Had a wonderful time today visiting the Fredrick Douglass statue (next to the Ronald Reagan statue) outside of the south Tulsa Scheel’s

yes hello just a reminder that if you're in Tulsa on December 27th, I'm doing a live reading from my next essay collection REVERSE COWBOY at Chimera! Get a ticket here! www.eventbrite.com/e/john-paul-...

This is Saturday. Come hang! I’m gonna ask JP about Samantha Fulnecky

Temp swing from 78 to 22 during the Christmas to New Year’s liminal space. Cue the “can’t believe this is my life” LeBron meme

Victor Wembanyama I hope you’re ready for Alex Caruso to punch you in your dick on Christmas

She adored OBAA

I'm not the only person to have written it, and Parker in particular also did it well, but this was a lazy work the whole time. You can make a whole rancid career in the conservative politics biz just by knowing who you can get away with trying to hurt and then doing it. defector.com/the-conserva...

Wife has agreed to watch One Battle After Another on the strength of my pitch that it’s “another lovely film from the guy who made ‘Phantom Thread’”

My dad retired a few months ago after forty years of work so you better believe for Christmas I’m getting that man the comfiest pair of sweatpants money can buy

Working mom gets picked up by ICE shortly after dropping her kids off at school. Deported a few days later after a hold in Tulsa County Jail: thepickup.com/ice-separate...

Are there any wealthy Tulsa philanthropists brave enough to buy me a houseboat? The Pickup would be like 150% better imo if I were editing it from a houseboat

Big story today

“You’re not targeting a criminal; you’re targeting a mom of four.” Here’s how ICE detained and deported a Tulsa single mother—tailing her after she dropped her kids off at school—and how the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office made it possible. thepickup.com/ice-separate...

Oklahoma is a top ten state in terms of its cooperation with ICE. Read María Guinnip, who spent months investigating this story: thepickup.com/ice-separate...

Primo Pickup subs check your inboxes — big story just dropped

Gary was savoring that

Wait for Gary Payton's reaction at the end...

Beautiful family Christmas lore story from This Land legend Mark Brown just in time for the holidays: thepickup.com/all-things-c...

On December 27, we're excited to host writer, advice columnist, and Okie ex-pat John Paul Brammer at Chimera Ballroom. Brammer will read from his forthcoming book, “Reverse Cowboy.” Pickup subscribers get free tickets (check your email)! RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/e/john-paul-...

Great stuff in here from @cliftonhowze.bsky.social consistently one of the state’s best journalists

The first thing I do when I get to heaven is find John Prine and smoke weed with him

It me

In Between by The Feelies … kinda a Christmas song

Pickup subs and Tulsa people, keep an eye out for info on an event we’re doing with John Paul later this month, gonna be a guaranteed good time

Hell yeah, we’re participating in this btw. Give your friends, family and enemies the gift of Defector AND The Pickup this holiday season!

Some 600 immigrant kids have been sent to federal custody by ICE this year. A 17-year-old was detained at a traffic stop because officers couldn’t make contact with his dad, who is deaf. Another kid ended up in a shelter after making a wrong turn.

Delighted to learn from this essay that the OU girl who got a zero for free speech is the daughter of a lawyer who defended J6 rioters in court

Boomer!

If you haven’t subscribed to The Pickup yet we’ve got a sale going right now for new subs — thepickup.com/new-subscrib...

This and Thanksgiving meal

Capital punishment for Rudy Gobert

Settle in for a great read my friends

After five years operating Dante’s Woodfire Pizza out of a truck in Kendall Whittier, owner Beau Ballard has announced that Dante’s is making a big move: into the old American Solera building in SoBo. Details: thepickup.com/dantes-is-go...

This is so bleak dude

Great piece, and I’ll add to it that we at @thepickupdotcom.bsky.social also received a pitch from the scammer at the center of the story! Declined it because it seemed obvious to us that the pitch had been written by AI

A few months ago @thelocal.to got a promising pitch from a writer with bylines in whole bunch of reputable publications—The Cut, The Guardian, Dwell, Architectural Digest, etc. Then I started investigating. Here's a story about fabulists in journalism's AI slop era. thelocal.to/investigatin...

The red NBA Cup courts, like the Rockets’ irredeemable offense, are an affront to God

After you help your boss convert a doc to PDF

The Cranberries — “When You’re Gone” is a perfect song

Simply divine

Data Centers Got You Worried? Wait Until You Find Out About The Bitcoin Mines @thepickupdotcom.bsky.social - thepickup.com/data-centers...

Crypto's battle for Oklahoma's resources is on. In Muskogee, a largely unnoticed 2024 cryptocurrency bill is complicating a struggle over land, water, and electricity usage between the city and the largest bitcoin miner in the state. A thread: thepickup.com/data-centers...

New story from me and our summer intern Katie about how the state opted out of regulating bitcoin mines, leaving counties and municipalities to deal with them on their own: thepickup.com/data-centers...

If you haven’t subscribed yet 👉🏻 thepickup.com/products

Political violence is out in the open, declared in advance and endorsed at the ballot box. No film has yet been able to contend with the bleakness of our era, but Aaron Timms reviews two that take a stab.

Pickup subscribers — big story tomorrow in your inboxes 👍

They need to create a more competitive basketball league for the Oklahoma City Thunder to compete in

The latest trend in Facebook’s ever downward spiral down the AI slop toilet are AI deportation videos. And the Facebook algorithm is rewarding creators for it. @jasonkoebler.bsky.social reports. Full story: www.404media.co/ai-generated...

Kyle McLachlan is granted entry to Tulsa heaven for this