7.15.2004
Okies, Aiellis & Subliminal Red Earth
So having lost all my music I'm tuning in to KUT and getting a lost-neglected John Aielli fix* and I hear it's Woody Guthrie's birthday which led me to think, there really aren't that many famous people from Oklahoma. A few, including:
I had no idea Ron Howard and Brad Pitt were Okies. Of course you can't be famous and actually live in Oklahoma unless you're a country singer or a evangelist. The nature of the business, but just serves to remind me that Woody made a career out of being an Okie. Different times, Will Rogers could do too. Funny, I have quite a little nostalgia for the place, be it ever so humble. Oh don't worry, it's mostly just that, you know...
*BTW don't ask me how but John somehow segeued from Woody Guthrie tributes to the fact that Gerald Ford's middle name is Rudolph and is now playing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" unapologetically in July. Ah. I do miss Austin too...and now he's playing Beastie Boys. No wonder I never bought CD's back then
Garth Brooks singer, TulsaBut Woody still tops the list. Bob Dylan's "last hero". I don't really even feel like justifying it. He's Woody Guthrie for the love of...
Ralph Ellison writer, Oklahoma City
James Garner actor, Norman
Paul Harvey broadcaster, Tulsa
Van Heflin actor, Walters
Ron Howard actor, director, Duncan
Jeane Kirkpatrick diplomat, Duncan
Mickey Charles Mantle baseball player, Spavinaw
Reba McEntire singer, McAlester
Bill Moyers journalist, Hugo
Daniel Patrick Moynihan N.Y. senator, Tulsa
Patti Page singer, Clarence
Brad Pitt actor Shawnee
Tony Randall actor, Tulsa
Oral Roberts evangelist, Ada
Will Rogers humorist, Oologah
Dan Rowan comedian, Beggs
James Francis Jim Thorpe athlete, Prague
Jeanne Tripplehorn actress, Tulsa
Sam Kinneson, commedian, Tulsa
Sarah Vowell, writer & commentator
Wanda Jackson, singer, OKC
The Flaming Lips, band, somewhere in southern OK
I had no idea Ron Howard and Brad Pitt were Okies. Of course you can't be famous and actually live in Oklahoma unless you're a country singer or a evangelist. The nature of the business, but just serves to remind me that Woody made a career out of being an Okie. Different times, Will Rogers could do too. Funny, I have quite a little nostalgia for the place, be it ever so humble. Oh don't worry, it's mostly just that, you know...
...every life form that exists gives out a tiny sublimal signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth. On Earth it is never possible to be further than sixteen thousand miles from your birthplace, which really isn't very far, so such signals are too minute to be noticed.I guess I've got about 12,000 miles on me. Feeling a little detectable, that's all.
*BTW don't ask me how but John somehow segeued from Woody Guthrie tributes to the fact that Gerald Ford's middle name is Rudolph and is now playing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" unapologetically in July. Ah. I do miss Austin too...and now he's playing Beastie Boys. No wonder I never bought CD's back then
