TCB June 22, 2016 — Deb Moy and a higher law

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com June 22 – 28, 2016

FREE

Rock against HB 2 PAGE 10

Burning desire PAGE 21

Nintendo teenage riot

PAGE 16

PAGE 22

June 22 — 28, 2016

EXPERIENCE … EMF

FIVE WEEKS OF MUSIC EXCELLENCE

Eastern Music Festival brings world renowned musicians and the most promising young artists to Greensboro for five weeks of intensive study and captivating performances.

Concerts nightly on the Guilford College campus and in venues around the community.

Tickets are available now for the 2016 Season Monday, June 27 through Saturday, July 30.

PERFORMANCES TO INCLUDE: Joseph M. Bryan, Jr. Festival Orchestra Series Saturday, July 2 / 8PM Dana Auditorium, Guilford College Pianist Awadagin Pratt plays Brahms’ STUNNING Piano Concerto with the Eastern Festival Orchestra.

Saturday, July 16 / 8PM Dana Auditorium, Guilford College New York Philharmonic Violist Cynthia Phelps WORLD PREMIERS Julia Adolph’s viola concerto.

Saturday, July 23 / 8PM Dana Auditorium, Guilford College Eastern Festival Orchestra presents a WORLD PREMIER by renowned composer Andre Prévin. ACCLAIMED Violinist James Ehnes performs Strauss.

Violinist Nadja SalernoSonnenberg in Recital Thursday, June 30 / 8PM Dana Auditorium, Guilford College A MESMERIZING evening with one of today’s leading violinists.

The Magic of Mozart Orchestra Gala

EMF Open House

FREE Sunday, July 24 / 1-8:30PM Guilford College Campus Recitals SHOWCASE EMF percussion, guitar and piano students. Conducting Fellows lead Eastern Festival Orchestra in concert.

Music For A Sunday Evening in the Park Tuba Skinny with special guests The Swamp Nots caps the day with a concert on Dana Lawn.

EMF Guitar Summit Wednesday, July 27 / 8PM Temple Emanuel, Greensboro EMF’S SUPERLATIVE guitar faculty and young artists perform works spanning four centuries.

Young Artists Concerto Competition Winners Thursday, July 28 / 8PM Friday, July 28 / 8 PM Dana Auditorium DISCOVER EMF’s most talented young artists.

Friday, July 1 / 8PM Dana Auditorium, Guilford College The Festival’s three orchestras CELEBRATE Mozart’s genius.

Faculty Chamber Series

Viva Vivaldi

Chamber Music at UNCG School of Music, Theatre and Dance Mondays between June 27 and July 25 / 8 PM Special SUNDAY MATINEE, JULY 3 / 4PM (NO July 4 performance) Recital Hall, UNCG School of Music, Theatre and Dance

Wednesday, July 6 / 8 PM First Presbyterian Church, Greensboro The best of Italian Baroque in one of Greensboro most EVOCATIVE settings.

Eastern Music Faculty Faculty Artists provide INTIMATE concerts twice weekly during the festival.

Chamber Music at Guilford College Tuesdays between June 28 and July 26 / 8 PM Dana Auditorium, Guilford College

Ticket information & Sales 336-272-0160

EASTERNMUSICFESTIVAL.ORG 2

All programs, dates, artists, venues, and prices are subject to change.

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

by Brian Clarey

NEWS 8 A mother’s worries 10 Stand Against HB2 2.0 12 HPJ: Time Square expands

OPINION 14 Editorial: Sabotage in the Senate 14 It Just Might Work: Submitting to the oligarchy 15 Citizen Green: Naloxone for the people 15 Fresh Eyes: Behind bars and standing with LGBTQ

COVER 16 Deb Moy and a higher law

CULTURE 20 Food: Inside outside food 21 Barstool: Passing the torch 22 Music: Geeks rock Geeksboro 24 Art: Juneteenth, from 18th century Salem to Glenwood

FUN & GAMES

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

26 Diamond in the bush

28 Gate City Blvd, Greensboro

GAMES

ALL SHE WROTE

27 Jonesin’ Crossword

30 A Southerner’s guide to the British Invasion

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

My skin doesn’t have pores. It’s all scar tissue on my back. My skin doesn’t sweat, so I get overheated. I get blisters I can’t get rid of. I’m always having some kind of issue. It’s always something.

— Deb Moy, in the Cover, page 16

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320 BUSINESS PUBLISHER Allen Broach

SALES DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Dick Gray

EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Brian Clarey

SALES EXECUTIVE Lamar Gibson

allen@triad-city-beat.com

brian@triad-city-beat.com

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

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

EDITORIAL INTERNS Joanna Rutter

dick@triad-city-beat.com

lamar@triad-city-beat.com

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

NEST Advertise in NEST, our monthly real estate insert, the final week of every month!

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

Cover photography by Carolyn de Berry Deb Moy was left for dead. Now, she’s not only walking, but has graduated from law school.

nest@triad-city-beat.com

intern@triad-city-beat.com

ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino jorge@triad-city-beat.com

A pant for all seasons

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

A confession: I’ve been wearing the same pair of pants, more or less, for six months.

When I see it in print like that, it looks pretty bad. But let me explain.

So I’ve been saying for years now that everyone in Greensboro should own a pair of jeans made with denim from Cone Mills, specifically the boutique, selvedge denim milled, strand by strand, on a mechanical Draper Loom — the best damn denim in the world, favored by gold miners, soldiers, cowboys (real ones), mechanics and prisoners for 100 years.

Just before Christmas, I landed myself a pair from the guys at Hudson’s Hill after many, many months of discussion and due diligence.

I still remember how they felt when I first tried them on: stiff as a shoebox, unyielding in the back of the knees and hip flexors. It hurt a little bit to put my hands in the pockets. It would take months to break them in, Evan Morrison told me, during which time I should wear them every day, and never wash them.

Never?

“You can wear them in the shower or the bathtub,” he said, “but not too much or the denim will fade.”

This was more than a pair of jeans. This was a project.

I waited six weeks before I subjected my pants to a water rinse. Man that sounds bad.

In that time they had ceased to give me physical pain when I walked or sat down. Another month or so and they had softened at the critical points of hip pocket and knee. The back pocket was starting to bear the imprint of my wallet, like in some of the overalls hanging in Morrison’s store.

Things were going pretty great with me and the pants.

And then I broke bad.

I threw them in the washer once It would take months to — no detergent!

— and then they break them in, Evan Morriaccidentally took a son told me, during which short run through time I should wear them the dryer a couple every day. weeks later. They fell into the regular laundry rotation a couple times and then… and then….

Well there’s no easy way to say this: I’ve been putting them through the dryer. And I like it.

It softens them up real nice, and gives them a beautiful blue fade that blends from midnight blue down to cornflower.

And dammit, there’s nothing in the world — nothing! — like a pair of jeans straight out of the dryer.

Sorry fellas. I know I’ve let you down. But I’m not giving the pants back.

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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June 22 — 28, 2016

CITY LIFE June 22 – 28 WEDNESDAY A Conversation with Deborah Ross @ Sunrise Books (HP), 3:30 p.m.

Deborah Ross, the Democratic challenger against Republican incumbent Richard Burr in the US Senate race, visits the Triad for a chat hosted by the High Point Democrats. Noteworthy points on her résumé include a Duke law degree, 10 years in the state House and public transportation work with GoTriangle. Contact Bev Bard with questions at 336.403.8617.

Yes Pls live demo @ Single Brothers (W-S), 7 p.m.

Winston-Salem hippie-chic shop Kleur welcomes their first artist-in-residence, sculptor James Barber. The functional, funky maker leaves his home of Bed-Stuy for a two-week stint in Camel City; give him a proper welcome while watching a live demo of casting in silicone and hand-building prototypes in clay, then nosh on burgers and booze afterward. Find Kleur on Facebook for details.

THURSDAY

Annual meeting @ GreenHill (GSO), 5 p.m.

Want to know more about GreenHill? Anyone’s invited to its annual meeting, where Stephanie Moore from the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design in Asheville gives a talk, followed by a summer exhibition opening. Learn about the quirky-yet-feasible upcoming 7x7 community arts project, and enjoy Hi-Wire brew tasting. More at greenhillnc.org.

Spark Fund Idea Slam @ Collab (GSO), 5:30 p.m.

Get up on the mic at this informal event, where you can pitch a four-minute idea, followed by a short Q&A with whoever else showed up. Action Greensboro’s Spark Fund has the cash on hand for some of those ideas to become reality in their summer grant season; may the best idea apply. Beer and snacks on hand to get creative juices flowing. Search for the event on Eventbrite to register.

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by Joanna Rutter

12th Annual Summer Solstice Party @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), 6 p.m.

It’s a bit late to celebrate the 20th’s Strawberry Moon, but, better late than never. Things will get kicked off with a yoga salute to the sun on the west side of the museum parking lot, then folk-rock band Gipsy Danger will bring the bluegrass. Wear your party clothes; interpret that however you want. Details at weatherspoon.uncg.edu.

triad-city-beat.com

FRIDAY

SATURDAY Metaphysical and Wellness Fair @ Ohana Center (HP), 11 a.m.

Alright, half-ass hippies, time to hop off the essential oil trend and commit to full-blown holistic medicine and energy healing. The fair’s program includes lectures on an overview of Native American shamanism, crystal healing and accessing “the quantum field.” We don’t know what the quantum field is, but we’re trusting it isn’t like a stargate.

Fingers crossed. More information on the event Facebook page.

Cruel SummerFest @ Test Pattern (W-S), 4 p.m.

Having too nice and cheery of a summer already? End the giggles now with an extended evening of dark, total-bummer noise that would make the Beach Boys gently weep onto their surfboards. The lineup includes Lesser Life, Spirit System, Trudge and Pallor, which all sound like Hot Topic nail polish names, so you know it’s good. Full lineup on the Facebook page.

SUNDAY

Stand Against HB2 @ the Millennium Center (W-S), noon North Carolina musicians will raise their voices against HB 2; 100 percent of ticket sales will go toward Equality NC and Queer Oriented Radical Days of Summer. A lot of people are angry, so it’ll be a party. Tickets via a link on the Facebook event page; children 12 and under are free. Learn more about the concert at standagainsthb2.com.

Watermelanin @ ArtSpace Uptown (GSO), 5 p.m.

ArtSpace promises “cultural release and melodious beats” at this delightfully titles night of poets, lyricists, singers, dancers and other performers, along with local vendors. If you haven’t checked out this new space brought to east Greensboro by entrepreneurial force Joseph Wilkerson, this is your best bet for initiation. Tickets via the event Facebook page.

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June 22 — 28, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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9 things I’ve been meaning to read

by Eric Ginsburg 1. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri We just put out our annual Books Issue, and I’m taking this week off to relax at the beach. Together those factors led me to think about all the things I’ve been meaning to read, what I should pack and what I’ll actually pick up. I’m a couple chapters into Lahiri’s short-story collection but I’ve been moving pretty slowly on it. Hopefully I can focus on this Pulitzer Prize winner.

2. Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love by Simran Sethi I remember the excitement of my friend, WFDD reporter Bethany Chafin, when she told me that she would be interviewing Sethi about this book. Chafin explained that Sethi spent time living in Winston-Salem, but the subject matter of this one is what really drew me in.

3. Prodigals by Greg Jackson I kinda know Greg Jackson — he slept on an air mattress on my floor, and we attended the same, small New Year’s Eve party once. But what convinced me to buy Jackson’s book wasn’t our Facebook friendship, but a compelling review of Prodigals in the New York Times.

This work of fiction, more than almost anything on the list,

may be the thing I finish first.

I’m not sure when exactly I’ll take it down.

4. Elle’s cover story on Taylor Swift A full year ago, Elle magazine put Taylor on its June cover with the header, “Taylor Swift: National treasure: Grown-ass woman!” An epically stupid title, but I readily admit to my fandom and a friend snagged me a copy of the mag. It’s been in my backpack for months, but I still haven’t cracked it open.

7. Food & Wine’s Travel Issue The bright pink cover featuring dumplings is more than enough to catch my eye. Food & Wine’s Travel Issue has been sitting on my coffee table ever since my girlfriend brought it home, and maybe on this trip we’ll actually get around to leafing through it. What’s more relaxing than thinking about food and travel?

5. Queer and Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of Our Lives by Nia King My old friend Nia King, who runs a similarly themed podcast called “We Want the Airwaves,” wrote this book a while back. I used to be a non-fiction only sort of guy, and I would’ve consumed this immediately, but after years as a journalist, free reading time mostly goes towards fiction these days.

8. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck I really want to be able to say that I finished this classic, but I’m stranded on page 271. Friends say the pace improves after the protagonists reach California, but I’m not convinced. This is one reason why I usually pick shorter books.

6. Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon It’s a classic. I actually own two copies of this seminal text, and I know I’m supposed to read it. But just like Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Blood Done Sign My Name, it’s been sitting on my shelf for quite some time now, and

9. The Bible (but just the Jesus parts) Yes, I’m totally serious. Jesus said some pretty cool things, and considering how much he’s referenced or quoted, I figure I should make it through his portions of the Bible. I’m Jewish (just like him!), but I’m pretty sure I’d agree with much of what he preached. There’s even a copy sitting on my bookcase, waiting.

Gimme Shelter

by Jordan Green For no particular reason that I can discern I found myself compelled to watch the Maysles brothers’ classic 1970 documentary Gimme Shelter on YouTube late on recent Friday night.

It’s a fantastic cinematic accomplishment that can be equally appreciated as a document of one of the darkest episodes in the disintegration of the ’60s counterculture and as a larger meditation on how utopian innocence can curdle into dystopian horror.

Brothers Albert and David Maysles, who died in 2015 and 1987 respectively, were masters of cinéma vérité, and the “fly on the wall” approach pioneered by Albert. It’s one I’ve tried to apply to my journalism, in service of the goal of letting the subject come through so vividly that the media maker practically disappears into the work.

Gimme Shelter — which follows the Rolling Stones from outset of their 1969 US tour through its horrific culmination, with a Hells Angel stabbing Meredith Hunter at the disastrous Altamont concert in northern California — includes no interviews or narration, mostly just the cameras clinging to concert performances, hotel rooms, press conferences and legal negotiations leading up to the unfolding tragedy.

Yet ironically, the footage that cuts through the Rolling Stones’ artifice — Mick Jagger prancing and preening

onstage, directing a promotional photo shoot and making glib pronouncements at press conferences — are revealing scenes that can best be described as “playbacks.” In contrast to the charismatic prophet of sexual libertinism onstage, Jagger the bandleader reviewing the gruesome footage is more deliberate and guarded. His intense gaze reveals mortification, smoldering anger and calculating self-awareness all at the same time before he says, Altamont was rock music’s ultimate bad trip. COURTESY PHOTO “That’s enough,” and walks out.

A more transcendent moment comes when the my friend Matt) and Phil Lesh making their way across cameras capture the band listening to the playback of the festival grounds. “Hells Angels are doing beating on “Wild Horses” at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound musicians?” Lesh asks, in not the most communal spirit. “It Studios in Alabama, with Keith Richards sprawled out, doesn’t seem right, man.” eyes closed, possessed by the song in what can only The footage of the festival itself — an apocalyptic be described as a state of blissful oblivion. The camera scene of chopped-out bikes roaring through clusters of comes in for a tight focus on his face — he’s nodding and hippies in the desert and bikers wildly swinging sticks at mouthing the lyrics — and then zooms down his pant leg concertgoers — is the ultimate depiction of a collective to his worn snakeskin boots tapping out the rhythm. bad trip. The scenes of volunteers crawling over the landIncidentally, Gimme Shelter provides one of the most scape just before dawn with sound equipment, beer, even unflattering portrayals of my favorite band, the Grateful a mattress, seem almost Biblical, and then just before the Dead. The Dead, by some accounts, recommended that closing credits, one sees human forms staggering away, the Stones hire the Angels as security for the concert. almost seeming to cling to the earth like scurrying crabs, The footage briefly shows Jerry Garcia (whose demeanprimordial creatures coughed up from the depths of hell. or seems small and mole-like in the film, according to

triad-city-beat.com

Where do you want to vacation?

With Monday marking the official beginning of summer, we wanted to talk about vacation.

Where would you want to be, if you could choose: the beach, the mountains, out of state or out of the country? We asked our readers and editors to pick — here’s what they said.

90

60

30

20

10

Out of state

31%

15%

The beach

8%

The mountains

8%

Other

Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

Rape by the numbers Korinna, you were clearly raped. Emily Doe, from all available evidence, was clearly raped. [“Fresh Eyes: Emily Doe and ending rape culture”; byKorinna Sergent; June 15, 2016] But how can you say that 33 percent of all females are raped during their lifetimes? That statistic is at wide variance with official statistics. Are you assuming that percentage because not all rapes are reported? Or are you equating an unwanted grope or kiss, probably sexual assault by definition, with rape? Or are you allowing for a mutually agreeable, consensual sexual episode, regretted the next day or week or month, to be called rape?

ShellyStow, via triad-city-beat.com

Games

Out of the country

Fun & Games

38%

Culture

New question: Is endorsing Donald Trump a good career move for GOP politicians?

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Cover Story

Readers: Our readers want to get away. “Out of state” came in first, but not far ahead of “out of the country” with 38 percent compared to 31.

“The beach” fell well below in distant third with 15 percent while “the mountains” and “other” each ranked a mere 8 percent of the vote. But then again, it looks like this week many of you were too busy on vacations of your own to bother voting.

Let’s hope that’s not the case come November.

Opinion

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Jordan Green: It’s summer, so water is more or less a requirement. The high altitude of the mountains is somewhat appealing, but the temperature differential between Greensboro and Boone is not going to be that significant. If I was going to the mountains, I feel like it would have to be someplace like Maine or British Columbia.

And I’m a North Carolinian, so an annual trip to the beach is kind of like an entitlement of the lower-middle class. I’m determined to get mine in.

Eric Ginsburg: As you read this, I’m relaxing out of state, at or near the beach, to be exact. But if I had my choice, I’d opt for out of the country (because duh), specifically somewhere like Vietnam, Sweden or Cuba. Hopefully one day I’ll see all three disparate nations, but for now I am pretty content to be far from home soaking in the sun.

News

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Up Front

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Brian Clarey: I grew up on the beach — or, at least so close to it that I spent just about every day of every summer there when I was growing up. I spent loads of time on the North Carolina coast when I was a travel writer, a good bit less in its mountain lakes. So I like to go out of state when I travel. I’ve already got a family trip to New Jersey lined up and a few days in Austin, Texas. If I can arrange another getaway, it will likely be out of state as well.

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June 22 — 28, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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NEWS

Mother worries about her mentally ill son’s safety in Guilford jail

by Eric Ginsburg

A Greensboro mother is doing the best she can to hold it together as she tries to fight for her son to receive adequate mental-health treatment in a county jail, worrying that without it he might provoke or lash out at guards with fatal consequences.

Tammy Tucker is worried sick about her son, Maurice. So much so that she lost one of her jobs.

After Greensboro police arrested Maurice Tucker, 30, on a variety of charges including possession of a gun by a felon and driving the wrong way down a street in the Smith Homes area on May 14, his mother Tammy hasn’t been able to stop worrying.

It’s not that she’s worried about whether he’ll beat the charges — she’s worried for his life. His letters from the Guilford County jail in downtown Greensboro haven’t helped.

Maurice was diagnosed as manic bipolar, schizophrenic and as suffering from psychosis in 2010, Tammy Tucker said, which she said helped explain years of erratic and illegal behavior.

He’d been living with her for several years before his arrest, but she only found out after Maurice got locked up that he’d been off his medication for six or eight months. Unable to bring Maurice his medicine in jail — Tammy said the jail won’t allow it and provides him with generic medication — she is worried that Maurice isn’t in his right mind. If he acts out or provokes a guard at the jail — or worse yet in prison if he’s convicted — who isn’t trained to deal with someone with his cocktail of mental health issues, Tammy Tucker fears the results could be deadly.

“All it takes is the wrong chokehold,” she said.

He’s had trouble in jail before, she said, and his record shows it. Since being locked up, Maurice has written her repeatedly, sometimes complaining of treatment from guards including one incident where he claimed a guard pinned him to the floor with a knee on his temple, scratching Maurice’s head by his ear.

Her son’s rap sheet is voluminous.

Tammy Tucker, Maurice’s mother, leafs through letters and files related to his cases and healthcare.

Maurice Tucker has been charged with a seemingly endless string of offenses, though many — ranging from possession of a drug not in its original container to assault with a deadly weapon — were dropped by the district attorney, according to court records. But Maurice has also been found guilty in plenty of other cases, including misdemeanor assault on a government official/employee, malicious conduct by a prisoner, felony possession with intent to sell/ distribute cocaine and felony attempted breaking or entering a building.

To an extent, Tammy Tucker blames herself — as a single mom, she raised her children as best she could, but they were often living in “drug neighborhoods.”

“I’ll probably die still blaming myself,” she said, “but I just want to get him right.”

Maurice and people like him belong in mental health facilities, Tammy Tuck-

er said, somewhere like the state-operated healthcare treatment center in Butner, where Maurice was originally diagnosed.

“I want him to be safe,” she said. “He still has rights.”

Maj. Chuck Williamson, the court services bureau commander of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed that Maurice Tucker is receiving mental-health treatment at the jail that includes medications and daily visits from a mental health nurse, adding that the law prevented him from sharing additional medical information. Tucker does not appear on the department’s online listing of those currently in the jail, but Williamson confirmed that Tucker is there and being held in an administrative segregation unit “primarily based on his history and some of his current behavior.”

In the past, Tucker has thrown feces at guards, Williamson said — evidence

ERIC GINSBURG

that he needs proper medication, Tammy Tucker said — adding that Maurice is “disruptive” and can’t be around other inmates because he does things like banging on a cell door, tapping incessantly or “hollering” throughout the night. Williamson said Maurice has behaved better than other times he’s been in the Greensboro jail.

When Tammy Tucker inquired about the alleged incident that her son wrote to her about, involving the scratches behind his ear and being restrained, she said she was told there is no record of such an incident. Williamson said that Maurice had an “incident” on May 24 that required placing him in a restraint chair, though there is no record of a use of force by guards in the report, he said.

Maurice complained that his jaw and mouth hurt afterwards, Williamson said, but when a nurse ordered X-rays, they came back negative and Maurice hasn’t complained since, Williamson said.

triad-city-beat.com

There’s nothing else of the sort in his medical file or incident reports since his recent arrest, Williamson added.

When Tammy Tucker saw her son via video feed at his bail hearing last week, she said she could tell “he was not quite right.” When he’s been off his meds for a long period of time, Tucker said, he requires a shot instead of pills to up the dosage and bring him back to balance, adding that it is clear from talking to him that he doesn’t understand his situation and isn’t fit to stand trial.

Talking openly about her son’s mental health issues isn’t easy, Tucker said, and it’s taken her a long time to open up about it.

“It’s emotionally draining,” she said. “At times I felt embarrassed, I felt ashamed.”

Her son was shot eight times in Smith Homes housing projects last year, Tucker said, after he went off his meds and started talking crazy to someone who left and came back with a gun. Since then, Tammy said Maurice has been paranoid, hearing voices and convinced that someone was coming after him. That’s why he had two guns on him when he was arrested, she said.

Shortly before his arrest, people started warning Tammy that her son seemed like he’d gone off his medication again, and she had planned to have him involuntarily committed.

Stress from Maurice’s incarceration made Tammy sick, she said, and she lost one of her jobs. She also ended up being kicked out of her apartment. Tammy still holds a catering job, “but I’m so depressed I don’t want to go to it,” she said.

God is what pulls her through, Tammy said, a cross and a portrait of Jesus hanging on necklaces around her neck.

“When there’s nothing you can do for your child, it’s a lot [to deal with],” she said before getting up and leaving the room, returning with tissues to wipe her eyes.

Tammy Tucker won’t be able to relax until her son is receiving the mental health treatment he needs and deserves, she said. She is turning down offers from family and friends to get away and relax for a weekend, saying she doesn’t feel like she deserves it. And she’s ready to find some sort of a support group for people in her situation.

It’s about more than just her son, she added — it’s about an overall lack of prioritizing mental health resources and treatment, a lack of support for single mothers like her and a legal system where white kids such as Brock Allen Turner can walk away from a conviction relatively unscathed while parents like her fear for their children’s lives.

Tammy Tucker said the state government isn’t doing enough to fund mental health needs.

“I watch them building highways,” Tucker said. “Do something for mental health.”

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

9 Garage Branding Down Town Winston Salem Mechanical 06.09.16

June 22 — 28, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Triad musicians sign on to Stand Against HB2 2.0 in Winston-Salem

by Jordan Green

Generations of Triad musicians are enlisting to raise money to help Equality NC fight HB 2 through a concert in Winston-Salem following a successful benefit in Saxapahaw.

Mike Allen, an advertising creative director and copywriter who lives in Wake Forest outside of Raleigh, has developed a reputation as the person to call when you want to organize a benefit concert.

He’s been organizing benefis concerts for the Coalition to Unchain Dogs, an organization that builds fences for pet owners free of charge if they agree to take their pets off chains, for about six years. But that was small scale compared to what he was about to get into when Gov. Pat McCrory signed HB 2, the notorious anti-LGBT, anti-trans and anti-worker bill that has prompted a boycott against North Carolina by entertainers from Bruce Springsteen to Demi Lovato.

It started with a phone call from Caitlyn Cary, formerly a member of the ’90s alt-country band Whiskeytown, to Rod Abernethy, a composer for video game soundtracks and alum of the seminal ’70s rock band Arrogance. Abernethy in turn called Allen.

“They had talked; they said, ‘We really want to do something in response to this,’” Allen recalled. “‘Would you help plan something?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ I emailed Heather LaGarde at the Haw River Ballroom. They gave us the room for nothing. Four days later I had all the bands lined up.”

The all-star lineup that coalesced for the May 15 concert at the Haw River Ballroom in Saxapahaw showcased four generations of North Carolina music standouts, including a set by Abernethy and his old Arrogance bandmate Robert Kirkland, Chapel Hill black shoegaze pioneers the Veldt, Cary’s band Tres Chicas, reunions by jangle-pop standard-bearers the dBs and the Connells, alt-country acts like the Backsliders and John Howie Jr. & the Rosewood Bluff, the iconic Southern Culture on the Skids, indie-hip hop artist Shirlette Ammons, the Love Language, Laurelyn Dossett, members of Mipso, and Winston-Salem gentleman rocker Jeffrey Dean Foster. They raised more than

Mike Allen speaks at the first Stand Against HB2 concert in Saxapahaw in May.

DAVE BRAINARD

$20,000 to donate to Equality NC to cause I don’t really know bands in the wage the fight against HB 2.

Triad,” Allen said. “They helped me get He can’t remember exactly who it in touch with these folks and told me was, but Allen said that a couple days who I should get to play.” after the Haw River Ballroom concert Meanwhile, as the Winston-Salem someone suggested to him that he replidate approaches, Allen is already at cate the effort across the state. work on subsequent benefit concerts in “I laughed,” he recalled. “I was very Asheville and Wilmington. happy, but I was tired from the Haw The lineup for the Winston-Salem River thing. I decided I should probably show carries over some of the talent do it though.” from the first concert, including Foster, Shifting to a venue in the Triad Dossett, Abernethy and Kirkland, and seemed like a natural Howie, along with evolution from an iniJon Lindsay and Sartial concert that was ah Shook. BumgardWanna go? The Stand heavy on Triangle ner’s Luxuriant Against HB2 concert talent, so Allen conSedans, Doug Davis tacted Foster, an old & the Solid Citizens, takes place at the friend and musician, Michael Slawter, Millennium Center in who has used his Camel City Collecsolo album releases Winston-Salem on June tive, Foxture and as an opportunity to Spirit System repre26, beginning at noon. raise money for the sent Winston-Salem.

Funds will be donated to A strong contingent anti-poverty initiative the Shalom Project in Equality NC and to a fund from Greensboro inWinston-Salem. He cludes Bruce Piephoff to benefit the victims also enlisted Dossett & Scott Sawyer, and Ed BumgardMolly McGinn & of the Pulse nightclub ner, who put him and Totally shooting. For tickets and Quilla in touch with Greg Slow. Tange Lomax, Carlisle, owner of the other information find a High Point rapper Millennium Center. who performed at the event on Facebook.

Like LaGarde in Phuzz Phest earlier Saxapahaw, Carlisle this year, is also on offered his venue free the bill. of charge for the concert, scheduled for Like the Saxapahaw concert, the June 26.

Winston-Salem iteration will hit some “I kind of put together a team beseminal moments in Triad music history

and occasion a couple reunions.

Allen said that Little Diesel, a proto-punk band formed by Peter Holsapple and Will Rigby during their high school years in Winston-Salem, will play together for the first time since 1975. Rigby was a founding member of the dB’s, a New York City band whose members came from Winston-Salem, along with Chris Stamey and Gene Holder, in early 1978, with Holsapple joining the band later that year.

While the dB’s are not on the bill, the lineup is heavy with alumni from the band: Along with Little Diesel, Stamey is scheduled to perform a set. And Holsapple, who is also known for playing keyboards and guitar as an auxiliary member of REM, is also playing a set with his own group.

While the dB’s, as Winston-Salem expats in New York City, established lasting underground influence, two Greensboro bands in the 1990s brushed closer to mainstream success. Bus Stop, a pop-funk hybrid whose members include Evan Olson, Britt “Snüzz” Uzzell, Eddie Walker and Chuck Folds, won “Dick Clark’s USA Music Challenge” in 1992. Later in the decade, in 1996, Athenaeum, a Greensboro pop band with a more anthemic rock sound, was signed to Atlantic Records.

Bus Stop performed last at the final show at the old Blind Tiger in Greensboro in December 2010, before it relocated from Walker Avenue to Spring Garden Street. Olson said Walker suggested the idea of a reunion for Stand Against HB2 after receiving a phone call from Dossett.

Snüzz, who has been in poor health for the past couple months, determined he will be unable to play, but encouraged his bandmates to carry.

“Snüzz’s guitar sound and Snüzz in general is a big part of the sound,” Olson said. “I expressed my concern about how hard it would be there to do a Bus Stop show without Snüzz being there.”

Mark Kano, the former frontman for Athenaeum, volunteered to fill in for Snüzz. He’s also scheduled to perform a set of his own music.

“We had a discussion about how maybe we didn’t know what to do,”

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Olson said. “Mark Kano came up with a suggested set list. He was a fan of Bus Stop, and he said he’d love to do this.

“I’m looking forward to playing those songs and the energy’s going to be different, but we’re going to make the most of it,” Olson added. “I feel confident in Mark’s ability. It’s gonna rock.”

Snüzz said in a Facebook message: “I want to be there desperately, but am still in treatment and [am] just not up to it.”

Olson said Bus Stop plans to close with a rendition of “North Carolina, We’re Better Than This,” Snüzz’s 2013 anthem for the Moral Monday movement. Snüzz added that Kenny Roby, a Triangle-based singer-songwriter has also told him he plans to perform the song, which he said “should be pretty amazing.”

There’s little doubt that Snüzz’s absence will be keenly felt at the concert, while his music will be palpable.

“We’ve decided to pay tribute to his life and his music,” Olson said.

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

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June 22 — 28, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

12

HIGH POINT JOURNAL

Iconic fire station expands footprint of Time Square retail center

by Jordan Green

The owner of Time Square, a neo-classical shopping center in High Point’s Uptowne district, has acquired the classic Fire Station No. 4 property.

Before anyone conceived of Uptowne as a kind of surrogate downtown to compensate for the furniture showrooms’ monopoly on real estate in High Point’s central business district, David Riedlinger was assembling properties at the intersection of North Main Street and Lexington Avenue.

Time Square has something that much of the rest of High Point lacks — wide sidewalks, brick edging and topiary that give pedestrians a degree of comfort in an otherwise auto-dominant city. Ample parking space is tucked discretely behind the buildings, in stark contrast to the strip shopping centers that line much of North Main Street.

And Time Square’s unified neoclassical design gives a distinctive feel to the handful of buildings curving around the southwestern corner of the intersection.

Riedlinger bought the first building in 1991 because he needed space for his construction business, then largely devoted to building furniture showrooms.

“All I wanted this property for was for my office,” he recalled on a recent Friday. “They just kept presenting themselves. Then, like pieces in the puzzle they all came together.”

Over the course of five or six years, Riedlinger assembled the properties one by one. His final acquisition was the property in the center, formerly a gas station. He and the seller had become deadlocked, but then one morning he saw stakes in the ground and learned a Starbucks was coming in. He quickly worked out a deal with the seller, and the Starbucks ended up opening six blocks north on Westchester Drive.

The property is now the centerpiece of Riedlinger’s retail complex, and the home of his anchor tenant, Simon Jewelers.

One property Riedlinger passed on during his initial acquisition phase was the Fire Station No. 4. Built in 1927, the two-story, brick fire station has the

Developer David Riedlinger, who owns the Time Square retail center, stands in front of Fire Station No. 4, an Uptowne property he acquired earlier this month.

quaint feel of an Alpine lodge thanks to its steep-pitched roof and shed-dormer windows, along with a wooden-framed garage door in front that hearkens to its original function.

The old fire station is contiguous with the southern-most property in Time Square, so when the opportunity to buy it arose, Riedlinger decided it fit with his plans for expansion. Riedlinger purchased the property on June 13 for $225,000 from Christian and Kathy Conrad, who operated it as a salon for 23 years.

Driveways flank either side of the building, allowing Riedlinger to expand parking for Time Square.

“It helps us to grow Time Square,” he said.

He’ll add seven angled parking spaces along the south-facing wall of the fire station. Meanwhile, he’s built a new fence along the south end of the parking lot and trimmed back branches with plans to add two additional 400-watt stadium lights so that the parking lot to improve its illumination after dark.

In contrast to the neo-classical façade unifying the rest of Time Square, the fire station will retain its historic character with no changes planned for its exterior. However, Riedlinger is planning install boxwood topiaries and paint the planters in front of the fire station a dark green hue consistent with the rest of his retail complex. He’ll replace the lamppost with antique pewter and install LED lighting. All told, he expects

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to spend $35,000 on landscaping and parking improvements.

Riedlinger said it’s possible that he’ll lease the fire station to another salon, but he’s going to take his time and screen for the right tenant to make sure he finds someone who is compatible with his current tenants. A law firm might be another possibility. Zoning for the property allows for some residential use, so someone could conceivably operate a business at street level and live upstairs.

Despite growing interest in urbanism, most of Riedlinger’s tenants at Time Square have oriented their businesses towards the parking lot as opposed to the street. Riedlinger cited the near constant foot traffic in and out of Sweet

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Josephine’s bakery, which relocated to the complex from its previous location at Centennial Street near Eastchester Drive, as evidence of Time Square’s growing vitality. Marley’s Kitchen recently replaced the old Golden B Restaurant, while Simply Nails, Nabil’s Alterations, an Edward Jones financial services firm, the Fisher Law Firm and the Tax Reporting Group fill out the complex.

While the retail, service and restaurant businesses that comprise Time Square are likely to continue to rely on an auto-based clientele, Riedlinger said he sees some evidence of an increasing interest in walkability.

“There is a change in the trend,” he said.

He added that Brown Truck Brewing, located just a couple blocks down Main Street, is a welcome addition to the district.

“I think we all help each other,” he said.

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

13

June 22 — 28, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

14

OPINION EDITORIAL

IT JUST MIGHT WORK

The first North Carolina state constitution was written just a day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. A major revision took place in 1868, after the Civil War, when NC had seceded from the Union and had to agree to some concessions — including ratifying the 14th Amendment — in order to be readmitted. The last major revision came in 1971, an effort to make a more comprehensive document.

Since then more than 20 new amendments have been added, including the ones that give the governor veto power and allow her to run for a second term, establish a state income tax and prohibit samesex couples from being married.

Now Republicans in the state Senate are asking voters to add another amendment, one capping the state income tax at 5.5 percent.

This same legislature has already lowered income taxes to 5.499 percent — it’s scheduled to drop down from 5.75 percent next year. And we’ve seen the effects of this belt-tightening everywhere, from public schools and universities to highways and environmental protections.

To lock it in, they propose kicking it out to voters in the next election, along with another constitutional amendment allowing all gun owners the right to concealed-carry.

Like the gun stuff, this one is designed to bring out the GOP faithful — who seem to be shaken by the specter of Trump for president — in November. But this one may be even more ill advised.

Nobody likes taxes, but it’s how we pay for stuff. When we kick in less money, we forfeit some of our buying power. Most voters understand this concept.

But sometimes governments — like businesses — need to buy things that cost more than they bring in. When a business owner gets in a predicament like this, he generally starts looking for a loan.

Governments don’t take out loans; they issue bonds, which are a prime investment for people who dally in such things because there is virtually no chance of a government entity defaulting on a bond, whereas with a stock the investor always runs the risk of the company going bust and losing everything.

Governments don’t default because they have the authority to levy taxes — this is why just about every government entity in the United States has a AAA rating: Because when it needs more money it can just tweak the tax rate.

The state Treasurer’s Office has already warned that dropping our tax cap to 5.5 percent — the current constitution already caps it at 10 percent — would threaten our state’s AAA bond rating, meaning that when we do issue bonds like the $2 billion Connect NC Bond which voters passed in March, we get less favorable interest terms and broker fees.

Such subtleties may be lost on casual voters, but a rough equivalent would be a business deciding to place a cap on its profit margin, or a nonprofit placing a limit on the number of grants it will go after.

In other words, it’s a stupid thing to do.

The Senate vote on the bill has been kicked to this Saturday — a rare weekend work day for our elected officials. Let’s hope stupid takes a holiday.

Your whole life has been orchestrated by a powerful elite few since your birth. And now, with this presidential race, you’re just beginning to take umbrage? Don’t you

by Joanna Rutter know this is how it’s always been, and that it’s for the best?

Notice the breakfast cereal you ate this morning while humming the very jingle used to sell it to you. Or the shoes you purchased because they indirectly promised access to a certain kind of lifestyle or image you’ve been made to believe is most desirable. Or the Stevie Wonder album to which you were conceived, which made it to the radio because a record executive thought it was catchy. Having products narrowed down for you has never been any different than selecting a politician. Notice, inhale deeply, and remember that this has never bothered you before.

Your very existence depends on the choices pre-made for you, after all. Professional propagandist Edward Bernays once wrote that society “consents to have its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention.” Democracy would be “hopelessly jammed,” Bernays promises, without such a secret order.

Come November, yet again you must submit to your benevolent overlords Koch, Soros and company, who have chosen their best options for preserving the oligarchy. After 240 years of peaceful acquiescence, now is when you consider revolt?

Sabotage in the Senate

Submitting to the oligarchy Recall, if you will, the ancient Greeks and the Romans. Their empires were strong with their fates held in the hands of elite, benevolent groups of powerful, wealthy, land-owning men. It worked well for them. And besides, oligarchy is (arguably) how the world’s more powerful countries such as India and Russia conduct themselves today. Their civilizations have been around longer than ours. Don’t they know best?

It’s like a quirky pizza joint where the five-item menu could fit on a business card, so your party doesn’t waste time waffling between Kimchi Gorgonzola Sicilian and Arugula Anchovy. Either one’s rather hard to swallow, to be sure. But wouldn’t you rather have it this way — effortless, painless — than the struggle of infinite combinations on a build-your-own custom pie, where you have to agonize over each proper topping and how its flavor will affect the others, and risk forcing your friends to eat an un-vetted meal charting too novel a culinary territory? As if such personalization would produce any better effect?

It’s clearly much more simple to have these things orchestrated from a faraway, smoky-glass-paneled corner conference room.

Just like when America was ruled by Britain and its benevolent monarchy, remember that absolutely nothing can ever truly change if citizens organize and push back, because we are all too incapable of change to care and too incapable of caring to change.

Buy the shoes. Eat the cereal. Vote for president. Continue believing the soothing thought that you are free.

Keep the beat. triad-city-beat.com

North Carolina — a model of progressivism?

Trans allied

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

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

News

At first I was a little skeptical about transgender people using the opposite-sex bathrooms. I didn’t really get a true grasp of it until I started to really think about it.

by Jorge Cornell The more I thought about it, the more I felt the right thing to do was to take a stand.

The stand I want to take is that transgender people should be able to use whatever bathroom they identify with. I came to this conclusion on hearing the views of friends of mine that are LGBT. But then I heard stories from people who don’t want it to happen. They see things like a man dressed as a woman and see them as targets for rape in these bathrooms. As I’m taking all this in, the only thing I can think about is that three people who I consider among my best friends identify themselves as LGBT. Not only do I see them as my friends, but as my comrades. It disturbs me that I’m in prison and can’t be on the front lines with my comrades who have so many times been on the front lines with me dealing with my issues.

So I say to myself: What’s my greatest fear?

If we allow Gov. Pat McCrory to get a victory, if they could stop human beings identifying themselves as the opposite sex from using the bathrooms they are supposed to be using, who’s to stop him from making “coloreds only” bathrooms again and putting us at the back of the bus?

But the greatest triumph would be that the state law is struck down and the Charlotte ordinance allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choosing is restored, showing we’re all moving in the right direction.

I say this to my three friends Saralee, May and Katie: Although I’m not on the physical front line with y’all in this struggle, please know my words echo through the community. We will stay on the front line and we will fight. We’ll give it everything that we’ve got. Because it is in the hands of the LGBT front line of this civil rights battle.

And at the end of the day, we will triumph!

Up Front

There’s a colloquialism alternative IDs, McCrory chose the Guilford County in my native Kentucky that Sheriff’s Office run by his friend BJ Barnes as the setting rejoins a stupid question to sign the naloxone bill. With the ID bill, choosing with another question: Does Greensboro came across as a vindictive slap at the city, a bear — I’ll substitute the while it’s a fitting location for signing the naloxone bill into polite word defecate — in the law in all the best ways. woods?

Unlike Barnes’ ham-handed defense of the ID law, For the past three years, acwhich amounts to harassing undocumented people, the

by Jordan Green tions taken by our state govsheriff deserves commendation for stepping up to help ernment that actively harm citizens rather than ameliorate save addicts’ lives. Since Gov. McCrory signed the Good pain, create new problems rather than present solutions to Samaritan Law in 2013, clearing the way for law enforcepreexisting ones and, generally, arise from meanness and ment to carry naloxone, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Offear have become so constant and unending as to be the fice has administered more than 600 doses of the drug, equivalent of a bear defecating in the woods. The main according to the governor’s office. A strong network of difference is that bears doing their business in their natulaw enforcement, emergency responders and advocates ral habitat is a harmless phenomenon while the actions of in Guilford County generally deserves the credit reversthe General Assembly and Gov. Pat McCrory have a real ing ODs before it’s too late. From Aug. 1, 2013 through and adverse impact on the good people of this state.

June 11, 2016, the NC Harm Reduction Coalition reports This list is by no means comprehensive or ranked in 464 OD reversals in Greensboro and 259 in High Point. order of significance, but some of the most onerous acThat’s compared to only 70 in Charlotte, 52 in Raleigh, tion taken by the state includes reducing unemployment 76 in Durham and 103 in Winston-Salem. Incidentally, benefits, making voting more difficult, Wilmington and Asheville top the list with allowing magistrates to opt out of offici815 and 657, respectively. ating same-sex marriages, nullifying local The bill McCrory signed on Monday When North ordinances to protect LGBT rights while allows pharmacies across the state to make Carolina does preventing transgender people from using naloxone available without a prescription the bathrooms of their choice and restrucsomething smart by issuing a standing prescription order — turing the city of Greensboro’s election an arrangement in place in only two other and helpful, it’s system over the wishes of its citizens. states. The new law fulfills a goal of the Meanwhile, the state has privatized like a bear doing Governor’s Task Force on Mental Health Medicaid while turning away federal and Substance Use to make naloxone cartwheels. dollars and refusing to expand the system widely available, especially to the family to provide coverage for those who don’t and friends of opioid users. earn enough to afford coverage under The new law builds on the sound policy Obamacare. And the General Assembly is doubling of the 2013 Good Samaritan Law, which made naloxone down on a mean-spirited and wrongheaded policy that available to law enforcement officers, while also providing prohibits municipal governments from accepting photo limited immunity to prosecution to drug users who get IDs used by undocumented immigrants by closing a help for friends who are overdosing. loophole to also ban their use by law enforcement. Con“Why do we not charge someone who reports an oversequently, the police will be forced to arrest undocumentdose?” asked Assistant District Attorney Jordan Green ed people who have lived in this state for years simply during a recent community meeting in High Point. “Peobecause they are unable to identify themselves if they’re ple are valuable to our society and we don’t want them to pulled over for a routine traffic violation while driving to die. If you have someone overdose after shooting heroin work. in their basement with a friend, we don’t charge the guy So when state government does something that is who called. We don’t charge the guy who overdosed. smart and helpful, something that addresses a problem Now, if you’re just hanging around using drugs and you rather than creates one, it’s like a bear doing cartwheels. don’t do anything to help, that’s another story.”

It stands out for its novelty, and is all the more praiseworGood job. thy because it presents a rare opportunity for positive The next step should be legalizing clean needle reinforcement. exchanges to decrease the transmission of HIV and hepaGov. McCrory’s appearance in Greensboro on Monday titis C. Lead the way, Governor. to sign bipartisan legislation increasing the availability of naloxone — a medication that reverses heroin and other opioid overdoses — is an example of wise and forward-thinking public policy. As with the poorly-conceived law to prevent municipal governments from accepting

FRESH EYES

triad-city-beat.com

CITIZEN GREEN

15

June 22 — 28, 2016 Cover Story

by Brian Clarey • photos by Carolyn de Berry

16

Deb Moy is supposed to be dead.

And yet there she is, queueing up with the rest of the Elon School of Law’s Class of 2016 in a sea of be-tassled black velvet graduation tams to get her hard-won juris doctorate. She pushes on her crutches to mount the stage, then crosses it smoothly, almost like she’s swimming — her prosthetic legs and the carbon-fiber forearm crutches moving the rest of her along.

Deb Moy is not supposed to be walking. And yet there she is.

At center stage she pauses — Deb cannot resist a moment like this — pivots to face the crowd, braces her crutches on the carpet and pulls a quick little hip-shaking shimmy. Then she resumes the glide to pick up her sheepskin to raucous applause.

Here is where she breaks from the procession of newly-minted lawyers crossing the stage. She tucks her diploma under her arm and slips behind the dais, backtracks to stage left as the cheering still echoes in the high rafters of the alumni gymnasium.

Seated alone in the back, I feel an involuntary shiver run through my shoulders and up my neck.

Because Deb Moy is supposed to be dead.

She makes it back into alphabetical order for the final procession, and as she passes by flashes me a smile that brings me back into the moment.

I find her afterwards, pinned at the base of the wheelchair ramp as the gymnasium empties into the lobby. She’s sweltering

under her graduation gown, craning her neck to find her people so she can get to the car and, eventually, the afterparty at Scrambled.

“That’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen,” I tell her. She shoots me a skeptical look.

“I don’t think it’s all that amazing,” she says.

“It is,” I say. And we share a quiet moment in the crowd.

“What do you think it all means?” I ask her.

“I don’t know what it all means,” she says. “The doors just keep opening and I keep going through them.

I have been a journalist now for half my life, and in that time seen a good many things. I’ve seen presidents and paupers, national celebrities and local heroes, people in their finest moments and those at their worst.

You develop a degree of detachment over the years — stop making friends with your sources, stop investing so much emotional energy in your stories — and, often, even the most consequential events fade into the background as new ones come up every week.

But the Deb Moy story has stayed with me since I first wrote about it in 2008, astounding me in ways both good and bad at every turn.

It astounds me still.

One thing I remember about 2008 is how angry I was.

I was still drinking pretty good back then, and I heard about it just days after it happened while I was hanging out at the

In 2008, a beating and a fire was supposed to put an end to Deborah Ann Moy. Now, eight years l refused to drive a minivan.

questioned by police. I remember thinking in the back of my mind during some of these interviews: Jesus, this could be the guy.

The Greensboro Police Department can’t be held entirely to blame for their inability thus far to solve this case.

First responders assumed they were tackling a regular house fire, not the site of a grisly murder, and so the crime scene, already damaged by flame, was also doused with thousands of gallons of water.

“You can recover some things,” Deputy Chief Brian James, who was a lieutenant in 2008, told me then. “But the fire does destroy some evidence. If I told you different that would be false.”

And Detective Tim Parrish, who drew the case, told me that this was not the sort of crime commonly seen in the city.

“I’ve seen some bad ones,” he said.

“This one was horrendous.”

Later, in 2012, a few years after his retirement, the GPD would claim that “blunders” in Parrish’s original work caused them to free Michael Wade Slagle, the only person ever arrested for the crime. Parrish flatly denied that characterization.

I never thought I would solve this crime — and I have never come close — but even now, in preparing to write this story, I start picking at threads. Chasing ghosts.

Slagle, known to everyone on the bar circuit as Micah, had thrown in with Deb’s group late in the night, after the debauchery on Walker Avenue, a swing past Ransom’s house around the corner to get his guitar and a stop at the Carolina Theatre, where my old pal Craig Trostle had used his key to allow Deb a run inside to use the bathroom and stand on the darkened stage for a moment before heading back out.

It was about 4 a.m. when Micah sauntered up to the house just down the street from the Westerwood Tavern, lured by Ransom’s guitar playing, perhaps, or the shrieks of laughter emanating from the front porch. After a short hang, Micah drove Craig, Deb and Ransom to Deb’s place to continue the party at around 4:30. Craig passed out on the couch, and at around 7 a.m., he said, he and Micah both left.

Micah left town after his first ques-

triad-city-beat.com

later, she’s finished law school and astounded the doctors who said she’d never walk again. And she

bars on Greensboro’s Walker Avenue: a fire in the castle on Summit Avenue from which they pulled the charred remains of the musician William Ransom Hobbs and another broken and burned body that turned out to be Deb Moy. They didn’t realize she was still breathing until after they had carried her from her smoldering apartment — the second time that morning someone had assumed she was a corpse.

Because police discovered very quickly that Ransom had been beaten to death before he had been burned, that Deb had been bludgeoned within an inch of her life and then doused with accelerant before the perp struck the flame. Police had not made any arrests.

And at that point, the News & Record had published nothing on the incident save for a single item a couple inches long on B2, until my old pal Jeri Rowe came in hard on the Ransom angle with a series of columns about his life, his friends and his music.

But still, there were few details about the crime itself, and next to nothing about Deb. I didn’t really know Deb back then except as another face at the bar, but I identified with her as a member of my tribe: the floundering artists, service-industry lifers, lifestyle drinkers and other assorted stripes of the creative underclass. And it pissed me off that no one was doing anything about it. So of course, I did.

All I had to go on were several disconnected threads, snippets gleaned over nights at the bar and in after-hours apartments. Neither Deb, her parents nor any of her friends would talk to me, and the Greensboro police do not typically share details of an ongoing investigation with journalists, or anyone else for that matter.

I used shoe-leather reporting to retrace Deb’s steps that night, construct a timeline of events and a roster of the people who dropped in and out of the group as they wound their way from Walker Avenue to downtown Greensboro, through Westerwood and, finally, to Deb’s first-floor apartment in the castle on Summit Avenue where the fire almost, but not quite, consumed her.

In the process, I would interview a dozen or more of my drinking buddies and bartenders who had been around that night, some of whom had been

17

Cover Story

June 22 — 28, 2016

tioning by Greensboro police. So did the tenant at the house by the Westerwood.

And to make things even more complicated, Deb’s neighbor from across the street also left town in the weeks after the incident.

Meanwhile Deb drifted in and out of consciousness as doctors tended to her injuries: burns on over 70 percent of her body, broken ribs and jawbone, a collapsed lung, kidney failure. She endured more than 40 operations and hundreds of surgical procedures, including skin grafts over most of her body and what little they could do to save what was left of her legs.

Because of the trauma and the pain, they kept her in an induced comatose state for much of it. The first thing she said when she awoke months later was, “What happened?”

Scar tissue and skin grafts cover 70 percent of her body (top).

She wears two prosthetic legs, one below the knee and the other above (bottom).

18

I meet Deb at the Iron Hen for a late lunch a few days after graduation to catch up. She’s learned not to frequent restaurants during prime hours — parking, crowds, bathroom facilities and table selection all factor into the lesson.

It’s why she goes to the Green Bean on Cornwallis instead of the downtown shop, and why she scouted out the building before her interview with the state bar association.

“It’s in the Lincoln Financial building,” she says. “So what does that look like to me? All of my bathroom breaks are calculated, so my water intake is calculated.

[Before I go somewhere] I need to know where the bathroom is, is the floor slippery, what kind of bathroom is it. “[For the interview] I’ll get a ride,” she continues, “because I don’t want to park four blocks down, huffing it on my walking sticks. This is the stuff you have to figure out. Nobody teaches you.”

Even now, while she’s studying for the bar, she arises at 5 a.m. each day to begin preparing herself to face it.

First she fits her prosthetic legs — one above the knee, one below — with liners, grips her crutches and heads for the shower, where she enacts a daily hygiene regimen on a bench and then anoints herself with several types of skin cream over the grafts that cover most of her body.

“My skin doesn’t have pores,” she says.

“It’s all scar tissue on my back. My skin doesn’t sweat, so I get overheated. I get blisters I can’t get rid of. I’m always having some kind of issue. It’s always something.”

She’s able to drive — a modified Honda CRV. She refused to get the minivan with the wheelchair ramp, because she never intended to use her wheelchair, and because when she gave one a test drive it scraped the leather of her Prada boot.

She did rock the wheelchair during her second year of law school, when she broke her femur. But after it healed she was right back on the sticks.

Tony Saia made her prosthetics at BioTech Place at Wake Forest Innovation Quarter in Winston-Salem and helped her learn to use them. He said her drive impressed him.

“She was more driven to walk than anyone I’ve ever worked with,” he said. “She has never ever ever— and I know; I’ve been there from the beginning — had a boo-hoo moment in front of me. Never once.”

She’s got a great pair of boots on today, too, and a sleeveless V-neck top that makes no secret of the scar tissue that covers the entirety of her arms. She lost most of the fingers on her right hand, but that doesn’t stop her from gripping a spoon and digging lustily into a mason jar full of banana pudding.

“People have preconceived notions of what someone like me should be like,” she says.

I recall that I didn’t formally meet Deb until 2013, five years after the fire and just a few months before she started law school.

It was also two years after Greensboro police brought Micah back from Jacksonville, Fla., and a year after they let him go before the trial was set to begin. As far as I can tell, the only blemish on his record since then is a recent DWI. This series of interactions with the legal system dating back to 2008 are what initially inspired her to go to law school — in 2013 she and her family sued Guilford County District Attorney Doug Henderson, not for money but for information.

The case remains unsolved in the GPD files.

A quick email to the department yielded the following response from Susan Danielsen, spokesperson for the GPD: “Thanks for your continued interest in this case. It remains one of the most poignant incidents in our city’s recent history, and the impact of this crime will continue to affect everyone connected to it.

“We are saddened by the crimes committed against Ms. Moy,” it continues, “and, remain committed to her and the Hobbs family to continue to build a strong

she’s really got to go study.

After the Elon graduation, Deb’s people gather at Scrambled on Spring Garden Street for a private celebration.

Everyone is here, from the nurses and doctors that tended to her in the burn unit to her brother, sister and parents.

The Rev. Pat Cronin, her family’s pastor at Friendly Avenue Baptist Church, leads the room in prayer before everyone starts to eat.

He’s been there for Deb and her family the whole time, too.

“I call Deb ‘one of God’s trophies,’” he says. “It’s resurrection. Rebirth. Whatever metaphor you got, I’m with ya.

“She lived,” he adds. “And she’s celebrating life instead of living in the past.”

She wears a two-piece dress, fuchsia, with a full, flowing skirt and a V-neck, sleeveless top that shows the scar tissue on her arms and shoulders, yes, but also the thick muscle rippling beneath hard, ropy triceps and thick deltoids, forged by years of pulling herself along.

There’s a bluegrass band playing in the corner with happy, celebratory chatter beneath it. Deb takes a table in front of the band and people pay their respects. Before too long, her father Chuck climbs a chair and commands attention at the center of the room.

It’s his second speech of the night, but he’s still got plenty of material and people to thank. After a point, Deb interrupts from the corner of the room.

“Who is this really about, Dad?” Everyone laughs, and he just keeps on going.

But it’s okay. One night not too long ago, as his daughter lay covered in burns and barely alive, Chuck Moy thought that nothing in his world would ever be right again.

But that was in the beginning.

Deb Moy, who was supposed to be dead on Sept. 13, 2008, is very much alive. She not only survived the beating, the fire, the surgeries and the indignity of injustice, she has been victorious over them.

And while she was, for a time, defined by the thing that happened to her, in many ways her story is just beginning.

“You always want closure,” the Rev. Cronin says. “I don’t know if I like that word, ‘closure.’ Journey. Journey is better.”

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prosecutable case. This is still an active and on-going investigation, and we will continue to pursue every lead and follow every bit of evidence until justice is served.”

Deb was incensed about Micah’s release the first time we met. She told me then that the last thing she remembers is seeing Micah in her apartment. This time, it doesn’t come up.

“I used to get so angry,” she says.

“Whenever I met someone that would be all they wanted to talk about. I’m glad it’s not all about that anymore.”

She’s still looking for justice, make no mistake. But that search now includes justice for others as well — a summer internship with the Wounded Warrior project introduced her to some of the only people on the planet who might understand what she’s gone through: soldiers who lost their limbs under a different type of fire. They found common ground in trauma and loss.

“Now,” she says, “I come into this profession and I get a whole new level of respect. Without a law degree, you’re almost like a second-class citizen. Everyone at some point needs a lawyer.”

She laughs.

“Now, a lot of the places I go, the only people I know are doing the catering.”

It took her 10 years to graduate UNCG with an English degree. She worked in Greensboro restaurants the whole time and her résumé reads like a dining guide from the turn of the century: Tijuana Fats, the Melting Pot, George K’s, Liberty Oak, Southern Lights, Lox Stock & Bagel, the Revival Grill, 223 South Elm. “I think being a lawyer is really the service industry on steroids,” she says.

“It’s a service industry, the law. You get paid a lot more, but it’s the same thing.”

The job skills, she says, apply too.

“The typical things,” she says. “Multitasking, expediency. I know how to deal with people and I’m not intimidated by strangers. I used to tell people, ‘Always be friends with the dishwashers and kitchen guys.’ I never really worried about management so much, but — for lack of a better word — the little people, they’re the ones who grind, the ones that make the restaurant run.

“I foresee myself becoming friends with the bailiffs and clerks,” she adds.

But the bar exam is still a few weeks away — the end of June — and now

Deb’s pastor calls her “one of God’s trophies (top).

“These doors keep opening,” she says, “and I keep going through them.” (bottom).

19

June 22 — 28, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

20

CULTURE The one outsider food review worth a damn

by Eric Ginsburg

T

he Triad, it appears, is too small to be the the special of the day — a recipient of quality outside journalism about sausage dog with fries for food; I can’t recall ever reading something in a $3.50 — while filling in nopn-local publication that taught me anything about some of the history. Brown where to eat. Everything I’ve learned about the Triad’s Gardiner is a Page Pirate culinary scene came from locals, both professional hangout, or at least it used reviewers and otherwise, or through my own advento be, the former Whirlie turism. told me. This lunch crowd, Everything, that is, save for one meager review. we noted, looked more like My mom regularly clips things out of magazines an Irving Park cadre, with a she thinks will interest me — a piece on rafting in few laborers salted in. the Grand Canyon, a thoughtful New Yorker piece, a The Budget Travel piece magazine’s entire beer issue or something pertaining didn’t exactly catapult to North Carolina in the national press. So while I Brown Gardiner onto the wasn’t surprised when she mailed me a Greensboro big stage, and it looked like restaurant review from Budget Travel six years ago, you nobody had even come for can imagine I regarded the article’s contents with an the barbecue except for overdose of skepticism. me. The BLT easily ranked Back then, just four years into my North Carolina as the most popular menu era, I knew nothing of the area’s barbecue. I probably item, at least on this Thursstill associated the term with a backyard cookout day we showed up. Harriand beef, oblivious to the battle between eastern and son elected to diverge from western style and only recently past my vegetarian his old favorite, but only phase. That’s around the time I graduated college here, slightly, picking the patty and the review of the barbecue at Brown Gardiner drug melt that came halved with store fit into my vision of discovering the city anew. a thin burger on each side ERIC GINSBURG Even after eating a couple different meaty entrees, I remember being a little taken aback that such a rather than two stacked Anthony Harrison still finds room for dessert. lunch counter and dining area existed alongside a funcand split. tioning drugstore, the sort of thing that’s been rare This time, I immediately of Whattaburger, if you’ve ever been. Some things have since before my birth. I liked the barbecue just fine, and noticed the distinct Brown Gardiner approach to ’cue changed here over the years — there’s a sign by the reghated the white slaw that I still referred to as coleslaw — finely chopped, not pulled; somewhat charred, as ister inviting you to follow the old-timey soda fountain at the time, but the finer points were lost on me. if finished off on a flat-top grill; a smoky and slightly on Facebook and Instagram, and the clientele isn’t as In the subsequent six years, my life and perspective sauce, Bull’s Eye BBQ, provided in packets on the side; overwhelmingly white as it must’ve been back when have changed considerably. Now — as a food writer a white slaw that isn’t as mayo-heavy as most; a bun Brown Gardiner opened (though it’d be dishonest to who’s stood in barbecue pits, who knows he prefers on the side for no extra charge; and some pretty salty call it diverse). vinegar base to tomato, who barely grew up eating pork.

There’s a good chance that Brown Gardiner will pork products but who now has hankerings for quality Brown Gardiner’s isn’t true barbecue, cooked over never show up in one of those idiotic, pandering online ’cue — I figured the time had come to reassess Brown wood in a pit like you’ll find at Mr. Barbecue or Little lists. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Budget Travel Gardiner.

Richard’s in Winston-Salem or Stamey’s in Greensboro. barbecue piece is the highest acclaim it warrants. But While my life unfolded unexpectedly in the interim, And it isn’t as delicious as Boss Hog’s, the east Greensthis modest restaurant inside a drug store isn’t aiming Brown Gardiner stayed the same. That’s the appeal boro joint that’s home to my favorite hush puppies and for such heights, and that’s just fine. Instead it’s there of this diner, opened north of downtown Greensboro a fantastic and cheap barbecue sandwich. for you to depend or fall back on. on Elm Street in 1958, especially for the 50+ white But it’s still satisfying. As are the crinkle-cut fries Southerner set. A clock on the back wall literally ticks that come with it. This time, I’d come around to the backwards. Before I left, an old timer noticed my slaw, mixing it with the meat but eschewing the sauce Pick of the Week Boston Red Sox hat and quizzed me on the greats from packets.

I would give all my fame for a pot of ale the decades before Jackie Robinson Still, it’s the sausage dog I’m left Summertime Brews Festival @ the Greensboro Colisebroke the color barrier. Candy on the thinking about, which popped as I bit Visit Brown Gardiner at through the skin. Piping hot, halved um, Saturday, 2:30 p.m. counter retails for a dime, and I’m 2101 N. Elm St. (GSO) or and with onions in the center, HarCoinciding with Triad Craft Beer Week, the 12th guessing the couple that sat nearest annual Brews Fest descends upon the Coliseum for it can recall when it Brown Gardiner rison and I readily dubbed it as the find it on Facebook. a hoppy day of over 500 beers in one very boozy sold it for a penny. best thing we ate, though this is belocation. There’s so much going on, there’s even a My colleague Anthony Harrison, a fore he ordered a chocolate-covered freakin’ app for the event. Drink responsibly, and Greensboro native of my vintage, also hadn’t been in waffle cone and salted caramel ice cream for $1.50. drive very alertly around that road work on Gate the store in years, since his days working in landscapBrown Gardiner is the sort of place where the servers City Lee High Point Boulevard Street. Visit summering when he would order a double cheeseburger for and patrons know each other’s names, the unadorned timebrews.com to plan your day. lunch. He helped me with the baseball pop-quiz and sort of unremarkable place that time left alone. Think

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Passing the torch at Havana Phil’s

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Given that Lamar smokes, he enjoyed Havana Phil’s more thoroughly than I did.

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The cigar lounge sports other trappings that likely feeling of a friend’s finely finished basement more than adorn other such hangouts — a high table with chairs anything. If I had a whiskey on the rocks and the ability where I imagined friends playing poker, a lineup of to take over the tunes, I could’ve spent the rest of the bobble heads, what we took as a cigar storage locker afternoon there kicking it with Lamar. A friend called with cabinets named after men from Mickey Mantle while we reclined, and I practically invited him over. to Howard Coble, four televisions tuned to golf and But this is a business, not a living room. The sobasketball replays, a coffee machine, more reading das may look up for grabs, but they retail for $1. We material than a doctor’s office and a tall wood carving could’ve stayed longer, if Lamar wanted to smoke a of a stereotypical Native American chief. second cigar, but this isn’t where we’ll go to watch the Signed pictures of Rocky Patel, who looks vaguely game. And the lounge may be as close to that elite bar like former Greensboro councilas we’ll make it, but the view is man Zack Matheny, posing with just a tease.

Havana Phil’s owner Phil Segal As we rose to leave, UNCG’s Visit Havana Phil’s at 1628 decorate one wall, and posters relatively new chancellor Frank Battleground Ave. (GSO) or of Patel hang over some of the Gilliam walked into the cigar at havanaphils.com. seating as well. lounge, planning to kill time until Besides the questionable music the bar itself opened. In the room — Huey Lewis and the News’ “Hip outside, the state head of campus to Be Square” and Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Jewish organization Hillel chatted with Segal. To get Up” both played on the house stereo — I found myself into the bar, I’d need to start running in these circles. being drawn in. It’s the most relaxing and private comAnd that’s about as likely as me picking up smoking. mercial environment I can recall being in, evoking the

Fun & Games

The exposed brick wall, the wash of natural light, the orange-upholstered barstools and the deep black ceiling immediately drew me to the new Havana Phil’s cigar bar. But alas, I’ll likely never step foot inside, and

by Eric Ginsburg neither will you.

After seeing a photo of the renovated Anton’s on Battleground Avenue in Greensboro, I knew I wanted to check it out. So when my friend Lamar said he needed to drop his car off for repairs nearby recently and wanted a chauffeur, I agreed on the condition that we spend the hour or so boozing at Havana Phil’s.

The cigar store relocated from farther down the thoroughfare near New Garden Road towards downtown’s periphery, between Kickback Jack’s and Geeksboro. In taking on more square footage, Havana Phil’s also added a cigar lounge, back patio and — arguably most importantly — an exclusive bar.

I don’t smoke — never have and never will, after witnessing my grandfather’s struggle to quit. But the décor and uncommon setting proved alluring, and I guessed this would be the sort of place that would make a mean cocktail.

When Lamar and I walked in and were told the bar is members’ only, I figured we’d need to front a couple bucks for a membership card and fill out the mildest sort of paperwork. Not exactly; it will run you $500 a year to join this exclusive circle unless you know someone.

But, we learned, there is a cigar lounge in the center of the standalone building, and if you peruse the humidor and find something you’d like to puff on the premises, the lounge and patio are waiting. After poking our heads inside the lounge, which is named for cigar-company owner Rocky Patel, and seeing the leather recliners, a deep couch, mini-bar area and four televisions, we decided to stick around while Lamar worked on an $11 cigar.

There is no alcohol in the sleek man cave, despite a refrigerator with diet Coke, a sink and a relatively expansive glassware collection on display. But a door does open to the secluded bar. The lights remained off inside until the 4 p.m. open time, but we could see what we were missing through the locked glass door.

We’d need to make due in our “well-appointed room,” as Lamar put it, high and dry.

We had the room to ourselves, with the door shut and a few diffusers keeping the room smelling fresh for more than an hour. A skylight allowed the sun to spill in, and more light came through two stained glass windows and the door leading to the retail space, where we could see a biker couple checking out at the register and other comings and goings.

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June 22 — 28, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

22

CULTURE Geeks rock Geeksboro

by Anthony Harrison

T

he Super Guitar Bros promised a special surprise before their penultimate number, the theme to the original Nintendo epic “Castlevania,” to the pre-trivia crowd at Geeksboro Coffeehouse Cinema on June 16.

The opener, Professor Shyguy, aka Brandt Cooley, joined the two acoustic guitarists for an unexpected delicacy: Britney Spears’ worldwide hit from yesteryear, “Toxic.” Steven Poissant strummed the chords on his steel-string Martin dreadnought, Sam Griffin plucked the trebly, infectious hook on his nylon-string classical and Shyguy nailed Spears’ oozing delivery in bright, clear falsetto.

Perhaps this mainstream treat seems out of left field from a trio of nerds on tour, but it capped off the Video Game Music Showcase in a way that exemplified how well the two acts melded together.

Their mutual friend and de facto road manager Jonna Renee recalled how Shyguy and the Bros came together.

“I just said, ‘Y’all should tour,’ and they said, ‘All right!’” Renee said.

Simple as that, the Playing Games with Hearts tour was born.

Shyguy and the Bros first played together at Ruby Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio (unaffiliated with the restaurant chain), then hit Kentucky, Tennessee, Asheville’s Sol Bar and the Abari Game Bar in Charlotte.

While Cooley plays professionally as Professor Shyguy, this month-long excursion marks Griffin and Poissant’s first tour together.

“We didn’t follow the usual progression of a band, where you grow out of your local area,” Poissant said, as Totally Rad Trivia raged in the background.

“Our ‘local area’ is YouTube,” Griffin added.

The Bros, of Commerce Township, Mich., initially bonded over a shared love of guitar back in 2007.

Griffin had been playing a set with a singer-songwriter friend at a coffee shop, and Poissant shyly approached Griffin after the show to ask if he wanted to jam.

“It almost felt like asking a girl out,” Poissant laughed.

Fast friends, they hung out nearly every day, playing guitar and video games. They soon blended their hobbies, showing off video-game themes they’d learned.

The Bros soon launched an official YouTube channel and garnered a cult following, with some of their videos capturing well over a million views.

Griffin and Poissant switch off roles between melody and accompaniment as dictated by needed tone, hit tiny nuances (like the subtle glissando in the “Super Mario World” castle theme) and finger complex chord voicings with ease. They perform each piece so artfully and effortlessly that one might assume the MIDI tunes were composed on guitar.

With such a niche medium and audience, each theme had its own fans. Individual audience members

Professor Shyguy can play anything you ask on his Guitendo except for Duck Hunt.

shouted their approval whenever favorites from “Starfox,” “Earthbound,” “Donkey Kong Country” or “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” began.

The knowing crowd laughed at some in-jokes.

One came as the Bros played the Nintendo Wii menu theme. A pause after the second repeat and Poissant wiping his brow led many to applaud, thinking the number finished, but the duo launched back into a final recapitulation to the crowd’s delight.

The relaxing pace of the Super Guitar Bros flipped expectations from most shows as their opener, Professor Shyguy, was a one-man power generator.

“He’s just a punch in the face,” Griffin said.

Shyguy, from Baltimore, plays original chiptunes — lo-fi electronica reminiscent of 8-bit video game music.

Cooley’s style hops between electro-pop, crunchy guitar metal and R&B. He punctuates his songs, fully composed and preprogrammed from four-on-the-floor bass drum to harmonies, with power-up arpeggios on his synthesizer. Not to mention the transcendent shred-and-tap guitar on his Guitendo — a NES Paul, if you will — an original Nintendo equipped with a single

ANTHONY HARRISON

humbucker near the bridge, his picking accentuated by green LED knuckles.

“When I split off from my band [the Aeronauts], I wanted to do something different,” Cooley said in an interview. “I was trying to do R&B, but I couldn’t work it from my personality, so I moved to pop about nerdy stuff. I have content for days.”

Shyguy’s clever tunes cover topics from Dr. Who and

Pick of the Week Presenting the embassy of new Chi-town royalty Dance From Above present Kweku Collins and BoatHouse @ the Crown (GSO), Thursday, 9 p.m.

Pitchfork names 19-year-old Chicago rapper and producer Kweku Collins “the latest in a long line of open-minded, talented-ass kids to come out of the city” among the like of Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa. Check his recent video for “Stupid Rose” to prepare yourself. He and fellow Closed Sessions artist BoatHouse grace Greensboro with their lo-fi psychedelia. Cover at the door; info at dancefromabove.com.

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The Super Guitar Bros: Sam Griffin (left) and Steve Poissant serenade the early-evening Geeksboro crowd.

Their acoustic arrangements of classic video-game music fit perfectly with the nerdy coffeehouse vibe.

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the internet to “the mythical friendzone” and pop songs themselves.

“My simple pop song/ Is kind of complicated/ My simple pop song/ Is kind of overrated,” Cooley sings in his tenor as backup vocals intone, “Repetition, repetition,” over and over.

Cooley didn’t shy away from covers either, playing Tool’s “Forty-Six & 2” and a version of “Johnny B. Goode” with a modulating odyssey of a coda featuring quotations from the Eagles’ “Hotel California” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird.”

He also appealed to another new nerdy work.

“I’m gonna rap,” Cooley announced.

“It’s gonna be weird.”

Shyguy then launched into the opening number from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway smash, Hamilton.

The common link between the two acts played between Cooley’s songs: video game music, specifically, the haunting castle and warp zone themes from “Super Mario Bros. 3.”

Stylistically, Professor Shyguy and the Super Guitar Bros couldn’t be much more different. But while plenty of sunlight separate their sets, dorkiness and a love of classic games unites them.

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June 22 — 28, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

24

CULTURE Juneteenth, from 18th Century Salem to modern-day Glenwood

by Jordan Green

J

uneteenth, commemorating the date in 1865 when the last group of black slaves learned of their emancipation, was celebrated across the Triad in varied settings befitting the multiplicity of black life, both as a historic fact and contemporary reality in the 21st Century.

The unifying strand — both in the life of a Mandinka man named Abraham, who came to the Moravian settlement of Salem in the 18th Century as a slave, and the Black Lives Matter activists assembled on a sliver of land in Greensboro’s Glenwood neighborhood on Sunday — is the continual quest for liberation and dignity.

Likely born around 1730, Abraham was a Mandinka warrior who was captured during the slave wars in West Africa, transported in the harrowing trans-Atlantic crossing by European slave traders to a French colony in the Caribbean and then likely conveyed through Virginia before he was brought in captivity to Salem.

As a convert to the Moravian faith, Abraham was required to write a memoir as a self-reported account of his life, historian Jon Sensbach explained, which is why his story survives.

Following the violent and dislocating trans-Atlantic journey known as the Middle Passage, many slaves tried to commit suicide, but others had to figure out what kind of life they would have in North America.

“He’s alone, he’s lost,” Sensbach told a refined group crammed into the James A. Gray Auditorium at the Old Salem Visitor Center for a white-tablecloth luncheon on June 16. “He doesn’t know anybody. He’s put to work in the tannery just up the street. He doesn’t speak German, which is what everybody speaks in this community.”

Sensbach, the author of A Separate Canaan: The Making of an Afro-Moravian World in North Carolina, 1763-1840, described Abraham as someone with “a rebellious spirit,” noting that he tried to escape Salem several times, staying away as long as three weeks.

But in 1780, Abraham was baptized into the Moravian church, giving him spiritual, if not economic and social equality with whites. The tradeoff for membership in the Moravian community, which honored slaves’ marriages, was being one of only a handful of Africans in North Carolina, Sensbach said, compared to South Carolina, where thousands of slaves worked on plantations under grueling and oppressive conditions, but likely maintained a stronger cultural connection to Africa.

The Juneteenth luncheon at Old Salem also carried the legacy of freedom forward by honoring two women, LaRue P. Cunningham, a retired teacher who has made upwards of a thousand dresses to send to Africa and the Caribbean, and Sharee Fowler, who works through the United Way as partnership director for Forsyth Promise, a network to promote cradle-to-career success for children in poor communities. The women received the St. Philips Cedric C. Rodney Unity

A ceremonial circle opens the Juneteenth Jamboree in Glenwood on Sunday.

Award, named after the church’s late pastor.

Cunningham is known for the saying, “I have not done my part until the whole is done,” Cedric Rodney’s widow, Mae, told the gathering.

Accepting her award, Fowler said the heirs of struggle are called to “be a cloud of witnesses,” and thanked her mentors and peers “who held me and loved me and held me to account when I misstepped and misspoke.”

The forward motion of liberation was even more apparent at the Juneteenth Jamboree, a gathering hosted by the Queer People of Color Collective on a half-acre sliver of land owned by Fahiym Hanna in Greensboro’s Glenwood neighborhood. Red, green and black streamers adorned a fence fashioned from salvaged children’s bikes at the entrance to the tract, dubbed the Land/Sun Flower Garden. A sound system ready to be enlisted into service was set up near a garden shed, and further back an L-shaped configuration of folding tables provided space for vendors’ wares — clothing, jewelry, poetry posters — and voter registration forms.

An ice cream truck idled next to a pair of food trucks, while jump ropes, bubbles and rubber balls populated a table adjacent to a lemonade stand.

Dressed in a white, flowy blouse and pants, activist April Parker called the assembly together for an open-

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ing ceremony.

“Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop,” the crowd chanted at Parker’s instigation.

“P-O-W-E-R,” they chanted. “We got the power because we are the collective.”

Parker and Byron Gladden, a candidate for Guilford County School Board, shared emcee duties, spotlighting black vendors and promoting black empowerment.

“Today we are celebrating,” Parker said. “Our people

Pick of the Week Director went down to Georgia Harvest @ A/perture Cinema (W-S), Monday, 7:30 p.m.

Forlorn for RiverRun? Turns out the Triad keeps cooking up film events for lovers and newbies alike.

(And should you have ever doubted?) A/perture, New Winston Museum and Piedmont Triad Film Commission launch the new Made in the Triad film series. In Harvest, Winston-Salem’s Cagney Gentry visualizes an Appalachian tale exploring the tension between ritual and change in a farmer’s life. Tickets via aperturecinema.com.

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are free. We celebrate the date when those that were finally emancipated learned about their freedom. Because emancipation wasn’t something someone else did for us. Black people did it for themselves. Every day we come together in the spirit of black joy it is an act of resistance.”

She noted that the celebration could have been held in a park.

“This is on a free black man’s land — Fahiym Hanna,” Parker said. “Come back and nurture this space. Cultivate it.”

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June 22 — 28, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

26

FUN & GAMES

U

Diamond in the bush

University; Hallman plays for Gardner-Webb University. With the exception of the College World Series, the NCAA season finished weeks ago.

Topping things off, I wasn’t in Greensboro or Boiling Springs, let alone Texas.

So what was going on?

I’ve lived in the Triad basically my whole life, but I’d never heard of the High Point-Thomasville HiToms before I started working at TCB. The team plays at their beloved diamond, Historic Finch Field, which has stood on Ballpark Road in Thomasville since 1935.

Yes, Thomasville. In Davidson County.

While I was intrigued by the prospect of this team upon first hearing about them last year, I was wary to cover them. This is not necessarily because I didn’t want to cover what might have turned out to be some bush-league team. Hell, I’ll cover your kids’ neighborhood hide-and-seek tournament if it’s in Greensboro, High Point or Winston-Salem.

And that’s the stipulation upon which TCB’s coverage is based: We cover events in the three major Triad cities. And Thomasville is not technically one of them.

My editors practically twisted my arm to get me to cover a HiToms game. They argued it’s ostensibly a High Point team and, since its affiliated Coastal Plain League serves as a collegiate summer conference, players from Triad universities would round out the roster.

Sure enough, the HiToms field two Triad starters: High Point University outfielder/pitcher Carson Jackson (at first base) and the aforementioned Trejo. So at least the team wasn’t going to be a bunch of jaded, 30-something drunks flipping bats, which would be a spectacle in and of itself.

Bolstered by two qualifiers, I convinced myself all would be well with our coverage’s integrity.

Ultimately, I’m glad I did.

I hit Interstate 85 Business south, drove about 10 miles, tiptoed through the northwest corner of Randolph County, crossed into Davidson, and Finch Field is right there, right off the first exit over the line.

Finch Field is small — every bit of it. The grandstand is more like a modestand. The parking is minimal, the lot composed of HiToms shortstop Cesar Trejo swings and misses, but it’s ANTHONY HARRISON two miniscule gravel rectangles; still a beautiful swing. a little house sits across the way NCG shortstop Cesar Trejo wasn’t happy about his performance on June 17.

He’d disappointed earlier in the game, there’s no doubt about it — two Ks and a flyout. So with two men on and

by Anthony Harrison the score at 4-3, Trejo had to redeem himself.

“In this game, you deal with a lot of adversity,” Trejo said after the game. “But I do a lot of training with the mental game. So before my last at-bat, I sat down and got my mind together. I flushed what had happened. I knew I’d have to bunker down and come up big.”

Sure enough, Trejo loaded the bases with a Texas leaguer. After a wild pitch from right-hander Bradley Hallman saw rightfielder Teddy Hoffman jog across home, Trejo’s single had set up leftfielder Derek Scheible to put up a sacrifice fly to put the home team up 5-4 for the win.

But Hoffman and Scheible both play for Texas State

from the right-field berm. The field dimensions also come up a bit short against many ballparks.

But the close quarters add to the charm.

Popup fouls flying up and over spectators’ heads would thunk satisfyingly on the hoods and roofs of cars parked around back. Others would fly into the hickory tree inside the corner of the next-door neighbors’ fence, where their brown dachshund would await its bounty as the balls shivered down the tree branches, wagging its tail with the hungry excitement of a lion waiting for a martyr to slip into its pit.

The play wasn’t half-bad. Think about it: The team’s basically a college all-star team. Maybe most worthy of mention, HiToms catcher Zac Almond of Catawba College bats in runs and slams homers as efficiently as most minor-leaguers could hope.

You could hear all the banter from the dugouts — jeers, cheers, curses and taunts.

Example: At the top of the third, Asheboro Copperheads first baseman Connor Lind clipped a foul ball into his own shin, hobbling off the pain as the ball scurried into the HiToms dugout. Pitcher Austin Reich grabbed the foul, lobbed it to the umpire, pumped his fist and drawled, “Strahk two.”

I even got to help a player out.

Between innings, Jackson left his cap atop the dugout roof, but wind kicked it just out of reach. I was taking photos at the chain-link fence along the first-base line adjacent to the dugout; seeing his predicament, I hopped the fence, scrambled atop the roof and handed him the cap. He thanked me kindly.

Everything about Finch Field oozes closeness and friendly familiarity.

“Even though we’re from all across the country,” Trejo said, “you’d think we’d been playing together since high school. It’s like family over here.”

As I waited at the box office, a bald man drove a Ford Focus up to the line.

“Anybody got a family of four?” he asked.

Of course there was one.

“Enjoy my tickets tonight,” the man said, handing the father his tickets. “Front row, right behind home plate. God bless.”

And he drove away.

Small-town baseball at its finest.

Pick of the Week Not all who wander are lost Subway Swim Day for Children with Autism @ Greensboro Aquatic Center (GSO), June 28, 12 p.m.

Drowning accounts for 90 percent of deaths of children with autism after they’ve wandered away from their guardians, according to the National Autism Association. Register your special child to learn swimming from Triad-area swimmers affiliated with Special Olympics Guilford-Greensboro.

For more info, call Debbie Atkins with the Summit Group at 864.680.0586.

‘Get Up! (Get On Up)’ even though you wanna get down.

by Matt Jones Across

Down

Opinion Cover Story Culture

1 Jason’s ship, in myth 2 Spencer of “Good Morning America” 3 “Return of the Jedi” critter 4 Closest 5 He said “I can’t hear you, Bert, I’ve got a banana in my ear” 6 FC Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter ___ 7 Fit for the job 8 Shower apparel?

9 Rice-___ (“The San Francisco Treat”) 10 “Blueberry Hill” singer 11 Award bestowed by the Village Voice 12 “Looney Tunes” Casanova ___ Le Pew 15 “Leave it,” to a typesetter 21 Key of Beethoven’s Ninth

22 “Oh really? ___ who?”

25 Become, finally 26 “Jurassic Park III” star Tea 27 Tommy Lee Jones/Will Smith movie of 1997 29 Twin sister and bandmate of 6-Across 31 Approach bedtime 32 Observant 34 “Diary ___ Wimpy Kid” 36 2006 Winter Olympics host 37 Eur. country with a king 40 Cap’n O.G. ___ (literacy-promoting cat and host of 1980s “ABC Weekend Specials”) 41 Chuck Connors TV western, with “The” 46 “Tap takeover” unit 48 Bygone medicated shampoo brand 51 “I smell ___” 52 “Blue” singer LeAnn 54 Last of the Greeks?

55 “Frasier” actress Gilpin 56 Manganese follower 57 Psychic radiance 58 Joker, e.g.

59 Cannes presentation 60 Some family speakers at a notable June 2016 funeral

News

53 Compound with a doubly-linked carbon atom 55 Hajj 61 Disco or Big Band 62 Love by the Louvre 63 Message with a subject line 64 “Arabian Nights” creature 65 Bindi Irwin’s mom 66 “With parsley,” on French menus 67 Cartridge contents 68 Cohort of Roger, George, Pierce, Timothy, and Daniel 69 Vicuña’s home

Up Front

1 Coeur d’___, Idaho 6 Twin sister and bandmate of 29-Down 10 Dandyish dude 13 Comparatively untested 14 Certain ski lifts 16 Penny name 17 “Oh, that’s a horrible pun” reaction 18 Surname in the “Cats” credits 19 25%, for the generous 20 Southern city and production site for the Manhattan Project 23 Kermit sipping tea with the caption “But that’s none of my business,” e.g.

24 Credited in a footnote 25 Red Muppet who’s always 3 1/2 years old 28 Digging 30 Author of “J’accuse” 33 Liam of “Taken” 35 Grabs a bite 38 ___ du pays (homesickness) 39 “Please keep in touch!”, somewhat quaintly 42 Prefix for cycle or brow 43 Real estate measurement 44 “This Is Spinal Tap” director Rob 45 Coral color 47 Climactic intro?

49 Impact, e.g.

50 Hipster feature, maybe

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GAMES

Fun & Games

Answers from previous publication.

Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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

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Gate City Boulevard, Greensboro

June 22 — 28, 2016 All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad

Games

Fun & Games

Culture

Cover Story

Opinion

News

Up Front

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

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When Trump comes to town.

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

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News

Opinion

Cover Story Culture

Fun & Games

Games

Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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June 22 — 28, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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ALL SHE WROTE

A Southerner’s guide to the British Invasion

D

avid: Did you see that Tom Hiddleston is playing Hank Williams in the biopic?

Me: Really? You know that a chunk of the cast on “Nashville” was British. Ugh. We don’t produce many actors in

by Nicole Crews the US anymore do we? Just celebrities.

David: It makes sense though — the language link.

Me: Yep. But sometimes it suffers in translation.

The British are coming! The British are coming! And to a cinema or streaming channel near you. Actually, they are already here and they are a talented and well-trained lot. And lest you already knew their Royal Shakespeare roots or Oxbridge origins you’ll be galldanged to discover that these Malcolms of the movies, these Simons of the silver screen, these Harriets of hulu, these Nigellas of Netflix are from across the pond. So in case you encounter one of these cultural invaders on the tele touting their latest triumph and have trouble understanding them, I’ve devised a simple lexicon to assist you.

Anti-clockwise: This is not your mother’s Scots-Irish sister from eastern North Carolina nor is it an aversion to dressing to the left. It simply means counter-clockwise.

Baccy: This is not that Eye-talian backyard game that’s a cross between a fancy game of horseshoes and corn hole. It’s the term for loose tobacco — the sort you use to roll your own. And you should know that if you are from baccy country.

Bugger: Sounds like an English chigger but it’s a lot more invasive. It’s also not a synonym for entomology.

Cheeky: Not a Native American tribe of the Southeast. More of an impish act or person. A synonym for “giving lip.”

Daft: Often used in the textile-rich South as a shortened euphemism for “Damn NAFTA” but really means stupid.

Fancy: Not a song by Reba McIntyre. A verb that means to like.

Gutted: Meaning to be devastated and Southern hunters get it viscerally.

How’s your father?: Not what your kin and every person you know at the bank says to you when you are in line. A polite Brit euphemism for sex.

John Thomas: Not that guy from “The Waltons” with the distracting mole (that was Richard Thomas anyway). It’s another word for a bloke’s willy.

Knock up: Not what happened to your cousin during the family reunion. It means to wake up, and derives from the practice of knocking door to door to awaken workers.

Mate: Not what you do to all of critters on the farm.

It means a friend, a pal — a mate.

Nancy boy: This does not mean you were born in Nance County and are a male. This refers to an effeminate man.

Off your trolly: Many Southern cities have gone back to using trollies in their downtown and/or historic districts. This does not refer to those that have refused to offer this form of public transportation. It means you have gone mad.

Pants: Means that something is crap — which is often associated with pants when something goes horribly wrong.

Roger: In the South this means that “you get it”and comes from WW II military communication. In English it means to copulate.

Sack: Not where you keep your potatoes and onions.

A verb meaning to fire.

Shag: Same as bonk but slightly less polite. In the South it means to shuffle to beach music wearing preppy clothing.

Sod: Not a chunk of lawn. Short for sodomy.

Ta: Not what you order sweetened or un. It is short

for thanks.

Taking the biscuit: This does not mean robbing Biscuitville or Bojangles. It’s akin to “taking the cake” — meaning an action that is over the top.

Welly: Does not mean your child with a lisp asking for jam. Means leaning in and trying harder or “giving it the boot.” Probably related to Wellington boots.

Zed: Not the name of your farm hand. The last letter of the alphabet.

Take charge of your mind, body and spirit Test pH balance, allergies, hormones Balance diet, lifestyle and emotions Create a personalized health and nutrition plan

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

336-375-1880 • Taylor’s Auto Sales • taylorsautosales.com 10 Ford Fusion

$9,995 SEL, Auto, FWD

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07 BMW X5

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06 Infiniti QX56

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SUMMER TIME BREW N’ VIEW PRESENTS

“The Room”

ONE NIGHT ONLY!!!

8:30 p.m. Saturday, June 25. $6 ticket includes FREE BEVERAGE & SPOONS!

Open Mic Night: Potluck Edition Friday, June 24 @ 8 pm

Gate City Railbenders w/ Drunken Dreams

triad-city-beat.com

Playing June 25 – 30

EVENTS

Thursday, June 23 @ 7 pm

Saturday, June 25 @ 8 pm

Mike Kenny

Monday, June 27 @ 6 pm

Mystery Movie Monday w/ Discussion Wednesday, June 29 @ 8 pm

Violet Delancey

--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS--

TV Club Presents “Preacher” Based on the hit comic book series! 10 p.m. Sunday, June 26. Free Admission With Drink Purchase!

Star Trek Countdown Featuring the TOP 50 EPISODES of Star Trek 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 29. FREE ADMISSION

Totally Rad Trivia

8:30 p.m. Thursday, June 30 $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

602 S Elam Ave • Greensboro

(336) 698-3888

FRIDAY JUNE 24 MATT MARSHAK | OPENING PERFORMER - TITUS GANT SATURDAY JUNE 25 MELVA HOUSTON (JAZZ BLUES)

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Illustration by Jorge Maturino