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#OKCStrong

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JAMEY JOHNSON - JUNE 12 BILL ENGVALL - JUNE 26 THE COMMODORES - JULY 10 2 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette UNI_15-CGR-020_April_Combo_NP.indd 1

4/9/15 1:49 PM

CONTENTS 44

ON THE COVER Twenty years have passed since the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. In this issue, Oklahoma Gazette looks at how it still impacts city development and growth, how our interfaith communities pulled together and why our reaction helped redefine our city and state. P.4, 6, 14, 26, 29, 30 Share your memories and stories of strength and hope with us on social media with the hashtag #okcstrong.

NEWS 4

City: urban impact and vitality

#okcstrong: 20 things to consider

City: neighborhood alliances

LIFE

Food & Drink: Festival of the Arts, Chong Wah Bistro & Grill, food news, Success Vodka, OKG eat: thriving downtown Enroll With It

Performing Arts: SINgularly Sordid, Nine Sinatra Songs, Pilobolus Dance Theatre

Active: Poos Taekwondo, Patrick Beach

Education: Joy Hofmeister

News briefs

Culture: First Christian Church

Sudoku / Crossword

Chicken-Fried News

Culture: 96.1 KXY

Commentary

Youth: National Youth Orchestra

Music: Record Store Day, Kite Flying Robot, event listings, Question Records, Dreamers

Letters

Culture: State Poet Laureate

Visual Arts: Robert Peterson, Gabriel Hardman

Streaming: Salad Days, My First Mister

Astrology, Classifieds

LIFE 16

OKG picks

MISSION STATEMENT Oklahoma Gazette’s mission is to stimulate, examine and inform the public on local quality of life issues and social needs, to recognize community accomplishments, and to provide a forum for inspiration, participation and interaction across all media.

CONGRATULATIONS SINDEE BURGA You’re Gazette’s Weekly Winner!

To claim your tickets, call us at 528-6000 or come by our offices by 4/22/15.

OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 3

p hotos by m a rk ha n coc k

News city

Galvanized

Community building

More than a somber anniversary, this year also marks the two-decade renaissance of our city. By BeN Felder

A barista hammers his portafilter against a metal box, dumping the used coffee grounds in preparation for another cup of espresso. In a former auto garage along Hudson Avenue, Elemental Coffee has a line out the door as a combination of hipsters, businessmen and a small group in medical scrubs wait to order.

We were down on our knees, and it’s as if we grabbed hands and picked everybody up. — Mick Cornett

One block to the south, a chef maneuvers his box of produce to one hand as he opens the door to Ludivine, a restaurant that will be packed in a few hours, serving a new era of farmto-table fare. This cluster between Midtown and downtown is one of dozens across our urban landscape where new restaurants, coffee shops and art galleries have opened, giving Oklahoma City renewed

4 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

economic hope after decades of decay. It’s also just two blocks away from the site of one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in American history, which threatened to suffocate the spirit of a city that had already decided it was going to come back. The city was on the path to revival prior to April 19, 1995. But the truck bomb that blew apart the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building — and the lives of countless residents — gave the city no choice.

Redoubled responsibility

When the 350 pounds of homemade explosive inside a parked Ryder truck detonated at 9:02 a.m. on that blueskied spring morning 20 years ago, it tore off the front of the federal building, damaged buildings as far as 16 blocks away and left a nation in shock. “We were down on our knees, and it’s as if we grabbed hands and picked everybody up,” Mayor Mick Cornett said about the attack that took place nine years before his election. “And then we kind of dared the world to separate us.” Metropolitan Area Projects, known as MAPS, had been approved by voters 16 months prior to the bombing, setting in motion a massive capital improvements machine that would find election success two more times

had much more important issues than creating a canal, building a stadium or a new downtown library. Instead, city planners began meeting just two months after the blast in an effort to draw up plans for economic revival in the north Midtown area. “Over the next five years, the city’s improving economy created tax revenues of more than $350 million, with approximately $140 million in private-sector investment,” wrote professor Spiro Pollalis about the city’s initial recovery in a 2006 research paper at Harvard University. “Federal and private money was also secured for a national memorial and museum.” Instead of accepting its status as a sleepy, Middle American town content with its deserted streets and lackluster economy, it undertook aggressive recovery efforts. The terrorist attack couldn’t shake the city’s drive. “Would our city have responded as well as Oklahoma City?” asked independent blogger Robert Rivard in a 2012 column comparing OKC and San Antonio. “This is truly a Comeback City.”

top Two decades after the bark was blown from this tree at ground zero, The Survivor Tree thrives as part of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. above A video with Mayor Mick Cornett welcomes visitors near the entrance of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. and become a model for other cities. The catastrophe would have been a fine reason for the city to declare it

This Sunday’s 20-year anniversary is primarily a time to remember the lost, celebrate hundreds of personal stories of recovery and thank those who ran toward the wall of execrable black smoke on that April morning. But it also is a time to appreciate OKC’s unique story of revival. “This is a beautiful site, and it’s in the middle of a beautiful city,” said Robert Harris, an Arkansas native, last week as he visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. “You appreciate the way [OKC] has rebuilt itself; not just from the impact of the bombing, but also just the way it has rebuilt its downtown.” Cornett doesn’t credit the blast for the city’s revival, but he said it highlighted the way the town can unify, which was put on display in following elections when additional bond measures and MAPS programs passed with large support. “After the bomb, you saw that the unity that began in the years and months before the bombing really took hold,” Cornett said, “that unity that allowed the city and school districts to get together and do MAPS for Kids. We were passing bond issues in 2007 by 80 percent when nothing passes with that big of a margin. “And then you add on the pride of coming out of that so fast. I think that’s what makes this city unique and really highlights our comeback.”

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Opening date:

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OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 5 4/6/15 2:59 PM

As we mark the 20th anniversary of the OKC bombing, here are 20 things for you to think about on April 19. By BeN Felder

The April 19, 1995, attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was a defining moment in our city’s history, and this year marks its 20th anniversary. Each year, its survivors and victims are commemorated, and this week, a series of memorials, events and productions pay tribute to the men, women and children who lost their lives. Here are 20 storylines, quotes, numbers and events to consider. 1

Museum upgrades

The Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum underwent a $7 million renovation over the past year to update it with new artifacts and technology. “The story [of the attack] is so expanded now with the telling of the trial, and we have so much more material than when the museum originally opened,” OKC Councilwoman Meg Salyer said about her recent visit to the site.

Teaching generations

Debra Davis was teaching in her classroom at Northwest Classen High School when she felt the blast of the truck bomb. Twenty years later, she is teaching the details of that day to students who were not alive when the attack occurred. “On the 19th of April every year, I introduce the subject to my [ninth-grade] history class, and I will do the same next week,” Davis said. “The students also have to do a history project, and most of them end up choosing to do it on the bombing.” While it is a significant event for many state residents, a new generation is growing up with little knowledge or context of what took place so close to their own homes. “When we built the museum a dozen years ago, we talked philosophically

6 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

above Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum visitors find updated exhibits following a $7 million renovation completed last year. about the fact that someday, there will be kids that weren’t alive and wouldn’t know this story,” said Kari Watkins, executive director of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. “Fast-forward and we are there.” The bombing and its aftermath is an important chapter in American history, but for kids growing up here, it can be a deeply personal subject of study. “When they come into class, my students know that it happened, but they don’t know the number of lives lost, they don’t know [about] the person who was accused of the crime and the details,” Davis said. “When I tell them I was in this class and could feel it, it becomes real to them.”

Service, kindness

Sam Presti, Oklahoma City Thunder general manager, recently asked the community to honor the “Oklahoma Standard,” a belief in local values that were exemplified in recovery efforts after the bombing. “It’s not something we are trying to instill; it’s something that we are trying to preserve,” Presti said about the campaign. Presti said the campaign pledge is a commitment to perform one act of service, one act of honor and one act of kindness. Presti also is a trustee for the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. Learn more at okstandard.org. 2

professionals to the course, which winds through downtown and the city’s treelined neighborhoods. The event also includes a half marathon, a marathon relay, a 5k race and a kids marathon.

Security summit

Following the terrorist bombing, the city became a focus for national security officials as they prepared for the possibility of another attack. This week, Oklahoma City University School of Law hosts The National Summit on Homeland Security Law. It runs FridayMonday and explores the bombing investigation and trial. It also features forums on current terrorism threats. 3

Anniversary quotes

“Oklahoma has earned its place in American folklore as cowboy-tough and proudly self-reliant … In this madness, they have elevated us all with their essential sense of goodness, community and compassion.” — Tom Brokaw, 1995, NBC Nightly News “You have lost too much, but you have not lost everything. And you have certainly not lost America, for we will stand with you.” — President Bill Clinton, 1995, Oklahoma City speech “Sometimes I do wish this hadn’t happened to me, but then I think about all the things I’ve gotten to do.” — P.J. Allen, federal building daycare survivor, 2005, The Dallas Morning News “You can’t forget a searing time like that.” — Gov. Frank Keating, 2015, News 9 ‘’I thought the whole building was

coming down on us. I didn’t know if we were going to get out.” — Cynthia Lou Klaver, in building across the street, 1995, Associated Press “There’ll never be closure. There’ll always be this deep, deep hurt.” — Jim Denny, father of two injured children, 1997, federal court hearing

Anniversary numbers

9:02 a.m.: The time at which the truck bomb parked outside the federal building detonated. 168: The number of lives that were lost, including 19 children. 650: Around 650 people were injured in the explosion. 33: The number of state and federal agencies impacted by the attack. 12,000: The number of volunteers and emergency personnel who reported to aid recovery efforts at the bombsite. 28,000: The number of Federal Bureau of Investigation interviews conducted during its investigation. 11: The number of counts upheld against Timothy McVeigh for the terrorist act. In 2001, he was executed via lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. 1997: The year the Oklahoma City National Memorial opened on the site of the former federal building. The museum opened five years later.

mark hancock / file

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p r ovi de d

News city

Memorial Marathon

The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon is consistently rated as one of the nation’s top marathons. The April 26 event draws amateurs and world-class

Frank Keating

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OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 7 3/26/15 11:13 AM

News city

Ga rett fi s bec k

to come to a meeting every month, and nobody really wants to come to a grade school and hear a presentation on code enforcement. But there are a lot of different ways now to get that information out, and neighborhood associations have to move along with the times. Providing a Facebook page, providing a website, getting on social media to let people know tips on code enforcement — it’s a whole different way of interacting, even from what it was 11 years ago.

Georgie rasco

Q&A Neighborhood Alliance of Central Oklahoma leader Georgie Rasco talks with Oklahoma Gazette about the importance of community involvement in city development. By BeN Felder

Editor’s note: This story is part of a monthlong series that explores the neighborhoods in urban Oklahoma City. Pick up next week’s Oklahoma Gazette for more coverage. For almost four decades, Neighborhood Alliance of Central Oklahoma (NACOK) has been helping hundreds of communities organize in an effort to improve their quality of life and have a seat at the table when it comes to city development. However, as Oklahoma City continues to evolve, neighborhoods have to reconsider how they organize, meet and communicate. Neighborhood associations and the alliance are being forced to adapt and create new methods. As part of Oklahoma Gazette’s monthlong series on neighborhoods, Georgie Rasco, executive director of NACOK, answered some questions on the future of neighborhood associations, how to form one and why OKC has embraced the concept of tight-knit communities. Oklahoma Gazette (OG): What is the recipe for a thriving neighborhood? Georgie Rasco (GR): Every single neighborhood is different. There is no plan that we can plop down in front of every neighborhood and say, “Do A, B and C and you are going to be happy, healthy and safe.” So what we

8 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

have to do is work individually with the neighborhood and discover where it’s located, what kind of people live there and what the people living there really want out of their neighborhood. Do they want to be more walkable and have more bike routes? Do they really want to have more of a connection with their grade school? Are they an older neighborhood or a place with lots of young people? All of that has to be considered when talking about a great neighborhood. OG: Is that a challenge for some neighborhood leaders? GR: That process is absolutely a challenge for almost everyone who walks into our office. There are some basics that we want to see if you are going to have an actual neighborhood association; we want you to be incorporated, have a set of bylaws, elect a leadership team; we want you to be transparent in your business activities. Those are just good basics of any neighborhood association that is collecting money. Sometimes individuals get a little nervous when we start to tell them those things, but when we tell them the reasons, such as the protections that come along with being associated, then they start to understand that once those things are in place, they can get on with the fun things that create a great neighborhood.

OG: It seems like neighborhood revival is thriving in OKC right now. What do you credit that to? GR: I think the city of Oklahoma City got scared several years ago. The planners, the people in power, even the citizens when we started to really look at what sprawl is doing to us. We began trying to figure out what it is that’s going to bring people back to these fabulous inner-city neighborhoods. That was going to take a concerted effort on many people’s parts, which I think has happened over the last several years. Some very creative developers have come in and done some very wonderful things. The school system is working really hard to be competitive with outlying school systems. The [new] sidewalks, the trails, all of that combined have made people rethink what it means for a family to live closer to downtown, which is nothing but beneficial for the entire city. OG: How is neighborhood organization evolving in OKC? GR: We are challenged right now in thinking about what a neighborhood association looks like in 2020. The things that took place even 11 years ago when I came onboard, or even 38 years ago, when this organization started, are all changing. You used to have groups of people getting together maybe once a month and listening to a speaker. That’s pretty much gone. Nobody has the time

OG: Are you finding that the new generation of OKC residents are getting involved in neighborhood revival and organizing? GR: I think neighborhoods have embraced the new generation and you are seeing absolutely wonderful things. In Linwood, for example, they have lots of people who have lived there for decades, but a lot of new families are moving in. They are starting to see things like stroller clubs, where in the mornings, all of the young moms meet at their little free library and then they can go on walks together. They have a lot of activities that are geared toward young families that are living there. You might not see those same young people at association meetings, but in those conversations and gatherings at things like the stroller club, they are talking about things like adding a small park or about the streets or the city council elections. So they are talking about their little part of the city while they are socializing. There’s a lot of ways to be active in your neighborhood besides coming to a meeting once a month. OG: What is your advice for a person who wants to improve their neighborhood, which might lack an organized association? GR: We get a lot of types of [questions], and we sit down and talk with them to discover what it is that is really driving that [desire] to organize. Have they had a crime problem? Have they seen graffiti? Do they just want to get to know their neighbors more? Is there a bond issue coming up and they want to make sure their neighborhood gets what they need? We want to know what it is that is driving that conversation [to start a neighborhood association]. If the need really is a neighborhood association, which is still our bread and butter, we have a free training every single month. The first Monday of every month is a training at our office on how to organize and how to be a good neighborhood officer. The first Tuesday is how to organize and be a good officer in a mandatory [neighborhood] association. We work with both mandatory and voluntary [associations], but the inner city is primarily full of voluntary associations.

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OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 9 3/27/15 1:02 PM

m a rk ha n coc k

News edUcAtiON

Long road Hofmeister navigates bumps in the early days of her term as State School Superintendent. Joy Hofmeister

By BeN Felder

State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister sees a need for drastic change in Oklahoma’s education system. But her ability to bring any substantial level of reform rests on whether the state Legislature agrees. “That’s an interesting question,” Hofmeister, who was elected in November, told Oklahoma Gazette when asked how her Election Day mandate has been received by lawmakers at the state capitol. “I have to think about how I want to answer that, and maybe not as honestly as I may want to.” During a time when the state suffers from a teacher shortage and the third lowest teacher salary in America and has not seen hundreds of millions in cuts from several years ago fully restored, schools in Oklahoma are in a tough situation that many see as only getting tougher. A bill targeted at teacher unions was passed this legislative session, and school voucher legislation continues to move forward — two issues the state’s largest public education organizations have denounced. “They ignored your demand for change,” Rep. Scott Inman, D-Del City, told a crowd of teachers at a

10 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

capitol rally last month, blaming the Republican majority for the lack of improvement on the education front. Hofmeister, a Republican, isn’t ready to say the Legislature is ignoring teachers. But since her arrival nearly three months ago, she said she has found a statehouse that is not always quick to respond. “I think we’re definitely in a transition that is going to naturally take some time,” Hofmeister said. Patience might be hard to ask of underpaid teachers and parents who consistently see the state ranked in the bottom half on multiple education benchmarks, but Hofmeister says help is on the way. She has introduced a plan to raise teacher salaries by $5,000 and wants to increase the school year and do away with end-of-the-year tests not required by the federal government. Those ideas earn big applause at a teacher rally but lack the same kind of enthusiasm from a Legislature facing a $600 million budget hole and funding increase requests from other diminished agencies, such as transportation and corrections. “I think the teacher crisis is something everyone wants to solve, including our governor,” Hofmeister

said, noting that 500 emergency teacher certifications were issued this school year, a fivefold increase from 2012. “That means we found [500 people] and put them in a classroom without taking the time to test that teacher. That is extraordinary, and it’s got to change.”

I think the teacher crisis is something everyone wants to solve, including our governor. — Joy Hofmeister

But while Hofmeister pushes budget requests and other policy proposals, she said her job includes taking on a posture of listening and respect toward educators, something her predecessor, Janet Barresi, was often accused of lacking. “I’m trying to shift the focus away from a hammer and more to a flashlight when it comes to teacher

accountability,” Hofmeister said. “Our teachers have been demoralized, and it’s more than [low] pay. Increasing pay is what is going to send the signal and message to our teachers who are leaving, but there are other things we need to do.” Hofmeister supporters say the cultural change at the state department of education is what has to come before the policy changes, which they hope will be quick to follow. “I definitely think there is a whole new atmosphere at the state department of education than there was three months ago,” said Meredith Exline, a Hofmeister supporter and newly elected member of the Edmond school board. “I think she has reached out to all [education] advocacy concerns and is really trying to hear what they have to say.” In an interview with Oklahoma Gazette three months before her departure from office, Barresi, who lost to Hofmeister in the Republican primary, blamed the education establishment for turning teachers against her. She also said her removal from office would cost the state the type of tough talk it needs on education. In her short time in office, Hofmeister has appeared to use a softened approach when compared to Barresi. But she has already had her battles, including with the state school board, which accused Hofmeister of over-controlling meetings. “We’re getting zero communication out of this department,” state school board member Amy Ford told Tulsa World last month following a heated meeting. “I expected a level of respect to our commitment. There is no respect here.” Last week, Hofmeister announced the hiring of her chief of staff and chief operating officer, completing the formation of her cabinet. “We really haven’t had a chance to be operating at full speed until this point [with the new hires],” Hofmeister said. “That’s what I attribute some of the bumps in the road to.” Hofmeister has discovered there are many bumps in Oklahoma state government, particularly on the education road. “I don’t have any picture other than the one I am focusing on, which is students,” said Hofmeister, promoting a students-first stance that has been publically adopted by nearly every other person to hold her post. “It’s one thing to say these things, but you have to show it in your tone and the way you listen to teachers, parents and students. We have a long ways to go, but I think we are building a foundation to bring the change we want to see.”

News BrieFs By BeN Felder

Board member Bob Hammack (pictured) became heated during last week’s school board meeting when he said the OKC district had not been fair in its dealings with a semi-professional football team. The Oklahoma City Bounty Hunters had requested a lease agreement to use Speegle Stadium at Capitol Hill High School for its home games next season, but Superintendent Robert Neu recommended denial, which the board — sans Hammack — agreed to follow. The district had offered a list of things the organization would need to make to the stadium, which team officials systematically denied as necessary when they addressed the board. There also was some concern that getting the venue ready for the Bounty Hunters could delay the site’s projected opening date. “The Bounty Hunters have other options, but I’m not sure we do,” Ron Millican said. The board voted 7-1 to reject the lease agreement. Hammack shouted out, “Sorry for wasting your time!” to team officials as they left board chambers.

Quotable “There’s been a lot of research that shows us there is very clear correlation between educational attainment and health and wellness. We think we really have mutual interests and mutual benefits with the school district.” Those are the words of Gary Cox, executive director of Oklahoma City-County Health Department (pictured). During a presentation at last week’s OKC school board meeting, Cox said his agency would like to build a health and wellness center in south Oklahoma City similar to the center already located near Martin Luther King Elementary in the northeast. The proposed center would be next to Parmelee Elementary School.

m a rk ha n coc k / fi le

Rejected Bounty

provided

“Your paper once called me a ‘grumpy old man,’” Councilman Pat Ryan (pictured) told the Oklahoma Gazette reporter in his office before a long pause. “That’s the only thing you’ve ever got right about me.” Ryan, a 10-year member of the Oklahoma City Council, often came across as a man with rough edges, but he never shied from sharing his opinion or calling another counselor to task on an issue he disagreed with. This month, he begins his retirement from public service, leaving behind a reputation as a stalwart politician that, while sometimes exhausting, gained respect from his colleagues. “He was a great analytical mind that kept you on your toes,” City Manager Jim Couch said. Ryan was elected in 2005 as councilman for Ward 8. “I think [the thing I’m most proud of] was ensuring that our processes work and our citizens weren’t being ground up by the machinery of the city,” Ryan said. Read more online at okgazette.com.

be n fe l de r

So long

By the numbers 4,286. That’s how many people downloaded the city’s new mobile app as of last week. Launched in October, the okc.gov app can be found in both the Android and Apple stores. Users can submit comments and concerns, including reports of potholes, graffiti and other problems. Kristy Yager, city public information and marketing director, said there were no download goals, but the app’s developer, SeeClickFix, is impressed with its usage to date.

OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 11

CHiCKEN CKEN Bike hate

Ahhhhh, being in the top 50 is rad. Remember how exciting it was to pore over Billboard charts in Rolling Stone as a kid and how cool it was when you realized you knew a chart maker? No? Either way, now you know one. BetterDoctor.com recently released its ranking of Most Bike-Friendly City, and Portland, Oregon, spun straight to No. 1. Oh, wait. The website added together and weighted details like how many people bike, how safely they’re able to bike and if there is ongoing infrastructure improvement to facilitate safe biking. Unfortunately, Oklahoma City ranked No. 49, with only .23 percent of employees biking to work and an overall city score of 15.49 (Portland earned 87.59). So, to reverse that list, when it comes to the top 10 least bike-friendly cities in the nation, Oklahoma

FRiED NEWS

City ranks No. 4. That’s ten slots ahead of Tulsa! Take that, suckers. On a positive note, our city has announced many initiatives in recent years that should drive (or shall we say bike) us to a better ranking, from added bike lanes to improved safety and a growth in bike clubs across the metro.

Moving on

Pay no attention to that shaking feeling coming from the ground underneath your feet. That appeared to be the advice from oil executives like Harold Hamm (Can we call him fracking’s founding father?) to the growing concern that Oklahoma’s rise in earthquakes is correlated to its boom in oil and gas fracking activity. Bloomberg

recently reported that Hamm and other oil and gas executives and companies held private meetings with geologists in an attempt to slow scientific research into the issue. Hamm is an Oklahoma native perhaps best known for being a wildly rich oil and gas tycoon, even by tycoon standards. “[Austin] Holland had been studying possible links between a rise in seismic activity in Oklahoma and the rapid increase in oil and gas production, the state’s largest industry,” wrote Bloomberg reporters Benjamin Elgin and Matthew Philips. “Hamm requested that Holland be careful when publicly discussing the possible connection between oil and gas operations and a big jump in the number of earthquakes, which geological researchers were increasingly tying to the underground disposal of oil and gas wastewater, a byproduct of the fracking boom that Continental has helped pioneer.” The same article reported that many in the geology field expressed

concern over the influence that the oil and gas sector seems to have over science. The state’s increased earthquake activity might not be directly related to fracking, but if it shakes like a caffeinated duck ... it might be Inhofe.

Prove it

God has spoken, but Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-You Kidding?) wants a second opinion from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Inhofe, chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, recently joined a cadre of other senators to ask the EPA to come explain climate change models to them. It’s a little odd because in 2012, Inhofe was quoted as saying us mere

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12 | APRIL 15, 2015 | OKLAHOMA GAZETTE

mortals are to think we are “able to change what He is doing to the climate.” (So, is God a methane producer? And, yes, that’s a fart joke.) In his book, The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, Inhofe quotes Genesis 8:22 as proof that it’s not real: “As long as the earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer.” “The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is, to me, outrageous,” he said in his book. As if anyone would need more proof than that! Earlier this year, Inhofe also (in)famously tossed a snowball onto the Senate floor to prove once and for all that global warming is a whopping load of hooey. Perhaps if Inhofe returns to our state in the near future, he can prove with certainty that earthquakes also are bogus, especially if the ground isn’t shaking when he steps from his

Bridal R i ng s

plane (or other preferred method of transport).

Funeral crashers

You know that movie Wedding Crashers, in which Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson pretend to be invited guests at weddings so they can meet chicks and everyone laughs a lot and lives happily ever after? Yeah, well, this is nothing like that. Nobody in that knee-slapper said, “Good, ’cause I took two hits of meth earlier,” after failing a drug test. A woman from Purcell was arrested March 28 after crashing a funeral. Police told KOCO.com that Valerie Rae Zoski joined a funeral motorcade and honked her car horn and yelled out her window all the way to the

We d di ng B a n ds

cemetery while dragging an American flag and attempting to hit police officers who tried to stop her. After the procession arrived at the cemetery, Zoski ran over graves and interrupted a second funeral. Zoski’s passenger, Carl Clark, said he had nothing to do with her disrespectful actions, but he had outstanding warrants and went to jail anyway. If all this wasn’t bad enough, Zoski’s 7-year-old daughter was in the vehicle — and wasn’t wearing a seatbelt — and a drug test proved that Zoski was under the influence of amphetamines and opiates.

Everything goes

Well, now that LeBron James left Miami for Cleveland a while back, our own Kevin Durant doesn’t really have a reason to keep his condo there. The Oklahoma City Thunder star has put his Miami space up for sale for $3.45 million. The nearly 3,793-square-foot condo has three bedrooms and four full bathrooms with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Biscayne Bay, according to the Miami Herald. The property was purchased in 2011 for $1.825 million, reported the Los Angeles Times. While Durant — who will be a free agent in 2016 — might not need to offseason in Miami anymore, we are just hoping that he will at least play next year. Though he was sidelined in March, “the 26-year-old holds averages of 25.4 points per game and 6.6 rebounds per game in 27 contests this season,” according to the Times report.

2015

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COMMENTARY

Lessons learned, lessons forgotten BY ROBIN MEYERS

It is hard to believe that 20 years have passed. I was taking roll in a public speaking class at Oklahoma City University that fateful morning, and a young woman who was often tardy strolled in at 9:05 and said, “Sorry I’m late, but they just blew up a building over there.” I remember thinking that it was the strangest excuse I had ever heard — until we all learned that it was the terrible truth. It is not an exaggeration to say that our city’s revival began with the bombing, though that must sound hollow, even cruel, to the victims’ families. We responded in heroic and compassionate ways while the world watched and came together across all our differences because tragedy temporarily transforms human beings. The lessons learned were many: Terrorists do not just live elsewhere; they live here. First-responders are

a special breed, and we owe them gratitude and support. The government is not the enemy; the government is you and I. Hate speech, hate radio and the politics of paranoia can become a deadly combination in the weakminded and morally bankrupt. Life is not fair, and sometimes you can lose your life just by going to work. The lessons forgotten are remarkably similar to the lessons learned. On April 19, 1995, we arrested several “Arab-looking” men on suspicion of carrying out the attack for no other reasons than they “looked like terrorists.” The bombing took place on the third anniversary of the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and Timothy McVeigh accepted the theory that the government was guilty of murder in a botched effort to storm the compound to free those inside,

including children, who might be otherwise be harmed or killed. In McVeigh’s mind — bottle-fed on pathological hatred of the government (AM talk radio was in its heyday, and white survivalist movements were preparing patriots for the final battle with the “Clintonistas”) — he actually believed that when the bomb went off, it would spark the second American Revolution. In his mind, you are either “with us” or “against us,” and the lives of the children in the Murrah Building were appropriate collateral damage in his revolution, while the Waco children were martyrs. Hatred works that way. It always has. It still does. There are more hate groups in Oklahoma today than when McVeigh committed his heinous crime. Our country is more divided, more violent, more addicted to simple divisions of “us” versus “them” than ever before.

Opinions expressed on the commentary page, in letters to the editor and elsewhere in this newspaper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of ownership or management.

People still have bumper stickers on their cars that say about President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign: DO NOT RE-NIG in 2012. We are a federal welfare state that refuses Medicaid money because it is “tainted,” while also claiming to be the deeply Christian keepers of our sisters and brothers. But you can still lose your life just by going to work, or when your kids go to schools without storm shelters or when disease ravages us because we bought the lie that vaccinations cause autism. We owe it to the victims and survivors of the bombing to abandon, once and for all, that peculiar Oklahoma notion that ignorance is somehow endearing. Hatred is the stepchild of ignorance, and love is our last, best hope. Rev. Robin R. Meyers is senior minister of Mayflower UCC in Oklahoma City and Distinguished Professor of Social Justice at Oklahoma City University.

Hope springs from tragedy BY ADAM SOLTANI

Many ask me why I live in a state that vilifies and marginalizes minority groups. Why would I show pride in a state in which hate rhetoric is common among elected officials and laws are passed with the sole aim of violating the civil rights that we are all due? My answer is simple: Out of all evil comes good. No Oklahoman will forget the tragedy that shook our state on April 19, 1995. It always will be remembered as one of the worst domestic terrorist attacks in our country’s history. That day, our nation saw how acts of hate and evil impacted the lives of so many. As a result, the life we knew was forever changed, as we also lost our sense of safety and security. We can forever analyze the negative ways in which the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building

14 | APRIL 15, 2015 | OKLAHOMA GAZETTE

changed our lives. However, in marking the memory of those we lost on that day, we should also put in perspective how we overcame such great challenges as a state and learned to short-circuit hate and bigotry with peace, love, mercy and compassion. From the tragic event that took place 20 years ago, a small movement was born, one that many are still unaware of. In the hours that followed the bombing, anti-Muslim hysteria in our state exploded as they erroneously were targeted as Public Enemy No. 1. When our state’s Muslim community had nowhere else to turn and no one else by its side, fellow Oklahomans noticed, and the city’s interfaith community was born out of the ashes of the Murrah Building. Over the last two decades,

cooperation among faith groups has increased to the point that we now have multiple state organizations dedicated to fostering dialogue and cooperation among people of all backgrounds. These organizations realize that beyond the beliefs we all hold dear, our common denominator is that we must connect on a human level to move past our ignorance, bias and prejudice. Perhaps it is befitting that the fruits of two decades of interfaith building and cooperation in our state stands as a true honor to the legacy of those we lost in 1995. No longer are minority faith groups desperate for support as groups work together to build a deep level of understanding and appreciation for one another as Oklahomans. Twenty years after our state’s Muslim community found itself standing alone, scared and confused,

the interfaith community again took a stand for peace and love in September 2014 when an entire faith community came under attack following a criminal act in Moore. In February, when animosity reared its ugly head at Muslim Capitol Day in the form of hate- and bigotry-pushing protestors, interfaith community members arrived en masse and quickly dwarfed the number of protesters as they worked to protect every Muslim attendee. April 19, 1995 showcased the worst of humanity in an act of senseless violence, but who we have become as a people showcases the best of humanity for the rest of the country to see. Adam Soltani is executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

LETTERS Oklahoma Gazette provides an open forum for the discussion of all points of view in its Letters to the Editor section. The Gazette reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Letters can be mailed, faxed, emailed to jchancellor@ okgazette.com or sent online at okgazette. com. Include a city of residence and contact number for verification. Okie anarchy

Pete Lepo’s “Big government, big bills” (Letters, Feb. 18, Oklahoma Gazette) is the typical right-wing collection of distortions and false statements not generally worthy of reply, but he asks one question that deserves answer: What is the reason for tenure? The reason, of course, is to protect faculty from politically motivated, but vague and unsubstantiated charges of being “anarchists, unindicted felons and social misfits.” And, Pete, when someone says that government doesn’t create or fix anything and that it just makes everything worse, that makes him the anarchist, not everyone else. — Jeff Collins Norman

Not laughing

As an independent, freethinking woman living in Oklahoma, I was appalled by the cover story of this week’s Gazette (Performing Arts, “Hitting hard,” Ben Felder, April 1). Oklahoma is already nationally known as a horrible place to be a woman, with women earning only 76 cents to every dollar that men make for the same jobs. For a cover story to say that “Women can be funny too!” it’s adding insult to an already oppressed community. I realize that the article was probably meant to shed light on the women comedians of OKC, but think of it this way: If a cover story said, “Black people can be funny too!” it would draw criticism from across the board, and some people would probably lose their jobs. Whether it’s singling out race or gender, stereotyping is never a pretty thing, and frankly, I find it a shame that the Gazette has been so tasteless. (The article opens with a woman telling a tampon joke, and I won’t even go into all the reasons why that’s wrong.) In the future, I sincerely hope your writers will refrain from such derogatory articles, as women already have it hard

APRIL 19 THROUGH JUNE 14, 2015

enough here without some patriarchal dribble talking about “monthly flow” in a “man’s world.” It is very telling that this should even be a discussion in this day and age: Obviously, Oklahoma is still stuck in the stone age on a lot of things. From the tug job advertisements in the back pages to articles about women marketing their menstrual cycle, the Gazette really has become a reflection of the “values” Oklahomans hold. — Elizabeth Sotomayor Oklahoma City

NATIONAL WEATHER CENTER BIENNALE 2013 Best of Show Winner Elizabeth Patterson (Los Angeles, California) Pershing Square, Los Angeles Colored pencil and solvent on Bristol vellum 34.5 x 48.5 in The University of Oklahoma is an equal opportunity institution. www.ou.edu/eoo. For information and accomodations on the basis of disability, please call (405) 325-3095.

Correction

Last week’s Oklahoma Gazette cover story on architecture in Oklahoma City (News, “By Design,” April 8) mistakenly misidentified the 309 Monterey building as 309 Montgomery. Design of Dust Bowl Lanes & Lounge was also mistakenly attributed to Ken Fitzsimmons instead of Brian Fitzsimmons of Fitzsimmons Architects, Ken’s brother.

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Are you not currently enrolled in college classes? Do you have internet access? Can you travel to Edmond? If the answer to all these questions is “Yes,” please consider going to the web address below to participate in a research study being conducted at the University of Central Oklahoma that examines how religiosity impacts different psychological factors Participants can earn $20 in iTunes or Barnes & Noble gift cards for approximately 1 hour of their time. Visit bit.ly/1CcKKky or scan this: to learn more about the study and begin participation!

OKG picks are events

recommended by Oklahoma Gazette editorial staff members. For full calendar listings, go to okgazette.com.

BOOKS Visual Storytelling with Gabriel Hardman, L.A.based writer and illustrator who has worked on a number of comic book properties including The Hulk, Wonder Woman, Planet of the Apes and others will discuss his experiences of working in the world of big budget Hollywood versus the direct creative expression of making comic books, 6:30 p.m., Apr. 16. Bricktown Brewery, 1 N. Oklahoma Ave., 232-2739, bricktownbrewery.com. THU Shannon Miller Book Signing, Oklahoman and Olympic gymnast will sign her new book, It’s Not About Perfect: Competing for My Country and Fighting for My Life, noon2 p.m., Apr. 18. Full Circle Bookstore, 1900 Northwest Expressway, 842-2900, fullcirclebooks.com. SAT Poetry Writing Workshop, award-winning poet, Ken Hada will demonstrate his writing process and also hold Q&A time, 1-3 p.m., Apr. 18. Mustang Public Library, 1201 N. Mustang Road, Mustang, 376-2226, cityofmustang. org. SAT

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Paul Medina Book Signing, mixed media artist and author of Enchanted Circle, his first full-length novel will sign his latest work, 2 p.m., Apr. 18. JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N. Walker Ave., 528-6336, jrbartgallery.com. SAT This study has been approved by the University of Central Oklahoma’s Institutional Review Board (#13153). Please contact Dr. Caleb Lack at clack@uco. edu or 405-974-5456 with any questions. *iTunes and Barnes & Noble are not sponsors of this study

Sick and Tired: Stand-up Comedy by Parents for Parents

FILM White God, (HU, 2014, dir. Kornel Mundruczo) thirteenyear-old Lily’s father sets her dog Hagen free and Lily sets out to find him, 5:30 & 8 p.m., Apr. 17-18; 2 p.m., Apr. 19. Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive, 2363100, okcmoa.com. FRI-SUN

Local comedian Ben Flint created Sick and Tired: Stand-up Comedy by Parents for Parents to, you know, let adults have a night off and laugh while they do it. He presents a night of PG-13 humor with guests Spencer Hicks, Terre Cossey, Exum D. Comedian, Bill Parker and host Brett James 8 p.m. Saturday at the Fine Arts Institute of Edmond, 27 E. Edwards St., in Edmond. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $14 each or two for $25, available at ticketstorm.com or at the door for $17 each or two for $30.

Friday 20th Anniversary: Director’s Cut, (US, 1995, dir. F. Gary Gray) not only is this hilarious film coming back to theaters for a night, the event will also include behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the cast, 7:30 p.m., Apr. 20. Cinemark Tinseltown, 6001 N. Martin Luther King Ave., 424-0461, cinemark.com. MON

Saturday

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, (US, 1969, dir. George Roy Hill) two robbers head to Bolivia before they get caught, 7 p.m., Apr. 21. Harkins Theatre, 150 E. Reno Ave., 231-4747, harkinstheatres.com. TUE

Thunder Alley Wine + Art Experience, wine tasting and mingle with artist Ray Tennyson who created a 6 bottle series of Thunder basketball players, 6-9 p.m., Apr. 16. Waters Edge Winery, 712 N. Broadway Ave., 616-5031, wewokc.net. THU

FOOD Prairie Wolf Mixology, a mix of wine and spirits; each gallery participating in the Paseo will feature a drinking highlighting Prairie Wolf’s Vodka, Gin and Dark, 6-9 p.m., Apr. 16. Bombs Away Art, 3003A Paseo St., 474-0679, bombsawayart.com. THU

HAPPENINGS

Brew Workshop, learn to brew better coffee and explore the brewing process with a focus on concepts such as grind, water temperature, scales and brewing techniques, 2 p.m., Apr. 18. Coffee Slingers Roasters, 1015 N. Broadway Ave., 609-1622, coffeeslingers.com. SAT

Shop Hop, explore all that Automobile Alley has to offer; open house events at shops, live music, street artists, discounts at local restaurants and more, 6-9 p.m., Apr. 16. Automobile Alley, 1015 N. Broadway Ave., 488-2555, automobilealley.org. THU

The Dinner Detective, interactive murder mystery dinner show, 6:15-9:30 p.m., Apr. 18. Sheraton Hotel, 1 N. Broadway Ave., 235-2780, sheratonokc.com. SAT

H.B. Parons Fish Hatchery Open House, see the boats and equipment the staff use to monitor fish populations, learn how hatchery staff raises fish stock, how biologists

test water and more, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Apr. 17. H.B. Parsons Fish Hatchery, 10940 N. Meridian Ave., 297-1426, okc. gov/parks. FRI Premiere on Film Row, family-friendly block party featuring film screenings, live music, art exhibitions and food trucks, 7-10 p.m., Apr. 17. Film Row, 700 W. Sheridan Ave., filmrowokc.com. FRI Adult Workshop: Get the Dirt on Gardening, explore soil types, composting, how to plant a garden and learn proper planting techniques, 9 a.m.-noon, Apr. 18. Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, 2401 Chautauqua Ave., Norman, 325-4712, snomnh.ou.edu. SAT OKC Comic Con, browse your favorite comics, collectibles and table-top games, 10 a.m., Apr. 18. The Paramount OKC, 701 W. Sheridan Ave., 517-0787, theparamountokc.com. SAT

The 20th Anniversary Oklahoma City Bombing Project

For movie descriptions and ticket sales visit

OKCMOA.COM 16 | APRIL 15, 2015 | OKLAHOMA GAZETTE

PROVID ED

White God Friday | 5:30 & 8 p.m. Saturday | 5:30 & 8 p.m. Sunday | 2 p.m.

Oklahoma City University (OCU) students perform this original play, based on interviews with nearly 50 survivors, first responders, family members and local leaders. The school commissioned playwright Steve Gilroy, author of Motherland, a specialist in “verbatim theater,” to help write the production as a “living memorial,” said Brian Parsons, OCU associate dean of theater. It runs 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at OCU’s Burg Theatre in the Kirkpatrick Fine Arts Center at NW 24th Street and Blackwelder Avenue. Admission is free; however, reservations are recommended. Reserve your spot by visiting okcu.edu/ticketoffice or calling 208-5227.

Thursday-Sunday

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Trail of Tears Art Show The state’s longest-running Native American art showcase returns with the 44th annual Trail of Tears Art Show, which opens Saturday and runs through May 23 at Cherokee Heritage Center, 21192 S. Keeler Drive, in Park Hill. Last year, it included 114 pieces representing over 75 artists from 14 federally recognized tribal nations (including 2014 grand prize-winner Troy Jackson’s 5:00 Friday, pictured), organizers said. An awards show at the center kicks off the event 6-8 p.m. Friday. It officially launches on Saturday. For gallery hours and more information, visit cherokeeheritage. org or call (888) 999-6007.

Friday-Saturday, ongoing

CHK|Central Boathouse Grand Opening Celebration, event showcasing the boathouse with tours, live music, art, food trucks, demonstrations and more, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Apr. 18. Chesapeake Boathouse, 725 S. Lincoln Blvd., 5524040, boathousedistrict.org. SAT

YOUTH Bright Night of Girl Scouts, overnight adventure with Science Live, Planetarium shows, a Dome Theater movie, access to exhibits and hands-on activities, 7 p.m.-7 a.m., Apr. 17-18. Science Museum Oklahoma, 2100 NE 52nd St., 602-6664, sciencemuseumok.org. FRI-SAT Kid Fest 2015, hands-on activities encouraging creativity and learning, inflatables, family-friendly entertainment and roaming characters, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Apr. 18. Cox Convention Center, 1 Myriad Gardens, 602-8500, coxconventioncenter.com. SAT Worms with a Purpose, learn about worms and how they help nourish gardens, make a craft, play a fun game and create your own vermicomposting bin, 11 a.m.-noon, Apr. 18. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 445-7080, oklahomacitybotanicalgardens.com/events. SAT

discovery-based programs for children 4-14! 2401 Chautauqua Ave., Norman, OK 73072-7029 (405) 325-4712 | www.samnoblemuseum.org The University of Oklahoma is an equal oppor tunity institution. www.ou.edu/eoo. For accommodations on the basis of disability, please call (405) 325-4712.

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Rage in the Cage Oklahoma This is the best reason to fight that we’ve seen in a long time. Friday, local mixed martial artists use their strength to kick debt in the teeth by raising money for some of the youngest Oklahoma City bombing survivors: Brandon and Rebecca Denny, two of six survivors from the daycare inside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Rage in the Cage Oklahoma hosts the all-ages event 8 p.m. at OKC Farmers Public Market, 311 S. Klein Ave. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $30-$60 and are available at ticketstorm.com and local Party Galaxy locations.

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Celebrity Bears, learn about bears and how they became the Ground Hog Day mascots; visit the bear exhibit and create a craft, 2-3:30 p.m., Apr. 18. Oklahoma City Zoo, 2000 Remington Pl., 424-3344, okczoo.com. SAT Little Big Chefs, fun and easy cooking class for parents and kids; make delicious sliders, ages 5-8, 2-3 p.m., ages 9-12, 3:30-4:30 p.m., Apr. 19. Uptown Grocery Co., 1230 W. Covell Road, Edmond, 509-2700, uptowngroceryco.com. SUN

PERFORMING ARTS Jeeves in Bloom, Bertie Wooster has just returned from visiting the Riviera with his Aunt Dahlia when he receives a telegram from his aunt summoning him to the family’s home and on his way out and old friend stops by and ends up going along with Bertie and his valet starting a series of precarious situations for Bertie, 7:30 p.m., Apr. 16; 8 p.m., Apr. 17-18; 2 p.m., Apr. 19. Carpenter Square Theatre, 806 W. Main St., 2326500, carpentersquare.com. THU-SUN Come Blow Your Horn, a father and his wife are dealing with their 33-year-old playboy son and then their younger 21-year-old son moves in with him causing even more turmoil, 8 p.m., Apr. 16-18; 2:30 p.m., Apr. 19. Jewel Box Theatre, 3700 N. Walker Ave., 521-1786, jewelboxtheatre.org. THU-SUN Wrong Window, comedy tribute to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic, Rear Window; a couple thinks their neighbor murdered his wife and sneak into his apartment, 7:30 p.m., Apr. 17-18; 2:30 p.m., Apr. 19. The Stage Door Theater, 601 Oak Ave., Yukon, 405-265-1590, stagedooryukon.com. FRI-SUN NOIR, set in the 1940’s, Private eye Val Lance investigates the murder of a woman’s husband, 7:30 p.m., Apr. 16; 8 p.m., Apr. 17-18; 3 p.m., Apr. 19. Poteet Theatre, 222 NW 15th St., 609-1023, poteettheatre.com. THU-SUN Nine Sinatra Songs, a triple bill ballet performance including a performance inspired by the crowded streets of urban life, ballet to songs of Patsy Cline and a mix of ballet, modern dance and ballroom to the songs

18 | APRIL 15, 2015 | OKLAHOMA GAZETTE

of Frank Sinatra, 8 p.m., Apr. 17-18; 2 p.m., Apr. 19. Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N. Walker Ave., 297-2264, okcciviccenter.com. FRI-SUN Shelter, musical performance by the music ministry of First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City; sanctuary choir, soloists and scripture in remembrance of April 19, 1995, 10:30 a.m., Apr. 19 First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City, 1201 N. Robinson Ave., 232-4255, fbcokc.org. SUN We Rise to Bless You Still, 168 voices from Oklahoma City churches come together to present a musical memorial for the April 19th bombing, 5 p.m., Apr. 19. First Presbyterian Church, 1001 NW 25th St., 525-6584, fpcokc.org. SUN Mondays Don’t Suck with Tim Northern, comedy night with featuring name that tune, video sketches and more, 9-11 p.m., Apr. 20. The Tasting Room, 4322 N. Western Ave., 604-3015, thetastingroomokc.com. MON

ACTIVE OKC Barons vs. Iowa Wild, The Oklahoma City Barons host the San Antonio Rampage, the AHL affiliate of the Florida Panthers, 7 p.m., Apr. 17-18. Cox Convention Center, 1 Myriad Gardens, 602-8500, coxconventioncenter.com. FRI-SAT 2015 Architecture Spoker Run, ride your bicycle to five different architectural sites where you’ll tour the building and draw your poker card ending with pizza, drinks and prizes at Fitzimmons Architects, 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Apr. 18. Colcord Hotel, 15 N. Robinson Ave., 6014300, colcordhotel.com. SAT Tails on the Trail, 5K and 1 mile walk along the Oklahoma River helping to reduce pet homelessness and overpopulation with proceeds benefiting Best Friends of Pets, 9 a.m., Apr. 18. Wheeler Park, 1120 S. Western Ave. SAT

You’re invited to attend New Mexico Military Institute’s Kidical Mass, safe and fun bike ride for families to ride together starting with a safety check-in and beginning the ride from Perle Mesta Park playground to the Plaza making your way through historic Mesta Park and Gatewood neighborhoods, 11 a.m., Apr. 18. Perle Mesta Park Playground, 1900 Lee St. SAT OKC Energy vs. Seattle Sounders FC 2, professional soccer game, 7 p.m., Apr. 18. Taft Stadium, 2901 NW 23rd St. SAT Trailhead OKC, six-mile group hike in and around Oklahoma City with a picnic in Civic Center Park at the end; view sites such as Film Row, Devon Tower, Myriad Gardens, Urban Streetscapes and more, 3 p.m., Apr. 19. Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N. Walker Ave., 297-2264, okcciviccenter.com. SUN

VISUAL ARTS #MyOklahoma, photographer Caroline Cohenour and friends present their view of Oklahoma using Instagram. In Your Eye Studio & Gallery, 3005-A Paseo St., 525-2161, inyoureyegallery.com. April Featured Artists, Everything’s Coming Up Roses exhibit by Candice Anderson featuring her oil paintings and photography exhibit “One Image-Many Memories” by Linda Guenther. Contemporary Art Gallery, 2928 Paseo St., 601-7474, contemporaryartgalleryokc.com. Color in Bloom, glass pieces inspired from the flowers and trees showing off their early blooms as well as hand-painted silk scarves by Quinquia Calhoun. Jann Jeffrey Gallery, 3018 Paseo St., 607-0406. Contemporary Totems, series of totems crafted from fine hardwoods, laminates and found objects created by LeRoy Schultz. Kasum Contemporary Fine Arts, 1706 NW 16th St., 604-6602, kasumcontemporary.com. Fresh stART, exhibit features artists who are experiencing homelessness who are part of the ‘fresh stART’ art program; enable them to express themselves creatively, manage emotional issues, develop social skills and skills transferable to employment, noon-8 p.m., Apr. 17. Homeless Alliance, 1724 NW 4th St., 4158410, homelessalliance.org. FRI Grow, earthy abstract pieces inspired by dreams, the artist’s experiences, and overlooked small beauties; organic forms in watercolor, charcoal, pastels, and acrylics by artist Amanda Johnson. Elemental Coffee Roasters, 815 N. Hudson Ave., 604-9766, elementalcoffeeroasters.com.

Night with NMMI

Ladies of Norman, exhibit celebrating a group of creative and talented women and their various works of art. The Depot, 200 S. Jones Ave., Norman, 307-9320, pasnorman.org. Living Shrines, a collection of shrines found throughout New Mexico photographed by internationally recognized photographer Siegfried Halus. JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N. Walker Ave., 5286336, jrbartgallery.com.

Wednesday, April 22nd at 6:30 p.m. Hilton Garden Inn OKC North Quail Springs

Meet Your Maker, exhibit of local photographer Lindsay Harkness who captures the history of our state. DNA Galleries, 1709 NW 16th St., 525-3499, dnagalleries.com.

3201 NW 137th Street Oklahoma City, OK 73134

Oklahoma Girl, photography exhibit by Moore-based photographer Josh Fisher. The Purple Loft Art Gallery, 514 NW 28th St., Suite 400, 412-7066.

OU MFA Thesis Exhibit, featuring artwork by Kim Rice and Brittney Guest. Mainsite Contemporary Art, 122 E. Main St., Norman, 360-1162, mainsite-art.com.

Thursday, April 23rd at 6:30 p.m.

Post Pop Considerations, exhibit featuring three Oklahoma artists, William R. Struby, Trent Lawson and Thedirtyfabulous, that practice forms of Post Pop Art. IAO Art Gallery, 706 W. Sheridan Ave., 232-6060, iaogallery.org.

135 NW 2nd St

Hilton Garden Inn Lawton-Ft. Sill Lawton, OK 73501

Spring Show, show featuring work from the gallery members along with guest artist, glass blower Patty Harper, 5-8 p.m., Apr. 16. The Studio Gallery, 2642 W. Britton Road, 752-2642, thestudiogallery.org. THU

Whether you have already applied for admission or are simply interested in more information, come find out how our college preparatory high school and junior college programs prepare students to succeed at the next level. Dinner will be provided.

The First Fifty Years of Oklahoma Art, showcases work from Oklahoma’s first artists, including Woodrow Wilson Big Bow, Woody Crumbo, Charles Banks Wilson, Nan Sheets and more. Gaylord-Pickens Oklahoma Heritage Museum, 1400 Classen Drive, 2354458, oklahomaheritage.com.

Please RSVP by calling Sam Barnes at 575.624.8653 or email Sam at sbarnes@nmmi.edu.

The National Weather Center Biennale, international juried exhibition presenting: Art’s Window on the Impact of Weather on the Human Experience. Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 555 Elm Ave., Norman, 3253272, ou.edu/fjjma. Warhol: The Athletes, a series of ten portraits of famous athletes commissioned by Andy Warhol’s friend and collector Richard Weisman; exhibit represents represents Warhol’s career and the interactions that would occur between the arts and sport worlds in the decades to follow. Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive 236-3100, okcmoa. com.

Husbands, Wives and Lovers, exhibit of artwork by Norman-based artist, Mary James Ketch in which she creates a series of paintings that question our current behavior and how it reflects our future. The Project Box, 3003 Paseo St., 609-3969, theprojectboxokc.com.

PROVID ED

PRESENTED BY BRIGHTMUSIC CHAMBER ENSEMBLE

The Resilience Project OETA presents this statewide project and Resilience, a documentary examining our community and collective memories of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, including first-person stories from first responders, survivors, witnesses and families. The documentary screens 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 18 at Cameron University, 2800 W. Gore Blvd., in Lawton, inside the CETES Conference Center on the school’s campus. It screens again 6 p.m. Thursday at Eastern Oklahoma State College, 1802 E. College Ave., in McAlester, inside the Clark Bass Building. Both nights include a panel discussion with filmmakers and documentary subjects. Resilience makes its OETA broadcast premiere 6 p.m. Sunday. Visit oeta.tv. For OKG

Wednesday-Thursday, Sunday

music picks see page 43

FEATURING CHAMBER MUSIC OF MOZART • TURINA • BRAHMS TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR • ADULTS $15, STUDENTS FREE WITH I.D. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT BRIGHTMUSIC.ORG OKLAHOMA GAZETTE | APRIL 15, 2015 | 19

VALID ON DINNERS UP TO $1199 ONLY. DISCOUNT TAKEN OFF EQUAL OR LESSER PURCHASE. LIMIT 2 COUPONS PER PERSON. NOT VALID WITH ANY OTHER OFFERS. EXPIRES 4/22/15.

11AM-9PM | MON-SAT • 11AM-4PM | SUN

NW 50TH & MERIDIAN OKLAHOMASTATIONBBQ.COM 947.7277

WRONG WINDOW April 10th-19th By Bill Van Zandt & Jane Milmore Produced by special arrangement by Samuel French

Screamingly Funny! A tongue-in-cheek spoof to Alfred Hitchcock movies. Fri & Sat @ 7:30pm Sunday’s @ 2:30pm For tickets: www.stagedooryukon.com or 405-265-1590 601 Oak Street • Yukon • 73099 20 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

Life food & driNK

Eating masterpieces Laugh, look at art and gorge until you’re content at the Festival of the Arts. Did we mention there’s food? Because there’s a lot of it available this year.

Festival of the arts 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. tuesday-april 25 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. april 26 the festival plaza and myriad botanical Gardens near 301 W. reno ave. artscouncilokc.com/festival-of-the-arts free note: pets are not allowed.

Come for the food. Stay for the food. Hey, is anyone hungry? Oh, look; there’s some art. Food is a big draw for almost any outdoor event, but it seems to take center stage each year at Oklahoma City’s Festival of the Arts. The event is set to run from Tuesday through April 26 and features 144 artists who applied and were accepted to show their works by members of Arts Council of Oklahoma City. From photos and watercolors to sculpture and jewelry, the art on display — and for sale — touches on almost every different medium. While art row will be crowded with gawkers, looky-loos and peepers aplenty, the majority of the lines will be found in a semicircle of restaurant booths hawking Indian tacos, chicken tikka masala and buttery ears of freshly roasted corn. That, too, is decided annually. Even longtime favorites must compete to sell their fare at the festival, said Christina Foss, council director of communications. “Performing arts, visual arts, even the food vendors are juried in,” she said. “We want to check the quality, the variety and the prices.” Booths including Craig & Carter’s Famous Fish Tacos and Papa’s Greek Food might seem to be locked in, but the judges try to bring in something a little different each year. This year’s newcomers are Kaisers Diner and C’est Si Bon. C’est Si Bon owner and executive chef Ken Mills said the festival is a great way to get exposure for his Midwest City restaurant. His booth will serve fried catfish with tiger sauce, crawfish bread and spinach and artichoke bread, each for $9. “I’m happy to be introducing crawfish bread to Oklahoma City,” said Mills, who brought the recipe with him from New Orleans. He said he knew it would be a hit after watching the judges react to it at the food tryouts earlier this year. While C’est Si Bon takes a more savory route, Midtown’s Kaisers Diner brings out a bevy of desserts to delight festivalgoers. Co-owner Angie Uselton said its main attraction will be a homemade, old-fashioned peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream for $8. It also will sell single scoops of salted caramel and chocolate ice creams.

fried catfish with beans and rice from C’est si bon.

profits,” she said. “Nonprofits will provide volunteers to work the booth the whole week.”

Eat around

Crawfish bread from C’est si bon.

Eating = philanthropy

Restaurants choose local arts organizations to help with service and benefit from food sales. OKC Improv managing director Sue Ellen Reiman said her group will help serve at the Smokestack BBQ booth. OKC Improv is a teaching and performing group that began in 2009. Reiman said it’s more than just comedians or actors — the majority of people taking classes have no theater experience at all.

“They want to be better at presentations and being able to think on their feet,” she said. The festival will provide some funding, but Reiman also wants it to bring new awareness of the group to the city. Foss said food vendors choose their own arts nonprofit and work out agreements about donations. “The sample agreement we provide them suggests a 20 percent donation from

Of course, there’s more to eat than just what can be found on food row. Vendors are sprinkled throughout the festival, selling drinks, sno-cones and roasted nuts. But for dinner and a show, it’s hard to beat food demonstrations. “This is actually our third year for food demos,” Foss said. “They used to be held near Stage Center, but this year, we’re putting up a culinary arts tent in the southwest area of Myriad Gardens.” In addition to access to beer and wine tents, organizers also want food demonstrations to be more visible to visitors. At 45 minutes each, the demonstrations bring some of the city’s bestloved restaurants and food personalities to the stage to show off their skills and teach audiences how to prepare their favorite dishes at home. The diverse lineup includes Mexican food from Big Truck Tacos and Taco Rico, Italian cuisine from Sophabella’s, Rococo and Tommy’s Italian American Grill and fine dining from Vast and Broadway 10 Bar & Chophouse. Savory Spice Shop owner Able Blakely said he’s not sure what he’ll make during his demonstration, but he wants to help educate visitors about the importance of using fresh spices. “I’m definitely going to use some fresh spices from the shop, possibly to highlight one of the lesser-known curry blends,” he said. “Actually, I just got back from Turkey, so maybe I’ll cook something Turkish.” Audiences can watch the overhead mirror to see a bird’s-eye view of the preparation and taste samples of the food at the end. Food is art, right? Well, for those hungering for the inedible kind, too, Foss said one of her favorite exhibits is the Youth Art Sale, which runs 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 25. Just like everyone else, the young artists — ages 8 to 18 — have to apply to showcase and sell their art. “This gives them a chance to see what the professional artists do to get in,” she said. “They keep all their proceeds, so they can learn about how you can make a living as an artist.”

OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 21

p hotos by m a rk ha n coc k

bY GreG eLWeLL

Cash Yourin CupBoard

Bring a Bottle. Buy a Bottle. Get a Buck!

General chicken

From April 1st thru April 30th, bring in all your tired, old competitor’s bottles of spices and get $1.00 off any new Savory Spice Shop bottle of spice.

LASGIDI LOUNGE

Ankara Style “Happy Hour” where West African food & fashion meet. Sheraton OKC Downtown Hotel

04/30/15 5:30pm-8:30pm

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22 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

Mama Sinmi’s Chop House

RSVP on your event page on FACEBOOK www.mamasinmi.com for more details

All-American Chong Wah creates distinctive Asian specialties with Western flair. bY GreG eLWeLL

Egg. Drop. Soup. What a strange and exotic delicacy. For a very young me, back when the Earth was new and no one knew the dogs were even out, much less wondering who had done the letting, egg drop soup was the height of luxury. We didn’t eat out very often, and when we did, it was usually at The Black-eyed Pea or Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant. But for one dinner with extended family, we went to Blue Moon and my eyes were opened to the cuisine of the Far East.

staff prepares American Chinese food like they love it, and I love them for it. The best example of their prowess is with an oft-maligned, rarely enjoyable dish known as sweet and sour chicken ($8.25 with white or fried rice). Sweet and sour? Talk about decadent. Most people would settle for one or the other, but not here, not in America. And Chong Wah takes great care with its rendition. The chicken is tender and wrapped in a crispy, pillowy cloud of fried batter. Sweet and sour sauce is served on the side, so you can apply as Chong Wah Bistro & Grill little or as much 2345 n. Douglas blvd., midwest city | 769-8888 as you like. It was the chongwah.wix.com/chongwah-asianbistro best I’ve had quite What WORkS: Great chinese food a while. It was like classics done with care. the people cooking the food wanted What NeeDS WORk: the fried rice is a bit bland. diners to enjoy it or something. tIP: call ahead if you want to get your takeout from the drive-thru. Plenty of favorite dishes come as both a Somewhere along the way, the lunch special ($6.25 with an egg roll, magic wore off. Too many meals of two crab Rangoon, choice of soup tough orange chicken and flavorless and white or fried rice) or the all-day lo mein. Too many egg rolls that had special ($8.75 with all above plus a side never known the touch of human of sweet and sour chicken), and it’s a hands and packets of soy sauce that just pretty sweet value either way. tasted like salt and boredom. My Szechuan chicken was simple “Plus, it’s not authentic!” you cry. — with bell pepper, bamboo and So what? chicken in a spicy chili vinegar sauce Actual Chinese food has almost — but delicious. The heat of the nothing to do with American Chinese dish was never overpowering but was food. Thank goodness. I don’t care that packed full of flavor. It disappeared it’s our bastardized version of another from my plate with enough speed that country’s cuisine. Do you think our it was recently cast as the second lead in hotdogs are fresh from Frankfurt? the next The Fast and the Furious film. No. But this is what we have. There’s Ditto for the General chicken, nothing wrong with it. which had pieces of fried bird cooked And that’s why I was delighted by with garlic and spicy sauce. (It also Chong Wah Bistro & Grill, 2345 N. sounds like a very vague kind of meat: Douglas Blvd., in Midwest City. Its “What cut of the bird do they use?”

p hotos by m a rk ha n coc k

Life food & driNK

Crab rangoon

“Oh, it’s just general chicken.”) You’ve had General Tso’s chicken before and you said it was good, but you were lying. It was tough and greasy. This, however, is clean, fresh and delicious. Chong Wah knows its stuff. Including, oddly enough, sushi. Yes, I know that Oklahomans have a maddening tendency to lump all Asian foods together, despite nations being hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles apart. But this restaurant does both, and does them well. Nobody was more surprised than me when my Valentine roll ($11.95) came out looking like a work of art and tasting wonderful. I’m sorry that I ever doubted you, Chong Wah. This mix of fried shrimp, crabmeat, cucumber and avocado topped with spicy crab salad and fresh tuna is a treat for the eyes and tongue, like a Popsicle shaped like Marilyn Monroe. They also have a ridiculous sushi lunch special, with two rolls for $10 or three for $14. My spicy red snapper roll

was simple and fresh. And the Jacky roll had sweet snow crab, tuna and masago. None of it was particularly fancy, but it was done well. Both specials come with an egg roll, which was fine, and crab Rangoon, which was wonderful. These crispy envelopes laid mostly flat, but had plenty of that sweet cream cheese and crab flavor without too much oil. The egg drop soup was just as I wanted it to be: bright yellow from yolk with wisps of egg white ribbons swirling around. As an added bonus, they toss in a little diced red pepper, which adds crunch and color more than flavor. The staff was friendly, fast and accommodating. Sit at a recently emptied table and they’ll rush over to wipe it down. And they won’t judge you if you order the equivalent of three lunches. (I’m speaking from experience here.) Best of all, they’re doing the classic Americanized Chinese food so many of us grew up eating, and they’re making it right. This is the food you remember, but better than it ever really was.

egg drop soup

OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 23

food briefs p hotos by m a rk ha n coc k / fi l e

The Greater Oklahoma City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Presents

Green and growing Unlimited Tasting of Rich Tequilas, Wines, VODKA AND Latin Cuisine Delicacies. also featuring A pasarela ( FASHION RUNWAY SHOW )

Popular north-side restaurant and food truck Green & Grilled is expanding to Edmond this spring with a new location at 1389 E. 15th St. Owner Juan Suarez said the new store is in response to customer requests. “We believe our food is a healthier option for people who are looking for better ways to live their lives,” he said. “Lots of people have been asking for a location in the area, so I think this is the perfect time for this new challenge.” The original location at 8547 N. Rockwell Ave. will remain open. Green & Grilled’s menu focuses on lean proteins, flavorful and healthy sides and portion control.

Hog wild

Tickets Only Sold In Advance $35,00

Call 405 616-5031

www.okchispanicchamber.org

Thunder wine

eds a discerning Oklahoma Gazette neeclectic music tastes, A&E journalist with tertainment news a nose for arts and enediting eye. and an experienced who’s ready to help We’re hiring someone rforming arts, visual coordinate diverse ped film coverage for central arts, local music an independent arts Oklahoma’s fiercely thority. and entertainment au lism experience na ur jo s ar ye o tw t as At le perience a plus. preferred. InDesign ex

Please send a cover letter, resume, clips and references • jchancellor@okgazette.com. 24 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

Waters Edge Winery, 712 N. Broadway Ave., joined artist Ray Tennyson to create a limited-edition collection of six wine bottles featuring portraits of Thunder players. The wines are available at the store during this month’s Auto Alley Shop Hop, which runs 6-9 p.m. Thursday at venues along Broadway Avenue between NW Fourth and 10th streets. “We make all of our own wine,” said Waters Edge co-owner Sarah Edwards. “We use international grapes, which we bring in to make our wines.” Edwards said the idea was to pair personalities with players, so the Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc features noted kiwi Steven Adams. When winery owners discovered that Kevin Durant was a fan of Moscato, they made his version using that grape. “Sometimes when people come in and see an artist, they can’t afford to buy anything,” she said. “This time, they can get some original art on one of our wine bottles.” The wines cost $21 to $33 per bottle, or a six-bottle set is $175. For more information or to reserve bottles, contact Edwards at 232-9463. Learn more about Auto Alley Shop Hop at downtownokc.com/auto-alleyshop-hop.

Think raccoons are bad? Langston University and the USDA aim to head off something scarier: feral pigs. In conjunction with the United States Department of Agriculture, Langston holds its Wild Hog Damage meeting at 6 p.m. Friday in the E.L. Holloway Agriculture Center on the university’s main campus, 701 Sammy Davis Junior Drive, in Langston. Area landowners will complete a survey that will help the USDA develop a strategy to reduce damage caused by feral swine, which are present in all 77 Oklahoma counties. “They are vectors for viral diseases, including several strains of influenza,” said George Luker, Langston aquaculture specialist. “They’re a menace.” For more information, call Luker at 466-3077.

Made it! Made in Oklahoma (MIO) Coalition celebrates 15 years of promoting local goods with its updated smartphone app. The Made in Oklahoma app helps users find nearby restaurants that use MIO products in their menu items, grocery stores featuring MIO foods and recipes to prepare them. So far, the free app has been downloaded more than 2,500 times. Since forming in 2000, the coalition has seen membership climb to nearly 50 members with more than $4.1 billion in sales and 28,000 employees.

Ga rett fi s be c k

Life food & driNK

Good libations Local businessman Alvin Philipose finds Success with a little help from a distilling icon. bY GreG HorToN

Jeff Thurmon learned to make vodka by trial and error. In the 1990s, he and Tito Beveridge created Tito’s Handmade Vodka by distilling batches until they knew how to make a better booze than what they purchased from their liquor store. The two built a still in 1993, and in those primitive days before the Internet was as useful as it is now, it was not easy to build things you had never built. They used actual books from the library. Thurmon moved into Beveridge’s house while they learned to make vodka. They had the first legal distillery in Texas, but it would take five years before anyone really noticed them. “We ate tacos every day, and we could barely afford dollar tacos,” Thurmon said. “We were a twoman operation. Distilling, bottling, printing labels, sales — we did it all.” Twenty years later, Thurmon is reliving some of those moments by bringing his skills to Moore. Alvin Philipose, an Oklahoma City chiropractor, owns the first legal distillery in Oklahoma. When he first incorporated, he named it Twister Distillery. The vodka, also called Twister, did not succeed, so Philipose revamped his system and renamed his spirit. He also started looking for tips from an expert, which is how he met Thurmon on an online distiller forum. Thurmon was well-known in distiller circles because Tito’s won a double gold medal at the World Spirits Fest in 2001. The panel of judges unanimously selected the liquor as the winner. It was an

Jeff Thurmon demonstrates the bottling process for Success Vodka. amazing accomplishment for two guys from Austin who had built a still by hand. After a few conversations, Thurmon agreed to come to OKC and help with the launch of Philipose’s new Success Vodka. Most days, Thurmon makes it in a business park just off Interstate 35 in Moore. At night, he goes to bars and liquor stores, where he meets people and develops sales relationships. He is running point yet again on a two-man operation. To date, the team at Success has made about 350 cases of vodka, but Thurmon said they are set up to produce 30,000 cases annually. The black-and-gold labels are starting to appear on liquor store shelves and back bars across the metro, including James E. McNellie’s Public House, Ranch Steakhouse, Byron’s Liquor Warehouse and Moore Liquor. In April, Success will be available in Texas. Thurmon said he expects Success to continue to grow rapidly because the vodka speaks for itself in terms of taste and smoothness. “We use imported Italian wheat that is certified organic and kosher by the importer, and then we distill the vodka six times and charcoal-filter it twice,” he said. The result is a vodka with nearly all impurities — the kinds that impart unpleasant flavors to the finished product — removed. That means Success mixes well for cocktails, or if you like your vodka straight, it goes down smooth.

OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 25

Urban renewal Twenty years after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the area around The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum has come back stronger than ever before. These restaurants are part of our urban renaissance and proof that we don’t wither before a challenge and we fight fiercely to retain our character.

— by Greg Elwell, photos by Mark Hancock and Garett Fisbeck

red Primesteak

Chili dog express

Nourished food bar

504 N. broadway Ave. redprimesteak.com | 232-2626

329 NW fourth st. 601-7516

131 dean A. McGee Ave. nourishedfood.com | 740-7299

Housed in the historic 1911 Buick Building, Red is an old-school steakhouse with a flair for modern technique and design. The vision of architect Rand Elliot, its best features include crimson neon, top-quality service and, of course, delicious prime steaks. Make this gorgeous spot a stop on your tour of downtown.

A relative newcomer to the downtown landscape, Chili Dog Express is all about the dogs. Great for those on the go or just people who enjoy a well-cooked wiener, its affordable fare includes all the classics — sauerkraut and chili — and some new twists — Fritos, nacho cheese and brisket.

Proof that eating healthy doesn’t mean boring food, Nourished Food Bar plies fresh soups and salads alongside delectable cookies, muffins and readyto-eat granolas. If you’re looking for a satisfying snack as you wend your way across downtown, crunch your way through a bag of savory kale chips.

Din Jim’s

Jim’s Diner

Jim ’s D

iner

WEEKLY SPECIAL • breakfast • Spinach, muShroom & SwiSS omelet choice of potato & bread

$5.99 M O N D AY-S U N D AY 6 A M - 10 P M 7950 NW 39th EXPWY • 405.495.5105

SANDBBURGERS.COM

20 NW 9TH • 405-270-0516 || 5929 N MAY • 405-843-8777 14020 N MAY • 405-418-8477 7745 S WALKER (I-240 & Walker) • 405-631-0783 26 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

Pelotón Wine bar & Cafe 900 N. broadway Ave. pelotonwinebar.com | 605-0513

Hidden behind Schlegel Bicycles is the utterly charming Pelotón Wine Bar, where patrons can belly up to a selection of more than 50 wines and a bevy of beers or relax with a bite to eat on the spacious patio. As the summer months descend, the fans and misters keep customers cool while the herbaceous tuna melt keeps bellies full.

Hobby’s Hoagies

Park Avenue Grill

Hot Tamale Grill

325 N. Walker Ave. hobbyshoagies.com | 605-3131

1 Park Ave. parkavegrill.com | 702-8444

100 N. broadway Ave. 232-1184

Chow down with the locals at Hobby’s Hoagies, which has been serving this arts district for over six years. With freshly baked Italian rolls and Hobby’s special hoagie peppers, these sandwiches pack quite a punch, which is why they pack in the crowds on a daily basis.

For a true city experience, visitors love a stay at the historic Skirvin hotel, which is within walking distance of plenty of downtown eateries. Or they can just walk downstairs to Park Avenue Grill for great modern, Southern-style meals. Say yes to braised bison short rib or the Skirvin burger with house-made pastrami.

Add a little spice to your tour experience with Hot Tamale Grill’s selection of street tacos and self-proclaimed “best hamburgers in town.” With a spot in the beautiful Chase Tower, it’s a great place for authentic tamales or a fully loaded Southwest Burrito to fuel your legs for a jaunt around the city.

SATISFY YOUR CRAVINGS

More than a meal it’s an experience. 6014 N. May • 947.7788 www.zorbasokc.com

WED APRIL 15TH: POETRY NIGHT @ 8 PM THUR APRIL 16TH: $3.50 SKETTI NIGHT, 3 ACT THURSDAY – JAROD COFFMAN @ 7 PM, PUBLIC HOUSE @ 8 PM, DARRELL BLANCHARD @ 9 PM FRIDAY APRIL 17TH: LIVE MUSIC W/ RADIO RESTORATION @ 8 PM SATURDAY APRIL 18TH: LIVE MUSIC W/ YOUR BREVITY @ 7 PM MONDAY APRIL 20TH: TRIVIA NIGHT @ 7 PM TUESDAY APRIL 21ST: OPEN MIC NIGHT @ 8 PM

OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 27

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28 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

p HOtOs bY M a rk Ha N cOc k

liFe culture

Beating heart After the Oklahoma City bombing, First Christian Church was used as a communication post, a place to get food and coffee and to notify families about their loved ones.

Rev. Don Alexander was the senior pastor at First Christian Church during the Oklahoma City bombing and its aftermath.

By Jack Fowler

When asked how the Oklahoma City bombing changed him and the city he lives in, Rev. Don Alexander remembers his father’s words. “My dad built his ministry at First Christian Church between 1942 and 1960,” Alexander said. “He was killed in an airplane crash in 1960, but the key phrase from his ministry was this: ‘It’s not what happens to us, but what we let happen to us do to us.’ That’s what really counts.” Those words strengthened him in the days immediately following what was then the worst act of domestic terrorism in American history, when he was senior pastor of the First Christian Church and the building was transformed overnight into a command center for grieving families, journalists and rescue workers. Those words still comfort him when he thinks about that April morning two decades ago.

Empty chairs

“I was down at the memorial this morning,” he said. “What those chairs represent, those 168 empty chairs ... what an inspiration for the people who designed the memorial, seeing the power of what an empty chair can represent. Think of the families devastated by what happened. Think of the loss of family continuity, the grief that continues to live in those families for years. They may come to terms with it, but their families have been absolutely changed forever.” The memorial, those empty chairs, reminds Alexander of the empty chair used in the Passover celebration. “In a Jewish household, they set an empty chair at the table in case the Messiah comes. I think it’s a beautiful symbol,” he said. “We see the chair as representing the loss of life, but I think

it’s also a hopeful symbol. Someone else is going to sit there now. We make it our business to live in such a way to let our future honor the person we lost. I hope that happens in our lives here.” That determination to find and cultivate the good in the midst of horror was the reason the First Christian Church at 36th Street and Walker Avenue was immediately transformed into a staging area for rescue workers, media members, supply organizers and mourners. Alexander called the American Red Cross to ask what he could do to help, and they asked the church to be the Family Disaster Relief Center. “A lot of people in OKC faced a real frustration, simply not knowing where to get ahold of someone or simply wanting to help. Soon after I talked to the Red Cross, the head of the Oklahoma Funeral Directors Association called,” Alexander said. “He was looking for a place where families could gather to be notified and to try to help in the identification of victims. They just needed a central gathering place.” Overnight, the church was filled to capacity. Red Cross and Salvation Army workers, funeral directors, chaplains, mental health professionals, family members, even soldiers from the Oklahoma National Guard and a therapeutic spider monkey all found their headquarters in a different part of the building.

‘Heroes of faith’

The church’s Jewel Box Theatre, a standalone building at the end of the complex, became the place where national and local media would gather. The youth center was filled to bursting with donated supplies. Thousands of people were served in the dining room,

First christian church

which was open 24 hours a day for at least two weeks. If McVeigh’s fertilizer bomb broke this city’s heart, the church got it beating again. “It provided, I think, a very healthy atmosphere in the midst of all that chaos,” Alexander said. “Food and coffee were actually the focus of most of what went on. There were three or four hundred people at a time in our dining room almost constantly for two and a half weeks. Families would adopt a table and gather around it, waiting for news. They were always full of hope, but as the days passed, they knew that whatever news they received was probably going to be bad. Trying to describe the atmosphere is difficult. Some families actually got notification that their loved one had died, and after taking care of arrangements, they would return to the dining room in order to be present for other families who were waiting. They knew how difficult that waiting was. There was a real heroism present in that.” Alexander, now retired, calls those people his “heroes of faith.” And, while there are too many heroes born from that terrible morning to recount, he said the lessons to be learned (“what we let happened to us do to us”) should be

He was looking for a place where families could gather to be notified and to try to help in the identification of victims. They just needed a central gathering place. — Don Alexander

remembered daily. “We had a rabbi who came from the Boston area, and he was a grief counselor. One of his key phrases was, ‘One moment of suffering makes all the world kin.’ I think that summarized the spirit that was moving in Oklahoma City,” he said. “There was no ‘you’ or ‘I’ or ‘them’ anymore; only ‘us.’ I think what the bombing did was reveal the depth of goodness and heart that was already present in this city.”

OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 29

Ga r e t t fi s b e c k

liFe culture

Station celebration KXY has been on the air for more than 30 years.

Bill Reed at KXY studios.

By Mark Beutler

Early one morning in 1982, Oklahoma City radio listeners were startled when a favorite classic rock station, “96 X,” suddenly began playing the twangs of country music. For 24 consecutive hours, “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma” played nonstop. That prompted angry calls from irate rock listeners and even bomb threats against station personnel. But there was no going back, and a short time later, “KXY,” as it is now called, was No. 1 not only in Oklahoma City but in the nation, and “Dave and Dan,” the morning team, became legends in the market. “In 1991, KXY had the highest audience shares of any station in the top 55 U.S. markets,” said Bill Hurley, market president of iHeartMedia, KXY’s parent company. “We were No. 1 in the USA, and Dave and Dan’s audience was more than three times that of our nearest competitors. During that period, we consistently ranked in the top two or three radio stations in America. It was an incredibly fun time to be surrounded by talents like we had.” Today, KXY has reinvented itself with a fresh, new morning team and the station remains one of Oklahoma City’s longest-running continuous formats. Bill Reed began working as KXY’s midday announcer in the early ’90s. Now, he is program director and morning show co-host. Together with Shawn Carey, another longtime Oklahoma City air personality, they make up “Bill and Shawn in the Morning.”

30 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

Life cycles

“Our listeners are our friends,” Reed said. “We know them by name, and they know us. It’s a privilege for us each time we are blessed to open the microphone and talk to them. So we want everything that goes out to be fun yet informative — whether it’s about a song, traffic and weather or just someone having a garage sale. That’s what being an Oklahoma City radio station is all about.” Reed’s co-host agrees. “I have been incredibly blessed to have been able to begin and sustain my career all in Oklahoma City, my hometown,” said Carey. “Now, being on the air at 96.1 KXY, a station I have been such a big fan of since the ’80s, that is like an incredible dream come true. Bill and I are friends — we are genuine; we enjoy sharing personal stories about our own families and life experiences.” When KXY first went on the air in 1982, Reed says country music was riding a wave of popularity. The John Travolta movie Urban Cowboy did for country what Saturday Night Fever did for disco. Those Urban Cowboy days gave way to what he calls the “Garth years.” “Music is cyclical, especially country,” he said. “In the late ’80s, it took a more traditional sound, then smoothed out somewhat with Shania Twain in the ’90s, and in the 2000s, you had more of a rock edge when guys like Luke Bryan and Eric Church came on the scene. It’s interesting that 2015 is a big year for artists from the

Our listeners are our friends. We know them by name, and they know us. It’s a privilege for us each time we are blessed to open the microphone and talk to them. — Bill Reed

’80s and ’90s. Folks like Garth, Alan Jackson, Shania and Tanya Tucker are all doing big tours.” The station’s music has undergone a gradual shift to “classic country,” and today, KXY embraces the songs and artists that helped make the station a powerhouse back in the day. “We are not following any fads or niches,” Reed said. “The music we play on KXY covers a wide range of years, from Patsy Cline to Reba, Waylon and Willie to George Strait and George Jones. Chances are our listeners remember where they were when they first heard the songs we play.”

Oklahoma landmark

Being an Oklahoma landmark is a label Reed takes seriously. The station has been on the air through the highs and lows of the past 30 years. On April 19, 1995, KXY was one of the first stations on the scene following the Oklahoma

City bombing. The station was at NE 28th Street at the time and was close to downtown. “Nobody had ever been through a disaster like that,” Reed said. “So we had to stay as focused as we could on the latest developments, all the while knowing these were our friends and neighbors — even family members — that were killed or injured on that terrible day.” The station spent the next few days fielding calls from all over the world and covering the story 24 hours a day. “I finally sat in my office that Friday morning and broke down as the enormity of it swept over me. I still feel that every time I visit the memorial,” Reed said. One of the artists who called in to express their sympathy was country singer Pam Tillis, who was a nominee for the Country Music Awards Female Vocalist of the Year in 1995. “I remember I was on a plane headed to Los Angeles,” Tillis recalls. “I was dumbfounded something like that could happen right here in the heartland of America. I have some good friends in Oklahoma, and I was devastated.” Today, with iTunes and satellite radio, KXY still holds its own by doing what it has done for more than three decades: giving listeners a wholesome local radio station they can call their own. “Each person who takes time out of their busy day to punch in 96.1 KXY deserves our best effort,” Reed said.

p r OVi De D

liFe youtH

World class By louis Fowler

It’s an age-old joke: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? The punch line being, of course, “Practice.” For Stillwater High School junior Ben Lanners, it’s the actual truth. However, the accomplished cellist, who began playing when he was 8, spends more than four hours a day on average in his continuing education of the unwieldy musical instrument. It’s a major focus of his life that has allowed him, along with Edmond violinist Kevie Yu, to be selected by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute to take part in the third annual National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America program. As two out of 114, both Lanners

and Yu represent the best high school musicians the Sooner state has to offer and will be rewarded by performing in a series of concerts situated both here in the United States and in China with the orchestra. It’s a dream come true that Lanners admits he still hasn’t fully grasped. “I think I’m only now realizing how crazy this trip is going to be,” Lanners said. “It’s just crazy to be able to work for a month with a bunch of other fantastic level musicians. That is very exciting. To be able to spend a month just solely focused on my instrument, it’s just gonna develop my playing so much.” The teens that have been selected to be a part of this year’s orchestra “have been recognized by Carnegie Hall as

Ga re tt fi s be c k

Oklahoma teen musicians are touring with the National Youth Orchestra.

Ben lanners

kevie yu

being among the finest players in the country” and went through a rigorous battery of tests and tryouts to earn their coveted seats in the orchestra. Lanner sent in a video that included both a speaking element and multiple playing elements, one of which included a solo performance of David Popper’s “Hungarian Rhapsody.” Lanners performs regularly with the Oklahoma Youth Orchestra and is “fairly sure” he’d like to pursue a career in music because it “runs in the family”; both of his parents are professional musicians. His goal is to perform solo and in small chamber ensembles, but he would also like the chance to teach at a higher level. For now, however, Lanners is

concentrating on the upcoming tour, which begins in July, and trying to contain his excitement for the visit to China. Tour stops include Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. There is still a lot of practicing to do, learning classic pieces of music such as Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 and Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, before heading out on the road. “The National Youth Orchestra is a great way to show how much work kids can put into something and at such a young age, to be able to perform so well, at such a high level with enough to show that across the country, young, new musicians are able to work very hard together and succeed,” Lanners said.

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Major lit Poetry shouldn’t be a mystery, says Ben Myers. For him, it’s autobiographical and blends his Oklahoma upbringing with influences like Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman. By alissa liNDsey

Gov. Mary Fallin has appointed Oklahoma native Dr. Ben Myers as Oklahoma’s State Poet Laureate for 2015-2016. “For me, it’s about the most meaningful honor and opportunity I could receive as a writer,” Myers said. Born and raised in Oklahoma, Myers is from Chandler and is a literature professor at Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU) in Shawnee. “Oklahoma is more to me than just the place I live; it is my home, my homeland. The opportunity to combine my deep love for this land with my love for poetry is an opportunity I am very thankful for,” he said. Myers is excited to promote poetry in Oklahoma any way he can, and he is enthusiastic to share his passion for the art form by traveling to Oklahoma schools to talk with students about poetry. “Often, people think poetry is about puzzling out hidden messages ... It’s not a secret code,” he said. “It’s about experience and energy and life. I want to share that with people.” To bring home his point, Myers draws inspiration for his poetry from real people and real lives. He writes about rural life in Oklahoma, his family and the challenges of manhood, adulthood and fatherhood. “Some people think poetry is meant to be all about highfalutin things or Greek gods, and I like to write about farmers and mechanics and people I’ve known,” he said. He is the author of two books of poetry. Elegy for Trains, his first book, is primarily about his father’s death, but it’s also about moving back to Oklahoma and resuming life here. Elegy won the 2011 Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry. His second book, Lapse Americana, is about living in Oklahoma today and negotiating the constant collision of past and present. “When you live in a place where you have roots and family history going way back, there is this constant sense of the melting of the past and the present together,” he said. Myers especially enjoys teaching mid-20th-century to early 21st-century literature. He finds himself coming

32 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

p rOVi DeD

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Ben Myers

back to these authors not for their messages but for their craft. “It’s more the spontaneous technique, the influence of jazz on their writing, the kind of exuberance, that sometimes almost brutal honesty that creates a unique blend of joy and sorrow that I think very well captures the actual experience of life,” he said. He has been teaching at OBU for 10 years. He teaches literature courses in the English program, general education literature courses and fiction workshops in the creative writing program. He attended Washington University in St. Louis for his graduate degree and University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, Arkansas, for his undergraduate degree. Some of Myers’ favorite poets include John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Hayden, Jane Kenyon, Walt Whitman and Chinese poets like Du Fu. Myers doesn’t have all of his poet laureate appearances scheduled yet, but he will read and participate in a roundtable discussion Friday at Cameron University in Lawton for its Big Pasture Reading Series at CETES Conference Center, 2800 W. Gore Blvd., in Lawton. Learn more at okhumanities.org. Oklahoma Arts Council works with the state poet laureate to coordinate further events and appearances. To request Myers to visit your school to talk about poetry, email him at ben.myers@okbu.edu. To learn more about Oklahoma Arts Council, visit arts.ok.gov.

liFe visual arts

Raw legends Despite his short time as an artist, Robert Peterson’s work is larger than life.

By Jack Fowler

Inspiration, drive

Robert Peterson stands in front of his work and returns the gaze. Burly, tattooed and bearded, more Prince Fielder than Picasso, he repeats Mandela’s words again, perhaps for the thousandth time. His eyes stare through Mandela, fixed on a future he has just started to imagine. “In the next five years, I’d like to have an exhibit at a museum,” said Peterson, the 33-year-old Lawton painter who has been blowing up the art world for the past three years. “I’d love to show more here in Oklahoma City, because this is home. I want to be able to have freedom, to do what I want to do, to paint what I want to paint. I want to make sure that when somebody invests in my work, it’s a wise investment. I want to be mentioned in the same breath as Kehinde Wiley. I want to be a legend.” They’re lofty goals, to be sure. But given the extraordinary past three years of Peterson’s life, one might think twice before betting against him. A Denver native, Peterson moved to Lawton in 1992. Employed nearly full-time since 13, married at 19 and a father to three children, the trajectory of his workaday life seemed more or less mapped out. A serious injury in the summer of 2012 changed all that. “I was told my right hip would have to be completely replaced,” Peterson said. “The surgery was only supposed to be a couple of hours, but due to some complications, it ended up taking five or six. I had to have three blood transfusions after the surgery. Definitely a scary moment.” That health scare inspired Peterson to

leave something for his family, should a bad situation someday turn worse. He left the doctor’s office and spent $13 on paint and canvas. He had never painted before; only sketched. “Never even considered it,” he said. “I’d been selling marker drawings for 40 and 50 bucks once in awhile but had never painted anything.”

Jesus, Tyson

His first painting that summer was a commission, “a Jesus piece,” he said. Shortly thereafter, his first sale was a painting of Mike Tyson. What has happened to him since then is hard for him to describe. He had a debut show in New York City one year later, where renowned art dealer Robert Sparks bought several of his paintings. He showed at Art Basel in Miami Beach, Florida, that same year, where celebs Gabrielle Union and Tyson Beckford came out to support him. His work has been bought and collected worldwide by people like Floyd Mayweather, Lil Wayne, Amar’e Stoudemire and Kevin Durant. He has been featured on The Huffington Post and MTV. Stuff like this isn’t supposed to happen to guys who work in the Goodyear plant in Lawton. “It’s an unbelievable blessing,” Peterson said, shaking his head. “Three years ago, there was no Robert Peterson the artist. There was only Robert Peterson the forklift operator. ... The day before my one-year mark, a Sony Records exec bought one of my paintings for $20,000. It’s been amazing.” So is his work, especially for someone who not only had never painted but knew next to nothing about art. “I learned about art mostly through hip-hop. Lots of rappers drop artists’ names in their songs,” Peterson said of his discovery of artists who influence and inspire his distinctive painting technique. “I didn’t know who [John-Michel] Basquiat was. I remember thinking, ‘Is that a shoe, a shirt, a piece of jewelry?’” Since then, Basquiat has gone from mystery to subject matter. Peterson stands in front of his enormous painting of Basquiat — now hanging at JRB Art at

Garett fi s bec k

“There is no passion to be found in playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” Nelson Mandela’s words are painted there, floating behind his face, behind the weary, wrinkled eyes colored in subtle shades of blues and greens. It’s his eyes that stop you first. They’re simultaneously wounded and defiant, as deep and fixed as canyon pools. The pain on his face hangs there unapologetically, but the eyes bore into the viewer like his words are a dare.

Three years ago, there was no Robert Peterson the artist. There was only Robert Peterson the forklift operator ... The day before my one-year mark, a Sony Records exec bought one of my paintings for $20,000. — Robert Peterson

the Elms in the Paseo — and talks about discovering his work, learning to admire the artist’s use of color. There’s his portrait of Picasso, a shock of blues and purples, piercing eyes and raw talent. The background color bleeds and runs over the master’s shoulders, a transitory effect that offsets that deep, unyielding stare. “I want to paint people who are relevant, people who’ve done something amazing,” he said. “I want to paint legends.” Peterson’s OKC solo debut is scheduled for June at JRB, and he says

Robert Peterson with his painting of Muhammad Ali. the thrill of showing at home outweighs anything he has experienced so far. “Lawton doesn’t have much of an art scene,” Peterson said. “When I first started out as an artist, I was disappointed because I felt like I wasn’t getting any love from my Oklahoma people. I was working with O Gallery in Los Angeles and showing at Art Basel in Miami, but I couldn’t get any love here at home. That’s why I’m so thankful to Joy (Joy Reed Belt, owner/operator of JRB) for having me here. This is the kind of gallery I used to imagine showing in when I first started painting ... I’m really thankful to be showing here.” There are five paintings in all hanging at JRB right now. They are large-scale, vibrantly hued, pop art-inspired pieces, work made to hang in the gallery’s gently lit front window. All of the paintings are several thousand dollars apiece, but despite the level of financial and critical success he has attained, he said his goal is to remain focused on the work. “I work at least five to six hours a day every day,” he said. “It’s just about making it a discipline. I’ll work on one painting for an hour or so, then take a break and work on something else, then go back to it. I’ve just learned what my process is.” Peterson’s paintings will be on display at JRB through April. See his work at iamrpeterson.com.

OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 33

liFe visual arts

Visual storytelling Artist Gabriel Hardman brings his knowledge of art and the film industry to OKC. By aDaM Holt

Gabriel Hardman

THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA UNIVERSITY THEATRE AND HELMERICH SCHOOL OF DRAMA

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The University of Oklahoma is an equal opportunity institution. www.ou.edu/eoo. For accommodations on the basis of disability call (405) 325-4101.

G G G G G G G G G G G g

G G G G

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cduane@okgazette.com 34 | april 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

6:30 p.m. thursday Bricktown Brewery 1 N. oklahoma ave. bricktownbrewery.com 232-2739 $25

Esteemed graphic designer Saul Bass once said that design is “thinking made visible.” And Gabriel Hardman’s work is an example of that statement. A comic writer and illustrator and Hollywood storyboard artist, Hardman brings characters to life from the minds of directors like Christopher Nolan, Sam Raimi and Doug Liman along a comic by with hallowed comic characters Gabriel Hardman Wonder Woman and The Hulk. Thursday, Hardman brings his insight and experiences about released part one of Invisible the comic and film industries to Republic a three-part graphic novel Bricktown Brewery, 1 N. Oklahoma series. Norman resident Jordan Boyd is Ave. The evening is part of an event the color artist for the series. series by the Oklahoma chapter AIGA is the preeminent of AIGA, formerly known as the professional organization for design. American Institute of Graphic Arts. Founded in 1914, AIGA aims Tickets are $25 for the public and are to advance the craft and create a free to AIGA members. community of practitioners, enthusiasts AIGA Oklahoma’s programming and patrons. Hardman’s appearance is director, Brian Winkeler, a longtime one of a series of events the Oklahoma friend of Hardman, said this visit chapter has held at Bricktown Brewery. offers a perspective that local designers “Our goal is to bring in talent and fans of the comic and film and share it with the city and creative industries rarely experience in person. community,” Winkeler said. “He brings expertise and Recent guests include Dave Curd, knowledge that have not been shown a video game art director whose resume here before,” Winkeler said. “He’s includes five titles of the Call of Duty done storyboards for Inception, Edge series; Bob Calvano, vice president of of Tomorrow, Interstellar. He has great design for A+E Networks; and designer, stories about working with directors illustrator, author and teacher Tad and other people.” Carpenter. Winkeler expects Hardman to Winkeler also uses the events to speak in-depth about “process,” or the bring positive attention for Oklahoma steps taken in creating storyboards. City to the influential players in the “In storyboarding, you’re basically design industry. breaking down a film into a comic He spoke of the industry’s strip,” Winkeler said. “This not only evolution in Oklahoma, which he has involves the artist, but also the director witnessed since graduating from the and set and costume designers. University of Oklahoma in 1992. Gabriel’s got plenty of experience and “There was nothing here for stories about this process.” designers back then. Many of my Hardman also writes and illustrates friends moved off for jobs,” Winkeler original work. Last month, he and his said. “But now ... you can find great wife and collaborator Corinna Bechko graphic design jobs here.”

LIFE PERFORMING ARTS

SINgular rant BY MARK BEUTLER

SINgularly Sordid 8 p.m. Sunday The Boom 2218 NW 39th St. theboomokc.com 601-7200 $20-$25

Del Shores has a warning for those who plan to attend his performance at The Boom: “The censors will be absent, so if you are easily offended, stay home.” Shores, comedian and creator of the movie-turned-television series Sordid Lives, brings his new show SINgularly Sordid to The Boom, 2218 NW 39th St., for one performance Sunday at 8 p.m. SINgularly Sordid marks the first

Del Shores

time Shores has appeared in Oklahoma in a couple of years. The new show runs the gamut from dishing on celebrities to discussing what it’s like going back into the dating world as a 50-something gay man. Shores is also reprising a fan favorite, his now-infamous letters he calls “P.S. FU.” “I have some new letters I will read onstage to some of my haters, including one to Oklahoma’s very own Rep. Sally Kern,” Shores said. While he’s crossing the country with his new show, Shores is also getting ready to go into production on a sequel to Sordid Lives. The original movie debuted in 1999 and quickly

become a cult classic. It included Beau Bridges, Delta Burke and Olivia Newton-John, among others. A spinoff TV series followed and proved to be the final role for Oklahoma’s own Rue McLanahan. “Fans of the original movie will be pleased to know Kirk Geiger is returning as Ty,” Shores said. “He created that role and will always be Ty to me. There are a few other changes as well. Dale Dickey will replace Beth Grant in the role of Aunt Sissy, and I am thrilled to be working with her. She is one of the best actresses in America.” Olivia Newton-John was unable to reprise her role as country singer Bitsy Mae because of scheduling issues.

P ROVI DE D

Comedian Del Shores brings his wit and burning appeal to The Boom.

“Olivia is a dear friend, but she has her Vegas engagements, touring, her Cancer and Wellness Centre in Australia and is simply not available,” Shores said. He grew up in rural Texas and said he is no stranger to homophobic attitudes. His father was a Southern Baptist minister, so he grew up learning the Bible from cover to cover. He says that prepared him for when religious zealots spew anti-gay rhetoric. “They have cherry-picked scriptures for years, and many of us with biblical knowledge challenge that,” Shores said. “Come to my show if you want to hear more of my rants. And if you want me to marry you, I’m ordained.”

SIMON H URST / PROVID ED

Striking steps Music by Moby, Patsy Cline and Frank Sinatra fill this eclectic, modern triple bill.

BY CHRISTIAN WILSON

Nine Sinatra Songs 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday Civic Center Music Hall 201 N. Walker Ave. okcballet.com okcciviccenter.com 848-8637 $26-$59

Artistic Director Robert Mills has heard the same comment from patrons for seven years at Oklahoma City Ballet. “A comment that comes up with people is, ‘I don’t know much about ballet, so will I like it?’” Mills said. “Regardless of what we’re doing, you don’t have to know anything.” OKC Ballet’s upcoming triple bill Nine Sinatra Songs — a mixture of ballet, ballroom and modern dance — was crafted around just this question.

Aside from the musical appeal of Frank Sinatra, Patsy Cline and electronic musician Moby, each show meets the audience on street level and in everyday clothes. “The thing I like is they’re all dressed like human beings,” Mills said. Mills focused on popular music progression, choreographic diversity and costuming appeal when putting together the program. Including two Oklahoma premiers, Nine Sinatra Songs and Dear Miss Cline, the bill ends with a cinematic technostyled performance of Play, each piece seeking to integrate popular music of various eras into an accessible work with wide appeal. “I thought it would be really great to put together three ballets that use very familiar music to show people that

Autumn Sicking-Klein and soloist Alvin Tovstogray in Stanton Welch’s Play, part of Nine Sinatra Songs. it can be relevant, it can be current,” Mills said. In Play, male characters don suits and ties and the women are dressed as if they’re walking down the street. Wardrobe choices are similar in Cline. Appropriately, the costumes for Nine Sinatra Songs — designed for the premier by Oscar de la Renta — put performers in tuxedos and women in gowns. “You could put the dancers in any beautiful gala and no one would think any different,” Mills said. Nine Sinatra Songs was choreographed for its 1982 premier by New York writer, choreographer and dancer Twyla Tharp and presents seven

couples in a spectrum of romantic interactions. Dance styles include swing, tango and cha-cha. Dear Miss Cline is San Francisco choreographer Amy Seiwert’s second work performance for OKC Ballet and features the music of country music star Patsy Cline. Play, named after Moby’s 1999 album, was choreographed by Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch. The piece reflects the crowded streets of urban environments. “I wanted to do an entire evening with works that used popular music,” Mills said. “To my knowledge, that hasn’t been done by a classical ballet company.”

OKLAHOMA GAZETTE | APRIL 15, 2015 | 35

LIFE PERFORMING ARTS

Accessible beauty P ROVI DE D

A modern dance company brings its theatrical and comedic moves to OCCC.

BY LOUIS FOWLER

Pilobolus Dance Theatre 7:30 pm. Tuesday Visual and Performing Arts Center Theater Oklahoma City Community College 7777 S. May Ave. occc.edu $25-$45

When many people hear the words “modern dance,” they tend to give a shiver or a shrug. This is something that Pilobolus Dance Theatre knows all too well, even going as far as to acknowledge it in their unofficial tagline, calling themselves a “dance company for those that like dance and also for those that don’t.” Its roots are in the early ’70s modern dance scene at Dartmouth College.

Pilobolus was started by a group of dancers who wanted to explore every facet of body movement, mixing it with elements of theatricality and comedic elements. It’s an artistic mélange that Lemuel Bardeguez, director of cultural programs for Oklahoma City Community College (OCCC), believes is “beautifully accessible.” “Pilobolus incorporates a lot of humor,” Bardeguez said. “In traditional modern dance, a lot of it is about the choreography, and some of it is quite abstract. But Pilobolus does a lot more with multimedia and the incorporation of video techniques and lighting techniques that make the production a little more theatrical. It’s a show comprised of vignettes —

one features dancing on top of a clear surface with cameras positioned below, presenting the upward view on screen to create a juxtaposition — that also features homages dedicated to Greek sculptures and the experiences of life in a circus. Pilobolus’ specialized worldview regarding modern dance has earned the company spots on Oprah, Conan and 60 Minutes, showcases at events like the

Pilobolus brings a unique perspective to modern dance. Academy Awards and even a special collaboration with Penn and Teller, allowing it to have commercial appeal while still maintaining its artistic sensibility. Pilobolus will engulf the stage in one of its few American performances this year 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at OCCC’s Visual and Performing Arts Center Theater, 7777 S. May Ave.. Tickets are $25 to $45 and can be purchased online or at the OCCC box office.

MARK HANCOCK

LIFE ACTIVE

New tradition Poos Taekwondo joins UCO to create an Olympic athlete training program. BY ANTHONY LALLI

Poos Taekwondo is celebrating its longstanding tradition of excellence with its 40-year anniversary in Oklahoma. Founded in 1975 by Guy Poos, the dojo — or gym — that bears his name has long been the representative of Oklahoma martial arts on a national and international stage. Beginning this fall, Jason Poos, Guy’s son and the proprietor of Poos Taekwondo, 40 NW 144th Circle, will launch an association with the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) to create an Olympic Athlete Training Resident Program, where eight top competitors from around the nation will live at UCO, go to school full-time and train directly with Jason Poos himself. This program is the first of its kind in Oklahoma and also represents the first

36 | APRIL 15, 2015 | OKLAHOMA GAZETTE

Jason Poos

time that martial arts have gotten a serious look from a top university in the state. Jason instructs the traditional selfdefense aspect of the martial art and the trainers specialize in the competitive sport that is Olympic-style taekwondo. With more than 250 students currently enrolled at its gym and a large chunk of them competing in tournaments around the country, the competition inside the walls of the family-owned-and-operated business is as fierce as ever. Guy Poos, an eighth-degree black belt and grand master, is still an active teacher at the gym, but Jason has been running the business for the last decade. Jason, also an instructor, is accomplished and respected within the higher rungs of the sport, which he has been vested in since age 14. Jason has accumulated numerous

awards and decorations throughout his career — he has been named United States Olympic Committee Coach of the Year three times — and has produced more than 150 national medalists, 10 National Collegiate Team members and five US National Team members. Although Poos has navigated and adapted to the ever-changing rules of competitive taekwondo over the decades, they haven’t changed their core values. The main things that separate Poos Taekwondo from other establishments are the core principles that it was founded upon and the quality of the instruction the students receive. Poos Taekwondo heavily focuses on balancing discipline with fun. Guy Poos has woven several tenets into the fabric of how the dojo does things and how it operates — students

will be courteous, have integrity and develop the ability to persevere. “I believe that having educators as your instructors is best because they are patient and know how to work with all types of people, including children,” Guy Poos said. Poos instructors average 10 years of experience in martial arts, and a large percentage of them have taught in the Oklahoma Public School system. The dojo is open Monday through Friday, and students at all belt levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced) can learn the self-defense aspect of the martial art a minimum of four times per week. Classes are typically 50 minutes long, and there are shortened 30-minute sessions for children ages 3-5 available as well.

LIFE ACTIVE

Beach party BY BRENDAN HOOVER

Patrick Beach at This Land Yoga Core Control 6 p.m. Friday The Art of Inversions 10 a.m. Saturday An Advanced Flow 10 a.m. Sunday 600 NW 23rd St. thislandyoga.com 529-6428 $45-$199

It says something about Oklahoma City that famed yoga instructor Patrick Beach will soon teach at Betina Wills’ studio. “It’s exciting that we, the (local) yoga community, have grown enough to be able to do that and not worry about if we can pay for him to be here or if anyone will show up,” said Wills, owner-operator of This Land Yoga, 600 NW 23rd St. “Oklahoma City is very much on the rise, and in health and fitness, we are finally realizing how important it is.” Known for inversions — handstands and other advanced poses — Beach will teach a series of three workshops appealing to beginners and seasoned yogis alike. At 6 p.m. Friday, Core Control helps students activate their midsection through efficient alignment principles and core awareness. At 10 a.m. Saturday, The Art of Inversions leads students through a four-hour practice on preparing their bodies to go upside down. At 10 a.m. Sunday, An Advanced Flow builds up foundational strength and

Patrick Beach

combines it with flexibility-focused poses. Yoga can vary greatly, even within a particular style, but Beach, Wills and most of the 13 This Land Yoga instructors teach vinyasa yoga, an athletic style that pairs breathing with movement while executing a sequence of poses. Wills, 28, opened This Land Yoga about a year ago and has been teaching full-time for more than two years. She began practicing yoga while running track in high school and later rowing at Oklahoma City University. While studying abroad in China with her husband, she used yoga as an escape from air pollution and loneliness. She said yoga helps people physically and mentally, in that they become more aware of their own bodies and the world around them. “You’re able to connect better with other people when you’re able to connect with yourself,” Wills said. Pregnant with her first child, Wills still finds time to teach about 10 classes per week. At Mission Academy High School, she teaches teens in recovering from substance abuse. She also teaches classes at Positive Tomorrows, a private school that serves homeless children and their families. This Land Yoga features a weekly community class for which students pay only what they can afford.

Beach ball

Raised in Seattle and now living in Portland, Oregon, Beach has more than 221,000 followers on Instagram and

travels the world teaching yoga. “I feel very fortunate to have found something that I love and that I’m really connected to,” said Beach, who, when he’s not traveling, teaches regular classes with his girlfriend, Carling Harps, at Yoga Pearl, the premier studio in Portland’s Pearl District. Beach’s origin story, however, is not all mysticism and inevitability. As a teenage basketball player, he began doing yoga stretches in his parents’ kitchen to alleviate tightness in his body. His mother showed him a few poses, and he practiced at home with no further aspirations. Beach’s father finally goaded him into taking a class at a local studio. That first class almost ruined yoga for Beach. He and a friend showed up late and had to take two spots in the back by the door. An older, very flexible man was practicing right in front of Beach, wearing unfortunately short shorts. “We get into this extended headto-knee pose, and his balls drop out,” said Beach, laughing. “We had to hold the pose for a minute, and I’m the only person who can see these balls, and I’m dying. I didn’t do yoga for a long time after that.” Beach developed an affinity for handstands, to the chagrin of some of his early instructors. “I would drive teachers crazy, so much that I would get kicked out of class,” he said. “I almost quit going to studios.”

You’re able to connect better with other people when you’re able to connect with yourself. — Betina Wills

Then a weird thing happened. Some of the local students began asking Beach for private lessons because they wanted to do the inversions too. A career was born. Besides handstands, Beach teaches body awareness and mindfulness, which he said can lead to other things, like informed eating, conscious living and better interaction with others. “When you start to really look at and understand yourself, then you can look at and understand all these other things,” Beach said. “I think that is really the key base point for the spiritual side of yoga in the Western world.” Still an avid basketball fan, Beach recently played a pickup game in Brooklyn, and he’s a huge Russell Westbrook fan. “You guys stole the Sonics from us, and that was hard-core,” said Beach. “But I’m still a fan of the Thunder.” To register or for more information, call 529-6428 or visit thislandyoga.com.

OKLAHOMA GAZETTE | APRIL 15, 2015 | 37

P ROVI DE D

A world-renowned instructor teaches a series of workshops at This Land Yoga.

SuDOku/CROSSWORD SuDOku Puzzle HARD

WWW.S UDOKU-p UZZlES .N ET

Fill in the grid so that every row, column and 3-by-3 box contains the numbers 1 through 9.

NeW YORk TimeS CROSSWORD Puzzle ANSWeRS Puzzle No. 0405, which appeared in the April 8 issue.

T A S T E B U D N Y A L A S B A L T O

A C T I V A T E

B A R R E T T E

O D E O N

E P S O T O O U M L F A T E L E U A D C H A C A V E R E T I R U S Y S T

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A D E S L I T H I N C A D A S T E W A R A G E S C A N I S T R D O E W A N N A P Y C O L L Y B A U C E I L L D L E R H H E L I A L O N D O T O

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IN GAUDY WE TRUST. THE ’70S ARE ALIVE & WELL IN GRANDAD’S NEW UPSTAIRS EVENT SPACE, THE JUNGLE ROOM. FILLED TO THE RIM WITH VELVET PAINTINGS AND ANIMAL PRINTS, IT’S THE PERFECT SPOT FOR YOUR NEXT PARTY. JUST KEEP YOUR KEYS TO YOURSELVES, YOU PERVS.

317 NW 23rd Street 38 | April 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

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405.604.0922

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grandadsbar.com

E T Y P E S L E E T S W E E K D A Y S

By Tom McCoy/Edited by Will Shortz

ACROSS 1 White’s partner 6 Religious journey 9 Queen’s attendant 12 Treasonous groups 18 Home of Faa’a International Airport 19 Kindle, e.g. 21 Union union 22 Asian wild ass 23 1/100 of a peseta 24 With formal properness 25 Some Halloween decorations 26 Kit ____ bar 28 “Leave!” 29 Book that needs to be read word for word? 30 Picking up strength, for short? 31 Sony video recorder 33 Relatively recent 35 Postal abbr. 36 101, say 37 Corporate department 38 Party time, for short 42 7/11 product? 45 Crime of those in Dante’s second circle 46 When repeated, classic song with the lyric “Sayin’ we gotta go, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah” 47 Bully, at times 49 Begin’s opposite? 51 Word of regret 53 “So what?” 55 One who aims to hit singles? 57 Quarters of a Quarter Pounder 58 Walk quietly 59 Keepers of appointments, for short 61 Deficit, informally 62 Went (for) 63 Scoundrel 65 Baseball V.I.P.s 67 Gist 68 Crucial 69 Ayatollah’s speech 71 Afflicts 73 Hist. or Eng. 75 Flee 78 Ne’er-do-wells

79 81 84 86 88 89 90 92 94 95 96 97 100 102 104 105 108 110 111 112 113 115 117 118 119 120 121 122 123

In good ____ Twilight, poetically It could go either way Adhered (to) Amaretto ingredients Best-selling children’s series ____ Jackson & the Olympians Common address start Bugs someone? See 97-Across Explorer Meriwether ____ ____-breath Japanese 94-Across Claymation dog Helpful household pets Cut (off ) Appraises Some 99-Down ____ Period (part of Japanese history) ____ regni Go by Lightly pound Coming or going, say Moderate “No, you really must!” Takes marks off Yellow-and-white flowers Prefix with system Letters in the Greek spelling of “Parthenon” Capital on the Atlantic

DOWN 1 Least mad 2 Example from classic American literature 3 Lively dances 4 Polished off 5 Example from television 6 Property unit 7 “____ you even listening?” 8 With 18-Down, structure that gets less stable with time 9 Deuce preceder, maybe 10 Example from sci-fi literature 11 Brick worker’s tools 12 Summer pants

36 42

54 59 64

VOl. XXXVii NO. 15

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51 56

66 72

74 81

87 92

88 93

96 102 108

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13 Big dos 14 Example from 18thcentury history 15 Top 16 Pleasant inflection 17 Some beans 18 See 8-Down 20 Bond holder? 27 Clad 31 Flora and fauna 32 Deceives 34 Dampens 37 Affix carelessly 39 ____ de leche 40 Cooperated with 41 Up side? 43 Duke rival, for short 44 Game center? 46 Watchmaker’s tool 47 County div. 48 “I got it!”

101

107

106

79 85

105

100

12 21

9 20

Stumped? Call 1-900-285-5656 to get the answers to any three clues by phone ($1.20 a minute). The answers to the New York Times Magazine Crossword Puzzle that appeared in the April 8 issue of Oklahoma Gazette are shown at left.

Oklahoma Gazette

103

104

109

110 114

111 115

116

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123

50 “I *finally* got it!” 52 Example from fantasy literature 54 Some trilogies 56 Get running smoothly, in a way 60 Example from 20thcentury history 63 Example from advertising 64 Words before a date 66 Is out 69 Point of sharpest vision 70 Golden ____ 72 Cut (off) 74 Told 75 Metaphorical example from poetry 76 As well as 77 Classic roadsters 78 “One … two … three …,” in a gym 80 On the left, for short 82 Get together

83 85 87 91 93 95 98 99 101 102 103 105 106 107 109 111 114 116

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NeW YORk TimeS mAgAziNe CROSSWORD Puzzle THe CAPTAiN gOeS DOWN WiTH THe SHiP

Many a fed. holiday British Invasion band Kind of ceiling Much-vilified food Some fingerprints Schlemiels Louse’s place, in Robert Burns’s “To a Louse” See 108-Across Watch over Fearsome birds Welcome, perhaps Ixnay A Clockwork Orange protagonist Unbelievable, say Talking during a movie, e.g. ____ League Michigan rival, for short Post-Civil War Reconstruction, e.g. zzc

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cpepper@okgazette.com OklahOma Gazette | April 15, 2015 | 39

LIFE MUSIC

Record spirit Part of what makes local record shops so great is their ability to bring people together while flouting traditional music industry rules. BY JENNIFER CHANCELLOR

Find more details and participating independent record sellers at recordstoreday.com.

Alley Records 10:30 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday 918 1/2 W. Britton Road 778-9026 Stop in for sales on new and used vinyl, memorabilia, videos, books and more. There will be live music from John McGuinness and a 7 p.m. set with Ronnie Jay & The Hawks.

Guestroom Records 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday John Moreland High on Tulsa Heat album release performance at 1:30 p.m. Beau Jennings solo performance at 2:30 p.m. 3701 N. Western Ave. guestroom-records.com 601-3859 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday The Easy Lovers Get a Job album release performance at 6 p.m. Applied Music Program performs at 7 p.m. 125 E. Main St., Norman guestroom-records.com 701-5974

Alley Records owner Ronnie Wheeler has proven to be the most indie-minded local record store owner around. This year (and every year), he holds his own Record Store Day (RSD) celebration, unfettered by specific rules and industry-exclusive releases. You won’t find him listed on the official RSD site because he won’t register for it. “I think what they’re doing is great,” he said of the annual event, launched in 2007 as a way for fans, musicians and store owners to celebrate local, independent brick-and-mortar stores and their value in communities across the globe. Wheeler embodies that ethos. He handpicks his new vinyl selections from indie retailers; they’re not ordered from distributors. His used selection is curated

40 | APRIL 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

Alley Records also will feature live music on Saturday. from locals and in places he visits, from Austin to Minneapolis. “I don’t get anything online,” he said. Saturday, he’s also celebrating Alley Records’ fourth anniversary. Hard-core collectors, curious newbies, gear heads, musicians and music fans are all welcome at Alley Records. From the sidewalk out front, through the store and into the alley, Wheeler’s shop offers blues, jazz, comedy, rock, soul and country — everything from Kurt Cobain 45s to The Who’s Tommy. “And everything that goes along with those,” Wheeler said, including posters, band memorabilia, signed albums, videos and lots of other things, including a feeling of community. Alley Records, 918 1/2 W. Britton Road, is also where local musicians like singer-songwriter Aaron Pierce (who also plays Norman Music Festival April 24) worked and rehearsed while starting their music careers. Oklahoma Blues Hall of Famer Watermelon Slim rehearsed there for three days — including an exclusive, intimate public show — before launching his national tour several years ago. “Record Store Day is about celebrating independents,” Wheeler said, meaning locally owned, brick-andmortar shops. “I’m all for that. It’s an incredible thing.”

Vinyl culture

Guestroom Records, however, will offer exclusive RSD releases, rereleases and early releases at both its metro locations: 3701 N. Western Ave. in OKC and 125 E. Main St. in Norman. Both also will host live music on Saturday and share free beer from COOP Ale Works, said shop owner Justin Sowers. As RSD has grown in popularity,

PHOTOS BY M A RK HA N COC K

Your local record store

Ronnie Wheeler, owner of Alley Records, with vinyl and other music artifacts he sells. His shop celebrates its fourth anniversary on Record Store Day.

We now let five people in at a time, then wait 10 minutes, then let in five more people. — Justin Sowers

Sowers’ stores have made adjustments to how they operate. Shoppers arrive earlier and earlier and lines grow longer and longer in the hours before many stores open their doors. “We now let five people in at a time, then wait 10 minutes, then let in five more people,” Sowers said. “Before we started doing that, the crush of people rushing in all at once was just too overwhelming. This new plan’s worked out really well.” Due to the guidelines established by RSD founders, stores don’t always know what RSD releases they’re getting or how many copies, if any. Sowers said he requested dozens of titles this year. “Some of these Record Store Day exclusives are made in very limited

numbers,” he said. “So, even if we get the record we requested, we may not get as many as we wanted.” He also said that indie stores aren’t allowed to hold the merchandise for people who call the store on Saturday. Nor can they pre-sell the items. “The spirit of this day is to bring together music fans and musicians. It was created to bring people together … so come in and check everything out,” Sowers said. A perk of adhering to these guidelines and building trust with both distributors and the community, he said, is that his shops also get exclusive early releases. This Saturday, Oklahoma singersongwriter John Moreland’s upcoming album, High on Tulsa Heat, will be available to Guestroom shoppers a full four days before its official release date. Moreland also will perform an in-shop album release show in Oklahoma City that day. Other acts, like Norman power pop-punk outfit The Easy Lovers also decided RSD was the perfect time to independently release its latest album, Get a Job. It also will perform a release show at the shop’s Norman location. “The day was invented to celebrate vinyl culture,” Sowers said. “This year alone, there are 450 releases planned on Record Store Day … It’s just grown into this incredible event. It’s amazing.”

* Visit NASCIGS.com or call 1-800-435-5515 PROMO CODE 96096 *Plus applicable sales tax Offer for two “1 for $2” Gift Certificates good for any Natural American Spirit cigarette product (excludes RYO pouches and 150g tins). Not to be used in conjunction with any other offer. Offer and website restricted to U.S. smokers 21 years of age and older. Limit one offer per person per 12 month period. Offer void in MA and where prohibited. Other restrictions may apply. Offer expires 12/31/15.

Oklahoma Gazette 04-15-15.indd 1

Okl ahOma Gaz ette | APRIL 15, 2015 | 41 3/11/15 11:49 AM

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LIFE MUSIC

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Opening night dinner - $25 Bass Music Center Atrium 6:15 p.m. Friday, April 24

www.okcu.edu/tickets or 405.208.5227 Tickets $12-25

Flying high The frontman for Kite Flying Robot returns to the U.S., bringing new experiences and a slate of local shows. BY JAMES BENJAMIN

8 p.m. Friday 8 p.m. Saturday 3 p.m. Sunday

Kite Flying Robot with Softaware and Team Nightstand 8:30 p.m. Saturday Blue Note Lounge thebluenotelounge.com 600-1156 $5

T GREA UST J SEATS ASED RELE

42 | APRIL 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

As Arnold Schwarzenegger might say, the robots are back. Nikolas Thompson, the figurehead behind the retro-futurist, Oklahomaborn synth band Kite Flying Robot, has returned home and will begin playing the band’s first live shows in the United States in more than two years. Thompson has been primarily based out of Seoul, South Korea, for the last three years, where he keeps the offshores version of his band, composed primarily of other outlander musicians in the East Asian country. Thompson will be playing with his Oklahoma bandmates again at the official U.S. CD release of their sophomore album, Magic and Mystery, on Saturday at Blue Note Lounge, 2408 N. Robinson Ave. The band will be playing in a number of other shows, including Norman Music Festival, during Thompson’s monthlong visit. Thompson returns to the area having been opened up to a variety of new experiences while in Korea. He said the biggest creative impact the move has had on him has been his involvement in Seoul’s expat theater scene and performing in musicals, which has shown him a side to performing that he had not considered before. “For me, it’s sort of like almost finding my Ziggy Stardust kind of

alter ego,” Thompson said. “I’m pretty chill in normal life, but I kind of go a little crazy on stage, you know, and you can tell [the crowd] never expected me to perform in that way.” Thompson said his live show has grown more since before he left for Korea and he feels he connects to the crowd in ways he didn’t before. His work with Korea-based music producer B.A. Wheeler, who is from Canada, has also been a major influence on him. Wheeler, a Korean Music Award winner, played drums on Magic and Mystery, Thompson said. He also helped farm ideas and restructure some songs. “He’s a maniac,” he said. “He’s one of the few geniuses I’ve ever met in my life, and I’d love to work with him again if possible.” Following his short visit back to the U.S. this month, Thompson said he will be returning to Korea to begin working on several music videos. He’s also excited about an opportunity to participate in scoring a feature-length film later in the year. “That’s been a dream of mine for a really long time, so I’d really like to follow through with that before I move back permanently,” he said. The film, Ultra Bleu by young, Korea-based director Nick Neon, has a vibe similar to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. “It’s not exactly a happy-ending story,” he said. “It works with a lot of color. You’re not really sure what’s real and what’s not.” Thompson said the movie should begin filming later this year. While the scoring process has yet to begin, he said he expects it to be lush with darker synths and landscapes.

P ROVI DE D

Presents

LIVE MUSIC WEDNESDAY, APR. 15

John Moreland, The Blue Door. SINGER/SONGWRITER

DJ Rodney Ladd, Rose State College. VARIOUS

Randy Cassimus, Full Circle Bookstore. ACOUSTIC

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors/Humming House, Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa. ROCK

Roy Lee Scott & The Flying Cowboys, Sliders. COUNTRY

Dylan Hammett, Colcord Hotel. ACOUSTIC Edgar Cruz/Jeff Nokes and Freinds, Avanti Bar & Grill. ACOUSTIC

Karen Khoury, Legend’s Restaurant, Norman. PIANO Nebulae/Shishio/Sunchaser, Opolis, Norman. ROCK Pat Green, Tumbleweed Dancehall, Stillwater. COUNTRY

STOUT, Oklahoma City Limits. VARIOUS Straight Shooter, Remington Park. COUNTRY The O’s, Grady’s 66 Pub, Yukon. VARIOUS

Givers/Pree, The Conservatory. ROCK

The Recliners, Riverwind Casino, Norman. COVER

Grant Wells, Skirvin Hilton Hotel. PIANO

Troy Hardin, Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill. COUNTRY

John the Franklin, Sonic HQ Stage. ACOUSTIC

Tyler Lee, JJ’s Alley. ACOUSTIC

Maurice Johnson, R&J Lounge and Supper Club. JAZZ

Voodoo, Belle Isle Restaurant & Brewery. ROCK

The Weathermen, Baker St. Pub & Grill. VARIOUS Scott Lowber/Will Galbraith/Ed VanBuskirk, Friends Restaurant & Club. COVER

THURSDAY, APR. 16 Brent Saulsbury/Will Galbraith/Wayne Duncan, Friends Restaurant & Club. ROCK

SATURDAY, APR. 18 100 Bones Band, Tapwerks Ale House & Cafe. ROCK Brian Nhira, Truth Church, Norman. SINGER/SONGWRITER

Bungalouski/Holding space, The Deli, Norman. VARIOUS

David Morris, Skirvin Hilton Hotel. PIANO

Christian Pearson, Colcord Hotel. PIANO

Eric Oftedahl/Andy Adams, JJ’s Alley. ACOUSTIC

Cole Porter Band, Wormy Dog Saloon. COUNTRY

LUCKY, Colcord Hotel. COVER

Cover Me Badd, Mickey Mantle’s Steakhouse. COVER

Midas 13, Route 66 Roadhouse. ROCK

Don and Melodee Johnson, Twelve Oaks, Edmond. JAZZ

Robert Earl Keen, Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa. COUNTRY

Easy Lovers, Guestroom Records, Norman. ROCK

Samantha Crain/Foxburrows/The Hitt Boyz/Nebulae, The Deli, Norman. VARIOUS

Evolution Underground, Oklahoma City Limits. ROCK

Scooter Brown, Wormy Dog Saloon. COUNTRY The Falconaires, UCO Jazz Lab, Edmond. JAZZ

FRIDAY, APR. 17 Austin Cobb Band, Thunderbird Casino, Norman. COUNTRY Brandon Clark & The Big Rig/The Fabulous Minx, Blue Note Lounge. ROCK Christian Pearson, Skirvin Hilton Hotel. PIANO

Grant Stevens, Skirvin Hilton Hotel. PIANO

pick

Sean Watkins/Joseph Lemay, The Blue Door. SINGER/SONGWRITER

Jared Sutton/Jarrod Baker, Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill. ROCK

Shawna Russell, Riverwind Casino, Norman. COUNTRY

Jimmy The Hat/Jordan Law, JJ’s Alley. ACOUSTIC

The Falconaires, Yukon Fine Arts Center, Yukon. JAZZ

Karen Khoury, Legend’s Restaurant, Norman. PIANO

Them Hounds/Quentin Cash Band, Belle Isle Restaurant & Brewery. VARIOUS

Kite Flying Robot/Softaware, Blue Note Lounge. ROCK

LUCKY, Colcord Hotel. COVER

DJ R&R, Russell’s, Tower Hotel. VARIOUS

Matt Blagg, Red Rock Canyon Grill. SINGER/SONGWRITER

Jason Boland, Wormy Dog Saloon. COUNTRY

Oklahoma Christian and gospel singer-songwriter Brian Nhira celebrates the recent release of his full-length album debut, Hope’s Stand, with a free concert for Norman and the University of Oklahoma community at 7 p.m. Saturday at Truth Church, 1201 W. Boyd St., in Norman. Doors open at 6 p.m. Nhira started out as a shy, stage-frightened youth performing “Jesus Loves Me” for church members and has gone on to perform more than 500 events in 14 states and four countries. Visit briannhira.com.

Scott Keeton, Remington Park. ROCK

Jamie Bramble, Buy For Less. ACOUSTIC

DJ Josh Tullis, Colcord Hotel. VARIOUS

Hosty Duo, The Deli, Norman. ROCK

Saturday

Roy Lee Scott & The Flying Cowboys, Sliders. COUNTRY

Jahruba & The Jahmystics, Othello’s Italian Restaurant, Norman. REGGAE

Los Lonley Boys/The English Beat/Rocky Dawuni, Guthrie Green, Tulsa. VARIOUS

Gentry, Kendell’s Bar. VARIOUS

music

Brian Nhira

Pierce Hart, Full Circle Bookstore. VARIOUS

Hosty Duo, 51st Street Speakeasy. ROCK

Cover Me Badd, Mickey Mantle’s Steakhouse. COVER

Fleetwood Mac, Chesapeake Energy Arena. ROCK

OKG

Brokenflesh/Longpig/Dark Arsenal/Chokehold Stab, The Conservatory. ROCK

Urban Addiction, Russell’s, Tower Hotel. COVER

SUNDAY, APR. 19 Casey and Minna, Uptown Grocery Co.. FOLK

Midas 13, Route 66 Roadhouse. ROCK

Edgar Cruz, UCO Jazz Lab, Edmond. ACOUSTIC

Old Bulldog Band, UCO Jazz Lab, Edmond. ROCK

Eric Herndon, Full Circle Bookstore. VARIOUS

Patrick Winsett and Foolish Pride, Grady’s 66 Pub, Yukon. COUNTRY

Kam Brad, Colcord Hotel. VARIOUS Karen Khoury, Legend’s Restaurant, Norman. PIANO

Shawna Russell, Riverwind, Norman Saturday

Orgy/9 Electric/Death Valley High, The Conservatory. ROCK Rick Toops, Friends Restaurant & Club. ROCK Stone Temple Pilots/Dreamers, Diamond Ballroom. ROCK Susan Herndon, First National Center. SINGER/SONGWRITER

TUESDAY, APR. 21 Ashley Raines/Hosty, JJ’s Alley. ACOUSTIC Caleb McGee, The Deli, Norman. ROCK LUCKY/Shaun Suttle, Skirvin Hilton Hotel. COVER OK GO/White Arrows, Diamond Ballroom. POP

WEDNESDAY, APR. 22 Amarillo Junction, JJ’s Alley. ACOUSTIC

Mike Hosty ‘One Man Band’, The Deli, Norman. ROCK

Edgar Cruz/Jeff Nokes and Freinds, Avanti Bar & Grill. ACOUSTIC

One Eyed Doll/Heartbreak Heros/Dark Water Prophecy, The Conservatory. ROCK

Maurice Johnson, R&J Lounge and Supper Club. JAZZ

Scott Lowber/Will Galbraith/Rick Toops, Friends Restaurant & Club. COVER

Scott Lowber/Will Galbraith/Ed VanBuskirk, Friends Restaurant & Club. COVER

Steve Moakler, University of Oklahoma. SINGER/SONGWRITER

MONDAY, APR. 20 Alan Orebaugh and Friends/The Handsome Devils, The Deli, Norman. ROCK PROVIDED

Speak, Memory, The Deli, Norman. ROCK

Dead Flowers, Red Brick Bar, Norman. ROCK Jimmy The Hat/EJ Mathews, JJ’s Alley. ACOUSTIC

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.

OklahOma Gazette | APRIL 15, 2015 | 43

LIFE MUSIC

Catalytic Construct

GA RE TT FI S BE C K

A rapper and label owner wants musicians to join him to promote local artists.

BY ANTHONY LALLI

Local artist Darya Faiazi is hoping his desire to grow and promote artists in the Oklahoma City area can incite throngs of musicians to join his cause. A producer and rapper born in OKC, Faiazi has no plans of moving to a city on either coast to pursue fame; his strongest desire is to stay close to his family and build a culture in the city he calls home. Fresh off the release of his debut EP The Construct, which he dropped on his label Question Records, Faiazi, who produces under the name Bandit Beats, is hoping to parlay the momentum he created at the end of 2014 into an even bigger 2015. The Construct has been in the pipeline since 2013. “The truth is that it’s been my entire

life,” said Faiazi. He originally got into the OKC music scene when fellow Oklahoma artist Teflon Jon gave him an opportunity to DJ, which, in turn, introduced him to several people in the local hip-hop scene, such as MilitantxMindz and Chris McCain. His entrance into the OKC music scene wasn’t surprising — at least to him. “I’ve always loved music. It wasn’t until I got a little older that I realized that some of the music I grew up listening to was actually bad,” he said. “Once I realized there was a broader spectrum of music than I had previously been enjoying, that was when I decided to surround myself with more sophisticated and cultured musicians.”

He has made a concerted effort to integrate talented people into Question Records. He is, however, doing so at his own pace. He recently signed Plstknova — the label’s first artist — who released his sophomore album Lights on the label. “I wanted to be patient and find people who were cool to work with, talented and shared the same passion and ideologies about music that I do,” he said. “The reason I gravitated towards Plstknova is because I enjoy working outside of my comfort zone and I enjoy tackling other genres of music.” The heavily electronic Lights features catchy grooves and rhythms and stellar production value. The Construct, currently available on Bandcamp, is both an amalgam

Darya Faiazi at home with his work. of instantly accessible beats and deft lyricism. “[My influences are] anyone from Flying Lotus to Fleet Foxes, and I think both of them contributed some paint to my musical palette, but the largest blobs of paint belong to Kanye and MF Doom,” Faiazi said. The Construct shows enough panache and promise to leave listeners anxiously yearning for the next thing from Question Records. Faiazi wants to quickly release something else. “I have quite a few projects I’m working on; I am allowed to divulge that I’m working on a collaborative EP with a fellow Oklahoma artist,” he said.

Vivid reality PROVID ED

Dreamers ride the surreal wave it created all the way to Diamond Ballroom.

BY KORY B. OSWALD

Dreamers with Stone Temple Pilots 7 p.m. Monday Diamond Ballroom 8001 S. Eastern Ave. dreamersuniverse.com diamondballroom.net 677-9169 $29-$125

If members of Dreamers are “asleep to the waking world,” as their manifesto states, then someone needs to pinch them right now because they are on one exhilarating ride in the waking music realm. The band has only been together for a short time. Even so, it has earned a burgeoning amount of accolades for its chimerical, punk- and power poptinged tunes layered in distortion and 44 | APRIL 15, 2015 | OklahOma Gazette

ridiculously catchy vocals. But it’s not playing around. In fact, the Brooklyn-based trio’s manifesto, posted on its official website, clearly outlines its mission. It reads, in part, “We are impractical. We do not listen to those that doubt us. We push the boundaries … We rewrite the rules.” Indeed, considering the attention it has garnered from outlets like Billboard, Spin and Earmilk, its statements have proven true. The band has also spiked alternative radio charts. And it has done all of it with zero major label support. “We’re just doing whatever we think is best,” said guitarist and vocalist Nick Wold. “It’s all kind of surreal, but it’s what we’ve been working toward for a lot of years [as musicians], so it all makes sense. It is

Dreamers plays Monday in Oklahoma City. amazing and kind of strange.” Wold and drummer Chris Bagamery formed Dreamers about a year ago, but they grew together in Seattle, playing jazz during the city’s grunge heyday. They soon transported themselves into New York’s competitive jazz scene, but it wasn’t too long before they once again changed direction and decided to get back to their roots. “We’re all about grunge and stuff, just from being from Seattle,” Wold said. “We were raised in that world.” They played with other musicians in a band called Motive until that splintered, returning Wold and Bagamery to their nascent creative journey. Dreamers was born.

Today — just a little over a year after releasing its first EP — the band is again recording new songs, this time at legendary Sound City studio in Los Angeles, and taking its time flirting with record labels. It’s also in the middle of a threemonth tour. For a full one month of that time, it opens for Stone Temple Pilots, which brings its show to Diamond Ballroom, 8001 S. Eastern Ave., on Monday. Wold said he has a soft spot for the Sooner state. “I love Oklahoma — my girlfriend is from the state. And do you know this band Broncho? We’re good friends with those guys too,” he said.

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Oklahoma Gazette

Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington, D.C. 2014 | Selected screenings nationwide | saladdaysdc.com

In the punk scene spanning 19801990, young, mostly unskilled youth picked up instruments and proceeded to destroy everything they knew about rock ’n’ roll. Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington, D.C., now screening in film festival and art house circuits, chronicles the East Coast music scene as its key players defined punk music for a generation of bands that didn’t care about publicity outside of their neighborhood. They didn’t care about record deals. They didn’t care about radio play. These bands didn’t care because it didn’t occur to most of them that anyone else gave a shit about anything they did. Musician Ian MacKaye leads this doc, which includes key players Henry Rollins, Bad Brains, John Stabb, Fugazi, Thurston Moore, Dave Grohl, Minor Threat and others. The film was written and directed by music journalist Scott Crawford and executed with success in large part through the lens of D.C.

native photographer and director of photography Jim Saah. From straight-edge to homicidal, many viewers will relate to punk’s cutand-paste fanzine culture — recording split albums with local bands and trimming album covers with scissors before placing them in the cassette holders. These kids created and nurtured a scene that helped define and guide not only musical tastes but ways of living that still thrive today. Now middle-aged, the musicians talk about their current and former bands in realistic ways. They mostly sucked (because they did, whether we loved or hated them), their skills were nominal, they were loud, they were fearless, they were largely oblivious to outside influences and they gave a shit about social and political issues and each other. The film screens at selected theaters and locations nationwide through June. Visit saladdaysdc.com for dates, locations and updates. — Jennifer Chancellor

My First Mister

2001 | Netflix, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon

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In My First Mister, Jennifer, a sullen, soot-eyed, combat boot-wearing teen, needs a job. Like any other rational teen, she sighs and accepts that she’ll have to go to the mall to find it. Seventeen-year-old Jennifer, aka “J” (Leelee Sobieski, Night Train, Finding Bliss), clomps herself into the path of a much older man — 49-year-old Randall (Albert Brooks, Terms of Endearment, A Most Violent Year) — when she asks the conservative, menswear store manager to hire her. J proves both a dreamer and a cynic. She self-harms and lacks boundaries. She’s anxious. Alternatively, he’s bored and passive. Both she and Randall are lonely. Their outlier statuses become their bond. This film is honest and at times uncomfortable, but it is always relatable. J is awkward, both in her budding sexuality and in bluntness of affect and in speech. “I’d like to propose a toast to all the special f-words — to friends, family, fate, forgiveness and forever,” J says. Suspense and curiosity

hold taut reign over scenes held in mundane locations over all-toocommon life issues: mom, daddy issues, single life, commitments, cliché fashion choices. They teach each other about cursing, tattoos, George Burns, Shaft, jazz and emo. J and Randall teach each other that friendship, attraction, curiosity and love can coexist without selfdestruction. As their hearts soften, so does Jennifer. The rigid lines — all-black attire, eyeliner, hair and lipstick — and brusque demeanor gradually morph into a laughing, open, thoughtful young woman. The pair’s unfolding quasi love affair is an intellectual primer for both as each moves into other life phases. J and Randall prove that vital selfdiscoveries happen at all ages. They happen when people are brave enough to let things happen — even at the mall. — JC

OklahOma Gazette | april 15, 2015 | 45

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY Homework: What’s the best question you could ask life right now? Tell me by going to FreeWillAstrology.com and clicking on “Email Rob.” ARIES (March 21-April 19) The California Gold Rush hit its peak between 1849 and 1855. Three hundred thousand adventurers flocked to America’s West Coast in search of gold. In the early days, gold nuggets were lying around on the ground in plain sight, or relatively easy to find in gravel beds at the bottom of streams. But later prospectors had to work harder, developing methods to extract the gold from rocks that contained it. One way to detect the presence of the precious metal was through the use of nitric acid, which corroded any substance that wasn’t gold. The term “acid test” refers to that process. I bring this to your attention, Aries, because it’s a good time for you to use the metaphorical version of an acid test as you ascertain whether what you have discovered is truly golden.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) The time between now and your birthday will provide you with excellent opportunities to resolve lingering problems, bring drawn-out melodramas to a conclusion, and clean up old messes — even the supposedly interesting ones. You want to know what else this upcoming period will be good for? I’ll tell you: 1. Surrendering control-freak fantasies. 2. Relieving your backlog of tension. 3. Expelling delusional fears that you cling to out of habit. 4. Laughing long and hard at the cosmic jokes that have tweaked your attitude. GEMINI (May 21-June 20) In the mid-19th century, the entrance exam for the British Royal Navy was quite odd. Some candidates were required to write down the Lord’s Prayer, recite the multiplication table for the number three, get naked and jump over a chair, and drink a glass of sherry. I’m guessing that your own initiation or rite of passage may, at least initially, seem as puzzling or nonsensical as that one. You might be hard-pressed to understand how it is pertinent to the next chapter of your life story. And yet I suspect that you will ultimately come to the conclusion -- although it

may take some time — that this transition was an excellent lead-in and preparation for what’s to come.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) In 1909, Sergei Diaghilev founded the Ballets Russes, a Parisian ballet company that ultimately revolutionized the art form. The collaborative efforts he catalyzed were unprecedented. He drew on the talents of visual artists Picasso and Matisse, composers Stravinsky and Debussy, designer Coco Chanel, and playwright Jean Cocteau, teaming them up with top choreographers and dancers. His main goal was not primarily to entertain, but rather to excite and inspire and inflame. That’s the spirit I think you’ll thrive on in the coming weeks, Cancerian. It’s not a time for nice diversions and comfy satisfactions. Go in quest of Ballets Russeslike bouts of arousal, awakening, and delight. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) “Don’t ever tame your demons -- always keep them on a leash.” That’s a line from a song by Irish rock musician Hozier. Does it have any meaning for you? Can your personal demons somehow prove useful to you if you keep them wild but under your control? If so, how exactly might they be useful? Could they provide you with primal energy you wouldn’t otherwise possess? Might their presence be a reminder of the fact that everyone you meet has their own demons and therefore deserves your compassion? I suspect that these are topics worthy of your consideration right now. Your relationship to your demons is ripe for transformation — possibly even a significant upgrade. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Will you be the difficult wizard, Virgo? Please say yes. Use your magic to summon elemental forces that will shatter the popular obstacles. Offer the tart medicine that tempers and tests as it heals. Bring us bracing revelations that provoke a fresher, sweeter order. I know it’s a lot to ask, but right now there’s no one more suited to the tasks. Only you can manage the stern grace that will keep us honest. Only you have the tough humility necessary to solve the riddles that no one else can even make sense of.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) My message this week might be controversial to the Buddhists among you. But I’ve got to report the cosmic trends as I see them, right? It’s my sacred duty not to censor or sanitize the raw data. So here’s the truth as I understand it: More desire is the answer to your pressing questions. Passionate intensity is the remedy for all wishy-washy wishes and anesthetized emotions. The stronger your longing, the smarter you’ll be. So if your libido is not already surging and throbbing under its own power, I suggest you get it teased and tantalized until it does. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Karelu is a word from the Tulu language that’s spoken in South India. It refers to the marks made on human skin by clothing that’s too tight. As you know, the effect is temporary. Once the close-fitting garment is removed, the imprint will eventually disappear as the skin restores its normal shape and texture. I see the coming days as being a time when you will experience a metaphorical version of karelu, Scorpio. You will shed some form of constriction, and it may take a while for you to regain your full flexibility and smoothness. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Georgia is not just an American state. It’s also a country that’s at the border of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. Many people who live there speak the Georgian language. They have a word, shemomedjamo, that refers to what happens when you love the taste of the food you’re eating so much that you continue to pile it in your mouth well past the time when you’re full. I’d like to use it as a metaphor for what I hope you won’t do in the coming days: get too much of a good thing. On the other hand, it’s perfectly fine to get just the right, healthy amount of a good thing. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) When you’re a driver in a car race, an essential rule in making a successful pit stop is to get back on the track as quickly as possible. Once the refueling is finished and your new tires are in place, you don’t want to be cleaning out your cup holder or checking

the side-view mirror to see how you look. Do I really need to tell you this? Aren’t you usually the zodiac’s smartest competitor? I understand that you’re trying to become more skilled at the arts of relaxation, but can’t you postpone that until after this particular race is over? Remember that there’s a difference between the bad kind of stress and the good kind. I think you actually need some of the latter. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Until the early 20th century, mayonnaise was considered a luxury food, a hand-made delicacy reserved for the rich. An entrepreneur named Richard Hellman changed that. He developed an efficient system to produce and distribute the condiment at a lower cost. He put together effective advertising campaigns. The increasing availability of refrigeration helped, too, making mayonnaise a more practical food. I foresee the possibility of a comparable evolution in your own sphere, Aquarius: the transformation of a specialty item into a mainstay, or the evolution of a rare pleasure into a regular occurrence.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) Piscean author Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated over 40 books for children. Midway through his career, his publisher dared him to make a new book that used no more than 50 different words. Accepting the challenge, Seuss produced Green Eggs and Ham, which went on to become the fourth best-selling English-language children’s book in history. I invite you to learn from Seuss’s efforts, Pisces. How? Take advantage of the limitations that life has given you. Be grateful for the way those limitations compel you to be efficient and precise. Use your constraints as inspiration to create a valuable addition to your life story. 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.

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*Lease financing available on 2015 BMW 740Li Sedan vehicles, only at participating BMW centers on leases assigned to BMW Financial Services NA, LLC/Financial Services Vehicle Trust through April 30, 2015. Monthly Lease payments of $869.00 for 24 months based on MSRP of $82,950.00.

2015 X1 sDrive28i

2015 X3 xDrive28i

2015 X5 xDrive35i

299

Lease for 36 months.

*Lease financing available on 2015 BMW X1 sDrive 28i vehicles, only at participating BMW centers on leases assigned to BMW Financial Services NA, LLC/Financial Services Vehicle Trust through April 30, 2015. Monthly Lease payments of $299.00 for 36 months based on MSRP of $35,550.00.

479

Lease for 36 months.

*Lease financing available on 2015 BMW X3 xDrive28i vehicles, only at participating BMW centers on leases assigned to BMW Financial Services NA, LLC/Financial Services Vehicle Trust through April 30, 2015. Monthly Lease payments of $479.00 for 36 months based on MSRP of $44,400.00.

659

Lease for 36 months.

*Lease financing available on 2015 BMW X5 xDrive35i vehicles, only at participating BMW centers on leases assigned to BMW Financial Services NA, LLC/Financial Services Vehicle Trust through April 30, 2015. Monthly Lease payments of $659.00 for 36 months based on MSRP of $62,150.00.