TCB May 11, 2016 —One Hot Minute

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com May 11 – 17, 2016

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PAGE 16

The mogul & the maverick PAGE 8

Council drops a new video PAGE 14

Stephen Gee takes a bow PAGE 24

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May 11 — 17, 2016

From the Ukraine

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

by Brian Clarey

NEWS 8 The mogul and the maverick: Ryan Saunders joins Kotis team 10 Mountain candidates compete for votes in Winston-Salem 12 HPJ: First responders armed with Narcan curb heroin overdose deaths

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OPINION 14 Editorial: A game of chicken 14 Citizen Green: An ‘unbiased observer’ 15 It Just Might Work: Mandatory recycling 15 Fresh Eyes: All the white people

22 Music: Hip-hop marriage 24 Art: Stephen Gee: ‘Larger than life’

GAMES

FUN & GAMES

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

26 Diamond in the rough

29 South Elm Street, Greensboro

CULTURE

NEST

ALL SHE WROTE

20 Food: Jamaican me crazy 21 Barstool: Drinking in the coop

27 High Point in bloom

30 The governor’s new clothes

COVER 16 One hot minute: An oral history of the Flying Anvil

28 Jonesin’ Crossword

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

I think time has treated us pretty well. The general sense I get from people is, ‘Oh wow, that was a cool spot,’ or ‘I wish we still had it kind of thing.’ For the most part, I feel proud of doing that with Pete. It was a cool thing we did, it just didn’t work with that formula… overall, I would do it again. It was such a learning experience, and we had a good little run. And I think people are appreciative, that hey, these guys actually tried to do something in Greensboro, they didn’t just talk about it.

— Brian Crean, in the Cover, page 16 1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320 BUSINESS PUBLISHER Allen Broach

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I thought the language barrier might be a problem.

In reading the dossiers prepared by coordinator Ray Kiszely, I learned that many of the dozen or so Ukrainian journalists headed to Greensboro for the Open World Delegates program don’t speak English. But I also learned that they were interested in investigative journalism, ferreting out corruption and speaking truth to power.

So I figured we’d get along fine.

We herded them into a classroom at the Nussbaum Center, and I showed them the tools of our trade: the network of public-information databases that provide the bedrock of much of our investigative work.

I showed them the voter registration database, property tax records, the North Carolina General Assembly website and the secretary of state’s list of corporations and who owns them, explaining through simple language, visual aids and a bit of pantomime that this is how we find out who owns what, whose campaigns they donate to and what kind of legislation gets passed as a result — you know, the putrid underbelly of the American Way. They were astonished.

One explained to me that in the Ukraine, still in the ominous shadow of the Russian oligarchy, property records were available, but most of the rest of what I showed them would require bribes to government officials — illegal, of course, and carrying a potential sentence of 10 years in prison.

There is no First Amendment in the Ukraine, and though it has an enviable freedom of the press compared to other Eastern Bloc countries, but that still stand at 107 in the 2016 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. By comparison, the United States is ranked No. 41.

No. 1, by the way, is Finland.

In laying out the blueprint for our American form of governmental corruption — which, by the way, is perfectly legal — I saw recognition in their eyes. They understood nepotism, corporate control, unequal protection under the law and unequal access to the machinery of government as well as anyone who’s ever carried around a reporter’s notebook.

What surprised them most — besides the fact that they could all purchase firearms at the pawn shop down the street if they wanted to — is that, in our country, no one tries to hide these things… or, at least, they don’t do it very well.

One young reporter asked a long question in Ukrainian, distilled down to a few words by the interpreter.

“He wants to know what happens when you report on these things,” he said. “And what happens when the American people find out who is in control of their government.

How do they express their outrage at this corruption?”

I had to pause for a moment before I gave them the short answer.

“They don’t,” I said.

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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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May 11 — 17, 2016

CITY LIFE May 11 – 17

by Joanna Rutter

ALL WEEKEND Triad Dog Games @ Winston-Salem Fairgrounds (W-S) Why spend a weekend indoors watching YouTube videos of cute animals when you can go watch them be adorable in person? This third annual fundraising event for the Sergei Foundation raises funds to help sick and injured pets obtain emergency veterinary care. Attendees can compete (ATTN: must be dog to enter) or spectate in dock jumping, disc (Frisbee), agility, Dachshund races — and, new in 2016, a sanctioned flyball competition. Competitors from Pennsylvania and Georgia and everywhere in between will be in attendance. Visit triaddoggames.com for more information.

Celebrate the Old North State @ downtown High Point History geeks, your paradise awaits, presented by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Celebrate the unique history of North Carolina with tours of market showrooms, a Saturday street festival, a Miles and Coltrane dinner theater, and events on historic preservation. Each business, non-profit, school, museum and municipal agency is handling its own ticketing, so check theoldnorthstatehp.com for a full schedule of events to plan your weekend.

THURSDAY

Love-A-Landmark Party @ Sternberger Artists Center (GSO), 5:30 p.m.

The Sigmund Sternberger House in the Aycock Historic District, an Italian Renaissance Revival style mini-palace, was built by prominent architect Harry Barton for Sternberger, treasurer of the Revolution Cotton Mill, in 1926. Learn more about the building during an exploration of the historic residence, along with wine and light refreshments. Snooping around strangers’ houses for charity?

Sign us up. Find info about tickets on the Facebook event page.

Building Public Support for Public Transit @ Greensboro Historical Museum, 6:30 p.m.

Jason Jordan, the Center for Transportation Excellence’s director, will discuss the merits of transit and equip local leaders with the info necessary to push forward public transportation initiatives and ballot measures. The event kicks off TAP’s 2016 Transportation Speaker Series. If you’ve ever sighed over the bus or wished for a light rail, you should probably be at this meeting. Visit Transit Alliance Triad on Facebook for the RSVP link.

FRIDAY Sip and Stroll @ Downtown High Point, Friday, 4 p.m.

Some of High Point’s most well loved restaurants will host wine tasting and food sampling in conjunction with the Celebrate the Old North State festival. Try some Turkish tea at Sumela, or try a variety of samples at Penny Path Café & Crepe Shop. Check the event on Facebook for more information.

The Healing Blues premiere @ the Interactive Resource Center (GSO), 6;30 p.m.

Directed by Ted Efremoff and edited by Sukhada Gokhale, this movie goes behind the scenes and tells the story of the Healing Blues, which is a songwriting collaborative sharing stories of challenge and trauma. This will be a one-time public showing, after which the documentary will be available only through paid download, so go see it for free while you can. There will be live music, of course, and light refreshments. Find the IRC on Facebook for details.

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Navigating Through the Seasons of Life @ Cre8ive Niche Coffee Shop (HP), 7 p.m.

Guest speakers Tony & Denise Hall from Kannapolis, authors of Ten Things I Wish My Father Had Taught Me, visit for some “straight talk,” meaning, some real talk about relationships. No kids allowed. For more information, contact Charity Jackson at 336.906.4734.

Lemon Sparks CD release @ Heyday Guitars (W-S), 8 p.m.

Releasing their CD into the wild, albeit in an intimate environment, Lemon Sparks bring their retro-pop jams to Heyday.

“Lemon Sparks sounds a little like the love child of Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan, combining fresh, toe-tapping melodies and edgy instrumentation with catchy love letters and introspective ruminations,” says the event page. Winston-Salem’s indie rocker Kyle Caudle (yes, Caleb’s brother, but he’s got his own thing going on) will open the show with songs from his new EP. More info on Heyday’s Facebook.

MONDAY Wadjda Bike Month screening @ aperture cinema (W-S), 6:30 p.m.

In this 2012 Saudi Arabian film, a young girl pines for a green bicycle she passes every day on her way to school, though riding a bike as a girl is frowned upon in her culture. On top of being a film festival darling, Wadjda was also the first feature-length film made by a female Saudi director, Haifaa al-Mansour. A good evening outing for stickin’ it to the patriarchy. Bonus points if you ride your bike to the theater, obviously. The screening is free (thanks, Bike Month!) and you can find details at aperturecinema.com.

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SATURDAY

SUNDAY Branded Curvy Fashion Show and Launch Party @ ArtSpace Uptown (GSO), 2 p.m.

Branded Curvy, a fashion company specializing in providing curvy women with custom fashion designs created by emerging and established designers, launches this Sunday. Triad business and arts leaders double as models for the show. The shindig will have a DJ and free punch, a special appearance by neo-soul artist Jas NaTasha, and a signature Purple Rain cocktail will be served, too. Get tickets at brandedcurvylaunch.eventbrite.com

WWE Monday Night Raw @ the Coliseum (GSO), 7:30 p.m.

A six-man tag team main event comes to town. World heavyweight champion Roman Reigns and the Usos go up against “the Phenomenal One” AJ Styles, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson.

“The Lunatic Fringe” Dean Ambrose, Chris Jericho and Intercontinental champion the Miz will all be present. The best kind of theater. Go to greensborocoliseum.com for tickets.

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May 11 — 17, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games NEST Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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A bold bathroom initiative The current furor over HB2 demands out of the box solutions.

I am proposing that the General Assembly repeal this troublesome legislation and replace it with a program that places full body condoms in all public restrooms. These accoutrements should be purchased and distributed at state expense utilizing the recent surge in state revenues. This initiative should make our restrooms safer from unintended pregnancy/STD. People who still fear for their general safety might want to try a double-ply condom.

This bold public policy gambit would concurrently provide badly needed positive PR coverage for the Tar Heel State on a worldwide basis. The Republican administration should buy in because it will greatly stimulate the “rubber” industry.

Economic stimulation and bathroom safety accomplished in a single, bold legislative swoop! Reaganesque!

I also have some ideas about drone surveillance in our poop houses. However, I will keep them in abeyance to see how the condoms work out.

William C. Crawford, Winston-Salem Gecko nostalgia I used to live on the 200 block [of North Cedar Street]. [“Palaces of Cedar: Life in Greensboro’s sweet spot”; by Eric Ginsburg; April 27, 2016] Oh boy, moved away six years ago. I feel like Gecko House and Tad the never-present landlord were such integral parts of my Cedar Street experience. Would have been lovely to have seen a mention of them.

Xenli, via triad-city-beat.com Editor’s note: Gecko House is mentioned in the story, though not by name — look for a reference to a wristband-regulated party house.

4 lessons of middle-aged yardwork

by Jordan Green

1. Wear gloves

When I began to strategize a game plan for yardwork after we moved into our new house in Lindley Park a year ago, I decided to focus on the fundamentals — namely tearing the English ivy off the large deciduous trees framing our property so they wouldn’t die and crash through the roof of our home. I think that was wise, but Year 2 clearly calls for a more aesthetic focus. My wife suggested pulling up the saplings that have proliferated in the yard over the last four years or so. She was so right. Our nextdoor neighbor is a retired GPD vice cop who’s made it known that he keeps our place under surveillance (much appreciated!), but his attention does make me want to keep the premises on the up and up. The first guideline, which I did not observe this past weekend, should be to wear gloves. After I removed one sapling, I noticed, to my horror, a 4-inch shard of glass that miraculously did not slice open my finger.

2. Beware of boulders

As a country kid, I was a wily operator. Let’s say I had creek smarts. I was pretty savvy at hopping across precariously perched stones to traverse a rushing stream, and diving underwater to trap bluegill against rocks with my bare hands. I managed somehow to avoid twisting my ankle, getting washed downstream or putting my hand in a snake’s mouth. I still have the same confidence, but as a fortysomething urbanite, my wits are not what they used to be. One of the saplings slated for removal was growing next to a large stone that was about three feet across and a good 18 inches thick, while being secured by a thick network of ivy. I started feverishly yanking ivy off and once the stone was freed it came loose much more easily than I anticipated. One end fell against my shin and as I pulled back the other end landed on the big toe of the same leg. Luckily for me, the extent of my injuries was a couple scratches on my leg, and my toe didn’t even turn purple. I’m terrified of sustaining any injuries that might result in addiction to prescription painkillers, and I’ll certainly be a lot more careful in the future.

3. Don’t use a broken shovel

Last summer, I cracked the handle of a new shovel purchased at Lowe’s while removing an ornery shrub at my wife’s request. Even with the handle cracked three quarters through, I found the shovel

pretty handy for removing saplings. Usually, with a good, diagonal thrust into the side of the taproot and some vigorous wiggling of the blade, a hard yank would remove the plant, root and all. As I attempted to work the shovel back and forth while pulling the tree, I found my hand grazing the jagged edge of the cracked handle. Looking back on it, I don’t quite understand why I didn’t wind up with a nasty splinter in my index finger.

4. Protect yourself from poison ivy

The pernicious three-leaf poison ivy must be eradicated at all costs. I pulled a good-sized batch out this weekend. I took some precautions, using a rubber glove and washing my hands and arms with hot, soapy water after finishing my work. But I have to admit that I also used my exposed right hand for additional grip, and I didn’t wear a long-sleeve shirt; as a result, some leaves brushed my forearm. I must have developed an immunity to the stuff, or else the soap and water did the job. In any case, my arms and hands are mercifully free of rashes and inflammations.

The lesson in all of this is clearly that no one should follow my example.

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Yes, finally!

22%

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No, there’s no parking problem.

Fun & Games

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Games

The personal re-invention tle more professionally — or, at least, in a style befitting an executive in the alternative journalism world, which means jeans with a T-shirt is okay, as long as you don’t tuck it in.

And I get up a lot earlier than I ever used to.

This has happened before. I’ve transitioned from shaggy Deadhead to longhaired bartender to newsroom rageball with several stops in between before landing where I’m at now.

My wife reminds me that Madonna has been doing this since “Borderline” dropped in 1983, and Bowie adopted a new style every decade or so, so I’m hardly a trailblazer in the personal re-invention.

But this should be my best metamorphosis yet, provided I can stop dropping those beloved F-bombs.

All She Wrote

anymore. And I retired some of my older pairs of boots in favor of newer ones that actually have some traction on the sole. I spend less time with a notebook in my hands and more of it anticipating the marketing needs of the Triad, evaluating the performance of my staff and chasing down checks. I don’t even really write that much anymore, spending most of my days striking deals, crunching numbers and otherwise enacting the Big Picture that is slowly being realized for Triad City Beat.

I’m working on my boardroom chops even as I shed some of the things that got me here.

That means I’m doing things I have always avoided throughout my career: business lunches, community events, presentations and spreadsheets. I try to dress a lit-

Shot in the Triad

by Brian Clarey I got struck between the eyes last week during a meeting with my business coaches, who were explaining to me why my reaction to a development may have been counterproductive.

“You just dropped like five F-bombs in the last three minutes,” one of them told me.

That’s when I realized that the skills that made me a successful manager of a newsroom perhaps don’t apply to my role as CEO. My job has changed dramatically over the last couple of years, when I transitioned from being a simple editor to the president of a company.

So it’s fitting that I make some changes, too.

For instance, I don’t cut my own hair in my garage

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Opinion

Jordan Green: No. If anything, the city should be increasing the cost of parking in downtown to incentivize walking and to nudge people towards the idea of using public transportation. That, in turn, will generate density. Incentivizing more cars with a single occupant on the streets will ultimately stunt downtown’s growth. I do appreciate that Downtown Greensboro Inc.’s proposal limits the free pass to two hours, promoting circularity and preventing people who work downtown from squatting on a curb spot all day. Cities that are serious about urbanism don’t look to free parking as a solution.

Readers: Our readers disagree with us, and pretty resoundingly. A full 78 percent said, “Yes, finally!” while just 22 percent said, “No, there’s no parking problem.” None of you picked “Unsure/maybe.” Our intern Joanna Rutter supports it, on the condition that “there’d be transparency from the city about where the expected revenue would come from instead,” and Christian Yorkshire supports it “if the downtown businesses feel there is a benefit,” adding “I don’t support it if that means the city will increase the effort to fine those who hit the limit” and that it’s a “red herring for downtown” and that “urban communities are meant to be walkable (not to be driven from place to place within 1/4 mile.”

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News

Brian Clarey: This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think downtown Greensboro has a parking problem. And it seems to me that the only people who do are the ones who want to park in front of the places they want to go to, which in any city worth its salt happens with about the same frequency as finding a $20 bill on the ground. Moreover, we’ve already tried the free downtown parking thing, and people complained because of the perception that people were partying in the free parking decks — which, by the way, are still free at night even though there’s a sign at the entrance saying they’re not.

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Eric Ginsburg: What Jordan said, and Brian too. As someone who grew up in the Boston suburbs, the idea that it’s hard to park in downtown Greensboro is laughably provincial. That perception absolutely exists and persists, but it isn’t something we should cater to and coddle. We need to be eliminating surface parking lots and adding density. Encourage cycling and mass transit, and recognize that free (or insanely cheap) parking is overabundant.

Up Front

There’s a push for free, two-hour parking in downtown Greensboro led by business owners and Downtown Greensboro Inc. Do you support it?

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Free parking in downtown Greensboro?

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May 11 — 17, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games NEST Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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NEWS

The mogul and the maverick: Ryan Saunders joins Kotis team

by Eric Ginsburg

Normally it wouldn’t be newsworthy that a big-time commercial developer hired a new realtor to join his team. But the budding relationship between Marty Kotis and social entrepreneur Ryan Saunders is anything but typical, and signals a shift in the dynamics of the Gate City.

The 28-year-old Ryan Saunders wore a stern look as he glanced down from the Eugene Street overpass onto a large barren lot, decorated with an old passenger bus and crumbling brick structures along the edges. A building with a series of entrances — most of them garage doors — lines the south side of the property and, not too far behind it, the soon-to-be-former Brooks Lumber complex along Gate City Boulevard.

In a matter of days, Saunders would be expected to recruit tenants and oversee some of the creative vision for these multi-acre projects, among others. His new boss, standing besides him in a full suit and a loosened tie, planned to inject millions into the sites, and Saunders — in his first real at-bat — wants to knock one out of the park.

On Monday, developer Marty Kotis closed on the Brooks Lumber property near the southwest corner of downtown Greensboro, a sprawling three-acre site just a short walk from the building and lot he plans to convert to a beer garden.

Kotis hired Saunders to start the same day.

Saunders is new to commercial real estate; he obtained his license just this February, and he’s been looking for serious work for a while. But while the High Point native might be a novice in this specific arena, Kotis is counting on him to pump fresh blood into several of his grittier, hipper projects.

And despite his inexperience in real estate, Saunders is a known entity with a considerable track record who’s launched or enabled a legion of creative projects.

To list them all would be tiresome.

But in short, Saunders cut his teeth as an urbanist in High Point, fighting to bring culture into the Third City by creating Hopfest beer festival, recruiting

muralists for public art projects and myriad other guerrilla-style interventions to make life more interesting and colorful. But after failed efforts to revitalize the Pit, a brutish-looking parking area, and a few other disappointments with the city’s leadership, Saunders shifted his efforts Greensboro. He would go on to co-lead No Blank Walls, a mural project, host a podcast, curate a newsletter and reconstitute Hopfest in the Boro, among other ventures.

Kotis is hoping that’s just the sort of self-starting energy and vision that will catalyze these two downtown projects and others. In part, his team needs more help anyway as the list of his company’s Greensboro investments blooms. But Kotis also knows that his personal drive for perfection can lead to projects with a more corporate feel, and that’s not what he wants from the Brooks Lumber or beer garden properties.

Just take a look at Pig Pounder, Kotis’ brewery in the heart of the Midtown neighborhood along Battleground Avenue that he named, or his restaurant concepts Burger Warfare and Marshall Free House across the street. Pig Pounder may be making good beer — the Boar Brown just won gold at the 2016 World Beer Cup — but some say it feels overly sanitized. Kotis recruited star bartender Mark Weddle and popular chef Jay Pierce to the Free House, and Burger Warfare seems to always be busy, but it’s hard to shake the observation that everything is decked to the nines.

You could argue that each evokes the feeling of a chain without actually being one.

That’s where Saunders comes in.

Saunders is nothing if not genuine, plucked from the grassroots-level push for urbanist causes like public transit and walkability but also for artistic expression. He’s spent the last few years as one of the few people fighting to create the sort of things that twentysomethings like him want from a city. And this is his big shot.

Kotis’ purchase of the Dorothy Bardolph building across from the depot downtown earlier this year stirred some

Marty Kotis (foreground) and Ryan Saunders look down the train tracks behind the Brooks Lumber property in downtown Greensboro.

dissent, as some residents worried about the displacement of a methadone clinic and other social services in the building.

Saunders will help reconceptualize that property, too, and later recruit tenants.

His first idea for the space: something that appeals to the needs of people arriving in the city off a train or bus at the depot, primarily a hostel. Kotis immediately latched onto the notion.

It’s not that Kotis doesn’t possess vision of his own; the beer garden idea is his, put into motion a year ago, and he easily rattles off a list of uses for the Brooks Lumber property including an outdoor music pavilion, a shaded farmers’ market and indoor businesses such as a bakery, chocolatier or distillery. Think West End Mill Works in Winston-Salem — home to Hoots brewery, the Porch Kitchen & Cantina and a glassblowing studio among other businesses — or a similar redeveloped complex in Saxapahaw, Kotis said.

Kotis didn’t invent these ideas or other hip ones he’s kicked around, such as a speakeasy with a secret entrance. And neither, exactly, has Saunders. Instead,

ERIC GINSBURG

both want to borrow the coolest ideas they’ve seen elsewhere, altering them to fit in Greensboro, and execute. And that’s where this unlikely partnership makes the most sense.

As Kotis walked around the still-active Brooks Lumber property with Saunders a few days ago, he said they’ll be looking for “funky” tenants who are part of “the creative class.” People like Saunders.

“He gets to go after all the fun tenants,” Kotis said.

Kotis adding that while he might incorporate a few businesses of his own into the expansive property, he knows he needs to “dial back” the “slick retail look” he’s pursued in Midtown.

There are still businesses operating on the lumberyard, and Kotis acknowledged that they aren’t happy with his purchase or plans. But this area is changing, including considerable investment from downtown developer Andy Zimmerman across Eugene Street. There, Zimmerman has talked about a Saxapahaw-style format at the former Lotus Lounge, and he purchased and redeveloped the former Flying

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Saunders will research, recruit and likely be asked to take on a host of other related responsibilities as part of the Kotis team.

Kotis is bullish on Saunders, saying he’ll help attract other local, young, independent and creative people just like him. And while Saunders is eager and excited to set to work, already proposing ideal tenants including a cheesemonger and a champagne bar, his facial expression on the overpass suggested that he grasps the enormity of the task at hand.

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Anvil building, which just reopened as the Forge makerspace within sight of Brooks Lumber [see this week’s cover story on the Flying Anvil beginning on page 16]. Given that, the Union Square campus at South Elm Street and Gate City Boulevard and UNCG’s expansion along the boulevard, Kotis said his newly acquired corner should be rebooted as something new.

“I know there are businesses here, but this is not the best use of the space for a gateway to Greensboro,” he said.

Kotis bought the site for around $1.1 million, he said, and plans to tear down some of the smaller structures on the property while maintaining and refurbishing most, especially a towering silo that adds to the area’s industrial feel.

He’ll keep the gravel, saying it fits with the character and aesthetic, and expects to sink several million into upfitting the property. The nearby beer garden will likely take $2.5 million, he said, but rent down here will be cheaper for tenants than over in Midtown.

Standing at the back corner of the property, a few feet from a large, murky puddle and a deteriorating abandoned mattress, Kotis rattled off more ideas for an abandoned train track and an adjoining property that he said is owned by the state. Saunders, a few days shy of his official start date, remained quiet for the most part, taking it all in and walking a couple steps behind his new boss as they peered through the chain-link fence around Kotis’ new investment.

The beer garden, lumberyard and Bardolph buildings downtown won’t be the only things on Saunders’ plate.

He’ll be expected to help with plans for a spur of greenway running behind his boss’ Midtown properties as well as some mixed-use, multi-family projects.

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Three mountain candidates compete for votes in Winston-Salem

by Jordan Green

Three Democrats from rural counties in the 5th Congressional District, which now covers all of Winston-Salem, hope that a new map more favorable to their party will allow one of them to unseat Republican incumbent Virginia Foxx in November.

three candidates all live outside of Forsyth County: Wallin, who works as assistant director of food services at Appalachian State University, lives in the community of Sugar Grove outside of Boone. Josh Brannon, a software developer, lives in neighboring Vilas. Jim The new 5th Congressional District Roberts, a retired pest control company looks a lot like the old map before the owner, lives in Pilot Mountain, northRepublican-controlled state General west of Winston-Salem.

Assembly gerrymandered districts to The new map increases Democratic its partisan advantage: It sweeps west registration from 35.2 percent to 38.2 from Winston-Salem through Wilkes percent, while improving the perforand other rural counties all the way to mance of Democratic candidates by the Tennessee state line, incorporating about two points in past match-ups. a compact chunk of the northwestern Under the previous map, Republican corner of North Carolina.

Elizabeth Dole would have carried the There’s one notable difference, howdistrict by almost 5 points in the 2008 ever, since the federal courts threw out election, while the new map has Demothe old map and forced the General Ascrat Kay Hagan narrowly edging Dole sembly to go back to the drawing board out for the same election. Still, whoever in February: The old 12th District, which wins the Democratic nomination will previously snaked into Winston-Salem have a lot of ground to make up: Branfrom High Point to capture heavily non, who was the Democratic nominee Democratic areas of the city, has now two years ago, lost to Foxx by a margin been confined to Mecklenburg County. of 22 percent.

The 5th District now covers all of For“Numerous people around the district syth County, and Democratic candisay this is a really good time, and you’ve dates believe that markedly improves got a shot,” Wallin said. “With the their prospects for unseating Republican polarization at the top of the ticket with incumbent Virginia Foxx in November.

Donald Trump being the Republican “When they redrew the lines, it got nominee, you’ve got a lot of Republimore winnable for cans saying they may Democrats; the margin stay home.” narrowed for DemBrannon agrees. He Early voting for the June ocrats,” said Charlie said when he was ask7 special election, which Wallin, one of three ing people if he should also includes a do-over candidates in the run again, one of the for the Democratic priDemocratic primary main reasons they told mary for the South Ward scheduled for June 7. him to give it anoth“Picking up the 12th er shot was because seat on Winston-Salem District areas of [US Trump’s presence on City Council, begins on Rep.] Alma Adams was the ticket increased the May 26 at Forsyth County odds of a Democratic huge. She’s a wonderGovernment Center. Visit ful lady; it’s broke their upset. Brannon added forsyth.cc/elections for heart to lose her. I’m that his supporters told trying to reach out to him last year that his specific hours. them, and let them message sounded a lot know I’ll be responsive like Bernie Sanders. to their needs.”

“I believe we need to have a political The new map gives Forsyth County revolution,” Brannon said. “Ever since voters increasing clout in the district.

Reagan, no matter which party is in Urban Forsyth makes up 47.8 percent control of Congress, all the economic of the population of the district, with gains have gone to people who needed the remainder distributed among the them the least. Anyone who’s under eight remaining rural counties. The 35 has only known growing income

Josh Brannon

Jim Roberts

The 5th Congressional District

inequality. We were supposed to be a country where anyone could get ahead, and it seems like in the past three decades we’ve fallen further and further behind.”

Wallin said the concerns of constituents across the district are more alike than different, with poverty being a major challenge both in Winston-Salem and in the rural west. He added that environmental concerns are also a unifying factor, with voters in Stokes and Surry counties worried about fracking while further to the west parents are concerned about asphalt plants located near schools.

Brannon said job loss is one area where the rural parts of the district have taken a bigger hit than urban Forsyth County. Roberts concurred, saying that manufacturing jobs in the region that have shifted to China in the past two decades have not been replaced.

All three candidates are at least open to an increase in the federal minimum wage.

“What jobs there are [in the district] are predominantly low-wage jobs, so

Charles Wallin

MAP COURTESY OF NCGA

raising the minimum wage would make a big difference,” Brannon said. “I absolutely believe that’s something we should do. I believe that except for very well off areas the model that’s worked best is to raise it incrementally. One big objection I’ve heard is that small business owners won’t be able to afford it. But if you raise it incrementally, businesses will be able to raise prices to make up the difference. I would favor a $15 minimum wage phased in over five years.”

Roberts said he agrees with incremental minimum wage increase up to $15.

“We don’t want to see the small businesses hurt by it,” he said. “No one wants to see a hamburger go from $4 to $12 all at once. We will get used to $10 hamburgers. There are already $10 hamburgers at Red Robin.”

Wallin said that Watauga County’s No. 78 ranking out of the state’s 100 counties for hourly pay and poverty rate upwards of 25 percent demand that Congress “take a serious look” at a minimum wage increase. But the candidate said the rate needs to be set by region based on relative cost of living.

Homes participating in the historic Johnson Street district include: John Paulin of Alan Ferguson Interiors and Grassy Knoll will present a wedding theme at the 1908 Queen Anne-style Ecker House, 901 Johnson St. French Heritage will display an outdoor dining theme in the gardens of the 1926 J.E. Marsh, Jr. Georgian Revival Home, 909 Johnson St.

Culture

Perch and Nest Builders will show off The Pecan, a tiny house at 1002 N. Main St.

Cover Story

A locally-crafted glamour tent and furnishings from a High Point showroom will display a glamping theme designed

by Lisa Sherry Interieurs using local showroom furnishings by Red Egg & Buzzispace at 1105 Johnson St.

Opinion

Brianne Verstat and ClubCu will feature a bohemian-style cocktail party in the garden at the 1923 historic Rectilinear David L. Bouldin Home, 1006 Johnson St.

News

Sami Price of Just Priceless will design a garden in the theme of a child’s birthday party at the 1919 Foursquare Victorian Dunbar-Whitener House, 1001 Johnson St.

Up Front

themselves in an unfortunate situation is a Christian thing to do.”

Wallin said the United States needs to do better by its new arrivals.

“This country was founded on people being able to come here and better themselves and have an opportunity,” he said. “We need to help them instead of pulling them up and sending them away, by making sure they want to be here legally, whatever it is — visas, green cards. What if some of our ancestors came over here and were treated this way? We wouldn’t have the America we have now.”

Roberts said he supports the president’s policy.

“I think we are proceeding very carefully, and that’s what I encourage them to do,” he said. “Every war we have brought in a lot of refugees, from Vietnam to the smaller conflicts like the Dominican Republic. We have helped these refugees, and they have added to our country.”

triad-city-beat.com

“In the state of North Carolina you need at least $10 an hour to barely make it,” he said. “I think we start there as the goal to get to. I’ve talked to many small business owners who would be crippled by a jump to $15 an hour.

Many are already paying at least $9 an hour.

“The number we get to has to have some teeth so that the larger businesses don’t pass the cost on to the consumer,” Wallin added. “All that is going to do is devalue the wage we set. Then we are right back where we started.”

In the face of demands by Republican politicians that President Obama suspend refugee settlement from Syria due to concerns about terrorists coming into the country, many Democratic voters have loudly proclaimed their support for the program.

“I believe that country borders are largely artificial constraints,” Brannon said. “If we believe human suffering is immoral, it’s our duty to alleviate that wherever we can. I’ve seen a lot of people who have an issue with letting people into our country who are Muslim, but I believe helping people who find

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May 11 — 17, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games NEST Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

12

HIGH POINT JOURNAL

First responders armed with Narcan curb heroin overdose deaths

by Jordan Green

High Point continues to be buffeted by heroin overdoses, but thanks to more police officers, EMS personnel and family members having access to Naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses, the number of deaths so far this year is zero.

When Jim Bronnert, president of Oakview Citizens Council, learned that one of his neighbors in the Chatham Wood Apartments complex had overdosed on heroin in the past couple weeks, he sprang into action, organizing a community meeting open to neighborhood associations across the city with a presenter from Alcohol Drug Services in Greensboro.

Located midway between the city’s affluent, northern suburbs and the leafy, old-money redoubt of Emerywood in the core city, Oakview is affordable yet comfortably situated between the city’s extremes of wealth and poverty.

Bronnert was surprised to learn from High Point police Officer Robert Burchette during the meeting he called on Monday evening that his community has been struck not once, but twice by heroin overdoses since the beginning of the year — one taking place inside an apartment and the other in the parking lot.

The heroin epidemic slammed into High Point in 2014, when the city recorded about 120 overdoses, 14 of which turned out to be fatal. Burchette noted that in 2015 the number dropped to 77 overdoses and six deaths. This year to date there have been 44 recorded overdoses — a number that compares unfavorably to the past year — yet there have been no deaths. Burchette attributed that to the fact that patrol officers, along with EMS personnel and family members of addicts have started carrying Naloxone, a drug marketed as Narcan that can reverse overdoses. He said police officers have reversed two overdoses by administering Naloxone.

“Sometimes you might draw inferences from a statistic that you shouldn’t,” Burchette said. “But I think you can say, being that Narcan has become much more readily available to family friends and people who are

Callie Kelly, a prevention consultant with Alcohol & Drug Services, raffles off a lockbox for securing prescription medications.

addicts, and to police officers, EMS — you gotta say there’s a correlation there. Zero deaths — that’s great, but the number of heroin overdoses are not down overall this year so far.”

Callie Kelly, a prevention consultant with Alcohol & Drug Services, emphasized to the group of 30 or so adults and teenagers at Oakview Recreation Center that heroin doesn’t discriminate by race or income, adding that the recent wave of addiction has grown out of prescription drug abuse. People addicted to opioid painkillers often switch to heroin because it’s far cheaper.

“Prescription drug abuse has been an epidemic for the last decade,” Kelly said. “If you can’t get your drug of choice, and there’s something cheaper and more accessible, what are you going to do? Get it. No one envisions themselves becoming an addict. It’s a process.

It changes the way your brain operates.”

The places where people use heroin

and overdose in High Point are strikingly commonplace. Burchette said 11 of the recorded overdoses this year have taken place in private residences, nine in parking lots, about a dozen in fastfood or convenience store bathrooms, and one even took place in a hospital parking lot.

“If you see cars in apartment complexes where you live, or it could be a Walmart parking lot or a church parking lot — you might see someone who looks like they’re sleeping or they’re slumped over,” Burchette said. “If you see somebody that’s been there awhile, call us. You could save a life.”

Kelly’s presentation covered both prevention and intervention.

Raffling off three lockboxes, Kelly encouraged people to secure prescription medications in their home.

“You can take those unused or expired medications and you can safely put them away,” she said. “So we en-

JORDAN GREEN

courage the public, we encourage adults to make sure they monitor, they secure and they dispose of the medications safely.”

The High Point and Greensboro police departments have drop boxes where people can dispose of unwanted medications. The Greensboro Police Department drop locations include 300 Swing Road and 1106 Maple St., which are open Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Burchette said the drop box at High Point Police Department, located at 1009 Leonard St., is accessible 24/7 and people may dispose of medications anonymously.

Kelly said it’s important to help addicts get treatment so they won’t be forced to go back to using drugs, but she acknowledged that sometimes that’s easier said than done. One woman at the meeting said someone with an addiction turned to her for help, but there wasn’t a bed available at Caring

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Up Front

Kelly urged the teenagers at the meeting to refrain from using prescription pills to get high.

“This month alone I’ve had 12 high school students tell me someone asked them to try Xanax or Vicodin,” she said. “Parents, it’s not going to be a stranger; it’s going to be a friend, maybe their best friend.”

She concluded by telling the teenagers: “You’re smarter than that. Addiction begins with the first use.”

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Services, a treatment program in High Point. She was fortunate enough to help the person land a spot at Malachi House in Greensboro, but only because of a personal connection.

“If people need immediate medical care then obviously you would take them to the ER,” Kelly said, “but as a place or an agency to get treatment, there are challenges to that. I wish I could speak further on that. I apologize that I can’t.”

Clay Fielding, a member of Greater First United Baptist Church, said he plans to take Kelly’s recommendations back to his fellow parishioners.

“We have a number of seniors that are using prescription medications and other medications,” he said. “The lockbox is important because of the number of older folks who have these pills, and they have grandchildren and younger children that you don’t want them to have access,” Fielding said. “Prevention is much better than having to deal with the problem.”

Bronnert said he might consider getting members of his neighborhood association trained to administer Naloxone.

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May 11 — 17, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport NEST Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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OPINION EDITORIAL

A game of chicken The US Justice Department had given Gov. Pat McCrory and our state until Monday to shut down HB2, which has cost North Carolina millions in canceled reservations, concerts and economic development plans; endangered some of our most vulnerable citizens; and turned us into a national punchline.

And instead of bowing to the inevitable tide of history and justice, our leaders dug in. To call it a “double-down” at this point would be inaccurate — this is more like a quintuple-down, and the stakes have been rising every week since the bill passed into law at a special session in March.

McCrory, state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger Sr. and their reptilian cronies have decided to treat the immediate economic fate of North Carolina like a game of chicken.

Before the feds’ deadline hit, the state filed not one but two legal motions against the federal government, the first seeking clarity of federal law as it pertains to LGBT North Carolinians, and the second asking the federal government to change the meaning of existing Title IX legislation so that our actions won’t be interpreted as illegal.

The third lawsuit of the day came from the Justice Department itself, delivered during a scorcher of a press conference

by Greensboro native and US Attorney General Loretta Lynch in Washington, DC wherein she accused our elected leaders of violating the Civil Rights Act, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Violence Against Women Act, affecting federal contributions to the UNC System and the NC Department of Public Safety that total more than $2 billion.

“This is about the dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens and the laws that we, as a people and as a country, have enacted to protect them – indeed, to protect all of us,” she said.

One might think that with the number of lawyers safely ensconced in our political class, they’d know that the winner of this issue is not actually decided by who files the most lawsuits — but then, this is the crew that’s been passing illegal laws for six years.

Wake Forest University should ask Berger to return his law degree.

And McCrory should roll on his back and expose his belly like a dog that’s made a failed play against the Alpha. But that’s obviously not going to happen.

The lions of the NC GOP seem to think that kicking this can a little closer to the elections might give them the edge they need to keep their Congressional seats, retain the state legislature and deliver North Carolina to Donald Trump in the fall. Or perhaps their calculations are a lot more selfish — focused on McCrory’s re-election prospects and the state lawmakers retaining their supermajority.

Either way, they’ve been wrong about pretty much everything, which should give hope to the marginalized majority in the Old North State.

CITIZEN GREEN

Time to hear from an ‘unbiased observer’ Greensboro City Council elected by unanimous vote in August 2013 to accept a $130,000 grant from the Greensboro Police Foundation to purchase 160 body cameras.

The resolution touted the

by Jordan Green action as a way to “enhance public legitimacy and transparency.”

Winston-Salem followed suit, and police Chief Barry Rountree offered a similar rationale in rolling out a second complement of body cameras in September 2014.

“We hope it will improve public trust and show we’re being transparent,” Rountree told city council.

“It’s a two-way street,” he added. “If the officer is accused of doing something he didn’t do, we’ll have proof. The camera is an unbiased observer.”

By then, the world knew of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and cities across the country were scrambling to maintain public trust against a mounting perception — often with good cause — of unjustified and unaccountable police violence against people of color.

In May 2015, less than two weeks after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody in Baltimore, the US Justice Department announced $20 million in funding for a national police body camera program.

“Body-worn cameras hold tremendous promise for enhancing transparency, promoting accountability and advancing public safety for law enforcement officers and the communities they serve,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch said at the time.

The cameras were embraced as a tool of reform by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in April 2015 as she struggled to respond to challenges from Black Lives Matter, and, predictably, by Mayor Rahm Emanuel earlier this year as the city of Chicago reeled from the disclosure that the police department systematically covered up an execution-style shooting by a police officer of a black teenager named Laquan McDonald.

Citizens in the small Piedmont cities of Greensboro and Winston-Salem can tell the world that promises of police body cameras promoting transparency have turned out to be mostly hollow. In the cases where public trust is most at stake — when a citizen is killed or an officer is accused of serious wrongdoing — there are innumerable opportunities for police, city councils and district attorneys to deny access to the public.

Under public pressure, the police in Winston-Salem have released body-camera video of the death in custody of Travis Page, and this week the city of Greensboro is expected to release video depicting the shooting of Chieu Di Thi Vo, a woman with limited

English capability and an intellectual disability, by former Officer Tim Bloch. (Bloch resigned from the department to pursue another line of work, Public Information Officer Susan Danielsen said, adding that his departure was unrelated to any disciplinary action.)

In the Page case, the city manager and some members of council joined the Ministers Conference of Winston-Salem & Vicinity in requesting that the video be released, only to run up against a stern warning by Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill that they would bias an investigation against the police officers if they did so. Once the inquiry by the State Bureau of Investigation cleared the officers of wrongdoing the video was released. The video shows that the officers acted with appropriate restraint and attempted life-saving measures when it became apparent that Page was unresponsive.

More than a year after a similar investigation cleared Officer Bloch of wrongdoing in the shooting death of Vo, Greensboro City Council found itself forced to release the video under entirely different circumstances: After viewing the video, the family angrily charged that what they saw and heard in the video contradicted the official story that Bloch fired on Vo when she charged him and that she was yelling.

“We did not see Chieu Di lunging at Officer Bloch, we did not hear Chieu Di yell anything in Vietnamese at Officer Bloch, and Chieu Di was not physically threatening her mother,” the family wrote in an official statement on Sunday.

City council did the right thing on Monday by voting to release the video to the public. Elected officials must surely feel tempted to suppress video of a gruesome event on the basis that seeing an officer take a human being’s life will undermine public confidence.

To the contrary, public trust was already tattered, and it is incumbent on the council to take steps to restore it.

Yet this one-time display of transparency might turn out to be more an exception than the rule: 11 different factors cited in a memo by City Manager Jim Westmoreland point to the unique circumstances of this case, among them that the Vo family holds no objections to the release, there’s no ongoing investigation to protect, the recording was not made in a private place, and the release of the video will not jeopardize the right of a defendant to a fair trial.

Ironically, for all the promises that body-worn cameras would enhance transparency, Tim Bloch argued before council on Monday that we the public will misunderstand what we see and hear when the video is released.

“There’s a problem with body-worn camera because it does not show the entire picture,” he said.

Mandatory recycling

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

Daniel Bayer is a musician and writer who lives in Greensboro.

Cover Story

The mood is apocalyptic.

Opinion

day support discriminatory laws like HB2. All these years they’ve gotten by thanks to white privilege, and now they want us to feel sorry for them? If they’re dropping dead, they’re not dropping dead fast enough.”

I can’t say I disagree with why you’d feel that way. I frequently argued these very points with my fellow whites in factories and warehouses, pointing out that they were being played for rubes, that their economic problems had nothing to do with immigrants or minorities and everything to do with the dismantling, usually by the very politicians they’d voted for, of the post-New Deal infrastructure that created and sustained the middle class.

Yet the next election would come around and they would inevitably vote for yet another politician using dog-whistle rhetoric to play upon their fears of minorities. So in a very true sense, they helped bring their present condition upon themselves. As George W. Bush might say, “Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice… can’t get fooled again.”

They won’t go down without a fight, however, and there are plenty of opportunists willing to play to their sense of despair and outrage.

They can’t win in the long run, of course. The demographics are against them; white people will be a minority in the United States by 2045 according to most estimates, and white people who resent their loss of social domination will be an even smaller subset of that. Unlike the Reconstruction or post-civil rights eras, they simply won’t have the numbers to put the genie back in the bottle.

So what can we do about this? While a symbolic, negotiated “handing over of power” is probably out of the question, we need to realize how monumental this demographic change is going to be, and we need to pull these marginalized people back into what’s becoming the new mainstream of our society. Letting them fester in their resentment isn’t going to work. It’s not good for them, and as increasingly acrimonious debates over everything from immigration to LGBT rights demonstrate, it’s not good for our society as a whole either. We need to reach out and let them know that while their values may no longer be the default ones for society as a whole, their fear is misplaced. They may no longer be the ones calling the shots, but there is still a place for them in the vibrant, diverse society that will develop in the next 30 years.

News

It’s two days after the last Republican primary that mattered. As I sit here, the GOP is now imploding over whether to support real estate developer/’80s joke/reality TV star/ KKK-enby Daniel Bayer dorsed Donald Trump as their standard-bearer in the fall. The mood is apocalyptic; we’re in uncharted waters here, the world’s turned upside down and any number of clichés signifying change on a heretofore-unseen level now apply. What the hell just happened?

Actually, I know what happened. I’ve feared this for years, hoping that we’d make it through the biggest demographic change in US history unscathed, that a society built almost entirely on white political and economic power and cultural identity could somehow transition itself to a multi-cultural one where whites are just another non-majority group living together in peace, harmony and brotherhood with everyone else. And while saner heads might still prevail, Trump’s campaign has just blown a huge hole in that hope.

Some of Trump’s appeal is rooted in real economic issues for working class people of any race. Low wages, lack of opportunity, a sense of struggling and getting nowhere… these are all problems that we as a nation should discuss. But much of his message, with its xenophobia towards Latinos and Muslims, was directed at white people who feel increasingly marginalized economically and culturally in our country. These are the people whose decreasing life expectancy caused public health experts to sit up and take notice last fall, the ones whose lives are constrained by low-wage employment, disability checks and poverty-driven dysfunction, the ones who increasingly feel lost in a world where the values that they were raised to believe in seem out of touch on issues such as same-sex marriage, and most importantly the ones who were told over and over again by politicians from Ronald Reagan to Sarah Palin that they were the “real Americans,” that the culture of this country reflected who they were, and that they were entitled to the “American Dream.”

Now I know at this point some of you are saying, “So what? Politicians who played on their fear of minorities bamboozled these people time and time again into voting against their own economic interests. They were the ones who rallied around segregationists like George Wallace and even to-

Up Front

I have often stood over my recycling bin and trashcan in the kitchen, debating where to put a rinsed-out plastic takeout container. In Greensboro, my choice doesn’t affect me negatively in the short run. I can chuck anything in the trash and hypothetically not lose any sleep over it. But in San Francisby Joanna Rutter co, if I chose incorrectly, I could get fined upwards of $100. A 2009 city ordinance there that penalizes citizens for mindless wastefulness is a brilliant ploy to reduce landfill waste, and we need to pass the same kind of ordinance here in the Triad cities.

When my family first moved out to the East Bay area in 2014, I was astounded to encounter a disparity between their huge city-mandated recycling can and the itty-bitty one provided for trash. Choosing the smaller trashcan, it turns out, meant a cheaper monthly collection rate. My mom pointed out how it changed the way they think about the waste they create, saying that if they throw too much away, their can fills up too soon and they have to drive to the waste center to get rid of it (ew). It became more convenient for my family to be militant about recycling, to avoid the fine or driving around bags of trash.

The three-can system (recyclables, compost and waste) came on the heels of several other game-changing San Francisco ordinances in the late 2000s, including forbidding businesses from using Styrofoam takeout boxes and hiking up the price of plastic grocery bags. It caused a dramatic reduction in landfill waste. They’re on track to reach their goal of being completely zero-waste by 2020.

My competitive spirit says that we here in the Triad could pull it off, too.

After helping a friend move out of her Greensboro apartment and bemoaning having to toss all her recyclable waste in the onesize-fits-all-waste dumpster at her complex, and shrieking at my poor roommate every time I find a yogurt cup in the trash, it’s safe to say I’m probably in a minority when it comes to a passion for recycling here. So to other people in that minority: Here’s how we change the world San Francisco-style.

We make it cheaper to recycle by offering discounted collection rates to apartment complexes, businesses and residential areas who use smaller trash cans. We mandate recycling collection at all businesses, including apartment complexes. And we charge people fines when they don’t comply.

Incentivizing environmentally friendly behavior is a proven method with other initiatives in the Bay Area. My dad has a bike locker pass for where he takes the train into the city from out in the ‘burbs — he uses greenways to get to the station and then stores it in a big bike hangar. The cost for parking a bike comes to about 11 cents a day, whereas a day pass for leaving his car could cost anywhere between $6 and $20. So the long-term choice to comply and be eco-friendly isn’t merely obvious in the Bay, it’s a matter of financial common sense.

That’s the best thing about eco-conscious policies: They contain the urgency and bad repercussions necessary to keep us from being so damn trashy.

What to do about these white people

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IT JUST MIGHT WORK

FRESH EYES

15

May 11 — 17, 2016 Cover Story

by Brian Clarey and Eric Ginsburg

16

The Forge makerspace reopened last week at the foot of the newly activated Lewis Street in downtown Greensboro, tucked down the train tracks from Gibb’s Hundred Brewing, HQ Greensboro and the Railyard restaurant and parking complex. Tales of inventiveness and industry will be written in this space in the years to come, but anyone who recalls this town 10 years ago will always remember the spot as the Flying Anvil music club, which flourished, floundered and finally gasped its last during a nine-month stretch in the halcyon year of 2006.

This was before the Mellow Mushroom, before the Railyard, before the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, before CityView and just as Elon Law School opened its doors. The Downtown Greenway was simply a drawing on a board somewhere. It was before Facebook became the virtual town square.

And it was before everything went to hell in October 2008, from which we are still recovering.

But that spring was a time of optimism in downtown Greensboro. Natty Greene’s had exploded on the corner of Elm and McGee streets. Elsewhere was new, and so was the ballpark on the north side. Roy Carroll had yet to convert the derelict Wachovia Building into CenterPointe luxury condominiums, and there was some talk of a public park being built across the street.

The “Positive Greensboro Attitude” Mayor Keith Holliday was talking about that year took root in the minds of a crew of successful young entrepreneurs and a seasoned downtown developer, who thought it was time to bring a big rock club to this part of the city.

And thus the Flying Anvil was born,officially launching on May 11 with a three-night grand opening featuring the likes of Tiger Bear Wolf, the Avett Brothers and Walrus after a soft opening a few weeks earlier with the Urban Sophisticates. It came to an end on Dec. 30 with Langhorne Slim and Mad Tea Party. The months in between saw dozens of shows by the big names of the day — Leon Russell, Cat Power, the Mountain Goats, the Legendary Shack Shakers, Of Montreal, Dexter Romweber, Cities, Bombadil and the Hackensaw Boys. Eastern Music Festival events, B-boy battles, an installment of Joe G’s Cover Band Extravaganza, the big stage of GreensboroFest and a rock-paper-scissors tournament all went down within the cavernous space.

It was like a long fireworks show that lasted until winter set in, leaving nothing but streamers of smoke descending from the sky.

The everybodyfields played the Flying Anvil in October 2006

Pete Schroth, majority partner in the Flying Anvil, owner the Green Bean (2002-2007): The Green Bean, I think that was my experience. We had live music pretty much every single weekend and we had jazz jams every Monday night. When I opened the Green Bean, it wasn’t so much that I loved coffee, it was more the art and the music I was interested in and I knew the coffee shop would lend itself to that.

After doing that for years you definitely see there are a lot of bands that we were missing that I wanted to see and share with other people. There’s always that complaint about why do we have to drive to Chapel Hill, so we decided to try and do it here.

It seemed like an evolutionary step coming from the

Green Bean. We did so many live shows there that we kind of wanted to have another space to do shows on a bigger scale. It totally seemed to make sense at the time.

Brian Crean, investor and proprietor of the Flying Anvil: Pete Schroth and I were good friends from graduate school at UNCG. He opened the Green Bean and I was a regular there, I was close friends with the family, helped babysit the kids and helped his wife Anne at Red Canary. Pete was talking about doing the music venue… and at the time I was just thinking it was great to be involved. I scrounged up some money and actually took out a small business loan. Pete owned 51 percent, I owned about 15, and there were a handful of other investors that owned about 5 percent.

I’ve always been a big music fan. I lived in Atlanta and Athens, Ga. before moving to Greensboro, so I went

kind of marry the two, then we would both benefit from that. I saw the decline of the record store and saw that live shows would be the catalyst to sell records.

For me it was a win-win. I could bring in some bigger acts and try to move some records, and Pete being an entrepreneur also to me was a catalyst. We thought it was gonna be massively successful.

Milton Kern, downtown developer, property owner: I found out that Pete was looking for a place to open up a music venue and went and bought this building for Pete Schroth and upfitted it for him to his instructions and specifications within reason. Something about six months into it he said he had to quit. They did great for quite a while.

Crean: There was a group of us. Andrew Dudek was not a business partner but he helped us book bands. Pete handled our booking and marketing, I handled our operations so I managed the bar and employees and made sure everything ran smoothly. Andrew was a sort of a booking partner, he tended to book some of the indie rock shows.

Pete booked some of the bigger names we had.

Ben Singer, Greensboro music professional: I had just landed in Greensboro in 2005, and I was working at Novation Software at Elm and February 1. I was just working, not playing [music], and definitely didn’t know any musicians around town, didn’t have any associations in the scene even for several years after that.

I remember seeing Dave Rawlings Machine there — I had several CDs by them and I was like, Oh my god, he’s gonna be down there. I remember how exciting it was to have people doing interesting stuff because in Greensboro there was so little. When I saw the club I was like, This is amazing and perfect and I can’t see how it will survive. The club, it’s just too big. There’s not enough people here to fill it up.

DAVID BUTLER

Erik Beerbower, investor in the Flying Anvil, proprietor of Lyndon Street ArtWorks (2003-2011): Greensboro was at that time trying to find its artistic identity. They had just started promoting First Friday, Elsewhere had come in. It was a good time to try something like that.

I thought it would be a logical extension to Lyndon Street.

I saw us having art shows in there, a large venue to start combining art and music. Unfortunately, it failed.

Andrew Dudek, investor in the Flying Anvil, proprietor of Gate City Noise (2001-2006): Pete Schroth came to me and said, “Hey, I want you to invest in this project. It’s gonna be fantastic. It’s gonna be big.”

I had been doing live shows [at Gate City Noise] and I could broaden the acts by having a bigger stage. I could get the bigger bands I wanted to get. Pete knew this.

If I was to move Gate City Noise to the Flying Anvil and

Dudek: We needed it. A successful town has a few music venues and a few that have different capacities. The Flying Anvil was 854 capacity, and that’s big. That was bigger at the time than Cat’s Cradle. We were gonna break it into several stages, the main stage and the small stage but the cost of two soundboards [was too much]. We decided to put all our chips in and do one big room.

Diarra Crckt Leggett, bartender at the Flying Anvil: It was kind of pitched as Pete, Crean and Dudek being like the face men and how they were gonna have a first-rate live music venue and did I want to be a part of it? It was an enthusiastic, “Hell yeah! I definitely want to be a part of it.”

We mostly served just highballs and beer and wine. This was before craft beer got big, but Natty Greene’s had a stake so we stocked Natty’s beer. Remember that Burn energy drink? We had Burn instead of Red Bull. People were like, “Awwwww….”

I remember Little Brother played there; I recall a lot of rum and cokes — we didn’t have any cognac. The indie kids were of course drinking PBR. The Leon Russell show, that was one of the early shows that illustrated the nightmare of having a liquor bar without food. You had to buy a mem-

bership to get in, and there was a three-day wait. That was problematic for buying tickets at the door.

Schroth: Everybody that was involved in that place, everybody that was a partner and that worked there was in it for the right reasons. It was totally about the music and the community. It’s a shame that that didn’t work but the intentions of everyone that stayed involved were pure. it was meant to be something incredible.

triad-city-beat.com

to live shows all the time. I worked in Little Five Points in Atlanta and I worked at Variety Playhouse, which is a music venue. I worked there for a couple years, worked at CD stores and that kind of thing, and was always very interested in music. I thought, “Yeah this would be great.”

To me it was about creating interesting, vibrant businesses that appeal to people my own age instead of always going other places to do that. I’d seen shows at Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem and Cat’s Cradle [in Carrboro], and like I said I’d lived in Athens right before moving to Greensboro.

Having always lived in a place that always had a great music venue and not seeing one in Greensboro, I thought, “Well, let’s do one here.”

Crean: Pete came up with that.

Schroth: It’s an old blacksmith tradition where they would pack an anvil full of gunpowder and it was almost like a competition to see who could launch the anvil the highest…. It’s just one of those things that doesn’t sound like a very good idea but it does work. I came out of a sculpture background and Brian came out of an art background. And it’s like the whole Led Zeppelin thing, like an impossible task. We were presented a task and we were going to try and make it fly.

Dudek: It was the space that we had envisioned. Me and Pete and Brian Crean, the three of us were in there from December [2005] to May cutting pipes out of the ceiling, trying to speed up the process to start booking acts.

Beerbower: We had to gut all the bathrooms — the occupancy being what it was, there had to be proportional bathrooms. I think there were 9-11 stalls in each bathroom.

It was a huge expense that wasn’t necessarily factored in the beginning. We were like, “Why can’t everybody pee in a trough?”

Kern: I think between buying the building and putting a new heating and air conditioning system, some roof work and putting in something like 16 toilets I think we had something like $350,000 in it.

Benton James, bandleader of the Urban Sophisticates (2002-2013): I remember the venue well. [It] had a metal ceiling and it was like hell on our ears. I remember it was set up like Cat’s Cradle. It had a lot of potential. The ceiling was pretty high, they had a backstage area that was pretty cool and a pool table. They were talking about building a bookstore.

I remember not knowing how the night was gonna go, but if I remember correctly it was pretty packed. It felt so much like the Cradle that I really wanted it to become that. It felt like that club that you went to where all the big bands came before they were huge.

Singer: I don’t think I knew him at the time, but Andrew Dudek moved his record store down there; that seemed really cool but it closed down. It was on the middle of record stores starting to be a historical thing.

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May 11 — 17, 2016 Cover Story

A young Langhorne Slim (left) played the final Flying Anvil show on Dec. 30, and the Avett Brothers (right), looking fresh-faced, played the third night of a three-night opening run.

James: That was a very hot time in the ’Boro. Us, and the House of Fools, a bunch of other bands [were] crushing it. That was when Walrus was Evan [Olson] and Ray [Loughran] and Steve [Graham] and Eddie [Walker].

We sold out Greene Street two or three times, almost a thousand people, which is insane compared to now. I don’t know a band in Greensboro that does 1,000 people anymore.

Singer: Now either there are no more people or people have coalesced more into the scene, but it just seemed ahead of its time. For a certain circle of people it would be great right now, or at least it would have a good shot.

Crean: I think trying to recreate a Haw River Ballroom or Cat’s Cradle in Greensboro, the mass isn’t there. You just don’t have that many 20-to-40-year olds who are going to go out. Of Montreal is an excellent example: We sold almost 500 tickets [and] they were a real hip. We did less than $1,000 at the bar and we broke even for the night. It’s really not about can you have cool shows once a month, but how do you pay the bills on the Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday nights, and when you have a big place in a downtown setting that your rent is so high, you’re not making any money on those nights, you’re not going to keep the doors open for long.

Crean: Our biggest show was the Avett Brothers. We had other shows that were very good. The Avett Brothers were a huge upcoming band, sold out show, and it was all optimism at that point. It was easier to kind of enjoy that early success. The Mountain Goats, Cat Power played…

Of Montreal. We were mostly an indie rock club that tried to grow our appeal outside of that genre. In order to try to survive we had to be more diverse.

18

Dudek: The Avett Brothers was one of the first acts, and we knew that it was gonna be a sellout. Other than that they all kind of blended together. We tried to be creative

and be open every day as a bar if there wasn’t gonna be any music acts.

We tried to do fun things: We had a skate night with ramps in there so people could drink and skate at the same time, which in hindsight was probably a bad idea.

We had breakdance competitions with video screens showing what was happening live. We experimented with some up-and-coming bands that maybe didn’t do so hot, like Will Hoge. Some of the bigger acts really packed that place out.

Beerbower: Leon Russell rolled round the parking lot on one of those little scooters like you get in Walmart. Then he got up on stage, sat in a chair and was amazing.

Dudek: [Leon Russell] was packed. It was amazing. I think that show really helped give validity to the club. Cat Power was big. To me the missing element was the local scene. We couldn’t just book Cat Power and Leon Russell.

We had to bring local bands, and they just didn’t draw like that. We’d have 100 people in there and it would feel completely empty. Huge room. If the crowd was like 250 people, which is a successful show in a lot of respects for a lot of bands, it felt empty.

Leggett: The Avett Brothers was awful — I don’t like that band. People were super pumped and it was a lot of fun but I just couldn’t stand the band. They sound like an over-caffeinated Violent Femmes. The Bindlestiff Family Circus came. Small circuses started becoming popular after Jim Rose. They did some freakshow and magic stuff.

That was pretty cool.

Dudek: We all got ticketed by the ABC people at 2:30 in the morning for drinking beers with staff after a very successful show. I don’t even remember who it was.

It was 2:30, we were just closing up and someone knocked on the door. I let them in and they raided us. We were like, “It’s cool — we’re just having our end-of-thenight beers.”

Well, you can’t do that. We all had to go to court.

But even getting busted and getting the tickets, to us it

DAVID BUTLER

wasn’t a big deal. It was a bummer but we felt alive that night. This was the new, hip spot and we ran it.

Leggett: It was very early on and we were just happy because the evening had gone very well so we’re all sitting around recollecting our good fortune and having a drink.

I think maybe I was on my second beer — we weren’t getting hammered.

It was in between 2:30 and 3. There was a knock on the door so Andrew went to the door to see who was there.

The cops burst in in SWAT fashion. They just swept the place, started taking drinks from people. We were dumbfounded. What the hell?

They started issuing citations, saying that alcohol could no longer be consumed after 2:30.

Having worked at College Hill, I was completely unaware of that law.

Crean: About halfway through the process I started feeling uneasy. We’d been open about three or four months.

I started just putting every dollar I could back into paying off my loan and so I had paid off more than half of it by the time that we closed. I worked, with the exception of one night, I worked every night the Anvil was open. We were open usually four, five [days a week]. I was working 12 hours a day the days we were open. Early on it was a lot of fun. As we started going through our investment money it started getting much more stressful. You know, you try to put a good spin to it, but I just tried to make as much money as I could to pay down the loan.

Schroth: We probably could’ve started smaller and then grown into the space, but ego is a powerful thing. I think that was probably my Achilles, like, Hell yeah I can do this, hell yeah I can. That was probably one of the biggest lessons I’ve ever learned is that you really do have to check yourself and check in with reality every once and again.

You can convince yourself of many things and I think that’s what I did there.

Crean: We could’ve had more startup capital. We thought we had enough for a full year safely when we

Beerbower: The space itself was a challenge. You could put 100 people in there and it would look empty. It was just so vast. Another problem — it was away from the epicenter of the safe zone. That was close to being in “the other part of town.”

It’s hard to stay open as a music club when your demographic is indie kids. Some of them had like their parents dropping them off. They don’t come and spend a lot of money. It’s hard to make a profit on bottled water.

Crean: Our location at the time was not good for Greensboro. In other words, Greensboro is a big small town; it’s not really a city. People in cities understand that when you go to a show it might be in a transitional neighborhood or that you shouldn’t leave valuables visible in your car. People understand that in a bigger city. I think the community was quick to kind of label us a fringe indie rock venue in the sketchy part of town. This was before the Mellow Mushroom opened or any of the development. There was nothing back there when we just opened the Anvil and a lot of Greensboro didn’t feel comfortable going there on a regular basis. People who would drive in from out of town… would say, “This is amazing!” and they already sort of understood. The vast majority of people in Greensboro were not used to going to that sort of venue.

Dudek: We lost our parking, our rent doubled and nobody wanted to come to that side of town for their entertainment at that time.

We were spending more than we were making — in short, we were pretty generous with our guarantees. We had too many bad shows of those in a row. There was a time when it was just Pete, me and Brian running the entire place just so we could make money. I didn’t make a paycheck but maybe one month out of those seven.

We thought, If we build it they will come. But that’s not always the case.

Crean: I joke with friends now that it was my crash course MBA. I lost some money but it was a very valuable experience because it was a real-world MBA. I think it has helped me with my current job better now. I can manage people more effectively. I’m able to connect with upper management and my boss and understand his concerns much more now than I was [able to] back then. It’s just overall business maturity.

Schroth: No matter what business you open up, you’ve got to be around for more than nine months to catch on.

The longer you’re around the more the word spreads and

I think it would’ve caught on if we could’ve afforded to stay open longer and the more we could’ve learned what we were doing wrong. This was all before Facebook. The promotion of it was ads in Go Triad, it was all fliers and email blasts and stuff like that. I think if we could’ve stayed around longer Greensboro would’ve supported it. A lot of people didn’t know about it. There’s a lot of people in Greensboro who love music and a lot of those people did come out but a lot of people didn’t know we were there.

I don’t think there’s any one fault of why it didn’t make it, but I think it could have.

James: They fought the good fight. They knew what they were getting into. It is what it is in Greensboro.

Beerbower: The big question is: What is the value of the failure of the Flying Anvil? Did we learn something from it, something we can take forward with us? Or is it just a forgotten blip in downtown history?

Singer: Pete? Like Green Bean Pete? He owned that place? I don’t think I knew that. I didn’t know anybody who did stuff back then. I was just this outsider. It’s kind of funny. I have an Erik Beerbower [piece] on my wall, and Milton Kern’s ex-wife is my landlord.

Dudek: I think it was a little ahead of its time in the scheme of Greensboro entertainment and Greensboro businesses.

Beerbower: I guess I could say we were before our time, but that would be a lie.

Kern: Here we are 10 years later. Hopefully Andy Zimmerman, with the old Lotus Lounge [near the former Flying Anvil], could figure out some way to put a music venue in there, but that’s Andy’s business.

Dudek: I think it was a beacon of a scene. It was a pinnacle. Greensboro was coming up, the music scene was alive for all the college students who hung at Gate City Noise during their formative years. They were like, I’m in a city that’s totally cool.

That beacon on top of a hill — that’s why the Flying Anvil still resonates in Greensboro. It made those long-lasting memories, they still have those friendships.

That’s one thing about Greensboro: Memories stick with you forever.

Kern: I still have one of their T-shirts. It’s a little bit snug on me right now. It’s a really cool T-shirt too, a black T-shirt with the Flying Anvil emblem. It was pretty cool.

Crean: I think time has treated us pretty well. The general sense I get from people is, “Oh wow, that was a cool spot,” or “I wish we still had it kind of thing.” For the most part, I feel proud of doing that with Pete. It was a cool thing we did, it just didn’t work with that formula… overall, I would do it again. It was such a learning experience, and we had a good little run. And I think people are appreciative, that hey, these guys actually tried to do something in Greensboro, they didn’t just talk about it.

triad-city-beat.com

crunched the numbers. Some of the bigger bands require guarantees. You can lose money on the night even for a big show. We had a lot of shows that were big, a lot of people in there having a good time and we lost money.

That’s something I never thought of before we opened.

It’s another thing to have less money at the end of the night than when you started.

Where are they now?

Erik Beerbower closed Lyndon Street ArtWorks in 2007 and now teaches art at New Garden Friends School.

Brian Crean returned to his job at ECS Conservation in Browns Summit after the Anvil closed. He still works there as a registrar and account manager.

Andrew Dudek left Greensboro in 2015 and now lives outside Atlanta. He worke for REI outdoor clothing company.

Benton James left Greensboro in 2013, and now works in artist management in New York City.

Milton Kern still owns a lot of property in downtown Greensboro, but not as much as he used to.

Diara Crckt Leggett works at Empire Books in Greensboro.

Pete Schroth is the road manager for the Avett Brothers and still lives in Greensboro.

Ben Singer lives in downtown Greensboro, still performs locally and works in just about every other aspect of the music business.

One of the Anvil’s benefits — and also a liability that contributed to its DAVID BUTLER undoing — was the huge music hall, accomodating almost 1,000 people.

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May 11 — 17, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games NEST Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

20

CULTURE Give Jamaican food a chance

by Eric Ginsburg

Y

eh Mon Caribbean Restaurant has seen better days. It isn’t just the weather-beaten sign out front that betrays the struggles of this south Winston-Salem restaurant, but also the empty dining room at peak lunch hour on a recent Friday.

The Jamaican-first venue, decorated with flags and the colors of the island nation, is set up to hold a couple dozen customers, but when my friend and I walked up to the counter to order, the woman on the other side appeared surprised that we didn’t want takeout.

That’s what the few other patrons we saw did, picking one of the vegetarian or curried meat dishes before slipping back outside.

There are several factors that could contribute to the state of Yeh Mon, including its location in a relatively residential area far enough off of Silas Creek Parkway that it’s invisible from the main drag, inhabiting the sort of commercial strip you would only stumble upon accidentally. Next door, a former Tobacco World store stands empty, and Tienda Hispana Salmar and a Dominican blowout hair salon fill out the mini shopping-complex.

But I’d also venture a guess that Caribbean food, and namely Jamaican, has fallen out of favor with a wider Triad audience, given the relatively slow (yet busier than Yeh Mon) stream of customers I’ve seen on several occasions at Uncle Desi’s in north Winston-Salem or Da Reggae Café in Greensboro. Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Mexican fare took hold here, and in the Gate City in particular Vietnamese and Thai are thriving. But when it comes to international cuisine, the Triad as a whole appears less stoked on the rest of the world unless we’re talking about more assimilated ERIC GINSBURG My friend Shaheen Syal digs into a beef patty in an empty dining room area at Yeh Mon Caribbean Restaurant.

European food.

The foodies may still be affixed to the burgeoning I admit to being partial to the jerk fish at Uncle Depremade beef patty to go. The beef inside is almost up-South movement or a trend of Korean cuisine. si’s; it’s the first thing I tried at the Jamaican restaurant gooey, with the consistency of refried beans, and it’s Bao is showing up on menus at the French restauand while I’ve dabbled in others, I find it difficult to piping hot beneath its flaky pastry casing. At $3, it rant LaRue and the American sandwich joint Melt stray. And I started eating at Da Reggae Café when would be hard to put the bar for entry much lower. in Greensboro, while the reclaimed Southern dish I claimed vegetarianism, so I can’t say I’ve tried the Whatever your reason for skipping out on Jamaican Hoppin’ John is suddenly on menus at places such as oxtail at either. food, consider giving it another try. If you sit down and Krankies in Winston-Salem. Jamaican and Caribbean Oxtail is a popular dish in plenty of countries around stay awhile at Yeh Mon, they might cut on the music food just isn’t en vogue. And that’s stupid, because it’s the world, but to someone like me who didn’t grow up for you, as someone did most of the way through our delicious. with it, the name alone can be a turn off.

When you inirecent lunch. But one thing is almost certain; you’re If you’re drawn to collard greens, rice and peas, or tially see the thing, your first reaction might be, “Wait, bound to find something you’ll like. gravy-slathered meat, there’s no good reason to skip there are bones in this?”

Caribbean food. If you’re a vegetarian Oxtail is a fatty, gelatinous cut of stuck on tofu curry dishes, why not try Pick of the Week meat, with the bone in the middle Visit Yeh Mon Cacallaloo at Yeh Mon, a stew-like mix of Spring has sprung; co-ops have co-opted it anchoring the tender flesh around it.

At leafy greens inspired by West African ribbean Restaurant Cookout for the Co-op @ Peeler Recreation Center Yeh Mon, the dish comes with steamed cuisine that varies between Caribbean at 1345 Lockland (GSO), Monday, 6 p.m. cabbage and rice, but more importantly nations? Or if you don’t feel adventurAve. (W-S) or find it a thick, savory sauce that doesn’t taste Two words: free food. All you ever need to hear, ous, order the jerk chicken wings here right? No? Okay, more details: Join the Renaissance anything like gravy yet still evokes the on Facebook. instead of at a dive bar.

Community Co-op in ringing in springtime. There’ll same feeling. It’s better, and instantly To really appreciate the offerings of be live music. Whoever ropes in the most new coagreeable, too. any Jamaican or Caribbean restaurant op owners at the cookout wins a prize, so, game on.

If you’ve never been to Yeh Mon, the most noncomthough, it behooves you to try a curried dish — chicken, Find Renaissance on Facebook for more. mittal way to check out the restaurant is ordering a goat or fish — or to go all in for the oxtail.

triad-city-beat.com

Fresh paint for a boozy coop

Up Front News Opinion

The Iron Hen now sports a refurbished interior and exterior, including additional seating, but the wait is just as long to get inside.

ERIC GINSBURG

NEST Games Shot in the Triad

Eclectic

Fun & Games

$39/week.

Culture All She Wrote

barrel-rested gin, apricot brandy, angostura bitters, restaurant is in line to join Preyer Brewing’s Chef a little OJ and pomegranate juice for me. He executSeries — specialty-brewed beers with a very limited ed both well, though the lady and I preferred the release in partnership with local chefs. So far, the Rosemary Bramble. only beer in the series is a pairing with Kris Fuller of In an unusual move, three of the 14 cocktails on Crafted called the Art of the Mango-zuh, a mango the Hen’s list don’t contain liquor, gose sour brew. instead relying on liqueurs for their There’s only one draft line set up at Visit the Iron Hen alcohol, including Aperol, Grand Marthe Iron Hen, with a beer can-shaped at 908 Cridland nier with schnapps and another with tap handle that reads “Coop’s Kick’n Road (GSO) or at Pimms. More predictably, vodka is the Ale.” For now, it pours Preyer’s Lewis star elsewhere, appearing in five of the & Krunk West Coast IPA, though staff ironhen.com. drinks including one with ancho chili mistakenly believed it to be an IPA vodka, green tomatoes and tomatillos. brewed specifically for the house. Not We almost ordered a gin drink with kiwi, fresh quite yet, Nicole Preyer confirmed, but if the relaorange juice and soda; maybe next time. tionship moves forward, it will likely draw considerThe Iron Hen’s beer selection is relatively short, able local attention. at least in comparison to most popular restaurants Better snag a seat at the bar now then, while you in the vicinity, which recognize the popularity of can. the state’s crafts. Here, customers can find three YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’LL FIND...

Natty’s beers, Red Oak Reserve this ad for and four other North Carolina crafts in cans, as well as the old guard of Blue Moon, Sweetwater Call Dick at 420 and Yeungling. Wine 336.402.0515 is a little easier to come

by Nature or email at by, though not exactly dick@triad-city-beat.com copious.

But before you give the Iron Hen folks a hard time about their lack of brews, INCENSE • CANDLES • JEWELRY & MORE it’s worth noting that the 336-373-0733 • 414 STATE ST. • GREENSBORO

Cover Story

The trick to finding seating at the Iron Hen is a willingness to sit at the bar.

The “Fresh. Local. Good.” restaurant at the nexus of Fisher Park, Irving Park and Latham Park recently remodeled and added more

by Eric Ginsburg indoor seating, blowing out the former bar area along the back wall. Still, diners are often hard-pressed to find a seat in the Hen’s coop. But show up in a small party (we’re talking one or two) and you can probably find a spot at the counter without a wait.

The makeover extends beyond seating to envelop the interior and exterior décor — gone is the green, replaced with an energy that is just a hint more gussied up but still eminently casual. It vibes with the reconstituted, heartier menu that offers 14-hour smoked brisket, cornmeal and pork rind-crusted catfish with grits and collards, bacon-wrapped meatloaf, pork rind nachos and fried chicken livers.

This is the new South, much like the old South, which is — like the restaurant — re-imagined yet recognizable.

In my circles, the Iron Hen is regarded as primarily a brunch or light lunch spot, somewhere you could order a salad and not regret it afterwards. Despite regular trips, it’s never been somewhere I particularly considered drinking, though I’d ordered a cocktail there once before.

But with the bar displaced, its belongings took up residence on the counter, with jars of strawberries and blackberries taking up space next to simple syrup right in front of us. Behind and above it, a functional, white triangular pattern acts as shelf space for the back bar. As servers bumped into each other and passed orders back to the semi-open kitchen, I realized that between the action, the redesign and the lineup of liquor, I’d been distracted from my date.

My girlfriend and I had arrived in pursuit of comfort food on a rainy Friday evening, and found it in the chicken pie turnovers with mashed potatoes (I highly recommend this) and the satisfying hoppin’ John with sautéed Cajun shrimp. After overcoming my brief distraction, I turned my attention to her.

And our cocktails.

I wouldn’t have realized our server lacked experience behind this bar if I hadn’t seen him checking the recipes periodically for our two gin-based cocktails — the Rosemary Bramble with Beefeater, blackberries, lime, rosemary syrup and ginger beer for her and the Fancy Mountain Gin with Cardinal

21

May 11 — 17, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games NEST Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

22

CULTURE On the circuit with Vanessa Ferguson and Mr. Rozzi

by Jordan Green

M

r. Rozzi, with his prodigious dreads piled under a knit cap and waist-length beard tied in a bun, and Vanessa Ferguson, wearing a dress shirt, long cardigan and black, felt bowler, could hardly be more stylistically different.

The distinction carries over to their personalities, too. Rozzi, also known as Kenneth Fuller, a laidback dude with a drawl that tends to break into an appreciative laugh at the end of his sentences, exudes the relaxed country cadences of the mid South. Ferguson’s taut and focused demeanor, and straight-forward diction draws directly from her native Brooklyn.

The two, who recently became engaged, are each fully realized as music artists in their own right, although they frequently collaborate. Rozzi, aka Blackbeard da Voyager, refers to himself as a “hip poet,” an amalgam of the early battle rap style inspired by ’90s boom bap that gave him his start and the conscious poetry tip that he pursued in the early aughts.

Ferguson is the archetypal R&B torch singer, but that hardly encapsulates the parameters of her musical talent and interests. She also raps and plays piano and guitar, while exploring a variety of styles from jazz and classical to rock and roll. In addition to writing her own material, she tours internationally with the BB King All Stars singing blues and soul standards, and is currently performing with a jazz ensemble in a Nina Simone tribute.

Both Rozzi and Ferguson enjoy travel — a habit that fits their shared vocation as working musicians. They support each other when they can: Whomever is free on a particular night will show up to work the merch JORDAN GREEN Vanessa Ferguson and Mr. Rozzi, aka Kenneth Fuller, have collaborated musically for almost a table and hop on stage for a guest spot. Additionally, decade, and will soon become wife and husband.

Rozzi travels the pro-modified car racing circuit, selling T-shirts and performing. He also sponsors a car, the Singapore because she was worried about the risk and Aruba.

No. 57 “Thundercat” out of Charlotte. of being victimized by sex trafficking, but her friend The couple met in 2007, although Rozzi thinks they “Sometimes we’ll travel just to eat,” Ferguson said. found work with the booking agency el-live Producmight have crossed paths before then. He had been They recently took a trip to Pigeon Forge, home of tions and wound up performing in Beijing. He hooked promoting shows at a venue called the Remedy on Dollywood in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Ferguson up with the outfit, and she in turn referred West Market Street in Greensboro. Gav Beats, a hip“Sometimes you got to go Jeremy Johnson, a vocalist from hop/R&B artist became a fixture there; Rozzi noticed and clear your head,” Rozzi said.

Greensboro. They also worked his dedication and offered him a standing gig. Ferguson He had to take advantage of the for SeGrace, which bills itself as Check out Vanessa Ferguson opportunity to ride go-carts, “China’s premier luxury enterPick of the Week and Mr. Rozzi’s music on Youwhile she was more into the tainment and artist manageTube at Vanessaferguson13 and ment company.” great food.

Bon Iver’s buddy folks out solo The trip originated with a sugPhil Cook @ SECCA (W-S), Sunday, 7 p.m.

MrRozzi13. Ferguson performs Rozzi visited Ferguson in Beigestion by Ferguson that they Perhaps Cook’s band Megafaun will ring a bell jing when she was working six at Boston’s House of Jazz, lohead west on Interstate 40 and if his name doesn’t; if neither does, you oughta nights a week at the Lan Club, cated at 1011 Arnold St. (GSO) just see where they ended up. look up his 2015 solo album, Southland Mission, a facility the size of a football on May 20, and Rozzi performs They’ve gone further. and change that immediately. Stereogum says field.

In 2011, they spent several he’s been “lurking on the fringes of the South’s at the Greensboro Food Truck “Easy job,” Ferguson said. “I months in Beijing. One of Ferexperimental folk-rock renaissance” for a while, love the location. It’s like New Festival near Governmental guson’s friends pioneered the including palling around with Justin Vernon; this York, but twice as big. We could Plaza in Greensboro on May 15. international circuit on behalf weekend, he takes the spotlight with hand claps eat cheap. We were like rich.” of the North Carolina musicians and coos per your folkster expectations, but layers Working with the BB King All by going over to Singapore to them with electric riffs and and serious beats. Get Stars has taken her to Portugal, perform. Ferguson said she was wary of traveling to tickets at secca.org.

Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Panama, Colombia

I’m upset, how we gonna convince the young’uns to pick up their hands and put down their texts without them fearin’ that they’ll be next?/ My heart is tearin’ inside my chest, guns be blarin’ in our projects/ Moms be burying their own kids, and I’m so sick of it.”

For Rozzi and Ferguson, the next step is a lot like the last one — steady writing, recording and making videos, letting one gig lead into the next and following through with whatever strain of music gains traction.

“One thing is that tomorrow is not promised,” Rozzi said, “so we’re not

sitting around and moping.”

Ferguson considered both sides of the equation for a moment before laying out her manifesto.

“One thing I learned from the greats is — Maya Angelou said, ‘The only thing that’s gonna last is how you make people feel’ — Whitney Houston is gone.

Prince is gone. James Brown is gone. Michael Jackson is gone. Luther Vandross is gone. So the only thing that’s gonna last is how you make people feel — and the recordings. The performance is gone after it’s over.”

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Coast type cat grew up on BDP tracks/ My mind is well rounded, my kids keep me grounded/ Been looking’, but I haven’t found it/ Old-school vibe mixed with new-school mass appeal.”

Rozzi and Ferguson’s most notable collaborative track “N da Jungle,” with counterintuitive videography shot in Greensboro’s bucolic Arboretum, takes a more mercenary stance than most of their work. “Throw ’em up, what’s that you reppin’?” Ferguson raps. “Walking down our block will get you shot in two seconds/ I’m gonna need you and them to go back the other way/ People get laid out around here ’bout every other day.”

“With You,” a breathy jazz ballad that has become a beloved staple of Ferguson’s repertoire, is a more standard calling card, while “I Got What the Game Needs” showcases the restless scope of her artistic vision. Opening with Ferguson playing a stinging guitar solo, the artist issues a manifesto: “People say the game is different now, and it’s hard finding something hot/ So I told them I’d go to the studio, grab my pen and pad, give it a shot.

“I’ll take R&B, mix it with jazz, do some rock and roll and a touch of classical music,” she continues. “That’s how I’ll do it: Music is happiness, I must pursue/ Not saying I’m the best, don’t misconstrue it/ But I never would have bit it if I couldn’t chew it.”

Circling back to hip hop, Vanessa takes the perspective of a bereaved mother in a genuine anthem for Black Lives Matter, rapping over a sample of Sade’s “Pearls” with verses directly referencing Mike Brown and Eric Garner.

“Yo, it’s like they got brand new moves,” she says. “There was lynching, heroin, crack, black-on-black crime, now you get shot six times both those who defend and protect they own neck/

triad-city-beat.com

performed in a band with Gav Beats called Untitled, so by that time they were moving in the same circles.

But it wasn’t until 2007 that Rozzi was formally introduced to Ferguson. She had joined a group called the Solcetfre Project with William Trice, her voice teacher at NC A&T University, and Jeremy Johnson, with whom she would later work in China. Rozzi was checking out Solcetfre Project because he was interested in managing Johnson as a solo artist. Johnson introduced Ferguson to Rozzi, saying in jest, “This is my beautiful wife.”

In an era when getting signed to a record label with the wherewithal to give artists promotional backing is no longer a viable option and free music streaming over the internet is ubiquitous, Rozzi and Ferguson have become prolific videographers as a means of keeping themselves in the public eye.

Any review of Rozzi’s canon has to begin with “I Love Miself,” a slice of hip-hop uplift that juxtaposes the emcee’s gentle flow with scenes of breakdancing on a blanket in a suburban backyard. “Long Ride,” released in 2007 is a classic, built around the hook, “We in this for the long ride/ Gon’ be in this for a long time/ All haters please step aside….” The colored paper cutout cinematography — one scene shows Rozzi bouncing along behind the wheel of a boxy car with cacti flashing by — suggests “South Park,” underscoring an artist who is confident but doesn’t take himself too seriously.

The gonzo stance and technicolor eccentricity of “Let Me Do Mi Thing” from December 2015 with a video centered on an illicit parking garage party is balanced against “Finish U Off Part 2 & 1,” a heartfelt homage to Rozzi’s boom-bap roots. Rozzi declares in the video, which was released in early April: “I’m an East

23

May 11 — 17, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games NEST Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

24

CULTURE Stephen Gee remembered: ‘Larger than life’ visionary and friend

by Joanna Rutter

T

“There are so many stories, I can’t remember them all.”

There was a pause as Triad City Beat Publisher Allen Broach tried to recall a specific memory from the 30 years of his friendship with Stephen Gee, founder of Corson Productions, eventual managing and artistic director of the Broach Theatre Company and a Triad theatrical mainstay who passed away on the morning of May 6.

Eventually, Broach couldn’t place his finger on one moment, claiming there were just too many.

Which, it turns out, is appropriate when remembering Gee, a man with as many roles in life as on Broach’s stage, from running the children’s theater program to combing through mainstage production scripts, from cleaning dressing rooms to caring for the two resident theater cats.

“He was larger than life,” Lisa Dames, a former actor with the Broach company, said.

“But one of the biggest hearts, and so incredibly talented.”

Two weeks ago at a reunion party for the theater, Broach remembers a slight damper on the evening because of Gee’s absence.

“We knew he wouldn’t last long,” he said.

Shoulder and spine pain in March caused Gee to check in to the hospital, where doctors found masses in his spine, lungs, pancreas and kidneys, according to Camilla Millican, who acted alongside Gee with the Touring Theatre of North Carolina. He was diagnosed with cancer in late March, and his decline was rapid.

Philip Powell, a “Broacher” off and on since 1997, got the call to fill in for Gee in the spring 2016 production of Dr. Claribel, Ms. Etta and the Brothers Cone with the Touring Theatre of North Carolina.

Powell knew then just how serious his illness was.

“When it comes to plays,” Powell said, quoting an actor’s platitude, “‘When you’re sick, you show up; when you’re dead, you call.’” He added with a dampened laugh, “Now, that’s inappropriate [to say].”

Up to the end, Gee took that platitude seriously as a vocational theater man, honing and nurturing his craft in the Triad for a majority of his life.

He didn’t go at it alone, though. He founded Corson Productions with his life partner, Hall Parrish, a fellow actor and director who eventually ran the Broach Theatre with Gee through its 25-year lifespan.

“It is almost impossible to talk about Stephen without talking about Hall Parrish,” Powell said.

“They were a unit, a team.”

Powell and Dames recall that Parrish helmed most mainstage productions while Gee preferred the Ragamuffin children’s theater, putting on shows like The Princess and the Pea. Not only did their shop snag the title of longest-running professional company in downtown Greensboro, the team also won the Berilla Kerr Award for Out-

PHILIP POWELL Triad theater legend and downtown pioneer Stephen Gee passed away on May 6.

His friends said Gee was renowned for his comedy and his generosity toward others.

standing Contribution to Contemporary American Theatre — a big-city recognition in what was even more of a small town in the ’80s and ’90s.

Which is why it’s just as impossible to talk about the impact Gee’s life had on the rise of the downtown theater community without talking about the beginnings of the Broach Theatre.

Allen Broach, then the principal at Broach & Co. advertising agency, was approached by Gee and Parrish in 1987. They were looking for rehearsal space for their new theater company and had their eye of 520 S. Elm St., Broach’s agency headquarters and an ex-Salvation Army mission. Broach, a theater lover, lent them the auditorium space; after an expensive run at the Town Hall theater, in which “they lost their butts,” according to Broach, they made their partnership more permanent.

Correction A story in the May 4 issue of Triad City Beat, “Mijoo Kim captures a ‘trail of threads’ through her lens,” contained a number of errors. Kim’s father was not an immigrant worker; she went on a trip with her close friend, not her cousin, while at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The man they interviewed was unarmed. We regret the errors.

DAVID BELL

Thirty years, hundreds of productions and several competing downtown theaters later, it’s fair to proclaim that relationship a success.

“They were brave, visionary men, spitting in the face of the odds stacked against them,” Powell said in a Facebook post.

Later over the phone, Powell recalled Greensboro’s theater scene of yore, before Elm Street was given attention.

“There was no thriving industry,” said Powell.

“Let me put it this way: You had no problem finding parking.”

Among other since-bygone institutions, Dames recalls a McDonald’s near the theater that Broachers

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when he passed away. According to Dames, the last words he said were, “Hey, baby.”

“That’s what he used to say to Hall whenever he’d walk into a room,” she said.

Powell said Gee became sober in the last few years of his life and helped others with their addiction, apparently while working on a one-man show about his experience with alcoholism and his journey toward recovery. The file is on his computer somewhere, and Broach hopes to get permission to access it and see how much is left to write.

“There are enough of us who know him,” Broach said. “We want to finish the show and put it on the road in honor of him.”

Friends and colleagues alike concurred that Gee’s legacy will continue to live on in the thriving theater scene in downtown Greensboro.

“At one point in time, this would’ve been a crazy idea,” Powell said. “But these were just simple guys who wanted to do theater, found the space, and started doing it. Nobody was telling them it was silly.”

Up Front

comedic “Tuna Shows,” in which Parrish and Gee acted out a legion of characters in a pretend Texas town.

“If we just did that, we’d sell out every night,” Broach speculated.

And they often did. Powell said the pooling together of Parrish and Gee’s talents with Broach’s resources created the foundation for other theaters to follow suit in the ghostlike downtown area.

“They proved it could be done,” he said.

Toward the last few years of his life, Gee suffered a hard blow when he lost Parrish to cancer in 2008.

“When Hall passed away, he was heartbroken,” Dames said. “He continued as best he could.”

Gee’s sister was present last week

triad-city-beat.com

lovingly referred to as the “Crack-Donalds.” She said naïve theater-goers with preconceived notions of the neighborhood would often call the box office in advance to double-check that they would be “safe” down on that side of town.

It was a “safe haven” for all scrappy lovers of the arts, Dames said. “[Gee and Parrish] used to put up actors in their second-floor guest bedroom, and hosted Thanksgiving at their house every year for all us orphans who didn’t have family in town,” she said.

Even though it was sold to the Community Theatre of Greensboro in January 2012, the Broach’s legacy lives on in its actors and in its loyal audiences — all of whom fondly recall what were colloquially referred to as the now-legendary

Fun & Games

COURTESY OF CAMILLA MILLICAN

NEST

Gee with Deborah Kintzing and Camilla Millican. Millican says this photo was taken on the last day Gee performed.

Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

A typical look for Gee.

BROACH THEATRE COMPANY

Gee, partner Hall Parrish in Tuna Christmas.

STEPHANIE HOWIESON

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May 11 — 17, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games NEST Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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FUN & GAMES

W

hat a dump.

That’s what Bette Davis would’ve uttered if she’d walked through one of the three famous arches at Greensboro’s World War Memorial Stadium for the NC A&T University douby Anthony Harrison ble-header on May 7. Frankly, it’s what I thought.

This should arrive as no surprise to many Greensboro residents. Saying this tiny, 90-year-old jewel box “has seen better days” understates the problem to an insulting degree. As a descriptor, “decaying” hits too on-the-nose; “decrepit” ignores a major factor of the cause. Due to both age and neglect, the stadium is dilapidated; War Memorial has, since placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001, become a ruin making the Colosseum seem gracefully aged and intact.

The stadium’s beautiful façade has partially crumbled and exhibits black water stains. The concrete grandstand has eroded far worse than the façade, and among its rows and aisles lay scattered piles of dry-rotted peanut shells, sunflower seeds, corn cobs and animal turds. Weeds and moss grow alongside the detritus. A hideous shade of gray shrouds most exterior surfaces, and only partially: The peeling paint reveals past coats or the brick underneath. The elements have rusted many of the green, yellow and red folding seats – some from Philadelphia’s legendary Shibe Park – rendering them unfit for sitting.

Not that it mattered to me. I situated myself in the hunching wooden press box, which has been no better cared for than the rest of the stadium.

The other cushy Division I-school press boxes I’ve had the opportunity to occupy — some chockful of sophisticated broadcasting equipment — made War Memorial’s press box seem like a cell block.

Four cubbies divide the press shack. Admittedly, the interior paint has withstood neglect better than anything else in the stadium, but the colors — red, white and Columbia blue — seem more befitting of the bygone Houston Oilers.

Compliments end there.

The speckled grey carpet in my corner hovel held a motley array of debris: More sunflower shells, mustard packets, napkins, plastic drink tops, plasticware wrappers, a McDonald’s bag, a stray dryer sheet, one green Skittle and copious dirt. Piles of cables wrapped upon themselves like a ball of mating garter snakes.

Old tape had incorporated itself into the surface of the rickety scoring table, which also held a disconnected landline, an obsolete mixing board, a laptop-sized tape recorder, a Walkman cassette player and — weirdly enough — a pair of tweezers. Brown dust caked all but that most curious item. A&T’s Associate Athletic Director of Communications Brian Holloway doubled

Pride of the Aggies as announcer in the adjacent hidey-hole, the mic — performed by yours truly. breaking as the carelessly draped XLR transmitted his After Aggie right-hander Tevelle Clark finished his stats outside to the portable PA system. An inoperable complete, seven-inning game, aided by a final line-out scoreboard necessitated his presence. There was no directly into first baseman Kyle Clary’s glove, Smith air conditioning, a fact ameliorated by spring breeze announced, “That’s the game! Your Aggies win, 6-3… steadily blowing through the mildew-lined windows, wait, 6-4.” stirring dead hornets in the sills.

Yeah, War Memorial Stadium is a dump.

And finally — also no big deal — I had no chair.

But what a dump.

War Memorial’s condition is deplorable, but you can’t lay full blame on A&T. Sure, they’ve been a major tenant since the ’20s — first for football, then baseball Pick of the Week beginning in the ’30s. But since the Greensboro Bats Home-field advantage abandoned the stadium in 2004, the city has owned Southern Conference Softball Tournament @ UNCG and ostensibly maintained the property.

(GSO), Wednesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.

The city of Greensboro and the university have UNCG hosts the SoCon Softball Tournament this been discussing transferring the property for years. week, and the home team opens the tourney. Game A&T plans to dramatically renovate the park, namely 1 begins at 10 a.m. with the No. 4-seed Spartans restoring the towers, walls and façade; updating all (32-24, 9-9) taking on No. 5 East Tennessee State plumbing, concessions facilities and locker rooms; University (20-20, 9-9). UNCG advanced to the removing the added-on canopy roof and replacing championship game when hosting in 2013 and 2014, two-thirds of the seating with grass berms. According so things could get interesting. For more info, visit to the university, it’ll take time — five to six years — soconsports.com. and oodles of money: Upwards of $6 million, with $1.5 million pledged by Greensboro and $2 million requested from the state. But repairs are necessary.

For now, the Aggies play the hand they’ve held for decades.

One thing remains in decent shape, and it’s the only thing that really matters: The field.

Holloway said the team feels a sense of pride in the park and maintains the field with love. Indeed, after the first game against the Savannah State University Tigers — a 4-3 Aggie victory — incoming rain threatened the field, and the Aggies hastily draped an enormous tarp over the diamond. Following the delay, it was again the players who removed the tarp and reset the infield for the second game.

And despite its uninviting accommodations, people still visit War Memorial to cheer on their diamond dogs.

After Holloway had to vacate his post to attend a track meet, two innings passed unannounced. Former A&T reliever Jonathan Smith, watching from the stands, popped into the press box and grabbed the mic, introducing batters and keeping tabs on the score.

“This is Division I,” Smith explained. “We gotta have someone calling the game, especially since there’s no scoreboard.”

He did fine, kidding around with friends, shouting bombastic calls off-mic. He even ANTHONY HARRISON conspired to have “Take Me Out to the Ball War Memorial’s proposed facelift could restore it to its former glory.

Game” sung during the sixth-inning stretch

by Alexandra Klein

onica Peters, board member of High Point’s Southwest Renewal Foundation and event coordinator of High Point

by Design, is hard to keep up with during our phone interview this past weekend. She enthusiastically goes over the details of BLOOM, an event showcasing six designer-created outdoor living spaces featuring products from High Point’s home furnishings showrooms and retailers in the Johnson Street National Register of Historic Districts.

“It’s very exciting because all of the proceeds go directly toward restoring the neighborhoods in the Southwest quadrant,” says Peters.

The Southwest Renewal Foundation mission is economic revitalization through environmental enhancement. The stretch of crumbling buildings that used to house much of High Point’s furniture and textile factories has and will continue to be the recipient of their outreach efforts, which includes attracting new business as well as encouraging new uses for the old buildings that once sustained High Point’s economy.

Says Peters, “Due to some of the Southwest Renewal Foundation’s efforts, we’ve already succeeded in attracting BuzziSpace, a manufacturing company out of Belgium who’ve relocated and restored the old Pickett Cotton Mill, which now employs over 200 employees!”

The foundation also seeks to create an interlocking greenway throughout the district, connecting residents and employees to schools, work, shopping, parks and recreation while helping to insure clean water in Richland Creek, preserve open space and encourage alternative forms of transportation, such as walking and bicycling.

“Southwest Renewal Foundation created High Point By Design to host biannual events,” says Peters. “One in the spring and one in the fall, to promote High Point as a year-round destination for all things design”

thrilled when she agreed to design our tent,” says Peters.

Homes and designers participating in the historic Johnson Street district include: • John Paulin of Alan Ferguson Interiors and Grassy Knoll will present a wedding theme at the 1908 Queen Anne-style Ecker House, 901 Johnson St. • French Heritage will display an outdoor dining theme in the gardens of the 1926 JE Marsh, Jr. Georgian Revival Home, 909 Johnson St. • Sami Price of Just Priceless will design a garden in the theme of a child’s birthday party at the 1919 Foursquare Victorian Dunbar-Whitener House, 1001 Johnson St. • Brianne Verstat and ClubCu will feature a Bohemian cocktail party in the garden at the 1923 historic Rectilinear David L. Bouldin Home, 1006 Johnson St. • A locally-crafted glamour tent and furnishings from a Lisa Sherry Interieurs at 1105 Johnson St. Perch and Nest Builders will show off the Pecan, a tiny house at 1002 N. Main St.

M

triad-city-beat.com

High Point in bloom

“The tiny house will be arriving in High Point on Wednesday the 11th to also be transformed by local designers,” says Peters.

Gardens will be marked with large outdoor wooden animals from Antiques & Interiors of High Point.

“Although most of the big showrooms are only open for furniture market, High Point is filled with hidden gems that are open year round, these are the ones we want to promote,” says Peters.

BLOOM — The Art of Outdoor Living, is the first of these fundraising events, and will bring together local designers, showrooms and historic gardens to showcase outdoor rooms on three walkable blocks of Johnson Street. The tour will feature six different themes: outdoor wedding, child’s birthday party, Bohemian garden cocktail

party, al fresco dining, a glamping site and a tiny home with an outdoor room.

“One new exciting twist is that local designer, Lisa Sherry Interieurs will be designing the “glamping” (glamorous camping) tent. Lisa teamed with Skyland Retreat for the first Luxe Life camp in the fall of 2013 at Skyland Camp, so we were

Visitors can tour the gardens at BLOOM: The Art of Outdoor Living on Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. Tickets are $25 for the entire garden tour and will be sold at each garden location. For more information about the event, contact info@highpointsouthwest.org, visit the Celebrate the Old North State! website at theoldnorthstatehp.com or like High Point by Design on Facebook at facebook.com/HighPointDesignCenter.

27

May 11 — 17, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture

‘Stick With Me, Kid’ and adhere to the rules.

by Matt Jones Across

1 Vehicle with a lane 5 Took in using a cartridge 10 Physical beginning?

14 Having the skills 15 ___ loaf 16 Nest egg funds 17 Big scallion 18 Parts of parts?

19 Bit of a guitar solo 20 Party drink for a woodpecker?

23 Abbr. on an invoice 24 Turndown for Watt?

25 Metal container?

26 It’s a sign 28 High-altitude monster 30 Bout-sanctioning org.

33 King Atahualpa, for one 35 Rocky’s opponent in “Rocky IV” 37 Chocolate substitute (or so they say...)

39 Result of a giant cheddar spill at the airport?

42 “Foundation” author Asimov 43 Candy bar made with toffee 44 Beat quickly, like the heart 45 Got ready for the movie 46 Big songs 48 “Return of the Jedi” fuzzball 50 Be the author of 51 Photogenic finish?

52 Cuban sandwich ingredient

55 Leader of the ship Jolly Literacy?

60 Make a street 61 Beyond the fringe 62 Shape of some mirrors 63 Thingy 64 Knight’s protection 65 Bid-closing word 66 Hamiltons 67 Consigns to failure 68 High cards

Down

1 Kon-Tiki raft material 2 High-rise support 3 Corrupt ruler of sorts 4 Frightened outbursts 5 Like some ash 6 Almost identical 7 Cone-bearing tree 8 Constantly 9 Iron-fisted ruler 10 “The House at Pooh Corner” author 11 Actor Stonestreet of “Modern Family” 12 Dashboard dial, for short 13 Find out (about) 21 One at the Louvre 22 “Spenser: For Hire” star Robert 27 Vicki Lawrence sitcom role 28 Americans, to Brits 29 Prefix for morph or skeleton 30 Do some major damage

31 Anjou relative 32 “... butterfly, sting like ___” 33 “And that’s the way ___” 34 Mars Pathfinder launcher 36 Oceanic 38 Prefix before space 40 Had pains 41 Ivies, particularly 47 Bit of progress 49 “Fists of Fury” director Lo ___ 50 Limericks and such 51 AOL giveaway of the past 53 “___ of Two Cities” 54 Canasta combinations 55 Fence feature 56 It’s so hot 57 Legal tender since 1999 58 Sphere intro 59 Civil rights figure Parks 60 Peach part

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Answers from previous publication.

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©2016 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

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South Elm Street, Greensboro

Shot in the Triad PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

Kim Kennedy is almost finished!

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SHOT IN THE TRIAD

All She Wrote

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May 11 — 17, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games NEST Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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ALL SHE WROTE

The governor’s new clothes (with apologies to Hans Christian Anderson)

J

ohn Robinson (career journalist and lecturer at UNC-Chapel Hill on social media): Governor McCrory after filing his suit against the federal government: “That’ll

by Nicole Crews show them! They can’t push us around!”

Governor McCrory after watching Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s news conference: “Oh, hell.”

Once there was a governor so exceedingly fond of discriminatory legislation that he spent much of his time defending a bill that violated Civil Rights and brought great sadness to his fiefdom and larger kingdom. He cared nothing about education, the economic state of his fiefdom nor reaching out to his constituency unless it involved throwing down the gauntlet to challenge anyone who disagreed with him. He had an argument for every business, artist or group that boycotted his fiefdom and stomped his foot at his King and his court for ruling against him. Instead of saying, as one might say, “The governor is in office,” it was said, “The governor is with his media consultants and lawyers.”

In the great city where he lived, life was gay and straight and the community was thriving. Every day many strangers came to town and among them one day came a group of political swindlers.

They let it be known that they were conservative and could weave the most magnificent arguments and legislation imaginable. Not only were their agendas, prejudices and viewpoints carefully woven — they were so fine that they were almost invisible to anyone not schooled in the law or with access to the bill.

That would be the bill for me, thought the governor. If I sign it I would be able to discriminate at will and force all of my public entities to do as I say. The swindlers started at once and in a special session that cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars they fabricated the bill. Within 48 hours the bill was ready.

I will sign the bill, thought the governor, but he felt slightly uncomfortable when he remembered that there was much hidden in the bill and that someone might discover this invisibility.

It couldn’t have been that he doubted himself yet he thought he’d rather ask his consultants how things were going. He was relieved when they informed him that the bill was fantastic! A

revelation! And that it would secure his future as governor. The whole fiefdom knew about the bill and was itching to see it!

The swindlers were thrilled. The governor’s yesmen had plugged the bill to the fullest and now he had to see it for himself. Lo and behold when he reviewed the bill he began to see its gaping holes and horrifying tears at the very fabric of the society that he governed. He knew it was invisible but he couldn’t admit it. That would mean that he too was a fraud. He thought, My people are stupid. All it needs is to slide past the eyes of my fiefdom.

Little did the governor know that not only were his people not stupid, but the eyes of the greater kingdom — aye, the world — were on him and his shoddy bill. They refused to bring their wares to his fiefdom. The actors and jesters and artists refused to perform. The people rallied against him. Despite the fact that he screamed from his mansion, “Oh it’s beautiful! It’s enchanting! I am delighted with it!” The world did not agree.

The political swindlers convinced the governor that he must stand for the bill at all costs. So when the kingdom ruled against him he stood up to them wearing the bill on his sleeve — gaping holes, shoddy workmanship and all.

And then, the attorney general of the kingdom and native of the fiefdom condemned the bill in an anti-discriminatory war cry heard ’round the world.

The governor shivered, for he knew he was naked behind the bill but he thought, This procession must go on. So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn’t there at all.

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gatecityvineyard.com

336.323.1288 204 S. Westgate Dr., Greensboro

Take charge of your mind, body and spirit Get the lowdown on Downtown Greensboro and share your favorite downtown moments by posting on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter using #DGSOSelfie (or you can email them to Selfies@downtowngreensboro.net). And all your postings may get you featured in our upcoming ads and social media feeds!

By sharing your photos, you allow Downtown Greensboro Inc (DGI) to use them for the purpose of advertising. Photos will only be used by DGI and the City of Greensboro.

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Test pH balance, allergies, hormones Balance diet, lifestyle and emotions Create a personalized health and nutrition plan

(336) 456-4743

3723 West Market Street, Unit–B, Greensboro, NC 27403 jillclarey3@gmail.com www.thenaturalpathwithjillclarey.com

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triad-city-beat.com

Illustration by Jorge Maturino