Pony Moon Gala 2008

In this article, unless otherwise stated, click an image for a 1024 px wide view

Quick links in this article
Oscar Jacobson   Jacobson Foundation
Richard West   National Museum of the American Indian
2008 Gala   Silent Auction   Inside the Ballroom
Not Your Ordinary Stomp Dance   Live Auction   Hello~Goodbye

Last night, Saturday September 20, 2008, it was my pleasure to attend the Jacobson Foundation's annual fund raiser and cultural event called the "Pony Moon Gala." I've been with my wife once or twice before to similar events in Norman, but, to my knowledge, this was the 1st to be held in Oklahoma City, this one at the grand Skirvin Hilton Ballroom.

Ordinarily, the "boundaries" of my articles are Oklahoma City or County, per se, but with occasional lap-overs to the Oklahoma City metro. This is one of the latter combined with the former!

The event described below occurred at the Skirvin Hilton on September 20. The host of the event was the Jacobson Foundation in Norman and the celebrated guest honoree was a prominent state, national, and probably internationally known Native American person, W. Richard West Jr. However, before describing the festivities, some background is in order about Oscar Jacobson, the Jacobson Foundation, and W. Richard West, Jr.

ABOUT OSCAR JACOBSON. Born in Vastervik, Sweden, in 1882, Oscar Brousse Jacobson immigrated with his family to the United States in 1890, settling in Lindsborg, Kansas, where he attended public school and then Bethany College located in the same community. There, he studied art with internationally known artist Birger Sandzen and graduated in 1908. This August 29, 2007, Norman Transcript article by David Dary says,

During the next five years Jacobson taught at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and at the state college of Washington. During the first half of 1915, he studied at the Louvre in Paris. When he returned to the United States, he was hired as director of the School of Art and art museum at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

So, at age 32, he moved to Oklahoma to head the School of Fine Arts at the University of Oklahoma in Norman in which capacity he served until 1945. His home which came to be known as the "Jacobson House," was built in 1917 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Larger image not available

The Norman Transcript article continues (I've inserted ¶ symbols to show paragraph breaks in the original article to shorten its vertical presentation here):

In the late 1920s, something happened that forever changed Jacobson and the study of art. ¶ Less than 60 miles west of Norman at Anadarko, Sister Olivia Taylor, a Choctaw, began teaching art to Kiowa Indian students at a mission school operated by St. Patrick's Catholic church.

Susie Peters, a woman working for the Indian agency in Anadarko, saw their art and was impressed. Peters organized an art club encouraging the students to memorialize the Kiowa culture in their drawings. She sent some of the drawings to Oscar Jacobson at OU in 1926. ¶ He was fascinated with what he saw. Their art was flat with ground planes of color. Jacobson invited the Indians to become special students at OU. Six Kiowa students – five boys and one girl -- came to study with Jacobson. They were James Auchiah (1906-1975), Spencer Asah (1905/1910-1954), Jack Hokeah (1902-1969), Stephen Mopope (1898-1974), Monroe Tsatoke (1904-1937 who was also known as "Hunting Horse") and Lois Smokey (1907-1981).

Smokey's parents rented a large home in Norman where all of the Kiowa students lived while they studied at OU. ¶ The five boys became known as the "Kiowa Five." While Lois Smokey's art was included in nearly all of the early exhibits, she has not received the credit she deserves in the story of what became known as the Kiowa Five.

Jacobson provided the students with art supplies and studio space. He also provided them with a monthly stipend for their living expenses. He ignored suggestions that the Kiowa artists be taught to draw in a more European manner. ¶ During the 1920s and '30s, Jacobson’s home became a meeting place for artists from Norman, Taos and Santa Fe who were shaking up the art world. At the same time Jacobson developed a market for Indian art that became known as the "Oklahoma School."

In time, 31 Kiowa artists came to Norman to study under Jacobson. He circulated their watercolors widely throughout the United States. In 1928 their works were featured at the International Art Congress at Prague, Czechoslovakia. ¶ The Prague exhibit resulted in another showing in Paris. Newspapers in Paris, London and elsewhere praised the art. Their works received so much attention that it was next included in an exhibition of Southwest art in New York City. The Kiowa Five became celebrities in the art world.

Oscar Jacobson's classes for Indian artists and those developed at the Santa Fe Indian School marked the beginning of the institutionalization of Indian painting. Jacobson lectured widely for the U.S. Park Service During the 1930s depression, he acted as a technical advisor for President Franklin Roosevelt's Public Works of Art project in Oklahoma. ¶ Three Kiowa – Hokesh, Asah and Mopope – participated in the Intertribal Indian Ceremonies in New Mexico in 1930. Mopope, Auchish and Asah painted sixteen murals on the upper walls of the Anadarko Post Office in 1936 and '37.

The works of the Kiowa Five and other Indians are today highly collectable. So are more than 500 landscape paintings that capture with simplicity the grandeur and dignity of the American West.

Jacobson, then about 63, retired from OU in 1945, but from his home on the northwest side of the campus he and his wife Jeanne d’ Ucel continued to encourage the development of Indian art. ¶ In 1951, the University honored Jacobson by naming the building housing the art museum for him. Today Jacobson Hall is the visitor's center. Oscar B. Jacobson died Sept. 15, 1966 at age 84."

Jacobson, His House, & the Kiowa Five
(larger image not available)


THE JACOBSON FOUNDATION. The Jacobson Foundation was established in 1986 to preserve the home but, more, to honor and encourage "the legacy of Oscar Jacobson and his wife, Jeanne d'Ucel, while honoring the courage, talent, and achievement of the 'Kiowa Five' and all the Native American art students." The foundation was responsible for securing the Jacobson House's 1986 placement in the National Register of Historic Places. Noted Oklahoma historian, Arrell Morgan Gibson, one of my wife's principal mentors in her own Native American educational journey, called the Oscar Jacobson legacy "a preservation imperative."

The Foundation operates the Jacobson House Native Art Center in the former residence of the Jacobsons. By bringing art exhibits, cultural activites, lectures, workshops and educational events to the public, the Jacobson House continues a tradition begun by the Jacobsons and their Native American student artists. Russell Tall Chief, Director, is observed in several photographs taken on September 20, below.

Russell Tall Chief, Director (larger image not available)

Additional information about the house, Jacobson, the Kiowa Five and much more is contained in the Jacobson House website. The collage below is assembled from a panoramic image of the Jacobson House interior at that website:


ABOUT W. RICHARD WEST. When talking about W. Richard West, it's best to begin with his father, Walter Richard West Sr. ("Dick"), and his mother, Maribelle McCrea. Richard's parents met at Bacone College, Muskogee, while Richard's father was an art student there -- the father would later chair the art department at Bacone from 1947 to 1970 and at Haskell Indian Junior College from 1970 to 1977. When Richard was 13, his dad, Dick, took him to New York see the Heye Collection. "It was more Indian material than I had ever seen in my life," he says now, "almost overwhelming" -- in particular the artifacts of his own Cheyenne ancestors. See this article in the March-April 2001 issue of Harvard Magazine. In that article, the author says:

His father counseled West and his brother, "You are Cheyenne, and don't you ever forget that." As a result, West speaks of a "bona-fide rootedness [in Cheyenne culture] that centers me." His father also warned his sons that they would need higher education to succeed in the larger world. "We were pushed as fast as our little minds would run," West says. "I think we have six or seven degrees between us." He attended the University of Redlands, his mother's alma mater, and found a mentor in the late Earl Cranston, Ph.D. '31, an historian whom he credits with helping him gain admission to Harvard. It was in Cambridge, through family connections, that he met his future wife, Mary Ann Braden, a lawyer who is deputy assistant secretary of state for oceans and fisheries; the couple have two grown children.

Richard's dad, Dick, is nicely described in this Oklahoma Historical Society article. Included in his father's education was the University of Oklahoma where he was a student of Oscar Jacobson. In Richard's remarks at the Skirvin on September 20, he remembered being in the Jacobson house when he was five years old.

Richard, also a lawyer, is further described in a very nice 2003 American Bar Association article which notes that:

West was born in San Bernardino, California on January 6, 1943, and grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma. His father was Walter Richard West Sr., the Cheyenne master artist; his mother a music lover of Scottish ancestry. * * *

* * * West also kept up his interests in Indian history and culture, and in 1989 became involved in the efforts to create the National Museum of the American Indian. He served five years as coordinator and treasurer of the Native American Council of Regents of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, gaining valuable insights into the contemporary Indian art world.

In 1990, West was named as the founding director of the National Museum of the American Indian. The Museum is a part of the Smithsonian Institution, and includes over 800,000 objects from the Heye collection. West says of the Museum, "One of our most serious commitments at the National Museum of the American Indian is to offer a counterbalance to the distortions engendered by the painfully long exclusion of Indian people from the interpretation of their own history and culture." As director, West has been responsible for guiding the successful opening of the three facilities that comprise the Museum: the George Gustav Heye Center, which opened in New York City in 1994; the Cultural Resources Center, which opened in Suitland, Maryland in 2000; and the Mall Museum, which is scheduled to open on the last available site on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 2004. West has also played a key role in guiding the philosophy of the "Fourth Museum," a community outreach program giving millions of people worldwide the opportunity to experience the Museum's collections, photo archives, exhibitions and public programs.

National Museum of the American Indian. West's crowning glory was doubtless his work in establishing the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian, on the Mall in Washington, D.C. My wife attended the hugely glorious opening of that facility and I'll post some of her photographs of that event later. Until then, a few images of the grounds are shown from general internet resources.

Below, Richard West is seen from within that facility with the U.S. Capitol in the background:

Larger image not available



Map & Aerial Views from MS Maps Live



Looking West



Looking South



Looking North



Street Views of the National Museum of the American Indian






West retired from his position in 2007 in the midst of some controversy generated by the Washington Post concerning lavish and, it argued, unrelated-to-his-position expenditures. See this pair of articles: December 28, 2007 and February 10, 2008. One expenditure thought inappropriate by the Washington Post was associated with West's retirement -- "a gala dinner, the trust funds paid for the $37,000 catering bill, which included medallions of prime beef tenderloin seasoned with habanero chiles, and quail glazed with wild plum jam. Federally appropriated funds, however, were used to pay $30,585 for an eight-minute DVD biography of West, which was shown during the dinner and presented to him as a going-away present."

As for Doug Dawg, I'm just glad that the Post made part of that cool video available for your viewing, regardless of how the newspaper characterized it in its captioning. It's a very nice video clip.

Originally, I embedded that clip here but now the image below is only a link to the Washington Post video location ... the code associated with the Post video was slowing down regular image loading here (particularly for users using MS IE Explorer, not so much for Firefox), so, now, click on the image to open the video in a new window or tab.


And, to be sure, the Washington Post's viewpoints were quite obviously not troubling those present on September 20, 2008, in downtown Oklahoma City when Richard West, honoree, was enthusiastically revered and esteemed below.

PONY MOON GALA 2008. These are photographs that I took at the event on September 20. The first thing I should say is that I (once again) got to mooch off of my wife, Dr. Mary Jo Watson, Director of the School of Art and Art History of the University of Oklahoma. In Mary Jo's academic circles, when I attend events with her many are surprised to learn that Dr. Watson even has a husband, I do that so infrequently. This occasion was one that I was glad that I didn't miss!

The Silent Auction. As said in the beginning, a principal reason for the annual event is to raise funds for the Jacobson Foundation. Three means exist to accomplish that goal: (a) Tickets — the event cost $150 per person to attend; (b) the "Silent" auction — various supporters of the Jacobson Foundation donate works of art which are bid on "silently," i.e., one writes down his/her bid on a piece of paper and sticks in a box or something, and the highest bidder wins the bidding; and (c) the ordinary auction at which oral competitive bidding occurs. The latter will be shown later in the article. Photos from the "Silent Auction" area follow:







Artist Tony Tiger (left, with coat & mustache)


Inside the Ballroom. Leaving the "Silent Auction" area, I took a few preliminary pics of the ballroom area and then the events which occurred, as follows:





Thanks to Dr. Watson, I was with her near the front
Left to right: Mary Jo Watson
Julie & Jackson Rushing - Jackson is Adkins Professor of the School of Art
Ghislain d’Humières, Director of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art



After the meal, a few offered speaker remarks. I didn't get them all,
but, of course, I did get Dr. Watson ...



... and the honoree, Richard West ...

a slide show of his father's (Walter Richard West Sr.'s) art
was displayed on the large screen in the background



... who got the gift of a cool blanket ...
Russell Tall Chief is in the center



... as well as a Native American serenade!



Here's a much better view of Richard West
Founding Director Emeritus, Smithsonian Institution's
National Museum of the American Indian


Not Your Ordinary Stomp Dance! If you've attended Native American "dance" events, you sort of know what to expect. Dancing tends toward the "traditional" and doesn't change all that much.

Not This Time! The dance performed at the gala was co-choreographed by Holly S. Tall Chief, ballet faculty member at the University of Oklahoma School of Dance, and Cheyla Clawson, Graduate Fellow in the School of Dance, both of them seen performing in the photographs shown below. Jacobson House's publicity sheet about the dance reads, in part:

In honor of the West family, the gala will premiere an original dance composition inspired by the art of Dick West [Richard's father and student of Oscar Jacobson].

More particularly, Holly S. Tall Chief describes the dance performed by her and Cheyla Clawson as folows:

The contemporary duet titled, "Green Rainbow" was performed to the music of Lunar Drive. The dance was inspired by paintings by master artist Walter Richard West Sr. (Cheyenne/Arapaho), and was performed in honor of his son, Richard West, Founding Emeritus Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Tall Chief and Clawson based their dance on the particular painting "Water Serpent" by Walter Richard West, Sr. Holly's movement represented the Thunderbird and Cheyla's movement represented the Water Serpent, two important symbols in Native cosmology, representing the forces of good and evil. Costumes for the dance were created by Wendy Ponca (Osage), a textile artist who has worked for the Santa Fe Opera costume department and independently as a fashion designer.

As I said, it was not your average stomp dance! Have a look!

Holly Tall Chief, left, and Cheyla Clawson, right







The following is my attempt to capture some
motion by combining the 2 above photos















The ladies were kind enough to pose after the performance -- Hoo Ahh!


The "Live" Auction. After the above performance, several works of art (and a live buffalo) were auctioned off to the highest bidder. A few images follow ...






Hi There, What's New? After the auction, except for saying hello to friends, the event was done.

Richard & Mary Beth West, Mary Jo Watson





Betty Price, Retired Director of the Oklahoma Arts Council
Amber Sharples, Curator, Oklahoma Art Collection, State Capitol


Here's a twirly-fingers to you, too, Amber Sharples! {grin} And that's all I have to say about that!

That's it ... hope you enjoyed Doug Dawgz yet another scoop over the mainstream media! Hoo Ahh!

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What Is The Best NBA Peep Show In OKC?

Did you catch the FULL PAGE ad in the September 14, 2008, Sunday Oklahoman, page 14B? The text on the page reads, "Our Team has arrived. We have your site." The website is declared by the full page ad to be ThunderMadness.com.

Hey, sounds great ... at first blush. Like, hey, such a place doesn't already exist ... and certainly none do that can afford a full page Sunday Oklahoman ad.

But then, one notices the inscription at the bottom of the Madness page, "© 2008 - Opubco Communications Group."

What other Thunder fansite could afford to pay for a full-page ad in the Sunday Oklahoman? More, what Thunder fansite would be any different than Berry Trammel's proclamation that sports fan websites are "peep shows" and are no better than "porn sites" and one which, by lurking, you would be "driving the getaway car?"

(If you're curious about my use of bawdy language, click on Berry Tramel's above video and see and hear the source, first hand.)

The answer is obvious -- the one sports fan forum which could possibly be immune from Tramel's condemnation, and the one which could "afford" to pay for the full page Oklahoman ad, would be the one set up by Tramel's employer ... ta da ... OPUBCO itself. So, pricewise, the ad is a freebie and that peep show will more than likely even include articles by Berry Tramel himself! It just can't get any better than that ... free advertising for a fan site ... one which is neither a peep show nor a porn site ... and, by lurking, you'll not be driving the getaway car ... right?

IS IT BETTER? Probably the 1st thing that an inquiring mind would want to do is to have a look at the OPUBCO's upstart, Johnny-Come-Lately, fan board. Indeed, it is glitzy with lots of splashy images and videos borrowed from the Oklahoman's web pages. Does it get any better that this?

Well, maybe it does get better ... and maybe it has been better ... since October 2005 when the Hornets first came to town. Way back then no Oklahoman fan site forum existed at all. Nor did it for the 2 seasons that the Hornets were in OKC. After the Hornets returned to New Orleans, no Oklahoman fan site existed, either. Only now, on the verge of the Thunder's 1st season in Oklahoma City, does the Oklahoman's fan board proclaim itself to be, "OKC's Premier Fan Site" -- when there, look at the title line in your browser's page for that self-proclaimed identification. Also, in the Forums area, notice the wholly unclassy sub-forum in "Around the NBA," the one called, "Sonics Grumbling," subtitled, "We got 'em. You don't. 'Nuff said." Hopefully that subtitle will disappear one day, along with Berry Tramel's above "Peep Show" video.

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A BETTER FAN WEB BOARD!
NEW OKCNBAFANS.COM
Archived OKCNBAFANS.COM
As of September 16-17, 2008, the former fan forum began migrating to its new name and location (now that the team name and colors are determined), and that is where current activity exists. The "archived" area contains legacy posts going back 3 years and covers the Hornets, the hiatus and litigation period, and the earliest days of the Thunder following relocation from Seattle to Oklahoma City. Below are many of the avatars of the great guys and gals who are members in OKC's oldest and best NBA in OKC fan board:


Beginning Sunday, October 16, 2005, and then known as HornetsCentral.com, a small group of upstart local NBA fans gave locals a place to talk about the NBA, the Hornets, and whatever else they were inclined to say. And did they ever. Schedules, game pics, opinions all over the map. It also drew the attention, sometimes ire, of many who were disposed to favor New Orleans and, sometimes, trash Oklahoma City, particularly, and Oklahoma in general. For two glorious years HornetsCentral.com provided the place for Oklahomans and other friendlies as well as for some who returned hostile fire! Where was OPUBCO's fan board during these two seasons? It didn't exist.

The board persevered through the hiatus after the Hornets returned to New Orleans hoping against hope that Oklahoma City would come to land another NBA team in the future. When the issues associated with the Seattle SuperSonics came to the fore, HornetsCentral, by then also known as SonicsBeat, was the home of the Oklahoma City faithful. Where was OPUBCO's fan board during the hiatus period of April 2007 until just last week? It didn't exist.

The new ThunderMadness.com may call itself "OKC's Premier Fan Site" but just saying so does not make it so ... even if the new OPUBCO board has the benefit of a full-page ad in the Sunday Oklahoman and the resources and power of OPUBCO behind it.

Since its humble beginnings on October 16, 2005, HornetsCentral, which later took on a dual name of SonicsBeat (and which has now become OKCNBAfans.com), 65,100 posts were made on 4,895 topics by the board's 1,365 registered members on its shoe-string resources. It has been and remains fiercely independent and the board's grass-roots origins have served OKC NBA fans well, now in its new internet digs.

Have a look at this screen-capture taken September 15, before the migration to the new site of Page 1 in the element of the forum called, "OKC Thunder Talk" (there are others):

Click the image for a larger view


Now that OKC's team name and colors have been resolved, the board has migrated to new web address with better software and features than were present in the past. It's just been opened, though it's still a work-in-progress: New OkcFans.com.

If you really want to participate in the best OKC NBA forum, message board, or want to call it a "peep show" like Berry Tramel did, it's a simple matter: visit the new OKCNBAfans.com today! Old content hasn't been migrated from the old forum yet (and I don't know if it ever will be), so you may want to have a look the former area, too.
A sampling of comments by members made just before the migration to the new site reads like this:

• Saberman54: I check out at least 7 or 8 different Thunder forums, but this is the only on my tool bar for quick reference.


• Fast | Break: This is THE only Thunder forum imo.


• Crysis: Thats right FB, these colors don't run...


• HornetGirl: This place is home.


• StormFan93: Who has the Bosworth avatar? Haven't you Oklahomans done enough to us!!! {grin}


• Taranis: I was over at HR being chewed out and called names for being from OKC and having a simple curiosity about the Hornets situation when, I received a private message from one of the other Oklahomans registered at HR. I believe that message came from Patrick, he was telling me he was starting a forum so that we could have a place to talk without being ridiculed or banned. I have reading this board almost everyday since and do not plan on leaving.


• Thunderhead: I'll keep coming here for the people and the content. I've learned more here and felt more up to date because of this site than any other. The other site is flashy, but I can stop by and look at it from time to time and then come here for the meat.


• okcnba: This site will be just fine. It's got all of the hardcore fans on it, they're already dedicated to it, plus the conversations here are actually intelligent. Trust me, that is quite rare for a sports forum. Even the fact that they have a forum thread entitled "Sonics: We Got em You don't, Nuff said" tells me just how classy of a fan site it is going to be. Tramel wanted a peep show, he's got it now! I'd just like to see this site get a little jazzier, but I know that takes time. Content will be what keeps this site #1 concerning thunder.


• josh aka eggman: The members here have be good to me. I do wish we had a forum that looked a little bit more like theirs soon.


• Saberman54: The media in OKC is sadly lacking at the present time. The DOK and Channel 9 sports seem to have the most up to date articles and reports, but even those are few and far between. Channel 4 and 5 have the worst coverage I've seen. Hopefully that will get better as we get started with the new season coming up.
  
  As I see it they will have to get reporters that cover the Thunder and the NBA exclusively to bring year round and informative coverage an information.
  
  Till then local forums and blogs seem to be the only place to get that info. The OKCHornetsCentral(soon to be OKCNBAfans.com) forum is the most up to date and informative site I have found. Forum members are the most informed and seem to get breaking news well before any of the news outlets (how do they do that). We'll have to see how the Sports Animal does on their reporting, they have yet to show any initiative as the official Thunder radio network.


• Karried: I never would have heard of this site if it weren't for this thread and Doug's blog...lol Razz Maybe rethink the link?
  
  This site will be awesome with a little color tweaking .... give it some time... you have to realize, that site is funded by some big boys ... this site is run from the heart... with no funds to pay a webmaster I imagine... anyone want to pitch in to help?


• Betts: I think it's all about content. If people like the content, that's where they will hang out. I like showing up here and finding a post from some obscure newspaper with information (ala your scoop, Doug), and knowing things a day before they show up in the DOK, or finding that the DOK seems to be reading our posts, which fuel their articles. Perhaps by setting up their own forum, they're trying to avoid being scooped!


• Wooldoor Sockbat: Two Websites Enter, One Website Leaves...

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I NEED TICKETS!

Yep. That's me, basketball in one hand and the other grasping my "I Need Tickets" home-made sign as I dazzlingly fly through the Ford Center air making yet another of my many incredible and unbelievable and even amazing slam dunks! That's the way I pictured it, anyway, when planning to attend my 12 noon THURSDAY, September 11, appointment to go down to the Ford Center to pick out my pair of Thunder Season Tickets!

UPDATED, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 @ 11:30 A.M. I am very pleased to report that ...

... thanks to the generosity of BeeCool aka Ken Crossman at OKCNBAfans.com who allowed me to be his guest this morning at his 9:30 appointment and get my two tickets on his account! Hoo Ahh! Not only that, the tickets were exactly where I wanted them to be in the 1st place -- $30 balcony seats in Section 311.

It wasn't terribly crowded this morning and they have opened up some Club Level tickets that weren't earlier available. There are still a few good seats in the lower level, and good tickets (e.g., more balcony tickets) in the upper level.

Unless traffic changes during the day, I would not expect that all seats will be sold today, maybe not even tomorrow. We should have a better feel for that by the end of the day.

The original alarmist comments made by me and by others, e.g., Mike Baldwin, in the original text (which resumes after the final updated comments concerning the Thunder's inaugural season ticket sales) should be read in the context of this updated post!

UPDATED THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 @ 9:30 P.M. From the Thunder website this evening comes this updated season ticket sales report:

Last Chance For Thunder Season Tickets
PR STAFF September 11, 2008

The Oklahoma City Thunder is very close to selling out of season tickets for its 2008-09 season, but there is a very limited number of tickets left. The team encourages fans with Friday appointments to not pass up the final opportunity to become a Thunder season ticket member.

"We are down to a precious few remaining seats, just under 1000 of them," said team spokesman Dan Mahoney. Mahoney said the only season tickets remaining are $10 upper level seats but he encouraged fans to buy them. "We will be open and encourage fans to keep their Friday appointments. By purchasing them you become a Thunder Season Ticket member and enjoy the benefits that brings, including securing your opportunity for future upgrades. You won't have to be put on a waiting list. You can be in the Ford Center enjoying 42 nights of exciting Thunder Basketball starting with our preseason game on October 14."

In four days of its seat selection process, the Thunder has sold about 12,000 season tickets.

UPDATED FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 @ 9:00 P.M. All 13,000 full season tickets are now sold. See Mike Baldwin's 9/12/2008 Oklahoman article. Including the 2,000 corporate ticket sales which occurred before Monday past, 15,000 tickets for the season have now been sold and a waiting list now exists for those who could not make appointments scheduled after today. Baldwin reports that only Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Boston are in a similar situation.The remaining 4,000 or so seats are reserved for mini packages, group sales, individual tickets, visiting team needs, the media and the league.

The original post, Tuesday, when I had no tickets, continues ...

Problem is, it is now, on Tuesday morning, almost certainly evident that Thursday Noon will be much too late to get any! Bummer! That even though I feverishly and immediately (as immediately as I could get the on-line ticket preference thing to work) posted my preferences when the automated e-mails were sent out, that fact didn't count. There is no "early bird" getting the "worm," on this occasion. And, in such a movie, I'm sure that Doug Dawgz in a cast of thousands!

As has been widely reported at the Oklahoman, News9.com, KOCO-TV, and everywhere else in Oklahoma City, the 1st day's sale of full season tickets dwindled the season ticket pool to somewhere only around 6,500 - 7,000 left to sell, and at the rate they sold on Day 1, those could easily be gone at the close of business today. See this article from this morning's paper, for example:

Thunder tickets are such a hot item, season-ticket sales might be capped Wednesday night or sometime Thursday.

Late-in-the-week appointments will be canceled. Those fans will be placed on a waiting list and most likely have an opportunity to purchase eight-game mini packages.

"Late-in-the-week" -- ha --how about like this evening (Tuesday) or mid-morning tomorrow (Wednesday)?

Mike Balwin's blog at newsok.com pulled no punches:

Select-a-seat started Monday at the Ford Center. When the day ended there were only 7,000 season tickets left after 6,300 were sold on Monday. If you have a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday select-a-seat appointment forget it.

So, the way it's looking, I'll be doing a game-by-game kind of thing this year ... which is what I did during the 2 years the Hornets were in town. The "personal" upside, if you can call it that, is that I wound up going to every game I wanted to, and that was a bunch, I promise you.

To be sure, there is an "upside" for Oklahoma City in this. Keep in mind that the Ford Center's NBA capacity is right around 19,200. As Baldwin's blog added,

Team officials won’t say how many "full" season tickets they could sell, but it appears 20,000-plus would be a safe bet. And that's probably conservative. The Thunder will sell around 13,000 season tickets in less than three days before the team caps season ticket sales. That doesn't include 2,500-plus season tickets for corporate sponsors. If the team didn't hold back 4,000 tickets for group sales, individual games or mini packages you can rest assured those would be gone by the weekend.

Did you notice the price for "Nicholson seats" was $105,000 ... per season ticket. Let that price tag sink in for a minute. For a cool $1 million you could purchase nine "Hollywood seats" this season. And they’re all gone.

To provide a little context, the 3,500 upper deck $10 seats will produce $1.5 million the entire season. That's what make this such an interesting story. Tickets are quickly being gobbled up in all price ranges. Hundreds of $6,300 season tickets in the six most expensive sections – $25,000 for four season tickets – sold quickly.

Can Oklahoma City support a pro franchise? The answer Monday was ABSOLUTELY.

So, take it from me, Doug Dawg:

1. Just because you are ape-shit crazy over getting an NBA team doesn't help one iota when it comes to getting season tickets.


2. You'll still get to go to a bunch of Thunder games ... or, at least, so I'm hoping!


3. Oklahoma City IS a Major League City. I'll take some comfort in that fact, while I go without my season tickets this year.

Congrats to those of you who got or will get yours today, though. I'm not jealous ... I'm not jealous ... I'm not jealous ... I may just hate you, a little, that's all!

(Just kidding, I think)

On Edit, Wednesday morning: Now that I've got my tickets, all traces of hate (! just kidding !) are fully purged from my system!



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