Awkward Tulsa Moments

When we look at the past, we remember the good times.  We tend to ignore the rest.

It’s like the month after a break up.  You reminisce with your cup of coffee about the fun moments.  It’s not until you call or text your ex, do you remember why you called them a retarded banshee wooly beast on Facebook.

Tulsans follow the same pattern with our history.  We focus on music, art and oil.  We ignore how awkward Hanson, Larry Clark and the oil bust made us feel.

Some will call these embarrassing.  I call them awkward.  

10.  24 Hours From Tulsa

Gene Pitney’s song about young love and a man who is only “24 Hours from Tulsa.”  He doesn’t go home to his girlfriend because he met another girl at a diner and fell in love.  He forgot to mention the next day he woke up naked, chained to a radiator with his wallet missing.

9.  Tulsa (The Book)

In 1971, Larry Clark, director of “Kids,” released his first book.  It’s a collection of black-and-white photos that focused on Tulsa Youth.  The kind of youth that shoots drugs, has sex and plays with guns.  Rumor is, Clark created this book to challenge the “young love” theme from the song “24 Hours from Tulsa.”  Thanks to the brilliant work of DHS, these types of youth no longer exist.

8.  UHF

Finally, a blockbuster Hollywood movie shot in Tulsa.  Oh yeah.

7.  David Simpson

A former Tulsa World political cartoonist.  Tulsa World fired him in November 2005 after being charged with plagiarism.  The left cartoon is his.  The right cartoon is Bob Englehart’s (Hartford, Connecticut) from 1981. Simpson said he thought it was a cartoon that he started, but forgot about.  I guess he also signed Englehart’s name in the corner.  Two months his termination, the Oklahoma Cartoonists Hall of Fame inducted Simpson.

6.  Penis Pump Judge

Sitting on the witness bench is nerve wracking enough without the added “whoosh” sounds.  Former Creek County Judge Donald Thompson was convicted of indecent exposure in 2006.  He was caught using a penis pump during trials.  Today he is a free man and can use his pump in the privacy of his kitchen.  Technically, this isn’t Tulsa, but close enough.

5.  Diane Sue Whalen and Donald Roy Seigfried

After making national news with Tulsa’s Centennial celebration and the unearthed rusted Belvedere, Tulsa needed a headline that put us back in a less embarrassing light.  This wasn’t it.  Whalen and Seigfried are the couple that taped themselves having sex with their dogs.  They’re registered at PetSmart.

4.  Hanson

I know Hanson has rabid fans and we’re proud they made it big in the 90s, but if I hear Mmmbop one more time, I will throw myself in front of a bus.

3.  Oil Capital of the World

It seemed like a good idea at the time to name ourselves the Oil Capital of the World.  Then there was that whole oil bust thing.  Oops.

2.  Oral Roberts doesn’t go Home

In 1987, Roberts told the world God spoke to him and said, “I want you to use the ORU medical school to put My medical presence in the earth. I want you to get this going in one year or I will call you home. It will cost $8 million and I want you to believe you can raise it.”  When he announced this, he only had three months left to raise the money.  By April, he raised the $8 million and God spared his life.

1.  The Rusted Belvedere

People traveled from around the world to watch Tulsa unearth the 1957 Plymouth  Belvedere.  We anxiously waited as crews opened a water-filled tomb with a rust-bucket car.  Streamed live on the internet and broadcast on KOTV.  The world laughed with us.  We did laugh, right?