TCB Feb. 10, 2016 — Okay, Cupid

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com February 10 – 16, 2016

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Okay, Cupid A digital love story

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Better booze PAGE 21

¡Viva Sinaloa!

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Housing for all PAGES 8, 10

Feb. 10 — 16, 2016

UNIVERSES HARD HITTING HIP-HOP FUSION THEATRE

aycock auditorium at 8pm

saturday, feb. 13

UPAS 2015-16

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

Scan this QR code with your smartphone to purchase tickets. You can also go to upas.uncg.edu or call 336-272-0160.

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Wolfgang Puck’s Newest Concept Chef inspired fare in a family-style format

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FRIENDLY CENTER / 607 Green Valley Road, Greensboro, NC 27408 / 336-854-0303

UNIVERSITY PERFORMING ARTS SERIES

The fashion game

by Brian Clarey

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

NEWS 8 Affordable housing in GSO 10 WSNC for LGBT 12 HPJ: Rich Fork endures

OPINION 14 Editorial: Defending our lives

14 Citizen Green: Race and representation 15 It Just Might Work: Tackling hunger with a food truck 15 Fresh Eyes: In the eyes of the squirrel

COVER

24 Art: Rewriting art history

FUN & GAMES 26 Laurels for teens

GAMES 27 Jonesin’ Crossword

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

16 Okay, Cupid

28 West McGee St, Greensboro

CULTURE 20 Food: Homemade 21 Barstool: A spirited session 22 Music: There is only one Komander

ALL SHE WROTE 30 Love me Tinder: A modern dictionary of dirty talk

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It’s basically a digital version of the toys she loved as a child: paper dolls, Fashion Plates, Barbies with extended wardrobes, that weird disembodied head she used to style and paint.

But it’s not just for kids, my sister tells me — though, she admits, there is some high school mean-girling going on at Covet Fashion, the fashion app she and some of her friends have been obsessing over for the last six months or so.

It’s pretty simple: Users style a virtual model from tip to tail and then participate in a sort of pageant wherein they vote on each other’s looks. The winner gets a prize of in-house cash that can be spent on more clothes.

What makes it noteworthy is that it’s one of the first online video games geared specifically to girls and women — a vast, untapped market that conventional wisdom had long stipulated was uninterested in online gaming.

Users number in the millions in the global marketplace, and though the game is free to download and play, some revenue is generated by in-app purchases like extra spending coin. But unlike Candy Crush or Clash of Clans, there exists in Covet Fashion another practical route to monetization.

When you buy a new piece for your virtual closet, you have the option of buying the actual item itself, which can be at your door as fast as ground shipping allows.

More than 150 high-end brands have signed on to Covet Fashion, and so many more have expressed interest that a landing page has been created on its website It’s one of the first online for prospective particigames geared to women — a pants. They’d be crazy vast market that conventional wisdom had written off. not to get in on it: a self-identified audience dense with the target demographic, engaged in a way that transcends all previous forms of delivery, with an in-game retail portal and access to every screen the internet touches.

It’s growing so fast that the parent company CrowdStar — whose previous efforts included Wasteland Empires, Fish With Attitude and Phuzzle — has shifted all its operations over in support of the title.

You’d better believe they’re hiring. They’ve got 10 open positions in their Burlingame, Calif. office. They’ve got weekly in-house yoga.

The revenue stream is now shifting heavily towards the retail purchases made through the game, some of it provided by my sister, who says she swore off buying in-house Covet Fashion dollars months ago, but who has moved her formidable internet shopping habit over to the game’s portal, allowing them a cut of every transaction and allowing her to build up her actual wardrobe.

It’s different when you get something for it, she says.

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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Feb. 10 — 16, 2016

WEEKEND

CITY LIFE February 10 – 16 THURSDAY

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus @ the Greensboro Coliseum (GSO) Contortionists and trapezes and unitards, oh my! It’s that time of year again: This circus has been rolling into towns across America since 1884, and this weekend they set up camp in Greensboro. On the billing: a family of motocross riders reaching speeds of 65 mph in a Globe of Steel, and the Medeiros acrobatic troupe, who perform various tricks while hanging from their hair. Go to coliseum-nc.com for tickets.

FRIDAY

District-wide spelling bee @ Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Education Building (W-S), 10 a.m.

More than 50 students from elementary and middle schools around the Twin Cities will wrack their brains for the Latin roots of words like “schizoid” and “abstemious.” The winner heads to the regional bee on March 13. For more information, please contact Amy Nail at ahnail@wsfcs.k12.nc.us.

After Hours opening reception @ Irving Park Art & Frame (GSO), 5:30 p.m.

Get schooled by art teachers from all around Guilford County, who show off their skills outside of their classrooms in this annually recurring show.

“There is a stereotype that those who can’t do, teach,” artist and teacher Seth Bunch said. “This show over the past [five] years has proved that wrong tremendously.” About 16 educators will be showing pieces, some of which are interactive, so dress accordingly if you want to participate. The show runs until March 4. Visit the shop’s Facebook page for more information.

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by Joanna Rutter

Valentine partner yoga @ Pure Light Yoga (HP), 5:30 p.m.

There are regular-type connections with a loved one, and then there’s staring deeply into your friend or lover’s eyes while doing headstands (disclaimer: not a confirmed asana, do not try this at home). Pure Light Yoga instructor Karen Altenpohl will guide participants through a series of poses using your partner’s body as a prop. This would also make a very strong statement for a first date.

Book your spot at purelightyoga.com.

Valensteins @ Gibb’s Hundred Brewing Company (GSO), 6:30 p.m.

Coming up empty on V-Day gift ideas? Hillary Meredith & Courtney Reynolds, co-founders of GSO crafting collaborative Factory 101, will teach you to etch your own beer stein. We dare you to find something that says “true love” better than a cold pint of craft beer with your sweetheart’s name on it.

Space is limited; register at factory101gso.com.

triad-city-beat.com

Night Sky: The Moon, Stars, and Stories @ Piedmont Environmental Center (HP), 7 p.m.

Get a closer look at winter sky and hear the folk tales behind what they represent in legend.

Attendees will view moon craters, learn about the brightest stars of the season, trace out the winter constellations of Orion, Gemini and Taurus, and see Jupiter’s moons rising in the east in the constellation Leo. The event is for ages 18 and over. Telescopes and hot chocolate will be provided. For more information, call 336.883.8531.

SATURDAY

African storytelling and drum circle @ St. Philips Heritage Center (W-S), 10:30 or 11:30 a.m.

As part of Old Salem’s Black History Month events series, Winston storytelling musical group the Healing Force invites participants into a traditional West African djembe drum circle. Visit oldsalem.org to buy passes for the event series.

Introduction to Home Brewing @ Triad Homebrew Supply (GSO), 11 a.m.

If TCB’s recent cover story on the Battleground Brewers’ Guild whetted your hoppetite for some indie chemistry but you’re not yet bold enough to Pinterest-attempt your own brews, Eric Henriksen of Triad Homebrew Supply is here to help you learn how to make beer all by yourself via the extract brewing process. Trained brewers will be on hand for questions, and you can try samples of “Hoppiness Is An IPA”, which was made by their last class. Hot dogs will be provided as well. For more details, visit triadhomebrew.com.

Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration @ Wake Forest University (W-S), 3 p.m.

The Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, is an important holiday in several Chinese religious traditions dedicated to honoring family and ancestors, as well as coming together to feast on delicious food, which is something all religions have in common. You can do both with the Asia Student Interest Association, which rings in the Year of the Monkey with student performances, games, and traditional homecooked food in the Barn. Go to wfu.edu for details.

SUNDAY Sweet Sounds Valentine’s Dance @ Canterbury School (GSO) 6 p.m.

Relive middle school by putting on whatever you own that has the puffiest sleeves and getting jiggy in a school gymnasium. As part of the OPUS Concert Series, Greensboro Big Band plays all its most romantic music with Mike Day conducting. If you want to fully commit to the nostalgia, have your mom pick you and your date up in her station wagon. Details can be found at city-arts.org.

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Feb. 10 — 16, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Some kind of fraud

Here’s all you have to do, and it won’t be considered voter fraud as only one vote will have been cast per the registered voter [“IDs for all!”; Feb. 3, 2016].

For example, go into the precinct where you live and give them your name and your address. At that point they strike your name off the list and have me (presumed to be you) go ahead and vote. When you arrive later, you will be informed that you have already voted and that will be that. No fraud.

They will just assume you are lying and trying to vote twice.

So in their minds, justice prevailed and you only got to vote once, which is technically true, although you weren’t the one who cast your vote.

Yes it really is that easy and happens all the time all over the country. It will continue happening until voter ID is required at all polling places.

Beyond that, you can never know how much fraud there is until there is a way to uncover it. If there were no ID required to buy alcohol, then anyone could buy it and it would accurate to say that no underage persons were buying it.

Thomas Cayman, Kyle, Texas In 2012 I walked in to vote and was told I had already voted. Somebody has simply walked in, given them my name and address, and stolen my vote. I made a big stink and they threatened to have me arrested so I left, and have been a solid proponent of voter ID at the polls ever since.

Yes, it’s that easy to steal someone’s vote. A name and an address and you’ve got it. A dozen cases of voter fraud in this century? Bulls***.

Frank Swanson, Rockingham County

Election selection

Geez, Triad City Beat, are you so afraid of Mark [Walker]’s Republican challenger and likely winner of the March 15th Primary that you’re afraid to even mention his name in this article [“Democratic candidates for 6th District make their case to voters”; by Joanna Rutter; Feb. 7, 2016].

Scardy Cats!

Chris Hardin is a solid conservative… he will fill the soured expectations of 6th District Voters fooled once by the “bait and switch” tactics of Congressman Walker. Wait and see!

Andy Stevens, Greensboro Apparently, Andy there are unaware of the revolution that is about to embark on Washington, DC as we take our country back from progressives on the left and right side of the aisle. The people all across the 6th District, North Carolina and America are waking up and will tell DC, “Your progressive agenda stops now.”

Chris Hardin, Browns Summit The author is challenging incumbent Rep. Mark Walker in the Republican primary for the 6th Congressional District.

5 Triad Tinder guys I’ve swiped left on

by Joanna Rutter

1. The ‘Coliseum Nomad’

Thanks to our capitalist temple — oh, excuse me, stadium — there’s a steady stream of D-level athletes and touring backup dancers in town. Sure, sometimes you luck out and flirt with an Olympian (ping-pong player). But a Piedmont gentlewoman of discerning taste gotta factor in the V-Day source of the latest crop of Nomads. Haven’t you heard the circus is coming into town this week? Think about that for two seconds and then swipe left quickly. Faster.

2. The ‘Dead Bambi Selfie’

Speaking of mistreated animals. “Hey girl, how’s a homemade venison burger sound? Gotta wash all this blood off first though.” First of all, I have a strict noswipe-right rule on any men posing with anything dead.

It’s been a fail-proof policy so far. Anyway, Selfie, if you have a deep urge to provide food for me in some sort of “haven’t we evolved past this yet? Nope, okay” way, couldn’t we just go get milkshakes at Cookout? Where the camouflage is optional?

3. The ‘Undercover Frosh’

Also known as the “Greatest Bait n’ Switch on Earth.”

Thanks for be so up front with me in your bio by saying “jk I’m 20 ;) hmu” since you listed your age as 26.

Before we have even interacted, you’ve already lied to me, yet somehow I feel like the gross one. Dear Froshy, as I now have no reason to trust you whatsoever, please go play nicely with the other kids and stay in school.

4. The ‘South Will Rise Again’

I can get lulled into enjoying genuinely kind conversations with the many nice people on Tinder that I can forget about Rise Again. But he’s always here. I want to laugh when I encounter his stone-faced portrait with the Confederate flag hanging in the background and unabashedly xenophobic bio, but I can’t, because I know it’s real. There’s nothing uglier than hatred and prejudice.

5. The ‘Suffocation by Small Town’

“You have 45 friends in common.” Yes, of course we freaking do. The Suffocation’s been at every party I’ve gone to in the past year and there’s usually a good reason he is not my friend. Backup plan: If I ever change my mind about the Suffocation, I can get his number from most of the people on my block. Hell, I could probably just yell his name really loudly, along with, “Swipe right!” That’s how it works in real life, right?

Readers: It’s a tie! “Nope, none!” and “More than one!” tied with 38 percent each, but that also means that 62 percent of our readers who responded have used at least one dating site or app. OkCupid came in first for individual sites (17 percent) while Match, Tinder, Craigslist (LOL) and Other made up a negligible 7 percent total. We don’t know exactly how many of our readers, like Brian, have been married since before online dating arrived, but we estimate it’s no small number, making 62 percent seem even higher.

Eric Ginsburg: Yep, but only OkCupid. I didn’t care enough to subscribe to any paid

New question: Would you care if your neighbor set up a tiny house in their backyard? Vote at triad-city-beat.com.

70 60 50 40 30 20 10

38%

Nope, none!

38%

More than one!

17%

OkCupid

7%

Match, Tinder, Cragslist and other

Cover Story

Jordan Green: No, not really. A good friend of mine in New York tried online dating in the early aughts, which actually facilitated him meeting his current partner and the mother of his son. I’ve always been a little too traditional for online dating, although a woman reached out to me through MySpace in 2006 or 2007. We went on one date, which turned out to be something of a disaster.

Fortunately, I’ve been with my wife since 2008, so I this is not something that I have to worry about anymore.

80

Opinion

Brian Clarey: Nope. I’ve been with my wife since 1998. We met in a bar.

90

News

sites, and my smart phone used to be so old that I couldn’t download Tinder (though I enjoyed the voyeurism of playing on friends’ accounts). I met several interesting people, but didn’t find anything with staying power.

Later, I met my current girlfriend through mutual friends.

Up Front

To go along with this week’s cover story, we wanted to know if our readers had ever used online dating websites or apps. The responses from two of our editors isn’t surprising considering their age and married status, but the results from our online reader poll is more telling (below).

triad-city-beat.com

Have you online dated?

Culture

by Jordan Green

All She Wrote

jock who just stole the basketball from you in gym class.

But nothing tops Jeb Bush watching from behind with an expression that is a mixture of exasperation and pity before passing Trump with a Stephen Colbert-like raised eyebrow.

Moderator Martha Raddatz apparently doesn’t realize that Carson and Trump’s podiums remain unoccupied as she announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Republican candidates.”

Her co-moderator, David Muir suddenly realizes something is wrong and says, “Dr. Ben Carson, please come out on the stage. He’s standing there as well.”

Another bumble that cannot be laid at the feet of Carson’s Rube-Goldberg-machine-like miscue is the moderators’ complete neglect of John Kasich, as Muir says, “And lastly, we welcome back to the debate stage: Donald Trump.”

There’s comedy for you — and also a telling reflection on the status of Kasich’s candidacy.

Shot in the Triad

Besides, I’m sticking to my contention that Donald Trump isn’t funny. You can’t make a guy who wants to systematically exclude Muslims and deport all undocumented immigrants funny.

The best example of reality trumping comedy is Ben Carson’s hilariously inept entrance to the Feb. 6 Republican presidential debate. I doubt if even the most skilled actors could reenact the sublime awkwardness of Carson standing in the corridor seemingly in a daze after his name is called, and then haltingly moving forward.

Carson is like the master ensemble player who provokes great performances from fellow cast members. He stops and turns as Ted Cruz’s name is called and then waves the senator past, eliciting an “Oh, what the hell” expression from his rival as he barrels past while Carson masks his supreme discomfort with an ebullient smile. Incredibly, he still doesn’t take his place at the podium even after a stage manager mouths, “Go, go, go.” Also, improbably, it’s Trump alone who deferentially waits for Carson to take his place instead of bypassing him. As Carson and Trump wait together in the wings, Marco Rubio breezes past with a friendly pat on Trump’s arm like the high school

Games

We haven’t yet seen any real comedic gold spun out of the 2016 presidential campaign, comparable to Darrell Hammond’s “Saturday Night Live” mockery of Al Gore’s wooden promise to put Social Security in a lockbox or Tina Fey’s hilarious sendup of Sarah Palin, although Larry David’s impersonations of Bernie Sanders come pretty close.

Part of the problem is that the 2016 campaign is so cuckoo that it’s difficult for any comedian to satirize; how do you up the ante? You can’t improve on this: “I went to the Wharton School of Finance. I was a good student. It’s like one of the hardest schools in the world to get into. I then did a book called The Art of the Deal. It’s the No. 1 selling business book of all time — or just about. You may say, ‘Oh, there was one that sold two’ — but just about.

It’s still in the schools and everything else. And then do a show called ‘The Apprentice.’ In the meantime, I build this incredible empire. It’s got a tremendous net worth, very little debt. And then I hear some pundit or some person say, ‘He doesn’t deserve to be on the stage with the senator.’ The senator is nothing. And I’m not saying the senators are nothing; I’m saying certain people are zeroes.”

Fun & Games

Reality imitating comedy in presidential campaign

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Feb. 10 — 16, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

8

NEWS

Residents offer ideas to ease affordable-housing crisis

by Eric Ginsburg

As affordable housing stock in Greensboro shrinks, residents share their ideas for alleviating the problem at a series of meetings hosted by the city and a local foundation.

At first blush the statistics might not look that staggering, but when you put them together, an alarming picture emerges; More than a quarter of Greensboro’s residents are cost-burdened when it comes to housing.

The figures, compiled by city staff on a handout distributed at recent meetings on affordable housing, underscore the city’s income gap and the rising lack of affordable housing. Nearly half (48 percent) of all residents are renting, and of those, more than 50 percent are cost-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30 percent of their income towards housing, the city data reports.

The other statistics included aren’t any more comforting: Median income ERIC GINSBURG Councilwoman Sharon Hightower (center) listens as residents discuss barriers and solutions of owner households ($60,827) is more related to affordable housing in Greensboro. than double the median income of renter households ($27,897), 26,340 renter woman Sharon Hightower joined Councilprotective of their revenue streams and if the term seemed more clearly defined. households are cost-burdened, and the woman Nancy Hoffmann, who represents they could communicate better with each In her breakout group at the table, percentage of affordable units recently the district where the final meeting was other, more people could be helped with Vaughan said that the city does have the dropped by 5 percent while the percentheld last week, at the session. The trio split things like emergency housing-related more detailed information that people age of “higher-priced units” has increased up among some of the half-dozen tables funds. By tracking the people who rely on are seeking but said the handout was by 33 percent. to listen to feedback, each chiming in at different organizations for support, Byerly designed to give a snapshot. She encourThe upshot is that Greensboro is beseparate points to answer questions and said the agencies could identify a smaller aged people to attend an upcoming Feb. coming a less affordable place to live. offer input. pool of individuals who drain a dispro24 housing summit, and while it costs $65 And that’s why the city and the The mayor sat next to Brett Byerly, portionate amount of funds and thereby to get in, Byerly said people could contact Community Foundation of Greater the executive director of the Greensboro prevent others in need from accessing him about potential scholarships.

Greensboro schedHousing Coalition, rapid assistance.

As people generated feedback about uled four recent and the two talked Knowing murmurs following his remarks the problem and possible solutions, someThe Greensboro Housing meetings to discuss about the importo the full room seemed to underscore his one at each table printed the ideas on Summit 2016 will be held on tance of wage the depth of the point. sticky notes to be placed on posters along problem and posFeb. 25 from 8 a.m. — 3 p.m. growth and not just At his table, residents that included a the side of the room. After dedicating sible solutions with new job creation. local pastor offered several suggestions most of the two-hour meeting to brainat George K’s Event Center. residents, most “And of course aimed at gathering more information, storming, city staff asked people to stand recently on Feb. 4 Call the Greensboro Housing the thing that tracking progress and defining the probup and present each table’s input. at St. John’s United solves all of this lem.

Like other attendees, they asked what One of the most clearly articulated Coalition at 336.691.9521 for Methodist Church is better-paying rental rates are considered affordable, ideas emerged in two groups: a roommore details. on Merritt Drive in jobs,” Vaughan but only received rough estimates. More mate-matching database. People latched west Greensboro. said, followed by explicitly defining who struggles with on to a prominent stat on the handout About 40 people, Byerly wondering aloud how many people affordable housing and what exactly that everyone received — that 42 percent of including three city council members and wouldn’t be housing cost-burdened if they term means is a first step, a few people renter households are just one person, numerous city and nonprofit staff, turned made $2 more an hour. said, adding that they preferred the term but only 23 percent of rental units are up for the brainstorming and visioning Byerly also said at the table and later “cost-burdened” to affordable housing one bedroom. Finding a way to connect session. to the full group that agencies are often because of an existing stigma and because individuals looking to rent could greatly Mayor Nancy Vaughan and Council-

familiar faces from city and nonprofit staff populated the meetings. Now that the sessions are over, city staff will compile the feedback about issues, barriers, concerns and solutions around affordable housing.

At the outset of the final meeting, Hightower expressed an eagerness to act on the issue, adding that to creatively

address the problem, city staff and council hope to build on the ideas they collected.

Mayor Vaughan has said the city may need to consider an affordable-housing bond to fund the implementation of some solutions. But either way, council members said, this is a good first step.

Up Front

A few people mentioned tiny houses as a way to provide entry-level housing for people experiencing homelessness, adding that the city could change zoning ordinances to help. Raising the minimum wage came up at least twice in separate groups.

The turnout mirrored that of the preceding events held across the city, beginning at McGirt-Horton Library in northeast Greensboro on Jan. 25; Councilwoman Sharon Hightower said 125 people had attended the first three events total, and Byerly commented that

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increase the chances that people would find an affordable housing they could afford, attendees posited.

Other ideas focused on incentivizing developers to build multi-family complexes and incorporate more one-bedroom units rather than single-family properties.

Residents addressed housing-code enforcement, and repeatedly raised the idea that teaching people to be good tenants and helping renters understand what is expected of them could alleviate unforeseen problems for renters.

Another attendee said the city needs a good Samaritan law that would allow people like him to help a neighbor with repairs, such as fixing an electrical problem rather than requiring a more costly electrician. Or there could be some sort of consortium of pro bono skilled home labor to assist housing cost-burdened residents.

Amy Murphy, an outspoken homeless advocate and activist said the city desperately needs to redirect funds from policing and jails to 24/7 mental-health resources, suggesting subsidized housing that costs $200 a month and includes mental-health caseworkers on site.

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Culture Fun & Games Games All She Wrote

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Our sign in your yard means dedication, experience, old-fashioned customer service, and ‘start packing, the house just sold.’

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Feb. 10 — 16, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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No timeframe set for LGBT protection in housing ordinance

by Jordan Green

A proposal to protect against housing discrimination towards gay and transgender people is under review by a citizen committee in Winston-Salem, but some think the city should be moving with more urgency considering that Greensboro City Council adopted the protections more than a year ago and a simlar proposal will come before Charlotte City Council later this month.

Greensboro City Council amended its fair housing ordinance to protect LGBT people from discrimination in rentals and real estate transactions in January 2015.

Charlotte City Council is considering a similar proposal later this month.

Meanwhile, a potential amendment to Winston-Salem’s fair housing ordinance has been under review by a committee of the city’s human relations commission for almost a year, with no timeframe for bringing a resolution before city council.

Some leaders in the LGBT community would like to see the city move faster, particularly in light of the Human Rights Campaign’s recent Municipal Equality Index Scorecard, which gave Winston-Salem a score of 33 out of 100 on inclusion of LGBT people, compared to Greensboro’s score of 85.

“I do not feel that we’ve moved with a sense of urgency compared to our peers,” George K. Dukes III, the board chair at the North Star LGBT Community Center in Winston-Salem. “There is more work that needs to be done by the city of Winston-Salem. I think there is an issue there, with [the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index] score. Greensboro’s score is twice as high as ours. There are issues that need to be spelled out in the LGBT community so we can have protections.”

Chris Sgro, executive director of Equality NC, said the North Star LGBT Community Center and the Campaign for Southern Equality deserve credit for lobbying Winston-Salem to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in the city’s fair housing ordinance.

“LGBT people really do face discrimination and surveys show these ordinance updates make a difference,” Sgro said. “They are commonsense. The

vast majority of people in North Carolina, and I would imagine in Winston-Salem, believe you shouldn’t be denied housing or employment because you’re gay or transgender.”

Winston-Salem Human Relations Director Wanda Allen-Abraha said the fair housing hearing committee, a subcommittee of the human relations commission, is currently reviewing the ordinance in concert with the city attorney’s office. Judge Ben Tennille, a retired business court judge, FILE PHOTO Winston-Salem lags behind its neighbor Greensboro in measures of inclusion for and Sonny Haynes, a LGBT people, according to the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index. lawyer employed with the Womble Carlyle law transgender people, including adding maker from Charlotte, said he opposed firm, serve on the review committee. sexual orientation, gender identity the council’s previous attempt because Neither could be reached for comment and gender expression as protected of what he called “the deep commubefore press time. Allen-Abraha said classes in the fair housing ordinance, nity division that it has prompted [in she has “no idea” when the committee along with race, color, religion, sex, Charlotte] and other places such as might complete its review and bring a handicap, familial status and national Houston.” resolution to city council for considerorigin. The city council also ordered Bishop said in an email to Triad City ation. the city manager to conduct a review Beat that he has warned the city that if City Attorney Angela Carmon said of city restrooms, lockers and changing the ordinance passes, he expects it to be her legal review of the city’s options is rooms to look for opportunities to create litigated and that if it survived litigation still at a preliminary stage. private facilities for individuals and then he “would introduce litigation to “I need to look and see what our enfamilies to use on a gender-neutral basis, amend Charlotte’s charter to give Charabling legislation provides and whether and updating the city’s hiring process to lotteans the same right that Houstonians that’s adequate for us to move forward, prohibit discrimination on the basis of had and that citizens of Greensboro or we need to go the legislature to get sexual orientation, gender identity and and other NC cities have to repeal the the authority to do that,” she said. gender expression. All three measures ordinance by referendum.”

Willie Ratchford, executive director passed with unanimous support.

Winston-Salem Councilman Dan of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Com“The federal government, specifically Besse said he hasn’t given much thought munity Relations Committee, said [the Housing & Urban Development to the adoption of an amendment of Charlotte City Council is considering Department], has an agreement with the city’s fair housing ordinance because a proposal to extend protections on the city to allow us to enforce these he believes that federal law already inthe basis of sexual orientation, gender housing regulations,” City Attorney cludes the protections. “If we get advice identity and gender expression in city Tom Carruthers told Greensboro City from our human relations staff that an contracting, public accomodations and Council before the adoption of the appropriate amendment is needed or vehicles for hire. The proposal does not resolution on Jan. 6, 2015. “We’ve been would be helpful as an enforcement cover the city’s fair housing ordinance, in contact with HUD and they are tool, I’m very happy to look at it,” Besse Rathford said, because the city attorney encouraging us to adopt this expanded said. “I support nondiscrimination by believes the city would need enabling definition of protected classes and will sexual orientation and gender identity legislation from the General Assembly. have to approve the council action, but in both employment and housing.”

The Greensboro City Attorney’s we anticipate this will occur because Besse added that he believes most, if office conducted a legal review prior to they’re encouraging us to consider this not all, of his colleagues on city council the council’s adoption of a sweeping and adopt this.” similarly support extending protections expansion of protections for gay and Rep. Dan Bishop, a Republican lawagainst discrimination to LGBT people.

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HIGH POINT JOURNAL

Local committee promotes plan to develop Rich Fork Preserve

by Jordan Green

Concerned that county leaders are on the verge of making a decision on the Rich Fork Preserve, a local citizens committee in High Point and conservationists from across the county are recommending a plan, but at least one county commissioner says the project might be shelved until the controversy dies down.

The Rich Fork Preserve Committee, a group of High Point residents joined by conservationists from across Guilford County, adopted a plan to develop the 116-acre preserve during a meeting on Monday at the High Point Museum.

After approving a unanimous resolution in support of the plan, committee members agreed to deliver copies to the Republican-controlled Guilford County Commission, with whom they have butted heads over the past several months on the issue of mountain biking, in hopes that they can forge an agreement for the future of the preserve.

The plan calls for the county to spend funds from the 2004 open space bond to complete a gravel parking lot at the West Parris Avenue entrance to the preserve and install an entrance kiosk and trail signage. Dorothy Darr, a committee member, said she believes $300,000 remains in the bond fund, which began with $10 million and was mostly spent to acquire 14 open space properties across the county. Under the plan adopted by the committee, a $20,000 grant from the late Lib Connor would be used to develop a walking trail on property previously owned by her family, and private grant funds raised through the High Point Historical Society would pay for the stabilization of the historic Hedgecock farmhouse near the West Parris Avenue entrance.

“We do think all of this is very doable in 12 to 18 months,” said Marie Poteat, a member of the subcommittee that drew up the plan. “This is a very fiscally responsible plan. That’s something we want to emphasize.”

Commissioner Alan Branson, the vice president of the county legislative board, declined to comment on the proposal in an interview on Tuesday.

Branson has publicly clashed with

members of the Rich Fork committee and the former Guilford County Open Space Committee. He said the two groups need to work together with the Greensboro Fat Tire Society, a mountain-biking advocacy group, if they want to make progress.

“We’ve got a master plan going; there’s nothing environmentally harmful,” said Branson, a Republican who represents rural District 4. “I look forward to working the rest of the commission going forward. There’s not sense in carrying the nonsense between these three groups of individuals on this parcel of property. There has to be some give and take somewhere down the road.”

Republican Commissioner Alan Perdue and Democratic Commissioner Carolyn Coleman, who respectively represent districts 2 and 7, said they hadn’t received the recommendation and would wait until they have an opportunity to review it to make any comment.

Rich Fork Preserve committee members debated whether bicycles should be allowed on a future connector trail — as distinct from a circuitous mountain biking complex, which all of them oppose.

The debate came up both as a tactical consideration in trying to fashion a plan with a reasonable chance of buy-in from the county commission and on its own merits. Some, like Darr, argued that a connector trail through the preserve could link up with a future network of greenways throughout the city.

The example of the Richardson/Taylor Preserve north of Greensboro, which many consider a model for the development of the Rich Fork Preserve, also instigated debate over the role of bicycling. While some committee members noted approvingly that the trail through the Richardson-Taylor Preserve is a hand-hewn footpath, others mentioned that future plans call for the trail to connect with Haw River State Park, the Mountains-to-Sea Trail to the north and the Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway to the south in Greensboro. The completion of those connections will make the trail network an attractive linear connector

Bob Kollar, a supporter from Greensboro, suggested a plan to open Rich Fork Preserve should demonstrate flexibility.

for cyclists.

An initial draft of the plan called for building a “connector trail for hikers and bicyclists.”

Some committee members argued that an endorsement of any kind of cycling would introduce a slippery slope and make it hard to defend a position against mountain biking, which they consider more disruptive.

“You’re putting your foot in the water, and you’re not going to get it back because the alligator’s going to bite it off,” argued Tom Blount, who is the retired editor of the High Point Enterprise.

Bob Kollar, a former member of the Guilford County Parks & Recreation Commission who lives in Greensboro, argued the committee needs to leave the door open to compromise to increase the odds of the county commission adopting the plan.

“Let me be clear,” Kollar said. “I don’t want mountain biking. I don’t want biking at all. But we’ve got a political reality here. We’ve got a group

JORDAN GREEN

of people who are feeling their power.

If we don’t make some concessions to them, they’ll say, ‘We’ll show you.’”

Ultimately, the committee adopted language in the plan that makes no mention of biking or hiking, but deliberately allows flexibility in the future development of a connector trail that might allow biking.

The resolution reads: “As a committee, we favor and think it’s important to revisit the possibility of having a trail through the preserve if there is a connector to the Mountains-to-Sea Trail and greenways.”

Committee members expressed a sense of urgency because of the belief that county commissioners are eager to move past the controversy surrounding the Rich Fork Preserve and could lock down plans soon.

But Branson said in a subsequent interview that far from the commission expediting the project, they may opt to put it on a backburner until the controversy simmers down. When asked when

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the commission might take action on the matter, he responded, “If folks are not going to get along, maybe never.”

He added, “It may be a project that is pushed to the back of the list and becomes a non-priority.”

Considering that the county has invited outside groups to maintain the other preserves as part of a cost-savings effort, members decided that a cover letter to county leaders will state that the Rich Fork Preserve Committee stands ready to take on responsibility for stewardship.

“The county commissioners are very interested in turning this over to some stewardship group,” Darr said. “And the mountain bikers are ready.”

She added that committee members should consider formalizing an arrangement to manage volunteers to take care of the preserve.

Bill Phillips, another committee member, noted that he was working with students at High Point University to clean streams in the preserve and clear out the mountain bikers’ illegal ramps.

“Maintaining this trail is going to be a piece of cake,” he said.

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Feb. 10 — 16, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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OPINION EDITORIAL

Defending our lives A recent ruling by three federal judges, calling out two districts in different parts of North Carolina for being illegally drawn on the basis of race, is far from an isolated incident (See Citizen Green, page 14).

Time was that elected officials represented the people in the halls of power. Now, in this state, we have to defend our interests in the courts.

Late last month, a coalition that included consumer-rights advocates, health groups and whistleblower organizations filed suit against the state for its “anti-sunshine” law that allows large companies and corporate farms to sue anyone who documents violations of the law in their businesses.

The voter ID trial that wrapped in Winston-Salem last week was the result of the state NAACP and other groups — including the federal government — suing the state for writing new election laws that seemed designed to keep black voters from the polls.

In December, more than 80 of the North Carolina’s 100 school districts filed suit against the state to recover budget money earmarked for education — almost $50 million since 2011 — that was instead diverted to a fund that pays for people convicted of misdemeanors to stay in county jails.

Gov. Pat McCrory won his suit against the General Assembly, which had felt that they, and not he, should make appointments to state boards.

The city of Greensboro has been defending itself against legislative overreach since 2015, when a redistricting plan hatched in Raleigh was forced upon our electorate.

The Yadkin Riverkeeper sued Duke Energy to compel the company to clean up a 2014 coal-ash spill at its Buck plant, only when it became apparent that the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources would not defend the public waterway from contamination.

The 2012 marriage amendment was overturned by the Supreme Court. And now LGBT groups are suing the state for passing an amendment that allows magistrates to opt out of doing their jobs.

All this legal activity against legislative overreach covers just the last two years, undoing all the time spent drafting these illegal laws, ushering them through committee and getting them passed. It’s a phenomenal waste of resources on the part of the General Assembly, and a disturbing display of hubris from a body that seems to have forgotten where its power is supposed to come from.

CITIZEN GREEN

Ironies of race and representation in GOP redistricting It’s a striking irony that the judicial precedent relied upon by the three-judge panel that ordered the Republican-controlled General Assembly to redraw North Carolina’s congressional districting map is a 23-year-old Supreme Court opinion renby Jordan Green dered by a conservative majority.

“A voting district is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander when a redistricting plan ‘cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to separate voters into different districts on the basis of race, and that the separation lacks sufficient justification,’” Judge Roger L. Gregory wrote in the Feb. 5 ruling, citing the majority 1993 opinion in Shaw v. Reno authored by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as part of a narrow 5-4 majority.

When Republican lawmakers in North Carolina, led by Sen. Bob Rucho and Rep. David Lewis, redrew the maps for congressional and state legislative districts in 2011, they packed black voters into the 12th District, which follows Interstate 85 from Greensboro to Charlotte, and in the 1st District on the northeastern coastal plain, while also cramming liberal Democrats into the new 4th District, which resembles a divining rod in its circuitous path through parts of Raleigh, Burlington and Fayetteville. As a predictable result, Democrats went from holding seven out of 13 of the state’s congressional districts to only three of 13 in the span of two election cycles.

The order from the panel of judges exposes the disingenuousness of Rucho and Lewis’ professed concern about “the importance of minority voting rights” as justification for redrawing the lines for the 1st and 12th districts in such a way that black voting age population would exceed 50 percent.

Despite the fact that blacks did not make up a majority of the voting-age population in earlier versions of the 1st and 12th districts, Gregory noted, “African-Americans’ preferred candidates easily and repeatedly won reelection under those plans.”

In other words, the strengthening of black voting power in the 1st and 12th districts was a cynical solution to a problem that didn’t exist, and the true motive of the maps was to bleed black voters out of the adjacent districts to make them safe for Republican candidates.

Thomas Hofeller, the mapmaker retained by Rucho and Lewis, said as much in his testimony.“It wasn’t about — totally about the 12th District,” he said. “It was about what effect it was having on the surrounding districts…. The 6th District needed to be made better for Republican interests by having more Democratic voters removed from it, whereas the 5th District had a little more strength in it and could take on some additional Democratic areas — into Forsyth County.”

The courts have long held that partisan gerrymandering

is constitutional while racial gerrymandering is not. But race and partisanship are not so easily disentangled in North Carolina politics: The Republican lawmakers in charge of the 2011 redistricting effort effectively broke up a black-white progressive electoral coalition that for decades supported a Democratic majority in Raleigh and in the congressional delegation.

The new ruling comes across as a rebuke to the Republican-controlled General Assembly. Paradoxically and insidiously, the new maps strengthened black political representation while frustrating black lawmakers’ ability to advance a progressive agenda on behalf of their constituents.

In its finding that the 2011 congressional redistricting plan violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, the three-judge panel reached back to Shaw v. Reno, which also dealt with the 12th District in North Carolina.

Justice O’Connor used the word “bizarre” in her opinion to describe the serpentine shape of the district, and quoted approvingly from an unidentified state lawmaker, who said, “If you drove down the interstate with both car doors open, you’d kill most of the people in the district.”

That ruling sent the General Assembly back to redraw the 12th District based on the premise that the 50-percent-plus black voting age population configuration was unconstitutional. Black voting age population in the district was set at 32.6 percent in 1997 and rose to 42.3 percent in 2001 — an arrangement that held until 2011.

Justice O’Connor declared it “unsettling” in her 1993 opinion that the early 1990s redistricting plan resembled “the most egregious racial gerrymandering of the past,” likening it to “political apartheid.” O’Connor’s charge overlooked the fact that not a single African American had been elected to Congress from 1901, when George Henry White left office, until 1992, when Eva Clayton and Mel Watt were elected respectively in the newly drawn 1st and 12th districts.

O’Connor suggested in her ruling that drawing districts to protect black voting rights reinforced “the perception that members of the same racial group… think alike, share the same political interest, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls,” deriding the notion as an “impermissible” stereotype. Meanwhile, her opinion sidestepped the long-held precept that political districts can be drawn around communities of interest.

The ruling might easily have gone the other way.

Justice John Paul Stevens, in his dissent, asked why it was “permissible to draw boundaries to provide adequate representation” for rural voters, union members, Hasidic Jews, Polish Americans and Republicans, but not for “members of the very minority group whose history in the United States gave birth to the Equal Protection Clause.”

What a delicious irony that a conservative Supreme Court opinion should wind up reining in a brazen Republican power grab two decades later.

Tackling hunger with a food truck

Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

Former TCB intern Daniel Wirtheim works in the UNCG University Relations Department.

Cover Story

Because I had a primary source on the phone, I felt that it was my duty to better understand the thought processes of Khazan the protester. But I only found Khazan the storyteller who does not answer journalist’s questions in a simple way.

There’s a YouTube video of Khazan speaking outside the civil rights museum on its opening day in 2010. He’s wearing a flowing, white robe, waving a feather in one hand and speaking on so many subjects at once that it’s almost impossible to follow. At one point a reporter tries to interject.

She has to speak over Khazan. “Just let me ask one question,” she interjects. “Did you have any idea that what happened that day would have such a huge impact? I mean what you did that day sparked sit-ins across the country and inspired so many people. Did you have any idea that what you did that day would have such an impact on this country?”

Khazan begins with the straightforward answer she was looking for, enough for a quick quote before digressing again into the subject of Allah and God and the prophet Muhammad. I empathize with the reporter in this video. She wants to be told that what happened that day was inspired by a deep-rooted passion for social change. But Khazan will not give it to her easily.

As he rattled on, I began to feel foolish. I think I was a bit unfair to expect him to offer some great insight into what it was like at the lunch counter.

He is, after all, a man who had no idea that his act of protest would be recognized as one of the highest expressions of the Civil Rights Movement. He was the scared one sitting at that lunch counter, he said. And he also told me that he empathized with the store manager.

Khazan did have those quotable nuggets. Like when he told me he has faith in the future of the country and that it’s up to the youth to make social change. Because before children learn about race, they play together, they understand one another and they’ll listen to each other’s stories.

We continued to trade phone conversations even after the article was published. I believe that sometimes he just wanted a person to listen to him. And I listened. Those stories reminded me that life is circuital and that it’s strange to be anything at all. And that if you look into mirror and into your own eyes, behind your eyes and into the deepest part of your soul, there are stories burning to get out.

You’ll find stories that, not unlike the squirrel’s, bind us and remind us that it’s all connected.

Opinion

I first spoke with Jibreel Khazan last year, about a week before his appearance at North Carolina A&T University’s campus where he spoke at the anniversary of the Woolworths

by Daniel Wirtheim sit-ins. I was still at student at UNCG at the time, working at the school newspaper. I thought an interview with one of the A&T Four would make a great feature.

You’ve seen photographs of Khazan, I’m sure.

He is one of the four. You can see him in the iconic photographs at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum or as a statue on the A&T campus.

A week before the ceremony I dialed the number a contact had given me as Khazan’s. I wanted a writer to speak with him in person. But I also wanted to pick his brain for a moment. After all, I had never held a conversation with someone who was also a statue and I expected his speech to be laden with quotable material. But instead of telling me how he would enjoy meeting and sharing his incredible story he immediately began talking about a squirrel he had seen earlier that morning.

It was a gray squirrel, he said. Of the average variety but bearing a pair of transfixing eyes that reminded him of the spiritual wholeness of the animal kingdom.

“Is this a typical morning for you?” I asked. But Khazan only continued. He seemed to forget I was there as his speech branched further from the topic of a potential meeting and into history and spiritualism. He spoke about rock and roll, Islam.

He discussed a photograph of a woman in a rice patty field in Vietnam, and although he had never seen her in real life, he was certain she also had the eyes of the squirrel.

Occasionally he would pepper in references to the sit-in movement. It all spiraled into a dizzying array of madness or profound spirituality — I could not tell. But I listened as best as I could and searched for more blank pages in my notebook.

It carried on like this for about two hours, me hardly saying a word and Khazan digressing into mysticism, until he finally had to end the conversation. He told me to contact him the next week. But Khazan called me the next day anyway.

There was a legitimate reason for his call at first.

He was telling me that Mohammed, his liaison and driver, would be the best way to contact him.

And then something I said got him started on the history of Islam again, which bled into the history of Christianity and nature of the Western world.

I tried to interject, to really get down to business.

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Recycle this paper.

Jibreel Khazan’s theory of squirrels

Up Front

My predecessor Danny Wirtheim recently pitched a great idea in this column to bring fresh produce to a city hub like the downtown depot as one answer to Greensboro and High Point’s current ranking as the most food-insecure metro area in the country.

Other fine ideas are currently being

by Joanna Rutter put into action, such as the Mobile Oasis Farmers Market, but since people are still hungry, here’s another suggestion for the mix: an affordable food truck that drives to where other vendors aren’t setting up camp.

I’m stealing this idea with permission from my friends at the Relief Bus, an organization that uses buses to bring food and social services to areas where the need is greatest, since the old model of brick-and-mortar agencies is suffering as gentrification pushes the poorest New Yorkers to the furthest edges of the city. It’s clear that access to affordable and nutritious food is directly related to location.

In the same vein, the Renaissance Community Co-op is planting itself in northeast Greensboro’s food desert, where there are no TeeterDomes to be found. A food truck could supplement the work of organizations like the grocery co-op and the Mobile Oasis by selling freshly prepared food to-go on regular routes throughout Greensboro and High Point, while hitting areas usually unreached by trendy competitors targeting more affluent customers.

The Food Research & Action Center, which gave this area its No. 1 ranking, suggests government intervention is necessary to solve the problem of hunger. Perhaps the county could invest in refurbishing a truck and hand over the reins to an adventurous local chef.

Prices would be much cheaper than a typical food truck (by using in-season produce, eliminating the need for a brick-and-mortar restaurant, keeping the dishes uncomplicated, and creatively sourcing food from UNCG’s Food Recovery Network) and should accept SNAP. In order to earn its keep as a government investment on its off-duty hours, the truck could operate as a food supplier or shuttle to warming centers in the winter.

A truck on a food-insecurity-busting mission could simply be one more needed piece in making sure that convenient, affordable and healthy options are available to people hit hardest by food insecurity.

FRESHEYES

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IT JUST MIGHT WORK

15

Feb. 10 — 16, 2016

Okay, Cupid A digital love story written by Eric Ginsburg, photos by Alex Klein

Cover Story

When Adam Spooner landed a job at the startup OkCupid, he’d never been to New York City. Yet after growing up outside of Winston-Salem and High Point, the biggest cultural adjustment wasn’t to the city itself, but to his new gig.

It felt almost taboo being a Southern, Christian kid at a company stigmatized as a hook-up website. He felt uncertain.

Adam and his wife, Allison, had married just a year earlier, and the pair met only a year before that. They’d connected thanks to a friend at a church in High Point and bonded over similar beliefs on life and religion — both had attended Christian colleges and grown up in religious families. They quickly fell in love with each other and then New York City, but Adam didn’t fully adapt to his new workplace until about three months in.

“I learned a lot of new terms when I worked there,” he said, adding that when a colleague mentioned polygamy, he had to go and look the word up.

Underscoring just how culturally disconnected Adam was and continues to be, his coworker actually said “polyamory,” and Adam misspoke, conflating the two almost a decade later despite putting in two years alongside a polyamorous co-worker. He learned about BDSM too —well, sort of; he also messed up the letters of the acronym.

16

Adam Spooner isn’t exactly a pro at dating — though he has been married for almost a decade — but he does know something about setting up dating websites.

Adam Spooner didn’t want to be like his dad, an aeronautical engineer, but try as he might, he did a pretty piss-poor job eschewing the nerdy future that awaited him. Adam did his best after graduating high school in Archdale, bouncing around between UNCG, a Christian

triad-city-beat.com

college in South Carolina and a design school in San Francisco. He switched majors constantly — medicine, fine arts, graphic design — before landing on computer science. Blame it on the home computer that arrived when Adam was in third grade, his mom’s college minor in computer science or his dad’s profession, but Adam Spooner seemed destined for a desktop.

Still in school, Adam freelanced his design and programming skills for a company in High Point —where he lived at the time — and decided he probably didn’t need to finish a degree in order to land a job. It turns out he was right; Adam applied to the nascent OkCupid and believes he landed the gig thanks to a mix of design and programming prowess.

But before that happened, he met Allison.

Adam hadn’t had much luck with dating.

He’d dated a girl for seven years, but she cheated on him twice. The experience hurt enough that he abstained from dating altogether for a while.

Adam focused on other areas of his life, traveling to Australia to work for a newly founded church as a worship leader and technical director, staying longer than originally planned due to a car accident. When he moved back to the Triad, his longtime friend Brian — whom he knew from childhood and roomed with at Southern Wesleyan University — connected Adam to a youth group at a church where he was working. And then he went a step further.

Four years had passed since Adam exorcized dating from his life. In that time, Brian hadn’t introduced him to any women, at least not a potential romantic interest. But Allison was different.

Allison is a teacher, and at the time she was finishing up her degree with a focus in special education. She grew up in High Point, not far from Advance and Archdale where

Adam spent his formative years. Like him, she moved out of state to attend a Christian college before returning to UNCG. And Allison had been involved in the same youth group Adam was joining, but after working alongside Brian there for a year, she was on her way out.

Brian grabbed a friend and set up a sort of double date at Spare Time in Greensboro, though really the pair only showed up as social lubricant to ease the first interaction of Adam and Allison’s blind date.

When it ended, Brian and his tagalong agreed this qualified as the worst date they’d ever seen in their lives.

It didn’t help that towards the end of the encounter, as Allison swung her arm back with her fingers laced into a bowling ball, Adam ran up behind her and tried to grab it as a joke. Allison tripped and fell.

But she must’ve seen something in him, because soon after she stopped by his office and asked him out to lunch. The date may have been a disaster, but Brian’s intuition proved remarkably accurate. Six months later, Adam proposed.

In some ways OkCupid, especially in 2007 when Adam joined the team, could be considered the Wild West of dating. Match.com had jumpstarted the industry much earlier, but this website promised something new. In part because membership is free, people perceived that OkCupid users cared a lot less about marriage and a lot more about sleepover parties than its predecessor.

But Adam wasn’t exactly alone; the four cofounders of the company were married too, and like him, they didn’t truly experience their creation firsthand.

It took him a little while to figure out how to square the job with his station in life, a newlywed trying to remain “mentally faithful” while designing an experience that required him to put himself in the shoes of someone single

and ready to mingle. But once Adam began to see it as a tool that would allow people to connect, and possibly find the happiness he shared with Allison, the whole thing sat better with him.

He joined OkCupid’s team in 2007 as the lead designer and front-end programmer, meaning he came up with and implemented many aspects of the site that users see and identify with the company. That includes the logo, the color scheme, the Quickmatch feature and more.

How did the site look before Adam showed up?

“Gross?” he said. “I don’t know what else to call it.”

During his time there, Adam also helped launch the company’s side project, Crazy Blind Date. Users provided basic info along with times and locations when they’re available, and the site matched them with someone who fit as soon as possible — sometimes as early as the same night. Pictures were provided, but only a heavily pixilated one, preventing users from telling much about their date’s physical appearance.

With this project too Adam acted as the lead designer, and this time as the solo front-end programmer.

He knew that Crazy Blind Date didn’t stick around long, but Adam wasn’t exactly sure when it shut down, or even if OkCupid still used the same logo he designed. Sitting at Preyer Brewing in Greensboro last week, he reached into his pocket for his phone to check; yes, still the same logo, he said, and according to Wikipedia, Crazy Blind Date folded in 2010, but restarted in 2013 as an app.

Adam used to check that sort of thing regularly once he left OkCupid after two years, finding it difficult to let go of this thing he played a formative role in launching.

But eventually he realized it’s like a parent sending a child off to college and relinquishing control.

In New York, the couple met a myriad of people who

17

Feb. 10 — 16, 2016 Cover Story

18

influenced their lives, mostly thanks to Allison who worked at a private school and was more outgoing. But the city, and its cost of living, took its toll on the pair who grew up in small, neighboring Southern towns.

“I could only last in New York City for two years,” Adam said. “It’s pretty intense. I did sleep in the office for two weeks straight once; that was during Crazy Blind Date.”

Adam and Allison moved to Anderson, SC, and at first they hated it. Moving from a city full of life, with every kind of cuisine they could fathom, to a town just slightly larger than Kernersville in a remote, southwestern part of the state didn’t exactly excite them.

By that point, Adam had transitioned away from design into programming, possibly an inevitable move but one that was certainly hastened by his Harvard and MIT-trained geeky co-workers at OkCupid who pulled him deeper into the world of his parents. In South Carolina, Adam worked as a programmer for a church, but around the same time, he’d started seriously questioning his faith.

Adam grew up in a religious household, but his family stopped attending church when he was around 13. But a girl he liked went to a congregation in Jamestown, and so he turned up, too. Christianity continued to play a predominant role in his life, including his initial bond with Allison. And that’s part of what complicated things when he told her that he no longer believed in a supernatural power.

Things were rough, he said. For several months. It led Allison to grapple with her faith too, which has shifted but not quite as much as his. Adam now considers himself an atheist, and though he quickly clarified that this doesn’t mean he’s an anti-theist, his newfound views did make it much harder for him to continue working at a church.

Allison and Adam started making arrangements to move back to New York, Manhattan in particular. He lined up work with a studio in Brooklyn, and she reached out to her old school. But then, the couple realized they wanted to take things in another direction.

They wanted to have kids.

After several years of marriage and having lived in three states together, Adam and Allison decided they should return to the Triad to be closer to their families, and from there, start their own. In 2010, they moved to Greensboro, and a year later bought a house in the Latham Park neighborhood.

They didn’t realize it yet, but they’d spend the next two-and-a-half years struggling with infertility, followed by an adoption process that lasted about as long. But almost seven months ago, they finally adopted a 2-year-old from South Korea, in part because of the country’s foster and adoption system that prevents children from being moved too frequently, thus decreasing the likelihood of attachment problems, Adam said.

Their son is “a bundle of joy and your typical toddler,”

Adam and his wife Allison with their 2-year-old son.

triad-city-beat.com

These days Adam works from home as a programmer for Authentic Jobs from this attic set-up.

Adam said. “They call it the ‘terrible twos’ for a reason.”

But his face glowed as he described how quickly they’ve bonded, adding: “I came here from a massive tickle fight.”

Now Adam works for a Florida-based company called Authentic Jobs, a job portal for web designers and developers. Things have come full circle, and not just because the couple returned to their college town: Authentic Jobs is actually the site where he found out about the OkCupid position in the first place.

In a way, it parallels his old OkCupid job, in that he’s helping people connect with each other. It’s his full-time day job and he’s able to do it from home, and Adam also works for a startup called Spoken on the side that shares verbal stories.

“It’s like Twitter, but vocal,” he said.

Allison stays home with their new son, and tutors on the side.

When he finds the time, Adam jokes that he’s a ste-

reotypical nerd, reading sci-fi and fantasy books, playing video games on his assorted systems and homebrewing IPAs. His wife isn’t as dorky as he is, but she still lets him name their pets after protagonists from Lord of the Rings.

It makes sense that Adam, who recently turned 34, has learned more about love and relationships from his own than from working for two dating websites. Together they’ve been through “all the high stressors” — from shifting religious beliefs to infertility to geographic upheaval.

“Being open-minded and willing to change is a big thing for love,” he said, “if you want things to last.”

That flexible, open philosophy and critical thinking has helped them during the last decade, he said. But he’s also seen how each person, and relationship, can be different.

In his time working at OkCupid, Adam didn’t come to

identify a specific type of person that would most benefit from online dating. They saw all comers, he said, and he’s seen the same play out for those around him.

Brian, his old friend who carefully introduced Adam and Allison, later found his wife through a dating website. And some of Allison’s close friends met their partners that way, too.

Despite his disastrous first date with Allison, Adam thinks he would be all the more mortified by the prospect of meeting on a blind date set up through the internet like Crazy Blind Date, or any dating website or app for that matter. And though he has no use for such a site and likely wouldn’t use one anyway, Adam still likes hearing positive stories from people who used the site he helped create.

“I’m always excited to hear when people met on OkCupid, because I had the tiniest part in it,” he said. “You want to see people happy. It’s a life-changing thing.”

19

Feb. 10 — 16, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

20

CULTURE Recreating Corine’s pasta

by Eric Ginsburg

overlooked the butter, but she forgot to mention the milk.

For a more experienced cook, it might be obvious that a little bit of milk and butter would enhance a cheesy pasta dish, but that’s not a name anyone has ever — even accidentally — applied to me.

My repertoire in the kitchen has long consisted of the simplest dishes to execute. In college I adapted basic recipes, leaving out milk when a box of Annie’s mac & cheese called for it to avoid an additional purchase.

The habit stuck. I wanted shortcuts in cooking, frozen or ready-to-eat meals if possible, and while I gravitated strongly towards adventure and experimentation when dining out, I shied away from recipes with too many ingredients, steps or time requirements. I generally subscribed to a utilitarian approach, figuring that there’s no reason to try and make arepas at home (as a college girlfriend roped me into attempting) when I can go buy some from a pro that will taste so much better.

That’s a bad example in the Triad, because I’ve yet to find any worthwhile arepas in a restaurant here, but you see where I’m going with this.

And yet there are a few dishes where making it myself is the only option: Meals that recall my childhood, things that may emerge in some form from a commercial kitchen nearby but that do not conjure the exact emotions tied to the way my mama did it.

My mom is a great cook, I should mention, and used to run her own catering business. But whenever I’m flying back to Massachusetts to visit and she asks what I want to eat, the food on my shortlist is primarily driven by nostalgia and tradition rather than taste.

Corn pudding is at the top of the list, what sounds like a reasonably simple dish but one that’s quite easy to mess up and make too runny. Around the holidays I’ll request her peppermint bark, and though I ask for it less frequently, I swear by her matzah-ball soup.

Cookie pizza — served with whipped cream and fresh fruit — is a delicacy in my family, something we found in a cookbook for kids when my sister and I were little that is now a standby for most occasions.

The only recipe of hers that I’ve truly mastered is an Asian peanut-noodle dish, made with fresh ginger root, lemon juice, soy sauce, red-pepper flakes, peas and of course, gobs of peanut butter. It’s a meal that I’ve prepared enough times, tweaking the proportions of the ingredients called for, that I actually like my version more than hers now.

Lately I’d been longing for another meal, this one not handed down through the family or discovered in a cookbook but borrowed from a neighbor.

It’s been years since I’d eaten Corine’s pasta, as we called it, after the mother of the Belgian family who lived next door to my childhood home in my formative years.

The dish is relatively simple: spaghetti with bits of

I

ham and covered in Swiss cheese, to which my mom added peas but otherwise left unchanged. But it made a lasting impression, long after Corine and her family moved back to Belgium.

Part of that may be that we didn’t eat pork products at home; my mom just didn’t like ham, and in New England, eschewing pork is a perfectly acceptable, to the point that I didn’t realize how little pork I’d eaten until moving to North Carolina.

ERIC GINSBURG Corine’s pasta includes spaghetti, thick-sliced ham, peas, The last time I ate Corine’s Swiss cheese, butter and milk, but there’s no exact recipe. pasta likely predates my first kiss.

Blame eight years of vegetarianhome has been sold, and though the brick façade out ism, beginning at the end of middle school, followed front looks the same, the memories seem to fade more by a culinary curiosity that led me into other people’s each year. kitchens and not my own. But when the memory of I haven’t seen Corine in well over a decade, closer to that gooey cheese, the thick-cut ham and the full-bodtwo. Her daughter Anne Laurie died several years ago, ied taste returned to me, I found it hard to shake. as a passenger in a drunk-driving accident. We were a So I did what all the best chefs do, and I sought my year apart and hadn’t stayed in touch, but it shook me. mother’s guidance.

Before she passed away, I rarely thought about her.

But despite her many cookbooks and a stack of Those are the years of your life where you’re in a rush photocopied recipes with handwritten notes that to put your childhood behind you. When I heard the she supplied to me years ago, my mom had to work news, I’d been in my hometown by coincidence — my off memory for this one, too. Her instructions didn’t parents don’t live there anymore — and all of the sudprovide much advice. den I missed her, and the childhood we’d shared.

“It’s pasta, shredded Swiss and sliced ham,” she I thought about Anne Laurie as I cooked her mothtexted me. “Some butter helps. Also ground pepper. I er’s pasta, both times, and as I fussed over the taste added peas! Just experiment.” and wondered how I could perfect it. My childhood, I really thought she knew me better than that. Nothe exact taste, and my old friend still felt elusive, like body in their right mind would tell me to get creative a dream slipping away as consciousness returns. in the kitchen. Just figuring out what ham to buy It’s the story of the food, I realized, more than the seemed beyond my capacity. food itself, that fuses me to what I sought. And maybe “I used thick-sliced deli meat ’cuz that’s what Corine in cooking it, and sharing the story, the memory can did,” my mom offered. “But thick cut real cooked ham find more life than it does on a plate. Just like my or cooked bacon would probably be delicious!” mom’s other culinary triumphs, I figured out that this I felt a little better prepared, decided it would be too is more about the nostalgia and resurrecting a near impossible to mess up, and went for it. I forgot tradition than a precise flavor. But that doesn’t mean I the butter, and she neglected to say anything about won’t keep pursuing it. milk. And it tasted great.

But it didn’t take me back; I liked it, but this didn’t Pick of the Week qualify as Corine’s pasta. I intuited that it needed to be thicker, and when my mom confirmed that it could Valentine’s French Toast Brunch @ the Greensboro use butter and milk, I gained a little confidence. I tried Farmers Curb Market (GSO), Saturday, 8 a.m. again, this time landing a little closer to the mark.

Local chefs Mary Lacklen and Lynn Wells will Part of the gap lies in the ingredients. I’d only been make French toast for one and all; ingredients will able to find shredded Swiss gruyere cheese, and I include bread made by Cheesecakes by Alex, eggs bought store-brand pasta. I vowed to try again, and to from Massey Creek Farm and plenty of toppings. splurge for higher quality ingredients to achieve that The Parisian effect will be made complete with flavor, that experience I longed for.

1930s-era jazz music by the Minor Swing Band.

I know that in some respects, my search is in vain.

Caricature artist Erik Huffine will be on hand in I’m not overtaken by voracious hunger like I used to be case you need a portrait more unrealistic than your when I took a shining to Corine’s pasta, back when I latest selfie. Visit the Market’s page on Facebook shot up three or four inches every year. That childhood for more info.

News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

The Topo distillery is something of an aberration, with beehives on its rooftop for making honey whiskey and an aim of being a zero-waste facility. McMahan split his time between describing the Chapel Hill operation and offering samples of their vodka, gin and whiskey. But he also shared the stage with what is coalescing into a sort of Greensboro Dream Team.

Pierce, who recently returned to the Triad from Charlotte, lends serious credentials to Marshall Free House. But with the addition ERIC GINSBURG A bottle (in the middle) shows the ingredients Topo Distillery of John Jones — known for uses in its gin. his underground dining club called the Next Supper among to a basic spirit such as vodka. They’ll remember the other things on his résumé — the kitchen boasts two morsels, such as the fried artichokes or another side heavy hitters. (Pierce likened them to the Wonder featuring pickled turnip and pimiento cheese. If they Twins.) didn’t misplace the recipe sheet already, they’ll recall And then there’s Mark Weddle, who most recently Weddle’s gin concoction, the Concord, his spin on an held down the bar at Josephine’s and who is easily one aviation that incorporates a of the city’s most respected barcucumber-and-lavender shrub tenders. You’d recognize him by with lemon juice and maraschino Visit the Marshall Free House his smile and ’stache anywhere. liqueur. Oh yeah, and the cucumat 1211 Battleground Ave. Dude’s a one-man powerhouse. ber ribbon that Weddle fused to And if their jovial attitudes on (GSO) or learn more about the side of the glass with liquid Feb. 6 are any indication, this nitrogen. Hard to forget that.

Topo at topodistillery.com. trifecta of food and beverage Aviations are usually too The first person to email me at giants appears to be thoroughly perfume-y, McMahan said, and eric@triad-city-beat.com can enjoying themselves.

I strongly agree, but without Weddle presented three cockclaim a voucher for a free tour the Lillet, the Concord flies. A tails using McMahan’s spirits few attendees who admitted of Topo’s Chapel Hill distillery. while Pierce, Jones and company to disliking gin still found favor distributed fanciful small bites with it, too. as accompaniment. The offerBut more than anything, the ings peaked at the end, with an incredibly balanced dozen or so people amassed that afternoon left with Phantom Old Fashioned using Topo’s unaged whiskey a newfound appreciation for well sourced spirits, and and a crostini with banana-lime mayo, porkbelly, roselikely a sense of admiration for their ingenious hosts. mary chimichurri and topped with a bit of pig ear.

At least I’m pretty sure that’s what Pierce said, but by this point I’d sampled five or six liquors and knocked Phantom Old Fashioned back more than two cocktails in the span of two hours, If you’re feeling emboldened, try your hand at making and I was too lost in the euphoria of taste and gluttony Mark Weddle’s best cocktail from the event using this to ruin the moment with clarifying questions. recipe. But stop by the Marshall Free House and ask for Attendees may have retained some useful and the original so you know how high the bar is set. interesting facts from McMahan’s presentation, like the fact that Topo will put out a rum before long, or 2 oz. Topo Carolina Moonshine (un-aged whiskey) that its gin can be dangerously satisfying with fresh 0.5 oz. spiced simple syrup grapefruit juice.

3-4 dashes of cherry bitters But more likely they’re left thinking, as I am, about Splash of water the juxtaposition between high-quality products Build in a rocks glass over a large ice cube. Garnish and their boring counterparts, even when it comes with orange twist and house-brandied cherry

Up Front

The clear liquid Esteban poured into a mini cup on the left smelled strongly of rubbing alcohol, people agreed, enough so that a few were hesitant to taste it. In the small plastic cup to the right, he’d poured someby Eric Ginsburg thing with a much more appetizing aroma, as if the liquid had been filtered through a couple butterscotch Werther’s candies.

Esteban McMahan, the assistant secretary of the North Carolina Distillers Association, needed little else to make an opening statement. On the left, he’d given us a sample of the hip “hand crafted” Tito’s vodka. On the right, a taste of his own, the wheat-based vodka from Topo Distilling in Chapel Hill.

Thirteen curious comers filled up tables in the enclosed side room of the Marshall Free House, a British-themed restaurant and pub in Greensboro’s socalled Midtown neighborhood. In the lull before dinner on a Saturday, the venue’s bar manager and head chef were able to join McMahan for his two-hour spirits lesson.

Jay Pierce, the beloved former chef at Lucky 32 who now helms the Marshall Free House, reached out to McMahan for the event, because McMahan had converted him to Topo’s organic, locally sourced vodka using the same taste test.

“We don’t have to be bought, because we’re convinced,” Pierce told the attendees on Feb. 6.

Everyone present eagerly agreed.

McMahan pitted his product against Tito’s because the Texas-based spirit is viewed as the new standard-bearer for vodka. But McMahan argued the brand’s labeling is “disingenuous,” given that it’s no longer handmade, but mass-produced using a different process than its projected image.

He explained what many casual drinkers don’t realize but liquor lovers know — that many distilleries purchase bulk, neutral grain spirits that they then “produce” by flavoring, aging or filtering. Much “craft” gin is just re-distilled and flavored with juniper berries and other ingredients, and some “small-batch” whiskey is just aged and watered down from the pre-made spirit, he said.

“It’s not necessarily bad, but it’s not the truth,” McMahan said. He estimates that 70 percent or more of American distilleries aren’t actually distilling their own alcohol, but “producing” it.

His class for the afternoon didn’t need much convincing that the Topo vodka effortlessly prevails over Tito’s, and came to the same conclusion when comparing the distillery’s unaged whiskey (which is also called moonshine) to a generic corn-based moonshine produced in Georgia.

triad-city-beat.com

A spirited session

21

Feb. 10 — 16, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

22

CULTURE There is only one Komander

by Jordan Green

ike the eminence who would follow them, BuKnas de Culiacán’s set commenced with a crackling audioscape of cinematic drama coupled with searchlights casting about the venue and cutting through artificial fog as the band members took their places. With a brassy and percussive sound heavy on oompah, they turned in a frenetic set, with singer Edgar Quintero providing raspy vocals and accompaniment on accordion that washed over the rhythm section like a melodic swell.

Roaming the stage with a wireless mic, guest star Luis Barraza provided a foil of casual insouciance, shimmying next to the horn players, hyping the band and, at one point, pouring a mixed drink into Quintero’s mouth as he wailed on an accordion solo.

It was an effective setup for Barraza, an accordionist and vocalist himself, to subtly ratchet the emotional level of the music before the audience on Sunday at Disco Rodeo in Winston-Salem really knew what was happening. He strapped on his accordion and made a stabbing, melodic attack before laying his instrument down and rendering a plaintive and authoritative vocal. As the band peaked in intensity, Barraza and Quintero shared vocals while the two drummers unleashed martial rolls. Then, after a showman-like drum breakdown and horn outro, the band came back on for encore, accordions piercing the air with a joyous squall.

By then, the party in the VIP area stretching in front of the stage was in full swing, with couples dancing and friends pouring drinks down each other’s throats.

Barraza and Quintero, beaming, obliged happy fans with selfies.

The audience was waiting for the undisputed lord of the realm, with many of the young men dressed in large, crisp cowboy hats, oversized belt buckles and super pointed boots in emulation of their hero and ladies dressed in tight micro dresses and heels. His name is Alfredo Rios, but he’s better known to his fans as “El Komander.”

As the searchlights played across the room and a sonic rumble announced his imminent entrance, there was a palpable excitement, with cell phones held aloft to capture the moment, smiles abounding and guests bouncing on their feet to the house music — a sequence of snippets of hits set apart by a stentorian voicing that a boxing announcer might use: “Alfredo Rios. El Komander.” The audience, almost exclusively Mexican-American, thronging every inch of floor space in the 1,400-person capacity venue were ready to go nuts.

Rios’ larger-than-life profile preceded him; he’s the top artist on the roster of Twiins Music Group, home to the rest of the artists on the bill at Disco Rodeo, including Luis Barraza, singer Charly Barraza and the group Los DesVelados. Company founders and brothers Omar and Adolfo Valenzuela, who were born in the state of Sinaloa in northwest Mexico and make

L

Mexican banda singer Alfredo Rios, better known as El Komander, earns his name with a commanding stage presence.

their base of operations in Los Angeles, make no bones about their interest in fusing the graphic ethos of gangsta rap onto traditional Mexican music.

Brutal depictions in song of the exploits of narco-traffickers have inevitably given rise to the same kind of debates that surrounded gangsta rap in the early 1990s, raising the question of whether the music glorifies violence or functions as a reportorial mirror.

Under pressure from government censorship and mounting fines in Mexico, Rios announced in the fall of 2014 that he was retiring from singing narco-ballads.

As a reflection of his own predicament and developments in the narco-war, recent Rios songs have chronicled the capture of drug cartel leaders. “Plan Zambada Imperial,” a ballad posted to YouTube on Feb. 4, chronicles the capture of Ismael Zambada Imperial, aka El Mayito Gordo, the son of a Sinaloa cartel leader. In the cinematic-quality video, Rios portrays a capo gathering with his family at a mansion as heavily armed federal agents move in, and then fleeing into the jungle after a shootout, only to be captured as he attempts to escape. But in an ironic commentary on the slippery nature of Mexican justice, the video ends with Rios indulging in celebratory gunfire with a gold-plated AK-47 in front of the mansion, while standing alongside the federal agents.

By the time Rios took the stage with his band in

JORDAN GREEN

Winston-Salem, it was technically Monday morning, and the crowd was in a state of near pandemonium. He played the anti-hero and the magnanimous strongman, clearly projecting an aspirational profile to his devoted fans. The audience went wild as the singer stalked the stage calling out the names of Sinaloa, Michoacán, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas and other states that Mexican immigrants in North Carolina hail from. Even without a strong grasp of the language, an observer could clearly read from Rios’ hand gesture rising from down near the floor to above his head, that he was making a testimonial about people from hum-

Pick of the Week The Tills and Wahyas @ Krankie’s Coffee (W-S), Saturday, 8:30 p.m.

Two new pop records, and they’re actually good?

Fit cause for celebration this Saturday at Krankie’s.

Asheville’s the Tills are in town recording with Missy Thangs; luckily, they bring their deliciously fun garage-pop to open for Greensboro “evil garage gospel” outfit Wahyas, who also have a new vinyl record hot off the presses with Valentine’s-apropos lyrics such as “Heartache is what you give/ You don’t tell me how to live.” Check out Krankie’s Facebook page for more info.

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like fireworks making a spray of light.

And although comparisons to American soul do a disservice to the band’s superb mastery of Mexican traditional music, their ability to heighten the dynamic by hitting accents for maximum impact likewise brings to mind James Brown’s band.

Then, just before 2 a.m., the concert was over. The house lights revealed a dance floor covered in melted ice and crushed Modelo cans. Like an elusive strongman, El Komander was gone.

triad-city-beat.com

ble roots rising to positions of power.

From the first song, women were streaming onto the stage, requiring two harried stage handlers to constantly police the premises. But Rios and his crew also abetted the chaos by placing a chair in the center of the stage to which the handlers escorted a series of women hand-picked from the crowd and seated them, in a ritual repeated several times over the course of the next 90 minutes.

Then one of the handlers would fetch a bottle of whiskey from the drum riser, and Rios would pour a shot into the woman’s mouth before accepting her kiss on the cheek and shimmying away.

While singing, he grabbed cell phones from the fans in the VIP section, took selfies of himself and returned them to their rightful owners. He sauntered to the edge of the stage and threw kisses towards the back of the hall.

Every song started with an explosion of sonic energy, the drums, sousaphone, double bass, accordion and acoustic guitar combining in heady swirl. Like Public Enemy during the era of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back or the Rolling Stones in late ’60s “Street Fighting Man” mode, Rios’ band established a ground floor of intensity from the jump and then steadily raised it until the people in the audience were practically beside themselves with ecstasy. As with label mates BuKnas de Culiacán and Los DesVelados, Rios’ band completely dispensed with song breaks, maintaining the relentless pace and foreclosing against any possible distraction.

The band would periodically drop out in mid-song, with Rios wrenching a declarative statement from his heart, not unlike James Brown in “Please Please Please” or “It’s a Man’s World.”

Then, as Rios’ vocals built up intensity, the guitar and horns joined in a flourish,

23

Feb. 10 — 16, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

24

CULTURE Rewriting art history with Pan American Modernism

by Joanna Rutter

o be still in the hushed McDowell Gallery at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro is to stand in the center of almost a century of conversation, competition and collaboration. These voices are anything but quiet — violent sketches from muralists so controversial they carried guns while they painted are placed adjacent to jarring geometric abstractions and provocative, haunting photography.

This immersing experience is open to the public in Pan American Modernism: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America and the United States, a traveling exhibit from the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum that will be at UNCG’s art museum until early May, featuring 70 significant artists from Argentina, Cuba, Mexico and the United States, among other nations.

Pan American Modernism introduces visitors to the dialogue in modernism that occurred across the Americas between 1919 and 1979. For the amateur viewer, LORING MORTENSEN Part of the mission of the Pan American Modernism exhibit is to debunk ethnocentric the exhibit is thankfully grouped into five artistic attitudes about modernism in movements like muralism and abstract expressionism. subcategories for easier perusal: Mexican muralism, the female muse, abstract expressionism, modernist “Rivera has pieces as big as this entire wall,” Katz context and should not be missed, such as the eerie photography and geometric abstraction. said, gesturing to the ceiling. “This is nothing.” deconstructionism of Guillermo Wiedemann’s “SurAnd it’s highly likely that most, if not all attendees, The collection is successful in making connections real Native Woman,” the passionate energy conveyed would be amateurs when it comes to understanding between artists, such as the friendship between Joathrough almost-neon colors in the haunting “Lovthe layered complexity of the Pan-American modern quín Torres-García — a Uruguayan avant-garde artist ers” by Sacha Tebo, or the quilt-like, rich hues of Luis art movement, due to having been served a modernism who founded the group Cercle et Carré in Paris in 1929 Hernández Cruz’s “Subsuelo.” narrative that falsely places the United States at the — and Pierre Daura, who encouraged Torres-García to Here’s another story worth hearing; After Rivera, movement’s center, according to Curator of Collecmove to France and arranged his first show 1926. The perhaps the most notable artist present in the coltions Elaine Gustafson. influence the two had over each other’s work is apparlection is his contemporary David Alfaro Siqueiros, a “I never even studied Latin American art; my eduent when viewing Daura’s “Étude No. 1 Analise” and large-scale muralist — he “painted with a gun, just in cation was biased in that I heard the US came up with Torres-García’s “Composición”, both of which deconcase,” according to Katz — who spent time in prison abstract expressionism,” Gustafson said. “Well, actualstruct an image into rectangular abstractions. If either for attempting to assassinate Leon Trotsky. His “Jesus” ly everyone was traveling, meeting and sharing ideas in of the pieces evokes a sense of déjà vu, it’s because is worth hunting down in the gallery for a long and Paris, New York, Mexico City…. We never studied this in both artists rubbed elbows with Piet Mondrian just as unsettling staring contest. art history class.” he was beginning to paint his Katz passionately said to a group of friends that Local artist Noé Katz, a famous squares. when Siqueiros was freed in the late 1930s, he moved painter and sculptor who The Weatherspoon has to New York, where he left an impression on a young Visit Pan American Modernism: splits his time between his napacked the remainder of Jackson Pollock by teaching him the splatter-paint Avant-Garde Art in Latin Amertive Mexico City and Greensthe spring with events that method for which Pollock is now so well known. boro, was slightly critical of ica and the United States at the will accompany the exhibit, The fact that it’s likely you’ve heard Pollock’s name the exhibit’s ability to properly Weatherspoon Museum at UNCG, including a Pablo Neruda and not Siqueiros’ makes it all the more necessary to present this movement in Latbilingual poetry reading on experience this exhibition before it closes in May. which will run until May 1. The in American art, having hoped April 4 and a Feb. 18 screening full calendar of events completo see the US-centric narrative of Chico & Rita, an animated dismantled by a depth and menting the exhibit, along with film about the modernism Pick of the Week range of artists featured. museum hours, can be found at movement in art and how it Lorena Guillén Tango Ensemble @ Weatherspoon “It’s nice,” he allowed in an influenced and was influenced weatherspoon.uncg.edu.

Art Museum (GSO), Thursday, 6 p.m. interview, with a shrug of his by jazz.

Argentine-born singer Lorena Guillén’s “Buenos shoulders.

Gustafson said the bilinAires nightclub” tango music perfectly pairs with “It’s a great exhibit for gual programming for exhibit events is part of a larger the Pan American Modernism exhibit’s sensual people who have never even heard of, you know, Diego effort to make the museum more accessible. colors and mod aesthetic. Guillén is joined by Alma Rivera or Frida Kahlo,” he said, invoking the names of “It’ll make it approachable,” she said. “We’re making Coefman on the flute and Alejandro Rutty on one of the leaders of the Mexican mural movement inroads to people who didn’t know we existed.” piano for an evening of both traditional tango and and a feminist icon famous for her self-portraits influAnd yet, regardless of programming and background original music, some of which centers on stories enced by indigenous Mexican art. One Rivera piece is stories, the exhibit’s evocative power lies within the of Latina women immigrating to North Carolina. in the collection, a small sketch that couldn’t be more strength of the individual works themselves. Certain Details can be found at weatherspoon.uncg.edu. than a few inches high. pieces in the collection can be enjoyed without any

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5th Annual Guilford County ART TEACHERS show.

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“AFTER HOURS”

Join us “AFTER HOURS” for an eclectic art exhibit featuring 16 of Guilford County’s most talented ART TEACHERS showing off their works. Participating teachers range from elementary through high school.

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Written by Qui Nguyen Directed by Jim Wren Visit theatre.uncg.edu for prices and showtimes For information call 336-334-4392 or Triad Stage at 336-272-0160 Showing at Taylor Theatre, 406 Tate St., Greensboro, NC

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FUN & GAMES

Laurels for teens

ven more so than in Wang was the youngest of this finalist field at 13; normal tennis, everyher competition was 17. Jha and Avvari were 15 and 16, one served a different respectively. way at the final session of the The field of competitors ranged in age from US Olympic table-tennis team 11-year-old Rachel Sung to 93-year-old Bill Guilfoil. trials on Feb. 6.

In the weeks leading up to the trials, Guilfoil became Crystal Wang, one of the something of a media darling; if he’d won the men’s women’s finalists, bent at the qualifier, he chanced becoming the oldest Olympian in

by Anthony Harrison waist, holding the ping-pong history. ball in her palm, the back of Unfortunately for him and the record books, Guilfoil her hand resting on the baseline. She stooped over and was eliminated by Austin Preiss in the preliminary inspected the ball like a child staring at an anthill, then qualifier round. straightened back up and, with a hint of a lifting toss, No offense to Guilfoil, but after watching this seslet the ball float in the air. She backed away from it, sion, I realized he had no chance. looking almost startled, and kept the paddle perpenThis level of table tennis was a far cry from the game dicular with the flight of the ball, as though she wished you might play on a deck or in a bar. Hell, it even made to catch it as it fell. And then, she jerked her whole that scene in Forrest Gump look like a static display. upper body with a pivoting thrust to serve.

After all, this is an Olympic sport.

Angela Guan, on the other hand, contrasted Wang’s Not only did these players serve with a level of twitchiness with an almost dancelike routine. While sophistication undreamed of by hobbyists, they used she too looked at the simple little white ball with intense scrutiny, Guan occasionally leaned her right elbow on the serving line, suggesting a casual, almost relaxed air to her drill. She would then rise up and lift her shoulders slightly, seeming to take in a deep relaxing breath, before flicking her wrist forward with a sense of rhythm. There was fluidity to her ritual.

Between the two men’s finalists, Krish Avvari seemed to wind up a lot like Wang, exhibiting the same intensity and jerky movements in his serve. But Avvari added a unique, distinctive bit of personality to his follow-through. On every single serve, Avvari stamped his left foot at the exact moment his paddle made contact with the ball. It reminded me of how retired Chicago Cubs home-run king Sammy Sosa added a tiny stutter step with his left foot before every swing.

And while Avvari and Wang were both very intense, Kanak Jha took it to another level, seeming to throw his entire body into the serve of this miniscule, nearly weightless sphere — same as professional tennis players. Jha resembled a bird in his wide windup, using the entirety of his body and arm span to deliver the ball to Avvari. Sometimes he served with such total intensity, it seemed like he head-butted the ball. He also held his paddle differently, clutching the bottom arc of the plastic surface with his fist with his thumb clinching the top, the paddle paralleled with his wrist.

They all served differently, sure. But they all had one thing in common.

COURTESY PHOTO Every table-tennis player has a different serve.

None of them were old enough to have graduated from high school.

E

the entire floor away from the table, just like normal tennis players.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, their play somewhat complemented their serving style, too.

Stoic at the table, Wang tended to go after Guan with fierce volleys. Her forceful returns maneuvered Guan to back off from the table, leading Guan to make unforced errors, mainly sending the ball into the net.

But Guan stayed in it, largely from her defensive prowess, making artful “dives” for the ball as it bounced off the table out of bounds, rallying to force deuce at the seeming ends of rounds.

Still, Wang took the night in five games.

The women’s match had more of a finessed air to it.

The men’s games quickly shifted into overdrive.

After a few testing taps following each serve, Jha and Avvari immediately picked up the pace, firing salvo after salvo of breakneck returns. Both young men pushed the other off baseline, off the table. And both performed feats of reaction time which would make Muhammad Ali double-take in his prime.

The match went back and forth in every way. Between points, between serves, between games. Jha and Avvari, while they contrasted in style, seemed very evenly matched.

Unlike the women, these two forced Game 7 after trading rounds.

Avvari built a three-point lead early in the final, but halfway through the game with the score at 5-1, unforced errors helped Jha cut into his lead. Avvari’s confidence wavered, and his opponent struck like a rattlesnake, quickly and with little warning.

A timeout by Avvari couldn’t save him. It only gave Jha more time to rein in his resurgence.

Avvari put another point on the board, but then Jha took the final game outright, 11-7.

These kids played like seasoned veterans, and their prowess extended beyond their years.

But they’re still kids.

When the emcee asked Wang following her victory, “What are you more nervous about, freshman year of high school or the Olympics?” you could hear Wang shyly mumble, “Uh…” before her answer got swallowed by the Clash’s “Train in Vain” pumping through another PA system.

Pick of the Week Cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria Gardner-Webb University Runnin’ Bulldogs @ High Point University Panthers (HP), Saturday, 4 p.m.

It’s gonna be dogs against cats in this women’s basketball matchup. The visiting Gardner-Webb Bulldogs (15-8) just walloped the Winthrop and Campbell squads, and they’re looking to extend their streak against the wounded Panthers (8-13).

Let’s give them some hometown love and support.

For more information, visit highpointpanthers.com.

Chef Josh Crawford

‘All Day’ not just the three-letter abbreviation.

by Matt Jones Across

59 Ashcroft and Holder, for short 60 Cedars-___ Medical Center 61 “Hand over the money!”

63 “Chi-Raq” director 64 Say “prob’ly,” for instance 65 Wombs 66 Drug for Hunter S. Thompson 67 Coup ___ 68 Labwork

Personal Chef for Private Events and Parties HarmonyFoodsInc/facebook crawfordjoshua92@yahoo.com

Opinion Cover Story Culture

1 Fall behind 2 Part of UAE 3 Organizer 4 Not genuine 5 Hobbyist’s racer 6 Not quite shut 7 Seaweed, or a phrase of denial 8 ___ out a living 9 Elizabeth Warren, e.g.

10 Martin killed in 2012 11 Rock 12 Root beer brand 13 Weightlifting exercise 21 Word after fast or (more recently) slow 22 Fortify 25 Bag-screening gp.

26 Dumbo’s claim to fame 27 Part of Caesar’s last question 29 West of award show antics 30 Tricks

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32 ___ & World Report (defunct print magazine) 33 Himalayan beast 34 Where Buckeyes hail from 35 “Sideways” valley 39 Vowelless reproach 41 Decent, so to speak 42 Unit for a frequent flier 43 “The Lion King” role 44 Remain in place 48 Hoops 49 Pushes 50 Exposed to light 52 Take to the rink 54 “I’ll get right ___!”

55 Nothin’ 56 Nonfiction bestseller topic, often 57 “___ Wide Shut” 58 Nomad’s tent 62 Greek letters

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Three friends passionate about exceptional food and entertainment.

Answers from previous publication.

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1 Humor, casually 6 Build ___ (bird’s job) 11 Tree stuff 14 Sans-serif Windows typeface 15 Wild card 16 Prepare to feather 17 Ernest or Julio of winemaking 18 Stadium 19 Undivided 20 Workweek closers that are a hit with everyone?

23 Green beginning 24 Some journalism 25 Concert souvenir 28 Just fine 30 Opportunity, in metaphor 31 Particle from a weekend coffee server?

36 Conservatory focus 37 Snooze 38 Shoot the breeze 40 Jennings sends packages when there’s no mail service?

45 One of five lakes 46 Wouldn’t stand for it?

47 Mighty tree 48 ___-Lytton Fiction Contest (competition to write terrible prose) 51 ___ Vegans (some Nevada residents) 53 Door opener that only works when the weekend’s over?

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Super Bowl 50, fourth quarter.

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ALL SHE WROTE

Love me Tinder: A modern dictionary of dirty talk (yelling at me across a crowded restaurant patio): OMG, I have to tell you about my first

by Nicole Crews three-way!

Me: Dear god, I hope you are talking about a lightbulb.

M: Well, it was a turn-on.

M

The sonnet may have taken a swan dive, and the epistolary romance may have been run over by mail truck, but the lexicon of love is alive and well and texting to a phone near you. This is straight from the horse’s mouth (that’s a real thing, too) and also straight from a few horses’ asses. I’ve been polling my peeps (yes, that’s a thing, too — it involves Easter candy) and the results are in, from A to Z. So before you stumble into a situation on Valentines’ Day, make sure you know your alphabet.

Autocorrect asphyxiation When you want to strangle your partner because they can’t spell.

Baconating Any sexual act involving fragrant meat. Also known as porking or in the case of sexual acts involving Vietnamese noodle soup, phorking.

Camming When you climax while watching Panthers football.

Also when you pose for nude photos

with your mouth wide open.

a woman with a fetish for squid.

Dead Sea scrolling When your dating site matches you with old dudes. Dead Sea Trolling is when you are looking for them.

Por-poise A lonely girl who watches a lot of Ben Stiller movies.

Expiration dating A relationship with a pre-ordained time limit.

Face f***ing Trolling for a date on Facebook with people who aren’t your friends.

Gag gift When your partner finally shuts up — or shuts you up.

Hasbian A woman who once identified as a lesbian but does so no longer.

Inter-corpse When you are just too tired to move.

Jalapeño finger poppers When you are looking for some hot stuff.

Kardashophilia A fetish for hirsute, bizarrely shaped Armenians from Calabasas, Calif.

Lifosuction When you become acutely cramped from holding your belly in during sex.

Medusa An unattractive woman with the ability to turn your privates to stone.

Neck romancer That creepy guy that comes up to you in public and starts rubbing your neck.

Octopussy A man with a fetish for Bond girls. Or

Quaker oats When Quakers sow their wild oats. Or go to Guilford College.

Revolution milling The desire to have sex in old cotton mills.

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Seventy-one It’s 69 plus two. You do the math.

Tinder spotting When you recognize your Tinder date across the room.

Underwoos Unimpressive underwear. Also a fetish for babytalk.

Vagnesia When you sleep with someone again and just don’t remember it that way.

Weather stripping When it’s so cold you are too exhausted for sex by the time you take all of your clothes off.

Xylophone When you’re booty calling and reach the Xs in your contacts list and realize you are s*** out of luck.

YooHooing The fetish of drinking a chocolate-milk drink while sexting.

Zimaphobia Sexual fear of the shape of a Zima bottle. Also fear of drinking Zima, smelling like Zima, being seen drinking Zima.

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Touring Theatre of North Carolina presents the

Or You DoneMe

WRONG

www.ttnc.org

February 19 (pay as you can), and 20 at 8 pm; February 26 and 27 at 8 pm THE CROWN AT THE CAROLINA THEATRE 310 S. Greene St. • Downtown Greensboro

Over the Edge or You Done Me Wrong, is scheduled to run days after Valentine’s Day, the most romantic day of the year. However, this production is clearly NOT a valentine.

Rather it is a combination of pithy short stories centering on failed relationships and disappointments with characters definitely in need of therapy.

Tickets are general admission: $ 20: Adults $ 17: for groups of 10 or more $ 15: Students with school ID

For tickets call 336-333-2605 or visit carolinatheatre.com

A $1.00 theatre Facility Fee and sales tax is added to the price of each ticket.

There is an additional $3.50 added to online purchases.

Please consider investing in our Creative Campaign to help bring more great works to the stage. Donate on our website ttnc.org or by mail.

PO Box 9733, Greensboro, NC 27429

31

HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY

Monday, Feb. 15 at 7 p.m.

FOX8 WGHP An evening with one of Time’s 100 most influential people.

High Point University’s Access to Innovators Series

Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell’s first book, The Tipping Point, spent more than a decade as a Business Week best-seller. Every Gladwell book since has enjoyed the same success as the author’s insights on social change and human behavior have become essential reading for all, especially entrepreneurs and thought

New York Times Best-Selling Author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers

leaders. At his thought-provoking best, Gladwell and High Point University President Nido Qubein share

ENJOY THE CONVERSATIONS THAT INSPIRED THE HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY.

a captivating discussion of the author’s innovative ideas in front of a live audience of HPU students and faculty. Originally aired on PBS, Malcolm Gladwell’s encore appearance runs exclusively on FOX8 WGHP as part of HPU’s ongoing commitment to community service. Don’t miss it!

COLIN POWELL

Monday, January 18

STEVE WOZNIAK

Monday, January 25

SETH GODIN

Monday, February 1

MONDAYS AT 7 P.M. JANUARY 18 MARCH 7 FOX8 WGHP TOM BROKAW

Monday, February 29

WES MOORE

Monday, March 7

JOHN MAXWELL

Monday, February 8

KEN DYCHTWALD

Monday, February 22

OTHERS IN THE SERIES

CONDOLEEZZA RICE

BONNIE MCELVEEN-HUNTER

Share the conversation. Email communication@highpoint.edu to request a complimentary DVD of the Access to Innovators Series.

AT H I G H P O I N T U N I V E R S I T Y, E V E R Y S T U D E N T R E C E I V E S A N E X T R A O R D I N A R Y E D U C AT I O N I N A N I N S P I R I N G E N V I R O N M E N T W I T H C A R I N G P E O P L E . highpoint.edu