DANNY O’CONNOR: From Jump Around to Stay Gold

Trey and Brian “Jump Around” with rapper and House of Pain founder Danny Boy O’Connor to hear about his work with another historic house that’s breathing new life into an underserved community. 

Danny O’Connor, better known as Danny Boy, is an American rapper and founding member of the rap group House of Pain, whose hit record “Jump Around” earned international acclaim and platinum status. In 2016, O’Connor, a lifelong fan of “The Outsiders” book and film, purchased the Tulsa, Oklahoma house used in the movie, developing it into The Outsiders House Museum for which he now serves as Executive Director.
    
Brian Phelps is an American radio personality, actor, and comedian best known for co-hosting the nationally and globally syndicated Mark & Brian Morning Show in Los Angeles for 25 years. As the co-lead of his own television series, with multiple roles in movies, and a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Phelps is also an inductee in the Radio Hall of Fame.

Trey Callaway is an American film and TV writer and producer who wrote the hit movie I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and has produced successful TV series like CSI:NY, Supernatural, Rush Hour, Revolution,  The Messengers, APB,  Station 19 and 9-1-1 LONE STAR. He is also a Professor at USC.
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'll tell you what I do need, I need you. Okay,
all right, I'm ready. If you were ready, you're ready.
All right, let's do this.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good Humans, Be good humans. Good humans, or we will
thank you sucked. Good humans, or we will thank you suck.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hey, everybody, welcome into the Be Good Humans Podcast. My
name is Brian Phelps and this is the Incredible Tree Callaway.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hi everybody, good to see you again. Thank you for
being here. Brian. Yeah, hie, you came up in my
class at USC last night.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
If you don't know, Trey is a professor at USC,
and why did I come up in your class?

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Well, it's a little bit of a long way to
get there, so I'm going to tease you a little
bit about about that, but because I was teaching it.
So I'm in my twentieth year. By the way, teaching
at the School of Cinematic Arts.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
You start as a temp. It's like, all right, I'll
fill in for you or something like.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
It was kind of that kind of thing. I would
guess lecture a few times and then and then thankfully
they asked me to come and teach full time.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Well, you must be the most popular professor at USC.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Very nice of you to say, but we the class was, uh,
you know, as you can imagine, a group of film
school students got pretty lit up last night when we
started talking about our favorite movies of all time, right,
and and that's that's a hot button pressing topic in
film school. So everybody's got an opinion and they want
to go on. But of course all I wanted to
do was then get in here in the studio and

(01:34):
start talking to you about your favorite movies of all time.
And I will tell you going into this, like if
somebody asks me, what's your top ten favorite movies of
all time? Like, I can do that, no problem. I
can't if someone says, what's your top five or your
top three? It's just painful for me because I'm going
to be eliminating things that I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Then the incredibly stupid question, what is your favorite movie
of all time? I just I take offense at that.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, yeah, but can we at least to enter a
conversation about maybe our top five or so favorite films
of all times?

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, okay, I can't give you the top five favorite films.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Again.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Again, I can't give you the top ten favorite film.
I'm not gonna care I'm concerned, but I can do this.
I can break it up and do five genres. I
can say my favorite genre all time is comedy.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Okay, sure, and.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Breaking that down, my favorite films of all time concerning
comedy if it has Christopher guests, Eugene Levy, Harry Shearer
and the group, and it's like waiting for Guffman Bestin's
show a Mighty win Spinal Tab ye, by the way,
can't wait for the new Spinal Tap. But it's all improper.
Ninety nine percent of its improv, and that's kind of

(02:42):
where I live.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's right, it's improv. And it's also intellectual comedy. I mean,
it gets broad sometimes, but it's.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Incredibly funny, hilarious and incredibly creative just to watch geniuses work.
So that's my favorite comedy drama. This might change daily,
but Shashank Redemption is kind of hard to When that
comes on, I just sit down and cancel everything, because
you know, shawshangs on. My favorite biography, the Glenn Miller Story.
I watch it at least four.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Times a year. That's a great movie, but I would
never have times a year I watched Oh that's great,
love that.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
It's amazing and a matter of fact, it was just
one a couple of nights ago. So that's I'm all
about that favorite date movie now. For years, I like
most people would say it's Princess Bride, Sure, okay, but
then this movie I'm about to mention, it comes out
and that is the quintessential date movie. It's been out
now for a number of years, but it's the perfect

(03:37):
film for both men and women. You've got you know,
you've got the heart touching comedy, you've got boobies, you've
got tents flying around, but and even got like a
little kid with his dad and just, oh my god
it is. It's called love Action. Oh of course, I
mean the perfect day movie. And it takes places around Christmas.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
Get it all.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
It's warm and fuzzy in all the right ways.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
One As far as the action genre for me, and
uh and I hate to do this to you, but
it's a dead tie my favorite action movie, it's between
Raiders of a Lost Star. Oh yes, yes, and You've
got Mail.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Now.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
I can't decide which one I like the most, but
you know, if they're just so wow action packed him.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
You might be a little mixed up there. But yeah,
I got you. I got you. I'm definitely with you
on the raiders.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
How about how about you? Okay, are you gonna say
top five?

Speaker 1 (04:32):
I'll try to top five. I mean it's easier for.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
In order, like from five to number one.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah. Probably, But the problem is, like even if I
go to ten, then I'll just keep going past that.
I know I will. But top five you'll.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Be disappointed and correcting yourself on the way home.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
That is correct.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
I've done that a million times from my top five.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
I can't believe I forgot that is correct. So top
five of all time. Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory,
I am wearing a golden ticket.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
To you or loved that? Willy want you visited the
actual fact factory in Germany.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
I was did I? Did you should buy that? I
really maybe not? Willy wank in the Chocolate Factory. Star Wars, Yeah,
the Empire strikes back. Both of those films, by the way,
really important for me as a kid in Tulsa growing
up there realizing like wait a minute, not only did
I love the story of those films, but it was

(05:24):
more this process of realizing, oh, there's this creative community
of people who get together and build worlds.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yes, yes, look the first on the snow planet.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah yeah, Empire strispect the ice planet Hof.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
That is some of the most amazing action. I've never
seen anything like that. Kind of like the first ten
minutes of Readers of the Los Ange, I like, you
get a whole movie of action in ten minutes, and
that was the same with Empire strikesfect.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
So I agree double indemnity. This is Fred McMurray, Barbara Stanwick,
incredible script by Billy Wilder, the quintessential film noir film.
And then I would round out my top five with
my favorite Western of all time. And I know that
you love that genre as well, do very much. And
I know that you're a big fan of the Duke.

(06:09):
So the man who shot Liberty Balance, Yes, an incredible Western.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
Well, I get a lot of genres with the Duke
because my favorite comedy Western of all time is John
Wayne in mcclintop. Brilliant. And then you get a real
Bravo and all these Yeah, I can sit down for
a John Wayne movie in the day of the week
and someday I will do my John Wayne walk for you.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Oh yeah, okay, that'll be good. Yeah. So I want
to see that from the front. You probably neither. I
do with John Wayne Walk Okay, good, good to know.
So look, I mean we love films, that's clear. But
one of the crazy things about our careers individually and
collectively is that we have been presented with opportunities not
only to watch and enjoy films, but we've gotten to

(06:57):
be in movies. Right. So, for example, when I started
by telling you that last night, I'm talking to students.
I have this exercise that I do with my students
early in the semester where I will have them pitch
me their favorite movie of all time. And the reason
I do this is because it's such a precious film
to them that they feel like instinctively they need to
share every single detail.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Like in the way you would go to a studio
and pitch an idea.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yes, right, So I have to sort of I have
to get them back up here from an aerial view
and be like, no, no, no, no, no, you can't tell
me beat for beat what happens in Memento. You got
to get you got to tell me the essence of
Memento or whatever it's find me. Okay, So one of
my current students last night pitches her favorite film of
all time, which is The Princess Diaries, and I go

(07:43):
and I go, wait a minute, Wait a minute, My
dear friend Brian is in The Princess Diaries. And she goes, well,
what is he playing. I said, well, I think he
plays a DJ and she goes, oh my god, and
she immediately starts telling me about all the details of
the scene.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
So, yeah, all the films, all my favorite films. She's
to pitch is The Princess. It's Gary Marshall. Louis loved directed,
and that's the reason we were in is because he
was on a show many times and asked us to
be part of it.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
So you were the Prince's Diaries, you were in a few,
you were in the Friday the Thirteenth A Jason goes
to Howe movie.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yes, that was my first experience with actually being able
to talk to a director because just a quick thing.
We were cops at a police station and the scene
was we hear a gunshot, I'm running out of the bathroom,
Marcus running from the office or something, and did we
run together then down and see the.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Murder or what?

Speaker 3 (08:37):
So I went up to the director before the shoot
I didn't know you weren't supposed to do this, and
I didn't care because he said, no, that sucks. I
totally understand. I just but I thought it would be
funny if instead of us running, me running out of
the bathroom and Mark running out from a different place,
if we both run out of the bathroom and I'm
zipping my pants.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
This could have gone all.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
But yeah, there's you know, you never know what was
going on in there. Maybe he was just you know,
taking away with a story to tell. But and he
just goes like this, do it and you can see it,
and there it is.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Now that's either a director who's a brilliant collaborator or
a director who's just been completely beaten down at that
point of the day.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
You know he's directing. Jason goes to hell. So I
would go probably option too.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
But okay, so then, and this is big. You were
also apart, however small your part may have been, you
were a part of one of the most storied franchises
in Hollywood history, and that is the Rocky franchise. You, sir,
were in Rocky five.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Sly was a very good friend of the program. He
came to us, said, hey, you want to be in
my next movie, Rocky five. So I said yes, yes,
and we agreed to do it. And you don't have
to watch the whole movie. You don't want to, because
we're at the very beginning. We are in the first
scene of the movie where Rocky holds a press conference

(09:58):
in a in a huge airplane hangar after returning from
Russia after his victory over Drago, which was the end
of Rocky four. Now the place is packed with reporters
and Papa Razzi. So although we played just two of
what was probably one hundred press people jammed together in

(10:20):
front of the stage, I personally I was not all
that hard to spot.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Now.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
But there's three reasons for this reason. Number one, yes,
is obvious. My incredible acting prowess, Oh god, yes, legendary
stuck right out. Number two, my deep commitment to my
role as a hard nosed, gritty, street smart newspaper reporter,
commitment I enveloped just I just lived it, sunk into

(10:50):
that character. And number three, I happened to be the
only one sporting a meticulously feathered, long flowing mullet. In fact,
we have a picture of this. Oh my god, you
can bring it up bring it up now, not find.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
Waldo, but find Oh look at that.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Everybody else reporter, you know, short haircuts.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
I got that. Oh yeah, geez Okay. So if you're
not hard to pick out if you're listening first of all,
by the way, if you if you were listening to
Brian back in the day, like I was here in
Los Angeles, then you saw this image on billboards and
on his network TV show, Like Brian had one of
the most legendary mullets in the history of mullets. And

(11:32):
so right now in this frame from Rocky five, yes
he's leaning forward like a concerned reporter, but all you
can see at all is this glorious blonde Maine.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
I love the fact that that Sly didn't insist we
cut it off. What is a kid with a mullet
doing in in these hard Nos newspaper reporters.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
That's extraordinary. Wow, not hard to pick out. Good on you, though,
I mean, it's not a small feat to be a
part of that franchise. So look, I've been in several
TV shows, but I've really only ever been in one movie.
But it was an amazing movie with not only one
of Hollywood's most famous directors at the Helm, but also
based on one of the most beloved American coming of

(12:14):
age novels of all time, and that is The Outsiders. Okay,
so I lived The Outsiders. I was on the other
side of the track. Okay, good so so So in
case you you've been living under a rock and you
if you never read The Outsiders or saw the film,
it's basically the story of a kid who who grew
up on the quote unquote wrong side of the tracks,

(12:35):
like you say, in Tulsa, in particular, with these two
brothers they're best friends. It's a story about how they
not only have to deal with the pressure and the
violence of rival gangs that are deeply divided by socioeconomic status,
in this case in the form of the Greasers versus
the socias. Yeah, but really, at its heart, The Outsiders

(12:55):
is a story about how people bond over and how
they deal with struggle. Right, and so, the author of
the book sc Hinton was from Tulsa, and she grew
up in Tulsa and wrote that novel when she was
only sixteen years old. Okay, Then, an amazing turn of
events in this story, a group of elementary kids school
kids here in California, and Fresno wrote this fan letter

(13:18):
to Francis Ford Coppola, who of course was the extraordinary
Oscar winning director of the Godfather, and they basically inspired
him to direct a movie based on this book, and
he thankfully decided to film The Outsiders in my hometown
of Tulsa.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
Okay, so well, before you go any further, tell everybody
the cast. This is an incredible Okay, if you haven't
seen it, and I feel ashamed that I've never read
the book. Okay, that movie meant so much to.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Me, well, the book and the movie and now the
Tony winning Broadway show by the way, it means so
much to so many people. But yes, Coppola cast an
extraordinary array of iconic young talent in this movie. Right,
so we're talking about Tom Cruise and Matt Dylan, Patrick Swayze,
Ralph Maccio, Emilio Estevez, see Thomas Howe, Diane Lane, Tom

(14:07):
Waits is in the movie, like and then there was
Skinny Dopey Me. Okay, sure in this movie. So long
story short, you'll see so long story short. I was
a junior in high school. Okay, I went out for
an audition. I somehow got cast as a multipurpose sosh. Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I had to. Even though I was middle class, upbringing

(14:27):
at best, you know, like I guess, I looked the
part of a sosh. I had long blonde hair at
this time, not as beautiful and lushy yours, but it was.
It was good, not as ridiculous. I had to go
through stunt school. I had to go through a bunch
of rehearsals. Then I had to get a buzz cut,
which was terrifying for me at the time, put on
a period perfect letter jacket, and then, in addition to

(14:49):
being in a couple of rumble scenes where you can't
really see me because it's too muddy and too rainy
and all that stuff, I had to show up for
my one line and medium close up at the Admiral
Twin Drive in which still exists to this day in Tulsa,
where I interrupt a conversation between Diane Lane and c.
Thomas Howell by getting in a shoving match with a
greaser Ryan. I think you should roll this clip.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Can't wait?

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yea, not all of us are like that.

Speaker 4 (15:18):
I stept saying all these greasers are like Dallas.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
You're gonna do.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
Let's take it outside, all right?

Speaker 3 (15:29):
WHOA tell me what you're gonna do about it?

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Look at that joli, Yes what you're gonna do? Indeed, yeah,
I know, I know you are tall. I was, well, yes,
and and I was. It's I was also like one
hundred pounds lighter. But yes, look it wound up being
as ridiculous as it is. It's one line, right, but
it wound up being a really powerful experience in my
life because it is exactly what ultimately led me to

(15:53):
applying for USC Film School as a student myself and
then moving to La So without the Outsiders, you and
I are not sitting here the Outsider's conning movie. By
the way, I can a movie generation Yeah, and it's
always gonna have a very special place in my life.
And believe it or not, this one movie that I
was lucky enough to be in and play a very
small part and actually leads us to today's guest okay,

(16:14):
who not only shares our love for the Outsiders, but
who used his own fame not to mention his relentless
drive and determination, paired with a whole bunch of help
from amazing folks in my hometown of Tulsa to create
something so special that it has helped an entire new
community find ways to stay gold. So stick around.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
I'm not going anywhere. I want to hear this story.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
We will take you suck, all.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
Right, welcome back to be good humans. I know, Brian,
we've been talking about movies. Yes, but there's an old
radio skill that I know you and I both appreciate.
Uh huh, and you're really good at it. What I
would like to think that I'm decent at it too.
So I'm going to attempt to do something that is
known in the radio biz as walking it up to

(17:23):
the post.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Walking it up the post. That's tech talk radio speak for,
you know, the top forty radio stations, or they will.
They'll start the intro of the song and they know
exactly to the split second when the lyrics are going
to stand.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
When the vocals get it, the vocals.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Are going to kick it, and they do promotions, they
do advertisements for products. They are if you're good at it.
And Mark was very good at it as well. He
was kind of They taught me how to do it. Okay,
I sucked, but I can't wait to hear your par
These are high bars that are set, but here Goes.
I'm gonna try walking it up to the post.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
All right, you ready, I can't wait to hear this
all All right, here we go. I'm gonna attempt to walk
my introduction of our next guest right up to the
post of his biggest hit song, Here Goes.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Oh Cool.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
And now joining us live from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the
is the multi talented rapper, art director, co founder of
the platinum selling nineties hip hop group House of Pain,
not to mention the group Lakoca Nostra. He's also become
the creator an executive director at an amazing place we're
going to tell you all about, called the Outsider's House Museum.
But first, put your hands together and jump around for

(18:32):
the one and only Danny boy O'Connor.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yeah, it was not that. That was sashet to the post,
my friend.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
That was Danny boy O'Connor. Welcome to be good humans,
my friend.

Speaker 4 (18:49):
Thank you. You know de me, because I thought you
were going to play a lunatic fringe, but.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
So Danny, thank you for joining us. I was telling
Brian earlier, you and I have kind of Chris crossed
each other in a lot of ways in life. So
I was I was literally sitting when you and I
were on the phone earlier this morning, I was sitting
in traffic outside of Taft High School, which is right
down the street from my house in Woodland Hills. And
I know when you were a teenager, Danny, you actually

(19:18):
went to Taft High School. In fact, I think that's
at least in part where House of Paine was born.

Speaker 4 (19:22):
Yeah, House of Pain was born there and incredible school.
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah. So then, meanwhile, I was born in Tulsa, and
when I was a teenager, ironically, I spent most of
my time hanging out at the most popular shopping mall,
which was called Woodland Hills Mall. Oh right, and then
I get this part in The Outsiders, which ultimately led
me to move to Los Angeles. But meanwhile, you love
the book in the movie so much yourself, it ultimately
led you to move to Tulsa. So we basically kind

(19:49):
of traded places. But man, has it worked out great
for you?

Speaker 4 (19:53):
It has? And you started by saying we crisscross, which
is that's so who stole jump around from us? Originally
resumed our demo into rep House Records. They sent us
their demo and asking if we would work on it
with mugs from Cypress Hill, and uh we we didn't
sign that deal. So they took that concept of a
jump as a hook and they beat us to market

(20:15):
with Chris Crossill make it.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well, there you go.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
We thought our careers were over before they even began.
We had to wait three months for that song to
come and go, and then we dumped ours on the
market and boom. So there's a little, a little double
entendre that you weren't even you weren't even aware of
going on.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
So cool.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
I love that, and Danny, you got it. It might
be all have for you, but you gotta love it.
When you're watching a football game or some sporting event,
major gigantic stadium, they start playing that, and I mean
hundreds of thousands of people jumping up and down. It's
a thing.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
It's a thing, you know. It's a quality problem to have.
And I won't tell you anything different, right, but I
will I will say that there are times where I
just want to be left alone and be into the game,
and then it'll come on. It'll kind of There is
a downside to it too, my mood. I didn't know
because it's like it's like getting a phone call from
your your your high school girlfriend, and you're like, I

(21:09):
don't want to deal with this again, and I'm just uh,
I'm just being honest.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
So also, at a certain age, like it starts to
hurt to jump around, so you know, I'm going to need.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
Some hip replacements.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
And so but let's let's go back to when you
were much younger, Danny, if you would indulge us for
a second, and let's let's what was it about your
early life you think that that really kind of made
you see yourself in the outsiders? What what first drew
you to that story?

Speaker 4 (21:37):
Well, it's a great question, and uh it's pretty simple.
You know, my my father went to prison when I
was two months old, and my mother was working at
the Chase Manhattan Bank the graveyard shift, and uh, you know,
we were back and forth between my grandparents and and
you know, being on our own. And you know, from
day one, I always felt that that that disconnect. You know,

(21:58):
I didn't feel like I was born in the right time,
to the right family and the right place. And you know,
I'm a transplant to la I was born in Brooklyn
and and raised in Staten Island, and then we came
to California when I was six years old, and my
mother she used to send me back every summer to
New York and New Jersey so I could be with
my aunts and uncles, just so that she could deal

(22:19):
with my other sibling. And you know, looking back, it
was the greatest way to grow up, but at the
time it didn't feel that way. I felt like I
wasn't wanted. It was great because it was pre Internet
by a long shot, and also pre cell phone, so
it was like going back and forth coast to coast.
There was two different experiences.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
You know.

Speaker 4 (22:38):
I would leave La with a with a skateboard and
some op shorts, and I would come back with some
lea denim and listening to run DMC. And I would
tell New Yorkers about Oingo Boingo and Fishbone and they
would tell me about Curtis Blow and run DMC. And
so I was like a wizard on both coasts for
you know, king of the twelve year olds.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
But feeling a little alone in that process, I'm guessing
in different ways.

Speaker 4 (23:04):
Yeah, And you know, I just I was kind of
just like, you know, somebody else's problem all the time.
And you know, I go to see that movie cold,
meaning I didn't read the book The Outsiders It. The
guy went was a classmate of mine and he obviously
read it. And you know how I know that is
after we came out of that movie. My mind was
blown and I had just felt like such a kinship
to that film in ways I had never connected before.

(23:27):
And he I remember him saying it like it was yesterday.
I said, you know, what'd you think of it? I said,
it was fantastic, incredible? What'd you think? And he goes, oh,
it was good, but the book is better? And I thought,
can we curse?

Speaker 1 (23:37):
I was like, we're.

Speaker 4 (23:40):
In seventh grade? What are you doing reading?

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Like?

Speaker 4 (23:41):
I couldn't believe it. You know, who knew people were
reading in seventh grade? Apparently they were? And you know
I rushed my mother back the following week to see
it with me. I loved it so much and I
had never done that before.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
I just wanted some acknowledgment. You know, my father was
an old school like, tough guy, and you know, your
typical alcoholic, long shortman ended up dying that way. But
if I showed you photos you get it, you'd be
like wow, And I was hoping that she would connect
and she was this passe about the whole thing, which
only made me like it more. Then it becomes a

(24:17):
big hit on VHS, which is a new apparatus, you know.
And then if you were fortunate enough to have cable TV,
which we didn't at first, but it became a thing.
It would come on and you'd be like, oh, this
is great. This movie is my you know, but that
movie just hit different man. And you know, as an adult,
when I look back at why there there are obviously

(24:38):
a handful of them, but you know what is the
in a nutshell? You know, you got Copola's hand, and
you got these these new brat pack actors, and it's
got all of the things. But what I don't hear
a lot. And I think the secret sauce to this
whole movie for real fans, if they know it or not,
is that Carmine Coppola and did that that soundtrack and

(25:03):
that soundscape? Yeah, and it just it just played like
a movie of you know, your father would have loved
it too, you know, And this was like my chance
to see my cool coming of age. It was the
first Coming of age film that was like it was
a different town, different era, but boy, I can relate
to that. What I felt was like I got a

(25:24):
broken home here and when I'm out in the streets,
I mean guys just like me, and best it gets
is us sticking up for each other and taking after
each other and making sure nobody messes with us. Then
so be it. I can live with that my edict.
I'veter seen that movie. My whole mission in life was
just to find a few other guys like myself to
run around with. And unfortunately we call that again, you know,

(25:47):
but at thirteen and fourteen, it was harmless. But I
did get myself a denim jacket and I think I
started smoking soon after that.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
So, Danny, did this movie have anything to do with
the creation of your on stage persona one hundred percent?

Speaker 4 (26:02):
You were the first person after after a thousand interviews
about this, if not more, and I always try to
tell people you're the first person to preempt with the asket. Yes,
the answer the Dallas Winston character was was my favorite,
and that's Matt Dillon's character. And in the movie, you know,
when they when they kill the Sosh defending when Johnny

(26:23):
kills the social defending pony boy. They run to meet
Dally because they know Dally can get him out of
town and can handle it. He goes, ah, Man, I
thought New York was the only place I was going
to end up in a murder rap, you know. And
because he was a New Yorker and he was the
toughest one in that film, and because he was good looking,
I was like, oh, man, I want this guy, you know,
to be my big brother. So if you look at

(26:45):
when I look back now, it's it's incredible. It's uncanny
how much that kind of rubbed off on me, because
I look at the first photo shoots of House of
Paine and our early posters, and I've got my denim
jacket on, and you know, it's like I got my greasearch.
That thing is the thread that kind of binds us all.
And you know, I think that's the appeal also to
the outsiders, is that you may not relate the way

(27:07):
I did to it, but everybody loves that era of
Americana the fifties and sixties was like this is what
we still export all around the world. I mean, I
remember as a kid hearing that, you know, in Paris,
they want you know, Levi Denham and they want old
Spice cologne. They don't care about the and the Jordan
ash and the cement. That's for American consumers. They wanted

(27:29):
our stuff, you know. And I'm a big fan of
you know, American made product, especially heritage ones, whether it's
Fender guitars.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
Or Harley Davidson's.

Speaker 4 (27:38):
Or Harley Davidson's or Levi's Five O Wives or all
the cool stuff. We are such we are so good
at branding culture. And it starts with Marlon Brando and
the wild ones. You know, that iconic tough guy. There's
there's in every alpha male, there's one of five cacharacters.

(28:00):
You know, there's that and in indicative of the movies
that you guys were talking about, there's that Western guy.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah you got this this outlaw guy.

Speaker 4 (28:07):
There's the biker guy, which could be your Marlon brand
or your Lee Marvin. You got Marvin Boxer, Yeah, you
got a boxer, like the rocky guy. Everybody's like the underdog.
And if they could just stick it in there and
find a good girl to stick with them and you know,
turn them from a bum to a to a champ. Yeah,
we all have that hero's journey, you know, and then
there's a handful of those characters that we kind of

(28:28):
like latch onto and that's us in the moment, or
and bands do that for you too, you know.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Oh one hundred percent. So obviously this movie pipelines directly
to your heart and inspires you and influences you in
all kinds of ways. So then you suddenly have this
this wild and wooly ride of being a hip hop
star and you're turning around the world. You're living the
finer life, probably arguably to a certain extent, the life
of a sosh, but you never really lose sight of

(28:53):
your your inner greaser in that process. Tell us, though,
how did you finally wind up in Tulsa and and
where did the journey of the Outsider's House Museum really begin?

Speaker 4 (29:05):
So again, it's a great question. I started House of
Pain and we signed our first record deal in ninety two.
That was the same year we had our hit Jump Around.
We toured the whole planet. US in Cypress Hill was
kind of like a package deal. The DJ and producer
of Cypres Hill was also the producer for US and
produce that hit for us, and we had a great

(29:28):
go of it, you know, but unfortunately, all good things
must come to an end, and it truth be told,
I was masquerading as a musician. I was a product
manager at a record store for a couple of years.
My musical IQ, I'd like to think, is high because
of that job. Also, that's an era where you couldn't
go on the internet and just type in anything you

(29:50):
wanted to hear for free. Right Because I worked at
a record store, I was able to open it and
promo it and play it on our put it on
our playlist, which allowed me to window shop the world.
And we also take three movies home a night from
our rental. We had VHS rental tapes. So you get
bored of hearing all your great stuff, so you start
to dig deeper. And then so I had a very

(30:12):
eclectic taste in music. So in high school I was
getting in a lot of trouble. I was in a gang.
It was a punk rock gang. In the eighties, there
was a lot of punk rock gangs, and if you
know anything about suicidal tendencies, you know that if they
played they had fifty to one hundred members in flannels
and bandanas, claiming suicidal tendencies from venice, and that could
get you mashed out if you were alone. So we

(30:34):
started to go pack. We had a gang called Mickey
Mouse Club. You know, it sounds itchy and it sounds funny,
but I ended up getting, you know, very seriously. I
was catching felonies when I was seventeen and eighteen in
the valley was a hotbedport. It was a gang called
FFF from North Hollywood, Mickey Mouse Club from the West Valley,
the lads from Hollywood, which you know, there's a lot

(30:56):
of these things and people who know what I'm talking about. No,
I ended up, like by the skin of my teeth
putting this band together. It was really just an excuse
so that I could stay home and my mother wouldn't
give me, you know, the business and stuff. But I
tell you all this to tell you that I've accepted
the fact for years now. But it was an epifany
years ago that I was a creative director more than

(31:17):
I was ever a musician. I could wrap good for
a white guy at a time where not a lot
of white guys were even involved in hip hop. So
we put the band together. It does well. At the
end of that ride those two going to greater successes.
We break up. Ever last goes on and makes another record,
solo record. He hits the jackpot with a song called
what It's Like. He does a soundtrack with Carlos Santana

(31:40):
and gets a Grammy and he's doing great, and our
DJ goes to lymp Biscuit, which would be found. They
were open for us in Florida. Nobody thought much of them,
and then he hits the jackpot and I end up
getting a methamphetamine habit and down tirally because you know,
I'm like, it's the best job in the world to
be a creative director. I'm a guy who named the band,

(32:02):
founded the band, did the logo for the band, did
all the branding, got the com stuft of like, look,
we don't see us on the landscape. We're tough white guys.
We don't have to be anything other than authentically us
where Irish like to fuck fight and the whole it's
what more do you need from us? And it works.
But once it works, people are like, now, what have
you done for me lately? And it's very easy to

(32:22):
unhitch me and throw me out, you know, and go
for gold. So when it all came crashing down in
two thousand and now, nineteen ninety eight, ninety nine, I
had no plan B, and so I retreated to drugs
and alcohol and it was a rough ride. And in
twenty and fifteen I get sober. In two thousand and five,

(32:44):
actually I had nineteen years sobriety two thousand graduations.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
That's amazing.

Speaker 4 (32:48):
Thank you. It's been the best life I've ever known.
But we started. I started another group called the Coconostra,
and it really was just starting out to help two
other guys who were trying to be a group, and
our DJ from Olympiscuit and House of Pain. DJ Ethel
had an in print deal with Geffen, so he was
looking for artists. Long story longer. We throw these two
together instead of making two records, and they asked me
to join and do the branding and all that. Before

(33:10):
long it becomes a supergroup. So we hit the road
in two thousand and nine, and we had never been
I had never been on tour sober in my life.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Wowed, I had changed.

Speaker 4 (33:23):
Everybody else was not on the sober trip that I
was on, which was fine.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
Which was tough, I can imagine.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
Yeah, and the bus was like, yeah, it was like
a Bob Marley.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
But all that to say that, I was up very early,
highly caffeinated, and I just bought a new, beautiful camera,
a digital camera, and I started to look at this
world with different eyes. And when we got to Tulsa,
I had this feeling that I had been here before,
knowing clearly that I hadn't. Really were stuck here for
three days and I stay stuck here with all due respect,
but if you know, like I know, two thousand and

(33:55):
nine Tulsa downtown, it's a lot different than twenty four. Yes,
what I saw when I got here, it felt like
I could have been on the back lot of any
major studio. It felt like the back lot of Sony
Japan or the track lot of Warner Brothers. It's got
this amazing collection of Art Deco masterpiece buildings starting off
from the oil Capital of the World, the Wait Til

(34:17):
You Yeah, all of this, that and the third. But
I kept thinking, why does this place seem so familiar?
Then the sun sets and the train going downtown, just
hearing that and I thought, oh my god, the outsiders,
and it just clicked and I was like, oh my god,
this is where the lady s he hid and wrote
the outsiders.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
So we called up our runner. We got them to
come pick us up. I said, dude, do you know
any of these places? I looked online and there wasn't
much saying the locations, but they did. Somebody listed that
the driving was still here, which is the Admiral Twin
driving in the film. Circle Cinema was here, but it
was shuttered and it was boarded up. It was in
two thousand and nine that thing almost went away. And

(34:56):
that's a very key piece of not only the movie
but the book. The book opens as I stepped out
from the darkness, she's talking about the Circle Cinema, and
they gave up the Crutchfield Park and the park is
where they killed the Sosia. And if you could find
the park, you can absolutely find the house. By just
walking around, you'll see it. And that's what the information
I could glean off the internet and Trey and Brian

(35:16):
I got to tell you, it was like having a
time machine to be at this park, to be at
this drive in, to be at this cinema, and go
holy far like it looked as it did in the
movie in eighty two when they filmed, and I'm sure
it looked that way in sixty six sixty seven when
the period of that film was filmed. So also was

(35:36):
kind of like the land that time forgot, Like everything
was kind of like just preserved and on ice, and
nothing had really changed too much. Now a lot has
changed since then. Yeah, and in good, bad, or indifferent.
It's good. But when I got here, Cane's Ballroom was
open downtown and the Spaghetti Warehouse and Rest of Peace
Spaghetti Warehouse, because it is no longer here.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, but it's been a whole invention of that whole
area since then. But so you're so you're going on
this tour when you finally get to this humble little
house in the crutch Field neighborhood in North Tulsa for
the first time, and you're standing out at the curb,
what's going through your head when you lay eyes on
that house for the first time.

Speaker 4 (36:16):
I mean, I'm hearing the soundtrack in my head. The
dogs are barking in the distance, And would you believe
the train is literally where it should be, which is
at the end of that bob the freight train go through.
I thought I was on candid camera. I thought what's
his name was gonna come out or some of it
was too good to be true. I also want to
tell you that there was a for sale sign in
front of that house and when I when I looked online,

(36:38):
they wanted forty two thousand dollars for that house.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
What kind of shape was the house in? Was it?
Were people living there?

Speaker 4 (36:44):
So it's a great question. It's a turn of the century.
It looks like a craftsman house.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
I never got to see the inside before buying it,
but from the outside it looked a little knackered, but
it also was still as it did in the movie.
It just was like the house from The Outsiders. It's
a big, amazing sitting on a double prop. It just
it's I was smitten, to say the least, but being
sober at that time, I had about five years of sobriety,
and I had to remember that there this thing could

(37:09):
be the proverbally, you don't want to take on anything
too big, And I thought, Danny, let it go. You
don't know the first thing about Oklahoma. You're not allowed
to buy the coolest man for it knowing to you know,
I didn't have any real reason to think it other
than Wow. I cannot believe that this house is still

(37:30):
on earth. Yeah, I can't believe it's a real house.
And I can't believe that somebody can buy this right
now for forty two thousand dollars. Not I wasn't rich
or even even you know, making good money at that time,
but I may have been able to cobble that money
to you know, I could have probably bought it now.
For the next five years, I just kept getting the
universe or God, whatever you fancy for me. It was

(37:51):
God just kept putting me where where I was supposed
to be, and I would always I would end up
like going on a road trip, and it would bring
me near Oklahoma, and I go, man, I can't pass
this up. Let's go see the house again. It took
for the next five years. Every year, without a doubt,
I kept coming through Tulsa looking for that house. And
by year five I realized that if somebody doesn't do something,

(38:13):
this house might not make it. Because the Habitat for
Humanities was coming through block by block and they were
tearing out and rebuilding new houses, which is great. I'm
all for it, but I knew that I don't think
anybody was really concerned that this house had.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Any historical value.

Speaker 4 (38:29):
Historical value and yes, and sentimental value. And that's when
I start to think, you know, why doesn't anybody see
the potential that I see here? Why doesn't anybody think
that this could be a museum? And that voice in
my head said, why don't you do it? Then? If
it's so, that's not what I wanted to hear. You know, Yeah,
when you're in a band and you're right in the
gravy train, it's like being fun employed. You're just kind

(38:50):
of like, you know, pug and play. You get a
nice little check and you just go home and watch
your favorite baseball game or you know. I was like,
it was comfortably numb. I was chilling. I didn't look
I wasn't looking for anything to tackle, but it just
kept I couldn't imagine life without it. And I got
to tell you this. I posted a photo of me
out front of that, and then I posted a photo
of the whole that sid Vics allegedly punched in the

(39:13):
green room wall of Cane's ballroom, that they have since
recovered and framed and leaved it and left it in
their office. And I'm friends with Steve Jones and Cookie
from the Sex Pistols. Yep, And I posted those two
things on this new page called Facebook because at that
time we were still kind of on MySpace two thousand
and five, and the reaction I got there was incredible,

(39:34):
and I realized that there was a tipping point, and
I thought, you know what, we're my generation, whatever generation acts.
I'm fifty five. It was like time that we look
backwards with fondness and not like I don't want to
hear about Valley Girl.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
And like you we we lived.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
That, and then it was like the most uncool thing
to talk about the Outsiders or or or any of
those because you know, you got that, you grow right,
that's right. But then there's a certain age where you
go back and go, man it, this is something to
be you know, this is something to look back fondly
on and not like shun it anymore. It's not you know,
and that was it.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
But what often happens, Danny, and this is this is
the other part of that tipping point equation is usually
by the time you arrive at that place of recognizing
how important something from your past was, it's already gone, right,
and so so you seize this opportunity. You buy this house,
like you say, like you didn't even go inside. You

(40:31):
hadn't seen the inside.

Speaker 4 (40:33):
I bought it. It was a trip. So I ended
up buying it for fifteen grand.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
Oh wow, you got a good deal. But what were
you planning when you bought it other than just like
so it won't be torn down?

Speaker 4 (40:43):
All the good questions. So, being the the the analysis
paralysis guy that I am, I had no plan other
than to go board it up and then think about it.
And I could sit and think for years if you
let me. Yeah, okay, I bought the house to wait
thirty days, I get the deal done, and then I

(41:04):
drive to Tulsa and then I break in my own
window because they didn't leave me keys, and it looked
like a scene from David Fincher seven.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Oh wow, Yeah, what have I just bought? What have
I just done?

Speaker 3 (41:19):
It?

Speaker 4 (41:19):
Yeah? You know, Trey, I gotta be honest with you.
At the time, I had, I think twenty eight thousand
dollars to my name. I put fifteen in the house,
and I paid five thousand dollars to move the tenant
who or eight months behind and rent out. So I
was I was running on fumes. I had no foreseeable
work in front of me.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
And because of that, Danny had to very quickly start
relying on the kindness of strangers. Right there. There were
a lot of people in this neighborhood and in Tulsa
proper who wound up having to help you.

Speaker 4 (41:47):
Well, that's why I moved here. But before that, the
question was what was my plan? When I got there,
I was like, fuck, now I'm a homeowner again. I
didn't know that I was going to live there, but
I thought, you know, what if the world goes to
hell in a hand basket, because this is like two
thousand and nine, this is when the bubble would burst
for everybody was like was losing their five four one ks,

(42:07):
you know. It was kind of like where we're at now,
where like it feels like the world's going to implode.
And I was like, liqued, I'm living in Beverly Hills
on Rexford and Olympic, and I'm like, I might have to,
you know, cut bait and just get on out to
Tulsa and lay low. And I figured, if somebody recognizes
the house and they seem, you know, cool, I may
let him peek in and show my one poster. I

(42:28):
had no plan through. But once I got in that
house and realized how bad a shape it was, I
was literally crying. I was like, oh no, I just
bit off so much more than I could chew. I said,
I need help, and I'm a six foot six alpha male,
and nobody will tell you any different. And it's hard
for me, man, because my ego can get the best
of me, and sometimes it's fear and ego that tells me. Now,

(42:49):
you can't ask for help. They're going to fucking laugh
at you. You should know how to do this by now.
You should know. You know, I didn't know anything about
remodeling or any of that, but I couldn't in good
face say hey, I got the coolest man fort on too,
you know the universe verse? Can you build this for me?
So I had to say in my mind, could this
be a museum that I was talking about or is
that just tough talk? And I thought, no, I could
be a museum, and let's ask for help for that.

(43:10):
So I put a GoFundMe together and people started responding immediately.
But Trey got it right, you know, it was more
than the GoFundMe started to do good But once word
got out that I had come here, bought this house
and was looking to turn into a museum, this community
literally held me on high. They surrounded me. They said
what do you need and where do you want it?

(43:30):
And how fast can we get it done for you?
And it was one after the other after the other
after the other. And I had no plans of leaving
Beverly Hills. That plan lasted about four months before I
started to go, man, how can I get myself to Tulsa?
And I ended up moving to Tulsa soon after that
and I never looked back. It's been seven years.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
So the museum idea has taken hold, and you're getting
a lot of help from the community, a lot of
help from a lot of people. Were you also getting
people that were passionate about the outsiders as you were
you getting offers over the internet and say, hey, I've
got this memorable if you're in a museum, I want
to donate this to your museum.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah this is true. It's not as true as I
would like it to be, as far as like it's yes.
So when I bought that house, I had one poster
which was the like be variant. Otherwise it would be weird.
Why would I have more than that?

Speaker 3 (44:22):
That's a quick tour through the museum?

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (44:25):
Yeah, I mean it's like, you know, I was a
fifty year old man at that point. Why would I
have a bunch of outsider stuff to my name? But
I said that to say that. As soon as I
announced I was going to do a museum and the
money started coming in, I started to go, Oh my god,
what am I going to show these people? Like seriously what?
There was no plan for this thing at all. And
I got a I got an email or a message
on Facebook from a guy from a gal who said,

(44:47):
my husband worked on Tulsa PD and he's got a
few collectibles and he would love to, you know, donate
to you. And I said, I'd love to hear it
and let me know what you got. And she said, well,
he's got something, probably listen. So he came by and uh,
he showed me a picture that was autographed, and I
don't know that the autographs were real. It looked like

(45:07):
some of you buy a Vegas, you know, the shops
that tell you all of that. You know everybody in
this movie, but you're like, how did you do all that?
And it's only forty eight bucks, you know. He goes,
here's a switch plade and go oh, but it wasn't
in the movie. You know, No, it wasn't in the movie.
I took it from a greezer in this neighborhood and leave.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Me very cool gifts, super cool.

Speaker 4 (45:26):
I was halfway to Oklahoma City going back to LA
when I got that message, so I turned all the
way around, yeah, giving me like and then he goes,
I think he just wanted to meet me and see
that I was okay, that I was like the real deal.
And then he said, honey keys, and she went peep,
and he walked to the car and he came out
with something wrapped in a blanket. It looked like a body,

(45:46):
and I thought, maybe he's bringing me Tom Cruise And
it's the director's chair Coppola's director's chair that was stolen
on the set of Rumblefish, which is also anice hitting book.
And as you know, they wrapped the Outsiders and two
weeks later went into the production of Rumblefish and he said,
this has been in my man cave. He says, I'm
was on Tulsa PD for like thirty years. And he

(46:07):
says there's a liquor store on the corner over here,
and there was a dare of the guy back there,
and there's always somebody back there, Derek. But the liquor
store called the PD that day saying, hey, listen, he's
been back there for a long time and that's fine,
but he's playing in traffic now drunk, and we think
he's trying to kill himself and we don't want that.
Can you come get him? So he pulls up and says,
you grab your shit. Whose chairs that? And he goes

(46:29):
that chair that ain't my chair?

Speaker 1 (46:30):
You want that chair?

Speaker 4 (46:31):
And he's like, yeah, that chair. The guy who stole
it just had an polock junk behind the liquor store.
Three days later and Gary Rest of Peace. He's no
longer with us, but uh, he donated that, and that's
a Smithsonian grade donation. So now I got a poster,
I've got the actual house. And then the director director,
so now I'm like, okay, this is starting to go good.

(46:53):
Then I meet with the author, Si Hinton and.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Who still lives in Tulsa to this day.

Speaker 4 (46:57):
Yeah, she still lives here in Tulsa. She's still just
doing thing. She gives me what I was seeking at
the time was call sheets. And back in the day,
you remember, you get a printed out call sheet and
when you were done, you would throw it in the
waste basket and you wouldn't think twice. So your rares
hens teeth to find these. And Susie had most of
every day of the shooting, and she said, all you
want that old stuff, come home and get it. So

(47:17):
I went to her house and I was thank god
I was sitting down while I was looking through all
of this stuff because she had a big box of
rumble fishing outsider stuff. She come out the she come
out the room. She has this painting and it's the
original painted illustration of the the first edition of the paperback,
which is this orange cover kind of looks a little
bit like it doesn't it's not apropos of. It doesn't

(47:39):
look outsiders is. She didn't like it either, but it
looks kind of like beat nick, you know, like you
still didn't understand the vibe yet. But it's the original.
I'm an artist, and I'm like, you're giving me this
is pre inner, you know, pre computer art, and this
is straight you painted this left the blank spot for
the titling and the price, and she goes, would you
be interested in this? And I was like, I grabbed
my heart and I was like yes. And then she

(48:01):
goes hold on, and then she goes into the closet.
She comes back out she brings Dallas Winston's leather jacket.
She goes, what about this? And I was like, oh,
so now I got Dallas Winston's leather jacket, call sheets
from the movie from Essie Hinton's hand. Yeah, I got
painting that was from the publishing company that they gave
her when that publishing company went out of business. I
was like, Dell whatever, and a director's chair and a

(48:25):
vintage poster. I'm like, okay, now I'm trying to pull
it all together.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
And I got to call this out because God bless her.
Susie Hinton is an incredible, incredible writer. But she is
also kind of notoriously and she would tell you this herself,
notoriously protective of this book and this film. And so
it's a.

Speaker 4 (48:42):
Bit of a recluse, even though she denies it, and
she's a she don't suffer no fools, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 1 (48:48):
That's right, And it speaks volumes, danny to your ability
to demonstrate to her pretty quickly like you're legit. This
means something to me, and I'm gonna protect it. I
will help you protect this legacy. So so you do that,
you start putting this stuff together. You're reaching out to
cast and crew members, not just for memorabilia but for memory.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
And did you have a number or a ballpark number
in mind of how many exhibits you needed to actually say, yep,
I have in a museum.

Speaker 4 (49:14):
Now you know what it was. It was a trial
by fire man. It took three and a half years.
The first interview I did, they said, this is awesome.
How long do you reckon? It'll take you? And I'm like, oh,
three to six months. You know, we had to pull
that house to the sticks by the way, one hundred
year old house almost one hundred yeards now and all
that house needed was a brand new house. And we
literally just started from scratch. And you know, I got

(49:36):
a PhD on all of this stuff in three and
a half years. Man, And you know I started the project.
I think I was two hundred and eighty five pounds.
I'm now like two hundred and fifty. People were like, man,
you lost weight. I'm like, no, it's in there somewhere
because it'll get you. You know that that kind of works.
It's mental. It's like you got to give it all

(49:56):
in there to make these things happen.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
Right, Well, I love this. In this interview I read
with you, it was during the over three year innovation
you said that your life started feeling like one big
game of whack a mole and that you were wearing
one hundred different hats. Quote from you, I am the
pr guy, I am the market guy. I am the accountant,
I am the foreman, I am the designer, I am

(50:20):
the creator, I am the owner. I am overwhelmed.

Speaker 4 (50:25):
Amsterdam roam who gets the damn right?

Speaker 1 (50:27):
And yet I will tell you because I was there
for the grand opening. However, many years after you were revided, right,
I was. I was there. The Mayor of Tulsa was there,
Susie Hinton was there. See Thomas Howell, Darren Dalton, all
kinds of other extras and crew folks. It was so amazing, Danny,
to see what you had willed into being, what you
had worked so hard to create, and they even wound

(50:50):
up giving you the key to the city of Tulsa.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Is this when you first met No.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
No, we had previously met before prior to the grand opening,
but this is now a place and I have to
tell you if you have any reason. There are many
reasons to go to Tulsa, but if you have any
reason to even pass through Tulsa, you have to go
to this museum. You will know what we're talking about
when you get there and see this place for yourself.
It's very very special. But it's also a place that

(51:15):
all kinds of people have visited, and not just pretty
much every member of the cast at this point, but
also folks like Leonardo DiCaprio and Green Day and Angelina,
Joelee and Billie Idl to drop kick Murphy's everybody's been there,
not to mention, and this is probably more important half
of the elementary and middle school kids in Tulsa and
in the surrounding areas. And it's really inspiring, and it

(51:39):
really really plugs into so much of what that movie
brought and what that book brought to people, which is
that sort of overcoming struggle and finding a place that
you could call your home and finding a place that
you felt welcome. And now my old hometown is your
new home for life. So now that you've adopted. What

(52:00):
is it that you think speaks to you so strongly
about Tulsa.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
I mean I get asked a lot what is it?
And it's after thinking about it and I have to
think too long. But the best that Tulsa is is
the people and their authenticity. And there's no bullshit with
the Tulsa, Like they going to give you the shirt
off their back. If you're real, they're real. If you're
not real, they don't bother. So it's the people first

(52:27):
and foremost. When I was a kid growing up, even
back East Man, I remember many times seeing somebody. My
grandfather would be like hold on. He would jump out
the car and I was like, where's he going. I'd
watch him run up to another car with two other
guys that just jumped out of the car and pushed
the car to the gas station. You know, this is
during the oil crisis in the seventies, right, people would
run out of gas man. It would be like you'd
run it, but your neighbors or strangers would just jump

(52:49):
out and help you. That happens nowadays people are honking
giving the bird get them right, and we've lost that humanity.
But I came here and I started to see it
like I remembered it, how we could be good humans,
how people were where someone would I remember getting the
knock on the side of our door when I live
in my grandparents it would be our neighbors. You'd be like, hey,
is your grandmother here? I came to borrow some sugar.

(53:11):
They give it your breath with butter, and they would
It was no problem. Like we knew our neighbors, We
knew everybody. Tosa's very much like that. The American dream
is alive and well here and Trey you know better
than anybody else. But in two thousand and nine when
I came here, it was a lot different than it
is today. When we cut the ribbon in twenty sixteen,
it was a lot different than it is today. But
since cutting that ribbon, my dream and this thing happened, Sarah.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
It was.

Speaker 4 (53:35):
It was like a serendipitous type of thing. But meanwhile,
while I was doing this, you know, Mary Beth Babcock
was doing had a crazy dream to bring a space
cowboy to life. On Root sixty six, we have the
largest Oklahoma has the largest ritable amount of Root sixty
six left, and Tousa has now reclaimed that route and
as we sended all the old laws that allowed you

(53:56):
that didn't allow you, to put the neons up again
and they and she's bread this whole life into the
whole root sixty six again. And Teresa Knox took Leon
Russell's legacy, which was like a dying legacy if you will.
I mean, you know, his fans are aging out, you
know what I mean. I didn't even I had heard
of him. I saw a documentary, you know, the about
the Hit Squad or whatever they would call the Hit

(54:17):
Makers or at gold Star Studios or whatever. Yeah, and
I was cool, cool, that's awesome. But she literally took
her hard work and her money and she put her
vision to life. They resurrected the Church studios, which was
a decrepit, you know, building the church. It was going
to fall in on herself. And she's made this spectacular
museum and the gathering place with the with the half

(54:40):
a billion dollar park that they've made for everybody. And
I could go on and on, but this place now
it's hard for me to tell you all we have
to offer.

Speaker 5 (54:49):
Yeah, but back in the days, it was like you
can go to Kayne's ballroom and you can go. I
don't know where you can go to the Restless Ribbon,
and perhaps you know, but today it's a very different place.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Man.

Speaker 4 (55:01):
But it wouldn't matter how many things there was to
offer if Tulson's and Okie's weren't the good people that
they are.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
Man, you're right about that. But what you won't say
about yourself, But what I know many Tulson's will say
about you is you are a particularly good human who
kind of lit a fire. And it's been really wonderful,
even from Afar. But certainly when I go home to
see how like I sort of picture Crutchfield when you
got there in black and white, and then when you

(55:29):
open the Outsider's Museum, I start to see color spread
through the neighborhood, through the community, through the city at large.
And it's really really something special that you've created. So listen,
if people are fans of the book or the movie,
or or now, like I said, the Tony Award winning
Broadway play, or maybe they just dig you and your
music and your mission and they want to support this

(55:51):
dream that you brought to life in North Tulsa. First
of all, I'm sure you'd want them to visit the
Outsider's House Museum in person if they can, but if
they can't, or at least until they can, they can
also visit your website and find other ways to donate
and support the museum. That is by going to the
Outsidershouse dot com. We will also post a link to
that on our bigod Humans podcast website. Danny, thank you

(56:14):
very much, not just for taking the time to be
with us today, but also for all you've done to
preserve such an important creative legacy. Thank you also for
the ways that you've kind of helped and I say
this as a social I know I'm forever marked as
social concession stand but but you've also helped greasers and
sosias kind of come a little bit closer. So I'm

(56:35):
proud of you for doing that in all the best ways.
You are definitely that guy who who came to get down.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
Your appearance here, your visit. Thank you for being on
the show. And you have to know we do uh,
We're very proud to say we've done a lot of
these shows. I don't think I've ever seen Tray so
excited to interview an old friend.

Speaker 4 (56:54):
The philis Mutual. Thank you, Trey, and thank you and
Thank you, Brian. I would be remiss not to tell
you this. You know that sEH And wrote this book
when she was fifteen and a half. She failed English
and got a deeplus and creative writing that year. This
book has never been out of print in fifty five years.
It's told more copy on the fiftieth anniversary than all
the years combined. It was a book, it was a movie.
Now it's a Tony Award winning musical. It's still going,

(57:16):
it's still growing. When I built this museum, I thought
I was building it for me, you and guys like
us to look at Matt Dylan's wardrobe and I look
at the knives. But on accident, I built the children's museum.
And we've done over six thousand kids just last school
year alone. We're expected to do ten to twelve thousand
this year. They come from all parts of this Midwest.

(57:37):
And when I see these kids light up, and I realized, Man,
this thing wasn't about middle aged greasers looking at the
you know, collectibles. It was about future generations reading this
book and seeing what I saw, which was the part
in the book where you know in the movie it says,
can you see the sun side sunset from the you know,
the north side. You can see it from the south
side too, you dig okay. In the book it says

(57:59):
although a world were completely different, we still saw the
same sunset. For me, that's a beautiful concept because I
can look up on this side of town and you
can look up from your side town. If we both
see it and we both agree, it's beautiful by default.
It brings us one step together, one step closer. Ye
and being recovered alcoholic and addict. I was taught early
on man, look for the similarities and not the differences.

(58:20):
It's so easy to find what's different about all of us, black, whiter, pinstripe, left,
right or center, whatever. I try to put those things
aside and just meet you where you are and see
you for who you are, just you know, and we
can go from there. And I got that from you, guys.
And I will end by saying this. You know, theories
and concepts are great, but if you don't see them applied,

(58:42):
what they're useless. You know, when I got here, people
started to do for me what I had only heard
about in the past, like oh yeah, you give and
you sell receive and you know, you got to give
it to keep it and I'm good for you, good luck,
because I'm here for the taken. But when you guys
showed me what that looked like and you were of
service to with no hidden cause, I could not move

(59:03):
forward in the ways I had been moving with was
the scarcity mindset, and I had to change my whole
way of thinking was revolutionary and that I do my
best to constantly be of service. And I learned that
from you guys, from Tulsan's and uh, this is why
I've made it my home. And then it'll never you know,
it will never not be that. So thank you well.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
Tulsa is lucky to have you, as you would say,
you're lucky to have them as well.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
And we have been very lucky to have you for
a for a Greaser, You're a pretty damn good human.
Danny Boy O'Connor, thank you so much for joining us.
There is literally only one thing we have left to
say to you, and that is stay gold.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
I appreciate your brother.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
We will thank you suck.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Welcome back to you and gentleman to the Be Good
Humans Podcast. Let me ask you how long have you
known each other?

Speaker 1 (59:57):
Not that long? I mean he reached out in that
era of time when he was just putting together the museum,
he had found somehow found the letter jacket that I
wore in the movie and reached out to me online
and was like, hey, would you if I send you
this jacket, would you consider signing it? And I was like, well, yeah, wow,
that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
But like well, he also mentioned wouldn't we said goodbye
before he left? He signed off, He goes, Trey won't
tell you this, but to the opening. You flew out
open the grand opening of the museum, he said. And
you know what, Trey flew himself. He wouldn't take He
wouldn't let us pay for a ticket, he wouldn't do.

(01:00:37):
He flew himself out there. And so you mean a
lot to him man, as many many people do.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Obviously. Likewise, he's a special guy and he's done something
special in Tulsa. We got to wrap this up. Do
it the favor. If you haven't already, like and subscribe,
that's always helpful to us. Follow us on the socials.
We would love to interact with you there and go
to our website be Good Humor podcast dot com, where
you can not only tell us about the good humans

(01:01:03):
in your lives. We will also post a link to
the Outsider's House dot com where you can get more
information there.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
And we want you to tell us about the good
humans in your life because we might have them on.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Yeah, we've done it before and we're gonna do it again.
Damn it all right?

Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
Well, to wrap the whole thing up, uh, just make
sure you go see the Outsider's House museum sooner.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
Rather than later. Oh, I see what you a little
oakie humor there?

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
Sooner.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
That's really cute rather than later. I thought you were
gonna come back at me with my What you're gonna
do about it? Yeah, okay, we're gonna have to go now.
And I'm sorry if you don't like that. But what
you gonna do about it? You know it? Just correct
me up.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
You can do that every day on the show, every episode.
If you do that, we'll be back next time, which
is a good time to come back.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Be good humans.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
We'll see you later. What's you gonna do about it?

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Good humans? Be good? Be good humans, or we will
thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Suck to Be Good Humans is executive produced by Brian Phelps,
Trey Callaway, and Grant Anderson, with associate producers Sean Fitzgerald
and Clementine Callaway, and partnership with straw Hut Media. Please like, follow,
and subscribe, and remember be good humans.