06/16/2026
Get ready Tulsa!!! The OF’s are getting ready to make their debut!!
Love it. Here’s your punk rock origin story for The OF’s from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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The OF’s: "Outcasts Forever"
The Story:
The OF’s didn't form in a garage. They formed in the back of a gutted 1997 Dodge Caravan behind a condemned QuikTrip on East 11th Street—what locals still call Route 66, though no one’s proud of it anymore.
It was July. 104 degrees. The asphalt was sweating.
Mickey "Stix" Harjo had just been kicked out of his third straight hardcore band for "caring too much about melody." He was sitting on a cinder block, nursing a warm 40, when Remy Torres rolled up on a BMX bike with a bent fork. Remy had a broken acoustic guitar with only four strings and a stolen bass drum pedal in his backpack. He wasn't supposed to be there. He'd just walked out of his own going-away party because his stepdad made him shake hands with a youth pastor.
"Got anything to say?" Remy asked.
Mickey looked at the boarded-up pawn shop across the street, the drunk guy peeing on a telephone pole, the oil-stained Tulsa sky. He thought about his older sister who left for the coast and never called. He thought about the church on every corner telling him he was broken.
"Yeah," Mickey said. "I got a lot."
They wrote their first song right there on the cracked pavement. It was called "This Town's a Waiting Room." Thirty seconds long. Two chords. A scream about watching your friends disappear into v**e shops, strip malls, and Jesus.
Three weeks later, they found Dax at a punk show inside a VFW hall. Dax was 19, already balding, already divorced, already working the night shift at a tire factory. He played bass like he was trying to punch a hole through the floor. His amp was held together with duct tape and spite.
Someone asked what "OF" stood for.
Mickey didn't hesitate. "Outcasts Forever."
Dax shook his head. "Nah. Oklahom(a) Fu**ed." Pause. "Same thing."
Remy, tuning his guitar with a lighter, shrugged. "The apostrophe's just there to p**s off grammar nerds."
The Vibe: Fast, sloppy, melodic when it hurts. Lyrics about trailer parks, dead malls, absentee dads, and the particular loneliness of being young in a city that wants you to either leave or shut up. They play like they've got nothing to lose—because they don't.
First single idea: "Tornado Season (And You're Still Here)" — 1:47 of fury with a singalong chorus that sounds like an anthem for everyone who got left behind.
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Want me to write the lyrics for that first single? Or come up with a legendary first show disaster (like Mickey's amp catching fire during the second song)? Here's the final, hidden piece of The OF's—the song that never got played, and the bootleg merch that kept their ghost alive.
First Single: "Tornado Season (And You're Still Here)"
(1:47. Fast. Sloppy. Two chords verse, three chords chorus. Drums sound like someone falling down stairs.)
Verse 1:
Red dirt sky, another warning
Sirens go off every morning
You said you'd leave by twenty-three
Now you're stocking shelves at twenty-eight
Same parking lot, same broken gate
How many times you watch the sirens eat the street?
Chorus:
Tornado season, and you're still here
Watching your friends disappear
Tornado season, baby, ain't it clear?
The only thing that tears through town is your own fear
Verse 2:
Church sign says "Get Right or Get Left"
I'm already both, I'm already wrecked
Mama prays while I pack my bag
She don't know I'm already gone
Been gone since 2001
Just took my body this long to drag
(Chorus)
Bridge: (spoken/shouted over feedback)
"Route 66 is a dead end now!
The oil's gone!
The hope's gone!
What the hell are we still doing here?!"
Outro: (everything speeding up, falling apart)
Tornado season!
(Still here!)
Tornado season!
(Still here!)
I'm still—
(cut. abrupt silence. then one last scream.)
STILL HERE!
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The Legendary First Show Disaster
Date: August 17th, 8:00 PM
Venue: The Crawlspace (Tulsa's smallest DIY venue—literally an unfinished basement under a laundromat, capacity: maybe 40 if everyone held their breath)
The Setup:
The OF's were booked as openers for a touring grindcore band from Kansas City called Re**al Birth. They got the slot because Dax knew the promoter from AA meetings. Mickey had never played a show sober. Remy had never played a show period—his only audience before this was a possum that lived under the Dodge Caravan.
The Disaster (in three parts):
1. The Amp Situation
Dax's bass amp—the duct-tape-and-spite special—began smoking during soundcheck. Not metaphorically. Actual gray smoke with a smell like burnt hair and bad decisions. The promoter, a guy named Skid who wore a gas mask for no reason, said "run it anyway." Dax put a wet towel over the amp. The towel caught fire.
2. The Set
They started "This Town's a Waiting Room" at double speed because Mickey's heart was trying to escape his chest. Remy broke his only guitar string twelve seconds in. Instead of stopping, he played the remaining three strings so hard his fingers bled onto the fretboard. Dax was now visibly on fire—not his amp this time, his shirt sleeve—and kept playing while stomping it out mid-song.
3. The Apostrophe Incident
Halfway through the second song (a new one called "QuikTrip Parking Lot Confessional"), a drunk guy from the crowd grabbed the mic and screamed: "WHY IS THERE AN APOSTROPHE IN YOUR NAME? IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!"
Mickey grabbed the mic back. He stared at the guy. The band kept playing behind him.
"Because," Mickey said, still screaming, "EVERYONE TOLD US WE DIDN'T BELONG. THE APOSTROPHE MEANS WE'RE MISSING SOMETHING. WE'RE MISSING YOUR APPROVAL. WE'RE MISSING A REASON TO CARE. WE'RE—"
He fell backward over Dax's burning amp. Remy caught him with his bloody hand. The crowd, all 32 of them, lost their minds.
The Aftermath:
They played three more songs (two covers of Dead Kennedys badly remembered, one original called "Sell Your Guitar, Buy a Gun, I Don't Care Anymore"). The fire spread to a pile of zines. Skid put it out with a mop. The touring headliner refused to go on because of the smoke damage, so The OF's played their set twice.
Seven people got the band's logo tattooed that night. No one remembers what the logo looks like. Everyone remembers the apostrophe speech.
Lasting Legacy in Tulsa: The Crawlspace closed six months later (unrelated fire, actually). But every year on August 17th, someone spray-paints "OF's" with a crooked apostrophe under the QuikTrip overhang where Mickey first sat on that cinder block.
The store managers paint over it. It's back the next day.
Let's lock it in. Here's the second single and the official band logo—two more pieces of the OF's legend.
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Second Single: "QuikTrip Parking Lot Confessional"
(1:52. Slower verse, explosive chorus. Sounds like The Replacements if they'd given up completely.)
Verse 1:
Quarter tank of regret, 87 octane
Slurpee's mostly melted, same as my brain
Sitting on a curb where a curb shouldn't be
Watching cops ignore the guy asleep in the landscaping
Pre-chorus:
I told God I'd quit smoking if he gave me a sign
He sent a guy asking for a cigarette at 2:09
Chorus:
This is my QuikTrip parking lot confession
I stole twenty bucks from my own graduation present
I miss a girl whose last name I don't remember
It's August in Oklahoma—everything's on fire except December
Verse 2:
A pastor in a Tesla cuts me off for a v**e refill
Jesus on a bumper sticker says "What Would I Kill?"
The bathroom key's on a broken hockey puck
I've been in this city too long, man, I'm all out of luck
Pre-chorus:
I told the cashier I'd change my life tomorrow
She said "That'll be $4.67" with zero sorrow
Chorus
Bridge: (quiet, almost spoken—then builds)
I saw my dad here last spring
Buying lottery tickets and a six-pack ring
He didn't see me. Or maybe he did.
That's kinda worse, you know?
Outro: (shouted, band falling apart)
QT PARKING LOT!
QT PARKING LOT!
BEST CONFESSION I EVER HAD!
(drum crash. silence. then a single Slurpee straw being thrown at a trash can and missing.)
---
Official Band Logo Description
The Visual:
The OF's logo looks like something a bored teenager carved into a high school desk with a pocketknife during detention—because that's exactly what happened. Mickey drew it on his math final in 11th grade after finishing the test in four minutes (he failed anyway).
Elements:
· The letters: "OF" in jagged, uneven capitals. Each letter is slightly different sizes, like they were traced from three different fonts by someone with shaky hands.
· The apostrophe: It's not where it should be. It sits above and between the O and F, floating like a misplaced comma or a bird that flew into a window. When people ask why, Remy says "grammar's for people with house payments."
· The frame: A sloppy circle around the whole thing, but the line doesn't connect at the top—it's open, like a donut with a bite taken out.
· The background texture: Crosshatch lines meant to look like chain-link fence or Tulsa County jail visitation glass.
· Hidden detail: If you look close, the bottom of the letter "F" extends into a tiny arrow pointing down and left—toward Texas, according to Dax. "The direction we should've driven."
Color palette (when not just black sharpie on a white tee):
· Rust orange (for the dirt)
· P**s yellow (for the QuikTrip sign)
· Concrete gray (for every parking lot they've ever cried in)
The joke: Mickey once submitted this logo to a graphic design competition at Tulsa Community College as a prank. It got honorable mention. The judge wrote "interesting use of negative space and cultural decay" on the feedback form.
Remy framed it.
Hell yeah. Here's the full demo tape for The OF's—every song, the back cover text, and the legendary recording session that almost killed them.
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Demo Tape: "We're Just Here Until the Tornado Hits"
Format: Cassette only. 30 copies. Hand-dubbed in Dax's ex-wife's basement while she was at work. J-card printed on stolen copy paper from the tire factory. Each cover has a different coffee ring stain—"hand-distressed," Mickey called it.
Release Date: October 13th (Dax's ex-wife's birthday—he wanted it to hurt)
Price: $3 or trade for a pack of Camels, a working tuner, or information on how to leave Tulsa
Track listing (Side A):
1. "This Town's a Waiting Room" (0:31)
· Two chords. One scream. Ends with a car horn because someone tried to pull into the driveway during the take. They kept it.
2. "Tornado Season (And You're Still Here)" (1:47)
· The "single." Remy's guitar solo is just him hitting the same bent note nine times while making a face like he ate a lemon.
3. "QuikTrip Parking Lot Confessional" (1:52)
· Features uncredited backing vocals from a stray cat that wandered into the basement. They did not ask the cat's name.
Track listing (Side B):
4. "Sell Your Guitar, Buy a Gun, I Don't Care Anymore" (2:04)
· The longest song. Has a bass solo. Dax played it wrong, then played it wrong again the same way, so they called it jazz.
5. "My Sister Sent a Postcard from Portland (I Set It on Fire)" (0:58)
· Fastest song. Mickey wrote the lyrics while actually on fire—his hoodie caught on a space heater. The scream at the end is real.
6. "We're Just Here Until the Tornado Hits" (1:23)
· Title track. Acoustic intro (Remy's four-string guitar). Then everyone crashes in like a wall of bad decisions. Ends with sixty seconds of silence, then a hidden track: Dax opening a beer and saying "well, that's that."
Back cover text:
Recorded in a basement with mold we chose not to test. Mixed on headphones that only worked in one ear. Mastered by holding a boombox up to another boombox.
The OF's are not a career move. The OF's are not a resume line. The OF's are what happens when three people decide that screaming into a microphone is cheaper than therapy and more honest than church.
We made this for the other people sitting in QuikTrip parking lots at 2 AM. You know who you are. You're the reason the apostrophe is there.
Tulsa made us. Tulsa can't kill us.
—The OF's
PS: The cassette might eat your tape deck. That's not a bug. That's a feature.
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The Recording Session That Almost Killed Them
Date: September 4th (three weeks after the Crawlspace fire show)
Location: The "basement" (unfinished cellar under Dax's ex-wife's duplex. She was upstairs watching The Bachelor.)
The Gear:
· One working microphone (borrowed from a karaoke machine)
· A four-track recorder Dax found in a dumpster behind Oral Roberts University
· Two guitars, one bass, one drum kit missing the floor tom (replaced with a pizza box)
· Eleven total guitar picks, eight of which were actually cut-up credit cards
The Disaster(s):
Take One (9:00 PM): Mickey started screaming the first line of "This Town's a Waiting Room" and immediately threw up on the microphone. Not from nerves—from the smell. The basement had a drain. The drain had opinions. Remy recorded it anyway. That take is on the final tape. Listen closely: the gurgle before the first chord is Mickey's dinner.
Take Four (11:30 PM): While recording "Sell Your Guitar, Buy a Gun," Dax's amp caught fire again. This time, the ex-wife's cat—a large, angry orange tabby named Kevin—panicked, ran across the drum kit, and kicked over a candle. The candle landed on a stack of pizza boxes. The pizza boxes were the drum kit. Remy kept playing. The fire alarm was a smoke detector with no batteries. They recorded the whole thing. You can hear Kevin yowling on the final mix.
Take Seven (2:00 AM): The upstairs neighbor—a 70-year-old woman named Gladys who Dax swears was a roadie for The Ramones in the 70s—banged on the floor with a broom handle. Not because they were loud. Because she wanted to request "Tornado Season" again. She said "the screaming one" and handed down a plate of cold lasagna. The lasagna is credited as "executive producer" on the J-card.
The Almost-Death (3:30 AM): The basement flooded. Not dramatically—just a slow seep of brown water from the drain that had opinions. They recorded the final track standing on cinder blocks, holding instruments above their heads. The last line of "We're Just Here Until the Tornado Hits"—"well, that's that"—is Dax stepping off a cinder block into six inches of Tulsa groundwater and accepting his fate.
The Masterpiece: They finished at 5:47 AM. Dax's ex-wife came downstairs in a bathrobe, looked at the three of them—soaked, smelling like cat and campfire, holding a cassette tape like it was a winning lottery ticket—and said:
"You're all idiots."
She made them pancakes. She kept a copy of the tape. She's not his ex-wife anymore. They got remarried at a QuikTrip. The manager officiated.
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Bonus: Demo Release Show
They played the demo release at a skate park that had no lights. Everyone brought flashlights. The set lasted eleven minutes. Someone stole Dax's bass. He found it two weeks later behind a dumpster with a note that said "sorry, you guys actually rule."
The OF's never pressed another tape.
They didn't need to.
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Want me to write the lyrics for "My Sister Sent a Postcard from Portland (I Set It on Fire)" or "Sell Your Guitar, Buy a Gun" next? Or should we invent their inevitable breakup story (Tulsa style)?
Let's close this out properly. Here's everything—the remaining two songs, and the only way a Tulsa punk band like The OF's could possibly end.
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Song 4: "Sell Your Guitar, Buy a Gun, I Don't Care Anymore"
(2:04. Slow, sludgy, hungover. Sounds like something recorded at 4 AM by someone who meant to go to bed three hours ago.)
Verse 1:
I used to think these four strings meant something
Like I could strum my way out of this town
Now I just play the same three chords
And watch the rust spread on the Crown Vic I can't afford
Pre-chorus:
My guitar teacher quit when I was fourteen
Said "kid, you got no feel, just mean"
He wasn't wrong. He wasn't right.
He just couldn't see I was trying to fight the quiet.
Chorus:
Sell your guitar, buy a gun
I don't care anymore, I'm already done
Sell your guitar, buy a gun
Or don't. Whatever. The night's already won.
Verse 2:
My amp sounds like a busted radio
My drummer's ex-wife won't stop texting him slow
My singer cried into a Slurpee last week
Said "I miss a girl who never even liked my band"
I said "bro, same, but I don't understand—
You miss the idea or the actual sleep she stole?"
(Chorus)
Bridge: (spoken, barely awake)
"I wrote a su***de note once.
It just said 'sorry about the mess.'
Then I realized—
I haven't made a mess big enough to be sorry for yet.
So here's another chorus."
(Chorus — slower this time, falling apart)
Outro: (whispered over a single guitar string)
Sell your guitar...
Buy a gun...
I don't care...
(feedback swell, then nothing)
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Song 5: "My Sister Sent a Postcard from Portland (I Set It on Fire)"
(0:58. Fastest song on the tape. Drums sound like someone throwing silverware down stairs.)
Verse 1 (shouted, barely breathing):
Picture on the front some mountain I don't know
Back says "wish you were here" in cursive
WISH YOU WERE HERE?!
I AM HERE!
I'VE ALWAYS BEEN HERE!
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN MOM LOST THE HOUSE?!
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN DAD WENT SOUTH?!
Chorus (full scream):
BURNED IT IN THE QUICKTRIP LOT
ASHES IN THE GUTTER, WATCH 'EM ROT
PORTLAND'S PRETTY? TULSA'S NOT
BUT AT LEAST I'M REAL AND YOU'RE A POSTCARD, PLOT!
Verse 2 (faster, unhinged):
She's drinking kombucha, I'm drinking regret
She's got a career, I've got a cassette
She's got a therapist, I've got a parking lot
She's got a future, I've got—
(drum crash)
NOTHING!
(Chorus — now with feedback)
Bridge (5 seconds, no breathing):
FIRE!
FIRE!
FIRE!
Outro (spoken over dying amp):
"I called her after.
She didn't answer.
Left a voicemail of me lighting another match.
She texted back 'that's concerning.'
Yeah, Becky.
That's the point."
(One last chord. Then a lighter flick. Then nothing.)
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The Breakup Story (Tulsa Style)
How The OF's ended:
They didn't break up in a dramatic fight. They didn't get signed. No one OD'd. No one joined a better band.
They just... faded.
The Timeline:
November (after the demo): A guy from a "real label" (some dude in a beanie who drove down from Chicago in his mom's Subaru) came to a show. He said they had "potential" but needed to "clean up the sound" and "lose the apostrophe." Mickey told him to leave. Remy threw a Slurpee at the Subaru. Dax apologized. The guy left. The OF's played a Ramones cover as a victory lap.
December: They booked a tour. Three shows: Oklahoma City, Norman, and back to Tulsa. They made it to OKC. The van (Dax's ex-wife's Honda Civic) blew a head gasket on I-44. They played the show anyway—acoustic, in a pizza parking lot, to a guy walking his dog. The dog hated it. The guy bought a tape.
January: Dax got a promotion at the tire factory. Day shift. Couldn't make practices anymore. Remy got a girlfriend who "didn't get it" (his words). Mickey started community college. Just one class. Intro to creative writing. The professor said his lyrics were "interesting but derivative." Mickey stopped showing up.
February: They had one last practice. No one said it was the last practice. Dax brought his bass but forgot his cable. Remy's guitar was at his girlfriend's apartment. Mickey had a paper due. They sat in Dax's basement—the same basement—and drank warm beer and listened to the demo tape all the way through.
No one said "this is it."
But when Mickey left, he didn't take his cinder block.
The Epilogue (six months later):
Remy works at that same QuikTrip now. The one with the apostrophe. He stocks the Slurpee machine. Sometimes kids come in wearing OF's shirts—bootlegs, mostly, the apostrophe in the wrong place. He doesn't say anything. Just nods.
Dax is married again. To the same woman. They have a kid. The kid's middle name is Kevin (after the cat). Dax still has the bass. He plays it sometimes, in the garage, when no one's listening.
Mickey moved. Not far. Just to the other side of Tulsa. He works at a used bookstore. He wrote a poem once about the QuikTrip parking lot. The bookstore put it in the window. Someone stole it.
The Crawlspace is an apartment now. The skate park got lights. The QuikTrip got remodeled. The cinder block disappeared.
But:
Every August 17th, someone still spray-paints "OF's" with that crooked apostrophe under the overhang. No one knows who. Remy says it's not him. Dax says he's too tired. Mickey doesn't answer.
Last year, someone added a line underneath:
"We're still here."
The OF's never officially broke up.
They just ran out of things to scream about.
For now.
---
And that's the complete story of The OF's—from cinder block to cassette to legend. Tulsa's own. Outcasts Forever. Or Oklahom(a) Fu**ed. Depends who you ask.
The apostrophe stays.
Want me to write their one and only interview (for a zine that no longer exists) or design the setlist from that final, unspoken practice?
Here's the final piece of the puzzle—the only interview The OF's ever gave, and the setlist from that last practice where nobody said goodbye.
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The Only Interview The OF's Ever Gave
Publication: Broken Amp Zine (Issue #4 – "Tulsa Special")
Issue run: 47 photocopied pages, stapled twice, sold at exactly one record store for exactly three weeks before the owner threw the remaining copies away because "nobody buys local s**t"
Interviewer: A 16-year-old named Piper who showed up in a Crass hoodie and took notes on her phone
Date: The week after the demo came out. The band was already falling apart. Nobody knew it yet.
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Piper: So. The OF's. What does it actually stand for?
Mickey: (long pause) Depends on the day.
Remy: Today?
Mickey: Today it's "Oklahoma's Finest."
Dax: (laughs into his beer) That's the first lie you've told all week.
Remy: We told a guy once it stood for "Original F**kups." He believed us.
Piper: And the apostrophe?
Mickey: (stares at the tape recorder) Next question.
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Piper: You guys got semi-famous locally after that fire show at The Crawlspace. What's that feel like?
Dax: We're not famous. We're just loud.
Remy: A guy yelled "you suck" at us last week from a pickup truck. That's not fame. That's Tuesday.
Mickey: This one time, a kid came up to me at the QuikTrip and said "you changed my life." I didn't know what to say. So I said "sorry." He said "for what?" I said "for everything." He bought a tape anyway.
Piper: Do you think you've changed anyone's life?
Mickey: (long silence) I think we've made some people feel less alone in a parking lot. That's not the same thing. But it's not nothing.
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Piper: Your lyrics are really dark. Is that real or just a bit?
Remy: (holds up his bleeding fingertip from the fire show – still scarred) You tell me.
Dax: I think people forget that Tulsa is just... heavy. It's not sad here. It's heavy. Like wearing a wet coat all the time. The songs are just us taking the coat off for a minute.
Mickey: My professor said my lyrics were "derivative."
Piper: Of what?
Mickey: (shrugs) Living here, I guess.
---
Piper: What's the plan? Tour? Album? Get signed?
Dax: (genuinely confused) To what?
Remy: The plan is we play until we can't. Or don't want to. Whichever comes first.
Mickey: You know that scene in a movie where the band gets in a van and drives toward a horizon? That's not us. We don't have a van. We don't have a horizon. We have a Honda Civic with a bad transmission and a basement that floods.
Piper: So no plan?
Mickey: The plan is to make it to next week.
Remy: (quietly) And if we don't, at least we made this.
---
Piper: Last question. If the band ends tomorrow, what do you want people to remember?
Dax: That we meant it.
Remy: That the apostrophe was intentional.
Mickey: (looks at the floor for a long time) That someone sat on a cinder block behind a QuikTrip in July and decided to scream instead of disappear. And maybe that's enough. Maybe that's all any of us get.
Piper: That's beautiful.
Mickey: (almost smiling) It's just Tulsa, kid.
Remy: Same thing.
---
The interview ends there. The tape ran out. Piper never published Issue #5. She moved to Chicago the next year. She still has the demo.
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The Setlist from the Last Practice (February 19th – Unspoken Final Show)
Location: Dax's basement (the same one)
Attendance: 3 people, 1 cat (Kevin), 1 ex-wife (upstairs, watching TV)
Duration: 22 minutes
Mood: Nobody said "this is the last time"
The Setlist (handwritten on a torn piece of cardboard – Dax's handwriting, smudged by beer sweat):
1. "This Town's a Waiting Room" (0:31)
· Played it twice because Mickey forgot the words the first time. Forgot them again. Didn't matter.
2. "QuikTrip Parking Lot Confessional" (1:52)
· Remy played the solo wrong on purpose. Same wrong as always. Dax nodded.
3. "Sell Your Guitar, Buy a Gun" (2:04)
· Midway through, the ex-wife stomped on the floor. They stopped. She yelled "turn it up." They did.
4. "Tornado Season" (1:47)
· Mickey screamed the chorus so hard his voice cracked. Left the crack in. No take-backs.
5. "My Sister Sent a Postcard" (0:58)
· Fastest version they ever played. Kevin the cat ran out of the room. So did something else. Maybe the feeling.
6. "We're Just Here Until the Tornado Hits" (1:23)
· They played it slow. Too slow. Like a funeral for something not dead yet. Dax's bass kept drifting out of tune. Nobody fixed it.
Encore (unplanned):
7. "Unknown"
· They stood there for a full minute. No one started a song. No one packed up. Just three people in a basement, holding instruments, not playing them.
· Then Mickey said "I think that's it."
· Remy said "yeah."
· Dax said "okay."
· They unplugged.
---
The last sound ever made by The OF's:
Not a chord. Not a scream. Not a broken string.
Just Dax's amp humming for thirty seconds after everything was turned off.
Then the ex-wife called down the stairs:
"You guys want pancakes?"
Mickey said yes.
---
Final Credits
The OF's
Mickey "Stix" Harjo – vocals, cinder block
Remy Torres – guitar, bloody fingertips, the apostrophe
Dax – bass, duct tape, two marriages (same woman)
Discography:
"We're Just Here Until the Tornado Hits" (demo tape, 30 copies, all sold or lost or kept in a shoebox somewhere)
Legacy:
A spray-painted apostrophe that keeps coming back.
A QuikTrip parking lot that remembers.
A basement that still smells like cat and ambition.
Status:
Not broken up. Just quiet.
For now.
---
"Tulsa made us. Tulsa can't kill us."
— The OF's (Outcasts Forever / Oklahom(a) Fu**ed / whatever you need it to be)
---
Want me to write the lyrics for that mysterious seventh song they almost played—the one that never got a name? Or design the bootleg merch that kids still sell outside shows?
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The Seventh Song (Never Named, Never Recorded, Almost Played)
What we know:
At that last practice—February 19th, the unspoken goodbye—after they finished "We're Just Here Until the Tornado Hits," there was a silence. Not an empty silence. A full one. Like something was trying to be born and changed its mind.
Mickey looked at Remy. Remy looked at Dax. Dax looked at his bass.
Then Mickey started humming. Not singing. Humming. A melody no one had heard before. Low. Slow. Like a lullaby for people who'd never had one.
Remy's fingers found the chords without being told. Dax's bass crept in underneath, barely there, like a heartbeat you're not sure you're hearing.
They played it for maybe forty-five seconds. No lyrics. Just the hum, the chords, the breath.
Then Mickey stopped.
"That's not ours," he said.
Remy nodded. "Not yet."
Dax set down his bass. "Maybe never."
They didn't play it again.
---
What the song was (according to scattered memories):
· Mickey, years later, drunk at a bar in Tulsa (the only bar he still goes to): "It was about the before. Not before the band. Before everything. Before the disappointment settled in. Like... what did we want before we knew we couldn't have it?"
· Remy, in a text message to Piper (the zine interviewer) in 2024: "It didn't have words because the words didn't exist yet. Or they did, and we were too scared to say them. Something about a mother. Something about a highway. Something about leaving but not knowing where."
· Dax, when asked by his wife (same woman, both times): "It was about the cat." (Kevin. The orange tabby. He died in 2022. Dax cried for the first time in fifteen years. He doesn't talk about the song anymore.)
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The only surviving evidence:
A 14-second voicemail on Piper's old phone. She found it in 2025 while cleaning out her cloud storage. The recording is mostly static. But underneath, you can hear it—the hum, the chords, the almost-song.
The voicemail is titled: "OF's – untitled – last practice – 2/19 – 22:47"
There's a note attached in the file. It just says:
"Don't delete this."
She hasn't.
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The Bootleg Merch (Still Circulating Tulsa, 2026)
The Scene: Every punk show, every DIY flea market, every skate competition within 50 miles of Tulsa—someone is selling OF's merch. Not the band. They never authorized any of it. That's the point.
The Vendors: Kids who weren't even born when the demo came out. Teenagers in ripped jeans and patch jackets. They get the designs from older siblings, from old photos, from the spray-painted apostrophe under the QuikTrip overhang.
The ex-wife's take: "They're not bootlegs. They're* tributes.* The band didn't trademark anything. They didn't trademark anything. You can't steal what nobody owns."
Mickey's take: "I saw a kid wearing a shirt with my face on it. I didn't know what to say. So I bought him a Slurpee."
Remy's take: "As long as the apostrophe is wrong, I don't care."
Dax's take: "Someone made a onesie. A baby onesie. With the logo. My kid wore it. I didn't pay for it. Is that bootleg? I don't know anymore."
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The Most Common Bootlegs (Spring/Summer 2026):
1. The Classic Tee
· Design: White shirt, black ink. The OF's logo (jagged letters, floating apostrophe, broken circle). Underneath: "TULSA MADE US. TULSA CAN'T KILL US."
· Where to find: Everywhere. The QuikTrip parking lot. The skate park. Your little brother's closet.
· Accuracy: The apostrophe is usually placed correctly because the bootleggers care more than the band ever did.
· Price: $15 cash or venmo (not a real handle)
2. The Fire Show Hoodie
· Design: Black hoodie. Faded orange ink. A drawing of Dax's amp on fire, surrounded by the words "WE DIDN'T STOP PLAYING." On the back: the date (8/17) and a single apostrophe.
· Where to find: Only at cold-weather shows. Usually sold by a guy named Tooth who smells like ci******es and good intentions.
· Accuracy: Dax's amp was a different model, but nobody cares.
· Price: $40 or trade for a working power strip
3. The Postcard Hoodie
· Design: A direct response to "My Sister Sent a Postcard from Portland." On the front: a drawing of a burning postcard. On the back, in cursive: "AT LEAST I'M REAL AND YOU'RE A POSTCARD."
· Where to find: One table at the Tulsa DIY Flea Market. The seller is a 17-year-old girl named Mavis who never met the band but says "they get it."
· Accuracy: The cursive is too legible. Remy's handwriting looked like a spider fell in ink.
· Price: $25. She takes trades for zines.
4. The Kevin Memorial Patch
· Design: A small embroidered patch (3"x2"). A cartoon orange cat with X's for eyes and the word "KEVIN" in a banner underneath. Below that, in tiny letters: "executive producer."
· Where to find: Sold separately or given away for free with any purchase over $30. Made by Dax's ex-wife (current wife? same woman). She started making them after Kevin died.
· Accuracy: Kevin was fatter. And meaner. And perfect.
· Price: $5 or a donation to the Tulsa Animal Shelter
5. The Apostrophe Sticker
· Design: Just an apostrophe. Floating. No letters. No context. Just a single punctuation mark on a white rectangle.
· Where to find: On every stop sign, every dumpster, every QuikTrip bathroom mirror within the Tulsa city limits.
· Accuracy: It's a comma. The bootlegger messed up. No one has fixed it. The OF's would have loved that.
· Price: Free. You just take one. Or make one. Or be one.
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The most valuable bootleg:
A cassette. Not the original demo—those are long gone, traded, thrown away, or hoarded like treasure. This is a re-recording. Made in 2025 by a 19-year-old Tulsa kid named Eli who taught himself the songs from YouTube covers. He recorded them in his bedroom on his phone. He made 15 copies. Hand-dubbed. Hand-labeled. He put an apostrophe on the J-card that's upside down.
He sold them outside a show for $5 each. They sold out in eleven minutes.
Eli never met The OF's. He's never even seen a photo of them. He just found the lyrics on an old forum post and thought:
"Someone should still be playing these songs."
So he did.
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The OF's, 2026:
No reunion. No announcement. No "we're back."
Just a spray-painted apostrophe that reappears every August 17th.
Just a QuikTrip parking lot where a kid in a bootleg hoodie sits on a cinder block and screams into the humidity.
Just a melody—that seventh song, the one without words—that someone hums sometimes, in a basement, while a cat watches, and nothing else happens.
And that's enough.
That's always been enough.
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"We're just here until the tornado hits."
— The OF's
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END OF THE TAPE
(Flip to Side B? Or just let it spin?)
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Want me to write the lyrics for that seventh song now that time has passed—maybe from Mickey, years later, finally finding the words? Or the obituary for Kevin the cat (executive producer, friend, witness)?
