Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com June 1 – 7, 2016
The 2016 Special Primary Election Guide
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Eric Pegues, RIP PAGE 8 Jeggings or death! PAGE 7 Best beer PAGE 21
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June 1 — 7, 2016
The tech department
UP FRONT 3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 6 Commentariat 6 The List 7 Barometer 7 Unsolicited Endorsement
by Brian Clarey
NEWS 8 ‘What the freak?’ 10 Say Yes mobilizes for next phase
OPINION 12 Editorial: The electric shuffle 12 Citizen Green: Reflections on wars abroad and at home 13 It Just Might Work: Chicago pizza 13 Fresh Eyes: The new Republicans
COVER 14 Summer is coming!
CULTURE 20 Food: The traveling food circus 21 Barstool: Best beers lately 22 Music: Outsider Americana meets the music industry 24 Art: Steampunk and sci-fi
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FUN & GAMES 26 Hey, Chicago, whaddya say?
GAMES
SHOT IN THE TRIAD
ALL SHE WROTE
27 Jonesin’ Crossword
28 West Fifth St., Winston-Salem
30 Southern charm
QUOTE OF THE WEEK The good news is that because of the anticipated low turnout, your vote will carry an enormous weight. As a benchmark, a special election in June 2008 drew just 1.8 percent of the electorate. Do the math: Those who show up to vote will be speaking for roughly 50 others who stay home. — Staff, in the Cover, page 16
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CONTRIBUTORS
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ASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric Ginsburg
SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green
NEST EDITOR Alex Klein
SALES EXECUTIVE Korinna Sergent
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EDITORIAL INTERNS Joanna Rutter intern@triad-city-beat.com
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I spent all day Monday — seriously, like 11 hours — troubleshooting our website, which I had migrated over to an upgraded server with the latest version of Centos. It had been loading slow, probably because of some plugins I had installed on the WordPress side to customize the RSS feed. If you had asked me about any of those things three years ago, I would have chased you out of the room. But now maintenance of the hardware in the office, the software on the site and the programs we use to put out the paper all fall squarely within my purview. Here’s how it came to be that one of the oldest guys in the room became the tech department for a small media startup. In the initial business plan I had a web guy penciled in on staff, but before we got off the ground he took a better offer in the responsible pornography industry, for which I could not blame him. Before he did, though, he set me up with a WordPress site and a dedicated virtual server located in some warehouse in Seattle: three terabytes of muscle that for years swallowed everything we threw into its gullet — photos, video, maps and more than 3,000 posts since we launched. In the ensuing months the guys and I taught ourselves how to use it, and I picked up a few things on optimization and widgetry as the body of work — and demand to see it — grew. One might think that some of the whippersnappers running around our offices would One might think that some know more about of the whippersnappers the technology that drives our running around our offices industry than would know more about the the 46-year-old technology that drives our dinosaur wallowing industry than the 46-year-old at the desk in the dinosaur. corner, but that is not the case with our flock of millennials, who can post something to Instagram literally one second after it happens and tweak stuff to the top of the Facebook and Google algorithms but don’t know how to access the server from home. And though Jordan Green can find a campaign-finance report or a relevant statute faster than a library gnome, he is something of a technological jinx. Sometimes I think he’d be more comfortable with a typewriter. And so it was that I spent Monday tied up in knots with a crash course in server-side dynamics and the slow creep of the status bar as I indexed and optimized and called the support department again and again. By sundown it was all over. And I’m swearing off plugins for good.
triad-city-beat.com
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
CONTENTS
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June 1 — 7, 2016
WEDNESDAY
CITY LIFE June 1 – 7
Diarrhea Planet with the Kneads, Totally Slow and Harrison Ford Mustang @ the Blind Tiger (GSO), 9 p.m. Phuzz Fest vets Diarrhea Planet’s punishing schedule of more than 200 shows a year brings them from their hometown of Nashville to the Triad. Chunky, thick punk rock will ensue. The openers aren’t that shabby, either. Tickets via the Blind Tiger’s Facebook page.
Nancy Hoffmann public office hours @ Common Grounds (GSO), 5:30 p.m. District 4 Greensboro city council member Nancy Hoffmann invites you for coffee and a chat. If you’re coming up empty on conversational topics, she’s an avid local arts supporter who’s scored a cool piece for the library lately, so maybe ask her about that. Find the event on Facebook. Issue Photography @ Coffee Park Arts (W-S), 6 p.m. If you’re in the mood for some mysterious interactive art experience on a Thursday (and who wouldn’t be, really), go check out this new exhibit featuring work by Owens Daniels. The note on the event instructs, “Dress to impress ’cause you might end up on camera!” Who even knows. Find Coffee Park’s “Intersections and Conversations” page on Facebook for series details.
THURSDAY Triad Goodwill Career Fair @ St. Paul the Apostle Church (GSO), 10 a.m. More than 20 employers will be assembled waiting for their future employees. Dear reader, that could be you, doing the Lord’s work for Dunkin’ Donuts. Industries of the Blind and Crown Automotive will be there too. Call 336.275.9801 ext. 1005 to learn more.
FRIDAY First Friday @ downtown W-S and GSO If Winston-Salem and Greensboro are trying to have a contest over their respective Friday downtown bonanzas, it’s unclear this month who wins. In Camel City, the first-ever Bailey Blues and Bluegrass Festival, presented by the Blue Ridge Music Center, begins at 6 p.m. in Bailey Park and will feature Bump & Logie, the Buck Stops Here and Town Mountain. At Kleur, anyone’s welcome to bring their favorite childhood books for a community reading starting at 8 p.m. Meanwhile in Greensboro, the Center for Visual Artists present a one-night-only sale of one hundred 10-inch by 10-inch works of art by 100 artists for $100 each starting at 6 p.m. Or get your line dance on at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, recognizing June as Black Music Appreciation month with live musical performances, also at 6 p.m.
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by Joanna Rutter
Town Hall Meeting for Wards 1 & 2 @ Temple Memorial Baptist Church (HP), 6 p.m. Councilman Jeff Golden hosts this neighborly get-together. Up for discussion: Code enforcement, the city of High Point’s strategic plan, updates on the county’s down payment assistance program, and much, much more. Check the Facebook event page for info.
SATURDAY Community Baby Shower and Drive @ Windsor Recreation Center (GSO), 9:30 a.m. Teen empowerment nonprofit I Am A Queen’s Teen Advisory Board will hold a Community Baby Shower in support of the YWCA Greensboro’s Teen Parent Mentoring Program and Homeless Shelter. Donations of new or gently used baby items such as onesies, diaper bags and bottles are encouraged. For a full list of requested items, visit iamaqueen.org.
EVENTS
Thursday, June 2 @ 8pm
Open Mic Night
Friday, June 3 @ 8pm
Bradley Steele
triad-city-beat.com
World Refugee Day 2016 @ Hester Park (GSO), noon New Arrivals Institute hosts an afternoon of food, music, dancing, arts and crafts. Bring a potluck dish to share and try foods from around the world. A cool way to meet new neighbors. Sign up early for the soccer (ahem, football) tournament at ncrefugee.net.
Saturday, June 4 @ 8pm
Kim Kennedy
EbFest Bluegrass Music and Makers Festival @ Market Square Courtyard (HP), 1 p.m. In honor and memory of Eban Carter, master chef and master fiddler, the Carter Brothers, the Peace Train Band, Turpentine Shine and the McKinney Gap Band, along with John Hofmann’s Acoustica, gather to play some bluegrass. Local musicians will jam in open mic sessions in between sets. Tickets are available at ebfest.com and kids 16 and under are free.
602 S Elam Ave • Greensboro
(336) 698-3888
SUNDAY
Meet John Larson @ 40 W. Sprague St. (W-S), 1:30 p.m. Phuzz Phest papa Philip Pledger opens up his home for a friendly Q&A with one of the candidates for Winston-Salem’s South Ward city council seat just two days before the special re-vote election on June 7. Larson’s lived in the South Ward for 40 years. Snacks and drinks will be provided. Info about Larson can be found at johnlarsonforsouthward. com.
TUESDAY Prayers The Devil Answers reading and signing @ the Central Library (GSO), 7 p.m. New York Times bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb will read from her latest novel set in rural Tennessee during the Great Depression, in which a sheriff’s widow must assume her late husband’s job and encounters sexism while attempting to unravel a mystery. Visit greensborolibrary.org for more information.
Playing June 4 – 9 Ramones 40th Anniversary Explosion! Featuring
“Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” & Ramones Cover Band Performance! 8:30 p.m. Saturday, June 4 $9 ticket includes FREE BEVERAGE
--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS--
“Preacher”
TV Club Presents Based on the hit comic book series! 10 p.m. Sunday, June 5 Free Admission With Drink Purchase!
Star Trek Countdown Featuring the TOP 50 EPISODES of Star Trek 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 8 FREE ADMISSION
Totally Rad Trivia
8:30 p.m. Thursday, June 9. $3 Buy In! Up to Six Player Teams! Winners get CASH PRIZE!
Beer! Wine! Amazing Coffee! 2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro geeksboro.com •
336-355-7180
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June 1 — 7, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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Tremors of Trump Thanks for your perspective on Trump [“Citizen Green: Useful idiots and other Trump enablers”; by Jordan Green; May 25, 2016]. I am a big fan of Adam Gopnik, so thanks for letting me know about his article in The New Yorker. I am afraid of Trump getting elected for the reasons that you state. However, I don’t think he is going to win but I am nevertheless anxious to see what the margins are by which he loses, if my prediction is in fact right. After having studied modern German history while living in Berlin for 12 years, I would say that the differences between Trump and Hitler (also the context in which they live) are far greater than the similarities. But even without the comparison, there are plenty of reasons to be freaked out by this billionaire with no political past. Hannah Arendt has written extensively on how democracy rests on humans appearing in public space to show one another through speech and action who they individually are. Probably no everyday citizen wholeheartedly believes anymore in being able to know who a politician really is, in terms of understanding their explanations or the true justification for their actions. But Trump, and his “original” way of running a presidential campaign, kills off any remnant of this old tradition of the polis, historically embedded in US democracy. This cynicism regarding our political tradition, which you also reference in your article, is what worries me the most in terms of possible new expressions of totalitarian tendencies. Audrey Berlowitz, Greensboro Hot dog, I like it a lot I read your recent article with great interest as I, like you, appreciate a good hot dog [“Wiener Wars of Winston-Salem”; by Brian Clarey; May 25, 2016]. Too bad they are so hard to find. I truly agree with your assessment of Yum-Yum’s dogs; they should be outlawed! I wanted to mention/ offer one suggestion regarding hot dogs in Greensboro: Stamey’s actually has a good dog. They have them made by their supplier, and as best as I can tell they aren’t “off the shelf.” [They] actually have really good flavor. So good in fact, that I eat them just with a little ketchup so as to not mask the flavor of the dog itself. You should try them sometime if you haven’t had one. They don’t grill them to the point of being
black, but they are very good in my book. Peter A. Zanard, via email Brian, hope you are well. Enjoyed the read about dogs in the city. I think the Journal did a similar write-up in the ’90s that covered some places you missed like Peanut House and Little Red Caboose. I know Mr. Barbecue sells their fair share as well. Anyways, Krankies’ [serves] house-made hot dogs, Bologna, and bratwurst every couple weeks as specials. We had dogs last week. They usually sell out at lunch. I’d love to have you down our treat next time we have emulsified meat products. My grandmother used to work in the building Krankies is in. In 1949 she pushed hot dogs across the floor in the basement. The dogs would come falling through a chute from upstairs, [and] land in a pool of water in the basement. I take it some people still hadn’t read Upton Sinclair. It’s kinda cool now that her grandson is making real dogs in the same building. I’d like to think if a German Moravian migrant to Salem came in they would be proud and our dogs would be familiar. Mitchell Britt, Winston-Salem What’s truly missing in the Triad are Detroit Coneys. Hot dogs with skins, in a super fresh bun, with the best (and only worthwhile) chili in the world, mustard and chopped, mild onions, and you have the zenith of hot dogs. If I weren’t 65, I’d start a Detroit Coney restaurant here myself. Opportunity is calling to some entrepreneur if he or she is listening. Art Kainz, Kernersville Reynolda’s black history Today, while at Earth Fare, I grabbed a paper, sat down and perused the Triad City Beat. I am grateful that you wrote so eloquently on such a historical gem [“Citizen Green: Correcting Reynolda’s whitewash”; by Jordan Green; May 18, 2016]. I’m from Greensboro and only knew a bit about the rich legacy of the Reynolds family/ Reynolda Village. I definitely didn’t know about the marginalized stories of those African-Americans that enabled Reynolds to be what it is today. It was an inspiring story, all around. Joy J, Greensboro
5 clues your coworkers might be hooking up by Eric Ginsburg
1. They disappear together Few telltale signs give away an office romance as clearly as the two suspects routinely leaving the office and returning at very close intervals. I witnessed this firsthand at a previous job, as two colleagues would disappear mid-afternoon or during lunch just moments apart and practically pull back into the parking lot at the same time. Given that one of them lived close to the office and the way they looked afterwards — the flushed faces, the messy hair — the whole office quickly grew suspicious. 2. You catch them texting The closer their desks, the more incriminating this is. Unnecessarily private conversations are a tipoff, especially if you catch looks between their screens and each other accompanied by knowing smiles or dancing eyes. 3. They know too much If two coworkers deny that they’re friends outside of work but somehow know considerable personal details about each other, something might be up. In my former office, when the subject of tattoos arose one coworker outed another for a hidden tattoo. Busted. 4. They work together unnecessarily Different scenario: When two coworkers I know volunteered to collaborate on a project together that normally would’ve been executed alone, several people around them grew suspicious. Don’t assume just because a man and woman who work together seem friendly that something is happening behind the scenes — that’d be very hetero-normative of you, anyway — but if two people seem to be finding unnecessary reasons to be in each other’s presence at work while claiming they aren’t friends, there may be more at play. 5. Their denial sucks If someone asks one of the parties involved, their response can be the most damning evidence of all. There are no dumb body-language hints to look for like blinking a lot or something, but they’re probably not expecting the question and might stammer through an unbelievable denial. Do not, of course, consider this permission to go on a witch-hunt in the office, but if you’re close to one of the people potentially involved, sometimes it’s best just to ask.
Eric Ginsburg: Scuppernong Books is one of my favorite businesses in the Triad. The food is a little pricey and the beer selection limited, but this is a bookstore and the rest is just gravy. I favor new bookstores, the ones who are really holding the line against online retailers, but considering I haven’t been to Sunrise Books yet, I don’t know that I can officially weigh in.
New question: Are you a fan of the Winston-Salem Cycling Classic? Vote at triad-city-beat.com.
70 60
40
20
70%
Scuppernong Books
10%
Sunrise Books
10%
Piedmont Books
10% Other
All She Wrote
10
Shot in the Triad
30
Games
50
Fun & Games
80
Culture
90
Cover Story
Jordan Green: I really like the café-style feel of Scuppernong, the steady stream of events there, and the fact that the employees are avid readers who curate recommended reading lists for their customers. I know Angel at Sunrise Books is going for the same community spirit, and opening an independent
Readers: Readers — or the few who voted this week, we should say — heavily favored Scuppernong Books with a whopping 70 percent of the vote. Nobody showed up for Empire Books, which has transitioned from its original ownership, while 10 percent voted for Sunrise Books, Piedmont Books and “Other” respectively.
Opinion
Brian Clarey: I love any space dedicated to the printed word, but these days Scuppernong Books stands above the rest with a slate of great books, decent coffee and events that celebrate literature and thinking in all its forms. With open space, lots of natural light and a comfy seating area, it’s nothing like the old bookstores I used to haunt when I was learning to write and my book habit reached three figures a month. Kaboom Books near my old apartment in the French Quarter looked like a bomb had gone off inside it, and the only activity they had in the way of events was that sometimes drunks would wander in and talk about books.
by Joanna Rutter The New Hanover County School Board in eastern North Carolina, which covers Wilmington, is considering a ban on jeggings. Among other ludicrous rationale, one board member is quoted claiming that “bigger girls” were targeted for bullying because of their tight-fitting pants. If young women’s developing bodies are considered hypersexual or inappropriate, it is only because those who seek to regulate them have decided they are so. And more importantly, no matter how much so-called “distraction” blame-shifting and disproportionate rulemaking takes place, it will ultimately do nothing to quell young women’s statistically proven, continued success in education over their male peers. So I say let ’em keep their jeggings. And while you wring your hands, they’ll take over the world. Heaven forbid, after all, that girls distract boys. Notice the dangerous sentence structure, with “girls” as the subject and “boys” as the object. Dangerous semantics when, if anyone is being made an object by these policies, it’s girls. If a young man cannot focus in class because of a young woman’s body, I’m more interested in the administration having a conversation with him, not the woman he has objectified. Sure, I get it; you have a building so full of horny teenagers you can practically choke on the hormones when you walk through the door. Gross. An administration has to draw the line somewhere between self-expression and an educational culture where students can’t learn. I don’t envy that job, that’s for sure. But if a teen girl is spilling out of tight jeans, it’s not her fault if the guys in her class are scoring lower on tests. She’s probably scoring higher because she’s better. Tuck in her love handles and the scores will come back the exact same way. Dress codes like these count on two falsehoods: that women’s bodies are inherently more sexual than men’s and therefore in need of more regulation, and that women are to blame for any negative or violent reactions their bodies, clothed in any way, cause in men. If you believe either of those things, you are the problem. Such antiquated and wildly hetero-normative notions about women clash sharply with reality as we experience it. More women than men are graduating from high school, and more women than men are enrolling and graduating from college and entering the workforce. It’s pretty much been that way since the ’80s. Heck, women are even more regularly involved in their religious communities than men. And many of them do so with their bra strap showing. Get over it. For those in power who haven’t gotten over it yet, it’s only natural that outrageous policies continue to spring up in order to shift blame to women for having bodies that men themselves have hyper-sexualized. We see it in nature; threatened alphas tend to lash out in the wild when confronted with an usurper of power. Inevitably, girls will someday wield the power to which their regulators currently cling. And jeggings, crop tops and bra straps — or the regulated lack thereof — will do nothing to stop them.
News
bookstore in High Point is way more of a gamble than in downtown Greensboro, which has been burgeoning for more than a decade. Opening across the street from a new brewpub in High Point’s Uptown section, Sunrise Books is part of a process of catalyzing a promising section of the city.
Up Front
We here at Triad City Beat identify as big readers. No surprise there. And we imagine our readers do, too. So we asked everyone to vote for their favorite local, independent bookstore (including Empire and Scuppernong in Greensboro, Sunrise in High Point and Piedmont in Winston-Salem). Here’s what we got.
triad-city-beat.com
Letting them wear jeggings
Best independent Triad bookstore?
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June 1 — 7, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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NEWS
Hip-hop promoter’s death prompts question: ‘What the freak?’ by Jordan Green
The shooting death of a hip-hop promoter outside a Winston-Salem strip club has sent shockwaves through the community. Friends of the slain promoter want the club to show more respect for a slain colleague before moving on with business as usual. Nothing about the night of Tuesday, May 23 at Paper Moon Gentlemen’s Club in Winston-Salem suggested it would end in tragedy, said Cedric Duke, who was working security. From his experience working security at nightclubs and adult establishments, Duke said it’s rare that he encounters a lot of trouble, but usually there’s at least one minor incident: Someone accidentally spills a drink and another patron gets upset. A minor misunderstanding quickly resolved. But on May 23 at Paper Moon there were no fights, no incidents of any kind. Duke and Eric Pegues, the promoter, had plans to feed homeless people the next afternoon. “Don’t forget, we’re gonna feed tomorrow,” Duke admonished his friend. “Don’t get too turned up.” “Don’t worry,” the 41-year-old Pegues responded. “We’re gonna be there.” Around closing time, according to a police report, Pegues was shot multiple times as he stood in the parking lot near the entrance to the club. Pegues was rushed to Forsyth Medical Center in a private vehicle, where he succumbed to his injuries. Working with the US Marshals Service, Winston-Salem police arrested 40-year-old Sierras Cobb in Greensboro at about 8 a.m. on Sunday, charging him with murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Police have said there is no evidence to indicate the shooting was preceded by any type of altercation or argument. A promoter to the end, Pegues had the poster for the event — billed as “X-rated Tuesdays,” hosted by Slim City and with music by DJ Ern, and $2 drink specials all night — posted as his Facebook profile picture when he died. Known for promoting some of the biggest hip-hop shows in Winston-Sa-
Winston-Salem hip-hop promoter Eric Pegues (right) with Wale at Ziggy’s.
lem, providing economic opportunities to young, black people in poor parts of the city, and his philanthropy and activism, Pegues’ death sent immediate shockwaves through Winston-Salem. “I’d like for people to know that he was a giver,” said James Huff, who worked as a promoter with Pegues. “He was always kind-hearted. If he could feed the homeless, he would. He never cursed. He was truly a good guy. I ain’t met too many like him. He was truly a role model to the whole city.” Pegues volunteered at a community center operated by Artemus “Poppa” Peterson, where young people could come to get help with their homework, and could take home food and clothing, if they needed it. Peterson came to respect Pegues’ ability to put on a successful concert. “He went above and beyond,” Peterson said. “You don’t know the headaches. It has a lot to do with your heart. How can you control the masses? Ain’t never saw someone could control the door and the club. He was universal.” Pegues brought Snoop Dogg, Kevin Gates, Future and Lil’ Boosie to Ziggy’s, a Winston-Salem music venue that closed in February, while providing opportunities for local hip-hop acts to
COURTESY PHOTO
A memorial to Pegues near the entrance of Paper Moon Gentlemen’s Club was removed last week.
share the stage with artists of national stature. “It was special to see major artists come to Winston-Salem,” said Lawrence Banner, a hip-hop artist and producer who operates SneekyVill Recordz/100 Mad South. “Most of the time they go to Greensboro. Our economy needs a boost, especially the black part of Winston-Salem. A lot of younger artists could get a lot of hope. If they had the right business moves they could get a lot of opportunity from opening for one of these national artists. I hear from a lot of people he was the fairest promoter around here.” Brad McCauley, a former co-owner of Ziggy’s who worked with Pegues, posted on his Facebook page on the morning of May 25: “Very few people have made the impact on my life that this man has. He was way more than a friend to me. My children loved him so dearly, as well as anyone else that met him. He was the best of all of us, and I will miss him every day.” On Sunday evening, Duke said, upwards of 300 people marched through the streets of Winston-Salem to honor Pegues and celebrate his birthday. Along with conducting drives to collect turkeys for families during the
JORDAN GREEN
holidays and finding prom dresses for high school girls, Pegues also organized a protest against racial profiling with Peterson in the aftermath of the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The protest took place on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive near Walkertown Road. Pegues told Triad City Beat at the time that young, black people in Winston-Salem often feel harassed by the police. “The ‘jump-out guys,’ that’s what we call them on the street — I think they’re the gang unit — they pulled over three African-American males,” he said. “It turns out the kids were going to Winston-Salem State University. Why did you pull them over? They said, ‘We saw you pull out of the parking lot.’ It was this shopping center right over here. They pulled them out of the car and had the drug dog sniffing it. Everybody who saw that thinks they must have been doing something wrong, even though they weren’t. “We get the most speeding tickets,” he added. “It’s like they sit and wait for us. You don’t have to be doing anything wrong.” In the days after Pegues’ death, friends created a makeshift memorial at the entrance of Paper Moon. An
News Opinion
Eric Pegues
COURTESY PHOTO
Cover Story
lot and hiring off-duty police officers. But the main point is that Pegues, as someone who helped the club build its business, deserves respect, Duke said. The apparent indifference of the club management to the death of one of their business associates and unwillingness to invest more in security sends a message of profit before people, he added. “We just keep protesting to do what’s right: Get better security, get the police there, get cameras in the parking lot,” Duke said. “You got cameras where you count the money. You have no cameras in the front. You got a camera on the drawer. You got a camera on the bar. Run a better business. Treat people right that you’ve been working with. You’ve been having too many shootings. Be respectful. Show love. If it was the owner’s son or daughter we would be the same way. We would be wanting to put flowers up there. When we get there, the flowers are gone? If you took it down and took it to his mama, that’s one thing. People gave cards, people put out candles. The main thing is show respect.”
Up Front
and women; also he gave back to the city of Winston-Salem. He stood tall for people that the world made small. Let’s do the same for him. His mother is without her son today, and this is how you show her and the family no respect.” A phone message left for the management at Paper Moon on May 27 by Triad City Beat was not returned. Duke and others converged at Paper Moon that evening and held a protest across the street from the club demanding justice for Pegues. He said the management called in a complaint to the police, and the police told them that considering that they didn’t have a permit they would be limited to no more than 25 people. Duke said the limit is fine; Pegues’s supporters plan to keep protesting, and Duke said they would come in shifts. Noting that this is not the first fatal shooting at Paper Moon — according to reporting in the Winston-Salem Journal, a man was killed during a robbery in 2007 — Duke said the club needs to tighten up its security, including placing a security camera in the front parking
triad-city-beat.com
oversized, silver heart-shaped balloon was inscribed with a Sharpie: “RIP ‘E’ — What the freak?” Flowers with cards and votive candles rounded out the memorial. By the evening of Friday, May 27, the memorial had been removed. Cedric Duke, who had been working security on the night of Pegues’ death, learned about the development when he received a phone call from Pegues’ brother. Duke took offense that the club was open for business, and trying to brush Pegues’ death aside. “Who can be that heartless to open your doors after Eric Pegues help put money in your pockets?” Duke wrote in a Facebook post that was shared more than 50 times. “What happened Tuesday night will forever live in our hearts and minds for life. People are so cold-hearted in this world today. People want to eat off your plate even in death. Two and a half days you back open as if nothing happen…. We come together when the police do injustice. We need to come together when these clubs do the same thing. Eric Pegues’ parties help people eat, drink and gave jobs to men
Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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June 1 — 7, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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Say Yes mobilizes for next phase of educational support by Joanna Rutter
After meeting its initial goal of providing Guilford County public-school seniors with opportunities for last-dollar tuition scholarships, Say Yes to Education now seeks to launch special volunteer-taskforces to identify what pulls students off the pathway to higher education. At a May 26 informational meeting at the Central Library in Greensboro, Say Yes Executive Director Mary Vigue’s eagerness was palpable. “We’re excited we’re moving beyond scholarships here in Guilford,” Vigue said. “We’re moving past them, into the next phase.” In the conference room at the Central Library, Vigue energized a room of about 30 young-to-middle-aged professionals in suits and medical uniforms, a rather quiet but attentive audience other than polite laughs at some technological gaffes and Vigue’s good humor at diffusing an awkward slideshow malfunction. “The show must go on,” she said, smiling, after the projector went blank for a second time. It was the first of four info sessions inviting community members to join task forces supporting Say Yes to Education, a national education nonprofit based in New York, which launched a community-wide program in Guilford County in September 2015 to much fanfare, making last-dollar tuition scholarships available to all eligible Guilford County public high-school graduates starting with the class of 2016. Now heading into its second year, Say Yes is recruiting community volunteers to analyze into Guilford County Schools’ data and analysis — with a specific focus on the achievement gap — in order to find solutions for students in specific areas where students are falling off. “I think the task forces are going to be instrumental,” Vigue said in an interview. “We have a very impatient and excited community.” The fall launch generated considerable buzz not only because of the scholarships, but the rarity of being selected: Out of more than two dozen areas considered, Say Yes selected Guilford County to be its third community-wide program alongside Syracuse
Say Yes to Education’s Guilford County Executive Director Mary Vigue addressed potential volunteers for new task forces at the Greensboro Central Library on May 26.
and Buffalo, NY. Since then, the local iteration of the organization has grown, adding Greensboro’s former assistant city manager Vigue in November and bringing on more staff for scholarship support in February. At the meeting, Vigue used a slide to illustrate Say Yes’ three-step theory of change for system-wide post-secondary completion, with scholarships as the first step. Establishing a collaborative governance model through work groups, the task forces and an operating committee is the second, in order to strategically analyze the data to provide comprehensive supports, the final step. The operating committee, with about 20 representatives from the cities of High Point and Greensboro, the county, the school system, community foundations, parents, teachers and principals sits at the hub of this collaborative governance model. “This [model] is really key to the work that goes on in Guilford County,” Vigue said. “It’s about, how do we take an entire community and bring it together? […] It takes all of us to get the information out there, to work together, and make this successful long-term.” The three task forces in need of
volunteers will focus on identified problem-areas where students are suffering: targeted issues found in early elementary, AP and ACT performance, and engaging families and schools to cultivate excitement and planning for college and a future career. Guilford County boasts a rising graduation rate — around a 10 percent increase in the past decade — but according to stats from NC School Report Card, white and economically advantaged students consistently outperform students in poverty and students of color in grades 3 to 8 on end-of-grade testing and in high school graduation rates. Sixty-seven percent of Guilford County students live at or below the poverty line. According to Vigue, that’s where the task forces come in. If it all sounds vague, it’s because these task forces are still hypothetical. “We know that this is not an easy process,” Vigue said. “In the front end, it’s going to be a little more intense as they figure out what they’re going to look at, what data they’d like in their hands.” That data will come from much of what’s currently available from the county school-system and research previously conducted for Say Yes by Schoolhouse Partners, an independent
JOANNA RUTTER
publishing and service company specializing in education. Volunteers will form hypotheses and test them, and then make formal recommendations to the operating committee. Test scores could be one source of data for task forces, Vigue said. “We really need to look at testing instruments,” she said. “Is it just the testing instruments themselves? It could be things like, are our students hungry? Are they homeless? What does that data tell us?” Attendees nodded and murmured in assent. Vigue also stressed throughout the presentation that the implicit bias training will be a crucial piece of the task forces working well from the same starting point. “We all need to understand that race underlines all of this,” she said. Volunteers from diverse, non-education backgrounds are welcomed. “We really want them to bring their experiences, their questions, their view of the world,” Vigue said. “We need a lot of parents on these task forces, not just people in higher ed.” Volunteers must commit to a two-day anti-racism training within their first six months, monthly task force meetings,
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and pledge to stay for at least a year. Several private donors initially committed the needed funding to launch the chapter — around $28 million of a $70 million goal for perpetuity, according to Vigue. Say Yes spokesperson Donnie Turlington said in an interview that the local funds raised came from many of the same pockets as the $30 million of private funding for the Tanger Center for the Performing Arts just a year before. “When you talk about heavy hitters in our community that can fund such things, there’s a lot overlap,” he said. The national Say Yes organization met them with $15 million of seed money to help the startup. Chapters nestled in other areas of the country are seeing success not just with Say Yes’ scholarships but with wrap-around services starting in kindergarten, Turlington said. “Say Yes has been in Harlem for 12 years,” he said. “There’s a zero-percent dropout rate and zero-percent teen pregnancy rate, because those students have known since kindergarten that there was going to be this thing called Say Yes that was going to be walking with them every step of the way. That small sample size, it’s been promising to see. “Good grief,” he added, “what could you do once every kid knows there’s this organization that’s going to be there?”
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OPINION EDITORIAL
The electric shuffle A fully loaded Tesla Model S can drive more than 250 miles on a single charge, its electric motor capable of hitting 60 mph in about three seconds. The base model starts at $70,000, but hey — you never have to buy gas for it. It’s the top-selling plug-in electric vehicle in the United States and China, and much of Europe. But in North Carolina, the Tesla is regarded in the same way as drugs: Buying is one thing, and selling quite another. Founder Elon Musk has created a thoroughly modern infrastructure around his thoroughly modern vehicle — anyone can buy a Tesla through the website, but this is a vertically aligned company, meaning that they bypass the dealer system and sell directly to consumers, keeping that $70,000 price tag in check. A lot of states — mostly ones where automotive dealers had organized a lobby — put up barriers to Tesla’s sales model, requiring by law for all automotive sales to be conducted through dealers. The NC General Assembly made a play like that in 2013, but it got tangled up in process. As a result, the law is sort of muddy — direct auto sales are not banned outright, but they seem to be sort of frowned upon — and Raleigh got its first Tesla store later that same year. Then the short commute times and high credit scores of Charlotte necessitated a second dealership, but this one was protested by four area auto dealers. In the ensuing hearing by the DMV, Charlotte’s Tesla store was downgraded to a showroom, where prospective buyers can check out the latest models and then get on their laptops or head to the Raleigh store to buy one. It’s like an Apple store where you can’t buy anything. This is as fine an example as any of the aversion to business this legislature has embraced since the GOP took over six years ago, and also its corruption — the DMV hearing officer Larry Green recommended that Tesla franchises be awarded to three of the four who protested. Like so many of the laws passed here since 2010, this one — vague as it is — may be challenged in federal court: Musk is threatening a lawsuit against Michigan and any other states that won’t allow his business to operate. And it also neatly illustrates how, like the Tesla itself, technology is advancing at such a fast pace that the law cannot keep up.
CITIZEN GREEN
Memorial Day reflections on wars abroad and at home It’s Memorial Day, and appropriately the world as we know it is taking a collective breath. I don’t have any direct connection to those killed in war, although I’ve known a few who came back damaged and lived out their days the best they could. If I could by Jordan Green commend one reflection on the cost of war it would be The Mirror Test: America at War in Iraq and Afghanistan by J. Kael Weston, a State Department advisor who served in those countries from 2003 through 2010. Weston’s insights are moving because he — as an American civilian advisor working with the US military — acknowledges the cost borne by both the Iraqi civilians and the US Marines on the frontlines of the war. Part of his job was to cultivate local collaborators to help secure the occupation in the Sunni-dominated Iraqi heartland. “The Marine colonels and general and I used to stand up and say, ‘Yes, you know, Kamal was just killed, but unless you work with us, this war will not end,’” Weston told Terry Gross on a recent episode of WHYY’s “Fresh Air.” “And there is a moral honesty to that. But I think there was also a facilitation that we were trying to work, which is hard to think about because you wonder if maybe the more honorable and better thing to have done would’ve [been to say], ‘Here’s what I have to say in my job representing the US government in Fallujah. But here’s what I really want to tell you, which is, leave or, you know, protect your family. It’s not worth it because we won’t stay. Our endurance is not going to outlast the terrorists.’” Weston also carries the burden of having ordered a mission in which 30 Marines and a Navy corpsman flew a helicopter into a remote area of Anbar province to support participation in an election, even though many Sunnis outside the major population centers of Fallujah and Ramadi had pledged to boycott the election. Flying low and fast over the desert,
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the helicopter crashed, taking all 31 men’s lives. In hindsight, Weston believes he made the wrong decision to order the mission — that the risk wasn’t worth the potential benefit. Weston visited the burial sites of all 31 men, movingly describing some of the graves to Gross. The cemetery where Brian Bland is buried in Newcastle, Wyo. “sits above two rail lines and oil refinery,” Weston told Gross. “These are places that aren’t the postcard that we see every Memorial Day at Arlington,” Gross said. “But I found them to be that much more powerful because of it.” Bringing the focus back to the war at home, it’s not uncommon to find Democratic candidates on the campaign trail in North Carolina pledging to end mass incarceration, although not gubernatorial candidate Roy Cooper. Some talk about the issue more than others, although most serious candidates are expected to at least have something to say about it. Adam Coker, an unabashed progressive in the 13th Congressional District who models himself after FDR and Jimmy Carter, makes “stopping mass incarceration” and “ending the war on drugs” central planks of his platform. Even for Democratic politicians at the progressive end of the party, such positions would be scarcely imaginable before the publication of Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking 2010 book The New Jim Crow, or the upheavals that followed the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and countless other young, black men. For Cooper, as a moderate Democrat whose law-and-order reputation rests on his experience as the state’s attorney general and who will need to court conservative white voters to defeat Republican incumbent Pat McCrory, any acknowledgment of the demands and aspirations of the Black Lives Matter movement may be a bridge too far. While declining to join a motion to vacate Kalvin Michael Smith’s sentence, Cooper said through a spokesperson that he wants to work with concerned citizens and college students “on systemic issues in the criminal justice system.” That might be the most we get. Kamala Harris, the state attorney general in California who is running for US Senate this year, might best exemplify the Democrats’ challenges in addressing institutional racism in the criminal justice system. A black woman who made her career in law enforcement serving two terms as district attorney in San Francisco, she now presides over what the New York Times Magazine describes as “a giant law-enforcement apparatus, with a staff of almost 5,000 in a state with the country’s largest non-federal prison system.” A Times profile of Harris, which delves into her record as a proponent of a “smart on crime” philosophy, suggests limitations to the prospect of reform through respectable politics. The failures of “tough on crime” approaches since the 1970s, “in terms of both efficacy and human rights, have come sharply into view,” Emily Bazelon writes. “Harris embodies the party’s ambitions and contradictions on this issue as leaders try to navigate a swing in the opposite direction.”
Chicago-style pizza
Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
Charles Francis Wilson is a retired Southern Baptist minister and worked 35 years with the department of pastoral care at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. He currently serves as president of the local chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Opinion
Republican Party. In 1980, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan delivered the first speech of his campaign at the Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Miss. He delivered the speech close to the burial site of three slain civil rights workers. Candidate Reagan spoke of his support of states rights. The symbolic nature of this campaign event wasn’t subtle. Why was such an important speech given in the Deep South near one of the most violent atrocities of the civil rights movement using obvious code words? For homegrown, white Southerners, states rights conjure up images of government overreach and the forced end of Jim Crow. Later that year, Reagan spoke to 15,000 evangelicals in Dallas and told the adoring crowd, “I know you can’t endorse me. But…I want you to know that I endorse you.” President Reagan did more to embolden the religious right than any president in my memory. He was also responsible for much of the anti-government sentiment we are witnessing in the Republican primary. Perhaps President Reagan’s most familiar quote is, “Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.” He also uttered this ridiculous sentence: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” In the 2008 presidential contest between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, Sarah Palin made her national debut as McCain’s running mate. What is amazing is that this person with no credibility as a serious choice for vice president became the voice of the right wing of the Republican Party and the nation. Beginning with the 2010 election, tea party obstructionists arrived in Washington. The tea party caucus has proven to be as much an irritant to the Republican majority as it is to the Democratic minority. For years the Republican Party has been pandering to and garnering votes from the most conservative electorate in the country. This segment of the population tends to reflect extreme perspectives on ethnic diversity, racial equality, social values, religious ideology and the role of government. I contend that much of the anger in the Republican sector of the primary is a reaction to perceived failed promises. Abortion is still legal. The Affordable Care Act has not been repealed after 62 attempts. Samesex marriage is a constitutional right. The list goes on. It is clear that the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Eisenhower is a footnote in our history, and the chickens have come home to roost.
News
My fascination with and active involvement in politics began in 1964 with the presidential contest between President Lyndon Johnson and Sen. Barry Goldwater. While I would never consider myself a political pundit, very little captures by Charles Francis Wilson my interest and demands more of my time than a political campaign, be it local, state or national. Keeping updated on issues, political polls, trends, campaign financing and candidate personalities is far more exhilarating than any sporting event. In the years since 1964, no presidential campaign has been more engrossing than the 2016 Republican primary. In the beginning of the primary there was a herd of 17 Republican aspirants vying for the most powerful political office on the planet. They formed a collage of every imaginable political and religious pedigree in the present Republican Party. There were candidates identified as Republican standard bearers, crusaders for religious purity, critics of big government and at least one candidate defying any standard classification. The Republican establishment’s angst over the campaign success of candidate Donald Trump has dominated the media for months. Trump’s early victories were met with surprise and repeated predictions of his ultimate demise. Now that Trump is the presumed nominee, the Republican Party regulars face a dilemma of whether to support or not support a candidate many have vilified. I understand the angst, but the bewilderment of the “old guard” leaves me perplexed. Why are party regulars dumbfounded by the success of an outsider who disregards all standards of the Grand Old Party and political rules of conduct? Isn’t this primary election the culmination of years of political strategizing and manipulation as a means to win elections? The political maneuvering over the past 50 years that brought us to this point is well established and beyond dispute. In 1964 after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Sen. Strom Thurmond and future Sen. Jesse Helms fled to the Republican Party. They urged fellow outraged conservative Democrats to follow, and all were welcomed with open arms. It is ironic that the Civil Rights Act would not have passed without bipartisan support. The Republican Party that supported the passage of the act was now recruiting racist defectors. In 1968 presidential candidate Richard Nixon won in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee. All these states had been part of the old Confederacy. It was during this period of time that the Republican Party developed the Southern Strategy. The goal of this political maneuver was to attract disgruntled, white Democratic Southerners to the Republican Party. President Johnson accurately predicted that the passage of the Civil Rights Act would deliver the South to the
Up Front
I booked a flight to Chicago back in November to visit some good friends over my birthday this past weekend. I made many plans over the ensuing months, some fulfilled, by Anthony Harrison others not. I wanted to go to a Cubs game (done), swim in Lake Michigan (too cold), go to Greektown and eat amazing lamb and octopus (done), see Sue the T. rex at the Field Museum (too expensive) and try, for the first time, Chicago-style pizza. After attending the May 27 Philadelphia Phillies-Chicago Cubs game [see “Fun & Games: Hey, Chicago, whaddya say?” on page 26], my friend Kate treated me to the legendary crème de la crème of Chicago’s pizza scene: Giordano’s Pizzeria. Pizza, so widely popular, contains under its wide umbrella many popular variants. In America, NewYork style is the most familiar, with its large, thin, foldable slices; there’s also Sicilian pizza, a square, deep-dish pizza with an oily, focaccia-like crust. Both can be found widely in the Triad. But I’ve never seen Chicago-style offered in any of the three cities. Chicago-style pizza, exemplified by establishments like Giordano’s and Uno Pizzeria, is a circular deep-dish pie. Unlike flatbread pizzas like New York-style, Chicago pizza is very tall — about two inches high — the crust flaky and relatively flavorless, like white bread. But the pizza’s structure also differs from many varieties: For the pizza Kate and I ordered, the layering went from pepperoni, mushrooms, onions and garlicky broccoli to a thick cheese layer and then the sauce, sprinkled with grated parmesan. My preconceived notion about Chicago-style was that the sauce would be a thick lake overpowering everything, but Giordano’s quickly proved me wrong: it lays down only a moderate covering, and the chunky sauce tastes bright, acidic and light. It was different, and I loved it. I don’t wish to cause a fuss amongst Triad pizza aficionados. This is not a debate over whether Chicago-style pizza is superior to New York-style, or even whether it counts as pizza instead of a pizza-inspired casserole. This is an appeal for diversity. Some Triad pizzerias should feature the option, or some enterprising soul could open an entire Chicago-style pizzeria. Next, they might work on bringing New Haven pizza down South.
Endgame for the Southern Strategy
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IT JUST MIGHT WORK
FRESH EYES
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June 1 — 7, 2016 Cover Story
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The 2016 Special Primary Election Guide Kudos if you voted in the March 15 primary; lots of people wait for the main event in November. So, you ask: What are we doing having another election in June? Hang tight, there’s an interesting answer. Firstly, the federal courts threw out North Carolina’s Congressional districting map in February, ruling that it was a racial gerrymander. With absentee ballots for the March 15 primary already printed, the General Assembly hastily drew new maps and scheduled an election for all 13 of the state’s congressional districts on June 7. Meanwhile, on March 15, there was a Democratic primary for the open South Ward seat on Winston-Salem City Council that can only be described as disastrous. With the number of voters disenfranchised vastly higher than the margin of victory, the State Board of Elections ordered a new election, tacking it on with the already scheduled congressional primary. Perhaps most bizarrely, the election for a single seat on the state Supreme Court wound up on the ballot of this special election because of a ruling in early May by, uh, the state Supreme Court finding that a 2015 law approved by the GOP-controlled General Assembly setting a so-called “retention” election for sitting justice Bob Edmunds was unconstitutional. Under the law, voters would have only the choice of deciding whether or not to retain the justice, with the consequence that if he was not retained he would be replaced by appointment by the Republican governor. The state courts ruled that the voters have the right to choose among actual candidates, including challengers. The bad news for democracy is that only a tiny slice of the electorate will vote in this election because, frankly, no one’s paying attention. The good news is that because of the anticipated low turnout, your vote will carry an enormous weight. As a benchmark, a special election in June 2008 drew just 1.8 percent of the electorate. Do the math: Those who show up to vote will be speaking for roughly 50 others who stay home. Early voting is already underway, and it continues through Saturday. Visit the Guilford (myguilford.com/ elections/) and Forsyth (forsyth.cc/elections/) board of elections’ websites for specific times and locations. Or you can wait until June 7 and vote in your precinct. Make sure you bring a photo ID, so you can avoid voting a provisional ballot. If you don’t have a photo ID, you can still vote by signing a declaration stating that you have a reasonable impediment to obtaining an ID. See you at the polls!
by Brian Clarey, Jordan Green, Anthony Harrison and Joanna Rutter
13th Congressional District Democratic primary
Candidates: Adam Coker, Bruce Davis, Mazie Ferguson, Kevin D. Griffin and Bob Isner
While the new 13th Congressional District leans Republican, 44.4 percent of its population is in urban Guilford County, including two thirds of Greensboro and most of High Point, so it’s no surprise that’s where most of the action is in the Democratic primary. Of the five candidates on the ballot, only one — staffing agency operator Kevin D. Griffin of Durham — is not a resident of either Greensboro or High Point. An arcane state law allows people to run for Congress even if they live outside of the district. Bruce Davis is the only candidate on the ballot with experience in public office. Davis represented a High Point district on the Guilford County Commission for 10 years, and now chairs the High Point Convention & Visitors Bureau. Experience counts, argues Davis, who has earned the endorsements of High Point Mayor Bill Bencini, High Point University President Nido Qubein and Greensboro Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson. “Would you let a doctor practice medicine that hasn’t studied, that hasn’t honed their craft?” he asked. “I think you want someone with experience.” Bob Isner, in contrast, is trying to make a virtue out of inexperience. A developer responsible for Deep Roots Market and other high-profile projects in downtown Greensboro, Isner also likely benefits from the residual name recognition of having a son who is a famous tennis player. An engineer by training, Isner touts himself as a “problem solver,” and an endorsement from former US Sen. Kay Hagan speaks to his effort to position himself as a political moderate. Mazie Ferguson, a lawyer and community activist who lives in Greensboro, jumped into the 13th District race after
losing her bid for state labor commissioner in the March 15 Democratic primary to Charles Meeker. A veteran civil rights activist who supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, Ferguson boasts a deep résumé of community activism, including a term as president of the Pulpit Forum and serving on the police complaint-review committee of the Greensboro Human Relations Commission. Adam Coker, a Greensboro entrepreneur with a background in trucking, construction and nonprofits, has positioned himself as a dynamic populist with proactive positions on issues like criminal justice reform and climate change. He earned the endorsement of Replacements Limited PAC, which advocates for the LGBTQ community. Coker’s campaign stumbled when it was discovered that policy positions were coped verbatim from the Hillary Clinton campaign. The policy advisor responsible for the copy left the campaign and Coker removed the material. Griffin, like Ferguson, basically retooled an unsuccessful campaign in the March 15 primary to compete in the Congressional contest. Griffin lost the Democratic primary for US Senate to Deborah Ross. The candidates are largely aligned on a number of issues, including raising the federal minimum wage, climate change and Social Security. Ferguson, Coker and Davis all favor raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour and pegging it to inflation, but Davis said he would start with an increase to $12 to give employers time to adjust. Griffin, who serves on the steering committee of the Durham Living Wage Project, said there needs to be a debate to determine a national wage floor considering that the cost of living varies from region to region. Isner said he supports some increase in the minimum wage, although he hasn’t decided what amount. On whether the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement are aggressive enough, Davis advocates proceeding cautiously to limit job losses, while Griffin said, “I don’t
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think there is any speed that is too fast.” The candidates broadly agree on the importance of preserving Social Security, but Isner said he would be open to considering raising the retirement eligibility age if it was part of a comprehensive reform plan.
Mazie Ferguson
13th Congressional District Republican primary
Candidates: Dan Barrett, John Blust, Andrew C. Brock, Ted Budd, Kay Daly, Kathy Feather, Chad A. Gant, Hank Henning, Julia Howard, Matthew J. McCall, Vernon Robinson, George Rouco, Farren Shoaf, Jim Snyder, David W. Thompson, Jason A. Walser and Harry Warren Seventeen Republicans have filed to run in the newly cut District 13, and there will be no runoff. That means 15 percent of the vote will likely take the nomination. People with little to no elected experience make up much of the slate, including Ted Budd, who has never run for office. The small businessman from Davie County owns a chicken farm and a gun range, ProShots, known for its high-profile billboard campaigns on Interstate 40. He’s built his campaign on “taking on the establishment,” “helping families thrive” and “insisting on fiscal responsibility,” according to his campaign website. Conservative PAC Club For Growth is financing much of his campaign. Dan Barrett is a Davie County commissioner and previous party chair for the 5th Congressional District. The employment attorney has a lengthy list of policy positions on his campaign website, including defunding the Department of Education, securing our borders, instituting public prayer and reinforcing his favorite Constitutional amendments: 2, 4 and10. And he’s campaigning by walking across the entire district. John Blust, a lawyer and accountant in Greensboro, has been serving in the NC House for 16 years. As a staunch conservative he long predates the tea party wave that crashed in 2010. He sometimes bucks his party, speaking out against an effort by state Sen. Trudy Wade to impose a new election system on the Greensboro City Council, but voted in lockstep with his fellow Republicans on HB2. His campaign plays down social issues, instead stressing military strength (he’s an Army veteran) and reining in so-called entitlement spending and curbing the national debt. Andrew C. Brock is one of a handful of state legislators looking to upgrade to a desk in Washington, DC. Like all of the state lawmakers in the Republican primary, the seven-term state senator representing Davie and Iredell counties voted for HB2. He currently serves as chair for committees on energy policy and agriculture. The primary quote from his website: “[W]e’ve cut taxes, shrunk government, slashed regulations and provided the people with affordable energy and increased funding
Adam Coker
Kevin D. Griffin
for education, and I intend to take those conservative values to Congress so we can defend our Christian values and balance the budget.” Kay Daly is an active figure in GOP circles. She’s served on campaigns from Reagan to Romney. And though she’s light on positions and never held elected office, she’s amassed a large list of endorsements including Sean Hannity, Robert Bork, Swift Boat Vets founder John O’Neil and TV’s Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman. An in-patient lactation consultant at a Charlotte-area hospital, Kathy Feather came to North Carolina from Johnstown, Pa. and has never run for office before. She does not address specific issues on her site, but namechecks the Second Amendment, small government, the supposed dysfunction of the Affordable Care Act and Christian family values — “but respect others beliefs, choices and freedoms.” A Statesville attorney and charter member of his father’s church, Chad Gant has likewise never held elected office, but his website quotes Ronald Reagan and George Washington. His four issues are national security, national debt, abortion and the Second Amendment. Just one Republican from the Guilford County Commission, Hank Henning, joined the fray. The former Marine wants to slice government spending, support the Second Amendment, secure the border, enforce term limits, make abortion illegal and reform the veteran’s administration. On the commission, he’s remembered as the guy who floated the idea to have the YMCA of High Point manage the Rich Fork Preserve. Rep. Julia Craven Howard has served 14 terms in the NC General Assembly and is current chair of the banking committee. Like all current GOP state legislators, she supported HB2 and seems to be running on it, saying on Facebook that it “will awaken our nation to what Obama and the liberals have planned for our future. We must fight back.” She sponsored legislation in 2013 that reduced unemployment benefits and dissolved historic tax credits. One thing that differentiates her from the pack is that she is on board with independent redistricting. As the register of deeds for Iredell County, Matthew J. McCall was one of the last holdouts in the state against performing same-sex marriages, waiting until the Department of Health & Human Services
Bruce Davis
Bob Isner
specifically ordered him to. Calling himself the “black Jesse Helms” since his days on the Winston-Salem City Council, Vernon Robinson was the GOP nominee for the lucky 13 th back in 2006, when it looked very different — then, as now, he lived outside of the district. His website rails against “cultural Marxists like the mayor of Charlotte,” the remnants of communism and current House and Senate leadership. After finishing law school at UNC-Chapel Hill, George Rouco went to work for the CIA before settling down into private practice and making his name by raising money for kids with congenital heart defects — his child has a CHD. The son of Cuban immigrants, Rouco wants to finish the fence between the US and Mexico as well as bolster the Second Amendment and outlaw abortion. Farren K. Shoaf owns WDSL, the Christian radio station out of Davie County. He’s never held office, but believes in a strong military, no amnesty for immigrants, the Second Amendment, repeal and replacement of Obamacare and abolishing the federal Department of Education. He’s also a rare GOP environmentalist, against fracking and GMOs. Jim Snyder is a Lexington attorney who served one year in the state House and lost to Thom Tillis in the 2014 Republican primary for US Senate. David W. Thompson, of Mooresville, is a stickler for the Constitution and civil procedure according to his website. But according to the Mooresville Tribune, he has had “at least 23 encounters with the law since 1993,” the most recent in 2013. Charges include misdemeanors, mostly for assault and breaking and entering, and a single felony charge of assault with a deadly weapon when, again from the Trib, “he shot a man at his former place of business.” Jason A. Walser, a Salisbury lawyer, stands out from the crowd as an environmentalist who in his professional life helps run the Central North Carolina Land Trust. He doesn’t specifically reference the Second Amendment at his site, though he does mention the Zika virus as one of the biggest threats to our country. He has come out against HB2, setting him apart from most, if not all, of his Republican competitors. Harry Warren has represented Rowan County in the NC House for three terms, serves as chair of the Public Utilities Commission and like all state Republicans he voted for HB2. But he also sponsored HB 328, which would have allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers
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June 1 — 7, 2016 Cover Story
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5th Congressional District Democratic primary
permits — putting him significantly to the left of most of his GOP colleagues in the House. The three planks on his platform are national security, economic stability and a stance against government overreach. Ted Budd
Dan Barrett
John Blust
Andrew C. Brock
Kay Daly
Kathy Feather
Chad Gant
Hank Hennings
Julia Howard
Matthew J. McCall
Vernon Robinson
George Rouco
Farren K. Shoaf
Jim Snyder
David W. Thompson
Jason A. Walser
Harry Warren
Candidates: Josh Brannon, Jim Roberts and Charlie Wallin The 5th Congressional District has been redrawn to capture all of Forsyth County, including the urban Winston-Salem area formerly tucked in the safely Democrat-leaning 12th District. Now, the new district mainly covers a large swath of northwest North Carolina, including Boone and Mt. Airy. Three Democratic candidates from the mountains — a software developer who ran for the 5th in 2014, a pest control man and a college food services director — vie for the nomination. Josh Brannon is no stranger to this election. The software developer from the Boone garnered 39 percent of the vote against Republican incumbent Virginia Foxx in the 2014 general election. She’s defended the seat since 2004 in a district that has usually rated safely Republican, though a redistricted map drawing urban Winston-Salem into the mostly rural district, along with Trump’s candidacy providing a possible upset for Democrats, may shake that up. Brannon’s overall campaign message takes a strong stance against income inequality. He regularly mentions “revolution” against the top 1 percent of earners and the 5th District’s place as the poorest in the state. His other campaign promises include true universal healthcare and disposing of the for-profit prison system. Political newcomer, army vet and pest-control businessman Jim Roberts has held leadership positions in his hometown of Mt. Airy (where his family has resided since 1770), such as the Chamber of Commerce board of directors and the Jaycees, along with serving as the president of the North Carolina Pest Management Association. “I’m from Mayberry,” Roberts said in a Feb. 3 debate. “Washington needs a whole lot of Mayberry.” At that debate — for the 6th District before the old maps were thrown out by the federal courts — Roberts proposed the idea of collaboration between local business leaders and universities on a jobs leadership team. He also spoke in support of a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, gradually raising the minimum wage to above $10, and more stringent background checks for gun owners. Looking at 26 years of food services management on his resume, Charlie Wallin might not initially seem to be a fit for this job, but a peek into his extracurriculars suggests otherwise. A staff member of Appalachian State University as assistant director of food
especially against fracking in rural counties. He supports refugee resettlement programs. He has also earned the endorsement of the Replacements Limited PAC, which advocates for the LGBTQ community.
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services, he serves as president of the university’s Staff Council; he was elected Chair of the 5th District Democrats of North Carolina in 2015. His campaign pillars include lowering poverty rates through jobs with a living wage and protecting the environment,
Josh Brannon
5th Congressional District Republican primary
Candidates: Virginia Foxx (i) and Pattie Curran Virginia Foxx, who claimed the seat left vacant by Richard Burr’s successful US Senate bid in 2004, practically holds the Seal of Good Housekeeping for conservative politics in the 5th District, stretching from the mountains in North Carolina’s northwest corner to Winston-Salem. But tea party-inspired candidate Pattie Curran, a home-schooling mom from Kernersville, might be her most spirited challenger yet. Curran became an internet sensation in 2010 when she ambushed then US Sen. Kay Hagan at a town hall meeting to make known her vociferous opposition to the Affordable Care Act. Now, she’s shifting her sites to her own party. Although Foxx holds a 96-percent approval rating from the American Conservative Union, her positions as secretary of the House Republican Conference and vice chair of the House Rules Committee, which determines what legislation comes to the floor for a vote, shade her as a member of the dreaded establishment. Running down the list of issues that conservatives care about — from religious freedom and abortion to the Second Amendment, immigration and healthcare, it’s hard to find much daylight between Foxx and her challenger. They split on surveillance — an issue that has hewed the party between its national security and libertarian wings. Foxx is firmly in the former camp, having voted for the 2015 USA Freedom Act, while Curran assails the act as giving the National Security Administration carte blanche to continue its warrantless wiretap program. “The majority of Americans do not want to be spied on,” Curran told a group of conservative voters in Winston-Salem last year. “The majority of Americans want the Fourth Amendment upheld. And the Fourth Amendment is clear that if you’re going to search anyone’s property, possessions, you must have a warrant.”
Virginia Foxx
Pattie Curran
Jim Roberts
Charlie Wallin
6th Congressional District Republican primary
Candidates: Mark Walker (i) and Chris Hardin In the Republican primary for the new 6th District — still predominantly rural, switching around Guilford’s neighboring counties but still holding on to half of the county and Greensboro — freshman incumbent Mark Walker, supported by local tea partiers, faces a challenger from even farther on the right in Chris Hardin, a pharmaceutical businessman who criticizes Walker for failing voters. Pete Glidewell, the only Democrat to file in the 6th, is running unopposed in June, and will face the winner of this Republican primary in November. After Howard Coble’s long and storied representation of the 6th Congressional District, Mark Walker assumed his seat in 2014 with 58.7 percent of votes against Democrat Laura Fjeld. After campaigning on a promise to vote against Speaker John Boehner, one of Walker’s first votes in office was a “yes” to keep Boehner in the House, displeasing many previously trusting supporters. Formerly a music pastor at Lawndale Baptist Church in Greensboro, Walker’s freshman voting record orbits around healthcare and security. Among his eight sponsored bills in 2015 (none of which are law), two of note include HR 460, to improve human trafficking detection, and HR 1022, which would authorize diversion of certain security funds for “countering violent Islamist extremism” in light of recent attacks in cities such as Paris. Chris Hardin’s critique against Walker: His stances aren’t far right enough. The newcomer candidate from Browns Summit plans to usurp Walker, who he calls a “miserable failure,” through low voter turnout for the special election, banking on former Walker supporters’ votes who would like to see even tougher stances on refugee resettlement and Obamacare. Hardin works in the pharmaceutical industry and as a reserve police officer in Graham after previously serving in the Coast Guard and working as a street cop, school resource officer and in vice/narcotics before switching to reserve status for the last decade. He earned a master’s degree from Liberty University in 2014 in management and leadership.
Mark Walker
Chris Hardin
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June 1 — 7, 2016 Cover Story
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Winston-Salem City Council South Ward Democratic primary
Candidates: Carolyn Highsmith and John Larson If a rebuke to the claim that voting doesn’t matter was ever needed, one can point to the March 15 Democratic primary for the South Ward seat on Winston-Salem City Council, which came down to four votes on election night. Once the late absentee ballots were added, the margin narrowed to one vote, and when provisionals were added, the margin changed to six. That’s not to say that every vote is counted: The Forsyth County Board of Elections disallowed 101 legitimately cast absentee ballots because they were postmarked too late. More concerning was a finding that 31 voters in the South Ward were given ballots without the contest, while another 12 voters were allowed to vote in the race despite living outside of the ward. The problems resulted in the State Board of Elections throwing out the results and ordering a new election. The consequences couldn’t be higher. John Larson, who is retiring from his position as vice president of restoration at Old Salem Museum & Gardens, and Carolyn Highsmith, president of the Konnoak Hills Community Association, are competing to replace Councilwoman Molly Leight, who is retiring from her seat on city council. Leight, an ally of Mayor Allen Joines, has endorsed Larson over former opponent Highsmith, who has challenged city council on rezoning, transportation and public safety issues in the outlying areas of the ward. Larson has taken advantage of the extended campaign to deepen his engagement with residents in the booming suburban fringe of the district, while Highsmith retains a passionate corps of supporters who believe an independent voice is needed on council. Republican Michael Tyler will be on the ballot in the general election, but the ward leans heavily Democratic, making the outcome of the primary crucial.
John Larson
Carolyn Highsmith
NC Supreme Court associate justice Nonpartisan primary
Candidates: Bob Edmunds (i), Sabra Jean Faires, Mike Morgan and Daniel Robertson Sitting Associate Justice Bob Edmunds of Greensboro states his record, dating back to his election in 2000, “is an open book,” that he enjoys bipartisan support and nearly every sheriff in North Carolina and remains impartial. However, his tenure contains moments of controversy. In two separate cases in 2010 and 2011, Edmunds ruled in favor of Abbott Laboratories and Wells Fargo and Co., two companies with which he owns stock. Edmunds also owns stock in Duke Energy, but ruled against the corporation in a 2013 decision. Edmunds refused to disclose the size of his investments. Finally, Edmunds’ seat was nearly guaranteed in 2015 after the General Assembly moved for this year’s vote to simply count as a retention election, the first in state history; the courts struck down the law. While judicial elections are nominally nonpartisan, Edmunds, a registered Republican, is part of the court’s conservative majority and holds the support of his party. Challenger Sabra Jean Faires of Wake County was one of the plaintiffs against Edmunds in the retention-election law’s hearing. While the race for associate justice remains non-partisan, Faires proudly touts her unaffiliated voter registration, declaring on her website: “I will not bring a partisan political agenda to the court.” She argues, “Important decisions are often partisan splits, and that needs to stop.” A member of Raleigh’s Bailey and Dixon law firm, Faires specializes in government, election and taxation law. As a lawyer, she has worked in state government, under both Democratic and Republican leadership staffs in the NC General Assembly, and under Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt. Mike Morgan, a registered Democrat, currently serves as a superior court judge in Wake County. He began his career in 1979 as a research assistant with the NC Justice Department, then served as a staff
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attorney. His court experience includes positions as an administrative law judge, a district court judge, and attained his current seat in 2005. Morgan is a member of the US Supreme Court Bar and the North Carolina Equal Access to Justice Commission. He represented the state in the Racial and Ethnic Bias Consortium and served on the NC Association of Black Lawyers’ Board of Governors from 1992 to 1997. Mississippi native Daniel Robertson, a self-employed attorney from Advance who is a registered Democrat, proudly proclaims his status as “a political outsider who has never held political office.” Robertson touts extensive work with multiple law firms, served as general counsel for the Bank of the Carolinas and helmed the Journal of
Bob Edmunds
Sabra Jean Faires
Space Law as editor in chief. Thanks to this experience, Robertson claims, “I therefore know the struggles most citizens and businesses face to survive in a world filled with
Mike Morgan
Daniel Robertson
burdensome regulations, taxes and requirements imposed by a government clearly divorced from its own people.”
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June 1 — 7, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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CULTURE Making friends at the traveling food circus by Eric Ginsburg
Y
ou meet the best people at food events. And specifically at Competition Dining. At last year’s chef cook-off challenge I met Pablo del Valle, the energetic and hilarious owner of Atelier on Trade in downtown Winston-Salem. I’ve since been accused by a reader of having a friend crush on del Valle, but I think most everyone who meets him feels the same way. And this year, at the championship bout of Competition Dining’s Winston-Salem round, I found myself sitting with the Thursday Night Beer Club, or TNBC as they call it — three couples who welcomed me as the lone outsider at their table and who have the joie de vivre that I hope to emit when I reach their station in life. Now it helps that I’m a food writer attending a food event to be sure — why wouldn’t you want me sitting at your table as we critique six courses of inspired cooking? But I attend all kinds of culinary events, and this one is the only one where I genuinely walked away with a new friend. Finding such people outside of work or school is no small feat, and while Competition Dining is a thrilling (yet long) dining experience, it’s just as much if not more about who you experience it with. Host Jimmy Crippen is the sort of guy you could imagine hosting a traveling circus, though he offhandedly remarked last week that he’s getting too old to run across the floor at the Benton Convention Center while emceeing. His exuberance, the playful nature of the event — at least on the consumers’ side — and the gluttony all aid the carefree and communal vibe. That’s the only way you can find yourself eating smoked pheasant confit for the first of six courses without dealing with the pretentiousness, stuffiness or white tablecloths that come as mandatory accessories elsewhere. There’s no tinkling classical music or tables for two by the fireplace, just a high-ceiling, well-lit room with large circular tables seating seven. At the end of the evening, chefs from two competing institutions parade through the room almost like boxers before a match as ridiculous oldies boom and Crippen jumps on stage — yeah, there’s a stage — and conducts what feel like post-basketball game interviews with the chef squads. It’s a little ridiculous. And it’s a lot of fun. For the finale in the Camel City — just the third round here before the competition moves over to Greensboro, a departure from previous years — three chefs from Boone’s Vidalia restaurant dueled with the hometown heroes at Graze last week. The Graze team, featuring chef Richard Miller, arrived as defending champions, having taken the title in last year’s Triad-wide tournament. If anyone showed up wanting to root for the home team, they couldn’t have done any better than Graze, which is located inside the Winston-Salem Marriott within crawling distance to the convention center.
Competition Dining — formerly known as Fire in the Triad and similar names elsewhere in the state — gives chefs two surprise ingredients. Over the span of three blind courses per team, attendees rate each dish on a variety of metrics. After several hours, a winner is crowned using the cumulative scores of the audience and with the weighted vote of pro judges, including several other chefs. It didn’t take long for Graze to establish itself as my easy favorite for the night, though I didn’t know which team’s creations I’d fallen for. Everyone at my table and two other food writers in attendance agreed that the night’s second course rocked the evening. Using the evening’s surprise ingredients — molasses and pheasant — Miller and company presented a pheasant confit atop sausage and pheasant liver cheddar grits and accompanied by red pepper cucumber relish, an incredible sorghum juniper berry gravy and cornbread. My tablemates and I wondered if the addition of charred sorghum Vidalia onion pearls had been an intentional signal from the Vidalia chefs to their supporters in the audience, a giveaway as to who prepared the secret dish. The Vidalia crew bombed with its second course, a pheasant take on chicken and waffles that felt like a spin on the dish by someone who’d only ever heard tell of the original. The meat arrived so deeply fried that you couldn’t taste the pheasant, the waffle appeared like a miniature, flavorless Eggo. I scored it the lowest of the evening. Meanwhile, Graze put forward a lacquered pheasant breast that tasted delicious but came with too many accompaniments, like a welcomed friend at a party who unexpectedly arrives with a pleasant yet overwhelming entourage. Overall, we agreed that we liked the dish — which included a sweet potato and coconut puree, a totally unnecessary pheasant cracklin’ and kimchee, among other things — and certainly rated it higher than its competitor. But then came dessert. There’s no other way to say it; Graze blew it. On the whole, I preferred their final course to Vidalia’s overpowered sorghum chocolate cake with nectarine ice cream save for one vital aspect — the sorghum chocolate fudge cake Graze presented showed up rock hard. We stabbed at the small block, which we imagined being made ahead of time and emerging too late from the freezer, with mild success. Normally the dessert is a chance for teams to make up for earlier transgressions and errors. The Vidalia folks absolutely crushed with their dessert in the preceding round, delivering a blueberry lemon crumb cake with ricotta cheesecake ice cream and smoked syrup glazed ham. Attendees ranked it considerably higher than any other dish of the entire Winston-Salem tourney. When it came to the dessert in the final, Vidalia
ERIC GINSBURG The first course from Vidalia performed relatively well and looked even better.
pulled in the highest marks of the night, just a hair above Graze’s lacquered pheasant breast. But Graze’s dessert, with the central component to it a failure, sank like concrete. Only one dish during the three-round Competition Dining ranked worse — a dessert from the Phoenix in Brevard in Round 1 — but that’s only according to the pro judges. Overall, the rock-hard cake from Graze netted the lowest averaged score from attendees. On a 40-point scale, Vidalia’s dessert notched 29.7 points; Graze’s otherwise superior creation scored a mere 18.8. And that’s how, after the Rocky-esque parade of chefs into the dining area, after Crippen’s attempts with recalcitrant chef interviewees and after the votes were tallied that Vidalia walked away with the title, carrying a 27.1 to 25-point victory over the defending champs. One of the Vidalia chefs flexed and roared much like MVP Steph Curry would do a few days later after pulling off a comeback victory to go on to the NBA Finals. Attendees, myself included, mostly shrugged. It’s not that we didn’t care who won. It’s just that we enjoyed ourselves so thoroughly and stuffed our faces so excessively that the winner seemed almost like an afterthought.
Pick of the Week Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit! 5th Annual Evening of Southern Food @ Milton Rhodes Arts Center (W-S), Friday, 6:30 p.m. Chef demonstrations and wine tasting await at this Southern snacky feast presented by the Winston-Salem Journal. Winston-Salem chef Tim Grandinetti of Spring House and Chopped fame is on the guest list, along with pie wizard Francine Bryson. Get tickets at eveningofsouthernfood.com.
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The 11 best beers I’ve tried lately
8. Fox-in-the-Morning by Gibb’s Hundred Gibb’s Hundred Brewing consistently produces high-quality beers, including its Berliner Weisse or scotch ale. On my last visit to the downtown Greensboro brewery, I tried the new Fox-in-the-Morning Saison and I highly recommend it.
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Shot in the Triad
10. Fumapapa by Pretty Things I rarely (read: basically never) buy any beer that clocks in about $7 — there’s just too much good stuff for cheaper. I made an exception when Pretty
11. Tropicmost Passionfruit Gose by Wicked Weed Is Wicked Weed the best brewery in North Carolina? Quite possibly, especially if you appreciate sour beers, but regardless this Asheville operation is consistently considered among the state’s finest. The readily available Tropicmost Passionfruit Gose is so good that if I see it, I don’t much care what else is on the menu.
Games
9. Hop of the Month – April (Kazbek) by Foothills Last year, Foothills premiered a new IPA every month. And that’s great, because this Winston-Salem brewery didn’t become a giant by accident — they’re pros. But I don’t love IPAs (go ahead and clutch your pearls, beer nerds), so I was delighted to hear Foothills would modify the release to be a hop of the month. I don’t typically love pilsners either, but the Kazbek pils that Foothills released in April is spot on.
Things, a beloved Boston-area brewery, decided to close down. I snagged this Russian imperial stout from Beer Co. bottle shop when I saw the bomber bottle for $10, knowing I’d likely never see a Pretty Things beer again. And I shed a metaphorical tear as I drank the Fumapapa.
Fun & Games
5. Sun Hands Belgian Summer Golden by Haw River Haw River Farmhouse Ales is undoubtedly one of
ERIC GINSBURG The author and his fellow drinking friends kicked off a Raleigh day-drinking bonanza at Neuse River Brewing.
Culture
4. Lexington Smoked Spring IPA by Natty Greene’s Natty Greene’s continues to release quality specials, and while I’m embarrassed about how few of the brewery’s sours I’ve tried, I can say this smoked IPA is on point. I found it at Beerthirty, a new Greensboro bottle shop and bar, where I also tried the delicious Aunt Sally dry-hopped sour by Lagunitas and learned that there’s a microbrewery operating in Kernersville. Who knew?
Cover Story
3. Beet Gose by Small Batch Winston-Salem’s other small brewery (soon to be joined by Wise Man Brewing) couldn’t figure out how to make its Beet Gose retain the bright pinkish red color of its special ingredient. But by tinkering with when to add beets in the process, co-owner Tim Walker said Small Batch finally nailed it. The taste is the same delicious recipe, but now there’s a magnificent shade to match.
7. Alberta Clipper Porter by Great Lakes Brewing Melt Kitchen & Bar in Greensboro reliably brags one of the Triad’s best beer lists even though the restaurant can only tap a few beers at a time. If it’s still on draft, try the Alberta Clipper Porter, a beaut from the ever-dependable Great Lakes, but you’re pretty well assured to find something excellent and new at Melt regardless.
Opinion
2. Mai Coconut Porter by Hoots By using rice, Hoots created an imminently drinkable dark beer that also tastes fantastic. I tried it at Mission Pizza Napoletana’s “Knife Fight,” and commented to brewery co-owner Eric Swaim that I could easily down a few in a row. It’s so popular that Hoots doesn’t even have it on draft at the bar, but you can find it at a few other Winston-Salem spots.
6. E mmy’s Grand Cru Belgian Ale by Preyer Brewing It’s hard to pull me away from my staple GSO-zuh gose ale on trips to Greensboro’s Preyer Brewing, but Emmy’s Grand Cru is worth the diversion. Be careful though — the high alcohol content will quickly sneak up on you.
News
1. The saisons by Neuse River Brewing Beer tourism, especially when paired with pizza, meatballs, arcade games and friends, is the best way to travel. My girlfriend and I spent a recent Saturday in Raleigh, day-drinking our way through four breweries and a barcade with a posse of Triangle friends. We started with flights at Neuse River Brewing, which easily ranked as my favorite brews of the day. Particularly, the three saisons on draft were all excellent, including the regulars Biere de Neuse and Neusiok Imperial Saison as well as the limited release Jardin au Poivre. This brewery alone would be worth the trek.
the best breweries in North Carolina. Ask me about it when you see me — by then I’ll have made it out to Saxapahaw to experience it in person. But Haw River’s beers are readily available throughout the state. Look for Sun Hands, a satisfying summer brew I found at the new Hops Burger Bar in Greensboro.
Up Front
I signed up for Untappd, a beer app, so I could keep track of what I’d tried and how I felt about it. The vast majority of the 665 unique beers I’ve “checked-in” on don’t merit any comment — they’re not bad, just unreby Eric Ginsburg markable. I pay too much attention to the dumb badges you can earn on Untappd, and sometimes checking in distracts me from human social interaction. But in the plus category, I can easily find the best beers I’ve tried lately and pass along that knowledge to you.
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June 1 — 7, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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CULTURE ‘Outsider Americana’ meets the music industry by Jordan Green
M
egan Jean Klay was nursing a migraine in her van in the parking lot of Shiners — a bar, game room and music venue near Guilford College in Greensboro — a couple hours before a set with her husband on a recent Saturday evening, when she emerged for an interview. Equipped with a double bed and providing ample room for their tiny Chihuahua, Arriba McEntire, the van was an investment the couple made last year to accommodate a touring schedule that had grown to about 200 nights a year. Accompanied by the steady thunk of a cornhole game and the players’ exuberant hollering, Klay and her husband Byrne reflected on their life on the road, eking out a modest livelihood and making gradual progress playing a style of music they call “outsider Americana.” “We’re stubborn and we’re married,” Megan Jean said as an explanation for their lifestyle. “We’re the lucky ones. I feel bad for the guys that are out on the road hungry, that are missing their girlfriends and their kids. My family is right here. I don’t have kids, but we’ve got Arriba McEntire.” “We’re good at making $20 and $50 a night,” Byrne added, as an explanation for how it’s more economical to cover the costs of keeping two people on the road, as opposed to a full band of five or six. They met in New York City at an experimental dance show called Moist Tiny Elephants — don’t ask about the name; they don’t know. Megan Jean was studying theater at New York University, and Byrne was enrolled in the jazz program at the New School. Fed up with the cost of renting practice space two years after forming a band together, they relocated to Charleston, SC in 2008. Charleston was their home base until last year, when they experienced difficulty getting their mail because they were only home for about 60 days of the year. For complicated reasons, they found that it was impractical to maintain a permanent mailing address in South Carolina, and moved their base of operations to Pennsylvania, where Megan Jean’s family owns a farm. Never heard of Megan Jean & the KFB, as the wife-husband duo is billed? That’s not their fault. Megan Jean rattled off an extensive list of shows the duo has played in Greensboro, going back to open mic night at the now defunct Flatiron back in 2007, and also including East West BBQ Fest, the Green Bean, the Blind Tiger, New York Pizza, Glenwood Coffee & Books and even Shiners previously. She demonstrated a sufficient familiarity with the particulars of Greensboro’s music scene to put in an unkind word against developer Roy Carroll because of his long-running efforts to turn down the volume on downtown music venues. “People say to me: ‘Have you ever played my town?’” Megan Jean recounted. “‘I don’t know. Where do you live?’ ‘Lynchburg, Va.’ I tell them: ‘No, but look for us to
Megan Jean Klay and her husband, Byrne, who perform as Megan Jean & the KFB, played at Shiners in Greensboro on May 28.
be playing your best friend’s living room next week.’” Built around Megan Jean’s richly melismatic voice — an instrument capable of shifting with ease from spooky carnival fun to backwoods sorrow or a sly pop sensibility — with the percussive accompaniment of Byrne’s electric banjo playing, the couple’s music draws promiscuously from jazz, blues, rockabilly, rock-androll and Latin music. The couple has begun to make some important inroads, and they’ve gotten serious about the business aspect of their music. They’ve played at South by Southwest and the annual conference of the Americana Music Association. In the meantime, continuing to play music they love night after night feels like a victory in itself. They earn money from their gigs and merch sales, and Byrne has parlayed his role as the band’s artist in residence into several gallery exhibits up and down the East Coast. “You can develop your own content and you market
JORDAN GREEN
your content,” Megan Jean said, “but let’s face it: Your recorded music is just an elaborate business card for live shows and selling T-shirts.” Mentioning licensing rights for advertising, crowdfunding and good-oldfashioned patronage as the various streams of revenue that contribute to a livelihood in music, Megan Jean likened their business model to a vacuum cleaner sucking up pennies.
Pick of the Week Your voice is soft like summer rain Dolly Parton @ the Coliseum (GSO), Friday, 7:30 p.m. Parton brings a toned-down version of her tour, promoting the late summer release of her new album, Pure and Simple. Expect songs off the new record, along with hits like “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You,” “Coat of Many Colors” and “Here You Come Again.” Tickets at greensborocoliseum.com.
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Shot in the Triad
Since the release of their second and most recent full-length album in 2013 — The Devil Herself — the duo has recorded two more albums. “We’re trying to work with real music industry people,” Megan Jean said. “There’s a lot of politics. We’ve got a deal in the works, and I’d be an idiot to talk about it. We’re probably gonna self-release one album. “The way things are done now is that you’re a DIY band,” she added, “and you partner with the industry when it makes sense to.” Megan Jean applauded Billboard’s recent decision to add a dedicated Americana chart, describing it as an important opportunity for all musicians who work in the genre. “We’re very lucky that in Americana there’s a multitude of women’s narratives,” Megan Jean said. “Which is not the case in indie rock — very unsavory. I’m not interested in staying 22 forever. In Americana, there’s a role for the wizened female. Lucinda Williams comes to mind. Or Neko Case.” The wife and husband don’t like for people to wish them good luck in achieving their dream. They’re living it every day, Megan Jean said. “I don’t follow my dreams,” Byrne added. “I follow reality.” Their hard work has exacted a physical toll, but like any other challenge that comes with being a working musician, the Klays have adapted to circumstances. “It’s generally an injury that makes me move on to another instrument,” Megan Jean said. Playing a kick drum with the back of her foot while singing, she wound up straining her gluteus maximus and decided to switch to washboard. The wear and tear on her shoulder eventually resulted in a torn rotator cuff, and she had to quit that instrument, too. The choice for Megan Jean to give up the washboard necessitated Byrne switching from stand-up bass to electric banjo. They also share percussion duties, with Byrne handling kick drum while Megan Jean plays the snare. As a local trio broke down their opening set, Megan Jean grabbed a couple glasses of water with lemon from the bar and made her way towards the stage. “Good for me that I like playing music,” she said. “Lucky me — I get to do it right now.”
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June 1 — 7, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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CULTURE Steampunk and sci-fi chemically react in Avril et le Monde Truqué by Joanna Rutter
A
vril Franklin has been searching for her abducted parents while attempting to complete their top-secret scientific research for 10 years. When she finally stumbles across a solution for their longevity serum, she is suddenly drawn into a government conspiracy that could lead her to her family — or to the end of human life on earth. In Avril et le Monde Truqué,] directors Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci imagine a dark France circa 1941, in which the Napoleonic line never ended, all scientists have mysteriously disappeared, and society never evolved past using charcoal as an energy source. That the film — clocking in at one hour and 45 minutes — is as thrilling as any Bourne installation speaks to the directors’ vision paired with an excellent animation team. The film premiered last June at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, where it won Best Feature Film, and comes to A/perture Cinema COURTESY PHOTO Avril et le monde truqué, opening this Friday at A/perture Cinema in Winston-Salem, imagines a charcoal-powered in Winston-Salem at the tail end France still ruled by Napoleon. of a limited US theatrical run. Its short A/perture visit, running from secret to her family’s serum. another spunky teen heroine in a tumultuous political Friday through June 9, is a rare opportunity to see this The influence of another famed French comic artist, time. Animation geeks craving something as emotionthrilling and beautiful story play out on a large screen Hergé, is apparent in the realization of the characters, ally powerful and simply animated as The Iron Giant before it disappears into the hard-to-find foreign DVD right down to the way the “camera” focuses on a getor My Neighbor Totoro will find fast-paced panacea in and piracy abyss. away chase involving a jalopy and a bicycle dirigible as each lovingly detailed panoramic shot. The English translation of the film’s title — “April if following the panels of a classic Tintin story. Borrowing much more from Japan’s Studio Ghibli and the Extraordinary World” — casts the film in a Just like in Tintin, the film relies on occasional than distant animation cousins Disney and Pixar, Avril more twee, positive light than its French name sugmoments of levity from goofier characters to provide uses thick brushstrokes and a muted color scheme to gests. Truqué doesn’t have an exact English counterlaughs in between the scary reality of the overarching capture a France of literary imagination — the scrappart, but a translation comes close to being somewhat story (in this case, how Avril is being hunted down by py societal underbelly of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities tampered, rigged or falsified. a subterranean superspecies to blended with the Victorian-steampunk vibe found in Perhaps a more fittingly menacing help them destroy earth). Avril’s the similarly magical 2011 film Hugo. Avril et le monde truqué English title would be April and the grandpa “Pops” is a caricature of a Though the conspiracy plot unravels at a breakneck World That’s Not Quite Right. opens Friday at A/perture ditzy scientist; Darwin, her talking speed much faster than say, Totoro, it’s still a kids’ Renowned graphic novelist and indestructible cat, teases her Cinema in Winston-Salem Jacques Tardi masterfully conand romantic interest Julius about Pick of the Week and runs until June 9. For ceptualized Avril’s world. Much their budding flirtation; and the times and tickets, go to I like to look for things no one else catches of his work covers eerie alternate bumbling Officer Pizoni and his Amélie @ Bailey Park (W-S), Friday 8:30 p.m. realities or wartime stories, so the aperturecinema.com. obsessive decade-long search for A/perture Cinema and the Innovation Quarpre-industrial France he creates in Avril’s family is like a lighter homter’s film series returns for its third season of free Avril is perfectly crafted as a whole, age to Inspector Javert from Les screenings of contemporary and classic films. First believable world. Soot clouds a country as statues of Miserables. up: This fantastical, lush, strange and beautiful the latest Napoleon tower over abandoned factories; The thick outlines, simple grays and plain faces may French film from 2001, in which an imaginative public transportation systems of blimp-trams and seem reminiscent of animation studio Je Suis Bien Conwoman can manipulate the world around her. Visit creaky moving walkways jerk and hiss in the backtent’s previous work on the 2007 film Persepolis, based innovationquarter.com for more information. ground; undercover cyborg-rat spies trail Avril for the on the graphic novel of the same name following
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movie, so the actors do speak more slowly than in regular French films, making it possible to keep up with the subtitles easily while soaking in the gorgeous steampunk visuals on the screen. (French speakers will likely chuckle at expletives like merde translated to “dang it” for apparently more sensitive English-speaking young viewers.) There’s a dubbed version circulating the states, but it would be a sore loss to watch this film without Academy Award-winner Marion Cotillard voicing the main character. Her moxie suits Avril well, and her gravelly teen petulance sells the character just as much as the masterful animation does. More than simply a creepy good time for adults, animation diehards and older kids who are fast enough readers to follow along, Avril et le monde truqué does not attempt to mask its commentary on the evils of war, the dangerous ethics of scientific study and the destruction of natural resources. The sobering takeaway, paired with its masterful artistry, make Avril well worth a weekend trip au cinéma.
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T
he seventh-inning stretch on May 27 commenced like any other in any other ballpark in America on any other day, with the assembly singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in multi-key unison. by Anthony Harrison But I wasn’t at just any other ballpark. I was at the oldest surviving major-league ballpark in America, a truly historic site that, over 100 years, has seen more unrequited tragedy than any other playing field in American sport. I was at Wrigley Field in Chicago, watching the Philadelphia Phillies take on the Cubs, and it was my birthday. And as I sang, “So let’s root, root-root for the Cubbies,” I wondered, Is this real life? I’d arrived late the previous night. My old friend Kate Gibson, former editor-in-chief of Guilford College’s student newspaper, met me at baggage claim, and we took the L’s Blue Line southeast from O’Hare to the Loop, then transferred to the northbound Red Line. We caught up — that long ride afforded plenty of time. But we also generated an itinerary for the day: Breakfast at Heartland Café (where President Obama launched his senatorial campaign forever ago), Wrigley Field, then Giordano’s Pizza. After a tasty breakfast Reuben — fried egg, bacon, kraut and Russian dressing on rye — and an horchata milkshake from the café, we hopped on the Red Line once again and rode south 10 stops to Addison Avenue. Plenty of Cubs fans populated each train car, many
Hey, Chicago, whaddya say? with shirts and jerseys sporting different designs of the Cubs logo: the striding bear inside a red C, a cartoon cub’s face encased in a red circle and the eternal classic — red Cubs inside a navy circle. Another shirt, worn by a man in his early sixties, featured a different legendary symbol of the brand. The catchphrase, “Let’s get some runs,” shouted above an illustration of late longtime announcer Harry Caray. Delirious excitement seized me when we stepped into the heart of Wrigleyville. The stadium, beautiful iron and steel washed in white and emerald, was right there — the backside of it, anyway — and people decked in red, white and royal blue milled about in front of the famous Sports Corner bar. “The whole place looks like a Fourth of July party,” Kate commented. Kate and I could have entered from any side of the park, but I knew what I had to see. We worked our way to the front of Wrigley Field, and there it was: The enormous red marquee, deco as the Chrysler Building, an emblem of baseball fixed in my imagination ever since I’d seen it in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as a kid. The perfect view, unobstructed by stoplights, came from in front of the Cubby Bear bar, another renowned Wrigleyville establishment. I experienced a flood of removed nostalgia walking in. I knew what had happened here. The Homer in the Gloamin’. The Sandberg game. Sammy Sosa’s race for runner-up in the 1998 home-run record hunt. Infielder Ernie Banks, record holder for most games without a postseason appearance — 2,528 — played 18 seasons here. Grover Cleveland Alexander and
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Greg Maddux pitched here. Second baseman Rogers Hornsby, runner-up in highest career batting average, betrayed his St. Louis Cardinals and played his final great years here. But also Babe Ruth’s called shot. The Steve Bartman incident. And six World Series, the last 71 years ago, without a single win. In fact, the last man to have played for the Cubs in a World Series game, shortstop Lennie Merullo, died last year. All these folktales are but memories in the city’s ether, but so much of the park has remained largely unchanged that, for a first-time visitor like myself, my giddy imagination nearly blinded me. For though Merullo, Alexander, Ruth and Banks are all gone, the analog centerfield scoreboard remains. Rust colors the whitewashed steel works, and paint chipped away on the underside of the terrace and façade reveals the old, aged wood. Verdant Boston ivy still crawls along the outfield walls and corner wells. And while it can never be the same breeze, wind off Lake Michigan still curves opponents’ line drives foul. The Cubs may be the Loveable Losers, but they win in the long run, because they possess one of two remaining major-league jewel boxes. And it’s the most beautiful stadium I’ve ever seen. Granted, I’ve never been to Fenway Park in Boston, but I’ll soon let you know what I think of that famous field. And though the Cubs have lost so much in the 100 years they’ve played in Wrigley Field, they won that day’s game. They whipped the poor Phillies, 6-2, with three homers — two solos smacked by leftfielder Jorge Soler and third baseman Kris Bryant, and one three-run slam over the leftfield corner by catcher David Ross in the bottom of the fourth, his 100th career homer. A remarkable 3-6-1 double play — a grounder fielded from first baseman Anthony Rizzo to shortstop Addison Russell on second to closing pitcher Héctor Rondón covering first — ended the game. A huge white flag sporting a blue W flew over the scoreboard, and the speakers blared the cheesy ’80s anthem, “Go! Cubs! Go!” It felt good to see the Loveable Losers win at home. And they aren’t really losers: This season, they sport the best record in MLB.
An iconic baseball image decirates the friendly confines of Wrigley Field in Chicago, home of the lovable Cubs.
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Crackin’ .500 Delmarva Shorebirds @ Greensboro Grasshoppers (GSO), Thursday-Saturday, 7 p.m. The Greensboro Grasshoppers (25-26 as of Tuesday afternoon) keep knocking at a .500 record, and this late-week home stretch may give them the opportunity to secure the position. While the Delmarva Shorebirds have a better record, the ’Hoppers seem equally matched this season. All three games begin at 7 p.m., but Thursday night promises the best forecast.
‘Willard’s Theme’ featuring a few minor characters. by Matt Jones Across
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1 Dicker over the price 2 Snowden in Moscow, e.g. 3 San ___ (Hearst Castle site) 4 “What I do have are a very particular set of skills” movie 5 25-Across’s gp. 6 Launch cancellation 7 Serengeti sound 8 Raison d’___ 9 Chases away
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10 Auto racer ___ Fabi 11 Her bed was too soft 12 Sans intermission 13 11th in a series 18 Classic violin maker 22 2002 eBay acquisition 24 Delight in 26 Go out, like the tide 29 Meal handouts 30 Newman’s Own competitor 31 Battleground of 1836 33 Power shake ingredient, maybe 34 Get ___ start 35 “Julius Caesar” phrase before “and let slip the dogs of war” 36 Minor symptom of whiplash 39 One way to enter a hidden cave? 40 Gp. concerned with hacking 41 “Hollywood Squares” veteran Paul 44 Talk show host Geraldo 45 No longer upset 46 Beaux ___ (gracious acts) 48 Word after war or oil 50 Medicine dispenser 53 Drug ___ 54 Pound of poetry 55 “Burning Giraffes in Yellow” painter 58 Some movie ratings 59 Prefix meaning “power”
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1 “... why ___ thou forsaken me?” 5 Agitated state 11 “Cool” amount of money 14 Largest of seven 15 Pacify 16 “UHF” actress Sue ___ Langdon 17 Cardio boxing animal? 19 ___ juste 20 Colgate rival, once 21 Two-tone cookie 22 Exhale after a long run 23 Lewis and Helmsley, for two 25 Servicemember with the motto “We build. We fight” 27 Nightfall, in an ode 28 2012 Republican National Convention city 32 How some people learn music 33 Chemical analysis kit used on the banks of a waterway? 35 One of its letters stands for “Supported” 37 Family surname in a 2016 ABC sitcom 38 Portraits and such 39 Shopping center featuring earth-toned floor coverings? 42 “All Quiet on the Western Front” star Lew 43 Black, as a chimney
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ALL SHE WROTE Southern charm
M
e: Be careful of elastic waistbands in the South in the summer. David: Why is by Nicole Crews that? Me: Because that’s where chiggers and ticks seek residence. David: Duly noted.
way across the long, wooden walkway to the sliding glass to find a gorgeous creature with Crystal Gayle hair slinking in the doorway in the kind of bikini I wasn’t allowed to wear. I was in the throes of backtracking and admitting my case of mistaken identity when my parents’ friend emerged from a back room in a silken robe of Hefner proportions. “Hey kid it’s just us two down,” he said, rattling ice cubes, “tell your parents to come over for a drink.” Again, I was thrilled! It was him! I When I was little my mother had a wasn’t wrong! friend named Birdie who always wore I got over the loss of my ballerina a girdle. I loved giving her hugs and playmate easily once I locked onto the feeling that taut hide beneath her exotic newcomer. She was a flight atwaist-flaunting dresses. It was solid and tendant. She lived in New York City. And assuring and somehow lent Amazoget this: She had a pet monkey. nian strength to my teetering toddler Their groovy rental house also had consciousness. chic leather butterfly chairs, a modern So it was with love that sectional sofa and a on a sweltering summer steam room. My archiI remember my evening, across a country tectural triumphs of club lawn filled with sand were washed away parents’ deliwell-heeled folk that as I lounged in front of cate phrasing as I watched her emerge the mod fireplace, ate from a long, black car, cherries from a bowl and we pulled away adjust her mid-section was regaled with tales from the fragrant and yelled out, “Look! of celebrity passengers Birdie’s got a chigger in and first-class flirtations. dunes. her girdle.” I could also get my hair Well, suffice it to say, I French-braided and my didn’t get many more of those comforttoes painted crimson by the exotic lady ing hugs from Miss Birdie. I believe I was of the air and watch her make bouillaalso sent to bed without any supper and baisse with one hand and conduct rock without getting to stay up — as previand roll ballads with a cigarette in the ously promised — for the dancing. other. To me, it was vacation nirvana. I was very uncertain as to what I had To my parents’ friend, not so much. His done wrong. little love nest had a new chick settling Fast-forward to age 8 and our annual in and there wasn’t much anyone could summer trip to Ocean Isle Beach. I was do about it. so excited when we pulled up to the I remember my parents’ delicate classic A-line cottage that we always phrasing as we pulled away from the rented because I spotted the vanity fragrant dunes. They reminded me that plate of a familiar brown Mercedes Mr. Mercedes’ new friend was just his convertible. I was thrilled because Mr. friend and that she was not friends Mercedes had a daughter close to my with Mrs. Mercedes nor their ballerina age — a fellow aspiring ballerina — and daughter, so it was probably better not this meant pirouettes in the sand, to discuss our vacation with them. jetes into the jetty and not the usual, “It’s a lot like Birdie and her girdle lone sandcastle architecture of an only isn’t it?” I said. child’s vacation. “You got it kid,” said mother, rattling I leapt like Nureyev across the scramher ice cubes. ble of maritime forest and bourreed my
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