Showing posts with label Woodie Guthrie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Woodie Guthrie. Show all posts

Saturday, June 20, 2020

Don't go hating on Tulsa just because President Trump willl speak there in a few hours

President Donald Trump will hold a rally in Tulsa this evening, his first rally since the coronavirus pandemic descended on the United States.

Trump's media critics often mention the fact that Tulsa is the site of one of America's worst race riots. Indeed, on June 1, 1921, white rioters rampaged through Tulsa's Greenwood District, an affluent African American neighborhood, and destroyed or damaged more than 1,000 homes and businesses. Between 100 and 300 people were killed, and 6,000 African Americans were interned by law enforcement authorities. The Tulsa race massacre may, in fact, have been the worst race riot in American history.

Trump's media enemies insinuate that Trump picked Tulsa for his first post-coronavirus rally because he is a racist, and he finds Tulsa's history of racist violence appealing.  But to say such a thing, or even to imply it, is a slander on Tulsa, one of MidAmerica's most charming and lovely cities.

Tulsa was transformed during eastern Oklahoma's oil boom of the 1920s and 1930s, which brought enormous wealth to the city and a construction boom. As anyone knows who has visited Tulsa, the city is the home of an extensive collection of Art Deco buildings. It is truly a museum of early twentieth-century architecture.

Oil wealth also made possible the establishment of two nationally acclaimed museums: The Philbrook and the Gilcrease. The Philbrook Museum is located in what was once the home of oil magnate Waite Phillip and his wife Genevieve and contains an impressive and eclectic collection of art.

The Gilcrease Museum houses perhaps the world's most extensive collection of western American art. Thomas Gilcrease, another oil magnate, donated his own art collection to form the foundation of the museum's treasurers. Born of a mixed-race family (Scotch-Irish, French, and Creek), Gilcrease was enrolled in the Creek tribe when he was nine years old.

And Tulsa has other cultural treasures. The Bob Dylan papers and the Woodie Guthrie papers are housed in the city.  Both collections were purchased by the George Kaiser Foundation.

Over the years, Tulsa has been the home of countless famous actors, sports figures, and musicians. Tony Randall--part of The Odd Couple, is from Tulsa, along with Time Blake Nelson, the actor, screenwriter, and movie director.

Tim Blake Nelson deserves special mention. He is best know for his role in Brother Where Art Thou, but he also directed The Grey Zone, perhaps the best movie ever made about the Holocaust.

Before closing my paean to Tulsa, I must also mention that Tulsa is the home of Cain's Ballroom, where Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys performed both live and on the radio during the 1930s. Cain's Ballroom helped popularize a new form of American music that blended classic swing with western themes and melodies. Even today, Cain's Ballroom is known as the Carnegie Hall of western swing.

Why am I going on so long about Tulsa?  Perhaps it is because I grew up in rural Oklahoma and always considered Tulsa as Oklahoma's most beautiful, gracious, and culturally rich city.  I still feel that way. So--whatever happens tonight at the Trump rally, please don't let the evening's events tarnish one of the great cities of America's flyover country.

Bob Wills and Texas Playboys performed in Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma.



Sunday, October 15, 2017

Harvey Weinstein, the Napa-Sonoma Wildfires, and California's Travel Ban: Greetings from Flyover Country


Awhile back I wrote about California's legislative travel ban, which bars state-funded travel to states that passed so-called unprogessive legislation. Eight states are now on that list, including Texas and North Carolina.

At the time I wrote, I considered California's travel ban to be arrogant, self-righteous, and gratuitous. But that was before the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the Napa-Sonoma wildfires. Now I consider the travel ban to be pathetic.

People who live in flyover country have grown accustomed to being reprimanded by the California entertainment elites--all those beautiful people who are so cool and sensitive. We've endured public scoldings from the California legislature, which passed a law that bars state-funded travel to eight of California's sister states.

And now we find that Hollywood, the capital of coolness, has been enabling a sexual predator and accused rapist for decades. Everyone in the movie business knew Harvey Weinstein was preying on vulnerable women. His own company knew; in fact Harvey's employment contract contained a clause obligating Weinstein to reimburse his employer for future sexual abuse lawsuits (he had already settled with eight accusers) and to pay escalating penalties for future sexual assault complaints.

And then came the Napa-Sonoma wildfires, which have killed at least 40 people and scorched 350 square miles of the California wine country. Firefighters are pouring in from all over the United States to help fight these fires--including firefighters from North Carolina, which is under California's travel ban.

Do you think the California legislature will bar North Carolina fire crews from tackling the blaze in the Napa Valley? No, of course not. California's politicians want all the help the state can get to put out the deadliest wildfire in California history--even help from insensitive North Carolinians.

Do you think Hollywood will ask the folks in flyover country to boycott all the  movies associated with Harvey Weinstein? No. The movie industry depends on the rubes to buy movie tickets and $10 popcorn. Puh-leeze buy a ticket to see all the movies Harvey Weinstein and his cronies vomited into American culture.

Do you think any of Hollywood's supercilious, pompous asses will apologize to middle America for all the judgmental lectures they delivered while they covered up the Weinstein scandal? No, I don't think so.

But it is not my purpose to scold Hollywood or California politicians now that the Golden State's hypocrisy has been exposed. I don't wish to descend to the level of Alex Baldwin.

No, I wish to evoke the spirit of Woody Guthrie, the great folk singer and Dust Bowl refugee who migrated to California during the Great Depression, back in the days when California state troopers turned Okies away at the state border.
"This land is your land," Guthrie sang. "this land is my land.


From the California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest
To the Gulf Stream watersThis land was made for you and me.



So this is my message to California:

We, the people of flyover country, grieve for you as you battle the Napa-Sonoma wildfires, and fire crews from all over America will come to help. We'll even continue watching the retched movies that Hollywood grinds out ever year.

But here's the thing: This land is not just your land. It's our land. It was a land made for all of us. So let's all be a little more tolerant toward one another.