TCB April 13, 2016 — The Accidental Festival

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com April 13 – 19, 2016

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The accidental festival A n oral history of Phuzz Phest

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Jorge Cornell PAGE 15

Girls Pint Out PAGE 21

KRS-One levels G-boro PAGE 22

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April 13 — 19, 2016

UP FRONT

CULTURE

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

20 Food: They make grub in this club 21 Barstool: Girls Pint Out 22 Music: KRS-One lays it down 24 Art: RiverRun at night

NEWS

Birthday shirt

by Brian Clarey

FUN & GAMES

8 On Medicaid expansion 10 Cop cams 12 HPJ: Thewritten word

26 Spartans shake it off

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27 Jonesin’ Crossword

14 Editorial: We stand with the Boss 14 Citizen Green: Bait & switch 15 It Just Might Work: No ilegal laws 15 Fresh Eyes: Bridging gaps between prisoners

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

COVER

GAMES

28 East Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, High Point

ALL SHE WROTE 30 Calling North Carolina home

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16 The Accidental Festival: An oral history

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

I knew right away it was a real festival. The guys had made their mistakes before they came to me. I never had any self doubt or anything. When they came to me they had a bunch of badass bands.

As soon as they came to me I knew I was sponsoring it — if Anthony and Philip were doing it, I was on board — I can’t think of anyone else in town I respect more, musically.

— Tucker Tharpe, in the Cover, page 16

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I pulled the shirt from a hanger in the back of the closet and took a good look at it for the first time in a long time.

It’s held up pretty good over the years — its deep navy shade now faded to twilight blue, the original buttons secure in their moorings, the breast pocket still intact. The Nehru collar, however, is frayed like shed snakeskin, and I can see daylight through the shoulder seams.

If I’d known I would have had it this long I probably would have taken better care of it.

It’s been in my possession for exactly 20 years, bequeathed to me on the night of my 26th birthday at a bar in Uptown New Orleans called Fat Harry’s. John Howard, a doctor of philosophy and preferred drinking buddy of mine, gave it to me right off his back when I admired it that night, took it off then and there and stood near the door at Fat Harry’s, giant and pale as the underside of a sea tortoise.

Naturally I gave him my shirt after I put the blue one on, and because he was so much bigger than me the buttons didn’t reach across his chest. His double-X didn’t look as baggy on me then as it did when I tried it on the other day.

And then we hit the town, because it was my birthday.

This was not the night he slugged a wise-mouthed undergrad just in time for Christmas, or the night we fell prey to the tangerine women of the upper French Quarter. This was the the first time I wore what would become my go-to nightlife outfit for years and years, and, though the finer details of that celebration remain hazy, I probably had it on for four days straight.

After that I wore it when I went to John Howard, a doctor of shows and on bug philosophy and preferred nights behind the drinking buddy of mine, gave bar. I wore it on it to me right off his back my first date with when I admired it that night. the woman who would become my wife, paired with jeans and boots because that’s all I wore for years.

I packed it with the things I brought up to North Carolina when I moved here; it still saw some active duty after dark, but after a bleach stain bloomed near one button it became relegated to work detail and general farting around.

The cuffs have been rolled and unrolled so often the forearms are a slightly darker shade than the front panels. There is, likewise, a change in shading near the waist from the days when I used to tuck it in. I believe that if I gave it a few good shakes it might fly into pieces.

But the birthday shirt been with me as long as anything I own. And this week, as I turn 46, I think I can get one more wear out of it.

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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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April 13 — 19, 2016

CITY LIFE April 13 – 19 ALL WEEKEND Phuzz Phest @ downtown Winston-Salem We’ve called this musical weekend “a rite of spring,” and we meant it. Hot on the heels of RiverRun comes an indie music festival curated by Philip Pledger. Neon Indian headlines, joined by 50-some-odd other acts. There’s more going on than the sets; we’ve got our eye on special events like the Building & Sustaining A Music Community panel at the Center for Design Innovation planned for Friday at 5:30 p.m. and a free yoga session in Bailey Park at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning. Check out our senior editor Jordan Green’s top 12 picks on our website, then peruse the lineup for yourself at phuzzphest.com.

by Joanna Rutter

WEDNESDAY One Spirit Dance Team @ Forsyth Tech Main Campus (W-S), noon Did you know that North Carolina has the highest American Indian population on the east coast? Learn more about our state’s heritage at this sure-to-be informative and beautiful dance by this troupe comprised of dancers from all eight of North Carolina’s recognized tribes (Lumbee, Tuscarora, Haliwa-Saponi, Coharie, Sappony, Waccamaw Siouan, Meherrin and Cherokee). The event is part of the college’s Humanities Enrichment Series and is free and open to the public. Email martha@reubenrink.com with any questions.

Lace Crater screening @ A/perture Cinema (W-S), 7:30 p.m.

In this grown-up version of a teenage summer-camp horror movie, a twentysomething woman named Ruth hooks up with a ghost on a drug-filled Hamptons weekend; light moments of comedy parallel disturbing scenes full of leaking black goo and hallucinations.

Actor Andrew Ryder and producer Adam Kritzer will attend the screening. The event is co-presented by Phuzz Phest and RiverRun, as a direct nod to Phuzz headliner Neon Indian’s brilliant film score. Visit riverrunfilm.com for ticket info.

High Point Market @ downtown HP It’s springtime. The buds are on the trees, the birds are tweeting and thousands of people are pouring into the Triad to behold a whole lot of furniture. Some companies have issued statements decrying HB2 and have withdrawn from the market; hopefully their action have the desired effect. If you want to go sneak a peek into this biannual local phenomenon and go sit on a lot of chairs, download the nifty iOS app so you don’t get lost in a showroom and we find you living in a wardrobe three days later. Visit highpointmarket.org for details on the weekend’s events.

Triad Startup Weekend @ the Nussbaum Center (GSO) What can you get going in 54 hours? According to this event’s schedule, quite a bit. On the agenda: Friday night pitches, brainstorming and prototyping on Saturday, and Sunday night presentations. The weekend’s affiliated with Google for Entrepreneurship, so you know it’s legit. While you’re there, come upstairs and say hi: the TCB office is on the second floor. Go to triad.startupweekend.org to buy tickets.

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Cul-de-Sac @ High Point University The world premiere of a new play by acclaimed playwright John Cariani, author of Almost Maine, takes place this weekend at HPU. Cariani developed the play along with the school’s theater faculty, students and alumni over the past year. Set in generic suburbia, the story follows neighborhood family drama: The Johnsons feel stuck, the Smiths feel lost, and the Joneses seem to have it all figured out. Get your free tickets by contacting the HPU Campus Concierge at 336-841-4636.

THURSDAY Dash opening day @ BB&T Ballpark (W-S), 7 p.m.

The Dash returns to Winston-Salem. This local team is a Class A-Advanced affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, though I couldn’t tell you what that means.

Be a true American and go watch some baseball. Select beers will be $1 through the seventh inning, a surefire recipe for a calm and respectful evening had by all. (Ball responsibly, dear readers.) More info and links to tickets are on the Winston-Salem dash page on Facebook.

Lift Every Voice: Queer Faith, Spirituality & Activism conference @ Guilford College (GSO), 9 a.m.

Participants from across North Carolina gather to honor the role that faith and spirituality play in the lives of LGBTQQA communities and social justice movements, faith as an act of resistance and “queering” theology. If one or all of those concepts either sounds completely alien or completely up your alley, this day-long conference at the Bayard Rustin Center is a must. Martha E. Lang, recipient of the 2nd Annual Angelic Troublemaker Award for her activism, presents the keynote talk. The event is free; visit the Center’s Facebook page for the registration form.

Reign Supreme Paint Battle @ ArtSpace Uptown (GSO), 7 p.m.

Joseph Wilkerson’s breaking in his new gallery in Uptown Greensboro with an event sure to be epicly raucous. Twelve local artists go through three rounds of painting on different mediums (canvas, wood, then plastic) and the audience votes on who deserves to move on to the next round, ultimately selecting a champion. The art from each round will be available for purchase. Check out the venue’s page on Facebook to buy tickets ahead of time.

Take Yourself-ie Downtown.

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Tales of two cities One of my great grandparents worked at Hanes Hosiery and one of my grandparents worked at Western Electric as a telephone/switchboard operator for many years before they went out of business [“A city divided: The resurgent downtown and the abandoned urban core”; by Jordan Green; April 3, 2016]. Also one of my parents worked at Hanesbrands packing hosiery into boxes before their massive layoff in 2008. Yes, these jobs need to come back into play and/or we (Winston) need more jobs like this that Winston had back in the olden days to avoid poverty.

Christen Lynch, via triad-city-beat.com I had grandparents and an uncle who worked at RJR. I had an older cousin who worked at Western Electric. Those jobs are forever gone because the economy is in transition. Manufacturing and service jobs are in decline nationally and moving overseas where the labor is cheap. To be quite honest, the problem Winston faces is two-fold. There’s a massive education/training gap that can only be addressed by government. They need to redistrict these school zones and the state government should provide relevant job training programs. Goodwill and other charitable organizations lack the resources to do all of the heavy lifting.

I don’t expect private employers like Walmart to start paying more than $10/hour any time soon, so the government is the only way to get this done. That’s another part of the problem: The kinds of jobs that Winston has to offer are low paying. They offer a very limited road out of poverty. That wasn’t always the case when those manufacturing and service jobs were available in decades past.

Truth03121, via triad-city-beat.com

6 nicknames for High Point

by Joanna Rutter

1. The Third City

We’ve been calling High Point “the Third City” for a while here at Triad City Beat, but it hasn’t seemed to stick like Winston-Salem’s nickname, “Camel City” or “Twin City”, or Greensboro’s transportation-inspired “Gate City.” High Point needs some nickname love.

Here are some other ideas.

2. North Carolina’s International City

4. Shake City

Since High Point was once home to the NC Shakes festival (RIP), why not memorialize the Bard and his presence here in a nickname, lending itself to another meaning: the city of movers and shakers. It’d also be great incentive for the milkshake industry to bring the boys to the yard.

This is the officially trademarked nickname on the city’s website, and it seems legit considering Furniture Market, but doesn’t seem to have caught on as far as we can tell. Maybe the 12 syllables kill it? Perhaps because it’s unhashtag-able? It looks like for better or worse, this tagline’s sticking around, at least on all the official documents.

5. Hype Point

3. Market City

6. Ghost City

A tad obvious, but it is what High Point’s known for, packaged in a simpler form than No. 2. The word “market” is universal enough that the moniker could have a lasting and dual meaning for High Point’s furniture market, but also a growing industry of makers and small business owners.

This one is listed on High Point’s Wikipedia page (along with Furniture Capital of the World — not catchy) and it is actually... rather perfect. We want more hype here, right? Hype about the arts scene, hype about schools, hype about urban revitalization in general. So why not claim the word itself?

This one is inspired by artist Beka Butts of the 512 Collective’s description, who called High Point’s non-market week downtown the “prettiest little ghost town you ever saw.” But we bet some of our Hype Point readers can come up with an even better one.

The Apple Store employees

by Eric Ginsburg It’s been a hell of a month for my electronics.

Journalists don’t need a whole lot in the way of physical tools, which is convenient considering otherwise we wouldn’t be able to buy them. In its rawest form, our profession requires a notebook and a pen, but practically speaking, it’s hellish to operate without a cell phone or a computer.

For a brief time today, I had neither.

My laptop quit on me rather suddenly about a week ago, but I was en route to the Apple Store to pick it up today after repairs when the screen on my iPhone went black. I’d just left the Triad City Beat office and tried to check my phone, but it wasn’t having it. Before I could slip into some sort of meltdown or a what-are-the-chances tirade, I whipped over to the Apple Store and asked for help.

This marked my fifth time in the Friendly Center store in Greensboro since my computer walked off the job and

refused to turn on. But rather than parse out all the details of this pity party, let me cut to the point; there’s one hell of a team working at that store.

It isn’t because three of my friends happen to work there — Devin, Dante and Max are super nice dudes, but none of them were assigned to help me on these follies.

It’s that the Apple Store, or at least this one, manages to hire and train some of the friendliest and most empathetic employees I’ve encountered.

I struggle to think of more consistently excellent service I’ve received anywhere.

Today, Thomas became my personal hero. Though I kept my composure, I think he could sense I was on the brink of oblivion, overwhelmed by the prospect of my other fundamental tool calling it quits.

Before Thomas it was Charlie, as well as a handful of other employees who not only acted like gracious yet authoritative hosts, but who also patiently listened to my

endless journalist-interview-style questions.

And that’s to say nothing of whoever fixed my phone in the back today in a matter of seconds, the folks who restored my computer to full operating order.

All five times I walked into that store, people filled most areas of the floor. Many of them, like me, were in a stressed-out state of disarray. It’s miraculous, really, when you think about how much tension and calamity is being held inside the dozens of humans crowded between those four walls, and yet how there’s a presiding calm that quietly commands the room.

It feels more like a church than a bus station, but you’d expect it to be more akin to a hospital waiting room than anything.

And it’s all thanks to people like Thomas and Charlie, my three friends and all the other employees working the floor. I can’t thank you enough.

60 50 40 30 20 10

47%

Tarheels’ NCAA Championship loss

42%

Panthers’ Super Bowl Flop

11%

I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Cover Story

New question: Is Gov. Pat McCrory’s executive order related to HB2 substantial, or just window dressing? Vote at triad-citybeat.com.

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Opinion

Jordan Green: Wait, they lost?

Readers: Our readers leaned narrowly towards the Tarheels’ NCAA Championship loss (47 percent) over the Panthers’ Super Bowl flop (42 percent) while the remaining 11 percent lined up with Jordan, and picked: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

As our sports writer Anthony Harrison said, “‘Both hurt equally terrible’ should’ve been an option.”

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News

Brian Clarey: Gotta be the Tarheels. Sure, the Panthers folded in the Super Bowl like an origami snowball in one of the ugliest displays the big game has ever seen. But the fact remains that the Panthers’ Super Bowl berth was an attainment in itself, and fans felt proud that their team made it to the game at all. Not so with the Tarheels, whose fans presuppose a deep Final Four run just about every season and most off the time fully expect their guys will take it all. It’s that sense of entitlement that made the Tarheels last-second loss to Villanova hurt so bad for their fans — though haters like me took great pleasure in seeing their faces.

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Eric Ginsburg: I don’t know, but I really hate you for asking. I expected the Panthers to go to — and win — the Super Bowl for the better part of the season, and while I had no such expectation for UNC until watching them plow through the ACC tourney, their loss hit me all at once rather than throughout the evening when the Panthers just never got off Go.

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This week, we couldn’t help ourselves. We had to be those dicks who asked the #toosoon question following the UNC Tarheels loss in the last second of the NCAA Championship, which came a few months after the Carolina Panthers’ Super Bowl blunder.

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Which lost hurt more, Tarheels or Panthers?

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NEWS

Medicaid reform meeting provides platform for calls for expansion

by Jordan Green

State health officials who came to Winston-Salem for a “listening session” about Medicaid privatization got an earful instead about the state’s refusal to expand the program last week.

Patients and healthcare workers urged the state health officials to expand Medicaid during a so-called “listening session” attended by a capacity crowd last week at the Forsyth County Department of Public Health for the purpose of getting public feedback on plans to privatize the system.

The new plan, which was signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory in September 2015, transforms the state’s health insurance program for low-income citizens from one based on fee-for-services to a pre-paid system that is value based. Implementation of the program requires federal approval of a so-called 1115 waiver, estimated to take place by early 2018. After that, it would likely take the state another year and a half to fully implement the new system. One of the goals of the system is to build more predictability into the cost of Medicaid — the second largest expenditure by the state after education.

The Republican-controlled General Assembly and Gov. McCrory undertook privatization of Medicaid while refusing to expand the program to cover people who currently earn too much to qualify yet don’t earn enough to receive a subsidy under the Affordable Care Act. North Carolina is one of 29 states that have chosen to not expand Medicaid, which is reimbursed 100 percent by the federal government this year, with the federal government’s cost burden dropping to 95 percent next year and 90 percent starting in 2020.

The city councils in Winston-Salem and Greensboro have both passed resolutions calling on the General Assembly to expand Medicaid. The governor has expressed willingness to consider expansion, while the more conservative leadership in the General Assembly has maintained staunch opposition to the proposal.

Dr. Peter Lichstein, an internal-med-

Matthew Potter, a Pfafftown resident who lives with cerebral palsy, expresses displeasure about the state Department of Health and Human Services rollout of Medicaid reform.

icine physician at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem said that not a day goes by when doesn’t encounter “patients who do not have insurance and do not get what they need.”

“They don’t get the screening services, hypertension care, and particularly for chronic disorders, the management they require,” said Lichstein, who said he was speaking on behalf of 3,000 internal medicine physicians as governor of the state chapter of the American College of Physicians. “The whole patchwork of free clinics and charity services doesn’t and will never be able to make up the difference. The concerns that we have about the 1115 is that it seems to delay expansion.”

Dr. David Colonna, an anesthesiologist in Winston-Salem, said he worries that if the private insurers contracted by the state under the new system are “not doing well economically they’re going to drive down the reimbursement for physicians.” He added that the arrangement could adversely affect small medical practices “in rural parts of the state, and they can’t keep the lights on if they can’t get paid.”

While the Medicaid reform plan is only a proposal until it receives federal

approval, Vivian Smith, the lead physical therapist at Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, indicated that cost-containment efforts might already be resulting in reduced services. Smith said the proposed budget for the state Medicaid program eliminates reimbursements for a number of services provided in public schools, including audiology, speech language pathology, occupational therapy and physical therapy. Those reimbursements are used to purchase equipment and supplies for exceptional students such as wheelchairs, standers and iPads, she said.

Matthew Potter, a Pfafftown man who lives with cerebral palsy, lambasted the state.

“We often hear that Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he said. “I’m here to submit to you that if the state legislature of North Carolina had started building Rome thousands of years ago, that city never would have been built. There would be buildings that they would start to construct, and then on a whim they would tear those down and try to build new ones and say to the citizenry of Rome: ‘No guys, it’s really going to be better this time. We promise.’ So all I will say is this: The state of North Caro-

JORDAN GREEN

lina and the legislature in particular has a lot of work to do before I trust them with anything with regards to sustainability and looking out for the good of the citizens.”

Potter, who serves on the board of directors of CenterPoint Human Services, currently receives Medicaid through the Community Alternatives Program for Disabled Adults program. He also qualifies for the more robust Innovations program, but has been on a waiting list — the so-called “registry of unmet needs” — for five years. Potter said enrollment in the Innovations program would give him confidence about weathering unforeseen contingencies and covering major costs such as replacement of his motorized wheelchair, which is more than 10 years old.

“With the services I get currently, we’re really trying to figure out how to do it,” he said. “For someone like me, a wheelchair is a need, not a luxury.”

Potter and his mother, Sarah, both favor Medicaid expansion. Sarah questioned the state’s goal of sustainability while people like her son have unmet needs.

“I keep hearing the words ‘sustainable’ and ‘predictable,’ but I don’t think

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die because of the lack of healthcare coverage. Let’s see who wants to stand up and say that’s justified. It’s not even an accounting measure that says it costs too much: We refuse the federal dollars that we’re already paying for and we’re already taxed for. And that’s outrageous. As a healthcare worker, I’ve been through four or five layoffs with coworkers, some of them hired back without healthcare coverage. So this is affecting the solid middle class.”

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we can do that until we meet the needs of the registry of unmet needs,” she said. “The fact that we call it that is appalling to me. Here in Forsyth County we have as many people on that registry of unmet needs as we do people that we’re serving.”

Not everyone agrees that expansion is the best way to go. Mary Short, whose adult daughter lives with tuberous sclerosis complex, cited the fact that an estimated 10,000 to 13,000 people across the state remain on the waiting list as a reason to “be very, very careful about the idea of expansion.”

Kendra Gerlach, the communications director at the state Department of Health and Human Services, assured the speakers that “what’s been said here today, we’ve heard every word of it.”

She added, “It’s been captured and it will be used. And it’s important to shape the outcome. It’s important for the decisions being made going forward.

So I hope you hear us when we say that because we genuinely mean it.”

A June 2015 White House report estimated that Medicaid expansion in North Carolina could reduce the number of annual deaths in the state by 380, while a study published by the Health Affairs Blog in January 2014 estimated the number could be as high as 1,145.

The White House report also projected that Medicaid expansion would reduce the number of people in North Carolina with catastrophic out-of-pocket costs in a typical year by 14,000, and would provide preventative care including cholesterol-level screening to an additional 45,600 people and mammograms to an additional 11,500 women.

More recently, in late March, the US Department of Health & Human Services estimated that 144,000 uninsured people in North Carolina with mental illness or substance abuse disorders could qualify for Medicaid under expansion. The report cited a study estimating “that low-income adults with serious mental illness are 30 percent more likely to receive treatment if they have Medicaid coverage.” The report added, “This is especially important to states as they work to address opioid use disorder and serious mental illness.”

Will Cox, a Winston-Salem healthcare worker, told the state health officials last week: “In our state we’re looking at 1,100 people a year that may

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Opponents criticize plan for police body-cam footage release

by Eric Ginsburg

Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan and Councilman Justin Outling receive pushback on a plan to change the release policy for police body-camera footage, arguing that despite the stated aims, the proposal is actually regressive.

When the Greensboro City Council and Greensboro Police Foundation sold the public on the idea of body-worn cameras for police officers, they promoted it as a win-win; an unbiased record of interactions between police and the public would help alleviate baseless claims of officer misconduct and allow for greater transparency when an officer actually mistreated someone.

But as council and the department moved forward with the plan a few years ago, making Greensboro police one of the first departments to fully launch body-worn cameras, a fundamental aspect of the plan was amiss.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan and others on council and city staff have said they didn’t realize that state law wouldn’t allow the release of the footage as a public record, which many residents say is a fundamental part of the equation if there is to be any police accountability.

Council called together a panel of legal experts in September 2014 to explore when the footage could or should be released, followed by a failed attempt to convince the state legislature to take up the matter and clarify the law to allow for greater transparency.

Now, thanks to a proposal by Vaughan and new Councilman Justin Outling, the dormant topic is being revisited. Citing personnel and criminal records laws, which City Attorney Tom Carruthers argues would block almost all public-records requests to view footage, Vaughan and Outling’s plan seeks a path for greater release to certain parties under very specific circumstances.

But residents who spoke on the item at last week’s city council meeting and at the council’s public-safety committee meeting Monday lambasted the plan as undermining the original purpose of the cameras and falling dramatically short of transparency.

“This discussion now is the best example I’ve ever seen of the betrayal of trust,” the Rev. Nelson Johnson said

Councilman Justin Outling (left) joined the council’s public-safety committee on Monday and spent a considerable amount of time defending the proposal he put forward with the mayor.

during the Monday meeting. Johnson, who serves as executive director of the Beloved Community Center and has been a leader in the local fight for police accountability, said council’s conversation of the matter had become highly technical and legalistic to the point that the public couldn’t follow along.

“This is not about legal nuances,” he said. “It’s about destroyed lives.”

Several other residents spoke in opposition to the Vaughan/Outling plan on Monday and last week; not a single resident spoke in support of it at either meeting.

Speaking at the Monday committee meeting, League of Women Voters chapter co-president Anna Fesmire urged the council to “stay at the drawing board and continue to work on this to make it reflect the kind of access to information that we need in order to have confidence in our government.”

“I think there’s a great deal at stake here, so I’d say keep at it until you can

get it right,” she said, adding that the Vaughan/Outling plan doesn’t provide any transparency.

The plan, dated March 3, provides very limited permitted disclosure of footage. Under the proposal, only people filmed by the cameras would have the right to review — but not receive a copy of — the tape, and only when the police department doesn’t believe the release “would undermine a defendant’s right to receive a fair trial or that an ongoing or future criminal investigation would be undermined by the release.”

Any time a civilian dies as a result of police use of force, the State Bureau of Investigation looks into the incident, meaning that the officer potentially becomes a criminal defendant.

Criminal defendants in Guilford County already have the right to view footage showing them, Carruthers has repeatedly stated to council.

The plan also allows the council to release the footage as a public record

ERIC GINSBURG

“including but not limited to persons recorded” if council finds “that the release of the footage is essential to maintain public confidence.”

State law already allows information that is deemed “personnel information” to be released with the individual officer’s consent, by court order and by city council with agreement of the city manager “when an officer has been disciplined and it is necessary to maintain public confidence,” according to a police department presentation at last week’s council meeting. Carruthers and the department currently argue that the footage is classified as personnel record, a contention that residents including former lawyer Lewis Pitts refute and argue is an attempt to shroud public records in secrecy.

Carruthers offered a revised policy at the public-safety committee meeting on Monday that is more detailed and that he said considered some of the concerns residents raised last week. One

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Opponents of the Vaughan/Outling plan pleaded with council members on Monday to delay a vote on the plan, arguing that more time is needed for vetting and public input. A vote is currently scheduled for the May 3 council meeting, but Abuzuaiter and Johnson expressed agreement that council should hold off. Outling appeared to disagree, asking city staff to poll the full council and see if there’s broader support for moving forward as scheduled or holding off.

Regardless of what that poll finds, the opinion of Greensboro residents — at least those willing and able to speak publicly on it — lines up squarely with the other local League of Women Voters chapter co-president Janice Siebert when she said Monday that the government must protect the public’s “right to know,” and that as long as the city refuses to release body-worn camera footage, people will believe the police department and city officials have something to hide.

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line adds the possibility of approved footage being posted on the website, but Carruthers’ modifications don’t substantially alter who could view body-worn camera footage or the circumstances of the release. A couple residents on Monday thanked him for his efforts, but no members of the public spoke in support of his iteration, either.

Members of council’s public-safety committee — Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter, Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson and Councilmen Mike Barber and Tony Wilkins — appeared receptive to public feedback.

But Outling, who is not on the committee but who came to the meeting, defended his proposal vigorously from the dais, at times visibly aggravating Abuzuaiter, the committee chair, who repeatedly asked council members to hold comments to the end of the public-comment period. Much of the tension arose between the councilman and Pitts, who put forward a less restrictive proposal supported by residents at the meetings, including retired Guilford College professor Barton Parks and blogger Roch Smith.

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HIGH POINT JOURNAL

Independent bookstore joins brewpub in revitalizing Uptowne

by Jordan Green

A new, independent bookstore opens in High Point’s Uptowne district on April 30, joining a recently launched brewpub in a bid to transform the auto-dominated commercial district into a walkable urban center.

Angel Schroeder decided about 18 months ago that a city of High Point’s size, with about 100,000 people, needed an independent bookstore.

She attended a booksellers conference in Asheville, where she networked with people like Brian Lampkin of Scuppernong Books in Greensboro, and signed up for a training in Florida through the American Booksellers Association. She’s run the numbers and concluded that it’s a viable business proposition, but she’ll find out for sure when she opens Sunrise Books on April 30, which is Independent Bookstore Day. It was natural that Schroeder would locate the store in Uptowne, the commercial district that hugs North Main Street from the library north to Lexington Avenue. She lives in Emerywood, an affluent, urban neighborhood from which she expects the store to draw a significant portion of its clientele.

Oak Hollow Mall served as a town center before it closed, Schroeder said, and considering the central business district is monopolized by furniture showrooms, Uptowne appears to have the most potential as a walkable commercial district. She dismissed the Palladium area as an option, saying, “Going out to the ’burbs, to me it’s like Greensboro.”

But she admitted, “The only other place I did look for a day is Jamestown. It’s walkable; it has pride of place.”

And while she probably would have located her store in Uptowne regardless, the recent opening of Brown Truck Brewery definitely validated her decision.

“I am really encouraged by seeing people walking by,” said Schroeder, whose husband is an urban planner with the city of High Point. “I run into people I know, and they say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to Brown Truck.’ This is how neighborhoods are supposed to work, and I want to be part of it.”

Angel Schroeder, the owner of Sunrise Books, was setting up a system for credit-card payments on Monday.

The bookstore shares a building with a barber on Hillcrest Place near the intersection with North Main Street and is just across the street from the new brewpub.

Schroeder said she tends to get two distinct reactions from people when she tells them she’s opening a bookstore. It’s either “I can’t wait!” or, “A bookstore?”

“It’s like blacksmithing; it seems like something from another era,” she said.

“The thing about a bookstore is it’s not entirely about books; it’s about community.”

The space is limited in the 600-square-foot storefront, so Schroeder plans to start small by hosting regular children’s reading hours, book-club meetings and possibly book signings by local authors. The store’s beverage offerings will be simple and straightforward: Sunrise Books will keep a pot of coffee on, with beans sourced from FosterHobbs Coffee Roasters in High Point.

The store is slowly but surely coming together. A set of green shelves came from Posh Pineapple, and Schroeder’s father built the cashier stand. For the time being, four plastic chairs form a focal point in the center of the space, but Schroeder said she’ll replace them

with locally-made upholstered chairs before the store opens. On Monday afternoon, she was on the phone with a credit-card company to set up a pointof-sale system.

Most of the books have yet to be ordered. What’s on the shelves so far are some bargain books that Schroeder picked up at a sale in Atlanta. Living with a Wild God by Barbara Ehrenreich shares shelf space with The New Yorker Stories by Ann Beattie and an illustrated history of graffiti, while four copies of the Minecraft Essential Handbook and selections from Michelle Paver’s Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series occupies a nearby shelf.

“Ordering 1,500 books is hard,” Schroeder said. “I’m still working on it.”

She said she plans to focus on bestsellers and children’s books with a healthy smattering of art and furniture-design books.

Schroeder knows and likes the owners of Brown Truck Brewery; their kids went to school together. The two businesses are linked by a non-functioning crosswalk across North Main Street that Schroeder describes as “deadly,” while noting that it runs into a storm drain. The two businesses are working together to convince the city to add a

JORDAN GREEN

traffic signal, more clearly demarcate it and create a median “refuge” similar to the crosswalk in front of the High Point GTCC campus on South Main Street so pedestrians can get across safely.

“Everyone drives,” she said. “It’s the South, honey: You deserve what you get — that’s the attitude.”

While she sees plenty of room for improvement in the design of the street, Schroeder sang the praises of Brown Truck.

“The brewery is phenomenal,” she said. “It’s packed every evening. I hear live music coming across the street while I’m in here working in the evening. I’m really trying to get some of their foot traffic.”

For a former English major with experience writing for furniture trade publications, the retail aspect of operating a bookstore is a departure.

“I get all these review copies free — as many as I can handle,” Schroeder said. “I’m downloading them on my Nook. I’m reading new books every day, and I’m really into it. This is my job! I’m looking at how many copies are in the first print run, and deciding how many I need for the store. Is it any good? Sweet.”

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April 13 — 19, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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OPINION EDITORIAL

We stand with the Boss The haters came out hard after Bruce Springsteen canceled his Sunday-night Greensboro appearance just 48 hours or so before it was supposed to go down.

The right-wing mud machine accused the Boss of using the unpopular legislation as an excuse to hide poor ticket sales — false, as it turns out. Ticket-holders contorted themselves into a position that both acknowledged Springsteen’s long-established position against authoritative overreach and also insisted that playing the coliseum would have been the right thing to do.

But that’s crap. Springsteen’s hardline stance against the abuses of our state legislation is exactly what we needed. Had he played Sunday night — even if he had donated all proceeds to an area LGBTQ organization, even if he had railed against the law and its authors from the stage, even if he wore an “Equality NC” guitar strap — it would have barely cast a ripple. But his sensational absence instead launched a thousand “open letters” on social media.

Springsteen knows what’s up: It’s time to take sides, people. We’ve got a war going on between those who would create a class of second-tier citizens, ineligible for the advantages and rights afforded those behind gated walls, and the rest of us — who, it seems, they’re picking off one by one.

That’s why the Boss didn’t show on Sunday. And that’s why PayPal pulled back from its plans to build a facility in Charlotte, why Deutsche Bank is halting its NC expansion, why conventions are being relocated and why Charles Barkley says the NBA should move the 2017 All-Star Game from the Queen City. Anything less would just be business as usual.

HB 2 — which has little to do with bathrooms, really — was a calculated gamble by the state GOP, its elected officials and the ALEC think tank that inspired the legislation, who believed that anti-gay sentiment would cloak the more nefarious aspects of the bill (which it largely has) and would enable easy passage of the bill, like the marriage amendment before it.

The big corporations — not to mention Baby Boomer arena rockers — sat the last one out. But not this time. And it’s starting to hurt.

The coliseum’s losses after Springsteen’s cancellation, according to a News & Record article, was about $100,000, but at our estimate of $20 per spot they would have taken in more than that on parking alone — which, at the coliseum, is strictly a cash transaction.

And it’s forcing acknowledgement among the legions of Springsteen’s fans, some of whom might have supported HB 2 before the Boss took his stand, that theirs is an unpopular and backwards position, especially in the Old North State.

CITIZEN GREEN

First Flint and New Orleans, then North Carolina Take it as a given that the measures, and inadequate access to special education state General Assembly will resources. Students suffer in the wake of high teacher pass legislation to increase turnover and personnel instability brought on by the teacher pay when it reconrushed firing of staff. Finally, we find that a consistent venes for the short session on lack of oversight can create an environment rife with April 25, albeit somewhere fraud and mismanagement, where private interests gain below the 5 percent raise financially while taxpayers, students and teachers are Gov. Pat McCrory wants. left behind. We conclude that takeover districts actually

by Jordan Green Improving teacher salaries hinder children’s chances of academic success rather is the kind of popular public policy the governor can than improving them.” take to the voters, in addition to the infrastructure bond As further warning that the Republican lawmakers referendum that passed last month, in his re-election intend to take away control and funding from public edubid. He’s the only one who will have to face voters across cation, take it from Bryan Holloway, a former Republican the state in November, but the ultra-conservatives in the lawmaker who now works as a lobbyist for the NC School legislature who are protected by gerrymandering owe Board Association.

McCrory big time after he signed HB 2.

A remarkable story published by the Elkin Tribune But also expect the emboldened Republican suon March 30 quotes Holloway as telling the Elkin City per-majority to aggressively push through a legislative School Board: “There could be numerous education bills agenda that radically promotes for-profit education while go through in this short session you may not like at all.” punishing students in poor, low-achieving schools.

Last year, the state Senate approved legislation to shift The NC School Board Association is closely monitorfunding from public schools to charters, including federal ing a proposal by state Rep. Rob Bryan (R-Mecklenburg) child nutrition funds, even though many charter schools to create a so-called Achievement School don’t provide free lunch, prompting sharp District. The proposal, released in the criticism from many Democratic lawmakform of draft legislation in January, would ‘There could be nu- ers. The House could move on the legisyank five low-performing schools across merous education lation and present it for Gov. McCrory’s North Carolina from the control of local signature in the short session. bills in this short school boards and place them under the If that’s not strange enough, the article administration of a statewide Achievealso quotes Holloway as saying, “A bill session you may ment School District to be operated by a to eliminate school boards throughout not like at all.’ private company contracted by the state. the state we’ve been told is going to be – Bryan Holloway The model of states superseding local introduced. I don’t think it has legs to go control of education by turning academanywhere, but because they are brazen ically struggling schools over to charters enough to even be willing to file it means was pioneered in 2003 in Louisiana, where it rapidly you’ll probably have to deal with it in the future.” expanded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. TennesThe General Assembly started down this path in 2014 see followed suit in 2010, and Michigan got in the game when they passed a law to give every public school in the in 2013. Parallel to taking control of local schools, the state a letter grade from A to F. Predictably, the schools state of Michigan also placed the city of Flint in receivthat consistently earn Ds and Fs are the ones that serve ership, with disastrous consequences when citizens were communities with concentrated poverty. exposed to lead poisoning from the water in Flint River.

Fortunately, teachers and principals see very clearly It should be obvious that opaque administration and what our lawmakers in Raleigh are trying to do. lack of local accountability invites abuse and undermines “They are putting a big red X on the schools that democracy. already have a big red X on them,” Michelle Wolverton, A study by the New York-based Center for Popular the principal at Hunter Elementary in Greensboro, told Democracy found that takeover districts in Louisiana, a few intrepid souls who braved the blustery cold for a Tennessee and Michigan failed to improve test scores, Rally for Public Education at Greensboro’s Governmenwhile metrics were “altered from year to year, confoundtal Plaza on April 9. “They have a big red X on them ing accountability and transparency.” because of poverty. They have a big red X on them beThe authors wrote, “Additionally, lawsuits and stucause a high percentage of the students are immigrants. dent protests demonstrate that when local oversight They have a big red X on them because of poverty and is stripped away, children may face harmful practices because the economics are not equal.” such as discriminatory enrollment, punitive disciplinary

No more illegal laws

Cover Story Culture Fun & Games

Jorge Cornell is the former leader of the North Carolina Almighty Latin King & Queen Nation who previously lived in Greensboro. He is currently serving a 28-year sentence in FCI Petersburg, a medium-security prison in Virginia.

Opinion

and doesn’t allow us to think outside the box.

I proposed a third question: How do we approach a correctional officer of color and engage in a meaningful conversation about the oppression of people of color in the system?

We are already in an oppressive environment, and officers of color want to oppress us even more. They go above and beyond their duties, almost like they hate their own people. How do we engage in a conversation like that? How can we explain that they’re doing to us what was done to their grandparents, and great-grandparents?

Did their grandmother say, ‘I’m proud of you,’ when they became a correctional officer?

Unicor, also known as Federal Prison Industries, is a job, a multi-million dollar enterprise. The director here told us a story of how her mom back in Georgia took her to a doctor’s office as a little girl and they had to go in the back door and had to be separated from the white patients.

Knowing this — what she went through — being called names and whatnot, there’s no question she’s a strong, black woman, but at the end of the day she’s an oppressor.

We are being paid less than minimum wage in here. She told the story and the next day, a worker told her he was sick. She didn’t care, didn’t call medical, didn’t send him back to his unit to rest; she forced workers to reach the piece rate needed for success. Thirty-five hours per week, and workers are lucky to make $200 a month.

Knowing what she herself went through, she should see that this is not “business as usual” — this is slavery! She is just like the house n***** holding a gun on the field slaves.

News Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

I participated in a panel discussion at the Conscious Seminar for Men, which was held on the grounds of FCI Petersburg, a medium-security federal prison in Virginia, on Feb. 20. The first question raised for discussion was one

by Jorge Cornell that I had proposed: How do we bridge the gap between youth and elders here in prison? (Two other questions that I proposed were not selected for discussion.)

I’ve had conversations with elders on this topic where their mindset is that the young generation is wilder than they themselves were “back in the day.” But my thinking is that every generation says that. The older generation is ignoring the youth and not pulling them aside when they see them doing stupid things. We’re not being taught to look out for the next man. You can work on yourself — as we’re taught — by helping others, too. Let them know you truly regret your bad decisions.

What do you want your legacy to be? Prison? How do we bridge the gap? What can we do to take care of young men, to show them the way so that they can have a better life? They can make corrections, change their ways, and be productive in society and make a good life for themselves and their families.

For a start, when a youth is struggling, approach him.

Get involved. Do the best you can to kill the situation and help him understand the choices he’s making and the consequences, which may cost a life. Many youth don’t think about dying. It’s important to bring awareness — to keep them in the program — and eventually it will get to them.

There’s another question that I have been wrestling with: How can we bridge the gap between black and brown?

The issues between the Hispanic/Latino and African-American communities, I believe, come from issues of hatred back to our upbringing and the fact that our ways of thinking are so different. There are Hispanic tables where a black can’t sit. The system divides us, too. Both races are family/group oriented. At the end of the day, the administration in prison caters to this mentality. That’s a means of keeping races divided. If we come together, we’re a threat.

We became slaves and they took our culture, our food and everything else. And they try programming you into their way. It’s like hypnotizing us, to keep us not focused. If prison is really about rehabilitation, why is there so much recidivism? How to bridge the gap?

By talking, getting together, getting past the stereotypes, starting dialogue. When either race is being disrespected, we want to make a move — but we’re all being disrespected every day, and we’re allowing it. We are not standing up for better food, better medical care, property, laundry. No one fights it. We have the same issues that can bring us together but the system keeps us separate

Up Front

Let’s put a pin in the legality of HB2 — which has yet to be decided by the courts and may be fluid depending on the specifics of an Executive Order issued

by Gov. Pat McCrory

by Brian Clarey on Tuesday afternoon.

Let’s instead focus on the laws passed by the North Carolina legislature since the GOP took over in 2010 that have actually been determined to be illegal.

The marriage amendment was overturned by an appeals court in 2014, two years after it was enacted.

Our Congressional districts, created by this General Assembly, were illegally drawn and now we have an absolute cluster of an election in June to make up for their wrongheadedness.

We’re still waiting on a verdict from last summer’s trial about our election law, which among other things, reduced early-voting days and requires voters to bring an ID to the polls. And the redistricting of Greensboro from on high — a plan cooked up by state Sen. Trudy Wade and some of her confederates — is still making its way through litigation.

It seems as if there is little concern for the legality of bills passed through our General Assembly, and little understanding of the rights guaranteed to US citizens by our Constitution — strange, because so many of our state reps are lawyers.

And while there are very real consequences to these illegal laws while they are on the books — for two years, for example, no same-sex marriages were performed in the state — there have been zero consequences for the architects of these illegal bills, even when the top lawyer in the state, Attorney General Roy Cooper, warned against their validity.

The marriage amendment alone consumed dozens of hours of session time, with nothing to show for it except a deeper tarnish to our state’s reputation. Our legislators still collected their salaries, even though their work was worthless. And for the two years it was in effect our state government was actively curbing people’s civil rights.

As for consequences, I’m looking for something in between a forced public apology and civil penalties, and after a couple strikes, a ban from public office — which is a problem that should take care of itself, but many North Carolina voters don’t seem to have a problem voting for candidates who don’t know how laws work.

Bridging gaps between people in a prison

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IT JUST MIGHT WORK

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April 13 — 19, 2016

The accidental festival An oral history

Phuzz Phest happened by accident.

In the fall of 2011, Winston-Salem promoters and musicians Philip Pledger and Anthony Petrovic had both booked multiact shows for the same weekend. Knowing they drew from the same audience, and because they were friends, they struck a deal to collaborate.

Over the years, hundreds of people — artists, venue owners, bartenders, sound engineers, merch hustlers and the fans themselves —have contributed to make Phuzz what it is, and what it is becoming.

We’ve collected the stories and memories of some of the principals of the operation, a venue owner and an artist, knowing full well that this is just part of the story. And that much of it is still being written.

evolution of some of the spaces. You know, Elliott’s closed over the past five years, and it turned into a thrift shop. And then it turned into a tiki bar. And now it’s turned into a new bar/venue space [the Test Pattern].

Origin

It was all super cheap. It was all really local bands or bands that were coming through already. There were, like, no big names, you know. It was some smaller local shows, so I think it was like $5 to $8 for each show back then.

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Philip Pledger,

founder and driving force behind Phuzz Phest: I was booking shows at Krankies at the time, and I had booked a Thursday and a Friday, I think. And then Anthony had booked Wednesday and Saturday.

JORDAN Philip Pledger, Or vise versa. But somehow Phuzzmaster.

GREEN it just came together that there were four nights. And we just called each other and basically decided instead of trying to market it all individually we could just call it a festival. So yeah, at that point… [there were] no real resources, it was just kind of an organic solution to a problem. And so we didn’t have very many expectations, but people responded really well. We had two or three hundred people come out, and that’s kind of what gave us the idea that we could put more energy into it.

Anthony Petrovic, co-founder:

The first year Philip had a show put together and I had a show that I needed to put on with a touring group. It just fell the day before the fest so we turned it into a Phuzz Phest free show. The show was at Elliott’s Revue, so it was a number of years ago.

That first year there were a few kids that moved up to New York, and it was kind of a way of getting them to come and play, and get some other local stuff around them. [It was] a way smaller scale, just like a big party-style thing.

Pledger:

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by Brian Clarey, Eric Ginsburg and Jordan Green

At the time, Elliott’s Revue was still intact. I think it was actually one of the last Elliott’s shows. Maybe not. So we did shows there, and it was awesome. That’s been one of the things that is cool about the festival is to kind of watch the

Shanthony Exum, aka Miss Eaves,

played the first Phuzz Phest and again in 2014, later moved to New York: The first Phuzz Phest was really cool. It was a bunch of friends from Greensboro and Winston who had been gigging together already playing en mass on the same weekend. I really loved the local love and local vibes of the first one and it was nice that there was only one venue per day so you could see all of your friends play.

Pledger:

Saylor Breckenridge, who got involved after the first year and is now the assistant director for the festival: Most people I knew here in town who were part of the music community did go because it was sort of a coincidental series of events where a lot of bands were playing in town the same weekend. It turned into a spectacularly successful event.

I went as a fan, and I have been going to shows here in Winston-Salem since I moved here in 2001. It was clear that there were a lot of bands playing here this weekend. I’m sure I was particularly excited to see Drag Sounds who were then and continue to be a stunningly good garage rock band.

Phuzz Phest begins Friday and r venues in downtown Winston ticketing information, see the I was with just a couple friends. I hadn’t really heard of Phuzz Phest but a friend wanted to go so I went.

I went to the full festival in 2013 and every year after that.

Petrovic:

The second year was I think where it started popping off and that was fun because we utilized the entire block of the Werehouse.

There was shows [the second year] in the lower parking lot of Krankies. They had a stage, and the Krankies stage and a few things in Reanimator, and the Cycle Your City spot was still empty so there was a show in there. It was really fun just being on the block all day.

Pledger:

I think one of the coolest ones was one that was pretty far off the radar and kind of unassuming, but it was Hiss Golden Messenger played on the porch of Krankies. I’ll have to check: I believe that was 2013? Wait. No, that’s 2012. That was just a solo set with Michael Taylor, with like a dozen people on the porch. And it was super, really intimate and really incredible. Obviously, he’s gone on to do some pretty amazing things with Merge Records and getting some international acclaim.

That same year Calvin Johnson was really cool. Beat Happening [Calvin’s band]. That was the first time T0W3RS ever played in Winston. That was also maybe one of the Bayonets last shows.

Petrovic:

I think that it was so fun and successful that we thought, Okay, if we get some sponsors behind this we might be able to bring some crazy stuff to town.

Allysen Mahaffey, who became involved the

second year; since then she’s become a board member and also Pledger’s sister-in-law: I’ve lived in Winston since 2010. I’ve always gone to local shows and love music. I feel like my scene in Winston has changed a little bit. Before I would just go to random stuff or I would go out of town to like Charlotte and things like that.

I think I first went [to the festival] in 2012. It was like a small set, at Krankies patio. I can’t remember if it was Michael Taylor or Hiss Golden Messenger but one of them was playing on Krankies porch the first year. That’s my only memory of that first year.

T0W3RS’ set at Single Brothers has become the stuff of local legend.

Breckenridge:

ALLISON MAHAFFEY

Calvin Johnson, who is a long time indie-rock person from Portland [Ore.] and runs this record label K Records and had been a part of Beat Happening and the Dub Narcotic Sound System. He ended up playing at Krankies solo, sort of just standing there with an acoustic guitar. It was very fun and unexpected, and he and I just had a conversation

afterwards about being in a very small town and a very small music scene. He’s from Olympia, Washington, which is a similarly small town. I just remember having this very great feeling of enthusiasm afterwards that this festival is really awesome… it built enthusiasm in me in a really great way.

Mahaffey:

One of my favorite experiences was the second year.

There was no shows on a Sunday and we did a show where four or less of us were gonna just play acoustic guitar songs in the backyard of Krankies. That day more and more people kept showing up. We were handing over the guitar, handing over the piano, just a lot of local people drinking and screwing around, just a really cool thing that could never be duplicated if we planned it that way.

I remember Mount Moriah at the Garage. That was when I first heard of Mount Moriah and saw them live.

Heather [McEntire], their lead singer, is incredible.

I really love the Garage. I love that venue. I think it’s just fun that it has a lot of the old posters and everything that’s playing there and it’s small and intimate and kind of grungy.

[McEntire] really knows how to captivate an audience because her style and lyrics are so incredible. It’s very vulnerable and authentic. You can tell she’s very convicted and writes from a true place and I think that comes out in her stage presence.

I think the Love Language played and I thought they were really fun, and maybe Judy Barnes but I can’t remember if she was in 2012 or 2013.

Pledger:

Pledger:

Petrovic:

I mentioned Elliott’s. Krankies has obviously evolved a good bit. When it first started, a good portion of the shows were at Krankies. The stage was at a different location in the space, and we used the back lot for that big-tent stage at the very beginning, which was fun. Kind of a very hapharzardly put together sound system and stuff. Over the past two years we’ve gone and added bigger spaces like the Millennium Center and Bailey Park, which is really exciting.

Kind of our goal from the beginning, whether it’s the music or the stages, our goal has been to showcase the best side of Winston and give the best snapshot of Winston. And so we really wanted to show of the natural spaces, like the urban landscape of Winston-Salem. And then Reanimator’s gone through a couple of iterations as well. I think they’re a super important member of the music and arts and just weirdo culture here in Winston.

Breckenridge:

[Krankies] was the first time I ever saw the band the Tills.

It was an afternoon show and they were just stunningly good, just this crazy garage-rock performance and these guys really knocked my socks off. They later on went on to work with Philip and release a record on Phuzz’s record label.

The second Phuzz Phest also began its relationship with the Garage, which in 2012 had just been taken over by Tucker Tharpe.

Tharpe:

I knew right away it was a real festival. The guys had made their mistakes before they came to me. I never had any self doubt or anything. When they came to me they had a bunch of badass bands. As soon as they came to me I knew I was sponsoring it — if Anthony and Philip were doing it, I was on board — I can’t think of anyone else in town I respect more, musically.

In hindsight, I wish we could have named it something else; we just never expected it to last very long. You never expect it to be more than just a weekend. The name actually came from a music blog I was writing at the time — not just music, it was like a Winston culture blog. Basically just writing about friends who were creating visual art or playing music. Just basically if a band was releasing an album doing posts about that. It was called Phuzz Media. Just like a really small pet project. Again, no real intention of turning it into anything larger than that. And so when we had the festival, it was just a really easy name without trying to reinvent the wheel. After that, it was one of those things where the name was already written. And from a fundraising and promotion perspective it was hard to want to move away from the name because people had already associated that event with it. If we could name it something else I would. I’m always paranoid that people are like, ‘Oh, this guy named a festival after himself! What is he thinking?’ Which is like my worst nightmare. It definitely wasn’t intended to kind of have that vibe. It was basically just a convenience that we didn’t anticipate being a six-year long event.

Petrovic:

From there we just saw Phil freaking out so we started rounding up more and more people to help him out. Because he’s a masochist.

Mahaffey:

Something about Philip is that he’s very particular about what he books and it’s going to be good. There’s just so much good variety. Even in 2013 when I didn’t know a lot of the stuff I still had such a good time and I loved it.

Pledger:

Anthony’s got a really good knack for — I don’t know how to describe it — some of the weirder and harder stuff, some of the more punk-oriented stuff or metal. I wouldn’t say it’s

really confined to a genre as much as a sensibility. If you know Anthony, then you know what I mean. He’s built some really amazing relationships over the years with bands of all kinds of genres from all over the country. I think in Winston in general it’s good to keep it weird and keep it gritty, especially [with downtown] getting a lot of luxury condos and things. And I think it’s good to kind of remember the grit aspect is important, too. I think he helps keep that alive on the music side.

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runs through Sunday in various n-Salem. For the schedule and e website at phuzzphest.com.

That was everything for me in the beginning, knowing it was Philip and Anthony — I had a real interest in aligning myself with those guys even more than we had already done. We were already brothers and sisters, but I wanted to do more.

I had my own motives. The Garage couldn’t not be a part of something that cool.

Petrogric:

It’s a collective effort, for sure, which helps diversify the fest — different people select different things. I usually get more of the louder, garage-rock-y heavy style things and the other people will fill in the blanks with more indie-pop or electronic music or whatever.

Half the time I don’t know half the bands. Phil doesn’t know what I’m bringing to the table. I guess that’s cool, so you can be surprised at your own thing.

Mahaffey:

I got involved in 2014. Philip asked me to be on the Phuzz Phest staff. I thought that would be really fun and said of course. I thought, why wouldn’t you want to help out a local music festival? I don’t play, or I’m not in a band, and I thought that it’d be a cool way to be involved.

Pledger:

Every year, it’s definitely gotten larger. It’s been encouraging — in the beginning because it was such an organic thing that started as a smaller little bubble of audience members and that was the foundation we kind of built on, but it’s been awesome to see different sides of the community come out and different demographics and different people who probably might just be into the folk side of the programming that we do that don’t really care about the garage rock or anything like that. It’s cool to get interest from people with all kinds of music tastes.

Tharpe:

Phuzz Phest is a perfect example of us coming together and saying, ‘F*** our own interests; let’s do something incredible. Let’s make something out of nothing — that’s real creativity: creating something out of thin air, from sheer force of will.

Breckenridge:

In general there are two sorts of music festivals. There’s the sort that’s set up in a field and maybe there are multiple stages but they’re in very close proximity and people are in the dirt or the grass or the mud or what have you…. and if it’s multiple days there’s this implication that people camp.

And then there are festivals set in cities where different venues and parks host these events and the attendees are deeply engaged within the city and maybe have to drive and move around to different venues. Here in North Carolina, Hopscotch is the classic example of that and now maybe Moogfest.

Phuzz Phest has a couple of unique qualities I think in that it’s a festival of the latter sort, but it’s geographically very contiguous so it’s very easy for people to conceivably walk between every venue. Everyone’s working synergis-

17

April 13 — 19, 2016

tically to make sure the entire festival goes on very well. It’s a really community-oriented operation so every year as we lead up to Phuzz Phest occurring, in the fall we’re developing a plan leading up to the year’s Phuzz Phest. There’s this sort of real enthusiasm among everybody. Philip plays this role of being a leader that combines everyone’s resources.

Phuzz Phest is very much… this is what Winston’s like all the time and we’re really just accentuating the best of what’s already here. It’s very homey.

Mahaffey:

Seeing Hamilton Leithauser. I think he’s incredible. It was a small venue [Krankies] and we were kinda like, man, there were less than 50 people there because it was raining on a Sunday night. Being able to see him and talk to him afterwards was really cool. I don’t even think I said that much. In 2014, seeing Jessica Lea Mayfield was really awesome. I remember I had listened to her for a few years… she changed into this ’90s grunge or like bright blonde with a bunch of Lisa Frank stickers on her guitar and glitter everywhere.

Mehaffey:

I think you get a really good feel of different venues and different places and you can kinda leave when you want to. I’ve been to festivals where… I feel very trapped. I love that [with] Phuzz Phest, I live five minutes away. Every year I’ve gone to Phuzz Phest I literally run through the streets of downtown Winston from one place to another because I don’t want to miss an act.

There’s a totally different feel for each place. I think it’s fun how the music kind of matches the menu, and you can kind of leave and go out to dinner somewhere and there’s a lot of freedom, which is one of the things I love about Phuzz Phest.

Cover Story

Most of the history of Phuzz Phest is written on the stages, in musical moments that are gone in an instant but remain vivid for all who were there.

Breckenridge:

I remember seeing T0W3RS play in I think the back outdoor area of Single Brothers two years ago or three years ago. It was a late-night show, [and] it was the last show of the whole evening, so it was late. He was spectacular and had this entire gravel area with the tables, everybody was dancing. It was just as exciting as what was going on in any club. It was this whole other level of excitement that was going on at just this moment and it was just great. that’s this very vivid memory.

Pledger:

That was a good one…. That was definitely a crazy, fun time. And that was one of [T0W3RS’] first shows with the kind of the new iteration of that record. For a long time he did that solo. The first time with the karaoke version of his own work. It was really high energy, a high performance. That was one of the first times that that format was performed.

Petrovic:

Trans Am at Krankies — just breaking in that new stage, actually managing to get them all the way over to the East Coast was really cool.

Breckenridge:

18

Last year I remember seeing Trans Am play at Krankies. Trans Am are sort of a ’90s sort of hard-rock, a little bit electronic band and it involves very technical drumming. When I got there instead of them being this sort of technically competent, very loud rock band they were like the most amazing electronic dance band I could’ve imagined. It was such a switch I imagined from how they could be live, with this like driving dance beat that had everyone at Krankies kind of swirled into this dance club. I remember seeing Anthony Petrovic from Reanimator in the corner dancing, and I remember thinking, Holy moly this band has Anthony Petrovic dancing in public in front of everyone.

Jessica Lea Mayfield played the Garage in 2015, part of a push to include more female artists.

ALLISON MAHAFFEY

I remember I suggested her to Philip to book and I remember when he booked her I was really excited about it. It was a sold-out show.

I thought she would definitely draw a good crowd and definitely draw in some people like me who might be intimidated by Phuzz Phest who didn’t know what to expect or who wouldn’t go to Phuzz Phest normally. That was when I had just joined the Phuzz Phest volunteer group. Everyone was trying to make a point to bring in more people. She was someone who I really thought would bring in different people.

Pledger:

Burglar F***er — not that you have to print this — they played one of the last shows at the Garage one year. And yeah, it was just wild.

It is cool coming to the end of a festival like that and everyone’s been through the gauntlet together and everyone’s kind of like ready to send it off, you know? It’s a fun vibe.

Petrovic:

I saw photo evidence of Burglar F***er playing a show — I have no recollection of this show actually happening. I kind of thought there was 10 people there and I saw pics later and the whole Garage was packed — I guess it was fun… rumor had it.

Breckenridge:

Last year Protomartyr played, who are one of my favorite bands of the last decade, let’s say. And that we were able to have Protomartyr play here at a time that Protomartyr were becoming famous as an international band was really special that we had them play here. They played the Garage and it was packed and super sweaty… meeting people who had driven from Raleigh or Chapel Hill or Atlanta who

Petrovic:

Petrovic:

Kind of the goal has been to create a festival that the reach is far beyond Winston and that we can bring international acts and really big bands from across the country, but we want it to be something that Winston can be part of and that — it’s cool that we’re building something here with our neighbors. Even the sponsor money is local.

Kool Keith was a pretty big score.

Tharpe:

I watched two bands from the same town meet each other in [the Garage] and fall in love with each other here and became mutually beneficial for both their careers in their hometown — All Them Witches and Diarrhea Planet from Nashville, Tennessee.

And so it was the drummer of Diarrhea Planet — they were headlining here, they had heard about All Them Witches, but Phuzz Phest had booked them.

I was watching the drummer from Diarrhea Planet Instagramming All Them Witches and typing how great they were. This is the band that’s opening for you and you’re writing about how great they are.

They live two miles from each other and they never met.

We figured we’d put them up before Diarrhea Planet so people could see Kool Keith and get back for Diarrhea Planet — and it worked.

The scene kids — my people were running from Ziggy’s to here because they wanted to see Kool Keith and Diarrhea Planet in the same night. How weird is that? A rapper with a Shakespearean vocabulary and a punk band from Nashville called Diarrhea Planet.

The kids were sprinting and sweating to get here in time for Diarrhea Planet.

Beautiful. Beautiful. And from 10,000 feet it’s what we hope might happen, but how do you make people run? Well, you book the right f***ing band. You book the right bands, people show up.

Mahaffey:

This year there are a few of the bands that I haven’t heard of before like Lera Lynn that I’m really excited about. She’s a singer songwriter that has this song “Shape Shifter” that’s so catchy. Per usual I’m excited for T0W3RS, and he’s moved to Atlanta. I’m excited for Body Games, they’re an electronic act. They played at Phuzz Phest in 2014 at Ziggy’s, I think, and they had a really awesome slide show, I think one of them was The Lion King.

Last year I had never listened to or heard of Boulevards but oh my gosh, I was so blown away. He has such a good stage performance… I’m really excited for him to come back this year.

Pledger:

Last year we didn’t have a single act cancel, which was incredible because we had 64 bands play. Just statistically thinking — you always assume you’ll have at least a couple cancellations. There’s always just the wonder of, are people gonna show up and respond to this in a positive way? Are people gonna spend their money on it in the age of Netflix and Spotify and distractions? There’s always that underlying question of, is the public gonna support local arts?

For the most part, you know, most of the acts I’ve dealt with have been very gracious and cool, very well accommodating in comparison to other festivals I do. Coming to Winston-Salem maybe isn’t as luxurious as some of these other fests but you get treated pretty well when you’re here — nationally we’re known for our hospitality, and that makes people want to play here.

triad-city-beat.com

had driven to see Protomartyr or the host of other bands that were here.

Last year was the first year that Boulevards played. Boulevards is returning this year and headlining at the Garage for his new album.

Just spectacular sort of Prince and Chic inspired. He puts on this amazing show that’s just essentially a one-man performance…. it was super lively and he was super engaging with the crowd and it was awesome.

The year before that No Age played, who were amazing, just really powerful garage rock, like amazing sort of loud, pounding rock at Krankies. It was just packed with pogo-ing kids and adults watching this band sort of roar through songs and it was just amazing.

In its sixth year, Phuzz Phest has gone from a serendipitous overbooking to a full-fledged urban music festival, with plans in place for growth.

Pledger:

Tharpe:

We just get it done. I think that everybody expects us to be some wild and crazy rock-and-roll outfit — if I had anything to say I’d want to smash any misconceptions. It’s not a hobby; it’s not a joke or a game. We’re not here for money or fame. It’s hard to take criticism because we’re not really doing it for that. We do it for the people and we price it fairly and it’s what it takes to get the festival done — it’s starting to stand on its own. We just book the best up-and-coming talent we can and the best known bands we can get, promote the s*** out of them and, when it comes club time, we tune them up and put on the best f***ing show we know how.

At the Garage, you know, we do this every weekend. When Phuzz is around, the talent takes a jump in the right direction.

Pledger:

People don’t understand how expensive it is. It’s tough. I feel like sometimes Winston does an awesome job of supporting the fine arts and not as good a job of supporting the kind of lowbrow arts.

That’s a bummer. That’s not directed at anyone in particular. It’s just kind of the way it is right now. Winston doesn’t always do a great job of supporting opportunities and programming for young people.

And it’s not just Winston. It’s a challenge to continue to raise money in a highly competitive — not as far as music goes — but there’s a lot of organizations competing for grants and things like that. It’s just extremely stressful and extremely tiring.

Petrovic:

Its very hard to do this. Normally you have a large staff, and then you can have interns and whatever. Phil doesn’t make any money off of this — this year I think the tickets are cheaper. Every year he’s done a great job of getting more and more sponsors, but you have to put all that money down to make a quality thing. If you don’t, then people will laugh at it. I have no problem saying that we all work really f***ing hard to do this thing.

I think Philip is like 20 years older than I am at this point. Look at him on the final Sunday of Phuzz Phest. He looks like Bernie Sanders.

Got Phuzz Phest memories of your own? Add them in the comments thread or email jordan@triad-city-beat.com.

19

April 13 — 19, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

20

CULTURE They make grub in this club

by Eric Ginsburg

T

he speaker system, arranged in two towers on the floor to the left and right sides of a large stage, dwarfed my 6-foot-4 frame. It rivaled the setups for outdoor music festivals that draw audiences approaching five figures, and I wondered if the dormant bar across the open dance floor struggled to keep bottles from vibrating off the back bar with a band in full swing.

The night-and-day comparison for Mambo Café is quite literal in this case — a venue that allegedly draws hundreds for its weekend dance and karaoke nights, especially Sunday, apparently hasn’t found a way to attract a lunchtime crowd to the restaurant that shares the same semi-industrial space near Winston-Salem State University.

But don’t blame it on the kitchen.

The place may be named for a type of Cuban music and dance and before that, it appears to have been called Rumba Café, another dance from the island — but the menu is flush with Mexican, Honduran and Salvadoran fare as well as other regional cuisine. The Salvadoran options, including a typical plate and pupusas, rival any Salvadoran joints in the Triad, and I can’t recall seeing any other local menus with a Honduran section (albeit with three items in it).

The things Americans have come to expect from a Mexican restaurant’s menu are all there as well, including cheap lunch specials such as the tasty enchiERIC GINSBURG The Honduran-style pollo con tajadas (left) and the Salvadoran enchilada appetizer (right) at Mambo Cafe are both delicious, as is the cheap chicken enchiladas (background). ladas con pollo with rice, beans and sour cream that come so full of chicken the two halves look like stout talking about a nation. One of the Central American about a baleada? Or you could opt for Mambo’s Honburritos. country’s principal exports is its people; millions who duran-style pollo con tajadas — bone-in bits of chicken But the Salvadoran and Honduran choices are what fled a US-backed military regime or the civil war in the covered in a dripping slaw, tomatoes and cucumber really impressed me. Sure, there’s the standard pupusa 1980s ended up here. Though pupusas are the most surrounded by pieces of fried banana. It’s pretty messy, options (search our website for more on pupusas if identifiable and widespread culinary tradition from the thanks to the bones and saucy slaw, but it’s totally you’re unfamiliar), but Mambo also dishes up the freckle of a country, a quick internet search of “Salworth it. Try the lobster tail stuffed with crabmeat and Salvadoran hot cakes with loroco — a vine with edible vadoran enchilada” turns up tons of photos that look served with rice and salad, one of the specials here, flowers — chicharones al estilo Salvadoreño (fried similar to Mambo’s meal. then tell me how it is. pork) and a “Salvadoran style” shrimp cocktail with Therein lies a lesson: Even when you’re a local knowBetter yet, grab dinner on a Sunday night and then tomato, onion, cilantro, lemon and avocado. it-all, you’ve only begun to scratch the surface. stay for the party. I’m guessing it will be a smash, and I I’ve been to El Salvador twice, for about two months That’s how I felt at Mambo in general — the stage know the food won’t disappoint. total, and I’ve never seen the type of Salvadoran enand speakers made it clear that a These cities may be small, but you’ve only begun to chilada offered on Mambo’s appewhole world exists here that I havuncover their glory. tizer menu for a mere $3. Ignore the en’t come across, just a short stretch name; this app looks exactly like a Visit Mambo Café down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive Mexican tostada, with a softer corn Restaurant & Bar at 1527 from Winston-Salem State. The Triad tortilla base topped with a pile of S. MLK Jr. Drive (W-S) or and its three cities often feel small, Salvadoran style coleslaw (no mayo), after exploring it for a decade, and chicken or beef, cheese and sauce. call 336.293.4266.

Pick of the Week a little too cozy to those who have It’s almost like an open-faced sandbeen here longer than I. You’ve tried wich but a little smaller and, in this Throw one back for auld lang syne horchata (which isn’t as sweet but comes with a little case, with a flavorful, thick orange tortilla base that’s Highland beer school @ M’Coul’s (GSO), Wednesday, more cinnamon here than the average) and maybe pua little flimsy.

6 p.m. pusas, experimented with a soup or hit up all the Taco The Scots-inspired Asheville brewery visits downIt’s delightful.

Tuesdays you can find. You might know what carne town Greensboro’s Irish pub for a lesson in beer, Just because I haven’t seen this sort of Salvadoran asada means or have determined long ago that you bringing samples and knowledge to share. Stop by enchilada in person before says nothing of its popularM’Coul’s to buy a ticket, and check the Facebook don’t mess with tripe. ity — El Salvador may be a tiny country, but while I’ve event page.

But have you tried Honduran-style tilapia? What been to more than a half dozen states there, we’re still

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Girls Pint Out

Up Front News Opinion

ERIC GINSBURG Carmen Allred, one of the local organizers of Girls Pint Out, sips a Graf pale ale from Draft Line Brewing at Jake’s Billiards in Greensboro.

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Mary Lacklen • Allen Broach • Bob Weston

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Find the Triad Girls Pint Out at facebook.com/ncgpo or @triadgpo on Instagram and Twitter.

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It’s not uncommon for Allred to meet a woman who drinks beer who feels like she’s one of the only ones — at a base level, Girls Pint Out is a chance for people like that who feel alienated by a scene that is too frequently dominated by brotatos. (I just made that up but it’s kind of wonderful, isn’t it?) There’s no membership process or fee; the idea is to be as open and accessible as possible, and though it’s targeted at those who identify as women, they’re technically open to all comers.

The local chapter had admittedly fallen into a state of disuse last year, and what had been a statewide organization splintered into regional chapters. But when Stephens moved to Greensboro almost a year ago from South Carolina — where she had already been active in Girls Pint Out — she hooked up the jumper cables and helped rev the engine back to life.

April seemed like a natural time to reemerge; it’s North Carolina Beer Month.

And by the time May arrives, the new iteration of the local chapter may have three events under its belt.

Here’s to hoping the engine keeps running, and that they deliver the swift kick in the rear that the local scene needs.

Culture

can enjoy. Maybe it’s a low alcohol, fruity radler, or they could be looking for something more akin to a saison.

But whatever it is, she’s confident it’s out there.

After fielding a couple questions, she paused to take a picture of her Graf pale ale from Draft Line Brewing in Fuquay-Varina, NC, so she could checkin on beer app Untappd. That put her at 2,344 unique beers — an indication of just how serious she is about beer.

It’s one of her three obsessions, she confessed after I noticed her “TS 1989” sunglasses — Taylor Swift, beer and Disney. Allred actually worked at Disney World, and dreams of returning in some sort of beer capacity. She also dreams of going on a “beercation” or a “beer pilgrimage” some day, to Belgium if possible, but in the meantime she drags her husband along to bottle releases at her favorite North Carolina brewery, Fonta Flora, and sings the praises of Haw River, Burial and Wicked Weed.

Allred sounds like pretty much every other North Carolina beer nerd I’ve talked with, save for maybe the stuff about Taylor Swift and Disney, but there’s no air of pretension. She doesn’t assume you’re clueless about beer, but avoids diving into the sort of insider baseball crap that turns people off. In other words, she seems like a good person to help an organization aimed at winning craft beer converts and creating a fun and nurturing learning environment.

Cover Story

Craft beer, unfortunately, can be a real sausage fest.

Peek into a brew house, stop by a

by Eric Ginsburg homebrewers club or hit up a special bottle release line and you’re bound to see a room dominated by men. Actually, you might not even see any women at all.

It’s easy to find think pieces about how and why the scene is dominated by dudes — white dudes, in particular — and just as easy to find men making excuses for the state of affairs. But what’s more interesting than either phenomenon is a national organization operating with about 70 chapters in 35 states that proactively counteracts that trend.

And there’s one here, of course.

Girls Pint Out started in Indiana with the goal of “building a community of women who love craft beer” — both a way to hold space in a world spilling over with mansplainers and beer bros and also to help women break into it.

For Carmen Allred, a bartender at Potent Potables who helps run the Triad chapter of the group, Girls Pint Out is a chance to introduce more women to craft beer and create a comfortable, nonjudgmental environment where women can come together to learn more about it. With public events that include beer style tastings, brewery tours and charitable fundraisers, the organization hopes to foster a welcoming space that busts up the concept that beer is a boys club.

Allred, 26, is a certified beer server studying to become a cicerone — think sommelier, but for beer. Together with Sarah Stephens, an archeologist, she runs the Triad chapter of Girls Pint Out, which held its first event in a while at Gibb’s Hundred Brewery in Greensboro last week. Now the pair aims to hold bimonthly events, including an upcoming brewery tour at Four Saints in Asheboro.

As a bartender, Allred derives pleasure in helping people who think they don’t like beer discover something they

21

April 13 — 19, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

22

CULTURE KRS-One explodes the concert performance paradigm in Greensboro

by Jordan Green

P

rimed by a series of more-than-competent openers largely rapping over a boom-bap beat squarely placed in the sonic universe of New York City circa 1988, the crowd at Dynacon Event Center in Greensboro politely listened without giving much energy back.

In between warm-up acts for KRS-One on April 8, a hype man took a poll of the house to see which of North Carolina’s cities were represented, using the colorful argot of the scene: Tre-Fo, G-boro, Bull City and Fayettenam. The reverence inspired by the headliner — the Blastmaster, the “teacher of hip hop” and one of the greatest emcees of all time — drew a healthy cohort of respectful youngsters but the most solid contingent seemed to be old heads pushing into middle age. They were playing it cool and biding their time.

As the midnight hour approached, the hype man tried to build anticipation by calling out the hits from the golden age of hip hop, from KRS-One’s legendary 1987 debut as part of Boogie Down Productions to his 1993 solo album: “Love’s Gonna Get’cha,” “My Philosophy,” “I’m Still #1.” Finally, in exasperation, he exploded: “What’s goin’ on, man? Give it up, dammit!”

One could easily anticipate a veteran performer like KRS-One erupting with righteous indignation upon encountering a complacent audience and maybe leveling the room with a brilliant performance just for spite. As it turned out, the legendary emcee did erupt with righteous indignation, but instead he immediately connected with the audience and turned the tables on the production crew.

When KRS-One finally took the stage at 12:19 a.m., grinning and dressed in black knit cap and white leisure suit, he ordered the DJ: “Turn that s*** up!” As soon as he launched into sequence of early cuts, including “Criminal Minded” and “South Bronx,” the crowd went nuts, turning into a sea of rocking bodies in front of the stage with the lighted LCD screens of their cell phones craning from extended arms.

From that point forward, KRS-One proved himself every bit the mercurial performer determined to give his fans the most intimate, electrifying experience of their lives, whatever the limitations of the venue — a wedding hall sharing a block with a firearms store and storefront holiness church — and the production crew.

“I just walked in and I didn’t even do a soundcheck,” he declared. “Turn that s*** up. Don’t worry about the feedback. I got that.” Then he walked over to the DJ rig and started twisting knobs as the hapless DJ looked on with mortification.

Then he blazed through “Stop the Violence” and the “Sound of Da Police,” with the crowd gleefully filling in the sound effect “whoop whoop” on the latter.

Still unsatisfied with the sound, the emcee informed the DJ that he would be performing a capella, and launched into a freestyle about his 30-year-old feud

KRS-One (center) finished his set roving through the crowd at Dynacon Event Center.

with MC Shan over whether hip hop originated in the South Bronx or Queensbridge. (For the record, Shan has acknowledged the South Bronx as rightfully deserving the distinction, but the dispute has evolved into an argument over who is the better emcee.) Fortuitously, KRS-One had released a diss rap, “Still Huggin A Nut (SHAN),” on April 8, the date of his Greensboro show, and he elucidated on the topic for the audience.

“We black men 50 years old/ What the f*** we fighting fo’?” he rapped, seeming to de-escalate before landing a surprise punch: “I’m gonna blast that crackhead.”

KRS-One ended the freestyle and picked up again on his displeasure with the local production crew. “These computers are taking away our art,” he complained, harassing the DJ. “Where the f*** is our art?”

The situation appeared to be degenerating further when KRS-One invited an audience member to join him onstage to guest emcee. Unfortunately, the second mic was cold.

“You want to spit your s***, but your mic ain’t even on,” KRS-One rapped, throwing his hands into the air.

When KRS-One protested the DJ again, saying, “Stop this s***, it’s corny,” one might predict that the concert was going into a complete meltdown, but what followed was a brilliant deconstruction of hip hop, stripping down the movement to its sonic and social roots and then reconfiguring it in the tangible moment.

“Any beat-boxers out there?” KRS-One asked.

A young man volunteered, delivering a low, rumbling bottom end.

“Hit it, hit it harder/ You’re on with Kris Parker,” the emcee demanded. The volunteer beat-boxer

JORDAN GREEN

should have been terrified, but all his facial expression revealed was grim determination as he laid down a booming instrumental floor.

“That beat’s raw, man,” KRS-One congratulated him, inviting a second volunteer to take a turn. And so it went with an socially conscious coupling of songs “Why Is That” (“The age of the ignorant rapper is done/ Knowledge reins supreme over nearly everyone/ The stereotype must be lost/ That love and peace and knowledge is soft”) from the 1990 Edutainment album) and “You Must Learn” from its predecessor Ghetto Music: The Blueprint of Hip Hop. Interestingly, he followed with “9mm Goes Bang,” a nihilistic vignette from Criminal Minded that prefigured NWA’s rise by at least a year.

Less than an hour into his set, KRS-One jumped off the stage and waded into the audience, performing

Pick of the Week Caffeinated Americana with a side of spook Eric Sommer & Charming Disaster @ Common Grounds (GSO), Wednesday, 7 p.m.

You still have a chance to catch Eric Sommer, who’s been playing at Common Grounds every Wednesday as an April residency of sorts, before the end of the month. Joining him this week is Charming Disaster, a Brooklyn duo whose music mainly dwells on dark comedy about love, death, crime and the supernatural. It should be a jolly ol’ creepy time. Visit the event page on Facebook for more info.

ic s u M e Th of the

s e l g Ea

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amires ose, David Bl n, Kathyrn R to ot unlop Sh D el id ha av ic D VOCALS: M ter Brennan, GUITAR: Pe

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’LL FIND...

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was “corny.” A roving cypher evolved with KRS-One handing off the mic to a succession of local emcees as he stroked his chin like a patient and encouraging teacher. While the aspiring emcees thrilled to the opportunity to try their craft, others in the audience began to drift out of the hall and the energy level ebbed.

If anyone was expecting a triumphant finale, it never happened. Scarcely an hour after taking the stage, KRS-One — already hidden in the crowd — had departed the hall without notice.

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“Jimmy” and “Love’s Gonna Get’cha” while imploring the audience to make a circle and posing for selfies with fans while sweeping through the room to accommodate as many people as possible.

“Y’all better get in this,” he said.

Part of what makes KRS-One such a fascinating figure is the duality of his raw, street sensibility — the senseless beef with MC Shan, for example — and his status as hip hop’s greatest intellect and social conscience, rivaled only perhaps by Chuck D of Public Enemy.

And while most of his set in Greensboro focused on the golden age of hip hop from 1988 to 1993, KRS-One proved his incisive political edge hasn’t dulled a bit when he delivered “American Flag,” off his new album, Now Hear This. With its reggae-infused instrumental track, the emcee makes an immediate point: “Symbols of injustice and hatred, Confederate flag (bring it down)/ Symbols of human enslavement (Confederate flag)/ But what about the red, white and the blue? (American flag)/ Racists flew that flag when they captured you (American flag).”

Eventually, the emcee wound up in the back of the hall, declaring that he sounded better there and that the stage

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April 13 — 19, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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CULTURE Dispatches from this year’s RiverRun Gala

By Joanna Rutter

E

ddie Schmit was tucked away behind a cocktail table, easily lost in the sea of several hundred people milling in low light were it not for his bright blue filmmaker’s badge. He looked content enough standing alone, people-watching, but like other filmmakers at the RiverRun opening gala, he didn’t mind being approached by a stranger.

“My date stood me up,” he said jokingly. “Of course you can talk to me.”

The Charlotte native and Elon University grad was visiting Winston-Salem this week to screen his debut short film, Swimlapse, a story about a teenage lifeguard based on his personal experiences. The short was shot at the YMCA pool he used to guard, he said, and that coming back to North Carolina from New York City has been a nice return to roots, just like the film itself.

“It’s a homecoming story,” he said.

And that’s RiverRun International Film Festival, in essence, as gleaned from the gala at the Millennium Center on April 8: filmmakers like Schmit rubbing elbows with festivalgoers, sharing in a passion for a story well told.

The “international” part of the festival’s title wasn’t placed there for decoration, after all. Hao Shen, director of the short film The Last Show, possibly had the longest journey to RiverRun: He traveled more than 15 hours by plane from Shanghai for the world premiere of his work.

Tragically, Juliette Binoche, star of L’Attesa, one of the other intriguing international films at the festival, was nowhere to be seen (quelle tristesse). But Helen Simoneau, a French-speaking culturati of the local dance scene, was making her rounds at the party. As she surveyed the room, though, she confessed that thoughts of her upcoming collaborative dance event with Must Be the Holy Ghost for next weekend’s Phuzz Phest, to be held in the same space as the gala, were distracting her from the festival at hand.

Local arts power couple John Oksanish and Devon Mackay — a Wake Forest classical languages professor and a development director for the Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth County respectively — speculated on the most talked-about films on the lineup this year, naming the already sold-out closing film Love & Friendship, an Austenian comedy starring Chloe Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale, and the documentary Tower.

Another film mentioned on many attendees’ short lists was Driving While Black, a “dark comedy deeply rooted in reality.” At the gala, Dominique Purdy, who co-wrote and stars in the film, said the story is based on his life experiences in LA. “It’s all real,” he said, mentioning one of the locations in the film. “I’m going back to that pizza place on Monday.”

The theme for the evening was well executed, albeit a tad of a poor choice, historically speaking. Instructions were given to dress à la “Cotton Club,” invoking the name of a famous whites-only Prohibition nightclub. But a diverse smattering of gala attendees who

Bassist Matt Kendrick “walks the dog” with the Camel City Jazz Orchestra at RiverRun’s annual Gala in Winston-Salem on April 8.

had followed the dress code made the flapper frocks and seersucker suits of the era look timelessly good.

It would be a crime to not call attention to the bestdressed guest: Paul Sapiano, director of Driving While Black, stood out from the evening’s ocean of dark hues in a deep magenta silk two-piece suit and leather coat.

Elegant jazz music provided by the Camel City Jazz Orchestra gave the gala a classy start. Later in the evening when the band left the stage, however, musical offerings took a turn. The consensus between two polled bartenders was that whoever was DJ-ing had hand-picked selections from the most unfortunate pop music of the mid-2000s, including some third-tier singles from Rihanna and Katy Perry, played at gradually louder volumes disproportionate to the crowd’s interest.

A poorly timed Taylor Swift song — the completely undanceable “Wildest Dreams” — shortly followed by the mood-muffling “Apologize” by Timbaland, killed any possibility of the dance floor getting invigorated before midnight.

Not that the invigorating would have been well received anyway, given the real-life cinema taking place directly outside.

TCB sportswriter Anthony Harrison and Simoneau, who were outside at the time of the incident, saw a Ford Explorer flip twice at the intersection of West Fifth and Trade streets after swerving to avoid a Toyota Corolla that ran a red light shortly before midnight.

Police and EMTs arrived at the scene within minutes; the drivers were transferred to stretchers and taken

JOANNA RUTTER

away via ambulance.

As the early turn-in crowd began to spill out of the Millennium Center en masse, some to ogle at the flipped car and flashing emergency lights, a lone festival volunteer stood firmly on the red carpet to secure it from slipping so that attendees wouldn’t accidentally surf down the stairs.

The rumpled red carpet, leading from the glowing glamour of the Millennium Center into the windy, chilly chaos and drizzling rain that was downtown Winston-Salem that night, seemed to serve as a metaphor for the RiverRun Festival itself: a haven for indie filmmakers and fans in a city scrappy enough to welcome them without much pretense.

Pick of the Week What’s been wronged can be made right Foster Care Chronicles: Wrongs of Passage @ Upstage Cabaret (GSO), all weekend This unique play, written and directed by Debra LeWinter and funded via the Department of Social Work at UNCG, provides an immersive and moving way to understand what life is like as a child in foster care. To create the script, actors spanning an age range of 15- to 25-years-old were interviewed about their experiences of trauma. The finished product will be part catharsis, part education for the audience. Don’t miss this. The play opens Thursday night and runs for two weekends. It’s free for anyone under 18; get tickets at triadstage.org.

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FUN & GAMES

T

aylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” spat out of UNCG Softball Stadium’s PA speakers on April 9 during the third-inning break. Tiny centerfielder Allison Geiner then recorded the Spartans’ first hit in the front end of this

by Anthony Harrison double-header against the visiting Mercer Bears in UNCG’s Southern Conference homecoming. Even that base hit came challenged as Mercer first baseman Katie Peterson caught the high throw only by vaulting off the bag, granting Geiner a wrinkle in time.

The Spartans needed Swift’s vote of confidence.

Before that hit, the Bears had been mauling the Spartans. They went on a five-run streak in the first anda six-run tear in the second, then scored again in the third. All the while, Mercer right-hander Maxine Rodriguez and her fielders shut down the venerable UNCG batting order. The hyped Mercer dugout roared the entire game as UNCG nearly exhausted their bullpen attempting to halt the Bears’ charge.

The Spartans’ uncharacteristically poor fielding aided Mercer’s offensive spurts; they officially recorded two errors in the first two innings and suffered from many bumbles, bobbles and miscues.

“This was not typical Spartan play,” UNCG head coach Janelle Breneman said after the game. “We didn’t start well, didn’t compete and couldn’t turn it around.”

The Spartans eventually scored in the fourth and fifth innings, but the Bears led 15-2 by that point. A mercy rule ended the game at the bottom of the fifth.

Only 30 minutes later, the two teams would face off all over again.

Demoralizing losses affect teams differently depending on the sport. In football, you often have an entire week to patch up and regroup. In basketball, you might have a few days. But in bat sports, there’s rarely time to shake off defeat, causing slumps; double-headers can lead to two losses in a single day.

But the right coach can rally the troops to advance once more unto the breach.

“In this sport, with double-headers, you have to have a short memory,” Coach Breneman said. “My whole focus [during the break] was telling the girls they’re great softball players. They just had to control, attack and play like great softball players — to swing and compete on every pitch.”

Breneman’s speech reminded the Spartans to play above their competition — at their own level — in Game 2.

In a stark reversal of recent misfortune, freshman phenom pitcher Stephanie Bryden hushed Mercer’s bats to a whisper in the first two innings; she downed six Bears by the end of hostilities. On the other hand, Mercer’s defense lagged, allowing Spartan catcher Lindsay Thomas to record her 230th career hit; that

Spartans shake it off double tied the all-time UNCG hitting record, which a .414 batting average and three runners on, could she broke in the bottom of the fifth with a deep single.

Thomas really do… it?

Despite the Bears launching runs in the third and Second pitch: Yes. fourth innings, the Spartans didn’t fold. Leftfielder The neon-yellow ball flew over the fence — a walkKendall McKinney chipped a two-run bomb just over off grand slam. the centerfield fence — her fourth straight game with a “I just wanted to hit it hard,” Thomas laughed. homer — tying the score at the bottom of the fourth.

“Didn’t matter where it went. Then I thought: Oh my But the end of that inning witnessed tragedy. god, it worked.”

Geiner, an invaluable defensive presence, dislocated The dam burst, and the cheering UNCG dugout her shoulder with a hard slide back into first base after flooded home plate, bouncing together in a smiling Mercer pitcher Megan Bilgri caught her far off the bag. scrum.

The UNCG dugout, which had originally harnessed the The next day, the Spartans again faced Mercer, again energy the Bears exhibited in Game 1, fell silent as the won a hard-fought victory, again decided by a Nicole Spartan spitfire failed to rise from her prone position.

Thomas walk-off hit.

Though mourning their wounded comrade, the SparClearly, the Bears’ initial lopsided win couldn’t shake tans refused to fall. In fact, Geiner’s injury only steeled Spartan resolve. their will.

UNCG mounted a decisive stop against the Bears in the sixth, capped by a pivotal Bryden strikeout to end the top with two runners on base. They rolled with the punch after Mercer designated player Lindsay Boynton retook the lead with a solo home run in the top of the final, seventh inning, halting runners in scoring position.

The Spartans had a last chance for redemption.

They loaded the bases at the expense of two outs. Then, hard-hitting designated player Nicole Thomas — Lindsay’s twin — stepped up to the box.

Greensboro was not Mudville; the red-clay diamond too dry. The Designated player Nicole Thomas slugs UNCG to victory.

ANTHONY HARRISON breeze picked up, a red wind whirling Pick of the Week between Thomas and Bears reliever Jill McElderry like in a spaghetti Western.

Golf for all abilities Before April 9, a stress fracture in Thomas’ foot had Adaptive Golf Clinic @ Gillespie Golf Course (GSO), benched her for five weeks; losing Geiner provided her Saturday, 10 a.m. with empathetic incentive.

Gillespie Golf Course welcomes people of any “I thought: I’m gonna win this for Al, no matter what ability to the inaugural session of this clinic series. it takes,” Thomas said after the game.

Learn adaptive swing and stances from seasoned First pitch: Ball 1. McElderry bent down and rubbed pros. No prior golf experience necessary. If you can’t some dirt on her pitching fingers. make this one, check it on May 14 or June 25. For With the score locked at 3-2 Mercer, time halted as more info, call the course at 336.373.5852. the crowd began considering the improbable: With

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GAMES

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by Matt Jones Across

Down

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--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS-9 pm Sunday, April 17 TV CLUB presents

Answers from previous publication.

Opinion

1 Salad bar veggie 2 Detective novelist ___ Stanley Gardner 3 Vividness 4 Outburst with a wince 5 Eve of “The Brady Bunch” 6 Centers of focus 7 “Green” sci.

8 Soul singer Redding 9 Braga of “Kiss of the Spider Woman” 10 Every bit 11 Ignoramus 12 “Freeze” tag?

13 Time off 19 Cold-shoulders 22 “The Fox and the Crow” author

25 Swedish home of Scandinavia’s oldest university 27 Label for the diet-conscious 28 Remove, as paint 29 31 Ill-suited 32 33 Dusseldorf neighbor 35 Philatelists’ prized possessions, perhaps 36 37 Eye afflictions 43 Mongolian invader 46 Derring-do 53 Actress Rosie 55 Flip of a hit single 56 Mike of “Fifty Shades of Black” 57 In a glum mood 58 Hoedown site 60 “To Venus and Back” singer Amos 61 “I’m ___, boss!”

62 Alarmed squeals 64 Put on the payroll 65 Angle of a branch 67 As of now 69 Water + dirt

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52 “Mustache Hat” artist Jean 54 Lend a larcenous hand 56 Go back, like the tide 59 Bill killers 63 “As I suspected!”

66 Person who’s ready when an insertion is made 68 Blend completely 70 Not contaminated 71 “CHiPs” star Estrada 72 Hip-hop artist Jermaine 73 Transmitted 74 Bumps on the back, maybe 75 Short-lived Ford

Up Front

1 Dizzy Gillespie’s genre 6 Many August babies, astrologically 10 At a great distance 14 “Captain Blood” star Flynn 15 Prefix for pus 16 Solitary 17 1912 Nobel Peace Prize winner Root 18 What the three circled areas represent 20 ___ Aviv, Israel 21 Submits, as a sweepstakes entry 23 Illuminated 24 Auto mechanic’s service 26 “___ Wiedersehen!”

28 Tiny drink [Miss class] 30 “A Boy Named ___” [Confident] 34 Taverns [Loses one’s lunch] 38 Spigot [Links hazard] 39 Slip-___ [Burden] 40 Baseball card info [Set in motion] 41 Hosp. workers [Howard and Jeremy, for two] 42 History [“Blue Ribbon” name] 44 Deep-___ [Slugfest] 45 “Yes ___!” [Andes native] 47 Casserole bit [“Guilty,” e.g.]

48 Riddle-me-___ [Belgian painter Magritte] 49 Brazilian soccer legend [Key’s comedy partner] 50 Blasting stuff [Campsite shelter] 51 Curvy letter [PC bailout keys]

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Calling North Carolina home

M

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e: Do you think there will be a huge surge in adult-diaper sales if HB2 is repealed?

David: Depends.

When I was growing up in small-town North Carolina in the ’70s and ’80s I had a distinct inkling that my presence here was some terrible, cosmic mistake.

I was sure that somewhere in Manhattan there was a little freckled girl with pigtails in overalls longing to dig her bare feet into red clay and her maw into a slab of chopped pork and that we had somehow been switched at birth.

I had read that David Bowie enjoyed bouillabaisse and I was convinced that said freckled child was turning up her nose at it in the same way I eschewed NC barbecue. I longed for bouillabaisse and cement sidewalks that stretched for leg-aching miles. I was obsessed with elevators and tall buildings and nightclubs and people with foreign accents and exotic skin.

My Greek mother and I had about the most exotic skin to be found in that small town, with the exception of a few Laotians and the odd Italian transplant. It was Scots-Irish white and African-American black all around and more often than not I was mistaken for the latter.

It didn’t help that our maid, the ebony-hued Miss Ruby Mae Wilson, braided my hair like Bo Derek’s and walked me to school every day. Nor did it help that my mother was often absent — off being a designing woman in the big city.

I was friends with one of the only Jewish kids around and I’ll never forget introducing her to my mother one day and her saying, “Oh, I thought your mom was black,” and not batting an eye. I guess that’s why we were friends.

It didn’t matter to her. But it did to a lot of people.

I found out years later that there were kids whose parents didn’t want them to be friends with me because

they thought my parents were mixed race. My parents thought it was funny because, one, it wasn’t true; two, they didn’t care. Lastly, because Miss Ruby was kind of the town character — pushing me around in a stroller with a bucket in it when I got too fat for it, dressing in wild, mixed prints and plaids that may have informed my fashion sense more than I care to admit.

Then there was the added notion that our home was a gathering place for gays, and in the era of AIDS there was an uninformed scare factor that many employed. My mother was a designer for chrissakes. She had more gay colleagues and friends than the Sugarbaker sisters combined.

But that’s how it goes in the South — and beyond. You realize that bigotry is alive and well but you insulate yourself from it. The thinking Southerner chooses friends based on their character and how they treat you and others — not because of the color of their skin, their religion, their sexual orientation or age.

This unusual upbringing informed my life in many ways. In short, I ran away.

I lived and went to school in Europe for two years as an undergrad in an effort to escape the Old North State and its status quo Senator No (Jesse Helms was in the US Senate from 1973 to 2003). I lived in California, Hawaii and New York, and worked in Texas and Mexico for long stints. I took a year-plus sabbatical of sorts to Southeast Asia at one point, but throughout all of this itchy-footed wanderlust I still held out hope for North Carolina.

I moved back here in 2000 and for the last 16 years I’ve been excited to see the resurgence of our downtowns, our music scene light up the world, our culinary presence announce itself loudly and clearly and our young people staying and being proud to call North Carolina home.

And then came our current state legislature whose agenda appears to be to thrust us back in time. We have seen the loss of teachers migrating to more education-driven states. We have witnessed the veritable vanishing act of the NC film scene. We have seen industries and artists boycott us due to our state’s

recent legislation — HB 2, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act. It is the last nail in the casket on much of the aforementioned progress. It’s not about bathrooms — it’s about backward thinking and robbing us of the freedom to defend ourselves whomever that self may be — to be rather than to seem.

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Whatever your thoughts about church, whatever your beliefs about God … you are welcome here.

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