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INSIDE COVER Oklahoma Gazette’s Cannabis Issue explores Oklahoma City’s green miles, the new Happie Flower Pizza cannabis line from the owners of Stone Sisters Pizza Bar and industry reactions to State Question 807 and includes a list of upcoming cannabis events and supporting dispensaries. By Gazette staff Cover by Ingvard Ashby
NEWS 4
BUSINESS Kindred Spirits
6 BUSINESS Scooter’s Coffee
8 CITY Martin Luther King Jr.
parade 9
CHICKEN-FRIED NEWS
EAT & DRINK Heifers & Hens Restaurant and Bakery 11 FEATURE The Eleanor 12 COVER Happie Flower Pizza 14 GAZEDIBLES International Hot and Spicy Food Day 10 REVIEW
ARTS & CULTURE 16 ART O. Gail Poole’s Sideshow at
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17 THEATER Brightmusic’s Rustic
Gardens at St. Paul’s Cathedral 19 CALENDAR
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21 EVENT Event K.C. Clifford album
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release show at Tower Theatre
Bret michaels
22 FEATURE Cover bands vs. original
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23 LIVE MUSIC
THE HIGH CULTURE 24 COVER Green miles
26 COVER Supporting Cannabis
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29 COVER Cannabis event listings
31 COVER State Question 807 reactions 32 CANNABIS The Toke Board 32 CANNABIS strain review
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34 PUZZLES sudoku | crossword
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february 1
sugar ray FEBRUARY 22
joe diffie with special guest
OKG Classifieds 35
josh gracin
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BUSINESS
Kindred Spirits, opening in the EastPoint development in the next few months, expects to become a hub for black culture in northeast OKC. | Photo Chelsi Dennis / provided
Cultural spirit
A new restaurant concept in northeast OKC aims to become a family-friendly hub for black culture. By Miguel Rios
After the closure of Urban Roots, which Quintin Hughes considered a centerpiece of black culture, a void was left to be filled. “It was a place where art and food intersected. It was just a place where you would see a lot of creatives and movers and shakers from within the community,” he said. “There was a lot of programming around art and culture, and there were always installations of black artists, there was always live music every week, programming like that.” Now, Hughes and his partners want to help fill that void with their new venture, Kindred Spirits. The restaurant and bar is set to open sometime in the next few months in the EastPoint development. “Urban Roots was a larger space … so there was a lot more to manage, whereas our concept is a lot smaller, a lot more intimate, and it also incorporates a patio experience,” Hughes said. “We’ll be able to do some additional layers of programming that wasn’t possible before — more outdoor programming and things of that nature.” The concept is named after Kindred by Octavia Butler, a novel in which a young black woman living in the ’70s is transported between her time and the 1800s. The novel explores themes of power, race, ancestry and afrofuturism. The branding of Kindred Spirits also draws inspiration from the novel’s themes. “We wanted our branding to provide an initial vision of exactly what we’re trying to do when folks see it,” Hughes said. “Folks who are entrenched in the 4
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culture, who speak the type of culture that we want to create, we want them to be able to pick up on what we’re trying to do or at least get an idea just by seeing a flash of our logo or any of the images we project.” Kindred Spirits is currently under construction. Hughes said they spent a good amount of time with interior designers and architects to create a welcoming atmosphere and a smart way to utilize their patio area. “We expect for it to be vibrant, creative, a space that would be attractive to creatives. Obviously, we want to thoughtfully connect our patio space to our space inside,” he said. “We do know we want to have an area on the inside that can act as more like a den that can be more intimate. ... We definitely want to have spaces where we can have our bands come in and plug in, but with us only being 1,000 square feet inside, it’s going to be intimate.” The food will also be reflective of the concept, with a menu serving rotational items inspired by Southern and African cuisine.
‘Unapologetically black’
With the goal of creating a new hub for black culture, Hughes and his team also made sure to seek out local black professionals to help with branding and communications. “We assembled a team of folks that get it and that are on the same page,” he said. “It’s one of these things when you explain the concept to people who are culture makers or culture seekers or who are creative, they start to have their own visions and ideas of where we can
take certain aspects.” Kindred Spirits will be located in Pivot Project’s EastPoint development, which has leased out space to minorityowned businesses. Hughes said the importance of minority- and blackowned businesses can’t be overstated, particularly when it comes to northeast Oklahoma City. “It’s well-known that in northeast Oklahoma City, over the last maybe two decades, there’s been a decline in the local economy,” he said. “It’s generally important to have a strong local economy, and with our side of town being predominantly black, obviously you would expect for the business ownerships to also be reflective of that. So it’s paramount for our economy to thrive in order for our community to thrive, and having black business ownership is just critical.” When the EastPoint development began ramping up efforts to find businesses to be a part of it, Hughes said he was interested but didn’t quite have a concept or vision until he started talking with friends who previously were involved with Urban Roots. “I knew that I wanted to be a part of the project because I thought and I still believe it will be a catalyst for more black business. It’s going to be the proof of concept in that regard to show banks and potential business owners and financiers that businesses can thrive here in the heart of northeast Oklahoma City,” Hughes said. “I expect for the whole EastPoint development to become a hub, and I expect for our space to be a hub within the hub. I fully expect once we have all of our businesses open and operating for it to crack in the way that the rise has been for Uptown 23rd or the [16th Street] Plaza [District].” In terms of building Kindred Spirits up as a cultural hub, Hughes expects to have programming that showcases local The visuals for Kindred Spirits aim to represent the ancestral connection that inspired the concept. Food will also be reflective of this, with Southern- and African-inspired cuisine. | Photo Chelsi Dennis / provided
artists and provides entertainment. Hughes works at Oklahoma City Public Schools and said he would also be interested in programming that benefits local students, like helping high schoolers fill out college paperwork. Its location in EastPoint also provides opportunities for partnerships between the development’s various businesses. Hughes is already talking with other businesses for collaborative programming. “I’ve had conversations with the owner of Intentional Fitness about possibly doing some things like the beer runs they do at Red Coyote or some type of happy hour deals,” he said. “We’ll have local artists every week that are performing. … Black History Month would be huge if we were able to open by February, so we would have a lot of programming. Our patio will be clutch when it comes to April and May, so maybe having a patio series of seasonal entertainment events where we can have artists come out on the patio.” The restaurant aims to combine elements of the past with the concept of afrofuturism and provide a space for people to explore “the black experience through food, programming and community.” “I also want it to be understood that, as some of our language says, we are unapologetically black in terms of the culture we want to respect and represent, but we’re also welcoming to all,” he said. “We anticipate not just having black folks that are our patrons. We expect to have patrons from throughout the metropolitan area, but with the understanding that this is the experience that we intend to provide.” Visit facebook.com/kindredspiritsokc.
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Fresh brew
An Omaha-based coffee chain expands into the Oklahoma City metro. By Miguel Rios
The first Scooter’s Coffee in Oklahoma City opened last month in the far northwest part of the city. Two more are expected to open soon along Route 66, and a total of about 10 will be open by the end of the year. Scooter’s Coffee was founded in Nebraska in 1998 as a drive-thru coffee house focusing on “high-quality drinks, speed of service and a big smile.” According to a press release, the chain is “at the dawn of a strategic growth phase in the Midwest and nationwide.” Josi Orsi, senior manager of brand execution, said the company is excited to enter the OKC market. “We opened our first store in December … and that one is off to a great start, so we’re super excited,” Orsi said. “We have another one opening here in January, so we’re getting rocking and rolling. In 2020, we have around eight more stores planned to open. We’re excited to keep growing in the community and getting involved with these communities.” The next Scooter’s will open this month along Route 66 at Portland Avenue. After that, officials expect a third location to open around April or May along Route 66 at Rockwell Avenue. “But we definitely have our eyes on a few different sites as well, kind of getting everything in the works,” Orsi said. “It’s just going to depend on all the sites and how everything comes together, but I would say we’ll probably have seven to nine stores total in the area by the end of the year. … We definitely want to keep growing. We have about 50-ish stores in Omaha and a total 6
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of like 90 in Nebraska, so we want to keep that momentum going and take that kind of market and bring it to OKC.” Currently, all planned Scooter’s Coffee will be drive-thru-only locations. The chain’s motto is “Amazing people, amazing drinks, amazingly fast,” which Orsi said helps distinguish them from other coffee shops.
One of the most important things to us is making those connections in the community and getting involved at the local level. Josi Orsi “One of the most important things we like to focus on is being fast at the drive-thru, so we don’t want people to have to wait there forever,” she said. “We want to get them through and onto their day and give them a great start to their day. Obviously, the quality in drinks is also important, just serving up the highest quality that we can with our coffee and all of our ingredients that we put in our products.” A grand opening and ribbon-cutting event is being planned for the store that’s already open, and similar events are expected for most locations that will follow. Scooter’s Coffee will also be giving back by hosting a Day of Giving toward the end of the year in which a percent-
Make 2020
The first Scooter’s Coffee location in Oklahoma City is at 7040 NW 122nd St. Approximately eight more are expected to open by the end of the year. | Photo Miguel Rios
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age of proceeds will be donated to a top-nominated local nonprofit. People can already nominate their favorite local nonprofit at scooterscoffee.com/nominations. “As an incentive for showing kindness and helping the community by nominating, participating customers will receive an email back with an exclusive Scooter’s Coffee coupon offering a free small drink or half off a medium or large drink,” according to a press release. “Then, toward the end of 2020, the participating Scooter’s Coffee locations will hold a Day of Giving for the top-nominated nonprofit organization and donate a percent of the proceeds.” Despite being a chain with nearly 200 locations in more than 15 states, Orsi said Scooter’s Coffee makes an effort to engage with its local communities. “That’s the biggest thing when we go into new communities and in our existing communities,” she said. “One of the most important things to us is making those connections in the community and getting involved at the local level because our business is all loyalty, and we want to make those connections and build upon that to know what’s important for our customers.” To that end, Scooter’s already partnered with the Edmond nonprofit The Hugs Project, which sends care packages and various items to troops abroad. “Right before the holidays, we donated … close to 800 bags of coffee, so they can send them to the troops overseas,” she said. “That was a lot of fun helping them with that, and we just love to make connections in the community. That was something that came up when we were exploring how to make connections, so we’re really excited to have made that donation.” All of Scooter’s Coffee drinks are available hot, iced or blended, with the Caramelicious as its signature drink. The chain was named after the nickname of a co-founder’s daughter, which its website said fit well with its mission to keep customers happy by having them “scoot in and scoot out” quickly. When Scooter’s first started operating in 1998, co-founder Linda Eckles bought and placed smiley face stickers on every drink as a way to brighten people’s days. Orsi said this also helps set the chain apart today. “All of our cups have a smiley face sticker on them and we change those out all the time, but it’s kind of a good way to be like, ‘Have a nice day,’ and to bring a smile to our customer’s face,” she said. “It’s just to bring a smile to our customer’s face. It’s always fun to see those on the cups and what different ones are coming out. It just adds to that personal experience with their barista and a really delicious drink.” Visit scooterscoffee.com.
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NEWS The annual holiday parade begins 2 p.m. Monday at NW Sixth Street and Walker Avenue. | Photo provided
CIT Y
meeting, councilwoman Nikki Nice talked about the connection King had with Oklahoma City and civil rights leader Clara Luper. She encouraged people to attend and honor the memory and legacy of King. “I just ask that we remember and commemorate the legacy of Dr. King, who during his lifetime came to Oklahoma City not once but twice because of the important things that were happening here. One of the main reasons is because those things were spearheaded by the late Clara Luper and the children in the movement that was happening here in Oklahoma City, and the first was because he was being courted … to be the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church when he was told he was too young,” she said. “As we know, he went on to do some other and better and greater things for our city, our state, our nation and our world.” Visit okcmlk.org.
Better together
A 40-year-old coalition honoring the memory and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. amps up for what’s expected to be the biggest celebration yet. By Miguel Rios
The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Coalition has never done quite as much outreach as it’s doing this year. The coalition is going the extra mile as it readies to celebrate four decades honoring the late civil rights icon with the theme “40 Years — Better Together.” Anthony Sherrod, the group’s volunteer coordinator, has been reaching out to local businesses, news outlets and individuals to help spread the word, join in on this year’s events and learn about other events the coalition hosts throughout the year. “It’s important to let people know how important this parade and making
sure we’re getting the word out. It’s not just a parade; it’s a celebration of Martin Luther King,” Sherrod said. “We want to start having more events for young people so they can get involved and help out. A lot of people know about the parade, but they don’t know about other events we do like the prayer breakfast and fundraisers. Actually, this last December, we had a cigar night to celebrate and fundraise. … In April, we actually have an essay contest for high school students.”
We all want community. We all have to be in it together. It’s about coming together. Anthony Sherrod Events hosted by the coalition kick off Saturday and culminate in the annual parade Monday on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. “My goal is for people to come to one of these events, they learn what we’re doing, they learn what the coalition is and they think, ‘I want to volunteer for the coalition next year’ or ‘I’ll come out just to support or buy a T-shirt,’” Sherrod said. “It’s about getting more people involved. That’s been my plan this year. What can we do to get the word out?” Anthony Sherrod, volunteer coordinator for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Coalition, wants to get more people involved in celebrating the life and legacy of King. | Photo provided
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Sherrod said he wanted to make this year’s events the biggest yet. He started buying digital ads, designed a T-shirt, secured sponsorship and generally promoted the coalition as much as he could. “People have never seen ads before. We have all these things to celebrate Martin Luther King and help the community,” he said. “We have a job fair; a lot of people didn’t even know about the job fair we have on the same day. … It’s free, and we have companies there ready to hire people the same day. And everybody wants a job.” The parade will be led by OKC sitinners and Minutemen as its honorary marshals, with various organizations, businesses, individuals, high schools and college bands following behind. Various entities including the Oklahoma City Thunder sponsored this year’s events. “When people attend, they’ll see different cultures. We even have a group of huggers that actually walk the parade route, giving hugs,” Sherrod said. “It’s just about showing community affection. We all want community. We all have to be in it together. It’s about coming together and as a community saying, ‘What can we do to better our communities? How can we be more involved? How can younger and older crowds come together?’” Sherrod said the emphasis on community and bringing people together is an important way to honor the legacy of King and what he envisioned. “It’s very deep to me because what he did when he was living and the passion he had was trying to bring everybody together, working together for a common goal of less violence and making the world a better place,” he said. “That’s actually why I joined this coalition. I want to get the word out and say, ‘OK, there’s other ways to work together to address violence. … Let’s work together to make the community safer and get people to enjoy their communities.’” During the most recent city council
40th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration 26th Annual Gospel Extravaganza 6 p.m. Saturday Tabernacle Baptist Church 1829 NE 36th St.
BLAC, Inc Presents: The Spoken Word — Community or Chaos: Are We There Yet? 7 p.m. Saturday The Auditorium at The Douglass 600 N. High St.
Annual MLK Celebration Program 3 p.m. Sunday Saint John Missionary Baptist Church 5700 N. Kelly Ave.
Annual Cross-Cultural Program 6 p.m. Sunday Temple B’nai Israel 4901 N. Pennsylvania Ave.
Prayer Breakfast
7 a.m. Monday Sheraton Midwest City Hotel at Reed Conference Center 5750 Will Rogers Road, Midwest City
MLK Coalition Job Fair
9 a.m. Monday Douglass High School 900 N. Martin Luther King Ave.
Opening Ceremony and Silent March
9 a.m. Monday Starting at Freedom Center 2609 N. Martin Luther King Ave.
Annual Bell Ringing Ceremony 11 a.m. Monday Oklahoma History Center 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive
Annual MLK Program with Panel Discussion 12:10 p.m. Monday St. Paul’s Cathedral 127 NW Seventh St.
Annual Holiday Parade
2 p.m. Monday From NW Sixth Street and Walker Avenue to Reno Avenue and Walker Avenue
chicken
friedNEWS tion rates slow or stop, as pressure from the wastewater continues to spread belowground and rupture ancient faults.” So we have that to look forward to. In Oklahoma, the moneymaker shakes you.
F-4 Hognado
Shake down
According to Oklahoma’s most recent geological survey data — to paraphrase the song made famous by amateur seismologist/underage-cousin-marrier Jerry Lee Lewis — “There’s a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on, not as much shakin’ as was goin’ on in previous record-setting years, but still, historically speaking, a relatively whole lotta shakin’.” “Earthquakes magnitude 3.0 and greater have dropped for the fourth straight year in Oklahoma,” Tulsa World staff writer Corey Jones reported Jan. 6. “There were 62 such quakes in 2019, down from 203 a year ago and the peak of 903 in 2015, according to Oklahoma Geological Survey data. … However, the state’s quake hazards remain elevated, with the seismicity rate well above the historical average of two or three 3.0s a year. The last time that average hit was in 2008 with two.” You might be tempted to blame this seismic activity on hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” — using a highly pressurized mixture of water, sand and chemicals to drill for oil and natural gas deep within the earth — but the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) says slow your roll, Johnny Greenpeace. “Only a few of the over 2000 magnitude 3 and larger earthquakes since 2009 that have occurred in Oklahoma have been connected to hydraulic fracturing,” according to the USGS website. “The majority of earthquakes in Oklahoma are caused by the industrial practice known as ‘wastewater disposal’ … a separate process in which fluid waste from oil and gas production is injected deep underground far below ground water or drinking water aquifers.” So it’s not our harmful, irresponsibly shortsighted means of extracting oil and gas that’s the problem; it’s our harmful, irresponsibly shortsighted means of disposing of the byproducts of that extraction. According to a Scientific American article from September, Oklahoma’s earthquake rates, which have increased 900-fold since 2008, “fell sharply” after 2015, “when oil demand fell as prices dropped and Oklahoma instituted new wastewater-disposal rules,” but recent studies suggest that “the effects of wastewater disposal can persist for years after injec-
A lot of people living in New York and Los Angeles made jokes about the earnest Twitter reply asking how people in rural America are supposed to defend against 30-50 feral hogs running into a yard. OK, the phrasing of the question is jarring, especially if wild hogs are the last things on your mind. The out-of-control feral hog population is very real problem. An estimated 5 million feral swine cause nearly $1.5 billion in damage and control costs nationally each year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Oklahoma is ground zero for the fight to get the feral hog population under control. We’re one of 11 states receiving federal grants through the USDA that will go to setting up pilot programs in Kay, Harmon, Jackson, Cotton and Tillman counties. The most effective strategy is employing a remote-controlled trap called a BoarBuster, according to Tulsa World. The BoarBuster is capable of trapping an entire family of hogs with the push of a button and will be placed strategically along the Red River region, where the hog population is the most dense. The last thing we need to do is illustrate the feral hog problem with some outlandish, mixed metaphors.
Logo no-go
Canada and its people get a reputation for being nice, friendly, well-meaning people, but when you cross them, you better believe they’ll get what they deserve. Nelvana Enterprises, a Canadian entertainment corporation, did just that when it sued a local dispensary for copyright infringement. The dispensary essentially copy-andpasted the logo for Treehouse TV, Nelvana’s children television brand with shows like Peppa Pig and Max & Ruby. There’s no discernible difference between the two logos save for the fact that the local business added “Dispensary” under the main image. Everything else remained the same, almost like they Googled “Treehouse logo” and saved the first thing that appeared without a watermark. Treehouse Dispensary will have to pay more than $74,000 in legal fees and stop using the logo unless they want to unleash Peppa Pig’s rage. The dispensary has since started using a slightly altered logo, which still clearly draws inspiration from their first plagiarism attempt and keeps the name “Treehouse Dispensary” but is at least noticeably different. When Nelvana initially filed the suit, they claimed the dispensary told them it would stop using the logo but refused to provide a deadline or follow through. At the time, Rob Durbin, the attorney representing Treehouse Dispensary, said the business “categorically denies that its logo infringes on any existing trademarks in the United States.” Since Nelvana is Toronto-based, Treehouse
Dispensary probably thought they could get away with the equivalent of stealing a college essay from someone who goes to a different school. Unfortunately for the attempted copyright infringers, Treehouse TV also has the logo trademarked in the United States, which seems like something to check before categorically doing anything. Durbin also initially said the dispensary would “vigorously defend” itself in the lawsuit, but they probably realized just how poorly that would play out because the dispensary actually “failed to plead or defend itself,” so the Canadian studio won in a default judgment. We’re typically not for corporations beating out small, local businesses, but when it comes to egregiously unethical actions like what the dispensary did, we can’t help but feel like justice was served in this case.
“Oklahoma is actually an F-4 state in regards to feral hogs, which is kind of similar to a tornado, that’s the worst level we can be at nationally, unfortunately,” said Oklahoma Agriculture Secretary Blayne Arthur, according to Public Radio Tulsa. The outlandish Sharknado Syfy TV movie series ended after six installments in 2018. Perhaps executives might be interested in a Hognado series set in the Arbuckle Mountains? O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 2 0
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EAT & DRINK
Pioneering pies Under new ownership, Heifers & Hens adds a bakery led by a Pioneer Pies baker. By Jacob Threadgill
Heifers & Hens Restaurant and Bakery 2219 W. Interstate 240 Service Road 405-900-5245 WHAT WORKS: The pies make it a destination while fresh food like fries and burgers make it a return visit. WHAT NEEDS WORK: The combination of macaroni and cheese with chicken in a taco didn’t hit the mark. TIP: Heifers & Hens offers beer on tap but no liquor.
Not far from the final location of Pioneer Pies, one of its former employees is helping continue the dessert tradition of the restaurant at a new venture, Heifers & Hens Restaurant and Bakery, 2219 W. Interstate 240 Service Road. Pioneer Pies, which opened in 1982 and once had three locations, closed its 2201 SW Interstate 240 Service Road restaurant at the end of 2016 and left a giant pie-sized hole in the market for homestyle pies and comfort cooking. Heifers & Hens opened earlier in 2019, but a new ownership group consisting of a pair of couples, Darryl and Lorie Pompey with her brother Brian Harris and his wife Nicole, took ownership of the restaurant in mid-November of last year.
Brian Harris worked for the Pioneer Pies location at Hefner Road near Pennsylvania Avenue for nearly four years, manning every job in the building until a baker left for the 240 Service Road location and he was pressed into action to learn its pie secrets. Harris shared the spoils of the Pioneer Pie experience with friends and family during the holiday in the decades following leaving the restaurant as he and family started other businesses, including Thunder Bounce, a bounce house rental, and running Goodnight Moon Child Care. The couples kept a commitment to providing fresh, never frozen burgers and chicken wings established by Heifers & Hens’ original owners while giving Harris an opportunity to showcase his pie-making experience. Along with Lorie Pompey, Harris is making pies that have a seal of approval from Pioneer Pies co-owner Mike Smart. “One of our waitresses put it out on social media that we had a Pioneer Pies baker in the restaurant, and the post just blew up. It has more than four times as much interaction as anything else we’ve put out,” Harris said. It drew the interest of Smart, who stopped in for a meal. He returned the next day with over 200 leftover pie tins and gave them permission to stamp the tins with the signature “Pioneer Pies” imprint. “He also said that he’d be able to get us some recipes, but I think we’re already doing alright,” Harris said. “The only one I’m having trouble with is the French A Buttercheese Pie at Heifers & Hens is also known as buttermilk or chess pie. | Photo Jacob Threadgill
Silk and getting the butter the right temperature.” Heifers & Hens has a display case by the front entrance to showcase the day’s pies, but the selection is wide-ranging. Its most popular seller is the coconut cream, and it’s joined by favorites like apple, peach, Oreo Cream, lemon and butterscotch meringue. It is also making cheesecakes like cherry and strawberry like Pioneer’s did while adding a new creation from the mind of Lorie Pompey: a pecan pie cheesecake. Heifers & Hens also continues the Pioneer top-seller Millionaire Pie, which is pecans, pineapples, cherries and coconut in a sweet cream filling. Harris’ favorite — and mine as well — is the Buttercheese Pie, which you might know as either a buttermilk or Chess Pie. “When the restaurant is full, I like to peek my head around the corner and see everyone enjoying everything,” Harris said. “I did all of the pie baking for my family, and I just missed it. It’s something about when someone comes in here and says that it tastes just like Pioneer Pies. I didn’t know Pioneer Pies was going to affect me like it has right now; that was 25 years ago.” The bulk of Heifers & Hens’ menu is built around 17 half- or full-pound fresh hamburgers that range from $9 to the $16 “Dare You!” burger with two halfpound patties, two fried eggs, three slices of American cheese, three slices of Swiss cheese, nine pieces of bacon, lettuce, pickles, mustard and mayonnaise. Other interesting burger selections include the Buffalo burger, which places hand-battered chicken strips covered in Buffalo sauce on your choice of patty. A burger topped with Velveeta macaroni and cheese is the top-seller. There is also a Hawaiian burger with grilled pineapple and teriyaki sauce, a peanut butter burger with provolone cheese and a cinnamon roll burger. I’ve heard of the Iowa tradition of serving chili with cinnamon rolls, but Heifers uses two house-made cinnamon rolls in the place of potato buns, tops the burger with cheese and drizzles the whole thing with caramel sauce. Darryl Pompey said they sell about two of them per day, and it’s a holdover from the original owners. “We sat down one day, and we were like, ‘I don’t know,’” he said of the cinnamon roll burger. “We took one bite, and that was enough to say, ‘Yup, that stays.’” It also offers boneless or bone-in chicken wings with insane, hot, medium, mild, BBQ, honey BBQ, garlic and Parmesan, teriyaki, sweet chili, Korean pepper and honey Sriracha flavors. Heifers & Hens kept its varnished look complete with country music over from left Heifer & Hens Restaurant and Bakery owners Brian Harris, Nicole Harris, Lorie Pompey and Darryl Pompey | Photo Jacob Threadgill
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top Heifers’ avocado ranch burger with bacon above Buffalo chicken tacos with macaroni and cheese | Photos Jacob Threadgill
the speakers from the original owners, Pompey said. It’s a friendly restaurant. While dining there, I saw a waitress sit down with a couple as they ate their meal. The staff has nicknames for each other as orders go in. I tried the avocado ranch burger and was pleased with the quality of the beef. The potato buns were toasted, and the bacon was the right balance of crispy with a little bit of chew. The Buffalo chicken tacos were kind of an odd adventure. The chicken tender was wellcooked; I could tell it was fresh, but the macaroni and cheese underneath didn’t add much. It had a very creamy element, but I think it would have to be reworked for me to try it again. My favorite non-dessert bite was dipping freshly cut fries into the house sauce, which is similar to a Comeback Dressing with lots of garlic, lemon juice, mayonnaise, paprika and other spices. The measure of great pie is its crust. Pioneer Pies closed its final location before I moved to Oklahoma City, so I can’t compare Heifers’ version, but I tried a slice of the Buttercheese Pie, and it was excellent. The crust was buttery and firm, while the filling was sweet and custardy. If you’re looking to fill the Pioneer Pie hole in your stomach, Heifers & Hens is the place to do it while also delivering fresh burgers and chicken.
F E AT U R E
La vie en Eleanor
As Oklahoma’s largest champagne lounge, The Eleanor is about more than popping bottles. By Jacob Threadgill
Eleanor of Aquitaine is one of the most famous and powerful women in history, as she became the queen of France (11371152) and of England (1154-1189) and led the second crusade to the Holy Land during her rule in the High Middle Ages. Her legacy been portrayed on screen by the likes of Katharine Hepburn and other stars all the way through the 2010s. When local entrepreneur Amanda Bratcher was planning a femininethemed bar centered around sparkling wines, small plates and Instagrammable atmosphere, she kept coming back to Eleanor of Aquitaine for inspiration. The royal is the namesake for The Eleanor, 317 NW 23rd St., which opened in midDecember 2019 and is Oklahoma’s largest champagne lounge. “[Eleanor of Aquitaine] was known for being extremely powerful, wealthy and not taking you-know-what from anyone,” Bratcher said. Much like the strong-willed reserve of The Eleanor’s namesake, Bratcher helped oversee a painstaking 11-month process to convert the space that formerly housed The Rockford, which saw everything except the ceiling replaced, to create a bright dining area, a showstopping bar, a green space entryway and an upstairs lounge perfect for private events and casual conversation. “This is my vision, my baby,” Bratcher said. “This is a place that I’d want to go to hang out. If I were going to meet friends, have a meeting or answer emails after work, those were the things that were in my head while we did the build-out. I want this to be a place where somewhere like me would like to go.” Even before the name The Eleanor was decided, Bratcher said she wanted
to open a lounge where women could relax, which is unique to the market. There are plenty of places to drink and have fun, but they tend to be more like sports bars, dive bars or clubs. “It’s a space where women can feel comfortable, and it doesn’t really exist in Oklahoma, let alone anywhere I’ve seen in the country,” Bratcher said. “There is one thing slightly similar in San Diego, but it’s a coffee shop. Bringing something that is unique and original to this market was probably still my favorite part. People ask me to compare it to other things, but I can’t, which I like.” Bratcher spent a month alone trying to find the right shade of pink to cover the walls, which builds into The Eleanor’s theme, la vie en rose, which means “life in pink” in French. “I was hesitant to do the all-pink thing at first because I didn’t want to it to be loud or feel like a baby’s bedroom,” Bratcher said. “It’s not a loud or a soft baby pink, a good in-between.” Bratcher worked with an interior designer to create a layout for the lounge and then took over from there. Designing the space from its signature flower wall in the bar to getting pink porcelain tiles that look like wood in a distinct Chevron patter shipped from overseas. “Delving into the design side really forced me to get uncomfortable and activate my right brain that has been overshadowed for quite sometime,” Bratcher said. “I am extremely proud of the final product of the design and overall aesthetic of The Eleanor.” The Eleanor’s logo incorporates flowers, a crown and both strong feminine and whimsical aspects, which wrap up the
lounge’s ethos in one image. Patrons that come through the entrance off 23rd Street are greeted by a large, stuffed unicorn, and a main dining area has a picture of another famous Eleanor, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Another entrance with mirrors and green leaves features a portrait of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Eleanor eats
The Eleanor is much more than just a champagne lounge or only a place for women. It also features a full liquor menu and beer to go along with small plates. “We’ve had just as many men come in and had plenty of all-male groups,” Bratcher said. The food menu is designed to accentuate pairings with sparkling wine like small bites of truffle Parmesan popcorn, Sonoma-marinated olives. There is also portabella mushroom ravioli with basil pesto ($12), grilled cheese with fireroasted tomato ($12, plus $3 for prosciutto), Nantucket lobster and shrimp salad served with crostini and arugula ($16) and a charcuterie board ($15 small, $30 large). Sweets include chocolatecovered strawberries ($16), strawberry hazelnut wafers ($9) and a macaron plate ($12). Sparkling wine is the star of The Eleanor’s menu, where it’s the centerpiece to nine sparkling cocktails, while Prosecco, Champagne, California brut and rosé are available both by the glass (on the lower tier) and the bottle. “As far as I’ve seen, we have the largest sparkling selection in the state; there is something for everyone,” Bratcher said. The top three sparkling cocktails include the motto namesake, La Vie en Rose, which is rose-infused vodka with hibiscus extract, Veuve du Vernay rosé and lemon juice garnished with rock candy and an edible flower ($10). The Queen of Everything is Grey Goose La
The Eleanor owner Amanda Bratcher wanted a feminine-themed lounge centered on the phrase “la vie en rose” (life in pink). | Photo Phillip Danner
Poire, Saint Germaine, elderflower liqueur and Veuve du Vernay brut with a lemon twist ($12). The Pink Cloud is Gordon’s rose gin, cranberry and lemonade, Veuve du Vernay rosé and a garnish of cotton candy. Happy hour 4-7 p.m. Tuesday-Friday feature $2 chambongs with the purchase of food, $5 wine and sparkling wine on tap and a chance to get Dom Pérignon by the glass for $54. A 2008 bottle of Dom Pérignon sells for $450 while a Dom Pérignon P2 from 2000 sells for $900, but those are on the highest end. There are plenty of glasses of wine available for $8-$11 and bottles that sell for $42 and $56. With a unique position in the market, Bratcher said, The Eleanor is already receiving interest to expand across the region. “[The reception has] been fantastic,” Bratcher said. “We haven’t had very much slow time, which has been a dream. The staff has been incredible with training and delivering the ultimate experience for what I envisioned for coming to The Eleanor.” Visit theeleanorokc.com.
Dipped strawberries and sparkling wine cocktails at The Eleanor | Photo Phillip Danner O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 2 0
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EAT & DRINK from left Traci Stone, Tami Stone-Lake, and Sheli Stenseth are owners of Stone Sisters Pizza Bar and Stone Edibles. | Photo Phillip Danner
to absorb nutrients. Soaking spelt, which remains in its ancient form, is untouched by modern processing methods, creating the sprouting process, which changes its biochemical form and the body processes it like a vegetable carbohydrate instead of a bread carb. Through Stone Edibles, the Happie Flower Pizza edible — in dosages of 24, 48, 100, 250, 500 and 1,000 milligrams — began being distributed to participating dispensaries throughout the state in January. The two varieties of pizza edible are a Happie Flower vegan pizza featuring vegan cheese made from cashews, cannellini beans and nutritional yeast and a vegan beef pizza made from pea protein isolate and other ingredients. It also offers a Happie Flower threecheese pizza that features both spicy and smoked cheeses on the sprouted spelt crust. Like all of the ingredients at Stone Sisters Pizza Bar, all ingredients are certified organic. “The smoked cheese [on the pizza] is like eating a piece of bacon,” Stenseth said. “We’ve had vegetarians get mad because we thought we snuck bacon in there, but it was just the smoked cheese.”
COV E R
Cannabis cooking
Happie Flower
Using its ‘miracle’ sprouted spelt crust, the folks behind Stone Sisters Pizza Bar are disrupting THC-infused edible pizzas across the state. By Jacob Threadgill
Sometimes the most obvious joke is the one you should make. When the sisters behind Stone Sisters Pizza Bar thought about joining the medical cannabis field, they couldn’t resist. “With the last name Stone, how can you not get involved?” said co-owner Traci Stone. “In high school, their nickname was the Stoner Sisters,” said younger sister Sheli Stenseth. The jokes came easy, but entering the field turned out to be a much tougher process. Stenseth said that even before the medical cannabis referendum was passed, they wanted to enter the edible field. “A good friend of mine approached me and said they had some people who needed a processor kitchen and it morphed into gummies or something,” Stenseth said. “Everyone does a gummy. We do pizzas already; why couldn’t we do pizzas? We were kind of stuck because we didn’t know how to measure the THC.” The hurdle needed to clear the way to the creations of the Stone Edibles company and its signature product the 12
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Happie Flower Pizza came by chance. Jonna Nowakowski is a trained chef and helped get Nature’s Key Edibles off the ground, but when the company unexpectedly let her go while retaining her recipes, she found herself delivering food through Postmates for some extra cash. During a Postmates pick-up at Stone Sisters Pizza Bar, 2121 N. Broadway Ave., Nowakowski overheard Traci Stone talking about having problems with creating a gummy. “I wasn’t even thinking about a job when I said I’d help with conversions,” Nowakowski said. “I didn’t know they were hiring a cannabis chef. I followed up two weeks later. Three weeks later, Sheli called and asked to meet, and the rest is history.” After getting a processor’s license and securing a separate kitchen for cooking with cannabis, Nowakowski got to work creating pizza edibles made with Stone Sisters Pizza Bar’s unique “miracle” crust made from sprouted spelt, which is a low-carb, low-glycemic product that increases the body’s ability
The sisters refer to Nowakowski as their “weed wonder woman,” and the feelings are reciprocated. “Had I not done Postmates, I would’ve never had this chance,” Nowakowski said. “It’s been amazing. The minute I walked in, it felt completely different. My trust and faith had been thrown in the dirt.” Nowakowski infused the sauce, which makes for better medicinal application than trying to infuse the crust because the crust rises with yeast and must be punched down, which she said would create THC pockets and less consistent product. “Pizza is universal, but the exciting part is the quality,” Nowakowski said. “I’ve never worked in a restaurant where people have cared so much about the quality of the product. Not only does the pizza taste amazing, but diabetics and people who normally can’t have edibles because they’re so sugar-laden are going to have the opportunity, and that is exciting.” Nowakowski prefers working with cannabis that is full-spectrum, full of THC, CBD and retaining all of its terpenes and cannabinoids for what she refers to as the “entourage effect.” “It’s still going to give you a head high, but it benefits so many different ailments,” she said, “people after chemo replenishing their system, anxiety, depression, insomnia, but every terpene has a different job. I can pick certain terpenes and introduce them back into the oil for specific ailments. When we start getting feedback from the pizzas, we can have people specify what they’re looking for. Our goal is to help patients
HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM
that really want to benefit from everything THC.” She said most edible companies use distillate for their products, which strips terpenes and cannabinoids from the cannabis because they want to remove cannabis after-taste. By cooking in a savory setting, she’s able to use herbs and spices to cover up the cannabis after-taste. “Some people like to taste it just because they want to know the THC is in there,” Nowakowski said. “When you strip out the terpenes and cannabinoids, you’re losing the good stuff and left with the THC. We have both. Why can’t we reach those people that truly want the health benefits?” Stone Edibles is already available at dispensaries throughout the state. Stenseth said they want to market the edible product to other states with legal cannabis laws.
Food Issue Thank You Patrons for Your Support of 25 Years!
Publishes February 5 DeaDlines January 29
FOLLOW US ON FOR SPECIALS & EXCLUSIVE OFFERS Lunch - Dinner All Day Every Day Buffet
412 S Meridian 405.948.7373
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Three-cheese THC-infused Happie Flower edible pizzas | Photo Phillip Danner
“We’ve been trying to distribute the [non-infused sprouted spelt] crust and the pizza nationally, but we’ve just hit so many roadblocks,” Stenseth said. “This has fast-tracked us.” Visit stoneedibles.com for a list of dispensaries carrying Happie Flower pizzas. Correction: In the Jan. 1 issue of Gazette, the Gazedibles section mentioning Stone Sister Pizza Bar mistakenly referred to “sprouted wheat” instead of its sprouted spelt crust. Stone Sisters provides gluten-friendly spelt crust, in addition to an organic unbleanched white crust. Cauliflower and gluten-free crusts are available on 10-inch medium pizzas only.
free bomb pops for kids E ATAT T H E G A r ag e . c o m O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 2 0
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GAZEDIBLES
EAT & DRINK
Seeking heat
Are you something of a heat seeker? This is your week to rejoice, as Thursday is International Hot and Spicy Food Day. These seven restaurants will allow you to test your heat sensors. By Jacob Threadgill with provided and Gazette / file photos
Deckle Smokehouse
324 W. Edmond Road, Edmond decklesmokehousebbq.com 405-430-7649 Anyone interested in attempting Deckle’s Hot Leg Challenge has to sign a fourpage waiver to make sure they’re of sound mind and body. A turkey leg is marinated in the world’s three hottest peppers: Carolina reaper, Trinidad scorpion and ghost pepper. It’s then covered in 151-proof rum and lit on fire to activate all of the chili oil. If you complete it in 30 minutes, you end up on the Wall of Hotness and get a free chicken dinner.
Nashbird
1 NW Ninth St. nashbirdchicken.com | 405-600-9718 For the uninitiated, Nashville-style hot chicken might look similar to a Buffalo sauce, but the method for creating heat is different. Whereas traditional Buffalo sauce is hot sauce and butter, in Nashville-style, spices are bloomed in oil to create more depth of flavor with a fiery kick. Order the four exclamation point crazy hot level to test your heat limits.
Casa Perico Mexican Grille
12219 N. Pennsylvania Ave. casaperico.com | 405-755-1506
While other restaurants lean toward keeping their complimentary salsa on the mild side of things, Casa Perico is where heat-seekers can get a good start to their meals. Casa Perico serves its habanero warm in a cast-iron skillet for an extra touch and added flavor — serving it cold, particularly with tomatoes, robs it of some flavor. The rest of Casa Perico’s menu includes both Tex-Mex and traditional items, including a large vegetarian section.
LIVE ENTERTAI N M ENT I M M ERSIVE ART DANCE PARTY
Souled Out Friday, Jan. 17, 8 p.m. Equilibrium
Saturday, Jan. 18, 8 p.m.
Faculty Artist Concert SeriesDavid Hardman and Friends Tuesday, Jan. 21, 7:30 p.m.
Brian Gorrell & Jazz Company Friday, Jan. 24, 8 p.m.
Miss Brown To You
Saturday, Jan. 25, 8 p.m.
Uncle Zep with Edgar Cruz Wednesday, Jan. 29, 8 p.m.
Jessica Tate
Friday, Jan. 31, 8 p.m.
Smilin’ Vic
Saturday, Feb. 1, 8 p.m.
Shortt Dogg
Friday, Feb. 7, 8 p.m.
Headliner: Ashley Cleveland
Saturday, Feb. 15, 8 p.m.
For tickets, visit www.ucojazzlab.com or call 405-974-2100. 100 E 5th St, Edmond, 73034 14
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 8PM FACTORY OBSCURA 25 NW 9TH STREET ON AUTOMOBILE ALLEY IN OKC
TICKETS: DEADCENTERFILM.ORG/GLITTERBALL
The Flying Pig BBQ
Wing Supreme
Chuanyu Fusion
Panang 5 Thai Restaurant
Certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s hottest chili pepper, the ghost pepper (bhut jolokia) is 400 times hotter than Tabasco. As The Flying Pig BBQ has gone from food truck to a permanent home in The Collective Kitchens + Cocktails food hall, its ghost pepper barbecue sauce has followed it. It’s is a fiery addition to its daily selection of brisket, smoked sausage, pork ribs and pulled pork. Check for daily specials like chicken and beef ribs.
Oklahoma City’s self-proclaimed king of wings sets itself apart by cooking its bone-in wings in the sauce with additional herbs and spices; it’s not just drizzled on finished wings. You can order 18 different flavors, but heat-seekers should try the hot or KO’s. If you’re looking for something different, order the Boom Boom Shrimp.
Málà is a combination of Chinese characters meaning numbing and hot. The Sichuan peppercorn is the secret to achieving this unique feeling, which actually registers as an electrical sensation in your mouth. It’s the basis of many dishes at this traditional Sichuan-style restaurant that has a menu full of items not found at other restaurants in the city. The Dry Spicy Tasty Beef has both numbing Sichuan peppercorns and spicy whole chili peppers.
Panang 5’s Evil Jungle Curry is one of its most popular dishes. The restaurant uses the ubiquitous 1-5 number system to allow customers to dictate how spicy they’d like the dish to be. The Jungle Curry is served at a 2 unless specified. If you want to make the curry truly evil, turn it all the way to 5, like a Spinal Tap amplifier goes to 11.
308 NW 10th St. theflyingpigbbq.net | 405-728-7675
3925 N. Lincoln Blvd. wingsupreme.com | 405-702-5464
Hot Ham & Swiss on Rye Served with jalapeno mustard and seasoned chips
7011 W. Hefner Road chuanyufusion1.com | 405-367-7977
3325 S. Boulevard, Edmond panangthaifood.com | 405-285-5188
ART IN A NEW LIGHT
BUILDING OPENS MARCH 2020
ALL DAY, EVERY DAY IN JANUARY
$7.99
NOW SERVING RAMEN! GRANDRESORTOK.COM
Experience contemporary art and creativity in a new and unforgettable setting.
oklahomacontemporary.org Free admission NW 11th and Broadway, Oklahoma City
I-40 EXIT 178 I SHAWNEE, OK I 405-964-7263
O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 2 0
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ARTS
ARTS & CULTURE
Reflecting Poole
Sideshow spotlights O. Gail Poole’s multifaceted exploration of “absurdism and human folly.”
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By Jeremy Martin
Nicole Poole doesn’t remember her father ever taking her to the circus, but she said he “didn’t need to.” “Every time I walked into the studio was another bearded lady or another freak or another something,” Poole said. Many of these “somethings” painted by her father, Oklahoma artist O. Gail Poole, are on display in Sideshow Jan. 24-May 10 at Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at University of Oklahoma, 555 Elm Ave., in Norman. Nicole Poole, who will make a presentation at the museum 6:30 p.m. Feb. 20, said the exhibition showcases her father’s studies of “absurdism and human folly.” “In the late ’90s, Dad was really exploring his imagination, with regard to masks and magical realism, puppets, religious icons, political icons,” Nicole Poole said. “But at the same time, he was still doing academic nudes and traditional still lifes and landscapes. He was driven to create, and some periods were more fertile than others. … He would get fascinated by things, sure, but I think the only real theme with Dad’s work was with searching. He was always trying to better himself and always trying to find some different side of himself or humanity to express.”
Once you start peeling back the layers of what Oklahoma wants you to see, it’s pretty fabulous. Nicole Poole Kaylee Kain, director of communication at the museum, said O. Gail Poole “dabbled in just about every form and was proficient with all of them,” but Sideshow features works from his underappreciated expressionist and abstract period. “These were the ones that we thought hadn’t been given their due just yet,” Kain said. “All together, it’s a very interesting exhibition due to the disturbed and the unsettling nature of these types of sideshows. … These are maybe the ones people haven’t seen the most but should have a great deal of spotlight on them now.” Kain said the works in Sideshow will be displayed in a way that suits their unusual themes. “I don’t want to give too much away because I really want people to come and explore this for themselves,” Kain said, “but we’re really playing up the 16
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“Shot From a Cannon” by O. Gail Poole | Image provided
sideshow and/or carnival aspect, the circus side of this exhibition, so there will be different colored lighting than we usually would use and draping that we’re going to use to really highlight some of the more disturbed pieces. I think they’ll contrast and complement each other nicely.” If you feel lost or confused while looking at O. Gail Poole’s artwork, Nicole Poole suggests you embrace it. “Just entertain uncertainty,” Nicole Poole said. “Think for yourself. Imagine what he could have meant and what does it mean to you, because I can make up some bullshit all you like about, ‘This means this and this means that,’ but that’s doing a disservice to both of us if I do that.” Nicole Poole compared the process of selecting works from the vast and varied oeuvre she inherited when her father died in 2013 to “alchemy.” She keeps a detailed searchable database of the works she has stored in climatecontrolled storage spaces in Norman and on Film Row, but when asked how many paintings there are, she declined to give an official number. “That’s like asking a rancher how many head of cattle he’s got,” Nicole Poole said. “It’s big. It’s really big. It’s unwieldy big. I’m not comfortable giving away the actual number, but I have a few acres of art. … It’s crazy. There’s no model for what I’ve got. Trust me; I’ve done every Google search. Now there’s like, ‘Hey, if you’ve inherited an artist’s estate, let us handle it for you.’ None of that shit existed when dad died in 2013, and I didn’t want to have a bonfire. I didn’t want to just go to an auction house. It’s too damned important, especially now, as we’re starting to really
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4 1. “Dealing with Al” | 2. “The Jury” 3.“Female Icon”| 4. Mental Dilemma/No Joke” by O. Gail Poole | Images provided
celebrate our artists. We’re starting to get a sense of our identity and honor who we are. Dad’s voice is an important part of that. I’m just waiting for everybody else to get in line.”
Defying categorization
The hard-to-classify nature of her father’s work — which includes impressionism, abstraction, surrealism and more traditional portraits and landscapes — made it more difficult to sell when he was alive. “There was none of this relativity bullshit in Oklahoma back in the days
before social media,”” Nicole Poole said. “You were either a traditional painter who painted cowboys and Natives and landscape and pretty things or you were out there, and Dad straddled those things pretty well. Now, thankfully, we are more accepting of plurality artistically, and that’s why I think right now is the perfect time for dad to come back.” O. Gail Poole once worked as a commercial artist and cofounded the advertising firm Poole-Hobbes, Inc., but after he left the industry, he intentionally resisted making his work more marketable. “My dad was never going to be the guy who did something that you could hang over your couch,” Nicole Poole said. “He didn’t paint for the market; he painted for himself. Yeah, and there’s a deep, deep mine to dig down into to discover our voices as a society in his work. … There is something incredibly important in that exploration, because if an artist is only creating for a market, then we don’t actually get a good view of who we are as a society. If an artist is supposed to be a mirror of wherever society is but every artist is just painting what’s going to sell it, it’s a screwed-up, shallow feedback loop.” Art that challenges expectations and refuses easy categorization is especially important as a reflection of modern Oklahoma, Nicole Poole said. “Oklahoma has spent decades trying to be other states, and I feel like we’re just now hitting maturity to where we can own our plurality and diversity and our problematic descriptions,” Nicole Poole said. “Are we the South? Are we the West? Are we the Southwest? Are we the Midwest? Who the hell are we? And the answer is, ‘Yes. We are all of that stuff.’ … Once you start peeling back the layers of what Oklahoma wants you to see, it’s pretty fabulous.” O. Gail Poole’s art also reflects the many, often contradictory and indefinable facets of the individual. “Dad had moods, like all of us,” Nicole Poole said. “None of us are the same person in any given damn moment. The more we try to fake that we are, the more repressed and messed up that we end up being. And I think Dad loosened up the boundaries between the different aspects of himself and explored as many of them as he possibly could. That makes us deeply uncomfortable, but his constant search for authenticity, I think, is very relevant to where we are today. None of our masks are working anymore.” Admission is free. Call 405-325-3272 or visit ou.edu/fjjma.
O. Gail Poole’s Sideshow Jan. 24-May 10 Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art University of Oklahoma 555 Elm Ave., Norman ou.edu/fjjma 405-325-3272 Free
T H E AT E R
PRESENTS
Garden variety
Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble features four distinct works in Rustic Gardens. By Jeremy Martin
The works selected for Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble’s upcoming concert all sound significantly different, co-artistic director and clarinetist Chad Burrow said, but he recommends you listen to them in the same way. “Essentially, you can think of each of the four pieces like you’re walking through a garden,” Burrow said. “Each of them has different aspects, different beautiful things to look at and peculiarities. The name is not so much reflective of the pieces themselves; it’s just the idea of each of them having something very different to say artistically. … If someone goes into an art gallery or a garden, as they go from one idea or one painting or one plant, they’re viewing one thing at a time, and it has its own world that you can look at and you can enjoy and then you move on to the next thing. Each of the four pieces are very distinct in that way. … Sometimes there are pieces that you think the audience should hear that fall neatly into a program, and other times they don’t.” Brightmusic plays Rustic Gardens 7 p.m. Tuesday at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, 127 NW Seventh St. Burrow said the concert features “everything from modern all the way back to Mozart with a couple of major signposts in between,” but the title’s “rustic” descriptor was actually inspired by its most recent work — American composer Libby Larsen’s Barn Dances, which premiered in Dallas in 2001. According to the composer’s note on Larsen’s website, “Barn Dances is a set of four abstract pieces for flute, clarinet and piano. Each piece draws its title from the name of a particular dance step used in cowboy dances. Taking the name of the step as the point of departure, my idea was to take a flight of fancy in each movement and to create the musical equivalent of a character drawing.” Barn Dances’ four pieces are named
Co-artistic director Chad Burrow said the concert features “everything from modern all the way back to Mozart with a couple of major signposts in between.” | Photo performingartsphotos.com / provided
after square dance terms such as “Forward Six and Fall Back Eight” and “Rattlesnake Twist.” The second piece, titled “Divide the Ring (Homage for Gene Autry),” is inspired by the “cowboy swing” of songs such as “Don’t Fence Me In,” a 1934 song by Cole Porter and Robert Fletcher popularized by Autry, Roy Rogers and Ella Fitzgerald.
FAITH PRINCE 7:30PM, JANUARY 24, 2020 MITCHELL HALL THEATRE
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Sometimes there are pieces that you think the audience should hear that fall neatly into a program, and other times they don’t. Chad Burrow “Embedded within each piece is a rhythmic feature that comes from a particular dance step,” Burrow said. “Not being an expert in square dancing and what [Larsen] calls ‘cowboy dances,’ I can’t tell you what those are, but you’ll hear things in the first movement like open fifths that sound like fiddling in between the instruments, in the piano, the clarinet and the flute. So there are notes, you might say, of the cowboy element throughout, and some of them will be overt and obvious, and others are more hidden. I don’t think there’s any fear of anyone standing up and square dancing. … The rest of the music is fairly highbrow in relation to that piece.” Each of the concerts in Brightmusic’s current season features a work by a female composer, Burrow said, and Larsen is “one of the most brilliant composers still writing.” continued on page 18
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“I think her music is just fantastic,” Burrow said. “It’s always interesting and creative; sometimes there’s an element of Americana. … Her style is very relevant and contemporary and quite wonderful, in my opinion.”
Breaking free
Barn Dances will be followed by German composer Carl Maria von Weber’s “Clarinet Quintet in B flat major.” Burrow said the piece, written between 1811 and 1815 for clarinetist Heinrich Baermann, “exploits the clarinet for its full virtuosic potential.” “Weber himself was an opera composer, and the work is operatic,” Burrow said. “It features the clarinet prominently. The strings have more of an accompanimental role in this particular work, although it’s a vital role, but again, it’s one of the most brilliant works for the clarinet in the 19th-century chamber repertoire. It’s a work that I play regularly; it’s a big, audience-friendly piece; it’s enjoyable; it’s tuneful. It shows off the clarinet, frankly. … It’s a wonderful example of what composers were doing at the beginning of the 19th century. … They were really exploring the potential, artistically and technically, of the instruments.” In contrast, Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Quartet No. 1 for Flute and Strings in D major,” which will follow Weber’s quintet, was written on commission in 1777 for amateur flutist Willem Britten de Jong. “Only three or for decades separate the composition of the two pieces, but they’re really in quite different universes,” Burrow said. “Mozart never sounds, in my opinion at least, as if he’s merely showing off. There’s always an integrity to what he’s doing. Weber is unashamedly showing off the clarinet.” In a letter to his father, Mozart complained that he had difficulty writing for an instrument that he “cannot bear,” but nevertheless, German musicologist Alfred Einstein wrote that
the quartet features “perhaps the most beautiful accompanied solo ever written for the flute.” “The work is incredibly tuneful,” Burrow said. “It has a beautiful, slow movement with pizzicato strings where the flute just sustains this gorgeous melody. It’s classic early Mozart. There’s some brilliance, certainly for the flute, but its overwhelming tunefulness is something that I think the audience will take away from this. Mozart wrote a great deal for the flute. ... He knew the instrument well and knew how to make the flute sound particularly good.” Flutist Amy Porter, winner of Japan’s Third Kobe International Flute Competition and professor at University of Michigan, and pianist Stephen Buck, professor at Purchase College, State University of New York will be featured guest artists. The concert will conclude with Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg’s “Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E major,” arranged by Anton Webern for violin, cello, flute, clarinet and piano. Composed in 1906, the piece is a bridge between Schoenberg’s early Romantic-influenced work and the atonal pieces that would follow. “It’s kind of the final vestiges of late 19th-century German Romanticism,” Burrow said. “‘Emancipation of dissonance’ is the phrase that’s used oftentimes to describe what is about to come. This is the last piece he’s going to write that falls within this more tonal, romantic framework, literally before the 20th century and modernism come to the fore. … It is progressive in that it takes the 19th-century harmony and form to the breaking point and it is also very much looking backward in that it hasn’t quite broken free.” Admission is free-$20. Visit brightmusic.org.
Rustic Gardens 7 p.m. Tuesday Saint Paul’s Cathedral 127 NW Seventh St. brightmusic.org Free-$20
Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble plays Rustic Gardens 7 p.m. Tuesday at Saint Paul’s Cathedral. | Photo performingartsphotos.com / provided 18
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CALENDAR BOOKS Brunching with Books a book club meeting every other week, with reading selections chosen by group preference, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays. Buttermilk Paseo, 605 NW 28th St., 405-605-6660, buttermilkokc.com. SAT LGBTQ+ Book Club meet to discuss On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, 6-8 p.m. Jan . 15. Full Circle Bookstore, 1900 Northwest Expressway, 405-842-2900, fullcirclebooks.com. WED Nothing Daunted Women’s Book Discussion Group meet to discuss the book Milkman by Anna Burns, 7-8:30 p.m. Jan. 16. Full Circle Bookstore, 1900 Northwest Expressway, 405-842-2900, fullcirclebooks.com. THU
FILM Color Out of Space (2019, USA, Richard Stanley) Nicholas Cage stars in this adaptation of a classic sci-fi horror story by H.P. Lovecraft, 7:30-10 p.m. Jan. 22. Rodeo Cinema, 2221 Exchange Ave., 405-2353456. WED Honey Boy (2019, USA, Alma Har’el) Shia LaBeouf (who also wrote the screenplay) stars in this dramatic film about a child actor’s difficult coming-ofage, through Jan. 16. Rodeo Cinema, 2221 Exchange Ave., 405-235-3456. FRI-THU Judy (2019, UK, Rupert Goold) Renée Zellweger stars as iconic Hollywood star Judy Garland in this Golden Globe winning bio-pic, Jan. 17-19. Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive, 405-236-3100, okcmoa.com. FRI-SUN Oklahoma City University High School Film Festival see the work of student filmmakers at this screening featuring narrative, documentary, animation, and experimental films, Jan. 19. Rodeo Cinema, 2221 Exchange Ave., 405-235-3456. SUN Red Dog (2019, USA, Luke Dick) musician Luke Dick directs this documentary about his childhood in and around the Red Dog strip club where his mother worked, through Jan. 16. Rodeo Cinema, 2221 Exchange Ave., 405-235-3456. FRI-THU VHS & Chill: Blockbusted Video a cult-classic film screening where audience participation and commentary is encouraged, 7-9:30 p.m. Jan. 15. The Paramount Room, 701 W. Sheridan Ave., 405-8873327, theparamountroom.com. WED VHS & CHILL: VHS Roulette watch a randomly selected VHS tape and bring your own tapes for a chance to put them on the wheel of fortune at this screening event, 8p.m. Jan. 16. Lost Highway, 1613 N. May Ave., 405-601-5606, losthighwaybar.com. THU
Adult Night at Mix-Tape We all love Factory Obscura’s large-scale family-friendly interactive art installation Mix-Tape, but sometimes it would be nice, frankly, if there weren’t quite so many families. On the third Thursday of every month, Mix-Tape stays open later to let visitors 18 and older explore the space for themselves. Grab a drink from the cash bar, watch a new short documentary about Factory Obscura’s collaboration with Santa Fe’s Meow Wolf and participate in a scavenger hunt for a chance to win a prize. Now that’s adulting 7-9 p.m. Thursday at Factory Obscura, 25 NW Ninth St. Tickets are $15. Visit factoryobscura. fun. THURSDAY Photo Todd E. Clark / provided
HAPPENINGS 405Fest a meetup for young creators featuring live music, a fashion show and local vendors 6:30 p.m.-2 a.m. Jan. 18. OKC Farmers Market, 311 S. Klein Ave., 4054860701. SAT
Conversational Spanish Group Meetup an opportunity for all experience levels to practice speaking Spanish, 7 p.m. Tuesdays. Full Circle Bookstore, 1900 Northwest Expressway, 405-842-2900, fullcirclebooks.com. TUE
Afro Beats a dance party with soca, hip-hop, Caribbean, dancehall and other genres of music provided by DJ Sinz, 11 p.m.-2 a.m. Fridays. Glass Lounge, 5929 N. May Ave., 405-835-8077, glasshouseokc.com. FRI
Devon Ice Rink ice stake in the Myriad Botanical Gardens and enjoy seasonal food and beverages., Mondays-Sundays. through Feb. 2. Devon Ice Rink, 100 N. Robinson Ave., 405-708-6499, downtownindecember.com/devon-ice-rink. FRI-SUN
Best of British Tour get a sneak peak of Triumph Motorcycles’ 2020 model lineup and enjoy appetizers, a cash bar and live music by Sam Pace, 6-10 p.m. Jan. 16. Anthem Brewing Company, 908 SW Fourth St., 405-604-0446, anthembrewing.com. THU
Downtown Recyclers Toastmasters practice your public speaking skills at this ongoing weekly meeting, noon-1 p.m. Wednesdays. Department of Environmental Quality, 707 N. Robinson Ave., 405702-0100, deq.state.ok.us. WED
Board Game Day enjoy local craft beer while playing old-school board and arcade games with friends, 5-8 p.m. Sundays. FlashBack RetroPub, 814 W. Sheridan Ave., 405-633-3604, flashbackretropub.com. SUN
Drag Me to Bingo bingo night hosted by Teabaggin Betsy, 9 p.m. Tuesdays. Partners, 2805 NW 36th St., 405-942-2199, partners4club.com. TUE First We Dance, Then We Greet, Then We Eat learn to cook a dish and do a dance at this community meet-up, 2-4:30 p.m. Jan. 18. SixTwelve, 612 NW 29th St., 405-208-8291, sixtwelve.org. SAT Gardening 101: Soil and Composting learn how to provide nutritious, mineral-rich topsoil for your plants and make a home for beneficial worms, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Jan. 18. Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Place, 405-602-6664, sciencemuseumok. org. SAT Governor’s Club Toastmasters lose your fear of public speaking and gain leadership skills by practicing in a fun and low-stakes environment, noon-1 p.m. Wednesdays. Oklahoma Farm Bureau Building, 2501 N. Stiles Ave., 405-523-2300, okfarmbureau. org. WED Her Flag star field sewing event visual artist Marilyn Artus will complete a part of her collaborative art project commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment at this event also featuring live music by Carter Sampson and a lecture by history professor Sunu Kodumthara, 2:30 p.m. Jan. 18. Oklahoma History Center, 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive, 405-521-2491, okhistory.org. SAT Home + Garden Show get ideas for decorating, landscaping and more at this event featuring guest speakers and exhibits, Jan. 17-19. Oklahoma State Fair Park, 3220 Great Plains Walk, 405-948-6700, okstatefair.com. FRI-SUN Jackbox.tv Game Night play interactive party games with host Alex Sanchez, 8-10 p.m. Mondays. Oak & Ore, 1732 NW. 16th St., 405-606-2030, oakandore.com. MON
The Mystery of Love and Sex Playwright and screenwriter Bathsheba “Bash” Doran (Boardwalk Empire, Masters of Sex) based dramatic comedy The Mystery of Love and Sex on her personal experience exploring her sexuality while growing up in a conservative Jewish family in North London. Over the course of five years, the play, directed by Rhonda Clark, follows college-age friends Charlotte (played by Hannah Youngblood) and Jonny (Kylan Durant) as they navigate the complicated interplay between romantic relationships and individual identity. Amy Tucker and Ed Spinelli also star as Charlotte’s parents whose lengthy marriage is fraught with problems of its own. The play runs through Feb. 1 at Carpenter Square Theatre, 806 W. Main St. Tickets are $5-$25. Call 405-232-6500 or visit carpentersquare.com. THROUGH FEB. 1 Photo provided
Karaoke Night perform your favorite songs on a stage with a light display and professional sound system, 8 p.m. Dec. 25. Bison Witches Bar & Deli, 211 E Main St., Norman, 405-364-7555, bisonwitchesok. com. WED Martin Luther King Jr. Parade commemorate the legacy of the civil rights leader at this annual parade, 2-5 p.m. Jan. 20. NW Sixth Street and Walker Avenue, 405-235-3500, downtownokc.com. MON Midwest City Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Prayer Breakfast celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. at this 23d annual event featuring guest speakers discussing the theme of unity, 7 a.m. Jan. 20. Reed Conference Center, Sheraton Hotel, 5750 Will Rogers road, 405-455-1800, starwoodhotels.com/sheraton.
Moore Chess Club play in tournaments and learn about the popular board game at this weekly event where all ages and skill levels are welcome, 1-4 p.m. Sundays. Moore Library, 225 S. Howard Ave. SUN Pooches on the Patio bring your best friend to this dog-friendly happy hour with drink specials, appetizers and free pet treats, 4-7 p.m. Saturdays. Café 501 Classen Curve, 5825 NW Grand Blvd., 405844-1501, cafe501.com. SAT Renegade Poker compete in a 2-3 hour tournament with cash prizes, 3 p.m. Sundays. Bison Witches Bar & Deli, 211 E Main St., Norman, 405-3647555, bisonwitchesok.com. SUN Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Banquet a fundraising event for the Marcella Guthrie Scholarship Fund featuring guest speaker Congresswoman Kendra Horn, 7 p.m. Jan. 17. Embassy Suites, 741 N. Phillips Ave., 405-239-3900, embassysuites3.hilton.com/en/hotels/oklahoma/ embassy-suites-by-hilton-oklahoma-city-downtownmedical-center-OKCOKES/index.html. FRI Toastmasters Meeting hone public speaking and leadership skills in a move-at-your own pace environment, 7-8:30 p.m. Thursdays. McFarlin United Methodist Church, 419 S. University Drive, Norman, 623-810-0295. THU Trivia Night at Black Mesa Brewing test your knowledge at this weekly competition hosted by BanjoBug Trivia, 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays. Black Mesa Brewing Company, 1354 W Sheridan Ave., 405-7781865, blackmesabrewing.com. TUE Trivia Night at Matty McMillen’s answer questions for a chance to win prizes at this weekly trivia night, 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays. Matty McMillen’s Irish Pub, 2201 NW 150th St., 405-607-8822, mattymcmillens. com. TUE Witch’n in the Kitchen - Dream Potions learn about dream teas, potions and pillows at this workshop taught by Amber Candle, 2-4 p.m. Jan. 18. Labyrinth Temple, 417 NW 25th St., facebook.com/ labyrinthtempleokc. SAT
FOOD Dinner by the Decades enjoy a retro cocktail dinner with dishes and drinks inspired by the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, Jan. 16 and 20. Café 501, 501 S. Boulevard, Edmond, 405-359-1501, cafe501.com. THU-MON Norman Chocolate Festival enjoy desserts and other chocolate confections at this fundraising event for the Norman Parent Teacher Association, 4 p.m. Jan. 18. Norman North High School, 1809 Stubbeman Ave. SAT OKC Farmers Market a year round farmers market featuring fresh produce, honey, baked goods, meat, handmade goods and more., Saturdays, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. OKC Farmers Market, 311 S. Klein Ave., 4054860701, okcfarmersmarket.com. SAT Veggie Dinner enjoy a multi-course vegetarian meal paired with wine, 6:30 p.m. Jan. 21. Picasso Cafe, 3009 Paseo St., 405-602-2002, picassosonpaseo.com. TUE
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YOUTH Art Adventures children can enjoy story time and related activities, 10:30 a.m. Tuesdays. Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 555 Elm Ave., Norman, 405-325-3272, ou.edu/fjjma. TUE Beginning Martial Arts Classes students age 7 and older can learn martial arts from instructor Darrell Sarjeant at this weekly class, 4:30-5:30 p.m. Thursdays. Nappy Roots, 3705 Springlake Drive, 405-896-0203, facebook. com/pg/nappyrootsbooks. THU
Early Explorers toddlers and preschoolers can participate in fun scientific activities they can repeat later at home, 10-11 a.m. Thursdays. Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Place, 405-602-6664, sciencemuseumok.org. THU PJ Masks Live Catboy, Owlette, and Gekko star in this musical show based on the children’s series, 2 p.m. Jan. 19. Chesapeake Energy Arena, 100 W. Reno Ave., 405-602-8700, chesapeakearena.com. SUN Reading Wednesdays a weekly storytime with hands-on activities, goody bags and reading-themed photo ops, 9:30-10:30 a.m. Wednesdays. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. WED Sankofa Chess Club children age 7 and older are invited to learn chess in this club meeting weekly, 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesdays. Nappy Roots, 3705 Springlake Drive, 405-896-0203, facebook.com/pg/nappyrootsbooks. WED Storytime Science the museum invites children age 6 and younger to hear a story and participate in a related scientific activity, 10 a.m. Tuesdays and Saturdays. Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Place, 405-602-6664, sciencemuseumok.org. TUE
PERFORMING ARTS Chris Tucker the standup comic and Rush Hour actor will perform, 7 p.m. Jan. 18. Riverwind Casino, 1544 W. State Highway 9, Norman, 405-322-6000, riverwind.com. SAT David B. Hooten the Oklahoma-based trumpeter will perform Dixieland jazz, 7:30 p.m. Jan. 16. Armstrong Auditorium, 14400 S. Bryant Ave., Edmond, 405-285-1010, armstrongauditorium.org. THU Divine Comedy a weekly local showcase hosted by CJ Lance and Josh Lathe and featuring a variety of comedians from OKC and beyond, 9 p.m. Wednesdays. 51st Street Speakeasy, 1114 NW 51st St., 405-463-0470, 51stspeakeasy.com. WED Don Quixote Open Mic a weekly comedy show followed by karaoke, 7:30-9 p.m. Fridays. Don Quixote Club, 3030 N. Portland Ave., 405-947-0011. FRI Dope Poetry Night read your poems or just go to listen to others at this open mic hosted by J. Wiggins and Proverb, 7 p.m. Wednesdays. Ice Event Center & Grill, 1148 NE 36th St., 405-208-4240, iceeventcentergrill.eat24hour.com. WED Iron Horse Open Mic and Showcase perform music on stage at this show open to all experience levels, 7-10 p.m. Wednesdays. Iron Horse Bar & Grill, 9501 S. Shields Blvd., 405-735-1801. WED Joel Forlenza: The Piano Man the pianist performs variety of songs made famous by Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and, of course, Billy Joel, 5:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Othello’s Italian Restaurant, 434 Buchanan Ave., Norman, 405-701-4900, othellos.us. TUE-FRI Kendell’s Open Mic play up to four songs at this weekly music open mic, 8-11 p.m. Tuesdays. Kendell’s, 110 S. May Ave., kendellsbar.com. TUE Ladies Night percussionist David Hardman will perform as part of the University of Central Oklahoma’s Faculty Artists Concert Series, 7:30 p.m. Jan. 21. UCO Jazz Lab, 100 E. Fifth St., Edmond, 405-3597989, ucojazzlab.com. TUE Lumpy’s Open Mic Night play a song of your own or just listen to the performers at this weekly show hosted by John Riley Willingham, 9 p.m. Wednesdays. Lumpy’s Sports Grill, 12325 N. May Ave., 405-286-3300, lumpyssportsgrill.com. WED Miss Saigon the nationally touring production of this musical chronicling the tragic relationship between an American soldier and a young Vietnamese woman, Jan. 14-19, Through Jan. 19. Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N. Walker Ave., 405-297-2264, okcciviccenter.com. TUE-SUN MLK Battle of the Bands And Dance Team Showdown musicians and dance teams will compete at this third-annual event, 6-9 p.m. Jan. 20. The Auditorium at the Douglass, 600 N. High Ave., 405-652-9541, auditoriumatdouglass.com. MON Monday Night Blues Jam Session bring your own instrument to this open-stage jam hosted by Wess McMichael, 7-9 p.m. Mondays. Othello’s Italian Restaurant, 434 Buchanan Ave., Norman, 405-7014900, othellos.us. MON
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A Night of Hygge The Danish word “hygge” (hint: it’s not pronounced like you think it is) means contented coziness — the warmth that comes from community, friendship and self-care in spite of freezing winter weather. Come in from the cold to enjoy hot food and warming drinks, subversive cross-stitching, story time for grown-ups and art exhibitions. Get heated 5-9 p.m. Thursday at Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive. Admission is free-$12. Call 405-236-3100 or visit okcmoa.com. THURSDAY Photo provided
National Theatre Live: All My Sons Sally Field and Bill Pullman star in a production of Arthur Miller’s domestic drama filmed live in London, 2 p.m. Jan. 19. OCCC Visual and Performing Arts Center Theater, 7777 S. May Ave., 405-682-7579, tickets. occc.edu. SUN
3006, vzds.com. WED
OKC Comedy Open Mic Night get some stage time or just go to listen and laugh at this open mic hosted by Travis Phillips, 7 p.m. Mondays. The Paramount Room, 701 W. Sheridan Ave., 405-887-3327, theparamountroom.com. MON
ACTIVE
OKC Improv performers create original scenes in the moment based on suggestions from the audience, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Oklahoma City Improv, 1757 NW 16th St., 405-4569858, okcimprov.com. FRI Triple’s Open Mic a music and comedy open mic hosted by Amanda Howle, 7:30 p.m. every other Wednesday. Triple’s, 8023 NW 23rd St., 405-7893031. WED Open Mic at The P share your musical talent or just come to listen at this weekly open mic, 7 p.m. Wednesdays. The Patriarch Craft Beer House & Lawn, 9 E. Edwards St., Edmond, 405-285-6670, thepatriarchedmond.com. WED Othello’s Comedy Night see professionals and amateurs alike at this long-running weekly open mic for standup comics, 9 p.m. Tuesdays. Othello’s Italian Restaurant, 434 Buchanan Ave., Norman, 405-7014900, othellos.us. TUE Punk Rock Potluck an evening of punk poetry and open mic flash fiction and live music by Dion Warlocke, 7 p.m. Jan. 16. The Paseo Plunge, 3010 Paseo St., 405-315-6224, paseoplunge.org. THU The RACEy Show Presents: Wonder Women Race Dance Collective celebrates the birthday of founder Hui Cha Poos, 9 p.m.-midnight Jan. 18. The Paramount Room, 701 W. Sheridan Ave., 405-8873327, theparamountroom.com. SAT Red Dirt Open Mic a weekly open mic hosted by Red Dirt Poetry, 7:30-10:30 p.m. Wednesdays. Sauced on Paseo, 2912 Paseo St., 405-521-9800, saucedonpaseo.com. WED Rhyme in Reasons share your talent or just watch other artists perform at this weekly open mic, 7:30-10 p.m. Thursdays. Reasons Lounge, 1140 N. MacArthur Boulevard, 405-774-9991. THU Sanctuary Karaoke Service don a choir robe and sing your favorite song, 9 p.m.-midnight Wednesdays and Thursdays. Sanctuary Barsilica, 814 W. Sheridan Ave., facebook.com/sanctuarybarokc. WED The Spoken Word speakers share their thoughts on Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy at this event presented by OK Justice Circle and BLAC, Inc., 7 p.m. Jan. 18. The Auditorium at the Douglass, 600 N. High Ave., 405-652-9541, auditoriumatdouglass.com. SAT Staged a stage show hosted by Raven Delray, 10:30 p.m. third Saturday of every month. Frankie’s, 2807 NW 36th St., 405-602-2030, facebook.com/ frankiesokc. SAT VZD’s Open Mic Night a weekly music mic hosted by Joe Hopkins, 7 p.m. Wednesdays. VZD’s Restaurant & Bar, 4200 N. Western Ave., 405-602-
Weekly Jams bring an instrument and play along with others at this open-invitation weekly jam session, 9:30 p.m.-midnight Tuesdays. Saints, 1715 NW 16th St., 405-602-6308, saintspubokc.com. TUE
Co-ed Open Adult Volleyball enjoy a game of friendly yet competitive volleyball while making new friends, 6-8 p.m. Wednesdays. Jackie Cooper Gymnasium, 1024 E. Main St., Yukon, 405-350-8920, cityofyukon.gov. WED Monday Night Group Ride meet up for a weekly 25-30 minute bicycle ride at about 18 miles per hour through east Oklahoma City, 6 p.m. Mondays. The Bike Lab OKC, 2200 W. Hefner Road, 405-603-7655. MON
Open Badminton hit some birdies in some morning pick-up games of badminton with friends, 10 a.m.-noon Saturdays. Jackie Cooper Gymnasium, 1024 E. Main St., Yukon, 405-350-8920, cityofyukon. gov. SAT Run the Alley a three-mile social run for athletes of all abilities ending with beers at The Yard, 6:30 p.m. Thursdays. OK Runner, 708 N. Broadway Ave., 405-702-9291, myokrunner.com. THU
homa artist who died in 2011, through Feb. 29. JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N. Walker Ave., 405-528-6336, jrbartgallery.com. FRI-SAT Magic of the Land: Paintings an exhibition of works by Carol Beesley, Jim Keffer, and Karl Brenner, through Feb. 11. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. TUE Re-New an exhibition of Tulsa artist Whitney Forsyth’s mandala-inspired ceramic work, through Feb. 29. Artspace at Untitled, 1 NE Third St., 405-815-9995, 1ne3.org. THU-SAT
Renewing the American Spirit: The Art of the Great Depression an exhibition of paintings, prints, photographs and more created in the 1930s, through April 26. Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive, 405-236-3100, okcmoa.com. SAT-SUN A Thin Place view fantasy-inspired conceptual photography by Oklahoma artist Lauren Midgley, through Feb 29. The Depot, 200 S. Jones Ave., Norman, 405-307-9320, pasnorman.org. FRI-SAT Until We Organize: The Struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment an exhibition of photographs chronicling Oklahoma’s battle over the ERA, through Nov. 30. Oklahoma History Center, 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive, 405-521-2491, okhistory.org. MON-THU
Stars and Stripes Spin Jam a weekly meetup for jugglers, hula hoopers and unicyclers, 6-8 p.m. Wednesdays. Stars & Stripes Park, 3701 S. Lake Hefner Drive, 405-297-2756, okc.gov/parks. WED Twisted Coyote Brew Crew a weekly 3-mile group run for all ability levels with a beer tasting to follow; bring your own safety lights, 6 p.m. Mondays. Twisted Spike Brewing Co., 1 NW 10th St., 405-3013467, twistedspike.com. MON Yoga Tuesdays an all-levels class; bring your own water and yoga mat, 5:45 p.m.-7 p.m. Tuesdays. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405445-7080, myriadgardens.com. TUE Yoga with Art workout in an art-filled environment followed by a mimosa, 10:30 a.m. Saturdays. 21c Museum Hotel, 900 W. Main St., 405-982-6900, 21cmuseumhotels.com. SAT
VISUAL ARTS Articulation work on your art or craft project with other creators at this weekly meet-up; bring your own supplies and clean up after yourself, 6:30-10 p.m. Thursdays. Little D Gallery, 3003 Paseo St., 720-773-1064. THU Colors of Clay an exhibition of clay pots, bowls, pitchers and jars created by Native American artists, through May 10, 2021. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., 405-478-2250, nationalcowboymuseum.org. FRI-THU Composite Photography: Dark Worlds, New Realities view photographic works created by Oklahoma artist Sharon Burris, through Jan. 24. Inasmuch Foundation Gallery at Oklahoma City Community College, 7777 S. May Avenue, 405-682-7579. THU-FRI D.J. Lafon exhibition view paintings by the Okla-
GO TO OKGAZETTE.COM FOR FULL LISTINGS!
Submissions must be received by Oklahoma Gazette no later than noon on Wednesday seven days before the desired publication date. Late submissions will not be included in the listings. Submissions run as space allows, although we strive to make the listings as inclusive as possible. Fax your listings to 528-4600 or e-mail them to listings@okgazette.com. Sorry, but phone submissions cannot be accepted.
For OKG live music
see page 23
EVENT
MUSIC
No apologies
The trials and joys of motherhood inspired K.C. Clifford’s self-assured new album. By Jeremy Martin
Before you even put K.C. Clifford’s new album into the CD player, it offers advice and encouragement. “This one’s for me and for any of you who ever dared make the long walk home to yourself only to discover you’d been waiting there all along,” reads a liner note inside the CD case. “No more living small.” Clifford celebrates the release of her self-titled album 8 p.m. Jan. 25 at Tower Theatre, 425 NW 23rd St. “These songs are unapologetic in a way that my previous songs weren’t,” Clifford said of her seventh album, the first since 2012’s The Tag Hollow Sessions. “Since I became a mom, I have kind of been on a path of what I call my unbecoming. I’m really shedding a lot of layers and masks and ideas, constructs about who I am or who I was supposed to be in the eyes of other people. In some ways, it’s going to sound kind of woo-woo and emotional and whatever, but I’ve been on a path of walking home to myself. I spent a lot of my life defining myself by externals, by whether I was doing things right. I’m kind of compliant by nature. I was always kind of a goody-goody, kind of annoying that way, but I just kind of realized that no one gets to tell me who I am, and I went on a search to figure out who I was. Someone challenged me and said, ‘K.C., do you actually even know who you are? … I feel like every time I ask you a quest ion , you answer one side and then you answer the other. What do you actually believe?’” She began writing the album in 2014 after the birth of her daughter Beatrice in 2012 required Clif ford and husband David Broyles (aka Dr. Pants, who played g uitar in her touring band) to rethink their approach to their music careers. “We took a tour when my daughter was about six or seven months old,” Clifford said. “I thought we’d be out there doing the thing, and she was not a road baby. She’s just not suited for it. It just doesn’t fit her temperament. … Kids love structure, and showtime is bedtime and you’re in a different place
every night. The economics of touring at my level have not always afforded bringing a nanny, so then you’re talking about, ‘Am I leaving her with a stranger every night in a city?’ It was more than I bargained for, I think. Honestly, as a mom, I think there are some people who would kind of force that life on a kid, but I really think of my kids as these tiny humans who have a right to have their own opinion about their life, and it was kind of clear that Beatrice was not into it. I didn’t think we should force it on her.” On “Worth the Wait,” Clifford sings, “You were worth every single sacrifice I had to make / You were worth every single day I felt my heart would break / You were worth all the years, all the fears, all the tears / Not even one was a mistake / Not for your sake.” “I think motherhood broke me open,” Clifford said. “Motherhood is hard. It is really challenging. It will put your feet to the fire in all the ways. It’s no joke that you hear your parents through your own voice, and that’s all the best parts and all the hard parts, too, the parts that remind you, ‘Oh wait. I didn’t want to do it that way. I wanted to forge a different path than that.’ So those things challenged me, and it was in the question of whether I was a good mother or not and what it meant to be a good mother; those questions in therapy and
to survive newborns.” “When both kids were alive and well and born and moving into life and getting settled into routine, then it was like, ‘OK. I think it’s time to kind of reclaim who I am,’” Clifford said. “It’s really easy to get sucked into motherhood as an identity … but, for me, I had worked for decades before my kids to create a career, so it was important to get back to it. And I wanted them to see me get back to it.”
I felt very compelled on this album to not mince words, to speak pretty plainly to some of the things that I felt passionately about. K.C. Clifford
Speaking plainly
The new album is Clifford’s seventh and her first since 2012’s The Tag Hollow Sessions. | Photo Kriea Arie Photography / provided
discussions and my own seeking led me to examine myself in a whole different light that maybe was a favorable light for the first time.” Her son Hollis was born in 2015. Clifford said she realized she would always make music even when her life was consumed by “diapers and trying
Daniel Walker, who plays piano and organ on the album, co-wrote eight of the album’s songs, marking the first time Clifford has substantially collaborated with someone else to write an album and her first album to be based around the piano instead of the guitar. “Whereas before, I would have firmly put my records in Americana, Red Dirt, folk, this one is kind of piano pop,” Clifford said. “Everything was fresh and new. I was a musical theater kid, a total nerd. I sang opera, so being able to come out from behind the guitar and just stand at the edge of the keyboard with Dan and just open up my voice, something different happened. It kind of harkened back to something that I
K.C. Clifford celebrates the release of her selftitled album 8 p.m. Jan. 25 at Tower Theatre. | Photo Kriea Arie Photography / provided
used to be, that was truly me, just being a singer. … Being able to free myself up really allowed me to focus on melody and focus on just my voice to really kind of unleash that in a way that I’ve been afraid to do before.” Being more “exposed vocally” encouraged Clifford to take more risks lyrically, as well. “I felt very compelled on this album to not mince words, to speak pretty plainly to some of the things that I felt passionately about,” Clifford said. “We’re living in times when we cannot afford to mince words anymore. We need to be real straightforward about what we believe and what we stand for. If anything, this record has a bit of activism in it that was never in my previous work. … I’m unapologetic. I don’t actually need to ask anyone for permission to have my opinions and what I believe and put it out in the world. We’re living in a time when we need voices in the mix that are speaking against hate, that are speaking for inclusion. We need voices that are elevating the conversation but also that are hopefully bringing us together rather than pulling us further apart.” Tickets are $20-$30. Call 405-7086937 or visit towertheatreokc.com.
K.C. Clifford album release 8 p.m. Jan. 25 Tower Theatre 425 NW 23rd St. towertheatreokc.com | 405-708-6937 $20-$30
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MUSIC
F E AT U R E
left My So Called Band formed in 2010, only intending to play one show. | Photo provided | right Carly Gwin & the Sin also features Gwin and Zach Nedbalek.| Photo provided
Cover stories
The members of My So Called Band discuss the different realities for cover bands and original bands. By Jeremy Martin
In our ongoing effort to follow the money — and lack thereof — in the local music scene (see “Broke Music,” Nov. 1, and “Bank Notes,” Nov. 28, 2019) we’ve heard a recurring chorus: Playing covers pays. Whether it’s weddings, restaurants and casinos or corporate gigs, the opportunities for paying gigs increase significantly for musicians playing songs made famous by somebody else. To get a better idea of the different realities for cover bands and original bands, we talked to the members of My So Called Band, who fill Tower Theatre and Tulsa’s The Vanguard playing hits from the 1990s and early 2000s but have also spent years struggling to get people to pay attention to their original projects. In addition to My So Called Band (which members often refer to as a “’90s band”), Carly Gwin fronts The Sin; drummer Zach Nedbalek plays in The Sin as well as Applied Music Program and Bungalouski; Ricky Salthouse plays with Lawrence, Kansas-based bands The Anniversary and Berwanger; Arash Davari previously played in Ivy Mike; and Kyle Davis played with Evangelicals. My So Called Band formed in 2010 after Salthouse told Davis he wanted to “play Nirvana songs and bunch of grunge shit” and Davis suggested adding pop favorites by bands such as Ace of Base. They asked Gwin to join because, she said, “they needed someone to sing the girl songs.” Oklahoma Gazette: So you just started the band for fun, not because you thought you would make more money doing covers? Davis: I don’t know that we planned to do more than one Deli show. Salthouse: I had no idea that it would make money. Gwin: But then we did, and it was like, “OK. We can have fun, and we can make money?” Everyone in the band made 22
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more money than we’d ever made at any show before. Davis: We were like, “We should do this again, learn some different songs.” We had to learn 30 songs to do that because we were intent on not having any openers and just playing all night. Salthouse: Three sets in a night, your whole body will be sore the next day. Davari: I remember seeing pictures of that show too, and everybody was drenched in sweat. It must have been a hot night. Nedbalek: It’s an endurance test at first. OKG: How do you rehearse that many songs? Nedbalek: You have to push some stuff that you learned in high school out of your brain or whatever. Forget all your social studies and replace them with Smash Mouth. Davis: I forgot my mom’s birthday. It was an unfortunate casualty, but somebody’s got to know the lyrics to “I’m Too Sexy.” OKG: Is the audience response at a My So Called Band show different than for your original bands? Nedbalek: I think people go to a ’90s band show and they know what to expect and they are ready to hear songs they’ve heard before. Then they go see an original band play and they’re kind of just like up for whatever. Maybe they like it; maybe they don’t. Also, we play a lot of different genres in ’90s band, whereas our original shows are kind of a set thing. Davis: With an original band, your first show, you might be a little secretive about it. You might not try to get everybody out to it. Also, your friends will burn out pretty quickly if you’re playing
the exact same set in an original band and they’ve seen you three times. It’s a harder ask. … People just like to hear songs they know. They know the words to them. … None of our original bands could just, like, headline a show at Tower. OKG: Do you ever get frustrated that your original bands don’t get the same level of enthusiasm? Gwin: It’s hard to not let that affect you sometimes when The Sin play a really great show at The Deli for, like, 20 people, and they like it and I think we did good, but then they come to the ’90s show and they love Smash Mouth. No shade, but yeah, it can be disappointing, for sure. Salthouse: We do get a lot of people that come to see My So Called Band and say, ‘You guys should play original music.’ We have for a long time, but you didn’t come to that. OKG: Do you ever think about playing some of your original songs at a My So Called Band show? Davis: We’ve definitely made a conscious decision not to do that because we want people to get into the headspace of nostalgia and songs they like, and it’s not fun to watch everybody walk away from the stage and go to the bar. Gwin: That is what would happen, for sure. OKG: Have any of you been able to support yourselves solely with the money from My So Called Band shows? Salthouse: [Carly and I] both have jobs, but that pays more than the jobs. Nedbalek: I’ve lived off just ’90s band for a year or two, but you kind of have to have something else. It’s not steady. We play a lot, but it’s not something that you can rely on every week. You don’t get paid if you don’t play … so it’s pretty bare-bones. OKG: Does My So Called Band take away time and energy from your other creative projects? Salthouse: I think it definitely has for me. … I don’t always want to pick up the
guitar to write a song because I’m doing it all the time. Nedbalek: I feel the opposite. I think it keeps me practicing and fresh. I practice more with this band than I ever do with any of my original bands, and it gives me a reason to constantly be playing. … Maybe I’m not focusing all my energy on writing or something, but it keeps me playing, which is most of the battle. Davis: Especially when you’re not playing in an original band. It keeps the chops up. Davari: It keeps the chops up, but for me, it’s scheduling. … I just don’t have the time. Gwin: I think the benefits of getting better technically and learning how to perform and stuff will forever be great. I feel like I have become such a better singer and performer in this band, which has helped in my original band. I used to have really, really bad stage fright, like so bad I almost would not play the show for the first three years that I played music, and then I joined ’90s band and now I’m comfortable onstage. … Not necessarily singing my own songs makes it a little easier to really go wild, but now I feel comfortable as a singer, which makes it better. Nedbalek: There are times that I’ll be learning a song for ’90s band that I might not like or even give any credit to, but then I’ll find myself in original bands using something … a weird thing will pop into my head I remember learning for a ’90s band song that will make it into the way I play. OKG: Do you have any advice for anyone considering starting a cover band? Gwin: You’re going to have to practice all the time. We still practice once a week. You’ve got to keep up with it. Davis: Don’t play ’90s or we’ll fuck you up. My So Called Band plays 10 p.m. Friday at The Deli, 309 White St., in Norman and 9 p.m. Feb. 8 at Tower Theatre, 425 NW 23rd St. Bungalouski plays Jan. 23 at The Deli. Carly Gwin & the Sin plays 10 p.m. Jan. 25 at 51st Street Speakeasy, 1114 NW 51st St.
LIVE MUSIC
CRÜELIGANS: MOTLEY CRÜE TRIBUTE | January 17 HUSBANDS | January 18 BRICKS IN THE WALL | January 24 K.C. CLIFFORD | January 25 RICHARD MARX | January 30 ATMOSPHERE | February 1 Flock of Pigs’ Back to School Dance Party High-energy, original and technically proficient, Norman’s Flock of Pigs is more like the kind of act that plays school dances in the movies than the sad-sack dad rock band or second-tier wedding DJ you probably remember from your actual prom. See the Flock’s latest lineup, augmented by S. Reidy, and hear new songs at this all-agers school dance where you can openly drink booze — if you’re 21 or older. Tulsa’s Cliffdiver shares the bill. The show begins 9 p.m. Friday at Opolis, 113 N. Crawford Ave., in Norman. Admission is $8. Call 405-447-3417 or visit opolis. org. FRIDAY Photo Keegan Meenagh / provided
These are events recommended by Oklahoma Gazette editorial staff members. For full calendar listings, go to okgazette.com.
Husbands/LCG & the X/Lust, Tower Theatre. ROCK
Like Before/Cicadia/The Long Con, Bison Witches Bar & Deli. ROCK
Amarillo Junction, JJ’s Alley Bricktown Pub.
Mississippi Jake, Red Brick Bar. FOLK
SONGWRITER
THURSDAY, JAN. 16
THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS | February 11
TICKETS & INFO AT TOWERTHEATREOKC.COM @TOWERTHEATREOKC 405-70-TOWER | 425 NW 23rd Street | Oklahoma City
Perseus/Buried Under Broadway/Dog Will Hunt, Blue Note Lounge. ROCK School of Rock, VZD’s Restaurant & Bar. ROCK Smokey Motel/Call Boys/The Kid, Opolis. ROCK
The Big News/On Holiday/Honey Creek, The Deli.
Tyler Lee Band, Riverwind Casino. ROCK
Black Flag/The Linecutters, 89th Street-OKC.
SUNDAY, JAN. 19
HARDCORE
MY SO CALLED BAND | February 8
Paul Dyer, The Blue Door. SINGER/SONGWRITER
Adam Aguilar/Louis James/Mad Honey, Tower Theatre. ROCK/POP ROCK
MAT KEARNEY | February 7
THE AUTHENTIC VOICES TOUR | February 15
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 15
John Carlton & Kyle Reid, The Winston. SINGER/
STEEP CANYON RANGERS | February 6
Cutter Elliott, Bedlam Bar-B-Q. COUNTRY
Jason Hawk Harris, Ponyboy. COUNTRY
ACOUSTIC
WOLF PARADE | February 5
Chuck Prophet, The Blue Door. SINGER/SONG-
Heart of Hip Hop, Hubbly Bubbly Hookah & Café. HIP-HOP
WRITER
Hosty, The Deli. ROCK
Hot House Band, Othello’s Italian Restaurant. JAZZ Sean McConnell, The Blue Door. SINGER/SONG-
Wood & Wire, The Depot. AMERICANA
WRITER
MONDAY, JAN. 20
Shelly Phelps & Dylan Nagode, Jazmo’z Bourbon St. Café. ACOUSTIC
Jason Hunt and Preston Ware, Sean Cumming’s Irish Restaurant. FOLK
Trip G/Druce Wayne/Yung Xayy, The Queen Lounge. HIP-HOP
TUESDAY, JAN. 21
FRIDAY, JAN. 17
Farewell Angelina, OCCC Visual and Performing Arts Center Theater. COUNTRY
BRD, Rococo. JAZZ
Kyle Reid, Scratch Kitchen & Cocktails. SINGER/
CRÜEligans/Kill ‘Em All/The Ozzy Experience, Tower Theatre. COVER The Flametrick Subs/Spacecowboy/Psychotic Reaction, 51st Street Speakeasy. ROCK Jared Tyler/Luke Bulla, The Blue Door. SINGER/ SONGWRITER
SONGWRITER
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 22 Amarillo Junction, JJ’s Alley Bricktown Pub. ACOUSTIC
Beth Bombara/Jared Deck, The Deli. SINGER/ SONGWRITER
Kat Lock/Cliffdiver/Beach Language, The Paramount Room. ROCK/POP Nerver/Dead Hour Noise/Endocrine Twins, The Drunken Fry. HARDCORE Schat and The Skeleton Trees/Saturn/The Velvet J’s, Bison Witches Bar & Deli. ROCK Tony Macalpine, 89th Street-OKC. ROCK
SATURDAY, JAN. 18 Allison Arms, Rodeo Opry. COUNTRY Amanda Cunningham, JJ’s Alley Bricktown Pub. SINGER/SONGWRITER
Live music submissions must be received by Oklahoma Gazette no later than noon on Wednesday seven days before the desired publication date. Late submissions will not be included in the listings. Submissions run as space allows, although we strive to make the listings as inclusive as possible. Fax your listings to 528-4600 or e-mail to listings@okgazette.com. Sorry, but phone submissions cannot be accepted.
GO TO OKGAZETTE.COM FOR FULL LISTINGS!
1.16 ADAM AGUILAR, LOUIS JAMES & MAD HONEY 1.18 JASON HAWK HARRIS 1.23 JOHNNY MANCHILD & the Poor Bastards & Wildermiss 1.26 BLUE WATER HIGHWAY 2.5 JEREMY PINNELL with JOHN CALVIN ABNEY 2.6 CHRIS JONES & THE FLYCATCHERS 2.9 DILLA DAY with DJ D.L., Ronnie Harris & DJ Reaper 2.13 BROTHER MOSES 2.14 MOCHATEA PODCAST LIVE - VALENTINE’S DAY 2.17 MOTHERFOLK 2.18 STAR PARKS 2.19 An evevning with DRIVIN N CRYIN 2.29 SAINTSENECA 3.2 JACK BROADBENT 3.11 DEAD HORSES WWW.PONYBOYOKC.COM @ponyboyokc #StayGoldOKC O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 2 0
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THE HIGH CULTURE
North
COV E R
-ward of 2,200 dispensaries are licensed in the state as of January, along with 235,000 active patient licenses, according to the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority. This means that if every licensed dispensary had opened their doors for business and were getting an even share of the available market, they would be servicing roughly 105 patients each. While some dispensaries have already closed, new locations open and patient numbers have slowed; nowhere will that competition be fiercer than in areas of intense dispensary density. The Oklahoma City metro has
Dense greenery
More than a year after cannabis became legal to sell to licensed patients, dispensaries are so plentiful that many are neighbors. By Matt Dinger
South
Oklahoma City has also become increasingly packed with storefronts jockeying for the coveted position of becoming the patient’s regular dispensary, and nowhere is that more apparent than on S. Western Avenue on both sides of Interstate 240. Fire Leaf opened stores on S. Western Avenue and at Reno Avenue and Council Road on the same day. Doolittle said it was the first dispensary on S. Western Avenue. “At that time, the only competition that we had was the CBD Plus that was
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become so thick with dispensaries that some are neighbors. In one Automobile Alley building downtown, there are three dispensaries: Herbology to the north and 46 Releaf to the south, with Highland Healing above Cultivar Mexican Kitchen between them. Another dense area in northwest Oklahoma City is May Avenue, north of NW 63rd Street. The first shop on the block to open was Steve’s Greens Cannabis + Wellness, which previously operated as a CBD store. Stephanie and Dustin Mathis opened the dispensary next door to SB Body Arts, which they had owned and operated for years before entering the cannabis space. “We chose that location for our tattoo
J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 2 0 | O KG A Z E T T E . C O M
a mile to the east, and at that time, that was the only store that was there. There was nothing on Western. And then right when we started building, Green Plus popped up, and once we opened, it was an onslaught of a million people,” he said. “We anticipated doing more business, but come to find out, the Reno location did just as good, and I attribute that to us just being one of the first people being open. We could have opened, I believe, just about anywhere in that time and kind of blown up because there was a lack of places and a huge amount of patients and a huge amount of people interested in the industry.” Patient drives held at the location on S. Western
shop because 63rd on May is one of those intersections that, typically in my mind, if I dread going there on a Christmas weekend because of the traffic, then that’s where I want my business to be because that’s where the people are,” Stephanie Mathis said. When Steve’s Greens Wellness + Cannabis opened as a CBD store, May Avenue was already a hotspot. “There was definitely about five CBD stores that opened up between May and [NW] 122nd that had me kind of like, ‘Okay, this is getting a little crazy on the saturation.’ … We were definitely the first licensed dispensary between [NW] 63rd [Street] and Wilshire [Boulevard],” she said. It did not take long for her block to
start filling in. The CBD Plus USA store just to the south began carrying Lotus Gold products in the spring. “It took them a little bit longer too because we started slinging in November of 2018 because there was that boom where it was late October. … We held off until the math actually made sense for us to have Oklahoma products in our store, trying to do everything legit and not bringing in out-of-state products,” Mathis said. “We made our short little menu of like four or five strains, which at the time we were so excited about, and so we started out with the flower. It was from New Leaf [Medicinals], and then we had Simple Cure vape carts and Mr. Mack’s edibles, and those are the three products that we started with right off
I would say there are two leading factors rental space availability. At the time that in a somewhat densely populated area … that area’ and now it’s turned into ‘the
Avenue brought hundreds hoping to get a recommendation that was paid for by offering four $25 gift certificates for future visits to the dispensary, which kept the store packed with patients for months. “It went down a little bit during the summertime, and it’s kind of picked back up since it’s gotten a little chillier, but I think that’s just any business. Bars are very similar. People are outside in the summer, doing stuff, but we have picked back up actually there at Western. We’re about to open up our second side. We rented a space next to us, and we’re dou-
bling in size there, so if that’s any indication, we’re still doing okay,” Doolittle said. Buddy Green’s Cannabis Co. opened just south of Fire Leaf on Western Avenue in late March. “We’ve got close to 20 in a 2-mile stretch. When we first got there, I said, ‘This is like the green mile. We put it on our T-shirts that we had printed up for our grand opening. I’ve even seen a dispensary called The Green Mile since then,” owner Dan Thatcher said. Buddy Green’s Cannabis Co. started last spring after some potential investors got spooked about the proposed changes from the state health department when State
the bat in November.” Corbin Wyatt, founder of The Peak, had scouted the location for its “Craft Dispensary” across the street from Steve’s Greens. The location is now operating under his new brand, Likewise. “We had seen Stem was building a building, but apart from that, there was No Rhyme or Reason at the end of it and we thought, ‘All right. There’s three stores on this busy street. Not really a big deal,’” Wyatt said. “I think that our impression of Steve’s Greens is that they focused more on the CBD side and they were doing some massage and things like that, so I think we saw them as more of a different type of competitor than we saw in like a Stem-type store. We didn’t really think too much about that.
We just really liked the building and we liked the ability to have a drive-thru, which really does differentiate us. Business has been good. Interestingly enough, it’s directly the opposite of street traffic. When street traffic is low, we’ve got traffic. When street traffic is high, it’s slower times.” No Rhyme or Reason has since gone out of business, and Steve’s Greens has been put out of commission for at least a year while the building is rebuilt after an arsonist torched the building, destroying both the dispensary and SB Body Arts. Blue Wolf Cannabis Dispensary opened and closed its doors within about a month, Mathis said. Stem is still operating on the west side of May Avenue, as are Lotus Gold,
NewLeaf Cannabis & Clone Co. and The Green Room Cannabis Company, and Cure Oklahoma is opening soon. The newest kid on the block for now is Tegridy Market, which bookends the mile just across Wilshire Boulevard behind the 7-Eleven. Owner Tom Spanier has 30 years in wholesale supply and distribution. “On my first dispensary visit, it just became very obvious to me. I knew immediately that I wanted to open a dispensary, and I spent the rest of that Saturday just hitting one shop after another after another. The more I hit, the more I knew I was going to do it,” Spanier said. “We went around and we hit probably 10, and things weren’t nearly as mature then, so it was a lot worse. But
then again, it took us from February until virtually December 1st to get open, so it took us a lot of time to do it the way we thought was the right way to do it. … It’s really in the center of the city. We’ve known since June we’re gonna go 24 hours, and by having that central location, we just thought it would be appealing to everybody because we’re 20 minutes from every suburb. Our number one priority is flower. Flower is the great separator, in my opinion. It’s been a combination of happy accidents and luck and good fortune.” Tyler Doolittle’s family began opening Fire Leaf dispensaries in late 2018. There is a location on N. May Avenue near Britton Road and also one on S. Western Avenue. continue on to South
to those two particular areas turning into ‘the green miles.’ One contributing factor is this thing was taking off a year or so ago, those two areas had the most available spaces And then once there was a large amount, then competition said, ‘Well, I’ve got to be in green miles.’ — Tyler Doolittle
Question 788 passed at the polls. “So we just started small and just went with the one dispensary because we were actually looking at a big grow before we ever went into the dispensary,” Thatcher said. “And the dispensary, actually that location just came available and it was someone we knew, a friendly landlord. We go, ‘Let’s just go ahead and take this spot.’ I was looking at two other spots I did prefer. I liked the 7-Eleven location where Green Doctor [420] is, and I was also looking at [SW] 104th and [Pennsylvania Avenue].” Thatcher said one of the ways the dispensary has set itself apart is by decorating a Bradford pear tree with
green lights on the south side of the building where it is harder to see the sign from the road. “You go by there at night and it’s green all the way up to the top of the building. We’ve got all the branches just tightly wound, lots of lights on it. We spent about $500 on the lights for that, so people really notice it,” Thatcher said. Distinguishing yourself from the two dozen or so dispensaries in the surrounding mile has been difficult. “We’re trying to do it with the quality of our buds. That’s really the big thing for us since the beginning. We’ve tried to have a little better, higher quality than anybody else on the row, and I feel like we’re
pretty good at that so far,” Thatcher said. “I like the denser buds. I like to see a nice trim. I want something that’s got some smell and flavor and some kick to it. I’ve been smoking weed for 50 years, so I’ve gone through all kinds of stuff.” Competition that has gone the direction of cheaper prices for less quality has also created a market for cheaper product. “It’s really tough because of the proximity of all the stores, and then you got these people that came out with really low prices,” Thatcher said. “People come in and go, ‘Hey, I get a $99 or a $150 ounce.’ I go, ‘Yeah, but you get what you pay for.’ So what
I’ve done is tried to make my house shelf a little bigger, a little fuller, put in some more low-price options there.” Oklahoma City can expect to see more cannabis on the corners before they see less of it, and with State Question 807 potentially on the ballot this fall, there is no telling where the market will go as the industry matures.
Photos Phillip Danner
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Supporting Cannabis Industry Listings
DISPENSARIES 46 Releaf
710 N. Broadway Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73102 405-225-1182 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon-Thu 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri-Sat noon-8 p.m. Sun 811 SW 19th St., Suite F Moore, OK 73160 405-378-2868 10 a.m.-9p.m. Mon-Thu 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri-Sat noon-8 p.m. Sun 320 12th Ave. SE, Suite 106 Norman, OK 73071 405-857-7590 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon-Thu 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri-Sat noon-8 p.m. Sun
APCO Med
313 NW 23rd St. Oklahoma City, OK 73103 213-454-1856 apcocure.com 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon-Thu 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Fri-Sat Closed Sun
Buddy Green’s Cannabis Co. 8805 S. Western Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73139 405-900-5668 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Mon-Sat noon-8 p.m. Sun
Canna South
1221 SW 59th St. Oklahoma City, OK 73109 405-429-7570 cannasouth.net 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon-Sat noon-6 p.m. Sun
Fire Leaf Dispensary
751 S. Canadian Trails Drive, Suite 120 Norman, OK 73072 405-310-2433 fireleafok.com 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Mon-Sun
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2810 SW 104th St. Oklahoma City, OK 73159 405-676-8479 fireleafok.com 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Mon-Sun 9606 N. May Ave. The Village, OK 73120 405-286-4900 fireleafok.com 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Mon-Sun
Herbology
718 N. Broadway Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73102 405-440-3947 myherbology.com 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Mon-Sat 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Sun
Hopes & Greens
17925 N. Portland Ave. Edmond, OK 73012 405-285-8595 hopesandgreens.com 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon-Sat closed Sun
The Medicine Man
5917 S. Sunnylane Road Oklahoma City, OK 73155 405-225-1323 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Mon-Sat 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun
Native Remedy
5712 Industrial Blvd. Edmond, OK 73034 405-285-4050 Native-remedy.com 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Tue-Fri noon-6 p.m. Sat closed Sun-Mon
OC Goldleaf
1806 SE 59th St. Oklahoma City, OK 73129 405-768-2052 ocgoldleaf.com 8 a.m.-12 a.m. Mon-Wed 24 hours Thu-Sat 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Sun
Okie Kush Club
7876 S. Western Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73139 405-600-6527 fireleafok.com 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Mon-Sun
13801 N. Western Ave., Suite 205 Edmond, OK 73013 405-252-4193 okiekushclub.com 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon-Thu 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Fri-Sat closed Sun
8017 W. Reno Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73127 405-470-0546 fireleafok.com 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Mon-Sun
825 SW 19th St. Moore, OK 73160 405-237-3471 okiekushclub.com 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon-Thu
11 a.m.-9 p.m. Fri-Sat closed Sun
DOCTORS
541 S. University Blvd. Norman, OK 73069 405-857-7633 okiekushclub.com 12-11 p.m. Mon-Sat 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sun
2309 S. Interstate 35 Service Road Moore, OK 73160 405-543-7200 greenhopewellness.com 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mon-Fri 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat closed Sat-Sun
401 NW 10th St, Suite B Oklahoma City, OK 73103 405-493-9459 okiekushclub.com 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Mon-Thu 10 a.m.-midnight Fri-Sat 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sun
Ringside Medical
14201 N. May Ave., Suite 205 Oklahoma City, OK 73134 405-242-5325 ringsidemedical.com 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon-Sat noon-7 p.m. Sun
Green Hope Wellness
3100 W. Britton Road, Suite F Oklahoma City, OK 73120 405-413-5494 herbaverdeok.com 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon-Sat closed Sun
Herbal Aid Wellness Center 4500 N. Lincoln Blvd., Suite 201 Oklahoma City, OK 73105 405-655-2000
Natural Choice Urgent Care
2811 Dorchester Drive Oklahoma City, OK 73120 tegridymarket.com open 24 hours
The Peak Dispensary
GROW SUPPLY STORES
901 N. Main St. Noble, OK 73068 405-887-0404 thepeakok.com 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon-Thu 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Fri-Sat closed Sun 510 S. Telephone Road Moore, OK 73160 405-676-8550 thepeakok.com 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon-Sat 1-5 p.m. Sun
1706 NW Cache Road Lawton, OK 73507 580-235-9640 thepeakok.com 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon-Sun 1308 East Carl Albert Parkway McAlester, OK 74501 918-715-3430 thepeakok.com 3000 W. Memorial Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73120 405-696-9995 thepeakok.com 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Tues-Sun 20179 Indian Meridian Road Pauls Valley, OK 73075 405-331-8611 thepeakok.com
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Herba Verde Wellness Clinic
5929 N. May Ave., Suite 500 Oklahoma City, OK 73112 405-608-6820 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon-Fri 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat closed Sun
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Cultivate Garden Supply 1101 N. Meridian Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73107 405-415-9480 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon-Fri 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat closed Sun
LAW YERS Climb Collective
809 NW 36th St. Oklahoma City, OK 73118 405-605-6720 climb-collective.com
GROWERS & MANUFACTURERS GrOKC
info@GrOKC.net
PlusCBDoil
1-855-758-7223 pluscbdoil.com
Red Dirt Sungrown
Making the world a better place, one brand at a time.
1-833-797-3334 reddirtsungrown.com
LABS Cannabest Labs
4619 N. Santa Fe Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73118 405-488-2400 cannabestlabs.com These businesses support and make it possible to publish Extract and Oklahoma Gazette.
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CANNABIS
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Canna exploration
WATERLOO & I-35
NURSE OWNED & OPERATED
Explore the cannabis industry at events around the metro.
Puff N Paint 405
Rather than having the entire class create the exact same piece of art, Puff N Paint teaches the technique of abstract and modern style to create a unique art piece. Participants are allowed to bring in their own cannabis to consume during classes, which are offered 8 p.m. Fridays and 2 p.m. Sundays at Hideout Art Studio, 911 W. Britton Road. Classes are $35-$149. Call 405-760-0683 or visit puffnpaint405. com. FRI, SUN
CannaNight OKC
Women of cannabis join Oklahoma Women Cann Association at their quarterly event with guest speaker Mel Barnes from Oklahoma State Bank sharing information and insight into the cannabis industry. The event begins 7 p.m. on Jan. 24 at Stone Sisters Pizza Bar, 2124 N. Broadway Ave. Admission is free with food and beverages available for purchase. Call 580-458-9201 or visit okwomencann.com. JAN. 24
Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Dispensary Training Seminar
Focusing on three major parts of the cannabis dispensary operation this seminar will help give business owners and their staff a boost in the market. The seminar covers regulations, compliance requirements, cannabinoids, terpenes, cannabis cultivation, budtender training and more at the upcoming training classes 12:30-3:30p.m. Jan. 25 and 9 a.m.-noon Feb. 22 and March 7 at Hampton Inn & Suites, 300 E. Sheridan Ave. Registration is $214. Visit leafygreenagency.com. JAN. 25, FEB. 22 AND MARCH 7
Buds and Brawls Winter Showdown
This is a night of kickboxing and cannabis consumption in which match-ups of high level amateur fighters and cannabis industry-related people compete for bragging rights and settle their differences in the ring. Spectators with medical marijuana cards can use cannabis during the event 7-10 p.m. Feb. 8 at Farmers Public Market, 311 S. Klein Ave. Tickets are $25-$150. Visit budsandbrawls.com. FEB. 8
How to Launch a Legal Commercial Cannabis Cultivation Business in Oklahoma
This workshop is for anyone looking to start or work in a commercial grow and covers laws and requirements, equipment investment options, growing techniques and more. The seminar is 9 a.m.noon Feb. 15 and April 4 and 12:30-3:30
p.m. March 7 at Hampton Inn & Suites, 300 E. Sheridan Ave. Registration is $213. Visit leafygreenagency.com. FEB. 15, MARCH 7 AND APR. 4
Noble Cup
Featuring a performance and meet-andgreet with Dizzy Wright along with open consumption of cannabis via vape pens and torchless dab rigs only, Noble Cup promises to find the new and worthy cannabis products in Oklahoma for consumer consumption using a double-blind judging system. Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony 6-11 p.m. March 20 at Bricktown Events Center, 425 E. California Ave. Tickets are $20. Visit noble420.com. MARCH 20
5712 Industrial Blvd, Edmond, OK (405) 285-4050
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Oklahoma Cannabis Expo
This event is sure to cover it all for patients and professionals in the cannabis world. Focusing on hemp, CBD and medical cannabis, this expo includes cooking and cultivation classes, medical professional panels, networking events, celebrity attendance, budtender training, CBD for your pet classes and much more. Ticket prices are TBD. The expo is March 23-24 at Cox Convention Center, 1 Myriad Gardens. Visit oklahomacannabisexpo.com. MARCH 23-24
Green Grow Expo
Green Grow Expo is Oklahoma’s native cannabis expo featuring over 100 brands and vendors, educational classes, live music, industry-leading expert speakers, networking opportunities and more. Experience all it has to offer April 3-5 at Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, 3001 General Pershing Blvd. Admission is free. Visit greengrowexpo.com. APR. 3-5
Chronic Palooza II: Cannabis @ The Crossroads
Expanding to a two-day event in 2020, Chronic Palooza features a discount patient drive, live bands and comedians, vendors and more. The celebration is April 18-19 at Crossroads Mall, 7000 Crossroads Blvd. Admission is free. Visit chronicpalooza.net. APR. 18-19
CannaCon
CannaCon brings cannabis professionals and businesses together through vendors and seminars to showcase industry products, new technology, education, new and upcoming trends and more. The expo is 10 a.m.-5p.m. May 29-30 at Cox Convention Center, 1 Myriad Gardens. Tickets are $60-$175. Visit cannacon.org. MAY 29-30
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oKlahoma CiTy The BriCKToWn Dispensary 222 E. Sheridan Avenue, Ste. 2 OKC, OK 73104 bricktown@thepeakok.com
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CANNABIS
Signature collections for SQ807 could begin as soon as later this month. | Illustration Ingvard Ashby
Absolved authorship A number of people suspected to have drafted State Question 807 are speaking out about the ballot petition initiative. By Matt Dinger
Before the authors of State Question 807, previously filed as State Question 806, signed their names to the initiative petition, rumors and speculation ran rampant about who authored the proposed constitutional amendment. Some of the earliest names thrown around were those of the members of Oklahoma Cannabis Liberty Alliance, which is comprised of Chris “Uncle Grumpy” Moe, Norma Sapp and Lawrence Pasternack. “We were shown an early draft. We were asked to give our opinion and to show it to a few people but not to share it publicly. We did that. We gave our opinion,” Moe said. Moe was made aware of the upcoming ballot petition initiative by Ryan Kiesel in October. They were given a draft and asked to offer their opinions on it in a 72-hour window about a week before the filing. “It didn’t protect all of the main priorities for the [Oklahoma Cannabis Liberty Alliance], and it didn’t address the priorities of the cannabis community, but we do see a lot of good in this bill. Our overall goal here is not ownership of the bill, but the end result, which is the war on drugs, and this takes us a great deal closer to the end of the war on drugs. This really does a lot of good
for the state,” Moe said. “So, again, while it doesn’t address everything that we would have addressed had we written one, we didn’t write it. We can see plenty of positive in this one, and that’s where we’re at with it. We think at the current time, it’s the right way to move the state forward. But November is a long time away, so don’t forget that. If the people were to come up with a petition that addressed those things that we would have addressed in the petition we had written, we would have no issue; we would be supportive of that. We would be pleased with that.” The secrecy was not intended as a slight to the cannabis community. “The reason for not making the draft public was that they didn’t want the anti-cannabis forces to know it was going to be filed. In retrospect, they should have had a more open process. We told Ryan Kiesel that it doesn’t address patient concerns, employment concerns and so forth. He told us they agree these are important, but they could not include them because of the single subject rule,” Moe said. “When [State Question] 806 was filed, we went on Facebook to go over the bill. We discussed its pros and cons. We discussed what it omits. We affirmed in our videos that it does not reflect our priorities as the OCLA, nor those of the
community. Nevertheless, we saw it and continue to see it as a middle-of-the-road recreational petition, styled very closely to that of Colorado. [SQ]807 was written not for this community, but for the average Oklahoman at the November general election.”
Protectionist concerns
Another rumor was that J. Blake Johnson, founding partner of Climb Collective and Overman Legal Group, is one of the authors of SQ806. While Crowe & Dunlevy was the firm that was behind the ballot initiative, Johnson left the firm in May.
They didn’t want the anti-cannabis forces to know it was going to be filed. Chris “Uncle Grumpy” Moe Did Johnson draft any of the language? “I did not,” Johnson said. “Not even a letter of it, nor did I otherwise advise the campaign with respect to its drafting, when or how it was filed or rolled out. I’ve not had any formal relationship to the campaign whatsoever, notwithstanding the fact that I do know some of the attorneys involved.” He did, however, review a draft of it prior to publication. “In late November, a few weeks before it was filed, I read a draft of it. I thought it was extremely ambitious criminal justice reform proposal, so I was generally very supportive, for sure, and I would be supportive of any proposal that decriminalized cannabis, established a responsible system to regulate it and a procedure to release those folks who have been swept up into the criminal
justice system by virtue of outdated criminal prohibitions on cannabis.” Johnson disagrees with the assertions from those opposed to the language of the proposed article, which would amend the state constitution. “Broadly speaking, people think that it either is designed to or otherwise inadvertently will destroy the medical cannabis program in Oklahoma, and I don’t agree with that. The language of the proposal itself includes a provision that expressly says that nothing in this proposed article is meant to limit or otherwise affect the rights of those who have either patient licenses or medical cannabis business licenses,” Johnson said. “I think everybody appreciates that out-of-state businesses are already here in the medical market; whether you think that’s OK or not I suppose is sort of a philosophical question. What I’d say is that protectionist laws, those that are designed to benefit the residents of one state at the expense of others, are generally disapproved of by federal courts and so if we’re looking down the road toward an era after prohibition, I’m not sure that protectionism really holds constitutional muster. Beyond that, I think there’s some tension between the idea of protectionism and the philosophy of ‘patients over profits.’ The purpose of protectionist laws is obviously to create a stable and controlled economy and to protect prices for businesses. The reason that people don’t want to compete with outof-state interests is because they don’t want that kind of competition to drive down prices to a point that shoves them out of the market.” Bud Scott, executive director of Oklahoma Cannabis Industry Association, was also named as a potential author. While he also did not write the ballot initiative, he threw his support behind it, should the voters decide to adopt it. “As demonstrated by our members and leadership providing the lion’s share of financial and logistical support for the State Question 788 campaign legalizing medical cannabis in Oklahoma, our respect for the initiative petition and state question process is unwavering,” Scott said. “If the citizens of Oklahoma decide to legalize adult use of cannabis, our industry stands prepared to serve the demand of our customers and patients and will embrace additional new market opportunities; however, our focus will remain focused on our continuous education and advocacy efforts at the legislature, agencies and cities to improve our existing medical cannabis program for the more than 200,000 patients and thousands of Oklahoma businesses across the state benefiting from the state’s fastest growing economic sector.” If the State Question 807 ballot language is not challenged, signature collections could begin as soon as later this month. O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 2 0
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TOKE BOARD
THC PATIENTS Applications Received:
259,147
DISPENSARIES
Applications Approved:
GROWERS
246,718
Applications Approved:
2,242
Applications Approved:
5,443
CONSUMERS Natural person or entity in whose name a cannabis license would be issued
DISPENSARIES
Allows the entity to purchase medical cannabis from a processer licensee or grower licensee and sell medical cannabis only to qualified patients, or their parents or legal guardian(s) if applicable, and caregivers
GROWERS
allows the entity togrow, harvest, and package medical cannabis for the purpose of selling medical cannabis to a dispensary, processor, or researcher
FLOWER REVIEW
Cannabis effects vary wildly from patient to patient based on a multitude of factors, including THC tolerance, brain chemistry and personal taste. This review is based on the subjective experience of one patient. Strain name: Slurricane Grown by: Rooted Zen Acquired from: Likewise Craft Dispensary Date acquired: Jan. 1 THC/CBD percentages: seven different phenotypes with varying potency Physical traits: Mid-tone green with wiry stigmas and slight purpling entirely frosted in trichomes Bouquet: mostly earthy with varying levels of sweetness based on cultivar Review: When I missed the first of Rooted Zen’s “pheno-pack” drops with Pink Sugar Cookies, I immediately called Corbin Wyatt, owner of Likewise, and reserved a batch of the next slate. While most contained only four phenotypes, Wyatt provided me of samples of all seven Slurricane phenos they were given. In other words, instead of getting a quarter-ounce of one particular run, I was provided with samples of seven different varieties of the same strain. While they are all similar for obvious reasons, each also had distinct differences in density, appearance and
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aroma. My nose tended toward the sweeter ones, as it normally does, and it did not lead me astray. The sweeter varieties, notably #9 and #10, were definitely my favorites as far as flavors go, though the high of #4 was the most enjoyable for me (though they were all exceptional), with a euphoric and long-lasting buzz. Rooted Zen is a grower that has been on my radar since the early days, and this is the first time I had a chance to sample their products. I was very pleased and look forward to trying more of what they have to offer, particularly their Don Carlos (though the novelty and rarity of the “pheno-packs” will definitely pique my interest if they continue to do them).
Slurricane | Photo Phillip Danner
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Comedian John Cleese has an insight I hope you’ll consider. He says, “It’s easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent. It’s also easier to do little things we know we can do than to start on big things that we’re not so sure about.” I hope you’ll make this advice a priority in the coming weeks. You’ll be wise to prioritize important tasks, even those that aren’t urgent, as you de-emphasize trivial matters that tempt you to think they’re crucial. Focus on big things that are challenging, rather than on little things that are a snap.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Author Honoré Balzac (1799–1850) was born with sun and Mercury in Taurus and in the tenth house. Astrologers might hypothesize from these placements that he was ambitious, productive, tenacious, diligent, realistic, and willful. The evidence supporting this theory is strong. Balzac wrote over 80 novels that displayed a profound and nuanced understanding of the human comedy. I predict that 2020 will be a year when you could make dramatic progress in cultivating a Balzac-like approach in your own sphere. But here’s a caveat: Balzac didn’t take good care of his body. He drank far too much coffee and had a careless approach to eating and sleeping. My hope is that as you hone your drive for success, you’ll be impeccable in tending to your health.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Before he was 21 years old, William Shakespeare and his wife had birthed three kids. When he was 25, while the brood was still young, he started churning out literary masterpieces. By the time Will became a grandfather at age 43, he had written many of the works that ultimately made him one of history’s most illustrious authors. From this evidence, we might speculate that being a parent and husband heightened his creative flow. I bring this to your attention because I want to ask you: What role will commitment and duty and devotion play in your life during the coming months? (I suspect it’ll be a good one.) CANCER (June 21-July 22) Cancerian-born painter Stanley Spencer (1891–1959) didn’t align himself with any artistic movement. Early on, his work was an odd blend of French PostImpressionism and 14th-century Italian painting. I appreciate his stylistic independence, and suggest you draw inspiration from it in 2020. Another unique aspect of Spencer’s art was its mix of eroticism and religiosity. I think you’ll enjoy exploring that blend yourself in the coming months. Your spiritual and sexual longings could be quite synergistic. There’s one part of Spencer’s quirky nature I don’t recommend you imitate, however. He often wore pajamas beneath his clothes, even to formal occasions. Doing that wouldn’t serve your interests. (But it will be healthy for you to be *somewhat* indifferent to people’s opinions.)
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)
Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1440s. In subsequent decades, millions of mass-produced books became available for the first time, making their contents available to a far wider audience than ever before. The printing press caused other changes, too—some not as positive. For instance, people who worked as scribes found it harder to get work. In our era, big culture-wide shifts are impacting our personal lives. Climate change, the internet, smart phones, automation, and human-like robots are just a few examples. What are doing to adjust to the many innovations? And what will you do in the future? Now is an excellent time to meditate on these issues.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
You’re skilled at the art of self-editing. When bright new ideas well up in you, you understand they are not yet ready for prime time, but will need to be honed and finessed. When your creativity overflows, tantalizing you with fresh perspectives and novel approaches, you know that you’ll have to harness the raw surge. However, it’s also true that sometimes you go too far in your efforts to refine your imagination’s breakthroughs; you overthink and over-polish. But I have a good feeling about the coming weeks, Virgo. I suspect you’ll find the sweet spot, self-editing with just the right touch.
He was not renowned for cheerful optimism. And yet he did appreciate sheer beauty. “There is nothing perfect in this world,” he said, “except Mozart.” So much did Peacock love Mozart’s music that during one several-month stretch he attended six performances of the genius’s opera Don Giovanni. In this spirit, Libra, and in accordance with astrological indicators, I encourage you to make a list of your own perfect things—and spend extra time communing with them in the coming weeks.
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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
Jean-Michel Basquiat started his career as a graffiti artist. When he evolved into being a full-time painter, he incorporated words amidst his images. On many occasions, he’d draw lines through the words. Why? “I cross out words so you will see them more,” he said. “The fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them.” In the coming weeks, you might benefit from discreetly using this strategy in your own life. In other words, draw attention to the things you want to emphasize by downplaying them or being mysterious about them or suggesting they are secret. Reverse psychology can be an asset for you.
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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)
Because of the onslaught of the internet and social media, lots of people no longer read books. But in 2020, I highly recommend that you not be one of that crowd. In my astrological opinion, you need more of the slow, deep wisdom that comes from reading books. You will also benefit from other acts of rebellion against the Short Attention Span Era. Crucial blessings will flow in your direction as you honor the gradual, incremental approach to everything.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)
“I love to be surprised by something I have never thought of,” declares Capricorn actor Ralph Fiennes. According to my analysis of the astrological aspects, you’ll be wise to make that one of your top mottoes in 2020. Why? First, life is likely to bring to your attention a steady stream of things you’ve never imagined. And second, your ability to make good use of surprises will be at an all-time high. Here’s further advice to help ensure that the vast majority of your surprises will be welcome, even fun: Set aside as many of your dogmas and expectations as possible, so that you can be abundantly receptive to things you’ve never thought of.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)
“I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them.” So said one of the most famous and influential scientists who ever lived, Aquarian-born naturalist Charles Darwin. In accordance with upcoming astrological factors, I invite you to draw inspiration from his approach. Allow yourself to explore playfully as you conduct fun research. Just assume that you have a mandate to drum up educational experiences, and that a good way to do that is to amuse yourself with improvisational adventures.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)
THE M A R IJ U A N A R E VOLU T ION
D A I LY S P E C I A L S
Homework: How will you create the story of your life in 2020? https://RealAstrology.com
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“How do you get your main pleasure in life?” That question was posed to Scorpio author Evelyn Waugh and Piscean social reformer William Beveridge. Waugh said, “I get mine spreading alarm and despondency.” Beveridge said, “I get mine trying to leave the world a better place than I found it.” I hope you will favor Beveridge’s approach over Waugh’s in 2020, Pisces—for two reasons. First, the world already has plenty of alarm and despondency; it doesn’t need even a tiny bit more. Second, aspiring to be like Beveridge will be the best possible strategy for fostering your mental and physical health.
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Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes /daily text message horoscopes. The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700.
New year!
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
Thomas Love Peacock was a Libran author whose specialty was writing satirical novels that featured people sitting around tables arguing about opinions and ideas.
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PUZZLES NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE CROSSWORD PUZZLE STRESSED OUT | 0119 By Will Nediger Puzzles edited by Will Shortz ACROSS
1 Stuffs with bacon, say 6 Convention handouts 10 Second of the 10 biblical plagues 15 Mission-driven org. 19 Underway 20 Congress person 21 Ancient neighbor of Lydia 22 Intl. group founded in 1960 with five members 23 “We can’t hear you in the back, Johannes!”? 26 Winter leaf covering 27 “Oops, my bad!” 28 Fixtures at most airport lounges nowadays 29 Boston ____ (Sam Adams offering) 30 Place to fill up in Canada 31 Not just -er 32 Canal trouble 35 Triage sites, briefly 36 Brown in a Food Network kitchen 37 Not leave alone 38 Put on a production of a classic Sondheim musical? 41 Subjects of “birds and bees” talks 44 Knowledgeable about 45 Pirate’s chant 46 Scottish cap 47 What composers do when they add the finishing touches? 50 Lets out 52 Put away, as a sword 53 “What’s the ____?” 54 Place to park at the bar 55 Police, informally 56 Comedian Andre with a self named Adult Swim show 59 Russian assembly 61 Super-duper 65 Western Hemisphere grp. 66 What workers at the sticker factory do? 70 ____ Royal Highness 71 Words before “Remember” and “Forget” in song titles 73 Shooter of arrows 74 Code part 75 Brown in the kitchen 76 Scarfs (down) 79 Do some pogoing 81 French France 83 Jackson nicknamed the “Queen of Gospel” 86 Shorten words like “forecastle” and “boatswain”? 89 Equal 90 Stretching muscle 92 Certain yearling 93 What a private detective might photograph 94 Ignore what you have in reserve while taking inventory? 97 Morn’s counterpart 98 Assignment that might have a page limit 99 #MeToo ____ 100 Underground places with bats 102 Anti-bullying spot, for short 105 Toiling away 106 Computing pioneer Lovelace 107 Side dish with kalua pig 108 Betrays a sibling, say
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Mental slip-up Hairstyles for Pam Grier and Angela Davis Take a break from flying, say Martial-arts center Audiophile’s purchase Nymph pursuer Drag wear Soccer phenom Freddy Be nominated Some scuba gear Overcharge ridiculously In the world Samoa salesperson Worth heeding Utterly useless Nonbeliever, now Not always available NASCAR and FIFA, e.g.
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24 Ibex’s perch 25 Brinks 33 Google Play buys 34 Big snapper, informally 35 Book of Mormon book 36 Ready for romance 37 Trim, in a way 39 Spectacle 40 “I totally forgot!” 41 End result 42 Take up again, as a case 43 Like foods said to be good for hangovers and bad for skin complexion 44 In ____ (not yet delivered) 48 Singer who was in 2018’s Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again 49 Has as a mount 51 Right-angled joint 54 “Quién ____?” (Spanish “Who knows?”) 57 Fateful day in 44 B.C. 58 No purebred 60 Cosmo, e.g. 62 What’s the big idea? 63 Dimensions 64 Something you don’t want to be under 66 Noodle, for example 67 Colleague 68 Put on the books 69 Giving up time
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72 Carrier until 2001 75 Rudder’s place 77 Place 78 Dispersed, as a search party SUDOKU EASY | N° 171998528 80 Retro Chrysler Fill in the grid so that every row, column and 3-by-3 box 82 Corroborates contains the numbers 1 through 9. www.printmysudoku.com 83 Did some gambling 84 Former Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand 85 Defenders in the Battle of Trenton 86 ____ Nostra 87 Film director Nicolas 88 Tangent introducer 91 Funny 95 Watched a kitty 96 Target of an air freshener 97 Series finale abbr. 101 Baseball’s Chase 102 Confederate in an audience 103 Ridged fabric 104 Syrian strongman 106 Doesn’t just sit 107 Writers might click them 109 Sporty roof feature 112 Solemn statement 113 Poetic “before” 114 Feel bad
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NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE CROSSWORD PUZZLE ANSWERS
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Vote this year because Ruth Bader Ginsburg can only hang on for so long.