917, rounded up labor union recruiters with the Industrial Workers of the World who had come to eastern Oklahoma to try to unionize oilfields, Carlson said. “They stripped, tarred and feathered and bullwhipped them,” Carlson said. Also depicted in the exhibit is the county-level division of the Council of National Defense, also known as the Home Guard, a citizen militia that operated during World War I.
“They could do whatever they wanted to keep the war effort going,” Carlson said. “They were armed men who could break up strikes in the oilfield. They rounded up prostitutes and their clients and had them tested for venereal disease.” Those who were infected were held at a detention center for treatment, Carlson said. The men who tested clean were sent home, but the women were shipped off to do involuntary labor at munitions factories. The Home Guard conducted “slacker raids” of men ages 18 to 35 who were not in uniform or carrying evidence they had registered for the draft. “During one of the major slacker raids, they forcibly shipped them off to the war,” Carlson
said. “There’s a lot of stuff that people in Tulsa don’t want to know about.” Former members of the Home Guard have been described as being the core of the special deputies during the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, Carlson said. “They were used to having that kind of authority.” Burned bodies are evident in some of the Race Massacre photos in the exhibit. The McFarlin Library owns the only copies of two of the photos. Other disturbing pictures of the massacre were more widely distributed, Carlson said, because when people took their film to be processed, “developers kept the negatives and made postcards out of [them].” A photo from September 1918 shows a Confederate veterans encampment held in Tulsa and attended by 70,000 veterans and their families and supporters. While violence was not necessarily associated with the encampments, gatherings of that size must have been intimidating for Tulsa’s African American residents, Latham said. A 1928 membership roster of the KKK hangs in the exhibit and identifies members by occupation. Listed are school board members, police officers, a U.S. Marshal, firefighters and the Tulsa mayor. There’s not much racial diversity depicted in the street scenes in the first half of the exhibit. But there are a few photos of prosperous young African Americans, which Carlson said are from a scrapbook kept by a Greenwood District family beginning in 1922. The Center for the Humanities uses the tools of arts and the humanities to serve as a bridge between TU and the community, Latham said. They create about 10 exhibits every year that open at the Zarrow Center on First Fridays. This exhibit continues through June 26 at 124 E. M.B. Brady St., and then it will move in a smaller format to the TU campus for six months, Latham said. Gallery hours are noon to 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and admission is free. a ARTS & CULTURE // 35
sportsreport
‘No double standards’ Tulsa’s women’s pro soccer team levels the playing field by JOHN TRANCHINA
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rowth is the prevailing theme for Fortuna Tulsa as it enters its second year. After starting off with two nail-biting victories, Fortuna Tulsa has heightened expectations in 2019, both on and off the pitch. The biggest change this year is that the team’s new home stadium is ONEOK Field after playing its inaugural Women’s Premier Soccer League (WPSL) season at the University of Tulsa’s Hurricane Soccer and Track Complex. “We want the women to have the opportunity to play on the biggest stage in town,” said Wayne Farmer, Fortuna Tulsa general manager. “We had different facilities that we were looking at, and we thought it was important that the women play on the best stage in town, on what the men play on. We just want to bridge the gap of equality in sport.” Fortuna also brought on a new head coach this season. Yolanda Thomas, who played for the squad last year, has taken over for Michael Wilson. “Yolanda played last year and she just had huge respect from the players,” Farmer said. “She basically led from the field, and for us, in making the change. She has a fantastic name, on and off the field, in coaching. We definitely wanted to give the opportunity to a female to lead Tulsa’s women’s soccer team. So far, she’s been fantastic to work with.” Thomas, 35, has been coaching for over 10 years at different levels, including youth soccer, where she had some of her current players, as well as high school, college and even the WPSL. She coached Edmond Memorial High School; was a player-coach for Oklahoma City FC, leading them
36 // ARTS & CULTURE
Midfielder Rachel Blankenship (15) was a key player in the 2018 Fortuna Tulsa season. | COURTESY
to the WPSL’s national semi-finals in 2015; served as an assistant at the University of Tulsa for three years and is also currently the head coach at Rogers State University in Claremore. With many of the same players back from last season, Thomas is going from teammate to coach, but as a veteran player last year, she was already in a leadership role. “It’s been pretty seamless,” Thomas said. “A lot of players that I have a ton of respect for, and they have a respect for me, and we have a good relationship already, so it’s been pretty easy.” While the team’s ownership is still the same as it was last year, with Barry Williams and Dave Hibbard as co-owners, that group now also owns the top men’s team in town, the United Soccer League’s Tulsa Rough-
necks FC, and Farmer serves as general manager of both teams. But Farmer notes that having the same ownership doesn’t really impact Fortuna Tulsa that much. “I think the only thing to say on that is there’s no double standards,” Farmer said. “The women are practicing on practically the same field as the men, using the same facilities, the same gym, the same athletic trainers— there’s no the men having the best and the women using a high school field. The women need to get the same treatment, training, as the men’s team.” As for the team itself, the roster consists entirely of players who have local ties, with most of the players having grown up, played their club and high school soccer in the Tulsa area, along with a few others that are linked with TU, or the state’s other big
colleges, Oklahoma or Oklahoma State. Most players are either in college, just graduated or about to start. Key contributors from last season, such as Rachel Blankenship (a TU graduate), Parker Goins and Taylor Malham (both former Union High School and current University of Arkansas players), are all back, among others. Malham scored the game-winning goal in Fortuna’s seasonopening 3-2 win over Oklahoma City FC on June 1 and Goins notched the only one in a 1-0 triumph against SouthStar FC on June 8. “That’s important to us, that we wanted local players,” Farmer said. “This team is to develop women’s soccer in Tulsa. We could go out and bring in a player from Kansas City, but that’s not going to make Tulsa soccer any better. We want a 10-year-old girl to look at Taylor Malham and what she’s been able to do, playing at Arkansas and playing on the (U18) national team, and say, ‘I want to be the next Taylor Malham.’ That’s huge to us.” It’s all about building on the success of last year, both on the field, where the club finished second in the Southwest Conference with a 4-2-4 record, and off the field, where it set the WPSL’s single-game attendance record (1,720 on May 25, 2018) and was named the league’s Franchise of the Year. “One of the biggest things that we’re trying to create here is the culture,” returning assistant coach Donivan Bradshaw said. “Having a good attitude, good work rate, a lot of heart, a lot of energy, we’re really excited to get the season started.” a June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
I will DWELL in the house of the Lord FOREVER. June 30 Bible Lesson: Christian Science July 7 Bible Lesson: God
FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST 924 S. Boulder
Tulsa’s independent and non-profit art-house theatre, showing independent, foreign, and documentary films.
Church & Sunday School • 10:30am Wednesday Meeting • 6:00pm Reading Room • One hour after services
2626 E 11TH ST 918 . 872 .0501
J A N E S D E L I C AT E S S E N . C O M
11TH AN N UAL
SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2019 5:30 p m COCKTAIL RECEPTION WITH THE GRAND LAKE JAZZ COMBO TULSA PAC , NORMAN THEATRE 7:00 p m CEREMONY • WILLIAMS THEATRE TICKETS AVAIL ABLE AT TULSAPAC .COM
THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
ARTS & CULTURE // 37
BREAKING THE BIBLE BELT FEST Saturday, June 22 , 5p.m.–midnight, $10 in advance, $12 at the door, The Vanguard Tulsa thevanguardtulsa.com
The inaugural Breaking the Bible Belt Fest will offer a diverse lineup of black metal, industrial, Experimental metal, grindcore, sludge, thrash metal, tech death and power electronics. This all-ages show will undoubtedly be heavier than your average festival, so bring earplugs.
STAYCATION GETAWAY
WILL BIKE FOR FOOD
Gathering Place will deliver some Caribbean Vibes with a reggae carnival on June 22. Make your way to the QuikTrip Great Lawn at 4:30 p.m. for Caribbean music, dancing, food and drink. gatheringplace.org/events
Pearl Beach Brew Pub hosts City Cycles Taproom and Tacos Ride. Riders depart from Pearl Beach and meet back up after a ride for T-Town Tacos and beer. All skill levels welcome! June 19 & 26, 6 p.m. pearlbeachbrewpub.com/events
MUSIC AND ART
JAZZ
The Cult Love Community Conference is back at the TAF Cameron Studios on June 21. The locals– only lineup includes Rose Gold, The Lukewarm, My Heart & Liver are the Best of Friends, and a wealth of visual artists. 8 p.m., music at 9p.m.
Midsummer Night’s Jazz kicks off June 25. Now in their 73rd season at the Green, Starlight Concerts bring their beloved Starlight Concert Band to play jazz beneath the stars. guthriegreen.com
CONCERT
NEW SKILLS
Punk heroes Jawbreaker bring their emo-punk to Cain’s on June 25 along with Bully, a grunge-punk outfit from Nashville. Read our interview with Bully’s Alicia Bognanno on page 40. Doors at 6:30 p.m. music at 8 p.m., $40, cainsballroom.com
If you have always wanted to animate, Intro to Animation at ahha Tulsa is what you’ve been waiting for. This beginner–friendly class will teach attendees the basics of Adobe After Affects. June 19, $60, ahhatulsa.org/classes/intro-to-animation
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June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
BEST OF THE REST COMEDY Crash Comedy Show with De’Marrio Oates // 6/21, Juicemaker Lounge, facebook.com Janet Williams // 6/22, Loony Bin, tulsa.loonybincomedy.com Tulsa Night Live // 6/22, Rabbit Hole Improv, rabbitholeimprov.com/shows
Tom Segura // 6/27, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, The Joint, hardrockcasinotulsa.com
PERFORMING ARTS
Janet Williams // 6/19 - 6/21, Loony Bin, tulsa.loonybincomedy.com Silly Humans // 6/21/, 6/28, Rabbit Hole Improv, rabbitholeimprov.com
Over 40 local craftspeople will be displaying their wares in Whittier Square. These wares include: fine art, crafts, sculpture, woodworking, photography, candles, soaps, apparel, jewelry, housewares, pottery and more! It’s free to enter, but you’re going to want to bring cash.
BREW-TIFUL MUSIC
The Vox Solaris Chamber Choir will fill Welltown Brewing with song on June 28 for Choir on Tap. Learn more about the choir, event organizers and tickets in our story on page 41. facebook.com/ events/choirontap
IMPROV
During Tulsa Night Live at Rabbit Hole Improv guests are invited to tell stories from their lives, after which the improvisers take the stage to improvise a sketch based on that story. June 22, $8, BYOB, rabbitholeimprov.com
FULL EVENTS CALENDAR: THETULSAVOICE.COM/CALENDAR THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
Beer Bingo // 6/29, Renaissance Brewing Company, facebook.com Cherry Street Farmers Market // 6/22, 6/29, 1340 E. 15th St., tulsafarmersmarket.org
Busted! // 6/29, Rabbit Hole Improv, rabbitholeimprov.com
Saturday, June 22, 10 a.m.–8 p.m. Whittier Square visitkendallwhittier.com
Movie on the lawn: Almost Famous // 6/28, Philbrook, philbrook.org
Gerald “Hurricane” Harris // 6/23, Loony Bin, tulsa.loonybincomedy.com
Patrick Melton // 6/29, Loony Bin, tulsa.loonybincomedy.com
918 MAKERS MARKET
Gilcrease After Hours // 6/28, A free monthly event with cocktails, live music and art galleries. Gilcrease Museum, gilcrease.org
25 Hour Play Festival // 6/22, The first ever 25 Hour Play Festival presents several 10 minute plays based on Tulsa themed prompts. Heller Theatre, hellertheatreco.com/ upcoming Tulsa Awards for Theatre Excellence // 6/30, Tulsa Performing Arts Center, tulsapac.com/events
Patrick Melton // 6/26 - 6/28, Loony Bin, tulsa.loonybincomedy.com
Fiddler on the Roof // 6/19 - 6/23, Tulsa Performing Arts Center, tulsapac.com/events
EVENTS
SPORTS
Night on the Lawn // 6/19, Ceder Rock Inn hosts a night of fun on the lawn every Wednesday from 6 - 8 p.m. Ceder Rock Inn, cedarrockinn.com Movie Night: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs // 6/19, Gathering Place - QuickTrip Great Lawn, gatheringplace.org Tulsa Young Democrats Happy Hour // 6/20, Fuel 66, facebook.com
Tulsa Drillers vs Frisco // 6/19, ONEOK Field, milb.com/tulsa/ schedule/2019-06 Tulsa Drillers vs Amarillo // 6/23, ONEOK Field, milb.com/tulsa/ schedule/2019-06 TEX South All-Stars vs TEX North AllStars // 6/25, ONEOK Field, milb.com/ tulsa/schedule/2019-06
Music Bingo // 6/20, Lefty’s on Greenwood, facebook.com
Tulsa Roughnecks vs Real Monarchs // 6/29, ONEOK Field, roughnecksfc. com/schedule2019
Pollinator Plants Tour // 6/20, Philbrook, philbrook.org/calendar
Fortuna Tulsa vs Texas Spurs // 6/29, ONEOK Field, fortunatulsa.com
Wine, Eats, & Easels // 6/21, Local artists, live music, wine and beer sampling and food are just a few things included in this Broken Arrow event. All proceeds go to benefit Broken Arrow Neighbors. Rose District Farmers Market, facebook.com
Tulsa Athletic vs Demize NPSL // 6/30, Veteran’s Park, tulsaathletic.com/ fixture
Todd Sanders Artist Talk, Wayne Hancock Performance // 6/22, Neon artist Todd Sanders will discuss his process and craft followed by a performance by country musician Wayne Hancock. 108 Contemporary, 108contemporary.org
Tulsa Drillers vs Amarillo // 6/20 6/22, ONEOK Field, milb.com/tulsa/ schedule/2019-06
Caribbean Vibes // 6/22, Gathering Place - QuickTrip Great Lawn, gatheringplace.org Tulsa Flea Market // 6/22, River Spirit Expo, Upper Level, exposquare.com Speed Dating // 6/23, Looking for love? Continue the search at Whittier Bar’s speed dating. Whittier Bar, facebook.com Pollinators and Permaculture // 6/26, Heirloom Rustic Ales, facebook.com Yoga at the Brewery // 6/26, Renaissance Brewing Company, facebook.com Flower Arranging Workshop // 6/27, Philbrook, philbrook.org/calendar
Dallas Magpies vs Oklahoma Footy Club // 6/30, Veteran’s Park, tulsabuffaloes.com/schedule
VISUAL ART Contemporary Fine Art Embroidery // 6/22, Learn the intricate art of embroidery through this course led by Taryn Singleton. ahha, ahhatulsa.org Hand Building with Self-Hardening Clay // 6/26, This four session workshop will teach you sculptural clay techniques. Instructed by Christiana Prado. ahha, ahhatulsa.org Studio Saturdays // 6/29, Philbrook, philbrook.org Sacred Adornment Through Wire Wrapped Jewelry // 6/22, 6/29, Katy Bruce will teach attendees to make rings, earrings and pendants. All materials are provided! ahha, ahhatulsa.org
ARTS & CULTURE // 39
musicnotes
‘I’m so honored. How touching. F— you.’ Alicia Bognanno of Bully talks misogyny and new music by KYRA BRUCE additional reporting by TY CLARK
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licia Bognanno is a force to be reckoned with on Bully’s latest album, Losing. The Nashville band’s Sub Pop follow-up to their major label debut, Feels Like, finds the 28-year-old songwriter in the most confident form of her career. With a third LP in the works, the band is touring their fiery brand of grunge-punk around the country with emo-punk icons Jawbreaker. They’ll be stopping at Cain’s Ballroom on June 25. “I actually love touring—a lot. A lot a lot. I’m totally looking forward to it,” Bognanno says. “I love playing live and hope it comes off that way. We put a lot of effort into practicing and making sure everybody is comfortable and feeling confident.” That effort is a major trait that seems out of character for the band’s flannel-wearing-messyhair-low-slung-guitars punk vibe. That is exactly what separates Bully from the “slacker rock” label lazily attributed to many of their peers. Bognanno’s lyrics are purposeful, and she and her band are accomplished musicians who work hard for their craft. Bognanno even produces and engineers all of their music, and a few friend’s bands too. “I’m just kind of doing what I can with the space I have,” she says. “I recorded my friends’ band the other day … It’s not any sort of serious commitment [at this point]. My priority is Bully right now and just working on the third record.” Being in male-dominated fields like audio engineering and punk music, Bognanno said she has had to endure a fair share of misogyny. What really gets under her skin, 40 // MUSIC
Alicia Bognanno of Bully | ALYSSE GAFKJEN
though, is the fake-woke posturing of some of her peers. “I feel like a lot of men in bands kind of talk the talk and post about progressiveness and, you know, that’s frustrating cause I feel like they get like a medal … for being a decent human,” Bognanno says. “‘Wow, that’s so cool that you’re talking about, you know, respecting women. ‘I’m so honored … how touching.’ Its like, ‘Fuck you.’” That frustration is displayed front and center in Bully’s music, a bludgeon against chauvinists. “When Bully started, I didn’t even really think about the gender dynamic—and the further along it
has gotten the angrier I’ve gotten about it, and definitely the less tolerant I am with it,” she says. “My biggest thing is, if you feel like something is wrong and uncomfortable, it probably is. “When I first started playing in Bully, I was constantly questioning whether or not I was over sensitive and whether or not I was overreacting,” she continues. “I just completely changed the credibility I give myself and the way that I’m feeling. If I see behavior that I feel unacceptable or feel like I’m being talked to in a condescending way, I call it as I see it in hopes that it won’t happen again or that they’ll think twice before
they approach another woman like that.” Bognanno sees the culture changing around tolerance of misogyny and abusive behavior, but she says we still have a long way to go. “I think there’s a lot more awareness that has been brought to men and their behavior and what’s acceptable and not acceptable,” she says. “There’s been progress made … or [we] want to believe that it has been made, and hopefully it just keeps going up from there.” Can we just exist without your hate and control? Bognanno screams on Losing’s powerful closing track. Such questions animate her music and experience in the industry, and will no doubt continue to deepen on the band’s upcoming third album. Currently shrouded in mystery, Bognanno says the new record will come from a different part of herself. “The second album was a similar process to the first,” she says. “The third one will be done in a completely different way, on completely different terms, so much so that I don’t have the words to sum it up—a lot has changed and I feel a lot better in every aspect of my life than I have in a long time.” One constant with Bully is their energetic and cathartic live shows. This will be on full display when the band takes the stage at Cain’s Ballroom alongside the newly-reunited Jawbreaker, a band who has influenced tons of acts across today’s indie rock spectrium—including Bully. “I love Jawbreaker and pretty much everything about them,” Bognanno says. “I am beyond excited to play these damn shows. I cannot wait.” a June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
DRINKING SONGS ‘Choir on Tap’ makes a joyful noise at Welltown Brewing
CHOIR ON TAP Fri., June 28, 7:30pm Welltown Brewing, 114 W. Archer St. $25; tickets at voxsolaris.net The Vox Solaris Chamber Choir peforms at Welltown Brewing on June 28. | COURTESY
by KYRA BRUCE BEER AND SONG HAVE A LONG AND raucous history together. From “Drunken Sailor” to “Turn Down for What,” there’s something about getting hammered that just begs for musical accompaniment. Considering the long history of song and drink, the Vox Solaris Chamber Choir’s ‘Choir on Tap’ event at Welltown Brewing is a match made in heaven. “Choir concerts don’t typically fit with a brewery” said Vox Solaris conductor Jeffery Wall. “But public singing and harmonizing has been a part of beer culture for centuries, and we hope to marry the two.” Wall co-founded the ensemble with Justin Rosser, director of vocal music at Broken Arrow High School. “We had a conversation about what we thought was missing in the Tulsa/BA arts scene … I put out the call and people responded,” he said. “The choir is made up of folks from all walks of life: music educators, music professionals, church musicians, and sometimes those that just miss singing at a higher level of artistry.” The Choir will perform at Welltown Brewing for a uniquely ethereal and boozy event that’s a far cry from your average choir concert. “These people are amazing, so to hear them outside of a big concert hall is cool,” said Welltown owner Jeremy Diamond. “This will be an interesting environment where you get to sit down and drink and hear these wonderful voices.” Wall came into Welltown to pitch Diamond the idea and test the acoustics of the space back in January. “I started whistling and humming around the place … and thought it would be a perfect but unconventional spot to host a choir concert,” Wall said. Diamond says this event will be the first of its kind in Tulsa. “This is definitely outside the norm … [it’s] new and interesting and I think it will go really well,” he said. “People that might not typically attend a choir concert can enjoy a beer and some great music,” he said. “It will expose people to a whole new type of art form and get them out of their box (or their normal playlist).” Wall urges both choir lovers and people who are unfamiliar with the music to come and “experience the music they don’t know they love.” a THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
MUSIC // 41
musiclistings Wed // June 19 Coffee House on Cherry Street – Open Mic – 7 p.m. Duet – Ted Ludwig – 8 p.m. – ($5) Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Ronnie Pyle – 6 p.m. Los Cabos - Jenks – Weston Horn – 6 p.m. Louie’s Grill & Bar – *Chris Hyde – 7 p.m. Mother Road Market – The Hi-Fi Hillbillies – 5 p.m. The Colony – Wed. Night Science with Red Valley Barnstormers – 8 p.m. The Penthouse Bar at The Mayo Hotel – Summer Sound on the Rooftop – 6 p.m. The Soundpony – Hummin Bird – 10 p.m. The Vanguard – Awake At Last/ At My Mercy – 7 p.m.
Thurs // June 20 Cain’s Ballroom – blackbear - dead 2 the world tour – 6:30 p.m. – ($35) Duet – *Branjae – 8 p.m. – ($20) Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Hi-Fidelics – 6 p.m. Los Cabos - Jenks – Jacob Dement Duo – 6 p.m. Los Cabos - Owasso – Barrett Lewis – 6 p.m. Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – Tulsa Tech Education Foundation: Concert for a Cause with The Fabulous Mid Life Crisis Band – 6:30 p.m. – ($50) Pearl Beach Brew Pub – Isaac McClung – 7:30 p.m. Renaissance Brewing Company – Open Mic Night – 8 p.m. Soul City – Brent Giddens Happy Hour – 5 p.m. The Vanguard – Rig Time – 7:30 p.m. – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Road to Deadfest – 7 p.m. – ($8) Tulsa Historical Society and Museum – Barbara Geary – 2 p.m. – ($5) Utica Square – Eldredge Jackson – 7 p.m.
Fri // June 21 Cabin Boys Brewery – Joe Mack Music – 7 p.m. Cherokee Casino & Hotel West Siloam Springs – Stoney LaRue – 9 p.m. Guthrie Green – *Rainbows Are Free, Night Demon, The Well, Crypt Trip, Blind Oath – 7 p.m. Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, The Joint – Hank Williams Jr. – 8 p.m. Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – C-Plus Born in November – 7 p.m. Los Cabos - Jenks – Stix N Stones – 7 p.m. Los Cabos - Owasso – Local Spin – 7 p.m. Louie’s Grill & Bar – Wink Burcham – 9 p.m. Mercury Lounge – Peculiar Pretzelmen – 10 p.m. – ($10) Soul City – Charles Tuberville Album Release Party – 9 p.m. – ($10) TAF Cameron Studios – Rose Gold, The Lukewarm, My Heart & Liver are the Best of Friends – 8 p.m. The Colony – Dustin Pittsley Summer Solstice Party – 10 p.m. – ($5) The Crystal Skull – 1994 – 9 p.m. The Fur Shop – Finding September – 8 p.m. The Hunt Club – Tony Romanello and the Black Jackets – 10 p.m. The Max Retropub – Boo Ya ft DJ Moody The Vanguard – Southern Avenue – 7 p.m. – ($1015) The Venue Shrine – Randall King – 8 p.m. – ($12)
Sat // June 22 Bad Ass Renee’s – The Salesman Esc Ctrl, The Action Bastards – 9 p.m. – ($5) Barkingham Palace – *Tell Lies, Holy Void, Dope Patrol, Giraffe Massacre, Grass Giant – 9 p.m. Blackbird on Pearl – Jack Ketch and the Bilge Rat Bastards, Machine in the Mountain, Covered in Shit, Bandknife – 9 p.m. – ($5) 42 // MUSIC
Cain’s Ballroom – Casey Donahew – 8:30 p.m. – ($25) Duet – David Moore and the Nocturne Sextet – 8 p.m. – ($10) Lefty’s on Greenwood – Asphalt Prarie – 8 p.m. Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Stars – 7 p.m. Los Cabos - Jenks – House Party – 7 p.m. Los Cabos - Owasso – Electik Duo – 7 p.m. Rabbit Hole Bar & Grill – Frequency, Midday Static, Cherokee Rose, Doctor Junior – 8 p.m. Soul City – The Red Dirt Rangers – 9 p.m. – ($10) Studio 308 – The Retro Rockets – 8 p.m. – ($20) The Colony – Chris Jones and the Flycatchers, Giakob Lee – 9 p.m. – ($5) The Hub Gym – The Hub Gym Block Party with Paul Benjaman Band – 6 p.m. The Max Retropub – DJ P all vinyl The Venue Shrine – Ian Moore – 8 p.m. – ($20) The Wine Loft Bar – Jesse Joice – 8:30 p.m. Woody Guthrie Center – *The Black Lillies – 8 p.m. – ($25)
Sun // June 23 Cain’s Ballroom – Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Toad the Wet Sprocket – 7 p.m. – ($40) Lefty’s on Greenwood – Jazz Brunch with Neutral Colors – 12 p.m. Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Chris Clark – 6 p.m. Los Cabos - Jenks – The Fabulous Two Man Band – 6 p.m. Mother Road Market – Brunch, Booze and Beats with Clint Ingram – 11 a.m. Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame – *Angie Cockrell – 5 p.m. Rabbit Hole Bar & Grill – Streetlight Fight, Johnny Bad Seed and the Rotten Apples, Phantom Pain – 10 p.m. The Vanguard – Mechanize, Lucid Awakening – 8 p.m.
Utica Square – Denise Hoey & The Boulevard – 7 p.m.
Fri // June 28 Cabin Boys Brewery – Desi and Cody – 7 p.m. Duet – Edwin Canito Garcia – 8 p.m. – ($8) Lefty’s on Greenwood – Curt Hill – 8 p.m. Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – StereoType – 7 p.m. Los Cabos - Jenks – Caleb Fellenstein Band – 7 p.m. Los Cabos - Owasso – RockFisch Duo – 7 p.m. Louie’s Grill & Bar – Rusty Cajun – 9 p.m. Mercury Lounge – John Moreland, John Calvin Abney – 9 p.m. Ph House – *Caleb Campbell, Benzo, Folsom Point, Birds Beak – 8 p.m. – ($5) Sax Entertainment – B. Simone – 10 p.m. – ($20) Soul City – Charlie Redd & Full Flava Kings – 9 p.m. – ($10) The Colony – The Whispering Willows, Grazzhopper – 10 p.m. – ($5) The Hunt Club – RPM – 10 p.m. The Max Retropub – Afistaface – 10 p.m. The Vanguard – *Live Band Emo and Pop Punk Karaoke – 8 p.m. Welltown Brewing – Choir on Tap – 7:30 p.m. – ($20)
Sat // June 29
473 – Singer Songwriter Night – 8 p.m. Cain’s Ballroom – Jawbreaker, Bully – 8 p.m. – ($40) Guthrie Green – Midsummer Nights Jazz – 8 p.m. Gypsy Coffe House – Open mic – 7 p.m. Lefty’s on Greenwood – *Olivia Duhon – 7 p.m. The Taproom at Marshall Brewing – TuesJay Night – 6 p.m.
473 – Singer Songwriter Night – 8 p.m. Bad Ass Renee’s – The Less Fortunate, Counterfeit, Agentz of Khaos, She The Serpent – 9 p.m. – ($5) BOK Center – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Father John Misty – 7:30 p.m. – ($50 - $80) Cain’s Ballroom – Charley Crockett – 8 p.m. – ($18) Duet – Cynthia Simmons – 8 p.m. – ($12) Fassler Hall – *ADMIRALS EP Release with Algebra and Rachel Swain – 9 p.m. Lefty’s on Greenwood – Desi and Cody – 8 p.m. Lefty’s on Greenwood – *Faye Moffett – 9 p.m. Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – The Agenda – 7 p.m. Los Cabos - Jenks – Doctors of Replay – 7 p.m. Los Cabos - Owasso – Lost on Accoustica – 7 p.m. Soul City – John Clifton Blues Band – 9 p.m. – ($10) The Hunt Club – NeoRomantics at The Hunt Club’s 10 year anniversary party – 8 p.m. The Joint – Judas Preist – 8 p.m. – ($40) The Max Retropub – DJ Robbo The Vanguard – My So Called Band – 9 p.m. – ($10) The Venue Shrine – Let’s Zeppelin – 8 p.m. – ($10) Vox Pop – Kirk Thurmond, Rachel La Vonne – 7 p.m. Wyld Hawgz – Rocket Science – 9:30 p.m.
Wed // June 26
Sun // June 30
Cellar Dweller – Grazzhopper Duet – *Micaela Young – 8 p.m. – ($5) Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Electik Duo – 6 p.m. Los Cabos - Jenks – Dave Kay – 6 p.m. Soundpony – Caleb De Casper, Cheap Wave, Carlton Hesston, Celebrity Sex Tape – 10 p.m. The Penthouse Bar at The Mayo Hotel – Summer Sound on the Rooftop – 6 p.m. The Vanguard – Makari – 7 p.m.
Guthrie Green – *Global Music Fest with Gemstar Steel Band, The Stylees, La Gozadera – 2:30 p.m. Los Cabos - Broken Arrow – Clint Ingram – 6 p.m. The Tatanka Ranch – Tatanka Music Fest – 11 a.m.
Mon // June 24 Hodges Bend – *Mike Cameron Collective – 9 p.m. The Vanguard – The Cavves – 7 p.m. – ($10)
Tues // June 25
Thurs // June 27 Duet – 14 Strings – 8 p.m. – ($8) Heirloom Rustic Ales – Dan Roark – 6 p.m. Los Cabos - Owasso – Jacob Dement – 6 p.m. Soundpony – *Bodeen – 10 p.m. Studio 308 – The Retro Rockets Disaster Relief Benefit – 7 p.m. The Hunt Club – Ego Culture – 10 p.m. The Vanguard – Thames, Maximus, Hoarseman and the Heard – 7 p.m. – ($10)
Your
VOICE For
Live Music Get the word out
Mon // July 1 Central Library – *Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band – 10 a.m. Soundpony – Autopilot – 10 p.m.
Tues // July 2 Lefty’s on Greenwood – Jennifer Marriott Band – 7 p.m. Marshall Brewing Company – TuesJay Night with Jake Brake – 6 p.m. Whittier Bar – Tuesday Bluesday – 7 p.m. 473 – Singer Songwriter Night – 8 p.m. The Penthouse Bar at The Mayo Hotel – Summer Sound on the Rooftop – 6 p.m.
Send dates, venue and listings to kyra@ LangdonPublishing.com
June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
MUSIC // 43
onscreen OPEN NOW
The Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story | COURTESY
THE THUNDER ROLLS KING OF THE BOOGIE LAUGHTER IS...
A NIGHT OF COMEDY
- JULY 27 , 2019 -
44 // FILM & TV
Martin Scorsese stokes the legend of Bob Dylan in new documentary
MARTIN SCORSESE’S THE ROLLING Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story is a fascinating, wildly engrossing document of the musical icon in a state of rebirth. In 1975, Dylan hadn’t embarked on tour in almost a decade, having retreated to hs Woodstock studio after suffering a major motorcycle accident nearly a decade earlier. By the time Steven Van Dorp, the “filmmaker” behind much of the tour footage captured in The Rolling Thunder Revue, sets his cameras on Dylan and the ensuing east coast tour, Dylan has reemerged, reincarnating himself in the image of a trickster scarecrow—ready to put on a show like nothing he’s done before. The Rolling Thunder Revue finds Dylan a decade after bursting onto the scene as the folk poet laureate of American music, seemingly bored with the persona he’s tailored over the previous decade. By 1975, the United States was facing a bit of an identity crisis itself. Gone was the counterculture idealism of the ‘60s, replaced by a nation in flux: Watergate civil unrest, and The Vietnam War rage on as the United States reached its second centennial, more perplexed than ever about its future. It’s the perfect backdrop for Martin Scorsese to reassemble this beguiling pastiche of a film. The Netflix documentary is comprised largely of performance footage and interviews from the 1975 tour Dylan embarked upon soon after the release of his landmark album, Blood on the Tracks. Much to the chagrin of the tour promoters, its venues consisted not of the sold-out arena kind one would expect from a protean star like Dylan—instead, the artist and a revolving door of musicians, poets, and hangers-on set out via an RV and a tour bus traveling around New England, playing intimate
venues, small theaters, and even the Tuscarosa Indian Reservation. It’s a hot, hippy mess featuring a who’s who of the ‘70s folk and rock scene: Joan Baez, Ronnie Hawkins, Joni Mitchell, with poet Alan Ginsberg frequently acting as our spiritual guide. At the center of the hurricane always is Dylan, face painted clown white, playfully taunting the camera crew like a puckish court jester. The Rolling Thunder Revue is catnip for any die hard Dylan fan or anyone who’s a sucker for rock ‘n roll tour docs from the ‘60s and ‘70s—like The Song Remains the Same, Monterey Pop or the seminal Woodstock, on which Scorsese briefly served as an editor. But The Rolling Thunder Revue is more than just a document from the heyday of the rock ‘n roll era. Working from thousands of hours of 16mm film as well as new interviews with many of the participants of the tour— including Dylan himself—Scorsese doesn’t simply deliver a highlight reel from the tour; instead, the legendary director approaches the material in a more playful, practically satirical tone. Interviews with actors Sharon Stone and Michael Murphy mischievously call into question the veracity of truth in this film. The filmmaker Steven Van Drop isn’t even his real name. (It’s Martin Van Haselberg.) Dylan and Scorsese are devilishly toying with our expectations of what a documentary like this should be. Dylan, ever obsessed with masks and persona, and Scorsese obsessed with the magic and manipulation of our visual language, serve up an experience that is both a satisfying rock ‘n roll documentary and fascinating glimpse into the troubadour’s return to the stage. — CHARLES ELMORE June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
onscreen
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF
Celebrity Attractions June 18-23
TULSA AWARDS FOR THEATRE EXCELLENCE
Tulsa PAC Trust June 30
1964: THE TRIBUTE
Celebrity Attractions July 12 ALADDIN JR. When They See Us | COURTESY
INJUSTICE FOR ALL The case of the Central Park Five is powerfully rendered in new miniseries ON APRIL 19, 1989, A 28-YEAR-OLD white woman was violently beaten and raped in New York City’s Central Park while she was taking a night-time jog. On the same night, a series of attacks and robberies also occurred in the park. Five young African Americans who were on the periphery of these events—ranging in age from 14 to 16—found themselves rounded up by police. This is the subject of the new fourpart, five-hour Netflix miniseries from director Ava DuVernay (Selma), which dramatizes the case that captured the nation’s attention—along with then-businessman Donald Trump, who infamously ran a fullpage ad calling for the execution of the five teenagers on May 1, 1989. After hours of initial interrogations that weren’t taped or documented—taking place without parents or lawyers present, including tactics like sleep deprivation and withholding food and water—the five suspects confessed to crimes they didn’t commit, even as their coerced stories contradicted each other. After two long-publicized trials, all five were found guilty. The teenagers were convicted of the brutal crime without any corroborating evidence, other than being in the wrong park at the wrong time while black. Such miscarriages of justice are bound to leave an indelible mark of distrust within the hearts of the racial minorities and communities who suffer those injustices. As director and co-writer of all four episodes, DuVernay takes us through the night, the trials, and the aftermath of those events from the perspective of the five, along with their families, with a visceral immediacy that doesn’t overplay its hand. It’s all sickeningly credible. The first episode focuses on the arrest and interrogations, showing how an overzealous D.A. steered her subordinate THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
detectives to wear down the teens in a scary, intimidating, and confusing atmosphere, getting them to recite confessions that cops were concocting on the fly while leveraging the teens with false promises and real threats. Each of the young actors cast as the accused make their fear and brokenness tragically palpable, with Asante Blackk as Kevin Richardson (the smallest, who’s given a swollen black eye by a cop) as a heartbreaking standout. Episode 2 methodically portrays the incredulous turns of the trials, and Episode 3 tracks the challenges of re-assimilating back into society after each of their juvenile sentences were served. All except for one: Korey Wise, the fifth who was 16-years-old and sentenced as an adult. His story is entirely separate, more traumatic, and depicted in its lonesome, gruesome detail in the 90-minute feature-length Episode 4. You won’t see a more powerful episode of television all year, and it may garner actor Jharrel Jerome (Moonlight) an Emmy. He’s the only cast member to portray one of the five as both teenager and adult, and his transformation between the two (emotionally and physically) is a staggering achievement. When They See Us isn’t particularly rigorous about the complexities of how such an injustice can actually occur, limited essentially to “because racism,” but other works like Ken Burns’ The Central Park Five documentary (on Amazon Prime) and DuVernay’s own Netflix documentary 13th both serve as great companion pieces, as does the new Oprah Winfrey special When They See Us Now, where she interviews the cast, director, and survivors. It also streams on Netflix, and it provides the necessary conversation that the series provokes—along with the catharsis it needs. — JEFF HUSTON
Theatre Tulsa July 12-14
RENT: SCHOOL EDITION
Theatre Tulsa July 18-21
SUMMER HEAT INTERNATIONAL DANCE FESTIVAL
Choregus Productions July 25-28
TULSAPAC.COM
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918.596.7111 ALL EVENTS/DATES SUBJECT TO CHANGE.
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FREE STUFF! J U N E G I V E A W AY :
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FILM & TV // 45
RECYCLE THIS Cardboard, Newspapers and Magazines
NOT THAT Pillows and Bedding
Donate pillows and bedding or throw them away in the gray trash cart.
Cardboard, newspapers and magazines are perfect for recycling, but pillows and bedding are NOT acceptable for the blue recycling cart.
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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.
June 19 – July 2, 2019 // THE TULSA VOICE
THE FUZZ THE TULSA VOICE SPOTLIGHTS: TULSA SPCA
2910 Mohawk Blvd. | MON, TUES, THURS, FRI & SAT, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 918.428.7722
MINKA is a very friendly and affectionate 8-month-old cat rescued from the flooding in Bartlesville. She is the first to greet you in our Cat Colony Room and demands attention! She would make a great fit for almost any home.
ACROSS 1 “60 Minutes” network 4 One year’s record 9 Vowel-shaped beam 13 Old enough 18 Yes, in Yokohama 19 Mailer-___ (bounced email sender) 21 Relocate 22 Stuck in a cabinet? 23 *Woodsy says, “I adored that ranger, but it was a ___” (Note each starred answer’s initials!) 25 “Guilty,” e.g. 26 Palm tree part 27 Creole vegetable 28 What many college students need 29 Boat propellers 30 Five: Prefix 31 Font flourish 33 Boredom, with “the” 35 Informant 37 Love poetry Muse 38 *Mr. Jinks says, “Let me ___ these pesky meeces!” 42 Frat letter that sounds like “row” 44 Apply 45 Ingratiate 46 *An occupant of Bruce Wayne’s cave says, “Watching him ___ in crime-fighting inspires me!” 53 Mornings, for short 56 Cantankerous 57 Wooden shoes 58 Double curve 59 Shark variety 61 M, F or X, on some driver’s licenses 62 Fern-to-be 63 Certain Islam adherent
66 Our “mother” 69 *Wilbur says, “Charlotte joined an animal rights ___” 74 Place to say “I do” 75 Conceive 76 Heavenly harpist 78 An official lang. of Canada 81 Iditarod vehicle 83 Bull’s-eye (Abbr.) 84 Edges (along) 85 Standards 88 Bailout key 89 *Cleopatra’s killer says, “___, I had to bite her” 91 Kind of center at a hospital 93 Bit in a horse’s mouth? 95 W. Hemisphere group 96 *Remy says, “It was a ___ when Linguini and I were preparing for the restaurant critic!” 102 Lawn sign word 107 Sign up 108 Bundled together 109 Room’s look 110 ___ & Young 112 Heimdall portrayer Idris 114 Hindu master 117 Tasting like venison 118 Genealogy 119 National Merit Scholarship exam, briefly 120 *Mrs. O’Leary’s animal says, “I opened a ___ in 1871!” 122 One-on-one student 123 Mata ___ 124 Melodic 125 Morse code sound 126 Bring to bear 127 Harmony
JOSIE is a young, sweet, and playful looking for her forever home! Josie would love a family to cuddle with and play with her. After a plight with a yeast infection, Josie’s ears are on the mend. She is about 1 year old and weighs about 49 lbs.
128 Artoo-___ 129 John, Paul and George, for short DOWN 1 Go for 2 Monopoly game role 3 Code word for S 4 Toothpasteapproving org. 5 Negative votes 6 “Little” Dickens girl 7 Itsy-bitsy organism 8 Hanks’ “Apollo 13” role 9 Customs duties 10 Gaucho’s weapon 11 Disinclined 12 Justification 13 A journal article author may receive one 14 Building inspector’s concern 15 Solitude 16 Chivalrous chap 17 Icelandic epic 20 High land 24 “Hold it!” 32 Divine 34 Cart (off) 36 Arapaho foe 38 Rollaway relative 39 Mets, Jets or Nets 40 London art museum 41 African antelope 43 Consumes 46 Undergrad bio degrees 47 Arctic native 48 “___ Ben Adhem” (Leigh Hunt poem) 49 Greek played by Anthony Quinn 50 Brings back on board 51 “Q ___ queen” 52 Matthew’s question 54 Baton bearer 55 Glide on ice 60 Alternative to net
63 Something to weigh in on? 64 Idea-focused talk type 65 At attention 67 Dragged one’s feet 68 1953 John Wayne role 70 “___ alive!” (horror movie cry) 71 Vittles 72 Wrinkly fruit 73 Hammer part 77 WWII landing craft 78 ___’acte 79 “The Obsession” author Roberts 80 Extra staff member? 82 Raid rival 84 Last word of “America the Beautiful” 86 Cheese with an orange rind 87 Fashionable folks 89 Abbr. on an envelope 90 “The Simpsons” bartender 92 Way back when 94 Like some elephants 97 First Hebrew letters 98 “Amen!” 99 Puccini opera set in Rome 100 Self-love direction 101 Bully 103 Big name in small construction 104 Hallmark.com selections 105 Go all-in 106 Meetings that are never boring 110 Artist whose initials were R.T. 111 Cooking thickener 113 Building near a silo 115 Debatable 116 “Assuming that’s true ...” 121 Court
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.
MARIAH is a very big sweetheart. She’s eager to please and learn new tricks! She is working on her “sit” right now. At 5 months old, she loves to play, but she also settles down well with her people. Mariah weighs about 32 lbs.
UNIVERSAL SUNDAY CROSSWORD SEE 'N SAY By Paul Coulter, edited by David Steinberg
© 2019 Andrews McMeel Syndication THE TULSA VOICE // June 19 – July 2, 2019
Young BRANDI is perfect addition to a family that likes to lounge. She wants to near her people as much as possible but never jumps and isn’t pushy or demanding for attention. She seems to do well with other dogs as long as they’re not too rough. Brandi weighs about 47 lbs.
7/14 ETC. // 47
WEDNESDAY
07.03
FRIDAY
07.05
SUNDAY
07.28
DON MCLEAN
NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND
8PM
8PM
THE MARSHALL 6PM TUCKER BAND
Pleas e re cycle this issue.