September 25, 2023 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, since being released in 1983, Francis Ford Coppola’s film adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s coming-of-age novel The Outsiders has found continued popularity and has achieved official cult status. And now, in what is surely one of the most interesting pop culture intersections of all time, hip-hop artist Danny Boy O’Connor from the rap group House of Pain—best known for their iconic 1992 anthem “Jump Around”—purchased the Tulsa, Oklahoma home where much of The Outsiders’ film was shot. Here to tell this story is Danny Boy O’Connor himself.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue here with our American story. Since being
released in nineteen eighty three, Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptation
of S. E. Hinton's coming of age novel The Outsiders
has found continued popularity and has achieved official cult status.
And now, in what is surely one of the most
interesting pop culture intersections, hip hop artist Danny Boy O'Connor
(00:33):
from the rap group House of Pain, best known for
the iconic nineteen ninety two anthem jump Around, purchased the Tulsa,
Oklahoma home where much of The Outsider's film was shot.
Here to tell the story is the man himself. Here's
Danny Boy.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
My story really begins.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Los Angeles, California, nineteen eighty three when I went unknowingly
to a movie that I had never heard of Woodland Hills, California,
called The Outsiders with my friend Steve Sakolski, who just
happened to read the book. I believe I was in
seventh grade, and so he was a fan of the
(01:12):
book and he wanted to see the movie. He said, Danny,
you want to go see a movie with me? And
I thought, sure. Steve Sakowski pretty cool junior high kid
that I knew, so I figured, you know, if he
likes it, it's probably something I like. But I had
no idea what we were going to go see. I
didn't have any frame of reference. And on that full
Saturday afternoon, we went in and saw the movie, and
(01:33):
I came out a changed man, and people ask me
all the time what was my fascination with the Outsiders?
And the movie kind of hit me at a time
where I definitely felt out of place in, you know,
the San Fernando Valley in the eighties, being a native
New Yorker who has moved to California at the age
(01:56):
of six and kind of always had like a a
strong connection to the East Coast. So southern California in
the eighties looked a lot different than New York City did.
And I don't know, I just always felt, you know,
separate and apart from it. And I got that from
the movie as well. And I grew up my father
went to prison when I was two months old. We
(02:19):
moved in with my grandparents. My mother worked nights at
the Chase Manhattan Bank, and so I never really had
that foundation or that family, you know, support or love,
and you know, Carrie that I carried that with me,
even though you know, I've had a pretty extraordinary life,
(02:39):
you know that that foundation from the beginning has always
felt unstable. And so when I went to see The Outsiders,
the first thing I noticed was that they were a
fractured family, a broken family, and that despite that that
they stuck together and had each other's backs. And I felt,
(03:00):
at a thirteen or fourteen year old's mindset was that
if I could just find that kind of friendship out
in the world, that maybe I wouldn't feel so bad
about my home life and the way we grew up.
And so that was the original hook for me for
that movie. That being said, Matt Dillon was the coolest
dude on the planet at that time. The cast was incredible,
(03:24):
whether it's Patrick Swayze, Ralph Machio, Tom Cruise, Darren Dalton,
c Thomas how Diane Lane, they were all. You know,
this was the first time I was really seeing them. Actually,
Leif Garrett was the big star in my mind looking back,
because he was a seventies star and so really was
(03:45):
the only notable name that I knew prior to The Outsiders.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Then Matt Dlon.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
But that being said, you know, the movie was the
coolest thing I'd ever seen, and it stuck with me.
I immediately went home and then dug out a denim jacket
that I may have had from the seventies in New
York and kind of adapted that Dallas Winston Matt Dylan
swagger for the next few years. But as fate would
have it, I didn't really have much of a game
(04:10):
plan coming out of high school. I dropped out in
ninth grade. I hung out for the next three year
years at high school, never really went in too much,
got in a little bit of trouble with the law,
and during the time where most of my friends were
graduating high school and heading off to college or embarking
on a career, I had no idea what I.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Was going to do. And so.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I connected reconnected with a high school friend who had
had a record out prior to me and him reconnecting, and.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
We started a band called House of Pain.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
And at the time in hip hop, there wasn't anything
on the landscape like it. We were really, you know,
kind of the next wave of hip hop in the
early nineties, but at that time there wasn't any really,
there wasn't really any hard white boys We were like
Irish American tough white kids, and that was our stick
(05:05):
and that our deal was is that, you know, we
were the kind of like you know, boombab, punch you
in your face type of hip hop that was missing,
you knows as the eighties turned into the nineties and
grunge was a thing hip hop needed to reinvent. So
US and Cyprus Hill were kind of like the next
face of that in that moment. And so it was
very successful with that and sold a few million records
(05:27):
and traveled all over the world and made a million bucks.
But you know, I like to say, what goes up
must come down, and it wasn't only you know, five
years later that I was back to where I started
even less because you know, doing music for a live
especially as a creative director and an artist more than
I am a musician, it kind of left me empty
(05:48):
handed when the career was done, or the music career
was done in that moment, and I really had no
other life skills, and I unfortunately turned to drugs to
deal with that pain. So I spent the next you know,
five to six years high on methamphetamines and drinking around
the clock. And it wasn't until about year two thousand
then I got sober. I stayed sober for about three
(06:09):
and a half years, and you know, first year was good.
Second year I started getting complacent and a little. My
attitude started to come back and my expectations started to
come back. At around three and a half years, I
decided to have a drink, and it was pretty much
the worst decision I'd ever made. It took me one
week to go back on drugs and took me three
(06:30):
years to get make it back to the twelve step program.
And it wasn't until two thousand and five that I
was able to dross another sober breath. In two thousand
and five is when I began to put another group
together called the Coca and Nostra. And it was on
that fateful tour that brought me to Tulsa, Oklahoma. So
(06:51):
when we got to Tulsa, Oklahoma, we were stuck here
for three days.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
And when I say stuck, I mean stuck.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
But day two of the three days that we were here,
we began to get extremely bored, and so I called
down to the concierge desk in the lobby and asked
them to call us a cab. They laughed, there was
no such thing as cabs. They were able to wrangle
us up a guy in a van that took about
an hour and a half to get to the hotel,
and then when he got there, we asked him can
he take us on a proper tour of Tulsa, which
(07:19):
he proceeded to say yes, and then took us to
the Woodland Hills Mall. And I can assure you that
didn't go over so well with a bunch of forty
year olds going to what was at that point pretty
you know, the mall was kind of shuttered as well,
and so we went there for about an hour, and
(07:40):
as we were heading back to downtown Tulsa, it occurred
to me, Tulsa, Tulsa, Tulsa.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Why does Tulsa sound familiar to me?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
And it was at that moment I had the epiphany
and I said, excuse me, driver, He said yes. I said,
was the Outsiders filmed here? And he almost like locked
up the brakes. He was like turned around. He said yes, absolutely.
He says, why do you know it? I said, I
not only know it, I love it. Do you know
where any of the filming locations are? And he said,
I do know where the driving is. So we proceeded
(08:07):
to drop off the rest of the group. I grabbed
my road manager said you're coming with me. I grabbed
my laptop and at the time, even in two thousand
and nine, there wasn't much on the internet to go on,
and it's not like today. Two thousand and nine, I
looked up for locations for the Outsiders, and I found
a Flicker account or two, and I found a site
called Tulsa TV Memories which had a few of the
(08:28):
locations and the.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Addresses were given up. The address I was most.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Interested in was the Outsider's house, which was not given
on that website. But they did tell us where the
drive in was, and it did tell me where the
park in the movie was, the Crutchfield neighborhood, And so
we went to the drive in and I couldn't imagine
that this thing was going to look anything like it
did in the movie. But not only was it, it
felt like it hadn't changed a bit. And my mind
(08:57):
just started to just melt, really because it looked exactly
like it would have in nineteen eighty two when they
were filming, and exactly like it did you know in
the sixties when they were trying to describe it. So
it was pretty good stuff anyway. So yeah, we got
that driver to take us around Tulsa.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
We were able to find the drive in.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
We were able to find Crutchfield Park, which was the
park that Johnny stabs the Socian and they have the
confrontation with the soshas In. And then by finding the Bark,
I was able to find the house. And by finding
the house, this is where my life starts to take
a different turn.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And when we come back, we'll continue with the story
of Danny Boy O'Connor from the rap group House of Pain,
his journey back into his life. The movie The Outsiders
filmed in this town, Tulsa in Oklahoma. The rest of
this story continues here on our American stories, and we
(10:09):
continue here with our American stories and the story of
Danny Boy O'Connor. And my goodness, what a story it's
been so far. No father, a hole he's trying to
fill because of that. Sees this movie, sees this character
in The Outsiders, played by Matt Dillon of all people,
and the next thing you know, a little bit later,
(10:29):
he's in a big hit band House of Pain, and
then drugs. And then one day there's a stop in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
where The Outsiders was filmed, and the next thing you know,
there he is in front of the house where that
movie was filmed. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
At the time, it was for sale for forty thousand dollars.
I can assure you you can't buy anything in Los Angeles, California,
with the word real attached to it for forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I could not believe that House.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
One would be for sale, two would be forty thousand dollars,
and three that nobody understood its true value as an
American classic and really a sacred hollow. Grounds that being said,
I knew that I was in no position to buy
a house Untils, Oklahoma, living in Beverly Hills, California, and
(11:22):
that I should just kind of take a photo and
soak it all in while I was here then and
keep it keep moving. So that's exactly what I did.
I took a photo out front. We played Kaine's Ballroom
the next night, and I also found out that there
was a hole in the wall that Sid Vicious had
punched in nineteen seventy eight when the sex Pistols played
(11:45):
Kin's Ballroom, and I put both of those photos on Facebook,
which was pretty much a new thing as well, and
the response I got was incredible, and in particular, everybody
was fascinated with the Outsiders and that the house was
not only one still on Earth, but they couldn't believe
that it was still on the Warner Brothers lot, which
I had to correct a lot of people that it is, No,
it is not on the Warner Brothers lat in Burbank.
(12:06):
It is actually still here in North Tulsa. And I
made sure I did not tell anybody that it was
for sale because I didn't want any else buying it,
never again thinking that I would end up buying it
five years later. But that's exactly what happened. So after
finding the house, we kind of I realized that there's
there's there's some really cool stuff across America, and so
(12:27):
it really started here for me. But I started to
urban explore and I put a group together called the
Delta Bravo Urban Exploration Team. And what that is is
it's the page I started on Facebook, and I put
the Outsider's House first, and I put it before and
after photo told people the basics, you know, the Outsiders
nineteen eighty two. Here's the house that the Curtis brothers lived.
(12:48):
Here's the address, seven thirty one North Saint Louis Avenue,
and here's a before and after photo. And I found
a lot of support and made a lot of friends
through this web page that we started. And I found
that there was a lot of like minded people all
over the world, but here in particular in the US,
that were at a certain age where they were like
(13:09):
really looking back fondly on all of the pop culture
locations and all of our collective history, which is really
pop history. I mean I was, if I'm honest, I
was raised by a television set in the radio. I mean,
this is where I got most of the stuff I
was after, you know, as a kid.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
This is where all my information came from.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
So in two thousand and nine, I used the tour
bus as my personal like pop culture location vehicle. And
I figured, if I'm going to be on this tour
bus and everybody else is going to be, you know,
doing their thing, I'm going to get highly caffeinated, walk
around every city we go to, and I'm going to
look for culturally relevant undiscovered locations, and so that was
the birth of the Delta Bravo Urban Expiration Team. Again,
(13:50):
it just was like a cool hobby that I could
do in my sobriety that really cost me nothing.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And I was also.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Able to kind of like see all the undiscovered locations
that I had always wanted to see, like where Mary
Tyler Morris house was in Minneapolis, where the son of
Sam was arrested in Brooklyn, and stuff like this.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And because of the success.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Of that on the Internet, I got so much, you know,
so many accolades and met so many cool people.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
We started to do it like pretty We took it
pretty serious. For a while.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
We were actually getting courted by a lot of companies
in Hollywood that were trying to turn it into a
television show. It never really kind of worked out television wise,
but the group kept growing and growing, so we started
to go on group trips.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And meanwhile I was still touring a lot.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
So I was going back and forth across the US,
and year after year, a minimum of twice a year,
but sometimes three or four times a year, I would
come back, whether on purpose or not, to toss Oklahoma,
and I'd always make a mission or pilgrimage to see
the Outsider's house and mostly some of the other locations
(14:58):
as well. And what I started to notice is that
year after year, this house was starting to deteriorate, and
that the neighborhood was starting to fall apart, and that
the Habitat for Humanity was coming through here and they
were clearing out a lot of these streets and these
houses building new houses. I always like to qualify that
I am a fan of the Habitat for Humanities and
(15:18):
what they do, in particular making low income houses, you know,
affordable to people who wouldn't be able to afford those.
And that being said, I was worried that nobody recognized
this house for really what it was, which was an
American classic and a cinematic masterpiece, you know, part of
(15:38):
a bigger, you know picture. And so at year five
is when I got here and started to get worried.
I started to think, well, what if they tear this
house down, and what if nobody recognizes that? What what
what this thing really represents and what it is. And
it's on the fifth year when I started to ask
(15:59):
myself to Quid, well, why don't you do.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Something about it?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
And really I have no expertise on any of this stuff.
I was just a fan who couldn't imagine the world
without the Outsider's House. There was really never a plan
or a blueprint or any of that. But what I
did was meet a couple people here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
They not only saw the vision that I had that
this should be some kind of like One it shouldn't
(16:24):
it shouldn't ever be torn down. Two, maybe it could
be restored and it could be somebody's house and we
could put a little display or some homage to the
movie that was filmed here in one of the rooms.
And the idea just kept getting bigger and bigger. But
what ends up happening is we end up getting the
contact information for the owner, who her husband bought the
(16:45):
house five years before I got here, and they basically
did a quick fluff and buff in hopes to use
it as a rental property. Unfortunately, her husband died, he
gives it to her in the will, and her and
her sister moved to Florida because they were not native
to Tulsa and they've had no reason to stay here
(17:07):
once her husband was gone.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I guess they were kind of like absentee landlords.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I mean they were trying their best to collect the rent,
but the tenants weren't paying. They were eight months behind
in their rent. The house was in terrible condition, and
so by the time I found her in two thousand
and nine, she was ready to sell.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
We called her.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
She told us she wouldn't take a penny less than
twenty thousand dollars. My buddy made the call, so he
said he wouldn't give her a penny more than fifteen
thousand dollars, to which she accepted. And at that point
I thought, man, we robbed this lady. I mean, we
bought an American treasure for fifteen thousand dollars. I mean,
where on earth can you buy a house for fifteen
thousand dollars, much less the house from the movie The Outsiders.
(17:49):
So yeah, so I buy the house for fifteen thousand dollars.
I buy it sight unseen. I had never been in
the house. I had peeked in it a few times.
I'd been on the outside of The Outsider's house a
few times, but never really knowing that true condition of
the house, and also never understanding I'm when it comes
to remodeling homes or anything that has anything to do
(18:09):
with that. I have no idea what I'm doing, So
this is not something that I would have been like
predisposed to do, or something that would have been a
likely thing for me to do. I was just a
passionate fan who couldn't imagine if they tore this house
down what the world would would be like without it.
And so I ended up giving the tenants, little by little,
(18:29):
over a month to move them out, because again they
were eight months behind in rent, and it cost me
forty eight hundred dollars to get them out. When I
finally drove here a month later from California to see
my new house, I end up breaking in a back
window because they did not leave me keys. And I
realized that this was the worst mistake I had ever made.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
And you just turn it from him. The biggest mistake
he'd ever made, was it. Well, we're going to find
out the rest of the story in a minute, But
what a story it's been so far.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
He was raised on.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
TV and a tour of US, and for fifteen thousand dollars,
he thought he just bought a piece of the American
dream and certainly an American treasure. What happens next. Danny
Boy O'Connor's story continues here on our American stories, and
(19:41):
we continue with our American stories. In Danny Boy O'Connor's story,
he had just laid down fifteen grand on a house
in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a house with the Outsiders, his favorite film,
the film that had more influence on his life than
any other. And we all have that film, or that
book or that song. Let's return to Danny Boy's story
(20:03):
in Tulsa.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Clearly the owner knew a lot better than I did
the condition of the house. If there was any worry
of me underpaying for this house, it was quickly erased
when I got in here. I mean, this house was
in shambles. The only thing this house needed was a
brand new house, and it was in terrible condition. And
then the fact was that it didn't look like it
had been cleaned up in the last hundred years.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
They were hoarding in here, and it was in terrible.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Condition, and I panicked, And at that point I thought, well, basically,
I just flushed twenty thousand dollars of my twenty eight
thousand dollars life savings down the drain. I had no
work in the foreseeable future for me. We weren't touring
at that time, and so my next thought was like,
look it, I'm going to ask for help. And I
often say, you know, I'm a six foot six alpha male,
(20:48):
and it's hard to ask for help and when people
assume that you should be able to do this type
of work, but the truth is, I don't know how
to do this type of work. And it was very
it was very humbling, and I had to really humble
myself to that I didn't know what I was doing
and I was in over my head, and that perhaps
if there were a few other outsiders fans on Earth
like me, maybe they could help me find a way
(21:09):
to turn this into a museum to help pitch in,
whether that was a gift in kind or some cash
or whatever. And so we put a GoFundMe together and
we started to raise little money, and immediately the press
got ahold of the story. And if I thought I
was one of few outsiders fans on this planet, it
(21:30):
didn't take long for me to figure out that I
was clearly wrong on that. I mean, immediately the city
council showed up to the house, the mayor of Tulsa
showed up to the house, the press came out of
the woodworks, and it just kept growing and growing and growing,
and before long, you know, here we were on our
way to turning this thing into a museum. Now, at
(21:50):
first I want to tell you it was going to
be a movie museum because I had read the book.
But it was only a few years prior that I
read the book. But this book, again is it is
an American classic. It was written by a fifteen year
old girl here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by the name of
Susan Luise Hinton. The book is fifty one years old now,
(22:10):
it has never been out of print. At the time
when Susie got her publishing deal, they agreed with the
publishers that would be best if nobody understood that she
was a female, so they called her ss Hinton to
be ambiguous with that. She was failing out of English
when she wrote it and got a D plus and
creative writing. And I think that's incredible because the hope
(22:31):
is there, you know, for everybody, that great things can
happen despite maybe a few bad marks and in a
few classes. And really the book is what brings most
people to the house. People love the movie without a doubt,
and that movie, you know, basically launched the brat pack,
(22:52):
which is all the actors we've mentioned before, you know,
Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayzey, Matt Dylan, Ralph Machio, see Thomas
how Diane Lane. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The book
seems to have way more of a draw, or is equal,
if not bigger draw than the movie. And that was
learning experience for me as well, because on an average day,
(23:15):
people come by this house all the time to.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Stop buying.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
It's usually a fifty year old, a forty year old,
two seventeen year old, and a twelve year old, and
it's usually somebody's going to seventh grade and it's required reading.
Their older brother and sister read it five years ago
when they were in seventh grade, their parents remember reading
it when they got to junior high, and they also
(23:39):
were there to see the movie or saw it on
HBO when they were kids. And it's really the whole
family tree that comes to enjoy this whole story, from
the book to the movie. And now I'm told it's
being turned into a Broadway musical, which is also incredible.
So so much stuff has transpired since that first day
of me buying the house. But what ended up happening
(24:02):
is that the whole community kind of just puts this
thing on their back and runs with it. Plumbers came
by and helped me, plumb roofers roofed, gardener's gardened, tile
layers tiled, and contractors contracted, and everybody just started to
do what they could do. And it looked like, you know,
people would say, hey, listen, on Sunday after my daughter's
soccer practice, I can come by and work for two
(24:23):
hours for free if you don't mind. So yeah, it
would be fantastic. And so really this is a communal project.
You know, I get thanked everywhere I go around town
and around Oklahoma for you know, saving the outsider's house.
But I feel disingenuous by accepting that praise, and I
always tell them and I think they think I'm being
you know, humble, or being you know, coy or whatever.
But the truth is is that this this thing happens
(24:45):
because everybody pitched in and helped, and it was usually
the people with the least to give given the most.
That being said, we are number one supporter. Cash wise
is the author s he Hint and herself and Jack
White also, you know, came by and told me he
loved what we were doing and loved the book, he
(25:08):
loves the movie and loves Tulsa, and he got us
over the hump. We were stuck at forty five thousand
dollars on our GoFundMe and we were looking for seventy
five thousand, and he said, I want to give you
thirty thousand dollars from last night's show and get you
over the hump. Which he did that, and it changed everything.
I mean, we were kind of we were what I
thought would take six to eight months to complete. It
(25:29):
took us three years. Two months ago we finally were
able to cut the ribbon. In between those last three years,
we've done three events to support the house. We're both
Ralph Macho, C Thomas how Darren Dalton, all of them
in the movie had come back one or two to
three different times for three different events to support this.
(25:51):
And really what I found out is this thing has
become like a community center and had a really good
trickle down effect. I mean when I got here, the
lawn was to my waist and trash all over the place.
We cut the lawn, got it down the size, We
removed all the debris, we cut down trees that had
fallen in upon themselves, and we basically cleaned this house
up so nice that everybody else in the neighborhood started
(26:12):
to get the drift and they started to clean their
stuff up, and before long it changed the face of
the neighborhood as well. And so if you come here
in North Tulsa, on the corner of Independent in Saint Louis,
you'll you'll, definitely you'll see what I'm talking about. And
it's it's a sight to behold. There's a lot of
there's just so many different layers to this thing. I
(26:33):
would have been bored a long time ago if it
was just a house from a movie. And as much
as I loved the film and loved the book, there's
so much more greater at work here. I love Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I love.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
That a fifteen year old girl wrote this while she
was failing out of English and got a D plus
and creative writing was really going through a rough patch,
and she wrote this masterpiece. And this masterpiece is different
than all others because it really literally is the book
that starts the young adult category. It was the first
time that a young adult ever wrote about being a
young adult for young adults, and if I'm not mistaking,
(27:10):
that is the most successful category of books now on
the market. For me, It's changed my life. I spent
the first let's call it first forty five years of
my life trying to build my career and promote my
brand and stay.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Relevant in that way.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
And finally it was a breath of fresh air to
discover that this thing could use somebody to champion it.
And instead of championing you know, the fragments of my
shattered career or whatever, you know in music, that I
was able to parlay all that experience that I thought
was like of no use in the end and kind
of pivot out and put it into Susie's legacy and
(27:55):
in particular saving the Outsiders House. And by taking this on,
it's opened my world to a whole bunch of other areas.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
We're looking to do weddings here.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
We bring school children through on the Monday through Friday,
so schools will read this at seventh grade. They will
go to the Circle Cinema, which was also a historic
movie theater here that's ninety one years old. On the
original Route sixty six and it was also featured in
the movie. They show that movie to those seventh graders,
and then the seventh graders come here, go dresses, greasers
(28:29):
and socials, and they get to experience the house, the museum,
and I know that they get truly inspired because they
don't have a lot of role models to look at
and to say, hey, this person is for my school
or my city or my town. And they've become successful
and they're legends. And make no mistake, sie Hinton is there.
(28:49):
That's their legend, that their mentor. They look and they go,
this little girl did this here, and it gives them hope.
And so for me, I found a whole new purpose
here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I live here now full time.
I move from Beverly Hills and I've been here for
two years and it only gets better for me. This
town has changed tremendously in the last ten years for
(29:13):
the better. There's a ton of cool things here between
Root sixty six and Cane's Ballroom and the Drillers Baseball
Stadium where the Dodgers doaa team play is. There's good food,
good people, and affordable gas. What more can you want,
and you can buy a beautiful home here for one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which tell me where else
(29:35):
you can do that. So I'm Danny O'Connor. I'm the
owner of the Outsider's House, but I am the executive
director of the Outsiders House Museum.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
And yeah, this is my American story. And what a story.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Thanks to Danny boyo O'Connor for telling it, and thanks
to Greg Hangler for putting this together. By the way,
make sure to go to the Outsider's House dot com
to learn more.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Take a visit.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
If you're driving across the mide west, stop in Tulsa.
He took a stop in Tulsa, all right, and he
called it his home. Danny Boy O'Connor's story of finding home.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
This is how American stories hmm.
And we continue here with our American story. Since being
released in nineteen eighty three, Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptation
of S. E. Hinton's coming of age novel The Outsiders
has found continued popularity and has achieved official cult status.
And now, in what is surely one of the most
interesting pop culture intersections, hip hop artist Danny Boy O'Connor
(00:33):
from the rap group House of Pain, best known for
the iconic nineteen ninety two anthem jump Around, purchased the Tulsa,
Oklahoma home where much of The Outsider's film was shot.
Here to tell the story is the man himself. Here's
Danny Boy.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
My story really begins.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Los Angeles, California, nineteen eighty three when I went unknowingly
to a movie that I had never heard of Woodland Hills, California,
called The Outsiders with my friend Steve Sakolski, who just
happened to read the book. I believe I was in
seventh grade, and so he was a fan of the
(01:12):
book and he wanted to see the movie. He said, Danny,
you want to go see a movie with me? And
I thought, sure. Steve Sakowski pretty cool junior high kid
that I knew, so I figured, you know, if he
likes it, it's probably something I like. But I had
no idea what we were going to go see. I
didn't have any frame of reference. And on that full
Saturday afternoon, we went in and saw the movie, and
(01:33):
I came out a changed man, and people ask me
all the time what was my fascination with the Outsiders?
And the movie kind of hit me at a time
where I definitely felt out of place in, you know,
the San Fernando Valley in the eighties, being a native
New Yorker who has moved to California at the age
(01:56):
of six and kind of always had like a a
strong connection to the East Coast. So southern California in
the eighties looked a lot different than New York City did.
And I don't know, I just always felt, you know,
separate and apart from it. And I got that from
the movie as well. And I grew up my father
went to prison when I was two months old. We
(02:19):
moved in with my grandparents. My mother worked nights at
the Chase Manhattan Bank, and so I never really had
that foundation or that family, you know, support or love,
and you know, Carrie that I carried that with me,
even though you know, I've had a pretty extraordinary life,
(02:39):
you know that that foundation from the beginning has always
felt unstable. And so when I went to see The Outsiders,
the first thing I noticed was that they were a
fractured family, a broken family, and that despite that that
they stuck together and had each other's backs. And I felt,
(03:00):
at a thirteen or fourteen year old's mindset was that
if I could just find that kind of friendship out
in the world, that maybe I wouldn't feel so bad
about my home life and the way we grew up.
And so that was the original hook for me for
that movie. That being said, Matt Dillon was the coolest
dude on the planet at that time. The cast was incredible,
(03:24):
whether it's Patrick Swayze, Ralph Machio, Tom Cruise, Darren Dalton,
c Thomas how Diane Lane, they were all. You know,
this was the first time I was really seeing them. Actually,
Leif Garrett was the big star in my mind looking back,
because he was a seventies star and so really was
(03:45):
the only notable name that I knew prior to The Outsiders.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Then Matt Dlon.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
But that being said, you know, the movie was the
coolest thing I'd ever seen, and it stuck with me.
I immediately went home and then dug out a denim jacket
that I may have had from the seventies in New
York and kind of adapted that Dallas Winston Matt Dylan
swagger for the next few years. But as fate would
have it, I didn't really have much of a game
(04:10):
plan coming out of high school. I dropped out in
ninth grade. I hung out for the next three year
years at high school, never really went in too much,
got in a little bit of trouble with the law,
and during the time where most of my friends were
graduating high school and heading off to college or embarking
on a career, I had no idea what I.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Was going to do. And so.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I connected reconnected with a high school friend who had
had a record out prior to me and him reconnecting, and.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
We started a band called House of Pain.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
And at the time in hip hop, there wasn't anything
on the landscape like it. We were really, you know,
kind of the next wave of hip hop in the
early nineties, but at that time there wasn't any really,
there wasn't really any hard white boys We were like
Irish American tough white kids, and that was our stick
(05:05):
and that our deal was is that, you know, we
were the kind of like you know, boombab, punch you
in your face type of hip hop that was missing,
you knows as the eighties turned into the nineties and
grunge was a thing hip hop needed to reinvent. So
US and Cyprus Hill were kind of like the next
face of that in that moment. And so it was
very successful with that and sold a few million records
(05:27):
and traveled all over the world and made a million bucks.
But you know, I like to say, what goes up
must come down, and it wasn't only you know, five
years later that I was back to where I started
even less because you know, doing music for a live
especially as a creative director and an artist more than
I am a musician, it kind of left me empty
(05:48):
handed when the career was done, or the music career
was done in that moment, and I really had no
other life skills, and I unfortunately turned to drugs to
deal with that pain. So I spent the next you know,
five to six years high on methamphetamines and drinking around
the clock. And it wasn't until about year two thousand
then I got sober. I stayed sober for about three
(06:09):
and a half years, and you know, first year was good.
Second year I started getting complacent and a little. My
attitude started to come back and my expectations started to
come back. At around three and a half years, I
decided to have a drink, and it was pretty much
the worst decision I'd ever made. It took me one
week to go back on drugs and took me three
(06:30):
years to get make it back to the twelve step program.
And it wasn't until two thousand and five that I
was able to dross another sober breath. In two thousand
and five is when I began to put another group
together called the Coca and Nostra. And it was on
that fateful tour that brought me to Tulsa, Oklahoma. So
(06:51):
when we got to Tulsa, Oklahoma, we were stuck here
for three days.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
And when I say stuck, I mean stuck.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
But day two of the three days that we were here,
we began to get extremely bored, and so I called
down to the concierge desk in the lobby and asked
them to call us a cab. They laughed, there was
no such thing as cabs. They were able to wrangle
us up a guy in a van that took about
an hour and a half to get to the hotel,
and then when he got there, we asked him can
he take us on a proper tour of Tulsa, which
(07:19):
he proceeded to say yes, and then took us to
the Woodland Hills Mall. And I can assure you that
didn't go over so well with a bunch of forty
year olds going to what was at that point pretty
you know, the mall was kind of shuttered as well,
and so we went there for about an hour, and
(07:40):
as we were heading back to downtown Tulsa, it occurred
to me, Tulsa, Tulsa, Tulsa.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Why does Tulsa sound familiar to me?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
And it was at that moment I had the epiphany
and I said, excuse me, driver, He said yes. I said,
was the Outsiders filmed here? And he almost like locked
up the brakes. He was like turned around. He said yes, absolutely.
He says, why do you know it? I said, I
not only know it, I love it. Do you know
where any of the filming locations are? And he said,
I do know where the driving is. So we proceeded
(08:07):
to drop off the rest of the group. I grabbed
my road manager said you're coming with me. I grabbed
my laptop and at the time, even in two thousand
and nine, there wasn't much on the internet to go on,
and it's not like today. Two thousand and nine, I
looked up for locations for the Outsiders, and I found
a Flicker account or two, and I found a site
called Tulsa TV Memories which had a few of the
(08:28):
locations and the.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Addresses were given up. The address I was most.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Interested in was the Outsider's house, which was not given
on that website. But they did tell us where the
drive in was, and it did tell me where the
park in the movie was, the Crutchfield neighborhood, And so
we went to the drive in and I couldn't imagine
that this thing was going to look anything like it
did in the movie. But not only was it, it
felt like it hadn't changed a bit. And my mind
(08:57):
just started to just melt, really because it looked exactly
like it would have in nineteen eighty two when they
were filming, and exactly like it did you know in
the sixties when they were trying to describe it. So
it was pretty good stuff anyway. So yeah, we got
that driver to take us around Tulsa.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
We were able to find the drive in.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
We were able to find Crutchfield Park, which was the
park that Johnny stabs the Socian and they have the
confrontation with the soshas In. And then by finding the Bark,
I was able to find the house. And by finding
the house, this is where my life starts to take
a different turn.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And when we come back, we'll continue with the story
of Danny Boy O'Connor from the rap group House of Pain,
his journey back into his life. The movie The Outsiders
filmed in this town, Tulsa in Oklahoma. The rest of
this story continues here on our American stories, and we
(10:09):
continue here with our American stories and the story of
Danny Boy O'Connor. And my goodness, what a story it's
been so far. No father, a hole he's trying to
fill because of that. Sees this movie, sees this character
in The Outsiders, played by Matt Dillon of all people,
and the next thing you know, a little bit later,
(10:29):
he's in a big hit band House of Pain, and
then drugs. And then one day there's a stop in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
where The Outsiders was filmed, and the next thing you know,
there he is in front of the house where that
movie was filmed. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
At the time, it was for sale for forty thousand dollars.
I can assure you you can't buy anything in Los Angeles, California,
with the word real attached to it for forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I could not believe that House.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
One would be for sale, two would be forty thousand dollars,
and three that nobody understood its true value as an
American classic and really a sacred hollow. Grounds that being said,
I knew that I was in no position to buy
a house Untils, Oklahoma, living in Beverly Hills, California, and
(11:22):
that I should just kind of take a photo and
soak it all in while I was here then and
keep it keep moving. So that's exactly what I did.
I took a photo out front. We played Kaine's Ballroom
the next night, and I also found out that there
was a hole in the wall that Sid Vicious had
punched in nineteen seventy eight when the sex Pistols played
(11:45):
Kin's Ballroom, and I put both of those photos on Facebook,
which was pretty much a new thing as well, and
the response I got was incredible, and in particular, everybody
was fascinated with the Outsiders and that the house was
not only one still on Earth, but they couldn't believe
that it was still on the Warner Brothers lot, which
I had to correct a lot of people that it is, No,
it is not on the Warner Brothers lat in Burbank.
(12:06):
It is actually still here in North Tulsa. And I
made sure I did not tell anybody that it was
for sale because I didn't want any else buying it,
never again thinking that I would end up buying it
five years later. But that's exactly what happened. So after
finding the house, we kind of I realized that there's
there's there's some really cool stuff across America, and so
(12:27):
it really started here for me. But I started to
urban explore and I put a group together called the
Delta Bravo Urban Exploration Team. And what that is is
it's the page I started on Facebook, and I put
the Outsider's House first, and I put it before and
after photo told people the basics, you know, the Outsiders
nineteen eighty two. Here's the house that the Curtis brothers lived.
(12:48):
Here's the address, seven thirty one North Saint Louis Avenue,
and here's a before and after photo. And I found
a lot of support and made a lot of friends
through this web page that we started. And I found
that there was a lot of like minded people all
over the world, but here in particular in the US,
that were at a certain age where they were like
(13:09):
really looking back fondly on all of the pop culture
locations and all of our collective history, which is really
pop history. I mean I was, if I'm honest, I
was raised by a television set in the radio. I mean,
this is where I got most of the stuff I
was after, you know, as a kid.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
This is where all my information came from.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
So in two thousand and nine, I used the tour
bus as my personal like pop culture location vehicle. And
I figured, if I'm going to be on this tour
bus and everybody else is going to be, you know,
doing their thing, I'm going to get highly caffeinated, walk
around every city we go to, and I'm going to
look for culturally relevant undiscovered locations, and so that was
the birth of the Delta Bravo Urban Expiration Team. Again,
(13:50):
it just was like a cool hobby that I could
do in my sobriety that really cost me nothing.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And I was also.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Able to kind of like see all the undiscovered locations
that I had always wanted to see, like where Mary
Tyler Morris house was in Minneapolis, where the son of
Sam was arrested in Brooklyn, and stuff like this.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And because of the success.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Of that on the Internet, I got so much, you know,
so many accolades and met so many cool people.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
We started to do it like pretty We took it
pretty serious. For a while.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
We were actually getting courted by a lot of companies
in Hollywood that were trying to turn it into a
television show. It never really kind of worked out television wise,
but the group kept growing and growing, so we started
to go on group trips.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And meanwhile I was still touring a lot.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
So I was going back and forth across the US,
and year after year, a minimum of twice a year,
but sometimes three or four times a year, I would
come back, whether on purpose or not, to toss Oklahoma,
and I'd always make a mission or pilgrimage to see
the Outsider's house and mostly some of the other locations
(14:58):
as well. And what I started to notice is that
year after year, this house was starting to deteriorate, and
that the neighborhood was starting to fall apart, and that
the Habitat for Humanity was coming through here and they
were clearing out a lot of these streets and these
houses building new houses. I always like to qualify that
I am a fan of the Habitat for Humanities and
(15:18):
what they do, in particular making low income houses, you know,
affordable to people who wouldn't be able to afford those.
And that being said, I was worried that nobody recognized
this house for really what it was, which was an
American classic and a cinematic masterpiece, you know, part of
(15:38):
a bigger, you know picture. And so at year five
is when I got here and started to get worried.
I started to think, well, what if they tear this
house down, and what if nobody recognizes that? What what
what this thing really represents and what it is. And
it's on the fifth year when I started to ask
(15:59):
myself to Quid, well, why don't you do.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Something about it?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
And really I have no expertise on any of this stuff.
I was just a fan who couldn't imagine the world
without the Outsider's House. There was really never a plan
or a blueprint or any of that. But what I
did was meet a couple people here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
They not only saw the vision that I had that
this should be some kind of like One it shouldn't
(16:24):
it shouldn't ever be torn down. Two, maybe it could
be restored and it could be somebody's house and we
could put a little display or some homage to the
movie that was filmed here in one of the rooms.
And the idea just kept getting bigger and bigger. But
what ends up happening is we end up getting the
contact information for the owner, who her husband bought the
(16:45):
house five years before I got here, and they basically
did a quick fluff and buff in hopes to use
it as a rental property. Unfortunately, her husband died, he
gives it to her in the will, and her and
her sister moved to Florida because they were not native
to Tulsa and they've had no reason to stay here
(17:07):
once her husband was gone.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I guess they were kind of like absentee landlords.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I mean they were trying their best to collect the rent,
but the tenants weren't paying. They were eight months behind
in their rent. The house was in terrible condition, and
so by the time I found her in two thousand
and nine, she was ready to sell.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
We called her.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
She told us she wouldn't take a penny less than
twenty thousand dollars. My buddy made the call, so he
said he wouldn't give her a penny more than fifteen
thousand dollars, to which she accepted. And at that point
I thought, man, we robbed this lady. I mean, we
bought an American treasure for fifteen thousand dollars. I mean,
where on earth can you buy a house for fifteen
thousand dollars, much less the house from the movie The Outsiders.
(17:49):
So yeah, so I buy the house for fifteen thousand dollars.
I buy it sight unseen. I had never been in
the house. I had peeked in it a few times.
I'd been on the outside of The Outsider's house a
few times, but never really knowing that true condition of
the house, and also never understanding I'm when it comes
to remodeling homes or anything that has anything to do
(18:09):
with that. I have no idea what I'm doing, So
this is not something that I would have been like
predisposed to do, or something that would have been a
likely thing for me to do. I was just a
passionate fan who couldn't imagine if they tore this house
down what the world would would be like without it.
And so I ended up giving the tenants, little by little,
(18:29):
over a month to move them out, because again they
were eight months behind in rent, and it cost me
forty eight hundred dollars to get them out. When I
finally drove here a month later from California to see
my new house, I end up breaking in a back
window because they did not leave me keys. And I
realized that this was the worst mistake I had ever made.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
And you just turn it from him. The biggest mistake
he'd ever made, was it. Well, we're going to find
out the rest of the story in a minute, But
what a story it's been so far.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
He was raised on.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
TV and a tour of US, and for fifteen thousand dollars,
he thought he just bought a piece of the American
dream and certainly an American treasure. What happens next. Danny
Boy O'Connor's story continues here on our American stories, and
(19:41):
we continue with our American stories. In Danny Boy O'Connor's story,
he had just laid down fifteen grand on a house
in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a house with the Outsiders, his favorite film,
the film that had more influence on his life than
any other. And we all have that film, or that
book or that song. Let's return to Danny Boy's story
(20:03):
in Tulsa.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Clearly the owner knew a lot better than I did
the condition of the house. If there was any worry
of me underpaying for this house, it was quickly erased
when I got in here. I mean, this house was
in shambles. The only thing this house needed was a
brand new house, and it was in terrible condition. And
then the fact was that it didn't look like it
had been cleaned up in the last hundred years.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
They were hoarding in here, and it was in terrible.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Condition, and I panicked, And at that point I thought, well, basically,
I just flushed twenty thousand dollars of my twenty eight
thousand dollars life savings down the drain. I had no
work in the foreseeable future for me. We weren't touring
at that time, and so my next thought was like,
look it, I'm going to ask for help. And I
often say, you know, I'm a six foot six alpha male,
(20:48):
and it's hard to ask for help and when people
assume that you should be able to do this type
of work, but the truth is, I don't know how
to do this type of work. And it was very
it was very humbling, and I had to really humble
myself to that I didn't know what I was doing
and I was in over my head, and that perhaps
if there were a few other outsiders fans on Earth
like me, maybe they could help me find a way
(21:09):
to turn this into a museum to help pitch in,
whether that was a gift in kind or some cash
or whatever. And so we put a GoFundMe together and
we started to raise little money, and immediately the press
got ahold of the story. And if I thought I
was one of few outsiders fans on this planet, it
(21:30):
didn't take long for me to figure out that I
was clearly wrong on that. I mean, immediately the city
council showed up to the house, the mayor of Tulsa
showed up to the house, the press came out of
the woodworks, and it just kept growing and growing and growing,
and before long, you know, here we were on our
way to turning this thing into a museum. Now, at
(21:50):
first I want to tell you it was going to
be a movie museum because I had read the book.
But it was only a few years prior that I
read the book. But this book, again is it is
an American classic. It was written by a fifteen year
old girl here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by the name of
Susan Luise Hinton. The book is fifty one years old now,
(22:10):
it has never been out of print. At the time
when Susie got her publishing deal, they agreed with the
publishers that would be best if nobody understood that she
was a female, so they called her ss Hinton to
be ambiguous with that. She was failing out of English
when she wrote it and got a D plus and
creative writing. And I think that's incredible because the hope
(22:31):
is there, you know, for everybody, that great things can
happen despite maybe a few bad marks and in a
few classes. And really the book is what brings most
people to the house. People love the movie without a doubt,
and that movie, you know, basically launched the brat pack,
(22:52):
which is all the actors we've mentioned before, you know,
Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayzey, Matt Dylan, Ralph Machio, see Thomas
how Diane Lane. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The book
seems to have way more of a draw, or is equal,
if not bigger draw than the movie. And that was
learning experience for me as well, because on an average day,
(23:15):
people come by this house all the time to.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Stop buying.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
It's usually a fifty year old, a forty year old,
two seventeen year old, and a twelve year old, and
it's usually somebody's going to seventh grade and it's required reading.
Their older brother and sister read it five years ago
when they were in seventh grade, their parents remember reading
it when they got to junior high, and they also
(23:39):
were there to see the movie or saw it on
HBO when they were kids. And it's really the whole
family tree that comes to enjoy this whole story, from
the book to the movie. And now I'm told it's
being turned into a Broadway musical, which is also incredible.
So so much stuff has transpired since that first day
of me buying the house. But what ended up happening
(24:02):
is that the whole community kind of just puts this
thing on their back and runs with it. Plumbers came
by and helped me, plumb roofers roofed, gardener's gardened, tile
layers tiled, and contractors contracted, and everybody just started to
do what they could do. And it looked like, you know,
people would say, hey, listen, on Sunday after my daughter's
soccer practice, I can come by and work for two
(24:23):
hours for free if you don't mind. So yeah, it
would be fantastic. And so really this is a communal project.
You know, I get thanked everywhere I go around town
and around Oklahoma for you know, saving the outsider's house.
But I feel disingenuous by accepting that praise, and I
always tell them and I think they think I'm being
you know, humble, or being you know, coy or whatever.
But the truth is is that this this thing happens
(24:45):
because everybody pitched in and helped, and it was usually
the people with the least to give given the most.
That being said, we are number one supporter. Cash wise
is the author s he Hint and herself and Jack
White also, you know, came by and told me he
loved what we were doing and loved the book, he
(25:08):
loves the movie and loves Tulsa, and he got us
over the hump. We were stuck at forty five thousand
dollars on our GoFundMe and we were looking for seventy
five thousand, and he said, I want to give you
thirty thousand dollars from last night's show and get you
over the hump. Which he did that, and it changed everything.
I mean, we were kind of we were what I
thought would take six to eight months to complete. It
(25:29):
took us three years. Two months ago we finally were
able to cut the ribbon. In between those last three years,
we've done three events to support the house. We're both
Ralph Macho, C Thomas how Darren Dalton, all of them
in the movie had come back one or two to
three different times for three different events to support this.
(25:51):
And really what I found out is this thing has
become like a community center and had a really good
trickle down effect. I mean when I got here, the
lawn was to my waist and trash all over the place.
We cut the lawn, got it down the size, We
removed all the debris, we cut down trees that had
fallen in upon themselves, and we basically cleaned this house
up so nice that everybody else in the neighborhood started
(26:12):
to get the drift and they started to clean their
stuff up, and before long it changed the face of
the neighborhood as well. And so if you come here
in North Tulsa, on the corner of Independent in Saint Louis,
you'll you'll, definitely you'll see what I'm talking about. And
it's it's a sight to behold. There's a lot of
there's just so many different layers to this thing. I
(26:33):
would have been bored a long time ago if it
was just a house from a movie. And as much
as I loved the film and loved the book, there's
so much more greater at work here. I love Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I love.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
That a fifteen year old girl wrote this while she
was failing out of English and got a D plus
and creative writing was really going through a rough patch,
and she wrote this masterpiece. And this masterpiece is different
than all others because it really literally is the book
that starts the young adult category. It was the first
time that a young adult ever wrote about being a
young adult for young adults, and if I'm not mistaking,
(27:10):
that is the most successful category of books now on
the market. For me, It's changed my life. I spent
the first let's call it first forty five years of
my life trying to build my career and promote my
brand and stay.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Relevant in that way.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
And finally it was a breath of fresh air to
discover that this thing could use somebody to champion it.
And instead of championing you know, the fragments of my
shattered career or whatever, you know in music, that I
was able to parlay all that experience that I thought
was like of no use in the end and kind
of pivot out and put it into Susie's legacy and
(27:55):
in particular saving the Outsiders House. And by taking this on,
it's opened my world to a whole bunch of other areas.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
We're looking to do weddings here.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
We bring school children through on the Monday through Friday,
so schools will read this at seventh grade. They will
go to the Circle Cinema, which was also a historic
movie theater here that's ninety one years old. On the
original Route sixty six and it was also featured in
the movie. They show that movie to those seventh graders,
and then the seventh graders come here, go dresses, greasers
(28:29):
and socials, and they get to experience the house, the museum,
and I know that they get truly inspired because they
don't have a lot of role models to look at
and to say, hey, this person is for my school
or my city or my town. And they've become successful
and they're legends. And make no mistake, sie Hinton is there.
(28:49):
That's their legend, that their mentor. They look and they go,
this little girl did this here, and it gives them hope.
And so for me, I found a whole new purpose
here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I live here now full time.
I move from Beverly Hills and I've been here for
two years and it only gets better for me. This
town has changed tremendously in the last ten years for
(29:13):
the better. There's a ton of cool things here between
Root sixty six and Cane's Ballroom and the Drillers Baseball
Stadium where the Dodgers doaa team play is. There's good food,
good people, and affordable gas. What more can you want,
and you can buy a beautiful home here for one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which tell me where else
(29:35):
you can do that. So I'm Danny O'Connor. I'm the
owner of the Outsider's House, but I am the executive
director of the Outsiders House Museum.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
And yeah, this is my American story. And what a story.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Thanks to Danny boyo O'Connor for telling it, and thanks
to Greg Hangler for putting this together. By the way,
make sure to go to the Outsider's House dot com
to learn more.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Take a visit.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
If you're driving across the mide west, stop in Tulsa.
He took a stop in Tulsa, all right, and he
called it his home. Danny Boy O'Connor's story of finding home.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
This is how American stories hmm.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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