A very cheerful Sunday morning to all of the many, many fine, fine friends of The Guthrie Man.

This morning’s coffee fair is off to an earlier start than normal. It’s for safety reasons, really. The Guthrie Man Coffee Club has learned the hard way over the years that running long, and stringing out the over-caffeinated octogenarian members of the club in 105-degree heat is a sure way to prematurely whittle down attendance numbers.

It’s always a balancing act: keeping the senior members of the Territorial Capital’s most influential organization from succumbing to caffeine-overload-induced heat stroke at a rate that outpaces the baby-boomer retiree crowd’s induction into its prestigious ranks, thereby preserving the club’s base census of members possessing the appropriate pedigree—either 45 years of continuous residence in the First Capital or hereditary provenance tracing directly back to one of the original Boomers of ’89.

And no Sooners allowed!

There are still some hard feelings about exactly how certain properties were “acquired” back in the day.

Looking at you, Main Streeters.

Today’s fare: lots of analysis of the latest scandalous happening, this one taking the form of some obnoxious signage that’s suddenly popped up outside the Terry Morgan Office Building Renovation Project.

And yes, the clubbers are still in full fightin-mad fallout mode over the latest bit of tyranny emanating from the second floor of the faux City Hall, ever since the most recent Tuesday Night “Scoldin” Session, when those arrogant “know-nothings” lowered the bureaucratic boom on a citizen whose attempt to help veterans has now run smack into an expensive roadblock, courtesy of the City Hall buttinskies.

Yes, the Terry Morgan Office Building Renovation Project on the South Elon Musk Expressway is still the first thing everyone talks about – just as it has been for the last two months. The dimension of the massive edifice, the not two but three drive through windows, the new concrete, the security camera tree, you name it, the clubbers are in full over-analysis mode, in complete awe of the breakneck speed of construction: “you’d never see the government move that fast,” mixed with the usual coffee clubber complaints of having to downsize to just one lane when entering the South Elon Musk Traffic Kill Zone #1.

But interestingly, none of the multi-prescription dependents have been complaining about the army of construction trucks now surrounding the exit from the Walgreens drive-through. In fact, the whole affair has added an element of intrigue—even excitement—to the weekly process of getting medicated.

All of those construction trucks clustered around the exit from the prescription dispenser’s drop box sure do give the oldsters something to check out as they tepidly negotiate their F-150s back into the confines of Traffic Kill Zone #1.

So, when word got out that the boys in blue had been called out—presumably by the Walgreens crew, because the clubbers remain convinced that the Guthrie Plaza Price Edwards group does not actually exist in any meaningful sentient form—the sentiment turned sharply against Walgreens.

“Let ’em work! Ole Terry can’t afford to keep commuting down to Waterloo, and if those City Hall types figure out they ain’t getting their McDees sales tax, they’re gonna raise it on all of us fur sure!”

The type of commentary is catnip to Coffee Club Frenchy, the token Gen Xer of the group, who, upon hearing comments like this, loses the battle with his terminal ADD, and immediately checks out mentally for the rest of the meeting, trying to figure out if he can pull the sales tax renditions from the state tax commission folks and figure out, down to the dollar, just how much money the freedom zone’s new version of the Terry Morgan’s branch office has taken in sales tax dollars while the OG location undergoes reconstruction.

“You just wait until the quarterlies are available, I am going to find out just how much that store generates,” declared Frenchy, confident that he can leverage the powerful of his new “intelligence artificielle” machine, as he calls it, to de-anonymize the data.

“You better be careful with that AI witchcraft machine of yours, it’s going to do all of your thinking for you and ruin your ‘Great Brain’,” the group chuckles.

The Great Brain reference is a common jab at Frenchy, who, as a youngster, developed a fondness for the writings of John D. Fitzgerald during those long 1980s summers when the new Guthrie Library leveraged the awesome power of the new Dairy Queen—and its fascinating Land Run bas-relief, later apparently erased by a certain corporate giant whose name is not allowed to be mentioned at the Coffee Club, in what can only be described as an architectural hate crime—to entice the youngsters into reading a certain number of books as part of the summer reading program.

Then, as the decade wound down and the First Capital entered the strange new post-Reagan world, Oklahoma celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Run of ’89, and the high-performing summer readers—including young Frenchy—were rewarded with U.S. Olympic Festival-themed prizes: a faux Olympic medal and, far more importantly, the right to certain free ice cream products at the Dairy Queen.

Of course, those were the days when young readers of publications from the new library were inspired by great authors to feats of intelligence, as opposed to Guthrie librarian Daniel Cameron’s banned-books ethos of today’s new library, inspiring the youngsters of the town to “gender-bending.” Yes, the term “the children are our future” has never terrified the clubbers more than it does today. Thank you, Mr. Cameron!

Speaking of Guthrie’s esteemed head librarian, he seems to have pulled a policy implementation coup over on the hapless city council types, who once again seem to have fallen for being on the cutting edge of woke policy. Yes, the same council that has not yet learned its painful lesions from implementing a “mask mandate” law long before other towns, and written in a clearly unconstitutional way, a groundbreaking “city sponsored” drag queen performance for small children, and stepping out as one of the first to approve the flock surveillance system, once again finds itself on the cutting edge of woke policy with the newest absurd concoction of the left-wing utopian strain from the left coast: “Yes kids, you can keep that gender-bending banned book for as long as you like because here at the new Guthrie library, we don’t charge late fees anymore.”

Yes, Cameron, after explaining that the library doesn’t even get to keep the late fees, but instead has to remit them to City Hall for expenditure on those non-library items such as “fire trucks,” has been riding high after the council unanimously approved the no fees policy, a woke-era thought experiment that apparently originated with the utopian geniuses over at the Los Angeles library system, where those left wingers have figured out how to counteract all of the ills of society and solved all of the problems that have plagued humankind for years.

Now, the gullibles on the City Council cluelessly put themselves out there once again on the woke cutting edge without nary a double blink, but of course the brain trust at the town’s most powerful institution, the Guthrie Man Coffee Clubbers, caught on right away. “Those ‘know-nothings’ on the Council wouldn’t know woke if it was the Chief of Police, but this is what happens when you don’t spank your youngins. They think everything is unfair and that includes having to return one’s banned book on time.”

It’s a bit of a hit on the reputation of new City Manager Eddie Faulkner, whose demonstrated professionalism—and apparent success in wrestling control of City Hall back away from the “man in the basement”—has really impressed the clubbers, who were just starting to believe that City Hall had finally emerged from the “know-nothing” era of Steve Gentling.

In fact, Faulkner’s professionalism in skillfully navigating a council still heavily influenced by Ward 2’s leading “know-nothings”—the talkative postman and the cloud guru—has been particularly impressive. These are two individuals whose decade-plus ability to keep their positions largely uncontested remains an indictment of the First Capital’s southernmost environs, and whose lack of good judgment and the general knowledge base required of a capable policy leader has got to make life extremely challenging for any city official forced to negotiate the second-order effects that so often accompany a know-nothing’s bizarre machinations.

All of which has placed Faulkner on track for potential inclusion among the Big Three on the Guthrie Man Coffee Club’s Mount Rushmore of modern-era city managers, alongside Brett Jones and Matt Mueller.

The modern era, incidentally, officially commenced with the unnecessary construction of the faux City Hall without a vote of the people—a sore story for another day, only because rabbit trails are strictly forbidden under the Guthrie Man Coffee Club’s code of ethics. No, really. They are outlawed by the club’s official unwritten constitution, attempted enforcement of which invariably produces huge bursts of belly laughter at the would-be enforcer’s presumably tongue-in-cheek effort to impose order upon the proceedings.

Faulkner’s candidacy for the Guthrie Man Coffee Club Mount Rushmore of City Managers did take a slight hit when Faulkner appeared to miss Cameron’s woke banned-book display last September, and then allowed Cameron to ride straight into City Hall with the “No More Late Fees” woke-utopia plan imported directly from the Left Coast.

This frees Cameron to become a missionary for woke utopia while visiting with his “colleagues” from libraries across the state, no doubt inspiring other woke librarians to march into their own city councils and point to the First Capital as the once-again capital of woke—yet another tremendous embarrassment for everyone in First Capital-ville who understands the actual values of the community to be firmly rooted in traditional Americana.

Then, Faulkner’s up-and-comer reputation took a potential second hit this week, when it appeared that Faulkner may have violated a provision arising from one of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club’s foremost tenets of governmental wisdom, freely proffered to any public official with the good sense to ask:

Never, ever become the clickbait of a First Amendment auditor.

Yes, the First Amendment audit is required viewing at the club. About a decade ago, even the oldest boomer members found themselves learning to navigate the YouTube in search of the latest clueless government officials desperately calling in the badge-wearing enforcers to chase away some annoying, camera-toting paparazzo—the self-appointed “First Amendment Auditor”—without ever realizing that this was exactly what the content creator had been hoping for all along:

Clickbait content gold.

Of course, the all-wise denizens of the club knew right away that the savvy government official would have embraced the audits, invited the auditor in, and provided a VIP behind-the-scenes tour of all things “governmental,” and thus forced the auditor into a really tough choice: “do I really spend time editing this footage with the not-so-exciting clickbait of ‘Personable Government Officials go Above and Beyond.’”

Such content wouldn’t even get the auditor to the monetization threshold of YouTube, as no one watches government officials going above and beyond; everyone is looking for the badged tyrant in the unfriendly community, falling into the YouTube gold trap.

Here’s looking at you, Cashion, where one would rightly have predicted such missteps to happen, not in the sophisticated first capital, where Faulkner’s new level of professionalism should win the day.

Now, over time of course, there are only so many “Small Town Tyrant Hates the First Amendment” clickbait traps that one can watch.

And the First Amendment, and the natural progression of all things human interest and clickbait, have a natural solution for taking things to the next level: open records requests which detail clueless city officials talking about how to commit their various governmental missteps.

In a world where most “media” types have long ago been co-opted into serving as little more than City Hall and the politician’s version of Правда, here’s looking at you 2nd Banana Media Network, it’s fallen to the click bait crew to fill the void, and boy do they.

Case in point: Oklahoma’s premier populist click baiter, Ron Durbin of Gorilla Media—now that’s a name that commands respect, a real 2nd Banana smasher—who infamously inspired a public school principal into lying on the floor, seemingly believing that the unfairness of being interviewed by the Gorilla would simply disappear if he closed his eyes tight enough. Again, a weak, weak generation raised in the post-spanking era, thus unable to confront reality.

Well, for the most part, all things governmental in the state’s county #1 have stayed off of The Gorilla’s radar, leaving that to the liberals in liberal university town up to the north, that is until this week when to the great shame of the first capital, The Gorilla broadcast to the world that: Guthrie City Hall had enacted some sort of ridiculous new policy of, “we are only taking open records requests ‘in person’ and are going to print everything out on actual paper.”

Now, speaking frankly, City Hall has just tweaked the ghost of Madeline Glock, the infamous city official turned citizen responsibility agent whose ability to run up the city’s copier paper bill via the magic of the open records request was probably unmatched in the history of the city.

Really, are the citizens of Guthrie going to foot the bill for the independent media empire to make their way into town and drop their independent media credentials into the copy machine?

Has Faulkner or City Hall reviewed any of the Gorilla’s content? Is there any doubt that he’s right now caravanning to the first capital, while gleefully chortling about the sure-fire click bait just handed his way by the epic misstep of its denizens?

Well, let’s just say that coffee club attendance is locked in for the next six months, as clubbers keep swiping down to refresh and hook in to The Facebook’s latest dopamine drop.

It’s a good time to be a coffee clubber, but maybe not so much for the taxpayer who’s no doubt about to get treated to the next pitch of: insurance claims have shot up for some unknown reason, our owens field contractors might just be out of compliance with the Bacon-Davis Act, we can’t pay the new electric bill at the water treatment plant, the credit card “convenience fee” is out of control, and for some unknown reason the city’s copier contract just tripled—so you really need to feel badly about underfunded City Hall.

But where was The Guthrie Man?

The Guthrie Man does tend to rabbit trail.

Ahh, yes—the new sign at Walgreens that’s been fueling this morning’s coffee club fare.

“No Construction Vehicles Allowed.”

Yup, the Walgreens crew doesn’t seem to realize the vital role provided to the community by the Terry Morgan office building, and just how much of the town’s sales tax base depends on getting this facility back up and open to the public by Texas football weekend.

What makes this whole discussion especially interesting is the club’s fascination with all things signage.

Take, for instance, last June’s mini-tornado, which finally blew down the so-very-ambient Morgan Auto World sign—a creature of pure 1980s magic, faded and weather-beaten, perhaps, but no less ambient for the wear.

The clubbers have been keeping a keen eye on what remains of it ever since, now safely ensconced at the base of the venerated pole that once held it aloft, where it will presumably remain among all of the other Morgan Auto World magic that has accumulated, been mitigated, and somehow re-accumulated over the decades.

And that’s just fine with the club.

So long as that sign remains, the 1980s remain.

And nobody down at the Guthrie Man Coffee Club is in any particular hurry to leave it behind.

Now, for a pure flashback to nostalgia-ville, there’s the Cover to Cover bookstore sign, now faded almost beyond legibility, but still a bygone call to the days when going to the bookstore meant visiting the kindly senior citizen—here’s a callout to Pat—and inhaling the smell of written lore dating back to the days of statehood and first capital greatness. Unlike today, when the local “bookstore” is run by the partisan Wokester, hawking who knows what post-humanist era perversion that adds absolutely nothing of intellectual value to society, but rather degrades the mind and saps the spirit.

Of course, not a second after observing that faded Cover to Cover sign does the observant take notice of the never-open Advanced Medical, with its ceiling visibly falling in—a fact that even Nick Sortir could, from afar, take notice of in the January 2026 Google Street View image of the ceiling fallout residing just behind the “continence care” signage, and think to oneself, this is a bit strange: “Maybe a visit to Oklahoma is in order.”

Or how about that Taco Mayo sign, forever exhorting one to give thanks, declaring the day to be “May 23” and always running, but never, ever changing. How many times have the club members discussed and theorized on the reasons for its never changing? What is it about May 23 that has forever seared itself into the zeitgeist of all things ever-shrinking taco size? Yes, one visits that store and is sure to bring back some nostalgia, but it’s quickly washed away by that nagging thought: “Didn’t these tacos used to be much bigger?”

It’s here where one declares, “There’s one more thing this town needs: a Taco Casa.”

Then, of course, there are the bossy signs—the mean-spirited affairs that manage to tell a story all their own.

Just south of the Taco Mayo stands one particularly arrogant specimen, its bossiness derived from all of the privileges afforded an unaccountable government entity whose great harm to the First Capital, in the estimation of the clubbers, simply cannot be overstated: the Commissioners of the Land Office.

This is the outfit that has ensured the southern entrance to the First Capital will forever resemble some post-Mad Max, war-torn apocalypse, and its contribution to the scenery comes complete with an appropriately officious warning:

“STATE PROPERTY — NO TRESPASSING.”

Thereby ensuring, presumably, that no entrepreneurial food-truck operator gets any bright ideas about setting up shop among the hideous concrete slabs, improving the aesthetics and, Charles Haskell forbid, adding something useful to the local cuisine fare.

That sign really does put an exclamation point on why the “keep the land vacant for the children” outfit may be the single most unpopular government entity down at the club.

“They’re destroying this town, and they don’t care because they don’t live here! And City Hall just lets ’em get away with it. But at least they’re keeping that veteran guy way out on the far edge of town—in the country, for crying out loud—from putting up a metal building in his front yard.

This place is messed up!”

Then there’s that BancFirst “you better not park here” sign, declaring to all would-be customers that their parking is for them, and not you. It’s a thoughtless arrogance that is again likely the byproduct of a powerful entity that really doesn’t care what you think about it. Their ownership isn’t from here, and they don’t care if they stick a finger in the eye of every passing commuter, as illustrated by the fact that they’ve gone out of their way to brand the bossy sign in their own corporate colors. At least they could have used a generic sign, thus camouflaging, to most, the identity of that arrogant entity.

So yes, now Walgreens joins the ranks of the bossy—those who just don’t care about public perception or the importance of getting Terry Morgan’s office building back up and running.

And though the club members have a sense of complete awe at the size of the new, imposing Terry Morgan office building, there’s also a sense of dread.

For you see, the modern-day McDonald’s is not a welcoming place, as so nicely illustrated by the Freedom Zone’s latest monstrosity down on Waterloo: an ugly, sanitized box, void of personality, and most importantly, completely void of a soda machine.

Yes, back in ‘86, the OG first capital McDonald’s offered an experience: a playground, historical photos of the city, the McDonald’s crew of Ronald McDonald, the Hamburglar, and the purple thing were all the rage. It was a place to have a birthday party, where a non-tattooed, normal-looking employee of pure skin and personality would help the kids play games.

And importantly, with the advent of the self-service soda machine, it was where a kid of all ages could mix up the perfect suicide—and importantly, use that term without the slightest fear that they were referring to anything other than a mixture of 2 parts Coke, 1 part Mountain Dew, 4 parts orange drink, and Dr. Pepper for the rest.

In October, when Terry Morgan returns to his office, he’s likely to find a bank of tablets, with all of the tattooed, ex-con/soon-to-be-con employees safely tucked away behind a wall, never visible to the hungry Big Mac eater, and most importantly, not a soda machine to be found. No more easily accessible refills. Fail to navigate a tablet and you are just out of luck, and you better fire up the big-tech tracking app because your app rewards, well that’s the only way you can afford to eat here in the first place because the Terry Morgan office space reconstruction bill is sure to be priced into the tab.

For the kid, there’s no suicide drink opportunity, straight flavors only. No playground, no fun. Just eat your overpriced McNuggets, consume your one drink, and make way for the next helpless Guthriean who wants to capture the slightest remaining twinge of 1980s nostalgia.

This, of course, leaves the trip to 2nd and Bryant as the closest way to get to the 1980s McDonald’s experience. You won’t get quite there, but that location still provides a 1990s experience that is also getting harder and harder to find in today’s world of McDonald’s sans personality.

Speaking of personality disorders, the “know-nothing” crew at the faux City Hall showed just how spectacularly out of touch they are this week, when they sent some poor citizen—whose great misfortune is living just slightly inside the city’s unnecessarily extended southernmost boundary, thereby apparently granting the talkative postman and crew jurisdiction over the existence of the citizen’s “lawn mower shed”—back home to incur thousands of dollars in completely unnecessary costs.

Yes, a building that’s just a tweak inside of city limits, placed by a God-and-country citizen who wants to use it to teach veterans how to construct flagpoles, sits just a few feet away from what City Hall deems to be its ideal position. And though a heartless City Council could easily grant a common-sense exemption for a property that is, for all intents and purposes, out in the country—as nicely illustrated by the fact that the newest city councilman expressed shock that the city limits even extend that far south—the building must instead be moved at tremendous cost to the kind-hearted applicant whose goal is to provide a service to veterans.

It’s a situation the clubbers all agree could and should be remedied through de-annexation.

The righteous rage of the clubbers took on an all-time high level upon witnessing the talkative postman, someone who has “represented” the area in question for over a decade, in the most arrogant and condescending of manners, declare his opposition while clearly struggling with an understanding of what a legal non-conforming use actually is, in essence using the fact that the citizen had a lawn mower shed or two, in compliance with the principles of grandfathering, against the applicant.

Now, had that applicant been just a little bit to the south, he could have had as many lawn mower sheds as he wanted, but due to his great misfortune of being a slight bit inside of the talkative postman’s domain, he has to go up to city hall for a scolding and a declaration that he must spend thousands of dollars, as an out-of-touch city council laughed and pandered to each other as is all too typical of these self-indulgent affairs conducted by a heartless crew whose personal circumstances have in too many cases kept them uncaring and unfeeling about the inflationary effects which have put so much pressure on so many.

Upon witnessing this abuse, it becomes easier to understand why the majority of residents of the county have long resisted the city hall’s repeated annexation efforts. It also raises a more urgent question: if Ward 2 cannot produce a candidate capable of unseating the current council leadership, then de-annexation may be the only viable path forward. But, first, it’s almost election season, a process set to commence in December. The time for passive frustration is over—residents will need to organize and engage directly in local politics, starting with identifying a strong challenger to the Ward 2 “know-nothing” faction, including the self-styled “cloud guru” at its center.

The council spent much of the Aug. 4 meeting nitpicking the smallest nuances of the matter, with councilperson after councilperson taking the occasion to demonstrate either an ignorance of zoning protocols, policies and laws, or a remarkable insensitivity to the increasingly obvious public perception that they had, in fact, crossed the tyrant threshold.

Foot by foot and inch by inch, they picked apart the specifics of the applicant’s plight, with not a single member coming out strongly in defense of the citizen’s fundamental right of property ownership—even though the city Planning Commission had already approved the citizen’s exemption request by a 4-1 margin.

It’s a notable foible of this council, with its members not realizing how badly they look to the wider public, when they, despite having a knowledge deficiency on the specifics of zoning – thus the know nothing title – attempting to inject into the dialogue and articulate the next Chamberlain Munich Pact all while little energy was extended asking relevant questions about the immediately impending record-level city budget.

Yes, much effort spent nitpicking a citizen’s decision on placing his workshop for veterans, and little spent analyzing the millions of dollars to be spent in the 2027 fiscal year, with one notable exception: new councilman Menecca Gibbs, who, to the great delight of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club, continues to prove the Guthrie Man’s dire predictions wrong by actually asking real questions, in this case prompting an actual dialogue on the engineering firm’s change order on the epically troubled Owens Field project.

The ensuing exchange appeared to reveal that one of the city’s subcontractors was not in compliance with the Davis-Bacon Act. Uh-oh.

It’s not right, embarrassing the Guthrie Man, proving the Guthrie Man wrong, but it’s thoughtful questions like this, by a council person who appears to be attempting to read the packet and do the job, that keeps the Guthrie Man’s hope alive in all things city hall.

Well, with that, the five-thousand-word threshold looms large, a threshold that by virtue of the unwritten Guthrie Man Coffee Club constitution, no Guthrie Man Coffee Club meeting is allowed to exceed. Caffeine poisoning, it’s very real.

So, the fascinating discussion of Doc Simpson’s friend, the special-needs student, and the appearance of those scratch marks—well, that will simply have to wait for another meeting.

The Guthrie Man Coffee Club constitution may be unwritten, completely unenforceable, routinely mocked, and known only through an oral tradition passed down from one over-caffeinated oldster to the next, but make no mistake: it is very real.

And at 5,000 words, even the rabbit trails have to yield to the rule of law.

With that, the Guthrie Man says,

stay crunchy.

It’s a post-89ers Day hangover for the friends of the Guthrie Man. But that isn’t stopping the Angry Bunny Mini Club, or the LEOs at Simone’s, and certainly not the fine friends of the Guthrie Man from getting right back on that Coffee Club horse.

After all, thanks to the big beautiful bill, Coffee Club Flo doesn’t have to pay tax on her tips, and she’s thriving—anxious to top off the coffee before it can assume room temperature. The Guthrie Man sure does hate it when the Guthrie Man gets on one of the Guthrie Man’s epic rants, thus giving the coffee time to cool—and then, even though it’s still ¾ full, that coffee isn’t much fun.

Well, Coffee Club Flo to the rescue, stepping in at just the right side angle to top off the cup while still allowing the Guthrie Man to maintain eye contact with the Guthrie Man’s Coffee Club disciples (yes, this visualization is not unlike Guthrie Man’s President’s epic meme—so allow the Guthrie Man to assert that the Guthrie Man’s wise discourse has healing properties not unlike that of a doctor… a naturalist, not one of those Pfizer-owned doctors).

All while successfully concluding that insightful, must-be-said point. Because failure to bring that point to its natural conclusion will give the Guthrie Man a headache for the rest of the day.

So, kudos to Coffee Club Flo.

Speaking of headaches, the wokesters effort to kill 89ers Day Faire in the First Capital, well, it’s not working. It’s part of the reason for why this town is the greatest town in all of Oklahoma: celebrating the Europeans’ conquest of America and ongoing occupation of indigenous land with no shame, as evidenced by the fact that the foremost advocate of the indigenous peoples—or at least the money of the indigenous peoples—Gentner Drummond decided to walk a dog on a stroll up Main Street without appearing to fear the repercussions of his tribal overlords.

Now, the thoughtful folks down at the American Legion appear to have assigned Drummond, and his hamburger-eating, food-on-the-face competitor Charles McCall, to the back of the line—perhaps a symbolic gesture representing the fact that the two has-been frontrunners for the governor’s nomination have been dropping in those pesky polls and prediction markets. And by the time they made their obligatory walk up Main Street, the people were, rightly, all politicianed out.

The Guthrie Man’s take: credit to those TV commercial production folks who are making Drummond look gubernatorial in his fighter plane commercial, because in real life, that guy does not have presence. Maybe that’s part of his charm. It’s hard to believe you’re about to be sliced and diced by Darth Vader when the prince of evil looks like just another grumpy, retiring senior citizen walking a dog up the hill.

Drummond’s choice of dog walking seems indicative of the fact that he couldn’t find a baby with the bad judgement to be seen being pushed around by a sleazy politician. Unfortunately for the hapless occupants of the strollers wheeled by some of the other local sleazy politicians—all sharing the same consulting firm, known for its templated email and text messages that look just alike, not a coincidence, (”Hey why don’t you find a baby or a dog to push up main street, the rubes will eat that up”)—they weren’t as lucky at dodging the clutches of lobbyist-funded egomaniacs who are inserting their templated self-promotions into every aspect of local life, to now include the complete takeover of Guthrie’s own version of Pravda.

Yes, it must be a great comfort to those 1960s hippies—the twenty or so hopeful souls who staged their No Kings Faire on the now-ADA-compliant, more-dangerous-than-ever sidewalks of the First Capital—as they meditate to the tunes of their national anthem, emitted from the mouth organ: This Land Is Your Land. That though they may never live to see their day of promise, their liberation by Uncle Joe and his international order of Soviet communism, at least they can, in a small way, live the Soviet experience by means of tuning into the GNUP Network, also known as 2nd Banana Media, and for all intents and purposes experience the state-controlled TV, PRAVDA-esque experience.

Yes, it’s the joke of the Coffee Clubbers this morning: poor Coffee Club Norm, always suspecting that global cooling was the greatest threat to the 89ers Day Faire—even more threatening than the woke-ism that’s shut down the 89ers Day experience for so many other Sooner State residents. Upon getting a blast of the north wind, he took the bullet for the team and played the 2nd Banana Meeting coffee-drinking game. Coffee Club Norm is one of those fellows whose inadequate blood circulation has him running the heaters anytime the First Capital Bank thermometer drops below 80. Now, in fairness, that thermometer isn’t a precise measurement, but much like the books at the First Capital Bank—at least according to the federal regulators—it’s more of a general suggestion of climatological condition.

IYKYK.

So, as Norm scurried back into the warming embrace of his power-sucking heater devices, gave a long sigh, and tuned the YouTube machine over to the mind-numbing commentary of PNick—who, to his credit, seemingly only gave in to a single double entendre exchange with co-host and Guthrie Chamber President Brittany Timmons—yes, just enough bad judgment to leave the viewer guessing as to what might be going on in the shadows in the First Territorial Capital scene.

Unfortunately for Coffee Club Norm, this year the club, suspecting the full-on Pravdazation of the 2nd Banana coverage, made the drinking word—as Coffee Club Frenchy has coined, due to his tendency to speak too fast, not spacing out words—“Esteemed Senator ChuckAll.”

Now, ChuckAll has been the leading annoyance at the Coffee Club, sending clubbers an endless stream of direct mail and unsolicited text messages that Coffee Club Frenchy has assured clubbers is, as CCF puts it, “the biggest grift perpetrated on the citizens of this fine city since the bond issue of 54.” (And, no, The Guthrie Man is NEVER going to let that one go. Take that Al Powell!)

Basically, CCF’s proposition is, based on his insider-y know-it-all status, that ChuckAll is a member of a powerful big-spending liberal-Republican cabal in the Senate that’s jamming up the legislation of conservatives while ChuckAll sponsored the biggest budget in state history. And that cabal, worried about the fact that they lost their leader during the last election, is greatly paranoid about losing more of their members and thus losing control of their power to the conservatives in the Senate, you know, the ones who actually, at least once in a while, on a dood day, try to govern in accordance with their many campaign promises.

So, many of the cabal’s special interest groups are pouring in the cash to keep the cabal in power. And this is mighty unfortunate for the sanity of local residents, because each few days becomes déjà vu when they go to their mailbox and see what is, seemingly, pretty much the exact same mailer they got just a few days previous.

You read it, but it tells you nothing. And, then, it happens again. And again. And again.

Now, as CCF explains, they aren’t spending that money for nothing. You can be sure that they either have, or are going to, make bank if ChuckAll’s liberal-Republican cabal stays in power.

So, it’s with that understanding that the club designated ChuckAll as the coffee-drinking word of the day.

For Coffee Club Norm? Well, let’s just say he successfully avoided the north wind frostbite, but he’s not exactly in a state to join the Coffee Club this morning.

PNick and his sidekicks had ChuckAll coronated for re-election and nominated for sainthood within minutes of the show’s open.

It was unabashed, unashamed, with not a single sense of hesitation that this might be inappropriate—and indicative of the fact that 2nd Banana might be broadcasting to at least one or two people who aren’t on board with the “take the money from the lobbyists, pretend to be a conservative, and then vote like Hubert Humphrey” game.

Unfortunately for ChuckAll—who spent who knows how much of lobbyists’ money sponsoring the program—as he pushed his stroller up the Main Street hill, ready for his big moment on Guthrie Pravda TV, full of energy, and the doting Chris Evans approaching with the microphone, the unique sense of fate that tends to haunt all communist-style endeavors—the type of thing that tends to convince the justice-seeking person that yes, there is a God, and He has a sense of humor—kicked in.

And that microphone… well, it just kept cutting out, leaving Hall’s impassioned pandering to go where the impassioned pandering of all politicians deserves to find itself—blowing away, unheard by everyone except for Chris Evans, in the 89ers Day cold north wind.

Yes, isn’t that the way it always works in corrupt, state-run societies?

1. ChuckAll votes for hundreds of millions in corporate welfare giveaways, basically destroying the free market and creating a state-driven economy.

2. Those who advocate for this state-driven economy, and likely receive great benefit from it, give thousands to ChuckAll.

3. ChuckAll gives hundreds to 2nd Banana Media.

4. 2nd Banana Media’s microphone doesn’t work.

In a free market economy, ChuckAll would have given that money back to the overtaxed people. The people, with more money in their pockets, would have started business and industry of their own volition, without state control dictating who gets the benefit and who doesn’t. The lobbyists—well, they wouldn’t be needed, because when there is small government, there’s little need to lobby. And 2nd Banana? Well, he could finance his operation not on the backs of sleazy politicians, but rather on the quality of the product he produced, meaning, that when the quality of the product resorts to the double entendre from PNick, mind-numbing politician-pandering, and non-functioning microphones, then 2nd Banana would quickly and rightly disappear.

Meaning, instead of boring the listeners with the party line of “ChuckAll is doing an amazing job because the legislators finished the budget earlier,” PNick could instead tell the truth: “ChuckAll and a lot of the other politicians are running scared because one of their leaders was defeated in the last election. They have to get back to the district STAT, to ensure they aren’t the next victim of an ever-wiser electorate who is just starting to get and understand the grift. But, by wrapping up the session a month earlier than normal, they are accidentally showing that much of the legislature’s “work” is, in fact, unnecessary. And if courageous challengers will keep challenging these sleazy politicians, there’s going to be a lot less ‘legislating’ going on.”

Yes, friends of the Guthrie Man, this is why you tune in to the Guthrie Man Coffee Club. It’s that little pocket of space that only the truly informed know even exists (remember, you must keep it that way—do not share this communicay). And that’s why the Coffee Club continues to be the most powerful institution in the First Capital: it’s the fire of truth that can never be extinguished—not by Guthrie Pravda, not by ChuckAll, not by anyone.

Until next time, friends of the Guthrie Man.

A very happy 89ers Day.

And,

stay crunchy.

A very good rainy Sunday morning to all of the fine friends of The Guthrie Man.

Yes, that rain is going to abridge this morning’s ubiquitous LCSO meeting in the Simone’s parking lot, forcing those county LEOs to hang out in their taxpayer-fueled mega trucks while the full crew assembles for the customary Sunday morning LEO special.

Now thus far, it’s just a pleasant spring rain affair, but as the carnies assemble and prepare to deploy their 89ers Day faire, one is right to remember the prognostication of Coffee Club Mike: “One of these years, it’s going to happen, the creek’s gonna rise again, right in time for 89ers, again, and the whole thing is going to go kaput!”

Of course, maybe the pre-89ers week rain will unjinx the 89ers week bout of global cooling, which has attached itself to the vaunted holiday that woke has killed in most other communities, but is still preserved in the rightful capital city, though to a much lesser extent than in the bygone days when parade marshals included the likes of Leslie Nielsen or Mayor Fiorello La Guardia of La Guardia Airport fame.

But, if woke hasn’t killed the land run celebration faire, then maybe global cooling won’t either, but here’s what global cooling has done: force those clubbers who are of weaker constitutions to debate the benefits of being tough for two hours, and powering down through the cold, or braving the color commentary from the 2nd Banana Media Network.

Now, the benefits of the latter include getting to create, debate, and enforce the Coffee Club coffee drinking game: such as, anytime PNic stumbles into an awkward comment about the fortitude of the ethnic dance girls team as they parade down Main Street notwithstanding the arctic temperatures while still largely in a, as Winston Churchill might put it, “a state of nature.”

Yes, those 89ers of old are rolling in their Boot Hill graves at the moral decay of today’s culture.

But, this year, things are a bit different. With the political shift down at the faux-city-hall building, and a mayor, which for the first time in this century, or at least since Eveleny Newphew took the gavel and started making everyone in city hall form a big hand-holding circle, the clubbers are genuinely excited about, and even bursting with the type of community pride that will entice them to forgo the 2nd Banana media coverage and coffee drinking game, and simply brave the cold to, if anything, stand up for the concept of opening the unassigned lands in an era of McGirt, the rightful claim of the first and best state capital to reclaim its status, and just generally protest all things woke.

In fact, the clubbers haven’t had this much civic pride since Joe Carey introduced his first capital resolution back in the state house back in ‘57. That’s the one that threatened to annex Oklahoma City, the then and still pretender to the capital. Introduced during the Oklahoma City annexation craze, and before the Supreme Court destroyed the rural balance in the state house, that resolution got some attention, and it was a great way to celebrate the semi-centennial.

Of course, some of the more prominent locals at the time were doing whatever they could to move the city into the Arrows to Atoms age, celebrating the space age by issuing one of those almighty bond issues, and tearing down the only city hall worth keeping—the real one, Constitution Hall—and replacing it with that atomic-age city hall with the drive-through window so that one wouldn’t need to leave the soon-to-be flying car whilst trying to pay the water bill.

But, the Guthrie Man does tend to reminisce.

What’s important to note: Joe Carey never sent the Guthrie Man an unsolicited text message.

Yes, that was back when the local politicians had the common sense to realize that NO ONE—and the Guthrie Man does mean, NO ONE—wants to open their smartphone device expecting to receive an important communicay, only to be forced into watching a video of Charles McCall with food on his face, or ChuckAll, the senator from Perry, in a perpetual appearance of having forgotten to take the chaw out of his jaw, letting the Guthrie Man know that he has managed to stumble into the correct location for submitting his name for re-election.

NO ONE—and the Guthrie Man means, NO ONE—cares that ChuckAll knows how to find the right place to sign up for re-election.

The hubris and arrogance of these politicians, thinking their every movement matters to the serfs they tax, has now extended to the unsolicited text message, which apparently politicians can indulge in as much as they want now, unencumbered by the data protection laws they pass, or the no-call list, as demonstrated by the fact that Carey’s successor, Collin Duel, engaged in the exact same annoyance: sending an unsolicited text message, on that very same day as Hall’s, letting everyone know that he too was capable of finding the right location for submitting his name for re-election and letting everyone know he has more work to do.

More work to do?

What exactly has he done?

Let’s check in on the I-35/Waterloo interchange, promised years ago.

Or the perpetual Sooner Road traffic backup, the fix to which is now purportedly completely off the books.

Frankly, it’s become a joke: politicians purporting to work. They are clearly creations by the same consultancies with the same template, and that’s being exposed every time ChuckAll or Duel send out the exact same mailer, with some schmuck at some remote content factory just dropping in the same photo, and re-casting the same layout and design over and over again.

The formula is clear: these guys are wining and dining the money crowd in Oklahoma City, then if they vote the way the money crowd wants them to vote, the money crowd gives them unimaginable amounts money, and it all goes to the same overworked content factory that’s churning out the spam, with the same bullet points that leave one asking, “I know I just read that, but it didn’t tell me anything,” copied and pasted under the ubiquitous picture of Trump, the man who survived the most politicized attacks in the history of the nation and an assassin’s bullet, only to now face the ultimate indignity: being repurposed and drafted on over and over again by sleazy red-state politicians all across the red-state-everse.

Of course, there’s now the very real possibility that all that spam, especially the direct mail spam, might start to backfire.

This week, the big money school choice crowd somehow thought it would be a good idea to tell the locals that they own both Hall and Duel. Well, those in the know down at the illegitimate capital city have long known this to be the case: these two will no doubt talk big on “public” education back home, but they are going to go where the money is, and believe it or not, that’s not public education.

But those school choicers—they know what they are doing. They aren’t going to let the sleazy politicians dance with the devil without letting everyone know whose souls they own. Unfortunately for the politicians, the school choicers couldn’t take the time to design a uniquely designed template for the house member whose soul they clearly own, and the senate member whose soul they think they own.

And that’s, at the end of the day, the problem with big money: it’s lazy.

There’s something about having all of the money in the world, and the ability to buy one’s way out of hard work, that infects the mind and decimates its effectiveness. It’s a rule of nature: wealth makes laziness, and laziness leads to complacent mistakes.

The capitol politicians and big money groups think they can spend a few hundred dollars on an unsolicited text message and not have to do the hard work of fixing the infrastructure or meeting with the people, or doing any of the hard things that are really doing the job. They think they can take more money from the taxpayers and spend more money, and that’s going to fix everything and keep them fat and happy, re-elected, living the capital city lifestyle for the next two years, while the people they represent live the hard-working lives that pay the salaries of the lazy slobs and their party lifestyle are going to give their vote, based on the same five-bullet-pointed spam template sent over, and over, and over again.

And usually, they are right. The Guthrie Man has seen the Guthrie Man’s fair share of bad politicians, but it is getting worse. There’s more money involved than before. Back in Frank Davis’s day, Frank would run for re-election with those paper signs and go door-knocking one at a time. The Guthrie Man distinctly remembers old Frank stopping by back in the ‘80s to put his sign outside of the Guthrie Man’s house with its prime position for everyone on the highway to take note.

Sure, Frank would put some ads in the Leader, and maybe send one or two pieces of mail, but that was it.

Now, the election cycle never ends.

Gentner Drummond started running campaign commercials just days after the last campaign ended, officially introducing the never-ending campaign season.

ChuckAll and Collin Duel and their dark money supporters started mailing long ago, and there’s no sign that either will be running out of money anytime soon, completely free to spam the mailboxes with the exact same templated piece of junk mail, in a demonstration of waste that steals the shame from the ancient Romans of old, and causes the wise observer to note: if they are this wasteful with their campaign dollars, imagine how badly they are wasting the taxpayer dollars?

Yes, our local politicians are a big meme. And, if the Guthrie Man were consulting for those who would do the first capital the tremendous honor of stepping up and challenging these two—someone please, just step up—the Guthrie Man would advise a campaign strategy of exposing them for the meme that they themselves, and their dark money supporters, have built: arrogant spammers who have no respect for the sanctity of the personal text message or the mailbox.

Sure, the, let’s just say, not-so-in-sync with the locals’ druthers, actions of those two should still be communicated: ChuckAll trying to give Oklahoma driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, or making it so that Christians could have their license to practice taken away for telling a boy that he’s, in fact, created by God to be a, well, a boy and he should probably stay that way, or Duel’s midnight voting to create a new state bureaucracy while the people who pay his salary slept, through a monstrous 1,300-page bill that had only been available for one day, or his vote to let aliens be police officers and arrest citizens, all of that is content gold, but the meme of the creepy politician practically stalking his victims right up until election day, when he then stops returning their calls—well, that’s just too true to pass up and if done right, it might just be the tool for liberating the local seats of power from the money crowd.

And, there are plenty of locals who are smart, smart enough to get it.

But, speaking of locals who aren’t so smart: Coffee Club Mike, the eternal “I ain’t for it” guy who can’t bother to find himself in the majority because he’s always got to be in the minority, also found himself down at the first capital’s No Kings protest with the smelly boomer hippies, playing the national anthem of the American communist on the mouth organ the other day. Yes, and then it was, as the strains of This Land Is Your Land echoed down the now-ADA-compliant, thanks to COVID, sidewalk—the factor that enabled the protest of the overweight rascal-driving hippies in the first place—that Mike suddenly realized: this wasn’t the No Kings protest he thought it was.

It’s been a real sore spot down at the club: first capital fast food restaurants that no longer exist. Topping the list, of course, Little Caesars. There’s no Little Caesars inflation indicator for clubbers anymore, because obtaining that item, the ultimate perfection of fast food now requires a trip to the first capital’s southernmost suburbs at the KickingBird Shopping Center. Then there’s Taco Bueno, whose departure allowed the corporate Starbucks to commit the hate crime atrocity of destroying the 89ers Day relief, and the Del Rancho—all long gone.

So now, the clubbers have a custom watch list: who is next to leave, principally due to the fact that Dr. Simpson’s conformity factory can’t keep the kids from becoming stoners, and the labor market—especially if this minimum wage hike is passed—doesn’t support the concept of the hard-working teenager anymore, except for perhaps at Braum’s where you do find the competent fast food worker, a single local venue providing a tribute to the history of what American fast food used to be like.

And topping that watch list, the Burger King, with their delicious charbroiled fare, now constantly on the clubbers’ death watch—a watch that’s ever more complicated by the fact that the parking lot remains empty, not patronized by the locals for fear that they might be confused with someone trying to buy illicit substances as the appetizer.

So, of course, Coffee Club Mike, the ultimate “ginner,” was easy pickings for recruitment into the ranks of the No Kings communists, taking to the streets, still awaiting the long-promised deliverance from corporatist capitals by the international communistic order and their friend Uncle Joe from the Soviet Union. Yes, it’s been a rough 35 years since the alleged fall of the Soviet utopia, but credit to the smelly hippie boomers—they still believe.

Coffee Club Mike shouldn’t have had to wait for the strings of Woody Guthrie to know that something was off. This wasn’t a clever protest against the creepy Burger King king; this was the lackluster work of stoner boomers whose brain cells can’t get up a sign that’s any more creative than random scribblings of “No Kings, No Kings, No Kings.” Yes, poetry it is not.

And it’s the generation that still struggles to turn on the computer, much less navigate to the almighty AI to ask for a creative slogan or two—at least a “Don’t Make Us Trump the Tea Again.” Really, anything with the slightest creativity would do.

And now one sees why the local Democrats can’t seem to reverse the curse, absolutely getting smoked in voter registrations by the independents, falling farther and farther behind in percent of total Logan County registrations. If they can’t do better than “No Kings” three times, then how can they be expected to fill out those complicated voter registration forms?

That’s all for now fine friend of The Guthrie Man and The Guthrie Man Coffee club, The Guthrie Man has a relaxing spring Sunday ahead, the one day, when thanks to the fact that the mailman lady isn’t on duty, when The Guthrie Man’s mailbox won’t be spammed by those stalker-y politicians.

It’s time for church.

You are going to church aren’t you?

It’s a good idea, unless it is one of those low-hundred block addresses on East Noble. And, then, it’s probably just making things worse.

Always remember the Guthrie Man’s rule of thumb: if while in the pew, your olfactories kick up the slightest sense of rancid Cash Saver chicken, you might be a heretic, and it’s time for a reformation, unless you are already a Baptist, and then, carry on.

Until next time,

Stay crunchy.

And a good Sunday morning to all of the very fine friends of the Guthrie Man. It’s a beautiful spring weekend, with the Guthrie Man’s guaranteed seal of approval that, from this point on, those arctic sub-fifty-degree bone chillers that drive the senior-citizen demographic down at the Guthrie Man Coffee Club to a stance of perpetual annoyance are long gone, never to return again — with, of course, the exception of ’89ers Day, which for some reason seems to now be colder on average than the Victorian Walk. Ahh, climate change — you made Al Gore a bazillionaire, but you can’t keep your story straight.

And if tomorrow, for some reason, the sub-fifty-degree temperatures return with a vengeance, just remember, the Guthrie Man is still a better prognosticator than that other well-known Guthrie native, and perhaps the nation’s foremost redneck meteorologists over on the only news station that manages to get through to the First Capital on these new-fangled high-definition digital antenna contraptions that can’t hold a candle to the rabbit ears that the Obama administration put out of business.

Thanks, Obama!

But, yes, as the LCSO crew finishes up the Simone’s LEO Special and congregates in the parking lot for the after-breakfast debrief — the most important LEO event of the week — perhaps they are reflecting on how the Trump administration has made the lives of our local community so much better this week.

Yes, friends, let’s just say that those mysterious cannabis clouds that used to haunt the more easterly sections of the Pine Oaks neighborhood whenever those winds whipped around from the northwest and a cold front approached — well, those days, as of now, are gone.

Yes, in the very unlikely event that the Guthrie Man’s prognostication of no more cold fronts for a while doesn’t hold out — and let’s, for the fun of it, say as soon as tomorrow — those second-hand stoners at the back of Pine Oaks, expecting to draft off of the fumes of Oklahoma’s biggest policy mistake since statehood, might just be disappointed.

That’s because, apparently, as the state LEOs and the Trump feds who are putting the black-market Chinese slave laborers on ICE do their thing, SLC is being liberated from the pot clouds, one cloud at a time.

The clubbers are now theorizing that, “by the time ole JD takes that gold down from the Oval Office, there won’t be a Chinese pot grow left in this county.”

Bad news for all of those East Coasters who have come to live on Chinese-mystery-chemical-laced, pure-South-Logan-County-grown cannabis,” at least, that’s the working “theory,” subject of course, to the outcome of the court process.

Now, all of this is bad news for the transmission line crew, set to slice and dice Logan County one more time with their newest high-voltage transmission line, no doubt with the complete acquiescence of just about every elected official who is supposed to defend the people who live here, but now is set to lose what was no doubt one of the biggest consumers of electricity in these parts.

It’s also bad news for all of the landlords who made bank on this phenomenon. Let’s just say, they aren’t the most popular people down at the coffee club these days.

The Guthrie Man blames Hollywood culture. For years the late-night hosts and the sitcoms mocked and ridiculed the concept of sobriety. Now, a big chunk of society has just checked out, rewired their brains with all sorts of chemical abuse — both legal and not — and are simply zombified husks of humanity.

But, always one to look at the bright side, the Guthrie Man would tell each and every reader that this is the great opportunity. In a society that’s increasingly dominated by zombies, those who are sober-minded, intelligent, hardworking, and wanting to live life the old-fashioned way — well, they will always be in high (very high) demand. Yes, their taxes will continue to pay for the ills of society, and they will have to navigate around the freak show that is popping up at about every major Oklahoma City and Tulsa intersection, but their services will be essential to prevent society’s decay and eventual collapse, and they will never need fear not being able to find employment, even as AI eats up much of the job market.

Speaking of living life the old-fashioned way, the club sure has turned against the tattoo.

“Human graffiti — that’s all it is!”

In fact, it’s become a game at the club: guess what percent of the Walmart crowd sports a human-body-defacing tattoo?

Currently, the clubbers’ best guess: we are running at 33 percent and increasing.

How high will it go?

How many in society will give in to the temptation to destroy their own appearance and a key element of their God-given humanity?

Defacing one’s body — it’s a real brain disease, and even the most libertarian, live-and-let-live segment of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club is coming around to the supposition that the club should create an award — an official recognition of courage and standing by traditional lessons learned throughout years of Western society — to be known as the “Bill Graves Was Right, Recognition of Courage” award.

The story goes like this. About 25 years ago, there was a courageous state representative by the name of Bill Graves, notable because he shared a desk on the House floor with local state representative Frank Davis, and who was roundly mocked by the know-it-all class as the old rube whose defense of all things traditional simply didn’t have a place in the modern world.

Graves didn’t live long enough to see the full extent of the consequences of a society which ignored his warnings, and likewise won’t be around to say, “I told you so,” so the clubbers are thinking that they can do it for him — perhaps in the form of an award to the state’s most courageous and outspoken personalities who just tell the truth, even when it makes them the target for ridicule.

Graves sure got ridiculed for asserting that that old book of ancient wisdom, which has always managed to survive throughout time — almost as if by some sort of divine providence — wasn’t big on the idea of humans destroying their God-given humanity.

And more and more, it’s looking like Bill Graves knew what he was talking about.

Bill Graves — he was right.

As for the Guthrie Man, it’s time to invest in that tattoo-removal business. Making money off of the brain backfires of a sick society — that’s the Guthrie Man way!

Speaking of the brain backfires of society, the Coffee Club has decided that the Doc Simpson crew down at the Central Elementary School Conformity Factory has been trying to tell us something.

Yes, Doc’s enduring struggle with his angry inner liberal has long been a subject-matter constant at the club — along with the running game of tracking each time Doc loses that battle and it manifests in some fresh public absurdity. The latest example appears to be the Central Elementary marquee, where, for reasons known only to the bureaucratic subconscious, taxpayers now seem to be funding the broadcast of marquee propaganda in a foreign language.

It’s becoming a genuine traffic hazard. Driving east on Noble is complicated enough already without having to pull out the Google Translate app and zoom in on the Central marquee — all while keeping one wary eye on the possibility that the local Episcopalian scion’s “I Love Gay Things” yard sign might break loose and blow into traffic, creating yet another obstacle for motorists to survive.

If it wasn’t for the obvious — yes, this is the inner liberal’s way of protesting the concept that this nation should probably have a controlled border, a subliminal finger to a conservative community that believes in a shared culture with a shared common language — then this would be a real mystery.

Did the foreign-language-speaking demographic suddenly spike, unbeknownst to the all-seeing eyes of the most informed institution in the First Capital, the Guthrie Man Coffee Club? What’s going on around here?

Is the local conformity factory being flooded with foreign-language-speaking students? Could this be the reason for the low test scores?

Now, here’s where the clubbers would point out that the county’s lack of industry may actually be working in its favor. There simply aren’t enough State Chamber operators around here who need a steady supply of low-skilled factory drones to import a meaningful foreign-labor demographic shift into what remains a 98-percent English-speaking county. And those Chinese pot slave laborers are safely tucked away out at the slave-labor grow farm, so even that situation is nicely contained. Which leaves only one logical conclusion: this whole foreign-language marquee business is less about necessity and more about the angry liberal’s symbolic protest against the Trumper and all things Americana.

It’s not a wise strategy. Who’s going to change their mind and become an open-borders liberal simply because the local school district has the temerity to put its marquee into a foreign language for all to see?

Rather, it’s just the constant reminder that the local superintendent doesn’t share the values of those he’s supposed to work for — the quintessential example of the overpaid local bureaucrat who thinks he’s better than those who pay his overpriced salary. And boy is it overpriced — a problem not unique to the First Capital, but one that the Coffee Club can’t fix in one day. Give it time.

Patience — it’s a virtue.

But one can’t help but feel a certain sympathy for Doc’s tortured, angry inner liberal. Sure, Doc — the host entity, after all — likes to pal around with the state’s education and political elite, the latter of whom will talk a good game on the subject of public education. But let’s face it: all that really matters is the money. And the money, well, it’s firmly on the side of school-choice tax credits for everyone.

So when Doc is palling around on the golf course with the local senator, or doing the pandering charm offensive with the local state representative, his inner angry liberal — who most certainly opposes all things school choice with a passion — is no doubt engaged in a cognitive-dissonance civil war with his host worthy of a Ken Burns documentary.

And that’s a war of cognitive dissonance that every member of the local “public education at all costs — quite literally” crowd has to fight. Re-elect those who will tell them what they want to hear, but who will, in a heartbeat, sell them out for money? And, who did exactly that on House Bill 1934, the tax credit bill. Or vote for principled challengers who don’t really play the money game and who, while they might not agree on every issue of education policy, at least offer views that are honest, open, and consistent? And, thus, quite predictable. Isn’t that the better approach?

Speaking of Doc’s political connections, perhaps one of his all-time favorite politicians just suffered an all-time epic face-plant. Yes, that would be local senator-turned-lobbyist-turned-destroy-Oklahoma-elections advocate A.J. Griffin, whose no-doubt-shadowy-Sorosy-funded operation to obliterate the election process in Oklahoma — by making it into a costly jungle primary process that’s all about the big money and forever destroying the chances of the little guy to get elected — apparently failed to spend even a fraction of its budget validating the signatures on its initiative petition. It was thrown out.

After years of preparing for their assault on the primary election process, one would think someone in leadership might have said, “Maybe we should make sure these signatures are valid before we turn them in.” Nope. Apparently that step was skipped.

And for the locals who were so hopeful when Oklahoma’s County #1 finally landed its first state senator in half a decade — only to watch that seat effectively migrate north to Perry, and now to witness this latest episode — it feels like yet another dent in the county’s civic confidence. First came the epic betrayal of local values on the statewide stage for all to see, embarrassing those who put their name on the line to elect A.J. Then came the equally epic display of operational incompetence. At a certain point, even the most patient clubbers are left with only one available commentary: wow. Just. Wow.

Let’s just say that “Don’t vote for A.J.” has now officially surpassed “Buy Bitcoin” at the very top of the Guthrie Man’s long-standing Do-This-When-I-Finally-Get-the-Time-Machine-Working checklist. And Grok AI is literally just this close to being able to tell The Guthrie Man how to properly tweak the flux capacitor.

Where is Mr. Mangus these days anyway? Sir, The Guthrie Man owes you an apology.

Well, that’s how it goes sometimes in the Territorial Capital. You win a few, you lose a few.

But at least, for now, Oklahoma’s best-in-the-nation election system remains intact — and that, fine friends of the Guthrie Man, is the epic white pill.

Until next time,

fine friends of the Guthrie Man,

stay crunchy.

It’s an amazing weather for this Sunday Morning Special of Guthrie Man coffee club.

The LCSO crew is making their 6 AM entrance into dark confines of Simone’s for the breakfast combo #1, and #2, and maybe #5 too — hey, at Simone’s prices, there’s no reason not to just combine the 1, 2, and 5 into the LEO Special: 2 flapjacks, six eggs, French toast, toast, and lots of meat. That’s the life. But though Simone’s gets kudos for affordability, the coffee, well, it can’t compete with the Guthrie-fish-water-flavored Folgers of The Guthrie Man Coffee Club.

Attendance is up today. All of the Fox News boomers can’t get in the door soon enough to start pontificating on how quickly they’re “gonna get ole Trump up on Rushmore,” and competing to be the first to throw out the standard Boomer MAGA tropes, “Well, that Kou-maini, sure ain’t saying ‘Death to Merica’ no more!”

Maduro, Khamenei, Trump’s quick work of disposing the world’s most evil dictators — faster than the Guthire Man gets to the first coffee refill — has the tin foil hat conspiracy people at the club now theorizing that the evil dictators — who have kept the news cycle going and the defense contractors fat and happy for 45 years, but who could never be flushed out for some reason — were all just big-state CIA/NGO plants. No wonder the deep state hates Trump. He’s full on schedule to have worldwide peace and love fully implemented by the time J.D. changes out the gold curtains in the Oval Office. The clubbers are reckoning that there won’t be a need for a Department of War at all by the time Trump has left the building.

Then there’s Coffee Club Mike. Mike is one of those clubbers who always has to be in the minority, somehow, some way. Example: pre-Epstein files release, when it was a kooky conspiracy to be talking about worldwide pizza networks, Mike was all in on the Alex Jones side of it all: “They will never let those files see the light of day.”

Now that the files are coming out, and everyone thinks that there was a worldwide pizza network available to all of the most influential members of the Bilderberger Group, Mike has a different point of view: “This is all a plot by the liberal lawyers to shake down a bunch of innocent people who did nothing more than innocently email a receipt for pizza over to their investment friend.”

That’s the most interesting thing about a certain segment of the population: one way or another, they are completely unable to find themselves within a majority opinion for longer than it takes Mayor Gentling to refer to himself in the third person. The Guthrie Man has long observed that these types are never happy if they aren’t standing alone, telling everyone else how wrong they are. And the frustrating part of it all? They are constantly right. But when they are wrong, they sure are annoying; because they never admit it.

Then there’s the great chicken-and-egg conundrum: be cool and fund the pool; or mind the crack and back the spillway.

Which is the chicken?

And, which is the egg?

It’s the typical small-town conundrum, best expressed in a bit of universal Coffee Club wisdom: for all of the many millions spent by City Hall — now racing at breakneck speed toward its first $100 million budget — City Hall will avoid spending money on the things that matter most, while going all in on those that matter least. It’s not very showy to spend money taking care of the things that already exist; it’s far more thrilling to spend money on the things that exist only in the imagination.

Case in point: City Hall drove hard to raise taxes so that the city could be a parks destination. New parks, new playing fields. A simple tax increase or two, and Guthrie would be for sure become a destination point of all things sports and leisure, and with that would come all types of economic development, perhaps starting with the Dick’s Sporting Goods of the world.

Imagine the tax base of a Dick’s Sporting Goods?

Who could be so blind as to not raise taxes to bring in the Dick’s Sporting Goods of the world and expand the city’s sales tax base?

It’s the Keynesian gospel of choice: spend money to make money.

So the people raise sales taxes. Then the people raise lodging taxes.

And now?

Well, hundreds of thousands, if not millions are tied up in the Owens Field project, a project that’s spun so out of control in terms of money that it’s now at the level of multi-million-dollar boondoggle one would normally see over in county government, where they, for some reason, bought and completely renovated a new office building that they didn’t need, and which, get this, sits on land that they do not own — all the while, of course, insisting that your potholed road is so bad that it needs to be de-evolved back to dirt. Let’s just say the third world doesn’t have much on certain Logan County road districts.

But now, there’s a problem: all that money is tied down in Owens Field project purgatory. And even though the sales tax base continues to expand, it doesn’t seem to keep up with another eternal truth of the coffee club: City Hall will never have enough money, and those who work in City Hall will never stop complaining about not having enough money.

And that’s in part because of the faux logic of the tax increasers who have forgotten another, coffee club eternal truth: more money, more problems.

Yes, with every new expenditure comes new ongoing maintenance costs. Build a new park? Well guess what — either that new park turns into an old park very fast, or the parks budget sure better get bigger.

So, as ironic as it seems, even as the city has greatly expanded its budget, its ability to maintain items such as a city pool has degraded.

Now, the pool people, as they are affectionately known, are having a real hard time with this. Past generations of Guthrie children could find summertime recreation, outdoor time, in that historic, atomic-age super pool over at Highland. Remind the Guthrie Man to tell a little bit about the history of that iconic structure at some future club meeting.

But as City Hall has been unable to keep the pool open for a variety of reasons, current generations of Guthrieans aren’t learning to swim.

And that has one questioning: how many of the drowning deaths of recent years could have been prevented if those victims had been able to access the pool?

So even though everyone is paying more in taxes, as they swipe that SNAP card down at the Cash Saver — and boy, was that Cash Saver sweating it a few weeks ago when the SNAP program was almost put on pause by those rascally Democrat politicians, talk about a bad day for the Safeway/Homeland/Cash Saver operation — they still aren’t being taught by the city government how to swim.

And that’s the chicken part of the City Hall chicken-and-egg dilemma.

Here’s the egg.

As the adage goes, City Hall will miss out on taking care of the things that matter most.

That was nicely illustrated by the most recent dam report. Yes, City Hall does a lot of dam reports. People don’t know about the dam reports, probably because dam reports aren’t talked about a lot — especially not the dam report that exposed the poor condition of a certain asset that’s being practically given away to an influential local organization known as the Country Club.

But that’s a story for another day.

The dam report in question at this morning’s fare is the dam report from the city’s water supply: Guthrie Lake.

Now, Coffee Club regulars will know that the western spillway has been super sketch since the floods in the ’90s, when the Job Corps crew had to activate to shore it up.

Then last year’s spring rains had observant locals questioning if the town’s water supply was about to disappear in a single big, dam-cracking, Genesis-style water woosh — an event that at least appears to have allowed the new Edmond overlords down at the EGRA (yes, the Coffee Club has now officially put Edmond first in the Edmond-Guthrie Regional Airport acronym, due to the recent coup of the Edmond crew on that board, aided by the treachery of the Cloud Guru on the local City Council and his talkative postman sidekick, whose treachery to their town has the Guthrie Man suggesting they de-annex Ward 2 and officially join it to the territorial capital’s southernmost suburb) — to have released the extra rip rap from the airport for a little dam stabilization work.

But EGRA rip rap notwithstanding, apparently the most recently submitted dam report seems to confirm the worry of the locals.

Those who lay eyes on that water shooting through the crack in the spillway and think, “Surely my government knows that there’s a bunch of spooky-looking cracks in the spillway, and they won’t let the whole lake do a full-on big water woosh,” are just being naive.

Yes, your government seems willing to tempt fate, tying up all of their new tax increase money in the great Dick’s Sporting Goods gambit (e.g., the Owens Field project) as it spirals out of control — and even when built will add who knows how many hundreds of thousands in ongoing maintenance costs — while not properly maintaining the ancient spillway on the dam of the city’s water supply.

This is the quintessential example of government in the big-credit era: go for the shiny, the exciting, justified with the faux logic of “spend money to make money,” while the things that matter most fall into decay and disrepair.

That same Keynesian stupidity of the modern era that has so degraded the family values — keeping both mom and dad working full time, paying half of their income to the government, in exchange for allowing the government and government vendors to raise their children — once applied to the government policy arena by the dull-witted policymakers, who are living this lifestyle in their personal lives, once applied to society in general, has the same deadly consequences: spending money on things that can’t be afforded, while failing to maintain those that must be.

And for the pool people, well, perhaps as they lobby for funds to get City Hall to do what it used to do — maintain a public pool — they could point to the great danger facing the city from the imminent breach of the Guthrie Lake spillway: “how many people are you willing to let drown in the imminently impending, great Guthrie Lake spillway water woosh deluge because you didn’t teach them to swim?”

For City Hall, this is the dilemma:

Spend the couple of million dollars or so to fix the spillway, or re-open the pool?

Or re-open the pool and teach the necessary survival skill of swimming through the great water woosh?

These are the dilemmas constantly faced by City Hall, and never solved, but regularly solved at the Guthrie Man Coffee Club, the town’s eminent brain trust, whose current — and dare the Guthrie Man say “official,” though not “unanimous” — policy position suggests the answer lies in “thinking outside the box.”

Yes, it’s that old trope often suggested by the naive outsider whose go-to comment upon viewing a City Hall dilemma is, “Why can’t they think outside the box?”

Well, when one approaches the hallowed confines of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club, it’s making the literal trip “outside of the box.”

The clubber solution: “Water polo at Owens Field.”

Surely those Osage Nation geniuses who have so thoughtfully flexed their muscle to drive up the cost of the Owens Field project won’t worry too much if the project is slightly modified into a water polo field. Will they?

Simply sink that field, make it multi-use, thus no longer necessitating a renovation of the Highland Park pool. Better still, with a little engineering, perhaps the great Guthrie Lake water woosh will provide the initial supply for filling the new field — and Dick’s does sell water polo equipment, right?

Yes, friends of the Guthrie Man, Guthrie will become the state’s destination point — some would dare say even the multi-state regional destination point — for all things outdoor water polo.

Guthrie’s future youngins will learn to swim, and future water polo Olympians will hail from the state’s first and foremost capital city, whose lack of a city water supply notwithstanding, will always look back to that “spend money to make money” tax increase as the catalyst for the city’s water polo greatness.

Of course, there will be the occasional Coffee Club Mikes — those who must be in the minority at all times and who won’t be able to grasp the vision. These Luddites, who would hold back our community — cheap critters still stubbornly refusing to accept the necessity of spending a little money to make a lot of money — will, for the purposes of their antiquated ideology and pre-Kensysen conservative mindset, always be naysayers. But surely the community is strong enough to ignore the naysayers and continue investing in its future greatness.

On a side and completely unrelated note, the Guthrie Man is looking for investors in a new water polo pool maintenance endeavor, and someone who knows how to write sole-source contract justification letters.

Let’s just say, bright days lie ahead for the Guthrie Man.

Until next time,

Fine friends of the Guthrie Man,

Stay crunchy.

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning in the first and best state capital.

As the sky behind the garish new paint job on the east side water tower turns orange, and the Angry Bunny Oldsters Club begins to wrap up its early morning fare, it’s time for the highlight of your day: the Guthrie Man Coffee—it’s in session!

Apparently, some jerk named Charles McCall and/or his surrogates have the guys (yes, no girls allowed in the hallowed confines of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club, except Coffee Club Flo, of course, who without her gruff, smoker’s charm, “top ya off hon” abilities and skills, there would be no Guthrie Man Coffee Club) complaining.

Apparently, one of the ways to get elected governor in this state involves stabbing your trash on the public right of way, in complete disregard for the new political signs ordinance propagated by the city hall brain trust, that applies to the people who actually live here, and want to follow the rules, and the life and safety of the motorists who have a not-inconsequential chance of coming into very close contact with that trash the next time a spring wind storm kicks up—and long before election day.

Such was the prospect when one of those McCall for Governor signs, thoughtfully installed down by the Walmart, lost one of its footings in the Friday wind and began swinging about just down from what locals know to be Kill Zone Number #1, the dangerous free-for-all by which a half dozen curb cuts enable full access to the first comer to their space on the South Elon Musk Expressway. Yes, Guthrieans carry on the proud tradition of the great land run of 1889 in a variety of contexts, and grabbing one’s stake in that southbound lane takes every bit of skill as hiding out down by the creek and sneaking in early to get your prime townsite claim. And let’s just say, there sure are a lot of “sooners” when it’s time to get in a little early on that southbound lane.

Now, surviving this chaos takes particular skill—a survival skill that’s now got to account for the fact that at any given moment, McCall for Governor could be advertised up close and very personal.

As non-litigious as is the Guthrie Man, having McCall for Governor get that close, while trying not to die of second banana media-induced embarrassment in Kill Zone #1, might just give rise to a trip down to the mostly empty and heavily underutilized Logan County Courthouse.

Yes, this current crop of county politicians has to be just about the worst stewards of local taxpayer dollars in the history of this county.

Speaking of awful stewards of taxpayer dollars, Congresswoman Stephanie Bice made her way to the faux City Hall to hand out one of those oversized big checks. Unfortunately, lots of local politicians went out of their way to seal clap the latest stake in the heart of the nation’s future fiscal viability: Congresswoman Bice this, Congresswoman Bice that.

The particular use for that big check?

Well, that’s triggered Coffee Club Eric into one of those “I told you so” frenzies.

Eric, a retired fireman (without the investment of retired firemen, by the way, there would be no coffee clubs), has long said that the currency of public safety finance—indeed even a black market, if you will—is radios. Eric claims that Big Radio, aka Motorola, has a monopolistic hold on public safety, and whenever the latest congressman shows up with a big check for radios, if you get the feeling that you’ve seen this movie once before, it’s because governments are constantly getting grants for radios. Motorola radios. Hmmmmm..

Back in December of ’24, if the word is right, the commissioners were reportedly told that DPS had come in doing a big radio upgrade. Now word is that Bice’s big check is going to be used to do more radio upgrades at departments around here. Eric’s insights and the latest Bice money drop have the coffee club in full-on conspiracy mode.

“I sure do wonder who’s making bank on the ‘old’ radios. I bet we can find ’em up on the eBay right now,” conspires Coffee Club Jack, the local landlord, between insistences that his local hovels are not, in fact, slums. “Or maybe they will show up at that new flea market down on the flats where the horror house guy is spinning up his latest endeavor.”

It’s the insight of a life lived long in Guthrie town. The constant seal clapping for whatever incumbent politician is spending big bucks around election season, just as her opponent’s signs begin to pop up—jetting in for the photo op with the compliant local officials—but the never-ending complaint from all things government that “we don’t have enough money” or “we have very limited funds.”

Unless one has the attention span and memory of a guppy, or the motivated reasoning of someone who gets their livelihood off government fare, once that person spends a half century or so of life lived in this town, they pretty much get the scamola.

But all of that notwithstanding, new City Manager Eddie Faulkner is winning great kudos down at the club for “jest tellin it like it is,” after vividly and clearly explaining to the “get grants at all costs” city council that not all grants are worth getting.

And then, to illustrate his point, Faulkner dragged out what might be the clankiest of the clanky skeletons in the City Hall basement (no, friends, it wasn’t in the unused city jail cell) and just straight up told everyone about the Owens Field debacle.

The Owens Field debacle has mostly, until now, been the exclusive conversational provenance of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club—a multi-million dollar boondoggle, the shocking and sensational specifics of which, you probably have never seen in the local media, that clubbers insist is tying down hundreds of thousands of that big tax increase City Hall won a decade ago that was supposed to make the city into one big, giant, state-of-the-art park for all to see and wonder at as they spent their sales tax dollars locally.

But now, with that money tied down, the big pool project up at Highland can’t seem to get filled up with enough cash without resorting to a “please be cool, even if you are a tool, and give us money for our pool” campaign.

Now, the Guthrie Man coffee clubbers, generally speaking, are big supporters of private funding and widespread community involvement such as “be cool, build our pool” campaigns.

“I remember when the Kiwanis went up there to Ritzehaupt and put in that wading pool,” is the regularly repeated example of how everyone would take care of itself if things would just return to their perfect 1950s community-spirited state, when the community would see a need, fix it, and there was no need to involve a cost-inducing bureaucracy, engineers and RFPs and vendors cashing in all the way to the back. Basically, society just worked in the 1950s, and now—well now—it’s very different, and very expensive to exist in. Why is that? It’s the perfect subject matter for a patented coffee club over analysis, at some point in the near future.

So when a new campaign runs out to solicit community involvement for the Highland pool, there’s a wistfulness that sweeps across the table.

“I would be all for this, except that’s what the big tax increase was supposed to be for. So now, I feel like a sucker if I voluntarily give money for something that should have been paid for by the money that was taken away from me against my will, and now is being wasted because some Indian tribe cost the taxpayers millions of dollars and the city council fell for it.”

So when Faulkner describes how the Owens Field project has spiked by millions of dollars due to some insanity of the federal grant requirement—which clubbers are saying involves getting the consent of some Indian tribe for the project to go forward, and they didn’t give that consent, and now the costs have spiraled—then:

Club members don’t want to give any more money to park projects, and they certainly don’t want to do it while the council members who mishandled this deal are still in power, to include the two Ward Two councilmembers who have been on the council for a decade and who don’t seem to understand that public service is supposed to be temporary—unless, of course, it is the role of benevolent dictator of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club, a role which the current occupant has no plans to vacate.

There’s another reason for Faulkner’s high approval in the club. The club members, having lived a life of experience and thoughtful observation, are sick and tired of every Guthrie city council candidate forum devolving into its lowest element of intellectualism, which is: “City government has no money. We must be careful stewards of our precious funds, and we must apply for all and every grant, and maybe increase taxes too.”

Faulkner’s vivid and apt description of the perils of grants was music to the club members’ ears, who—though admittedly perhaps fighting off the dangers of cynicism from being disappointed in City Hall so many times in the past—welcomed an insightful, intellectual discourse from that building for a change.

Now, the Guthrie Man attributes this saviness to the social media era. Yes, social media has devastated large segments of society, especially the TDS, unisex, blue hairs whose shocking and joyful reaction to the Charlie Kirk murder, including some in this town, have allowed social media addiction to turn their brains to absolute mush—now barely existing, simply functioning as TDS zombies roaming the streets, unable to focus on the basics of life, without dropping into a full-on TDS tirade.

However, as with most things, it’s not that easy to just complain about how social media is destroying large segments of society without also pointing out that it is saving America. Bice provided the case-in-point. In the past, when a grant-dispensing congressman showed up at City Hall to be greeted by the local reporters and the seal-clapping politicians and City Hall bureaucrats, the locals might have bought in and cheered on the federal government tooth fairy: “That congressman sure does know how to handle a big, oversized check!”

But with the advent of social media, no one cares.

“Welp, that’ll just bankrupt the nation a little bit faster. Better just get it over with sooner than later, I reckon. Maybe my brother can get the contract for printing up big, oversized checks. I bet that cost a pretty penny. Or, it did, until Trump stopped minting them.”

Clubbers, particularly those who are dialed in on X, will know that the era of Doctor Tom Coburn, a legend in club circles, is now long gone. Bice, Cole, Lucas, and crew have gone all in on the new era of earmarks, a practice that Coburn single-handedly ended in Washington, and this means they have to play a very icky game up in D.C.—a game that puts them on the record funding some things in the blue states that, let’s just say, don’t exactly sync up to local values.

That grassroots community on X—it’s growing fast—and then there are the must-watch podcasts and even breakthroughs on Facebook, where the statists are just losing control. It just takes one coffee clubber to see the latest betrayal up in D.C. on X to educate a whole coffee club. In the old days, when Mike Monroney or some other local congressman voted for a bunch of crazy earmarks, one had to hope that some newspaper reporter cared enough to break it all down. Now that crazy vote by Bice is on X within minutes, and if Coffee Club Frenchy has anything to do with it, it’s old news on the club scene by the next morning.

Word of advice to Bice: “Don’t be a Tom Cole, be a Tom Coburn—or maybe a Josh Brecheen.”

Speaking of Coffee Club Frenchy, the guys are really driving hard to find Frenchy’s super secret X account. The big conspiracy: “Frenchy is riding the wave of the new grassroots revolution on X, dialing in the follows and dispensing the good word for all to see.”

Well, the Guthrie media scene sure is coming in for a lot of scrutiny after locals had to learn the most sensational details of the Guthrie Lake mystery van—yes, Scooby snacks are in order—from a News 9 article artfully suggesting, “Van parked in Guthrie Lake.”

Kudos to News 9 for discovering the very best way to prove to its readers that its content is not, in fact, written by an advanced AI.

But that said, given the circumstances of such a description, readers could hardly be faulted for noting and questioning the article’s description of the incident: that van had been reported to GPD as a metal object on the boat ramp almost a month ago.

What? There’s a big metal object on the boat ramp and City Hall didn’t have the requisite curiosity to investigate for a month?

If News 9 is to be believed, only when the reporting party decided to follow up, nearly a month later, did anything happen.

To get that particular detail out of the local GNUP media, it appears one had to watch the video coverage of the second banana media network, where it was clumsily shoehorned in near the end of the description of the incident.

As one might imagine, that prospect of a vehicle “parked” on the underwater portion of the boat ramp for a month without City Hall taking action—and the seeming lack of curiosity in the local media—solidifies a longstanding observation: The local media isn’t going to fight City Hall. To the extent that they will report on shortcomings in local government, or even private organizations connected to the powerful in the town, it depends on the Oklahoma City media coming to town and reporting those details first.

As bad as the Oklahoma City media is, without it, there’s little doubt that the locals would bury or never report on the real happenings around here, leaving only the city’s most powerful institution, the coffee club, as the source of comprehensive truth.

And that, fine friend of the Guthrie Man, is why you attend.

Until next time,

Stay crunchy.

This week’s media obsession with the Nancy Guthrie case has really ruined the ability of The Guthrie Man to monitor the ole Google News feed for references to The Guthrie Man. The word Guthrie hasn’t seen this many Google references since hated Governor Haskell made off with the theft of the century. Stealing a state capitol? Who does that?

It’s the first time in a decade when Donald Trump Derangement Syndrome hasn’t led the news. Allow the Guthrie Man to sum up the last eleven years of media coverage: Malaysia Flight 370, Orange Man Bad, Nancy Guthrie missing. There, all those hours spent by the Boomers on the cable box, well they could have been avoided simply by reading that once sentence from the Guthrie Man. What a world.

Of course, the media has many talents, as does Trump; he won’t be in second position for long. Coming soon to a CNN show near you: Trump responsible for Guthrie kidnapping.

Well, it’s finally happening. No, this is not a drill — it’s the real one. The coup is underway, and take the Guthrie Man’s word for it, The Guthrie Man knows a coup when The Guthrie Man sees a coup, and a coup, well, this is a coup. If you pronounced the “p” in coup, then with all due respect, your crime against the French language dictates that you will need to re-read this paragraph.

For years, it’s been one of the leading back burner conspiracies down at the Guthrie Man Coffee Club.

What is a back burner conspiracy, you ask?

Well, that’s a fair question. It’s the type of conspiracy which some member of the club has adopted as his conspiracy of choice and can’t help but reference year after year after year, for so long that finally, the other club members begin to question his conspiratorial prognostication abilities: “You’ve been saying that aught 1, it’s been twenty-five years now — when are you going to give that up?”

Now, the longer a member has to wait for his conspiracy to develop, the more determined he becomes to see it through — standing by it with the faith of a true believer — and the sweeter the reward when it inevitably appears to manifest.

And boy, oh boy, is ole Coffee Club Jack suddenly swimming in gravitas.

For a looong twenty-five years, between big gulps of straight black, Guthrie-fishy-water-flavored, Folgers-brand coffee, Jack has faithfully opined and predicted, “Yup, ole Bret Jones shoulda never done it. Y’all think he was a genius, but he just took that big ugly Edmond camel’s nose and jammed it right up under our tent.”

It’s Coffee Club Jack’s suggestion that the failure of the first capital’s southernmost suburb to build its own airport before the federal government made it too prohibitive to build an airport was, in fact, its own fault; and Guthrie town should have never let them mooch in on the Geo Port plan, otherwise now known as the GUTHRIE/edmond Regional Airport.

Guthrie, after all, had the foresight to make way up on the hill for those new, confangled flying machines back in the day when they sounded like lawn mowers with wings.

So much so that, to this day, the first capital still boasts one of the original air mail arrow markers, directing the way for those brave pioneers of the air as they delivered their vital air mail correspondence back before the Coffin Crew took away the uptown amphitheater from public use — a real sore point down at the club. Give it back, please!

Now the Coffee Club crew won’t ever admit it out loud, but there’s been some suggestion that its southernmost suburb has actually outpaced the first capital in terms of population, budget, and maybe even raw political power, rumored to now consist of as many as 100k snooty suburbanites who don’t know the first things about the history of this state, the importance of recognizing the prestigious standing of the first capital, or the fact that Guthrie isn’t, in fact, a low-class hovel up near the Kansas border.

“You’ll mark my words, they’re gonna steal this thing away from us, and we won’t be able to stop ‘em,” Coffee Club Jack confidently predicts, year after year after year, in between complaining about his tenants while bitterly declaring that he, Jack, isn’t in the least bit a “slum lord.”

“My hovels are filling a spot in the market, but mark my words, you’ll see: those Edmonites can’t be trusted. They’re gonna steal it from us — first thing they’ll do is rename it to Edmond/Guthrie Regional, you’ll see.”

To Jack’s great smug satisfaction, at last month’s can’t-miss GERA extravaganza, an unwise airport board member played directly into his hands. He re-nominated the Edmond chairman for a second consecutive term—breaking the long tradition of rotating the chairmanship each year—instead of giving it to the Guthrie candidate and then twisted the knife by joking that the name “Edmond/Guthrie” had a certain appeal.

“It’s all going down! A new logo, a new terminal, a new website, a back-to-back Edmond Chairmanship and putting Edmond first in the name — here we go! I told you — here we go. It’s the perfect time for their coup and that ward 2 cloud guru up on the Guthrie city council, he’ll sell out our town in a second if he can have a go at discrediting the new mayor,” Jack smugly exclaimed.

The Edmond coup dictated that the Edmonites would hold the chairmanship, with the re-elected Edmond chairperson, not only accepting what seems to be the first ever back-to-back terms of an Edmond chairperson, but also openly declaring that it was time to move away from the carefully balanced Guthrie-Edmond dynamic, potentially even modifying the operating agreement between the two cities — an agreement that has always dictated that Guthrie held one extra vote on that board because the airport, after all, has always been a Guthrie property.

Jack’s second prognostication — that the territorial capital would be sold out by its envious old guard trying to reestablish their power — well, that seems true too, as the angry Ward 2 cloud guru and his sycophantic follower, the talkative postman, blew up the last city council meeting, not content to accept the humiliation of surrendering the chairmanship of the airport board to Edmond, but also trying to remove Ward 3’s Grant Aguirre as Guthrie’s representative on the airport board. The cloud guru clearly thought he was going to start with Aguirre and work his way up to indicting the new Mayor in some sort of grand conspiracy, only to get shot down when the Mayor made it clear that the cloud guru was fishing without bait. But, that didn’t stop the cloud guru from adding salt to Guthrie’s wound by appearing to allow the Edmond members to dictate Guthrie’s choice of who it appoints to the board.

Now the new mayor — he’s really quite popular at the Guthrie Man Coffee club. An energetic outsider who chose Guthrie not by virtue of the Land Run of ‘89, but because of his investment in the community — and the first young face to take on the job of mayor since ole Don Hardin whiffed on the job in the ‘90s — Adam Ropp has the club more optimistic about the town since Matt Mueller headed down to ride the Little Elm population explosion.

Any remaining doubt as to the veracity of Coffee Club Jack’s sage prognostication quickly disappeared when the Edmond members of the airport board — not content to simply keep Guthrie’s Aguirre from chairing the board — had the outright audacity to lobby the Guthrie council, with one complaining that the “Edmond” people were “being pushed out” and another — the airport board chairman himself, who for whatever reason appears to believe he is entitled to a second term — sending a statement calling for Aguirre’s removal, someone whom, as of last month’s airport meeting, he had openly supported to be vice-chair of the airport board. Who does that? Supporting a fellow board member to be his vice-chair and then, days later, sending in a memo to that person’s city council calling for him to be removed?

Watching the snoots from suburbia invading Guthrie town, boldly believing it appropriate to openly lobby Guthrie City Hall and lobbying the Guthrie council to oust the Guthrie representative sure went all over the coffee clubbers, who went full-on tribal, now ready to make the retaliatory journey down old Hwy 77 to let those Summit people know just what the score was.

“How’d they like it if we showed up at their fancy council chambers to demand the resignation of their members?”

Needless to say, the Ward 2 crew, the cloud guru, and the talkative postman are pretty much forever branded as Edmond traitors these days.

“What’s the deal with the Ward 2 people? If they want to join Edmond, let ‘em go — deannex and reannex to Edmond — but stop pretending to be Guthrie. Or better, someone needs to man up and run for the council and get these goobers recalled.”

Now the Guthrie Man has been around awhile, making observations that tend to — at the risk of making the Guthrie Man unpopular with club members — tone down the revolutionary zeal; but, for the life of the Guthrie Man, the Guthrie Man can’t remember a more arrogant, abrasive, condescending, disrespectful councilperson than the cloud guru. The Guthrie Man suspects that the cloud guru’s inability to give Ropp a chance to show his leadership stems from the guru’s recognition that a new, young, energetic mayor in this town is a threat to the old argumentative guard who thrive on sitting around, arguing, and doing self-indulgent time waste for the purposes of ego massaging.

Well, the guru’s done that on the council for nigh near a decade now, and with all due respect, it’s time for him to go, as well as his Ward 2 sidekick, the talkative postman.

The guru could learn from Ward 3’s Councilman Williams, who has the ability to ask questions and do due diligence without being a pompous jerk. One gets the impression that he’s in it for real oversight, not so much the ego massaging.

In other words: the Guthrie Man has long appreciated the art of asking questions and actually doing the job of councilman, something most don’t do.

And, if Williams is to question the group of professional-minded policymakers who, for the first time in many years, are making ground in this town, that’s fine. True professionals will hold up under that scrutiny, and that includes Aguirre, Ropp, and even — so long as he doesn’t raise taxes — new City Manager Faulkner, who appears to have gotten control of the deep-city-government mavericks at City Hall, such as Chief Swigs. Faulkner has a knack for high-level professionalism that potentially puts him on the stage with Bret Jones and Matt Mueller.

As an aside, the Guthrie Man is a big fan of the city’s city clerk, whose skillful and rapid responses to The Goodman’s many surveillance-state-killing open records requests are a rare talent in a government official.

But the Guthrie Man believes that the cloud guru, now finding himself in the minority, is actively seeking to sabotage Ropp out of what appears to be jealousy at this new generation of leaders — leaders who far outclass their predecessors in so many areas.

Not all of the new members of the council appear to be able to see this, and though the angry cloud guru might not be able to bring down Ropp, those other new council members, who have so much potential, are well advised not to let the cloud guru bring them down into his cauldron of anger, looking at you D.D. You might be new, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be strong.

As for the Edmond airport crew: the Guthrie Man isn’t some sort of rabid Guthrie towner anxious to declare a conspiracy by the outsiders, but yes — now that massive amounts of pork (no doubt to be paid for by future generations) are coming in for the new terminal — this is starting to look pretty suspicious. Certain Edmond personalities triggering a coup down at GERA? The Guthrie Man says: you betcha.

The Guthrie Man hasn’t seen something in such bad taste as the actions of those Edmond board members, in some time, and in truth, they are now the ones who should, in the interest of unity with Guthrie and its popular new mayor, resign.

They tried to remove their own board member just days after electing him vice-chair — and they failed. Their public comments at both GERA and the City Council suggest they are Edmond partisans whose poor judgment makes clear that, if anyone should resign for being unable to work with Aguirre and the Guthrie mayor, it is them.

The GERA operating agreement must be defended and unchanged, or, perhaps better, simply annulled and the Edmondites sent packing. And the suggestions of the now two-term chairman from Edmond notwithstanding, it’s pretty important to maintain the Guthrie-Edmond dynamic that has stood up for two decades.

Speaking of operating agreements: word is that the proprietor of the death-culture factory out by the Cimarron is diversifying into the flea market business. A flea market on the flats? Count the Guthrie Man in! This should give the death-culture-factory proprietor the opportunity to offload that cursed transurrection mural that he so ill-advisedly agreed to display in his uptown showcase for some reason. Maybe the Edmond suburbanites could be tricked into buying the cursed art and get it out of the first capital and down to the suburbs where they have an appreciation for such things.

Here’s hoping the new Edmond overlords at the airport don’t erase the classic geo port sign out on Airport Road. That was one pricey sign. Now the Guthrie Man doesn’t always defend faded signs — certainly not the shockingly faded southern city entrance sign; no wonder the Edmond suburbanite snoots look down on this town as they drive their Lexi down to their jets. Passing that sign is enough to make one think they have driven into a ghost town. But the faded southern facade of that geo port sign is a sure sign for the GeoGuessr gamers that this great town is, in fact, in the Northern Hemisphere. Ever played GeoGuessr? Yes, faded signs are your best friend.

At least the new Edmond overlords won’t have to worry about crashing into people parked on the side of Airport Road (no, it will never be General Daniels Corridor to the Guthrie Man — let’s just say that ‘General’ Daniels wasn’t a very nice person to the Guthrie Man once upon a time) sneaking in a peak at whatever is playing at the Beacon. Yes, in heartbreaking news, the first capital skyline is no longer to be dominated by the great ambiance of the summer night outdoor movie experience, but rather the seizure-inducing red lights of the bird-killing industrial wind turbines. Did the territorial capital really need a new bank? The Guthrie Man says: no. If there’s one thing Guthrie doesn’t need, it’s another bank. The Guthrie Man says this is the fault of Hollywood. If Hollywood made something worth watching, then the drive-in would still be a thing. The Guthrie Man hasn’t been to the Beacon since Top Gun, and now the only gun at that property will be the security guy from the sheriff’s office, bored to death, watching the tellers gossip while eating way too much of the complimentary candy. That’s the real hazard of working at a Guthrie bank.

The Guthrie Man will miss you, Beacon Drive-In.

Until next time,

friends of the Guthrie Man,

stay crunchy.

Hello fine friends of the Guthrie Man.

Never fear, the Guthrie Man is here!

The clubbers sure have been keeping an eye out for the first signs of the new Guthrie Man Coffee Club Executive Committee HQ down in the SLC Tax Freedom Zone.

Here the club’s self-declared executive committee will meet for the pre-coffee, coffee, and that prospect sure has the club excited. Anxious, and impatient, even, so much so that one of the clubbers managed to track down the district manager at the 122nd location where he was informed that the magic of the South Logan County Waffle House experience was still a year away—at least.

Well, though most will agree that all good things are worth the wait, that’s not stopped the denizens of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club from craning their necks each and every time they feel like risking another multi-car pile up on the inadequately small I-35/Waterloo overpass—which still hasn’t been replaced!

Yes, friends, how is it that the local Senator, the “powerful” Senate A&B chairman and the local state representative who is playing the political game to the nines and yet these fellows can’t seem to get the county’s most important road projects, now years behind schedule, off of high center? Yes, they are spending mega millions on pork projects for other districts, completely unneeded and wasteful, and they can’t fund a real project here at home. This is the type of thing that gets brought up at every club meeting where politician bashing is the order of the day and boy, is it deserved.

But all isn’t lost: The SLC Tax Freedom Zone is growing up new signs faster than the First Capital’s “doobies” store is moving product. The latest I-35 neck crane seems to be revealing a new sign: Gerber Collision.

Yes, the big corporate collision crew has made its official entrance into the county. What a day to be alive.

Now, the Guthrie Man doesn’t normally like selling out the locals for the big corporates. The Guthrie Man infamously has refused to visit the I-35 corporate coffee monopoly out of principle: the Guthrie Man thinks they committed an architecture felony by scrubbing off the Dairy Queen Land Run relief.

So don’t expect the Guthrie Man to abandon the Guthrie Man collision vendor of choice: Terry’s Morgan’s Auto World, although customer service hasn’t quite been the same since the Great Flood of 93.

Whenever The Guthrie Man gets dented up or worse in Killzone #1: the McDonald’s, Walmart, Golden Burrito Food Truck killzone, after checking in to see if Pat has re-opened the Cover-to-Cover bookstore, the First Capital’s best bookstore, back in the days when the local bookstore wasn’t a thinly veiled attempt to promote sexual perversions; or the Killzone #2, pulling out of the Thursday-mid-morning Braum’s coffee group and complaining session, GM Man pays Shawn Porter a special tip to get that beautiful Porter wrecker out to the site, and Guthrie Man’s battered Mercury Zephyr off to Morgan’s before the Second Banana Media crew arrive on scene to broadcast Guthrie Man’s great embarrassment to the GNP (pronounced GU-NUP) scene over on The Facebook.

Really, it always makes The Guthrie Man sad when hundreds of local cyber gawkers go all in at the daily killzone sideswipes, or the endless fascination with feline procreation policy down at the faux-Constitutional-Hall City Hall, while less than 50 watch the local county commissioners giving away the farm to the wind turbine crew that’s cashing out while slicing the county into pieces, destroying the rural landscape for a generation, slowly surrounding the historical First Capitol with that eerie line of flashing lights, each pulse letting locals know just who is in charge of this country, green ideologue scammers, or setting money on fire with the latest unnecessary multi-million dollar construction vanity project, all while perpetually victimizing themselves with, “We don’t have enough money to do our job and fill your pothole,” and learned helplessness, “We can’t do anything about the wind turbine/high voltage transmission line slice and dice. Call your useless legislator or Frank Lucas, that will do the trick.”

Yes, the locals aren’t always unlike the ancient Romans of old, gawking at and speculating at the causes of the latest killzone travesty, while their politicians cash out and destroy their nation.

Sure, the Guthrie Man Coffee Club does its part by complaining about those shiftless politicians, but even the Guthrie Man will have to admit, there’s a certain thrill to thriving at the game of “Guess the Vehicle 1” of it all.

Was it the McDouble-buying motorist, frustrated from the slow service at the arches, panicked after being honked at by an enraged, still-hungry motorist trying to turn into McDonald’s and wanting the exiting motorist to know that they are in fact committing the ultimate capital offense: trying to exit from the entrance, entrance, instead of the exit, exit?

The gym bro posting his insta from the just-concluded workout?

The Walgreens pill-popping senior, whose prescription was delayed past its normal suppository time by the Walgreens pharmacist who took lunch at 11 AM for some reason, now making the ill-advised attempt to get back on the meds schedule by popping that first pill while making the left-turn pull out of death?

The Scooters coffee addict, spilling that delicious, delicious hot coffee. Really, who gets addicted to Scooters coffee in the first place? Even more embarrassing is having to re-order, on foot, after Shawn gets the car off of the road. Ever try walking through the Scooter’s drive-through on foot while being tailed by the GPD traffic guy trying to get you to fill out a statement and the Second Banana Media guy getting his B-roll?

Here’s hoping the Logan County Scanner Guy slept in that day because that post would have been lit. Yes, the secret to staying off of First Capital Facebook these days is to commit your infractions and crimes early in the morning when Logan County Scanner Guy is still down from the excitement of the previous night.

Life is tough in Oklahoma’s First Capital, but you can survive if you know the hacks.

Speaking of the GPD traffic guy, he’s finally found a way to add a new element to the Guthrie Man Coffee Club’s most-oft-repeated government gripe.

If only the Guthrie Man had a soon-to-be-discontinued penny for every time one of the clubbers complained, “I know ol’ Doug Major is pulling down $250k, but I don’t know how many millions those vo-tech vultures spent on that building, but for the life of me, I don’t see what it is being used for.”

Yes, it’s the conversation that won’t stop recurring and usually ends with a gruff: “They just don’t want to lose that property tax. Doc Simpsons could just write the $1,800 check for every one of the 100 or so local students that use that vo-tech and we would be far, far ahead. What a rip. I would start the opt-out petition right now if I didn’t have to go update my prescription. I hope that pharmacist isn’t taking an early lunch break again.”

The Guthrie Man theorizes that one of these times, that pharmacist is going to get the prescription wrong, and the coffee clubbers will survive the caffeine crash long enough to actually start that petition and get the First Capital out of the albatross that is the mega-mills allocation by the vo-tech. The Guthrie Man has been off of the vo-tech bandwagon ever since they went PC and took the Indian out of Indian Meridian.

Someone should let Disney know that the “M” on the Meridian logo is really just Mickey Mouse’s head. If Warner Brothers can sue over Chickasha’s leg lamp, then maybe Disney can help the First Capital liberate itself from the property tax albatross.

Of course, that leg lamp frequently dominates the coffee club dialogue. One of the clubbers defied the post-Guthrie-Man-Coffee-Club-meeting-caffeine-crash and actually made it all the way across the metro, and the turnpike shakedown, to see it for himself. Took a selfie with it as a matter of fact, which of course he insists on showing every time there’s a lull in the conversation, followed by, “Now we just have to figure out what to put down there on the flats to pull all of those leg lamp people up the interstate. At least they don’t have to pay tolls to use I-35.”

Suggestions range from: an even bigger leg lamp; a statute of Doc Simpson doing pro-tax-increase oratory, while holding a bar graph of plummeting test scores, somehow; to a massive relief of a technician taking down the last Flock camera, in tribute to the fact that Logan County is “Flock camera free” in honor of local super journalist, The Goodman; the latter, a marketing move to fill the county with small government types to keep the tyranny of the pushy big-surveillance-tech, orwell-inducing, sole-sourcing, move-fast-and-break-things salesmen at bay for at least a decade.

Now this, like all coffee club conversations, has strayed a little bit from the originating context. Here’s a test, can you, having traced down the twists and turns of the Guthrie Man’s rabbit trails, branching from trail to trail, recall the originating point for this particular cerebral experience?

Yes, friend, you are the one in 10, the attentive coffee clubber who actually has the ability to get back to the conversational trailheal. This trailhead is the amazing work of the unmarked GPD traffic guy who has found a practical use for the multi-million dollar property tax albatross that sits nicely tucked into the valley between the two hills on the South Elon Musk Expressway, formerly known with the unfortunate moniker of “Division” Street. Really, who named that?

That big, beautiful cement driveway provides for the perfect speed trap: perfect not just because of its ideal location between the hills, but because no one ever turns into the driveway, because apparently the local vo-tech campus is providing vo-technical instruction to absolutely no one these days!

Yes, one would surely think that now, in the height of the school year, at least one of those 100 or so GPS students, who make the long bus ride up to liberal university town, could get their vo-technical education locally, due to the great generosity of those locals who are dealing with the mega-mill assessment on their annual property tax punitive payment.

But no! GPD traffic guy appears to have a free hand to simply set up in the entrance, without fear that some motorists will try to turn in in an attempt to actually make use of the mega-million dollar vo-tech complex.

What a world.

Now the Guthrie Man can remember when it wasn’t so kosher for the PD to drive around in unmarked vehicles. It was a matter of big debate back when the public expected that the vehicles financed with their taxpayer dollars would bear the markings of said government entities so that the taxpayer could see and complain whenever it was clear that said vehicle was being misallocated, such as too frequent trips to the convenience store to make use of the washroom facilities. “If he didn’t drink so much coffee, he could stay on radar and wouldn’t have to keep driving back to the Wag-a-Bag where he’s just going to get more coffee anyways and the cycle will repeat and the taxpayers are paying the fuel tab, and probably the coffee tab too.”

But now, this state is silly with unmarked Suburbans, tinted down to the point of complete opacity, representing who knows which acronymed branch of the LEO community, driving to who knows where.

Yup, the best days were when you could see that boxy black and white, with the Constitution Hall seal, and the oversized blue and red, with the slow rotators, barreling down “Division” with Roach at the wheel. He did have a valid Oklahoma driver’s license, right?

In disturbing news, Coffee Club Wilford has started showing up at the club again. Coffee Club Wilford is the foremost opps of the Guthrie Man, the benevolent dictator of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club. He’s one of those South Logan County old-guards, dating back to the 1960s types, whose unpleasantness has prevented him from managing a successful coup against the Guthrie Man. Some of the guys think that Coffee Club Wilford is transcribing the club dialogue and putting it out on something called Substack to try and get revenge on the Guthrie Man, spreading the Guthrie Man’s secrets for all to hear and see, thus ruining the appeal of the club by letting the whole community in on what’s really being said in the sacred sanctums of the best, most-prestigious coffee club in First Capital town.

The Guthrie Man doesn’t think this is likely. Coffee Club Wilford is a technology neophyte. He has one of those phones that announces the name of the caller, and he doesn’t know how to turn it off. So just about every club meeting is interrupted by Coffee Club Wilford’s phone, boldly doxing the co-conspirator, who didn’t have the patience to wait until after the club meeting for Coffee Club Wilford to call them to give them all of the gossip from the meeting and their ever-non-stopping plotting of the overthrow of the Guthrie Man. Courtesy of that phone, the Guthrie Man knows the identity of every one of the three SLC conspirators.

OK, that’s enough for now. Coffee Club Wilford just took a call from a co-conspirator and stepped out of the room so it’s time for the club to take the conversation to the next level and break down the real goings on in the First Capital.

Then it’s off to the Friends books sale. Guthrie Man has a hunch that Guthrie Director of Library Services Big-Wig, Cameron Smith is selling off his collection of edgy books because the banned book display is catching a little too much heat. Looks like gender bending the kiddos is going out of style for some reason. Class action lawsuit anyone?

Until next time,

Friends of the Guthrie Man

Stay crunchy.

Please allow the Guthrie Man, your affable host, to welcome you to the new era: innocence lost.

Yes, friends of the Guthrie Man, western society has officially de-evolved back to the days of public political executions — the good-old-fashioned string-’em-ups in the town square. Only now, they’re broadcast live for all to see: the dastardly thought-criminal bleeding out on screen, while the local leftist gawkers on The Facebook gaffa, chortle and hammer the laughing emoji (screenshots later in the meeting, courtesy of the one and only, Coffee Club Frenchy, whose long awaited back story will be finally revealed.) And of course, just to be safe — at least for now — as they dive headfirst into victim-blaming, the more thoughtful of them, might just wrap it in the prerequisite: “I don’t support killing people, but . . .”

Yes, it’s the new drinking game down at the Guthrie Man Coffee Club: take a big swig whenever a leftist predicates a tome of murder-justifying cognitive dissonance with, “I don’t support killing people, but . . .” A hilarious pre-appendage that, once someone feels it necessary to attach, pretty much makes its own devastating point — the ensuing appendage is really not necessary.

It’s heavy stuff, a real three-potter down at the club. There’s so much for the good ol’ boys to break down. Some are even busting right through their mid-morning naps over the ordeal. A few don’t seem to realize that Coffee Club etiquette dictates one should tip more for a three-potter affair, and that’s also caused quite a bit of angst on the Guthrie Man. Keeping Coffee Club Iola topping off the club members — “Top ya off, hon?” — as they astutely break down the specific nuances of the accelerating collapse of western society is expensive stuff. And Guthrie Man has been fine-tuning the skill of tactfully pointing out the need for tips: “Guys, until that big beautiful bill kicks in, Coffee Club Iola still has to pay her taxes, you know, so ante up or get out!”

Now, don’t get The Guthrie Man wrong. The Guthrie Man understands coffee club etiquette. The club doesn’t just jump right into the heavy stuff. That's considered to be in very bad form. Before getting to the screenshots, and as the attendees stumble in and get past the ubiquitous weather observations — which always pretty much amount to the same observation these days, as each member, as they enter, thinks they’ve made an original observation, not realizing every member that’s arrived before them has made the same observation on the weather — which right about now is: “Welp, I didn’t think we’d get an Indian Summer this year, but here we are. I shoulda known. We’ve had an Indian Summer every year since 2011, back when we only had two seasons.”

Then, as the caffeine starts flowing and the small talk dies out, the Coffee Clubbers kick into the ubiquitous coffee club guessing game mode: “How low are them Dems down to now?”

It’s a question usually aimed at Coffee Club Frenchy, the Gen X youngster and the autist in the group whose constant over-analyzing of various data feeds has become his great value-add to club faire.

Frenchy acquired his moniker in childhood, after his fascination with history and the American Revolution — and Lafayette’s enabling of its success — set him on a path with an obsession for all things français. His friends started referring to him as “Frenchy,” and thus the use of the name to this day. He still holds a special appreciation for the iconic painting that once graced the walls of the Stables Cafe, depicting Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown — a site Frenchy has visited in person. Who does that?

Of course, Frenchy’s interest in history tends to wane with anything this side of the Battle of Waterloo (surrender jokes are not his favorite), but to his credit, he doesn’t hold his distaste for Waterloo against those who shop the low-tax SLC Waterloo corridor that threatens to upset the pocketbook-killing Edmond/Guthrie big-sales-tax monopoly. In that way, Frenchy isn't unlike the French: willing to surrender if there are francs to be had.

Take the county’s excess mortality data, for instance. Frenchy grabs the Logan County data set from the State Health Department and posits that some of the unexplained local deaths in the last few years were related to a certain experimental shot and the follow-on boosters. “If they died for no reason, you know the reason,” he says, and he gets all worked up whenever certain notable figures in town pass away far too early. “People aren’t asking questions. People aren’t taught to ask real questions anymore!”

Frenchy feels like people were being murdered and the murders are getting away without consequence and it makes him all worked up that locals aren't at least trying to figure it out. "Somone needs to be accountable for this! Everyone just acts like it's normal, moves on with life. Not right!"

The clubbers used to think Frenchy watched too many movies.

Not so much anymore though.

Frenchy fascinates over crime data too. He says the caseload at the courthouse has really skewed down since COVID, mostly because cops don’t write state tickets anymore after the Summer of Floyd.

He also points out that the felony caseload has been riding about the same, which he finds notable because the politicians have been doing all kinds of as he puts it “social justice” stuff to make crime go away by de-felonizing or outright legalizing it. But it isn’t going away. And don’t get Frenchy started on the whole county building expenditure issue — which was predicated on purported testimony by Judge Corley that the caseload had increased. According to Frenchy, that was a false predicate, and it resulted in a complete $5 million boondoggle office renovation on a "leased" property that isn't even owned by the county. So, the next time you get your car stuck on a county road, he thinks you should know that there were millions available for roads.

Then, and to the point of today’s How Low Can They Go game, there’s the voter registration data where clubbers thrive on tracking the ongoing collapse of the once-proud Logan County Democrat Party.

“What are they down to this week French?”

Oldtimers love to talk about change. Change allows them to prove their tie to the past, the distant past, and in Oklahoma’s original — and dare say most successful — capital one's ability to prove that tie brings tremendous respect in the first capital coffee club world.

Charting the ever-eye-popping plummet of the Democrats in this town has become a sick spectator sport for the club. It's the members' opportunity to chime in with sage color commentary on the mighty Hindenburg, descending, burning, in slow motion: the vaunted Democrat Party of Gene Stipe fame, that ran the state for a hundred years, and even in the “Republican” first county held majority status as recently as 2002-ish, and six of the eight county-level offices as recently 2005 but that has now nose dived into third place in terms of registration. Yes, there are now more Independents in Logan County than Democrats.

“I never woulda thunk it. If youd’ told my grandpappy that the party of Old Hickory and Alfalfa Bill would rank third in this county, he woulda stamped the rooster twice, just for the spite of it!”

Any thought that perhaps the local libs would reverse their fortune with the election of the edgy Guthrie bookstore owner as their next chairman — more on him, in a moment — has been dashed. The registration numbers have continued to plummet and now test the 6k level. Yup, in a county of 53,000, you could fit the last remaining Democrats into just two Jelsmas.

And, now, with the events of this week, and the unfortunate response of the edgy bookstore owner, the How Low Can They Go game just got put on steroids. Some even suggest that even the spouse of the "Republican" Senator from Perry might give up on the rooster; we'll see.

Now, coffee clubbers aren't content to just consume the latest statistics about the collapse, they quickly meander into opinioning about the causes of said collapse.

What is it that's sinking the Hindenburg?

This question usually leads Coffee Club Frenchy to pull out his "no google" burner phone — the only device onto which he will install Mark Zuckerbuck’s Facebook tracking and identity stealing app — to show the clubbers just why the Democrats are collapsing: whatever the deranged left-wing zeitgeist of the day, there will be some local lib of some prominence taking to Facebook to double-down on it with their favorite game: hypocrisy.

Through the magic of Frenchy’s sock-puppet accounts, firmly ingrained throughout the community, coffee clubbers have discovered that the local libs have found a way to justify any betrayal of long-held common sense and uniformly accepted custom, no matter how unorthodox, by claiming inconsistencies in the opinions of the perceived political opposition so as to justify what would have been an unthinkable stance, just a few years ago.

Trump says that men shouldn’t be allowed into women’s rooms? Well, that’s a bad idea because once upon a time some Republican officeholder was caught with pornography — so, hypocrisy! Oh, and Trump is obviously a Nazi, so we must do the opposite of whatever he says.

It’s nonsensical, but for whatever reason, the “hypocrisy” game gives the local liberals enough cognitive dissonance to go there, time and time again. And the local party, it just keeps plummeting.

It’s the never-ending tome of the backslider who can’t admit to there being an absolute truth. Because to do so would be to admit to their own wrongdoing. Thus, they find the person who still does believe in absolute truth and ridicules them for trying to believe in that truth — while not always staying consistent with whatever version of that absolute truth the naysayers believe the good-hearted person, who is attempting to do right, believes that truth should be.

If everyone sins, then there must be no such thing as redemption. And thus, there is only one crime in this woke new world: hypocrisy. And for that crime, a public execution, capital punishment — sans any due process — appears to have provided at least one prominent local liberal personality, as we will soon see, with a sense of “relieved justice.”

But all of that said, until now, most clubbers can’t come to terms with the fact that those harmless liberals — who run around town with the support animals, aka their children, in tow, their colorful, multicolored acronym-pride bracelets, and sun worn co-exist bumper-stickered cars — are actually capable of sympathizing with the ultimate taboo in American society: the assassination of political opposition. Surely, surely, this was a matter of the blue-state craziness, and no local, red-blooded Oklahoman would go there.

Everyone knows: just give the local libs a wide path. Smile politely, and pretend not to know that you know they’ve let the social-media algorithm take over their lives and turn their brains into mush. Eventually they might put down the phone and escape back into the real world — hopefully before destroying their minds and bodies in a quest for true happiness, which, sans a miracle of God, will never happen.

It's at this point that some Coffee Clubber will break out with the ubiquitous Rush Limbaugh quote: “Ya know, as ole Rush used to say, ‘Liberalism is a mental illness.’ and we need to keep a few of 'em around for studying. I sure do miss that guy. Those new guys can’t go five words without reading out some sort of commercial. That radio isn’t worth the time and effort to spin the dial anymore.”

It is an interesting study, and the main discourse of today's meeting given the events of the last few days and subsequent post by the local liberals. In the wealthiest country on earth, with technology previous generations could only dream of, leisure beyond belief, healthcare that can get any sober person with the self-discipline to abstain from bad habits an almost guaranteed 80 years of high-quality life — these might be the most miserable people in the history of the world and they are determined to drop that misery everywhere they go.

At the club, there’s generally been both a sympathy factor for the liberal who is trapped on the never-ending doom scroll, getting the slightest dopamine hit every time some blue-state liberal comrade likes, shares, reaffirms, or some bot manages to break through and do a little affirmation spam.

Others theorize that the wacky libs aren’t accountable due to any number of other factors outside their control.

"It’s Doc’s Godless education system, it’s messing them up — everything would be better if we had a new superintendent down at the administration building. Doesn’t everyone know some God-believing family who sent their helpless youngin into the education conformity factory, only to watch ’em come out a pot-smoking deadhead, tattooed from head to toe, and pierced up all in between and zapped of all motivation for work or life?"

Or,

"maybe it’s those chemicals they’re putting in the $3 avocado toast and burnt coffee beans these days down at the Starbys — RFK will fix ’em, or Hoboken, or both."

Or,

"it’s those anti-depressants that the new psych doc up on the hill is doling out to anyone who says they’re sad or anxious; they can’t feel human emotion anymore because their uptake has been inhibited."

Also, generally speaking, your average Guthrian isn’t so offended by the dour liberalism in so much that they dislike the complete insufferability of the politically obsessed who won’t stop spreading their political views onto others. These people are energy drains.

With some in this community, there’s still an old ethos, a gentil southern, meets classy midwestern, as only this part of this nation can boast, standard of conduct that suggests it’s rude — impolite — to drop your politics on someone else, unless that someone else first asks you for your point of view. Those who can’t help themselves, well, they’ve always been considered uncouth. But that said, they still have to be dealt with:

“Just grin, listen, and move on with life. The political people are bores, but there are always going to be some of them in your life. So deal with it.”

But this week things changed. Maybe forever.

Charlie Kirk's name was instantly recognizable to Frenchy, the club’s foremost missionary to the boomers on behalf of turning off Fox News and turning on The Rumble. “There are a lot less commercials, you don’t have to worry about the Fox News hosts parroting the views of the deep-state neocons advocating for using your tax dollars to fight to the last Ukrainian just to keep the Bilderberger crowd within drone-striking distance of Moscow — an immoral killing of millions — or the pharma advertisers. And the conversations are a lot more intellectual. Unless it’s Greg Gutfeld, Fox News is just noise to me.”

Getting a boomer to figure out how to hook up the Roku and work the Rumble app is a chore. But Frenchy, so determined to help educate the boomer generation — driven by a zealous drive to save Ukrainian lives — will take the time to explain that newfangled “HDMI” cable and the magic of a $30 device that gives access to free, unending content, the quality of which exceeds much of what can be delivered by means of a $120 monthly cable bill.

For the past few years, Frenchy — always on the cutting edge of the cord-cutting revolution — has consumed content from an array of Rumble and podcast personalities. Many of them weren’t considered “right-wing” until just a few years ago, and they’re still of varied viewpoints now jammed together in the same ecosystem due to the Overton window moving as fast as an assassin's bullet. It’s a vibrant world of often-intellectual conversations, substantive enough to keep the focus of even the most easily distracted autist.

It’s impossible to listen to these voices for years without feeling a certain kinship with them. But it’s not unhealthy. This type of long-form, intellectually stimulating engagement is the healthy side of the 21st-century technology paradigm. It stands in sharp contrast to the doom-scrolling social-media world, where the addict’s attention span is reduced to the time it takes a finger to swipe.

Thus, two worlds are evolving courtesy of the Internet era: one intellectual, the other a literal manifestation of Idiocracy. Frenchy is a product of the former. The shooting-cheering libs? Probably the latter.

But that said, as the news rolled in that Kirk had been shot, Frenchy tuned into the social media — and to his horror, was treated to the most vivid depiction of the assassination: someone he followed, someone he felt he knew, collapsing, blood spurting out, leaving Frenchy praying against all odds for a miracle.

And then, on the split screen that is social media, while waiting for that miraculous news to arrive, Frenchy took note of a Facebook post by a prominent, well-known local Guthrie businessperson.

That post?

Well, apparently at some point in the past — in the millions of words spoken by Kirk, a public personality for 15 years — he had opined that if a nation has the luxury of a 2nd Amendment, one that allows self-defense to its citizens, then it will also, inevitably, experience the death of innocent people. The point being: a government of constitutional protections only works in a society of the virtuous.

As Frenchy saw it, that point in no way justified the shooting of Kirk. Trying to make irony out of it was, to him, a despicable invitation to the hate and glee that would soon follow — becoming what might have been the preeminent local thread for radicals to expose themselves for the whole town to see.

He claims it’s a point analogous to any of the constitutional amendments — from the freedom of speech that protects the liberals’ right to cheer a shooting, to the protection against warrantless search. Do away with any of those protections, and certain “harms” are mitigated. But that’s not how this country was designed. And that’s why virtue must be restored to society — or it will collapse.

And by mocking Kirk, as he bled out for all to see, for attempting to have an intellectual discussion of the merits and detriments of such constitutional protections, the Guthrie businessperson made their contribution to the stifling of intellectual discussion in society. This is why people are afraid to openly articulate and work through their beliefs — either with the opposition or in public. Because to do so now invites just this.

And just minutes after the gruesome shooting, while Frenchy clung to the thinnest thread of hope, the Guthrie businessperson saw fit to trot out Kirk’s old observation — in what, to Frenchy, looked like a twisted attempt to suggest that justice had been served.

Then, as horrified Frenchy looked on, the likes started rolling in. Not just from the usual crowd of anonymous bot-like accounts, but even from what appeared to be a prominent employee of the state’s OneNet internet service — presumably a state employee, maybe on Frenchy's taxpayer dime as she liked the despicable posting — and other prominent local personalities.

But if the thumbs-ups on the original post were offensive, it was the comments — the little giggling emojis, the cheap dopamine of strangers smashing that laughing cartoon face — that gutted Frenchy. The grotesque spectacle of a man bleeding out on screen had become, for the local libs, nothing more than a spectator sport and the chance to spam the like and laugh button like it was a video game.

And, the prominent Guthrie businessperson? They were right there, smashing the like button on many of the gut wrenching, gleeful comments.

Needless to say, this didn’t give Frenchy a warm fuzzy feeling. He’s going to see those people on the street, around town, in the real world. This is local. It’s not just social media. Every time he sees them, he’s going to struggle to not remember this.

Now, times Frenchy by millions, and one can begin to understand just how much damage has been done to this nation. It’s going to have its impact on politics for years to come — and it’s not to the benefit of the political left.

And then, there are the podcasters. Left or right, all of them now must envision that this too could be their fate: laughed at by a bunch of yokels as they bleed out for all to see. That’s not the group one wants to alienate. These are the Joe Rogan types — personalities who could have been just as comfortable voting for Bernie Sanders as for Donald Trump, and subject to swing back to the Democrats with the political pendulum. Not so much anymore.

Those leftists who cheered and jeered — as evidenced by the screenshot above, they’re embedded in small-town America, not just the big blue cities, but right where people live. That fact is now seared into everyone’s mind: yes, the Democrat Party has become the party of political assassinations.

And, as if to drive the point even further, the edgy bookstore in town — owned and operated by the chairman of the local Democrat Party — for some reason felt it wise to speak out on the matter. And of course, they couldn’t resist using the occasion to slip in their unpopular anti-gun messaging.

Now, The Guthrie Man doesn’t normally get paid to consult with the Democrats, but is known for dispensing plenty of excellent, unsolicited advice. So here it is: don’t elect an edgy bookstore owner who’s had the bad judgment to politicize his business, thus alienating the vast majority of voters and potential customers in this town. Someone who can’t control his need to wear his liberalism on his sleeve in business matters, in a red town, in a red county, in a red state, certainly won’t have the good judgment to strategically message in a deeply red county.

And of course, that’s exactly what happened. This self-indulgent fellow couldn’t help but politicize the assassination by messaging on anti-gun, and still doesn’t seem to realize that no one is looking up the Facebook page of the local edgy bookstore for guidance on politics. Focus on books, not guns!

But, on the positive side, this just put the “How Low Can They Go Game” on steroids. Unfortunately, the Guthrie Man has to go full-on benevolent dictator now, just to keep the clubbers from betting with each other on this one.

“I’ll spot you an Angry Bunny bear claw that they’re down to bout 5k by the end of the year.”

The club is like a prison — you can’t let the clubbers start betting or they’ll all end up owing and fighting each other, and that’s bad for morale.

Prominent local leftist personality Stef Fortney might have provided the most interesting of the insights into the current mindset of the local left.

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, Fortney took to the Guthrie business leader’s page and described her initial reaction as one of “relieved justice.” She went on to describe her opposition as “craving violence,” suggesting that finding a nonviolent path “seems like an impossibility,” before slipping into the all-too-familiar, self-indulgent social-media virtue signaling by declaring she wouldn’t let herself “become the monster.” It was a virtue signal soon co-signed by the Guthrie businessperson and crew by means of their Facebook likes. In their warped world, this was no doubt an example of great statesmanship.

But Fortney’s virtue signaling — her purported desire to avoid becoming “the monster” — was belied by the fact that she liked the Guthrie businessperson’s post.

It's a dark new world when someone is unafraid to declare feelings of “relieved justice” at what, until the Butler event of last summer, was the unthinkable in modern American society: political executions. And just minutes after a man is executed in public — for all the world to see — before his blood has even had time to dry.

What kind of tortured world must she live in, where she presumes those who disagree with her “crave violence,” even though she lives in a community where the vast, vast majority disagree with her liberal views? How is she able to function in this society? In her professional capacity, surely she serves and interacts with many who hold the very views for which she shows such contempt. How many of the locals — many of whom believe as Charlie Kirk does — would she also instinctively feel “relieved justice” at their execution?

In a world of unimaginable wealth and convenience — benefits and luxuries her parents’ generation could have only dreamed of — what has society done to her to make her so miserable? What has made her tempted to think in this manner about one of the most heinous acts, completely inconsiderate of the heartbroken suffering of so many in her community, with whom she regularly interacts, and who are looking on in abject horror?

It's a fascinating study, but that aside, in the real world, this person likely has no concept of what this means for her nation, her neighbors, her political party, or the future. She’s so lost in self-indulgent virtue signaling that she’s managed to make another person’s public execution all about her.

A post of this nature, anything other than shock, grief and instant condemnation, would have been unthinkable up until very recently.

Now those comments, likes, and laugh emojis are forever seared into the brains of local Guthrie residents. Forgetting that? It’s going to be hard.

Which leads us back to the question . . .

“Is this really the death of innocence? Can we ever go back?”

The Guthrie Man says: probably not. The nation has allowed a violent underground to evolve — coddled kids who have long LARPed unopposed and now graduated into live-action violence. They’re likely already planning the next assassinations. And the justifications and accolades — which are everywhere, including right here in small-town Oklahoma — show a level of societal acceptance for violence that won’t be put back in the can anytime soon. Pandora’s box? It’s wide open.

At the local level, from the churches to the government, much of the public has stood by, cowed into silence, as some of the most prominent among us have dipped into insanity, chasing a happiness they will never find.

Perhaps no event better illustrates this than the summer of 2023 city council meeting, where the local leftists took to the podium and used some of the most dehumanizing verbiage to describe those who didn’t support their gay nightclub performer's performance for children. Those who watched that epic meeting — forever preserved in vivid video — understandably assumed that, based on the seal-clapping in the audience, those vile accusations were received with warm acceptance from many present, potentially including high-profile city staffers.

And even after the assassination, one prominent county leader is already proclaiming that those who openly and publicly support the murder shouldn’t lose their jobs. It’s that type of weakness that will allow this to continue. Society must become strong, and if it is too weak to unanimously condemn a murder, then those who want to save society must unanimously condemn those who stand with this action.

In the way of additional recommendations, allow the Guthrie Man to proffer the following:

To the Frenchys of the world: don’t miss the positive. You must know that those who joined in with the assassination fun are still, for now, a small minority.

Take a look at the statement from Guthrie Mayor Adam Ropp for an example. In a prominent Facebook post Ropp articulately observed the feelings of the community on the matter — and he did it without pandering to the left. This is what leadership looks like, and it came from the town’s Mayor.

Get involved in the community — start with a church if possible. Bring a positive spirit and set the example of someone who believes in absolute truth. The radical left has had a disproportionate influence on this town — from the church to the chamber to government. Your example, your courage to speak the truth and stay strong even when it’s unwelcome, and your willingness to defend what is right, wise, and just — grounded in hundreds of years of hard-won human experience — are what will restore the balance.

For the others: if you felt “vindictive justice” at seeing the most gruesome of political assassinations — of someone who disagreed with your point of view — or if you liked, laughed, and celebrated as he struggled for life, if you used the occasion to virtual signal, then you must come to terms with your sickness. You have already lost the battle to become the monster. You are the monster. The question is, are you able to see this, and can you claim redemption?

Here’s the Guthrie Man’s unsolicited advice.

Run a social media audit, and ask yourself: “How will future generations view my post?” Just for the thought experiment, substitute the name Charlie Kirk for anyone else in history who was the target of a high-profile assassination. Now imagine those comments, those like emojis, those laugh emojis, preserved forever — archived for all to see, for all time, for generations of future humans to analyze and be horrified by. This assassination will forever be viewed as a turning point, for the worse, in the near-term future of the nation. More are likely to follow. Do you really want to be forever associated, in this way, with this moment?

Put down the phone. Save your mind and soul — get off the algorithm. That algorithm, designed to harvest your data, your likes, and your interests, doesn’t see you as a human being. It sees you as a revenue stream. And it’s killing you in more ways than you realize. For you, the benefits of social media pale in comparison to the detriments. And those who like and share your posts? These are not your friends. They are the demons stealing away your very humanity — what makes you, you.

Ok, enough of the super dark. As the third pot runs low, the club can’t miss the opportunity to draft the Guthrie Man’s sage commentary on the shocking goings-on down at the local judicial scene and Guthrie Man's mega break down of "Keep Guthrie Kool, Fund the Pool" will have to wait for another day.

Newly minted Guthrie Judge Jason Reese just inherited the world’s largest crab sandwich, and he’s proving quite unable to choke it down — as evidenced by his seemingly inexplicable decision to drop a $1 million bond. Yes, you read that right: a $1 million bond on the Payne County grand jury petition dad.

For some context: local legal beagles were stunned late last year when Governor Kevin Stitt made what was clearly a very politicized appointment to the area’s foremost judicial position. Jason Reese of Oklahoma City was appointed to be the district judge for Judicial District 9, even though he had few, if any, ties to the area.

Well, if there’s any consolation for local Guthrians, Reese did beat it up to Logan County and make his home in Guthrie, officially taking that spot away from the liberal university town up north. However, the Guthrie legal beagles couldn’t have been too happy that Reese beat out a longtime Guthrie local, Associate District Judge Luke Duel for the appointment.

Now, however, Duel might just be counting his blessings, as a firestorm of epic proportion has broken out up at the Payne County Courthouse — the likes of which not seen since 1996, when 13-year District Attorney Paul Anderson had to cash in his prosecuting pen after embezzling $84k (a lot of money back then).

It goes like this: every few years, a bunch of people get frustrated with the social workers down at the DHS child welfare office, and they start wanting action. Throw in a dash of woke social-worker ethos, and the whole thing gets real toxic, real fast.

So all across the state, grassroots candidates and activists are demanding investigations. They’re tired of the DHS, and perhaps just as much, the politicians who’ve built a massive con game to dodge accountability for anything they wish to dodge accountability for, to potentially include having to answer questions for why nothing happens. The grassroots are starting to see through this and are finding their options, one of which: a petition to create a grand jury to investigate.

And as fate would have it, just as Reese struggles to earn his office fair and square in next year’s election — where he’s likely to face a strong opponent with the support of both Payne and Logan County legal beagles — ground zero for that fight breaks out in Payne County. There, a highly motivated parent is circulating a grand jury formation petition to investigate both DHS and various legal and political officials.

Now, it’s a far-reaching petition, and it’s dipping its toe in fast-flowing waters by naming gubernatorial candidate and former House Speaker Charles McCall — just as he opens up an all-out war on Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

Now, the Guthrie Man wasn’t at all impressed by McCall’s 89er’s Day parade appearance this year. Sure, it was a gloomy day — global cooling’s gonna kill that celebration even faster than woke will. In recent years, two of the coldest 89ers on record have sent Guthrians to the sport of watching the on-the-scene coverage of the Second Banana media network and local commentators as they attempt to survive wind, rain and freeze. Great sport for the coffee clubbers and the inspiration for a drinking game or two, but as a four-potter is out of the question, a subject for another meeting. But that wasn’t an excuse for the gloomy presentation by McCall, a gloomy candidate with little charisma and absolutely no pizzazz. He put his dour-looking campaign staff marching down Main Street with the big McCall for Governor banner. Not a good look. Hint to McCall: when you put your team in the parade, don’t put what are probably paid staffers out front with the menial, carrying the banner. Go for the enthusiastic, fun, personable volunteers who can put a good face on the campaign and want to be there because they believe in the campaign.

But the Guthrie Man does tend to rabbit trail.

So just as McCall’s political team is making all-out war on Drummond and trying to make a big play for grassroots voters, his legal team decides to go to war with the Payne County grand jury petition dad. They went to Reese's courthouse and moved to quash the petition.

This was as epic of a misstep for McCall as it was a crab sandwich for Reese. Reese, now caught in the middle of gubernatorial politics and a rising grassroots movement that can easily swamp a judicial race by bringing together both the left and the right in an old-fashioned political rushing of the ballot box, somehow must have figured his escape hatch was to slap a $1 million bond on the Payne County grand jury dad. A defendant, mind you, who for some reason had been charged in what would normally have been probably been a civil matter — and a defendant with deep community ties, including the fact that he was an ex-city official, in essence, not a flight risk and someone who should have been given an OR release.

Reese must have woken up a little, because he dropped the bond down a bit. But it’s good to know that while the state can’t empty its jails fast enough to clear out real criminals, those who decide to become engaged in the political process are subject to arrest and clearly unconstitutional treatment in the courtroom of the newly appointed judge.

Now, it’s hard to guess at the new judge’s motives. He's vastly inexperienced, and not up to the job, so it could be basic incompetence. But one theory suggests the only way to get re-elected is to secure enough big money to overwhelm the good-ole-boy votes of the legal beagle crowd. If so, this could be a strategy for impressing the McCall machine and its associates — those Reese will turn to for money and endorsements.

That’s a cynical view, but it’s one of the best hypothesis thus far.

Well, that should take care of it. Yes, a first ever: a true three-potter affair from The Guthrie Man.

If you’ve survived this one, the caffeine crash should be kicking in in three, two, one.

Until next time,

Stay crunchy.

Remember the old meme in which American prisoners of war would ask each other baseball questions to determine if their counterpart was truly an American? The trick was to ask about the 1940 World Series. That’s because it was the only year from 1936 to 1944 that the series wasn’t won by either the Yankees or the Cardinals. Anyone know the answer to that question? If you don't, you are clearly a Nazi and the Guthrie Man doesn't talk to Nazis. Of course, if you listen to the media these days, this takes in just about everyone who lives in this state. It's a good thing The Guthrie Man doesn't listen to the media because you are probably a Nazi.

Things aren’t much different in Guthrie. When a Guthrian wants to make sure his counterpart is truly local, he asks: “Who has more Love’s stations, Guthrie or Edmond? And how many?”

Now, if the counterpart doesn’t immediately reply with a proud “3–0, baby!” then something’s wrong.

All good Guthrians know that, for most of history, Edmond—better known by its original name, Summit—was just a gas station on the way to that deceitful city down south with its stolen capitol. Now granted, as the Guthrian made the occasional trip to the big city to pick up supplies and do a quick casing of the Secretary of State’s office (just for the lay of the land for the still-impending event known as Operation Return the Seal), they would notice a little bit of growth around the small university town now known as Edmond.

Of course, that growth got just a bit bigger after the forced busing orders from the Supreme Court sent all those white people scrambling for the burbs. Now, Guthrie’s southernmost suburb nears 100,000 in population—and with its prestigious school system, those uppity, wealthy suburbanites sure seem to have flipped the tables on Guthrie town. Many probably don’t even know Guthrie exists. And to the extent they do, they either view it as a charming weekend road trip up near the Kansas border—or a low-class cesspool whose northern populace has bled into the Edmond school district, entitling the Felony Flats residents to a first-class Edmond education.

This is a sore spot for the Guthrie Man, who argues that living in Felony Flats is actually a first-tier housing hack strategy. As housing costs spike—and property taxes along with them—just find a colorfully named neighborhood like Felony Flats or Bird Creek, where the name alone scares off buyers, and thrive off the resulting savings in housing costs.

In other words: don’t judge a book by its cover. It might just be a lot of smart people who’ve named their neighborhood in a way that keeps Zillow at bay.

“Yes, please send the property tax inspector to inspect my home at 666 Killing Bird Way. Tell him it's better not to come after 4 p.m.”

But those snooty Edmond folks probably don’t know anything about these types of sophisticated Logan County strategies by which savvy Logan Countians are gaming the system.

So it’s real tempting for them to see anyone with a Guthrie address as being from “Felony Flats.”

“Oh, those poor creatures. They come to school in clothes from the Old Navy.”

Yes, Edmond schools can be a really brutal place to be if you’re a kid. Take the Guthrie Man’s word for it—those schools are fine if you’re a mature grown-up who can handle a little bullying. But if you’re a kid, stay away.

All of that to say—you can only imagine the great delight of the Guthrians who attend the Guthrie Man Coffee Club when, a few days ago, word got out that a Edmond schoolteacher—who had somehow recently found herself appointed by Governor Kevin Stitt (seriously, that guy is clearly suffering from head trauma, probably from hitting his head on the roof of his car as he unsuccessfully tries to navigate the many District 2 potholes on his way to film viral social media content in his Logan County garden)—had taken to the all-seeing cameras of News 9, where she boldly proclaimed that she had seen, “necked people.”

In that moment, all of the tension that had built up over years of watching those snooty Edmond people lording their economic superiority over the little town up north just evaporated—as Guthrie Man coffee club attendees hilariously speculated on the shock and horror now spreading through sophisticated Edmond households. Because if there’s one thing Edmondites pride themselves on, it’s the school system into which they’ve poured so much of their treasure over the years.

Now, here was their teacher—someone who had just been appointed to the most powerful education board in the state—in studio, with the eyes of the world watching, boldly talking about the “necked people.”

As it turns out, she’d evidently caught a glimpse of an old Jackie Chan movie inadvertently playing inside the Department of Education building. And she just had to go on TV and tell the whole world about it.

Is this who has been educating the impressionable minds of Edmond’s finest?

Yowza!

And for the denizens of the Guthrie coffee club scene, it only got better from there.

For right there, serving as the sidekick and fellow witness for the Edmond teacher, was the Kingfisher County Emergency Management Director—who, for some reason, also sits on the Board of Education—closing his eyes and trying to recall specific scenes he had reportedly glimpsed from the nudity film.

It was a scene straight out of a 1990s Saturday Night Live skit—you know, the Norm Macdonald era, back when the show managed to be a little bit funny from time to time.

Neither of the two seemed to realize they were starring in their own skit—trying to describe scenes from an R-rated movie as if they were witnesses on an old Perry Mason episode.

That these fellows didn’t realize they were the butt of the joke just speaks to how bad the education system is in this state. But it sure did brighten the spirits of the Guthrian—whose dislike of all things Edmond is matched only by a deeper disdain for the corrupt little town over to the west.

Let’s just say that a good Guthrian won’t let the Democrat primary of 1964 go anytime soon. And the whole First Capital Bank incident, Jack Stuteville, and all things banking around these parts—well, that’s a story for a future coffee club. Don’t go anywhere.

But yes, that Senate election of 1964 is a real sore spot. How those Kingfisher people took out Dr. Ritzhaupt should be investigated. The Guthrie Man has a long memory, and don’t think the Guthrie Man will be letting go of that one until the truth is known.

In a foreshadowing of things to come, that was also the year when local Ruth Patterson refused to let the local House seat go to someone from Perry, and she became the very first House District 31 representative—thus giving Guthrie a voice in the House of Representatives. And except for a combined six years of representation by “Edmond” address holders Dale Depue and Garry Mize, that district has stayed in Guthrie hands ever since.

Now, it’s time for Guthrie to get back its Senate seat—the seat Guthrie thought it had earned back in 2012 with the election of Ann Griffin, only to see Griffin hand it off to… you guessed it, a Perry Man.

Now the Perry Man and Griffin clearly used the same well-known and powerful consultants—whose pricey services are only affordable to the state’s political elite. Yes, it’s all a bit of a grift, there’s a whole hidden segment of society, where everyone knows everyone, and they almost always manage to funnel big money to ensure that one way or another, a certain set of people—who mostly just do what the Oklahoma City money crowd wants done—gets done.

Of course, this whole skuzzy grift includes the local state representative as well. If you’ve noticed that Senator Perry Man and state representative’s mailers all look the same, it’s probably because they’re coming from the same high-powered firm—likely financed by the same high-powered lobbyists.

Now all of these mailers are crafted to convince the reader that the politician is saving the world. They’re full of vague terms that can be applied to just about anything—mostly serving to insult the thinking man’s intelligence, banking on the bet that most readers, in fact, won’t be thinking men.

But the consultants must’ve been having a bad day when they whipped up that last piece for the state representative.

Normally, they know how to dance around the truth with language that sounds tough without saying anything at all—stuff like “proven fighter against illegal immigration.” See what they did there? No verbs, no receipts, nothing you can pin to a map. Just vibes and a flag emoji.

But this time? This time, they went all in.

Maybe the poor schmuck whose job it is to turn out consultant-crafted drivel hadn’t yet had his morning Scooter’s coffee, because he stepped in it: the mailer said—

“Secured the border.”

What?

Our state representative secured the border?

Which one?

Texas?

New Mexico?

The one between Cashion and Piedmont?

And how exactly did this legislative cowboy do it? Of course, for the umpteenth time, we were informed that he’s ex-military. Good to know. Again. And again. And again.

And of course, there was the scary picture with the scary gun—so maybe, somehow, this fellow personally took the call from Trump, headed down to the Rio Grande, and shut things down.

High-powered consultants love to play the military card. Put a candidate’s in-uniform picture on that mailer, and the voter is supposed to disengage their brain. Just vote for God and country and don’t ask any questions.

But frankly, folks in Logan County think Trump can handle this one on his own. They’d settle for the state representative just finding a way to get the Waterloo/I-35 project back on schedule—or at least explain why the Waterloo–Sooner Road project appears to have possibly vanished from the state’s planning documents entirely.

Locals don’t want pork or special treatment—but it’s highly ironic that after Guthrie gave away its Senate seat to Perry, and the Perry Man became Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and now, Logan County appears to be losing or facing delays on projects that were already underway.

What is going on with these guys?

Is it incompetence—or is it purposeful?

All of that said, the state rep is now a powerful meme at the coffee club. Whenever immigration comes up, some know-it-all can’t help but pipe up:

“Collin Duel has already fixed that for us. And, we thought Trump did it, for some reason.”

It gets annoying, but hey, joke repetition is the hallmark of every coffee club in town.

At least the Guthrie Man coffee club doesn’t have to worry about being used as the backdrop for some politician’s re-election campaign. The Guthrie Man coffee club doesn’t accept politicians as members. It barely accepts lawyers—only making an exception for one or two who can provide inside scoop on what’s going on down at what’s known as the “Legal Beagle” coffee club, a competing coffee club, where the courthouse crowd meets over stale coffee.

Now that club is in a bad way—because they do hang out with a politician or two. Which means that when the politician’s consultant gets paranoid—or wants to charge the client more money, or both—he gets the politician all worked up about re-election and sends in a photographer to snap full-color shots showing the politician deigning to have coffee with his constituents.

It’s all very memeable.

But the problem is—when the word gets out about the bad votes being cast down at the Oklahoma Capitol (more commonly known as the “Skunkworks” in Guthrie Man coffee club parlance), those Legal Beagles may rightly become afraid of getting caught in those pictures.

Let’s face facts: in the old days, it was just fine to be seen with the local politician—even if it meant your photo ended up on a mailer sent to thousands of people, some of whom didn’t like that politician.

But these days, everything has changed. Politics has gotten so sleazy.

Do you really want to be in a photo with a politician on a mailer that’s sitting on top of another mailer that’s brutally attacking that politician’s opponent?

No. That’s not a good look anywhere.

Listen to the wisdom of the Guthrie Man: Never let some high-powered consultant send over a photographer to capture you basking in the aura of a sleazy politician. Those pictures will be preserved for infinity, and your reputation is too important.

And don’t let them talk you into using your good name to endorse them either.

Whenever the Guthrie Man is asked for an endorsement, the Guthrie Man simply declares that the Guthrie Man is considering a name change, and hasn’t yet decided on the new name—but will be sure to get back to the politician as soon as ChatGPT gives the Guthrie Man the perfect name suggestion.

After all, the Guthrie Man doesn’t want to sow confusion by using the old name to endorse a candidate.

Or—and this is an even better excuse—the Guthrie Man’s best way to get out of endorsing anyone is to say:

“Yeah, the Guthrie Man would really like to help you out; but the Guthrie Man used to be a politician, and people really don’t like politicians, so the Guthrie Man's endorsement would probably hurt more than help. You wouldn't want that, would you?”

That usually sends the solicitor scrambling—because he, of all people, knows just how damaging an ex-politician’s endorsement can truly be.

Speaking of damaging, this year's spring sport of the retired Guthrian, with too much time on his hand, was as follows: driving out to the old Guthrie Lake spillway and making predictions about when it’s going to bust open—unleashing a flood on Guthrie’s west side worthy of biblical proportions.

This contrasts nicely with last year’s spring sport: predicting when the lake level would drop below the intake pipe, making the whole town dry up of thirst and drought.

Boy, when word got out about Job Corps closing its doors, it sure did send the mid-timers into gear. (FYI: a mid-timer is a coffee clubber under 55 who has vivid recall of the ’80s and ’90s—just enough recall to fool the new-timers into thinking they’re old-timers.)

The mid-timers remember ’95—when everyone panicked, thought the spillway was going to bust, and the Job Corps deployed its crew to sandbag the thing.

So the great irony of Job Corps closing right as the spillway looks like it’s about to bust sure has monopolized much of the coffee club talk.

"Who's going to save the town now?"

Now, the general consensus is that local government follows a simple rule of thumb: spend big on the flashy and forget the functional. If it’s unnecessary, it gets fast-tracked. If it’s essential, it gets ignored.

The city’s expenditures on Owen Field have become the case-in-point for this. The attendees always respond with a “yuuuup” whenever a clubber chimes in: “They can spend millions on grass and a snack shed, but don’t care if the whole west side goes under a tsunami. Ain’t that the way?”

Of course, if the Guthrie Man crew wants to save the west side from the inevitable tsunami, it ought to send up the bat signal for the super-journalist known as The Goodman.

Word is, The Goodman just won an epic showdown with the multi-billion dollar concern known as The Flock Warrantless Surveillance Company. Apparently, The Goodman’s reporting put City Hall under so much heat that they refused to renew the contract with the spooky surveillance company that had installed its AI-infused tracking devices all around town.

Now, the city claimed they weren’t renewing the contract because of “budget concerns.”

But no one in the Guthrie Man coffee club is buying that one.

The man in the basement—who, until recently, was perceived by the Guthrie Man as running this city—also known as Chief Swigs, is a big player in law enforcement politics, and he clearly loved those devices after all he was one of the first in the state to get them installed, on the real bleeding edge he is. This city spends millions of dollars, surely they could shake down The Swigs's couch cushions for the few thousands of dollars of spare change it would take for a few warrantless surveillance cameras, maybe just a couple of them to keep the chief from losing street cred with his Ada CLEET buddies.

Well, it turns out The Goodman filed an open records request and seemed to confirm that Chief Swigs was actively interested in finding additional funding to keep the devices. But in his response to the pushy sales lady from the Flock surveillance company, the chief indicated the city wanted to “go a different direction.”

Now maybe—just maybe—the chief was trying to politely brush off the pushy sales rep by passing the decision-making to a spot outside his own locus of control. But, if not, this sure does seem to blow a hole in the city’s narrative.

The open records also suggested that the Flock surveillance crew was in no particular hurry to get back to town and pick up their cameras.

That part was kind of spooky. You can quit the Flock surveillance company… but the Flock surveillance company doesn’t quit you.

Unless, of course, you’ve got The Goodman on your side.

That guy won’t stop and he won't back down, even in the face of the multi-billion dollar tech bros who are behind what might be the most intrusive surveillance system in the history of the nation.

And the Guthrie Man isn’t just saying this because The Goodman has been spotted attending official government proceedings while wearing unauthorized, unlicensed Guthrie Man merch. Reserve yours today!

Well, friends of the Guthrie Man, that should be about it for now. From “necked” people at the Board of Education, to proving George Orwell wrong, to exposing Collin Duel's securing the border hoax, to planning the grand exposure of the stolen election of 64, and even working out a fix for the disintegrating Guthrie Lake spillway—it’s been yet another remarkably productive coffee club.

The Guthrie Man Coffee Club continues its important work of solving the world’s problems, one cup at a time. But the second pot of coffee has the Guthrie Man feeling a little lightheaded, and it’s time to go get an early lunch and try to restore a sense of balance. Here’s hoping the McDonald’s crew remembered to do the 10:30 fry drop. Coke and extra salty fries, the perfect cure to caffeine-induced light headedness; that's your free medical advice from The Guthrie Man.

Until next time,

Stay crunchy.

As you might imagine, the coffee club has been buzzing full-on about the outbreak of World War Three this week.

No friends, this isn’t about the ins and outs of our great president’s skillful Middle East policy. The club never had any doubt as to the outcome of that affair. Trust in Trump—that’s the Guthrie Man way.

No, instead, a much more volatile matter went down.

They say AI will be the destruction of civilization.

Well, in the eye of The Guthrie Man, that sage prophecy is being fulfilled right here in the state’s County #1, as some obvious noob, with no apparent sense of history, appears to have taken to one of the many Facebook groups—groups that more likely than not live rent-free in the brains of all elected officials, by the way—and appears to have posted a long screed straight out of the warped brain of a hallucinating AI device: Guthrie should—get this—annex a big chunk of SLC.

Now, if you want to see what an epic ratioing looks like, this was it. A ratio of epic proportions ensued as the pitchforks came out and social media violence quickly followed.

Here’s the problem: AI has the ability to dress up crackpot ideas with a thin veneer of sophistication that’s just sophisticated enough to get the pitchfork-waving mob suspecting that the post might have been crafted by some juris doctorate holder working in the depths of City Hall.

And let’s face it—everyone in the know knows that every few years, most likely when there’s a down economic cycle, City Hall casts its greedy eyes to the south or east and plots its next expansion.

And it never works out.

The pitchforks have ensured that the city hasn’t made a significant annexation since the ’80s.

Some poor itinerant city manager gets the blame, the mob goes home, and a decade or so later—rinse and repeat.

In the meantime, the state’s greedy cities, by doing greedy city stuff, have ensured that state law cracks down on annexation abuses by cities, giving the mob more rights and ensuring that SLC will more likely than not remain an island of freedom sandwiched between power-grabbing, liberty-infringing city governments.

Of course, once those governments are in control of your lives, state laws have also given them more power. These cities have a powerful lobby down at the creepy Capitol building—seriously, avoid that place like the plague—where, just this year, this county’s erstwhile "faux Republican" legislators, including Duel, Pfeiffer, Hall, and Green put their stamp of approval on House Bill 2147, notwithstanding the wise veto of the Governor. Essentially, it’s a bunch of new laws that basically say the city government can foreclose on your property and steal it from you. Now, that’s some pretty big socialism right there. Or in the words of the Governor’s veto message: “Minor code violations can now result in property liens against Oklahomans. This enables expanded condemnation and public takings without providing property owners adequate due process protections. Eroding private property rights is not an appropriate response to municipal code fines.”

This bill doesn’t apply to owner-occupied properties just yet, provided the owner has a homestead exemption on file down at the Assessor's office—seriously, if you haven't done this, get it done!—but don’t expect the cities to stop here.

Anyways, that’s a story for another day: half of the county's legislators appear to hate the people they represent, and they need to be replaced, STAT, but, for now, back to the magic of unincorporated Logan County.

From this sprang a treasured Guthrie Man Coffee Club ritual: plotting how to outwit the system. A first-class life hack.

It works like this: club members—the more autistic of which (looking at you Coffee Club Frenchy) pull out their smartphone calculators—theorizing where to live in Logan County to get out of paying the city’s 4-ish percent in sales tax, how to couple that strategy with credit card rewards, and basically try to cut costs by 10%.

The goal? To offset the impact of Bidenflation, leaving the hapless, city-dwelling normies to pick up the tab for the most recent insanity of the Democrats and Congress.

The trick is to purchase a residence that isn’t in one of SLC’s high-property-tax fire/school district combos (Edmond PS/Oak Cliff FD, Guthrie PS/Woodcrest FD, Deer Creek PS/FD—and now, unfortunately, by the narrowest of voting margins, Cashion has joined those ranks too), but is outside the Guthrie city limits. Then, have most purchases delivered to the house by Walmart, Amazon, or Kroger—and insist that sales tax is charged based on the point of delivery, not the point of origin.

It’s a fun game that hasn’t always been practical, but is becoming more so as more delivery services pop up—and as both Guthrie and Summit, the Territorial Capital’s southernmost suburb (occasionally, and mistakenly, referred to as “Edmond” for some reason), have spiked their sales tax rates over the years.

But talk like this is sure to rattle City Hall—not just because it checks their appetite for new subjects, but also because it puts a ceiling on how much more they can hike the sales tax.

Once the combined sales tax hits 10%, a psychological barrier, look out! Even city residents are going to start thinking about having their staples shipped to their SLC friends and families in order to hack the system. And from Sonic, to Braum’s, to Wendy’s, to OnCue, to Dan’s, to any number of BBQ options, to Sinaloa, fast food and dinner fare in the SLC might just become in vogue.

So, given everything that is at stake, the mob is right to suspect that City Hall is behind this particular screed.

And let’s face it, the Guthrie Man Coffee Club is replete with members of the mob desperate to keep city government off their property and out of their lives.

So, it’s left to the Guthrie Man to assure fellow coffee clubbers that for once, this—more likely than not—isn’t a case of plotting by City Hall. See, the Guthrie Man isn’t a conspiracy theorist just for the sake of being a conspiracy theorist. According to the wisdom of The Guthrie Man, this is actually probably just a case of some rando, with no sense of history, getting carried away with his AI device and unknowingly almost setting off World War Three.

Here’s why it can’t happen.

Annexing SLC is the ultimate scenario of mutually assured destruction.

To accomplish this power grab, most likely as a requirement of the annexation law, the city will conduct a public hearing.

This is the hearing where the city manager or some other belated personality gets to convince attendees that their lives will somehow become better off with City Hall in charge: “Why, we will bring you the magic of zoning, and you won’t have to worry about your neighbor building a first-class salvage yard on your property line.”

It doesn’t work.

About that time, attendees start booing, someone yells out, “So what, if you take over, I won’t be able to shoot my gun at the possums from my back porch anymore,” and attending city council people quickly decide that they don’t want these tea-party-don’t-tread-on-me-flag-waving rubes in their city after all.

Of course, there’s also self-interest at stake.

Those city councilmen who are in the know realize that the city’s recall threshold is incredibly low. About 100 people per ward can pretty much recall the whole city council—and any large annexation action would give them the motive and organization to do it.

If Guthrie Man’s mighty memory serves, back in the ’80s—when the city tried to annex down the Hwy 105 corridor—the mob’s friends who already lived inside city limits started organizing recalls before the annexation even took place. Now just imagine what happens when the mob is inside the city and can sign those petitions and vote for themselves.

Let’s just say that the reach of City Hall—notwithstanding the sycophantic coverage of the local “media”—doesn’t go very far and is quickly swamped by even small mob actions.

Thus: MAD—mutually assured destruction.

A naive city council or a noob itinerant city manager quickly realizes how hot this stove is—and they pull back. At least for the most part. There’s reason to believe that as the City tried to respond to the post-9-11 downturn, when Jim Bishop held court as city manager—for the briefest of periods—he kept his hand on the annexation stove just a little too long. The resulting mob response was the beginning of the end of his brief tenure in the big office at the Hall.

So those members of the mob who are friends of the Guthrie Man should rest easy. Guthrie PD’s surveillance state, and Flock probing device, isn’t likely to be probing your neighborhood any time soon.

And, if the federal jury finds documentation showing the GPD didn't do its due diligence on the mental health preparedness—hot take from Coffee Club Frenchy, GPD's decision to hire the tattooed, and the dramatic visibility of those tattoos in the foreground of the police body cam footage, is toxic in the minds of just enough of the jury to make the difference—and there's a big property tax increase on the hapless who are still trapped inside of city limits, the SLC life hackers will be held harmless.

Yes, SLC will keep its freedom. But don’t put the pitchfork into your Newt's mini storage unit just yet.

This AI thing is moving fast—and with AI well on the way to gaining sentience, this latest annexation plan is just one hint as to how AI thinks. It doesn’t understand the theory of MAD that’s been keeping the tenuous peace in Logan County since the 1980s. And given its druthers, it might just set off World War Three.

On that cheery note, thank you for attending this Guthrie Man Coffee Club’s Annexation Special.

Until next time—

Stay crunchy.

P.S. Now, to be fair to The Guthrie Man, The Guthrie Man has left out some of the Coffee Club’s most bizarre theories. One member suggested—over an aggressively, clearly microwaved breakfast burrito (this venue is getting a bit too cheap—more results of Bidenflation)—that the post might’ve been written by someone who got lost trying to use ChatGPT to plan a camping trip and accidentally merged zoning law with Lewis and Clark’s expedition notes. The result: a 1,500-word fever dream about municipal expansion, wilderness trails, and building codes. Another member proposed it was the ghost of a certain former city manager from the 1980s, trapped inside the internet, now doomed to wander Facebook groups suggesting annexation plots in a desperate attempt to finish his life’s work. See, you thought The Guthrie Man was killing your brain cells with bizarre conspiracy—but in reality, The Guthrie Man is the sane one around here. And you can thank The Guthrie Man for not telling you about everything that gets discussed down at the Coffee Club.

You know the rules of this game: it’s the every-coffee-meeting tradition in which, about three cups into the conversation, one of the Coffee Club good ole' boys pops up with, “Ya know, if I were . . .”

And it always concludes with another Coffee Clubber saying, “Welp, maybe you just need to run for the job. I'd support you.” To which the initiator of this edition of the day’s game modestly demurs, “Shooot, they’d run me out of this town with a stick if I ever dared put MY John Hancock on the ballot.”

Now, there are no official rules for this game, and most attendees don’t even realize they’re playing it—or, perhaps since it usually occurs about three cups into the morning coffee drinking affair, don’t seem to remember they’ve played it on the daily for years.

That’s the magic of the Coffee Club: every day is Groundhog Day, and most of the participants don’t even care.

Today’s edition of Coffee Club “If I Were” is brought to us by Coffee Club Iric. Iric is the good-hearted public-sector retiree, having spent most of his career in the public safety world, where he was always pestering the union types with various Rush-Limbaugh-style conservatism—some of it well-received, other parts tolerated mildly. Now retired, and deprived of passing on the latest conservative musings to his captive audience of firehouse co-workers, he drops in on the Coffee Club to dispense his insights, which—like water trickling from a Biden-era low-flow showerhead (That anti-low-flow Executive Order by the Trumpster sure is popular around these parts)—must land on someone’s head, somewhere.

Being that public safety was Iric’s life’s work, he likes to weigh in on everything from police to fire to the local criminal justice system over at the courthouse.

Iric’s observations this week come as the Coffee Club mulls over the latest turn of events in which the City of Guthrie has retreated from the vision to blanket the county with surveillance cameras.

As the conversation twisted and turned through various iterations, Coffee Club Frenchy opined, “Surveillance scanners are the hallmark of a weak society of beta males and lazy cops.”

To which Coffee Club Iric, unknowingly kicked off today’s edition of the game: “Ya know, if I were Sheriff Dev, I’d find a way to market that to the normies out there. Let 'em all know we’ve got the best law enforcement around—not that we need it, because everyone out here is packing anyway.”

This suggestion was well received by Frenchy—already well-caffeinated, naturally inclined to wish the best for Dev, clearly biased by the Francophone nature of the last name, and the Club’s leading proponent of SLC-style libertarianism sans intrusive city government. He quickly chimed in, “Yes! It’s the Logan County Freedom Zone for a reason. Just think what this would do for the county’s reputation!”

The contagiousness of Frenchy’s excitement always inspires the caffeinated denizens of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club. Their enthusiastic response was only slowed by the need to parse Frenchy’s rapid, machine-gun, full-auto content delivery—made all the more difficult by his unique speech style and lack of pauses. It was his pronunciation of the local senator—Perry-based incumbent Chuck Hall—that led to the Coffee Club referring to as “ChuckAll” instead, due to Frenchy’s unwillingness to pronounce silent letters or pause long enough to separate words.

In no time flat, the enthused denizens took to scribbling out a new county sign, to be placed at various northbound entrances off of Wateroo, complete with a hypothetical Logan County seal:

“Welcome to the Logan County Freedom Zone Where We Don’t Need Surveillance Cameras," struck in bold letters above the silhouette of a handgun.

The group immediately settled on the wording, but then the real debate began.

“Let’s do a handgun. That’s the most realistic representation of what everyone is packing around here!” Frenchy declared.

“Nope,” resisted Coffee Club Clifford. “A machine gun will terrify the big city criminals when they come up here to swipe my trailer again.”

Of course, one denizen, who will remain anonymous, had to stand out by personalizing the discussion: “How many people walk around with a machine gun? Now, an SKS—I shot one of those once down on the Cimarron once. Shootin’ sand, that’s where it’s at.”

“We’re not gonna put a Chinese gun on the sign for the most American concept ever. What are we, commies?” Frenchy declared to a chorus of “Yups, you got that right.”

Over the remainder of the meeting, the excited club members weighed in with their all-knowing takes on the second-order effects of the plan.

“Yup, that’s gonna make those Edmond liberals mad. They won’t wanna move into Cascata after they drive past that sign. But I guess that’s one of the big benefits—once those signs go up, there’ll be even fewer liberals around these parts. This conservative culture is gonna be self-perpetuating.”

This observation is in line with the general Coffee Club sentiment, particularly that conservative Logan County—and more specifically South Logan County—has been the firewall preventing the Ninth Judicial District from being overtaken by George-Soros-funded liberal DA candidates and judges from the liberal university town to the north. According to one of Frenchy’s hot takes, that SLC firewall is also the thing keeping the Guthrie PD officers involved in the AT&T store parking lot shooting out of jail right now.

“Those fellows sure better thank God for SLC or ol’ Cory Williams might be bringing the heat right about now,” Frenchy declares, while simultaneously opining, “We’re all in for one big property tax increase once a jury sees that body cam footage and certain internal documents from the city hall basement get subpoenaed. City management better get on top of this, and fast.”

The conversation continued, but that should be enough to allow The Guthrie Man to communicate the Coffee Club’s position on the matter.

The uniqueness of Logan County—and Oklahoma as a whole—suggests that the police surveillance state won’t catch on here the way it will in other parts of the country. Ironically, because the population tends to take care of itself, the crime problem may end up being lower here than in the cities or other heavily surveilled areas. Some say that's just how it goes when you live in a place where people are quicker to take matters into their own hands than a 1980s teenager bolting out of the haunted Masonic Children’s Home to outrun the classic black-and-whites of The Guthrie PD—best police cars ever btw. Whoever came up with that white-on-white look, yikes!

And county officials—particularly Devereaux—would be wise to recognize this, market it, and create a clear county-wide culture that turns what some law enforcement see as a negative—the populace’s reluctance to accept the surveillance state—into a real strength:

We don’t need government solving our problems in Logan County because we’re going to solve them ourselves.

Maybe Devereaux never got his fancy, all-seeing Flock Scantron devices—but that turned out to be a blessing. Now he has the opportunity to truly energize the local population by embracing individualism over government nanny-statism.

This isn’t without precedent. The practice of sheriffs warning criminals that the local population has the green light to take care of business is a real trait of populist sheriffs down in the Sunshine State. Devereaux just needs to hit copy and paste on that model and ask for a few signs to be placed on interior roads leading north off Waterloo. Those signs will generate media coverage—and with coverage, the concept will take off.

Now that’s a heaping helping of Coffee Club wisdom right there.

Now, let’s transition to the not-so-wise: ChuckAll.

Those who are tapped into the social networks of the political grassroots are noticing that tales of corruption at the Capitol have gone full Zoomies.

This week marked the end of the annual corruption fest known as the Oklahoma Legislature—and the “60th Legislature” might be one of the worst ever.

And ChuckAll? The esteemed local Senator from Perry? Well, he seems to be right in the middle of it, as seems to be evidenced by the front-page photo gracing The Oklahoman on Saturday—to the unending and might shame of the local community and everything it stands for. It shows a seemingly frustrated ChuckAll attempting to arm-twist what would be the lone Democrat vote into flipping and changing her vote, a vote that was sustaining one of Governor Kevin Stitt’s vetoes.

That may not mean much to casual observers, but to the grassroots who are in the know—and to the Coffee Club, which thrives on tales of Zoomie-infused capitol corruption—it’s everything.

These tales involve alcohol consumption by certain senators, a bill believed by many to be designed to potentially benefit a perceived ally and campaign money bags behind local state representative Collin Duel, lots of arm-twisting with promises of benefits—to possibly include cash, not clear if its campaign cash or perhaps appropriations to the benefit of one of the Senators who flipped, an airport, believe it or not, in another case—according to Stitt, legislators basically covering for corruption in the state mental health department and votes taken after midnight: basically, enough attempted horse-trading to stink up an ocean liner.

The Coffee Clubbers are wise enough to wait and see what pans out so as to separate fact from fiction but there’s already a strong perception in the community that the local state rep and ChuckAll are playing a sick political game. And when The Oklahoman ran that photo, it was to Guthrie’s great shame to see their clearly frustrated state senator, caught in full color, for all to see, appearing to be arm-twisting for a vote that insiders say, once flipped, would unlock smelly, smelly subsequent affairs.

It’s especially stomach churning when Hall occasionally drops into town to play the role of Mr. Clean—such as during his visit last year to the county commission, where he delivered one of those long, super-pious prayers. Overt piety and politics just don’t mix.

Although, in a hilarious side note, that ended up being the same meeting where—after Hall kicked things off with an over-the-top invocation—local county politico Mark Sharpen, chairing the meeting, decided to conclude the meeting by joking about Charlie Meadows pleasuring himself before theorizing that maybe people were viewing the county commission meeting in a “state of nature,” as Winston Churchill might say.

For the purposes of clean mental mindset, The Guthrie Man tries to avoid a deep dive into Sharpen’s brain, so it’s especially unfair when one is forced to make that journey, simply because they took a moment to become a little bit civically engaged by tuning into a meeting of the local county government. Kudos to Monty Piercy who kept his composure and who wasn’t playing along.

Pious meets perverted—it’s the perfect metaphor for what Logan County government has become these days. We are never going to get to this “make Guthrie great again with family values” plan when the community stands by and elects leaders who think this way, out loud and in public, unashamed, for all to see.

From the Capitol to the courthouse, it’s long past time for a full-scale housecleaning in this county.

Let’s just say there’s a reason for the enthusiastic response the county gave to the recent visit by newly minded state representative Jim Shaw—a new representative who only serves a small part of the county but still managed to pack in a gigantic crowd on a stormy Monday night down in the flood zone known as the Cottonwood Flats.

People around here are aching for real leaders who refuse to play the Capitol game—and Shaw is perceived as one of the few who aren’t playing around. He’s the real deal. You would never find that level of enthusiasm in this town for its actual representative and/or senator. There’s also a sense that the county is too ethical to stand by and let those players stay in office. Change is afoot.

But that’s big talk—big talk for another day.

The Guthrie Man Coffee Club has solved enough of the world’s problems for one day.

Until next time—

Stay crunchy.

As regular attendees will know, Guthrie Man has carefully cultivated a reputation as the wise oracle of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club. This well-deserved status has been bestowed not because of blowhard, mindlessly thrown prognostications tossed at fellow coffee drinkers by The Guthrie Man—just to hear the Guthrie Man's own magnificent voice.

It’s really quite simple. Guthrie Man puts Guthrie Man's long memory to work—analyzing the past, applying those lessons to the future—and voila: the perception of genius.

So, on the rare occasion when clouds develop on the horizon and one of Guthrie Man's many musings starts to look shaky, the Coffee Club lights up with the gleeful teasing of the members, some of whom can’t wait to topple Guthrie Man from oracle status.

But fear not, fans and supporters of The Guthrie Man, more often than not, Lucy pulls away the football, and the members fall flat on their faces.

Guthrie Man rather enjoys this whole process, knowing that achieving oracle status depends on these very moments—moments of doubt—which, in retrospect, once The Guthrie Man has been again proven right, only add to a mystique normally reserved for such famous prognosticators as Alex Jones: "Alex was right!"

But as for now, things aren’t looking good for Guthrie Man courtesy of new Guthrie councilman Menecca Gibbs.

Yup, this is about the new city councilman. But did you really think Guthrie Man was going to admit to taking summer reservations for guided beachcombing tours on the dry Guthrie Lake bed?

Yes—no refunds. But here’s hoping the Guthrie Chamber managed to cancel their “It’s a Beachy Summer in Guthrie!” brochure before the printer inked up the rollers.

But hey, at least the old Guthrie Lake spillway is still holding up. It’s been so long since it was actually tested, Guthrie Man figures its collapse is about a fifty-fifty proposition.

No word on if the Guthrie Council has found a way to give away Guthrie Lake to the Guthrie Country Club just yet. Why give away just one city lake, when there are three to work with?

But back to the matter at hand.

A few weeks ago, after witnessing the dumpster fire that was the Ward I city council "debate", Guthrie Man took to the forum that is the Guthrie Man Coffee Club to predict doom and gloom.

All but one candidate seemed to support raising Guthrie’s sales tax—a confiscatory attack on the working man that would have sent Guthrie Man scurrying to the low-tax confines of SLC for future coffee consumption.

But Guthrie Man is Guthrie Man—not SLC Man. Guthrie Man probably won't pick up all stakes and abandon Guthrie Town until all hope is gone. But hey, this is a town that keeps re-electing The Talkative Postman, so how much hope can one person have?

That Ward I debate was filled with the typical pandering. The candidates engaged in all the usual platitudes, a verbal make-out session with all things City Hall. Sickening stuff.

This level of pandering is typical of candidates who are not prepared to be leaders, but who will be followers—of the City Hall bureaucrats.

Well, hardly had Guthrie Man uttered these criticisms when city council candidate Menecca Gibbs took to the Coffee Club forum to declare that she was, in fact, of independent mind.

That impressed Guthrie Man—and the Coffee Club. Gibbs cared enough about the Coffee Club criticism to push back—in a public forum nonetheless.

So the jury was out: Would Gibbs mindlessly sign off on every directive from City Hall? Would she spike our taxes? Spend our money in the same foolish manner as past councils?

Or would she tip the scales in favor of a new generation of council members, ready to take the city in a new direction—a direction that matches the values of the locals, for a refreshing change?

Well, according to the Coffee Club buzz, her first few days as councilman hint at the latter. She's apparently asking intelligent questions which suggest that she might even, actually, get this, be reading the city council packet. Whoa!

Is it possible that The Guthrie Man was wrong?

If Guthrie Man knows anything from years of watching and observing the politricks in this town, the odds are still in Guthrie Man's favor.

Few councilmembers survive City Hall’s pressure. Few have what it takes to hold their own, ask the good questions, actually read the council packets, and require the city to do right with the resources it already has—without conspiring for more. And City Hall is almost always conspiring for more. It’s never enough.

So, with the passage of time, the odds suggest that Guthrie Man will be proven correct.

But Guthrie Man can’t help being just the slightest bit nervous.

Here's what worries The Guthrie Man.

If Gibbs really tries to do this job right, she’s going to need allies.

Normally, a curious, thoughtful city councilman doesn’t last long because they’re on their own. It’s not just City Hall putting them under the gun—it’s their fellow council members, always voting against them, trying to shut them down, and applying peer pressure.

No one likes being the odd man out. Most don't even have what it takes to stand alone.

This council, though, might be different.

Guthrie Man and the entire Guthrie Man Coffee Club are on the Adam Ropp optimism train.

Ropp made Guthrie Man’s day when it was revealed that, in preparation for becoming the town’s new mayor, Ropp had studied the history of past mayors.

If Ropp cares enough to study the history of the town, then he’s going to think about the future—when, maybe, future coffee clubs and even future elected officials will study the past as they prepare for their terms.

He’s going to care how he’s perceived by those future officers. Was he just another City Hall drone who raised taxes and utility rates and spent money, like his predecessor Gentling—whose farewell address basically amounted to “I raised your taxes and spent your money?”

Or will he be known for doing something exceptional?

Guthrie Man would suggest Ropp follow the "Branson Plan"—make the town known for being family-friendly, in terms of budget, low cost of living, low cost of government, and a non-woke culture like might have been found in the 1980s. Right now, Guthrie is being torn in two directions: death culture with a heaping dash of woke, or pro-family traditional values culture with limited government and the wise values of generations past.

If Ropp can send the town down the latter path—making Guthrie a destination for affordable family fun—he’ll put it in rare company: communities that rejected the destructive characteristics of modernity. Foolish towns in this era have embraced big government and woke, including Edmond (which has long abandoned its Americana and low-tax culture from the 70s and 80s, it’s been right downhill since Carl Reherman left the Mayorship in 88), and certainly Oklahoma City, where big-city wokester David Holt is steering the city into a crime-ridden cesspool.

This is Guthrie’s moment of opportunity—and Ropp is perfectly positioned to seize it.

Best for him: He’s surrounded by mediocrity, so he’s really set to stand out. That includes the local senator and state representative—unimaginative fellows playing the soul-snuffing Capitol power game and betraying the common man on the regular. Their co-option can now be seen and detected by the observant locals who still believe in good and right and who are now seeking a fast-approaching day of accountability for those rascals.

There are mediocre public officials at nearly every level of local government—but just enough natural allies on the city council to do something big, something exceptional: make Guthrie into a family-friendly throwback to a pre-woke era. And do it without increasing taxes, costs, or regulation.

Now, if Ropp has truly been studying the past, perhaps he’s taken a moment to study the most cautionary tale in Guthrie politics: the story of Mayor Willard Scurlock.

Scurlock was at the helm when what began as a modest proposal to build a sewage treatment plant quickly turned into a logrolled, bad-judgment fest that is still universally detested in this town, to this very day. And Scurlock lived long enough to reflect on the impact of that decision for four more decades. Imagine carrying the weight of that mistake for 40 years?

Raising taxes and spending big money in the name of “progress” can go south real fast.

Trust the people of Guthrie with their money—not City Hall. They will spend every penny trying to make a legacy on someone else's dime.

Don’t let the bureaucrats run the city, especially the man in the basement. It’s the elected council’s job to run the city. Anyone who doesn’t understand that shouldn’t be entrusted with public power.

The bureaucrats have the institutional knowledge—and use it to exert tremendous pressure. This includes peer pressure. Study how the man in the basement pressured the council into approving the surveillance system. That’s how a strong bureaucrat manipulates a weak council—not how a city council keeps a bureaucrat in check.

The balance must be restored—and maintained.

And always side with the constitutionally protected liberties of the people. No more surveillance state. No more cutting-edge authoritarian mandates. Study Gentling—and how his mask mandate forever put him at odds with the values of this town.

One must understand that there is a war between death culture plus woke plus Guthrie tradition of government-subsidized, Pollard-style edgy naughtiness on one side versus life culture and old-school traditional values on the other. The best of the latter is reflected in the annual Victorian Christmas. The former? See October.

Side with and bring attention to the former, and the town will economically benefit in ways that can’t yet fully be realized.

And who knows, with the Trumpster bringing America back to America, maybe the furniture factory will re-open. Just don't try to subsidize it. Government subsidies are dumb.

Now, enough talk about saving the future of Guthrie, let's get on to something everyone cares about: the new Braum’s in SLC.

That Braum's with its fantastical new SLC tourist attraction is set to strike fear into the hearts of the snobs on the Summit Town City Council, aka the Territorial Capital’s southernmost suburb, aka Edmond for you modern types.

Not long ago, Summit’s snobbish city council refused to cooperate with Logan County’s water crew to supply water treatment to SLC. No wastewater treatment for the the SLC retail extravaganza popping up at Waterloo and I-35.

Apparently, after raising taxes multiple times, Summit’s city leaders still don't have enough cash and are so terrified of the SLC freedom zone with its low taxes, that they are willing to turn down millions from paying SLC customers.

They are afraid of the SLC development now sprouting up outside of their city limits. This is the development that promises to deprive Summit of that sweet, sweet, mandatory tax revenue and according to the Summit Snobs, people shouldn’t even have one island of freedom in which to spend their hard-earned cash without being shaken down for 4-ish percent to the local city monopoly at city hall.

Summit’s city councilman Barry Moore—the same Barry Moore of Mike Morgan lobbying and federal charges fame—is openly theorizing about how southbound Wichita traffic will be stopping off at the Waterloo exit to spend their hard-earned money instead of driving into Summit Town.

If wastewater was off the table, then Guthrie Man suspects the Scared Summit Snobs most certainly weren't prepared to sell access to highly pressurized water, assuming the honchos at Logan County Water District #1 would have been onboard for that, thus probably part of the reason that forced the new Braum’s to install a massive water tower for fire suppression purposes.

The construction slowdown, while that tower was being built, became the talk of the town for anyone within three miles of Waterloo, maybe even more so than, "when is the Whole Foods going to open up at Covell and Sooner?"

What’s taking so long for the new Braum's to open?

When can you get your nearly-tax-free A2 milk products from the largest herd of A2 cows in the nation?

Yes, these were the important questions to ask.

And give it to those clever Braum’s folks for turning some seriously sour lemons into quite delicious lemonade. Apparently, they know the value of a big milk bottle. After all, they have branded that oversized bottle down in the city at the Classen Street Grocery.

So now, presumably, thanks to the SLC infrastructure challenges, there’s now a maybe-even bigger Braum’s milk bottle at Waterloo and I-35.

Now that's the first-class level of amazing irony that's perfect for The Guthrie Man to opine about.

Marketing gold!

Even The Oklahoman thinks so. They sent out one of their creative writer types to theorize on how this might be one of those Route-66-style roadside attraction possibilities—conveniently leaving out a key detail: nearly tax-free, delicious Braum's groceries, thanks to SLC’s unincorporated status and the state’s grocery tax ban.

Aside from a ¾ cent confiscation to the big spenders at the Logan County Courthouse—seriously, word is one of the county commissioner types once put in a shower because he was living in the county barn, and then the next county commissioner had it torn out, just in case you wondered where your road money was going—there are real savings to be had—alongside that must-have Instagram selfie next to the fire suppression milk tower on Waterloo.

Suggested caption: "In case of fire, break milk;" or maybe "Fire code compliant, cow approved."

That Instagram gold is certainly worth the short detour from the 15th Street Braum’s and its Summit Town tax burden to the new tourist attraction in SLC.

Once again, your pocketbook has been enriched, and your Insta gone viral, thanks to the curious insights of The Guthrie Man.

Now—when is that new SLC Scooters opening up?

Until next time, friends of The Guthrie Man,

stay crunchy.

Oh, and, new Councilman Gibbs, may you do the impossible:

prove The Guthrie Man to be wrong.

The generation that can remember the widespread adoption of that newfangled miniature theater screen—the television—and the last generation that actually believes what they see on it.

Now, the Guthrie Man Coffee Club has, as one might imagine, its share of Boomer attendees. Guthrie Man can’t help but observe how the contributions these young whippersnappers have made to the various coffee club discourses over the past handful of years have been greatly muted. And that's precisely because they really do believe what they see on the TV. They come to the club all set to run with the latest talking point pushed out of 30 Rock or CNN HQ, only to get embarrassed by an even younger whippersnapper from Gen X—most usually a fellow by the name of Coffee Club Frenchy (don’t ask, long story)—who’s miles ahead of them thanks to the power of independent media.

No sooner can Guthrie Man get a sip in than Coffee Club Frenchy has shot down the entirety of last night’s CBS News with Dan Rather—or whatever lady now fills the Rather slot. Only a few of the Boomers even tune in enough to know her name.

So, to avoid embarrassment, those Boomers have become almost non-conversational about subjects of national and international importance. Because to continue those discussions would be to allow Coffee Club Frenchy and allies to first systematically deconstruct their entire worldview and then walk them through the logistics of how they mostly believed deep state lies through the majority of their adult years.

And that’s just painful.

So, to spare the embarrassment, this is where Guthrie Man steps in and redistricts/constrains the conversation to matters of local import—issues where Guthrie Man really tends to thrive.

So it is in today’s coffee club meeting, where Guthrie Man tactfully directs the conversation with the subtle transition: “Well, men, will the capital city ever have another Boomer mayor, or was this the transitioning of the guard?”

Of course, Guthrie Man isn’t really asking for the input of the Boomers. Guthrie Man is setting up Guthrie Man to express Guthrie Man’s deep delight about how incoming millennial mayor Adam Ropp—an individual in whom the entire Guthrie Coffee Club has immense expectation and optimism (Don’t raise taxes, Mr. Mayor. Never before has the coffee club had higher expectations for a mayor, and you know what they say about great expectations—yup, double the disappointment when those expectations aren’t met.)—lionizing not just outgoing long-time Mayor Steve Gentling, but Boomer mayors in general, with, and paraphrasing here, the retelling of a recent public comment: “Someone told me the thing they appreciated about Steve Gentling was the fact that they didn’t have to worry about Steve Gentling embarrassing the town.”

Now, as Guthrie Man aficionados will know, Guthrie Man will certainly take issue with that statement. However, what an interesting thing to say. And apt—very apt.

Guthrie Man won’t put an exact percent on it, but yes, this has been a very real point of concern regarding Guthrie’s Boomer mayors: that they represented the town in varying degrees of “yikes”—from outright redneck, to ADD-riddled, to just flat-out and quite openly, well, racist.

So yes, Gentling’s hope for grace, as it relates to the historical record, is that it is one, not written by Guthrie Man, and two, judged exclusively through the lens of comparative critique.

For sure, Gentling must hope that his record is told through the power of photography.

For example, the New Yorker’s photography of a seemingly paranoid and fearful Gentling peering out from behind a mask, arrogantly staring into his community—a community that had rejected his clearly unconstitutional mask mandate. Most politicians should have already scrubbed from their social media, but live in fear of the residual “I am wearing a mask, look at me" photo, a photo that has become the hallmark of the paranoia and insanity of the COVID era. But Gentling, Gentling has to fear not just the photo, but a whole article of framing—by which the elite East Coast media painted Gentling’s disdain for his fellow Guthrians and their conservative sensibility of individual rights and the limitation of government power—as ignorant and backward.

Guthrians were ignorant and backward?

Because they pushed back against Gentling and his law to require the pointless wearing of nasty, spit-collecting pieces of cloth over their faces while driving alone in their cars? Something which, according to Guthrie Man’s interpretation of Gentling’s ordinance, was actually required.

But of course, Gentling was a Boomer, so he likely spent his evenings watching the corporatized media productions of the coastal elites, probably believing everything brought to him through the sponsorship of Pfizer and acting accordingly. To this day, he’s probably still operating under the impression that his collaboration with the East Coast media elites was something to be proud of—and not a forever stain on the office of mayor, the office once held by Schneider and Gumerson: advocates of the town, not allies of the coastal elite as they mocked those who inhabit flyover country—courtesy of the lone “enlightened” member of Hicktown, USA: Gentling.

But it doesn’t end there.

Perhaps Gentling’s tenure can be summed up with this particular image: It shows prominent Oklahoma City gay nightclub performer Joshua McGowen, in full drag character, presumably towering over his audience—an audience of children. On city property. At an event, purportedly sponsored by—wait for it—the Guthrie Police Department.

It’s this photo that so aptly demonstrates the barbarism of “woke.”

Right now, this is the taboo topic that no one in town is going to get caught openly talking about. It’s a non-secret secret that hides beneath the city’s conversational discourse, much like a tunnel under the city sidewalks. While the woke tide recedes—at least temporarily—there’s even reason to believe that society’s judgment will be particularly harsh on this lapse: the Boomers who ushered in a culture of “anything goes,” only to later realize that hundreds of years of Western culture had long established that some things aren’t allowable—and for good reason.

Or perhaps this one: the Orwellian surveillance device scanning the city’s traffic.

Once again, Gentling’s Guthrie was on the leading edge of doing something without realizing the consequences—and in pure Boomer fashion, putting complete trust in the police state, without realizing that when all power is delegated to the police, bad things happen.

Initially sold as a helpful tool to track kidnappers and car thieves, the tool quickly turned inward—being used to round up some rascally critters who were accused of abandoning animals. That was the turning point. That’s when the people realized the tool had gone full Orwell.

The distrust only grew when The Sooner Sentinel discovered that Gentling’s police department had been sharing the surveillance data with the feds. Not a popular move.

Then there was the Owens Field debacle, the impact of which the city has only just begun to come to terms with. Gentling must hope the wider public doesn’t realize just how very bad that one was. Of course, it’s hard to get a photo that represents million-dollar project cost overruns. But who knows—stay tuned.

Now, that got a little too serious for Guthrie Man’s taste. Satirical content can survive a brief dip into seriousness, but shouldn’t stay there long. However, since we’re here, and since it’s germane to the topic of Boomers, and since reminiscing is the foremost way the coffee club spends its time—now’s a good time to analyze the impact on the community of longtime teacher and GPS administrator Earl Sykes.

Here, here is the chance for the Boomers to reminisce about the bygone era in which education was—just that—education.

Sykes, pictured here in the 1970s, appears to be doing what teachers of that era were paid to do: teach.

Sykes entered the system in the waning days of the public education system’s greatness—an era when the Greatest Generation came together in a sense of community to teach the basics and the values and principles that had made the nation—and the community—great.

But one gets the sense that Sykes, like other idealistic Boomers, never quite realized that time had passed them by—moved on to an era when the “shared values” component of the education system was slowly excised from the system following the Supreme Court’s decision that God simply wasn’t allowed to hang out in the school system anymore.

Sans God, it would be to Sykes and his fellow educators to fill the void—a void that would prove, perhaps unbeknownst to Sykes, impossible to fill. And it would seem that inside of Sykes, there was a sadness—a refusal to come to terms with that reality.

So yes, the departure of Sykes rightly triggers a lot of coffee club nostalgia for a simpler, gone era that won’t be coming back—when a Guthrie parent could send their young, impressionable critter into the local public education system, blindly trusting the community with their most precious resource. That’s an era that won’t return—replaced with a much more complicated time, full of much more complicated decisions for the parent to navigate.

Sykes simply didn’t appear able to transition to this new way of thinking, or to expand beyond the simplistic: dump some more money into public education and that will solve the problem.

And, as unrealistic as that has become, there is a certain innocence in the obstinate desire for the good via the simple solution. It’s not the way things work anymore. But it’s Guthrie Man’s sincerest hope—and prayer—that Sykes has arrived at a place where it does.

As for bygone time that he represents, it’s gone now, except in the minds of the coffee club.

Let’s move on to something that isn’t as heavy: the departure of, hands down, one of the county’s most influential politicians of the decade. That lovable hippie. The quintessential Boomer. Now headed out to the California promised land for some reason—a land where anyone with a modicum of good sense is currently fleeing.

Now, Guthrie Man has yet to fulfill Guthrie Man’s long-ago promised ranking of Logan County Commissioners. But lest there be any suspense—Michael Pearson hands down wins the title of best Logan County District 2 Commissioner of the 21st century. And probably, in the entire history of that district, ranks second only to H.B. Chappell in terms of iconic District 2 Commissioners—Chappell having held the position for more than 30 years throughout the mid-part of the last century.

Pearson made his political debut in 2000 with an idealistic challenge to another long-time politician: Frank Davis. No one in the know gave Pearson much of a chance—widely seen as one of those idealistic hemp-loving hippies who, for whatever reason, had an “R” by his name.

But over the next ten years, Pearson brought the heat—officially sticking the stake in the Democrat heart in 2008 by defeating their last county commissioner. Thanks to Pearson, there would be no more Leaching off of the county commission by the Democrats! It’s hard to imagine Logan County’s now third-place political affiliation ever again taking back a county office.

For the next few years, Pearson took care of business—bringing extreme competence and vision and excitement to District 2 in a way few could have predicted.

District 2 is by far the most difficult of the three districts to govern, and probably one of the hardest in the state—maybe the roughest. But Pearson did it and did it in style—at least, he did so for about four years, from 2009 to 2013—as he brought hope and paving to the hearts of the hopeless, the hopeless who had no doubt long before resigned themselves to forever commuting on a third-world road grid.

All of that is a subject for another day, as are the cautionary details that led Pearson’s administration into a multi-year downward spiral—putting the district in a regrettable fiscal position that haunts it to this day, mercifully ending with Pearson’s defeat at the hands of a new, young political newcomer—whom Pearson chided with comparisons to Walter Mondale.

But here’s a quick hint: don’t hire Mark Sharpen as your first deputy. And don’t let a bitter Sharpen talk you into a fight with The GoodMan. Fighting The GoodMan is like picking a fight with Trump—it doesn’t end well.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Pearson, through his persistence over the course of two decades, became one of this century's top five most influential political personalities in this county, as ranked by The Guthrie Man, the self-appointed custodian of all official Logan County rankings.

In post-commission years, one can find Pearson on The Facebook, in true Boomer fashion, helpfully assisting the nostalgia crew by colorizing their old black-and-white photos in Guthrie Nostalgia World.

OK, friends of The Guthrie Man—that’s enough Boomer talk for now.

Guthrie Man hopes that you’ve enjoyed this all-Boomer special edition of The Guthrie Man’s Coffee Club.

Until next time —

stay crunchy.

Yes, the Guthrie Man is already guzzling the coffee shop caffeine faster than a slight wind knocking out the OG&E power juice and putting the Territorial Capital's stop lights into four-way-stop, all-lights-flashing-red mode.

Is anyone else starting to get South Africa vibes? Is Guthrie collapsing into the third world? With all this nation has spent on infrastructure in the last few years, is steady non-blip power too much to ask for?

Guthrie Man hates to admit, the Price Edwards Guthrie Plaza shopping center on the South Elon Musk Throughway is starting to look the slightest bit like Johannesburg.

The Guthrie Man had another great week this week. Guthrie Man's Babbage-heavy stock portfolio is doing fine. Now, Guthrie Man was a bit perturbed back when Babbage's stopped selling Kaypro II programs, and even more so when they renamed themselves to "GameStop" for some reason, the latter prompting an impromptu "Good Grief!" from the Guthrie Man, but Guthrie Man has hodled the stock right into prosperity. A nearly 10% return on investment last week alone. Always invest with your heart, that's the Guthrie Man way. And, since Guthrie Man has had such a good week in the market, Guthrie Man assumes everyone else did too?

You know, that Guthrie Man knows that answer. But, good coffee club etiquette suggests that Guthrie Man's humble bragging about being the only person on earth to win in the market this week dictates that Guthrie Man pretend to not know that your 401k just deep-dived. That's the coffee shop way. Brag, and feign ignorance. It's hard to obtain the head-of-the-table coffee shop air of superiority when everyone thinks you're arrogant; but, The Guthrie Man has mastered the art of letting you know how Guthrie Man excels in life mixed in with just enough obtuseness to suggest naivety. Being popular is about just the right ratio of success to naivety.

You can't tariff GameStop!

So this weekend was the big conclave up at the spooky super-secret society building on the hill.

There's admittedly a little entertainment factor in watching those fine-suited secret society members exit their cars, you know, the ones with any number of superfluous Stonecutter bling attached to the back window and/or trunk and dodging the rain in the dash up to the big house.

Now there's surely nothing more stimulating to keep a person awake on a dreary rainy weekend than to sit and watch all 32 degrees worth of Stonecutter theatrical performance art in one sitting.

You've got to hand it to those secret society types. Fighting off the sleep on a rainy, dreary weekend while sitting through all 32 degrees worth of plays in a single sitting: Brutal! That's why Guthrie Man found a way to get blackballed when Guthrie Man, in a rare lapse of bad judgment, managed to put in an application up at the big building. At least, that's how Guthrie Man pretends it went down. Seriously, you blackballed The Guthrie Man? Do you have any idea why your secret society is a meme right now?

Guthrie Man won't join any secret society that doesn't have the good judgment to blackball Guthrie Man. Let's face it, Guthrie Man isn't the conformity type. You are not going to catch a blindfolded Guthrie Man navigating some sort of Stonecutter room of horror just for the right to drink beer in the 1950s-ambiance-infused cavernous sub-basement afterward.

If only those walls could talk.

This is Guthrie Man's last-ever coffee club, isn't it?

Maybe Guthrie Man can have Coffee Club Clifford start Guthrie Man's car after the coffee club—just in case.

More about Coffee Club Clifford, aka CCC, later.

If there is a later.

Guthrie Man has much more in common with the outside-the-city-limits redneck-ish stock than the fine-suited secret society fellow. That and Guthrie Man's non-opposable thumbs always mess up the secret handshake. It's all very awkward.

Although, word is, it's the spooky secret society on the hill that's keeping the metric system down, so at least they are doing something right.

The metric system is a tool of the despot! Guthrie Man's car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way Guthrie Man likes it.

Speaking of the hogshead, let's play coffee club predict it.

As you know, coffee club predict it is where the all-knowing members of Guthrie's most powerful institution, The Coffee Club, draw upon their years of experience to predict the most likely outcome of the latest big happening around town.

What is that happening?

Well, it's not the county's most recent LEO shooting incident—they all come in threes, you know—so we should be good for a while.

And, that plane catching fire out at the airport sure does raise a few eyebrows.

But, there was another event, the biggest incident of note of the week due to its very, very close proximity to the most trafficked place in town for the senior-citizen types around here: the drive-through lane at Walgreens.

Here, the town's over-medicated, Medicare denizens, immediately upon leaving the coffee club, dutifully follow the orders of their general practitioner and enough body part specialists to necessitate the use of Guthrie Man's non-opposable thumbs as Guthrie Man tries to count them up—talk about a problem drugs can't fix—all of whom have their various prescription requests necessitating multi-weekly visits to the drug dispensary drive-through, where the latest deterioration of the on-the-market-for-2.8-million-dollars-won't-someone-please-buy-it Price Edwards' owned Guthrie Plaza shopping center has just occurred.

Now Guthrie Man doesn't like to buy the drugs from Walgreens, due to their purported policy of paying employees to travel up to the Sunflower State to kill their babies. Not a good look for a company that should be in the business of life saving—or the Sunflower State, for that matter.

Guthrie Man favors "importing" cheap drugs from Canada. Remember, you can't tariff black market Canadian drugs. Guthrie Man is always ahead of the curve. And as a bonus, this allows Guthrie Man to put "importer" on Guthrie Man's massive resume. So many credentials, it's really getting to be too much.

But, back to the big line at the Walgreens. It slowly creeps around that building and hey, if you need some entertainment while you wait, one of the faded Redbox DVD rental machines appears to be still working somehow. Didn't they go bankrupt? How is that even possible? Play your cards right and you can rent a DVD while at the back of the line, plug it into a cigarette-lighter-powered player—small-town PD night shift old-school style—and be done with it by the time you finally get the mega drug drop, returning it to the old faded Redbox machine on your way to survive the town's second-most-dangerous parking lot exit, onto the Elon Musk Boulevard.

It doesn't help that Price Edwards has let the turn lane markings fade into near obscurity. Some will know that there's a right-turning lane at the southernmost curb cut, others might not and they might get pretty annoyed when, while attempting to navigate into the danger zone without getting themselves killed—thus totally defeating the purpose of waiting forever for the drugs they think will have saved their life—mistakenly think the person to their right is both impatient and insane.

And that's not all: the faded stop sign by the drive-through exit, the potholes that fill with water when it rains, the bent fire hydrant protection pole, the trash upon trash that haunt the south embankment—and don't even think about driving around back; let's just say that the cable management isn't great.

Now those Guthrians whose businesses were knocked out of uptown back when Walmart came to the Guthrie Plaza back in about ’78 or so might think this is great revenge. Here's one of Guthrie Town's first-ever modern shopping centers now falling into a decay of inexcusable corporate neglect that's worthy of a good "Ha, ha."

But, it sure isn't right. Does anyone from Price Edwards even live in this town?

Here's where they went wrong. Apparently, they made the bad decision to tear down what, upon being restored, would have been an incredibly kiche attraction for the Guthrie Plaza: the Fotomat. The Fotomat could have been restored for a few thousand dollars, perhaps paid for by the last vestiges of the loose change from the Kodak Corporation—and boy, would that have been a draw for photogs for miles and miles.

Missed opportunity, Price Edwards! Missed opportunity.

Guthrie Man isn't one to whip up coffee club furor at some out-of-town corporation. Even if it has clearly written off their obligation to keep their property befitting of one of the most prominent properties on the town's most important throughway, The Elon Musk Expressway; but maybe the community needs to step up and embarrass them by having one of those community intervention events. You know, where the entire community comes out to pick up the trash, and invites the media from the big city to come up and do those on-the-scene interviews. Let's put the trash in big trash bags for all to see, and let it sit there for a while to serve as the backdrop of the on-the-scene interviews. That should spur some action. Let's do it!

Speaking of letting trash sit there, let's get back to the coffee club prediction game. How long will Price Edwards allow the newly downed light pole to lie on the ground just feet away from the Walgreens drive-through lane?

Now, this one gets really tricky. Because the observant person, who takes the time to look up from their DVD player as they slowly approach the drug dispensing window, will notice that what appears to be the last knocked-down light pole—probably from years ago—is still on the ground, simply pushed against the south embankment where the weeds haven't quite yet managed to conceal it, life-after-people style.

Is there room for property management to push this newly knocked-down light pole over to that same spot?

Or will the fact that Guthrie Town's weeds are growing too slowly to properly and completely conceal that particular refuse force Price Edwards' hand?

So, as we make our predictions, just keep all of that in mind. We need to account for the fact that the pole might never be removed from the property, and that counts for those who are betting on "never!" Just pushing it to the side, that means it is still there! Even if the weeds manage to conceal it.

Of course, the odds say that one of the coffee clubbers was in the line that day last week when the pole was knocked over.

And they will probably posit some boring first-hand-account with a less-than imaginative reason—reflecting actual reality, of all things—such as, yup, one of the city's big contractor's trucks hit it.

Now in the coffee club, things can go one of two ways:

First, speculation on who is to blame for what happened. Basically, Price Edwards might have crammed a Walgreens into a parking lot that was never designed to have a Walgreens. Now, there's not as much space for, let's say, a trash truck to maneuver and thus the light pole keeps getting knocked over. And this—this is a bit of a hazard to the life and limb of everyone near the drive-through line at Walgreens who perhaps just exited the line after trying to save their lives with too many drugs, only to now run the risk of deadly injury courtesy of falling light poles.

How is Make America Healthy Again going to fix this? Your move RFK.

There's always some retired traffic engineer type in the coffee club who can vouch for this class of speculation, and together we can predict the death of Western civilization because big corporations are cashing out while thoughtlessly endangering the lives of the locals.

Can someone please transcribe this coffee club meeting and send it to Price Edwards?

Or, secondly, there's always the option of going full-on coffee shop with this thing and using the imagination possessed only by the caffeine-addicted and fully fueled as to what may have really happened.

Maybe someone, stuck in that slow line, ran out of their meds before they could get to the drug dispensing window and lost control?

Or maybe someone couldn’t wait to take their meds as soon as they were dispensed and had a bad reaction?

Or maybe it was one of those mega gophers that keeps tearing up the gardens around here?

Or the frackquakes finally got to it. Those frackquakes might explain all of the potholes in the shopping center too. Price Edwards is clearly unable to keep up with the frackquakes so they have just stopped trying.

Yup, it was the frackquakes.

It's here that half of the attendees vow to call their insurance man on the way home. It's obviously time to add that earthquake insurance rider back onto the homeowners policy renewal.

Aren't coffee club conversations great?

But here's what's not great—the amount of money Guthrie Public Schools is reportedly spending on non-instruction.

The low GPS scorecard scores are a favorite topic at the club.

There are two prominent lines of coffee club thought:

First, we can fix this, if the university town board of education will just hire away The Doc—the town's very political school superintendent who is regularly playing the big wheel with the state's education establishment, and some would suggest not focusing on local scores, correction, non-sports scores, like he should—and the town can get a new super, who shares local values, doesn’t have an angry inner liberal, isn't the quintessential living embodiment of the meme of Superintendent Chalmers, and who really is super and is super focused on improving test scores and saving the future generations.

Or two, it doesn't matter—half the high school students are on pot now, and no one is going to fix this thing.

Now, Guthrie Man is open to the latter, and Doc Chalmers does have some defenses available to him. You can only teach a high, high school student so much.

But Guthrie Man would be much more defensive of Doc Chalmers if it appeared that Doc Chalmers cared—or any of the GPS sycophants in this town, for that matter.

The test scores and performance cards are something no one in this town talks about—unless Guthrie Man is missing something here. And that's just sick!

Is anyone even trying to improve education in this town?

You can't try to improve if you can't admit to the problem.

So are we all going to keep pretending that it doesn't exist in the first place?

Then, Doc Chalmers goes to some big New Orleans affair—as described in a past Guthrie Man coffee club—and makes a post in which he describes how much sympathy he was being given, by the attendees, for being from Oklahoma.

If being from Oklahoma is so embarrassing, why doesn’t Doc Chalmers go somewhere that shares his values?

That somewhere?

Liberal university town of course.

So, yes, Guthrie Man can only go so far trying to defend Doc, and as a rule of thumb, it's safe to say that there's a good deal of hope in the liberal university town school board right now.

But, for the first time, there's starting to be a little buzz about the subject. The super journalist known to the coffee club as The GoodMan started breaking into this subject matter with an article about the matter—and that article reportedly got some updraft on The Jake Merrick Show, one of the few radio talk shows still active in the Oklahoma City market.

And then, the news broke that a state representative released a report showing the breakdown of instruction cost.

The verdict on Guthrie?

51%.

That's right, 51% spent on "instruction."

What?

It's here where the coffee clubbers start to emit the simultaneous head-shaking, enhanced by the tsk-tsk of, "What is this world coming to?"

One or two of the horrified coffee clubbers might just have gone so far as to bring that latest tax assessment to the table. This town is currently undergoing an impending property tax megadone, as coffee clubbers from all across the county are going to start seeing a wave of new tax authorizations from both the school systems and the fire departments dropping onto their already spiking tax bills.

It never stops!

At this rate, there's an increasingly likelihood of an impending citizen revolt.

This is the type of revolt that has coffee clubbers headed down to the school board meeting—provided they got out of the Walgreens drug line in time—to start asking uncomfortable questions about where their money is going.

And with independent super journalists like The GoodMan now on the prowl, they might get some answers. And they probably aren't going to like them.

If Summit Town, the Territorial Capital's southernmost suburb, can elect new Mayor Mark Nash on the backs of a citizen tax revolution, then Guthrie Town can throw the bums out too.

Did GPS pay for that trip to New Orleans?

Inquiring, caffeine-fueled minds would like to know.

Well, on that note of joyous tidings, and the second pot of coffee now exhausted, maybe it's time for the Guthrie Man to head to the parking lot.

Where's Coffee Club Clifford with Guthrie Man's car keys?

Perhaps on this one day, just this once, it shouldn't become a habit, Guthrie Man will detour over to the Guthrie Plaza, carefully navigate the potholes, fallen light pole, faded lane markings and pick up a going-home coffee from the Scooters, just to even out the caffeine crash a little bit.

Until next time, friends of the Guthrie Man —

stay crunchy.

It's been a good week for the Guthrie Man. As the benevolent dictator of the best of the Territorial Capital's most powerful institution, the coffee club, you, the fine friend of Guthrie Man, can only imagine how many Signal groups the Guthrie Man gets invited and/or added to, even against the powerful will of the Guthrie Man. Guthrie Man can only ignore Signal group invitations for so long until things get awkward.

From the Guthrie Country Club Gate Crashers Society to the incredible finds at the East-Side EARC group, you name it and Guthrie Man’s patented angry cat avatar is there—or was—until this week, when Guthrie Man was gifted the ability to escape pretty much every one of these groups through the simple technique of changing Guthrie Man's name from "Guthrie Man" to "Jonah Goldberg."

It's still the same angry cat avatar, but you would be amazed at how quickly Guthrie Man's Signal group list has shrunk.

No more notifications for...

Guthrie Country Club Gate Crashers Society: Party update: "Hillbilly Yacht Club Event" sneak-in at Santa Fe Lake is a go. You know the drill.

Territorial Capital Coffee Conspiracy: Someone brought Folgers. Emergency meeting, STAT!

Guthrie Ghost Guided Tour Enthusiasts: Confirmed apparition at Blue Belle tonight; bring cameras and hashtag ideas. #ChooseGuthrieForAllYourViralGhostSightings

Speaking of the #ChooseGuthrie hashtag, does anyone else find it insulting? It was introduced shortly after the last tax increase. So it suggests to the Guthrie Man that Guthrie Man should choose Guthrie for Guthrie Man’s shopping needs out of some moral duty to Guthrie, even when they are charging more than ever before, as opposed to doing what's right for the Guthrie Man’s inflation-riddled budget.

That's not how the free market works. Guthrie Man and the friends of Guthrie Man have to do, first and foremost, what is right for Guthrie Man and the friends of Guthrie Man. If a Guthrie business or service offers the best value, even after accounting for City Hall's high taxes, then that's what Guthrie Man needs to go with.

Lame hashtags positing an intangible greater moral obligation suggest community is more important than the individual and that individual's family. Give your money to City Hall, even if they charge you more, because it's the right thing to do, somehow.

Giving personal autonomy over to City Hall just isn't the type of thing the Guthrie Man is OK with. And that’s, ironically enough, part of what makes Guthrie great.

Now, once Guthrie Man is elected to the City Council, the Make Guthrie Healthy Again agenda will dictate that one should choose Guthrie because . . .

Maybe “because” City Hall will become more efficient, with a narrow focus on core government—and not messing around with anything else, such as the Owen Field multimillion-dollar fiscal boondoggle of epic proportions. With some lower taxation, it could actually make sense to choose Guthrie, first and foremost, for reasons of doing what’s right for the individual and the individual's family budget—because doing business in the Territorial Capital would be less costly than going to the big city.

But right now, there's no “because” there. It's just a lame hashtag not befitting of intellectual discourse. Thus, it's really quite disrespectful to the community and indicative that those who run this town probably don't, in fact, have the best intent—or perhaps don't have the intellectual chops to think deeper, looking at you GPS education system.

So that's why, as City Hall appears to be conspiring on the next big tax hike—a hike that could push the sales tax rate up to or even over 10 percent, i.e., a point of no return—the Guthrie Man coffee crew prepares its escape to the low-tax lands of SLC, where an array of buying opportunities are sprouting up. There's a great future for commerce in SLC, thanks in large part to the fact that the massive, Charlie Meadows proposed, countywide tax increase, did not go forward, and entrepreneurs should be prepared to seize the moment—especially the coffee shop entrepreneur. In fact, Guthrie Man might get into the action. An SLC-located Guthrie Man coffee shop, powered by beautiful, pure, hard SLC well water, is sure to draw those who want to escape the fish-water, high-tax confines of City Hall’s money-grubbing misadventures.

Should Guthrie Man advertise the new shop? Or should it be underground? The latter fits Guthrie Man's style much better. Exclusivity is always the ticket. If you know, you know.

That's why you will never see Guthrie Man encouraging people to subscribe on Substack. Don't be one of those goobers who ruins the exclusivity of this coffee club by sharing this post.

As good of a week as it’s been for the Guthrie Man, and Guthrie Man’s exciting escape from Signal notification purgatory, it hasn't been such a great week for the motley crew that makes up the Territorial Capital’s cadre of former and current politicians.

Ugh, the local politicians. Few coffee club conversations escape the inclusion of this particularly dreaded subject matter. But yes, it's time to do the synchronized eye roll.

First, there’s Guthrie's now notorious former congressman who represented the Territorial Capital throughout the Reagan era.

He's awful now.

What is it about ex-Guthrie politicians that turns them into crazy liberals after they leave office?

Were they always liberals, running the long grift on the taxpayers?

Case in point: Charlie Meadows. Did he run a three-decade-long grift, pretending to be the conservative oracle as a setup to his 18 months of governing as the most liberal tax-and-spend county commissioner in the county's modern era?

How can one explain the insanity?

Those coffee clubbers who have followed the curious case of the Obama-voting, Biden-supporting, Harris-endorsing Mickey Edwards will know how—after his defeat back in 92 (apparently local Republicans weren’t on board for the thousands in overdrafting going on at the House Bank)—he left the backwoods of Oklahoma for a big professorship up at Harvard.

This week it was revealed that Edwards is associated with the group who provided the judicial junket to the now-infamous Trump-hating D.C. Judge Boasberg of "turn the plane around" fame.

For those who still have enough faith in this nation’s leaders to suggest that those junkets don't make a difference, Guthrie Man admires your naivety. It's amazing how a politician or judge will sell out for a good time.

For example, a certain county official who, for some strange reason, has had a fascination with getting junkets to Washington, D.C. Let's talk about that at a future club meeting.

Embarrassing stuff for the Territorial Capital.

Then there's the erstwhile Ann Griffin, also making very notable news this week.

Griffin, as the long-timers will remember, was the first state senator to be elected from Logan County since the 1960s—who unexpectedly stopped running for re-election and endorsed the Perry-based ChuckAll. This gave Griffin a very precious weeks of "lame duck" status when she could do whatever she wanted without being just too concerned about what the voters back home might think. The lame duck status appeared to be rather liberating for Griffin, who had campaigned as a conservative but was now freed up to be a liberal.

Case in point: Senate Bill 1140. This was the proposal to protect faith-based adoption placement agencies. Those agencies didn’t want to be forced into putting adoptees into nontraditional homes. For some reason—based on their interpretation of centuries of history—they felt that their children needed both a mother and a father whose declared biological identities correspond with their God-given biology.

Of course, six radical Senate Democrats couldn’t stomach this common sense. And one single Republican: to our great, great shame, Logan County's very own Ann Griffin.

Friends, we were sold a bill of goods.

How embarrassing for our Senator, the first since the 1960s, to be on the record, with six other radicals, voting against protecting faith-based adoption agencies.

In 2012, Ann Griffin was the first to introduce highly corporatized campaign consulting and financing into Logan County politics. That money paid for her to market herself as an uber conservative, but in reality, she, in her final days in office, was betraying Guthrie voters in ways the people around here could have never imagined.

In an interesting side note, current Logan County Congresswoman Stephanie Bice, a known close associate of Griffin, somehow managed to miss that particular vote. Who knows what Bice’s excuse was for not voting on that day, but when the lives of foster kids are on the line, it’s probably not adequate.

At that time, back in 2018, the nom de guerre of the woke crowd was LGBTQ. The pluses hadn't yet earned their right to be included in the magic acronym of super inclusion, and boy did the LGBTQ crowd hate that bill.

Not unlike how Kamala Harris hated Oklahoma's Senate Bill 612 in 2022. That was the pro-life bill that cracked down on unnecessary abortion. Harris decried that bill as "shameful." Why is this relevant? Because it’s eerily similar to the circumstances of Griffin's betrayal on Senate Bill 1140 back in 2018: another soon-to-be Logan County lame duck, having campaigned as pro-life, Garry Mize, totally missed the vote. That was a bad omen, and a few days later, as a second key pro-life proposal hit the floor, House Bill 4237, the mask came off altogether. Mize, now officially not running for re-election and free of worrying about the voters joined 15 liberal Democrats and one other liberal Republican to vote against the measure. Not only that, Mize reportedly debated against the proposal.

Once again, the locals had been betrayed.

The question is, what are these liberals doing behind the scenes, prior to becoming a lame duck, while pretending to be conservatives?

But Guthrie Man does tend to rabbit trail, but give Guthrie Man a break, sure you've heard all of this before, but it’s important for the newcomers to get caught up to speed. That’s the thing about a benevolent dictatorship. The benevolent dictator doesn’t want anyone to be left behind, with furrowed brow, thinking, “Uh-oh, am I from Rio Linda?”

Back to Griffin.

This week the Logan County Republican Party’s county committee, acting as the highest authority of the party, officially reprimanded Griffin for her role as a leader in the initiative petition effort to destroy the Republican Party primary process.

It’s a state question that would allow Democrats to select the Republican Party’s nominee for office. It’s believed to be the latest craze of the Oklahoma City corporate crowd—our betters—who think they can design a better election system that will let them buy the elections with their anonymous dark money. The small-fry, blue-collar, grassroots candidate is sure to get smoked once the corporatists can pay a bunch of money to get the Democrats to flood the Republican primary and elect Democrats or corporatist Republicans.

And yes, this shocking effort is led, in part, by none other than Logan County's own Ann Griffin.

Honest to goodness, is there one single former politician around these parts who didn’t run a grift on the local electorate?

Is it really too much to ask that people keep their word? If they are flaming liberals, just tell the people: “I am a crazy liberal who wants to destroy your election system. Vote for me!”

The fact is, had she not been elected to the Senate by the local voters on a platform of conservatism, Griffin would have never had the platform to head up this group in the first place or to become a super lobbyist for the uber-liberal Chad Richison and his Paycom corporation. Voting for Griffin, it's one of Guthrie Man's greatest voting regrets. She used us.

In Guthrie Man’s view, betraying the voters is a lucrative endeavor for the political class. Once they are elected—on a blue-collar, values-sharing, defender-of-all-things-American platform—they enter a new class. A class of elites. Hanging with those elites and keeping that invite to the Nichols Hills party circuit, top-dollar dinners at Vast and the Oklahoma City Country Club events necessitates obtaining a certain disdain for all things time-proven and traditional-values-based.

At its core, it’s about honesty and truth. Back to the case in point: Charlie Meadows didn’t run his first campaign on TIF districts, open meeting exemptions, $25,000 band performances at the county fair, $5 million office expansion projects, intentionally cutting the Cox cable line and taking away the Internet, and approving wind farm permits. And he didn’t run his re-election campaign on a platform of a multimillion-dollar tax increase—$12 million or so in new taxes. But after those elections, he tried to do all of those things.

Being a liberal isn’t illegal. But telling voters you are a conservative and then governing as a liberal is absolutely despicable.

So, kudos to the Logan County GOP for passing their resolution censuring Griffin. This is a real warning signal to all of the values-betrayers who are planning on running this same grift. Maybe, just maybe, things are starting to change around here.

Perry-Based Senator ChuckAll had hit his own head on a wall this week. His House Bill 1751 was approved by the House but not before the House author had to pull the panic cord and rip out the part of the bill that would take away the right of Oklahomans to stay out of the federal government biometric data collection program otherwise known as Real ID. Apparently ChuckAll will need to win re-election next year before forcing local residents into the world of Orwell and end times eschatology.

Another consideration, also happening this week, Mize’s successor, Collin Duel, hasn’t yet declared his lame duck status. If he’s checking out, we don’t know about it yet. But this week, he also made news for his bill to spend $2 million—not counting leasing costs—to set up a new state court system in Oklahoma and Tulsa counties. It’s a business court system, designed to provide a special venue for the mega businesses, mirroring the federal district court system—Western and Eastern districts. Duel’s new court expansion plan was approved by the House this week, after which it reportedly caught the criticism of the state’s foremost conservative radio show personality, Jake Merrick.

If there’s anything refreshing about Duel’s plan to grow government spending, it’s that he’s not yet a declared lame duck. Of course, with plans like this and the criticism of conservative thought leaders such as Merrick, that may be a moot point.

But once again, Duel campaigned—relentlessly so—as a conservative. The Guthrie Man’s mailbox has never been the same after carrying the weight of so many Duel-advocacy mailers. No wonder the Postal Service can’t manage to keep their mail carriers. Talk about a toxic workplace. Imagine being forced to deliver all that political hogwash, time and time again.

Who paid for all of the mail?

That, right there, should have been the warning sign.

And Gentner Drummond: the next election isn’t until 2026. If you can’t figure out when the election year is, then you shouldn’t be the attorney general—much less the governor.

Drummond needs to stay out of Guthrie Man’s mailbox, and Drummond’s many ads have carpal tunnel setting in Guthrie Man’s skip ad button finger. Could this be a class action?

Guthrie Man has a conspiracy theory that Drummond’s making some sort of investment play on Pi-hole technology, because Drummond’s nonsensical strategy of ensuring there’s never a break in political ad season has guaranteed Pi-hole tech has a future customer in Guthrie Man.

Actually, Guthrie Man knew something sinister was coming the moment Kevin Stitt and team rolled out that new license plate.

Now, the perceptive knew that the new plate was in bad taste. The red star flag was approved by the third Oklahoma Legislature. It was the 1911 Legislature, and it was the first to meet in Oklahoma City after stealing the capitol away from its real home. Even though state flags weren't really a thing back then, Oklahomans almost immediately determined that sporting a red flag with a star was a little bit too Bolshevik for them, and that’s why it took a mere 12 years or so for them to pivot to the hands-down best flag in the nation: the Osage shield flag, with its prominent Christian crosses.

Now, Kevin Stitt doesn’t seem the type to intentionally bring communist imagery back to Oklahoma, but it was certainly a bad look.

However, maybe there’s more to it than this.

The uber-perceptive may have picked up on something even more sinister. It’s not clear to the Guthrie Man what specifically inspired the 46-star flag now embraced by the Stitt administration and stamped onto the back of thousands of Oklahoma vehicles.

But maybe it wasn’t a desire to express socialist leanings as much as it was a lazy or even subliminal copy-and-paste of the highly promoted corporate imagery of the day—specifically the powerful and mighty White Star Line shipping concern.

Now, Guthrie Man doesn’t want to overthink this thing, but it seems to Guthrie Man that the timing of Oklahoma’s adoption of the White Star Line flag might have been a bad omen, because deep inside of Guthrie Man’s memory lies a sinking sensation that something very, very bad happened to that company almost immediately after this state appears to have ripped off its flag.

Could history be repeating itself?

Could the state, once again returning to an official endorsement of that particularly jinxed image, be the unleashing of a dramatic, kraken-like jinx upon the state?

If so, please allow Guthrie Man to suggest that that jinx is more likely than not the perpetual, never-ending political campaign season—as pioneered by the political geniuses behind the campaigns of Gentner Drummond, reportedly the same fine fellows who brought us the campaigns of Ann Griffin, the Guthrie public school tax hike question, ChuckAll and Collin Duel.

Sick stuff, friends of The Guthrie Man. Sick stuff.

But stick with The Guthrie Man as we get through this latest sinister twist—together—with the shared fellowship of those in the town’s most powerful institution and the associated caffeine rush.

Until next time,

stay crunchy.

If there’s one thing Guthrie Man hates most, it’s the coffee shop oldsters who always manage to shoehorn a reference to their Mad March Bracket into the conversation—usually as their lead-off—before the caffeine even kicks in.

Guthrie Man can only hear the same self-effacing, “Welp y’all, you know what they say about perfection, but . . . ” so many times—as the obvious setup to eventually let Guthrie Man know they’re, in fact, in first place in the coffee shop pool. You won’t catch Guthrie Man pretending to be humble before bragging about Guthrie Man's own first-place bracket, which is currently nosing into the top 10% nationwide, according to the wokesters over at the ESPN bracket-scoring company.

Self-effacement is the worst ramp-up to bragging. If Guthrie Man wanted to experience pointless, endless, self-indulging self-effacement, Guthrie Man would simply replay the footage of last week's Logan County GOP Convention and floor fight. Their MC was the undisputed champion of the never-in-demand skill of relentless, self-indulgent humility. Sheesh—maybe that works once or twice in a presentation, but by the time we’re in double-digit territory, the audience is right to assume there’s one of those politician clowns standing at the front of the room.

Word on the street is that this isn't this particular self-indulgent politician's first trip to Four Square Miler Ville. The county government office not so long ago awarded a contract to that politician's company—paid for with taxpayer funds from a new state government funding program.

Now, the fact that—until very recently—he was a powerful big-stick swinger down at the pork factory is enough to make the coffee crew raise a right-side eyebrow, full-on Spock-style, when the state government pours mega bucks into a funding program that first goes to local government, then straight back to that politician’s company. After all, he did manage to take the good ole CP on the enabling legislation—but not on the $12.5 million appropriation into the program. Now he’s out of office and apparently running for the next one—but it all makes for some excellent coffee shop analysis: in Oklahoma, politicians making mega bank from doing business with the government probably isn’t all that different from federal Congressmen making mega bank in the stock market.

Vote them out!

Their fat bank accounts will console them.

But, just a note to future GOP chairman-like people. When you have one of your burn-it-all-down convention events, don't invite out-of-county mercenaries and sneezy self-indulgent politicians to run the place. When Guthrie Man has to sit through the meanderings of the self-indulgent, Guthrie Man gets very, very revolutionary, very quickly. And, for some strange reason, the long-faced crew at the sign-in desk gave Guthrie Man the right to vote; so that revolution was powered by the vote of The Guthrie Man.

No more self-indulgent politicians! If there's anything Guthrie Man hates worse than coffee shop attendees who find a way to shoehorn in a reference to their "first place" bracket, it's self-indulgent grandstanding politicians.

Guthrie Man has seen a politician or two in Guthrie Man's time. Back in ’89, Guthrie Man was right there when Governor Henry Bellmon came to town. Bellmon was a fascinating study. He had a real presence in person that just doesn’t come through on TV. See Bellmon on TV, and it’s time to change the channel—but in person, he made quite the impression. You had to be there—in person, just like Guthrie Man, or it’s lost on you. It’s amazing how that works.

So, Guthrie Man’s rare venture out of the coffee club and down to the train depot was another opportunity to see some more elected leaders firsthand. Guthrie Man was most impressed by the quiet confidence of Jim Shaw. Shaw doesn’t have the swagger of a self-indulgent politician, but he has the determination of someone who knows where he’s going, and the firm but soft-spoken likability of a man on the street. That's a real rarity for elected official types around these parts.

Having a lot of coffee shop knowledge really enhances the experience of watching the inter-dynamics at play between these politicians—and, on rare occasions, statesmen (e.g., Shaw). Watching Shaw share the stage with the self-indulgent politician was quite the opportunity, because Shaw came out of nowhere last year to unexpectedly defeat the ally of that very same self-indulgent politician. That ally was the one in charge of appropriations power—in other words, he, along with Perry-based Senator Chuck All, wrote the $12.5 million appropriation into the government program that funded the local county initiative now funneling bucks to the self-indulgent politician’s company.

Wow. How fascinating that those two ended up on the same stage, right here in Guthrie Town. Talk about intense.

Now, how many of you fellow coffee club types who were in the audience that day knew about that dynamic? See, that’s why you attend the Guthrie Man Coffee Club: to truly appreciate the insanity you’re seeing unfold right before your very eyes.

Speaking of politicians, that massive catapult going up on the flats should have provided the slightest of warnings to Guthrie Town's next servant of the people.

As City Council candidate Brian Stone vies for the privilege of living up to the legacy of noted ballistic expert Jim Case, he was set up with a slam-dunk opportunity: he was the last remaining Republican in the Ward I race and the first-ever speaker to appear before the newly empowered grassroots hordes.

Now, as an important point of clarification, Guthrie Man can't tell you that Guthrie Man knows the exact path Stone took on his arduous travail across the creek, leaving behind the country club types on the east side of Four Square Miler Ville, and tepidly venturing onto the flats and the domain of the Ward III blue collars.

Stone probably didn't mind taking on the risk of a brush with the blue-collar types, because he had an advantage: his last remaining opponent, the dogged Menecca Gibbs, may have bested him in the Ward I primary, but now, as the runoff election is approaching, word had gotten out that she had committed a massive strategic blunder. At some point in her past, she aligned her political affiliation with the county's now-third-place, and still shrinking, political affiliation. Yes, her partisan affiliation could suggest that though we don't know for sure, it's actually possible that she might be one of the last of a dying breed: one of the few remaining rooster stampers in Logan County.

Speaking of rankings, unlike local Democrats, Guthrie Man's March Madness bracket is in first place. Has Guthrie Man mentioned that yet?

As Stone crossed the Fifth Street Bridge, or the College Street Bridge, or coasted down the massive edifice otherwise known as the Mayor Jon Gumerson Memorial Viaduct—the MJGMV (Mij-gum-vuh) for those who are not from the West side—straight into Blue Collar Ville, he likely would have taken note of the almost-setting March sun, creating an overwhelming ambiance of soon-to-be-springness in Blue Collar Ville, and glinting off of the massive catapult, constructed just yards away from his destination point.

Now, Stone, provided he’s the intellectually curious type, may have first attempted to discern the actual technical nature of this spectacular object: catapult or trebuchet?

But, regardless of its classification, that powerful device was most certainly an omen.

Now, there are some in the less-than-imaginative crowd who will chalk this up to pure coincidence. Perhaps the weapon of war was, in fact, just coincidentally part of the setup for the upcoming Guthrie Renaissance Fair. But circumstances are circumstances, and omens are omens—and this was the perfect omen-ish representation of the very circumstance Stone found himself driving straight into.

For you see, just the day before, Guthrie Man had, for the benefit of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club crew, vividly and accurately analogized the circumstances of the previous day's Logan County Convention.

No analogy better brought the captive listeners of the Guthrie Man into the moment of the convention than Guthrie Man's description of the few—but temporarily in-control—bunkered-down members of the Notorious SBJ crew, huddled behind closed doors, manning the entrances to the venerable Guthrie Train Depot. Meanwhile, the grassroots hordes assembled outside—probably locked out of the building—forced to gather in the cold, brisk weather but completely undeterred by any effort to discourage their ensuing rush of the castle gates.

As the hordes broke through, they vowed that unlike their predecessors they would hold their own accountable, especially those who have an R by their name. This contrasted with the establishment candidate of the Notorious SBJ crew, who either misread the room or who by that point just didn't care, and told the hordes that she had brought credibility back to the local party as it relates to building and maintaining relationships with those same politicians.

Let’s just say, that ensuing vote didn’t go well for the leader of the Notorious SBJ crew.

The grassroots hordes, just like their grassroots counterparts all across the state, are determined to defeat, remove and replace their deceitful political leaders who are taking the mantle and brand of Republicanism, conservatism, populism, grassrootism and all things good-isms and then doing what most politicians do: scoundrelism—first class, pure scoundrelism.

So two days later, the grassroots hordes, excited, high and happy from their great victory of the previous weekend, filled the iconic Sixth and Warner church building for their first-ever meeting from their newly claimed seat of power.

Their first-ever speaker? The Stone man himself.

Now, Guthrie Man’s clickable hand counter only goes up to three digits, so Guthrie Man can’t say exactly how many members of the grassroots horde filled the church building that night—but let’s just say, in terms of turnout, they gave the good old-fashioned revival meetings that have defined that building a serious run for their money.

Now, unlike the parishioners of the past, the grassroots hordes have yet to master the technique of the never-ending-soul-saving altar call, because that’s probably the only thing that could have saved Stone from the ensuing events.

For Stone, even the slightest bit of due diligence—or at least a little adequate prepping from his breakfast club associates—would have helped him prepare for what was about to happen. And there’s reason to suggest Stone might possess the necessary modicum of good judgment; after all, he has yet to adopt Guthrie Man’s suggested campaign theme: Get Stoned with Stone.

This was an easy layup. All he had to do was remind attendees that he was "the" Republican candidate on the ballot, explain that he was a Republican because he believed in the party platform of the party of Lincoln and Reagan—smaller government, less regulation, less taxation, less intrusion on personal liberties—and that he wouldn’t be supporting Chief Swigs’ warrantless surveillance system, the one that’s reportedly linked up with the ATF and the Wisconsin fusion center for some reason, or the next people-punitive tax increase drive rushing down the tracks courtesy of the tax-increase-obsessed City Hall crew—seriously, how much do these greedy creeps hate their own citizens?

But, he didn't seize the opportunity.

So, you know what happened next.

As the grassroots hordes looked on in dismay, their would-be first-ever hero of the people, went full on goombah and fumbled questions from the newly-minted independent journo, otherwise known as The GoodMan, regarding the Chief Swigs Warrantless Surveillance System, and then the intrepid Karmin Grider who pinged Stone on the tax increase plan.

Regular denizens of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club know all about The GoodMan and how he has strategically channeled his post-elected-official life into being an effective influence on public policy—ironically, probably in a much greater way than when he held office—by using a newfangled publishing platform known as The Substack to publish various exposures that otherwise would have never become public knowledge.

He’s a direct, tenacious type who, once focused on an issue, just doesn’t let go—and won’t hesitate to walk into a government building and ask the probing questions all the “polite” people are afraid to ask. If government is ever to be held accountable to the public, it’s The GoodMan archetypes who will do it. And if the grassroots hordes are to be successful, it’s the on-the-ground intelligence provided by The GoodMan—and others like him—that will strategically guide them to their target.

Now, once in a while, some coffee clubber, perhaps wanting to assert their own identity in the club, in an obvious attempt to set off a chain of events that will eventually lead to the overthrow of The Guthrie Man—not going to happen btw, The Guthrie Man Coffee club is a benevolent dictatorship—will lodge a complaint about The GoodMan’s "gruffness." It’s at this point that The Guthrie Man will draw upon Guthrie Man’s years of observing the local fare, and explain to the attendees of the complex ecosystem of Guthrie Town, and how the magic of this place has depended upon the gruff, who are oftentimes dissident voices, to keep the balance. When the ecosystem gets out of whack, and everyone is just going along to get along, the result? Absolute tyranny. Nothing but taxes and tyranny, for as far as the eye can see.

Just watch the most recent Ward I council candidate forum for an example. It was basically one long, sickening, tax-increasing, City Hall–loving group hug—the kind we haven’t seen up in the council chambers since Evelyn Nephew made everyone form a big hand-holding chain. So many germs!

Sure, The GoodMan can be a bit “gruff,” but here’s betting so was just about everyone who had the audacity to sign that “we have a problem with you” letter to King George. Had John Hancock been a timid fellow, Guthrie Man could very well be sitting in the Tower of London right now—courtesy of the unpopular, but somehow still-in-power, dictator of the U.K., “Sir” Keir Starmer, and his free-speech-hating, gunless, bobby-hat-wearing, child-abuser-hugging stormtrooper clowns. Although, a Guthrie Man Reform Party membership card sure would make for a good conversation starter.

The Gruff GoodMan is Guthrie Town’s version of Alex Jones—the guy who got Trump elected but who, as we speak, gruffly postulates that Trump may be found guilty of treason after daring to suggest an openness to rejoining the British Commonwealth, as just so accurately derided by The Guthrie Man. That’s why MAGA and the related entire grassroots movement is so great. They are not blind followers.

This nation was founded by the gruff, and if there ever get to be too few of those types in this place, we’re all in deep, deep, Red-coat quartering, socialist trouble.

If it wasn’t for The Gruff GoodMan, Guthrie’s own version of “Sir” Keir Starmer, known as Chief Swigs, would still be monitoring Guthrie Man’s travels down Highway 33 to the Missy’s #2 donut shop. But now, because of The Gruff GoodMan, Swigs’ warrantless surveillance system has been confined to the side roads, easily avoided by Guthrie Man and no doubt mightily frustrating to the Swigs crew as they potentially try to get a handle on Guthrie Man’s criminal level of calorie intake.

You should know that Guthrie Man is a big believer in Make America Healthy Again—but certainly not by means of the Chief Swigs surveillance state.

Now, Stone didn’t survive his brush with The Gruff GoodMan intact. And, at that point, he should have just called it quits.

But that's when things went from bad to worse.

It was The Intrepid Karmin Grider’s turn at bat.

Grider went right for the jugular.

How did Stone feel about tax increases?

Now, if there’s one issue any newbie knows to avoid in front of a potentially triple-digit-sized crowd of Republican grassroots hordes—still high on the thrill of successfully storming a castle once held by a small group of paranoid establishment types whose defining issue seemed to be defending the practice of cozying up to co-opted politicians—it’s higher taxes!

Come on!

Can this town please produce candidates for office who have even a modicum of good judgment, the type of good judgment that lets them avoid situations like this?

If Stone and/or his breakfast club associates can’t figure out how to manage this situation, then how in the world do they think they can run a city?

Stone was far too easy of a mark for Grider. Grider, you’ll remember, was the intrepid scrapper who, during the summer of 2022, nearly took down one of Oklahoma’s most powerful dark money groups and came within a whisker of defeating the state’s foremost political consultant and his then–"clean slate" candidate. One gets the sense that now—now that that candidate has, with extreme prejudice, viciously destroyed his own clean slate by exposing himself as a hapless sidekick of the feckless politicians at the pork factory—Grider could, at any time, give the local electorate a chance to correct that particular past and massive miscarriage of justice; that's why pencils have erasers and people do like to use erasers around here. And with the new power of the grassroots—something that didn’t exist in 2022—there’s little doubt in Guthrie Man’s analytical great brain as to how that election would turn out.

As everyone knows, Guthrie Man is always rooting for the principled and determined underdog who, against all odds, comes out ahead—and boy, would that be the ultimate underdog-makes-good coffee club example, one that Guthrie Man and the coffee club would use to inspire future underdogs for decades to come.

But, that’s a subject matter for another day.

After fumbling Grider’s question, and as the picturesque Ward III western sun set behind the ominous catapult/trebuchet device, Stone beat a Napoleon-esque-leaving-Russia-as-they-all-do-looking-at-you-Zelensky-can’t-someone-please-learn-from-history retreat back across the creek to the friendlier confines of the country club side of town, where his election outcome is still kept in limbo through the dogged efforts of the determined Menecca Gibbs, who despite her unfortunate affiliation with Logan County’s third-place political group, might have just lived to survive for one more day.

However, the Guthrie Man has been quite entertained by all of this. And after all, isn’t that what really matters? Guthrie Man's ADD fix? That's the fix that gets Guthrie Man through the post–coffee club caffeine crash.

This new Logan County Republican group is sure to give the Guthrie Man and all Guthrie Coffee Club types a plethora of dopamine hits and more than enough material to overanalyze for months if not years to come.

Will the grassroots be successful in finding real candidates for office, removing the many sellouts that currently hold power, and bringing about a grassroots revolution? Maybe. It’s been a long time since Guthrie Town has seen a political movement with this much potential.

Don't go away.

Until next time, all fine friends of the Guthrie Man,

Stay crunchy.

Good Sunday Morning to all of the fine friends of Guthrie Man.

The caffeine is already flowing through The Guthrie Man's veins this early morning. And, no doubt, all of you fellow coffee shop denizens are anxious to get Guthrie Man's patented insights on yesterday's ongoings down by the train tracks as the local GOPers finally got their opportunity to resolve the ongoing two-year back-and-forth between the local establishment and the grassroots hordes.

Now the Guthrie Man isn't one for breathlessly reporting the latest events like some gossipy side sidler who sidles up to get their fix of know-it-all-ism by dropping the latest gossip. Neither is Guthrie Man one for going on scene to report back to the coffee club in person, but on this one occasion, with so much fun to be had, Guthrie Man couldn't trust that one of Guthrie Man's many sock puppets would scrum its way into one of the walled-off Facebook live feeds. So for you, the loyal denizens of the coffee club, Guthrie Man made the sacrifice of stepping out of the friendly confines of the coffee club and into the scary, less familiar world of politicians and politics down at the vaunted Depot for a first-hand glimpse of all of the fireworks.

Of course, this meant Guthrie Man couldn't get to the important weekend sustenance of donuts and a second round of life-sustaining coffee, but not to worry, Guthrie Man was able to duck out and secure more than enough adequate sustenance during a singular, particularly prolonged, pregnant pause of James Lankford's painfully pious opening prayer. It was a pause so long that Guthrie Man successfully re-navigated the incredibly bureaucratic registration process of the desperate, by-then-rather-long-faced crew of establishment party types intense on keeping their control on the convention floor but already sensing what was about to happen. Long and prolonged though it might have been, Lankford's prayer left out the most pressing need: an appeal for divine protection for the foundation of the historic Depot, which had no doubt just been mightily traumatized as the attendees simultaneously and unexpectedly shifted to the other side of the room in a desperate attempt to avoid eye contact with Lankford as he entered the building. Let's just say, agreeing with Sleepy Joe Biden on legalizing the illegal invasion of their nation didn't go over very well with the red-blooded MAGA-hat-wearing crowd that dominated the convention floor.

And as painful as it was watching a pious politico, in Guthrie Man's personal view, use the occasion of the individual's direct access to God to seemingly preen for the constituency, let's just say that it was worth it, as there's perhaps nothing any more entertaining in the whole wide world than watching Charlie Meadows try to navigate probably about 50% of the entire on-duty force of the GPD through the ins and outs of the controversial events of the last two years and his opinion regarding the tyranny of party Chairman, the Notorious SJB. Although amusing as this was to The Guthrie Man, watching Guthrie's finest skillfully navigate the pitfalls of going viral for all of the wrong reasons, the sagacity of Guthrie Man and Guthrie Man's many learned life lessons led Guthrie Man to think, "This one is going to make it into the next Lodge #105 negotiations with City Hall and Guthrie Man's taxes will be paying on this for years into the future."

Now, the Guthrie Man is well aware of how the forces of City Hall are probably right now huddled in the big office, strategizing on using the footage of this one for their next tax increase push. "See our men in blue as they took on their most dangerous mission yet: Bravely fighting off sleep as Charlie Meadows brutalizes them with two years of ins and outs of Republican Party politics and rules."

There's no limit to the greed that haunts that building. From the minute one enters the foyer, with its spooky, space-age wind noise that serves as an eerie warning to the tepid visitor that they are in fact about to enter an otherworldly environment, there's a foreboding sense of impending doom and the wise seek to quickly navigate the lair of the tax-increase-obsessed before hopefully making a quick escape back into the real world.

So while City Hall conspires, and local media types have already started to carry the water for the big "public safety" tax increase, it's time for the Guthrie Man crew to start planning a coffee shop venue escape to the wild west confines of the SLC.

Speaking of media types, Guthrie Man is fully cognizant and appreciative of those who are a bit gun-shy about calling out PD for a good old-fashioned 10-90 these days, but has anyone confirmed the health and safety of the proprietor of the Guthrie News Page recently? Guthrie Man keeps getting harassed by the curious who are desperate for the details of the last 10-90 that went a bit sideways. Advice to the local City Hall crew: don't make The GoodMan figure out the details, because he's not the type of journalist who blindly accepts the government's narrative or framing.

But, back to SLC, it has already become pockmarked with a growing, soon-to-be-thriving commerce sector and any wise entrepreneur will see the great opportunity to thrive in this new wild west; it's a wild west that appears certain to be preserved as thanks to the greed of those insane fellows down there in El Reno, and their greedy, emergency annexation, a newly proposed new law is reportedly snaking through the state government pork factory to tighten down on annexation abuses.

So, yes friend, as City Hall conspires to push the city's overall sales tax to an eye-popping 10%, it's time to start plotting the escape to freedom land: SLC get ready! Start building those low-tax coffee shops now, because more are needed. The new Starbucks on Waterloo doesn't cut it, although it's still an eligible venue so long as the multi-colored woke flag doesn't get hung over the door, an unfortunate curse that's already invalidated the Guthrie location from the patronage of The Guthrie Man's crew, at least that is, until they post an official certified notice of a qualified exorcism having been conducted. The Guthrie Man doesn't like to tempt Sodom and Gomorrah even at the sacrifice of giving up Guthrie Man's access to big, expensive corporate coffee.

Of course, the reason any of this wild west SLC tax freedom is possible, ironically enough, is because Charlie Meadows lost the battle to enact his massive new, multi-million-dollar county tax increase and taxpayer shakedown.

So how totally ironic is it that it's the same Charlie just got elevated into quixotic, statewide, folk hero status?

Here's what went down.

As best Guthrie Man has determined, someone in local party leadership, unknown if they were personally authorized by the party Chairman the Notorious SJB—bat signal to the super journalist known as The GoodMan: please open records request and publish that 911 call for all to hear, for some epic independent media virality as everyone will want to tune in to that special post from The Sooner Sentinel, Logan County's best source for real news—presumably had a hair trigger and called GPD in a not-so-well-thought-out, pointless effort to presumably keep Charlie and his precinct's delegation under wraps.

The visual of the ensuing deployment of no less than three GPD cruisers to the "Republican" convention was an indictment of leadership and perfectly encapsulated the mindset of the their ethos over the last two years: a crippling fear of the grassroots hordes at the gates and a desperate attempt to maintain a control that had all been a mirage from the first place. Presumably, instead of adequately determining if the barbarians at the gate were, in fact, barbarians, the leadership went into bunker mentality, dropping from monthly meetings to quarterly, and thus cutting down the opportunities for the sides to come together. It was an admission that bringing the sides together was, in fact, impossible, an assessment that, whether true or not, spelled imminent defeat for the establishment personalities in charge.

It also created the impression, and rightfully so, that the local GOP had abandoned the field of battle. That as long as the tax and spend local politicians, ironically enough to include Charlie Meadows, had an R behind their name, they would get a pass on any form of public accountability from the party.

And this meant that the party had limited opportunities to educate. Case in point, as massive wind turbine dropping and transmission line land-seizing companies invaded the county, the GOP probably really wasn't there to educate the people, a painful manifestation of which occurred when even a local state representative, in the middle of the Delta Plains Transmission Line crisis, admitted to only having just learned about it in the two weeks previous.

As the City dropped its various tentacles of machine learning and AI surveillance all across town, it was The GoodMan, a startup independent journalist whose open records requests gave the county and Guthrie Man so much to work with: The ATF had been given access to real-time, without a warrant, surveillance of Guthrie's traffic. The GoodMan's reporting was the perfect opportunity for a party to educate and press on City Hall: Is Orwell really in vogue? Are local Republicans going to let this happen? Shouldn't they call in those cowardly city council critters, most of whom are clearly trying to dodge accountability on this issue, into the party meeting to ask them why they are doing this?

But, that simply wasn't possible because the party was in a once-every-three-months bunker, waiting out the grassroots hordes and doing what the establishment does, maybe lightly tapping "Republican" politicians from time to time, but nothing of substance to fix the problem of the politicians deceiving their electorate when it's time to wrangle up the votes but then governing as complete tools and shills of the government institutions and/or corporate special interests.

And, then perhaps the biggest of them all, the city's purported sponsorship of an event in which a gay nightclub performer was brought in from an Oklahoma City gay club, to perform for children, in full gay nightclub character. Even when confronted with this complete shock to the senses, the role of the party was minimal, and as of yet, those city councilmen who clapped in public support of the event haven't as of yet been meaningfully held accountable.

This bunker mentality offset the work of the Notorious SBJ, who clearly had relationship-building chops, successfully bringing in new people to the party to reinforce her numbers. Here's the problem: establishment types will sometimes show up to the party meetings on the strength of relationship, but this is far less of a motivational tool than a principle-based, driving desire to make a difference for what is true and right. Why give up a weekday night to attend a lame, political social club that isn't accomplishing anything of note? When the establishment runs the party, the party gets boring real quick. But on the other side of the coin, the grassroots hordes are driven by the urgency of now and the pressing desire to make an immediate impact on their community.

Then, the real liability to party leadership: the bunker mentality clearly percolated down to their party volunteers as they prepared for the convention and as some apparently explored acting under insane interpretations of the rules in an attempt to exclude entire precinct delegations of grassroots voters from the convention floor.

In the end, for the most part, common sense won the day, and The Guthrie Man's sage advice of the last coffee club meeting appears to have been heeded by local party leaders. That's to the credit of the Notorious SJB and to those in party leadership who still possessed the minimal vestiges of good judgment to avoid that particular fight.

Only one precinct became a target for exclusion: Charlie Meadows' Precinct 206 delegation; reportedly due to a miscommunication between the The Notorious SBJ and the previous Precinct 206 precinct chairman, the specifics of which were not fully explored in the public dialogue.

And here's where the bunker mentality really led to a costly miscalculation. Meadows was not a guaranteed member of the grassroots hordes. Meadows appears to have been at the least, likely triangulating between the groups, and had the situation been handled differently, might have even supported the re-election of the Notorious SBJ. Being a politician had changed Meadows. He was very different from the grassroots rabble-rouser of years gone by, and just months ago, as he sought re-election to the County Commission, his re-election bid had been prominently highlighted at the party's big Lincoln-Reagan Day event. Thus, Meadows was likely of divided loyalty up to just a few weeks ago. The safest path for Meadows was to simply go low-key and not make waves, knowing that he had connections in both party factions.

But, Meadows is absolutely the type who, upon being victimized by a perceived injustice, as he interprets it, will engage in battle. And in this case, that perceived injustice threw Meadows over the castle wall and right into the welcoming arms of the grassroots hordes who were all too happy to welcome back their self-deposed former leader.

However it happened behind the scenes, it was a terrible miscalculation by The Notorious SJB, not unlike the misstep that had earlier deprived her of the support of the highly influential and county resident Don Spencer, who heads up what is well known to be one of the most influential grassroots groups in the state: OK2A.

Just months ago, the party was giving a platform, at its biggest event, to a presentation highlighting the benefits of re-electing Charlie Meadows, and now, on a brisk convention morning, just a few months later, Charlie Meadows was, in no uncertain terms, attempting to educate the on-duty Guthrie police force about just how much the tyrannical, Notorious SJB was abusing her authority.

Take Guthrie Man's word for it: bunker mentality has consequences and they are not pretty.

And the likely consequence of this mentality was the likely hair trigger, causing some foolish party official to call the police when a determined Charlie Meadows showed up at the convention to ask the convention to have his delegation seated.

The result? One of the most entertaining events in the history of local political conventions: Guthrie police officers forced to stand by as the infamous or famous, depending on your point of view, Charlie Meadows walked them through a history lesson including the ins and outs of local GOP politics of the last two years.

Credit goes to the savvy officers who knew this wasn't the battle for them, and who wisely, unlike the bunker mentality crew sequestered behind the carefully guarded doors of the Depot, knew when to beat a strategic retreat and live to fight another day.

This left the Meadows delegation temporarily assigned to the train station waiting room, not unlike unticketed passengers, where they stood for much of the convention, waiting while the grassroots, led by a real ringer, a parliamentary procedure expert who appeared to know more about the subject matter of proper procedure than the leadership's own out-of-the-county mercenaries, efficiently and systematically ground down the establishment's procedural barriers with the tenacity of a battering ram busting in the castle gate.

No doubt the new tariff on high-quality Canadian lumber ensured the Home Depot truck couldn't deliver the establishment their needed supplies fast enough, and at some point at or during the noon hour, the grassroots hordes had overwhelmed the castle gates and the rout was on.

Here, the party's leaders, led by the Notorious SJB, could have pulled the escape hatch, read the room, and adopted the grassroots' slate by acclamation. But, no! Their bunker mentality ensured they would go full-on Masada and would stay to fight to the last man.

And, aside from one notable act of class by the Crescent delegation, who crossed the lines to support a well-deserving grassroots candidate for congressional district chair, the party leaders fought to the bitter end.

That fight entailed the humiliation of watching on as the grassroots kicked the establishment's 206 Precinct off of the floor, and subsequently seat, you got it, the Charlie Meadows delegation. That delegation emerged from their induced purgatory in the train station waiting room to claim their delegate badges and voting slips. After being the target of police action, being assigned to the foyer for much of the day, and pointlessly targeted for humiliation, Charlie was the big man on the convention floor, yet again.

Yes, that's right friends of Guthrie Man, after all Charlie Meadows has been through, including being infected by a big bout of big government tax and spend liberalism that could make Old Uncle Joe Stalin a little bit jealous, courtesy of the bunker mentality of establishment party types, had just got himself dropped back into the role of grassroots leader, while still detoxing some of those awful "I was an important politician" germs that compromise the effectiveness of just about everyone who gets the slightest bit of real power around these parts.

Now, where are those doubters who might have thought that Guthrie Man didn't have anything else to overanalyze following Charlie Meadows' election defeat and forced re-assignment to the ranks of the normies?

If there is anything Guthrie Man likes to overanalyze more than politicians getting their just comeuppance, it's iconic, local, colorful personalities who are running up a redemption arc.

Now, here's the real kicker: just to top it all off, the iconic image of Charlie Meadows, having a go at educating the police, is set to live on long after the specifics of yesterday are long forgotten. It is no doubt going viral all across the state's massive social media network of grassroots, some of which are above ground, others that have been driven underground. It's the picture that paints a thousand words and could easily become the singular representative image of the perceived tyranny of the establishment and motivation for grassroots everywhere.

In one bunker mentality action, the trigger-happy forces of the local GOP establishment have just set Charlie Meadows on the path to redemption, the type of which will make for amazing coffee club conversations for years into the future. Reserve your seat now!

Guthrie Man is rooting for you Charlie Meadows. Get those politician germs detoxed fast; hint: copy the AA template, simply substitute the term "politician" for "alcoholic." And, then, get back into the front lines of holding those still-infected politicians, hint it's about 93.34% of office holders, truly accountable to the people.

Don't mistake Guthrie Man, not unlike a recovering addict, Meadows shouldn't ever touch the addictive intoxicant of office holding again, it's far too dangerous; but, how very redeeming that the newly minted subject of Oklahoma's own version of Jim Edgerton, that outspoken fellow depicted in Rockwell's iconic Freedom of Speech painting, is in fact a recovering politician, having committed the sins of TIF creating, open meeting exempting, subsidized wind turbine farm enabling and massive government spending but now on the road to recovery, who just months ago was one Commission vote away from pushing a multi-million-dollar tax hike on the masses.

But, who now, in a twist of fate has become a newly minted, quixotic folk hero for those exact same masses.

Fate is a mighty fascinating thing; but you already knew that, because you are a friend of The Guthrie Man.

Until next time friends of The Guthrie Man.

Stay crunchy.

There's a lot going on in here this morning:

The controversy of an upcoming Republican Party convention is in the air; but that's nothing compared to the dangers of attending the Logan County Democrat Party's convention. Guthrie Man has some sage survival advice you must read before venturing out to those tricky political affairs.

Everyone's favorite doctor has made a real interesting Facebook post that might hint at the future of Guthrie's most hallowed government institution—is there a shocking change in the immediate future for Bluejay Nation?

And,

The denizens of the coffee club world have been gifted the perfect verb for describing the curse of Oklahoma's foremost founding father.

How about all of that police tape over that parking lot in the 1600 block of The Elon Musk Parkway this week? Locals haven't seen that much police tape since those edgy fellows over at the little, new Guthrie library put up their latest naughty book display for all of the children to walk past and enjoy—complete with the police tape, you know, for the sensationalisation of it all. Those edgy librarians sure are with it. There's nothing more "cool" than an edgy librarian.

On a side note, where can Guthrie Man apply for a refund on Guthrie Man's valuable tax dollars? Until that gaudy blue library butterfly stops cheapening the aesthetics of "historic" Guthrie, Guthrie Man refuses to pay taxes to this town, with the exception of sponsoring a one-way flight to the dump, errr, "convenience center," for the blue butterfly. Can someone please advise the butterfly that the free trash-off day is quickly approaching and gently suggest a quick flight to the dump center?

If the reader can allow Guthrie Man to posit a rare serious note, Guthrie Man, known for spot-on prognostications, suggests this won't be the last time a welfare check goes sideways in this town. Something’s not right around here, and there's a whirlwind to reap. For just one example, what is the up-to-date term all of the politically correct are using these days? "Unhoused?" In more ways than one? A disturbingly too-large number of them are tucked away along the banks of the Cottonwood.

It brings to Guthrie Man's astute mind good ole Frank Davis' prediction back in the heated campaign of 2000 when he warned of his opponent's past advocacy for the good stuff and called it a gateway drug.

How did Frank know this? Frank hadn't exactly fired up the 300-baud modem and logged into the OK NORML BBS only to realize the sysop was, in fact, his erstwhile opponent. It was pure old-style oppo research—the old-fashioned way, pure unpaid research skulduggery. Ah, for the good ole days when money wasn't all that mattered in politricks. You never saw the Oklahoma Medical Association’s dark money group paying for an anonymous text message mailer linking to an online survey to drop dirt on Frank’s opponent, no sir!

Of course, in 2022, his opponent retaliated and counter-warned the electorate of the impact of Davis' school bullying legislation, basically saying it was a tool for getting the camel's nose under the tent and putting the future education wokesters in charge of indoctrination and leveraging away traditional values from society in a surgical, camouflaged attack on the kids.

And, well, 25 years on, and as it turns out—they were both right.

But, at least school bullying had been eradicated. Thank you, Oklahoma Legislature, you sure are effective when you mandate.

That pot is still bad news, though, and everything that comes thereafter. Listen to Guthrie Man, folks: stay off the green stuff. BTW: you don't want to know about the chemicals that are used to grow that junk. Let's just say that the illegal alien Chinese marijuana farmers aren't exactly losing sleep over your future cancer-causing chemical lawsuit. Society might just owe William Randolph Hearst of Rosebud fame some kudos for a change.

Aside from going back to Prohibition, what's the best solution? Guthrie Man suggests it's good, old-fashioned community policing. Chief Swiggs needs to get off the social media machine, stop playing around with the latest Orwellian surveillance, sole-source contract toys, lay off the police politics down in Ada, and get to work activating his uniformed posse onto the Cottonwood bank beat and community-based relationship building and policing in general. When is the last time GPD walked a beat in your neighborhood, just to keep in contact? Yup, that’s what Guthrie Man thought. Not since Swiggs came to town?

Know who's there, who's off their rocker, and communicate with them before the welfare check call comes in. Relationship-build with the housed and unhoused alike. And keep in constant contact with the by-the-side-of-the-creek crowd, with a special focus on those who are still housed enough to possess a consciousness of how unhoused the unhoused really are.

Community policing and personal relationships!

That's the ticket.

Believe it or not, Guthrie Man's puns aren't AI. Pure, original Guthrie Man. Ask anybody—Guthrie Man was making them before AI started on its path to deluding the last vestiges of remaining human creativity and running down the path to AGI—a path that will soon have it tapping into Chief Swiggs' omnipresent Flock camera network to decide whether or not Guthrie Man's gas-guzzling second daily trip to the donut store necessitates a new carbon tax increase for Guthrie Man.

Donuts and carbon taxes—is this all that's left for Guthrie Man to look forward to?

So, the Guthrie Man coffee club's very most astute members might have noticed a particularity over on The Facebook this week. A certain school superintendent appeared to give in to his little, inner, angry, anti-Oklahoma liberal.

The character affectionally known as "Doc" by the Guthrie Man crowd apparently made his way to some snooty, out-of-state conference of arrogant school administrators who think they know what's best for the rest of us. There, he appears to have enjoyed commiserating with them about the evils of backwoods Oklahoma.

Now, one must understand that many red-state administration ideologues live a tortured life. Constantly keeping that inner, arrogant, know-it-all, angry liberal under control so as to not offend the sensibilities of the locals is a tall order. So, these out-of-state affairs in exotic locations such as The Big Easy are the perfect opportunity to really let go—to escape the red-state insanity and to be oneself.

The problem is, Doc is also a social media animal and, for some reason, couldn't help but take to Facebook to let everyone know about the sympathy he was receiving from his education peers for being from Oklahoma. Specifically, he said that of his 49 other peers, "Most of them" offered him sympathy upon learning that he was from Oklahoma.

Now, Guthrie Man assumes that Doc, who if you didn't know is a self proclaimed, doctorate-holding doctor—even one who's from the backwoods of Oklahoma—still possesses the basic math chops to count to 25. So that's a lot of sympathy-offering.

In fact, it really causes one to think: Did the local taxpayers pay for this trip in some way? To send the good doctor to a clearly left-wing-dominated event where no less than 25 left-wing education ideologues are sitting around with Doc and Oklahoma-bashing?

At this point, Guthrie Man would like to reassert Guthrie Man's previous request for a refund on Guthrie Man's hard-earned tax dollars.

This just isn’t OK. If there's Oklahoma-bashing to do, it needs to be within the confines of the coffee shop, where sage, non-taxpayer-funded coffee club denizens offer constructive criticism—the type that is designed to make our great state even greater.

Double great!

That’s the plan—if only people would listen to the caffeine-inspired advice of the Guthrie Man.

Now, astute observers might assert that the good doctor has a long history of losing the battle to his inner, angry liberal and this is just par for the course.

But, and stay with Guthrie Man here: What if, perhaps, maybe, just maybe, this wasn't a lapse of judgment—a momentary win for the inner, angry liberal—subtly informing the local rednecks just how lowly they are esteemed by the nation's best and brightest in education?

What if the target audience for that post wasn't the locals at all but rather the Board of Education up there in the liberal university town? A town where the angry liberal could break free and throw off the constraints imposed on it by the conservative Bluejay?

A real liberal Utopia where one can "pioneer" into the uncharted territory of being truly oneself—an outspoken liberal, free to bash the state without fear of the opinions of the backwoods folk who dominate the Bluejay's constituency?

It’s a fair question to ask. After all, Doc's post went live just one day before the Pioneers' "we really need a new superintendent" application process closed.

Getting out of town would be a savvy move for the good doctor.

Because he has a doctorate, after all, and he realizes that locals—even the backwoods locals that dominate this area—aren't going to stay blind to the district’s scorecard forever.

At some point, they are going to do the math, add up the years the good Doc has been in power, factor in the millions spent on bond projects, take a look at the millage level, compare it to where it was just a few years ago, and perhaps insist on the slightest return on their investment. Once that millage level pops three digits—ouch!

So for those naysayers who suggest that there's not enough news in this town for the Guthrie Man coffee club to stay interesting, stay tuned!

Charlie Meadows might have left the center stage, but there's going to be a lot to overanalyze in the upcoming days and weeks—pure Guthrie Man coffee club style.

Speaking of the big university town, we've finally been gifted with a verb to illustrate the devastating effects of the curse of Oklahoma's foremost founding father. As you should know, the art of recognizing the emergence of new verbs is a foremost component of scintillating coffee club ethos.

That verb? Getting “Shrumed.”

It's a verb, meaning to experience great misfortune stemming from an institution's foolish decision to invoke the curse of Oklahoma's most powerful personality and foremost founding father.

Those Oklahomans who are still up on the lore of Alfalfa Bill Murray are fully aware that he's certainly the type to leave behind a curse on those who would dare sully his good name.

Now, years ago, the Republicans around these parts loved to point to Murray’s—let’s just say, not always the most politically correct in the commonly accepted ethos of the current culture—various observations, in order to needle the Democrats about their hypocrisy related to their worship of Oklahoma’s most esteemed founding father, juxtaposed with their race-based pandering for the votes of minority populations.

Now-a-days, ironically enough, in a Republican Oklahoma, most Republican politicians probably have no idea who Alfalfa Bill Murray even was, nor do they care, while the new minority Democrat left has started erasing his name whenever they have the ability to do so in the venues where they still exert control.

Watch out Alfalfa County! You too Murray County. And, Lake Murray, well . . .

How ironic!

Who would have seen that coming?

Now, those who are aware of the power of old Alfalfa Bill will certainly know that if anyone had the power to levy a curse on those who would try to erase his legacy from the state he founded, he would be the one to have that power.

So, not so long ago, when the idealistic young leftist Democrats at OSU decided to erase the name of Alfalfa Bill—the friend of the Oklahoma farmer—from a prominent building at the state's foremost agricultural school, it's safe to assume that the curse of Alfalfa Bill was activated.

Surely, the many catastrophes now occurring with increasing regularity in liberal university town can't just be coincidental?

And, getting "Shrumed" has a much better ring to it than getting "Gundied," right?

Of course, those who study the butterfly effect will know that there's always an offsetting benefit whenever a curse goes into effect. It's not so unlike jumping on a water bed. Those waves are going somewhere. You Gen Z people have no idea!

So, taking the irony to the next level, how great would it be for Guthrie town—the host of Alfalfa Bill's greatest triumph, the approval of his state constitution—if the ultimate getting "Shrumed" was the university town’s hiring of the good doctor, thus giving Guthrie and the Bluejay the ability to hire a new leader who didn't spend his time traveling out of state to play good-ole-boy politics with and hang out with the Oklahoma-bashers? And maybe one who talked about test scores and scorecards with a goal of—wait for it—improving education outcomes in this town?

Wow. Mind blown. Thank you, Alfalfa Bill! Please keep an eye out for Guthrie Man's application to form a local chapter of the Squirrel Rifles. A Guthrie-based chapter of the Squirrel Rifles. Would would have thunk it?

On a side note, has anyone ever deep-dived the views of Frank Eaton? It's certainly something to think about, you idealistic university town students who have too much time on your hands. Something to think about indeed.

Maybe in a future coffee shop episode, the Guthrie Man crew can get to work innovating the new mascot for the liberal university town.

Ok, that's probably enough controversy for one morning.

Of course, Guthrie Man is just doing the Guthrie Man humor thing. There’s never enough controversy. The need for controversy at the coffee club is not unlike the need for the second pot of coffee—overpowering and irresistible.

Speaking of controversies, there’s some real speculation that the popular firebrand Jim Shaw might be putting in an appearance at this week's Republican convention. Shaw’s the up-and-comer newcomer in Oklahoma politics and, to the great pride of Logan County populist types everywhere, he's got a part of eastern Logan County in his constituency. Shaw has reportedly got a big future in Oklahoma politics, starting small in the House but potentially being the next big thing in conservative circles—with gubernatorial potential all over the place—having enthused a massive following of grassroots fans everywhere.

Shaw's presence at the convention wouldn't be good news for one of Guthrie's other notable representatives, Collin Duel. Duel badly needs Shaw's revolution to stay isolated to the east, but Shaw's presence at the convention—which would be greatly welcomed by many in attendance—could signal Duel's worst fear: the Shaw revolution has legs, and those legs could be following Shaw in his trek westerly and treating Duel to another newly created verb: getting "Wallaced."

As popular as Shaw is, he’s reported to be just as inversely despised and hated in the Oklahoma City marble pork factory, where Duel has reportedly been holding court and playing the insider game with the unpopular and sinister swamp creatures whose creepy claws won’t let go of power. They've pretty much shut Shaw down on everything he's done. Word is, a big-shot lawyer named Kannandy pretty much controls that place, with a youthful and foolish Speaker of the House potentially doing his bidding, and another youthful representative—Duel—potentially doing the same.

That may have manifested itself in a very unfortunate turn of events for Duel—Duel probably being forced to do as he is told, and take a big bullet by refusing to give Shaw a commitee hearing for a key reform proposal designed to prevent the Communist CCP and other foreign types from buying up rural agricultural land. Duel shutting Shaw down on protecting AG land from communist invasion? Not a good bullet for Duel to have to take, assuming he was strong-armed behind the scenes because Duel surely is bright enough to know that he shouldn't refuse to let a committee vote on this type of proposal by one of the legislature’s most popular members. Right?

So yes, Shaw's visit to the convention is a must-see event, and the weak Duel squirming in the back of the room would make for some real drama.

Longtime listeners to the Guthrie Man will, of course, know that Guthrie Man always roots for the newly elected. Those who are stepping up to do the impossible, serve the people without losing one's soul in what is a very bad system, deserve the benefit of the doubt. Guthrie Man may take some heat for giving the benefit of the doubt for as long as possible, but it's really the right thing to do.

In the case of Duel, with his siding against Shaw and the people, it's officially time for Guthrie Man to concede that any last vestige of benefit of the doubt can no longer be justified, and Duel is now officially a Guthrie Man cautionary tale to be told in the canonical lore of coffee shops for years to come—so that all can learn from the missteps and hopefully elect future candidates more capable of standing up to the pressure.

The tip-off? It was the waves of secretive dark money—like never seen around here before—that got Duel elected. When your mailbox was getting abused on a daily basis by the slimiest of slime merchants, desperate for Duel's election, did you really think this was going to end well?

Guthrie Man's initial take: don't play with fire and not expect to be burned. Duel had tremendous potential, and unfortunately, those who realized that fact the most were some of the worst in Oklahoma politics. Put simply, they got to Duel, and Duel is now inextricably tied to them, and he likely has neither the will nor even the ability to extract himself at this point. He is more likely than not all bound up by the talon-clawed arms of the sinister.

Whether or not those dark powers will save him in his future elections, it's hard to know. They will try, because in Guthrie Man's view, Duel is playing ball with them, but unfortunately for Duel, he represents one of the first districts to catch a cold when the populists next door sneeze. And boy, is that populist cold contagious—it’s spawned a wave of grassroots hordes storming Republican Party conventions across the state, with its targets set squarely on Logan County’s upcoming convention, where some very savvy grassroots individuals have reportedly pre-elected many of the delegates in closed delegations from the precinct meetings, outmaneuvering their "establishment" counterparts and all but ensuring they will have the votes to carry the day at the county convention.

Guthrie Man is putting Guthrie Man's faith in Logan County Republican Party incumbent chairperson, the Notorious JBJ, to see this train coming and wisely simply step off the tracks, just as her establishment counterparts appear to have done over there in the Canadian County. Word on the coffee club circuit is that JBJ may have been mulling a desperate attempt to try to save her control by attempting to enact an extremely tortured definition of the rules that allows her to potentially unseat entire delegations. It's a real Hail Mary that's simply not likely to work because even JBJ's supporters aren't likely going to have an appetite for putting themselves out there on a public vote to disallow the votes of entire precincts—other Republicans who have attended both their precinct meetings and their county convention. That dog isn't going to hunt, at least not easily.

Even if JBJ expelled these entire delegations of opposition voters and somehow won the vote, with the grassroots clearly set to sweep the state party convention, she's likely to face real repercussions for doing it this way. That wouldn't be a good look for Logan County—a real embarrassment, actually—and JBJ's dastardliness would quickly spread statewide and become a part of epic, "can you believe she did that" lore, totally tempting the grassroots-dominated state committee to take punitive action.

No, it would be much better for JBJ to simply read the room, know when to step aside with grace, and live to fight another day. There's much dignity in being a Chairman-emeritus who was never defeated and who left with class and let someone else take their turn at leadership. There's not so much dignity in going down in a bitter explosion of self-indulgent flame, clutching a copy of the rules and yelling at the opposition about how they are cheating—only to later realize that one was, in fact, reading their copy of the rules upside down.

Now, there are the weak of spirit who get offended at the vibrant discourse and power games at a lively political convention of 200 persons. It's understandably a real turnoff to classy people everywhere.

Guthrie Man hears you. But trust Guthrie Man—this is just a small fraction of the excitement and controversy of the good old days when political conventions really meant something.

But for those who don't have the stomach for a little inter-partisan controversy, there's always the option to visit the counterpart convention and play a nice, leisurely game of BLM Uno with Evelyn, Hersey, and maybe the Mighty Magnus or even one of those Coffins.

But, a sage tip from the Guthrie Man: there's danger here too. Head out the door before they break out the BLM Monopoly. Word is, things get heated once Hersey gets the deed to the high-rent BLM Plaza. Guthrie Man never thought BLM Monopoly made any sense in the first place—after all, didn't the taxpayers pick up the million-dollar tab for DC's BLM Plaza? Why should Hersey have to pay his BLM bucks to buy a deed that's already been paid for by the taxpayers? Things get really confusing when Black Power socialism meets capitalism, even when it's just a board game at the Logan County Democrat Party convention.

Also, there's the whole controversy of that Democrat Party platform plank that dictates the double-plus people in LGBTQI++ collect double when they pass GO. Determining eligibility for that one is a real nightmare.

But in good news, there are no "Go to Jail" cards in BLM Monopoly. Jail has been replaced with George Floyd Park, the landing upon which earns the right to some sweet, sweet reparation action from the Bank of Monopoly. Of course, there is the "You have caught COVID at the George Floyd Protest" card. That one is a real bummer.

Now that Guthrie Man thinks about it, maybe the Republican Convention isn't so bad after all. At least you don't have to worry that the donuts might have been spiked with hormone blockers.

And, let's face it. No one realizes it, but this is the absolute most embarrassing month to be a Democrat in Logan County. That's because, as of this month, if you are still a Democrat, you are no longer the second-most populated political affiliation in this county.

Yup, believe it or not, for the first time, there are more Independents in Logan County—6,097 to the Democrats' 6,078.

Yowza.

What in the world? Next stop: getting passed up by the Libertarians. LOL!

At least, for a change, this gives the Democrats an achievable goal and purpose—put down the BLM edition of Skip-Bo and try to find an Independent to re-register. Let's get back to second place!

For some perspective, to the curious—Republicans now number 21,541. About 20 years ago, they weren't even the majority party in this county.

Now you know why Doc and his angry, inner liberal live in absolute tortured agony.

Speaking of COVID and tortured agony, Guthrie's fast-food scene has never recovered. Guthrie Man blames COVID and GPS for the fact that the staffing at most corporate fast-food places is completely subpar. There are still a few exceptions: Braum’s still works, and Arby’s too, to some extent. But wow. There's only one sure way to survive in the fast-food staffing world these days. It's the Chick-fil-A model: tapping into the homeschool scene for the front of the house and the Mexican scene for the back of the house. It really makes one think about the education system in this country, doesn't it?

Has anyone been to Roma's lately? Guthrie Man never goes there; Guthrie Man is still annoyed about Guthrie losing its KenTaco.

Ok, that's enough caffeine, once Guthrie Man starts complaining about the KenTaco, it's time to hit the parking lot.

Tune in next time for yet another fun-filled visit to the caffeine-fueled mind of The Guthrie Man. Then, maybe Guthrie Man can do Guthrie Man’s big reveal: Best District 2 Commissioner of the 21st Century. Owe, the anticipation is palpable—to the max.

Until then, stay crunchy.

And throughout the Four Square Milerverse, everyone should want to know: Who, just who, will Guthrie Man officially endorse?

Surely, for one lucky candidate, this powerful endorsement will put them into the April runoff.

Well, friends of Guthrie Man, your curiosity won’t live much longer because, right now, hot in your inbox, is the first-ever Guthrie Man election special.

Guthrie Man has done Guthrie Man’s due diligence, and Guthrie Man is ready to inspire and amaze with sage, detailed analysis to guide you into the right position to ensure our deeply valued community’s future prosperity.

Drumroll, please…

in the election for Guthrie's Ward I seat, there’s only one rational thing for a voter to do: run through an empty ballot and together we can get “undervote” into first place.

Yes, Guthrie Man officially casts Guthrie Man’s endorsement for undervote.

Go undervote!

Come on, Ward I. Was this really the best you could do?

These are not the people who should be responsible for our city.

To confirm Guthrie Man’s observations, you can check out the Ward I candidate forum for yourself; or you can just take Guthrie Man’s word for it and save yourself the excruciation. Or, if you must, just cut straight to the excruciation and hit yourself in the head with a baseball bat—because at least then you’ll have the same headache without having to endure 90ish or so brutal minutes listening to four people declare their great love for all things Guthrie, three of them declare their zest for new taxes, and one, Gibbs, the likely winner (ouch), doom and gloom while offering nothing in the way of meaningful answers.

That debate reminded Guthrie Man of the I Love Lucy episode where Lucy goes crazy trying to get close to a famous actor. Which episode, you ask? Guthrie Man has no clue—aren’t they all that way?

Except, instead of one Lucy, there were four of them.

Just a note to future candidates: If you’re on a forum, and each of the other candidates is tripping over themselves to get the charter for the city manager’s fan club and to dump praise on the current bureaucracy, then maybe—just maybe—you could stand out and say, “You know what? I’m a different type of candidate. I’m going to work for the people, to hold City Hall accountable. If you want someone who’s going to spend 90% of their time cheerleading, elect the Chick-fil-A cow—Eddie Faulkner is a hero, the city council is great, and eat more chicken! But, if you want someone who’s going to do their job, stay informed about what’s really going on in this building, and hold City Hall accountable, then elect me.”

Boom! Election over.

That candidate would have had Guthrie Man’s endorsement. Someone who doesn’t instinctively pander to the powerful, who isn’t afraid to stand out from the herd, who has a touch of individuality and understands how this whole representative republic thing is supposed to work: the tail isn't supposed to wag the dog!

Is it any wonder that the Man in the Basement has acquired so much power in this town with such a weak applicant pool for the most important elected positions in the city?

Think about it—in what other world besides politics does the employer (the candidate), who’s applying for a supervisory position, spend all their time praising the employee (the city manager) who will serve under them?

That just shows: The perception is that the power lies with the bureaucrats in City Hall, not the people; and, these candidates are out of touch with the deeper coffee shop zeitgeist of the Guthrie Man Coffee Club.

Other lowlights included:

Brian Stone’s effusive praise for the city’s obsession with grants. After the Owen Field grant boondoggle and the repeated destruction of Division Street, leaving it an insane patchwork of mismatched pavement and dangerous concrete pop-ups, this town needs to confront its grant addiction. That “free” money is messing this town up and that fact appears to have passed Stone by.

Franklin Danley’s use of Starbucks as the measurement of Guthrie’s success—that one had every locally owned coffee shop aficionado shuddering.

Stone and Danley’s support for tax increases was disturbing and tone-deaf. These guys seem determined to push the tax rate to 10%, and keep in mind Oklahoma already has high sales tax rates, but Gibbs’s support was the worst. She’s already well-versed in government doublespeak that hides millions in waste while convincing taxpayers to fork over even more money. Gibbs wants new taxes for police and fire but dismisses redirecting CIP money—the same money that's presumably wasted on Owen Field—toward water infrastructure. She offers no real solutions. Nor does she seem to question or posses the intellectual curiosity to analyze the factors making up the estimate of what it would take to "fix" the water infrastructure. Those in the know will rightly suggest that these are pie-in-the-sky numbers meant to manipulate policy makers into complying with the fear mongering used by bureaucrats to control the policy makers. In short, Gibbs, the most likely to win, is the absolute worst candidate. She has done just enough homework to be easily manipulated to the ends of big, intrusive government but hasn't shown the intellectual curiosity to fight through the bad logic that gets her into the manipulation position in the first place.

Kudos to Robin Crist for at least showing a modicum of intelligence and courage and individuality by being the only candidate to avoid committing to tax hikes. It’s amazing how, in red Guthrie, only one candidate stands against raising taxes. She's obviously got some connection to the real world and understands how these new taxes will hurt local businesses.

Of course, there was the usual "shop local” drivel. But beyond the mindless appeal to do it “because it’s the right thing,” the logic is insulting. It disrespects the individual, suggesting they should willingly pay higher prices and taxes just to “choose Guthrie.” Foolish stuff, especially as low-tax SLC keeps sprouting dollar stores. If SLC gets a big retailer, watch out! Edmond can't starve SLC of water infrastructure forever; it's just a matter of time.

Guthrie must instead do what they do in the free market. Streamline government, lower taxes, undercut Edmond, and let the free market inform buyers where they can get the best deal for their dollar: low traffic, easy-going, low taxes, small town Guthrie. That’s how you do it.

But the candidates weren’t the only ones to disappoint. The moderators asked questions that were either weak or blatant pandering for a tax increase—especially Big Tax Chris Evans, who in Guthrie Man's view, couldn’t resist jamming in his editorial for why tax increases are needed. Has that guy ever met a tax increase he didn’t carry water for? At what point, is too much, too much for these tax fiends?

So, when are these forum moderators going to ask real questions? Is it any wonder that the YouTube video only has 188 views?

Why not just throw in the towel and ask, “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” Or, “If you were a tax increase tree, how would you grow new taxes?”

Let’s put Guthrie Man in charge of all future candidate forums and watch things get real, real fast.

Chris Evans: “And now, let’s go to Guthrie Man for the real questions that actually matter.”

Guthrie Man: “Thank you, Chris and Brittany. Your tag team warm-up act for Guthrie Man could use some work, but we’ll deal with that later. Candidates, Guthrie Man realizes that each of you is aggressively vying for the right to the first official charter of the Eddie Faulkner fan club. It’s a little creepy—almost creepy enough to make Guthrie Man rethink Guthrie Man’s past well wishes for Faulkner. But if you can refocus for just a few minutes, here are the real questions. The answers to these are what the people of Guthrie actually want to hear.”

There’s something fishy in Guthrie—and it’s the water. Guthrie city water has an embarrassingly bad, fishy taste. And it’s not just residential taps; it’s everywhere—from coffee to pop, from restaurants to schools. It’s the problem that won’t go away. Years ago, Guthrie City Hall forced voters to pay for a new water treatment plant. Voters can’t be blamed for assuming this would solve the problem. But it didn’t. Meanwhile, City Hall continues to spend millions on non-core essentials like parks. How important is solving the fish water issue to you, and where will you prioritize it—even if it means putting projects like the Owen Field project on hold?

Staying on the issue of water: Guthrie recently signed a 40-year giveaway of Santa Fe Lake. As water quality and water rights are some of the most critical issues facing the city, would you support revisiting this agreement and negotiating a better deal for Guthrie residents? And, at what point should the city exercise its rights to Langston Lake?

Let’s move on to a key quality-of-life issue: Guthrie is going to pot—pot clouds, also known as “stink weed,” have descended across our historic community. The green cross has taken root all over town, and there’s evidence of the industry’s close ties to human trafficking, Chinese-owned straw-represented grow farms. The many detrimental health effects, especially on youth are still being determined and the green cloud is greatly harming the culture and perception of our community. What are your thoughts on strengthening city codes and authorizing law enforcement to investigate these connections?

Guthrie’s downtown streets have been degraded into a mismatched patchwork of various pavement and asphalt types, accentuated by dangerous concrete insets that rise up unexpectedly and threaten life and limb. These projects repeatedly shut down city streets and hurt local businesses. What policies do you think have led to this destruction of our downtown? And would this give you pause about applying for future programs that could do more harm than good?

We’ve recently learned that yet another Guthrie museum has just been sent to Guthrie Museum Heaven. That particular museum was notable for its event space. Meanwhile, a competing government entity—headquartered in another community—Meridian Technology Center, has used government dollars to build a massive new event space. Some may suggest that that event space seems to be its primary offering, as there is little evidence that this entity is providing much else of value to Guthrie and the limited number of Guthrie students who use their services, are probably still being forced to commute to Stillwater. Would you support Guthrie businesses by passing a resolution backing the people’s petition to withdraw from the Meridian Technology District, freeing up a hefty chunk of property tax mills for property tax reduction, and taking some pressure off the local school district’s millage situation?

The Chamber of Commerce and Guthrie city officials recently supported a tax increase on the hospitality industry, even as massive inflation was kicking in. This tax was forced on the hospitality industry despite opposition from many in the industry. Would you support withdrawing this tax and providing much-needed relief to one of the primary drivers of the city’s economy?

Robert Kennedy appears set to be confirmed as the new Secretary of Health. Kennedy is known for driving the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Would you support ensuring Guthrie’s compliance with this agenda—such as banning fluoride chemicals from city water supplies?

It was recently revealed that the local police department has authorized a surveillance system that allows for warrantless monitoring of Guthrie residents by nearly 100 government agencies, including the federal ATF, from as far away as Wisconsin. Do you support the continuation of this surveillance system?

It’s been suggested that Division Street should be renamed Elon Musk Boulevard. This proposal would bring Guthrie national attention and entice Musk to become the grand marshal of the 2026 89ers Day parade. Would you sponsor the resolution to enact this important change?

The Owen Field project has gone millions of dollars over projection. Are you aware of the reasons for this overage? Does this concern you? And what will you do to investigate the reasons behind it? Do you agree it makes more sense to use this money for improving core infrastructure, like water systems, rather than chasing bad money with good?

The Guthrie Police Department reportedly sponsored an event featuring a prominent Oklahoma City gay night club performer who performed in his full drag character for children. Do you believe the city should sponsor events like this, and should disciplinary action be taken against those who authorized it?

In 2020, Guthrie City Hall was one of the first in the Western world to mandate mask-wearing—seemingly, even for drivers alone in their cars. Many believe the forced wearing of these masks contributed to numerous health problems, especially for children. What does the Bill of Rights mean to you in this context, and if asked to violate constitutional protections, how will you vote?

Now, that would be an actual town hall worth watching—and maybe even attending. Instead of a mere 188 views on YouTube, the Chamber could go full pay-per-view and generate some actual non-government-originated scratch to promote the town without picking people’s pockets.

But all in all, presuming Guthrie Man won’t be invited to the Chamber’s pay-per-view town forum extravaganza, doesn’t this sum up the town’s doom cycle? Few care about city government, so very few watch the forum. The people who do care are those whose paychecks come from taxes. The people in charge of overseeing that spending completely fanboy over the city staff, opine about how there should be more taxes, and that’s how millions in waste and abuse take place. It's a complete doom cycle!

Well, it’s time to break the cycle. It’ll take some time, but we need to start thinking about future elections—or recall elections, for that matter. Word on the street is the number required for a recall is a fraction of the attendees at the Guthrie Man Coffee Club. So, whenever you’re ready to step up and implement the Guthrie DOGE project, it’s time to get busy.

Guthrie Man hopes you have found this Guthrie Man Election Special to be educational and thought-provoking. Here's to the hope that in the future, Guthrie Man can actually find a campaign where there is a candidate actually worthy of endorsing.

Oh yes, one last thing—Guthrie Man is privileged to endorse Old Ranger for Edmond Mayor. Make Edmond great again!