Latest / OK SO: Say More / Greg Stone

Transcript

Greg Stone · OK SO: Say More

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to OKSo Say More.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is a production of the ongoing OKSo Tulsa live storytelling series.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: In each episode, we talk to storytellers about what they do and how they do it.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: We also share recordings of our storytellers captured live on stage.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your co-host, Matthew Weatherby.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm your other co-host, Michelle Bias.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: Today our guest is Greg Stone.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: Greg is the Associate Vice President of Academic and Campus Operation and Assistant Professor of English at Tulsa Community College.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: But why is he here?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because he's a veteran on our OKSO storytelling stage, and welcome, Greg.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: But how many times have you been in the Grand Slam?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um twice.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: I've been in two Grand Slams.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me this: what brought you to your very first OKSO Story Slam to begin with?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: And did you tell a story the first time or just watch the first time?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: No, I ended up telling a story the first time, but I had several friends, some other regulars at OKSo, Josh Baker, Sloane Davis.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Is it okay to name Josh?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, oh yeah.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh who had been after me for years to come, and I never would, and I just never could get there.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then someone that I work with, Anina Collier, uh, who tells the Center for Creativity.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Who helps host story workshops, um, finally just dragged me there one night and said, You're going.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be a fun night.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it was confessions.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: It was March of uh 24?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: 23 or 24.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so I go in and it was just packed that night at Living Arts, and I thought, oh, what the heck?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'll put my name in, but did not expect to get drawn.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so we go through the whole night, and slot number 10, the last spot of the night, a name is drawn.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: You you and Brandon.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody wasn't there, they left early, so you drew an 11th name and it was mine, and I go up, and I hadn't I hadn't written the story.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: I just I told the story for years, off and on to friends or you know, wherever.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Told the story and won that night.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Really shocking.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, your first best.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: I want to know that.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I I faked my own baptism in the Jordan River.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: When I was on a trip in the Middle East and just thought, oh, you get a little certificate, and and it did not go well.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: For those that don't know, generally March is the biggest crowd of any of the monthly slams.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Outside of the Grand Slam, yeah.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: Confessions is a favorite and its competition is very stiff, so congratulations.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and I've won Confessions two of the last three years.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's what it's what I've won for.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Confessions is the first winner we take for the next year.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: For the next year.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you qualified right off the bat.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for those both those two years.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then it's a long wait to the grand slam.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Get to see the competition fill in.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us a little bit about your role at Tulsa Community College.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, obviously, you've been in the world of academia for a while.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: What's the most rewarding part of it?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: When you're in a class full of students, and I I'm not a full-time faculty member anymore.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: I moved to an administrative role about 12 years ago, but I still teach every semester, pretty much every semester.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: And those moments when you're talking with someone and you can almost see the light bulb go off over their head.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: There's this look on their face when they get something that they didn't understand before, and that's why every teacher at any level goes into teaching, and it's fantastic.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: The sarcastic answer is that I just love going to meetings.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So Well, and you told us something at the beginning that you went to school here at TU where we're recording.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: My PhD is in English from the University of Tulsa.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: I graduated in 2015.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: I read that your fond memories.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I read that your dissertation was on the Lyceum.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's uh I don't know if this is still true, but some of my friends in the English department who I graduated with or near all kind of made fun of the fact that if you go to the library and find my copy on file, it's bigger than everybody else's.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I wasn't trying to show off.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just really wordy when I write.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: But no, it's my my dissertation work was on the public lecture circuit movement of the early to mid-19th century, and all of what we know as, or most of what we know is Emerson's essays, and some of Thoreau's most well-known writing, like civil disobedience, all began as lectures on this lecture circuit.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's how Emerson made his money.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so my um no one's gonna everyone's gonna fast forward through this part.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's fine.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm used to it.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um but the the uh sort of the historical record of that movement was that it was very non-controversial.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was supposed to be about advances in technology or farming, or if someone, you know, went to Europe, come back and tell your local community who had bought tickets.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's very much in line with Tulsa Town Hall.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Those of you who are listening who are local who know that subscription lecture service, uh, that's kind of what the Lyceum was.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: And as I was doing research, I kept finding more and more examples of very controversial topics opposing the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico and slavery and religious independence.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so my project was really about somewhat trying to correct that historical record.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you think that we have today that is similar to that?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean there's Tulsa Town Hall, there's also, you know, okay so which is exactly podcasting, you know.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and the idea was that it was just for the benefit of the common good and for um ethical citizenship.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think we've lost something by not having that?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I do.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: I totally do.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think anytime, whether whatever environment that it's in, if you're standing up in front of your fellow citizens and you're sharing ideas and hopefully challenging some ideas uh as you go, that's how strong democracies maintain their strength.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I do think there's something that's lost when we don't have those opportunities.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it's great that we have organizations like OKSo and Off and many other storytelling organizations and lecture series that do survive, like Tulsa Town Hall, where you get to hear from people, sometimes in your own community, sometimes from elsewhere, who you probably otherwise wouldn't hear from and get to hear a little bit of their experience.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: So uh like we mentioned, Greg told one of my favorite stories at the at the last Grand Slam.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: Grand Slam for 2026 took place in uh early May.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: Greg told a story and placed so the Grand Slam uh everybody may not know takes place at the Keynes Ballroom.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: And as far as Grand Slams go, I think this was the best one so far.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: Would you agree, Michelle?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're all so good.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I can choose, plus I don't want to make anybody mad.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: I was in some previous years, and I will even myself admit they're getting better.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, they are.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I I want to do a brief intro to Greg's story, and then we're gonna play the story for everyone.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: Don't tune out, the story's coming right up.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: This is a story, and I'm and I'm gonna try to not spoil it.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_03: So this is just a one-sentence introduction.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: This is a story about a youthful underpaid journalist in the early 2000s that kind of got himself into a scary situation.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: So enjoy.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: I have a question that has plagued me for the better part of a quarter century.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And no matter how hard I try, I cannot find the answer.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: What does one wear to a cockfight?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: In 2002, you may remember that voters approved a ban on cockfighting in the state.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if you're not familiar, uh it's a very barbaric sport where people take roosters, which are naturally aggressive and like to attack one another, pump them full of steroids or stimulants, strap blades or broken bits of metal to their legs, and force them to fight to the death.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then they gamble on which one's gonna win.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: Disgusting, I know.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh at the time I was a reporter in a small-town newspaper, and I reported a lot on this issue because we had a notoriously violent cockfighting operation in our town.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was a little naive about how many people actually supported cockfighting, including a state senator, swear to god, who when I interviewed him said, Do you know why Abe Lincoln had the nickname honest to Abe?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: No senator.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's because he refereed cockfights, and by God, if it's good enough for Lincoln, it's good enough for me.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I'm interviewing Yosemite Sam.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is drink home true stuff.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: I uh but here's the thing.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Not only are these things incredibly violent, animal abuse, illegal gambling, many of them, including the one near me, was also uh a huge drug operation.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: People were selling coke, heroin meth, uh, pretty, pretty rough stuff.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I learned about that from a source that I uh met who had actually um some business connections with the folks who ran it and who had been on site.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so he became an anonymous source and really provided a lot of helpful information um around the newsroom.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: I called him Deep Kluck.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm still proud of that.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um but anyway, uh so over the course of several weeks, I convinced Deep Cluck that he should get me into a cockfight so I could do some undercover reporting.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I was in my mid-20s, I had an English degree and was making$6.83 an hour.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what alternate universe I was living in where I thought this could just walk right into the neighborhood cockfight.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Anonymously, still uh but up to my amazement, tasty degree to get the end, and uh until I started asking way too many nervous questions like what does one wear to a cockfight?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then he changed his mind.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, which is probably for the best because um I clearly would have been beaten up or killed for$6.83 an hour.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, I kept reporting, and uh the gentlemen who ran the local aggressive poultry consortium, however, were not as pleased with my intrepid reporting, and they decided to express themselves by threatening my life.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that was fun.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um it started with some crank phone calls to the newsroom, and then uh one day a box of feathers showed up at the front door.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: I thought one of my friends was messing with me until one day I pull up to the newspaper office, and there's a commotion out front, and flashing sirens and people milling about.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: I assumed the fire alarm had gone off or something, but what happened was you're very quiet right now, that's great.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, what happened was one of my coworkers went outside for a smoke break and they heard a rustling in the dumpster, and she called over a sheriff's deputy who happened to be uh across the street, and he came and looked through the dumpster and pulled out a trash bag tie-down, and in it was a bloody, mutilated rooster, still twitching from a cockpit.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: And attached to its wing was a note to me, basically saying, if we did this to a rooster, think about what we'll do to you.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I became reflective and I thought this is what my life has become.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm chasing around the county after some gag yokels with a gray problem, and all I have to show for box of feathers, the police tape, and a half the chicken in the trash bag with my name on it.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: For dollar and eighty great steps and dollar.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I admit for a few days I wondered if it was worth it, if the threats of violence were worth it, if the pay was worth it.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: But then I remembered that that's the job of a journalist.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Whether you're in a small town newspaper or one of the cable channels or one of the big four networks, the job is to hold power to account to uplift the disenfranchised and expose injustice even at the local level.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so I went back to work and I kept reporting and filing stories, and when election day was over, the majority of people in the state ran cockfighting.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm very proud that I had a small little part in informing our readers so they can make a best decision for the state.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Would I do some things differently now?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I probably wouldn't be so cavalier about my safety.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: I would ask for more money.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I wouldn't ask so many nervous questions because I think we can all agree that a nice plaid shirt and some khakis with a sharp crease would have been just fine.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: I love that story.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I do too.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: A plaid shirt and khaki pants with a sharp crease.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: With a sharp crease.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: With a sharp crease is what one always wears, correct?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: How'd you come up with that ending?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: I had really worked to craft that whole story because I had a year to wait to get there.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: But the ending I had, honestly, going into that night, I it was a little lackluster.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I was back behind the building just running it in my head because I'm a high school speech and debate nerd, and you run your you run your stuff before your rounds, right?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just was pacing and running it and was really not happy with the ending.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it just about five minutes before we started, it just popped into my head.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, oh, that's the ending.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: That it's sort of a last minute.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I thought you were gonna tell me I caught my image in the mirror.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: So I always have my favorite lines from stories, and this isn't even a line, it's just something you did.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: At some point you delivered a line and you said, Oh, you all are very quiet right now, and that's great.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: I I was it was just because you could I mean there was 800 people.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: There was a huge crowd.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: You could hear people kind of throughout moving around.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: I was trying to stay focused.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: And of course the lights are down, so you don't really see a lot of people except for people sitting right down front, which was the judge's table, the people I didn't want to see.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, they're great people, but I, you know, I don't want to be presenting just to them, but there was just this, I got to that moment and it just the silence was heavy.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I just felt you had to name it.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Naming it and thanking the audience for their rapt attention.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: They were definitely listening.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it's it's also great too to and I do this a lot when I'm, you know, in front of people in meetings or in the class, especially in front of students.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I want that relationship with the audience.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's not just me pretending they're not there and doing a dramatic monologue.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm not an actor by any means.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: I've got to do it.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you read the room, right?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: You read the room, you read the silence.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's that makes for a good storyteller.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just such a notable shift, and I maybe not I haven't really thought about it, but maybe it was just more of a nervous reaction because I was hoping to build to something because I really wanted to craft that next moment or two, and so I think I was a little anxious that they were gonna be there and be ready for it and respond the way that I had hoped that they would, and and they did.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I was grateful.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was a good audience, I think.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: It really was.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: There was a lot of laughter.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: Did they laugh at places you weren't expecting them to?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: No, but they laughed bigger in a few places than I expected.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: And um and there were one or two places where I thought it might be a bigger laugh, and and I got a laugh, but not it just didn't hit exactly where I thought it would.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: And but for the most part it they responded the way that I had hoped it was.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_03: That's something Josh Baker always says is they're not probably not gonna laugh where you think they are, but they are gonna laugh in places you don't think they are.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to be prepared for that.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: And again, you know, reading the room and listening yourself.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: So the election of 2002, I think it's a very interesting election in the history of Oklahoma.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the election where the cockfighting referendum appeared.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: And it's also the last time Oklahoma elected a governor from the Democratic Party.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was an interesting election, and I I didn't work in journalism too long and because the the pay was obviously so bad that I halfway joked that I went into education to make a lot of money.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it was a great job, and I I did love it, and I don't know that I ever would have enjoyed working at a larger newspaper quite as much because at a at a small paper with a small staff, everybody does a little bit of everything, and so in a given day, you might write someone's obituary and go investigate a wildfire outside of town, and then you know, some proud gardener comes in and brings their enormous squash and wants you to take a picture of it and put it in the paper.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like that's just the day, and I am easily bored and and love not exactly knowing what's gonna happen in the day.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then also it just became a place where, even though at the time I had no intention of telling stories from it, but I mean I have a lot of stories from those years.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I bet.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: Because you just never you never know what's gonna happen.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: Aaron Powell The nature of small town news.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: I when I was re-listening to the story, I thought you mentioned the name of the small town, but you never did.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: And was that by design, and do you want to reveal that that now, or should we keep that a secret?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: I at the time I worked at the Sepulpa Daily Herald in Creek County, the only daily newspaper in the county.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: It has since been sold to different owners who took it in a direction that I certainly was not happy with, although I had left long before that happened.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: But and I'm not even sure the same people own it at this at this point.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: And there has been a I do think it's interesting because there was a lot of dissatisfaction in the county with the direction that the paper went.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: But there's been so much dissatisfaction that there's been a local effort to do some online journalism that really seems to have taken off.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: So um kind of back to what you were saying earlier, Matthew, I think small town journalism, and I don't want to I don't mean that in a pejorative sense at all, like that's where the really important stuff happens.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we all get really wrapped up in what's going on in DC, which admittedly is very important, but the things that happen on a daily basis that really affect our lives happen at the local level.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I wish that people paid as much attention to what goes on in local, city, county government as they did big politics that's easy to get on cable news and yell about.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because those things really do affect us day to day in ways that things happening in DC don't always, you know.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: So back to 2002 for a minute, did I hear that your story kind of got picked up by more than just the Creek County area?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I didn't tell this in the story because there just wasn't time, and I was determined I would not go over time.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: I hate going over time.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: You don't want us to walk out there and pull you off the stairs.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, guess what?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: You've got time now.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, go for it.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I but at the time, yeah, I I did a lot of reporting about that issue, and it wasn't we did have in the county, it was near us.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think I misspoke a little bit in the story on the stage saying that this very large notorious cockfighting operation was in our town.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was in the town adjacent.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Creek County.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: But it was it was the worst kept secret that there was this enormous cockfighting operation that was very violent and and really notorious and didn't take long for me to find out one reason why it was so popular, and that was because it was also a huge drug operation.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just thought if voters really want to continue this practice in the state, they need to know exactly what they're signing on for.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it I don't think at the time I was intending in any way to be an activist journalist, you know, but it's just telling the truth and telling the story.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: But it just sort of went from there and I just kept finding little threads of things that I wanted to explore.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: And ultimately a lot of the stories that I wrote were picked up by the Associated Press, and then other papers in the state and the region picked them up.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, sometimes just with a general AP byline, but many of them had my byline on them.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I spent a lot of time interviewing um some of the folks at the um Humane Society of the United States who got very involved in the effort and after it was all over with actually got a a phone call and a really nice letter from uh one of their executives who said they wanted to thank me because they felt like my coverage really helped get the message out and it went much further than just our county.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm really I'm proud of that.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: And if I'm gonna get death threats, you know, I want to count for something.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you know.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we do have to say though, I all counties everywhere have some checkered past.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to make it sound like I'm not grateful because I went to public school in Sepulpa in Creek County and had the best public school experience ever.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a beautiful place.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: My family still lives there, and I still go visit all the time.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm definitely not knocking Creek County.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: But that particular element of people who lived there, certainly we had some differences.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we grew up close to each other.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: I I grew up in Glimple.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I I am very proud of my public education in Muscogee, Oklahoma.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well winners.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: And we are.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and to circle back to your point earlier, Matthew, back in those days earlier in this century when Oklahoma was top fifteen in public education, and now we're at or very near the bottom of the list.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: So think about what's happened between now and then and maybe do something about it.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you've had quite the career in writing literature.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: You were a journalist, English professor, your PhD is in literature.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just curious about your other talent of painting.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm wondering which one of those that you think you tell the best story at.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, hopefully I get to the point with all of that work that it doesn't matter the medium that the message gets through.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of think about that, Michelle, as I paint both in oil and pastel, more in pastel than in oil.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: And my goal, or one of my goals, is to make sure that no matter the medium I'm using, that you can't really tell a difference.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: I want my oil painting work to look like my pastel painting work.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like it's probably the same with telling stories or writing.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't done a lot of writing lately.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm working on a book project with my painting mentor.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like probably, though, I'm a better storyteller when it comes to words than images.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think there's a story you can tell on canvas or painting that you can't tell on stage?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to learn how to do that because for the longest time I did not think of myself as an artist.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: I thought of myself as a painter because to me, artists have something to say.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm a fairly traditional impressionist landscape painter.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't, I don't feel like my work has some sort of profound message.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not tackling some political issue with my art.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I in my head that was always a distinction.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I just click on your photos uh on Facebook and I'm like, oh my God.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like I want to go into that.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's the thing that I figured out was that that really is what I want to get across to people who see that work that I do because that's what I feel when I do that work.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it really is to me, I'm just gonna paraphrase, but thorough, uh Henry David Thorough wrote in his journal once that he loves landscapes because nature doesn't lie.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I've figured out over the last couple of years in particular, I need that as a space just to sort of let my mind rest.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: And when I'm out painting on location somewhere, painting plin air, or if I'm just out wandering through the woods or and in the mountains in New Mexico, um, taking photos for paintings, like I'm just in the moment.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so if that comes across through a painting, I've just had to sort of rethink what story I'm telling.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and I I think I've only recently become aware of that.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: So the story you're telling yourself about your art as well.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: So I've seen images of Greg's art like you, Michelle, on online, okay, and social media, et cetera.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: But something happened last month.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: Would you like to tell the story?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: Because uh me and my wife were traveling with uh Michelle and Dave.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we went to some of the galleries in Santa Fe, and lo and behold, there you are.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um I get this text from you, and I'm like, look where we're at.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh, that looks familiar.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's mine.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, and I have a whole stream of video I haven't sent you yet, that we were walking around the streets saying, Where is Greg Stone?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Where is Greg Stone?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: until we finally found you.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: So we walked into a gallery called the Susan Eddings Perez Gallery.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: And lo and behold, there is Greg Stone's art.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_03: And Greg, I don't know if you know this, but we went down into the basement, and the lighting on your art down there is even better stunning looking uh down there in the basement.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they they fairly recently um bought the building and converted the the ground floor.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of built into the side of the hill.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of renovation.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of renovation, yeah.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: So it was one of those things that just started as a hobby.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, I I started painting um really seriously right around my 40th birthday, and I just turned 50 this year.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: So it's been about 10 years.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the summer before that, I had finished my PhD.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: A couple months after that, my dad died um from cancer.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just got in this rut after a while, always hearing about post-dissertation depression, and you're sort of going 90 miles an hour, and then one day it's done, and you feel like, what am I, what am I supposed to do now?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't, you know, I've been working a second full-time job basically.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I certainly wasn't reclusive by any means, but there were just after a few months, I realized there were too many days of going home from work and having dinner and sitting in front of the TV and going to bed and getting up the next day and go to work and you know, rinse and repeat.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so finally, after a few months of that, I just sort of felt like I need to be doing something.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: I need to be creating something.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I had some a box of pastels and some sanded paper left.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: I had taken some lessons from a local artist named Julie Miller, who was still in the area, who introduced me to pastel.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: I had painted some in oil.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I my mom still has some really terrible Bob Ross style paintings I did in my teens and early 20s.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I still had those things.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: This was like a decade later, and I took them out of the closet and started painting again, and it just kind of became a thing.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: And and then, you know, I would show paintings to friends, and someone was like, Oh, I'd like to buy that.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, really?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then just one thing led to another, and I just I kept going to workshops and I have no formal art training.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I just kept learning and and spending time with the ESL.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's that whole Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours thing, and I'm maybe 4,000 hours in, so I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: And and then people reach out about galleries, and so it's just become a a thing I never expected, and um a business that you have to maintain and take care of and pay taxes on and all that stuff.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: But it's really enjoyable because I feel like if I get in front of the easel, and in some ways there's there's an element I feel this way about storytelling too, that you're just in that moment.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: And if my only problem is that I can't get this tree to work right on the canvas, or if my only problem is that I gotta land this one line because I want to get a laugh from the audience, or some sort of emotional reaction from the audience, like I'm just in that zone and there's something very relaxing and it's a flow state, even if it's not necessarily fun or doesn't come without some stress, but you I just feel like I'm in that flow state.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: Speaking of process, we usually like to ask our guests about their story writing process.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: Are you kind of a off the cuff, seat of your pants, improvise it, or are you uh write it and revise it a hundred times or somewhere in the middle?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Probably somewhere in the middle, uh although as I said earlier, my my very first time was just completely fly by the seat of my pants.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: Which I will do from time to time, but I normally would prefer to write a story out, not because I want to, you know, use it as a script and memorize it and perform it word for word, but I just want to I need to see it, and then I can spend some time going over it and reading it and rereading it.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I generally don't make massive changes, but I like to tweak little moments.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, just back to the story we listened to, and I'm really pleased that it worked so well and that the audience was willing to go there.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: But when I'm building up toward, you know, finding the the rooster in the trash can, I sort of wanted to take a beat in that story.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: And there's this moment where I felt the audience when I mentioned he pulled out a bloody mutilated rooster, there was just this groan of kind of sadness.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I said it was still alive, still twitching, then there was this groan from the audience of kind of disgust.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then I mentioned the note, and then there was a little bit of a groan of like, ooh, you know, like a little bit of fear.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I try to find those moments and I want to craft them.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's not so much that I do a lot of rewriting, I just try to just really crank up the tension in certain moments and just try to really craft the words so that it's economical and concise and will hopefully prompt the audience to respond somehow.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it worked for you because you placed.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: I did, yeah.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: I was really thrilled.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: Sally uh Gardner, who won, was the first runner-up, whose stories I always love hearing, whether we're on stage or just um elsewhere.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, our Cross from Coffee.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: Across from Coffee, our studios are down the hall from each other, uh, and our art studios are down the hall.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: But she turned to me while we were all still on stage and she said, You and I actually won because we got a little money, but we get to keep telling stories.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: We don't we don't have to sit out for five years.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just like, yeah, that was that was the best spot.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: And to be up there, I have to say this too, and this I'm not normally a sentimental person in public.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: But like to be on stage with so many great storytellers, several of whom have become good friends.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, give the prizes, give the money.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: You've gotten to be on stage at the Keynes Ballroom.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hello.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh like that's the that's the win.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's the win.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: And actually visit the uh the green room.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Write your canes on the wall.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, write your name on the wall in the green room.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: We won't tell.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a little game called Point Blake, and so just give me your quickest answer, all right?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: What's your favorite book?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: The Scarlet Letter.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Favorite word?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Laughter.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Least favorite word?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um plethora.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: I love that word.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna argue on that one.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right, one more.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh favorite Tulsa restaurant.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, just because it's um, I'm gonna say the brook.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's just old school.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: Good nachos.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Good nachos, good wings.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: Great burgers.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_03: Great burgers, yeah.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_03: Greg, thank you so much for being here today.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: You've been a wonderful guest.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, thank you all so much.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: You you educated us on so many things.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're welcome.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: And and um I'm excited that uh we're all gonna get to tell more stories together.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Greg.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Greg.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: The OK So Stay More podcast is a co-creation of Public Radio Tulsa and OK So Tulsa.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's produced, recorded, and edited mainly at the Public Radio Tulsa Studios in Kendall Hall on the University of Tulsa campus.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: The nonprofit long-running OK So Tulsa Story Slam series was co-founded by Brenda Jean Pearsall and Michelle Baez.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: For more on OKSO Tulsa, including how to attend and or participate in its many various storytelling competitions and events, please visit OKSotulsa.com.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: This OKSo Say More podcast is co-hosted by Michelle Baez and Matthew Weatherby, and it's recorded and edited by Matthew Weatherby with editorial and production help from me, Scott Gregory, at Public Radio Tulsa.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can contact this podcast by visiting OKSotulsa.com and then clicking on Connect with Us, and you can learn more about the station and find more episodes of this free on-demand podcast at publicradio Tulsa.org.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: We hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to attend an Okeso Tulsa event and maybe even tell a story yourself.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Again, to learn more about how to do that, it's OKSOTulsa.com.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to OKSo Say More, Be Well, Be Heard, and Be Receptive.