Glenn liked Tahlequah’s ‘weirdness’

TAHLEQUAH —

For Eddie Glenn, playing music at the 2000 Cherokee Medal of Honor awards and having James Earl Jones compliment his singing voice is the memory of a lifetime.

Glenn recalls the compliment.

“[Jones] said, ‘Young man, I absolutely love your voice,’” said Glenn. “I told him that, coming from the voice of Darth Vader, that meant a lot to me.”

Glenn, a Northeastern State University graduate, lived in Tahlequah from 1991-2007. Many remember him as a staff writer and photographer for the Tahlequah Daily Press, where his witty comments kept the news staff in stitches.

He first attended Carl Albert Junior College in Poteau, before coming to NSU, and is now working on his doctorate at the University of Kansas. He’s writing his dissertation in rhetoric, and teaches at KU, as well.

“The term ‘rhetoric’ has a lot of negative connotations, but in fact, it was one of the original seven liberal arts, along with grammar, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy,” Glenn said. “The simplest definition of rhetoric is ‘persuasive communication,’ although many theorists equate rhetoric with communication itself, since even the fact that you can communicate with someone carries somewhat persuasive meaning to them. You can see how, in modern times, with so many modes of communication, studying the persuasive nature of messages and media can be quite important.”

He decided to choose this course of study at NSU when he was a journalism major, and found he absolutely hated the classes and the “boring” style of writing required of those students.

“I made a C in my first newswriting course,” said Glenn. “That same semester, I was taking one of Dave Scott’s classes in the speech department – I think it was ‘Argumentation’ – and realized I was doing more and more interesting writing in my speech classes than I was in the journalism course.”

So he switched majors.

“The speech department is now called Communication Studies, and includes rhetoric,” he said.

In Lawrence, Kan., he enjoys, writing, reading, and occasionally playing music. Last weekend, he played a benefit for the Lawrence Humane Society, sponsored by the Lawrence Brewers’ Guild. He has friends there who are home-brewers.

“Most of the people are of German ancestry, and beer and bratwurst are pretty popular,” he said. “I’ve done that gig for four years now, and it’s always fun. They don’t drink beer up here just to get drunk; they’re really into the different flavors they get from their brewing processes. It really is an art.”

While Glenn still plays music occasionally, his focus now is on academic pursuits.

“Mainly. I’m [busy] writing my dissertation and other articles for journal publication,” he said. “I’ve had four published in the past two years, and another two are under review at different journals. Academic articles don’t get published quite as quickly as, say, a story about the most recent Tahlequah Public Works Authority meeting.”

People who influenced him while in Tahlequah are too numerous to mention, as are his friends. But academically, influences include Bill Wallace and David Scott, who are both still at NSU. Musically, his influences included Murv Jacob and Mike Allen.

His visits are few and far between.

“I study the rhetorical intersection of the U.S. government and American Indian governments, so I occasionally come down to do some research, but I’m usually holed up in the NSU library or the Heritage Center archives when I’m doing that, so I just sort of sneak into and out of town. That way, I don’t get distracted by people wanting to play music all night,” he said.

What he does miss about Tahlequah, along with playing music all night, is the authentic weirdness unique to the area.

“Lawrence and Kansas City both have their ‘fringe’ artistic elements, but both towns are more immersed in popular culture and media. Tahlequah’s weirdness seems to just sort of grow up out of the ground, or maybe creep up out of the river on certain full moon nights,” Glenn said. “Anyone who’s lived in Tahlequah for very long knows exactly what I’m talking about. It’s a lack of structure that always gels into something creative, but can never really be defined. It’s what, in rhetorical studies, we would call, ‘the ineffable.’”

Glenn was a bit surprised when he came back to Tahlequah earlier this year. He hadn’t been downtown in about 2-1/2, maybe three years.

“I spent practically all of my spare time when I lived in Tahlequah on that two-block section between Goingsnake and Downing, and at one point it was so run-down, we called it ‘Little Bosnia,’” said Glenn. “I watched Gordie Zabik build the Iguana Cafée, literally with his own two hands, and things started to change. That was in 1996; I remember it because I played their grand opening. Murv Jacob had a little hippie store across the street from there, and we used to sit on a bench on the sidewalk, playing guitars, and watching Gordie build that place.”

Jacob took the thin, round end-pieces of some of the lumber Zabik had cut off the porch beams and made little crescent earth paintings out of them, Glenn said.

“I still have one of those, even though it got stolen once out of my house in Tahlequah. It was recovered – thank you, Tahlequah Police Department – and I still have it,” he said. “Gary Brown moved his barbecue place from South Muskogee to Town Branch around the same time, I think, and things really started changing, because more people besides the artistic, hippie-fied, musician ne’er-do-wells I hung out with had a reason to go down there.”

When “Little Bosnia” evolved into Norris Park, that part of town became the “go-to” place in Tahlequah.

“Now, that hippie shop Murv used to have is the gelato place, and Town Branch has changed quite a bit,” he said. “I don’t think they like you throwing peanut shells on the floor anymore. I watched Jack turn Sam ‘n Ella’s into a landmark in a relative short period of time,” he said. “Dave’s still got his bike shop, where it’s been for almost 20 years now, and Murv’s still got his studio just north of that, and he still leaves the door wide open when he goes meandering down the sidewalk to get coffee.”

The appearance has changed, Glenn said, but it’s still got that Tahlequah weirdness to it.

“When I was there last time, I met up with some friends at the gelato place and we ended up shooting some digital video of us making music with only various body parts,” said Glenn “They were our body parts, mind you, not some we’d just found lying around somewhere. I mean, how Tahlequah is that?”

Perhaps the greatest influence for Glenn was his time and experiences working at the Press.

“I did practically everything,” said Glenn. “I started out taking photos, but after about a week, they realized I was somewhat literate, so they sent me to cover then-Sen. Gene Stipe’s visit to the golf course. He was stumping for some politician who lost. Later, I realized no one else wanted to talk to Stipe, since his brother owned the paper at the time, and I think everyone else at the paper just wanted to keep their heads down anytime Gene or Francis – the brother, the owner of the paper – were around. I guess everyone at the Press just figured, ‘Send the new guy. If he does something stupid and gets fired, at least we haven’t lost a long-time employee.’”

As it happened, Glenn had paged in the Oklahoma Senate in high school, and was quite familiar with Stipe.

“Even though my senator and Stipe really didn’t like each other very much – and that’s putting it mildly, but tactfully, I think – somehow I ended up with the job of baby-sitting Stipe’s two grandsons, who were just absolute little hellions, but geniuses about baseball trivia,” said Glenn. “I mean, these kids were something like 5 and 6 years old, and had stats memorized better than anyone I’ve met before or since. So, when I went out to Cherry Springs to talk to him and this politician – whoever it was – I asked Stipe about his grandsons, and had a really nice conversation with him.”

Oddly enough, that’s also where Glenn first met Bob Ed Culver, who had ridden his motorcycle up there and was wearing his leather vest.

“We hit it off. I remember the first thing Bob Ed ever said to me,” said Glenn. “I was standing in the back of the little crowd of people who were all telling this politician – whom I still can’t remember – how great he was, and Bob Ed came up beside me, and muttered just loud enough for me to hear, ‘Don’t you just hate this s**t?’ I laughed so hard, it must’ve seemed a little odd to some of the folks there. Bob Ed and I got along great from that day on.”

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