TCB Oct. 21, 2015 — The Election Guide Dance-off

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com October 21 – 27, 2015

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2015 Election Guide PAGE 15

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Grimsley vs. Page PAGE 26

Oct. 21 — 27, 2015

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Digital confusion

by Brian Clarey

26 UP FRONT 3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 6 Commentariat 6 The List 7 Barometer 7 Unsolicited Endorsement

12 Citizen Green: Roy Cooper’s sacrificial lamb 14 It Just Might Work: Triad TV 14 Fresh Eyes: Leaving the band

GOOD SPORT

COVER

29 Jonesin’ Crossword

15 2015 Election Guide

NEWS

CULTURE

8 Roads and kids in W-S 12 HPJ: A new furniture district

20 Food: Korean burritos 21 Barstool: Drinking in your twenties 22 Music: Wild bill 24 Art: Out of the classroom, into Punto de Vista

OPINION 12 Editorial: Yes to 4-year terms

26 Grimsley vs. Page

GAMES SHOT IN THE TRIAD 30 Gate City Boulevard, Greensboro

ALL SHE WROTE 31 Lost in translation

QUOTE OF THE WEEK We try to find points of connection between Latino and African-American communities. Art is a great place to have that happen.

— Delta Arts Center Executive Director Nadiya Quander, page 24

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St., Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320 BUSINESS PUBLISHER Allen Broach

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING INTERN Nicole Zelniker

EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Brian Clarey

jorge@triad-city-beat.com

allen@triad-city-beat.com

brian@triad-city-beat.com

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green jordan@triad-city-beat.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric Ginsburg eric@triad-city-beat.com

NEST EDITOR Alex Klein

alex@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL INTERNS Daniel Wirtheim intern@triad-city-beat.com

ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino SALES DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING & SALES Dick Gray dick@triad-city-beat.com

SALES EXECUTIVE Lamar Gibson lamar@triad-city-beat.com

SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green cheryl@triad-city-beat.com

NEST Advertise in NEST, our monthly real estate insert, the final week of every month! nest@triad-city-beat.com

Cover illustration by Jorge “The fastest mouse in México” Maturino

CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry Nicole Crews Anthony Harrison Matt Jones Amanda Salter Caleb Smallwood

TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. ©2015 Beat Media Inc.

When you start talking about digital marketing, their eyes go glassy.

They know everybody is doing it — US companies spent $57.3 billion on their digital efforts in 2014 — and that they should be, too. It’s relatively affordable, eminently quantifiable and, for many businesses, highly effective.

But digital marketing is like a really good Chinese buffet: There’s a lot to take in; it can be very confusing; and they might not like everything they put on their plates.

There’s a lot more to it than just placing ads on websites — though web tiles and banners are perhaps the most basic expression of digital marketing. They work just like a display ad in a newspaper, except the user can click directly on the ad and get to the point of sale. These are great — if, that is, your website has a point of sale. A web ad would be a waste of money for a company like Beat Media, which owns Triad City Beat, because we don’t really sell anything that regular individuals can buy.

But when you start talking about clicks versus impressions, bounce rates and CPM, the small-business owner can often get lost in the weeds.

For companies like ours, social media plays a big part in a digital campaign. We have a free service — the news and cultural content of our newspaper and website — and we make money from the eyeballs we get on them. At least half of our web traffic comes from social media. But a lot of businesses lose sight of the fact that the point of social media is to create brand awareness and, ultimately, get people over to their websites. In most cases, a Facebook page is not a substitute for a solid, optimized and intuitive site. It’s tempting to think so, I know, but facts is facts.

Here’s another pesky little fact: I have never once clicked on a Facebook ad, even when they’re pushing something I just mentioned in a post.

The branches of digital marketing shoot off into mobile, native content, video, email, search-engine optimization… even those digital billboards are part of the scheme. Frankly, it changes every day.

But the base of the digital marketing tree, the trunk and its roots, is in a vibrant website, which is a sales portal, a PR machine, a customer-service window and an entertainment arm all rolled into one. It’s the digital base of operations, from which and to which everything should flow.

So don’t even talk to me about digital marketing unless you have a great website, unless you want to see my eyes glaze over… or unless you want me to make you one.

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

I have never once clicked on a Facebook ad.

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Oct. 21 — 27, 2015

CITY LIFE October 21 – 27 WEDNESDAY Back to the Future day @ Hoots Roller Bar (W-S) It’s the day that Marty McFly is scheduled to arrive from the past. Watch the first two Back to the Future movies and drink some brews with the folks at Hoots. The movies start at 7 p.m. Find Hoots Roller Bar on Facebook for more details.

by Daniel Wirtheim

Dracula opening night @ Hanesbrands Theatre (W-S) Triad Stage promises that this is Dracula with a contemporary musical twist. It’s the same lavish Count Dracula but they’ve touched it up with an original score. The play begins at 7:30 p.m. Visit winstonsalemfestivalballet.org for more information.

FRIDAY Shelby Stephenson @ Scuppernong Books (GSO) NC Poet Laureate Shelby Stephenson introduces recipients of the 20152016 NC Arts Council Fellowship in literature. There’s a mix of fiction-writers, screenwriters and a poet as well as refreshments. The event starts at 7 p.m. Find more information at scuppernongbooks.com.

NC Clean Transportation Tour @ SciWorks (W-S) Test drive a Tesla and learn about the latest in clean transportation news. The event is hosted by the NC Clean Energy Technology Center and will feature a Savings & Financing for Clean Transportation workshop. The event starts at 8 a.m. Register at nccleantech.ncsu.edu/clean-transportation.

How2Night: Woodworker J. Speetjens @ Piedmont Craftsmen (W-S) Learn woodworking techniques from a professional. J. Speetjens is ready to let his secrets spill. The event starts at 6 p.m. Visit piedmontcraftsmen.org for more information.

THURSDAY

Fall Career Fair @ Coliseum Complex (GSO) Triad Goodwill has arranged more than 40 employers to attend their Fall Career Fair.

Polish up your résumé, tuck in your shirt and find a career that suits you. The event starts at 10 a.m. Find more information at ilovegoodwill.org/fall-career-fair.

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Young Frankenstein @ Bailey Park (W-S) Businesses, departments and institutions associated with the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter were asked to pair a film with their current work.

This week the director of medical device development at Wake Forest Innovations chose Young Frankenstein.

There will be a pre-film speech and popcorn is provided. The film starts at 7 p.m.

Visit innovationquarter.com for more information.

Columbine Tragedy to Triumph @ BioTech Place (W-S) Patrick Ireland became known as “the boy in the window” when the news cameras caught him crawling from a window into the arms of emergency personnel after being shot twice in the head during the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. Now Ireland is fully recovered and plans to pursue a career in forensics. The event starts at 7 p.m. Visit downtownws.com for more information.

SATURDAY

Brew Basics Workshop @ Hudson’s Hill (GSO) Learn how to make your own homebrew with the help of the brew-masters at XII Tribes Brewing Company. Food and live music are part of the process. The brews start 1 p.m. Find the Facebook page for more information.

Annual Ghoulash @ Historical Museum (GSO) The Greensboro Youth Council hosts a costume contest for the young goblins and ghouls. There are bouncy houses to be jumped in and costume contests to win. The fun starts at 2 p.m. Visit gycghoulash.com for more information.

SUNDAY Sojourner Truth: The Legacy Lives On @ Genesis Baptist Church (GSO) Witness the passionate story of the slave-turned-activist Sojourner Truth.

Sandra Jones plays Truth to the sound of djembe and violin. The Melanin Foundation hosts the play. The show starts at 4 p.m. Find the Facebook page for more information.

Concerto competition @ UNC School of the Arts (W-S) It’s the final round of UNCSA’s annual concerto competition. Emotions will be high since the winners get an opportunity to play with either the UNCSA wind ensemble or symphony orchestra. The competition starts at 2 p.m. Find more information at uncsa.edu.

triad-city-beat.com

Champagne De Telmont @ Undercurrent Restaurant (GSO) Experience great champagne with special guests Bertrand L’Hopital and Philippe Manfredini of Champagne De Telmont, an established name in the Champagne industry. The pair leads a workshop on the history and making of champagne and there might even be a few tasters. The workshop starts at 6:30 p.m. Make reservations at undercurrentrestaurant.com

DayDreams&WeirdFacts @ A/perture Cinema (W-S) Non-profit group Authoring Action helped produce 16-year-old Nonnie Egbuna’s feature film on teenage true love, DayDreams&WeirdFacts. The film starts at 7:30 p.m. Find more information at authoringaction.org.

MONDAY

Candidate forum @ Central Public Library (GSO) Get to know the candidates for mayoral and at-large positions in Greensboro elections at the candidate forum. The forum starts at 6:30 p.m. Visit greensboroneighborhoodcongress.org for more information.

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Oct. 21 — 27, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Parental concern

You’ve got to be kidding me. Is this journalism or are you applying for a job running Motsinger’s next campaign [“Second Look: Hanes Lowrance closure might have been rash”; by Jordan Green; Oct. 14, 2015]? People looking for a more truthful understanding of the Hanes/Lowrance travesty and the parents response to it should visit Camel City Dispatch. Save Triad City Beat for when you’re looking for a restaurant review, not an understanding of the complexity of a heated local issue.

Vishal Khanna, Winston-Salem

Popular Warnersville

I really enjoyed both the article and video [“Fresh Eyes: Why Warnersville Matters”;

by Ed Cone; Oct. 14, 2015].

As a former employee of Old Salem Inc. and also a graduate of the history department at NCCU I can really appreciate the uncalled-for stuff that the Warnersville community has gone through. The recognition is long overdue. As for JC Price High School the same goes for its struggle as well. There were actually three JC Price high

schools. The one in Greensboro followed by the one in Salisbury where my dad graduated from (he also attended NC A&T University and was a product of its mechanical engineering and math deptartments) and finally one in southern California.

Please keep up this most vital mission because too many of these communities have gone the way of the past.

LJ, via triad-city-beat.com

Zack, attacked

Let’s do a story on how many people are killed by drunks who think they can drive [“Former councilman, DGI president recieves DWI”; by Eric Ginsburg; Oct. 16, 2015]. How many sons and daughters, husband, wives, mothers, dads will not come home because someone decided to drink. He seems to be taking the blame. No s***, he did it and it’s on body cameras, he can’t deny it so he has to accept it, Wow. I heard he got calls and emails of support.

Some on council have plenty of close family that got popped for DWI. Hell one council member got popped not long ago, so of course they feel for him. I feel sorry for victims, not the drunk.

Sal Leone, Greensboro

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5 things I miss about Northern drivers

by Eric Ginsburg

1. They use turn signals

I moved to the South almost a decade ago, but after spending my formative driving years in the North, I struggle to tolerate the driving skills of my neighbors, especially in the Triad area. Apparently a lot of you consider it to be some great sacrifice or feat of strength to indicate that you plan to turn. I assure you, doing so will only make your life better. I’m not the only one who’s noticed; 88.5 FM, WFDD has a campaign to remind people to use the darn things.

2. They know how to merge

My real motive for complaining stems from a near accident on Sunday, when a car on Wendover Avenue in Greensboro merged quickly across two lanes of traffic and forced itself between two rapidly moving vehicles. This horribly dangerous maneuver caused another car to spin out as it slammed on the breaks and pulled sharply on the breaks. If a car had been next to me, I wouldn’t have been able to swerve out of the way, and I would’ve T-boned the spiraling victim. I see things like this all the time down here, especially as drivers fly across multiple lanes. Y’all need to chill with that. One at a time, please.

3. They understand fast lanes

There is either a higher percentage of sadists living here than most other cities or a whole generation of drivers never learned that traveling at the speed limit in the left lane of a four-lane highway is kind of a dick move. I’m thrilled for you that there’s no urgency in your life, but there are three other lanes for you to putter around in.

Northerners — who overall are too aggressive behind the wheel and are born with an innate sense of road rage — experience meltdowns when this predominantly Southern phenomenon presents itself.

lane they’re traveling in. I see more near misses from this here than anywhere else I’ve been, and it’s particularly scary for bicyclists.

5. And they do it at a reasonable speed

An inordinate amount of drivers seem unwilling or unable of pulling into a turn lane fully, sticking out into traffic and causing near accidents. In a similar vein, far too many drivers around here begin to turn but then move slower than Internet Explorer, creeping into a driveway and shutting down the street until they are good and ready to pull into a parking lot. I love y’all, really I do, and I’m not keen on returning to the Northeast, but can we get this under control?

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4. They are capable of turning

Far too many people around here try to whip their whip across multiple lanes of traffic to make a turn instead of circling back to their turn. Maybe a carefree attitude causes people to forget which

(336)310-6920

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80 70 60 50

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Readers: Turnout in this contest was about as low as the Greensboro City Council primary earlier this month! All told, yes and no basically tied, with 50 and 47 percent respectively, while the last 3 percent belongs to “unsure.” Brooke Neal explained: “I would ordinarily be for this change, but until the lawsuit is decided regarding Trudy Wade’s efforts to restructure the city council, I am and will be unsure… If Greensboro loses and Wade wins, I will probably be for six-month terms.

I don’t want to be stuck without a voice (or without at-large members) for four years.”

20

Yes

47% No

3%

Culture

50%

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Cover Story

New question: What’s the best part about NC A&T University’s homecoming (GHOE)? Vote at triad-citybeat.com!

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Opinion

Jordan Green: I’m in favor of four-year terms for reasons that have been articulated by others. Probably of most importance, a city council election ties up about a year of elected officials’ psychic energy, so with four-year terms constituents get three years of governing instead of one out of two. And when council members with different governing philosophies and diverse constituents are stuck with each other for four years, they are more likely to buckle down and work together to get something done rather than positioning themselves against each other for the next election. I also think that moving to four-year terms would raise the stakes and boost voter turnout, although there’s one important caveat: Having nonpartisan elections (as Greensboro does) does more to boost participation than partisan contests (the method used by Winston-Salem) than lengthening terms

90

News

Brian Clarey: It depends. As a journalist and newspaper owner, more frequent elections are a good thing for me. It’s a tight cycle for coverage, and campaign ads run more often.

But as a citizen of Greensboro, I like the four-year term. It enables stability and allows for longer-term projects to come to fruition. It gives the council members more time to learn their jobs before they have to start thinking about re-election. And it fosters cooperation among factions over the long haul.

Eric Ginsburg: I’m unsure, but I’m inclined to oppose it.

I appreciate the arguments about increased stability and council members not being forced to spend almost half their time campaigning, but if there’s stability, aren’t elections less stressful for candidates? A plan to restructure council likely decreased the number of contenders this time around, but to an extent I buy Mayor Nancy Vaughan’s premise that people are relatively satisfied with council. Vaughan isn’t stressing about this election, and neither are Nancy Hoffmann and Tony Wilkins. So what’s the downside of two-year terms? If races are competitive every two years, maybe that says something about how satisfied people are with their leadership.

Two-year terms give the public greater input, and makes it easier to hold council members accountable.

Up Front

On Nov. 3, Greensboro voters will decide whether to double the length of city council terms from two years to four. The change will begin in 2017 if passed. Few people are aware the item will be on the ballot, so we polled our readers and editors to see where people stand.

triad-city-beat.com

Increase the length of Greensboro City Council terms?

Unsure

Good Sport

Fair-weathering the New York Mets

by Brian Clarey

All She Wrote

World Series in typical heart-attack style. I remember exactly where I was the night the guy parachuted onto the field in Game Six, even more vivid than my recollection of Bill Buckner’s famous blunder that same night. A bunch of us took the train down to Wall Street for the ticker-tape parade, which may or may not have been on a school day.

Who can remember?

Now they’re back for another shot at the title, facing a team that’s even more compelling, perhaps, than the Amazin’ Mets: the Chicago Cubs, who haven’t won a title in 100 years. But only one can go to to the World Series.

Whatever. I’m way on board with the Mets. What the hell: My Mets.

Unless the Cubbies win. Then I’m with the Cubs all the way.

Shot in the Triad

up.

I went to Lee Mazzilli Baseball Camp for a few summers, where I met the charismatic slugger, and also Bud Harrelson, one of the best gloves in the game. I remember when Joe Torre was one of the last player-managers in the league for the Mets in the late ’70s, outlasted only

by Don Kessinger and Pete Rose (who didn’t hang up the cleats until 1986). I remember the moronic song from their TV commercials: “Meet the Mets! Meet the Mets! Step right up and greet the Mets!” A Long Island urban legend had it that McDonald’s sometimes gave away Mets tickets in Happy Meals, which were new in 1977.

And despite their loser status and stupid, clown colors, I’ll always pull for the Mets when they’re in the hunt, even though I would never be caught dead in one of their jerseys.

I jumped right on board in 1986, when they won the

Games

I’m not a Mets fan. Not really.

When it comes to the Mets, I am what they call a “fair-weather” fan, meaning that I only tune in when things are good. When it comes to the Mets, I think that’s the best way to play it. Because the Mets will break your heart.

I was raised in a Yankees household and was fortunate enough to live in New York during their glory years in the 1970s. But unlike a lot of New York Yankees fans, I never hated the Mets.

I couldn’t. Our house was than 20 miles — about a 90-minute drive — from old Shea Stadium in Queens, where the Mets demonstrated some of the worst baseball ever performed, immortalized in Jimmy Breslin’s 1963 takedown Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?, a direct quote from Manager Casey Stengel. Then they won it all in 1969, six months before I was born but very much a part of the cultural fabric in the time and place where I grew

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Oct. 21 — 27, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

8

NEWS

Two steps forward and one back in downtown Winston-Salem

by Jordan Green

An innovative transportation project is set to launch in Winston-Salem as developers begin the final renovation in the historic RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. campus. But a daycare that is considered essential to downtown redevelopment continues to struggle, forcing the city to bail it out yet again.

Winston-Salem City Council will sign off on a list of projects and financing plans for the Business 40 renovation on Oct. 26, and hear a request for financial assistance to complete the renovation of the historic RJ Reynolds campus in downtown next month. Meanwhile, the city is also taking rearguard action to save a daycare as part of a strategy to attract more families with children to downtown.

With all but one member of city council present, the finance committee recommended approval of resolutions authorizing the city manager to enter into agreements with the Creative Corridors Coalition and the state Department of Transportation to incorporate enhancements into the renovation of the downtown expressway.

The plan includes two iconic pedestrian bridges at Green Street and the Strollway, and retaining walls along the expressway with embedded brick and LED lighting. The complex financing plan for the $9.3 million project includes private funds raised by Creative Corridors for the two pedestrian bridges, designed by Donald McDonald and Walter Hood; municipal bond funds approved by voters last November to pay for enhancements on the retaining wall and lighting; and federal matching funds to pay for a multi-use path along the expressway.

Councilman Robert Clark, who chairs the finance committee, said the council learned last month that the state budget cut funding for the project, forcing the city to scale back plans for the multi-use path.

“We’re not putting in the entire path because we don’t have the money, but we’re doing the things we can’t go back and do later,” he said.

Deputy Transportation Director

A view of Business 40, where renovations will begin next year. The Strollway cross the expressway as a land bridge instead of a tunnel.

Connie James said the city will seek state approval to build a tunnel under Peters Creek Parkway and build new bridges long enough to accommodate both vehicular and foot traffic as part of the scaled-back plans for the path.

She added that the city might be able to build a limited portion of the path from Peters Creek Parkway to the Green Street Bridge near BB&T Park. Other portions of the path will have to wait.

Council members Dan Besse and Molly Leight revisited a public disagreement about whether municipal bond funds should be used to complete the multi-use path. With plans for the path to eventually link downtown to Baptist Hospital, the project would be a boon to Besse’s constituents in the Southwest Ward. Meanwhile, Leight’s constituents in the South Ward have more of a vested interest in the pedestrian bridges that will cross Business 40 and link Old Salem, Brookstown and West Salem to downtown.

“It’s a completely legitimate use, in my view, to use some of the bond funds for the multi-use path,” Besse said.

JORDAN GREEN

Leight weighed in: “Dan and I disagreed about this. I thought the bond funds were for aesthetic improvements, and I object to using those funds otherwise.”

James said a contractor will be hired to begin work on the Business 40 renovation in July 2016, with work on Peters Creek Parkway commencing soon afterwards and concluding in 2018.

The committee also received a heads-up about an anticipated request for financial assistance to renovate the Bailey Power Plant, which once generated energy for the original RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. campus. Graydon Pleasants with Wake Forest Innovation Quarter and William Partin with Wexford Science+Technology appeared before council to describe the project. The two companies, which are developing the innovation quarter in partnership with each other, are requesting $3 million from the city, and another $3 million from Forsyth County. The cavernous facility faces Bailey Park from the west, and upon completion will house restaurants, office space, a science lab

and an unspecified entertainment venue, according to a memo prepared by Assistant City Manager Derwick Paige.

The memo also references “potentially a minority business accelerator.”

When the project is complete, the city estimates that the buildings would be valued at $82 million, and generate $463,300 per year in new city property taxes. Under the deal, the city would make payments to the developers over the next 10 years.

Partin said the viability of the project depends on approval of the incentives by the end of the year for the developers to qualify for federal historic tax credits.

He added that the timing has to do with a historic designation by the National Parks Service, which requires that redevelopment of the district — also including BioTech Place at 525@Vine — must take place within a five-year window.

Mayor Pro Tem Vivian Burke, who represents the Northeast Ward, congratulated the developers.

“You’re doing an excellent job, and when people partner with us I feel like we need to do things for them to help us move forward,” she said. “You’ve given life in that area.”

Councilman Derwin Montgomery, who represents the East Ward, also applauded the project, albeit conditionally.

“There has to be something that integrates the broader community in the park, and how that happens, whether it’s job opportunities, whether it’s them working with contracts that exist there, whether it’s just understanding that in the future there exists the opportunity for them to work in this community,” he said. “We bill it as a place for people to ‘live, work and play,’ but it’s not a place for everybody to live, work and play.”

While the city is moving ahead with continued development of the innovation quarter and the imminent renovation of Business 40, one element of their strategic plan for downtown is faltering. The city sold property across the street from the innovation quarter to the nonprofit Northwest Child Development Centers in 2011, and forgave

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Up Front

proved a motion to remove the city’s reversionary clause from the deed in exchange for $200,000, far less than the estimated value of the property according to county tax records. The item will come up for a vote by the full council on Oct. 26.

“It is the city’s desire that this organization prosper and go forward,” Clark said. “We feel like the downtown, particularly with all the revitalization that has happened, that a quality daycare is essential to the success of downtown.”

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Opinion

$158,750 in debt as part of a strategy to attract families with children to downtown. The nonprofit does business under the trade name Mudpies, and also operates a second downtown daycare on North Poplar Street near Restaurant Row. In 2013 and 2014, the city authorized additional loans totaling $483,300 to help keep the daycare afloat. The nonprofit’s debt to the city has always been subordinated to lender BB&T, but the agreement stipulates that the property would revert to the city if it ceased to be used for a public purpose. The nonprofit is seeking a new loan from BB&T to finance equipment, and as a condition of the loan the bank wants the city to relinquish reversionary rights, which secure the loan by collateralizing the property.

The finance committee went into closed session for about a half an hour to discuss the request. When they came back out into open session, Clark said the discussion proved the aphorism “that you don’t want to see how legislation or sausage is made.”

The committee unanimously ap-

Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Oct. 21 — 27, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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HIGH POINT JOURNAL

Smaller furniture companies stake identity in NED district

by Jordan Green

Small-scale, design oriented furniture companies that specialize in one-of-a-kind items have migrated out of the big showrooms to a new market district dubbed NED during the biannual furniture market. But it’s taking awhile for the concept to catch on.

They’re literally on the map now.

Over the past five years, some of the smaller players in the furniture industry have migrated out of the mega-showrooms owned by the dominant International Market Centers, and bought or leased their own buildings along North Elm Street in downtown High Point.

A year ago, a handful of companies including Elegant Earth, Madcap Cottage, BoBo Intriguing Objects and Design Legacy started calling themselves North Elm District, or NED. For the fall market this year — running through Thursday — the official map and transportation guide issued by the High Point Market Authority included an outline of NED. Along with the Hamilton-Wrenn Design District across North Main Street to the east, NED is one of two districts specifically demarcated on the map.

The showrooms in NED are smaller, and their operators hope, less intimidating than the gargantuan International Home Furnishings Center and Showplace and other venues that flank Commerce Avenue to the south. Among other buyers, they’re courting designers who are looking for individual pieces as opposed to bulk purchases for retail stores. And they’re encouraging their customers to come early for first pick.

Many of the showrooms in NED were open and receiving customers three days ahead of the official start of fall market on Oct. 17.

“I think the market has become two industries,” said Kelly O’Neal, the owner of Design Legacy and an enthusiastic proponent of NED. “One is the mass-produced ‘stock it deep and sell it cheap’ concept. The other makes special items. The makers of the industry are moving out and away from the big buildings and the mass importers. We’re going to lose some customers leaving

Bert Hayes, a commercial realtor who has been instrumental in the devlopment of NED, chats with a buyer at Design Legacy.

the building, but we’re going to attract the buyers who are looking for special things.”

That’s not to say that the small furniture companies that populate the district don’t import some of their goods. While Design Legacy, BoBo and Golden Oldies specialize in antiques and antiques reproductions, others like Elegant Earth and Club Cu feature outdoor furniture.

Club Cu manufactures concrete furniture in High Point and locally sources slipcovers for upholstered chairs, but the High Point-based company also operates factories in Indonesia and China.

And Circa Loft, which opened a new showroom this past weekend on West Kivett Drive, specializes in furniture made in western China from reclaimed wood salvaged from farmhouses.

Bert Hayes, a commercial realtor who has wooed many of the new showroom owners, dropped in for a visit at Design Legacy, which put out a generous spread of oysters Rockefeller, chilled shrimp, duck and steak, with an open bar stocked with wine and craft beer.

“He’s the one who sold us the building,” O’Neal exclaimed.

The area was “in need of reinventing itself,” Hayes said, adding that he’s watched Golden Oldies double in size.

“We’ve probably tripled our business overnight,” O’Neal said.

Chad Stogner, who played an instrumental role in launching NED as owner

JORDAN GREEN

of Alabama-based Elegant Earth, said the district attracts furniture companies that cater to buyers looking for unique offerings.

“We call it ‘designer-driven stores,’” he said. “They have higher-end clients.

The high end is all that’s left. The middle and the lower end are gone. That’s why High Point survived the Vegas onslaught.”

The smaller showrooms in NED also benefit from space to display their wares.

Golden Oldies and BoBo stock vintage and vintage-inspired pieces in mass quantity ready to provide period detail for a movie set. A black antique Dodge pickup and World War II-era motorcycle with a sidecar are parked in front of Golden Oldies. And stacks of painted metal chairs look like they could easily turn up in a scene of an early ’60s-era outdoor wedding reception in New England.

Its next-door neighbor on Broad Avenue, BoBo — short for “bourgeois” and “bohemian” — got its start reproducing French and Belgian antiques.

“Our headquarters is in Atlanta,” company owner Mark Sage said. “Georgia is booming with the film industry right now. We’ve worked with The Hunger Games and The Accountant.”

Not everyone in the district’s footprint holds a clear sense of the concept behind NED, or is even aware that it

exists.

“I guess we’re part of it,” said Chad Newman, owner of Circa Loft. “I don’t know much about it.”

Bill Massengill, a senior vice president for Calvin Klein Furniture — which leases space in the Union Square building — said he had never heard of the district. Nor had William Thorpe, who has owned the French Interiors building on Hayden Place since 1992.

Thorpe’s business is more workshop than showroom, with a narrow doorway and stacks of mirrors jamming the space, and his establishment isn’t listed in the guide published by the market authority. Thorpe took up woodcarving, studying under a master Italian carver, just as much of the craft was moving overseas to the Philippines and Indonesia.

Early in his career, Thorpe started restoring antique mirrors using the trumeau technique of fine woodcarving and gilding to replace sections of the frames that had deteriorated.

“I realized if I could do a half mirror, I could also do a whole one,” he said.

At Club Cu, Sandy Howell said she found NED to be an appealing moniker.

“It’s a cool concept,” she said. “It’s kind of like an arts district. It’s where you go to find people who think differently.”

But she confessed to being a little unclear about the organizing principle, and conducted a little experiment to find out if the idea has caught on with buyers.

“Have you guys heard of NED?” she asked a couple browsing the showroom.

“I have not,” the man said. “This is only our third stop.”

“Well, this is the second year it’s been around,” Howell said.

“Welcome to NED,” her colleague, Andrea Mendenhall, added.

Kelly O’Neal at Design Legacy acknowledged it might take awhile for the concept to catch on.

“The challenge is getting a bunch of people with their own vision to agree on one marketing plan and logo,” he said.

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OPINION EDITORIAL

Yes to 4-year terms In this year’s Greensboro municipal election, alongside the choices for the five districts, three at-large seats and mayor, will be a single ballot initiative: a choice to extend city council terms go from two to four years.

The initiative’s history goes back to Wade’s Gambit, the plan by state Sen. Trudy Wade to radically — or, more technically, reactionarily — overhaul the way the city’s government is elected and how it operates. It was a mad plan by small people that wended through a set of House and Senate bills before being defeated in June, and still lurks in the language of legislation that is not quite dead yet.

We vehemently opposed the movement and the process by which it came about, but we are on board with this one provision. Because while we’re sure the initial impetus for this aspect of the bill came about with some nefarious purpose in mind, it actually makes sense for a city that needs to make some big strides to give its leadership a little more time to get the job done.

Ironically, the soil of progress is fertilized with stability — long-term projects are less likely to go through without some predictability. And doubling council terms serves that end.

It also enhances each council member’s ability to perform on the job. It takes at least a year to learn the gig, and as it stands councilmembers need to start running for re-election just as they’re finding their feet.

This has become particularly evident the last four terms, during which power vacillated wildly between two poles. Longer tenures also give more incentive for councilmembers to build bridges and work together towards common cause — sooner or later they realize that they’re going to be stuck with each other for four years so they might as well get something done.

These are the factors that contribute to greater development and progress.

Joe Riley has been mayor of Charleston, SC since 1975 — he’s currently in his 10th four-year term — and in those years has completely modernized that beautiful and historic city. Even more relevant, Allen Joines became mayor of Winston-Salem in 2001 and in his four four-year terms the business and culture of the city has been reinvigorated. He’s already announced his intent to run for re-election next year.

CITIZEN GREEN

Roy Cooper’s sacrificial lamb Voters generally size up political candidates based on small impressions. On the positive side of the ledger, it could be something as simple as a kind and encouraging word from the candidate to a small business owner, farmer or social worker.

by Jordan Green It’s hard to extrapolate any concrete policy objectives from such encounters, but they give the voter the sense that the candidates understand their challenges and is looking out for their interests.

On the negative side of this T-chart, a single decision can likewise poison a voter’s outlook on a candidate. Imagine for a moment that you’re a supporter of Kalvin Michael Smith, a black man from Winston-Salem who has been in prison for almost 18 years because of a conviction based on a police investigation that few city officials would try to defend.

Smith has been in prison for longer than Roy Cooper has been the state’s attorney general, giving up the best earning years of his life and the ability to be with his family. An independent review by retired FBI assistant director Chris Swecker found that the police investigation “was seriously flawed and woefully incomplete, thus calling into question whether the original trial jury rendered their verdict based on all the relevant and accurate facts of the case.” Swecker agreed with a finding by a citizens group that there was no credible evidence that Smith was at the scene of a crime where a pregnant woman was brutally beaten into a coma.

Cooper has ignored calls to overturn the case and grant Smith a new trial for at least three years. Prosecutors drop cases or decline to pursue charges all the time on the basis of acting “in the interest of justice” if they don’t believe there’s adequate evidence.

Considering Cooper’s aspirations to be North Carolina’s next governor, his studied disinterest in the Smith case looks an awful lot like a political calculation that he has less to lose by alienating Smith’s supporters than outraging conservative, white swing voters, who based on their support of law and order — and let’s face it, for many, straight-up racism — would be outraged to learn that a black man convicted of a brutal assault had received a new trial.

The forfeiture of a man’s liberty because the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the state refuses to grant him a new trial, in the face of damning evidence that the case was botched, is not a small thing to Smith’s supporters. They can rightly make inferences into the candidate’s character and values based on what appears to his choice to do what is politically expedient instead of what’s right.

Cooper’s supporters may ask: Isn’t there something bigger at stake — the direction of North Carolina’s economy and educational system — than justice for one man, even

racial justice? Maybe there is.

People who are dissatisfied with the hard-right turn of state government — urbanites, teachers, the LGBT community, advocates for the poor — are investing intense and abiding hope in Cooper, a Democrat who formally announced on Oct. 12 that he would challenge Republican incumbent Pat McCrory. Cooper has been described as an heir to the progressive legacy of Terry Sanford, who pursued pro-growth policies and largely steered the state away from the intransigent racism of Deep South states like Mississippi and Alabama during the 1960s.

The News & Observer, the state’s newspaper of record, editorialized on Oct. 17 that next year’s gubernatorial race “will be a referendum on ideas and ideals,” with far more at stake than the usual “jousts between ambitious politicians seeking to win more for their egos than for the people.”

McCrory must own a record of policies that have been hurtful to the poor — including refusing to expand Medicaid while cutting unemployment insurance — and hurtful to women by restricting access to abortion. He either has to owns that record, or admit that the Republican leadership in the General Assembly, not he, is driving the state’s agenda.

Cooper sounded decidedly populist notes during his campaign announcement at Nash County Community College in Rocky Mount.

“Governor McCrory has the wrong priorities for North Carolina: Giving away the store to those at the top at the expense of the middle class and our schools,” he said. “He won’t find a way to keep good teachers, but he finds a way to pass tax giveaways to big corporations.”

The pitch sounds appealing, but we don’t really know the specific contents yet. Maybe it would be foolish to scorn Cooper based on his handling of the Smith case, but it’s useful to understand the political compromises involved in seeking the highest office in the state.

Politics will break your heart. By all means, get swept up in the fervor of the campaign. Celebrate when and if Cooper wins, but recognize that the luster will come off when the realities of governing set in.

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A series in the Triad

Keep one foot in wildness Athens, Ohio is transformative. And it’s haunted. Not just in the “Scariest Places on Earth” sense of the word — though it is that — but in what I call the “repository of dreams” sense.

by David McLean Home of Ohio University, Athens has borne the feet of thousands of aspiring souls trudging up and down the Hocking River hills since 1804. From Nancy Cartwright — who would become the voice of Bart Simpson — to a late blooming Matt Lauer to me, a journeyman rock-nroll musician who never made it.

This is not pathos. I’ve also managed to build a rewarding career in advertising and public relations, which was kind of why I went to school in the first place. My firm, King’s English, is 20 years old and might not have happened had I not studied at “Harvard on the Hocking” from 1977 to 1981.

But back to my parallel life….

When you visit Athens you sense all those young dreamers who passed through the oak canopy of the college green out into its ramshackle neighborhoods and who might have left behind the flotsam of their idylls from any given night when all you needed was jeans, a T-shirt and five bucks.

Such was a September evening when I passed the Frontier Room, a rustic bar in the student union with large double-hung windows, all wide open to the humid night.

A band inside was doing a sound check with the sloppy suspended chords of a Stones cover. This being 1978, it stopped me in my tracks simply because it was not the usual country swing or disco fare of the day.

I made a beeline inside and watched what turned out to be a scruffy, proto-punk biker band primed to play three sets. I stayed in the Frontier Room the rest of the night.

When the show cranked up, this band called the Bogus Brothers pounded out sly fourchord originals peppered with covers, including a short list of Lou Reed and Velvet Underground numbers.

It moved me physically. For the first time in my life, comary’s pletely on my own, I got up and danced wildly in public in a Gourmet Diner throng of biker women, assorted hippies and soon-to-be debauched college kids like me.

As the band ripped into “White

There are the college grads working in sandwich shops, making mediocre art for coffee shops, both hating and loving their lives in an unpretentious and subtly hip Southern city.

There’s the new development money that brushes against the old tobacco money leaving the poorer citizens

by Daniel Wirtheim and immigrants wondering what words they can use to describe a city that doesn’t recognize their hunger. It’s the contrast between cultural and economic groups in the Triad that would make an interesting television series.

Not unlike “Portlandia” is to Portland, Ore., a television show based in the Triad could boost our recognition as a compelling place to live in small-city America. We have characters that people can identify with and ridiculous government agencies to throw shade at. It’s a place that most people across the nation can identify with, and a way to get people talking about the Triad.

Let’s say we set our television show in a fictionalized city that combines elements of Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem. We would have a city that goes to extremes in terms of development, the arts and hunger — a sort of built-in satire. It also means that we would have one of the most racially inclusive television shows today. We have the more realistic, gritty version of what “Portlandia” has to offer, and that might be our selling point.

There are a lot of self-deprecating jokes to make about our cities, and that’s a good thing. Cutting yourself down is popular in contemporary comedy — just take a look at Louis CK’s career.

We have a large amount of Northern emigrants that are ready to tear into Southern culture and put a new stamp on the region.

This could be a series that helps a modern audience understand the New South.

But in the end the show would illustrate how the Triad is a great place to live, how the people somehow mostly get along fine and a testament to how we’re pushing innovation with new research centers and business developments.

It would be a simple series, really. A simple, heartfelt and often hilarious series and it would be ours. As the critics might say, “There’s nothing quite like it.”

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Light/White Heat” a thunderstorm blew up outside.

Lightning flashed in every window, practically in time with the song’s refrain, like a sign from God. As the deluge washed down the boozy sidewalks, I was soaked inside with the sweat of three hours of catharsis.

I decided that night I had to start a rock-n-roll band as quickly as possible. Later, I started another and played in one or two side projects. Then I graduated and married the guitarist from my first band.

And I started other bands in succession even as I worked real jobs out in the straight world.

Since the mid ’70s I’ve been one of those people who is in bands for no real commercial motive.

In 2008, I organized my most recent band, the Raving Knaves. The band’s name comes from a song I wrote for one of my bands in the ’80s. And this month, we’ll play our final show.

I’ve been lucky all these years that none of my bands have ended badly. I’m luckier still that the Raving Knaves has been such a success. And there’s still no significant money or fame.

Why would I call this a success?

Because I’ve decided that the only way you can honestly judge any such off-the-grid band is by the satisfaction of its members. And Adrian Foltz, Danny Bayer and I played wild, tight, original music for seven years together, contributing equally through a creative friendship and respect. Rehearsals were just as fun as public gigs and when even one person was moved to dance wildly, it felt like an offering to the universe.

One of my reasons for winding down my role in the band is to put a little more time into my “straight life,” running my firm. But 37 years since I ventured into the Frontier Room, the visceral pull of the American backbeat can’t be ignored. And I can’t deny that it doesn’t shape the way I manage my straight life today.

My two parallel lives have actually grown closer together. Clients, who are increasingly younger than me, want to know about my band. At the same time, my rock-n-roll persona has kept me in touch with a side of the community that is young in spirit, often unconventional, sometimes edgy and seldom beholden to the boundaries that constrain my 9-to-5 roles and associations.

It’s a kind of faith. Faith in wildness. Not drugs and booze, but real wildness. Like the wildness in nature, only it manifests intellectually as well as physically.

And it’s part of who I am in every aspect of my life.

There’s nothing superficial or trivial about being in a band. It simply has to be done.

David McLean is a writer and owner of King’s English, an advertising and public relations firm.

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2015

Up Front News

Election Guide

Opinion

Nancy Vaughan (i)

Devin King

Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad

And as a testament to the longstanding animus of hardline conservatives against incumbent Nancy Vaughan, Conservatives for Guilford County will back whatever candidate seems to have the best shot at upsetting the status quo.

They threw their support behind Devin King, who had never before voted in a Greensboro election. It likely didn’t hurt, and might have given him the 156 votes he needed to edge out perennial candidate Sal Leone during the primary. Still, King’s total only gave him 7.3 percent of the vote, meaning that he needs to multiply his support seven-fold to win the grand prize.

A registered Republican, King has emphasized neglect of poor, predominantly African-American areas of Greensboro, while also touting his support of small-government principles. Before he filed to run, no political observers had heard of him.

Culture All She Wrote

Nancy Vaughan entered politics in the 1990s as a neighborhood activist. In the early oughts she retired from council to raise her daughter, Catherine. When she ran for council again in 2009, she came across as a pragmatist with a strong sense of ethics. Later in that term she cast the deciding vote to keep the White Street Landfill closed.

Two years ago, Vaughan challenged Robbie Perkins for mayor — arguing for safeguards to protect taxpayers in the effort to build a performing arts center, a project championed by Perkins.

Vaughan won, and is now seeking a second term. The Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts is slated for completion next year, the most dramatic manifestation of growth in downtown, which is bookended by new brewpubs and restaurants on both the north and south ends.

Vaughan has embraced initiatives like raising the minimum wage for city workers and adding LGBT protections to the city ordinances, and tangled with the civil rights museum during her tenure as mayor.

As a testament to Vaughan’s resounding popularity, she received 87.6 percent of the vote against two challengers in a primary with 3.8-percent turnout. The odds are in her favor this time around as well.

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Mayor

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Oct. 21 — 27, 2015 Cover Story

At large

Yvonne Johnson (i)

The longest serving of the at-large members of council also — briefly — held the title of mayor. When Yvonne Johnson lost her reelection bid after one term as mayor in 2011, it came as a shock to her supporters, but most election observers would be even more surprised if Johnson didn’t run away with this year’s race.

There are three at-large seats, with the top vote getter named as mayor pro tem. It’s a title Johnson has held in the past, does currently and likely will after the election.

Johnson is a tireless advocate for more parity in the city’s contracting, pushing for minority and women-owned businesses to receive their fair share. Her community-based approach shows through in most of her stances, whether it’s pushing for participatory budgeting, supporting a wage increase, talking about food insecurity or extolling the benefits of additional job training programs.

“I supported the Renaissance [Shopping] Center with all my heart,” she said at a recent candidate forum. And who would disagree?

She also said the city could do more to incentivize developers to build affordable housing and create green spaces as a way to encourage infill development. She held up her move as mayor to create the International Advisory Committee.

Marikay Abuzuaiter (i)

16

After a few unsuccessful runs for city council, Marikay Abuzuaiter made it aboard in 2011, and won reelection in 2013. This year, her stances sound the same as every other time around: concern for the poor, a progressive impulse, a focus on sustainability and diversity, and so on. This time around, she may be most proud of the city’s move to increase wages of its lowest-paid employees and to support the opening of the Family Justice Center in partnership with Guilford County.

A strong supporter of grassroots causes like the Renaissance Community Co-op grocery store and participatory budgeting, Abuzuaiter has occasionally aligned with more conservative members of council on financial issues. She opposed city funding for the downtown performing arts center, arguing that more of the money should be raised privately. She has said that while she supports the arts, she held that the city should focus on more core needs to avoid cutting funding for things like the homeless.

In a recent candidate forum, Abuzuaiter said she wants the city’s parks and recreation department to look into gardening in some of the city’s parks, adding that she wants to address vacant lots too as part of a strategy to alleviate food insecurity. In general, things are moving in the right direction, she has repeatedly said, complimenting how well the current council works together while pointing to areas where more can be done.

Mike Barber (i)

When Mike Barber returned to city politics after a jaunt in Spain, running again for city council in 2013, he promised not to bring up the divisive issue of reopening White Street Landfill. Back before his sabbatical, Barber raised the idea while on council, but it was eventually defeated. True to his word, we haven’t heard a peep from him on the subject since winning in 2013, and he was reluctant to even talk about it during that last campaign.

Since then, the joke is that Barber doesn’t really show up. Like, misses council work sessions altogether with some regularity.

City council implemented a new committee structure last month, and even though Barber vocally supported the idea from the jump, he doesn’t serve as a chair on any of the four committees, though he sits on the general government and public safety committees.

Barber said he would support the mayor’s idea for a bond to improve the city’s affordable housing stock, suggested the civil rights museum allow people to eat at the historic sit-in counter and suggested relaxing regulations on public consumption of alcohol to allow for more frequent festivals downtown.

Sylvine Hill

Greensboro native and UNCG grad Sylvine Hill wants to bring more modern, technical and environmental jobs to the city, in part because it would help Greensboro become less of a transitional place for young people like herself.

During a candidate forum held by the League of Women Voters, Hill frequently complimented the current city council’s approach to issues and concurred with statements from the incumbents.

Hers is not a campaign based on dissatisfaction, it appears, but of trying to bring more ideas to the table.

She proposed a partnership with college students to research vacant, rundown homes to help improve the city’s housing stock, argued that the civil rights museum should do more to advertise itself and could stand to collaborate with the city’s historical museum, said the city should explore alternative energy sources such as solar and produce more media about recycling and create more educational programs in general.

Hill aligned her comments most closely with incumbents Marikay Abuzuaiter and Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson, suggesting she is likely the most progressive challenger in the field.

Winston-Salem native Brian Hoss, who is 31 and still works in the Camel City, wants to see downtown Greensboro grow and thrive like in Winston. He would be the first openly gay member of city council if elected, and at the beginning of the campaign season a focal point of his GOTV campaign involved having a booth at a downtown Pride event.

During a recent candidate forum held by the League of Women Voters, Hoss appeared to be ill informed about the mechanisms of city government and to lack concrete ideas for how to actually go about making some of his big-picture ideas happen. That was most apparent as he repeatedly answered that he would pursue federal funding for different projects, an abstract notion that in many cases is either already happening or not applicable.

Hoss would like to make Greensboro a safer place for LGBT residents, and suggested the creation of a center/ safe zone in the city. He also suggested that coordination between downtown events and the civil rights museum could help boost the museum’s profile — not a bad idea for a partnership between entities, especially given that the museum was apparently closed during the massive National Folk Festival surrounding it a month ago.

Sharon Hightower (i)

Sharon Hightower took the mantle of District 1 in 2013 when she defeated incumbent Dianne Bellamy-Small by a mere dozen votes, raising a coalition based on grassroots credentials and dissatisfaction with the Bellamy-Small’s [abrasive?] governing style.

In this first term she found her footing on efforts for affordable housing and development in east Greensboro, for which a plan was formally approved in April.

Hightower voted for the city’s final loan payment to the International Civil Rights Center & Museum and has been advocating that the city remains hands-off when it comes to the operation of facility.

She took a position against renovating the Cascade Saloon on Elm Street.

She’s differed from her predecessor in both temperament and style, which is where most of the daylight between the two exists.

Dianne Bellamy-Small

Before losing to Hightower, Dianne Bellamy-Small served five terms in Greensboro’s District 1, defeating Belvin Jessup in 2003. Earl Jones, who went on to serve in the NC House, previously held the seat.

Jones, who co-founded the International Civil Rights Center & Museum that Bellamy-Small has said should become financially independent, will likely not be endorsing her.

Most constituents in District 1 remember their former councilwoman as a strong fighter who successfully beat back efforts to reopen the White Street Landfill and championed rental-unit inspections. Or they might remember her as the one who refused to move out of the corner office, survived a recall election and wouldn’t take a polygraph when a confidential document was leaked to the press.

Small’s style at council meetings could be disruptive and confrontational. And though she earned a reputation as being difficult with the press, she seems to have come around. Since losing in 2013, Bellamy-Small ran unsuccessfully for the Guilford County Commissioners.

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Brian Hoss

District 1

Marc Ridgill

Retired from the Greensboro Police Department after 29 years, Marc Ridgill has more public service credentials than any of the other at-large challengers this election. And during a recent forum, he appeared to be the most informed about city government issues among the other newcomers, too.

The lifelong Guilford County resident says he is “one step right of center” but he is registered unaffiliated. He made remarks during a League of Women Voters forum last month that he doesn’t support the city shipping its garbage so far away and doubts a mega-site landfill will work, alluding to his potential openness of reconsidering the controversial White Street Landfill. Ridgill also said the city needs more housing inspectors to force landlords to comply with housing code, a stance in line with what community advocates would likely propose.

During the forum, he emphasized that the election is not a foregone conclusion — with the incumbents sweeping to victory — and claimed that he has spoken to more people in the city than all the other at-large and mayoral candidates combined.

We’ll see on Nov. 3.

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Oct. 21 — 27, 2015 Cover Story

District 2

District 3

First elected two years ago, Jamal Fox is now just 27 — the youngest member of city council. His initial campaign focused on a variety of needs for the northeastern, majority black district, including transportation issues, the Renaissance Community Co-op and shopping center and greater student involvement in city government.

He’s had some accomplishments on those fronts, including major progress for the shopping center and the creation of a college commission with full participation of the city’s higher-ed institutions. And there is some economic development in the district — most of it still in the early stages and some of it still just an idea — that Fox points to as evidence of progress.

But other things are moving more slowly. Sidewalk construction, long a frustrating subject for some District 2 residents, will begin soon but will take several years. There’s some progress to point to on the Downtown Greenway, namely related to artist selection for a cornerstone piece rather than where the path itself comes through the district. And when it comes to the bus system, there’s nothing new to be proud of.

Fox has helped push forward some road-connectivity projects, he said, which will improve access and increase opportunities for economic development but which don’t get to the core issue of public transit for the district. But in less than two years, and coupled with progress via several initiatives including a raised wage for city employees that Fox supported, he believes it’s a strong start to build on.

When Justin Outling was appointed to replace Zack Matheny — who resigned from city council in June to head Downtown Greensboro Inc. — he became the first African-American to represent the district. Outling dominated the balloting during the Oct. 6 primary, grabbing 60.2 percent of the vote against two other contenders.

His service to the city as former chair of the minimum housing standards commission, along with his history-making accomplishment in breaking the colorline, makes him an appealing candidate to progressives, but Outling is far more complex than the optics might suggest. Starting with his professional background, as an attorney with Brooks Pierce, Outling specializes in business litigation and white-collar criminal defense.

Moving on to his short voting record, Outling’s was one of only two votes cast against raising the minimum wage for city workers and instituting a participatory budgeting program. Bill Burckley, a veteran political consultant, has remarked that Outling’s voting record is consistent with that of Tony Wilkins, otherwise the lone conservative member of the body.

Jamal Fox (i)

Thessa Pickett

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Challenger Thessa Pickett, who is self employed, emphasizes her grassroots credentials and social-justice mindset first. She’s tied to activist groups like Black Lives Matter and the Queer People of Color Collective, but also to the city’s committees for things like the Commission on the Status of Women.

Pickett charges that Fox has been absent when it comes to important issues facing the majority black residents of District 2, either by not showing up for community meetings or declining to take a strong public stance on a variety of topics, including policing and racial profiling [isn’t this the same issue, or have other institutional actors involved in racial profiling been called out?]

If elected, Pickett said her service wouldn’t be about her stances on the issues. Instead her positions would be driven by feedback from grassroots groups and constituents, she said. She has said she would work diligently to address the needs of the chronically homeless, among others.

The current city council has made the right decision on several key issues, to be sure, Pickett said, but the credit belongs to the network of residents who pressured council to do the right thing. She describes her bid for office — this is her first time running — as an extension of that bottom-up power.

Justin Outling (i)

Kurt Collins

Like Justin Outling, Kurt Collins has served on the leadership committee of the SynerG young professionals group. Collins entered the campaign modeling himself after Matheny, albeit slightly more conservative.

Coming into the primary he earned the support of Conservatives for Guilford County, a tea party-inspired group dissatisfied with the current orientation of the city council. Collins garnered 23 percent of the primary vote, pulling strong support in the suburban Lake Brandt and New Irving Park.

The latter neighborhood votes at Lawndale Baptist Church, where the local tea party movement was launched and where Rep. Mark Walker was pastor before being elected to the US Congress..

Collins holds strong civic experience as a member of the human relations commission, where he sits on a panel that hears complaints against the police department. Currently employed as a fraud analyst in the special investigations unit at United Guaranty, Collins also holds a realtor’s license. Like Outling, he’s relatively young.

There’s not much to distinguish the two candidates’ platforms, but the political establishment has largely swung behind Outling, who has been on the job for only about four months. With Conservatives for Guilford County backing Collins, he has embraced the role of the candidate of change.

triad-city-beat.com

District 4

Nancy Hoffmann (i)

Progressive Nancy Hoffmann ousted conservative Mary Rakestraw in a hard-fought race in 2011, and coasted to victory over deposed conservative mayor Bill Knight when he ran for the seat in 2013.

Now seeking her third term, Hoffmann is one of two candidates running .

In the meantime, Hoffmann has aligned herself with developers while maintaining a progressive voting record on issues like raising the minimum wage for city workers and protecting LGBT people from discrimination in housing and other arenas.

Considering her lack of competition, recent expenditures on advertising and consulting suggest she has her eyes on a bigger prize than Greensboro City Council. Our best guess is that she’ll take a run at state Sen. Trudy Wade.

District 5

Tony Wilkins (i)

Like Justin Outling in District 3, Wilkins initially came by his seat in District 5 by appointment, after Trudy Wade vacated it to run for the state Senate in 2013. He subsequently won his first election in 2013. Wilkins had been Wade’s campaign manager in that election and served as executive director of the Guilford County GOP before that.

Since joining council, he’s pushed a plan for an international restaurant row along High Point Road, and contributed to a successful plan to rename the street as Gate City Boulevard.

As a reliable conservative voice in the city’s most conservative district, he voted against raising the minimum wage for city employees and against the city’s financial involvement in the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, though he has said he would soften his stance when it came to dealing with food insecurity in this hungriest area of the nation.

“I tend to be a little bit more agreeable when we’re talking about feeding hungry people,” he said in February during a discussion about the Renaissance Community Co-op.

He was also the lone councilmember to support Wade’s plan to radically alter the way council is structured, how it functions and the way it is elected.

Love him or hate him, we’re stuck with him. His challenger, Maureen Washington, moved out of the district over the summer, making her ineligible for the seat.

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Oct. 21 — 27, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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CULTURE The hidden joy of Mexican-Seoul food

by Eric Ginsburg

he sign out front,and the name of El Nuevo adding that the restaurant is Mexican Grill don’t hint at what’s tucked into a hit in his law office and to be a small food court in downtown Greensboro’s sure to ask for some kimchi. financial district.

As I talked to Lim, while Greensboro is rife with hole-in-the-wall Mexican Kye and Kim ate lunch after restaurants, most of them just trying to get by, with a the rush ended on a recent few offering excellent fare but most hovering around afternoon, two new customers “good enough.” So when I repeatedly campaigned for a interrupted to say how much fast-paced burrito joint downtown — something akin they liked the chicken and to Carrburritos, Mamacitas or Cosmic Cantina in other quesadillas, vowing to come North Carolina cities — and a reader told me such a back. If people give the food place existed in what feels like a wildly outdated food a try, Lim is convinced, they’ll court, I kind of brushed it off. probably return. They usually Big mistake. do, he added.

What makes El Nuevo special isn’t that the food is When El Nuevo first opened delicious — which it undoubtedly is — but something in January 2013, almost nobody more unique. It’s that El Nuevo Mexican Grill, a burrito seemed to know anything place with a sombrero on the wall and a red chili pepabout Korean food, Lim said. per logo, is actually a Korean fusion restaurant.

That’s changed, thankfully, but Yep. In Greensboro. coupled with the lack of advenBut El Nuevo isn’t some hip new place, decorated turous eaters in the area, helps with unfinished wood and mason jars, sporting a explain why they’d market it high-minded design aesthetic and utilizing white colprimarily as a Mexican food ERIC GINSBURG Taeyeom Kim and husband-and-wife duo Young Kye and lege kids in the kitchen. It’s run by three Koreans, looks place.

Gilbert Lim run El Nuevo, a Ko-Mex restaurant. like it’s straight out of the ’80s and opened almost The menu is continually three years ago. evolving, but the proprietors symbol of Korean food, and it mixes very well with When Gilbert Lim, who owns the restaurant with try to maintain a home-cooked feel.

Mexican food. That’s why I select the bulgogi burrito.” his wife Young Kye and business partner Taeyeom “We try to develop our food and styles,” Lim said.

The trio makes their own chips each morning, fries Kim, first learned of the popularity of Korean-Mexican “We try to develop it every time, to change it a little their own burrito bowls and uses fresh vegetables. The fusion food, he tried it at home. He knew food trucks bit, to perfect it.” difference in quality is tangible. and creative chefs were pushing the blend in big cities The menu contains a few choices for drab eaters — a In all the excitement over new, hip, flashy things around the country, but he had never tried any of their hamburger, a beefsteak sub, fried chicken wings. But happening in Greensboro, especially downtown, I forcreations. Pairing primarily Korean-style meats with the rest of the items celebrate Mexican or Korean food, got the beauty of why I fell in love with this city in the ingredients common in Mexican cuisine, he quickly saw and usually both. The chimichanga comes with a spring first place.

Its charm is often hidden, and it’d be easy to the genius of melding the two. roll-style wrap, making it crispier. Tacos or burritos pass through without detecting it. But when you take Lim had never run a restaurant before, or even come with bulgogi beef — that’s Korean BBQ, folks — the time to seek it out, to dig it up and try something worked in a commercial kitchen, but when he realized spicy Korean pork BBQ, grilled or spicy chicken, tofu new, this city will often amaze you. nobody in the area offered the fusion-style meals, he or veggies, or shrimp. As evidence of the evolving opThat’s what this Korean-Mexican fusion restautook a risk. tions, the menu doesn’t list a Korean rant, operating quietly and unglamorously behind People around here aren’t very noodle dish posted on the wall or a the scenes, in the center of the city but without a adventurous eaters, he said. And Lim bibimbap-style bowl with Mexican Visit El Nuevo Mexican street-facing storefront, proves.

And I’m convinced, is far from the only one to point out Korean veggies. (and Korean) Grill at 114 and like Lim, that if you try it, you’ll be back soon. that Triadians are overwhelmingly The bulgogi burrito is the best N. Elm St. (GSO) or find creatures of comfort. Occasionally seller, and with good reason. Burripeople walk inside El Nuevo and, tos are like Legos, Lim said, allowing it on Facbeook.

Pick of the Week confused by the menu and possibly people to build theirs exactly as Hop along by the sight of Koreans behind the they’d like it on top of the tortilla Brew Basics Workshop @ Hudson’s Hill (GSO), Saturcounter, turn around. wrap base. And it’s his favorite thing they offer, too. day Here’s the thing: I hadn’t tried their food until a week Lim makes his with steamed white rice — they also The guys at XII Tribes Brewery haven’t even ago, and I’ve already been back twice. It’s fantastic, provide fried rice — which is a combination of jasmine opened up shop yet but they’re prepared to share and everyone I’ve talked to who’s been agrees. rice and sushi rice to make it stickier, he said. He pretheir secret brewing process with the public. Learn My friend Sam, a graphic designer, is the one who fers pinto beans to black beans because they’re sweetthe basics at this workshop set in an apparel store. helped push me through the doors for the bulgogi burer, and Lim adds pico de gallo, corn, a little cheese, They’ve got a live-music and — because beer makrito. My friend Dee, a law student, enjoys the vegetarisour cream and guacamole. El Nuevo makes some of ing is thirsty business — there will be breaks for an burrito. My friend Anthony, our sports writer, loved its own sauces, including a spicy Korean-style sauce, he beer and food. The workshop starts at 1 p.m. Find the flight of spicy Korean pork BBQ tacos. And Counsaid, but Lim puts sriracha in his bulgogi burrito. the event on Facebook for more information. cilman Justin Outling said he and his wife are regulars, “I’m surprised when I eat it,” he said. “Bulgogi is the

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Games All She Wrote

Please contact him at navemac@gmail.com, or through the many participating social media outlets via his website: www.ebrownm.com

Shot in the Triad

27: Craftsman What, you haven’t tried the latest mango mint Randall beer from the brewery that opened earlier this year?

Dude, get your life together. Now when you throw a Fourth of July party, nobody touches the back-up pack of macro beer you threw in a cooler. Instead they trade Duck Rabbit for Victory’s Golden Monkey, or try the expertly made sangria you (and your girlfriend) provided.

29: Connoisseur Over the next year, I’d like to learn more about sake and figure out a few go-to wines. I picture myself with a wine rack, but just a starter-pack that can hold three bottles. I’m already moving away from six packs unless it’s a self-made variety pack, and I see larger bottles of beers I know I love (or four packs of favorites like Allagash Black) in my future. I’ll be adulting so hard.

Good Sport

24: Youthful Adult In my 24th year, I finally began feeling like a real adult. Well, kind of. I still drank on a trampoline, went night

26: Friday Introvert Partying on a Friday night isn’t a priority anymore — in fact, the idea itself is stressful by 26. It’s hard to imagine that you once threw down every Friday and Saturday, let alone many Thursdays, but by 26 you’ve accepted the fact that Netflix & Chill (often alone) is the best way to end the work week.

He would love to draw for you!

Culture

23: King of the Bar With school behind you and hopefully the benefit of a job, your Michael Jordan Year is the right time to feel on top of the world. By now I’d put in enough hours at two dive bars that they belonged to me, especially on $1 beer nights when I felt flush and untouchable. Shots are still a thing.

25: Beer Graduate So it turns out that PBR actually isn’t very good, because you’re no longer comparing it to something too revolting to call beer. This is the year I started buying cheap craft beer, and vaguely understood that I should probably reach for a sixer of wheat beer or hefeweizen — nothing too complex or sharp.

28: Occasional Liquorist At 28, I actually have a cabinet dedicated to spirits, and recently poured out that bottle of green liqueur someone gave me at age 25. For the most part, the selection dominated by whiskeys and gins sits there like trophies. I swear that I intend to drink them, but at 28, my alcohol consumption from just two years ago has likely been halved.

Cover Story

22: Explorer I first showed up in a bar at 20 in Savannah when bartender didn’t bother to ask for ID, but I was too scared to drink more than one beer while playing a game of pool. By 22, as a newly minted graduate, I picked a favorite dive and transitioned from parties to drinking primarily in bars.

swimming in the ocean, got wasted and ate about a pound of candy, and other such youthful indiscretions. So ended the era of drinking to be drunk, ushering in a (generally) more tempered approach.

When not drawing, he can be found in front of a large television with his wife and three animals playing fantasy sneaking games or watching anime and horror movies.

Or, he’s throwing around coffee and pies at Scratch in downtown Durham, NC.

Opinion

21: Wine Lover Nobody my age drank wine until we showed up at college, but our first few years lacked sophistication. That first semester, a kid named Ethan bought a bottle wider than his leg. Sounds about right. But by 21, a contingent of classmates weren’t just distinguishing between types of red wine; they actually used glassware instead of swilling from the bottle.

At 21, the author still drank crappy Manischewitz wine, but by that point he and his peers were known to use some form of cup (rather than straight from the bottle).

News

20: Newb Unlike most of you, I didn’t start drinking until shortly after my 20th birthday (blame it on being a straightedge punk teen). That first year saw some embarrassing decisions including a brief tryst with Andre “champagne,” but even those of you who stole from your parents at 14 still acted like newbs at age 20.

Evan McIntyre is a Florida-born, North Carolina-residing illustrator (and UNCG graduate!). He grew up replicating his favorite video game and comic book characters and since hasn’t changed much. He draws silly objects such as serious animals, 20-sided dies, fictional helmet races, stills from his favorite movie scenes, monster-stylizedwording, and the most silly of all: wedding invitation portraits.

Up Front

Birthdays always seem to bring out my reflective side, and a week after turning 28, I’m at it again. My twenties are almost over, and while I’m indifferent about approaching 30 and am perfectly happy to have the preceding years behind me, I imagine others can relate to this year-by-year timeline of a booze writer’s drinking evolution.

This week’s cover artist Evan McIntyre

triad-city-beat.com

by Eric Ginsburg

A guide to drinking in your twenties

Cover Collaborative:

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Oct. 21 — 27, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

22

CULTURE Foxture nurtures a unified music scene in the Triad

by Jordan Green

he four young men of Foxture take an intentional stance on trying to create an environment with their music where fans will feel welcome and included.

“We want it to feel like home at our show,” said Marlon Blackmon, the band’s vocalist and keyboardist.

“We never want people to feel uncomfortable,” added guitarist Eddie Reynolds. “Like if you’ve had a rough day, this is a place you can just let loose.”

The sound the band is going for — ambient, with some curveballs of tonal weirdness — is described by bassist Ross Barnes as “what it feels like to be in a room where the temperature is just right — almost like air conditioning.”

Foxture, as a solo project by Blackmon, became a band when Reynolds responded to a post on the “Musicians of the Triad” Facebook page. Blackmon had been offered a gig at UNCG in August 2014, and was feeling some pressure to flesh out his sound. Reynolds responded that he was interested, adding that he could also bring a bass player and drummer.

The four members share an interest in cultivating a unified local music scene. They take care in curating varied show lineups so different bands can cross-pollinate their audiences. It’s paid off, with a booking earlier this year at Phuzz Phest in Winston-Salem — where they shared billing with some of their heroes like Foxygen, Ex Hex and Hamilton Leithauser — and a string of shows at the Blind Tiger in Greensboro.

Similarly, they want to promote the local arts scene, and to that end they enlisted Kendall Doub to design the cover of their new five-song EP, Circles, which depicts a fox curled into itself.

For the band’s EP release party at the Garage in Winston-Salem on Oct. 17, Foxture put together an eclectic supporting roster that pulled off the trick of assembling a diverse array of listeners.

The multigenerational lineup began with Vel Indica, a band whose members look old enough to have kids in college, that has a highly original sound matching emotive vocals with dynamic instrumental interplay.

With violin carrying some of the high end on the band’s range, high tenor vocals and the occasional use of an acoustic guitar, Vel Indica’s sound sounds vaguely reminiscent of bands like REM, Camper Van Beethoven and the Waterboys in the late ’80s.

The next set by 1970s Film Stock marked a signal pivot from conventional pop-rock song format into uncharted guitar and electronic territory. The project of former Jews & Catholics guitarist Eddie Garcia, 1970s Film Stock has functioned in the past as duo with drummer Ben Braxton, but on Oct. 17 Garcia was performing solo. Aided by a handful of guitars with different tones, Garcia presented an array of compelling songs, each with different textures and emotional colors. On some, he played bright and clean note runs reminiscent of William Tyler; on others, he unleashed

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Vocalist and keyboardist Marlon Blackmon is the frontman of Foxture, which also includes Eddie Reynolds on guitar (left), Andrew Irving on drums and Ross Barnes on bass.

snarling garage-rock riffs worthy of early White Stripes. He sang on some songs, while on others, the cathartic scream of his guitar supplanted the vocal in dialogue with an overdubbed rhythm track. Garcia’s stylistic reference points — generationally situated in the era from 1991 to 2005 — are likely to appeal to listeners with young children.

The bill also included Spirits & the Melchizedek Children, an Atlanta psychedelic shoegaze band, but they didn’t make the gig, reportedly because of traffic problems traveling from CMJ Music Marathon in New York City.

It was just as well, considering that it was a little after 11:30 p.m. when Foxture took the stage. Many of the Vel Indica and 1970s Film Stock fans who stuck around for the headliner were unfamiliar with Foxture’s music. That could be a recipe for disappointment or a pleasant surprise, depending on one’s appetite for adventure.

As relative youngsters — two members attend Forsyth Tech and another goes to UNCG, while one works in a daycare — Foxture’s music is markedly more soothing and gentle than that of their angst-ridden elders. And whether it was due to their sound or their ecumenical outreach, the audience waiting when Foxture took the stage was strikingly diverse for indie rock — with black, white and Asian listeners almost equally apportioned.

Blackmon’s voice stood out most immediately.

High pitched and with a fluttering quality, it delicately worked melodic twists in a way that vaguely suggested Sade and Carol Bui — admittedly an obscure reference, she’s a Vietnamese-American guitarist who came out of the DC punk scene with one of the most ethereal

JORDAN GREEN

voices in popular music during her brief music career.

Blackmon’s keyboard playing built an architecture of jazzy effervescence around his vocals, with Reynolds’ chirping guitar mimicking the singer’s vocals. Andrew Irving likewise approached the drums with a jazz player’s sense of restraint, providing playful dynamics with a light touch. Similarly, Barnes’ bass playing laid down a groove that acted as a comforting blanket, rarely if ever rising to the level of stridency.

Occasionally, the groove would reach a crescendo, and then a key shift would signal a harmonic catharsis highlighted by Blackmon’s expressive vocals.

The audience was attentive and appreciative, while somewhat more restrained in their applause than during the two previous sets. Total pros, the members of Foxture more than reciprocated.

“You guys are beautiful,” Blackmon said. “Jesus Christ. Thank you for being here so much.”

Pick of the Week Exquisite, talented, Sonnenberg Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg @ Aycock Auditorium on UNCG campus (GSO), Friday She’s been the subject of a “60 Minutes” report, a guest on “Sesame Street” and the youngest violinist to ever win the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition, which is sort of like the Super Bowl of violin competitions. For this show the UNCG Symphony Orchestra and the Gate City Camerata will accompany her. The show starts at 8 p.m. Visit performingarts.uncg.edu for more information.

Up Front

Friday, Oct. 23rd 5:30 – 7:30 pm

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Oct. 21 — 27, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

24

CULTURE Out of the classroom, into Punto de Vista

by Daniel Wirtheim

ne of the children asked where the cow’s other leg had gone, the one that would have been obscured from the painter’s angle.

Angel Fant, who mentors children through ArtistCorps, a UNC School of the Arts program, was quick to explain that omitting the leg was a deliberate move, an effort to achieve realism.

Fant uses art to teach the Common Core curriculum at Title I schools, which are considered to have a majority of high-poverty families.

She says the shapes and rhythms of paintings can be a good jumping point for understanding geometry or mathematics.

Fant was leading a group of children from an after-school program at the United Metropolitan Church through the Punto de Vista exhibition at the Delta Arts Center on the east side of Winston-Salem when the child asked about the cow.

The gallery typically features African-American artists, but the Hispanic Arts Initiative launched Punto de Vista, an annual exhibit, now in its fourth year.

The name translates to “point of view,” and the exhibit features selected Latino artists who reside in North Carolina and offer their own perspectives on Latino culture. Delta Arts Center Executive Director Nadiyah Quander believes Punto de Vista can bridge cultural gaps.

COURTESY IMAGE The children wondered where the cow’s other leg had gone in Victoria Morales’ painting “Hard Work.”

“We try to find points of connection between Latino and African-American communities,” children were learning how to dance a variation of the if they want to paint realistically they need to study Quander said. “Art is a great place to have that mamba, with emphasis on the hips. Those who weren’t anatomy. happen.” embarrassed shook wildly with their friends. Fant told When the children left, the gallery was silent again.

Delta Arts Center is in a majority African-Amerithem to watch her for a demonstration. She grabbed a Fant took a deep breath and exhaled in an exhausted can community but Quander says that most of the partner closer to her own stature, a humble Triad City sigh. She said she thought the children enjoyed their museumgoers to the Punto de Vista exhibit have been Beat journalist meandering in the gallery, and led him time with South American art but it’s hard to tell how Latino. through the movements. After the dance lesson she much knowledge they actually picked up from the Quander says she hasn’t seen the diverse groups led the children through the gallery tour. that Delta Arts Center harbors at while the music played overhead.

“The hope is that it’s exciting enough that they’ll other galleries in the area. They hostAdmiring two paintings by Nico want to go home and talk about it,” Fant said. “That ed a night of salsa and sangria that The Punto de Vista exhibit Amortegui, a Colombian artist living they’ll want to do some research on their own.” brought out a young, hip audience, runs through October 31 in Charlotte, the children argued as and an Afro-Cuban band played on at Delta Arts Center. Visit to whether the shapes were organic opening night, attracting several deltaartscenter.org for Pick of the Week or geometric. Amortegui’s paintings different demographics. But the more information. have the busy and vibrant air of Dance, Dracula gallery most often attracts groups street art — a mix of both organic Dracula opening night @ Hanesbrands Theatre (Wof children. And Quander says that’s and geometric shapes. They seemed S), Thursday good for the children on the east side to be the most popular among the children who wantEveryone knows Count Dracula is the most because art has a kind of therapeutic quality that can ed to move through the gallery at a quick pace. Along romantic of all the classic monster-villains. But help mental health in high-stress environments. the way they learned about repetition, rhythm and the Winston-Salem Festival Ballet gives Dracula “We’re giving them therapy,” said Quander. “They balance. dancing shoes and a new, revamped score. UNCSA need therapy.”

A few of the children said they liked to paint. When Film Music Composition head Chris Heckman is It was an early-release day for children in the afthey stopped in front of Victoria Morales’ “Hard Work” behind the original music. The play begins at 7:30 ter-school program visiting Punto de Vista. Music began and questioned where the cow’s leg had gone, Fant p.m. Visit winstonsalemfestivalballet.org for more to play in the gallery, a compilation album of dancetold them they can paint however they would like but information. able Latin rhythms with trumpets and percussion. The

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Oct. 21 — 27, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

26

GOOD SPORT From the visitors’ side at Grimsley-Page hen I got to Page If my memory serves me well, the authorities caught High School in the offenders of the latter act.

Greensboro on the But I’ll never forget one prank as long as I live. chilly night of Oct. 16, I wasn’t My junior year, I arrived at school bright and early at necessarily concerned with about 7 a.m. before Zero Period, and walked toward the historical landmarks surthe quad, when I noticed something wrong, but so rounding this Grimsley-Page right. game.

Grimsley had painted a mural on the side of the auxby Anthony Harrison I didn’t realize at the time iliary gym, a big blue tornado on a white background that this was the 63rd meeting alongside blocky blue text reading, “THIS IS WHIRLIE between the teams. I knew, however, that the rivalry COUNTRY.” was long running — since 1960, to be exact.

Well, some ribald geniuses hailing from Alma Pinnix I didn’t immediately recognize the significance of Drive had snuck onto campus and whited out the O, R having to drive to Marion Kirby Stadium for the game. and Y in “country.”

Indeed, this year marked the first time the game had I actually slapped my knees laughing, and I still must ever been played at Page. hand it to them: Those Page Pirates sure know how to See, instead of thinking about the objective history, I knock our school. was considering my personal history with the bout.

They most definitely did on Oct. 16.

Of all the traditional matchups I hadn’t been to a high-school which have embroiled my life, the football game in 10 years, back in Grimsley’s next game only one coming anywhere close to those halcyon days when Grimsley’s will be played at Dudley team actually went to the state the intensity of my feelings between High School on Friday Carolina and Duke — ra-ra, Carochampionship, only to be ravaged lina-lina; go to hell, Duke — is the by the Rose High School Rampants beginning at 7:30 p.m.

Grimsley-Page rivalry. hailing from Greenville.

My personal involvement with the I’m simply calling a spade a spade struggle perhaps makes my disdain for the Page Pirates when I state things have gone downhill since then — logically stronger than my blind hatred for Duke. After Grimsley arrived at Kirby Stadium with a 2-5 record. all, I actually attended Grimsley High School, whereas Page, on the other hand, has performed admirably my Carolina fandom was the result of thorough familthis season, winning five of six and going 4-0 at home. ial brainwashing.

But, as is the case with many intense rivalry matchThere are, however, some similarities between the es, animosity in the face of the enemy can inspire two contests. heroic effort.

For one, the two sets of schools are geographically Grimsley’s defensive line shut down Page and forced very close. As the crow flies, approximately seven a few turnovers, creating some tight situations for the miles separate UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University; Pirates in the first half. in the local example, about three miles lie between Still, Grimsley could never capitalize on good forGrimsley and Page. tune.

Owing to this proximity, Grimsley and Page have For one, they relied heavily yet predictably on their split neighborhoods between their schools, and in some rare examples the two schools have split families.

For instance, my mother and uncle both went to Grimsley, while their younger sister attended Page.

As with Carolina and Duke, these factors play into the intensity between the two schools. And intensity makes the rivalry fun.

As a student going off campus for lunch during Rivalry Week, you might run into a gaggle of Page students and talk some smack.

That’s baseline stuff.

I recall more intense actions, like cars getting egged or even smashed up, sometimes with cinderblocks through vulnerable, glassy areas.

The Page kids also played some absolutely incredible pranks on my beloved high school.

They really knew how to use dye. One year, when Grimsley still had a pool on campus, I heard they colored the whole thing red. Same with the football field.

The Grimsley Whirleys face off against the Page Pirates.

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fantastic running backs, senior twin brothers Caleb and Micah Williams. I could count on two hands the times Grimsley attempted to pass, with mixed results.

Their inability to convert hurt.

Following a blocked punt and a 35-yard pass to junior running back Javon Leake, Page led 14-0 at the half.

“It’s better than I thought it would be,” Sara Neese, Grimsley ’15, said during the break.

“My dad thought the score would be 42-0 by halftime,” Neely Gray, Grimsley ’15, added.

The dam broke for the Whirlies in the second half.

More rough turnovers by junior quarterback Noah Bourne — bless his heart — led to an eventual stomping that matched Mr. Gray’s prediction for the final tally.

I felt downtrodden. My low mood surprised me as someone with intentions to act as an objective observer. But that faith, that love, that loyalty — it was all still pledged to Greensboro’s Grimsley High.

Walking beaten from the visitors’ side, I suppressed the urge to brashly chant, “S-A-T SCORES!” at the crimson tide opposite me, and I trudged towards the parking lot, marching solemnly to the sad strains of the Grimsley alma mater.

Pick of the Week The greatest on earth Howard University Bisons @ NC A&T Aggies (GSO), Saturday It ain’t called the Greatest Homecoming On Earth for nothing. Festivities began early in the week, but it all leads naturally to the parade and football game on Saturday afternoon. The parade, featuring the infamous drum line, starts bright and early at 8 a.m. on Murrow Boulevard, and the game begins at 1 p.m. at Aggie Stadium. For tickets, call the ticket office at 336.334.7749.

ANTHONY HARRISON

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Oct. 21 — 27, 2015 Up Front All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad

Games

Good Sport

Culture

Cover Story

Opinion

News

FALL CAREER FAIR

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FREE parking and admission for job seekers!

Se solicita Bilingües en Inglés y Español, les recomendamos de atender.

October 22, 2015 10am-2pm Greensboro Coliseum Complex More Information: ILoveGoodwill.org/fall-career-fair

triad-city-beat.com

GAMES

‘Go for It’ and don’t stop solving.

by Matt Jones Across

Down

Sunday service @ 10:30am Coffee and snacks at 10:00am

Join one of our Life Groups today!

ToastMasters

Develop speaking, thinking and listening skills in a safe, welcoming and supportive environment.

Opinion

Mondays 6:30 – 8 pm

Join us in a walk through each book of the Bible!

Women’s Bible Study Every Tuesday 7 – 9 pm Men’s Bible Study Tuesday, Oct 27th 7 – 9 pm

Cover Story

Gate City Youth (7th–12th grade)

We hang out, play games, eat, worship, have a Bible Study, and just talk about life.

Wednesdays 7 – 9 pm

Good Sport

Visit gatecityvineyard.com/events-2 for more Life Groups and Events.

Upcoming

Culture

1 Actor Penn of the “Harold & Kumar” films 2 Each 3 Boot jangler 4 “Cats” lyricist T.S. 5 Make a mistake 6 “SportsCenter” channel 7 Went out 8 Harry Potter’s nemesis Malfoy 9 Uncomplicated kind of question 10 Out of one’s mind?

11 Its state drink is tomato juice, for some reason 12 Gear for gigs 13 Caustic compound

21 Firefighters’ tools 22 Sans ice, at the bar 25 “Blade Runner” genre 26 ___ to go (stoked) 27 Follow way too closely 29 Take down ___ (demote) 30 Drug bust amounts 32 Schumer’s “Trainwreck” costar 33 Film director Kurosawa 34 Clingy, in a way 36 Not here to stay 38 Partygoer’s purchase 43 Icy North Atlantic hazard 44 Vulgar 45 Show irritation 49 Don Quixote’s devil 52 Charge to appear in a magazine 54 Serve a purpose 55 Silent greeting 56 Sitcom in which Sherman Hemsley played a deacon 57 “Downton Abbey” countess 58 Aspiring D.A.’s exam 59 “Yikes!”

60 Lacoste of tennis and fashion 61 “The ___ Squad” (‘60s-’70s TV drama) 64 “Funeral in Berlin” novelist Deighton

News

51 “Free Willy” creature 53 Rapper with the 2008 hit “Paper Planes” 55 Chopping weapon for Ares or Mars?

61 One of the Three Bears 62 Craft some try to reverse-engineer, in the movies 63 Breakfast order with a hole in it 65 Walkie-talkie message ender 66 Billion : giga :: trillion : ___ 67 Former “Weekend Edition” host Hansen 68 Refuse to believe 69 Word with rash or lamp 70 “Here we are as in ___ days ...”

Up Front

1 Longtime “American Top 40” host Casey 6 “Electric Avenue” singer Grant 10 Baby horse 14 Fuji, e.g.

15 Medieval address 16 “Yikes!”

17 Comic ___ C.K. 18 Stir-fry vegetables 19 Sticker word on an avocado, maybe 20 Paid athletes visiting two similarly-named African countries?

23 Prom rental 24 Cookie with a seasonal Pumpkin Spice variety 25 Grads-to-be, briefly 28 Mountain top 31 Actor Fillion 35 E! News host Sadler 37 Faucet stealer’s job?

39 “Dies ___” (“Day of Wrath”) 40 Pharmaceutical purveyor ___ Lilly 41 Brickell with the New Bohemians 42 “Them” versus “Arachnophobia” showdown?

46 Anyone able to rattle off more than 10 digits of pi, probably 47 Ballpoint relative 48 Five-card game 50 Bit of sunshine

Answers from previous publication.

Games Shot in the Triad

gatecityvineyard.com

336.323.1288 ©2015 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

204 S. Westgate Dr., Greensboro

All She Wrote

Friday, October 30th, 7 – 9 pm

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Gate City Boulevard, Greensboro

Good Sport

Culture

Cover Story

Opinion

News

Up Front

Oct. 21 — 27, 2015

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

Thank you, October.

All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad

Games

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

Fresh food & natural ingredients from Margarita’s garden Breakfast Lunch • Dessert • Juice bar

Wine Packaged goods • Catering services

•

•

•

•

Patio area available for gatherings & meetings

mannysuniversalcafe.com

321 Martin Luther King Jr Dr. • Greensboro

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(336) 638-7788

On iTunes, Stitcher, and at BradandBritt.com

Lost in translation

GreysTavern.com

336.617.5341

!

FREE • • • • • •

Questions: Call 373-CITY

Trick-or-Treating Bingo at Meet Skully Face Painting th! the Photo Boo Story Telling Removeable Tattoos Costume Contest

ACTIVITIES

WITH A SMALL FEE ($.25-$5)

• • • •

Arts & Crafts Photo Booth Inflatable Maze Bouncy Inflatables

Food vendors available for an additional fee!

Participating Venues: • Greensboro Children’s Museum Admission Special: $4 • Central Library • Greensboro Historical Museum • Ed-Choo-Ka-Tion Station

All She Wrote

343 S. Elm St. • Greensboro

Corner of N. Church St. & Lindsay St.

Shot in the Triad

Wednesday Night Trivia 9pm

2 - 6 pm

Games

14 beers on tap

October 24

!

Good Sport

Achtung baby German exhibitor talking to Mexican guy hanging art: It is akew!

Mexican guy: ¿Que? German: No! Not okay! It is akew.

Me (to my designer friend watching this interaction): I’m tempted to yell, “Gesundheit!”

A L LO W E E N E V E N T WN H FOR KID SATU RDAY S

Culture

Pop-up pop art Me, upon seeing a trunk full of “gold” in a High Point parking lot: Dang girl, that is some serious Mr. T. Mrs. T: What you looking for?

Me: I’m going to the Moschino opening at the Mint and I need something outrageous and pop-arty.

Mrs. T: I didn’t understand a single word you just said.

Me: I’ll take the lipstick-tube necklace.

O AD

TO WN

Cover Story

From Russia with love Me: Is this your first visit to High Point.

Russian guy: No, I come here many times for tax evasion at shower time.

Me: What?

Russian guy: You know they have the tax evasion every year vid all de fabric.

Me: Oh, the textile viewing at Showtime.

The Italian job Me, eyeballing a diaphanous tumbleweed in the parking lot: What is that?

Designer friend: Is that a fabric swatch?

Me, snaring the object: Holy crap, it’s an Armani scarf. I should take this to lost and found.

Designer friend: Nicole, when it’s lost in High Point, you keep it.

Opinion

Bejing to Biscuitville Waiter at steakhouse motioning to remaining chateaubriand: Would you like this to go?

Visiting Chinese Manufacturer (VCM) looking confused: How? Me: You should have them slice the rest and take it to Biscuitville in the morning and slap it in a biscuit. It’s a local delicacy. It’s the chicken foot of the South.

VCM: Oh! I must visit this place Biscuitville. It is a city.

Me: No, but it should be.

Celebrity sightings Small-town designer (STD): OMG I think I just saw Jeff Lewis! He is even more handsome in person!

Her companion: Honey, he is gay.

STD: Well I don’t want to sleep with him; I just want a selfie. My husband will be so jealous.

Her companion: Again, he is gay?

STD: Do you really think my husband watches Bravo?

Boca blowout Florida-tagged designer with a Boca bob: Oy! How can there be humidity in October. Think I can get a blowout anywhere in town?

Her companion: Honey you’ll have better luck getting a blow job.

Boca bob: There has got to be a salon in this town that does more than wet sets.

Companion: There are plenty of wig stores.

News

Brollywood Indian exhibitor yelling at her husband: I don’t care what the Weather Channel says, I need you to go find me an umbrella. I did not spend good money on straightening my hair to have it ruined in High Point.

Husband: I can’t find an IKEA anywhere!

Wife: How far is Charlotte? You can go there!

Me: Excuse me, but they have courtesy umbrellas available in front of many of the buildings. You can just go pick one up.

Wife: Oh, thank god. You are from here? Can you take my husband to IKEA?

Up Front

ell into its 106 year, the High Point Furniture Market is the largest trade show of its kind in the world, and according to a 2014 Duke University study, it brings approximately $5.5 million to North Carolina’s

by Nicole Crews Piedmont annually.

It is housed in approximately 180 buildings throughout the area and delivers upwards of 70,000 warm bodies from more than 100 countries to town each April and October.

For a week each spring and fall, the 10,000 square foot-plus DMZ (Designer Mile Zone) is home to more than 2,000 exhibitors — celebrity-licensed collections, decorative-arts entrepreneurs, boutique accessory and furniture makers and established “big boy” furniture manufacturers. Joining them is a cadre of sales people, designers, executives, PR pros, journalists and students in the field. These are their stories. Cue the “Law and Order” bawmp, bawmp.

W

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triad-city-beat.com

ALL SHE WROTE

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