Barry Friedman at large

You wouldn’t understand. It’s a Dewey thing.

Dewey Bartlett’s “You talking to me?” moment

District 1 Councilor Jack Henderson believes Tulsa would be better off if it had a city manager because the way things are now, “Anyone can run for mayor,” he says, “whether or not they know what they’re doing, and then you get stuck with that person for four years, and that is who is running the city.”

Had I known they were going to clean, I would have invited them in and pretended to read the pamphlets.

Before their three-day convention at The University of Tulsa’s Reynolds Center last month, Jehovah’s Witnesses spruced up the arena, including wiping down every seat and scrubbing all the floors.
If they do bathrooms, I’ll convert.

Rule No. 67

Billboards for gun shows are always in the worst parts of town.

This could be huge. It won’t be, but it could.

Reports indicate that in the next 20 years, Broken Arrow will outpace Norman as Oklahoma’s third-largest city, behind Tulsa and OKC. Just think about the increased funding that will come our way when state legislators realize we have two of the three largest cities?

OK, you can stop thinking. It’s not going to matter. We will still get screwed.

Yeah, but was he country when country wasn’t cool?

The Oklahoma Tea Party recently endorsed Republican Randy Brogdon for governor.

Al Gerhart, a co-founder of the Sooner Tea Party, said, “Brogdon has been a champion of the Tea Party’s ideals (since) long before there were Tea Parties.”

Really? The first one was in May … 1773.

Hungriest Criminal of the Month

A man entered a Whataburger last month and ordered french fries. When the clerk asked him for payment, the man pulled out a machete and ordered him to open the safe.

Two thoughts at this point if I’m the clerk:

1) This sucks, and

2) This REALLY sucks!

Instead, the clerk asked the assailant whether he was serious.

(Note to anyone coming in contact with a hungry, machete-wielding assailant: Assume queries are not rhetorical.)

Unfortunately, the clerk didn’t have access to the safe.

How uncomfortable was this? One man, holding a cleaver; another, holding fries — what do you say?

“So, how about Nolan and the Shock, huh?”

According to news reports, the clerk eventually suggested (yes, suggested, as if he were pushing the Whatachick’n Sandwich) that the assailant “Just take the fries” and go, which machete man did.

Whoa!

Attend? I could have taught the damn thing!

A local law firm offered a workshop last month in Tulsa titled “The 10 Stupidest Mistakes Men Make When Facing Divorce.”

The sound of the apocalypse

Although nobody knows when The End will come, it will undoubtedly be preceded by a Tulsa ice cream truck playing the same mind-numbing jingle over and over and over and …

Dumb Criminal of the Month

To the Catoosa woman who stole a motor home and then painted it a different color to … hide the evidence?

One way to bridge the political chasm: emoticons

In a letter to Mayor Bartlett explaining her administration’s rationale in the annexation agreement between the city and county, former Mayor Kathy Taylor wrote, “While words may always be imprecise (and always ensure that lawyers have billable hours J), I can unequivocally state it was never my intent … that the county would be exempted from the charges which all property owners in the city pay. … I hope you find this background helpful.”

We do. It’s the smiley face that troubles us.

Eavesdroppings

Clerk inside QuikTrip: “I once had a parking lot full of cops eating ice cream sandwiches. Kind of sad. They’d all been ‘Dewey’d.’”

Let’s see … keys, gun show tickets, prescription mood enhancers, paint for motor home, kids, list of Tea Party ideals, machete. Got ’em; let’s go in.

A sign outside Panera, on 15th Street, read, “Remember to take your valuables with you.”

Publisher’s note: We regret inaccurate wording in Barry Friedman’s column in the July issue of TulsaPeople. Friedman used the term “copyright infringement” in a comment about Drew Rees, a Tulsa County commissioner candidate in District 3, for making his campaign logo and color scheme in the likeness of a famous candy product with a similar name. To our knowledge, and to that of Friedman, the candidate did not commit such an infringement and it was an error to imply it. We apologize to Rees.