Abnormal Coincidental Arrival at Flaming Lips Alley in Oklahoma City

Abnormal Coincidental Arrival at Flaming Lips Alley in Oklahoma City

                Leaving Austin, headed towards Oklahoma City, which I thought would be a cool town but ended up providing me with a whole lot of nothing for material.  Before I left a booked a room at the Crowne Plaza there, as I had been enamored with my experience there in New Orleans.  The drive was not overly burdensome and I made it there at a reasonable hour.  I was helped with my bags by a bellman and I tipped him.  I went up to my room and smoke a bowl, enjoying my iPod boombox for the first time in the privacy of my own room.  For some reason it seems like I arrived there pretty early, like around 3:00, but all I remember is the lateness creeping up especially fast.  I needed to get dinner somewhere, and I didn’t know where to go.  I left around 8:00, I guess, trying to find a commercial strip with some restaurants.  This did not happen. 

                This may be the first time I became somewhat disconcertedly lost in a city I had never been to before.  I drove around a couple different highways, tried to find a center to the city and was met with stretches of nothing.  And this had been a city big enough to house an NBA franchise.  Finally, I saw a promising display of lettering, which read “Bricktown.” 

                There were some lights around and I figured this would be as good a place as any to eat.  Before I parked though, I happened to see a small byway with a sign that said “Flaming Lips Alley.”  “Well!” I thought, “At least I found the Flaming Lips!” Certainly one of my major associations with Oklahoma City, and I would get to see the street named for them.  I drove down it just to be able to say I had, and there was nothing particularly special about it.  It looked like any alley in any city—dumpsters, random bits of thrown away furniture, papers on the concrete, puddles of dark water.  I would read later on Pitchfork that the band would be officially dedicating the alley a couple months later, so I saw it when the sign was up, but before it was celebrated and brought into some more (hopefully) commemorative state.

                I parked my car and found a place that looked rather high-end—Mickey Mantle’s.  They were still open at 9:00 and I figured it was here or nowhere, and I wanted to have a drink and have a leisurely dinner with a book.  Well, the wine was very good, but very expensive, and I had picked the most modestly-priced glass, and I ordered the Surf & Turf.  The whole meal ended up costing me some $84 or so.  Certainly one of my most decadent experiences, but as I left I had a strange feeling of it not having been worth it all.  There was  Skyy Lounge on top of a building next door, and I toyed with the idea of having a drink or two there, but decided I had already spent enough money and would go back to the hotel instead.

                It was harder to get back to the hotel than I imagined.  I had to stop at a gas station and ask for directions.  I arrived back around 11:00 PM or so, did not order an in-room movies, and had a bill slipped under my door in the middle of the night for some $140.  The next day I would go to Boulder.