TL;DR: Man with too much time on his hands goes deep down the rabbit hole on a concept this sub already didn’t seem that enthusiastic about. If you really want to skip ahead, CTRL+F “verdict” and it’ll get you there.
Two days ago, u/MrPhillyj2wns made a post asking whether USL should launch a D1 league in order to compete in Concacaf. From the top voted replies, it appears this made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
But I’ve been at home for eight weeks and I am terribly, terribly bored.
So, I present to you this overview of what the USL pyramid might look like if Jake Edwards got a head of steam and attempted to establish a USSF-sanctioned first division. This is by no means an endorsement of such a proposal or even a suggestion that USL SHOULD do such a thing. It is merely an examination of whether they COULD.
Welcome to the Thunderdome USL Premiership
First, there are some base-level assumptions we must make in this exercise, because it makes me feel more scientific and not like a guy who wrote this on Sunday while watching the Belarusian Premier League (Go BATE Borisov!).

1. All D1 teams must comply with known USSF requirements for D1 leagues (more on that later).
   
2. MLS, not liking this move, will immediately remove all directly-owned affiliate clubs from the USL structure (this does not include hybrid ownerships, like San Antonio FC – NYCFC). This removes all MLS2 teams but will not affect Colorado Springs, Reno, RGVFC and San Antonio.
   
3. The USL will attempt to maintain both the USL Championship and USL League One, with an eventual mind toward creating the pro/rel paradise that is promised in Relegations 3:16.
   
4. All of my research regarding facility size and ownership net worth is correct – this is probably the biggest leap of faith we have to make, since googling “NAME net worth” and “CITY richest people” doesn’t seem guaranteed to return accurate results.
   
5. The most a club can increase its available seating capacity to meet D1 requirements in a current stadium is no more than 1,500 seats (10% of the required 15,000). If they need to add more, they’ll need a new facility.
   
6. Let’s pretend that people are VERY willing to sell. It’s commonly acknowledged that the USL is a more financially feasible route to owning a soccer club than in MLS (c.f. MLS-Charlotte’s reported $325 million expansion fee) and the USSF has some very strict requirements for D1 sanctioning. It becomes pretty apparent when googling a lot of team’s owners that this requirement isn’t met, so let’s assume everyone that can’t sells to people who meet the requirements.
   

(Known) USSF D1 league requirements:
- League must have 12 teams to apply and 14 teams by year three
- Majority owner must have a net worth of $40 million, and the ownership group must have a total net worth of $70 million. The value of an owned stadium is not considered when calculating this value.
- Must have teams located in the Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones
- 75% of league’s teams must be based in markets with at a metro population of at least 1 million people.
- All league stadiums must have a capacity of at least 15,000
The ideal club candidate for the USL Premiership will meet the population and capacity requirements in its current ground, which will have a grass playing surface. Of the USL Championship’s 27 independent/hybrid affiliate clubs, I did not find one club that meets all these criteria as they currently stand.
Regarding turf fields, the USSF does not have a formal policy regarding the ideal playing surface but it is generally acknowledged that grass is superior to turf. 6 of 26 MLS stadiums utilize turf, or roughly 23% of stadiums. We’ll hold a similar restriction for our top flight, so 2-3 of our top flight clubs can have turf fields. Seem fair?
Capacity is going to be the biggest issue, since the disparity between current requirements for the second-tier (5,000) and the first tier (15,000) is a pretty massive gap. Nice club you have there, triple your capacity and you’re onto something. As a result, I have taken the liberty of relocating certain (read: nearly all) clubs to new grounds, trying my utmost to keep those clubs in their current markets and –importantly--, ensure they play on grass surfaces.
So, let’s do a case-by-case evaluation and see if we can put together 12-14 teams that meet the potential requirements, because what else do you have to do?
For each club’s breakdown, anything that represents a chance from what is currently true will be underlined.
Candidate: Birmingham Legion FC
Location (Metro population): Birmingham, Ala. (1,151,801)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Legion Field (FieldTurf, 71,594)
Potential owner: Stephens Family (reported net worth $4 billion)
Notes: Birmingham has a pretty strong candidacy. Having ditched the 5,000-seater BBVA Field for Legion Field, which sits 2.4 miles away, they’ve tapped into the city’s soccer history. Legion Field hosted portions of both the men’s and women’s tournaments at the 1996 Olympics, including a 3-1 U.S. loss to Argentina that saw 83,183 pack the house. The Harbert family seemed like strong ownership contenders, but since the death of matriarch Marguerite Harbert in 2015, it’s unclear where the wealth in the family is concentrated, so the Stephens seem like a better candidate. The only real knock that I can think of is that we really want to avoid having clubs play on turf, so I’d say they’re on the bubble of our platonic ideal USL Prem.
Candidate: Charleston Battery
Location (Metro population): Charleston, S.C. (713,000)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Johnson Hagood Stadium (Grass, ~14,700)
Potential owner: Anita Zucker (reported net worth $3 billion)
Notes: Charleston’s candidacy isn’t looking great. Already disadvantaged due to its undersized metro population, a move across the Cooper River to Johnson Hagood Stadium is cutting it close in terms of capacity. The stadium, home to The Citadel’s football team, used to seat 21,000, before 9,300 seats on the eastern grandstand were torn down in 2017 to deal with lead paint that had been used in their construction. Renovation plans include adding 3,000 seats back in, which could hit 15,000 if they bumped it to 3,300, but throw in a required sale by HCFC, LLC (led by content-creation platform founder Rob Salvatore) to chemical magnate Anita Zucker, and you’ll see there’s a lot of ifs and ands in this proposal.
Candidate: Charlotte Independence
Location (Metro population): Charlotte, N.C. (2,569, 213)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Jerry Richardson Stadium (Turf, 15,314)
Potential owner: James Goodnight (reported net worth $9.1 billion)
Notes: Charlotte ticks a lot of the boxes. A move from the Sportsplex at Matthews to UNC-Charlotte’s Jerry Richardson stadium meets capacity requirements, but puts them on to the dreaded turf. Regrettably, nearby American Legion Memorial Stadium only seats 10,500, despite a grass playing surface. With a sizeable metro population (sixth-largest in the USL Championship) and a possible owner in software billionaire James Goodnight, you’ve got some options here. The biggest problem likely lies in direct competition for market share against a much better-funded MLS Charlotte side due to join the league in 2021.
Candidate: Hartford Athletic
Location (Metro population): Hartford, Conn. (1,214,295)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Pratt & Whitney Stadium (Grass, 38,066)
Potential owner: Ray Dalio (reported net worth $18.4 billion)
Notes: Okay, I cheated a bit here, having to relocate Hartford to Pratt & Whitney Stadium, which is technically in East Hartford, Conn. I don’t know enough about the area to know if there’s some kind of massive beef between the two cities, but the club has history there, having played seven games in 2019 while Dillon Stadium underwent renovations. If the group of local businessmen that currently own the club manage to attract Dalio to the table, we’re on to something.
Candidate: Indy Eleven
Location (Metro population): Indianapolis, Ind. (2,048,703)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Lucas Oil Stadium (Turf, 62,421)
Potential owner: Jim Irsay (reported net worth of $3 billion)
Notes: Indy Eleven are a club that are SO CLOSE to being an ideal candidate – if it weren’t for Lucas Oil Stadium’s turf playing surface. Still, there’s a lot to like in this bid. I’m not going to lie, I have no idea what current owner and founder Ersal Ozdemir is worth, but it seems like there might be cause for concern. A sale to Irsay, who also owns the NFL Indianapolis (nee Baltimore) Colts, seems likely to keep the franchise there, rather than make a half-mile move to 14,230 capacity Victory Field where the AAA Indianapolis Indians play and expand from there.
Candidate: Louisville City FC
Location (Metro population): Louisville, Ky. (1,297,310)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Lynn Family Stadium (Grass, 14,000, possibly expandable to 20,000)
Potential owner: Wayne Hughes (reported net worth $2.8 billion)
Notes: I’m stretching things a bit here. Lynn Family stadium is currently listed as having 11,700 capacity that’s expandable to 14,000, but they’ve said that the ground could hold as many as 20,000 with additional construction, which might be enough to grant them a temporary waiver from USSF. If the stadium is a no-go, then there’s always Cardinal Stadium, home to the University of Louisville’s football team, which seats 65,000 but is turf. Either way, it seems like a sale to someone like Public Storage founder Wayne Hughes will be necessary to ensure the club has enough capital.
Candidate: Memphis 901 FC
Location (Metro population): Memphis, Tenn. (1,348,260)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Liberty Bowl Stadium (Turf, 58,325)
Potential owner: Fred Smith (reported net worth $3 billion)
Notes: Unfortunately for Memphis, AutoZone Park’s 10,000 seats won’t cut it at the D1 level. With its urban location, it would likely prove tough to renovate, as well. Liberty Bowl Stadium more than meets the need, but will involve the use of the dreaded turf. As far as an owner goes, FedEx founder Fred Smith seems like a good local option.
Candidate: Miami FC, “The”
Location (Metro population): Miami, Fla. (6,158,824)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Riccardo Silva Stadium (FieldTurf, 20,000)
Potential owner: Riccardo Silva (reported net worth $1 billion)
Notes: Well, well, well, Silva might get his wish for top-flight soccer, after all. He’s got the money, he’s got the metro, and his ground has the capacity. There is the nagging issue of the turf, though. Hard Rock Stadium might present a solution, including a capacity of 64,767 and a grass playing surface. It is worth noting, however, that this is the first profile where I didn’t have to find a new potential owner for a club.
Candidate: North Carolina FC
Location (Metro population): Durham, N.C. (1,214,516 in The Triangle)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Carter-Finley Stadium (Grass/Turf, 57,583)
Potential owner: Steve Malik (precise net worth unknown) / Dennis Gillings (reported net worth of $1.7 billion)
Notes: We have our first “relocation” in North Carolina FC, who were forced to trade Cary’s 10,000-seat WakeMed Soccer Park for Carter-Finley Stadium in Durham, home of the NC State Wolfpack and 57,583 of their closest friends. The move is a whopping 3.1 miles, thanks to the close-knit hub that exists between Cary, Durham and Raleigh. Carter-Finley might be my favorite of the stadium moves in this exercise. The field is grass, but the sidelines are artificial turf. Weird, right? Either way, it was good enough for Juventus to play a friendly against Chivas de Guadalajara there in 2011. Maybe the move would be pushed for by new owner and medical magnate Dennis Gillings, whose British roots might inspire him to get involved in the Beautiful Game. Straight up, though, I couldn’t find a net worth for current owner Steve Malik, though he did sell his company MedFusion for $91 million in 2010, then bought it back for an undisclosed amount and sold it again for $43 million last November. I don’t know if Malik has the juice to meet D1 requirements, but I suspect he’s close.
Candidate: Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC
Location (Metro population): Pittsburgh, Penn. (2,362,453)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Heinz Field (Grass, 64,450)
Potential owner: Henry Hillman (reported net worth $2.5 billion)
Notes: I don’t know a ton about the Riverhounds, but this move in particular feels like depriving a pretty blue-collar club from its roots. Highmark Stadium is a no-go from a seating perspective, but the Steelers’ home stadium at Heinz Field would more than meet the requirements and have a grass surface that was large enough to be sanctioned for a FIFA friendly between the U.S. WNT and Costa Rica in 2015. As for an owner, Tuffy Shallenberger (first ballot owner name HOF) doesn’t seem to fit the USSF bill, but legendary Pittsburgh industrialist Henry Hillman might. I’m sure you’re asking, why not the Rooney Family, if they’ll play at Heinz Field? I’ll tell you: I honestly can’t seem to pin down a value for the family. The Steelers are valued at a little over a billion and rumors persist that Dan Rooney is worth $500 million, but I’m not sure. I guess the Rooneys would work too, but it’s a definite departure from an owner in Shallenberger who was described by one journalist as a guy who “wears boots, jeans, a sweater and a trucker hat.”
Candidate: Saint Louis FC
Location (Metro population): St. Louis, Mo. (2,807,338)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Busch Stadium (Grass, 45,494)
Potential owner: William DeWitt Jr. (reported net worth $4 billion)
Notes: Saint Louis has some weirdness in making the jump to D1. Current CEO Jim Kavanaugh is an owner of the MLS side that will begin play in 2022. The club’s current ground at West Community Stadium isn’t big enough, but perhaps a timely sale to Cardinals owner William DeWitt Jr. could see the club playing games at Busch Stadium, which has a well established history of hosting other sports like hockey, college football and soccer (most recently a U.S. WNT friendly against New Zealand in 2019). The competition with another MLS franchise wouldn’t be ideal, like Charlotte, but with a big enough population and cross marketing from the Cardinals, maybe there’s a winner here. Wacko idea: If Busch doesn’t pan out, send them to The Dome. Sure, it’s a 60k turf closed-in stadium, but we can go for that retro NASL feel and pay homage to our nation’s soccer history.
Candidate: Tampa Bay Rowdies
Location (Metro population): Tampa, Fla. (3,068,511)
Time zone: Eastern
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Raymond James Stadium (Grass, 65,518)
Potential owner: Edward DeBartolo Jr. (reported net worth $3 billion)
Notes: This one makes me sad. Despite having never been there, I see Al Lang Stadium as an iconic part of the Rowdies experience. Current owner Bill Edwards proposed an expansion to 18,000 seats in 2016, but the move seems to have stalled out. Frustrated with the city’s lack of action, Edwards sells to one-time San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr., who uses his old NFL connections to secure a cushy lease at the home of the Buccaneers in Ray Jay, the site of a 3-1 thrashing of Antigua and Barbuda during the United States’ 2014 World Cup Qualifying campaign.
Breather. Hey, we finished the Eastern Conference teams. Why are you still reading this? Why am I still writing it? Time is a meaningless construct in 2020 my friends, we are adrift in the void, fueled only by brief flashes of what once was and what may yet still be.
Candidate: Austin Bold FC
Location (Metro population): Austin, Texas (2,168,316)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Darrel K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium (FieldTurf, 95,594)
Potential owner: Michael Dell (reported net worth of $32.3 billion)
Notes: Anthony Precourt’s Austin FC has some unexpected competition and it comes in the form of tech magnate Michael Dell. Dell, were he to buy the club, would be one of the richest owners on our list and could flash his cash in the new first division. Would he have enough to convince Darrel K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium (I’m not kidding, that’s its actual name) to go back to a grass surface, like it did from ’96-’08? That’s between Dell and nearly 100,000 UT football fans, but everything can be had for the right price.
Candidate: Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC
Location (Metro population): Colorado Springs, Colo. (738,939)
Time zone: Mountain
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Falcon Stadium (FieldTurf, 46,692)
Potential owner: Charles Ergen (reported net worth $10.8 billion)
Notes: Welcome to Colorado Springs. We have hurdles. For the first time in 12 candidates, we’re back below the desired 1 million metro population mark. Colorado Springs actually plans to build a $35 million, 8,000 seat venue downtown that will be perfect for soccer, but in our timeline that’s 7,000 seats short. Enter Falcon Stadium, home of the Air Force Academy Falcons football team. Seems perfect except for the turf, right? Well, the tricky thing is that Falcon Stadium is technically on an active military base and is (I believe) government property. Challenges to getting in and out of the ground aside, the military tends to have a pretty grim view of government property being used by for-profit enterprises. Maybe Charles Ergen, founder and chairman of Dish Network, would be able to grease the right wheels, but you can go ahead and throw this into the “doubtful” category. It’s a shame, too. 6,035 feet of elevation is one hell of a home-field advantage.
Candidate: El Paso Locomotive FC
Location: El Paso, Texas
Time zone: Mountain
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Sun Bowl (FieldTurf, 51,500)
Potential owner: Paul Foster (reported net worth $1.7 billion)
Notes: God bless Texas. When compiling this list, I found so many of the theoretical stadium replacements were nearly serviceable by high school football fields. That’s insane, right? Anyway, Locomotive don’t have to settle for one of those, they’ve got the Sun Bowl, which had its capacity reduced in 2001 to a paltry 51,500 (from 52,000) specifically to accommodate soccer. Sure, it’s a turf surface, but what does new owner Paul Foster (who is only the 1,477th wealthiest man in the world, per Forbes) care, he’s got a team in a top league. Side note: Did you know that the Sun Bowl college football game is officially, through sponsorship, the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl? Why is it not the Frosted Flakes Sun Bowl? Why is the cereal mascot the promotional name of the football game? What are you doing, Kellogg’s?
Candidate: Las Vegas Lights FC
Location: Las Vegas, Nev. (2,227,053)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Allegiant Stadium (Grass, 61,000)
Potential owner: Sheldon Adelson (reported net worth $37.7 billion)
Notes: Sin City. You had to know that the club that once signed Freddy Adu because “why not” was going to go all out in our flashy hypothetical proposal. Thanks to my narrative control of this whole thing, they have. Adelson is the second-richest owner in the league and has decided to do everything first class. That includes using the new Raiders stadium in nearby unincorporated Paradise, Nevada, and spending boatloads on high profile transfers. Zlatan is coming back to the U.S., confirmed.
Candidate: New Mexico United
Location: Albuquerque, N.M.
Time zone: Mountain
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Isotopes Park – officially Rio Grande Credit Union Field at Isotopes Park (Grass, 13,500 – 15,000 with expansion)
Potential owner: Maloof Family (reported net worth $1 billion)
Notes: New Mexico from its inception went deep on the community vibe, and I’ve tried to replicate that in this bid. The home field of Rio Grande Cr---I’m not typing out the whole thing—Isotopes Park falls just within the expansion rules we set to make it to 15,000 (weird, right?) and they’ve found a great local ownership group in the Lebanese-American Maloof (formerly Maalouf) family from Las Vegas. The only thing to worry about would be the metro population, but overall, this could be one of the gems of USL Prem.
Candidate: Oklahoma City Energy FC
Location: Oklahoma City, Okla. (1,396,445)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (Grass, 13,066)
Potential owner: Harold Hamm (reported net worth $14.2 billion)
Notes: There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow and it says it’s time to change stadiums and owners to make it to D1. A sale to oil magnate Harold Hamm would give the club the finances it needs, but Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (home of the OKC Dodgers) actually falls outside of the boundary of what would meet capacity if 1,500 seats were added. Could the club pull off a move to Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma – home of the Oklahoma Sooners? Maybe, but at 20 miles, this would be a reach.
Candidate: Orange County SC
Location: Irvine, Calif. (3,176, 000 in Orange County)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Angels Stadium of Anaheim (Grass, 43,250)
Potential owner: Arte Moreno (reported net worth $3.3 billion)
Notes: You’ll never convince me that Rangers didn’t choose to partner with Orange County based primarily on its name. Either way, a sale to MLB Angels owner Arte Moreno produces a fruitful partnership, with the owner choosing to play his newest club out of the existing Angels stadium in OC. Another baseball conversion, sure, but with a metro population of over 3 million and the closest thing this hypothetical league has to an LA market, who’s complaining?
Candidate: Phoenix Rising FC
Location: Phoenix, Ariz. (4,857,962)
Time zone: Arizona
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): State Farm Stadium (Grass, 63,400)
Potential owner: Ernest Garcia II (reported net worth $5.7 billion)
Notes: We’re keeping it local with new owner and used car guru Ernest Garcia II. His dad owned a liquor store and he dropped out of college, which is making me feel amazing about my life choices right now. Casino Arizona Field is great, but State Farm Stadium is a grass surface that hosted the 2019 Gold Cup semifinal, so it’s a clear winner. Throw in Phoenix’s massive metro population and this one looks like a lock.
Candidate: Reno 1868 FC
Location: Reno, Nev. (425,417)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Mackay Stadium (FieldTurf, 30,000)
Potential owner: Nancy Walton Laurie (reported net worth $7.1 billion)
Notes: The Biggest Little City on Earth has some serious barriers to overcome, thanks to its low metro population. A sale to Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie and 1.6 mile-move to Mackay Stadium to split space with the University of Nevada, Reno makes this bid competitive, but the turf surface is another knock against it.
Candidate: Rio Grande Valley FC
Location: Edinburg, Texas (900,304)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): McAllen Memorial Stadium (FieldTurf, 13,500 – 15,000 with expansion)
Potential owner: Alice Louise Walton (reported net worth $45 billion)
Notes: Yes, I have a second straight Walmart heiress on the list. She was the first thing that popped up when I googled “McAllen Texas richest people.” The family rivalry has spurred Walton to buy a club as well, moving them 10 miles to McAllen Memorial Stadium which, as I alluded to earlier, is a straight up high school football stadium with a full color scoreboard. Toss in an additional 1,500 seats and you’ve met the minimum, despite the turf playing surface.
Candidate: San Antonio FC
Location: San Antonio, Texas (2,550,960)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Alamodome (FieldTurf, 64,000)
Potential owner: Red McCombs (reported net worth $1.6 billion)
Notes: I wanted to keep SAFC in the Spurs family, since the franchise is valued at $1.8 billion. That said, I didn’t let the Rooneys own the Riverhounds based on the Steelers’ value and it felt wrong to change the rules, so bring on Clear Channel co-founder Red McCombs. Toyota Field isn’t viable in the first division, but for the Alamodome, which was built in 1993 in hopes of attracting an NFL franchise (and never did), San Antonio can finally claim having *a* national football league team in its town (contingent on your definition of football). Now if only we could do something about that turf…
Candidate: San Diego Loyal SC
Location: San Diego, Calif. (3,317,749)
Time zone: Pacific
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): SDCCU Stadium (formerly Qualcomm) (Grass, 70,561)
Potential owner: Phil Mickelson (reported net worth $91 million)
Notes: Yes, golf’s Phil Mickelson. The existing ownership group didn’t seem to have the wherewithal to meet requirements, and Phil seemed to slot right in. As an athlete himself, he might be interesting in the new challenges of a top flight soccer team. Toss in a move to the former home of the chargers and you might have a basis for tremendous community support.
Candidate: FC Tulsa
Location: Tulsa, Okla. (991,561)
Time zone: Central
Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium (FieldTurf, 30,000)
Potential owner: George Kaiser ($10 billion)
Notes: I’m a fan of FC Tulsa’s rebrand, but if they want to make the first division, more changes are necessary. A sale to Tulsa native and one of the 100 richest men in the world George Kaiser means that funding is guaranteed. A move to Chapman Stadium would provide the necessary seats, despite the turf field. While the undersize population might be an issue at first glance, it’s hard to imagine U.S. Soccer not granting a waiver over a less than a 10k miss from the mark.
And that’s it! You made it. Those are all of the independent/hybrid affiliates in the USL Championship, which means that it’s time for our…
VERDICT: As an expert who has studied this issue for almost an entire day now, I am prepared to pronounce which USL Championships could be most ‘ready” for a jump to the USL Prem. A reminder that of the 27 clubs surveyed, 0 of them met our ideal criteria (proper ownership $, metro population, 15,000+ stadium with grass field).
Two of them, however, met almost all of those criteria: Indy Eleven and Miami FC. Those two clubs may use up two of our three available turf fields right from the outset, but the other factors they hit (particularly Silva’s ownership of Miami) makes them difficult, if not impossible to ignore for the top flight.
But who fill in the rest of the slots? Meet the entire 14-team USL Premier League:
Hartford Athletic
Indy Eleven
Louisville City FC
Miami FC
North Carolina FC
Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC
Tampa Bay Rowdies
Saint Louis FC
San Antonio FC
New Mexico United
Phoenix Rising FC
Las Vegas Lights FC
Orange County SC
San Diego Loyal SC
Now, I shall provide my expert rationale for each club’s inclusion/exclusion, which can be roughly broken down into four categories.
Firm “yes”
Hartford Athletic: It’s a good market size with a solid stadium. With a decent investor and good community support, you’ve got potential here.
Indy Eleven: The turf at Lucas Oil Stadium is no reason to turn down a 62,421 venue and a metro population of over 2 million.
Louisville City FC: Why doesn’t the 2017 & 2018 USL Cup champion deserve a crack at the top flight? They have the market size, and with a bit of expansion have the stadium at their own SSS. LCFC, you’re in.
Miami FC, “The”: Our other blue-chip recruit on the basis of ownership value, market size and stadium capacity. Yes, that field is turf, but how could you snub Silva’s chance to claim victory as the first division 1 club soccer team to play in Miami?
Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC: Pittsburgh sacrificed a lot to be here (according to my arbitrary calculations). Their market size and the potential boon of soccer at Heinz Field is an important inclusion to the league.
Saint Louis FC: Willie hears your “Busch League” jokes, Willie don’t care. A huge market size, combined with the absence of an NFL franchise creates opportunity. Competition with the MLS side, sure, but St. Louis has serious soccer history and we’re willing to bet it can support two clubs.
Tampa Bay Rowdies: With a huge population and a massive stadium waiting nearby, Tampa Bay seems like too good of an opportunity to pass up for the USL Prem.
Las Vegas Lights FC: Ostentatious, massive and well-financed, Las Vegas Lights FC is everything that the USL Premier League would need to assert that it didn’t intend to play second fiddle to MLS. Players will need to be kept on a short leash, but this is a hard market to pass up on.
Phoenix Rising FC: Huge population, big grass field available nearby and a solid history of success in recent years. No brainer.
San Diego Loyal SC: New club? Yes, massive population in a market that recently lost an absolutely huge sports presence? Also yes. This could be the USL Prem’s Seattle.
Cautious “yes”
New Mexico United: You have to take a chance on New Mexico United. The club set the league on fire with its social media presence and its weight in the community when it entered the league last season. The market may be slightly under USSF’s desired 1 million, but fervent support (and the ability to continue to use Isotopes Park) shouldn’t be discounted.
North Carolina FC: Carter-Finley’s mixed grass/turf surface is a barrier, to be sure, but the 57,000+ seats it offers (and being enough to offset other fully-turf offerings) is enough to put it in the black.
Orange County SC: It’s a top-tier club playing in a MLB stadium. I know it seems unlikely that USSF would approve something like that, but believe me when I say “it could happen.” Orange County is a massive market and California likely needs two clubs in the top flight.
San Antonio FC: Our third and only voluntary inclusion to the turf fields in the first division, we’re counting on San Antonio’s size and massive potential stadium to see it through.
Cautious “no”
Birmingham Legion FC: The town has solid soccer history and a huge potential venue, but the turf playing surface puts it on the outside looking in.
Memphis 901 FC: Like Birmingham, not much to dislike here outside of the turf playing surface at the larger playing venue.
Austin Bold FC: See the other two above.
FC Tulsa: Everything’s just a little bit off with this one. Market’s slightly too small, stadium has turf. Just not enough to put it over the top.
Firm “no”
Charleston Battery: Small metro and a small potential new stadium? It’s tough to say yes to the risk.
Charlotte Independence: A small new stadium and the possibility of having to compete with an organization that just paid over $300 million to join MLS means it’s best for this club to remain in the USL Championship.
Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC: When a club’s best chance to meet a capacity requirement is to host games at a venue controlled by the military, that doesn’t speak well to a club’s chances.
El Paso Locomotive FC: An undersized market and a turf field that meets capacity requirements is the death knell for this one.
Oklahoma City Energy FC: Having to expand a baseball field to meet requirements is a bad start. Having to potentially play 20 miles away from your main market is even worse.
Reno 1868 FC: Population nearly a half-million short of the federation’s requirements AND a turf field at the hypothetical new stadium makes impossible to say yes to this bid.
Rio Grande Valley FC: All the seat expansions in the world can’t hide the fact that McAllen Memorial Stadium is a high school stadium through and through.
Here’s who’s left in the 11-team Championship:
Birmingham Legion FC
Charleston Battery
Charlotte Independence
Memphis 901 FC
Austin Bold FC
Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC
El Paso Locomotive FC
Oklahoma City Energy FC
Reno 1868 FC
Rio Grande Valley FC
FC Tulsa
With MLS folding the six affiliates it has in USL League One, the league is a little bit thin (especially considering USSF’s requirements for 8 teams for lower level leagues), but seems definitely able to expand up to the necessary numbers with Edwards’ allusions to five new additions this year:
Chattanooga Red Wolves SC
Forward Madison FC
Greenville Triumph SC
Union Omaha
Richmond Kickers
South Georgia Tormenta
FC Tucson
Format of Assorted Leagues – This (like everything in this post) is pure conjecture on my part, but here are my thoughts on how these leagues might function in a first year while waiting for additional expansion.
USL Premier – We’ll steal from the 12-team Scottish Premiership. Each club plays the other 11 clubs 3 times, with either one or two home matches against each side. When each club has played 33 matches, the top six and bottom six separate, with every club playing an additional five matches (against each other team in its group). The top club wins the league. The bottom club is automatically relegated. The second-bottom club will enter a two-legged playoff against someone (see below) from the championship playoffs.
USL Championship -- 11 clubs is a challenge to schedule for. How about every club plays everyone else three times (either one or two home matches against each side)? Top four clubs make the playoffs, which are decided by two-legged playoffs. The winner automatically goes up. I need feedback on the second part – is it better to have the runner-up from the playoffs face the second-bottom club from the Premiership, or should the winner of the third-place match-up get the chance to face them to keep drama going in both playoff series? As for relegation, we can clearly only send down the last place club while the third division is so small.
USL League One – While the league is so small, it doesn’t seem reasonable to have the clubs play as many matches as the higher divisions. Each club could play the other six clubs four times – twice at home and twice away – for a very equitable 24-match regular season, which would help restrict costs and still provide a chance to determine a clear winner. Whoever finishes top of the table goes up.
And there you have it, a hypothetical look at how the USL could build a D1 league right now. All it would take is a new stadium for almost the entire league and new owners for all but one of the 27 clubs, who wouldn’t feel that their property would be massively devalued if they got relegated.
Well that’s our show. I’m curious to see what you think of all of this, especially anything that you think I may have overlooked (I’m sure there’s plenty). Anyway, I hope you’re all staying safe and well.

continuing
As I was picking myself up off the shooter’s shack floor, I glanced over to the TV.
The ballplayers were all wandering around the field, looking skyward. Evidently, there was this hellacious explosion…even the television sports commentators were speculating as to what happened.
Whoops.
I looked out into the quarry. The wall that I had charged had receded some 75 feet.
There was rather a large amount of shattered, blasted dolomitic limestone now in the quarry. Enough, I found out later, for a full month’s worth of orders.
We never did find the blasting mats. I think they sort of evaporated.
Luckily, the quarry is essentially an open amphitheater in plan view; basically a big hole in the ground with vertical limestone walls. The shockwave of the blast that didn’t spend itself shattering the limestone into which it was housed, blew out laterally, hit the opposite quarry wall, rebounded, and then dispersed, rather energetically, vertically upward.
I set off car alarms for a 20 block radius.
There were no broken home windows, as the lion’s share of the shock wave was redirected upward.
Good thing there were no low flying zeppelins or dirigibles in the area...
I waited the requisite time to allow for any loafers. There were none, so I jumped into the nearest wheel loader and began clearing the quarry floor. Hell, I had to so I could open the front gate.
As I was clearing the floor, making pile number eight of the loose rock I had liberated, I heard the characteristic whoop-whoop of emergency vehicles.
I parked the wheel loader, opened the front gate, and raised the green flag. That was enough blasting for one day.
A few minutes later, three police cars zoom into the site. Two were local city cops, and one was a state trooper.
“Hi, guys!” I waved, “Nice day, innit?”
“Doctor Rock! We should have known.” One of the local boys groaned.
“Hey, I did call you beforehand, as per procedure,” I said.
Polack the cop walks up, just knowing I was responsible. “Yeah, but we didn’t figure on you terrorizing the entire city.”
“Polack! How goes it?” I asked.
The other local cop and the state trooper look to Polack, “You know this maniac?”
“Oh, hell yeah. For years. Don’t worry, the good doctor is mostly harmless.” He chuckles.
“Damn. OK. I guess everything’s OK. Just no more shooting today, please, Doctor. It’s going to take hours to calm everyone down.” He laments.
“Yes, sir. I’m done for the day.” I reply, snickering slightly.
The one local and state trooper depart, shaking their heads in amazement. This left Polack to follow me over to the shooter’s shack to mooch a cigar and whatever else he can find.
“Jesus Hula-Dancing Christ, Rock. What the hell was that? I was all the way out in Whitewatosa and heard you.” He asks as he sneakily snakes a smoke out of my case.
“Just some common chemicals in the proper proportions.” I snicker.
“Which were?” he asks.
I go in the back of the shed and toss him an empty container of one of the parts of the binaries I used. He catches it, reads the label, and drops it like a live grenade.
“Binaries? Fuck! Like what you used at the tower?” he asks.
“Yep. I used just a little more.” I reply.
“Little more? Damn, as I said, we’ve been briefed on the stuff. This shit’s nasty.” He shakes his head.
“Yeah. Fun, too.” I reply.
Polack grabs a Sprechler’s Cream Soda out of the fridge as I opt for a cold Cream Ale and shot of potato juice. Hell, I was done for the day, so…
We sit around and have a chat, just shooting the shit, as it were. Manly topics, so the conversation eventually steered over to guns.
“Hey!” Polack remembers, “That’s right! You fucking owe me. Let me borrow that fucking cannon you carry. I want to show the chief a thing or two.”
“Yeah, that’s right”, I agree, “When do you need it?”
“This Friday, after shift. It’s the monthly qualifiers for us.” He notes.
“Are pyromaniacs allowed in?” I ask.
“To observe? Sure. To shoot? Nope. Insurance regulations.” He says.
“What time?” I continue.
“1800 hours.” He tells me.
“I’ll be there. I’ll bring my gun and an assortment of loads. Hey, this could be fun!” I evilly smile.
“Doctor. You’re doing that thing again. You’re grinnin’ like a shithouse rat. You know how much that scares me. Stop it.” He pleads.
“No worries. Friday at 1800 hours.” I reply, grinning.
Polack slurps down his Sprechlers, snitches another stogie, and squeals out of the quarry in a cloud of dense dolomitic dust.
I arrive back at our flat, after stopping for two frozen custard Turtle Sundaes, to go. I give one to an appreciative wife and I ask her about her day.
“Oh, went shopping with Oma. Got the cutest shoes, and a new purse, and…oh well, never mind. You’ll see.”
Between bites of Turtle Sundae, she asks how my day went.
“Oh, my dear. I had a real blast.” I replied, not lying in the least.
Monday, after my first classes, I’m back in the faculty lounge, savoring a Greenland Coffee.
There was the usual instructor chatter when Dean Vermiculari walks in.
“Good morning, Dean!” I say. “Care for a sit-down and a coffee?”
“Good morning, Doctor Rock. Yes, please to both.” He replies.
I fix us both a fresh Greenland Coffee and return to our table. I hand him one and sit down to savor my soupçon.
“How was your weekend?” I ask the Dean of the College.
“Oh, very nice. Had a fine time catching some perch and crappie out on Lake Genever. I see you had a victorious weekend as well. Twice.” He smiles.
“Twice?” I asked.
“Well, your handling of the tower demolition made all the papers. Very, very well done, Doctor. I congratulate you.” He smiles.
“Thank you, Dean. That means a lot. Just doing what I can with what I’ve got. But twice?” I replied.
“It wasn’t front-page news, but I saw there was some, well, let us just say, ‘energetic activity’ out at the Silurian reef limestone quarry yesterday.” He grinned.
“Oh, yes. I had a job to do and well, as I always say: ‘Nothing succeeds like excess.” I smile back.
“Quite. This beverage you’ve created is really rather extraordinary, Doctor. Again, I thank you.” He tips his mug my direction in the age-old Midwestern salute.
“It’s a little recipe I picked up on my last expedition to the northlands. I grew rather fond of the concoction.” I replied.
“Ah, I see. Marvelous.” He smiles.
“Thank you, Dean. High praise indeed.” I reply.
“Which leads me to…ah, Doctor Rock. I have another favor to impose upon you.” He says, all serious.
“Yes, Dean? How can I be of service?” I ask.
“We, as you no doubt know, have many, many fine extractive mineral company connections. We actually receive quite a large amount of funding and endowments from them. They recruit here extensively for our young geoscientists. Now, since Dr. Pataariki has left for industry himself, I would like to appoint you as the College of Natural Sciences corporate liaison.” He explains.
“Indeed?” I replied, too stunned for words for once.
“Yes, indeed.” He continues, “It will require travel, mostly domestic, and delivering symposia at various companies on differing extractive geological subjects. You will also serve as host and university coordinator when they are present on recruiting tours. There will, of course, be additional remuneration to accompany the added responsibilities.”
I slurped my coffee, thinking furiously.
“Could I please first discuss it with my wife before I answer?” I ask.
“Oh, Doctor. Of course, of course. Take your time. I will not require a reply until… tomorrow.” He smiles, finishes his coffee, thanks me again, and toddles out.
“Yow, Es!” I exclaim, “This is one hell of an opportunity. It’s never before been offered to a junior professor. This will cement my tenure-track. It’s going to be a bitch with time, though. What do you think I should do?”
“Well, Rock, honey, I think you should do…” Es begins.
“No! None of that ‘do what you think is best’ stuff. I want your own thoughts, just like when I decided to go after my doctorate.” I explained.
“OK, then.” Esme looks all serious like she’s going to deliver a bipartisan political speech.
“Yes.” She says, firmly
“That’s it?” I ask.
“Yep. You asked I answered. We’ll make it work. We always do. You can’t let the Dean down. You will accept tomorrow without fear or qualms of your wife’s hesitations, of which I harbor none.” Esme proclaims.
“Did I ever tell you of the myriad reasons I love you so?” I ask.
The next morning I meet with Dean Vermiculari. He’s pleased that I accept and hands over to me the charter. Then the lists of company representatives, their contact information, and some other secret stuff that I can’t divulge right yet.
A raft of oil companies will be coming in the late spring semester, so I need to contact each and every one to solidify dates, times and positions for which they’re recruiting. But that’s for then, I have something more proximal for now.
I have a Friday appointment with Polack the cop at the town police shooting range.
I arrive spot on time with my Casull .454 Magnum pistol, in its carry bag, along with a small duffel crammed with Pyrodex, Tannerite, and selection of specialty loads I had Herman the German, the inveterate gunsmith, create.
Herman the German, his actual sobriquet, was this incredible gunsmith, craftsman, and all-around artillery specialist. Have any sort of problem with a rifle, shotgun, or pistol? See Herman. Gun holding too high? See Herman. Barrel warped? See Herman. Need solid gold projectiles for a certain one-off job? See Herman.
Herman the German can sort it out.
Just never ask him: “How?”
“Ach! I’ve lived so long to learn, and you want it free? I’ll fix it, you pay, but I am only one knowing how!”
Herman was a cranky old Kraut, and has lived here for as long as anyone can remember. Even my Grandfather had deferred to Herman when he had some particularly delicate machining operation that need special attention and was unique.
As far as anyone knew, Herman had no family, but was never at a loss for friends. He was one of the most popular, and well known, but still oddly really unknown, kind of mysterious, old bastards in the entire community.
Herman the German liked me because I could obtain for him certain high-energy things he couldn’t. All were entirely legal, but some were sort of out there in the gray zone.
He also liked that I was educated, as he held education in the highest esteem. He also liked that I was of German extraction myself.
I often made it a point to drop by with odd and unusual high-octane potables while never expecting anything in return other than a story or a shared cigar.
Herman created some special loads for my .454 Magnum, which he prized.
“I like your gun, Doctor Rock, it is so big! I can still see well enough to build things for it.” He told me one day over cheroots and Schnapps.
Herman was a character to be certain. It must have been the pixie in him to dream up some of the specialty rounds he created for me to share with the local constabulary.
He lived out in the county by himself in an old farmhouse. He had a full machine shop in his basement, complete with forge, metal handling equipment, and a firing test range.
He handed back my .454, rather solemnly.
“Doctor, I am afraid to say I couldn’t test all the special rounds I’ve created for you. I need to patch the hole in the cinder blocks in the downstairs range. Your gun punched right through the back…” he apologized.
Now, Herman does all sorts of work on the local’s deer rifles, the police’s ordinance and has even worked some with the Baja Canada National Guard. Some of the little novelties he’s dreamed up for me are the first to escape his homemade basement test range.
I felt oddly honored.
After proving who I was to the nice range officer, I looked around trying to find Polack.
“It’s 1550. Where the hell is Polack? I wondered.
“Rock! Over here.” Polack calls to me.
He motions me outside to the police department’s tactical outdoor range. I had thought all along he was referring to the indoors police target range. This might pose some problems.
The tactical range was a series of clapboard shacks, all setup and designed to represent some downtrodden urban inter-city landscape. There were a couple of junked cars, broken sidewalks, storefronts, houses, bus stops…in short, all things necessary to replicate the seediest sections of a settlement where malefactors live and breed.
The cops all run around this range, shooting at bad guy pop-up cut-outs and avoid the not-bad-guy pop-up cut-outs. They’ve got music blaring, firecrackers going off, all trying to re-create a shady deeply urban environment. Points are awarded by the accuracy of fire on the run, time to maneuver the course, and the ability of not gunning down innocent bystanders.
It is not the best place to test a .454 Cusall. This hand cannon recoils like a fundamentalist Christian being solicited for donations to Anton LaVey, shoots flames and incandescent gasses like Smaug after a hard night of drinking and a stop at the Taco Bell buffet, is louder than a dime-store Karen demanding to see a Manager, and more powerful than a Ghost Pepper suppository.
To quote Joe Piscopo: “It shoots through schools.” Especially faux-schools made of plywood.
A .32 or .38 cop special is the correct weapon here; even a 9mm is a little heavy. Enough power to make a serious dent, easy on control, light on the recoil…a good tactical weapon.
But, nothing succeeds like excess.
Polack’s Chief is running around, capping off his ‘big ol’ .44 Magnum, and making the valley echo. He punches considerable holes in the pop-up cut-outs, but has such a hard time handling the recoil, his score is barely passable.
Polack runs his test with his standard 9mm sidearm and qualifies easily. However, he’s nowhere near done with his Chief yet.
I suggest to Polack we have a shoot-off. And since a .44 Magnum bullet ‘is so close to a .454 Magnum’, which it isn’t…the .454 Casull generates nearly 85% more recoil energy than the .44 Magnum; that we’d need something other than holes punched in plywood to judge the efficacy of each.
We are literally just down the road from Max Yazzer’s farm and market. They’re the place you go for your Halloween jack-o-lantern. However, now, he has a surplus of melons.
I think you can see where this is headed…
I borrow Polack’s personal conveyance and run down to Max’s farm. I return with a trunk-load of elderly, overripe, cheap as chips, melons. Watermelons, Honeydews, Musks, and Casabas.
We place them in strategic areas on the course, five for the Chief to find, and five for Polack.
A .44 vs. a .454 melon-wise results in pretty much the same sort of mess: high-velocity fruit spatter. Although, the Chief was very impressed by the report of the .454. So, after running the tactical-melon course, clear demarcation of a winner was elusive.
OK, OK, clever dicks. How about this? A standing shoot-off? We’ll set up 3 melons each at 30, 20, and 10 yards. Beginning at 30 yards, your time will be until you take out all three melons. But, they’re not going to be in a straight line, we’re going to make them somewhat camouflaged. You will stand in one small demarcated area, hunt those miscreant melons, and bring them to justice. Fastest time and greatest display wins, as determined by the Police Peanut Gallery.
Polack and the Chief agree.
The Chief goes first and dispatches the melons, with a fair amount of spatter, in 15.3 seconds.
Not bad.
Polack is next. He wipes out all the melons and creates some thoroughly impressive displays with Herman’s ‘special’ rounds. Normal ballistics for the .454 are, for a 250 grain (16 g) bullet, a muzzle velocity of over 2,400 feet per second, developing up to 2,800 ft-lb of energy.
Herman’s hot loads are double that.
Polack wins the day on impressive high-velocity melon distribution, but misses, so close, with a time of 17.0 seconds.
Recoil’s a bitch.
Then there are Herman’s ‘specialties’.
The Chief is duly impressed and even comments that his ears are ringing even with the ear protectors. He asks to inspect the weapon. He is even more than duly impressed.
Polack knows what’s up and asks the Chief if he’d like to give a whirl.
Of course, the Chief can’t back down.
Polack loads the .454 with 5 of Herman’s specialties: hollow-point rounds loaded hot, compressed, and tipped with alkaline earth metals, like metallic sodium and metallic potassium…
We set up the nastiest, glorpiest, just barely-holding-together, overripe, laced with Tannerite (an impact-actuated low-explosive) watermelon at the ‘Concealed Carry’ distance of 5 meters.
We slowly fade back into the distance to avoid the inevitable ‘Gallagher reaction’.
The Chief fires one, and just nicks the top of the melon. Don’t laugh, with the type of recoil and heft of the sidearm, and tensing up in anticipation, it’s easy to be off the mark initially.
The second round impacts dead-center. Now, alkaline earth metals and water don’t get along really well. In fact, their relationship is explosive. Especially explosive when delivered at 2,900 feet per second.
The Chief catches a huge smattering of vitamin-packed watermelony back blast goo.
He’s not entirely happy. He looks positively grisly with all that blown-up melon schmoo on his nice, neat uniform.
He returns my gun and bans me from ever showing up at the police range again.
Polack is on traffic duty for the next month.
He figures it was well worth it.
Back at the flat, Esme is shaking her head and wondering if I’ll ever grow up.
“I may grow old, but I’ll never grow up.” I reply.
I see I have several missed phone calls. Ah, me; no rest for the weary. Back to company-university liaison duties.
After I had contacted these companies, I receive no less than 12 requests for symposia, talks, and seminars to be given to various level of industrial scientific employees in their respective companies.
I am now slated to give academic conferences on stratigraphy, sedimentology, and seismic structural geology to different companies in Houston, Oklahoma City, Denver, Casper, Corpus Christi, New Orleans, and Tulsa. In the next 12 weeks, I’ll be giving no less than 8 talks in seven cities.
I speak with Dean Vermiculari on how best to handle the situation. He understands and appoints two graduate student teaching assistants to handle my classes while I’m on the road. That relieves me of being physically there, but I still have to grade papers, compose lesson plans, and keep things running smoothly until finals.
Besides giving the talks, there’s travel to oil fields, production facilitates, manufacturing plants, hotels, restaurants while I’m in town…the pace is excruciating. I’m gone more than I am at university. Plus in my time back home, I’m still the ad hoc master blaster for the limestone quarry.
Then, there’s the companies arriving on campus, and the roles are reversed. Now I’m the welcome wagon and have to sort out the logistics of receiving the company representatives. I need to set up the colloquia to introduce the companies to the prospective students, arrange lodging, arrange passes for the university, transportation, “Meet-and-Greet’s, ad infinitum.
I knew this was having a bit of effect on me when I came back to the flat after one particularly grueling ordeal of canceled flights, full hotels, missed connections and lukewarm reception by the company workers.
“Hello”, I said, as I walked in the flat, “I believe you have a reservation for…”
Esme just stood there, wondering if I was having a laugh.
No, I wasn’t. I was completely hallucinating from road weariness, lack of sleep, jet lag, and total disorientation. This continued on for the next approximately 18 months.
Esme was beginning to have second thoughts about all this.
My teaching load was diminished by one whole introductory course. However, I was still flying hither and yon, delivering symposia, meeting with young geoscientists and getting to know the ins-and-outs of the Oil Industry.
I found it particularly fascinating.
Time marched on and it was once again it was the recruiting season. We had no less than eight oil companies visiting the university in their quest to swell the roster of their junior scientists.
I’m still busier than a one-armed paperhanger in a windstorm, but have settled into a groove of sorts. I know the company recruiters and they now know me. I’ve actually struck up friendships with several. Particularly since I take them to the best local restaurants and bars after their recruiting duties are finished.
I’ve met with recruiting representatives of Shrill Petrol, Mexxon, Nobil, Nocono Oil, Flug, Geddy, Brutish Petroleum, and Qexaco.
The recruiting season is winding down and I find myself with Red (not Adair), of Nocono Oil.
“Well, Doctor Rock”, Red states, “Another fine recruiting run. We’ve snagged two of your young geologists and one geophysicist. I’d say it was almost a perfect score.”
We’re sitting in the Norton’s Steakhouse. After a couple of prime pink porterhouses, we’re working on the post-dinner double vodka and bitter lemon for me, and Lagavulin for Red.
“Almost perfect?” I ask.
“Yeah. There’s been this one small nagging concern from our company higher-ups.” Red continues.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“We need some more senior people. For one thing, we’ve recently opened a new petroleum laboratory down in our Houston office. Going to need some serious talent to run that show.” Red says.
“I see”, I reply, “And…?”
“We need mentors. Those with varied and far-flung knowledge. They must be well educated, global in experience and stature, with an [ahem] diverse set of skills.” Red notes.
“Whew”, I agree, “That’s a tall order. You want my help with names of possible candidates? Is that it?”
“Not as such, Doctor.” Red drains his drink, motions for me to do the same, and orders another round.
Our drinks arrive and Red downs half his in one gulp.
“Well, then”, I continue, “How can I help?”
Red chuckles, “For someone so educated, you can really be thick as two short planks at times.”
I sit back, and sip my Old Thought Provoker.
The mercury-vapors light off.
“No!” I say, incredulously.
“Oh, yes.” Red smiles.
“No?” I ask, slowly taking in the possible effects of what he’s hinting at…
“OK, Doctor Rocknocker”, Red gets all serious and corporate, “We’d like to offer you a position at Nocono Oil as Senior Laboratory Manager and Head of Corporate Continuing Education.”
You could have knocked me over with a grenade. I was stunned. I fumbled with my drink.
“Red, you old con artist” I reply, “Is this a set-up?”
Red, serious as a heart attack, looks directly at me and replies, “Doctor Rock, absolutely not, it’s a genuine offer.”
He slides over a folder with some papers inside. “Here are the particulars.”
Reeling, I accept the folder. I open it and right after the corporate logos and legal bullshit, I see a tall figure with a whole raft of zeros trailing behind it.
I read furiously. The job would be both interesting and challenging. It would be in Houston, with travel and teaching at all other company outposts on a regular basis. I reexamine that figure from before and verify that I’m not now hallucinating.
The job comes with furnished, corporate-paid housing, incredible benefits, loads of opportunity for advancement, more opportunity to travel, really generous vacation time…
“Right. On the level?” I ask again.
“Yep.” Red bluntly says.
“Well”, I gulp, “you know I have to discuss this with Esme”, whom he’s met several times previous.
“Of course, and you probably want to finish out the semester, correct?” red asks.
“Oh, yes.” I reply. There would be a monsoon of paperwork and other grunt work I’d need to conclude or hand over if I were to accept this offer.
“OK, then”, Red finishes his drink, motions for me to do the same, a real rarity; but I was in another dimension at this point. He orders another round and sits back, waiting on a refill.
“You have two weeks to reply” Red states.
“I know that’s not a terribly long time, but we need to fill this position ASAP. Can I ask for that? Your answer, yea, or nay, within a fortnight?” Red demands.
“Yes”, I reply. “I at least owe you that.”
And that was the end of the discussion for the night about me joining the private sector. We stayed a few more hours, chatting, smoking my cigars, and discussing everything but the lumbering elephant in the room.
We part outside as I need to head back to our flat. Red wants to go downtown to one of those “Gentleman’s Clubs” he’s heard were so famous at the time.
I was flummoxed the whole cab ride home.
It was late when I returned, but I simply had to wake Es with the news.
“Rock, for pity’s sake, its 2 o’clock in the morning!” Es protests. “Can’t this wait until later?”
“Sorry, my dear” I reply, probably as serious as I ever had with Esme. “This is a potential game-changer.”
“What is it? Are you OK?” Esme trembles.
“Oh, I’m fine. Better than fine.” I reply.
She’s relieved.
“Then what’s so important?” she asks.
“Um…how would you like to move to Houston?” I ask.
“You going to teach at Cougar High (University of Houston)?” she inquires.
“Nope. Brace yourself. I’ve been offered a job with Nocono Oil.” I finally spill the beans.
Esme is slightly stunned and sits down.
I go to the wet bar, fix me a bracing potato juice and citrus and Esme a stiff white Zinfandel.
I hand her the wine and she is still semi-dazed and digesting the information.
I slurp a good portion of my drink, retrieve her Sobranjes and me a cigar from my Turkmenistan humidor.
I sit on the couch next to her and hug her soundly.
“Esme? Es? Earth to Es? You in there?” I joke.
“Oh, Yeah. Rock. Really? Hang on”, she leaves, returning with her housecoat as this might take a little time.
“So?” I ask, “Your thoughts. Now! Immediately! Initial reaction!” I try to jar her back into reality.
“Well, what do you want?” she asks.
“C’mon, my dearest. You know I hate that. No, what do you think? What do you honestly think?” I reply.
We both fire up our smokes, and I refresh our drinks. We return to the dinner table where Red’s folder lies.
“Es, here. Look at this.” I say, sliding the portfolio over to her.
She reads like a hungry man at a Vegas casino buffet. I can tell where she was stopped by something extraordinary.
“This is for real?” she asks, “Red’s not pulling a fast one?”
“Nope. It’s the genuine article”, I tell her, “He needs my reply within two weeks.”
“Rock, Rock…I just don’t know. It’s a lot to process at 0230 in the morning. Let’s go to bed and have a think in the morning. You have the luxury of at least that amount of time.” She notes.
“Right again, as usual”, I say, “Stuff it. It can wait.” We toddle off to bed.
The next morning, over Cuban omelets and Greenland Coffees, we sort through the particulars.
“Rock, it’s an extraordinary offer. But, do you want to leave teaching? I remember how you got all animated by Dean Vermiculari giving you the corporate liaison job and how that would improve your shot at tenure.” She notes.
“I just don’t know. I’m still shell-shocked.” I tell her. “Let me go to school and we’ll pick this up tonight. We both have work to do no matter what. Oh, bloody hell. I hadn’t considered your job. Another wrinkle in the mess.”
“Don’t you worry about that”, Esme smiles. “One catastrophe at a time.”
“I do so love you.” I hug her soundly. “Think I should mention this offer to anyone at school?”
“No. Definitely not.” Esme shakes her head. “Let’s figure this out on our own.”
“I agree”, I say, kiss her and depart for school once again.
The next week was a blur. Recruiting duties were dragging and I was being preoccupied.
Even my students noted the lack of in-room explosions lately.
I spend the next Saturday at the quarry, doing some small amount of blasting. I quiz the quarry owners about their progress in acquiring a new master for the quarry’s operation.
“Oh, Doctor Rock” they gush, “You’re doing such a fine job, we haven’t really looked. Why do you ask?”
“No particular reason at this time, I reply, “But perhaps you might want to begin looking”
The chinks in my armor were finally starting to show.
Sunday was spent out on Sliver Lake, with Esme and me chasing the elusive crappie, perch, and bucketmouth bass. It also gave us a chance to clear our heads from work, school and other such intrusions. We both needed a bit of downtime.
Later that night, after a meal of beer-battered fillet of crappie and perch on the barbie, we sit down at the dinner table.
The portfolio sits there, taunting us.
I get up, makes us both our drinks, sit down and declare that this is it.
“Es, darling” I say, “its nut-cuttin’ time. We need to make our decision.”
“You’re right.” Es agrees, “Time for risk-reward analysis. Get some paper and some pencils.”
We spend the next few hours listing the pros and cons of accepting the Houston position or staying here and pursuing my tenured professorship.
After several hours, I stretch, stand, and go to the fridge. I retrieve the bottle of Bollinger Les Vieilles Vignes Francaises I had purchased the other day.
I return to the table with the wine and the glasses, pop the cork and pour us both a glass of high-brow bubble water.
I hug and kiss Esme like I had just returned from a long, solo expedition.
“Esme, my darling. I’d like to propose a toast. First to us. Hа здоровый!”
“Cheers!” Esme replies.
“Secondly to Red, Dean Vermiculari, the quarry guys, Polack the Cop, and all the others that makes our life weird around here.”
“Seconded”, Es echoes.
“Finally: to Houston, Texas. Our new home!” I finally add.
The next morning, Dean Vermiculari peers over the top of his pince-nez glasses. He’s not looking overly happy with me right now.
“Why is it, Doctor, that everyone that receives the job of corporate liaison ends up going with corporate?” he asks.
“Perhaps it’s just the exposure to another world that exists beyond academia.” I reply, truthfully.
“Doctor Rocknocker,” the Dean gravely states, “I am not at all happy about your decision. We had great hopes for you here and you were riding right up the tenure track. Another five years and it would have been assured.”
“Five years is a long time, Dean”, I state the obvious.
“Yes, indeed.” The Dean replies frostily. “However, you are young. Perhaps you need to get this private sector nonsense out of your system, then you can return to academia where you belong.”
“Perhaps, perhaps”, I reply.
“Please, do consider this option down the road. You and your antics will be missed here, by students and faculty alike.” He says.
“I will, Dean, I promise.” I reply “However, for now, it’s time for my boot heels to be wanderin’.”
“Doctor, I will miss your strange and unique way of looking at life. I reluctantly accept your resignation at the end of the current semester and wish you all the best in your newest endeavors. Please remember us when corporate support for academia is mentioned in your new company.” he says.
“I promise you, Dean, I will not forget what I’ve learned here and what you’ve taught. It’s the least I can do,” I reply. “I will never forget my roots.”
“All I can ask”, he concludes. He stands to shake my hand. We shake and my audience is over.
I resign from the quarry a week later. They haven’t found a new blaster but wish me well on my new journey. I tell them I’m here until the end of the semester, so I won’t leave them high and dry.
I tell Polack the Cop about all the goings-on.
“Who the hell can I roust for beer and cigars now?” He whines. “Let me know when you get to Texas if they need any cops. I wouldn’t mind trying’ that. Hell, maybe a Texas Ranger!”
“A Cheesehead Ranger…?” I assure him I will and pass a box of cigars to him as a parting gift. He gives me a mayoral-signed get-out-of-jail-free card.
“Now you can drive that old Harley just as crazy as you want.” He chuckles.
“Thanks, Polack.” I say, shaking his hand. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I sold my bike a week earlier.
Red was very chuffed with the news.
“Snagged me a big one this time!’ He laughed, over the phone.
There was enough paperwork, considerations and decisions to be made to last the remaining time Esme and I had in-state until our move. Already, a moving company had arrived, done inventory, and was preparing for our move to Houston.
Esme resigned her position and decided she wanted to take some time off. She wanted to be a housewife, a colleague, and not have to work for once at an outside job. My new position allowed for that in spades. Besides with her credentials, anytime when she wants to re-join the workforce, there are myriad opportunities in the Bayou City.
We made the choice of housing out west of town, in Katy, Texas. We could have chosen Sugarland, Addicks, Greenspoint, Greenway, or the Memorial area. However, these west Houston company properties were closest to the job and largest in square footage.
My students got wind of my resignation and relocation. They threw me an unexpected farewell party at the Gast Haus. It was nickel-beer night and since they were footing the bill, it all worked out just fine.
I would miss the old place. The camaraderie, the seasons, the university; hell my home these last many years. I’ve been on many, many expeditions, but I always returned home.
Now, home was moving and was awaiting our arrival.
Esme and I said our farewells to our families as well. We were the first through college, the first ones to travel international, the first Doctor in the family, and the first to leave the state.
That’s a lot of familial firsts.
I had to keep reminding everyone it wouldn’t be the last. Hell, we’re just moving to Texas, it’s not like we’re off to Greenland or Mongolia…
[Gasp]
We saddled up Es’s old Chevy Nova, took one last, lingering look in the rearview mirror, and said fare thee well to our previous lives.
“We’ll be back. Someday. I promise” I told the city of our youth and young married adulthood.
We decided to drive to Houston because we had the luxury of a bit of time. We needed the stretch to chew over some interpersonal and private things on the way to the next chapter in our lives. Besides, the weather was good, the roads ahead open and clear, and Texas had no ‘Open Container’ law, yet.
We pointed the old Nova south and hit the gas.
A week later, we’re wandering around our new house in Katy, Texas. Our belongings, scant though they may be, arrived the day after we did. Esme and I spent the next couple of day rearranging the house, buying necessary domestic bits and pieces, and getting to know our new neighborhood.
First thing, though, Esme wanted to replace the old Nova. I concurred, but insisted we keep it as a second car and went out to purchase our first new car as a couple.
I wanted a Land Rover. We ended up with a glossy black Toyota 4-Runner. Close enough.
I was scheduled to show up at my new job the next Monday.
I had my own parking spot, complete with “Reserved for Dr. Rock” painted on the bumper block. I was shown my new lab and was introduced to my seven laboratory assistants. I was shown the catalogs I could use to order what I needed and went over the requisition procedures.
I was trotted around to meet the company CEO, CFO, CIO, VPs and many, many more company executives and managers. I’ve met with presidents and heads of state, I was impressed but not overly. They seemed like a more or less nice bunch of chaps.
Almost exactly five weeks to the day from our arrival in Houston, I come home, yelling “Darling, I’m home!”
Esme comes to greet me with a rib-rearranging hug. She tells me to sit at the dinner table, where my long hard day at the office drink, cigar, ashtray, and lighter are already set.
“How was work, dear?” she asks, sitting down with her Perrier water.
“Oh, it’s going great. The knotheads let me have an open-ended budget until I get the labs sorted just the way I want it. These guys pay their bills on time and I have carte blanche at Wards Scientific, and other supply houses. My crew is great, no interpersonal crapola, and hard workers. I can smoke in my office and no one dares give me shit about my cigars. I’m getting to know the exploration department quite well. They’re really interested in our expeditions and are more interested in my opinions of their new exploration directives.”
Esme just smiles and sips her water.
“Odd”, I thought.
“That’s great, dear.” She says. “I am so glad to hear it.”
“Me too”, I say, “How are you holding up after all these weeks alone?”
“Oh, I’m getting used to it.” She smiles.
And smiles. Beatifically. Glowing.
“What?” I ask.
“Remember what we talked about in the car on the way down here?” She asks.
“We talked about a lot of things…” I say, suddenly my eyes grew very, very wide indeed.
“Yes. You’re going to be a father. I’m pregnant, Rock.” Esme smiles.

Tulsa's event list.

Ongoing

• The Hex House (The Hex House - Tulsa) Thru Sat, Nov 2nd Travel to Tulsa for The Hex House, northeast Oklahoma's extreme haunted attraction. The Hex House is an intense,…

Wednesday, Oct 2nd

• 🎡 Arby's Ride-a-Thon Day (Expo Square - Tulsa) Start Time: 11:00am Save $10 on a ride wristband by picking up a coupon at your local Arby's (does not include Gate Admission and Extreme Rides). Price without Arby's coupon is $45.
• Bert Kreischer (Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa - Catoosa) Comedian Bert Kreischer is taking his latest routine at The Joint in Catoosa. His new stand-up special,…
• 🎨 Brown Bag It: Mosaic Trio (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 12:10pm Presented By: Tulsa PAC Trust The Brown Bag It free noontime concert series at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center happens the first Wednesday of the month. The series features some of Oklahoma’s finest professional musicians performing in the PAC's Westby Pavilion. Mosaic Trio, Maureen O’Boyle (violin), and Pete Peterson (cello), and Lorelei…
• 😂 Dan Chopin (Loony Bin - Tulsa) Thru Sat, Oct 5th
• Food Truck Wednesdays (Guthrie Green - Tulsa) Every Wednesday, grab some tasty eats and gather on the grounds of Guthrie Green. During Food Truck Wednesdays, lunchtime…
• Heart with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts in Concert (BOK Center - Tulsa) Rock out alongside powerhouse band Heart as they perform with fellow rock icon Joan Jett during one epic concert at…
• 🎭 Open Auditions for Cast (Tulsa Spotlight Theatre - Tulsa) Start Time: 6:30pm Open Auditions first Wednesday of every month. 6:30pm
• 🎡 Rival Sons (Expo Square - Tulsa) We've not forgotten about our rock fans. October 2nd Rival Sons will have the Oklahoma Stage absolutely ROCKING! Are you ready? Want the best seats in the house? Get your River Spirit VIP Section tickets TODAY!
• Tulsa State Fair (Expo Square - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Oct 6th Bring the whole family out for Tulsa's largest annual event, the Tulsa State Fair, and enjoy fun-filled, family…

Thursday, Oct 3rd

• 🎓 2019 Zarrow Mental Health Symposium (Cox Business Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:30am
• 🎡 Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (Expo Square - Tulsa) That's right, Bone Thugs N Harmony is coming to the Tulsa State Fair! Want the best seats in the house? Get your River Spirit VIP Section tickets TODAY!
• 🎡 Collector's Pin Day (Expo Square - Tulsa) Start Time: 11:00am The first 4,000 guests paying Gate Admission will receive a FREE 2019 Limited Edition Tulsa State Fair Lapel Pin, while supplies last. Show your proof of purchase at any Guest Service location.
• 😂 Dan Chopin (Loony Bin - Tulsa) Thru Sat, Oct 5th
• 🍴 In the Middle Book Club (Owasso Library - Owasso) Start Time: 6:00pm We will discuss "Sweep: The Story of A Girl and Her Monster" by Jonathan Auxier. Snacks and activities included. For ages 9-12. Request your copy here: https://tccl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/4205339063
• J Balvin in Concert (BOK Center - Tulsa) Following his widely praised, back-to-back weekend performances recently on the main stage at Coachella, Reggaeton’s…
• Tulsa State Fair (Expo Square - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Oct 6th Bring the whole family out for Tulsa's largest annual event, the Tulsa State Fair, and enjoy fun-filled, family…
• Wine, Jazz & World Fete (Guthrie Green - Tulsa) Thru Sat, Oct 5th Gather on Guthrie Green in Tulsa for a weekend filled with world-class jazz and top-shelf wines. The annual Wine, Jazz &…

Friday, Oct 4th

• 🎭 Tulsa Ballet on the Green (Guthrie Green - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:30pm
• 🎡 Chris Janson (Expo Square - Tulsa) Chris Janson is coming to the Tulsa State Fair Friday, October 4th! Hits include 'Buy Me a Boat' 'Fix a Drink' & 'Drunk Girl'. Want the best seats in the house? Get your River Spirit VIP Section tickets TODAY!
• 😂 Dan Chopin (Loony Bin - Tulsa) 1 day left
• 🎨 First Friday at Archer Studios (Tulsa Artists Coalition - Tulsa) Start Time: 6:00pm Join us for open studios, new works on view and a special performance! Tulsa Artist Fellowship's Archer Studios (109 N. MLK Jr. Blvd. E.) will be open for First Friday Art Crawlers. Artistic disciplines include photography, poetry, painting, sculpture, graphic novels, multimedia and more.
  ARCHER WINDOW INSTALLATION // RAFAEL CORZO Organized…
  
• Friday Night Test N Tune (Tulsa Raceway Park - Tulsa) Start Time: 6:00pm
  
• 🎨 No Comply at Cameron (Tulsa Artists Coalition - Tulsa) Start Time: 6:00pm No Comply at Cameron is a multifaceted event featuring an exhibition of original art inspired, influenced and made by more than 25 skateboarders past and present; a live skateboard demo and session in the Cameron building parking lot (SHRED THE SHED!); live music and local skate video screenings.
  Sponsored by Tulsa Artist Fellowship, No Comply…
  
• Philbrook Playdates (Philbrook Downtown - Tulsa) Day 1 of 2 Start Time: 9:30am Come and play with your child, let your child play with other kids, and meet other adults! We provide the creative activity and we clean up the mess. Spark wonder and foster creative development with rotating activities for you and your child (under 5). Playdates at Philbrook are facilitated by early learning specialists. The first 30 minutes…
  
• 🎡 PRCA ProRodeo (Expo Square - Tulsa) Day 1 of 2 Start Time: 6:00pm The ProRodeo consists of six PRCA events, as well as the Grand Entry and the Calf Scramble. The events occur in the following order: Grand Entry, Bareback Riding, Steer Wrestling, Saddle Bronc Riding, Tie-Down Roping, Barrel Racing and Bull Riding.
  
• Psycho Path Haunted Attraction (The Psycho Path - Sperry) Thru Sat, Oct 26th Travel to Sperry for the Psycho Path Haunted Attraction and prepare to be terrified. Enter woods shrouded by fog and…
  
• 🎓 Spanish Wine Tasting & Flamenco Concert by Chuscales (Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:00pm Join us for an evening of sustainably produced Spanish wines followed by the world-class Spanish music & dance of CHUSCALES & his troupe. It's all part of the 2nd annual Wine, Jazz & World FETE. One of the most accomplished and captivating flamenco guitarists in the world, Chuscales has performed around the globe, including appearances at…
  
• Tulsa State Fair (Expo Square - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Oct 6th Bring the whole family out for Tulsa's largest annual event, the Tulsa State Fair, and enjoy fun-filled, family…
  
• 🎭 Tulsa Town Hall's 85th Anniversary Season (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 10:30am
  
• Wine, Jazz & World Fete (Guthrie Green - Tulsa) 1 day left Gather on Guthrie Green in Tulsa for a weekend filled with world-class jazz and top-shelf wines. The annual Wine, Jazz &…
  

Saturday, Oct 5th

• 🏃 Ascension St. John ZooRun (Tulsa Zoo - Tulsa) Come run the zoo! The 5K and 10K races are certified by USA Track & Field. The courses wind through Mohawk Park and end inside the Tulsa Zoo. The St. John Fun Run takes place entirely on zoo grounds.
• Bonsai Fall Show - Green Country Bonsai Society (Tulsa Garden Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 10:00am Sat 10a-4p This is a free event and all are welcome. Our member’s Bonsai trees will be on display; there will also be trees and other items for sale.
• Broadway Ball: A Night in New Orleans (Theatre Tulsa - Tulsa) Start Time: 5:00pm Theatre Tulsa invites you to A Night in New Orleans. Join us for an authentic New Orleans Second Line Parade through the East Village, a VIP absinthe lounge, tarot card readers, green fairies, Cajun cuisine, a silent auction, and live entertainment all to support Tulsa's 97-year-old theatre company and its exceptional Academy Programs.
• Classics Concert Series (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) The Tulsa Symphony Orchestra presents a regular Classics Concert Series. Take a seat at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center,…
• 🎨 Classics II: Debussy's Images (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:30pm Opening with Rimsky-Korsakov’s brilliant and vivid Capriccio Espagnol, this program also features an exhilarating journey through Mozart’s Posthorn Symphony (Serenade No. 9) and Debussy’s whirling Images. Ron Spigelman conducts the orchestra. Check out a preview of what you'll hear HERE:…
• 😂 Dan Chopin (Loony Bin - Tulsa) Last Day
• 🎭 The Drunkard and the Olio (Tulsa Spotlight Theatre - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:30pm
• High Noon Shootout (JM Davis Arms & Historical Museum - Claremore) At JM Davis Arms & Historical Museum, experience a High Noon Shootout straight out of an old Western film. The Tri-State…
• Kendall Whittier Mercado (Kendall-Whittier - Tulsa) Twice a month from May to October, scope out handmade goods and unique art on display at the Kendall Whittier Mercado in…
• Mike Hosty (Blackbird On Pearl - Tulsa) Start Time: 9:00pm
• MOJOFest on The Row (East Village District - Tulsa) At the third annual MOJOFest in Tulsa's East Village District, local couple Jamie and Mary Oldaker host a citywide…
• A Night in the Wild hosted by Sarah Jakes Roberts (Mabee Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:30pm Registration is available NOW at Tour.WomanEvolve.com Join Sarah Jakes Roberts for a special night of faith, fun, fashion, and sisterhood unlike anything you've ever seen! Woman Evolve has set free a movement of WILD WOMEN who are evolving to new dimensions and discovered that we aren't here to simply survive - we THRIVE.
• The Oak Ridge Boys in Concert (River Spirit Casino - Tulsa) See country and gospel group the Oak Ridge Boys perform live onstage at Paradise Cove in Tulsa. Their harmonies and vocal…
• Philbrook Playdates (Philbrook Downtown - Tulsa) Day 2 of 2 Start Time: 9:30am Come and play with your child, let your child play with other kids, and meet other adults! We provide the creative activity and we clean up the mess. Spark wonder and foster creative development with rotating activities for you and your child (under 5). Playdates at Philbrook are facilitated by early learning specialists. The first 30 minutes…
• 🎡 PRCA ProRodeo (Expo Square - Tulsa) Day 2 of 2 Start Time: 6:00pm The ProRodeo consists of six PRCA events, as well as the Grand Entry and the Calf Scramble. The events occur in the following order: Grand Entry, Bareback Riding, Steer Wrestling, Saddle Bronc Riding, Tie-Down Roping, Barrel Racing and Bull Riding.
• Psycho Path Haunted Attraction (The Psycho Path - Sperry) Thru Sat, Oct 26th Travel to Sperry for the Psycho Path Haunted Attraction and prepare to be terrified. Enter woods shrouded by fog and…
• 🎓 Public Forum: 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Commission Projects (The Gilcrease Museum - Tulsa) Start Time: 11:00am This public forum hosted by the Helmerich Center for American Research provides an opportunity for leaders affiliated with projects sponsored by the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission to update the larger community on the status of these important initiatives while seeking feedback at the same time. This event is meant to build…
• Rioult Dance NY (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:00pm Acclaimed modern choreographer Pascal Rioult returns to the Choregus season with his company Rioult Dance NY.…
• Road To Rocklahoma (The Shrine - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:00pm
• Rose District Farmers Market (Rose District Plaza - Broken Arrow) Thru Sat, Oct 26th Start Time: 8:00am different music, events, and guests, each week
• Tulsa Roughnecks vs Sacramento Republic FC (ONEOK Field - Tulsa) Support the Tulsa Roughnecks FC professional soccer team as they take on Sacramento Republic FC at ONEOK Field in…
• Starlight Runway 2019 (Cox Business Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm Oklahoma Starlight Fashion Project and House Dejá are proud to announce the Second annual Starlight Runway Fashion Show! We’ll be featuring local designers and their fall fashion lines. Join us this fall for an amazing show
  Offical after party TBD
  Additional info
  Cash Bar!
  18 to enter 21 to drink
  Doors at 7pm show starts at 8pm
  
• Tulsa State Fair (Expo Square - Tulsa) 1 day left Bring the whole family out for Tulsa's largest annual event, the Tulsa State Fair, and enjoy fun-filled, family…
  
• St John ZooRun (Tulsa Zoo - Tulsa) No matter your pace, everyone is welcome to run in one of the most family-friendly races in Tulsa. The St. John ZooRun has…
  
• 🎓 Tulsa Town Hall: Vicente Fox (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 10:30am Tulsa Town Hall: Vicente Fox Oct. 5 at 10:30 a.m. :: Chapman Music Hall * 55th President of Mexico (2000-2006) * Humanitarian and founder of Centro Fox * Former CEO of Coca-Cola's Latin American Operations Vicente Fox, one of the few former heads of state to address Tulsa Town Hall, is a leading voice on geopolitics... AVAILABLE BY SUBSCRIPTION
  
• 🎡 Whiskey Myers (Expo Square - Tulsa) Genre-bending band Whiskey Myers combine Country and Southern Rock influences to create a sound all their own, led by frontman Cody Cannon's raspy drawl. Want the best seats in the house? Get your River Spirit VIP Section tickets TODAY!
  
• Wine, Jazz & World Fete (Guthrie Green - Tulsa) Last Day Gather on Guthrie Green in Tulsa for a weekend filled with world-class jazz and top-shelf wines. The annual Wine, Jazz &…
  

Sunday, Oct 6th

• ♪ An Evening with Branford Marsalis (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Presented By: Tulsa PAC Trust Saxophonist Branford Marsalis is one of the most influential and revered figures in contemporary music. The NEA Jazz Master, Grammy Award winner and Tony Award nominee is equally at home performing concertos with symphony orchestras and sitting in with members of the Grateful Dead, but the core of his musical…
• Crude No Prep Motorcycle Race (Tulsa Raceway Park - Tulsa) Start Time: 9:00am
• 🎭 Gilcrease Museum & Magic City Books Book Club (The Gilcrease Museum - Tulsa) Start Time: 2:00pm The next selection for the Gilcrease Museum/Magic City Books book club series is the classic novel, Giants in the Earth by O.E. Rolvaag. We will discuss the novel and explore its connections to the current exhibition "Americans All!" Free for members; free with Gilcrease Museum admission for not-yet members. For more information, contact Pat…
• 🎡 La Fiera De Ojinaga (Expo Square - Tulsa) ¿Regional Mexicano en la Feria de Tulsa? ¡Por supuesto! Desde Ojinaga, Chihuahua, La Fiera de Ojinaga viene a ponernos a todos a bailar el domingo 6 de Octubre, a las 4:00 p.m. con su sonido puro regional mexicano ¡Todos son bienvenidos a la Feria de Tulsa!
• 🎡 Liz Moriondo (Expo Square - Tulsa) Start Time: 4:00pm Acoustic performances at the Tulsa State Fair in Tulsa, OK: 4-5pm 6-8pm
• Muscle Walk (ONEOK Field - Tulsa) Walk your way to the finish line at the family-friendly Muscle Walk held in Tulsa. All ages are invited to celebrate…
• Psycho Path Haunted Attraction (The Psycho Path - Sperry) Thru Sat, Oct 26th Travel to Sperry for the Psycho Path Haunted Attraction and prepare to be terrified. Enter woods shrouded by fog and…
• Tulsa State Fair (Expo Square - Tulsa) Last Day Bring the whole family out for Tulsa's largest annual event, the Tulsa State Fair, and enjoy fun-filled, family…
• ♪ Tulsa Symphony: Opening Night Gala with cellist Lynn Harrell (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:00pm Tulsa Symphony: Opening Night Gala with cellist Lynn Harrell Oct. 6 at 8 p.m. :: Chapman Music Hall World-renowned cellist Lynn Harrell joins the Tulsa Symphony to perform Dvor�k's Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B minor. Led by Principal Guest Conductor Daniel Hege, the orchestra will also present exuberant selections from works by…

Monday, Oct 7th

• 🎭 Open Mic (Blackbird On Pearl - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:00pm
• Psycho Path Haunted Attraction (The Psycho Path - Sperry) Thru Sat, Oct 26th Travel to Sperry for the Psycho Path Haunted Attraction and prepare to be terrified. Enter woods shrouded by fog and…

Tuesday, Oct 8th

• Living with Dementia: Monthly Art Experience (Philbrook Downtown - Tulsa) Start Time: 10:00am
• Psycho Path Haunted Attraction (The Psycho Path - Sperry) Thru Sat, Oct 26th Travel to Sperry for the Psycho Path Haunted Attraction and prepare to be terrified. Enter woods shrouded by fog and…

See Also

• OK Gamers
• Techlahoma
• Tulsa Meetup Groups
• Tulsa Library Events

More Interesting Times (Part 2)
by Jayge 8^J
In 2017, Jeff Bezos of Amazon is said to have made $107 million a day on average, adding $40 billion to his fortune, now estimated at $150 billion. Every year war, disease, poverty, illiteracy, and famine remain unresolved, while our billionaire blight grows. Are these mere coincidences or something far more serious? Tim predicted that for each of the next 10 years that same pattern will continue, making matters ever worse than they are today. Billionaires create poverty & misery in society, not wealth. Speaking of worthless billionaires brings us to covfefe, psycho liar Trump and his 3,001 'alt-truths' since his fat ass landed in the Oval Office. “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” ― Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, a Zionist before Zionism turned ugly. Trump's now angling for a Nobel Peace Prize, yet we know it's really about his ego and profiteering. Supporters say he's a real estate branding genius playing 4D chess, but we see shameless chutzpah & 1D checkers. What about his Trump U. swindle? Lady Liberty and Mother Earth better beware of Trump, like demon Kissinger, cuz the republic has never been in worse hands. His new top Jewish economic adviser is Larry Kudlow, who allegedly was ousted from Bear Stearns senior management in the mid-90s with a monthly $100K cocaine habit. Trump is surely an enigma worth investigating. His Wikipedia page provides some facts of his life, while skewing or omitting others. Curiously, his net worth is said to be $3.1B, while he claims over $10B and others maintain that his bankruptcies made him a debt slave to Russian, Jewish, Arab, and/or Italian mobs. Let's ban billionaires. If $999,999,999.99 isn't enough for you, then we don't want you & your U.S. assets will be used to solve society's problems, a reminder of this century-old ragtime classic, "The rich get rich and the poor get poor / In the meantime, in between time / Ain't We Got Fun".
'Dark Journalist' Daniel Liszt shows startling revelations in his livestream YouTube presentations, including that Trump's 'nuclear' uncle, electrical engineer John George Trump, had private access to Nikola Tesla's papers after his death & in 1987 President Nixon sent Trump a letter, urging him to run for president, cuz he would win. Trump keeps it on display. Also, he found a series of X steganography, from Egyptian & Mayan hieroglyphs, Mystery Schools, to planet X, to secret Eisenhower X-program, to fresh JFK assassination info, to LBJ library's 'X' document, to Nixon insider Robert Merritt & White House 'extraterrestrial time capsule', to journalist-author Frank Scully, source of The X-Files character Dana Scully, & much more. Zachary K. Hubbard exposes info about elite-coded news headlines, sports fraud, deaths of celebrity, political, & sports figures, CNN is CIA, & much more, all Kabbalah numerology Gematria based & their divide & conquer ritual methods in his book Letters & Numbers, free to find truth blog, The Gematria Effect weekly radio show, & YouTube channel Gematria Effect News, after his other channels were deleted by Google's YouTube. He & Thom Hartmann are rare sane radio voices amid a sea of rabid, fear & war mongering, far right extremist stochastic terrorists, evolution, globe, or climate change deniers. George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, & Barack Obama aren't the root of evil. It's the fascist GOP, stupid.
Back in 2018, after unwinding each phi vector taken, Travers was visited by Men in Black who had probing inquiries about his recent whereabouts, activities, & encounters, as well as stern directives & threats not to speak to anyone about them. He now felt that all of his noble intentions & efforts had failed, but unknown to him things were about to get interesting. Amid clouds of corruption uncovered by Robert Mueller's investigation, Trump suddenly resigned along with Mike Pence, the former to serve prison time abroad for tax evasion, the latter to try televangelism. Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House of Representatives was next in line, but declined so President pro tempore of the Senate Orrin Hatch was sworn in as 46th U.S. president. Something quite unprecedented was occurring.
"Donald John Trump is the 45th and current President of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality. Trump was born and raised in the New York City borough of Queens, and received an economics degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He took charge of his family's real estate business in 1971, renamed it The Trump Organization, and expanded it from Queens and Brooklyn into Manhattan. The company built or renovated skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. Trump later started various side ventures, including licensing his name for real estate and consumer products. He managed the company until his 2017 inauguration. He co-authored several books, including The Art of the Deal. He owned the Miss Universe and Miss USA beauty pageants from 1996 to 2015, and he produced and hosted the reality television show The Apprentice from 2003 to 2015. Forbes estimates his net worth to be $3.1 billion." -- Wikipedia
Apparently, Time Lord Jefferson took matters into his own hands & carefully set them aright. He had a stenographer secretly record his Monticello meeting. While Travers slept tight in a feather bed, Jefferson borrowed his Cronosoar. With Benjamin Franklin, he devised a solution to Travers' conundrum & spied on the White House to ascertain the situation, using a special Franklin-made drone. A plebiscite outlawed lobbying & dissolved the legislative branch of government along with corporate boards to reform with all new faces, while those ousted faced corruption charges. He made America fair again. We the People got new systems for our Founders' broken model. Several ambitious parties sprang up, including Native Law, Gaia Greens, Latin Power, Black Rights, & Young Turks, replacing the splintered Democrats. Out of a rebranded GOOP, which now stood for Geezer Obsolete Obstructionist Party, a more apt appellation, rose Libertarians, Constitutionalists, & a mega MAGA Mad Hatter's Tea Party. To be an American was honorable once more.
Franklin said or wrote, "Time is money." "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." "Well done is better than well said." "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." "We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid." "Half a truth is often a great lie." "Genius without education is like silver in the mine." "Where liberty is, there is my country." "When you're finished changing, you're finished." "There was never a good war or a bad peace." "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." "He that lives upon hope will die fasting." "Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75." "Energy and persistence conquer all things." "The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself." "The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance." "Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn." "The doors of wisdom are never shut." "Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late." "There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self." "It is easier to prevent bad habits than it is to break them." "When in doubt, don't." "Never confuse motion with action." "Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste." "If time be of all things the most precious, then wasting time must be the greatest prodigality." "The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands." "He that can have patience can have what he will." "Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure." "Lost time is never found again." "One today is worth two tomorrows."
"Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSE was an American polymath and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, humorist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions. He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department and the University of Pennsylvania." -- Wikipedia
NATO forces on joint military training operations with the IDF sprung a surprise trap netting top Zionist brass & placed the tiny nation under strict martial law, while UN peacekeepers & NGOs moved in to secure nuclear weaponry to prevent their insane Samson Option & conduct mass migrations. Palestinians were freed to inhabit West Bank settlements, while boycott denial non-Semitic militant white Zionists were herded into work camps in Gaza & the West Bank under miserable apartheid conditions they had made, ultimately for themselves. Israel roared empty claims of anti-Semitism at UN headquarters & in their global media Kabbalah cabal, but got no response. "Revenge is a dish best served cold." -- Klingon proverb (from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) Similar roundups by the FBI in the U.S. netted KKK, CIA, NSA, neo-Nazis, Saudi royals, white nationalists, racist skinheads, Dark Money fat cats, & Proud Boys, who soon found themselves in Gaza, where ex-President Trump was torn apart by some who felt betrayed by him in a vicious civil war between far right militant Zionists & farther right militant Zionists. A great weight was lifted off humanity's back, the International Red Cross finally released its meticulous WWII camp statistics, & seemingly miraculous drops occurred in nosy spies, Spam emails, & most surprisingly 99% of the Pentagon budget, followed by reciprocal defense moves worldwide. The elite's 3,000-year-old Abrahamic religions experiment was banned as dangerously counter-productive. Our planet entered the Aquarian Age, brimming with green energy opportunity, exploration of the Cosmos, resources on other worlds, & extraterrestrial communication.
"The Samson Option is the name that some military analysts and authors have given to Israel's deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons as a "last resort" against the specific country whose military destroys Israel. Commentators also have employed the term to refer to situations where non-nuclear, non-Israeli actors, have threatened conventional weapons retaliation." -- Wikipedia
Silly coincidence theories of 19 'Muslim hijacker' clowns led by a CIA clone in a cave, 'magic bullet', 'lone assassin', Nazi Reichstag fire, 'surprise attacks' of Havana Harbor, Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin, & 9/11, didn't stand the test of time. Travers laughed when he read that Ari Quotient, Max Ernst, & Elbert Dreistein were in line for the quadrennial 2022 Fields Medal, so-called 'Nobel Prize' in mathematics, for their elaborate so-called proof that time travel is impossible.
Chillin' later at the beach with network maven yogi bud CEJ, while simultaneously wondering whether eigenvector matrices were quasicrystalline spin networks, they saw Garrett Lisi parasailing & approached the easy-going theorist-adventurer. After Tim's talk with Newton, he tried once more to grok gravity by asking Lisi for insight, who said, "All fields of the standard model and gravity are unified as an E8 principal bundle connection. A non-compact real form of the E8 Lie algebra has G2 and F4 subalgebras which break down to strong su(3), electroweak su(2) x u(1), gravitational so(3,1), the frame-Higgs, and three generations of fermions related by triality. The interactions and dynamics of these 1-form and Grassmann valued parts of an E8 superconnection are described by the curvature and action over a four dimensional base manifold." "The mathematics of quantum mechanics very accurately describes how our universe operates." "I think the universe is pure geometry - basically, a beautiful shape twisting around nd dancing over space-time." "I always found it satisfying that gravity was described by Einstein's geometric theory of general relativity." "There are a lot of good things about string theory, and it's great that some people want to work on it." "I'm afraid the workings of J.J. Abrams' mind fall outside the predictive capacity of any coherent theory." "Surfing is simply the most fun I know how to have on this planet." "Ninety-five per cent of my time is virtually wasted." "You cannot think when you're ecstatic." "Science is our last and greatest frontier." "The only thing that makes sense is if the universe is beautiful and simple and elegant."
"Antony Garrett Lisi, known as Garrett Lisi, is an American theoretical physicist and adventure sports enthusiast. Lisi works as an independent researcher without an academic position. He is a strong proponent of balance in life, in his case between scientific research and enjoyment of the outdoors." -- Wikipedia
"In quantum mechanics, the Planck time (tP) is the unit of time in the system of natural units known as Planck units. A Planck unit is the time required for light to travel in a vacuum a distance of 1 Planck length, which is approximately 5.39 × 10 −44 s. The unit is named after Max Planck, who was the first to propose it." -- Wikipedia
"An attosecond is...one quintillionth of a second. For context, an attosecond is to a second what a second is to about 31.71 billion years." -- Wikipedia
"The Wheeler–DeWitt equation is...part of a theory that attempts to combine mathematically the ideas of quantum mechanics and general relativity, a step towards a theory of quantum gravity...time plays a role different from what it does in non-relativistic quantum mechanics, leading to the so-called 'problem of time'. -- Wikipedia
Hugh Everett III, colleague of John Wheeler & Bryce DeWitt, wrote Universal Wave Function Theory that proposed a many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
"Just for scale, one unit of Planck time is less than a trillionth of a trillionth of the attosecond described above!...for things that happen below the Planck scale, time disappears." -- Gregg Braden, Fractal Time, page 102, doing his best impression of Paul Charles William Davies
"Einstein’s 1905 paper came out and suddenly changed people’s thinking about space-time. We’re again in the middle of something like that. When the dust settles, time—whatever it may be—could turn out to be even stranger and more illusory than even Einstein could imagine." -- Carlo Rovelli
"We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive." -- Albert Einstein
"Terence McKenna...Timewave Zero...fractal modeling of time" -- Wikipedia
Today Travers' weltanschauung took a serious hit when he was informed that Wikipedia, which he had contributed occasional editing, was another tool of the ruling elite. There was no doubt Tim needed some math tutoring, but now he had all the time in the world. CEJ, born in the year of the Wheeler–DeWitt equation, took Tim's Cronosoar for a proper shakedown cruise so both of them might study Lisi's ideas without sacrificing vacation time. They crossed paths once with John Titor, towing him out of a 'temporal causality loop', like that experienced by USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D crew & USS Bozeman under Captain Morgan Bateson (Kelsey Grammer) in "Cause and Effect" season 5 episode 18 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In appreciation, he shared some 2036 trove coordinates & his ""stationary mass, temporal displacement unit powered by two top-spin, dual positive singularities", producing a "standard off-set Tipler sinusoid"...Two magnetic housing units for the dual micro singularities... An electron injection manifold to alter mass and gravity of the micro singularities...A cooling and X-ray venting system...Gravity sensors, or a variable gravity lock...Four main cesium clocks...Three main computer units" -- Wikipedia However, they steered clear of Doc Brown's device & the McFly family, due to many time anomalies they were well-known for. Besides, that flux capacitor DeLorean was a fire hazard.
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising each time we fall." -- Confucius
"Observe good faith and justice with all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all." -- George Washington
"We spend a great deal of time studying history, which, let's face it, is mostly the history of stupidity." -- Stephen Hawking
"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say." -- Will Durant
"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history." -- Aldous Huxley
"The value of history is, indeed, not scientific but moral: by liberalizing the mind, by deepening the sympathies, by fortifying the will, it enables us to control, not society, but ourselves -- a much more important thing; it prepares us to live more humanely in the present and to meet rather than to foretell the future." -- Carl Becker
"History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man." -- Percy Bysshe Shelley
"History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce." -- Karl Marx
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." -- Mark Twain
"History proves that the white man is a devil." -- Malcolm X Little
Travers' work playlist was predictable: Time Warp from Rocky Horror Picture Show, Time Has Come Today by the Chambers Brothers, Back in Time by Huey Lewis & the News, Time by Pink Floyd, Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce, Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper, Does Anybody Know What Time It Is by Chicago, Times Like These by the Foo Fighters, Feels Like the First Time by Foreigner, Clocks by Coldplay, Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & the Comets, Time Is on My Side by the Rolling Stones, Love Me Two Times by the Doors, Old Time Rock & Roll by Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, The Longest Time by Billy Joel, Good Times Roll by the Cars, Too Much Time on My Hands by Styx, Big Time by Peter Gabriel, Where Have All the Good Times Gone by the Kinks, Time for Me to Fly by REO Speedwagon, If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher, Wasted Time by the Eagles, Your Time Is Gonna Come by Led Zeppelin, Foreplay / Long Time by Boston, The Last Time by the Rolling Stones, Time to Move On by Tom Petty, Time Waits for No One by the Rolling Stones, Out of Time by the Rolling Stones, Three Times a Lady by the Commodores, Time by the Alan Parsons Project, Every time You Go Away by Paul Young, Ain't Wastin' Time No More by the Allman Brothers, Tulsa Time by Eric Clapton, Sign o' the Times by Prince, By the Time I Get to Phoenix by Glen Campbell, Long Time Gone by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, How Many More Times by Led Zeppelin, Nothin' But a Good Time by Poison, Knock Three Times by Tony Orlando & Dawn, Time (Clock of the Heart) by Culture Club, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack, This Time by Bryan Adams, Time Stand Still by Rush, Anytime at All by the Beatles, Killin' Time by Clint Black, No Time This Time by the Police, Party All the Time by Eddie Murphy, Remember the Time by Michael Jackson, Isn't It Time by the Babys, Bad Time by Grand Funk Railroad, Child in Time by Deep Purple, Only Time Will Tell by Asia, Time Is Running Out by Muse, This Time Tomorrow by the Kinks, Man Out of Time by Elvis Costello, King of the Night Time World by Kiss, Sour Times by Portishead, Comes a Time by Neil Young, Do That to Me One More Time by Captain & Tennille, Another Place Another Time by Jerry Lee Lewis, Where Have All the Good Times Gone by Elton John, Sea of Time by George Martin Orchestra, Get It Right the First Time by Billy Joel, I've Had the Time of My Life by Jennifer Warnes, The Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan, No Time by Guess Who, Time Won't Let Me by the Outsiders, Time of the Season by the Zombies, Time Machine by Grand Funk Railroad, Give Me Just a Little More Time by Chairmen of the Board, Time to Fly by Spirit, & Kashmir by Led Zeppelin.

Tulsa's event list.

Ongoing

• Garden of Lights (The Gardens - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Jan 6th Get into the holiday spirit at Garden of Lights festival at Tulsa Botanic Gardens. Take in the beautiful sight of…
• Limo Holiday Lights Tours (City Wide - Tulsa) Thru Mon, Dec 31st Schedule a two-hour tour of the city's most spectacular holiday lights via limo, and enjoy a smooth ride past vibrant…
• Philbrook Festival (Philbrook Museum of Art - Tulsa) Thru Mon, Dec 31st The Philbrook Museum of Art hosts the Philbrook Festival each winter, an annual holiday tradition in…
• Rhema Christmas Lights (Rhema Bible Church - Broken Arrow) Thru Tue, Jan 1st Join over 200,000 annual visitors at the Rhema Christmas Lights display and witness over two million lights and over 100,000…
• Winterfest (Downtown - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Jan 6th Downtown Tulsa is transformed into a festive wonderland during Winterfest, an annual holiday tradition. Bring friends and…

Wednesday, Dec 5th

• 😂 Collin Moulton (Loony Bin - Tulsa) Thru Sat, Dec 8th
• ♪ Tulsa Festival Ringers Brown Bag it (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 11:30am Presented By: Brown Bag It Series , Tulsa PAC Trust This concert will be presented twice: once at 11:30 a.m. and again at 12:45 p.m. The concerts will...
• Junior Botball Challenge (Expo Square - Tulsa) Cheer on the elementary and middle school students competing in the MCN Junior Botball Challenge. Inside the pavilion at…
• ORU Golden Eagles vs Florida Gulf Coast Eagles (Mabee Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm The ORU Golden Eagles men's basketball team strives for success on the court. Watch the team work together toward…
• Sesame Street Live (Expo Square - Tulsa) Day 1 of 2 Sesame Street has long been the gold standard for children's entertainment, and at Tulsa Expo Square, kids can…
• ♪ Ubi (Of Ces Cru) - Under Bad Influence Tour (The Vanguard - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm

Thursday, Dec 6th

• 😂 Collin Moulton (Loony Bin - Tulsa) Thru Sat, Dec 8th
• Tulsa Farm Show (Expo Square - Tulsa) Thru Sat, Dec 8th As Oklahoma’s largest indoor farm show with over 400,000 square feet of exhibits, the Tulsa Farm Show at Tulsa…
• ORU Golden Eagles vs UT Arlington Mavericks (Mabee Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm The ORU Golden Eagles women's basketball team strives for success on the court. Watch the team work together toward…
• ♪ The Roadshow Christmas Tour (BOK Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm
• Sesame Street Live (Expo Square - Tulsa) Day 2 of 2 Sesame Street has long been the gold standard for children's entertainment, and at Tulsa Expo Square, kids can…
• Broken Arrow Wine Walk (Rose District - Broken Arrow) The Broken Arrow Wine Walk gives guests the chance to sample a variety of locally crafted drinks within walking distance.…
• ♪ The Wrecks - Panic Vertigo Tour (The Vanguard - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm Badflower, Deal Casino

Friday, Dec 7th

• 2 Hip Chicks Roadshow (Expo Square - Tulsa) Day 1 of 2 The 2 Hip Chicks Roadshow is coming to Tulsa and bringing dozens of vendors and one-of-a-kind items with them. This…
• 🎭 A Christmas Carol (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Dec 9th Start Time: 7:30pm Robert Odle and Richard Averill's musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' beloved novella about the joy of giving has been a Tulsa tradition for more than...
• 😂 Collin Moulton (Loony Bin - Tulsa) 1 day left
• ♪ Embracer At the Vanguard (The Vanguard - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm
• Tulsa Farm Show (Expo Square - Tulsa) 1 day left As Oklahoma’s largest indoor farm show with over 400,000 square feet of exhibits, the Tulsa Farm Show at Tulsa…
• First Friday Art Crawl (Philbrook Downtown - Tulsa) Start Time: 6:00pm Stop by Philbrook Downtown and see what's new. Free admission 6-9pm. Cash bar, docents on hand, and more. ABOUT FIRST FRIDAYS: Arrive early and stay late! Discover Tulsa's hidden gem of an Art Crawl experience, which is organically growing and changing every First Friday of the month. The historic streets are abuzz with all sorts of art…
• First Friday Artist: Andrew Noga and his amazing glass (Soundpony Lounge - Tulsa) Start Time: 4:00pm
• Tulsa Holiday Market (Union Multipurpose Activity Center - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Dec 9th Come to Tulsa's Union Multipurpose Activity Center for this fun and unique holiday market benefiting the Junior League…
• Jo Koy (Paradise Cove @ Margaritaville - Tulsa) Head to the River Spirit Casino in Tulsa for a hilarious night of stand up with Jo Koy. From a Las Vegas coffee house to one…
• 🎭 Les Miserables: School Edition (Theatre Tulsa - Tulsa) Day 1 of 2 Start Time: 7:30pm Presented By: Theatre Tulsa Tulsa’s most talented teens take on the masterpiece! Theatre Tulsa's Broadway Academy teenage students perform the...
• Opal Agafia & The Sweet Nothings (The Shrine - Tulsa) Start Time: 9:00pm
• 🎡 Philbrook Festival Kickoff (Philbrook Downtown - Tulsa) Start Time: 6:00pm Philbrook Festival is back and better than ever! Enjoy the most beautiful place in Oklahoma during the most wonderful time of the year. The Museum comes...
• Soft Leather (Soundpony Lounge - Tulsa) Start Time: 10:00pm
• Wild at Art (Tulsa Garden Center - Tulsa) Day 1 of 2 Start Time: 12:00pm Jumpstart your holiday shopping with a trip to Wild at Art. During this winter event, the Tulsa Garden Center will transform…
• A Winter Rose Christmas (Broken Arrow Community Playhouse - Broken Arrow) Thru Sun, Dec 16th Broken Arrow Community Playhouse presents "A Winter Rose Christmas" this December. A showcase of the…

Saturday, Dec 8th

• 2 Hip Chicks Roadshow (Expo Square - Tulsa) Day 2 of 2 The 2 Hip Chicks Roadshow is coming to Tulsa and bringing dozens of vendors and one-of-a-kind items with them. This…
• The Black Dahlia Murder in Concert (The Vanguard - Tulsa) Prepare to see the Black Dahlia Murder live as they take the Vanguard stage in Tulsa. This death metal band from Michigan…
• Chris Isaak in Concert (Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa - Catoosa) Chris Isaak is bringing his Christmas Tour to the Hard Rock Casino & Hotel in Tulsa. Don't miss the chance to see…
• 🎭 A Christmas Carol (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) 1 day left Start Time: 7:30pm Robert Odle and Richard Averill's musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' beloved novella about the joy of giving has been a Tulsa tradition for more than...
• Claremore Christmas Parade (Claremore Expo Center - Claremore) Join in the holiday cheer at the Christmas Parade in Claremore. The parade begins at the Claremore Expo Center and snakes…
• Sapulpa Christmas Parade (Sapulpa) Come enjoy an old-fashioned holiday parade with festive lights at the Sapulpa Christmas Parade, held in historic…
• Tulsa Christmas Parade (Downtown - Tulsa) Welcome the holiday season with the Tulsa Christmas Parade. This festive celebration includes floats, bands, drill teams,…
• Collinsville Christmas Parade (Downtown - Collinsville) Head to downtown Collinsville for a festive, small town Christmas celebration. This year's parade will make its way down…
• ♪ Cody Johnson & Friends (BOK Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 6:00pm Slow it down for an evening of classic Texas Country when crooner Cody Johnson takes the stage at the BOK Center in Tulsa.…
• 😂 Collin Moulton (Loony Bin - Tulsa) Last Day
• 🎭 The Drunkard and the Olio (Tulsa Spotlight Theatre - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:30pm
• Tulsa Farm Show (Expo Square - Tulsa) Last Day As Oklahoma’s largest indoor farm show with over 400,000 square feet of exhibits, the Tulsa Farm Show at Tulsa…
• Free Admission: Second Saturday (Philbrook Downtown - Tulsa) Start Time: 9:00am Free. Family. Fun. Bring the whole family for Philbrook Second Saturdays. Free admission all day and a variety of events and hands-on activities.
• ♪ Gaither Christmas Homecoming (Mabee Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm Join the Gaither Vocal Band, Mark Lowry, The Nelons, Lynda Randle, Matthew Holt, Charlotte Ritchie, Kevin Williams, Greg Ritchie, Kevin Moore and, Gene...
• The Gaither Vocal Band in Concert (Mabee Center - Tulsa) If you're a gospel music fan, don't miss the Gaither Vocal Band's performance at ORU's Mabee Center in…
• George Porter Jr. And The Runnin Pardners (The Shrine - Tulsa) Start Time: 9:00pm
• Tulsa Holiday Market (Union Multipurpose Activity Center - Tulsa) 1 day left Come to Tulsa's Union Multipurpose Activity Center for this fun and unique holiday market benefiting the Junior League…
• 🏃 Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis (BOK Center - Tulsa) Come jingle with us at the annual Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis. Proceeds from this event help fund research and programs for the 800,000+ Oklahomans with arthritis - American's number one disabling disease.
• Keystone Lake Christmas Boat Parade (Keystone State Park - Sand Springs) Bring the whole family to Keystone State Park this December and watch as boats of all sizes decorated with Christmas lights…
• ♪ Koe Wetzel (Cain's Ballroom - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:15pm Adv $16 Day of Show $18 Door $18 Mezz 21+ $31 There is a $2 fee that applies to each ticket purchased at the Cain's Box Office. No re-entry! No smoking! No refunds! Support acts are subject to change without notice!
• 🎭 Les Miserables: School Edition (Theatre Tulsa - Tulsa) Day 2 of 2 Start Time: 7:30pm Presented By: Theatre Tulsa Tulsa’s most talented teens take on the masterpiece! Theatre Tulsa's Broadway Academy teenage students perform the...
• 🎭 The Nutcracker (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Dec 23rd This December, Tulsa Ballet presents "The Nutcracker" at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. The story revolves…
• Pony Disco Club (Soundpony Lounge - Tulsa) Start Time: 10:00pm
• ♪ Proglahoma (The Vanguard - Tulsa) Start Time: 5:30pm
• 🏃 Ruts N Guts Cyclocross UCI Race/Off Road Relay Run (NSU Broken Arrow Chisolm Trail Park - Broken Arrow) All categories will be racing Sat and Sun. The 4 person relay team will run the CX course (obstacles and all) and the winner will take home $400. Spectators can come out to cheer and partake from the food trucks or shop merch from vendors onsite. http://www.rutsandguts.com
• Saturday Test N Tune Gambler Race (Tulsa Raceway Park - Tulsa) Start Time: 12:00pm
• Scale Model Gingerbread Building Competition (Hardesty Library - Tulsa) Start Time: 9:00am The Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance is excited to invite you to participate in our Scale Model Gingerbread Building Competition! Presented by AIA Eastern...
• Second Saturday Architecture Tour (Tulsa) Take a fun and educational walking tour through downtown Tulsa the second Saturday of each month with the Tulsa Foundation…
• West Bend Winterland (Claremore Expo Center - Claremore) Thru Mon, Dec 31st Claremore's West Bend Winterland is reminiscent of holiday memories with an ice skating rink, pictures with Santa, real…
• Wild at Art (Tulsa Garden Center - Tulsa) Day 2 of 2 Start Time: 12:00pm Jumpstart your holiday shopping with a trip to Wild at Art. During this winter event, the Tulsa Garden Center will transform…
• A Winter Rose Christmas (Broken Arrow Community Playhouse - Broken Arrow) Thru Sun, Dec 16th Broken Arrow Community Playhouse presents "A Winter Rose Christmas" this December. A showcase of the…

Sunday, Dec 9th

• ♪ The Black Dahlia Murder (The Vanguard - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm HAVOK, Ghoul, Gost, Skeletal Remains
• 🎭 A Christmas Carol (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Last Day Start Time: 7:30pm Robert Odle and Richard Averill's musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' beloved novella about the joy of giving has been a Tulsa tradition for more than...
• ♪ Claremore Community Chorus 33rd Annual Winter Concert (Claremore) Start Time: 3:00pm Claremore Community Chorus presents its 33rd annual Winter Concert consisting of wonderful Christmas and winter-themed choral musical scores.
• Crystal-Making Workshop & Nature Walk with Tyler Thrasher (The Gilcrease Museum - Tulsa) Start Time: 1:00pm Join us for an afternoon with local artist and crystal-maker extraordinaire Tyler Thrasher. In this three-hour workshop, Thrasher will lead participants...
• 🍴 Green Country Holiday Dinner & Auction (Tulsa Garden Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 5:30pm This is our annual Holiday Party Potluck Dinner & Auction fundraiser. The funds raised will fund our annual Earth Day and Electric Vehicle events and...
• HAPPY HOUR SHOW!! 4-7PM- "The Triple H" (Soundpony Lounge - Tulsa) Start Time: 4:00pm
• ♪ Havok (The Vanguard - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm
• Tulsa Holiday Market (Union Multipurpose Activity Center - Tulsa) Last Day Come to Tulsa's Union Multipurpose Activity Center for this fun and unique holiday market benefiting the Junior League…
• 🎭 The Nutcracker (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Dec 23rd This December, Tulsa Ballet presents "The Nutcracker" at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. The story revolves…
• West Bend Winterland (Claremore Expo Center - Claremore) Thru Mon, Dec 31st Claremore's West Bend Winterland is reminiscent of holiday memories with an ice skating rink, pictures with Santa, real…
• A Winter Rose Christmas (Broken Arrow Community Playhouse - Broken Arrow) Thru Sun, Dec 16th Broken Arrow Community Playhouse presents "A Winter Rose Christmas" this December. A showcase of the…

Monday, Dec 10th

• ♪ In This Moment (Brady Theater - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:00pm KMOD Presents - The Nutrocker: A Christmas Concert Starring In This Moment Special Guest New Years Day On Sale Friday - 9/28 10AM @ Brady Box Office,...
• 🎭 The Nutcracker (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Dec 23rd This December, Tulsa Ballet presents "The Nutcracker" at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. The story revolves…
• West Bend Winterland (Claremore Expo Center - Claremore) Thru Mon, Dec 31st Claremore's West Bend Winterland is reminiscent of holiday memories with an ice skating rink, pictures with Santa, real…
• A Winter Rose Christmas (Broken Arrow Community Playhouse - Broken Arrow) Thru Sun, Dec 16th Broken Arrow Community Playhouse presents "A Winter Rose Christmas" this December. A showcase of the…

Tuesday, Dec 11th

• 🎭 The Nutcracker (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Dec 23rd This December, Tulsa Ballet presents "The Nutcracker" at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. The story revolves…
• ♪ Orthodox (The Vanguard - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm
• ❓ Trivia with Jack (Soundpony Lounge - Tulsa) Start Time: 9:30pm
• West Bend Winterland (Claremore Expo Center - Claremore) Thru Mon, Dec 31st Claremore's West Bend Winterland is reminiscent of holiday memories with an ice skating rink, pictures with Santa, real…
• A Winter Rose Christmas (Broken Arrow Community Playhouse - Broken Arrow) Thru Sun, Dec 16th Broken Arrow Community Playhouse presents "A Winter Rose Christmas" this December. A showcase of the…

See Also

• OK Gamers
• Techlahoma
• Tulsa Meetup Groups
• Tulsa Library Events

Oklahoma City's event list.

Wednesday, Aug 8th

• Anxiety Management Support Group (Mental Health Association Oklahoma main office - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 6:00pm Anxiety disorders are the most common form of mental illness and affect more than 40 million Americans. Symptoms may include: overwhelming feelings of panic and fear, uncontrollable obsessive thoughts, painful intrusive memories, recurring nightmares, physical symptoms such as feeling sick to your stomach, “butterflies” in your stomach,…
• AQHYA World Youth Championship Quarter Horse Show (Oklahoma State Fair Park - Oklahoma City) Thru Sun, Aug 12th The AQHYA World Youth Championship Quarter Horse Show arrives in Oklahoma City. This is one of the top youth events in the…
• Bi-Weekly Meetup (51st st. Speakeasy - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 5:00pm
• 🎓 Oklahoma City Career Fair (Hilton Garden Inn Bricktown - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 11:00am National Career Fairs is having a hiring event in Oklahoma City August 8, 2018. The career fair is FREE for all job seekers. You are encouraged to dress professionally and bring multiple copies of your resumes. Pre-register to attend at:
  https://www.nationalcareerfairs.com/career-fairs/oklahoma-city-career-fairs/08-08-2018/
  
• ♪ Mary Battiata (The Blue Door - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 8:00pm
  
• Parents Supporting Parents (Mental Health Association Oklahoma main office - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 6:00pm This group is for caretakers and parents who are supporting an individual managing the complications often associated with having a pervasive development disorder such as autism or aspergers disorder. This group will also provide education and support to those parents who have loved ones with diagnosed or undiagnosed mental, emotional,…
  
• 🎓 Robert Herjavec & Bob Stoops LIVE (Renaissance Oklahoma City Convention Center Hotel - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 8:00am Take Charge of Your Life!
  SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKERS:
  Robert Herjavec - Entrepreneur and Star of Shark Tank
  Bob Stoops- Legendary Oklahoma Sooners Coach
  Brian J. Forte - Nation's #1 Business Trainer
  Omar Periu - Leading Wealth Trainer and Self-Made Multimillionaire
  Dr. Clarice Fluitt - Top Leadership & Transformational Coach…
  
• Social Club Misfits in Concert (Tower Theatre Studio - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 8:00pm Dive into an evening of inspirational hip-hop music when Social Club Misfits take over OKC's historic Tower…
  
• 😂 Triple Feature Week OKC!!! (Loony Bin Comedy Club - Oklahoma City) Thru Sat, Aug 11th
  
• 🎓 Western Movie Matinee on Wide Open Wednesdays (Western Heritage Museum - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 1:00pm 1:00 p.m. Dub and Mozelle Richardson Theater Join us for these curated selections made possible with support from an anonymous donor and Oklahoma City University’s Center for Interpersonal Studies through Film & Literature. Popcorn provided. Museum admission free to all on Wide Open Wednesdays courtesy of the Oklahoma Ford Dealers.
  8.1 - 8.22…
  
• WWII Edmond: Housewives on the Homefront (Edmond Historical Society - Edmond) Thru Sat, Aug 11th Start Time: 10:00am War affected everything for women. Some women during WWII went to work for the military or in factories–but more women stayed home. Housewives living in Edmond, Oklahoma made sacrifices and conformed to the government’s requests in order to help soldiers overseas. By spending wisely, saving everything, and keeping the country’s spirits up…
  

Thursday, Aug 9th

• AQHYA World Youth Championship Quarter Horse Show (Oklahoma State Fair Park - Oklahoma City) Thru Sun, Aug 12th The AQHYA World Youth Championship Quarter Horse Show arrives in Oklahoma City. This is one of the top youth events in the…
• Cookies and Cocktails (Oklahoma City Zoo - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 5:30pm Cookies and Cocktails, an annual event supporting Girl Scouts Western Oklahoma’s (GSWO) leadership programing for girls, is set for 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 9 at Sanctuary Asia in the Oklahoma City Zoo.
  The event will feature chefs from more than 20 local restaurants, who have agreed to create one-of-a-kind sweet or savory menu or…
  
• DNA GALLERIES: ART EXHIBITIONS (DNA galleries - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 6:00pm
  
• 🏆 Oklahoma City Dodgers vs. Memphis Redbirds (Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark - Oklahoma City) Thru Sun, Aug 12th Start Time: 7:05pm Come experience America's favorite pastime in downtown Oklahoma City as the OKC Dodgers take on the Memphis Redbirds…
  
• 🎓 Health Screen Day (Centennial Health Community Room - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 8:00am Free Health Check open to the community. There will be blood pressure checks, blood sugar checks, vitals and depression screening. We will have free snacks and information for all. It is Thursday, August 9 from 8-12 at our brand new clinic on NE 23rd Street. We will give tours of the clinic as well.
  1720 N.E. 23rd Street August 9 – 8am-12pm
  
• 🎓 Newsmakers Series (Full Circle Bookstore - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 6:00pm Join Observer Editor Arnold Hamiliton for a lively one-hour discussion of the post-walkout state of Oklahoma's public schools with former teacher-turned-state rep. Jacob Rosencrants and Mid-Del Supt. Rick Cobb.
  
• ♪ Powerglove & more! (OKC) (89th Street Collective - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 6:30pm ****** ALL AGES SHOW ****** Headliner: PowerGlove Special Guest: TBA General Admission $12.00 Day Of: $15.00
  
• 🎨 Ruth Loveland and Kalee Jones W. (DNA galleries - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 6:00pm Featured in our gallery for the month of August is the work of Oklahoma artists Ruth Loveland and Kalee Jones W. Learn more about these artists at: https://www.instagram.com/ruthbloveland/ https://www.instagram.com/kaleejonesw/ Join us Thursday, August 9th from 6-9pm for the Exhibition Opening and Artist Reception. Or join us the following night…
  
• Saints Sessions (Saints - Oklahoma City) Head to the Plaza District each Thursday for an evening of Saints Sessions programming. Visit Saints Pub in Oklahoma City on…
  
• ♪ Saloon Series (Western Heritage Museum - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 5:30pm 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Every Thursday in July & August Prosperity Junction One of the most ever-present features of the Old West was the saloon, an icon of American popular culture that has come to symbolize the rugged frontier. The Silver Dollar Saloon and Prosperity Junction take center stage during the Museum’s “Saloon Series.” During happy…
  
• Sense and Sensibility (Paseo - Oklahoma City) Thru Sat, Aug 25th Head to OKC's Paseo District as Oklahoma Shakespeare brings Kate Hamill's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility to…
  
• 🏆 Surf and Turf at The Bricktown Brewery at Remington Park (Remington Park - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 4:00pm
  
• 🎨 Tie Dye T-Shirts (Edmond Senior Center - Edmond) Start Time: 6:00pm Learn how to tie dye your own t-shirt - very creative and fun! Instructor: Jazzy Dave refreshments served. $18 Pre-register minimum 10, maximum 20 Payment due at registration.
  
• 🎓 Moore Toastmasters (1st United Methodist Church - Moore) Start Time: 7:00pm Do you cringe at the thought of being in front of a room communicating? Maybe you have no idea how to construct your thoughts for your next business meeting?
  Come and join toastmasters and learn the art of public speaking and leadership. It is a safe and great learning environment for you to start or refine your public speaking skills. There…
  
• 😂 Triple Feature Week OKC!!! (Loony Bin Comedy Club - Oklahoma City) Thru Sat, Aug 11th
  
• WWII Edmond: Housewives on the Homefront (Edmond Historical Society - Edmond) Thru Sat, Aug 11th Start Time: 10:00am War affected everything for women. Some women during WWII went to work for the military or in factories–but more women stayed home. Housewives living in Edmond, Oklahoma made sacrifices and conformed to the government’s requests in order to help soldiers overseas. By spending wisely, saving everything, and keeping the country’s spirits up…
  

Friday, Aug 10th

• 2nd Friday Norman Art Walk (Norman Arts District - Norman) The 2nd Friday Norman Art Walk, a monthly celebration of the arts in Norman, connects the downtown arts district with…
• 🎓 Edmond Ambucs Friday Luncheon (University of Central Oklahoma - Edmond) Start Time: 12:00pm The Edmond Chapter Ambucs “creating mobility & independence for people with disabilities” hosts a weekly luncheon every Friday. Please join us at 12PM Noon, UCO Nigh Center, Cherokee Room. We also meet the 2nd Tues. night monthly, 5:30PM, Rock & Brews, 2737 W. Memorial Rd. for $5 burgers & FREE appetizers. More info., call (405)820-9667.
• AQHYA World Youth Championship Quarter Horse Show (Oklahoma State Fair Park - Oklahoma City) Thru Sun, Aug 12th The AQHYA World Youth Championship Quarter Horse Show arrives in Oklahoma City. This is one of the top youth events in the…
• ♪ Boots and Bourbon: Wild Wild West (Oklahoma History Center - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 6:30pm Boots and Bourbon is the Bricktown Rotary’s newest annual fundraiser with all proceeds benefiting local charities through The Bricktown Rotary Foundation. The Bricktown Rotary Foundation has given tens of thousands of dollars to local charities such as Anyone Can Softball, The Prader Willie Foundation and the Alzheimer’s Association, as well…
• 🏆 Oklahoma City Dodgers vs. Memphis Redbirds (Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark - Oklahoma City) Thru Sun, Aug 12th Start Time: 7:05pm Come experience America's favorite pastime in downtown Oklahoma City as the OKC Dodgers take on the Memphis Redbirds…
• FireLake Fireflight Balloon Festival (Citizen Potawatomi Nation Pow Wow Grounds - Shawnee) Day 1 of 2 Watch the Shawnee skyline transform into a mix of bright, brilliant colors as hot air balloons launch from the Citizen…
• Flatland Cavalry in Concert (Tower Theatre Studio - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 8:00pm Get your tickets for a spirited evening of folk Americana when OKC's Tower Theatre welcomes Lubbock's own…
• Food Truck Fridays (Moore Central Park - Moore) Sample a variety of tasty, creative eats served up fresh from food trucks on hand. At Food Truck Fridays in Moore, line up…
• Friday Evening Glow (Riversport Adventures OKC - Oklahoma City) Bring the whole family to the Riversport Adventure Park at the Boathouse District for the Friday Evening Glow. Enjoy summer…
• ♪ Godsmack w/ Shinedown (Zoo Amphitheatre - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 7:00pm
• 🏃 HOTTEST Friday Night 5K (Stars & Stripes Park - Oklahoma City) The final race of the DG Productions' Sizzlin Summer Series
• KATTFEST (Zoo Amphitheatre - Oklahoma City) Enjoy a packed line-up of big names in the hard rock and metal world with a KATTFEST 2018 ticket. Held at the Zoo…
• LIVE! on the Plaza - Back to School (Plaza District - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 6:00pm In Oklahoma City's Plaza District, every second Friday is LIVE on the Plaza, an art walk featuring local artists, live…
• ♪ Mothership / Wo Fat / Mos Generator (Blue Note - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 8:00pm
• ♪ The New Tribe With Guest Beau Jennings (The Blue Door - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 8:00pm
• Oklahoma Craft Beer Summit (Tower Theatre Studio - Oklahoma City) Day 1 of 2 Join hundreds of other beer lovers at the third annual Oklahoma Craft Beer Summit in Oklahoma City, hosted by the…
• 😂 Open Mic Night (Don Quixote Club - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 7:30pm Every Friday is open mic comedy at Don Quixote's! Come see Oklahoma City's up and coming talent. If you're a comedian, sign up begins at 7:30. Show at 8. Stick around for the best karaoke in the city.
• Outdoor Nation Expo (Firelake Arena - Shawnee) Thru Sun, Aug 12th Browse over 130 vendors at the Outdoor Nation Expo held at the FireLake Arena in Shawnee. This three-day event, held by a…
• PAW Patrol Live!: Race to the Rescue (Cox Convention Center - Oklahoma City) Thru Sun, Aug 12th Start Time: 6:00pm Any child who has celebrated their first birthday must have a ticket.
  Purchase a VIP Packae and become a VIP - Very Important Pup! The VIP package includes a premium seat, special souvenir gift and exclusive access to a Meet & Greet with Ryder and two PAW Patrol Characters after the show. Each adult & child (age 1 & up) in a group must have a…
  
• 🍴 POP! Champagne & Spirit Tasting (St. Anthony Hospital- Rapp Conference Center - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 6:30pm Join us Friday, August 10th, 2018 on our midtown campus to toast to Saints! This one-of-a-kind event features small bites, live music, a raffle and a vast array of Champagnes and sparkling wines to sip and sample. The popular spirit tasting will be back and offers samples of whiskey, scotch and cognacs.
  
• River Tour (Narrated) (Oklahoma River Cruises - Oklahoma City) Day 1 of 2 Start Time: 6:00pm Escape the Ordinary, learn about OKC from a different point of view. Relax in the climate controlled cabin on one of our 65’ cruisers, or enjoy the breeze on the viewing deck and listen to the guided commentary while you enjoy a drink from the bar. Indulgence and relaxation aren’t the only purpose of this cruise. During the tour you’ll…
  
• 🎭 Ruthless - The Musical (The Boom - Oklahoma City) Day 1 of 2 Start Time: 8:00pm
  
• Sense and Sensibility (Paseo - Oklahoma City) Thru Sat, Aug 25th Head to OKC's Paseo District as Oklahoma Shakespeare brings Kate Hamill's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility to…
  
• 😂 Triple Feature Week OKC!!! (Loony Bin Comedy Club - Oklahoma City) 1 day left
  
• WWII Edmond: Housewives on the Homefront (Edmond Historical Society - Edmond) 1 day left Start Time: 10:00am War affected everything for women. Some women during WWII went to work for the military or in factories–but more women stayed home. Housewives living in Edmond, Oklahoma made sacrifices and conformed to the government’s requests in order to help soldiers overseas. By spending wisely, saving everything, and keeping the country’s spirits up…
  

Saturday, Aug 11th

• AQHYA World Youth Championship Quarter Horse Show (Oklahoma State Fair Park - Oklahoma City) 1 day left The AQHYA World Youth Championship Quarter Horse Show arrives in Oklahoma City. This is one of the top youth events in the…
• Beats & Bites Festival (Riverwind Casino - Norman) Start Time: 6:00pm Feast on delicious entrees and snacks from various food trucks at Riverwind Casino's Beats & Bites music and food…
• ♪ Byron Berline Band (Double Stop Music Hall - Guthrie) Start Time: 7:00pm Enjoy and evening of award winning Bluegrass Music by the Byron Berline Band. Homemade pie from Manna Eatery avaliable at intermission
• ♪ Chris Lee Becker (The Blue Door - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 8:00pm
• ♪ Dameon Allensworth (VZD's - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 10:00pm
• 🏆 Oklahoma City Dodgers vs. Memphis Redbirds (Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark - Oklahoma City) 1 day left Start Time: 7:05pm Come experience America's favorite pastime in downtown Oklahoma City as the OKC Dodgers take on the Memphis Redbirds…
• Edmond Farmer's Market (Othello's - Edmond) Start Time: 8:00am
• FireLake Fireflight Balloon Festival (Citizen Potawatomi Nation Pow Wow Grounds - Shawnee) Day 2 of 2 Watch the Shawnee skyline transform into a mix of bright, brilliant colors as hot air balloons launch from the Citizen…
• Free Family Make + Take Art Project (Oklahoma Contemporary - Oklahoma City) Enjoy some quality time with your children and help them develop those creative skills at this family friendly art event.…
• ♪ JOHNNYSWIM - Meet & Greet Packages (Zoo Amphitheatre - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 7:01pm
• Laurell K. Hamiliton (Full Circle Bookstore - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 6:00pm Join us Saturday, August 11, as we welcome NYT bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton to Full Circle! Laurell will be giving a short presentation, after which guests will partake in a meet and greet photo opportunity. All copies of Serpentine will be pre-signed before the event.
  Customers must purchase a copy of Serpentine from Full…
  
• Miranda Sings (Rose State College Hudiburg Chevrolet Center - Midwest City) Colleen Ballinger created her Miranda Sings persona ten years ago, leading to her own Neflix Original series and more…
  
• ♪ Needtobreathe (Zoo Amphitheatre - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 7:00pm Three-man Christian rock group Needtobreathe will perform their biggest hits as they embark on their All the Feels…
  
• Neon Trees in Concert (Starlight Amphitheater @ Frontier City - Oklahoma City) Spend the day splashing in the Renegade Rapids or screaming on the Silver Bullet at Frontier City Theme Park before relaxing…
  
• OKC Energy FC vs Real Monarchs SLC (Taft Stadium - Oklahoma City) Experience the excitement of major league soccer in Oklahoma as the Oklahoma City Energy Football Club takes on Real…
  
• Oklahoma Craft Beer Summit (Tower Theatre Studio - Oklahoma City) Day 2 of 2 Join hundreds of other beer lovers at the third annual Oklahoma Craft Beer Summit in Oklahoma City, hosted by the…
  
• Outdoor Nation Expo (Firelake Arena - Shawnee) 1 day left Browse over 130 vendors at the Outdoor Nation Expo held at the FireLake Arena in Shawnee. This three-day event, held by a…
  
• PAW Patrol Live!: Race to the Rescue (Cox Convention Center - Oklahoma City) 1 day left Start Time: 6:00pm Any child who has celebrated their first birthday must have a ticket.
  Purchase a VIP Packae and become a VIP - Very Important Pup! The VIP package includes a premium seat, special souvenir gift and exclusive access to a Meet & Greet with Ryder and two PAW Patrol Characters after the show. Each adult & child (age 1 & up) in a group must have a…
  
• 🎨 PIMPAM! World Premiere (Opolis Prod - Norman) Start Time: 8:00pm World Premiere of PIMPAM!, a 30-minute comedy short starring a large ensemble of local comics and musicians.
  
• River Tour (Narrated) (Oklahoma River Cruises - Oklahoma City) Day 2 of 2 Start Time: 6:00pm Escape the Ordinary, learn about OKC from a different point of view. Relax in the climate controlled cabin on one of our 65’ cruisers, or enjoy the breeze on the viewing deck and listen to the guided commentary while you enjoy a drink from the bar. Indulgence and relaxation aren’t the only purpose of this cruise. During the tour you’ll…
  
• 🎭 Ruthless - The Musical (The Boom - Oklahoma City) Day 2 of 2 Start Time: 8:00pm
  
• Sam Riggs in Concert (Tower Theatre Studio - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 9:00pm Don't miss rising country hunk Sam Riggs for one special evening at OKC's historic Tower Theatre.
  Hailing…
  
• Sense and Sensibility (Paseo - Oklahoma City) Thru Sat, Aug 25th Head to OKC's Paseo District as Oklahoma Shakespeare brings Kate Hamill's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility to…
  
• The Tishay Awards (Oklahoma City) Attend a red carpet event in the heart of Oklahoma City with tickets to the Tishay Awards. Hosted by the Tishay Show…
  
• 😂 Triple Feature Week OKC!!! (Loony Bin Comedy Club - Oklahoma City) Last Day
  
• Women's Living Expo and Craft Bazaar (Oklahoma State Fair Park - Oklahoma City) Day 1 of 2 Start Time: 10:00am The Women's Living Expo is coming to Oklahoma City! August 11-12, 2018 at The Pavilion, Oklahoma State Fair Park in Oklahoma City Our Tulsa Expo is a huge success for 32 years and we will strive to make our new Oklahoma City Women's Living Expo as popular! The Expo will have more than 200 diverse exhibits, runway fashion shows, beauty…
  
• WWII Edmond: Housewives on the Homefront (Edmond Historical Society - Edmond) Last Day Start Time: 10:00am War affected everything for women. Some women during WWII went to work for the military or in factories–but more women stayed home. Housewives living in Edmond, Oklahoma made sacrifices and conformed to the government’s requests in order to help soldiers overseas. By spending wisely, saving everything, and keeping the country’s spirits up…
  

Sunday, Aug 12th

• An Accordion Affair (Czech Hall - Yukon) Sit down and enjoy An Accordion Affair, an all-ages concert in Yukon featuring 23 accordionists. These musicians will…
• AQHYA World Youth Championship Quarter Horse Show (Oklahoma State Fair Park - Oklahoma City) Last Day The AQHYA World Youth Championship Quarter Horse Show arrives in Oklahoma City. This is one of the top youth events in the…
• 🏆 Oklahoma City Dodgers vs. Memphis Redbirds (Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark - Oklahoma City) Last Day Start Time: 7:05pm Come experience America's favorite pastime in downtown Oklahoma City as the OKC Dodgers take on the Memphis Redbirds…
• Outdoor Nation Expo (Firelake Arena - Shawnee) Last Day Browse over 130 vendors at the Outdoor Nation Expo held at the FireLake Arena in Shawnee. This three-day event, held by a…
• PAW Patrol Live!: Race to the Rescue (Cox Convention Center - Oklahoma City) Last Day Start Time: 6:00pm Any child who has celebrated their first birthday must have a ticket.
  Purchase a VIP Packae and become a VIP - Very Important Pup! The VIP package includes a premium seat, special souvenir gift and exclusive access to a Meet & Greet with Ryder and two PAW Patrol Characters after the show. Each adult & child (age 1 & up) in a group must have a…
  
• Sense and Sensibility (Paseo - Oklahoma City) Thru Sat, Aug 25th Head to OKC's Paseo District as Oklahoma Shakespeare brings Kate Hamill's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility to…
  
• Sunday Twilight Concert Series (Myriad Botanical Gardens - Oklahoma City) Bring a lawn chair, a picnic and the whole family to the Sunday Twilight Concert Series on the Myriad Gardens…
  
• Women's Living Expo and Craft Bazaar (Oklahoma State Fair Park - Oklahoma City) Day 2 of 2 Start Time: 10:00am The Women's Living Expo is coming to Oklahoma City! August 11-12, 2018 at The Pavilion, Oklahoma State Fair Park in Oklahoma City Our Tulsa Expo is a huge success for 32 years and we will strive to make our new Oklahoma City Women's Living Expo as popular! The Expo will have more than 200 diverse exhibits, runway fashion shows, beauty…
  

Monday, Aug 13th

• Sense and Sensibility (Paseo - Oklahoma City) Thru Sat, Aug 25th Head to OKC's Paseo District as Oklahoma Shakespeare brings Kate Hamill's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility to…

Tuesday, Aug 14th

• Food Truck Tuesdays (Jackson - Blanchard) Every week, treat your taste buds to new flavors. During Food Truck Tuesdays, a different food truck will park in Blanchard…
• Fried Chicken Tuesday Anniversary Party (Plaza District - Oklahoma City) Start Time: 5:00pm Super Duper Official Fried Chicken Tuesday Anniversary Party Featuring The Nashville Hot Chicken Challenge (details coming soon).
• Sense and Sensibility (Paseo - Oklahoma City) Thru Sat, Aug 25th Head to OKC's Paseo District as Oklahoma Shakespeare brings Kate Hamill's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility to…
• Wheeler Criterium (Oklahoma City) Once the weather starts warming up, gather your crew and head south of the Oklahoma River for the Wheeler Criterium each and…

See Also

• OK Gamers
• Techlahoma