Tuesday, January 6, 2009 | by nathan

Woody Visits Oklahoma

This is my good friend Woody:

He’s from Lexington, Kentucky, where he was raised on a horse farm that is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Now he lives in Atlanta; he came to visit me just before the New Year. He’d never been to Oklahoma, but he has to hear me talk about it all the time, and I guess I piqued his curiosity. Also, the last time we’d seen each other was when we went to the Wake Forest Lovefeast in December 2007, and that was just entirely too long.

Woody said he wanted to see cool spots in Oklahoma, but more than that he wanted to see places that were important to me. "I want to see your high school," he said. "Take me on a tour of your life."

Can do, friend.

Woody’s first introduction to Oklahoma was at the UCO Jazz Lab, where we took him directly from the airport to watch our buddy K.C. Clifford and her husband David make some beautiful music, along with K.C.’s dad’s band, Mountain Smoke, who play bluegrass. Being from Kentucky, Woody was right at home. We enjoyed some of Oklahoma’s best pizza (Hideaway) and heard some of the state’s best musicians, and Woody got to meet my awesome friends Laurie and Jaye and Cheryl.

The next morning I thought I’d start Woody off by showing him some of the local sights. We had breakfast at the Red Cup, and then visited the State Capitol:

Woody’s heard me bitch about how I hate our state Capitol dome. It’s magnificent and beautiful but we were the only state without one and I liked that about us, and anyway, if we had $2 million to spend on a dome why couldn’t we give teachers more money? Anyhow; we nosed around the state Senate and House chambers for awhile, me telling him cool stories about Oklahoma history and politics.

After that we wandered downtown for a bit. I showed Woody the building where Brian and I lived when we first got together, and since it overlooks the Oklahoma City National Memorial, we walked around that for awhile. It’s really a must-see for people coming to Oklahoma City for the first time, but as a resident I have to say it never gets easier talking about the bombing or explaining the symbolism of the whole thing. After that I thought we needed a little bit of fun, and so we strolled through the Skirvin Hilton and then got lost in the downtown tunnels (which is where I took that photo of Woody up at the top, there), Myriad Gardens and Bricktown. We got lost down there for quite awhile, finally emerging at Leadership Square. It was the first time since my senior prom that I’d been there.

We met up with Laurie and enjoyed lunch at Cafe Antigua, our favorite little Guatemalan restaurant near Mesta Park, then went home to prepare a fantastic meal, as we’d invited some dear friends over to hang with Woody and generally sit around and be cool. We had a cooler of beer, grilled skewers, and K.C. brought dessert of cookies & cream ice cream, which was perfect. I’d had a pretty rough few days leading up to this, and a gathering of dear friends was exactly what I needed. So - Thank You.

The next morning I’d promised Woody to drive him to see my hometown and the prairies I love so dearly. My hometown of Weatherford is now home to one of Oklahoma’s largest wind farms, and Woody was about as excited about seeing this as I’d ever seen anyone get:

That photo doesn’t really give you a sense of how humongous this wind farm is; it’s basically circles the entire outside half of the town. We stood there for quite awhile taking photos (which I’ll be sharing in the coming days).

The only thing that sucked was that we both realized afterward that we’d been shooting in a 1600 ISO, so a lot of the photos, when blown up, look pretty grainy. It’s OK, though, because I still think they’re great. I took him into town after that to show him around the college campus where I spent most of my childhood. My dad’s old building was unlocked, so we went and looked around:

Also it bears mentioning here that Woody is the single most photogenic person I know. I have yet to see a bad photo of him. I mentioned this to him in college once, and he said, "Okay, I’ll make a face, and you’ll take a picture, and then we’ll have a bad picture of me!" Except that it turned out to be the best photo of him yet.

Anyhow, we poked around Weatherford for quite awhile, including the dorms where I lived during science and math camp, which is where I met our mutual friend Summer. One of those dorms is Thomas Jefferson Hall, so Woody decided to do his Thomas Jefferson Pose in front of the sign:

I drove him past my old school, my old house, and that’s all part of another story about how You Can’t Go Home Again, but suffice it to say we had a wonderful time. On the way back to the city Woody slept and I listened to Patty Griffin and longed for my childhood, which is pretty typical when I go out there.

That night we took Woody to his final Oklahoma Initiation: Eischens in Okarche. He and I had driven through Okarche on our way out west (interstates? What are those?), and I rounded up as many people as I could and Laurie’s brother-in-law Rob landed us a table at the legendary Oklahoma joint, which, for the uninitiated, serves the following: fried chicken, fried okra, pitchers of beer, and white bread with pickles and onions on the side. It’s INCREDIBLE. If you ever come here, I’m totally taking you there. We stuffed ourselves, and Woody and I played songs on the jukebox (me: "Mustang Sally" by the Commitments; him: "The Taliban Song" by Toby Keith. Discuss).

The next day was my grandfather’s funeral, and Brian and I dropped Woody off at the train station on our way out of town. He was headed to Austin to spend New Year’s Eve with three of the coolest people we know and I was totally jealous, and also a little disappointed that we’d had only a couple days and that he wasn’t going to experience his first Flaming Lips concert that night.

I’d say the most important thing about all this, about my good friend coming to see me, is that we got more time to talk than we’ve had since college, at least in person. It was healing and restorative and hilarious at times, and I am so glad our friendship has grown and deepened despite the constant physical distance between us.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 | by nathan

Red Dirt Road

Roots have come to mean a great deal to me; Oklahoma is where mine are, shot-up Stop signs and all. I love it here.

Monday, January 5, 2009 | by nathan

That Jacuzzi Is A Whore!

It’s the first Monday of the New Year, and so, like every other body-conscious-but-not-really-because-let’s-love-ourselves-holy-shit-my-jeans-don’t-fit-I’m-as-mad-as-Oprah person in this great American mass of humanity, I’m hitting the gym again today, hard. It used to be so easy to stay in shape, didn’t it? I seem to remember a time when my piddly little 30-40 minute workouts did the trick to keep me in size 30 jeans; now, we need the big guns. Brian and I are committing to weight loss and general fitness as a couple, getting up in the mornings to hit the gym so we can have our evenings free. My job also gives me an hour of paid time a week to do something health related; I’m using mine to go swimming on my lunch breaks.

It’s fantastic, my gym. There aren’t any roid-heads, just tired medical students and aging state legislators, mostly. It’s got a pool, which is a must for me, as lap swimming is my favorite form of exercise; it’s easier on the joints than running and gives me the added benefit of smelling of chlorine all year, rather than just in the summer.

Today was Day 1, or, rather, Day However Many Days Old I Am, as fitness really is a lifelong commitment and not something one should get into for short spurts. (I’ve learned this the hard way, like by taking the last five weeks off from working out at all).

I left my office about 11:30 and drove downtown. Despite being bundled against the 27-degree weather and dressed in a shirt, tie, slacks and sport coat for work, I was in the locker room and changed in a matter of seconds. I grabbed a towel and headed out to the pool. Greeting me as I exited the locker room was a big sign: "POOL TEMPERATURE 73.7 DEGREES (cold)".

The only thing I hate about this pool is that its giant picture windows look out on the Health Science Center lobby, where, among other things, dozens of people every day sit to enjoy their lunch from the Health Nut Cafe while looking out over a lap pool. They dream of watching the next Michael Phelps as he trains for glory; instead, they get me. Today, they got to see me read the sign, go and stick my leg from the knee down into the frigid, hypothermia-inducing water, give it a minute’s thought, and then decide, no, the way to start a new fitness regimen is not by contracting a cold by swimming in freezing water. I’ve done it to myself before, and it wasn’t pleasant.

No problem, I thought; I’ll just go upstairs for a run. Only in the rush to get home and changed after this morning’s semi-successful attempt at a workout (short version: It kicked my ass), I’d left my shoes on my bathroom floor. Fine, I told myself, today’s a wash, but I can at least get in the hot tub for a few minutes so I felt like I did something.

I lowered myself into the stew, my leg tingling where I’d put it into the melted glacier that was the pool. I was alone, and I closed my eyes, laid back and tried to zone out for a few minutes. When I opened them again, I realized I was no longer alone in the hot tub but had been joined by a, um, rather large gentleman who had stationed himself at the opposite end of the jacuzzi and whose back was to me. I didn’t welcome the company, exactly, but as long as he didn’t talk to me, I …

Wait, is he humping the jet? 

Sure enough, this rather large gentleman had a foot up on the underwater bench and was slowly moving his pelvis back and forth toward the jet. Had he not seen me in here? Did he not care? As quietly and quickly as possible, I leapt out of the hot tub and ran for the showers. Let me tell you: they don’t make water hot enough.

I dressed and quickly left the gym, stopping by Subway on my way back to the office, wondering if there was any way I might ever un-see what I’d seen. My newest Resolution is, of course, to never go in that hot tub again, and to pray I never see that guy anywhere, though I only got a look at his back, so I think I might be okay on that front.

Here and I just realized that in my rush to get away I left my goggles sitting on a chair by the hot tub. Oh, well, fuck. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Monday, January 5, 2009 | by nathan

Weekly Reader - 5 January 2009

Paul Krugman - "Bigger Than Bush"
"Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as the party’s champion, to the Bush administration’s pervasive incompetence, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision."

2008 In Pictures
2008 was such a big year that in its annual photo-recap, the New York Times had to create sub-years-in-review to fit it all in. A wonderful look back at a crazy year.

The United State of Pop
DJ Earworm looks back on the last year in pop music by creating a mashup of all the year’s biggest songs remixed into one track.

Boy, 9, Survives Decapitation
Uhhhhhh … this is true. And horrifying. And let’s not pretend we’re saints here - it’s a little awesome.

Monday, January 5, 2009 | by nathan

Vent

I took this photo last week during a trip to my hometown in western Oklahoma. My friend Woody was in town for a few days and he said he wanted a "tour of my life," and so of course one of the major stops was the little college campus where I spent as much time as a child as I did at my own home. There are a lot of great photos and stories from that trip that I plan to share with you this week, but I wanted to start with this photo because I really, really like it.

Friday, January 2, 2009 | by nathan

Freakout!

I wanted to post one more photo from the Flaming Lips NYE concert at the Cox Center because I wanted today to start out on a celebratory note. 

Thursday, January 1, 2009 | by nathan

Ted, Sr.

This is an undated photo of my grandfather, Ted Sr. He was born in January 1926, and so this picture of him as a young boy is probably from the early 1930’s.

People always tell me I look like him; I can really see it in this picture, especially when I look at it next to pictures of myself as a kid. 

We lost my grandfather last Saturday night. He died surrounded by the people who loved him most, and without enduring a very prolonged period of suffering, and everyone should be as lucky as that. The funeral was yesterday. I, along with my five living male cousins, was a pallbearer, and I also was asked to write his obituary. I’d like to share it with you (I’m eliminating family names; you understand.) Here it is:

Ted, Sr. was born on January 27, 1926, in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and departed this life on Saturday, December 27, 2008, in Prague, Oklahoma, at the age of 82.

Ted, the son of Walter B. and Althea, was a longtime resident of Okmulgee. He served in the United States Navy in World War II after joining at the age of 15. He married his wife, Pearl Marie on November 15, 1947.

Ted was a member of the Okmulgee Fire Department for 27 years, retiring as Okmulgee’s Assistant Fire Chief. He also owned and operated a silk screen sign shop, and was a member of the Okmulgee Church of Christ. He is preceded in death by his parents, two brothers, one sister, two sisters-in-law, one brother-in-law, and a grandson, Darin. Ted is survived by the family he loved: his wife of 61 years, Pearl; daughters Janet of Prague, Peggy of Tulsa, and Kathy of Oklahoma City; son Ted, Jr. of Tulsa; 14 grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild.

Funeral services will be held on Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 2:00 p.m., at the Church of Christ in Okmulgee. Interment will follow at the Okmulgee cemetery. In lieu of flowers, please donate to Hope Harbor Children’s Home in Claremore, Oklahoma.

Thursday, January 1, 2009 | by nathan

Happy New Year!

We rang in 2009 last night with the Flaming Lips at the Cox Center, capping off about 2 weeks of nonstop, whirlwind movement and motion and emotion, some of it very good, lots of it very bad, and I’ll have thoughts on it for you at some point, but for now I think I’m just going to take it easy, get my thoughts together and try to come up with some kind of vision for 2009. Happy New Year, everyone.

Saturday, December 27, 2008 | by nathan

Why I Don’t Want To Go See Religulous With You

In a place like Oklahoma, which was the only state in the country where every single county went for McCain in the recent election, liberals, progressives, people who don’t necessarily believe that oil springs miraculously and spontaneously from within the earth*, they tend to band together. That’s why most of the cars at my church have bumper stickers that say things like "Dixie Chicks for President" and "Republicans for Voldemort." I have a cadre of wonderfully progressive and liberal friends (sometimes overly so) who love to bandy about ideas and generally be outspoken and well-informed and all nice and opinionated.

These are wonderful people to have as friends. But when the topic turns to religion, and I tell them I’m a Christian, they look at me as if I’d just said I believe in pyramid power, or asked if they’d like to drink a glass of Kool-Aid and then accompany me on an intergalactic voyage. A lot of the better progressive people I know can’t seem to divorce themselves from the idea that if you’re religious, then you must automatically be a fan of Sarah Palin and stem cells.

Several of these people couldn’t wait to see Religulous.

Now, look. No one pokes more fun at crazy religious types than me. And frankly, I’d rather shove thumb tacks into my eyelids than have a discussion about religion or philosophy with anyone who’s been drinking. But I want to tell you why I don’t want to see this film with you.

It’s because I believe faith is for fools, Jesus is for losers, and that God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. In other words, I think it’s all nice that Bill Maher thinks he’s smarter than me - because in all honesty, he probably is - but I’m well aware of all the rational and logical reasons there are not to believe in God, and yet, I do. I believe in the Resurrection, and Heaven, and while I don’t talk about it all that often**, it’s probably the most important thing about me.

I believe because I feel - in an almost undefinable sense of the word ‘feel’ - that I’ve been touched by the Holy; this doesn’t make me special, but it does make me who I am. Seeing Bill Maher take apart the ridiculous parts of crazy religions won’t change this about me because my belief has almost nothing to do with an intellectual assent and everything to do with a spiritual one. While I believe in being smart, and well-informed, and plugged-in (libraries to me are almost as holy as churches and prairies), I also believe in being humble, and while I’m constantly failing at it, I can with great certainty say there are questions that my brain - that anyone’s brain - cannot answer. There are aspects of life that have nothing to do with reason and everything to do with spirit, however you define that. There are stories we need to hear that can be true, but not historical.

So, no, I don’t want to see Religulous with you. I don’t want to sit in a dark theatre and laugh derisively at all the crazy fundies with you and let you believe that their folly makes all faith invalid. After all, I think Rod Blagojevich is an idiot, and probably a sociopath, but I’m still a Democrat. Just because I think mostly douche bags listen to Dave Matthews doesn’t mean I don’t still love Under the Table and Dreaming.***

*A note to people who chanted "Drill, Baby, Drill:" where’s the One-Percent Doctrine when it comes to climate change, a threat that is considerably more of a potential danger to human life than terrorism?

**I once had a friend whom I knew to be a believer, but wouldn’t ever talk about it. Being nosy, I once asked him, "What are some of the experiences that formed what you believe?" He was silent for a moment, then looked sidelong at me and said, "Mary stored all these things up in her heart." Since then I’ve prayed every day to talk less and listen more when it comes to faith.

***Yeah, I copped to it. What? What?

Friday, December 26, 2008 | by nathan

“So What In the HELL Am I Going To Do?”

I think my favorite thing about going back through my old journals in preparation for Tulsa Cringe has been getting to see just how much perspective I’ve gained in the last, oh, 13 years or so. It cracks me up to think I was ever afraid of running for Westmoore Student Council; like, really? I was scared of, what? Exactly?

I do remember this, though I have to strain. I’d discovered the autumn before this that there were colleges outside of Oklahoma, and that you had to have a kick-ass record to get in. My grades were fine, but not my extracurriculars. So when I saw that there was going to be this election, and that no one had signed up to run for one of the spots, I thought, "Ka-ching!" I filled out all the paperwork - my hand was shaking the whole time because AM I REALLY GOING TO DO THIS? - and when I went to turn it in I saw that this POM GIRL had signed up to run. Hence the "What the HELL am I going to do?"

I wasn’t really concerned with popularity - something I do like about my teenage self - but I was pragmatic enough to know I couldn’t win against someone who didn’t have, ah, the best reputation, and who was going out with a dude who started for the football team and who everyone knew had spent the previous summer working as an extra in Twister. I couldn’t compete with the girlfriend of someone who had personally met Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton; I decided instead to run for junior class office, which I lost.

As I recall, Kristi Blackburn lost as well, though I have no idea to whom, and I did end up on Student Council senior year, though mostly through a prolonged campaign of being as obsequious and persistent as possible, and also by being appointed and not elected. My teachers loved me far more than my fellow students ever did, and I was damned to hell if I was going to college in state, you understand.

I really like my teenage self here, actually, though in a way where I want to take him aside, give him his first beer, and say, "Here’s why you’re freaking out about nothing." But it wouldn’t be adolesence if every challenge wasn’t Mount Everest and I handled every situation with a complete and total lack of perspective.